As the Lord would enable us this afternoon we hope to take up 1st Samuel chapter 5 as our sermon text 1st Samuel chapter 5 under the title Idols bow before the Lord. Idols bow before the Lord. And congregation, as you recall last week, we closed our sermon out on the words of judgment, words of dread, Ichabod, that the glory had departed from God's old covenant people, Israel. That the ark of the covenant, the sign of God's presence in their midst had been taken out to battle at Aphek and had been captured by the Philistines and they carried it back as a trophy of war. We saw, of course, the lamentable state of Israel, which, if you recall, we discussed as similar to the state of the church today. God's glory had departed. The church at that time was weak and feeble, and even the visible sign that God was with them had been taken away by their enemies. And this, is a familiar picture to the church in the 21st century West. The church in the 21st century West knows what it means to be routed. The church in the 21st century West sadly has been defeated by many spiritual foes on many spiritual battlefields. And congregation, it's true as well, that it seems like the very symbol at times of God's presence, the comfort that Christ is in the midst of His church, it seems like at times even the enemies of God's people have taken that from the church. But I remind you, last week, we saw that God is spiritually present with His people, and even though this sign, this symbol of God's presence, of His covenant with them was taken away, the Lord had not left His people utterly destitute. And now, in our sermon text this afternoon, we're going to see God's fearful and terrible judgments on His enemies. So congregation, we're going to see this afternoon that God will not share His glory with another, that He will judge all the idols of the earth, and that God will judge the enemies of His people, even when His people are unfaithful, and even when His people have lost the battle. So we're going to see the Lord bringing down idols. We're going to see the Lord executing judgment. And there's encouragement to the church in this. There's encouragement because the Lord doesn't need. And I dread to say it in a sense, but the Lord doesn't need his people to go to the battle when his people lose. He will still judge their enemies and He will always be faithful to His people. He will always get glory for His name. So there's encouragement to the weak church in this. But secondly, also, there's a great call for the seeking of the Lord, for repentance, for us to remember that any idol we raise up, the Lord will bring down. And that now is the time to seek the Lord. while he may be found, and to call upon him while he is near. We're going to look at our text. in three points. The first point is the ark brought into Dagon's temple. The ark brought into Dagon's temple, and that's verses one to two, verses one to two. Our second point is Dagon falls before the Lord. Dagon falls before the Lord, verses three to five, verses three to five. And then finally, judgment without repentance, judgment without repentance. verses 6 to 12, verses 6 to 12. So let's begin with our first point, the ark brought into the temple of Dagon. The Philistines, the spiritual enemies of God, captured the temple or the ark of the covenant. It had been taken from Shiloh by the Jews, by the Israelites, and they brought it out to battle. And sadly, The Lord's people lost that battle and the enemies of God and His people as a prize, a spoil of war. took possession of the Ark of the Covenant. And immediately what they did is they brought it back to their own land and they wanted to place it in the temple of their God. Why? Well, the reason was this, because they wanted to show that the God of Israel was in subjection to their God, Dagon. Dagon was a god of agriculture. Some have said the god of wheat and grain to the ancient Philistines. The worship of him was very important because at that time grain being grounded to bread was the primary source of nourishment for any society. So Dagon was likely the chief deity in the Philistine pantheon of gods. And so Dagon is the mightiest God. You can almost think of him as a father or the leader of all the other gods. And so when the Philistines bring the Ark of the Covenant, which is the symbol of God being with his people into the temple of Dagon, what they are doing is they are bringing the God of Israel and they are making the God of Israel to be subject to their idols. They are bringing that ark into that temple to say that Dagon is mightier than Jehovah. This might seem like a very strange scene to the 21st century reader, of course, In the 21st century West, idols are not openly worshipped. This idea of taking one nation's religious symbol and bringing it into the temple of your gods seems actually quite foreign to all of us, doesn't it? It's not something we can really understand. But we see this same thing elsewhere in the Holy Scriptures. In Daniel chapter 1, we see very similarly that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, comes to Jerusalem, besieges it, and the Judah is given into the hand of Jehoiakim. And the vessels of the house of God he carries into the land of Shinar and to the house of his God. Same idea. The temple vessels, holy, consecrated, that were used to worship God are carried and they're brought in to Nebuchadnezzar's temple. And you think, okay, well, that's happened elsewhere in the scriptures, but what is the symbolism of this? Well, there's a great spiritual symbolism to this. You see, the Philistines and the Babylonians, they do not destroy these things. Rather, they make these things subject to their religion. And there's a great lesson, congregation, for us in this. The world. And even our spiritual enemies don't necessarily intend to destroy Christianity. You might say, what do you mean by that? Well, if you ask them, they'll tell you that you can have your Christianity, that you can worship the living and true God, Jehovah, so long as Jehovah is put on a shelf in their temple and they can mandate how he is to be worshiped and who he is. You see, the secular world of our day loves to do this. You hear this, for example, with anti-hate crime legislation, anti-hate speech legislation, right? They will say to Christians, there are certain things, perhaps Christian teachings on sexuality, on morality, that might fall afoul of this law. But they will say, as long as you comply with the law, you can still have your Christianity. You see a secular state, dear congregation, is saying to the church this, is what you should believe. It doesn't matter what the Bible says, we're going to take what the Christian teaching is, and we're gonna bring it into our secular temple, and we're going to subject it to our standards. And that is exactly what is happening here. You see, the world loves to tolerate Christianity on its terms, but never on God's terms. You see, this whole idea of a secular country, when you really boil it down, and before I say that, let me be clear, many of us have been steeped in the pot of secularism. We are so familiar with the idea of things like separation of church and state. We think about things and sayings go through our heads like you can't legislate morality or you can't make everyone worship or follow your religion. I want to be very explicit about this. The Bible does not recognize separation of church and state. The Bible does not recognize in any way that you cannot legislate morality. And so when we allow the secular state to say things like separation of church and state, when we allow the secular state to come to the church and to say you cannot legislate morality, if we comply with that, if we do not lift up our voice in opposition, dear congregation, what we are doing is we are bringing the sacred holy scriptures, the witness of the church as well, into the temple of Dagon, and we are subjecting ourselves to the secular gods of a wicked state. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about how the world loves to bring God in, Jehovah, the living and true God, to bring it in, to bring him into their way of thinking and subject him to their way of doing things? You might be thinking as you hear this, Pastor, I know That's what happens. I'm aware that the world loves to take the church, loves to take Christian teaching and try to neuter it and try to control it and try to oppose it. And that the world loves to make Christianity, the God of the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ, subject to its own ideologies and idols. But you say, pastor, I don't know what we are to do about it. Well, you see, the battle is the Lord's. And so, as the Philistines bring the Ark of the Covenant and make the God of Israel, Jehovah, subject to Dagon, what does the Lord do? Well, we read in verse three that the morning after they brought the Ark of the Covenant into the temple, the men of Ashdod rise up early in the morning and they go into the temple and what do they see? They behold that Dagon was fallen on his face to the earth. It's an interesting role reversal. The Philistines brought the Ark and set it before the false idol Dagon, and the next morning they wake up and Dagon is laying down in subjection before the Ark of the Covenant, showing that idols will be brought to nothing. You see, God's covenant people had been defeated in battle. The Ark of the Covenant had been taken, but the Lord will not share his glory with another. The Lord, he is God alone, and he will bring down the idols. And you know, My dear friend, sometimes it seems like those idols will never fall. Sometimes it seems from the Christian, individually, their vantage that the idol that is the secular world that we live in, with all of its trappings of feminism, of the sexual revolution, of all of its trappings of secular government, of all of its diverse ideologies that seem to want to bring trouble to Christianity, it seems that these things will never fall before the Lord. And the Philistines thought that way too. But there's a bit of irony in our text, because what we read is they go in, and what did they do? They pick up Dagon and set Dagon back up in his place. You see, my dear friends, Dagon was not able to lift himself up. It took his followers to lift him up. There's a lesson about idolatry in this. Idolatry is nothing more than a dead letter. The worship of idols, whether they be physical idols or false ideologies as is so common in our own day, the only way to make those things stand is by men foisting them back up when they fall before the Lord. And I can prove it to you. I want you to think for a moment. about the sexual revolution. One of the grand fallouts of the sexual revolution is a rising rate of fatherlessness and the destruction of the nuclear family. And what do we know if we look at studies? These studies are suppressed. People do not like to talk about them, but children that grow up fatherless are more likely, for example, to commit crimes. Children that grow up without a father in the home are more likely to commit suicide. We know that those that grow up in unstable households and without stable family environments are more likely to continue that trend. Instability begets instability and it's bad for society. One time I was talking with a professor of mine at seminary, and he actually did a fair amount of political advocacy in one of the American states. And he said that he had gone into meetings with politicians where they had admitted that these things were the case. And he went into these meetings, and they said, look, fatherlessness is a problem. The destruction of the family is a problem. And he would sit in these closed-door meetings, and he'd say, well, if you know these things are a problem, why do you not pass policies to encourage marriage? Why do you not pass policies to encourage families to stay together? Do you know what they said? They basically said, short-term gain of continuing to get re-elected over the betterment of society. But you see, it's a case when we admit these things, when we discuss these things, we know that these things are true. The idol of the sexual revolution in so many ways is brought down lower. It falls before the Lord. It falls before the plan that God has designed for the family and for human society. And who must help it up? those that wish to carry on this great secular experiment. They must suppress this research. They must allow these studies not to be conducted. I heard recently of a study done into transgenderism and gender treatment was repressed, that the study could not be released because the results were not favorable to a certain viewpoint. Dear congregation, again, the idol of our secular age comes crashing down before the Lord because of something called reality. Because God has made the world and there's a reality behind the world and what must happen, but people must strive to foist up, to foist up that great idol of secularism. And so what do they do? They foist that idol up again. And it might not be like we read in our texts, where the next day the idol falls over, Dagon falls over and is smashed into pieces. That might not be our lived experience. The Lord might be pleased and he has been pleased in our own day to allow the world to continue to raise up that idol of the secular state of secularism of atheism of no religion of the sexual revolution and it's raised up again and again and again and it seems almost like we are at the point of despair but I can promise you something, that in the same way that Dagon fell and was shattered before the Ark of the Covenant, secularism, the sexual revolution, and all other manner of anti-Christian ideologies that pervade in our day in 21st century Australia, will one day be brought to collapse before the Lord. And that is absolutely certain. And what does the Lord do to Dagon the second time he collapses? Well, in verse four, we see they rise early in the morning. By the way, we've transitioned into our second point, Dagon falls before the Lord. But they rise early in the morning that the next day, this would have been The second morning, since the Ark had arrived, the first morning Dagon falls over flat in subjection before the Ark. But the second, or the first morning, he falls in subjection before the Ark. But the second morning, now... Dagon is there lying broken. We read that Dagon, both the palms of his hands were cut off and upon the threshold only the stump of Dagon was left and his head was broken before the ark of the Lord. You see, the Lord will destroy men's idols. He will bring them absolutely crashing down. The church had been defeated. but the Lord was still working. The Philistines thought they'd captured the Ark of God and were going to bring it as a trophy of war, as in a sense a tribute to their success and their might and their power, but all of a sudden their false gods are being brought low and destroyed. There's something very ironic in this, and we pray that we'll see more of this in our own day. Dear congregation, as the world turns more topsy-turvy and more crazy, we pray that the unintended consequences of much of what the unbelieving Philistines of our own day do will bring their own idols crashing to the ground. You see, because what you have in chapter 5 in this first part where Dagon falls before the Lord is a lesson in unintended consequences. They bring him in to subject him, to subject the God of Israel to Dagon and what they find in turn is that they and their idols are actually subject to the God of Israel, the glorious God. of heaven. It's one thing for us to look at the idols of our secular age, to think about 21st century Australia, but it would be wrong if we did not bring this closer, if I did not bring this closer, my dear friends, to your own hearts. You see, because idolatry is not merely a sin that is indulged in out there in the unbelieving world, but the church can be full of idols, and your heart can in fact be a factory of idols. So I have to tell you this, that you see that there's a truth here. And that is if you are here and you are listening to this sermon, and you are in any way worshiping idols, and you say, pastor, I know the first commandment says, thou shalt not have any gods before me, the living and true God. You say, pastor, I know the second commandment. Thou shalt not break down any, or thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images. You say, pastor, I know these things. I've never bowed to an idol. I'm a reformed Christian. We don't even have a cross in the church. Stop it, stop it, stop it. I'm talking about the idols of your heart. I'm talking about the very things, my dear friend, that motivate you, that you secretly worship, the things that separate you from God and you put before the Lord. Do you not understand that these very idols God will make, lay low, and destroy them just as he did Dagon? The idol may be yourself. That's a common idol in our own day. Secularism really is nothing more than man making an idol of himself. And do you not realize that Paul writing to the Philippians in Philippians chapter two tells us that one day every knee shall bow, that one day, beloved congregation, every knee shall bow, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. It's Philippians chapter two, 10 and 11. You may be worshiping the idol of self. You may refuse to acknowledge it. You may not even know it because you are dead in your trespasses and sins, but I'm giving you a solemn and sober warning that the Lord will bring down this idol of self and you may resist the Lord Jesus Christ. You may resist his gospel. You may resist his claims over your life. but in the same way that Dagon was brought down and destroyed and shattered. So the Lord will shatter you one day of your idols and you will be brought into a point, to a place of subjection before him to a point where you may even unwillingly about to be cast into the very pit of hell will acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. You say, Pastor, that's a very, very sobering thing. It is. A very, very sobering thing. And that's why I give it to you as a warning. The false ideologies of our age will never bring you any true happiness. They will not bring you eternal life. They will not bring you fulfillment. of self will not bring you fulfillment. The only thing that will ever fulfill you is the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ being in communion with God and receiving him as the Savior that you so desperately need. And you might say, Pastor, I don't want to subject myself to Jesus Christ. I do not want to be saved. I do not want your religion. My friend, frankly, it doesn't matter if you want my religion or not, because the religion that I have is the religion of the Bible. It's the only true religion, and every false religion, ideology, and even the idol of yourself will be brought and crushed and laid before the Lord Jesus Christ. So, it's the day of grace. Before you confess on that last great day with rebellion in the heart, but the bowing of the knee, with rebellion in the mind, but with the words on the lips that Jesus Christ is Lord, why will you not do it this day in love? Why will you not come to Him who offers salvation, who offers eternal life? Why will you not come to this Savior, my friend? Why will you not come to Him and be healed? Why will you not come to Him and find eternal life? Will you come to the Lord Jesus Christ? He calls out to all the sons of men. Remember this morning we preached on the gospel of Mark chapter six, Jesus returned to his hometown of Nazareth. It was a second time there. The first time they were liable or they liked to have killed him, but he narrowly eluded them. And he returns a second time on that great gospel mission that he had. And he again teaches them and holds out to them the hope of eternal life. Why do you spurn eternal life? Why do you spurn the Lord Jesus Christ? Why do you spurn having your sins forgiven? All of your idols and everything that you hold dear will be brought low and brought to nothing and ultimately destroyed. And the only thing that will last is the Lord Jesus Christ. So will you turn to him? Now, there's also a note, I think of encouragement to the church here. When we are spiritually defeated congregation, when we are spiritually in the midst of great struggle, It seems like the idols of the Philistines of our own day tower over us. It seems as though the things of this world, the opponents that we have, they're always going to win. And the Israelites undoubtedly, when the ark was taken, they felt dejected, they felt like their enemies were always going to win. But the ark being taken from his old covenant people of Israel was a means of chastening them, yes, but it also was a means of him bringing low the idols of his enemies. So may the church know that even in our day, the day of small things, that God can bring the idols of this world, know that He can destroy the ideologies that oppose and fight Christianity, that He can expose these things as what they are, illegitimate frauds. And so may you, dear Christian, as you sit in the small congregation in rural Tasmania, may you have comfort in that. And you say, pastor, pastor, it's a day of small things. And it is truly a day of small things, isn't it? Zechariah speaks of the day of small things in Zechariah 4, verse 10. And you know, before that, Zechariah actually says in Zechariah 4 verse 6, the word of the Lord from the mouth of Zechariah to Zerubbabel, he says, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Why do I bring up these two texts, the day of small things and the power of the Lord? You see, Zechariah was prophesying to Zerubbabel to go and to build the temple. And while it might be a day of small things, dear congregation, we can have confidence that the Lord will lay the idols of our enemies low, that He will destroy them. And though it is a day of small things, Perhaps it's time for us to go and build. Perhaps it's time for the church to be shaken out of its lethargy to see the power of the God that we serve, to go to that Lord and to plead and say, not by might nor power, but by thy spirit, O God, build thou thy church. And make the idols of the world fall. Make them fall, not before us, thy church, but make them fall before the blessed Redeemer, the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the king and head of his church. But it's not merely that the Lord destroys their idols, he brings judgment as well on the Philistines, and this, of course, leads us nicely into our third and final point. In, Our text, we read that after Dagon has been destroyed, it seems that what they've done is they removed the ark and they're afraid to tread over the threshold where the destroyed Dagon lays. And they draw in verse 6 this conclusion, and it's an ironic conclusion. They say, but the hand of the Lord is heavy upon them of Ashdod. And you know, it's ironic that the Lord's hand is heavy upon them. When Dagon, their God, his hands were broken off and destroyed. So the Lord's hand is heavy upon them. And what do they choose to do? Well, they fear. And we read that they are actually, he destroyed them. And many have thought in verse six, that idea of he destroyed them is some miraculous judgment that's not recorded for us, but it's terrible. And it kills many. And we read of the Imrods or the tumors. or some have rendered him hemorrhoids. What are these things? Well, in a sense, they're a mysterious judgment of God. We know from our text, and later in chapter 6, that these things did not feel very well. But I think most likely, these, they're not tumors, they're not hemorrhoids. I suppose you could call them MRODs, but what they likely are is actually the giant pustules of bubonic plague. You see in 1st Samuel chapter 1 verse 6, the next chapter, we read that they, what they do is they, sorry it's verse 5, they take images of the Imrods, or the tumors, and images of mice that mar the land. You see, many have thought there's a connection here. They see these Imrods, these tumors, as tied in with the mice, and so likely this could have been an outbreak of bubonic plague, right? Because it's not the mice that carry it, it's the fleas the mice have, and it comes and it infects the land, and what ultimately happens is, of course, your lymph nodes swell up in these giant, painful, pus-filled, tumor-like things. It's a terrible way to die, and it seems that perhaps this is the very disease the Lord had afflicted the Philistines with. And so, they don't want the ark of God anymore. We read in verse seven that they said that they should take the ark a way that it should not abide with them because of how heavy God's hand was upon Dagon, their God. So what do they do? Well, they take the ark from Ashdod to another Philistine city of Gath and they send it to Gath. And in Gath, they have the same result again. Again, the ark comes and what happens? God's judgment comes with it. When the ark comes in to the city, those emeralds, those tumors, the plague, it breaks out. And we read in Gath of a very great destruction where he strikes the men of the city, both small and great, And we even read that they had these emerald tumors in their secret parts, that they are in immense pain. And then... They decide that they can't keep it in Gath, so they're going to send it to another city, and that is Ekron. So they go and they send the Ark of God to the city of Ekron in verse 10. And then when it goes to Ekron, the results are much the same of what we would expect. That the inhabitants of Ekron cry out and say, they brought the Ark of God to slay us. This arc of God's covenant with his people, a sign of his visible presence, had not only brought the idols of the Philistines to naught and destroyed them, but it was actually now being seen as a sign of judgment. They realized they could not subject the God of Israel to fall in line. They could not expect and they could not subject him to be second to their gods. He would not fall in line with their idolatrous schemes, but rather God was judging these people. So when Ekron They cry out, fearful that the Lord is going to slay them. So the Ekronites, it seems in verse 11, they send out and they gather together all the Lords, the Philistines, and they say they want to send away the Ark of the Lord. Now congregation, I think this to us is probably a very natural reaction. Everywhere this Ark of the Covenant has gone, the Ark of the Lord, it has wrought destruction. It has brought idols down low. It has afflicted men with diseases. There have been wonderful judgments where many have been killed. So they want the ark to depart from them. But can I tell you, they are actually doing the wrong thing. If you think just back a couple of weeks to our sermon on the Gadarene demoniac and the legion of devils that possessed him, them being driven out and how the inhabitants of that region came to Jesus. And what did they do? Mark chapter five, verse 17. And they began to pray him and that him there is Jesus. They began to pray Jesus to depart out of their coast. You see the Philistines and the Gadarenes had both seen the mighty judgments of Jehovah. And they do not want any part of it. They look upon it and they think, we want nothing to do with this God, the inhabitants of Gadara, the Gadarene region. They want Jesus to depart out of their area because they've seen their swine be destroyed. And even in a sense, complicating things, they see this man that was possessed with demons now in his right mind. and they that are in darkness are terrified of the light, and they're terrified of it. The Philistines here, all they see are the judgments of God, and they want nothing to do with the God of Israel. My dear friend, can I tell you, this is the wrong thing that the Philistines are doing. This is absolutely the wrong thing. The Lord was afflicting them. And you might say, well, pastor, what was their duty? Their duty was to cry out and plead with the Lord, to repent of their sins, to go to Israel, to find the prophet Samuel, to have him come in their midst and to tell them the Lord's will. Their duty was to plead with God, to reveal his salvation to them. Their duty was to be like Nineveh later on in the history of God's old covenant people. They were to seek out a prophet. Now with Nineveh, of course, the Lord sent Jonah, but they were to seek out a prophet. They were to seek the Lord. This affliction that was brought upon the Philistines should have motivated them to seek after God. You can think of Isaiah. 55 verse six, seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. And while the Ark of the Covenant is in the land of the Philistines, we can say that the Lord was near. And you say, what do you mean by that? I'm saying, well, God is judging them. The Lord is dealing with them. The Lord is near. My friend, In the midst of affliction, what you need is not less of God, you need more of God. In the midst of affliction, you must seek after the living and true God. I've heard of people that go and they get counseling from pastors. And the pastors, they go there and they say they have this problem. And then they'll tell them, they'll say, but I'm tired of the Lord. The Lord's brought this on me. The Lord has done this. Or they say, why will God not help me? Do you know, when you go to your pastor like that, you might hear the answer. It's not that you need less of God, it's you need more of God. It's this affliction that should be turning you to the Lord. Can I ask you a question? If the Lord is afflicting you, do you see it as coming from God's hands? And do you realize that that is a reason for you to seek God, that God is dealing with you? And in the midst of affliction, it's time for you to seek the Lord, to call upon him while he may be found to draw near to the Lord. And to those that are unconverted, Sometimes the Lord, the way He deals with you, with sinners, is He will afflict them. He will bring some notable judgment upon them. And it's very easy for you that are outside of Christ, when you realize the Lord is dealing with you in a certain way, or you realize that things are falling out in a certain way, it's very easy for you to write it off and say, I want nothing to do with God. My dear friend, your duty when the Lord afflicts you, whether you're converted or unconverted, but particularly with the unconverted, use that affliction, use that terrible judgment, use whatever the Lord is doing as a means of stirring you up to seek the Lord and call upon Him while He may be found. The Philistines made the same mistake as the Gadarenes, both of them instead of seeking the Lord and calling upon Him in the hopes that He may be found. They wanted nothing to do with the Ark of the Lord. The Gadarenes wanted nothing to do with the Lord Jesus Christ. But my friend, Don't make that mistake in the midst of afflictions, in the midst of God's judgments. Rather, seek the Lord and call upon him while he may be found, while he is near, and do not neglect the duty of seeking. And you say, pastor, will I find? My dear friend, the Lord Jesus Christ will turn away no one that comes to him by faith. He will not turn you away. He will deal with you in His mercy. So seek Him and seek Him and cry out to Him until you find Him, or better said, until He finds you. That is where the Philistines failed. God had given them reason to seek him out and to seek his mercy, but instead they harden their hearts and all they want is an end to the judgment. They do not want to know the salvation of God. For the church, though, there is something very, very encouraging about what God is doing here among the Philistines. God's people are faithless. They have been unfaithful. That is why they lost the battle. But the Lord is still, of course, bringing their idols low, and He still is executing His judgments on the enemies of His people, and more significantly, on His enemies. And can I tell you, That the Lord Jesus Christ is still doing this in our own day. That when the church feels so weak, and we feel so faithless, and we feel like we cannot stand because the world just longs and desires, and the world actually is undercutting the Christian religion at every turn, can I tell you that the Lord is still dealing with the nations. and he will defend his cause and his truth, then he will not share his glory with another. And I'll close on this note, and that is to the church that is under the judgment of God. God's hand laid heavy upon the Philistines, and the Lord's hand likewise can lay heavy upon his church. He can chasten his church, not to judge them because they are his enemies, but he will chasten his church to show them the error of their ways because he loves them. But the church must also remember the words of Isaiah 55 verse 6 to seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near. It is easy for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ that has been unfaithful when the Lord begins to touch what is sore or afflict the church and make them sore. It's easy for the church to say none of it. We want to go back to what we were when we were peaceful, when everything was fine. And really, when they were peaceful, they were spiritually dead. The church must in the midst affliction seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he was near lest the Church of Christ make the same mistake as the Philistines and the Gadarenes and when God touches or afflicts instead of crying out for mercy we cry for the Lord to depart and then truly it is Ichabod the glory has departed from his church so We see God's hand of judgment on his enemies. We see much to consider in terms of our own day of small things that the Lord is still bringing about his judgment on the enemies of Christ and of his church. We have much to be encouraged about, but also if you're outside of Christ, You should be stirred up to seek the Lord in the midst of any affliction that you find yourself in. You should call upon Him while He is near, and to the church of the Lord Jesus that has been routed in battle, as we undoubtedly have. It's time for us to seek the Lord, for when the Lord is afflicting us, that's when He's calling on us to turn to Him and repent and beg for mercy. Congregation, may we stand and pray. O Lord, Most High and Ever-Blessed God, we do rejoice in the truth of Thy Word. And we've seen Thy mighty judgments on the Philistines, and we rejoice in these things. We pray, O Lord, pleading with faith that the idols of our own day would be brought low before the Lord Jesus Christ, that those, O God, that worship, whether they be physical idols or the dangerous ideologies of our day, or even themselves, that they would be brought to bow before the Lord Jesus Christ while it is still yet the day of grace. and that oh God the gospel offer the glorious good news of Jesus Christ would permeate our own church and our own day and in our own nation that Christ Jesus would draw many to himself as he destroys the idols of our land that Lord we plead for our nation and for our denomination that Lord in the midst of thy judgments we would not plead for Christ to depart, but we would repent and beg for mercy and long for him to come nearer to us. And we pray this in the name of him who is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Amen.