Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.
Be honest about it. If there was a friend of yours that wanted to know more about the Christian Gospel, wanted to know more about who is your God, you might turn to John 3.16. You might turn to Romans 8. But you're probably not going to turn to 2 Samuel 6 and say, Well, let me talk to you about Uzzah, the man who tried to help God out and got killed for it.
It's just kind of a story that's troubling to us. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Son of David, as presented at Rinaldin Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org.
Or call 877-544-4860. Now more on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.
Here is Alan Wright. You're ready for some good news. You can approach the throne of grace boldly in your time of need because Jesus has gone before you.
And He's done everything that is necessary and paid all the price and done everything right so that you don't have to worry about a thing. And you can be free in the presence of God. We're going to be reading a story today in 2 Samuel chapter 6 that is fascinating. I don't remember spending so much time just meditating on a story, just sitting in the presence of the Lord and just meditating on a story as I have this story in 2 Samuel 6. It is a story that in another way shows us how David prefigures Jesus. We've called our series on the life of David, Son of David, because David is like a shadow and Jesus is like the substance. And everything that you see in David's life, it seems like in one way or another, is pointing to what will ultimately be fulfilled in Jesus. So look with me in 2 Samuel chapter 6 for this amazing, passionate, powerful, and disturbing story that will bring you to the brink of the gospel and carry you into the throne room of grace.
2 Samuel 6 verse 1. David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000, and David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baal, Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who sits enthroned on the cherubim. And they carried the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God, and Ahio went before the ark.
And David and all the house of Israel were making merry before the Lord with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. And when they came to the threshing floor of Nachon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God.
And David was angry because the Lord had burst forth against Uzzah, and that place is called Perez Uzzah to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, how can the ark of the Lord come to me? So David was not willing to take the ark of the Lord into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. And the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his household. And it was told King David, the Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with rejoicing. And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal. And David danced before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod.
So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn." What kind of story is this? I mean, this reminds me of the old story of the teetotaler who was having a debate with her friend about the perils of drinking wine. And the friend said to the teetotaler, yeah, but even Jesus turned water into wine, and the teetotaler said, yeah, he did, but I'd have thought better of him if he hadn't. This story is kind of like one of those stories.
It's like if someone said, did God really strike down Uzzah just because he touched the ark of the covenant trying to protect it from falling to the ground? And you have to say, yeah, but isn't there a part of you that say, and I've thought better of him if he hadn't? See, this is the kind of story that you almost avoid.
Be honest about it. If there was a friend of yours that wanted to know more about the Christian gospel, wanted to know more about who is your God, you might turn to John 3.16, you might turn to Romans 8, but you're probably not going to turn to 2 Samuel 6 and say, well, let me talk to you about Uzzah, the man who tried to help God out and got killed for it. It's just kind of a story that's troubling to us. In all seriousness, this is the kind of story in today's culture in which many people say, see there, Christianity is just a primitive old religion that has stories in it about intolerance and it just serves to support our idea that religion is a bad thing altogether.
This is that kind of story. And I've learned now over the years, when I get to a story like this, to pause there and to think about it and meditate on it because oftentimes it's when you see these puzzling places that you're being drawn in because the gospel is like a mystery that gets unveiled to you. This is a puzzling story in many ways because in the first place, it seems like Uzzah is doing something noble. He is trying to stop the ark from falling to the ground, down into the dirt, down to the rocks, and yet he gets killed for it. It's also puzzling because it seems odd that the noble king of Israel would get so angry and then more or less pout for three months and keep the ark over at Obed-Edom's house. And it's also puzzling that in the end, this change of heart comes about when David realizes that everybody in Obed-Edom's household is being blessed that all of a sudden he says, oh, I do want the ark back now. So I want to talk to you about this story for this ultimate purpose, that though with this ark there is a death, there is also dancing.
And I want to distinguish the difference between the two and invite your heart into David's dance. All right, the Ark of the Covenant. It was a box.
It was about four feet wide, about two and a half feet in depth. It was overlaid with gold. The top of the ark, the lid of the ark was more or less a slab of gold. It had two cherubim, angels that were facing each other.
They also were made of gold. It had on its sides rings that poles, railings could go through so that priests could carry the ark. The ark was when the tabernacle was set and if the ark had not been captured by the enemy, it was to be in the holy of holies.
And in the simple tent of meeting or tabernacle structure, there was an outer courtyard and then there was an inner sanctum that was called the holy place and in that inner place there was furniture there but then there was a thick veil and behind that veil was one piece of furniture. It was this ark. And that Ark of the Covenant there contained three things.
The stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, a jar of manna, the white flaky substance that had nourished the Israelites while they were in the wilderness and Aaron's rod that had miraculously bud. Those three things were inside that ark and that ark was situated there so that one day out of the year the high priest could come and make sacrifices on behalf of the people. Now the first thing and most important thing probably to know about the ark is that the ark of God was never considered by the Israelites to be a magic thing. The Hebrew people were expressly forbidden to be a superstitious people or have anything to do with magic. Anybody in the Old Testament you ever see that's treating the ark like it was just magical, they've missed the whole point of it. The ark was instead the manifest, visible, symbolic place of the presence of God.
That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Got some giants to slay? Need some encouragement in the midst of a trial?
Wondering if God really cares? Meet David. Who can compare to him? He was the ruddy, handsome, youth-tending sheep riding psalms and worshiping God in the humble Bethlehem fields. He was the lone Israelite brave enough to decapitate Goliath and the sole warrior adept enough to cut off the scourge of the Philistines.
He was the stately king who established peace, expanded the borders and reigned in prosperity for 40 years. Who else could be a gentle shepherd, a glorious hero and a noble king? Would there ever be another leader like David? Yes, the son of David. His name is Jesus and he is a better David than David could ever be. He came to be your shepherd, your hero and your king. In a 12-message audio series, Alan Wright takes you on a thrilling adventure with David in order to point you to the answer for your every need, the son of David.
Discover how Christ enables you to face your biggest obstacles, deal with your fiercest persecution and live as an heir of grace. It's an audio series from Alan Wright. As our thanks for your donation, we'll be delighted to send you Pastor Alan's audio messages in either a digital download or a CD album format.
Son of David, shepherd, hero, king. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.
Here once again is Alan Wright. It was the place in which the high priest, on behalf of the people, one day a year could come into the very glory of God. And that glory, that heavy weighty magnificent presence of the Lord, that Shekinah is called in Hebrew, would rest upon the cover of the Ark of the Covenant on that day of atonement. And it was for this reason that the Ark was understood to be the throne of God. And it was for this reason that the Ark was understood to be the place of God's manifest presence. Now when we talk about God's presence, we are talking about the God who is at all places at all times. And so it is accurate to say that God is everywhere.
There is no place. Psalm 139 speaks of this. Where could I go to flee from God? If I were to travel the uttermost parts of the sea, He's there. If I were to rise on the wings of the dawn, He's there.
If I were to make my bed in the depths of Sheol, He is there. God is everywhere. You cannot ever be in a place where God is not. But the Bible also speaks of God being present in a different way. That God is present when two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst. Was God not there before?
No, He most certainly was. But there's a different way that God is present. Or you'll read oftentimes in the New Testament that there'll be some statement like, and the presence of the Lord was there powerfully for the sick to be healed. Or the Spirit of the Lord came upon them and they prophesied boldly. There is a way in which God is with us in an omnipresent manner.
He's everywhere. But there is another way that we would call, for lack of better definition, to call His manifest presence. And this is the glorious presence of God that was associated with the ark. So it was never taught that God wasn't with Israel because the ark wasn't with them. But the ark was this place that had been designated where you could worship and encounter God in a very palpable way.
And beloved, we need today as much as we've ever needed in the history of the world, we need the presence of God in a real way. We are now in a culture that looks at our Bible. It looks at the things we speak of. It often just says that just seems odd or it just seems like rules. And what we have to introduce to the world is not a system. It is not a set of principles.
It is certainly not a list of rules. It is not a religion. It is a person. We have Jesus. And His presence is life to us. This is what David wanted. David wanted not only to set up his palace in Jerusalem now that he has become king over all of Israel. He wanted the manifest presence of the Lord. This is what David speaks of in Psalm 132.
We won't turn there now. But David essentially makes a vow to the Lord in Psalm 132 and he says, I will not slumber. My eyelids will not close until I have brought the ark of God into His resting place in the tabernacle. He wants to be with God. David loved God and he loved to worship Him. He wanted God's presence. That's why David was bringing in the ark. He wanted to be in God's presence.
I just cannot overemphasize this. The walk with Jesus Christ is a walk of mystery that is not rooted primarily in mental ascent to the right things. It is an experience of God. You can know Him. You can know Him. He is loving and you can experience His love. He is glorious and you can experience His glory. He is a healer and you can experience His healing. He is beautiful and you can be wrapped in wonder at His loveliness. He is transcendent and you can experience awe at His majesty.
He is sweet and you can be forever warmed in the presence of His comforting mercies. David wanted God in his backyard at Zion. The next thing to know about the ark that's really important is that the ark is utterly and completely holy.
Holy means to be set apart and the ark was the most holy thing on the earth other than the actual presence of God Himself. And to understand what happened with Uzzah, I'm reminded of a little story somebody told me, an illustration some years ago about, it makes sense to me, how it is that if there is something that is exquisitely set apart, exceptionally powerful, or wonderfully majestic, the more that it is transcendent and lofty, the greater the punishment for violating it. Think about it this way, so if a little brother just has to be all around his bigger sister and poking her and getting all in her space all the time and maybe taking her toys, the mother may come and fuss at that little boy and say, now you leave your big sister alone. But if that little boy gets a little bit older and goes to first grade and goes up to his teacher and is poking at her all day long and just underfoot with her all day long and won't leave her alone, the teacher will probably call the principal and the principal will send that child home. And if that child continued that way and becomes a school dropout and one day goes and gets all up in the face of a police officer and pokes at the police officer and tries to take hold of some of his stuff, he's going to go to jail.
And if he gets out of jail and decides to go up to Washington D.C. and break into the forbidden areas of the White House and try to barge into the Oval Office, he'll probably be shot. In other words, the same trespass reaps a more severe consequence because of the increasing loftiness of that which is being violated. This goes in small measure to explain the nature of the holiness of the ark. This is the picture of the presence of God. And the ark was utterly holy. The stories that surround the ark are fascinating, we won't take time to read them all today, but when the ark is captured by the Philistines, the Philistines no sooner get the ark than they wish they'd never had the ark. Because wherever the ark is amongst the Philistine pagans, people begin to break out in tumors and sicknesses and they move it from one group to the next and everywhere it goes something bad is happening to the people. They take the ark and put it into one of their pagan temples and their pagan idol Dagon, and they come in the next morning, it's kind of a comical scene almost if it weren't so powerfully holy, in which they come in the next morning and Dagon, this idol, is on his face down in front of the ark.
Nobody knows how he got there. And so they erect their idol again next to the ark and they come in the next day and now Dagon is prostrate down in front of it and both his hands have broken off. And these things go on until finally the Philistines just say, we don't want anything to do with this. And so what they decide to do is they make a brand new cart and they get two milk cows that have never worn a yoke, never borne a burden. And they put the ark of the covenant on this brand new cart on these milk cows that have never been burdened. And they also make a guilt offering out of gold, which is ironically some gold fashioned tumors and golden mice.
And they put that on the cart. And it's a funny scene because what essentially they do is they just kind of hook it up to the oxen and send it off alone towards Israel. Just sort of push it out of here and nobody even wants to accompany the ark. Just give it out from our midst. So it is that the ark is pictured as untouchable and holy.
The third thing to know about the ark, and this will ultimately lead us today to our glimpse of the gospel, is that the lid of the ark was known as the mercy seat. Alan Wright and today's teaching, we're placing a bookmark right here, The Death of Uzzah and the Dance of David. It's in our series, Son of David. And Alan is back with us in the studio as he shares his parting good news thought for the day.
Stick with us. In a 12 message audio series, Alan Wright takes you on a thrilling adventure with David in order to point you to the answer for your every need, the Son of David. Discover how Christ enables you to face your biggest obstacles, deal with your fiercest persecution, and live as an heir of grace. It's an audio series from Alan Wright. As our thanks for your donation, we'll be delighted to send you Pastor Alan's audio messages in either a digital download or a CD album format.
Son of David, shepherd, hero, king. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.
When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Alan, I'm eager to hear your parting good news thought for the day here in the studio as we put a conclusion here in a bookmark in part one. It's a strange story, and in some ways disturbing to think of how holy the ark was.
It couldn't even be touched. Uzzah, he thinks that he's doing the right thing, doesn't want the ark to come crashing to the ground, and he gets killed for it. And you go, well, what's the good news in this story? Well, until you start digging deeper, as we're learning today and we're going to continue to learn tomorrow about the ark and the cover of that ark that becomes known as the mercy seat. And on the day of atonement, the high priest and only the high priest could offer an atoning sacrifice on behalf of the people. And there, the very presence of God would meet with the priest and God would forgive the people. Well, all of this is foreshadowing what Jesus has done for us. And God is holy, but he provided his own son's shed blood that was figuratively sprinkled in the Holy of Holies so that no one, no Uzzah, who ever touched the holy thing, would ever be stricken again because we've been declared righteous through that shed blood. More about this tomorrow, but that is extraordinary good news. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
