In the 2nd Book of Samuel, Chapter 6, verse 9, we read these words, “And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and said, ‘How shall the ark of the Lord come to me?'” David had made an assumption that day, and he assumed wrong. His assumption resulted in a young man’s sudden death. David learned the hard way that God is God and means what He says and says what He means. And this God of whom I speak changes not. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
The ark of the covenant had been in the hands of the Philistines for twenty years. You might recall this wooden chest contained the stone tablets on which God wrote the Ten Commandments, Aaron’s rod that budded as a sign he was God’s choice to be High Priest, and, thirdly, it contained a golden pot of the manna that fell from heaven to feed the famished Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness having departed from Egypt. David wanted to retrieve the ark from the Philistines and bring it back to Israel where it belonged. But he went about it the wrong way “for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people” (See I Chronicles 13:4). And a well-meaning young man died that day.
David, as well as every other king of Israel before and after him, was commanded by God to keep a copy of the books of Moses at hand and to read and study from them daily. David evidently had failed to do this for had he done so he would have known the correct way prescribed by God’s law as to how to move or transport the ark of the covenant. The ark was never to be touched by a human hand. In each corner of the ark was a golden ring. Long wooden staffs, or poles, were to be inserted into these rings. The poles were then to be lifted and carried by Kohathite Levites only, Levites that were direct descendants of the Levite Kohath. (See Numbers 4). The two men charged by David to retrieve the ark from the Philistines were not Kohathite Levites, and while transporting the ark the oxen pulling the ark stumbled causing the ark to tilt crazily on the cart. In order to keep the ark from falling from the cart, the young man Uzzah took hold of it, “and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error, and there he died by the ark of God” (See 2 Samuel 6:7). “And David was afraid of the Lord that day!”
I greatly fear that at the judgment seat of Christ tens of thousands of Christians are going to learn how David felt that day so long ago. They are going to learn that God is to be feared and feared greatly. More than once I have heard some preacher say, “God doesn’t want His children to be afraid of Him!” Yet in the 12th chapter of Luke’s gospel account we read that Jesus “began to say unto His disciples FIRST OF ALL…’I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do, but I will forewarn you (His disciples, His friends) whom you shall fear, FEAR HIM, which after He has killed has power to cast into hell. Yes, I say UNTO YOU, FEAR HIM!'” (See Luke 12:1-5)
When two verses later in Luke 12 Jesus tells His disciples, “Fear NOT” the context shows plainly that He is not contradicting Himself and now telling them not to fear God, but is merely telling them not to fear being forgotten by God. (See verses 6 and 7, Luke 12).
Jesus is not telling us to have an abject craven fear of God, but to have a healthy fear of God, knowing that He is God and means what He says and says what He means and will demand of us an accounting of the lives we have led, why we believed what we accepted as Bible truth, why we turned a deaf ear to one teacher of the Word while listening to another. We need not fear having sins long ago confessed and abandoned brought up against us. Those sins are gone and gone forever from God’s mind. Still “we shall ALL stand before the judgment seat of Christ….So then EVERY ONE OF US shall give account of himself to God!” (See Romans 14:10, 12). And that’s when we really will hear the rest of the story.
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley