DAVID DANCES BEFORE THE ARK
LESSON FOR THE JUNIOR CLASSES
STUDY SCRIPTURE: 2 SAMUEL 6:1-5, 14-10
KEY VERSE
Meanwhile, David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with all kinds of instruments made of juniper wood, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets, and cymbals.
2 Samuels 6:5
INTRODUCTION AND STUDY
The most important thing to learn about God the Father is that He loves human beings especially those that believe in Him and accept that the sacrifice that His Son Jesus Christ made on the Cross is the only way to salvation.
In order to make sure that believers in the Lord Jesus Christ will live with Him and enjoy the blessings of the New Heaven and the New Earth that God the Father will make it is very important that we follow the advice that He gives and live in the way that He teaches us to live.
Sometimes God has told us how to behave but sometimes we make mistakes and we forget His teachings. This is what happened to King David. David loved God with all his heart and he has written all kinds of beautiful Psalms which are recorded in the Bible to encourage us to always believe in and trust God. David gives us great psalms of comfort.
God is very strict when it comes to handling the things which represented His presence with His people. In the kingdom of Israel God had instructed Moses to build a carefully designed extremely decorated box made of acacia wood lined inside and outside with gold. The lid of the box was made of pure gold and this was called the Mercy Seat. It had figures of angels called cherubim with outstretched wings. It contained the 10 Commandments that were written on stone tablets with the fingers of God, a Golden Pot of Manna, the food that God had given the children of Israel to eat when they were travelling in the wilderness for 40 years, and the Rod or staff of Aaron the High Priest on which pomegranates had grown even though it was just a dry piece of stick and there was no soil on the Rod. These were important items for they reminded the people of the Laws of God and the fact that God delivered them from slavery in Egypt.
The Mercy Seat was important for it was there that God communicates with the High Priest and accepted the sacrifice made as they repented of their sins. God forgave the people of their sins every year on the special day called the Day of Atonement.
The Ark therefore was the place where God communicated with the priests and the nation of Israel. Because the Ark with so very important and because it was not in the Sanctuary in Jerusalem David wanted to bring it there so that everybody in Israel would come to Jerusalem to worship and everybody would be unified in their worship.
But David and the priests made a mistake when they and 30,000 people with him had a big celebration and a big march and procession where there was dancing and enjoyment when the Ark was being brought to the Sanctuary in Jerusalem. They had followed the practice of their pagan neighbours who did not believe in the God of Israel but who, when they carried around their gods made out of wood and stone they put them on a new cart.
But God didn’t want that to happen to the Ark. He had instructed a specific family of priests and Levites that they had the responsibility to use the specially made poles that were to be put through some golden rings attached to the corner of the Ark and then the Ark was to be carried on the shoulders of the specially appointed Levites.
King David and the leaders of Israel made a bad mistake. They followed the example of the pagan neighbours and put the Ark on a new cart to carry the Ark to the Sanctuary in Jerusalem. God did not like that at all.
When the cart was travelling on with the people celebrating, singing and feeling happy that now the presence of God was coming to be with them instead of being somewhere else, everything looked fine. But suddenly the oxen pulling the cart stumbled. The Levite in charge put his hand on the Ark to prevent it from falling. Now the instructions from God were that no one was to touch the Ark or they would die. But this man forgot that. He tried to help God when he had been told not to do such a thing. After all, the Ark had been away from any Sanctuary for 30 years and was in the possession of some strange and disobedient people but God had protected it, punishing anyone who interfered with it. So the attempt to handle the Ark was a no-no.
The man died on the spot. The celebration and merriment stopped immediately. David and the leaders were shocked. David got angry and he then got afraid of God. Bur David wisely directed the oxen and the Ark to the house of a man named Obed-Edom what was right where the Levite died.
After 3 months David heard that God was blessing Obed-Edom and his family. David thought about what he had been doing wrong and so he got the priests and Levites together, arranged another procession and celebration. He was determined to do things now the right way. He put off his royal robes, put on some ordinary clothes sometimes worn by priests when they were worshipping God and offering sacrifices, and danced with joy before the Ark all along the way, about 10 miles, to Jerusalem.
This time everything went well. David sacrificed peace offering to God all along the way. He showed he loved God, appreciated God, and accepted that God’s way was right. He would always follow God’s way.
People did not expect to see the King dancing like that before God, but David showed us an example. We might not dance before the crowd but we must do whatever we are doing to show our love for God with all our heart and our might and not worry about what other people think. Let us ask God to forgive us when we make mistakes. God will always do that if we are honest with Him and do not think we can fool Him and be a hypocrite.