Sheryl Brady - I'm About to Worship, and the Fire is About to Fall

Thank you, and please turn to First Chronicles chapter 19. It’s a fairly familiar passage of scripture, but it has been on my heart, and I want to revisit it today. I’m going to skip around a little because I really want you to have the whole story, and I don’t know if I can trust you to go home and read it. I know I can trust our faithful people to go home and read it, amen? Amen! Y’all signed up for discipleship. If you haven’t, you should, because it will change your life. I want you to take the story I’m going to discuss today and commit to going home and reading it through, because I will be skipping around. I will begin with the first verse. If you haven’t, say amen. And Satan stood up against Israel, and he provoked David to number Israel. David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, «Number Israel from Beersheba even to today and bring the number of them to me that I may know it.» He was curious about all the men fighting on his team. Then, going on to verse 7, God was not happy about that, so God was displeased with this thing; therefore, He struck Israel. So, Satan stood up against them, provoking their leader. Now God is angry about it, and He has struck Israel. David said to God, «I have sinned greatly.» This is what I always love about David—he knows how to quickly repent. If you don’t know how to repent quickly, you need to start practicing that. I know you probably don’t do anything to repent over, but every now and then when we mess up, it’s a good time to just say, «Lord, I’m sorry. I should have never done that.» David said to God, «I have sinned greatly because I have done this thing. But now I beseech Thee to take away the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have done very foolishly.» Then the Lord spoke to God’s Seer, or David’s Pastor, saying to him, «Go and tell David, saying, 'Thus says the Lord: I offer you three things; choose one of them, and I may do it unto you.'» Down there in verse 12, He said, «You can have three years of famine. This is your punishment, David, for messing up. You can have three years of famine, or you can have three months to be destroyed before your foes, with the sword of your enemies overtaking you, or else three days with the sword of the Lord, even the pestilence of the land.» He’s pretty angry right here and is letting David have it. Then David turns and says in verse 13 to God, «I am in a great strait. If I must pick between all of that, let me fall into the hands of the Lord.» You know what? I would do the very same thing because at least we know that the Lord is merciful. You don’t know about all these other options. David said, «Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for very great are His mercies. But let me not fall into the hand of man,» because that’s not where you want to be when you’ve messed up. So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. My God! I’m going to go down to verse 17. After he saw so many men falling, David said to God, «Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? Even I, it is that have sinned and done evil indeed. But as for these sheep, what have they done? Let Thy hand, I pray Thee.» I love this right here because David has now started leading us in intercession. Do you all see that? He messed up, but then he starts praying for the people. He said, «O Lord my God, let Your hand be on me and my father’s house, but not on the people, that they should be plagued.» The angel of the Lord commanded God to say to David that he should go up and set up an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. David went up at the saying of God, which he spoke in the name of the Lord. I’m going to read a little more of that to you later, but I want to skip down here to verse 26. God taught him to go to the threshing floor, and he went and purchased it. The Bible said that David built there an altar because when you mess up, that’s one of the first things you need to build—an altar. So David built an altar unto the Lord, and at that altar he offered burnt offerings, he offered peace offerings, and there he called on the name of the Lord, and He answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offerings. Turn to your neighbor on the right and say, «Neighbor, I’m about to worship, and the fire is about to fall.» Together, say, «Neighbor, I am about to worship, and the fire is about to fall.» Spirit of God, I love You, and I thank You. I thank You for Your mercies that are new every morning. Thank you.