Before I read the scriptures, I want to say how a pleasure it is to be in Providence. My wife and I spent five and a half very happy years here in Fayetteville. And maybe that's because I never served at Fort Bragg. Oh, sorry, Fort Liberty. I just remembered. When we first came to Providence, we met, I think it was across 401 here, somebody, there was a, we had a building over there, and I remember my wife and I walked in, and the place was packed, absolutely packed. And all strong, young men, and some of them with their wives and children. And about three Sabbaths later, We walked in. I mean, they'd all been deployed somewhere, and their wives had gone home or whatever, and then we understood what it was like to minister in a military community. And then we became peripatetic, that is, we moved around. I think we must have worshiped in four separate places, when in the five years we were at Providence. And then, of course, you found this piece of land and you built this building. and the Lord has prospered you. And I am so glad. Pastor Webb is a faithful man. I know of very few, if any, as faithful as he has been to Providence. I want to turn your attention this morning to the reading of Scripture, and I want to tell you that I hate giving titles. I abominate it. Because my sermons always change. You know, the stuff that I start working on a month before becomes something entirely different a month later, and a week later in this case. So ignore the title. But we'll find what I'm going to say as we proceed. and I want to read to you just the one reading. Time has gone on and so I just want to read to you from 2 Samuel chapter 6 and verses 1 through 11. 2 Samuel chapter 6, verses 1 through 11. David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000. That's a lot of men. And David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baal, Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts, who sits enthroned on the cherubim. And they carried the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out to the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God. And Ahio went before the ark. And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. And when he came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah. And God struck him down there because of his error. And he died there beside the ark of God. And David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez Uzzah to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord that day. And he said, how can the ark of the Lord come to me? So David was not willing to take the ark of the Lord into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. And the ark of the Lord remained 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, The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with rejoicing And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal. And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the horn. Thus far in the reading of God's Word. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, open your word to us. Enrich our lives. Solemnize us and cause us to rejoice. We pray this for Jesus' sake. Amen. I don't know if you know the story. I've heard it in different ways, different forms, and in different countries, about the open air preacher who went to preach. And he would start, he would go out into some mall or plaza or whatever, and he'd put his hat on the ground. And he would march around in, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive. And of course, always some curious people, who are curious, and they want to know what's alive under that hat. And then you pick it up, and what's under it? It's his Bible. It's alive. And that's true. Our Bibles are alive! I was very solemnized about this very issue when a friend of mine who ministers the gospel, or ministered the gospel, he's retired now, in a Muslim area in the north of England, and he was telling me that on a Friday, the very devout Muslims will go to their mosque carrying their Koran on their heads. And I said, well, why on their heads? He said, well, they believe that you must not put your, put the Quran close to the ground and that they keep them in their homes on a higher piece of furniture. They will not put, and I was thinking of the way that some of us treat our Bibles. You know, we'll sling them in a corner and so on. No, I'm not advocating bibliolatry in that sense. But I am saying to you that they make us think about the way we treat the content of the Bible. And that's exactly really what David is discovering in, narrated to us in this psalm, the power of the Bible. Now David should have known about that. He knew, for example, the Old Testament, well, the law, the five books of Moses. They were written by the time he was born, and it would have been known in the community just 200, 250 years before the Bible, the law of God, the Ten Commandments, and the whole five books had been written by Moses. and he would have known their content. They had teachers of the law and he would have known its content. And in its content is the great teaching about the Ark of God. Now, the Ark was really fairly insignificant on one level. It was a box, an oblong box, gold-plated. And on it, they would have had the cherubim, one on each end, and a gold piece between them. And inside would have been Aaron's rod that budded, which tells us that There is life, dead things in the gospel, and the manna which would have told him about the body of Christ, or the body of someone who was going to come, the angel of the covenant, and there would have been the Ten Commandments. and those would be brought, they would be carried by the priests because they were made with metal rings, gold rings and rods put through them and carried by the priests. He would have known that and he would have known the power. If you turn back with me to the first book of Samuel and to chapter four and five and six, I'm not going to read all of them, but just to point out certain things to you. In chapter four, you may remember Samuel is just a little lad, but the The Philistines have come up against Israel, and there's war. And the battle has been going ill against the Israelites. And so they bring up the ark. It's magic for them. The nation, you remember, the first book of Samuel is written just at the end of the Book of Judges. It's not only placed there in terms of the Bible, but in terms of the period of time as well. And Israel had been unfaithful to God. And at the end of the Book of Judges, there are some of the most appalling and disgusting things you can think of happening. It was a terrible time. And the result was that God had been put into a corner. He was no longer at their head. He was just someone. Later you find that when the Ark is brought back, to Israel after being in captivity to the Philistines for six or seven months. One of the versions, a Greek version of the Old Testament, tells us that the people who saw the ark coming back saying, so what? So what? It didn't matter to them, be that as it may. The battle was going against the Israelites, and so they bring the ark up. They say, bring up the ark. Oh, that'll be the answer to the problem. And of course it isn't, and the ark is taken into captivity. And in chapter 5 you find the Ark in Gath, and then in Ekron, and then in all the other cities of the Philistines for the simple reason none of them could hold the Ark. Every time they put the ark somewhere, it did damage. First of all, it does it, we're told, in Ashdod. And Dagon, their god, falls flat on his face. And then they put him back. Of course, they have to repair their god. That's a problem. We don't have to repair our god, do we? He's a living god. But their idols break up twice. Once, his hands and feet, and then he just becomes crumbled up as dust. Some God he was. All the time, however, they think, well, you know, he didn't help us, so he's not interested in what we're doing. Quite to the contrary. God knows what's going on. And David knew that. David, in chapter 17, you remember, he's got a fight on his hands with a big chap called Goliath. And when they say to him, why are you saying you're going to fight against Goliath? Oh, he said, you must not blaspheme the name of the Lord God of Israel. He is the mighty God. And indeed he is. And they come against him, he says, with swords and all the siege and battle requirements of their time. But when it comes to fighting with the Lord, one pebble out of five, I like to think it was total depravity. None of you know the five points of Calvinism? Oh, give me a break. He killed him with total depravity and down he went. That is the power of the living God. David knew this. Well now he comes to bring up the ark to Jerusalem. He's been made king. He's just become king and he wants to unify the nation. So he chooses to make his capital Jerusalem. Jerusalem belonged to other tribes that hadn't been conquered and defeated by Josiah. Gone out of my head, he has. Anyway, he had not been defeated as the Israelites had invaded the land of Canaan. And consequently, Joshua had left certain cities untaken and Jerusalem was one of them. Well, now Joab climbs up a water gunnel or journey and captures the city. And so David wants to make this more central city his capital. But more than that, he wants to bring the ark in order to have a center for worship as well. And so he wants to bring the ark up now to Jerusalem. Now remember, David has heard the commandments. David has known about the ark taken into captivity and destroying Philistine gods. And David knows the power of God in the covenant of grace. And he forgets a vital truth. It must not be carried on a cart. It must not be carried on a cart. It must be carried by the priests. So what does David do? Well, because he's so impressed with his own new position as king, he forgets that God is a powerful God. He's a God in his word. And it's something for us to remember this morning as a first point, that we are to remember that God is present in His Word. He's never absent from it. That when you read the scriptures, God is speaking to you. He has somewhat to say, say, well, the history books, they don't say much. You know, what's the point of reading Malachi or Micah or Zechariah? What are they going to say to me? If you've not read them and listened to them, then you've wasted your time. God speaks in his word. Remember that. It's at the very heart of our Christian faith. God doesn't just speak out of our minds. He doesn't speak to us without inscripturated truth. God speaks. God is never silent. He wasn't silent in dealing with the Philistines when they defeated Israel. He was dealing with Israel. He was saying to them, you haven't listened to my word. You're not listening to me. You're treating me like as though I was a nobody and a nothing. But I'm speaking all the time. There is no occasion you come to church here on a Sunday morning and I hope on a Sunday evening, I hope you listen carefully to what is heard because God is speaking to you. And we do great damage when we don't listen. As you can tell probably from my accent, I'm not an American. Well, I am an American, but I'm the one born here. And I can remember both as a pastor in Wales and as a child and a grown teenager. I can even remember that far back. you'd go into somebody's house, and always in Wales, the best room was the front room. And you would go in, and I can see now the houses that I went into both as a pastor and as a teenager and a child. that you'd walk past, there was a door, and it was partly open, and the front room had a Bible, a big, big Bible, clasps on it, and it, on the front room table, there was a small table there, and the Bible on it. It never was opened. Never, unless the minister came to visit, and he would have to unclip it, and he'd have to turn, and of course, very often, if it was a Welsh community, it'd be a Welsh Bible, and you would read from the Bible. I can remember going, taking a Bible with me, and they couldn't believe that I would carry a Bible. It was the thing. Truth is, today, Wales that once saw revivals that brought in 100,000 people in the course of a year to the churches is a secular nation. What have they done? They haven't listened to the Bible. They haven't heard what God says. And this was true for David. This is why we're told here that David was angry. He's angry with himself. He's not angry with God. He's angry with himself because he'd never warned the people that to bring the Ark of the Covenant to any place in any way but by being carried, there was bound to be judgment. There was judgment when they brought the ark away from the Philistines back in 1 Samuel. They brought the ark away from him there. And they put it in a cart and put two cows to carry it, to pull it. And the cows keep going and going back to Israel. But when they look inside the ark, 70,000 men are killed because they're cavalier with the Word of God. And we have to be careful that we're not cavalier with the Word of God. People realize this. I was reading recently that a celebrated atheist called Richard Dawkins, and has been railing against Christianity for several years, and is one of the primary atheists in the United Kingdom, and in the world really, because he's a very accomplished scientist, has now decided that he is a cultural Christian. I wonder what's worrying him. I just wonder what's worrying him. You see, people have treated the Word of God as though it's a nobody and a nothing. Well, that's the first thing for you to note. The second thing to note, therefore, is that God is always working in his word. You may say to me, I don't read my Bible. I don't apply any of its truth, but it doesn't make any sense to me. Then why doesn't it? Have you asked someone to teach you and to tell you? Because remember, every time you read the Bible and you say, it says nothing to me, God is speaking to you. He is always speaking to you. Always speaking from his word. And don't treat it lightly. Don't say, you know, well, they did a few readings from Scripture. Look, every time God's Word is read, God is speaking. It may make little sense to you, but it makes some sense. I mean, a little is better than nothing. If you're starving and someone gives you a little bit to eat, that's a lot better than having nothing to eat. And the same is true with the Word of God. You may not understand all of it, but you've got to be able to understand some of it. That's why we place such an emphasis on the translation of scripture. That's why the Bible goes out. We have a fellow in our church who works for a Bible society that specializes in translating scripture. You say, well, why do that? I mean, it's in every language. Well, it's not in every language. And I'll tell you this, if you're not reading it in your language, then you are committing a grave sin. The Bible is God's Word. You treat it carefully. You don't treat it with kid gloves, but you treat it carefully. You read it that it might speak to you and it might lead you and comfort you. You must read your Bible. We've got a chorus. Do you sing it to your children? Read your Bible, pray every day if you want to grow? Exactly. You've got to read and know the Word of God. You may say, well, I don't have time. Nonsense. I bet you've got time to take an extended break over a cup of coffee. I'm quite sure that you can spend an extra time at the water fountain. I'm sure you can take five minutes. And it doesn't take long to read your Bible. You can read quite a length in five minutes, and certainly if you've got 20 minutes, you can read a whole chapter, and you can think about it. God has given you a faculty to think, and you're to think about what you read. You may make a mistake. There are plenty of people in your church who can give you some explanation of what you're reading. It's important that you read the Bible. but you must treat it carefully. You mustn't be flippant with it because David was exactly that. Look, he says, and David was angry because the Lord, David was afraid of God that day. How can the ark come to me? He was not willing to take the ark of the Lord into the city of David. It was his city, it was going to be where he dwelt, but he was afraid because he was so flippant with the caring for the Bible. The third thing is this. When you read the Bible, it will always encourage two great virtues, humility and submission. You say, well, how does it do that? Well, if you say to me, well, I don't understand something in the Bible, that should teach you humility, doesn't it? You can't say, well, I didn't understand anything, but I am so clever. You know, some of the cleverest people in the world are really pitiful because they don't understand the scriptures. That man, Richard Dawkins, that I mentioned a moment ago. It's because he didn't understand. Now he's getting, perhaps, to have some understanding. And you say, well, of course, it's the Holy Spirit gives us understanding. Indeed. He's working all the time. There is not a day that the Holy Spirit has a day off. There's not a day when God in His Spirit isn't speaking to you. There's not a day when Christ does not speak to you. And you should listen carefully. It's important for you to be humble and submit to the Word of God. You can say with honesty, There are things I know nothing about. A truly humble man is a man who knows a great deal, but realizes he doesn't know half what he needs to know. God's word is to be dealt with humbly and submissively. And if you read it properly, so it will be for you. And the last thing is this. God's Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, and he must be the center and hope of our lives. See, that's what the Lord Jesus is, the Word of God incarnate. That's why we know God is always speaking. because the Lord Jesus is alive in heaven and the Lord Jesus makes intercession for his people. The Word of God is alive. It's alive. That open air preacher is quite right. It's alive. It's alive because God's Spirit is in it. He glorifies the Son in it. The Son has been made flesh and dwelt amongst us. The Word of God is made flesh and dwelt amongst us, says the Apostle John. We behold his glory. Let me close by saying to you, please, please read your Bibles. Pray every day. Don't take a day off and say, I don't need you. Some years ago, Joel Bells, who founded World Magazine. Some of you may take World Magazine. He founded World Magazine. And he used to write the editorials. Now, as a minister, I read the Bible every day. Obviously, you've got to read your Bible every day as a minister just to know what you say in a sermon, what passage you're going to expound, what word of God you're going to bring to us. read it regularly, faithfully, as an essential part of my life. And Joel Bells wrote in this article, this editorial, his first words in the editorial was, what are you reading? If you haven't read your Bible and you're reading this magazine, put it down and read your Bible. And I took that to heart, it must have been 30, 40 years ago probably, and I've taken it to heart. I'm telling you, don't you neglect to read your Bible every day. Read it, learn it, and know that God, the God of heaven, the creator of the world, the king of the universe, the one who has everybody. It's so amazing. I can't get my mind around it. but that He knows every person on the face of this globe at this moment, those who are born, those who will die. He knows who will come into heaven, and He knows who will go into hell. He knows this minute all of us here and all of your thoughts. He's listening to you. You be careful when you deal with your Bible. And listen. I'm quite sure if Pastor Webb comes back from, when Pastor Webb comes back from Africa in either 10 days or whenever it is, he will be thrilled if you say, Pastor Webb, we have decided to read our Bibles every day. At some point during the day, we are going to make it maybe first thing in the morning before we get out of bed. Maybe it'll be lunchtime, maybe it'll be before we go to bed, but we pledge to read your Bibles every day. And if we don't understand something, we'll call you to explain it, or we'll come to church and listen to you. But I'm going to read my Bible every day. Why? Because it is God's Word, and God speaks to me through His Word. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for being a God who speaks. We don't have to be clever. We don't have to know Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic. We don't have to know Ugaritic. All we need to do is to read the scriptures. And in so doing, we will bring you close to ourselves. We will know you. and we will be blessed like Obed-Edom was blessed, his whole family was blessed, all who worked for him were blessed because the revered and honored it. May it be that we will revere and honor God's word, the sacraments, the worship, and all that the Church of God has and is, that your name should be glorified. We pray this for Jesus' sake.