Sermon on 1 Chronicles 21:1–22:1: A pattern of grace through David's census, judgment, and sacrifice
A sermon by James de Costobadie (Costa), Senior Pastor at Latimer Church, on sin, judgment, and undeserved salvation in 1 Chronicles 21.
Summary
James de Costobadie (Costa) preaches from 1 Chronicles 21:1–22:1, a passage set in the context of Chronicles being written for a post-exilic community of people who had failed God and needed hope. He traces a three-part pattern of grace: universal sin (David's census driven by self-reliance), unavoidable judgment (70,000 men killed by plague), and undeserved salvation (David's repentance, sacrifice on the threshing floor of Araunah, and God's mercy). Costa argues that David's sin of counting his army was not merely administrative error but a flagrant act of misplaced trust — treating God's people as his own asset — and that it mirrors the ways modern people place their security in measurable things like money or status. The sermon culminates in a sustained reflection on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice, drawing a direct line from the altar on the threshing floor to Christ's atoning death, and closing with a call to come to God with humility rather than pride.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: A book written for failed people
James de Costobadie (Costa): Those words there were written a long time ago. This is a book that in the Hebrew Bible was the end of the Old Testament. It was probably written somewhere between 300 and 400 BC — a long time ago. We're going to pray that God would help us to understand it today so that we'll be able to see the implications of it for our lives right now. So let's pray together.
Dear God in heaven, we thank you for your Holy Spirit who first caused these words to be written. We pray that with him here with us today — indeed inside of us — he would give to us insight to be able to understand the words, but also that he would open our hearts to you, to receive them, to believe them, to be changed by them. In Jesus' name, amen.
Let me ask you a question. I wonder how you deal with failure in life. We're kind of bred — and the education system is there — to try and help us succeed, and our parents again want us to try and succeed in life. But what happens when you do something that you yourself never thought you would do? It's a very humbling thing in life to discover that we can't live up to our own standards some of the time, let alone God's perfect standards.
And in a sense, that's the situation that the people who received the letter of Chronicles also were in. They were failed people. These were people whose ancestors at least had come out of the exile. The exile started in about 597 BC; they came out of the exile in about 538 BC. They went into exile — as we find at the very end of Chronicles, as we're about to see in growth groups this week if you're in a growth group — because of the sin of the people. God had warned the people for centuries through the prophets that he would not put up with this forever, but in the end they carried on. He brought the judgment, and this generation looking back only had themselves to blame.
This generation are no different, in fact, as it turns out, from the previous generations. It wasn't the strength of the Babylonians which had caused the downfall of the Israelites so much as the weakness of their own hearts. They'd had all the privileges and had thrown them away.
And yet, in the face of their own failures, what we see in chapter 21 of 1 Chronicles is that there is hope. Indeed, the Chronicler wants to give the people hope. Our culture might like to believe there is hope because of ourselves, but the Chronicler wants the people to know that they would indeed have hope — but hope despite themselves — because that hope would be found not because they are so good, which they weren't, but because God their God was so gracious. And because we have the same God, we too may know the graciousness of God to those who fail, if only we will come to him with the right attitude as we see today.
This is a message that each one of us needs to hear for now and for the future. And in 1 Chronicles 21 we see a pattern of grace — a pattern that has three parts to it.
Part one: Universal sin (verses 1–6)
First of all, verses one to six: universal sin. Have a look at verse one. Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. It's a very striking sentence. Satan is hardly mentioned in the Old Testament — only three times in fact: famously in the book of Job, also in the book of Zechariah, and here in the book of 1 Chronicles. And here he very much comes out of nowhere, because that's exactly what Satan is like. He is happy to bide his time in the background until the moment is right. And we need to be aware of that.
The fact that he's barely mentioned in the Old Testament didn't mean that he wasn't around, or that he couldn't see what was going on, or that he wasn't looking for opportunities. Satan never sleeps. And one of the distinguishing features about him is that he is patient. He is happy to bide his time if only he may find the right time to attack. And when the New Testament speaks of the devil's schemes, we shouldn't underestimate those. He is a patient person. He doesn't mind the occasion — whatever gives him the best opportunity.
And it's very striking here, the situation in which David and Israel find themselves. If you were here last week, you'll know that chapters 18 to 20 are a whole string of victories for David on the battlefield. It really is the king going from strength to strength, and his enemies fall down one, two, three, four, all in a row. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, Satan appears — the enemy that David hadn't thought about.
It reminds us that in this world there is no let-up. I don't know what you think of your greatest challenges in life, or if someone were to ask you what your greatest challenges in life are. We might immediately think about things that are visible, or things that are pressing into us, or things to do with relationships, or things to do with finance, or job, or kids, or something that's right in front of us. How many of us would think, if asked to name our greatest challenge, of the devil? But there he is, right in front of us — unseen but real. Our Lord of course knew better than us, which is why he puts in the Lord's Prayer: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
So let me ask you straight out: where do you think the devil is likely to attack you at the moment? Is it your frustration in marriage, maybe, or in singleness? Is it disappointment — disappointment with God, or maybe with church leaders? Is it maybe through your success in life — a promotion, or financial success? It doesn't matter to Satan. He will take us at the point of least resistance. And here, as I say, it seems that David's victories open the door for him.
Because you see what Satan incites David to do here. He is just rolling off the back of these victories. Have a look at the first couple of verses again. Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, "Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan, and then report back to me so that I may know how many there are."
There was nothing wrong, in fact, with taking a census. Many lists in the Bible were the result of similar efforts. On occasions they were actually ordered by the Lord. But the whole thing here is the context and what David is taking the census for. He's just rolled off the back of these victories, and now he wants to count who is in the army. He wants to have them lined up. He wants to know how many foot soldiers and chariots, how many missiles, what's in the armoury — all of this type of thing. Because what's the motivation behind it? It's very hard to count an army of a great size and not feel confident in what you have counted.
Joab is the general. He immediately knows that this is bad news. Verse three: Joab replied, "May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over" — in other words, you don't need to worry, David; he's looked to the Lord, he'll sort you out — "my lord the king, are they not all my lord's subjects? They're all for you anyway. Don't worry. Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?"
But verse four, the king's word overrules Joab. And verse five, he goes throughout the land, and verse five reports the number of the fighting men back to David. In all Israel there were 1,100,000 — 1.1 million — who could handle a sword, including 470,000 in Judah.
In other words, David here is manifesting the sin of self-reliance. It was a prideful security stemming from the strength of his military. He didn't have to count them. Joab said they're all on your side anyway — don't worry about it. But he wanted to count them so that he could know his strength. David's confidence, of course, was in the wrong place completely. He should have known better than anyone that the Lord was his strength and none other — David who wrote all those Psalms speaking of how the Lord was his strength. But when it came to it in real life — and sometimes that's where we get tested out, isn't it, in real life — he fell flat on his face and couldn't resist.
We do so easily rely upon ourselves, don't we. We may not look in the garage to see how many horses or chariots or swords are hanging up, but people certainly count other things — maybe the esteem in which they're held by other people, or the quality of their relationships, or that most measurable asset of all: dollars and cents. And when we imagine that our security comes from what we have, what's in the bank account, or real estate, or whatever — when we think that we can measure our strength in coinage or in what we can see or in some other way — we're really indulging in this same misplaced trust of the heart.
I don't know if you remember our verse for the year that we spoke about at the Unite service and gave out a little bookmark to people. Chocolate fish if you can remember it. Psalm 62 verse 8: "Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is a refuge." But for David, he wasn't — his army was his refuge.
So we shouldn't overlook how flagrant a sin this was. It's a blatant trespass onto Yahweh's rights as the God of Israel and the God of this world. You remember how David took Bathsheba — not mentioned in 1 Chronicles. He sees the wife of a single warrior. Here it's actually arguably much worse. He is seizing the whole house of Yahweh and treating it as if it's his own. He's treating the army as if it's his own personal asset to do with as he wants. But it wasn't, because nothing in this world belongs — not to the king, not to the government, not to you and me, not ultimately. And when we think it is, or behave as if it is — and maybe especially when religious leaders treat others as if they are there for the leader's benefit — then we can begin to see how serious this is.
In fact, as it turns out, it's actually a direct contravening of Scripture, because there are some verses in Exodus where God had spoken to Moses and God had said: "When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on you when you number them." So pretty serious — important to get this right. "Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give half a shekel according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the Lord" — to remind themselves that they are the Lord's, and to remind Moses no doubt as well.
And so David's negligence in not receiving the half-shekel contribution to the Lord from each person numbered made every Israelite registered vulnerable to the Lord's anger. And that's why it's a corporate sin. Verse three — have a look again. Joab replied, "May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, aren't they all my lord's subjects? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?" And now the affliction will fall on the whole nation. Verse seven: "This command was also evil in the sight of God, so he punished Israel."
The whole wretched scene is a vivid reminder that sin never occurs in a vacuum. We heard before — I think Wynne was saying that she's encouraged by the faith of others, and encouragement and our good works don't belong in a vacuum. But the same is true in reverse: when someone sins, and perhaps a leader especially, the effects begin to spread outwards. There's always a knock-on effect, leading to the corruption of others as well. And so here the people sin, drawn in by the sin of the leader.
In fact, if you go back to verse one, I think it's instructive reading it again. Have a look down. Satan rose up against — not David — but against Israel. In other words, what Satan really wants to do is damage the people of God. And sure enough, often he does choose to use a leader. But he can use any of God's people in this. This is his game. This is what he's like. This is what he's after.
So sin damages us together. And of course this would be the story of the nation of Israel. It wasn't just a few individuals turning away from God. The whole nation turned away from God. The entire history of the kingdom was a kingdom littered with examples of the people returning to their unfaithfulness.
And our sin, we should know, is just as far-reaching. Charles Spurgeon said this — in colourful language as always — "As the salt flavours every drop of the ocean, so sin affects every atom of our nature. It's so sadly there and so abundantly there that if you cannot detect it, you are deceived." It speaks of how sin flavours for worse others around us.
We've been brought up with this lie that what you do in life only affects yourself — classic 21st-century individualism. Oh no, it doesn't affect anyone else. It's never true. I mean, the same is true in reverse, positively. When you chose to come to church this morning, I don't know how many other people you were thinking of, but you have brought a blessing to other people by being here. And you know that's true because you're encouraged by seeing other people as well. If it was only you here this morning, you'd think, "Oh, something's missing here" — and what it is, is the other people. You've been a blessing to other people. Well, the same is true when sin is evident — it spreads as well. And maybe for some of us here, we've spent a lot of our life suffering because of the sin of someone else.
Part two: Unavoidable judgment (verses 7–14)
Okay, universal sin. Then verses seven to fourteen: unavoidable judgment.
David's actions were detestable to Joab, but worse, they were detestable to the Lord. And that's the trouble with sin — it is a personal offence against God himself. See that in verse seven, where it says, "This command was also evil in the sight of God." Sin is personal against God. And we have to understand this.
When people go out and commit a minor misdemeanour on the road — park on the double yellow line and get a ticket from the traffic warden — they feel this is unfair, sixty dollars or eighty dollars or whatever it is, and they have their opinion on it and the traffic warden has a different opinion. Okay, it's parking on a double yellow line. Sometimes people feel that sin is a bit like that — a bit petty. But sin is not just parking on a double yellow line. Sin is parking on the traffic warden's foot. That's what it's like. It's personal. It's not just breaking a law. The laws of God in the Old Testament and in the New Testament are laws from him. It's personal against him.
You have that phrase "the fear of God," which used to be around more. Nowadays it's sort of used as a term of mild humour — "Oh yeah, I'll put the fear of God into him." But maybe we shouldn't use it so lightly. Because almost immediately here, God counters David's sin with a holy outrage, showering the whole nation, the whole empire, with affliction.
Perhaps the immediate backlash from the Lord jolted David into reality, and he quickly realises both the gravity and the recklessness of what he's done. And that brings us on to where we can learn from David here, which is in the repentance that he shows. Sin is always a bad thing, but the question is what you do afterwards — what's your response to it. And in David here we are given something of a model response of how to confront sin.
Have a look at verse eight. Then David said to God, "I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing." First thing is he admits it — he doesn't make excuses. He says, "I've sinned greatly. I've done a very foolish thing." He doesn't try to justify what he did. And it's amazing how difficult we find it to take full responsibility for what we've done wrong. We'll sort of find a way of saying, "I know it wasn't great, but, well, if the person hadn't done this then I wouldn't have done that," and so on. We find it so hard to put our hands up and say, "It was me, pure and simple. I should not have done it." We so easily try to find mitigating circumstances for our misdemeanours.
Next, he pleads for grace and forgiveness. Verse eight: "I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant." He realises, in other words, that he hasn't got a leg to stand on, and he's desperate for God to take away his sin. He knows that he has no part in this process — he can't do anything about it. But some people spend their whole lives trying to atone for their sins, hoping against hope that somehow the good that they do in life outweighs the bad, hoping that when they get to the end of their days God will open the gates of heaven for them. David here takes another tack — begs for mercy, knowing that only God can provide that.
But maybe most strikingly of all, David's repentance shows itself by the way he willingly submits to whatever the Lord chooses for him. And so this takes us on to the next section. Gad here is like a minor, lesser-known prophet. And verse ten, he comes with a message from the Lord saying, "This is what the Lord says: I'm giving you three options. They're all bad, but you choose one of them to carry out against you. First option: three years of famine. Second option: three months of being swept away before your enemies. Third option: three days of plague at the hand of the angel of God."
And listen to David, verse thirteen. "I am in deep distress" — he's distressed by what he's done and what he's brought upon the nation — "let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great. Don't let me fall into the hands of men."
It's a lesson for us that we shouldn't ignore. So often when we are found out in our sin, we try to manipulate the situation, try to remain in control of the punishment as well. But for David, he puts himself in the Lord's hands. He's hoping for mercy, but even if mercy is not to be granted, he would rather be in the Lord's hands — no doubt because he knows that the Lord will do what is right, even if it's painful to bear.
And it's a lesson that we shouldn't overlook. At that point he's hopeful that the Lord will show mercy, but in the end, verse fourteen, the Lord is as good as his word and sends judgment. "So the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell dead that day." In other words, in an effort to boost the strength of his military, ironically it left David weeping over his weakness. And here was the most severe loss his army ever endured.
You might say this episode in fact is reminiscent of that rather grisly scene in Egypt when God's angel of death slaughtered the Egyptian firstborn sons because of the hardness of Pharaoh's heart. The irony here is that David has become like a Pharaoh. The king of Israel is behaving like the Pharaoh used to behave — where a leader exploits God's people for his own gain.
Sometimes people ask the question, "70,000 — is that the kind of God that you worship, who just obliterates 70,000 people?" But what we need to see here is that not one of these people were innocent. Not one of them had hearts directed to God. And if only we could see sin as God sees it — in fact, if only we could see God as he really is — then we would marvel that they were not all swept away. According to the New Testament, humanity today and every day lives under the wrath of God because of our rejection of the living God. It's a wonder, it's a miracle, that we are all still alive as a human race, that we've not all been swept away.
As long as we think the situation is basically okay between us and God, as long as we resist the Bible's diagnosis of us, we will always struggle to understand this. But when we see our sin, and when we see what God is actually like, then we see our need for his mercy.
Part three: Undeserved salvation (verses 15 onwards)
And that leads us to the third part of the pattern of grace, which is undeserved salvation — verses fifteen onwards.
The Lord sends his destroying angel. But as this scene of deathly destruction unfolds, we're given a remarkable insight into God. Verse fifteen. Have a look down. "And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem, but as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, 'Enough! Withdraw your hand!' The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite."
This confirms what a prophet had said many years before — the prophet Isaiah — when he referred to God's judgment as his "strange work, his alien task." Sometimes people imagine that God is waiting to bring down the hammer on them, just longing for us to make a mistake, trip over, and bang. But it really isn't like that. God is a real judge and he is a frightening judge, but he is also a reluctant judge.
And now we see David and the elders fall down and plead for mercy, verse sixteen. And then in a very important verse seventeen, intercede on behalf of the people. Have a look at verse seventeen. David said to God, "Was it not I who ordered the fighting men to be counted? I am the one who has sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? O Lord my God, let your hand fall upon me and my family, but don't let this plague remain on your people."
Now David isn't right — the people had sinned — but you understand the sentiment that he is giving here. He's wanting to absorb the punishment of God on behalf of his people. Here is the Lord's anointed, putting himself forward to spare the people what otherwise will come to them.
I don't know if this is right, but even the three days of wrath poured out perhaps offered a glimpse to the community of God's people here as to what would be required for God to deal with their sin once and for all.
And so now, with the king's lament on full display, the need for sacrifice could no longer be left unattended. Just as was true back at the Exodus, when the lambs had been killed, so here God's angel of death could only pass over Jerusalem when the shedding of blood had secured atonement for the people. Because sin requires atonement. Sin requires a sacrifice for us to be brought back. Atonement means reconciliation. So sin requires a sacrifice of blood for us to be reconciled to God. Back at the time of the Exodus, God had established that blood could be paid by someone else — or back then, something else: the lambs. But one way or the other, a sacrifice needed to be given. God's justice must be satisfied.
So verse eighteen: the angel of the Lord ordered Gad to tell David to go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite — an altar where the sacrifices could be made. So this time, verse nineteen, David is obedient and does that. Verse twenty, while Araunah was threshing wheat, he turned and saw the angel. His four sons were with him. David approaches. When Araunah looked and saw him, he left the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground. It's the king right in front of him — but it's a humbled king.
David said in verse twenty-two, "Let me have the site of your threshing floor so I can build an altar to the Lord, that the plague on the people may be stopped. Sell it to me at the full price." Araunah says, "No, no, you take it — I will give it, I'll give all of this." But notice David's sincere repentance. "No, I insist on paying the full price." He will not shortchange God for the sin he had committed. "I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing." And so he pays what is required — 600 shekels of gold.
The cross as the ultimate price
Does that remind you of someone else who was determined to pay what was required for the price of sin?
I don't know if you understand why, in God's sovereignty, the cross worked, so to speak. Do you know why it was effective? The cross was effective because of the price that was paid — because of the person who went there.
I don't know if you've ever asked yourself the question: why was it that if we tried to pay for our own sins, a thousand years would not be long enough, but Jesus was able to pay for them in six hours on the cross? How come he could do it when we never could? Or if you ask yourself a slightly different question: if we were trying to pay for our own sins, we never would be able to in a million years — so how come Jesus is able to pay for all of the sins of all of his people in those six hours?
The answer to both of those questions is: Jesus could do it because of the price that was being paid — in other words, because of the quality of the person who was dying there. There was only one Son of God, and those drops of blood were so precious — so precious — that he was able to do what no one else could. He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in. Only Jesus, the divine Son of God, could do this — fully man, so he could represent us, and fully God, so he could be our substitute. And so precious is Jesus as a person that when he died, he could do for us what we never could have done for ourselves.
These words from the book of Hebrews: "But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many. And he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him."
Once — only once — because that was the value of his person. If you like long words, it was the theologian T.C. Hammond who said the efficacy of the death of Christ — in other words, the reason why it works — lies in the inestimable value of his person, because he is more valuable than any price we could ever put on.
So when you look at the cross, I wonder who you see dying there. Do you see just a man — like thousands of people executed on the cross in the ancient world by the Romans? Or are you with the centurion who said, "Surely this man was the Son of God"? It was a comment on who was there. Jesus — though he was the greatest of all — gave it up for us, became the lowest, in order to raise us up.
To be glorious, he became sin. We're told in the New Testament that on the cross Jesus became an adulterer, a murderer, a thief, a liar, a self-centred pleasure-seeker. He became you, us, we — that we might be washed clean, be given the righteousness of Christ. He did it not because he needed to, but because he chose to. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to.
And for those of us who have known this for many years, we can ask: does it have that same effect on us now as it used to all those years ago? Do we still feel the effect in our hearts?
The threshing floor becomes the temple
Here is the undeserved salvation given by God to Israel, given to all who come to his Son. And for this place — here where it took place, on the threshing floor — we learn in chapter 22 verse 1 one final thing. "The house of the Lord is to be here, and also the altar of burnt offering for Israel." This place, which was just a threshing floor, would become the site of the temple of God — the temple where the people would meet with God.
In other words, that's what the sacrifice did: it enabled the people to meet with God. And that's what the cross does for us. It's the place where we're able to draw close to God. Through the cross, anyone can come to God, whatever they have done in life. Everyone can come to God, whatever they've done in life. But they can only come through that one way. There is no other.
And they can only come in the way by which David comes — with his face fallen down before God. You cannot come to God and the cross still holding your sins, so to speak. We can't come to God and the cross still holding our pride. He will accept us — he'll accept anyone, whatever we've done in life — but only if we come with our faces down, acknowledging our sin before him.
I wonder if that's you this morning. I wonder if you've done that in the past. I wonder if you do that today, whether you rejoice in what God has done for you and humbly come to him. Some people can't — their pride prevents it. And there are some people in this world who would rather go to hell with their heads held high than come to heaven on bended knee. But to those who will, God loves to give his undeserved salvation.
Universal sin. Unavoidable judgment. Undeserved salvation.