The Scarlet Line in the Window

The Scarlet Line in the Window

(No. 3168)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1909.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"She bound the scarlet line in the window." Joshua 2:21.

EVERY little incident in a remarkable conversion like that of the
harlot Rahab is worthy of notice. The Apostle James selected her as an
illustration of the fact that faith is always attended by good works,
and he asks, "Was she not justified by works when she had received the
messengers?" while Paul quotes her as an instance of justification by
faith, and says, "By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that
believed not." If both these eminent Apostles found an illustration of
an important Doctrine in her life, we may surely do the same. If the
hiding of the spies under the flax had some significance, so also had
the hanging out of the scarlet line.

The two spies whom Rahab had concealed made an agreement with her that
she should hang out a scarlet line in the window by which she had let
them down, that they might know, in the day of battle, the house in
which she dwelt. She fulfilled their request and displayed the chosen
emblem. In connection with that scarlet line, I observe four things.

I. First, I see here AN OBEDIENT BELIEVER.

She was told to tie the scarlet thread in the window and she did
it–there was exact obedience. It was not merely a thread, a line, but
the scarlet line. She did not substitute a blue, or a green, or a white
line. The order was this scarlet line, not another, and she took that
particular one. Obedience to God will be very much seen in small
matters. Love always delights to attend to the little things and
thereby makes the little things great. I have heard of a Puritan who
was charged with being too precise, but his answer was excellent, "I
serve a precise God." The Lord our God is a jealous God and He is very
jealous of His commands. It appeared a little mistake that Moses made
when he struck the rock instead of speaking to it, and yet he could not
enter into the promised rest because of his offense! A small action may
involve a great principle and it is for us to be very cautious and
careful, searching out what the Master's will is, and then never
halting or hesitating for any reason whatever, but doing His will as
soon as we know it. Christian life should be a mosaic of minute
obediences. The soldiers of Christ should be famous for their exact
discipline.

I commend scrupulous obedience to all of you and especially to those
young people who have lately made a profession of their faith in
Christ. Do not be as your fathers were, for the generation which is now
going off the stage neither reads its Bible nor cares to know the
Lord's will. If people searched the Scriptures, we would find them come
together in union–but the least-read book in all the world, in
proportion to its circulation, is the Word of God. It is distributed
everywhere, but it is scarcely read anywhere with care and
attention–and with a sincere resolve to follow its precepts at all
hazards. You come and listen to us and we give you little bits taken
from it here and there, but you do not get a fair notion of it as a
whole. How can you? Ministers make mistakes and you follow them without
enquiry. One elects this leader, and another that, to the creation of
varieties of opinions and even of sects which ought not to be–and
would not be if all stood fast by the standard of the Inspired Truth of
God. If the Bible were but read and prayed over, many errors would die
a speedy death and others would be sorely crippled. Had that Inspired
Book been read in the past, many errors would never have arisen!
Search, then, the Book of God, I pray you–and whatever you find there,
be sure to attend to it! At all costs, keep to the Word of God.

Notice, next, that hers was obedience in a very small matter. She might
have said, "I do not think it is essential to tie a piece of line in my
window. Can I not be preserved just as well without it, seeing that I
believe in the God of Israel? I have faith and I have shown it by my
works by hiding the spies–you cannot suppose for a moment that I shall
perish simply because I have not complied with a regulation about a
scarlet line!" In this way many, nowadays, enquire whether

they may not omit those duties which they consider to be non-essential
to salvation. Now this is a question which I never intend to answer for
anybody else because I never intend to ask it on my own account!
Whether or not a Believer will perish because some known duty or
Scriptural ordinance is neglected, is a question which only selfishness
would raise! Are we only to do that which will procure our progress, or
secure our salvation? Are we so grossly selfish as that? Does a loving
child say, "If I refuse to do my father's will, shall I not still be my
father's child? Shall I not still be fed and clothed by him?" Only an
evil child would talk thus! The true son enquires, "What would my
father have me do? I will do it cheerfully for his sake. What does my
father forbid? For what he forbids shall be hateful to me." Rise above
all questions concerning essential and non-essential and learn to obey
in all things–if it is only tying a scarlet thread in the window, or
washing in water, do as you are bid–and in nothing rebel against the
Word of the Lord!

Remember, too, that this small matter of obedience, as some call it,
had an important symbolical significance. I am not sure that the spies
meant by it that the scarlet thread would be the same to Rahab as the
blood on the lintel and on the two side posts had been to Israel in
Egypt, but it does strike me as being very probable. Those two men were
so acquainted with the Passover, the sprinkling of the blood and the
consequent preservation of all in this house, that it was very natural
that they should give Rahab a sign akin to the token which God had
ordained for His people Israel when His angel passed them by in the day
of doom. Therefore, trifling as the color of the cord might seem, it
had a deep significance–and even so the commands of God, which are
little in themselves–are great in symbolic teaching. Great errors have
come into the Christian Church by the alteration of simple points in
God's commands and, therefore, since a little thing in the sign may
involve a great thing in the substance, it becomes us to cultivate
exact obedience!

"Oh," says one, "but I fear we shall always be in error." Assuredly we
shall unless we endeavor to avoid it! Unless we give abundant attention
to the Word of God, we shall fall into mistakes beyond number! Errors
are unavoidable if we do not study our perfect Chart, even as it is
certain that a man will lose his way if he never enquires about it. At
any rate, we need not rush into mistakes by omitting to use our
judgment and to inform our understanding. Ask the Lord to teach you by
His Holy Spirit and you will not be taught wrongly. Commit yourself to
His instruction and be willing to do what He teaches you–and you will
not go amiss.

This woman's obedience also arose out of real faith and was the
exponent of that faith, for when she tied the scarlet line in the
window, she expressed her confidence in the fact that Jericho would be
destroyed and that she would be saved because she had received a
promise to that effect. She would not have hidden the spies if she had
not believed in their God! And after having done so, if her faith had
failed her, she would not have complied with the Covenant requirement
to hang the scarlet line in the window. Beloved, obey in faith! The
obedience of the slave is worth little. The obedience of the child is
precious, for it is the fruit of love. That keeping of God's Commands
which comes of slavish fear lacks the very heart of obedience, for love
is absent, but, as God's dear children, resting alone in Jesus and
confiding in your Father's promise, feel that because you believe you
must obey, not because you dread Hell or expect to win Heaven through
any works of your own–but because you have believed in Jesus to the
salvation of your soul and, therefore, it is your joy to do His
bidding.

Thus I have enlarged upon the first point of the text, that in the
hanging out of the scarlet line, I discern an obedient Believer.

II. Now, secondly, I see here AN APPROPRIATED COVENANT.

These men had made a covenant with her that she would have her life
spared, and the lives of her family, if she concealed their secret and
if she tied a scarlet line in the window. As she tied up that line she
did, as it were, say, "I claim the covenant that you have made with
me." Beloved, let us speak about this for a moment, for we need more
and more to be able to appropriate Covenant blessings. How do we
appropriate Jesus? By simple faith. Faith is the hand which touches the
head of the Great Sacrifice and lays sin upon it, that sin may no
longer lie upon the sinner. Faith grasps Jesus as the Bread of Life and
makes that Bread to be our own, that we may feed upon it and may live
forever. Thus the grand thing for appropriating Christ is to obtain
faith and to gain more and more faith. Do you remember when you first
tied a scarlet line in your window and said, "Christ is mine"? I
remember the very hour and the precise spot, but many cannot tell the
moment or the occasion–nor need they agitate themselves about it if
they still continue to tie that line in its place! Still, you do
remember that there was such a time when you could say, "Jesus is
mine." You apprehended Christ because He had apprehended you. If such
an hour as that has never come to you, may it come even now! Jesus
Christ can save you,

but He must be appropriated, or He will be no Savior to you. Remember
that God the Holy Spirit, Himself, though He is the Author of faith,
cannot believe for you–you must personally believe for yourself.

Certain persons talk very much of repentance as the gift of the Holy
Spirit–their witness would be true if they would not exaggerate it so
as to leave the impression on men's minds that the Holy Spirit repents
and that the sinner has little or nothing to do with it, for that is
not true! It is clear that the Holy Spirit has nothing to repent
of–repentance is an act of the repenting sinner's own soul–and faith
a personal exercise of the heart, "for with the heart man believes unto
righteousness." If we do not, ourselves, repent and believe, Christ is
not ours and we are none of His and neither shall we obtain any benefit
from His life and death. Tie the scarlet line in your window, for it
will not be tied there for you–you must do it with your own hands. And
I do pray that even now you may have boldness through Christ to say,
"Yes, Jesus shall be mine. I dare with humble confidence to appropriate
Him for myself, since He is given freely to poor needy sinners–and I
am such a sinner."

Faith is the first and grandest way of tying the scarlet line in the
window, but let your faith follow on in the use of the ordinances and
means of Grace, for these assist her in laying hold upon Jesus. I have
often found it most blessed to sit at the Communion Table and feel,
while I ate the bread and drank the wine, that faith was in active
exercise, so that I said to myself, "Yes, as certainly as this bread is
put into my mouth and goes into my bodily system, so as to become a
part of myself, so that nobody can ever take it away–even so I have by
faith believed on and received into my soul the Incarnate God and in
that way He has become mine so that none can separate Him from me, or
me from Him." The ordinance itself will not give you Christ, but often
does the symbol blessedly enable the soul to realize Jesus and
contemplate Him so as to partake of Him. In that draught of wine, so
typical of His blood, how often has our soul said, "I rest entirely
upon the Redeemer's bloody Sacrifice. His substitutionary pangs, griefs
and merits are all my trust before God and I receive them as my sole
reliance for the remission of sin, and take them into my very self,
just as I drink of this cup and thereby the juice of the vine courses
through my veins." Continue, Beloved Friends, thus to appropriate Jesus
Christ and let every communion season be a tying of the scarlet line
afresh in the window!

Let your whole life be a course of action correspondent to the belief
that Christ is yours. I am afraid many Believers live as though Jesus
Christ did not belong to them at all, nor yet the blessings of the
Covenant. Do you think that we would be so desponding when we have
losses in business if we really believed that all things are ours? And
if we had tied the scarlet line in the window and appropriated all
things as ours in Christ? Do you think we would be so soon flustered
and made to doubt whether we are saved or not in times of temptation,
if our faith took a firm grip of Christ and tied the scarlet line in
the window fast and firm by claiming the Covenant of Grace as ours?
Beloved, some of you have only appropriated a part of Christ! You
believe you are pardoned, but you scarcely know that you are justified!
You are justified and covered with His righteousness, but you have not
laid hold upon the sanctification which Jesus gives you. You have a
measure of Grace, but you have not yet believed that Christ can
sanctify you wholly–spirit, soul and body. We are stinted and stunted,
lean and lethargic because of our failure to grasp with holy confidence
the Infinite Treasure which is stored up in our all-sufficient Lord! He
is ours and all things are ours in Him! "According to your faith be it
unto you," is the rule of that great house over which Christ presides.
This woman took the covenant which she had made with these men to be
hers and showed that she did so by tying the scarlet line in the
window. The Covenant of Grace was made with her and she knew it–and
believed it, in like manner! O Brothers and Sisters in Christ, by a
living faith grasp the promises of God and claim them as your own!

Here let me also say, let us do this by displaying a corresponding
restfulness. After Rahab had tied the line in her window, we do not
read that she did anything else except bring her father, her mother and
her brethren under her roof. She did not make preparations to defend
the house against the siege. There is no notification that she appealed
to the king to have a special guard to protect that part of the wall. I
do not believe that she had a solitary fear, or a moment's terror–the
scarlet line was in the window and she felt secure! She had
appropriated the promise and she believed it would not be broken. It is
a high privilege to dwell peaceably and quietly in the finished work of
Christ–and in the sure Immutable promise of God, who cannot lie. Why
fret yourselves and question yourselves, and go about with a thousand
anxieties when salvation's work was finished on the accursed tree and
Christ has gone into Glory and has carried His perfect work before His
Father's face? Why mourn and suspect your safety when the Lord has
raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Him? We who have believed enter into rest! The peace of God is ours, so
let us, by our resting, show that we have tied the scarlet line in our
window, have claimed the finished work of Christ and, therefore, rest
henceforth from our own works as God did from His!

III. Thirdly, I see here AN OPEN DECLARATION.

Rahab tied the scarlet line, not in some secret part of the house, but
in the window. It was her public declaration of faith. I do not say
that everybody understood what she meant by that–only those understood
it who were in the secret with her–and that sufficed. She hung out the
red signal from the window where it could be seen by those who needed
to see it. It was not that she was ostentatious and wished to attract
attention–but she was bound to make a public sign and she did it. Now,
some of you believe in my Lord Jesus and yet you have never united with
His people. You are resting in Him, but you are mightily afraid that
anybody should know it. Be not ashamed of Jesus! The wonder is that He
is not ashamed of you! If He was not ashamed to take upon Him your
nature and die for you, you need never blush to acknowledge His name!
Come forward, you trembling ones! Tie the scarlet line in your window
and say, "We are His, and we confess it."

Let it be a scarlet line that you tie in the window, however–namely an
avowal of true faith in His precious blood, a declaration of confidence
in atonement by blood–for there are some who profess a sort of faith,
but it is not faith in the Substitution of Christ. It is unfashionable,
nowadays, to believe in the old Doctrine of Atonement. Modern "culture"
has expunged it, or altered it in such a way that no real Atonement is
left. There are many who are too advanced to avow the old-fashioned
Gospel, but as for us, we tie forever the scarlet line in our window
and stand by the Truth once delivered to the saints! Our declaration of
faith is that we believe in the real and literal Substitution of Christ
who died, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." In
the midst of a thousand new gospels–none of them worth the breath that
utters them–we hold to that ancient Gospel of the Prophet Isaiah, "the
chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are
healed." Beloved Believer, if the Doctrine of the Sacrifice of Jesus
Christ and His substitutio-nary Atonement is your hope, acknowledge it!
Acknowledge it boldly and let there be no mistake about it in these
evil times! Tie the scarlet line in your window and if nobody else will
see it, your Brothers and Sisters will and be encouraged. If nobody
else will be pleased with it, your God will smile upon you and you will
be a sweet savor unto Him. No man that I know of saw the blood upon the
lintel and the two side posts, at the dead of night, in the land of
Egypt, for there were none abroad to look upon it–but God saw it, and
it is written–"When I see the blood, I will pass over you." When God
sees our simple confidence in His dear Son and perceives us resting
upon His Word without the admixture of human reason and opinion, then,
Beloved, He will accept us in the Beloved and our house shall stand
when others fall!

Every Christian ought to make his faith in the precious blood visible
in many ways. It ought to be manifest in our common conversation. If we
are resting in the blood of Jesus, we ought not to be able to talk a
quarter of an hour without thoughtful persons perceiving that we are
followers of Jesus. I have heard of a man who was so entertaining and
instructive in his conversation that it was said that you could not
stand under an archway for five minutes with him, to get out of the
rain, without learning something from him. Every Christian ought to be
of this sort in a higher style–so that you cannot be with him many
minutes without perceiving him to be a man of God. Of course in the
Church of Christ, the Christian ought to hang a scarlet line out of his
door at once and let his fellow worshippers see that he is decided and
resolute for the Lord, his God–and he ought to do the same in his
business. Customers should soon see that in your shop the common tricks
of the trade are detested! The scarlet line is over this door. In the
house, the mistress in the management of her servants, the master as a
husband and as a father should be known to be better than others. There
is a certain sect of people called, "the peculiar people." I wish we
were all peculiar people in this respect, that the blood mark set us
apart as not our own, but bought with a price! The Lord grant that it
may be so with us!

IV. The last point is this. Here was A DEDICATED HOUSE–a house with a
scarlet line in its window.

Coming here, the other afternoon, and walking down one of the back
streets, I amused myself by observing how many houses were insured. I
noticed the marks of the different Insurance Companies. There was the
sun on one, with his bright face looking down upon us, as much as to
say, "There shall be no loss here." The globe, the star, the
Phoenix–all were there as seals of safety. Now there was only one
house in Jericho that was insured–and that had for its symbol and mark
of insurance a scarlet line tied in the window! What a mercy it is when
houses are insured by the Grace of God and dedicated to the Lord–the
very houses and much more–the inhabitants of those houses! How can you
dedicate a house? I was reading, the other day, that in Cromwell's time
you could go down Cheapside at a certain hour in the morn-

ing and you would see the blinds down at every house and hear the
families singing, all the way along, "for," says an old Divine, "in
those days, a drawn blind was the scarlet line in the window." People
knew, as they passed along, that there was an altar erected to God in
that house. I am afraid that there are a great many streets in our
towns and cities which you might traverse at any hour of the day and
not discover a solitary sign of family prayer going on. The practice
has gone out of fashion even among many who profess to be the people of
God–and farewell to any progress in godliness till we bring it back
again!

I believe that when the house and the Church pull together, things are
right. But when religion is made to be a thing of the Church and not of
the house–when the priest is looked to instead of the father, when men
cease to be priests in their own houses–then the very sinews of vital
godliness have been cut. If I had to give up all weekday services and
shut up every place of worship in Christendom from Sunday to Sunday, I
would prefer to do that rather than lose the morning and evening
gatherings of devout households worshipping God! How much Scotland owes
to her family devotions! You need not that I remind you of "The
Cotter's Saturday Night." It is the very glory of that country that
they worship God in their houses. "There is much formality about it,"
cries one! Well, was there ever anything good which did not degenerate
here and there? But I have witnessed, full many a time, the hearty
devotion of morning and evening prayer in the North. I wonder how many
houses represented by you come up to Matthew Henry's third standard. He
says, "Those who pray, do well." You get up to that, I hope. "Those
that read the Scriptures and pray, do better. Those that read the
Scriptures and pray and sing, do best of all." I think so. This is the
scarlet line with the threefold cord to it, and I would that every
house hung out that scarlet line as meaning, "This house belongs to
King Jesus. The devil need not trouble himself to come here, for the
strong man armed keeps his goods in peace."

The beauty of it was that all inside Rahab's house were saved. "Come
in, dear Mother," she said. Who among us could bear the thought of our
mother being lost? It breaks our hearts to think of such a thing! My
mother lost? Oh, no, that must not be! And your father lost? Oh, have
you an unconverted father? I beseech you, give no slumber to your
eyelids till you have done all you can to set before him the way of
peace and have pleaded for him before God with sighs and tears! And
then she said, "Come in, dear brothers and sisters." I delight in Rahab
for loving her household. If you have brothers and sisters who are not
yet under the scarlet line, pray to God to bring them in that all your
house may be dedicated to the Most High and, without exception, all may
dwell beneath the blessed blood red token which Infallibly preserves
all who are sheltered beneath it!

I leave this point to notice that there are other things besides family
prayer which should be like the scarlet line in the house. For
instance, there should be in every Christian house a scarlet line put
up in the selecting of the company that is kept. The Christian should
carefully select his friends and associates. He should say, "He that
tells lies shall not tarry in my sight." As for the drunkard, the
swearer and those who use unchaste language, let them be what they
may–they shall not visit within our doors–we will not tolerate them!
If we are masters of our household, we try to find our children friends
whom we should like to be their companions in eternity. Some parents
introduce their children to young men and young women who happen to be
"very respectable," as they say, but who are worldly and ungodly–and
thus they do much to ruin them! It should not be so. Hang the scarlet
line over the door and if they do not love that scarlet line, religious
conversation will before long make the place too hot for them! If you
talk much of Jesus, the frivolous will consider that they have notice
to leave and stay away!

A Christian's house should have a scarlet line over its reading. I
confess to great sorrow whenever I see in a Christian's house, commonly
laid about for the use of the girls, that dreadful rubbishing yellow
stuff which pollutes every railway bookstall–much of it downright
ungodliness and the best of it abominable nonsense–the reading of
which is a sheer waste of time! When there are thousands of good and
interesting books to be read, it seems a pity that Christian people
should give their time to reading trash which cannot profit them. Let
the asses have their thistles, I never grudge them! And so I will not
say that worldlings should not read such books–they suit them–let
them have them. I have never murmured at a farmer when I have seen him
going along with his great mash of all manner of garbage to give to his
hogs–as long as he did not give me a basin of it for dinner, I was
satisfied to let the swine have their food! And there are a great many
romances and a vast mass of literature which it is vain to deny to
ungodly people, for it is after their nature. But as for us, let us
have none of it! I should as soon expect to see the archangel Gabriel
feeding out of a hog's trough, as

to see one who is a joint-heir with Christ finding his pleasure in
books that are half lewd and the other half absurd. Hang a scarlet line
over your library door as well as everywhere else!

So let it be with all amusements. There are some amusements that we
cannot say are absolutely bad in themselves, but they lead to evil.
They go up to the edge of the precipice–and there are many who only
need to get so far and they are sure to fall over. Besides, they make
the Christian so like the worldling that nobody could tell which is
which! Now, tie the scarlet line up! I would do so even as to what
pictures I would hang up in my house. I am often sad to see, especially
in the houses of the poor–Roman Catholic pictures exhibited on the
walls because they happen to be rather pretty and very cheap. Popish
publishers have very cleverly managed to get up pictures of the Virgin
and the lying fable of her assumption to Heaven and all sorts of
legends of saints. And being brightly colored and sold very much under
cost, these vile things have been introduced into thousands of houses.
I have seen to my horror a picture of God the Father represented as an
old man–a conception almost too hideous to mention–yet the picture is
hung up in the cottages of England! Whereas the Lord has declared that
we should make no image of Him, or represent Him in any way–and even
the attempt is blasphemous! If you have a bad picture, no matter how
good a work of art it is, burn it! And if you have a bad book, no
matter how much it may be worth, do not sell it for somebody else to
read–tear it in pieces!

Let the Christian hang up the scarlet line and make certain that nobody
shall be debauched in mind or body by anything that he tolerates in his
house! I may seem to be too severe, but if my Master were to speak out
of Heaven, He would not rebuke that as a sin on my part–rather He
would say that we need to be much more precise and decided about evil
things.

Well, you shall do what you please–you have your own liberty–but, "as
for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," and the blood red line
shall be in my window! My father's father, do I not remember how, when
I was a child, I used to hear his prayers for my father and for me?
Well do I remember my father's conversion in answer to my grandfather's
prayers. And my father, can I ever forget how he wrestled for us at the
Mercy Seat and God forbid it should happen that in my son's house, in
years to come, there should be no altar to my God! I would sooner be
without a tent for myself than without an altar for the Lord! Wherever
we are, we must hang up the scarlet line! We cannot expect a blessing
if we do not. Of course I am not speaking to those who are not fathers
or heads of households. If they are servants, they cannot help what is
done in the house. If they are underlings who have not the power, they
cannot arrange as they would. But I am speaking to those who fear the
Lord and can do it. Do, Beloved, dedicate your house to God from the
attic to the cellar. Let there be nothing even in the cellar which you
would be ashamed for Jesus Christ to see. Let there be nothing about
the house but what shall be so ordered that if your Lord should come,
you could open your door and say, "Come and welcome, Master! There is
nothing here that Your servant desires to conceal."

Believe in Jesus, O you who know Him not! And you who know Him,
practice what you know. And God bless you!

Amen and Amen.–Adapted from The C. H. Spurgeon Collection, Version
1.0, Ages Software, 1.800.297.4307.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 CHRONICLES 21:9-20.

Verses 9-11. And the LORD spoke unto Gad, David's seer, saying, Go and
tellDavid, saying, Thus says the LORD, I offer you three things: choose
one of them, that I may do it unto you. So Gad came to David and said
unto him, Thus says the LORD, Choose.David was to choose where there
was no choice, for everything proposed to him seemed to be equally
bitter.

12, 13. Either three years famine, or three months to be destroyed
before your foes, while that the sword of your enemies overtake you, or
else three days the sword of the LORD, even the pestilence in the land,
and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the coasts of
Israel Now therefore advise yourself what word I shall bring again to
Him that sent me. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let
me fall now into the hands the LORD; for very great are His mercies:
but let me not fall into the hands of man. It shows how he was broken
down. David's proud heart was humbled. He was entirely submissive to
the will of God. He wished to fall into the hands of the Lord.

14, 15. So the LORD sent pestilence upon Israel and there fell of
Israel seventy thousand men. And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to
destroy it: and as he was destroying, the LORD beheld. It is a very
beautiful word–the Lord looked steadfastly on what was being done.

15, And He repented Him of the evil, and said to the angel that
destroyed, It is enough, stay now your hand. And the angel of the LORD
stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. One of the old
inhabitants of the land who had escaped destruction–and had his
possession on the top of Mount Morah.

16, 17. And David lifted up his eyes andsaw the angel of the LORD stand
between the earth and the Heavens, having a drawn sword in his hand
stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who
were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces and said unto 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 Your hand, I pray You, O LORD my God, be on me, and on
my father's house; but not on Your people, that they should be plagued.
Here the great heart of the man who had sinned comes out again–he is
no tyrant, after all–he is a worthy man to be the Viceroy of the Most
High. He has the same spirit that Moses had when he cried, "If not,
blot my name out of the Book of Life." He offers himself, not the
innocent for the guilty, but, indeed, the guilty for the guilty! As far
as he can, he will bear the consequences of his sin.

18-20. Then the angel of the LORD commanded Gad to say to David, that
David should go up and set up an altar unto the LORD on the threshing
floor of Ornan the Jebusite. And David went up at the saying of Gad,
which he spoke in the name of the LORD. And Ornan turned back and saw
the angel.He was busy at his threshing and he saw the angel standing by
his own threshing floor .

20. And his four sons with him hid themselves. There are great caverns
hard by the spot and, no doubt, they ran into one of them.

20-23. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. And as David came to Ornan, Ornan
looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor and bowed
himself to David with his face to the ground. Then David said to Ornan,
Grant me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar
therein unto the LORD: you shall grant it to me for the full price:
that the plague may be stayed from the people. And Ornan said unto
David, Take it and let my lord the king do that which is good in his
eyes. So, I give you the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the
threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meat offering. I
give it all.And as we are told in the other narrative, as a king gives
to a king, so did Ornan unto David. Probably he had been a king and
David had dispossessed him in his conquest of Jebus, but now he proves
that he had a royal heart and he offers to give all to King David.

24, 25. And King Davidsaid to Ornan, No, but I will verily buy it for
the fullprice: for I willnot take that which is yours, for the LORD,
nor offer burnt offerings without cost. So David gave to Ornan for
theplace six hundred shekels of gold by weight.Not paid then and there,
for he did not carry that amount with him, but fifty shekels of silver
were paid that moment to bind their bargain according to the narrative
in the 2nd Book of Samuel.

26, 27. And David built there an altar unto the LORD, and offered burnt
offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the LORD; and He
answered him from Heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering. And
the LORD commanded the angel; and he put up his sword into the sheath
thereo. That God had already done in His own intent and purpose, now He
does it actually, just as before Jesus Christ, our great Sacrifice, was
offered, God, in the eternal purpose, had stayed the sword of vengeance
from His redeemed people and then actually did it when Christ, their
Sacrifice was presented.

28-30. At that time when David saw that the LORD had answered him in
the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses made in the wilderness, and
the altar of the burnt offering, were at that season in the high place
at Gibeon. But David could not go before it to enquire of God: for he
was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the LORD.