The Holiness of God

Heavenly Father, as I come before Your throne this morning, I come this morning to ask for help, for grace, and wisdom to preach

Your Word, the demonstration of the

Spirit and of the power of God this morning. And it is my prayer this morning,

God, that You, through Your holy Word, would reveal unto us just a bit of understanding and knowledge that we can take hold of Your holiness, of Your righteousness,

Your power, of Your majesty, of Your omnipotence, of Your omniscience.

God, for this purpose and for this reason and to this end, that we might worship

You the better. God, that we might learn of You so that our worship would be less lacking than what it may normally be.

We may become educated, knowledgeable, according to Your Word of who

You are, what You require, Your holy demands. Help us this day to worship

You, the Lord, in the beauty of holiness. For it's in Jesus' name

I pray. Amen. I'd ask you to turn in your Bibles first.

I would ask that you keep your Bibles open. Now I want to encourage you.

I think about something that I read in Matthew Henry's commentary a couple of weeks ago.

Matthew Henry used the phrase, he said, people tend to respond better when they are kindly accosted as opposed to being violently accosted.

And I know that there are many times when it may seem like the things that I say come across as very stern and very hateful, even when

I don't mean them to be so, but I so desire for you all to know the

Word. And so I want to kindly accost you and encourage you this morning, each week, to bring your

Bible, to open your Bible during Sunday school, during preaching, and to follow along in the

Word. Otherwise, how are you going to know if what you're being told is the truth? So this morning, if you would, we're going to think,

I really couldn't, I'll tell you this is one of those times that no matter how much that I have studied, no matter how much

I have prepared, no matter how many commentaries I look at, no matter how many words

I look up, that I just don't feel like I was able to study enough.

And truly, I am inadequate for this task. Nevertheless, I can't help but go ahead and preach this to you.

The primary theme, I guess, this morning will be the holiness of God. It's what we're going to look at, the holiness of God.

And if we had a theme statement, if you want to write this down, it's this, we need to be a people that live in a constant awareness of the holiness of God.

And to be a people that fear the Lord, we need to be a people that live in constant awareness, being constantly aware of the holiness of God, that God is holy and righteous, and to be a people that fear the

Lord. The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

It's the beginning of wisdom. And so, as we try to each week, we're going to do it just maybe in a different way this week, but we look at texts of Scripture and then we're constantly kind of going back and forth and looking at the proof texts, the texts that demonstrate the truth of what the text that we're reading is about.

But I want us to do that first this morning. I want us to look at our standard, if you would have it. And if you weren't taking notes and writing this down, it's the standard for the text that we're reading today.

It's the measurement by which the texts that we're going to look at are measured. Exodus chapter 25, first and foremost.

Exodus chapter 25. When you get there, put your finger or thumb there, and then go forward into the

Old Testament here and mark 1 Samuel chapter 6 and 2 Samuel chapter 6.

And the Lord being our helper this morning, we're going to probably be going to, after we read here in the book of Exodus first, we're going to be going to 2

Samuel chapter 6 and read a small portion of Scripture. And then we're going to be going back over to 1

Samuel and really taking our focus from those texts. And if you're wondering what those texts are, they are two texts where the children of Israel wrongfully handled the

Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. They wrongfully handled the Ark of the Covenant. And that has everything to do with holiness because we are either going to know the

Word and obey the Word of God, do what the Word of God says, or we're going to do our own thing and disobey the

Word of God. And we'll either be blessed or cursed for it. So Exodus chapter 25, is everyone there?

Verse 10, we're going to begin reading there. Verse 10, Exodus chapter 25, the

Word of God says this, And they shall make an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height.

A cubit is 18 inches, by the way. And you shall overlay it with pure gold inside, and you shall overlay it and shall make on it a molding of gold all around.

You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them in its four corners. Two rings shall be on one side and the two rings on the other side.

You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark that the ark may be carried by them.

The poles shall be in the rings of the ark. They shall not be taken from it.

And you shall put into the ark the testimony which

I give you. But notice verse 14, keep in mind verse 14,

You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark that the ark may be carried by them.

The Lord gave specific instruction to Moses on how the ark was to be built.

For more details, read through the week. But here we see specific details given of how the ark was to be carried.

Now some may say, what does it matter how the ark was carried? Well, it matters because the Lord gave instruction on how it was to be done.

That being said, let's go over to 2 Samuel chapter 6. And we'll look at our first instance this morning of the ark of God being mishandled and the results of that.

Here in 2 Samuel, we're going to read about King David. And this is what the

Word of God says in 2 Samuel chapter 6 verse 1. Again, David gathered all the choice men of Israel, 30 ,000.

David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baal Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, whose name is called by the name the

Lord of hosts. That's the Lord of Sabbath. That's Yahweh of the armies of God.

The Lord of hosts who dwells between the cherubim. So they set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill.

And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drove the new cart. And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill, accompanying the ark of God.

And Ahio went before the ark. Then David and all the house of Israel played music before the

Lord on all kinds of instruments, of firwood, on harps, on stringed instruments, on tambourines, on cistrums, and on cymbals.

So does everybody understand what's happening here? What's happened here is David gathered the choice men of Israel, about 30 ,000.

He went up with all the people to bring the ark of God back to them.

But when they got there to pick up the ark of God, the Bible says that they put the ark on a brand new cart that they had built.

Now do you remember what the standard is for truth here? The standard for truth is

God gave specific instructions that the ark was to be carried on the poles by the

Levites. So some may say, well, what's the harm here in changing this?

What's the harm in doing things a little bit different? The harm is that it is disobedience to God.

King Saul found out that obeying God even for what seemed like a good reason was wrong.

The Bible goes on here to say this, they put the ark on the cart, they went before, they drove the cart, they were pulling it, obviously having been driven it with oxen, with cows.

Over in this next chapter you'll see that they had put, or maybe it's in Corinthians, the

Chronicles account, we see that they put two mama cows in the front and pulled the cart.

That had never been yoked together before. So what's happening and what's taking place here, pay attention, take note, keep in mind here, this is very, very important, understand what's taking place.

So they began to quote, unquote, worship God. I mean, they began in unison, the

Bible says, to play music before the Lord. This was a grand occasion for them, so they thought.

They were doing what they thought to be the right thing, but they were doing it in the wrong way. This is why how we worship is important.

So they played music before the Lord on all kinds of instruments.

They were rejoicing, and man, you can imagine the sound of 30 ,000 people bringing this ark up into town.

And they're all singing and they're all rejoicing. And the Bible says in verse 6, when they came to Nachan's threshing floor,

Uzzah put his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it.

For the oxen stumbled, then the anger of the

Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and the Bible says this, God struck him there for his error.

Now to some that may seem a bit extreme. Why would God do such a thing?

Because God is holy. Because God is righteous.

And because when God speaks more than E .F.

Hutton, everyone should listen. God struck him there for his error, and the

Bible says he died there by the ark of God. And notice

David's response. David became angry because of the Lord's outbreak against Uzzah, and he called the name of the place

Perez Uzzah to this day. Verse 9, David was afraid of the

Lord that day, and he said, How can the ark of the Lord come to me?

So David would not move the ark of the Lord with him into the city of David, which is

Jerusalem. All right, so that's the general section of Scripture that we're going to look at.

Now, if you'll turn back to 1 Samuel, we're going to specifically go through another example and another instance here of when the ark of the covenant was mishandled by the people.

And we're going to notice several things, and I want to give you the detail. I want to give you the context.

I want you to be fully aware of everything that's going on right here. And some things that I want you to take note of, we're going to notice, number one,

I want you to notice and remember throughout the text of the Old Testament particularly, notice the cycle of sin that the children of Israel go through.

Everybody know what a cycle is? It's a circle. Sometimes we refer to things happening in a vicious circle.

Sin is a vicious circle. Here was the cycle that the children of Israel went through from beginning to end.

Number one, God blessed them. The second part of that cycle, number two, is the people disobeyed

God and sinned. Number three, the children of Israel suffered for their sin.

Number four, the children of Israel cry out to God for mercy.

And number five, God forgives and restores them.

God blesses them, in other words. Then guess what happens?

The people disobey God and sin. Anybody know what happens next?

The people suffer for their sin. Teaching by repetition, by the way.

The people suffer for their sin. What happens next? The people cry out to God for mercy.

What happens next? God, because He is gracious and merciful, loves, forgives, and heals the people.

Then guess what happens? The people sin again. And you get the point, right?

That is the cycle of sin in the lives of the children of Israel.

Truly it is the cycle of sin in our lives as Christians because we are not perfect.

So we notice the cycle of sin and notice the salvation of the Lord. That God always provides the means of salvation.

Salvation is of the Lord. So let's read 1

Samuel 6. After reading 1 Samuel 6, we'll give the context of that.

We'll kind of do the back story and lead up and then we'll close out. 1 Samuel 6, verse 1, notice what the

Word of God says. Now the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months.

And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners saying, what shall we do with the ark of the

Lord? Tell us how we should send it to its place. So they said, if you send away the ark of God of Israel, do not send it empty, but by all means return it to Him with a trespass offering.

Then you will be healed and it will all be known to you why His hand is not removed from you.

Then they said, what is the trespass offering which we shall return to Him? They answered, five golden tumors and five golden rats, according to the number of the lords of the

Philistines. For the same plague was on all of you and on your lords.

Therefore you shall make images of your tumors and images of your rats that ravage the land and you shall give glory to the

God of Israel. Perhaps He will lighten His hand from you and from your gods and from your land.

Why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?

When He did mighty things among them, did they not let the people go that they might depart? Now therefore make a new cart.

Take two milk cows, which you have never been yoked, and hitch the cows to the cart and take their calves home, away from them.

Then take the ark of the Lord and set it on the cart and put the articles of gold which you are returning to Him as a trespass offering in a chest by its side.

Then send it away and let it go and watch. If it goes up the road to its own territory, to Beth Shemesh, then

He has done us this great evil. But if not, then we shall know that it is not

His hand that struck us, that it happened to us by chance. Now I giggle and laugh a little bit within myself there because we've got to take in mind here something that's very important.

Notice that this is not God's standard that they are following. It is not

God's worldview that they are adhering to. They are seeking to somehow in some way appease

God as though He's one of their idols that truly can do nothing.

And so they say, let's do it this way. Let's yoke two mama cows that have just gave birth to calves, which by the way,

I don't know a lot about animals or cows or farming, but I do know this.

If a mama cow just has a calf, where do you want the calf to be? With the mama cow.

And where does the mama cow want the calf to be? With her. So we notice the

Bible says that as they went along, they went along lowing. They weren't mooing in joy.

They were downcast, the cows themselves, because they'd been separated from their calves.

Not to mention they'd never been yoked together, so they didn't know how to work together. So what the

Philistines, by the way, two groups in view here. Keep this in mind.

Note this. Two groups are in view, the children of Israel and the Philistines.

How can we make application to ourselves today in this passage?

Know this. Israel is the people of God. If you are saved, you are a child of God.

The Philistines are a picture of the world. So we have the people of God and we have the world.

The world is trying to appease God. Works -based religion.

Remember that from Sunday school? By the way, Sunday school was great. Works -based religion.

They were trying to appease God. They said, let's do this. Let's take tumors. And these tumors that they spoke of,

I believe the King James Version uses the term emirates. The New King James, the modern translation uses tumors.

In studying this out, truly what it was, it was something similar to the bubonic plague.

The rats carried in disease and tumors came up on the people. And so their diviners, quote unquote diviners, told them to make images of these tumors and to make images of these rats and to put them in a chest beside the ark.

And then they said, let's yoke the cart up. Let's put the ark on the new cart.

Let's yoke these cows up together and let's smack them on the behind and send them on their way.

And if they by chance go a certain way, then we'll know that God has hurt us.

God does not function by chance. God operates by providence. He operates by providence because he is sovereign over all things.

So notice this. So they made that statement. Maybe it's just happened to us by chance. Maybe not.

But we'll know by the direction these cows go. Verse 10, the Bible says,

Then the men did so. They took two milk cows and hitched them to the cart, shut up their calves at home.

They set the ark of the Lord on the cart and the chest with the gold rats and the images of their tumors.

Then the cows headed straight for the road to Beth Shemesh. This is right where the

Philistines were hoping they would go. And went along the highway lowing as they went, and they did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

It's amazing to me that while the beasts are able to be directed by God, in human beings we kick so against the pricks of God.

We kick so against the goats. We kick so against the power of God, and we refuse to go the way that he goes.

But know this, even when you refuse, you're still under the sovereign hand of God. We're not accomplishing anything.

We're not pulling anything on God. Notice the Bible goes on to say here,

And the lords of the Philistines went after them to the border of Beth Shemesh. So the lords of the Philistines were following, were watching from a distance to see what was going to take place.

Now the people, verse 13, the people of Beth Shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley.

So the people of Beth Shemesh, this town, were just doing what they normally do. It was an everyday occasion to them.

And they lifted up their eyes and they saw the ark a -coming. That's country.

Okay? But everybody in here knows we're all from the country. When I say they saw it a -coming, you know what

I mean. They saw it a -coming, and the Bible says they saw it and they rejoiced to see it.

Then the cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh and stood there.

A large stone was there, so they split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the

Lord. The Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the chest that was with it in which were the articles of gold and put them on the large stone.

Now, I didn't read it and I can't remember the exact reference, but if you'll go back and you'll study in God's instructions on how to handle the ark, not only was

Moses directed by God to put two rings on each side and the poles through the rings and the ark was to be carried, but they were to be carried by a group called the

Kohathites. But here the Bible says the Levites took it down. It was on a cart it never should have been on, carried by people that shouldn't have been carrying it, and yet it seemed to the people a good thing.

The Bible says in verse 15, the Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the chest that was with it in which were the articles of gold and they put them on the large stone.

So they set everything out on this stone. The men of Beth Shemesh offered the burnt offerings and made sacrifices the same day to the

Lord. So when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron that same day.

Where the Philistines, the lords, the heads of the Philistines returned to, this is important, where they returned to, they were returning with what they thought, having left the scene at this time with good news, that they were rid of the ark of the covenant of God.

And here's the next thing to note, to remember. In the context of this, the big picture,

God's people wanted to have the ark in their midst.

The Philistines, after they got it, couldn't wait to get rid of it.

But here's something that they both have in common. The world and God's people.

If our motive is not pure, if our motive is not right, God's presence and power will not be a benefit to us.

God is holy and he is to be worshipped in the beauty of holiness. So God's people wanted the ark.

The Philistines couldn't wait to get rid of the ark. By the way, they had sent it around from five or six, seven of their cities for about seven months time.

And everywhere after they captured the ark of God, everybody got sick. Everybody died.

Because they never should have had that in the first place. Reading on verse 17, these are the golden tumors which the

Philistines returned as a trespass offering to the Lord. One for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath and one for Ekron.

Those were the five cities of the Philistines. And the golden rats, according to the number of all the cities of the

Philistines, belonging to the five lords, both fortified cities and countries and villages, even as far as the large stone of Abel on which they set the ark of the

Lord, which stone remains to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh. Verse 19, notice what happened.

Then he struck the men of Beth Shemesh. Who struck them?

God struck them. He struck the men of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the

Lord. He struck 50 ,070 men.

That's a lot of people. And the people lamented because the

Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter. Now, was the ark of the covenant, this is somewhat rhetorical but I'm proving the point, was the ark of the covenant meant to be set on display as though it's some idol, like the

Catholic Church does with their idols, to be set on display for the crowds to come and to look at? No.

The ark of the covenant was meant to be inside the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle.

By the way, the young people learned about that in their class today. In the tabernacle of God, in the

Holy of Holies behind the veil, and there was one man, one high priest that could go once a year beyond that veil to make propitiation for the sins of the people of Israel for that year.

They wanted the visible presence of God. They wanted something tangible that they could look at and possibly sneak a touch at, but they wanted it for the wrong reasons.

How do we know this? Because this is what the text of Scripture teaches us. If you go back to the fourth chapter, go back two chapters here in Samuel, and you'll notice in the early part of the fourth chapter, you'll discover some things.

You'll discover, number one, Israel went to fight against the Philistines. This was constant.

Next thing you'll notice is Israel got whooped by the Philistines. They lost 4 ,000 men in this specific instance.

After 4 ,000 men got killed, after they got whooped, they decided to regroup, to gather together, and the question that they asked themselves was, why has the

Lord defeated us today? Because at this time, remember we're going back a little bit in time, because at this time, the ark of the covenant of God was in a place called

Shiloh. It was in a place called Shiloh. It was being watched over.

It was being kept by two crooked priests, Hothnai and Phinehas. Hothnai and Phinehas were the sons of Eli.

They were the modern -day equivalent of the Shastras that we see preaching the gospel today, men who were in it for greedy gain, to satisfy the lust of their flesh, because the

Bible tells us, again, you can read it in this chapter itself, you can read it,

Hothnai and Phinehas, though they were sons of the high priest, they lived to mooch off the benefits of the church.

They lived to get the best of the fat offerings that were given. They lived to lay immorally with the women who gathered outside the temple walls and the gates of the temple.

And so the Bible says that the ark of the covenant was kept by these two crooked priests, but word was sent to Shiloh to bring the ark of the covenant of God there.

Remember, they wanted the ark of the God, or they wanted the presence of God, but they wanted it for their own reasons.

They wanted it for greedy gain, and this is why our motive is so important. When we come to worship

God, we must know and we must have it settled that we are here to worship

God, not for any good thing that He may do to us, but simply because He is

God. An old preacher, Parrish Reedhead, made the statement, it may not be the exact quote, but it's very close to it.

He said we need to get it settled in our hearts that we are going to worship God and that we are going to love

God and we are going to praise God even if we come to the end of the way and we still go to hell, we still worship

God because God is worthy. So our motive must be right.

So the people, they wanted the ark of the covenant of God to be brought to them, and they wanted it so they could have victory because they thought if we just got the outward sign of God here, nobody will be able to touch us.

Many folks within churches that gather every single week gather with that same mindset.

Oh, I'm going to church so I'm all right. I'm going to sit through this thing and I'm all right.

I'm going to endure the preaching, I'm all right, because I've got the visible sign of God upon me because I went through the doors of the church house.

There are people that are going to go straight to hell. Right out that door, right there.

There are going to be people that go to hell, that come right in that door right there. It's a matter of our heart being changed by God, and God gives us the true desires of our heart, the desires that desire him and to worship him because of who he is.

So the ark of the covenant was brought to them, and I'm just giving you the overview here. The ark of the covenant was brought to them, and when the ark of the covenant came in to the presence of the children of Israel, the

Bible says here in chapter 4 that Israel shouted so loud that the earth shook, and the

Philistines heard what was going on, and the Philistines began to talk amongst themselves, and they said, you know what that means, don't you?

That means that God has come into their camp. They're shouting and they're rejoicing because God has come into their camp, but notice what the

Philistines went on to do. The Bible says the

Philistines began, and they responded as God's people should respond, but we don't.

They said, woe is unto us. What did the prophet Isaiah say when he saw the

Lord high and lifted up? Woe is me, for I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips who dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

Our approach unto God ought not to be haughty or heady or high -minded, but it ought to be an approach of humility before a holy

God because He is gracious, and He is good, and He is kind.

They said, woe is us. Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the

Egyptians. They, again, noticed these worldly men responding as godly people should respond, so they understood that they were before a holy

God, and yet the next thing they did was begin to reference what

God had done in times past. Church, Christian man,

Christian woman, Christian boy, Christian girl, what you must do, always lean upon the word of God.

Trust in what God has done because what God has done, He is yet able to do, and He is able to keep those who are

His. So they said, these are the gods who struck the Egyptians with plagues, and these are the gods who delivered them out of the wilderness.

But then the flesh begins to bow up at them, and they begin to say, you know what?

We are not going to be defied. They begin to look at each other. I can see them like football players.

You ever seen football players get socked up for games? Those of you who like football? If you watch Tennessee, you won't be able to see that, but if you want to watch

Alabama, football players will stand in front of each other and smack each other on the helmet and hit each other's shoulder pads, right?

And they'll grunt, and they'll squeal, and they'll scream, and they'll do whatever. These Philistines began to do that.

They began to talk to each other, and they began to say to one another, why don't you all just act like men?

We are not going to be slaves like these Hebrews have become slaves to us. They were determined.

Listen, the world is determined, and it's said that the world has a greater somewhat determination than the church of the living

God. So the Bible says, they said, conduct yourselves like men and fight.

So guess what happened? The Philistines did just that. They fought. Israel had the

Ark of the Covenant of God, and yet they were defeated. First time they lost 4 ,000 men.

This time they lost 30 ,000 men, and not only did they lose these men's lives, but the

Ark of the Covenant of God was captured by the Philistines. So for the

Philistines, this seemed like a great victory. Yes, we have done it. We've embarrassed the children of Israel.

We have taken their God, quote, unquote, if you want to put it that way, because the

Ark of the Covenant was the presence of the living God in their midst. That's what the Word of God teaches us.

The Ark of God had been captured. A man named Benjamin runs out from the battle lines, runs back to Shiloh, to Eli, which is the father of Hophni and Phinehas.

By the way, Hophni and Phinehas got killed as well. The wages of sin is death.

Benjamin, a man from the tribe of Benjamin, runs back to Shiloh, sees

Eli sitting there up on the wall of the city, and he begins to tell Eli what was going on.

Eli, though he had been guilty by association of letting go of what his sons had done and not really taking a stand, he still, the

Bible says he trembled for the Ark of God. He knew that God was holy.

He recognized his place. He recognized his end, because God had previously told him, if you go back in the second chapter of this same chapter this week and you read, you'll find this very thing taught to us from the

Word of God, that God told Eli what was gonna happen. He told Eli that his family was gonna be taken from before him.

And Eli was so set back. He was 98 years old.

He was almost completely blind because of his age. His eyes grew dim, the Bible says.

And when he got word from this man of Benjamin that the Ark of the Covenant had been taken and captured by the

Philistines, the Bible says he fell off the wall and broke his neck and died. And so when this took place, this happened again.

Again, this is all leading back to the mishandling of the Ark. It never should have been brought to them the way it was.

They wanted it for the wrong reason, not for the right reason. They wanted to try to do the right thing in the wrong way, which never works.

The old saying, my way or the highway, truth be told for the church, it's God's way or the highway.

God don't need us to make improvements upon what he has set out for worship.

We need to worship God in the beauty of holiness. So going on,

Eli falls off the wall, kills himself, breaks his neck. His daughter -in -law,

Phineas' wife, was with child. She was with a baby. She was due to be delivered.

And the Bible says, when the news came to her of the Ark of God being captured and that her father -in -law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself to the ground and gave birth, for her labor pains came upon her.

I guess it was stress -induced labor. And about the time of her death, right before she died, the women who stood by her said, do not fear, for you have born a son.

But she did not answer, nor did she regard it. But she was able to name that child, and she named that child

Ichabod. This name, Ichabod, means the glory of God has departed.

There are a lot of things that we read in the Scriptures that are sad. There are a lot of things that we see in the church today that are sad.

But how sad it would be to have it said of you or the church that the glory of God has departed from you.

She named this child Ichabod. And so the

Bible says the Philistines took the Ark of God. They took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.

Now this is important. Listen, let me check my time here. I have 44 minutes.

So the Philistines revel in their victory, and they take it back to a place called

Ashdod. And the Bible says when the Philistines took the Ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon.

Now, who was Dagon? Dagon was one of two things. It was an idol. They had a temple built to it, and it was either a fish idol or an agricultural idol.

Different commentators will say different things about it. Nevertheless, if you want to picture it as a fish, a big tall fish standing up,

I picture it maybe vainly as one of those fish on the mountain board that you press the buttons and fish swaps and sings.

Yeah. But they had this idol, however big. But the Bible says, we do know this, that the idol had hands, and the idol stood upon feet with a fish head, somewhat.

And so listen to what the text says. The text says the Philistines took the Ark of God, and they brought it to the house of Dagon, and they set it by Dagon.

And when the people of Ashdod arose early in the morning, there was Dagon fallen on its face to the earth before the

Ark of the Lord. So they bring this into the temple. Imagine this being the little temple. They bring the Ark of the covenant of God.

They set it inside probably uncaringly where they set it or however they set it. It could have been they set it over here or over there, and the idol was here, no matter what the case may be.

The Bible says when they went in the next morning that this idol of theirs, this idol in that temple alone, because it was the only one there, had fallen flat on its face in the direction of the

Ark of the covenant. Dagon. And when the people rose early, they seen

Dagon fallen on its face before the Lord. So they took Dagon, and they set it in its place again. There must have been an earthquake.

There must have been a wind come through and knocked the statue over. There's got to be a logical explanation for why this happened.

So they set the idol back in its place, and when they arose the next morning, there was Dagon fallen on its face to the ground before the

Ark of the Lord. The head of Dagon and both the palms of its hands were broken off in the threshold.

Only Dagon's torso was left of it. You know what the idol said when it fell?

Yeah, not again. So the

Bible says that the priests of Dagon nor any who come into Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day, because they're afraid if they walked over it, in this time, they were afraid that if they walked through the threshold of the doorway, that they would have the same end as Dagon, that they would be dead, that they would lose their hands, that they would be forced to bow.

But notice what the Bible says in verse 6 of chapter 5, but the hand of the Lord was heavy on the people of Ashdod, and he ravaged them and struck them with tumors, and so it began.

And when the men of Ashdod saw how it was, oh, I see how it is. You ever heard anybody say that?

When the people of Ashdod saw how it was, they said, The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is harsh toward us and Dagon our

God. Therefore they sent and gathered themselves all the lords of the Philistines, and they said, What shall we do with the ark of the

God of Israel? And they said, Let it be carried away to Gath.

And so from Ashdod to Gath, to Ashkelon, and so on, and ended up in Ekron, and they finally, seven months, they passed the ark of God, suffering under the wrath of almighty

God, trying to get rid of it. When they got rid of it, they were told to get rid of it in a wrong way.

And when they put this on this new cart, it was disobedience to God. When the

Levites pulled it off the cart in Beth -shemesh, it was disobedience to God.

Can the priests sin? Absolutely. Can the people sin?

Absolutely. How do we know what the standard for right and wrong is?

Here's the application. Here's the so what? Read your Bible, or at least listen to what you're taught and preached.

Disobedience to God results in death. And so they put the ark on the cart.

They sent it to Beth -shemesh. Beth -shemesh was seemingly an unknowing party or an unknown group of people.

They were not aware that it was coming, but when they saw that it was coming, they rejoiced, and they went off to worshiping

God in the way they thought was right. And here's the long and the short of it.

Throughout church history, throughout the scriptures, and throughout church history, all the way up to where we are now, we have examples given to us of what's proper for worship in the house of God and what's improper for worship in the house of God.

There are really two main thoughts throughout church history. The regulative principle, what's written is what we do, and then there's the normative principle.

If it's not written and it doesn't seem wrong, let's still do it. That's going to make me an unpopular preacher even more so than I already am likely, and it's going to make us an unpopular church if we reform our worship practices, but to God alone be the glory.

To God alone be the glory. We must be a people, as we said in the beginning, that are in constant awareness of the holiness of God.

I want to ask you something. I want you to be as honest as you can with yourself in this. When you get up on Sunday morning, we'll just start it with Sunday morning.

When you get up on Sunday morning and you begin to consider coming to God's house, how are you preparing?

Is there any thought that you're given? Are you just going through the routine? Are you just going through the motions? Is it just another

Sunday? Or should we not meditate on the word of God and have this in our mind?

This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and I will be glad. Will our hearts rejoice like David's heart when he said,

I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. What's on your mind on Sunday morning when you get up?

I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to point you to what the scriptures say.

You've got to do one of two things. Obey God. Be blessed.

Disobey God. Be cursed. What's on your mind when you think about worshiping

God and how you worship God? Ask yourself this question.

Am I worshiping God? Secondly, according to these words, and I want to dispel any foolish notion.

There are folks who go so far as to say, well, they don't even believe in rejoicing or shouting or nothing like that.

I beg to differ with you. There is nothing that will make you shout and rejoice more than the truth of the word of God.

And there is nobody that is able to stop you from shouting and rejoicing over the word of God.

And that's never been the idea. But our worship needs to be right. Somebody once said, it don't matter how high you jump, how high the worship makes you jump, that makes the difference, but it's how straight you walk when you hit the ground.

Listen, we need to rejoice in God. The joy of the Lord is our strength.

In this world of sorrow. He is our hope of salvation.

He is our rock, our redeemer, our fortress, our strength, our high tower.

He is our savior. If you're saved, he is your savior. Better news is there.

A better thought is there to cross your mind than to know that your sins have been forgiven and that God from all of eternity has written your name in the

Lamb's book of life. Despite who you are and what you've done, that he loves you.

Heavenly Father, I thank you and I praise you for this time that you have given us in your word. And again, my request is this.

Impress upon our hearts and upon our minds this day something of your holiness.