I like the words to that hymn,
don't you? Lord willing, we'll sing that
again. So many good hymns, it's hard
to sing all of them. If you will, let's open our Bibles
tonight to 1 Samuel, chapter 6. 1 Samuel, chapter 6. 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 hemrods 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 hemrods 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,
and take two milchkind, on which there hath come no yoke, and
tie the kind to the cart, bring their calves home from them,
and take the ark of the Lord, and lay it upon the cart. Put
the jewels of gold, which you returned 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 of Beth Shemesh, 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 the
two milchkind 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 hemrods. 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 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 weed 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 of Bethshemite, 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,
wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone.
And the men of Beth Shemesh 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 hemrods 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 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 Bethshemite. And he smote the men of Bethshemesh,
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? And they sent messengers to the
inhabitants of Kirjath-Jerom saying, the Philistines have
brought again the ark of the Lord. Come you down and fetch
it up to you. We're looking at several things
that are recorded concerning the ark of the Lord at this point
in the history of the nation of Israel. And this is my third
message on as many chapters. We began in chapter four. And
we saw how that the nation of Israel, they looked to the ark
of God, that coffer, that wooden ark overlaid with gold. They
looked to it, but not to the God of whom it was a type. They didn't look to God to rescue
them, to deliver them from the Philistines. They look to the
ark itself, much like people have a good luck charm or a rabbit's
foot or something of that nature that they believe is going to
help them. That's how the Israelites had
come to look at this ark of God, instead of looking to God himself. That was the point. And you know,
fallen man has done this with so many things associated with
the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me give us just a few examples. God gave us the Savior, preparing
him a body from the Virgin Mary. What does fallen man do? He worships
the Virgin Mary through which the Savior came into this world. Something associated with Christ.
Fallen man takes that and worships it other than the one we should
worship. Another example is the Lord Jesus
Christ was baptized in the River Jordan and began his public ministry. What does fallen man do? He goes
on a pilgrimage and is baptized in the Jordan River as though
that had some special effect. Taking that which is associated
with Christ instead of Christ, looking to that other than the
Lord Jesus Christ. He was crucified on a wooden
cross, offering himself as a sacrifice for the sins of his people. What
does fallen man do? He tries to find the wooden cross
and worship the wooden cross. And you know, during the days
of the Great Reformation in the 1500s and before that, there
were so many pieces of wood scattered all over Europe that they could
have manufactured hundreds of crosses. And yet people in their
ignorance, led by the so-called church, they went to find and
worship, touch, and bow down, kneel down before a peace supposedly
that had come. from the cross. It's not the
wooden cross, it's the Christ upon the cross. Another example
I thought of also is the borrowed tomb in which they laid the body
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a new tomb, it was a tomb
of Joseph of Arimathea. And what does man do, fallen
man do? Well, he finds a tomb over there
in Jerusalem, Who knows if it is the same one or not, but he
is convinced that it is. And so now it is a sacred place
and make a pilgrimage and go in there to the sepulchre and
there's some special effect, some special blessing attached
to it. But all of these places and things
of that nature, fallen man takes and doesn't look to the end,
that is to Christ. What was important about that
tomb is the Lord Jesus Christ lay there for three days and
three nights, but he came out of it on the first day of the
week. And the same thing is true about
the River Jordan. How many times over my life have
I heard some of these so-called preachers, hucksters is what
they are, But they supposedly will send you a bottle of water
from the Jordan River if you would sow a seed of faith. Like that water is special in
any way. But we see the Israelites, that's
just typical of fallen man. They took that Ark of God, the
Ark of the Covenant, which was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and they came to worship the ark and not look to the reality,
the end of the ark, that is the person and work of Jesus Christ. Israel shouted, we saw this in
chapter four, Israel shouted when it was brought into the
camp, trusting in it, to deliver them, and yet they were defeated. And then last time, in chapter
5, we saw the Ark of God among the Philistines. When Israel
was defeated, they captured the Ark of God and carried it into
their land. And so last week, in chapter
5, we looked at the Ark of God among the Philistines, and we
saw how God Now listen, God will not share his glory with another. He is God alone and he has no
rivals. This is what he said himself
in Isaiah. Thus saith the Lord, the King
of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first
and I am the last, and beside me there is no God. So first, the Philistines put
the Ark of God, the Ark of the Covenant, in the house of their
god, Dagon. And we know what happened. Dagon
was turned over the first night, and then the second night, not
only was he turned over as though he was doing obeisance to the
Ark, to God, but his head was cut off and his hands were cut
off. And not only did God smite their
God, but He also smote them. And so when they took the Ark
of God first to Ashdod, which was kind of like their capital
city, that's where the shrine or the house of Dagon was, then
they carried it to one of the other cities, to Gath, and God
smote them. And when they would take the
ark of God to a third city, to the city of Ekron, they cried
out. This is what they cried out.
They have brought the ark of the God of Israel to us, to slay
us and our people. Send away the ark of God from
us. And so that's what we see in
this chapter. the Philistines sending away
the ark of God. First, I have two parts to the
message tonight, but first, the lords of the Philistines send
away the ark of God. Now in verse one, we are told
that the ark of God had been in the country of the Philistines
for seven months. Now during the seven months,
we know that it was in Ashdod, but we don't know for how long.
We know it was in Gath. We know it was taken to Ekron,
and they didn't want to receive it there. So it may well have
been moved on to those other two cities of Gaza and Ashkelon. But in all, seven months, the
ark of God was in the country of the Philistines. And all this
time, God smote them. The lords were smitten with disease
in their body, and mice marred the land. In other words, there
was a plague of mice, like there had been plagues in Egypt, no
doubt, with lice and and those same flies that happened there.
So God sent mice, and I say that because they make these images
of mice when they send the ark of God back. And the country
was marred, we read that, and the writers say that God sent
these mice, hordes of mice, I don't know, hundreds if not thousands
of mice into their country and ate up their crop. destroyed
their crops. So the lords of the Philistines,
there's five of them at least, they sought advice. If you notice
in verse 2, they turned to the priest and the diviners. Now these priests, they were
not priests of God. These were not priests of the
household of Aaron. These were priests of the Philistines. They were priests, no doubt,
of the god Dagon. And then they had many other
gods because we read that also. They told the lords of the Philistines
that your gods have been smitten. So they had many priests in their
country because they had many gods. And then these diviners,
those are astrologers. Astrologers. when they depart
from the true knowledge of God, have always multiplied themselves
many gods. God for the wind, God for the
rain, God for the sun, God for the cold. I mean, just as many
gods as you can imagine. And all these gods have to have
someone to serve them, to be their priest. And then these
diviners, these astrologers, for some reason, men have always
believed that the stars determine what happens in our life. You
know, there's many people today who still will read that in the
paper every day. They see it and they base their
life, they base their decisions on how the stars supposedly are
lined up for them, whatever sign they are. If you were born in
one month, you're under this sign, and so forth and so on.
There have been those who have believed that every star is a
god, and every star has an effect upon your life. Well, we know
there's no end. When you pass from one god to
two gods, there's no end. There's no end to the number
of gods that people want. So they asked these priests,
and I want us to see three things here. First, I want us to look
at what the priests and diviners did and didn't know. What these priests, these pagan
priests, what they did and did not know. And my point here is
to remind us that false preachers, false prophets, false teachers,
they always have some good things. You know, how many times have
we heard that? Well, I know he doesn't believe what you believe.
He doesn't believe that God is sovereign. He doesn't believe
that God chose a people from before the foundation of the
world. He doesn't believe that man is totally depraved. He doesn't
believe that Christ redeemed his people, but he says some
good things. Well, sure he does. And so did
these priests. So did these diviners. They say
some good things. They knew some things, but there
was something that was very important that they did not know. The first
thing we see that they knew, they knew that it was God who
delivered Israel from Egypt and it was useless to fight against
Him. Notice that in verse 6. They
knew this. They knew, here they had the
Ark of God, the God of Israel, and they knew that God Almighty,
this God, had delivered the Israelites from Egypt, and it was useless
to fight against him. Notice what they say in verse
6. 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?
They knew this, these priests, and they asked the Lord, Wherefore? Why haven't you turned them loose
or sent this ark back? Why? The Egyptians, they fought
against God and they were defeated. Now I want you to look back,
keep your place here to Joshua just a moment. Joshua and these
spies that went into the house of Rahab. I want you to see what
Rahab told these spies in Joshua chapter 2 and verse 9. These spies of Israel that Joshua
had sent into the land of promise, verse 9. And she, that is Rahab,
said unto the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land,
and that your terror is fallen upon us. and that all the inhabitants
of the land faint because of you. For we have heard. Now, before I read on, I want
us to remember what Rahab is saying. She's talking about something
that took place about 40 years before she is speaking. Because
they had been in the wilderness 40 years when they sent these
spies out. And so this is what we have heard. We have heard how the Lord dried
up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt,
and what you did unto the two kings of the Amorites that were
on the other side, Jordan, Sihon, and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard these
things, our hearts did melt. Neither did there remain any
more courage in any man because of you. For the Lord your God,
he is God in heaven above and in earth beneath. So 40 years
after God destroyed the Pharaoh and his armies in the Red Sea,
Rahab tells these spies, we've heard what your God has done. And there's no question in our
minds that your God, He is the Lord God of heaven and earth.
Now, in our text tonight, back here in 1 Samuel, these priests,
they're several hundred years have passed now, because we have
the time of the judges. But yet this knowledge was still
in the minds of these pagan priests. It had been passed down, no doubt,
from from father to son, so forth and so on. And they knew, they
knew this. They knew that God had destroyed
Egypt with all those plagues and all those miracles, and he
destroyed Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, and they knew
it's useless. It's useless to fight against
God. You're fighting a battle that
you cannot win. We know that's true to every
lost man and woman who fights against God, who does not submit
to God Almighty. You're fighting a battle that
you cannot win. You cannot win. They knew that. They knew that. Number two, they
knew that they should offer to God a trespass offering. Verse
3, if you look in verse 3, and this is what the priest and the
diviner 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. So first of all, they knew that
it was God who delivered Israel from Egypt and it was useless
for them to fight against Him. And secondly, they knew that
they should offer to God a trespass offering. Now the word trespass
is a word which speaks of guilt and by implication means a fault. In other words, these priests
told the Lord, we are at fault. You are at fault. And we must
acknowledge our fault. Now offer an offering to appease
God. Offer a trespass offering. So I see two things that they
knew. But notice here's what they did
not know. And this is very important. They
did not know it's not with gold, but with blood that forgiveness
is obtained. That's a very important lesson,
isn't it? Because the scripture says, for without the shedding
of blood, there is no remission of sin. They thought, they thought
that with gold that they could offer a trespass offering unto
God. Five golden emeralds and five
golden mice. Silver and gold. does not, cannot
obtain our redemption. Now you would think, you would
think that they would know, they would have known if they knew
that other about God delivering Israel out of Egypt, you would
have thought they would have also known how the blood played
a part in that. The blood of the Passover lamb. And not only that, but when they
came out of Egypt and God gave the law to Moses, All of those
sacrifices mostly were blood sacrifices. There were some exceptions. There was a bread sacrifice,
a meal sacrifice, a wine sacrifice, but most were blood sacrifices. You would have thought they would
have known that. But you know, they may have been
like many false prophets today. many false preachers today who
stand in so-called Christian pulpits, but they do not like
to talk about the blood. They do not like to talk about
the fact that the blood of Jesus Christ and that alone, that is
the death of Jesus Christ, secures our redemption, our forgiveness,
our salvation. Here's the second thing I want
to point out. Look at the test the priests
and diviners proposed to see. Here's a test, they told the
lords of the Philistines. Here's how we'll find out if
it really is God or if it's just a chance. If all of this calamity
and all of this has come upon us, the sickness in the bodies
of these men and the mice in the land, if this just was a
perchance, a happenstance, or if this is truly the hand of
God that's heavy upon us. Here's how we will determine
it. Take a cart, a wagon, and you take two cows that are nursing
their calves, take their calves away, and then you tie those
cows to that wagon, place that Ark of God on that wagon, and
don't let any man try to guide them, Let's just see if they
will take the road to Beth Shemesh. I don't know if you've ever seen
a cow when they take a calf away from it or it gets separated.
But if you've ever seen that, it's quite a sight. Because that
cow, she's trying to get to the calf. I mean, I've seen her run
up and down a fence line trying to get over into that pen where
the calf is. Now, when they did what these
diviners proposed, the two milk cows, they just started walking,
lowing, mooing, mooing as they went on their way and took the
road straight to Beth Shemesh. There could be no mistake. It
wasn't chance. It wasn't chance. It was God. It was the hand of God which
had fallen upon them, was heavy upon them. But I want you to
say something else. Look at the effect. To me, that
was, well there's no doubt, to me, to you, to everyone, that
was a miracle. Amen? That was a miracle. They witnessed a miracle. The five lords, they followed
that cart probably from a distance, and they looked and they watched
the whole thing take place. Notice that, if you will, in
verse 16. And when the five lords of the
Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day. It did not produce repentance. It did not reproduce faith. They watched it. They saw it. They witnessed it. and they return
to their own idols. How many times do people say,
well, if so and so, if he could just see a miracle, he would
believe. That's not what the Bible says.
No, no. Abraham told that rich man in
hell, if they believe not Moses and the prophets, that is the
word of God, if a person does not believe God's written word,
Abraham said, they won't believe if someone rise from the dead.
You see, faith is a gift of God, isn't it? It's a gift of God. I know most people think that
faith is something everyone is born with. And there is a type
of faith, but not saving faith, not faith that sees the truth
about Christ and trusts in Him. That's a gift that comes from
God Almighty. And faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God. All right, here's the second
part of my message. I have to be much briefer, but
I want us to see the men of Beth Shemesh receive the ark. Here comes these two milk cows
pulling that wagon with the ark of God upon it. There are five
things that we are told that the men of Beth Shemesh did. The first thing they did, they
rejoiced. When they saw that wagon coming
down the road, and they saw what was on that wagon, they rejoiced. Seven months, and the symbol
of God's presence with the nation had been in another country,
and the tabernacle had been left vacant. They rejoiced. Notice that in verse 15, in the
Levites, I'm sorry, that's not the... Verse 13, 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 come. They were happy. They were happy. No doubt shouted some. The second
thing, We see that they did, they offered burnt offerings
and sacrifices. They took the ark, the Levites,
they were the only ones who could handle the ark. The Levites took
the ark down off of that wagon and the men of Beth Shemesh,
they took the wagon, broke it into pieces for fire and took
the two cows and offered them in sacrifice unto God. That's the second thing they
did. The third thing, and that's in verse 15, the third thing
that they did, they looked into the ark, verse 19. And he smote the men of Beth
Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. Now the fourth thing that we
are told that they did, they asked a very, very, very important
question. Verse 20, after God smote them,
those who looked into the ark, they asked this very, very important
question, who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? That's a question every man,
woman, boy, and girl should ask himself. Well, I take that back. He shouldn't ask himself, he
should ask the word of God. Who shall stand before this holy
Lord God? Now the fifth thing that we see
happen, they requested those of Kirjath-Jerim to take the
ark of God away. They sent word over to this city
and asked them if they would take the ark, if they would come
and fetch the ark. They had rejoiced when they saw
it coming, but after God killed many of them for looking into
the ark, then they called for them to come and fetch the ark
out of their country. Now, you might ask, Why did God
kill those men who looked into the ark? Well, what was in the
ark? Think about this. What was in
the ark? God's holy law. God's holy law was in the ark
and they looked in the ark and there was no mediator between
them and God's holy law. And so God killed many of them. I know the number that is given,
I believe, has to be understood. It says there was 500, is it
500,000, 50,000 men were killed, 50,000 and then 70. And I believe it was 70 men of
Beth Shemesh who were killed because I don't think there was
50,000. 50,000 men in Beth Shemesh to begin
with. Some say that it could be understood
that the 50,000 were those who were killed in the land of the
Philistines. I don't know if that's so or
not, but anyway, those who looked into the ark, God killed. And
the reason God killed them is They looked upon the holy law
and there was no mediator, there was no blood between them and
God's law. Think about this in closing.
And this provoked their question. This provoked their question.
Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? Only those who have the mediator
as their Lord and Savior. I'm talking about you. I'm talking
about me. We're going to stand before Him.
And He's just as holy today as He was then. He changes not. Who is able to stand before this
holy Lord God? Only those who are in Christ. have him as their mediator. There's one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, who is able to
stand before this holy Lord God, only those who have the blood
of Christ to plead for them. The blood of Jesus Christ speaketh
better things than that of Abel. Who is able to stand before this
holy Lord God? Only those who are dressed in
His robe of perfect righteousness. And lastly, who is able to stand
before this holy Lord God? Only those whose names are written
in the Lamb's Book of Life. That's just so. What about you? What about me? When we come to stand before
Him and it's coming, it's coming. Could be tonight for all of us. Do we know Christ as our Lord
and Savior? Are we looking only to Him and
are we found in Him? I trust it so, pray it so.