Honoring the Holiness of God

Good afternoon, everyone. Happy Sabbath to all of you. Hello to everyone who's connected via Zoom. Hope you're all having a restful Sabbath as well. I was left an extra phone up here. I'll keep it there. I'll try not to answer it if it rings. It's probably probably just my car warranty that expired. What are some of the common stereotypes that you've heard about God? I would guess that probably one of the things that comes to your mind is the one that we hear about, sometimes see on different TV shows or other things, and that is the stereotype of people being struck down by the bolt of lightning. Anyone heard that one before? People make jokes about it. People refer to it. It's actually often something that people pull out as well when they're having issues with God.

Some who believe in God will use that type of an example to talk about how the God of the Old Testament was a mean, angry God that was looking to bring harsh, punitive judgments on people and how the God of the New Testament is different than that. Those who don't believe in God will find episodes of that type and use it as evidence for why God is all kinds of different things.

Harsh, cruel, capricious, having no concern for humanity and so forth. And of course we will hear references to those sorts of things jokingly as well with people saying, well, you know, hopefully when I do this I won't get struck down by lightning. We've probably all run into friends, neighbors, work colleagues who have said those types of things. So today we're actually going to talk a little bit about being struck down by God. Kind of a strange topic maybe, but stick with me and hopefully you'll find something useful and interesting and instructive as we go through it. You know, the account of the New Testament Church is only a couple of chapters old within Acts before an event like that happens.

It's not something we think about too much and the chronology is not exactly known, but we know Acts 2 talks about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and we see in the intervening chapter or two the talk of people being added daily to the church and then in Acts 5 an episode happens that people struggle often to understand exactly why and what it was. Probably not too far from this time of year when you put yourself relative to that original Pentecost for a couple months from Pentecost and again the Bible doesn't tell us exactly, but a matter of days or weeks after the initial Pentecost would have been when this account in Acts 5 took place. So, you know, it's easy to brush by passages like this in the Bible because they're not really convenient to think about. It's kind of like seeing an accident on the side of the road. We avert our eyes. We really don't want to think about what happened there. It's kind of unpleasant and there aren't a lot of good explanations often for it.

But actually as we dig deeper into this incident and think more about it, it will actually help us to understand more about how God is not capricious and some of the consistent elements of his nature that come out. That might sound a little odd, but stick with me and hopefully we'll get there. One proviso I'll give before we go into this topic further. I cannot and I will not try to answer the unanswerable question of why the Creator of human life has at certain select times in history chosen to end human life or to instruct others to do that. We know that God's ways are above ours. We know that God's thoughts are not our thoughts. He has his own plans, his own purpose, and he solely as the Creator of life has the authority to determine when life begins when it ends. What I can do and what I'd like to do today is dive in and try to give some clear scriptural explanations as we unravel this event that happened in the Book of Acts. It's preserved in the scriptures for us. And the other proviso that I'll put out there, because we do see it out there sometimes in fringe elements of people who call them Christians, I do want to state categorically that God does not instruct Christians to take human life on his behalf and we should not allow anyone to talk us into the idea that we should. I think we all understand that, but when we tackle a topic like this it's also good that we recognize it. Let's look first then at this story that I've referred to. I don't know how many of you have read recently this account of Ananias and Sapphira. It's a unique story within the Bible, within the chapters of the New Testament church. And like I said, it happened in a time period similar to where we sit right now, the days, the weeks following the Day of Pentecost. And the story begins in Acts 5. We'll start with a bit of context in the latter part of Acts 4.

And as you might recall, the church was growing day by day. In this time after the Holy Spirit came, the Apostles were out preaching, the people were gathered together. The Day of Pentecost was a pilgrim feast, so people from all over the known world who were Jews at that time, whether they were born Jewish or proselytes, would have come into Jerusalem to keep that feast. The Holy Spirit came, many were converted, and they stayed there. And of course, many of them were away from their homes, so they needed ways to live. And as we start to read down into Acts 4, we see in verses 32 through 35, talk of various people who came, sold goods that they had, different sorts of assets, and they brought them to the Apostles. It uses the term, laid it at the Apostles' feet, and so showing that the Apostles had some level of authority, and people who were going to give things to be used on behalf of the church would set them there before the Apostles, and the Apostles would be involved then in those things being either sold for food or used if they were gifts in kind, like food, to be given to people who needed them. And then in verse 36 of Acts 4, we read of a particular individual. He's named here Joseph, who was also named Barnabas, which is translated Son of Encouragement. Of course, Barnabas shows up later in the Scriptures in a much more prominent way, especially as Paul is converted. Barnabas was a Levite of the country of Cyprus. He had land in verse 37. He sold it, and he brought the money, and he laid it at the Apostles' feet. So this is the second example that we have in Acts 4 of people selling goods, selling assets of some sort, bringing the proceeds, and laying them at the feet of the Apostles. So making those things available for the entire group of people there to use to be able to survive, to eat, to have shelter, and so forth. And now we move into, then, the account that we'll talk about today in Acts 5 verse 1. A certain man named Ananias was to fire his wife, sold a possession, and he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the Apostles' feet. So again, we have this same thing happening, laying it at the Apostles' feet. The difference is here that he kept back part of the proceeds. And Peter in verse 3 said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart?

You have not lied to men, but to God. Now it's not very specific. We get a few more clues in the latter part of this passage, but what's heavily implied here is that this was more than a situation simply of Ananias and his wife selling the land, deciding to take a portion of the sales proceeds and give it to the group. There would be nothing necessarily lying about that, no misrepresentation. It seems clear, and we'll see more of it as we read in the latter part of this passage, that they had made a decision to make it seem like they were giving everything, but to hold back part of it from themselves. And we would have to consider for ourselves, it doesn't really tell us what the motive is, but certainly we would think that the motive would be to look like they were as giving as others, to make it look like they were doing as much as others were doing, without making the same amount of sacrifice. There was clearly deceit or some type of a lie involved here, based on exactly what we see Peter say here in verse 4.

And then in verse 5, Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. Pretty tragic scene. Must have been very jarring for the people who were there. And great fear came upon all those who heard these things. That's probably another one of those big understatements in the Bible. You can just imagine this time everyone was excited, all these things happening, all of this new going on, and then this tragic event. And in verse 6, the young men arose, they wrapped him up, they carried him out, and they buried him. And that's not the end of the full account, because in verse 7, it was about three hours later when his wife came in, and she didn't know what had happened. And Peter answered her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much. And she said, yes, for so much.

Again, implying here that the two of them had agreed with her not knowing what had happened, to tell the same story which was not true, and to make it seem as though they had given the entire proceeds of their sale. And then verse 9, Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out. And immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. And the young men came in, they found her dead, and carrying her out, they buried her by her husband. And so again, in verse 11, great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things. Incredibly tragic event. Interesting, too, that in the middle of all of these new things happening, all of the fantastic excitement and enthusiasm that was happening, that Luke chose to highlight this event. And so there has to be some meaning here for us, a reason why this is captured, and it is as a caution to all who would come after to think about. So a few observations about this event itself and what we can glean from what's written in the Scriptures. Not everything is laid out in black and white in terms of what exactly happened here, but if you read different commentaries on it, certainly read the account itself, we can piece together what more than likely happened here. So it's not explicitly stated, but there are clear clues of wrongdoing in the story.

In fact, we could say it is clearly stated because Peter says, why have you lied? Why does Satan come into you to convince you to lie? And so we see, again, that this was common to the other couple of things that happened in verse four, where people brought things in, they laid them at the Apostles feet to give.

And this is a connection and kind of a contrast to what it was that Barnabas had done, because Barnabas had sold land, gave the proceeds, and after that we have Ananias coming in and seemingly doing exactly the same thing. But as we see in verse two, there is an impure motive implied in what's written in verse two, in terms of keeping back a part of what had been given. And that certainly implies very strongly that not only that part of it was taken back, which Peter even said was his right to do, but that there was some sort of a misrepresentation or a deceit here, which is what leads to this idea of lying to the Holy Spirit and holding back part of the price that's noted in verse three. Verse four also talks about this as being a premeditated act, because again asking the question Peter says, why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You've not lied to men, but to God. And in the reaction that Safire has telling exactly the same story when she came before Peter, we can see that it was something that they had agreed to amongst themselves, agreed exactly how it was that they were going to present this. What's wrapped together here then are a certain set of attitudes or motivations. We're not entirely sure why they might have happened. Were they looking for a claim from others? Were they looking to fit in? Were they looking to receive position or other types of prominence within the New Testament church? We don't know. It doesn't tell us why this was done, but there's clearly a story here that involves attitudes of deceit and attitudes of hypocrisy. It could be seeking to win a claim. And there's also a clear message of God's power being active at this point in the church. We had the sermon last week talking about the 10th commandment and laying out the fact that the 10th commandment is the first time within that group that we see something that happens entirely within oneself, talking about covetousness. There are ways that we can act out covetousness, but we can covet something without acting anything out. We can break that commandment without acting anything out. And there's a message here about God's power, the power of the Holy Spirit, which was new to come on the church and the fact that it could see right through to the heart.

Somehow Peter was given the perception and the ability to understand this and discern through the Holy Spirit what the inward thoughts were that Ananias and Sapphira had in this case. And it points out the importance, the critical importance, of how that relationship, the truthfulness, the way of acting within the congregation of the church, how important that was to God, that he dealt with it in this way. So while it's clear that Ananias and Sapphira did something wrong, it still leaves us with a question, doesn't it? Here we are, you know, a few months after the time when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, where he gave his life for our sins, and one of the messages of the New Testament church was forgiven us. Why were they struck dead? Why was it that God couldn't or Peter could have just said to them, God will forgive you if you repent and allow that to happen? There's a connection here to other similar events in the Bible. That's what I'd like to spend the balance of the message talking through because there are actually several commonalities that come out in this passage with similar events that happened in the Old Testament. So it might seem a little strange to try to explain God's taking of a life in the New Testament by saying, well, he did it several times in the Old Testament, too, but I am going to connect those things. And there are some clear connections here in terms of how God works and what it was that he was doing and not something that we need to fear.

It's very clear, you know, there was one set of people, Ananias and Sapphira, who were struck down by God in New Testament times in those very first days of the New Testament church. Nothing like that is recorded again within the Bible. And as we're going to see a bit, there are a few select events of this type that happened through the history of Israel that carried similar types of lessons with them as we look at it. So let's go back. And the commonalities that we're going to talk about are three of them. You might find others as we talk through these as well. The one is sending an important message at a time, a pivotal time, in a change of how God is working with mankind. So a commonality that we're going to see in all these scenarios is a change in how God is working with a set of people and something that he feels is important to underscore at that point in time. Another common concept that carries across all of these is God's holiness.

God's holiness, which in one sense means separateness, the fact that God is not like all of us. I think there was a song out a few years ago with a line in it, what if God was like us, just a slob like one of us. And God makes it very clear in the things that he teaches that he is holy. He is not like us. He desires a relationship with us, as we heard in the first message. He wants us to be members of his family. He also wants us to understand very clearly that he is not like one of us. He is separate. He is holy. He wants us to be like him. He does not want us to make him be like us. And then lastly, a commonality here that we'll see across all of these is the impact that individual actions have on the community. The impact that individual actions have on the community. So let's go through these three and just spend a few minutes in these accounts. Not necessarily easy reading, but they make, I think, some useful points for us to think about as we consider our lives, as we live in a world that, if it believes in God at all, wants to humanize God instead of thinking about how we should aspire to be like him and how his ways are truly above ours. I think it's an important set of thoughts for us to carry forward in that way. The first place we'll look is in Joshua 7. We were actually there in the first message reading about a slightly different aspect of this account, Joshua 7. And it's the account of Achan. And you might remember that one of the first things happened, to the first point of commonality here, changes in how God was dealing with people. This account happened as the Israelites were entering the Promised Land. So this was a huge change for the Israelites. They were going, they'd left Egypt, they'd gone through the wilderness wandering, those 40 years had ended, and they were now entering the Promised Land. And Jericho, and the victory at Jericho, was the first thing that happened. Amazing triumph! In some ways different, but in some ways very much the same as the jubilation that people felt at that first day of Pentecost. As they marched around the city and without having to fight really at all, the city fell down. They were given the victory, and they were able to take all the spoil within the rules that God laid out for them. And that's where things went off the rails. And in Joshua 7, what we find is that after the defeat of Jericho, they encounter another city, a city called Ai. Ai, I think that's how it's pronounced, Ai. And they, of course, having seen how God delivered them at Jericho, figure it's going to be exactly the same way. They take men of battle up against Ai, and they are suddenly encountering a really tough enemy. The enemy chases them, and 36 men of Israel die. Something's changed here. What is it that's changed? Joshua 7, verse 1, indicates that Achan disobeyed a command. And it was a command that was given originally in Joshua 6, verse 19. And this is what where it ties together into the idea of holiness. Because in Joshua 6, verse 19, the Israelites were clearly told, the silver and the gold, the vessels of bronze and iron are consecrated to the Lord. All of those items that the children of Israel took from Jericho were consecrated to the Lord. They were dedicated to Him. They were to be holy because they were for His use and not for the use of the people.

And they shall come, Joshua 6, verse 19, into the treasury of the Lord. And when we read in Joshua 7, we see that Achan had actually disobeyed this command.

And in chapter 7, verse 1, and interestingly, that verse indicates that the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed thing.

And so even though it was Achan who did it, his family that apparently knew about it, the sin was attributed to the entire community. Israel, as a community, lost 36 men in the battle as a result of this. And that's where we move into this series of miraculous events as the family has gone through. And we go through the tribes and the branches of the family, and we figure out at the end of this time that it's Achan who did it, who hid these things, and he admitted to what it was that he had done. There's a parallel between this account and the account in Acts 5. It's actually an exact linguistic parallel. You'll read about it in some commentaries. We know the Old Testament was written in Hebrew.

There was also a Greek translation that was made of the New Testament because over the course of time there were a lot of Jews after they were expelled from the Promised Land that lived in Greek-speaking areas. So there was a translation of the Bible that was called the Septuagint. It was written in Greek.

And so what people will often do is look at the Greek language that we used in different passages of the Old Testament and compare it to the biblical Greek that's in the New. And there is some linguistic comparison you can make because of that. There's a word that is used in Acts 5 verse 1 where it talks about Ananias having kept back part of the proceeds of his land.

It's a Greek word that's only used a couple of times in the New Testament, nosphizomai, which I'm sure I'm pronouncing wrong, which is also the exact word that's used in the Greek version of the Old Testament for what Achan did in Joshua 7 verse 21. So linguistically, there's a connection made between these two things. They're both situations where something was held back and they're being connected in a certain way through that.

And Achan and his family sadly are put to death for what was done because they did not, and he in particular, did not respect the fact that these things had been consecrated to God. He took things that had been set aside for a holy purpose. He didn't discern the difference between the use of those things, what they should be used for, how they should be treated, and decided they looked so good he needed to have some of those for himself. And bound up in that, there was some element of not fully appreciating the power of God and the authority of God where he felt like at some level he could get away with it by burying these things in the ground, in this case under his tent.

So we see these two things connected. And these events drive home those lessons that we talked about a few minutes ago, the three commonalities. A pivot point in God dealing with his people. In this case, this happened as God was about to bless the Israelites. He was in the process of blessing them with deliverance of the Promised Land. After this incredible thing that happened in the defeat of Jericho, and Achan became presumptuous, took something that didn't belong to him, disrespected the holiness of God, in this case the spoils of Jericho that had been dedicated to God, and because of that was punished.

And the impact on the community was clear. 36 fighters falling in battle, and the fact that we saw in Joshua 7 verse 1 as well what was talked about the fact that this sin was attributed to the entire household or the entire nation of Israel. That's the first of the three accounts. Hopefully it starts to draw a little bit more of a larger picture of what might have been at play here as we're talking about the accountant acts as well. Let's go next to the account of Nadab and Abihu. Nadab and Abihu, this might be one that some of us have in our minds in Leviticus 10. Nadab and Abihu were two sons of Aaron, and they had been called into the priesthood.

And as we know, God had given a large number of instructions to the children of Israel about how the sacrifices were to be done, as well as a large amount of instruction about how the tabernacle was supposed to be built. And all of these things revolved around this idea of holiness. The separateness of God, the separation of common space, space where you live every day and you do the things that you do in everyday life, and space that was holy space, space where God dwelled because the tabernacle itself was symbolic of where God lived.

God even gave that what was called the Shekinah glory, the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud that was with them, signifying his actual presence with the children of Israel. And they were taught that this area is different. You don't go wandering with your shorts and flip-flops into the temple because it's not your backyard. It's a different space, different space because God is there. His presence makes it holy and because it's holy we have to treat it differently. The Israelites were taught those things. One of those things had to do with the fire that was brought into the altar there. Leviticus 10, we'll start in verse 1. Nate Abenabai, who the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire to the Lord, which he had not commanded them.

So there's a lot happening in this verse in terms of what's going on. A censer you can think of as kind of a fire bucket.

People have carried these types of things in different ways across the years.

You know, we're very used to having a lighter in our pocket, maybe having matches to light a fire whenever we need to. It wasn't so easy back then.

Kindling a fire was not a simple thing. And so often people would have some type of a metal holder and you could keep hot coals in there. You could carry them around and by setting them with some combustible material, blowing on them, you could quickly rekindle a fire, which would be much quicker than doing it from nothing.

So they took the censer and from, again, it's not specific here. We can piece it together from later parts of this passage, but it's clear that they didn't take it from a place that they should. Talked about profane fire. Probably they were walking by campfire. There was just something else convenient around there.

They didn't have the coals ready in their censors. They just grabbed some coals and put it on the fire. And so fire came out from the Lord in verse 2 and devoured them and they died before the Lord. Again, a pretty jarring instance here.

And it ties to this idea of not understanding what was holy and what they needed to do to maintain the holiness of their jobs. And Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord spoke, saying, by those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy. And before all the people, I must be glorified. And then going on in verse 8, the Lord spoke to Aaron and said, don't drink wine or intoxicating drink. You nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. So implying here that perhaps Nadab and Abihu didn't have their full faculties with them when they were making this decision.

It's not stated for sure, but the way this command comes after that incident, we could think that perhaps having had some drinks before they did this could have been a part of the situation. And in verse 10, that you may distinguish between the holy and the unholy, between the unclean and the clean, and that you may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them by the hand of Moses. So the clear instruction here, the reason for all of these things, the Israelites were being taught, and so many of the things that they were doing in day-to-day life, the need to differentiate God from the everyday. And if we take the idea of profane or common versus holy, that's the difference. The things that were reserved to God's use, because he put his name there, were holy, and they had to be treated differently.

A different level of respect, a different level of diligence in how you work with those things, a different level of attention in terms of how those things happen. And here, it was the fact that not all fire was equal, and that we see in a few other accounts. Leviticus 16 verse 12, if you want to go there at a later time, talks about the rituals that took place in the day of atonement.

And there it talked about the coals from the altar going into the censer of the priest. So very specific instruction of where the fire was to come from. Again, separating between the things that were set aside for God's use and the things that were everyday things that could be considered more casually. God didn't give any instructions about how they kindled their cooking fires, or if they were cold at night, where they went about getting coals to build a fire outside their tent or their structure to stay warm. But when it came to the fire that was going to burn in the altar within the temple area or the tabernacle area at that time, there were very specific instructions. And that's because there was a lesson that they were to carry with that. And that is, God is something separate and different from what we deal with every day. The way that we simply move around in our lives and kind of deal with things as we deal with them is not how we are to deal with God and the things that are of God. So again, these events that happened with Nate, Deb, and Abihu bring out similar lessons. A pivot point in God's dealing with his people.

All of this happened at the point in time that the tabernacle service was beginning for the children of Israel. If you look at the sections right immediately before this part of the Bible, you'll see it's where the tabernacle and the offerings and how all these things are to be dealt with were initiated. The children of Israel didn't have that kind of a relationship with God, God living among them, symbolically with the tabernacle before this time. And so God had to show them, he was showing them through this lesson, the fact that it was different, it was special, it was not an everyday thing like they taught, they treat other things within their lives.

And the dominant lesson here is very much about holiness. Verse 3 of the passage, Those who come near me, by them I must be regarded as holy. So very much driving home that lesson that God is different. The casualness that we might use, the informality and everything else that we might use in daily life as we have our own decisions on how we treat our human relationships, the things that we own, how we do things, is different when we're dealing with the things that are holy, the things that are of God. That's why we come to Sabbath services, dress differently than we come when we're going to go out and work in the garden or make a quick run down to the store. Because God said that He kept the Sabbath holy, we believe that we appear before God to worship Him on the Sabbath. We treat that time as different. We treat this service as something different than we do if we're sitting in a public lecture someplace or just listening to somebody give a speech about some interesting topic.

Again, this idea of holiness and separating those things. Impact on the community is not talked about quite as clearly in this section, but we can only imagine within Israel the way the tabernacle is situated right in the center of the camp of Israel that word of these things happening must have spread quickly. So let's look at the third and final account that we'll talk about. And this one is the account of Uzzah. Some of us might remember Uzzah from the Bible. For those of us who don't, let's talk a little bit and draw out the context of the story before Uzzah comes on the scene.

We know again that the Ark of the Covenant was part of what was in the tabernacle, and it was symbolically it was a symbol of God's throne where He lived. And it was the way, one of the ways that symbolically God dwelled with Israel in the tabernacle. So it was very much symbolic of God's presence and God's power, and part of the things that had very specific instructions in terms of how it was to be built, what was to be in it, how it was to be carried, because the tabernacle and everything in it was made to be portable and to move around with the children of Israel as they went.

So as time went on, after they'd entered the Promised Land, the Philistines, as we heard about as well in the first message, were at large in that area. There were a lot of battles between the Philistines and the Israelites. And in 1 Samuel 4, the Philistines finally captured the Ark of the Covenant in battle. And that had to be just devastating.

The Bible talks a bit about that, to have the actual symbolic item that shows God living with you captured by the enemies. And what follows is what I find kind of one of the more humorous parts of the Bible as God talks about what it is that happens over the course of the next several months.

I think it was about seven months that the Ark of the Covenant stayed with the Philistines until they gave up. They just couldn't deal with it anymore. Because God was striking them with all kinds of strange illnesses and discomforts and problems. They actually moved the Ark around to three different cities during this time. Because wherever the Ark was, there was a plague coming. Because God was showing something specific. This was a holy object, and it was not one to be in the possession of the Philistines.

1 Samuel 5 is one of my favorites. One of the first places they take the Ark is they set it in the Temple of Dagon, which was one of their idols. What is it that happens? Set it in there, close things up for the night, come back next morning. The idol of Dagon has fallen on its face right in front of the Ark. Pretty crazy. Okay, we'll set it back up.

They set the idol back up, close things up for the night. And God, just to make sure there was no mistake, this wasn't like something going wrong by coincidence at the wrong point in time. The next morning, that statue, that idol, has fallen over again. I believe it's the head and the hands fell off of it as well. So God was making it very clear. He was in charge. Even this Ark that signified his presence was stronger than any pagan God could be. And he was not going to have any of it. And they said, we've had enough, and they moved it on to the next city.

And so it bounced around to a few different cities. The Philistines then, sick of it, were not going to be able to deal with this. They returned it to Israel, and it went to a town called Bet Shemesh. Now, the Israelites, for whatever reason, got curious. And the folks in Bet Shemesh decided they wanted to see what was inside the Ark. And so they took a look inside. And again, tragically, 50,000 of them are killed. And the Bible records the fact that it happens because they looked inside the Ark.

Again, this doesn't make a lot of sense through modern eyes and the way that we look at things.

You know, if you're like me, probably the first reaction is to say, these people were just being curious and kind of dumb. Do they really need to get struck dead for that? And God, for whatever reason, and he has the authority to make these decisions in his wisdom and his power, decided that he had to send a message about the holiness of this object.

There were lessons, lessons that those people should have known that were passed on from generation to generation in terms of what the Ark signified, how it was to be treated.

They decided, for whatever reason, whether it was out of ignorance, curiosity, unbelief, they decided to break those rules. And God decided that his holiness was a lesson strong enough that in this case it had to be punished by the death of those individuals. And so finally, the Ark is brought to the house of Abinadab in 1 Samuel 7. And that's where it is when this story of Azzah picks up. This background is important because of what happens ultimately to Azzah, because you would think that he, David, others would have been aware of all of these events that led up to this, not to mention all of the other instructions that existed on how to take care of the Ark. Let's pick it up in 2 Samuel 6. We'll read verses 1 through 8.

David gathered all the choice men of Israel, 30,000. So this wasn't a small group of people heading off to pick up the Ark. 30,000. So this was going to be a production. And David arose. He went with the people who were with him from Bala Judah to bring up from there the Ark of God, whose name is called by the name the Lord of Hosts, who dwells between the care of him.

So they set the Ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Now, if we had a soundtrack going on, you know, you'd probably hear something like, dun dun dun, as soon as we read the words, setting it on a new cart. Because those of us who remember some of the instructions that were given, I believe it's in Leviticus, I didn't capture all the verses, there are specific instructions about how the Ark is to be carried, and it does not include a cart. It includes poles. It includes carrying it with people.

And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill, and Uzzah and Ahiyo, the sons of Abinadab, drove the new cart. And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill, accompanying the Ark of God, and Ahiyo went before the Ark.

And David and all the house of Israel played music before the Lord on all kinds of instruments, of firwood, harps, stringed instruments, tambourines, systrums, and cymbals. And when they came to Nachon's threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the Ark and took hold of it, because the opsoid stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error, and he died there by the Ark of God. And David became angry because of the Lord's outbreak against Uzzah, and he called the name of the place Peirah's Uzzah to this day.

Again, a jarring thing. At the same time, if we read the context of the things that happened before this point, you'd think there would have been some recognition after all of these events that happened to the Philistines, after 50,000 people being struck down for looking inside of the Ark. You'd think at this point in time, even 20 years later, there would have been some consciousness that, you know, the rules that God set up around this thing are probably important.

The fact that he said it's holy and needs to be treated and handled in a certain way means something.

But for whatever reason, those things weren't followed, and God, again, needed to show for his reasons that the holiness of this object and what it represented about him was important enough that in this case he was going to take the life of Uzzah. A very public way, you know, David, 30,000 men, all of the musical instruments, you can imagine it's like this big record scratch when this thing happens. All of this going on, and it all grinds to halt because of this terrible tragedy. And it says that the Israelites just let it sit there for a while until they kind of gathered themselves again, and then David, we won't read it, David went back. They carried it properly according to the instructions that were given in the Bible, and the Ark was brought back. And eventually, when Solomon built a temple, it was restored and put into the temple. But again, the events of this incident with Uzzah drive home the same set of points. This was a big pivot point in God's relationship with Israel. If we move to the next chapter in 1 Samuel, chapter 7, we see that's the establishment of the Davidic covenant, the covenant that God makes with David, that he is going to deal with him and with his children and his children's children forever, and that they will not lack a person to sit on the throne. And so there was a major change that was about to happen, and God, for his reasons, felt it was extremely important to continue to show the importance of his holiness, the recognition of his way at that point in time. And Uzzah isn't a standalone event, as we saw in that chronology of events that came beforehand with the Philistines, with the other Israelites. God was showing clearly that this was something he cared about, the holiness of the Ark of the covenant, the way that these things were maintained, and the lessons that those things were to show about how God is not like, and his objects are not like those things that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. And clearly there was an impact on the community as well. 30,000 people, everything ground to halt, everyone returned home, and they took a month or so to just regroup after all this happened. Very much affected all the people. So if we pull all these themes together, what does it tell us as we go back to the story of Ananias and Sapphira? First of all, that event is not a one-time event that should be viewed in isolation. As we've seen, there are a set of circumstances here, and the story of Ananias and Sapphira fit very much within those circumstances.

It's not a story that we have to be afraid of God striking us down. This is the only evidence that we see within the history of the New Testament Church where God went out of his way to do this, and it was because of those three areas of commonality that we saw across all of those incidents. We know at the same time that we're to have a proper fear of God. Fear of his holiness, fear of what he asks of us, and when we think about it, what is it that was initiated at the point in time when Pentecost came? It was again a pivot point in how God was dealing with humanity, where God himself was coming to dwell within each and every one of us through his Holy Spirit, being his dwelling place, being holy. And so when we read this context, this event in the context of the other episodes we've read, it's very much consistent. Achan, Nadav, Nabaihu, and Uzzah, all those stories have to do with the tabernacle and the items that were used in tabernacle worship, things that were dedicated to God to be holy. The story of Ananias and Sapphira underscores a shift in God's work with mankind. You know, when people were bringing things in to give to the church, they didn't bring them to the temple. They didn't lay them before the altar.

They came and they set them before the apostles' feet. And through all of this set of events, God was showing that he was not working through that old system anymore. The system he was working through was the system of the church with his Spirit-filled children and those empowered by the Holy Spirit. The episode clearly shows that the holiness of God that's demonstrated through that tabernacle and temple system applies under the new covenant to the church and to individuals in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. And it also shows the connectedness to community.

God was showing early in this process that he could read the heart and that he was not going to take deceit, hypocrisy, and those things and let them pollute what was happening early in that time period. And so he was very much making a symbol of this situation and for his reasons decided that striking these people down was the right way to do this and very consistent with how he had acted in other similar situations. I'm sure this leaves plenty of questions still as far as this episode in the Bible, but I'm hoping that by thinking about this and looking at it in the context of some of the other similar events that happen in the Bible, we can start to piece together some commonalities about what it is that God is teaching through these things.

Not the fact that he's this harsh and arbitrary God and where we need to go every day worried about a bolt of lightning coming and striking us down. But they're very specific things that are important to him. And in points in time when there are changes happening and how he deals with mankind, for whatever reason he gets more pointed in making that point to us and bringing it home. In this case, it was after the coming of the Holy Spirit. And recognizing holiness, the importance of holiness and separateness of the things that are of God.

And then lastly, the impact of community. In this case, the church as the new community of God replacing a physical people that we had before. I'll close with two scriptures just to encourage some additional thought on this topic if you're interested. The first one is in 1 Peter 1, and we'll read verses 13 through 16. And if you think about it, if you look at it even a little bit, you're going to see that this motif carries its way through the New Testament scriptures.

The idea of holiness, the idea of where God dwells, the idea of things having to be different within our lives because we are the temple. As individuals, we collectively as a church are a collective temple. And because of those things, we have to think about the holiness of God in that context. 1 Peter 1, starting verse 13. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober. Think back to Nate Avonabai who, and the fact that they weren't to drink, they weren't to be drunk when they were the prophets or, I'm sorry, the priests when they went into the temple or the tabernacle. Rest your hope fully upon the grace that has been brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts as in your ignorance, but as he who called you as holy, you also be holy in all of your conduct because it is written, Be holy for I am holy. And that comes from the Old Testament scriptures where God said on multiple occasions to Israel, they were to be holy. They were to be different because their God was different from all the other gods around.

And I'll close with one other scripture that again has this theme to it, and that's in 1 Corinthians 3. We'll read verses 16 and 17. 1 Corinthians 3 verses 16 and 17. Again, bring this idea of the temple where God dwells home to each of us as individuals. 1 Corinthians 3 verse 16. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.