Game Over

 

Thursday, June 3, 2021

And Samuel’s words went out to all the people of Israel.  At that time Israel was at war with the Philistines. The Israelite army was camped near Ebenezer, and the Philistines were at Aphek.  The Philistines attacked and defeated the army of Israel, killing 4,000 men.  After the battle was over, the troops retreated to their camp, and the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the Lord allow us to be defeated by the Philistines?”  Then they said, “Let’s bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from Shiloh.  If we carry it into battle with us, it will save us from our enemies.”  So they sent men to Shiloh to bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, who is enthroned between the cherubim.  Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, were also there with the Ark of the Covenant of God.  When all the Israelites saw the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord coming into the camp, their shout of joy was so loud it made the ground shake!  “What’s going on?” the Philistines asked. “What’s all the shouting about in the Hebrew camp?”  When they were told it was because the Ark of the Lord had arrived, they panicked.  “The gods have come into their camp!” they cried.  “This is a disaster!  We have never had to face anything like this before!  Help!  Who can save us from these mighty gods of Israel?  They are the same gods who destroyed the Egyptians with plagues when Israel was in the wilderness.  Fight as never before, Philistines!  If you don’t, we will become the Hebrews’ slaves just as they have been ours!  Stand up like men and fight!”  So the Philistines fought desperately, and Israel was defeated again.  The slaughter was great; 30,000 Israelite soldiers died that day.  The survivors turned and fled to their tents.  The Ark of God was captured, and Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were killed.  A man from the tribe of Benjamin ran from the battlefield and arrived at Shiloh later that same day.  He had torn his clothes and put dust on his head to show his grief.  Eli was waiting beside the road to hear the news of the battle, for his heart trembled for the safety of the Ark of God.  When the messenger arrived and told what had happened, an outcry resounded throughout the town.  “What is all the noise about?” Eli asked.  The messenger rushed over to Eli, who was ninety-eight years old and blind.  He said to Eli, “I have just come from the battlefield—I was there this very day.”  “What happened, my son?” Eli demanded.  “Israel has been defeated by the Philistines,” the messenger replied.  “The people have been slaughtered, and your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were also killed.  And the Ark of God has been captured.”  When the messenger mentioned what had happened to the Ark of God, Eli fell backward from his seat beside the gate.  He broke his neck and died, for he was old and overweight.  He had been Israel’s judge for forty years.  Eli’s daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and near her time of delivery.  When she heard that the Ark of God had been captured and that her father-in-law and husband were dead, she went into labor and gave birth.  She died in childbirth, but before she passed away the midwives tried to encourage her.  “Don’t be afraid,” they said.  “You have a baby boy!”  But she did not answer or pay attention to them.  She named the child Ichabod (which means “Where is the glory?”), for she said, “Israel’s glory is gone.” She named him this because the Ark of God had been captured and because her father-in-law and husband were dead.  Then she said, “The glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark of God has been captured.”  1 Samuel 4: 1-21

It is often the most painful of experiences to sense that the wagon is rolling untethered, uncontrollable, downhill, and you’re a passenger. 

     ·       Your employer is going out of business

     ·       Your spouse is going away….permanently

     ·       Your test results were the worst news…

For You Today

Eli had let his profane sons Hophni and Phineas make a mockery of serving God.  God was not at all pleased with this arrogance. 

That same wagon rolls unloosed in any country that turns its back on God.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!   

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

When God is Captured

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                                                                            Friday, June 8, 2018                 

After the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they took it from the battleground at Ebenezer to the town of Ashdod.  They carried the Ark of God into the temple of Dagon and placed it beside an idol of Dagon.  But when the citizens of Ashdod went to see it the next morning, Dagon had fallen with his face to the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord!  So they took Dagon and put him in his place again.  But the next morning the same thing happened—Dagon had fallen face down before the Ark of the Lord again.  This time his head and hands had broken off and were lying in the doorway.  Only the trunk of his body was left intact.  That is why to this day neither the priests of Dagon nor anyone who enters the temple of Dagon in Ashdod will step on its threshold.  Then the Lord’s heavy hand struck the people of Ashdod and the nearby villages with a plague of tumors.  When the people realized what was happening, they cried out, “We can’t keep the Ark of the God of Israel here any longer! He is against us! We will all be destroyed along with Dagon, our god.”  So they called together the rulers of the Philistine towns and asked, “What should we do with the Ark of the God of Israel?”  The rulers discussed it and replied, “Move it to the town of Gath.”  So they moved the Ark of the God of Israel to Gath.  But when the Ark arrived at Gath, the Lord’s heavy hand fell on its men, young and old; he struck them with a plague of tumors, and there was a great panic.  So they sent the Ark of God to the town of Ekron, but when the people of Ekron saw it coming they cried out, “They are bringing the Ark of the God of Israel here to kill us, too!”  The people summoned the Philistine rulers again and begged them, “Please send the Ark of the God of Israel back to its own country, or it will kill us all.”  For the deadly plague from God had already begun, and great fear was sweeping across the town.   Those who didn’t die were afflicted with tumors; and the cry from the town rose to heaven.  1 Samuel 5:1-12^(NLT)

Because of Israel’s unrepentant sinfulness God allowed them to be defeated by the Philistines…badly!  In this defeat was the loss of the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of God’s presence among the nation.  It was a big mistake for Israel to ignore God; it was just as costly for the people of Philistia to think they could capture God.

The Ark was placed in the Philistine temple of Dagon, the fish god.  In the morning Dagon was on his face before Yahweh’s ark.  They set poor Dagon up on his feet again, but the next night the same thing happened; only this time Humpty Dumpty was broken to pieces.  It’s a questionable thing to serve a god that can’t even stand up straight.

So, you have two nations with impotent, incompetent gods?  Israel’s nation gets clobbered and their God is taken prisoner; Philistia’s victory turns out to be a nemesis of tumors, humiliation, and death; so, is it better to be an atheist?  

That’s what many think in America today, except we have our own version of Dagon; we worship our gods:  money, sex, and national prowess of military might to set the world straight.  Our 21^st century vanity is the resurrected self-importance of Philistia, the world bowing at the feet of our manufactured nationalistic pride.  We are not much better than Israel carrying the Ark into battle, like a lucky charm, thinking God must be on our side.  God will not be carried with unclean hands, and Yahweh will not be captured without consequence.  If a carved, two-ton stone idol cannot stand before the presence of the Almighty, what makes any of us think sinful flesh and blood would fare better?

But, like the Philistines, we hardly ever learn.  This same temple where God was captured is the very place where the Philistines tried to humiliate Samson.  But Judges 16 recounts how that all worked out; Samson’s strength (taken by Delilah’s haircut) returned for one last battle, and he pulled down Dagon’s temple, killing many thousands who thought to capture God’s man.[2]  Many in the current generation have chosen to have done with the church, and the Lord of that church.  This is an unfortunate choice of eternal consequence based wrongly on present, temporary circumstances.  It’s similar to the argument for suicide – and just as deadly.  Like the Philistines figured the Israelite God had been captured, tamed, and neutralized, today’s culture has put aside any notion of fearing an Almighty Creator.  The consequence for that choice was monumental in Dagon’s temple; I fear for America if she doesn’t return to Christ.

For You Today

If you share this foreboding, but despair that you have no clue as to how to start the revival, remember that you cannot start a revival in a single other person’s heart.  But if YOU live revival, God can use it to move mountains.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

Go to VIDEO

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[1] Title Image:  Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

[2] Image via Wikimedia Commons

Fear Factor - Part 4

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Devotion VIDEO here

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.  

2 Timothy 1:7^(NLT)

So far this week we have looked at “fear” as a debilitating enemy we need to expect, because it is the main tool of our number 1 enemy, Satan, who wishes to destroy the eternal life we receive in Christ.  We begin to deal with fear by exposing it, bringing it out in the light.  And then we, as Jean Luc Picard would say, engage our fears by fighting with every spiritual weapon at our disposal.

Today we want to look at the outcome of this kind of spiritual warfare. 

Here’s what happens when expected fear comes and you expose it and engage it in faith…you’re:

Hidden in the cleft of the rock

People who find the presence of God absent from their lives are people who've gone away from God.  (Remember, He never moves!)

People who come close to God in confession find themselves, like Moses, placed in the cleft of the rock, a place covered by the shadow of the Almighty's hand. 

In Scripture the covering reminds us of the mercy seat on top of the Ark of Covenant.  To be forgiven is to receive the mercy of God, having our sin covered, as if buried in the deepest part of the ocean. 

The covering was the place where the Lord's presence dwelt. 

My friend, if you want to have your sins forgiven and placed under the mercy of God, where one would have to pry God Himself off the lid in order to ever accuse you, simply bring yourself close to Him in worship; commune with the Lord, face to face. 

Face up to your past and all the emptiness of fear and defeat. 

This is how you expose your fear and engage it with faith.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said,

Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.^[2]

I don’t know of a better example of this than what our daughter, Jennifer, did on her birthday

a few years ago. 

She had a fear of heights.  What she did was jump out of a plane (with a parachute). 

That is exactly what it means to engage and face-down the fear-demon.

For You Today

So….got fear? 

The first step in doing what you fear is always the hardest. 

And the promise of Jesus is always, “…take it – and I’ll handle the fear factor!”

Think about that out on the Rocky Road today…and have a great day!

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[1] Title image:  By Spc. Megan Leuck, via Wikimedia Commons

[2] Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) , The Bible Illustrator, Parson’s Technology, Hiawatha Ia