Okay, turn with me again to 1
Samuel chapter six, or to 1 Samuel. This is our first study in chapter
six. As you know, the Philistines
were the enemy of Israel. Israel, God's people, went to
war with them. And God was going to teach Israel
a lesson and at the same time punish their enemies. You know,
that's the amazing thing about God. He can accomplish many things
at one time. And that's why God raised Pharaoh
up, if you remember. It was to show his power, God's
power in him, that God's name might be declared throughout
the earth, all the earth. Now in chapter four, 1 Samuel
verse 10, you don't have to turn there. We saw that the Philistines
fought and Israel was smitten and they fled every man to their
own tent. They ran like cowards. And there was a great slaughter
for their fell of Israel, 30,000 men in one battle. And the Ark
of the Covenant was taken. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni
and Phinehas were slain. And as you remember, Eli heard
the news of the ark being taken and fell over dead, even though
his sons were killed. He had already been told that
through Samuel, God's prophet, that their death would on the
same day come to pass. But verse 13 of that chapter
says, his heart trembled for the ark of God. Though Eli had
become complacent in his old age, the ark, which pictured
Christ, was everything to him. And I suppose the question we
need to consider is Christ everything does. I readily admit that I
want him to be, though sometimes he's not. He is everything to
me, but sometimes I don't act like it. When the Philistines
took the Ark of God, they robbed God, or at least they thought
they had. And the scriptures say in Malachi
3.8, will a man rob God? By nature, we'll certainly try.
That's what the Philistines here endeavored to do, and they paid
a heavy consequence for doing so. And as we know, there are
severe consequences for anyone who endeavors to rob from God.
Now, Phinehas, one of Eli's dead sons, had a daughter that gave
birth. You remember that? She named the boy Ichabod, which
meant where is the glory or the glory has departed. The glory
of God had departed from Israel. Without the ark, friends, without
Christ, there is no glory. He is God's glory, and what the
Philistines had done was an attempt to rob God of His glory, but
you can't rob God of His glory. You can try, and religion today
does just that. They try, they endeavor to steal
God's glory by accrediting salvation to man. But salvation's of the
Lord, and we don't accept Jesus, we are accepted in the Beloved,
that being Christ. Now, listen to me on this. The
Philistines in this story that we're going to look at tonight
represent you and me. By nature, we've undertaken to
steal God's glory. Just as the Philistines had set
the ark next to Dagon, you and I, by nature, have attempted
to set God's glory next to ours. And, you know, years ago, I used
to see those bumper stickers or those little license plates
that you stick on the front of your car or automobile that said,
God is my co-pilot. Well, not so. Not so. God is not co-anything. God is
a sovereign pilot. You and I are not co-pilots.
I had somebody tell me one time, said, well, no, God's not our
co-pilot. We're his. No, we're not his
co-pilot. We, by His grace, He's brought
us along for the ride. That's about it. We sit in the
back seat, we keep our mouths shut. The Ark of the Covenant
had the law of God in it. You remember that? The Ark of
God had the life of God in it, represented by that Aaron's rod,
which budded and had life, life from just a dead, inanimate stick. It contained the 10 commandments
that we broke and Christ kept every commandment of God for
us. That ark is Christ, it pictures Christ. In the ark of Aaron's
rod, the ark had the bread of life from heaven in it, that
being the manna that fell from heaven, that's Christ. Christ
said in the New Testament, he said, I am the manna, the bread
from heaven that fell. And he's our sustenance as we
partake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything about and everything
in the Ark of the Covenant is Christ. Christ is where God meets
His people. No love, no mercy, there's no
forgiveness, no grace apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ,
the law of God is kept. That's why we can rest in Him.
In Christ, there's life. It just goes on and on. Dead
branches separated from the vine is what we are. till God gives
us life and we're grafted into the thine, the Lord Jesus. In
Christ, our sins are atoned. Christ is the atonement. He's
the mercy seat, all part of the ark of the covenant. What happened
when they set the ark next to Dagon? God knocked it down. God knocked it down. When God
is sitting next to a sinner, he knocks all our idols down. Every one of them, God knocked
them down just as he knocked down Dagon. And like the Philistines,
you and I, we try to pick them up again and set them back up
and dust them off until God decapitates them, cut off Dagon's head and
cut off his hands. And that's what God does to our
idols. And we're shut up to the fact
that the Lord Jesus God in the flesh is our only hope. God reveals
to us that our idols are nothing but dead stumps. Now, if your
God is likened to Dagon, then it's true that your God has no
hands but your hands. But with the God of the Bible,
that's not so. If your God's like Dagon, then
it's true that your choice and your decision to let God save
you is true. But matter of fact, if your God
is not the God, and if he does anything, you'll have to do it
for him. But that's not true with the
God of the scriptures. That's a different story. He
can do anything. He can do everything. He does all things. And I'm so
happy about that. Our God is just as Hannah prayed
and declared Him. Our Lord kills, our Lord makes
alive. You know, you tell people that,
you know, they're shocked with, you know, God wouldn't kill anybody.
He loves too much to kill anybody. God is holy. Our Lord kills, makes alive.
He brings down to the grave and God raises up from the grave.
Our Lord makes poor, He makes rich. He brings low, He brings
up. He raises the poor and needy
out of the dust, and He lifts the beggar from the dughill.
God does all that. God is sovereign. God's in control. He raises the poor and needy.
He lifts the beggar. He sets them among princes. He
makes His people to inherit the glory, the throne of glory. You
know, what we strive to steal, God freely gives us. Isn't that
something? We try to steal God's glory,
and He freely gives it to us in Christ. Because it's all His
to give. The pillars of the earth are
the Lord's. He keeps His saints. By man's
strength, He shall not prevail. His adversaries will be broken
to pieces. Hannah said all that in her prayer.
He'll judge the ends of the earth. That's our God. What do we have
to worry about? What do we have to fret over?
Unless your God is the God of heaven and earth and you're praying
to a God, they cannot save. You know, I remember a story
years ago that Walter Groover, missionary to Mexico, Walter's
gone now, but he, Talked about a 14-year-old boy in Mexico that
the Lord saved. And he was, his father and his
mother had idols in every corner of the house, you know, and they
would light candles and set them before them and had times of
worship with the idols. pay homage to them every day. And the Lord saved that boy.
And he told his dad, he said, dad, they're nothing to them
idols. They don't have any power to do anything. And his dad got
so upset. And one day in desperation to
convince his father that his idols were helpless to do anything,
while his mother and father were gone, he took a hammer and he
broke all those idols except one. And then he took his hammer
and he set it next to that one little idol. And when his dad
came home, he was, what happened here? And the little boy said,
he did it, and pointed to that one idol that was left that the
hammer stood next to. And his dad said, boy, you know
that idol can't do that. And he said, dad, that's what
I've been trying to tell you all this time. And that's a true
story. Idols can't do anything, and
the man knew it, but went right on worshiping the idols. Okay, look at verse one here
in chapter six. This is a wonderful picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I heard a message by Brother
Paul Mahan two or three years ago called Two Cows and a Cart,
and that's what this passage is about, as you'll see. Look
at verse one, and the ark of the Lord was in the country of
the Philistines seven months. And the Philistines called for
the priest and the diviners saying, what shall we do to the ark of
the Lord? Tell us wherefore we shall send
it to its place. Now, the question that they asked
there in verse two is what shall we do to, or what shall we do
with the ark of the Lord? If I could get the ear of every
unbeliever, I would ask them point blank, what are you going
to do with Jesus Christ? What are you going to do? There's
no other way to be saved when you stand before God on judgment
day and you see that truth that only in Christ is a man saved. What are you going to do then?
That's the most crucial question that's ever been asked. One day
a lawyer, an expert of the law, not like lawyers in our days,
but they were experts of the law, he asked the Lord Jesus
what was the greatest commandment of all. And the Lord said, thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind. That's the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. And then he said on these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets. And while the
Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question,
what think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? That's the most
crucial, the most critical question that could ever be asked the
sinner. Why? Because how you answer it is
the difference between life and death. The only means of salvation. The Lord Jesus healed that man
that was born blind in John chapter nine. And when they cast him
out, And the Lord Jesus found him, and this is after he'd given
him sight, and he asked him this question, does thou believe on
the Son of God? That's the issue. That's the
issue of the gospel. Do you believe on Christ? Do
you believe what God says about us and what God says about His
beloved Son? You believe on Him. One day the
Lord asked His disciples, He said, who do men say that I am?
And they said, well, some say you're Elijah, Jeremiah, one
of the prophets, John the Baptist. And then He made it very personal.
He said, who do you say that I am? You see, that's the issue.
Who do you say that it is? Your life depends on it. And,
Peter said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. You
remember what the Lord said? He said, blessed are you, Simon
Bar-Jonah. You're blessed. He said, flesh
and blood, man, preacher. Didn't reveal this to you, but
my father, which is in heaven. If a sinner ever lays down their
idols and believes on Christ, it'll be by divine revelation.
It'll be by God showing them Flesh and blood cannot and will
not reveal it to you. Only God the Father can. We have on more than one occasion
established that the ark of the covenant is Christ. The Philistines
asked their priest here, they said, what shall we do to or
with the ark? Which was the same as saying,
what shall we do with Christ? This is what we need to be asking
in our preaching. Are you going to believe Him?
Are you going to trust Him? Are you going to bow to the Lord
Jesus? Are you going to reject Him? Are you going to ignore
Him? Are you going to turn your back on Him? Are you going to
treat God as if He's altogether one like unto yourself? Is salvation
of the Lord or salvation of man? Not hard questions, impossible
to answer unless God reveals it to you. Is salvation of grace
or salvation of works? It can't be both. Is salvation
you accepting God or salvation God accepting you? Is salvation
the sinner choosing God or is salvation God choosing the sinner? The Lord said, He said, you've
not chosen me, but I've chosen you. And we know, John told us,
that we love Him because He first loved us. Do you believe on the
Son of God? What think ye of Christ? What
are you gonna do with Him? Are you gonna bow up against
Him or bow to Him? And after the Lord knocked Dagon
to the ground in a submissive position to the ark, as we saw
last time, after the Lord decapitated the head and hands of this fish
god, the Philistines could have asked God for forgiveness. And
they could have pleaded with him to spare them, but they didn't. The fact that the Philistines
kept sending the ark just further and further away from it, as
we'll see, it shows that it only makes it obvious that they thought
they could distance themselves from God. You can't. You can't distance yourself from
an omnipresent God, one who is everywhere all the time. You
can't distance yourself. You can ask Jonah about that.
It doesn't work. and there was deadly destruction
throughout all the city. The hand of God was heavy there,
and the men that died were smitten with hemorrhoids, and the cry
of the city went up to heaven. You might ask, why hemorrhoids?
It was something painfully deep within them. Why hemorrhoids? Something that removed all comfort
and rest, difficult to set down. Something that brought shame
to them. You see the picture here? That represents our sin. Something that represented their
loathsome disease deep inside them called sin. That's what
it pictures. The city of Ashdod sent the ark
to the city of Gath. And as soon as it reached the
city of Gath, God smoked that whole city with emeralds. in
the secret parts, it said. So then they send the ark of
God to Ekron, and the word had already spread, and the men of
Ekron, they already knew what was gonna follow. Everywhere,
friends, everywhere the law of God goes, it exposes sin. That's why the law was given,
not for us to keep to be saved, but to show us we couldn't keep
it, to reveal our sin to us, to show us that, We can't keep
it perfectly. We can't keep all the law. It's
ridiculous to think that we can. All the Philistines were smitten
with this inward disease. And they picture you and I, that
includes us. Everyone here tonight, all of
us, every single one of us. Sin plagues us all. It's a loathsome
disease inside every one of us. Now look at verse three here.
And they said, if you send away the ark of the God of Israel,
now just pay close attention to this. If you send away the
ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty. but in any wise
return him a trespass offering that ye shall be healed and it
shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you."
Now, listen, the only remedy to this great disease of sin
is to send a sin offering. Don't let the ark of God, Christ,
go back to his place without sending a sin offering with it.
If you do, this disease will never be removed from you. Do
you see the picture? There must be an offering for
sin. That's it. There's got to be
an offering for sin. God's going to deal with sin.
He has to. He's just. He can by no means
clear the guilty. He's got to deal with sin. Well, look at verse four. Then
said they, what shall be the trespass offering which we shall
return to him? Now, they answered, five golden
emeralds and five golden mice. In other words, and I know this
seems strange. Clayton and I was talking about
it last week. It's just kind of strange to
talk about hemorrhoids. But this pictures something,
it pictures our sin. And there's gotta be an offering
for sin. So these priests tell them to
melt down some gold and form the image of five golden emeralds
and five golden mice. I kept wondering, well, what
about the mice? Well, that's really speaking
kind of rats. And a lot of people believe that
this disease was a bubonic plague or whatever caused by rats. But Leviticus tells us that a
mouse, a rodent, a rat represents an unclean thing. So these emeralds
in the mice picture are sand. That's what this is about. And
the best that they had was gold. Christ deserves the best. And to be redeemed, the sinner
must acknowledge who they are and what they've done. You remember
when Moses, when the fiery serpents bit the people of Israel and
Moses built a brazen serpent? in the likeness of the serpents
that bit them, which is sin. And Christ, in the likeness of
sin, was made to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. And God ordained that whoever
looked at that brazen serpent that Moses held up, would live,
they didn't die from the bite of the serpents. And here the
Philistines are told to make golden emeralds that represent
that loathsome disease of sin deep within us. And again, verse
four, then they said, what shall the trespass offering, which
we shall return to him, what shall be? And they answered,
five golden emeralds and five golden mice, according to the
number of the lords of the Philistines. For one plague was on you all
and on your lords. Verse five, wherefore, you shall
make images of your imrods and images of your mice that mar
the land and you shall give glory unto the God of Israel. Peradventure,
he will lighten his hand from off you and from off your gods
and from off your land. Wherefore, Then do ye harden
your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts."
They'd heard what happened in Egypt. When he had wrought wonderfully
among them, did not let the people go and they departed. Verse seven,
now therefore. Now they're about to tell them
and us the only way that this offering can be made and accepted. You know, there's only one way,
you know that. There's only one way to be saved. God wrote this
whole story here. God had these things come to
pass for our learning. For whatsoever things were written
aforetime, written for our learning, that we through patience and
comfort of the scriptures might have hope. This is what God is
telling us here. This is our only hope. This is
where we can put all our trust. Verse seven, now therefore, make
a new cart. Not an old cart. Not a cart that
had already been worked and used by man. We don't put new wine
in old bottles. He said, make a brand new cart
and take two milk cows. That's what that's talking about.
Two cows that have calves on which there hath come no yoke. They've never been yoked. They've
never had a yoke over them. And you get a cart that's never
seen the work of man's hands and two cows that have never
seen the work of man's hands, a cart and cows that have never
been worked by man's hands, so that there's no way that man
can glory in it. You see what he's saying here? Again, verse seven, now therefore
make a new cart. not an old one, and take two
milk kind on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kind
to the cart, and bring their calves home from there." Separate
the calves from the mother. In other words, separate them
from the work. They gotta be sanctified. That's
what that picture set aside for the work. They must do this work
alone. Now these two milk cows and this
carp represent the Lord Jesus Christ. I think you'll see that.
He left his father and he went by himself to accomplish the
work of putting away our sin. How? By the sacrifice of himself. Verse eight, and take the ark
of the Lord and lay it upon the carp. and put the jewels of gold
which ye return him for a trespass offering in a coffer or a basket
by the side thereof and send it away that it may go. Take
the ark of God which represents the holiness of God. It has the
commandments of God, it's the mercy seat of God, the life of
God, the manna from heaven, all the things in there, they all
picture Christ as the ark, and all that pertains to perfection
and righteousness, and it was all laid upon that cart. It was all laid upon Christ,
all of it. Take the jewels of gold, the
mice and the emirates representing our sin, and lay them on him. Christ, the Lord Jesus. And it
was all laid on Him. All of it. The law and those
who sinned against it. And He carried all of it. Now
look at verse 9. And see, if it goeth up by the
way of His own coast to Bethshemesh, that he hath done us this great
evil. But if not, then we shall know
that it is not his hand that smote us, it was a chance that
happened to us." Now, what he's saying here is, if these cows
who've never had a yoke on them, if they take the road that leads
straight back to the place where the ark resides, then we know
that Israel's God did this to us. But if those two cows struggle
with the yoke and one tries to go this way and one tries to
go that way, if they take the road back to their calves, then
we know that this was just by chance. God didn't do this to
us and it was just by accident. Bad luck. Verse 10, and the men
did so, they followed and they took two milk kind and tied them
to the cart and shut up their calves at home. And they laid
the Ark of the Lord upon the cart and the copper with the
mice of gold and the images of their emeralds, representing
our sin. And the kind, the cows, took
the straight way to the way of Beth Shemesh and went along the
highway, lowly as they went, and turn not aside to the right
or to the left. And the lords of the Philistines
went after them unto the border of Bethshemesh. And they of Bethshemesh
were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. And they lifted
up their eyes and saw the ark and rejoiced to see it. And the
cart came into the field of Joshua. and Jehovah, Jehovah saved, and
a Bethshemite, and stood there, and there was a great stone,
and they clad the wood of the cart, and offered the kind, the
cows, a burnt offering unto the Lord. Now, those two cows carried
that load, the load of God's holiness, the load of man's sin,
and they set their face like a plant. They didn't turn to
the left or the right. It says that the weight of the
Ark of the Covenant, it was lowly, it weighed them down, but they
went right where they were supposed to go. What a picture of Christ
putting away our sin. While on earth he should have
been glorified, but he wasn't. He should have been magnified.
He should have been praised and worshipped, but he wasn't. He
wasn't. Quite the opposite. He was despised
and rejected. He was mocked and ridiculed.
He was beaten so badly that his visage didn't resemble a man,
was marred more than any man ever before or after. He was
spit upon. A murderer was preferred for
release over him. He was crucified between two
thieves. He gave up the ghost and died. He was placed in a borrowed tomb.
God, the Son of God. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities,
the chastisement of our peace. The punishment in order for us
to have peace was upon Him, and it was by His stripes that we
were healed. Everything that our Lord endured
was for his people. Now look at verse 12. Verse 12
again tells us, and the kind took the straight way to the
way of Bethshemesh. You know what that city means? House of the sun. Isn't that
something? And went along the highway lowly
as they went, burdened down, heavy laden, and turned not aside
to the right or to the left. That's a picture of Christ. Our Lord lowly as He went, He
was carrying a heavy, heavy burden. Our Lord of sin and guilt, He
made Himself of no reputation. He took on the form of a servant.
He was made in the likeness of men. God was. God was. He took our sin upon Him while
heading up Golgotha's hill. He didn't turn to the right.
He didn't turn to the left. Oh, He was heavy burdened, but
He kept right on going, face like a flint. And notice that
it's harvest time. All that the Father giveth Him
is gonna come to Him. It's harvest time. He will in
no wise cast them out. And did you notice there was
a great stone there? That stone is Christ, the cornerstone
in which the house of God is built. And notice that they claimed
the wood of the cart. They broke and they split the
wood of that cart as just as our Lord was broken and beaten. And they offered the kind, the
cows, as a burnt offering unto the Lord. Friends, blood was
shed here. They shed the blood that bore
the sin. All the sin of God's people was
laid upon Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what this picture
is. And they were all redeemed. The Lord's holiness and His people's
sin had to meet and be dealt with in Christ's body on the
tree. He provided the sacrifice. He
was the sacrifice. It was the only way God could
be just and justifier. Jesus Christ is a just God and
a Savior. I'm so thankful for that. God
didn't compromise His justice. He made a way that He could,
in mercy, save us and still remain just. That's the best news I
ever heard. I want to read verses 15 through
18 here. "'And the Levites took down the
ark of the Lord "'and the coffer that was with it, "'wherein the
jewels of gold were, "'and put them on the great stone. "'And
the men of Bethshemesh offered burnt offerings "'and sacrifices
the same day unto the Lord. "'And when the five lords of
the Philistines had seen it, "'they returned to Ekron the
same day, And these are the golden emirates which the Philistines
returned for a trespass offering unto the Lord. For Ashdod won,
for Gaza won, for Ashkelon won, and for Gath won, and for Ekron
won. And the golden mice, according
to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging
to the five lords, both of fenced cities and of country villages,
even unto the great stone of Abel, whereon they set down the
ark of the Lord, which stone remaineth unto this day in the
field of Joshua, the best she might." That's a picture of Christ
if I ever saw one. And here's what I leave you with.
Every sinner, in every sin of every sinner, That Christ came
into this world to save, was laid on him, and they themselves
were redeemed. That's the gospel. God took our
sin, put it on Christ. He was made to be sin. He knew
no sin. He was not a sinner. but He was
made to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. That's redemption. That's what
redemption is, to be redeemed, bought with a price. Nothing
for us to do. Don't you love thinking about
that? Raised all my life telling, and was told that I had to do
something to be saved. I've got to keep this law. I've
got to, you know, if you do this, You're lost. If you don't do
this, you're lost. No, the work's finished. Christ
has done it for me. Nothing for me to do but rest.
The work's been accepted and everything is all right. More
than all right with us and God. Well, I hope that was an encouragement
to you. It sure was to me. And I appreciate
your attention.