The fact is that God loves His people so much that He will
allow His name to be drug through the mud to redeem one of
His children. He is not nearly as concerned
about his reputation as we are. And truth be told, a lot of our
concern is not really about his reputation, but ours.
I was, I, I had shared that I had a number of people has have
been asking me about my take on all the controversy in the body
of Christ right now. The exposures of sin, you know,
leaders being exposed, some being exposed living in sin and
others being exposed for not blowing the whistle on it.
And people have asked me and I told you 3 weeks ago, I said,
I'm going to give them time to some of those to respond
themselves. And actually that bought me some
time. And that was part of the
purpose, to be honest, But I really did, I wanted, I wanted
some of them to be able to answer the charges and, and the
ones that I want to address this morning, they did.
And then last, you know, two weeks ago, we had Bill Byers
here, then Don Crum last week. And so it bought me more time,
but it's time that I, I address these things.
And so, and specifically right now I'm talking about the Mike
Winger video. Some of you have watched Mike
Winger's video. It's like 5 1/2 hours.
I, I did watch almost all of it at 1 1/2 speed.
So I'm really adept to listening to Mike at a very high speed.
And it was, it was absolutely excruciating to watch.
So I wanted to, and, and it's about, for those of you that are
not familiar with this, I apologize.
You know, we used to have from time to time we would do what we
call a family meeting and where we would deal with things that
we need to deal with in house. Those days are gone.
Since we live stream, there's no such thing as a family meeting.
It's a global meeting. And that that really does add to
the complexity of navigating these issues.
Any church that live streams is now a global church.
You know, all three of our fans out there are tuned in this
morning. No, seriously, we've, we've got
people watching from Africa and different parts of the world.
It's, you know, we, we're not, we don't have our millions, but
we do have consistent watchers from other nations.
And so that that presents an obligation for us that in the
past the church never had to deal with.
And so we're trying to trying to navigate these things and really
pray about it. So the specific situation I'm
talking about and the reason I'm going to address this is we had
Bill Johnson in this pulpit this last year.
Wouldn't you know, the we finally get Bill Johnson here
and then that this year is when things there there's a blow up.
And so I wanted to address that because we've had him in this
pulpit. So Mike Winger put out A5 and
1/2 hour video exposing Sean Bowles, someone who's been known
as a prophetic voice to the church, exposing manufactured
data mined words of knowledge and prophetic words and other
sexual sins that he's been involved in that have been
others, numerous witnesses that have been aware of this.
And he, the, the measures have been taken bring, you know,
people have gone to, to Sean on their own, brought others with
them, brought it before the church and he's still
unrepentant. And so the Bible's clear we're
to treat him as an unbeliever. The the evidence is irrefutable
of what's happened. And we don't want to be guilty
of unsanctified mercy that can actually damn a soul to hell
because it doesn't bring people to repentance.
And so there's that situation. But part of the video that Mike
Winger put out was about Bethel's failure to blow the
whistle to the global body of Christ.
They did tell their network, but a lot of people in house didn't
know. And it created some problems
because there were people who were living off of prophetic
words. They were, they applied some
prophetic words, which got them into some real hot water
personally, because these were manufactured words.
They weren't words from the Lord, but they were living their
life according one girl in particular who married a guy,
because there was a manufactured word that said that she was
given to this man. And so she stayed in an abusive
marriage for three years and almost lost her life at the
hands of this abusive husband, which is horrendous.
And so let me just say, this is not what we're going to deal
with today. We're going to deal with how do
we deal with, how do we deal with these dynamics?
And so I want to talk about that, but I do want to say this,
that there's no way that we can keep an eye on every word that
is given by a member of the body of Christ.
And So what that means is that as the body of Christ and as
individual believers, we need to learn to discern and learn to
steward prophetic words. And so here's the thing, I don't
care how accurate someone is, and in Sean's case, it is
irrefutable that much of his material was data mined off of
Facebook and so forth. Now let me just I I apologize
this morning. I'm going to I'm going to just
hit some things. I'm going to share my heart.
I hardly slept last night wrestling over this.
I've been praying about this. Just asking the Lord, how do we
navigate these matters? And so one of the things we need
to I, I appreciated Mike Winger's video.
I think that Mike is doing the service to the body of Christ.
I don't agree with him on everything.
And one of the things I disagree with him on, and this is not a
heart matter. This is just a different
perspective on spiritual gifts. And, and a lot of times when
people don't operate in spiritual gifts, they don't
understand how they operate. And he seems to insinuate that
if someone gives a fraudulent word today and is misusing the
gifts of the Spirit today, then that means that their entire
history must have been fraudulent as well.
And he doesn't overtly say that. It seems as though he implies
that. And I'll just tell you that I
wish that were the case. It would make things a lot
easier. But the fact is that God doesn't
just entrust his gifts to those who will always steward them
right. I wish that, you know, and Lord,
with all due respect, I'm going to ask the Lord about that.
You know, he, he's, he's, it's way above my pay grade.
He's a lot smarter than me. But that was one, that's one of
the things that I would have thought, Lord, I would have done
that different. But that's not how God operates.
You know, the case in point, Samson is in bed with a
prostitute. He gets out of bed, walks down
to the gates of the city, picks up the the gates of the city by
because the Spirit of God comes upon him and he carries him up a
mountain and sets him down on the mountain.
And I'm like, what the heck. But that's what happened.
And so, so we need we we need to understand that people can can
have been legitimate at one point and gone awry.
I don't know if Sean Bulls was ever legitimate.
OK, that's, that's not I, I don't know.
I'm just know this, that we're, we're not going to have his
books in our bookstore. We're going to treat him like an
unbeliever. We're going to pray for him to
get, get right with God. But he, you know, we wouldn't
allow him in our pulpit. He's been brought before the
church and not repented. So that's that what we need to
do is we need to discern the word of the Lord.
And I don't care how clear, how accurate a prophet is.
I don't care. I, I believe in prophecy.
I, I believe the gifts of the Spirit are for today.
I've seen too much, experienced too much, and I see it in the
word on my, my conscience as a prisoner of the word.
But the Bible itself tells us that we see through a glass
darkly. We see in part and we prophecy
in part. And so I don't care how accurate
someone is. You don't make major decisions
based solely on a prophetic word and that is a recipe for
disaster because I don't care how accurate they are.
They see in part. And so there's other things that
need to be taken into consideration the the peace of
God in your heart circumstances wise counsel from other
believers and the word of God itself.
And if there's if you ever receive a word, a prophetic word
from somebody that violates the word of God, then you can throw
that out. I don't care how how good a
person they are. It's miss, you know that that's
it's not they missed it. OK, so we need to understand
that when we get prophetic words, we weigh those things and
you talk to wise leaders and counsel and so forth.
So, you know, and there's been the this this video, there were
some accusations against Bethel and we can now tell you that
those weren't just accusations. They've admitted that I want to
read you a, a post from them. And if you haven't they they had
a service 3 weeks ago, I believe it was and I watched that.
And I would encourage you to do the same.
And if if you do, I want to encourage you to wait till the
video is completely over. Where the digital pastors, which
is crazy that in this day and age, we have digital pastors,
but the pastors that are ministering to the online
community, you need to wait till the end because here's this
young couple and they're just weeping and they say to the
camera, Mike Winger, we love you.
We appreciate you. You have done the body of Christ
a service. You're a brother.
We thank you for the service you've done for us and we're
going to do better. And those of you that may have
seen that, I don't know about you, but that broke me and it's
interesting. Well, I won't comment.
I'm going to read you something. This is on Bethel's website and
then I'm going to make some comments.
They said we're writing you today to share.
This is really a what they shared at the service and it's
put in printed form. It's on their website.
We're writing you today to share about some of our mistakes and
failures in the way we navigated our responsibilities to the
global body of Christ. We ask for you to cover us with
grace this week as we seek the Lord for forgiveness in the face
of some grievous mistakes. These actions were taken by us,
Bill Johnson, Chris Bellatin, Dan Fairley, along with Danny
Silk. We would like to clarify that
our other team later, our other leaders and staff members,
including Brian and Jen and the Bethel Music team were not
updated on the allegations or the details of this process.
We take responsibility for the fact that we did not properly or
we did not properly and fully bring discipline, closure, or
clear and timely communication regarding the gravity of our
concerns with Sean Bowles. This was someone we platform to
preach and prophecy in her house and with our teams on many
occasions up until 2019. We are clear that we are not
responsible for Sean's sin. He is, but we are equally clear
that we are responsible for our own sins, actions and inactions
after the fact. James Fort 17 states whoever,
whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him,
it is sin. The truth is, we have hurt and
scared people because we did not tell the truth enough.
We did not tell the truth enough, early enough, long
enough, or loud enough and this is a just criticism.
Our hearts are grieved and embarrassed when we sin.
We mess or mess up publicly as we have.
It is important to take responsibility publicly, to
listen as people share their frustrations, sadness and fears
and corrections. We have been hearing a lot of
this and we expect to hear more in the season ahead as sometimes
it takes a while for frustration to land and for people to really
trust you've heard them. We are not rushing past this.
And so they posted this on their website and they've set up a, an
external process where if somebody has a complaint or an
accusation, it goes to a separate entity, a ministry that
then records that and then sets, sends it to them.
So they can't sanitize any material, which I think is a
great step for them to do. I guess a couple of comments on
this. I know that a number of people
have come to me and and number of people have shown real
concern when they say, but yeah, it took them being called out on
A5 and 1/2 hour video. It's insincere and it doesn't
ring true. And I want to caution you that
may be the case or it may not be God laid out very clearly in
Matthew 18. Oh, a pattern by which people
are confronted in the body of Christ.
And it's very clear you go to that person.
We, we used to call it at Teen Challenge.
We're going to have a light session.
And it's, it was an acronym for living in Group harmony
together. You get a bunch of just save
drug addicts living together. You had a lot of light sessions
and so we would say a light session and we'd sit down and
we'd hack it out in our, you know, and we'd, and So what we
were required to do is go to that brother and confront him.
And if he didn't receive it, you take another brother with you.
And if he didn't receive it, then we'd take it before the
whole body. And if he didn't receive it,
then, then they were treated like a tax collector, like he
worked for the IRS. No, I'm just kidding.
Like, you know, you, you treat him like an unbeliever.
Is, is how that laid it out. Here's the thing.
It's very clear what Jesus taught us in Matthew 18, that
even if it takes that 3rd step before they own it, then you go
back into fellowship with them now if they reject.
It it says if they. Still do not receive it.
Then you treat them as an unbeliever.
And so we would, we would all like to feel like, hey, it, you
know, man, it would be great if people just came and confessed
their sin. Hey, I did this and weren't
caught. The fact is David was caught in
murder and adultery and the prophet Nathan by the word of
the Lord came and confronted him.
And David could have killed him because he was the king.
But immediately when, when Nathan said you're the man in my
parable, you're the man. And David said I have sinned.
And immediately Nathan said, you are forgiven.
But then there were consequences and.
So I want to caution you. I'm not, I'm not telling you
that you have an obligation to be gullible and believe
everybody's apologies. But I also want to caution you
against being cynical and not believing anybody's apologies
unless they came on their own free will.
Because human nature, including yours and mine, is that we argue
against the truth in our mind when we get in a bad place.
And so I'm not telling you you should believe everything that
they said. I'm saying that time will tell.
But just guard your your heart against cynicism and realize
that the Bible makes allowances for that very thing that Jesus
instructed us that went when they're brought before the
church. If they receive it, they've
already been confronted in private and you know, with
another brother and now they're brought publicly if they receive
it. He said we're supposed to
receive them back in and by the way, God operates by Matthew 18
because I guarantee you the Lord came to Sean Bowles.
I guarantee you the Lord dealt with Bill and Chris and and
Danny. And then there were others who
came and, and if you listen to what Bethel was saying and, and
even the address of these young digital pastor couple at the end
who are weeping and saying, thank you, Mike, we'll do a
better job. You see that it was the younger
crowd of that movement that was pressuring the older crowd and
the older crowd, because the way they've navigated things is that
when they were a little small country church in the town of
2000 where you can manage these things and you can you can deal
with things on that scale that isn't working on that larger
scale. And it gave me great hope for
the future of the church that there's this young generation
that's saying, hey, we can't do this.
We've got to do and so we can pray that there's true
repentance. I'm hopeful, but that's for you
to navigate. I just want to caution you as
your pastor, don't be cynical and don't be gullible, OK?
Let's not go to extremes. And so let me let me read you a
couple things that I was just tossing around in my own head.
Human nature is to both preserve what we have built and
accumulated as well as to protect our own reputations.
So when something comes out underneath our leadership or
someone that we've endorsed, all of a sudden we want to circle
the wagons in one of two ways. We either defend the person or
we distance ourselves. Said I never really received
from then. I always knew.
And so human nature is both to preserve what we have built and
accumulated as well as to protect our own reputations.
That danger is not only in regards to our own sin, it is
true of the sins of those we look up to and have recommended
to others. When we receive from someone, we
develop an A vested interest in protecting them.
This is human. Nature.
Not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's real.
This is not only out of a sense of gratitude over what we've
received, we develop a loyalty which is often rooted in a
desire to preserve our own credibility and validate our own
discernment. And So what happens is when
somebody is exposed. And we've received.
From them we're like, no, that can't be true, and often we deny
it way too late in front of mounting evidence.
This exposure, this makes exposure particularly dicey
things for us to navigate. We have a tendency to try to
protect God's reputation from the truth concerning the
behavior of His people. The time to do this is prior to
sin. We should be concerned about
God's reputation and how we represent Him.
We represent Jesus as his people, but the time to be
concerned about that is before we sin.
It's called the fear of the Lord and the love of God.
And I'm not going to do these things.
We're all tempted in various ways, but we're not going to do
that because I love him and I fear him and I don't want to
bring a bad name to the to the church or to the Lord himself.
The wrong time to do that is after sin has already happened.
Then things have to be exposed. And we've got to own our own
lack of discernment. We've got to own our own
gullibility. We've got to own those things.
And that's a humiliating process.
I've had plenty of people When when when IHOP crumbled to the
ground 2 1/2 years ago. I'm still processing that.
I know a lot of people that had a tendency to say, well, I
never, I never didn't really like Mike Bickel, man.
They were listening to his stuff and pushing his books prior to
that and all of a sudden I always knew but tell you, I
didn't know. I'm still to this day absolutely
shocked and it breaks my heart, but I've seen no, no expression
of repentance on the part of Mike Bickel.
He's been brought before the church and we need to consider
him no longer a brother, but someone we pray for that he'll
get right with God because what happened for decades was heinous
and it's heartbreaking. And I had, I've had people ask
me, well, wait, if there's all these prophetic people, how come
they didn't know? And I would propose to you, the
reason they didn't know is because God himself operates by
Matthew 18. He loves you enough not to
expose you in front of everybody.
He comes to you as a friend and said, listen, we got to deal
with this. And if we respond, then we can
be restored. And if it doesn't happen, then
he brings a friend with him, usually in the form of a
prophetic friend that will come and confront you.
And if you don't receive that from the Lord, God will begin to
push it out before the greater body of Christ.
And it's a terrifying thing. And people have insinuated, you
know, Pastor Dave, where was your discernment?
It's a valid criticism. I don't know what to tell you.
I was deeply impacted by Mike Bickle's teaching.
But I'm deeply disgusted by what I've heard happened over decades
over there. And I can't reconcile those two
things. And our tendency is to either
distance ourselves and pretend we were we, we were never
impacted by that or to defend that type of behaviour.
And often it's rooted in a defence of our own credibility
and not really a righteous defence.
And so the fact is that God loves his people so much that he
will allow his name to be drugged through the mud to
redeem one of his children. He is not nearly as concerned
about his reputation as we are. And truth be told, a lot of our
concern is not really about his reputation, but ours.
And we've got to own that. And the reason this is
important, it's this is not just a, this isn't meaningless talk.
This is important for us to understand why this stuff
happens, not just the actions, but the reactions and what's
really going on in the human heart.
Because this is the way we can protect ourselves from doing the
same. If we don't really get in on the
inside of this and look at these as case studies and say how
could men of that stature end up in this place and then we are in
danger of getting in the same place ourself.
And so we need to look at these things.
Now, there's an old Latin phrase.
I actually looked this up on the Internet to pronounce it right.
I wish I spoke Latin. It's a dead language, but it's
the foundation of so many others.
But so. According to Google.
This is how you say this phrase, and some of you have heard it
before. Fiat Eustisia, Ruat Kailume, and
the English translation is this Let justice be done though the
heavens fall. I don't know about you, but man,
that is a weighty statement to me.
Let justice be done though the heavens fall.
And it's addressing that very thing within us that, well, we
got to preserve what we've built.
We can't allow sin to be exposed.
We're going to keep it secret. I remember 40 years ago when I
first started in ministry, I was part of a church that was one of
the staff members got into drugs.
And what they did is just loaded him up in a truck one night and
he disappeared, never to be heard from again because they
sweep it under the rug and just ship it off to another church.
And that's not the way the body of Christ is to operate.
We're to walk with people. We're to contend with people if
they own it. We lay our lives down just like
someone did for us so they can be restored to right
relationship and health. But this issue about protecting
reputation is really one of the major reasons this stuff
happens. And so let justice be done
though the heavens fall. You know what?
God is very secure in His own identity.
Let me read you. I've alluded to this word a
number of times, but it was a prophetic word that was given on
April 6th, 1987. The first time I heard it was
right around that time it was by a guy named David Minor.
Some of you may be may remember him last name MINOR, David Minor
and he gave it, if I remember right, at a end time handmaidens
conference in St. Louis, MO.
And the reason I'm reading it now, I believe it was a word in
retrospect. I often tease I'm more of a
historian than a prophet. I see real clear in retrospect.
You know, I'm very accurate in retrospect.
And this was obvious. Obviously a word from the Lord
for that season of church history.
If you remember those of you that are old enough to remember
and if you were walking with the Lord.
I came back to the Lord in 1983 and in 198586 it was like bodies
began to fall. Some of the biggest names in
Christendom, they were exposed of living in sin and it was
painful and people were like what in the world is going on?
And in 1987, this Word came out and at the time I was a student
at Jimmy Swaggart Bible College. And those of you that are older,
remember that whole scenario that was a year before that
ministry came tumbling down. And this is the Word.
And the reason I bring this up is we need to understand that
God operates by patterns. He calls Him His, them His ways.
In other words, if we know his ways, how he's worked in the
past, we can understand patterns of his behaviour and principles
which he navigates scenarios by so that we can anticipate how
he's going to act again. And if that's an accurate
interpretation of that, and I'm convinced it is, if God does
operate by ways, then we can look at how He's done it in the
past and realize we're in one of those same scenarios right now.
So listen to this word. It's just a little lengthy, but
I think it's worth hearing this morning.
The Spirit of God would say to you that the wind of the Holy
Spirit is blowing through the land.
I believe this is a word for right now.
The church, however, is incapable of fully recognizing
this wind. Just as your nation has given
names to its hurricanes, so I have put my name on this wind.
The wind is named holiness unto the Lord.
Because of a lack of understanding, some of my people
will try to find shelter from the wind, but in doing so, they
shall miss my work. For this wind has been sent to
blow through every institution that has been raised in my name.
In those institutions that have substituted their name for mine,
they shall fall by the impact of my wind.
Those institutions shall fall like cardboard shacks in a Gale.
Ministries that have not walked in uprightness before me shall
be broken and fall for this. The reason?
Man will be tempted to brand this work as a work of Satan.
But do not be misled. This is my wind.
I cannot tolerate my church in its present form, nor will I
tolerate it. Ministries and organizations
will shake and fall in the face of the wind.
Even though some will seek to hide from that wind, they shall
not escape. It shall blow against your
lives, and everything around you will.
Appear to be crumbling, and so it shall, but never forget.
This is my wind, says the Lord. With tornado force.
I will come and appear to leave, destruct devastation.
But the word of the Lord comes and says, turn your face to the
wind and let it blow, for only what what is of me shall not be
devastated. You must see this as necessary,
but do not be dismayed, for after this my wind shall blow
again. Have you not read?
My breath blew upon the valley of dry bones, so it shall
breathe on you. The wind shall come an equal
force as the first wind. This wind too will have a name.
It shall be called the Kingdom of God.
It's interesting that this came out in 1987, in the mid 90s,
there was this outpouring of the spirit that brought with it an
emphasis on the concept of the Kingdom of God.
Now that's, that's something everybody talks about.
Now. We talk about the Kingdom, the
Kingdom, and I'm telling you, I was in ministry before that move
and I was ministry after it. And people didn't talk about
the, there was not a theology of the Kingdom established like
there is now. It's it wasn't as widely known,
he goes on to say. It shall bring my government and
my order along with it shall be. It shall bring my power.
The supernatural shall come in that wind.
The world will laugh at you because of the devastation of
the first wind, and they but they will laugh no more.
For this wind will come with force and power that will
produce the miraculous among my people.
And out of the fear of God shall fall on the nation.
My people will be willing in the day of My power, says the Lord.
In my first wind that is upon you now I will blow up pride,
lust, greed, competition and jealousy, and you will feel
devastated. But haven't you read?
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of
heaven. So also out of the poverty of
spirit I will establish My Kingdom.
Have you not read? The Kingdom of God is in the
Holy Ghost. So by My Spirit My Kingdom will
be established and made manifest.
Also know this, there will be those who shall seek to hide
from this present wind, and they will try to flow in the second
wind, but again they will be blown away by it.
Only those who have turned their faces to the present wind shall
be allowed to be propelled by the second wind.
You have longed for revival and return of the miraculous in the
supernatural. You.
And your generation shall see it, but it shall only come by my
process, says the Lord. The Church of this nation cannot
contain my power in its present form, but as it turns to the
wind of the holiness of God, it should be purged and changed to
contain My glory. This judgement that has begun to
the House of God, but has begun to the House of God.
But this is not the end. When the second wind comes, has
come and brought my harvest, then the end shall come.
I believe that was a word from the Lord and I believe we're in
another season that is very, very similar.
So I want you to turn with me very quickly.
And God willing, we'll, we'll have to continue in this passage
next week because there's no way we're going to get through this
passage. I, I was just wrestling and
wrestling with the Lord all day yesterday into the night.
I couldn't sleep looking for a passage.
I don't know about you, but when, when the Lord's dealing
with me and I feel this turmoil, I look for a passage that has
the template of what I'm feeling so that I can realize, OK, this
is the passage that has the template.
I can then look to that and get the truth that's going to help
me navigate that. And this is the passage that I
felt like in the middle of the night, the Lord began to speak
to me out of Second Samuel chapter 6.
And if you're reading, it's, you know, there's probably in
whatever translation, something the effect of the ark brought to
Israel. This was following David's third
anointing to be king of Israel, the first anointing he received
as a young shepherd boy and then went right back to the sheep.
And at that point, only a prophet, a seer, was the only
one who could see the potential on this boy.
Everybody else had sounded him. But a seer saw something.
So he was anointed by one man, a prophet.
The second time he's anointed by family.
His tribal affiliation, Judah, made him king over them.
There comes a point in your life where only your Mama sees your
potential. You know, sometimes even a Mama
can't see. It it takes takes a seer, but
then a Mama sees something other people don't see.
And then finally, David rules over Judah for seven years, and
now he's been anointed to be the king over all of Israel.
And the first thing on David's agenda, because he's a man after
God's own heart. He wants the presence of God,
the Ark of the Covenant, to be central to his reign, his
administration. So he goes.
And he gets the the ark of God from the House of a guy named
Abinadab, who had two sons, Aza and Ohio.
And David. They've had this ark here for 12
to 13 years. And David wants to get it to to
Jerusalem, the city of David, so that he can rule and reign from
there. And he wants to make the
presence of God central to his reign.
It's a beautiful value that David had.
And so we pick up the story in verse one, David again gathered
all the chosen men of Israel 30,000 So 30,000 people show up
man there. This is a big conference and
they're so we're we're going after the presence and they knew
where to find it. It was at a Benedab's house.
And so it says, And David rose, and went with all the people who
were with him from Belle Judah, to bring up from there the ark
of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of.
Hosts who sits? Enthroned on the cherubim and we
need to understand this. This ark was a golden box made
of Acacia wood and then covered in gold.
And there was a lid called the mercy seat and and molded into
this lid where these cherubim with their their wings pointed
inward. And in the middle of that was
the mercy seat. And God said I will live on the
lid. He didn't use those.
Words, but he said I will dwell on the mercy seat, he living on
the lid. So the people of God knew if I
need if I need an encounter with God, I know where God dwells.
There is a throne called the ark of the Covenant and it
represented the presence of God. And so David wanted that at his.
He wanted that to be central. And so they carried the Ark of
God on a new cart. They got a brand new cart, then
put it on some old one, it was brand new, and brought it out of
the House of Abinadab, which was on a hill.
And Aza and Ohio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new
cart with the Ark of God. And Ohio went before the Ark,
and David and all the House of Israel were celebrating before
the Lord with songs and liars and harps and tambourines,
castanets and symbols. You can see it, man.
Can you imagine 30,000 people? And they're excited, They're
dancing, they're playing music. David's out there leading the
leading the charge. They're all, they're excited,
sincere in their hunger to have the presence of God come to
them. They're all they're, they're
just so excited. This is an, an exuberant worship
service. And then verse 6 and when they
came to the threshing floor of Nakon, there is a whole lot of
imagery here that we need to unpack.
They came to the threshing floor of Nakon.
Aza put out his hand to the Ark of the Lord and took.
Hold of it. For the oxen stumbled and the
anger. Of the Lord was kindled against
Azza, and God struck him down there because of his error, and
he died there before the ark of God.
He's just wanting to keep. The ark from hitting the ground.
So he reaches up to steady it, and he's hit by the power of
God, and he falls down dead. And we read in verse 8 and David
was angry because the Lord had broken out against Aza and to
that to and that place is called Perez Aza to this day.
It means God broke out against Aza.
And every time they'd pass by there, they'd remember that
horrific story and what's so disturbing.
And we we've got to be careful. We don't just read over this.
We need to catch what what is really happening.
These were sincere people. Who wanted the presence of God
unto them? They were hungry for God's
presence. They were hungry, but they.
Did not have the fear of the Lord and they came to a place
called the threshing floor of Nakon.
Now a threshing floor in Scripture is it represents
something you remember when when John the Baptist gets up and he
said hey. What I do with water, the one
coming after me, he will do with the Holy Ghost and fire.
And so he said, hey, you know, you guys see what I'm doing?
I'm putting people down. I'm submerging them in the water
and they're coming up dripping, saturated with water.
The one coming after me is going to do that with the Holy Ghost
and fire. He's going to submerge.
You will come up dripping, saturated with the Spirit of God
and the fire of God. And then he adds this, he said,
and his winnowing fork is already in his hand.
He's going to take you to the threshing floor.
He's going to separate the wheat from the chaff, and he's going
to burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
That really vivid language, and he's alluding to a very common
agricultural custom that everybody around there would
have been familiar with. What they would do is in the
harvest fields of Israel, they would take the highest point in
the harvest field and they would tamp down the soil and even put
add clay to a base. So they would have this hard
circular floor. And as they'd harvest the grain,
they would carry it all onto this floor called a threshing
floor. And then what they would do is
they'd take a threshing wheel, a large, it would it almost look
like a Fred Flintstone car. Remember those you know, And
they'd have this big wheel and they would crush the grain so
that the outer husk known as chaff would be broken off.
And then that which is usable would be exposed.
Then he says he, he takes his threshing floor, his, his
winnowing fork, it says it's already in his hand.
He would take that winnowing fork and he would put it in that
grain that's been crushed under the pressure of the wheel and he
would throw it up. And This is why it was important
that it be in the high place of the field because the wind would
be the most dramatic there. And so he would throw this grain
to the wind and the, the, the outer husk, the chaff is of
lighter weight than that which is usable, which was weighty.
It was substance. It had substance to it.
And the grain would fall to the ground and they would keep doing
that and the wind would blow away that which is unusable.
So all that would remain was that which is usable to feed the
world. But in this scenario, most
farmers would have been satisfied.
I'll let the chaff blow away, but not.
Jesus. Our Jesus, he was not satisfied
to simply separate the chaff from the wheat.
He was then going to gather the chaff and he's going to burn it
up with unquenchable fire. That's vivid language.
He was so set on getting rid of that which hindered people from
being able to get at which what is.
Valuable within you and I. There is something of value in
your life that God is placed in you by the new birth, but the
only way to get to it is through pressure and wind and fire to
consume so that all that remains is what will feed other people.
And it was a threshing floor. John alludes to that and it's a
very vivid picture. And it's not a coincidence that
in the journey to bring the presence of God to them, they
hit the threshing floor and the oxen stumbles.
Now, there's all kinds of symbolism here that oxen beasts
of burden represent in Scripture as a prophetic picture, types of
ministry. We use it that way today, if you
if you. Get around people that are
prophetic. They'll say, someone says I had
a dream of a bus, oh, that's corporate ministry.
I had a dream of a car. Oh, that's ministry.
And I believe there's a validity to that.
Because in the old, in the in the Bible, Jesus, the first time
he comes on a mule and he's presenting himself to Jerusalem
in peace. The next time he comes on a
horse, a War Horse, and he's come for judgment and to make
war. And the beast of burden that
he's riding represents the type of ministry.
And so if we apply that picture here to this prophetic passage,
what it's saying is that when the people of God were hungry
and the the the presence of God was on the move, and when God is
moving, then we've got to really be sensitive and we've got to
transport the presence according to the protocol of Scripture.
And David failed to do that. He would they, Uzza and Ohio
were so familiar with the ark that their familiarity cost Uzza
his life. And we can get familiar with the
presence of God, but when God begins to move, we've got to
we've got to go low and we've got to realize that we have to
do things according to divine protocol.
And David had hunger. He was sincere, but what he
didn't have was a, a, a mind well stored with the protocols
of heaven. And so they treated it with
familiarity. And the oxen stumble can
represent the stumbling of a minister stumbling in ministry
and, and other reaches up and he's he's laid low and he's
down. And we don't have time to get
into the rest of this passage. God willing, we'll get in next
week. But here's the thing.
Here's our take away this morning.
When the bodies begin to drop, it's time to go low.
It's not a time for us to stand and say, see, I always knew and
begin to cast aspersions on those people.
But because what we're seeing across the global landscape,
we're seeing major ministries being exposed right now.
And I don't know about you. I'm, I'm like, Lord, if there's
something in me, Lord, come to me private, just come to me Lord
alone. If you got to bring some of God,
give me the grace to respond. Lord, come to us and let us let
the wind blow through us so that we can qualify for what you want
to do in the future. What's going on begs the
question, number one, what in the world is happening in the
American church that this kind of corruption is underneath the
surface? And we've got to ask the
question, are there things that we've been a part of that is
actually tolerated and accommodated and even encourage
that type of lifestyle? Have we created a hero worship
culture? We need to be.
Very, very careful. But we also need to be asking
what is heaven doing? Not just what's the problem on
the earth, what? There's the human perspective.
And we need to examine these things, this stuff, these kind
of scenarios. Begged, begged the question.
We need to go back and look at our ecclesiology, our government
and the way the church operates and really say, God, are you
trying to tell us something? We want to build safeguards
because we know there's only one, not only only one worthy,
there's only one that's completely whole and his name is
Jesus. And so we need to go low and
allow the Lord to deal with us. But it also begs the question,
what is God doing This is this is unreal that ministry after
ministry after ministry and some of the biggest ministries in the
world have been exposed and God's not done, I'm telling you.
It it it it it. I hold my heart tenderly when I
say it, but there's there's more on the horizon.
And so we need to go low and when the bodies start hitting
the floor, it says David was angry with the Lord.
Go ahead and stand in it. We'll close with this.
So you know, I'm going to quit. Look at look at verse 8 it says
and David was David goes through the gamut of human emotion.
David was angry because the Lord had broken out against.
Aza. That's verse. 8 Verse 9 David
was afraid of the Lord that day, and said, How can I bring the
ark of God unto me? Verse 10 So David was not
willing to take the ark into the city.
David had hunger, but now God added fear, so much so that
David's not willing to move. David said, how can I get the
ark of God unto me, not realizing that God was already
answering that question by building something inside of him
that would be a necessity to steward the presence of God.
God was adding. Fear to very real sincere hunger
and then what happened is David heard a rumor because they put
the ark at Obed Edom's house and it says David heard several
months later Obed Edom's house is really blessed someone
mentioned to David hey have you seen Obed's tomatoes they're
huge man and the. Wool on his lambs.
I mean, it's the best wool feel this jacket.
This is Obed's wool and David. There was something in David
that's got, I've got to get near the presence.
I've got to have that. And there was this tension
within him. It's similar to when God reveals
himself to Moses on the the mountain.
There's this interesting thing. God says Moses, Moses and Moses
comes near. He said, don't come any closer.
He's like, God, why didn't you call me Moses?
Don't come any closer. And there's this tension, Lord,
I want to get closer to you. You, you've called me, I'm
responding and now you're saying don't get closer.
Why? Because you're standing on holy
ground. And God took Moses through a
process. So it eventually it says Moses
spoke to God as a friend speaks to a friend.
Face to face. If we really get what we're
praying for, then all of this is necessary.
There is always a threshing floor and a bump in the road on
the way to the Presence. There's When we begin to hunger
for Him, God will. God will begin to instill
circumstances which will reinstall the fear of God in our
life. So I want to.
Encourage you, don't be a cynic and don't be gullible.
Let's be humble and let's pray and let's say God, if you got to
do anything for, do it to me. If you need to do something in
me. But I don't want to be left out.
I don't want to live in Jerusalem while Obed's tomatoes
are growing. I want to live by the presence.
In fact, I'll leave Jerusalem and go live in Obed's barn if
I've got to be. Just to be next to his presence.
Hey, thanks for watching. At Heartland Church, we love to
worship the Lord and we love His Word.
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