Divine Pardon

Sunday 23 July
READ: 2 Sam. 24: 1 - 24
MORE LESSON: 1 Jn. 1: 7 – 9

David was a young shepherd when the Lord picked him up and made him king. The Lord increased him and he waxed greater and greater till he became very great. One day, when David had become very mighty, he decided it was time to take a census of all the people in his kingdom so that he could have an idea of how great he had become. After he counted the people, the Lord was angry with him and the Lord gave him three punishments to choose from. Either the land faced seven years of famine, or he fell into the hands of his enemies for three months or the Lord struck the land with a plague for three days. All these three were disastrous but David had learnt a lesson in his relationship with God; he had learnt the depth of the mercy and compassion of the Lord. Therefore David said, ...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: 2 Sam 24:14.
It is important to have an understanding of the mercies of the Lord. God is full of compassion and forgiveness. Even if you have committed a blunder and you are suffering the consequence, there is mercy for you in God. When someone suffers because of the mistake he made, men may say that it serves him right but God looks at the blood of His Son and feels compassion. God is merciful; you can always run back to Him when you err.
David chose to be struck by plague from Heaven instead of famine or for his enemies to afflict him. As the angel of the Lord went around striking people dead, David went beseeching the Lord for mercy. Then the Lord told him to sacrifice an animal on an altar. The sacrifice of the seed of that land was what broke the siege of death. The Lord saw the blood and stayed the hand of the angel of death.
David understood the mercy of the Lord and the power of the seed, so the angel of death was stopped before he destroyed all the people of Israel. The blood of Jesus also has been shed as a seed for you and every plague, pestilence and death is stayed from you. The seed of the Blood breaks the siege of death. If the blood of an animal could appease God, how much more the blood of His Son. That lamb in any case is symbolic of the Lamb of God that took away the sins of the whole world. Verses 1 and 3 tell us it was the anger of God that moved David to do this evil, that even the counsel of his army commander could not stop him. However, by a single sacrifice God reverted the evil. In the same way we are sometimes moved into acts mysteriously, but the blood of Jesus is the antidote for all errors. By truth and mercy iniquity is purged (Prov. 16:6). Never argue or justify sin, rather truthfully seek for pardon by the blood of Jesus, and bounce back again.

Prayer/Action
* Pray that God will not use your enemy’s cain as a tool of discipline for you, in Jesus’ name.
* Pray that God’s mercy will never depart from you, in Jesus’ name.

TODAY’S PROPHETIC PRAYER
I prophesy never again to have repeated tragedy and evil patterns in my life, family, and church, in the mighty name of Jesus.