Like David, your sins have been burned up on the altar of the cross. That forgiveness wasn’t earned by your strength. You didn’t need to try to trick God into taking away your sins. You stand forgiven because the hand of the Lord fell on Jesus. It isn’t his death and burial alone that ends this epic. His tomb remains empty. He lives as the author of your eternal life. By faith in him you are counted among his children forever.
Odysseus’ worst nightmare had become a reality. For years he had been away from home, fighting wars and battling Greek gods. Finally, he had returned home. But nobody recognized him. In fact, the people of Odysseus’ kingdom thought he was dead. His wife, now thinking she was a widow, had to keep her suitors at bay. Every rich guy in the kingdom arrived, intending to marry the queen and rule Ithaca. But it couldn’t just be any man. In true Greek-epic fashion, the city of Ithaca would go to the man who could string Odysseus’ old bow and shoot an arrow through twelve mounted axes.
Needless to say, no one was able to do it. Even if someone could string Odysseus’ bow — a very difficult thing to do — no one came close to shooting an arrow through the twelve tiny rings atop those axes.
Then an old man stood up. He walked across the room, grabbed the bow, turned it in his hands, and easily strung it. Then he picked up an arrow, moved his aged, gray hair aside, and shot perfectly, threading the needle through all twelve rings.
Immediately, everyone in the room looked back over to the old man, who was now young again. It was Odysseus. He was back from the dead! Vengeance followed. One by one Odysseus killed the suitors. He won back his kingdom. The man of twists and turns had finally found his way back home in glorious fashion.
Epic stories always seem to finish in glorious fashion for the heroes. Yes, sacrifices are made. Loved ones are lost along the way. But in the end, the hero stands triumphant.
In 2 Samuel 24, King David’s worst nightmare had become reality. With one decision, peace had turned to a deadly plague. His people were dying all around him. And the worst was yet to come. As David looked up above the heights of Jerusalem he saw the Angel of the Lord standing between the earth and the heavens. The angel’s sword was drawn, outstretched over Jerusalem. It was an ominous sight.
At this point, a Homeric hero would grab his sword, strap on his armor and ascend to the heights of Jerusalem ready for a fight. Not David. Without sword, spear, or javelin, David quickly set aside his kingly garments to put on sackcloth. He raced up to the heights of Jerusalem — not for a fight, but to give himself up. Perhaps he could convince God to stop the impending destruction. He knew what the Angel of the Lord was about to do. He knew that God had sent his angel to destroy his newly established city of Jerusalem.
Upon reaching the top, King David found the Angel of the Lord. He was hovering above a threshing floor — a place associated with separating wheat and chaff. And there before David was the Angel of the Lord himself, the pre-incarnate Christ, ready to carry out the rest of this destruction on Jerusalem.
It had only been three days since God’s plague spread among the people of Israel, and yet it had seemed like three years. Would David meet his own doom at the hands of the Angel of the Lord — the very Savior who would eventually come from his family line? Would the crisis be averted? How had things gotten so bad so quickly?
Just three days earlier, there had been peace throughout the entire kingdom. In fact, David’s fighting men weren’t even out in battle anywhere. And during that peace David came up with an idea. It was a bad idea, the kind of idea a hero of Greek mythology might come up with. David decided to count his military forces.
But there was a problem. Deep down David knew he wasn’t taking this census for the right reasons. In his heart, he knew that what he was really looking at was his own strength of arms rather than the power of the Lord.
His chief commander, Joab, even tried to stop David from counting his men. But David ordered the census anyway. After 9 and a half months, the fighting men were counted. Israel’s military strength, David’s strength, was numbered. But David also knew his sin. “David had a guilty conscience after he had counted the fighting men” (2 Sam. 24:10).
He realized that he had trusted in his own numbers rather than trusting in the Lord. He admitted, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But, Lord, please take away the guilt of your servant, because I have acted very foolishly” (2 Sam. 24:10).
Then the Lord did something for David that he had never done for anyone else. God sent the prophet Gad to tell David to choose his punishment. “Shall seven years of famine in your land come upon you, or three months of fleeing with your enemies pursuing you, or three days of plague in your land?” (2 Sam. 24:13).
It was a decision not one of us would ever want to make. Three years of famine, three months of fleeing from enemies, or three days of plague. David chose the final option, but not for the reason you may think. He knew that God’s punishment would be severe no matter which choice he made. However, the final option left his fate completely in the Lord's hands. David says, “Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great” (2 Sam. 24:14).
And so it came to pass, that because David numbered his fighting strength, God would now number his people in a census of his own. It would be a devastating record of those who died at the hand of the Angel of the Lord and the plague that God sent.
As David now stood before this Angel of the Lord, 70,000 of the people had perished. And it didn’t take a prophet to realize what would be coming next. God’s Word in 1 Chronicles 21:15 makes it crystal clear. “God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it.”
But then, as God had often done in the past, he saw the distress of the people of Israel. He saw their king, King David, bowing before him in sackcloth and ashes.
And yet, unlike any Greek god, the true God listened to the repentant king and his admonition of guilt: “Look! I am the one who sinned. I am guilty. But these sheep—what have they done? Please! Let your hand be against me and against the house of my father” (2 Sam. 24:17). And there, on the threshing floor in the heights of Jerusalem, God himself cried out once for all time, “Enough!”
Then, in a beautiful turn of events, the Angel of the Lord withdrew his hand, turned to King David, and commanded, “Build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite” (2 Sam. 24:18). As so many believers had done before him, David showed his repentance and faithfulness by building an altar to the Lord. He carried out every command the Lord gave him.
In humility, knowing he had sinned, David didn’t try to save himself like an epic hero. He repented. He built an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings there.
In love, the Lord didn’t pour out more retribution like an epic god. He poured out forgiveness. He ended the plague. And so that David knew that his sins were atoned for, God made an extra special gesture for Israel’s king. “The Lord answered him with fire from heaven upon the altar for burnt offerings” (1 Chr. 21:26).
The fire that burned on David’s altar in Jerusalem that day would burn countless sacrifices over the course of hundreds of years. It was to be Israel’s great altar. Years later, David’s son and the next king of Israel, King Solomon would build God’s temple next to that very altar of David.
In the end, David received what he asked for. He probably didn’t realize it at the time, but when he asked the Lord, "Let your hand fall upon me and my family" (2 Sam. 24:17), that was exactly what the Lord gave him.
That Angel of the Lord, hovering above David and Jerusalem, ready to swing his sword down on all of them, eventually came to Jerusalem. Yet, not as an Old Testament agent of death, but as David’s perfect human descendant. He would place himself under the sword and bear the punishment we all deserve. The plague would not spread across the nation of Israel, but rather the plague of sin would be placed on Jesus, the King of the Jews.
David’s greater Son would die at the foot of that hill where David built that altar. As our High Priest, Jesus would sacrifice himself once for all to make atonement for our sins. In the same city where God once declared, “Enough!” for all to hear, Jesus now declared on the cross for all people of all time, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Way back at the beginning of God’s great epic, Hannah sang about this very declaration of the Lord in her song of thanks, “The Lord puts to death, and he makes alive. He brings down to the grave, and he raises up” (1 Sam. 2:6).
Like David, your sins have been burned up on the altar of the cross. That forgiveness wasn’t earned by your strength. You didn’t need to try to trick God into taking away your sins. You stand forgiven because the hand of the Lord fell on Jesus. It isn’t his death and burial alone that ends this epic. His tomb remains empty. He lives as the author of your eternal life. By faith in him you are counted among his children forever.
