What were the people thinking to send for the ark and have
it brought to the battlefield? It would
seem that they considered it to be some magical talisman or good luck charm
that would bring victory over the Philistines.
They were treating it in more or less the Philistines themselves understood
it. The people’s understanding was no better than the pagans and that would be
directly attributable to the failure of the leadership, Eli and his sons,
Hophni and Phinehas. When the leaders of
God’s people no longer truly serve Him, when they treat lightly the things of
God and fail to take His Word seriously in their own lives, they teach the
people not worship but simply religion. No
wonder the Lord did not fight for Israel this day, they were no better than the
pagans around them.
Some of the people who heard Jesus’ prophecy concerning the
fall of Jerusalem surely lived to see it as it was only a few decades later
that this came to pass and temple was destroyed. It had become like the ark in Samuel’s day, a
talisman rather than a place of true worship and the proof was the crucifixion
of Jesus, the rejection of God’s way in preference for man’s way, even if they
thought their way was God’s way. Those who
did see the fulfilment of this prophecy could never have imagined that “the
time of the Gentiles” was going to last two millennia. The early church believed in the imminent
return of Jesus and lived accordingly, not accommodated to the world but in
anticipation of the judgment of the world.
We have spent an incredible amount of money consuming end times
information and media but has it resulted in a mentality towards morality and
ethics in the church similar to the early church? We aren’t transformed by the idea of final judgment,
merely titillated by it.
Ananias and Sapphira wanted the glory of being generous
without actually paying the price for being generous. They had every right to the proceeds of the
sale of their property, no one demanded they give all the money to the
church. They, however, had seen others
giving sacrificially and probably heard others speaking of these in glowing
terms and they decided they wanted their own names to be buzzed about as
generous givers but they didn’t want to sacrifice that much. Peter confronts the deception but how did he
know? He never reveals the source of his
information. Fear fell on the church as
a result of this situation and the couple gained not fame but infamy, their
names will always be part of the church’s story. Unfortunately, we are too often identified in
the evangelical world by bad actors and the quiet saints of the church are
forgotten and not celebrated. Jesus says
we are to rejoice because our names are written in heaven. Let us do all things for the love and glory
of God, not for our own name’s sake, and let us have faith and fear, not empty
practice.
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