Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to the chapter that we read, the second book of Samuel, chapter 24 and verse 14. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strain. Let me fall, let us fall now into the hand of the Lord. For His mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hand of man. Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord.

What a wonderful desire to feel these words in whatever trial and difficulty and trouble that we come into. However much we may view it is our sin and that it is those things that we have done, why we are in this trial, yet to have that knowledge of the Lord that David did and that desire to fall into his hands, to trust his management, to trust his choice of what happens, to lie passive in his hands. to know no will but his.

We think of the picture of a natural child and their father, and when things happen, troubles come, then the child feels at safest in the arms of a loving father. We know sadly there are some that fathers are not like that, but where it is a beautiful picture of a Loving Father, your Heavenly Father, O how He knows, He feels! If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? And so this is David's desire to fall into the hand of the Lord.

This is one of those accounts that we must look at to sections of the word of God. In this account, it begins, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, go number Israel. In the first book of Chronicles, in chapter 21, then we read another way. And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel.

When David was convicted of his sin in this matter, he does not blame the Lord, nor does he blame Satan, but he says, I have sinned. How can we reconcile the two? We see how God uses Satan, as he did in Job's case. And Satan was used then as the one moving cause that the Lord, under the Lord's hand, Satan cannot do what he wants to do except the Lord permits. And so Satan is used in this way to bring about David to number Israel.

What was wrong with numbering Israel? Why was it a sin? Well, we read in Exodus, Exodus chapter 30 and verse 12, When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord. When thou numberest them, that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them. And then it goes on, this shall they give everyone that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary.

So David He numbered in peacetime, not in wartime. He numbered and there was no mention of paying of the shekel. And it is worth noting as well that his command to number nine months, more than nine months went by before he was brought to conviction of his sin. And we can think back as well when David sinned in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba, that again, it was at least nine months because the child was born before David was brought to conviction of his sin.

We need not be surprised if we sin, if we do things wrong, things that are grieving to the Lord, and it might be nine months, a year or more afterwards before we are really brought to see it, acknowledge it, and to confess our sin. So this account, a time towards the end of David's life where the Lord brought this about. But there's many things that were done at this time. And David in our text is called upon to make a choice of which he says that he is in a great strain. The prophet had come to him and given him three options. Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? Or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies while they pursue thee? Or that there be three days pestilence in thy land? Now advise and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me." And David then had to choose.

On to look then at three points. Firstly, David's great straight that is taken out of our hands. And then secondly, what David knew of the Lord. And we read this in our text, for his mercies are great. And then thirdly, what the Lord accomplished at this time.

But firstly, David's great straight taken out of our hands. We must make it clear that all three of these choices that had been set before David, they were really all under God's hand. Even if it had been the famine, it was the Lord that brought it. Even if it would have been his enemies pursuing them, they weren't left to their own devices. They would have still been under the control of the Lord.

But in the choice that David took, which was the pestilence, there's a three days aspect there, which resonates right through the scriptures. Three days, three days of our Lord Jesus Christ in the grave and then risen again. Death first and then life after. But also the pestilence was more seen as the Lord's hand. Maybe David remembered back to Egypt and the Lord bringing the pestilence as one of the great plagues in Egypt, but it was more a direct hand rather than what may be second causes.

We must always remember that though the Lord does use second causes very often, his hand is still over those second causes, but sometimes it is more directly so. But David, he desired that he might be in the hand of the Lord. And I hope that that is what our desire is, to be in the hand of the Lord in all of our lives, in all of what comes upon us.

We would remember the Lord saying, these things I have spoken unto you, that ye might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. Another time in the world you shall have tribulation. It is emphasised, there is no passing through this world except tribulation, which is great trouble.

Now, I put as the heading here, a choice David straight that is taken out of our hands. How would we feel if the Lord came to us and said, well, you're one of my children. You must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom. You choose. You choose what tribulation, you choose what troubles. Will it be in your own body, affliction and sickness? Will it be in your family, your children, your husband, your wife? Will it be in the church of God? Will it be in your neighborhood? Will it be through war, as in Ukraine and in other areas? Will it be through persecution, as in the church in other countries, or even sometimes in our own country?

What a strait we would be in. No wonder David says, I am in a great strait. But this is taken out of our hands because it is the Lord that chooses for us. He's chosen for me, He's chosen for you, what we shall pass through. And when we realise that, then we know that He will use it, however bitter, however hard, however difficult that that place and that way is, that the Lord has appointed it, tailored it, made it just suited to us. And we may say, for our eternal good. The flesh dislikes the way, but faith approves it well. Now David, he had to choose. But the Lord chooses for us. And then, I hope, gives us this same spirit that David has. to fall into that hand of the Lord.

It's a sad thing if we are viewing life's journey and viewing all that happens as just happening by chance, just happening, and the Lord not having a hand in it at all. It's a great mercy when we can see through the Lord's timing, through specific things that happen in whatever the situation is, that the Lord's hand is in it.

Who is he that saith, I cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? May this also lead us to think of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He himself chose that path that he had to walk to redeem his people. He willingly, here am I, send me, He willingly took the people from the Father, thine they were, thou gavest them me. And he received them to redeem them, to suffer for them, to bleed for them, to be their advocate, to come to this world, to take in union with himself a body just like them, yet sin accepted. May we see the Lord's willingness to be made sin for us who knew no sin.

God's people have been chosen in Christ. It is by grace that we are chosen. And by the Lord's grace, he brings us, like he did Moses, to choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

Our Lord was emphatic. There is a cross to take up. There is a path to take up. Very often it is. The cross, even in our own families, our Lord speaks of father, mother, children, those that are loved more than me. And he'd have us to follow after him, the once crucified, now risen, exalted saviour, the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, him that we hid our faces from, and yet he hath borne our sins and borne our iniquities on Calvary's tree.

Sir David Stray, taken out of our hands, the Lord appointing for us our tribulation, God appointing for his beloved son, that he should bear our sins in his own body on the tree, the Lord appointing for us the time here below and in heaven place to be with him. It's a blessed thing when we can observe and admire the appointments of our God.

I want to look then secondly at what David knew of the Lord. We have it summed up just in a few words in our text, for his mercies are great. And yet how much is bound up in those words?

You might say what David knew if he went back in his life, he knew the Lord's deliverance from the paw of the lion, the paw of the bear, from the deliverance out of Goliath's hand, the deliverance out of Saul's hand. all of those tribulations and trials that he went through being pursued by Saul.

But David emphasizes here the mercy. Mercy is never deserved, it's never bought at all. And so he would have thought back to Uriah and to Bathsheba and to his sin of adultery and sin of murder, which was a capital punishment, When Nathan brought that to him, and we mentioned before, there's nine months in both these cases approximately from the sin to being brought to repentance.

And he would have known, remembered what Nathan said, the Lord hath also put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. In one way, he'd walked this path before. And it's a blessed thing to walk a path where we view our salvation as mercy.

Remember the two in the temple praying, the Pharisee telling what good he'd done, the publican, God be merciful to me a sinner, went down to his house justified rather than the other.

Now these are the things that David would have in mind. There's a beautiful word in Isaiah and it is quoted by in the Acts of the Apostles as well in Isaiah 55. We have in verse 3, Incline your ear and come unto me, here and your soul shall live. And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

And he's pointing to Christ. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. It is pointing. to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, the unrighteous man his thought, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

And then we have in the Acts of the Apostles, the word that is quoted in Acts 13 and verse 34. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. And he's pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ, his sufferings, his death, his rising again.

Mercy through blood, I make my plea, God be merciful to me. And so, may we know something of what David knew that brought him to make this choice, that desired to fall into the hands of the Lord, not a tyrant, not in Satan's hand, in one who is all-powerful, all-mighty, but one who has shed his own blood, redeemed his people.

Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price. Sometimes we might forget how precious the people of God are to him. He will not afflict unnecessarily his children. If we think of, again, with our natural fathers and heavenly fathers, how much the Lord loves, cares for his people. He says in John 10, no man is able to pluck them out of mine hand. My father is greater than I. No man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand.

And the whole foundation of that trust and resting in the Lord Jesus Christ is that relationship with him. that bond that is between him and his people. And David knew that. Do we know that? Do we understand what the Lord has done for us and what is bound up in that everlasting blessings? We only know, as it were, that which is done in time. We only know the calling, the preservation, the keeping, the teaching, but it goes back before time.

I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee, chosen in him before the foundation of the world. It is because of this the Lord brings about what is appointed in time. And then there is, after death, to be with Christ. The same people chosen before this world was shall be at last in heaven, with him, exact same people, none left behind, none uncalled, none untaught, all of them, behold I and the children whom thou hast given me, none left, all redeemed, beautiful truth, a particular redemption of the Lord of his people, a loving redemption that he has wrought for them.

It is one of the greatest blessings a poor child of God can have, is to know their God, and to know His mercies, and to repeat His mercies. We think of Psalm 136, where it goes through the mercies of the Lord and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt and all the way. And the refrain on every verse, for His mercy endureth forever. And that is, a precious thing to know the Lord in this way.

However much tribulations we might have, and I trust I've proved it through life, there is always a balancing. There'll be those things that are most painful, but in the middle of it, there is mercies, and they are seen. It's one thing to have a mercy, and another to see it. Very often it is bound up with timings. in the book of Esther, and can you see the mercies of the Lord? You don't have the name of God mentioned, but throughout it, the critical timings again and again, and also what has been provided before, before even there was Haman. Mordecai has to say to Esther, who knoweth that thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this. The Lord is laying up. for his people, even before the troubles come, even before the tribulation, there is already that laid up.

I've often said this regarding David's adultery and murder, that when Nathan brought him the parable, Nathan, when David says, I have sinned, he doesn't have to say, now I will go to the Lord and see what the Lord will say about this. Is there hope? Immediately he says, The Lord hath also put away thy sin. The redemption is there. As soon as a poor sinner falls under their sin, repents of their sin, humbled before God, there is the salvation immediately there. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It is a salvation that is wrought already at Calvary and in the gospel it is preached and set forth.

So may we take this as a token for good if the Lord has shown us his mercies. If we can come in with David here and say, for his mercies are great, be able to say to our loved ones, our friends, this is why I trust in the Lord. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. Though I have troubles and tribulation, he will order it right. My soul is worth more than my body. Earthly things are nothing compared with eternity.

And now this testimony of trust in the Lord. His mercies are great. I want to look then thirdly at what the Lord accomplished. Very often in one event, the Lord accomplishes many things. Some of the Lord's dear people have been troubled in this way. I remember hearing of some that they've heard a sermon, been blessed under the sermon, and had a mind to go forward, to put the Lord on in open profession, but then someone else has been blessed under the same sermon, and they've gone forward, and the devil has said, well, no, that's why. The sermon was for them, not for you. As if it cannot be for both. And the Lord does many things. There is not just a single thing that is done. And this account here is a very good example of this.

The first thing that we say that is accomplished and done is the chastening of the people of God. We read in the account that we have here, again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. He moved David against them. The Lord brought the chastening hand against Israel. And that is a mark of sonship, that God does not leave his people, he treats them as his children, he chastens, he corrects them. So that in itself is a blessing.

Then we have David, and David is brought to repentance and confession. In verse 10, David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. This was before the correcting hand of the Lord came. And we might say with David and Uriah, David's heart smote him before the Lord brought that the sword shall not depart from thine house. And just because we are brought to confession does not mean that we will be excused. the chastening hand, or the consequences of our sin that may still come. But when we view forgiveness and pardon, then we humble ourselves before God. And you see, David here, he was brought to say, I have sinned greatly, and that I have done. Now I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly. Never pass over the great blessing of repentance. The Lord Jesus is exalted to give repentance and remission of sins unto Israel.

And we've known what it is to labor many days, months, sometimes years with a hard heart, unable to move, unable to let go of temptations and sins and evil things and not be humbled before the Lord. then we'll know what it is when the Lord comes and humbles us, brings us to his feet and softens our heart. And that is a great, great blessing. The Lord accomplished this for David and we trust not just David, but others in Israel as well would have known that blessing of repentance because the Lord's anger was against not just David, but all Israel while he was moved to do that.

Another thing that was brought about was David, in his lifetime, made great preparation for the building of the Temple of the Lord. Solomon was to build it, but David made great preparation. But where was it to be built? What part of ground was it to be built in? And this is what the Lord did at this time. And for that, we must especially go to the account in 1 Chronicles and 21, because at the end we read David saying that it was to be the place, the tabernacle of the Lord.

At that time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing thrall of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there, and then in the first verse of chapter 22, that is 1 Chronicles 22, then David said, this is the house of the Lord, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel. And indeed, this is the same place that Abraham offered up Isaac, Mount Moriah, we didn't offer it up, we offered up the lamb as a substitute. And here then is where the temple was built. He saw that God had answered him here.

Years later, when Solomon built the temple, Solomon offered sacrifices, the cloud filled the temple. God's visible presence was known and felt in this place and on this spot. We think also that here is a acceptable sacrifice. again were led to Christ. David here offers a sacrifice and the Lord accepted him. But how much more was to be done in the great anti-time of the Lord Jesus Christ, or David's greatest son, a sacrifice that was offered. Every sacrifice, those offers they look past, that the blood of bulls and of goats, and they looked to see our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. That blood was to be shed at Calvary's tree.

This then is what God did here as well, pointing to the Lord. These Old Testament accounts, they beautifully show that direction where we are to look Look unto me, and be ye saved, or the ends of the earth. For I am God, and there is none else." The Lord Jesus Christ testified and said, destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days. And that was the second temple he was standing in. And the Jews, they said, 40 in two years. This temple has been in building, but the Lord spake of the temple of his own body, that which he was going to lay down and take again.

And so this again is what is accomplished at this time, not just a place for the type, the temple, but also a pointing to what that type pointed to, an acceptable sacrifice, the offering, once for all of the precious blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Then there is another thing that also is accomplished here, and that is, we might say, the bruising of Satan's head. In the account in Chronicles, we read how it began, Satan stood up against Israel. How galling we might say to Satan. He intended destroying Israel. He intended to put that wedge between Israel and their God. And he always will do that. He tries to do that.

May we be encouraged in this, dear friends. When we see Satan, we might fear him. He is a defeated foe. We see him defeated here. because God uses him. And at the end of it, when Satan could see all the benefits and blessings that are done, how frustrated, how angry he would have been.

We think of when in the wilderness, the children of Israel had Balaam come out against them to curse them, but God turned it to three times being blessed instead of cursed. We think of with Job, the latter end of Job, was better than his beginning. But Satan, he stood up against Job. He thought that Job only served the Lord for when things went well, when everything was good. He says, you touch, you touch his goods, you touch his life, when it didn't work with his goods, you afflict him. And you see then if he'll turn round and curse thee to thy face.

Dear friends, don't. think those trials nothing, that come into our lives, that with many, many, they result in them going back and walking no more with the Lord. They say, if the Lord is like this, I've followed Him well, I've obeyed Him, I've served Him, I've given my life to Him, and all He does is afflict me and cause me to have trouble and anguish and trials. I'm not serving this God. And Satan knew that that's what most people would do. And the Lord knows how then those people are chosen in the furnace of affliction, the fires shall try every man's work of what sort it is. And that which is real stands that trial. It still continues. It might be like a tree in a gale, and while that gale is on, the tree bends right down. You think that tree's not standing upright anymore? It's bent down, and you and I are in a trial. we might get so tossed and so troubled that in it we might think, are we really a child of God? With all the thoughts and all the things that are going through my head at this time, that when we come out the other side, to come out still like dear Peter, though he denied his Lord and Master those three times, he came out the other side and he was still a disciple, he still loved his Lord, and the Lord still loved him.

Judge nothing before the time, sometimes And many, many times really it's not so much in the trial but afterwards. And we think of that especially with chastening. Now I know chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous, yet nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. It is afterwards.

We think of the first promise of our Lord Jesus Christ. The seed of the woman shall bruise Satan's head, and he shall bruise thy heel. And again, what was done at Calvary, the same as the two accounts here, Satan is seen in here. But the Lord delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands crucified and slain. This is Satan's attempt to destroy the Lord, to destroy the eternal Son of God. But instead, he brought about the counsels of God. Instead, he brought about that one sacrifice that put away the sins of all the people of God. You know, Satan is a great foe, but the Lord is greater. And when we think of this account, when we think of Calvary, then how can we think that the Lord will lead us in Satan's hand? and that he won't deliver us or won't make this thing work together for good.

Another thing that was brought about is fulfilling of scripture. We mentioned about the numbering of the children of Israel and how they ought to give for the sanctuary. When we come into these paths like this and we think, this is fulfilling scripture, This is a path where the Lord has said this will happen, a pestilence will happen, and a pestilence does happen in these circumstances. We are to notice that very much in the New Testament as things unfolded, especially at Calvary, but then at Pentecost, the apostles, though they didn't recognise it at the time, in looking back, they could see it was fulfilling scripture. It was not out of the way, it was in the way. And that is a comforting thing, to be able to look and think that my path, though I've thought it strange, though I've been tossed to and fro and troubled, yet it does align with scripture. It goes along with what the scriptures say, the path of God's people shall be.

Another thing, and I'll leave it here with this thought, is there is a principle here of the place marked where the Lord blesses. We read of that verse in 1 Chronicles 21, verse 28. That time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. And there have been those times, we think of, I think, right in saying Peck Hill, Horham Chapel was on a plot of land that J. S. Field was blessed in and he built that chapel. It's still used today. The third service from the Church of Black Boys meeting there. And the Lord often uses those blessings that he gives his children to show them where they should be, where they should offer, where they should live. Sometimes they might be tossed to and fro as to whether they worship here or what place they go, and the Lord puts his seal on it as to where they are blessed, where that word comes, where the Lord appears for them.

We have this principle here in this account. This is what David did. This is why the temple was built in this place. And so it is a good thing when we are able to see that it's not just one thing that is done. but other things that He's done. It might not just be done for us either. There might be family members, others that have benefited through a trial that we've gone through, there's been their trial as well, but the Lord has used it for good in that way. And this is very humbling, it's very reassuring because this is the pattern of the Lord. The Lord doesn't waste anything, doesn't waste any trial. Any circumstance, he uses them for good. I believe I can look back to many things in my life where that has been the case.

Well, may we have this desire then that David had. Let us, it's beautiful how David draws not just himself, but Israel as well. We might say that with our loved ones, our family as well. Let us fall now. into the hand of the Lord. The Lord give us then this spirit and this trust, this leaning and falling into the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no better, more safer place to be.

I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, thy walls are ever before me. The Lord have