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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I want just to read a passage from one chronicles, the first book of Chronicles, chapter 13.
[00:00:12] Remember the story from Friday.
[00:00:21] David said unto all the assembly of Israel. If it seem good unto you, and if it be of the Lord our God.
[00:00:29] Let us send abroad everywhere unto our brethren, the left in all the land of Israel. With whom the priests and the Levites are in their cities that have suburbs. That they may gather themselves unto us. And let us bring again the ark of our God to us. For we sought not unto it in the days of Saul. And all the assembly said that they would do so. For the thing was right in the eyes of the people first it and David went up and all Israel to Baal, that is, to Kiriath Jarem, which belongeth to Judah. To bring up from thence the ark of God. The Lord that sitteth or is enthroned above the cherubim that is called by the name or where the name is called.
[00:01:23] And they carried the Ark of God upon a new cart. And brought it out of the house of Abinadab. Dazza and Ahio drove the cart. And David and all Israel played before God with all their might. Even with songs and with harps, with psalteries and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets.
[00:01:45] When they came unto the threshing floor of Kidon, Uzzah put forth his hand to hold the ark. For the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah. And he smote him because he put forth his hand to the ark. And there he died before God. And David was displeased because the Lord had broken forth upon Uzzah. And called that place Perez Uzzah unto this day. And David was afraid of God that day, saying, how shall I bring the ark of God home to me? So David removed not the ark unto him into the city of David. But carried it aside into the house of Obed Edom. The Gittite and the Ark of God remained with the family of Obed Edom in his house three months. And the Lord blessed the house of Obed Edom and all that he had.
[00:02:41] And David made him houses in the city of David. And he prepared a place for the Ark of God. And pitched for it a tent. Then David said, none ought to carry the ark of God. But the Levites. For them hath the Lord chosen to carry the ark of God. And to minister unto him forever. And David assembled all Israel at Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the Lord unto its place. Which he had prepared for it. And David gathered together the sons of Aaron and the Levites of the sons of Kohath, Uriel the chief and his brethren, 120 and so on.
[00:03:25] And then verse twelve, and said unto them, ye are the heads of the father's house of the Levites. Sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, unto the place that I have prepared for it for because ye bear it not. At the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not according to the orthodox. So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel. And the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded, according to the word of the Lord. And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren, the singers, with instruments of music, psalteries and hearts and cymbals, sounding aloud and lifting up the voice with joy.
[00:04:27] And then in numbers, chapter four, verse four.
[00:04:42] Or shall we read from verse two? Take the sum of the sons of Kohath from among the sons of Levi. By their families, by their fathers houses, from 30 years old and upward even until 50 years old, all that enter upon the service or the warfare to do the work in the tent of meeting. This is the service or the warfare of the sons of Koaz in the tent of meeting about the most holy things. And then verse 15.
[00:05:18] And when Aaron and his sons have made an end of covering the sanctuary, and all the furniture of the sanctuary, as the cant is to set forward after that, the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it, but they shall not touch the sanctuary lest they die.
[00:05:36] These things are the burdens of the sons of curse. In the tent of meeting.
[00:05:46] I want this morning just very simply to look at this matter that we more briefly touched on Friday. I'm not going to talk about much of the main burden was Friday's burden. But this morning I want just to ask us to ask ourselves a very simple question.
[00:06:10] Why did the Lord make all this seeming fuss about the way that the Arkansas was brought up to Jerusalem?
[00:06:26] Surely we would have said, the Lord isn't as meticulous, as meticulous as to cause one of his children's death?
[00:06:41] Are we to believe that the Lord is so meticulous over details, so fussy, so, as it were, tied down to tiny little details, that he overlooks the principle here, for instance, just let us think of the background. Here we have the heart of all God's dealings with his people. From Adam, according to the Book of Chronicles, everything has now been summarized and as it were brought to its climax. At this point, Jerusalem had been taken. In the previous chapter or two.
[00:07:30] The city for the first time has become the city of God. Up to then, it was a heathen city. Now it has been taken. The ground has been possessed. David and his men are living on that ground.
[00:07:44] We know we don't have to say anything more about ground. We spoke about that on Friday. That ground now is clear.
[00:07:52] It is understood, it is defined, it is possessed, it is being maintained. Here you have got a company of God's children living on the right ground.
[00:08:06] Now the next great stage is to bring the ark of God onto that ground before the house of God can be built, before the worship of God can commence. And you will note later on that it tells us about the song of the Lord which commenced before it can commence, before God can really get the worship that he wants. The Ark of God has got to get into its right place. God has an order.
[00:08:36] God will never invert his order. God will not brook any kind of disorder whatsoever when it comes to eternal things. God will hold us up for years until we get to the right order, always necessary. God is meticulous on the question of order, because it is not just a question of things, it is a question of fundamental security.
[00:09:05] In other words, it is a question of security to the future, for the future, that God should have things done in a right order. God's order is not just the meticulousness of a fussy mind.
[00:09:24] It is the expression of a deep wisdom and knowledge.
[00:09:31] In other words, order is not something that we've all got to obey because it's nice to have things done orderly, but because it is an expression of something utterly wise. Now, we live in the 20th century, we live in days of disorder. Everything is disorder. And whether we like it or not, we're all suffering from the disorder.
[00:09:53] Homes are upside down, business houses are upside down.
[00:09:58] Relationships between management and workers are all upside down. Nationally, we're upside down. Internationally, we're upside down, and we're all suffering from a result of disorder. Order is, in actual fact, for our health.
[00:10:15] It is for the well being of our mind. Apart from anything else, you will never find anyone who is at rest who lives in disorder.
[00:10:25] This disorder is always a sign of mental instability, always. You find that always. To order, therefore, is something which is very necessary to our well being. In every way, internationally, nationally, socially. Now families right down within our very beings.
[00:10:48] And that is why the Lord has to take such a long time to get the right order in one human being to bring the order, spirit, soul and body. A real order, an order between the Lord and ourselves and then an order between ourselves and others and so on.
[00:11:04] Well, here we find that God has got people living on the right ground. This is the thing that he's been moving to. According to the Book of Chronicles, according to the chronicler, this is the thing God has been moving to from the creation of the world. He's got everything. Now. Now, why on earth, if the first thing in order to get the house of God built is to get the ark into the city, why does the Lord get so worked up and upset over a small question of detail? Specially considering that this man David had a heart for the Lord. Furthermore, he surrounded that ark with every kind of music and singing and praise. It was an anthem of praise. There was the harp, the cymbal, the trumpet, the psaltery. Everything was in it. The Levites surrounded the ark. The whole people were gathered together. Seemingly all seemed to be orderly. Yet the Lord was greed and a child of God who had given up a day or two in order to give himself to guiding that cart and guiding that ark into the city died.
[00:12:20] That does not seem to be justice.
[00:12:23] That a man who loved the Lord and was prepared to sacrifice time and energy to guide carefully that ark into its resting place in Jerusalem to die as a result of trying to help the Lord.
[00:12:40] Now, why? Why the Lord's fuss and baba about this? We know that the ark is the symbol of God's presence. We know, we have seen here we have ground. Once we've got the ground clear, once we've taken the ground, the next thing we find in scripture always is not the house of God as many people think. The next thing is the presence of goddess. When you've got the ground clear, God commits himself. God will bless us. He will do many other things for us. He will even use us. But committing himself and blessing and using us and so on and not necessarily the same thing.
[00:13:16] Now here we come, I believe, to one of the deepest secrets of all.
[00:13:22] Do we really feel Lord committing himself to his people in our days or he's blessing us and he's using us and in many ways, his undertaking partly born.
[00:13:38] Don't worry. We've got a trumpet, sackbut salters and hearts coming down the road.
[00:13:47] You see, we may feel really the Lord is using his people he is blessing his people. In some ways. He's working for his people. His people have many experiences of him. But is the Lord committing himself to his people anywhere? Is he really committing himself? Is he taking personal responsibility for this? Is he in direct charge of them? Is he. Is it worth taking on every appearance to smash himself?
[00:14:16] Is the Lord committing himself?
[00:14:18] We feel, we've stressed much in these past few years, this question of ground. If we take this ground, we then expect from scripture the Lord to commit himself. He ought to commit himself. Now, is there any reason why he is not committing himself?
[00:14:36] Can we find in this little incident the key a tremendous amount? I believe we can.
[00:14:46] The first thing I want you to note is this.
[00:14:51] If all depends on a little group of thoroughly and wholly responsible men, the Levite was first of all separated wholly to God.
[00:15:12] He was. The tribe of Levi was separated from the other tribes absolutely to the Lord.
[00:15:20] He was for the Lord's service. He was given absolutely to the Lord. His business was the Lord, his life was the Lord. He wasn't allowed to partake in business, in anything else outside of his whole life was bound up with the things of God. We're carrying the things of God. We're caring for the things of God. We're maintaining the things of God, helping the priesthood, teaching the people, encouraging the people. The Levites were just simply that in the nation, amongst the people of God. They were that kind of inner band who were utterly uncompetitive, completely given to the Lord and nothing else. Entertainment.
[00:16:07] You read some very seemingly unfair things about the Levites. They weren't allowed to own ground. You know, they had no. You get Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Manasseh, Simeon and Benjamin and so on. But you never find Levi, do you? Levi's got nothing, nowhere, anywhere in the whole land do you find Levi.
[00:16:29] It seems unfair. But you see, the Lord said, levi, you have anything. I am your portion. You are so intimately bound up with me. I am your portion. The things of God are your life. The house of God is your spirit. You have no meaning to your life. Nothing else outside, I believe. Here we come to a secret of God committing himself, his presence.
[00:16:55] The committal of his presence to a people is only when he gets a group of those utterly given to him, separated unto him.
[00:17:11] Not just separated from worldly things, but separated from many legitimate things to be wholly taken up with the law. The law, the meaning of their life, the things of God, the very meaning of their existence. The house of God, the fear of their love.
[00:17:31] You see, the Lord was saying, I'm not going to allow my presence to be committed to an ox cart.
[00:17:39] I must have men who will bear the ark upon their shoulders.
[00:17:47] That ark would never have stumbled if there had been men holding it. Was because it was on an oxcart that it stumbled and slid.
[00:17:57] Of course, the Levites were there. They were around it. Now, listen, we learn a great lesson. There are many of us who take responsibility like other and, aha, we are around the ark. We don't bear it on our shoulders.
[00:18:13] The presence of God in his people is not, to us, everything. It's not, as it were, something that we literally have to bear upon our shoulders as if it all depended on us.
[00:18:27] It's all an obstacle. Now, of course, some of us. I would not say that there's anyone in this room who was irresponsible. On the whole, most of us are responsible in one way or another. We would never have stuck it so long if he hadn't been for a measure of responsibility.
[00:18:42] But, you see, there is degree of responsibility. There are degrees of responsibility, are there not?
[00:18:49] It's one thing to just be the people of God who are spectating.
[00:18:53] It's another thing to be amongst the Levites who are round for this but not bearing it. Oh, it's a very easy thing, I think, not to have to bear something on your shoulders but just to walk alongside of it. The artist new oxen probably never known a yoke and a cart that had never been used was rumbling along the road and they were walking along the side of it. Very nice thing indeed.
[00:19:18] Many of us are like that. The Lord committing himself. But we choose our times and feelings.
[00:19:26] We are not so wholly and utterly given to the Lord that we are fettered to his presence. My presence shall go and I will give thee rest. The ark into the resting place of God.
[00:19:40] You see, we are those people who can. Well, we will give our time, we will give our energy. We will be in fellowship. But we shall decide when we've had enough or when it's got just a little bit too much and gone. Now, the Lord says that ends in tragedy.
[00:20:02] I will reward that servant all the end. But it's not. I'm not going to commit myself to them. It will only get halfway. The presence of God will only come halfway. It will only get to the house of obedience halfway because I want those who will take it upon their shoulder. It will become so intimate a thing, the presence of God in his people. So intimate as so direct a thing so personal a thing that it's on their shoulders. They've got to bear it.
[00:20:35] Many of us send our spirits into responsibility, but not our bodies.
[00:20:42] And nothing has ever been done by spirits in fellowship.
[00:20:47] Without bodies, there is no such divorce.
[00:20:52] God needs the body as well as the spirit.
[00:20:55] And it's all very well to just absent yourself when you decide to absent yourself and send your spirit along in good fellowship.
[00:21:08] But God looks for the body.
[00:21:10] I sometimes wonder, if the Lord had sent the spirit of Jesus instead of the body, what would have happened? There would have been no incarnation and there would have been no transfiguration and there would have been no cross or resurrection.
[00:21:23] God needed a body and he created it.
[00:21:28] The incarnation, forgotten of God. And so you see, God does want that. These men are responsible men. That is why they are from the age of 30 to 50 that evidently in the Old Testament was always looked upon as the age of maturity and strength. Until you were 30, you were weak and unstable. When you got to 30, you entered into stability and maturity. When you were 50, you got to the point where you could no longer bear things on your shoulders. You kept the charge. Instead, you had oversight.
[00:22:06] Now, this is very interesting for David discovered this. He began to search for the scriptures. And what did he find? He found, first of all, it should be the Levites. Then he found it should be the curses, the sons of Kurth, the house of Kurth. Then he discovered they must be between 30 and 50. So he began to select them in to bring up the ark of the Lord upon their shoulders. These men were men utterly separated from the Lord, utterly responsible to the Lord. These men were those who know something of the strength of God. They've come to maturity in the service of God. Now, that's why the Lord does not commit himself quickly, in resolutely.
[00:22:52] He waits until he confuse those into such a position of strength and maturity of responsibility how utterly important it is to see that here. Then there's a great lesson for us. God says, why am I, as it were, holding everything up? We say to him, Lord, can't you overlook this little detail? Ask all the motives right. Everything else is right. Can't you overlook it to get on with this far greater business of building the house and those. This is. This is the key to. This is the key to.
[00:23:37] I must have those who are limited to my presence.
[00:23:41] I must have those who bear the responsibility for my presence on their shoulder.
[00:23:50] There's a sense in which that just means that all those heads come under the ark.
[00:23:58] The ark is above them, demands allegiance and obedience.
[00:24:07] And I want you to notice, and I don't suppose this morning we shall get any further than this, but it's a very important point. I want you to notice another thing about this. I believe, and I believe we touch one of the deepest things in the world. And the prophet of God in saying this, I believe that the Lord will never commit himself to a cart.
[00:24:36] He will only commit himself to human beings.
[00:24:45] There are far too many castes amongst the Lord's people, and far too few human beings.
[00:25:00] Now, let's look at that a little more closely. This ark was a new cart.
[00:25:06] No doubt it was made according to patterns. Another point.
[00:25:10] But a car is not animate.
[00:25:13] It has been put together.
[00:25:15] It must either be pushed or pulled.
[00:25:18] And it is. This is just like the spirituality of many of the Lord's people. It must either be pushed or pulled.
[00:25:27] It's not animal. It hasn't got the spirit of life with it. It is not real. It is not practical. It is not human. God does not want spiritual issues.
[00:25:39] God does not want spiritual automaton.
[00:25:43] God wants human beings. He first created a man.
[00:25:48] His son is a man.
[00:25:52] He wants men and women.
[00:25:55] They must be men and women.
[00:25:58] They must feel like men and women. They must think like men and women. They must love like men and women. They must have everything about them which is true to humanity, but true to God.
[00:26:14] That is a new humanity.
[00:26:18] Much of the trouble today is that when people do see a little bit of this question of ground, they start to create cart. Here it is a platform. Axles, wheels, and the rent.
[00:26:33] And then it has to be pushed and pulled. And then they surround it, and they surround it with singing and praise and music and matchups.
[00:26:43] And God says, this will not go through.
[00:26:47] This is not what I want.
[00:26:51] I don't want wheels. I don't want axles. I don't want platforms. I want people.
[00:26:57] And people are my requirement to bear the arc of the Lord.
[00:27:03] I believe David, who above everyone else was a man, a true human being.
[00:27:12] I believe David made a great discovery on that day when he discovered that the Lord didn't want an ox cart, however new it was. Nor the oxen, however fresh they were.
[00:27:26] He wanted men.
[00:27:30] I think we, as the Lord's people, must always investigate this matter.
[00:27:40] The tragedy today amongst the Lord's people is this terrible unreality, as terrible as the world's unreality.
[00:27:52] It's a phraseology. It's a facade. It's a spirituality. It's a piety. It's a whole unput together according to a passage pass very beautifully. Perhaps it has much about it that looks new and fresh, but it will not do. It will not go through.
[00:28:17] God must have men and women.
[00:28:21] And I believe that when God gets his men and his women, he puts them into the most human situation.
[00:28:30] They learn sorrow.
[00:28:33] They know what's suffering.
[00:28:35] They know what human difficulties are.
[00:28:39] And then you find, oh, let us see this. That when the ark comes into its resting place, it will become a house for all nations.
[00:28:48] Then the lady will come to it. That was God's story. Once the ark got into the house with such a band.
[00:28:58] Then you find these broken lines, these perverted lies, these lies that are smashed up. They begin to come and they begin to touch something that's real. And they touch people that are real. They touch God in people who are real. And they come out. They can open their hearts. Well, we've seen this again and again and again.
[00:29:20] Why is it that the people in this world who are the most needy are the most untimely touched by the church of God?
[00:29:31] They cannot really be touched. Many of them stand right outside.
[00:29:36] You get people with a great knowledge of the Lord, great knowledge of the scriptures and a long history going on. But those people have said to me many times, I'm frightened of that person. I'm frightened of that person. I can't talk.
[00:29:52] And always it comes down to this thing. Something in them says they don't understand. They haven't got the experience.
[00:29:59] They talk. And of course, the trouble with those people is they talk. They talk and they talk and they talk. The people with the experience, often silent. But the people who haven't got any experience, they talk and they talk and they talk and they talk. Out it rings, scripture after scripture, verse after verse, pulverizing some poor, broken creature.
[00:30:24] So God must have human beings.
[00:30:27] People who discovered the Lord, people who know the Lord. People who come into acknowledge the Lord. People who have been put through the deep experiences of life.
[00:30:39] Well, I believe there we have a key to the committing of the Lord's presence to the right ground.
[00:30:47] That ark, that ark which symbolizes his presence, has got to be borne on the shoulders of Levi, not a cart.
[00:30:58] God cannot be satisfied with the praise and the worship and the thanksgiving and the music, even of his people when his presence is on a coffin.
[00:31:16] Later on, we find we have the worship, the praise, the music, the thanksgiving all over again.
[00:31:24] But this time, we're told, the ark enters into its resting place with joy.
[00:31:32] You see, the Lord has got. So he got to the root of the matter. He got to the key of something, of a problem, of a situation. And when he got that key, then he entered into his resting place.
[00:31:50] Worship, I believe, is a key to those people.
[00:31:56] Key to those people, those Levites.
[00:31:59] I would like to go on what sometimes those Levites felt like.
[00:32:04] I don't doubt that they didn't feel always like praising the Lord or worshipping the Lord.
[00:32:10] And I certainly don't believe that their praise was all that superficial. There must have been times when they had to get through and they found their way through to worship the Lord.
[00:32:21] God's presence is bound up with such people. People who are responsible, separated utterly to the Lord.
[00:32:30] People who've not only given their spirit to the things, but body as well.
[00:32:36] Body as well, utterly. People who are human beings, being made human beings, true human beings. I believe that many of these people we find in the world today are not human being. The scripture calls them brutally.
[00:32:56] God would have human beings, not that other automatic spiritual machine that we find so often everywhere, but human beings. Devil can't keep us as brute beasts. He'll make us into spiritual missions.
[00:33:11] The Holy Spirit's work is produced, men and women.
[00:33:14] After the image God's done well, you've only got to look at the Lord Jesus to see what God means by humanity.
[00:33:24] You've only got to view him, meditate, reflect upon him. And you will discover what God means by real humanity. Humanity. According to God, these people had to learn that the way through was worship. Worship is the key. Worship is the key to your.
[00:33:42] Now, when we worship, we come into rest.
[00:33:46] When we really worship, we know the key to real service. When we worship, we know the key to delight in God. Worship is that which we were made and that which alone can satisfy God. Can we just see that? Or many other things we could say about these levites there in the architect, in Jerusalem? There are just a few things about these men that took the ark of the Lord upon their shoulders and bore into its eternal resting place. Well, may the Lord help us in that matter to see more and more clearly that the Lord can only commit himself not to a facade, not to something which is just automatic, something put together.
[00:34:33] The Lord only commit himself to that which is utterly real, produced by the Holy Spirit, by a deep working of the goddess.
