The Meaning Of Life

https://biblehub.com/nkjv/1_samuel/7.htm

Moses was given strict instructions on how the ark of the covenant was to be built, the items that were preserved inside, who was allowed to carry it, to touch it, and where it was to be kept, in the Most Holy place. But all of that went to the wayside.

After centuries, the children of Israel slowly turned away from God, and rather than praying and asking God for his advice on going to war, they fought against the Philistines and lost. And then, instead of turning to God for advice and blessings, they decided to fight the Philistines once again, this time taking the sacred ark of the covenant with them, thinking it would give them power to defeat the Philistines.

While the ark of the covenant was sacred and Holy, containing the tables of stone and a measure of manna, the power didn’t come from the ark itself, but rather from God. Instead of trusting God to lead their lives, they trusted a man made vessel. And it didn’t work for them; they were still defeated at war, and not only did they suffer defeat, but the Philistines captured their sacred ark.

It is not my intent to judge or belittle my friends of other faiths, but there are religions today that think if they pray and bow down to a statue of Mary they will be blessed, and to repeat a certain prayer while counting on a beaded necklace, that their sins will be forgiven. The power of God and Christ is not in a statue or a necklace, power comes only through God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit!

Long story short, the Philistines did not keep the ark very long because they were wicked, and unable to withstand what Glory was left in the ark, and they succumbed to disease. So they sent the ark back to Jerusalem.

And even after mourning the loss of the ark, the children of Israel still could not bring themselves back to observing the law, but instead let temptation get the best of them, and they looked inside the ark, of which they were not righteous enough, or authorized to do. And as a result, their sin caused many of them to perish. And yet, instead of recognizing their own sin, they decided to turf the ark somewhere else to get it away from them.

And everything, from the battle spoke about in Chapter 4, through their temptation of the people in Beth Shemesh, was doone without consulting the Lord. And if they had lived for the Lord, loved Him, worshipped Him, and followed His commands, things would have turned out much differently. And to top it off, we find that they were worshiping the false Gods, the Baals and the Ashtoreths. Now Samuel was old enough to judge Israel and he did. And he warned them about idolatry, and scripture says they “put their false Gods away”. What does that mean? Does that mean they simply “put them in storage”, or did they destroy them? The latter is what would have been preferred.

Then Samuel began to judge Israel, and he prayed to God for the strength to defeat the Philistines. And God answered his prayers, and the children of Israel were able to defeat the Philistines all the days of Samuel.

Let these last three chapters of 1 Samuel be a reminder to all, of the hardships we face when we turn away from the help of the Lord, and the blessing we have when we follow Him. That is how God designed this world; originally, He was going to be with us in the Garden and our lives would be in Heaven on earth. But sin changed all of that. The far we drift from God through sin, the lest we are able to withstand His Glory, and the less protection we have from hardship in life. That is not God’s fault, that is our fault. Being close to Christ just offers us an abundance of benefits, just like being close to an umbrella in a downpour has it’s benefits, or proximity to a sprinkler system protects you if there is a fire in the building you occupy.

The bottom line; Christ is our protector, our rock, our healer. And with him, there is no end to the blessings.

Amen.