Choosing a lesser god
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:
- Self-centeredness
- Humanistic Secularism and man-centered thought
- Politics
What we have done is minimize God to erect smaller gods. What
is God's response to this folly?
- Self-centeredness- as Dogon's arms are torn
off, our little god has produced greed and oppression of others.
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.
- Humanistic Secularism and man-centered thought
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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