Carting Around God’s Presence
[3] 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, [4] with the ark of God, and Ahio went before the ark.
[5] And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the LORD, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. [6] And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. [7] 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.
2 Samuel 6:3–7 ESV Read More
David is now king and is settling in to his kingdom at Jerusalem. The Ark of the God has been sitting off in some guys house, so it’s time to bring it up with the king and make everything right: the dwelling place of God in the same town as the throne of the king! To the Israelites, the Ark of the Covenant was a really big deal. It held the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. The lid was called the Mercy Seat. That didn’t mean that Mercy sat there, like a chair. It meant that the boss of Mercy was there like Boonville is the county seat of Warrick County.
God’s presence was on the Ark of the Covenant. When it went into battle, God’s enemies shook with terror. When they carried it across the Jordan River, the water stopped flowing so that Joshua and the Hebrews could cross into the promised land.
The celebration of the Ark coming to Jerusalem is like the celebration of God coming into your city. They have a king from God that they love, they have God’s presence, what more could they want?! They celebrated with bands and dancing and food and everything anybody would ever celebrate a great party with. They were partying like it was 999. (B.C. that is)
For all of the celebration and happiness, they were doing it wrong. God told Moses and all of Israel on the day that they built the Ark that they weren’t ever supposed to put it on a cart. It was created to be carried by men and only Mankind, made in God’s own image, would be worthy to carry it.
Throughout the scriptures, the things that point to the image of God are the most important things to God. Marriage, hospitality, sacrifice, the priesthood, are all things that God corrects hard when men get them wrong.
God’s presence, the resting place of the authority of mercy, belongs on men and women. It doesn’t matter how new the cart is, or how awesome the harps, castanets, and cymbals are. Jesus said that He Himself was more important than the Temple and even the Law. If we rest our salvation, or the glory that God deserves, on anything besides Him, we’ll die.
Uzzah didn’t die because he touched the Ark of the Covenant. He was a Levite, a descendant of Aaron, so he could even carry the Ark of the Covenant around. He was probably the one that put it on the cart in the first place. Uzzah died because he didn’t listen to God’s commission on his life. He thought oxen and a new cart could carry the Mercy Seat and the presence of God better than he could.
May we never underestimate how much God wants us and equips us to do things great and small. God can make His presence pop up anywhere, but He chooses it to be carried around by men and women that are adopted into His family. Let’s be those people today.
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