The Ark of the covenant is lost, the symbol of the very presence of God - lost. The High Priest and his Family are – lost, all dying on the same day, they were the keepers of the worship of the almighty God.
Israel does not have a way to interpret this disaster. The God they thought was all powerful (remember Egypt) is in the hands of their worst enemy and sits as booty in the Temple of Dagon. Last week, in chapter 4, Pastor Ted spoke about how Israel went head to head with the Philistines in battle losing 4,000 men. They then regrouped and went out head to head again, but this time with their ultimate weapon – the Ark of the Covenant.
In days gone by, for example at Jericho, the priests led the army into battle worshiping God carrying the Ark of the Covenant – in front of the soldiers and they would consistently crush the enemy.
So the army decides: the problem is we need more fire power. Out comes the Ark.
Clearly they didn’t know how the Ark worked. They just knew that in the past – when the Ark was there, the battle was decisive. In fact, they probably didn’t care how it worked. They just knew it worked – bring it out – problem solved. When worse comes to worse – invoke the name of God. Have you run into people who treat God like this? They are seriously ill, or face an impossible problem or such and they want to be prayed for, they want Jesus to step in. Maybe they have friends who have been healed. Maybe they have heard stories about a miraculous turn around. Maybe they are out of options….and time is running out. The point is: they aren’t going to worry about how prayer works. They are just trying to stay alive. Maybe there is some kind of magic in prayer, they think….Whatever, let’s give it a go.
Hard to blame them isn’t it? Many of us might act the same in a desperate situation. Perhaps you have been there in your own life and Israel is in a desperate situation, they are out of options trying to stay alive. So out comes the Ark – perhaps they think it has some kind of mysterious magic….The Nuke, The WMD, The Precision Guided Missile of the day. Whatever, let’s give it a go. And we saw…. they lose miserably.
So now we arrive at our Scripture for today in Chapter 5. And this is what is going through their minds, both the Israelis and the Philistines:
They think, Yahweh, the Lord God, turns out to be inferior to Dagon. They think, God is impotent in the face of the Philistine deity Dagon. Isn’t it obvious, things didn’t work out did they? Why else would they lose? Remember in the ancient middle east, the actions on the battlefield reflect the spiritual realities around them. Winning a battle or losing a battle is more about the power of your god than tactics and strategy.
A middle aged man back home in California. He and his wife had serious marriage problems. But they were working through things, they were trying their best, trying to live as godly couple desires us to live and then their son was seriously injured in an accident and died.
How could this happen, God? And so, the man is angry with God. Can’t blame him. Who wouldn’t be angry? He believes God failed him. Isn’t it obvious, things didn’t work out did they?
So the Ark is one of the first things that go into battle and it is lost. The Philistines gladly take this gold covered box. They place it in the Temple of their main god Dagon as a war trophy. This was common place in the day. Booty of various kinds were placed before a god even bodies of important enemies, like kings and princes. This was done to honor the god for what the god had done for the nation, or surely they had won befcause of the god’s power. Another way to put it: the magic of their god was more powerful.
Now Dagon means Fish God. Part man / part fish. Dag means fish. There is a small photo of Dagon in your sermon outline, taken from a Philistine temple. Babylonian texts claim that Dagon emerged from the sea early in history to rule over the lands of the Mideast. He is also seen in the city of Nineveh as a prominent God.
Philistines arrived in Palestine about 1200 BC and adapted to Canaanite culture well.
Dagon is a fertility God. The fish part representing fertility of nature.
Shows that he rules not only over the production of the land’s fertility and human fertility, but also the sea’s fertility. He is also the father of the storm God, Baal Haddu. Ashdod, their capitol city just a few miles from the coast, so it makes sense that Dagon would be their main god.
The Philistines were a very syncretistic society – much like the USA is today. They took local customs, religions and what not, and integrated them into their culture. This worked very well, and they thrived in Canaanite territory. I think an easy way to remember this difference of the Philistines being very syncretistic, as opposed to the nation of Israel, is to think of Dr. Phil from television. Doesn’t he meld different aspects of our society together into one happy pop psychological framework? So I think of the The Dr. Phil – istines.
The Philistines: Integrating the surrounding cultures into their culture. Creating an ancient happy pop psychological framework.
A good example of assimilating a pagan god into our society today is
the popular god Kokopelli. You have seen him in southwest style art. He is taken from a cave drawing in Utah. He is playing a flute and dancing. He is on tee shirts, coffee mugs, paintings, even corporate logos. He is a very popular souvenir item. My guess is many of us have something with his picture on it.
Kokopelli is a male fertility god, in the same was Dagon is a male fertility god....though, the Kokopelli we have on our coffee mugs today
is a clean up version of the male fertility god….The version of the male fertility god we all have seen is missing...a little something….if you know what I mean.
So they Philistines, in many ways are just like us, integrating cultures into their own. We think, Kokopelli, kind of a cute little guy – he’s kind of fun. The Dr. Philistines think, The Ark of the Covenant, Nice little box, let’s add this god to our culture too, who knows how it works…
But certainly there is some kind of magic in it we could benefit from….
Do you see what both the Israelis and the Philistines are doing here? It is more than using God at a convenient time, and then ignoring him
They are using God like magic, or some kind of voodoo. They are attempting to control God to use God for their purposes. Israel: if we do this do this…then God will do that. Philistines, heard of the might of God in Egypt perhaps they could harness this power too?
It is hard to blame the Philistines, they are ignorant. They imagine that the Lord God is like any other god. Another being to attempt to control. But, you have to blame Israel, they shouldn’t be ignorant.
Clearly they haven’t lived like God is the only God of the universe. All powerful, All loving. All knowing. If they had, the Philistines might have clued in some. But no, Israel tries to control God.
We try to do this too, abet in more subtle ways. We have been talking about stewardship for the past few Sundays and how stewardship, though it can deal with material things, is really a spiritual issue. How what we do in this material world, effect us spiritually and how stewardship is more than about money. But even though stewardship is about more than money, we cannot ignore that it is about finances as well. And also how God will bless us in our obedience to his word
concerning stewardship, but not necessarily bless us in finances
You know everyone in this room, on any given day in our life is, was, an will be, better off financially than Jesus ever was, when he walked this earth. Clearly Jesus was obedient, clearly Jesus was blessed, clearly Jesus wasn’t wealthy. That’s a sobering thought.
Here today, we see that we like the Israelis and the Philistines try to put God in a cultural framework that we can understand. For example: We know that if we invest our money well, the result will be a good return on our investment. That’s a sound financial principle. Is it a universal principle? Does it apply to God?…..So we try to apply this principle to God: If I invest my time, talent and finances in the kingdom of God the result will be a good return on our investment. We can point to the parable of the Talents as an example. Those who invested wisely were given twice as much. Given twice as much….for whom? Responsibility to reinvest. But the cash is not for the servant, it is for the master.
I think, there is truth there, but it is more complicated than we want to believe. God will bless us if we are obedient to his Word. But thinking that if I invest money with God, to make money, that the more money, time and talents that I give will somehow increase my fortune in life - That is off the mark. That is not investing in the kingdom of God, that is investing in yourself while pretending to invest in God’s work.
If I am investing my time, talent and finances to get a good return that’s not being obedient to God’s Word, that is trying to use God in my framework. Like the Dr. Philistines and Israelis. For the kingdom of God is not an investment scheme. It is the kingdom of God and the kingdom of God, does not abide by our cultural rules.
God does not ask us to give because his bank account is low. God asks us to give, because it is spiritually healthy.
See what happened to the Philistines…In verse 2 they place the Ark by Dagon the Fish God. In the next verse we see Dagon has fallen over, in a submissive position to the Ark. Hmmm think the Priests, and they stand the idol of Dagon back up. In verse 4 Dagon has fallen, and is now in pieces, head and hands broken off. This little detail is significant. Many times in ancient warfare heads and hands of prominent enemies were taken as a sign for those back home. They lacked the six o’clock news. This is a sign of military victory. The Philistines get it right away. They may not understand how God works, but they know something is up, it is not coincidental.
6 The LORD’s hand was heavy upon the people of Ashdod and its vicinity; he brought devastation upon them and afflicted them with tumors. 7 When the men of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, “The ark of the god of Israel must not stay here with us,
because his hand is heavy upon us and upon Dagon our god.”
We should also note: In Hebrew the loss of hands denotes the loss of power.
Dagon has fallen, the people have tumors. Coincidence? Maybe, then again maybe not. So what do they do? Get this thing out of here! They send it down the road to Gath. But the people in Gath suffer the same affliction of tumors seen in Ashdod. Coincidence? Maybe, then again maybe not.
So what do they do? Get this thing out of here! They send it down the road to Ekron But the people in Ekron riot. They get the tumors too. No nukes in our city. Tumors a Coincidence? No way!
Understand, in the Hebrew the word means not just tumors, they are embarrassing tumor. They are tumors of the groin. See, Dagon is a fertility God, is thought to be powerful in many ways, but chiefly powerful in fertility. Yet Dagon is helpless in his power to stop the tumors in the groin, the seat of fertility. God hits their false believe where it counts most - ouch.
God is free to act as he will. A ritual, or an action on our part, does not define him. Because we give time, talents and resources, does not obligate God to respond in kind - He is in full control, we are not.
If I believe that my working at the church, helping out at the pioneer home, being generous to this church and other Christian ministries is going to somehow protect me from tragedy in life. I am acting exactly like the Israelis did in this story.
We give because we are called to give. We give because we know that our material actions will have spiritual consequences. Good consequences. We don’t give because we are going to get something…or prevent something; If you are giving to get something, stop, listen to the wisdom of the Philistines….
I love the Philistine response: 6:6 Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When he treated them harshly,
did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?
It is marvelous. They have heard about the plagues in Egypt and may have thought it was folklore, big talk to scare an enemy. But now they believe. They only have to look at their own scared bodies to be reminded. They decide to give a guilt offering to God. Now, they make tiny gold models of the tumors and gold rats. Which is kind of creepy, don’t you think? They make these models, because they are pagans, they don’t understand God. Apparently rats appeared along with the tumors.
Their method is kind of weird - but their hearts are valid. They are attempting to not let their hearts be hardened like the Egyptians were.
How ironic – the priests of a pagan god are almost preaching to the people - Honor the Lord God of Israel! The people of Israel, who should know better, try to use God, don’t worship God and the ignorant are honest about God, and offer him worship. Holy Smokes!
This is about the freedom, complexity, and the nature of God. We cannot hem God in. We cannot say – if I do this, you God must to that….it is common for church folks to operate in this way. They may not think about it this way, but this how they live. If I keep all my Christian values boxes checked, do the right thing..Then Jesus will honor me, and life will work out.
And when tragedy occurs they are confused – like the Israelis. How did THAT happen? God doesn’t work with formulas. If we get through the twelve steps – then will God appear? The Israelis and the Philistines thought that the Israelis lost because they didn’t work the proper steps. But God wanted their hearts, not the proper steps.
Stewardship is not about the proper procedure, checking off the tithing and gifts box on our check list. It is about giving our hearts to God. When I can give of my time talents and finances. I am able to start to release myself from those things and let Jesus rule over them.
Time & Talent Cards
(we had folks pull them out and take them hoe for consideration)
