Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
I have a question for us… What will it take for 2024 to be a better year than ’23? What changes in words and attitudes and values and priorities and choices and actions? Have you thought much about that as we’re already four days into the new year of 2024?
Yesterday I left you in Nazareth as adolescent Jesus, age 12, and His earthly mother Mary and her husband Joseph had returned from Jerusalem where they had celebrated the Passover as a family, and much more. You’ll recall we looked at a significant event, the only Biblical record of an event in the life of Jesus from the time He was a very young boy until He began His ministry as a man.
Young Jesus had remained in Jerusalem as His earthly family had begun their journey back home to Nazareth. When Joseph and Mary returned to Jerusalem searching for young Jesus they found Him in the Temple discussing God and God’s truth with the adult Jewish religious leaders and teachers. In their dialogue, Jesus made His first publicly recorded statement disclosing His true identity as the Son of God and His purpose here on earth.
He said: “Why were you searching for Me? Didn’t you know I had to be in My Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49) Luke’s record tells us young Jesus returned to Nazareth with Joseph and Mary “and Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with the people.” (Luke 2:52) And so let’s leave the Christmas story and leave young Jesus growing up in Nazareth with His earthly family.
Depending on the route Jesus and His family traveled from Jerusalem north to Nazareth, they would likely have passed either of two towns which have a significant role in the history of Israel, and the story we were following before we took a detour and stepped into the Christmas story. Let’s go back again, about 1100 years before the birth of Jesus, and let’s rejoin the remarkable story of Samuel, another miracle son born into the great story of God’s working in and through the people of Israel.
If Jesus and His family had traveled straight north from Jerusalem, they would have likely passed Shiloh, the town where the Tabernacle had been and where little Samuel had grown up under the tutelage of Eli the High Priest, remember? If Jesus and His family had taken a western route around Samaria, on their way north to Nazareth, they would have passed by another town called Kiriath Jearim. It was here we last left the story of Samuel, for it was here the Israelites had taken the Ark of the Covenant when it was returned to them by the Philistines who had captured it for 7 months. So, let’s rejoin that remarkable story my friends, found in 1 Samuel 7.
Samuel’s record says: “It was a long time, 20 years in all, that the Ark of the Covenant remained at Kiriath Jearim, and all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the LORD. So, Samuel said to the Israelites, ‘If you are returning to the LORD with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the LORD God and serve Him only, and He will deliver you out of the hands of the Philistines.” (1 Samuel 7:2-4)
Do you see a very modern problem here, my friends? I have seen Christians battling the same problem in many parts of the world that I’ve visited, but especially in America. The Ark of the Covenant was the sacred symbol of the very Presence of God for the Israelites. It had been fabricated by Holy Spirit anointed men when Moses and the people, who had been rescued by God from Egyptian slavery, were at Mount Sinai. (Exodus 35:10-36:3; 37:1-9) And the Ark contained the stone tablets which had been inscribed by the very finger of God and given to Moses on Mount Sinai. (Exodus 40:20)
God had instructed His people to keep the Ark in the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle, the “Tent of Meeting” with God. But Eli’s wicked sons, priests Hophni and Phinehas, had removed the precious Ark from the Tabernacle and taken it to the battlefield where the Ark had been captured by the Philistine army and taken to Philistine territory! (1 Samuel 4)
Do you remember I pointed out to you that the Philistine town, where the Ark of the God of Israel was taken, is a prominent town today near the Gaza Strip, the town of Ashdod! The Philistines are, I believe, the ancestors of Hamas and Hezbollah who have today the very same objective the Philistines had… the total eradication of the people and nation of Israel!
Did you notice the Israelites were conflicted in their hearts? They knew they were God’s chosen people and the God designed worship of Almighty, Holy God, prioritized the Ark of the Covenant being in the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle, but instead when the Philistines returned the Ark to Israel, the Israelites had put it in the backroom of a man’s home in Kiriath Jearim!
But Samuel’s record says ‘…all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the LORD.’ That tells me the people were grieving that God’s hand of blessing was no longer upon Israel and they were trying to find their way back to God, but they were disregarding God’s guidelines, His commands and His directives.
Worse than that, it’s clear the people of Israel had become idol worshippers, for Samuel challenged them to consider the hypocrisy of seeking God while worshipping idols! ‘If you are returning to the LORD with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the LORD God and serve Him only…” Do you see the problem my friends? It’s prevalent where I live and probably where you live too. It’s people pretending with God, going through the religious motions with God, while at the same time prioritizing and passionately pursuing things which take them far from God.
Samuel made it very clear…we can’t have it both ways. We can’t honor God while cherishing things that are abhorrent to God. In Samuel’s day the people struggled with this painful dilemma of contrasting desires. They wanted God’s blessing, but they wanted to pursue other gods too. Honestly now, do you see this where you live today? Do you see Samuel’s challenge to make a decision and stand firmly and faithfully on that decision?
Don’t play with God! Perhaps you remember Jacob had done exactly the same thing challenging his family as they approached Bethel, the place God had met him 20 years before! (Genesis 35) Samuel challenged the Israelites to clean out their homes from all their idols and turn their hearts entirely to the God of Israel both worshiping and serving HIM alone! Samuel promised them a significant result if they would turn to and trust the God of Israel: “…and God will deliver you out of the hands of the Philistines.”
Let’s pause right here and ponder. Join me right here tomorrow and we’ll see what happened with Samuel and the Israelites as he was trying to help save their families and their nation from destruction. But for right now I urge us to give serious consideration to these questions…
* How similar or different is the situation in our day in your town and mine?
* Who is the Samuel of our day laying down the challenge, calling people to stop living in duality and hypocrisy?
* What are the ‘idols’ of our day which draw us away from God and how have we allowed them priority influence in our lives?
* What action could we take today that would rid our lives, our marriages, our families, our cities of those idols?
* What might God do in response?
Now ponder those questions my friends…
Today’s Scripture is 1 Samuel 7:1-3.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“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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