2nd Samuel chapter 6 we will
make our way to 1st Chronicles chapter 15 but 2nd Samuel chapter
6 when in 1st Chronicles chapter 15 is where we have almost a
rendition of what takes place in 2nd Samuel chapter 6 but not
but not last week we were looking at the life of David because
he has come to the throne now after many many difficult years
of conflict between him and the previous King, and that was King
whom? That was King Saul. And David
discovered last week, as we saw, how that God had actually brought
him, as we say in religion, from a mighty long way. And he had
begun to understand that God had given him the kingdom, even
though he struggled mightily to get there. And he looked around,
and God had solved the conflict of all of his enemies round about.
David was situated in a wonderful state of unity in the kingdom. Both Israel and Judah were together.
Unity in the kingdom. He had just routed the Philistines
both in two significant battles and he's sitting on the throne
and he's realizing the most important thing for Israel is that they
understand that they are not to view themselves as a political
nation as all the other nations of the world. It was incumbent
upon David, therefore, to bring the Ark of the Covenant back
to Israel, to the capital of Israel, so that Israel might
know that they are not merely a monarchy as they had requested
and as God granted in the days of Samuel. But Samuel's dead
now, isn't he? And Israel now is under the rule
of a king after God's own heart because Saul is dead now also. And what David understands is
these people, if they are not made to be pointed towards a
higher authority, will fall prey to worshiping man and worshiping
themselves as is the state of fallen human beings. It was therefore
David's objective to make sure that the Ark of the Covenant,
which was the throne of God, the seat of God, was set in the
center of Israel so that the whole of Israel would not be
looking to David, but to God on the Ark. What David wanted
to establish, as we learned last week, was that the Kingdom of
Israel was not just a monarchy, but a theomonarchy. It was not
just a kingdom where kings rule and their predecessors are their
sons, but it's a kingdom where God is king and his son rules
over that kingdom. And we saw the application of
that particular emphasis on David's part is that every local church
must understand that if it's truly a church of Christ, Christ
is king. That the pastor is not king.
And his wife is not the first lady. And he does not get to
kill and make alive like King Saul did. Exercising divine fiat,
the choice to kill and make alive. The king is not a god. And what David was trying to
do by bringing the ark back was to let Israel know that your
life consists of your knowledge of the true and the living God.
And this is eternal life. This is eternal life that you
might know him the true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent
Now what we call this in Christian theology is a crystal centric
emphasis of worship Where whom we worship is the God-man Jesus
Christ and through whom we worship the true and the Living God God
the Father Unless a church is operating on the premise that
Christ is all I We are in danger of being nothing but an earthly
institution with religious garb. Where Christ is not made to be
understood as the revelation of the invisible God, you are
wasting your time on Sunday morning. There's something interesting
about the account that we learned last week in 2 Samuel chapter
6. And that is, David had a struggle
bringing the ark from Beth Shemesh to the Capitol, didn't he? Had
a real struggle. And this is what birthed our
title last week, the return of the Ark of the Covenant, the
what? Joy and defense of the what? Isn't that interesting how something
so wonderful, something so magnificent, something so unspeakable, something
so magnificent as the gospel could be offensive? How can something
so magnanimous and so true and so soul-saving be offensive? And yet it is. We learned last
week that there was joy and there was offense. And that's the case
with us today. For some people, the gospel is
an absolute joy. Do you know the joy of the Lord?
Do you know what it means to be saved from your sins? Redeemed
from your iniquity bought by the precious blood of Jesus Christ
clothed in his righteousness Filled with his spirit able to
view God in Christ and rejoice in your security in Christ Do
you know something about redemption? Do you know something about the
joy of the Holy Ghost in your soul? Because God has told you
you are his child. Do you know it? Do you know it
child of God? Do you know it? Now follow me
because this is important. Not everybody does. And there
are those who do not rejoice in the gospel. We're going to
close out our second point by recognizing that there was a
woman in our text who out of all people in Israel should have
rejoiced in the gospel, but she didn't. She was offended. Isn't that remarkable? She was
offended. But now let me make a couple
of observations as we work our way through our text. Children
of God, as we walk with David, and we have for a while, we discover
what many of us have learned long ago. Here's a nice little
statement that will help you when things go wrong, surreptitiously
and bizarre things occur in your life. You wonder, why did that
happen? Do you know no good deed goes unpunished? It's a strange
reality that in this world, when we seek to do good, evil is always
present. I want you to mark that tension
because if you don't accept that basic condition of humanity after
the fall, you will never be able to understand why God allows
evil. But whenever you seek to do good,
there seems to be always some force or some entity or some
obstacle or some kind of hindrance stopping you, impeding you from
doing that which is right. Here David has taken the objective
of bringing the ark back to Israel, and lo and behold, his high priest
is killed. What are we doing with that?
That caused David to struggle. You remember last week the text
said, not only was David grieved by it, but he feared God. What
David discovered is something that you and I have to discover,
and that's this. You can have a right motive in doing what
you do. But if you have an unbiblical
method, it's gonna still have an unbiblical outcome. Now follow
this, because I know in our present culture people really think all
you have to do is have a right motive and God will honor that. That's presumption, child of
God. Presumption is when you think
you can actually do whatever you want to do so long as you
feel like your heart is right and God will honor it. That's
what presumption is. And what David and all of Israel
discovered is that that motive was checked by God when Uzzah
put his hand to the ark and touched it. Remember? God smoked that
man right there dead. Dead! He didn't even let the
brother get sick. He took him right out. And I
want to press this home. If you and I are called Bible-believing
Christians, where we are committed to knowing God through His Word,
And we decide we're going to put his word aside. And we're
going to know God through our feelings and our emotions and
our own attitudes and our own unctions. We are presumptuous.
The only way you can know God is through his word. Faith comes
by what? And hearing by what? And if you're
truly a disciple of Christ, will you not continue in his word?
And if you continue in his word, will you not know the what? The
truth. And the truth will set you what?
Free. This is what Jesus said. So the
difference between a happy Christian who walks in the joy of the Lord
and the one who is not is the individual who sets his Bible
aside and says, God knows my heart. Problem is he does. The problem is you don't. The
problem is you don't. So you never want to walk in
the light of your own heart because the light of your heart is darkness.
Point number one in our outline, so I can work through this quickly,
this is getting back to our point. This is 2 Samuel 6, verse 7,
where God certainly did demonstrate His disapproval of their good
motive. In 2 Samuel 6, verse 7, mark
what the text says. And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Uzzah. Well, everybody's shouting, dancing. The music is loud. The people
are celebrating. And God is angry. That's a paradox,
is it? You know what that means? Just
because we're happy doesn't mean God's happy. Just because the
whole church is shouting doesn't mean heaven is shouting. The
anger of God was brooding against people who should have known
better. Uzzah was a high priest. And the text says, and he smote
him there for his error, and there he died. We'll work that
through here in a moment. Under our first point, we say then,
human effort to uphold God's honor is a fatal what? Presumption. That's a good, bold statement
that you need to grasp. Because what that will do is
it will cause you to stop trusting in yourself, your intellect,
your rationale, your feelings. Feelings come and feelings go.
Feelings are so deceiving. Nothing but the Word of God is
really worth believing. You got it? Listen to points
A through C. Do you know God does not stumble?
Uzzah thought he was upholding God when the ark stumbled. You
guys remember that? He looked at it, oh, the ark
is stumbling, let me help. And what we said last week is
that's what happens when you try to build truth on the traditions
of men and on the machinations of men and on the tactics and
methodologies of men where our methods and our tactics and our
machinations are always flawed. And when we discover that people
who are initially enamored by our methods and our techniques
and our Madison Avenue skill sets and drawing people by the
masses to church, they get tired after a while. I mean, you can
only dance, tap dance and entertain for so long before people say,
all right, give us something new to entertain us. But have
you discovered, child of God, that the Word of God is fresh
every day to the man or the woman who is connected to God by faith?
Have you discovered that when trends and fads come and go,
the Word of God abides forever? Have you discovered that you
can go to church and hear the word of God, the gospel of His
glory, the revelation of Jesus Christ, His mercy, His goodness,
His holiness, and go away with your soul filled up all over
again? Can I tell you what that means?
We don't need PowerPoints. We don't need screens. We don't
need nothing electronic. All we need is a Bible and a
hymn book and hearts that worship the true and the living God.
I was laughing to myself as the technicians were scrambling to
try to solve these problems. And I was saying to myself, now
the old folks always had it right. When we came to this place and
we knew that we had to put up big screens because of the masses
of the people, the old folks said, make sure you put hymn
notes under the seat. And the technicians were saying,
how come? We're going to have it up on
PowerPoint. Old folks know, don't they? Here's the other truth
that I discovered. Now, if you're serious about
Jesus, and most people aren't, and many of you here aren't,
you would bring your Bible to church. And you would sit it
on your lap. And you would follow me through
the scriptures. But you're not serious about worship when you
don't. If pastor got 75 font up on the screen, I could just
come to church and get my Bible reading from the screen. You
see what technology does for you, right? All those things
stumble because they're man-made. According to Psalm 18 verse 30,
God's perfect in all his ways. God never stumbles. We stumble,
God doesn't stumble. Subpoint B, the fault is not
in God, it's in who? Until we understand that all
of our problems begin with us, we will always blame it on God
or somebody else. Uzzah will stand before God in
the day of judgment and Uzzah will shut his mouth because Uzzah
should have known how the ark was to be transported from Beth
Shemesh to Zion or Jerusalem. He should have known. Because
according to Malachi 2.16, I taught you this last week, the priest's
lips should keep knowledge. The preachers should know what
he's talking about. The elders should know what they're talking
about. The deacons should know what they're talking about. The
teachers here should know what they're talking about. Our goal
is to tell the truth. And if we don't tell the truth,
we are in error and we will lead you in error. Everybody's dancing
around the ark as it's being carried on an ox cart. Nobody
detected that the whole church was wrong. Are you hearing me? Nobody detected it. And you know
who God held accountable? The leaders. He didn't kill everybody. He killed Uzzah. Because Uzzah
should have known what Numbers 4 says, and what Deuteronomy
says, and what Exodus 25 through 30 says. He should have known
that the manner in which you carry the Ark of God, which is
the revelation of God's glory and the proprietary work of Jesus
Christ for hell-bound sinners, is according to the due order.
We learned that in the text today, right? And now in first Chronicles
chapter 15, David is rejoicing and they're ready to bring the
ark back up, aren't they? But they had to smart for a season
and for a long season until the priest went back and start reading
scripture again and realized that they had a wrong view of
God. Now that is a great work of grace when we are walking
the wrong way, God disciplines us and we get it right. This
is where we are in our first Chronicles text. But our last
point says this. The true God does not need to
be saved. He is what? And they shall call
his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.
The Lord is my strength. He is my what? Salvation. Whom shall I fear? God is our
salvation. We are not his. God does not
need us. We need him. Is that right? And until we have that premise
established correctly, we can never be satisfied with a God
we have to uphold. Because, you know, we get tired.
If God had to trust in me, he's in poor shape. He's in poor shape. And if he has to trust in you,
he's in poor shape. Bringing me then to my second
point. This is so critically important. The joy of gospel
obedience. Remember the title of our message
is The Joy and the Offense of the Gospel. We are in 1 Chronicles
chapter 15 now where we will work through the bulk of our
consideration now. In 1 Chronicles 15 it gives us
the account of David resuming the task of making sure that
Israel would be a Christ-centered, God-centered, Bible-based ministry. Not a man-centered ministry,
but a Bible-based ministry where week in and week out, every time
you come to church, the only person you're going to hear exalted
is God in Christ. And every time you come to church,
I'm gonna be saying, turn in your Bibles to such and such
text. You will not get in this church
a long 30 minute rant after a short stint of Bible reading and taking
you on some excursion to who knows where, tickling your fancy,
making you feel good, on your way to hell, because the word
of God is closed. So we are in the text, this is
what we call in theology expository preaching and teaching. What
that means is we start with the text, we teach the text, we explain
the text, exhort the text, and we move from that text to the
next text, we teach the text, explain the text, we exhort the
text, impress the text, we go to the next text, explain the
text, we exhort the text, and we exalt Christ through the text.
In other words, our worship is through the book. And once you're
trained that way, when you go into churches where the pastor
does not open the book, you know you are dealing with ox cart
religion. My last two points then really
quickly because of our work towards baptism. The joy of gospel obedience
is underscored by verses one and two of our text. First Chronicles
15, one and two. And David made him houses and
cities and David and prepared a place for the ark of God and
pitched for it a tent. This is a wonderful way that
the chronicler is opening it up. David has recovered from
his wound, his brokenness. David has resumed to continue
to enlarge the kingdom of God. And he's even built a brand new
tent for the ark. Remember the temple is not going
to be built until his son Solomon takes the throne. So right now,
the Ark of the Covenant is still in what we call the tabernacle
or the tent, which is symbolic in the New Testament of our physical
bodies. Because we have a temple in heaven,
which is an eternal body, of which once we leave this world,
we occupy. But on this side, we have tents.
And you know what that means? These tents get old. They get
raggedy. They get dusty. They creak. And they squeak. and they make
noise and they fall apart. And this is where in the seventh
chapter next week we will learn David is sitting in his palace.
It's got marble. It's got gold. It's got silver.
He live in large. The Lord and dumped on him all
kind of stuff. He looks out his window over
at the tent and he says, uh, that ain't gonna work. I'm not
going to outshine the God that gave me the grace to be who I
am. This is why God made David King
because David actually loved God. But let's understand what's
taking place in our text. It's expeditiously. The joy of
gospel obedience is seen in verses one, two, and then 11 through
15 verse two. Then David said, none ought to
carry the ark of God, but the Levites for them have the Lord
chosen to carry the ark of God and to minister be for us. Did David figure it out? Absolutely. And then we look over at verse
11, these words, listen to what it said. And David called for
Zadok and Abiathar, the priest, and for the Levites, for Uriel,
Isaiah, and Joel, Shemaiah, Eliel, and Amenadab. And he said unto
them, you are the chief of the fathers of the Levites. Sanctify
yourself, both you and your brethren, that you may bring up the ark
of the Lord unto the place I have prepared for it. Watch this.
For because you did it not at the first. Who did David put
the blame on? The priest. For the Lord our
God made a breach upon us, for we sought him not after the what? That means we did not seek him
according to his word. This is how a lot of people are
in Christianity today. They talk about knowing Jesus, are not
committed to his word. They talk about representing
him, and they say things that are diametrically wrong and contrary
to scripture, because they don't know the word of God. Once you
go, I think, just put a check mark by that. Because unless
your opinions and your views and your assumptions and your
premises and your arguments are framed by the Word of God, your
thoughts and my thoughts are always wrong. We can never, by
nature, automatically know the will of God and the purpose of
God without God revealing it to us through His Word. Am I
making some sense? Never be smarter than God's Word. Never be smarter
than God's Word. If you are a Bible-believing
Christian, read your Bible. His law is a light, his commandment
is a lamp, and reproof of instructions are the way of life. Have you
discovered when you've gone a long distance from reading God's word,
and then you go back to read it, you were thinking wrong.
You go, man, I was thinking wrong, and did not know it until you
read your Bible. That's because you and I naturally err. The word in our text for why
God killed Uzzah was that he erred, the error of What is the
error? The error is when you and I missed
the point. When we go off the course. To
err is to go off the course. And that's what that's what Uzzah
had done because he had not stayed within the framework of the Word
of God. He went off course. And you and I are going off course
every day. You and I have to be calibrated every day by the
Word of God. Did you know that? Because we naturally go off course.
And this is why David says now We experienced such a breach
because we did not seek a method to do order. Two more verses.
So the priest and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring
up the ark of the Lord God. And the children of the Levites
bear the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereof. Aha! Did they get it right this
time? Where is the ox? Cooked? Turned into oxtail? Ham hocks? rib eye, and everything else,
because they were useless for the worship of God. Don't just
get rid of them, cook them, cook them. Don't just get rid of them.
Point number two, then I want to work quickly through these
three points. And these are critically important by way of application.
When you get a vision, and I don't know if I want to chance it,
if the ark was back up there as a vision, you saw the stage,
right? You saw the stage. And what would happen is you
would have a priest on the front, two priests, one on each side
of the stage. and they would carry the ark. The ark was covered
over completely in gold, and the people of God, because they
were covenant people, would have understood the significance of
the ark, right? People who are on the outside of the gospel
don't understand the gospel. People who are on the inside
of the gospel understand every symbolic connotation of that
ark. Is that true? They understand
what the staves are about, the obedience of faith. That's what
the staves are about, the obedience of faith. They understand that
the obedience of faith is where God tells you and me how we are
to actually do His will. And when we do it God's way,
we are walking by what? And when you are walking by faith,
you are therefore operating merely on the premise of God's Word,
though you don't understand it, though you don't see it the way
God sees it, because faith is the substance of things what?
The evidence of things what? Right. And so faith is not just
some blind leap in the dark. Faith is simply taking God at
his word, understanding that God sees the big picture and
there are things that we don't see. So I'm going to hold the
ark up the way God says it. And it's called the obedience
of faith. Now, when we preach the word of God and teach the
word of God, according to scripture, Romans one, five, Romans 16,
15 and others, we call all men to the obedience of faith. When
we preach the Word of God, we call them to the obedience of
faith. And what that means is we demand that they understand
the imperative of the Word of God to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now what that means is you've
got to learn of Christ. Because Christ is the whole counsel
of God. It's not just embracing the nomenclature
or the terminology Jesus. It's having Jesus unpacked in
all of his full or glory and all of his offices and all of
his word so that you understand the meaning of Jesus according
to God. You know what that means? You
got to become a student of God. Lest you adopt a false Jesus. The art you see is a picture
of Jesus. He is the propitiation for our
sins. The mercy seat, the lid on the
top of this ark is the place where the blood is poured so
that sinners can commune with God through the death of the
God-man Jesus. The articles inside that ark
are God's testimony for God and against men and through Jesus. We learned that last week, right?
God tells us to obey. We don't. We broke his law. All
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. God tells us
to trust in his provision. We don't. We'll take what he
gives us, but then we're going to do our own thing on the side.
God says six days, you get the manna, but leave it alone on
the seventh. What did Israel do? They took
the manna, which was supposed to lead them through the wilderness,
and they started baking it and frying it, sautéing it, freezing
it and selling it, marketing it. And what did God do? He let
it breed worms because they were not doing it by faith. This is
where men and women who think that they can kind of nudge their
walk with God and they're going to work 50 hours a week, so they
can live large not knowing that God is the one that gives you
strength to work. And where you don't take time
out to worship God, you are destroying your own strength. Am I making
some sense? Because if you're not healthy,
how are you going to work? Driving yourself crazy by working
60-hour weeks to get a little extra money and then that little
bug you can't even see unless you have a microscope knocks
you down for three months. Now you're broke again. How about
taking two days off, trusting God, we're teaching you management
skills so you can take care of your money and you can seek first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness and he promises to add everything
you need. But now you gotta walk by the
obedience of faith now. Now you gotta trust God. Am I
telling the truth? And there's more that I can say
about this, but David is rejoicing because they have come to a point
of taking God's word serious again before more death occurs. Subpoint B, I love this. God always helps us in our obedience. You didn't see it, but I'm going
to show it to you. Look with me at verse 25 and
26. In Mark 26, so David And the elders of Israel and
the captains of thousands, 30,000 to be exact, went to bring the
Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from the house of Obed-Edom with
what? With joy, with joy. It's said several times in the
chapter with joy. How come? The Book of Chronicles
is not an exact rendition of the Book of First and Second
Kings. First Chronicles and Second Chronicles. It's not the same
as 1st Kings and 2nd Kings, though they are similar and they are
the same chronological history. 1st and 2nd Kings has to do with
the monarchy on an earthly level. Chronicles 1 and 2 has to do
with the monarchy from a vertical divine level. 1st Chronicles
and 2nd Chronicles has to do with the worship of God and that's
why in the Chronicles account you have the names of the Levites
here. When you read the Chronicles, you're reading the history of
Israel's monarchical period from God's vantage point. And therefore
things are going to be emphasized from God's vantage point as to
problems and solutions because God's view is the most important
view. Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? So right now the
author is saying there's joy, joy, joy because God now is being
obeyed. And here's the next verse. I want you to get this. This
is amazing. And it came to pass when God
helped the Levites that bear the ark of the covenant of the
Lord. Stop. So you missed it. If you don't
understand the implications of that little clause there, that
line there, they could have never made it to Obed-Edom or brought
it safely to Jerusalem if God didn't help them. If they, if
God didn't help them to repent, if God didn't help them to go
back to the word, if God didn't help them to search the scriptures
daily to see whether those things were so, if God didn't help them
by giving them a revelation to rightly divide the word of truth,
if God didn't help them by giving them repentance for having done
it wrong. So you need help in all of that.
When you go the wrong way, you need God's help. God helped the
Levites turn it around. And then every step of the way,
he's helping them. Don't you need help walking with
God? Don't you need help talking with God? Don't you need help
doing the will of God? You need help breathing in and
breathing out. You need help blinking. You need
help all the way. That's good. Whether you know
it or not, it's good. And the Holy Ghost says, and God helped
them all the way. And can I tell you what I know
what's going on with the Levites? They were acutely aware that
God was helping them. You know when you do it on your
own and God's not in it? It's a mess, isn't it? When you're
trying to do it in your own strength and God steps back and says,
go ahead, let's see if you can lift the world off your shoulders.
And you look bad, you feel bad, your attitude's funky, you're
growing thorns and thistles and cactus thorns, and you're wondering
why it's all bad, because God's not helping you. He's not helping
you. And you wonder why you're not
making progress, because God's not in it. There is a marked
difference when God has approved of what you do. I know that in
my own life. It's amazing to me what God has
done for me. just amazing to me. And when
you know that God is helping you, you know that he's helping
you because you are helpless. Right? You know you're helpless.
And so you know the strength that's buoying you up and carrying
you along and keeping you within the framework of your calling
is all of God. And you are amazed at it every
day. Lord, keep me. Keep me. So we have the two staves of
faith and obedience. We have God helping us in our
obedience We do believe that right Philippians chapter 2 12
and 13 work out your salvation work it out with fear and trembling
Not pride and arrogance and presumption fear and trembling for it is
God who worketh in you both the will and to do of his good pleasure
Do those brothers know that by experience those Levites carrying
that ark? Listen Now, you know they were
thinking, Lord, you killed the other priest. Have mercy on us.
Have mercy on us. Are we going too fast? Should
we slow it down? Should we get some rhythm going?
How you want us to do this, Lord? How you want us to do this now?
We made it here. We made it here. We made it here.
Because God is holy and he will not be mocked. Therefore, there
was great joy in heaven. The joy and blessing of God's
presence if you'll mark back in 2nd Samuel 6 verses 17 through
19 You don't have to do it. David was so happy for the ark
arriving that he went everywhere giving gifts Giving gifts to
all the families we're getting to our last point When the king
is happy the people are happy And when the king is happy, he's
going to do everything to make the people happy by going into
his resources and blessing the people with gifts. And that's
exactly what Jesus Christ did when he rose again from the dead,
went to glory and poured out the Holy Ghost and gave gifts
unto men. And he'd been giving gifts unto
us ever since. Has he not? Has he not been giving
gifts unto us? The gift of faith, the gift of
hope, the gift of love, the gift of service, right? The gift of
revelation, the gift of knowledge, the gift of healings, the gift
of miracles, the gift of works, administration. God's been giving
gifts because God is happy and Christ is happy and the kingdom
of God should be a place largely demonstrative of the joy of the
Lord. Is that true? When God is pleased with his
people, he gives them gifts. so that they can join him in
his joy. That's the magnificent statement that we are given when
Jesus says, on that day, he shall say unto you, well done, my good
and faithful servant, enter ye into the joy of the Lord. There
is a joy unspeakable and full of glory awaiting every obedient
believer. Bringing me then to my final
point, and this is a point for which we need to now pay careful
attention, everyone in the house. Point number three, this goes
back to the title of our message, the joy of gospel, the joy and
offense of gospel obedience. I didn't know how to put it any
other way. And that's largely because I haven't seen in the
scriptures any place where the gospel comes in joy where it
doesn't also produce an offense. Now, what we're going to deal
with is pathetic, but it's going to be a lesson for a lot of us.
Whose side are you on? Here's a lesson. You're in the
church today, but whose side are you on? The author is going
to narrow the lens onto a woman who had every right to be happy,
but she wasn't. She had every right to rejoice
more than anyone else in the kingdom, but she didn't. The author is going to narrow
us in on that to help us to understand the danger of being privileged
and failing to thank God for it. Her name is Micah. Micah, Micah, Micah, Micah. Micah, I think it's Micah. Is
it Micah or Micah? So is that a typo? Good. So we
won't leave brother Micah alone. Brother Micah's good. That's
Micah, M-I-C-H-A-L. She is the daughter of Saul.
She's the wife of King David. David purchased her for 204 skins
of the Philistines. We're 100, but he threw in another
100 because the spirit of the Lord was on him so heavily. And David took her back, as we
learned a couple of weeks ago, because David's ultimate goal
was the unity of the church. He knew that to have Micah with
him, Michael with him, is to have Israel's favor because Israel
only knew King Saul as their king. King Saul had given her,
promised her to David, remember? But when he promised her to David,
King Saul had something else in mind. And when you follow
the narrative, the narrator purposely does not allow you in on the
maniacal objective of Saul, except for one little statement back
in chapter 18 of 1 Samuel 16. And we'll go there in a moment.
But the rest of the account, we don't find anything of any
real evidence of Michael's character. I mean, she even helped David
escape, remember? And some authors will say that
Michael was a good girl. I beg to differ. Her daddy knew
her. And if her daddy wants to marry
her off to his worst enemy, she's a problem. But here is the challenge. Micah, who is a rebel, is offended
by the gospel of Christ's atoning work and electing love. She has a struggle. I will grant
you, as we wrap this up, I will grant you that if you wanted
to feel sympathetic for her, you can. We're working through,
in our women's theology class, several significant women, and
we are struggling, are we not? Developing resumes and portfolios
of these sisters who are in very complex relationships with David.
Here goes another one. And we're trying our best to
understand their humanity, their situation, how they grew up.
And you know, you can have sympathy on a sister like Micah. Her daddy
was Saul. So give her a few points for
having a crazy daddy. But the fruit don't fall far from
the tree. It is probably good, young ladies
and young men, to make sure you do a significant analysis of
the parents of the person you marry. First sub-point that's
critical for you to understand. First sub-point is this, under
our final point. Separated from the worship of
God. Separated from the worship of God. For you to grasp this,
you're gonna have to go back to the 2nd Samuel text. 2nd Samuel
chapter 16. For you to grasp it. 2nd Samuel
16. verses, 2 Samuel 6, rather, verses
20 through 23. In the 2 Samuel text, we are
told in verse 16, or maybe that's, yeah, 2 Samuel, I'll use that
text. We're told in verse 16 these
words in chapter six. Let me get there, my Bible is
sticking, there it is. In verse 16 of 2 Samuel 6, and as the
ark of the Lord came into the city of David, the city of David
now, ladies and gentlemen, is Judah. Michael, Saul's daughter,
looked through a window. Stop. What's she doing looking through
a window? Why is she looking through a window where all of
Israel know that Jesus is coming? When all of Israel knows that
God is coming, when all of Israel knows that God has had mercy
on them because of the first stumbling, and now everyone's
coming. She heard the procession. She
heard the trumpet. She heard the joy. She heard
the celebration. She heard the worship. Why is Michael not in
the worship? That's a good question, isn't
it? See, we got we got an issue here and the author wants you
to get this. He wants you to get it on a personal level and then
on a larger redemptive level. On a personal level, you can
be in the house and not be in Christ. On a personal level,
you can come to church, sit in a chair, but never come to God.
Never come to God. That's dreadful, isn't it? But
Micah said, no, because see, she is in her own rights, the
king's husband. She's the king's husband. Sorry. Especially in the 21st century.
Get that right real quick. I repent. She's the king's wife. And there are a whole lot of
women watching her. Because to whom much is given,
much is required. And you and I have to ask a real
deep and profound question. Does Michael know anything about
the priority of kingdom protocol? Very much like we're learning
with Abigail and learning with Bathsheba. The reason why God
blessed them is because they understood protocol, even with
all their problems. Godly women understand protocol.
Micah is so, Michael is so bent out of shape that she's ready
to break ranks with protocol and cause people to have to look
at her up there. versus looking at her down there.
Because in my own opinion, she should have been dancing with
her husband. Can I get a witness? Even if she had problems at home,
she should have understood the privilege of being the King's
wife. I got it right that time. And because she's a child of
the living God, this is not all about Michael. This is about
God having done something for them that was so absolutely magnificent
that she should have been in on it. But obviously Micah got
issues when all of Israel is enjoying the return of God and
she's struggling. Sub point one, separated from
the worship of God. We call this a form of what?
Protest. Do you guys see that? That's
a form of protest. Is she protesting? And she's
protesting, really, not against David, yes, but not really against
David. Against who? This is what we call passive
aggression mode. You guys know that in psych. It's an indicator that the things
of God meant very little to her. When you can't worship the presence
of Christ, the presence of God in the person of Christ, you
got problems. And that's what's going on with
her here. She's got real issues. She couldn't find it in herself
to see what's going on for nothing in the world. Much like the birth
of Jesus Christ, the leaders of Israel, remember when he was
born? And the wise men came and said, where's he that is born
King of the Jews? They said, around the corner.
He was. But they didn't have enough interest
themselves to go. See, Micah then becomes for us a pattern
and paradigm of national Israel. hostile to Jesus though they
are church. You guys see it? This is an interesting,
interesting segue by the author. But the real problem in her life,
the real problem that she has in her life is that she identified
more, watch this, with her earthly father than with her heavenly
father. You got it? Watch the tension. Michael, should have been rejoicing
in God, her father, that he has done something for Israel that
he had not done in over 40, almost 50 years since the days of Samuel. All the days of her earthly daddy,
she never worshiped a God-centered, Christ-centered church, a God-centered,
Christ-centered worship. All of her earthly worship, Christ
was absent. Her daddy raised her up in Israel
in church where the gospel was not preached. where the atoning
work of Christ was not set forth, where propitiation was not the
central basis upon the joy of the people of God. Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? I don't know how they did church all
those years. Do you? In the absence of the gospel. How dry and how
empty and how cold it must be to have a worship where you don't
see the beauty and splendor of Christ in it. But that was her
experience. And I would suggest that for
the whole of Israel to be rejoicing in the ark returning, she was
alien to it because she was not born again. See, there are some
people who rejoice in the gospel, others go ho-hum. And then yet
others are offended by it. This is a strange paradox intention. She's separated from the worship
of God by her own public protest. And then secondly, look what
she does, verse 20. Verse 20, then David returned
to bless his own household after blessing everybody else's household.
And Micah, and see how the author puts it, the daughter of Saul
came out to meet him. Throw down and mow down. And the author wants you to get
it. She doesn't have enough internal integrity and protocol to leave
her issues at home. Not only is she protesting publicly
by distancing herself from the people of God and from her own
husband, now she's going to go out to meet him and engage in
that which is completely wrong. Are you guys following me? Listen
to it. Here it is. This is what it says. And she
came out to meet David and said, how glorious was the king of
Israel today. He uncovered himself today in
the eyes of the handmaids of his servants as one of the vain
fellows shamelessly uncovered himself." Whoa. She a little
mad, huh? A little mad. A little mad. Second point. Open, obvious opposition
to David, right? Open, obvious opposition to David. You know what I call this? Two
things. Disrespect and what? Slander. You know what slander
is, right? It's when you accuse someone of something that you
think you know, but you really don't know. As we're learning
in our women's study, what you do is you have to gather data
about an individual and make sure the data that you gather
is correct and right and not skewed to actually build your
own argument against them. You need to have all the data
so you can be fair and honest in your assessment of a person.
You might see someone do something. If you draw a conclusion, jump
to conclusion and say, they did that because of that, you could
be slandering them. You can also be disrespecting
them. Micah was so wrong about David, I could spend the whole
sermon talking about it. But really what you and I want
to ask the question is, how could she be so wrong? How could she
have missed the point so much? How could she be so trapped by
a horizontal perspective that it has no vertical components
to it at all? How could she completely miss
that David is responding to the presence of Christ? How could
she miss that? She could only miss it by our
third point, blinded to the glory of God and the ark. You know
what that means? All she saw was a box. She didn't
see Christ. Do you hear me? She didn't see
Christ. And that's the case for people
when they come to church. We preach Him. We explain Him. We laud Him. We expound Him. We rejoice in Him. And if God
doesn't open your eyes, you can't see what we're rejoicing about.
Is that true, Saints? And what's pathetic about our
account again is because she's in a position of authority and
power, it is presumed that she knows God. Why? Because she's
actually in a kind of leadership role. When you're the wife of
leadership, your job is to model that you actually know Christ.
And when you actually know Christ, you are obligated to actually
encourage your sisters and brothers in drawing near to God as you
draw near to God. This is a big problem, but really,
on a larger redemptive level, it's teaching us something about
what we had stated when we opened up, and that is this. No good
deed goes unpunished. Secondly, wherever the gospel
is rejoiced in, there's always someone that's offended by the
gospel. In this tragic scenario, as we close, it happens to be
David's wife. Now, the way it's going to be
dealt with is going to be instructive for you and me. Point number
D. Notice what David does. When
he hears these words from his wife, here's how he responds
in verse 21 through 23. And David said unto Michael,
it was before the Lord. I wasn't even conscious of your
sisters. Your sisters didn't motivate me to dance. I wasn't
trying to hit on them. I was moved because God said
yes to me, to me. I was moved because God favored
me and you ought to be moved too. Because there's no reason
for God to favor us other than just God decided to favor us.
And when God favors you, you ought to be moved. If God allows
you into his presence, you ought to be moved. You ought to be
thankful when God allows you to stand before him in the person
of Christ as his son or as his daughter, having chosen you in
him before the foundation of the world and called you by the
gospel. You ought to be thankful for
that. That's where David was. And here's the reason why. David
knows he's a sinner and God was so good to him anyway. So good to him anyway. So good
to him anyway. He knew that one of his biggest
accomplishments was getting the ark back to Israel. He knew it. He knew it. And he could not
understand how this woman could not understand his joy. He couldn't
understand it. So here's what he said. He says,
it was before the Lord, which chose me over your daddy. Sorry,
I don't even know how to restructure that. See, can I tell you what David
is doing now? He's shutting it down. You may
not know what I mean by that, but he's shutting it down. Boom,
boom, the doors are shutting. Are you hearing me? He had just
shut it down. Micah stepped too far out of
line in the presence of all the people. David has, see, he can't
recover from this except to shut it down. For him to allow that
to have happened publicly would ruin his dignity in the presence
of everyone. He has to shut it down. Gotta
shut you down, sis. Gotta shut you down. Gotta shut
you down. God chose me over your daddy. He puts his finger on the pulse
of the issue. She had a greater love for being
a Benjamite and of the family of the Keshites and her daddy
was Saul than her daddy in heaven. And the issue is, is who's greater?
Your earthly daddy or your heavenly father? Are you hearing? Watch
how it shuts down. Watch how it shuts down. Here's
what he says. He says, in verse 22. And I will yet be more vile
than this. And I will be based in my own
sight. And of the maid servants which you have spoken of, of
them shall I be had in honor. David says they will honor me
because I'm pointing them to Christ. I'm abasing myself so
that Christ would be exalted and that really is the ethic
of the gospel I must decrease he must increase and where we
all decrease so that he increases those who love him love you for
loving him am I making some sense the honor that you and I are
to exhibit towards one another is really the honor that we demonstrate
for honoring him and where we don't honor him We have no reason
to expect honor from one another. Where the preacher doesn't honor
Christ, where the leaders don't honor Christ, where the church
doesn't honor Christ, it has no reason to expect honor from
Christ. And where we honor Christ, we
ought to honor one another. Am I making some sense? Because
see, you're helping me get to glory. When you keep your eyes
on Christ, when you know how to walk with your head up, and
I walk past you and I start looking up, I say, oh, I see what you're
looking at now. You're helping me get to glory. Because we can
all get distracted down here. We can get turned aside down
here and find ourselves erring down here. And when you show
me that your highest priority is the lovely Lord Jesus Christ
and God the Father, you're helping me every day. Because I'm struggling
just like everybody else. And I need to know that there
are saints who are able to keep it real with God. That's how
you're helping me. And so here's how David shuts
it down. He says, therefore, Michael, the daughter of Saul,
had no child until the day of her death. You know what that
means, right? Because she's a king's daughter,
build her cottage way over on the other side of the kingdom
and make sure there's no road between me and her for her to
get back over here and catch me on a happy mood. I'm going
to show you the application here. First of all, David had a clear
revelation that she was lost. She was unsaved. And therefore,
there was no grounds for being unequally yoked. The second revelation
he had was that David was dealing with the last vestiges of King
Saul. King Saul rises up one more time,
remember, I will let her marry my daughter, Michael, and she
will be a snare to him. David says, we're done and shuts
it down. And here's the application to
you and me, because this is always the picture of the gospel where
either you and I are actually united to Jesus and bearing fruit
unto God, or we're like being married still to the law and
bearing no fruit at all. That's Romans chapter seven,
right? When you are married to the law, you didn't bring forth
anything but fruit unto death. But when you die to the law to
be married to another, even Jesus Christ who rose from the dead,
now being married to him, you can bring forth fruit unto God
and bring glory to him. For Micah to have no children
with David is a blessing to David, but a curse to her. And here's
the exhortation before we shut it down. Now it's in second Peter
chapter one, second Peter chapter one. We all want to read this
verses eight and following second Peter chapter one verses two
through eight. Here's the admonition to you and me. And this is going
to make even more sense when I share with you what I need
to share with you after our baptisms. Now, here in a moment, we're
going to take the offering. And if you're not members of
Grace, you are free to go. We're going to have baptisms
of several brothers and sisters. And afterwards, I'm going to
make an announcement, and then we'll all be able to go home for the day. 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 2. Listen to these words. Are you
there? Grace be unto you. Grace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of our God. How is it multiplied?
Through the knowledge of our God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's how grace is multiplied to you. According as his divine
power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and what?
Through the knowledge of him that has called us unto glory
and virtue. His own glory and virtue. whereby
are given unto us exceeding great and precious what? That by these
promises you and I might be partakers of the divine nature, having
escaped the corruption that is in this world through lust. Verses
5 through 10 are our admonition. Here's the application. Besides
these promises, you and I are to give all diligence Not some diligence, all diligence. To add to your faith, virtue. To add to your virtue, knowledge. To add to your knowledge, temperance. To your temperance, patience. And to your patience, godliness. And to your godliness, brotherly
kindness. And to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you
and abound, they make you that you shall neither be, what's
the word? Michael or unfruitful in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things
is blind and cannot see afar off and has forgotten that he
was purged from his old sins. Wherefore, the rather then, listen,
brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you
will never fall. Amen.