PARADERS OF THE LOST ARK
2 SAMUEL 6:1-15
INTRODUCTION:
One of my favorite movies is "Raiders of the Lost Ark". It is the first of three films that feature Indiana Jones, in all kinds of high adventure and perilous escapes. “Raiders,” the first of the trilogy, is set during the period of WW II and our government comes to seek the advice of one Dr. Jones, a professor of archeology and an obtainer of rare antiquities. They tell Indiana that the Nazi’s are possibly close to recovering the actual Ark of the Covenant of which our passage speaks. That news greatly excites Jones and when.. well instead of me telling it, let’s see the discussion.
Movie Clip -“Raiders of the Lost Ark”- Paramount Pictures - used by permission. 4 min.
Well, whoever, wrote the script for Indiana’s dialogue that we just heard, may have gone to S.S, but they certainly weren’t inspired. They don’t quite have the Biblical facts right. The Bible would agree that the Ark was tangible evidence for God’s presence & power. But in 1 Sam. 4-5 we learn that the Israelites took the Ark into battle and were anything but invincible. Not only were they defeated but the Philistines, their enemy, captured the Ark. They put it in their temple, which is where they worshiped Dagon, an idol that was half man, half fish. Look what happened:"After the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they took it from the battleground at Ebenezer to the city of Ashdod. They carried the Ark of God into the temple of Dagon and placed it beside the idol of Dagon. 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 set the idol up again. But the next morning the same thing happened - the idol 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. Then the Lord began to afflict the people of Ashdod and the nearby villages with a plague of tumors. 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 our god Dagon.’” The Ark may not have had the power the movies give it, but God wouldn’t have it abused.
In the movie, the supposed power of the Ark is the motivating force behind it’s search & capture. However, in real history, David, who is now King over Israel, simply wants to bring the lost ark back to it’s rightful home in Jerusalem. He enlists 30,000 men to retrieve it and they bring it back with great celebration. David isn’t so much a "Raider," but a "parader" of the lost Ark. And from this episode in David’s life come some meaningful truths for us on obedience and worship.
I. EVIDENCE OF GOD.... We need it - Vss: 4-5
One lesson for us here is that God understands, as humans, that we need some kind of tangible evidence of His presence. The Lord provided that especially in the O.T. When the Israelites were brought up out of Egypt God showed His presence by leading them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Then in Ex. 25-27, while they were in the wilderness, God gave the Hebrews directions to make a place of worship called the tabernacle which was a simple tent structure. Toward the rear of the tent there was a section called the Most Holy Place. In this section stood the Ark of the Covenant. Now under Saul’s reign the permanent tabernacle in Jerusalem had deteriorated, worship itself had become virtually non-existent and the Ark was gone. David wanted to renew his people’s reverence of God and revive their spiritual fervor. In order to do that it meant gathering the scattered articles of furniture and arranging them in the order God had given them years before. The most important piece among all those furnishings was the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was a chest that was gold plated inside and out. Inside were the two tablets upon which God had written the 10 commandments, (by the way, not the broken pieces as the movie said but the restored tablets that God re-issued to Moses.) It also contained the rod of Aaron which had miraculously budded in the wilderness and some manna which God supernaturally fed the children of Israel. The Ark had a pure gold lid which held two angelic figures of hammered gold. Their wings spread out over the lid and the area beneath those wings was called "the mercy seat,." where God’s presence was the most evident. The Ark was the heart of Jewish worship & extremely valuable.
Now in the N.T., God uses a different strategy to endear His presence to us. Those that are God’s people today, followers of Jesus, no longer need icons like the ark. For God promises all those who accept Jesus as Savior & Lord will have His presence living within them. We no longer look to a vessel of wood as His residence but now every believer’s heart is the abode of God. Acts 17:24- "Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples." 1 Cor. 6:19 asks: “Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?”2 Cor. 6:16-"..each of us is a temple in whom God lives."(Message)
But still, even with that great truth, it is human nature to have tangible things to help us feel the closeness of God. And God understands this need and has given us a number of objective, physical reminders of His presence. For example, His creation - Rom. 1:20 - “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”(NIV) 1 Cor. 1:18 tells us that the cross can be used as a tangible reminder of God’s message. Paul writes: “..the message of the cross.. is the power of God.”(NIV) I think the clearest, tangible reminder of what God has done for us is in communion.
1 Cor. 11 tells us to use the elements of bread without yeast and juice from the grape to remember what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Communion becomes our “mercy seat” the place we remember that Jesus gave His life for us on the cross. 1 Cor. 11:26 -Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup you are retelling the message of the Lord’s death, that he has died for you.”(LB) These things can be a tangible reminder of the evidence of God just as the Ark was for David and the Israelites.
II. OBEDIENCE TO GOD: He demands it - vss:6-11
So, David, with his men get the Ark to bring it to Jerusalem. Vs:3 says they put it on a new cart, and two men Uzzah and Ahio walked beside it. The parade now begins in earnest. Vs:5- “David and all the people of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with all their might, singing songs and playing all kinds of musical instruments- lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets, and cymbals.” It’s a party! Choirs are singing, musicians playing songs of praise on every sort of instrument, people cheering. But suddenly amid all the exultation, the cart is jolted when one of the oxen stumble. It looked for an instant as if it would tip over, so, a man named Uzzah who was helping guide the cart grabbed the sacred chest to keep it from crashing to the ground. It was the last thing Uzzah ever did. He fell dead behind the cart. He had, in his haste, well intentioned as might have been, ignored the clear and explicit edict that had been given by God in Numbers 4:15 "to never touch the Holy things of God."
Most of us that read this passage find it hard to understand why Uzzah was struck down. What was it that he had done that was so bad? After all he simply tried to keep the Ark from falling. So, we desperately need to understand this situation completely because it teaches us an important truth and that is that obedience to God is not optional. It is something that He demands down to the smallest detail! So, let’s take a close look at this incident. Because it’s common to ask, “Was the death of Uzzah “cruel and unusual punishment?” “Was God to harsh in this incident?”
The fact is, David and Uzzah himself, as a Levite, were at fault for this tragedy. If David and the Levites would of obeyed God’s detailed instructions about how to carry the Ark, Uzzah would of never, ever had to worry about saving it from falling. In their haste to get the Ark back to Jerusalem they didn’t do their homework. (1) They had the wrong escort. Uzzah and Ahio were Levites but God had said that only Priests should escort the Ark, neither Uzzah or Ahio were priest. (2) They also had the wrong transport. God had given very specific instructions on how to transport this sacred chest. On each side of the Ark of the Covenant there were gold rings. And through these rings were to be inserted poles and God said specifically in His law that the Ark was to be carried, never carted! He said in Ex. 25, "Make poles from acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. Fit the poles into the rings at the sides of the Ark to carry it. These carrying poles must never be taken from the rings; they are to be left there." But in his decision to transfer the Ark David, Uzzah, and the rest had shucked all the details and took the expedient route. After all, the fastest way to get the Ark to its destination was to put it on an Ox cart. And so when Uzzah reached out and touched the Ark of the Covenant he just climaxed a whole series of direct violations of God’s commands and he was struck dead.
And, I believe that we in this day and age need to hear about God’s demand for obedience. When it comes to obeying God, it’s the details - the rings and poles- that snag us. Either we don’t want to go to the trouble of getting the poles, or we don’t think the details matter to God, or we don’t bother to even care about what God wants from us. So we just grab a cart, rewrite the rules, and do it our own way. And we need to review again and again the fact that it is a serious matter to trifle with the commands of God. Our attitude many times is who cares about rings and poles and whether the Ark is carried or carted? Obviously, Uzzah found out that God cares!
But in our day of permissiveness and independence we have a hard time recognizing that obedience to standards is important. I think the person had it right when they said, "Some of us think the straight and narrow is wider than it used to be." And so we read in the July issue of Reader’s Digest about a class in Piper, Ks. who is given an essay assignment by their teacher and warned not to cheat by plagiarizing off the internet. But 28 out of the 118 students in her classes did just that, and did it poorly, some copying entire sections from the same internet website. They got zero’s on their papers, but only temporarily. Soon, the parents of the 28 complained to the school board refusing to believe their child cheated and calling the teacher’s “zero’s” too harsh. Incredibly the school board gave in. They told the teacher to go back and give partial credit to the students. Teacher Christine Pelton said, “The next day I went to my class and tried to teach my kids, but they were whooping and hollering, ‘We don’t have to listen to you anymore, we don’t have to obey you!’” Her authority gone, she did the only thing she could. She quit. What did those kids learn? How to write properly? How to think for themselves? No, they learned how to disobey and get away with it. But please understand this.. God’s not going to quit. He’s not going grade on the curve. He has given His rules to us for our own good and expects us to obey them. You see, while God is a God of perfect love, He is also is a God of perfect justice.
Now, it is true that since Jesus died for our sins that those who have Him as their Savior and Lord do not have to be perfectly obedient to go to heaven. We can turn from our sins, confess them to the Lord and He will forgive. Obedience is an expected response from one who is forgiven. Jesus said in John 14:15, "If you love Me, obey My commandments. He didn’t say, “If you love me, obey the commandments that don’t cramp your style.” -OR- If you love me, you can make up your own commandments.” God expects us to care about both the precepts and principles that He has given us. What’s the difference? You’re driving a car and you come across a sign that says “Stop.” That’s a precept - it doesn’t mean “slow down” or “yield” it means come to a full stop every time. Now, you come across a sign that says "Use Caution" or “Pass with Care,”that’s a principle to be applied with wisdom. Using caution or passing with care means one thing in a residential area and another on a deserted stretch of interstate highway.
Now in the Bible there are both precepts and principles. There are precepts like: Don’t lie - Don’t be sexually immoral - Don’t steal. Those never change. Then there are principles like: Dress modestly -give generously - Avoid the appearance of evil. Those must be applied with wisdom but still be applied. And if you love God and want to be a person after God’s own heart you want to please Him so you desire to obey both His precepts and principles. You care about what He cares about, you grieve over what grieves Him and you are gratefully willing to do things His way, even down to the minute details of how to carry the Ark. So when the Bible says, “.. turn from your sins and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ..”(Acts 2:38) you don’t ask if God really means that, you just do it. When the Bible says, “Honor your marriage and its vows..”(Heb. 13:4 LB) or “Don’t stay away from the times the church meets.” (Heb. 10:25 NCV) You don’t say, "That was a command back in the 1st century, surely it doesn’t apply now?" You obey the details.
Now obedience will sometimes be difficult. It will sometimes go against what you want, it will go against your human logic, human instinct. But God’s Word comes above our desires or our reasoning or instincts. Pro. 14:12- "There is a way that seems right to a person, but eventually it ends in death.”(GW) Shouldn’t we seek to obey the whole counsel of God because knowing what He’s done for us we care about what God cares about? The reason Uzzah died was to show us that God demands obedience - down to the smallest detail. Now David, maybe like us, was at first angered by what had happened to Uzzah. But then as he thought about it he fearfully realized that God was trying to teach him something. That is why he responds with fear in vs:9. And so David leaves the ark in the care of a Levite & priest for 3 months and then he brings it to the tabernacle. What happened to make David secure enough to retrieve the Ark? Well, in 1 Chron. 15 we get some behind the scenes information. Following Uzzah’s tragic death, David does his homework and discovers the proper way to escort and transport the Ark. In 1 Chron. 15:13 David says, "Because you Levites did not carry the Ark the first time, the anger of the Lord our God burst out against us. We failed to ask God how to move it in the proper way." And now David makes things right. And David’s obedience brings us to our last truth and that is that we can have..
III. FREEDOM IN GOD.... We have it vss:12-15
Now when you talk about obedience it may seem contradictory to talk about freedom. After all, how can obeying rules, set you free? I want you to notice 3 truths
about Christian freedom from this chapter.
(1) Freedom is a bi-product of obedience. On the surface it would seem just the opposite. Obedience binds you, makes you rigid, puts you in bondage. But that is not true. The better you comprehend where you stand before the Lord the freer and more confident you will be. When David paraded the Ark, this time in obedience, he celebrated with total freedom. We love to hear Donna play the keyboard. But we all understand that she didn’t just sit down one day and play like she does now. When she first played she may have played freely but not beautifully. But after years of lessons & practice, she has learned the rules for piano playing. The notes, the theory, the nuances.. And as rigid as those first exercises were, they slowly through obedience to those rules increased her ability to play beautifully! Now, it just seems to flow out, totally free, but only because they first learned to obey the rules.
That same principle applies to our spiritual life. We are not without rules. When you first look at them they may seem cumbersome. But once you begin to saturate your life with those rules you find that they are not restrictive but liberating! 1 John 5:3- “Loving God means obeying his commands. And God’s commands are not too hard for us..”(NCV) God wants our best and His rules set us free from sin and the destructive consequences that accompany sin. That is what Jesus meant when he said when you truly know me, "You will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you!”(Message) Disobedience brings bondage. Obedience brings freedom.
(2) Freedom produces celebration. Did you get a sense of the unrestrained freedom of David and the Israelites. The huge crowd rejoiced with shouts and the playing of trumpets and danced, celebrated "with all their might before the Lord." And that kind of exuberant freedom ought to be evident when we worship. Let me ask you.. “What is your attitude when it comes to worship on Sunday?” Do you see God as forcing you to be obedient, so you come to Church with a grudging spirit or out of some misplaced obligation? Or do you know the freedom that comes from celebrating with an attitude of "I’m so grateful to God that I am thrilled to have the chance to praise my Creator and Savior!" Now, before some of you feel like I’m demanding that you must clap or raise your hands or dance in the aisles I will admit to you that I don’t know the exact definition of an appropriate expression of worship. But although I don’t know what it is exactly I think I know what it is not.. It’s not this! (Arms folded, scowling) Some remind me of the preacher who asked the sour faced member if he was thankful that God made him and Jesus died for him? He said, “Well, of course I am!” So, the preacher said, “Well, notify your face will ya!” Listen, just because you may be more reserved then raising hands or clapping doesn’t mean you can’t smile, doesn’t mean you can’t have your bible open during the sermon, doesn’t mean you can’t show enthusiasm to those around you. And I know for a fact that one of the things people are looking for when they come here looking for God, is to see if being a Christian is boring, morbid, irrelevant. Ask yourself: “What would someone conclude about my relationship to God if they watch me sing, listen, pray and interact with others?” Would they wonder, “Why do they come?”or would they ask, “Why are they so positive and upbeat?”
(3) Our freedom should be expressed primarily to God. 2 Sam. 6:17-18 tell us that once David got the Ark into it’s proper place that he went alone and expressed his joy to God and then came back out and celebrated with the people some more. So often when good things happen to us we celebrate with everyone else and seldom if ever give God our gratitude. One of the most touching moments in sports came at the end of the 1980 Winter Olympic Games, in which the US hockey team beat the Russians. It was an incredible feat. All during the games the cameras focused on goalie Jim Craig, one of the heroes of the team and on his father in the stands. Craig’s mother had recently died and he and his father had grown closer through the months of grief. When the US team won the victory, a tremendous celebration erupted out on the ice. Players embraced, clenched their fists in the air.. people cheered. All of a sudden the camera focused on Jim Craig who wasn’t celebrating but was skating alone up and down the ice, scanning the stands. You could read his lips: "Where’s my dad? Where’s my Dad?" You see, it was the happiest moment of his life and he would celebrate with his teammates, but first he wanted to be with the one who meant the most to him, the one who had contributed the most to his life. I remember watching with tears Jim Craig and his father embracing. Have you embraced God? Told Him how much you love Him? How much you appreciate what He has done for you? Expressed to your Heavenly Father your appreciation for the freedom you have.. Freedom from sin, freedom from an aimless life, freedom from death. Let’s do that right now..
