The Glory of the Covenant received on Sinai

One of the greatest miracles of God on behalf of the fallen men was the revelation of the standard of His righteousness in giving them His Torah and the ten commandments. This served as a real compassion towards the lost men.

In giving His law the Lord proved His incomprehensible love to us. The scripture says the law was holy and through this The law showed God’s excellence in glory.

However we see when the Lord inscribed Moses about building an Ark He prescribed to him to place the two covering cherubim’s on each end of the Ark, and this represented His protection and covering of His holy commandments by the angelic hosts. The exact pattern through which the heavens retains God’s holiness by His glory.

This earthen example of the heavenly spiritual reality was to serve as God’s manifest presence to His people Israel. The Bible says the tablets of stone containing God’s handwritten law was placed by Moses into a box laid through layers of Gold, which represented His heavenly glory and was instructed by the Lord to be placed in the most sacred place of the tabernacle. Later on in the Most Holy place called the Holy of Holies of the temple in Jerusalem.

Well all of these being the shadow of the reality to come with the New Covenant was the reality of God finding tabernacle among men. This meant to cause men to have an awe of God’s presence among them. A certain fear of His holiness. After the Israel of God entered into the land of promise, this Ark of the Covenant was a true manifest presence of God with His people and were to be kept in all respect and honor. Even though it was a physical object, but it carried a heavy
Spiritual significance to it. This clear indication of God’s love and protection of His people was being neglected by Israel often, to the point that in an incident it was stolen by the Philistines. The word says while the Ark of the Covenant was in enemy territory even the statue of their false God Dagon fell over at the threshing floor and its hands were broken on the threshing floor. After this the Philistines were afraid to step over the threshing floor. This also means the physical Ark carried a certain glory with it, that the false God’s could not stand in its presence. Here in the word for us in this Church today I am going to speak about the significance of honoring this symbolic presence of the Lord and its spiritual significance in our lives today.

The story starts in 2 Samuel 6 and 1st Chronicle 13th chapters. These two parallel scriptures are talking about King David’s first attempt in bringing the Ark to Jerusalem.

These two scriptures speak about the same incident and we read about the place that the Ark was kept being in the house of Abinadab who had two sons Uzzah and Ahio. In both chapters the scripture tells us the house of this one man named Abinadab being the resting place of the Ark of Covenant of God. However it does not tells us here how it came to this man, even though in other parts of the scripture it is mentioned even the method it was brought back to Israel and then to His house. What concerns me is the way this Holy Ark of God was treated by the members of Abinadab’s household. This is where my sermon begins. A most holy representation of God’s glory rests in a man’s dwelling place. In 2nd Samuel chapter 6 verse 2 it describe the Ark in the following manner. “ David went to bring the Ark of God, whose name is called by the Name, the Lord of Hosts who dwells between the cherubim.”

Here is where we begin to see the mystery unveiled behind this awesome story of the Old Testament. As you read you would discover that the Ark was placed on a new cart and placed over the oxen to be brought to Jerusalem. Much dancing and worship was going before it, yet at the threshing floor of Nachon the oxen stumbled and the Ark was going to fall when Uzzah son of Abinadab touched the corner of it and immediately was stricken by God’s anger being raised against him. The word says King David was extremely angry at God’s outbreak against Uzzah and called the place Perez Uzzah to this day. Why was God angry and why was the man Uzzah stuck to death at the side of the life giving Ark of God’s manifest presence? Why? These are questions we need to discuss today. Also why at the threshing floor of Nachon all this took place? Why a threshing floor? These are all valid question with very real answers for us today.

The very reason of this outbreak against this man Uzzah was the irreverence of this young man towards the Holy things of God. It was very evident though they had the Ark living in their dwelling place and the young men, being the sons of Abinadab had not learned to hollow it as it was prescribed by God. Secondly it had become an ordinary thing for them. They took the Ark of God’s presence as a common thing. After a while their awe and the fear of the Lord had departed from their house. This irreverence eventually killed the young man. Secondly they never bother to search the scriptures to find out the prescribed way of transporting the Ark by being carried by the shoulders of God’s true Levites. This was sin of considering the holy things of God as a common thing, like the author of the Hebrews teaches us about the blood of Jesus.

Although this was a common error even with the anointed King of Israel King David, yet the death of Abinadab’s son awakened King David from his own error. Here is the center of our message today. God the glorious maker of the haven and the earth bowed dawn and left the heaven’s glory to come and to live and die for us, so that we could have life and that in abundance of the spirit, yet we too often neglect to honor His manifest presence amongst us. His tabernacling within us is the proof of His Kingdom being in us, but we still approach it with complete irreverence at times. His written word which is His greatest inheritance left for us is often treated with complete lack of respect. I am talking to you and me folks. Please stop pointing fingers at someone else. Like King David we too want to have the Ark of His presence come to us, yet we do not spend time to read and obey the word to receive its benefits in our lives.

We neglect to respect every part of His word and by the stubbornness of our hearts and the lack of the knowledge of His eternal truth we perish in the hand of the ignorance of our own irreverence.

Many of us have our Bibles stored in a corner of our homes letting them collect dust on it. We do not renew our minds daily, yes daily on it and walk as spiritual zombies not seeing our true face in the mirror of His righteousness, which is the word of God.

We confess to be believers in Christ and pretend to be seekers of God and His prosperity and blessings, yet are seldom walking in irreverence of its written word.
We do not read the word, which is the mirror of our souls and refusing to see our ugliness in the reflection of our His truth, we walk away pretending to be fine.

After being believers for some years we stop searching for the truth and then complain about the conditions of our lives.

Leaving the only key to enter His rest we stumble through pretence and false religion. However some wise men like King David seeing men like Uzzah die at the sight of the Ark of God’s covenant are moved to repent and go search the scriptures for themselves.

They search because the death of others causes them to search their own hearts. As it did when in the Church age Ananias and Saphira fell to the ground and died, because of their lack of their reverence to the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit in their midst.

The modern church of these final days are very ignorant of such deaths, but as the time of restoration is approaching to its end we shall see more and more of such incidents in our immediate surrounding.

Many die outside of the Covenant of grace, but frightening is the death of those who consider His presence as nothing and bluntly sin by lying to Him who Lives on forever.

The scripture in 1st Timothy 3:15 says the Church is house of the Living God and she is the pillar and the ground of the truth. Then every time we gather the Ark of His covenant and the manifest presence of God is with us, so we should learn from the word how to conduct ourselves in the house of God.

Coming back to 2nd Samuel the 6th chapter verse 11 and 12 the word says while King David was searching the scriptures the Ark of The Lord stayed in Obed-Edom’s house and while resting there the house of Obed-Edom was blessed because of the ark of God.

Do you see the difference the same Ark is making in Abinadab’s house, which caused the death of his son, yet in other man’s house it was the cause of his household’s blessing. This teaches us that the choice is ours.

The same salvation has come to us all, the same Holy Spirit is in us all and the same Bible has been given to us all, one dies for lack of reverence and another one lives by it.