David and the Heart of God - Week 9: Ark of Gold

Scripture:  2 Samuel 6, Psalm 30:4-5, Hebrews 9:5, Romans 3:25.

Today’s story of David is one that is an oft time ignored account from David’s life, but we will see ways it dramatically impacts and applies to our lives.

We open with 2 Samuel 6:2 “David and all his men went to Baalah in 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 on the ark.” 

Pastor shares the history of the Ark from the Book of Exodus during the time of Moses, its description, and rules and regulations from God to the Israelites about the Ark. Pastor also goes into the annual Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, and what the practice was with the Ark.  But by the time of David the Ark was mostly forgotten. 

The Ark has a fascinating history and Pastor shares a chronology based on what we know from the Bible:
ARK OF THE COVENANT
    ⁃    Mount Sinai - 1445 BC
    ⁃    Promised Land 1406 BC
    ⁃    Shiloh - ca. 1399-1075 BC
    ⁃    Kiribati Jearim - ca. 1074-1003 BC
    ⁃    Jerusalem - ca. 1003-586 BC 
And then the Ark disappears.  While we do not know where or what happened to the Ark, we do know that during the time of David, he sought to restore bring the Ark back and to bring worship of God in Israel.

2 Samuel 6:3-5 “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 all Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord, with castanets,[d] harps, lyres, timbrels, sistrums and cymbals.” 

However, we see that they are not doing this as the Torah instructed. It was to be moved only by priests, and by holding onto the Ark’s handles with the ark completely covered from view. Ahia and Uzzah were priests but were not moving the Ark as God had instructed. On the walk, Uzzah reaches out and touches the Ark because the oxen stumbled and God’s anger burned against Uzzah for his irreverent act and God struck him down and he died beside the Ark of God.

God desires to be taken seriously.  Their intentions were good but the directions in the scripture were clear and straightforward and they had ignored them. Next we read that David ask the Lord, “how can the Ark of the Lord ever come to me?”

God is capricious. God is holy and He’s not to be trifled with. We are not to ignore what He says.  

Today, many live in fear of God. But what He desires to communicate to us today is that He is holy. But He’s more than that, we will find He is merciful AND He is Salvation!

David wouldn’t take the Ark into his city, after Uzzah died, instead he left it with Obed-Edom to see what would happen to him. And over the next three months Obed-Edom and his entire household were blessed, so David then moves the Ark the City of David with great rejoicing. They understood that God is merciful, that He is a generous and forgiving God.

This time they follow what God has prescribed. The priests carry it, it’s covered and no cart is used.

David wrote Psalm 30 during this time and it expresses what he learned:
Psalm 30:4-5 “Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

It was an incredible celebration, a joyous time, because David and the rest understood that God is good, that God is merciful and that God can be trusted. They placed the Ark in the Tent that David had prepared and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord.

David organized the ongoing care of the Ark which we can read in 1 Chronicles 23 - 26 setting it up so that the priests would do what they were supposed to do. It also helped the children of Israel worship God the way they were supposed to. David wanted to ensure things were done God’s way, just as God had directed in the Book of Exodus to Moses.

Pastor closes today with, “God is Salvation.” God desires all to be saved. He is calling His children back to Himself. Pastor shares great insight to the “Mercy Seat” using Romans 3:25 “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.”

Sacrifice of atonement or sometimes stated as “propitiation” are English translations of the Greek word for “mercy seat.”  What this verse literally means is that God presented Christ as a mercy seat through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith.

David and people of the Old Testament era had their sins removed once a year on the Day of Atonement, which finds its ultimate fulfillment once and for all, not once a year, but once forever in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. He is the mercy seat of God. It’s His blood that covers our sin. And so what we have seen in 2 Samuel 6 gets its fulfillment in the One who is the Son of God. 
God is holy. 
God is merciful. 
GOD IS SALVATION.

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