The manor in the Golden Park divinely
sees that relentless witness day by day throughout
all those weary years in the wilderness, 40
long years.
There was the witness that God gave, in
spite of all their rebellions, in spite of
all their waywardness, sealing them as his redeemed
people whom he had brought out of Egypt
that he might bring them in to Canaan.
Divinely seen.
Aaron's rod that batted.
Divinely sent.
You can separate a man from his ministry,
but if a man is sent, you can't
separate his ministry from God.
The rod will keep on batting, because the
ministry of a man who is sent has
its origin in God himself.
One of the most fascinating illustrations you have
of that, of course, is in John the
Baptist.
You know how he was described in the
very beginning of John's Gospel?
There was a man sent from God, whose
name was John.
He was a sent one.
He was faithful to his office and he
was faithful to his person.
Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world.
And they separated the man from his ministry.
Very effectively, they cut his head off.
But you know, it tells us in the
tenth chapter of John that they sought again
to take the Lord Jesus, but he escaped
out of their hands, and went away again
beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized, and there he aboded.
And many resorted to the Lord Jesus and
said, John did no miracle, but all things
that John spake of this man were true,
and many believed on him there.
So you see, long after they had beheaded
John and separated the man from his ministry,
the rod was still batting.
Men, women, boys and girls went on believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ.
They said, there was nothing particularly sensational about
John.
There was no miracle that he did.
He wasn't particularly spectacular.
He was a little unusual in the clothes
he wore and the food he ate.
But everything he said was true.
He was sent, divinely sealed, divinely sent, sent
to the Holy Spirit as they ministered to
the Lord and pastor.
The Holy Spirit said, separate me, Barnabas and
Saul for the work whereunto I have called.
So they being sent, sent forth by the
Holy Spirit, departed into Seleucia, and from thence
they sailed aside.
And long after Saul, dying probably the death
of a martyr, and long after Barnabas had
passed away, there was a church in Corinth,
there was a church in Ephesus, there was
a church in Thessalonica, there was a church
in Galatia, there was a church in Rome,
and all down the centuries, God's people worldwide
had been blessed by the ministry of the
man who was sent.
As we study the epistle, written as he,
a holy man of God, was moved by
the Holy Ghost.
Divinely sealed, divinely sent, the man in the
golden pot, an errant rod that batted, and
the tables of the covenant, divinely sanctified.
For these tables that God commanded Moses to
place in the ark of the testimony were
those that were rewritten by God, to replace
those that lay in fragments at his feet
in the presence of an idolatrous people worshipping
a golden card in the womb.
But what the law could not do, through
the weakness of the flesh, God sending his
own Son, and in the likeness of simple
flesh and poor sin, condemned sin in the
flesh, that the righteousness of the law might
be fulfilled in us who walk not after
the flesh, but after the Spirit, governed by
an entirely new principle of life.
For as much as you are manifestly declared
to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by
us, written not with ink but with the
spirit of the living God, not in tables
of stone, but rewritten by God himself in
the fleshy tables of the heart.
Because only as you and I receive the
resurrection life of our once crucified but now
risen Lord, by the presence of his Holy
Spirit, are we restored by his presence to
that moral competence that makes the demands of
God's law a working proposition.
For if we walk after the Spirit, we
shall no longer fulfill the lusts of the
flesh.
As we reckon ourselves in Christ, our vicarious,
suffering Savior, to be dead to that old
sin principle that once held us in the
bondage of Egypt, and alive unto God through
Jesus Christ.
So we allow him to be who he
is, and do what he does, and we
share his righteousness.
As we yield now the members of our
body, not to sin as instruments of unrighteousness,
but we yield now the members of our
bodies to God as his instruments of righteousness.
It's a new principle of life, divinely sealed,
divinely sent, and divinely sanctified.
And it all has to do with the
presence of the living God by his Holy
Spirit dwelling within our heart.
For our sealing as the purchased possession of
Jesus Christ cannot be detached from the person
of the Holy Spirit.
The validity of our call that we have
been sent of God cannot be detached from
the person of the Holy Spirit.
Any righteousness that we may display, any measure
in which we give a valid expression of
God's person by what we do and say
and are, derives exclusively from the presence of
his Holy Spirit within our heart.
In other words, the Ark, with all its
content, must be in context.
And the place, as we've seen, for the
Ark was in the holiest of all.
The place where God was, who met his
people and filled the temple with his glory
by his presence.
And the Ark, with its content, could never
be detached from his person, and it must
always rest beneath the mercy seat, sprinkled with
blood.
Because, not by any works of righteousness which
we have done, but according to his mercy,
he said, by the washing of regeneration, the
renewing to our human spirits of his Holy
Spirit, whom he shed upon us abundantly through
Jesus Christ our Savior, with whose blood the
mercy seat has been put.
Redemption, the premise of our spiritual regeneration, his
atoning death, the first prerequisite of our spiritual
resurrection, as our living Lord comes to take
up residence within our humanity, and by his
presence seal us, tend us, and sanctify us.
But the Ark was out of context.
Because, as at the earlier part of the
week we discovered, at a time of spiritual
decline, under the miserable ministry of that pathetic
old man Eli, ritual had taken the place
of reality, and token obedience had taken the
place of total obedience.
And their trust had been placed in it,
detached from him.
And the Ark fell into the hands of
God's enemy.
And finally restored, it was placed in the
house of a man called Abinadab, and there
it was for twenty years, throughout the whole
reign of King Saul, the first of the
kings of Israel.
A man whom God repudiated, as well you
know, because he presumed to find something good
in what God had condemned.
When Saul came to the throne, God said,
I remember Amalek, and God's judgment was upon
Amalek.
Because Amalek, as many of you will remember,
no matter where you find him in the
Bible, as the seed of that profane man
Esau, always represents that carnal attitude of mind
that is boastful, egotistic, and self-centered, and
self-sufficient.
The flesh.
Esau, the one who despised the birthright, the
one who should have been as the firstborn,
the one through whom the seed of Abraham
should have come into this world, the Lord
Jesus, but instead he threw it all back
into God's teeth.
He said, I don't need that kind of
intervention.
I'm the kind of man who's got what
it takes.
I don't need religion as a crutch, and
I don't need anything that God can do
for me.
A miserable specimen, of course, said he liked
Jacob.
He needs a crutch.
He can have it.
And for a mess of pottage, he sold
his birthright.
And God said, Esau have I hated, Jacob
have I loved.
Jacob the twister.
His name means cheat.
God said, I loved him.
I could do nothing for Esau because he
never saw any need in his own heart.
He was a profane man.
But Jacob I could love because if everybody
despised Jacob, nobody despised Jacob more than Jacob
despised himself.
And he would cry out sometimes in the
anguish of his soul and say, God if
only, if only there was some blessing that
could change my life and change me into
the man I would love to be.
That's the blessing that I need.
And God said, I can do something for
Jacob.
And he wrestled with God.
And he said, I will not let you
go until you bless me.
And God touched him, and he limped, and
changed his name, and changed his heart.
And Jacob the twister became Israel, prince with
God, father of the twelve tribes, and of
the tribe of Judah, of the seed of
Abraham.
In the line of Israel, Jacob the twister.
Jesus was born to be the savior of
the world.
But Esau, grandfather of Amalek and all his
ilk, God has repudiated forever.
God said, I remember that which Amalek did
to Israel.
Now ghosts might Amalek utterly destroy all they
have, spare them not, slay both man, woman,
infant, suckling, ox, sheep, camel, and ass.
And you will remember the story.
For Saul took Agag, the king of the
Amalekites, alive, and he utterly destroyed all the
people with the edge of the sword.
But Saul and the people spared Agag, and
the best of the sheep, and the best
of the oxen, and the best of the
fatlings, and the best of the lambs, and
all that in his estimate was good of
what God had condemned.
And he would not utterly destroy it.
But everything that in his estimate that was
vile and refused, that they destroyed as well.
And Saul committed the sin of the church
of Jesus Christ.
He presumed to find something good in what
God had condemned.
He said, God is unjust in
saying that in man's flesh dwells no good
thing.
There's something salvageable about what I am, apart
from what Christ is.
That was the sin of Saul.
The Lord Jesus said, without me you can
do nothing.
Because without me you are nothing.
That's why the Lord Jesus, though God, when
he became man, made himself nothing.
All that a man is without God.
But, of course, the flesh repudiates this.
Because man fell into sin when he believed
the devil's lie that a man can be
man without God.
And the sin of Saul was that he
presumed to find something good in what God
has condemned.
And God rejected him, and gave his crown
to the one whom he described as the
better neighbor than he.
Who was that?
David.
And Saul, who was such a promising young
fellow as we introduced to him in the
ninth chapter of the first book of Samuel,
becomes a wicked, evil, bitter, self-centered old
man.
And in attempting to commit suicide, is finally
murdered by one of those whose lives he
spared.
An Amalekite.
Because, you see, you can take pity on
the flesh, but the flesh will never take
pity on you.
And David, the better neighbor, assumed the throne
of King Saul.
The better neighbor.
How's the better neighbor described?
The better neighbor.
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to
thy loving kindness.
According unto the multitude of my tender mercies,
block out my transgression.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse
me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin
is never before me against thee.
The only have I sinned, and done this
evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be
justified when thou speakest, and be clear when
thou judgest.
Behold, I was shaken in iniquity, and in
sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts,
and there is none.
Purge me with it, and I shall be
clean.
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than
snow.
Create in me, God, what I don't have,
a clean heart."
That was the best neighbor in Saul.
King David, who in a moment of abysmal
weakness, committed murder that he might commit adultery,
and laid bare his broken heart to a
holy God, he said, in my flesh dwell
no good.
In sin did my mother conceive me.
I'm rotten, rotten, rotten through and through.
God said, you're right.
That's why I can do something about it.
I can't do anything to Easter.
He's fully self-satisfied.
He's holy enough.
But I can do something to you, David,
as I could do something to Jacob.
For a broken heart and a contrite spirit,
God does not despise.
God can do nothing to any man or
woman or boy or girl who's never admitted
their own bankruptcy.
God said, David, I can do something to
you.
And he restored to him the joy of
his salvation.
And David, the better neighbor, became king.
And one of the first things he did
when he assumed the throne of the man
whom God had rejected, was to get the
ark back where it belonged.
For one Chronicles 13 tells us, David consulted
with the captains of thousands and the captains
of hundreds, and with every leader.
And David said unto all the congregation of
Israel, if it seem good unto you, and
that 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
the Levites, which are in their cities and
suburbs, that they may gather themselves unto us,
and let us bring again the ark of
our God to us, for we inquired not
at it in the days of Saul.
Said David, with his impassioned pleading, people, let's
get back to the God to whom we
belong.
And all the congregation said that they would
do so.
For the thing was right in the eyes
of all the people.
And David gathered all Israel together from Shihosh
of Egypt, even unto the entering of Hemath,
to bring the ark of God from Kirgizshir,
and where all these years it had been
in the house of Abinadab, as that self
-centered, egotistic, bitter old man, King Claude, presumed
to find something good in what God can
give, and despised God's counsel.
A man of the flesh.
In the seventh verse of the thirteenth chapter
of 1 Chronicles, they carried the ark of
God in a new cart out of the
house of Abinadab.
And Uzzah and Ahio braved the cart, and
David and all Israel played before God.
With all their might, and with singing, and
with hearts, and with psalters, and with cymbals,
and with cymbals, and with trumpets, with immense
enthusiasm, and with utmost dedication, and with a
united voice, the people were behind David as
they led the ark of God back to
the place where it belonged.
And they sang, and they danced, and they
played.
And when they came to the threshing floor
of Chidon, Uzzah put forth his hand to
hold the ark, for the ark had stumbled,
and the anger of the Lord was kindled
against Uzzah, and he smote him because he
put his hand to the ark, and there
he died before God.
And David was afraid of God.
That day, and almost in despair, he cried,
How shall I bring the ark of God
home to me?
I've mobilized this people, they're behind me, to
a man.
With joy and with dedication, we were bringing
this God's ark back to where it belonged,
and God has answered us with death.
And he was afraid.
It's a wonderful moment in a person's life
when, for the first time, he was afraid
of God.
See, the trouble with the Church of Jesus
Christ today is that we are no longer
afraid of God.
By and large, within the evangelical constituency, Jesus
Christ is simply a constitutional monarch to whom
every now and again, with great fervor, we
sing the national anthem.
And then, when the pomp and the ceremony
is over, we get down to the hard
business of running the show, and he is
never concerned.
We are no longer afraid of God.
We can listen to the sermons, and sing
our hymns, and make our vows, and go
out to forget that we were ever in
his presence.
The gospel has been reduced to something cheap
and nasty, and faith in Jesus Christ has
become easy belief, isn't it?
And all you've got to say, no matter
how wickedly you may have performed, is this,
it's under the blanket, and
pursue your results.
Nobody is afraid of God, but David was
that day.
Because in the midst of all his enthusiasm,
in the midst of all his dedication, in
the midst of all his noble ambitions, God
answered with death.
He said, how can I bring the ark
of God there?
I've tried so hard.
I've organized to the uttermost of my ability.
I got these people together.
I swayed them.
I persuaded them.
And David brought not this ark home to
himself in the city of David, but he
carried it aside into the house of Obed
-Edom, the Gittite.
And the ark of God remained with the
family of Obed-Edom in his house three
months.
Three months.
How can I get the ark of God
home?
I've done my best, and he had.
I don't believe, in point of fact, there
was an answer to insincerity in all that
David tried to do.
He'd done his best, and God answered him
with death.
Is this your problem?
You say, quite frankly, as a Christian, I
know myself in my better moments, in my
honest judgment, as a Christian, to be a
complete failure.
I don't mean that I don't go to
church.
I do.
I don't mean that I don't put my
dollar in the plate.
I do.
I don't mean that I'm insincere.
I don't mean that I don't genuinely love
Jesus Christ.
I do.
But, quite frankly, my life doesn't register.
I know perfectly well that, even though I
do it with no little sincerity, my practice
of the Christian faith is formal.
It's almost ritualistic.
There's nothing of the glow of God about
my relationship to Jesus Christ, and, quite frankly,
when I step out into every new day,
it's just to another day, like every day
that's ever been, and there's nothing in my
experience of the adventure of the Christian life
of which I've heard so much.
Quite frankly, my life as a Christian is
a write-off, and if there is nothing
more to Christianity than this, there's not much
to it.
I subscribe simply to a religion, and I'm
hopeful that my subscription is adequate to get
me to heaven.
But, quite frankly, if the perpetuation of the
church or the evangelization of the world were
in any measure dependent upon me, God help
the world, it'll mean it, because I'm a
total liar, and I'm baffled, and I am
bewildered, because, quite frankly, I've been challenged again
and again.
I've been to the front, and I've been
to the back.
I've had my left hand up, and I've
had my right hand up.
I've done it with my eyes shut, and
I've done it with my eyes open, and
I've done my best!
God knows I've done my best.
Yet, when I pray, it's just as though
my words bounce off the seat.
What I witness again and again is to
no effect, and anybody who appears to be
impressed, within a matter of weeks or months,
it's all chiseled out, and I'm so tired,
I'm such a cripple.
That's your problem?
That's never the problem of anybody who doesn't
really care, because anybody who doesn't really care,
and has settled for the wilderness, is always
wholly enough, by their own sense.
I'm talking about that boy, that girl, that
man or woman, who, deep down in their
hearts, have a holy, unshakable ambition to be
just what God wants them to be.
But they've tried so hard, and with so
little success, that they're too tired to try
anymore.
David felt like that.
After all, he'd gathered the whole nation behind
him.
Everybody, to a man, endorsed his ambition to
get the ark back where it belonged.
And God answered them with death.
Well, I've got good news for you.
Three months later, David got the ark back
where it belonged.
And something had happened in those three months.
David had been busy.
Do you know what he'd been doing?
Reading the Bible.
Not listening to sermons.
Not getting a shot in the arm.
Not seeking counsel, and trying to get somebody
to encourage him.
No, he just got to the Bible and
did some solid, sound Bible study.
That's what he did.
That's what happened in three months.
The one thing that the average Christian is
never prepared to do, the one thing that
the average church congregation is never prepared to
do, they want preachers who just preach sermons.
But the idea of getting to this book,
and really discovering what God has to say,
not what other men say about God, or
what other men say God ought to have
said, but who are prepared, really, to go
to this book and allow the Holy Spirit
to introduce them to those unbreakable principles from
which God will never, under any circumstances, depart.
There are so few who are prepared to
do that.
That's what David did.
He said, if I have mobilized to the
uttermost all my enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm of
this people, and with the complete dedication of
everybody behind me, we've tried to our uttermost
to do what we believe will please God,
and God answers us with death, we must
be making a mistake somewhere.
That's a reasonable supposition.
And if in spite of all our enthusiasm,
and all our dedication, all our promotion, all
our organizational and business acumen, with all the
electronic devices, and the modern hardware, with our
jet planes, and our radio, and television, our
computers, if with all this the Church of
Jesus Christ is making such little impact upon
the world in which we live, and God
appears to be so little interested in our
efforts, there remains just the slight possibility that
we might be going about things the wrong
way.
And that's what David is saying.
And he said, if we have been going
about this the wrong way, then the best
thing to do is to find out things
slightly.
And of course the way to find out
is to go to the book which God
has given to us that contains this in
practice.
So he did a little Bible study.
That's what we've been doing this week.
It would have been very much simpler for
me to come and give you a series
of nice inspirational talks with strings of funny
stories, and sob stories, and tear jerseys, and
you've all gone away, all mixed up inside,
just as though you'd been to the playhouse
or watched the television.
You'd have had a nice evening out, right?
But you see, God isn't in business for
that.
He's not a glorified religious playhouse.
Truth sets men free.
And I'd rather have half a dozen people
who grasp the principle, let God loose in
terms of a man's humanity, than entertain 10
,000 people night by night with a little
religious gymnastics.
David got down to some solid Bible study,
and he made some very wonderful discoveries.
You just turn over the page, chapter 15.
1 Cranston, chapter 15.
David, verse 1, made him houses in the
city of David, and he prepared a place
for the ark of God, and he pitched
for it a tent.
Then David said, none ought to carry the
ark of God but the Levite, for them
hath the Lord chosen to carry the ark
of God, and to minister unto him forever.
And David gathered all Israel together to Jerusalem,
to bring up the ark of the Lord
unto his place, which he had prepared for.
In other words, three months later, David set
out to do again what he had failed
to do three months before, because God had
answered him with death.
Why?
David, verse 11, called to Zagoth and Abiath,
the priest.
He said to them, verse 12, Ye are
the chief of the fathers of the Levites.
Sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that
ye may bring up the ark of the
Lord God of Israel unto the place that
I have prepared for.
Because ye did it not at the first,
the Lord our God made a breach upon
us, for that we sought him not after
the due order.
David said we were going about it completely
the wrong way.
We sought him not after the due order.
It isn't that we didn't seek him, we
did.
It isn't that we went enthusiastic about it,
we were.
It isn't that we were not dedicated, we
were.
But we didn't do it after the due
order.
For some strange reason, we didn't give one
moment's thought to what God wanted.
We gave him what we thought he wanted,
and he wouldn't take it.
Is it relevant to find out what God
wants before you give him what you think
he wants?
So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves
to bring up the ark of the Lord
God of Israel, and the children of the
Levites bear the ark of God upon their
shoulders, with the stake thereon as Moses commands,
according to the word of the Lord.
How do they do it?
They bear the ark of God upon their
shoulders.
How did they try to do it three
months before?
They carried the ark of God in a
new car.
Well, where did they get that idea from?
Where did they get the idea of carrying
the ark of God in a brand new
car?
From the Philistines.
That's exactly how the Philistines got the ark
of God back out of their hands, into
the Israelite camp.
They took a brand new car, and they
stuck, do you remember, two cows with young,
and they detached the calves from the cows,
tied them up in the stall, and they
put the brand new cart behind the cows,
and they said, if God be God, in
spite of the fact that their young are
tied up in the stall, these cows will
take the ark back to where it belongs,
on a brand new cart.
That was a Philistine idea, and in time
you see a spiritual decline.
The Church copies the world.
It'll copy its dress, it'll copy its hairstyle,
it'll copy its music, it'll copy all its
gimmicks, it'll copy all its organizational ideas, it'll
jump on the world's bandwagon.
But in times of spiritual awakening, the world
copies itself.
The children of the Levites bear the ark
of God upon their shoulders, as Moses commanded,
according to the words of the Lord.
Well, where did David find that out?
Read in the Bible.
Would you turn with me to Numbers chapter
7?
Numbers in the 7th chapter.
It came to pass on the day that
Moses had fully set up the tabernacle, and
had anointed it, and sanctified it, and all
the instruments thereof, both the altar and all
the vessels thereof, and had anointed them and
sanctified them, that the princes of Israel, verse
3, brought their offering before the Lord.
Now, this was when the tabernacle that God
had ordained had been completed, finally, by Moses
at God's command.
And in celebration of this fact, the twelve
princes brought their offering before the Lord.
And this was the offering that the twelve
princes brought.
Six covered wagons, and twelve oxen.
A wagon, a brand new cart, for two
of the princes, and for each one an
ox.
In other words, there were twelve princes, and
each of the princes gave an ox, and
then two by two, the princes each produced
a wagon.
So there were six wagons and twelve oxen.
And they brought them before the tabernacle.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying this,
Take it of them that they may be
to do the service of the tabernacle of
the congregation, and thou shalt give them unto
the Levites to every man according to his
service.
And so Moses took the wagons and the
ox, and he gave them to the Levites.
Now, Levi had three sons, and they were
divided into three groups, each with specific responsibilities.
One son's name was Gershon, the second son's
name was Merari, and the third son's name
was Kohath.
And so under Lehi, Gershon, Merari, and Kohath
each had particular responsibilities.
So the six wagons and the twelve oxen
had to be divided between the three sons
of Levi for the service of the tabernacle.
Well, how would you divide six wagons and
twelve oxen between three sons?
How would you do it?
Six wagons, twelve oxen between three sons.
Well, let's see how Moses did it.
Two wagons and four oxen he gave to
the sons of Gershon according to their service.
Two wagons, four oxen.
Well, that sounds right.
There were six wagons and there were three
sons, so it would seem reasonable that two
should go to one of the sons, and
four oxen.
Okay, he's right.
Two wagons, four oxen.
Then it goes on to say, but four
wagons and eight oxen he gave to the
sons of Merari according to their service.
Well, that's a lot.
Two wagons and four to Gershon, four wagons
and eight to Merari.
What's over for Kohath?
None.
And to the sons of Kohath he gave
none, because the service of the sanctuary belonging
to them was that they should bear upon
their shoulders.
In other words, no cart for Kohath.
Now, what do we know about the sons
of Kohath?
No cart for Kohath.
Look at chapter four.
Numbers chapter four and verse one.
The Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron,
saying, Take the sum of the sons of
Kohath from among the sons of Levi after
their families by the house of their father.
This shall be the service of the sons
of Kohath, verse four, in the tabernacle of
the congregation about the most holy thing.
When the camp set it forward, Aaron shall
come and his sons, and they shall take
down the covering veil and cover the ark
of the testimony with it.
And, verse 15, when Aaron and his sons
have made an end of covering the sanctuary,
and all the vessels of the sanctuary, as
the camp is to set forward, after that
the sons of Kohath shall come to bear
it.
But they shall not touch any holy thing,
lest they die.
These things are the burden of the sons
of Kohath.
But there's no cart for Kohath.
What they bear must be borne on the
staves of wood on their shoulders.
Verse three, from thirty years old and upward,
even until fifty years old, all that enter
into the host to do the work in
the tabernacle of the congregation.
In other words, not less than thirty, not
more than fifty.
How old was the Lord Jesus when he
began his ministry?
Thirty.
Said the Lord Jesus, John 8 to the
Pharisees, Before Abraham was, I am.
And said the Jews to the Lord Jesus,
Thou art not yet fifty, lest thou see
Abraham.
Not less than thirty, and not yet fifty.
And the burden is to be borne on
the shoulders.
Exodus 25, instructions that God gave to Moses.
Verse ten, Exodus 25 and verse ten, They
shall make an ark of chipping wood, and
then the exact dimensions are given and its
specifications.
In verse thirteen, Thou shalt make staves of
chipping wood, and overlay them with gold.
And thou shalt put the staves into the
rings by the sides of the ark, that
the ark may be borne with them.
The staves shall be in the rings of
the ark, they shall not be taken from
it.
And thou shalt put into the ark the
testimony which I give thee.
Manna in a pot of gold, Aaron's rod
that thighteth, and the table of the cup.
And thou shalt put the mercy seat above,
upon the ark, verse twenty-one.
In the ark thou shalt put the testimony
that I shall give thee.
And there, there, there, will I meet with
thee, and I will commune with thee, from
above the mercy seat, from between the two
cherubims which are upon the ark of the
testimony.
So the ark was to be made with
rings on either side, and there were to
be two pieces of wood.
And these two pieces of wood were to
be threaded through the ring, and the ark
that contained that which symbolizes our salvation, sealed,
sent, and sanctified, were to be carried on
two pieces of wood, resting on a man's
shoulder, not less than thirty, and not more
than fifty.
Does that tell you anything?
On that day when the Lord Jesus was
crucified, you'd have seen him trudging towards the
hill outside of City Wall, a man not
less than thirty, but not yet fifty, with
two pieces of wood on his shoulder.
There's no count for Kohat.
And that, of course, is why God answered
David's noblest endeavor with death.
Because neither money, nor man, nor men, nor
material, no matter, can ever be a substitute
for God's man.
His son, Isaiah, not less than thirty, not
yet fifty, born at Bethlehem in the city
of David, this man, the Word Incarnate, God
who was made flesh and dwells among us,
bore on his shoulder the prize of our
redemption, the cross on which he died.
That on the grounds of that redemptive transaction,
you and I reconciled to God might receive,
as his free gift, that Holy Spirit by
whom we are sealed, that Holy Spirit by
whom we are sent, and that Holy Spirit
by whom alone we may be thanked.
And they got the ark home to where
it belonged, and they were filled with rejoicing.
Everybody rejoiced.
The children of the Levites bore the ark
of God upon their shoulders with the staves
thereon as Moses commanded according to the word
of the Lord.
So David and the elders of Israel and
the captains over thousands went to bring up
the ark of the covenant of the Lord
out of the house of Obed-Edom with
joy.
And you will remember that it was when
the ark had been restored to its place
that David then sang that marvelous song of
praise that we have cited in our morning
session.
On that first day in the 16th chapter
1 chronicles, David delivered first this psalm to
thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph
and his brethren.
Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his
name, make known his deeds among the people,
sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk
ye of all his wondrous works.
Glory ye in his holy name.
Let the heart of them that rejoice seek
the Lord.
Be you mindful always of his covenant, the
word which he commanded to a thousand generations,
even of the covenant which he made with
Abraham.
And it is oath unto Isaac and hath
confirmed the same to Jacob for a law,
and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, because
what God spake in verses to Abraham became
the truth and the law to Jacob, and
the proof to a thousand generations.
And David had got the ark back where
it belonged.
Why?
Because he took time out to find out
what God wants, and there's nothing quite so
fulfilling in the heart of man as to
take time out and let God speak to
you through his word, and discover his terms
of reference.
That's why David was a better neighbor than
Saul, who presumed to find something good in
what God had condemned, who, like the 250
men of renown in the church in the
womb, were holy enough.
There was just one sad aspect to this
story, and it's quite interesting
in conclusion.
You'll find it in the second book of
Samuel and the sixth chapter.
The second book of Samuel and the sixth
chapter is a parallel record of the events
that we have just been examining in the
13th and the 15th, 16th and 17th chapters
of one promise.
End of verse 12, so David, this is
chapter 6 of 2 Samuel, so David went
and brought up the ark of God from
the house of Obed-Edom into the city
of David with gladness.
And verse 14, David danced before the Lord
with all his might, and David was girded
with the linen ephod.
So David and all the house of Israel
brought up the ark of the Lord with
shouting and with the sound of the trumpet,
and God didn't answer them with death, God
answered them with his smile of approval.
A man, not blessed we say, but not
yet fifty, with two pieces of wood on
his shoulder, bearing the ark of the covenant.
And God said, this is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased.
And as the ark of the Lord, verse
16, came into the city of David, Mishael,
Saul's daughter, looked through a window, and
she saw King David leaping and dancing before
the Lord.
And she despised him in her heart.
She was the seed of the old regime.
She belonged to King Saul in all his
ways, the man who presumed to find something
good in what God had condemned.
And as with God's smile of approval, David
took the ark back to where it belonged.
Mishael was peeking through the window with a
smear on her face and a smear in
her heart, waiting to mock him and accuse
him with her sarcasm.
Say, wherever there are men and women and
boys and girls so wise enough to go
to God's word and discover what God's terms
of reference are, wherever there's a boy or
girl or man with any given congregation or
company of God's people who are prepared with
an open heart to recognize that apart from
what he is, we are nothing, have nothing,
can do nothing, that man in himself is
utterly bankrupt and destitute, that only God's man,
not less than thirty, and not yet fifty,
with two pieces of wood on his shoulder,
who went the way of the cross, triumphed
gloriously, rose again from the dead, ascended to
be with the Father, that in the person
of his other self, the Holy Spirit, he
might reinvade the human soul till we become
a body wholly filled and flooded with God
himself.
There was never a group of men, women,
boys and girls who were prepared to meet
God on God's time.
But sitting in the congregation, there'll be Mishael
looking through the window with a smear, a
sneer on her face and a sneer in
her heart, saying, Stop a month!
It's the seed of the old regime.
It's the champions of the status quo.
It's those who are still giving service to
the old Adamic nature and still worship the
flesh in the practice of their Christian faith.
They'll sneer through the window.
Oh yes, and you and I should be
warned, for remember if there were two, Caleb
and Joshua, who prepared to go out of
the wilderness and make a reconnaissance with the
land of Canaan to discover that it was
a land flowing with milk and honey, everything
that God had said, there'll be ten, there'll
be ten who'll come back and bring an
evil report and say, the giants in the
land, they're in the wilderness.
They'd say, I'll warn you something.
If you're a man, if you're a woman,
if you're a boy, if you're a girl
who wants to be filled with the Holy
Spirit and be sold out to Jesus Christ,
so the only one whom God is prepared
to honor, he, Christ God's son, is established
in all his sovereignty as king in his
kingdom, I want to tell you something.
Down every street you walk, there'll be Mishael
sneering through the window.
In almost every Christian committee upon which you
may serve, there'll be Mishael sneering through the
window.
David returned to bless his household, verse 20,
and Mishael, the daughter of Saul, came out
to meet David and said, how glorious was
the king of Israel today, who uncovered himself
today in the eyes of the handmaids and
his servants, as one of the vain fellows
shamelessly uncovered himself.
You really did make a fool of yourself,
frankly behaving as though you are nothing and
have nothing and can do nothing.
When you're the king, David said to
Mishael, it was before the Lord which chose
me before your father, who presumed to find
something good in what God had condemned, and
who was murdered by one whose life he
spared before he had time to commit suicide.
It was before the Lord which chose me
before thy father and before all his house
to appoint me ruler over the people of
the Lord over Israel.
Therefore will I play before the Lord, and
I will yet be more vile than that,
and will be buried in my own sight,
because God has shown me exactly what pride
I am.
I am nothing, I have nothing, and I
can do nothing.
For the only one whom my God honors
is a man not less than 30, but
not yet 50, who bore two pieces of
wood on his shoulder, that beneath that mercy
seat, sprinkled with his blood, there might be
given to us that ark that contains all
that God provides for a redeemed people, healed,
sent, and satisfied.
Therefore Mishael, the daughter of Saul, had no
child, and for the day of her death
she died as barren as she lived.
For as Cain mocked Abel, and Esau mocked
Jacob, and Ishmael
mocked Isaac, so Mishael mocked David, who sneered
through the wind.
When God's servant, who took time out to
find what God wanted, got the ark back
where it belonged, and I suggest to you
tonight that you're in one of two places.
You're either with David, in the holiest of
all, rejoicing in the contents of that ark
which is yours beneath the mercy seat sprinkled
with blood, or you're numbered amongst those who
are sneering through the wind.