Sound Doctrine

Jeff Johnson: When you pray, what's your motivation? Here's a warning from Pastor Jeff. We dabble. When you start wheeling and conniving and trying to dig into things that you shouldn't be in, listen, when you hear something, that means just pray.

You don't need to know anything else. You don't need to say, "Well, I need to know a little more because I'd like to pray intelligently." That sounds good. Tell me some more. And you don't even realize that you're bringing death on your own self, on your own faith, because you're hearing things that you shouldn't be hearing. We must be careful because it'll bring death to our own lives, into our own spiritual walk.

The harvest time is about May and June. Beth Shemesh means the City of the Sun. It was a city of refuge which was given to the Levites. It was a city that was given to them to live in and it kind of is a city that sits up on a little grassy knoll overlooking a valley that swoops down to the coast of the Mediterranean.

It's near where Samson grew up in that area of the country. We always like to take this road on the very end of our journey throughout all of the land of Israel. We like to take this backroad down towards Tel Aviv, which is towards the airport, because not only is it the place where we stop and we share about Samson, but we go on and we talk about the Valley of Elah because we go right through the Valley of Elah where David slew Goliath.

This is the area of the Philistines. This is also the same road where Philip stopped the eunuch that was leaving from Jerusalem to go to Ethiopia where that eunuch received Christ and was baptized. There's everywhere you go in Israel. This is why we like to take you over there. There is Old Testament and New Testament things happening, and we like to just bring you through the whole thing. Please, don't put it off. Come see the land of the Bible, get your mind blown, get about a year of seminary in two weeks. And that's exactly what you'll have. Don't pass this opportunity up. It is awesome. Take advantage of our times that we go over.

They were working out in the fields to their surprise, here comes the Ark. They're excited, they're rejoicing. It was lost, but now it's found, it's coming down to them. I was reminded of the parable of the sower. You know how the seed goes out, which is the word of God, and sometimes some people get excited and they go, "I want that. That sounds good. Yes, I'll take that." And yet eventually we know that the seed gets choked out by the weeds of this world, the cares, and the riches.

They at once come forward, they at once receive Christ, but they don't steady on. You're not going to allow the world to rip off the seed. You're not going to be like one of those ones that rejoice and are excited at the first, but then turn their back and go back to the world. That's not going to work. There's a lot of people that call themselves Christians that are going to have a rude awakening when Jesus comes.

He's coming for those that are watching and ready. Are you ready? You have to be ready because those that are ready are going to hear his voice. Look at verse 14. "And the cart came into the field of Joshua, the Bethshemite, and stood there where there was a great stone. And they clave the wood of the cart and they offered the kine, the two mama cows, a burnt offering unto the Lord."

They never did make it back. And the Levites took down the Ark of the Lord, and notice the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and they put them on the great stone. And the men of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day unto the Lord. They immediately sought to do the right thing, and they took off the Ark carefully by the priest.

They set it down and also they began to break up the cart because they said, "We don't need this cart. This is pagan." They burnt and they put the cows on the cart as a sacrifice unto the Lord. So they probably had the priest come in there and remove the Ark. They knew what Numbers says. Numbers chapter 4 in verse 5 and verse 6 says that Aaron and his sons, the priests, are to cover the Ark when it's removed out of the Holy of Holies.

They are to cover it with badger skins and they are to put the staves inside of the two rings on either side, these long golden poles. And then it says and after the sons of Kohath are to come and they're the ones to bear it or carry it, they shall not touch any holy thing lest they die. And then it says in Numbers 4:20, "But they shall not go in to see where the holy things are covered, lest they die."

Warning was given to them. And so they continued with great celebration as they would sacrifice and the Ark has now come back to them. That means that they are being restored with God. Everybody's really excited and dancing around and having a good time. These verses make it look like they have it pretty well together spiritually, doesn't it? But their joy would soon be gone. And the reason for that is them not being obedient.

In the Gospel of John in chapter 15 and verse 9, let me read it to you. It says, "Continue in my love," Jesus says to us, his church. "Continue in my love. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abided in his love. These things have I spoken to you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy would be full. If you do whatsoever I command you."

If your joy is going to be full, if it's going to be joy unspeakable and full of glory, if it's going to continue to be a joyful relationship, there must be obedience. There must be giving your heart and your life to the Lord every day. There must be a commitment in your life to God if you're going to have the joy of the Lord. If you're not committing your life to the Lord, no wonder you're so miserable. You're not doing what you were created to do, and that's to serve God and to live for him.

Verse 16, "And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day. And these are the golden hemorrhoids which the Philistines returned for a trespass offering unto the Lord: Ashdod for one, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron one. And the golden mice according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of the fenced cities and the country villages, even unto the great stone of Abel, whereupon they set down the Ark of the Lord, which stone remains unto this day in the field of Joshua the Bethshemite."

What I saw here was something. Do you remember in the Old Testament there was a story about this captain of the Syrian forces? His name was Naaman. Do you remember he got leprosy and he was told to go to the man of God, and the man of God would tell him how to get his leprosy cured? Elisha came out and said, "Go down and dip yourself seven times in the Jordan River and you'll be cured."

This man went down there and he started to dip. Remember he said, "No, I can't. This is ridiculous." He was actually angry that the man of God told him to go do this seven times in this funky, muddy Jordan River. It's cold and terrible. And so he had to go in front of all his men, take off all of his armor and go down there. He's dipping and he's looking at his men. He's embarrassed.

This is what you're going to have to do to be healed. Leprosy eats and rots the skin off and he was losing it totally physically. His friends then said, "Do it, man. Just do what the guy said." A lot of times we think, "Well, receiving Jesus and believing in your heart, come on, I don't need to do that." Yes, you do. If you don't, you're going to die in your sins.

Naaman, as he dipped the seventh time, came up and his skin was like a baby. He obeyed God's direction to get healed of leprosy. That's the same thing with receiving Jesus Christ, committing your life to him. Then you can go your way with joy. Naaman left not a leper anymore. He went back to his family and friends and he was healed.

But unlike these, the Philistines went back to their village. They did know that the Lord is the Lord and he's the God of gods. They didn't learn that. But they had to go right back to their heathen ways, to their pagan fish stone god who had just had a stump left. They had to go back to nothing. Is that what you want? You want to just turn around and leave here this morning and go back to what you've had and just live the same old thing, the same old way without any change in your life?

That's sad. You need prayer. We're going to pray for you today because it's the same old thing. Remember that commercial a long while back? "Same old. Where you going? Same old thing." That's how you leave here. No, man! Where's the joy in your life of the Lord? Where's the anticipation, the excitement of what God's going to do at any moment as you serve the Lord out there, as you witness for the Lord out there?

Now, remember that the Ark was made by Moses. It was the only piece of furniture in the Tabernacle that was actually called the Ark of the Lord. Nothing was called a menorah of the Lord, or the showbread of the Lord. No, it was the Ark of the Lord. This was a very sacred piece of furniture. This is where God was residing.

It was never to be seen by anyone but the High Priest, and that was only once a year. When they would remove the Tabernacle to move, they would always cover it with badger skins. And no one was ever to touch it. We remember David's friend, Uzzah. We look back and learn our lessons well. Only to be carried by the priest with the golden poles through the rings.

Inside the Ark was the law, the jar of manna, and Aaron's rod. And these are the three things that were in the Ark. They had two golden angels over the Ark on top of the Mercy Seat. The Ark was really the heart of their worship and an extremely sacred and religious piece of furniture. It was placed in the Holy of Holies covered by a thick veil.

This was the representation of how God was to meet with man. This is how God was working it out. He was revealing how he was supposed to meet with man and commune with man. That's what he desired. He wanted to commune with man and that's what he wants today. Under the old covenant, sinful man could never see the Lord, could never touch the Lord, or be in his presence. Only the High Priest once a year.

You needed that priest to be a mediator to represent you who would go in with an offering and sacrifice for you for your sins. Now, this guy was decked out. We've already gone through Exodus, so you know a little bit about what he looks like. He had bells around his robe and he would go in and he also had a rope on his ankle. And he was hoping that the people were good that year.

What's the reason for the rope? Outside the priests that were in the Holy Place were listening. And he would always keep the bells moving. Because if the bells stopped moving, that means he probably fell over dead or something happened in there. He had a cardiac or something. And instead of going back a year later and getting him out, they would take the rope and pull him out because nobody was supposed to be in there.

This was a hazardous job. It was probably hard to get life insurance being a High Priest. But thank God when Christ came and died on the cross, remember what happened in the temple? The veil rent from the top to the bottom. So there was no longer any veil there. It was open. Christ now has become our mediator, our High Priest.

We can come into God's presence with boldness because of what Christ did for us on the cross. And he has become our righteousness so we can come into God's holy place at any time. That relationship now that we have with God is not one of fear. It is not one of law. It is a relationship of love. Father. It's like when my kids were small, they would just come bursting into my office while I'm studying.

Nobody else would do that, but my kids would. "Dad, I want to talk to you. Dad, this is going on." And I'd just grab them. It was that relationship of love. Hey, you're his kids. Come at any time. He's there waiting for you, wanting to intercede for you. But I'll tell you this, I still think that if they would find the Ark today, I would still kind of be hesitant to go on over there and remove the Mercy Seat and look, especially after I saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

I still would say, "No, thanks." I have a relationship with my God. It's great. It's awesome. I don't need to look in the Ark. I don't think I would. But these guys are curious. Curiosity that killed the cat. And they're going, "Well, let's look." Verse 19. "And it says that he smote the men of Beth Shemesh." Why? Because they had looked into the Ark of the Lord.

Even he smote the people 50,000 and threescore and seven men, 50,070, and the people lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter. Remember the old covenant. Man was not to touch God or come into his presence. Even today, man has lost his reverence or this concept of God's holiness unbelievably.

It's a scary thing as man continues to curse God, mock God, saying, "If God is God," and he just curses him and mocks him and does his own thing. Today Jesus Christ has made a way for sinful man to be in the presence of a Holy God. He is the only way to get to heaven. The only way to get to the Father is through Jesus Christ the Son. There is no other way. So God makes it very clear.

The Jews are in a very scary position. Number one, they do not believe in blood sacrifice. Oh, I know they'll have a little lamb shank at their Seder and at their Passover supper, but that's not a blood sacrifice. They do not have a blood sacrifice. Plus they have rejected Jesus Christ as their Lord and Messiah. So they're really in a scary position.

Good works that they're counting on will not save them. For God says, "Your righteousness is as filthy rags to me." You don't work your way to heaven. There's only one way. It's through the blood of Jesus Christ. There must be a sacrifice. Jesus was that once and for all sacrifice. And through accepting that sacrifice, we can touch God. We can come into his presence.

These people have no reverence for God, it seems. This reveals their spiritual decline. Look at how they're acting. Look at what they're doing. Are they forgetting all of Numbers? Are they forgetting any kind of etiquette or any kind of reverence for God? I think what would probably happen is they got so into their partying that they drank a little more of the vine than they should have.

You know how you get when you're a little bit tipsy. You get bold. "Hey, you know what? We ought to check and see if they stole anything. Yeah! We ought to look in there and see. There might be some more gold in there. Yeah!" and they're talking. And these are priests, holy men. They're just kind of talking with each other and they look into the Ark. They open it up.

There's an old saying, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." We're seeing a bunch of fools here. Stupid move. Maybe their motive was right. Maybe they wanted to see if anything was stolen. But listen, it still is disobedience and rebellion. God says, "Don't you do it." What does that mean? "Well, everybody else is doing it." Don't you do it.

Everybody knows what God says. Don't do it. God help us. 5,070 it says died. I found a scripture in Romans where it says in Romans 11:22, "Behold therefore the goodness and the severity of God. On them which fell and they were in unbelief, severity. But toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness. Otherwise, you shall also be cut off."

There's a condition, right? Blessing. If you don't, you're going to end up just like them. You say, "5,070? Wait a minute." Many who study this number found that the Hebrew they read it wrong and there was a misinterpretation here. Instead of putting the 70, that's how many really perished because even Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, said that Jerusalem only had 70,000 and these smaller villages definitely didn't have that many.

So there's a misquote here of how many really died. But 70 died. That's many. Especially today even if you go to Israel and they tell you about how many died in the Beirut conflict, there might have been just a handful, but that's many to them because they're so few. It's many no matter how you look at it. People died. People were slaughtered there. The rejoicing turns to mourning.

The lesson that I see here is that many times we are not to look into the things of God because there's death in doing that. The scriptures say the secret things belong to the Lord. "Well, yeah, but I just need to know some more facts. Now, who fell and how did they fall? I want to know these more facts because I'm interested in really praying for them."

You know how we are. We get into the secret things of the Lord. We dabble. We meddle to our own hurt. When you start wheeling and conniving and trying to dig into things that you shouldn't be in, listen, when you hear something, that means just pray. You don't need to know anything else. You don't need to say, "Well, I need to know a little more because I'd like to pray intelligently."

That sounds good. Tell me some more. And you don't even realize that you're bringing death on your own self, on your own faith, because you're hearing things that you shouldn't be hearing. We must be careful because it'll bring death to our own lives, into our own spiritual walk. You hear of something, you say, "Well, okay, I'll pray. I'll be praying about it. I don't need to hear any more."

Verse 20. And the men of Beth Shemesh said, "Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? And to whom shall he go up from us?" They realized that God is holy and awesome. They couldn't meet with this God face to face, not yet. They said, "We can't handle this God. This God's too much for us. Let's seek to get rid of this Ark. The presence of our God has nailed us."

Finally verse 21, "And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath Jearim saying, 'The Philistines have brought again the Ark of the Lord. Come ye down and fetch it up to you.'" Kiriath Jearim is the city that is about seven miles from Jerusalem. It's kind of in the foothills as you're going up towards Jerusalem. It's a beautiful forest area.

They said, "Come, get the Ark. It's back in our possession. It's yours." And they didn't even make any mention to the slaughter. They just said, "Come and get it! It's the Lord! It's all yours! Please, come and get it!" You see, they still weren't ready to receive the presence of the Lord. Are you ready?

Guest (Male): That's a very important question Pastor Jeff Johnson just asked here on Sound Doctrine, and it's one we should all seriously consider. Are we ready and prepared to experience the presence of the Lord? If you enjoyed today's message from Pastor Jeff Johnson from the book of 1 Samuel, I'd like to remind you that you can hear it again on several different venues.

First, you can go online to sounddoctrineradio.org where you can hear today's study as well as make a donation to this radio outreach. That's at sounddoctrineradio.org. You can also listen at oneplace.com and through the Sound Doctrine Radio app. Sound Doctrine can be heard wherever you enjoy podcasts, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Be sure to join us again next time we meet for another encouraging and challenging study with Pastor Jeff in the book of 1 Samuel. That's here on Sound Doctrine, presented by Calvary Chapel Downey.