In I Chronicles 21, from verse 1, we see Satan at what he does best, which is to push people into what he knows will work against them. He is very knowledgeable about human emotions and can steer the unwary towards the unhappiest of endings. Usually they are unable to see things for what they truly are until it begins to hurt, cause damage, or wreck complete destruction.
Most of the time he begins by bringing those he can impact upon under a wrong belief system or mindset. Here David was intent on conducting a nationwide headcount. This he desired in order to measure the numerical strength of able-bodied men in Israel. Apparently, it was motivated by a lust for empire. God had strictly forbidden any census of His people but David was going to follow his mind nonetheless .
If anyone should have known better, it was David. God never needed a great army to win any great battle. This was how little David was able to kill the lofty Goliath. Even Jonathan, Saul’s son, understood this and said, “There is no restraint with God to save with many or a with a few”.
The question to then ask is, was David now fighting his own battles, or the Lord’s? It is no mere rhetorical question but one everyone in a position of responsibility in God’s service must ask himself or herself constantly.
We should never allow ourselves to forget whose work it is we are doing and whose role it is to determine its fate. We will be tempted here sorely. Satan knows it is very easy for that line between what is God’s and our own desire to be crossed. Also, we need to remember that we are constantly in battle, the ones we did not start, because those who take us on are in effect God’s own adversaries, first and foremost.They oppose us because they oppose Him. So, then, at what point should we usurp His place on the saddle and make everything about ourselves?
One of the lessons to underline in this passage is one fact playing out here: Nobody is right or wrong all the time. For once, Joab, David’s General, was right, possibly for the first time in all his life. He was a man who had been in error serially and had been responsible for the death of his comrades, including his own cousin, Amasa.
Now it was this same man who was seeing things the way they ought to be, serving as God’s voice of caution. Unfortunately, when the devil is firmly in control of a person’s mind, they rarely listen, akin to the mangy dog bent on heading the wrong way, instead of the pathway home.
We do well to remember that, a stopped clock is right twice each day. As leaders in the Lord’s work, we must learn to listen, especially when we are approached with the right spirit, and not with rebelliousness. For David, the scales would drop from his eyes only after the deed has been done. This follows the pattern: soberness comes after the harsh consequences are fully inscribed upon the wall.
