A "Trinket God"
'So they called together all of the rulers of the Philistines and asked them, "What shall we do with the ark of the god of Israel?'" - 1 Samuel 5:8
In my devotional reading time this morning, I ran across a story that I've always found somewhat amusing (this narrative has been preached by Louie at Passion Conferences before), but somehow today God popped a couple of thoughts in my mind that I thought I'd share.
Over in the book of first Samuel (the story about how Israel's monarchy started beginning with the rise of Samuel the judge), the writer records how the Philistines annihilate Israel's army while two uber-corrupt priests are judges over Israel (a quasi-kind-of their version of the King at the time). These two dudes decide to bring the ark of the covenant out to battle after they were beaten, as a trump card for their next battle, and in the process were slaughtered and the Philistines capture the ark and take it into their city (this is recorded in 1 Samuel 4).
Before I go any farther, I don't have enough space to fully explain what the "ark of the covenant" is. You've seen Indiana Jones. It's kind of like that. In ancient Israel's days, it's where God's presence literally was, and it wasn't to be trifled with. Don't ask me to explain it, but the movie represents what the ark is pretty well.
So, the Philistines bring the ark into the temple of their god Dagon, leave it at Dagon's feet, and wake up the next day to find that Dagon had fallen down! Head first. Okay - that may have been an accident, so they pick their god up and put him back in his place (silly huh?). They wake up the next morning to find Dagon fallen again, but this time his head and his extremities are cut off and only his torso is intact.
Wow.
And not only that, everyone in this town started to get these tumors and there was a huge panic. See Indiana Jones? Not heads exploding but bad things, man. Bad things. The people living in Ashdod then got a clue - this God that they have in their presence is big time, He's not happy with them, and He obviously doesn't respect this Dagon clown. So what do they do? Move the ark to another city... and this city gets tumors. They panic... and what happens? They move the ark to yet another city and...
You guessed it... they get the tumors. They panic. This is pretty extreme, especially for a nation that just soundly defeated this country in the battlefield as was feeling pretty good about itself: "Send the ark of the god of Israel away; let it go back to its own place, or it will kill us and our people." (emphasis mine). People were dying. Don't know if like the movie, but people were dying.
At the end of the day, they eventually put the ark on a cart and send it unmanned back to Israel. They want nothing to do with it, and can you blame them?
Interesting story, huh? I definitely encourage you to read 1 Samuel 4 and 5 - what I said doesn't do it justice (and Indiana Jones didn't live in 1050 BC :-) ). But what did I get out of this? Why am I taking time out of my morning to write about a seemingly random story? Here are my takeaways:
Do I treat God like a "trinket" or as Lord?
See it? The Israelite army brought the ark of God out as a "good luck charm" to go to battle with them. Were they being true to God's laws? No. Were they worshipping God and loving Him with all of their hearts? No. But when they needed a trump card... oh, let's get God out of the tent and use Him!!! He's always bailed us out.
The Philistines wanted to treat God like a trophy on their mantleplace, along with the god that they REALLY worshipped (that'd be Mr. Dagon). Sounds silly, but how many of us tote God around with us as a "trinket" while we really worship our career, our popularity, our health, stuff, the opposite sex, etc.?
God is the creator of all and the Lord of all creation. He is not a trinket. He is the only one truly worthy of worship. At the end of the day, things go better for us when we are seeking Him first, versus doing our own thing and keeping God in our pocket to use when we need Him. Seems silly, but we're all guilty.
When God makes it clear that there's a gap, do I run or do I lean in?
It was interesting that when the Philistines clued in that the God of Israel, in that box, was HUGE and not happy with them, that their response was to move him to another city. It makes sense - if God is causing you pain (because you're working against Him), that you'd want to get Him away from you. But what if... they saw this God as the Lord of all creation and instead of continuing to worship Dagon and all they were about, they mourned and started to try to understand and worship Jehovah? In other stories in the Old Testament, there are stories where people who were "not Israel" saw God for who He was and turned to Him.... why not these guys?
They ran... and in the end it didn't work out for them.
However, when we lean in and seek God as our source of life (John 10:10), we know that through Jesus He will deliver if we seek Him with all of our heart. What if the Philistines instead did that? It'd be a different story, wouldn't it?
When we are pushing against God in an area of our life, I'm sure (because I've seen it) that the same thing happens to us. We can be like these Philistines and push God away... or we can do what we know God is inviting us to do and what the Prodigal son did... and run toward.
And there we find grace.
These are my thoughts for the morning.
In my devotional reading time this morning, I ran across a story that I've always found somewhat amusing (this narrative has been preached by Louie at Passion Conferences before), but somehow today God popped a couple of thoughts in my mind that I thought I'd share.
Over in the book of first Samuel (the story about how Israel's monarchy started beginning with the rise of Samuel the judge), the writer records how the Philistines annihilate Israel's army while two uber-corrupt priests are judges over Israel (a quasi-kind-of their version of the King at the time). These two dudes decide to bring the ark of the covenant out to battle after they were beaten, as a trump card for their next battle, and in the process were slaughtered and the Philistines capture the ark and take it into their city (this is recorded in 1 Samuel 4).
Before I go any farther, I don't have enough space to fully explain what the "ark of the covenant" is. You've seen Indiana Jones. It's kind of like that. In ancient Israel's days, it's where God's presence literally was, and it wasn't to be trifled with. Don't ask me to explain it, but the movie represents what the ark is pretty well.
So, the Philistines bring the ark into the temple of their god Dagon, leave it at Dagon's feet, and wake up the next day to find that Dagon had fallen down! Head first. Okay - that may have been an accident, so they pick their god up and put him back in his place (silly huh?). They wake up the next morning to find Dagon fallen again, but this time his head and his extremities are cut off and only his torso is intact.
Wow.
And not only that, everyone in this town started to get these tumors and there was a huge panic. See Indiana Jones? Not heads exploding but bad things, man. Bad things. The people living in Ashdod then got a clue - this God that they have in their presence is big time, He's not happy with them, and He obviously doesn't respect this Dagon clown. So what do they do? Move the ark to another city... and this city gets tumors. They panic... and what happens? They move the ark to yet another city and...
You guessed it... they get the tumors. They panic. This is pretty extreme, especially for a nation that just soundly defeated this country in the battlefield as was feeling pretty good about itself: "Send the ark of the god of Israel away; let it go back to its own place, or it will kill us and our people." (emphasis mine). People were dying. Don't know if like the movie, but people were dying.
At the end of the day, they eventually put the ark on a cart and send it unmanned back to Israel. They want nothing to do with it, and can you blame them?
Interesting story, huh? I definitely encourage you to read 1 Samuel 4 and 5 - what I said doesn't do it justice (and Indiana Jones didn't live in 1050 BC :-) ). But what did I get out of this? Why am I taking time out of my morning to write about a seemingly random story? Here are my takeaways:
Do I treat God like a "trinket" or as Lord?
See it? The Israelite army brought the ark of God out as a "good luck charm" to go to battle with them. Were they being true to God's laws? No. Were they worshipping God and loving Him with all of their hearts? No. But when they needed a trump card... oh, let's get God out of the tent and use Him!!! He's always bailed us out.
The Philistines wanted to treat God like a trophy on their mantleplace, along with the god that they REALLY worshipped (that'd be Mr. Dagon). Sounds silly, but how many of us tote God around with us as a "trinket" while we really worship our career, our popularity, our health, stuff, the opposite sex, etc.?
God is the creator of all and the Lord of all creation. He is not a trinket. He is the only one truly worthy of worship. At the end of the day, things go better for us when we are seeking Him first, versus doing our own thing and keeping God in our pocket to use when we need Him. Seems silly, but we're all guilty.
When God makes it clear that there's a gap, do I run or do I lean in?
It was interesting that when the Philistines clued in that the God of Israel, in that box, was HUGE and not happy with them, that their response was to move him to another city. It makes sense - if God is causing you pain (because you're working against Him), that you'd want to get Him away from you. But what if... they saw this God as the Lord of all creation and instead of continuing to worship Dagon and all they were about, they mourned and started to try to understand and worship Jehovah? In other stories in the Old Testament, there are stories where people who were "not Israel" saw God for who He was and turned to Him.... why not these guys?
They ran... and in the end it didn't work out for them.
However, when we lean in and seek God as our source of life (John 10:10), we know that through Jesus He will deliver if we seek Him with all of our heart. What if the Philistines instead did that? It'd be a different story, wouldn't it?
When we are pushing against God in an area of our life, I'm sure (because I've seen it) that the same thing happens to us. We can be like these Philistines and push God away... or we can do what we know God is inviting us to do and what the Prodigal son did... and run toward.
And there we find grace.
These are my thoughts for the morning.
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