Know Your God • 2 Samuel 6

51:16 Teaching begins

Notes

The Bible shows the existence of God and what kind of person He is. He reveals Himself as He is in truth.

I wonder why people don’t want to know Him? But even in people who know God, who have the Holy Spirit upon them, there is this aversion to learning of God. It’s not godly. It’s what unbelievers do.

Here’s a situation where David is bringing the presence of God into the very centre of Israeli life but he is not careful to find out the right way to do it. Because he is ignorant he actually works against himself and does what unbelievers do. And when God reacts to his ignorance he is shocked, angry, fearful, unwilling, just like an unbeliever.

We are not at liberty to improvise with God. We must know God.

I’m reading in 2 Samuel 6.

1. David gathers together the choice men of Israel.

A. The word “choice” means you make a thorough examination, not a random selection. These are the top men of Israel out of a total population of 2 million people. I would think these are leaders of cities, of tribes and families.

B. David is drawing together the leaders of Israel to share in bringing the ark of God to the centre of Israel’s life.

2. Why would David want to make this a major national event? Because this is relevant, practical, useful, central to who Israel is.

A. Look at the detailed description of the ark: it is called by the Name, the very Name of the Lord of hosts who is enthroned above the cherubim.

1. The name of God refers to the qualities and character that are associated with God: gracious, compassionate. Those words are used of God alone in the Bible. Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and truth, who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. You need all these things to have a relationship with God, a bond that unites as one. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations Exodus 34:6-7.

2. He is enthroned above the cherubim. God’s throne is above four living beings. One of these is called “cherub” the plural is cherubim. The ark has this representation of the cherubim. This is the throne of God among His people.

3. In Exodus 25 the ark is the first item God commanded to be made as part of His tent with which He would live among His people. God always intended to live and rule in the midst of His people.

B. For at least 20 years and more the ark has not been at the centre of Israeli life.

1. In the parallel passage in 1 Chronicles 13:3 David says, “We did not seek it in the days of Saul.”

2. Saul did not emphasise that vital fact that Israel was God’s people. This is natural for Saul, because God fired him from being king and he didn’t want to give up being king. It was natural for a king in rebellion against God to move the focus away from God, de-emphasise Him. Ignore God.

3. It is natural for all people to disregard God and ignore Him. We are studying this in Romans on Friday nights, that people knew God but they didn’t worship Him as God nor were they thankful. But they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image of men, animals, creeping things.

4. That’s where people are destroyed, for lack of knowledge of God.

C. But here’s David, chosen by God, anointed with the Holy Spirit to be God’s representative king. His goal is to make God the centre of focus in Israel. He is their Creator, their Redeemer, their Saviour. To have God at the very heart of Israel is reasonable, practical, relevant, useful.

3. How ironic, that in the process of putting God at the centre David experiences disaster.

A. They place the ark on a new cart which has never been used. That’s out of honour for God, you never give God something somebody else used first. That’s dishonouring to God. You always give to God the very best.

B. The people are celebrating, worshipping, singing, rejoicing in God.

C. The oxen stumble and almost throw off the ark of God from the cart. Ahio is front, Uzzah is in back, he sees that and puts out a hand to steady the ark and prevent disaster—but God kills him for his irreverence.

D. 30,000 people freeze. It’s quiet. No more celebration. They all back away from the ark, scared to death. David says, “I think everybody ought to go home. We’re not bringing the ark to Jerusalem today.”

E. David parks the ark on the cart at a nearby house belonging to Obed-edom the Gittite. He’s a Philistine from Gath living in Israel. Um, we have to leave this here, is that all right with you? Please, whatever you do, for your own safety, do not let anyone near this. We’ll be in touch with you.

F. David has multiple reactions to this.

1. He’s angry. “I’m bringing You into the centre of focus in Israel and You kill a guy for touching the ark. Is that reasonable? It was going to dump into the road. Are You serious? Why would You shut this day down? Am I crazy to bring Your ark into Jerusalem?”

2. Even while he’s angry, he’s also afraid. This is not the fear of the Lord, the awesome reverence which is clean and endures forever. This is fear, dread, danger. This is like an a-bomb that could go off at any time. It could kill us all and we wouldn’t even know what for!

3. David’s third reaction is: he’s unwilling to bring the ark to Jerusalem. It was his idea as the anointed of the Lord. But right now, unh unh, no way, can’t do it. He was totally up for it before. But now it’s too dangerous.

4. Anger, fear, unwillingness—these are how unbelievers act towards God because they don’t understand what God is doing. Why would God do this? I wouldn’t do that! God is unreasonable, He is unpredictable, He’s crazy. But that’s not intelligent. That all comes from not knowing God and His holiness.

4. God is not unpredictable and scary, He’s incredibly good. We see that in verse 11.

A. Obed-edom is a Gentile, a Philistine, he’s not one of God’s people. He’s just some guy.

B. But God is blessing all of Obed-edom’s family, all his work, all his business, anything and everything Obed-edom does goes well. There’s happiness and peace and joy. This is the best three months of Obed-edom’s whole life. It’s because the presence of God is right there. God is terrible to have against you, and He’s fabulous when He is for you.

C. And David hears this news. See, this is what David wants for all Israel. If God can bless one single Gentile guy, certainly He will bless the whole nation.

5. So David says, “Let’s do this,” but this time David brings in the ark in the right way, with knowledge and understanding, vv. 12-19.

A. Notice they are not using a cart with oxen. There are men carrying the ark.

1. 1 Chronicles 15:2 Then David said, “No one is to carry the ark of God but the Levites; for the LORD chose them to carry the ark of God and to minister to Him forever.” 1 Chronicles 15:11-15 Then David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and for the Levites, for Uriel, Asaiah, Joel, Shemaiah, Eliel and Amminadab, and said to them, “You are the heads of the fathers’ households of the Levites; consecrate yourselves both you and your relatives, that you may bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel to the place that I have prepared for it. Because you did not carry it at the first, the LORD our God made an outburst on us, for we did not seek Him according to the ordinance.” So the priests and the Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel. The sons of the Levites carried the ark of God on their shoulders with the poles thereon, as Moses had commanded according to the word of the LORD.

2. In fact, in Numbers 4:20 God said that the high priest was to cover up the ark with cloth and skins that no Levite would be able to see it, that they may carry it and not die.

3. David went back to Moses and found out God has shown His people the proper way to transport His ark. Only consecrated Levites are authorised to carry the ark on poles that go through rings mounted on the ark.

B. God was not unpredictable and unreasonable. Uzzah died because David was ignorant.

1. Can you imagine the first time they went for the ark? There are the golden poles. What are those things? I dunno, leave them. What are these rings on the ark for? Dunno. C’mon, grab this and let’s get it on the cart.

2. Where did the cart idea come from? That’s the way the Philistines ignorantly returned the ark to Israel in 1 Samuel 6. They didn’t know anything about God. They’re not His people. God didn’t hold it against them.

3. That means David copied the Philistines who don’t know God, don’t have a relationship with God. He’s wanting to bring God into the centre of Israeli life, but he’s acting like Gentiles who don’t know God.

4. God was not acting in an irrational way when He struck Uzzah. David was worshipping God ignorantly.

C. What else don’t they know? You can bet that Moses is very important for them right now. They are finding out you can’t make up your own way to serve God. You are to serve God intelligently, with all your mind, as well as with all your strength.

D. Now they know the right way to transport the ark. And they even offer a sacrifice on the sixth step to say, “We were ignorant. Please forgive us.”

E. And they can now celebrate and rejoice in reverence but not terror because they know this is the right way to bring God into the centre of Israeli life and no one is going to get hurt. There’s nothing to fear. God will bless us with His presence. This is the new normal.

6. But for some people this is too much. David’s wife Michal thinks David’s devotion is improper, embarrassing, fanatic, vv. 20-23.

A. She wanted no part of this shocking public display of worship and devotion to God.

1. You’ll notice that she did not leave the palace that day. She watched from the windows and despised the whole idea of focusing everyone on the presence of God.

2. She despised David. She found his intensity undignified, inappropriate, and fanatic. It’s not kingly—meaning, not like my dad. It’s outside the norm. Shame on you.

B. She finds no sympathy with David.

1. She despises what David holds most valuable in life: relationship with God.

2. Does that make sense? Really? God chose me over your father’s house and made me rule over Israel. I am going to live in the presence of the Lord. I’m going to live even more extremely for the Lord. You might lightly esteem me. I will lightly esteem you.

3. David was not going to further Michal’s attitude with having children with her. Can you imagine her teaching the kids? “Listen, sweetheart, Daddy is crazy, so don’t listen to him or act like him. You be normal just like me.”

C. Michal keeps her dignity, but she loses out on relationship with David and with God.

7. So what? You have to know your God.

A. God has revealed how we are to live with Him in relationship. We are to be united to Him in Jesus Christ. Jesus is to be in the centre of our lives. It’s His presence in us that blesses us. Every area of our lives is to be touched and blessed by Jesus.

B. That means we are to know what we’re doing. There is a right way to live for Jesus. It’s right there in the New and the Old Testaments. We are responsible to learn how to live with God.

C. We can’t make it up as we please, or copy what unbelievers do. People do this! They do things that are unbiblical, they copy unbelievers, they have zeal without knowledge. They go after feelings, they substitute psychology, they make stuff up. People go for it because they don’t know what the Bible says. There’s this idea that the Bible is so old and we are a new generation. Maybe there’s some shame in there. Embarrassed to stand up for six-day creation, embarrassed to stand up for Jesus died and rose from the dead three days later. There is no Christianity apart from the death and resurrection of Jesus. Are we saying we are too sophisticated to believe that anymore?

D. A true leader is going to point people to the Bible. He will say the Bible is inerrant and infallible. You can trust the Bible, it will never fail you or betray you. That is the only way to know God. If someone doesn’t lead people to the Bible don’t follow him. He doesn’t know God.

E. You are going to stand before Jesus and be judged by Him. How do you want to stand there? The answer is: you will be confident, because you know that you have lived with Jesus in the right way, just like He said to do. You have heard His word and you have done His word.

1. That first command is to repent and believe in the good news, that Jesus died for your sins and rose again on the third day. You believe in forgiveness for your sins.

2. You obey His command to take His yoke upon yourself and learn of Him. He’s going to teach you about Himself. You listen and learn. You read your Bible, you memorise verses and meditate on them. You fill yourself with the word of God because Jesus said, “If you continue in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:31-32 If you don’t continue in Jesus’ word, how are you His disciple?

3. You persevere in following Him. When you sin or make a mistake you come back to Him. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive is our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, 1 John 1:9. Whatever happens, you stick with Jesus and follow Him.

4. This is normal. This is the way God made you to be: to be born again of His Holy Spirit and to live with Him. This is right, good, proper, relevant, practical. Life doesn’t work without Jesus.

F. Somebody will criticise you and make you feel like a weirdo for following Jesus. That’s too extreme, that’s embarrassing to me personally. That’s fanatical. You are not normal. That’s when you have to know your God.

1. If you are ignorant of God, then you even believe in your heart, yeah, this is a little crazy. I’ll follow Jesus but I’ll keep my dignity. I won’t go too far overboard. I won’t step too far out of line with everyone else around me. If I do it right, no one will know that I’m a Christian. I’ll keep my dignity.

2. If you know Jesus, then you will be able to stand your ground and say, “Love, forgiveness of sins, mercy, they’re not crazy. There’s nothing stupid or fanatic about Jesus. We’ll see who is ashamed in 100 years.” Jesus rose from the dead, He is the resurrection and the life. He is the only eternal life there is. He is the only Saviour. He is the only Redeemer who can save our lives. There is no shame in receiving the love of God. It’s not crazy to love God in return. There’s nothing wicked, evil, or immoral about loving Jesus, but it is immoral and wicked to not love Him.

E. If you have to lose your dignity in this wicked and sinful world, so be it. Shame the world by living right.

Let’s pray.