We have sung of David, the anointed of God, the servant of the Lord, anointed with holy oil, a strong one chosen from among the people. Now we will read of his building or preparing to build a house for the Lord. by building a tabernacle for the ark of the Lord, according to God's commandments, not according to human devices, and the bringing of the ark to that tabernacle with joy. Hear now the word of almighty God, inspired by his spirit, profitable for us, from the book of 1 Chronicles 15, verse one. And David made him houses in the city of David, and prepared a place for the ark of God, and pitched for it a tent. Then David said, none ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites. For them hath the Lord chosen to carry the ark of God and to minister unto him forever. And David gathered all Israel together to Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the Lord unto his place, which he had prepared for it. And David assembled the children of Aaron and the Levites, of the sons of Kohath, Uriel the chief, and his brethren, and 120, and of the sons of Merari, Asaiah the chief, and his brethren, 220, of the sons of Gershom, Joel the chief, and his brethren, and 130, of the sons of Elizaphan, Shemaiah, the chief and his brethren 200, of the sons of Hebron, Eliel the chief and his brethren fourscore, of the sons of Uziel, Aminadab the chief and his brethren 112. And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and for the Levites, for Uriel, Asaiah, and Joel, Shemaiah, and Eliel, and Amminadab, and said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites. Sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it. For because he did it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order. So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the Ark of the Lord God of Israel. And the children of the Levites bear the Ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon. As Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord, And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of music, psalteries and harps and cymbals sounding by lifting up the voice with joy. So the Levites appointed Heman, the son of Joel, and of his brethren Asaph, the son of Berechiah. And of the sons of Merari, their brethren, Ethan, the son of Cushiah. And with them, their brethren of the second degree, Zechariah, Ben, and Jaaziel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Unai, Eliab, and Benaiah, and Measeiah, and Mattithiah, and Eliphileh, and Mekniah, and Obed-Edom, and Jeiel the porters. So the singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, were appointed to sound the symbols of brass. And Zechariah, and Aziel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Uni, and Eliab, and Maaseiah, and Benaiah, with psalteries on Alamoth, And Mattithiah, and Eliphileh, and Micneiah, and Obed-Edom, and Jeiel, and Azaziah with harps on the Shemenith to excel. And Cananiah, chief of the Levites, was for song. He instructed about the song because he was skillful. And Berechiah and Elkanah were doorkeepers for the ark, and Shebaniah, and Jehoshaphat, and Nathanael, and Amasai, and Zechariah, and Benaiah, and Eleazar, the priests, did blow with the trumpets before the ark of God, and Obed-Edom and Jehiah were doorkeepers for the ark. So David and the elders of Israel and the captains over thousands went to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord out of the house of Obed-Edom with joy. And it came to pass, when God helped the Levites that bear the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, that they offered seven bullocks and seven rams. And David was clothed with a robe of fine linen. And all the Levites that bear the Ark and the singers And Kenaniah, the master of the song with the singers, David also had upon him an ephod of linen. Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouting, and with sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals, making a noise with psalteries and harps. And it came to pass, as the ark of the covenant of the Lord came to the city of David, that Michal, the daughter of Saul, looking out at a window, saw King David dancing and playing, and she despised him in her heart. Thus far, the reading of God's inspired word from the book of First Chronicles, chapter 15. May the Lord bless us in the reading and hearing of his most sacred word and now in consideration of its teaching. Verse one, we have David preparing a place for the ark of God. He made him houses in the city of David, this is what Mount Zion was called. Bethlehem is the city of David as to where he was born. Zion is the city of David as to where he conquered and built his royal house. We see that he prepared a place for the Ark of God. This was David's motivation. We find this in 2 Samuel 7 verses 1 and following. He did not transplant the tabernacle because his intention was to build the house of God. There was no need to bring all the furniture and articles when those would be expired very soon, even in the days of his son Solomon, though he thought in his own days. Verses 2 through 15, the priests were ordered to carry the ark. according to God's commandments and not the devices of men, verses 2 through 15. Notice David says, none ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites. Now God had said this explicitly in Numbers chapter 4, verses 2 through 15. God said who would carry the ark. David said, I will follow the example of the Philistines, and Uzzah died for that error. And so now it's going to be made right. Now in the book of 2 Samuel, we find out that the Levites did in fact bear the ark, but we don't find out why in 2 Samuel. And you'll remember in the Septuagint, the books of Chronicles are called those things that remain, the gathering up of the fragments. That is what 2nd Chronicles and 1st Chronicles do. They gather up the fragments, they give us a bigger picture of what happened in those earlier books. And so here, David says that the Levites were chosen by God, in verse 2, to carry the ark of God and to minister unto Him forever. Notice the choice of God. God's sovereign will and choice. That is the basis for all lawful worship. Even the carrying of this ark, God required a divine command to fulfill that action. The Levites had to do it. God chose and appointed their office. God even gave rules and laws for how to fill the office of a Levite. You couldn't just say to your friend in the tribe of Naphtali, hey bud, you want to become a Levite? No, you had to be qualified, you had to be equipped. So likewise in the New Testament. You can't buy your way into a church office, you have to be qualified. Why? Because God's sovereign will rules over his worship. And this rule is perpetual, he says, forever. God is sovereign over us. He owns us. He has zeal for his own worship. And these are the reasons annexed to the second commandment. No graven images and worship as I have appointed. So David assembles the children of Aaron. as their chief magistrate, their king, and also as an inspired prophet, he holds authority over their souls in both ways, right? We are to submit to the powers that be, for they have right over our souls, Paul says. Let every soul be subject to the powers that be. Even the Levites, even the churchmen have to submit to their king. and also as an inspired prophet to teach them the will of God. He commands them, sanctify yourselves and your brethren. He assembles the children of Aaron, in verse 4, and verses 5-12 we have David's solemn call, and it names who they were. So that they may bring up the ark to its place. They must purify their hearts, they must purify their thoughts, their wills, their affections, that's the heart, and they must purify their bodies according to Levitical rites. David commands both. Then he says why they should sanctify themselves in verse 12. That ye may, this is a purpose clause. Why am I telling you to do this? So that this purpose may be fulfilled. That ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel. He says that at the first the Levites did not do this, rather Uzzah and Ahio, not holy men, but rather imitating the Philistine idolaters who moved the ark. Remember why? They had their little mice, their little golden mice in a box. They had their little golden hemorrhoids. They put those in a box. Then they took the ark and they put a milch kind at the front and said, drive her on, leave her calf back here. And if she goes right, then we know it's the will of God or the gods or whatever they said. And that's what the Israelites did. Oh, just like the Philistines will build a cart to carry along the ark. But God had appointed that His ministers, namely the Levites, whom He had sanctified to minister to His name, they should carry the ark according to His commandment, not the devices of men. The Lord our God, David says, made a breach upon us. Perez, the breach, Uzzah, the man that died. God broke forth his judgment on our folly and disobedience. For, he says in verse 13, we sought him not after the due order. Not according as he appointed in the law, the Geneva Bible says. We had not religiously examined what he required of us by his law in this case, John Diodati says. We didn't look to the commandments of God. We followed our own good intentions. And you might say there was some excuse. Was the tabernacle moving from place to place any longer? No, but the truth still applied. You still had to look. What did God say? Who should move this ark? David did not do so. The Westminster Annotations comment on this passage. The thing they did was in the substance of it good, but they failed in the manner of doing it. An ill manner of doing a good thing provoketh God's anger. But you say, I'm doing good. I'm doing a good thing. And yet has God told you what manner you should do it in? Well, then do it in his manner. A good work must be done in the way that God has directed, not according to our own intentions. I meant well, I meant to serve God. I was doing a good thing. That's what David could say. That's why he was confused. That's why he was angry at God. I have good intentions in this Lord. And yet the manner of it must be as God has appointed. I note then this doctrine, that God's law, especially His worship, requires obedience and holiness, not just in the intention. It's not enough just to mean well, not enough just to do good, it must be done in the manner of God's appointing. He is a sovereign God. He requires the means that we use to be according to His commandments. The action of moving the ark from place A to place B is good. The manner of doing it was not. Let us then seek the Lord after the due order. According to the right is literally what the Hebrew means, after the due order. The right is what we owe to God. And what we owe to him is a debt of obedience. Oh no man anything but to love one another. We are to love God by giving him what is his due. The children of the Levites bear the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereof, as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord, verse 15 tells us. Their fear toward God was not taught by the doctrines and commandments of men. Now they had moved from that phase, they had repented, and now they begin to obey the Lord. Exodus 25, 12 through 15, Numbers 4, 15, Numbers 7, verse 9. Let your fear toward God be formed, shaped, inspired, directed, however you would like to think of that, by the scriptures themselves. We have then the appointment of the Levites to musical instrumentation and accompaniment, verses 16 through 24. David speaks to the chief of the Levites to appoint among their brethren, again as a king and a prophet, telling the churchmen, do your job, fulfill your tasks. This is what Constantine the Great did. You churchmen, clean up your business, do your job, teach the truth. So here David does. The singing of the Psalms was holy business for holy men to be undertaken at a holy God's commandment. And so David requires this. with instruments of music, psalteries and harps and cymbals sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy. Did you know that God tells us in the New Testament to sing psalms? Do you know He tells us to sing those psalms with joy in our hearts, that it would well up and spring forth to the Lord, making melody with the inner man? He doesn't appoint to us musical instruments. He says, you are a kingdom of priests, as the Levites once sang them, and you will use the instrument of yourself. You will be the musical instrument to bring forth the praise of God. Let us make melody, singing with grace in our hearts and joy to the Lord. Let us sing the God breathe Psalms, hymns and songs as the Lord appointed for his people. Notice the names. Heman, the son of Joel, is mentioned, one of the principal in this singing of God's praise. He is a descendant of Samuel, the prophet Joel was. So Heman is his grandson. Asaph, the son of Berechiah. His name is in the titles of Psalm 73 and Psalm 83. He was a Levite and a prophet. Also notice the porters. Remember, we saw that I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God. That's what a porter does. He opens the doors. He lets the people in who belong inside. He shuts the doors to close out and say the worship is concluded. Stay out for now. This is the idea of a porter. Then we have the principle three on symbols of brass in verse 19. In verse 20 we have 8 out of the total in the second degree with psalteries on Alamoth. This word Alamoth is used in the title of Psalm 46. The Westminster Annotations say the word signifies young maidens or virgins. Some take it here for that instrument we call the virginals. Others for a shrill voice, that is high, like a young lady's voice. That's why they called it alimoth. It was the high notes, in other words, on this instrument. Then we have in verse 21, shemineth, which means the eighth. or an eight-stringed harp, some believe. This word shemineth is in the title of Psalm 6. The alamoth for the high notes, the shemineth for the low notes, in other words. You had both parts of the whole musical range. Then we have 6 of the 2nd degree in verse 21 with harps on Shemineth. Kenaniah, the chief of the Levites, was for song. He was a prince or a ruler of the Levites. He devoted himself to the singing of the Psalms. It says he instructed about the song. In other words, he chastened, he disciplined, he ordered, he governed the singing of God's praise among the Levites. For he was skillful, we are told. He had discernment. He had understanding. Then verses 25 through 28, we have the good work completed according to God's commandment in due order with great joy. We've looked at this previously in 2 Samuel 6, verses 12-23, a few things of note here. Verse 25, it says that David and the elders of Israel and the captains over thousands went to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord. In 2 Samuel 6, verses 12 and 13, we're only told that David went up. Again, another fragment gathered up. David had accompaniment with him, even the captains and elders. We're told in verse 26 that after the Lord helped them and didn't strike them dead, what did they do? They stop, they pause, and they begin to offer sacrifice. Now we're told in 2 Samuel 6 that David offered oxen and fatlings. Here the fragment that remains is gathered up. They offered seven bullocks and seven rams, the number of completion, the days of the week, that God made all things in seven days. So they offered up seven of each, larger and smaller cattle. They were humble. They were submissive. They were unwilling to offend God. And just in case we're sinning, even while we're doing the right thing, God, we're going to offer you a sacrifice for ourselves. Also, we find that all the Levites that bear the ark and the singers and Kenaniah, the master of the song with the singers, more fragments gathered up. Others were there with David that we don't read about in 2 Samuel 6. We find the musical instruments. All we hear is of shouting and the sound of a trumpet in 2 Samuel 6, 15. What do we hear of here? Trumpets, cymbals, psalteries, and harps. All the Levites and their instrumentation there for the praise of God in the joy of bringing up the ark and thus far the exposition of God's inspired word from 1 Chronicles 15.