I have three things that I want us to see in this chapter. a miracle of God. That's the
first thing I want us to see, a miracle of God. Second, a time
of thanksgiving. And then third, a weighty question. A weighty question. A miracle
of God, a time of thanksgiving, and a weighty question. First,
a miracle of God, beginning in 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 diviner 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 you send away
the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty, but in any
wise return him a trespass offering. Then you 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 emrods 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, you shall make images
of your emrods 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 you 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,
take two milch kind, on which there hath come no yoke, and
tie the kind to the cart, and bring their calves home from
them. And take the cart of the Lord, and lay it, the ark of
the Lord, rather, take the ark of the Lord, and lay it upon
the cart, and put the jewels of gold, which you 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 coasts of Beth Shemes, 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 man did so. took the
two milch 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 coffer with the mice of gold and the
images of their hemorrhoids. And the kind took the straight
way to the way of Beth Shemesh and went along the highway, lowing
as they went, and turned not a side to the right hand or to
the left. and the lords of the Philistines
went after them onto the border of Beth Shemesh. We've seen that
the Ark of the Lord, which was a symbol, that's what it was,
a symbol of God's presence, was captured by the Philistines. And we know that the reason,
the only way that the Philistines were able to capture that ark
and take it, carry it into their land was because of Israel's
sin, because of the nation of Israel's sin against God. God gave Israel this promise
when they came into the land of Canaan. Now it'd been a number
of years, of course, but the promise was still good. God gave
them this promise. There shall no man be able to
stand before you. No man shall be able to stand
before you, for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you
and the dread of you upon all the land that you shall tread
upon. There is a blessing promised,
but there is an if. The blessing was conditional.
What a great blessing. There shall no man be able to
stand before you, for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of
you and the dread of you upon all the land that you shall tread
upon if, if you will obey the commandments of the Lord your
God. But there also was a curse, a
curse, if you will not obey the commandments of the Lord. The
ark of God was in the land of the Philistines seven months,
we read here. And it wasn't there because the
gods of the Philistines was stronger, greater, more powerful than the
God of Israel. It was there because of the sin,
the sin of the nation of Israel, deserting and going away from
God themselves and turning to idols. They had brought this
upon themselves. And we saw last week that God's
hand was heavy. That's the word that's used in
chapter five. God's hand was heavy first upon,
first rather upon their false gods. And there were gods, more
than one god. We know that from the word of
God here. And there may have been more
gods than Dagon. Dagon, we see, was the first
god that the Ark of God came into his temple, and of course,
the hand of the Lord was heavy upon that idol. Remember the
first night it just fell over. The next night, after they had
set it back up, it fell upon the threshold, and its head was
broken off, and its hands were broken off, showing that it had
no understanding, it was dead, it had no power to work with
its hands. And God's hand was not only heavy
upon their gods, but God's hand we saw was heavy upon the people. The people, they had this awful
disease break out, as the writers say, in their secret parts, that
is the secret parts of their body, whatever this was. this
affliction that God brought upon them. God's hand was heavy upon
them, smiting them with this disease. And we learned tonight,
we read it just now here in chapter six, not only was God's hand
heavy upon their gods, heavy upon their people, but it was
heavy upon their land. God sent a plague of mice into
the land. And mice were able, of course,
to consume the crops. And it was an awful time. God's
hand was heavy, heavy. God's hand of judgment was heavy
upon the gods, upon the Philistines, and upon their land. Well, the Philistines, as we
see here, now remember, we've seen there was five major cities
or metropolises and five lords over those cities. They didn't have kings, there
were not five different kingdoms, there were five different towns,
and over each one was a lord, and of course they had the villages
around them as well. And these lords, we are told
here, they called the priest and the diviners. Notice that
in verse two. I mean, they recognized they
had to do something. I mean, God's hand was so heavy
upon them, they had to do something, and they believed, at least. We can see they were not sure.
They were not positive that it was God Almighty who was doing
this to them, or it just happened by chance, just happened by circumstance. And so they call for their priest,
and remember they were priests of false gods, and their diviners. Now, these men were part of Satan
worship, that's all you can say. All of those who tried to discern
the future, discern what's going to happen in the future, without
consulting the word of God, I mean, some people today, you see the
signs on the side of the road, the card readers, palm readers. Some people read their, what's
that thing in the paper every day? Horoscope every day. I mean, they're looking at the
stars lined up just right, and they try to determine how they
should live on this particular day. It's all demonology. That's all it is. And so these
lords, they call for these diviners and their priest and ask them,
and you know, one of the ways these diviners tried to discern
the will, what they should do was they would cut an animal
open and they would put their hands into the stomach part of
the animal and pull out its entrails, and they would look at the different
parts, and especially the liver, especially the liver, they thought
that in this way they would be able to discern what they should
do. I want to show you that in Ezekiel. If you keep your place here,
but we know This was something that was practiced. If you turn
to Ezekiel chapter 21, many, many years later, Nebuchadnezzar,
we know king of Babylon, he was marching. And he was either,
well, I think his plans were to destroy Jerusalem and this
other city here. Let's see in verse 18. The word
of the Lord came unto me again saying also, thou son of man,
appoint thee two ways. In other words, they came to
a fork in the road. One road leads it to this capital,
and one road leads to this capital, and one of those capitals was
Jerusalem. Son of man, appoint thee two
ways that the sword of the king of Babylon may come. Both twain
shall come forth out of one land and choose our place, choose
it at the head of the way to the city. Appoint a way that
the sword may come to Rabbath, Now, that's one of the places.
Rabbath, which was the capital of the Ammonites, and to Judah. That's the other way. There's
a fork in the road. One road leads to Rabbath, and
one road leads to Jerusalem. Now, Nebuchadnezzar, with his
army, is going to destroy these cities. Which one? Which road
shall he take? And so how did they discern that?
Verse 21, for the king of Babylon, that's Nebuchadnezzar, stood
at the parting of the way and the head of the two ways to use
divination. He made his arrows bright, he
consulted with images, he looked in the liver. He looked in the
liver. And they had some way also As
verse 22 says, at his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem,
to appoint captains to open the mouth of the slaughter, to lift
up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against
the gates, to cast a mount and to build a fort, and it shall
be unto them as a false divination in their sight, to them that
have sworn oaths, but he will call to remembrance the iniquity
that they may be taken. So they had another way, it mentions
the heiress, somehow with the heiress, the king would take
his bow and his heiress, his bow in one hand, his heiress
in another hand, and they had some kind of a ritual, I guess you would call
it, and that's how they discerned what they should do. And I'm
hesitant to say that's how they discerned the will of God. It
was the will of their gods they were trying to discern. But you
see, the point is, of all the ignorance and superstition and
demonology, Satanology, astronomy, astrology, how that these things
men have used who do not have the word of God. Who do not have
the word of God and do not believe the word of God. and do not study
the word of God to seek God's will. So the Lords of the Philistines,
if you turn back now with me to 1 Samuel chapter six, they
call these priests and diviners to come and help them decide
how or what they should do with the Ark of the Covenant. And
verse five, I want you to notice Wherefore, you shall make images
of your emirates 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, from off your gods and
from off your land. Now, these priests said, you
make these trespass offerings, five, images of the disease that
they were experiencing. And five mice, golden, trespass
offerings. And you send it back, the Ark
of the Covenant, send these back along with it. Notice they said,
giving glory to the God of Israel. In other words, by their trespass
offering, you will give glory to his power. You will acknowledge
that His hand has done this. And you will give knowledge also
to His justice in punishing you for taking the ark of the covenant
out of the land of Israel. And you will give glory unto
God for His goodness should He lift His heavy hand from you. Now, the miracle, the miracle
of God is seen in placing the ark of God and the trespass offerings
on a new cart and yoking two nursing cows to it. And these two nursing cows had
never been yoked before. They'd never been yoked to a
wagon or a cart before. And they on their own accord,
these two cows, Their calves are taken from them. I remember
when I was a teenager on my uncle's farm one time, and I don't remember
all the circumstances, but I remember that a cow, a calf got separated
from its mother. And that cow was on one side
of the fence and the calf was on the other side of the fence.
And when it came time, I guess, to eat, That calf was bellowing
and that cow was bellowing. That cow was a big, big cow and
it was running back and forth on that fence and it was coming
through the fence. I mean, to separate a calf, a
nursing calf from its mother like that and that cow to just
walk off, leave, just walk off. It was a miracle. And it shows
us God's miraculous power over all of his creation, over the
animal creatures as well as over every other part of his creation.
As I thought about that, his power over the animal creation,
I thought about the fact that he prepared, that's what the
word says, he prepared a great fish. He prepared it to swallow
Jonah. And when Jonah was thrown overboard,
that fish received that prophet, that backslidden prophet, trying
to flee, trying to run from the place where God had told him
to go. And that man stayed in the belly
of the fish for three days. And then the fish, of course,
vomited him up on dry ground. And lo and behold, he was sick. on dry ground he was facing toward
Nineveh, just where God had told him to go. And think about the plagues that
God brought upon Egypt, the frogs and the lice and the locust. All of these animals or creatures,
I guess I should say, these creatures are all under God's hand and
God's control. And this definitely was a miracle
here, for these two cows to leave their calves and to walk away. And they went straight. I mean,
the fact, if they had not been nursing, just the fact they'd
never been harnessed before to a wagon, never had been yoked
together. Many times to train an animal,
they will yoke a young animal onto a yoke with an older animal
that has been trained, and that new animal learns like that.
But to take two animals who've never been yoked to a wagon before,
and for them just to start walking, lulling as they walk, singing
as they walked, and they head straight for Beth Shemesh. What a miracle, what a miracle
we have here. The second thing we see is a
time for thanksgiving. Verses 13 through 18. 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, the best she might, and stood there, where there
was a great stone. And they claimed the wood of
the cart and offered the kind of burnt offering unto the Lord. And the Levites took down the
ark of the Lord and the coffer that was with it." Well, you
see that's kind of out of order there, isn't it? They took down
the cart first. put it on the stone, and then
with the wood of the cart, they burned, and the two cows, they
offered them in sacrifice. The five lords of the Philistines,
they had followed them. Notice that in verse 16. When
the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, in other words,
they followed the cart as well. And Beshemesh was a city of the
Levites. It was a city that was given
to the Levites, and it's right on the border between the country
of the Philistines and Israel. And they pulled that cart right
up there next to a big stone. They just parked it right next
to a big stone. And the Levites, they lifted
the cart up, of course, off of the cart, put it on the stone,
and as I said, and the trespass offerings as well. But you notice,
these five lords, think about this. They saw that miracle. They witnessed that miracle.
And what did they do? They went back to their false
gods. They went back to their false
gods. And that just reminds us again that seeing a miracle has
never produced faith in a person. Sometimes people have said that
over the years. Well, if I could just see a miracle,
if God just would work a miracle for me, I could believe. No,
when the Lord Jesus Christ was here in his flesh, think of how
many people witnessed that leper being cleansed. How many people
witnessed that man who, and he said this, he said, it's never
been heard before that a person born blind receives his sight. Many people saw that. His neighbors
saw that. His parents saw that. The Pharisees
saw that. That's not the way God produces
faith, is it? Faith cometh by hearing. and
hearing by the word of God. These five lords, they saw what
took place. It was obviously a miracle, and
they just turned back to their gods, go back home like their
gods were worth worshiping. This was a time of rejoicing
on the part of the men of Beth Shemesh because the Ark of the
Covenant was returned. It was returned. It was a time
to give thanks. And so that's what they did.
They offered those animals as sacrifices. In spite of Israel's sin, Israel's
God is faithful. In spite of Israel's sin, Israel's
God is full of compassion. He had not forsaken them, though
they had forsaken him. No. He caused the ark, which
was a symbol of his presence, to return. When I looked at this
this past week, I remembered Elisha. When Elijah anointed
Elisha to be a prophet, you remember he was plowing. Elisha was plowing,
it says, with 12 yoke of oxen. And I believe that means that
he owned He was part of the family that owned these 12 yoke of oxen. He was plowing with one yoke
of oxen, two oxen. And he ran after Elijah. And
Elijah, of course, sent him back. And what did he do? He took those
oxen, offered them in sacrifice, burned the yokes for the sacrifice,
to offer the sacrifice, and followed the Lord. anointed him to be a prophet,
and he burned the bridges, in other words. No turning back.
He put his hand to the plow, and he didn't look back. Now,
here's the third part of the message. I said a weighty question,
and the question is found in verse 20. Let's read verses 19
through 21. And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh,
because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. Even he
smote of the people 50,000 and threescore and 10 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? There's the question, who is
able to stand before this holy Lord God? That is a weighty question,
isn't it? That's a weighty question for
all of us. Now, according to all of the
writers that I study and read, 50,000 people were not killed by looking
into the ark. There's a way this could be read
where it's 70 men out of 50. There's several ways it could
be read, but Beth Shemesh, first of all, it was a small town. It was not a large city. There
wouldn't have been 50,000 men there. Some say it was 50,000
of the Philistines that God had killed, but the 70, but here's
the point. It says that They asked this
question, who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? Verse 19 says, he smote the men
of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the
Lord. Now, in order to look into that
ark, what did they have to do? They had to remove the mercy
seat. You couldn't look into the Ark.
What was in the Ark? Well, the tables of stone, the
Ten Commandments was there, the Ark of the Covenant, that's what
it was, the covenant that God made with Israel. To look into
the Ark, they had to remove the mercy seed. Now, to come into
the presence of absolute God, and not come through a mediator. The mercy seat, sprinkled with
blood, was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. What they did,
they exposed themselves to an absolute God, and there was no
mediator. There was no in-between, no dagement
between them and God. And we see what happened. God
killed 70 of them. And then they asked that question.
Of course, that was a sad day. 70 men there in that city were
killed. That was a very sad day. And
they lamented, and they asked this question, who, who is able
to stand before the holy Lord God? Have you ever asked that
question? Have you? Have you ever asked
that question? Because all of us one day are
going to stand before him. We know that. It's appointed
unto man once to die, but after this the judgment. We'll all
stand before him. Now who is able to stand before
this holy Lord God? Only those who stand in Christ. Because he, the scripture says,
he is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity. Who then is able to stand before
the Holy Lord God? Only those who are clothed in
the righteousness of Christ. Only those who appear before
God Almighty in the beloved, accepted in the beloved. Well, I pray the Lord would bless
these thoughts and words to us here this evening.