1 Chronicles 13:7-13 And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab: and Uzza and Ahio drove the cart.… We cannot read this story of the first attempt to bring the ark to the capital without being impressed, if not depressed, with a sense of the weakness and imperfection characterizing our human service. We learn - I. THAT A SLIGHT DEPARTURE FROM THE DIVINE WILL MAY LEAD TO SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES. David, in a moment of thoughtlessness or presumption, decreed that the ark of God should be "made to ride" (ver. 7, marginal reading) "in a new cart." This was not the way prescribed in "the Book of the Law of the Lord" (see Numbers 4:15). This irregularity led to the act of Uzza (ver. 9), and this to the stroke of Divine wrath which so sadly and seriously interrupted the day's proceedings (vers. 10-13). We are not now called upon to conform our ritual to any prescribed order. The commandment of Christ does not go into the details of outward observance. But it is nevertheless true that any actual departure from his will, though it may seem to be but slight, may lead on and down to a most serious breach. This may apply to his revealed will in regard to (1) the temper and spirit we should cherish, (2) the attitude we should assume, (3) the relations we should enter upon, in our various spheres. II. THAT IT IS A MATTER OF GREAT MOMENT TO KNOW OUR PLACE IN THE SPHERE OF THE SACRED, AND TO KEEP IT. Uzza was not entitled to lay his hand on the ark of God; he exceeded his right; he intruded into a position for which he was not qualified, and he paid for his presumption the last penalty of sudden death at the hand of God. Those who now attempt a work for which God did not design them and to which Christ does not summon them, whether that of the Christian ministry, of missions, or any other sacred calling, will find that they have committed themselves to duties and responsibilities, the faulty and (perhaps) mechanical, the uncongenial and therefore unspiritual discharge of which will redound to their own serious if not mortal injury. We must take care to keep within the sphere for which our Lord designed us, in the realm of the sacred as well as the secular. III. THAT OUR BRIGHT AND HOLY JOYS MAY BE MOST UNEXPECTEDLY DASHED. The eighth verse gives us a picture of a company of men in the full enjoyment of sacred pleasure; they were exulting before God in the act of service they were rendering. Sacred joy had reached its very summit, and in the very midst of it, without a moment's interval of preparation, there occurred the transgression and the punishment. Song was turned into lamentation, dancing into weeping, gladness into perplexity and sorrow, day into night. So may it be with us at any hour in this lower earthly sphere. We cannot reckon on the continuance of any present good. Even our joy in God, our delight in his service, may suffer sudden and sad eclipse, and our noon of devout exultation descend at once into the midnight of discomfiture and grief. IV. THAT GOOD MEN MAY BE MUCH PERPLEXED AT DIVINE DISPOSALS. We read that David was "displeased" (ver. 11), and also that he was "afraid" (ver. 12). We also often find ourselves both perplexed and alarmed at the dealings of God with us. God's way is often "in the sea, his path in the great waters, and his footsteps are not known." He is sometimes "terrible in his doings toward the children of men." Why he lets the assassin do his deadly work so well, the storm wreck the vessel which is carrying missionaries to their post, the father of the family catch the fatal fever, the irreplaceable minister perish in the railway accident, etc., we do not know and cannot think. Our hearts are saddened, perplexed, troubled, awed. Let us feel that we are but very little children trying to understand a Divine Father, whose wisdom and love must be unfathomably deep, must go down far lower than our poor plummet will sound. "Blessed are they who do not see, and yet believe." We "walk by faith, not by sight." - C. Parallel Verses KJV: And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab: and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart. |
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