A Sermon by Rev Angus Smith
1 Chronicles 21:23. And Ornan said unto David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meat offering; I give it all.
We should like first of all to glance at the background to all this. Israel had sinned against God, and God was ready to punish Israel. He allowed Satan to tempt David to count all the warriors he had in Israel. He did not have to do that; he had conquered all the nations round about; he had built up an empire. But still David wanted to count all the men he had over the age of 20. The number of those counted was given him, and he had about twice as many warriors as Joshua when he entered Canaan many years before.
But there was a law in Israel that if the men over 20 were counted, half a shekel was to be given to the Lord for each of these men. David did not think about it; it was not the cause of the Lord that occupied his mind; it was his own pride and glory as the king of Israel: How many soldiers do I have? But God had permitted Satan to tempt him to do this, and David fell in with the temptation to be a great king. God was angry with the nation, and so God smote them because of David’s sin. And 70 000 of these men were killed by the plague. Just to make sure that the people knew that it was the Lord who had brought this punishment about, He commanded His angel to stop over Jerusalem with a drawn sword.
You know how the human heart is: a plague might come; many might die; and people talk about chance – as if God does not rule. There is Aids in the world, and they say, What does that have to do with God, with judgement, with sin? But all of these things have to do with God reigning in this world. He visits nations whether they recognise His hand in these visitations or not. He brings great nations down, and the blinded rulers of these nations may not understand what is taking place. They only think of economic matters – and of economic advancement. They do not think of spiritual good; they do not think of God’s blessing! But at this time, in Israel and Jerusalem, they all knew that the plague which killed these men was from God.
When the plague broke out, David went before the Lord and confessed that he was guilty, and that he and his family should be punished rather than the people of Israel at large. God commanded David to go to Ornan the Jebusite and ask Ornan for his threshing floor, the place where Abraham had
1Preached in Chesley, Ontario, on 15 October 2000, on the Sabbath evening of a communion season. The headings have been added.
gone up with his son Isaac many years before, up on Moriah, where the temple was later to be built. This man Ornan is elsewhere called the king of the Jebusites; he lived in the upper part of Jerusalem. When David became king, the Jebusites in that part were independent – they had not been conquered. They used to mock the Israelites, saying that the lame and the blind could keep out all their enemies. The rocks must have been difficult to scale. But David sent his own warriors up and they overcame the Jebusites, and the place became part of David’s kingdom.
Ornan was still king there. We have every reason to believe from what we read in this chapter that his heart had been conquered by the power of God, that he became a believer. In 2 Kings we read the same history and he is called Araunah. The man is still a farmer and threshe his corn, although he is a king. God told David to set up an altar on that threshing floor and sacrifice on it, and that the punishment would cease.
God was really guiding David to the place where the temple would later be built, the very place where the Jews and the Palestinians are fighting at this time, for a mosque is now on that very spot where the temple used to be. You see how God draws attention to the Jews; everybody is hearing something about the Jews, and the world cannot forget them. God has a purpose in all that, because one day the Jews will come back to God as a branch that was once broken off and will be restored. When they come back they will be a means of great blessing to the Church of Christ in the world.
We see David make his way to Ornan, who had been hiding with his four sons because he saw the angel with the drawn sword. But when Ornan saw David coming, he went out to David and made obeisance to him, because David was his king. David could have commanded the man to come to his palace, but he showed great humility in going to the man – that is the kind of thing that you would not normally associate with the kings of that area. But David was humbled in his heart and he went to meet Ornan. And he came in humility to meet David. You see the Jew and the Gentile meeting – and that is how it is in Christ – they meet in humility, they meet in Christ; they meet in the grace of God.
David and Ornan. David came to Ornan and to his threshing floor. In the threshing floor we have separation – the straw from the wheat, and then the ears from the chaff. It is just like the cross, where you have two thieves with Christ, one on the right hand and one on the left. It was a place of separation; they had been malefactors together – evil men together – but they were separated by Christ. One become a believer, and one perished as he was and went to a lost eternity. And wherever we have the gospel, there we have separation. Every time you hear the gospel you are choosing. O, you
say, I am not! Friend, you are. You cannot hear the gospel without, at the same time in your will, making choice of Christ or rejecting Him. It does not matter what people say, it is either one or the other.
Here we see Ornan making this statement, “I give it all”. David asked for the threshing floor; he was going to buy it, but you see the beautiful spirit of Ornan. He said to David, “Take it to thee. And let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes.” You see, Ornan wanted to promote the cause of the Lord as much as David did. He said, “Lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meat offering; I give it all”. See the beautiful spirit of this man: You need my threshing floor for the cause of the Lord, to raise up there an altar to God. Take it, I give it to you.
He says nothing about payment; he wants to give it. Not only so, he said, but take my threshing instruments to use them for burning on your altar, and take my oxen and sacrifice them on your altar; not only so, take the wheat – as a meat offering – that I was making ready for my family. When the blood was shed and the animal was offered up, the next offering would be a fellowship offering; part of it would be burnt on the altar, and the rest would be shared among the family, and they would eat together. The priests could eat with them and all those who were gathered together there, and God was eating in the sense that part of it was burnt on the altar. Cain came with a fellowship offering, but he forgot to come with blood, and without the blood God will not accept any offering. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. But Ornan said, “I give it all”: the threshing floor, the wood, the oxen, the wheat, all that I have here; I don’t hold anything back. How David must have been amazed at the beautiful spirit of that man, giving it all for the Lord’s cause!
David and Jonathan. This must have made David think about Jonathan, his great friend. David killed Goliath the giant; he had gone out by faith with a sling and stones. He slew Goliath, and the Philistines fled. When he came back, carrying the giant’s head, Jonathan in his soul loved David, because Jonathan himself had gone out by faith with his armour-bearer to meet a band of Philistines and overcame them. He recognised his own spirit and faith in David. That is how God’s people come to love each other – they see Christ in each other; they see faith in each other; they see the same principle in others as works in their own life. Therefore they are knit to each other; Jonathan in his soul was knit to David; he took off his princely robe and gave it to David. In effect he gave David all his glory as a prince – his place as a prince, in effect. It was as if he was giving David the kingdom.
That was in his heart; later on he spoke of David as having the kingdom
and being king – he gave it all. Jonathan that day in his heart said to David, I give it all. He would keep nothing back. And when this Jebusite king came in such humility, with such graciousness of heart to the Lord’s cause, David must have thought of Jonathan, whom he had known and who had died.
Since David had become a king, he began to fight the enemies of the kingdom. He never lost one battle, and every time he overcame the enemies, he would not keep any of the silver and gold he gathered. He laid it aside for the Lord’s cause, thinking of the temple that would be built one day, on that very threshing floor. The glory of the Lord meant everything to him; he desired God to have a house, a stone house instead of the tabernacle made of materials, like skins and linen, that they had taken out of the desert. David was giving it all; his heart did not dwell on these things, and you see he had the same spirit that Araunah had and that Jonathan had.
Abraham. He left for the land of Canaan in his seventies. He was an old man, and his wife was old; they could not have children. Yet at the age of 100 he had a son, Isaac. And God promised that through this son would come the Saviour, the Messiah; through this son, the whole earth was going to be blessed with the gospel. So Isaac was very precious. But God said to Abraham: “Take thy son, thine only son Isaac . . . and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of”. The Word of God tells us that Abraham sacrificed him in his heart. He became willing; he sacrificed him – he raised the knife over his bound son, who must have been close on 20, a man. And the son would have acquiesced in what was taking place, allowing himself to be bound. O the faith of Abraham and the faith of Isaac! Abraham raised the knife, and the angel of the covenant, the Lord Jesus, called out to him, not to bring his hand down on the lad. Yet in his heart he had given all. He believed the Lord would raise his son from the dead if this happened, but still he was made willing to give all. You see how grace can work.
The widow and her mites. During the ministry of the Lord Jesus He was in the temple, watching rich men coming in and putting their gifts into the treasury. These rich men gave a great deal. No doubt many of them would have liked to show what they were putting in before they let it fall in. But there came a poor widow, and she had two mites, just a quarter of a cent. And the Bible says that she threw these two mites in. She had nothing to display so that people might see what she was putting in, but the Lord Jesus saw it all; He saw their hearts and said that this widow woman had put in more than they all, because she has put in her whole living.
She had nothing left for food or drink, nothing to buy anything she needed. You see the spirit: I give it all. She was giving herself to the Lord. But what
was going to happen in the future? She left that in His hands. The Bible does not say that she recognised Christ, that she knew that the eye of the Saviour was upon her, but the eye of her God was upon her and it was He who could say of her that she gave it all.
The Lord Jesus. Let us go on to something even more wonderful and think of the Lord Jesus Himself. The God of Glory needed nothing; He had all glory. It could not be added to; He was totally happy and content. God is blessed, and the triune God had fellowship within Himself – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is love; where do we see that? In the companionship of three Persons who eternally have fellowship one with another in the Godhead. And the great fountain of all love is in God Himself.
Christ had all. But He came into this world; He took the nature of sinful man. Although He had no sin, it was our nature He took. There is only one human nature, and He took of that human nature which had fallen, but He was not a sinner – He was separate from sin, undefiled. He was God in the flesh. He could not sin, but He became the sacrifice, for He took the place of His people. The hell that belonged to them was, as it were, in a cup – the guilt of His elect laid upon Him. He took that cup and drank it, and no one but God Himself will ever understand the depths of suffering through which Christ went to save His people. We will never understand it except in a measure, but He gave Himself; He poured out His soul unto death.
He took the accursed death of the cross, for the implacable justice of God dealt with Him. Christ took upon Himself suffering which left all other suffering far behind. If you take all the suffering of hell and if you take all the suffering of this world, it was but a drop in the suffering of the Lord Jesus. He loved His own and He gave Himself for them; He said, I give it all. That is the gospel. That is what He says to those who trust Him as Saviour: I give it all. Because I loved you from all eternity, because the Father gave you to Me, because you are Mine in the eternal covenant, I give it all. Surely, friends, we should be found at His feet adoring Him, worshipping Him and setting our hope and trust in Him for eternity. But blinded man does not see this; he does not want to see it or understand it. But when the Holy Spirit begins to work in our hearts, we stand in awe. He gave it all. He poured Himself out to an accursed death in my room and stead.
God’s work in sinners’ hearts. The Apostle Paul became the slave of Christ; he could say, I give it all. He was willing to suffer and die, willing to go through anything for Christ. Why? Because he had gazed upon Christ and what Christ had done for him. And he said, “Who loved me, and gave Himself for me”. He could say, He gave it all; He kept nothing back; He drank the cup of damnation lovingly in my room and stead!
We can go beyond that to the sinner without Christ and without hope in the world. How does the Holy Spirit work in his heart? You see, we are all full of pride and, when we hear that we are sinners and need to be saved, the first reaction is, What will I do? I will make myself a good person; I will carry out good deeds. Foolish man says, I have good deeds and I have bad deeds, and if my good deeds will be more numerous than my bad deeds, I will get to heaven. But when we read the Word of God, we see that all is sin, sinful imagination. God says of a man who is outside Christ, who has no faith in Christ, that there is nothing good in him – from the sole of the feet to the crown of his head. Man is a fool who thinks by his good deeds to pay his passage to heaven – he cannot do it.
Ministers preach the gospel and say, You must stop depending on what you do; you must come as a broken, poor sinner to the feet of the Saviour; that is the only way. But man says, No, this is the way; I will do this, and I will do that; I will read the Word of God, and because of all my reading I will get to heaven; I will pray a lot, and because of all my praying I will get to heaven; I will attend the means of grace a lot, and because of all my attending I will get to heaven. Do you know that reading is meant to be a bridge? You are supposed to reach Christ though your reading. And prayer is a bridge; you are supposed to go across that bridge to Christ. And listening to a sermon is a bridge; you are supposed to go across it to Christ. You do not stop at the Word, at prayer and at listening to a sermon and say, Because of all my reading and praying and listening, I will get to heaven. You do not get to heaven that way. You are abusing the means of grace; it’s only a means to an end, and the end is Christ.
And what does God do? When He is dealing with a sinner, He breaks his pride, the fearful pride that is in the human heart; He has to destroy it. He has to make you a beggar; He has to make you come admitting you can do nothing to save yourself, saying, I have tried, I have failed. The poor sinner comes to the Lord and says, I know I am worthy of eternal destruction. He might say, Do with me as Thou wilt; I am in Thy hand. If Thou wilt put me to hell I can say nothing against Thee, because I am worthy of hell, but if Thou wilt save my soul, I will praise Thee for ever. And the man who has come to that place is a saved man, because he has been renewed in his will. He is now saying, Thy will be done – not my will be done, but Thy will be done. Do with me as Thou desirest. Whether he realises it at the time or not, the Holy Spirit has renewed him in his will.
Faith comes when a man is made empty before the fullness of the Saviour; he says, I give it all. He gives up the fight against God, and all false ways of salvation; he says, I desire to belong to Thee; I desire to be Thine for ever.
I desire my will, my heart, my soul, my body to belong to Thee; I desire all that I have to be Thine; I give it all. That is what grace does; that is what the Holy Spirit does. And where are we tonight? How are we in our own wills, in our hearts, in our minds? Have we been made a willing people in a day of His power, or not?
Giving all? Are we temporising, giving a little here and there? No, that will not do. Unless we are totally willing to follow the Lord, nothing else will do. George Whitefield was preaching over on this continent and spoke to a barber about his soul. The barber just said to him: “I’m all right; I’m doing my best. I’m doing my best, and what can you do better than your best?” So, Whitefield went to his barber shop and there he was cutting someone’s hair. Whitefield got up and went to the vacant chair and called the next customer to come and sit there. Then the barber turned and asked, “What are you doing?” Whitefield said, “I’m going to cut this man’s hair”. “But can you give a haircut?” “I don’t know,” he said, but I am going to do my best.” The barber answered, “Your best is not good enough for me”. Whitefield said, “Neither is your best good enough for God”.
People say, I’m doing my best, and what do they mean by that? They mean they are going according to their conscience. But the man who is not saved has a sinful, fallen conscience. The man who is saved says, I seek to go according to the Word of God. The Word of God comes before conscience; it is what God says. But there are various kinds of conscience in the world. There have been cannibals who would kill their fellow men and eat them, and their conscience praised them for that. The Roman Catholic Church has taught that you can kill men to promote the Church, and this has been done time and time again – that was according to their conscience. Protestants were massacred in France, Holland, Ireland and many other places to promote the Church.
In any case, nobody in this world has ever acted according to his conscience. Everyone’s conscience condemns him for many things he has done. So you will never be saved by saying, I do my best; I go according to my conscience. Your conscience has to be Bible-centred; it has to be centred on the will of God. You have to be changed in your heart; you have to be able to say, I give it all. Yes, the adulterer, the Sabbath breaker, the thief, the murderer, the liar – whatever a man may be, whatever sins he loves – must be changed Godward; he must be brought to say, I give it all.
Do you give all? The Lord says, “Son [and daughter], give Me thine heart”. If He has my heart, He has my all. He says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” – thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all. You
must be centred on Him – you must become nothing and He must become everything. Ornan said before David: “I give it all”. He wasn’t just giving to David, he was giving to God; he was giving to the God in whom he now believed. Can you say, I give it all? Or do you still say, I cannot; I cannot give my heart to Christ; not yet, but maybe sometime in the future. And maybe you say, When I go home, I’ll think it all through. When I go back to my house, I’ll go on my knees and I’ll pray about it. Why do you say that? Because you have not been made willing. You see, when God makes you willing, you do not say, When I get home. You do not say, Later on I’ll do this. You do not say, As soon as I enter my bedroom tonight, I’ll get on my knees and pray about it all. That is not, I give it all.
You are not in the right place. When God works, He says, Today. When God works, He says, Now. When He speaks to you and to me, He calls this “the appointed time”. He has the authority to demand, of you and of me, that we give all – that we give all in our hearts now, when we are before Him. The devil will say, Now, take it easy; don’t hurry; it’s not something to be hurried through, you know; take it easy; think it all through; wait until you get home. And he gives you more and more arguments. And why? Because he is out to get you all, to have you body and soul in a lost eternity. My dear friend without Christ tonight, where are you going to spend eternity? You are with people tonight who have said already to the Saviour, I give it all. Imagine being among them, sitting beside them now, and yet one day being in a lost eternity without any hope of remedy and remembering that you were among people who gave all to Christ.
So Ornan gave it all. He gave the threshing floor to David, and David built the altar, an altar probably of stone. He offered up the sacrifice, and God answered. He caused fire from heaven to burn up the sacrifice to indicate that He was satisfied. But God is only satisfied when He looks upon Christ, and all of these things were pointing to Christ. He is the altar; He is the sacrifice; He is the priest; He is salvation.
Has the power of God come into your own life? When it does, you do not feel strong; it makes you weak and helpless and needy. O friends, take these words with you: I give it all. I beg you, think of these words. Do not let them go. The devil, as a fowl of the air, would take the seed out of the very heart. That’s what Christ says about him: he would take the seed out of the heart. That is, if the Word of God has influenced you, the devil brings in something else to prevent any more influence: maybe he brings in foolish talk, maybe foolish thoughts, maybe companions. Then the thoughts go, and you forget them and you wonder what the text was. But the text was, “I give it all”. Take it with you; take it with you for all eternity.