NOT LEARNING FROM THE PAST

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

When the ark of the Lord had been in Philistine territory seven months, the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, "What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us how we should send it back to its place."

They answered, "If you return the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it away empty, but by all means send a guilt offering to Him. Then you will be healed, and you will know why His hand has not been lifted from you."

The Philistines asked, "What guilt offering should we send to Him?"

They replied, "Five gold tumors and five gold rats, according to the number of the Philistine rulers, because the same plague has struck both you and your rulers. Make models of the tumors and of the rats that are destroying the country, and pay honor to Israel's God. Perhaps He will lift His hand from you and your gods and your land. Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When He treated them harshly, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?”

1 Samuel 6:1-6

This ends our reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

After capturing the ark of God from Israel, the Philistines held it for seven months during which time the Lord sent great affliction on them in the form of tumors which struck people wherever the ark was being held. This led the Philistine people to desperately seek to get rid of the ark and so we see in today’s scripture passage from the opening verses of 1 Samuel, chapter 6, that they consulted their pagan “priests and diviners”. Look again at those words here:

When the ark of the Lord had been in Philistine territory seven months, the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, "What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us how we should send it back to its place."

They answered, "If you return the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it away empty, but by all means send a guilt offering to Him. Then you will be healed, and you will know why His hand has not been lifted from you."

The Philistines asked, "What guilt offering should we send to Him?"

They replied, "Five gold tumors and five gold rats, according to the number of the Philistine rulers, because the same plague has struck both you and your rulers. Make models of the tumors and of the rats that are destroying the country, and pay honor to Israel's God. Perhaps He will lift His hand from you and your gods and your land. Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When He treated them harshly, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?” Vv.1-6

Here we read where the Philistines were advised to “return the ark of the God of Israel” away empty but rather with “a guilt offering to Him” (Israel’s God). The pagan advisors told the people that if they sent a guilt offering they would “be healed and…know why His (God’s) hand has not been lifted from you."

This led to the Philistines next inquiring about what guilt offering to give to Israel’s God and the guidance was to take “five gold tumors and five gold rats, according to the number of the Philistine rulers” as the “same plague” that had struck the people had struck the rulers as well. And so the people were to “make models of the tumors and of the rats” that were “destroying the country and pay honor to Israel's God”. If they did this, then there would be a chance that the God of Israel would “lift His hand from (them) and (their) gods and…land”.

Of interest here, we don’t know where the rats came into play but perhaps they were the instrument by which the people became infected with the tumors. This is pure speculation but we do know that the rats were involved somehow and this is why they were to be modeled in gold like the tumors.

We should also note here that there was absolutely no certainty that what the pagan priests and diviners prescribed would even work. They certainly weren’t speaking on behalf of God and we know He is the only One who was (and is) in control. No one can dictate to Him as to what He will do.

Going back to the passage for today, we see where the priests and diviners weren’t done counseling the Philistines. For we find them asking one very important question:

“Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When He treated them harshly, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?”

In other words, the Philistines were being rebuked for not learning from the past mistakes of other nations who tried to go against Israel’s God and failed. The pagan priests and diviners were essentially accusing their people of repeating the mistakes of the Egyptians and Pharaoh by hardening their hearts and stubbornly discounting the power of Israel’s God. And so like Egypt and Pharaoh before, the Philistines were now paying a heavy price while experiencing the might of Israel’s God the hard way.

Now, consider how often people today are like the Philistines. They read the scriptures and see all these examples of stubborn, hard-hearted people who willingly choose to either disregard or disobey God. They also can clearly see how God doesn’t tolerate this attitude and behavior, dealing with it harshly with severe consequences, and yet, they refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past and end up being disciplined just as the Lord did in the past.

Further, too many people then repeat their past mistakes over and over again. The truth of the matter is that in our humanity, we each have weaknesses that we seem to struggle with. I know I do.

So how do we deal with those weaknesses, especially when Satan knows how to exploit them and draw us into sin?

We turn to the One and only One who always leads us into righteousness and away from wickedness. For we can only find the strength to overcome our temptations and shortcomings when we place our full faith and trust in Him and Him alone. The bottom line is that we are no way near strong enough to deal with them ourselves for if we were, we wouldn’t keep failing over and over again.

So friends, it’s time for us to let go and let God take control of our lives. If we do then we will find ourselves able to withstand sin’s attacks when they come. If we don’t, then we’ll end up like the Philistines, the Egyptians, and countless other people groups throughout history who had to learn the hard way through God’s imposed consequences and discipline.

There is no doubt that sin is not going away until Jesus returns and will continue to afflict us all until that day comes or when we die, whichever comes first. Until that time, we had better pay attention to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the scriptures…the only guidance that is always perfectly true and reliable…committing ourselves to willful obedience and loyalty towards our almighty Maker and Master for He deserves and expects nothing less than that.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.