Now, what we're going to do is this. We're going to read from 1 Samuel and chapter 4. So let's start by going to the Old Testament and read from 1 Samuel and chapter 4. Now, I think I've got the correct church Bible here, and it's on page 269 in the church Bible. Page 269. So 1 Samuel, chapter 4, page 269. let us listen to the word of God. And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now, Israel went out to battle against the Philistines. They encamped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines encamped at Aphek. Philistines drew up in line against Israel And when the battle spread, Israel was defeated before the Philistines, who killed about 4,000 men on the field of battle. And when the people came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies. So the people sent to Shiloh and brought from there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts who is enthroned on the Cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the Ark of the Covenant of God. As soon as the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel gave a mighty shout, so that the earth resounded. And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shouting, they said, what does this great shouting in the camp of the Hebrews mean? And when they heard that the Ark of the Lord had come to the camp, the Philistines were afraid. For they said, a god has come into the camp. And they said, woe to us. For nothing like this has happened before. Woe to us. Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness. Take courage and be men, O Philistines, lest you become slaves to the Hebrews as they have been to you. Be men and fight!' So the Philistines fought and Israel was defeated. And they fled, every man to his home. And there was very great slaughter, for 30,000 foot soldiers of Israel fell, and the Ark of God was captured, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died. A man of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head. When he arrived, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road watching, for his heart trembled for the Ark of God. When the man came into the city and told the news, all the city cried out. When Eli heard the sound of the outcry, he said, what is this uproar? Then the man hurried, came, told Eli. Now Eli was 98 years old, and his eyes were set so that he could not see. And the man said to Eli, I am he who has come from the battle. I fled from the battle today. And he said, how did it go, my son? He who brought the news answered and said, Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great defeat among the people. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the Ark of God has been captured. As soon as he mentioned the Ark of God, Eli fell over backward from his seat by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken, and he died. For the man was old and heavy. He had judged Israel 40 years. Now his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant, about to give birth. And when she heard the news that the Ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed and gave birth, for her pains came upon her. And about the time of her death, the women attending her said to her, do not be afraid, for you have borne a son. But she did not answer or pay attention, and she named the child Ichabod, saying, the glory has departed from Israel. Because the ark of God had been captured, and because of her father-in-law and her husband, and she said, the glory has departed from Israel. for the Ark of God has been captured. So I read the Word of God. Let us pray together. You have written the words of this book from the opening words to the final words. You used so many different writers but within them all was your spirit writing these things. Every word given for your people through all the ages, every word mattering. We pray that you will help us now by the same spirit who is with us present amongst your people here in this building. We ask that your spirits will help us to understand and learn from your word, and that especially he will draw attention to our savior, the Lord Jesus. Help us now, we pray, every one of us, whatever our state is before you, help us, we pray, to learn from these things. Hear us, Father, for Jesus' sake. Amen. Now, if you have in your life a child, and it might be your own child, you've had a child or two children, might be a grandchild, might be a nephew, might be a niece, might be a friend's child, whatever. If you have a child in your life, then you will know that at times, children can live in an imaginary world. So they're, he, she, playing in the corner of your one bedroom flat, and you call across, and they're there sat there with their little soft toys, and you call across and say, what are you doing? And she looks up and says, well, we're at the seaside. Doesn't look like the seaside to you, does to her. She's in an imaginary world. That ability, the ability of imagination, to put yourself somewhere else than your surroundings that you're in right now, it's a wonderful gift from God. Adult life, we use it in all kinds of creative ways. I don't know if you're the sort of person who writes songs or writes poems or writes stories or paints pictures or whatever it may be. But imagination we use in all sorts of creative ways. However, it has its problems. And particularly when an adult lives in an imaginary world. Now that can happen sadly with illness, can't it? Very severe mental illness, a person may find that they think something's happening around them, actually see something happening around them that isn't. It can happen with severe illness. But we also use the phrase just of everyday life, people we may know. Where they're talking about what's going on in their life, how their life is working, and you're listening to them talking, but you're thinking, Well, it's not really like that, actually. I don't think you're really seeing the situation as it is. Whether you say it to them or not may depend on your relationship with them. But you're listening to them. You're thinking, I don't think you're seeing the truth here. I think you're living in an imaginary world. Ever had that? Got a friend that you think, she doesn't really get it, does she? He doesn't really see what's happening around him. Adults can live in imaginary worlds. Well, both sermons today, I'm going to touch on that theme using this true story in the Bible. It's in the Old Testament, long before Jesus. The story itself is a tragedy, the sad ruin of a family gone bad. It's a painful story. It's a story of a family who should have seen it coming. But they didn't. Didn't open their eyes to reality. Lived in their own little world. And it's sad. We're going to look at that story today. But this is the Bible, so we're not just going to think of the family themselves as though it's just a family drama. We're going to think of it in the context of thinking about the Lord who was overruling the whole situation and what he was doing. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, We'll therefore look to learn lessons for ourself, because it's the same Lord dealing with that family who deals with us. And our circumstances may feel quite different, but there are always lessons for us within it. So this morning, I'm gonna go through verses 1 to 11, which I think the church Bibles do put a split in at that point, don't they? They put a little heading in, I think. Yes, they do. So we're gonna do verses 1 to 11. I'll give you the background to it, and then I'll tell you the story. And as we go, what we're gonna think about is the topic of, or a little bit about the topic of superstition. And then this afternoon, verses 12 to 22, again I'm going to go back into this chapter, back into this story. We'll do the second half, and doing so we're going to think especially of the topic of people not seeing the reality of life, not seeing what's actually going on. Some background. So we're in Israel in this story, okay? So if you can picture in your head a map of the world or whatever, down the far end of the Mediterranean Sea, eastern end. We're 3,000 years ago from where we are. If you wanted to give it a name, a sort of Bible name, you might call it The Time of the Judges, which links to a book a little bit earlier in the Old Testament. At this point in its story, Israel has no king. You might know of later kings, like David, famous ones like Solomon. But at this point, there's no king. It's before all of them. And the nation itself is incredibly chaotic. It's wayward. People are living in crazy ways and doing crazy things. Doing pretty nasty things, actually. If you read the book of Judges, it gets quite unpleasant. And the mess they're in is epitomized by their worship center. They had a center point where people were supposed to gather to praise God. It was a great tent. It was in a town called Shiloh. We sometimes refer to the tent as a tabernacle. Big tent. At the heart of this tent, and it was sort of structured around a couple of levels or a couple of rooms, at the heart of it was a golden box. It had been made hundreds of years earlier in the time of Moses, and it was symbolic of the presence of God. We call it the Ark of God. But this worship center, this tabernacle, God wasn't there. He'd previously been there. There had been times when he'd met people there in remarkable ways. But he was long been absent, for the most part. from this place. And so what you ended up with was a tent that was run by some crooked priests. I mean, they really were total crooks. They treated the place like it was some sort of robber's den to satisfy their greed, and they treated it like a brothel so that any of the women turned up, well, they had free access. But in the story of Samuel, the times are changing and God is about to do something with that mess. He's raising up a prophet, somebody to speak for him. The prophet is going to be like their old prophet Moses in a number of ways. who's long dead, Moses led Israel out of slavery and this prophet will come to the nation and he will bring God's word back to the nation and he will take them forward out of the slavery of sin that they got themselves trapped into by drawing them, teaching them to come back to the Lord and especially by installing a king to rule them. prophet's name is Samuel, which is why the books are known as the books of Samuel. But in chapter 4, Samuel's only a young lad. He's not made his mark yet. He's started to do some things, but he's not a key figure yet. This is right at the start. And so here, the background here is, Israel is still a mess. First one points us to the particular problem they've got. Now Israel went out to battle against the Philistines. During recent decades, Israel has been troubled by surrounding tribes, you know, living in the lands nearby. And the great enemy they have are the Philistines. They're down on the southwest border. They live by the sea. They're sea, probably people who traveled over the sea. They're sea people originally. They're structured around five cities. They're a confederacy of lords. And they have bullied Israel for decades. They just keep coming into the land, beating them up, getting stuff off them, trying to control them. As far as they're concerned, these Philistines, the people of Israel are like their slaves. Now elsewhere we read that actually for the Philistines the tide is now turning. If any of you know the book of Judges, you'll know there's another guy around at this time called Samson. He's an unusual figure. He's a leader who wages war on the Philistines. And at the end of his battles, he cripples them, their military leadership and their political leadership, which opens the way for their later defeat by the coming King of Israel. But again, background here is this. The Philistines are still the dominant power of the area. That's what Israel's having to deal with. Now the story. You're down at the borderlands. These two groups, First Israel, have camped, looking at each other across the border, staring it out. They're going to go to war. Israel is a place called Ebenezer. Ebenezer means stone of help. It refers to the Lord overcoming Israel's enemies. Now actually, Ebenezer is a later name for that site. It turns up in chapter 7. But the writers used it sort of early, before it's been called that. Why does he use it? I think it might just be he's using it with irony. In other words, people thought of this as the place of help. But actually, God's about to give no help, because these people don't know God. And so no help is coming their way. It's ironic. In this story, Israel's gonna look to the Lord, please come and help, but they're gonna do it hypocritically. They don't actually have a heart for him. They're gonna try and just control him. And he's not gonna fall for it. So although it's called Ebenezer, the Lord is our help, no help will come this day. And so, hence, verse two, the two tribes go to war, and Israel is butchered. The Philistines killed about 4,000 men on the field of battle. They lost many troops. People in charge of Israel, call them the elders, they spin into a right state, understandably. They oversee the fighting and they're dismayed. We don't understand this. Why is the Lord not helping? Why is he not here? Why is he not intervening? Why is he not defeating our enemies? But the reason is actually very simple. It's not difficult to know why he's not helping. Because it's actually written down in their own law books. They just don't read them. It was written by the ancient prophet Moses. What did the book say? Let me read to you from Deuteronomy 28, verse 15 and then verse 25. So this is from earlier, okay? This is from a few hundred years earlier. And this is an agreement that God is writing up for Israel. And he says this to them. If you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. And your dead body shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. And there shall be no one to frighten them away. The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and scabs, an itch of which you cannot be healed." Do you get the idea? The elders didn't. Should have done. It was in their law book. It was in their agreement with God. We call it their covenant with God. It just means their agreement, their contract with him. If you obey my command, says God, I will protect you from your enemies. I will defeat your enemies. But if you don't, if you just forget about me, get on with life, then you'll be in trouble. Simple as that. Not difficult to understand. But the elders didn't get it. In that little passage God said, you know what you'll feel like? You'll be defeated by your enemies and it will feel like you're suffering the very plagues that I used to rescue you from Egypt. I'll come after you with those as well. 1 Samuel chapter 4 is that coming true. If God tells you something from his word and you ignore it, there are consequences. Life isn't a game. It's real. There's a real God who's really said things. And if you just think, well, that's very interesting, but I've got my own thoughts, there are consequences. There were for these people. These elders should have known better. Maybe you'd say, well, surely not all the soldiers. Did all the soldiers sit around reading the laws? Well, maybe they didn't. But these were the elders. They should have known better. One of the reasons Israel's leaders don't know better is because of the poor training they've received. Because who should have taught the elders? The priests? the pastors up at the tabernacle, and they weren't teaching. They were too busy stuffing their faces, and they were too busy sleeping around. So the leaders were poorly trained in their law because the priests were so corrupt. And so when God curses them, just keeps his side of the bargain, they're like, oh, we don't know what's happening. Whatever could this be? Why would this happen? which is why they then make the whole situation a thousand times worse. Verse 4, so the people sent to Shiloh and brought from there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of hosts. The elders have a solution, Shiloh. Shiloh's the answer. That's where God is, isn't it? Let's get God down from Shiloh to here. I mean, you think they might have sent somebody actually to go and talk to Samuel. That might have been a better option. Let's go up there and talk to the guy who's the prophet. But no, no, no, forget all of that. No, what we'll do is we'll just get God down here. Once we've got him here, we're sorted. So how are we going to do that? Well, let's get somebody to pile into the middle of the tabernacle. where no one's supposed to go, will pull out the ark that represents God's presence with us, stored at the heart of the tabernacle, and will bring it down to the battlefield. It's absolutely nuts as an idea. You think about it. You've got a group of people who are completely disobedient to God, who are breaking all their agreement with God, God is making it completely plain that they're breaking their agreement with him, and now they want to invite him onto the battlefield with them. How well do you think that's going to go? Do you notice how the writer described the Ark? So the people sent to Shiloh and brought from there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim. Why does he go for such a long-winded title? I mean, it's a bit over the top, isn't it? Why suddenly use all these words to describe the golden box? because it's exactly what they're doing. They're saying, well what we'd like down here is God to arrive with us in our camp. That'll be the God who's got heavenly armies. That's the God we want to come down. And we want him to come down, he's the God of the covenant that he's got with us, the agreement. And we want him to come down because he sits where cherubim sit, the mighty powers of heaven. The long-winded title makes plain just who it is they're inviting down. They're inviting down a God with the armies of heaven whom they have just been rebelling against. It's absolutely stupid. He's not going to turn up and help them, is he? He's going to turn up and judge them. I don't know, if you want a really simple sort of You know, comparison. I don't imagine that, you know, for the last 12 months you haven't paid your landlord the rent or you haven't paid your bank the mortgage payments. And then you decide to have your landlord or the bank manager around for a meal one evening. How comfy exactly is this meal going to be? You're going to sit there and chat about how you haven't bothered paying for the last 12 months. They want to invite the God whose covenant they've broken with his armies into the middle of their camp. This is really, really a mistake. It's like bringing a ticking time bomb into the camp and sitting around to see what happens when the great big red clock on the top that all ticking time bombs have suddenly reaches zero. I wonder what will happen. And to drive home how bad an idea it is, the writer adds, and Hofne and Finnehas came too. Great idea. Just what you want. A couple of corrupt priests in the camp as well. What could be better? I mean, can we just add up a few extra ideas to offend God while we're at it? But the wicked priests who are ruining the tabernacle are now down in the camp. I mean, the elders of Israel might as well have gone around to all their sults and handed out poison and saved trouble later. They have invited destruction into their camp, but they are just living in an imaginary world, aren't they? Because what do they do? As soon as the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel gave a mighty shout so that the earth resounded. They cheer. Do you not find that, I don't know if I'm getting you into this story or not, but if I am, do you not find that really scary? These people are that detached from reality. They are cheering their own destruction. That is scary. But that's how the extent to which human beings can be living in their own little world. I know how life's working. I know how it's going to go for me. But they're not thinking at all about God. They're not thinking about the consequences of ignoring God. And then suddenly it catches up with them. Yay, God's coming with his army to beat up the Philistines. No, he's not. In these verses, three verses, four times the Ark of God is called the Ark of the Covenant. Four times, three verses. Do you think the writer might be hinting at something? This is the contract they have broken. And they have invited the contract keeper to come and have a chat with them about it. God is not coming to save. But they're blind to the danger. Why are they blind to the danger? They're blind to the danger, firstly, because they don't see their sin. When we become attached to whatever the sin is in our life that we like and we want to hang on to, it blinds us to other things. We become convinced that we can carry on doing what's wrong, No one's gonna catch up with us. Yeah, they are. And certainly God is. It's gonna happen. Secondly, they've got bad spiritual guides. They've got these priests who are completely ropey and dodgy and don't know what they're talking about. Well, actually don't care what they're talking about. And thirdly, and this was the one I started with earlier, wasn't it? They're just plain superstitious. You know what I mean by that? They think that by getting the gold box from the tabernacle, they will have power. But you can't put God in a box and control him. Having the ark is nothing. You have to have the God who gave it. Just grabbing the gold box won't help. Superstition, it's a common feature of human beings. It's where we believe that an outside force affects life, but we have tricks to control that outside force. Now, believing in outside forces isn't a mistake. The Bible teaches clearly there's an unseen realm which impacts life on the Earth. There is the realm where God himself lives. That God himself is surrounded by innumerable angelic powers. He has a great army. He is the lord of hosts. That within the same realm there are demons operating. Who are opposed to him? Who would harm what he is doing? There is an unseen realm which affects life. But we can come to believe that somehow the unseen can be controlled by us, by little habits. I'm sure you know some of them. Has a black cat crossed your path today? Bad luck on you. People think that. You didn't open your umbrella indoors earlier, did you? People think that. I hope this sermon goes okay. Touch wood. People think that. I'll show you my lucky rabbit's foot. Oh, I didn't bring it. Okay. I'm gonna stop now and let Ed come back up. Don't people think that? It's the little things, the little habits, the little physical things, and I can control the unseen realm. I can control good and bad luck. Don't break your mirror. Seven years. I like this one. Does anybody here suffer from, I'm gonna try and say this, Paraskevitocatriophobia. Anybody suffering from that? You've got a doctor in the house, haven't you? Fear of Friday the 13th. And on the list goes, things to do for good luck, things to do for bad luck, things to control the unseen. The unseen is not controlled this way. It really isn't. The Israelites believed that. We've got the golden box. Great. Well done, you. Christians have to be wary of such thinking. Because, you know, sometimes we can even Christianize it. You know, maybe we say, oh, no, no. I don't throw salt over my shoulder when I spill it. It's OK. I'm not into that type of thing. But we can Christianize superstition. We can start to believe that things hang on exactly how we've done something. So, as Christians, we believe we can pray, God listens, and God answers. And he does. But we also believe that when we're praying, we're submitting to God's will. We don't think that praying is some sort of magic process. If I pray hard enough, or if I pray with the right words, or if I make sure one of the elders is around when I'm praying, then I'll get the answer. No. It's a living relationship with God. You're talking to the God who answers prayer. It's not about how you've done it, but the heart with which you've done it. We believe it's good to worship, to gather like this. But we don't think God's blessing must come when we get the worship right. The problem this morning was, I don't think Ed got the songs and music right, so God's probably not gonna turn up. But if he just, I don't know, Whip Daddy's drum set or something, or just chosen something a bit more upbeat, God would have turned up by his spirit. No, we don't manipulate the unseen by how cleverly we do it. It's right for Christians to give money, to support the work of the kingdom, to spread the gospel, to show charity to those in need. But we don't think it's like a deal. Okay, so last month, I gave 50 quid. So I should really get 500 back from God, shouldn't I? Cuz it's like a deal, you know? I give 50, he gives 500, cuz he multiplies blessing. It's not, it doesn't work that way. Knowing the Lord is not like magic. Do the right thing, get what you want. It's about a living relationship with the God of all creation through his son, Jesus Christ. Those who want the blessing of the Lord should have humble, repenting hearts who want to serve the Lord his way. If Israel had wanted to win the battle that day, there was one simple thing they needed to do. And it didn't involve calling for the magic box or getting the priests down. It just meant getting on their knees and apologizing to the God whose contract they had broken. But they've got their lucky box. And verse 6, the Philistines think the same way, because the Philistines are all into lucky boxes too. As soon as the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel gave a mighty shout, so the earth resounded. And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shouting, they said, what does this great shouting in the camp of the Hebrews mean? And when they learned that the Ark of the Lord had come to the camp, the Philistines were afraid. They're worried by the arrival of the Ark in the Hebrew camp. Notice the word Hebrew that they use there. They don't call them the Israelites, they call them the Hebrews. That's the term used of Israel when they're enslaved by the Egyptians. So the Philistines see them as slaves to be ruled. But they're worried because the slaves have got their lucky talisman and they might revolt now. And so verses 7 and 8, the anxiety ramps up amongst the Philistines. They start to get worried. They know that the Hebrews escaped Egypt. They know the story. And they know that this ark is linked to that. And so if the ark has come back, well, then it's trouble for them. And maybe to empower them. And fate may have turned against them. It's all the same superstitious nonsense to the Israelites. Notice, by the way, the Philistines get the story of Israel and Egypt wrong. If you read down, you get to verse 8, is it? Hang on, let me take my glasses off to make sure. Yep. Woe to us, who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness. Two mistakes. One, gods, not God. Two, They struck the Egyptians with plagues in the wilderness. No, God didn't. God struck the Egyptians with plagues in their own homeland, in Egypt. The people who got struck with plagues in the wilderness were actually the Israelites when they rebelled against God. I think the writer has included that on purpose. I think that the Philistines are accidentally recognizing what's about to happen, that God's not going to strike them. He's actually going to strike Israel for her sin, as he did in the wilderness. A plague is going to hit, but it's going to hit Israel, and it's going to be a plague of violence. That's why I read Deuteronomy 28 earlier. The Lord warned that if Israel disobeyed, they'd lose to enemies and they'd fall to plagues like those in Egypt. And in the language of the storytelling, the writer of 1 Samuel 4 is saying, that's all coming true. Deuteronomy 28, everyone, coming true before your very eyes. So, verse 9, the Philistines stir themselves for the fight of their lives, and verse 10, Israel is thrashed. even worse than before. They run to their tents, many more are slaughtered than before. You know the word slaughter there? There in verse 10. Oops, gone too far. So the first times fought and Israel was defeated and they fled every man to his home and there was a very great slaughter. Word slaughter. It's used in other places for plague. Israel was plagued to death by the Philistines. It's all Deuteronomy 28. It's God in the midst of the whole story. And verse 11, we're told that the priests die. Now that was an event which God had already foretold. He'd previously warned them of this. He said this would happen. He told their father this would happen. It has happened. But no one was listening. Because they lived in a little imaginary world where they thought they knew how life was working. But they weren't listening to truth. This is the danger. If we won't listen to voices outside of ourselves, and particularly if we won't listen to the voice that God speaks through scripture, we know best. We know what's happening. We get life. Notice verse 11, by the way, that the Ark now has changed name. So verse 11, and the Ark of God was captured. The word covenant is dropped out of the description. Why? I think it's because it's given the title which is suited to how God is planning on fighting. When the box of Israel, and he was gonna fight against Israel, it's the Ark of the Covenant, cuz God's gonna fight against them for breaking his covenant. But when the Ark is taken by the Philistines, the title is simplified. It just becomes the Ark of God. Because he's actually going to fight against the Philistines, but in his own time and in his own way. That's in a later chapter. You see, the Ark is a symbol of God's presence. But you can't control him by controlling it. And that was the folly of Israel. Now to wrap it up, let me give you four lessons. Okay? Four things to think about for ourselves. Number one, should we talk about the Ark of the Covenant for a moment? I could get you all to put your hands up if you've watched Indiana Jones films, but I'll leave that. But there is famous stories of people trying to find the Ark of the Covenant. Well, the fact is, today we are no longer certain where it is. It went missing when the Jews were exiled into Babylon in the 6th century BC. It's possible, it's possible that Judah's king at the time, King Josiah, hid it in a cavern under the temple before the invasion. There are reasons to think he may have done that. And maybe it's still there today in a cavern somewhere under the Dome of the Rock. Would it matter if we found it? No. Because as we see, it's not an object of power. It's not a magic object. It was only important whilst it represented the presence of the Lord. Whilst he was prepared to treat it as a symbol that he was going to be there. But he has a greater symbol of that today. Or rather, not a symbol, he has a greater reality. It's here with you lot. God's Holy Spirit in the hearts of Christians. God is present in the room and in every place where Christians are gathering. Under the new covenant, Jesus gave the presence of the Lord by the Holy Spirit in dwelling the people of God. So maybe one day somebody will burrow down, if that's where it is, and find the golden box, and it will be of great archaeological interest, and little more. Christians don't have to be superstitious about such things like that. Do you know what the Prophet Jeremiah said to the Ark of the Covenant? He was around when it went missing. Jeremiah 3, he says, and when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days declare the Lord, they shall no more say, the ark of the covenant of the Lord. It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed. It shall not be made again. He seems to think it was actually destroyed. So maybe that's the clearest insight we've got. Secondly, building on that thought, as Christians, we're to be very careful with physical objects. Is it wrong to have a symbol of being a Christian? I'm just watching to see anyone just going to their hand now for the necklace around their neck with a little cross or fish on. No, I'm not. Is it wrong to have such a symbol? No, it's not. But we're careful with them. Why are we careful? Well, we're careful firstly because we know there's a command not to make any images of the Lord, so we're careful about that. We don't want to do anything that would imply we're trying to make a picture of God for us to look at or something. Secondly, we're very careful because we don't want anything to become a part of our worship, that we think we need a statue up here or something next to me before we can really worship God, that we should have something physical to see before we can worship God. We don't want that. But thirdly, we're just careful because we don't want to be superstitious. If you've got your necklace on today, it's a reminder to you. A declaration you're a believer. It's decorative. You like the look of it. It's a memento because your dad gave it to you. But you're not safe because you're wearing it. And if you had left it at home on the table, you'd be OK. Honest. It wouldn't have changed anything. Objects don't have power. We don't place reliance on whether we've got them or not. Which brings us to a third one. It doesn't mean Christians don't value what's physical. You know, I suppose somebody listening to me would say, oh, I get it. So what you're saying, Mr. Preacher, or however they address me, is you don't care about anything physical. It's all spiritual with you in your head or in your heart or something. Well, no, clearly not. Christians value physical things hugely. Later on today, if I remember correctly, Christians here in this church are going to take bread and wine in memory of the Lord. And we believe that in obeying that command that the Lord Jesus gave at his last supper, the Holy Spirit works in our souls and feeds us upon Christ in that moment. As Christians, we don't despise the fact we're made of both material and spiritual life. We value that because God made us as whole people. We're not some sort of ghost things that happen to be wandering around in bodies. We're whole people, the physical matters. We believe that God works with the physical when done rightly. People who say, I trust in Christ, but they never get baptized in physical water, the way Jesus commanded. They never take bread and wine, the way Jesus commanded. They don't gather with other Christians in an actual room together, the way Jesus commanded. They should ask themselves, why? Why am I staying away from these things Jesus commanded me to do? These physical things, they matter. We're just careful not to be superstitious about them. But we value the physical things God's given to us. So, number one was, we don't need the Ark of the Covenant, nor the presence of the Lord. We're very careful with physical objects. We still value what's physical. And then last one to wrap up. Christians are people who can be at peace in this physical world, that we actually don't have to be ruled by superstitions, scared that we haven't kept our little habit. I forgot to turn around three times before coming into the building to preach today. That's why it's not been a great sermon. I should have done that. No, we don't have to be fearful of these things. You may have little rituals, you know, to help your mind. That's okay. Little rituals are okay. It's part of how the brains are wired, aren't they? You know, I don't know, you always check the front door four times before you finally left, even though you know it was locked, but you still went back, just in case. Or maybe, you know, you always go back to your cooker three times before you leave the house, just in case it was left on. Do you know what makes it worse? What makes it worse is when you do that and discover your wife did leave the cooker on, like last Sunday morning. It was on very low. She thawed some potatoes and gone out to the church lunch. I went to the cooker, checked it, and lo and behold, it was still very slightly on. That's on YouTube now. I didn't say her name though. But, you know, having little habits. Sometimes they're just useful practically, health and safety. Sometimes they're just useful mentally. They help us to have a little habit. Some of us just have to check things three times. It's how we cope with life. But we don't have to let luck or fate creep into our thinking. I don't have to have a life that's governed by faith in physical acts. Did I do it or not? My life is secure through faith in Christ every moment, every day. And if yours isn't, then put your faith in Him now for the forgiveness of your sins and to know that you're in His care. That's why we're safe. He is present with me and with every believer in this room wherever I am. I can stand in the middle of a graveyard at 2 o'clock in the morning and be safe. Well, I might get mugged, and I might get arrested, but I'm not threatened by anything else. Because Christ cares for me. King of kings. Just who's going to hurt? If I act in trust in him, seeking to obey his commands, especially his great command to love God and my neighbor, I can know peace in this world no matter what comes my way. I don't need to be scared. Put your trust in him and be at peace, for he gives peace. Amen.