Three families in 2 Samuel 6

2nd Samuel please, chapter 6. 2nd Samuel chapter 6. I want to read some verses from this chapter to follow on. Verse number 1, again David gathered together all, look at the emphasis on all, the chosen men of Israel, 30,000. And David arose and went with all the people that were with him from Bili of Judah to bring up from thence the ark of God.

A little further please. Verse 3, and they set the ark of God upon a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in Gebeah. Now notice here's a household, a family.

And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab raved the new cart. And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab which was at Gebeah, accompanying the ark of God. And Ahio went before the ark.

Now notice in verses 3 and 4, the emphasis on the household of Abinadab. Verse 5, and David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord in all manner of instruments made of firwood, etc. Look at verse 6, when they came to Nacon's threshing floor, Uzziah put forth his hand to the ark of God, took hold of it for the oxen shook it.

And the angle of the Lord was kindled against Uzziah, Uzziah. And God smote him there for his error. And there he died by the ark of God.

David was displeased because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzziah. And he called the name of the place Peres-Uzziah to this day. Now which would happen next? And David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, how shall the ark of the Lord come to me? So David would not remove the ark of the Lord onto him into the city of David.

But David carried it aside to the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite. Now watch the emphasis in this household. Verse 11, the ark of the Lord continued in the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite, three months.

And the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his household. And it was told King David saying, the Lord has blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that pertaineth unto him because of the ark of God. So David went and brought forth the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom onto the city of David with gladness.

And then all the intervening verses tell of the gladness that took place. Verse 16, and the ark of the Lord came into the house of David. Michael, Saul's daughter, looked through the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord.

And she despised him in her heart. Go now a little further. Look at verse 20, and David returned to bless his household.

That's another household. And Michael, the daughter of Saul, never recorded that she was his wife, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet David and said, how glorious was the king of Israel today, who uncovered himself today in the eyes of the handmaidens of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovered himself. And then the dialogue between the spouses, verse 21, and David said unto Michael, it was before the Lord which chose me before thy father, and so on.

Look at verse 23. Therefore, Michael, the daughter of Saul, had no child unto the day of her death. May the Lord bless what our brother has been telling us and what we have read together.

Did you notice that we've read about three households, three families? They're all linked with the bringing of the ark of God to the place that David had prepared for it. Now I want to follow on with what we have heard already. I want to notice and give a balanced ministry this morning.

There is the positive and there's the negative. That's the pattern we have heard already. Now we thank God for every assembly gathered to the precious name of the Lord Jesus across planet earth.

We couldn't have assemblies if we didn't have families. When we thank God another time for the families that we have, that God has given to us, that will perpetuate the testimony and will allow it to shine brightly until the last step is taken. We're here today and right in front of us in this audience are families.

Thanks for coming. We need you and the Lord needs you. Now let me get to the very point and leave the rest for another time.

Household number one, the household of Abinadab. A little background in a minute or two. It would appear that that man had two sons.

They might have been grandsons, but at least the Bible calls them sons. Now you see that family, they were breached. That's what we read.

A family breached. That's number one. The next family is the family of Obed-Edom.

And it says more than once that family was blessed. And then at the end of the chapter, there's the household of David. And he came home rejoicing before the God of heaven that the way had finally opened for the ark of the covenant to arrive in Zion, the city of Jerusalem, in the tent and the curtain in the tent behind the curtain that he had prepared for the ark of God.

Sadly, that house, old, was blemished. Now we'll see in a minute or two about Michael's behavior. Now you need to know the history of the Old Testament.

And our brother has read you a lot of verses. Many of the dear saints of God don't read the Old Testament. We need to know the narrative and allow the Spirit of God to bring the principles and illustrate the principles of New Testament teaching.

So a minute or two now on the first household. See, if the dates are right, it was a long time that the ark of the covenant was in the land of the Philistines. You remember that in the early chapters of 1 Samuel, there was a day when Eli's sons took the ark of the covenant to the battlefield against the Philistines and the Philistines took the ark of the covenant.

That's a history in itself. But here's what happened. One day they wanted to bring the ark of the covenant back to the nation of Israel.

What did they do? Well, they took a new cart and they put the ark of the covenant in that new cart and it finally arrived where we commence to read. Not too far from the city of Jerusalem, if you look at the map. Now, let me just say one or two simple things about that.

It says when the ark of the covenant was in a strange land, the time was long. See, that's the symbol of the divine presence speaking so clearly of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it dwelt behind the second curtain of the tabernacle, there in the holiest of all.

The Shekinah glory was known. Nobody could go in there only once every year. The high priest on the great day of atonement, Leviticus 16, and all of that.

David had a longing in his heart for a long time to give the ark of the covenant its rightful place. In Psalm 132, I could have read that to you as the history and how he felt whenever he wanted to bring the ark of the covenant back to the place of the name Jerusalem. He says, I won't give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I have found a place for the mighty God of Jacob.

Read it sometime. That's the background to this chapter. The day arrived when David, with all the nation, 30,000 came to the household of Abinadab.

Here's the bottom line. He assumed, he desired, he attempted to bring the ark of the covenant to the city of Jerusalem. That was a good deed.

He wanted to do that. God was no doubt behind it. But please notice what happened.

He put the ark of the covenant in a new cart. Where'd he get that idea from? Well, he got it from the Philistines. They represent the professor.

They were in the land of Canaan, but they never passed through the Jordan. You know nothing about it. It would appear that things went all right for a while.

And then they're at the threshing floor. And whatever happened, the animals stumbled or whatever, the ark of the covenant moved in the new cart. And as I put forward his hand to stay it, and instantly killed.

Now you need to know the Old Testament. And in the book of Numbers, for example, the ark of the covenant, nobody could touch it. That was the Kohathites that carried it on their shoulders and with a cloth of blue and all the rest of it.

Very instructive. They couldn't even touch it. Nevermind.

Now David had big ambitions that day. But he was really upset. And it says he was displeased with the Lord.

Men after God's own heart. In fact, he was afraid. And he wouldn't allow that ark to go any further.

But it went into another household. The household of Obed-Edom. Now let's pause a minute.

Just watch David. He should have known better. But he took new cart and he put the ark of the covenant in it, rather than on the shoulders of the Kohathites.

The Lord, the God of heaven was displeased. Now here's a very simple observation. I hope you follow what our father was telling you.

Here's what we learn. The God of heaven will not allow his people to take the methods of the unregenerate to move divine order. Won't work.

He should have known better. We bring that to our situation today. We thank God for the assemblies gathered to his precious name in this land than any other land.

And we thank God for those on the positive side who are fulfilling divine purpose and moving forward as the Lord would have us do. But once we start to take the methods and the activities of others outside the fellowship that really don't divine principles, God might allow them to do it, but he won't allow us. We have come today to ask ourselves, can we assess now our situation in the assembly, what we form part of wherever it may be.

In all our activities in the house of God, are we fulfilling and carrying out what the Lord would want us to do? What about it? I hope you're listening carefully there. What Scott was telling you. Dear brethren, we have reached the stage in assembly testimony across the world where mighty changes are seen.

When we have certain people who want to introduce change and move the way they want to move, we're hearing all kinds of negative things. We are, for example, in a new generation with technology that has never been known before. So we have to adopt our methods in assembly life to accommodate these people.

Well, here's a family that introduced it and there came a breach in the family circle. Dear brethren, I want to pause today. Do you want to see the assembly blessed and led on for God? Do we want to see our families preserved and kept? It's right.

The only way is to follow the divine pattern until the last step is taken. We're talking just this week on Moses, for example. I'll just take a minute.

He was in the mountain. Y'all know twice. He saw the completed tabernacle and God told him, now Moses, you will build this according to the pattern that you have seen in the mount.

The Exodus passages show that Bezalel and Aholiah, one from Judah and one from Dan, were men that were skilled, were men that had ability and wisdom given to God, second to none. And Moses was mighty in word and deed. I give the pattern.

Sometimes I say to the dear folk, why isn't these three men saying now, we're more intelligent than others. What the Lord said might be all right, but this is better. We're going to do this and that and the other thing.

We're going to make adjustments and we're going to do this and do the other. No, they stuck with a pattern that we are going to see God's hand blessing and our assemblies established continuously until the word of the Lord returns. We need to stick by the pattern, by the word of God, by the principles that are given here.

That's an upset. You know, some folks saying, ah, you brethren are negative. You ever hear that? Man, waking up, do you not understand where we are? We're in the 21st century.

You need to get with it. What's wrong with you? Now, watch. The Ark of the Covenant was taken into the house old of Obed-Edom, the Gethite.

He was from Gath. That's where the giant came from. These people, when others didn't want the Ark of the Covenant, they brought the Ark in.

It doesn't say it in this passage, but you have to look at the chronicle passages that are equivalent, chapter 15 and 13 and 16 and so on, of 1 Chronicles and you'll get further details. Now, these dear people had the fear of God in their heart and they gladly brought the Ark of the Covenant into their family and God blessed that household. I like that.

It says it more than once, 2 Samuel chapter 6. Listen. Good news travels fast. And somehow or other, David, at the national level at that time in the nation, understood that God had blessed this family because they had moved the way the Lord wanted them to move relative to the Ark of the Covenant.

He came down there and to cut a very long story short, he got the Kohathites and he got the Ark of the Covenant on their shoulders and to cut all the details out, they finally arrived in the place of the name. God blessed them. I ask people all the time that are trying to introduce change among us in all sincerity now, let me ask you, would you like the blessing of the Lord in your life? Would you like to see your family blessed? Would you like to see the assembly blessed? And I have never met anybody yet that's told me no.

Whatever else we do, dear saints of God, we want to have the blessing of the Lord in our lives. Can I give you the bottom line? When all else fails, follow the instructions. That's the holy Bible of truth.

I was telling them here in one of the other meetings recently, we're in another country, we have young men and they're interested in to do what's right and see the assembly progress and develop. I said to this young man, university educated, got his degree and all the rest of it. I didn't mind about him.

I said, brother, do you ever read the Bible? He said, I put the Bible on King James Version 1611 when I'm going from my home to the university or to the place of business and I put it on when I'm coming back. I said, do you ever read it when you're at home? Not at all. He says, man, do you not understand? I have no time.

I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to the dear brother. If you're busy and we're all busy, but we need to introduce priority and we need to put the word of God first. Dear brethren, if we're going to see God's blessing upon us, let us go by the Holy Bible, whatever the circumstances.

We can't develop that further, but that's the bottom line. A family breached, we've seen that. A family blessed, we have seen that.

Here's another one to think about. Here's a family blemished. Just imagine you're David and you're coming right into the city of Jerusalem and there's thousands gathered and it's a great day that the Lord is getting his place in the nation and amongst the people of God and David is so enjoyed that he's dancing in front of the procession that day.

Now, if you know your Bible, let me tell you this. His wife, Michael, charged him with behavior that in her view wasn't becoming. She thought he should be wearing likely the garments of kinghood to let the world know who he was.

He had an epaulette on. Now, you wouldn't know from 2 Samuel chapter 6. That's why you need to read the Bible. The equivalent passage says that he had a robe on underneath.

So what his wife was charging him with wasn't right. Said some awful things. Moving amongst the ungodly and moving amongst others.

Shamefully. It didn't work. Now, I won't go into the dialogue between the husband and the wife, but I tell you it was extreme.

There's no other passage that David said to Michael or anybody else. The Lord took me and he brought me to be king over the nation of Israel and he told her, your father was disapproved and that was his father-in-law. Now, here's a suggestion.

I know, dear saints of God, this is delicate. I told you before, I'm over 60 years now in assembly life and I've seen a few things along the road. Now, here's the positive.

We thank God from our hearts every day that we live for our beloved sisters. You have a ministry that the brethren don't have. You bring a dignity to the company that the ungodly are watching every day.

That's the positive. Now, what happened to this dear soul? Well, the bottom line, the last chapter, the last verse of chapter 6 of 2 Samuel. Well, she had no child for the day of her death.

From that day forward, and it would appear others tell us that David left her to the side and she never enjoyed the privileges of married life again. Bring that to the spiritual realm. Dear saints of God, listen.

Any of those of us who are married, be it the male or the female spouse, you'll only be as spiritual as your spouse wants you to be. Whether it's the male side or the female side. We've heard of shepherds.

We thank God for every shepherd, dear brethren, and every servant of Christ. You might, listen now, you might be set aside because of your spouse. You could be disqualified because of your spouse.

And we're only as spiritual as our spouse allows us to be. And all you have to do is read 1 Timothy chapter 3 and Titus chapter 2 that has already been referred to and it goes each way. Would you like your family to be blemished or any of us for that matter? Now let me just qualify that.

You see, the infant becomes a child. The child becomes an adolescent. The adolescent becomes an adult.

And then they have got to make their own choices. And every choice has consequences. And we cannot teach conviction for our families.

We can only teach the Word of God. And it's the Holy Spirit of God that brings conviction to our younger generation and all of us to move for his pleasure. The other things I'll say some other time.

I'll leave it. You got the message today. We thank God one more time for the families that make up our assemblies.

All of us are part of a family. We ask ourselves by way of illustration in this passage. Has my family been breached or about to be? Has my family been blessed or has my family been blemished? There's all kinds of others we could look at.

But it's interesting that the three of them are in one passage. And every one of them are linked with the bringing of the Ark of God to its rightful place. The Lord stir our hearts.

We've said enough. God help us everyone to do what's right and by the grace of God to follow the holy scriptures of truth till the last step is taken. Thank you very much.