DISCLAIMER:
Since there are a large amount of sermons and topics and illustrations that are posted on Sermon Central, I feel it is necessary to place this disclaimer on all of the sermons that I submit.
These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
While ideas and illustrations are often obtained from many sources including those at sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording including sermon titles, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental.
In instances where other minister’s exact wording is used, due recognition will be given.
These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely.
May God richly bless you as you read these sermons.
It is my sincere desire that all who read them and hear them may be lifted up to a higher relationship with God.
Most of the scriptures quoted in these sermons are copies and quoted from the New Living Translation of the Holy Bible.
I do at times use scripture from several different versions of the Bible such as NIV, New King James Version, King James Version etc.
Any and all ministers may freely use any of my sermons and post them anywhere that they want to.
After all, it is God’s Word and not our own!
Pastor Ed Pruitt
ARE YOU SURE YOU ARE READY TO SEE GOD
PART 4
Sunday, June 17 2007
2 Samuel 6:11-15 (NLT)
11 The Ark of the LORD remained there in Obed-edom’s house for three months, and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and his entire household.
12 Then King David was told, “The LORD has blessed Obed-edom’s household and everything he has because of the Ark of God.” So David went there and brought the Ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the City of David with a great celebration.
13 After the men who were carrying the Ark of the LORD had gone six steps, David sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf.
14 And David danced before the LORD with all his might, wearing a priestly garment.
15 So David and all the people of Israel brought up the Ark of the LORD with shouts of joy and the blowing of rams’ horns.
David is the new king over Judah.
David wants to do a great job.
More than that, because he has a heart for God, David wants to be a godly king.
More than anything else, David wants to establish the presence of the Lord for his term as king.
He had seen the errors of pride and ambition in Saul.
David wants to be a king after God’s own heart.
David was wise enough to know that at this time the central, visible representation of the presence of God was the ark of the covenant.
The ark is a physical symbol of God’s abiding with them.
The commandments of God are in that ark.
The mercy seat is on top of that ark.
The tokens of God’s special presence as He delivered millions of Jews from Egypt and the hand of Pharaoh were in that ark.
And David knew he still had lots of enemies to be delivered from.
And somehow David related that ongoing deliverance to God’s presence among them.
And God’s presence - at least His manifest, delivering presence - was related to Israel’s worship.
That’s an important insight.
David wasn’t some wild and crazy guy.
He just wanted to defeat his enemies.
That’s the whole reason David wanted that ark back in its rightful place in Judah.
Saul really hadn’t cared that much about the ark.
He actually left the ark, totally unattended, ignored at the house of Abinadab, for twenty years.
He never even bothered to send some delegation of troops to bring it back home.
Saul is forever a picture of a man who got so involved in pursuing his own ambitions as leader that the central place of the worship and presence of the Lord became stagnate in the lives of the people.
Allow me to give a little history of this.
We need to go back in time to the final years of the reign of Saul, the capture of the ark of the Lord by the Philistines, and the collapse of the priesthood of Eli.
Judah was defeated badly by the Philistines and failed to take the time to discern the reason for her weakness.
1 Samuel 4:1-2 (NLT)
The Philistines Capture the Ark
4 At that time Israel was at war with the Philistines. The Israelite army was camped near Ebenezer, and the Philistines were at Aphek.
2 The Philistines attacked and defeated the army of Israel, killing 4,000 men.
Now, those two verses give the bare-boned explanation of what happened.
Judah took a whipping from the Philistines.
You can tell from the very next verse, the people were perplexed as to why the Lord had allowed them to be so badly beaten.
You can also see how blind they all were as to the true cause of their misery:
1 Samuel 4:3 (NLT)
3 After the battle was over, the troops retreated to their camp, and the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the LORD allow us to be defeated by the Philistines?” Then they said, “Let’s bring the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD from Shiloh. If we carry it into battle with us, it will save us from our enemies.”
At least they recognized that their defeat wasn’t due merely to the army of the Philistines.
No enemy was a match for the God of Israel.
They were beginning to understand.
Then, right in the middle of the third verse it seems as though a light goes on - “Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh!”
Of course! That was the problem.
They lost the battle because they didn’t have the ark with them.
So down they go to Shiloh, get the ark, and surely God will trample the Philistines under their anointed feet!
But that wasn’t the problem at all.
They didn’t lose the battle with the Philistines because they didn’t take the ark with them.
There was a different reason entirely for their weakness.
Let’s read this next scripture,
1 Samuel 2:12-17 (NLT)
Eli’s Wicked Sons
12 Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels who had no respect for the LORD
13 or for their duties as priests. Whenever anyone offered a sacrifice, Eli’s sons would send over a servant with a three-pronged fork. While the meat of the sacrificed animal was still boiling,
14 the servant would stick the fork into the pot and demand that whatever it brought up be given to Eli’s sons. All the Israelites who came to worship at Shiloh were treated this way.
15 Sometimes the servant would come even before the animal’s fat had been burned on the altar. He would demand raw meat before it had been boiled so that it could be used for roasting.
16 The man offering the sacrifice might reply, “Take as much as you want, but the fat must be burned first.” Then the servant would demand, “No, give it to me now, or I’ll take it by force.”
17 So the sin of these young men was very serious in the LORD’s sight, for they treated the LORD’s offerings with contempt.
Eli was the priest.
His sons ministered with him.
In other words, these men were in charge of the worship of the people.
But the worship of the priesthood, and consequently, of the people, was corrupt.
It wasn’t done the way God said it was to be done.
Remember them. They were still worshiping.
But they weren’t worshiping according to instruction.
That’s a very important point.
Most Christians, have a deeply imbedded sense that how we worship - as long as we do worship - is entirely up to us.
That just seems so naturally right to us.
But there’s a problem with it.
You won’t find that idea anywhere in the Scriptures - Old Testament or the New.
Now look at God’s response to this corruption of worship:
1 Samuel 2:27-33 (NLT)
A Warning for Eli’s Family
27 One day a man of God came to Eli and gave him this message from the LORD: “I revealed myself to your ancestors when the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt.
28 I chose your ancestor Aaron from among all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer sacrifices on my altar, to burn incense, and to wear the priestly vest as he served me. And I assigned the sacrificial offerings to you priests.
29 So why do you scorn my sacrifices and offerings? Why do you give your sons more honor than you give me—for you and they have become fat from the best offerings of my people Israel!
30 “Therefore, the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I promised that your branch of the tribe of Levi would always be my priests. But I will honor those who honor me, and I will despise those who think lightly of me.
31 The time is coming when I will put an end to your family, so it will no longer serve as my priests. All the members of your family will die before their time. None will reach old age.
32 You will watch with envy as I pour out prosperity on the people of Israel. But no members of your family will ever live out their days.
33 Those who survive will live in sadness and grief, and their children will die a violent death.
Behold the issue of worship.
Because the people were corrupt in the way they worshiped the Lord, they became powerless in all other areas of life.
Like most of us, they weren’t quick to put these two things together.
What does a piece of boiled meat in a pot have to do with defeating the Philistines?
You can rephrase that worship question in a thousand different ways.
What does going to God’s House regularly have to do with a strong marriage?
What does Bible study have to do with victory in the battle with temptation?
What does bringing my offering before the Lord have to do with my addiction to pornography?
The Lord answers those questions very specifically in one of the great life verses found in this passage
1 Samuel 2:30 (NLT)
30 “Therefore, the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I promised that your branch of the tribe of Levi would always be my priests.
But I will honor those who honor me, and I will despise those who think lightly of me.
I wonder how many people will gather in churches across our country this morning, and will call out to the Lord with their need, only to be lightly esteemed by God.
Can there by anything worse than that?
I wonder how many people will cry out to God about their wayward teenager, never remembering the hapless, loose habits of worship they established in their home years ago.
I wonder how many people will cry out for deliverance from temptation and that binding habit, never thinking about the fact that they scatter off to one church after another, or never read their Bible at home, or don’t even consider the fact that they rob God with their own investing of His tithes and offerings.
People never link those battles - the winning of those battles - with purity and faithfulness and obedience in worship.
Nothing determines the direction and success of your life like honoring the Lord with a sincere, obedient heart of worship.
All of this relates to the second point:
Judah believed that taking the Ark into battle with them would guarantee victory over their enemies!
1 Samuel 4:3-10 (NLT)
3 After the battle was over, the troops retreated to their camp, and the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the LORD allow us to be defeated by the Philistines?” Then they said, “Let’s bring the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD from Shiloh. If we carry it into battle with us, it will save us from our enemies.”
4 So they sent men to Shiloh to bring the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, who is enthroned between the cherubim. Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, were also there with the Ark of the Covenant of God.
5 When all the Israelites saw the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD coming into the camp, their shout of joy was so loud it made the ground shake!
6 “What’s going on?” the Philistines asked. “What’s all the shouting about in the Hebrew camp?” When they were told it was because the Ark of the LORD had arrived,
7 they panicked. “The gods have come into their camp!” they cried. “This is a disaster! We have never had to face anything like this before!
8 Help! Who can save us from these mighty gods of Israel? They are the same gods who destroyed the Egyptians with plagues when Israel was in the wilderness.
9 Fight as never before, Philistines! If you don’t, we will become the Hebrews’ slaves just as they have been ours! Stand up like men and fight!”
10 So the Philistines fought desperately, and Israel was defeated again. The slaughter was great; 30,000 Israelite soldiers died that day. The survivors turned and fled to their tents.
All of this is very instructive for us.
Remember the real cause of Judah’s defeat from the previous point.
She was disobedient to the call to honor the Lord in her worship.
The solution wasn’t taking the ark into battle.
The solution was to forsake disobedience and to commence honoring the Lord.
This lesson is timeless. I can never use the past history of a walk with God to compensate for a present neglect in honoring the Lord according to His terms in worship.
The ark of the Lord couldn’t be used as a lucky rabbit’s foot to ward off evil and bring God’s blessing.
God doesn’t deal in superstition.
He deals in obedience and worship from pure, God-honoring hearts.
Read the rest of 1 Samuel chapter four.
As a result of their spiritual failure, the ark of the Lord was taken into captivity by the Philistines.
Nothing else in our walk with the Lord will sustain its power, life, and fruitfulness without integrity of heart and purity of worship.
David had a big army.
There was no external reason to lose these battles.
Military strategists couldn’t solve the problem.
All of the outward disintegration was the result of a worship failure.
The presence of God is a constant source of irritation to those who don’t Honor Him!
The ark of the Lord was nothing but a pain producer for the Philistines:
1 Samuel 5:1-12 (NLT)
The Ark in Philistia
5 After the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they took it from the battleground at Ebenezer to the town of Ashdod.
2 They carried the Ark of God into the temple of Dagon and placed it beside an idol of Dagon.
3 But when the citizens of Ashdod went to see it the next morning, Dagon had fallen with his face to the ground in front of the Ark of the LORD! So they took Dagon and put him in his place again.
4 But the next morning the same thing happened—Dagon had fallen face down before the Ark of the LORD again. This time his head and hands had broken off and were lying in the doorway. Only the trunk of his body was left intact.
5 That is why to this day neither the priests of Dagon nor anyone who enters the temple of Dagon in Ashdod will step on its threshold.
6 Then the LORD’s heavy hand struck the people of Ashdod and the nearby villages with a plague of tumors.
7 When the people realized what was happening, they cried out, “We can’t keep the Ark of the God of Israel here any longer! He is against us! We will all be destroyed along with Dagon, our god.”
8 So they called together the rulers of the Philistine towns and asked, “What should we do with the Ark of the God of Israel?”
The rulers discussed it and replied, “Move it to the town of Gath.” So they moved the Ark of the God of Israel to Gath.
9 But when the Ark arrived at Gath, the LORD’s heavy hand fell on its men, young and old; he struck them with a plague of tumors, and there was a great panic.
10 So they sent the Ark of God to the town of Ekron, but when the people of Ekron saw it coming they cried out, “They are bringing the Ark of the God of Israel here to kill us, too!”
11 The people summoned the Philistine rulers again and begged them, “Please send the Ark of the God of Israel back to its own country, or it will kill us all.” For the deadly plague from God had already begun, and great fear was sweeping across the town.
12 Those who didn’t die were afflicted with tumors; and the cry from the town rose to heaven.
First at Ashdod and then at Gath the ark caused nothing but pain and misery in the Philistine camp.
The presence of God had actually become a curse instead of a blessing.
Listen, opposing God’s will doesn’t somehow chase His presence out of this world.
It’s His world. He made it. And He rules it.
Opposing His known Will, in any area of life, doesn’t push Him out of the universe.
It simply sets everything about your life against the grain of His world.
And you’re the one who will end up getting the splinters.
And nothing in the world can fix that arrangement except humility, confession and repentance.
Until that point of wisdom comes, however much diversion and distraction your own pursuits may bring, you will remain empty and at odds with everyone and everything God brings your way.
His presence simply irritates the existing structures of your life.
It’s at this point the Philistines get rid of the ark of the Lord.
In 1 Samuel chapter 6 they put it on a cart pulled by two cows.
Without any help or prompting, the cows immediately head for the border of Judah.
Because of Saul’s insensitivity to the Presence of the Lord, the ark landed at the house of Abinadab on the way home and remained there for twenty years (1 Samuel 7:1-2).
Saul doesn’t even miss it.
The people had ignored God’s pattern for worship for so long they didn’t even notice that the very symbolic hub of God’s presence was nowhere to be found.
You can get used to doing religious things without God.
I need to remind myself of that truth.
I need to remind myself of that truth over and over.
That fact should frighten us.
Anyone can get used to living without the presence of the Lord.
It can start to feel normal.
You simply become consumed by other things.
People who crave His presence look fanatical and ridiculous.
You begin to drift from orienting your life after God.
As this background study closes, so does Saul’s reign.
What started out so well, ends so badly.
Just as the ark wasn’t deemed important enough to bring back to Shiloh, Saul couldn’t maintain the glory of God in his own heart and reign.
Here’s the take-home life lesson from this teaching.
Here is what worship has to do with life.
That’s why it is of crucial importance that His throne (remember Isaiah 6?) is honored and remembered.
That’s why there is no sacrifice (remember Mary and her precious ointment?) that is too great to be gladly offered.
Only His rule preserves your life.
And only worship - understood and practiced on His terms - establishes His presence.
