Our God will not be held captive
Hello Saints,
It was a dark time in Israel’s history. The exodus from Egypt was well behind them, and Joshua had taken them into the promised land. But over time, they had forgotten their Deliverer and God. The Israelites had turned away from Jehovah and turned to worshipping idols, and ‘everyone did what was right in their own eyes’. Because of their disobedience to and abandonment of Yahweh, God’s people experienced enemy invasion, unrest and oppression by neighboring nations. As they cried to God in their misery, God would be moved with compassion for His people and raise up a judge to deliver them from their tormentors. For many years this cycle of idolatry, invasion, repentance and deliverance continued, until God raised up Samuel as prophet and judge. Sure, there were people who were faithful to God through the degradation of the Israelites, people like Naomi, Boaz, Elkanah and Hannah, but overall, it was a dark period in Israel’s history. In the opening chapters of 1Samuel, we see that even the priesthood and temple practices had become corrupt and became a means for the immoral priesthood to practice its corruption. God was going to do a new thing in Israel with the raising up of Samuel. He was going to eradicate the current priesthood by bringing in the Philistines to ‘clean house’, which happens in 1Samuel 4. In the process of the attack and Philistine victory, the ark of the covenant was captured. Israel had no real leader and did not consult God to defend them. By this time, the ark seems to have become nothing but a good luck charm – just an idol like every other nation had. Actually, I would venture to say that the Philistines had more respect for the ark then God’s own people (1Sam. 4:5-8). Does that ever happen… That our religion, its symbols, traditions and its practices are elevated above God Himself? Do we associate God’s glory with an object or ritual? The sad reality of humanity, dare I even say the church, is our belief that when our religious practices are taken away, God’s glory has departed also (1Sam 4:21-22). God does not dwell in temples built by hands, nor in religious artifacts, as the Apostle Paul preached in Athens to the idol worshippers (Acts 17:22-31).
Because the Israelites had abandoned their God, and did not consult Him on defeating the Philistines, we have the privilege of reading how God stepped in to defeat the enemy for His people. Oh, what mercy and grace, that even in times of disobedience God still defends His people and does for them what they could not do in their own strength. But isn’t that the gospel? 1Samuel chapter 5 is one of my favorites! The Philistines thought they had won the ultimate victory – they had captured God – the famous Israelite God who had defeated the mighty Egyptians. Here He was, locked up in a room with their god who had given them such victory. Dagon versus Yahweh. The text reads that they had placed the ark of the Lord ‘beside’ Dagon (5:2). The next morning, as they most likely came to pay homage to their deity, they found Dagon laying prostrate before the Lord. See for yourself, the ark and the image were side by side (Hebrew word); but at some point this idol turned, pivoted, and bowed down to the ground as in worship to Yahweh. This dead idol had to be propped back up with human hands, unable to stand up for itself (that should have been a clue right there for the Philistines). The next morning when they arose to come and worship their god, they found Dagon in the same position as before, bowing before Jehovah, this time headless and palmless (or handless), in other words, completely helpless. Scholars tell us that Dagon had the upper body of a man, and the lower body of a fish – like a mermaid (or merman I guess). So, there it was….a fish tail laying on the ground – the power to think (head) and do (hands) removed…in other words, completely useless! Don’t you just love God’s sense of humor! To make matters worse, a plague of tumors (scholars say hemorrhoids or piles) broke out on all the people. So, they start moving the ark of God from city to city to get rid of the problem, but everywhere it is moved, tumors break out on the people, even in Gath, the home town of Goliath. By the way, this is not the first time God and Dagon collide. You remember Samson…who caused the house of Dagon to fall killing hundreds of Philistines who were partying with their idle idol (Judges 16:23-31). The only recourse for the suffering Philistines who were experiencing the wrath of God in the form of ‘tumors’, was to send the captured ark back to the Israelites (1Sam. 6). Samuel steps in after that and convinces the Israelites to repent and turn to the Lord, which they do. And God grants them a great victory over the Philistines (1Sam. 7). Even after all that, the Israelites reject God as their king and demand a human king like the other nations (1Sam 8).
I hope that we are not like the Israelites of old who quickly forgot all that the Lord had done for them and returned to their pagan ways. We can’t imagine locking God in a room with one of our idols, can we? God wants to be God, the only God, who loves His people, provides for them, defends them, and would even die for them to set them free. He will not share His glory with another. He is the High and Holy One, the one true God who only wants to dwell in one temple as Lord – His Church, and us individually. He does not want to be propped up beside one of our dead idols – He is the living God, the only wise, all-powerful God of the universe. He wants to display His power and glory in our lives as we let Him live through us to defeat giants and open a highway for us to proclaim His goodness. We are the people Paul describes – let’s live like it:
And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Greece, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don't need to tell them about it, for they themselves keep talking about the wonderful welcome you gave us and how you turned away from idols to serve the true and living God. And they speak of how you are looking forward to the coming of God's Son from heaven -- Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment. (1Thess. 1:8-10)
Grace and peace
"Advancing the Kingdom of God by releasing Spirit-filled followers to serve Jesus in freedom and joy."
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