Word of Salvation – Vol.41 No.40 – October 1996

 

Worshiping A Holy God

 

Sermon by Rev J A Haverland on 1 Chronicles 13

Scripture Reading: 1 Chronicles 13, 15:1-4, 11-15, 25-16:3

 

Congregation.

There are a number of startling stories in the Bible – stories that make us sit up and take notice.  Some of those stories are notable because they are beautiful, and others because they are unusual.  Then there are still others that make us sit up and take note because they are so severe; they seem so harsh; they seem to support the view of some that the God of the Old Testament was a God of judgment and a God of vengeance.

And yet these stories are here for our instruction and for our learning.  They are here so that we can gain something from them and draw out lessons.

This story is in the Bible to teach us that God is a Holy God who must be worshipped with reverence and in obedience to his commands.

BACKGROUND

Before we explore this chapter, we should first note something of the background to the Ark of the Covenant and the context of this story.

Most of the children will remember that the ark was a rectangular box made out of acacia wood and overlaid entirely with gold.  Inside the ark were the Ten Commandments.  The ark of God sat in the Holy of Holies, which was the innermost room of the tabernacle.  It had been there during the time that the people of Israel travelled through the desert, and after that it had been put into the Most Holy Place of the temple that Solomon had built.

At times the people of Israel had misunderstood its function; they treated it in a magical way.  In the days of Ell, and just before his death, the people of Israel took it along into battle with the Philistines.  They took it along as a type of mascot, thinking that it would do them good in their battle against the Philistines, thinking that it had magical powers which would enable them to defeat the Philistine army.  But in fact the Israelites were defeated and the ark was captured.

It caused the Philistines a great deal of trouble and so they sent it back to Israel.  It came to a place called Beth-Shemesh, but the people there sent it on to Kiriath-Jearim, where it remained for 20 years.  During that time it was largely neglected.  As David said (vs.3), “no one inquired of it during the reign of Saul.”

But David was very interested in the ark.  He saw that the ark was an important symbol and reminder of the very presence of God himself.  As part of his desire to honour and worship God, David wanted to take the ark and bring it back to Jerusalem.

The writer of Chronicles, in 13:6, describes God as “enthroned between the cherubim”.  Now, of course, the people of Israel knew that God did not have his literal throne on the ark – God was in heaven.  Nor did they tie down the presence of God to the ark or the temple, because later on Solomon realised that the whole world could not contain God, let alone the temple that he had built.  Yet the people of Israel recognised that the ark symbolised, in a special way, the very presence of God.  The ark was, if you like, a manifestation of God himself, a symbol of God being with His people.

David wanted the ark in Jerusalem so that he could honour God, and so that he could have this symbol of God’s presence in the capital city close by him.  So he consulted with the leaders of the people and with the people themselves, and they all agreed that this was a good thing to do.

So they brought the ark of God through to Jerusalem with a great deal of rejoicing.  But, as we read, Uzzah touched the ark and was instantly struck down by God and killed.  Because of this David was afraid and left the ark at the house of Obed-Edom for three months before it was finally brought right into Jerusalem.

We need to remember that the books of Chronicles were written for the exiles who had returned from Babylon.  They were written for the Jews who were living in the fifth century, struggling to survive in a hostile and pagan world.

When the exiles had returned from Babylon they had rebuilt the Temple.  It was a poor imitation of the glorious temple that Solomon had built, but it had been reconstructed.  However, the ark had been lost.  It was lost when the Babylonian army came into Jerusalem and ransacked and destroyed the temple and the city.  No one knows what happened to the Ark of the Covenant.  So the Temple had been rebuilt, but the ark was no longer there.

This raises a question: Why was the writer of Chronicles making so much of bringing the ark to Jerusalem when the people he was writing to no longer had the ark?  And, what does this have to say to us today who also do not have the ark of God?

TWO IMPORTANT LESSONS

Well, there are two important lessons that we should notice from these chapters.  The first lesson is that you must worship God with reverence; and the second is that you must worship God in the way that he has commanded.

1.  YOU MUST WORSHIP GOD WITH REVERENCE

a.  Because Celebration is Not Enough

You must worship God with reverence because celebration isn’t enough.  We read in verse 8 of chapter 13 that the ark of God was being brought to Jerusalem with a tremendous amount of rejoicing in a great  procession; there were thousands of people participating; the Israelites were celebrating “with all their might,” says the writer, ‘with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, cymbals and trumpets.”  There was a great spirit of worship, there was joy before the Lord, they were singing and dancing and offering praise.

And then in the midst of all that rejoicing, the oxen stumble and Uzzah reaches out to steady the rocking ark, and is immediately struck dead on the spot!  Wasn’t God pleased with all their joy and their praise and their celebration?  Well, yes, He was pleased with that – but it wasn’t enough.  The people of God also needed reverence, and they needed a right understanding of who God was, and they needed to approach and worship God with respect and with awe.  Celebration, in and of itself, was insufficient.  And Uzzah’s example impresses that lesson on us.

b.  Because of Uzzah’s Example

You may feel sorry for Uzzah.  I mean, the oxen stumbled, and the ark was rocking, and he did what was instinctive – you and I might have done the same thing.  Somehow his punishment seems harsh and severe.

And yet we need to remember that the ark was a symbol of the very presence of God; the people of Israel were taught to honour the ark as they honoured God himself.  It was the most sacred object that God had given to the people of Israel and it had to be honoured as they would honour God.  It was to be treated with the same respect and reverence and awe that they were to give to Him.

You could compare this, although it is a poor substitute, with the way we treat electricity.  Electricity can be handled correctly or incorrectly.  It is a very powerful thing and you need to treat it with respect and care.  If you treat it carelessly or thoughtlessly, then there can be very serious consequences.  The ark was somewhat the same: it had to be treated with respect and with care and with a right understanding.  This is where Uzzah failed.

c.  Because of Other Examples

We can think of other examples of people who failed to treat God with the proper reverence.  Think back to Achan who stole things that were supposed to be dedicated to God and who was stoned for his sin.  Or think of Ananias and Saphirra who lied to the Holy Spirit and the Apostles, and were also killed.  All of these people were severely punished because they did not treat God with respect and with reverence.

It is also significant that all of these examples actually occurred at the beginning of new periods of the history of God’s people: Achan at the beginning of the Conquest of Canaan; Uzzah at the beginning of David’s long reign and great period of prosperity for the people of Israel; Ananias and Shaphirra at the beginning of the New Testament church.

It seems as though, through these severe punishments, God wanted to teach his people at the beginning of a new era how they should live and the consequences of failing to reverence him properly.

This is a warning for us today – a warning that God cannot be treated lightly or casually.  In our modern day and age we put much emphasis on democracy where everyone is the same and where there shouldn’t be any differences between people.  In this sort of environment it is very easy to become over-familiar with God: so you might pray to God with your feet resting up on the couch; or you might speak irreverently or jokingly of serious and important spiritual matters; or you might get caught up in the modern tendency to turn worship into entertainment.

God must be worshipped with reverence, whether we worship him in our own homes and our private prayers, or whether we come together as a congregation to worship God.  We must remember to whom we have come.  We must come with a spirit of respect and reverence and awe, remembering that our God is still, as he was in the Old Testament, a consuming fire (Heb.12:28-29).

That is the first lesson we must notice out of this passage that our God is to be worshipped with reverence.

2.  YOU MUST WORSHIP GOD AS HE HAS COMMANDED

The second is that you must worship God as he has commanded.

a.  Because A Right Motive is Not Enough.

We notice from this passage that a right motive is not enough.  Look at David: He had the right motives, he wanted to do the right thing, but he failed to do it in the right way.  Uzzah had a right motive: He wanted to steady the ark so it didn’t fall, but he disobeyed God’s command.

Good intentions in worship are not enough.  God must be worshipped in keeping with his commandments.

b.  Because God Has Told Us How to Worship

Worship must be given to God as he has prescribed it.  God had told his Old Testament people how to worship Him.  He had described how the priests were to carry the ark on long poles on their shoulders.  When David and the priests laid the ark of God on a cart they were in fact imitating the practice of the Philistines.  That is how the Philistines had sent it back to the people of Israel 20 years earlier.  They were imitating a pagan custom instead of following the instructions of God.

Isn’t it easy for us to do that as well?  It is tempting in worship to imitate the customs and the ideas of the world.  Instead of being guided by the truth God has given to us we can so easily be moulded by the culture of our society.

When Uzzah died, David knew he had done something seriously wrong and felt angry and then afraid; an anger and fear that rose out of a sense of guilt.  So they laid the ark of God to rest at the house of Obed-Edom.

Three months later they came back and did it in the right way, the “prescribed way”; they did it according to the command of God.  In 15:2, “David said, ‘No one but the Levites may carry the ark of God, because the Lord chose them to carry the ark of the Lord and to minister before him forever.” And from 15:15 it is clear that they actually knew how to do it: “And the Levites carried the art of God with poles on their shoulders as Moses had commanded in accordance with the Word of God.”

Again there is a lesson here for us.  We don’t make up our worship as we go along, we don’t do what feels good or seems right to us.  We are to worship God as he has taught us in his Word.  We are to judge everything by the standard laid out in the Scriptures.  This means we must study the Scriptures so that we are aware of God’s commands, so that we know and understand how he is to be worshipped.

Earlier we asked the question, “What does this have to say to people who no longer have the ark of God – to us today?”  Well, it tells us that we are to worship God with reverence and awe and that celebration, in and of itself, is not enough.  It also teaches us that we are to worship God as he has commanded and that right motives, in and of themselves, are not enough either.

Both of these principles are important and are still valid because we have something today that is even more important than the ark that the Old Testament people had.  Because we have what the ark symbolised and pointed forward to – we have the Lord Jesus Christ himself.  We have the very presence of God living amongst us here and now today.

The ark, and many of the things of Old Testament worship, pointed forward to the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Jesus was the fulfilment of the Ark of the Covenant because He was, as the Scriptures tell us, “Emmanuel” which means, God with us.  So we can enjoy the presence of God, here and now, in the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit.

The ark has long gone and nobody knows what has happened to it; in fact, the whole Old Testament system of sacrificial and ceremonial worship has also long gone as well.  But we have all that the Old Testament system pointed forward to, because we have Jesus, we have God with us, we can live in the presence of God.

The shadows and types have all disappeared, but God himself hasn’t changed and the principles that he gives for worship haven’t changed either.

Through Jesus Christ we can approach God in worship, but we must remember that we must approach him with reverence and awe and in obedience to His Word.

Amen.