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HOUSEHOLDS IN RELATION TO THE ARK

The Lord seems to be stressing in the ministry that we have from time to time the believer’s household; and in one meeting after another, through one speaker after another, this subject is put forward; and it would appear that the saints are absorbing the truth. In view of this, and in spite of it, I have ventured to read these verses, knowing that I am in the current for the moment. To keep in the current is an important matter in serving the saints, the current in which God is manifestly making Himself felt. It makes it somewhat easier in ministry to take up what is thus already on the mind of the brethren; the ground is already covered. And yet, however much may be said on a specific line of truth, if the Spirit is operating we never seem to exhaust it; there is no such thought as exhausting divine subjects.

They are in infinite relations. The Holy Spirit has set them in the Scriptures for us; the whole field is studded with subjects for ministry. And what was written aforetime was by holy men of old being moved by the Holy Spirit, no scripture of itself being of any private interpretation; it is one great whole standing in infinite relations and the more you touch it in any given part the more you are made to feel that it is infinite. God is the Source. It stands in relation to God, not only as He is supremely above, but in the Spirit. The Spirit down here maintains everything livingly and in infinite relations.

^[p. 272] You will pardon my making these remarks in a preparatory way. We feel we are in waters to swim in in dealing with the things of God in this light. I have selected this chapter because it contains the household in a threefold way, the believer’s household. Abinadab’s is the first household mentioned. His household is mentioned at a much earlier date, in 1 Samuel 7. It is mentioned there as on the hill, evidently a household of some distinction in its day. It is introduced thus as distinguished from other houses; it was upon the hill.

The ark of God having just returned from Philistine territory and custody, indeed captivity, I should say, is brought to this house on the hill. As the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim took the ark and brought it up this hill, we can understand that they thought they were doing something above the ordinary. I suppose with every sect in christendom — and there are a great many — in its inception the leaders of them always assume they are doing something out of the ordinary. The formation of sects in christendom is an interesting study; each would take on this character, these features of being distinguished and of being out of the ordinary.

Abinadab is not said to have been a Levite; he did not have that distinction; and if one takes on something for which he is not divinely qualified, then you may be sure that he will lose what distinction he seemed to have, because the work of God is to be performed by qualified persons; God is extremely particular.

The ark was there for twenty years, we are told first of all. Some spiritual person according to the first book expressed feelingly that it was a long time that the ark was in this household. Why should that be said? Did the ark have to suffer? Were the circumstances unsuitable? Why should the time be considered long? But twenty years is only a fraction of the time of the ark’s sojourn in Abinadab’s house; it remained there until this particular period of which I have read, which probably would be sixty years or more. If it were long at the end of twenty years, it was certainly more than long at the end of sixty or seventy or whatever time it might be. Why would it be considered long? Why should there be such a lament? Well, dear brethren, not to enlarge on this point, my answer is that the facts given indicate that the place was not just suitable for the ark, on the hill though it were, elevated, as you might say, in seclusion and exclusion, too; we may be sure there would be a certain amount of care of the precious ark of God; notwithstanding all this, there is not the slightest suggestion that Abinadab got any spiritual help from the presence of the ark. It is not that he sought it; it is not that he valued the privilege of having it in his house; the people of Kirjath-jearim put it there, and they sanctified his son, called Eleazar, to look after it. There is no evidence that either Abinadab or his sons were Levites. If the father was not, the son was not.

Now, dear brethren, you may wonder why I am leading you up to this point. It is that I may have in my house the ark in the sense of which I am speaking of it, the idea of sanctification or setting apart one of my sons to look after it or even putting the burden on myself, and yet I may have never accepted definitely in my soul what was suitable for that ark. I have never set to work to provide what was suitable. I may have had children and grandchildren in the house, and not one of them has come to the true idea of the ark or what was fitting to it. So that after all these years we have two of his sons and a new cart and the ark on it. There is not a bit of progress in that house. There is, in fact, the clear evidence that in that house, both in the head of it and in the children,

^[p. 274] there never had been a true idea of the ark or what was fitting to it. Well, we may say, he certainly served; and I am not denying that there was some service there; but let us examine the facts that the Spirit of God gives us and we shall see that during all that time the divine eye had to look on that ark, the precious ark, that type of Jesus, in that house in which there was not proper care for it. It was, in a word, an improvised condition of things; it was not the divine provision, it was a human provision to meet an emergency; and yet in all these years there was no profit, no instruction imbibed, no inquiry as to the mind of God about such a matter.

A spiritual man alive some forty years or more afterwards, says, “We heard of it”. He says, “I will not give sleep to mine eyes, slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for Jehovah, habitations for the Mighty One of Jacob”, Psalm 132:4,5. Think of the difference between David, coming in so many years afterwards, and Abinadab! Let us suppose that David and Abinadab met together and had a conversation about the matter, Abinadab would be much older, looking upon David as a young brother and saying, ‘Well, I have had the ark here a great many years; I know far more about it than you do’. Old brothers are apt to speak that way. But let us look at the facts. David says, ‘Who is your father? Who is your grandfather?’ Well, he is of the house of Judah; evidently so. David says, ‘Did you ever read the book of Numbers?’ Abinadab says, ‘Well, I have got the Bible in my house; yes; I have got the ark, too’. The ark and the Bible ought to go together; your relations with the ark ought to be determined by the Bible, and by the Bible properly read. Everything in your house and all your relations with the ark should be determined by the teaching of the Spirit of God from the Bible.

^[p. 275] Well, Abinadab must say it is not so; and David says, ‘It is not so. And I can tell you more, Abinadab; I have had sleepless nights about that ark being in your house, and it is because it has not got proper care. I am thinking about getting a place suitable for it’. If I am professedly entertaining the ark, that is, what relates to the testimony of God in my house, what about the conditions there; what about myself? Am I a Levite? Am I a Kohathite? Am I a priest to God? That is the challenge. David says, ‘I have not seen it. I know of that lack of these things in your house. You have got the ark there, that priceless treasure; and I have got sleepless nights about it, because it is not properly cared for’. That is the first point I make. Here is a young man coming in forty or fifty years after the history given in 1 Samuel 7, and he says, ‘I have got sleepless nights about this thing’. I wonder how many young people in fellowship there are here who have got sleepless nights about the conditions amongst us. These are the exercises God is looking for. He will not fail to come in for us to rectify conditions that need rectification if we have got sleepless night; and not only sleepless nights, but prayerful nights. “I will not give sleep to mine eyes, slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for Jehovah, habitations for the Mighty One of Jacob”. Psalm 132:4,5. And moreover he says, “We heard of it”. Psalm 132:6. He would say to Abinadab, ‘I heard about this. I know what is going on in your house on the hill. You have got card parties, and yet you have the ark there’. I am not whipping anybody here, you understand; but I wish to bring before us what is contained in this chapter. What conditions existed in that house and yet the ark was there! There was not a bit of instruction either in Abinadab or his grandsons. They are very likely his grandsons; the earlier one was Eleazar who was sanctified to look after the ark. David says, ‘I heard about it’. “Behold, we heard of it at Ephratah, we found it in the fields of the wood”, Psalm 132:6. David says, ‘I have had sleepless nights about this thing, and I have prayed to God about it’. That is the position.

Abinadab would be challenged. He would say if he were an honest man — and I have no doubt he was — ‘Well, my young brother, I admit it. I have respect for the ark; I admit what you say’. Hence the necessity for a David, the necessity for a Solomon. That is the appeal of the Lord here tonight; He wants Davids and Solomons, and Samuels, too; those who will care with genuine feeling for the ark of God; that is to say, the great symbol of the testimony, whatever it be today.

And so, David in his psalm goes on to speak about priests. “Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness” Psalm 132:9. As much as to say, they are not in Abinadab’s house on the hill, but they exist. It is not only that they exist, but let them be clothed with righteousness. And so Psalm 132 shows how God took account of the sleepless nights and of the prayers of David, and brought the ark back to Zion.

These two grandsons of Abinadab, Uzzah and Ahio, Eleazar is not mentioned, are both driving the cart; and there is not a single voice lifted against it in all that multitude, the army of David, thirty thousand men. I must come now to speak a word against David himself. I have put into his mouth the words that would indicate that he should not have allowed this cart, but he did. It does not say that he provided the cart, but it does say that the cart was there and was driven by those two sons, or grandsons, of Abinadab; and David says not a word about it. It is a negative matter now. We are not told that David formally provided the cart, but there is nothing said to indicate that he condemned it. There it was, as if all were well. The meetings ^[p. 277] go on as usual: we have a good reading, a good meeting for prayer; they go on as usual, but presently something happens. What happened here? Well, the oxen stumbled, and the ark was in danger. Well, you say, there is not much in that; it is not to be wondered at that oxen stumble, and that the ark might be in danger on a cart. It was a new cart, I admit; no doubt the wheels were properly made; but the ark shook, and Uzzah put forth his hand and touched it. You say that was quite all right. Well, you see, what you say under those circumstances is just what God is dealing with. God says, It is not all right. We have to judge by what God does. Something happens; that something, as I said, is Uzzah’s act, and God strikes him dead. We have to go by what God does in the matter. To judge this incident by ordinary religious sentiment, you would say, That is too severe. Oh yes, that is very common; we are dealing with matters superficially, whereas God is dealing with the matter as it is in His eyes. I have no doubt this man Uzzah was a good brother. It is remarkable that the Spirit of God does not make any condemnatory remarks about Abinadab or say any praiseworthy things. It is for us to see; the thing to go by is what God does; that is the thing to go by.

This terrible thing happens; well now, the next thing is that David is indignant. What has happened to him? Where is Psalm 132? Why is he not awake about this ark now? He is indignant about God! And so, we are told, he just turned the ark aside; as much as to say, it is a secondary matter. He carried it aside; the straight way is to Jerusalem; he carried it aside; it is in abeyance. You cannot get the blessing in Jerusalem or in David’s house under those circumstances. God is thinking about that ark that David just turned aside and put in there in Obed-Edom’s house. Who Obed-Edom was, we are ^[p. 278] not told; there is not a word said in his favour or against him. What God does brings out who he is. If I bring in the gospel of John I would say, Come and see.

There is the ark carried aside by David; he has gone on to Jerusalem to marshal his army and carry on his affairs, but there is the ark carried aside. How about it, dear brethren? The ark stands for everything that is for God down here. It is carried aside there into that house. We are not told that Obed-Edom was a Levite. Why should David not enquire? Is he a Levite or a priest? Not a word. It is the silence God is dealing with. It is what is not said, and what is not done, and what is not enquired into that is the point. God is cognisant of all that, and it is what He does. Who is this man Obed-Edom? He must be a Philistine. Do not be too sure about that, because the word ‘Gittite’ might mean something different from what you think it means.

The ark is carried aside, that is the next thing. John says, Come and see. There are many who condemn the saints of God in their meetings; talk about their miserableness and narrowness, their small meetings and the absence of what is attractive naturally. You get a lot of that. Come to Obed-Edom’s house. Never mind if he is a Gittite; come and see. What will you see? God is blessing that man and everything he has got; that is wonderful. Never mind who he is, or what he is; you go into that man’s house. David carried the ark in there; it was a secondary matter; he was in no state to deal with the ark. He turns it in there. It was there only three months. It had been for years on the hill, and there had been no gain at all, no blessing at all; but now in three months the blessing has started. Come and see. Do not stay away and criticise. Come to the meetings and see whether there is anything for your soul, whether there is any evidence of the ^[p. 279] blessing of God amongst them. If there be that, woe be to you if you are criticising them! Come and see, says John; that is the point. Many a soul has got blessing by coming and seeing what God is doing, however small and insignificant it may be.

“Jehovah blessed Obed-Edom and all his household”. There was one man in the realm who went and saw. He heard and believed. David had got light in the meantime; that is the thing. Let us look into matters, Why is it? David did. He tells us elsewhere, ‘We did not bring that ark from Abinadab’s house according to the prescribed order’. He had been reading the Bible. What do the Scriptures say? Let us have recourse to the Scriptures. David says, ‘The Levites should have borne that ark. Obed-Edom has been blessed of God and I am missing it’. David could not afford to miss the blessing of God, and neither can we. He went down, but he does not make such a show as he did before. We do not need armed men to bring up the ark. What we need are priests to bring the ark up. There was one house in the realm of Israel that was being blessed, and if there is one house, I want to be the owner of that house; I want to be the head of that house that God is blessing. It did not take years to bring out that the blessing of God was there; it was there immediately. In three months, there it was, flourishing; however many sons or grandsons he had, they were all flourishing in the blessing of God. There are many of us here I know well that are not blessed of God. We belong to the house of christians, but the blessing of God has not yet extended to us. “Jehovah blessed Obed-Edom and all his household”. I suppose the youngest babe in the house came in for that blessing. His whole house was blessed; all that he had was blessed of God; there is no question about it. Do not tell me anything about Obed-Edom or where he came from David says, ‘I ^[p. 280] want to be like that man. I want to have the ark in my house. I am going to have it there; and I am going to have it in suitable conditions and with suitable attendants’. And he does; he carries it all out.

Well, now I come on to David; he profits by all this. There is nothing said about Obed-Edom’s exercises. I do not want you to think too much of Obed-Edom; it is a question of what God does. There is not a word given about what kind of man he was, not even if he were a Levite or not. The point is this: God is blessing him because the ark is in his house. That ark must have been properly attended to or God would not be blessing the man. That is the way to arrive at the truth, what God is doing. Surely God is to be the Leader; if God is blessing a man, who am I to traduce him? David heard that God was blessing that house and he would have the ark with him in Jerusalem.

I pass over the beautiful account that we have of David playing before the Lord. Some of you think the brethren are very dull, not much in the meetings. That spells what you are, what your apprehension of things is. The Spirit of God uses the word ‘play’ here, and the word ‘dance’. He presents to us a mighty king clothed in a linen ephod dancing with all his might before Jehovah. We are going to get something in this man’s house. The idea of the house is accumulation. Abinadab has missed it; Obed-Edom has found it. David says, ‘I am going to find it, and I am going to be the head of my house. I am not going to parade the fact alone that God is blessing my house; I want to represent God in my house’. Let every brother who has a house understand this: that you are a head, and as head to your house you represent God, nothing less. David understood it. He called God Himself Head later.

Well now, David is a humble man in the presence of God. He is not arrayed in military attire as some ^[p. 281] leading men would be in such circumstances; it is a priestly garb; it is a question of spirituality. For I cannot play before God save as a priest; I cannot dance before God save as a priest. Now he is coming back to bless his house. There is not a word about Obed-Edom’s blessing his house; God did that. But now the head of the house is doing it; he is a representative of God, he is rising. You can see how the household principle develops in this remarkable chapter.

But there is a wife there, and she is despising this head of the house; her name is Michal. She has got a reputation; she is known over all Israel. She once was a lover of David; she saved his life once, but now she is despising David. God hates a wife who despises her husband, and He hates more a wife who is not in subjection to her husband, and speaks ill of her husband. See the ridicule, see the disdain in that naughty woman’s mouth; see what she says here: “How honourable did the king of Israel make himself today, who uncovered himself today in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the lewd fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!” Think of the temerity of a woman saying those things! The king of Israel, the representative of God, raised up of God, is dancing before God as priest and here is a naughty woman speaking about her husband in this unpardonable way! Is she going to pass? No! She is not going to escape the just judgment of God; her line is going to die out; it is going to become extinct. Such a generation as that is an abomination in the things of God. She is the daughter of Saul; she is a woman governed by the natural despising the spiritual. She is not going to escape. David says, “It was before Jehovah”. How beautiful! He knew how to speak about Jehovah. ‘It was before Jehovah, Michal. Jehovah has no place in your mind at all; you are the daughter of Saul, and Saul was ^[p. 282] always a persecutor of me, and you are doing the same thing. You are despising me’. That is what was in David’s mind; it was before the Lord. David is head of his house; he is not going to brook this; he is proving that he is head. God has made him head. He says, ‘I am going to bless my house and you are not going to come into this blessing; your line will be extinct’.

That is about all I had to say. David’s speech here is very remarkable. He says, “It was before Jehovah, who chose me rather than thy father, and than all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of Jehovah, over Israel; and I played before Jehovah. And I will make myself yet more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight; and of the handmaids that thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour. And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death”. I think this is very fine for every head of a house; ‘I am not going to be turned aside by this attitude; God has blessed me here’. That is virtually what David says. He says, ‘I am going through with it, and there are going to be results’. “I ... will be base in mine own sight”; that means, I am going to be more spiritual than ever; you are despising me, but others will not. It is a moral victory in the house.

David represents a christian learning and learning, until he reaches a point where he represents God in his house. The book of 1 Chronicles shows that he proceeded on this line, and ultimately says to God, ‘You are Head’. God did not say, ‘You have failed in it’. No. David maintained his place in his house as head and God supported him. And so in the end he is able to stand on his feet as an old man and speak to God as Head. He, as the king, also receives homage. They “did homage to Jehovah and the king” (1 Chronicles 29:20), showing how he progressed in his soul. In that chapter he speaks of ^[p. 283] the affection he had for the house of God; and the people did homage to him thus; he has progressed in his soul. They reverenced the king as well as Jehovah. I only speak of that to show how the head stands the ground, and refuses to be turned aside by any despiser in his house. He stands firm by the principles and God stands by him. May God grant it so increasingly, for His name’s sake!

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