It is just possible that the testimony of the Lord may break those who carry it, because they have got on to wrong lines, because they have departed from the Lord’s way of bearing His testimony.

We have to watch not only that we start well, but that we keep things clean all the way through, from man, from man’s judgements, man’s ideas, man’s ways, by much prayer that the principle of the Philistine cart does not creep in and take the place of God’s way. The things of God in this case meant death, because God’s method was not followed or employed.

God’s Instrument of Testimony

What is God’s instrument of testimony? David came back to it: “Then David said, None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites: for them hath Jehovah chosen to carry the ark of God and to minister unto him for ever” (verse 2). God chooses men, spiritual men, living men. God is never found looking for things, for machines, for organisations; God is always looking for living men, spiritual men. The Levites were those who represented God’s thought for His people. We know that the tribe of Levi was chosen to take the place of the firstborn of Israel, and they became the firstborn tribe, so that the firstborn of every family in Israel, which represented before God the whole family, was gathered up in a representative tribe, and in the Levites it is as though all Israel were before the Lord in spiritual ministry.