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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) *Song of Adoration: Hymnal #157: 1, 4-6 “When Morning Gilds the Skies” Song of Confession: Hymnal #80B:1, 3, 4, 6 “Great Shepherd Who Leadest Thy People” *Song of Preparation: Hymnal #42C “As Thirsts the Hart for Water Brooks” Scripture & Text: 1 Samuel 5 Message: ARKeological Discoveries *Song of Response: Hymnal #244 “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” *Doxology: Hymnal #570 “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow” |
Scripture Reading and Text: I Samuel 5
Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,
Back in chapter 4, Israel learned a devastating lesson. They learned that God is not someone to be trifled with. He isn’t a rabbit’s foot, a good luck charm, or anything to be manipulated. The Israelites were defeated in battle, Hophni and Phineas, Eli’s sons, the priests were killed, and Phineas’ wife dies in childbirth, but not before the prophetic naming of her son, Ichabod, the glory of the Lord has left Israel. It was a devastating day for Israel.
The next seven months, the wicked Philistines are going to learn an important lesson as well. Yahweh is not like the false gods of the surrounding nations. He is the true and living god. As one commentator put it, the Philistines are going to learn some ARKeology.
Our theme is, Our Lord punishes the wicked who blaspheme his name.
I. Lessons for Philistia
II. Lessons for the church
I. Lessons for Philistia
The opening verses of our text are somewhat humorous. After the Philistines won at Ebenezer, they brought the ark of the covenant to the city of Ashdod. Philistia was made up of 5 cities and therefore there were 5 lords of the Philistines. Think of these kind of like mayors. Ashdod was one of two cities that had a house or temple for Dagon, their god of crops, food, and agriculture. In the house of Dagon, they placed the ark next to their idol. On the next morning when they woke early and went to check on Dagon, they found him bowing before the ark of the covenant. Now that is some divine irony. You set up the ark of the covenant next to a false god and the next day the false god falls before it. Must have been a coincidence.
But it was not. On the following day when they rose early to check and make sure Dagon was okay, they found him in verse 4 face downward again, a symbol of humility and respect. This time his head and hands were cut off and just his trunk was left. The significance of the head and hands cuts off, was because this often happened in defeat in the midst of war. They cut off the hands of those who had died and then this way they could count the dead. With little human involvement, it seems that there was a spiritual battle taking place and Yahweh had won it.
One thing that separated Yahweh, as the true god from all of the pagan gods of the surrounding nations, was that paganism teaches that the gods depend upon humans to sustain them. Yahweh needed no one. It is humorous to think of those who had to lift up Dagon and put him back in his place in verse 3. What pagans believe is that when an idol is built, it is not itself the god, but the god comes and lives in it. Whereas the Israelites were to view the ark of the covenant as a symbol of God’s presence among them.
Things did not go well for the Ashdodites. The people were afflicted with tumors. This was probably some type of plague, maybe the bubonic plague. There could have been a large number of rats that moved the plague around and this is why the offering given when the ark will return in chapter 6 involved 5 golden rats. The Ashdodites are dying and clearly the ark is at fault. They concluded in verse 7 (read).
So, they called the lords of the Philistines together and they concluded that the ark should be moved to Gath. But the same thing happened. The men, young and old, also received the sickness and there was a great panic in the city. You can imagine this. In the early days of covid there was a panic. People didn’t know where the virus came from, how to prevent it. Some thought China purposely sent it out to destroy the world or something, I saw that there were tutorials about how to wipe down and sanitize your groceries when you brought them home, etc. There was a great fear and panic. This panic is happening in our text. The correlation was clear, if you harbor the God of Israel in defeat in your city, things will not go well for you.
The Philistines try the ark out in Ekron and the same thing happens. Now the conspiracy theorists come out in verse 10. Maybe Israel purposely let the ark get captured so that Yahweh could destroy the Philistines from within…kind of like a Jewish Trojan Horse. Genius. But the Israelites weren’t that clever. They tried to use God as a lucky rabbits foot and that backfired on them and a battlefield full of dead Israelites testified to that. God cannot be manipulated or coerced in that way.
The Philistines call together another meeting with the lords of the Philistines. They come up with the conclusion in verse 11 to send the ark of the God of Israel back to where it came from, they don’t want it anymore. The cities were in turmoil, fear and panic abounded because, as verse 11 says, “the hand of God was heavy there.”
In the pagan world, they viewed the power of their gods to go as far as their national borders. Deities were local. They would not have guessed that the God of Israel would have power in their own land. They learned the hard way that Yahweh is not simply the God of Israel or of the Hebrews, he is the creator and sustainer of the heavens and the earth. Cities full of dead and sick men led the people to cry out.
II. Lessons for the Church
There is much to learn from this somewhat humorous and deathly fearful episode of our text. The first thing to remember is that God is sovereign over false gods. The ARKeology that the Philistines had to learn was occasioned by a plague. For the Israelites, it was the removal of God’s glory from the land. The danger in our world today is not that our society had bowed to a god who had the face of a man and the tail of a fish. It is the idol of self and though humans and their great intellect continue to fall on their face before the teaching of scriptures, time and again, they are put back in their place like Dagon.
At the end of the 19th century man was so proud of himself. Darwin had proven the Bible false. The Industrial Revolution was making everyone’s life easier. But then reality hit. In 1912 there was a great ship built, the largest ocean liner that was unsinkable. Its designer said, “not even God could sink”. It sank in the North Atlantic. Titanic went down to the bottom of the ocean 4 days into its maiden voyage. But then Dagon was put back in his place. Even though a golden age of humanism was highly touted, where there would be no more war and through science and knowledge peace would be at hand. This was shaken by WWI, a war to end all wars. It was terrible and bloody, and Dagon was put back in his place. WWII would follow quickly enough. They keep putting Dagon back in his place. In the move from modernism to postmodernisn continues the same trajectory. The world needs to humble themselves before almighty God.
The sexual revolution of the 60’s and 70’s lead into all kinds of depravity as the shackles of the previous generation were thrown off. The end result, 60 million babies aborted, rampant promiscuity, exponential divorce rates, millions of cases of STD and STIs every year, which to a far greater degree impact women than men, especially regarding reproductive health. More than a third of African American children live in a home where their father is not present and more than two thirds of black children are born outside of marriage.
Take any ethical issue, when God and his word is removed from the throne, the resulting consequences are devastating. God was sovereign over Dagon and God is sovereign over the idols of today.
Second, remember that God will have the final victory. Back in verse 3 the Philistines thought they could just put Dagon back in his place. But the next day they stopped believing in coincidences. Now his hand and head were cut off as if defeated in battle. This is the pattern of the victory of the Lord we find throughout the scriptures. The greater victory will come in Jesus Christ. He will defeat, not some local fish tailed deity, he will defeat sin, Satan and death. Though the battle continues, the victory is already secured.
You might not have given into all the false gods of the unbelieving world around you, but you are a sinner. You have two options, you can continue to sin and therefore put Dagon back in his place, or you can repent of sin and find forgiveness in God’s amazing love to you. Our Lord went to the cross to pay for sin. Believe on the Lord and you will be saved. Believe on the Lord and then you don’t have to live under the false idols of the present age. Let your mind be directed by the word and not by social media.
Third, notice that God revealed himself to non-covenant people. God made his power clear to the Philistines. He had done so earlier to the Egyptians. Nevertheless, neither the Philistines, nor the Egyptians repented of their sins. We do see in the Bible some type of godliness from unbelievers, think of the Ninevite repentance or Nebuchadnezzar’s prophecy.
But, there is a way for non-covenant people to become covenant people. Instead of putting Dagon back in his place, they should bow the knee to the true and living God. When someone believes, a new covenant line is established. In verse 7 the Philistines saw God’s hand was heavy against them. They should have called for a day of national repentance. We need the same thing today.
A fourth lesson, flowing from the third is that without the saving grace of God, the unbeliever will always come to the wrong conclusion. The lords of the Philistines huddled together and thought they figured out a solution, remove the ark and bring it back to is place. Romans 1 tells us that the wicked suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Gen. 6 tells us that every inclination of the human heart is only evil continually. In the quest for truth, the world will turn to any number of things. But, dear friends, we have the cure. They have the good news. Let us pray that God might use us as prisms of his live and conduits of grace. Maybe your neighbor keeps turning to the wrong thing because they have never heard the gospel, at least not lately or clearly.
When people see the wickedness of the world around us, it ought not to surprise us. The stories coming out about Puff Daddy, the indicted rapper and his parties. It is sad but not surprising. The human heart is at enmity with God and his ways.
Finally, realize that sometimes God takes a “self-imposed” exile from his people, so that they might turn again to him. We see this in I Samuel clearly. God’s presence will be restored in II Samuel 7. David brings the ark into the holy city and God establishes a covenant with David, promising and eternal throne to his son. Then later in exile, as the Israelites go to Babylon, the ark is captured or destroyed. But the return will be in the new Jerusalem. Ezekiel 8-11 speak about the glory of the Lord’s presence leaving the temple. Like the first half of Isaiah, a prophecy of judgment is followed up with a prophecy of hope and salvation in Isaiah 40-55 and Ezekiel 36-37.
God fulfilled the Immanuel principle of dwelling with his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. He will always be with his people, in this life and in the next, in this world and in the world to come Revelation 21:3 says, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.”
The important theme carried out here in these opening chapters of I Samuel is clear, the victory, the sovereignty, the power is the Lord’s. God is terrifying in the hearts of the Philistines as they are dropping dead from the plague. But to the believer, the sweet sound of Jesus name is the balm for our souls. The Philistines had to learn some ARKeology. May God give us ears to heed his warning as well. Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Steven Swets, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2024, Rev. Steven Swets
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