God.

God’s reputation. God's character. God's power. Just God.

I want to recount every detail, but at the same time I’ll save you the endless pages of text. This story comes out of 1 Samuel 4-6, but it’s one I don’t remember have reading before.

A battle with the Philistines breaks out (no surprise there) and 4,000 Isralites die. So t hey call in the big guns, they go get their lucky charm, they bring in the Ark of the Covenant, kind of a beacon for the presence of God. As the Israelites see it coming into the camp they shout so loud the ground shakes and their enemy fears. They’ve heard stories of how Israel’s God did work on the Egyptians. They didn’t realize He was the ONE God, they just assumed it was Israel’s gods that took care of them.

They fight again. They lose again. 30,000 men this time. The Israelites run home and the Philistines take the spoils back to their place. They take the Ark of the Covenant and they put it in their temple to their god Dagon. This showed that their god was greater than the Israelite’s God. The Ark/God would serve their god, Dagon, because he helped them win. Basically, they’re saying your God will now worship our god.

I don’t know if you know this or not, but God doesn’t like to be subjected to….anything. Especially, lesser forms of a god. They put him in the temple and the next day, they find their god laying face down before the Ark of the Covenant. BAM! They brought in God to serve Dagon, and the next thing you know Dagon is lying prostrate before God.

They set up up the statue back in its place and come in the next day to find it facedown before the Ark once again. Back in a place of worship. This time its head and hands have been cut off. Who is like our God?

These people who didn’t honor, respect, worship, or know how to treat God were getting a quick lesson on the power of God and who He is. He cannot be compared, contained, or wielded. Because they thought they could control Him, He began to show them that He was not for hire. He does what He wants and they should bow before Him not the other way around.

They expected Him to work for them, but like a virus in their system the hand of the Lord came against them. He inflicted them with tumors in Ashdod, so they sent it to another city. At that city, there was panic and men, young and old, became afflicted with tumors. So they sent to ark to a third city and the people know what had been happening. “What?! You brought us the Ark to kill us?!” There were also struck by tumors and many died. Three cities and each time it seemed as if it progressed a little more. They had won it, they thought. We now own this God. But this God was not bowing and being used like the other ones did. At this point, they’re asking everyone what to do.

Their own priests and mediums told them to send it away but not empty. They would often make sacrifices for the mercy received (aka survive a shipwreck, give pictures of a shipwreck) so they made golden tumors and mice to send off. (Mice started flooding their fields and ruining things like the Egyptian plagues.) They got two cows who had never been hooked up to a cart before and took away their calves and just let it go. If they went up the road to Beth-shemesh (back to Israel) then it was God who was taking his Ark back home and therefore the one who caused the issues and it would stop. If it went down the road, it wasn’t God doing this to us. I think they picked two rookie cows because they had no training or no inclination of which way to go. They had no previous routes to follow or ideas and their calves were gone so they couldn’t follow them. God would have to direct and steer them.

The Ark went back to Israel and the people rejoiced. They sacrificed the cows with the yoke they carried. They rejoiced and took the ark on. Unfortunately, they forgot the full extent that God is Holy and set apart and cannot be looked upon with sinful natures and ways. So at least 70 men looked into the Ark (probably  just in celebration to have it back and not thinking) and then died. They took it up to another city and lamented after the Lord for 20 years. They set Eleazar to take care of the ark.

How awesome is this though that God is for Himself. He fights for His name. they put Him in to serve another god and the other god ends up bowing before Him. They set him up, he bows down again. God does not play well when people try to control Him or use Him. He is for Himself. He is for His people and He cannot be controlled.