Devotional - July 15, 2004

Most of us see no problem in counting the number of men and women in our armed forces, but David opened up a can of worms when he told his commander to go count the army of Israel. God was not pleased and neither was Joab, his captain. But, even though he knew it was the wrong thing to do, David persisted. But, what harm was there in knowing how many men were able to go to war?

To answer this question, it's important to realize what makes an army great. If it were a normal confrontation, one might say the army with the most men and biggest weapons wins. But in spiritual warfare, you can throw out those rules and recognize that God doesn't need a single man to win the battles he fights, let alone a big army. In fact, since God is jealous and deserves all the glory, the power and might of a big army might be more of a distraction than an enhancement.

Also, note the fact that it was Satan who conspired with David to take the census in the first place. I remember Jesus' words to those who thought his ministry was helping Satan. He told them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined." He was saying that Satan is not going to help God and God may use Satan, but he'll never have have the same goal as Satan. In other words, if you're choosing teams, Jesus and Satan will not be on the same team (Re: Mt 12:25).

Now you know the problem with David's action, do you know how you may be committing the same sin as David? You most likely will not count your army, but you can count the number of people to whom you've witnessed or seen saved. You can also count the number of people baptized in your church or add up the total amount of pledges made toward a building program. You can count up how much money is required to keep your ministry afloat and beg people to contribute. There's not much difference in any of these things!

David watched as over seventy thousand of his people were slaughtered by the angel of God because his erred. In fact, had not God stayed the angel's hand, the holy city would have been destroyed next. Instead, David was told to construct a sanctuary in the very place where so many died for his mistake.

When we limit God, we may be setting into motion a series of events whereby many people other than ourselves will suffer. I wonder how many people in our church congregations suffer because of the arrogance of a leader who uses his own ability to fight a spiritual war and then, like David expects God to overlook his mistake?

1 Developed from Read the Bible Thru ( 1 Ch. 19:1-21:30 Rm. 2:24-3:8 Ps. 11:1-7 Pr. 19:10-12 )
2. Scripture comes from the Holy Bible, New International Version; (c)1978 by New York International Bible Society