Valerie Rae Hanneman
2 Samuel 6:6-7 “When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God.” (NIV)
My children will tell you that I am not a good cook. (Actually, I am a great cook when I put my mind to it - I just don’t put my mind to it all that often.) My children’s belief stems from when they were much younger and I was a drug addict. All I cooked back then was macaroni & cheese. It wasn’t that I couldn’t cook anything else, it was that by feeding them cheaply I had more money to buy the drugs. To this day my children can tell you the great truths they learned from that period of our life. Their mom can cook mac-a-cheese with endless variations, mac-a-cheese tastes bad when it is made with powdered milk and no matter how much you try to make believe otherwise milk that is half milk and half powdered milk is the grossest thing on earth.
I am not proud of that period in my life. It took a long time for me to forgive myself and be able to accept God’s forgiveness for how I betrayed Him, my children and myself. The hardest to forgive myself for was my betrayal of my children. They were just little kids, they needed good healthy food to help them develop. I was their mother, it was my responsibility to care for them, but I chose to feed them cheap food so I could put more white death up my nose. They were innocent - but they paid the price for my sin.
2 Samuel 6 tells the story of how King David got 30,000 men together to bring the Ark of God to Jerusalem. They put the Ark on a cart and they were having a great big praise service as they headed. The Word says that “the whole house of Israel was celebrating with all their might.” Only something went dreadfully wrong. The oxen stumbled, and Uzzah, who was helping to guide the cart, reached out his hand and touched the Ark to steady it. When he touched it, he died instantly. The law that God had given the Israelites was clear. “Do not touch the Ark. If you do you will die.” This law existed to protect the Israelites. You see, God was enthroned between the cherubim that were on the ark and that made that ark absolutely holy and perfect. To touch the holy ark with unclean, defiled, unholy hands - human hands - was to die. Uzzah was an Israelite - he knew that. He chose death over taking the chance that the ark - the place where God is enthroned - would fall from the cart. That was the end of the celebration. David decided that he was not willing to take the ark to Jerusalem and so they left it in the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite.
Here is the interesting part of the story - 2 Samuel 6:8 says “Then David was angry because the LORD’s wrath had broken out against Uzzah.” Who do you suppose that David was angry at? Certainly not God - David knew the law about touching the ark. I don’t think he was angry at Uzzah either. Uzzah had sacrificed his life to protect the ark of God. That only leaves David, doesn’t it. David knew the law about touching the ark and he knew the law about transporting the ark. The law said that the priests were to carry the ark on their shoulders using the poles that were always with the ark. God chose to have the ark carried by priests because they would know the seriousness of the task of transporting the ark and they would be extra careful as they moved it. David got careless in obeying God, and decided to transport the ark in the way he wanted to. David chose to transport it by cart and to honor his nephews Uzzah & Ahio by letting them guide the ark - not priests. Now the oxen were just animals who didn’t have a clue one about what they were transporting and were probably highly stressed by all the commotion, and one of them stumbled and the ark tilted.
If David had followed God’s laws about transporting the ark there would have been no chance for it to fall and Uzzah would have lived.
David was angry at himself because he knew his sin caused the death of his beloved nephew.
God was not being capricious when he established the laws about the ark. They were given to protect Israel. David chose to disobey them and Uzzah paid the price for David’s disobedience. God has established two laws for my life. They are for me to love God with everything I’ve got and to love my neighbor just as much as I love myself. He gave me these laws to protect me and give me a life of abundance. Only sometimes, I choose not to obey them. I wonder how many times somebody else has had to pay for my disobedience?
The world teaches a backwards set of values. Through the TV, over the radio, in the movies, in our newspapers, and our books they say that homosexuality of normal and acceptable. They say that to lie, cheat and steal to get ahead is normal and acceptable. They say that sexual relations outside of marriage is normal and acceptable. They say that to take the life of an unborn child is normal and acceptable. We know that these things - and others - are an offense to a Holy & Just God. But sometimes we choose to do them anyway.
When I chose the easy way out and lie again and again in front of my children - do I teach them that it is okay for them to lie in certain circumstances? Yes, I do. And they will pay the price of my sin when God has to re-teach them that His laws are to be obeyed. When a new Christian watches me act just like the rest of the world day after day - do I teach them that we are not to be set apart from the world? Yes I do. And they pay the price for my sin when Father has to re-teach them that they are a holy priesthood - set apart for His service. When I tell my friend that God loves them and in the next moment I use God’s name as a curse against another, I tell my friend that God is not really love and maybe my actions cause them to reject Him. Will the price of my disobedience be their eternal death?
When we openly call ourselves Christians then being a Christ follower is not something we do only on Sonday morning. We have to be His follower and obey Him with every breath we take, every step we take and every word we speak. The world is watching us and they judge the importance of our God by how important He is to us.
The time came when David once again determined to move the ark back to Jerusalem where it belonged. This time he made sure that it was being done in accordance with God’s laws. In fact, the men carrying the ark had only taken six steps when David caused a sacrifice to be made to God. David wasn’t taking any chances this time! Last time both David and Uzzah had paid the price for his sin - that wasn’t happening again.
We are going to fall - and sometimes others are going to adversely affected by what we have done. There is nothing that we can do about what has been. I would give anything to be able to go back and choose to be a good mother to my children rather than to choose to put drugs in front of them. But I can’t. What I can do is the same thing that David did. I can make the right choice this next time - and put God’s laws first.
LORD God, I sacrifice my life to You willingly. Help my life to be consistent with how You would have a Christ follower live. Help me to not cause another to stumble
Posted by Valerie at October 23, 2004 04:25 PM