“It’s a Miracle: Dagon bows down”
I Samuel 5:1-12
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Back in the early 80s, Harrison Ford starred in a movie called, Raiders of the Lost Ark. It tells the story of a college professor-turned-archaeologist named Indiana Jones, who pits himself against a group of Nazis in search of the lost Ark of the Covenant. As the story goes, Adolf Hitler believed that, if he could capture it, his army would be invincible. So Indiana Jones does all he can to find it first. “It belongs in a museum,” he was often known to say.
The story begins as Indiana braves an ancient booby-trapped temple in Peru to retrieve a golden idol. Then, when he’s forced to give up the idol to rival archaeologist Belloq, he escapes and returns to teach at college.
That’s when two Army Intelligence agents come to tell him about the Nazis and their search for the lost Ark. So off he goes, first to Nepal, then to Cairo, and finally to an island in the Aegean Sea.
As the story ends, as the Nazis capture and open the ark, beautiful, powerful, ghost-like angels come out to kill them and to save Indiana. Then, at the very end, Army Intelligence agents come to tell him that the ark’s been taken to a “secure facility” where it would be studied by “top men.”
Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s a good movie. It’s a fun movie. It has absolutely nothing to do with real archaeology.
When I think of that movie, I also think of a story found in the words of I Samuel chapter 5. It begins with this: “Now Israel went out to battle against the Philistines…When the battle spread, Israel was defeated before the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men.”
If you didn’t already know it, the Philistines were Israel’s enemy number one. After all, they were little more than a bunch of fierce-fighting, hard-drinking, God-hating, heathen women and men. They were so bad that, even today, we use the word “Philistine” to describe someone who’s uncultured, uncultivated, rude, vulgar, a boor. Remember Goliath? He was one of them. They were such a problem for Israel, such a menace, that God even sent mighty Samson to save them.
And now, here they are, once again at war, at a place called Ebenezer and Aphek, smack in the heart of Israel, a good stone’s throw from the Mediterranean Sea.
But there’s a problem. Things are not going well for Israel. In fact, in one battle alone, they lost four thousand men.
So when the people came together at camp, they couldn’t help but ask, “Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines?” In other words, we’re His people. This is our Promised Land. So why isn’t He fighting for us and against our enemies?
It’s a good question, a really good question. After all, not too many years before, the Lord had led them out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and across the Red Sea. As the people marched around the city of Jericho, the walls came tumbling down. So what’s missing? What’s wrong?
That’s when someone had an idea. You’ll find it in the words I Samuel chapter 4: “Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.”
That’s it! That’s the problem! Let’s get the ark, the sign of God’s presence. Then the Lord Himself will come to fight for His people!
So off they went to Shiloh to get the ark of the covenant.
And just as soon as they brought it back into camp, the people of Israel gave a shout, a loud, resounding shout. And when the Philistines heard all the noise, and when they learned that Israel had the ark, they cried, “A god has come into the camp! Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods!”
And what happened next? The Bible says the Philistines fought and Israel was defeated.
Defeated? Huh?! That’s not what it’s supposed to say! They had the ark! Wasn’t God with them, fighting for them?
And not only were they defeated, this time, the Bible says, they lost not four thousand men, but thirty thousand men.
And worst of all, horror of horrors, words that would have struck terror into the heart of every man, woman and child in Israel, the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant, the very presence of God.
It was a loss so traumatic that when Eli, the high priest, heard what happened, he fell over in his chair backwards and broke his neck. And when Eli’s daughter-in-law heard the news, she went into labor and died in childbirth. And in her dying breath, she named her son, Ichabod, a name that meant, “the glory has departed.” God is gone.
So now that the Philistines had captured the ark of the covenant, what next? What would you do if you were a Philistine?
They took it ten miles west to Ashdod, to their temple, to lay it at the feet of Dagon, their god.
So there it was, the ark of the covenant, the very presence of God, held hostage, deep inside enemy territory, in, of all places, a pagan temple. Golden cherubim spread their wings at the feet of a false god.
Sometimes, we can’t help but feel a bit like the ark of the covenant for, in a very real way, we too are being held hostage deep inside enemy-occupied territory, in the midst of a pagan world. False teachings and idolatries of all kinds surround us. Injustice and immorality prevail. Evil prospers. Good suffers. God’s glory is gone.
Is there a war going on? Yes, there is, for now, more than ever, Christianity is under attack.
Two years ago, in March of 2013, Ryan Rotela, a student at Florida Atlantic University, had a class assignment. His professor told him to write the name, “Jesus,” on a sheet of paper, then lay it on the floor and stomp on it. When the student refused, the school took action against him. They accused him of violating the student code of conduct and “intimidating, harassing, coercing, and threatening the health, safety and welfare of other persons.” Really?! Just because he refused to stomp on the name of Jesus?!
In April of this past year, in Kenya, during early morning prayer services, Islamic gunmen burst into a school and took the lives of 147 students. They could have lived if they said they were Muslim.
And just this past October, 26-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer walked into a community college classroom in Roseburg, Oregon and opened fire. “Are you a Christian?” he asked. “If you are, then stand up.”
There’s a war going on and Christianity is under attack.
But you know, there’s something those Philistines didn’t know. They thought the ark of God was in their hands. But in reality, the Philistines were in the hands of God. They thought the room that held their man-made god could hold the God who made man. For that very night, in his very own temple, Dagon fell down before the ark, facedown to the ground.
So the next morning, when the priests came and entered their temple, what should they find but Dagon facedown on the ground.
“What happened?” they thought. “What’s going on? Statues don’t just fall down by themselves, and who ever would have done such a thing in the middle of the night? Certainly not a Philistine!
“Maybe he wasn’t sitting right. Maybe there was an earthquake. There must be some reason why!” So ever so carefully, worshipfully, and respectfully, they picked him up and set him back in place.
Then, the very next morning, wonder of wonders, when they opened their temple doors, what did they find? Not only had Dagon fallen facedown before the ark, this time his head and hands had broken off, making him prostrate, immovable, impotent before the almighty power of God. “Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him,” the Bible says.
Should they have been surprised? Not really. If only they had known the words of David in I Chronicles 17: “There is none like You, O Lord, and there is no God besides You.” Or Psalm 18: “Who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God?”
Even more, had they dared to look inside the ark, they would have found not only Aaron’s rod and a bowl of manna. They would have also found two stone tablets--the Ten Commandments. And they could have read the very first one: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
You know what happened next? It’s really kind of a funny story. It seems the Philistines couldn’t get rid of that ark fast enough. Just as soon as the Lord infested them with rats and tumors, they took it first to Gath, and then to Ekron. And when the people of Ekron saw it coming, they didn’t want it either. They said, “Let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people.”
So they loaded it onto a cart, tied on a couple of milk cows and sent it back home. And, the Bible says, without turning to the right or left, the cows went straight to a town called, “Beth-Shemesh,” “House of the Sun,” lowing as they went.
What message is there in all of this? Just as Dagon once fell down before the ark, so will every knee fall down before Jesus. That’s what Paul wrote to the Philippians: “At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Even more, we should know that even when the very worst happens, when the ark is captured, when good seems to lose and evil seems to triumph, God will win in the end. That is, after all, what Paul wrote to the Romans: “I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor power, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
All thanks be to God!
We thank You, dear Father, for this strange and mysterious story of the ark. Help us to know that, even in our weakness, You are with us and You are strong. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen