The Holiness of God: The Ark - 1 Samuel - with Steve Ferris

Welcome to the Grace Church Weekly Podcast. We're an international church right

in the heart of Stockholm, Sweden.

Each week, we share a message that's rooted in the faithful teaching of God's

Word and open to the vibrant work of the Holy Spirit among His people.

Here's this week's message.

We're going through the series around 1 Samuel. And today we're talking about the ark.

And before we get into that, I want to pray real quick before we jump into this teaching.

God, we just thank you for your word. God, we thank you, Lord,

that you have not kept yourself a secret.

You have put yourself, your plans, your will, your instructions for life, you put them down for us.

Through thousands of years, you used your servants and you've gathered these

things together for our benefit to instruct us in life.

God, we just ask for this. We begin to devote ourselves to going through scripture.

God, would you enlighten our hearts and minds?

Holy Spirit, we acknowledge that this book will stay hidden and not fully revealed

to us unless you come and you make it alive to us, this living word.

We ask them, would you come, would you begin to work in our hearts,

that these things, these truths that we explore, that we find out today,

that they would take root and that you could bring an increase through this in Jesus' name, amen.

So if we want to turn to 1 Samuel chapter 4.

1 Samuel 4 · chapter mention

We'll go ahead and do the reading. Karen, I'll light you up.

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 Afek.

The Philistines drew up in line against Israel. And when the battle spread,

Israel was defeated before the Philistines.

It 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 was enthroned on their children.

And the two sons of Eli, Hofti 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 learned 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 Hebrews as

they are unto you. Be men and fight.

So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man to his home.

And there was a very great slaughter, for thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel

fell, and the ark of God was captured, and the two sons of Eli,

Hophni and Phinehas, died.

Thank you.

Okay.

The Ark. Before we kind of get into this passage, I want to just take some time

just to remind us what the Ark is.

Children, if you're in the room, you're paying attention. This is great for

you to know. This is a very special thing that God had created for his temple.

So the instructions for the ark were given to Moses. And this was about 300

years before the events happening in 1 Samuel.

And inside of this ark that they built, there was a few items in there that were very significant.

So there was one, there was the tablets of the law.

And this is God's word. It was the terms of his covenant with his people. All right.

Then there was the rod of Aaron, which is from that budded.

So if you think of a rod, it's a walking stick. It's dead.

People challenged who God had chosen to lead them.

And as part of proving God's chosen priesthood, Aaron's stick budded new buds.

This was a miracle. So this speaks to God's chosen priesthood. That was also in the ark.

Also, there was a jar of manna. Manna was this mysterious kind of food substance

that God would lay on the ground every day in the desert so they would have food.

It was a miracle. It talks about God's provision and his faithfulness.

And so that was also kept in the heart.

So why did we have this? Why is this there?

We learn in Exodus chapter 25, verses 21, 22, we're told what the purpose of the ark is for.

Exodus 25:21

It says.

So it had a purpose. This was going to be the place of meeting for Moses and God.

He was going to speak to them there.

Now, depending on what translation you read in the Bible, it's called one of

two things. The Ark of the Covenant or Ark of the Testimony.

And both those words are quite significant. I want to take time just to explain

real quickly what those are. So the covenant, this is the points of relationship,

the relationship God has with his people.

And so God is binding himself to his people, and there's a promise of mercy that comes with that.

And it held the presence of God. If you were approaching this ark,

the presence of God was going to be there.

This is a relational meeting place. I had the benefit of going through this

park with Phil and the Kims earlier this week.

And Phil, you mentioned this is like a portal that God would meet Moses at. And I love the term.

We don't use those words in teaching very often. Yes, it was like a portal.

A heavenly portal where the presence of God would come and meet and he would speak with Moses.

And then whenever they approached the ark, it reminded them of a testimony.

So it's also called the Ark of the Testimony. And the testimony,

that word points to the evidence of the covenant relationship.

And so the evidence that it contains, we mentioned, it's the tablets,

it's the rod, and it's the jar of manna.

Each one testifying to God's covenant and this faithfulness that he's shown to his people.

One of the interesting things, though, about this ark is that it's a shadow of Christ.

So much of this, actually every part of the ark reflects Jesus.

So there was a mercy seat that foreshadowed the cross where his own blood was

going to be for our reconciliation.

Inside the ark, there was the law, the rod, and the manna we mentioned.

In Jesus, the law was kept perfectly.

The rod was raised. who came back to life with the buds, Jesus came back to life.

Manna was given from heaven. Jesus is the bread of heaven.

It was a single object constructed of gold and wood, which speaks to divinity

and humanity in essence in one being. Jesus was both.

But it also had some rules with it. You couldn't just do whatever you wanted

with the Ark. The rules were pretty straightforward.

Only certain Levite priests could carry it, and they could never touch it directly.

And only the high priest could actually approach it one day out of the year on the Day of Atonement.

And if you were careless and you touched it, you would die.

So pretty straightforward. The priests knew these rules. Now we get into our passage.

We see that actually Israel misuses the ark.

So in verse 2, it says, Israel was defeated by the Philistines,

who killed about 4,000 of them on the battlefield.

When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked,

why did the Lord bring defeat on us before the Philistines?

And they decide to go ahead and get the ark.

We know from the rules, it's actually not permitted. You can't do that. But they do.

And you notice what they call for. They say, it says here in verse four,

so they sent for people to Shiloh and brought from there the Ark of the Covenant,

the Lord of Hosts or ruler of angel armies.

What do they need right now? There's an army coming to face them. It just defeated them.

What they need is an army.

So do you think they really have a heart to obey God and honor the Lord?

Or do you think they're just using him? Because they didn't honor the rules

they set out to actually handle this ark.

But when they decide they need an army of angels, they go after him.

So, they started right, though.

There was this moment of defeat, and they started, and they said,

why did God do this? That's a good question to ask.

If you think there's something off, you're curious, always go to God.

It's a great starting point, but they don't seek God. They continue just to

go on their own strength.

Let's send some of our guys to get the ark. We have a plan. They don't seek God on this plan.

And so, they treat the ark like some sort of lucky charm, some sort of symbol

that is going to bring them good fortune.

They value the symbol of God more than God himself. And it costs them. There's a defeat.

So Eli's house, his sons, these corrupt priests, they're judged at this time.

And what's interesting is this ark, that is this ark of the testimony that testifies

to the covenant that God has honored.

It's there to condemn Israel in this moment when they fail to honor that same covenant.

To keep God's laws. And there's 30,000 dead.

Now, that is, did some math, a 650% increase in their first casualty.

And actually, that is a little bit more than sevenfold, the original.

And God actually promises in Leviticus chapter 26, it says, and when he's laying

Leviticus 26 · chapter mention

out the terms of his covenant, he says, and if in spite of this,

you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins.

God does exactly what he promised to do.

So then we get to this part where now the ark is taken by the Philistines.

So they take this ark into the temple of their God, Dagon.

And this is not the first time Yahweh and Dagon have met.

If you remember that in Judges, there was a man named Samson.

Remember the guy with long hair, very strong.

And Samson is chained up in the temple of Dagon.

And in one last feat of strength, you know, in a redemptive act, he's failed the Lord.

He's done so many foolish things. He asks God to give him one bit of strength

So he can do one more thing And he pulls on the pillars And while these people

are having this feast And this party in Dagon's temple.

The roof caves in and kills them,

This is a recent history for these people in this passage. It's only about 20

or 30 years. It's within a generation.

You don't forget something like that happening.

So you can believe that they remember there was a time that there was this Hebrew

that served this guy that came into our temple and brought it down on us.

So there should be some fear there.

If we go to chapter 5, verse 4, it says, but you see what happens.

They put this Ark of the Covenant in front of Dagon, like some sort of like

an offering to their God. We won.

This is a little gift for you.

And it says, But when they rose early the next morning, behold,

Dagon had fallen face down on the ground before the Ark of the Lord.

And the head of Dagon and both of his hands were laying cut off on the threshold.

Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.

Now that the morning before, he had just fallen over on his face in this kind

of like a, a position of worship in front of the ark.

Not falling over sideways, actually face first in front of the ark.

Next day, they try to actually just set him back up and he loses his head and hands.

But then they don't get the message yet.

Next what happens is a plague breaks out. God begins to demonstrate his power in this way.

Tumors begin to cover the people, young and old.

That's a gross picture yes it's rats it's tumors it was chaos,

and they just keep trying to move the problem move it to that city same thing

happens they move it to five of their main cities and the same thing keeps happening and so.

There's this point where they're recognizing the truth here,

right? The truth that the God of Israel is the greatest.

But they don't respond to the truth that they should. They don't really respond

until they actually feel enough pain.

And the pain is that when they're suffering, they decide to distance themselves from this truth.

This greater God, we need to just get him away from us. And they send the ark away.

They call on their leaders, they call on their spiritual experts,

the supernatural experts, and they ask, like, what are we going to do to get rid of this thing?

And they come up with this clever plan, essentially to say, let's just get a

new cart, we're going to take two milk cows who've never been hooked up to a

cart before, who've recently had calves, who are nursing their calves, let's separate them,

let's hook them up to this cart, and put the ark, and we're going to send gifts,

we're going to send five golden tumors and

five rats representing the five of us rulers who were here that we all got afflicted

this is our kind of like offering to their God and we're going to see if this

was God if these cows have never been hooked up before to this cart if it goes

into the enemy's territory back to the Israelites then we know God has sent this on us,

but if they do what we know nature makes them do by their nature they'll return

to their calves and they come back here and they don't go back to the enemy,

well, then we know that this is just coincidence.

And it says that they went straight on the road. They didn't go left. They didn't go right.

They went straight on the road, right up to where the Israelites were.

This is almost like God actually putting his nicely crafted signature on the whole ordeal thing.

From most high God, I did this to you. Hmm.

So the ark returns to Israel. So if you can imagine this scene,

these people working in the fields, they see this cart come up,

they recognize this is the Ark.

And, you know, of course, they're happy that it's back. This means so much to them.

They sacrifice those cows right there on the spot, burn it on the wood from the cart.

And then the priests come, like they should. The priests set the Ark on a rock,

you know, because it doesn't have a cart anymore.

People rejoice and they're worshiping, they're doing sacrifices.

But about 70 of them look into the ark. They mishandle things again.

And on that day of celebration, 70 of them are struck dead by the power of God.

And their response is in verse 20, they say, Who can stand in the presence of the Lord? This holy God.

Good question.

Then they sent messengers to the people of Keriath-Jeriam, saying,

The Philistines have returned the ark of the Lord. Come down and take it to your town.

Again, there was truth. God is to be honored with deep reverence.

He is holy. obey the rules of the ark,

that was demonstrated for them clearly that day but instead,

they don't respond to that truth so much they just respond to the pain again,

so people, they realize when people trespass here and we do the wrong thing,

death happens, we're at risk and so instead of actually changing their actions

on how they treat the ark they choose a strategy of avoidance so they send it away,

I'm here to tell you today if avoidance is your strategy with God,

it's a terrible strategy because he's the only person who is omnipotent.

He's everywhere. You cannot avoid God.

You can postpone some things sometimes, but you're not going to avoid it.

So the Ark is then placed under the care of a man named Eleazar in his home for 20 years.

Not back in the temple. They just put it in someone's home.

Now, I want you to recognize, like, for 20 years, this is what happens.

The ark remained in Kiriath-Jerion for a long time, 20 years in all.

During that time, all Israel mourned because it seemed the Lord had abandoned them.

Question for you all, did God abandon them?

No, he didn't abandon them. They were disobedient.

And it took 20 years for them to sit in this moment, 20 years feeling like they

were abandoned by the Lord, and this wasn't really the case.

And they're sorry because they feel like, we're sorry that the glory of God has left us.

We're sorry that there's some distance from us and God. that something is not

right, but not enough to actually turn from their sin until there came a call

to repentance from Samuel himself.

So we go to chapter 7, we pick it up in verse 2.

It says, Then all the people of Israel turned back to the Lord.

So Samuel said to the Israelites, If you are turning to the Lord with all your

hearts, then rig yourselves of the foreign gods and the Asherahs and commit

yourselves to the Lord and serve him only.

He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. So the Israelites put

away their Baals and their Asherites and serve the Lord only.

Am I the only one who's shocked to know that they still have idols in their homes after all of this?

Anyone else? Can you believe it?

20 years, you've been sitting there feeling sorry, mourning,

while you've got idols in your neighborhood, in your home, that you're actually

giving offerings to, you're giving reverence to.

They still honored these false gods and worshiped them.

Now, it continues on from verse 4, On that day, they fasted,

and there they confessed, we have sinned against the Lord.

Now Samuel was serving as leader of Israel at Mizpah.

So the moment he is leading now, we know that the previous, actually it's in

chapter 5, Eli, he passes away.

Samuel is now the one who is in charge.

And after this moment where they say, we've sinned, they confess their sin,

there's an opportunity for restoration to begin.

And Samuel, he says to them, let's assemble. And he tells them he's going to

intercede for the Lord on their behalf.

They draw water and they pour it out on the ground. This is one of the rituals

they would do in repentance, that they were instructed by God to do.

And when they've gathered in

this place, the Philistines hear that the Israelites are gathered again.

And they decide, oh, we have to go do something about this.

They're gathering again Let's go ahead and let's just take care of them now

Before they come at us Let's go back at them,

And so people cry and they tell Samuel, do not stop crying out to the Lord,

our God, for us, that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines.

As Samuel took a suckling lamb and sacrificed it as a whole burnt offering to

the Lord, he cried out to the Lord on Israel's behalf and the Lord answered

him. Now I want you to pay attention to what God does next.

While Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to

engage Israel in battle.

But that day the Lord thundered with a loud thunder against the Philistines

and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites.

The men of Israel rushed out on a mitzvah and pursued the Philistines,

slaughtering them along the way to the point below Beth-kar.

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mitzvah and Shen and named it

Ebenezer, saying, Thus far the Lord has helped us.

So this whole story we just read through, it begins in defeat.

That brings them, leads them into error, which leads into more defeat,

which brings them to a time of cleansing and justice and repentance.

Finally, it ends in victory. Quite the journey.

What does this say about God? I think when we're reading through scripture,

whether it's Old Testament or New Testament, The nature of God is being explored

in many places. We need to be looking for it.

His nature doesn't change. So what do we learn about him? Well,

one, we know that God doesn't need help.

His ark was captured. He still defeated his enemies without an army.

He found a way to get himself home. His people didn't have to come and get to

the ark and carry it home. He worked that out.

He goes on to thunder over the enemy, ensuring a secure victory for his people.

I think sometimes in our own lives, we can get to a place where we feel like

we're getting kind of impatient with God.

Maybe we're afraid that he's not going to give us things that we feel like we need.

And I think that's the point where we really step into error most of the time.

There's lots of places in the Bible people stepped out to help God.

They say, God, I don't think you're going to do what you're going to do.

I'm going to go ahead. I know you said, I know you've given me some guidelines.

I'm just going to step outside of them for a moment because I don't trust you.

And it always ends up in failure.

So if you're in a spot where you are feeling impatient, you're feeling fearful,

you're not sure God sees you or knows, and you're feeling tempted to step out

of the boundaries that God has actually given you for your life,

tell you to pause and know this is a horrible idea.

And then we have so many stories that tell us this does not end well.

We're told in Proverbs to trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Do not lean on your own understanding.

Because God will guide and provide in his time. He's faithful. Amen?

Next thing is God is sovereign no matter what. So even through all this judgment

that happened in the story here with Israelites, and even through times of humanity's

failure, you see that he is restoring his people.

He's clearing away corruption that's in his house. He's preparing away for his

chosen prophet to get to work and bring some restoration.

And he even uses judgment to weaken the enemy. So while he is judging his own

people, he's using it to weaken the enemy.

He does that tour through the Philistine nation.

And while he's doing that, he is clearing out their population of fighting men.

It says that the men who did not die were struck with tumors,

and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

So think about that.

They're quite weakened after this kind of circuit of the plague through their cities.

And then we've had these two guys I talked about earlier in the series,

Hophni and Phinehas. These were Eli's sons.

They were crooked, corrupt, sinful priests.

And it may have seemed to people around them, it may have seemed to Samuel even,

that they were never going to get the judgment they deserve for what they were doing.

There was temple violations. There was evil, sinful living.

And they even entered the Holy of Holies on a day that wasn't designated.

And they even grabbed that Ark and they carried it out.

Why didn't they die when they stepped into the Holy of Holies?

Why didn't they die when they stepped out of the temple with the Ark? Why was God waiting?

We know that eventually God orchestrated everything perfectly.

In his own timing, he was never out of control at any moment.

And in a synchronized action, the judgment swept through his nation,

swept through his temple, and everyone got the judgment that God was going to put out.

And I think as we look out onto the world today, we look and we see injustice.

Maybe we've experienced injustice and we're wondering, when is that going to be fixed?

When are they going to get what they deserve?

When is justice going to be given to me, to those people there who are suffering?

I just want to assure you that don't worry. God is sovereign.

He will take care of it in his time.

At the same time, if you find yourself looking to make sure if other people

are getting what they deserve, just know we are not exempt.

We need to watch ourselves as well. The last thing I wanted to share about,

what does it say about God himself?

We can see that God does not tolerate contempt for his name.

So contempt, it means thinking that something or someone isn't worth respect.

It's looking down on them. It's treating something as unimportant.

I had contempt for a 30-kilometer speeding zone this week.

And as I'm complaining about how stupid the speeding zone is,

I got all over. I got a ticket.

All right. That serves me right.

In these chapters, we can see that everyone had contempt for God.

There was corrupt priests. There was elders who called for the ark.

There's the Philistines that take the ark and put it before their false God.

And God sets his mighty hand against every single one of them.

You see, God commands us to fear the Lord.

It doesn't mean be afraid. Be afraid that I'm going to hurt you.

That is not the fear that God is talking about. Okay?

Fear of the Lord means having a deep respect. That means a deep sense of awe.

Because you know how powerful and how holy and how good he is.

You stop for a moment and you think about it.

Imagine standing on a cliff. It's pretty high, lots of rocks.

You could fall. That could kill you.

There's power. It's immense.

You're not, you compared to a cliff, you know, cliff winds.

When you approach it, there is some awareness.

This is fearing the cliff. I don't fear the cliff's going to hurt me,

but I do know the cliff needs to be handled with care.

And when you fear God You can't have content for him,

So I want to encourage you all Honor the Lord today Wherever you're at in life

Whatever that means right now There's situations in your life You're making

decisions Or maybe you're planning Just day to day life Honor the Lord.

We're so grateful for the grace That God's given us We don't have If you're

in Christ, we're not under the risk of being wiped out by the plague or having

these horrible judgments laid against us because Christ took it all on him.

But let's not get lazy spiritually because there's grace.

We're told by Paul, the same one who explains to us the depths of this amazing

grace of God, that same person says,

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

This is the same God today as it was back then. He has the same expectations

of people to revere him, to give him the honor and the worship that he deserves.

God's goodness and mercy, we have rights to that through the work of Jesus.

But it doesn't cancel out the requirements Jesus made of his disciples.

Do you remember what Jesus demanded of his disciples?

Total devotion. It was everything.

So we know that salvation in Christ is free. Do you know that the way of God

pursuing Jesus costs everything. It's called the narrow road,

and most will not take it for that very reason.

It's an uncomfortable place to be. There's so much joy on it.

It's got amazing reward for us, but we need to be committed to walking that.

We've been commanded by the Lord to love your Lord, your God,

with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

And today, I pray for God's grace that He would actually put that love into

us, that we can begin to love Him more like He deserves.

And for those of us who have, for whatever reason, began to treat Jesus like an accessory to life,

like a good luck charm to have, we add Him in for some added blessing,

but we're not really committed to obeying his commandments.

We're just expecting that we're going to get all of his blessings.

Jesus speaks to what he's going to do with people who have this side of mindset.

He says, on that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in

your name, cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

It didn't keep his laws. It didn't keep his words. They were going out.

There was a show of godliness in their hearts. There was contempt for Jesus.

There was contempt for the holiness of God.

How else could I continue doing works of lawlessness?

And so there's still a call to repentance like there was for Israel back then

when Samuel called him to repentance.

There's still a call to repentance for us today. Jesus is calling out.

We have a chance to respond to that today. None of us have gotten it perfect.

Even while we're enjoying the Lord and we're enjoying the fellowship with him,

we're enjoying prayer, we're enjoying our time in the word, we know that there's

areas, God still deserves more.

He hasn't gotten everything yet. We're still working on it being refined.

It's important for us to keep in our regular rhythms of walking with the Lord,

times of focused repentance, going back to him.

Lord, examine me. Examine your own heart. and bring it forward to the Lord.

Say, God, is there anything here that we need to clear out?

I don't want to wait or take for granted that everything just could be okay.

I want to make sure that I'm okay with you. I want to make sure that I'm pleasing

you. I want to make sure that I'm bringing you honor and glory in my lifetime.

This is how we fear the Lord. He matters to us.

We hope that this sermon has encouraged you. If you'd like to learn more about

us, visit us online at gracechurch.se.

Thanks for listening.