The Ark of the Covenant and the holiness of God

The Ark of the Covenant and the holiness of God

SIB, Pastor Lew Lee Choo

This week’s message was based on 2 Samuel 6:1-11, the incident where Uzzah reached out to stop the Ark of the Covenant from stumbling and was killed instantly. It had been a joyful time, and King David was looking forward to having the ark brought to Jerusalem. However, when Uzzah died, David became angry and then fearful.

To begin to understand this incident and why it happened, we need to first look in more detail at what is the ark. It was a box, made of Shittim wood and overlaid with gold both on the inside and the outside. It had two cherubim above it and there were four rings at the four corners where rods were inserted before the ark could be moved. It was placed in the holy of holies and once a year, the High Priest would come to offer a sacrifice to God there, and God Himself would manifest His presence in the mercy seat between the two cherubim.

In the days of Joshua, when he led the Israelites into the promised land, the priests brought the ark into the Jordan river, and it separated for the Israelites to pass. The priests walked carrying the ark 7 days around Jericho, and the walls came down and the city was taken. Indeed, the ark was no ordinary object.

Later, in the days of Eli, the Israelites were being defeated by the Philistines when they called for Eli to send the ark of the covenant to the battlefield. Eli’s two sons took the ark there. The Philistines were terrified at first, thinking a god had come to fight against them, the god who had brought the terrible plagues of Egypt, who had parted the Red Sea, and had brought down the walls of Jericho. However, they fought all the more bravely and the Israelites lost completely and the ark was lost. Upon hearing that the ark had been taken, Eli fell backwards and died. The wife of his daughter-in-law who was giving birth named her son Ichabod which means “the glory of Ichabod has departed”.

Meanwhile, the Philistines started having terrible problems of their own because of the ark. They placed the ark in the temple of their god Dagon but the next morning, they found their statue fallen facedown before the ark. They put him back but the next day, it happened again, and this time the head and hands of the statue were broken off. The people in the city also started being afflicted by tumors. The Philistines panicked and moved the ark from city to city, but the same thing happened, and finally they placed the ark on a cow cart and sent them back towards Israel. The cart came to Beth Shemesh, and the people rejoiced and offered sacrifices. However, God struck down 70 of them who had looked inside the ark. The people there then asked Kiriath Jearim to take the ark.

Why did God bring victory with the ark in Joshua’s time but failure and misfortune in Eli’s time? Why did Uzzah have to die? He only intended to steady the ark from falling.

We need to realize firstly that everything about God is epitomized in the ark of the covenant.  The ark tells u that God is holy. God is a person not an object. The ark itself has no power of its own. It is God’s holiness and not rituals that has any power. Even King David had mistakenly considered the ark to be an object. There is nothing magical about the ark it is God who is supernatural. The children of Beth Shemesh had treated it like an object. David should not have put the ark on a cart. The presence of God cannot be carried by an inanimate object, but on the shoulders of man. David had to learn this. The ark primarily shows us the holiness of God. And the men holding the ark had to be clean. Eli’s sons disrespected God by taking the best parts of the offerings and their sexual prosmicuity.

Why does God have to teach us about holiness here? Why not love, grace or power? Other gods also have gods of love, grace and power. However, only God is Holy. The holiness of God sets Him apart. He is different from all other gods. The opposite of holiness is not “unholiness” but “common. In Leviticus 10:10, Moses was told to distinguish between the holy and the common. In Malay, the term for holy could be “luar biasa”. God’s holiness is His purity, His power, His omnipotenance, His omniscience, His mercy, His sovereignity, His love, His faithfulness.

When we take the communion service, we must recognize that it is holy. It is a service where the holiness and grace of God meets us. When we recognize and behold this holiness, we begin to see healing and power in the communion.

Worship is an opportunity for us to see the holiness of God. If we don’t understand holiness, there can be no breakthrough. When Uzzah died, David was confused. He called the place “Perez-Uzzah”, which means broken out. In 2 Samuel 5, David defeated the Philistines by the Lord’ hand and called the place “Baal Perazim” saying the Lord had broken out against his enemies. Here, there was breakthrough!

Without holiness there is no authority. Pastor Lee Choo shared how in the ministry of deliverance, the ministers must never forget to depend not on the formula but on God. Once, the church was called to do a house cleansing in a haunted house. The cell group leaders and the elder in charge cleansed themselves and fasted before going, making sure they worshipped and were in tune with God. When they went there, they simply worshipped and prayed over the house and left. Before that, the house owner had called in bomohs and mediums to cleanse the house to know avail. But now, the children could sleep peacefully without nightmares, and there were no more shadows seen on the CCTVs.

Where the holiness of God is, He brings blessing. Obed-Edom’s household was blessed tremendously because of the ark. Is holiness transferable? It is. 1 Peter 1:16 says “Be holy, just as I am holy”. Some people say they prefer to be normal. What is normal in today’s terms? Violence is normal, dysfunctional families are normal! We need holiness.

How does God transfer holiness to us? There are three ways.

Firstly, we must have a vision of our Holy God, to see Him like Isaiah saw him in Isaiah 6, in His awesome holiness.

Secondly, we must seek Him in His Holy Temple. Psalm 27:4 says If there is one thing I ask, this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and seek Him in His temple.

Finally, we must set our hearts on keeping His holy laws and we will be transformed to be like Him. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

Now, we must be clear that holiness is not sinlessness. Holiness is not a set of doctrines. Holiness starts in our minds. It is a mind bent towards God, with a desire to do His will.

At the recent prayer meeting, a pastor from Uganda who had seen his people suffer atrocities of the worst kind warned us in Malaysia not to take for granted, God’s presence in our land. When God is absent, there will be a time of terrible, unimaginable darkness. History belongs to God, and we must not treat God as common. September 11 can happen to any nation.

In closing, there were 3 things Pastor Lee Choo asked us to do. Firstly, don’t treat God the same way we treat everything else in this world. Secondly, esteem Him, love Him, and long to be like Him. Finally, set yourself apart as someone who is different so that you can make a difference.