chapter six. Now this is one
of those passages of scripture where someone would say, well,
this proves that at least the Old Testament is not inspired,
is not the word of God because of what is said in this passage
of scripture. As a matter of fact, I've I always read Paul
Prather in the Lexington Herald later. I don't know if you ever
read him on Saturday mornings, but, uh, he was talking about
how you can pick out different passages in the old Testament.
Obviously they're not inspired and we go by the new Testament
and so on. And this is, this is one of the passages he would
be talking about. So let's start reading in second
Samuel chapter six. Again David gathered together
all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000, and David arose and went
with all the people that were with him from Baal, of Judah,
to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called
by the name of the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims."
What a way to speak of the ark of God. And 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, drave the new cart. And they brought it out of the
house of Abinadab, which was at Gibeah, accompanying the ark
of God. And Ahi went before the ark,
and David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord
on all manner of instruments made of firwood. even on harps
and on psalteries and on timbrels and accordions and on cymbals.
There was a big celebration going on. And when they came to Nachan's
threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God and
took hold of it for the oxen shook it. He was getting ready
to fall. 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. And David was displeased because
the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah. And he called the name
of the place Perezuzzah to this day. And David was afraid of
the Lord that day and said, how shall the ark of the Lord come
to me? Let's pray together. Lord, we come into your presence
in Christ's name, the name that's above every name. And we ask
that we might be enabled to worship him. We ask that you would be
pleased to speak to our hearts from your word. And Lord, we
ask that. Your gospel would be preached
in the power of your spirit. Oh Lord, how we need your presence
and your blessing. We give thanks for this time
together. And we. Pray that it might be
for your glory and for our good Lord, we confess our sins forever
before us and Lord. Forgive us and cleanse us for
Christ's sake. Lord, you said in your word,
if we confess our sins, you're faithful and just to forgive
our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Lord, enable
us to truly confess our sin before thee. Lord, we would remember
my dad at this time. We pray that your healing hand
would be upon him according to your will. And Lord, we pray
for all your people, wherever they meet together, that you'd
be pleased to make yourself known to them. Now, bless us for Christ's
sake. In his name we pray. Amen. Now, David, at this time, wants
to bring the Ark back to its place of prominence. It's been
gone 70 years in this one man's house. And David is now going
to bring it back. I thought you were teaching Sunday
school. Okay. Well, she was taking Sherry's
place, but I guess that's not going to happen. So David wants
to bring the Ark back to its place of prominence, and that's
a good thing. Now let's talk about the Ark for a moment. Everybody
knows about Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well, that's the Ark they're
talking about. The Ark was a box, two by three,
covered with gold. And in this ark there was placed
the law of God. Now remember this ark represents
Christ. In this ark was placed the law
of God, Christ our righteousness. In this ark was placed the rod
of Aaron that budded and brought forth life, Christ our life. And in this ark It was a golden
pot with manna. Christ, our sustenance. We live off Him. We feed off
Him. He is what we need at all times. Now, this ark, God had Him place
it in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle. Once a year, the
priests would go back and put blood on the mercy seat over
the ark. And God said, that's where I'm
going to meet with you and commune with you. The only place God
is going to meet a sinner is through the Lord Jesus Christ
at all times. In this ark, God even gave specific
instructions regarding how this ark was to be transported. The
ark had rings in it, and the priests, nobody was allowed to
touch it. And the priests would put these poles or staves through
the rings, put it on their shoulders, and go back and forth. They would
be moving the ark, and even then it was to be covered, so nobody
was allowed to even look upon it. Now, this represents the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this ark had been taken
by the Philistines. Turn with me to 1 Samuel 5. I
think some of these passages regarding the ark, this is when
Eli had died. But look here in 1 Samuel 5,
verse 1. And the Philistines took the
ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. When the
Philistines took the Ark of God, they brought it into the house
of Dagon and set it by Dagon. That was their god, a fish god. And when they of Ashdod arose
early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face
to the earth before the Ark of the Lord. Don't you love that?
His majesty and this false god is just made to fall on its face.
And they took Dagon and set him in his place again. I think that's
ironic, the language there, you know, they take the God and set
him in its place. It's almost using humor. And
when they arose early on the morning, behold, Dagon was fallen
upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And the
head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon
the threshold. Only the stump of Dagon was left
to him. Therefore, neither the priests
of Dagon, nor any that came into Dagon's house, tread on the threshold
of Ashdod unto this day. But the hand of the Lord was
heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them and smote them
with emeralds, even unto Ashdod and the coast thereof." Now,
all these diseases came out on the Philistines and they'd move
the ark to a city and the same thing would happen there everywhere
they brought the ark all the sudden God would smite him with
emeralds and diseases and ulcers and Cancers and boils and and
they said we're in trouble We're in trouble. We need to get this
ark out of here. This is what and so that so they
came up with a plan They said here's what we're gonna do. It's
um, let me show it to you in first Samuel chapter Chapter
6. Well, I don't have it written
down, but it's in 5 or 6. Here's what we're going to do.
We're going to take the Ark of God, and we're going to put it on
a cart, and we're going to hook it up to some oxen, and we're
going to see which way they go. If the oxen go back to Israel,
then we'll know that God's behind this, and the Ark is doing this.
But if it goes back some other direction, we'll know we just
had bad luck, and it's just chance that's happened to us. We'll
find out. So they took the Ark, and they put it on an ox cart,
and then the Ark goes off toward Israel. And then they knew that
this was God's doing. It wasn't bad luck, it was the
Ark of God that had done this. Now look in 1 Samuel 6. This
is when it finally came into to Israel, what happened was verse 19 of
chapter six, and he smote the men of Beshemesh. This was in Israel because they'd
looked into the ark of the Lord. Even he smote the people, 50,000
and three score and 10 men. And the people lamented because
the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.
All they did was open up the lid and look in. And God killed
50,000 people. And the men of Beshemesh said,
who's able to stand before this holy Lord God and to whom shall
he go up for us? And they sent messengers. of
Geram saying, the Philistines have brought again the Ark of
the Lord, come you down and fetch it up to you, get it away from
us. And the men of Geram, chapter seven, came and fetched up the
Ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of Abinadab in
the hill and sanctified Eliezer, his son, to keep the Ark of the
Lord. Now it was in the house of Abinadab for 70 years. This
happened 70 years before this took place in 2 Samuel 6. And now David gets in, he's read
the Bible and he wants to bring the ark back. He knows this represents
the Lord and he wants to bring it back. So let's go back to
our text in 2 Samuel 6. And David gathered together all
the chosen men of Israel, 30,000. And David arose and went with
all the people that were with him from Baali of Judah to bring
up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name
of the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims." Now,
this is a good thing, isn't it? They want to bring back the ark.
Of course, that's what they should have done. It's been in Abinadab's
house for so long. Why didn't they do this a long
time ago? But now David is going to do it. Verse 3. And they set
the Ark of God upon a new cart." Who else did that? Well, the
Philistines did it, didn't they? Now, they had the Scriptures,
and they knew how the Ark was supposed to be transported. Nobody was to touch it. The priests
were to put the staves through the rings, put the staves on
their shoulder, carry the Ark. Nobody was to touch it. It was
to cover up. Nobody could even see it. And they knew this. but
yet they think, well, it worked for the Philistines, perhaps
it'll work for us. And I dare say that when they
picked up the ark to put it on the cart, they put the staves
through the rings, because if anybody would, if they would
have picked it up with their hands, God would have killed them. So they
took the poles, put it through the rings, lifted it up, and
set it on the cart, a new cart. And after all, this is easier,
this is more convenient, this is the way to do it. I mean,
it worked for the Philistines, it'll work for us. So they put
the Ark on a new cart, they adopted the religion, part of the religion
of the Philistines, and it worked. Never mind the Bible gives specific
instructions on how that Ark was to be transported, we'll
put it on a New cart. Now, one of the things I thought
about is this is the introduction of new methods. New methods. New. New technology, even. You
know, the men who drove the cart, Uzza and Ohio, their name means
friendly and strong. Those two men. Their name means
friendly and strong. That's pretty much the appeal
of most people going into religion. We make friends and we can have
more strength in our life. We can do better. And they even
use this new cart. They adopted these new methods
in order to get what they wanted done. Verse three, and 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. Now verse four. And they brought
it out of the house of Abinadab, which was at Gibeah, accompanying
the ark of God. And Ohio went before the ark.
And David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord
in all manner of instruments made of firwood, even on harps
and psalterings, on timbrels, on cornets, on cymbals. There
was a party going on. These people were happy. We've
got the ark back. They were singing, plenty of
music, plenty of enthusiasm. You know, I couldn't help but
think about your typical religious service. Nuke art, enthusiasm,
singing, all under the name of Christ. They had this nuke art
and I mean they were having a good time. Verse 6, now you think
about in the midst of all this music that was going on, all
this singing, all this excitement, we brought the ark back and that
seemed like a good thing. But look what happened. And when
they came to Nachan's threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand
to the ark of God, and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it."
Now, who would blame him for this? Who would blame him for this?
It's getting ready to fall into the mud. They hit a rut, and
he puts out his hand to steady it, to keep it from falling off.
That seems like a good thing. Verse 7, 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." Now picture in your mind this big party going on,
all the enthusiasm and all the singing and dancing, playing
before the ark. They think, we've got it made
now. We're really going to get something going now. We're really
going to have the Lord's blessing now. And can you imagine how
this just totally, the quietness that took place all of a sudden?
when Uzzah was smitten by God for his error, and there he lies
dead." Now, by looking at him. Verse 8, and David was displeased. This is too harsh. This is being
too hard on him. I mean, he meant well. Why would
the Lord do this? I can, and every one of us, in
some respects have thought, this seems a little severe. I know
I thought that. I mean, his motive was right.
He was trying to keep the ark from going into the ground. This
does seem severe. All of a sudden, David becomes
God's judge. This is wrong. David was displeased. He didn't agree with what the
Lord did and he was displeased, the scripture says. And David
was displeased because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah,
and he called the name of the place Perezuzzah to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord
that day. He didn't know what to do. He
didn't know what kind of move to make. And he said, how shall
the ark of God come to me? Now, which of us does not wonder
if this was kind of severe and harsh? Now, if we think something
like that, which probably all of us have done, all we prove
is how little we understand of God and how little we understand
of sin. Now, perhaps growing up in the
house where the Ark was, and Uzzah did, his daddy was a Benedab. And he grew up in this house
where the Ark was stored, and I don't know where it was on
the property, but perhaps he just became too familiar. You know, familiarity breeds
contempt. Maybe he lost his fear. It was in his presence all the
time, and he didn't think much of it. And he was going to try
to help God, help out the Ark, And God does not need help. Aren't you glad? God does not
need help. And what he was doing was coming
into the presence of God without a priest. Only the priest could
transport that ark. And he was doing something. This
simply represents him coming into God's presence without a
priest. And I think this is so interesting.
In the scriptures, every special judgment of God that I know of
where God killed somebody out of the ordinary, it was for a
religious sin like this. Every time. Men can sin against
God and they might live 90 years and live a happy life and die
and go to hell. God's going to punish all sin.
But when men commit a religious sin, all of a sudden it's different. The first example that I thought
of was Nadab and Abihu, the two sons of Aaron. Remember how they
were the priests? And in order to burn the incense,
you had to have fire from off the altar of sacrifice. And they
brought strange fire. They got a fire that was not
from off the altar of sacrifice, representing they were coming
apart from the sacrifice. They no longer needed the sacrifice.
They thought, as long as our hearts are right and we're sincere,
God will accept this. So they took a different fire
and burned the incense, and fire came down from heaven and devoured
them immediately. What about the sons of Korah?
You remember them? They said to Moses, we're as
holy as you. What makes you think you and
Aaron are the only ones who can offer up, come into God's presence
and offer up sacrifices? And we can do it too. We can
offer up incense. And they did. And God opened
the ground and sent them all to hell right now. 250 of them
and their families. I think of Belteshazzar. who we read of in the book of
Daniel. Man, I'm going to have to hurry. I'm nowhere near finished,
and I've got five minutes. But we read, Belteshazzar, they're
having a drunken party. Sinful. Evil, what they were
doing. A drunken party. God's gonna
leave him alone. But all of a sudden, Belteshazzar
has an idea. Let's go get the vessels that
came from the house of Jehovah and bring them in and let's drink
out of them. And they did it. And that's when he got that writing
on the wall, you're weighed in the balances and found wanting. And God killed him that very
day. Uzziah, the king, He comes in to offer sacrifices. The priests
say, don't come in here, this doesn't appertain to you. He
did it anyway and God turned him into a leper. Now what Uzzah
did was an act of presumption coming into God's presence without
a priest. That's why Saul lost the kingship,
if you'll remember. He tried to offer up a sacrifice. That's when God said, I've sought
me somebody else, I've had it with you. There are lessons we can learn
from this, and here's the first one. God's view of sin, God's
judgment of sin is quite different from ours. We would think that what Uzzah
did seemed to be a good thing. We don't look at it as a great
act of evil, just trying to keep the ark from falling in the mud. Yet the scripture says God's
anger was kindled against Uzzah for his error. Sin is an immeasurable evil. And really, remember this, with
the Lord, the punishment always fits the crime, doesn't it? He
wasn't being too severe. Secondly, All changes from the
Scripture are wrong. Any introduction of any new methodology
or new way to do things that is not found in the Scripture
is wrong. You know, I remember hearing
a man say this, he said, you know, in everything there's progress.
I mean, I'd hate to go to a doctor that was practicing 200 years
ago, wouldn't you? I mean, there's always a development in technology
and progress and everything. I mean, and we're thankful for
that. I'm thankful for the education that makes men be able to be
better doctors or better engineers or better whatever. We're thankful
for that. And we want to see progress. We want to see change,
don't we? But here's somewhere where we
do not want to see any change. We want to be exactly as the
scripture says. You know, in this thing of preaching
the gospel, we don't want any new methods, do we? Preach the
gospel. We're not trying to be relevant.
We're not trying to be, you know, address the culture and so on.
We're not doing any of that. We're simply preaching the gospel. as God declares in His Word,
believing that God will bless it. And any introduction of something
new. This cart, this was a man-made
invention. And I have no doubt that they
knew how the Philistines brought it into this cart and said, work
for them, it'll work for us. And it's man's attempt at new
methods. And you know, what is interesting
too, is putting it on a cart would be more convenient. It'd
be easier. It'd be less work. It'd make things easier. And
you know, that's really the appeal of false religion. Make things
easier. Make it more convenient for people
to be able to worship. You know, I despise that kind
of stuff. I just despise it. I have no
desire to make anything easier for anybody as far as the gospel
goes. I mean, the worship of God, you want to make that easier?
No. No, it's not about that at all.
But that's what they were doing. They were making something easier.
And remember this. What an error when we sit in
judgment on God's word and think maybe this is not important because
they had the Bible then. And they knew. As a matter of fact,
if you go back into the Chronicles account of this same event, David
says, when they go back to get the ark, and we're going to look
at that next week, but David says, The Lord made a breach
against you. I think it's funny. He blames
the priests. He doesn't say he made a breach
against me. He said, this is your all's fault. You should
have known to bring the ark the way he said to. And because we
sought not the Lord according to due order, according to the
scriptural method, he made this breach against us. But anytime
we take any portion of God's word and think, well, you know,
that's probably not essential. That's non-essential. I mean,
we can leave that part out. We need to keep this part, but we
can leave that part out. We can pick and choose. This
part's important, that part's not. This part's inspired, that
part's not. This is for our good, and this
is just old-time, Old Testament weird stuff that we'll just not
deal with at all. And that's, oh no, this is the
word of God. And this is an example of the
presumption of men in thinking, well, this part, does it really
matter? If God revealed it, it matters. And no man has the right to say,
well, this part's important, but this part we can overlook.
I remember hearing a preacher even talk about election. He
said, election's true, but it's a family doctrine. It's not to
be preached to unbelievers because it'll make them mad. They won't
understand it. Oh, you can make a decision like that over the
Word of God? No way. To err from this always has consequences. Now, ask Uzzah. Uzzah never intended
on touching the Ark. He never intended on it. And
I have no doubt that they picked up the ark initially with the
poles to put it on the ark, to put it on the cart, because God
would have killed them if they would have touched it. But as
soon as they put it on the cart, Uzzah had no idea what was going
to take place. It was innocent enough, but look
what happened to him. This had devastating consequences
to Uzzah, didn't it? Killed him. Now, this also destroys
the notion that if our motive is right, God accepts us even
though our action is wrong. That's what most people think.
If your motive's right, even if you do something wrong, God
accepts you. Well, let me tell you something. Let me tell myself something.
If we do something wrong, our motive is never right. We can
talk about a right motive all we want, but if we do something
contrary to the word of God, don't hide under the guise of
a right motive. And don't say if our motive's
right, it's okay, even if we go contrary to scripture. No,
it's not, and Uzzah found that out. Now, look in verse 10. I'm going to talk more about
this next week, but this shows the difference. They had developed
an irreverent attitude. That's all you can say. They
developed a hard-hearted, irreverent attitude toward the things of
God. So David would would not remove the ark, verse 10, of
the Lord unto him into the city of David, but David carried it
aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. And 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 the 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 like
I said, we know from the Chronicles account, this time they did it
right. They did it with the priest carrying it. And look what it
says next, verse 13. And it was so that when they
bear the ark of the Lord, when they bear the ark of the Lord,
the priest had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings. Now I want you to picture this.
This is how scared they were now. Six steps, put it down,
offer a sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. Six is the number
of man. They didn't want to mess this
up. Six steps. Put it back down. Offer sacrifice. You see, they had lost this fear
of the Lord, this understanding of the absolute necessity of
the sacrifice of Christ. They lost it. They'd become hard-hearted
and they thought, as long as we can do it, if we have our
motive right, everything will be okay. But they don't have
that attitude anymore, do they? They carry it according to the
Scripture, and every six steps they offer to sacrifice. I love
thinking about that. Now, this passage of Scripture
that the world would say, well, this proves the Bible's not the
Word of God, doesn't, does it? Demonstrates that it is. Amen.