However did this happen? This sudden informality and abandoning of all awe and reverence and sense of sacredness? One of the causes was no doubt the Philistines. The Philistines were still alive after having put the ark on a cart of all things, drawn by cows of all things, with uncircumcised people gaping at it. If the Philistines had got away with this, then they may have concluded, ‘How wonderful! We don't have to stand on ceremony either. We always used to find that very irksome. We were always rather put out that we weren't allowed to see this treasured article. We never liked all the form and the ceremony really.’ All of a sudden there's a mass excursion to informality and abandoning the rules and the regulations. That is human nature. Human pride doesn't like reverence. Human pride doesn't like the things of God to be high and lifted up and sacred and special. Human pride doesn't like to be told, ‘Look here: this is the temple. These are God's rules.’ ‘Oh, but I would like to do this; I would like to do that.’ No, you cannot. God has given his rules; he has specified the dimensions, the areas, the cubic capacities, and we are just to follow his laws. ‘Oh, but I want to be a composer, I want to be a songwriter; I want liberty and freedom. I want to be a personality and project myself’, and all this kind of thing. If we think there is half a chance, how quickly human pride switches to that, and ditches the rules of God and the awe and the reverence. It is happening right here in a priestly city. A city of trained priests just pushed the lever, and went over to informality and contemporary everything in a second. What does God think of it? The death of seventy people? No, that's nothing. But so that this message will go on sounding down the centuries right to the present day, fifty thousand and seventy die. This is a most serious, serious matter: to profane, to lose all reverence, all sacredness. So today. Suddenly within a hundred years, well within fifty years, reverence is out, showmanship is in. Showing off is in, showing talents, being brilliant, applauding performers. All this has taken over the sanctuary of God and the house of God. This passage tells us what God thinks about it. You cannot approach to God uncleansed by the blood of Christ, unrepentant, unforgiven, and, aside from emergency prayers, always uppermost in our mind in prayer is the worship of God, and then the forgiveness of sin.
Whatever God calls you to, whatever you are involved in, never lose your reverence and your fear of the Lord. It can happen to anybody. Just as you can lose your feeling, and your passion, and your sense of burden for souls. You can be so familiar with your regular Sunday School class, with your regular counselling, with your welcoming of visitors to the church, with your visitation of the neighbourhood. You can find yourself becoming a very smooth and competent professional. The way you talk about what happens, what you do, you can lose your fear and your reverence. The day those Israelites tore the planks off the top of the ark and looked within, the judgement of God was to come down upon them. God insists that we always maintain our reverence for him and our fear, and we have genuine hallowed tones when we are dealing with the things of God.
In the 1950s there was a split in a small denomination which used to be called ‘The Exclusive Brethren’, and the leader of that denomination brought about the split. One moment there were brethren who were so serious in their approach to worship, and so tightly ruled by certain rules and conventions, and wouldn't associate with any other Christians. Then suddenly as they came out, not all, but many of them swung to the opposite extreme, and they were in the advance guard of the contemporary worship movement. One moment ultra separatist, the next moment ultra contemporary. How strange! People can swing from one extreme to the other. We hear about it in Scotland. The Free Church of Scotland, exclusive Psalm singers, very heavy, very serious: no instruments, exclusive psalmody. Week by week in their churches you have got to sing about people being killed with axes, and all that sort of thing. But then they passed a resolution to say, ‘Now we are going to have hymns.’ But what hymns do they use? Not sober hymns, not reverent ones, but contemporary ones. They go from one extreme to the other. It’s what happened to the priests at Bethshemesh: ‘Wonderful, the ark is here … Get rid of it’ – one extreme to the other. We must understand our heritage; understand our Bibles; know why we do what you do.
When I was a youngster there used to be rules for everything. You mustn't dance as a Christian; you mustn't smoke as a Christian, you must do this, you must do that. Actually, most of the rules were pretty good and biblical and right, but nobody explained to you why they were there, only ‘These are the rules; this is how a Christian behaves.’ Sometimes it was obvious, but they had stopped explaining. So suddenly, the mood changed. The swinging 1960s came in. What happened in the world, the permissive society, the beginning of all that, was mirrored in many of the churches, and the youngsters didn't know why. Young Christians didn’t know why we didn't do this, and we didn't do that. So many of them swung to the other extreme. We need to know why we do what we do, why there are biblical prohibitions. Have deep convictions, otherwise like the men of Bethshemesh you will be unstable. The devil will tempt you, and you will be brainwashed, you will be persuaded, and you will swing from one position to another.