Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. The ark begins to tip and maybe it's going to fall and seemingly instinctively Uzzah reaches out his hand to steady the ark and Uzzah is struck dead in the moment and all of a sudden all of the music and all of the worship and all the celebration, all of it suddenly stops for there's a dead man there. Everybody is over.
Everyone goes home. 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 pastorallan.org. That's pastorallan.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. 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. 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 in to 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 that 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. And the reason that it was called a seat is because the presence of the Lord, that Shekinah glory I was describing, would rest upon the lid, the cover of the ark in between those cherubim. And that heavy presence of God in that sense was seated there. It is for this reason that the picture is of this being the throne of God. And what would happen on the Day of Atonement Yom Kippur one day out of the year is that the high priest would come in and having offered appropriate sacrifices on behalf of the people on this one day he would sprinkle blood of the innocent animal upon the ark, upon that mercy seat. And so that gold ark was also annually stained with blood. It was the most sobering day of the year, Yom Kippur, but it in many ways is the most hopeful day of the year because it's on that day that the people knew that their high priest went before them, did what they couldn't do, offered what they couldn't offer, and brought a sacrifice before the Lord and sprinkled the blood not just in the outer court, not just in the holy place, but in the holy of holies. So what I want you to see is that there was something that happened on that day that was different than every other day because the priest had come boldly into the presence of God and there had offered the sacrifice behind the curtain.
It was deeper, but it was still an IOU. It was still just a down payment. It was still just a partial atonement. It was just the Lord saying for another year, I will let my judgment be upon the innocent animal and that blood will serve therefore as a reminder that I do not want to destroy my people. I want them to be saved. And the people would rejoice in this.
So Yom Kippur is a holy, holy day, but it's a hopeful, hopeful day because the mercy seat was the grace of God to the people of God, the ark, the presence of God, the holiness of God, the mercy of God. That's the ark. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. 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. So it has been 20 years since the ark had been initially captured by the Philistines. And when those Philistines took the two oxen and their new cart and they put the Ark of the Covenant and the gold guilt offerings of golden tumors and golden mice and put it on the ark and sent the cattle on, what happened was it came into a region and the Hebrew people there rejoiced to see that it was there, although there's another story in which there were some men who came and looked upon the ark inappropriately and they were slain. The ark is eventually moved into its sort of resting place for 20 years at Kiriath Jerim.
And there it is. And David, now king over all of Israel, he is eager to bring in the ark. And the ark is brought in with unbelievable ceremony.
The text says 30,000 people. This was accompanied by other people. What I'm saying is this was Super Bowl proportionate crowd of people who were every bit as loud and rejoicing who were going to escort this great parade all the way into Jerusalem, one of the greatest days David had imagined in his life.
He had planned for this. David was a liturgist. David was a worshiper and he had appointed the people to play the instruments. The crowds were shouting.
It was absolutely an incredible day. David in his royal arraignment and the people are marching onward when the oxen stumble and the ark begins to tip and maybe it's going to fall and seemingly instinctively Uzzah reaches out his hand to steady the ark and Uzzah is struck dead in the moment and all of a sudden all of the music and all of the worship and all of the celebration, all of it suddenly stops for there's a dead man there and everyone goes home. Party is over and the ark is sent away from there. David says let's just go and put it at Obed Edom's house.
We can't take it up from there. Why was Uzzah struck? And I have read what I think everybody has ever said about this and thought about it and thought about it and I have come to a simple conclusion about this. He was struck because there were very specific instructions regarding the ark and how it would be transported. It is very clear in the book of Numbers there were three absolute requirements. The ark must be covered. The ark must be carried only by priests and the ark must not be touched.
In David's royal parade all three were clearly violated. Instead of it being carried by priests David like the Philistines had done had made a cart. There was no evidence that it was covered and then Uzzah and in the book of Numbers the Lord had said whoever touches it will die. Here's why Uzzah was struck now because the Lord has said if anyone touches it and it is not transported in the proper way it will die.
So here's the predicament. Regardless of why it was that Uzzah touched it whether it was because Uzzah had as many have proposed had become quite too comfortable with the ark. It had after all been housed in his household. He'd grown up around it. Maybe he had come to this place of believing that he could somehow manage God, help God out.
All of these different ideas make some sense. But regardless of why Uzzah touched that ark the fact of the dilemma was this. God had said if you touch the ark you'll die. So in that moment if Uzzah is not killed the Lord's word was not true.
This is the dilemma. The Lord had given his word and the Lord doesn't lie. So it's not possible for the Lord to go back on his word so Uzzah had to die. Now if you're just looking at the Christian faith you'd say what kind of God is that? I don't know if I want to worship a God who would kill somebody over something like that.
But to answer that question you have to ask a deeper question than that. And that is is it understandable that the Lord over all is just and therefore has established the world in justice. That there is right and wrong. And that because there is right and wrong and God has made a world that is just that means that sin must be punished. Because if sin is not punished then how could you say there is justice? Then people would say to this well why couldn't God just not make these holiness laws? Or why would he have to prescribe something like that?
In other words we would like to have especially in the spirit of the age currently we would like to have a God who is just nice and is extremely tolerant and is totally accepting of all things. But here's the problem is that if you say that who is to say what is right and what is wrong? Imagine the scenario then that someone breaks into your home and steals your 52 inch high definition plasma screen TV. And you report it to the police and they come over and they say but you have two other televisions perhaps the burglar needed a TV. Who am I to arrest a burglar?
Because he may have needed it more than you did. I can't establish a law about something like that. And so you appeal it. You go down to the courthouse and you want to find the district attorney and say DA I need some help here. The police will not arrest this burglar. And the DA says we cannot tell the police to arrest somebody. We don't have laws about this. We have converted the courthouse into a place where we accept everyone and we accept everything.
You can see where I'm going with this. Nobody wants to live in a world or a society or a city that has no principle of justice in it whatsoever. And so we come back to our question and that is well why would God ever strike down someone like Uzzah? I say it is because he said that there was right and wrong and Uzzah did what was wrong and you say well I don't like what God had said here about this but the principle of the matter runs much deeper than that. God is at the same time holy holy holy and loving loving loving. It is who God is. And this is the God that you want. You do not want a God who simply tolerates all evil. And you do not want a God who is not full of mercy and compassion because you know and I know that we all sin. So what has happened is that when the Lord revealed himself to Moses and he appeared before him he called out his name he said the Lord the Lord God who is slow to anger and full of steadfast love rich and abounding and hesed and then he adds but who in no way will clear the guilty who in no way will ignore sin. If you want to know who God is and what's so wonderful about him you must know that he is both holy and absolutely merciful. And so what you see in the story of Uzzah is the dilemma of every human being. You see the dilemma of the whole world is that God is holy holy holy and Uzzah presumed that his dirty hands could touch the living God that he could violate right and wrong with no consequence and it cannot come to pass because he would make God to be a liar and there would be no justice so instead in that moment David found himself utterly stricken with anger and he was frustrated with this and he sent the ark to Obed Edom's house and David was feeling just like this God I'm bringing the ark into Jerusalem I set up my palace I want to have a place of worship I want you to be the center of the life of Israel and now this has happened why why you look into David's heart and see his grief for how much he didn't want Uzzah to die and you'll understand something about Jesus' heart when he stood over Jerusalem and he wept over that great city and he said oh Jerusalem oh Jerusalem oh that I could have gathered you as a hen her chicks under her wings but you would not listen I want you to I want you to see that the heart of God in Jesus Christ is that none should perish you understand the heart of God God wants all to be saved and God wants all in his presence. Right and today's teaching the death of Uzzah and the dance of David it's in our series Son of David. Alan is back with us in the studio in a moment as he shares his parting good news thought for the day. 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 writing 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 three 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 pastor alan.org back here in the studio to share Alan's parting good news thought for the day and Alan what is our takeaway what is the practical we can live with the next few minutes here's a contrast the ark was holy Uzzah tried to manage it yeah he tried to you know it wasn't just he touched this holy thing but he was managing it it was like kind of a picture of us trying to manage God I was trying to listen we don't take care of God God takes care of us Lord in our power exactly but the second processional this we'll be seeing in its fullness tomorrow David dances with all of his might before the ark as they bring it into Jerusalem and the cover of that ark the throne of grace is the very place that mercy seat where the writer of Hebrews invites us to come in our time of need come boldly to the throne of grace in your time of need because the sacrifice of Jesus has made the way clear so we're not Uzzah we're David dancing in our hearts with joy for what God's done for us today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
