Well, if you would, let's turn
to the last chapter of 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel 24. And this brings
us to the close of our studies on the life of David. The life
of David as a type of Christ, the life of David as an example
of a sinner saved by the grace of God, who had victory, as we
just sang, victory in Jesus Christ. as we who know Christ and trust
him all do. And I hope, you know, as I go
through these scriptures, we study a book of the Bible or
a passage of scripture section. I hope one of the things that
you gain from this is not only the obviously a greater love
and respect and regard of Christ himself and a value for what
he accomplished for his people at Calvary, for all of us who
know him, but I also hope that you gain a new respect and a
love for the Word of God. It's a beautiful thing, isn't
it? The Word of God. I've been thinking about doing
some messages on the fundamentals of the faith, and if I were to
ask you what's the most fundamental truth of Christianity, what would
you say? There would be a lot of answers. You have to boil it down to this,
is that the Bible is the Word of God. You might say, well,
the most fundamental truth is Christ and Him crucified. But
all we know about Christ and Him crucified comes from right
here. Do you know that? It didn't come in a dream to
you. It doesn't come through osmosis. It's recorded in the Book of
God. And that's why we believe that
this book is the Word of God. Now, as we go through these passages,
there are certainly some difficulties in understanding the language,
but they're not contradictions. They're not untruths. There may be difficulties of
translation. There may be difficulties of
perspective. I'll show you one tonight here
in 2 Samuel 24. But what I want to deal with
mainly as we close this study out is mainly in the last verses
of this chapter. which speaks of the cost of redemption,
the cost of redemption, the cost of forgiveness, the cost of salvation,
being redeemed, being forgiven, being saved by the grace of God. Because at the end of this chapter,
we have a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, King David as a
type of Christ. And what a great way to close
out this study. Now, in the first nine verses
of this chapter, We have David's sin of numbering Israel. You remember we read last Wednesday
in verse 1, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against
Israel and he moved David against them to say, go number Israel
and Judah. Take a census. And that numbering
Israel, that census taking was the result of God's anger against
the nation for their prior rebellion against David and ultimately
against God. And this census taking here was
sinful in David in this sense. He did it for the wrong motive.
There was a time that he took a census amongst his people for
the purpose of the glory of God, to muster and order his troops,
bring his troops together and organize them for battle, to
fight the war, to fight against the enemies of God. But here
he is in his last years, And he's still lifted up with pride.
And that's a testimony to us that pride and arrogance and
self-righteousness will always be a problem that we'll have
to war against the flesh while we're in this life. Even up until
the time of our deathbed. No, this is not progressive holiness,
as some seem to think. But it's growth in grace and
in knowledge which we see a greater appreciation for the grace and
mercy of God. But David numbered Israel here
for his own selfish pride. And you remember over in the
book of 1 Chronicles, I believe it was chapter 23 or somewhere
close to that. somewhere, I can't remember,
I didn't write it down tonight, but where it said that Satan,
Satan rose up to move David to take this census. And we see
there that God, even in control sovereignly over Satan, just
like he was in the book of Job. I hope you went back and read
the first two chapters of the book of Job. How whatever Satan
did to Job, he only did it by permission of God. And he can
only go so far. So don't ever think that God
is the author of sin. But here David is. He wanted
to number Israel. Now, this taking of this census
in David's pride was a product of his own lust, lust for power. And my friend, what it was, it
was a testimony of unbelief. Now, David was a believer. But
as you well know, that we who have been brought to faith in
Christ, even though we're not in unbelief as a state, we still
have unbelief within us and we have to fight it daily. And that's
what David gave into here. And we have to understand that
David numbering Israel here was showing that he wasn't trusting
the Lord. You can't trust in your numbers. Your power is not
in how many troops you have, how many people are in your kingdom.
Your power is not in horses and chariots and man's human concoctions. Your power and your assurance
and your security is in Christ. And that's what the scripture
tells us. How many times did David write this in the Psalms?
I'll give you three examples or two examples in the Psalms
and then one example out of Proverbs that Solomon wrote. But in Psalm
37, verse 3, it says, Trust in the Lord, and do good. So shalt
thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Trust in the
Lord. And then Psalm 125, verse 1,
he wrote, They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion,
which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. trust in the
Lord. And then that famous one we quote
all the time in Proverbs chapter 3 and verse 5, where it says,
trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine
own understanding. You see, our salvation, our goodness,
our righteousness, our hope and assurance is not in ourselves. It's not in our denomination.
It's not in anything we do. It's not in how many people are
here tonight. It's in Christ and Him alone. Well, what happens here after
David numbers Israel, and it's interesting, you can read the
whole thing, but Joab, strangely enough, is the one who calls
his hand on it and says, this is not right. Even Joab, who
was an arrogant man, who was a political man, who was a conniver,
he even recognized that. But David did it. And in verse
10, look at verse 10, David was brought to conviction to know
the sin that he committed. And then God sent him a word.
It says in verse 10, and David's heart smote him. After that,
he had numbered the people. He realized he committed a great
sin. And David said unto the Lord,
I have sinned greatly, and that I have done what I've done, and
now I beseech thee. That means I beg you. I beg you,
Lord, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done
very foolishly. Take away mine iniquity." Isn't
that your prayer, Lord? Take away mine iniquity. And
verse 11 says, For when David was up in the morning, the word
of the Lord came unto the prophet Gad, David's seer, that's David's
prophet, saying, Go and say unto David, Thus saith the Lord, and
I offer thee three things. Choose thee one of them." Now,
God gives David three choices here, and I want you to notice
this. He says, that I may do it unto thee. And verse 13 says,
So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, 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." Now verse
14 tells you David's answer, but he says, and David said unto
Gad, I am in a great strait. I'm in a mess. I'm between a
rock and a hard place here. Got three choices, and they're
all bad when it comes to me. But they're all right, and they're
all just. He says, let us fall now into
the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great, or many. Wherever I am, what David is
saying here, he says, let me not fall into the hands of men.
Wherever I am, I don't want to be in the hands of men. I want
to be in the hands of the Lord. Whatever comes about, whatever
happens to me, whatever victories I gain, whatever sorrows I go
through, whatever pain I suffer, whatever chastisement, I don't
want to be in the hands of men. David had been there before.
He knew what that was like. He'd run from Saul for years,
hadn't he? Being chased by Saul. He'd been
chased by his enemies, all of these things. He said, whatever
happens to me, let me fall into the hands of the Lord. And you
know why? Here it is. For His mercies are many. They're great. There's no better
place to be than in the hands of a merciful God. When I was
in school, we had literature class. It was common for us to
read a sermon entitled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
And you know, I think about that, I don't I don't really remember
that much about it, to be honest with you, other than just the
wrath of God and some of the notes that came along in the
literature book on that sermon talked about people grabbing
onto the backs of the pew, afraid that the ground was going to
open and swallow them up. And I know the man who preached
that was seeking in his way to point sinners to Christ, for
he is the only refuge. But you see, as a sinner saved
by the grace of God, I don't have to talk to you about sinners
in the hands of an angry God. Now, I can tell you this, that
without Christ, God is a consuming fire to everyone. Without Christ. That's right. We sang that hymn,
When I see the blood, I'll what? I'll pass over you. No blood,
no passing over. That was when death came through.
God came through in judgment upon Egypt to kill the firstborn. And He told Israel what to do.
He told Moses to tell them. He says, You take a lamb, a lamb
of the first year, a young lamb, And he said, you take a lamb
of the first year that is spotless, an unblemished lamb, and you
take that lamb and you slit his throat and you catch the blood
in a basin, and you take hyssop and you put that lamb's blood
on the doorpost all around, on the top and on each side. And
you take the meat of that lamb and you roast it and you eat
it inside the house where the blood is put over the door. And
God told him, he said, when I come through in judgment, that angry
God, he says, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. Now, every bit of that was a
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, that Lamb of God who takes away
the sins of the world. And that's what David's crying
for here. He says, take away my iniquity. Now, how's he going
to do it? He says, for God's mercy is great. Somebody asked, well, why did
God give David three choices here? Well, we're not really
told in the Scripture. But it may have been a way that
God used to bring this man to his senses and cause him to consider
some things. First of all, the seriousness
of his sin. To not trust the Lord and lean
to our own understanding and our own ways is a very serious
matter. It's nothing to take lightly.
Unbelief may seem like a light sin, but I want to tell you something.
Unbelief is the mother of all sin. Unbelief strikes at the
very highest manifestation and revelation of the glory of God. Did you know that? God has engaged
every attribute of who He is in the salvation of sinners by
Jesus Christ. And therefore, to reject Christ
as the only way of salvation, the only way of redemption, the
only way of righteousness, the only way of eternal life and
glory, is to deny not just one attribute of God or one part
of God, it's to deny every attribute of God's glory. That's how serious
unbelief is. He may have given David these
three choices to bring him to his senses and cause him to consider
this sin, but also to cause him to consider his people. David
had already seen how sin, these sins, don't just affect one person. They affect everybody, don't
they? And here God was angry with the people too. He wasn't
just angry with David. David was not the only one who
was suffering the chastisement of God for sin. Even the nation
Israel is. But I think mainly the reason
that God gave him these three choices is to bring him to where
he came in, verse 14, to consider the great mercies of God. Let
me fall into the hands of God, for his mercies are great. And
so David made a wise choice when he said that. Let me fall into
the hands of a merciful God, for his mercies are great. Well,
in verse 15, God sent a pestilence upon Israel. Now, the other two
would be in the hands of men. Even the famine in the land,
even though that was sent by God, that would leave Israel
open in their weakness to their enemies. And so he didn't choose
that, but he chose the three days of famine. And look what
happened. It says, so the Lord, verse 15, sent a pestilence upon
Israel from the morning, even to the time appointed, And there
died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba, now that's a way
of just saying the whole land, 70,000 men. What's it teaching
us here? This plague hits Israel severely. And this was not only the result
of David's sin again, but the sin of the nation. Sin deserves
death. And it says in verse 16, and
when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy
it, the messenger of God, we're not told specifically who this
is. Some believe this is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. It may
have been, but normally when you see a pre-incarnate appearance
of Christ, he's called the angel of the Lord or the angel of the
covenant. But it doesn't matter. It's from God. This is a work
of God. It's a work of God's justice
against sin. And it says here that when the angel stretched
out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented
him of the evil and said to the angel that destroyed the people,
it is enough. It's enough. Stay now. Stay now. Stop now thine hand and the angel
of the Lord. Now there's the angel of the
Lord. And so that might give us a consideration. And he says
the angel of the Lord was by the threshing place of Aranah,
the Jebusite. Now, this Aaronah, you might,
in 1 Chronicles 21, is called Ornan. They're the same person
at the threshing place. Now, let me say this about this
issue of the Lord repented him of the evil. Now, let me show
you. Whenever we think about repentance
in ourselves, we think about either a change of direction
or a change of mind. Either way, it's a change, isn't
it? But the Bible teaches us that the Lord, God, does not
repent. Doesn't it? Let me read you some
scripture. One in 1 Samuel chapter 15. Mark this down if you want
to. 1 Samuel 15 verse 29. It says, and also the strength
of Israel in capital letters. That's God. He will not lie nor
repent for he is not a man that he should repent. You know what
that's teaching is this, God doesn't need to change. He never
changes. He doesn't need to change. If you change, you've either
got to change for the better or for the worse. Well, God cannot
change for the worse. And God doesn't need to get better.
He's God. So how could God change? God
doesn't operate by contingency plans. He doesn't operate by
conditional plans. I'll do this if you will do this. That's not God, you see. In fact,
the Bible plainly states that God is immutable. That means
unchangeable. Now, I can't understand that
and you can't either. Because all about us is nothing but change.
All in us and about us. That's all we see is change.
We live day to day. Change, change, change. How in
the world could there be a being who is immutable? I don't know,
but there is. He's God. The scripture says
that that is connected with the redemption of his people. Malachi
3.6, I am the Lord, I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob,
sinners saved by grace, are not consumed. Let me give you another
scripture, Numbers chapter 23 and verse 19. It says in Numbers
chapter 23 and verse 19, God is not a man. that he should lie, neither the
Son of Man that he should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not
do it? Or hath he spoken? Or shall he not make it good?"
If God says it, it's done. He's not going to change. He
doesn't need to change. So what does it mean here when it talks
about the Lord repented him of the evil? There's another passage
over in Genesis chapter 6 where it says, it repented the Lord
that he had made man. Well, let me tell you how it
is this way. First of all, this word here, repented, literally
means relented. The Lord relented. And what that
means is this, when God was finished, he stopped. That's all it means. It means he changed his mind.
He started a work. He had an end in mind. And when
he's finished, he relented. He stopped. That's all it means.
Whenever you see passages in the scripture that indicate that
God repented, that's not talking anything about the nature of
God. That's just language given to us so that we can understand
something of how much God hates sin. That's why it says it repented
the Lord that he had made man. God hates sin. And so what he's
saying here in this, in 2 Samuel 24, God never intended to destroy
this whole nation utterly, to completely wipe them out. He
never intended that. This chastisement, even though
70,000 men, it says here, were killed in the wrath of God against
sin, because of their sin. God never intended to utterly
wipe this nation off the face of the map. Now, there were nations
that had been wiped off the face of the map before, Sodom and
Gomorrah for one. God utterly destroyed them. You
remember Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 1, he told Israel that when you
think about Sodom and Gomorrah, don't be self-righteous and proud.
We don't deserve anything better. In fact, he said, except the
Lord of Sabaoth, that's the Lord of a great invincible army, have
left us a seed, a remnant, we'd be just like Sodom and Gomorrah.
We don't deserve anything better. But God is merciful. God is great. Well, God never intended to utterly
destroy this nation, and I'll tell you exactly why. Because
He had already purposed to spare them until He was finished with
them. And that is until the time of
the Messiah. And that's what's indicated here, beginning with
the angel of the Lord was by the threshing place of Aaronah. the Jebusite. Think about this. David, look at verse 17. It says,
And David spake unto the Lord, when he saw the angel that smote
the people. And he said, Lo, I have sinned,
and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they
done? Now, they've done a lot. But David was looking at it from
his own point of view. He was looking at it as if, well,
I numbered Israel, and God's punishing me. But you see, the
Lord's anger, back up here in verse 1, was kindled against
Israel. So Israel was sinful too. And so he says, David prays here
in verse 17, Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and
against my father's house. Now what's happening here? David
certainly is expressing his love and compassion for the people.
But more importantly, he's a picture of Christ. Who prayed. Who prayed under the Father.
that He would take our place, that it would all come against
Him. Now He Himself, our Savior, was
not a sinner like David. He never was a sinner. He was
holy and harmless and undefiled and separate from sinners. But
David is saying, I'll substitute myself for the people. I'll take their place. And that's
what Christ did in the everlasting covenant of grace before the
world began. He said, I'll take their place. I'll meet every
condition. I'll fulfill every requirement. I'll exact every
stipulation that it takes to redeem them from their sin. David
the King, stepping in the place of the people before God. And
that's what our Savior did. He's our surety. He's our substitute. He's our advocate. He's our Lamb,
the Lamb of God, which taketh away our sins. David's compassion. Christ loved his people. The
scripture says in John 13 and verse 1, He loved them until
the end, until the finishing of the work. And it says in verse
18, look here, it says, In Gad, that's the prophet, came that
day to David and said unto him, Go up, rear an altar, build an
altar unto the Lord, in the threshing floor of Aranah the Jebusite. Now what's all significant about
that? Well, what is an altar for? In the Bible, an altar is
a place of sacrifice. It's a place of death. It's a
place where a substitute has to be killed and blood has to
be shed. That altar was given to set the
sacrifice apart. He didn't say go out there and
just sweep off the ground and lay it on the ground. He didn't
say go out there and build a campfire. He said build an altar. And that
altar was special. It sanctified the offering, which
literally means it set the offering apart. So it was a place of sacrifice. What is this threshing floor?
Well, you know, in the Bible there's two emblems that are
commonly used as types of God's act of separation and wrath.
One of them is the wine press. The Bible says that our Savior
walked the winepress of God's wrath. That's where the grapes,
you know, were crushed. And the grape juice would flow
out. And what we see in that is a picture of Christ going
under the winepress of God's wrath on the cross. He was crushed
under the wrath of God, and the blood flowed out. And the blood
was for our redemption. His death for our redemption.
The threshing floor was the place where the wheat was separated
from the chaff, the wheat and the tares, and the wheat was
beat and crushed and ground. And that's a picture of our salvation
by Christ on the cross also. For on the cross, we were separated
out in Him for our redemption, and He Himself was beat under
the threshing floor of the Father's wrath for our sins. He took our
punishment. He took everything we deserved.
You see, we were separated out before the foundation of the
world in divine election, electing grace. We were separated out
in God when He justified us through Christ by His righteousness imputed. We were separated out on the
cross when Christ paid for our sins in time and satisfied the
justice of God. We were separated out in the
new birth when the Holy Spirit brought us under the sound of
the gospel and brought us to faith in Christ. And ultimately,
we'll be separated out at His second coming when He comes to
gather His church unto Himself and judge this world. But you
see, this altar and this threshing place shows that there must be
redemption. There must be a cost paid. Now,
what he's doing here, he's showing, David pray, take away my iniquity.
Well, God is using this picture here in an actual historical
event to show how that's done. God cannot just snap his finger
and say, well, David, I forget about it now. Your iniquity is
taken away. It just never happened. No. No.
God can't do that. He's holy. He's just. He's righteous. There's got to be an altar. There's
got to be a sacrifice. There's got to be blood shed.
There's got to be a cost exacted. Well, look on, it says in verse
19. And David, according to the saying
of Gad, went up as the Lord commanded. And Aaronah looked and saw the
king and his servants coming on toward it. And Aaronah went
out and bowed himself before the king on his face upon the
ground. And Aaronah said, Wherefore is my lord the king come to his
servant? And David said, To buy the threshing floor of thee,
to build an altar unto the Lord, that the plague may be stayed
from the people. And Aaronah said unto the king,
Let my lord the king take and offer up what seemeth good unto
him. Behold, here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing
instruments, and other instruments of the oxen for wood. You can
build your fire with my tools, is what he sayeth. Take it all.
And all these things did Aaronah, as a king, give unto the king.
And Aaronah said unto the king, The Lord thy God accept thee."
Now, listen to these last verses. And the king said unto Aaronah,
Nay, David said to Aaronah, Nay, but I will surely buy it of thee
at a price. Now, there's got to be a price
paid. You can't just give it away. He says, Neither will I
offer burnt offering unto the Lord of my God of that which
doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing
floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver. And you may remember
when we studied the book of Exodus and Leviticus, that silver, the
metal silver, is a type of the redemption price. That's what
it is. You know, when they actually
took a census in Israel, everybody who was counted had to bring
a half shekel of silver with them. not to buy their way into
the kingdom. They were already members of
the kingdom or they wouldn't be counted. But because that half
shekel of silver represented that the reason that they were
members of the kingdom was the redemption price had already
been paid. And that's what they were testifying of when they
gave that half shekel of silver. So here's David, he's buying
this threshing floor in the auction for 50 shekels of silver. There's
a redemption price. And then it says, And David built
there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and
peace offerings. So the Lord was entreated for
the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel. That's the
manner in which the wrath of God is turned away by the blood
of sacrifice. The Bible says in Hebrews 9 and
verse 22, And almost all things are purged with blood, and without
shedding of blood is no remission of sin. Here, David, he's instructed
by the angel through Gad to erect an altar on the threshing floor.
He refused the gift. You can't give it away. There's
got to be a cost. This is the cost of redemption.
Now, listen to me. Our redemption by the Lord Jesus
Christ cost us nothing. That's right. Somebody said,
but isn't there a cost of discipleship? Yes. But there's no cost of redemption
to us. But it cost the Son of God everything. It cost him his life, his blood,
everything that he accomplished. And here this silver, the emblem
of redemption by sacrifice, means that whatever it takes to turn
away the wrath of God, it must be by sacrifice. And so David
builds this altar, and he offers sacrifices that are pleasing
unto God. Turn over to 1 Chronicles chapter
21. This is a parallel passage to
this. And look at verse 26 of 1 Chronicles
21. Here it tells us that God showed
his acceptance of David's sacrifice by consuming it with fire from
heaven. And that was the common way. It says in verse 26 of 1
Chronicles 21, And David built there an altar unto the Lord,
and offered burnt offerings, and peace offerings, and called
upon the Lord. And the Lord answered him from
heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offerings. That's an
emblem of the fire of God consuming the sacrifice. That's a picture
of God's wrath coming down upon our Savior and consuming Him
on the cross. He paid the dead in full. And
this spot was important. This land purchased by David
is already a site of some major things in the Scripture and would
be the site of Solomon's temple. Look at 1 Chronicles 21, verse
28. He says, and at that time when
David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing floor of
Ornan, now that's the same man as Aranah, it's another name.
You know, they had different languages back then. He was a
Jebusite. So it may be that to David, he
was known as Aranah to the Jebusites, Ornan, but the same man. He says,
then he sacrificed there. For the tabernacle of the Lord,
which Moses made in the wilderness and the altar of the burnt offering
were at that season in the high place at Gibeon. But David could
not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid because
of the sword of the angel of the Lord. They were under this
plague, you see. Look at verse 1 of chapter 22. Then David said,
This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of
the burnt offering for Israel. And David commanded to gather
together the strangers that were in the land of Israel. And he
sent masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God. David
prepared iron in abundance for the nails, and for the doors
of the gates, and for the joinings, and brass in abundance without
weight, also cedar trees in abundance. For the Zidonians and that day
of Tyre brought much cedar wood to David. You remember they were
gathering materials for the temple. Now you know David's not going
to build the temple, but he's gathering materials. And it says,
and David said, Solomon my son is young and tender, and the
house that is to be built for the Lord must be exceeding, magnificent,
of fame and of glory throughout all countries, I will therefore
now make preparation for it, so David prepared abundantly
before his death." This is where the temple was going to be built,
right here. First, look over at 2 Chronicles,
chapter 3. This passage tells us something
else about this threshing floor. It tells us that this threshing
floor was on Mount Moriah. Look at verse 1 of 2 Chronicles
3. Then Solomon began to build the
house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord
appeared unto David his father in the place that David had prepared
in the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite. Now, what do you
know about Mount Moriah? Well, you don't have to turn
there, but you can look back at Genesis chapter 22, and you can see that's
the place where Abraham took his son Isaac up to offering.
The same set of hills where Jesus died on the cross. All of it
coming together in the providence of God. In the life of David
as a type of Christ. You see, there is a cost to putting
away sin. And Christ Jesus paid it all. I mean, he paid it all in full.
That's what this represents. He went under the threshing floor
of God's wrath. To the point that he cried, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why did he do it? For the
sins of his people. He was made sin, Christ, who
knew no sin. For us, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. And it says back here in 2 Samuel
24, at the end of this verse, end of this chapter, the Lord
was entreated for the land. There's a mediator. There's an
intercessor. There's a substitute. And the
plague was stayed from Israel. My friend, if you want the plague
of sin stayed, removed from you, then all you have to do is look
to Christ and Him alone. He's the only way. Well, the
life of David doesn't end here. He survived long enough to pass
on his kingdom to his son Solomon. But you see, the greatest legacy
is found not in David himself, not in Solomon, and certainly
not in any of the succeeding kings that come through Israel
and Judah. But the greatest legacy that's
found in David is his greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And
you always remember this, how the New Testament begins in the
book of Matthew. It begins this way, the book
of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David. That's David's
greatest legacy. God used this man in so many
great ways. This man who was just a real
man, a weak man, sometimes a strong man, sometimes a wise man, sometimes
a fool. Sounds like all of us, doesn't
it? Used him and saved him in spite
of himself, just like he saves us in spite of ourselves. And
just like that portion of scripture that Brother Bill read, we're
not redeemed by any of the things of this world, corruptible things,
silver and gold, vain conversations, traditions, but were redeemed
with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without stunt and
without blemish. That's the cost of redemption.