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We have an interesting passage in the 5th chapter of First Samuel. In this, we find an example that relates to our troubles today. In a nutshell, the Philistines defeated Israel and took the Ark of the Covenant to one of their cities. They put it in a room with their won god, Dagon. The next morning Dagon was on the floor, fallen on his face before God's Ark. They put Dagon back up and the following morning: 1 Samuel 5:4 But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon , fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the LORD! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained. The passage then documents what happened to the people. 1 Samuel 5:6 The LORD's hand was heavy upon the people of Ashdod and its vicinity; he brought devastation upon them and afflicted them with tumors. 7 When the men of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, "The ark of the god of Israel must not stay here with us, because his hand is heavy upon us and upon Dagon our god." 8 So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and asked them, "What shall we do with the ark of the god of Israel?" They answered, "Have the ark of the god of Israel moved to Gath." So they moved the ark of the God of Israel. 9 But after they had moved it, the LORD's hand was against that city, throwing it into a great panic. He afflicted the people of the city, both young and old, with an outbreak of tumors. 10 So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. As the ark of God was entering Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, "They have brought the ark of the god of Israel around to us to kill us and our people." 11 So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and said, "Send the ark of the god of Israel away; let it go back to its own place, or it will kill us and our people." For death had filled the city with panic; God's hand was very heavy upon it. 12 Those who did not die were afflicted with tumors, and the outcry of the city went up to heaven. There is a lesson to be learned and we should apply it to us today. In our nation's beginning, we had the one true God, the God of the Ark of the Covenant to Israel. We were seasoned with the Pilgrims, Puritans and the Great Awakening Revivals. We have increasingly erected lesser gods on equal footing with God, like Dagon and the Ark. We find these lesser gods fail to answer our prayers and at the same time, we fall deeper into God's judgment. We don't have a statue we also worship in Christian religion today. Do we? Perhaps not. Yet we have erected our own lesser gods. Little gods we put next to our one true Almighty God yet demand our attention. Little gods that we would rather worship than the one true God. Little gods like:
What we have done is minimize God to erect smaller gods. What is God's response to this folly?
Sexual 'freedom' gave us STD's, abortion, weakened and dysfunctional families. Single parent families with the great fallout of a lack of balance in the home. Homosexuals with shortened life spans. The lesser god of money has trapped young women into promiscuous life-styles and devastation to their health. God will not be mocked and will He will tear apart our lesser gods, as the presence of the Ark did with Dagon. He is tearing our lesser gods apart.
This lesser god has removed prayer from schools, replaced it with political correctness and has given us school shootings, drugs, and violent crime. This god is weakened yet we still worship at his feet. What was wrong with the God our nation used to hold high? We need to return to Him. Jeremiah 6: 16 This is what the LORD says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths , ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, `We will not walk in it.'
We have willingly given up God's direction and His values in the name of 'winning' an election. Our Republican god has co-opted Christ's people giving us a government that has aided in the destruction of our nation and our place in the world. We chose the god of winning over principle and we see judgment God tearing the arms off of such a god. Scandals, failed war policy and porous borders with no forward progress in the 'social' issues has lead to a good chance of Democratic control with even further marching toward all out national destruction. The lesser god has been broken. There are many false gods. You can choose your own favorite from the above, or even make up your own. All other religions worship false gods. All of these will be torn apart with time. Only worship of the one True God can save. Only God is worthy of worship. All others will ultimately destroy their followers. The transfer of citizen's appreciation of the "American Way" including truth, justice, charity and honorable humility and Christian truth to choosing a broken idol of self-centered materialism. Yet, of all sins, none are worse to God than choosing any other god ahead of Him. Dagon, an unlikely passage with great importance. |
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