Keion Henderson - Trust Issues

I want to talk about this subject: trust issues. Shortly after being promoted from just King of Judah to King over all of Israel, David acquires what the scripture refers to as the Ark of God, which is synonymous with the Ark of the Covenant. The original appointment of David, according to psychological history, is often misunderstood. We think that when David became the King of Israel, it meant that God gave him all of Israel at once. To the contrary, there are layers to David’s leadership. If you remember, David was anointed king and then sent back to the field to serve Saul, who was no longer the king but was still sitting on the throne. The Bible says that when Saul became arrogant, the anointing of God—the oil—was removed from him, and Samuel was commissioned to find yet another king, which he did by anointing David. David was sent back out to work, while Saul remained on the throne. Shortly after, we see the fall of Saul’s monarchy and the rise of David’s. We see David not as the first king of Israel, but first as the King of Judah. He ruled there for about seven years before gaining the reign to rule all of Israel for the next 33 years. David reigned for a total of 40 years. We discussed this in our tactical texts on Tuesday, how everything is interconnected and points back to Christ. It is amazing that David, who is a shadow of Jesus, was King of Judah, just as Jesus was the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Isn’t it fascinating that if David reigned for 40 years, and Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days, seven subtracted from 40 is 33? This means that David was King over all Israel for 33 years, while Jesus was 33 years old when he died. Everything about this scripture we read points prophetically to the centerpiece of the table: His name is Jesus Christ. David acquires the Ark, and why is this significant? After all, the Ark is nothing more than a piece of furniture—or is it? The Ark was not just a piece of furniture; it was the most important item in the entirety of the Tabernacle of Moses. Yes, there is a table of showbread, yes, there is the golden lampstand, and yes, there is the brazen altar. Yes, there are curtains that surround and separate the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, but there is no piece of furniture—not even the laver—that compares to the Ark of God. The Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of God inside the tent that the Israelites set up in the wilderness as a place where they could worship and dwell with Him. I think it’s also important that we understand the makeup of the Ark of the Covenant. The depiction shows what is called the Mercy Seat. It doesn’t show in this picture, but blood would be sprinkled on the Mercy Seat. Two gold cherubims would face each other, their wings covering the Mercy Seat. Inside the Ark of the Covenant, there are three things we must understand. The first is the two tablets constructed by Moses, which embody the Law, or the Ten Commandments. Don’t forget this is the second set because Moses broke the first set in frustration. Inside the Ark of the Covenant, there is also a jar of manna that did not spoil. Manna was the bread that fell from heaven to feed the Israelites when they lacked sustenance. God provided manna or bread as a daily resource. This is why, if you were raised in the old church, the songwriter said, «Bread of heaven, feed me until I want no more.» The jar of manna inside the Ark did not spoil. Why is this significant? Because the Bible says, even in the Lord’s Prayer, «Give us this day our daily bread.» In the wilderness, God did not allow the bread to last more than a day; it spoiled the day it fell, requiring the Israelites to consume it daily. However, here in the Ark of the Covenant, you have bread that is more than a day old but hasn’t spoiled. There was a third item in the Covenant: Aaron’s rod that budded. It was a rod, a stem, a branch where a flower would typically bloom. But Aaron’s rod did bud, and notably, it did so after being disconnected from the tree. Most branches must remain connected to the bark, which is connected to the roots, and those roots must draw nutrients from the ground through osmosis and rain to bear buds in their season. But this rod budded after being disconnected.