eyes as they've made a bad purchase, and so they want to offload it on their neighbour. This thing that they've just bought or acquired, each person wants to be rid of the dreadful thing that keeps causing them trouble. Well, here we have a real life situation. It borders on fasts, and yet it is extremely serious, of course, if we look at it carefully. Just remember for a moment what happened last week. The Israelites had lost a battle, and so they had decided that they would take the Ark of God, the Covenant chest, and they would take it into battle with them, and it would help them win the battle. Remember we pointed out, the text actually says that, they say, we take it into battle with us, we shall win. In fact, God had to teach them that what was required, if he was to fight for them, was a repentant heart and a commitment to him as Lord. The Ark didn't help at all. It was after all just a box of wood, and there was no point in them being superstitious about it, what mattered was where they were before God, so they couldn't just dust this box down, take it into battle, and then expect to be able to win. The Ark then was captured at the end of chapter 4, and now in chapter 5 the scene changes, and it changes to the Philistines camp. The Philistines were rather like the Vikings, when the Vikings came to the east coast of England, get my western east right, the Philistines came to the west coast of what is modern day Israel. They landed from the Mediterranean Sea, people aren't quite sure where they came from, but probably further north, up towards Turkey, that sort of way, and they came in and they conquered along the coastline a number of cities. They were a much more advanced people than the Israelites. We get some fascinating indications of this in one Samuel, I'll point them out when we come to them, but the Bible tells us that the Philistines had moved into the Iron Age while the Israelites were still in the Bronze Age. They were living in this in-between era of moving from Bronze to Iron, and the Philistines had got there already. Now it's difficult to imagine what a difference that was, the Iron Age to the Bronze Age, but basically if you can imagine it, any implement, any sword or shield that is bronze and comes up against iron, the bronze will be destroyed because the iron is a much tougher material. They were rapidly discovering that those who were Iron Age people were winning in battles all across the known world, and we can trace this through northern Europe as much as we can trace it in Israel at that time. If you want to look it up and see it actually talked about, you can see it sometime after the service, but in one Samuel 13 versus 19 to 23 it's referred to, and we actually find at one point that the Israelites, when there's a bit of peace between them and the Philistines, the Israelites send down to the Philistines to have their new iron swords sharpened, because they have no craftsmen who can deal yet with iron. So it's a fascinating period of history, and the Philistines beat the Israelites, which is not surprising, and they took the Ark back to one of their fortified cities. If you want to imagine what they look like, then imagine some of the Iron Age forts on the tops of the hills around here, we've got quite a lot of them, particularly over towards North Wales, and that would have been the sort of Iron Age fortress fortified city that these places of Ashtard and Ekron would have been. And they took the Ark into the temple of one of their own gods, Degon, and they believed that their gods, you see, had helped them to overcome this god of the Israelites, because like the Israelites, they were treating the box as the god. Yet when the people of Ashtard turned out to look at their prized possession, they discovered that their god was on the ground in front of the Ark. So they put their idol back into a standing position, and the next day was not only on his face in front of the Ark, but he was dismembered as well. Now the Israelites had been superstitious about the Ark, but the Ark had not helped them in battle. But while the Israelites were crying their eyes out, because they'd lost the Ark, God himself was able to achieve a quite amazing feat without any help at all. God was making the important point to these superstitious people, the Philistines, these people who could only know a god in terms of idols and wood and iron and so on. God was making the point to them that they should not think of their god as having achieved any victory at all. The Israelite God, the true God, can cause Daegon to fall over and break in pieces whenever he likes. Daegon can even be made to fall to the earth in a heap in front of a wooden box, and the Lord of course made his point even more strongly as if that wasn't significant enough by bringing a great plague upon the people of Ashtard. Now it's not quite clear what this illness was, but it may have been something like the bubonic plague in which boils break out and people die. It's also carried by rats, which would explain the concern later on in the passage you remember with what the RSV calls mice or what the NIV calls rats with these rodents anyway. And quickly these pagan people realize that their demise had something to do with the ark. It wouldn't take a lot of thinking about really to realize that this had started when the warriors got back. So they decided they wanted to move the ark on to see if that would help them and this is where the fast begins to get going. One could sort of imagine what might have happened. They called up the rulers of the next 45 Philistine town and said would you like to look after this wonderful booty that we brought back from the fight? And so it's taken up there, I don't know whether it was quite like that or not, but certainly one group of Philistine lords decided oh we'll shove it up there, they'll look after it. And of course it then goes up to the town of Gath and they went through exactly the same thing and they very quickly realized that when they had the ark in their town something was going awfully wrong and people were dying and there was a plague and so on. And so they sent it on to another Philistine town of Ekron. Meanwhile people went on dying and they were getting more and more worried about the ark as you can imagine. You can see them sitting around and saying well what are we going to do with it now? And in chapter 6 then we read that the Philistines got their priests together to tell them what to do. Now the Philistine priests may have been thorough going pagans but they did at least know that they were up against something quite exceptional, something stronger than their gods was here and they decided the ark should be sent back to Israel with a guilt offering a gold.
Now I don't know whether you can imagine these guilt offerings. It's probably possible to imagine a golden rat. It's much more difficult to imagine what a golden tumour or boil looks like isn't it? But the priest said look this is what their guard has brought on us. If we want to make a guilt offering to him. If we want to send this ark back and ask for his forgiveness so he'll let us alone then we need to send this ark back with gold as a gift but we need to make it clear that we are asking to be spared from the rats and the tumours. And so in their superstitious understanding they did what they would have done with one of their gods. They made an offering of gold and they made these little ornaments which probably would have been ornaments that they might have bowed down and worshipped in their own tradition seeking forgiveness of the rat and seeking forgiveness of the tumour itself in order that it would go away from the people. And this is why they send these things up in their superstitious understanding. All they know is that there's something here they can't cope with.
Well again the ark is then off on a trip and it gets sent back to Israel. Interestingly let me just pause here for a moment because in chapter 6 verse 6 of Samuel you'll see that they refer to the Egyptians, these Philistine priests. Now I always think that's very interesting because it's clear that the rumours about what has happened to these people, the Israelites in Egypt, had done the whole round. Now probably that's because the Philistines have conquered a lot of Israelites and the Israelites have told the Philistines watch it. Don't forget that when we were in captivity in Egypt so many years ago, God is out of that. So one day he's going to get his out of our captivity and being held by you Philistines. But clearly the Philistine leaders believe those stories and they said well now wait a minute, their God brought plagues on them back in Egypt on the Egyptians and eventually the Egyptians just held on to them too long and they suffered and they suffered and they suffered and they suffered and then eventually they had to kick them out anyway. Why don't we avoid that trouble? Let's get rid of this ark quickly and let it go. So they're actually appealing to the Israelites. God way back when he was dealing with the Egyptians. They realized that some great force that worked here, something that they don't understand. And so they sent the ark off towards Israel on a cart led by two cows and they held back the calves of the cow. This was a test you see, a superstitious test but a test that the Lord overruled in. They sent off these two cows and they held their calves back at home. Now these were calves that were still sucking the milk from their mother. And so what you would expect to happen is that if you put these cows going one way with a yolk on them they would turn straight round when their calves started moving or knowing as the Bible says, moving and they'd go back to see what their calves were doing. But the Philistines said no, wait a minute, if it's really right to send this back then those cows will go on straight on their own all the way up to Bethchirmish and that's what happened. And so the Philistines realized that they were indeed up against a greater God and it wasn't just a chance that this plague had come into the camps of the Philistines. Now think of the power of our God here. Just think of God's power. God is not just a God you see who is able to work in the area of Israel. That's what most people in those days would have believed. The God of the Israelites, not the God of the Philistines, the God of the Israelites. So their God was most unlikely to be able to work in Philistine territory. And yet our God shows Himself the true God shows Himself to be completely sovereign. Even sovereign when paid and people are involved in their superstitious worship, just of course as He was sovereign when His own people got involved in superstitious worship and dusted down the ark. And God can take it and use whatever He wants that very ark that had done absolutely nothing in battle was now being used in Philistine territory by God for people to realize that there was a greater God indeed. It's amazing isn't it? So a box, a box that meant absolutely nothing when God didn't want it to mean anything meant something when He did. And the Israelites have got it all wrong. You see they've decided that the glory of God was in that box. That's why they thought it was all right to take it into battle. And God had shown them clearly it wasn't. And the box could be taken off into Philistine territory of necessary. But then God had other plans. He wanted to teach his own people a severe lesson, but he certainly wasn't going to let the Philistines get away with thinking that they had conquered the sovereign God. And so he teaches them a lesson while he's at it. And he makes them, he forces to recognize the authority of the Israelite God, the true God, in sending the ark back home. Think of God's power. How many of you here despair about ever being able to reach one of your relatives or friends who do not know and love the Lord? Do you wonder what on earth you can do?
We'll sit back and pray. We have a God who can move individuals as he moved the Philistines and he didn't need the Israelites to move the Philistines. The Israelites could even lose in battle and God could still do what he wanted with the Philistines. Think of that. That's how powerful our God is. Somebody I don't know if I can't remember at the moment who it was, the speaking to me this morning and said how they had prayed and prayed and prayed for somebody for 15 years. They'd done all they could. They'd said all they could to this person. And then eventually God broke through to this person. This is the God of power we have. And he doesn't just work in the church. He doesn't just work when his people do things. He works of his own suffering, free will, wherever that is, wherever people are. Well the Philistines discovered the hard way how powerful this God is. The cops then came to Bethchemmach and the people there praised God. These were the Israelites people now. The ark have come back. They praised God. They thanked him. They offered a burnt offering to him. And after all the festivities the Lord killed some of the men from Bethchemmach. I'm glad somebody's smiling. It's quite amazing this story. I mean it is like a bit of like a fast except of course it's tremendously serious. What's going on here? These people at Bethchemmach had looked inside the ark. Well what's wrong with that? It was only a chest. After all we knew there was nothing particularly special about the ark. After all it didn't do anything for us in battle. But now we've got it back. How lovely. Let's look inside. Let's just see what is in there. Maybe they were even saying to themselves, let's see what's in there and see if the Philistines have knitted all. And the Lord judges them in a most terrible way and many of them die. What was happening? They were doing something they were explicitly forbidden to do by God to touch the ark. Only certain priests could touch the ark. God was trying to show them in that not that the ark was terribly special but that what God declared to be holy was holy. And when God said something should or should not be done it should or it should not be done and they disobeyed. And so these poor people from Bethchemmach decided to send the ark off again on a trip because after all who can tolerate that sort of thing happening. And the ark goes up to Kyrgyzstan where it remained for 20 years. What a strange contrast all this is with the way the ark did nothing when the Israelites were in battle. They had to learn that the ark was not to be treated superficiously. And so God judged those unrepentant Israelites who took it into battle with them. But when the ark got into Philistines, God took these people with all their pantheistic beliefs in different gods and he taught them in the most vivid way possible that he and he alone was a God who could do things of power. The true God is the suffering God of the whole world of every nation and the gods of this world will fall at his feet when he so desires. God was demonstrating his absolute control. The Israelites had not trusted him so he let them be defeated. The Philistines had no regard for him because they thought their God was stronger so he destroyed their God. And then when the ark finally came back to where God wanted it to Israel, although some people sacrificed them perhaps asked the forgiveness others did not, they were still so caught up in their belief that this box was what was important. But they once again took no notice whatsoever of God's word spoken through Moses and so they looked into the ark and God had to teach them again through judgment that they needed to listen to his word. Again and again and again the Israelites just simply refused to listen to God's word. So what a lesson God had to teach in these passages, both the Philistines and the Israelites. We saw last week that the Israelites had to learn that God was not to be manipulated in any way and this week we see that they had to learn God was in control. Last week that he was not able to be manipulated this week that he is in control, absolute control. God took over is how I entitled this sermon. God took over. He showed he was in control of all these events. He was not a local guard for Israel. He was able to do what he wanted with whomever he wanted and wherever he wanted to. Israelites and Philistines alike had to learn a lesson of God's sovereignty. Nowhere could anyone escape this God. I wonder whether we have learned that basic lesson today. It's easy for us to be rather smart when we look at history like this. We don't think we could ever behave like Israelites and certainly we know that God is God over the whole world. So we're not like the Philistines who thought that each country had his own God and yet and yet. Do we worship God as the one who is entirely suffering and who loves and cares for the whole world and will also judge the whole world? Even those who think that they are Christians is this the God we worship? Sometimes I think we make our God simply too small as for the Israelites and the Philistines so for us. This God is a God of their imagination, one who is simply too small, one who is in a box. Do we really believe that he can topple nations? That he can make even pagans who have never known him or heard of him acknowledge his activity as the Philistines did? What more and wonder we should have when we come into the presence of this God. The same yesterday, today and forever. Do we tremble in his presence? This isn't the only thing we should do when we come to worship God but it is important to remember who God is and come in fear and awe. Sometimes I think today that we pick up on some biblical images of God, biblical understandings of God and ignore others. We pick up rightly, absolutely rightly, on God as our Father who loves us. We pick up on Jesus who loves us and died for us and is our Savior. We pick up on Jesus being our friend, rightly so. The Bible calls him our friend. Our brother, the Bible calls Jesus our brother. These are all part of our relationship with God but I think sometimes we emphasize those to the exclusion of an understanding that God is this sovereign God over the whole of his creation. What awe should we have when we come into his presence as Hannah said in that song we looked at in chapter 2 and Mary says in the Magnificat? He's a God who brings down kings and the high and mighty he brings down and the weak he exalts. Here is a God who can see your heart and judge appropriately. What power? What knowledge? How do you feel before this God? Perhaps we acknowledge God's power but hope to cope with him like the Philistines did by offering gifts. Perhaps we're like Israelites who even when God brought the ark back into their midst still thought they knew best and could get away with breaking God's law. Think about how often we're like that with you just for a moment. We see God blessing us just like Israelites did. Here comes the ark, God's blessing is at last. Its returning is coming home. The glory of God is coming home. Just like the Israelites we see God blessing us. God seemed to have been against them but now he was for them and the ark was coming back so they took advantage of God. They saw his grace in the ark coming up the hill and it was his grace. It was his grace he didn't need to bring the ark back to them. They've been a disobedient people but by grace and love for his people he brought the ark back into their country and yet they took advantage. What they failed to realize was that God had brought the ark back because he wanted to not because the Israelites were any better than they had been before. We learn next in chapter 7 that they clearly weren't any better and they need to repent. That's what Samuel is going to tell them all. They had failed to see this and so the Israelites abused God's blessing and thought they could get away with things that broke God's law. After all now he was blessing them. That's common among Christians. We have to say it to our shame it's common. I've seen churches that think that because things are going well they no longer have to worry about teaching or following God's word because things are going very well. Thank you we can see God's blessing here. Let's enjoy the blessing. Let's not listen to God's word anymore. Let's let that take a lower and a lower profile. It happens. Think about it. What do we do with this God? His blessings are not limited to how you and I behave. He blesses us if he wants to bless us and in his grace and his mercy he often does. Now this is very important for our church isn't it? Very important for our church. We are very blessed. We really are. I mean look just look around you look at the number of people the Lord's people gathered together to worship on a Sunday evening. I think it's lovely. I think it's fantastic. It's a real blessing to be here and it's God who in his grace and his mercy and his brought us together and it's wonderful but we could take advantage of it very easily and we could slip back from doing his well and listening to his word. We could begin to get to the stage where we think the numbers are more important than listening to God. It's very easy to put things on every Sunday night which would attract even more people I think relatively easy anyway. What do we do? That's pray that we'll resist this temptation that the Israelites had to take advantage of God's blessings to us. Let's come before God as they should have done and as we should with repentance with great thankfulness to God that he has been so merciful to us. Let's praise his name for it. It was only the people of Karyath Girim who finally understood it. The Bible doesn't tell us that they look back to the law of Moses to see what to do but they did. They knew what the law of Moses demanded and they consecrated a priest which was how they were supposed to do it in the Old Testament. They set aside a special priest to look after it, to look after the ark. They offered the offerings and the ark stayed there for 20 years and they enjoyed its presence with them. Finally one group of people realized that what really mattered was obedience to God and to his word.
So let us learn again tonight that God is totally sovereign, omnipotent, utterly powerful. You cannot escape from him. He is God over the whole world. Now even if for his better long-term purposes he brings you blessings, he will still hold you to account if you do not properly heed his word during the time of blessing. With fear and awe we come before the one who is our father, before Jesus who is our brother but is also our Lord. What mercy, what grace there is there. Let's pray. Our father we pray that from these most interesting and yet sad passages of scripture we pray that we may learn and that we may thank you for the way in which your scripture is given for us to learn. Lord we pray that the lessons we have seen from it tonight may be ones that your spirit will apply to our lives. Help us not to take advantage of the blessings of your presence with us. Father help us to heed your word, help us to be repentant when we are supposed to be repentant and help us to glorify you. Father we thank you that you are the sovereign omnipotent Lord and yet you are also exactly our father. How gracious and good you are. Amen.