After the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they took it from the battleground at Ebenezer to the town of Ashdod. They carried the Ark of God into the temple of Dagon and placed it beside an idol of Dagon. But when the citizens of Ashdod went to see it the next morning, Dagon had fallen with his face to the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord ! So they took Dagon and put him in his place again. But the next morning the same thing happened—Dagon had fallen face down before the Ark of the Lord again. This time his head and hands had broken off and were lying in the doorway. Only the trunk of his body was left intact.
1 Samuel 5:1?-?4 NLT
I read this this morning and had a lot of different thoughts go through my head about this. First before I go into my thoughts let me give you some background so you can see this in context.
1. The Israelites go into battle and take the Ark of the God with them, they end up losing and the Philistines take it and put it into the temple of Dagon (an idol / their god).
2. The scripture you read above is at this point, the idol falls, they pick it up, it falls again and it breaks
3. Plauges break out across the people of Ashdod (place where the temple of Dagon is located) so they try to get rid of the Ark of God, which gets passed along to a few different place where plagues follow until the people eventually send it back home to the Israel.
So now my thoughts.
OH HOW HE LOVES US.
I have heard the term God is a “jealous” God before. The first time I heard it, I thought it was weird and odd because we tend to associate jealously as bad or at least I did. Then one day I kind of understood the definition of jealously which is ” fiercely protective or vigilant of one’s rights or possessions ” so this kind of helped me understand it a little better.
As I read this passage this morning though, I felt like I could visualize Gods Jealously for me. He wants my attention, my love, my heart. He has created EVERYTHING, and even IDOLS bow down to him. When Idols bow down to him, and then I go and try to pick them up…. God is so jealous for me, that the next time the idol falls its arms and head break off, because it’s an Idol….it CAN. NOT. STAND. next to THE ALMIGHTY. Now, I can choose to pick it back up, glue it back together, and put it back up on it’s nice pretty stand (which honestly when my relationship with God was shallow I probably did this WAY more than I should have, or even knew I did). Or I can choose to repent, keep the Idol down their broken on the floor at the feet of Jesus and just let the Lord love me…. either way the idol will come crashing down, because nothing can stand next to God who is going to fiercely protect me not matter what, because I am his.
