I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 4-7.

    The capture of the Ark of the Covenant by the Philistines tells us a lot about the way we tend to think of God. The Israelites lost a battle to the Philistines and wondered why God had allowed it to happen. Then instead of going to God with prayer and supplication, they tried to force His hand by bringing the Ark to battle with them the next time. We often do the same sort of thing, and it almost always ends badly, just as it did here.

    However, we also learn something from what happened once the Philistines had the Ark. The Philistines concluded that since they had captured the Ark their gods were more powerful than the Israelites’ God. They set the Ark up as a sort of offering to Dagon in the presence of their image of Dagon. The way in which the idol fell over as if worshiping God was not lost on the Philistines, especially not when plague broke out shortly afterwards. So, the Philistines consulted their diviners who told them to send the Ark back with a gift. I am always fascinated by the way the Philistines sent the Ark back. They put it on a cart and hitched the cart to cows which had just given birth, putting the calves in a pen separated from their mothers. Despite the natural tendency of cows to try to get to their calves, these cows took the cart to an Israelite town. Despite all of this, when the Israelites got the Ark back seventy of them allowed their curiosity to get the better of them and looked inside the Ark. Those 70 men died.

    After all of this, the people of Israel mourned because they believed that God had abandoned them. They finally sort of got it. God does not work on our terms. It was at this point that Samuel told them what to do, instructions we should follow today. If we want God’s help, we need to want to turn to Him. In order to turn to God we must put aside all other gods, everything which might take our focus off of doing God’s will. The Israelites followed Samuel’s instructions, got rid of all of their idols and other objects of worship, and gathered together to worship God as instructed by Samuel. Then came the bad news, the Philistines had mustered their army and were coming to attack them. Samuel did not turn his attention from God, not even as the Philistines attacked. It was when the Israelites focused on worshiping God and did not let their troubles distract them from doing so, not even the imminent attack of their enemies, that God defeated their enemies for them. The same holds true for us. This is the same message as when Peter tried to walk on water to Jesus. As long as Peter kept his eyes on Jesus he could walk on water. As soon as he began to look around at the potential problems he began to sink beneath the waves.