1 Samuel 6 (Philistines Send the Ark to Beth Shemesh / God's Wrath Displayed)

Alright this morning. We're going to be looking at 1st Samuel chapter 6 so to bring everyone up to speed in chapter 4 of 1st

Samuel Israel went to battle with the Philistines and Because of the behavior of Eli's sons

Eli was the judge and a high priest Eli's sons

Hophni and Phinehas they had corrupted the ministry They had profaned the ark of the testimony and because of that Israel was defeated in battle by the

Philistines and the ark was captured and Then once the Philistines took the ark

They put it in the temple of their false god Dagon who was a fish

God You know half fish half man So that the imagery is that Dagon could stand victorious over the

God of the Hebrews well That didn't work out very well as you can imagine the graven image of Dagon was toppled and Then the people were plagued by tumors

So they realized that this was From the hand of the Lord so they sent the ark into a different Philistine city those people were struck

They sent it to another Philistine city and on and on it went So all of that that we've been reading it really sets forth this truth that the

God of the Israelites He is the true God He is the

Lord and he must be regarded as holy Also, this continues the theme

That we saw in the books of Moses Leviticus numbers Deuteronomy that God really the way he is depicted in the

Old Testament the Lord is depicted as being unapproachable

People are only able to come near and come near to the ark the proper way through the priesthood and all of this is really a

Symbol of how our God the scripture says is a consuming fire.

He is Unapproachable we are not acceptable Before his sight.

The only way we can be made acceptable is Through the priesthood of our

Lord Jesus Christ. So those that's the symbolism. So with those things in mind

We see more of the same So let's begin reading first Samuel chapter 6 starting in verse 1

It says now the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months in The Philistines called for the priests and the diviner saying what shall we do with the ark of the

Lord? Tell us how we should send it to its place So they said if you send away the ark of the

God of Israel do not send it away empty But by all means return it to him with a trespass offering

Then you will be healed and it will be known to you why his hand is not removed from you

Then they said what is this trespass offering? Which we shall return to him and they answered five golden tumors and five golden rats

According to the number of the Lords of the Philistines and I'll explain that in a moment

But for the same plague was on all of you and on your Lords Therefore you shall make images of your tumors and images of your rats that ravaged the land

And you shall give glory to the God of Israel Perhaps he will lighten his hand from you from your gods and from your land

Why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?

When he did mighty things among them Did they not let the people go that they might depart?

Now therefore make a new cart take two milk cows which have never been yoked and hitch the cows to the cart and Take their calves home away from them then take the ark of the

Lord and set it on the cart and Put the articles of gold which you are returning to him as a trespass offering in a chest by its side

Then send it away and let it go and watch if it goes up the road to its own territory to Beth Shemesh Then he the

Lord has done this great evil That is the Lord has afflicted you with this great plague this disaster

But if not if they do not go to their own territory Then we will know that it is not his hand that struck us it just happened to us by chance then verse 10 the men did so they took two milk cows and hitched them to the cart and shut up their calves at home and They set the ark of the

Lord on the cart and the chest with the golden rats in the images of their tumors

Then the cows headed straight For the road to Beth Shemesh and went along the highway lowing as they went and Did not turn aside to the right hand or the left and the lords of the

Philistines went after them to the border of Beth Shemesh Okay, we'll stop here and you know, this might seem like an odd way of determining things, you know

Is this a plague from God? How do we figure out what's going on? Well, yeah, go get these cows in this cart.

Well again, we'll explain that in a moment, but First the

Ark of the Covenant. How's the chapter start out the Ark of the Covenant is in the country of the

Philistines? And it's been there for how long? Seven months, you know sometimes we read the

Bible from one verse to another or one chapter to another and we get the idea that Only a day or two has passed

But really sometimes from one verse to another Several weeks may have gone by from one chapter to another several years could have gone by so it's helpful when the

Bible clarifies so over this time period Of the

Ark being handed off from one city to another this has caused great harm in The nation of the

Philistines, so here's the thing to mishandle the Ark is to offend

God So when God is angry, this is the type of thing that happens God is angry and he strikes the

Philistines, you know today many people have lost this concept of the holiness of God And certainly people have lost this concept of the wrath of God Mainly because of the soft -soap churches in ministries that only want to talk about the love of God now

God is a God of love God is more loving and compassionate that you more so than you can even imagine and we

Consistently talk about the love of God and without God's grace, right? This is the whole gospel message without the grace of God.

There would be no hope for us But some churches like I said the soft -soap churches, you know, they only want to talk about God's love

Well, here's the thing God also is a God of justice

God also has standards and a just God when he is

Offended when people rebel and go against the Lord bad things happen

Yeah, that was true back then. It's still true right now. I mean look at our country We're we're moving away from God.

We've been moving away from God for Generations now and we're seeing the fruit of that bad things are happening

So this is a universal principle and there's a danger When you talk only, you know one side about God's love, but you don't talk about the other side

I Just want you to think for a moment of the most patient and understanding person that you know

Think of the most kind patient understanding person, you know Do you have them in mind?

Okay Even they have a limit. Let's say somebody assaulted their child or killed their only son

You would see their wrath probably and this of course is what mankind has done to God God sent his only son into the world and Mankind did what they despised him.

They mocked him. They spit in his face and they crucified him. Oh What kind of God would do this the kind of God that doesn't put up with this?

So naturally God has wrath and don't miss this the Ark How does this tie into the

Ark the Ark is symbolic for the ministry of Jesus? the blood applied to the mercy seat pictures the blood of Christ the

Lamb of God So how people treat the Ark like it's no big deal and we can do with it.

Whatever we want this is a picture of how people treated Christ and That his death and still people today when they hear about Christ's death on the cross and they don't care it's no big deal

Who cares? I'm gonna live life my way So all of that to say this God's wrath is real

And that's why God has wrath Because people have done these great atrocities and when people let's say when somebody goes out and commits murder

Not only are they committing that act against the person or when you steal from someone?

You're not just stealing from that person the person that's offended or that's harmed was made in God's image

Every sin is a sin against God. So God's wrath is real Also, God's wrath is not arbitrary or capricious

The Philistines being struck by this plague God isn't doing it just because he's having a bad day

There's real reasons why this is happening they are defiling the Ark of the testimony

They're basically spitting in God's face defiling his own son. I mean, that's that's the connection

So really it all boils down to this do people fear God Do people fear

God and the answer most of the time is no into the Philistines fear of the

Lord No, but they're starting to so the Ark Being amongst the

Philistines. This has caused a great deal of death and destruction At this point they're starting to wake up to all this.

They just want it gone So, how do you do that? How do we get rid of it?

We've been mishandling it up until this point We don't want to make another mistake. So what do they do?

They turn to their own scholars their own religious leaders for advice verse 2 says that the

Philistines Call for the priests and the Diviners saying what shall we do with the

Ark of the Lord? Tell us how we should send it to its place so these

Men the priests and the diviners these men were skilled not only in their own religion

They were also knowledgeable about other religions the word diviner you know,

I think of someone today who has a divinity degree You know and how do they get that?

And this would have been true to you know some degree for the the priests of the Philistines they would have had to have received several years of Training not only in their own religion, but also taught about the other faith systems and practices, so Today if the average person has no idea about Religious matters and there's someone in your town or someone, you know in the family who has a master's degree of divinity

You know, whatever that is You know, that's not in the Bible but you if somebody didn't have any clue about religious things, they would probably turn to the person who has the

Degree of divinity right and it that makes sense But of course that doesn't mean that these people they might know some facts, but it doesn't mean they believe the truth so these priests were false priests the diviners,

I mean they were like sorcerers and really And a lot of people who come out of seminaries with master's degrees.

I mean if you have you read the faith matters Articles in the Greenfield Recorder.

Yeah, some of these people are rank pagans and some of them practice palm reading and sorcery and divination, so I mean it's just a mess out there, but Here's here's the point

Based on how most seminaries today are liberal and woke and unbelieving

I wouldn't have a lot of confidence in what they have to say So the priests and the diviners of the

Philistines, they don't really know. I Mean they have the basic concepts down of you know,

God is offended make an offering but they don't really know what they're doing God is using this

God God's hand God's sovereign hand is guiding human history So even when people do things that are evil

Crucifying Jesus or even when these priests and diviners, you know, they think they know what they're doing They don't but God is using all of this for his glory for his purposes

But you get it. These were the men of the Philistines the priests and the diviners. They would have had the knowledge

About these things they would have had some knowledge about the God of Israel So it says in verse 3 if you send the

Ark of the God of Israel do not send it away empty But by all means return it to him with a trespass offering

Then you will be healed So there is this idea of a

God here's the basic thing they did understand There is this idea that God needs to have his wrath

Appeased the New Testament word would be propitiation. That is a biblical term So this is just basic It's basic in religion.

It's basic in humanity and real life The people need to be appeased and God needs to be appeased.

The true God has been sinned against So therefore the Philistines did this terrible thing and offending

God They need to now offer something to show how they realize their guilt They make this offering to try to make things right the

Old Testament Sacrifices and offerings prescribed by Moses are given to Moses by God Prescribed for the

Israelites all of these things. We know they pointed ahead to that full and final sacrifice of Jesus on the cross

And the devil being the great counterfeiter that he is, you know

If the devil wants confusion you have a true church here if the devil wants to cause confusion

For God's people that's the devil just set up his own church across the street that'll create mass confusion

That's the way the devil is. He's a counterfeiter This is why you hear people Today they say things like, you know, this isn't really true

But there's an element of truth to every lie people say how all religion is basically the same, right?

You've heard this all religions are more or less the same No, but there are similarities why because in the beginning you had

The truth in the beginning you had the one true faith Think about it.

You had Adam and Eve they sinned they realized their nakedness An animal had to die in order to make clothing.

They tried to do it their own way with vegetation, right? The fig leaves that wasn't good enough.

So God killed an animal their children Cain and Abel they offered Sacrifices unto the

Lord Cain offered Vegetation vegetables. It was not good enough Abel. However offered an animal sacrifice a blood sacrifice that was

Accepted so the truth was there and from there it was corrupted into all the different false religions we have now

With their forms of sacrifices and offerings so I Say this is the true religion or this is true in religion

And it's true in real life when you offend somebody. What do you do?

When you offend someone, what do you do? You apologize and let's just take married couples for a moment

You admit you're wrong and then you go and apologize and buy her flowers, right?

I'm not sure what the equivalent is of what women do when they admit they're wrong. I guess they're just always right

Maybe I'm kidding. Of course, but send your angry letters to PO box 42 in Leverett, Massachusetts But the leaders of the

Philistines understand that to some degree God the

God of Israel has to be appeased. That's how religion works They then recommend this trespass offering five golden tumors and five

Golden rats. Okay. Now this is strange the number five. Why five? Well, it's for the five lords of the

Philistines who ruled over the five cities that were affected the rats

Spread the plague that caused the tumors So here's the thing by fashioning these objects the tumors and the rats golden tumors and golden rats

By fashioning those objects they were recognizing that these things

Were a punishment from the hand of God then they bring up the

Egyptians they bring up the Exodus in other words the priests are saying Have you not learned anything?

Because all the surrounding nations knew the story Pharaoh had let Israel go you need to send away the ark then

God will relent So they come up with this plan. That's like, okay. Let's learn from the story about the

Egyptians Let's not just harden our heart and just get crushed here.

Let's let's be smart So they come up with this plan to send the ark away on a cart pulled by cows

They say take two milk cows that have never been in a yoke and Separate from their separate them from their calves this way

The reason would be it would be unnatural For them to get hooked up and just walk off in the other direction they have cow calves at home

They've never been attached to a cart. They don't know what to do. So if they just head straight towards The the land of Israel then we'll know that this was all a plague from the hand of God, but if we hook them up to this yoke and They just stand there because they don't know what to do and they don't want to leave their calves if they just stand there

Okay, we'll realize this is just all a coincidence. So that's the situation there. So what happens verse 12?

They hooked the cows up and it says in verse 12 then the cows headed straight for the road to Beth Shemesh and Went along the highway lowing as they went and did not turn aside to the right hand or the left

Okay, so that settles that Now this city Beth Shemesh Meaning the house of the

Sun. This is one of the cities that belonged to the Levites The tribe of Levi this was the priestly tribe.

So this city Seems to be a good place For the ark to go right the

Levites are there Make sense two things though. Number one. How are they going to treat the ark?

just because they're Levites doesn't mean they get a free pass to do whatever they want and besides that number two the ark really it belonged in the tabernacle, so things went bad and When the

Philistines had the ark just because it's going back to Israel doesn't mean everything's going to work out fine

And indeed it doesn't So the cows bring the ark to Beth Shemesh The Lords of the

Philistines followed behind at a distance to see what happened verse 13 it says now the people of Beth Shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley and They lifted their eyes and saw the ark and rejoiced to see it

This would have been exciting verse 14 then the ark came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh and stood there a

Large stone was there so they split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the

Lord They had served a sacred purpose. You couldn't just send them back into the field

So they sacrificed them verse 15 the Levites then took down the ark of the

Lord and the chest that was with it in Which were the articles of gold and put them on the large stone?

Then the men of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices the same day to the

Lord So when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it they returned to Ekron The same day, okay, so the

Philistines are saying we're gonna wipe our hands of this. Let's go home. This is finished Okay, so everything's good then right wrong in verse 19

It says the Lord struck the men of Beth Shemesh because they have looked into the art of the

Lord he struck 50 ,000 in 70 men of the people and the people lamented because the

Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter 50 ,000 and 70 that that's a lot of people that is a great slaughter

Why did the Lord do this? to the Israelites Well now we're learning something else

God doesn't show partiality It's not like well if the Philistines defile the ark will punish them

But if Israel breaks the rules, we'll give them a pass. No God shows. No partiality.

The Philistines were punished now the Israelites They break the rules they're being punished and there are certain theories about exactly what did the men of Beth Shemesh do

Some say they set this they set the Ark of the Covenant on this big rock So it's like a pedestal and all the people just gazed at it too long

When it should have been put away or at least covered up others based on the text they think that the

Levites may be Celebrated a little too much if you know what I mean, or whatever lapse of Reason that they had they actually approached the

Ark Took off the lid the mercy seat and actually looked into it That's what it sounds like happened.

They actually went over and they look inside the Ark Now those of you who have seen the the movie

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark You know some of you remember that scene when in the movie they opened the

Ark and everyone who looked Died, I don't know if they based that off this chapter or not.

Maybe and yeah, that's just a movie right But that may have been something of like what happened

It says they looked into the Ark, that's what we know so Whatever happened

God was very angry and it says that 50 ,000 and 70 people were struck in a great slaughter now

In passing there's this textual issue if you follow along in your Bible if you have the

NIV and You're following along right now you notice there's a little difference okay, so the

King James and I'm just going to touch on this briefly the King James Version and the

New King James Version and I think there may be some others. They say that 50 ,070 were struck other

Translations that use a different line of manuscripts the Codex Vaticanus Codex Sinaiticus Other translations like the

NIV ESV they say only 70 people died So the

King James New King James say 50 ,070 these other translations say no just 70.

I mean, that's that's a big difference They both can't be right, obviously Some would say well, they chalk this up to a scribal error.

Maybe Others will say that The 50 ,000 is in line with the comment that it was a great slaughter

Because in the Bible 70 people if God strikes a city and only 70 die that that isn't that many in comparison

So you'll find someone find different people who will see this differently Depending on the translation you are partial to but I use the

New King James Sticking with the 50 ,000 in 70 but the whole subject of textual variance in the original manuscripts

You know, this is a complicated Subject, so I'm not looking to fight about that leaf and I don't want to get too deep into at least not right now but with all of that said

And everything that happened with the Ark to the Philistines and now to the men the

Israelites in Beth Shemesh. What's the takeaway? Well again, remember the Ark in the

Old Testament it represents the presence of God Pointing ahead to the

New Testament it represents the gospel ministry of Christ any rejection or mishandling of the

Ark resulted in physical death Just as any rejection or mishandling or corrupting the gospel results in spiritual death

The only way people could come near to God is through the proper channels through the priesthood the proper way and Today, it's the same.

The only way to God is through the proper way The man who is the way the truth and the life

The only way to God is through our great high priest the Lord Jesus Christ.

So without faith in Christ and Belief in the gospel of him crucified and risen.

God is simply not approachable Because we are not acceptable

But thanks be to God that Jesus has died for our sins and by God's grace

Through faith we have been made acceptable by the blood of Jesus This chapter ends with the men of Beth Shemesh Sending the

Ark of God away to Kirjath Jerim the place where it would lay

Until King David would call for it to be brought to Jerusalem Some 70 years later and the chapter ends with these words the men of Beth Shemesh said who is able to stand before this

Holy Lord God So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath Jerim Saying the