Repentance prayer and action

“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.  …  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 do not let this plague remain on your people.’” (1 Chronicles 21:8, 17)

            When we receive grace from God, we must be careful.  When God exalts us, we need to be careful and watch out for ourselves.  The reason is because when God exalts us, Satan opposes us and urges us to sin against God.

King David mentioned in 1 Chronicles 21:8, 17 was not careful.  He became the ruler of Israel by God's grace (17:7), but he failed to keep that grace.  When Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel (v. 1), David fell into the Satan’s temptation and made his people to count the Israelites (v. 2).  Thus, he sinned and done wrong against God (vv. 8, 17).  I think that before David sinned and did wrong against God, God rebuked David through his servant Joab, saying, “Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?” (v. 3)  But David ignored the rebuke.  Rather, he hastened Joab (v. 4) to number the people of Israel (v. 5), which was not appropriate (v. 6).

I have applied these words to the modern church.  It seems that we, the pastors, in many churches are not being careful right now.  Although not only we were saved by God's total grace, but also appointed as pastors by God's total grace, now we are not humbly serving the church, the body of the Lord, with the power of God's grace.  In other words, we are now sinning against God by failing to keep God's grace given to us and falling into Satan's temptation.  Here, Satan's temptation is for us to fall into Satan's incitement and do things that are not appropriate to Him.  One of the things that are not appropriate to Him is counting the number of church members.  The reason why it is not appropriate in the eyes of God is that our hearts have become proud as we count the number of members in the churches we serve.  To prevent this, when we are tempted by Satan, God rebukes us, the senior pastors, through an associate pastor like Joab, but now we are not listening.  Rather, we are promoting by inflating our membership numbers.  To that extent, our hearts are now proud, and are filled with a sense of merit rather than grace, so we are giving glory to ourselves rather than to God.

King David should have listened to God's rebuke.  But he ignored the rebuke and numbered the people of Israel.  So God eventually struck Israel (v. 7).  Then David repents of his sin to God.  The content of that prayer of repentance is found in 1 Chronicles 21:8, 17.  Comparing the contents of the two prayers of repentance, the first similarity is that David confessed that he had sinned against God: “I have sinned greatly by doing this” (v. 8), “Was it not I who ordered the fighting men to be counted?  I am the one who has sinned and done wrong” (v. 17).  Therefore, he pleaded with God to forgive his own foolish sins (v. 8).  Then what is the difference between the two prayers of repentance?  The difference is that something not found in verse 8 is added to verse 17.  The content of the additional prayer is, “…  These are but sheep. What have they done? O LORD my God, let your hand fall upon me and my family, but do not let this plague remain on your people” (v. 17).  The reason David additionally offered this prayer to God was when God saw what David had done as evil (v. 7) and told David through the prophet Gad to choose one of three things (vv. 10-12), David chose the three days of the the sword of the Lord – days of plague in the land (v. 12), so that 70,000 of the people of Israel died (v. 14).  So David repented of his sins to God and said, “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 do not let this plague remain on your people” (v. 17).

When I meditated on this David's prayer, I thought of Jesus and the church.  In particular, I remembered “Father, forgive them” among the seven words spoken by Jesus on the cross (Lk. 23:34).  Jesus, who had no sin, asked Father God to forgive us our sins while He was crucified and died on the cross to atone for our sins.  Although David, who sinned against God and did evil in numbering the Israelites and thus 70,000 people were killed by the plague, the sword of the Lord, pleaded with God (1 Chron. 21:17), Jesus prayed to God to forgive our sins and died on the cross for such sinners like us who had no choice but to die eternally.  As a result, our sins are forgiven and we have eternal life.

            King David not only repented of his sins, but also acted worthy of repentance.  I think that David's repentance was worthy of two actions.  First, David humbly accepted the consequence of his great sin.  David chose the sword of the Lord, the plague (v. 12), relying on the great mercy of God (v. 13) when he had to choose one of the three that he heard from the prophet Gad (vv. 11-12).  As a result, 70,000 people died from the plague among the Israelites (v. 14).  Second, David obeyed God's command and built an altar to God (v. 18).  David paid full price of 600 shekels of gold for the site and gave it to Araunah (vv. 24-25), and built the altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings and called on the Lord (v. 26) on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite (v. 18).  As a result, God responded by sending fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering, and commanded the angel to put his sword back into its sheath (vv. 26-27).

Personally, I often think of David as a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22).  And I wonder what that means.  Apparently, he committed the sin against God of committing a married woman, Bathsheba and killing her husband Uriah (2 Sam. 11).  But I wonder why the Bible says he was “a man after my onw heart” (Acts 13:22).  I think the reason maybe was because after David sinned, he not only repented his sins to God, but also acted worthy of that repentance.  Of course, I believe that there were also prayers of repentance and acts of repentance because God regarded David as the man after his heart.  As a result, God fulfilled all His will through David (Acts 13:22).