"A Lesson of Obededom" By Brother Parrish Lee September 4th,
2016
What a worship! What a song service time! What a sacrifice to God in heaven! I failed to do something just a few moments
ago, and I want to rectify that, now. I
want to make sure that everybody knows that they are welcome, and I’d like to
welcome all our visitors, I’ve been neglecting doing that recently, but I’m
going to welcome all our visitors that are here today. I’ve seen quite a few from the armed
services; if you’re in the service, would you stand up? I’d just like to thank you for your service
before we go on. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Giving honor to God, Who is the
head of my life; my Maker, my Creator, the repairer of my breaches, my bridge
over troubled waters, my light in the darkness, my lamp for my pathway, the
Alpha and Omega, and, for me, personally, the forgiver of my sins, the One who
reached in and saved my soul, the One whose love for me is never lost—His
power, giving honor to Him, who is way more than I can talk about in a few
minutes. Talking about giving glory to
God, we ain’t got time to give God the glory that He deserves; my whole life
wouldn’t be enough. He’s been that kind
of good of a God to me. Any witnesses in
the house that know He’s a good God?
He’s like no other god I know! He
deserves all honor and glory due unto Him.
Amen. Glad to know Him, in my life
today, 2016, and He has never lost a battle, never had to change, never had to
lie, never said, “Oh, maybe I got that wrong.”
2016, and he is a victorious God.
Giving honor to Him. Giving honor
to You, Almighty God. And, giving honor
to those who have gone before us, from those who were disciples at the time
that He walked the Earth, to those who have had His Gospel passed down through
the ages, and, to those who have helped in this ministry: Our founding pastor, our pastor, now, he and
his family, those who have come to stand in the gap and make up the hedge, all
the servants of the Lord, who have made a way for His Word, giving honor to all
of them. Giving honor to all of you, who
have come to present yourselves before the Lord, that He might give you the
blessing that He has for us, this day.
Giving honor to all of you. We have taken this month to be,
yes, a time of sanctification, and we have a theme for this month. And our theme for the month is: 1 Chronicles 13:14 And the ark of
God remained with the family of Obededom in his house three months. And the
LORD blessed the house of Obededom, and all that he had. Wonderful Scripture; looking
forward to getting into that. But, you
know, I’m just touched from the song worship, today. Could we put up the last verse of that last
song we sang? Talking about God blessing
us; God blessing us, and, as we were singing, “In Christ Alone,” No guilt in life, no fear in death; this is
the power of Christ in me; I know how you were feeling,
Brother Kirk. I know how you just
couldn’t stop and talk about it. Before
I got into the building today—no, this isn’t the sermon; this is barely an
introduction to the sermon. This is just
something that I’ve got to give a little glory to God—before I got in the
building, today, I saw a man who looked over at me, and said, “Hey, Brother P,”
and I said, “Oh, Frank, how you doing?”
He said, “I gots to make it into the House of God, today. I need to—I ain’t got no problems; I didn’t
come here asking for nothing, I just came to say, ‘Thank You, God, ‘cause
you’ve been blessing me.’ That’s all I
came to do; I just came to give Him a thank You blessing.” Before I could even get into the sanctuary of
the Lord, today. Kind of reminded me of
Peter and John, before they could get into the Temple, there was a lame man by
the gate—no, this isn’t the sermon yet—there was a lame man by the gate, and
there was a move of God starting already (Acts 3:1-8). From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus
commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever
pluck me from His hand; Hallelujah! Thank You for Your comfort, Lord God. Till He returns or calls me home, here in
the power of Christ I'll stand. We could have sung that song over
and over, went home, and it would have been all right. It would have been all right, because that’s
God talking to us, right there. That’s
God talking to us. So, as we want to get
into the service, today, we’re going to read our Scripture thought for
today. Our Scripture theme for the month
is 1 Chronicles 13:14, but our Scripture theme for today is actually the entire
chapter. 1 Chronicles 13:1-14 And David
consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds, and with every leader.
And David said unto all the congregation of Israel, If it seem good unto you,
and that it be of the LORD our God, let us send abroad unto our brethren every
where, that are left in all the land of Israel, and with them also to the
priests and Levites which are in their cities and suburbs, that they may gather
themselves unto us: And let us bring again the ark of our God to us: for we
enquired not at it in the days of Saul. And all the congregation said that they
would do so: for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people. So David
gathered all Israel together, from Shihor of Egypt even unto the entering of
Hemath, to bring the ark of God from Kirjath–jearim. And David went up, and all
Israel, to Baalah, that is, to Kirjath–jearim, which belonged to Judah, to
bring up thence the ark of God the LORD, that dwelleth between the cherubims,
whose name is called on it. And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out
of the house of Abinadab: and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart. And David and all
Israel played before God with all their might, and with singing, and with
harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with cymbals, and with
trumpets. And when they came unto the threshingfloor of Chidon, Uzza put forth
his hand to hold the ark; for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the LORD was
kindled against Uzza, and he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark: and
there he died before God. And David was displeased, because the LORD had made a
breach upon Uzza: wherefore that place is called Perez–uzza to this day. And
David was afraid of God that day, saying, How shall I bring the ark of God home
to me? So David brought not the ark home to himself to the city of David, but
carried it aside into the house of Obed–edom the Gittite. And the ark of God remained with the family
of Obededom in his house three months.
And the LORD blessed the house of Obededom, and all that he had. Can we just bow our heads for just
a moment? Almighty God, as we come
before You, God, we can’t help but sometimes feel like Joshua the priest, when
he stood before You, and there’s such a gap between how great You are, and how
small we are. And, yet, God, by the
power of Your blood, and Your love, and Your mercy, and Your grace, You bridge
that gap to bring us unto You. And we
help ourselves but to say, “Thank You, Almighty God.” We thank You for this time and opportunity to
come and worship You, to lift Your name above all else, Almighty God. And, Lord, as we stand in amazement, and we
stand in love, and we stand in enrichment, and we stand in grace, and we sand
in mercy, we thank You, Almighty God.
And, we ask Your blessing as we go over the portion of Your Word which
is given to us this day, that, Lord, it would do what You sent it to do, as You
said in Your Word, not to return unto You void, but surely accomplish that to
which You sent it. So, that’s, God,
that’s what we claim as we come before You.
You’ve never left—You say You don’t see Your seed hungry or begging
bread (Psalms 37:25), but we claim that this morning, that You would have Your
way in this time of worship and service, God, that You would instill in our
hearts and lives that which would bring us closer to You. We thank you for all that You’ve done, and
this we say and claim in Jesus’ name.
And everyone said amen. So, here we are, this morning,
Saints, as we have talked about First Chronicles chapter thirteen, verse
fourteen. Yes, our message for today—and
the month, actually—centers about the blessings of God. But God, who blesses us—and we talked about
that omnipotent God, that omniscient God, that all-knowing, all-powerful,
all-worthy God, He and Him alone, that Christ alone God, that no one like You
God, we talked about Him. We’ve talked
about that God that daily loadeth us with benefits, as it says in: Psalms 68:19 Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us
with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah. Hallelujah. But, we want to expound a little bit more on
the blessings of this God. As we said,
our scripture theme is chapter thirteen and verse fourteen, but, point number
one we’d like to talk about: Part 1: Israel Wants Their Blessing to Return Israel wanted their blessing to
return to them. You ever have something
good, and you want some more of that, later on, you want to revisit that? That’s why record companies, or song
companies, are so prosperous, because somebody gets a certain thing from a
song, and they want to her that song again, so they go and buy it. And that’s why movies—well, they say Titanic
was, at the time, the most popular, the most money-making movie at the time,
and they said, “How can this movie make so much money?” And they said, “Oh, because—” and they said,
specifically, “—women,” now that’s what they said, I’m not—don’t throw nothing
at me, I’m just saying, I’m just repeating what they said. They said, “Because women would go see that
movie, and they would like it so much, they would tell their friends, and they
would go back with them, they would go in groups, in droves, and they would go
multiple times, because, whatever they received from that movie, they wanted to
get that same feeling again. I don’t
have to do that at a movie, I can do that when I go to Baltimore, and go at the
local Rite-Aid or Giant food store, go back over to the cake aisle, and visit
the TastyKakes. Because, I taste those
TastyKakes, and I just want to revisit that.
Yeah. You might not know nothing
about that, if you’re not from that part of the East Coast. Butterscotch Krimpets and Chocolate Juniors,
that’s all I’ve got to say. Yes, yes. But, they wanted their blessing to return. Now, to provide a little bit of
background on this story, if we were to go back a few chapters, we would see
that what had happened was the Philistines had showed up, and they wanted to go
to war with Israel; they wanted to have a fight. And Israel was a little scared at the time,
and they went and fetched for the Ark of the Covenant—and it’s also called the
Ark of the Testament—and they went to get that, and they brought to the
forefront of the battle, and they said, “Ha, well, now everything’s going to be
cool! Everything’s going to be all
right, because we’ve got the Ark of the Covenant here. We got the Ark back, and we know that,
whenever the Ark was around, it seemed to be good things would happen. God would be with His people,” and they
associated God with the Ark. They
associated God with the Ark. So, this
whole thing happened after the Ark was made in the time of Moses and Joshua,
come down through the ages, after the time of Ruth, this whole thing had
happened after the time of Judges, so there was a long history of what this was
doing, and what they trusted, and what they felt comfort in. And, they had seen how it would be present
when they would have their victories, and their enemies would be vanquished,
and when they would come, and offer sacrifices to the Lord, and there would be
that glory of the Lord that would shine down on that Mercy Seat of God. They would see that, and they associated that.
When the Ark was around, good things was
going to happen, and they knew, they sort of knew—and the people of the other
nations around them knew, that, “Man, it seems when God is with His people and
that Ark we just don’t stand a chance.
When the Ark of God, and God is with His people, there ain’t nothing we
can do.” That’s what the enemies of
Israel—the enemies of Israel all knew that. And, yet, the Philistines got
encouraged to go to war with Israel, anyway.
So, if we were to read First Samuel chapter four—that’s where the whole
thing started transpiring, it got taken away, but, then they got to them, and
they said, “Okay! Somebody encouraged
the Philistines; go fight them anyway!”
So, they went to fight, and Israel lost!
Israel lost. And they were kind
of wondering how they do, and they lost—the Philistines took that ark of the
Covenant, took it away from them. But,
see, Israel might have been wrong, but that didn’t make the Philistines
right. You see, Israel was wrong; it’s
wrong to put your trust in the blessing of God, and not in the God who’s in the
blessing. It’s not about just what He
does, it’s about who He is. See, there’s
a difference in praise and worship.
Praise is when we, kind of, we thank God for what He’s done. We offer up a praise. But, worship, worship is when you worship Him
for who He is and you can’t think of anything else. It’s just because He’s that great of a
God. And, if you ever find yourself
waning a little bit in that praise and worship, all you have to do is get a
little closer, and ask the Lord, “God, I don’t have that refreshing; I want You
to restore unto me that joy of salvation.
What I don’t have, Lord, make up the difference. I don’t even know how to ask.” Anybody ever been there? “I kind of need a little something more from
You, God; I don’t even know how to put in words, but I need You to add a
certain blessing to me.” So, Israel had
gotten off-track on this. Israel got
off-track, and the Philistines took the Ark of the Testimony. They had a terrible time, because it wasn’t
their testimony! It wasn’t what God
intended for them. They figured they
would take away the blessing that Israel was using to vanquish them, and turn
it around, and have a blessing for themselves, but it doesn’t work like
that! If God blesses you with something,
He wants you to use it! You ever hear
somebody take somebody else’s statement, and they try to make it sound like
it’s their own? And they wonder why it
ain’t working. “It worked for him; it
should work for me!” But, they didn’t
put the prayer into it. They didn’t put
the relationship into it. God has a
blessing for each one of us, and what gives you, He gives you, and He wants you
to use what he gives you, and He has more to give us. So, anyway, the Philistines had gotten so
smitten—it talks about how they got sores and boils all over them—and, so, they
put it on a cart and they sent it back, and it went in the direction—they
didn’t send anybody with it, they just—two oxen, and they went in the direction
of Israel. They said, “Oh, okay, it’s
going back to where it came from.” And,
as it was coming back, David and them started to rejoice. This is a time after they had already lost
the battle. But, as they were bringing
it back, they got a little happy about it.
And why wouldn’t they? And, so,
the first verse: 1 Chronicles 13:1 And David
consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds, and with every leader. And why is this so important? And
why was David so important, anyway?
Well, after the time of Moses, who was the testator, and after the time
of Ruth, who was a simple blessing, a person, who said, “Your people will be my
people,” to Naomi, and, after the time of the judges, the people had asked for
a king. And they figured they knew who
they wanted to lead them. “I know who we
want; we want the tall, strapping guy.
We want that guy.” But that
wasn’t who God had chosen. So, after Saul
was done, now here comes David. Now,
what was so special about David? Just
right quick, we’re going to talk about four things that were special about
David: 1. He
kept the sheep. He was just the smallest
one of his family’s boys, and he kept the sheep. Yeah, he was a sheep-herder. A little old sheep-herder. But, when he kept the sheep, he made sure he
didn’t lose any. So, if a lion took one
of the sheep, he went after the lion, and got the sheep back. Yeah, that’s a real sheep-herder. And, when a bear came and took one of the
sheep, he went after the bear, and got the sheep back. Me, you know what? I would’ve said, “We lost one. You know, that’s a lion, that’s a bear… How many we got left? We’ll be fine. That’s fine.”
But David wasn’t like that. And,
because David wasn’t like that, God knew, that, “If I put him in charge of My
sheep, he’s going to make sure he takes care of My sheep.” 2. What
else was special about him? He was the
youngest one, so he had to listen to how his brothers taught him. I don’t know if anybody here is the baby in
the family (clears throat), but, usually, the babies in the family, especially
when you have several, they kind of, you know what? Sometimes they get tired of the all older
ones, because they feel like they know everything, and they don’t let me be
me. I’ve got five brothers ad five
sisters. I know what I’m talking
about. That’s how you feel. My youngest sister, my youngest sister said she
could never get out from the thumb of my two older sisters, even after she got
her PhD. She got her PhD, and her older
sister was trying to tell her how to do things, and she said, “It doesn’t
matter what I do, Parrish; doesn’t matter.
She thinks she knows more than me.”
So, anyway, David was the youngest, so he had to learn from his
brothers. So, he had to have an attitude
that he was a listening, learning, and humble type of a man. This is going to be a good leader of the
people. A humble listener. God would say, “He’s going to humbly listen
to Me.” Good listener to the people. 3. He
also learned how to be a servant as demonstrated, when they were going to go
out and fight Goliath, David didn’t go down there to fight, David went down
there just to bring some provisions to his brothers. He went down to serve his brothers. So, obviously, this man knew how to serve
other people. God said, “That would be a
wonderful leader of my people.” 4. David
was not the most illustrious one of his—all the boys in his family. In fact, when the prophet came to the house,
to find—because God sent him to the house to find whom God had chosen, his
father didn’t even offer David up.
Didn’t even call his name to come out and stand before the man of
God. So, he knew what it was like to be
left out in the family. Left out by
somebody who he loved. He knew what that
was like. So, he would know how other
people would feel if they got left out by somebody. This would make David a great ruler of the
people. So, this man, called, as he was
becoming king, this man calls the leaders together, about the Ark, the Ark of
the Covenant. He calls his leaders
together, and they’re going to have this conversation. Of course, it goes on, in verse two: 1 Chronicles 13:2-3 And David
said unto all the congregation of Israel, If it seem good unto you, and that it
be of the LORD our God, let us send abroad unto our brethren every where, that
are left in all the land of Israel, and with them also to the priests and
Levites which are in their cities and suburbs, that they may gather themselves
unto us: And let us bring again the ark
of our God to us: for we enquired not at it in the days of Saul. “We never went to God with the
Ark, talking, and inquiring, and having a listening heart to God in all the
days of the previous king. And let’s correct
that right now.” And that’s the good
mark of a king, right there. This is the
lesson of David. And verse four: 1 Chronicles 13:4 And all
the congregation said that they would do so: for the thing was right in the
eyes of all the people. “Let’s do it. The thing is right, let’s do it.” Part 2: It
Matters How We Treat the Things of God So, part one was, “They Wanted the
Blessing to Return,” part two is, “It Matters How We Treat the Things of
God.” If we could go over to verse
seven: 1 Chronicles 13:7 And they
carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab: and Uzza and
Ahio drave the cart. Now, if we were to look a little
bit up, Uzza and Ahio, we would see that they were two of the mighty men. David had a secret service force, he had a
task force. The thirty mighty men of
David, nobody really wanted to mess with.
They each had such a strong testimony, they were talking about this is how
they did these things to become a mighty man.
One of them, they took a—you heard about Samson and the thousand (Judges
15:9-20)—one of them took a spear and took care of—what was it? Three hundred men? (1 Chronicles 11:11) Another one took a spear from a guy that was
over seven feet tall—a champion—Goliath was almost ten feet, this other guy was
seven feet. He was a champion
fighter. He went out, took his spear,
and killed him. These are the mighty
men. Three of them went, and broke in
through an army of the Philistines, just to get David a drink of water (1
Chronicles 11:15-19). The mighty
men. Ahio and Uzza were two of the
mighty men, mighty men. And it says they
were put in charge to help drave this cart.
They were walking with the oxen, making sure that nothing was going to
go wrong; they were bringing the Ark of the Covenant. And there they are, in verse eight, they’re
all playing before God, having a wonderful time. And it says: 1 Chronicles 13:8 And David
and all Israel played before God with all their might, and with singing, and
with harps… What a wonderful time it must have
been, that they were celebrating this time of God. And then it goes on, and it say, in verse
number nine: 1 Chronicles 13:9 And when
they came unto the threshingfloor of Chidon, Uzza put forth his hand to hold
the ark; for the oxen stumbled. Now, this is important: The oxen stumbled. Now, if you were to ask, why did the oxen
stumble? Didn’t they know what they were doing? They were put in charge of carrying this Ark. Why are these oxen going to stumble? They’re supposed to know what God has for
them. Well, you see, it wasn’t paved
roads back then, for one thing. They had
potholes, they had fillings, they didn’t have asphalt, and they didn’t have
wheels that had shock absorbers on them.
So, the cart would kind of stumble, somewhat. And, as they drove, as that cart stumbled,
there was a man, one of the mighty men, who put his hand up to steady the
Ark. Now, this is not, believe it or
not, an uncommon thing, people putting their hands up to steady what God has
set up. This is not an uncommon thing,
people putting their hand to the work of God, for whatever reason. For whatever reason. You don’t put carnal hands on a spiritual
thing; you don’t do it. So, the Bible
goes on, if we look, if we want to see in the Ark: Hebrews 9:4 Which had the golden censor, and the ark of
the covenant overlaid round about with gold, [now, here we go:] wherein was the golden pot that had manna [so
there’s manna in it], and Aaron’s rod
that budded [so there was a stick in it],
and the tables of the covenant [so there was, if you’ve seen the movie,
“The Ten Commandments” with Charlton Heston, you know, the long, flowing white
hair, and the robe that just never stopped, and, you know, the staff that went
all the way up, when he was up on the mountain, you see the fire going, making
the tablets—it’s talking about the second tablets—those tablets Moses actually
destroyed. God told him, “Come back up;
this time you write them.” Those
tablets, the ones that he wrote, as he listened to God, those were in the Ark
of the Covenant.]; So, those things, those three
things were in there. Now, the first
thing, the first thing was the manna.
This represents God’s provision.
God always provides. When they
were forty years in the wilderness, God provided for them every day, every
day. God never let them. In the desert! Forty years in the desert, and they never
missed a meal. That’s God. So, this represented God’s provision. The rod that budded: God had had all the chiefest people, princes,
and the popular people, and they all got rods, because they wanted to know who
God had chosen. And He told them,
“Everybody grab a stick,” or a rod.
Everybody had one, and God was going to show everybody whom He
chose. They all had sticks. One of the sticks started budding, started
blossoming, had life in front of
everybody. Well, this is of God. You pick up a stick of the ground, hold it in
your hand, and flowers and leaves and everything start coming from it, you’d
think, “Hey, something’ going on, here!”
That’s what all Israel was saying.
This was to represent God’s anointing, God’s calling. This was what else was in the Ark. And the third thing was the
tablets, and that is, simply, God’s Word.
God’s Word to us, His direction, His guidance, His answers to us. So, these things represented—they
saw that they were in the Ark of the Covenant, or the Ark of the Testimony, and
Uzza thought, “I’m going to put my hand to that.” What that means is, “God ain’t going to take
care of it Himself.” So, to put it
plainly, Saints, there are times when God has done things for us, and maybe
they get a little shaken along the way.
“I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. It doesn’t look like it’s going to all come
through.” Sometimes, what we believe in,
what we have our faith in, it looks kind of small, compared to other
things. Sometimes it looks like,
“Woah!” Especially to people—I don’t
know if people here have ever suffered persecution, people have ever gotten
talked about. How, “Your God ain’t going
to do this. You’ve been a Christian this
long; look at you! You ain’t no better
than me.” Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah… Well, this shows that, though that
might have gotten shooken, God had His hand on it. So, Uzza was wrong. And we still have that going on today. We still have that going on
today. God comes—somebody’s been asking
and praying and seeking a job—God gives them a job, and they say, “Finally, I
got a job.” Not, “God gave it to me,” “I
got the job.” God gives His Word; it’s
true, “I can’t understand it, so I’m going to rewrite the entire Bible and put
it in a way I can understand it.”
Instead of seeking God, “God, give me understanding,” no, “I’m going to
change some words, here.” “I don’t
understand this; I don’t understand that.”
You know, there’s a nature of God,
and we saw something real interesting.
You know—I’m going to say this—we know that there’s one God, and we know
that that God is a Spirit. So, that God
might manifest Himself in many ways, but, we know there isn’t a crowd up
there. But, in Ancient times, they
thought, “Well, it must be some sort of league of Gods, and they’re kind of
like one, and, so, we were down at the Oriental Institute Museum. They had some of the depictions of what
people try to make figures of God. And
it was a couple of different figures.
One was a man that had two legs, two arms, and he had three faces. Trying to show, this is our depiction of
God. And one of them had three bodies,
but they were sitting in three chairs, and they were all back-to-back, kind
of. So, this one body, his right arm was
the body’s next to him left arm. So,
they had three bodies, four arms, four legs.
Confusion! This is what happens
when they try to put their carnal understanding to the things of God. They come out with an image that people just
have to say, “Didn’t that sound crazy when you were trying to make it up? Didn’t they even—what did you think? God looks like that? Three bodies, four legs—can’t even walk! And a three-faced God! What direction is that going, three
faces?” But this is what happens when
you put a carnal hand to a Spiritual God.
This is what happens. So, the
lesson here is, don’t put carnal hands on a Spiritual thing. Now, in verse number eleven, it says: 1 Chronicles 13:11-12 And David was
displeased, because the LORD had made a breach upon Uzza: [because God
killed Uzza] wherefore that place is
called Perezuzza to this day. And David
was afraid of God that day, saying, How shall I bring the ark of God home to
me? You see, only the priests were
supposed to handle that Ark. You’ve got
kings, who were supposed to rule the land.
You’ve got priests who were supposed to handle the godly things. And you’ve got mighty men who were supposed
to go out and do war. What God gives
you, you take care of what God gives you. 1 Corinthians 7:24 Brethren,
let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God. There was a kid on American Idol,
some time ago. One of the judges said
that his voice was so bad, it sounded like a cat that was thrown into a fire,
looking for water. And they invited this
guy—they felt sorry for him—they invited him to sing the national anthem at a
ball park. And they thought they were
supporting him, thought it was a good idea, until they actually heard the guys
voice. He wanted to be a singer, but he
didn’t know how to sing. He couldn’t
carry a tune if it had a handle on it, and it was quite awful. They even published a record by him. He thought, “Hey, they love my voice.” He misunderstood. That wasn’t his talent; that wasn’t his
gift. And I’m only saying that because
we have recognize what God gives us.
And, if you want God to give you more, seek Him for it. Seek Him for it. 1 Corinthians 7:24 Brethren,
let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God. So, David had asked, “How shall I
bring the Ark of God to me?” Our last
point: Part 3: Seek Ye First the Kingdom Of God, And His
Righteousness 1 Chronicles 13:13-14 So David brought
not the ark home to himself to the city of David, but carried it aside into the
house of Obededom the Gittite. And the
ark of God remained with the family of Obededom in his house three months. And the LORD blessed the house of Obededom,
and all that he had. The first lesson of Obededom, the
first lesson is to prepare yourself for God's blessing and welcome it when it
gets to you. Prepare yourself for His
blessing and welcome it when it gets to you. Obededom was not in the lineage of
the Jews; he was a Gittite. And, if we
were to look at Joshua 13:3, when the Children of Israel were conquering the
land, they didn’t chase all the people out.
They had many groups of people.
One of the groups was the Gittites. And these, actually, were from Esau. So, here it is, a guy whose great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather
rejected the blessing. And here he is,
his house, now, being used for the Ark of the Covenant. Now, see, there’s something real special
about this guy. He was Gittite in his
lineage, but he was a Levite in his service.
This guy, this Obededom, did not let his lineage create a problem to
him. His name means worker, but his works
mean servant, and worshipper. Now,
Obededom did something real special; he lived a certain way. How special must he have lived that David,
who was afraid of God, who had the Ark of the Covenant, saw his house, and
said, “We’ll take it in there.” The Ark
of God, the Ark of the Testimony, coming to your house. This would be the equivalent of God saying, “You
know what? Your house is going to be the
house where everybody comes to worship and finds the Holy Ghost pouring out
like a mighty rushing wind, and we’re going to hear droves of people saved.” That is the equivalent of the Ark of the Testimony
back then, and today, it would be—yes, your house is where God’s going to visit
and all of the people are going to come, and they’re going to bless it. In your house. Obededom, he lived in such a way that it wasn’t
a wrong. Now,
his lineage was, of
course, his lineage was, of course, that his
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather
had sold his birthright, had sold the fact that he would be of that
lineage of
God. Sold it. But he did not let that be a stumblingblock;
he did not let his past get in the way of his future with God. This is a lesson for all of who
would say, “You know what? I was a sinner.
I was a good sinner. I was a bad
sinner. I did some really terrible
things, and my whole family did some terrible things. I’ve got this in my family, I’ve got that in
my family. My lineage—my lineage… Many things have happened to me. I don’t know if I can…” This is a lesson to counteract all of that,
and say, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Obededom
didn’t let anything stand before him, and many of us can relate to this. If you were like me, then your lineage would
be that you fought against those that named the name of Jesus. That was me, and here I am, up here, talking
about that Lord and Master. But, my
lineage is that I went and sought out those people, in school, on the street,
real zealous, because I was Muslim. But,
there’s something that happens when God gets a hold of you, and you get a hold
of God, and you find Him sweeter than honeycomb, we find that He’s more
precious than gold or silver. There’s something
that happens that makes you say, “God, it’s worth it. I thank Him for all that He did for me, and I
continue to thank Him, for my God is worth it all. So, Obededom knew two things: He knew that it was more than about the Ark,
that was made out of wood, and wrapped in gold, he knew that it was more than
about the cherubims and the mercy seat; he knew that is was actually about the
God who taught them to build it. And, Obededom
knew that it was about something else, it was being ready for God to bless
you. In the morning, be ready for God to
bless me. In the evening, be ready for
God, in the noonday be ready for God to bless me. The only way I know to say this: Some of us know that, at the most inconvenient
times, God chooses to pour out His blessing.
At times when you don’t expect it, God chooses to pour out His blessing. If we’re seeking and ready, think of how much
we’ll be prepared for God pouring out His blessing. As I was, a couple of weeks ago,
as I was at a youth meeting, and I’ve mentioned this before—I want to share
this, just before we head on to that Scripture:
I was at a youth meeting, a little while ago with some of the youth
leaders, and we were talking about how we could be a blessing to the teens, and
one of the young ladies who was there, she played a song, I can’t even remember
the name of the song-oh, yeah, I do, “What Can I Do?” As she played the song, I’d never heard it
before, but, as she played the song, there we were, all of us were there, we
had just stopped talking; she wanted to share a blessing she had received, and
it was such an immense blessing, that it just moved me to tears, I couldn’t
stop crying. And everything else really
disappeared. And, there I was in the
company of young people, and people a little bit older than young people. Tears in my eyes, noise coming out of me, and
all I can think about is how good God is to me! “Wouldn’t that be embarrassing,” somebody
might ask, “to weep in front of people?”
About God? Are you kidding? I live for that. Touch me however You want to touch me,
God! Move me, however You want to move
me. If it’s going to be tears, let them
come like a river, God. Flood me out,
God. Bless me until it makes me
crazy. God, fill me until I don’t know
what to do with myself. I don’t care if
people call me crazy. Any witnesses in
the house? God, if You’re going to move
on me, move on me! I don’t have a
throttle on this. I don’t have a funnel
on this. Shower down, Almighty God! Cover me for real! And whenever I come to, that’s fine, too. Have Your way! They tell me—the Bible talks about, like a
cow chewing the cud. Because, sometimes
God blesses you—and they tell me the cow, he’s got four stomachs, and it comes
back up and he chews it again, and then, it goes to another stomach, and it
comes back up, and he chews it again—I don’t know if we’ve got any farmers in
the house—but they tell me it will come up a total of four times, well, three
times, and that’s just like the blessings of God. He blesses you, and it comes back up, and you’re
still happy about it. And it comes back
up again later, and there’s still a little smile, and a little throw your hand
up, because you realize how sweet that blessing was. The blessings of God. So, Obededom, we’ve got some Obededoms
here today, who say, “I’m ready for the blessing, anytime you want to give it,
God. Turn it in, here; bring it over to
my house.” Because, there’s something
that happened, in Second Samuel chapter six and verse twelve; there’s something
that happened. See, it says that it blessed
his house, and all that he had. It
blessed everything that he had. Can you
imagine God blessing you so much that people just want to be around? People just like hearing what you’ve got to
say. The things that you don’t think is
that important, it just makes them smile, makes them happy, they find
themselves trying to get around you some more.
Well, when it blessed him so much, it says: 2 Samuel 6:12 And it was told
king David, saying, The LORD hath blessed the house of Obededom, and all that
pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God.
So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obededom
into the city of David with gladness. This man’s life taught the entire
nation how we act when God blesses us. Oooh,
this is what we do, when God’s pouring His blessing out. This is what we do, when it comes to my
house. I’ve been preparing for it. I’ve been ready for it. And, if God brings me more blessings, I’m
ready for that, too. Bring it on, God,
bring everything you got. So, after this
ark of the Testimony, and all of the people of Israel saw how they should walk
with the Ark, the truth of the matter is, he’s still showing how to walk with
the testimony of God. Us, as we walk
with the testimony of God, from Matthew chapter five, verse fourteen, and don't
think that the world isn’t looking at how we walk, with the testimony of God in
our lives. Matthew 5:14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that
is set on an hill cannot be hid. It cannot be hid. The light that God has put in you, it cannot
be hid. He put it in there for that
reason. Matthew 5:15-16 Neither do
men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it
giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works,
and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
|
|
|
|
