Gooding, David: 3 - 1 Chronicles 15–16

Yesterday evening we began to study the second major stage in the book of First Chronicles. Tonight we must attempt to consider certain other matters in that second stage of the book, but hook or by crook, we must attempt to push on and at least begin the study of the leading ideas in the third stage. So let us make our reading serve the practical purpose of introducing us to some of those leading ideas to which we shall come towards the end of our session this evening. We shall there be considering David's bringing up of the Ark of the Lord into the city of Jerusalem. And we shall find how that when he had brought up the Ark of the Lord into the city of Jerusalem, he ordained certain Levites that daily they might praise the Lord before the Ark of the Lord in that aforesaid city. I would like now for us to read the psalm, one of the psalms that he ordained for them daily to sing before the ark, and to read that psalm in the light of the other psalms that form its context, so that when we come eventually to the story itself, we shall perhaps the more readily see the significance of David's choice of this particular psalm. So let's begin tonight in the Psalms and read from Psalm ninety four. Psalm ninety four begins with a statement of a problem. O Lord, thou God, to whom vengeance belongeth, thou God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shine forth. Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth. Render to the proud their deserve. Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph? They prate, they speak arrogantly, all the workers of iniquity boast themselves. They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, and afflict thine heritage. They slay the widow and the stranger and murder the fatherless. And they say, the Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob consider. Consider, ye brutish among the people, and you fools. When will you be wise? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? He that chastiseth the nations, shall he not correct? Even he that teacheth man knowledge. And if that is the statement of the problem, then let's turn to chap- uh, to Psalm ninety six to find the psalmist ecstatic with joy because he has found the solution to his problem. Psalm 96, verse 10. Say among the nations, the Lord reigneth. The world also established that it cannot be moved. He shall judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar and the fullness thereof. Let the field exult and all that is therein. Then shall all the trees of the woods sing for joy before the Lord, for he cometh. For he cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with his truth. And so as to fix on our mind what the solution is that the psalmist found to his problem, let's read from Psalm ninety eight similar words. Psalm 98, verse 8. Let the floods clap their hands, let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord, for he cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity. And with those psalms in our mind, let's turn then to our first book of Chronicles and read in chapter fifteen. First Chronicles fifteen and verse eleven: And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and for the Levites, for Uriel, Assiah, and Joel, Shemaiah, and Eliel, and Amminadab. And he said unto them, Ye are the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites. Sanctify yourselves, both you and your brethren, that you may bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, unto the place that I have prepared for it. For because you bear it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not according to the ordinance. So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord. Verse twenty five: 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 bared the ark, bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, that they sacrificed seven bullocks and seven rams. David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, and all the Levites that bear the ark and the singers and Chenai, the master of the song, with the singers. And David had upon him an ephod of linen. Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of cornet, and with trumpets and with cymbals, sounding aloud 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, looked out at the window and saw King David dancing and playing, and she despised him in her heart. And they brought in the ark of God and set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it, and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. Verse four: and he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of the Lord, and to celebrate and to thank and praise the Lord, the God of Israel. Verse thirty four: Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. Say among the nations, and say ye, save us, O God of our salvation, and gather us together, and deliver us from the nations, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting, even to everlasting. And all the people said, amen, and praised the Lord. And finally, verse thirty one: Let the heavens be glad, let the earth rejoice, and let them say among the nations, the Lord reigneth. Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof, let the field exult, and all that is therein. Then shall the trees of the wood sing for joy before the Lord, for he cometh to judge the earth. And may God give us good understanding of his holy word. Last night we studied the second stage in that path that, according to the chronicler, led man from his original being as Adam to the point where Solomon sat upon the throne of the Lord. And we thought together at great length about that age of peace and glory and wonder, that dawn when eventually man sat upon the throne of the Lord. Now tonight we must move on. For last night we thought, in stage two of the book, of that second great essential in any age of peace and paradise that ever was or ever shall be, the necessity to find some way of unifying the people of God. Last night we dwelt upon the secret of Israel's unity that prepared the way for the age of peace. They found the secret of their unity, first of all, in David himself and in their gratitude and loyalty to him, and secondly, in the building of the city of Jerusalem that formed the capital city for all the tribes and united them as one nation within its walls. As we thought of those stirring things, of course, our hearts as Christians were moved to think of our blessed Lord, and to think of that glorious unity that he has already achieved for us. He has taken those that were afar off and those that were near, and of the two he has made of those two one new man in himself, says Paul to the Ephesians, making thereby unity, slaying the enmity that once existed, and introducing the both in one spirit unto the Father. And that unity having been achieved, the apostle goes on to comment, you once were afar off, you were strangers from the covenants of promise, but now you are no longer strangers, you are fellow citizens with the same. So we thought of the unity that God has already achieved through our blessed Lord and through making us citizens of that great city. And then we allowed our minds to row forward to that final consummation, that great eternity of bliss and glory and heaven indescribable, the centerpiece of which shall be that glorious city, the new Jerusalem, of which, by God's grace, every believer in the Lord Jesus is a member. So last night we emphasized to ourselves the unity of all those that shall form citizens of that great city. Tonight we must be honest and face the second half of stage two of the, uh, of Chronicles and observe that if the first part of that stage stresses the unity that David achieved, the second half of that stage talks about the diversity that was eventually to be found in that nation. A diversity, of course, that didn't spoil the unity. But the unity being there and preserved, so says the chronicler, there was a marked diversity among the people and among the tribes that gave allegiance to David. So let us think together from chapter twelve of First Chronicles of some of the reasons for the diversity that was to be found among the people of God. First of all, there was the diversity that came through the difference in time and in situation among those who came and received David as king. Look, if you will, in chapter twelve of First Chronicles and verse one. Now these are they that came to David to Ziklag. Look, if you will, in verse eight. and of the Gadites there separated themselves unto David to behold in the wilderness mighty men of valor. Look, if you will, in verse twenty three: and these are the name- num- numbers of the heads of them that were armed for war which came to David to Hebron, to turn the kingdom of Saul to him according to the word of the Lord. So here it stands recorded on the page of Solomon, uh, of Chronicles, and Chronicles itself standing as the last book in scripture to record the history of the ways of God with his people all down the ages. So when it finally comes up to make its account and record it for all ages to read, it says there was a unity amongst the people of God, and then there was diversity. And the first cause of diversity was this, the different times at which individual people and individual tribes came and owed allegiance to David. There were some, they were called the Gadites, and they came very early on to own allegiance to David, did they not? They came, says the Holy Spirit, penning their record. They came to David when he was in the hold. And there was a very courageous thing to do, wasn't it? For I assure you that the days when David was in the hold, David was not generally popular throughout Israel and had to watch his step. Take a wrong road throughout the coast, and Saul's troops would have been upon him, and his head would have left his shoulders. A day when David was despised and hunted like a flea upon the mountain. Very few people, even though they had benefited from his saving feats of valor, when very few people cared to know him. In those days, it was exceedingly difficult to profess conversion to David. And the Holy Spirit writes with his pen, recording it for time. And we're reading it here tonight, are we not? And as we read it, a sense of, um, admiration for the Gadites rises in our hearts. They need it, don't they, because they've been much maligned, the old Gadites, but that's another story. Ah, they came to David when he was in the home. And then we're told in verse one of chapter twelve, these are they that came to David to Ziklag. Well, the situation was a little better then, for David now had been given the city of Ziklag by the Philistines and dwelt in Ziklag as his headquarters. But he was still a very tiny force, was he not, compared with the massed armies of Israel. And still he had to be down south there, almost in the wilderness, and, uh, at the mercy of the roving bands of the Amalekites. Noble men, these two. They didn't wait for David to be popular with everybody, but came to David when he was in Ziklag. And then, of course, the Holy Spirit records in verse twenty three that there were those that came to David when he was in Hebron. Well, it's good they came, isn't it? Better come then than never. But just a teeny weeny bit of the shine has gone off it, hasn't it? Because when they came to Hebron, everybody was coming to Hebron. And it was a comparatively easy thing to stand for David in Hebron. When did you come to Christ? Hm. Do you know, sometimes I indulge foolish wishes when I listen to these people had had such wicked, uh, uh, uh, beginnings to their lives and indulged in monstrous sins, and then had a spectacular conversion. I find myself wishing that, well, not that I'd had such monstrous sins, though some of the ma- people who give the reports manage to make them sound very interesting. But, uh, uh, um, I came to Christ so easily when I was ten years old, perhaps before, and I'd never known one half second of persecution all my life. I don't know what the Holy Spirit will be able to write over me. He came to Christ, did gooding, but there wasn't much difficult about that. I was with a young man recently, and he was telling us how he came to Christ. And when he got converted, his older brother and his brother's friends were upstairs planning guerrilla tactics in the city of London, the rare. And as a new believer in the Lord Jesus, he'd go upstairs and tell them to stop that nasty business, and they would turn around to say to him, you shut your mouth or we should take you downstairs and kneecap you. That's a difficulty in coming to Christ in those circumstances, is it not? I find myself wondering, would I ever have come to Christ if coming to Christ would have cost me what it cost Saul of Tarsus, who for Christ's sake suffered the loss of all things. Oh, my dear brother and sister, if coming to Christ has meant for you social ostracism, like it means even for some of our friends in Ireland, when they get converted, their erstwhile members of the family will cross the street rather than talk to them. Be assured of this, that the great recorder has recorded not merely the fact when you came, that you came to Christ, but the circumstances and the comparative difficulty of your coming and what it cost you and the sacrifices you have made for the Lord since. And yours shall be not only eternal salvation, but a bright, bright reward, measured according to the faithful estimate of the Lord Jesus. Said he, there is no one that has suffered loss of family and friends, or loss of any kind. But what when the Son of Man sits upon the throne of his glory shall be rewarded an hundredfold. And I'm not a good financier, nor yet a mathematician, but I've heard say that a hundredfold is ten thousand percent. Yes. And then the Holy Spirit notices that there were also differences, not merely according to the circumstances in which people came to David and owned allegiance to him, but also in the, uh, difficulty of the way in actually coming. Look, if you will, in verse two. They were armed with bows and could use, could these, uh, people that came to Ziklag, uh, uh, they could use both the right hand and the left in slinging stones and in shooting arrows from the bow. They were of Saul's brethren. Oh, another kind of difficulty, wasn't it? For they were relatives of Saul. That must have been a very difficult thing for them to do, to abandon Saul and Saul's heirs and humble themselves and come and acknowledge David as king. There were not only family difficulties with some, there were physical difficulties with others. Verse fifteen of chapter twelve tells us, these are they that went over Jordan in the first month when it had overflown all its banks, and they put to flight all of them of the valleys, both toward the east and toward the west. Physical difficulties in coming to David, risking their lives crossing Jordan when Jordan was in spate and in flood. We are reliably told that at the final judgment, in the solemn court proceedings that will then take place, when any particular defendant stands in the dock to be tried before the final judge, there shall be measured not merely his works according to what has been recorded. There shall also be measured what he did with the evidence available to him. And the men of Nineveh shall be called as witness, and the Queen of Sheba shall be called as witness. And the point of the witness that will be called is this. For instance, the Queen of Sheba, she heard of the wisdom of Solomon, and so keen was she to hear the wisdom of Solomon that she came from the very uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and found blessing. When the Queen of Sheba has eventually left the witness stand and sat down once more, the judge shall turn to the defendants in that final court and say, how keen were you? Like some of you, you wouldn't even cross the road to hear the gospel preached. And these differences were according to the exploits that these various warriors had achieved for the sake of David. They have been much preached upon, and I've no need to enlarge upon them. But here they are recorded. Some men attained to the first three, some with lesser achievements attained to the first thirty, some with spectacular achievements for the Lord have had those re- those achievements recorded in detail in the book of God's inspired word. And for the rest of David's reign, it made a difference of rank for them among the people of God. We are assured, are we not, that though all believers will be in the eternal kingdom, and the unity will be unbroken, there will be differences, won't there? Differences of reward. According to what we have done for the Savior. I repeat that whatever little sacrifice we may have made, or big sacrifice, the standard reward is ten thousand percent. But then our Lord indicated that there will be rewards going on beyond the standard rate. Did he not? For in Matthew chapter nineteen and twenty, he went on to say that when it comes to reward, there are some which are first which will be last, and last which shall be first. And to explain what he meant, he told the story of workers that were hired to work in a man's vineyard. The man went out at the beginning of the day. He's, he wanted workers, he hired a gang of them. They bargained with him, and he promised to pay them a denarius each for a working day of twelve hours. Later in the day, he came out and found other workmen, and he sent them into his vineyard likewise, even to the eleventh hour, when just one hour remained of the day, he went out and saw some men still idle and said, why do you stand idle? They said, Lord, because nobody ever engaged us. Well, he said, you go work in my vineyard the last hour, and when it comes to the end, I'll give you what is good. So off they went, and when it came to the time of the paying out of the wages, those that had worked an hour came, and they received a whole denarius. And so when the men who had worked all day saw that, they began to rub their hands with glee. They said, if these chaps who worked an hour are just going to get a whole denarius like us, what shall we get who have worked twelve hours? And when they came, the master gave them a denarius each. I don't know what the trade union said, but I know what the men said. They said, this isn't fair. We worked all the day, born the heat of the day, and these chaps here have only worked one hour. Excuse me, said the master, haven't I a right to do with my own money what I, what I, what I want to? I've not defrauded you. I've given you your just agreement. Didn't you, uh, bargain with me for denarius? I kept my word to it. Take your denarius. That's what you bargained for. But if I choose to be good and generous and give these men more than they deserve, why are you envious? Why is your eye evil? Because I am good. And when I read that, my heart begins to revive. And I'll tell you why, my brother, my sister. I've fallen to thinking that if, when I stand before the judgment seat to get my reward, I only get what sheer justice would allocate. I'm not going to get much, am I? Will you be content with what sheer justice would allocate you? Oh, I pray God that when it comes to the judgment seat of Christ, the Lord will find it in his heart not merely to be just with me, but to be good and generous and have mercy on me? Well, I remember the word of Paul written in his second epistle to Timothy in chapter one, and he talks like this. The Lord grant mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus, for he oft refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. But when he was in Rome, he sought me diligently and found me. The Lord grant unto him to find mercy of the Lord in that day. And in how many things he ministered at Ephesus, thou knowest very well. Now, pray mark the situation. Only Cypherus was a believer, wasn't he? Then what does Paul mean when he says the Lord grant him to find mercy of the Lord in that day? Onesiphorus won't need mercy in the sense of pardon for his sins, will he? He won't need mercy in the sense of justification. He will already long since have had the gift of eternal life. In what sense will Onesiphorus require mercy of the Lord in that day when he stands before the judgment seat of Christ. It seems to me that Onesiphorus will not be altogether unlike me. Good man though he was, and far better than I know how to be. Ah. Hoping for mercy, says Paul, that Onesiphorus shall not merely get his strict justice of reward, but that the Lord will be good and give him more than strictly he earns. Why did Paul pray that for Nonasipus? Well, listen to what he says about it. When he was in Rome and I was in prison, says Paul, he sought me out. Now, mark what that means, for Rome was a very big city. And you know, there were some believers perhaps in those days, that came to Rome on a tourist ticket. I mean, there's nothing wrong in going places in tourist, on tourist tickets, and they came to Rome in tourist tickets, and they found the architecture superbly interesting. Uh, yes, there was that Paul. Well, they had thought about visiting in prison, you know, but then, but then, well, it was a long way, and nobody in the hotel knew about Paul or where he was, and uh, you'll see, uh, uh, and then the taxes were difficult, and and finding a way across the city, well, you see, well, that was more difficult still, you see. So, so they didn't go in the end, and there was a gladiator show around the road, so they went through that, you see. Nothing wrong in gladiators, is there? And only Cyprus, big city though it was, sought out the apostles, and dangerous as it was to visit a man like Paul in prison, he went out of his way and stood with the man in his persecution. He went out of his way, says Paul. The Lord grant him mercy and give him more than he strictly deserves. Well, see, the matter of reward is a complicated affair, isn't it? Uh, here's me, converted at ten, wasting the first twenty years of life doing nothing in particular for the Lord, and then getting a bit keen and on and off serving the Lord thereafter for I cannot tell you how many years. Possit the possibility of fifty. So I've got fifty years to show. And there's this other good lady here, well, she didn't hear the gospel till she was sixty. m And then she went flat out for the Lord. For five years, went home with incurable cancer. She's only got five years. What will the Lord say to her? Just give her strict justice, and I get more than she? Never on your life. There are some that are last that shall be first, of course. Why didn't she work for the Lord? Well, nobody employed her. She never heard the gospel. She didn't know about being saved until she was sixty. Once she heard it, she, she believed at once, and without having to be lifted and carried everywhere and treated like a babe, off she went like a shot out of a gun to serve the Lord unrestrictedly. Oh, she shall not get mere justice, she shall get the Lord's mercy and goodness. How brightly she shall shine. My brother, my sister, if we want mercy of the Lord, hadn't we better be like that, those workers at the eleventh hour, itching to serve and to work, and prepared to go and work without any thought of reward, leaving it to the Lord to decide, but working for him for the sheer love of working for the Lord. But as we think of those things, and the reality of the difference it will make and make eternally. You'll say, let me just first a story. When I was a boy at school, when it came to prize day, that's when the brights are given their prizes. There were only three prizes performed, you see, for each group of students, there were only three prizes available, so only three chaps could get them anyway. It meant that a lot of us said, well, bother it, why you work hard? I mean, there's only going to be three and let the eggheads get them. Right, goodness me, yes. What is it, a book worth a half a dollar? Well, who wants that anyway? We went out and had a good time, didn't bother to work, you see. I mean, these other chaps like to slave all the year on their trigonometry and geometry and stuff, just to get a little half a dollar book, well, let them. I mean, it made no difference in the end, we thought. It could be a little temptation with some believers, couldn't it? Oh, we can't be in the first rank like Paul and Peter, so what does it matter? We should be in heaven. Ah, but to think like that is to think falsely, isn't it? Because the rewards for work are the responsibility to work more. You say, well, I, I don't know that I want it. I'm looking forward to go to heaven to put my feet up on a heavenly poof and, uh, just, just, just, just sit around in rest for all eternity. No, you're not, are you, surely? For in heaven they don't grow tired. And the delight of heaven is the work of God. We rob ourselves of eternal joy. If we fail to work for the Savior now. But in the light of those solemn things, we think of the incident that closes stage two of the first book of Chronicles. David's attempt to bring up the ark. That at first all went wrong, because he did not bring up the ark according to the ordained manner. You see, the ark was the throne of the living God. Israel believed what was indeed the fact, and is mentioned in chapter thirteen, that the transcendent Lord sat above the cherubims that were on the mercy seat of that ark. And therefore it was ordained that when the ark moved and the presence of God moved with it, it should only be the consecrated Levites that should be allowed to carry the throne of Jehovah. The first time David brought up the ark, he went and put it, knowing no better perhaps, on a new cart. He meant to honor the Lord, so the cart was new and well greased, doubtless, but, uh, it wasn't according to God's word, was it? And it had a most unfortunate result, because as they came along the road, the oxen stumbled, and one of David's servants called Uzzah thought the ark was about to topple over, and he reached out his hand to steady the ark, and in that moment God smote him. David was sore displeased and not a little angry with the Lord, and so afraid that he dared bring home the ark to himself, and it went aside into the house of Obed-Edom for a certain period of time. Why was God so severe, do you suppose? On Obed- on- on- on Azza. I mean, the dear man did intend to do right, didn't he? He didn't want to see the throne of God get toppled over in the dust. That would have been disgraceful. So when he saw the oxen stumble and he thought the throne of God was to fall, was about to fall over, he put his hand out to steady it. He meant exceedingly well. Why did God smite him? Well, it's no answer to the question, but a little word of advice in between times. If ever, when you get home to glory, you suddenly notice the throne of God is about to fall over, be advised, don't put your hand out and try and hold it up. If you should ever see the throne of God starting to fall over, run for all your worth! Because if it were to fall over and you tried to hold it up, it would crush you. You suppose you could hold up God? You suppose you can hold up the throne of God? That, of course, is idolatry at its worst. The mark of false religion, the mark of false idolatry is, as Isaiah pointed out long ago, that people who give, who worship idols and put their faith in idols, they have to carry their idols. The mark of the true God is you don't have to carry him, he carries you. A lesson, therefore, about our relationship with God. Let's think again of the thesis of the book. Man shall sit upon the throne of the Lord. By whose authority? By God's authority, of course. But by whose power shall man sit upon the throne of the Lord? And here, of course, the principle goes right to the very foundation of our salvation, doesn't it? How do you propose to get saved? That is not by works of righteousness that we have done. How do you propose to haul yourself up to the throne of God and sit on me? It's a long way up, you know. Ah, listen to the gospel. And you also has he quickened when you were dead in trespasses and in sins and couldn't have lifted yourself a centimeter. But God was rich in mercy. He's quickened us again and raised us together with Christ and seated us with Christ in heavenly places. Oh, what a marvelous gospel we do have. He by his power has placed us at the right hand of his son. And if is that is our position, then says Paul, he prays constantly for his fellow believers that God would open their eyes as to the power that is available for them for the development of Christian character and the development of Christian service. And his prayer is this, that God would give us a spirit of love, revelation, and wisdom in the knowledge of him, the eyes of our hearts being enlightened, that we might know what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us that he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and raised us up with him. The power that shall place us through upon the throne of the Lord is nothing other than the power of God. Now, I don't know about you, but I find that easy to believe at the level of the gospel. When it comes to daily living, I tell myself daily, often kick myself hard, how soon I forget it, and find myself at my prayers, for instance, do you ever listen to yourself when you're praying? It's not always an edifying thing to do, but uh, uh, uh, I, I find myself praying to God as though I were the keen one on getting holy, and God was dragging his feet. And I'm using the Lord for this and imploring him for his power for that, and I'm going to make a good job of this soon by using the power of God. In the end, that's idolatry, isn't it? Not for me to use God. It is for God to use me. It will not relieve me of responsibility, but it will have me constantly coming back to the point that is the only realistic attitude to take, that I am powerless even as a believer, and without the Lord I can do nothing. And learning to lay hold of God and to, to be used of God and to be empowered of God, to make those necessary steps of progress in my Christian life that will prepare me for the throne of glory to which he has destined us. But finally, this evening, we must come to the first major element of stage three. We shall think about it perhaps again tomorrow, but if we mention it now, it will give us time to digest the idea, will it not? We have been talking together about the essential element in any program for an age of this. In stage two, the essential element was unity. Now in stage three, the essential element is going to be justice and judgment. Indeed, at the end of this third section of First Chronicles in chapter eighteen and verse fourteen, as the historian comes to his minor climax, he says, and David reigned over all Israel, and he executed judgment and justice unto all the people. Yes. There would be no hope of a paradise, would there? Without justice and judgment. And with that, we come to the heart of all problems concerned with establishing a reign of peace and glory. Of course, I know the theoreticians, the, the, the political thinkers, from time to time they come up with schemes that promise us so much of a paradise on earth, and all of them go wrong precisely here, don't they? They cannot achieve justice and judgment. They can, I say again, settle it in our hearts. Unless this world can ri- arrive at an age of justice, absolute, and judgment, there never will be permanent peace or a paradise on earth. And even so, more so, unless justice and judgment can prevail, there shall be no heaven worth talking of. With that in mind, we go back to our Chronicles. Well, what, um, ah, ah, what solution did God propose at this stage for the establishment of justice and just- judgment and justice in the kingdom of David? And there, in this third stage, comes immediately the answer. The answer was the bringing up of the ark of the Lord. Notice not the building of the temple. The temple wasn't to be built yet for many a long year. But to solve this question of justice and judgment, what David did by God's direction was to bring up the ark of the Lord. What did it signify? Bringing up the ark of the Lord. Well, the shortest route to seeing that is to station yourself in your imagination just now, if you will, for two seconds, in the street of Jerusalem, along with the crowd. Uh, Chronicles tells you you'll get a whole whack of meat and a piece of bread from David after the sacrifices are over, so station yourself in the crowd and see, and watch now as a hush falls on the crowd, and coming around the corner of the street and up to the center of the city comes this stately procession of the Levites clad in white, and on their shoulders the very Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, with the law of God inside it, and the gold resplendent in the sparkling rays of the sun, and the cherubim with their wings arched over the Ark. Splendid enough. But the thing that's got silence on the crowd is their belief that sitting above the cherubim on that ark that is now entering Jerusalem city and treading the streets, seated above those cherubim is the person of the transcendent Lord himself. The coming up of the ark was the coming of the Lord. Literally so. As his presence upon the ark literally came to Jerusalem. Oh, I, I, I, I wish sometimes I, I, I, I, I weren't so young. I, I would have loved to have been there, wouldn't you? Stood in Jerusalem city and have seen with my own eyes the coming of the Lord. Oh, how they came, tramp, tramp, tramp, the solemn procession, and then the bugles spread, and the Levites chanted, and David, he got so beyond himself with joy in ecstasy. We even went off and danced. Don't, don't do that just now. But he, he did, he danced, and uh, oh, how they sang with their lungs fit for earth. The Lord. And we weren't there to see it. Ah, we shall be one day, can't we? Ah, when that same blessed Lord who came upon the Ark of Jerusalem, and centuries later, later came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Oh, I shall see him descending the sky, coming for me, for me. The heavens shall glow with splendor, the bright of far and day, the saints shall shine in glory as Christ shall them array. The beauty of the Savior shall dazzle every eye in that crowning day that's coming by and by. Coming of the ark to Jerusalem didn't solve all the problems of justice and judgment, did it? At best, it was only a prototype. And in his heart, David knew it was so. With the best of David's intention and with the ark of the Lord there and the presence of the Lord in some sense, David's justice oftentimes left a great deal to be desired. But David was a prophet, and David was a man of faith, and David was a man to whom God revealed his purpose. So he ordained that as the ark stood there daily, the Levites should minister and sing their songs of praise. Not just any old song, not just any psalm, but three psalms in particular he chose, and parts thereof. And one of them, that David chose to be sung constantly before the ark was our friend Psalm um ninety six. Rejoice, clap your hands, for the Lord cometh. And if you haven't got it yet, well, let it be repeated the second time, says the psalmist. He cometh to judge the earth. And Paul was centuries later to add, yes, he shall indeed. For he's appointed the day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained, whereof he's given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead. And as I think of that message, then I say to myself, thank God our Christian hope is real. There will be no paradise on this earth. We're not pretending it. There will be no paradise until the Lord comes. Oh, but lift up your heads, your redemption draws nigh. No, he comes with clouds descending, and you shall see him, and so shall I. Now, Lord, we thank thee with full hearts for thy holy word. We do thank thee, on the one hand, for its realism. And as we have listened to thine exhortations and to thine urgings, help us to respond thereto, we beseech thee. And in gratitude for our salvation and in love for the Savior, to work every minute we may, and with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength to work for the blessed Savior now, for the sheer love of him. Stimulate us when we grow cold, we beseech thee, by the member- remembrance of those eternal rewards that lie ahead. Save us from cynicism that is content with salvation and affects to be able to despise whether we get a reward or not. Grant that these holy incentives that the Savior has hold out, held out to us may prove in reality a powerhouse of motivation. Lord, teach us, we beseech thee, how thou mayest use thy power through us in the development of Christian character, in the constancy of bearing suffering with all joyfulness, and to make us consist- consistent witnesses to the world. And help us, Lord, to lift up our heads, to hail the morning star and the rising sun. And as we see into what extremes of difficulty our world descends, we speak in thine ear tonight again about bringing back the king, and we say with full hearts, with all believers of all ages, Narana ha, oh our Lord, come. Be pleased to remember our brother Habinja and the family we do beseech. Through the leaden weight of grief and the numbness of heart, chance they may eventually prove the comfort of the Savior and the consolation of the hope of his coming and the glad reuniting to be. Part us with thy blessing, we beseech thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.