"Men Whom God Struck Dead" | 1 Chronicles 13 | Sunday Evening Worship Service

Question for you.

What is the worst sin a person can commit?

I wonder how you would ask that question.

There are obviously different levels of sins, just like there are different levels of crime.

You hear about a guy get thrown in jail for 35 years for stealing a pack of gum, and you think that's probably an exaggeration.

That's not fair.

Lots of states passed the three strikes in your outlaw, California being one of them.

I was on a jury once with a guy who, if he got convicted, would be his third felony, and he was being charged with selling over a thousand dollars of cigarettes, and it would have been sentenced to life in prison, and there was a lot of consternation among jurors.

Like, is that an overreaction?

Life in jail for selling cigarettes.

I won't tell you the outcome of the case.

You recognize some sins and some crimes are more extreme than others.

In light of that, you might ask yourself, what is the most serious crime a person can commit against God?

You know, in the US federal system, there are three five three fines or three crimes with a capital offense.

Three crimes or categories of crimes you can be put to death for.

Homicide, of course, murder, treason, or espionage, and large-scale drug dealing that verges on terrorism.

Those are the three categories of things our government can put someone to death for.

And I think we'd probably agree those three categories of crimes deserve it.

What about in your relationship with God?

I know it's common to say all sins are equal in the eyes of God.

In my experience, people are saying that normally to justify their own sin, usually.

There's a sense in which I guess all sins are equal in the eyes of God because all sins are more or less equally apart from God.

If sin is failure to reach God's glory or match God's glory, I guess all of us can jump equally far towards Africa.

You know, we all run and try to jump off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

We're all going to get equally close to Africa, I guess.

It doesn't really matter.

And so in that sense, all sin is equal before God.

It's all, in some sense, more or less equally far away from Him.

But in terms of crime and punishment fitting the crime, that it's not true that all sins are equal.

God responds to some sins differently than others.

In light of that, it's interesting to think through the Bible.

What examples are there of somebody whose sin is so extreme that God kills them immediately for it?

Not that he lets them live decades later.

Not that the wages of sin is death, of course.

Not that he lets providentially the person's sin work its way through their life and kills them one day.

But no, the kind of sin that's so extreme that God intervenes in history miraculously to put the sinner to death immediately.

Not people executed by Israel's government, but people who sin and God Himself strikes them dead on the spot.

And when you think about what you would put in that category, you might expect it to be murders or idolaters or something like that.

Maybe the violent or the sexually immoral or people guilty of the kinds of sins we would normally put on the very top of our list, but the most well-known examples of that kind of sin in the Bible are strikingly different.

The first people you see in scripture like that are Nadab and Abihu.

Do you remember them?

They were supposed to be priests that could minister in the Holy of Holies.

They were consecrated, they were uh ordained for their role.

Aaron's own family.

And instead of approaching God the way they had been taught by both Moses and Aaron, they instead put on their robes and they lit their incense and made strange fire, is the word the scripture uses fire that God had not authorized.

They went and did their own thing in front of all the people is the idea.

They wanted the people to see that now they were the ones who could enter the temple.

Now they were the ones with access to God.

And so they paraded themselves around with this fire that God himself did not authorize, and God struck them dead.

And of course, Aaron was stunned, and Moses tells Aaron, Among those whom approach God, he will be treated as holy.

There's Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament.

Do you remember them?

They sold their field and then presented the money to the church, but they didn't present all of the money to the church, only some of it.

That, of course, is not a problem.

It wasn't, they weren't killed for tax evasion or anything like that, inflating the value of their assets.

No, they presented their money to the church and they were asked if that is what they got for the land, and they said, Yes, it is, of course.

This is all that we got it for.

They were in a church where it had been common, if you look at the beginning of Acts, for people to give all they had and give to the poor, which is not commanded by the Bible, but it was something that they were doing.

And so Ananias and Savior presented themselves to the congregation as if they had done that.

I mean, it'd be very easy to imagine a modern-day equivalent of you selling your house and saying, you know, my kids have gone off to college and I don't need my house anymore.

I'm selling it, I'm giving it all for the mission work of our Lord, all to Africa New Life in Rwanda.

But you really kept, you know, half of it for yourself, which again is totally fine.

In fact, if you would have kept half of it for yourself and told everybody, I'm telling I'm selling my house and giving half of it to African New Life, everybody would think that's so godly and wonderful.

Yay.

But you weren't content with that.

You were like, I sold my house, I'm giving all of it to Africa New Life.

Look how godly I am now.

That's what Ananias and Sapphira did, and the Lord struck them dead.

Now, Ananias and Sapphira and Nadab and Abihu, they're not the same sins in every detail, but they're the same kind of sin.

In both cases, the people took something that belongs uniquely to God, namely his worship, his holiness, his name, and they treated it as though it could be handled on human terms.

Nadab and Abihu worshiped God in a way that he did not command in front of others as a performance.

Ananias and Sapphira used an act of worship to create a false impression about themselves.

And in both cases, God did something shocking.

He struck them dead immediately.

Which raises the question what is it about this kind of sin that provokes such an immediate response from God?

Because apparently there's something God finds especially offensive about using his things that he designates for worship to promote yourself.

And that's what happens in 1 Chronicles 13.

1 Chronicles 13 is the story of the people who are moving the ark.

And I give you a little picture of the ark or a hand-drawn image of the ark on the screen, so you kind of have what in your mind we're talking about here.

The ark has the rod of Moses in it, the butt of Aaron, the Ten Commandments, manna in it.

That's what's inside of the ark.

There's two angels on top of it touching each other.

It's got rods put out so that it can be moved in position.

Remember, they had to walk this thing through the wilderness for 40 years.

That's the idea behind the ark that I don't think is to scale.

I don't know how big it actually is, but that's the idea there.

And in 1 Chronicles 13, we're going to see them moving the ark.

And what's amazing about this chapter as we read it tonight, you're going to see that everybody who's involved in this chapter was operating with what they would think was doing the right thing.

David wanted the ark in Jerusalem to a monument of worship to God.

Israel wanted the ark in Jerusalem because David wanted it there.

The leaders of Israel agreed to get the ark back in Jerusalem.

The people agreed to get the ark in Jerusalem.

There's music, there's celebration, there's enthusiasm, there's good intentions everywhere.

And then we're going to see somebody die.

So what went wrong?

The answer is that God is not worshipped rightly simply because he's worshipped by sincere people.

He's worshipped rightly when we approach him as he is commanded.

And the Bible starts with a story, by the way, Cain and Abel.

They were commanded to approach God with a blood sacrifice.

And Cain didn't think that was fair, I guess, because Cain was a farmer, he's growing crops.

Of course, it's easy for Abel to offer a blood sacrifice because Abel is a herdsman.

He has animals.

Cain doesn't.

And so Cain thinks that if he's worshiping from a sincere heart and he's offering what he has, that that's acceptable.

So the Bible begins with this little story of Cain and Abel that God is not approached by what you think is acceptable, he's approached by what he declares to be acceptable.

He tells Cain, when Cain offers the grain to him, he tells Cain, Don't you know what I commanded?

Why don't you go do what I told you to do rather than this?

And demanded a blood sacrifice.

And you remember how Cain responded.

Of course, you want a blood sacrifice?

I've got your blood sacrifice.

And murders Abel.

Well, we see tonight, and by the way, Cain did not get murdered immediately by God.

He didn't get put to death.

He got marked and said, Nobody kill him and sent out there.

We get tonight as a story very much in that vein, though.

Somebody approaching God on their own terms rather than his.

I'll give you a lesson in archaeology before we get into this.

What the ark is, I mentioned it's a drawing of it, is on the screen.

They didn't have cameras back then, or I'd give you the actual picture.

The ark is eight miles, nine miles outside of Jerusalem.

It's been there for a long time.

It's supposed to be in Jerusalem and the temple, the temple isn't there, of course, but there's the tabernacle.

During David's life, there was not no temple yet, remember?

When David was king, there was no temple.

There was the land for the temple.

There was the tabernacle that was there.

Tabernacle was the tent.

It was the tent version, the portable version of the temple, the food truck version of the temple.

You could say it that way.

The restaurant hadn't been built yet, but they had the mobile version of it that was there, and the ark was supposed to be in that.

But they lost the ark back in the days of Samuel.

They lost the ark when it was when Samuel was just a little kid, actually, when it was taken out to war with Israel.

It wasn't supposed to be taken out to war.

It wasn't a good luck charm.

It wasn't the scout, it wasn't the two spies that go before them.

They took it out to war with them because they were afraid of losing.

And this was the Israelites' logic.

If the ark is with us in battle, there's no way God would let us lose because God so closely identifies with the Ark, He'll have to fight for us.

So notice they believed in God.

They believed that God determined who would win the war.

And they believed that God was represented by the Ark, and so they put two and two together and thought, if we have the Ark at the front lines of the battlefield, we have to win.

It's phenomenal logic.

Very, very bad logic.

It goes off to war and they lose the ark.

The Philistines take the ark because God is not gonna, God's not a good luck charm you wear around your neck as you go to battle, my goodness.

So the ark, as I mentioned on there, has the law inside of it that demonstrates that God is a lawgiver.

It has the manna inside of it, which demonstrates God's presence.

It has the rod inside of it, which demonstrates God's forgiveness.

It's where the high priest goes in the days of atonement and they splatter the whole thing with blood.

And so when you take it together, the ark demonstrates that God is a prophet, a priest, and a king.

That God is the lawgiver, he is the one that forgives sin, and he is the one that is their sovereign.

He is a prophet, priest, and king.

He leads them, he rules them, and he forgives their sin.

It shows God's presence.

The ark is with you.

It shows God's forgiveness, it is sprinkled with blood.

It shows God's revelation because it has his word in it.

Other religions might have depictions of those they worship, like Catholicism or Buddhism or Hinduism, might make a shrine with an image that is an object of worship or a veneration, whatever word they want to use for it.

An item or an article or an image you genuflect for and you direct your prayers to and whatnot.

Israelites didn't have anything like that.

This is not something they were supposed to worship.

They weren't supposed to bow down before it.

It wasn't an image of something they directed, praise, or venerated.

That's not how it's supposed to be.

God kept it holy, not them.

So that's the idea with the ark.

It's been parked out.

Well, first of all, the Philistines took it.

Do you remember that?

That was a huge fiasco.

The Philistines took it into war and they didn't know what to do with it.

They now have the Israelite ark.

They recognize this is important to them.

It was odd that it was in front of their battle lines.

That was strange, but now we have it, obviously an object of worship.

If you're a Philistine, what do you do with an Israelite ark that you stumble across in the battlefield?

They didn't know what to do with it.

So they put it in their temple to Dagon, which is their fish god.

They thought, oh, here's the Israelite ark.

They put it at Dagon's feet.

And the imagery wasn't supposed to be subtle.

It was supposed to be, look, uh, the Israelite God is bowing down to Dagon.

How wonderful.

Uh it didn't work out well for Dagon, if you remember.

Uh the next morning they came in and Dagon was laying down before the ark.

It was like he fell down, he was worshiping the ark, and the Dagon priest was like, no, that's not what we were going for.

So they they prop it back up.

You know, when Dagon fell to bow down before the ark, his pieces broke, his fin broke off, or whatever.

So they prop him back up, duck take the fin back on and you know, nail him to the ground, and so there's the fish standing up when the ark back at his feet falls down again, and this time he's, you know, a humpty dumpty situation all over the place.

And so they decide we gotta get rid of the ark.

And it's even funnier, they prop Dagon back up again, tape him up together, and they say, No one can touch the threshold of the door where Dagon fell.

They declare the ground where Dagon fell on to be sacred ground.

I mean, that is just the picture of false religion, right?

Dagon won't quit worshiping the Israelite God.

So we're gonna get rid of the Israelite God and declare it sacred where Dagon fell down to worship.

Awesome.

So they get rid of the ark and shop it around.

That goes on a tour through Israel, and everybody wants to go look at it, and everybody looks at it, and they die when they look at it.

So thousands of people are dying, and I mean, I understand the first two people dying.

You would think by like guy 10 or something, you would figure it out.

Don't look at the ark, but there's something morbid curiosity, you know, morbid curiosity that drives people, and so they all die.

And so the Philistines decide we have to ship the ark back to Israel.

They get two oxen for it, and I have I have a picture from satellite imagery of what it looked like.

They get too oxen for it, and these these uh oxen, they have horns, so it's not the best picture, but these two oxen had just had had calves.

And so they they filled it with gold, they put the ark with gold as an offering, like gold, golden mice.

I don't know, they worship a fish god, so that in their mind golden mice was like an offering to Yahweh or whatever.

So they fill the ark with golden fish, you know, I mean golden mice, and pack it up, and they're gonna send it back to Israel.

But before they do that, they're like, those mice are worth a lot of money.

We have to make sure this ark is the real deal.

And so they find two cows that had just had calves, and the calves are are lowing for milk, and they put the ark on it, and they send the cows back, and the cows go away from the sound of their calves that are hungry.

That's supernatural cows right there.

Those cows had more sense than the Israelites did.

They chose to obey God rather than their own natural instincts.

And so the cows wander back into Israel and drop the ark back off in the, you know, the first Israelite village they find.

And the cows, you know, their work is done there.

Their lives kind of end right there, too, but that's a different story.

So, what did the Israelites do with the ark?

Nobody wants to touch it.

So they put it in a barn and leave it there for decades.

And so now David is king.

Look at verse 1.

David consulted with the commanders of the thousands and the hundreds and with every leader.

And David said to all the assembly of Israel, If it seems good to you, and if it seems like it's from Yahweh our God, let us send abroad to our brothers to remain in the lands of Israel, as well as to the priests and the Levites in the cities that have past your lands, that they may be gathered to us.

Let us bring again the ark of God to us.

For we did not seek it in the days of Saul.

So the assembly agreed to do so, for the thing was right in the eyes of all of the people, and that's your first indication that this is not going well.

When you're approaching God for worship, and the way you're beginning your worship services, this is what seems right to all of our friends whom we asked.

You are starting off on the wrong foot.

Now we know from the version of the story that is in 2 Samuel that there's also more to it than this.

There was a regular planning committee that was established.

It was a parade from one village to the other.

You know, the street was going to be lined with people.

30,000 people aligned the street to cheer David and the ark on as it enters Jerusalem.

They decide they're going to let uh Uzzah drive it, drive the oxen.

They're letting Uzzah drive it because it was Uzzah's family that had the ark in their garage.

Look at verse 6.

David assembled all of Israel from the Nile of Egypt, so that's far away, all the way to Labah Hamath to bring the ark of God from Kirath Jereem.

It's about eight or nine miles to Jerusalem.

And David and all of Israel went to Balah, that is to Kirithim, that belongs to Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of Yahweh, who sits enthroned in the cherubim.

And they carried the ark of God on a new cart from the house of Abinadab, and Uzzah and Echo were driving the cart.

And David and all of Israel were celebrating before God with all their might with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets.

This reads like it's a presidential inauguration.

It's a who's who of contemporary Israelite society.

It's all the important people leading the ark into the city.

Praise God for David's wonderful leadership.

That's supposed to be the attitude.

The teensy winty problem with this is that the Old Testament describes how the Ark is supposed to be moved.

Numbers chapter 4 gives you the words for it.

Numbers 4 · chapter mention

I'll put the words on the screen.

When the camp is to set out, Aaron and his sons will go and take down the veil of the screen and cover the ark of the testimony with it.

So it's supposed to be wrapped in a veil.

Then they'll put on it a covering of goat skin, is what the ESV says.

Most translations say porpoise skin.

Some translations say badger skin.

It's a very fine leather that they have.

I don't know if it is dolphin skin.

Maybe they would have to buy it from the Philistines, or it is badger skin, or who knows what kind of skin.

It's a very unusual word, but it's used all over the Old Testament in maybe a dozen times when they're supposed to be moving the ark.

So it gets wrapped in this very fine leather.

There's a felt that goes on it.

I don't know if the felt goes beneath the leather between the leather and the ark or on top of the leather, but there's leather and felt involved in this.

That's the idea.

And they cover it with that skin, this blue felt on top of it, and they pull on his poles.

And you know, I won't go through the whole text here, but it's supposed to be a particular family of the Levites that are doing it.

No oozah, no planning committee, a particular family of the Levites wrapped in goat skin, carrying it by the poles.

That's what the word of God says.

When they do it right, it's supposed to look like this.

This is the right way.

Unless you're a Philistine.

Then this way is okay.

So Philistine way, bad, unless you're a Philistine.

Philistines don't have their quiet time in Numbers 4.

They don't know any better.

So Philistines, yes.

Israelites, yes.

Now you can ask yourself, based upon what we read in 1 Chronicles 13, which way are they doing it?

This way is the way they're doing it.

They look more like the Philistines doing it than they do Numbers chapter 4.

Numbers 4 · chapter mention

And that's the problem.

The crowds are swelling all around them.

What a testimony to David's leadership.

Could you imagine Saul caring about the Ark?

Of course not.

The best musicians are out there ushering in a new, younger generation of leadership and music in the assembly of God.

I mean, what a wonderful, wonderful place to be.

Rock music, 30,000 spectators, oxen, new carts, no Levites, a lot of looking going on.

You're not supposed to do it in the ark is look at it.

There's all kinds of looking going on in this thing.

So when a pagan who doesn't know better does a better job moving the ark than the priests, you have a problem.

The problem comes to a head in verse 9.

When they came to the threshing floor of Shadon, Uzzah put out his hand to take hold of the ark because the oxen stumbled.

So the oxen tripped.

I mean, they're oxen.

This is this is why, by the way, God said, Don't move it with oxen.

They stumble.

They got four legs going every which way, and they got two of them tied together.

What a mess.

You go to Mount Vernon and watch them plow the field with oxen.

They're stumbling, plowing the field in Mount Vernon, and those two oxen do it every day for their those oxen are 90 years old, man.

Those things date to George Washington's era, I'm sure.

Oxen stumble.

You don't use them for the ark.

But they do.

So what's who's it supposed to do?

He's the one driving the ark.

He's in charge here.

Of course, he's gonna grab the ark.

He's not gonna let it fall on the ground.

Could you imagine what that would do to the parade?

Nice parade.

Too bad you dropped the ark.

And so he grabs it.

Well, something worse than dropping the ark happens when he grabs it, of course.

Verse 10 the anger of Yahweh.

Was kindled against Uzzah, and he struck him down there because he put out his hand to the ark and he died there before God.

God strikes him dead.

He joins Nadab and Abihu, Ananias, and Sapphira, as people whom God killed immediately for their sin.

David, by the way, for his part, is angry because Yahweh broke out against Uzzah, and the place is called Perez Uzzah to this day.

That word Perez Uzah, it's a pun.

Perez means against or to strike through.

Earlier, when we read Exodus 19, I hope you heard that phrase, break through.

It's a phrase that God used about approaching the mountain.

Fence off the Israelites, do not let them break through to see me, God says.

You cannot just wander into my presence willy-nilly.

I'm setting up the line.

Do not let them break through.

Remember, Moses is like, of course you're not going to break through.

I told them once.

That's not going to work.

Tell them again and again and again, do not break through.

Remember what God says: if you break through to me, my anger will break through on you.

Well, this is what happens.

The oxen stumble, Uzzah grabs it, God breaks through to Uzzah, strikes him dead.

David's angry because God struck Uzzah and so names the place, striking Uzzah, against Uzzah, breaking Uzzah, and they call it to this day, it said.

Verse 12, David was afraid of God that day.

And said, How am I supposed to bring the ark home to me?

You can see David, this is what you would say, his head is not in the right place, is it?

How am I supposed to bring the ark home to me?

That's another little phrase that lets you know the window into what is happening here.

This is all about the people.

How would I ever know how to move the ark?

I don't know.

Is there a chapter of the Bible devoted to it?

Check that chapter out.

Do what that says.

And you're not supposed to move it to yourself, David.

David didn't take the ark home into the city of David, verse 13 says.

He took it inside of some random person's house, Obed Edom the Gittite, and the Ark of God remained with Obed-Edom the Gittite in his house three months, and Yahweh blessed them.

I mean, this guy didn't sign up for it.

Imagine, imagine that.

In our country, we have something, you know, eminent domain.

The county knocks on your door and is like, I'm sorry, we're taking your house because we need to put a bike lane in.

And you're like, what?

Nothing you can do about it.

That's that's what happens here.

The priest show up at the door, knock on the door, and say, I'm sorry, we're moving the ark into your house.

You got Ooz's body still laying on the street over there.

Jeez.

That's what happens.

The Lord, meanwhile, blesses them.

The Lord recognizes they're, in a sense, innocent victims of all of this.

So let's make sense of the story in our remaining time here.

I want to give you a lesson in archaeology, archaeology 101.

If you're a university student and you see your school's offering archaeology 101, don't sign up for it.

It's not this.

This is a better archaeology 101.

Try to test out of it based on the content tonight and see what happens.

This is your crash course in archaeology.

Your first rule in archaeology is that God sees the heart.

This is the lesson that Yahweh taught Samuel back when David was chosen as king.

Remember, Samuel lines up all of David's family and says, no, no, no, no, no.

And it's like, there's got to be a king here somewhere.

David's parents say, Yeah, we have one other kid.

He's out in the field.

It's definitely not him.

Have you seen him?

How sad would that be when David hears about that?

All the brothers lined up, but not David.

Your parents said, just look at you.

You wouldn't want you in the lineup.

Yikes.

And God tells Samuel, Yahweh looks at the heart.

He sees motives and he's not fooled.

It's possible to read this story in 1 Chronicles 13 and come away thinking this isn't fair.

What did Uzza do?

What's he supposed to do?

David told him to move the ark and the oxen stumbled.

It seems like a rash overreaction by God.

I've come across people who've said that about this.

Listen, God doesn't overreact, God knows everybody's motives in everybody's heart, and he always acts justly.

God sees the heart of everybody involved in this.

And everybody was sinning by neglecting Numbers 4 and doing this whole honoring David kind of thing.

But Uzzah is the one who broke through on God.

And so God breaks through on him.

Nothing, it seems, aggrieves God more in the scripture when people act religious on the outside to put themselves forward only to hide their sinful actions and sinful motives on the inside.

Because when you do that, you're saying that your pride is more important than what God sees.

Honestly, as I mentioned this morning, everybody embraces hypocrisy to some level in a culturally appropriate way.

You wear clothes.

And it's not hypocritical to wear clothes.

You're like, I just want people to see me as I am.

No, brother, put on a shirt, please.

Your speech, you restrain your speech, and you don't justify sinful speech by saying, I'm just revealing my heart to everybody.

No, restrain your speech.

So everybody at some level is a hypocrite, but it's a particular level of sin when a person puts themselves forward in a religious setting to lead others in worship of God while they're harboring false motives and an empty life.

God will not be mocked.

It's not just that Ooz's hypocrisy got him in trouble, it's the fact that in his hypocrisy, he tried to cover his sinful motives with leading others in worship.

God sees the heart and he will not be mocked.

Archaeology 101.

Again, God is not on your side.

You can be on God's side, but God is not on our side.

If you ever put God in the place of where he has to choose between honoring himself or honoring one of his servants, God will choose himself every time.

Do you remember the prophet back in Kings, who, you know, was the one who went and confronted the king.

He was a godly man and a well-known prophet.

And the Lord told him to come back, don't even eat a meal when you're up with the ten tribes.

Don't eat a meal until you get back to the tribe of Judah.

And he ignored it because, you know, somebody else told him, well, God told me you could eat a meal here, and so he does it.

And then the dude gets eaten by a lion.

And then you think again, overreaction.

And no, it's not an overreaction.

He put God in a position where God had to choose between vindicating God's word or vindicating God's man.

And God will vindicate his word every single time.

What's he supposed to do with Uzzah here?

Say numbers four or Deuteronomy, sorry, numbers four doesn't matter.

Of course, numbers four matters.

If you make God choose between defending you or defending his word, he will defend his word every time.

That's where the burst out comes from.

David is mad because Yahweh burst out at him.

But again, they are not.

This is the lesson the Israelites learned the first time they brought the ark into battle.

They thought if they had the ark, they would win because God was on their side.

That was their mistake.

God is on his own side.

You can be on his side, but he's not on yours.

That's the point.

And that realization helps you realize what exactly the sin was.

The worst sin that you can commit is using worship to promote yourself rather than God.

When you view worship as a promotion of self rather than God, you're flirting with the sin of Nadab and Abihu.

You're flirting with the sin of Ananias and Sapphira.

You're flirting with the sin of Uzzah.

When God struck Nadab and Abihu dead in Leviticus 10, remember, he said, By those who come near me, I will be treated as holy.

Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5, the same thing.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

God will be feared by those who worship him.

That's what Peter's message was after they had their funeral.

And by the way, that's insane, right?

The husband dies and they get him buried without even letting the wife know.

Just insane.

They didn't have pastoral ministry classes back then in the seminary.

They go ahead and let the wife know before you bury the husband.

They did not do that.

They bury them both instead.

And the message from Peter is that if you approach God, you have to do so fearfully.

And this is why Paul says, before you take communion, we're not taking communion tonight, but where he says, before you take communion, confess your sins.

Don't take communion with unharbored sin in your life, with unrepented division.

Don't take communion to put yourself forward as holy, but receive it as the grace of God.

People will sometimes say they don't like church because of all the hypocrites.

Well, God has a pretty big problem with the hypocrites, too.

And he sees their hypocrisy even more than we do.

And God is never mocked.

You know, we don't have the tabernacle or the temple even anymore, much less the ark.

There's all kinds of stories about where the ark is.

You can watch an Indiana Jones documentary about it.

There's not even a temple there today.

You know, there's just the temple mount.

That's it.

Um that's because Christ, when he comes to earth, he in a sense becomes the ark.

He is the mercy seat, he is the appearance of God.

If God dwelt in the temple in the Holy of Holies and the Ark demonstrated that he was prophet, priest, and king, we recognize that the ark gives way to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our prophet.

He's the one that gives us the word.

He is the word.

He's our priest and that he's the one that makes atonement on the cross for our sins.

And he's our king because he is the high king of heaven.

He's the one that is sovereign over the universe.

And so we recognize that Jesus, in that sense, is the ark.

He is the prophet, priest, and king.

Similarly, though, the only way you can come to God is through Christ.

No one can come to the Father except through the Son.

So the New Testament reality of this is that you cannot approach God unless you approach Him through Christ.

And no one can approach Christ unless he is drawn by the Holy Spirit.

And so all three Trinitarian persons conspire or covenant with each other in some way to facilitate worship.

They set their affection on people, they draw them to faith in Christ, they forgive their sins and make them worthy.

You don't become worthy to approach God.

God approaches you and purifies your heart through the blood of Christ.

He seals you with his spirit, having been your priest in forgiving you of your sin.

He becomes your prophet in giving you his word, and then he becomes your king as you submit yourself to him.

Can you still commit this sin today?

Of course, a person could be a flagrant hypocrite as they lead worship, could, you know, and there's varying degrees of even this sin.

You know how many times are you even singing in church with mixed motives of who's listening and who's watching kind of thing?

Again, there's degrees of this kind of sin.

I'm not saying if you raise your hand just so the person next to you sees you raise your hand, God's gonna strike you dead or anything.

There's varying degrees of even this sin.

But behind all of it is the reality that God is not mocked, and he creates worshipers through drawing them to faith in Christ.

Lord, we're grateful for Jesus Christ, who is indeed the true ark.

We are the temple, the body of Christ.

It's his body that is the temple, and we gather for worship around the ark, your presence in the church.

Lord, I pray for anyone here tonight who has never given you their life.

I pray that you would work in their heart tonight.

Help them see that you are a lawgiver.

You are just.

You're also merciful.

You show mercy to those who come to you through Christ.

You show kindness to those who appeal to you for kindness through Christ.

In a sense, we can sympathize with David.

There's a spiritual awareness that who can approach God?

You're so holy, God.

Who can approach you?

If 30,000 Levites can't usher someone unauthorized in the presence of God, what hope is there for us?

And we know that question is ultimately answered in Christ.

You draw us together.

We're thankful for that.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or you want more information about what it means to follow Christ, please go to our church website, ibc.church.

If you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to see you at one of our own worship services at Emmanuel Bible.

Now may the Lord bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.