Benefits of Intimacy with God

This is a Bible meeting discussing the benefits of intimacy with God. David displeased God by ordering a census, and God sent Gad to deliver his judgment. David chose the punishment of a plague on Israel. Ornan the Jebusite's threshing floor became important for atonement. Ornan generously offered his land, and David insisted on paying for it. David built an altar and offered sacrifices, and God accepted them. The judgment was closed and peace restored. The story highlights the importance of intimacy with God and the consequences of disobedience. Praise the Lord! People of God, praise Master Jesus! Well, welcome to today's Bible meeting. And this is the Wheatfield Apostolic Ministry, the place where God moves in the miraculous. We are confident that we are in partnership with the Holy Spirit of the Living God. We are confident that God is here doing mighty things. This is the place of the presence of Almighty God. And so we welcome you. Let's pray. Spirit of God, we invite you, reverence you, we acknowledge your presence. We are grateful to be able to go into the Word of God tonight. It's all about you. Teach us as we teach. Speak to us. Reveal the deep and secret things of the kingdom to us. Empower us tonight. Bring light. As the speaker speaks, Lord, anoint my tongue to speak even as the oracles of God. Open up my understanding. Give me clarity of thought and accuracy of delivery as I bring the Word of God to your people tonight. In Jesus' name, Amen. So, today we are going to conclude the third part of our three-part series originally titled Intimacy, Reward of Intimacy with God. But today's message has a slightly different title, which is The Benefits of Intimacy with God. It's the concluding part of a three-part series drawn from the Word of God in the book of 1 Chronicles 21 verses 1 to 27. And so last week we saw at verse 9 that God was no longer talking to David because David had displeased God. We found in verse 7, the Bible said, And God was displeased with this thing. God was displeased with David for ordering a count. David ordered a census of the people of Israel. And so because of this now, God is displeased. And God is getting ready to judge the entire nation of Israel because of David's actions. And so, because God isn't talking to David, but God has to talk, God has to say something, because God is getting ready to judge the nation of Israel, God needs to send some instructions. So God sends Gad. Gad is David's seer, David's prophet, David's intercessor, that's Gad. So in verse 9 we see that God is sending Gad to David. God isn't talking to David. He's speaking to David through Gad. Verse 9 says, Then the Lord spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying, Go and tell David. The Lord is sending a third party to David, to deliver to David his judgment, that is the judgment of God, upon David personally. Because now God is judging Israel, but God is judging David personally. God has designed, He has custom designed three punishments for David. And David is to choose for himself which is the best option for him, which is the best punishment. God has designed three punishments. One, either three years of famine, or three months to be defeated by his enemies, or three days of the sword of the Lord, the plague in the land, with the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Egypt. I'm sorry, the territory of Israel. Now you know, throughout the Bible, David has been recorded for us as a very wise man. David behaved himself wisely. And God was with him. And Saul was afraid of David. David usually is a wise king, usually is a wise person. But in this case, he behaved foolishly. He did foolishly, even he accepted he had done foolishly, by ordering the count. And he is now paying for his error. His error, his lapse in judgment. But, even though he did foolishly, David is still wise. And in this case, he knows that the three options given to him by God, the very best, have to be the option with God himself. Because, regardless of how angry God is with his people, God is still a father, and still has the heart of a father. So, even in our daily lives, when God chastises us, when God corrects us, He still has the heart of a father towards us. And there's usually a limit to how far God will go with that correction. Because God doesn't like to see his children suffer. God does not like to see his children suffer. So, very wisely, David says to Gad, in verse 13, David says, and I read, Please, let me fall into the hand of the Lord. For His mercies are very great. But, do not let me fall into the hand of man. Because man has no mercy. The heart of man is desperately wicked. When a man sees another great man fall, very often, people don't really feel too much, they don't have too much mercy, too much remorse. They don't feel very sorry for a successful person who has now fallen because of something they did. Secretly, in their hearts, they are happy. Secretly, in their hearts, they don't really care. And David is aware of this. David knows this. David knows that the heart of man is wicked, desperately wicked. And so he says, please, let me fall into the hand of the Lord. For His mercies are very great. And in verse 14, we find that the Lord responds to David. Because he chose to fall into the hand of the Lord, the punishment that came with that choice was a plague upon Israel. So the Lord sent a plague and thousands fell. That's what the Bible tells us. The Lord sent an angel to destroy Israel. This is Israel, the dwelling place of Almighty God. But judgment had to come down on Israel. Because David had a momentary indiscretion. We looked at the last two weeks how even though God loves us, even when God is partial to you as God was to David, His eyes do not behold iniquity. When there is sin, there has to be judgment. And so now Israel had to be judged because the leader of Israel had a momentary flip, momentary indiscretion. So that fleeting moment of seemingly harmless boasting, that proud talk that we engage in in front of our friends, our employees, we're trying to impress people, where we get carried away by our apparent success. And we fail to give glory to God who is the author of promotion, who is the author of success, who has helped us and enabled us. We forget the days when we languished in lack. And we begin to aggrandize ourselves. And that just might be the reason why things might be getting a bit tight and difficult. The business might be struggling. The children are all out of order. And you're fighting strange battles on every side. And that just might be because we are failing to give glory to whom glory is due. We're failing to give God the glory, the honor for what He has done. We're doing a census, we're doing a count of our own achievements as if we have succeeded by our own ability. Well, the Bible says in the B part of verse 14. Let's go to the B part of verse 14. The Bible says that God relented. God relented of the disaster. God's eyes couldn't continue to behold His people suffering so bad by reason of His judgment. So this plague has taken down 7,000 men. Thousands of people have died. The angel just went about his business, destroying Egypt, destroying Israel, because he had been commanded by God to do that. But in verse 14, B part of verse 14, the Lord relented. He couldn't take it anymore. Too much pain to His beloved people. He said to the angel, He said, It is enough. Now restrain your hand. And the angel of the Lord did exactly that. He restrained his hand, and then the Bible says, The angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite. God again, the heart of the Father, He could no longer stand, He couldn't stand the pain, the destruction that the people of Israel were suffering, and so He relented. The angel ceased with the destruction, and He stood by the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite. Which is exactly where our subject for today's discourse takes off. At the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite. Right there, where the angel is standing, the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite, is where our discussion for today takes off. So in verse 18 of this text, we find that the angel of the Lord is also not talking to David. David is in such a mess. God isn't talking to David. The angel of the Lord isn't talking to David. David is distraught, he's upset with himself. David is not in a good place at all. And so in verse 18, we find that the angel of the Lord needs to give an instruction to David. But he's not talking to David. So again, he's speaking now to get David's fear. The word of God to David at that moment was critical to the wholeness of Israel. God had instructed the angel to cease with the destruction. But there had to be wholeness. There was something that had to be done to ensure that God was pleased now with Israel. Because the destruction had stopped, but the judgment hadn't. Israel was still in judgment, only that there was a temporary stop to the act, to the actualization of the judgment, which was the destruction by the hand of the angel. But the judgment had gone out from God. Something had to be done to atone for the sin. Something had to be done in atonement for what David had done, so that the judgment of the Lord now would be finalized and there would be a replacement. Instead of judgment, there would now be atonement. And so the angel of God commands that, the fear of David. And in verse 18 we find the angel of the Lord commanding God to say to David, the Bible says, Therefore the angel of the Lord commanded God to say to David that David should go and erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. That was the instruction of the angel to David through God. The only acceptable form of atonement for the sin of Israel was now in the possession of Ornan the Jebusite, who up until now, no one even mentioned Ornan. Up until now we don't know anything about Ornan, we haven't heard about Ornan. Ornan the Jebusite is quietly minding his own business, living his life, unmindful. He has no idea of what's about to happen. He's an ordinary man, living a normal life, threshing wheat on his threshing floor, but he's at the verge of destiny. He's about to enter into the history books, and a king has been commanded by God to drop everything he's doing and go and look for an ordinary man, Ornan the Jebusite. This is what happens when God's eyes are on you, when you're pleasing God in secret, and God's eyes are on you, but you think you're an ordinary living human being, ordinary person, just doing your own thing, you think your life is in obscurity, but on the day of manifestation, God will send a king to your house to pick you up, to pick you up from obscurity into celebrity. And often times when things like that happen, you know, we normal human beings will say, Oh, you know, this is such a blessed person, this is such a lucky person, some people don't even understand that when greatness happens, suddenly there has been a price that's been paid in secret. There has been a price that's been paid in the place of intimacy with God, and in His secret place. You can't tell when, you can't tell how, only God knows those dynamics, because the Bible says that secret things belong to our God, and those things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever. So when we seek intimacy with God, suddenly God will command a king to come look for you in that secret place, that place of your obscurity, and pull you out into celebrity. This is what happens to all of the Jebusites. Because the Bible says in verse 19, So David went at the word of God, which had been spoken in the name of the Lord, the angel spoke this word to God in the name of the Lord. This was the word of God through the angel, to God, to David. So now you see, there is even now a farther link of communication. God didn't even talk to God this time. God spoke to the angel, the angel spoke to God, and God spoke to David. David is even further away down the chain of communication, but he heard the word of the Lord. So now he is under instruction, he knows what needs to be done to bring an end, to bring an atonement for this sin. So in verse 20 we find that Ornan the Jebusite is with his four sons on his threshing floor, by which the angel of the Lord is now standing. And the Bible says that Ornan turned and saw the angel and he continued threshing wheat. He did not miss a beat. Obviously he was not seeing that angel for the first time. His four sons, on the other hand, saw the angel of the Lord and they hid themselves. Obviously this was a fearsome sight, because all four of them, the Bible says, they ran and hid themselves. This sight was enough to make them fearful, to make them so afraid, when they saw this angel, that they went and they hid themselves. But they saw the angel. They could now see the supernatural. Their eyes were now open. So on their threshing floor, something had now happened. It had now translated from just normal, ordinary boys to boys whose eyes were now open to see angels. So, David goes to Ornan and Ornan offers him the land. David goes to Ornan, on his threshing floor, as commanded by God. And he says to Ornan, in verse 22, Grant me, David is now so humble, David is so humble now, that he is speaking now to a, pretty much a farmer, just an ordinary farmer. He has no pedigree, from what we can tell. But the king has been commanded to leave his palace in search of a farmer. So when he gets there, he is so humble. David has learned lessons now. So he says to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshing floor that I may build an altar on it to the Lord. You shall grant it to me at the full price that the plague may be withdrawn from the people as atonement needs to be made and your threshing floor, Ornan, Ornan is the only, only thing standing between the judgment of Almighty God and atonement for the sin. Now, David wants to buy this threshing floor at full price, because he is feeling the heat now, the heat of correction from the Lord. He is mindful not to cheat Ornan out of the price of the land. He doesn't want to incur any further wrath from God. Because God, David doesn't know why. All he knows is that God has commanded him to go and get this land, go to Ornan. But evidently God has picked this man, Ornan, for this purpose. So there is an intimate relationship between this man, Ornan, and God. And David does not want to get in the middle of that. When you favor God, when you find favor with God, He sets you apart. When in your sleepy place, your heart is panting after God, your heart is chasing after God, God sets you apart and people become mindful of how He treats you, because they don't really know what it is, but they can tell that there is something about you. The discerning people can tell there is a grace on you, because God has a special interest in you. God is fighting for you. The sovereign righteous hand of God is at work on your behalf, so people are mindful of how He treats you. But Ornan is a good man. And he shows us why he is so beloved by God, why God loves him so much. He shows us why God is partial to him. Ornan says to David, in verse 23, and this is if, if, I mean, just from what Ornan says, as a human being, it's so easy to love a person like this, a person of so much generosity of spirit and so much humility. So it's clear why God would love Ornan so much and would choose his threshing floor to honor him. Ornan says to David, take it to yourself and let my Lord the King do what is good in His eyes. Look, I also give you the option for burnt offerings, the threshing implement for wood and the wheat for the grain offering. I give it all. Take it all, King David. This is a good man. This is a generous man. He even begins to teach King David the order of service to God as he has been doing. He says, I will give you, if you look at verse 23, the latter part, he says, I also give you the option for burnt offerings, he's trying to teach King David the order of service, what he does, he burns offerings to the Lord. I give you the threshing implement for wood, the wheat for the grain offering. I give it all. This is Ornan's order of service to God on this threshing floor. He burns offerings to God. He gives God grain offerings. And for the burnt offerings, he uses wood and the special implement for the wood. So he knows what is pleasing to God because that's his practice. And if God has elected his threshing floor for this atonement, it means, even to Ornan, Ornan himself can see that his practice is pleasing to God and Ornan wants David to get it right. He doesn't want David to guess because there is a practice here on Ornan's threshing floor of pleasing God. This is a generous man with a heart committed to the service of God in secret. He has been doing all of this in secret. But God is about to reward his secret commitment in public. And that's what happens. When the day of manifestation comes, his practice in secret has become now evident to all. Ornan is a worshipper. And his worship has been acceptable to God. He now knows. The whole world knows. And so he wants David to worship God on the land in the way that he has been doing it which has been pleasing to God. So again, King David, he says, No, I will not take this land for free. I will not give to God something that costs me nothing. I am going to sacrifice whatever it takes to get this land by paying full price for the land. Now let's remember, David is King. He didn't have to go to Ornan. He is the commander of the armies of Israel. The commander-in-chief, Joab, is his general. He didn't have to go to Ornan. He could have sent for Ornan. He could have demanded the land. He is King after all. But God had purpose to advertise Ornan, the Jebusite. God had purpose to reward him with public honor for his private sacrifice. So God sent David. God sent David to a farmer to honor a farmer. Now David goes, David doesn't go alone because he is there with God, his seer. He would obviously be there with his men. The King wouldn't move by himself. He probably is there with his general, Joab, who had in the beginning tried to prevent him from doing this thing that was now such a big problem. So that means that in one day, the upper echelons of the society of Israel, they are assembled on the threshing floor of a farmer named Ornan on the instruction of the Almighty God. When God wants to honor a man, He will assemble the most important people in the land and bring them to your house. That's what God does. God will reward you in public for secret intimacy. So David, in the text, David buys the land and he builds an altar there. And he offers burnt sacrifices. We are in verse 26 now. He offers burnt sacrifices. He offers burnt offerings. And peace offerings. And he calls upon the Lord, the Bible says. And God answers David this time. God answers David from heaven by fire on the altar of burnt offerings. Now there is atonement. Now judgment is reversed. And in verse 27, we find something very pertinent. The Bible says, So the Lord commanded the angel. Remember we have talked about the fact that the angel has stopped the destruction in the order of Almighty God. God commanded the angel to stop the destruction. So he stopped. But judgment was still ongoing. And this is evidence that judgment didn't stop. The execution of judgment stopped. But the judgment itself was still active. This is why the atonement was necessary. This is why the offerings needed to be made. And they needed to be made to specificity. And so, God answers by fire because he accepted the sacrifice at the hand of David. So that sacrifice, the answer from the Lord, constituted atonement. And so now, the judgment that had gone forth had to be closed. And it was closed, and order opened the judgment. A command from God to the angel to destroy began the judgment. A command from God had to also go out to close the judgment. And in verse 27, the Bible says, The Lord commanded the angel and the angel and his sword. The Lord commanded the angel and he returned his sword to achieve. Only the word of God can launch an attack against you. A sustainable attack. And only the word of God can close. When God sends out judgment, command, a word has gone forth. Another word must come. And close that judgment so that there will be atonement, there will be peace. Now Israel is saved because the word of God has gone forth in judgment, and the word of God has gone forth in atonement to bring peace and to end the judgment. And so from the life of warning, the Jebusite, we can see several benefits of intimacy with God. Because you know, as human beings, very often we seek God for things. And that's not a very bad thing if we don't stay there. Something has to bring us to God. Even great men in the Bible, great men of God in history, many came to God looking for something, looking for His solution. Saul in the Bible went looking for sheep. His father's sheep were lost. But he came in contact with a kingdom. God had positioned Samuel the prophet in his path to bring him into the kingdom, to be a king. But we must, at some point, after seeking God for things, after looking for God for things, we must graduate away from things to intimacy with God. Because in the place of intimacy, miracles happen. And these are some of the benefits of intimacy with God. One is vision. When we seek and pursue God for intimacy, we rise in spiritual altitude. We climb up the holy hill of the Lord. The Bible says, Who shall ascend to His holy hill? So there is an upward movement spiritually when we seek God. We have, we gain access to the supernatural. We gain access to the dimension of God in Christ where impossibility is possible. Ornon had spiritual vision. And the Bible says he turned and he saw the angel and he kept on working. Because his eyes were open. He had a practice. He had a custom of seeing the supernatural. So he wasn't moved when he saw the angel. He was constantly looking to God in the place of worship on the freshened floor and he could see the dimension of God. When our eyes are open, spiritual eyes, we see into we see into the invisible realm. And those things which we see in that realm guide our actions in the natural. God will whisper secrets to you. Before they happen, God will tell you things. And that's why in the book of Mark 13.23 the Bible says Take heed. I have told you all things beforehand. This is Jesus now. So in the place of intimacy with God, God tells us things before they happen. Why? Because we are elevated in the Spirit. We are standing at such an elevated place that we can see down into the things that haven't yet happened. And we can guide and govern our lives in the natural based on what we see by revelation. So Ornan is accustomed to seeing the spiritual. So when his sons see angels for the first time, presumably, Ornan is a good role model because he is able to comport himself and he is able to be a model for his sons so that he is able to stay calm and take charge of the situation because he had accustomed of seeing the miraculous, the invisible, the supernatural. That is a benefit of intimacy with God. When you seek intimacy with God, you find God. And where do you find God? In the place of the supernatural. You don't see God just alone. You see what's happening around God. And God is omniscient. He sees all things. He knows all things. His Spirit. The Bible says the Spirit of God is the candle of the Lord searching. The Spirit of God bears witness to our own sin. Telling us things that happen. It happens. And so that we can make moves. We can take steps and be ahead. Just based on revelation. Another benefit of intimacy with God is provision. Ornan's land was a threshing floor where he threshed wheat. Wheat represents God's supply. There's so many by-products of wheat. Bread. Many things. Wheat has so many by-products. Wheat has so many uses. So wheat isn't just food. Wheat is supply. Whatever you need at any one time, you get it in the place of intimacy with God. Why? Because the earth is the Lord's and the fullness. The world, everything, the silver and the gold belong to God. And so when you're in the place of intimacy with God, when you pursue intimacy with God, He makes your land the venue for wheat. Abundant supply is a definite benefit of intimacy with God. The third benefit of intimacy with God is peace. Peace, that passive understanding. Ornan had peace when he saw the angel. Because there is a different level of peace that comes with intimacy. You're immovable. You fear nothing. The place of intimacy with God is a place of boldness. Because the Bible says, they that know their God, they shall be strong and they shall do exploits. In the place of knowledge of our God, which comes from intimacy with God, we are strong. We are bold. Immovable. Ornan's four sons were afraid and hid themselves, which means that the angel was fearful. And we know from other parts of Scripture that angels are fearful. This is why when angels appear to men, they will usually say, fear not. Because they know that they're fearful beings. But Ornan had peace. Seeing the angel, he turned. He looked. He went right back. Right back to fresh in him. He had peace. In the place of intimacy with God, we receive the kind of peace that is so unshakable. Because we know our God. We know what He's able to do. We don't know all that He can do. But based on past experience, we know what God is capable of doing. So we don't fear. We don't move. It's a stabilizing force for us and for the people around us, for our families. Peace is the third benefit of intimacy with God. The fourth one is honor. When we're intimate with God, kings, captains of industry, rulers of nations, the highest, upper echelons of society, they come to look for us because they are directed by God to locate us. The Bible says that the hearts of kings are in the hands of the Lord. And as a river, He turns their hearts with us wherever He will. So God turns the hearts of men, the hearts of kings, to us, to find us, to honor us for our intimacy, for seeking intimacy with God and not just seeking Him for things, but for seeking to be intimate with Him. The fourth and final benefit of intimacy with God is legacy. Intimacy with God brings generational blessings. Ornan's sons now could see because of their relationship with Ornan, being the sons of Ornan. Not only could they see now, they could also see how to respond when you see angels, when you see the supernatural, because their father has modeled for them how to behave. In addition to that, Ornan's sons have had a king come to them because it's their land, they were there when King David came. David and his entourage have come to visit these four sons now. They have been visited by a king in the place of intimacy with God. Our children, our family members, they receive unusual access to greatness at the highest levels because of the divine favor that comes from intimacy with God. So, the legacy for Ornan, the greatest legacy for Ornan really, is that his threshing floor has now entered into Biblical history. His threshing floor is recorded to be Mount Zion. And Isaiah 8.18 tells us that Mount Zion is the dwelling place of God. God dwells in Mount Zion. All of this happened because of man. One man, a farmer, an ordinary man, made up in his mind to seek God, to be intimate with God, to please God. And God honored him. God honored him. Now, will you seek God today? Will you make up in your mind to pursue intimacy with God? To seek God for who He is, to seek His face and not just His hand. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these things shall be added to you once we seek God for who He is and seek intimacy with God. All these things, they follow because all these things are present in the place of intimacy. Praise God. Praise God. Again, it's an honor and a joy to bring God's Word every Sunday. As we teach, we are also taught and we are grateful to God for the enablement to just handle this Word of God and handle this light, this true light of God. I pray now in the name of Jesus that the Word that we have heard will take root in our hearts and grow. And we shall bear fruit and go about showing the world the value of seeking intimacy with God. In Jesus' name, Amen. Again, thank you for joining us on this Sunday's Bible meeting. We hope to join you again next Sunday in Jesus' parish and we trust God for another powerful and impactful Word so that Sunday in, Sunday out we shall grow to the fullness of all God has called us to be. To be lights in our generation. To be signs and to be wonders. To be little, tiny little Jesus people. Tiny little Jesuses all around the world doing wonders. In Jesus' name, Amen. God bless you. Love you. See you next Sunday. Bye.