Remember the Philistines? (how can you not the way my Urban Dictionary posted 461 times? ) They are descendendents from Noah's son , Ham....arch enemies to Israel....War begins because Israel isn't behaving.....they have begun to use the Ark of the Covenant as a good luck charm and not as the dwelling of the Lord...the Phillistines capture the ark and Israel feels the glory of God is gone...Hophni and Phinehas desecrated the tabernacle by going into the Most Holy Place and getting it..they die on the same day fulfilling the prophecy in 2:34. Eli dies and breaks his fat neck...
The Philistines place the Ark next to their God Dagon (Remember how I suggested you remember him? ) and isn't God cool to show what He can do with a god? People also get tumors...the Ark resides in Philistine territory for seven months and they send the Ark back with a guilt offering of gold tumors and gold rats....yikes...the Lord gets testy with His rebellious people and strikes some down
Samuel says that if the people return to the Lord that they need to give up foreign Gods and Ashtoreths...the people did and God delivered them from the Philistines...
Samuel gets old and his sons don't walk in his ways and the people want a king like the other nations have....Samuel warns them what a king would entail and they still want one....they are essentially rejecting God as their King
Whew!
What do you think of Samuel?
Take a stab and tell me how this all relates to us today..
Look what comes up from the depths of the sea.
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I thought it was kinda cool when they placed the ark of God next of the Dagon, and the Dagon kept falling.
ReplyDeleteI like the part where God kept calling his name and he realized who it was.....that would be so cool!
how does this relate today? I'll take a stab.....were the people not following God's will and having other Gods and idols...this displeased God very much....but Samuel tried to get the people to get rid of their idols and follow God.....The people wanted a King but Samuel tried to tell them what that would mean.....and he thought they should follow God, not a king. This is like people today.....too quick to give up and try for easy way out...not think actions through and not really commit to any decision......people make mistakes and try to find quick way to solve it instead of taking responsibility and solving problems themselves. Am I on track or waaayyyyyyy off?
Great application!
ReplyDelete