David's Choice of a National Calamity
J. Leifchild. 2 Samuel 24:14 And David said to Gad, I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great… The scene before us, while it is pregnant with interest on its own account, develops two opposite classes of principles, and furnishes a lesson both of seasonable direction and solemn warning. I. It presents us with A SIN INTO WHICH DAVID FELL at the close of his life, and a judgment denounced upon him in consequence of that sin by the Almighty. He was at peace in his kingdom; he had recovered from all the troubles of his house, and his victorious sword had been lifted up above the heads of all his enemies round about. The state of his affairs, after long agitation, had subsided into a condition of peace and serenity, calling loudly for thankfulness to God for His favours. But such seasons of temporal prosperity, alas! are not favourable to the preservation of humility and good principles. Through the weakness and corruption of our nature they are apt to soften and enervate, to secularise and pollute, and thereby to render us accessible to the most perilous temptations. If the prosperity of fools destroys them, the prosperity of good men often does them incalculable injury. David, therefore, though so wise and pious, is now off his guard. His conscience, however, which had been enlightened by Divine grace, soon awoke out of the slumber into which it had fallen, and unbraided him. "His heart smote him" for what he had done, before he was left to prove his weakness by any outward disaster. It was well for him that his own ways reproved him, and that' conscience sounded the first trumpet of alarm. This is characteristic of the regenerate. Thus Samson's heart smote him in the midst of the night for what he was doing, and he arose and carried away the gates of the city. Men who have no light of grace, no tenderness of conscience, must have their sin recalled to them by the circumstances which at once reveal its enormity and visit it with punishment; but the regenerate have an inward monitor that awaits not for these consequences to rouse its energy, but lights up the candle of the Lord within them, and will not let them rest after they have done amiss, till they have felt compunction and made confession. Their sin and their sorrow are near together. No circumstance can keep them long apart. Let us not wonder at a judgment so severe for a sin that appears to us so comparatively trifling. It is only to us that it seems trifling. We are apt to be more terrified at outward sins, and individual acts of atrocity between man and man; but sins of the heart and of the spirit committed against the majesty, and the purity, and the goodness of God, for which we feel but little conscious guilt, are surely of far greater enormity and more especially offensive to God. We are, moreover, to bring into account David's relation to God. He was a man after His own heart; he stood high in His favour: when he was a child, God loved him and brought him into covenant with him; adopted him into His family, made him most magnificent promises, and poured His favours upon him. And does the near relation in which a man stands to God and the surpassing favours which he has received, lessen his sin? Iris rather heightened in its enormity, aggravated in its guilt, by such considerations. II. OBSERVE THE EVILS WHICH THE HISTORY REPRESENTS TO US AS PROPOSED TO THE KING'S CHOICE. They are three of the most dreadful that can befall a country or a nation. But yet in the permission of a choice among them, a singular test was presented of the return of David's heart to a proper sense of dependence and submission. Each of them is a terrific scourge, but united, as they sometimes are, and naturally may be, they form a three-fold plague, whose horrors are indescribable. But the one which David chose, brought him and his people more immediately into conflict with the sovereign hand of the Almighty than either of the others would have done. Nothing could be here ascribed to second causes. Against God directly and exclusively had David sinned, and from God's hand visibly and directly, and by sad preference, must come the punishment. If famine spread extensively among nations, affecting more countries than one at the same time, the condition of that which is its chief seat, or which, from other circumstances, is shut out from foreign aid, will soon become desperate. New and disgusting modes of supporting existence will be resorted to; the natural instincts will be overpowered; all feelings will be subdued before the cravings of hunger and the love of life. War, accompanied with defeat, is an equally dreadful calamity to a country that is the seat of it. The most diabolical passions of human nature are awakened and stimulated by war. But pestilence, in some respects, is yet a more dreadful calamity than either. It is more silent in its approach, and less horrible in its outward array; hut it is an evil preying upon the heart of a nation. It is the destruction of its soul and spirit. Other evils may be seen at a distance, and be guarded against; there valour may hope to defend, prudence to resin, flight to escape. But no place exempts from the attacks of this enemy; he gives no notice of his approach; his motion is silent and sure; he steals upon us in the dead of night, as well as in the day; triumphantly and secretly he rides upon the wings of the wind, and treacherously destroys us by the breezes which we court for refreshment, or the air which we inspire for life. We are not sensible of his presence till we feel his fangs, and are inevitably within his grasp. At one and the same moment he is heard of by us at the distance of leagues, and felt in our own bosoms. We are unconscious that the shaft has flown, or found its mark, till we feel its venom boiling through our veins. III. But we have here THE CHOICE HE MADE, WITH THE REASONS OF IT. Let us attend to the wisdom and piety that dictated it and to the merciful relief afforded him under it, in consequence of it pleasing God. 1. But we may see in this preference the most exalted patriotism. David, though a king, was too much identified with his subjects to think of saving himself at their expense. If it must be a calamity, let it be one that shall involve me with them. I and my people will survive or perish together. Noble resolution, full of magnanimity, and demanding our admiration! 2. There was penitence also in this preference. Slight thoughts of his sin, in comparison with the sins of his people, would have dictated the choice of a calamity that might have left him free, while for them there was no possibility of escape. But he was too sensible of the guilt of his preposterous pride and presumption not to choose a judgment to which himself might be as liable as any of the inhabitants of the land. 3. Nor is the piety that led to this preference less evident and operative. There was piety in consulting by it the honour and interests of religion, which in either of the other calamities would have very much suffered. And there was piety in David's choice, from the confidence it evinced in the Divine compassion. He knew that God was provoked, but he could expect mercy from Him in that state, sooner than from man whom he had not injured at all. Conclusion: 1. In attempting some improvement, our desert of the judgments of the Almighty because of our secret sins first occurs to us. A judgment worse than war, pestilence, and famine awaits every such sinner. He stands exposed to wrath that will destroy both body and soul in hell. 2. There is a retributive Providence. The punishment of God's people often grows out of their sin, and that so conspicuously and so instructively as to convince them of it, and induce them to deplore and renounce it. (J. Leifchild.) Parallel Verses KJV: And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: 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. WEB: David said to Gad, "I am in distress. Let us fall now into the hand of Yahweh; for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into the hand of man."