Who's Touching The Ark - Part 2

...has to be preserved, and the ark is an abiding place for God on earth, that is, he manifests himself there. Let's skip over a minute here, I am reading the first book of Samuel, and chapter 5, sorry. We can't go through the whole thing, this is a fantastic study, I'm going to do it myself, but I couldn't do it tonight because it would take up too much time. But if you want to find a minute account of this ark, and God's desire and the way it moved around, you'd have to go to the first book, go to the first book of Chronicles, in chapters 12 to 16, and you'll find a very marvellous account of the moving of that wonderful ark. And then of course you'd have to read Psalm 68 and Psalm 101, which also deal with him, and Psalm 24. You see this is some little bit of furniture that's tucked away in a corner that has no meaning, meaning it's the abiding place. If you like, it's the seat, it's the dwelling place. You have the ark, and then on the top of the ark you have a mercy seat. The Salvation Army never used to talk about coming to the altar, they used to sing. I can remember that years ago, 60, 70 years ago, when the Army used to sing, Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel, Here bring you wounded heart, Here tell your anguish, Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. There's a mercy seat, a blood-sprinkled mercy seat. Somebody afterwards removed that lid and looked inside, and because they did, they got into serious trouble. Now if you read those Psalms again, 68 and 101 and Psalm 24, you'll find this thing grows immensely, immensely interesting. Okay, we're now in the first book of Samuel, chapter 5. The Philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. Now when there of Ashdod rose early in the morning, behold, Dagon had fallen upon his face on the earth before the ark of God. And they took Dagon and set him on his place again. And there arose early in the morning, and he was fallen on his face, and his head and his hands were broken off. Now you see here the peril of toying or playing with holy things. There's a verse I didn't look up, but it talks about the iniquity of holy things. Now that's something to really turn over, isn't it? How in the world can you have the iniquity of holy things? These people have captured the ark of God. They thought it would do them good, instead it did evil. They put it at the side of their God. This monstrous God, Dagon, with the upper part of his body was a man, and the lower part a fish, something like a mermaid we would say today. And there he stood in a temple where people worshipped him, and as soon as they put the ark of God there, without anybody doing a thing, big old Dagon fell down on his face. So they stood him up again. And they went in the next morning, he was worse off. He not only fell down, his hands were broken off, his feet were broken off, just because of God's presence being there. Now see what happened further in the chapter. When they rose early in the morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold. Only the stump of Dagon was left. Therefore neither the priests of Dagon nor any that came into Dagon's house dared tread on the threshold of Dagon to this day. You see, just that one visitation, that one movement of God terrified them, so that in a sense Dagon had to go out to business. Verse 6, The hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them and smote them with emeralds and Ashdod and the coats thereof. And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of God of Israel shall not abide with us, for his hand is sore upon us and upon Dagon our God. Going to the end of the 8th verse. And they carried the ark of God, the God of Israel. They carried the ark of the God of Israel out river. And it was so after they had carried it out that the hand of the Lord was against the city. Now here you are again, you see the peril. What I want to emphasize, two things, I want to emphasize the peril of having these holy things and misusing them. And yet the peril is obviously the opposite to the power. Remember the children of Israel, one of their marvelous escapades, they walked around the city seven times. What did they do? They carried the ark of God. To them that was the very presence of God. Can you imagine people on the walls looking down and saying, Who are these lunatics? I mean, what were they doing? They were not allowed to speak. That must have been tough on some of them. They were not allowed to speak. They walked around in silence. They carried the ark of God. What have they got there? Is that a coffin? What is it? It's a casket. You see, they were not allowed to mount it. When Moses was sharing out some of the property of Israel, he gave various things to various people. But the sons, I've forgotten his name, Athon I think it was, his sons were not allowed to have any cattle or any of the possessions. They were separated to carrying the ark of God. Now, the peril is this. To me it comes home with great force. Let me go to the other scripture. Where did we read a bit earlier? I've forgotten that chapter. 2 Samuel 6. Okay. 2 Samuel 6 and verse 6. When they came to Nacum's threshing floor, Uzar put forth his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, and the oxen shook it, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against it. Why? Now they'd made a new cart for it. God said it never had to be on a cart. God said it had to have four gold rings, one on each corner and put a staff through it, and that men ought to carry this thing. So they made a new cart. You know, the Jews then, I don't know about today, they loved new things. Remember what Samson said, If you fasten me with seven new ropes, then I shall be like other men, or then I shall be weak like other men. Rather insulting to us, isn't it? Remember it later, when Jesus died, they put him in a new tomb. When Jesus rode an ass, he rode one that nobody had broken in. It was entirely new. They loved new things. And these people thought they were doing God a favor by, you know, modernizing this thing. I mean, why carry the thing on your shoulders anyhow, when oxen can do it? Now I don't know what happened to these oxen. You know, it says that when they came to the threshing floor of Uzziah, maybe they thought it was lunchtime. You know, they could smell, Mmm, that's the stuff we eat, and Mmm, right now they're threshing some new wheat. Mmm, we should stay and have some. And maybe it was the very action of those creatures that swayed the ark. Now isn't it really awesome? They didn't decide to paint it another color. They didn't decide to put a second deck on it. They didn't disfigure it in any way. The men didn't go in front of it and start blaspheming. The man somehow thought he do got it. Oh, look, the ark is going to topple over. Oh, I'll hold it. Somebody once asked Mr. Spurgeon if he would join a society for the defense of the Bible. And he said you don't usually walk before a lion with a sword.