When Joshua led the Israelites into the Promised Land, the first Canaanite city they were set to attack was Jericho. When they had come near the city, Joshua had an encounter with a mysterious figure, a warrior with a drawn sword in his hand. As you read the whole account in Joshua 5, it becomes clear that this figure is none other than God himself, appearing in human form. We know it is God because Joshua bows down and worships him, and the man does not object. In fact, he commands Joshua to take off his sandals in honor of the holy ground on which Joshua is standing. But before Joshua realizes who this man is, he has a question for him. Joshua 5:13-14 reads, “And Joshua went to him and said to him, ‘Are you for us or for our adversaries?’ And he said, ‘No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.’” That brief answer speaks volumes to us. It tells us that God doesn’t take sides. He is the reference point for all sides. He is the center of all things, the very definition of truth, goodness, and beauty itself. He does not conform to a standard of goodness that is outside of himself; he is the standard. All that is good is good because it gladly submits to him. All that is evil is evil because it defies him.
In the story of 1 Samuel 4-6, we see clearly that God doesn’t take sides; he lets everyone have it. There is plenty of divine punishment to go around to all sides, including both Israel and its leaders, as well as the Philistines. Why doesn’t God choose a side in this debacle? Because, above all, God is always true to himself. “Let God be true, though every one were a liar” (Rom 3:4). That is what it means for God to be holy.
Both Israel and the Philistines are guilty in this story of denying the holiness of God by attempting to reduce God to our level. You may notice that Samuel drops out of the story at this point. He will be back in chapter 7, but this story is all about the adventures of the ark of the covenant, that wooden box overlaid with gold that God had commanded the Israelites to make on Mount Sinai, the box that contained the tablets of the law and represented the presence of God with Israel. Wherever the ark goes in this story, God brings judgment on the foolish denial of his holiness on the part of foolish men. The Israelites (including the priests Hophni and Phinehas) assume God can be manipulated. The Philistines assume that he can be defeated by their god Dagon. And the men of the city of Beth-Shemesh assume he can be approached without mediation, essentially denying the distinction between the holy and the unholy. And in all three cases, God acts powerfully and decisively in defense of his holy name.
The folly of man is on full display in this story, and it will do us no good if we read this story assuming that we are immune to this kind of folly. Have you ever tried (consciously or not) to bring God down to the human level and failed to honor his holiness? What do you implicitly say about God when you allow anxiety to dominate your life? What do you implicitly say about God when you give yourself over to sexual sins that you know God has forbidden to you for your own good? What do you implicitly say about God when you spend vast sums of money on improving your living standard in this world and give your leftovers to the furthering of his mission? What do you implicitly say about God when you go for days, or even weeks, scarcely calling upon him in prayer at all or seeking to hear him in his Word? What do you implicitly say about God when you nurse a grudge against someone else instead of handing it over to him? Aren’t you saying in all these examples (and more) that God is not really who he says he is? Aren’t you saying that he is not really true to himself? Aren’t you really saying that he is not a God to be feared? May the Word of God once again renew our minds by reminding us, through all the fog of our sin, that he is holy.
The three acts of God’s judgment in this story point us to three foolish ways of denying the holiness of God. And so I want to identify three kinds of folly from these chapters. First, we see
What do I mean by the word “domesticate”? Think about domesticated animals. A domesticated animal is an animal that no longer lives in the wild, but has been tamed by man and is now subordinated to human purposes, such as pulling a plow, providing milk, or being a pet. Domesticating God is, therefore, an attempt to subordinate God to our own purposes, rather than subordinating ourselves to him.
In chapter 4, we have a disastrous account of Israel’s attempt to domesticate God. When war breaks out once again between Israel and their former oppressors from the days of Samson, the Philistines, Israel suffers a devastating defeat on the first day of battle. So when their defeated army returns from the battle, the elders of Israel come up with an idea: “Let’s send somebody to Shiloh to fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord for us. God will be our secret weapon!” Notice exactly how verse 3 is worded: “And when the people came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.” There is a footnote in the ESV that rightly points out that the word “it” could be translated “he,” referring to God: “Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, that he may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.” Whichever way it is translated, the assumption behind their statement is that God is bound to the ark, and so wherever the ark goes, there God’s power will go. This is pure folly. Instead of humbling themselves before God in repentance and seeking to align themselves with God’s will, the Israelites simply assumed they could align God with their will. They assumed the ark would be a magical object in their camp, ready to dispense the awesome power of God in whatever way they desired. So they sent to Shiloh, and Eli’s two sons, the wicked priests Hophni and Phinehas, were all too eager to comply, so they brought the ark to the camp. And the people of Israel shouted for joy, while the Philistine intelligence operation brought the bad news to the Philistine army that they would have to contend with a god during the next fight. If you think about it, Israel completely violated the third commandment here: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exod. 20:7). What that command means is that we must not treat the name of God like a magical force over which we can assume power. Taking his name in vain means attempting to use his name in ways that he has not authorized, thereby asserting ourselves over him. It is, in other words, attempting to domesticate God, and it is complete folly.
So what happened when they went into battle with the ark? It was a complete disaster. The Philistines routed them. Israel had over seven times more casualties than before. The priests Hophni and Phinehas were both killed, and the ark of God was captured by pagans. Then a messenger of Benjamin came with his clothes torn and dust on his head back to Shiloh to deliver the bad news. The 98-year-old blind high priest Eli couldn’t see him, but he heard the commotion from the town when the news came, so he asked the man for a report. And the man gave him the bad news about the battle, about Eli’s sons, and worst of all, about the ark of God being captured. That last bit of news was too much for Eli to handle, and he fell over backwards from his chair, broke his neck, and died. And then his daughter-in-law, Phinehas’s wife, went into labor in her distress and ended up dying in childbirth, but not before naming her son Ichabod, a name that refers to the glory of God departing from Israel. In one fell swoop, Israel’s army has been decimated, the family of its high priest has been cut down, and its holy place has been looted.
But what really happened on that terrible day? It was the fulfillment of God’s word of judgment against the house of Eli. God had said to Eli through an anonymous man of God in chapter 2 that his house would be removed from the priesthood and marginalized in Israel. And in 2:34 he had said to Eli, “And this that shall come upon your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, shall be the sign to you: both of them shall die on the same day.” God has removed the house of Eli as he foretold, and he has prepared the way for Samuel to take over leadership in Israel. Shiloh, which had become synonymous with the house of Eli, will never again see the ark of the God. The very same event that humiliates God’s people is the event that vindicates God’s Word.
The attempt to domesticate God is pure folly. As Michael Horton has said, God will not play a supporting role in the movie about your life. And yet, aren’t we often tempted to cast him in that role? When you see story after story of big name celebrity pastors falling into sin and watching their ministries go up in smoke as a result, you are seeing story after story of men who tried to domesticate God. Rather than fearing God and seeking to walk in holiness in service to him, they tried to use him to build their own empire of success. I doubt they started out that way, but over time it can be tempting to conflate God with your own ministry, your own institution, your own brand. The temptation to subordinate God to your church, your institution, your dreams for serving God, can become a strong temptation. But it is pure folly. Hear me clearly on this: as much as we love Cornerstone Community Church, may we never allow ourselves to be deceived into thinking that God needs this church. He doesn’t. We, together with all churches of Jesus Christ in this world, have a mission from God; we do not have the right to subordinate God to our mission, our brand, our autonomous dreams of success.
It is entirely possible that our dreams for serving the Lord can become the means by which we seek to domesticate him. So how do we serve him faithfully without succumbing to that temptation? Think about the parable of the talents found in Matthew 25:14-30, the story in which a man goes on a journey and entrusts his wealth (“talents”) to his servants: to one he entrusts five talents, to another two, and to another one. The servants who have five talents and two talents put their money to work, risking it through business ventures, but earning for their master a 100% profit in each case. The man with the one talent is so afraid of what might happen if he fails that he buries what has been entrusted to him so that he can present it back to his master upon his return. The first two servants are commended for their efforts, but the last servant is condemned for wickedness and laziness. What this parable tells me is that there is a certain kind of ambition to serve God that we must have. We should plan, dream, work, risk, and trust that God will bless our efforts. But what is the goal of the two faithful servants’ ambition? It is to bring their master a return on his investment. Their greatest desire is to hear those blessed words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Yes, they are ambitious, but they are ambitious as servants, whose only desire is to do what pleases their master, and nothing else. Don’t ever let your ambition to serve God lead you to think too highly of yourself, as though you are anything more than an unworthy servant. When you think too highly of yourself, you will try to domesticate God to your own agenda instead of serving him faithfully. And this is folly.
The second kind of folly we see in this text is this:
What do I mean by the word “malign”? I mean to make God seem small, weak, or less than holy. We have seen the folly of Israel and its leaders; now it’s the Philistines’ turn. Upon capturing the ark of Israel’s God, the Philistines proceeded to take it to the city of Ashdod, where they set it up in the temple of their god Dagon. The purpose of that action was to celebrate Dagon’s victory over the God of Israel. But when they came back into the temple the next morning, they noticed that the statue of Dagon had fallen down before the ark of God. Strange, right? The author no doubt intends us to catch the irony and humor in the statement he makes in 5:3 at the end of the verse: “So they took Dagon and put him back in his place.” The great and mighty Dagon requires some assistance! But then when they come back the next morning, Dagon has fallen over again, and this time his head and his hands have been cut off and were lying on the threshold of the temple. This incident gave rise to a tradition among the Philistines of not treading on the threshold of Dagon’s temple. After two nights in Dagon’s temple, the ark of God had already created a new tradition for them!
God first demonstrated his supremacy over Dagon, and then he inflicted judgment on the Philistines themselves. Some kind of plague broke out among the people of Ashdod and the surrounding territory. The text mentions tumors numerous times; in chapter 6 we have some references to mice as well. It seems that one possibility is that God inflicted the Philistines with the bubonic plague, which is spread largely by rodents and causes swellings on various parts of the body. Whatever happened, God inflicted terrible sufferings and death on the people. The section 5:6-12 shows us an escalating situation. First we read in verse 6, “The hand of the LORD was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory.” In contrast to Dagon, who has lost his hands, the God of Israel is now showing his hand against Ashdod. So after a while the people of Ashdod called for a council of the five lords of the Philistines from the five major cities, and they came together and decided to transport the ark to the city of Gath. And guess what happened: the same thing. Look at verse 9: “But after they had brought it around, the hand of the LORD was against the city, causing a very great panic, and he afflicted the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them.” So this time the people of Gath don’t even bother to summon another council. They unilaterally decide to send the ark away to the city of Ekron, where the people of Ekron are terrified to receive it. Verse 11 repeats once again (at the end of the verse), “The hand of God was very heavy there.” And then note verse 12: “The men who did not die were struck with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.” The Philistines assumed their god had defeated the God of Israel, but instead the ark of Israel’s God ended up going on a victory tour throughout the major cities of Philistia!
So after all of this suffering and death it’s time to call in the seminary-trained professionals. The Philistines call together their priests and diviners in chapter 6 and ask them what to do with the ark. The priests advise them to send back to Israel’s God a guilt offering of golden tumors and golden mice, representing the plague that had come upon them. And they advise the Philistine lords to put the ark on a cart and yoke it to two milk cows that have never been yoked. Furthermore, take the calves of these two milk cows and pen them up at home. Put a box with your items of gold in it next to the ark, and then set the cows free to go where they will. If the natural course of events unfolds, we would expect that two cows that have never been yoked might pull the cart in all kinds of directions. More than that, we would expect them to head back home to their calves. But if they head to the land of Israel, it would have to be by the power of Israel’s God directing them. And sure enough, the cows pulled the cart straight in the direction of the nearest city of Israel: Beth-shemesh. The people of Beth-shemesh were out gathering the wheat harvest at the time when they saw the ark coming. And the cows brought it next to a large stone on which the Israelites set it with the guilt offering from the Philistines, and then they split up the cart and slaughtered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. The ark was returned to Israel, and God vindicated his name over the Philistines and their god.
This story both encourages and rebukes me. When I look around at the ever-increasing godlessness of our culture, the defiance of God that is happening on a daily basis among our cultural influencers, I sometimes have a tendency to respond with a fear or distress that evidences weak trust in God. When drag queens are catechizing children in the teachings of the sexual revolution at public libraries and on popular cartoons, a rational person can begin to wonder if Western society has any future at all, and whether or not biblically faithful churches will be able to survive the cultural downgrade that we are currently on. But it helps to read a story like this one, where by all outward appearances, Israel’s God had been defeated and taken captive by the god of the Philistines, and yet the truth all the while was that Israel’s God rules over his enemies, even when it looks like they have the upper hand. His purpose will stand, and he will accomplish all his good pleasure. Should we be grieved at the sexualization of children by drag queens in public libraries? Of course we should. Should it lead us to panic, fear, and distress? Absolutely not. We are not a uniquely godless generation. God’s people have been in situations like this one many, many times before. It would do us well to remind ourselves regularly that those who malign God without repentance will not escape the heaviness of his hand. God is holy; he is always true to himself, no matter how godless the culture becomes.
And then a third demonstration of folly in this passage comes with a third act of judgment from God:
What do I mean by “presume upon”? I mean approaching God without proper recognition of boundaries, assuming that we are entitled to be welcomed into God’s presence without a mediator. Presuming upon God represents a failure to draw a distinction between the holy and unholy, and that is intolerable to God.
So as we continue with the story, we see the ark is back in Israel, and everything has been set up for a happy ending, right? Wrong. Verse 19 of chapter 6 knocks the breath out of you: “And he struck some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked upon the ark of the LORD. He struck seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the LORD had struck the people with a great blow.” What did these seventy men of Beth-shemesh do wrong? It’s not entirely clear from the text. The ESV says they looked upon the ark, which according to Numbers 4 was supposed to be covered from view. Maybe the ark had a covering over it, and the men of Beth-shemesh raised it up to have a peak. Or the Hebrew phrase could also mean they looked into the ark. Perhaps they were curious to see if the Philistines had taken the stone tablets out of it, and they pulled off the lid to look into it. Either way, they crossed a boundary that the Law specifically forbade them to cross, and God broke out against them in a sudden display of wrath and left a pile of bodies. God’s holiness will not be compromised.
As a result of such a disaster, the people of Beth-shemesh sent to the town of Kiriath-jearim to have the ark moved there. And it came to rest at the home of a man named Abinadab, who put his son Eleazar in charge of caring for the ark so that such a disaster would not happen again. We won’t see much about the ark until 2 Samuel 6, when David has it brought up from Abinadab’s home to Jerusalem.
The ark was one element in a whole system of mediation between Israel and God. They had a tabernacle to be God’s dwelling place. They had a priesthood to guard and oversee the holy place. They had a sacrificial system to atone for their sins, and they had strict rules about who could go where and when. And that entire system consistently communicated this message: God is holy, and Israel is not. That is why Israel cannot enter God’s space. They must have mediators, sacrifices, and rules to manage their relationship with God. If they transgress the boundaries and presume upon God, they will be killed. Why? It is because God will not allow an undefined boundary between the holy and the unholy. To do so would be to deny himself and, in essence, to unravel the distinction between good and evil, between himself and all that defies him.
God is holy, and Israel is not. Hence the boundaries of the tabernacle, the priesthood, and the sacrificial system. Do you know what is also true? God is holy, and you are not, at least not in yourself. You are from the same Adamic stock as Israel was, born a sinner exiled from the presence of God. You need a mediator, or you have no hope of entering God’s presence with your life intact. If you are not holding to Jesus Christ as your only hope for reconciliation with God, then what are you doing? Are you simply assuming that you are okay on your own, that somehow you will escape the judgment that this story warns about? Are you presuming upon God by not fearing his judgment at all? Are you assuming that, sure, you’re not perfect, but you’re not as bad as those really bad people, so in the end, everything will be okay? There is nothing the devil would love more than to convince you of that. You’re sitting in a burning house, and any moment it could collapse on you. Hear what God is saying through this passage, and wake up! Don’t waste another minute. Go to Christ now and seek refuge in him from the judgment that is to come. Every second you refuse Christ is another second that you presume upon God; it is another second that you are living as a fool. God is holy, and you are not. But in Christ, you will be.
And if you do trust in Christ, you presume upon God when you give safe harbor to sin in your life. Unrepentant sin in the life of a Christian says to God, “I don’t feel the weight of the cross. I don’t live in humble gratitude for what Jesus did to deliver me from sin’s penalty and power. I claim to take hold of the Mediator, but I am willing to abuse his mediating work by piling sin up, thinking it doesn’t matter in the end.” Christian, do not presume upon God. Do not pour contempt on his sacrifice. Do not allow sin of any kind to go unchecked in your life.
At the moment Jesus died, the veil of the temple in Jerusalem that separated the most holy place from the rest of the world was torn from top to bottom. Why top to bottom? To show that it could have only been God’s doing. In that moment, the holy place was thrown open to us because our Mediator had come and had finished his redemptive work on our behalf. In Christ, our sins are forgiven, our hearts are renewed, and the unholy become holy. Because of the cross, God remains ever true to himself even while justifying the ungodly. You need a mediator, and thank God that in Christ, you have one. Is God on our side? No, God doesn’t take sides. By his grace alone, may we be found on his side. Amen.