The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and stopped there. A great stone was there. And they split up the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD.
Here is a man (Joshua of Beth-shemesh) of God who knows what He is doing when it comes to Godly Worship! Or, does he and/or his fellow citizens of Beth-shemesh):
And he struck some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked upon the ark of the LORD. He struck seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the LORD had struck the people with a great blow.
The above story takes place after the Ark of the Covenant was taken captive by the Philistines. God cursed them and their gods until they gave the Ark back to the nation of Israel. To return the Ark they simply put it on a cart and the had it pulled by two cows. The cows bring the cart right into the town of Beth-shemesh and to the property of a man named Joshua. At first, he and the townspeople have great and awesome respect for the Ark. They worship God in holy reverence. But, at some point something happens (we don’t know how much time takes place between verse 15 and verse 19). They suddenly become very casual with their worship and God strikes some of them dead. Casual worship has no place for what God has done for us. The church in Revelation called Laodacia had a worship like this and note what Christ told John, the writer of the book:
“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
God does not accept worship that is less than holy before Him. We can’t get causal about the things of God.
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