2nd Samuel chapter 6 and follow me in your pastor's
commentary as well as we make our way once again through the life of
King David seeking to understand God's will in his life and to
see those things that pertain to us as the people of God the title of our message today
is the life of David the return of of the Ark of the Covenant,
the joy and defense of the Gospel. Do you find joy in the fact that
God has drawn near to you? Do you find joy in the fact that
He has drawn near to you through the mediatorial work of Jesus
Christ the great mediator between God and man. Do you find joy
in the fact that God determined and purposed a way by which people
might have fellowship with Him without Him destroying them? Do you find joy in the fact that
God would have a means, a method, an approach by which we would
be brought to Him exclusively through His Son Jesus Christ?
for those of you who say yes, yes, yes to all those things. Interestingly enough, those very
same things are offensive to other people. What is a joyful
reality, an awe-striking reality for the people of God is an offense
to those who do not understand the nature of God, the nature
of grace, and the nature of sin. So on the one hand, there are
those who are brought near to God and they rejoice. And on the other hand, there
are those who are told, draw near to God and He will do what?
Draw near to you, but they are offended by the means by which
God says, come. And hence we have this constant
tension in the scriptures called the joy and defense of the gospel. The joy and offense of the gospel. What's offensive about the gospel?
It's exclusivity. The fact that there is an exclusivity
to the gospel. That the gospel is not so wide
open that people can come to God any way they want to. that
you can come to God with any kind of attitude you have, or
any kind of perspective, or any kind of worldview. God says you
must come one way. That's the thing that's offensive.
Now, if you really knew yourself, you'd be glad that God opened
up that one way. But the thing that's offensive
about The gospel is that not only is it exclusive in terms
of the way you come, but it rejects all human effort and works by
which you obtain favor and relationship with God as well. That's offensive
to mankind. When God says come, but don't
bring your works, that's offensive. When God says come, but don't
come apart from Christ exclusively, singularly, and alone. That's offensive to man. What you and I are going to be
working through today is the tension and conflict that comes
with the exclusivity of the gospel. And quite interestingly, child
of God, it's not only offensive to people who are on the outside
of the kingdom, but from time to time, you and I are offended
by the gospel's exclusivity. Even people in the church struggle
at times with God being absolutely and totally sovereign. We struggle
with obedience to God, do we not? So as we work through our
text today, you're going to find yourself on both sides of the
equation. If you can reflect and say, you
know, I rejoice in the Lord. I rejoice in the power of His
might. I rejoice in the grace of God. Christ is everything
to me. That's wonderful. It may be a
very clear indication that you've been born of God. Because joy
is a fruit of the Spirit, is it not? It's one of the evidences
of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is what? Righteousness,
peace, and what? Joy. And our joy by the Holy
Ghost is our joy in Christ and Him crucified. That's where our
joy is. It's joy in a God that made a
way there was no way for us to have fellowship with him. That's
where our joy is. And yet at the same time, there are times
when you and I are offended by the gospel. Yes, we are. We are offended by the gospel.
And one of the evidences of it in our churches today is when
we consider the ways in which innovation, human imagination,
novelty, methods and performances and gimmicks are used as it were
to bolster up the worship of God. When we think about the
creative nonsense of mankind employed in worship services
around the nation, the plethora of them. Here's what we may conclude,
that all of these newfangled ideas to entertain us and to
attract us and to hold our attention simply means that we are offended
by the simplicity and singularity of the gospel. That where you
see the flashing lights and neon signs, and the extra emphasis
on entertainment, we are saying that the gospel in its simplicity
is not enough. And where you see people engaging
in labors to really, really address the psychological and emotional
and the physical and the sensual needs of mankind in church, where
when you go away from church, if you are ignorant of what church
is really about, you say, man, I had a great time. The question
is, were you confronted with the truth claims of God? And
did you behold his glory? the person of Christ. That's
the real issue. That's the real issue at hand. And our text is going to teach
us the danger of neglecting the singularity of the gospel. It's easy to fall prey to extremes
in any direction. You believe that child of God?
over the years and you can use this as a model in every area
of life but I talk about extremes as being the consequence of a
spherical ball upon which when you stand on the top of it you
are in the center But you got to really labor to stay in the
center of that thing because you can tilt to one side or the
other depending upon which way the winds are blowing or because
of the lack of equilibrium in your own center and makeup, we
can slide to one extreme or the other. And I would say that if
you're honest, you and I have experienced extremes of this
nature all through our lives. One day we are extreme to the
left. The next day we are extreme to the right. Extremes seem to
be the common experience of mankind until they are truly rooted and
grounded. See, once you're rooted and grounded,
then you're not moved. But the challenges come. And
there is the extreme in religious circles that falls out like this.
You have the extreme of what we would call the cold and stoic
and unreasonable traditionalist. who will wrap themselves in their
self-righteous garments and claim that the way that they do it
is the only way that it can be done. That's an extreme in my own experience. And they will decry every modern
comfort or practice cushioned pews. Now you know you cold when
you telling people they need to sit on hard wooden benches
and get hemorrhoids to sit and listen to dry preaching that
does not glorify God. Am I making some sense? I know
it seems an extreme, but there are churches who really say if
we put in cushion pews, we're going to make the people soft.
Y'all think that went through. Musical instruments have always
been a controversy in the church. God says worship us from the
heart, not with musical instruments. But that's not what he said.
He said, worship him from the heart. Do you got that? He didn't make musical instruments
exclusive to worshiping him from the heart. And so some assemblies
emphasize a cappella singing only as if that makes you closer
to God in the worship. Kent, if you can't sing, get
a piano to cover it up. And then on the other hand, you
have the liberals who are what I consider irreverent souls,
always pushing the envelope in the name of freedom and grace.
And they will swear God is not happy or pleased unless you're
always shouting and jumping and sweating and doing cartwheels
in the church. And that kind of excessive, exhibitional,
demonstrative, so-called worship is nothing more than fleshly
worship and personal gratification. Are you guys hearing me? What
I always say is the nature of the spirit of God and the work
of grace in the life of the people of God is two things. It's biblical,
radically biblical, as we're gonna see today, and it's moderate. It's biblical and it's moderate
because while God must always be the object of worship, God's
people who are born again, compatible with the God they worship, also
enjoy worship. Am I making some sense? It is
the glory of God and it is a glory to God when you enjoy being in
the presence of God. And so as we work through our
message today, the life of David, the return of the ark of God,
the joy and defense of the gospel, I call your attention to our
first point. I'm going to see if I can work
this through fairly quickly with us. The presence and preeminence
of the true monarch. That's our first point, the presence
and preeminence of the true monarch. What do I mean? I mean that when
you really pay attention to chapter 6 of 2 Samuel, you notice that
David was motivated to go get the ark. He was motivated to
go get the ark and bring it back to the city of David. and ultimately
it would end up in Jerusalem, which is God's larger paradigmatic
objective because Jerusalem is the city of our God, the foundation
of peace, it's his footstool, it's where he dwells. But I want
you to follow with me for a moment a man who will be for us today
a model of biblical leadership in the church. What is David's
secret to being the man after God's own heart? His clear understanding
that all that he does must be for the glory of God. And that
whatever he does as God's servant must bring people not to David,
but to Christ. Now watch this, this is very
instructive. What we discover is that David
has come to a place of realizing that God has fulfilled his promise
to David in making him king of Israel. This has been a long
journey for David, has it not? He's there now, but he went through
a lot to get here, didn't he? And we learned a lot of things
about how God calls you, how God develops you, how he matures
you, and then how he, what, settles you. David is settled now. But
he's not settled in himself. He's settled in the kingdom.
Chapter 5 says David perceived that God had given him the kingdom.
Chapter 5 had said that David had successfully marshaled all
of Israel together, and all of the leaders said, you are our
captain, you are our king. David knows he has the people.
Are you ready? David knows he has the people,
and David has discovered something between chapter 5 and 6 that
was remarkable, and that's this. He was able to successfully route
the Philistines in two strategic battles, from chapter 5 to chapter
6, that gave him an insight You know, sometimes when you are
engaged in a specific battle, a spiritual battle of sorts,
that in the midst of that battle and out of that battle comes
a revelation and understanding of something you would have never
gotten unless you went through that battle. Am I making some
sense? In other words, certain battles you go through actually
break you into, press you into a greater understanding of God's
will for your life. Here's what David discovered
when him and all of the mighty men of Israel that rode with
him on the two campaigns against the Philistines and he routed
them thoroughly. He had discovered that God had
given him rest all about from all of his enemies. He's sitting
on his throne. All of Israel is in unification. They're unified. His enemies
are at bay. They have left him alone. Now,
if David was a carnal, man-centered preacher or a carnal, man-centered
pastor, he would have been settled with the fact that God has given
him all this. But because he was truly a gospel
preacher, and that his heart was filled with one all-consuming
desire, and that is the glory of God, what he discovered is
that God didn't make that way to the throne for him. He made
David's way to the throne for God. And as David sat on his
throne, settled, established, at peace, prospering and growing,
as chapter 5 says, and David grew and waxed great and mighty,
David says, there's one more critical thing that needs to
take place, lest I set the whole nation of Israel up for abject
failure. There's one more thing that must
take place and that is God's representative must be here in
the middle of the people of God so that the people of God do
not find their comfort in David, their confidence in David, their
confidence in a man, their confidence in a king, their confidence in
a monarch. In other words, David understands
that Israel must comprehend the true monarchy of God. If Israel is going to achieve
what it was designed to be, it was called by God, raised up
by God, it was carried by God, it was led by God, it was brought
into the land by God, Israel has to come to understand that
God really truly is their king. Am I making some sense as I lay
the foundation? In other words, godly leadership must at all
times in the church point men and women to Christ as the real
Theomonarch. And whatever we do by way of
ministry must always augment and bring to light and reinforce
in the mind of the people of God the presence of the true
and the living God in the person of Christ in that church. See,
the ark had been removed long, long ago. And the people of God
had gotten used to worship without Christ. They had gone decades
and decades in a form of godliness without the power. They had built
a massive army. They had overcome many foes. But what they had not done was
return to the Lord, and the Lord, more importantly, had not returned
to them. They were like a church that had a Bible, but not a true
interpreter. They were like a people who had
religious protocol, but never saw the glory of God in the person
of Christ revealed in the gospel. They were like a church without
Christ. Am I making some sense? And for
David, this was anathema. And so what does he do? He gathers
up 30,000 men and he heads down to where the ark is on the extreme
end of Judah, called Baal Judah, where it had been for 20 years. He said, we're bringing this
ark into the center of the capital and everybody is going to be
looking to God and the ark and not to me. This is where David
is in his passion and his desire for God. First up point then
under this first proposition, the presence, the presence and
preeminence of the true monarch. Who's the true monarch? God is.
Godly leadership underscores these two principles. Are you
ready? God rules and we're nothing but his servants. Godly leadership
impresses, reinforces, teaches didactically, demonstrates this
and models this that God alone rules. God sits in the heavens. He rules over everything. He
is the true ruler in the midst of his people, and we are nothing
but his servants. Real biblical leadership is demonstrated
by the leaders in complete subjection to the authority of God. And
when the people of God, therefore, are looking to the leaders, they
must necessarily, by this means, look through them to God. look
through them to God. And so we read in 2 Corinthians
chapter 4 verse 5 where the apostle Paul instructs us when he says,
for we preach not what? Would David have been preaching
himself if he had left the ark down in Chirigeum, Baal, Judah? And everybody would have been
worshiping who knows where, Gibeon or Shiloh, without an ark. And
they would have been satisfied so long as the king had shown
up. Would David have been the center of worship? Of course
he would have. And David said, perish the thought.
Here it is. We preach not ourselves, but
Jesus Christ what? The Lord! You understand what
that word means? Sovereign! Ruler! Curios! God's monarch! That's who we
preach. And we ourselves, you're servants
for Jesus' sake. David knew his position. David
knew that all he was was a servant of God. And this is critical
in the church where the gospel is preached, proclaimed, and
enforced. 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 7,
Underscores this vision where the Apostle Paul talks about
what he calls the true Potentate the king of kings and the Lord
of lords listen to it I'm sorry this verse 17 verse first Timothy
chapter 6 verse 17. It'll probably be This is where
David is saying to Timothy, Timothy, you make sure that you maintain
a good profession before men, even as Jesus Christ did. Let
me go there if we can't find it. First Timothy chapter six,
verse 17, where he lays out the vision again, one more time concerning
the true monarch. This is Paul speaking to the
preacher and the preacher is Timothy. And he's wanting Timothy
to maintain as we all must maintain a vision of God. Are you there
in first Timothy? I'm going to start at verse 15
and it's verse 16, verse 15 and 16. Who in his time will show,
that is Jesus, who is the blessed and only what? He's both blessed
and he is singular ruler. Potentate means monarch, the
sovereign one. He is the king of kings and he
is the Lord of lords. and who alone hath immortality
dwelling in the light which no man can approach which no man
has seen nor can see to whom the honor power and everlastingly
amen do you see how paul had a vivid understanding of the
monarchial reality of jesus christ and how that's he's pressing
that home in timothy's life letting timothy know listen timothy as
a preacher of the gospel frequently you're going to be confronted
by lilliputians That is little kings on the earth Little monarchs
on the earth you will and these little fusions will act as if
they are the top of the line But I want you to always remember
behind the little fusions is the big king And this is how
we as the people of God must always operate you may have an
earthly boss But there's really only one boss that you have and
that is the Lord Jesus Christ. I He's the king of kings and
he's the lord of lords. All right now follow me now as
we work our way through our second point Our second point is not
only that godly leadership declares that god rules and we are his
servants, but that The salvation of god's people is always to
be visibly what? The salvation of god's people
is to always be visibly comprehended hence david knows that the ark
of the covenant which stands as a representation of the true
and the living God in terms of his redeeming glory, which is
where I'm going to sit for a few moments, must be in the center. And it must be the object of
everyone's fixation. The comfort of the people of
God, the true Israel of God, must be that we have our eyes
on Christ. David wants the ark to come back
so that it is truly in the center. You guys remember as we had learned
how God had brought Israel out of Egypt to bring them to Canaan,
that they had to go through the wilderness? And in the wilderness,
God taught them how to worship. And one of the things that God
did was set Israel up in four quarters of three tribes each. And in the middle of all those
tribes was what? The tabernacle. So that each
tribe looked inwardly and their face was toward the tabernacle.
and in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle was what? The
Ark of the Covenant. What is the Ark of the Covenant
in relationship to our sovereign God? His throne. His throne. His throne. The Ark of the Covenant
is His throne. The people of God were worshiping
a monarch that they couldn't see. He was the invisible ruler. who had brought them out of Egypt
into the promised land, and they were all looking inward, each
tribe looking inward, centered upon the Ark of the Covenant,
where the Shekinah glory would dwell between the two cherubs
on the top of the Ark, shining out to the people and through
the people to the world. Did you guys get that? Shining
out to the people, that's revelation, and through the people, that's
witness, to the world. The people of God are looking
to God and they are beholding his glory and that glory is Penetrating
their life and it's shining through them to the world so that the
world sees you as a light Because you are dwelling in the midst
of the light Am I making some sense? Now I wasn't time for
that to come up because that wasn't my point Going back to
her point. Well, you will work it out one
of these days So What we are learning is that David wanted
to make sure that the people of God had a proper perspective
of worship. And we use a term today called
God-centered worship. Doesn't mean much in this 21st
century. Because if you talk about God,
but you don't talk about Christ, you could be talking about any
God. Did you hear what I just said? So now watch this. What
we say is we believe in a Christ-centered, God-glorifying, Bible-based ministry. Christ is the center and effulgence
of the glory of the invisible God. In other words, you don't
know God if you don't know Christ. And if you don't know the Word
of God, which is the means by which the Gospel is preached,
you can't know Christ. And if you don't know the Gospel
and you don't know Christ, you don't know God. God is only revealed
in Christ, and Christ is only revealed in the Gospel. Now,
the Ark of the Covenant represents God's redeeming glory. This is why every Christian ought
to spend his time learning what the Ark signifies and means.
I'm just going to share with you a few fundamental components
of that so you can get it. It's given to us in Hebrews 9,
verses 4 and 5, where the articles that are in the Ark of the Covenant
testify to us of God's nature and character and his dealings
with mankind. We're just going to briefly go
through this to give you a mental vision of what's taking place.
Hebrews chapter 9 verse 4 and 5, if you will, just to lay this
out. I could use the Old Testament, but in Hebrews chapter 9, 4 and
5, it gives us a quick synopsis of the things that are in the
Ark of the Covenant, which is also called the Ark of the Testimony,
which is also called the Ark of God. The Ark of the Covenant
is called the Ark of the Testimony and the Ark of God. Let me explain
these for you. The Ark of God is God's throne,
where the monarch sits. The Ark of God's Testimony is
God's decree, His will, His purpose to man and against man and for
man. Three things. The Ark of the
Testimony is where God has given His revelation of His will to
humanity. The Ark of the Testimony is where
God has demonstrated that the will that he has given to humanity
has been broken by man. The Ark of the Testimony is where
God has revealed to man that he has given him his law, but
man has broken that law. The Ark of God's Testimony is
that there's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and
sinneth not. The Testimony says all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. The testimony plainly says
it's not by works of righteousness, which we have done. Because from
the soles of your feet to the top of your head, you're a sinner.
A helpless, hell-bound sinner by that, who never once kept
the law of God. In the Ark of the Covenant is
the broken law of God. God said, take my law, which
Israel broke, and put it in the Ark. So Israel had to constantly
be reminded, every time they thought about God, how they broke
God's law. Now, what we are doing right
now is laying down what are called by Hebrews chapter 6, the ABCs
of the gospel. Hence, God is holy and man is
what? Sinful. And what makes man sinful? He has broken God's law. No,
you haven't. Yes, you have. No, I didn't. Yes, you have. God has it on
record in the ark. God has on record in the ark
that we violated God's law. In Adam, all died. For by one
man sin entered into the world, death upon all, for all have
what? Sin. So in the ark, God has a testimony
of his will that he gave to us, but we have violated that will.
God says, put it in the ark. Put the broken law in the ark.
Let them know. Let them, every time they think about me, remember
this. By nature, I'm a sinner. See, until you get these truths,
your gospel is going to be man-centered and you're going to have a faulty
estimation of yourself. The only way you can deal with
the true God is admit that we in Adam and in our own self broke
his law. Is that true? We broke his law.
You can't approach the God without the confession of your abject
sinfulness. And this is something we do every
time we worship God. Because obviously if you're always
looking to God in terms of his redeeming glory, you're going
to always be reminded of your sinfulness. And that's the only
way you can approach God, recognizing what you are not, needing what
he has to provide for you because of what you don't have in order
to bring you near. So we have the Ark of the Covenant,
we have the golden censer there, the Ark of the Covenant laid
over with gold wearing with the golden pot of manna and Aaron's
rod that budded and the tables of the covenant. I'm going to
start from the bottom up simply because a Hebrew writer did it
this way. He starts with the tables of the covenant. What
do we call that? The law of God, just in case you didn't know.
Your Bible is a covenant. It's God's covenant with his
people. Is that true? Your Bible is a
covenant. Old Testament is a will. New
Testament is a will. It's not a will, a covenant.
All right, I'm not going to go over this again. You've got to
get to see these. If you don't know, you are in trouble if you think
that you are not in covenant with God. In fact, the whole
human race is in covenant with God. The whole human race. The
tables of the covenant are those two stone tables that gave us
the Decalogue, thou shalt not, thou shalt, et cetera, and then
expanded by over 600 other commandments in what we call the Tanakh. The
law of God was placed in the earth because man violated God's
law. Remember Moses up on the mount.
He gets the Ten Commandments from God before he gets down
off the mount, before the stones are even cooled off, the tables
are cooled off. The people of God are committing fornication
and worshiping idols. The first sin that God said don't
do is commit idolatry. And all of us by nature are idolaters. We have broken God's law. Am
I making some sense? The Ark of the Covenant. And
then Aaron's rod that budded. We'll follow the line there going
back up. What is Aaron's rod that budded?
It was God's will that there would be one high priest for
the whole human race, one mediator between God and man, and the
man is Jesus Christ. In other words, you don't get
to heaven any kind of way you want. God has raised up one man,
one high priest. He is our greater Melchizedek. His name is Jesus Christ. But
what did Israel do? Israel rebelled against God's
election and choice of the high priest and said, now we can come
to God by our own good works. We are holy people. And we learned
this on Friday. God says, OK, separate the holy
people from the true holy people. And I'm going to open up the
earth and make a hole for the holy people. Haven't we learned
that? Number 15. If you dare to think
you can come to God apart from Christ, you are damning yourself. And what happened? God said,
lay out your rods to all the rulers who thought that they
could approach God on their own strength. And only one rod budded,
and it was the rod of Aaron. God said, take that rod and put
it in the ark as a testimony against man. See it? Because by nature, we all reject
Jesus. Am I making some sense? We all
try to do it by our own grace. Then every moment that you live
apart from Christ, you're rejecting your high priest. And the law
of God has in the Ark of the Covenant, the testimony that
we've done that. And what's more strange about our text is that
it's the so-called people of God who are rejecting Jesus. The moment that you say, salvation
can be obtained any other way than the the high priest Jesus
Christ that one exclusive means you have rejected God's high
priest you and I are no different than Cora, Dathan, and Abiram
and the whole group of princes and families and children that
were swallowed up alive in hell you guys got that This is the
law of the covenant. This is the covenant. So not
only did the law, not only Aaron's rod that budded, that underscored
the mediatorial work of our exclusive high priest Jesus, but the golden
pot that had the what? The manna. What is the manna?
The manna was God's evidence of there with the people of God
providing for them every day that which was necessary for
their soul sustenance. You remember Exodus chapter 13,
14 and 15 where Israel cried, we don't have any food in the
wilderness. And God says, let them sanctify
themselves in the morning. They're going to see my glory.
And when they woke up, they saw the horror frost on the ground
and they called it manna because they couldn't recognize it. The
word manna means I don't know what this is. You got to teach
you a truth. That you're true. What is this?
That's what they were saying. Because they never saw any dough
like that. They never saw bread like that.
And the author was gracious enough to me to give me a natural physiological
appeal for the coriander seed bread with the oil and the honey
lightness and taste of it. I said, I wish I had some right
now. He was just gracious to a brother.
The problem is God had provided them a manner that would sustain
them all the way through the wilderness. It would keep them
healthy. It would keep them strong. It
would keep them vital. But they kept saying, what is
this? And what this corresponds to
is people's strangeness and ignorance of the glory of God and the incarnation
of Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ for us is
the bread of life, is he not? Is he not the manna that came
down from heaven, that if a man or a woman eats, they will never
hunger again? But if you're going, what is
this? Then you don't know the sufficiency of the grace of God
in the person of Jesus Christ. And there are a whole lot of
church folk that say to the gospel, what is this? For those of us
who know the secret, it is the bread of life. The secret of
the Lord is with them that fear him, and he shows them his glory. Why do we have that in the ark?
Because once again, God's testimony was that he is a provider, Jehovah
Jireh, for his people, but his own people reject that which
he brings as a means of provision. So it's a testimony for God,
and it's a testimony against man, but it's also a testimony
for those who believe. Is that true? And it goes on
to say not only the golden pot that had manna in it that was
around it, but then it talks about the golden censer. Do you
see it? Now the golden censer was the altar of incense, which
the high priest alone were to use when they went into the Holy
of Holies. This was exclusively the means
of Aaron. And only his sons, when Aaron
would pass, would go into the Holy of Holies with the altar
of incense, or the incense burning, profusely smoking up the Holy
of Holies. But do you remember what Nadab
and Abihu did? They entered into the holy place
with strange fire. And God killed them both because
they presumed that they could pray to God because incense represents
prayer. Are you hearing me? Let my prayers,
David said, ascend up like incense. They presumed that just because
their prayers were passionate, filled with tears, loud. By the way, God is not deaf of
hearing. Because their prayers were long.
By the way, God gets it pretty quick. You don't have to pray
all day long. just because they were emotional,
just because they were passionate, just because they were noisy,
like the bell worshipers in the days of Elijah, they thought
that God would hear them for they're much noise. Nothing could
be further from the truth. There was an apothecary or a
set of emoluments that went inside the components of the incense.
The incense had to have certain things in it, like cinnamon,
aloe, and myrrh, and frankincense, and other compounds of which,
when the incense would burn and go up to the nostrils of God,
metaphorically, what he would smell in the incense is the death
of Christ, which we'll be talking about
in two weeks. as we preach on Good Friday, which I call Awful
Friday. I hope you come out to worship
God. The high priest and the Levites, when they pray, they
are to pray fully engulfed in the reality that they have no
access to God apart from Christ, that their prayers are to be
rich with the atonement of Jesus Christ as the grounds of acceptance
before God. That the myrrh and the frankincense
and the aloe represents the honor that Christ would die. This is
why our sister anointed Him with such oil. This is for my burial. She got the atonement. And when
God hears our prayers, when our prayers are Christless, He does
not acknowledge them. Do you hear me? When God hears
your prayers in mind and all we're talking about, I need that,
I need that, I need that, I need that, I need that. Oh God, get
him, get her, get them because we love praying, get people off.
Now, your prayers are in vain where they're not first based
in, watch this now, acknowledging of God's sovereignty, acknowledgement
of his sovereignty. Are you ready? Acknowledgement
of your sinfulness. So they must be doxological,
they must be confessional, and they must be faith-oriented.
In other words, cross-centered. Father, I thank you for the blood
and righteousness of Jesus Christ. I thank you for that which he
cleansed my soul, renewed my spirit. I thank you for imputed
righteousness. I thank you for the work of grace
that came through the shed blood of Christ. Unless you're talking
like that, God's not hearing you. He's not hearing you unless
you're acknowledging the crown rights of Jesus Christ, your
access to God. Am I making some sense? God is
glorious. He's holy. I'm sinful. Christ is the only way and truth
to God. Thank you for the crossword of
the God man, Jesus Christ, my mediator. His holiness and purity
and righteousness is my grounds of acceptance before you. This
is how you draw near to God. Are you guys hearing me? And
that's what the Ark of the Covenant taught. When you come to God,
you come to a God who is holy. Christ is holy. You come to a
God who is righteous. Christ is righteous. You come
to a God who is gracious and merciful. Christ is gracious
and merciful. You come to a God who is able
to provide all of our needs. Christ is gracious and provisional,
is he not? But you come to a God of justice
as well. He will punish sin. These are
the principle, truths and foundational teachings of the gospel that
must flank and must feel all of our teaching. Where we are
getting away from this kind of teaching, you are not in a true
worship service. Do you guys hear what I just
said? At the moment, your eyes, the eyes of your mind are fixed
on Christ right now. Right now you have a vivid picture
of the glory of God in the person of Christ represented in the
ark. Do you not? And that's what you should get
at least in part every time you come to worship. Or your worship
is flat on the ground. It's flat on the ground. We can
only get to God through Christ. Am I making some sense? In other
words, the old Israelite worship where they gathered together
and walked up to Jerusalem to the holy place. I was glad when
they said, let us go to the house of the Lord. Come, let us go
up to Mount Zion. Let us go to the house of the
Lord. Hear his law and hear the testimony out of Zion. Every
time they went, Christ was preached. Do you guys hear me? Every time
they went, Christ was preached because the Levites and the Aaronites
couldn't do anything else but preach Christ. That's good. That's good. And this is what
we're pressing home. If you're a true Jew, a true
Israelite, when you come to church, you don't have to guess what
you come into church for. I wonder what the preacher gonna talk
about today. You way off course. You way off course. I wonder
what he gonna talk about today. And last week he talked about
how I could pay my bills. What are you gonna talk about
today? We have one subject. It's an
enormous subject. with many parts to it, and you
can always address a specific part, but never detach that part
from the whole. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
This is very critical, and this is what makes the Bible, from
Genesis to Revelation, one revelation. At the heart of that revelation
is a person, and his name is Jesus. You see why David was
loved of God? Can you see that? Can you see
why God says, I found a man after my own heart? He will get me
back in the middle of my people so that they can see my glory
That's what's going on here All right, we can move on Having
laid that out under our first point consider our second point
then as we move into our text the holiness of god requires
obedience to his what All right, we can ready go to work now the
holiness of god requires obedience to his words This is the struggle
that's taking place in our text. And this has to do with the offense.
You'll notice in chapter six, a bunch of things happening.
Happy people, dancing people, joyful people, dead people, and
mad people. This is the joy and the offense
of the gospel. And it happens in every church
service. Some of you are happy right now. Some of you are mad. Some of you are dead. This is how the text works. The
holiness of God requires obedience to his what? Look at verses 1,
2, and 3 for me. Notice what it says. David gathered
together all the children of Israel and David arose and went
with all the people that were with him from all Judah to bring
up from this the ark of God whose name is called by the name of
the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherub. They set
the ark of God upon a new cart and brought it out of the house
of Abinadab that was in Gibeah. And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons
of Abinadab, drove the new cart and they brought it out of the
house of Abinadab, which was at Gibeah, accompanying the ark
of God. And Ahio went before the ark
and David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord
on all manner of instruments. They were getting down. The music
was wonderful. It was sincere. It was earnest. They were celebrating even harps
and psaltery and timbrels and cornets and cymbals. And when
they came to Nacon's threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand
to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook. And
the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God smote
him there for his error. And there he died by the ark
of God. Worship stopped right away, didn't
it? Didn't it stop right away? because God wants to get your
attention. You're not truly worshipping him, neither am I, where you
don't give him undivided attention in the worship. You're not truly
worshipping God, neither am I, where we don't understand that
God is impeccably, impenetrably holy. And you're not worshipping
God where the heart doesn't have a disposition to obey him. You're
fooling yourself if you think you can worship God and yet you
are living in open rebellion against God. You are a fool.
And it doesn't matter how much religious celebration you go
through. They getting at it right here. Do you understand? The
king is playing and the band is playing and the music is playing
and the priests are going forth. They're all worshiping God sincerely. But God didn't say worship him
in spirit and in sincerity. He said worship him in truth. Is that true? So point number two says. The
holiness of God requires obedience to his word. and that obedience
is critical child of God to his glory. Titus chapter one verses
one through three and first Timothy six verse 15 underscore what
Jesus said in John's gospel chapter eight. You can go to first Timothy,
uh, uh, Titus chapter one verses one through three for me, Sharon.
But Jesus said this in John's gospel chapter eight, if you
are really my disciples, if you're really my disciple, you're going
to continue in my word. If you're not my disciples, you're
going to hop and skip and jump over the Bible and land on places
that meet your felt needs. Remember what we learned? Hopscotch.
Hopscotch. That's what a lot of churches
do over the Bible. They ignore this and ignore that and land
on that instead of receiving the whole Bible for everything
that it has to say. Are you guys hearing me? And
listen to what first Titus chapter one said. Paul, a servant of
God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's
what? Right. So now what he's going
to talk about is the ascent, conviction, and expression of
lifestyle of God's elect. That's what the word faith means.
Ascent, conviction, and expression of lifestyle of God's elect.
Watch this. This is what he says. And the acknowledging of the
what? Now, see, when you are a true believer, you know what
you do? You acknowledge the truth. You don't fight against the truth.
You don't argue against the truth. You don't oppose the truth. Here's
what you don't say. Well, that's your opinion. Churches
are full of that. That's your opinion. If you can
read a little English, I know you went to government school,
but if you can read a little English, when the Bible says
very clearly, not by works of righteousness, which we have
done, that's God talking, not the person. Are you guys hearing
me? When the preacher plainly lays
out the word of God without commentary, that's God talking. And if that
preacher should be able to actually explain the Bible right, that's
God talking to you. And you can call it an opinion
all the way to the judgment throne, but God's going to prove you
wrong. Here's what I'm saying. God saved you that he might give
you grace to obey him. Here it is. To the acknowledging
of the truth, which is after what? So you see, godly people
acknowledge the truth. You ready? God's holy. I'm sinful. How sinful? Totally sinful. What
do you mean by totally sinful? Absolutely, totally, irreparably
sinful. What does that mean, preacher?
I cannot help myself. What does that infer? I need
grace. What does that imply? It only
comes from God in Christ. What does that further imply?
Apart from faith, you can't please God. Are you guys hearing what
I'm saying? Until you shape your message
to give God glory for your salvation, you're still lost. Now what had
happened, going back to our text, because I want to expedite for
our time, what had happened was a very interesting thing. Under
the holiness of God requires obedience to his word Jesus said
in John chapter 8 as you heard it if you continue my word Are
you then are you my disciples indeed and you shall know the
truth and the truth shall continually what set you free? Liberate you
if you and I are not in a constant process of liberation from error
through the truth of God You might very well ask yourself.
Are you born again? Because liberation is a continual process Are you
hearing me? Liberation from ignorance and
from errors and from faults and from sin is a continual process.
It's the consequence of union with Jesus and continuing in
his word because you want to end up in glory. Are y'all hearing
what I'm saying? Right. So now three sub points
to this which are going to be very clear and explicit. Innovation
can be offensive to what? You know what innovation is?
When y'all or us or them decide to do God any kind of way we
want. When we are under the assumption
that God is so pleased to have an audience with us that he doesn't
mind us worshiping him any kind of way we want to. You got another
thing coming when you talk like that. Is that true? Innovation
will kill you as other will just divide. Exodus 20 verses 24 through
26, don't go there. And she already got it good.
We'll use it. This is about, this is about approaching God.
This is what God said to Israel while he was training them how
to worship. Are you hearing me? Here's what
he said to the priest who represent the preachers who are a model
to the people. An altar of earth shall you make unto me. Did you
get that? If you're going to worship me,
it's going to be an altar of earth. Watch this. Watch this.
and you shall sacrifice there on burnt offerings and your peace
offerings, your sheep and your oxen and all places where I record
my name, I will come unto thee and I will bless thee when you
make an altar of earth. The next verse, watch this. Here
it is, watch this. And if you will make me an altar of stone,
you shall not build it up. What kind of stone? You know
what human stone is? Stone where you took it and shaved
it and shaped it and formed it and colored it You know how we
do we're gonna make nice even stones and we're gonna paint
them because we want it to be attractive That's how our worship
services are today Watch this, but when you shave the stones
to make them fit You delete all sorts of essential biblical truth
in the process So you might have a nice neat altar, but you have
denied God his full glory when you did it And now people are
looking at your beautiful altar rather than the God who's supposed
to be worshipped. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Here it is. You shall not build it up hewn stone for
if you lift your tool upon it, you have polluted it. Did you
get that? The corollary? Titus chapter
3 verse 5 not by works of righteousness would we have done but by his
mercy hath he saved us The idea is if you and I put our hands
to actually actually create a method and approach to worship God It's
always sinful. Are you guys hearing me always
sinful? You can't just do whatever you want to and God accepts it
You know what God would rather you do go gather the stones of
the earth the broken obtuse twisted stones of the earth and just
put them in a big old pile and pile it up in the name of Jesus. Put the fire on there, bring
an unspotted calf, and offer it upon the broken, obtuse, twisted
stones, which don't bring glory to itself, but points to God.
You got that? You guys got that? That's critical
to your continued worship of God. I won't go to the others.
You read them in your own time. The proposition is true. An ovation
can be offensive to God. Secondly, especially when it
neglects what? Clear instructions. When you
and I neglect clear instructions, 1 Samuel 15, 22 tells us it's
rebellion against God. When we neglect clear instructions,
as God had told Saul, when he told Saul through Samuel to wait,
For him to offer the sacrifice and to kill everything in the
Amalekites, Saul did what he wanted to. He worshiped when
he wanted to. He only killed what he wanted
to in the Amalekites. He left the rest, didn't he?
And this is the proposition. Samuel said, hath the Lord as
great a delight in all your noise when you worship, as in obeying
the voice of the Lord? Do you see it? Behold, to obey
is better than what? and to hearken to God than that
of fatted rams." See it? So when we don't come to church
with our hearts ready to obey the gospel, you're committing
a fraud. It's a phony approach to God,
and God's not hearing it. Let me show you the implications
of it, our third sub-point. The ox cart. Going back to our
text, the ox cart. Who here has for the first time
heard this text read. You're okay. No, ain't no fault.
Good one. Uh, good, good. The rest of you guys have heard
this text read. I don't believe you, but you just probably too
lazy. Don't want to raise your hand. I don't believe you because
our generation is so ignorant of biblical truth. So if you
have read this text, when you read through verses three through
five, where it says, and they built a brand new ox cart to
put the ark on. If you read the Bible, you would
have known that the author meant for you to have a big red flag
go up. Whoa, what did they do? They built a big brand new ox
cart. If you had known your Bible,
you would have known something is wrong here. And what is it? The ox cart is in a fleshly approach
to ministry. What do we mean, pastor? Who
taught Israel how to use ox carts to carry the Ark of the Covenant?
The Philistines. It was the Philistines. 1 Samuel
6, verse 7. 1st samuel chapter 6 verse 7
it should be six seconds though 1st samuel 1st samuel chapter
6 now therefore make a new cart and take two milk kind on which
there had come no yoke and tie the kind to the cart and bring
the calves home from from them verse 8 This is the Philistines
and take the ark of the Lord and lay it upon the cart and
put the jewels of gold which you return for a trespass offering
in the coffer by the side thereof and send it away that it may
go from us. You know your Bible. You know
what happened in the days of the wicked ungodly sons of Eli
and the weak compromising conduct of Eli. Ichabod was written over
Israel's door. The ark of the covenant was taken.
You guys remember that? By the Philistines. And they
thought that they could handle the ark, and God showed up and
tore up everything in their house, smoked them with boils all over
their bodies, and they said, you better get this thing out
of here. And they started the ox cart religion of innovation.
It went down to Beth Shemesh, back where Judah is. And the
Beth Shemites, also not knowing that this was innovation, kept
the ark there. They got in trouble trying to
look inside the lid. Boom! They got blew up. They
said, we got to get the ark out of here. They ran it down to
Baal Judah where it was there for 20 years, blessing the house
of Obed Edom. And there David went to pick
it up. Here's the principle. When you and I are doing worship
and we say, well, it must be okay because we've been doing
it this way for 20, 30 years. and you don't search the scriptures
to determine whether that worship is valid of God, you may very
well be worshiping in the flesh. This is why God killed Uzzah.
Do you hear me? He killed Uzzah because Uzzah
should have known better. Point number three. Point number
three. Point number three. Human effort
to uphold God's honor is what? Fatal presumption. That's verse
six and seven. And when they came to the threshing
floor of Nacon, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, took
hold of it, for the oxen did what? And the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Uzzah, and God smote him there for his error,
and there he died by the ark of God. Why did he die? His error! Here was what his
error was. Two things. He thought he could
help God. Are you with me? I'm going to
push this through. I'll be done in 10 minutes. He
thought he could help God. Now, when you think you can help
God, you are utterly deceived. And much of religion today is
seeking to help God. You know, God, you know, God's
not popular today that we got to fancy up our religion. We
got to put gold and glitter and noise and entertainment and get
all the big wigs in the church so people can be interested in
God. Oh, It ain't right in the first
place. Uzzah assumed that it was okay
for them to bring the Ark of the Covenant the way he did,
but he saw the Ark shake under the oxen. And here's the truth. All man-made systems will eventually
crumble. This is why they're always doing
new innovations every five or 10 years, because it starts shaking.
They get a bunch of people, then the people disappear. Get a bunch
of people, then the people disappear. Novelty wears off, are you hearing
me? But here is the bigger error I want you to get. Uzzah was
a leader in the church. Uzzah was a Levite. You know
what that means? He should have known the word
of God. He should have understood the way the ark is to be born.
He should have understood the law of God. As Malachi tells
us, the priests' lips should always keep knowledge because
the people are to seek the word at their mouth. How is it that
Uzzah, which is a picture of your average preacher, your average
set of elders, your church leaders, Adopting a practice that he would
have known would have been open rebellion against God's law Other
than who's the lived in a time where he didn't study his Bible
either Are you hearing me ladies and gentlemen? So here's the
challenge you have in the 21st century you you have the challenge
of reading your own Bible and Determining whether I'm preaching
the truth when you come on Sunday That's right You have the challenge
of determining whether or not I am actually a sound exegetical
preacher of the Word of God, a sound expositor, me and my
teachers. You have the challenge of determining whether we know
the Word of God. Acts 17 says, and the Bereans were more noble
than those in Thessalonica because they opened their Bible and followed
that preacher to see where he was going. In most of your churches,
you don't open your Bible because the preacher don't open his Bible.
And that's the problem. God smote Uzzah because Uzzah
dared to be a leader in the church and neglected God's Word. Are
you guys hearing me? He killed him on the spot because
he thought he could pretend to be a mediator for God when he
did not bow to God's Word and know how God worships, is to
be worshiped. This is what happened. And so
we are told in point number three, Three things and I'll end here.
Children of God, God never stumbles. That ought to go without saying.
Does God stumble? Psalm 18 verse 30 tells us he's
perfect in all his ways. You got that? So if God is stumbling
in your church, two things, you got the wrong God and you got
the wrong method. You guys got that? You got the
wrong God and the wrong method. If your God is stumbling and
then your leaders have to come together and what are we going
to do? The people leave it. Well, they ought to leave because
you're not preaching the truth. They ought to leave. They ought
to leave and shut the doors behind you. In the old school, they'd
say, chain them and set the whole thing on fire with the leaders
in it. I know you can went woo because we're in the 21st century,
but in the old days, they had burnt the house down on top of
wicked men. who refused to make Christ the
totality of the revelation. And rightly so, because their
death would have stopped their sin in their tracks. Because
one of the things we discover about apostate churches and false
preachers is that they simply go from bad to worse. They never
stop. They go from bad to worse. They get caught in their errors.
They fall. They go somewhere and some group
of silly men wash them off and they start all over again, do
they not? And this is the era of false prophets and false teachers.
God doesn't stumble. Secondly, the fault is in who?
The fault is in us. The fault is in us. This is what
David is going to discover because this shocked David, didn't it?
It shocked David and it put David in fear. Look at the text. Verse eight, and David was displeased
because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah and called the name
of the place Perez Uzzah to this day. And David was afraid of
the Lord that day and said, how shall the ark of the Lord come
to me? David knew he had a problem. He knew God was working. God
said, all right, we're going to stop right here. I gave you
plenty of time to repent. We had come way up from Chirigim,
Baal Judah, we're almost to Hebron, and nobody said, you know what,
we better stop and ask the question, is this the right way to serve
God? Nobody did. Not even David. Which goes to
show you that if you and I are living in a culture of apostasy,
unless men are driven passionately to search the scriptures, to
see whether this is right or wrong, you and I will practice
bad religion until God shows us this is error. How was the ark to be carried
on two staves? Are you guys with me? We're gonna
pick this up next week. God had taught Israel in the
wilderness that the ark of the covenant, which represented God's
holiness, His redemptive glory must never be touched by man. Now you can pull an image of
the ark up. It must never be touched by man. Are you guys
hearing me? It must never be touched by man. The glory of a God in Christ
must be exclusive to God. We can never help God. We can't
help God save God and we can't help God save us. How ludicrous. God is our salvation. We're not
his. If Uzzah was able to push the
ark back up on the cart and get it to the city of David, he'd
have been able to say, you know, I help God. I help God. But the gospel is clear. By the
works of the flesh shall no man glory in God's sight. Right? that no flesh should glory in
God's sight. This is why God had to kill Uzzah.
Because Uzzah would have had a grounds to glory, wouldn't
he? To help God. Help God. Help God. How absurd. The two staves were
to be carried by the priest alone. Do you see? I don't know why
they gave that image. Those two staves, which are made
out of shiddum wood, should have been over covered with gold too.
But that's okay. But when the priest bear up the
arc one on one shoulder on one side the other on the other shoulder
on one side two in the front and two in the back the number
four being universality. These all represent gospel preachers
like Matthew Mark Luke and John. like the four living creatures
in the book of Revelation and Ezekiel, which are two counterparts
of the heavenly and the earthly, because gospel preachers are
the angels of God that bear the gospel of Jesus Christ, which
is the glory of God in Christ, revealed to sinners only by the
means of obedience and faith. The two staves are faith and
obedience. Faith and obedience. Without
faith, it's impossible to believe God. Without faith, you will
not obey God. Faith comes by what? And hearing
by the word of God. And so the servants of God would
have known that God meant for us to lift Christ up so that
he might be seen in his beauty and in his splendor only by faith
and by obedience. So that no one is looking to
the Levites, they're all looking to the ark. You guys get the
message? On this day, The initial joy
was short-lived. They were rejoicing, because
God was being brought near. But there was an offense that
was committed. And that offense was against
God. And he had to stop it in its
tracks, because the priest should have known. There you go. Much
better picture. We all growing in grace. We all
growing in grace. There we go. Why gold and not
chitim wood? I'll close here. This is free
and we're gonna come back here and go deeper because the story
is not over with Okay, because David has a problem The gospel
is not home yet The gold represents the deity of God the pure deity
of God which must over which must cover over everything that
symbolizes his presence and his power You guys hearing what I'm
saying? So without God, our efforts are still fleshly, even if our
motive was right. See in our text, their motive
was right. Their objectives were right.
Their method was wrong. And so when we see these two
staves covered in gold, it's a picture of God working together
with his obedient people, being their strength by which they
do the will of God. The should and would represents
the humanity. The gold represents the deity. They both point to the Lord Jesus
Christ who became for us the God man and us being brought
into union with him. Now we have fellowship with God
through him because we are partakers of the what? Divine nature. Are
you guys hearing what I'm saying? So we partake of the gold even
though you and I, I shit him would. I don't get that word
all jacked up. All right. Because I saw somebody
smiling over there. Let me help you as you close.
This is a beautiful, beautiful redemptive truth. I want you
to get this, a beautiful redemptive truth just for the Shiddamwood.
So you know, our teachers in our church, we labor to explain
those redemptive mysteries because they're there to explain. Why
did God use Shiddamwood in the wilderness? Because Shiddamwood
was a very hard, durable wood. that could endure the harsh weathers
of the wilderness and not rot and decay easily. And then when
it's reinforced by the gold, it's even sustained longer. Prior
to your regeneration and mine, prior to our salvation, we are
rotten wood, decayed wood, useless wood. Are you guys hearing me?
But when once we become born again, If any man be in Christ,
he's a new creature. Then he becomes shittem wood,
durable wood, lasting wood, useful wood in the kingdom. But it must
also be overlaid with the gold of Christ's presence, of his
support, of his glory, because without him, we can do nothing. Amen and amen.