I Will Be Careful Not To Despise What Is Sacred

From: October 2 – 8, 2007 Study #512

TOPIC: “I Will Be Careful Not To Despise What Is Sacred” 1 Samuel 6:5, 1 Samuel 7:2 When Jehovah calls us let us not forget to sanctify ourselves. It seems sometimes that we see this life as if it was a game. We must live in sanctity in order to do everything we want to do. If we have not reached other things it is because we have not sanctified ourselves. Sanctity is not the same as salvation. Salvation is obtained the moment we surrender to Jesus, but our sanctification must take place each day of our lives. If God chose us it is to begin that process of sanctification. Sometimes we can become eager, but what should really worry us is to separate ourselves for God. When we ignore what we are supposed to do, we live with many bad habits. Sanctify means to separate so that all that is inside us may enter a process of discipline. This does not occur overnight but according to how we let God work in us. Those who do not live in sanctity do not belong in church. We have to understand that we have been separated for God in order to get closer to Him, to be used by Him and be more effective when we preach to others. Sanctity takes us to do what we need to do. When we come before God we will show if we are or we aren’t. The closer we come to God the more sanctified we should be. When we begin to develop our spirit to live in sanctity, we will mark our day. Our heart is very treacherous and wants to keep us from loving sanctity and begins to direct our lives, but we should consider it only to send blood to our body. We must be careful. The closer we come to God the more sanctified we become for what we have been called in this life, to love God’s direction and be meek. A sanctified man dies to all gossip. The meeker we are the more God will sanctify in us and will be able to use us as He pleases. Without sanctity nobody will see the Lord. Hebrews 12: 14 When God takes us He prepares us, and He will lead us toward sacred things. The Philistines stole the Ark from the Israelis. They decide to possess it, but things didn’t go well for them because to have sacred things without living in sanctity will not do any good to anyone. Having it caused them to have tumors, great problems and judgments, but they knew where all this was coming from so they returned the Ark. 1 Samuel 6: 5 We must be very careful when we have not remained in sanctity because rats and tumors arrive. They ignored who they were confronting. Because they feared God’s judgment they tried to do what they thought was best. Each one of them did according to what was in their mind. They were mixed with sacred things. If we want to be administrators of sacred things without sanctify we can become ill and this is very dangerous. They recognized this and they gave honor to the Ark. Sometimes we provoke the bad things that happen to us, whether they are judgments from God or merely accidents. Jehovah works strongly with our lives and if we are real we will be able to resist it, but if not, we will not. The Philistines were testing to see who this God was. They prepared some cows and a cart and they put the sacred Ark in it. Vs. 7-9 A cow could never direct a cart and nobody was

going to guide it because the Philistines hid to see what would happen. Without sanctity we cannot deal with sacred things. They thought that the cows were going to follow their breeding, but God directed them to go against their inclination or natural instinct. The body of Christ should be sacred. We cannot be directed by our instincts. God was willing to do a miracle to guide those cows to where they had to go. The cows arrived at Joshua's field in Beth-Shemesh, guided by God. 1 Samuel 6: 14 Those cows could not speak or give an opinion, but our problem is that we can because we are always giving opinions. Instead we should say: "Jehovah, lead me to the sacred things”, and be willing to sacrifice ourselves and wear out. The cows with their unknown yoke did not know they were going to Judah, and this is the way God works with us because only He knows His territories and He will take us there. God is interested in Israel. When God sends a person as a missionary, this person leaves everything to do God’s will. The true believers are prepared for the service and for the sacrifice. The men from Beth-Shemesh were very happy to see the Ark and this is the way we feel when God calls us, but we must be good administrators. Sometimes we like to have sacred things for our own exhibition without sacrificing our lives. We are the firewood and the cows to be sacrificed. It is not easy what God has called us for and for this reason God asks us to sanctify ourselves. We are good firewood for the sacrifice. Those of Beth-Shemesh did not treat the Ark as something sacred and here is why the men on earth doubt. They looked inside the Ark and that was forbidden. The sacred things are never exposed for everybody. They never considered the importance of the Ark. It was the sacred place chosen by God. When we mix with the sacred we have to consider its importance, because if we don’t it can bring death. We need to understand the responsibility of having all that is sacred. We will lose it if we don’t give it the necessary honor and respect. We must not desire what is sacred for the rejoicing of our soul but rather it is necessary to prepare ourselves in sanctity to understand the responsibility that this bears, to keep silent, to arrive where we have to arrive, and to be the sacrificed firewood and cows. Vs. 6: 14 We must seek sanctity because we need to be sacrificed. We should spare our lives to carry what is holy in us in the same way those cows took and carried the ark in obedience through the path that God prepared. Sometimes we loosen our loin and we think that we will have the same reward and we are wrong. To carry what is sacred we need to live in sacrifice, have losses and have God’s direction so that no one will deceive us. The sin of humanity and of those people was caused due to the ambition and the ignorance of what is prohibited by God. We do not need to know everything because in God there are many mysteries that are only to be known by Him. Deuteronomy 29: 29 To look inside the Ark constituted a great sin for those people because they despised what was sacred. Looking inside of the Ark proceeded from an underrated opinion on their behalf. We despise what is sacred when we do not live in sanctity. Eleazar was sanctified to work with what was sacred. What is sacred is not to be seen with impure eyes. What occurred with all those deaths was God’s justice for not taking the sacred things properly. Death was not in the Ark but in despising the sacred things. We must be diligent in working with all that is sacred, to put the Ark in a decent position and to accommodate it with all the respect and reverence. Respect and reverence must be given to all that is sacred. To profane what is sacred is a great danger. Let us be sacred and love the sacred things worthily. Amen.