The title of my message this
evening is everyone shall bow. Everyone shall bow. Every knee
shall bow. Here we have an illustration
of them bowing. But last week we saw the great
defeat of Israel by the Philistines. They lost 4,000 men. They took
the ark, went back, got into battle and lost 33,000 at that
time. and remember they said when they
heard that the ark was taken Eli fell over backwards and died
and then when it says in the last verse of chapter 4 she said
the glory has departed from Israel for the ark of God is taken so
they said the glory of God has departed because the ark was
taken But the glory of God had been gone from Israel for long,
long, long, long before the ark was ever taken. It's gone long.
But the Philistines, they took the ark of God. And that Hebrew
God, the Jewish God, the God of Israel is who they call Him.
This ark of the God of Israel. They knew this God was well known. Well known. Look back over here
in chapter 4 and verse 8. Look what it says here. He is
well known by the nations. You remember Rahab. That's why
she said we know what your God's done in Egypt. That's why she
wanted to be saved. I know what your God will do.
And I want to be saved. And so she was saved in her house.
Look what they said. Woe unto us who shall deliver
us out of the hand of these mighty gods. These are the gods that
smoke the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. So he was well known, the God
of the Israelites. And they had come into the land
of Canaan, and they had defeated the Canaanites. And God being
for them, they was defeated by God. And when they took this
ark, They thought, boy, we've whipped God. We have defeated
the God of Israel. They must have rejoiced that
we've defeated God, we've defeated His Christ. Now you keep this
and look over at Psalms chapter 2. Look in Psalms, the second
Psalm. You know that they've always
been against God. Then the nations, that's the
desire of the nations then, that's the desire of the nations now.
They take God to the Out to their borders and say
leave and don't come back. You go to England and you won't
find so few people. You go to France and as far as
I know, Jean-Claude Souillot and his wife is the only people
over there that know and believe the gospel. He don't know of
nobody else in all of France. So you got nations. Nations. That at one time God was there
and they said, listen, we want you out of here. We don't want
you back. And that's the way they are about
God and his Christ. Look what it said here in Psalm
2 verse 2. And this is what Peter said,
the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord and against His anointing, against His blessed
Son, the Lord Jesus. Let us break their bands asunder. Cast away their cords from us. Oh, we don't want to be bound
to God in no way. But listen to what happens. He
that setteth in the heavens shall laugh at them. and he'll have
them in derision and he'll speak to them in wrath and so these
someone they come along here and they take the ark of God
and Samuel is not mentioned again for a couple of chapters here
but the Philistines carried the ark and they went into their
city of Ashdod there's five lords of the Philistines and they was
along the coast of what's called Israel now And they was there
when they got there, and there's five of them down through there,
and they had all different cities. Gaza, Ekron, and there's five
of them. And they took the ark, and they
went victoriously marching into Ashdod, and they went to their
temple of their God, and they took the ark, and they took the
ark in there, and set him in there, where their God was. Where their God was. And set
him in the temple of God Dagon. Well, the next morning, they
went in there. What does it say? That the ark
that Dagon fell on his face before the ark of the Lord. Fell on his face before, before
the ark of the Lord. Well, listen, this is the way
men's idols are. They rushed down and they picked
him up. And this guy picked him up, set him back up. Boy, I tell you what, if you
can pick your guy up and carry him with you, you ain't got much.
And oh my, they said, well, something happened. He fell over, just
a natural thing probably. Well, the next morning they got
up and they went in there. And this Dagan was down and his
head was gone and his hands was gone. There was nothing left. He didn't have no legs to start
with, so he couldn't walk. They had to back him. And oh
my, and I'll tell you what, and the scripture says again, he
has fell before the presence of the heart of the Lord. And
God come along and he smote these people with emeralds. And it
says the hand of the Lord was heavy, heavy upon them. That means he was angry. And
oh beloved, they brought the ark of God, and they went from
city to city with it, and they said, oh my, we got to get it
out of this town, let's send it over here. And every place
they took it, it got worse. God got harder on them, and the
wrath got greater, and the hand got heavier. And then though, I'll tell you
what it is said, the Incanites cried out there in the last part
of verse 10 said, oh, they brought about the ark of the God of Israel
to us to slay us, kill us. And they all cried out in fear.
And down in the last verse, and oh, God destroyed, oh, He killed
so many and confused so many. And these Amorites, I was reading
about them today, and it was a bloody, bloody thing that afflicted
them. And the men that died not, it
says, look here in verse 12, were smitten with the Amorites,
and the cry of the city went up to heaven. They cried out
in fear, But they still didn't submit to God. And ain't that
the way lots of people are when they get in trouble? When trouble
hits, sorrow hits, grief hits, things happen. God steps into
the home, God steps into the family, God steps in the church,
and God comes among us. And He lays His hand heavy upon
somebody. Instead of, you know, they'll
cry out out of fear, But oh my, that they don't submit to no
God. They don't submit to God. They
don't worship God. And I tell you this is always
the result of sin. No matter how, where you go,
where you go, and they took this ark and they went over to Gaza,
they went to Hebron, they went here, they went yonder, and they
just kept moving it. And everywhere they moved it,
it got worse. And that's the way sin is. You can't get away
from it. And the result of sin is, no
matter where you go and what you do, sin without Christ doing
something for you, God's hand is going to be heavy on you.
And you think it was heavy on these folks. Imagine what it's
going to be when God's wrath comes down upon men and women
who never bowed to His Son, never believed His Son, never worshipped
His Son, never come to His Son. going to be at all. And you know
what the final punishment will be? The final nail in the coffin,
so to speak, will be? Depart from me. Depart from me,
you cursed. Depart from me. And that's what
God's doing with this. And people, the Scriptures tells
us that people are storing up, storing up the wrath of God against
themselves. Romans 2.5 says, oh listen, You,
it's your hardness of heart and impenitent mind and impenitent
heart. You're storing up against yourself
the wrath of God. That you just, you know, you're
just so high-minded and so against God and just ignore Him and ignore
what He says, ignore His word. And every day you do that, God's
just bagging up more wrath, bagging up more wrath, bagging up more
wrath, bagging up more wrath. And when it comes down, it'll
be awful. I'll tell you what it'll be when
this finally happens. The elements are going to melt
with a fervent heat. And there's going to be a new
heaven and a new earth when this whole thing is said and done.
Thank God for that. But now you know they set up
their idols. And I'm going to say this, that
the Philistines, the Philistines are alive and well on this earth
today they set up their idols they set up their idols and boast
about their defeat of God the way they did so let's look at
a few things about this now here's these folks they took the ark
of God and they thought boy we've defeated God We've got the God
of Israel. We've got Him in here. And listen,
they just took Him and sent Him in there like He's another, just
another God. Their God Dagon was superior
to this God. Because they had defeated Him.
They took Him away from the Israelites. But the utter futility of seeking
to defeat God. You're talking about an exercise
in futility is for men to think that they could defeat God. The
Philistines thought that they had taken God captive. That's
what they thought. And Israel was sorry. Oh my! Two people died over when they
heard about it. They just died. Sorrowful, losing
the ark. You know, they lost their superstitious
thing, you know, the thing that, and their superstitious loss
of power. They even they thought saw the loss of the ark as a
terrible defeat of God. But you know where they thought
at one place they thought we'll really get rid of God? Luke 19,
14 I think says that we'll not have this man to reign over us.
And they took God's blessed son, we did. And we thought, boy,
the Jews, and them, and the kings, and the rulers, and Herod, and
Pilate, and all of them, and the rulers of the Jews, they
all got together and said, oh, listen, this man is a blasphemer. He says he's God, and he's the
Son of God. And if he's God, he's just like
the rest of us. He's another man. Oh, he's done
some miracles. He's done some mighty works.
But we can't have this man to reign over us. Why, if he's who
he says he is, we'll have to give up our law keeping. We'll
have to give up our religion. We'll have to give up our phylacteries.
We'll have to give up our praying in the streets. We'll have to
give up our running the synagogues. And they said, we'll take him
and we'll have him crucified. Pilate stood and said four times,
I find no fault in this man. Find no fault in this man. But
every time he said it, they cried the louder, crucify him, crucify
him, crucify him, crucify him. And then when they took him down
from the cross dead and put him in Joseph's tomb, you know what
they said? Unless it's worse than us at
the beginning. Set a rock over this here and
put some guards here. Lest his disciples come stealing
away. And the last be worse than the
first. Oh, they thought, well we've
got rid of God. But God can't be defeated. But people think
that He's defeated Him. and Israel was sorrowful but
the Philistines they were joyful they were ecstatic we defeated
the Hebrew God who is so powerful but their happiness and their
joy didn't last long you know Paul said it's a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living God and that's where they're
at now they're in the hands of the they thought they thought
they had God in their hands they thought we got him here we got
him We got it. But really, they were in his
hands and he wasn't even, you know, they just had that ark.
And they found themselves helpless, helpless before the mighty hand
of God. Helpless. What could they do?
Their God's destroyed. And their diseased bodies started
dying. God sent confusion. God began
to kill them. And over in Gaza, they opened
it up, and God killed 53 people. They thought, man, we'll look
into this thing. And God killed 53 people for listening to me.
But they found themselves helpless. from the mighty hand of God.
And I tell you, beloved, and you know it as well as I do,
it's a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous thing to play around with God, to toy
with God, and to have God in your midst and then not worship
Him. That's a dangerous thing. And
I tell you, don't play checkers, play chess, Play golf, play baseball,
football, play anything you want to do. But don't play with God. Don't play with God. And men
still try to defeat God. Let me give you a few ways they
try to. Evolution. You know what evolution does?
And here's what gets me about it. They'll all say it's theory. But to some people it's absolutely
true. But evolution seeks to destroy
God as the creator of this world and everything in it. Now I probably had some folks
that hung from trees. by an egg, but none of them hung
by their tail. Ain't that right? I didn't mean
to be funny about it, but the thing you know is evolution. And here's the thing, there are
some people now that teach evolution and creation
at the same time. They'll say that things evolved
and there was an evolution up until time God started to create. And they use all this stuff that
they find after the flood come and say that shows you that we're
the dinosaurs that all let go. So they, you know, they use that.
And here's another thing where they're still trying to defeat
God. Politicians have banned God from all public life. We
was talking about it this week when I was in grade school. The
first thing you've done every morning before you start anything
else, you've done a pledge of allegiance to the flag. Everybody
stood up and done a pledge of allegiance to the flag. The next
thing you've done, somebody, they took turns about in the
class, somebody read a Bible verse. And now they won't even
let you bring a Bible. If they get you the Bible in
school or you have something about God or Christ in your t-shirt,
they're going to send you to the house. If they send you to the house,
if you have an American flag on a t-shirt or something. We don't want God in our public
schools. We don't want God in our assemblies. We don't want God nowhere. We
don't want God in the Senate. Seen where they was having a
big public thing and this is what they all decided one time
a couple of years ago They all decided said we do not want God
in our platform We do not want to acknowledge God in any way
I Wouldn't be in the shoes for
10,000 worlds like this, but they took a vote and Took a vote. We want to mention God in this
meeting? No. No. And then law after law is passed
to deny God's right to govern man. They think they can actually
pass a law to deny God's right to govern man. And this is one
of the things that they fight about all the time. A woman's
right, a woman's right to decide if the baby in her womb is a
human being and a living human being. And if she decides it
not, then she's the one who determines whether it's going to live or
die. Not God. She's the determiner of life.
And then God set the laws according to God's word. God set the law
of marriage and sexuality in this blessed book. Marriage, according to God, the
first marriage that ever happened in the scriptures was between
Adam and Eve. God said, A man shall leave his
father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and them two shall
be one. One. One. Well, they passed laws now. And they allow it now. But God
doesn't matter in marriage anymore. It doesn't make a minute difference
about man can marry another man. Woman can marry another woman. And not only that, But people
have got so against marriage that they live together and what
they call them nowadays, they're my partner. That's my partner
or my significant other. God's been exiled from marriage. It ain't none of your business
who I marry. Whether if I'm a man, I want
to marry another man. If I'm a woman, I want to marry
another woman. If I'm 35 years old, I want to marry a 14 years
old. Ain't none of your business. And they set their idols up and
that's what they are to them. I mean, you, listen, tackle some
of these issues in front. Let this new Supreme Court, that's
all they can talk about is he's going to take away women's right
to choose. Choose what? To kill their babies?
What a choice that leaves somebody. What kind of choice is that? What kind of choice is it that
you have to decide whether the baby in your womb is going to
live or die? And they're scared to death that
somebody's going to take away their right. Oh, listen, I'm telling you.
God has been... Oh, they're like the Philistines. Boy, we got God. Oh, we got Him
wimped now. We got Him wimped. We don't care
what Christians say. We don't care what the Bible
says. We don't care what God says. That don't have nothing
to do with it. They set up their idols to be
worshipped and adored. The gods of materialism, silver
and gold. Pleasure, oh pleasure man. Timothy
said lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Heady, high-minded,
unthankful, unholy. And nothing is sin anymore. Nothing
is sin. Just good people exercising their
free will and their rights. Just good people exercising their
free will and rights. But I tell you, every knee, every
knee, every knee is going to bow before Him. look at Dagan,
look at Dagan to the Philistines the defeated God of Israel was
placed before the superior God Dagan but the next morning who
was bowing? who was bowing? Dagan was bowing
before God and the second day In the second day, just let them
know who is God. They went in there and looked
and there lay Dagon and there wasn't nothing but a stump. His
hands was gone, his head was gone. And they wasn't in the
temple. It don't say that they saw his
head. They didn't say they saw his heads. Where'd they go? That's what an idol is before
God. Got no life. Got no power. Dagon was powerless. You know when it says his head
was gone, that's the center of thought and reason. His hands
was gone, that's where men do action and work with their hands.
And from the beginning, Dagon was powerful. Dagon was powerless. Look over in Psalm 115. Look
in the 115th Psalm. 115th Psalm. Look what it says. Here's the difference between
God and idols. David said, Not unto us, O Lord,
not unto us, but unto thy name give glory. Oh, for thy mercy. Oh, we're going to glorify him
for his mercy. And for thy truth's sake, we're going to glorify
him for the truth. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where
is now their God? And that's what people say, where's
your God? You know, people ask you that.
A fellow one time wanted to whip me real bad. Oh, he wanted to
whip me so bad. And they put him on some big
old brass knuckles. And I got out of the car and
he met me. When I got out of the car, he just started back
and said, I'm going to knock, I'm going to knock, you know,
just went on and on and on about it. And he said, what are you going
to do about it? I said, I'm going to stand right here. I've been whipped
by better men than you. That's what I told him. Mary
was standing there and Ethel was there and they just all going
into a tizzy. And he says, now where's your
God at now? And I said, knock your head off. I said, my God's
still where he's always been. He's still God and he'll be God
after you get done with me. You know he never took a, he
never, he just, all he was was a blow. All he was was a blow. He was just blowing. He wasn't
going to hurt nobody, hit nobody. But oh my, and that's, and that's
what you know they ask every man when his son got killed.
Where was your God, Henry, when your son got killed? He said
the same place he was when his son got killed. Ain't that right? And when God takes somebody out
of our family, where's he at? He's the same place he was when
his son was taken. And He'll always be there. And
that's the God we gladly, willfully, and joyfully submit to and worship
and embrace in this world. But our God's in the heavens.
And listen to this. He's done whatsoever He pleased. And then He says, but their idols
are silver and gold. And listen to this. The works
of men's hands. The works of men's hands. They
have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes they have, but they don't
see. They got ears, but they don't hear. Have noses, but they
can't smell. They have hands, but they handle
not. They have feet, but they walk not. Neither speak they
through their throats. And here's what spouts them. They that make them are like
unto them. So is everyone that trusteth
in him. You know what? The greatest idol
is And has been since creation, since Adam and Eve. Man's free
will is the greatest idol in this world. And they will fight
tooth and nail before they'll let their free will go. And I tell you what, God's almighty
power cannot be resisted. And all will bow before Him.
You look at what's happened down through the history of the Bible.
You see God casting Adam out of the garden. And then there's
the flood. When every man's mind was on
the evil continuum, imagination on the evil continuum, God sent
a flood. He said, I've put up with this
idol worship bunching long enough. Solomon Gomorrah. They was down
there, groping around, man after man, let us have you men out
here. God struck them blind, then he said, fine brimstone
fell on them. And then Korah and Dathan, they
got up one day and they decided, you know, they decided that they
was going to They got tired of Moses being the one making the
decisions. Got tired of Moses being the
one that God spoke to them. Got tired of Moses being the
judge. And they went to Moses and said,
Moses we are strong, we are wise, and we are as holy as you are. And you take too much on yourself.
Oh my, they went too far when they said that. Moses said, well we're going
to find out tomorrow. If God's for me or God's for
you, you're either going to run this outfit, or I'm going to
run this outfit. Either God's going to turn it
over to you, or He's going to leave me. And so the next day,
He said, all of you for the Lord, get over here! And all of you
over there for Dathan and all of them, and Corey, get on this
side. Boy, they got back, and they got back. And there stood
Dathan and Korah and all their families and they were princes
of Israel. Earth opened up. As old Barnard
said, God sent them to hell without giving them a chance to pack
a suitcase. And their families and everybody went down with
them. Oh, I want to be on the Lord's
side. Oh, I want to be on the Lord's side. Oh, listen. And
sometimes God works very, very subtly. First day, it was just
on His face. And then, oh, but boy, when He
gets ready to do something, the next day, He was laying before
Him without any heads or hands. God's showing them just how helpless
and pitiful their God was. They didn't realize that they
were about to experience the fearful hand of God on them.
But it got worse from city to city. And God still looks upon
idolatry the same way. And I tell you, beloved, God
will never, ever, ever allow idolatry. And I don't want no
idols. Do you? Oh, I don't want no idols. I asked a bunch the other day,
I guess it was up at Todd's, wasn't it, when I said Anybody
here got the Ten Commandments in their house, in their yard,
or on their walls? All of them said, no. No. God will never allow idolatry. God's wrath is upon the men and
the women who make idols. Who worship idols. And there's
lots of idols. You don't have to have it made
out of silver and gold. Self-righteousness is idols.
Doing the best I can as idols. I'm a good moral person as an idol. God's got to give me a
chance, that's an idol. And God said this, He said, I'll
have no gods, other gods before me. None. And Isaiah 42 and 8
says this, I'm not going to look at it but I'll just quote it
to you. God said, I will not give my glory to another. I won't do it. I won't give it
to any man. I won't give it to any idol.
I won't give it to an angel. I won't give it to anybody in
this heaven, hell or earth. I will not let nobody else have
my glory. I won't share it with nobody.
And he smoked him with hemorrhoids, confusion, deadly confusion.
Oh look at the confusion in America today. Oh, frightening how sad
it is in America. But oh, it was the power of God
against idolatry. Israel didn't march in there
and tear down the image of David. It was the power of God. It was
the power of God, not the power of man. The idols of this world They won't fall by the power
of man, they'll fall by the power of God. And every knee, like
Dagon fell before the Lord, every knee is going to bow. And our
faith and our hope is in God and in His blessed Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ and His gospel of which we're not ashamed. We're
not ashamed of His gospel. And I want to show you something
in Ecclesiastes. Now, Ecclesiastes is right before
the Psalms. Right before the Psalms. No, Proverbs. Right before the
Proverbs. I'm sorry. Excuse me. But I want you to
see this here. I looked at this today. And this
is the way men are. Oh, we must have our faith, our
hope. And all our eggs in one basket
and that's the Lord Jesus Christ not ashamed of his gospel Let
men debate and argue over a lot of things But God said every
knee shall bow Every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father But look here in verse
11 of Ecclesiastes chapter 8 Verse 11, Ecclesiastes 8.11 Because sentence against an evil
work is not executed speedily, because God does not come and
deal with them right then. Therefore the heart of the sons
of men is fully set in them to do evil. Well, if God don't want
me to do that, give me a sign. Strike me dead if what I'm doing
is wrong. God don't strike you dead. Keep on doing wrong. And
that's the way men are. And I tell you what, I heard
a fellow say, I heard about a man that folks would gather to worship.
And every Sunday when they'd gather to worship, the farmer
right there that lived around that place, he'd crank up his
tractor, and away he'd go around, around, around that farm, around
that church, and he'd do all of his work on Sunday. He'd do
his plowing on Sundays, planting on Sundays, harvesting on Sundays,
do everything he could to hinder that work. Boy, it come time
to gather all of his corn up. And oh, he had a bumper crop. Oh my goodness, he had a bumper
crop. And he told the preacher, he
said, preacher. He said, you know, I've had a
bumper, bumper crop. Now what do you wonder what your
God thinks about that? I had more corn than I've ever
had. And that preacher told him, he
said, God don't pay up in corn and he don't pay in October.
And ain't that right? Don't pay in corn and he don't
pay in October. And I tell you, I'm gonna bow before God now in my
heart, in my soul, and in my knees. Our Father, in the blessed, blessed
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for meeting with us.
Thank you for your precious word. And I pray that the word would
be blessed to our hearts, to our understanding. It's in your
hands. You'll do with it what you will. And Lord, if you're
pleased to cause it to bring forth fruit, we'd be grateful.
And if you don't, we'll still be grateful. You'll still be
God. and we bless you and praise you in His holy name. Amen. Amen.