In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of selflessness and dependency on God. He refers to the story of David bringing the Ark of God to Jerusalem as a prophetic forecast of the present age of restoration. The speaker highlights the need to restore true worship, which has been compromised by a desire for control and manipulation. He also mentions a book on the Tabernacle of David, suggesting that it holds valuable insights for the church today.

Well, I found this book in my library, so I was saying, are you reading all those books? Well, they're there positionally, and I know more or less what I have, and how to finger something that the Lord quickens. This is by an Australian brother, Kevin Connor, a complete dissertation on the subject of the Tabernacle of David, and that's why at twenty minutes to seven, I'm sitting there enjoying and reading, and I looked up at the clock, wow, there I am in my DVDs. So, I think it's the Lord's thought for us for today. Let's turn to the episode of bringing that ark up to Jerusalem, because it is so expressive of David, in 2 Samuel, chapter 6, I can't help but fall on the verses that conclude chapter 5, we'll not go into it, but that you shouldn't ignore it. Significant battles against the Philistines, in which David always seeks the counsel of God. He inquired of the Lord, what shall I do? He had that kind of relationship that he could receive explicit instruction, and great warrior that he was, he never predicated any military engagement upon his own prowess, his own ability, but always on the divine will. And God says, go up and I will defeat them. So, the chapter ends on verse 25, David did just as the Lord had commended him, and he struck down the Philistines from Gaber all the way to Gaza. And chapter 6 begins in italics, David brings the ark to Jerusalem. David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000. David and all the people went with him, set out and went from Baal of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim. Don't let words like that slip by without acute attention. For the first time, my eye fell on the word enthroned. Do you have it in your text? Yes. Enthroned on the cherubim, so that the ark of God not only denotes the presence of God, but the governance of God. It's the place of enthronement. It's the throne, literally. God is seated or present in that place. Remember that in Exodus 25, there I will meet with you and give you instruction for the sons of Israel. So this is more than just a memorial to his presence. This is the locus of divine guidance and leadership for the nation. So for it to be out of its place, and to be especially either in the wilderness or the hands of the Philistines, is a complete contradiction of terms, and something that cannot be for a moment tolerated by anyone who has a heart for God, and knows that the nation will flounder unless it's led explicitly by his guidance and by his wisdom. And so they want the place that he himself has ascribed, where he will meet with us, and there he's enthroned. See how we have to understand these references, or else we'll not understand the depth of David's devotion. This is more than a sentimentalist. If we think that David is acting out of sentimentality, we miss it. He's acting out of a king's recognition for the enthronement of God at the heart of Israel's reality. Because the physical and earthly king is the corroboration of the divine and heavenly king. He is the earthly expression of the divine rule from heaven. As it is expressed and carried out through Zion. So the restoration of the tabernacle of David is exactly that. And it's not a form of charismatic worship, although the issue of worship is very much related with it. So all of that hinges on the word enthroned. And we have to always take ourselves into consideration. We are a... What's the word, Reggie, when you knock over idols? We are iconoclastic. We are the products of an iconoclastic age, which takes a special delight in dethroning men, and showing their weaknesses, and humiliating them. Look at the way we treat President Bush. Cartoons, and the colonists, and this is an age that takes a special delight in bringing down, showing the defects of people in authority. So this is contrary in temper to what is at the heart of that which is Davidic, which is a profound recognition and respect for authority. And David himself had authority in the measure in which he himself respected it in God. And not only in God, but in his predecessor, Saul, who was a fallen apostate king, whose life David would not take, though it threatened his own, but only cut the hem of his garment. How could I stretch out my arm against the Lord's anointed, against the one whom God had conferred authority as king? This is absent from us, this respect for authority, even fallen authority, even authority that is on the way out, as for example, our present institutional or even contemporary charismatic Christianity. So I think we've spoken about this once before. How we regard that which is passing will very much affect what we will institute, and set in present, and touch all the future. If we treat that passing thing already apostate, already condemned, already judged, already on the way out, with disrespect and contempt, we will bring that note into our own administration and ourselves be victim of the very same thing that we have condemned in others. So David's regard for Saul was not a put-on. When he went down on his face in that cave, when Saul woke up and saw that his hem was cut, David bowed before him on his face and called out to him as my father. And that was not an obsequious remark. That means something calculated for your own benefit, to butter someone up, or to get on his good side, because here's a man who was out to kill him. But that was a deeply felt sentiment in the heart of David towards Saul. Okay, so to bring from there the Ark of God which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim. They carry the Ark of God on a new cart, we know what happened, which is on the hill. And David in verse 5, and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might with songs, lyres, and harps, and tambourines, and castanets, and cymbals. There's a sense of such great rejoicing here. This is authentic worship, in keeping with the respect for the authority of God and the government of God, and the priestly awareness of what that means for Israel in the calling of God as it would touch all nations. And so when they came to the threshing floor of Mekong, Uzzah reached out his hand to the Ark of God and took hold of the Ark and shook it. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah. God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the Ark to study the Ark, and he died there before the Ark of God. This is something like Ananias and Sapphira before the Apostle Peter bringing a portion of the revenue of their sale of their property and making it to appear as the whole. And Peter saying to Ananias, you did not just lie against men, you lied against the Holy Spirit. And the man drops dead. And the young men carry him out and bury him. And then his wife comes, and she also, he says, those that have just buried your father have returned, and they'll carry you out also. And they did. Because it's the same profound respect for the holiness of God, especially at the inception of the Church, that however impressive that offering was, if Peter ignored the fact that it represented a lie, an attempt to disguise something or to appear for more than what it was, not only to men but to God, something would have been introduced into the life of the early Church that would have been its undoing. He had the same jealous regard for the integrity of the name of God and the fear of God, as David is now being instructed by that same God killing someone who stretches out his arm. It's not the same act. This is not a lie. This is also a piece of human presumption that men can safeguard the Ark of God that they can do for God what he can't do for himself. Something like that. He's instructing a whole generation and he's instructing David. Because David himself was offended by God's act. David, it says, was angry because the Lord had burst forth with an outburst upon Usurp. So that place is called Paris-Usurp to this day, which means God bursting out. David was afraid of the Lord that day. That speaks volumes. It's not his teeth were chattering, but a new fear of the deepest kind of the holiness of God, how far God will go to protect his name from the well-meaning intentions of men has got to be learned by someone who's going to be seated at the throne of God and rule over a nation in that fear. So this is not too expensive a provision in terms of the consequence for the entire nation that God would bring death to a man and offend David by it, but also at the same time teach him a new fear. David was afraid of the Lord that day. How can the Ark of the Lord come into my care? So here's a new trembling, maybe a deeper respect for the Ark itself and more than just a presumptuous man wanting to do the right thing. Our presumption, it's David himself in the Psalms who says, save me from presumptuous sin. Then I will be free of all iniquity. And then I can speak to transgressors about your salvation because presumptuous sin is the heart of all sin. The fact that it's well-meaning doesn't save it. What does it mean presumptuous? It makes a certain assumption about God that is less or other than he deserves. It demeans God even in the well-intending thought of man because God's thought are not our thoughts nor his ways are our ways. We do not know him as we ought. That's why these things are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the age have come. And if you remember from this morning's talk at the prayer corner, I said we would be another generation of Christians if we had had the privilege of growing up in an environment in which we saw priests performing daily sacrifice and we saw the blood that was shed and heard the bellowing of the animals and understood the depth of sacrifice and by that the iniquity of sin. We would have a much greater respect, a deeper sense of caution about our own conduct in life if we were there for the high holy day Yom Kippur and an entire nation was holding its breath that the sacrifice and the shed blood would be found acceptable in the holiest place of God that the priest himself had not transgressed and would not die in the process of sprinkling the blood for the atonement for the nation for then the nation would still be under the blanket of its own sin. So a nation is holding its breath over a single act performed by a single man once in the entire year. So that man's training, his character, the course of his life, his conduct is observed and prayed for because he will affect the destiny of the nation. When you grow up in an environment like that how different from our own which is casual, shabby, disrespectful that we manipulate, we use God, we exploit God. We use his name and we take his name in vain. So even David had to be instructed that a cart with oxen where the ark would be studied by men is not God's mode. And when he came again he came with priests who bore the ark on their shoulders according to the original prescription given God by Moses on the mount. He had somehow forgotten that requirement and was using the expedient thing. Expediency is always the way of man. So this instruction at the very inception of David's kingly rule is critical for the whole 40 year governance of Israel which was the glory of the nation. The Davidic kingdom was the high water mark of Israel's entire history and after David everything then subsequently falls in decline after Solomon. But the Davidic kingdom was regarded as the high water mark of Israel in its glory. Other kingdoms were submitted to it. Its rule spread out beyond its own immediate borders. Tribute was paid by other nations. They were not oppressed. They were not under the heel of the dominion of Gentiles. The priesthood was functioning. Sacrifices were performed. David even established the course of the priests and those who worshipped, those who sang, those who played trumpets, those who danced because David had that kind of a heart. So this was the glory of the kingdom. So when it talks about the tabernacle of David being restored that had fallen down in Amos chapter 9 God is not talking about some makeshift thing. He's talking about restoring the glory of God and the governance of God out of the fear of God that is at the heart of David. And that restoration in an age of disrespect, iconoclasm, taking delight in seeing men fall disrespect for authority, cheap understanding of God that has no real fear, the misuse of God, invoking God for our pleasure or our ministries, God told me, God said How many people talk like that? What he didn't say. And they're so carnal in their own ambition that anything that rises up in their own hearts that gratifies their soul and their flesh they can describe God said to me. This is our generation. Maybe one day we'll devote an entire school to David and it would not be an extravagant use of the time. He deserves such study. And just to see in a life that was taken out of the sheepfold the least of the brothers that the father did not even think to bring before the prophet Samuel as a candidate to be anointed. It was like almost an afterthought. Is this it? Samuel was asking. And I'm sure those brothers were impressive physically, surreal specimens. They didn't even think to bring David in before Samuel. He was only a stripling. But the moment he came in, God said this is the one. So just from obscurity, from being the least of his brethren and having an occupation that the Egyptians derided as the lowest kind of vocation that a man can have is to be a shepherd. That was beneath Egyptian contempt. And then out of that God brings the stripling to a place of prominence through the killing of Goliath by faith and then becoming Saul's armor bearer and playing the harp when Saul fell into his moods of melancholy. And then when people began to say Saul has killed his thousands but David his tens of thousands. Envy came into the man's heart. And remember he threw his javelin at David and sought to kill him. And Jonathan had to interpose himself to save his friends from against his own father. None of this is incidental. This is God's prescribed way of raising up a king. Out of hiddenness, out of obscurity, out of threat to his own life, out of persecution, out of hiding in caves. And who does God give David? He gives him the scum and the offscouring of Israel. The rejects, the indebted, the people who cannot go along with Saul, the discontent, the rabble. The least desirable from any human point of esteem or estimation were those who joined David in his cave. Those that had status and prestige went where the action was. The man whose heads and shoulders are above his contemporaries. Can you see that? This is classic. The elements of this are so remarkably classic to this very day. Most will run off after Saul. They'll go where the action is. So this kind of history is a necessary preliminary to kingship, to the exercise of authority in the kingdom of God. And then even with that, David feared the Lord in the day that God struck Uzzah. Is that to say he was without the fear of God before that time? Or that he was brought into a new dimension of death that could not be attained without this experience of seeking by expediency to return the ark to its desired place, but humanly. And humanly corrected. And God's anger, God's wrath was expressed. And David feared. So David was unwilling to take the ark of the Lord into his care in the city of David. Instead, David took it to the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite. The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his household. So where the ark of God is blessing is even in a visible way. And I don't think this was an Israelite. This was a Gentile. I think the word Obed means servant. So even this deserves examination that God allows this interval. And then David brings it up from that place. He went in verse, is it 12? David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with rejoicing. And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. And David danced before the Lord with all his might. Think of the impatience of the long delay and the anxiousness now to bring this thing up. Because if this blessed a Gentile in his farmhouse for three months in so visible a way that everyone saw it, how much more desirable to have the place where God intended it so that Israel might be blessed. And after this long delay, having been lost to the Philistines and lost in the wilderness, they stopped just as they began. Why after six paces? Why not after five paces or seven? Why does God give us this detail? Isn't this an unnecessary clutter to give us a little detail? Six paces. Why is Moses on the mount that is wreathed in smoke for six days? And on the seventh day, God calls him up to himself. For six days, he's in a cloud of smoke. Why six? Six paces they stop. Six is the number of men. And man has got to acknowledge that and always be, what's the word? Aware of his humanity. Because already it wasn't long before that the man was killed out of the presumption about man correcting God or caring for God's ark. So this time they're walking with great delicacy and sensitivity. And there's no prescription here. There's nothing that indicates that God said this is the way you're going to do it. I think the thing is entirely David's initiation, David's initiative. He himself says, just to show you Lord and we ourselves are careful to God against our own presumption where we're sacrificing to you. Acknowledging that we're so susceptible to move in our own humanity. That the only place fit for us is death. And only your life can guard your sanctity. Not our well-meaning intention. So David danced before the Lord with all his might. David was girded with a linen ephod, which is the essential basic garment of a priest. And David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. And the ark of the Lord came into the city of David. Michal, daughter of Saul, looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord and she despised him in her heart. Not a remarkable statement. They brought in the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and offerings of well-being before the Lord. David was functioning as priest. Where were the priests? Where were the descendants of Aaron? Where were the Aaronic priesthood? They were a fallen priesthood. Eli died when he heard that the ark had fallen into the hands of the Philistines and his two priestly sons were killed. And when he died, the whole system died with him. The whole thing came to an end. So David is acting out of a freedom of an interval where he takes the initiative to act as a priest. And you know what? God is not one bit offended that David is not genealogically descendant from Aaron and has taken to himself the function of priesthood. Why? Because it's a pre-sentiment for our age. We don't need a genealogical origin to assume a function that has passed away and needs to be restored if the holiness of God is to come to the tabernacle of God and to the house of God. David took that initiative and God applauded it, though his wife despised him for it. And we have exactly the same situation and elements today. Can you see it? This is not just a piece of history. It's a prophetic forecast of the future and the present in which we now are. We are exactly in that place. In an age of restoration to restore the ark of God to the house of God, the governance of God by a royal priesthood who know that this is the issue of Israel's blessedness and of the church's blessedness and know that this has been trafficked against, that worship itself has become a commodity, a practice, a musicality of instrumentation, of manipulation from platforms, that instead of issuing out of a celebration of God and his ark and his enthronement, it issues out of man's desire for control, for manipulation, and establishing atmospheres conducive to religious success. Got the picture? It's completely opposite to Dockage's Dominic. So, who's going to restore the Davidic thing into that environment and be willing to suffer being despised for it? I'm just talking off the top of my head. These are not deliberated comments. I have notes here. I wanted this for myself. You guys are just invited to take a walk. I need this for myself. And the Lord this morning just began stirring this thing about the tabernacle of David that we should not pass too quickly in Amos chapter 9 and go on to the next verses, although it's the most terse comment, that in that time, at that hour, the tabernacle of David will be restored and be rebuilt. But what is that tabernacle? Why is it the tabernacle of David? Did he make it? Is it called the tabernacle of David because he restored it? Why does God allow that tabernacle, which has to do with his presence, the reality of God, the issue of enthronement, to be identified with the name of David forever? That's a question that we should ask. But why is this called the tabernacle of David? Why is Jesus called the greater David? Why does God celebrate the name David and is willing that that name should be associated and identified with his tabernacle? Instead of calling it the tabernacle of God, the tabernacle of holiness, the tabernacle of enthronement, so many names that could have been given, the Holy Spirit inspires the identification as the tabernacle of David. If it's not the tabernacle of David, it's not the tabernacle. David is the key. I have here in my edition, he says, how can the ark of God come into my care? How do you guys have it in that new American standard? How can the ark of God come to me? What is he saying by that? Shouldn't it come to him? Isn't he the authority? Is he doubting himself or his call or his anointing? What does he mean by that? How should it come into me or into my care? If you miss this, you miss everything. And Paul says the same. Paul says, that cry that he repeats all the time. Who is sufficient for these things? There's such a sense of human inadequacy that however well-meaning a man is, however called, however anointed, however prepared, he still knows, I'm dust. And unless you know that, you'll not take another step in the process of restoration. The Lord will not entrust his ark to anyone who does not have this inward sense of total inability, a total, what's the word, sense of human limitation. If there's any sense, I can take care of this, I can handle this, I know how this should be done, finished. If God would go so far as to strike a man dead. What should I do? Who am I? I might have made the same mistake. In fact, I would have overlooked it. Not only overlooked it, I would have complimented the man for correcting the ark from falling. I would have shared in his judgment. Out of my best well-meaning intentions. What are you saying to me? Here's what I'm saying to you, David. Your best well-meaning intentions can never be enough. In fact, it can actually oppose the intention of God. Unless you know that, and live in that trembling, and that fear, and that uncertainty, and that dependency, you're not my David. Where is that attitude now in the church? That we should know how to proceed. Who is sufficient for these things? How are we to go from one day to the other in this school? How do we begin this week, Monday, the last week of the school? What should be its content? Where are we going? What's the conclusion? Who's to know? Can you live with a sense of terrible insufficiency? That no amount of experience, 40 years in the Lord, around the world, on how many times the use of God in remarkable death-life situations, airlines, is not sufficient for this hour. You cannot have a confidence because of your history, and how God has used you, because this is altogether a new moment, and altogether unknown, that you cannot with confidence determine. And if you think you can, or your spirit exudes that you can, the shekinah is removed. The presence of God lifts off. I want to take what we're now saying, and bring it into conjunction with, after six paces they stopped, and made sacrifice before they went any further, and nowhere in the text is it indicated that God prescribed or made that requirement. What am I getting at? This. That only a man who is aware of his own frailty, cleaves to God, as Pearl's saying, and intuits what God is wanting, and does it. Although there's no precedent by which a man who is not descended from Levites can take to himself a priestly function, David does so, puts on the ephod, he dances, he makes sacrifice, he distributes the thing for the people to enjoy, makes a festive occasion of it, simply out of what he intuits in his own heart, that is pleasing God's sight, though there's no precedence that would justify it, and nothing in scripture. He's acting autonomously, but not independently. He's acting out of an intimacy with God, where a man has never been before, and I'll tell you this, you dear saints, to wake you up, that's exactly the picture of where we are, and where we're being called. We have not been this way heretofore. We're going to face situations, in our last days future, that no past experience will have qualified us, no example out of scripture, no quotation, we will face situations so unanticipated, and we have to give an answer, and act in that moment, because life and death will depend on it, and how shall we know how to proceed, except that we are in the place of David, in the same paradox of an exceeding awareness of our own frailty and inability, while at the same time, a complete dependence and trust upon God and his all-sufficiency. The two things go hand in hand. If you lack the one, you cannot have the other. If there's so much as an iota of self-assurance, I can handle this. I've been this way before. I know the scriptures. You're on your own without God. So, who likes to live in a tension like this, where in the same moment, you're exceedingly aware of your own insufficiency and frailty, and at the same moment, conscious of the dependency upon God and his availability, just so much in union with you, that your thought is his thought, and you can act upon it with confidence, even though it's totally unprecedented, and will inspire the contempt of your own life. How do you like them apples? Inspire the contempt of your own life, because what does flesh crave more than the respect and the admiration of one's own life? When you cannot get that, you're cut to the quick. You can take insult from strangers, but when your own life is the source of insult and disrespect and contempt, how many men can suffer that and yet be king? When your authority is not recognized by your own life, how shall you then express authority out to the kingdom? Oh, you guys. It's like kindergarten. This is square one, elementary, and these things are written for our admonition. David is not an historical accident. His experience and every detail is God's instruction for us in the last days, for he must have a Davidic people. The kingdom of David, the tabernacle of David, must be restored, and it must be restored Davidically. Well, thank you, Lord, for that. It cannot be restored by use, by laying hands on, by our self-assertion, by our ox cart. It's got to be in the way that the Lord himself requires, as one can only know it who is in the most intimate association with that God, and will stop just as he begins. We're anxious to get out of the blocks. The gun has sounded. What? Six places later they stop and set up sacrifice? It's not a little camp stove and a little gitchy goo that they can take care of in 15 minutes and go on. They're sacrificing an ox. I mean, this is major sacrifice. The blood is going to flow. Because it is confident in God and it honors God. It's an appropriate gesture, taught God. And it knows that the delay will not in any way suffer loss. Nothing will be lost by the delay. All that the witch-macaulay worm has stolen and eaten will be restored. All the seeming delay, I'm talking to my dear brother Barry, all that seems to be wasted, the years, and where are we? What have we obtained? It's a sacrifice. It's a delight in his nostrils and a necessary sacrifice. And his purposes will not suffer loss because of it. That ark will come all the more in glory because of it. And it will come on time. Only a David can have that confidence. Anything that is not Davidic, that is human, selfish, impulsive, ambitious, impatient could not have suffered this delay. David can. And he's not just gritting his teeth waiting for it to be over. He's rejoicing as much in the delay as in the bringing. That's David. And could David have been David without first having been in the sheepfold, in the lowest form of employment, given to the weakest and youngest member of that brotherhood, and suffering how long from the threat of Saul having to hide in caves? Can we be a king without first having suffered rejection and persecution? And even the derision and contempt of one's own wife. That might literally be the case, as I know it to be true in the experience of some men. Or it could be the equivalent of something as painful. It doesn't have to be a wife per se, but that source where we look to be esteemed and recognized by others that are close to us. When that is not obtained and that becomes the source of contempt for the very thing that is honoring God and is misconstrued, misunderstood, and we're deprecated and rebuked for it. Can we bear that? That has got to be a Davidic component in the experience of men. God is preparing for the age of rest of us. Many of us can't even bear if someone looks at us cross-eyed. Or we think we're being ignored. How will you bear this? When your own wife, your own flesh and blood, closest to your bosom, speaks in this disrespectful way and despised him in her heart. David returned in verse 20 to bless his household, having blessed the nation. But Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet David and said, How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servant's maids, as any vulgar fellow might shamelessly uncover himself. She sure knows how to throw salt in the open wound. The very thing that David was exposing through worship is the very thing that she sees and identifies as the source of his shame. She sees it as scandal. He sees it as worship. Figure that one out. Everything is in the eye of the beholder. The question is, how does God see it? And if God sees it as worship, he can take whatever reprimand comes from men who see it humanly. I don't think that his worship was calculated, where he said, I'm going to go out, I'm going to start dancing. He just couldn't reframe himself. I think this spontaneous joy of the Lord is expressed in the wonderful freedom and spontaneity that David has, even as king. He's not saying, well, is this in keeping with my office? Maybe I ought to temper this down a little bit after all. I'm not just a stripling anymore. I'm the king of Israel. That thought is not interesting, because the spontaneity of his heart is so rejoicing, so overflowing, it has got to be expressed physically. He doesn't think of how will this appear to men. Are you in that place? Are you to the place where you do not give one rap of how you appear to men? That you're going to have to maintain a certain appearance to find their approval? Until you come to that, you're not in the Davidic place. But how do you come to that? Everybody wants to be approved, especially the young. How do you come to a place where you're indifferent to whether men will approve you or not, and your only and sole concern is to be approved of the Father? How do you come to that? I can't tell you. There's no formula, but you'll never come to it unless you realize it's an issue. Huh? If you're mindless about this, you'll forever be conscious of how men perceive you, and it will color your action and your conduct, subtly or deeply. You'll never have a pure worship before God, and a pure service before God, so long as there's an iota of concern for how you appear and how men will perceive you. Maybe there's nothing less for us than that the user in us has got to die. It ends up just talking off the top of my head. I'm trying to find a corollary to what took place here. You don't come to this without some measure of death, of that instinctive need to be recognized and all the more to be admired. How to be free of that is the issue of worship. There's no true worship until you're free of that. And when you're free of that, you can dance before the Lord, or whatever form, exulting before the Lord would take place. We're kept from that worship so long as we're fearful of men and need to act and tailor our conduct with regard to how we are being perceived. Remember the heart of David that we saw in the psalm today, 132. I'll not give sleep to my eyelids. I'll not go to my bed until I have found a resting place for my coffee. Remember the woman with the alabaster box who poured out the entire content on Jesus' head. And the disciple said, with indignation it says in the scripture, for what reason is this waste? Don't harm her. He said she's done a good work on me. So there again is the same thing. That legalistic propensity, even in the disciples, is offended by an act of extravagance toward God. Isn't that remarkable how the legal spirit will always be offended? In the very commencement of your ministerial life, in your kingly call, in royal priesthood, this sacrifice must take place before there's any worship. Because it's only in worship that that call is fulfilled. Because the service is a worship unto the Lord. And if it's not a worship of abandon and spontaneity and full delight, it's inadequate and it's no longer a priestly service. So this, I've never seen it before. Thanks class for giving me the excuse and justification to look into this, to bring this forth. It's when David missed a step when he was up at the entrance of his kingly palace and taking himself what he thought was a deserved vacation that he spotted Bathsheba and set in motion that whole tragedy of adultery and murder for which the entire nation suffered. Now there's something that ought to give us pause. That a man who has an inception like this can later fall into a sin like that because he had not maintained what he had here obtained. He did not maintain that fear and that sense of his own humanity and frailty and then came to a place of confidence as an all-conquering king and in that spirit was set in motion the temptation and the sin and the fault that is the great blot in the life of one of Israel's greatest men and kings. That ought to give us pause. These conspicuous men are so much more the object of the enemy's wiles to bring down a David and to bring down a Moses is such a feather in Satan's cap and a thumbing of his nose at God because these men are so representative of God. In fact, that's why Moses deserves, so to speak, the severe judgment of not being able to enter the land because God says, you did not consecrate me. Your conduct all the more because you're so identified with me, you're so privileged to have ascended the mount. I spoke with you face to face as a friend. I gave you the tablets of the law. For you, your every act speaks of me and now when you did this and acted out of your impatience and irritation you were misrepresenting me into the nation. You did not consecrate my name and therefore the penalty is the greater. The enemy who knows that will seek to find that area of vulnerability and susceptibility to bring down the significant men because the greater shame falls upon God's name. That's what we've seen in our own time with the collapse of the more famous televangelists and so on. They are the special object of Satan's devices and need all the more the prayer of the saints and all the more a divinic walk or inevitably. So this is remarkable instruction and what is David's answer to his wife's despising thing? In verse 22, I will make myself yet more contemptible than this and I will be abased in my own eyes and by the maids of whom you have spoken by them I shall be held in honor. And Michelle the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death. There is a place for divinic worship and dancing and tambourines and making music but it's about what the tabernacle represents and the ark of God and the covenant in that tabernacle. It's not that the tabernacle is now a justification for a certain form of worship. That's what we have made it but that there is a worship that emanates from and issues out of a respect for and a love for what the ark represents and if our worship doesn't issue from that source then it's a self-serving activity because it's enjoyable in itself to dance and bang tambourines and do Israeli music type music so we mustn't allow the one thing to be dissociated from the other worship issues out of a deep love and respect that David had for what the ark represented that had to find its resting place in Zion and not be left in the house of a gentile however blessed that gentile was let alone in the camp of the Philistines so he's rejoicing for its return to the designated place where God has set his name to be honored and out of which the enthronement the seat of God in that tabernacle will bless all Israel he recognizes the value of the significance and for that he's worshiping otherwise it's mindless worship which is to say not worship the church will have come of age just to take Solomon's cue when it will dance and leap before the Lord at the restoration of Israel's place in the centrality of God's purposes for it knows when that takes place God's governance goes out to all creation for the Lord shall go out from Zion so the church ought to be celebrating and dancing in anticipation of this and not as a replacement of it have any of you guys ever been to Rome and to St. Peter's and to what do they call that place with all of the treasure that they have the Vatican the Vatican Sistine Chapel the Michelangelo fresco and the treasures that the Catholic Church owns but what I'm thinking about is the ornateness of the dress of Catholic priesthood the Pope himself the celebration, the pomp, the ring the throne, the buildings it's as if the more deficient something is in truth and reality the more it's required to adorn itself externally and outwardly as being somehow the statement of the dignity that it's supposed to represent David in his dancing is more representative of the reality and truth of God than what his wife thinks is appropriate to kingship so what we have here is two views of what is appropriate in God's sight what is religious she would very much favor Catholic pomp, ceremony priestly garments and all those kinds of things he is more the expression of soul to the earth God's people without outward adornment in a true place of worship and relationship with God and the two things are diametrically opposed is there a way that a daughter of Saul is yet under our own roof and in our own house that God has seeked with that David himself should marry Saul's daughter and that she is the one who rebukes him so he's got it under his own roof kind of a nagging what's the word negativism that he has to bear is that an ingredient that we can see in our own present life do we have elements of that that serves purposes of God instead of making a clean break and God giving David a wife appropriate to his kingship he's got to live under and with a certain negativity and resistance even to that call under his own roof as maybe a tempering influence I don't know I'm just am I stretching for something is there a corollary is there something like that in our own experience can we anticipate something like that that you don't just make a clean break from the kingdom of Saul to the kingdom of David but some lingering aspect of that thing that is contrary remains and comes under your own roof and has somehow to be born as part of the thing maybe that keeps you in a certain place before God of humility because when she has openly expressed herself like this he need not ever guess what her attitude would be for anything that issues from him in his obedience to God that she would look upon as being offensive he has always to live with this weight and maybe that's a needful thing because what does Paul say he prayed three times that this thing be removed this thorn be removed and God said no I'll not remove it my grace is sufficient for you lest your exceeding revelation how does it go the weight of what you have seen will lead to self exaltation even in a Paul so this is David's thorn and I think we can rightly expect our own thorn and to see it as a provision from God and not to resent it or oppose it but even to love the negativity as a provision something being served in the purposes of God by it although there was a judgment that made her barren for the rest of her days if Paul needs that kind of corrective merely on the basis of revelation and being steward of the mysteries what would a king need who is the replica and the earthly and human equivalent of every God and king of the universe what would God provide for him as a thorn to keep him from self exaltation because we haven't said anything about the tent the tabernacle is a portable tent that this is the Davidic thing the Solomonic thing is a temple but the Davidic thing is a tent it's portability and what else can we say about a tent it's inexpensive it's not ornate it's simple it's more in keeping with the character of God even than an ornate building though God gave himself and his presence into that building so much so that the priest could not stand to move when the temple was dedicated but the original expression is the tent and I don't want to presume upon God but I think if we could know his heart he has more of a disposition for tents than he does for temples well you know what follows chapter 6 of 2 Samuel is chapter 7 you know when you're in this long enough you start to get profound and what needs to be seen is that there's something that comes to David through Nathan the prophet an oracle that speaks of a kingdom that will be everlasting and I'm raising the question is is this because 7 follows 6 or because this promise and this vision and this glory is altogether congruent with the humility and character of David that was jealous for God's ark and bringing it back to the holy place of intention in the right way this is not just one chapter following another this is one logic following another that 6 had to precede 7, humility had to precede exaltation so just a glimpse of this before we take a break verse 8 of chapter 7 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse verse 8 verse 8 verse verse 8 verse verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse verse 8 verse verse 8 verse verse 8 verse verse 8 verse verse 8 verse verse verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse verse verse verse verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse 8 verse verse 8 verse 8 Grant us, my God, his heart, his respect, his esteem for you. Thank you, Lord. We cannot, what's the word? We cannot come up with this in ourselves. We cannot promote this. We cannot perform this. Whatever grace was given to David, who was a strickling and the least of his brothers and a mere shepherd, we ask, my God, some measure of that grace. Thank you, Lord. The anointing that was given David, you said, would fall upon his ancestry, his descendants, which we desire to be, my God. Grant these things, we pray, or we're dead ducks. And we will face a lifetime of disappointment and an eternity, my God, of shame. Thank you, Lord, for the high calling. Bless us in these days.