Good Thursday to you my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
One of the most important life skills any person must learn is the ability to anticipate accurately what the consequences will be of their choices and actions. That’s a big part of parenting, isn’t it? It’s also a very, very big part of leadership in every leadership situation. Miscalculation of anticipated consequences can bring disaster, can’t it? Yesterday I left you in the horrific damage of exactly that, do you remember?
Come with me again back to Shiloh, Israel about 1100bc. I left you there yesterday as Shiloh was in deep grief as they reacted to the news that the Israeli army had been soundly defeated by the Philistines with a loss of 30,000 Israeli soldiers. But more than that, both Hophni and Phinehas, the priestly sons of Eli had died and unbelievably the news was that the Ark of the Covenant of the God of Israel had actually been captured by the Philistines! As Shiloh tried to absorb this news, Eli the High Priest was so overwhelmed he fell backward off his chair, broke his neck and died.
Phinehas’ wife went into premature labor and gave birth to a little boy, but with her dying breath she named the boy “Ichabod” and cried out, “The glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark of God has been captured.” (1 Samuel 4) Has there ever been a worse miscalculation of the results of a decision? Taking the Ark of God from the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle and bringing it to the battlefield was a huge risk and it resulted in one of the darkest times of despair in the long history of the nation of Israel.
1 Samuel 5 follows the Ark of the Covenant, as it was taken by the Philistines soldiers from the battlefield near Aphek/Eben-ezer back to one of their five fortified Philistine cities, Ashdod. If you have been following the current events in the fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, you often read or hear reports from the modern-day city of Ashdod. Yes, it’s the very same city, 3000 years later. Currently, while populated by both Israelis and Palestinians, it is in Israel, outside the Gaza Strip.
This journey from the battlefield to Ashdod, depending on the road they took, would have been about 30 miles. We can well imagine runners had gone ahead to alert the people of Ashdod regarding this great Philistine victory and the spoils of war which were coming their way. As a result, I imagine the road into Ashdod was lined with cheering people on both sides as the parade of celebrating Philistine soldiers arrived carrying this golden box called the Ark of the Covenant.
The record says: “They carried the Ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside Dagon. When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the Ark of the LORD! They took Dagon and put him back in his place.” (1 Samuel 5:1-3) My friends, may I give you some interesting modern information? Virtually nothing was known about this Philistine god “Dagon” until a discovery in 1928 of many clay tablets found in an archeological dig “Ras Shamra” at the ancient city of Syria called Ugarit. The language on those tablets was a previously unknown language similar to Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic.
These tablets now give great insight into the religion of the Philistines and especially their god Dagon. This man-made idol was a combination of a man and a fish for Dagon was the god of the sea, the ‘fish god’, and the temple built at Ashdod for Dagon was a place of worship calling on Dagon to provide good fishing essential for the economy of the coastal Philistine towns.
My friends, this is yet another example of the Bible providing truthful facts which were doubted by many modern people until ancient scientific discoveries in fact validated and proved truthful the historic claims of the Bible!
It should not be difficult for us to imagine why the Philistines brought the captured Hebrew Ark of the Covenant into the temple of their god Dagon, and in fact placed it very near the large statue of Dagon. They were mocking the God of the Hebrews and declaring as insignificant whatever this golden box, the Ark of the Covenant, was believed by the Israelites to be!
However, it was another terrible miscalculation of the consequences of their actions, for the next morning when the religious leaders and probably the military leaders came to Dagon’s temple, to further celebrate their battlefield victory, the huge image of Dagon was not upright as normal, but was toppled over, face down on the ground, before the Ark! There is no mention of a storm or an earthquake thus we, and those who walked into this unexpected scene in Dagon’s temple, are left to assume some great power emanated from the Ark and toppled Dagon’s statue!
Not to be discouraged, the Philistines quickly stood Dagon’s statue back on its pedestal assuming it was simply an unexplainable, unfortunate occurrence. But the next morning, as they opened the doors of Dagon’s temple, they found a scene yet even more unexplainable! The record says: “The following morning…there was Dagon fallen on his face on the ground before the Ark of the LORD! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold…” (1 Samuel 5:4,5)
And if that wasn’t enough, people in Ashdod started getting sick, very sick, with unexplainable illnesses and some people started dying! The record says: “The LORD’s hand was heavy upon the people of Ashdod and its vicinity; God brought devastation upon them and afflicted them with tumors, and rats appeared in their land, and death and destruction were throughout the city. 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.’ So, they called together the rulers of the Philistines and asked them, ‘What shall we do with the ark of the god of Israel?’ The rulers answered, ‘Have the ark of the god of Israel moved to Gath.’ So, they moved the ark of the God of Israel to Gath.” (1 Samuel 5:6-8)
I wonder if you see a very important life principle here my friends. Often the miscalculation of the consequences of decisions, choices and actions spill out on and hurt people not involved in those decisions and actions! The people of Ashdod had not invited the Ark to be brought to their town, yet they suffered greatly when Almighty God poured out His discipline on that entire city for their mishandling of the sacred Ark, and their mockery of the God of Israel!
Of course, God was also showing His superior power over their idol god Dagon, and the people of Ashdod had the opportunity to repent of their evil ways, to turn away from and even destroy their idol Dagon and turn to the God of Israel! But they didn’t. Instead, they made a plan to send the Ark to another Philistine town.
Now let’s pause here and ponder what’s happening here and let’s look at ourselves. How often do we miscalculate the consequences of our decisions or our actions? When we find we’ve made a terrible mistake, what do we do about that? Most people just blame other people! How often is God actually reaching to us in the mistakes, the mayhem of our lives, calling us to turn to Him for help, to repent of our mistakes, our wrong thinking, our self-reliance... and how often do we do exactly what Ashdod did, we try to fix the problem ourselves, rather than repenting and turning to God?
Let’s reflect on that as we worship with this song and tomorrow, let’s come right back here and see what God did next in this situation?
Today’s Scripture is 1 Samuel 5:1-8.
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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