Heading off without God // On Solid Ground, Part 8

I've done some dumb things in my life. Really, and I'm pretty sure that you have too – and later, we wear the consequences of those mistakes.  The question is, though – how can you avoid making those same mistakes again? I've said a few times over the last week and a half that I am a confirmed land lover. You give me solid ground beneath my feet any day over a luxury cruise. I love good old terra firma and it turns out we all do because we were made to have solid ground beneath our feet. And that's what we've been talking about recently on this program; solid ground. Now there are things that we do from time to time that are just well, plain dumb. Now they never seem like it at the time but when you look at the consequences, when you look back through the consequences of those decisions with a benefit of 20/20 hindsight, there's only one word for them sometimes and that's dumb. I've been there, you've been there, lets not kid ourselves. Okay, now that we've established the facts your honour, lets get back to those decisions and making sure we don't go there again, isn't that the point? Not repeating our mistakes and one of those mistakes is this; deluding ourselves that we are on solid ground, deluding ourselves into thinking that we can head off in our own direction, on our own and expect God to somehow tag along behind and provide solid ground along the way. Like I said; just plain dumb! If you've been with us over this last week and a half, you'll know that we've been looking at the stories of some people, Hannah and Eli and their family's. Hannah was a woman with a lot of pain but who honoured God and Eli was a priest with position and prestige and not only did he do the exact opposite but as chief priest, in his role, he actually ended up misleading the whole of the nation of Israel. And today, we're going to take a look at how, not only did that have consequences for Eli and his sons but for the whole of Israel. Remember Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, they were bad dudes. These two sons plundered the sacrifices of Gods people, they slept with prostitutes, like these were bad dudes and Eli allowed this to go on and didn't deal with it. And the executive summary of what God thought about them is in 1 Samuel chapter 2, verse 17. It says: The sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord for they treated the offerings for the Lord with contempt. And the central theme that pivot on which this whole story turns is in 1 Samuel, chapter 2, verse 30. It says: God says, "I honour those who honour me and those who despise me I will treat with contempt. That word "contempt" comes up again. And so this bad stuff is happening, the priests are doing the wrong thing and just as it always happens, one of life's storms blows in on Israel. The Philistines come in to attack them. We'll pick it up in chapter 4 of 1 Samuel: Now the Israelites wet out to fight against the Philistines. The Israelites were camped at Ebenezer and the Philistines were camped at Aphek. And the Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel. And as the battle spread, Israel soldiers returned to camp the elders of Israel said, "How come the Lord brought defeat on us today before the Philistines? Let's bring the Ark of the Lords Covenant from Shiloh so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies." (That's a good idea) So the people sent men down to Shiloh, they brought back the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord Almighty who was enthroned between the cherubim. Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were with the Ark of the Covenant of God. And when the Ark of the Lords Covenant came into the camp all of Israel raised up such a shout that the ground shook and hearing the uproar, the Philistines asked, "What's all that was defeated by the Philistines who killed about 4,000 of their men on the battlefield. When the shouting that the Hebrews are doing?" When they learned that the Ark of the Lord had come into the camp, the Philistines were afraid. "A God has come into the camp," they said, "we're in trouble. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Woe to us, who will deliver us from the hand of that mighty God? The God who struck the Egyptians and all kinds of plagues in the desert. Be strong you Philistines, be men or you'll be subject to the Hebrews as they have been to you. Be men and fight!" So the Philistines fought and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent, the slaughter was very great. Israel lost 30,000 foot soldiers. The Ark of the Covenant was captured and Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died. See, Israel was so used to having God on their side; they just headed off assuming that He was there despite the fact all this bad stuff was happening amongst the priests. They deluded themselves, they said, "there's no cause and affect for us, no she'll be right, Gods always on my side". See we take this Mighty God, who created the whole universe and expect Him to become our performing poodle, don't we? He does tricks on our command but Gods not like that, He's awesome, He's mighty, He's powerful and He's good and when we start dishonouring Him, lets not expect Him to keep honouring us. He'll always love us, He'll always forgive us, He'll always bring us close but on His terms and not on ours. We can't sow dishonour in Gods direction and expect to receive honour from Him in return. And the great humiliation of the story is that the Ark of the Covenant itself is captured. This was the place of the very presence of God. Over the next couple of days we'll discover that the people who captured it, once they realised what they had actually realised the power and didn't want God around but that's for another day. Today, there's a simple message in this story; we can't be living out a life of stiff necked rebellion and expect God to toddle along on a leash behind us and bless us on cue and that's exactly what Israel did. They failed the first time and so they send for the Ark of the Covenant, they went and got God as though somehow, they can push God around. When you put it that way it's a bit obvious, isn't it? And to tell you the truth, that's my agenda today, to make this plainly obvious. Lets all take a big wake up call here. See when the storm hits, do you want solid ground beneath your feet? Do you want to know that God is with you? Do you want the certain knowledge that, well He's going to bless you no matter what this world throws at you? Huh, have to tell you, I sure do. Let me go back to this central point, 1 Samuel, chapter 2, verse 30: God says, "I will honour those who honour me..." It's a great promise, "I will honour those who honour me but those who despise me will be treated with contempt." And there's a reason for that, God wants a close, tender relationship with us. In order to have that, there has to be a cause and affect. See God can't bless our rebellion because if He does that, we'll think, "Oh great, I can do anything I want. He'll bless that, all I have to do is call God, bring Him over here on a leash and I'll get blessed". But "anything I want" is not the place of intimacy between God and me, anymore than the place of intimacy between a man and his wife, is in adultery. Come on, it's blindingly, glimpsingly obvious and just to underscore that point in this story, this wasn't some small defeat by the Philistines, this was the mother of all defeats, 4,000 and then 30,000 Israelites were killed. 34,000 men were slain because Israel presumed that God would just show up like He always had even though they had rebelled against and rejected God. And the irony of it all is that Gods people didn't get it but the Philistines did. The moment the Philistines heard the Ark of the Covenant had arrived, they were afraid and so they should have been because God is a mighty God. Let me ram this point home today, right in your face; when we head off in our own direction, in our own strength, in our own selfish ways, on our own and we expect God to just toddle along and bless us - forget it! When we're not in the blessing and the covering and the power of God, obedient to him, when we do that we will reap what we sow, there is no solid ground in that place, none, NONE! Only trouble.