No Sin in the Dirt

Uzzah, the Ark, and the Worship God Will Not Receive

FROM THE STUDY

And when they came to the threshing floor of Chidon,
Uzzah put out his hand to take hold of the ark, for the oxen stumbled.
And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before God.

(1 Chronicles 13:9–10).

Dear friends,

You do not have to visit many churches these days to discover that worship services, so-called, have become exceedingly more casual, if not altogether shallow. In a word, worldly. The lingo and clichés are all there, but the Hebrew word ICHABOD (“the glory has departed”) should be placed over the front door of the building. The pastor gives unoffensive and uninstructive conversational dialogue instead of a message from God. The worship leader, the pastor, has been replaced by the leader of the band, who puts on a show. Church leaders dress like they just crawled out of a dumpster, shirts untucked and unkempt hair. There is a lack of reverence for what is claimed to be happening: Worship. And led by such, the congregation follows their lead. The regulative principle of worship has been replaced with tickling of ears and entertaining of goats. Occasional mention of sin, rarely ever biblical teaching on the wrath of God and judgment to come to those unsaved persons attending each weekly gathering. This is churchianity, not Christianity, and the rules regarding worship of God which He has given us is being ignored if not dismissed altogether. I fear for local churches these days. The hand of protection of our Lord seems removed, allowing the religious to go their way as they see fit and, in their own eyes, often with good intentions. Which brings me to I Chronicles 13.

At first it reads like the hardest thing in Scripture. A man reaches out to keep a holy thing from the mud, and it costs him his life. Two men are driving this new cart, Uzzah and Ahio. Their names mean ‘strength’ and ‘friendly’. Much service for the LORD is like this – a new cart, big production, with strength leading and friendly out front – yet all done without inquiring of God or looking to His will. It’s a good thing done the wrong way. The oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark. He believed his hand on the ark was better than the ark on the ground. But there’s no sin in the ground. There is sin in the hand of Uzzah. And God is holy, and man is not. God struck him dead instantly. Feel the weight of what Uzzah did, because there was no malice in it. Sometimes instinct looks like reverence, and it is not.

From the beginning, the ark was meant to be carried only. God had given rings of gold each corner of the ark and poles to run through them. He gave one command regarding the ark, standing over it all: they must not touch the holy things, lest they die (Numbers 4:15). The poles were there so nobody needed to touch it. The entire nation was being taught the one lesson they kept forgetting. God is holy, and you are not.

But the sin goes deeper than this. They were moving the ark on a new cart, which is exactly how the Philistines had sent it back years before (1 Samuel 6). This was against God’s specific command. Israel had borrowed worldy, pagan wheels for the ark of God, and no one stopped to ask whether sincerity or good intentions were the same as obedience. David realized it, too late, and said so: “we did not seek him according to the rule.” (1 Chronicles 15:13). The cart was the sin. Uzzah’s hand was only where it surfaced. Good intention dressed up like worship, and God would not receive it. Think about this brethren. Local churches across America are offering strange fire and running their ‘worship’ productions on pagan wheels.

Remember what the ark was. A wooden chest with overlaid gold and a blood-sprinkled lid, the mercy seat, the one place where Holy God met sinners and did not kill them, because blood stood between. The ark represented the very throne of the Almighty. Once a year the high priest came near it, and even he came out with smoke and blood. Brethren, we do not really know who God is. We also don’t know who we are before Him and His holiness. Yet the same holiness that struck Uzzah is the holiness that Christ satisfied at the cross. What no hand could touch and live, God now bids man to come to: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16).

FROM THE SHELF

Here is a book I highly recommend. It is R. C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God, which opens on this very subject. Sproul refused to tiptoe gently around this issue. He addresses our objections bluntly- that the punishment seems cruel- and turns it back on us: we are scandalized only because we have grown casual about a holiness the Bible never treats casually. It is a rare book that leaves you fearing God more and more, yet more sure of His mercy on the same page. Read it slowly and absorb it. I love this guy. Sorry, that slipped out. I’ll leave it right there.

A PASTORAL WORD

So there’s the lesson, for what it’s worth. God is not honored by our sincerity when it sidesteps His Word. He is honored when we come as He has said to come. And here is the mercy hidden in a hard story: the way to God has been opened. You do not carry the proverbial ark on a new cart of your own devising. The God who kills people is the God of the Bible and the one with Whom we have to do, not the one of your imagination. You come by the blood of Christ, on the ground He Himself has given, and there you find not the striking hand but the open one. Draw near He tells us in His Word. The hand that struck Uzzah is the same hand now pierced and held out to you. In Christ Jesus. He has made us clean enough to come.

In Him,

Joel