August 15

1 Samuel 5-6 The glory of the Lord is such that He will avenge His own glory even if it means the destruction of His own people. He will not allow His people to wallow in sin. At the same time, He will not allow those who are not His to triumph over His glory. The ancients often believed that what happened on earth was a reflection of the struggle of the gods in heaven. Thus if the Philistines conquered the Israelites, it was because the god of the Philistines, Dagon, had defeated the God of the Israelites, Yahweh, in the heavens. In reality there is only One God. What happens on earth has nothing to do with a struggle of God, but has everything to do with how we perceive His glory and respond in obedience. I cannot help but think that God has somewhat a sense of humor as He deals with the Philistines. They place ark of the covenant, the central symbol of the presence, glory and covenant of God, in the temple of their God Dagon. In the morning the find the idol representing their god lying prostrate upon the ground before the ark. Hmm. . . must have been an earthquake. They set it upright again. The next morning it had fallen again. Its head and hands were broken off. Hmm. . . maybe something unfortunate is happening in the heavens. They still don’t get it. God strikes them with swellings. The Latin Vulgate says, “Swellings in their secret parts.” What might these swellings or tumors be? Boils? Hemmoroids? Cancers? STD’s? Whatever it is, they try to solve the problem by moving the ark closer to Israel. Maybe Yahweh will be satisfied if His ark is a little closer; send it to Gath. Didn’t work. Maybe it wasn’t close enough. Send it to Ekron. Didn’t work. Send it away from the city; maybe the people will not be struck with the swellings. Out in the fields rats came and ate their crops. Yahweh will not allow His glory to be trifled with. I personally think the way in which He dealt with them is humorous. It certainly is more gentle than He could have been. What should they do? They realize now that they have offended Yahweh, and He is greater than Dagon. Give sacrifices to Yahweh, and send the ark back! They make gold images of the judgments He used against them. They hitch to cows together who have never been yoked before and keep their calves behind. The cows immediately leave the calves on their own and work in unison to head toward Israel. That would be an unheard of happening in their agrarian society! God reveals His glory to the Philistines, and He returns the ark to Israel. The people of Beth Shemesh (House of the Sun) are delighted to see the ark coming back. They still have not learned. They treat the ark as a curiosity. They open it up and look inside it. They did not treat it as holy. Note how God deals so much more severely with them than He did with the Philistines. He kills 50,070 men of Israel as a result! That’s not funny. God expects His people to uphold and revere His glory. He holds us to a higher standard. We have been redeemed by the precious blood of His Son. He will not allow us to trample underfoot the blood of His covenant. That is something of which we should always be cognizant! Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john