Verse 10, So David would not remove the
ark of the Lord unto him into the city of David, but David
carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. Now the reason David wouldn't
continue with it is you'll remember because of Uzzah touching the
ark and God striking him dead on the spot. Obed-Edom, his house
must have either just been close by or it must have been somebody
they didn't like very much because God was killing people around
the Ark and David didn't want it right now so they gave it
to Obed-Edom for a little while. And then verse 11, the Ark of
the Lord continued in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite three
months. And the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his household. And it was told King David saying,
the Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that pertaineth
unto him because of the ark of God. So David went and brought
up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom into the city of
David with gladness. And it was so that when they
that bear the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed
oxen and fatlings. And David danced before the Lord
with all his might. And David was girded with a linen
ephod. So David and all the house of
Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with
the sound of the trumpet. Now we looked at what the ark
represents last time we met on looking at 2 Samuel a couple
of weeks ago. But there's a passage of scripture that I didn't want
to take the time to read because there was so much to say. I want
to take the time to read it tonight, Exodus chapter 25, if you would. Exodus chapter 25. This will
remind us of when God instructed them to build the ark and what
the ark had to do with. Some key things about it that
we want to remember during the next couple of lessons. So Exodus
25.10 They shall make an ark of Shittim wood, two cubits and
a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth
thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou
shalt overlay it with pure gold, within and without shalt thou
overlay it. And thou shalt make upon it a
crown of gold round about. And thou shalt cast four rings
of gold for it, and put them in the four corners thereof,
And two rings shall be in the one side of it, and two rings
in the other side of it. And thou shalt make staves of
shit and wood, and overlay them with gold. And thou shalt put
the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, that the
ark may be born with them." That's what didn't happen in our text
last time we met on Wednesday night. And that's why Uzzah died. One of the causes of it. They
shall not be taken from it, verse 15, the staves shall be in the
rings of the ark, they shall not be taken from it. Apparently
those staves had gotten lost when the Philistines took the
ark, because the Philistines used a new cart to bear the ark
and so did the Israelites in our text. So those staves got
misplaced somewhere along the way. And thou shalt put into
the ark the testimony which I shall give thee, And thou shalt make
a mercy seat of pure gold, two cubits and a half shall be the
length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. And
thou shalt make two cherubims of gold of beaten work shalt
thou make them in the two ends of the mercy seat. And make one
cherub on the one end and the other cherub on the other end,
even of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubims on the
two ends thereof. And the cherubim shall stretch
forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings.
And their faces shall look one to another. Toward the mercy
seat shall the faces of the cherubims be. And thou shalt put the mercy
seat above upon the ark. And in the ark thou shalt put
the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with
thee. And I will commune with thee
from above the mercy seat." That's the key to the whole thing. We've
got to hear from God. We've got to know God. We've
got to know His will. We've got to have communion with
Him. That's life. That's everything. It's knowledge.
It's wisdom. It's life. It's comfort. His
presence and blessing. That's what the ark is and the
mercy seat. From between the two cherubims, I will meet with you, not in
wrath, not in judgment, not in anger, but in communion, in fellowship. in Revelation. So this ark represents
something. It's a physical manifestation
of something that can't be seen. Something that's in this room,
I suspect, tonight. I don't want to take anything
for granted, but I feel pretty sure. And this is what is vital. It's the presence and blessing
of God. in the days of Moses now when
when this ark was made they knew that that ark was the presence
of God and Moses said if you don't go with us Lord we're not
going we don't want to go without you and that ark went before
them everywhere that had been forgotten even by David to a
certain extent because the ark was in captivity to the Philistines
for so long and it had been Saul just used it as a good luck charm
once or twice and had no reverence for God in the in the worship
of God that had to do with that ark. And so it all had been forgotten
for a long time. But that ark represents the one
thing needful. It doesn't matter what else we
have or don't have. If we don't have the presence
and the blessing of God, we have nothing. And if we have the presence
and blessing of God, you don't need anything else. That's true
right now. This is not an ancient, this
is an old story about something that's relevant right now. We
need his presence and his blessing right now. And we either have
it or we don't. As individuals, as a church.
But as individuals, we either have it or we don't. We say that Christ is that one
thing needful because he is. He is the presence of God. He's God with us. Christ in you
is the hope of glory. He's every spiritual blessing.
We have all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Where? In
Christ Jesus. The presence and blessing of
God is Christ. And where and when has God promised
to meet with his people today? He said, I'll meet with you on
that mercy seat and I'll commune with you. I just know of one
place where he's promised to do that in 2019. You know of anywhere else? I'm
pretty sure it's right here. where his people meet together,
even if there's just a couple of us, in his name, to worship
him. He said, there I am. There I am. And what I think
we miss, and what I think we often miss, is how this applies to every
aspect of our life. We hear that here, and we say
amen, and that's good. I want you to agree. But what
about when we leave? What about tomorrow? All the
time, right now, all of our lives, when things are going good for
you, when things are going good, sometimes things are going good,
you know, everything's just clicking. Things are going well. We know
that it's then that it's easy to forget God. You know what
you need then? You need His presence and you
need His blessing. You need the Ark. You need Christ. When there's trial, when there's
heartache, when there's pain, when there's trouble, it's easy
for us to despair. It's easy for us to look to self,
to say, how am I going to figure my way out of this? Well, guess
what? You're not. We don't even know yet how weak
we are, do we? We don't know how incapable we
are. You can't get yourself out of a shoebox, much less the troubles. God's going to have to get you
out. If you were in a cardboard box,
you couldn't get out of it without God. Much less the trials that
we face. We need Him every hour. We sing
it, but then I think we forget it. I really do. And I say we. We forget that. It's easy to
look for self. What do we need then? We need
the one thing that's necessary. And this is the one thing, you
know, and this is the one now that we forget about. The one
that we need is the one that we tend to forget about. The
one that we tend to sometimes have better things to do than
worship Him. The one that we think we are
more important than when we put our feelings and our interests
above His and that of His church. He's the one we need. Now don't misunderstand me. God's
blessing does not depend upon what you do. What you do depends
upon God's blessing. Everything that happens to you
depends upon God's blessing, whether it is on you or not.
And I know this, if God's blessing is on you, you'll honor him.
You'll honor him tonight. And you'll honor Him tomorrow
when you're a long way from this place and no gospel is being
preached in your ear. But Christ is in your heart. And He's still on the throne. He's still all you need. Even when we forget it, He is.
And let's not forget it quite so much, shall we? May He give
us grace not to. He will be blessed in all of
our life now. He'll make even what we call
the bad stuff, it's good stuff if you have his blessing. Having
his blessing doesn't mean everything's going to go the way you want
it to. It's better than that. Think about that. What if from
right now on, everything could happen exactly like you want
it to? There's something better than that. It's having Christ.
and being in his hands and having him direct your every step and
having him manipulate everybody and everything and working everything
for your good. The way that you want things
to happen is not necessarily good. We're not that smart. But he is. And God has done everything he's
done now. Listen to me now. Think about
how Saul treated the ark, and how David now, he says, we got
that ark, it belongs in Jerusalem. That's what God said. And he
knows now what to do. But listen, this is why God does
everything that he does. Listen to John 5.21, for as the
father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the
son quickeneth, giveth life to whom he will. For the father
judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment unto the son. And
here's why. that all men should honor the
Son. Do you know that this whole thing,
this whole world, the whole universe is about that? It's about life
and death as it pertains to God and His Son and what His Son
did on Calvary. That's what it's all about. And
God set everything up the way that He did so that everybody
would honor His Son. And you're going to. You're going
to. You're gonna honor His justice
or you're gonna honor His mercy? You're gonna. All men should
honor the Son, but he that honors not the Son in their heart, intentionally,
willingly, honors God's Son, honors not God the Father. And if we don't see what that
has to do with our text, then we have missed the meaning of
the text. That's what the Ark is. And this
is what is pictured by God's blessing of the house of Obed-Edom. He said, bring it on. Bring it
on. You know, we got to have God,
whether He kills us and puts us in hell or whether He saves
us. I want to know, don't you? I
want to find out tonight. I want to do business with Him.
You're going to have to, sooner or later. Now is the time to
do that. And Obed Edom said, come on, God's killing people,
he may bless me, he may kill me. But I want to be with him,
I want him with me. And God blessed him. And he always
does. In Christ now, the only reason
Uzzah died was he put his hand to that ark which pictures what
Christ, who Christ is and what he did. And we can't put our
hand to that. We can worship Him. We can adore
Him. We can even touch Him. John said
our hands have handled the word of life. But don't put your hand
to His work. It's His work. Salvation is finished
by Him. We don't put our hand to that. So, I want that, don't you? I want God to bless me. I want
Him to bless my whole house. That's what He does. In the honoring of His Son. When
His Son is exalted and we see Him. And we glory in Him alone. I want God to bless me and all
that pertains to me. You think about that. All that
pertained to His house. His children, everything they
did. All of their future was blessed, graced by God. because of his presence in Christ.
What a picture that is. I know that by God's grace, I
know that Christ is that blessing. He is the blessing of God. I want his glory to be all my
desire. I want everything, do all, whatsoever
you do, do all to the glory of God. I want that. I want that. You know you're
blessed if it comes to that. I want His grace to be all my
hope. I don't ever want to have one
ounce of confidence in this flesh. I want to look to the free grace
of God in Christ. I want to know that He chose
me and His Son from eternity. And with everlasting love, He
drew me to Himself in Christ Jesus. And I don't ever want
to question that. I don't want to ever add or take
away from that. It's all of grace. All my hope. I want his word to be all my
truth. Man's opinion is not worth anything. My opinion is not worth anything.
I didn't come here tonight to give you my opinion. And I know
you didn't come to get that. I want his word to be all my
truth. I want his righteousness to be
all my righteousness. I don't want my righteousness
to be like his. I want my righteousness to be
his. He is my righteousness and I want to know that and I want
to trust him in that. Rest in him in that. Put all
my weight like that. They put all their weight on
the head of that so they leaned upon the head of the scapegoat.
and all the sins of Israel was put on that goat. I want his precious blood to
be all my cleansing. Don't ever think anything you
ever do in thought, word, or deed has anything to do with
your relationship with God. I stand holy and spotless in
the presence of God because of the precious blood of his Son
and no other reason. I want his power be all my comfort
and safety. You know what makes me sleep
at night? Knowing that God Almighty is God Almighty. The one that
loved me with an everlasting love is on the throne. And it's
a high throne. And he is all powerful. How's
he gonna make everything in this world work for my good unless
he's all powerful? But he's able. I want his people
to be my people. You know, I figured this out
to some extent. We haven't really figured anything
out yet, but I believe at some point there was a breakthrough
of some kind. I don't want people around me
that hate me. I don't want people around me
that hate my God unless they're interested, unless they're asking. Unless there's some inkling.
I don't have much to do with them. I don't believe that family
is by blood. I believe it's by the Spirit
of God. I really do. I think family, the family, the
blood family is just a picture of that. Just like marriage is
a picture of Christ and his relationship to his church. And if my family
don't want anything to do with me, guess what? I know some people
that do. And I'm looking at him. I thank God for you. I thank
God for you. I don't have anybody else. Of
course, I've got him, but you know what I mean. You know what
I mean. Would you want to be in this
world alone? We could always trust him. We could always look
to him, but I don't want to be alone. If it comes to that, I'm
like Elijah. When Elijah thought he was the
last one left, he said, Lord, take me now. Let's wrap this
up. I'm with him on that. Thank God
for you. Well, verse 13 back in our text. David fears the Lord now. Remember
verse 9, it said David feared the Lord now. And that's why
we have verse 13. In verse 9, it says he fears the
Lord. And it was so, verse 13, that when they bear the ark of
the Lord, They that bear the ark of the Lord had gone six
paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings. David fears the Lord now, and
you know what happens then? The way we fear the Lord is we
know that the only way that we can come before him, the only
way we can have his favor, his presence, and his blessing is
through the precious blood of his son. That's when we know
that the most. When you fear God, you're going
to look to His Son. You're going to look to the precious
blood. And that's what David did. That's exactly what he did. Look at 1 Chronicles. Let's see
if I can find it. I'm using a different Bible than
that. 1 Chronicles. Chapter 15. It'll take me a little
longer than usual to find this. I know my Bible so well now.
Y'all are probably the same way where I can just grab a, you
know, I can just almost get there in one turn sometimes. I know
exactly how much thickness of pages to flip. Look at 1 Chronicles
15, 1 through 3. This is a parallel to our text. We don't have this
language in our text, but this is happening at the same time.
This is the account of it in Chronicles chapter 15. Look at
chapter 15 verse 1. And David made him houses in
the city of David and prepared a place for the ark of God and
pitched for it a tent. Then David said, none ought to
carry the ark of God but the Levites. For them hath the Lord
chosen to carry the ark of God and to minister unto him forever.
The priest, there again, Christ. You don't want to do business
with God except through his son, his priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. And David gathered all Israel,
verse three, together to Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the Lord
unto his place, which he had prepared for. David, he knows
now, he saw what happened to Uzzah and he fears the Lord.
He said, we're going to do this right. We're going to do it the
way God said. Look at verse 12 now. Down to verse 12, And said
unto them, You are the chief of the fathers of the Levites.
Sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that you may
bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place
that I have prepared for it. For because you did it not at
the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us. God shocked
them to their core, didn't He? He stopped them in their tracks.
The ark's not going any further. because they didn't do it the
way God said. They dishonored Christ. They came to God without the
priest and they also, Uzzah put his hand to what that ark represents
and that's not going to happen. He made a breach for that we
sought him not after the due order. The due order is that
which honors Christ, points to Christ, reveals Christ, exalts
Christ. The minute you stop, he that
honoreth not the son, honoreth not the father. And we saw last
time, if Paul said, if you be circumcised, if you justify yourself
before God by your own deeds, then Christ shall profit you
nothing. You know what Christ profiting you nothing looks like?
Watch Uzzah touch that ark and drop dead. That's what it looks
like, right there. That's Christ profiting you nothing.
You're a goner, that's what you are. in every way that a person
can be a goner. So he said we didn't do it. We didn't do it according to
the due order and the children of the Levites bear the ark of
God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon as Moses commanded
according to the word of the Lord. And so also not in that
text but in our text after six paces they offered sacrifice.
Some think they did that every six paces. I'm not sure about
that. But I know this. David said, we're going to honor
the Lord now. Got to. What's the alternative? When
they looked in the ark, God killed thousands and thousands that
looked into the ark. Who's next? David said, not me. I'm going to honor the Lord now.
I think I would too. I recommend it. I recommend it
right now. I recommend you honor Him with
your life. That you present your bodies
a living sacrifice unto Him. If you have His blessing, I guarantee
you, you will. We know what that sacrifice,
they offered the blood of oxen and fatlings. That's the atonement. Precious blood of Christ that
washes our sins away. That's how we have God's presence
and favor. by that precious blood, by Christ
crucified. We need His atonement. We're
bringing back the ark, but we're not going to do it our way. We're
not going to do it in our strength. We're not going to do it by our
wisdom. We're going to do it God's way. And all the while
acknowledging that Christ crucified is the only way we're going to
get to God. Our walk before God is Him and what He did. Now,
verse 14 back in our text, And David danced before the Lord
with all of his might. And David was girded with a linen
ephod. And so David and all the house
of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and
with the sound of the trumpet." They're celebrating. David danced. That's the title of the message
tonight, David danced. The word means to whirl. It literally
means to whirl. And we see in verse 16 that he
leapt and whirled. And this gives us a picture in
our minds of how he danced. I've seen people do that. And
it's an expression of overwhelming joy. You may not be rejoicing
in the right thing when you do that. But David was. David was. Notice that David
wore only a linen ephod and in that linen ephod David's
wife saw him in verse 20 she described him as having uncovered
himself before the people. In other words what happened
was he took off his kingly robe and everything else that pertained
to him being king and identified him as King and he humbled himself
before the Lord. She said in verse 20 you uncovered
yourself before the people. But David corrected her in verse
21. He said it was before the Lord. He wasn't putting on a show for
anybody. He didn't dance to be entertainment for anybody. He
danced before the Lord. and he uncovered himself, he
wasn't naked, he had the linen ephod on, but he took off everything
else that identified him besides Christ. That ark, it was all
about the ark wasn't it? Why was he dancing? Because of
the ark. Because of the presence and blessing of God. Because
God said, I will meet with sinners and have communion with sinners
by the blood, through my word, the word that was in the ark.
How are you going to have God's blessing and favor without this?
You think you can do that? You reckon you can get it done?
Not going to happen. His word was in that ark. That
rod that budded, identifying his high priest as his high priest.
And nobody usurps that authority. That's Christ, our great high
priest. The bread of life, that's what's
happening tonight. Christ said, I am that bread
that came down from heaven. Moses didn't give you that bread. God did, and I am that bread.
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath life, and he that
does not, you have no life in you. Right now, tonight, that
manna is what we need. It's just another picture of
Him. We need Him as High Priest. We
need Him as the Word. We need His Gospel. We need Him
as representative. We need His precious blood. We
need Him. We need Him as our necessary
food. Our meat indeed and drink indeed. And what David was saying about
uncovering himself, as she put it, is that though he was king
by God's providence and God's design, but he was saying that
all of his glory and status and anything else worth mentioning
that David was, is bound up in that ark. Forget about any glory
that I may have. Cast it off. This is about him. That's why when I come up here,
we wear a suit because that's traditional. A lot of times we'll
wear a suit and tie and things like that. It's just me. It's just me. We don't wear some fancy outfit,
some collar that identifies us as something. It's just me. This is about His glory. We don't
have any. If He gave us some kind of authority
in this world, that's got to be put aside when it's time to
worship Him. And even when we are a father, or a husband, or a
preacher, or whatever it is that God has given us in this world,
some kind of authority, it's all about Him. It's got to be. That's what David did. There's
just one king. When it comes right down to it,
there's just one king and it ain't David. It's David's son
and David's Lord. Christ is my covering. He's my
glory. He's my status before God. And
to know that, to know that made David so happy that he couldn't
contain himself. could not contain himself. Now
some people contrive it. They try to contrive this. You
know they'll meet in what they call a worship service and everybody's
jumping around and they do that every time and that's just contrived
nonsense. That's just the flesh putting
on a show. It's distracting. It's foolish and we ain't ever
gonna do that. I've got some moves that y'all
don't know about but I'm not fixing to bust them out tonight. It's just, you know what I'm
saying, this is just, this was an occasion, this is not an example.
David didn't do this for anybody but God. He was so delighted
to see Christ exalted as He should have been from the start and
from then on. Now we're glorifying God in His
Son, in the sacrifice, in the high priest, in all of this,
in His Word. Now God is glorified and it made
him so happy that he couldn't not dance. There's no happier
person in this world than the one for whom Christ is all. Job said he took the crown off
of my head. He's turned my glory into shame
and Job was never happier. God blessed him so richly after
that. Stripped before God of every
other distinction and being presented before God in Christ alone and
in Him to have every blessing that there is. That'll make you
dance on the inside if no other way. I guarantee you that. I do that quite a bit. A lot
of dancing on the inside. You can do that tonight. I just
want to close with 1 Peter chapter 1. What was David rejoicing in?
Same thing we do. Exact same thing we do. You look
at everything that ark represented and that's what we rejoice in
tonight and that's what we're going to see right here. 1 Peter 1, 1-9. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. What was the blood
sprinkled? On the mercy seat. And Simon said we still rejoice
in that same precious blood that was represented by that blood
of that lamb on the day of atonement that the high priest went in
there and splashed on that mercy seat. That's our election of God. That's
our sanctification before God. You don't add anything to that.
Sanctification is not your Christian walk. It's the blood of Christ
that sanctifies. Unto obedience and sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you and peace be multiplied. Verse three, blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his
abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope.
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance
incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved
in heaven for you who are kept." Oh, who are kept by the power
of God. That's what that ark was. It was their... Obed-Edom's
whole house and everything that pertained to them was under the
protection, under the blessing, under the power of Christ as
that ark symbolized Him. Kept by the power of God through
faith. What is it that's keeping you? His power. How does His power,
how does that actually play out? By you obeying and all that?
No, by believing on Him. By Him giving you faith in His
Son. Through faith unto salvation
ready to be revealed in the last time wherein you greatly rejoice. We rejoice in the same thing
David did. We're doing a little dancing
on the inside tonight. Though now for a season if need
be you're in heaviness through men of full trials. Do the trials of this life destroy
your rejoicing in Christ? The troubles that we face, the
difficulties, they cause us to just look to Him even more. I
guarantee you this, the more you look to Him, the more you're
going to rejoice in Him. That the trial of your faith
being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though
it be tried with fire, might be found unto the praise and
honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having
not seen you love, in whom though now you see him not, yet believing,
believing, believing the same thing that David did, that God's
blessing, his presence and his blessing are mine through Christ. You rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. Joy that you can't express, joy
unspeakable. How am I going to tell you how happy I am that Christ is my all? I can't
tell you. It's a whole life, isn't it? It's a whole life. It's everything
you do. It's everything you say. It's a culmination of all of
it. When God gives you faith in Him and makes Him your all
before God, it shows up everywhere, doesn't it? And David expressed
that at this particular moment through dancing. You can't say
it. You can try. And there's nothing wrong with
talking about it. Sure not. But it's inexpressible joy. Surpassing joy. Joy unspeakable
and full of glory. Receiving the end of your faith.
Even the salvation of your souls. That's what David was dancing
about. Everything that that passage right there said about Christ
and what he is to us. That's what that ark represented
to him. It made him real happy. It made him real happy. There's
so many things dragging us down aren't there? Don't let it, don't
let it happen. Pray God will take our eyes off
of the foolish. What does any of it matter anyway?
If you have Christ. What does it really matter? My
sins are gone. That makes me happy. There are a lot of people that
don't like me much. But God likes me. I don't know why, but he
always has. He's loved me with an everlasting
love. Look what he's done for us. He
that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? How
can we not be happy? How can we not? Let's pray.