What does your enemy know?
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1 And the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months.
2 And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the ark of the Lord? tell us wherewith we shall send it to his place.
3 And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you.
4 Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, 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.
5 Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye 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.
6 Wherefore then do ye 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?
Title: What does your enemy know?
How many has messed stuff up? Made wrong decisions?
You come to church and try to pray and all you think about is how you treated your wife, husband, kids.
All you can think about are the things you said, what you did…
All you hear is the enemy mocking you because you are a hypocrite.
All you can think about is how you lied, cheated, watched, stole, abused…
How God will not forgive you or help you because you are such a jerk!
We have a really bad habit of not remembering anything but what we did wrong.
Israel was the same…
The book of Judges preceeding our text with between 300-400 years of chaos and bad decision.
Early on there were some good Judges:
Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar and Deborah…
But by the time of Gideon, they were one disaster after the next.
Gideon: starts well, humble and obedient but ends horribly.
He “refuses to be king” but demands tribute like a king.
70 sons and many wives - very kingly of him
Had a concubine in Shechem he had a son with named Abimelech (means “my father is king”)
As soon as he is dead, Israel goes into idol worship
Abimelech proclaims himself king and kills all but one of his half brothers.
Jair: 30 sons riding on donkeys, sets up regions for his sons to rule
Jephthah: sacrifice his daughter - pagan influence
Ibzan, Elon, Abdon: more of the same - seeking wealth, power and control.
Sampson: final judge in the book of Judges. He is the embodiment of all the selfishness of the other and more.
Broke every rule.
In a time when God was looking for righteousness and self control we have Sampson!
Judges 19-21: the one story in the bible that makes no sense to me, the more I study it the less it makes sense except to say that it is what happens when flesh and rejection of God’s authority takes place!
Moral anarchy!
Key themes of Judges:
Everyone did right in their own eyes
Cycle of sin and redemption
Israel’s failures and God’s faithfulness
Of twelve judges spanning 300-400 years…
4 goods ones, 2 we know nothing about and 7 bad ones!
You have Samuel.
What a powerful figure… they would meet him at the gate of the city asking him if he came for peace.
But his sons did not follow in his footsteps, took bribes and perverted judgement.
Finally they would be done with judges and ask for a king.
Israel was on a centuries old rollercoaster ride!
Eli would be the setting for our text tonight.
Eli who seemed to do well but grew complacent and did not teach his sons and when God judged his sons he simply responded; “It’s God, let him do wha the wants!”.
Hophni and Phinehas took bribes, perverted the sacrifice and has affairs with women who came to the temple
When the were facing a great battle they take the Ark of the Covenant to battle.
What a moment that must have been!
5 And when the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again.
They were saved!
Israel was desperate and thought they would use God as a magic potion to save them…
6 And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the Lord was come into the camp.
7 And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore.
8 Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? these are the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness.
The Philistines we afraid!
The Ark of God was in the camp
Woe unto us! This has never happened before!
Who will deliver us out of God’s hands
Remember the Egyptians?
Remember the plagues?
I find it interesting that the enemies of God had better memories then the people of God!
Israel had become apathetic!
Eli’s apathy was Israels apathy…
Rather then repent and do what they new they should do, they decided to use God like a wand to take away their problems!
What the enemy knows is that if the church ever gets right, he is done for!
This is why he messes with us so much!
Keeps us distracted…
What is amazing about the story: NO ONE NEW WHAT TO DO WITH THE ARK OF GOD!
Israel should never have taken into battle.
Philistines shifted it from place to place.
Dagon on his face before the ark
Dagon with his hands cut off on his face
Then shifted from city to city, sickness and death followed.
Finally send it off with a trespass offering (only find of forgiveness sought in the whole story)
Finally comes back to Israel and they didn’t know what to do with it!
Cow were the only one that new what to do…
Conclusion:
We have to get this right!
We have to wake up and realize who we are!
We have to walk like the sons of God!
If Eli had fallen on his face he would not have fallen on his neck!
Gos can do anything but make you hungry!
