If you would please remain standing here for the word of
the Lord, as we hear the Lord speak to us this morning from
Second Samuel chapter 6, David again gathered all the chosen
men of Israel, 30,000 of them. And David arose and went with
all the people who were with him from Baal 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 they carried the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out
of the House of Abyad Abinadab, which is on the hill and Aza in
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 tambourine tambourines and castanets.
And some castanets are those little finger symbol things that
just smack around and stuff like that.
So David in the whole House of Israel, we're celebrating verse
6. And when they came to the
threshing floor of Nakon, Aza put out his hand to the ark of
God and took hold of it. For the oxen had stumbled.
And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Aza, and God
struck him down there because of his error, and he died there
beside the ark of God. And David was angry because the
Lord had broken out against Aza. And that place is called Perez
Aza to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord
that day. And he said, how can the ark of
the Lord come to me? And this is the word of the
Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let's pray together. Gracious Lord, we ask for your
blessing here upon us. As we look at this text, help us
to understand it and more importantly, to live faithfully
according to it. We pray through Christ our Lord.
We ask, Amen. Please be seated again if you
have before you the scriptures second Samuel chapter 6, it
would be good to have it before you as we look through this
passage together. This is an incredibly distort,
disturbing story. This is a disturbing story.
God comes across looking really petty.
God looks bad in this story. I think even if you understand
the story, even if you understand what's going on, if
you're not disturbed by what God does here, I have to question
your sense of compassion or your care or your sensitivity.
The ability to read a passage like this, to see God act in a
way like that. When we spend so much time
proclaiming His love, when we proclaim the majesty of our God,
the glory and the wonder, the marvelous character of our God,
and then to read something like this where he appears almost
like a tyrant, certainly petty. Now, one of the things that I do
as a pastor, I think it's part of my responsibilities whenever
confronted by a text like this, to stand before you and seek to
try to understand it a little bit more.
My hope is that by understanding the passage, by covering a
little bit more, sometimes we clear up the misunderstanding
even to the spot where maybe it does not appear to be so petty
or childish. Or we come to appreciate what
God's trying to communicate in the passage and it becomes much
less disturbing to us. I'm not going to do that today.
I don't think you can do that today with this text.
This is a disturbing text. Now, a lot of people will brush
it off and say, hey, that's why that's the God of the Old
Testament. That's the Old Testament, and
that's why we are worshipping the New Testament God.
And some of you might have been noticing that we read the story
of Ananias and Sapphira. If the ark of the God is a
representative representation of God's presence among his people,
and as it gets zapped because he reached out and touched it,
because he defiled it by touching the ark in the same way
in the New Testament, if the church is the presence of God's
people, the presence of God in the midst of his people, Ananias
and Sapphire were defiling that with their presence, and God
zapped them. Maybe we resist the urge to take
the passage seriously because, you know, it's so out of
character with everything else in the Scriptures that maybe we
just don't bother contemplating it.
Maybe we and when we're reading the scripture, this is one of
those quick and easy stories we can pass right over, but we
certainly can't. This is a disturbing text.
It should be a disturbing text. Let's put some context on it.
The travels of the ark for a little bit.
This is the Ark of the covenant. Now, there's a wonderful
description of the ark of the covenant when the Israelites
originally made the ark, about 400 years or 500 years, even
before the events in which we just read about.
As the Israelites are wandering through the wilderness, they
prepare this ark of God, which again is representative of God's
presence, God's holy presence in God's people.
And we have a wonderful description of it in the
Scriptures. But my guess is that your
picture of it doesn't come from the Scriptures.
My guess is your picture of it comes from Deanna Jones.
It's certainly my picture of it. And I do have to say this, that
if you've seen this, The Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Indiana
Jones story, the arc that they have portrayed there is actually
a pretty good facsimile representation of the way the
scriptures describe it. So if you have the Ark in mind
from The Raiders of the Lost Ark, and if you haven't seen
that movie, why not? That's a great move.
So you've got the Ark of the Covenant.
This is kind of the picture of what we have in the ark of God
was with God's people and represented his presence with
God's people consistently. It was a tangible expression of
God's presence with his people, much like the table or communion
serves for us today of the presence of God with his people
in that unique tangible way. And so the ark carried, went
with God's people as they traveled through the wilderness.
And then as they conquered Canaan land, the ark was present
with us. And then we read in first Samuel
chapter 4 that the ark of God is captured by the Philistines in a
war. In a war with the Philistines,
the Israelites lose track of the ark of God.
Then the ark of God moves, move down to Philistine.
The Philistines capture the ark and they take it to their own
land where it causes chaos. The presence of God causes chaos
in the midst of God's enemies until they just get rid of the
ark. They just send it back to Israel
and say here take the ark and the ark goes to this small
farming village, basically Baal Judah and ends up staying 4050,
sixty years with the family of Abenadab.
And while the ark is there, the God is blessing the family of
Abenadab. The capture of the ark by the
Philistines is one of the things that prompted Israel, the people
of God, to go up to Samuel, the prophet of God, and say, give us
a king like all the rest of the nations.
We wouldn't have lost this wonderful treasure, we wouldn't
have lost this symbol of God's presence with us if we would
only have a king just like all the rest of the nations.
And so they got a king just like all the rest of the nations,
King Saul and King Saul ultimately lives a debauched
life in so many different ways and is rejected by God as king
over Israel. And so at the end of the first
Samuels, Samuel one First Samuel, sorry, at the end of
First Samuel, we read about how Saul, King Saul, the rejected
leader of the Israelites, is killed in battle with the
Philistines. And that then elevates David to
the kingship. We read about David being
anointed as king way back in chapter 15 of First Samuel.
And it takes till the end of First Samuel and then even into
the beginning chapters of Second Samuel before David then
consolidated his power. David that was king over Israel
and he consolidated his power. But he does so by doing two
things. This is the way that most king,
most changeover of political leadership happens.
You know, the old advisors go, the new advisors come.
We have this consolidation of power.
One of the things that David does is he conquers nearby city
of Jerusalem and says this now is going to be the capital of
our new nation. And so he consolidate the power
by centralizing things around Jerusalem, the new new city of
God. Not just around Jerusalem, the
new city of God is the political power, but he is also intent on
consolidating the spiritual power of the Israelite people,
the religious fervor and the cultural intents and power,
societal power behind the Israelite religion.
So he intends to bring the visible presence of God into
Jerusalem. Now ultimately David is going to
want to build a temple for God, and we're going to read about
that in weeks to come because he's intent on making Jerusalem
and his Kingdom the central focus of the people's focus,
which of course resides upon their relationship with the
Lord. And so he desires to bring the
ark of God, this visible, tangible presence of God to
Jerusalem as a way of consolidating his power.
So in verse one, in chapter 6, King David then gathered all the
chosen men of Israel, 30,000 of them.
So another who did the chosen men?
The chosen men is his army. So he lines the roadway with the
army. And so it's about 6 miles or 8
miles or so from Judah Bale, from Bale, Judah where the ark
had been to Jerusalem. So he lines the road with the
army so that when the ark goes by, the whole army will bow down
and they will submit themselves to God's presence.
A very tangible picture of this. And he brings out all the people
of God. So the whole people of God are
behind the chosen men of God. You've got the whole nation that
is surrounding them. And we've got the big cheers and
the excitement and all the enthusiasm.
Everybody. They've got all these musical
instruments and they carry the ark on a cart called by two
oxen, which is exactly the way the Philistines did it.
Now, if you'll remember, the Philistines are the culturally
mature people. They're the advanced,
technologically superior people. And so David here is intent on
bringing the ark into Jerusalem in the best possible way he can,
with the submission of the army, with the submission of all the
people, with this massive celebration.
In other words, David's heart. This is all about his
intentions. David has these wonderful
intentions and he wants to demonstrate his his love of God,
his commitment to God, his passion for God.
He wants to demonstrate this by by pulling out all the stops,
doing everything he can to try to elevate God and to try to do
things the way that that David thinks it would be best for God.
Along the way we have the Abenadab and his family are
bringing the Ark along. So they load the ark onto a cart
and Abenadab sons Ohio and Aza are walking with the cart.
Now Ohio and Aza have grown up with the Ark.
The Ark has always been in their family.
They are ministering before the ark.
They know about the Ark, they care for the Ark, And as the Ark
is being carried on this cart and oxen stumbles because he
hits a pothole, PennDOT hadn't quite gotten there yet.
And so they hit some kind of a stumble of a spot or something
like that. The oxen stumbles and the ark
begins to shift and slide off the cart and Aza, who's
carrying, who's standing behind it.
Now again, if you're not disturbed by this, by God's
actions, you have no compassion or sympathy at whatsoever.
What is Ozza doing? OK, when I was about 5 years
old, I was carrying a mug of tea or something like that, or
water, and I dropped the mug. The mug slipped out of my hands
and fell to the ground. And immediately I dove after it
to try to capture it, to catch it before it hit the ground.
Some of you know what happens, The ark hit the ark, the cup
hits the ground before I grabbed it and shattered, and I came up
with a handful of broken glass and my hand was all torn up.
About 12 years later, I was carrying a glass vase, glass
vase. I was carrying this glass thing
and it slipped out of my hands and as it went down to the
ground, I dove after it again. Once again, it hits the ground
beforehand and I come up with broken glass all over the place.
What's the story? It's not that I am stupid.
And the moral of the story, by the way, is don't let me carry
anything glass. But the, the, it was just a
reaction. It's not that I thought about
it. It's something that my mother
loves has fallen to the ground. I reach out and grab it.
I want to keep it from doing this.
Aza here is walking beside the ark of God, this marvelous
representation of God's presence before the people.
And the oxen stumbles and the ark starts to slide to the
ground and he reaches out. It's just automatic.
And God, this is a man just like you.
He has hopes, He has dreams, He has desires, He has a life just
like you. He has every.
He is like you. And God zaps him.
We don't know if it was the lightning bolt, we don't know
what it was, but here he is. He just wants to reach out and
steady the ark. And God zaps him dead.
And we know that you should be disturbed by this passage
because of how David reacts. David is immediately angry.
Angry at who? He's angry at God.
And he's filled with fear, so much so that he abandons the
ark. He says, hey, everybody, go
home. We're just leaving this thing
here and leaves. It have been a dab's house
because he can't believe that God would act this way.
CS Lewis tells the story of four children that get swept into a
magical land, Narnia. And while they're there, they
end up having a conversation with talking Beavers.
And so, you know, Mr. Beaver and Missus Beaver are explaining the
roller of the land. And the roller of the land is
this marvelous, great, amazing character and all this kind of
stuff. They're talking about how
wonderful he is and all these kind of things.
And then Mr. Beaver says he's a lion, he's the great lion, and
Susan says a lion. I thought he would have been a
man. Because Susan's thinking,
certainly this roller, this majestic roller is just like me,
only bigger and better. And we talk about God is love.
We talk about God is gracious and kind.
And what we mean is that God is just like me, only even better.
God is just like me even better. Because I know when I love and I
know when I am gracious to people, and I know when I'm kind
to people, and I know when I'm forgiving of people.
And God does that even more so, even greater.
Mr. Beaver looks at Susan and says a man, not a man, because
God is holy. Yes, he's love.
Yes, he's gracious. Yes, he's compassionate.
Yes, he's forgiving. But he is also holy.
When we think of holiness, we tend to think of moral
righteousness. Or he's a wonderful God.
He's good in lots of different ways, and we think of positive
qualities and we just amplify them.
Holiness by definition means separated apart.
God is separated apart. God is separated apart from who?
From what, from us. God is not just like me only on
steroids. God is totally separated.
He is different from us. I am twitchy about the way God
treats other because me on steroids would never do that.
But God is holy. He is holy, holy, holy.
God is set apart and Aza forgot that.
In addition to which, God is so much more holy than we can ever
imagine. Aza is so much more sinful than
we could possibly believe. God is so much more holy than we
could ever imagine in Aza, like us is so much more sinful than
what we can possibly believe. Here's this ark.
It's a beautiful expression of God's presence.
It's gold, it's majestic. It's everything in which Indiana
Jones shows it to be. It's this great and glorious
thing and it's sliding towards the ground.
It's going to fall off the ark cart and it's being pulled by a
couple of oxen. I don't know, but I suspect that
oxen do what horses do. And you know, the ground is
covered with oxen crap and stuff like that.
And it's muddy because there's potholes everywhere.
And the ark is sliding. This gold plated, beautiful ark
that represents the presence of my God is sliding and going to
get on the ground. It's going to get dirty by the
ground. I'm not going to let that
happen. I'm going to keep it.
I'm going to protect the ark. I'm going to guard the ark.
I'm going to stick myself between it and the ground so the
ground doesn't get. God's not concerned about the
dirt from the earth. He's concerned about the dirt in
my heart. He's concerned about the dirt in
your heart. Ozzy here feels somehow that
he's above the ground. Oz is on top of the ground.
Oz is better than the ground, Ozza thinks.
Well, I know I'm not supposed to touch the Ark, but it's better
me than the ground. Because Ozza is so much more
wicked than he could possibly imagine.
And that's where the story ends. The story ends with the ark of
God abandoned in the middle of no place.
Because David, the man after God's own heart, is terrified of
the holiness of God and the sinfulness in his own heart.
And we've got this massive other channel chasm that separates the
holiness of God and His presence from those of us that are
separated from the Lord because of our brokenness and sin.
And that's where the story would end if it were up to us.
And that's why 1000 years later, we are sent the Righteous One,
the Holy One. The one who can indeed be in the
presence of God, who can touch the presence of God, who can
reflect completely and totally the presence of God.
And what it means that I, as a believer of Jesus Christ, am
united with him. I come to the presence of God
not in my own power, not with my own abilities, not denying or
ignoring the holiness of God or thinking it's not, as much as it
is with full awareness of the brightness and the holiness of
God. I come into God's presence, I
come covered in the blood of Jesus Christ I come with the
goodness, with the righteousness, with the holiness
of God himself, of Christ himself as we come to stand
before God. Otherwise that chasm would chasm
would exist and there's nothing we could ever do about it.
Nothing we could ever do about it but abandoned the presence of
God and walk away in fear of our own horror.
We have to realize that we are so much more broken than what we
imagine we are. The God is so much more holy
than what we imagine are. And our failure to think about
those things robs us of the ability to appreciate what it
means that Jesus Christ died for us, that the Holy One of Israel
is present here in God's sight, in the presence of God himself,
and he brings us with him. We are able to touch the ark of
God. We're able to exist in the
presence of God, not because we have become made righteous or
holy or anything like that, but because we stand covered in the
blood of the one who is holy and righteous before the Lord.
God is so much more holy than you imagine.
I want you to dwell on that. You are so much more wicked than
you could possibly accept. I want you to dwell on that.
And because of that, the chasm is breached by Jesus Christ.
Let's pray. Lord God, you are so much more
holy than what we could even begin to imagine.
Lord, we are so much more sinful than what we can even begin to
confess. Jesus Christ, you have bridged
the gap for us to stand in God's presence, to revel in His
beauty, not because of our work, not because of our holiness, but
because of yours.