Turn with me tonight to 1 Samuel
chapter 5, please. Self-righteousness or God's righteousness? Which do you trust in? I recently
saw an article about an 11-foot tall idol in a temple in India. And the temple that houses this
idol is constructed of 200 tons of pure white marble. It's a sight to see. That's so
revealing when you consider that the country of India is so full
of poverty, so much so that it's said that 84% of the folks in
that country live on less than $7 a day. I'd like to try to do that with
you here in Madisonville, England. Now this shows us something of
this country's strong view of Hindu idol worship. The calculations
of the cost of the marble alone for the temple is said to have
been almost $3 billion. $3 billion. Now the name of the
idol I'm gonna give a shot at it here.
It's Ben-Kate Shawara. And the only reason I say that
is that the name means he who destroys the sins of the people. Idol worship is still prevalent
today. It's taking place in modern world,
smack dab in the center of Hyderabad, India, which is their high-tech
capital of that country. It's just amazing. In the day of high-tech, many
in India are still practicing the worship of idols, graven
images, just like they did in the Old Testament. Many things
have advanced, but idol worship still exists. And it not only
exists in India, friends, it exists in America. And every
country for that matter, because we've got to remember that an
idol is anything and everything that we put before God Almighty. or Christ our Redeemer. You can
make an idol out of anything. You've heard me say that. Anything
that we worship or put before Christ is nothing but an idol. Now, while starting chapter five
here in our study of 1 Samuel, I wanna look at a little bit
of a highlight reel of the four key storylines that we've seen
so far, just to catch you up to date. First, in chapters one
and two, we witnessed how God blessed a woman named Hannah,
who was barren. She pictures us. We're barren,
no life within. She'd been childless for many
years, and we saw how God blessed her with a son. God's blessed
us with a son, God's son. Upon weaning her son, Hannah
took him to God's sanctuary, God's temple, so that the boy
might stay there and grow up serving God. And then secondly,
in chapter two, we also learned how God condemned the corrupt
priesthood of Israel. The sons of Eli, who was the
high priest, were abusive, they were immoral, And Eli himself
had become complacent and unresponsive to their blasphemy and evil behavior. And God wasn't pleased. God's
never pleased with such actions. Thirdly, in chapter three, we
saw how Hannah's miracle child, Samuel, was called by God to
be a prophet to all of Israel in a time when God's guidance
was desperately needed. And fourthly, in chapter four,
we saw how in one day, within a matter of hours, God fulfilled
the prophecy of Samuel in his promise of judgment against the
corrupt priest of Eli's family and the children of Israel suffered
because of it. And after being trounced by the
Philistines, losing 4,000 men, Israel made the Ark of the Covenant
an idol. Oh, how so, Brother David? Well,
they said in verse three of chapter four, let us fetch the ark of
the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that when
it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. Israel serves here as a picture
and type of man's freewill works religion. Through their actions,
they showed a form of godliness, They took something that was
sacred and they made the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of the
Lord, nothing but a good luck charm. That's all it was. If we bring the Ark here, we'll
have good luck and we'll defeat our enemies. That's all. Today, men worship God with their
lips. They have a form of godliness,
but their hearts are far from it. And they deny the power thereof. The form of God, they actually
did what Peter later told Timothy that it would, it would deny
the power of God. And by bringing the Ark of the
Covenant there and saying, this is gonna make a difference, they
denied the power of God, the God of the Ark of the Covenant. Men and women today serve God
is no more than just a good luck charm. You think about that. There was no power in the Ark
of the Lord. All the power was to be found
in the Lord of the Ark. There was no power in the Ark
of the Covenant. All the power was in the Lord
of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant contained
three levels. You know this. In the lower level,
it contained the table of stones, the Ten Commandments. And Christ
is the fulfiller and keeper of the broken law of God. The Ark
of the Covenant pictured Christ. Secondly, was the manna that
fell in the wilderness. In French, Christ is the bread
of life that fell from heaven, that came from heaven. It pictures
Christ. Thirdly, the Ark of the Covenant
contained Aaron's rod that not only budded, but bloomed. It
was just a stick. There was nothing special about
that rod other than what God, the power of God, put behind
it. And that dead piece of wood,
representing Aaron, Christ bloomed, blossomed, and yielded almonds,
showing us something of the incarnation, the life, the death, the resurrection,
and ascension of Christ, His fruit, and saving His elect. The second level, there was the
mercy seat. Well, you know who that picture
is. It pictures Christ. It was overlaid with gold representing
Christ's deity and that place where God is pleased to show
mercy to God's people and judgment to those who will not have Christ
to rule over them. Christ is the mercy seat. Jesus
Christ is our atonement. He is our atonement with God. It was upon the mercy seat that
the blood was shed upon the altar to satisfy the justice of God. And it was Christ's blood that
was shed to satisfy the holy justice of God. And then the
third level, there was the very presence of God in the Shekinah
glory where God was said to dwell. The Ark of the Covenant, that
picture of Christ, there's just no doubt about it. All three levels point to Him.
So on that same day, that day of judgment, Israel lost what
they needed most. They lost the Ark of the Covenant,
which pictured Christ, and the mercy seat, His fulfilled law, the satisfaction
of God's justice. That's what we need most. It's
not a good luck charm. Christ is the one thing needful
that you and I cannot do without. It was upon this mercy seat that
the blood of the innocent was offered unto God for the covering
of sin. And again, they lost what they
needed most. The Philistines took the ark
as the spool of their victory. Look at verse one of chapter
five. And the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it
from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. And when the Philistines took
the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon and
set it by Dagon." The religion of the Philistines
and the religion of Israel both attributed power to man-made
objects. Dagon was an idol created by
the hands of man. Now the Ark of the Covenant was
a piece of furniture in the tabernacle. It was designed by God, but it
too was made by the hands of man. And its significance, now
listen, the significance of the Ark of the Covenant rested only
in who it pictured. Don't miss that. It rested, the significance rested
in only in who it typified, Christ. It was never sufficient to accomplish
what it typified, that being Christ. Great amounts of blood were sprinkled
upon it, but not one sin was ever forgiven by its yearly coverings. Why? Because it's not possible
that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. Not possible. But the blood of Christ is. That
which it pictured is. Now the people in the ancient
east believed that when they went out to battle that their
god or gods were going out with them to fight the god and gods
of their enemies. You remember when Israel brought
the Ark of the Covenant into the camp and the people shouted
and the Philistines are over in their camp and they hear it
and they start shaking. They're like, oh my, something
going on over there. And I'm sure word got to them
quick that they had brought the Ark of the Covenant. And being
the superstitious fools they were, they feared. But you can
believe when I tell you, that they were praying to Dagon at
the same time. Okay, now they've got their God,
so Dagon, you're our God, you need to stand up and fight for
us. And that's what they did. So therefore, their victory ultimately
represented the victory of Dagon over God Almighty, the Ark of
the Covenant. So now they take the Ark of the
Covenant and they put it next to Dagon in their temple. And
Dagon, the Ark of the Covenant, is now Dagon's trophy. And this was a continual reminder
to all Dagon's worshipers that the great Dagon had crushed Yahweh,
the God of Israel. That's not gonna stand. Not gonna
stand. So they bring the Ark of Dagon's
Temple to be just that, a trophy. Dagon was a God that was half
man and half fish. He had the upper body of a man
and he had the lower extremities of a fish. So here they are,
they've got proud smiles on their face. They're all standing around
looking at the Ark of the Covenant with who they thought to be Israel's
God. They were wrong about that. Where's
Israel's God? He's in the heavens. He's doing
whatsoever He pleases. Proud smiles on their faces,
putting the Ark of the Covenant at the feet of Dagon as a tribute
to their Dagon's great victory. Look what Dagon's done for us.
Look at verse three. And when day of Ashdod arose
early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face
to the earth before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon
and set him in his place again." I love this story because of
what it pictures. At some point in the night, the
statue of Dagon toppled over. There are two different ways
you can interpret Dagon's fall. Either God knocked Dagon over,
or Dagon just accidentally toppled over. Doesn't that describe Paul's
religion? So is. People today attribute everything,
either attribute everything to a sovereign God, or they attribute
it to chance, luck, or misfortune. It's one or the other, and it
can't be both. And it's your not luck, fate,
and misfortune, chance. It's not by chance or bad luck
that Dagon has fallen face down. He's face down. It's not by accident
that Dagon has fallen on the ground before the Ark of the
Covenant. Dagon's lying in a position of
submission and respect before the ark of the Lord, the Lord
God of heaven and earth. And it lies where it lies on
purpose. God purposed it to fall. God
knocked it down and God knocked it down right where he did on
purpose. And here's the lesson, the God
or idol of the unbeliever always needs its worshiper's help. Man's
idols that fall always gotta be helped back up and put in
their place. But the God of Israel, the one
and only true God, the God of heaven and earth doesn't need
anything from anyone. He can most definitely fend for
himself. He always has and He always will. And this is the difference between
the true God and the little G God that men imagine and make with
their own hands. That should be the first clue
right there, that man made, God made man, man didn't make God. Now listen to this, Acts chapter
17, verse 24. God that made the world and all
things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth,
dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Neither is he worshiped
with men's hands. You know, this, that ain't worship. That ain't worship. You liable
to swat at a fly and somebody think you're worshiping. It's
not worship. as though He, God, needed anything
from anybody, seeing He give it to all life and breath and
all things. Anything that you and I have,
God gave it to us, except for our sin. God, the mighty Creator,
is the giver of all things and life, all life, and breath, all
breath. And all things come from Him.
Look at verse 4. And when they arose early on
the morrow, the next morning, behold, Dago was fallen upon
his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. There's
something more this time. And the head of Dagon and both
the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold, and only
the stump of Dagon was left to him. He's fallen again. Was it an accident? No, God knocked
him down. And this time his head's chopped
off and his hands are chopped off. That's significant. He's
decimated. He's void now of any mental capacity. He don't have a head. He's void
of any ability to perform any kind of work. He don't have any
hands. That reminds me of what David
said in Psalm 115 about men's idols of silver and gold. The
work of men's hands. He said, they got mouths, but
they speak not. Eyes they've got, but they can't
see. They have hands, but they handle not. Feet have they, but
they walk not, neither speak they through their throat. And
they that make them are like unto them. And so is everyone
that trusteth in them." What does that mean? That means that
they're without life. The idols are without life, and
if you trust in them, you're without life, spiritual life.
What about the true and living God? David said, oh, I'm glad
you asked. Our God's in the heavens, and
He's done whatsoever He's pleased. He does what He pleases, when
He pleases, how He pleases, to whom He pleases. You know, decapitation was the
greatest symbol of humiliation and defeat. That's why they often,
you know, removed the head of their enemies. That was one of
the reasons that John the Baptist was beheaded. It was a symbol
of humiliation and defeat. So Dagon is displayed here to
be completely powerless as all idols and liturgy gods are, they
have no power. They have no life. Verse five,
therefore, neither the priest of Dagon nor any that came into
Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon and Ashgod until this
day. The Philistines' refusal to step
on the threshold of the temple where Dagon's head and hands
were laying, It was just a superstitious and
religious practice. False religion of the Gentiles
equated the act of hopping over the threshold. They did this
after this happened. For many years, they hopped over
the threshold as a superstitious action. You know, I don't know
if you did this, but when I was a kid, you know, we thought it
was bad luck to step on the cracks of the sidewalk. So we'd walk,
and then we'd hop, and then we'd walk a little more, and you know,
if your timing wasn't just right, you'd about fall down trying
not to step on that crack. It would bring about bad luck
if we did, right? Matter of fact, many false religionists
for many years after came, when they came to a threshold of a
temple or a house or even a place of employment, they hopped over
the threshold for good luck or prevention of
bad luck. It continued until the day of
Zephaniah as a means of appeasing God. No, we don't want to displease
God. It's bad luck if we step on the
threshold. But God, through the prophet
Zephaniah, said this in Zephaniah 1.9. He said that he'd punish
all those who leap on or over the threshold, which fill their
master's houses with balance in the seat. Listen. God don't believe in good luck,
and neither should we. There's no good luck, bad luck,
chance, fate, nothing else. It's all ordained by the sovereign
will and purpose of God Almighty. And that gives me, and I hope
you, some great comfort. Because He's working all things
together for our good. And He's able to do what He determines
to do. People after the event of Dagon's
head and feet being decapitated made the leaping over the threshold
just nothing but a superstition and God condemned it. It wasn't
the threshold on which Dagon fell that destroyed it. It was
God Almighty. It was God Almighty. And because
of the actions of the Philistines with the Ark of the Covenant,
God's judgment came upon them, as we'll see. Look at verse six.
But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod. God's
hand was heavy on them. And he destroyed them and smoked
them with emeralds, even Ashdod and the coast thereof. The judgment
that God handed down was an unpleasant one. The Lord smote them and
all the people in their surrounding territories with hemorrhoids,
which is the ancient term of hemorrhoids, both internal and
external. The revised translation of the
Bible translates the word hemorrhoids as tumors. Yet the Philistines never attributed
any of their sorrows to the God of the Ark itself. They attributed
it to the Ark, which is still an idol. It's an idol to Israel
at this point and an idol to the Philistine. And the final
assessment that the Philistines came up with was that keeping
the Ark was not going to work for them. This ain't going to
work for us. I imagine not. I imagine not. The hand of the
Lord was heavy and hard against them. You know, there's no one
in works religion that desire to have Christ. They just don't. Don't need him. It always comes
down to one thing, need. If you need your sin forgiven,
then you need Christ. If you can take care of your
sin yourself, you don't need him. And Philistines said, we
don't need this Ark of the Covenant. We need to get it out of here. No need. And this wasn't God's
first symbolic defeat of Dagon in Judges chapter 16. If you
remember, the Philistines are praising Dagon for their victory
over Samson as they got him chained and blinded, and they mock him. And it's likely taking place
in the temple of Dagon in Gaza. And as you remember from our
study in Judges, God grants Samson one last demonstration of strength
and he brings down the house of Dagon literally. He literally
brings it down. Dagon's temple is destroyed.
But here in 1 Samuel 5, the Philistines seem to have gotten about what
happened in Gaza. We easily forget, don't we? We
easily forget God's deliverances. So the story continues, verse
seven. And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said,
the ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us, for
his hand is sore upon us and upon Dagon our God. He mad at
Dagon. Look what he's done to our God,
little G-God. You notice the ark of God there
in verse seven, God is capitalized. Maybe they seeing something.
Not in a saving way, but they seeing that Dagon no match for
the God of Israel. None of our idols are. The ark
of the God, verse seven, of Israel, God of Israel should not abide
with us for his hand is sore upon us and upon Dagon our God.
And they sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines
unto them and said, what shall we do with the ark of the God
of Israel? And they answered, let the ark
of the God of Israel be carried about unto Gath. And they carried
the ark of God of Israel about thither. And it was so that after
they had carried it about, the hand of the Lord was against
the city with a very great destruction. And he smoked the men of the
city, both small and great, and they had emirates in their secret
parts. Therefore, they sent the ark
of God to Ekron. And it came to pass, as the ark
of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out. Now listen,
they'd heard about this. And they said, they brought about
the ark of the Lord of Israel to us, to slay us and our people. We're going to get Amorites too. Verse 11, so they sent and gathered
together all the lords of the Philistines and said, send away
the ark of God and let it go again to its own place. that
it slay us not in our people, for there was a deadly destruction
throughout all the city. The hand of God was heavy there. And the men that died were not
smitten. And the men that died not, ones still that lived, were
smitten with the emeralds. And the cry of the city went
up to heaven. There was so much crying going on that it could
be heard in heaven. Now, allow me just for a few
minutes, I won't keep you much longer, to get to the heart of
this study here, 1 Samuel 5. First, we see the supremacy and
the sovereignty of God. It's all through the Scriptures.
You don't have to just turn to Romans 8 and 9 to see the sovereignty
of God. It's all through the Scriptures.
It's seen here for sure. Paul told us in Romans chapter
15, verse four, for whatsoever things were written aforetime
were written for our learning that we, through patience and
comfort of the scriptures, might have hope. This gives us some
hope. You see, my God is alive and
well. He's sovereign. He does what
he wills in the army of heaven among the inhabitants of the
earth. None can stay his hand. None can say or question him
and what he's doing. Whatever He pleased in heaven,
earth, sea, all deep places, that did He. He's God. He does what He want. And this
story is a clear declaration and it points right directly
to the supremacy and sovereignty of God. Yahweh, the God of Israel,
is God alone. There are no other gods. God said, I'm the Lord and there
is none beside me. That means exactly what he said.
There's no other God. Throughout the history of the
Old Testament, God was showing his people that he is always
in complete control. Always. Never a time that he's
not in control. Whether it's a victorious army
and their imaginary god named Dagon, they're helpless to act
apart from what God ordains. The only reason the Philistines
won the battle in the first place was because it was God's judgment
against Israel. There's great encouragement for
us in all this. In the presence of our God, no
human invention, no human scheme, no army can stand in the presence
of our God and port His will. The Philistines had victory only
because God allowed it. Every enemy in the end is going
to be knocked down like Dagon was. and broken and destroyed. Every enemy of God is going to
be afflicted as the Philistines were. You see, idolatry always
brings defeat and pain. Secondly, we see something of
the drastic difference between self-righteousness and the perfect
righteousness of God in Christ. I asked you in the beginning,
self-righteousness or God's perfect righteousness? Which would you
prefer to have? Well, that's a no-brainer, isn't
it? That's a no-brainer. This chapter is about righteousness. This chapter is about acceptance
before God on the basis of Christ's righteousness. It's true or false religion,
every religion believes that righteousness is essential to
acceptance with God. I don't care what kind of religion
it is. They believe, the believers of
that particular religion believe that they've got to do right,
that they've got to provide a righteousness for their God to accept. As the Apostle Paul declares,
men by nature do what they do to be righteous before God by
the work of their own hands. You know, that's been going on
ever since Cain. False righteousness is revealed
by man imagining and making a God that is altogether like unto
himself. That assures that their little
G-God, that assures that He is going
to accept them because they make a God that's like them. They
make a God by the creation of their will and skill, just as
Dagon was symbolically the righteousness of the Philistines. Men imagine that God accepts
them on the basis of their merit and their righteousness. He doesn't.
First of all, you can do nothing, you have no merit, and you have
no righteousness. Our righteousness has got to
be as perfect as God's. And men may sing amazing grace,
but they don't believe that grace is amazing, not God's grace.
They think that their work of righteousness is amazing, and
truly it would be if it could put away one sin, but it can't.
So nothing great about it. But the lesson here to the believing
child of God is that the Ark of the Covenant, just a symbolic
artifact that pictured the perfect righteousness of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's where Christ fulfilled the
broken law. That's what the Ark of the Covenant
represented. It's that God brought life from a dead stick, just
as God brings forth life from our dead and barren bodies and
brings forth fruit. That's Christ. Just like the
mercy seat is where the blood of Christ was shed for the sins
of His people, that's what the Ark of the Covenant pictures
and typifies. Anyone who would endeavor to
establish their own righteousness is going to be lost. Now, the affliction that the
Lord put on the Philistine here was hemorrhoids. I know that's
kind of comical when you think about it, but it's not comical
when you have them. And why is that? Why did he use that means? Well, the reason is seen in the
result. Hemorrhoids make it painful and often impossible for one
so afflicted to sit down and rest. Anyone who would endeavor to
establish their own righteousness, never going to be able to sit
down and rest. False religion is so labor-intensive And men who practice it cannot
rest. I can't ever do enough. Can't
ever do good enough. Can't ever rest. Can't ever just
sit down and go, phew, can't do it. Sit down is painful to
them. And they ache when they stand
to work and continually strive to prove that they're righteous. You know, when the Lord showed
me that I had no righteousness but self-righteousness, and that
He Himself provided all the righteousness that I needed, boy, I could sit
down and rest for the first time ever. For the first time ever. There's no rest for the wicked,
and the greatest manifestation of wickedness in this universe
is self-righteousness. The epitome of self-righteousness
is man and everything to do for himself what only the Lord Jesus
Christ can do. It's an abomination to God. It's
not just a little difference of opinion in theology. It's not just a little difference
of opinion in doctrine. It's the difference of serving
God and serving an idol. In comparison, the only folks
who can truly rest are those who Christ finished the accepted
work of righteousness for. We rest in the finished work
of Christ because the work's finished. Nothing for us to do. Well, preacher, you have to believe.
Well, only God can enable us to believe. Well, preacher, you
have to accept his work. Well, actually, it's his work
that makes us accepted. We are accepted wherein the beloved,
that's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, to the praise of
the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the
beloved, Ephesians 1c. And we can sit down with a certainty
of forgiveness without pain. without discomfort, because there's
no work for us to do. We're perfect in our Redeemer.
And that, my friends, is good news. That, my friends, is the
gospel. Now to him that is of power to
establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus
Christ, which is how the gospel comes. according to the revelation
of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began. Christ doing for me what I couldn't
do for myself.