SERIES: A Person After God’s Heart
You Can’t Keep God in a Box
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: David is the only one in Scripture who is called “a man after God’s heart.” What earned him this epitaph? We cannot answer the question fully until our study of David’s life is over, but each week we are getting hints. Three weeks ago we saw David’s intense personal grief over the death of a mortal enemy; such an attitude is very godlike. Then two weeks ago we saw him waiting patiently for the Lord to remove the boneheads in his life. Last Sunday we found David growing in power and influence as he is inaugurated king over the entire nation, as he captures the city of Jerusalem and makes it his capital, and as God gives him victory over the Philistines. Through it all we find David consistently inquiring of God, waiting on Him, and seeking after His heart.
Today we are going to see another, even more important evidence of David becoming “a person after God’s heart.” It has to do with his desire to worship God with intimacy and without inhibition; yet he must learn that God is not his “good buddy.” I want to read 2 Samuel 6 and invite your careful attention to the Word of the Lord:
David again brought together out of Israel chosen men, thirty thousand in all. He and all his men set out from Baalah of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the LORD Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on the ark. They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD , with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals.
When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God.
Then David was angry because the LORD’s wrath had broken out against Uzzah, and to this day that place is called Perez Uzzah.
David was afraid of the LORD that day and said, “How can the ark of the LORD ever come to me?” He was not willing to take the ark of the LORD to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it aside to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months, and the LORD blessed him and his entire household.
Now King David was told, “The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. When those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets.
As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.
They brought the ark of the LORD and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the LORD. After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD Almighty. Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.
When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”
David said to Michal, “It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD’s people Israel-I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”
And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.
David seeks to honor God by bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, but, unfortunately, he allows reason to supersede God’s instructions. (6:1-5)
Our Scripture text today focuses attention on a little box that God asked Moses to build some 400 years before David’s time. If it weren’t for Indiana Jones, many Americans would know nothing about this little box, but due to the classic movie of 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark, nearly everyone has some notion, though undoubtedly a distorted one, about the Ark. A friend of mine in St. Louis asked the little boys in his Bible study group, “Who stole the Ark?” Two of them yelled out in unison, “The Nazis!” If that was your answer, I obviously have a little work to do today.
What is the Ark of the Covenant? In OT times God lived in a box. Oh, I don’t mean He lived only in a box, but He manifested His presence uniquely in a little rectangular chest of acacia wood, gold plated inside and out, and with gold molding forming a rim around the top. It was quite small, as its dimensions were approximately 4′ by 2′ by 2′ high. Its cover was called the “mercy seat” and was a pure gold plate. At each end was a cherub, an angel-like figure of hammered gold, with wings outstretched over the box.
Within the ark were three objects: a golden jar holding manna, portions of the supernatural food that God provided from heaven during Israel’s wilderness wanderings; Aaron’s rod, which budded to vindicate God’s authority at the time of Korah’s rebellion; and the second tablets of stone on which God wrote the Ten Commandments (Moses, you will recall, smashed the first set when he discovered the Israelites dancing before a golden calf, Exodus 32:19). These objects continually reminded the Israelites that God was at work instructing them, providing for them, and delivering them.
Harrison Ford, unfortunately, has instilled in a lot of people the notion that the box itself had magical properties. The image of Nazi faces melting is one that is rather indelibly imprinted on many minds, but there is no evidence to support such superstition. In fact, whenever the Israelites treated the Ark as a source of magical power or good luck, the prophets would emphasize that the power was in God, not in a religious relic. But while superstition was strongly discouraged in Israel, one can tell from this story that the Ark did speak loudly to them of the character of God, particularly His holiness. Anyone who treated the Box as a common thing would be sorry. (By the way, if you want to find a parallel to the Ark in the church today, it might be the Lord’s Supper–a regular reminder that God is at work among His people. And like Uzzah’s experience, when people treated the Lord’s Supper without due respect in Corinth, some of them became sick and some even died. 1 Cor. 11:30).
For about seventy years the Ark had been separated from the tabernacle where Israel’s worship was focused. Captured by the Philistines at Aphek during the days of Eli the judge, it remained in enemy hands for seven months. The Philistines voluntarily returned it when disease, death, and destruction broke out everywhere the Ark was housed. It briefly resided in Beth Shemesh, and the rest of the time in Kiriath Jearim, about 12 miles west of Jerusalem. We now find it in the home of a man named Abinadab. Since David has captured Jerusalem and made it the capitol city of his kingdom, he has a burning desire to retrieve the Ark and bring it to Mount Zion. He is, in effect, saying that God’s presence can no longer remain on a side rail but must be the central focus of his kingdom, accessible to all.
I think it is valuable to note that 2 Samuel 6 follows immediately after the account of David defeating the Jebusites and the Philistines. I think there’s a message for us in the juxtaposition of these chapters. God’s people are not sustained merely by crises. They do not thrive by knocking off Philistines but by seeking God’s face. The church easily loses sight of this. We can always dredge up more adrenaline because of the latest moral or cultural or political emergency. Crises may stimulate us to action, but they do not sustain life; war cannot replace worship. The real question is not, “Who is against us?” but “Who is among us?”, namely God.[i]
David’s motive for moving the Ark is noble. David assembles 30,000 chosen men of Israel to help him retrieve the Ark, not because Abinadab is unwilling to give it up, but because David wants the whole nation to participate in this glorious event. David and the whole house of Israel celebrate with all their might before the Lord, with songs and all kinds of musical instruments. Wow! Kiriath-jearim is rocking! These people are serious about welcoming this visible symbol of God’s presence back into their midst.[ii] But there’s a problem.
God’s clear instructions are violated in the process. The Israelites transport the Ark on a new cart. That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? To transport a heavy box for twelve miles would seem to demand some kind of vehicle, and they even respect the Ark enough to provide a new cart! However, God had given very explicit instructions as to how the Ark was to be transported, and it wasn’t on a cart! On each side of the box were gold rings fixed at the corners, through which gold-plated poles were to be inserted for carrying the chest. Further, the Ark was to be handled strictly by the Levites–they were to carry the Ark on their shoulders.
But the Israelites here ignore the Mosaic instructions about how to carry the ark and introduce, instead, the latest Philistine technological innovation–an ox-cart. An ox-cart is undeniably more efficient, but it’s also impersonal–the replacement of consecrated persons by efficient machines. Eugene Peterson calls Uzzah, whom he assumes is responsible for this decision, “the patron saint of those who uncritically embrace technology without regard to the nature of the Holy.”[iii]
I worry about this tendency in the church today. Certainly, technology itself is amoral, not immoral, but I have been in so-called worship services where strobe lights and videos and amplifiers and cameras and even smoke machines created a setting that could hardly be distinguished from a rock concert. I recall one service I attended at the largest church in North America where professional cameramen on stage were zooming in on the fingers of the saxophone player, and then on the sticks of the drummer, and these scenes were then displayed on the huge jumbotrons, and I couldn’t help but wonder, “What does this have to do with the worship of a transcendent God?!?”
A few years ago one of our key Free churches suffered a major split when the worship pastor took 600 people and started a new church a few miles away. He continued to serve as worship pastor, while they used streaming video to carry the sermons of Bill Hybels from Willow Creek Church in Chicago! The church has continued to grow, but can a video feed shepherd a flock?
Of course, we need to be careful here. The Amish are not more godly because of their total rejection of technology, but I worry that we may lose the awe and transcendence of God in our quest to be culturally relevant, technologically up-to-date, and marketing savvy. We must never allow reason, or convenience, or expediency or technology to take precedence over revelation.
Uzzah gladly helps facilitate the transport of the Ark, but sadly he allows natural reaction to override obedience. (6:6-7)
Uzzah and Ahio are the sons of Abinadab. I suppose it is out of respect for the care this family has given to the Ark that David offers them the great honor of escorting the Ark. Ahio leads the oxen and Uzzah walks beside the Ark. Suddenly the dancing stops. All eyes turn to Uzzah, who is on the ground, writhing and twitching. Someone calls 911. The party is over. The text puts it pretty bluntly: “The LORD’S anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God.”
Does this bother you? The oxen stumble, and Uzzah just reaches out to keep the precious box from crashing to the ground. Who wouldn’t have done the same thing? Who could fault him?[iv] Well, God for one.
God’s commands are once again clear. God had unequivocally stated in his instructions to Moses that no one was to touch the Ark, as recorded in Numbers 4:15. In fact, once it was in its permanent location, no one was even to see it except for the High Priest, and he only once a year. Uzzah’s act, though a natural reaction, is deemed an act of “irreverence” by God.
Uzzah’s “irreverence” is judged severely. Please notice that there is no indication that Uzzah is killed by a lightning bolt from the magical box, nor does his face melt; rather God Himself smites him. Alan Redpath observes that the greatest tragedy of this whole event is that Uzzah dies right beside the mercy seat. That reminds me that there are, unfortunately, millions who die spiritually though they are only a sinner’s prayer from Jesus Christ, who in the NT is called believer’s Mercy Seat.
But how do we reconcile Uzzah’s death with the picture of God as the giver of life, patiently calling us to repentance, constantly reaching out to us in love? I’m not sure, but what we can and must do is to seek a greater understanding of the holiness of God. There is a tendency today to treat God as our “good buddy,” a neat, warm, fuzzy friend in the sky. People dress down for church, treat worship with extreme casualness, and seem to have lost their awe of a transcendent God. The Sunday after Christmas my wife and I attended a church where the pastor appeared in faded, wrinkled jeans, a shirt hanging out, and tennis shoes, and then proceeded to conduct a “talk show” with the congregation. He read one Scripture verse about halfway through, quipping that “we’d better use the Bible this morning; this is supposed to be a religious service.” Everyone laughed, but I cringed when I thought about what God’s attitude must be toward this “worship” experience.
Well, there is certainly a sense in which God is our Friend, and it is possible for us to be intimate with Him as a father is with his child. One of His names is Abba, which can be translated “Daddy.” But just as a child should never think the love of his father excuses disobedience or disrespect, so we should never allow God’s immanency to blind us to His transcendence. (By the way, these theological terms, “transcendence” and “immanence,” simply mean that God is incomparably great and also incomparably small. He is a sovereign ruler and a loving shepherd at the same time). We simply must keep these characteristics of God in balance. He has ways of using “shock and awe” to wake us up when we allow familiarity to breed contempt. No, we do not need to be terrified of Him, but a little respect wouldn’t hurt!
The lesson: It’s fatal to try to “take charge” of God. You see, I suspect Uzzah’s action wasn’t just a momentary reflexive one but rather part of a lifelong obsession with managing the Ark. Maybe he has become possessive of it, and therefore of God. But God will not be managed. God will not be kept in a box. Listen to Eugene Peterson:
Holy Scripture posts Uzzah as a danger sign for us. “Beware the God.” It’s especially important to have such a sign posted in places designated for religious worship and learning. We enter a church or school to learn God, be trained in knowledge and obedience and prayer. And we get what we came for–truth that centers, words that command and comfort, rituals that stabilize, work that has purpose, a community of relationships that strengthen, forgiveness that frees. We find God. We change our ways. We repent and believe and follow. We rearrange our circumstances and reestablish our routines around what now gives meaning and hope. We take our responsibilities in the wonderful new world of worship and work. We advance in the ranks, and before we know it we’re telling others what to do and how to do it. All this is good and right. And then we cross a line–we get bossy and cranky on behalf of God. We begin by finding in God a way to live rightly and well, and then along the way we take over God’s work for him and take charge of making sure others live rightly and well. We get the idea that we’re important, self-important, because we’re around the Important.
Religion is a breeding ground for this kind of thing. Not infrequently these God-managing men and women work themselves into positions of leadership. Over the years the basics with which they began, the elements of reverence and awe, the spirit of love and faith, erode and shrivel. Finally there’s nothing left. They’re dead to God.
Uzzah is a warning. If we think and act as he did, we’ll be dead men and women, soon or late. Dead in our spirits. Dead to the aliveness of God. Jesus called such people “whitewashed tombs . . . full of dead men’s bones” (Matt. 23:27). Uzzah’s death wasn’t sudden; it was years in the making, the “dead works” accumulating like dead men’s bones within him, suffocating the spirit of praise and faith and worship.[v]
But perhaps you still think it is unfair for the Lord to put Uzzah to death. Perhaps the severe judgment of this man angers you; if so, you are in good company.
David reacts to God’s discipline of Uzzah with anger and fear but eventually he decides to pursue worship God’s way. (6:8-23)
The death of Uzzah initially discourages David from pursuing the right course. Verse 10 says, “He was not willing to take the ark of the LORD to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it aside to the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite” (who apparently lived in the vicinity and undoubtedly had mixed emotions about accepting it). The purpose of God’s discipline is always remedial, but it doesn’t always have that effect. Sometimes discipline produces anger and hardens the heart rather than softens it. It’s all in what we do with it. Fortunately, David’s anger is short-lived.
What changes his mind is the effect the Ark has on the home of Obed-Edom. It remains in the house of the Gittite for three months, and the Lord blesses Obed-Edom and his entire household. Apparently in some visible and tangible way, perhaps physically, perhaps financially, perhaps spiritually, this family experiences significant blessing from God. You see, God’s true intent is to bless, not destroy, His people through His presence. And that fact isn’t lost on David. He comes to realize that God is not his enemy, and the Ark is not a curse, so he determines to go down and bring the Ark to Jerusalem. But this time David is intent on doing things God’s way. He has sought and discovered the reason for his failure, and now he leads the people in true repentance.
David learns the importance of explicit obedience. In 1 Chronicles 15 there is a parallel account to 2 Samuel 6 which gives additional information. David speaks to the Levites,
“It was because you, the Levites, did not bring it up the first time that the LORD our God broke out in anger against us. We did not inquire of him about how to do it in the prescribed way.” So the priests and Levites consecrated themselves in order to bring up the ark of the LORD, the God of Israel. And the Levites carried the ark of God with the poles on their shoulders, as Moses had commanded in accordance with the word of the LORD.”
Further we notice in 2 Samuel 6:13 that after those who were carrying the ark of the LORD had taken just six steps, David stopped the procession and sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. This time David is not only in step with God’s instructions, but he also is fully mindful of the holiness of God and the need for sinful men to acknowledge that. It isn’t entirely a somber or serious occasion, however.
David engages in intimate, uninhibited worship, undeterred by the cynicism of his wife. It says in verse 14 that “David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets.” There’s a place in worship for celebration as well as sacrifice. In God’s presence we should both shudder and dance. Confession of sin and acknowledgment of God’s holiness is essential, but when one realizes that the almighty God of the universe has come to dwell among His people and is present with them in power, that’s cause for rejoicing and celebration, to be sure.
The story would end there, I suppose, except for a sidelight regarding Michal, the wife of David and the daughter of Saul. She watches from a window, and when she sees King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despises him in her heart. David is unaware of her scorn. After dancing, sacrificing, and blessing the people, he returns to his home to bless his own family. But it says in verse 20, “Michal, daughter of Saul, came out to meet him and said, ‘How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!” Her words are dripping with sarcasm as she exhibits concern for royal dignity, proper decorum, outward appearances, while at the same time impugning his holy zeal as nothing but exhibitionism. And David responds to her,
It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD’s people Israel–I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you speak of, I will be held in honor.”
Essentially David says to Michal, “I don’t care what you think of my behavior. I wasn’t dancing to you; I was dancing to the Lord. My spiritual freedom is not controlled by your evaluations.” I am somewhat humorously reminded of something that happened at our supper table when Andy was just four years old. He frequently volunteered to pray at the table, but then he would act very self-conscious and invariably begin to pray in baby talk. This time I asked him not to do that, but sure enough he did, so I interrupted him and said I would pray. He really shocked me by responding, “I wasn’t praying to you.” It was a little impudent, but he had a point. I guess God understands baby talk, as well as any other kind. We need to make sure we know who our audience is when we worship–the audience is God.
Not only is David unhappy with Michal; so is God, for it says in verse 23, “And Michal, daughter of Saul, had no children to the day of her death.” By the way, Michal is a tragic person in the story, but a study of her life reveals extenuating circumstances that put a very human face on her. Since I don’t have time this morning to explain, I will include some observations about her in a footnote.[vi]
I cannot leave this story without saying a few words here about uninhibited worship. We don’t know much about that here at First Free, frankly. We’re fairly reserved as a congregation; we tend to be thinkers more than feelers. Some of us may be tempted to look down on those who are more expressive in worship, even if that only means they like to raise their hands in worship or kneel when they pray.
You know, it’s OK to be reserved. In this story, no one was forced to dance with David. But it’s not OK to criticize those who worship differently. If the person is not an exhibitionist but is truly zealous for God, don’t rebuke them but thank God for their uninhibited worship.
There is one more point I would like to make in the form of a summary question for the entire message today:
How do we develop intimacy with God without allowing familiarity to breed contempt?
How can God’s presence become dominant in our thinking and controlling in our behavior?
Make sure to enter His presence because of truth, not just enthusiasm. David couldn’t enjoy God’s presence until he became aware of the absolute holiness of God. It’s interesting to me that this same lesson had to be learned by the early church. It took the death of Ananias and Sapphira to bring great fear, and subsequent great growth, to the church.
There are many who talk glibly about true worship but don’t have a clue as to what is involved because they don’t even know God. Jesus said in John 14, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” Every religion in the world makes vigorous claims about its ability to bring people into the presence of God, but Jesus’ words indicate that most are thieves trying to enter the sheepfold another way. No matter how hard you try or how much enthusiasm you generate, you can only become intimate with God if you come to Him through Jesus Christ.
Enter His presence obediently and reverently. God let Israel know in no uncertain terms that if they were going to enjoy His presence, they had to do so on His terms. That’s a lesson we need to learn as well. Time and again the Scriptures call God’s people to obedience. And those who willfully disobey are warned that “our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:29) We must not allow reason, or convenience, or expediency, or passion, or anything else to excuse disobedience to His Word.
But there’s a balance in this story, and it’s a balance that we find all through Scripture.
Enjoy the freedom that comes from intimacy. Our God is far above us, but he’s also accessible to us. He is infinitely great, but He is also infinitely small. We are to stand in awe of Him, but at the same time we can come boldly before His throne of mercy. Familiarity without contempt is what we are called to. You know, the reason we often become contemptuous of those we know well is because we become aware of their weaknesses and failings. But God has none, and as our understanding of His perfections increases, our awe and reverence and obedience should grow. But don’t be afraid to celebrate before Him.
In our churches are any number of folks like Michal who are very concerned with externals and procedures and mechanics and meetings and decency and order, but who really can’t understand anything of the joy of the Lord. There are some who can muster enthusiasm and gusto over professional sports (who will be yelling their heads off this afternoon during the playoff games) but who somehow cannot fathom anything but professional detachment over Jesus Christ. W. G. Blaikie has carefully drawn the line: “There are doubtless, times to be calm, and times to be enthusiastic, but can it be right to give all our coldness to Christ and all our enthusiasm to the world?”[vii]
Tags:
Ark of the Covenant
Obedience
Worship, uninhibited
Reverence
[i] Dale Ralph Davis, 2 Samuel: Out of Every Adversity, 63.
[ii] More than likely, Psalm 132 refers to this event:
O LORD, remember David and all the hardships he endured.
He swore an oath to the LORD and made a vow to the Mighty One of Jacob:
“I will not enter my house or go to my bed—I will allow no sleep to my eyes,
no slumber to my eyelids, till I find a place for the LORD,
a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.”
We heard it in Ephrathah, we came upon it in the fields of Jaar;
“Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool-
arise, O LORD, and come to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.
May your priests be clothed with righteousness; may your saints sing for joy.”
[iii]Eugene Peterson, Leap Over a Wall, 150.
[iv] I agree with the commentator (Davis, 64) who said that passages like this are evidence of the supernatural origin and trustworthiness of the Bible. This Uzzah story goes so against the grain of human preferences. We would never have “invented” a god like this–not if we want to win converts and influence people. This God is not very marketable.
[v] Peterson, 150-151.
[vi] We need a little background on Michal. Some of you recall when David’s popularity rose after he killed Goliath, Saul offered his younger daughter, Michal, to David in marriage in a diabolical plot to have him killed. The dowry Saul set was the foreskins of 100 Philistines, assuming that David would be slain in the process of gathering these trophies. Instead, David killed 200 Philistines, married Michal, and his popularity increased even more.
David loved Michal and she apparently loved him. When Saul conceived another dastardly plan to kill David, Michal shrewdly thwarted her father’s scheme and saved David’s life. But when David was finally forced to flee for his life and become an outlaw with a price on his head, Saul gave Michal to another man.
Years later, when Abner began negotiations with David about turning the northern eleven tribes over to him, David’s only demand was that Michal be returned to him (2 Samuel 3). Abner agreed, and Michal once again became the wife of David. The story of her second husband following after her, sobbing, is filled with pathos, and one can’t help but see Michal as an abused woman who is treated as mere property. The old attraction between her and David is never the same, perhaps because David now has many wives and enormous responsibilities.
Instead of attacking David, Michal should have worked out her own misery first with God, and then with David. Still, her heart mistake was shutting down on God in the middle of her pain. Her childlessness may have been as much a consequence of never having sex with David again, probably by mutual consent, as the result of divine judgment.
DATE: January 23, 2005
[vii] W. G. Blaikie, The Second Book of Samuel, 96.