Open your Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 6. 1 Samuel chapter 6. You know, sometimes with words you can figure out what they mean by considering the parts of it, and sometimes that will get you into trouble. So, for example, years ago when William Tyndale was translating the Bible into English for the first time into modern English in the 1500s, he wanted to make the Bible that he was translating as English as possible. So he tried to use, and he preferred to use, Words that had English roots rather than words that had Latin roots or French roots because the English language had been influenced by both of those. So when he talked about, for example, the fact that we are reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ, he could have used the word reconciliation. But instead, Tyndale chose to use a word that was not commonly used in his day. It existed, but it was not the most common word in his day for it. He used the word atonement. Well, atonement comes from three English word parts, at, one, ment. So if we take two people who were not getting along, who were enemies of each other, and you bring them together, that's called reconciliation, right? Or it's called making them at one. They went from being enemies to being at one. And the process of doing that is at one mint, atonement. So sometimes you can take word roots and kind of figure out the meaning of a word that way, or at least see a little of the history of it. Sometimes it gets you into a little trouble, for example, with butterfly. It has nothing to do with butter or flying dairy products of any kind. And in fact, a butterfly is so terrifically different from a fly that I don't know about you, I kind of enjoy seeing a butterfly, but flies are just annoying. So they're not flies that land on butter, they're just butterflies or pineapple. If you start looking for pineapples on pine trees, You know, you go to an apple tree to get an apple. So sometimes you can't always take the roots of words and put them together and go, oh, I know what this word means. It will just throw you off. There's some obvious examples of that. But sometimes it enlightens us a little bit on the meaning of a word. And the theme of this passage really is worship. And we get this word, this English word, from two Older English words English Anglo-Saxon that the English comes from preferred single-syllable words So there's two words there that are put together worth and ship Okay, not ship like in the sea, but when you put the words together. It's the you know the concept of showing the worth of something and How much worth does something have? Like statesmanship, you know what I'm saying? We put the word ship at something and we talk about the art of it. So worship is to ascribe worth to something, to demonstrate to others the worth of something. That's what the idea of worship is. It's closely tied to the idea of God's glory as well. In Hebrew, the word for glory has the idea of to be heavy. The root concept is something having weight or being heavy. In other words, being significant, being important, something that's heavy oftentimes. We often judge things this way, right? I had somebody tell me this one time. I said, you know, there's like, dozens and dozens of different brands of paint. How do I know if I'm buying a good brand of paint or a bad brand of paint at the store? And a painter said to me, pick it up. If you pick up a can of paint, if it's heavier, it's better, because it has more pigment in it. Water's light, so if they water it lighter than the paint, so if they water it down, the can's gonna be light. So if you pick up two cans, two gallons of paint, one's heavier than the other, it's got more pigment in it, it's better paint. If you pick up one and it's really light, then it's probably cheap paint that they watered down. I said, OK, that's pretty easy, because they put, you know, the same paint companies are putting 12 different labels on them and selling them at Lowe's and Home Depot and calling it all kinds of different things, and you don't know what that label means. So what was it? The heaviness of it said, hey, there's something worthwhile here. Or often our precious metals are pretty heavy. I don't know if you ever thought, you know, we tend to wear gold jewelry, and so maybe a wedding band or ladies might wear earrings or stuff, and they tend to be small. But if you had a brick of gold, it would be really heavy. Alright? It's as dense as lead, basically. And picking it up, you'd be like, wow, this is heavy. It'd be a lot heavier than a brick, you know, made out of clay. So the idea there is this metaphor of it having weight and having value in God. So in other words, ascribing to God His worth, ascribing to other people, ascribing to God His worth in the presence of other people so they can understand what is going on, who God is, and why He's worthy of praise. 2 Samuel, I think I said 1 Samuel when I stood up here, but 2 Samuel chapter 6. And again, David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000. We find here in this passage that David is consolidating his power. We saw in the last passage that he had conquered Jerusalem and had made a friend in the king of Tyre, Hiram the king of Tyre, etc. Had been blessed with children. And so here we see he gathers together all the chosen of men of Israel, 30,000. So here's the leaders of Israel. And David arose and went with all the people that were with him from Baal of Judah to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts and dwelleth between the cherubims. Now that really, that S should be missing because the eme ending is plural already. So what does this say? He's going to get these men and he's going to go down. They're doing something very important here. This is why he's calling the elders of Israel, if you would. And he says, we're going to take the ark and we're going to move it to where it belongs. We're going to set up the tabernacle again in the proper function. And so we're going to move the ark. And what is this? This is the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts. It's the ark of the Lord, right? To bring up the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts. So what's the name of the Lord of hosts? Yahweh, right here, okay? Capital L, capital O-R-D, with the small caps for O-R-D, tells us this is the covenant name of God in the Old Testament. And here he's identified as the Lord of hosts, that is the mighty God, the almighty God. Shows his might. He's the general, the captain, the commander of the armies of the angels of heaven. And so what we find is that he's gonna bring this ark, which is identified with God, God had chosen to set his name upon it, if you would, The Lord is the one who dwells between the cherubim in other words there were cherubim represented on the on the lid of the ark on what was called the mercy seat and The idea is that God God's glory did settle there didn't it? I mean, in the Old Testament we see, you don't ever find that word shekinah in the English Bible, but shekan is the Hebrew word to dwell. And so shekinah glory is God's dwelling glory. And what happens? When they're wandering around in the wilderness, how's God's dwelling glory there? It's in a cloud hovering over, it's in a pillar of fire, right? And in fact, we could go ahead to the time when Solomon builds the temple, and when Solomon builds the temple, we find that after he prays, what happens? That dwelling glory of God, that presence of God comes over the temple, right? That what was called the Shekinah glory dwells over the temple and shows that the Lord recognizes this is the place God had commanded them to build. Not that God, as Solomon says in his prayer, you know, the heaven of heavens can't contain him. You can't make a house for God. But God was going to identify this as the place of his worship. And so here, this ark was recognized as the center of the place of God's worship. And they set the ark of God upon a new cart. Now here's the problem. The book of Exodus says how they're supposed to move the ark. The ark is supposed to be moved by Levites with staves. They were supposed to put poles through the loops on it and carry it with staves so they didn't actually touch the ark. Okay, they carried it with poles. This is how it was commanded to be moved. And they set the ark of God upon a new cart and brought it out of the house of Amenadab that was in Gibeah. Amenadab had been the caretaker of the ark. Now, the last time the ark was moved, before this, it was also moved on a cart. But it wasn't moved by Israelites this way. It wasn't moved by the Levites this way. It had been captured in battle by the Philistines, and the Philistines had tried to humiliate the Lord by putting it in the temple of Dagon, their idol. And Dagon ended up being humiliated in that process, and so diseases and plagues came upon them, and what happened was they decided, we don't want this ark. And so they send it back, and what do they do? They move it with a cart. So here we find the people of God moving the ark the way that the pagans had moved the ark, rather than the way God had commanded them to do it. And brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah. And Uzzah and Ahiho, the sons of Abinadab, drove the new cart. Alright, so what we find is they're driving this cart along. And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was at Gibeah, accompanying the ark of God, and Ahiho went before the ark. And David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments, made of firwood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals. And so we find they're singing praise to God and playing praises to God as they go along, praising the Lord because they're going to set up the worship of God again. In other words, there's no more civil war, the nation's in peace, they've defeated the Philistines who aren't a threat to them, and they're able to set up this tabernacle and worship the Lord again. But the problem is that they're doing this the way that the pagans had done it. And when they came to Nachon's threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook. Evidently, they hit a rut in the road or the oxen jolted or something ahead, and Uzzah sees the ark and he's afraid. Now let's remember what the ark was. It was a wooden box that was overlaid in gold. Now if you drop a wooden box, you can break it. and he's afraid it's going to break and so he grabs it to keep it from breaking. I don't doubt he had a good motive here. His motives are not in question. He was trying to keep the ark from being broken. However, he was not a Levite and he was not allowed to touch the ark. He's going directly against the commandments of God in the Old Testament that said that the ark was supposed to be moved by the Levites and that it was supposed to be moved by staves and not by on Oxcart and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah and God smote him there for his error and there he died by the ark of God. God strikes him dead. Now to us as modern readers this sounds really harsh. All the guy did was keep it from getting broken. And I don't doubt, as I said, that his motives were good. But here's the problem. The wrong kind of worship gives the wrong kind of message about God. The wrong kind of worship gives the wrong kind of message about God. When your worship looks like pagan worship rather than the worship that God has commanded, then you're communicating the wrong thing about God. All right? This is what we have to understand is that you cannot fully detach message from medium. And the proof of this, that you can't detach message from medium, is that, you know, we even recognize this at certain times. So for example, TV is not a serious medium. By that I don't mean that there aren't some interesting things on television. But TV is not the place you go to learn great things. You follow what I'm saying? In other words, TV is a place you go to be entertained. So not saying you can't learn through a television show, you could watch something on the History Channel maybe and learn something about history. As long as it's not about the Bible, they're usually completely wrong about that. But you could maybe watch something and learn something there. But the fact is, you know, in that hour-long show, you could read about five pages of written text and learn four times more than you learn in that hour of watching. If you want to do, and this is a case in point, if you want to do some serious learning, what do you usually do? Books, you go to school. If television was the way that you learn best, Americans would be geniuses. It's not a serious medium. Because think about it, okay? There's this show on, and it's going along. It's a drama. And who, what's going to happen next? And now what do they do? Commercial break. Buy our soap. We have the best burritos. Buy our car. I know several of you are probably getting a Lexus this year in a bow. I've seen that on the commercial. I know that's a real commonplace thing that, you know, you give your loved one a $60,000 car for Christmas. But they have all of these kinds of commercials and things. And then it comes back to the show. Well, the reason we put up with that is because we know it's drama and it's not real, right? Because it's fictional. In other words, the hero's about to die. He's in mortal danger. Buy our soap. You see, there's kind of a break there that doesn't make a lot of sense. This is why on September 11, 2001, all the news networks stopped showing commercials. Because when you're covering the collapse of buildings and 3,000 Americans dead by a terrorist attack, to be going, OK, how are the rescue efforts going down at Ground Zero? Buy our soap! doesn't fit. You're going to be upset. You're going to say, hey, soap commercials don't fit here. You know, fast food commercials don't fit here. This is too somber of a day for that. It's too serious of a day. OK, so the medium and the message can't be completely separated from each other. In other words, if we started to say, you know, it could really boost our income as a church if up here we played a commercial every, you know, I preach for 10 minutes and then we play a commercial. We'll find some sponsors. We can have Taco Bell. We could have some brand of communion wafers or something. We could have commercials. We could make extra money as a church. Well, that would violate principles of worship. It would make worship a commercial enterprise. And it's not. And so you can't completely divorce the medium from the message in the same way that I think we understand this. You know, if you took a slasher movie Okay, you know, one of these kind of movies with, choose whatever villain it is that people root for. You know, the guy has a chainsaw or an axe or whatever and he wanders around getting his revenge on unsuspecting teenagers somewhere. And, you know, chopping them with an axe. And it's usually gory, people's heads flying and arms getting chopped off and all kinds of things like this. And what happens is people cheer for the villain to kill people. Oh, he got that guy good! Could you imagine a Christian version of that? Christian version of Jason or Freddy or Chucky or whoever Okay The reason you're all kind of smirking is because you even know who those people are and thank God if you don't If you even know who those people are you can't really imagine. How do you make a Christian slasher film? That genre does not fit Christian values does it? You follow what I'm saying? It's just there's nothing And Hollywood, they like to, it was well known that in the days of Cecil B. DeMille, many of you have probably seen Cecil B. DeMille's probably most famous film is The Ten Commandments, right, with Charlton Heston. But he made a lot of films, and what Cecil B. DeMille learned was that if you make a Bible film, the censors let you get away with more in Hollywood. Because there were rules. There was a group of censors that said, you can't show that. But if you make a Bible film, guess what? The women's dresses can be less modest because it's a Bible film. And so he made a movie called Samson and Delilah, I think, and he made one called, uh, about Solomon and the queen of Sheba. And somehow there was a love affair there, which the Bible doesn't talk about. And there's all kinds of things like this. Well, why? Because he could put lascivious stuff in it and get away with it. All right. So what happens is you can't completely divorce the medium from the message. The way you say something is influences what you say. I think we all understand this with tone of voice. So I remember years ago there was a young man that was in one of my classes, and one of the girls in the class said to him, Michael, you're so sarcastic. And he said, no. Well, was he disagreeing with her? He said no. He wasn't disagreeing with her, was he? He was being sarcastic, to be ironic. So the words were disagreeing, but the way he said it didn't disagree at all. In other words, the medium and the message couldn't be completely divorced from each other. And so this is the case with worship. You can't just choose any medium for worship. So years ago, I remember being sent an article by somebody and the idea was, what do you think of this? And it was on yoga and how Jesus taught the disciples yoga. Okay? And basically, he said the word yoga is linked to the word for yoke, and Jesus said, take my yoke upon you, and that should really be translated, take my yoga upon you. And this is really silly, but this is really what the article was saying, that Christians need to start practicing yoga, that it's a form of worship that Christians have neglected for all these years, and if Christians would start practicing yoga, then, you know, it would broaden their worship. Well, let me say this, all right? If you do stretching exercises, they're stretching exercises. But yoga as an Eastern discipline is a form of worship of Hindu deities. Okay? And so that's why some yoga studios have. One of the men in our church said, you know, he needed to get some exercise, and so he has some physical limitations, and he went and started to do yoga. And he went and he met with the lady ahead of time. She said, well, I'm a Christian, too. We don't do any of the religious side of things. He said, you sit down, you do the stretches, and at the end the lady says, look at the goddess and meditate. And there's this big picture of a Hindu goddess on the wall. And he said to her, I thought you said you don't do any of the religious side. Obviously, if you're looking at a Hindu goddess and meditating on her, that's religious. Okay? So again, I'm not against stretching, whether you call it down dog or whatever the poses are called. You know, I don't even know what they are. Pretzel behind your head or something, I don't know. You have all these yoga stretches, but I'm not opposed to somebody doing stretching, but as a discipline from, you know, the spiritual aspects of it, that's not compatible with Christianity. It cannot be a form of Christian worship. The Bible does not commend it to us, and there's a reason it's used for Eastern worship. And so, what you do in worship says something about the God you worship. I don't mean to be too crude here, but Baal and Asherah worship included a good bit of immorality, because they were fertility gods and goddesses. And so therefore, their priestesses committed immorality to encourage the God and goddess to be fertile. All right, I think we would all recognize that could not be incorporated into Christian worship. You're going to be saying a very different thing about who God is by that. And so what Uzzah was doing was he was worshiping the Lord in a way like the Philistines did. He was treating the Lord's Ark like the Philistines had treated it. He was bringing pagan elements of worship into the worship of the Lord. We don't have any more right to do that today and God takes it seriously enough that he in times in the Old Testament actually struck people dead for it. Nadab and Abihu offering strange fire before the Lord and here Uzzah. So what are the elements that the New Testament commends to us for worship? Preaching the Word of God, right? Jesus preached, Paul preached, Peter preached, preaching. Singing God's praise, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, Colossians 3 says. Singing the praise of God, yes. Prayer, Acts 2.42, but they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and in fellowship and in prayers. The Lord's Supper. It's in the breaking of bread and in prayers. The Lord's Supper. Baptism. Jesus commanded us to go into all the world and make disciples and baptize them, right? All of these things are forms of Christian worship. Reading of Scripture. Revelation 1 says, blessed is he that reads this book and those who hear it. It's the public reading of Scripture. So preaching, Scripture reading, prayer, and it's corporate prayer and private prayer. Singing God's praise. All of those things are elements of worship that we are commanded and commended to do in Scripture, that we ought to do these things. All right? And those elements may change from culture to culture. So for example, in Jesus' day, rabbis sat to teach, and the crowd stood and listened. We've got it reversed here. That's just a cultural expression. The proclamation of the word is still going on. OK? Or in another setting, you know, you may have, I was in India in a church in the slums of Mumbai. And by that, I don't mean to denigrate it. It's what it's called. And basically, they're shanty towns that have been thrown up because these people work hard all day and make a living, but they don't make enough to rent or buy anything in Mumbai because Mumbai's rent's like New York's. So a guy goes out and works. At that time, I was told he would go out and work as a mason and make about $300 a year. So that's about $1 a day or so that he would make. He couldn't afford $700 a month, $1,000 a month rent. So what do you do? You go find a place that's outside of town, and you get whatever materials you can, and you make a little house that you can live in. And these were faithful Christian people. They'd put up a church there. They were singing. Well, my wife and I went into this. We were visiting with a church planter that was there, and we sat down. And the women sat on one side, and the men sat on the other. And they sat on the floor, not in chairs like you do. And there was a group of men up in the front with some Indian, India-Indian musical instruments. And they were playing them, and they were singing, and it was non-Western music. It was a cultural expression, but they were still singing praise to God, biblical truths. Different language, different culture, different expression, still the same element, though. You see, there's still praise to God, there's still, then I got up and preached, and I preached about 40 minutes, and I got done, and they all kind of looked at each other like, he's done? And the church planter said, they're used to the services being about three hours long, so no offense, but I'm gonna preach another sermon. So then he got up and preached again, and they were like, good, more, more. And so, you know, my 45 minutes, most Americans are like, how long is this guy going to go? But there they were like, yes, more and more. All right, very different cultural expression of it, but nonetheless the same elements. What didn't feel, what felt foreign was the cultural expression. What didn't feel foreign was the fact that there was proclamation of the word of God, was that there was prayer, was that there was singing praise to God. That was all. All the same. See, we don't have the right to introduce other elements of worship. And so we find here this false worship going on by Uzzah. And the Lord is displeased. And David was displeased because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah. David is kind of upset that this poor man died. He did have a good motive after all. In other words, note here, it's not motive. I've heard this many times as a pastor, and that said, well, they might be doing some strange things in worship, but they do it with a good heart. Well, tell that to Uzzah. All right, there's no question of his heart here. In other words, you know, the snake handlers in West Virginia, they might be doing some strange things, but they're doing it with a good heart. Yeah, there's no snake handling commanded in the scripture. Okay? Handling rattlesnakes is not commanded by God and is a bad idea. It says the wrong thing about God. It says God's a God of doing tricks, in my opinion. In other words, let's pull out the snakes and prove that God can protect us. The Bible says not to put God to a foolish task, the Lord to a foolish task. Breaking all kinds of principles of scripture to do that kind of thing. That's just one of many things. What tends to be more common is we introduce our own cultural items into worship. You know, so what ends up getting introduced, rather than singing God's praise and proclamation, is we introduce other things that tend to be in with American culture. All right? So during the sermon, and this is going on in churches, during the sermon, you can tweet to the pastor things and he can interact with it during the message. Well, I get a little uncomfortable because in the Bible, most of these, most proclamations were monologues. They weren't Twitter discussions. All right, again, I think Twitter, the same thing applies that applies to television. No real serious, serious topics are brought up on Twitter, but they're never really seriously discussed. People just get angry at each other and call each other names eventually. That's the way it works. You know, most of those. I have a personal rule that I don't generally discuss theological issues on Twitter or Facebook or somewhere like that. I'll invite somebody to email me. or to call me or whatever, but in 140 characters or whatever, 280, whatever they've expanded it to now on Twitter, it's really hard to talk about the Trinity, okay? It just doesn't give it a lot of room to do it. That's just a personal application that I found. I'm not saying it's sinful if you want to get into a discussion with people on it, but I just found that it doesn't usually go anywhere. They just usually misunderstand what you're saying and get angry at you or call you a name, accuse you of being Satan or something or Hitler or something else. But we tend to bring in our own cultural elements when the Lord has not given us commandment to do that. And he called the name of this place Perez Uzzah to this day. Perez means a breakout, a breach. In other words, God broke out in judgment against Uzzah. And David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, how shall the ark of the Lord come to me? How can I bring it up to Jerusalem? When, if you try to move it and it almost falls off the cart, you get killed for it. David's confused. We're seeing again an example here of David's ignorance of the Old Testament law. In the previous passage we had seen, chapter 5, he had married multiple women, which Deuteronomy, we had looked at, had condemned the king doing. And here again, an ignorance of how the ark should be moved. And 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 hath blessed the household of Obed-Edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom into the city of David with gladness." So he thinks God is angry and doesn't want the ark moved. He's not really sure what the death of Uzzah meant. But then he sees the blessing on Obed-Edom, and he takes that as an opportunity to move the ark. And it was so that when they bare the ark, they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces. He sacrificed oxen. In fact, notice now, they're measuring it in how far the people carrying it are walking. They've gone back to moving it the biblical way. And now, just to make sure God is pleased, sacrifices are being offered. And David danced before the Lord with all his might, and David was girded with a linen ephod. Now, note something here. You familiar with the concept of a double standard? I think you are. All right. Young people are especially noted to note this. In other words, inconsistencies really bother young people. And when we get older, we just kind of recognize the world sometimes works this way, and I don't like it, but I can't change it. Right? But when you're a teenager or in your 20s, you think, that's wrong. That's an injustice. That shouldn't work that way. You know? I mean, we've seen this kind of thing take place where Somebody who's not qualified or not as qualified for something gets a job simply because they're the son-in-law of the person hiring, right? Has nothing to do with qualifications. This is what it gets accused here, all right? If we go back to 1 Samuel, if we go back to 1 Samuel, What we find is that Saul gets scolded by the Lord through Samuel because what does Saul do? Samuel's not coming and Samuel's not coming and Samuel's not coming as they're about to go to battle with the Philistines and so Saul takes it on himself to offer a sacrifice, right? And God condemns Saul for that. So why is Saul condemned for being a priest, but here David is wearing an ephod and offering sacrifices and leading in praise, which are all priestly activities. Why is David commended for it? In other words, isn't the author of 2 Samuel biased toward David? Isn't he saying, see, David was the perfect king. He wants to put Saul in a bad light to show why David should succeed him and why Saul's house shouldn't continue. Obviously, God had to rebuke Saul for something. And so this is just propaganda to make David look good. It's a double standard. Why is it that David, who's a king and not a Levite, can be a priest, but Saul, who's a king and not a Levite, gets condemned? And it's told his dynasty won't continue for being a priest. Isn't this an inconsistency? This is what some of the commentaries actually say, that this is just propaganda in favor of David. I want to attempt to give you a theological answer to this. Where is David bringing the ark? Jerusalem. Why is he taking it to Jerusalem? Because he has recently conquered it and made it his royal city. He is now the king of Judah, Israel, and when he became the king of Israel and Judah, he wasn't yet the king of Jerusalem until he conquered it, right? So now he's the king of Jerusalem. So in a sense, he's the king of three things, Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Now, are we ever introduced in any other place to Scripture to a previous king of Jerusalem? Yes. Turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis. Genesis 14, I believe it is. Let me set the... the context here for you, Genesis 14. Abraham's nephew, a man named Lot, decides to take, when they decide to split up because their herds are getting too big, decides to take the best-looking land down near Sodom and Gomorrah. And what happens is a group of kings, verse 1 of chapter 14, it came to pass in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Ariok, king of Elessar, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of nations. that these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Bersha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Adma, and Shimember king of Zeboim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. All these were joined together in the valley of Siddim, which is the salt sea. Twelve years they served Chedder-le-Omer, and the thirteenth year they rebelled. So they go to war against each other, and what eventually happens is that the kings attacking Sodom and Gomorrah win, and they take captives, including Lot. Alright? So Abraham, who's a very wealthy man at the time, and has a large amount of servants, arms his own servants to go rescue his nephew. And he goes out and attacks these kings, and God gives him a victory. And on his way back, Verse 16, and he brought back all the goods and also brought again his brother Lot and his goods and the women also and the people. That they've rescued all these people that were taken captive. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and all the kings that were with him at the valley of Shavah, which is the king's dale. Now notice this, and Melchizedek, king of Salem, That means peace. Jerusalem, Salem is in that name. Most agree that Salem and Jerusalem are the same place. The king of Salem brought forth bread and wine and he was the priest of the Most High God. He's serving the Lord. Abraham's not the only worshiper of the Lord. There's also Melchizedek, who's the priest of the Most High God. You have a real, true believer in the Lord, calling him the Most High God, knowing him by the name of the Most High God, who's the king and priest of Salem. the king and priest of Jerusalem. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abraham of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all." Abraham tithes to Melchizedek as a priest. Okay? So what we find here is that we already know that there was a king of Jerusalem who was a king and a priest. And his name was Melchizedek, and he was the king of Salem, of Jerusalem. If you'll turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 110, Psalm 110. This is the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament. Psalm 110 said, So notice he says, Capital L-O-R-D, all in small caps, that's Yahweh, the Old Testament name for God, said unto my Lord, who's David's Lord, here's David writing this, the Psalm of David, that is the Messiah. And Jesus even quotes this, this is in the book of Matthew, we looked at this many months ago, of them trying to trick him and trip him up and ask him questions, difficult theological questions, so then he may ask them a question. The Messiah, whose son is he? Well, he's David's. is the response Jesus gets, and he says, then why does David say, the Lord said to my Lord? If the Messiah is David's son, why does David call his own son Lord? You don't do that. The Father's greater than the Son. Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. All right. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Here's Zion being identified. That is Jerusalem. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power and the beauty of holiness. From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent. Okay, this is permanent. Thou, who's he talking to? The Messiah. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. God has designated the Messiah as a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And if you'll join with me in turning to Hebrews chapter 5, I want to show you another passage here. Verse 1, for every high priest, chapter 5 of Hebrews, taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. Who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way? For that he himself also is compassed with infirmity. And by reason hereof, he ought as for the people, so also for himself to offer for sins. And no man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron." In other words, you don't get to say, hey, I volunteer to be the priest. God makes you a priest. How did God called Aaron and then his descendants became the priests, right? So also Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he that said unto him, thou art my son, today I have begotten thee, as he saith also in another place, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. God had designated the Messiah as a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared. Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him, called of God and high priest after the order of Melchizedek." And so we're introduced here in the New Testament to the fact that Jesus is called by God a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Well, how is Jesus a priest after the order of Melchizedek? Here's what I'm going to try to connect the dots in. Melchizedek was a king priest who had the right to both offer sacrifices and to rule in Jerusalem. The son of David, the Messiah, is a king priest in Zion after the order of Melchizedek. How would he have inherited that king priest ship, if you would, priesthood? Because he's the son of David. David became a Melchizedekian priest when he conquered Jerusalem. since his son is one, and since the previous king, many generations before, had been a king priest, Melchizedek himself. David is a king priest. He's not violating God's commandments because he's not functioning as a Levitical priest. He's not going into the tabernacle. He's not going into the Holy of Holies. He's not trying to lead in worship in a way that was forbidden by God. He actually has the office of a priest by conquering Jerusalem. There is not a double standard here. There's a theological line from David to Jesus of being a king priest, and therefore Jesus being the son of David is a king priest after the order of Melchizedek. It's a long thread. I'm not saying it's perfectly demonstrated in scripture, but I think we can put the pieces together here. And so therefore, David is not displeasing God. God doesn't have a double standard here and he condemns Saul for something that David's doing, that David's blessed for. David is doing this because he is a king priest after the order of Melchizedek. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet and the ark of the Lord came to the city of David. Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window and saw the king David leaping and dancing before the Lord and she despised him in her heart. Alright, now remember the point of 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Samuel, is who's worthy to be the king of Israel? What should the king look like? And we've seen that Saul had disqualified himself. Now we're seeing David looks worthy to do this. But wait a second, he's not acting very kingly here, is what the former king's daughter is thinking. My dad didn't behave like this. He had more dignity than that. Here you are making a fool of yourself, dancing around and praising the Lord. And they brought in the ark of God and set it in the place in the midst of the tabernacle that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. And as soon as David had made an end of offering burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts. Here, this is another activity of a priest to call a blessing on the people of God. And he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as to the men, to everyone a cake of bread and a good piece of flesh and a flagon of wine. So all the people departed, everyone to his own house. He gives them all gifts as the king. Then David returned to bless his household. So now he's handed back to his own home to see his wives and his children, to bless his own household. And Michal, 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 handmaids of the servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself." In other words, you took off your outer garment. He was not naked, okay? Israelites wore a tunic and then over it an outer garment, and he would have taken off this outer garment in order to move better. Because he was praising the Lord. And here, she's criticizing him. Let's note here, the theme of 2 Samuel is to show how David is a noble servant of God. And is a good king. And the point of this account is not to make Michal look good, but to make David look good. Remember, her father, who she's comparing David to here, was rejected by God. He might have been very dignified, but he offered a sacrifice when he wasn't supposed to. He kept the king alive when he wasn't supposed to. He went and saw a witch. Talk about false worship. He didn't worship the God appropriately. Here David, when he realizes the right way to move the ark, moves it the right way and is lavish in his worship toward the Lord. And she's offended by his lavishness because he brought himself down as king in order to lead in worship this way. And so David said unto Michal, it was before the Lord which chose me before thy father, before all his house to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel. Therefore, I will play before the Lord, and he's playing here, remember he's playing musical instruments. And I yet will be more vile than this, than thus, and will be base in mine own sight, and in the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honor. Therefore, Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child unto the day of her death. In other words, in effect, what happens here is they have a falling out, and even though she's the wife of the king, he leaves her alone. They have really no relationship, no friendship of any sort going on here anymore, because she comes out and scolds David for doing something that the author of Samuel here is looking at as a positive thing. He was leading the nation in worship, and she thought this wasn't very dignified, and so therefore condemns him. And he's saying, I'm not that worried about being dignified. I'm concerned about worshiping the Lord, who gave me this throne, even above your father, who he had rejected. These are pretty harsh words he says to Michal here. Very harsh words. She's been mad at David, probably because of what's gone on with her father's house losing the throne, and also because of the way the whole marriage mess went, and so she just views him as, you know, you're behaving not kingly enough. Look, I grew up in a king's household. I should know how a king should behave, and you're not it. And David's not going to hear that from her. What he was doing was the right thing, okay? It is right to worship the Lord in a lavish way, if you're doing it the right way. You follow what I'm saying? In other words, if you sing praises to God and you sing it with your whole heart, well, that's not very dignified, singing out like that. If you'd be dignified, you'd stand with your hands in your pocket and kind of mutter the words because then we would know that you're not going to make a show of praising the Lord. You know, you wouldn't want to do anything extravagant in the worship of the Lord. Yet, we also find those kinds of extravagances commended to us in the Scriptures, right? Jesus is anointed by Mary and Bethany, and Judas says, why was this waste? We could have used this and sold it and used the money to help the poor. Jesus said, she did this for the day of my burial. Now, it was undoubtedly extravagant. It was a year's worth of wages. In other words, what she did was extravagant, but it's commended. In other words, can you really worship God too much? When I was in college, I remember we would sometimes have a day of prayer. And I have to admit, it would wear you out. I mean, you'd have, we got up, and we had a prayer meeting, and then we had chapel, and then we had another prayer meeting, then we had lunch, then we had another chapel period, and then we had a prayer meeting, and we had like four or five prayer meetings during the day. And the classes were canceled, it was a Christian college, and classes were canceled, and we had prayer. And you were pretty tired by the end of the day. Classes were easier. I mean, because you ended up spending a lot of time and, you know, the groups were broken up different ways. You might pray with your roommates and then you might pray with your classmates and then, you know, and usually faculty were involved in it. It was actually a very good time and helpful time. But I remember one of my roommates saying, I hate these days of prayer. I said, why? He said, you know, it's just way too much prayer. I said, what? He said, well, you know, if you want to pray 10, 20 minutes or something, that's fine. But all we do is pray, pray, pray all day. I think he was probably an unbeliever, and not just because he said that, but by other actions that he had. Of course, if you're an unbeliever, you're going to think it's too much prayer. But is it really possible? Obviously, not neglecting other duties that you have. Don't let your children starve because you're praying. That's not a good excuse. But is it really possible to say, wow, you know, he spent an hour in prayer. Why would he do that? What a waste of time. No. You can't be too extravagant in that regard. See, David's being extravagant in his worship here, and yes, Michal takes notice of it, but the Lord, in this passage, the context seems to be commending David. If only Saul had taken the worship of God this seriously. He might have still been on the throne, but instead he had rejected. And so, God commends in this passage worship to us. One, of the right kind, and two, done wholeheartedly. Our worship ought to be the same way. How often is it that we come to church to worship and it's half-hearted? Or how often is it that we determine whether worship is good, whether it pleased me or not? Alright? How you felt about it is not the determining factor. How God felt about it is the determining factor. You know, so I remember a man attended our church for a few weeks many years ago, and we were starting to get to know him, and then one day he disappeared. I hadn't seen him, so I gave him a call. I know one of our assistant pastors gave him a call and said, we missed you. He said, well, a friend of mine invited me to another church, and I went over to that other church. And he said, that church has donuts. and you don't have doughnuts. And so I'm going to go there because they have doughnuts." This is literally what he said. Now folks, it'd be fine to have doughnuts. I guess they had doughnuts at some point, not during the service, but doughnuts. I'm not even preaching against having doughnuts. What I'm preaching against is determining whether worship of God is good or not based on doughnuts. All right? That's not what determines whether or not the worship of God is good, whether a church is pleasing to God, or whether the, you know... Donuts, really? That's ridiculous. Now, if it was brownies... No, I'm kidding. I'm joking, of course. The fact is, of course, none of that. Or, you know, all of these kinds of things. Our churches have been pushed to become commercialized. You know, well, which church has the best lobby coffee shop? And which children's program has the best slides? I mean, after all, you bring your children to church to write a slide, right? No, you bring them to learn about God and the gospel. If the church has the best slides and the best play set in the world, there's no substitute for hearing the gospel. You know what? SeaWorld has a great play area for children. There's nets and things to climb. When my boys were younger, they loved SeaWorld for that. They didn't care about seeing Shamu, they just wanted to climb nets. Go get an annual pass to SeaWorld. You say, but yeah, but you're not going to church then. But what good is it to go to church if you don't learn the word? Now, I'm not saying, and we have slides and swings on the back of our property, I'm not saying it's wrong to have those, but if your ministry focuses around that kind of thing rather than around the Word, the praise of God, the prayer, and these kinds of things, then you don't understand worship at all. If you judge whether or not a church has good worship based on what kind of slides it has for children, that's a wrong judgment. And I can't believe how many people let their children make that decision. Their four-year-old, which church did you like best? Do you let them choose what to eat that? I guess some people do. But, you know, when you have dinner at home, the four-year-old says, no, I wanted McNuggets again. OK, looks like we're having McNuggets again. No. You say, look, OK, I know you like McNuggets, but we can't eat them every night. They're not good for you to eat that often. But yet we do the same thing spiritually. A child says, I like the slides at the other church. Well, great, but you have to be an adult and determine what's best for them, where they're going to get fed spiritually, where they're going to get built up spiritually. I realize there are going to be times that children need a break. In the nursery group, you're going to teach them for five minutes and their attention span is only so long, and then they might have cookies and things like that. I understand that. That's part of children's ministry, but I don't determine whether a children's ministry is good based on cookies. Well, they have Oreos over here, but they make homemade ones at this nursery. No, what I want to know is, are the children safe, and are they being taught the Word of God? Number one is the Word of God. The same thing, we ought to not make the decision based on so many other things that people make a decision on. It's not like, as I've often said, it's not like choosing a grocery store. Well, Walmart has better prices, but Publix has better lighting and nicer employees, you know, that are friendlier. So I think I might shop at Walmart because I need to save money or Publix because I like the experience. Well, choosing a church and worshiping God is not like choosing a grocery store. There are actually principles involved. You don't get to choose to worship God however you want. You can sell groceries however you want. If it makes money, that's the point. But you can't choose to worship God any way you want. The question is, does the worship please God? Is it biblical? And do you do it wholeheartedly like David was doing here? Because even if you come to a biblical church and yet you don't engage in the worship, you're not wholeheartedly involved in it, that doesn't mean you have to sing the loudest in the room. That doesn't mean, you know, different people have different personalities and different people have different physical limitations and things, and some people maybe can't stand when we all stand to sing because they have limitations. That's okay. They can still do it wholeheartedly unto the Lord. So this passage is about worship, what kind of worship pleases God. And David learned, first of all, the hard way, how to worship God, and then secondly, did it with all his heart. And he's commended to us as a man after God's own heart. Let's bow our heads. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this passage.