David Danced Before the Lord: True Worship, Pt. 2

True Worship & The Spirit of Mockery:
David Dancing before the Lord.

The spirit of mockery always trys to pass
off the fake, inauthentic, and even satanic
for the genuine. Its does so by casting
a shadow of doubt on the authentic.

In 2 Samuel 6:14-23 we have the well-known
story of David dancing before the ark of the
Lord. David's heart before God in worship
was genuine. He worshipped God with his
whole mind, heart, and body. David was not
worshipping to impress or shock men, he was
focused entirely on God. He had lost
self-conciousness--he was God-conscious.

Saul's daughter, and David's wife, Michal,
did not understand David's pure heart of
worship. The spirit of mockery, rising up
within, made her interpret David's actions
as foolish acts of the flesh. It was flesh
seeing the only thing it can see: flesh.
The fleshly man or woman cannot see
spiritual things (I Cor 2:14,15).

Only the spiritual person can discern that which
is of the Spirit. Michal's heart caused her to
judge David wrongly from her limited point of
view. It was not that she just observed and
did not understand, she observed and mocked
and her mockery led her to falsely judge.

The flesh opposes the Spirit to this day. Michal
was the flesh of Saul. Saul was everything
that the flesh admires: tall, handsome,
politically powerful, full of "bling."

When Saul found out that Michal was attracted
to David, he gave her gladly to David to
marry so that she might be a snare to him"
(I Samuel 19:21). There was already treachery
and mockery at work.

Perhaps Michal's initial attraction
to David was made in the flesh: perhaps she
saw him as an attractive man of war rather
than a man after God's heart. For when he
showed himself to be a man after God's heart
she despised and mocked him. Perhaps it was
tainted and wrong from the beginning or maybe
she caused it to go wrong by a process of
judging wrongly.

When true worship is witnessed the secrets
of people's hearts are revealed. Does
witnessing true worship cause true worship
to arise in us or is our response scorn?
Are we looking at the person worshipping
and and judging whether they are without
fault or are we looking at God?

Michal's history with David may have gotten
rather rocky. Much muddied water may have
gone over their marital bridge. Did
David's humanity cause her to stumble
into judgment? Did human shortcomings
in David's life cause contempt to
spill over and corrupt her ability to
discern a holy moment?

If God judged our humanity when we
worshipped then no one would stand
before Him. We cannot wink at sin
or hypocrisy but judging what a man
or woman offers to God, despite their
short comings, is none of our business
because of the snare that we then
set for ourselves.

A spirit of mockery will not humble
itself. David replies to her tauntings
by humbling himself even further:
"I will not just be a fool in your
sight, but in my own sight also,
and in the sight of everyone who
watches me" (vs.22).

He may be a fool in human terms
but David wisely makes a wonderful
acknowledgement of God's ultimate
sovreignty: "It was the Lord's
choosing over and above your
father's that chose and appointed
me as king and I will play(worship)
before Him".

David sees God above and in all things.
David acknowledges God over all
earthly powers. He knows what true
worship is: worshipping God alone, for
it is God who rules over all and by His
hand appoints the destinies of all men.

In true worship we see our shortcomings
compared to a perfect and holy God, but
in true worship we move past the knowledge
of ourselves to be lost in Him! All that
is of flesh is left behind, but if we
decide that we must hold onto judging
the flesh of another, then we can
never enter into true and holy
worship. The Holy of Holies is no place
to bring a self-consciousness of our own
flesh, or a judgment of another's. The
Holy of Holies is all about God alone.

Let God alone judge the hearts of those
worshipping Him. It is folly to ourselves
to judge with the eye of the flesh.

The story concludes with this statement:
"Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child
to the day of her death" (verse 23).

The spirit of mockery is ultimately barren.
It does not give life nor does it receive
it. It is a spirit of death.

"Be not deceived: God is not mocked, what
a man soweth that shall he also reap. He
that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh
reap corruption but he that soweth to the
Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life
everlasting. So let us not be weary in
well-doing for in due season we shall reap,
if we faint not" (Galatians 6: 7-9).

Beloved, guard your hearts against a spirit
of mockery.

This is the second of three posts.

abandonment to God
true worship
apostasy
David
spiritual ignorance
dance and worship