Thank you very much.
Good to see you folks again tonight.
I hope you've got your bibles and your
fingers well lit.
The form of scripture is the word of
God.
The character of the word of God is
gospel.
And the content of the gospel is Jesus
Christ.
So, no matter where we turn in the
bible from Genesis to the Revelation, we may
anticipate that the Holy Spirit, whose gracious ministry
it is to be our teacher, will focus
our attention upon the person of the Lord
Jesus.
This is what makes the Old Testament, in
particular, so wonderfully fascinating.
If we don't recognize the principle, of course,
that no matter where you turn in the
Old Testament, the Holy Spirit will want to
introduce you to Jesus Christ, then the Old
Testament can become intolerably boring.
And, for many, it is, because they've never
learned to understand the language of the Holy
Spirit.
In this part of God's word that foreshadowed
the birth and life and death and resurrection
of the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit has
been at great pains to give us some
magnificent illustrations, charged with spiritual significance.
And so, in the evening session, parallel in
Christ in many ways to our morning session,
we're going to turn, particularly, to the Old
Testament.
Though, inevitably, of course, we shall, from the
Old Testament, be referring quite often to the
New Testament, because they are inseparable, the one
from the other.
But, by way of introduction tonight, would you
turn with me to the first book of
Chronicles, and the 13th chapter?
1 Chronicles, and chapter 13.
Now, very often, in order to understand what
God has to say to us through the
pages of the Old Testament, we need to
do quite a bit of research, quite a
bit of donkey work.
And, it isn't always, initially, obvious what God
is getting at, especially for those who are
unfamiliar with the pages of the Old Testament,
and unfamiliar with the way in which the
Holy Spirit unfolds spiritual truth.
And, if you are unfamiliar a bit with
the Old Testament Scriptures, then just keep listening.
And, although at first you may be a
little bit confused, I'm quite accustomed to that.
Just come again, and I'll confuse you more.
But, then, as you begin to accumulate facts,
as you begin to sort of take a
good, long look, and see it panoramically laid
out before you, it'll suddenly perk, it'll suddenly
click.
And, I believe that the Old Testament will
become as exciting to you as it may
already be, as it is to me.
In the 13th chapter, 1 Chronicles, and the
first verse, David consulted with the captains of
thousands and hundreds, and with every leader.
And, David said unto all the congregation of
Israel, if it seem good unto you, and
that it be of the Lord our God,
let us send abroad unto our brethren everywhere
that are left in all the land of
Israel, and with them also to the priests,
and to the Levites which are in their
cities, and their suburbs, that they may gather
themselves unto us, and let us bring again
the ark of our God to you.
For we inquired not at it in the
days of Saul, and all the congregation said
that they would do so.
For the thing was right in the eyes
of all the people.
So, David gathered all Israel together from Shihor
of Egypt, even unto the entering of Hemath,
to bring the ark of God from Kerjah,
Jerusalem.
Now, that's the introduction to our studies for
these evening services.
David summons all the captains of thousands, and
the captains of hundreds, and the leaders, all
the congregation of the people, with the priests
and the Levites, and he puts forth a
proposition.
He says, let us bring again the ark
of our God to you, and all the
congregation said we'll do it.
For the thing was right in the eyes
of all the people.
So, the theme is going to be how
to get the ark back to where it
belongs.
Now, of course, there wouldn't be any particular
purpose in doing that if there weren't some
spiritual significance one in the ark, and two
in where it ought to be.
And I trust that we shall discover the
significance as we explore it again.
Quite obviously, we shan't cover the whole progressive
enterprise in this one evening.
We'll just get as far as we can
each night, and pick up the thread on
the succeeding session.
Getting the ark back to where it belongs.
In other words, into its right context.
We'll need to discover what the ark was
all about, what the ark contained, and where
the ark ought to have been, and why.
We've also got to discover why it wasn't
where it ought to have been.
Why was it necessary to get it back?
What had happened to it?
Well, let's have a look and find out.
And in order to discover that, you need
now to go back a few pages to
the first book of Samuel.
The first book of Samuel.
And here we have recorded for us certain
events that took place during the latter days
of a pathetic old man by the name
of Eli, one of the last of the
judges and the priests, before the new era
was introduced, with the establishment, contrary to God's
will and purpose, of a monarchy in Israel.
For Saul became the first king of Israel
because they wanted to be like their neighbors.
Now, this was quite contrary to God's purpose
for them, for Israel's king was God himself.
But, like so many today, they didn't like
to be different.
They were slaves to conformity, and so they
said, let's have a king like everybody else.
And, ultimately, God granted them their request to
the considerable impoverishment of their national life.
But, before that took place, and Saul became
king, there was this man called Eli, and
it was at a time of deep spiritual
depression.
The whole spiritual life of the land was
in a state of pathetic decline.
That's why, in many ways, this particular story
is very relevant to your day and mine,
in our generation, because, without a shadow of
a doubt, worldwide, the Church of Jesus Christ,
in spite of all its real estate, and
its hierarchies, and its organizational institutions, is in
a state of pathetic decline.
For one thing, when the Church ceases to
be a brutal, dynamic force bursting with the
light of God himself, when the Church has
become institutionalized and everything has become respected, you'll
always discover that the Church copies the world.
In a state of spiritual decline, the Church
always hates the world.
It's only in times of great spiritual awakening
that the world starts copying the Church, and
we're in such a state of spiritual decline
now where every kind of device is adopted
by the Church, which is characteristic of the
world, in order to capture the world's attention.
And that's always a very, very, very bad
thing, and we'll see that this also was
characteristic of this particular day and generation which
we shall be discussing together as recorded here
in these pages.
In the third chapter of the first book
of Samuel, it says that the child Samuel
ministered unto the Lord before Eli, and the
word of the Lord was precious in those
days.
There was no open vision.
Now, don't misunderstand what's being said there.
It doesn't mean to say that they had
a very high regard for the Bible, and
they treasured it greatly.
It doesn't mean that at all.
You might imagine that means that, you know,
the word of the Lord was precious.
No, it simply means that the word of
the Lord was so seldom heard that it
was a rarity.
That's what it means.
It was a rarity.
To hear the word of God expounded was
a very infrequent occasion.
The word of the Lord was precious.
The Bible, by and large, was a thoroughly
neglected book.
There was religion, but there was almost no
revelation.
The word of the Lord was precious in
those days, and there was no open vision.
And Samuel was brought up in this particular
context.
He was only a youngster.
I suppose he might have been about 12
years of age, perhaps, at this particular time,
and he was quite unconverted.
It says in the seventh verse of this
particular chapter, Now Samuel did not yet know
the law, neither was the word of the
Lord yet revealed unto him.
In spite of the fact that he ministered
to Eli, that he helped him in the
service of the temple, he wasn't converted.
And it would appear that Eli couldn't have
cared less, whether he was or whether he
wasn't.
Because, you see, the situation, spiritually, was in
such a state of decline and bankruptcy that,
so long as everybody went through the motions,
nobody really cared whether there was any vital
relationship between the individual and God himself.
The whole thing has been rigidified.
The whole thing has been reduced to a
process, to a procedure, to a religious externalistic
practice.
That's all.
There was no spiritual content.
Whatever.
It came to part at the time when
Eli was laid down in his place, and
his eyes began to wax dim, that he
could not see, and ere the lamp of
God went out in the temple of the
Lord, ere the lamp of God went out.
And, point of fact, the lamp of God
should never have gone out.
But, you see, total obedience to God had
been set aside, now, simply for token obedience
to God.
And so it had become the practice simply
to light the lamp in the temple for
so many hours a day, then stuff it
out.
Saved expense.
You didn't need so much oil.
And this is another symptom, you see, of
spiritual decline when reality is reduced to ritual.
Now, there is a place for ritual if
it reminds you of reality.
After all, the sacrament of baptism, if you
like, is a ritual, but it's designed to
remind us of reality.
That a true believer has been buried with
Christ, and raised with him too.
Of course, the moment the ritual takes the
place of the reality, and has no real
spiritual content, then it becomes just a piece
of pagan idolatry.
The Lord's Supper, the breaking of the bread,
what we call the communion service, is a
ritual.
The Lord Jesus said, do this in remembrance
of me.
Of course, it's a ritual, but it's a
ritual that is designed always to bring us
to the reality, the glorious fact that the
Lord Jesus once laid down his life, a
ransom for men, and that his precious blood
was shed upon the cross, that we, through
his precious blood, might have boldness of access
into the holiest of all.
But, the moment the breaking of the bread,
the communion service, the Lord's Supper, simply becomes
a ritualistic device that takes the place of
the reality of a living, saving faith in
the crucified, now risen, all-triumphant and soon
-coming Lord, of course, it just becomes the
object of our idolatry.
And, you see, where ritual takes the place
of reality, you will either despise the ritual
or deify it.
And that, by and large, is what's happened
in the world today.
Religious processes have become so rigidified that the
vast bulk of people aren't the slightest bit
interested, and so they pass it by on
the other side of the road because they've
got things so much more interesting, and so
much more attractive, and so much more fascinating.
But, those who are religiously inclined, you see,
if there's no reality beyond the ritual, then
they will fight for their ritual, because if
you take away their ritual, they've neither ritual
nor reality.
So, from then on, they defend the system,
because they don't know God.
And this is what has happened in the
days of this pathetic old man.
In the 27th chapter of the book of
Exodus, you'll have to keep the place open
there, and the 20th verse.
God's instructions were very clear.
Exodus 27, verse 20, Thou shalt command the
children of Israel that they bring thee pure
oil, olive, beaten for the light, to cause
the lamp to burn always.
It was a lamp that was never to
go out.
In the 24th chapter of the book of
Leviticus, Leviticus 24, the Lord spake unto Moses,
verse 1, saying, Command the children of Israel
that they bring unto thee pure oil, olive,
beaten for the light, to cause the lamp
to burn continually.
But, when your own personal relationship to God
and your obedience to his command has ceased
to be a matter of any real importance,
then token obedience will take the place of
total obedience.
How would you characterize your personal relationship to
the Lord Jesus tonight?
How would you characterize your practice of what
you may describe as the Christian faith?
Token or total?
If we really had courage enough to sit
down and discover just how far we have
rigidified our own religious practice, we'd be horrified.
That's why we don't take time enough to
sit down and do it.
You see, the church has been reduced to
a building.
Isn't that right?
When you give somebody instructions and say, you
go down the road and you'll see a
church on the right.
Pass the church and take the second on
the left until you come to another church
on the left.
What a crazy idea!
Is that a church?
Is the church made of bricks and mortar?
No, the Bible tells us very plainly that
those who claim redemption through the blood of
the Lord Jesus and are indwelt by his
Holy Spirit are thereby baptized as individual members,
in particular, of the body corporate of which
he is the head, and his presence through
the Holy Spirit is the life content, so
that every boy, girl, man, or woman who
is genuinely converted becomes a member of the
Church of Jesus Christ.
So, the Church of Jesus Christ is not
a building, it's not an institution.
The Church of Jesus Christ is a fellowship
of men and women, girls and girls, whose
flesh and blood is that which today makes
incarnate the living Son of God.
That's the church.
How can you go to church?
You can't go to church.
You are the church.
There are times, of course, when the church
comes together to worship, and it is right
and proper and convenient to have such a
place as this.
I'm glad there's a building like this where
we, as members of the church, can come
and study God's word, and worship it, and
pray.
But this isn't the church.
This is just a piece of real estate.
We're the church.
That means the moment you're genuinely born again,
you're never out of church.
But, you see, we have reduced it to
token acknowledgement of the fact that there is
a church, and we say we go to
church on Sunday.
That means one hour, or an hour and
a quarter, or if you're on all-age
Sunday school, perhaps two and a half hours,
and you go into a building and you
go to church.
Token.
Of course, if you want to spend the
rest of Sunday fishing, you persuade the pastor
to have an early morning service night.
That gets you away quicker, and you've already
been to church, you see.
Token.
Anything but total.
And, if it isn't raining too hard on
Wednesday prayer meetings, then, of course, you come
for another hour.
Token.
Attendance at church.
And, long since, of course, prayer meeting has
ceased to be a prayer meeting, hasn't it?
People don't really come to prayer meeting on
Wednesday to pray.
Only last week, I was talking to a
bunch of kids, and they said, on Wednesday
night, we used to have about 10 people
who prayed, but now the pastor just named
somebody, and he just prays for everybody.
Token.
I had dinner with a pastor of a
church, a large church.
He had about 3,000 on his Sunday
morning service, and I said, supposing you were
to get up next Sunday, and with all
the enthusiasm, with all the urgency, all the
seriousness that you could muster, you were to
say to your people, who are members of
your congregation, there will be a meeting on
Tuesday night of this church congregation, which is
absolutely vital to its continuance, and to its
spiritual well-being, and to its proper function.
And, as your pastor, I plead with you,
with all the urgency, in all the seriousness,
that I can possibly muster, that every single
one of you be there.
It is absolutely imperative to the future of
this church community.
I said, when you've done that, how many
would you expect out of your 3,000?
He said, two or three hundred.
And I know he's right, because, you see,
for the last 37 years, I've been traveling
from one church to another, of every denomination,
all parts of the world, in the five
continents of the earth.
And I know, quite frankly, I know that
when I preach to a congregation on Sunday,
I can say goodbye to 90% of
them, if I'm going to preach every night
for the following week.
Because, on Sunday, they're there as a token
attendant.
All they're doing is tipping their cap to
God, and saying, nice to see you, see
you next week.
Right?
Now, has that anything to do with Bible
Christianity?
Absolutely nothing.
It has an awful lot to do with
the kind of practice of religion that was
being perpetrated by this pathetic old man, Eli.
But, you see, long since there had ceased
to be any real spiritual content to the
performance in which they were all engaged, his
sons were in the ministry.
Wicked men.
Dishonest, heathen, immoral, and yet Eli, who was
responsible for their ordination, tolerated their sin and
their apostasy on the grounds of family experience.
He wanted his sons in the ministry.
Now, the sons of Eli were sons of
Belial, verse 12 of chapter 2.
They knew not the law, and Eli knew
perfectly well they didn't know the law.
But, he allowed them to minister.
And, in times of great spiritual depression, you
see, as to whether or not a man
has a personal relationship to the Lord Jesus,
as to whether he's genuinely converted, as to
whether he's been cleansed in the shed blood
of Christ, as to whether he's really regenerated,
as to whether, really, the life of God
has been imparted to his redeemed humanity, so
that he can live day by day in
the unction and power of God the Holy
Spirit, whether or not he really believes the
Bible, whether or not he's really going to
proclaim its message with an authority that derives
from an unshatterable conviction that it's that that's
the law, is today a matter of total
indifference, so long as we can keep the
institution going.
Now, this was the situation at this particular
time.
And, ere the lamp of God went out
in the temple of the Lord, where the
ark of God was, Samuel was laid down
to sleep.
And, the Lord called Samuel.
And, Samuel said, here I am, and ran
to Eli.
You see, God spoke, but he answered Eli.
Why?
Well, very simple.
You see, nobody in the temple ever expected
to hear anything but the voice of man.
And, the preacher, quite frankly, never expected anybody
to hear the voice of God.
So, Samuel, brought up in this apostate condition,
hearing the voice of God, quite naturally thought
it was the voice of man.
He'd never been accustomed to hearing God speak.
So, when God spoke to him, he jumped
up, he ran to Eli, and said, here
I am, you called me.
And, Eli said, I didn't call you, lie
down, and don't eat cheese so late at
night.
So, he went and lay down.
And, the Lord called, yet again, Samuel.
And, Samuel arose, and went to Eli, and
said, here I am, you did call me.
And, Eli said, I called you not, my
son, lie down again, don't bother.
Little wonder he never knew the Lord.
Do your Sunday school teachers, does it really
bother you whether your kids know the Lord,
or the men and the women to whom
you minister?
If you're a Sunday school teacher, how long
does it take you to prepare your lesson?
Or, quite frankly, have you learned that because
the material is handed down to you from
above, all you've got to be able to
do, quite frankly, is to be able to
read English reasonably well.
And, you can scan it over during your
breakfast, with your lesson in one hand, the
piece of bacon in the other.
Now, Samuel did not yet know the Lord.
Neither was the word of the Lord yet
revealed unto him.
And, the Lord called Samuel again the third
time.
And, he arose, and he went to Eli,
and he said, here I am, you did
call me.
And, at last, this pathetic old man perceived,
wonder of all wonders, that the Lord had
called the child.
What an extraordinary thing he thought.
God has spoken.
Must be quite a surprise, mustn't it?
Under these lamentable conditions.
But, he had long since come to terms
with a godless society, and he had long
since, even in his own family circle, learned
to live with sin.
Therefore, Eli said to Samuel, go and lie
down, and it shall be if he calls
you that you will say, speak Lord, thy
servant here.
So, Samuel went and lay down his place,
and the Lord came and stood, and called
as at other times, Samuel, Samuel.
Then, Samuel answered, speak for thy servant here.
And, of course, this is an amazing thing.
No matter how apostate may be the condition
in which you and I live, no matter
how bankrupt may be the institutionalized church to
which we belong, as it was in the
days of the Lord Jesus, where Judaism was
simply an apostate, dead, ritualistic form of Christianity,
where they preached the Messiah, and they preached
the Lord, but never knew him when he
came, but crucified him.
In spite of all that, no matter how
depressing may seem the environment, spiritually, in which
you find yourself, again, and again, and again,
God will speak, and a boy here, and
a girl there, man somewhere else, will come
alive.
It's happened all down the centuries.
Quite incredible, because, you see, man is never
indispensable to God, but God is always indispensable
to man.
It simply means that it is, as in
the case of Judaism, an apostate form of
Christianity.
Those to whom had been entrusted the very
oracles of God, if it becomes totally apostate,
then God bypasses it.
That's all.
God isn't limited, and if the Christian faith
is rigidified into some institutionalized form, in such
a way that God no longer has a
place in it, he'll move right out of
it.
That's what happened at the time of Martin
Luther and the great reformation that swept the
world.
God simply walked out of the existent, then
institutionalized, forms of religion, and the voice of
God was heard again, clear and loud.
No credit to Eli.
Eli was so insensitive to the promptings of
the Holy Spirit, when Anna, the mother of
Samuel, came because she had never born a
son, and poured out her soul to God.
She was in bitterness of soul.
Chapter 1 and verse 10.
Prayed to the Lord, and wept sore, and
vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of
hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the
affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and
not forget thine handmaid, but will give unto
thine handmaid a man child, then I will
give him unto the Lord all the days
of his life.
There shall no razor come upon his head.
But it came to pass, as she continued
praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her
mouth.
Now Hannah, she spake in her heart, only
her lips moved, but her voice was not
heard.
Therefore Eli thought she had been drunken, and
Eli said to her, How long wilt thou
be drunken?
Put away thy wine from.
So insensitive that she thought a woman crying
out from the bitterness of her soul to
a living God.
There's nothing more nor less than a drunken
star.
Hannah answered and said, No more, Lord.
I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit.
I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink,
but I poured out my soul before the
Lord.
Wherefore it came to pass, verse 20, when
the time was come about after Hannah had
conceived, that she bare a son, and she
called his name Sam, saying, Behold I have
asked him of the Lord.
And in the discharge of her vow she
brought him to the house of God.
For this child I prayed, she said, verse
27, and the Lord has given me my
petition which I asked of him.
Therefore also have I lent him to the
Lord.
As long as he liveth he shall be
lent to the Lord.
And God answered her prayer, and Samuel came
to know the Lord.
Samuel grew, we're told, in verse 19 of
chapter 3, and the Lord was with him,
and did let none of his words fall
to the ground.
And all Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba,
knew that Samuel was established to be a
prophet of the Lord.
And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh, for
the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh
by the word of the Lord.
So, you see, side by side with the
appalling apostasy, and the degradation of the priesthood,
and the scarcity of the word of God,
and the indifference of those upon whom should
have rested the spiritual responsibility for minister life,
God was laying his hand upon a young
boy, and preparing him for his service.
And the word of Samuel came to all
Israel, chapter 4 and verse 1.
Now Israel went out against the Philistines to
battle, and they pitched beside Ebenezer, and the
Philistines pitched in Abeth.
And the Philistines put themselves in array against
Israel, and when they joined battle, Israel was
smitten before the Philistines.
And they flew of the army in the
field about four thousand men.
And when the people were come into the
camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath
the Lord smitten us the day before the
Philistines?
Let us set the ark of the covenant
of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us,
that when it cometh among us, it may
save us out of the hand of our
enemies.
Thrashed by their foes upon the field of
battle, at a last resort, like so many,
they turned to religion, and they said, Let's
go and get the ark.
Let's get it, and bring it, and it
will help us.
And so they went to Shiloh, to the
temple, and they took the ark out of
the temple, so that it might save us.
So the ark was wrenched out of its
content, and their confidence was vested not in
him, but in it.
Now, we shall discover that the ark and
its content represent the marvelous provision that God
has made for you and for me in
the person of the Lord Jesus.
The ark is symbolic of our salvation.
In a sense, comprehended in the contents of
the ark are the doctrines of the Christian
faith.
Now, in their need, they took it, and
they hoped it detached from him, might help
them.
Now, that's what you do when you cherish
Christian doctrines, until they become no more than
evangelical traditions, but totally destitute of spiritual content,
because they've been severed from Christ.
You see, the moment you detach your Christianity
from Christ, even though it is Bible-believing,
evangelical Christianity, you've got nothing more nor less
than a dead religion around your neck.
Because Christianity, severed from Christ, is bankrupt.
The moment you've got a form of godliness
but deny the power thereof, which is God
himself, you've got a legalistic straitjacket that may
have taboos and do's and don'ts, but it's
spiritually terror.
And the moment you've got a spirituality that
is detached from the person of the Holy
Spirit, you've got a nauseating fraud.
Christianity without Christ, a dead religion, godliness without
God, a legalistic straitjacket, and spirituality apart from
the Holy Spirit, is just a nauseating fraud.
That's it.
It is.
If you've got a theology, you see, which
is less than a theocracy, then it won't
be long before you're worshipping your theology, but
you won't be worshipping God.
When your dogma is less than deity, when
your creed is less than Christ, when your
religion is less than regeneration, then you've got
it in the camp.
And it will do as much for you
today as it did for them day.
Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us today before
the Philistines?
Let us fetch the ark of the covenant
of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us,
that when it cometh among us, it may
save us out of the hand of our
enemies.
If it were the Lord who had smitten
them, it would have been far wiser to
get back to the Lord than to try
to get it.
So, the people sent to Shiloh, that they
might bring from thence the ark of the
covenant of the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth
between the cherubim and the two sons of
Eli, those wicked evil men, Hosni and Sinehad,
were there with the ark of the covenant
of God.
And when the ark of the covenant of
the Lord came into the camp, all Israel
shouted with a great shout, so that the
earth rang again.
You see, their knowledge of God had been
reduced to a pagan superstition, and there is
nothing so sacred in the Christian life that
cannot be used by Satan as the object
of your idolatry.
And when the Philistines heard the noise of
the shout, they said, what meaneth the noise
of the great shout in the camp of
the Hebrews?
And they understood that the ark of the
Lord was come into the camp.
And the Philistines were afraid, for they said,
God is come into the camp.
And they said, woe unto us, for there
hath not been such a thing here before.
The enemies of Israel, in their ignorance, knew
more than the people of God.
They knew enough to identify it with him.
The people of God had detached, detached it
from him.
Woe unto us, who shall deliver us out
of the hand of these mighty gods.
These are the gods that smoke the Egyptians
with all the plagues in the wilderness.
Be strong, quit you like men, you Philistines,
that you be not servants to the Hebrews,
as they have been to you.
Quit you yourselves like men, and fight!
This, for the Philistines, was a crisis.
To them, it represents, represented him.
It represented the one who had delivered them
marvelously out of the hand of the Egyptians.
It represented to them the one who had
marvelously led them to the Red Sea.
It represented to them the one who had
marvelously led them into the land of Canaan,
and chased their enemies from before their face.
But not to the children of Israel.
All they had was it.
And God refuses to honor it detached from
him.
And I don't care how sacred it may
be, the thing that has become the object
of your idolatry.
It may even be your bible, it may
be soul winning, it may be missions, it
may be your church, it may be your
denomination.
Detached from Christ, it's bankrupt.
And God will refuse to honor it because
God has chosen only to honor his son,
to whom he has given the name which
is above every name.
He has highly exalted him.
That's only at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, and every tongue can say
that Jesus Christ is Lord.
And if, however unwittingly, you have substituted your
churchmanship for whatever denomination it may be for
Christ, God will not honor it.
If, no matter how unwittingly, you have substituted
your service to Jesus Christ, to Jesus Christ
himself, God will not honor it.
He refuses to honor it when it has
been detached from him, out of context.
By and large, God isn't particularly interested nor
impressed with our activity.
He is very deeply concerned about our attitude.
It's not our religion that God is concerned
about, but our relationship.
What role does the Lord Jesus actually play
in your life?
Said the Pharisees one day to the Lord
Jesus, when will the kingdom of God come?
And they were thinking of it.
He answered and said, the kingdom of God
cometh not with observation.
It doesn't come without which show.
It can't be defined in terms of a
human organization, or an ecclesiastical hierarchy, or blocks
of real estate.
You won't determine by the vestments that men
may wear, nor the professions in which they
may take part.
The kingdom of God does not come with
observation, neither shall they say, lo there it
is, or here it is.
Behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
That is why you can never enter the
kingdom of God without becoming part of it,
because the kingdom of God is within you.
And if you have entered the kingdom by
becoming part of it, then there is only
one place for the king, and that is
in his kingdom.
And from that moment, there is only one
role for the king to play, as the
king in his kingdom, and that is to
be king.
Which means that your body, soul, spirit, your
mind, your emotion, and will, the totality of
your being as a man, every area of
your personality, is yielded to him without reserve.
You present your body a living sacrifice, wholly
unacceptable unto God.
It's your reasonable service.
You no longer ache the world in which
you live.
You are not conformed to this world.
You are transformed by the renewing of your
mind, by adopting an entirely new attitude that
bows yourself out, and bows him in, and
gives him total jurisdiction.
And you allow the Holy Spirit to re
-establish the sovereignty of Jesus Christ in every
area of your being, so that you step
out in the dawn of every new day
as a living member of his body corpora,
in which he is the head and member
of the kingdom.
Jesus is king.
Anything less than that, God repudiates.
And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten,
and they fled every man into his tent,
and there was a very great slaughter for
their fellow Israel.
And the ark of God, it was so
great, that God refused to honor in the
midst of his own people, detached from him,
with Satan, captured by the enemies of God,
fell into the hands of the Philistines.
And the two sons of Eli, Hosni and
Sinihach, were slain.
And there ran a man of Benjamin out
of the army, and came to Shiloh the
same day with his clothes rent, and with
earth upon his head.
And when he came low, Eli sat upon
a seat by the wayside, watching, for his
heart trembled for the ark of God.
And when the man came into the city,
and told it all, the city cried out.
And when Eli heard the noise of the
crying, he said, What means the noise of
this tumult?
And the man came in hastily, and told
Eli.
Now Eli was ninety and eight years old,
and his eyes were dim, and he could
not see.
And the man said to Eli, I am
he that came out of the army.
I fled today out of the army.
And he said, What is there?
What is there done, my son?
And the messenger answered and said, Israelis fled
before the Philistines.
And there hath been also a great slaughter
among the people, and thy two sons also,
Hosni and Sinihach, are dead, and the ark
of God is taken.
And this pathetic old man fell back, and
died of a broken neck, just before he
had time to die of a broken came
to pass.
When he made mention of the ark of
God, that he fell from off the seat
backward by the side of the gate in
his neck break, and he died.
For he was an old man and heavy,
and he had judged Israel forty years.
And his daughter-in-law Sinihach's wife was
his child, twenty-one, and she named the
child Eshabon, which means the glory is departed
from Israel.
Because the ark of God was taken, and
because of her father-in-law and her
husband.
And she said, The glory is departed from
Israel, for the ark of God is taken.
Eshabon, the glory is departed.
Now, we'll have to conclude in a few
moments.
Where should the ark of be?
Just a quick glance.
If you turn in the book of Exodus,
and chapter 25, Exodus and chapter 25.
Twenty-first verse of the twenty-fifth chapter
of the book of Exodus.
And thou shalt put the mercy seat above
upon the ark, and in the ark thou
shalt put the testimony that I shall give
thee.
God gave specific instructions as to what was
to be the content of the ark.
And there I will meet with thee, and
I will commune with thee from above the
mercy seat, from between the two cherubs which
are upon the ark of the testimony of
all things which I will give thee, and
command them unto the children of Israel.
In the place where the ark was to
be put, God said, I'll meet with thee,
there I will commune with thee.
Chapter 26, Exodus 26-33.
Thou shalt hang up the veil under the
tashes, that thou mayest bring in thither within
the veil the ark of the testament, and
the veil shall divide unto you between the
holy place and the most holy.
And thou shalt put the mercy seat upon
the ark of the testimony in the most
holy place, the holiest of all, that was
to be separated from the holy place by
the veil.
That veil which was never to be rent
until the day that Jesus Christ shed his
blood rose again from the dead, and the
veil of the temple was rent from bottom
to top, that there might be boldness of
access into the very presence of the holy
God, all who would come by the blood
of Jesus.
The holiest of all that symbolized the very
presence of the living God.
That's where the ark is, and upon it
the mercy seat, upon which the burnt offering
was to be made, before which the burnt
offering was to be made.
This shall be a continual burnt offering, verse
42 of chapter 29, throughout your generation, at
the door of the tabernacle of the congregation
before the Lord, where I will meet with
you to seek their answer.
There will I meet with the children of
Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by
my glory.
I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation
and the altar.
I will sanctify also both Aaron his son
to minister to me in the priest's office,
and I will dwell among the children of
Israel, and I will be their God, and
they shall know that I am the Lord
their God, that I brought them forth out
of the land of Egypt, that I may
dwell among them.
I am the Lord their God.
That's where the ark is.
It was to be in the place where
the living God who delivered them out of
Egypt would meet with them, commune with them,
and sell the place with his presence, and
with his glory.
The holiest of all.
Thou shalt put it before the veil, verse
6 of chapter 30.
That is by the ark of the testimony
before the mercy seat.
That is over the testimony where I will
meet with you.
You see, the place for the ark was
to be inseparable from the place where God
would meet with you.
It was not the ark in itself that
was important, but the one of whose mercy
and whose provision for guilty sins it was
to speak.
In the 16th chapter of the book of
Leviticus, Leviticus in chapter 16, the next book
in the Bible, the Lord spake unto Moses
after the death of the two sons of
Aaron when they offered before the Lord and
died.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto
Aaron thy brother that he come not at
all times into the holy place within the
veil before the mercy seat which is upon
the ark.
That he die not.
For I will appear in the cloud upon
the mercy seat.
Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place
with a young bullet for a sin offering,
and a ram for a burnt offering.
He shall put on the holy linen coat,
and he shall have the linen breeches upon
his flesh, and shall be girded with a
linen girdle, and with the linen mitre shall
he be attired.
These are holy garments.
Therefore shall he wash his flesh in water,
and so put them on.
And he shall take of the congregation of
the children of Israel two kids of the
goat for a sin offering, and one ram
for a burnt offering.
And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the
sin offering which is for himself, and make
an atonement for himself and for his house.
He shall take the two goats and present
them before the Lord at the door of
the tabernacle of the congregation.
And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two
goats, one lot for the Lord and the
other lot for the scapegoat.
And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which
the Lord's lot fell, and offer him for
a sin offering.
But the goat on which the lot fell
to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive
before the Lord, to make an atonement with
him, and to let him go for a
scapegoat into the wilderness.
And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the
sin offering which is for himself, and shall
make an atonement for himself and for his
house.
And he shall kill the bullock of the
sin offering which is for himself, and he
shall take a censer full of burning coals
of fire from off the altar before the
Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense,
sweet and small, and bring it within the
veil.
And he shall put the incense upon the
fire before the Lord, that the cloud of
the incense may cover the mercy seat that
is upon the testimony, the ark, that he
die not.
And he shall take of the blood of
the bullock and sprinkle it with his finger
upon the mercy seat eastward.
And before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle
the blood with his finger seven times.
And then shall he kill the goat of
the sin offering that is for the people,
and he shall bring his blood within the
veil into the holiest of all, once a
year and never more, on pain of death.
And he will do with that blood as
he did with the blood of the bullock,
and he shall sprinkle it upon the mercy
seat in the pond.
And before the mercy seat he shall make
an atonement for the holy place, because of
the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and
because of their transgressions in all their sins.
And the ark was beneath the mercy seat
that was to be sprinkled with blood, and
within the ark were those symbols that God
commanded Moses to place there, as being symbolic
of the provision that God makes for a
people who cleanse in the blood of Jesus,
because they have been sprinkled at the mercy
seat in the presence of a living God.
For the ark in the camp, detached from
its context, out of the holy place, no
blood, no mercy seat.
And you can have all the religion in
the world, you can have all the doctrine
of the world, you can have all the
bible verses in the world, until they're oozing
out of your fingers.
But if they are detached from the person
of the Lord Jesus as the only one
who is the living word, brings to finality
the written word.
There's no blood, and there's no mercy seat.
And the ark fell into the hands of
the Philistines, and though God refused to honor
it in the midst of his own people,
the amazing thing is that God honored it
in the midst of his enemies, because so
far as they were concerned, it could not
be detached from him.
It says the Philistines, God did come to
the camp.
For the Philistines took the ark of God,
and they brought it from Ebenezer into Ashdod,
and when the Philistines took the ark of
God, they brought it into the house of
Dagon, and they said it by Dagon, and
their god Dagon had a pretty rough time.
It says in the fifth chapter, 1 Samuel,
that they of Ashdod arose early on the
morrow, and behold, Dagon was fallen upon his
face to the earth before the ark of
the Lord.
And they took poor old Dagon, dusted him,
and set him in his place again.
And when they arose early in the morning,
behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to
the ground before the ark of the Lord,
and the head of Dagon, and both the
palms of his hands were cut off from
the threshold.
Only the stump of Dagon was left in
him.
He was a fish fly, just the fishy
part of him was left.
No head, no arm.
Poor old Dagon.
He had a rough time, because the hand
of the Lord was heavy upon them of
Ashdod, and he destroyed them.
He smote them with emeralds.
Even Ashdod and the coast said, they sent
therefore gathered all the lords of the Philistines
under them and said, what shall we do
with the ark of the Lord of the
God of Israel?
And the answer is, let the ark of
the God of Israel be carried about on
the gap, and they carried the ark of
God of Israel about to them.
They sent the ark of God to Ekron,
verse 10 of chapter 5, and it came
to pass, as the ark of God came
to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying
they brought about the ark of the God
of Israel to ask to slay us and
our people.
To the end of verse 11, there was
a deadly destruction throughout all the city, and
the hand of God was very heavy.
And you know what happened.
Finally, they took counsel, make a new cart,
verse 7, chapter 6, take two milk cows,
on which they have come no yoke, and
tie the kind to the cart, and bring
their cows home from it.
And see, verse 9, if it goeth up
the way of his own coast to Beth
Shemesh, then he hath done us this great
evil.
But if not, then we shall know that
it is not his hand that smote it.
It was a charm that happened.
So, they took this brand new cart, and
they put the ark of God upon it,
and a couple of cows with their young
tied up in the stall, and any cow
will go at once to the young.
But instead, those two cows took the straight
way to the way of Beth Shemesh, verse
12, and they went along the highway lowing
as they went, and they turned not aside
to the right or to the left.
And the cart came to the field of
Joshua, Beth Shemesh.
And the Levites took down the ark, verse
15, of the Lord, and the coffer that
was within.
And they looked inside, and God smote the
men of Beth Shemesh, verse 19, because they
looked into the ark of the Lord.
He smote of the people fifty thousand, and
three scorned ten men, and the people lamented
because the Lord had smitten many of the
people with a great loss.
And the men of Beth Shemesh said, Who
is able to stand before this holy Lord,
this God, and to whom shall he go
up?
And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of
Kirgis-jerim, saying, The Philistines have brought again
the ark of the Lord, come you down
and fetch it up.
And the men of Kirgis-jerim came and
fetched up the ark of the Lord, and
he brought it into the house of Abinadab.
And it came to pass, verse 2 of
chapter 7, while the ark abode in Kirgis
-jerim, that the time was long, twenty years.
And all the house of Israel lamented after
the Lord.
And during this period, King Saul ruled in
Israel.
Until failing to take his own life, he
was murdered by an Amalekite.
And David, the better neighbor than he, was
placed upon the throne of Israel, who sought
Israel's good, and that spiritual awakening that would
get the ark back into its right place,
and God back into the hearts of his
people.
And that's why he convened that great assembly,
which we read in the thirteenth verse of
the first Leviticus.
Let's get the ark back where it belongs.
We've got our doctrines.
Within our evangelical constituencies, we profess to be
defenders of the faith.
We can talk about justification by faith.
We can talk about the need for a
spiritual new birth.
We can insist upon believers' baptism.
We can repudiate the liberalism of those who
have departed from the authority of Scripture, but
I'll tell you something, that isn't really the
problem.
Above everything else, the Church of Jesus Christ
in the 20th century needs to get the
ark back where it belongs.
So that the doctrines that we cherish, and
the religious practices of which we approach so
very jealous, might once more be truly related
to a person, Jesus Christ, given his rightful
place as king and as his.
So that we know this book not in
terms of chapter and verse that we've memorized,
not in terms of so much systematic theology
that stands the test of fundamental evangelicalism, but
that the Jesus of whom this book testifies
may be given his rightful place, and that
you and I may recognize afresh that there
is nothing valid even in this very book
itself that has not been woven by his
Holy Spirit into the fabric of our being
and clothed with our humanity.
We've got a place where God himself meets
his people, and whose presence fills the temple
with his glory.
And know ye not that your bodies are
the temples of the living God?
And to get the ark back where it
belongs simply means to get Jesus Christ back
where he belongs.
Sanctify us, Lord, in your heart and mine,
so that we can say to me to
live is Christ, because the form of scripture
is the word of God, and the character
of the word of God is God.
But the only legitimate content of that gospel
is Jesus Christ.
So to me to live is Christ.
Let's have a word of prayer.