We're in 1st Samuel, chapter
six, and we're going to read from verse one. And the ark of the Lord was in
the country of the Philistines seven months. And the Philistines
called for the priests and the diviners, saying, what shall
we do to the ark of the Lord? Tell us wherewith we shall send
it to his place. And they said, if ye send away
the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty, but in any
wise return him a trespass offering. Then ye shall be healed, and
it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from
you. Then said they, what shall be
the trespass offering which we shall return to him? 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. Wherefore ye shall make images
of your emeralds, and images of your mice, that mar the land,
and ye 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,
when he had wrought wonderfully among them? Did they not let
the people go, and they departed? Now therefore make a new cart,
and take two milch kine, milchkine or milking cows, and take two
milchkine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine
to the cart, and bring their calves home from them. And take
the ark of the Lord, and lay it upon the cart, and put the
jewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass offering,
in a coffer by the side thereof, and send it away, that it may
go. and see if it goeth up by the
way of his own coast to Bethshemesh, then 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. And the men did so, and took
two milch kine, 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 coffer with the mice of gold, and the
images of the Remarods. And the kine took the straight
way to the way of Beth Shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing
as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to
the left, and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto
the border of Beth Shemesh. And they of Beth Shemesh 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, a Bethshemite, and stood there,
where there was a great stone. And they claimed the wood of
the cart and offered the kind a burnt offering unto the Lord.
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 Beth Shemesh offered
burnt offerings and sacrificed 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 emeralds which the Philistines returned
for a trespass offering unto the Lord. For Ashdod, one. For Gaza, one. For Ashkelon,
one. For Gath, one. For Ekron, one. 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 Beshemite. And he smote the men of Beth
Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. Even
he smote of the people fifty thousand, and threescore, and
ten men. And the people lamented, because
the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.
And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before this
holy Lord God? And to whom shall he go up from
us? And they sent messengers to the
inhabitants of Kirjath-ji-Aram, saying, The Philistines have
brought again the ark of the Lord. Come ye down, and fetch
it up to you. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from His Word. A few weeks ago, we saw how the
children of Israel foolishly and superstitiously exposed the
Ark of God to danger on the battlefield at Ebenezer. They were having
a battle with the Philistines and they brought the Ark of the
Covenant onto the battlefield. The battle was lost, the Ark
was captured and the Philistines took it to the temple of their
god Dagon at Ashdod. And the Philistines hoped to
mock Israel and to mock the God of Israel. But over the next
seven months, the Lord systematically devastated city after city in
the land of the Philistines. And it's possible that not only
did he bring these emeralds, these illnesses and diseases
upon the people, but he also destroyed their wealth and their
food as well. He caused a painful disease to
ravage the country. and he appears to have plagued
their fields with mice and to have smashed at least one of
the Philistine gods. We read about that last week,
the god Dagon. but he may actually have destroyed
more gods than Dagon. And this is suggested by the
words of the Philistine priests and diviners who advised that
the Ark should be returned to Israel. They said to the lords
of the Philistines and to the people of the cities, the five
cities of the Philistines, of course these were cities, but
they also had little villages and farms all around about them,
but they are recognised as these five major metropolises of the
Philistine nation. And these diviners, these priests
of the Philistines, they said, give glory unto the God of Israel. Peradventure he will lighten
his hand, now listen, from off you, from off your gods, and
from off your land. So that the people, the land,
and the religion of the Philistines were all damaged by the presence
of the Ark of God in their country. And the Philistines, in all of
these cities, agreed amongst themselves to return the Ark. Though it seems actually that
some people protested. and their protests were that
it shouldn't be returned or that something else should be done
to it and the priests and the diviners, they brought to mind
the experience of Pharaoh and the Egyptians at the time of
the exodus in order to convince the people that they shouldn't
mess with the children of Israel or with their God. And I think
it's interesting to note that the priests and diviners of the
Philistines, although these were not priests from the nation of
Israel, from the children of Israel, they were Philistine
priests from the Philistine religion, still they knew enough about
the God of Israel and his dealings with Pharaoh and Egypt at the
time of Moses to insist that the people give the Ark of God
back, that they treated it reverently, and also that they sent a trespass
offering with the Ark when they returned it. These offerings
were to be golden images of the emirates, this disease that they
had. and of the mice that marred the
land. Now we hadn't heard much about
these mice before, but it seems as if, as well as the illness
and the plague and the disease that afflicted the bodies of
the people, there was also a plague of mice which consumed their
crops. And this would be a particularly
troubling matter because we learn later that the people of Israel
were gathering in their crops at this time so if there was
a plague of mice in the land of the Philistines then that
would not have been good for their crops. And the Philistines
did not know the Lord but they learned by these judgments to
be wary of him and to be careful not to offend him. Now the passage
that we read together tells us of the efforts of the Philistines
to rid themselves of the problem of the Ark of the Lord. They wanted to send it back,
they wanted to be rid of it, they wanted to return it to Israel. And they were curious about the
best way to do that. The presence of the Ark in Philistia,
the land of the Philistines, had become a national catastrophe
and it seems that there were many among them that had suffered
and died during the seven months that the Ark of God was in their
possession. They correctly attributed these
afflictions to God's displeasure and they called it a great evil. However, I think it is interesting
that they chose not to worship God. Here they were sure that
God had done all this damage. He had put his hand upon the
people, he had put his hand upon the land, he had put his hand
upon their gods. And yet they would not worship
him. It was clear that this God of
the Israelites was stronger and more fearsome than their own
idol gods. Gods such as the broken fish
god Dagon that the Lord had caused to topple over and smash. And I take that to be evidence
that true worship of the true God is not an act of man's will,
but a gift of spiritual enlightenment and a mark of God's grace. These people were not softened
towards God because they recognised that he was a great and glorious
God. They feared him and they wanted
rid of him because they understood how fearsome he was. They feared
God but they did not love him. They knew he was powerful, they
knew that he brought judgment and death but they could not
worship him and they could not trust him for life. steps that
the Philistines took to return the Ark on a cart showed God's
providential hand in the process. They built a cart, so it was
a brand new cart, they put the Ark of God on it, they put these
gifts as the trespass offering, they got these two milk milch
kine, these cows that had calves and they sent the Ark back to
Israel. The way that they did this was
intended, they hoped, to give them some indication whether
it was indeed God that was behind all their troubles. And their
hopes were that in returning the act, they might be successful
in lifting the hand of God from upon their nation. The two milking
cows are mentioned because ordinarily, they would be reluctant to leave
their calves. Also, the fact that they had
never been yoked together is mentioned, so that they did not
know how to properly walk together in the oak, and they would have
been pulling all ways. Nor was the cart to be steered
by a driver. And yet, by the hand of God,
by the providence of God, These two cows, these milking cows
who were not being driven, who had never been under a yoke,
who did not in any way know the road that they should be walking
on, made their way directly to Beth Shemesh and to the land
of Israel by the shortest route. Turning, we're told, neither
to the right nor to the left. and all the time it was followed
by the Philistine leaders watching to see what would happen. When
the Ark arrived back in Israel. The cattle stopped beside a large
stone in a field belonging to a man called Joshua. Now that's
not the same Joshua that we know from Joshua's servant and the
one who fought the Battle of Jericho. That was many years
before. This is another man who has the
same name and we don't know anything about this man really except
that it was his field. Beth Shemesh, however, we do
know a little bit about because it was a city that was possessed
by the Levites. And you may remember that when
the children of Israel went in to what was then called the Promised
Land, the land that became the land of Israel, it was divided
up between the tribes. But the Levites were not given
any portion of land of their own, rather they were given cities
and they lived amongst the other tribes, and they were responsible
for the religious practices of the people in those tribes. And this was one of these Levite
cities. So the people in this city served
the family of the Levites. served in the religious service
of God for the other tribes. And so it was an appropriate
place for the Ark to be taken back to and the men there ought
to have been aware and sensitive to what was unfolding before
them. We're told that at once, realising
what was happening, the joyful inhabitants of Beth Shemesh,
who were harvesting their fields at the time, celebrated the arch
return by making an offering to God, by burning the cart and
sacrificing the cattle. And when I read that, I thought,
poor cattle. God did not ask for this sacrifice
nor in fact was it correctly performed. And we read that the
men of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrifices the
same day unto the Lord. But I'll tell you what, I don't
make too much of that statement because I think that the actions
of these people afterwards and the improper curiosity that they
exhibited in looking into the Ark of the Covenant suggests
that they were not acting by faith. They were not especially
concerned for the glory of the Lord. and it was in fact a faithless
act of worship, the kind that the Lord despises. Instead of
treating the Ark of God with respect, the men of Beth Shemesh
opened the lid and looked inside. You know, we do not read, the
Philistines even did this. It was a sinful act of presumption
on the part of these people from Bethshemesh, these Levites who
ought to have known better, and the Lord would not ignore it. We read that the Lord smote of
the people 50,000 and threescore and 10 people, and the people
lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with
a great slaughter. Now let me just mention this
because I don't want to pass over without mentioning it. But
that seems like a very large number indeed. A very large number
for what was likely a fairly small place. And there are several
ways in which the number being so large has been explained. Some people, for example, think
that it may have included all who died amongst the Philistines
as well during the seven months. Other people think that what
it means is that 50 of 1,000 died, rather than 50,000, but
50 of every 1,000 who lived in that place died. Now, since a
total of three score and 10 Men are also quoted, that would be
70, which would mean that there were 1400 people who lived in
Beth Shemesh, of which 70 died. Other people think that the 50,000
was of the whole of the nation of Israel at that time, who suffered
because of the actions of these few people. It certainly seems
as if it would be difficult to say that all 50,000 had looked
into the Ark at that time. Be that as it may, And there
are some questions which have been asked about that verse in
the past. The important thing is that we
need to wonder why the Lord considered this act so dreadful that so
many should die. And the answer is found in understanding
the importance that was laid by the Lord on the significance
of their crime. Let us remember that the Ark
of God or the Ark of the Covenant had been modelled and built by
Moses in the wilderness and it was given by God at the time
of the building of the tabernacle as symbolic of the place where
Jehovah and his people would meet. During his lifetime, Aaron in
the wilderness had been permitted to approach the Ark within the
veil of the tabernacle only once a year on the Day of Atonement
and not without blood. Now the Levites at Beth Shemesh
ought to have known not to try to approach God unworthily. It was wicked curiosity that
made them look into the Ark of the Covenant. It was neither
their place nor their privilege to do so. And they didn't do
it in the proper way. They did not do it without blood. in the hands of a mediator, in
the hands of a suitable high priest. Doing what they did was
to enter God's presence as sinners without a saviour and without
a substitute. Doing what they did in the way
that they did it was the same as if they had gone into the
presence of the holy God without a saviour and without a substitute. and killing the cows and burning
the cart, was merely offering their own righteous works, and
that will never suffice with God. Their sin was drawing near
to God without faith in the one true mediator, Jesus Christ. And the Apostle Paul explains
that for us in the book of Hebrews. The lesson from this whole incident
is this. No one can rightly come to God
except it is as he ordains and by the means that he has provided. The idolatrous Philistines ignorantly
insulted the Ark of God when it was present in their land. And the Lord ravaged their land
for doing so. He hurt them, he slew their people,
he damaged their religion, their idols, and he spoiled their crops. The children of Israel were better
informed than the Philistines. Nevertheless, they treated God's
means of grace carelessly and they imagined that they could
worship God without true faith. They did not have an eye to Christ
in either his high priestly office or in his capacity as the sacrificial
Lamb of God. and the great number of dead
is a warning of judgement for sin. There is only one way of
salvation and that is the way of grace. There is only one way
of salvation and that is by grace through faith in the sacrifice
for sin and the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. May
the Lord teach us all his way of salvation and give us true
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.