Bad choice

April 11, 2007

By Greg Ebie

God brought His judgment upon Israel through the Philistines. The army of Israel was defeated; the sons of Eli the priest, Hophni and Phinehas, were both killed in battle because of their sin against God. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant. It appeared God had completely forsaken His people.

One might think things would go well for the Philistines once they took possession of the “chest of God.” God’s presence and glory manifested itself above the ark of the covenant inside the Holy of Holies of Israel’s tabernacle. The Philistines believed the ark would bring the blessings of God upon them; therefore they set it up in the temple of their god Dagon.

Things didn’t go as the Philistines expected. The next morning Dagon had fallen to the floor before the chest of God. Dagon was set back up, but the next day it had fallen again before God and broken into pieces. Soon the Philistines were plagued with boils and then their city was infested with rats.

“When the leaders of Ashdod saw what was going on, they decided, ‘The chest of the god of Israel has got to go. We can’t handle this, and neither can our god Dagon’ ” (1 Samuel 5:7, The Message).

God proved himself to be the true God. The Philistines had a simple choice. They could turn to the God of Israel and worship Him as the living God, or they could continue to worship Dagon whom they now knew was no god at all. They chose Dagon.

Sometimes we are even worse than the Philistines. When we encounter sickness or other difficulties, we are quick to turn to God for help. Once things are better and life gets back to a comfortable routine we forget about serving God. We return to the “gods’” of self, entertainment, pleasure, success and materialism. Our list of would-be gods could go on and on.

Let’s learn the lesson God taught the Philistines; the Lord alone is God. It’s time to choose to follow Him with all our heart, to repent of our sin. Only then will we discover the blessing of His presence with us, through the good times and the bad.

D. Greg Ebie is senior pastor of Praise Assembly of God in Garrettsville, Ohio, and an author of Daily Bread devotionals.