Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good evening, church again.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Second, Good morning.
Second Good morning.
So good to see you guys today. What a, what a blessing to worship together. Amen.
Of all the things, of all the things you could be doing this morning, you're right here celebrating the Gospel of me. And I'm grateful for that.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: We are continuing our series today in.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: First Samuel, and we've talked about this a couple times, but we've kind of broken up these books, first and Second Samuel, into these sub series based on some of the themes.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: And so today we are closing out.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: This first kind of micro series within Samuel that we've been calling faithful.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: And the reason we've called it faithful is we've been talking about the faithfulness of God and how it relates to our own faithfulness. I've, I've said it's pretty much every week, but I think it's helpful if you're in this space, it's almost certainly.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Because you're the kind of person who.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Wants to live with faith at their core.
We want to be faithful people. We want to be people who worship.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: The Lord, who bring our theology into our day to day lives.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: And it's easy to remember that on Sunday morning when you're singing the song and they get to the chorus and your hands go up, you're just like, yes, this is awesome. Like, it's easy to remember it right then.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Those are beautiful moments.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: We celebrate those we're grateful for, creative.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Team and the artists who love and serve us. Right?
[00:01:26] Speaker A: And yet how easy is it to then leave church and go to work or school or wherever you go on.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Monday morning and just immediately, immediately set aside your faith for how it plays into your day to day life, Right?
[00:01:42] Speaker A: It is such an easy thing. And so we've been talking about that. What does it look like to be faithful people?
To actually seek to be consistent between.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Our beliefs and our practice? Right?
[00:01:56] Speaker A: And the thing we've come back to over and over and over again is that it is actually God's consistent faithfulness that not only redeems our faithlessness and.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Our failure, but it empowers us to experience and live our faith.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Because God has been so good to.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: You, you actually can grow in a faithful life given over to Him.
Takes time, takes effort, it's slow, it's.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: A slow cooker thing, not a microwave.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Thing, but you can bank on it.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: The God of the universe is so good to you, loves you so dearly, pours himself out for you so drastically.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: That you actually can be formed into a person of faith in today as.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: We end out this series, we're going to look at what is one of.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: The most unusual, most humorous, and unfortunately.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: For you guys, longest texts. In first and second Samuel, we're going to see this interesting caveat to God's faithfulness and how it relates to us. We're going to need one Samuel 5, if you want to go ahead and turn there. By the way, if you don't have.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: A Bible with you today, we have house Bibles all around the room. You just look under the chairs in front of you. We really believe the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel Fellowship Church. So if you don't own a Bible, please just take one of our pew Bibles or talk to one of the pastors. We'll get you a nicer one with larger print.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: But we're going to be in First.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Samuel 5 today and 6 and 7. Sorry, sorry.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Wait, what? I'm not joking on that one. We really are. We really are.
Oh, but my main point today is going to be this.
God's faithfulness is not fairness.
It's not God being faithful to us doesn't equate God being fair with us. And for some of you who are more justice minded, I was talking to.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: My wife about this this morning.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: It's really easy to equate fairness with justice.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: If it's fair, it's just right.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: And if that's you, you probably hate what I just said, right?
This is, by the way, one of my sons.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: And I will leave him nameless to protect his innocence.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: But you can probably guess he lives his life by the truth that what.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Is fair, what is equal, is what.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Is good, what is right.
If one kid in the house gets a Pop Tart, then by golly, he.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Must have a Pop Tart.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: In fact, everyone must have a Pop Tart. Wait, but that pop tart had 3.4% more icing on it. Therefore, my Pop Tart is insufficient. The balances are not balanced. Father, I need a new Pop Tart.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: With an equal amount of icing on it.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: You get what I'm saying? It goes from there into every facet of life. This week we've been dealing with sickness.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: In our house, like all of us.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: And we had discussions about why the sick child with 103 degree fever got medicine and he did not get medicine. That seems totally unfair. He got medicine. I should get medicine. Also, if he's sick, I also should be sick. Why did he get to sit in a comfy blankie? I demand to sit in the Same blankie.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: That blankie is covered in flu germs, son.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: I don't care if he got flu germs. I also get flu germs. That was the discussions this week, literally leading up until this morning, where we had an argument about who got to pick the cartoons in what order. And he had a deep accounting of how many cartoons had been picked by what child in the house on what day, and wanted to let me know that he was actually behind three cartoon choices. So he needed to be able to pick the next three in order to balance out the scales.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: I'm sorry, I'm giving my son way too hard a time right here.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: But trust me, beloved, the truth is this.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: God isn't fair in this way.
He isn't.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Some of you are nodding your head.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: And hearing about my son going, a, that's funny, but B, going, that's kind of me. That's kind of how I live in this world.
But when you're dealing with God, you need to understand something. You don't want fairness.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: You don't.
You don't want all things equal because it won't be for your best.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: You don't want equal treatment because completely.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Fair treatment with a holy and righteous God means.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: It means complete judgment for sin.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: But praise be to God that our.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: God does not treat us all fairly. Instead, he treats us, treats us in according to our needs and our relationship.
He treats us according to our relationship, our intimacy, our closeness with him, and according to our needs in the moment.
He treats us according to his faithful gospel desire for us.
That's a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing that our God values his faithfulness over and above fairness.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: And no matter how that idea may.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Initially strike you, I think you will see the good heart of our God in this text. Pray with me and we're going to jump into it.
Jesus, we need you today.
We need you to be our discipler. We need you to be our teacher. Lord, as we're engaging a truth that for many of us in the room, just feels incredibly counterintuitive, I pray that you would be our teacher today. Illuminate your text to us, a text that is admittedly difficult to understand or draw us to the truth of your gospel heart for us today.
Let us leave this space today, convicted, challenged, encouraged, but above all, Lord, refreshed in the heart of the gospel you have for each one of us. Jesus, we love you, we trust you, we need you for this. So we pray in your name.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Amen.
First Samuel, chapter five, starting in verse one, we read this.
After the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashd, they brought it into the Temple of Dagon, and they placed it next to his statue.
When the people of Ashdod got up early the next morning, there was Dagon fallen with his face to the ground before the Ark of the Lord.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: So they took Dagon and returned him to his place.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: And when they got up early the next morning, there was Dagon fallen with his face to the ground before the Ark of the Lord. But this time, Dagon's head and both of his hands were broken off and.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Lying on the threshold. Only Dagon's torso remained.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: That is why still today, the priests of Dagon and everyone who emperors the temple of Dagon in Ashdod do not.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Step on Dagon's threshold.
The Lord's hand was heavy on the people of Ashdod.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: He terrified the people of Ashdod in its territory and afflicted them with tumors.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: When the people of Ashdod saw what.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Was happening, they said, the Ark of Israel's God must not stay here with us because his hand is strongly against us and our God Dagon. So they called all the Philistine rulers together and asked, what should we do with the Ark of Israel's God?
[00:08:58] Speaker B: The Ark of Israel's God should be.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Moved to Gath, they replied. So they moved the Ark to Israel's.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Whoop.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: They moved the Ark of Israel's God. After they moved it, the Lord's hand was against the city of Gath, causing a great panic. He afflicted the people of the city from the youngest to the oldest with an outbreak of tumors.
The people of Gath then sent the Ark of God to Acheron. When he got there, the Akronites cried out. They'd moved the Ark of Israel's God to us to kill us and our people. The Ekronites called all the Philistine rulers together. They said, send the Ark of Israel's God away. Let it return to its place so it won't kill us and our people. For the fear of death pervaded the city.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: God's hand was oppressing them. Those who did not die were afflicted with tumors. And the outcry of the city went up to heaven.
Wow.
We covered a lot in the first third of our text for today.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: I want you to hear that. Be prepped. I'm doing my best, but just be prepped. Right.
So what happens in this story that is strange and by the way, purposefully set to be Kind of over the.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Top and kind of humorous.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Remember, we're picking up directly after the.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Events of chapter four, and this is.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Kind of what we've been talking about.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: For the last several weeks.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Israel has been led really terribly for.
[00:10:17] Speaker B: Years at this point.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: The high priests and all their families.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Have been leading Israel in such a way that they're not actually operating in real worship. They're not operating within their covenant they made with God. And God's judgment has come down on Israel.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: All the curses laid out in Deuteronomy.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: 28 for when Israel breaks covenant are slowly coming upon Israel.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: And it culminates in chapter four, when they go to battle against their enemies, the Philistines. They're each trying to occupy the same.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Chunk of the promised land.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: And when the Philistines come against them.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: They absolutely slaughter the Israelite. They lose horrifically.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: And this is something God warned them. If you break your covenant with me, I won't protect you in battle.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: I won't go and fight your battles for you. I'll let you go on your own strength. And on their own strength, Israel loses terribly. And in the middle of the battle, the priests of God who've gone to take the Ark with them were killed.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: And the Ark of the Covenant, the.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Place that is considered the very earthly presence of God, is taken by the enemy. It's captured and taken as a trophy, as this is. This is interesting.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: The Ark of the Covenant is taken to Ashdod.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: This is one of the five major Philistine cities, and it's placed in the Temple of Dagon. And you have to remember something.
The Philistines believe in this moment that they have captured Yahweh in a very literal sense.
Right. This is. This is part of how the religious practice was understood in this day.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: The Israelites talked a big game about how the Ark of the Covenant and the throne that sits on top of it is the literal throne of God and that his presence on earth is manifest at the Ark. Well, they got it.
They beat the Israelites and they took the Ark, which meant their God was stronger and they had the Israelite God captive. And so they do what makes sense to them. They take the Ark and they put it in the temple of one of their chief gods, Dagon. Yahweh lost. So he has to be under Dagon now. This is the norm of this world. The victor has the strongest God.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: The irony here is that we, as.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: The reader know Dagon isn't real.
He's just a statue.
And he didn't Secure this victory for the Philistines. We know this whole scene has been set up by God himself, that Yahweh has purposefully taken his ark among them.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: That he's stepped away from Israel, that.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: He'S allowing the consequences of their sin to pour out on them. You have to remember, guys, the Philistines, they're immigrants to Canaan just like the Israelites are.
They moved here, right?
But their practices were just as despicable as the original residents of Canaan. And God has declared the same judgment on their sin as he did on the residents of Canaan.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: And so now he's entered into the territory of the Philistines not as a.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Captive, but as a sort of missionary.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: And here's what I mean by that.
God is going to live amongst the.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Philistines for seven months by the time this text plays out.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: And during this time, he's going to pass judgment on their sin, show his.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Supremacy over their God, declare his glory.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: And give the Philistines a chance to.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Know what divinity truly is.
Let me get a little bit ahead of myself.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: So let's back up.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Let's talk about Dagon for a second.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: This is what the.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: One of the best preserved statues of Dagon we have to this day.
There he is.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Dagon is a well attested pagan God.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: In this time period, he was considered kind of a father God or creator God. He's often connected with kingship and military victory. Okay. All that tracks what we see in the text.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: What's interesting is that basically all the historical evidence for Dagon outside of the Bible puts him far to the east.
He's part of the pantheon of gods.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: In Mesopotamia, in Syria, not really in Canaan where they are.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: And you're going, okay, cool.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: I have all this geography on tap.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Just what you need to know is the archaeology tells us that generally speaking.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Dagon was super well known in a different country.
We don't have a lot of archeological evidence for him being in Canaan at all. Which isn't that strange because the Israelites in general destroyed the idols of other countries when they conquered areas. But we don't have a huge amount of evidence.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: What we know is the Philistines had moved to Canaan. And we do know that they were a synchronistic society, meaning wherever their people ended up, they adopted the language, the.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Culture and the religion and made it their own.
They spoke the language of the Canaanites. They didn't bring their own language with them.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: They adopted all the existing gods the Canaanites already worshiped.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: And kind of built their own pantheon.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: And so it's not strange that at.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Some point they encountered Dagon and incorporated him into their worship.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: And it's not strange that they made him kind of the chief of their pantheon because that's kind of his role in pretty much everything we know about him.
What I think is interesting is that regardless of how he gets there, they have ascribed Dagon the honor of their victory, and they're offering up the Ark.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: To him as a sort of joke or a sort of trophy.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: But God treats this thing to the Philistines, is incredibly serious as a joke.
He engages this in the trolliest way.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: That he possibly could.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: And I think that's amazing.
You have to remember, Israel lost, right?
The Ark of God has been brought into the Philistine territory with no army, no victory, no soldiers, no priests. It's just Yahweh sitting in this position.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Of subservience to this pagan God.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: But we know the fact that God is the one who's actually in control.
The very first night the Ark is kept in Dagon's temple, God knocks the statue over to bow before the Ark. When the priests find this, the text says, so they took Dagon and returned him to his place. And there's an extreme irony there, right?
Like this scene is purposefully presented to us in a humorous way. Dagon is such a powerful, victorious God that he must be picked up and put back in his right place by people because he has no power, right?
He's not real. He's a statue. Yahweh, on the other hand, who appears defeated, who appears conquered, is the one in control. And the second day, the when God knocks the statue over, he breaks off the hands and the head showing. In plain terms, someone's in charge in this room, but it's not Dagon, right, who has the real authority, who has the real power. And God's power doesn't end there with trolling the pagan priests. The text says his hand was heavy upon them. God brings about a plague worthy of the Egyptians. And as the text plays out, we'll see what we'll find out is that God sends a plague of rats and.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Tumors to the Philistines, which is pretty awful.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: It doesn't tell us anything beyond that. But I'll be honest, that's enough information to know it's bad, right? Like, those are two things I don't want involved in my life. It is interesting to note that the.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: Bubonic plague is carried by rats and causes tumors to grow on lymph nodes. But that's speculation. We don't know what that is, or we don't know if that's what this is.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: The point is it doesn't take the.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: Philistines long to connect the dots, right?
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Yahweh humiliated Dagon and his priests in.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: His own temple, and they've been suffering this terrible plague since his ark entered the city.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: And what we see here is that even in Israel's defeat, God has defeated.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Both the Philistines, God and their city, and they want him gone.
So after complaining to the leaders of the main cities, it's agreed to move.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: The ark on to Gath, one of.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: The Philistines other major cities.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: And then the story just repeats itself, same thing. The plague of God's judgment is so severe that they want to get the ark out of Gath, so they start sending it to Ekron, one of the other major cities of the Philistines. And at this point, when that city even finds out the ark is coming, they freak out. We don't want that here. And it the ark becomes this sort of hot potato, a plague where none of the Philistines want it anywhere near them. The Philistines, to a man, are terrified of the power of God. They want mercy and relief. And the text says their cry reaches up to heaven.
That is a purposeful phrasing. It's the exact same phrase in Hebrew used to describe Israel calling out to.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: God for mercy when they were kept in bondage from the Egyptians.
Guys, this is where we can see this so clearly. Like, I've already said it several times.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: But just to like really put a.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: Pin in it, God is not a prisoner here.
He's a charge.
He's a missionary.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: And I know it's strange to consider it that way because so many aspects.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Of this text are kind of brutal to our modern sensibilities, right? There's plagues going on in God's judgment of sin.
And I need you to push past that for a second. Like, let this text be as old as it is in the kind of world it was in.
And look what they're actually presenting here.
Look how God goes into the heart of darkness, the territory of his enemies, and he shows his supremacy. He shows that he's working in power and that he judges sin. So much so that the Philistines recognize Him and his authority in his power. He doesn't need the army of Israel to defeat Dagon.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: He doesn't need Israel to represent him, for his name to be known in the world, even when they are Faithless. Even when they are breaking covenant, God just shows up and he's known for who he is.
And as much as we may not.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Like the image of God sending a plague as a judgment of sin, it's.
[00:20:17] Speaker A: Important to know that God is actually.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Being incredibly patient with the Philistine.
He gives them tumors and rats. And don't get me wrong, like I'm not downplaying how awful that is.
It's painful, it's bad, there's certainly folk who died.
But God doesn't destroy these cities with fire and brimstone. He doesn't strike everyone down in dead, which hold on to that idea as the story continues.
He gives them this plague as he's done in the past, the judgment of sin. And why would he do that rather than just, you know, go the fire brimstone route and blow the whole thing up?
Because these people don't know him yet.
They don't know him because you have to remember the whole Bible, the whole scripture, beginning to end, is telling the story of one God.
God doesn't like change personality profiles. When you move from the Old Testament to the New Testament, it's not like he's the grouchy old grandpa in the old books and he's the hippie in the new Books.
It's not that the heart of God in our text is the same as the heart of Christ in the New Testament, it's the same as the heart of God today.
The heart of God is the heart of a missionary, revealing his power to those trapped in darkness. God's judgment of sin is just and right, but his mercy drives him to.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Judge slowly, to give time.
I mean, go read the story of Jonah, right? It's four chapters. You will get through it quickly. And when you get past the weird whale part, what you'll see is the real story of Jonah is that the Ninevites were far worse than anything the.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Philistines ever racked up.
Far worse.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: You know, the prophet Obadiah referred to the Ninevites, the people of blood who.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Live in the city of piles, referring to the piles of dead bodies around their city gates.
That's how they were understood. And God spoke judgment on them through The Prophet Jonah. 40 days and you will be destroyed. And then do you know what he did?
He delighted to relent of that judgment when they repented.
That is the heart of the God we serve, the missionary who in his justice judges sin and in his mercy delays judgment, giving opportunities for repentance. The apostle Peter said it like this in the second Epistle. The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay. But he is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. Beloved, our God is a missionary who delights in repentance and redemption, delights in these things. Praise God that He is patient. Amen.
He was patient with you, I assume. He was patient with me.
I mean, that's my story.
He lovingly called me to Himself, seeking me when I chose sin, over and over and over again. Does that sound familiar to anyone?
Pouring out grace upon grace upon grace when you were selfish and ran back to the mud and mess of your own sinful patterns?
It can be easy. Easy to look at the Philistines of this world, the bad guys who seem like they always get away with it.
Easy to ask questions about why politicians and bullies and bad people continue in power, why evil moves on, why God doesn't step in and stop it. How is that fair?
Well, beloved, here's where our theology hits the concrete of the road.
Beloved, our God will account for every single sin committed by everyone, ever.
Period.
There's no sin, no evil done outside the realm of God's justice and his control.
Period.
Period.
He didn't hold the Philistines innocent.
He brought judgment upon their sin.
And he was also patient and compassionate with them.
He held both of those things at the same time.
Beloved, the reality is our God is often simply more patient with the sinful world than we are.
He gives them space to see that their dagons. And by the way, fill in the blank with your dagon of choice, money, status, power, etc.
It gives the world time to see that their dagons have no power.
The best they can do is fall on their face and break into pieces.
What I love about this reality is that it's such a stark contrast with what we talked about last week. Last week we talked about God's willingness to lose face for the sake of relationship with his people. When we talked about that idea that God allowed, even though it would make him look bad, he allowed Israel to.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Be defeated, allowed his ark to be.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Captured, because he cares more about repentance and relationship with his people than he does about publicity, right?
But in our text, Yahweh has, in.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Cultural terms, like, he starts out this.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Text as the one who has been humiliated, right? The ark is the trophy in a false God's temple.
But God steps willingly. We see this over and over in Scripture. He steps willingly into the world's shame and shows Himself to be the real Power, the real authority.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: So much so that when God should.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: Be the one being humiliated, his power is so demonstrated that he shames the powers and thrones and idols of this world.
Colossians 2, describing Jesus accomplished work on the cross, says he erased the certificate of debt with its obligations that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. Here, this verse 15. He disarmed the rulers and authorities of this world and disgraced them publicly.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: He triumphed over them. Just as, as Yahweh, the captured God shames Dagon in his own temple, Jesus shames the powers and authorities of this.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: World on the cross.
In the moment of his own humiliation and defeat, he's actually victorious.
If you're in this room and you're someone who struggles with the truth of why evil seems to run free and rampant in our world, it's a really important thing.
You shouldn't hide that like that's a big deal that could crush your faith.
But you can take heart in the faithfulness of our God.
Faithfulness of our God, who is not intimidated by the Dagons of the world, who doesn't let sin slide, who isn't ignoring the evils and wrongs, who is in total control even when it seems like he's behind, who's in total control.
And instead, instead of coming forth in judgment, instead of slamming down his hand fairly across all sin, he's faithful to go forth with his gospel, to reveal himself that more might reject empty idols and come to him for light.
That's the missionary mindset of our God. Read on with me starting into chapter six.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: When the Ark of the Lord had.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Been in Philistine territory for seven months, the Philistines summoned the priests and diviners.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: And pleaded, what should we do with the Ark of the Lord? Tell us how we can send it back to its place. They replied, if you send the Ark of Israel's God away, do not send it without an offering. Send back a guilt offering to him and you will be healed. Then the reason his hand hasn't been removed from you will be revealed. And they asked, what guilt offering should we send back to him? And they answered, five gold tumors. Which is. We can just stop there for a minute. That's weird, right?
Five gold tumors and five gold mice corresponding to the number of Philistine rulers. Since there has been one plague for both you and your rulers. Make images of your tumors and of your mice that are destroying the land. Give glory to Israel's God, and perhaps he will Stop oppressing you, your gods and your land. Why harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened theirs when he afflicted them? Didn't they send Israel away? And Israel left.
Now then prepare one new cart and two milch cows that have never been yoked. Fetch the cows through the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up. Take the Ark of the Lord, place it on the cart, and put the gold objects that you're sending him as a guilt offering in a box beside the ark.
Send it off and let it go its way. Then watch if it goes up the road to its homeland toward Beth Shemesh. It is the Lord who has made this terrible trouble for us. However, if it doesn't, we will know that this does not come from his hand who has punished us. It's just something that happened to us by chance.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: The men did this. They took two milk cows, hitched them.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: To the cart, confined their calves to the pen. Then they put the Ark of the Lord on the cart.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: Along with the box.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: Became the gold mice and the image of their tumors. And the cows went straight up the road to Beth Shemesh. They stayed on that one highway, lowing as they went. They never strayed to the right or to the left. And the Philistine rulers were walking behind.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Them to the territory of Beth Shemesh.
Okay, so the story continues.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: The Philistines realize the ark is not the trophy they hoped it would be. Right here they are, covered in tumors, infested with mice or rats.
They've realized they can't handle Yahweh. They need to send the Ark back. Talk about a reversal.
Just a chapter ago, they were confidently defeating the Israelites, raiding their settlements, taking their most sacred religious artifact. What a difference seven months makes.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: So they know, regardless of the humiliation of it, they have to send this God back to his home.
So they call the only religious experts they have, the same priests who had to deal with their newly broken Dagon, like they call those guys to come in and sort this out for them. Maybe if they send him back and offer the right kind of guilt offering, this God will forgive them and relent of his plagues.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: It's important to note something here, by the way. It has been hundreds of years since the exodus in Egypt at this point in the story, hundreds of years.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Like we know that the tabernacle was.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: In shiloh at least 350 years. Right? That's before wandering in the desert.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: It's been a hot minute since the Exodus.
And yet these priests know the story of how Yahweh freed the Israelites by way of plagues.
They hearken back to that story. Let's offer a guilt offering and send him back and see if he relents on us.
Do you have to remember something?
[00:30:41] Speaker B: This is a national humiliation, right?
[00:30:44] Speaker A: They beat the Israelites. Their God was supposed to be stronger. They won. They got the territory.
So they can't just send him back.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: I mean, they have to, but they.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Don'T want to, right?
[00:30:57] Speaker B: It's admitting this defeat, admitting this humiliation. So they.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: Before they lose face before their defeated enemies, they really want to make sure. So they set the ark on a cart and hitch it to two milk cows who have never pulled a cart and have their calves left in a stall. That's a weird setup, but you have to understand, it's meant to be a supernatural sign.
Untrained cows would not normally pull a.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: Cart in a straight line. Nursing cows wouldn't normally leave their calves behind.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: And on top of that, God would actually need to direct the cart toward Israel in the right direction. But big surprise, this is exactly what God does. And some seven months later, Yahweh returns to Israel. And I want you to see a visual of this, a map of where the ark goes.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: You can see how the little lines there.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: The reason I want you to see that is this.
In seven months, God does his missionary.
[00:31:49] Speaker B: Tour of the Philistine cities and then.
[00:31:52] Speaker A: Just goes back to Israel. It's a big old horseshoe, right?
He does the work. He does, and then he comes back. He was. He left Israel with his ark as the trophy of a foreign God.
And without any intervention from the Israelites, without any army, without any raiding party, without any ancient Israelite Seal Team 6, he returns to Israel on his own.
On his own, carrying his own trophies of victory.
I want you to think about that from Israel's perspective for a minute, right?
They break covenant. God brings about this curse on them. They lose the battle. The ark is taken away. For seven months, they're floundering, trying to reestablish their borders, figure out where they are, figure out how unified they still are as a culture. Remember, they're still kind of a tribal confederation. They don't have a unified leadership outside of the priesthood. And most of the priests got killed, right?
They're going through all this stuff, and then one day, the ark just comes home on its own with no one bringing him and the kings of the Philistines like, a hundred yards away, watching.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: It being like, there it goes. It's going right over there.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: What a weird scene.
What a strange thing.
Guys, set aside for a moment. By the way, we do have to.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Stop for this for a second. Can we just take one quick moment to just remember that poor philistine metal worker who got the assignment make five tumors.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Just think about that guy for a minute. I'm sorry, dude. Okay. Anyway, moving on. God's ark, taken as a trophy, comes back with trophies of its own. The kings of their enemies watching from a distance as the cart rolls into an Israelite village called Beth Shemesh.
And as much as this part of the narrative is meant to. To play out for us in a little bit of a silly way, it's actually a great warning for us.
Oftentimes, I think, for American Christians today, whether we're willing to admit this or not, we really want a tame God.
We really do.
We want a God who fits in our box, who does what we want.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: And does what we expect.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: We want a God who blesses our.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Goals and works within the systems that we have come to understand him, to work within.
But that is not the God described in the Bible.
Yahweh is in charge.
He's the king.
He's the creator. But hear this.
He's the conqueror.
He's the victor, inasmuch as he is patient, compassionate, perfect. Love, Love of. He is power beyond your wildest imagination.
He trembles before no one. He bows before no one. He demands and deserves reverence.
And I think we can become so familiar with God because we have this absolute, ludicrous blessing that the God of the universe lives within us as Christians, that He considers us his family, that he dwells with us his friend, that he gives us open lines of communication to him. Like we can forget how absolutely insane that blessing is when we can begin to lose a little bit of our sense of awe with the power of God.
In that moment when the ark brought itself home with treasures and trophies of victory, with kings cowering in the distance, no one who saw that scene needed to be reminded that God is in charge, right?
And yet our familiarity with him can cause us to lose our reverence. Read on with me, and let's land this out in chapter six, starting at verse 12.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: The people of Beth Shemesh were harvesting.
[00:35:44] Speaker B: Wheat in the valley, and when they.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: Looked up and saw the ark, they were overjoyed to see it. The cart came to a field of Beth Shemesh and stopped there near a large rock. And the people of the city chopped up the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. The Levites removed the Ark of the Lord along with the box containing the gold objects and placed them on the large rock. In that day, the people of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the Lord. Then, when the five Philistine rulers observed this, they returned to Ekron that same day as a guilt offering to the Lord.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: The Philistines had sent back one gold.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Tumor for each city.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron. And the number of gold mice also corresponded to the number of Philistine cities.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Of the five rulers, the fortified cities.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: And the outlying villages.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: The rock on which the Ark of the Lord was placed is still in.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: The field of Joshua beshemesh today.
Verse 19.
[00:36:36] Speaker A: God struck down the people of Beth Shemesh because they looked inside the Ark of the Lord.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: He struck down 70 persons.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: The people mourned because the Lord struck them with a great slaughter. And the people of Beth Shemeth asked, who was able to stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God, to whom should the Ark go from here?
And so they sent messengers to residents of Kirath Jearim saying, the Philistines have returned. The Ark of the Lord. Quick, come and get it.
[00:37:03] Speaker B: So the people of Kerem Jumeir came to the Ark of the Lord and took it to Abib the Bab's house. Man, so many words on the hill. They consecrated his son Eleazar to take care of it. And this is the word Lord for us today.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: And now we get to the most.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: As we land out the most uncomfortable part of this passage and perhaps the most important part for us today.
The Ark returns to Beth Shemesh. Yahweh has returned to Israel after their humiliating defeat. And you would expect this to be a party, right?
[00:37:36] Speaker A: And it sort of starts out that way. People gather around, they offer sacrifice, they call for the Levites, they set the Ark up on the rock in this field. They start to worship and celebrate. The kings of the Philistines observe the sacrifice. They watch the priests accept their guilt offering. And they go, good enough. And they head home.
They're just hoping this all worked right.
And if the story ended there, it.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Would tie such a neat bow on everything, right?
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Look at this God, so powerful. He came back, everyone's celebrating. And then we get verse 19.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: Strangely enough, there's actually a good amount of debate around verse 19 because of some idiosyncrasies with Hebrew and some differences between the Hebrew manuscripts we have and the Greek manuscripts we have of the Old Testament.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: But Regardless. Regardless of that.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: If you go with the most modern and current Hebrew text we have, we see that what happens is the people of this village decided to look inside the ark and see what was inside.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Now, I'm not going to lie, we can confessionally to you guys, I'm that kind of person, right? That kind of curiosity. You're sitting there, the ark's here, and you're like, I've never even seen this thing before. This is wild. I know there's stuff in it.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Let's look at it.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: Right? They get to see the Ten Commandments, the jar of manna, Aaron's staff.
That seems really cool. But this is the Ark of the Covenant.
This is God's mercy seat, the throne of God, his presence on earth, except when engaging in formal ministry under the supervision of the Levites. It is supposed to be hidden. And the holy of Holies are covered with a specific cloth, but these folk.
[00:39:16] Speaker B: Want to see inside it.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: And by the way, it's important to note here, they have zero excuse here.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: Beth Shemesh was one of the few.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: Cities set aside in all of Israel as exclusively for the Levites.
These are all Levites.
Basically, everyone here is someone who is trained in the sacred work and the caretaking of the Tabernacle in the Ark.
The Ark's only been gone seven months.
You can pretty much assume every single adult in this story would have taken multiple rotations over the course of their life serving at the Tabernacle at Shiloh before it was destroyed. They know better.
[00:39:58] Speaker B: But they look inside, they violate the holiness of the Ark, and God strikes down 70 of the Levites at Beth Shemesh.
It's so sorrowful, right? This celebration turns into this time of mourning and fear.
The Philistines, they treated God like a trophy. That didn't go well for them. The Israelites treat God as this sort of curiosity that doesn't go well for them.
God is holy. Completely and totally holy. He cannot be approached on our terms because sin has left us unable to approach God. It's why he made the covenant with Israel in the first place, so they could approach him and have relationship with Him.
[00:40:38] Speaker A: If they follow the lines of the covenant. And when they had the opportunity to seek him in repentance from how they've been turning from him for years now, they blow it.
And it scares everyone so bad, they send the Ark away from themselves.
Eventually, it does end up in the.
[00:40:56] Speaker B: Hands of a family of priests who are willing to engage God as He commanded. And it will stay there, by the way. In that same house for more than 40 years until King David comes to get it.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: But for the purposes of our story.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: Today, like, this is the ark's landing place. It goes to a faithful priest's house. And here we get the strange irony and I think the difficulty of this text, the way this is written. The author wants us to see that the Philistines actually leave this place under the grace of God. He's accepted their guilt offering. He allows them to continue on.
But they dramatically mishandled God's ark, right?
[00:41:34] Speaker A: They grabbed it, they pick it up, they took it and stole it.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: They put it in a pagan temple.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: They placed it on a cart and had it pulled by cows. That may not seem like a big deal, but several, several, several chapters from now, when David comes to get the ark and take it to Jerusalem, you know what he does? He puts it on a cart to be pulled by cows. And God strikes people dead over that.
Because the ark is not to be laid on carts. It's to be carried by Levites.
There's a thing for that. The Philistines mishandle the ark, but they mishandle it out of ignorance, and God accepts their offering.
[00:42:07] Speaker B: But when the men of Beshemesh, Israelites and Levites at that, mishandle it by looking inside, God's justice breaks out against his own people.
Seems incredibly unfair on the surface.
Why do the Philistines get this mercy and the Israelites who were literally just there harvesting their wheat, and God showed up, right?
[00:42:28] Speaker A: Why do they get this strict justice.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: Poured out on them?
In Luke 12, Jesus says to his followers, from everyone who has been given much, much will be required.
And from the one who has been entrusted with much, even more will be expected.
Is it a little more eloquently than Ben? Uncle Ben? With great power goes great responsibility, right?
God holds his own to a higher standard.
There's an intensity there.
To whom much is given, much is required that's intense.
In his commentary on this passage in verse. Same with J.D. greer says God's fairness isn't this horizontal line where everyone's treated the same.
It's a vertical relationship where the closer you draw to the light of God, the more your shadows end up expressing, exposed.
The truth of this is simple, beloved. God isn't all that concerned with fairness in that sense, spreading things out evenly across the horizon. He didn't treat the Philistines to the same standard. He treated the Israelites.
Just like God is more concerned with relationship than he is his own publicity, he's more concerned with our hearts than he is with some sense of fairness.
[00:43:42] Speaker A: If God were level, fair, all would.
[00:43:44] Speaker B: Be judged and destroyed for their sin.
But God is gracious.
God is patient.
We hear this, we hear nothing else today. Church he is more loving than he is fair.
He treats us according to our relationship with Him. He treats us according to our knowledge of Him. He treats us according to our need of Him. Greer's comment about that closeness to the light of God, exposing our shadows. It's a good analogy.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: The deeper your relationship with God, the.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: More intimate, the more he is involved in your life, sanctifying you, right?
The more you spend time with him, the closer you are to him, the more he involves Himself in making you holy. The author of Hebrews says that God disciplines his children like a loving father.
[00:44:30] Speaker A: We shouldn't be surprised when he pushes hard on those who claim his name. He loves us enough and is in close enough relationship with us to lovingly move us toward holiness.
Those who are far from God, far.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: From his kindness, far from his patience, he's calling them to repentance and salvation.
But to those who claim his name, calling them to growth and holiness and maturity, Beloved, there is beauty in the gospel of our God.
If fairness were the standard, we would all be struck down like those folk in Beth Shemesh.
But look what those people themselves say in this moment of judgment.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? Beloved, the answer is no one, no.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: One is able to stand before this holy God.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: None of us.
[00:45:23] Speaker B: Not the Philistines with all their might and military.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: Not the Israelites with all their advantages of a spiritual covenant. Not you and certainly not me.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: Unless we have a mediator.
Unless someone stands by our side, stands in our place. We cannot approach a holy God, much less live in relationship and redemption with Him. This, beloved, is our sweet Jesus who stood before the Holy God for us.
Who was worthy of the ark, who is worthy to look inside, who's worthy.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: To fulfill the law found inside it. He himself becomes the mercy seat.
[00:46:02] Speaker B: You and I might be reconciled to God.
Today we're landing out our faithful series. Over all these opening texts of First Samuel.
We've been drawn over and over and over again to this one overarching truth. Our faithfulness is not a work of our will or our spiritual strength. You don't magically become faithful because you're so disciplined and so awesome. You grow in faithfulness as a response to the God who is so holy that he both judges sin and provides a way for you and me to live. In his presence, grow in faithfulness as a result, as a response to God's faithful, patient love to us.
Because your faithfulness isn't about you being perfect. It's about you being positioned by Christ before a holy and righteous God.
Being totally honest, I'm probably the guy who would have looked in the Ark. It's just what it is. This curiosity killed the cat thing. I probably would have.
But through Christ, I get to see into the very heart of God.
I get to know him and be known by Him.
And you do as well.
You have that invitation as well. And here's the thing, guys.
There's nothing terribly fair about that, right?
There's nothing terribly fair about that. But, man, it's amazing, man. It's a privilege.
And if you want to come back up, our text ends with this sort of reset for Israel. You know, the Ark is in the house of Abiblab. His son Eleazar is consecrated to guard it. These are Levites. They're priests. Things have quieted down, but God is still moving.
The Ark isn't back at the center of the nation yet, but it is back in Israel.
Faithfulness is being restored bit by bit through quiet, faithful ministry.
Next week, we're going to jump into Lent. We're going to kick it off with a prayer and worship service. It's going to be a glorious time. You should be a part of it with us. But when we step back into Samuel in these weeks leading up to Easter, we're stepping into a new series that we're going to call New Days.
Because we worship a God who's on the move in our broken and sinful world, even when we don't see it, he's steadily moving us forward.
He's steadily moving forward the beautiful day of his kingdom.
As we end our series today, I want to encourage you to take a minute in prayer. And in your prayer, I just want you to take a moment to remember the faithfulness of your God.
He's faithful to you when you struggle.
He's faithful to you when you are faithless, when you're too beat up and weak to engage, when you're too rebellious and stuck in your sin patterns to care.
No matter what your circumstances look like, no matter how alive or dead your faith feels. This morning, we worship a God who is faithful to you.
And in him, beloved, there's a new day on your horizon.
Let's take a moment in prayer reflection to connect with Christ.
When your heart feels ready, I would encourage those of us who are in the room or in Christ to continue our response through communion.
We believe passionately when we take communion, when those of us who are in Christ partake of this, that we are engaging in the work of the gospel.
[00:49:32] Speaker A: Not that we're stepping up on the cross.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: Pray, it's not that.
But we're proclaiming the sufficiency of the gospel.
The Scripture says that when we take of the bread that represents his body, when we drink of the juice that represents his blood, we're proclaiming his death until his return. It's a Bible way of saying that. We're saying his work on the cross was enough, was sufficient.
That's a good thing to proclaim today. Amen.
Christ is sufficient for the needs of your heart and the needs of my heart. And you need to know something that's not just for you today.
[00:50:06] Speaker A: When you stand up and you walk.
[00:50:08] Speaker B: Down the aisle and you take the elements, you are saying to everyone else in the room, christ is sufficient for me today. And you need to know you have brothers and sisters in the room who need to hear that today, who need to be reminded that Christ is sufficient for you and he's sufficient for them.
For those of you who are in the room who aren't in Christ, encourage you to sit and pray and to hear this and receive this proclamation from your friends in this room.
Because today is the day of salvation and Christ is sufficient for you.
Beloved, do what you need to do. Take a minute to meet with the Lord, and then we'll continue. In response.
