Raiders of the Pesky Ark

All right, let's pray. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, send your spirit, open our hearts and our minds so that we may not be hostile to it, but may rightly understand what is revealed here so that we may give glory to Jesus Christ for saving us and redeeming us and recognize that all of this is written for him, about him, and for our salvation.

We ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, any questions regarding the sermon before we get into the Sunday school lesson?

The sermon hymn?

Yeah.

The third verse was talking about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Yeah.

But didn't you preface it with a triangle that was wider than a crevice?

Because that's in our blue hymnal. So, yeah, yeah. I was about to stand up, I was gonna be like. Yeah, yeah. If you feel like standing up, you just go all Pentecostal on us, that's fine. All right, seeing that there are no other questions regarding the sermon, let's get into our text today.

David’s Kingdom Expands as a Type of Christ’s Reign

And we've established, and we're at this point really starting to fill out what the Bible reveals regarding the kingdom of God. And as we read the story of David, he was the anointed but not yet coronated king of Israel.

When he was anointed, he was coronated the king of Judah, but not of all Israel. And a little bit of a note here. I want you to think back with me, if you would, to your Bible history. After the death of Solomon, what happens to the nation of Israel?

Split in half, right? So what ends up happening to the one group? Have y 'all heard of the 10 tribes of Israel? Where did they go? Where are they? They got scattered, right? They got scattered in what has become known as the Diaspora.

And it's very rare today, with people who are genetically Hebrew, for them to say, I am of the tribe of Ephraim, or I am of the tribe of Manasseh. I am of the tribe of Simeon. Because those tribes, because of the rebellion and their idolatry, God literally scraped them out of the land, just dug them right out and dispersed them into the nations.

So that's kind of an interesting thing. So you'll note then that David, when he becomes king, he first becomes king of Judah, but his kingdom eventually expands to include all of Israel. Now, are we Christians?

Are we part of Israel? Yes, we are. We've been grafted in. And so you'll note then that as David's reign expands, it expands to include all of Israel. And I like to think in type and shadow that that including now of like the other tribes of Israel, in type and shadow reflects how Christ is now king over all of Israel.

And that includes people from every nation, tribe and language. That's kind of the idea. I recently was speaking with my father and he had been on ancestry .com and paid to do one of those genetic swabs to figure out exactly what makes up the DNA.

And so he calls me up and says, well, Chris, you're not gonna believe this. And it's like, all the things we expected were there.

Except for one thing.

He said, you know what's really weird is that we have this small portion of Hebrew blood in us. Very small portion. He's sitting there and go, how did that happen? Hmm, interesting. You know, that's maybe part of the diaspora, right?

But there's these genetic ways of being able to kind of identify the different regions. I mean, it's absolutely fascinating. So somewhere a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, one of my ancestors married somebody who was Hebrew.

So it doesn't surprise me, but it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of us have that as well. Now, interesting thing, a little bit of a note here. In the Middle Ages, Jews lived where? If they were in Europe, where did they live?

They lived in ghettos. They were kind of separated out. They weren't allowed to hold government positions. They all kind of kept to themselves. And you think of the segregation that occurred in the South after the Civil War up to the Civil Rights Movement.

Jews and Gentiles in Europe had that same type of segregation going on during the Middle Ages. That's a little known fact, but that's something to keep in mind. But that's not the topic that we're gonna talk about today.

The Ark of the Covenant as a Type of Christ

Okay, so David is now king of Judah, king of Israel. He's king of everybody, right? And you'll note that he's now conquered all of his enemies. There's like nobody to fight him anymore. It's like, what's a king to do, right?

And you think of Jesus when he returns in glory, establishes his visible reign here on the earth. New Jerusalem comes out of heaven, heaven's new earth. We're all resurrected, no more sin, no more pain, no more suffering, no more tears.

World without end, it's gonna be great, right? No enemies, right? Well, worship is an important piece then of this as well. And what's gonna happen here is kind of fascinating. But David wants, and you're gonna see this,.

He's going to want the tabernacle.

And the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem, his city, the city of David, which is gonna make sense. But he's also gonna want to build a temple, a permanent residence for God's presence. And what happens when he wants to do that is fascinating because it will result not only in David kindly by God saying no, but what's gonna happen in the prophecy is so rich as to what it is that God's gonna do for David instead.

We'll take a look at that as well. All right, so we're in 2 Samuel 6. David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel. 30 ,000, David arose, went with all the people who were with him from Baal, Judah, to bring up from there the Ark of God.

A little bit of a note, in type and shadow, the Ark of God, I think prefigures Jesus Christ. What are the main component structures, ingredients for the Ark of the Covenant? Huh? Well, no, think of it itself.

Remember the braiders of the lost Ark, Indiana Jones, right? With the golden box with the cherubim on it, right? That's where the mercy seat was. Well, what was that thing made out of? Gold, yes, that's part of it.

Oh, the 10 commandments were in it, yes. There was also an omer of manna inside of it, right? And if, huh? Aaron's staff that budded was inside of it. But the box itself, was it solid gold? Nope, it was wood.

Okay.

Do you have gophers on the brain here? I'm just, you know, because the last night talking. Gopher wood, right. No, it's made of wood. It's made of wood. Yeah, yeah, you're thinking Noah's Ark, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and the reason they called it gopher wood because as Noah was building it, he'd say to his son, would you go for some wood and he'd get, you know, nevermind. I write my own jokes. Just, hey, hey, hey, and I do my own sound effects.

All right.

So the Ark of the Covenant itself is actually made out of wood and it's overlaid with gold, all right? And I think a good way to think about the Ark of the Covenant is that it's kind of an earthly symbolic typological picture of Christ himself, who is God and man.

He's, you know, he's the God-man in human flesh. So it has all of these earthly components but also these celestial pieces to it. So think of the Ark of that way as really kind of prefiguring the incarnation of Christ itself.

The mercy seat is on it. This is where the blood of the sacrifices goes, especially the sacrifice on Yom Kippur, you know, which is for everybody's sins. So David wants this thing now in his capital city and where has the Ark been up to this point?

When the Ark is at home prior to this, what's home? The tabernacle, yeah. The tabernacle is basically this big, ugly tent and it stays out in the wilderness. Remember at the opening of 1 Samuel, the tabernacle was in a town called Shiloh.

If you go on a tour of the Holy Land today and you visit Shiloh, they will take you to the exact spot where the tabernacle was because there's just no mistaking it. I mean, they had moved the rocks out of the way and the rocks stay, and you just make out, it was right there, right?

I know this from other people's vacation photos. I'm just saying, yeah, I've traveled the world this way. It's amazing, cheap, very inexpensive. Thank you for the internet, God, and Google Maps.

Jinx.

All right, so it's been traveling around. It's been Shiloh, it's been in several different places. All right, so he wants this in Jerusalem. So, bring from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of Yahweh of hosts.

Just a little bit of a note, you're gonna, this section of scripture, and several sections of scriptures really emphasize this name for God, Yahweh Sabaoth. Saba is the Hebrew word for armies. So, the Lord of armies, the Lord of hosts.

You have to think of hosts, not of just angelic beings or whatever, but you have to kind of think of a host of armies, right? Who sits enthroned on the cherubim, and they carried the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out to the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill.

A real quick question, knowing your Mosaic covenant, how is the ark to be transported? Carried, it's supposed to be carried. All right, we know this. Let's take a look at our cross-reference. A cross-reference is gonna be in Numbers chapter seven.

I'll start at verse six. Here's what it says. So, Moses took the wagons, the oxen, gave them to the Levites. Two wagons, four oxen he gave to the sons of Gershon according to their service. Four wagons, eight oxen he gave to the sons of Merari according to their service under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron, the priest.

But the sons of Kohath he gave none. The sons of Kohath were the ones who got to carry the consecrated pieces for the tabernacle, including the ark of the covenant. And it says he gave none because they were charged with the service of the holy things that had to be carried on the shoulder.

And the chiefs offered offerings for the dedication of the altar on the day it was anointed, and the chiefs offered their offering before the altar. So from Numbers chapter seven, we learn that the ark when it is transported is not to be transported via ox cart.

Now the Philistines put it on an ox cart when they sent it back after they had captured it, but that's not the normal way this thing is to be traveling. So we've got a little bit of a problem here in our text.

And this problem comes to the fact that at this point, despite David's zeal, despite his love for the Lord, he's a man after God's own heart, despite his godly desire for the ark to be in Jerusalem, he still doesn't know his Bible well enough.

And as a result of this, he's doing something wrong. Now, remember the buck always stops at the top. So ultimately what's gonna happen here is gonna be David's fault. He's at fault. And we'll show you the cross reference on this too, which is also very helpful.

All right. So they carry the ark of God on a new cart. At least they thought, well, at least we'll put it on a brand new one, never been used before. And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill, and Uzzah and Ahio and the sons of Abinadab were driving the new cart with the ark of God.

And Ahio went before the ark. David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before Yahweh with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. And when they had came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it for the oxen stumbled.

And the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Uzzah and God struck him down there because of his error. And he died there beside the ark of God. Now, a little bit of a note. Uzzah, did Uzzah have a good motive?

He had a great motive. But this is where we have to understand God's ways are not our ways. God's thoughts are not our thoughts. And the ark of the covenant is a holy item. Truly, truly holy, set apart.

And when sinful human beings come in contact with the holy without a sacrifice, without being atoned for what happens to the human being, goodbye. Yeah, yeah. So you remember Superman has kryptonite, right?

Sinful human beings, our kryptonite is the holy and it'll kill us dead really fast. And this has to do with, this is why we need a savior. So Uzzah in reaching out his hand, he doesn't want the ark to hit the ground, but he wrongly just intuitively assumes that his hand is more holy than the dirt.

And it's not, and he dies.

Dies for his error. And all of this was happening while the praise band was still going, right? So this is the middle of a big worship set. Keep that in mind. I would say that there are a lot of people in a lot of churches today who have great motivation to doing all kinds of things that literally God's word, if you rightly understand it, would be quite opposed to.

All right, motivation, whether it's, even if it's good, is not grounds for doing something that God has clearly, in his word, taught, which is not pleasing to him. We must not assume that just because our motives are right, that that makes the result to be good.

So we have to have some wise, godly counsel from God's word. What do they say? The road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? One of the church fathers, he said that the road to hell was paved with the skulls of priests and bishops as the skulls were like the mile markers, but that's a different story altogether.

But you kind of get the idea. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? Now let me show you a cross-reference on this that will help us a little bit also. And it's found in 1 Chronicles chapter 15.

And you'll note that 1 and 2 Chronicles and the stories that we're reading here in 2 Samuel, there's a lot of cross-references. So one has a little bit more of a political skew to it. It gives us some, same story, slightly different details.

It's like in the New Testament where we have four gospels. 1 and 2 Chronicles gives us more information than the stories that we're looking at right here. So 1 Chronicles 15 is very helpful in helping us get the gist of what just happened.

David built houses for himself, 1 Chronicles 15. In the city of David, he prepared a place for the Ark of God and pitched a tent for it. So you can see he really put a lot of time. So he wants a permanent spot for it.

He's got the property figured out. He knows where this is all gonna go. David said that no one but the Levites may carry the Ark of God, for Yahweh had chosen them to carry the Ark of God and to minister to him forever.

And David assembled all of Israel at Jerusalem to bring up the Ark of Yahweh to its place, which he had prepared for it. David gathered together the sons of Aaron, the Levites, of the sons of Kohath, Uriel, the chief with 120 of his brothers, and the sons of Merari, Esaiah, the chief and 220 of his brothers, and the sons of Gershom, Joel, the chief with 130 of his brothers, of the sons of Elizaphan and Shemaiah, the chief with 200 of his brothers, the sons of Hebron, Eliel, the chief with 80 of his brothers, of the sons of Uziel, Abinadab, the chief with 112 of his brothers.

Then David summoned the priests, Zadok and Abiathar, and the Levites, Uriel, Esaiah, Joel, Shemaiah, Eliel, Abinadab, and said to them, you are the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites. Consecrate yourselves, you and your brothers, so that you may bring up the Ark of Yahweh, the God of Israel, to the place I have prepared for it, because you did not carry it the first time the Lord our God broke out against us because we did not seek him according to the rule.

So the priests and Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the Ark of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and the Levites carried the Ark of God on their shoulders with the poles as Moses had commanded according to the word of the Lord.

So you can see from the cross reference here, we're getting like the fuller story. So they recognized, ah, the reason why Ezra died is because we hadn't really inquired about how to do this. So this was a sin of omission.

So remember when we confess our sins. Lord, I confess that I am by nature sinful and unclean. I have sinned against you in thought, word, deed, by what I have done, by what I have left undone, right? In this particular case, they sinned against God by a sin of omission, they hadn't done what was necessary to know according to the scriptures how to properly handle the Ark of God.

And that sin cost a fellow his life. Now David, now we've read in 1 Chronicles that there's gonna be a second attempt here. Attempt number two, they're gonna carry it properly. But David at this point with Ezra dead is gonna put the brakes on and he's gonna freak out a little bit.

He's gonna freak out a little bit because it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I mean, God could like strike us all down if he wanted to. So he's gonna take pause and try to sort this all out. In doing so, he's gonna continue to have a very healthy fear of God in this and God is going to graciously allay those fears.

So David was angry because Yahweh had broken out against Uzzah and the place is called Perez Uzzah to this day, break out against Uzzah. What a great name for a place, what's that place? Break out against Uzzah, that's the name of it, right?

So David was afraid of Yahweh that day and he said, how can the Ark of Yahweh come to me? So David's a little bit unhinged at this point. He has a healthy fear of God but he's literally like shaking, he's like, whoa, whoa.

And think back to the stories earlier in 1 Samuel when the Ark of the Lord is captured by the Philistines and they take it to their different cities. What happens to all of those cities with the Ark there?

Plagues, people breaking out with boils, they had rats and it was a mess, right? So David clearly is afraid of the Lord, thinking, whoa, can I really bring this thing into the city of David? So David was not willing to take the Ark of Yahweh into the city of David but David took it aside to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite.

And the Ark of Yahweh remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite three months and watch what the Lord does. And Yahweh blessed Obed-Edom and all of his household. And so by God blessing Obed-Edom, he literally is saying to David, no, no, no, I love you.

Don't fear me in this way. And you think about Obed-Edom will probably end up happening but it doesn't say, but you kind of get the pictures like somebody would knock on his door. Is this the house of Obed-Edom?

Yeah, you just won the celebrity sweepstakes, $20 million, what? Yeah, I didn't even apply for it. We don't care, you won anyway. It's just strange things like that. So God's overtly blessing Obed-Edom and all of his household.

And that grace, that mercy says to David, okay, it's gonna be all right. Let's finish what we started. So it was told the King David, Yahweh has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and all that belongs to him because of the Ark of God.

So David went up and brought the Ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with rejoicing. And we know from 1 Chronicles 15 that now they've figured out this thing has to be carried on poles.

They're doing it right. We even know the names of the fellows who were doing it, all historical fact. And it's at this point, we have to kind of put a little bit of an asterisk here. And that is that there are people in Christianity today who say or believe that David danced before the Ark of the Lord naked.

I understand you're sitting there going, what? Talk to many people. Well, David danced before the Lord naked. No, he did not. He did not dance before the Lord naked. We're gonna see this. And I'm pointing it out because this is one of those things that kind of gets passed off like word of mouth without people actually checking the text.

And so as a result of it, people seem to think that David, well, maybe he wasn't naked, but he got into his tighty-whities and was dancing around. No, that was not going on either. Okay, he did not have tighty-whities.

I'm just saying.

Sometimes I derail myself. Okay, we're gonna see from the details that that's not what happened. And it was Michal, his wife, who accused him of this. So we'll keep that in mind. So it was told to David, the Lord has blessed the house of Oda.

So David went, brought up the Ark of God with rejoicing, verse 13. When those who bore the Ark of Yahweh had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal. And David danced before the Lord with all of his might.

And David was wearing what? A linen ephod. It looks a lot like that thing I wear when I'm preaching. All right, in fact, the albs are kind of based on that motif, okay? It's a big white coverall, all right?

And this was the uniform that the Levites wore, and which is kind of fascinating in this particular sense, because David, by wearing the linen ephod, which is what only the priests wore, you begin to see a little bit of that type and shadow of Christ, who is prophet, priest, and king.

So here we have King David wearing a priestly vestment and dancing before the Lord. So you're starting to be kind of in type and shadow, see some of the fuller offices of Christ in David, at least in this regard.

So you'll notice he becomes like the worship leader for all of Israel, which is not the king's normal duty. And in so doing, he's got full vestments on.

So he wasn't a priest?

No, no.

Wasn't it?

In this particular case, we have no one saying David did something wrong. And see, you think back to that story where David is on the run from Saul. Jonathan had just informed, remember, with the arrows and the kid and all that kind of stuff, that, yeah, my father is trying to kill you.

So David, he's on the run. First stop is the tabernacle. And Ahimelech, the priest, and he's talking with Ahimelech, and Ahimelech says, why are you here? What's going on? David lies to him and says, we're on a secret mission kind of thing, but I need bread, and do you have a sword?

So what does the priest give him? The priest gives him the consecrated bread, the bread of the presence, which according to the Mosaic covenant can only be given to the priests. And yet, that bread is given to David and to all of his men, all right?

So when it comes to David, there's some things going on here that are quite fascinating, where God is not, he's not breaking the rules, but he's almost suspending them for David because in this, you gotta remember, David is this big figure that prefigures Christ in a very similar way that Joseph did.

And we talked about like big type and shadow people in the Old Testament. Joseph, premier, then King David, next big one. So we're seeing in David, we're seeing the king wearing an ephod, which is only what priests should wear, yet Jesus is our prophet, he's our priest and our king, keep that in mind.

So David and all of the house of Israel brought up the Ark of Yahweh, was shouting and with the sound of the horn. And the Ark of Yahweh came into the city of David. Now the story gets interesting. Michal, the daughter of Saul, looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before Yahweh and she despised him in her heart, okay?

Talk about what's going on there in a second. And so they brought in the Ark of Yahweh, set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. David offered burnt offerings, peace offerings before Yahweh.

And when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of Yahweh's Sabaoth. And he distributed among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, a cake of bread, a portion of bread, a portion of meat, a cake of raisins to each one.

And then to all the people, and all the people departed each to his own house. Now, before we go any farther, how do you think David feels about how this day went? Best day ever, okay? He is on an emotional and spiritual high.

And, you know, the Ark is now in the city, that means the presence of God, the mercy seat is in the city of Jerusalem with the King. This is a big deal. All of the people, he fed them out of his own treasury, provided for their needs.

And you talk about tens of thousands of people, the singing, the rejoicing, the worship, it was all amazing. So you can just see him at this point, puts his street clothes back on, heads to home, and he's probably still humming a tune, you know, from one of the songs that they were singing, right?

You've got it stuck in his head, walks in the door and literally,.

Dun, dun, dun, right?

That's the collision that we're looking at here. I mean, I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but like when I used to work in the corporate world, you know, I go to work and some days are good,.

Some days are bad.

Some days are dramatic, some days are just monotonous,.

Right?

But every now and then you get that day where it just, everything goes right, the report was well-received by the boss, the numbers are up, everyone's gonna get a Christmas bonus this year,.

And you're thinking, yeah, we're hitting on all cylinders, right?

So you drive home and you walk in the door and the kids are all screaming, their hair is all tangled, there's fighting going on, and my wife looks like she's about ready to club me with a baseball bat.

And she says these words, those kids of yours, right? What, right? You know, that's kind of the idea here. It's like, you know, David's is on a high and there's gonna be this collision, but this one's not caused over kids.

This is caused over something quite different. And you're gonna see what's motivating the call in a minute.

All right?

Michal’s Pride Versus David’s Worship

So David returned to bless his household. So he's come home, let's, you know, he's blessed the people, the ark has come to bless his whole household. And then you get these words, but McCall, right? 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 servants, female servants as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself.

Is that what he did?

She's lying.

Oh yeah, she's totally lying. What's motivating this? All right, I would kind of help this out, okay? We don't have any Royals here in the United States. So we have like adopted Royals. Have you ever noticed that like, even our own television programs and news shows that we get news on what's going on with the Royal family in Great Britain, right?

The house of Windsor, right? Could you imagine Queen Elizabeth doing what David did? How about Prince Harry, Prince William? So Prince William does this. What would happen in Great Britain if one of the Royals did this?

Literally the news would go crazy and accuse him of behavior unbecoming of a Royal. Royals are dignified. Royals are above us. Royals are at all times to maintain their composure. Royals are at all times to dress sharply.

They cannot be seen in public sweating or stinking or anything like that. Right, you get the idea, okay? So has David behaved like a Royal today? No, he hasn't. So McCall, she grows up a princess, right?

Her father was the King of Israel. She grows up as a princess. And we like to do this with our daughters, do we not? Like we get them all done like Cinderella and Snow White. When I was living in Orange County, California, it was always so cute to see these little four and five year old girls wearing their bell dresses and singing all the Disney songs.

And they would have little princess get togethers and things like that. And they grow out of it, right? Okay, but in the case of McCall, when she put on a princess dress and a tiara, did she ever take them off?

Nope.

So McCall is incensed that David has acted in a way that is vulgar and she considers beneath him. He's a Royal, he should not be behaving this way. She grew up a princess. And there are certain ways that Royals are to behave and he hasn't done that.

So he's got his mind set. And this is where a good contrast today comes from the sermon. She has her eyes set on the things of the flesh. He has his eyes set on the things of the spirit. She's concerned with looks and appearances and how people will think about her.

She's embarrassed. She feels that she's suffering embarrassment by his actions. David isn't thinking about himself. And in his worship, David literally loses himself in that. Does that make sense? And she's just having none of this.

So this is a collision between the sinful flesh and its passions and its desires and its arrogance and its haughtiness, as opposed to the one who considers himself nothing in the presence of God. And it's really focused in on the things of the spirit.

That's where the collision is.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, it's a Norwegian thing.

Well, okay, that is one of the issues with a strain in the visible church known as pietism. And this is where you have to make a real careful distinction, is that scripture never condemns true Christian piety.

And true Christian piety, you would see parents raising their children and not feeding their vanity. In fact, this was a very common cultural thing all the way up until very recently. If you ever seen newsreels or photos, movies from the World War II generation, the kids, what colors were their clothes?

Muted grays and browns. They weren't vibrant colors and things like that. You don't see that until the 50s. And in the 50s, there's a big reaction against that. And what is the big reaction? You get the poofy poodle skirts, and all the vibrant colors that come out of it.

And then that morphs into the 60s. I don't know what happened there. I think they did drugs, but you know.

Lots and lots of drugs.

And whatever they saw while they were having their LSD trips, they'd turn it into a shirt. But, you know. Yeah, it was a decade of decadence. It really was. And so, but if you look to the World War II generation, all the kids are wearing muted colors.

And they overtly talk about the reason for this. They were raising their kids Christians. They did not want their kids to draw attention to themselves.

All right?

So, now that's piety. Pietism, though. Pietism is a stranger mix. Because it takes piety to a completely different level. And if it doesn't border on, then it definitely crosses into a form of self-righteousness.

Where you have these man-made rules that say if you keep these rules, then you are truly a Christian. And then if you don't, then you're backslidden.

All right?

And it's not the Ten Commandments. Now, it's a completely different list. It's a different list. So, and the list oftentimes has to do with blue laws and social mores and things like that. As opposed to clear commandments.

And then dancing was one of them. And remember the movie Footloose?

All right?

John Lithgow's character in Footloose, he was the pastor. And man, I hate to say this, but in the 80s, it's like, that guy was my pastor. For real, you know? And I cannot begin to tell you how many sermons I heard railing against rock and roll, railing against dancing, railing against J .R. Ewing on, you know, the soap operas and stuff like that.

And, you know, and so what that does is it creates this man-made thing. And what's really interesting about the Footloose movie is that the people who put it together, I don't even think they're Christians, but they found in scripture, David danced before the Lord.

And you have this rebel character, you know, kind of like a James Dean type, but it was Kevin Bacon, right? And this James Dean type fellow, you know, stands up and talks about worshiping the Lord with a dance and stuff like that.

And he was right.

He was right.

And so Footloose encapsulates, if you would, the logical and weirdly biblical counter-reaction to pietism, all right? So here's how we have to kind of cover these things. Where scripture gives a command, we know that if you break that command, there is a sin.

Straight up, okay? So murdering somebody in cold blood, sin. Adultery, sin, sexual immorality, lying, slandering somebody, coveting, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, right? How about having a glass of Merlot with a steak?

Sin or not? And be careful how you answer this question. In and of itself, no, it's not a sin. We are to love our neighbors. And so if our neighbor is going to be scandalized by what we eat or what we drink, then for the sake of their conscience, we do not scandalize them.

And so having alcohol can be a sin if it's gonna scandalize your neighbor. And if your neighbor's not gonna be scandalized, it's freedom. You can either do it or not do it. You're not blessed or cursed if you do or don't.

Straight up, all right? You wanna have Merlot with a steak? It depends on what cut, okay? The real sin might be if you have it like with Chuck Roast or something. Like, yeah, no, Merlot doesn't pair well with that.