1 Samuel 6:1-9
Just before we read this portion together I just want to put you in the picture of what has happened just before this that we are going to read about takes place. I’m not going to spend too much time with regards to the background of this portion of Scripture, but it is important for us to know what precedes this particular meeting we’re going to read about.
Israel was at war with the Philistines, and they were been hammered on the battlefield, they lost 4000 men in battle, so the Israelites then go to the judge who is ruling Israel at that time, and his name is Eli. To cut a long story short, they take the Ark of the Covenant, which is basically the earthly throne of God, and they take the Ark into battle because they think that that will guarantee them the victory.
What happens then is that 30,000 of the Israelites are killed in the battle that pursues, and the worst of it all is that the Ark of the Covenant is captured by the Philistines. (just to tell you how important Israel considered the ark, when Israel was defeated Phinehas, the son of Eli was also killed, and when they told his wife who was pregnant she went into labour and dies shortly after giving birth, but just before she died, she named her child Ichabod (ikebahd), which means: “the glory ‘of the Lord’ has departed”.)
Ok, so now the Philistines have the Ark which is the presence, the throne of God, and all of a sudden terrible things start happening to these people. First of all their god, Dagon falls down before the ark, and they find their god lying prostrate before the throne of God, so they pick Dagon up, and the next day when they return, he has fallen over again, except this time he is shattered into a thousand pieces. After this there is an outbreak of tumours, which is followed by a plague of rats, and no matter what the Philistines do, the tumours and the rats follow the Ark as they move it around in their territory.
So eventually all the kings of the Philistines, 5 of them, call together a meeting with all their priests and diviners, and they try to figure out what to do with the Ark of the Covenant.
Right, so now let’s read together from 1 Samuel 6, verses 1-9 (stop there for a moment)
Now, what is important for us this morning is that final question they are posing; and the question is simply: is this as a result of the hand of God, or is it by chance?
Basically they were not sure as to the exact causes of their misery; they weren’t sure if it was God, or if it was coincidence or just plain bad luck. (Maybe I should rather say that they didn’t like the fact that God was causing these things to happen to them, so they try to disprove the fact that God is in control)
So they devise this plan, and in doing so they kind of help the odds a bit in favour of proving that it was not God by keeping the calves back home and sending the cows, who have never been yoked, off into the distance. Now if you think about it, what are the odds? Two cows, milk cows that have just given birth, and have never been yoked?
The natural inclination will be firstly for them to stay with their calves at almost all costs, and secondly, they would not be able to pull straight and in the same direction because they had never been yoked!
You see, they had a opinion, otherwise they would never have even considered or devised this plan, but at the same time they didn’t like what they were thinking, because that would mean that there was a Higher Power (other than their god who was Dagon), which would of course ultimately mean that there was indeed someone up there, and that that someone had the power to influence their lives in a very real and substantive way!
Ok, so anyway, the Philistines develop this method, this test, this experiment, and it is all designed to determine who, or what is the cause of their trouble. Is it God, or is it chance, coincidence or bad luck?
There’s one thing about this question they had back then, and that is the sad reality that the question has never really changed. Even over the thousands of years that have gone between this event and today, people still write many things, especially bad things, off to chance, coincidence and bad luck, and the one thing people seem to regard as unthinkable is the possibility that it is indeed God who has caused these things to happen.
Although some of our great writings cannot constitute Scripture or ever be considered to be equal to the authority of Scripture, I do want to read to you from chapter 3 of the Westminster confession of faith which deals with God’s Eternal Decree: It begins with the following clauses:
I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.
II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions; yet has He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.
This is something we must understand. Before we get to the understanding let me just tell you very briefly where this is found in Scripture so that you won’t sit and wonder if those guys got it right.
Psa 33:11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.
Psalm 139:16 makes a very similar point: "In Thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them."
Pro 19:21 Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.
Lamentations 3:37 asks rhetorically, "Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?"
Isa 14:27 For the LORD of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?
Isa 46:10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,'
Jer 4:28 “For this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above be dark; for I have spoken; I have purposed; I have not relented, nor will I turn back."
Dan 4:35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?"
Romans 11:36 says, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen."
Eph 1:11 “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will”
Heb 6:17-18 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
Ok, so there you have a few of the Scriptural references that clearly spell out the fact that God ordains, by His free will everything that happens, or as the confession says it – everything that comes to pass! He is the primary cause of everything that happens in His creation!
Listen again to the second clause of the Westminster confession: “Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions; yet has He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.”
This is vital. God has not ordained what happens because He knew it was going to happen anyway, He ordained it because it was according to His sovereign and free will to do so!!!
Now, we need to take this a level up, because there is nothing more important in Christian theology than this one statement! Everything that comes to pass is ordained by God; in, by and through His sovereign will! (I’m not saying that God literally causes by His own hand all the terrible things that happen to you. I heard last week of a man who was working on his car, and the car ran backwards, over his grandchild killing the child instantly.
I’m not saying that God pushed the car over the child, but, God could certainly have reached down and stopped the car if He so choose! Yet, He allowed that tragedy to happen. I don’t understand that, but I don’t need to because God’s ways are not my ways, and Hs thoughts are not my thoughts, and who can challenge Him for what He does or for what He allows? All we need to know is that nothing happens outside of the scope of God’s ordination!)
At the risk of repeating myself, I do need to give you an indication of how vitally important this is: if this statement is not true, then God is not God, because if there is one rouge molecule in the universe which is outside the control of God; never mind events and things that happen, if there is just one tiny little molecule, so small that it is invisible to the naked eye, one miniscule molecule that can do whatever it wants to do, then that means that God is not sovereign over all, and then you cannot believe a single promise made to us in Scripture, because then it is all based on chance, luck or coincidence!
No, God MUST be in complete control, and everything must be according to His ordination, otherwise He is not sovereign, He is not supreme, He is not omnipotent and He is not God.
That is exactly what the Philistines were trying to prove with their experiment, they were hoping to prove that there was no God! They were hoping that with all the odds stacked against those cows going forward, that they would indeed turn back to their calves and thereby prove that God is not in control and that their circumstances were just a matter of chance or coincidence.
I just want to stop there for a moment, because we have been talking a lot about chance, but have you ever considered what chance is? (If I flip a coin, what the chances of it landing heads up? 50/50? But now let me ask you another question – what influence does chance have on how the coin will land? NONE whatsoever, because chance is only a word that is used to describe a mathematical probability. It is not an entity, and has no influence over anything whatsoever! How that coin will land is pre-determined by some other factors such as the force I exert on it with my thumb, the trajectory path of the coin, the amount of times it flips over in the air etc)
Let me quickly just tell you what chance is. It is no thing. It is no thing, and if you say that a little faster you’re going to get it right: it is nothing. It is not an entity, it has no power, it has no authority, it has no influence, but it also has no principle operating basis, it is unbiblical and it is atheistic in its very essence. (Remember, to believe in chance is to deny that God is in control, and it is to believe that what happens next is anybody’s guess, including God’s!)
To believe in chance is therefore to believe that nothing caused something. It is anti-scientific and it is anti-theistic (theistic means to believe in God), and therefore it is atheistic.
That’s exactly what the Philistines were hoping to prove, and they did everything they could think of to prove their theory. One thing they didn’t count on is the fact that God is in control, and that He is sovereign, and that He is omnipotent, and that He can do with His creation whatever He chooses to do according to His free will. God leaves no doubt as to who caused the trouble the Philistines had experienced.
As we close, let’s go back to our passage in 1 Samuel, verse 12: “And the cows went straight in the direction of Beth-Shemesh along one highway, lowing as they went. They turned neither to the right nor to the left.”
There was no doubt that the trouble the Philistines had experienced was not coincidence, it was not chance, it was God.
So what are the chances of the universe being created by chance, and what are the chances that that tragedy happened by chance? Quite simply: Not a chance.
Our sovereign God is in control of His universe, and He ordains whatsoever shall come to pass. Let me honest with you this morning – this doesn’t give me trouble or theological difficulties – instead it gives me great comfort, because I know that everything that happens to me is ordained by God, and that He is using all those things, the good, the bad and the ugly, and all those things are working together for the good of those who love the Lord.
Let us pray
