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Wonderful. Please do keep your Bibles open at that passage and let's pray.

Father, we do thank you for your word. And I pray you would spend your spirit on us now to illuminate our hearts that we might understand your word for us and prepare our hearts to receive it in Jesus name. Amen. It's a season of remembrance, isn't it? November.

There's lots of remembering going on. We've had bonfire night. Maybe you went to Bonfire night. Maybe, like me, you just thought it was too cold and you just sat in and heard the fireworks from your window. But there's remembering.

And now we come to Remembrance Day, don't we? This whole day when we're remembering things. And of course today we're remembering terrible things. We're remembering war, we're remembering what humanity can do to itself, what we can be brought to do to each other. The question I want to ask us today is what the point of our remembering is.

What are we remembering for? Are we just remembering and then we go about our way? Or are we supposed to do something with our remembering? Does it take us somewhere? And I wonder what your gut reaction is to maybe what the answer would be to that question.

Maybe we remember that there were terrible things that happened in the past and we don't want to repeat them. And that's true, isn't it? But how do we not repeat them? How does the world get fixed? Or was it fixed last time by just having great leaders?

I don't know if you remember about 20 years ago now, there was a programme on television called 100 Greatest Britons, hundred Greatest Britons. And everyone in the nation had a chance to vote. And different celebrities and famous people made their case and the nation voted. The greatest Britain of all time was Winston Churchill. So maybe that's the answer.

Maybe we need a second Winston. He sorted it out the first time. Maybe we need Winston. Now. Is that what our remembering is to lead us to today?

Our passage would say no. We need more than just a good leader, more than just a good human leader. We need the leader of leaders. We need the one that leaders can look to themselves to lead them. We ultimately need Jesus.

This is where our passage is going to take us. And if you do have your Bible with you, let's see how it takes us there. The first section, verses one to nine, is all about leaders making mistakes. It's about the best leaders making mistakes. You see, David is a celebrated leader if ever there was one, wasn't there?

In Israel. People sung songs about David. They remembered him in stories. We're still talking about him 3000 years ago. And in a country that he never set foot in.

A celebrated great leader, if ever there was one.

And yet he made mistakes. He made a terrible mistake. Here, look with me in verse one again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, go number Israel and Judah. We don't know precisely why the Lord was angry with Israel at this point. I think it's best to understand that Israel had asked for a king and he'd given them god had said, you know, I'm your king, but I'll give you one.

So he'd given them Saul, hadn't they? And then David had become the king. And in the chapters just before this, israel had become discontent with David. We'd had the uprising of absalom, you might remember, where David's son leads a rebellion against the people and they follow him. They reject God's king.

And then a few chapters after that, there's a rebellion under another guy, Shebna. It's as if they've received God's gift and they've just trampled on it. They've become complacent about what God's given them. That seems likely to me as to what's going on here. And the Lord is angry with Israel, and so he incites David to give a census.

A census not the most common of punishments, is it? No one's ever said to a child, if you don't start behaving, you're going to take a census. But this is what happened. And maybe we think to ourselves, what's with that census? What's the problem here?

We did one a few years ago. Do we need to repent of that? There are censuses in the Bible. God asks Israel to have censuses, doesn't he? So what's wrong with this one?

Again, the clues are in our passage. Look with me for the first one. The first clue is in verse two. Here, David is talking to Joab, the commander of the army, and he says to him, go through all the tribes of Israel from down to Beersheva and number the people. Okay, that seems quite innocuous, doesn't it?

Number the people. That's what a census is, a numbering of the people. But look, down in verse nine, joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to the king. In Israel, there were 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were 500,000. So who's actually being counted here?

It's military personnel, isn't it? This census is actually a military census of strength. It's troops on the ground, isn't it? The people to be numbered at the beginning were clearly military people. David wants to know his strength, and the next clue is from geography.

I don't know if you have a nice ponchon for Bible geography, maybe you do, but there's some really important things in those place names. If you look with me in verse six so Joab and his men have done what they've been asked. They're going to go around Israel, but we're told they came to Gilead. Okay, that's good. That's over the Jordan and that's in Israel and to Kadesh in the land of the Hittites.

That's not in the land of Israel, is it. So their census is going out round the borders and seeing somewhere non Israel. Okay, we continue. They came to Dan. That's good.

That's in Israel. And from Dan they went round to Sidon, not Israel. That's in phoenicia. Came to the fortress of Tyre. Again.

Not Israel. It's in Phoenicia. And to all the cities of the Hivites and and then at the end of the verse, they move back into Israelite territory. What does all this mean? Well, if we put it together and we say we've got a king who wants to count his military personnel to know how strong his army is, and he wants to know where they are in relation to his own nation and at the borders and where the other nations are surrounding him.

It's not rocket science to see what's in his head, is it? He's wanting to strengthen his borders and possibly expand them in his own strength. And so what David is doing here, the reason this is a mistake, is that he's forgetting that it's God that gave him the kingdom. Remember, he was the one in the desert with no strength at all, and God is the one that raised him up to be the king. But here he's resting on his own strength and thinking, right, how can I solidify my kingdom?

How can I grow my kingdom? He's trusting in himself and he makes a dreadful mistake. Now, you may be asking about verse one you may still just have in your head, why does the Lord incite David? Maybe you had that question, maybe you didn't have that question, but let's think about that for a moment.

Can David say to the Lord, but you made me do it? That's a favourite excuse, isn't it? That's a favourite excuse. You made me do it. Is that what's going on?

Be a mistake for us to understand that what's happening is that the Lord has brought David into a position where he's tempted to do this thing, but he of his own free will, of his own he's willingly, voluntarily doing it. Lord's not coercing him. David's not saying, I really don't want to do this census, but you're forcing me. He's doing it because he wants to know his own strength. He wants his own kingdom on his own bat, if you like, but the Lord is tempting him because he wants to show Israel through all of these events that they need to rely on him.

So although they're both acting here, they're both working towards very different motives. Very different motives. So David is guilty and he has led his people wrong. So even in this first section, we can see, can't we, that the best human leaders make terrible mistakes. And I doubt that's news to us.

I don't think anybody here is thinking, I always thought there were lots of perfect leaders. If you thought that, you've never read a newspaper. And yet, although we say we know that we know that all people make mistakes, perhaps especially leaders. We don't always act like it, do we? We often act like the next leader, the next political power is going to be the thing, the person that's going to answer all our problems.

This happens, doesn't it, at every election time, when politicians stand up and they give out their manifestos and they say, these are the problems as I see it, I'm going to fix it for you, and we buy it, we fall into it every time. Every single time. We know we fall into this because otherwise we wouldn't be so upset that they don't succeed, would we think, oh, I really thought that they would do all of these things. They said they would. I'm so surprised they didn't.

Of course they didn't. We need more than just a human political leader. Incidentally, it's really interesting to me that Joab is the one that tells David joab is the one that tells David that he shouldn't do this. If you've been reading along with us, you'll know that Joab is an absolute thug and David's the goodie. So in this story, it absolutely flips around and the guy you would think was the baddie the whole way through says, David, what are you doing?

And David, who should be the goodie, leads people astray. The best leaders make mistakes. Well, in our next section, verses ten to 17, we see that the choices that are made affect people. They affect us.

They affect us. Last week, in chapter 23, we heard all about how the ruler who rules in the fear of the Lord, who rules righteously, would bring blessing to the people, would make the people thrive. And we hoped this was David. Yeah, he's the one to make everyone thrive. Is he going to be the sun that rises over the grass to make it flourish?

This is what a ruler is supposed to do. But no, what this ruler is doing is actually bringing negative consequences and harm to his own people.

David realises he's done wrong. Verse ten. David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the Lord, I've sinned greatly in what I've done, but now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I've done very foolishly. David knows he's done wrong, but there are still consequences.

There are still consequences for his actions.

The Lord says to Gad to go and tell him that there are three options he has to choose between. There are three options for consequences because he has sinned. He has made this mistake. A few years ago now, Emily and I decided that it was time to get a nice sofa. You'd sometimes get to that point, don't you, where sofas that people have been about to throw away are no longer good enough.

And we wanted something nice and fresh. And so we got 0% Finance on a nice big sofa. We thought well, in four years time, we'll have paid it off and it's going to be amazing. We had young children, of course, which is always a bit of a mistake with nice furniture, isn't it? Unless I should have left the plastic on before I'd even paid.

A couple of months, they'd already broken a couple of zips, got some stains on the cushions. But the consequence was I still was paying for it for several years. Actions have consequences, don't they? You can't just get out of it. I can't say, oh, I really should have waited till I didn't have children.

There were consequences and that's a trivial example, but the same thing holds true. See, David has said sorry, but actually he's still sinned and there's still a price to pay, there's still a consequence and that's going to come. And so God gives David the choice of three consequences, verse 13. And it's a terrible choice. Three years of famine, or three months that you're fleeing before your enemies, or three days pestilence in your land.

Which one would you like? It's a terrible choice, isn't it? A terrible choice, David? David chooses to cast himself on the Lord's mercy. It's the best choice there is to make there, isn't it?

But it's an absolutely devastating choice. In verse 15, we see that there died of the people, from Dan to Bearshiver. That's top to bottom, 70,000 men. That's absolutely devastating, isn't it? The severity of sin.

And here it comes. It reaches Jerusalem, verse 16. When the angel stretched out his hand towards Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the Calamity and said to the angel who was working, destruction among the people, it's enough now. Stay your hand.

The Lord wasn't done with Israel, he wasn't done with her. He wanted his people to be saved. But there were still these consequences that needed paying. So as we arrive at the end of this section, we're in a bit of a predicament, because if we can't just ignore consequences if they're serious, but at the same time God wants to save his people from it, what is he going to do? Seems like a rock and a hard place, doesn't it?

Is God going to brush something aside as if it's not serious? Or is he going to lose his people? This is the predicament it feels like we're in. How is this going to end?

David finally asks the Lord, actually, in verse 17, to take it upon himself. It's quite an amazing thing, isn't it? David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people and said, behold, I have sinned, I've done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my Father's house.

Finally, this is that shepherding that David should have been doing. I'll take it on me. Please, Lord, take it on me. Amazing turnaround from David. Really?

But can David take the people's punishment on himself.

Let's just pause there, because we stand in the same predicament that Israel did there, don't we? We are a people of unclean lips, a people who have sinned. And sin requires punishment. There's consequences that can't just be ignored, just brushed under the carpet. And yet we also have a God who's merciful, who wants to bring us to himself.

So how is he going to do this?

This is the tension at the end of verse 17.

But it's a tension that's amazingly resolved in our final section, verses 18 to 25. Because in verse 18, god once more sends Gad Gad's, the prophet God has been sending, and he sends him to David and says, Go and build an altar. Wonderful. Maybe you're saying to yourself, Why is that wonderful? We've just been seeing serious predicaments.

How does an altar help me?

Well, picture this. The angel of the Lord had been sent to devastate the land, and as he arrived to Jerusalem, it's as if the sword was hanging, ready to fall to make the final punishment. As that sword was about to fall, as like the guillotine, as you were, were about to be dropped, the Lord says, Stop. And instead of falling on Jerusalem, instead of falling where it should to punish the people, move that sword across and fall on this altar instead, there will be a sacrifice. Someone else will take that punishment.

And it's costly. It's costly because the consequences are real. David knows it's costly. So when a ravna says, actually, David, I will give you everything you need, david says, no, it's sacrifice costs money, it's me who will pay. So he pays the 50 shekels.

But those 50 shekels don't really pay the price for sin, do they? Actually, it will be the 30 shekels given to Judas eventually, that handed over Christ. That would finally be the sacrifice that would pay the price. Ultimately, sacrifice is costly and David isn't enough, even himself. He says, Bring it on me.

But he's got his own sin to pay for. Actually, we need one who is sinless, one who can come and be the ransom. Who's more than us, who's better than us, who can take all of it on himself? And this, of course, is Jesus. This is precisely what he says, isn't it?

Mark 1045. I came not to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom. Sort of ransom is, isn't it? I will pay it off. I give my life as a ransom for many, for me and for you.

I will lay on that altar, if you will, says Jesus, and that sword will fall on me.

This is who Jesus is. This is the leader that he is. This is why he's the leader that we need.

Jesus is wholly innocent. He's not just caught in the crossfire, he's not killed in the line of duty. Honourable and great those things are. But Jesus' actual duty was to die. Not just killed in the line of duty, but it was his duty to die.

And he knew that. And he still came. He still lay on that altar and let the sword fall on him for you and for me. So the consequences were paid, and God delivered a people for himself.

This is the hope we need. We don't just need a second Churchill, though God, of course, blesses us with great leaders and we pray for that, of course. But we need the leader of leaders, the one leaders can look to, the one who can pay the price of sin for you and for me. Because the world isn't as black and white, as goodies and baddies, is it? As we would like to see.

There's a temptation today to have goodies and baddies, isn't there? But actually, the problem of sin touches us all. And it's Jesus, the king, the one, the ruler who ruled from a cross that we need. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for sending your son.

Jesus. Thank you that you didn't leave us in the consequences of our sin, but that you sent a substitute that your Son offered himself as the ransom, that he came even though his duty was to die for us.

Thank you, Lord. Amen.