2 Samuel 6
The attempted and completed entrance of the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem contains several fundamental lessons for us.
First, we must observe that David is exuberant, not just in his spontaneous worship (see later), but also in his planning of the moment. All of Israel’s elite “host” - their 30,000 best soldiers - accompany the ark of the Lord of hosts, down from its prior home (1).
Down a hill . . . At some point the ark becomes unsteady, and Uzzah reaches out his hand to steady it. This is understandable, and yet the LORD strikes Uzzah down dead, right there, in the middle of the festival (7). As much as David had set a good tone - one of celebration, there was something lacking: the fear of this God. As C.S. Lewis would describe Aslan, in the Chronicles of Narnia books: he is a good lion, yes; but He is no way tame. Thus His people must not treat him as such, as Ananias and Sapphira would later rediscover (Acts 5:1-11).
In other words, God’s people must take special care to treat God as He actually is - wholly “holy” - wholly “other” from the common, the human, the mundane. The third commandment puts it this way:
Exodus 20:7 (ESV): You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
D.A. Carson hits the point: “People say they do not mean anything by it when they take the Lord’s name in vain. That is precisely the point: they do not mean anything by it. God will not be treated that way.” (FtLOG:1:Sept. 11).
Yet we must not miss the positive opposite lesson: with reverent worship, there is fruitful blessing. The ark goes back to the home of Obed-Edom, and he’s blessed out of his socks (11-12). Thus on the return trip, David gets it right, mixing self-forgetful, dancing worship with reverent fear and rich blessing of the people (16-19) . . .
. . . which the Pharisaical Michal can only poo-poo, wrapping her disdain in a holy veneer (20). The modern church must take note: our God must be worshiped in both self-forgetting celebration and reverent fear . . . in faith, that all who do so will be blessed.1
The fact that modern health-and-wealth prosperity preachers pervert this truth - making God into some kind of cosmic Pez dispenser - makes this truth no less true. The best lies are always subtle parasites on the truth.
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