1st Chronicles chapter 13 and the verse number one. Let's hear God's word. And David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds and with every leader. And David said unto all the congregation of Israel, if it seemed good unto you that it be of the Lord our God, let us send abroad unto our brethren everywhere that are left in all the land of Israel, and with them also to the priests and the Levites, which are in their cities and suburbs, that they may gather themselves unto us. And let us bring again the ark of the Lord our God to us, for we inquired not at it in the days of Saul. And all the congregation said that they would do so, for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people. And David gathered all Israel together from Shinhor of Egypt, even onto the entering of Hemath, to bring the ark of God from Kirjath-Jerim. And David went up on all Israel to Bilhi, that is, to Kirjath-Jerim, which belongeth to Judah, to bring up thence the ark of God, the Lord, that dwelleth between the cherubim, whose name is called on it. And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab, And Uzzah and Ahio drove the cart. David and all Israel played before God with all their might, and with singing, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbres, and with cymbals, and with trumpets. When they came on to the threshing floor of Chidon, Uzzah put forth his hand to hold the ark, for the oxen stumbled. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, And he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark, and there he died before God. And David was displeased, because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah. Therefore the place is called Berze, Uzzah until this day. And David was afraid of God that day, saying, How shall I bring the ark of God home to me? So David brought not the ark home to himself, to the city of David, but carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom, the Geddite. And the ark of God remained with the family of Obed-Edom in his house three months. And the Lord blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that he had. Amen. We conclude at the natural break at the end of the chapter 13. Let's briefly pray and let's pray together. If you haven't prayed already today, will you pray that God will speak to your heart? If you have prayed, pray again. God's hand will be upon the preaching of the word. Let's seek the Lord. Loving Father, we rejoice today that we're gathered as a congregation around thy word. We're here to hear. the Lord would have to say, and we pray that we might be ready, ready to hear what the Lord would say into our souls. We pray, O God, that our homes will be like the homes that we sang about, even, Lord, in that second hymn. We pray that we might know thy sweet presence among us even now as we gather around the Word. We pray for the emptying of sin and self, Lord, the infilling now of the Spirit of God without measure, Lord, grant your father a portion. Lord, a portion for this preacher. Lord, anoint my head with oil. May the cup overrun. And may, O God, every heart be ready and receptive to that which the Lord would have to say. Lord, help me, I cry to thee. Minister in and through me and by me. And may God himself be glorified. And may every other name be forgotten. We now pray all these, our petitions and prayers, in and through Jesus' mighty and precious name. Amen. Jesus Christ is undoubtedly the preeminent personality that we meet in the Word of God. The eternal Son of God is the sum, and He is the substance of the Scriptures, prophesied, typified, prefigured, exhibited and demonstrated in the books of the Old and the New Testaments. Just as the spokes of a bicycle wheel converge and meet in a central hub, so the Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testaments, come to find a focal point, a central hub in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, Jesus Christ is predicted. In the Gospels, He is revealed. In the Acts of the Apostles, He is preached. In the Epistles, He is explained. And in the book of the Revelation, He is expected. This year, we have been focusing our thoughts on the Son of God and the various titles that have been attributed and credited to Him by the inspired writers. But having set aside and put on hold that series of messages for the summer months, I felt the Lord's leading over the last little period of time to look at some of the lesser known Bible characters that we meet in the scriptures of truth. Many times when we come to think about a Bible character or a Bible character study, we think about people like Moses or Joshua or David or the Apostle Paul, John the Baptist. We took a Bible series with regard to him. What about the lesser known individuals that we meet in Holy Scripture? They're not here to embellish the pages of Scripture, as it were, to fill out the pages in order to make the Bible just that little bit longer and that little bit larger. But rather, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. And all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, mature, and furnished on to all good works. In this service I want to speak about a man that maybe you haven't really heard of before, maybe you have. We find him here at the end of 1st Chronicles chapter 13. His name is Obed-Edom. Obed-Edom. Before we come to think about this man in any kind of detail, a reminder of the context in which we find him I believe will be helpful. The Ark of the Covenant, that physical representation of God's presence, was taken from its resting place in Shiloh and was brought to the field of battle on the suggestion of the elders in 1 Samuel chapter 4. Those elders, they hoped that its presence, the presence of the Ark of the Covenant, would act like some kind of lucky charm and would save them from the hand of their enemies, the Philistines. However, disaster struck. When the Philistines triumphed over the children of Israel on the battlefield, on that occasion they killed 30,000 of Israel's finest of footmen, their foot soldiers, and they captured the Ark of the Covenant. For seven long months, the Ark of the Covenant left now the land of Israel and found itself in, as it were, enemy territory. But everywhere that the Ark went, the citizens of that locality were either struck down with a bad bout of hemorrhoids or with a deadly destruction. And so the decision is taken by the Philistines to return the Ark of the Covenant back to its rightful place. It first arrives at Beth Shemesh, and then it is moved to Kirjath-Jerom, where it remains in the home of Abinadab for the next 20 years. Saul, he comes and goes from the throne of Israel, and now David is anointed to be king over all Israel, this united kingdom. And as a result, having established himself as king, David realizes that the Ark of the Covenant is still in Kirjath-Jerim, and thus he decides that he wants to move it back to the capital city of the United Kingdom of Israel, to the city of Jerusalem, to the city of David. Now God had given very clear instructions as to how the Ark was to be moved. Those instructions you'll read in Numbers chapter 4. God is very clear as to how God's presence is to be dealt with and how the ark of God is to be transported. But David decides that he's going to do it another way. He's going to do it his way. It's a credible way, no doubt. Maybe a way that he thought to himself, maybe a better way than what had been done in previous generations. But it wasn't God's way. David decides to construct a cart and to put the ark on the cart and then for that cart to make its way eventually to the city of Jerusalem. It is a reminder to us all that God's work must be done God's way. No matter how credible we might think another way to be, we must do it God's way. It might be outdated, it might be old-fashioned. It's maybe not what the modern church would do, but it's God's way, and God's work must always be done God's way. Whether we think another way would be more credible, more appealing to, as it were, the population at large, God's work done God's way will never, ever have or will always have God's blessing. Well, the oxen in the cart carrying the Ark of the Covenant don't get far down the road before the Ark is rocked in such a way that Uzzah, one of the men who's responsible for the moving of the Ark of the Covenant, feels that he needs to put out his hand and to steady the Ark of the Covenant. The oxen stumble must have been a little bit like our roads, full of potholes, and as a result, the Ark stumbles. because of the oxen and therefore Uzzah puts out his hand and he touches the ark. In 1st Chronicles 13 verse 10 we read what happens to this man Uzzah for we read there that the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah and he smote him because he put his hand to the ark and there he died before God. You can imagine the fear, you can imagine the terror that must have swept through that processional party on that particular day. David himself feared so much so that in verse 13 it informs us that he would not bring, as a result of this, he would not bring to himself, the ark to himself into the city of David, but he carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. Verse 12, and David was afraid of God that day. No bad thing to have a healthy fear of God. And so David fears what he sees. God the Holy Spirit then gives a commentary as to how it fared for Obed-Edom and his family to have the Ark of the Covenant in the family home. Notice that commentary in the verse 14. And the Ark of God remained with the family of Obed-Edom in his house three months, and the Lord blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that he had. You can imagine the day that the knock came to the door. The door was opened by Obed-Edom. The ark of God was carried into the family home. You can imagine that that ark of the covenant, it wouldn't have been placed into some dingy corner, but it would have been given its proper and its rightful place in the very center of the home. It wasn't an object that is where you could have missed when you walked in through the door. With the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant given to us in Exodus 25 in the verse 10, the Ark of the Covenant was two cubits and a half in length, a cubit and a half in breadth, and a cubit and a half in length. Now a cubit is this measurement from top finger to elbow, 43 centimeters approximately. That's what a cubit is. And so we have the measurements in our own modern equivalence, something like a meter, 10 centimeters, 65 centimeters by 65 centimeters. And you'll know that the cherubim, they overshadowed that particular box, so it was even higher in size. It would have been covered over. It was how it was to be carried, but nevertheless, it would have been a structure that would have been known in the home. It became, as it were, a prominent feature in the home of Obed-Edom, not only in terms of its size, but, brethren and sisters, more importantly, with regard to the spiritual blessings that flowed as a result of the Ark of the Covenant being in the home of Obed-Edom. The Holy Spirit is very careful to note that God's blessing accompanied the presence of the Ark of the Covenant. He does it here in verse 14, and the Lord blessed the house of Obed-Edom. But he also does this in 2 Samuel 6. In 2 Samuel 6, if you want to turn there, I trust that you do, you want to see it for yourself on the pages of Holy Scripture. In 2 Samuel 6, and the verse 12. It says, And it was told King David, saying, The Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-Edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom unto the city of David with gladness. Notice that the blessing of God came upon the home of Obed-Edom because of the ark of God. Remember what the ark is. It is a representation of God's presence. God's presence. God's presence secured, brought God's blessing. There's a lesson to learn, brethren and sisters. God's blessing accompanies God's presence. In the book of Proverbs, we read in chapter 12 and the verse 22, And this is what we need in our homes. And this is what we need in our churches. We need God's blessing. And that comes about when we know God's presence. And that comes about whenever we seek for it. When we seek God's presence, then, thank God, his blessing then follows on. To all today who have been entrusted with headship within your home, whether you're a single man living by yourself, whether you're a husband, whether you're a father, it is our responsibility to secure and it is our responsibility to maintain the presence of God in our homes. We ask ourselves, well, how do we do that? We're not going to go and purchase the Ark of the Covenant. We don't know where it is. Whether it has been destroyed or whether it's been preserved, I'll leave that for YouTube to decide. You'll find plenty of ideas out there with regard to that. How do we secure the presence of God in our homes? It's very simple. We make Jesus Christ the center of our homes. We make Jesus Christ the center of your homes. You see, the Ark of the Covenant As with every other piece of tabernacle furniture was a picture, a type, a shadow of the Lord Jesus Christ. This chest made of chitimud, overlaid with pure gold. It represented and typified the union of Christ divine and his human nature. Yes, he was truly man, but he was truly God. Truly God and truly man. And there it is typified, foreshadowed, seen in the very structure, the composition of the Ark of the Covenant. But also think about the contents that were in the Ark. For they also point to Jesus Christ. golden pot of manna. Jesus Christ is the true and living bread that came down from heaven. He is the manna. He is the one who has come down from heaven to earth. He is the one who satisfies and meets the needs of his people. He said, I am the living bread. I am the living bread. And as a result, he is the prophet, because man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And so we find in this home, there is a centrality, there is a giving of Christ's rightful place in the home of Obed-Edom. Christ is the prophet of this home, by his counsel. We lead the home. We guide the home. The home is directed by the prophet, by his word, and by the prophetic word that he has given to us. Christ has given his rightful place as prophet. We think of Aaron's rod that budded. Well, who was Aaron? Aaron was the priest, the high priest in the tribe of Levi. Jesus Christ is our great high priest. He is the one who from death came forth, from death on to life. He is the one who from that grave of death burst forth in Christ, came out as a resurrection in the life, just as the fruit and just as the life sprung forth from Aaron's dead rod. So Jesus Christ, He is the resurrection and the life. He is our priest. And as our priest, He becomes a central figure in our home. We look to Calvary as a family. We gather around His Word. We sing of Christ. We read of Christ. We think about His great sacrifice in the home, in the family. Christ is given His rightful place as the priest. And also, the tables of the law. The tables of the law point us to a lawgiver. Who is the lawgiver? It is the King. The king is the lawgiver, and Christ is the head of the church, and the king of the church, and he is to be king in the home. And so we find now this Ark of the Covenant, can you not picture it in your mind's eye? For three months it's sitting there in the home, and every day they think about Christ as he's pictured there. They think of him, they dwell in him, they meditate upon him. And as they do so, the blessing of God accompanies that. You want the blessing of God in your home, Father? You want the blessing of God in your home, husband? Young person, you're going to go out and you're going to marry? You're going to set up a home? Do you want God's blessing? Have Christ at the heart of your home. Have Him at the very center. May He be given the preeminent place, the proper place, the rightful place in your home. You seek God's blessing in your life, your home, your family. Then you need to first of all seek to welcome him in, just like Obed-Edom did. Remember the knock came to the door and Obed-Edom, he opened the door and he welcomed in the Ark of the Covenant. He welcomed in the very presence of God into his home. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice, open the door, I will come into him and sup with him and he with me." I wonder, do you know God's presence in your life? Have you ever welcomed Lord Jesus Christ into your life, into your heart? Have you, as it were, and I use these terms and maybe people don't like it, but have you opened, as it were, swung open the heart's door to the Lord Jesus Christ? Has He entered in? Has His presence filled your soul? Has the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ come and dwelt now within you? Oh, have Christ, yes, first of all, seek to welcome him in, but having done him, give him his rightful place in the home. Do not be putting him to the periphery. Do not, as it were, bring him out on the Lord's day and then put him away into the corner again. Can you imagine Obed-Edom? Can you imagine him doing that? Here's a man, Out of all of the homes that were in that particular locality that day. You can imagine how jealous others would have felt. Obed-Edom. He's got God's presence now in his home. And it's making all the difference. It's making all the difference in the life of Obed-Edom. Now Josephus has his ideas of what it means to have the blessing of the Lord and what that meant. Some believe that it suggests that Obed-Edom, though a poor man before this time, he became wealthy. There's no evidence of that. Some suggest that maybe there was someone in the family, they were unwell, but as a result of God's presence, they were made better. There's no evidence of that. I believe that it wasn't material blessing. I believe that there could have been that. But there was a spiritual blessing. And that's what we need, brethren and sisters, in our homes. God's blessing, God's presence. Put him first. Young man, you're going to marry someday. Some of you are about to do that. Some of you have done that. What do you want for your home? Do you want a nice kitchen? Nice furniture? Well decorated? Is that what you want for your home? You should desire His presence, the Lord's presence. Put Him first. When it comes to the choices and the decisions that you make as a single person or as a married couple or as a family unit, put Him first. You know, with Christ now at the heart of Obed-Edom's family, this family came to know the blessing of the Lord. We're told that, and the Lord blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all, all that he had, That's what every minister wants for his people. He wants them to know God's blessing in their home. He wants each of his congregation to know God's blessing in their personal lives and in the life of the family. I wonder, are you knowing that today? Is God blessing your home, your family, your life? Or does it appear that He no longer is, that you're no longer knowing His presence and blessing in your home. If that is the case, then return to God. He will have mercy. He will restore. He'll bless you as He once did before. It's very interesting to notice that until this moment in 1 Chronicles chapter 13, we never read of this man Obed-Edom. And then it appears that he just comes and he pops up everywhere. I'm going to look at that. Something happens here. Something happens to this man. And he's never the same again. He's never the same again. You see, we read about this man on other occasions, and so I want us to look at that and trace that through the Scriptures, and then I want to bring a very simple, single truth to your heart this afternoon. So you'll not have to go away and think, well, what was point number two, or what was point number three, or point number 10. You'll just have to remember one, one single truth, one principle. That's all you'll have to remember today. The next time we meet Obed-Edom, we find him in chapter 15 in the verse 18. So turn there, please. Chapter 15 in the verse 18. In this chapter, it sets before us the national events that marked the removal of the Ark of the Covenant from the home of Obed-Edom to the place that King David had prepared for it in Jerusalem. So it's been in the home of Obed-Edom now for three months, But after that period has elapsed, David now believes that it's time to now take the ark to where it ought to be in the city of Jerusalem. Now as you can expect, the Levites would have now played a prominent role. David had learned his lesson. Not a good thing as a Christian, that whenever we do something wrong that we don't quit. We simply learn the lesson and we then go on with God and we do it God's way. Having tried it our own way, we then do it God's way. God doesn't set David aside because he had decided to do things his own way. That's what the devil would make you think as a Christian. You feel the Lord made a mess of things. And the devil would say to you, well, that's you. one strike and you're out. Well, that's not the same with God. David, he acknowledges that he has done wrong, and he therefore does the thing as it ought to have been done. We read there, verse two, then, David said, none ought to carry the ark of God, but that the Levites, for they had the Lord, hath the Lord chosen to carry the ark of God and to minister before him forever. And so David's now doing it God's way. But in the verse number 18, yes, the Levites, they take, and the priests, they take their lead in this most momentous occasion. But there are others who get involved. Look at the verse 18, as I've said, or verse 17. So the Levites, verse 16, let me give it the context, sorry. David spake unto the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be singers with the instruments of music, psalteries, and harps, and cymbals sounding. by lifting up the voice with joy. So the Levites appointed Heman, the son of Joel, and with his brethren Asaph, the son of Barakah, and the sons of Moriah, and their brethren Ethan, the son of Cushiah, and with them their brethren of the second degree. And there's a list of names, and I'm not going to read them because I'm going to get them wrong. But look there at the end of verse 18. And Obed-ed-im and Jael, the porters. Among the list of men mentioned as porters is this man, Obed-Edom. Now, what is a porter? Well, a porter in Bible times was the equivalent to a modern-day janitor. We would call them caretaker. In actual fact, that's how Strong translates the word porter in his Bible Hebrew dictionary. He translates it a janitor, a caretaker. Now we all know what caretakers do. A caretaker cleans up after everyone else. A caretaker takes care of everyone else's mess. That's the job that Obed-Edom came to give himself to after the ark left his home. He became a porter. It's very interesting. I want to be careful in what I just am about to say, Caretaking is not the most glamorous of jobs. It's certainly not one that you get thanked for very often. It's not something that is out there, out front. It's really something that is done behind the scenes. We all expect the church to be cleaned, and it is. As we meet every Lord's Day and on the Wednesday night, it just doesn't happen. The dirt doesn't just seem to go into the bin by itself, someone has to clean up the mess afterwards. It's not really one that would be something that you would write on a CV, it's not a job that's up front and centre, but it's a job and it's a most important job nevertheless. Remember way back at school, that's some time ago now, you mightn't think that, you should all be shocked, that's some time ago. No vast intake of air there, but it was some time ago. been in a discussion in one of our classes. What was the most important job in a business? Some people, they suggested that it was the CEO of the company, the one who gives really the lead. That was the most important job. Others suggested, well, it was the line manager. Someone suggested the head of recruitment. Some suggested the receptionist. But that's not the most important person in a business. Do you know what the most important person is in a business? The cleaner. The cleaner. You just imagine your workplace if nobody cleaned up after them. The line would stop. The business would shut down. You imagine that the waste paper baskets were never cleared out and all the rubbish was just meant to grow and grow and grow. You imagine if the office spaces were never tidied, if the factory floors were left unswept, if the toilets were never cleaned, the entire business would come to a grinding halt. Obedied him. The Ark of the Covenant now gone, he volunteered to be a porter. He volunteered to be the caretaker. Wasn't glamorous in any way, but he gave himself happily to it. But that's not the end of Obed-Edom's story. Because if you go on and read in verse number 21, but let's read from the verse number 19, we'll meet our man again. 1 Chronicles chapter 15, let's read from the verse number 19. So the singers, Hemath, Asaph, and Ethan were appointed to sound with cymbals and brass. And Zechariah, and Aziel, and Shemaroth, and Jael, and Hunai, and Eliab, and Maseah, and Benaiah were with psalteries on Ammonoth, Amathaniah, and Eliphiah, and all these names, and Micaniah, and Obed-Edom, and Jael, and Asaiah, with harps on this shemineth, to excel. This time, Obed-Edom is found in the string section of the orchestra that formed in order to aid the worship of God as the Ark of the Covenant moved from his home to the appointed place that David had prepared for it. The word shimoneth means an eight-stringed lyre. A lyre was a hand-held harp. And so you can imagine Obed-Edom. He sets down the dustpan. He sets down the duster. He sets down the brush or the broom. Whatever was the equivalent of the day. And he goes and he now takes up his place in the orchestra in order to aid in the worship of God. I find that most interesting. But that's not the end of Obed-Edom. Because if you go on down to the verse number 24 of the same chapter, we read these words. And Shivanath, and Jehoshaphat, and Nethiel, and Ammonasiah, and Zechariah, and Benaiah, and Eleazar the priest did blow with the trumpets before the ark of God. And here he is again. And Obed-ed-im and Jehiah were doorkeepers for the ark. A doorkeeper was a person who guarded the entrance of the public buildings, the temples, the city walls. Today's equivalent, we would say he was a security guard or maybe a little crosser. He was like a bouncer. What he was told to do, his job, his responsibility, was to keep out those who were not permitted to go in to the Ark of the Covenant. You see, the priest could only do that, and then only the high priest, once every year, with the blood of the atonement, could enter into the holiest of all. And so, Obed-Edom, the Ark of the Covenant, is now gone from his family home. But it is as if Obed-Edom says, though I cannot have God's presence in my home, if I can get just as close as I can, if I can be a doorkeeper, if I can get as close to that ark, then I will know the blessing of God in my family and in my home and in my life. You see, folks, for Obed-Edom to be a doorkeeper, it meant that his service, it continued after the celebration. You see, all the people were excited that day. Everyone was stirred up. Everyone was revived. Everyone was glad that the Ark of the Covenant, great celebrations took place. But everybody went home. Everybody went to their own place. But Obed-Edom had a part to play as he stood at the door of the temple or of the tabernacle. The lesson's very simple. The man who we're thinking about, he continued to be in his place when all the excitement died down. And I find that most interesting. People at times, Christians at times, they get stirred up in the work of God, and that's good. But whenever the normal ministries are taking place, they're rarely seen. But not Obed-Edom. Everybody was gone, all eyes were off him now. Yes, whenever he played in the orchestra, people would have seen him, no doubt about that. Maybe as he tidied up around, individuals would have witnessed Obed-Edom do that, but very few, very few would have seen him as the doorkeeper, but he was in his place. But that's not the end of Obed-Edom. Because if you turn over to the next chapter, to the chapter 16, in the verse number five, we'll read the verse number four. We read this man's name again. And he appointed certain of the Levites to minister, this is David, before the ark of the Lord, and to record, and to give, and to thank, and to praise the Lord God of Israel, Asaph the chief, and next to him Zechariah, Jael, Shemaroth, Jethiel, Mathaniah, Eliab, Benaiah, and Obed-Edom. and J-U-L with psalteries and with harps, but Asaph made a sound with cymbals. David appoints men to rehearse and to declare unto the people the wonderful works that God had done for Israel, to give thanks to God for them, to exalt God's goodness and his glorious perfections before the people. And one of the people that David, the king, appoints to the task is this man who buried him. He's everywhere. He's the porter. He's the player of the instruments. He's a doorkeeper. And now he's standing, praising God. He's in the choir. He's everywhere. As we trace this man's life and his career, the question that comes to my mind is that what made Obed eat him? What made him take up these different roles in the work of God and give himself to them? The lesson is very simple, brethren and sisters. The reason why Obed-Edom did that was because there was one time in his life that he had been in the presence of God. We don't read about him in the lead up to 1 Chronicles chapter number 15. We don't read about him, but something changes. And it's very simple, it was that he had been in God's presence. You see, being in God's presence, even if it's only for a short period of time, results in this man never being the same again. And that's what happens to men and women. That's what happens to young people. That's what happens to children. When they meet God, first in salvation and then as they fellowship with Him in prayer and in His Word, things are never, never the same again. They come to love the Lord, and they love everything about Him. They love His Word. They love His house. They love His people. They love His service. They love His commandments. They come to live a life where Christ is given first place, and everything and everyone else comes a distant second. Oh, that we would be like Obed-Edom, that we would desire to abide and live continually in God's presence, and then whatever he asks of us, that we'll be willing to do. We're told that the Lord blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that he had. The word house, it refers to more than the physical structure. It refers to the family and to the household staff. What we come to find is the blessing that accompanies the presence of God within the family, whom it impacted all others who lived under its roof, not just Obed-Edom. We find that principle played out in the life of Joseph. Do you remember whenever Joseph comes into the house of Potiphar, It says that the Lord blessed the house of Potiphar for Joseph's sake. Parents, this is what we ought to desire for our homes, God's blessing upon them. That God will bless our children, our sons and our daughters with the greatest of all blessings, the blessing of his salvation. And so we must make sure that we secure and maintain the presence of God in our homes by avoiding all that which would grieve him and all that would quench his spirit. Yes, it's nice to have nice furniture, well-decorated homes, the latest fixtures, the latest mod cons in our family and in our homes. But folks, the greatest thing that you should have in your home and the greatest thing that you should desire is God's presence. Does God's presence fill your home? Does God's presence fill my home? You see, it not only impacted Obed-Edom, but this ark in Obed-Edom's home, it impacted the entire family. It impacted the entire family. We'll turn to one final reference. We're still in 1 Chronicles, but let's go to near the end of the book. Let's turn to 1 Chronicles 26. It's a chapter that begins with these words, concerning the division of the porters. Now, we've met that before. The porters, the caretakers, these individuals who cared and cleaned up the mess whenever everyone else was gone. And whenever you look at that there, you'll find that a list of names follows. And as it does so, we come to read of the sons of Obed-Edom. Look, it says there, moreover, the sons of Obed-Edom were Shemath the firstborn, Jehozabod the second, Jehoah the third, Sychar the fourth, Nathaniel the fifth, Ammiel the sixth, Sychar the seventh, Pithiah the eighth. For God blessed him. Now the meaning of these names is very interesting. I'll give them to you. The first, his name, Shememath, means heard by Jehovah. The second, Jehozabath, means Jehovah has endowed. Jehoiah means Jehovah is brother. Sakar means recompenses or wages. Nathaniel means given of God. Amuel means my kinsman is God. Issachar means he will bring a reward. Peththaliah means laborious or work. Almost every name refers back to Obed-Edom's God. Now as to when these sons were born into the family home, we're not told. But some of them might well have been born after the ark had left for Jerusalem. Such was the impact of having God's presence in his home that Obed-Edom, every time his wife gave birth to a son, he named his son a name or gave his son a name that incorporated the name of the God whose near presence he had lived. But there's something else to note from this list. I've already shown you that Obed-Edom was a porter. He was a porter after the Ark of the Covenant moved to his family home. But did you notice what all of his sons, all eight of them did? They did what daddy did. They did what their father did. They saw the blessing that came from serving God as they watched their father. and their children, his children, all of them, walked in Daddy's footsteps. Father, Mother, if your children were to follow in your footsteps, where would those footsteps lead them? We influence those around us. Our children look on, they watch us. Are we leading them to God, to service? Here were boys, and they looked at their father and they said, I want to be like Dad. I want to be like my father. Because my father and our home had the presence of God in it for three months. And since that was the case, our home has never been the same again. Obed-Edom had the presence of God in his home, and it made a lasting impact on his own personal life and in the life of his family. Brethren and sisters, we can know the presence of God every day in our homes. because He lives in us. And He calls us to know more of His presence as we seek Him and follow after Him. We're not needing the Ark of the Covenant to come. God lives in us by His Spirit. But He must be given His preeminent place, His proper place, not pushed out to the sidelines, not brought out just in the Lord's day, but every day we live in the immediate presence, in the presence of our God. Christ is the head of our home, the unseen guest, the silent listener to every conversation. Obed-Edom was never the same again. This is what we need in our churches. God's presence. For I believe, young man, young woman, out of Christ, if only you would be in God's presence just once, I believe that you would never be the same again. Here's a man. He couldn't go in. to the holy place. He couldn't go in. But he said, if I can get as near to God as I can, that'll be enough for me. Is that your desire? To get as near to God as you as a human being can get. Well then, avail yourself of all opportunities to hear of him. avail yourself of opportunities to serve him, if you can. Be faithful to him, serve him, love him, worship him. And the Lord blessed the home of Obed-Edom. What a man he was. He just was willing to have God's presence in his life. May we be willing to have God's presence in our homes and in our personal lives. We can know that. May we know more and more of it as the days go by. Let's seek the Lord together in a word of prayer. It's a very simple message today, very simple, very simple. But this is what we need in our homes, in the church. We need the Lord's presence. And God comes where he sought for. May God help us to seek him in these days. If you're not a Christian and you know not the Savior, and maybe you felt the Lord speaking to your heart, God's presence in this place today, don't leave this place without trusting Christ. If I can help you, I'm here. May God enable you to trust in him just now. Loving Father and gracious God, we come now into thy presence, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst. I think of this man over at Edom. It all changed. In this man's career, in this man's life, it all changed when he lived in the near presence of God. Oh, help us to draw nigh to God. Help us to live in his presence day by day and moment by moment. May we experience his blessing on our families, our homes, our marriages. May nothing grieve him. May nothing grieve him. Help us, we cry to thee. Touch lies, we cry. May we sense thy presence among us. Even as the word is preached, may God dwell and be with his people as he has promised to do. We offer prayer in and through the Savior's precious and worthy name.