(The Path of the Ark #3) God Rejects Flesh — Ed Miller

In the Lord Jesus Christ than we can ever dream. We pray that we might dare to ask, according to the riches in Christ Jesus, that we might be daring in our prayer and that you would bless us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places.

We think of our dear friends, the Myers, and we do pray that through this experience they might take forward steps in the knowledge of Christ. We pray that you would meet them in their need and provide for them and just cause them to be a shining testimony of your great grace.

The Ark as a Picture of Christ's Journey to His Temple

Now, Lord, as we come to look in your Word, we acknowledge right up front our inadequacy. We thank you for the Holy Spirit who unveils Christ and makes the Word live. Deliver us this evening from futility, from the dead ladder, from human wisdom.

May we see beyond these facts and may we lay hold of the great truths of Christ. Seeing him, may we be changed. And we thank you, Lord, that we are learning to lean as you make yourself known to us. Take us forward, we pray, in our dependence upon Christ.

We ask in Jesus' precious name. Amen. I'll ask you to open, please, to 1 Samuel 5, if you would. 1 Samuel 5. Let me review. It's been a couple of weeks since we've been together. By the way, I thank again, I thank all you men that had a part in that Easter week service that we had.

It was a great blessing. I guess Lillian will have tapes for you if you're interested in them. We're starting a little series. Again, I really don't have a title for the series, but it's about God coming to rest in his temple.

Some time ago, more than a year ago now, an idea was born in my heart, and I trust by the Holy Spirit, that if we followed the ark of the covenant of the Lord in the Old Testament, since that ark was a representation of the throne of God and King Jesus, if we followed the ark to its destination, the Holy Temple, that we would also be following the path that the King takes as he comes to his temple.

The very road become the stages of Christian experience that we will certainly experience as Christ comes to rest in us. And so this series is about following the ark, marking its starts, marking its stops, paying close attention to where the ark went, and what the ark did, and how long it remained there, and why it moved, and so on.

Someone asks, are you going to follow the ark from the time God gave the pattern to Moses on Mount Sinai? And the answer is no, we're not going to begin that far back. Actually, our series picks up at the end of the ark's history.

The ark has been alive for about 400 years when we begin our little study. There are really two flurries of inspiration about the ark. The first lasted about 50 years when God first gave the ark. Then there's a lot of scripture about the ark.

And then for about 350 years, there's a relative silence, an inactivity as far as the ark is concerned. And then something happened, and the Holy Spirit put the light back on the ark of God. The Holy Spirit began again to talk about the ark of the covenant, and we just call this the second flurry of inspiration.

It began with Hannah and Samuel, and it didn't end until the ark finally rested in Solomon's temple. So here's where we begin our study, in the second flurry, after about 400 years. Now what is this little series about?

We're going to have six lessons, and we're now on lesson three. To follow the ark is to follow the Lord. And to follow the path of the ark is to follow the path of the Lord. The ark was going somewhere.

The ark had a destination. The ark had a goal. It wasn't just random. It wasn't just arbitrary. The ark had a will of its own. And the ark set itself, and was moving toward what the Bible calls its place.

A place where the ark could finally rest, and a place from which the ark could reign. And listen, if you would, to 2 Chronicles 5 .7. I just want to quote it for you. It says, You see, it's not accurate to merely say, Solomon's temple was the destination of the ark.

That's true as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. You see, when the ark went into Solomon's temple, the temple wasn't filled with the glory of the Lord. And on the north of the temple, the temple wasn't filled with the glory of the Lord.

It wasn't until the ark came to the heart of the temple. See, the temple had a heart. And the heart of the temple is the holy of holies. And it was when the ark came to the heart of the temple, to the holy of holies, that the temple was filled with the glory of God, and the ark came to rest.

In the words of the psalmist, God was at rest. God was at home. God could now rest and reign from his holy temple. And of course, you know the counterpart to that. You're the Lord's temple. And I'm the Lord's temple.

And you have a heart, and I have a heart. You have a holy of holies in your temple, and I have one in my temple. And the Lord is determined to get there. And when he finally gets to that place, in our heart, the holy of holies, there he will rest.

From that place, he will govern with his glory. And there he will reign and have dominion. And so it's important to trace out the steps of the ark, and then you'll see exactly the steps God takes in your experience, in your life, before he finally comes to rest.

God's Patience in Bringing His Glory to Rest

Now, following the path of the ark actually is a humbling study. Some of us have done it together, and now we're doing it, of course, as a class. We've all done it in our lives. It's an amazing study of the grace and patience of the Lord.

Is it possible that the bumpy road that the redeemed people of God, Israel, gave to the ark, is it possible that that's the kind of a road we give the Lord Jesus before he finally rests in us? And the answer is yes.

The answer is exactly so. Sometime the ark was forgotten. Sometime the ark was irreverently handled. Sometime the ark was dealt with superstitiously. Sometime the ark was just abandoned to the enemy. And sometime we treat the Lord like they treated the ark.

You can't go through a study like this with a heart sensitive to God and not ask the question, how can we put up with this? Why don't we just give up on ours? And yet, as you'll see in the history, and as you'll see in your life, the Lord is relentless, relentless, in his desire to find your holy place and to go right to the heart of his temple.

He'll not stop working in your life or my life until he rests, until he reigns, until he governs by the glory of God, until your whole life is filled with the glory of God. He's not going to quit on you.

He's not going to quit on me. And he's not going to quit on us. So far in our study, we've asked two questions. Let me review those and that'll at least get us back into the flow. The first question is, what got the ark of God moving again?

After 350 years of the ark just sitting there, what moved God to move? What started God moving again? The answer's found in the first three chapters of 1 Samuel. Hannah and Samuel herself. Hannah's deep cry was the cry of the remnant heart.

Follow along as I read these two verses. 1 Samuel 1, 10 and 11. And she greatly distressed, prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. And she made a vow and she said, O Lord of hosts, if thou will indeed look on the affliction of thy maidservant, and remember me and not forget thy maidservant, that we'll give thy maidservant a son that I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life.

And a razor shall never come upon his head. This was the longing of Hannah. This was the burden of Hannah that got the ark moving after 350 years. And her cry was a spiritual reality. You see, the book of 1 Samuel opens up with the cry of a dead woman.

And that dead woman is a picture of a spiritual woman of God's people. And spiritually at this time, God's people were barren. Spiritually their woman was dead. Spiritually they could not bring forth issue, fruit, life.

The woman would not produce. And so the book opens up with a barren woman crying out for life. Hannah cries to God, give me life, give me fruit, give me production, give me issue, give me a son. And not just fruit from God, but fruit from God for God.

She said, if you give me fruit, I'll turn it around and give it back to you. That's how the book opens. With a barren woman crying out for fruit from God that could be returned to God. No wonder God sat up and took notice.

He did it then, he does it now, whoever does. That's the cry that started God moving toward his temple. God always responds to the barren woman. You come to a place in your life and you just say, Lord, I'm tired of playing games.

I'm tired of faking it. I want to bring forth fruit. I want life. I want reality. I want production. And that's when God begins to move. And that's when God moves here, and that's when God will always move.

Then the heart cries out. Now, of course, Samuel was the first beginning, the answer to Hannah's prayer. I'm not going to review all of that, but the Holy Spirit homes in on the great principles of Samuel as the answer to Hannah's prayer.

The priesthood, child-likeness, resting before the ark, an ear that listens. Speak, Lord, your servant listens. And so on. But that's the first question. What got the ark moving? And the answer was a cry.

From the heart of man, a cry. From the heart of God, supply. It's always that way. And Hannah cries out, and God begins to move. The second question we asked, and we looked at last time, was why does God begin, then, to move as He does?

His ways are so puzzling. His ways are so paradoxical. His ways are so far beyond and so hard to understand. It's recorded in 1 Samuel 3, verse 19 through chapter 4, verse 1. And we looked at this last time.

And let me just call attention to several things, and you'll remember the principle, I think. Remember in chapter 3, 1, it says,. A word from the Lord was rare in those days. Well, the reality is, for 350 years, with the exception of the prophet, I mean the judges, where God spoke now and then.

But it was rare. God wasn't speaking. God wasn't revealing Himself. The heavens were brass. God wasn't talking. And then we come to chapter 3, 20, and it says, O Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, know that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord.

And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, because the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel by Shiloh, by the word of the Lord. That's why chapter 4, 1 says,. Thus the word of Samuel came to all Israel. All they knew in reality was this.

God wasn't speaking. Now He is. That's all they knew. For a long time, a revelation from God was rare. No word, no dream, no vision, no prophecy. No word from heaven. And then Samuel came along. And God began again to talk.

And God began to reveal Himself. And now they're excited. It was a great day when God began to move. And when God began to reveal Himself. Now there's a long way to go before God will finally rest in His temple.

But Israel doesn't know that. All they know is, before He wasn't talking, now He's talking. We must be mature. And so they, chapter 4, verse 1, Israel went out to meet the Philistines in battle. Now understand, that was a very spiritual thing to do.

With the light they had. They figured this way. God's for us. He wasn't talking before. He's talking now. Let's attack the Philistines. They're the number one enemy. God will help us. God's on our side.

And they prayed to the Lord for victory. And they went against the Philistines. But chapter 4, verse 2, Israel was defeated before the Philistines. In fact, they lost 4 ,000 men in that first skirmish.

And Israel is puzzled. And they say, wait a minute now. God is against us. Now He's speaking. Now He's for us. Let's go after the number one enemy, the Philistines. And so they said, we made a mistake.

We thought we were looking to our own strength. Get the ark. And they went and got the ark, and they decided to do it right this time. Keep their eyes on the ark. And so they mustered courage. Chapter 4, verse 5, it happened as the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp that all Israel shouted with a great shout.

And the ark resounded. And all went out in faith. They went out believing God. They went out rejoicing. They went out knowing God would deliver. Don't think that Israel was not trusting the Lord and that they were using the ark as some kind of a fetish.

They were not. They thought the Philistines were enemy number one. And they were trusting God to get rid of the Philistines. Chapter 4, verses 10 and 11. A second time they are defeated. This time they lose 30 ,000 foot soldiers.

The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, are killed. The ark is stolen. The entire nation is in retreat. In chapter 4, verse 18, Eli drops over dead. And the chapter closes with the story of Phinehas' pregnant wife.

Chapter 4, verses 19 to 22. She kneeled down and gave birth. For her pains came upon her. Verse 21. She called the boy Ichabod, saying, The glories departed from Israel, for the ark of God was taken. Now is this God moving toward his temple?

Toward the heart of his temple? His resting place? The place where he'll rest? The place from which he'll reign? And the answer is, yes indeed it is. Of course Israel didn't realize that. Israel just wrote Ichabod over the whole mess.

And they just said, God's left us. They thought public enemy number one was the Philistines. That God was dealing deeply with them. That he doesn't cut weeds off at the surface. He goes down to the root.

And public enemy number one was not the Philistines. Public enemy number one was the corrupt priesthood. And God says, before you ever deal with the Philistines, you've got to deal with the priesthood.

You've got to deal with the spiritual part, not the physical part. They prayed that God would deal with their enemies. That they had the other enemy in mind. And so it looked like God wasn't answering their prayer.

And the actual fact was that God was doing the most for them when they believed he was doing the least. And God was camouflaging his victory in defeat. And it looked like he was against them, but he was really for them.

And he said, help us, deliver us from your enemy. They fought Philistines. And he said, all right, I will. And he started purging out the corrupt priesthood. The house of Eli. He took the head of the house of Eli.

Eli himself, the aged, fat, blind priest. He took the branches of the priesthood. Hothme and Phineas. He took the root of the priesthood. The whole family tree. Never again was anybody in that family allowed to become a priest.

The Philistine Land Within the Believer

One more thing, by way of clarification, and we'll look at our new material. I remind you that this whole history of the path of the ark is telling a spiritual story. The physical illustrates the spiritual.

We're going to follow this ark all over the countryside. We're going to follow this ark all over the land. You say, well, we're just looking at geography. Well, physical geography is a reflection of a spiritual geography.

The ark's going to move all over the land here because the Lord moves all over the lot here in my life, see. It's the same thing. We're going to see the ark in the land of the Philistines. In the city of Ashdod.

In the city of Gath. In the city of Akron. You've got a Philistine land up in your heart some place. We're going to see the ark in Beth Shemesh. We're going to see the ark in Cave Jerem. We're going to see the ark in the house of Abednego.

We're going to see the ark in the house of Abed-Edom. Because you have that in your life some place. And I have it in my life. It's not like I thought at first. Israel is in here. And the Philistines are out there.

They're the enemy out there. The will, the flesh, the devil. That's all. Israel is in here. The Philistines are in here. Beth Shemesh is in here. Cave Jerem's in here. Abed-Edom is in here. The temple is in here.

And some place in that temple, there's a herd of heathens. And God's heading that way. And eventually God's going to make his way through all this mass. And he's going to rest. And he's going to reign in the heart of his temple.

In the Holy of Holies. And so we need to understand that as we go through. That God's moving all over the place in the Bible. There's God moving all over the place in my life. And in your life. First dealt with the corrupt.

The house of Eli in here. The corrupt priesthood. Everything I thought was spiritual was destroyed when Christ came in. Everything you thought was spiritual was destroyed when Christ came in. And then he begins to deal.

And tonight we'll look at it. Lord help us. We're going to continue now with the Philistine part of me. And let me just sort of narrow it down in a sentence or two. We tried to explain this last time.

And again, I'm not going to spend the whole night reviewing. But what is the Philistine part of me? In a word, it's the natural man. And the Bible has many expressions for it. It's you. The flesh. Self.

The nature. The old Adam. The old man. It's Ed Miller acting as Ed Miller. It's me trying to do it or you trying to do it. That's the Philistine part of me. See, it's the most natural thing in the world.

Once God begins to awaken my heart. And begin to speak again. The most natural thing in the world is to go to war with the Philistines. So while that's the enemy, all right, that's Miller. Now I'm going to go to war.

And declare war on the flesh. Because at that point, you don't know how strong the flesh is. And you don't know how mighty the Philistines are. And you say, now God's for me. I can do it. I'm going to quit my old sin.

And so you attack temper. And the next thing you know, you come back with a bloody nose. Say, well, I know God's with me. I'm going to go. I can control my tongue. I can get rid of these old habits. These dirty habits in my life.

This lust of the flesh. Colorlessness. This old burden to get even. Revenge. And you go to war against the Philistines. Every Christian must feel and will feel the tremendous power of the Philistines over him.

And Christians who want to know God in reality. It's part of the path of the Lord to unveil. He's going to unveil himself. But you're going to learn who the Philistines are too. And you're going to find out how mighty they are.

And you're going to go out puzzled to death. Because you're defeated. And you say, I love Jesus. I'm looking to Jesus. I'm trusting the Lord. What in the world is happening? And you're going to write over that part of your life.

It's about who's departed from me. God doesn't care. He's left me. And when you think that, the reality is actually he's working the most for it. Because he doesn't believe what the Philistines say. He's going to get there.

But first he has to deal with that old corrupt priesthood. It takes a mighty miracle of God to show us the stupidity of going to war in our own strength against the Philistines. Well, behind all this is the mysterious dealing of the Lord.

He's moving. He's on his way to his temple. Way down deep, the heart's still calling out, Lord, I'm a barren womb. I really want to produce fruit. I really want life. I want to issue something that can be from you that I can give back to you.

And so now we look at, I don't know what to call it, step three, the next stop on the way to the holy temple. I want us to look at the ark. It's almost like a parenthesis. Meanwhile, in the land of the Philistines.

The Ark in the Hands of the Philistines

Let's look at the ark. In the hand and in the land of the Philistines. Real long follows. All right. Chapter 5, verse 1 through chapter 6, verse 18. Actually, there are three parts to this text. Chapter 5, 1 to 12.

Chapter 6, 1 to 12. And then chapter 6, 13 to 18. And that's as far as we'll go tonight in the continuing story. If you've come this far in your Christian experience, you recognize what I'm going to describe.

If you haven't, then you can expect it. Because this is the way of God. It's his way with all of his children. First Samuel, chapter 5, describes the ark in the hand and in the land of the Philistines.

Follow along, please. In fact, would someone like to read this scripture for me? Why don't you come up? Somebody come up so we're there on the paper. I'm just going to save my voice a little. Will somebody do that and read this, the whole chapter?

Thank you. You'll have to come one at a time. Now the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashtod. Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it to the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon.

When the Ashtodites arose early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and set him in his place again. But when they arose early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord.

And the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him. Therefore, neither the prince of Dagon nor all who entered Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon and Ashtod to this day.

Now the hand of the Lord was heavy on the Ashtodites, and he lavaged them and smote them with tumors, both Ashtod and its territories. When the men of Ashtod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is severe on us and on Dagon our God.

So they sent and gathered all the lords of the Philistines to them and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they said, Let the ark of the God of Israel be brought along to Gath.

And they brought the ark of the God of Israel alone. And it came about that after they had brought it around, the hand of the Lord was against the city with very great confusion, and he smote the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them.

So they sent the ark of God to Ekron, and it happened as the ark of God came to Ekron that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought the ark of God of Israel along to us to kill us and our people.

They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines and said, Send away the ark of God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people. For there was a deadly confusion throughout the city.

The hand of God was very heavy there. And the men who did not die were smitten with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven. Take a glance at these verses if you would. 1 and 2. The Philistines took the ark of God from Ebenezer to Ashtar.

Verse 8. Let the ark of the God of Israel be brought around to death. Verse 10. So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. Verse 11. Send away the ark of God of Israel. Let it return to its own place. Now try to get the impact of what is happening here, please.

The Philistines, if I understand this correctly, the Philistines are not deliberately desecrating the ark of God. They are not treating it contemptuously. They are not mocking it, making fun of it, and intentionally dishonoring it.

What they are doing is they are trying to make the ark comfortable. They are trying to give it a home. They are trying to make it happy. In the context of our little series, they are trying to give it a resting place.

There is more evidence that they put the ark into the house of Dagon to mock it. Some think so, but I don't think that is true to the context. They brought it into the temple of Dagon to honor it, not to desecrate it.

They said it went next to their highest God, so that it could be up in the place of the highest honor. That was the national God of the Philistines. When Samson was captured in Judges 16 .23, it says the lords of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon and to rejoice.

They said our God has given us victory over their God. They recognized the ark of God to be the God of Israel. A glance if you would at chapter 4 again, verse 6, verse 7. This is how the Philistines felt about it.

When the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they understood that the ark of God had come into the camp. Verse 7. The Philistines were afraid, for they said God has come into the camp. They believed the ark represented God, God himself.

They didn't say we have no room for the ark. We have no room for Jesus. Read this chapter and you will see they are trying to give him a room. They are trying to give him a place. They are trying to make him comfortable in their land.

What is pictured by this chapter and by these events can be summarized in this sentence. There is no resting place for God in the Philistine part of me. There is no resting place for God in the Philistine part of you.

Sooner or later, before God will ever rest in your temple, you have got to learn that. You have got to learn that. When God finally settles down, it won't be in the Philistine part of you. It won't be in the Philistine part of me.

It is not only futile, as we see here, for the Philistines to try to find a place for God. It is also tremendously frustrating. Frustrating to the nth degree. No matter what they do, no matter what they offer him, no matter where they bring him, he is unhappy.

He is not pleased. He blasts their treatment of him. One of my sons recently lost his employment because of a decision he made. A decision that cost his company quite a bit of money. It was just a foolish decision.

He called us to tell us about it. Of course, he was kidding. We said, what happened son? He said, just because my decision bankrupted the company, they decided to let me go. Picky, picky, picky. See, that is how the Philistines felt about this ark.

Picky, picky, picky. We will put it in our chief city. And we will set it in our highest temple. And we will put it in the most honored place, right next to our highest God. But the ark is not happy there.

And they said, alright, then let's take it to Gath, the city of giants. The city of renown. Everybody knows Gath, let's put it there. God is not happy. Alright, let's take it to Akron. Right up as far as you can go in the north.

And stay in the Philistine territory. Still not happy. Picky, picky, picky. Where are they going to put him? Where will God be happy? God rejects every place they offer him. That would be one thing if God went in and looked around and said, no.

Son, this won't do. Do you have another part that you can show me? And then they showed him another one. He said, well really, that doesn't suit either. Do you have another place you can show me? That's not how he showed his displeasure.

God didn't just say, hold on, hold on, I'm sorry, that won't do. Do you have another one? Look at verse 3. Their God, David, was on his face on the ground. So they set him up. They thought, that's a wind, that's a fluke.

Something happened. Earthquake. Next day, same thing. Verse 4. And this time their God is decapitated and his hands are cut off. As if that weren't enough, look at verse 6. Now the hand of the Lord was heavy on the Astrodites.

He ravaged them. Smote them with tumors. Both Ashdod and all the territories. If you had a King James version, it says, he smote them with emeralds. Davis Bible Dictionary defines that Hebrew word, emerald.

A corrupted form of emerald. Some think the psalmist had that little incident in mind in Psalm 78, verse 66. In the King James version it says, he smote his enemies on their thimble parts. Well, however you read it, you get this idea that God is not satisfied.

Picky, picky, picky. He's rejecting every place they offer him, and rejecting it with a strong hand. When they move the Ark to Gath, they read the same kind of thing. Look at verse 9. The hand of the Lord was against the city, with a very great confusion.

He smote the men of the city, both young and old. So that tumors broke out on them. Every place the Philistines tried to give God was unsuitable, and rejected by God. The Philistines were slow to catch on.

They had this idea. There must be some place he'll be happy. We'll find a place. So they go as far north as you can go to Echon. And as soon as they saw him coming, verse 10, they cried out in fear. They brought the Ark of the God of Israel around to kill us and our people.

And sure enough, verse 11, there was a deadly confusion throughout the city. The hand of God was very heavy there. Verse 12, the men who did not die were smitten with tumors. And the cry of the city went up to heaven.

Now go to chapter 6, verse 4, please. In addition to the hemorrhoids, we learn from chapter 6, verse 4, what shall be the guilt offering that we shall return? And they said, five golden tumors and five golden mice.

Well, we know why the number five, because there were five cities that were smitten. We have a good guess why the tumors, because that was the kind of a plague that they were smitten with. Tumors. What a golden hemorrhoid looks like, I don't have a clue.

I don't even guess at that. But why'd they make golden mice? Look at chapter 6, verse 5. The likeness of your mice which ravaged the land. Part of the plague was not only hemorrhoids, but mice.

Mice ravaged the land.

Everything they planted was eaten by mice. The whole land of the Philistines was ravaged by mice. Don't read this la-la-la. You know when they finally found the Rosetta Stone and the key to hieroglyphics.

The word in the Egyptian hieroglyphic, or rather the symbol, for destruction was a mouse. And it's very graphic, because they just destroy everything. And if God's going to judge the Philistines, they'll probably say, why don't you give us a man's judgment?

Why don't you send lions? Why don't you send lightning? Why don't you send a hurricane? Why don't you send elephants? But give me the hemorrhoids and mice. See this whole thing was designed to humble them.

One would hope that they made these offerings out of gold, because maybe they learned that this terrible devastation was quite a valuable lesson to them. Certainly they spent a lot of money. You know, the priests suggested that they give five golden hemorrhoids and five golden mice.

Well, they took the suggestion on the hemorrhoids. They made five golden hemorrhoids. But they didn't take the suggestion on the mice. We don't know how many they gave. Might have been five. Might have been 50.

Might have been 500. You say, well, where do you get that idea? From chapter 6, verse 18. It says, And the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines, belonging to the five lords, both of fortified cities and country villages.

So there were a whole bunch of golden mice. Probably because the plague of mice went up and down the countryside. Well, certainly the least we can say about it was it was a tremendously expensive lesson that the Philistines needed to learn.

God will not rest in the land of the Philistines. And every offer that's made will be rejected. Now, you might say, well, now bring this down to my life, where I live. We're just in Samuel and Philistines.

What does it all mean? How and when does God smash my dagons? And what in the world are these hemorrhoids in the mice and so on? After God begins to work in our life, and I'm just sort of giving this as a testimony as well.

As God begins to work in our life, first our heart cries out, I desire fruit. I want life. I don't want to play games anymore. God then begins to move. And the first thing we do, of course, is we attack the Philistine part of us.

We think we can have victory. And we end up in defeat. And so then we begin to believe, since God has rejected the corrupt priesthood, that somehow the flesh, self, the Philistine part of me, the old man, somehow we can make God happy.

After all, he did allow himself to be captured by us. And this begins, I don't know what to call it, somewhat of a nightmare in the Christian's experience, where self determines to make God comfortable, where self determines to give him a place.

And one of the first things that self does, it takes the Lord Jesus and it enthrones him in the place of the highest priority. It puts him in the highest place. At that point, we have no idea that God means to destroy our Dagon.