The children of Israel wandered in the desert for years following their miraculous delivery from Egypt. Deuteronomy 1:32 says that in spite of all God did for them, Israel lived in unbelief—and their wandering continued.
“We skirted Mount Seir for many days” (Deuteronomy 2:1). Several things are helpful to know about this statement. First, the word “skirted” means they circled around outside the area of Mount Seir. Second, they had to go through the Mount Seir area to get to their destiny, the Promised Land. Third, the term “many days” is an awkward way of saying that this period lasted thirty-eight years. Thirty-eight years—and they didn’t possess what God had promised them because of unbelief!
“And the Lord spoke to me [Moses], saying: ‘You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward” (2:2-3).
Israel was avoiding possessing their “promised land” because fear and unbelief kept them from going through a dangerous area. Mount Seir was the region where the descendants of Esau lived. Esau and Jacob were brothers and the bitterness between them was well known. Jacob was afraid of Esau because he (Jacob) had taken his birthright and through trickery and deceit had stolen the blessing that rightfully belonged to Esau.
The descendants of Jacob were afraid of what the family of Esau (also known as the Edomites) might do to them if they entered their territory. Finally God said, “That’s enough waffling and unbelief. Turn north—and do it now!”
The use of the word mountain in Scripture often refers to opposition or an obstacle blocking our pathway (see Zechariah 4:7 and Matthew 17:20). In the wilderness wandering of the Jews, it was the obstacle of the mountain and its people (Esau’s family) they were avoiding.
In Matthew 17:20, Jesus responds to a question from His disciples about why they could not cast the devil out of a young boy by answering, “Because of your unbelief . . . I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”
Jesus was not talking about physical mountains but about obstacles, opposition, impossibilities that stand in the way of our possessing the future God has for us. We all have mountains that are standing between us and the possessing of the promises God has quickened to our heart.
I had a huge mountain in my life that for years I refused to deal with. In the mid-90s I began having pain in my right hip that progressively grew worse. Whenever I was asked if I was okay, my response was always, “I’m fine, no problem.” But I wasn’t fine and the problem was getting worse. The pain spread to my left hip so I asked my family doctor to take a look. He examined me, looked at my x-rays and then laughed, and said, “It’s called arthritis and it happens to a lot of us.” He gave me a prescription for Celebrex and I never brought it up to him again. However, the pain and discomfort kept getting worse and through it all I tried to never complain. If someone asked why I was so hobbled, my response was always kind of flippant: “Hey, no big deal. I’m fine.” I thought I was being a good and faithful soldier.
Finally, in the summer of 2006, my wife and my friend Bill Prather convinced me that I needed to see an orthopedic specialist, which I reluctantly agreed to do. The doctor really did a number on me! After viewing my new x-rays, he looked at me and said, “I don’t know how you even walk, as both hips are bone-on-bone. Unless you have something done, within months you will be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. You are in denial!” I felt like he yelled the final words at me; he didn’t, but I was stunned and angry!
When we got home I went into my office, sat down, and looked up to heaven. “So, this is what I get? I give You my life and . . .?” I caught myself in mid-sentence as I realized I really was in denial and the full impact of it burst upon me. What happened next is what we in Texas call “a come-to-Jesus meeting.” I sat in my office and cried and repented as I asked God to forgive me.
Denial is to know what is true and yet confess a falsehood. Denial is a form of unbelief and I was very guilty of it. It is not faith to say that a problem that exists does not. No, that’s not faith—it’s a lie! Faith is when you say, “I have a problem but I believe God for a full and complete victory.”
After I got my bad attitude straightened out, the Lord helped me understand that I had a destiny on the other side of the problem. And I spoke the Word to the mountain, “If you have faith . . . you will say to this mountain, Move . . . and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).
Where there had been no solution, the Lord sovereignly began to open doors and He brought in a harvest of miracles that resulted in surgery—completely paid for! On December 3, 2006, ten days after surgery, I arrived home in Dallas, walked off the plane free of any pain—and it has never come back.
The person who lives in denial brings upon himself a double jeopardy. First is the unbelief, and that births its own fruit. Second, you cannot speak to the mountain as Jesus taught us because you have said, “There is no mountain!”
I circled around in front of my problem in denial far too long. Finally, the Lord said, “That’s enough of that. Turn north—and do it now!”
So how do we speak to a mountain? We speak in the name of Jesus and on the authority of His Word and command it to get out of our way. We speak to the obstacle and say, “My future, my destiny, what God has promised me, lies on the other side of you. You can either get out of my way or I will climb over you—or tunnel through you—but no matter what, I’m going forward to my promised land.”
Face your mountain and speak to it in the name of Jesus!
Friday, October 28, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
DELIGHT YOURSELF IN THE LORD
One of the richest promise passages in Scripture is Psalm 37:3-5:
“Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.”
This is a promise on which you can center your life, your ministry, your family, your future. It is a passage to embrace and draw on for your whole life.
There is so much truth in this passage that one or two readings are not enough to begin to scratch the surface of what is here. I recently read a wonderful statement about truth and how we take it into our lives.
“Truth is something like the cluster (grapes) of the vine: if we would have wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it many times. The bruiser’s feet must come down joyfully upon the bunches, or else the juice will not flow; and they must tread well the grapes, or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. So we must . . . tread the clusters of truth” (Morning and Evening, Charles Spurgeon).
Simply put, if we are going to get the richness out of these verses in Psalm 37, we must not hurry through them or rush away from them. We need to mark them and return to them over and over until, just as with the winepress, we get all the richness out of them.
When God informed Joshua that he was the new leader of the Jewish people, one of the instructions He gave to him was, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night. . . . For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (Joshua 1:8).
God was not saying to him that he should literally eat the Word but that he should take it to himself and study it, think about it, spend time with it and let the Word speak to him. This is what meditating is—rehearsing or repeating the Word over and over as it slowly releases its riches to us.
It is always our choice to trust or dwell in the richness of the land, the territory that God has destined for us.
It seems impossible that it has been almost ten months since I began to receive treatment on the cancer in my throat. (Praise the Lord that all the current scans show no evidence of any cancer remaining in the throat or the neck! To God be all the glory!) Every morning for 39 days I had radiation on my throat. While the treatment lasted only 20 or 25 minutes, I had to remain completely immobile with my head secured to the table under the radiation equipment. A mask was fitted to my face and fastened to the table to ensure that my head did not move; it was slightly claustrophobic and made me look like Freddie Krueger!
I found there were two ways for me to get through this time without anxiety. The first was to worship. I would simply begin to praise and worship the Lord nonverbally. Any anxiety or apprehension would be overtaken by the presence of the Lord . . . it was glorious! I had some wonderful times with the Lord while the “death star,” as I called the radiation equipment, hovered over me.
The second way I got through these times was to recite passages of Scripture that I had memorized or thought I had. I would slowly work my way through a passage like Joshua 1:1-9, or Psalm 23 or Psalm 91. More than once I would get so caught up in rehearsing a verse or a phrase that the attendant would have to tell me the session for the day was over. These were rich moments as, in Charles Spurgeon’s language, I was crushing the grapes to squeeze more of the richness and flavor out.
Practically, what I have just described is the meditation that God spoke to Joshua about. It is my personal belief that one of the aspects of “delighting yourself in the Lord” is this very process. Delighting yourself in the Lord means that you are inclined toward the Lord. Those who do not value the Word of God never have time to read the Word, study the Word, or give thought to the Word, and so they almost never get to enjoy the release of the goodness, the richness of the Word.
I tried for too long to complicate my understanding of the phrase, “Delight yourself in the Lord.” I tried to make it far too complicated and esoteric. I finally came to realize what a mistake I was making and that I just needed to relax and enjoy the goodness of God; enjoy the blessing of being in Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit; enjoy the richness of His Word, the richness of fellowship with fellow believers, and the excitement of following His leading for my life. I am finally learning, after all these years, to delight myself in Him—and it is good!
“Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.”
This is a promise on which you can center your life, your ministry, your family, your future. It is a passage to embrace and draw on for your whole life.
There is so much truth in this passage that one or two readings are not enough to begin to scratch the surface of what is here. I recently read a wonderful statement about truth and how we take it into our lives.
“Truth is something like the cluster (grapes) of the vine: if we would have wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it many times. The bruiser’s feet must come down joyfully upon the bunches, or else the juice will not flow; and they must tread well the grapes, or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. So we must . . . tread the clusters of truth” (Morning and Evening, Charles Spurgeon).
Simply put, if we are going to get the richness out of these verses in Psalm 37, we must not hurry through them or rush away from them. We need to mark them and return to them over and over until, just as with the winepress, we get all the richness out of them.
When God informed Joshua that he was the new leader of the Jewish people, one of the instructions He gave to him was, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night. . . . For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (Joshua 1:8).
God was not saying to him that he should literally eat the Word but that he should take it to himself and study it, think about it, spend time with it and let the Word speak to him. This is what meditating is—rehearsing or repeating the Word over and over as it slowly releases its riches to us.
It is always our choice to trust or dwell in the richness of the land, the territory that God has destined for us.
It seems impossible that it has been almost ten months since I began to receive treatment on the cancer in my throat. (Praise the Lord that all the current scans show no evidence of any cancer remaining in the throat or the neck! To God be all the glory!) Every morning for 39 days I had radiation on my throat. While the treatment lasted only 20 or 25 minutes, I had to remain completely immobile with my head secured to the table under the radiation equipment. A mask was fitted to my face and fastened to the table to ensure that my head did not move; it was slightly claustrophobic and made me look like Freddie Krueger!
I found there were two ways for me to get through this time without anxiety. The first was to worship. I would simply begin to praise and worship the Lord nonverbally. Any anxiety or apprehension would be overtaken by the presence of the Lord . . . it was glorious! I had some wonderful times with the Lord while the “death star,” as I called the radiation equipment, hovered over me.
The second way I got through these times was to recite passages of Scripture that I had memorized or thought I had. I would slowly work my way through a passage like Joshua 1:1-9, or Psalm 23 or Psalm 91. More than once I would get so caught up in rehearsing a verse or a phrase that the attendant would have to tell me the session for the day was over. These were rich moments as, in Charles Spurgeon’s language, I was crushing the grapes to squeeze more of the richness and flavor out.
Practically, what I have just described is the meditation that God spoke to Joshua about. It is my personal belief that one of the aspects of “delighting yourself in the Lord” is this very process. Delighting yourself in the Lord means that you are inclined toward the Lord. Those who do not value the Word of God never have time to read the Word, study the Word, or give thought to the Word, and so they almost never get to enjoy the release of the goodness, the richness of the Word.
I tried for too long to complicate my understanding of the phrase, “Delight yourself in the Lord.” I tried to make it far too complicated and esoteric. I finally came to realize what a mistake I was making and that I just needed to relax and enjoy the goodness of God; enjoy the blessing of being in Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit; enjoy the richness of His Word, the richness of fellowship with fellow believers, and the excitement of following His leading for my life. I am finally learning, after all these years, to delight myself in Him—and it is good!
Friday, October 14, 2011
GOD ALWAYS HAS YOUR FUTURE IN VIEW
Carol and I were recently in Colorado Springs, CO, at the headquarters of Every Home for Christ to participate in the 65th Anniversary Celebration of this outstanding missionary/evangelism ministry. If you are unfamiliar with this ministry, here is a link to their website: www.ehc.org.
One statistic that never ceases to bless me is that the EHC offices around the world have recorded over one hundred million decisions for Christ since 1953 (yes, those number are correct)! These decisions represent individuals who have contacted one of the EHC offices and said, “I have invited Jesus into my heart . . . please tell me more!” The goal of the ministry is to take the gospel to every home on earth and they are aggressively pressing ahead to reach the last home!
I served as the Executive Vice President of EHC (it was known then as World Literature Crusade) from 1974 to 1982. The latter years when we were there were very turbulent, as the ministry was transitioning and being prepared for the years ahead. At times the upheaval became so severe that I wasn’t sure if the ministry could survive for more than a few more weeks or months. It was very emotional for me to address the gathered leaders at the Anniversary Celebration last month and realize that not only had the organization survived but it is stronger and more vibrant now than at any time in the past. To God be the glory!
You can call it change or you can call it growth but whatever you call it, it is important! President John Kennedy used to say, “Without change there can be no progress” and while that is true, it leaves out one important element: change is painful! Human nature is often very resistant to change because it requires us to step out into unfamiliar territory. We usually are afraid of what we don’t know, and because of that, we become resistant to it.
When the President of EHC asked me to speak at the Anniversary Celebration, he specifically asked me to share some of the things that, from my point of view, allowed the ministry to successfully navigate the transition period. The Lord put four things on my heart to share.
1. GOD CALLED EHC INTO BEING TO DO ONE THING
“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). The calling and primary purpose for the existence of EHC was to fulfill this command. Staying faithful to the fundamental focus brings the full release of God’s provision and protection. Allowing secondary causes to become primary moves the organization or person out from under God’s full protection.
2. EHC WAS ESTABLISHED ON A BASE OF PRAYER
From the very beginning of the ministry in 1946, the founder called for friends, partners and staff to join him in continual prayer for this outreach to the lost. EHC has never lost that zeal or understanding that “God’s armies go forward on their knees.” The founder, Dr. Jack McAlister, developed a “World Prayer Map” that assists praying friends to go to every country in the world through prayer. The current president, Dick Eastman, has enhanced the prayer ministry greatly and EHC continues to move forward through the power of prayer.
3. FAITH PLEASES GOD
Every Home for Christ is and has always been a faith ministry, meaning that no one underwrites or guarantees that the needs of the ministry will be met—except God. Every day the staff prays and trusts God for what is needed. Faith pleases God and when He is pleased, His blessing, His protection, His provision flow.
4. WE WERE A COMMUNITY OF BELIEVERS
“In a multitude of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 24:6). How I thank God for the counselors He put into my life who made themselves available to all of us who were in the leadership of EHC during the years we were there. More than once the obstacles facing us were so overwhelming that it seemed impossible to survive. We prayed, trusted Him and reached out to our counselors, and God brought incredible answers to impossible situations!
Most of us are familiar with the story of Joseph and how God used Him to save the lives of his family and the future of the Jewish people. Joseph’s story is told in Genesis chapters 35 through 50. A favorite of his father, Joseph was not particularly humble or discreet as a young man, and his brothers hated him for it. Out of their hatred, the brothers decided to kill Joseph but at the last minute they changed course and sold him to nomadic traders on their way to Egypt.
The angry brothers thought they had seen the last of Joseph and I’m sure at that moment that Joseph thought he had seen the last of his family but God had a totally different picture in mind. God knew the future and while it would take years to fully develop, He was going to use Joseph’s troubles to bring deliverance to his family and to his nation.
Twenty years passed and finally in Genesis 45 we see Joseph reunited with his brothers. He told them he was not angry and they were not to be distressed at what had happened. Everything had been planned by God for the deliverance of their family and the future of the Jewish people. All through the whole episode, God had the future clearly fixed in His view.
In the natural I cannot see the future past the end of my nose, but God is not limited as we are. Stay faithful and tightly connected to Him, as He sees your future clearly! With that understanding in mind, carefully read Psalm 37:23: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He [God] delights in his [our] way.”
One statistic that never ceases to bless me is that the EHC offices around the world have recorded over one hundred million decisions for Christ since 1953 (yes, those number are correct)! These decisions represent individuals who have contacted one of the EHC offices and said, “I have invited Jesus into my heart . . . please tell me more!” The goal of the ministry is to take the gospel to every home on earth and they are aggressively pressing ahead to reach the last home!
I served as the Executive Vice President of EHC (it was known then as World Literature Crusade) from 1974 to 1982. The latter years when we were there were very turbulent, as the ministry was transitioning and being prepared for the years ahead. At times the upheaval became so severe that I wasn’t sure if the ministry could survive for more than a few more weeks or months. It was very emotional for me to address the gathered leaders at the Anniversary Celebration last month and realize that not only had the organization survived but it is stronger and more vibrant now than at any time in the past. To God be the glory!
You can call it change or you can call it growth but whatever you call it, it is important! President John Kennedy used to say, “Without change there can be no progress” and while that is true, it leaves out one important element: change is painful! Human nature is often very resistant to change because it requires us to step out into unfamiliar territory. We usually are afraid of what we don’t know, and because of that, we become resistant to it.
When the President of EHC asked me to speak at the Anniversary Celebration, he specifically asked me to share some of the things that, from my point of view, allowed the ministry to successfully navigate the transition period. The Lord put four things on my heart to share.
1. GOD CALLED EHC INTO BEING TO DO ONE THING
“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). The calling and primary purpose for the existence of EHC was to fulfill this command. Staying faithful to the fundamental focus brings the full release of God’s provision and protection. Allowing secondary causes to become primary moves the organization or person out from under God’s full protection.
2. EHC WAS ESTABLISHED ON A BASE OF PRAYER
From the very beginning of the ministry in 1946, the founder called for friends, partners and staff to join him in continual prayer for this outreach to the lost. EHC has never lost that zeal or understanding that “God’s armies go forward on their knees.” The founder, Dr. Jack McAlister, developed a “World Prayer Map” that assists praying friends to go to every country in the world through prayer. The current president, Dick Eastman, has enhanced the prayer ministry greatly and EHC continues to move forward through the power of prayer.
3. FAITH PLEASES GOD
Every Home for Christ is and has always been a faith ministry, meaning that no one underwrites or guarantees that the needs of the ministry will be met—except God. Every day the staff prays and trusts God for what is needed. Faith pleases God and when He is pleased, His blessing, His protection, His provision flow.
4. WE WERE A COMMUNITY OF BELIEVERS
“In a multitude of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 24:6). How I thank God for the counselors He put into my life who made themselves available to all of us who were in the leadership of EHC during the years we were there. More than once the obstacles facing us were so overwhelming that it seemed impossible to survive. We prayed, trusted Him and reached out to our counselors, and God brought incredible answers to impossible situations!
Most of us are familiar with the story of Joseph and how God used Him to save the lives of his family and the future of the Jewish people. Joseph’s story is told in Genesis chapters 35 through 50. A favorite of his father, Joseph was not particularly humble or discreet as a young man, and his brothers hated him for it. Out of their hatred, the brothers decided to kill Joseph but at the last minute they changed course and sold him to nomadic traders on their way to Egypt.
The angry brothers thought they had seen the last of Joseph and I’m sure at that moment that Joseph thought he had seen the last of his family but God had a totally different picture in mind. God knew the future and while it would take years to fully develop, He was going to use Joseph’s troubles to bring deliverance to his family and to his nation.
Twenty years passed and finally in Genesis 45 we see Joseph reunited with his brothers. He told them he was not angry and they were not to be distressed at what had happened. Everything had been planned by God for the deliverance of their family and the future of the Jewish people. All through the whole episode, God had the future clearly fixed in His view.
In the natural I cannot see the future past the end of my nose, but God is not limited as we are. Stay faithful and tightly connected to Him, as He sees your future clearly! With that understanding in mind, carefully read Psalm 37:23: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He [God] delights in his [our] way.”
Friday, October 7, 2011
BRINGING HOME THE ARK
One of the more shocking incidents (at least to me) in the Old Testament is found in 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13-15. King David was bringing the ark of God back to Jerusalem . . . and Indiana Jones was not involved (that’s not the shocking part).
The Philistines had captured the ark but they quickly found that Jehovah was not going to allow it to be added to their motley collection of tribal gods taken in battle. The predicament the Philistines found themselves in was actually quite hilarious. In an attempt to debase Jehovah, the Philistines took the ark into the temple of their chief idol, Dagon, and placed it at the feet of Dagon to indicate its submission and inferiority. The next morning the Philistines found Dagon had fallen prostrate in front of the ark.
The Philistines tried the same thing a second time and when they came back to the temple, they found that not only had Dagon fallen prostrate again but this time its head and hands had broken off. But that wasn’t the only thing that happened to the Philistines because they kidnapped the ark. A plague broke out among them—but not just any plague, it was a plague of hemorrhoids. Now that will get your attention!
The embarrassment of Dagon (1 Samuel 5) and the plague was enough to make the Philistines decide to return the ark before a more severe calamity befell them. In their hurry to get rid of it, they dumped it in one of the outlying villages of Israel.
David was anxious to have the ark back in Jerusalem and at the center of Israel’s worship, and we read in 2 Samuel 6 how he and his army went to retrieve it. The ark was considered to be the most important item in the tabernacle and it sat in the Holy of Holies, deep inside the portable temple. On the top of the ark was the mercy seat and once a year, the high priest would go in and sprinkle the blood of a sacrifice there. The ark was a symbol of God’s presence, a visible sign that God was dwelling in Israel’s midst.
David and his men prepared a “new cart” for the ark to ride on and the journey back home became one of celebration with singing and music. How fitting! It was shaping up to be a new day in Israel—the ark was coming home and riding in style on a new cart. However, the travelling worship service was interrupted when the oxen pulling the cart stumbled and Uzzah, one of the cart drivers, reached out to steady it and without warning was struck dead. A simple helpful gesture—and he was struck dead!
David reacted in anger, frustration and fear. “How can I ever bring the ark home?” he cried, and then he had the ark sidetracked to a nearby property. What does this mean to us? What can we learn from this story?
David was passionate about bringing the visible symbol of God’s presence back to the mainstream of Israel. Not only was the ark a symbol but God’s presence seemed to linger on the ark, as the Philistines and Uzzah had discovered. David’s intention was righteous, but somehow something had gone wrong.
David had cried, “How can I ever bring the ark home?” His frustration and anger boiled over because it seemed impossible for the nation to ever again experience the presence of God. David’s dream was dying right before his eyes.
Why had this happened? Why had Uzzah been struck dead? Who was to blame?
The answer is that David and the leadership of Israel were to blame. They did not take time to find out how the ark was to be transported so they came up with their own idea and built a “new cart” for the ark to ride on. This smacks of arrogance and sounds rather like some today who blithely declare, “We have a better way! We understand what it will take to reach this generation—we know how to be more relevant.” And so they build what they declare is a new and better cart.
David’s mistake was that he tried to implement a new methodology when God had already clearly laid out how the ark was to be moved. 1 Chronicles 15:3-15 says that the ark was to be carried on the shoulders of the priests, and that was the only way it was to be moved . . . ever! Here’s how that translates to us: We are the priests of the New Covenant (1 Peter 2:9). Our shoulders represent our worship, our praise, our sacrifice of thanksgiving and that worship and praise will usher in the presence of the Lord. It is our worship that brings the presence of the Lord, not “the new cart,” not our surroundings nor our programs. It is the praise and worship of God’s people that He responds to. “But You are holy, O You Who dwell in (inhabit) the praises of Israel” (Psalm 22:3, Amplified Bible).
The mistake of David and the leadership of Israel continues to be repeated today. Instead of inquiring of the Lord to see how we should proceed, we get busy building a new cart. After all, we reason, it’s a new day and we should have a new cart! And so with big wheels and boards, we build ourselves a new cart, only to find at the end of the day that God had a plan all along and we didn’t take time to find it. The mistakes of the past live on.
“Bringing home the ark” means understanding what God wants and making the appropriate changes.
We can “bring home the ark!”
The Philistines had captured the ark but they quickly found that Jehovah was not going to allow it to be added to their motley collection of tribal gods taken in battle. The predicament the Philistines found themselves in was actually quite hilarious. In an attempt to debase Jehovah, the Philistines took the ark into the temple of their chief idol, Dagon, and placed it at the feet of Dagon to indicate its submission and inferiority. The next morning the Philistines found Dagon had fallen prostrate in front of the ark.
The Philistines tried the same thing a second time and when they came back to the temple, they found that not only had Dagon fallen prostrate again but this time its head and hands had broken off. But that wasn’t the only thing that happened to the Philistines because they kidnapped the ark. A plague broke out among them—but not just any plague, it was a plague of hemorrhoids. Now that will get your attention!
The embarrassment of Dagon (1 Samuel 5) and the plague was enough to make the Philistines decide to return the ark before a more severe calamity befell them. In their hurry to get rid of it, they dumped it in one of the outlying villages of Israel.
David was anxious to have the ark back in Jerusalem and at the center of Israel’s worship, and we read in 2 Samuel 6 how he and his army went to retrieve it. The ark was considered to be the most important item in the tabernacle and it sat in the Holy of Holies, deep inside the portable temple. On the top of the ark was the mercy seat and once a year, the high priest would go in and sprinkle the blood of a sacrifice there. The ark was a symbol of God’s presence, a visible sign that God was dwelling in Israel’s midst.
David and his men prepared a “new cart” for the ark to ride on and the journey back home became one of celebration with singing and music. How fitting! It was shaping up to be a new day in Israel—the ark was coming home and riding in style on a new cart. However, the travelling worship service was interrupted when the oxen pulling the cart stumbled and Uzzah, one of the cart drivers, reached out to steady it and without warning was struck dead. A simple helpful gesture—and he was struck dead!
David reacted in anger, frustration and fear. “How can I ever bring the ark home?” he cried, and then he had the ark sidetracked to a nearby property. What does this mean to us? What can we learn from this story?
David was passionate about bringing the visible symbol of God’s presence back to the mainstream of Israel. Not only was the ark a symbol but God’s presence seemed to linger on the ark, as the Philistines and Uzzah had discovered. David’s intention was righteous, but somehow something had gone wrong.
David had cried, “How can I ever bring the ark home?” His frustration and anger boiled over because it seemed impossible for the nation to ever again experience the presence of God. David’s dream was dying right before his eyes.
Why had this happened? Why had Uzzah been struck dead? Who was to blame?
The answer is that David and the leadership of Israel were to blame. They did not take time to find out how the ark was to be transported so they came up with their own idea and built a “new cart” for the ark to ride on. This smacks of arrogance and sounds rather like some today who blithely declare, “We have a better way! We understand what it will take to reach this generation—we know how to be more relevant.” And so they build what they declare is a new and better cart.
David’s mistake was that he tried to implement a new methodology when God had already clearly laid out how the ark was to be moved. 1 Chronicles 15:3-15 says that the ark was to be carried on the shoulders of the priests, and that was the only way it was to be moved . . . ever! Here’s how that translates to us: We are the priests of the New Covenant (1 Peter 2:9). Our shoulders represent our worship, our praise, our sacrifice of thanksgiving and that worship and praise will usher in the presence of the Lord. It is our worship that brings the presence of the Lord, not “the new cart,” not our surroundings nor our programs. It is the praise and worship of God’s people that He responds to. “But You are holy, O You Who dwell in (inhabit) the praises of Israel” (Psalm 22:3, Amplified Bible).
The mistake of David and the leadership of Israel continues to be repeated today. Instead of inquiring of the Lord to see how we should proceed, we get busy building a new cart. After all, we reason, it’s a new day and we should have a new cart! And so with big wheels and boards, we build ourselves a new cart, only to find at the end of the day that God had a plan all along and we didn’t take time to find it. The mistakes of the past live on.
“Bringing home the ark” means understanding what God wants and making the appropriate changes.
We can “bring home the ark!”
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