Let's come before our God in prayer. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. O Lord, our God, you are the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the triune God for generation after generation from all eternity. You have been our dwelling place for generations, and you delight to hear us when we cry to you. So we pray that you would hear us today, O Lord, our God, for we are your people and the sheep of your pasture. Hear us today, O Lord, our God, for you have promised to hear the needy when they cry, and you have promised to be a help to the helpless, a father to the fatherless, and a strength and a rescuer to the widow. And so, Father, with boldness, we come to you resting in your promises with no strength of our own, no wisdom of our own, and yet confident because we know that in our Lord Jesus, our sins are taken away. So we beseech you this morning on behalf of the church throughout the world that you would be merciful, that you would give boldness to your servants who proclaim your word in every corner and catacomb and house and small building throughout the world, wherever they are, and give boldness to your congregations and that you would gather and protect and defend and preserve your church wherever it meets. For our own community, Father, we pray for those who guard and protect the streets, give wisdom and righteousness. We pray that you would gather and defend your church here, and that you would call your people together as with the sound of the trumpet, for you have promised that days would come when the dead would hear the voice of the Son of God and live. And so today, Father, in our community, we pray that you would send that voice out, the proclamation of your gospel, that you would tear down the deceivers and the false prophets and defend and preserve your church. We pray, Father, that you would meet with us, for we know that you are not far from us. You are found wherever your word is preached. So pour out your spirit today on the reading and the preaching of your word. Father, you are the God of wisdom and beauty and light and goodness, and we praise you for that light. We praise you and thank you for the progress made this week in our health concerns, that you certainly hear our prayers and you love us and you are our God. And for all who are still suffering, for all who have more appointments and more tests and more of this trial of walking through this valley of tears, we pray that you would give us more light. Give us light in our darkness, give hope in our trials, encourage and strengthen us, for we wait upon you. The birds of the air wait upon you, the deer of the meadow wait upon you, and so too will we. Give us patience and peace as we wait through this night for the light that comes from you alone. And as we travel through this valley, we pray that you would give strength to the weak and food to the hungry. Deliver us from the evil one who seeks to devour and destroy. Give justice to the oppressed, courage to the fearful, Faith to the doubting, forgive us our sins and renew in us a right spirit. Create in us a new hearts that serve you with joy and peace. Give peace and rest to those who are troubled. Fill us with your spirit and with the fruits of your spirit. Cause your kingdom to increase more and more that we might submit ourselves to you each day and cause us to grow in love and joy and peace. For you are our God and we are your people. We are your sheep and you are our shepherd. Lead us to still waters, we pray. Quiet our restless souls. And let's pray together. And let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen. My scripture reading this morning is 1 Samuel chapter 5. Continuing on the account that I read last week, let's go to 1 Samuel chapter 5. I have a few comments to make on the events of chapter 5 and 6 of 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 5. And the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon. When they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen on his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord, and they took Dagon and set him in his place again. And when they arose early on tomorrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold. Only the stump of Dagon was left to him. Therefore, neither the priests of Dagon nor any that come into Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod until this day. But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod. He destroyed them, and smote them with emeralds, or large tumors, even Ashdod, and the coasts thereof. And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us, for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our God. They sent, therefore, and gathered all the lords of the Philistines unto them, and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about into Gath. And they carried the ark of God of Israel about there. And it was so, that after they had carried it about, the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction. And he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emeralds in their secret parts. Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron, And it came to pass, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people. So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to its own place, that it slay us not and our people. For there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city, and the hand of God was very heavy there. And the men that died not were smitten with the Eberrods, and the cry of the city went up to heaven. And the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months." Hosea wrote, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Both Israel and the Philistines, as we saw last week, made crucial and deadly errors about the nature of God. Those errors are still being made today, and thus I thought a couple of sermons on this nature of God that we see in the kings of Israel might be welcome. Both the Philistines and the Israelites viewed this war between them as a war between their gods, Jehovah on one side and Dagon on the other. So the Israelites, after they were defeated by the Philistines, they took the Ark of the Covenant, that sacred, holy symbol of the presence of God, and carried it in front of them into battle. As I said last week, Israel liked a God that they carried themselves. This is the draw of idolatry. We like a God in a box that we can control, who fights our enemies, agrees with us, is always on our side. That's the lure of idolatry. It gives us a sense of control. But control is the opposite of faith. I'm going to say that again. Control is the opposite of faith. Faith is resting on God's promises even when the world is scary. Control refuses to rest because we say in our heart, well, if we don't take care of this, who will? God has obviously forgotten about us. Faith would have required that the Israelites throw away their idols. and turn naked to face the one true God. And when we do that, God responds by giving us Himself, forgiving our sins, restoring fellowship, filling us with His Spirit. He will restore creation in due time. But the catch is, He may or may not defeat the Philistines. He may or may not heal us on this earth. And that's terrifying. We want to hold on to the control. And so Israel will hold on to the control. We will carry God and have some semblance of control over the situation. And they were soundly defeated. The Ark of God was captured. The Philistines rejoiced, thinking that Dagon had defeated Jehovah, and thus they made their deadly error. Put yourself in the mind of Israel. What will they do now? Their glory has departed. The ark was the center of their worship, their civilization, their community, their culture. It was the heart of their tabernacle, their worship, their sacrificial system. It stood in the middle of the holy of holies. It was a token of God restoring all creation to be his dwelling place. The ark was a token of God's presence among Israel. So what will they do now? How will they recapture the Ark? How can they bring it back? It's not possible. The Philistines are stronger than they are. But notice how in our chapter the point of view switches completely and Israel is not even mentioned. Now it switches to the acts of God among the Philistines. and the Israelites had nothing to do with it. Is God defeated by Dagon, as the Philistines believed? When the priests opened their temple the next morning, They had placed the Ark of the Lord at the feet of Dagon to symbolize his utter defeat by the hands of their God. But the morning when they opened the temple to Dagon, there was Dagon, that huge stone statue, the half-fish, half-man God, had fallen down, face down, in front of the Ark of Jehovah. So they get out all their pulleys and their hoists and their ropes and they haul that huge statue back on its feet again where he belongs. Or his fins or whatever he had. That should have revealed something to them. Does their God have any power at all to save since he can't even lift himself upright? They're the ones that had to lift Dagon into place. To make the message even clearer, the next morning when they come into the temple, there's Dagon fallen down again, only this time his hands and his head are cut off. Dagon has no wisdom, has no power, has no eyes, has no mouth, has no ears. Their idols are silver and gold, Psalm 115 tells us, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. The head falls off." And the Philistines respond with more superstition, something about not walking on the threshold. But what about the God of Israel? There's a subtle contrast between the God of Israel and the God of the Philistines. Does the God of Israel have hands that he can't use? or a mouth that doesn't speak? Or is it true what Psalm 115 says that He does whatsoever He pleases? To answer that question, something amazing is about to happen. Israel can't do anything about the Ark. Their hands and their mouths and their legs have lost all their strength. The Philistines are too strong for them. And they didn't rest and trust and believe the words of God because they longed for control rather than faith. They trusted in their strength rather than the God of Jacob and now they have nothing. But God will keep his promises to Abraham and he won't need Israel to do anything at all. The Philistines have five major cities. Each city is surrounded by its villages. It is a very advanced, very powerful, very civilized culture. They came most likely from an ancient Minoan civilization. They did come from the land of Cyprus, the island of the Mediterranean. And so they transported that very advanced culture to the shores of the land of Canaan in what is now the Gaza Strip. In fact, Philistine and Palestine are related words, come from the same root. The Temple of Dagon was located in one of those five cities of the Philistines, the great city of Ashdod. We know from the next chapter that not only were giant hemorrhoids the problem, but there were also giant rats that were running through the cities. Overnight, the city of Ashdod is overrun with rats. And then everyone starts getting huge tumors. Whether these are tumors or hemorrhoids, does it really matter? Do we need to go into the description? Extremely painful, extremely deadly, large, swollen, nasty, open sores all over their bodies. They understood that this was not a normal plague. This was the hand of Jehovah very heavy upon them. And then they started to die. All over Ashdod and all over the little cities around Ashdod, men and women and children started to die. And so they said, what do we do? And they called the council together. What are we going to do? And their solution is, well, let's send it to Gath. And all the Gathites say, well, thanks a lot for that. And then the Gathites get the rats and the tumors and the plagues, and then they started to die. As I said, the Philistines were not stupid people. They were not primitive savages. There was a reason that they immediately knew that this was the hand of Jehovah. It was something far greater than a normal plague. So much so that they acknowledged that the hand of Jehovah was heavy upon Dagon. but they still would not see that Jehovah was the only God. So the Gathites are all dying. The Ashdodites are all dying. There's a lot of ites, aren't there? The Gathites and the Ashdodites are all dying. They all get those giant tumors and the giant rats overplagging everything, and they say, what do we do now? And they say, well, let's send it to Ekron. And the citizens of Ekron say, yeah, hold on. Let's think this through a little bit more. And they call the priests and the diviners in the next chapter. Here's what you got to do. You got to make golden images of all the tumors and golden images of all the rats. And you've got to put it on a cart. And then hitch two milk cows to the cart. Take their calves away from them and put them behind and lock them up in the barn. And then see where the cart goes. Naturally speaking, the cart would turn around and go right back where the calves were because Cows do not willingly leave their calves. So this is what they do. The cart, though, doesn't turn around and go back to the barn. The cart goes in a straight line. The cows did not even look over their shoulders, and yet they moved the whole way. And they went in a straight line back to Israel towards the village of Beth Shemesh. The people of Beth Shemesh rejoiced that the ark has returned, and they offer sacrifices, and they have a great party, and then they look in the ark. And the Lord rains judgment on them for looking in the ark. So what happened? The question, does the God of Jacob have power? Does He have hands? Of course, he doesn't have physical hands, but does he have power? Can he do as he pleases? Does he need us to defend him? Does he need us to protect his name? Does he need us to protect his honor? This is an act of history that shows us who God is. This doctrine flows from what we call the aseity of God, which we talked about in our confirmation class this week. Aseity is a Latin word that means of himself. God did not come from somewhere else. God was not created. He was not made. He did not evolve. He is of himself. He's not composed of pieces and parts. And the implication of that is that he's not dependent upon his creation in any way. He doesn't need us to love. He didn't create us because he had a need for us to worship him. He didn't create us because he had a bunch of people, he had a bunch of Sabbaths that he needed kept. The sacrificial system was for our benefit, not for his. His love is perfect, his power is perfect, his holiness and his goodness and his wisdom are perfect, and that is whether or not men and women existed at all. He is of himself. He didn't create us out of need. He doesn't need our worship. He doesn't need our love. He doesn't need us to set him upright on his feet or to carry him from place to place. He doesn't need us to rescue him from the Philistines or to defend him against the repugnant cultural other. This is something to meditate on. But the fact is he made a promise to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. He chose to love his people freely. God loves us but he doesn't need to love us. That makes his love even more astounding. God makes that promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He calls them throughout all of Scripture to believe the promise. The contrast idols in Psalm 115 that I've been talking about, He says, Oh, Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. But instead, Israel wanted to control the situation. They wouldn't rest. They didn't believe that God's bare word was enough for them to put their trust in, and so they took control of the ark, and when they did that, they lost it. But now, seven months later, while they're boarding, while they're figuring out what they're gonna do and who they are, all of a sudden, here comes a very strange sight, a cart with two very loud and noisy cows going in a straight line. not going from the right hand or to the left, coming straight towards them. And on that cart is the ark. On that cart also are golden hemorrhoids that have been a sight to see, and golden rats. God didn't need Israel to rescue him from the Philistines. That hits us right in our pride, doesn't it? But as you think about that, that God doesn't need us, then we remember. Well, the apostles went everywhere preaching. Paul told Timothy, preach the word. We're commanded to love our spouses. The prophets all worked. Bezalel built the temple. The priests and the Levites guarded the temple. They offered the sacrifices. Adam was created to tend and keep the garden. If God doesn't need us, Why does God command us to work? If He doesn't need us, if He's commanded us to rest in His promise and in His finished work, then why does He give us work to do? Very simply, why does He promise to give us our daily bread and then command us to go to work? Six days shalt thou labor. Part of it is the fall, after the fall of man. He said, by the sweat of your brow, you'll eat your bread. That made labor hard and strenuous and futile. But that wasn't the beginning of work. Adam had joyful, productive work. He was called to give names to all the animals. He was called to keep and tend the garden. And as we look at this and answer that question and see what happened at Beth Shemesh, we must keep in mind the first half of this sermon. God is independent and of himself. He doesn't need his creatures in any way. That will make the rest of this more astonishing. Because even though God doesn't need us, he created us all as image bearers of God. He commanded us to have dominion. We were created to reflect his image. The image is the image in ancient cultures was the symbol of authority and power of the king. We are symbols of the authority and power of God the creator of heaven and earth. That's how we were created. That's how we were made. That's what Adam was called to be. and a very practical outflowing of this that we read about, because God doesn't give us just long philosophical treaties. He gives us accounts and stories and acts in history. God named, in Genesis 1, the sun and the moon and the stars and the day and the night and the sea and the dry land, but when He created Adam and the animals, He gave Adam the task to name the animals. God was very capable of naming all the animals, but he gave Adam the tremendous privilege of taking part in that work. This is what it means to be an image bearer of God. But God will also always be God. He cannot lie. He cannot dwell with sin. and therefore man cannot rule unless man is obedient to God. Man was always created to reflect. Man was never made to be an original. Adam didn't want to rule under God as an image bearer. He wanted to rule all on his own. He wanted to make his own rules. He wanted to decide for himself what was right and what was wrong, what was true and what was false. To test Adam in this, God set a boundary. He said, you can eat all the trees, all the fruit of all the trees in the Garden of Eden, but this one tree, you can't eat that one. The whole question is this, does God have the right to set a boundary? Of course he does. In fact, it isn't possible for man to have dominion over the earth as God intended unless man abides by the boundaries set by God. Unless man obeys. Because man wasn't created for control. Man was created to reflect the image of God. to bring the order of creation to the world as God intended. And man will always reflect. He will either reflect God and order and law and boundaries or he will reflect the chaos and wickedness and evil of the devil. Those are his only two options. He will either be the son of God or he will be the son of the devil doing his own lusts. So to illustrate this just as Adam was called to have dominion over the earth and he failed. So also God calls Israel. He says, Israel is my firstborn son. He calls them to be an obedient son. And God gives them dominion over Canaan as his image bearers. Israel would be his inheritance and he would be their inheritance. And he gave them that land. He gives them a picture of Eden in the temple. The pomegranates and lilies carved all over the tabernacle. The blue curtains over the top representing the sky of the cosmos. God promises that He's going to restore creation and it will again become His dwelling place and man will again have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, that which He lost in the fall. but the boundaries still apply. God says to them when he made a covenant with them, and you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness to humble you and to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. Will Israel be the obedient firstborn son? Of course, God already knew the answer. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Israel was born corrupt, but he had a greater plan. God's plan is to direct them to the greater, the second Adam. The Christ who was to come, the true Israel, the true Adam, who was shadowed in the sacrifices and ceremonies of the law, but that's yet to come. Because of this God gives Israel the Sabbaths. He teaches them that he will save them and that they will rest. He will sanctify them and they will rest. But God still cannot dwell with sin. Israel's status as the people of God is conditioned on them keeping the covenant according to Exodus 19. The first thing they have to learn is the lesson that Adam didn't. God already knows the answer. But this first lesson is this, thou shalt have no other gods before me. God says, I am God, you are not. Just as he told Adam not to eat the tree, so he also commands Israel. You're not in charge here. I will call you my son and give you dominion over this, and you will conquer all your enemies, and I will feed you, and I will protect you, and I will be your God, and you will be my people, but don't usurp control. You will never be an original. Even your king will be under my laws. You are an image bearer. I make the rules, not you. I carry you. You don't carry me. I uphold you. You don't uphold me. And so to teach them this, the whole worship of Israel was surrounded by rules. God set his boundaries this far and no farther. You can read all about those boundaries in the book of Leviticus. Here's what you offer for a sacrifice. Here's how you do it. Here's what you give to the Lord. Here's what you give to the priests. Here's what your priests wear. Here's what you make it out of. Here's where you get the stones. Here's the exact recipe for the oil of incense that you're going to burn. Here's what you use to turn the coals of the altar. Here's what you use to stir the fire. The biggest rules of all had to do with the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark is holy for it represents God's throne. It represents the presence of God dwelling in their midst. Only the high priest, once a year, was allowed through that veil to sprinkle blood on the mercy seat. You don't go through the veil to look at it. You don't touch it. You keep your hands off of it. I will dwell with you and be your God, and I will give you your heart's desires. I will go among you, I will meet with you, I will bring you to eternal glory, I will restore creation and forgive your sin, but don't look in the ark. It's an amazing thing about human beings. When you set a boundary, the first thing human beings do is, I'm gonna step over it. Nobody's going to tell me what to do. God has no right. We've got to make sure, make sure that the stuff is still in there. The fact is we can only accomplish what we were meant to accomplish if we submit ourselves to God's will. We are image bearers, never originals. And Israel failed over and over and over again. God said to Adam, when you eat the fruit, you will die. Adam ate. We all died. We inherited that corruption. Unless we're born again by the Spirit of God, we will do it over and over again. Even now that we are born again, we still cross the boundaries. We say to ourselves, God isn't doing it right. God can't take care of this. God isn't trustworthy. God isn't good. We need to take control of the situation. Just like Adam took control of it by eating the fruit. I will be as God knowing good and evil. So the people of Beth Shemesh just wanted to make sure that everything was still in the box like it was supposed to be. That those nasty Philistines didn't ruin everything like getting their grubby hands on the table of stone. Did they suppose that God can bring the ark back but couldn't bring himself to protect what was inside of it? Or were they just curious and wanted to see what it was? Or did they just say to themselves, nobody can tell me what to do? I don't know. The problem is this, God said it so clearly, don't touch it, don't look at it. I will dwell with you and I will be your God, but I am the creator, not you. I am your God, not the other way around. You don't carry me. You don't need to make sure that I'm okay. Don't look in the ark. But like Adam, they broke the covenant. Like they did in the wilderness, they continue to do over and over again. There's some question about the number of people that actually died. Our translation says 50,070. The Hebrew literally says 70 men, 50,000 men. but it doesn't give the relationship between those two numbers. So it's an odd way of putting the numbers, and no one knows for sure whether it was 70 men or whether it was 50,000 and 70 men. Does it mean 70 out of 50,000? That seems to be more likely, but no one knows for sure. They mourn. They say, who can stand before this holy God? And so they asked the men of Jabesh Gilead to come and get the ark. The reasons why are unknown. From Beth Shemesh back to Shiloh, you had to go through the city of Jabesh Gilead, so maybe that was the reason. Maybe they were heading back to Shiloh. But there weren't any priests in Shiloh. Everything was in disarray. And for whatever reason, the ark never made it back there. It went into storage until the days of King David. when it was brought to Jerusalem, to Mount Zion. But God will keep His promises. He promised that He will bless all the nations on earth through the seed of the woman. Adam failed. Israel failed. All of mankind failed. And so He sends His only begotten Son, who will become flesh and do what Adam and Israel both failed to do. Now I want you to hear me very closely on this. The purpose of this account and the purpose of this sermon is not to teach us to say stupid Israelites because all of us would have done exactly the same thing and do it daily if we're honest with ourselves. And the purpose of this account isn't to teach us a moral lesson like some sort of Aesop's Fables to make sure you obey or God will get you. The purpose of this account is to exalt Christ and to point to Him. He's the one that didn't look in the ark. It's to teach us who he is, what he has done, how he has fulfilled everything that Adam and Israel failed to do. He was the obedient son of God when he was faced by the Philistines of the Roman army and the Sanhedrin coming at him with sticks and staves to arrest him and to crucify him, knowing what they were gonna do to him. Yet he said, not my will, but thine be done. He will obey. Even when things are terrifying. Even when he's sweating great drops of blood. Because he trusts his father completely. He says to Peter, don't you know that I can ask my father and he'll send me legions of angels? This is to fulfill scripture. He submits himself to the hand of God completely, knowing that the judge of the earth will always do right. This is the obedient son, so this obedient son is the only one to earn the blessings of the covenant. And he earned them for you and me, not for himself. As true and eternal God, he didn't need to obey. For he is sovereign. but he made himself born of the woman born under the law that he might redeem us from the curse of the law. We inherited our corruption from Adam. We still choose control over faith, especially as things get hard. For me, my greatest struggle is the struggle to rest If I don't do it, who will? At bottom, it's a matter of faith. I recognize that. And I have to ask myself, is God so far out of control that He's no longer trustworthy? Is it okay to sleep? Is it okay to take a break? Is it okay to rest? Is it okay to turn the phone off and take a Sabbath? The times that God gives me to work I will work joyfully. And he's still teaching me that I don't need to pry into the ark. The secret things belong to God. I need to leave them there and say that's OK. And so I work because I bear God's image and I work joyfully because I bear God's image. We all work because we bear God's image and it's been restored to us in Christ. Don't confuse that with demanding control. You don't have that. The future God hasn't put in your hands. And so, teach your kids. Teach them diligently. Pray with them. Go to the doctor. Get your shots. Go to work. Plant your tomatoes. Water your tomatoes. Pray for the governor. Pray for the president. Vote when you have the opportunity to vote. Go to church. Hear their preaching of the word, take the sacraments, but leave control in the hands of God. Don't look in the ark. Be anxious for nothing. Don't be afraid to sleep, for God's got it under control. Take a day off, for God has commanded you to. Learn to sit quietly in a dark room. If you demand control, you will not find peace. For the secret things are God's, not yours. God has given you the revealed things. He says that we might learn to keep this law. What are the revealed things? Don't look in the ark. Don't neglect the gathering of yourselves together. Love your spouse. Take the lower place. Be courteous. Be kind. Be forgiving. Rejoice. Call upon him in the day of trouble. Believe God's promise. Come to Christ and rest. Your salvation is complete in Christ. Believe that and be at peace. The rest can be left in the hands of God. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we pray that you would give us the grace to leave the secret things in your hands. that we can do the things that you've called us to do with joy, knowing that you are good, and we can leave the control in your hands, and we can leave the outcome in your hands. So teach us to be at peace, teach us to rest, and teach us to love one another without fear. In Jesus' name, amen.