Standing Before a Holy God - 1 Samuel 6-7:2
As we continue to make our way through 1 Samuel, one of the common threads that we’ve seen in chapters 4-6, has been that no one knows what to do with the ark of the covenant.
The Israelites believed that the ark was a mystical, secret weapon that would grant them victory if they just trotted it out into battle. When the Philistines captured the ark, they thought it as nothing more than a symbol of their victory. That their false god was greater than the living God.
As we just read, the ark of the covenant returned to the people of Israel and you would think that order would be restored, that everything would be right with the world, after all, the Lord returned to his people.
However, that’s not exactly what happened! The ark returned to Israel and then people died there too!
God wasn’t trapped in that golden box. God is everywhere, he’s omnipresent, he’s all powerful, he’s omnipotent. The ark of the covenant was a visual reminder of God’s presence.
You’d expect Israel to know what to do with the ark of the covenant. But really that’s just a symptom of a greater problem: no one knew how to approach God almighty.
It’s absolutely critical that you and I know how to approach God almighty. This passage plays out in three parts: first you must approach God with humility (vv. 1-12), second, you must approach God reverently (vv. 13-19), because, lastly, God is holy (vv. 20-7:2).
Last week we saw how the Lord had afflicted the Philistines. A plague followed the ark of the covenant everywhere it went. No matter where the ark went people would get these tumors and die.
And the Philistines thought that if they just moved the ark to a different city something different would happen. But this outbreak would go into every city.
Approach God Humbly (vv. 1-12)
The Philistines had possessed the ark of the covenant for seven months and had been under God’s wrath the entire time!
And so chapter six begins with the Philistines asking themselves a familiar question: “What shall we do with the ark of the Lord?”
After all, everywhere the ark of the covenant went people died. If you remember from last week, the Philistines had tried to pass the ark of the covenant to the city of Ekron, but that Philistine city had said, “no thank you!”
So the Philistines called in some reinforcements this time and asked their religious leaders, their priests and diviners, “what shall we do with the ark of the Lord?” They had already decided to send the ark “back to its place.”
But they wanted to know how to do it properly so they could appease God’s wrath. According to the priests and diviners they could, “not send [the ark back] empty, but by all means return him a guilt offering.”
They couldn’t just send the ark by itself! They needed to send a guilt offering with it. with it.
So what was the guilt offering they were going to make? Look at verses 4-5 with me:
“Five golden tumors and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines, for the same plague was on all of you and on your lords. 5 So you must make images of your tumors and images of your mice that ravage the land, and give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will lighten his hand from off you and your gods and your land.”
Isn’t that interesting? According to their priests and diviners they needed to make golden images of their tumors along with golden mice. Because they’re guilt offering needed to reflect in some way what they had experienced. The tumors were part of the plague they experienced in chapter 5, and it seems that they believed the mice to be the source of the plague.
Rodents are nasty and of course, have a history of spreading disease. Most historians believe that the bubonic plague was caused by diseased rodents.
But the Philistines knew they couldn’t just ignore what was happening to them! They correctly understood God to be behind all the destruction and disease they were experiencing and they didn’t want to pretend like God didn’t exist. Which is exactly what the Egyptians did when God sent the ten plagues against them. The Philistines didn’t want to end up like the Egyptians!
This explains what was said in verse 6: “Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? After [God] had dealt severely with them, did they not send the people away, and they departed?”
They knew the Exodus story and how that turned out for the Egyptians. They thought God was afflicting them, but they wanted to be sure.
So they devised a plan in verses 7-9.
And the plan was to put the ark of the covenant on a cart, with two milk cows. They would take their calves away from them, put them under a yoke and see if they would return to their calves or head to Israel at Beth-shemesh.
It’s an interesting test because the milks cows would have to go against their natural instincts by leaving their calves behind in order to go to Beth-shemesh in Israel.
“If [the ark] goes up on the way to its own land, to Beth-shemesh, then it is [the Lord] who has done us this great harm, but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us; it happened to us by coincidence.”
The Philistines had good religious instincts.
They thought God was behind their affliction and even knew they needed to make a guilt offering to the Lord. They even say at the end of verse 5, that they need to “give glory to the God of Israel.”
They had an innate sense that they had done something that kindled the wrath of God and that their sins needed to be atoned for.
Again, they had good religious instincts! It’s good to have a sense of your own sin nature. It’s good to recognize that your sin separates you from the Lord. It’s good to want your sins atoned for.
But the golden tumors and golden mice were guesses! They didn’t know if that was what they should do! They were just making it up as they went along. If they really wanted to figure out what they needed to do they should have gone to Israel and spoken to a priest.
Had the Philistines consulted a priest in Israel they would have for one, realized that that tumors and mice were considered unclean, but more importantly golden tumors and mice were not proper guilt offerings.
Leviticus 5 tells us that a ram without blemish was required for a proper guilt offering. The guilt offering was not only required as a sacrifice to make atonement for sin, it was an offering to repair and restore fellowship with God.
All of this points us to the gospel! And all of these elements point to the necessity for a Savior who would make a once-for-all offering.
The prophet Isaiah would have told the Philistines,
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
We get even more clarity in the New Testament when John the Baptist looked at Jesus Christ and said, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
The Apostle Paul gives us the clearest understanding of what a guilt offering is all about in Romans 3: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”
The entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament pointed to Jesus Christ. They should have recognized even at this point in redemptive history their need for a Savior. They should have known that they needed something much greater than an animal to take away their sins.
The Philistines knew that their guilt offering needed to be costly, but it wasn’t costly enough. A proper guilt offering required blood, but more importantly it required faith in the one who can truly remove the stains of their sin.
But going to their enemies, asking for help, repenting of their sins, rejecting their false gods and putting their faith in the God of Israel would have required a tremendous amount of humility.
Humbling yourself before the Lord is an absolutely necessary step towards salvation.
Approach God Reverently (vv. 13-19)
The Philistines are like so many people today: readily admit they’re imperfections, mistakes, and even sinfulness. And perhaps they’re even willing to acknowledge God’s existence and sovereignty, but they’re unwilling to repent and humbly submit their lives to the Lord.
Instead, much like the Philistines, they’d prefer to avoid the presence of the Lord. They’d prefer to box God up and send him somewhere else. But the Lord demands so much more - he demands your trust and reverence.
We, of course, know what happened in our passage! The two milk cows, against their natural instincts, walked away from their calves and straight to Israel. They walked into the Israelite town of Beth-shemesh.
And this confirmed to the Philistines that it was in fact the Lord who was against them. They had been under his wrath.
And really, you have an amazing image here: the presence of the Lord returning to his people like a conquering king! After all, he had accomplished on his own what Israel had failed to do in two consecutive battles.
In a twist of irony, what happened to the Philistines is very similar to what happened to the Egyptians. The Lord sent plagues against the Egyptians, he sent a plague against the Philistines. Pharoah eventually relents and lets the people of Israel go, the Philistines eventually relent and let the ark go.
The Egyptians gave the Israelites goods and supplies and by doing so, the Israelites “plundered” the Egyptians. The Philistines stacked up gold, albeit, weird images of tumors and mice, but gold nonetheless and sent it to Israel! God had singlehandedly plundered the Philistines!
But most importantly of all, the Philistines had hardened their hearts against the Lord! They were unwilling to humble themselves before the Lord. They just wanted things to return to the way they were. They wanted the status quo, which is why they sent the ark back!
We’re told in verse 13 that the people of Beth-shemesh “rejoiced to see [the ark].”
The ark’s return was a cause of great celebration! The presence of the Lord had returned to his people! Which is, of course, a joyous thing!
You would think that this is where things would end. The ark of the Lord returned to Israel and everyone lived happily ever after, but that’s not at all what happened.
In verses 17-18, we have a tally of the golden images and mice. The golden tumors reflected the cities that were impacted by the disease. And apparently it was widespread all over the Philistine nation. The golden mice also corresponded with the cities as well.
But then there’s this odd statement at the end of verse 18: “The great stone beside which they set down the ark of the Lord is a witness to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh.”
Beth-shemesh was a city given to the Levites in Joshua 21, and of course, the Levites were the priestly tribe in Israel, which is why it’s so surprising that they were blatantly mishandling the ark of the covenant.
Although, the end of verse 18 reports what happened in a matter of fact sort of way, what happened was extremely irresponsible.
They set the ark of the covenant down next to a “great stone” in this man’s field, who happened to be named Joshua. And the ark was set up in his field for people to look at. It was a tourist attraction if you will.
Folks were encouraged to go to Beth-shemesh to see the ark of the covenant!
But where was the ark of the covenant supposed to be? In the tabernacle in Shiloh! And when the ark of the covenant was out, it was supposed to be covered by a veil, goatskins, and a blue cloth. You can read about how the ark was supposed to be covered in Numbers 4:5-6.
And to be fair, we’re not told that it wasn’t properly covered in our text, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.
All of that is important to understand when we come to verse 19. Look at verse 19 with me.
“And he [the Lord] struck some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked upon the ark of the Lord. He struck seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great blow.”
Seventy men died “because they looked upon the ark of the Lord.” This just comes out of nowhere doesn’t it? In fact, it sounds a little harsh! Uzzah died for touching the ark of the covenant when he thought it was going to fall off of a cart!
It wasn’t like these men touched the ark, or much less lifted the lid and looked inside the ark and touched the ten commandments or something. These seventy men didn’t touch the ark, and yet, the Lord struck them down.
What these men did wrong was they studied, gazed upon, and inspected the ark of the covenant in a highly irreverent manner. They looked upon the ark in a curious, disrespectful, flippant sort of way.
These seventy men treated the symbolic presence of the living God with utter contempt.
Numbers 4:20 says that no one was to “look on the holy things even for a moment, lest they die.” Only the priests were permitted to see the ark of the covenant uncovered.
It’s easy for us to hear this and think: what’s the big deal?
Far too often, the things that we think aren’t a big deal are a big deal to a Holy God. We do this in our own personal walks with the Lord, don’t we? We convince ourselves that our little pet sin is no big deal because it only affects us! It’s not a big deal, but it’s a big deal to God. Obviously, this is true for the sins we battle.
But it’s also true for how we worship as well. The pervasive attitude in our modern evangelical climate is that worship services are like a buffet and you can pick and choose what you do and God doesn’t care. God is just grateful that you took the time to go to church and worship him.
Do you notice the lie? So often we inflate our own importance while simultaneously diminishing the living God. The lie is of course, that God is dependent upon us.
It’s like saying when you get up on Sunday morning, “I’m going to do God a huge favor today by going to church. I’m going to grace him with my presence!”
What? Brothers and sisters, that's a highly irreverent, cavalier attitude towards the living God.
We worship because we feel compelled to do so because of what the Lord has done for us! That Christ has come to take away your sins!
And so our worship shouldn’t be centered upon style, sensationalism, entertainment, or self-centered experiences. Our worship should seek to please God. And God has told us how we can please him through his revealed word.
Reverent worship is done according to God’s word, which is precisely what these seventy men failed to do. They blew off what God had said about only the priests looking at the ark.
Reverence is central to worship.
Because God is Holy (vv. 20-2)
How quickly things change! One minute the people of Israel are rejoicing because the ark had returned to mourning over the death of seventy men.
In another ironic twist, it’s quite reflective of what the Philistines experienced! One minute they were rejoicing over the ark and stuck it in their temple next to their false god, and then the next they’re mourning the deaths of many and looking for a way to get rid of the ark of the covenant.
Which is precisely what the Israelites do! They look for a place to dump the ark off. They don’t return it to Shiloh. To be fair, some speculate that Shiloh was destroyed by the Philistines rendering an unsuitable location for the ark.
But the text seems to indicate that they were looking for an obscure location to hide the ark in order to limit its devastation.
So they send it to Kiriath-jearim. Again, it’s reminiscent of what happened to the Philistines, how they shuffled the ark around from city to city.
And of course, Kiriath-jearim was a Gibeonite city. The Gibeonites were not ethnic Israelites. They were the people who tricked Joshua into allowing them to live. You can read all about the Gibeonite deception in Joshua 9. But they were foreigners living among the Israelites.
Which makes this whole situation even more peculiar! The Israelites were trying to dump the ark of the covenant on the foreigners who were living among them!
And so the ark ends up at this man, Abinadab’s house. “And they consecrated his son Eleazar to have charge of the ark of the Lord.”
But it’s the foreigners, the Gibeonites, this man, Abinadab and his son, Eleazar, who reverently handle the ark which is where it stayed for twenty years.
There’s something to be said about consistent faithfulness. I’d be willing to bet that the most godly people that you know aren’t flashy people. They don’t brag about the Bible knowledge or their prayer life, or how they serve their church, they’re just consistent, faithful, believers who recognize the holiness of the Lord.
And there was a sense even among the people of Israel that this wasn’t the way things were supposed to be! After all, we’re told, “all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.”
But really as we prepare to close, I want to turn our attention to the question posed by the people of Israel in verse 20, “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?”
It was a relevant question for them wasn’t it? Because everything seemed to be going poorly! They thought the presence of the Lord had returned which was a good thing only for men to die.
“Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?”
It’s a wonderful question isn’t it? And hopefully you know the answer! The answer is no one. No one on their own is able to stand before a Holy God.
Someone must appease, or satisfy the wrath of the living God and you cannot not do it on your own. Someone has to do it for you! Christ has to stand in your place. Your sins have to be atoned for.
You and I must approach the living God through Jesus Christ. Let’s pray together.
