This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day two of week two of our look through 1st and 2nd
Samuel. We're going to look at 1st Samuel chapter 5 today. We began yesterday a
look at what happened in this experience of the ark of God being taken captive
from the people of Israel and how these chapters teach us the truth about God's
holiness.

We began yesterday the truth that God will not be manipulated. They couldn't use
God to get what they wanted. The Philistines capture the ark and they're so
proud of themselves for having taken this ark.

They must have argued and argued over which city would have the right to keep
this ark and the city of Ashdod won. They thought won at least, but when they
took the ark into this Philistine city of Ashdod, they found out a second truth
about God's holiness. God is holy.

He will not be manipulated and second, he will not be minimized. Listen to what
happened beginning in verse 1 of chapter 5. After the Philistines had captured
the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod and then they carried the
ark into Dagon's temple and they set it beside Dagon.

When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon fallen on his
face on the ground before the ark of the Lord. They took Dagon and they put him
back in his place. 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 his hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold. Only
his body remained. That is why to this day, neither the priests of Dagon nor any
others who entered Dagon's temple of Ashdod step on the threshold.

The Lord's hand was heavy on the people of Ashdod and its vicinity. He brought
devastation upon them and afflicted them with tumors. 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.

" So they decided to take the ark and send it to a city called Gath. And in
Gath, the same thing happened to them. They were afflicted as well.

So they decided to send the ark to a city called Akron. And the people of Akron
said, "Keep the ark out. " But it passed the borders and the same thing happened
to them as well.

The poor Philistines, they become victims of this object lesson in God's
holiness. Only in essence are an object lesson on the commandment, "You shall
have no other gods before me. " And they were trying to stand up other gods,
false gods, false idols.

The statue was not a real god, but their belief in that false god was real. And
God caused that statue to fall down to show them who was really real. This Dagon
statue, first it bowed before the ark and then it bowed and all of its
extremities were cut off, its hands, its feet.

Its strength was severed before the ark. This is an object lesson to you and I.
It's an object lesson of the dangers of placing God below us, below anything in
our lives.

And we all struggle with that at times. You may think, "I don't have a statue to
a god named Dagon somewhere," but we all struggle with making an idol of
something else and placing God below that thing in our lives. The Philistines,
they thought they could carry God from city to city, showing him like a prize
that they won in battle.

God will not be minimized. God will not be marginalized. God will not be mocked.

And the Philistines learned this the hard way. As the people were smitten and
the ark became a hot potato, an object of fear, and they said again and again,
"God's hand is severe against us. " Now I know you and I look at this and we
think, "Well, I would never try to minimize God.

" Let me ask you to think of it this way with me. The truth is, we make God
smaller when we make other things bigger. You might think, "I would never try to
make God small," but really the way we do this is we make God smaller when we
make other things bigger.

And I have a picture of this temple of Dagon. You have this large statue
towering over the smaller ark. I don't know the relative sizes, but that's my
picture of what happened.

And in this picture, it causes me to ask the question in my life, to ask the
question of you. What's towering over God's presence in your life? There is
God's presence, but there's something towering over it.

What's more important to you right now than He is? That thing that's towering
over God's presence, it's not named Dagon, it might be named worry. You have
these worries that are towering over God's presence, or it might be named money.

Your desire, or your need, or your concerns about money are towering over God's
presence in your life. Yeah, God's presence is there, but these things are
bigger. Or it might be named my idea.

You've got some idea that you have of how things should happen, it's not
happening that way, and you're mad at God right now, honestly. This thing that's
towering over God's presence in your life, it might be just called fun. You just
might want to have fun in life, and you're not having enough fun, and you're
wondering, why isn't God letting me do what I want to do?

Or it might be named hurt. There is some hurt in your life that's towering over
the presence of God in your life, or it might be called relationship. You so
desire for a relationship to work or for a relationship to happen that you'd do
anything to bring about that relationship healing.

You'd do anything, so much so that it's towering over God's presence in your
life. The truth is the same today as it was then. Eventually that thing, that
worry, that money, that idea, that desire for fun, that hurt, that relationship,
eventually that thing's going to bow down to God.

Eventually its strength is going to be severed. It's not going to last. God is
bigger.

God's the only one that's going to last forever, and his priorities in life are
the only eternal priorities, but right now it seems so much bigger to you. So
what do you do in those moments? How do you begin to see God's presence in a
different way?

We realize the positive truth in this one. God will not be minimized. So what's
the positive truth behind that?

My heart towards God has to be one of humility. I humble myself before God by
realizing the thing that I feel is bigger isn't bigger. God is bigger.

God alone is the Lord. He's the almighty creator, and that sparks this sense of
humility in my heart that becomes a fire in my life. Now humility is not
trembling before him in just terrified fear.

It's bowing before him in awe-filled wonder at who he is. Humility is simply and
honestly realizing what my relationship with God is. He's the creator.

I'm the created. He's the provider. I'm the one who is the depender.

I have to depend on what he provides spiritually and physically and emotionally.
When I realize that, all of a sudden I realize who God really is. I realize what
the presence of God really is all about and that it's bigger than anything else
in my life.

One of the most humble things that you can do is to see that God is bigger. He
is bigger than that thing that you really want. He is bigger than that place
that you're deeply hurt.

He is bigger than that worry that is overwhelming your life. I want to spend a
few moments in prayer just recognizing in prayer that God is bigger. Would you
pray with me?

And as we pray, just say, "Father, I need a new vision of who you are. " I
realize today that that worry has been overwhelming my life for that desire for
money or for that thing or for that relationship. It has become all-important
and all-consuming in my life.

In that picture, I can see it towering over you, over the arc of your presence.
Lord, I know you're going to cause it to bow down one day. Instead of waiting
for that to happen in some circumstance, I'm deciding right now to humble my
heart before you and to recognize before the circumstance ever happens that
tells me that you're bigger, to recognize in my heart that you're the one who's
going to last, that your purpose is the one that's going to prevail, that you
are bigger than that worry or that relationship or that hurt or that need or
anything else.

And so right now, I humble my heart before you by recognizing the greatness of
who you are. And I pray that as I see that, you would lift me up. Lift me up.

Lift me out of this place of hurt or out of this place of need or out of this
place of feeling overwhelmed to experience instead this place of your presence,
knowing who you are, knowing that you are bigger and greater than anything else
I'm ever going to encounter. Thank you for your presence in my life, Jesus. In
your name I pray, amen.

Tomorrow we're going to see a third truth about God's holiness, the truth that
God will not be masked.