"An Invincible God"
2022 Chronological Bible • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction
Introduction
For many this morning, I suspect that you are met with a bit of surprise that I haven’t just read from a more traditional passage of the Bible to mark the occasion of Easter Sunday. Though it doesn’t seem far for folks in Devine considering the ease with which we may drive into San Antonio, the Ashdod of which we just read is only 40-miles on the sandal from Jerusalem where the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified and resurrected, and that’s if we set aside the fact that our text today details for us events that took place about 1,000 years before God would abandon Heaven to add to himself human existence.
Why this text, then? Well, we have been reading the Bible together this year as a church from the beginning of what God has given to us as his redemptive story and as we continue on, in December we’ll read about the end. As we have been reading in the Bible so far, one thing I have tried to help us each understand is that the Bible is a book that is about Jesus. One of my favorite preachers says this of finding Jesus in all the Scriptures: “In the Old Testament, Jesus is predicted. In the Gospels of the New Testament, Jesus is revealed. In the Acts, Jesus is preached. In the epistles, Jesus is explained. And in Revelation, Jesus is expected.” - Alistair Begg
So we find ourselves reading this morning from the area of the Bible where Jesus is predicted. As we read along in the Old Testament, awaiting the arrival of the predicted Savior, God is revealing himself to and through his chosen nation of Israel, who when he chose them, were the weakest of all nations. He has faithfully carried them to this point in time, where we discover this about the God who is most perfectly revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ:
The Lord is invincible and you should trust Him only.
Misplaced Trust
Misplaced Trust
When you hear the word invincible, what thoughts come to mind? For me, I begin to think of my past exposure to supposedly invincible people or things that could not be defeated. I remember that as a student at UTSA, many of us would walk around campus with t-shirts that had a football at the center with the words “STILL UNDEFEATED” printed around the ball - UTSA hadn’t formed a football team yet. It’s kind of hard to defeat something that isn’t actually competing, but oh what a day it was when the Roadrunners played their first ever game and won! The best part of the win was that those t-shirts were still good! And that lasted all of a week! I’ve got to say, human creativity and ingenuity has always thought more highly of itself than it should.
Trusting in Idols
Trusting in Idols
The Philistines have come into possession of something known in the life of Israel as the Ark of the Covenant. The ark was a wooden chest overlaid with gold that contained the tablets of the law that God gave to Moses. For Israel, the Ark of the Covenant was the symbol of God’s throne which represented his very presence on earth. In 1 Samuel 4 we are told of how the enemy of Israel came into possession of the Ark.
Israel and the Philistines had gone into battle and about four thousand men where killed by Philistines. By this point in time, Israel had become a nation who were more content to follow their own desires than to follow the Lord who had given to them freedom from oppression and sustained them for decades in the deserts of the Middle East. Embarrassed by the thought that they were so soundly defeated, the elders of Israel gathered and asked something to the effect of, “Why do you think God defeated us today?” And while that question floats in the minds of you and I, as we read from 1 Samuel 4:3, we can immediately conclude that this wasn’t a gathering of Baptists discerning the will of God because, well, there’s an immediate response given in the same verse: “I’m not sure, man, but why don’t we take the Ark of the Covenant with us, 1 Samuel 4:3 “...that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.” That day, the elders of Israel decided that they can wield the power of God.
“Wield the power of God? Now you’ve got my interest, preacher! Tell me about this box that can wield the power of God...” And that’s just it… The Ark of the Covenant was just a wooden box. How is it that a wooden box could save them? Well, as we find out, a box cannot save anyone. God alone is mighty to save! Yet what Israel does is what all sorts of people of our day do. We look for some sort of special power from earthly objects… A lucky rabbit’s foot kept in their pockets. The piece of metal pressed into the shape of an angel that you clip to the sun visor in your car. The silly stuff we wear around our necks. Whatever it is that gives us a false sense of security.
No, those things do absolutely nothing for us, just like a wooden box did nothing for Israel. None of these empty supposed sources of luck can do a thing to save us. No sooner had the mighty men of Israel shouted for joy when the Ark of the Covenant was carried into camp, than their shouts turned to silence at the hands of the Philistines, as thirty thousands of their brethren were killed in battle. Complete and utter despair falls upon the scene for Israel. Thirty-four thousand men KIA. The majority of their religious leadership, dead. So sad is the scene that the pains of labor fall prematurely upon a pregnant woman and as she breathes her last, she asks not for the welfare of her newborn, but says, “Ichabod”, 1 Samuel 4:22 “…the glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured.”
When we place our trust in things of this type, there’s complete emptiness. We live in a fast-paced, high-tech society where thousands of things are competing for our attention, competing for our trust and our investment. We juggle more than the generation before us. We are the most distracted generation yet. I’m guilty of distraction. Some times, when distracted by the numerous obligations I have, I’ve dialed in the GPS on my phone to where ever it I need to get to next. I punch in the destination without any real looking over the path and I hurry on to where I think I’m heading. On more than one occasion, my GPS tells me that I have arrived at a place that is nothing like what I expected. I thought I was headed to one place and wound up in a completely different place.
Friends, this is a picture of our sad, sorry, and sinful world. We’re all capable of believing. We all believe in something and that belief is drawn from a confidence in things hope for.
Where is your hope rooted?
For Israel, they would have said, “The Ark!” Maybe the suggestion of hope in rabbit’s feet and pendants on necklaces is hogwash to you. But if you were to answer this question for yourself, might you say, “my children”? “My grand-children”? “Continuing my legacy”? “My career”? “My wealth”?
Only Jesus can save you. Only Jesus can cleanse you from your sin and make you righteous to stand before God.
None of those other things have the power to save you. In fact, no thing can save you. But one person can. He is the God-man, Jesus Christ.
Trusting in other gods
Trusting in other gods
The exclusive claims of Jesus may be off putting, I know. Our tendency is to want options, to have some sense that we’re in control. If you’ve never been to the restaurant called the Cheesecake Factory, let me give you advance warning, both their food and cheesecake menus go on for days. Too many options. By the time I’ve worked through the menu, I’m exhausted, I’m hangry, and nothing sounds good any more. Yet an abundance of options is what is desirable to some. Imagine the interaction between a waiter and a man as he orders from the menu at the “Faith Factory”.
Waiter: “Good afternoon sir, I’ll be waiting on you today. Can I direct your attention to the section of our menu that covers our offerings of idols?”
Man: “Well, what would you recommend from that section?”
Waiter: “I personally enjoy the idols of control and money. I often order them together.”
Man: “No… No, I’ve had those before. They make me gassy and bloated, but I’m just left feeling empty and wanting more.”
Waiter: “Well, maybe you should consider something from our gods or religions section of the menu. Good works is a personal favorite and if that doesn’t sound appetizing, it seems like billions of people enjoy Hinduism or Islam.”
Man: “Looking over the menu, all of these sound good to me. Can you fix up a sampler platter?”
From what we have read, the Philistines might have really enjoyed a sampler platter.
Returning to the text, the glory of Israel had been relocated to a prominent Philistine city called Ashdod. The glory of Israel was placed within the temple of the chief Philistine god named Dagon. Reviewing the opening verses of 1 Samuel 5, look with me at the verbs that the narrator of the text uses in 1 Samuel 5:1-2. In the ESV, those verbs are “captured”, “brought” (twice), “took”, and “set”. Where Israel thought that they were wielding the power of the Lord by carrying him to the scene of battle, now the Philistines certainly believed that they had defeated the God of Israel and did with him whatever they pleased.
Now, something you’ve got to know is that the Philistines have been a thorn in Israel’s side. They’re rivals in every sense of the imagination. And in acknowledging this, it’s interesting that in their belief that they had defeated the God of Israel, the Philistines don’t try to really bury Israel while their rivals are down by stripping off the gold from the Ark and using the wood as kindling for a fire. What they do is quite interesting, indeed.
2 Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon.
I want to help us realize what is being done here. The Philistines didn’t destroy the Ark because while they believe they had defeated the God of Israel, they believed the Ark to be what contained God himself. In their eyes, Dagon was their guy, but including the God of Israel in the list of gods to call upon would a wise thing for them to do. So they didn’t destroy the Ark, they took the approach of accommodation. By the way, this is a prime example of something called syncretism. The modern sampler version of accommodation and syncretism is something called Universalism. Universalists believe that it doesn’t matter what road life takes you down since all roads lead to Heaven.
Syncretism is a prevailing philosophy these days and something I know personally because it’s in my extended family. They say, it doesn’t matter what you believe, so long as you believe in something! I look forward to conversations with syncretists…I really do. You know, the ones where they start with something like, “Why do Christians believe that their God is the only God?” They might talk about how much more accommodating other faith systems of the world are. I was walking through a book store on Friday and picked up a Koran, something I’d never done before, and found that Islam teaches that the Muslim, the Jew, and the Christian will all go to Heaven so long as they believe in God and are good. That sounds so nice, doesn’t it? Every body gets a trophy, all you have to do is be a good boy or girl.
Here’s the battle line on that rationale… Jesus said,
John 14:6
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
And in case we were to be accused of making too much of a single verse, Jesus also said
13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Jesus is that gate. And it’s abundantly clear that there are not many roads, but one road. That means that when I get asked about the exclusive claims of Jesus, I can lovingly share that there will be a day when Jesus Christ returns physically and literally and at his return, the knee of every god and every human being for all time will bow and the tongue of every last created life will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all to the glory of God the Father. “You mean the living God whose glory is stuffed in next to Dagon here?” Yeah. Absolutely yes. Not a shred of doubt, yes. “How? Are you just ignorant?” No, I’m not.
I look to who Jesus is. I look to the reality of the death he died on the cross as a substitute and atonement for every one who has sinned. I look to the victory of his physical and literal resurrection.
Victorious God
Victorious God
Yet the Philistines would have nothing to do with such notions, and put the Ark of the Covenant right next to Dagon. They were gonna show the thing off, some great spoil of war for their people to look upon and get some great sense Philistine pride. I think of it kind of like back in the summer of 1999 after the San Antonio Spurs had won their first NBA championship. That championship trophy put on some miles that summer. It was set up all around town for kids like yours truly to beg their parents to stand in line for hours to be able to stand next to it and take a photo with it.
I get a sense that there was something similar going on here at the temple of Dagon in Ashdod. Interest stirred among the children in the city streets as the triumphant men of Philistine carried in the Ark and the talk of a great unveiling of the God of Israel in the temple when the morning sun rose the next day was at every supper table in Ashdod. “Dad, can we go see it?” “Of course kids, how often does the God of Israel come here?”
Yet something happened overnight. We don’t know what specifically, but we can imagine that the temple of Dagon was to open at a certain time, and the lines had been building since early in the morning, all the city ready to come take a look. And four minutes before the open, the curator comes fumbling through all his keys to find the one to unlock the door and hastily tidy things up, and then the announcement comes: “Our opening will be delayed indefinitely while we pick up Dagon.” It’s kind of funny and really pathetic at the same time. “Pick up Dagon? Our god, Dagon?” says someone in line. “Yeah, he had a rough night and wound up lying on his face.”
Then the next morning, they go to open things up again, but this time Dagon had an even worse night.
4 But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.
The glory of God was placed in a position of seeming defeat, yet he was never defeated. With each sunrise the invincibility of God was revealed and every enemy of Yahweh laid out in their shame. In all of 1 Samuel 4, Israel revealed their defiance of the one, true, living God by treating the things of God like lucky charms. In our text this morning, the Philistines revealed their defiance of the same living God by treating him as some lesser God to be paraded around like a trophy.
Think to Good Friday with me for a moment. In the greatest expression of man’s defiance of God, the characters involved pursued the power of this world - Judas sought money and acceptance. The Jewish leaders sought to preserve their authority that was rooted not in the living God, but man-made laws. The Roman leaders just wanted to quell any uprisings in the territory they occupied. So they all work together in defiance of God to convict and execute an innocent. The Lord Jesus was innocent! He never sinned! He was and is perfect! And so they nailed the Lord to the cross, his body already ripped to shreds, and it was a bloody mess. And as he hung there, agonizing in excruciating pain while his body weakened from his lungs filling with fluid, the Lord God was defied once more by the mockery of those who surrounded him:
42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.
People today say the same thing. I’ll believe when I see it for myself. Be careful in your defiance, he’s a patient God, but his patience is not without limit.
And from the greatest sense of human defiance we go to the greatest sense of what seemed to be defeat. The sun in the sky hid its face at the shame of what humanity had done. The universe drew silent. The righteous judge of all earth was judged guilty, condemned by a lie in order to bear witness to the truth. A lie that was so incredibly false that the only way to show how false it was was to submit to it. And in submitting to the judgement of the world, the world was judged.
And so, God dies. The body of the God-man is laid in the tomb. And maybe for the first time in all of history, the trumpets of Heaven and Hell both declare the same startling message: Jesus Christ is dead and buried. And in comes the order from the emerald throne of Heaven, communicated with just a glance from the Father to his angels: “sheathe your swords.” And in reigned the hour of power for darkness. Ichabod, surely the glory of God had departed.
The Ark. Captured. Jesus. Judged. The Ark. Set in Dagon’s temple. Jesus. Laid in the tomb.
But the sun reveals what transpires over night. Dagon was toppled. And Jesus, glorious Jesus Colossians 2:15 “...disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them...” in the cross.
Jesus Christ has taken from death its victory. Jesus Christ has taken from death its sting. How?
He got up! Jesus got up! Yes, Jesus was raised from the dead physically. He was once literally dead and had life literally restored to him.
The Ark could not save Israel from the power of her enemies no more than your favorite lucky charms or hopes for accommodating views have power to save you from the power of our enemies, sin and death. But in the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we find a God whose plan was to do more than simply judge sin and death. No, we find an invincible God who sent his Son to once and for all defeat the power of sin and death.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The Lord Jesus reigns victorious for not even death can contain our God! This Resurrection Sunday we worship a death-proof King! Invincible as God is, he’s also loving and gracious. In his love and grace, Jesus Christ the invincible One desires to make you a benefactor of his victory. If you are willing to acknowledge your sin that required Jesus go to the cross, then you’ll never stop celebrating the victory of the empty tomb. I’ll tell you, you cannot arrive at the place of acknowledging your sin and believing that Jesus died for you and believing that Jesus literally rose from the dead by your own ability. It is the power of God alone to save. You can only come to acknowledge your sin and believe upon Christ as Lord when it is Jesus who calls you to life.
Is the risen Lord of all calling you? If he is, be prepared to pick up your cross and follow the crucified King out of the tomb of darkness. The entrance of the empty tomb is the gateway to an everlasting hope, where for all who pass through it is God’s generous enabling to say for ourselves
55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
Glory to God in the highest. Glory to our King, Jesus Christ.