Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): While many of us have failed to keep our promises, God always keeps his. Here’s Pastor Bill Luebkemann.

Bill Luebkemann: I know God said he’s going to do this. I believe him. He made a promise, and he’s going to carry it out. You might have a promise in your life that you believe that God made for you about something that he’s doing. You may be wondering, why is it taking so long? Did he forget about me? Is he doing something else? Did he give up? Did he move on? Is he still there? The Lord makes us a promise, and he keeps his promise.

Guest (Male): It’s been said that God’s delays are not necessarily God’s denials. So, no matter how difficult and confusing your circumstances become, remember, God’s faithfulness and character don’t change. You have every reason to trust him, as we will learn on today's Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann.

David struggled greatly, but at this point in the study, he is now king as God had promised. The people have now come together to acknowledge David as their king in accordance with God’s word and will. From 1 Chronicles chapter 12, starting at verse 23, here’s Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: These are the numbers of the men armed for battle who came to David at Hebron to turn Saul’s kingdom over to him as the Lord had said: Men of Judah, carrying shield and spear, 6,800 armed for battle. Men of Simeon, warriors ready for battle, 7,100. Men of Levi, 4,600, including Jehoiada, leader of the family of Aaron, with 3,700 men, and Zadok, a brave young warrior, with 22 officers from his family.

It goes on here: the men of Benjamin, the men of Ephraim, the men of half the tribe of Manasseh. The men of Issachar, they knew the times, it says, and they knew what Israel should do—200 chiefs with all their relatives under their command. They knew the times; they knew it was time to switch over to supporting King David. If you look back, men of Benjamin, it says 3,000, most of whom had remained loyal to Saul’s house until then.

Everybody is coming over to him. Men of Zebulun, experienced soldiers prepared for battle with every type of weapon to help David with undivided loyalty—50,000 of them. This almost sounds like The Price Is Right: "And you’re going to get 50,000 of this and 4,600 of that! And what’s behind door number one, door number two, or door number three?"

These guys were experienced soldiers. They were ready for battle. They had all the weapons, and there were a lot of them. Then the men of Naphtali, the men of Dan, the men of Asher, and from east of the Jordan, men of Reuben, Gad, and the other half the tribe of Manasseh—120,000. We’re talking about a great army. I didn’t add these numbers up here, but it’s certainly in the range of a quarter of a million or so.

What an army that he had. And the Lord was building this thing up. Again, it doesn’t say that he had recruiters out in all the high schools looking for people. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. I’m saying that this is a God thing that happened here. All these were fighting men who volunteered to serve in the ranks. No conscription here, no drafting. He had a quarter million that wanted to fight for him. They wanted to be in his army.

They came to Hebron fully determined to make David king over all Israel. Their mind was made up: he’s going to be the king of the whole land, and we’re going to make it so. All the rest of the Israelites were also of one mind to make David king. So, the people who didn’t come—the young, the old, the wives, anybody who wasn’t able to fight or had urgent business to attend to—they were still all in agreement. This land was in agreement here. You can see a great coming together.

We’re going to make David our king. The men spent three days there with David, eating and drinking, for their families had supplied provisions for them. When they showed up, I was thinking about how much food you would need for a quarter of a million people. A lot. A whole lot. Their families had set aside the provisions for them, sent them along.

Also, their neighbors from as far away as Issachar, Zebulun, and Naphtali came, bringing food on donkeys, camels, mules, and oxen. There were plentiful supplies of flour, fig cakes, raisin cakes, wine, oil, cattle, and sheep, for there was joy in Israel. We’re talking about a land that was just overflowing with a celebration here. The new king is here. He’s going to be the king of all the land. Let’s rejoice. We have plenty of food. We’ve got all kinds of stuff. We’re going to party here big time. And that’s just what they did, and nothing was wrong with partying here.

It was a long time in coming. These men were loyal to David. They would work together as a team. They would fight their battles and stay informed. They didn’t go run away when someone came at them with a sword. David had been running away from Saul for many, many, many years. Then when he became king of just a small part of the kingdom, he was still contending with Saul’s descendant, and that was for seven or so more years.

So, this party was a long time in coming. From when David was anointed with oil that he was going to be king till this day, it could have been perhaps maybe even 20 years or so. That’s a long time to look forward to the promise of God and to say that I know God said he’s going to do this, I believe him, he made a promise and he’s going to carry it out.

You might have a promise in your life that you believe that God made for you about something that he’s doing, and you may be wondering, why is it taking so long? Did he forget about me? Is he doing something else? Did he give up? Did he move on? Is he still there? In Newsweek in the last week or two, I guess celebrating Easter, they had an article. The cover story had in the shape of a cross on the front, black background, then they had words that were in the shape of a cross basically saying the Christian era has come to an end.

Because 20 years ago, there were 153 million self-proclaimed Christians in America. Now there’s 175 million, which is an increase, but compared to the population percentage-wise, there’s been a slight decrease. And they said Christianity is on the way out. I read a great article somewhere last night where the guy said, "Well, that’s interesting. Let’s compare the decline of Christians according to this article in Newsweek. Let’s compare that to the decline of Newsweek circulation over that same period of time," which is down by like half in real numbers and percentage.

He says, "Who’s talking to who here?" The magazine that had 3.2 million subscribers and now has many hundreds of thousands less. Less in real numbers and less in percentage. And we’re going to listen to what they have to say about the end of Christianity, which has more, lesser percentage now but more in real numbers?

We need to be committed, we need to be ready, and we need to be trained up to serve God. We need to know that things are not necessarily going to happen in our time period, in our timeframe. If someone told me when I started thinking about a radio station it was going to take 10 years to get it together, I’m not sure I would have bothered. The Lord makes us a promise, and he keeps his promise, but it can take a while sometimes. In David’s life here, well, it took quite a while for this party.

This party was, they were having a great time. David thought, what a chance here. Let’s get the Ark and bring it down here because nobody’s even been really consulting God for a long time. Let’s get the Ark. David conferred with each of his officers, the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds. He then said to the whole assembly of Israel, "If it seems good to you and if it is the will of the Lord our God, let us send word far and wide to the rest of our brothers throughout the territories of Israel, and also to the priests and Levites who are with them in their towns and pasturelands to come and join us.

Let us bring the Ark of our God back to us, for we did not inquire of it during the reign of Saul." The whole assembly agreed to do this because it seemed right to all the people. What we’re going to look at here is a great idea that went bad. Or to put it another way, good motives, bad execution. Or to put it another way, ignorance of the law is no excuse. "Gee, officer, I didn’t know the speed limit was 65 out here on the highway. I didn’t see any sign. I figured it must be 95 or 100." It doesn’t matter what you think.

We’re going to see here that David, it’s interesting here, he conferred with the officers, he conferred with the commanders, then he conferred with the whole assembly, but it never really says he conferred with God here. He certainly didn’t inquire of God what the procedure was here. He said, "If it seems good to you and if it’s the will of the Lord, then let’s bring the Ark down there."

You’ll remember the Philistines had captured the Ark, but everywhere they went with it, it caused them nothing but grief. The people got sick; they got weird things happening to them. They moved it to a different town. Finally, the Philistines said, "We’ve got to get rid of this thing." They put it on a cart. They didn’t know what to do with it. They hooked up some animals to the cart and they said, "If it goes back to Israel, then good riddance." And it did.

One day, the Israelites saw these animals coming down the road pulling the Ark. It was stored in a town called Abinadab. It had come back to Israel. The Philistines didn’t have it that long. I don’t remember how long, but a period of months maybe or a year or two. They had it for a short period of time. Bad things kept happening; they sent it back. But now it had been some 70 years, 7-0, some 70 years since it had come back, and it was in this place called Abinadab. You can read about that in 1 Samuel chapter 7.

David said, "Let’s get the word out to everybody. Let’s celebrate. God has been so good to us here. I’m the king of the whole country now. So much of the army has come over. Everything is going well. We need to have the presence of God." Remember, the Ark represented the presence of God in their midst. "Let’s bring that thing back here. All during the reign of Saul, nobody ever asked God anything."

The whole assembly agreed to it because it seemed like the right thing to do. "Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s bring it back. That seems right." Good motives here. But God is more concerned with just motives; he’s concerned about how we go about things as well, to some degree, depending on what the situation is.

Verse 5: "So David assembled all the Israelites from the Shihor River in Egypt to Lebo Hamath to bring the Ark of God from Kiriath Jearim. David and all the Israelites with him went to Baalah of Judah, that’s Kiriath Jearim, to bring up from there the Ark of God the Lord who is enthroned between the cherubim, the Ark that is called by the Name."

The Ark was nothing but a box made of acacia wood, and it wasn’t that big. The word Ark means something like chest or something. It had a lid that opened up, and it was gold-plated, and it had on top of it the cherubim. Inside of it, it had the stone tablets that the Ten Commandments were written on. It had some of the manna from the desert. It had the rod, Aaron’s rod that budded. That was what was in it.

David said, "Let’s go do this thing. Let’s go down, let’s get the Ark, and let’s bring it up here, the Ark that is called by the Name, the Ark that represents the presence of God." They moved the Ark of God from Abinadab’s house on a new cart, with Uzzah and Ahio guiding it. David and all the Israelites were celebrating with all their might before God, with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, cymbals, and trumpets.

They were having the greatest worship service you ever saw. They were dancing and jumping around and playing these instruments and worshiping God with all their hearts. This was such an important occasion, they didn’t just put this on any cart; they put it on a new cart. John Courson has a great study out where he talks about, what is a cart? It’s made out of boards and big wheels. He goes on to talk about how most churches are run by boards and big wheels. I can’t do justice to his study there, but if you ever have a chance to hear it, it’s really pretty good.

The problem was very simple here, not really hard to understand. The problem was that the Ark was supposed to be carried, not put on a cart. It was supposed to be carried. Back in Exodus 25, verse 12: "Cast four gold rings for it and fasten them to its four feet with two rings on one side and two rings on the other. Then make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the chest to carry it. The poles are to remain in the rings of this Ark; they are not to be removed. Then put in the Ark the testimony which I will give you."

What they were supposed to do was put two rings on each side, put poles through the rings. These poles would stick out at the ends so there would be two poles on the side. One end of each pole would be sticking out one end of the Ark; the other ends of the two poles would be sticking out the other end. So, two guys or four guys could pick up the Ark with these poles. They weren’t allowed to touch it.

The idea was you never remove these poles from it, and you always carry it with the poles. In Numbers chapter 4, verse 15: "After Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy furnishings and all the holy articles, and when the camp is ready to move, the Kohathites are to come to do the carrying. But they must not touch the holy things or they will die. The Kohathites are to carry those things that are in the tent of meeting."

The Kohathites were one tribe within the descendants of Levi. The Ark of the Covenant could not be touched because it was a holy thing. If anyone touched it, they’re guaranteed to die. So, it had these poles, and you had to leave them in there because if you took them out, you’d have a hard time putting the pole back through without touching it. It had to be carried; it had to be carried with these poles. It could not be touched, and it had to be carried by the Kohathites, a specific tribe of people.

These were the rules that God set up. Very simple. This is what you have to do. Only these people can do it; they have to do it this way. But they didn’t bother with any of the details here. They said, "Let’s get a cart. We can even do better than the poles. That was a long time ago, now we have wheels. We figured a motor and whatever, we can get this job done faster. Let’s get a cart. It’ll be an improvement. If the poles were good, the cart’s better. If God said use poles, certainly he wouldn’t mind a cart. That’s an improvement. And we’re even going to make it a new cart, brand new. He’ll really like that."

God likes it when we do it the way he says to do it. That’s what he likes. We’re going to have this worship time, and we’re going to get Uzzah and Ahio. The names mean strength. Uzzah means strength. Ahio means friendly. We’re going to get these guys that are friendly and strong to do this.

You see, it’s being done in the flesh. It’s being done by the will of man, being done the way man would do things. The way man would do things is just about never the way God wants to do it. We’re going to get this new cart, and we’re going to get the strong guy because strong’s what we need to do this, and friendly because we’re going to worship God and make a good presentation. If any unsaved people come by, they’ll see how strong we are and how friendly we are, and we have this new cart, and they’ll want to join our church also because aren’t we something here at how we’re doing this?

But it wasn’t what God wanted. He didn’t say it had to be carried by strong people or friendly people; he said it had to be carried by the descendants of Kohath. He didn’t say it can be used on a cart but only if it’s new and it’s got the new Goodyear Radials on it because that’ll give it a bump-free ride. It had to be carried by these people using poles. Not complicated here.

They were having this great worship service. They were jumping up and down, just having a good old time. There’s people today that judge a worship service by how much joy and excitement and good news and jumping around and happiness there is there. That’s not how you measure it. They felt great. If a news crew had been there, "Hey, what’s going on here today, folks?" "Well, we’re moving the Ark of God." "No kidding. Tell us, what is the Ark?" "Well, it’s a chest and it’s got this and that." "Really? And why are you moving it?" "Well, we want to have God’s presence with us. And we’ve got the new cart here and the strong guy here, and we just feel great. We’re so happy. We feel great."

There’s a lot of people that feel great and they’re not doing what God wants them to do. They just feel great. I’ve talked to people in my own office that are living in sin, living together and not married, or married to someone else. I’ve heard with my own ears, "Well, but God, we just know God’s in this. We know he’s blessing us. The fact that we’re married to someone else notwithstanding, we just know that God is in this." God is in his word here, and it’s not real complicated. Even an engineer like me can read it and figure out what he’s trying to say here—more than what he’s trying to say, what he is saying.

They felt great; they were just all wrong. A guy’s about to die because of this. Feelings are not good for much. In God’s case, what he wants is obedience. They were celebrating with all their might. This was one great worship service. And what happens? Verse 9: "When they came to the threshing floor of Kidon, Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the Ark because the oxen stumbled. The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he had put his hand on the Ark. So he died there before God."

The Philistines used a cart. They sent it back on a cart. None of them died, but they weren’t God’s chosen people. They hadn’t been given the directions. The Lord let them get away with it. But these people should have known better. Now, I’m not saying they read the law and knew what to do and didn’t do it. They may have been ignorant; they may never have read it. But how many people today are ignorant because they haven’t read the Bible?

They may have just been listening to what they were told. How many people today go to churches and listen to what they’re told and don’t check it out for themselves? When you come here, I tell you, open your Bible to this page so you can follow along, so you can make your own decision. Don’t believe anything because I said it was so. If I tell you my name is Bill and you want to believe that because I said it was so, that’s probably okay. But after that, check it out for yourself.

This guy touched the Ark, but we saw in Numbers it was a holy object, holy, set aside for God, not to be touched. They didn’t think it was so important. "If we don’t touch it, it’s going to hit the ground." Well, if you didn’t put it on a cart, it wouldn’t be about to slide off anyway. But now that it’s on the cart and it’s about to slide off, who are you to decide if you are more holy than the ground? God said, "Don’t touch it."

You almost can see God setting this up. You almost wonder, did they stumble because God had an angel put his foot out there and they tripped over it? They came here, and they stumbled. It doesn’t say why they stumbled. The oxen stumbled, the cart started to tip, the Ark started to slide off, and Uzzah reached his hand out. "This is a precious object. It’s the Ark of God. I better take care of God because he can’t take care of it himself."

Maybe it’d have been better just to trust in God. Who knows? The cart may have gone the other way and it may have slid back to where it was supposed to go. The whole thing boils down to they weren’t doing it the right way. They thought it was not important how it be done, and Uzzah thought better to keep it there, and it wound up costing him his life. A human decision, something that seemed logical to him at the time. I’m not saying he died and went to hell, either, by the way. Personally, I don’t believe that. But he didn’t carry out God’s instructions exactly the way he was told.

And this made David angry. Verse 11 here: "Then David was angry because the Lord’s wrath had broken out against Uzzah. And to this day that place is called Perez Uzzah." That means outbreak against Uzzah. And this place was named after that, and David was angry. He couldn’t understand. "We were doing the best we could. We gave this all we had. We were really on top of this. And why would God do this?"

Guest (Male): You’ve been listening to Hope From the Word. We’re currently in Pastor Bill Luebkemann’s study of 1 Chronicles. If you’d like to hear this message again, you have several options. Visit our website at ccmarlton.org, download the Hope FM app to your smartphone or tablet, or look for us wherever you find podcasts.

If you’ve been thinking about visiting Calvary Chapel of Marlton where Bill serves as pastor, we’d love to have you. Our service times are on Sunday mornings at 10:00. We also meet midweek on Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m. You can also livestream from home when you visit our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton. For more information, go to ccmarlton.org. We hope to see you soon.

Before the day is done, we’d like to connect with you. Share a praise report, prayer request, or what you’re learning from this series. You can easily email us at our website, ccmarlton.org, or just call us at 856-983-1662. There’s more to come from Bill’s study of 1 Chronicles, and we’ll have that for you next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel of Marlton.