Scripture: Romans 15:4; 1 Chronicles 15:25-16:4 ( 2 Samuel 6:1-15)
Theme: God’s Presence
Title: Ox Carts, Hemorrhoids and True Worship
INTRO:
Grace and peace this morning in the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
In Romans 15:4 the Apostle Paul shares with us an amazing truth:
“Whatever was written ahead of time, you see, was written for us to learn from, so that through patience, and through the encouragement of the Bible, we might have truth.”(KNT)
The Apostle Paul wanted members of the Early Church to be known both as readers and doers of the Word. Paul knew that one of the best ways for Christ followers to grow and mature was for them to be committed disciples of the Word. Paul knew that the more they studied the Word the more they would allow the Holy Spirit to lead and guide them into experiencing a deeper relationship with the LORD.
One of the Early Churches that excelled in this area was the Church at Berea. In Acts 17:11-12 we read these words:
“The people there (the Bereans) were more generous in spirit than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with considerable eagerness, searching the scriptures day by day to see if what they were hearing was indeed the case. Many of them became believers, including some of the well-born Greek women, and quite a few men.” (KNT)
One of the Churches that had difficulty in this area was the Church at Corinth. Listen to what Paul has to say about them:
“In my own case, my dear family, I couldn’t speak to you as spiritual people, but as people who were all too obviously merely human, little babies in the Messiah. I fed you with milk, not solid food, because you weren’t able to take it in – and you still can’t even now! You’re still determined to live in the old way!” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3a – KNT)
History tells us that the Corinthians lack of being able to tolerate “spiritual solid food” hindered them for years even though they were a church that possessed many of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. One of the Early Church Fathers, Clement of Alexandria writes to the Church years after the Apostle Paul and spends a great deal of time in his letter admonishing the Church to get into the Word and grow up.
It is important for all of us to be people of God’s Word. We can never underestimate the need to be people of the Book.
The Bible is full of these amazing stories that enable us to better understand the Lord, ourselves, others and creation. This morning, I want to share two of those stories which center on the Ark of the Covenant.
The first one goes all the way back in 1 Samuel chapters 4 and 5. The Children of Israel were getting ready to go to war against the Philistines. Spiritually, they (the Israelites) were at a very low ebb. Their High Priest Eli and his sons had been their spiritual leaders and they had failed to teach and lead the people towards the true way of the LORD.
As a result the people came to believe that if they just took the Ark of the Covenant into battle with them that they could never be defeated. They saw the Ark of the Covenant as a type of spiritual “Lucky charm” that would ensure victory. It didn’t matter how obedient Israel was to the LORD all that mattered was that they had the Ark of the Covenant.
However, the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY does not play that game and instead of Israel being victorious by using the ark as a spiritual “Lucky Charm” they were defeated and the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant.
Supposedly, that meant that now the Philistines had power over the Ark of the Covenant.
What happened next was rather amusing to say the least.
+At first, the Philistines put the Ark of the Covenant into the Temple of Dagon and placed it beside the idol of Dagon. They thought that they would now have the protection of both Dagon and the god of Israel with Dagon being the more powerful god. After all, they had been able to defeat Israel and capture the Ark.
+However, the next morning when they went into the Temple of Dagon, the idol of Dagon had fallen with his face down; bowing before the Ark of the Covenant. Quite disturb over their idol paying homage to the Ark the Philistines quickly picked Dagon up.
+ The next day the same thing happen, the idol of Dagon was found with his face down in front of the Ark of the Covenant. Once again they picked Dagon up and stood him upright.
+The next day it happened again only this time the head and hands of the idol of Dagon had broken off and were lying in the doorway. The Philistines didn’t know what to do.
+At the same time all of this was happening, a number of people around the city of Ashdod where the Ark of the Covenant was being held began to suffer from what the King James calls emerods. Now, we don’t know for sure what emerods were – the word can mean a couple of things – it can mean tumors or it can mean hemorrhoids. There is strong support that it means hemorrhoids. I told you that some stories in the Bible involved some strange things.
Anyway, the people of Ashdod didn’t particularly like suffering this way so they sent the Ark of the Covenant to their sister city Gath hoping that they would be free from this plague. However, in a matter of days they too began to suffer from hemorrhoids. So, their leaders quickly decided that they needed to send it on to another Philistine town named Ekron.
When the people of Ekron heard about what had happened in Ashdod and Gath they wanted nothing at all to do with the Ark of the Covenant. Whether it was skin tumors or hemorrhoids the people didn’t want to take a chance so they all voted to send the Ark of the Covenant back to Israel.
So, they built a new cart and selected a couple of cows to pull the cart and sent the Ark on its way. Eventually, the Ark ended up in Kiriath-jearim where it stayed for approx. 60 (20 years during Samuel’s time and 40 years during King Saul’s reign) years bringing blessing after blessing upon the people of Kiriath-jearim. The people of Kiriath-jearim respected the Ark of the Covenant, worshipped the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY and did everything they could to keep the Ark safe.
Years later, when David became king of all Israel, he wanted to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. It appears from Psalm 132:6 that David had sent out a search party to locate it. If you remember during the last years of King Saul and the first years of his son Ishbosheth (who became king of Israel for 7 years after Saul’s death) the nation of Israel had once again fallen spiritually and so it is very likely that very few people knew where the Ark was located.
The Bible tells us that David located the Ark of the Covenant and was determined to bring it to Jerusalem. He had heard reports of how much the people of Kirath-jeramin and in particular how much the family of Abinadab had been blessed. He had heard reports of how just having the Ark of the Covenant in their midst had brought all kinds of blessings; spiritual, physical and financial.
David wanted God’s presence to be close to him and so he takes some 30,000 elite troops to Abinadab’s house to recover the Ark of the Covenant. All of this seemed like a good thing. However, it ended up in a disaster.
Why? Bible scholars tell us that David made some bad mistakes.
+David mistakenly viewed the Ark as some type of spiritual blessing box
+He tried to move it using a wooden cart led by a team of oxen
+He surrounded the Ark with his army – 30,000 elite troops
+He gathers up all kinds of musicians to sing and play before the Ark in an attempt to appease God.
It all looked good but we see that God would have nothing to do with David’s plans. Here was the king with his troops singing and praising God as they transported the Ark to Jerusalem. However, God stopped them in their tracks. And in doing so, God wanted them to understand what it means to
1. Be in the Presence of the Lord God Almighty
2. How to truly Worship before the LORD
King David was dangerously close to repeating the same sin that had happened back in 1 Samuel 4-5. He was dangerously close in casting the vision that all one had to do was to take possession of the Ark of the Covenant and by doing so it meant that God had to bless David, his army and the People of Israel. The Ark of the Covenant would once again be seen as some kind of idol or “spiritual lucky charm”.
The message would be that all you had to do was to appease the god of the Ark of the Covenant and you could take it any where you wanted to anyway you wanted to. You could in essence manipulate God. You could move God from point A to point B. You could decide where God would reside and where and whom God would bless.
Now, from this back ground and from these stories we can learn something about God and His Presence. Let’s look at three of them:
1. Good Intentions without Wisdom Can Lead to Disaster
David was a worshipper. That was a major plus. The nation of Israel under David was becoming worshippers. That was a plus.
They had built the finest oxen cart known to man. They had gotten the best oxen known to man. They had their finest people in charge of the oxen cart – Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab who had been taking care of the Ark of the Covenant all their lives. That was a plus.
They had the best worship teams around. There were singers and people who played all kinds of musical instruments; lyres, harps, tambourines, cymbals and trumpets. That was a plus.
It all looked good – King David, his army, the cart, the oxen, Uzzah and Ahio, the worship team. All looked great. It looked like they would create this wonderful time of revival. It looked like they would usher in God’s presence and begin years of being blessed and protected by the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY through the Ark of the Covenant.
But good intentions do not always end with great rewards. Sincerity alone does not bring great rewards.
“Drinking strychnine thinking that it’s a fruit juice doesn’t make it any less poisonous.” (Bill Johnson)
Just thinking that we are doing something right does not mean that we are doing it right. Just being sincere does not mean that we will in fact receive God’s blessing or starting a time of revival.
This is one of the reasons we need to get into the WORD. The WORD will help us understand that God has given us certain instructions; mandates. The WORD helps us also understand that God is very much concerned about the details.
Our Ark of the Covenant stories parallel in a fashion the story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael. They too made the mistake of getting ahead of God and trying to manipulate the will of God. It too lead to a disaster.
2. Read God’s Instructions/Follow God’s Instructions
Have you ever tried to put something together without first reading the instructions? Sometimes you can do okay by looking at the pictures on the box but there are those things that you need to take the time to sit down and read all the instructions from cover to cover.
If we want to know what God wants and how to be in His presence the best thing we can do is to read His Holy Word. And after reading His Word the best thing we can do is then to follow its instruction.
David had failed to do this. He had good intentions. He was sincere. He was a great worshipper but he failed to get into God’s Word and see how one should handle the presence of the LORD.
If King David had read carefully the Torah (especially Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) then he would have known that the only way to move the Ark of the Covenant was for the sons of Kohath (Levites) to carry it on their shoulders. The Ark of the Covenant was to never be put into a cart; even a great looking cart and carried around.
God had given specific instructions how to move both the Tabernacle and all its belongings and especially how to move the Ark of the Covenant. God had determined long ago that He was not into ox cart rides. He had determined long ago that He was not to be used as some military “spiritual lucky charm” and He had determined long ago that He was not going to be manipulated by a worship team no matter how good or sincere that they might be at the time.
God is God. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is Creator, Sustainer and the Lord God Almighty. He determines what the rules and regulations are. He determines the way to have a deep relationship with Him.
And God determined long ago that His Presence will not rest on anything that is manmade and that included even the Ark of the Covenant. For if you remember the Presence of the LORD would come and rest between the cherubim.
We make the mistake sometimes that God has to rest upon this building or that building. We make the mistake that God has to rest upon this institution or that institution. We make the mistake that God has to rest upon this ministry or that ministry.
We must always remember that God is in control. He is the Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer and LORD. His way is the only way to victory and His way is the only way to salvation.
There is a key thought here if we will receive it.
+God does not rest on buildings or on ox carts or on institutions. God rests on and in people.
We see this wonderfully revealed on the Day of Pentecost. We all know that the Holy Spirit did not come to rest upon the Temple. The Holy Spirit came to rest upon people who have allowed God to rescue them, redeem them and fill them with His Holy Spirit.
People that 1 Peter 2:4-10 reminds us that are now called priests. Because of the Cross, the Bible tells us that we who are in Christ are now called priests – “You are a Chosen People. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result you can show others the goodness of God, for He called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light.” (v. 9b)
III. Understanding Humility and Praise Proceeds God’s Presence
King David learned a hard lesson from the death of Uzzah. He learned that he could not approach the LORD with the trappings of His military or His own royalty. There is only one King, One Commander and that is God. That is why we see David taking off his crown, his royal robe and putting on the clothes of a priest. That is why we see David leaving the 30,000 elite troops behind and bringing only the elders and some of his generals.
David puts on the clothes of one who is a worshipper heart, mind and soul. David puts on the clothes of a person whose only desire is to serve the LORD.
And David leads the way by worshipping and praising the LORD. He leads the way as a humble servant and not a royal king. He leads the way not as a military commander but as one who is a servant of the God Most High. He leads the way as one whose only purpose in life is to uplift the LORD. He leads the way as one who is sold out completely to the LORD.
His wife Micah sees him humbling himself and praising God and later on scolds him. David quickly dresses her down curtly by reminding her that:
+God has chosen him over her father and her family
+God is to be praised whether it makes David look foolish or not
It is dangerous to make fun of true worship. It is dangerous to be arrogant. It was for Micah for the Bible says that she had no children; she left behind no lineage. That meant that there was no way for her to be able to bear a son that might have been the next king. Her rejection of worship led to her family’s royal line being finished forever.
But notice that as David humbled himself and worshipped the Presence of God came after him. That is true in all worship. When there is true humility and true worship; that is to say when we come to worship God with all our hearts, minds and bodies then we will usher in God’s Presence.
It is all rather simple isn’t it?
+We are called to be learners of God’s Word
+As we read/study/learn we will know how to live a life of holiness
+As we follow Christ we better understand that to be a person who has the heart of God we are to be humble worshippers with all that we have.
This morning as we close let me share with you a passage of Scripture from Zachariah 4:6 -
6 Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
It took King David a while to understand this – hopefully, this morning we will take it to heart – without God’s Spirit we are nothing. But with God’s Spirit – with God’s Spirit we can do and experience great things!
Closing Prayer/Benediction
