Lord, how we thank You for Your great love for us. Father, You have demonstrated, in sending Your Son to die for us, that You love us with an eternal love.
And Lord, as we have been singing to You, quicken us. Lord, open our ears, our eyes, and my mouth. Oh, Lord, this is beyond us. We need You. Give us Your word today. Get past every barrier and every weakness, whether in the speaker or in all the hearers, for You to come and make Yourself clear, plain, and understood.
Lord, not only do we ask for Your word, but we ask for our hearts. Lord, we know that Your eyes move to and fro throughout the earth, that You might strongly support those whose hearts are completely Yours. Now, Lord, what shall we say to this? Are our hearts completely Yours?
Lord, create in us a heart that is completely Yours. Lord, we do not want to be hearers only. We want to be those who respond to Your word: heart obedience, faith, and love.
Lord, we need You. Lord, we trust You, and we thank You for the blessing that You are pouring out upon us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Could you turn to Psalm 80, the Psalm of Asaph?
I do not know what you know about Asaph. There are 150 psalms in the Bible; fifty are anonymous. No writer is ascribed to them in Scripture. David wrote seventy-three psalms, and after David, Asaph wrote more psalms than anyone: twelve psalms. After Asaph, the sons of Korah are attributed ten psalms. Solomon wrote two, Moses wrote one, Heman wrote one, and Ethan wrote one.
Who is this man? Hopefully, the Lord will give us time at the end of my message, because I would like to speak a little about Asaph. But this man spent over forty years ministering before the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle of David. I think he has a kindred heart with us—hopefully, a kindred spirit. He spent perhaps most of his adult life in the most wonderful ministry.
He writes in Psalm 80:
Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,
Thou who leadest Joseph like a flock;
Thou who art enthroned above the cherubim, shine forth
Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh.
Stir up Thy power and come to save us.
Restore us, O God,
And cause Thy face to shine upon us, and we will be saved.O Lord God of hosts,
How long wilt Thou be angry with the prayer of Thy people?
Thou hast fed them with the bread of tears,
And Thou hast made them to drink tears in large measure.
Thou makest us an object of contention to our neighbors,
And our enemies laugh among themselves.
Restore us, O God of hosts,
And cause Thy face to shine upon us, and we will be saved.Thou didst remove a vine from Egypt;
Thou didst drive out the nations and didst plant it.
Thou didst clear the ground before it,
And it took deep root and filled the land.
The mountains were covered with its shadow,
And the cedars of God with its boughs.
It was sending out its branches to the sea,
And its shoots to the River.Why hast Thou broken down its hedges,
So that all who pass that way pick its fruit?
A boar from the forest eats it away,
And whatever moves in the field feeds on it.
O God of hosts, turn again now, we beseech Thee;
Look down from heaven and see, and take care of this vine,
Even the shoot which Thy right hand hath planted,
And on the son whom Thou hast strengthened for Thyself.It is burned with fire; it is cut down;
They perish at the rebuke of Thy countenance.
Let Thy hand be upon the man of Thy right hand,
Upon the son of man whom Thou didst make strong for Thyself.
Then we shall not turn back from Thee;
Revive us, and we will call upon Thy name.
O Lord God of hosts, restore us;
Cause Thy face to shine upon us, and we will be saved.
Perhaps you can see Asaph’s heart and burden for restoration. It seems that three times he asks the Lord to restore His people. Listen to it: in Psalm 80:3, “O God, restore us.” In Psalm 80:7, “O God of hosts, restore us.” And finally, in Psalm 80:19, “O Lord God of hosts, restore us; cause Thy face to shine upon us, and we will be saved.”
Our brother has a burden and a heart for restoration. It is interesting: he wrote Psalms 73 through 83—eleven psalms—and he wrote Psalm 50. Now, there are 150 psalms; someone had to write Psalm 50. But I think it is interesting that all his psalms are there together. In the third book of the Psalms, he wrote most of them—eleven out of seventeen.
But the Lord also gave him Psalm 50. Fifty is the number of jubilee. You will remember that every fiftieth year, everything was restored to those to whom it should be restored. Maybe someone had to sell his land, and it was held by others; but on the fiftieth year, it went back to those whose inheritance it was. So fifty speaks of restoration.
Our brother has this burden of restoration. He wrote Psalm 50. And I hope today that I am speaking to brothers and sisters in Christ who have a desire for the restoration work of the living God, because our God is a God of restoration.
Our God is a God of restoration because He has chosen to be a God of restoration. It is not circumstances that have caused the Lord to have to deal with things in this way. All through the Scriptures, from beginning to end, He is the God of restoration. All through church history, He is the God of restoration.
The Bible begins in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And the earth became formless, a waste place—formless and void. Darkness was there, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the deep.
Isaiah 45:18 says—let me read it so I do not misquote it:
For thus saith the Lord who created the heavens,
He is the God who formed the earth and made it,
He established it and did not create it a waste place,
But formed it to be inhabited.
Then we move to the end of the Bible, and John says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.” So, from the very beginning, we see ruin come to something for the Lord’s purpose. And we see the Lord, all through the history of the universe, bring that ruin to perfect restoration, filled with His glory.
It is interesting how it says, “And I saw the city of God descending out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband, having the glory of God.” Our God is a God of restoration.
There was a rebellion in the heavenly places. Satan and a third of the angels rebelled and were cast out of heaven to the earth. When they came to the earth, it devastated God’s creation, and the earth became formless and void.
That word became is the same word that is mostly translated was in many translations, but it is the same word in Genesis 19 where it says Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt. So, of course, it was formless and void because it became formless and void. It was devastation: darkness, emptiness, formlessness, a waste place.
And you see the Spirit of God hovering, moving, travailing over the surface of the deep. Our God is a God of restoration.
On the second day of creation, there is a very interesting detail. It is the one day in the whole story of God restoring the heavens and the earth from their devastation where the Lord does not say, “And God saw that it was good,” because the enemy was there. It is the day when God created the heavens around the earth.
In Ephesians 2, Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air.” In Ephesians 6, it speaks of powers and principalities in the heavenly places. The disciples came back to the Lord Jesus and said, “Lord, even the demons were subject to us in Your name.” He said, “I was beholding Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” The enemy was there already on the second day.
The Lord began to restore. God created man: “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” The enemy came and deceived man, and man rebelled and fell.
In the fullness of time, God the Son came in human flesh—the Son of Man—and restored man to the purpose of God. But God was not after one man. He said, “Let them have dominion.” It was a corporate man.
Every time a man, a woman, or a child has believed in the Lord Jesus over these last two thousand years, that restoration has become fuller, progressing further toward the purpose of God. God is a God of restoration.
In the Scriptures, there are stories of restoration—like wheels within wheels. Within great stories of restoration, there are little stories of restoration. Brothers and sisters, we have an enemy. The Lord calls a people after Himself, and He will take that people with Himself as far as they will allow Him to take them.
They love Him. They hear His call. They go after Him. But the enemy tirelessly, ceaselessly, head-on, violently, subtly comes against the work of God. Finally, some people turn to the right or to the left, and it seems as though the enemy has won.
But the Lord is the Lord of restoration. He calls a remnant to Himself, begins to work again, and restores everything that was lost in the seeming victory of the enemy—everything that was lost, and more. He never just restores what was lost, but always more.
So He goes from glory to more glory, to more and more glory, until at the end He restores everything that He desired in the beginning.
The enemy has not forced the Lord to be a God of restoration. The Lord has chosen to glorify Himself in this way. Why, I do not know. I mean, what can we know about why the Lord does what He does?
But our God has all knowledge—omniscience, foreknowledge. Before He created any of the angels, He knew what they would do. If He wanted, He could have said, “I think I will create Gabriel and Michael, but not Satan.” But He created the ones He created. They chose to do what they chose to do, and He has spent the centuries and the ages restoring unto His glory.
In the end, all is restored. It is the most amazing thing to me that when God the Son came—this One who created the universe, this One who has all power and authority, and in Whom all things hold together—you might think, “Oh, Satan, you are in trouble now. God the Son has come.”
But He came to restore everything as a Lamb—in weakness. Amazing.
One little word from the Lord Jesus, and the enemy is done for, as God. But He comes as a Lamb. The enemy is filled with pride; the Lord Jesus is full of humility. The enemy is filled with ambition, grasping to take the highest place for himself. The Lord Jesus takes the lowest place of the servant and delivers Himself up to death.
What seemingly is the weakest thing that anyone ever saw completely and thoroughly defeats all of His enemies. Amazing.
Today, this afternoon, I would like to explore with you one of these movements of restoration in Scripture. There are a number of them. The one the Lord has put upon my heart has to do with the Ark of the Covenant and the tabernacle as they travel and move through the nation of Israel after they cross the Jordan River.
I would like us to be open to the Lord today to see, first of all, how the Lord builds what He builds—the process—and also the way the Lord restores once the enemy has come in and seemingly won a victory. The Lord takes that seeming disaster to His glory and restores to greater glory.
So, if you will, we will begin telling the story as Joshua is leading Israel across the Jordan River. I am going to be referring to a lot of Scriptures in Joshua, perhaps also in Judges. I will try just to refer to them; if you want to jot them down, you can read them later. I think I have a lot of material to cover.
First, I would like to say a little word about the Ark and the tabernacle. The Ark of the Covenant speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ. The tabernacle was made for the Ark, not the other way around. The Lord Jesus Christ has the centrality in the church. He has first place. The church exists for Him, not Him for the church.
The tabernacle speaks of the house of God. It is a glorious and wonderful place as long as the Lord Jesus has the headship, the preeminence, and first place in everything. But when that ceases to be the reality, what does the church become? Derelict—something that it was never intended to be.
So when it begins, we see everything in its right place. We see the Ark of God in the Holy of Holies. We see the tabernacle of Moses as a fit dwelling place for the testimony, which speaks of the testimony of Jesus.
They come to the Jordan River, and the priests go out and stand in the middle of the Jordan with the Ark. The waters heap up, and Israel crosses on dry land. They come up out of the Jordan, and the first place they set up the tabernacle, with the Ark in the Holy of Holies, is a place called Gilgal.
Gilgal means rolling or revolving. When they come there, a couple of notable things happen that tell us what this speaks of to us who know the Lord Jesus.
The first thing speaks to us concerning circumcision. For forty years in the wilderness, none of the people of Israel were circumcised. They were circumcised in Egypt before they came out, but then for forty years none of the people were circumcised. So when they came into the land, the first thing that happened was that everyone forty years old and under—all the males—were circumcised. It was done at Gilgal, and they called the place the Hill of the Foreskins.
The next thing that happened there was that they celebrated the Passover. All the years that they had been in the wilderness, they did not celebrate the Passover. The first thing they did when they came in—exactly at the time of the Passover—was to celebrate the Passover.
What does this speak to us of but the cross of Calvary, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ: His crucifixion, His death, His burial, and His resurrection?
Circumcision speaks of baptism. It corresponds to the removal of the flesh. “I have been crucified with Christ.” When the Lord Jesus was crucified on Calvary, One died, and all died with Him.
In the Passover, He is the Passover Lamb. The blood of the Passover lamb is applied to the door of my life. We sing that song, “Christ is our Passover.” By His precious blood on Calvary, all of our sins have been washed away.
For the church or for an individual Christian, there is no other starting place than the cross of Jesus Christ: the mighty work, the victory that He accomplished there over all His enemies and our enemies. Gilgal—that is the beginning place, the first place that the house of God was set up in the land when they came.
It was from Gilgal that they went out and conquered the whole land. Brothers and sisters, all the victory that we will ever know in the Christian life is based upon the victory that Jesus Christ won for us at the cross.
Everything that He accomplished there, active, working, and effective in our lives, brings us into victory. There is no victory aside from the Lord Jesus and the victory that He has gained.
They were there in Gilgal. The tabernacle was set up there, and they went out and conquered the whole land—as much of it as they cared to conquer. Unfortunately, they could have conquered a little more. The Lord said to them, “Wherever the sole of your foot touches, I have already given it to you.” Oh, that they would have walked a few more places. But they conquered a good portion of the land.
After they did, they moved the tabernacle. The next place they moved it to—you can see it in Joshua 18:1—was Shiloh.
Shiloh speaks of great tranquility, peace, a Savior. Shiloh speaks of those who, through the cross of Jesus Christ, have peace with God.
By the way, as long as you are moving the tabernacle—the house of God—and following the Lord, every place where they dwelt before, when they move, they take the reality of that place with them. It is not like, “Well, we have known the reality of the cross; now we are moving on.” No. As you move on, you take the reality of everything you knew there and come to the next place, and so on and so forth, as long as you are going forward with the Lord.
Now, if you retreat, you are abandoning that reality. So they come to Shiloh: peace with God. In Shiloh, they find out that they have an inheritance.
That is as it is with us. We are saved, and the Lord Jesus’ blood cleanses us from all sin. We find out that not only did He die for us, but we died with Him. Through the cross, we have peace with God. We come into that relationship with Him, and we find out that we have an inheritance—a glorious inheritance in Christ.
I can see a group of people who begin to gather together, meeting, who love the Lord, who have believed on the Lord Jesus, and who have come into peace with God in the body of Christ.
The church is the Lord’s testimony. The church of Jesus Christ is to be that place on the earth where, when people want to see what the Lord Jesus is like, they can come to His testimony.
That is what the Lord told His disciples in John 13:34-35:
A new commandment I give unto you,
That ye love one another, even as I have loved you.
By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples,
If ye have love one to another.
So the whole world is looking at these people who are gathering there, who by the cross have peace with God and with one another, and looking to see: do they love one another? With what kind of love? With the same love that the Lord Jesus loved us. He laid down His life for us. Do they have this sort of love?
Then what did He pray in John 17? “O Father, I pray that these might be one, even as You and I are one, Father; that they might be one, that the world might know that You sent Me.”
This glorious unity that the Lord has established for us—the unity of the Spirit of God. When the world sees it, they know that the Father sent the Son. They know that we are His disciples as we love one another, and they see us walking in this precious unity of the Spirit of God in the body of Christ. They say, “The Father certainly sent the Son.” What a testimony.
But as we are gathering together, first everything is wonderful. We are just loving the Lord. Then time goes on, and I find that I have an interesting experience: my brother offends me. I am offended, and I come into crisis.
I say, “Lord, I know You have called me to love my brother, but he has not only offended me. Frankly, Lord, he is offensive.”
Maybe if I do not meet with this one—Lord, I know that You made us one with the same unity that You have with the Father, one Spirit—but Lord, there are a few here that we need to weed out.
Probably on the first way, we learn that we have a great inheritance in Shiloh. But I think, in order to come into our inheritance, we need to move the tabernacle again. We need to go onward and upward with the Lord.
Where is the next place that they move? Turn to Joshua 24.
Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel and for their heads, and their judges and their officers; and they presented themselves before God.
Now therefore put away the foreign gods which are in your midst, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.
And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God, and we will obey His voice.”
So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.
Now, the sanctuary there is the tabernacle. It is the same word when the Lord first referred to the tabernacle in the book of Exodus and said, “Now build for Me a sanctuary.”
So far, the tabernacle with the Ark has moved from Gilgal, speaking of the cross of Jesus Christ—His crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection; the victory that He has won and that we have won in Him—to Shiloh, which speaks of having peace with God and finding out that we have an inheritance.
But in order to gain this inheritance, we find out that we need something spoken of by this place called Shechem. What is Shechem? What does it speak of?
When Abraham first came into the land, the first place that he came to from Haran, when he entered the land of Canaan, was Shechem. There were two notable things there: a notable tree, which apparently was still there in the book of Joshua, and an altar that Abraham built there. The tree speaks of the work of the cross. The altar speaks of the work of the cross.
The next place we see Shechem is when Jacob is coming back from his uncle Laban, after spending twenty years in Haran and coming again into the land of promise. The first place that he comes through, once he finally crosses the Jordan River, is the place of Shechem.
What do we find there? We see in Shechem at that time a great circumcision. You remember the people who lived there wanted to join themselves with Israel. Jacob’s sons said, “Well, you are not circumcised. We cannot have anything to do with you.” They had much wealth and livestock, and they said, “Well, we will circumcise ourselves.” They said, “Well, okay, go ahead and do it.”
They did it, and then on the third day, when they were in pain, his two sons Simeon and Levi came in and slaughtered every man in the town. We see a great circumcision—the cross; a great slaughter, a great death—the cross.
Shechem is also the site of a very notable grave. It is the place where they buried the remains of Joseph, the son of Jacob, who had ruled Egypt. You remember, when he was dying, he said, “Take whatever is left of me with you and bury it in the land when you come there.” They buried him there.
The grave, the slaughter, circumcision, the tree, the altar—Shechem speaks of the work of the cross. You think, “Well, I thought Gilgal spoke of the work of the cross.” It does. But Gilgal speaks of the objective work of the cross: the Lord Jesus who died once for all.
Shechem speaks of the subjective work of the cross in your life and in my life, as the Holy Spirit works in us so that we do not bite and devour one another in the house of God.
I find that the Lord’s house is a wonderful place. The only problem is that I am here. There is something in me that does not jive with the house of God, with this command to love one another as the Lord loved us, and with this unity that He has made for us by baptizing us into one Spirit, into Christ.
There is a self-nature in me, a very selfish life of the flesh. The Lord works in me by the power of the cross. Everything that He accomplished at Calvary, He works in me subjectively in time, in place, and in circumstances, so that I can come into my inheritance.
You see what happens at the end of Joshua 24:28: “Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to his inheritance.” So in Shiloh, they had peace with God. They found out they had an inheritance, but they could not receive the inheritance from Shiloh. They moved the tabernacle again to Shechem.
By the work of the cross, putting to death that man of the flesh—“the mind set on the flesh is death; the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace”—we find that we can come into our inheritance.
Then they moved the tabernacle and the Ark again. Where is the next place that they moved to? It is difficult to find.
If you look at the book of Judges, you see that the first sixteen chapters are in chronological order. But the last five chapters are not in chronological order; they tell two stories that happened at the beginning of Judges, and one of them even before the book of Judges.
In Judges 17 and 18, we have the story of that Levite who, for ten shekels and a suit of clothes, decided to become the personal priest of Micah and his family. Later, the tribe of Dan comes and takes him away to be their own priest.
If we look back in Joshua 19:41-47, we see the same things happening to Dan there. In Judges, it says that Dan had received an inheritance; when we look back in Joshua, we see that they had received an inheritance. In Judges, they take a place called Laish and name it Dan. In Joshua 19, they attack a place called Leshem and name it Dan. It is the same place. This situation in Judges 17 and 18 is synonymous with what was happening in Joshua 19.
The second story is that terrible story in Judges 19 through 21 about the Levite and his concubine. He went to Bethlehem to woo her back, and they were on their way back to the hill country of Ephraim. They stayed overnight in a town in Benjamin, and the men of that place—Israelites—behaved just like the men of Sodom and Gomorrah.
“Send that man out to us, that we might have relations with him.” Unspeakable. The end result of the matter is that they rape, ravish, and murder his concubine.
All Israel comes to moral outrage at this immorality that has been done. They come together against Benjamin and say, “We want those men who did that to be punished.” Benjamin, in their pride, says, “We will not give them to you.”
They go to war against Benjamin, and for two days they suffer defeat. The first day they lose twenty-two thousand; the second day, eighteen thousand. They are wondering, “What is going on here? We know we are right.”
In Judges 20:23, the sons of Israel went up and wept before the Lord until evening and inquired of the Lord, saying, “Shall we again draw near for battle against the sons of my brother Benjamin?” The Lord said, “Go up against him.” Then the sons of Israel came against the sons of Benjamin the second day, and that is when eighteen thousand men perished.
Then, in Judges 20:26-28:
Then all the sons of Israel and all the people went up and came to Bethel, and wept; thus they remained there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening. And they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.
And the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord, for the Ark of the Covenant of God was there in those days, and Phinehas the son of Eleazar, Aaron’s son, stood before it to minister in those days.
By this, we know this could not have been happening hundreds and hundreds of years after they crossed the Jordan, because Phinehas was a grown man in the wilderness. You remember the account of him taking a spear and checking a plague by running that spear through two people—an Israelite and a Midianite woman.
Phinehas was a grown man when they crossed the Jordan River. At the end of Joshua, Eleazar dies, and Phinehas becomes high priest at the very beginning of the time of the judges. They did not live hundreds and hundreds of years as some of their ancestors had. Moses lived to be one hundred twenty, and that was remarkable. Joshua lived to be one hundred ten, I think—also remarkable.
So Phinehas was there before the Ark at Bethel, at a time synonymous with the beginning of the book of Judges. The next place that the tabernacle was moved in the Scriptures was Bethel—the house of God.
Finally, the tabernacle, the thing in the Old Testament that speaks of the house of God today, is a picture and type of the church of Jesus Christ. It is on the ground, in the reality, of the place that is the house of God.
You remember when God appeared to Jacob while he was in Haran and told him to go back home. He said, “I am the God of Bethel”—the God of the house.
So you see that the tabernacle has come from Gilgal, the place that speaks of the cross of Jesus Christ and all that He accomplished; to Shiloh, peace with God, where we find we have an inheritance; to Shechem, where the work of the cross causes us to be able to inherit our inheritance; and finally, through all of that, to the place that is the reality and ground of the house of God.
The Lord has His tabernacle and His Ark in the place where it was always meant to be.
We find it very peculiar when we come to 1 Samuel and see that the tabernacle is back in Shiloh. In other words, it has gone backwards.
What could cause them—but more pointedly, what could cause us—to abandon the reality and the ground of the place that says “the house of God,” and go back to that place that simply says “peace with God”?
As we gather together in our assemblies and run this race, hopefully with endurance, it is a race to the end. I praise the Lord that Paul was able to write to Timothy and say, “I have finished my course.” What a glorious thing: “I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith. I have finished my course.”
Brothers and sisters, the race is a race to the end. But there is such a temptation to run and run, then begin to look around and look at one another and say, “You know, we have come so far.” Maybe we compare ourselves to someone else. That is what we always do. That is what I do. I do not know what you do, but I know what I do.
I am like Peter, who says to the Lord, “What about this man?” The Lord says, “No, that is none of your affair. You follow Me.”
Here we are, and we say, “You know, we have run. We have suffered. The cross of the Lord has worked. This is far enough, do You not think? Who else has come this far? The old is good enough. It is okay. Look, we belong to Jesus. We are going to heaven. That is good enough, do You not think?”
It is difficult to remain on the ground of Bethel, the ground of the house of God, because it takes a continual dying. “I must decrease; He must increase.” Paul said, “I die daily.” The Lord Jesus said, “If any man come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
We have known loss. We have given up our rights. We just get weary, and we say, “Let’s—do You not think peace with God sounds better and better?” Of course, we have peace with God.
But if we abandon the subjective, daily work of the power of the cross, applied by the Holy Spirit in our lives, we find one morning that we wake up and are no longer in the place called Bethel. We are in the place called Shiloh, which was a good place to be in the beginning, but it is not the place to be anymore because the Lord took us past that.
He included peace with God in everything that we knew as we went on with Him. But now we have abandoned everything else and are back there.
Look at the plight of the tabernacle, the house of God, in those days. Eli was getting older and blinder. What was in his flesh was just a metaphor for where he was spiritually. His two sons were immoral men who stole from the sacrifices of the people of God, who brought their offerings to God at the house of God, and who committed immorality with the women who came to serve at the door of the tent of meeting.
Is it not interesting that when the tabernacle was on the ground of Bethel, the outrage of immorality caused the whole nation to rise up and deal with it? But when it is just peace with God, with no working of the cross, no one seems willing to do something about these immoral men who are the priests.
What happens when we go backwards is that the house of God comes into judgment. We find that the Lord would rather abandon the Ark of His testimony, the Ark of the Covenant, to the Philistines than for it to remain in a house of God that is full of compromise and has abandoned following Him.
That is exactly what happened. The Philistines came up against Israel, and there was a defeat. Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, said, “Well, let us go get the Ark.” I think I am putting words in their mouths, but probably not too much of a stretch. “Maybe we will have some good luck.”
In a superstitious way—the Lord did not command this type of thing—they went back and got the precious Ark of God and carried it into the camp of Israel. The Philistines defeated them again and took the Ark captive into their land.
Now the tabernacle is just an empty tent. For seven months, the Ark is in Philistia, and it seems as though the enemy has won. He has removed the testimony from the house, and not only has he removed it, but it is in the house of Dagon, the foolish false god.
But after seven months of great difficulties in Philistia—their god falling on its face before the Ark, its hands and feet coming off, and physical afflictions coming upon the people—they finally realized, “We have got to get rid of this thing.”
They took an ox cart, put the Ark on it, and sent the cows away while keeping their calves. They said, “The natural thing would be for the milk cows to come to their calves because they want to be milked.” But these cows went in the direction of Israel and took the Ark back.
It went to Beth-shemesh and ended up in the house of a man named Abinadab, who lived on a hill in the town of Kiriath-jearim. This place means “city of trees.”
Our God is the God of restoration. He brings the Ark back to a place that speaks of the cross, the work of the cross. It stays in that man’s house for twenty years—forgotten about, unsung.
How many people walked past Abinadab’s house on the hill on their way to the tabernacle to make their religious offering? How many people even knew that the tabernacle was empty?
I wonder what happened on the Day of Atonement, and every year for twenty years, when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies to sprinkle the blood. In my own mind, I will give you the answer—this is pure speculation; disregard this. I think he stayed in there about long enough to do it and came back out without a word of surprise: “Hey, you will not believe it. There is nothing in there.”
Why would you do that? You might lose your job. People would say, “Why are we coming here?” So it was just business as usual. He realized that nobody but him was really aware of it, although people could remember back that far. But people’s memories are not too good.
There is the Ark of God in a man’s home. His son Eleazar has been consecrated to care for the Ark.
What do you think is more precious to the Lord in these days: the simple home of a man whose son has been set apart to care for the Ark of God, which speaks of the person of Jesus as Head of the church, or a tabernacle that is just going through religious exercises but in reality is an empty tent?
Our God is a God of restoration. Finally, He brings David to the throne. First, David comes to the throne only of Judah for seven years. But when David comes to the throne of all Israel, he is thirty-seven years old.
The first thing that he did was take the city of Jerusalem. Up until that time, it had been the Jebusite city. No one had cared to conquer it or take it; it was just left alone. David somehow knew from the Lord that this was the place.
The first thing he did was take Jerusalem. The second thing he did was say, “Now let us go up and bring up the Ark, because we did not seek it in the days of Saul.”
They got an entourage, went to Abinadab’s house, took the Ark, and put it on an ox cart—the good old Philistine method. As they went along, of course, it hit a dip in the road and almost upset. Uzzah reached out his hand, and the Lord struck him dead.
David was flabbergasted. I think he was both terrified and a little miffed. “Lord, do You not see the service that I am trying to provide for You? We are doing the best we can. Lord, we seek the Ark. No one sought it for years. Our hearts are right.” He said, “How can I bring the Ark up to me?”
There was a man who lived right next to where this happened named Obed-edom the Gittite. A Gittite is someone from Gath. Gath is one of the Philistine cities; that is where Goliath was from.
I do not know where this man was from, but perhaps he was of Philistia, a Philistine who had come to Israel. The Scripture says that many in those days were turning from the vanity of the nations, turning their hearts and throwing in their lot with Israel. Perhaps this man, Obed-edom, was a Gittite from Gath who had come to Israel.
I do not think they were doing him a favor by putting the Ark in his house. I mean, Uzzah had just died. I think for three months they did two things: they watched Obed-edom to see what would happen, and they got into the Scriptures and began seeking the Lord as to what was wrong.
God blessed Obed-edom. The Lord also blessed them because He revealed to them that it was not man-made methods of dealing with the testimony of the Lord Jesus—with that which speaks of the testimony of the Lord Jesus.
You will forgive me, will you not, as I speak of these two things and interchange the words? We know that all the things in the Old Testament are speaking of Christ, and since the church is in Christ, they speak of the church.
We do not deal with that which speaks of the testimony of Jesus, nor with that which spoke of it, with merely man-made methods—with ox carts—but according to the wisdom and revelation that the Lord has given.
They came back with the golden poles, and the priests inserted them in the rings through the Ark. Before they had gone six steps, David was sacrificing. Thus they brought up the Ark.
Now, if you did not know this story—and I think a lot of people do—you might think, “They brought the Ark back to the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle of Moses.” That is not where they brought it.
They brought the Ark to Mount Zion. Remember, we said that when the Lord restores, He restores everything that was lost and more. Through the seeming victory of the enemy, the Lord, the God of restoration, comes back and brings His testimony to Mount Zion.
What did Asaph write in Psalm 50?
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God hath shined forth.
What happened to the tabernacle all this time? It is interesting, because they had regressed to Shiloh and the Ark was taken out of it. The next place we see the tabernacle is in a place called Nob. It is in Benjamin, probably because Saul was king and the person in authority liked to have the accoutrements on his ground.
Nob means a hill, an exalted hill. Here is what transpired there. David was running from Saul. He went to the priests who were there. They did not know there was any problem between Saul and David. He said, “I am awfully hungry. Do you have anything to eat? Do you have any food here?”
They said, “Well, there is only the bread of the Presence, but that is only for the priests.” David said that they were clean, and they gave him the bread. Then he said, “In my haste of leaving, I forgot to bring a weapon. Do you have a weapon?” They said, “Well, there is the sword of Goliath back behind the altar.” David said, “There is no other weapon like that. Let me have it.”
The Lord Jesus said, “Do you not remember how David entered the house of God and did these things that I just mentioned?” Saul came to the priest there, enraged that they had helped his supposed enemy. He said to his men, “Strike these priests dead.”
None of them would dare lift their hands against a priest, but there was an Edomite there named Doeg. He said, “I will do it.” That day he slew eighty-five men who wore the ephod.
What a testimony. From the ground of the place that is the house of God, where brothers love one another and are one, retrogressing to just peace with God—whatever happens, happens—now to an exalted hill where the priests are slain.
Finally, the next place we see it is in the great high place in Gibeon. Gibeon was a place of people, Gibeonites, who were not of Israel but who, it is a long story, were allowed to live among Israel.
This great high place in Gibeon was a place where idol worship went on, where incense was burned to false deities. Man, incurably religious man, loves to worship in a high place.
The tabernacle was taken there: the tabernacle of Moses, the altar of burnt offering, the bronze laver, and all the furniture in the Holy Place—the table, the golden altar, the lampstand. It was all there, and all Israel would go there.
The Ark of God was on Mount Zion in the tabernacle of David.
Which brings us back to Asaph. It is an interesting thing, this man Asaph, because he spent perhaps most of his adult life—over forty years—before the Ark at the tabernacle of David. How did Asaph get to be there?
I will tell you the story quickly, and you can read the Scriptures later. In 1 Chronicles 6, it says that the Levites chose three men to be over all the worship in Israel. The three men were Asaph, Heman, and Ethan. They did not choose it themselves; they were elected, if you will. They were chosen by all the Levites.
So, first, Asaph was not one of the three because he desired it. It was appointed to him.
In 1 Chronicles 16, it says:
And they brought in the Ark of God, and placed it inside the tent which David had pitched for it; and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before God.
I do not think that tent was some rude thing that David said, “Oh, the Ark—we need to pitch a tent,” and they just threw something together. My suspicion is—and you can develop your suspicion, because we do not know—that all those seven years when he was king of Judah only, he was making provision.
David was the type of man who made provisions for things the Lord showed him. He perhaps was making provision for the day when he would bring the Ark to the place where the Lord showed him, and not to the tabernacle of Moses, which was on that high place.
Then 1 Chronicles 16:4 says:
And he appointed some of the Levites as ministers before the Ark of the Lord, even to celebrate and to thank and praise the Lord, God of Israel: Asaph the chief.
Verse 7 says:
Then on that day David first assigned Asaph and his relatives to give thanks to the Lord.
Verse 37 says:
So he left Asaph and his relatives there before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, to minister before the Ark continually, as every day’s work required.
Verse 39 says:
And he left Zadok the priest and his relatives the priests before the tabernacle of the Lord in the high place which was at Gibeon.
Verse 41 mentions Heman, Jeduthun, and the rest who were chosen and designated by name. There were these three men: Heman, Asaph, and Ethan. Later in the story, Ethan becomes Jeduthun. I do not know if Ethan died and Jeduthun took his place, or if Jeduthun was another form of his name or another name by which he was known. But there were these three.
In the day when David brought the Ark to the tabernacle of David on Mount Zion, he said, in essence, “Asaph, you and your relatives stay here. Zadok, who was a fine man, you will be the priest at the tabernacle of Moses. Heman and Jeduthun, you will be with him.”
Is that not interesting? Asaph did not choose to be where he wound up. It was appointed to him by the Lord.
Everyone who belongs to the Lord is part of the restoration work of God, because to be in Christ is part of this restoration. But, brothers and sisters, there are some who are called—elected, if you will—to come in the way of restoration in a great way, very specifically.
They may serve in a place as out of the way as the house of Abinadab on the hill, or even in a place as peculiar as the house of Obed-edom the Gittite, or even in a place as strange—and this may sound funny at first—as Mount Zion in Jerusalem.
You say, “What are you talking about? Jerusalem?” Of course, Jerusalem. No. In those days, we look back three thousand years and say, “Oh, yeah, Jerusalem.” But do you not understand that in those days Jerusalem was not Jerusalem? It was just the Jebusite city that David had just taken.
There is nothing written in the books of Moses about Jerusalem. There is much in the books of Moses about the tabernacle of Moses. What would make someone want to go to that city?
You say, “Well, of course, David took it, and David erected that tabernacle.” But do you not see? We look back at David, and he is now David, but he was not then. He was a thirty-seven-year-old man who had taken over in place of Saul. He had not become David yet, in that sense.
The Lord knew he was David. The men who loved him, served with him, and lived in the cave with him knew he was David. But look how easy it was for Absalom to lead the whole nation against this one.
Yes, he was then, in reality and before God, the king. But Israel continued to go to the high place. To prove it, all you have to do is see what Solomon did when he became king.
He was a young man when he became king. He went directly to the high place at Gibeon, to the tabernacle of Moses, and offered a thousand burnt offerings. He lay down that night in that place and went to sleep.
The Lord appeared to him and said, “What do you want? Ask Me whatever you want; I will give it to you.” He said, “I want a hearing heart—wisdom and understanding.”
The Lord was so pleased at that request. He said, “Because you have asked for this, I will give you the rest too that you did not ask for.” He woke the next morning, and behold, it was a dream.
He arose and went directly to Mount Zion in Jerusalem, stood before the Ark, offered peace offerings and burnt offerings, and made a feast for his friends.
Brothers and sisters, the first thing that Solomon did when he got wisdom was leave the empty tent that seemed, to the whole nation, to be the tabernacle, and go stand before the testimony of Jesus—that which speaks of the testimony of Jesus—in the place of God’s choosing, and worship there.
Well, this brings us to ourselves.
I have a feeling—I think, I believe, I trust—that I am in a room filled with people who have been appointed to the restoration work of the living God; who are part of perhaps a remnant that the Lord has called after Himself and said, “Now come after Me. Follow Me. I want to do so much in you and through you, if you will allow Me.”
The Lord will lead people until they turn to the right or turn to the left. You say, “Well, you do not understand the people that I meet with. We are never going to turn to the right or the left. We are going to follow the Lord the whole way.” Bless you. No one else has done that.
Everyone else eventually—it used to take several generations, and now it just takes a little while—has turned to the right or to the left.
What do you do when the people you are with have turned to the right or to the left? Do you think that you could overcome in the midst of brothers and sisters whom the Lord has put you with, love Him with all your heart, remain uncompromised, and love your brothers and sisters with all your heart—with the love of Jesus?
Could you prove to the whole world that the Father sent the Son because we are one? Prove to all men that you are His disciple and that you follow Him wherever He goes—which is usually to the cross.
The Lord calls a remnant to Himself, and I believe He has called you. It is one of those things: if you see it, you have been called. If you do not see it, it is okay. It is okay. No one can see anything that the Lord has not given him to see.
But once you see it—once you see the Lord’s purpose, once you see His ways, once you see His person—what else can you do but cast yourself upon Him and say, “Oh, Lord, I am Yours. Lord, my heart is Yours; all that I am, all that I have.”
Oh, Lord, restore us, like this man Asaph:
O Lord God of hosts, restore us;
Cause Thy face to shine upon us, and we will be saved.
Our God is a God of restoration. Perhaps the time between now and when He comes is short, but there is much that He desires to restore.
We do not restore; God restores. We recover. It is like a physician-and-patient relationship: the physician restores; the patient recovers.
But the Lord has much that He would recover if people will just come to Him and say, “Here we are, Lord. Here I am, Lord. I am Your freewill offering. I belong to You. Lord, I see what You are about. I see Your purpose. Oh, Lord, put me in it. Bring others. And Lord, do not stop until You satisfy Your heart.”
Let us pray.
Lord, in ourselves, Lord, we feel and we know that we are full of frailties. Lord, we are not capable, not able. Lord, we will walk off into a ditch or a pit. Lord, we need You.
Lord, we know that You have not revealed Your purpose to us, Your ways to us, and Your person to us merely for knowledge, but because You intend to bring us into the reality.
Lord, we do not want to stand before You one day and find out that we were just involved in that which was an empty tent. My Lord, in Your house, where You have all the headship, all the preeminence, and all the centrality; Lord, where You have first place in everything.
Oh, Lord, restore us. Cause Your face to shine upon us, Lord, and we will be saved. Amen.