David & The Lost Ark
Download MP3If you guys would turn in your Bibles to first Samuel, and then we'll also be in second Samuel tonight. The words are also printed in your worship guide. 1st Samuel, chapter 5, verses 1 through 7. When the Philistines captured the ark of god, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon.
Speaker 1:And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the lord. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him. This is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.
Speaker 1:The hand of the lord was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory. And when the men of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, the ark of the god of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is hard against us and against Aegon, our god.
Speaker 2:And from 2nd Samuel 6 1 through 15. David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000. 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 Abinadab, which was on the hill. And Uzza and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God, and Ahio went before the ark.
Speaker 2:And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of god and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the lord was kindled against Uzzah, 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 Uzza. And that place is called Perez Uzza to this day.
Speaker 2:And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, how can the ark of the Lord come to me? So David was not willing to take the ark of the Lord into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed Edom, the Gittite. And the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed Edom, the Gittite 3 months. And the lord blessed Obed Edom and all his household.
Speaker 2:And it was told King David, the lord has blessed the household of Obed Edom and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed Edom to the city of David with rejoicing. And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone 6 steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal. And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod.
Speaker 2:So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn.
Jeffrey Heine:Pray with me. Our father, we ask that you would speak to us tonight, that you would honor the very reading of your word through the power of your spirit. Even now, it would begin breaking into the strongholds of our lives, melting them away. God, we need You. No one here needs to hear from me.
Jeffrey Heine:We need to hear from You. And so I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:When I was in seminary for one of my preaching classes, doctor Robert Smith, he selected a bunch of difficult texts from the Bible, And he would put all of these texts in a fishbowl, and he would pass them around. And we would have to draw from them to see what difficult text we would have to preach from. And I drew out this text from 2nd Samuel chapter 6. I remember when I got it I quickly opened my Bible. It said 2nd Samuel 6 verses 6 through 7 and it was of Uzzah striking the ark and touching it and dying.
Jeffrey Heine:And I remember actually being relieved because somebody else had something from Leviticus about a white hair and pus and all of that. And I was like, I I can deal with this. This this gives me something to work with. And I The reason I tell you this is because I want you to know that you're dealing with an expert when it comes to this text. Alright?
Jeffrey Heine:I I've dissected every Greek word, every Hebrew word, see already. I've read like a 100 commentaries. Actually, the reason I want you to know that is because I still find this text difficult and somewhat disturbing. You can spin it however you want to spin it. But at the end of the day, you have a man struck down instantly in anger by the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Perhaps, we should go back a little bit and just look at the history of the ark and what exactly the ark is in order for us to understand what's going on here. The ark that they are carrying, the ark that Uzza touched, The word simply means chest. And it's the ark of the covenant, or the ark of the the 10 commandments. This is where the 10 commandments was held. And, the Ark was gold.
Jeffrey Heine:It was about 4 feet, long. It had 2 cherubim angels on top, that reached out on their wings, touched in the middle. And that that lid was called the mercy seat or the throne of God. This is where God and His Shekinah glory would come and would dwell among His people. It it was His throne, if you will.
Jeffrey Heine:The ark was never to be touched. It was rarely to be approached. Only the high priest once a year would go, and it would be in the dark, and there would be a lot of incense and smoke. And he would go behind the veil, and he would make many, many sacrifices just one day a year before he could possibly come before this mercy seat. So, the ark of God represented to his people his awesome glory and and his presence.
Jeffrey Heine:And the fact that David wants to move this ark to Jerusalem is a really good thing. David has just become king. He has established Jerusalem as his capital city, and what he is saying is, I want to bring the ark into the capital. I want to bring the presence of God to be central to my life, to be central to our lives. That's a good thing.
Jeffrey Heine:Now that David's become king, he realizes more than anything else he needs in life, it is the presence of God. Because being a king is hard. David's coming into a situation in which the kingdom is still divided. There's still a lot of people who want, one of Saul's descendants to be king. He is Those who were devoted to him have unrealistically high expectations of what he's gonna do when he becomes king.
Jeffrey Heine:You still have the Philistines out there that wanna tear you apart. He's he's coming into a hostile environment, and so he realizes, if he's gonna survive, if he's gonna be the king that God wants him to be, he has to have the presence of God with him. He needs the presence of God more than riches, he needs it more than rules of law. He needs it more than wealth. He has to have the presence of god.
Jeffrey Heine:Now you might be thinking, well, doesn't David know that the presence of God is everywhere? And you'd be right because he's written Psalms about it. You know, Psalm 139, where can I flee from your presence? If I were to ascend into heaven, you were there. If I were to make my bed and shield, behold, you are there.
Jeffrey Heine:So David understands. He knows that god is everywhere, but he also understands that god resides in a special way at the ark. That you can experience god's presence. That it's not just a mental knowledge, but it's an encounter with the holy. And that's what he needs.
Jeffrey Heine:That's what he wants. That's what he knows will sustain him. He writes about this in Psalm 27. When he says, though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.
Jeffrey Heine:One thing have I asked of the Lord that I will seek after, that I will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. All David wants is to gaze on the beauty of the lord, and to sit in his presence. He said, if I have that, if the enemy is surrounding me, it doesn't matter. I don't want to ask to be delivered from them. I just ask if I could just forever sit in your presence.
Jeffrey Heine:Nothing else matters as long as I have that. If if David had trusted in wealth, what what would happen if wealth left him? If he trusted in friends, what would have happened when friends left him? If he trusted in power, what would have happened if he ever was removed from the throne? His life would crumble, but if he trusts in the presence of god, that could sustain him if everything else leaves.
Jeffrey Heine:One thing I ask. You know, Lauren and I, we've, this past week, been thinking a whole lot about Psalm 1611. In thy presence is fullness of joy. It just keeps popping up with different people. Some of you have emailed it to us, some of you have texted it to us.
Jeffrey Heine:Lauren was just reading through it in the Psalms, and so it's just been percolating around in our hearts, and it's been needed because I have a tendency to get bogged down in so many little things. I can get worked about worked up about all these things. God's like, you know what matters? Being in my presence. Do do you really have to worry about things like, you know, how you'll pay for your kids' college education or the the braces they're gonna get, or do you have to worry about, you know, church things?
Jeffrey Heine:Do you have to to worry about, you know, some some of your friends that you know? You don't have to worry about any of that. You just have to be in my presence. There is joy in my presence. Let that be your rock.
Jeffrey Heine:So Lauren and I have been praying as much as we can, Psalm 1611. This is on David's heart. This is why he wants to bring the ark back. He he wants the presence of the lord to be central to his life. And I think his desire represents our desire, that this is what we want.
Jeffrey Heine:So this is a good thing. And, as we look closer to this passage and we we see this happening, we see the ark of the covenant approaching Jerusalem. It's been gone for 70 years now. And and now, it's finally coming to its resting place. King David has about 30,000 men, and it's a giant parade.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a processional. They're coming before, Jerusalem, and there's singing, there's dancing, there's cymbals, there's guitars, there's lots of loud music. It's just a very festive time. All of all the people would have come out and watch this procession, and they're cheering, and they're worshiping, and then you have, right there. Boom.
Jeffrey Heine:In the middle of it all, before people really even know what's happening, all of a sudden, Azza just falls dead. And and an ox card, you know, it it tilts, Azza reaches out, and he's dead like that. And you can just picture that this huge celebration going to silence. As everybody looks at the ark, they look at us, and they're looking at the ark, and they're looking at us, and nobody knows what to do. And then David is the first one who spoke, and he spoke out of anger.
Jeffrey Heine:The same anger that was kindled towards Uzzah, the same word is used to describe David against the lord. He says, how can the ark ever come to me? How can the presence of God ever come to me? So you have this amazing turn of events. You go from the heights of celebration to death.
Jeffrey Heine:And when I first read this, my gut reaction is, it's really not fair. I'm kind of on David's side on this. I mean, come on. Uzza is, I mean, what's he supposed to do? The ark is stumbling, you know, he reaches out.
Jeffrey Heine:He was kind of noble, even heroic that that he would do this. God should be thanking him, not punishing him, certainly not with death. He's not a criminal here. And so you get kind of angry. And some of my atheist friends who like to poke holes in Christianity, they'll mock me and said, be, yeah, is is that's the kind of God you serve?
Jeffrey Heine:Joel, I thought you said you served a merciful God. He gets struck dead for touching the mercy seat. I thought your god was slow to anger? Doesn't really look slow to anger here. So you you you just worship a god that can lash out at people seemingly without cause who are only trying to help.
Jeffrey Heine:That's why this is in the little fishbowl of preaching difficulties. Verse 8 is the key. It's the crux of the whole text, I should say. Because David's question is our question. How can the ark of the lord come to me?
Jeffrey Heine:How can God's presence, his joyful presence come to me? Martin Luther, in the reformation, he he thought a lot about that question, when he was a monk. He just knew he can never do enough, and he was always just scared of God. And, and the way he used to talk about God, another monk said, Martin Luther, don't you love God? He said, love him?
Jeffrey Heine:I hate him. He said, I hate God because he is just. Because he knew a holy God like that could never come to him without punishment. So what is what is god teaching us here? Luther feels a problem.
Jeffrey Heine:David feels a problem. We feel the problem. So what is god teaching us here? I want us to look at just a couple of basic things. One, god wants us to understand who he is.
Jeffrey Heine:2, he wants us to understand who we are. It's pretty simple. Who is God? Well, God is holy. If you were to boil down one attribute of God, it would be His holiness.
Jeffrey Heine:Yes, you could say God is powerful, but it's a holy power. You could say He's wise, but it's a holy wisdom. You you can say that, He's strong, but it's it's a holy strength. He's loving, yes, but it's a holy love. Lot holiness is the attribute that kind of umbrellas over all the other attributes.
Jeffrey Heine:God is above all else, holy. That's why we say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Not love, love, love. Not grace, grace, grace. Not power, power, power, but holy, holy, holy.
Jeffrey Heine:But this holy god was not the god that David was trying to bring into Jerusalem. This was not the god that David was bringing in. Now David was worshiping, but he wasn't worshiping a holy god at this point. He was he was worshiping a god that he could control. He was worshiping a god that he had created.
Jeffrey Heine:What he was really doing was worshiping the ark, a man made object that could be tangible, held. You can use it as a lucky charm. He had lost the sense of the presence behind this, the presence that the ark represented. He didn't want a god that he could not control. He didn't want a god that demanded absolute allegiance.
Jeffrey Heine:We know this because David, he disobeyed at least 3 ways. I'll just give you the highlights of the 3 ways. One is he's transporting the ark by an ox cart. The ark was, had explicit instructions that it was to be carried by poles, so no one would ever touch it. Dad really long poles that would lift up the ark and it was to be carried that way, but David did not regard god's instructions, and he just put it on a new ox cart because, hey, it's easier.
Jeffrey Heine:Hey, it's not as much work. Hey, it makes sense. The ark was also always supposed to be covered. We know it was uncovered because he could reach out and touch it. But it was always to be veiled.
Jeffrey Heine:It was hidden in the most holy place. And also, the ark of god was never ever to be touched. You touch the ark, you die. Yet Gaza did it anyway. So when when you read this text, the question that you should ask yourself, the question that keeps percolating up in my mind is, exactly what kind of God do I worship when I come and I sing and I lift my hands and I praise?
Jeffrey Heine:What what does that God look like? Do I want a God that's going to meet my needs? A god who's going to do what I want him to do? A god that I can have a pretty good handle on? Or is it the holy god who demands total obedience?
Jeffrey Heine:So god reminds David of who he is. Says, David, I'm not a god that you could control. I'm not your genie in a bottle. Don't use me as a lucky charm to bring back into Jerusalem. The second thing that god wants us to learn from this passage is that first, he's holy.
Jeffrey Heine:2nd, you're not. You're a sinner. Look at verse 6 again. And they came to the threshing floor of Naken. Uzza put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it for the oxen stumbled.
Jeffrey Heine:Azza here sins by instinct. You know what really disturbs me about this passage is not so much that god strikes Azza dead. Okay? If you read the old testament, god strikes a lot of people dead. It's just one of those hurdles you've gotta kinda work through.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright? The problem I have with this text is if I was in Azza's shoes, I would have done the exact same thing. It it was it was instinct. The art falls, it's it's a sacred object. You reach out, you want to grab hold of it, and yet he's killed.
Jeffrey Heine:And what God is saying, that's that's absolutely right. You sin by instinct, it's who you are. We have to be taught to love our enemies. We have to be taught to forgive. We have to be taught not to lash out to those who hurt us because it's not instinctual.
Jeffrey Heine:We wanna do the opposite. Us' big mistake is that he thought if the ark were to somehow fall and touch the ground, it would be defiled, but if it fell and touched his hand, it would not. Yet, nowhere in scripture does it say the ground is unholy. Nowhere is there anything that says the ark must not set foot on the ground, but it must never touch unrighteous, unholy man. Because when it does, man will come undone.
Jeffrey Heine:Because a holy God cannot intersect with an unrighteous man like that. God is holy, and we are not. And so David's question remains. With God being holy, with us being sinful, how can god's presence ever come to me? Well, when I preach this at Beason, thankfully, I don't have audio of that.
Jeffrey Heine:But I I remember that the thrust I made after that was obedience. Because certainly, you do see David obeying after this. Kinda learned his lesson. Good little follower of the Lord. He he obeys because next time, well, he's carrying that ark on long poles.
Jeffrey Heine:No cart anymore. Learned his lesson, and he brings it in. And and obedience, don't get me wrong, valid point. It's important. You need to obey the Lord for him to for you to experience the Lord in part of your everyday life.
Jeffrey Heine:But I want us to take a step back and look at even the bigger question. How can god ever come to us? Because you know what? Yes. David motto obeyed here, but David's still full of sin.
Jeffrey Heine:He's still unrighteous. So how can God's presence ever be central in his life? How can god's holy presence ever be that? To get a hint at this, I want us to go to 1st Samuel. First Samuel and to learn a little bit more about what god is trying to teach about himself and his presence through the ark.
Jeffrey Heine:We skipped over this when we first started going through the life of David because I knew we we were gonna come back to this at some point. First Samuel 5 comes at a dark time in Israel's history. It's during the time of the judges. If you've ever read the book of judges, the second half of the book of judges is why the bible was almost banned in schools. It is horrible.
Jeffrey Heine:The the atrocities that the Israelites do is, it's really disgraceful and purely evil. That's that's where you are when this chapter is hitting here. And we know from Deuteronomy 28, when God laid out blessings and cursings for his people, he said, if you do not follow me, if you keep going in your sinful ways, I will have to punish you. And the climactic punishment that he said his people would get is, I was I'm gonna send you into exile. I'm gonna kick you out of the land I've promised.
Jeffrey Heine:You're no longer gonna be in the promised land, the land of Canaan, but you're gonna be refugees, poor refugees, scrounging out a living among a foreign people. That's the punishment if ever you you keep disobeying me. If you pursue evil, that is what you're gonna get. And and you kinda have the threat of that punishment looms over all this first part of first Samuel. As the Philistines are always gathered around and you're thinking, Any moment, God's gonna throw the hammer down, and He's gonna take the land away from the Israelites, and He's gonna send them into exile.
Jeffrey Heine:And then he comes to this story. In chapter 5, here, we we read how the Philistines captured the ark, which is astonishing that they did this. They captured the ark, and they brought it back to Dagon. To the temple of Dagon, kinda like a trophy. They had their own processional.
Jeffrey Heine:They had their own trophy, and they put them next to Dagon and his temple. Kinda like, they're setting up a master servant next to the master. And they're saying, Israelites were not only more strong than you, but our god is stronger than your god. And then god takes on their god. I love it.
Jeffrey Heine:They wake up in the morning, and Dagon has bowed down. So they, you know, woah. That what happened? Let's let's put him back up. Next morning, they get there.
Jeffrey Heine:Dagon's, he's bowed down with his head cut off and his hands cut off. And this is what god is teaching in this. What's amazing is what that when the Israelites were defeated, the Israelites and all their evil, God did not send them out to exile, but God himself went into exile. God allowed himself to be taken out of Israel, to be taken out of the promised land, while all of Israel got to stay where they were. They were not punished, yet God, the Ark of the Covenant, was humiliated as it went back to the stronghold of the Philistines.
Jeffrey Heine:And it's there that God took on their gods, and Yahweh won. He took on all principalities, all the rulers there, and he showed himself victorious. And we see when we're looking at this, how god works. We see the gospel. We see a sign pointing clearly to Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Because we were not punished in our sin. But Jesus came and he took on our shame. Jesus took on our punishment. Jesus went to go and fight the greatest enemies, sin and death, and he rose victorious. And so when you when you look at the ark and you ask the question, how can the presence of god ever come to me?
Jeffrey Heine:First of all, if you need to see it in the lens of the gospel, god is working on behalf of his people. Yes. He needs to remind them. He's a holy god. He's a just god.
Jeffrey Heine:But you know what? The full brunt of my wrath will not fall on you. I take it on myself. So the ark points us to the gospel. And I think David is beginning to understand some of this.
Jeffrey Heine:For 1, we understand or he sees when the ark is put in somebody's home and they don't die, You know what? Maybe God is for us. Maybe God does wanna bless us. And then David does do 2 things different this time when he brings the ark in. First, he's wearing an ephod.
Jeffrey Heine:Look at verse 14 of 2nd Samuel again. He's wearing an ephod. Says, and David danced before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod. This was a priestly robe. David wasn't wearing this before the first time he brought the ark in.
Jeffrey Heine:But this time, he understands if the presence of God is ever gonna come to us, there needs to be a priest. There needs to be intercession on our behalf. And in verse 13, it says, he took 6 steps and then he sacrificed. Said there needs to be intercession. There needs to be sacrifice in order for god to ever be in our midst.
Jeffrey Heine:And hear me. In Jesus, we have both. We we have a much greater David. Just as David was acting as a king and the priest, Jesus was our king and our priest, but he was also the sacrifice. Jesus acted as all of those things in order that he might bring us into the presence of god.
Jeffrey Heine:In the book of Hebrews, it tells us that the blood of Jesus now has been sprinkled on the mercy seat, it's been sprinkled on the ark of God, and now we can boldly go into his presence. And it doesn't matter if you're a sinner. It doesn't matter what you've done. What matters is the blood of Jesus that says, yes, you can stand boldly before a holy God. And that brings us to this table, which is what I want us to celebrate tonight.
