THE K I N G ' S B US I NE S S
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grand things in the Bible, in this case he was the means of writing a chapter of shame. God will take no substitute for His own Word, and if He would not take it of His dear delightful David, do you think He is going to take it from you and me? Neglect of the Bible—He wouldn’t take it from David. All the "while the Bible was being neglected, ignored, we have this enthusiasm, this shouting, this unanimity—what you would call here in the United States, “ hot air” , This is the judgment of God upon “ hot air” . Thus we see how we can so easily go astray. If a movement is popular, we are apt to take that popularity as, “ Thus saith the Lord” , and to think that it is as good as the Bible. But it is not— and God won’t have it. And did David say that God was nar row and fitful and capricious, and the kind of Being that you never know when you have Him and when you have not got Him; and when you mean to do your best for Him, as this people did, He was arbitrary and unjust? The ark was a very sacred symbol, more sacred than any smoking altar, being symbolical of the very presence of Jehovah in the midst of the people. And it looks as if God were a Being you never can be sure of. But it is about us that God never can be sure. I de clare, it looks as if, to speak with rev erence, He never knows where we are going to break out next in a wrong place. Thank God for His Word. For where would we be without it. And even with it, how we can contrive to go astray. My message to you is, “ Take care that with all our seeming orthodoxy, we may still not be sound about the Bible and depart from it in ways that grieve and anger the Holy One of Israel as David did.” Yet, “ all the congregation said that they would do this thing, for it was right in the eyes of all the people.”
And so by a unanimous, enthusiastic resolution they went about it, and the wrath of Jehovah was kindled. Re member, God’s anger is always right eous, holy, without a trace of sin, the same as His love, absolutely. “ So David gathered all Israel together—to bring the ark of God. And David went up and all Israel to bring up thence the ark of God Jeho- vaiT i , ^ sitteth between the cherubim, that is called by the Name. And they carried the Ark of God and brought it out of the house of Abinadab; and Uzza and Ahio drove the cart. And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, even with songs and with harps and with psalteries; and timbrels and cymbals and with trumpets.” What a fine illustration this is of “ hot air” . Let us beware of false en thusiasm— and I am going to say, of false unanimity. ' And take care about some certain unions, that are so much heralded. Let us all fall on each other’s necks and let us have a great Union! And if there are differences in our creeds— “ Oh, bother the creeds — never mind the creeds, if we are all right in our hearts.” Take care now, that may be “ hot air” , and there may be things in creeds. Our fathers loved them, but our fathers did not make them, and if our fathers got them from God, we must not play ducks and drakes with them, or God will be of fended. “When they came to the threshing floor of Chidon, Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark; for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Uzza and he smote him because he put forth his hand to the ark, and there he died before God.” There is something in that verse that always strikes me as characteristic of the Bible, and that is how the Bible runs everything up into God’s hand. It is a daring book. It has a philosophy that is positively sublime. Sublime in its daring. It runs everything up into God’s hands, even the devil. I grow more Cal- vinistic every year, in spite of myself. Run everything up into God and wait. He will clear Himself when He is judged, and that day is coming. Listen to that verse: “ The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza and he smote him because he put forth his hand to the ark; and there he died before God.” The
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