2 Sam. 24; 1 Chon. 21; Ps 30; 1 Thess. 2

1 Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, "Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are." 3 But Joab replied, "May the LORD multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord's subjects? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?" 4 The king's word, however, overruled Joab; so Joab left and went throughout Israel and then came back to Jerusalem. 5 Joab reported the number of the fighting men to David:    I Sam. 1-4 

What’s the big deal? David had done this before and there was no ramifications, he just wanted to get a take on how many soldiers he had. Even Jesus says a wise general doesn’t go to war unless he is sure he has what it take to win the battle. But now David is going to be disciplined by the Lord for numbering his troops. When God asked spiritual leaders to count their soldiers they were to count them in order to realize they were going to battle as the underdogs if God doesn’t fight for them. He never encouraged assessing your strengths to have confidence in your resources. David was sinning because he was trying to see if he could make decisions about war based on the size of his army rather than on the size of his God. I think it is interesting how we learn to live by faith in hopes that we won’t have to. Notice the instigator for trusting in the flesh is Satan. Satan incited, it was his idea in order to turn the heart of David from trusting God. Is Satan trying to incite you? We are not ignorant of Satan’s devices. His plan is always to get us to trust anything but God.



God Bless,

Pastor Rick