The Death at Perez Uzzah

This passage tells how David, from the comfort of the throne, tried to move God's ark on a new cart, and suffered the tragedy of Uzzah's death because of human devotion that ignored the ordinances. Departing from the faith with which he had relied on God through earlier hardships and miracles, David judged that his own ideas and zeal would please God and pushed ahead with something that broke the law. This shows a dangerous moment in which, instead of the way God had appointed, human pride and an idolatrous heart come to light.

The sermon points out why we must be even more careful once we have come out of hardship into comfort. It is because in comfort human desires grow, we take God's answers for granted, and we put our own devotion ahead of God. In particular, it warns how faith becomes corrupted, as David, when he met God's anger through Uzzah's death, instead became angry with God and tried to send the ark far away. This stresses that a work begun with a wrong plan and heart ends in catastrophe, and shows that true loyalty is following God's word and ordinances rather than human zeal itself.

Through the contrast of Obed-Edom, who, unlike Uzzah, kept God's ark in his house and was blessed, it reveals how a faith that obeys God's will leads to blessing. Just as David found peace only when he repented and moved the ark according to the ordinances for the Levites, it suggests that our faith, too, must lay aside human righteousness and go forward in God's way. How should we discern whether our thoughts and zeal right now are for God or for ourselves?