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Good Friday morning my dear “Walking with Jesus” friends all around the world,
May I ask us a question? What do you do when you discover you’ve made a terrible mistake that is causing you and those you love serious problems? Do you make excuses, pretend it wasn’t you and cover it up, try to ignore the consequences of your mistake, or face the harsh reality and deal with it courageously?
I invite you to open your Bible with me to 1 Samuel 5 today. The Philistines were victorious in battle, having killed 30,000 Israeli soldiers, plus they captured the Ark of the Covenant. Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s priestly sons, had accompanied the Ark from the Tabernacle at Shiloh to the battlefield, and they were killed in the battle.
Eli, the high priest, when hearing this news, had fallen off his chair, broken his neck and died, and Phinehas’ wife had gone into labor and died in childbirth. The son born to her on that terrible day was named “Ichabod”, for “The Glory had departed from Israel.” (1 Samuel 4) One of the darkest era’s had come upon Israel, the people of God, for they had violated His Holiness and taken the Ark of His Covenant into battle like some type of good luck charm.
I”m grateful in chapter 5 Samuel continues the story for us, focusing on what happened next with the stolen Ark of God. As this map of Israel at the time of Samuel shows us, the Philistines had five major cities in their territory: Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gaza, Gath and Ekron. By the way the town of “Jebus”, just north of Bethlehem, was years later captured by King David and renamed “Jerusalem”.
1 Samuel 5:1-5 tell us the victorious Philistine army took the captured Ark of the Covenant from the battlefield, down along the coast road to Ashdod, one of their major cities, and put the Ark in the temple of their god Dagon, who was represented by a large, hand carved wooden statue, which stood in that temple. Among other things Dagon was believed to be a ‘god’ who brought rain for the fertile ground there, and abundance in their coastal fishing businesses. I invite you to take a moment and read those five verses to see what happened with the Ark and the statue of Dagon, both in the same temple overnight!
Did you see it? The next morning those who worked in that temple found the statue of their god Dagon fallen over, “face down on the ground before the Ark of the LORD”! So they of course did what I have seen done all around the world with man-made gods. They picked up the statue of their god, cleaned the dirt off it, and stood the idol back up in its place, and bowed down in worship to it, perhaps even lighting some incense!
That has always amazed me when I have seen workmen painting or with touch up cement fixing holes or cleaning the bird droppings off the statues of their gods, and then bowing down to worship them!
There are several powerful statements in the Bible from the true, living, Almighty God about this matter of man-made gods. Consider Psalm 115 & 135, or Isaiah 44. May I draw your attention to Jeremiah 10:1-16: “Hear what the LORD says to you… do not learn the ways of the nations… for the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm, nor can they do any good… But the LORD is the true God. He is the living God, the eternal King… God made the earth by His power; He founded the world by His wisdom and stretch out the heavens by His understanding.”
From the very beginning God challenged His people to be a people who worshiped ONLY the one, true, Creator, Almighty God, and watch out for the natural human desire to fabricate our own gods. To design them how we want them to be, and define their attributes and their actions to be what will suit our desires and our expectations of a god.
Do you see how ridiculous that is my friends? Humans fabricating gods with our own hands, and then worship that which we have made? Of course what that really means is that we are worshiping ourselves, right? We want to be God… that’s idolatry.
Of course when anything becomes more valuable to us, more important to us than the One, True, Living, Holy, Almighty God… then we have pushed God aside, and that, my friends, is very dangerous!
This remarkable 5th chapter of 1 Samuel is a true ‘battle of the gods’! So look again at what happened to Dagon on the second night the Ark of the Covenant of Almighty God and the man made statue of Dagon, were together in the same room! “The following morning…there was Dagon, fallen on its face on the ground before the Ark of the LORD! Its head and hands had broken off and were lying on the threshold…” May I ask, my friends, how do you explain this? What’s the message Almighty God was sending to the Philistines who live in Ashdod and worship a man-made, man-painted statue, they call Dagon their god?
But there’s more, do you see what happened next in Ashdod? People started getting sick, with tumors. Some of the earliest manuscripts of 1 Samuel 5:6 also have this sentence: “And rats appeared in their land, and death and destruction were throughout the city.”
I commend the leaders of the city of Ashdod for their astute wisdom. Had this same thing happened in our day, especially in America, I doubt leaders would have come to the same conclusion. In fact, I believe we’ve had multiple things happen over the past 40 years or so, which have been similar power-warnings from God, yet America refuses to acknowledge the tangible, powerful hand of God or His Presence or His involvement in our world.
Look at verse 7 “When the men of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said “The Ark of the God of Israel, must not stay here with us, because His hand is heavy upon us and upon Dagon our god.” As you read on, you’ll see they decided the Ark needed to be removed from their city, it was too dangerous, its power too unmanageable, “So they moved the Ark of the God of Israel” to Gath. (1 Samuel 5:8)
May I invite us to insert here an important New Testament event, that shows us TIME for our eternal God is important?
A little more than 1000 years after this event in 1 Samuel 5… the Ark of God in Ashdod, God miraculously brought a man named Philip to Ashdod, to proclaim the Gospel of the risen Jesus Christ. You’ll see it in Acts 8:26-40. Yes, that’s right!
This Philip was one of the 7 Deacons first named in Acts 6:5,6 serving the Christians in Jerusalem. Persecution broke out, and Philip went to Samaria, and he preached Jesus’ Gospel there, and many people responded in faith, trusting in Jesus. Then Acts 8:26 says “an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza…” Philip does, and has a life changing encounter with the Ethiopian treasury official who was leaving Jerusalem where he had been worshiping.
As you read this story you’ll see Philip explains Isaiah 53 to him and the Ethiopian official trusts in Jesus and asks to be baptized. As Philip finishes baptizing him, Acts 8:39 says “When they came up out of the water the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the Ethiopian eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared at Azotus…” Now my friends, are you ready for something amazing? This town called “Azotus” in Acts 8:40 is the same town known 1000 years before as “Ashdod” in 1 Samuel 5!
Do you see what God is doing? God showed His mighty power to the Philistine people who worshiped a man made statue Dagon, in the town of Ashdod. In fear they acknowledged God’s power, but rather than bowing before Almighty God, they rejected God, removed Him from their city… sending the Ark to Gath! Now, 1000 years later, God miraculously brings the Deacon evangelist Philip to their town, to proclaim the power of God unleashed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the Gospel!
Now, I ask you… how well do you know the history of your city? What has God been doing over the past centuries or even millennia, to speak HIS truth, HIS power, HIS love to the people of your city, generation after generation, and how has your city responded to God? Could it be YOU are the “Philip” of your day, for your city, sent by God to bring the good news of Jesus to your city, my friends? Ponder that!!!
We’re going to park right here today, contemplating the remarkable possibility that you, everyone one of you hearing my voice, reading what I’ve written here, IF you have trusted Jesus to be your Savior, YOU might be in the city where you live by GOD’s assignment!
Oh perhaps it was a job that brought you to your town, or retirement, or going to College, or military service, or even marriage. But I want you to consider it is God’s Sovereignty and His love for the people of your city which has motivated God to bring YOU to that city at this time in history. WHY, of course, is the question??
For this very same reason God brought Philip to Azotus (Ashdod). For all of us who are followers of Jesus, the purpose for which we are in the town where we live, is to be Jesus’ representative there, drawing people to Jesus. Each day we live is another day for all of us to bring the HOPE and the HELP of Jesus Christ, our risen Savior, to that town!
Now think about the strategic plan of God in placing you in your neighborhood at this time in your city’s history! When the day finally comes that you leave your city, alive or dead, what will be the legacy you will leave behind? What will people say was the impact of your time lived in their city?
Oh LORD God Almighty, we worship You today, thanking You that You are NOT a man made statue, painted and refurbished by human hands! You are Creator of all things, and giver of life to all that lives. You are eternal and omniscient, so You know everything about the story of every town and city in the world. You have chosen, in Your Sovereign plan, that each of us would be living today in the town where we are. I ask oh God, that You would help each of us grasp the strategicness of You having placed us where we are, and please help us see how to live each day more effectively, as a follower of Jesus Christ in our city…our assignment from you O God!.
Now my friends… what needs to change in order for you to see yourself as an Ambassador of Jesus Christ, on assignment from God in your city?
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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