Incompatibile Worship

1 Samuel 4:1–3 ESV

And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out to battle against the Philistines. They encamped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines encamped at Aphek. The Philistines drew up in line against Israel, and when the battle spread, Israel was defeated before the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men on the field of battle. 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.”

1 Samuel 4:7–8 ESV

the Philistines were afraid, for they said, “A god has come into the camp.” And they said, “Woe to us! For nothing like this has happened before. Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness.

1 Samuel 4:10–11 ESV

So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man to his home. And there was a very great slaughter, for thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell. And the ark of God was captured, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

The People were used to not losing when the presence was with them

The posture of worship was an afterthought

they only sought it after they were being defeated

v.3 They would bring it… as if it could be conjured

They gave the ritual battle cry

Hophni and Phineas (1 Sam 2:12)

Called worthless men they did not know God but wanted to carry His presence

Abused their anointing and refused to offer rightly

The Philistines knew about this God and were terrified, the Israelites had grown numb to it

The presence of the Lord departed from Israel because their worship was incompatible… they used it much like a sorcerer summons magic.

God desires right worship from His people He blesses those who posture their hearts for worship

We Serve a Jealous God

Exodus 34:13–14 ESV

You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),

God does not share well

Friend who doesn’t like to share you with others

Not a question we are commanded to teardown the altars WE HAVE BUILT

The stage we have set

We become like Hophni and Phineas… we do not know God

Our worship can only be given to one… God.

we cannot worship what we don’t love and we cannot love what we do not know.

God Destroys Foreign Idols

*The command is that we teardown the idols there is an issue when we try to place God on the Altar of another.

1 Samuel 5:2–3 ESV

Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place.

The Philistines who know God try to keep Him in their house for gods

God will submit to no one but will teardown the idols… then we ask why…?

Replacing the Idols

1 Samuel 5:4 ESV

But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.

1 Samuel 5:6 ESV

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.

God shatters the Idol

cuts its authority

cuts its power

cuts off its rulership

He opposes any who pretend to carry His presence and that of an Idol.

The tension inside us when we want to continue to go back to our idols.

v.11 those who don’t know His presence send it away over keeping His Presence.

Our worship cannot be incompatible, it will destroy everything inside of Us.

Blessing in Compatible Worship

Deuteronomy 11:13–15 ESV

“And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.

Today the Lord is asking His body to return to a right posture of worship

Love Him… to love Him is to know Him

Serve Him… to serve is to know Him

Worship is not Passive

With all your Heart

With all your Soul

with everything

He withholds the blessings from those who think they can carry the presence of another… but to those who Give themselves over wholly to the Lord

Not just the early rain… the latter rain

Your grain, wine, and oil

Grain-bread to sustain life; financial material blessing

Wine- transformation in the Holy Spirit; move of God that is bringing harvest in the covenantal promise

Oil-anointing in the Spirit; God blesses every dimension of our life; spiritual physical and material

We cannot be like Hophni and Phineas who thought they could introduce a strange fire, take from the fatness that belonged to the Lord, abuse His people and think that by some stones or mantra like words we can conjure up His presence in worship

The fullness of God is given to those who dare to abandon incompatible worship, to take up a right posture of worship. This abandon leads to spaces in which we are stretched but in the stretching a blessing beyond compare.