Mysteries of God

A question I had recently was, "What do the scriptures call mysteries? When the scriptures talk about the mysteries of God, what topics are discussed in that context?" I felt like if I did a survey of the scriptures that referred to "mysteries of God" I might get an idea of what those things are and also how to obtain them.

What follows are notes I made from investigating the scriptures. I think you'll find them illuminating.

Mysteries of the kingdom (Matt 13:11) (given to the disciples to know these)
Mysteries of God (1 Cor 4:1)
Mysteries of God (1 Nephi 2:16 (in context of Nephi wanting to know his father was right or not)
Mysteries of God (1 Nephi 10:19) in context of Nephi asking about Lehi’s dream of the tree of life
Mysteries of God (Mosiah 1:3) associated with the things already written in the scriptures
Mysteries of God (Mosiah 2:9) associated with the vision Mosiah had of an angel that gave him a message about the Messiah
Mysteries of God (Alma 10:5) associated with preserving the lives of the Nephites
Mysteries of God (Alma 12:9) about the resurrection from the dead and the judgment
Mysteries of God (Alma 26:22) associated with revealing new things and bringing people to repentance
Mysteries (Alma 37:4) in the scriptures
Mysteries (Alma 37:11) about how the hardened Nephites will be brought to repentance
Mysteries (of God) and secret works of darkness (Alma 37:21) associated with the 24 Jaredite plates
Mysteries  (Alma 40:3) concerning what happens to the soul between death and resurrection
Mysteries of God (D&C 6:7) that will make rich and give eternal life
Mysteries (D&C 6:11) great and marvelous, to bring many to know the truth, to convince others of their error.
Mysteries (D&C 28:7) given to the prophet
Mysteries (D&C 42:61 peaceable things, which bring joy, which bring life eternal
Mysteries (D&C 43:13) to be given because of charitable giving
Mysteries of my kingdom (D&C 63:23) as a well of living water, spring up unto everlasting life
Mysteries out of the scriptures (D&C 71:1)
Hidden mysteries of my will (D&C 76:7-10) from days of old, for ages to come, good pleasure of my will concerning all things pertaining to my kingdom. Wonders of eternity. Things to come. Things of many generations. Understanding reach to heaven. Secrets of my will. Things eye has not see, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man.
Mysteries (D&C 77:6) associated with the book sealed with 7 seals. Revealed will, mysteries, works of god. Hidden things of his economy.
Mysteries of the kingdom (D&C 84:19) key of the knowledge of God, associated with the power of godliness in the ordinances of the church.
Mysteries of the kingdom (D&C 107:19) of heaven, having the heavens opened to them. Enjoying the presence of the Father and Jesus.
God revealeth secrets (Dan 2:28) in association with Daniel telling the dream of the king and interpreting it.  What shall come to pass (v29)
Secrets (Amos 3:7) revealed to the prophets before they happen.

Fascinating, huh?

All the ways of saving the righteous and destroying the wicked in 1 Nephi 22

In 1 Nephi 22, Nephi takes some time to give some very general reassurances about the latter-day struggle.

13 And the blood of that great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the earth, shall turn upon their own heads; for they shall war among themselves, and the sword of their own hands shall fall upon their own heads, and they shall be drunken with their own blood.

14 And every nation which shall war against thee, O house of Israel, shall be turned one against another, and they shall fall into the pit which they digged to ensnare the people of the Lord. And all that fight against Zion shall be destroyed, and that great whore, who hath perverted the right ways of the Lord, yea, that great and abominable church, shall tumble to the dust and great shall be the fall of it.

15 For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of men; for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned.

16 For the time soon cometh that the fulness of the wrath of God shall be poured out upon all the children of men; for he will not suffer that the wicked shall destroy the righteous.

17 Wherefore, he will preserve the righteous by his power, even if it so be that the fulness of his wrath must come, and the righteous be preserved, even unto the destruction of their enemies by fire. Wherefore, the righteous need not fear; for thus saith the prophet, they shall be saved, even if it so be as by fire.

18 Behold, my brethren, I say unto you, that these things must shortly come; yea, even blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke must come; and it must needs be upon the face of this earth; and it cometh unto men according to the flesh if it so be that they will harden their hearts against the Holy One of Israel.

20 And the Lord will surely prepare a way for his people, unto the fulfilling of the words of Moses, which he spake, saying: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that all those who will not hear that prophet shall be cut off from among the people.

21 And now I, Nephi, declare unto you, that this prophet of whom Moses spake was the Holy One of Israel; wherefore, he shall execute judgment in righteousness.

22 And the righteous need not fear, for they are those who shall not be confounded. But it is the kingdom of the devil, which shall be built up among the children of men, which kingdom is established among them which are in the flesh—

23 For the time speedily shall come that all churches which are built up to get gain, and all those who are built up to get power over the flesh, and those who are built up to become popular in the eyes of the world, and those who seek the lusts of the flesh and the things of the world, and to do all manner of iniquity; yea, in fine, all those who belong to the kingdom of the devil are they who need fear, and tremble, and quake; they are those who must be brought low in the dust; they are those who must be consumed as stubble; and this is according to the words of the prophet.

24 And the time cometh speedily that the righteous must be led up as calves of the stall, and the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion, and might, and power, and great glory.

25 And he gathereth his children from the four quarters of the earth; and he numbereth his sheep, and they know him; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd; and he shall feed his sheep, and in him they shall find pasture.

26 And because of the righteousness of his people, Satan has no power; wherefore, he cannot be loosed for the space of many years; for he hath no power over the hearts of the people, for they dwell in righteousness, and the Holy One of Israel reigneth. (1 Nephi 22:13-26)

This section has seemed rather ambiguous to me because it is hard to pin down exactly what is meant about how the righteous would be saved from the wicked and how the wicked would be destroyed. In some places it seems the righteous will be saved by power, other places they are saved by the destruction of their enemies by fire, other places they are saved as their enemies are cut off or as Christ executes righteous judgment.

Similarly, the wicked are destroyed or tumble to the dust in a great fall, or they fall into the pit they digged for the righteous, or they fight each other and destroy each other, or they suffer the fullness of God’s wrath, or they are cut off, or they are burned as stubble with fire, or suffer with blood and vapors of smoke, or they are brought low.

In the past I have automatically assumed this all happens at the coming of Christ. But now I’m not so sure if it all happens then. Some of the events seem mutually exclusive ways of being destroyed or saved. For instance, if the wicked kill the wicked, then their destruction isn’t at the Lord’s coming; it’s earlier. And while the wicked will be burned at Christ’s coming, that doesn’t stop the wicked from burning each other earlier.

Eventually I decided this is a case when Nephi lumped it all together. One or other of these different ways will be true at some time, so ti is sort of a multi-purpose prophecy. Its not linear like the Book of Revelation. It’s sort of like saying, “The righteous will be saved by option1/ option2/ option3 /option4 /option5 while their enemies will be destroyed by optionA /optionB /optionC /optionD /optionE.”

Of course I could be wrong.  What do you think?

Nephi’s workings in the Spirit

For behold, I have workings in the spirit, which doth weary me even that all my joints are weak, for those who are at Jerusalem; for had not the Lord been merciful, to show unto me concerning them, even as he had prophets of old, I should have perished also. (1 Nephi 19:20)

The thing that impresses me about this verse is how Nephi continues to think of those people he knew and left behind at Jerusalem. It must have been a solemn thing to know the people one knows have either been killed or carried away captive.

And he doesn’t think of them with any kind of scorn here; you can tell that he sees that he might have been one of them, and it was the Lord’s mercy that saved him from suffering the same fate.  And too, he realized that if he didn’t stay faithful, he could still perish. You get a sense that he felt the precariousness of spirituality that required continual nurturing.

Thoughts on how the armor of God protects us

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I was thinking about Ephesians 6:13-18 about the armor of God recently.  You know the verses, but I’ll just quote them again.

13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; (Ephesians 6:13-18)

Others have talked about how the particular piece of armor corresponds very nicely with its spiritual counterpart, so I want to ask this question – What do these pieces of godly armor protect us against?

I think there are particular evils they help us withstand, so I’ll list them.

Truth protects us from lies and deception that would lull us into carnal security and cause us to waste our days of probation.

Righteousness, when it is a deep part of our nature, makes wickedness ugly and gross so that we want nothing to do with it.  When we come into contact with wickedness and our reaction is “Bleah” and avoidance rather than fascination, we’ve got this bit of armor in place.

Preparation of the gospel protects us from impulsive offers to sin. Preparation fills our time with good which crowds evil out and helps us realize that sin would make our preparation for naught.  We don’t like to discover our time and effort was a waste, so it is good to avoid whatever makes it ineffective.

Faith protects us from fear, uncertainty, and doubt.  Yes, we may deal with uncertainty, but faith prevents uncertainty from crippling and paralyzing us. Faith’s factor of trust in God protects us from fear.

Salvation protects us from the damnation and burden of guilt.

The Spirit protects us with the power to disperse evil when it tries to smother our souls, and it helps us rise from the Fall.  It protects us from Satan-sent feelings of apathy, depression, discouragement, and so much more.  (Some of those feelings may be from chemical imbalances in our body, but Satan also tries to use them, and the Spirit can dissipate those feelings when we pray.)

So, in summary, the armor of God protects us from

--lies

--the natural man’s attraction to evil

--impulsive offers to sin

--fear, uncertainty, and doubt

--guilt and damnation

--smothering negative feelings from Satan

That’s a lot of stuff the armor of God protects us from!  Today let’s be alert to notice when we’re being attack by Satan and use the armor of God to quench those fiery darts.

Isaiah on spiritual battles for salvation

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4 For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.

5 For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.

6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:4-6)

I had a brainwave recently about what v5 means. Previously I thought that bit about “with burning and fuel of fire” referred to the second coming of Christ and how Christ would fight for the righteous and burn the wicked.  And I still think that is a good way to look at it, but I started to see another interpretation for it that fit better with the context of Christ’s mortal life and ministry.

Verse 5 starts by pointing out how every battle they knew involved noise and blood. Then there is a “but” that tells us a contrast, something different is coming. So we are to think of a different kind of battle that doesn’t involve noise and blood. And I think we’re meant to immediately guess Isaiah means spiritual battles.

But how does “burning and fuel of fire” refer to spiritual battles? I suspect the burning part is talking about the fire of the Holy Ghost, and the fuel of fire refers to the people. The battle is a struggle to spark a fire of the Holy Ghost in people. All of this was definitely part of Christ’s mission, to convert with His teaching and testimony.

And the message, of course, is about the coming of the Messiah and His power to save from sin, to break the yoke of Satan’s burden of sin that is laid on each of us and save from the punishing rod of his oppressive guilt. (This is referred to with imagery in verse 4.)

This ties verse 4 and 5 together to the message of “unto us a child is born” in verse 6.

I love it when I discover these kinds of things!  Yaay Isaiah!

The parable of the two sons, hope for the Pharisees

28 ¶But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard.

29 He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went.

30 And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not.

31 Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. (Matt 21:28-32)

This sounds like Jesus is really coming down hard on the scribes and Pharisees, but there’s a little thing there that Jesus says that shows He still holds out hope for them: “the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.”

Jesus held out hope that the Pharisees would ultimately choose to repent, even if others responded faster than them.  It was as though He said, “You think you’re there, but you’re not yet, and there is still a chance for you.”  Of course, if they ever got there, it would be contingent upon their belief in Christ, and realization of their sinful state and need for Christ.  That was their sticky point.

Today let’s choose to seek the Lord early and repent early and rely on Christ for strength early.  Let’s not procrastinate our repentance or exercising our faith.

All the ways the Lord saved Abraham from being sacrificed

15 And as they lifted up their hands upon me [Abraham], that they might offer me up and take away my life, behold, I lifted up my voice unto the Lord my God, and the Lord hearkened and heard, and he filled me with the vision of the Almighty, and the angel of his presence stood by me, and immediately unloosed my bands;

16 And his voice was unto me: Abraham, Abraham, behold, my name is Jehovah, and I have heard thee, and have come down to deliver thee, and to take thee away from thy father’s house, and from all thy kinsfolk, into a strange land which thou knowest not of;

17 And this because they have turned their hearts away from me, to worship the god of Elkenah, and the god of Libnah, and the god of Mahmackrah, and the god of Korash, and the god of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; therefore I have come down to visit them, and to destroy him who hath lifted up his hand against thee, Abraham, my son, to take away thy life.

18 Behold, I will lead thee by my hand, and I will take thee, to put upon thee my name, even the Priesthood of thy father, and my power shall be over thee.

19 As it was with Noah so shall it be with thee; but through thy ministry my name shall be known in the earth forever, for I am thy God.

20 Behold, Potiphar’s Hill was in the land of Ur, of Chaldea. And the Lord broke down the altar of Elkenah, and of the gods of the land, and utterly destroyed them, and smote the priest that he died; and there was great mourning in Chaldea, and also in the court of Pharaoh; which Pharaoh signifies king by royal blood.  (Abraham 1:15-20)

In these verses we can see about six different ways the Lord saved Abraham when he was about to be sacrificed.  Some of them were related to his precarious position and others were of a type that continued longer.

1) His bands were loosed so he could move freely.

2) He was told the Lord would destroy “him who hath lifted up his hand against thee.”    The Lord smote the murderous priest who was trying to kill Abraham, to confirm the wrongness of human sacrifice and His protection of Abraham.  This saved him from being the subject of a continued manhunt once he was saved from that particular prospect of becoming a human sacrifice.

3) The Lord threw down the altars of all the false gods to show His displeasure with their human sacrifices and discourage them from such usage in the future.

4) He was told he would be taken by the Lord away from his father’s house, since they were obviously wicked and consenting to his death.  This would take him from their evil influence.

5) He was told the Lord would lead him by the hand, which would be really reassuring when Abraham didn’t know what would happen.  (Think of a blind person led by the hand or elbow, following gentle tugs.)

6) He was told the Lord would take him and put upon him “my name, even the Priesthood,” which would increase his spiritual safety, since he would have to be worthy and spiritually prepared for that.

So many different ways of saving!  Some of them were immediate, some were more long-term and ongoing.  This makes me wonder if we can see in our lives all the different ways the Lord is saving us.

Today let’s try to discern those different ways the Lord’s salvation is in our lives.

The Ark of the Covenant in Exile: 1 Samuel 5-6

1 Samuel 5-6 tell what happened to the ark, or rather how the ark happened to the Philistines who captured it, and how it came back to the Israelites.

If you remember, the background is that the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant and killed Eli’s two sons, which caused great distress among Israel and led to the further deaths of Eli and his daughter-in-law.

So now what happens?

Jehovah Versus Dagon in a Knock-down Fight

1 And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Eben-ezer unto Ashdod.

2 When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon.

3 ¶And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again.

4 And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him.

5 Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that come into Dagon’s house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day. (1 Samuel 5:1-5)

The first thing the Lord does is knock over the statue of Dagon before the ark.  By prostrating the idol, the Lord hoped to communicate a mild message – “Your god falls/bows before me and thus you should too.”  The Philistines just stood their god’s statue back up.

What did the Philistines think when they found Dagon had fallen down?  They probably thought some Israelites had snuck in during the night and pushed over the idol just to cause mischief.  The supernatural explanation that God or an angel had pushed over the idol does not seem to occur to them, or if it did, it was quickly squelched as unthinkable.  So they go with the natural explanation. 

The funny thing is, both explanations invalidate the power of their idol.  If it was Israel’s God or an angel, then Dagon didn’t have power to save itself, and if it was a mortal that pushed Dagon over, Dagon still didn’t have power to save himself from being tipped over OR to right himself back where he should be.  (This is in contrast with Jehovah, who does have that power.  We can see in the whole account of 1 Samuel 5-6 that God ultimately does have power to take the ark of the covenant back to Israel where it should be, even to the point of using transportation arranged by His enemies.  Pretty impressive, huh?  But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.)

Next the Lord does something a little more pointed.  He knocks Dagon down again, this time in such a way as to break off Dagon’s head and hands.  What is the message here?  “Not only does your god fall before me, your god is powerless and dead, just as he has no hands or head.  You are worshipping the wrong god.”   I read somewhere that in ancient cultures that conquering nations would break off the heads and hands of statues of gods in the nations they conquered, so there is dramatic irony in the Lord breaking hands and head off Dagon in Dagon’s own temple.

I think the fact that Dagon falls twice is meant to show this wasn’t an accident.  It’s supposed to be two witnessing events.

How do the Philistines respond to this?   They totally ignore that big picture message and focus instead on the fact that Dagon’s head and hands fell on the temple’s threshold, and they start treating the threshold as if it is sacred by starting a tradition of not stepping on it!   (1 Sam. 5:4-5)  This seems really bizarre, but it may be they thought Dagon’s second fall meant Dagon wanted to break, and if so, then the place he fell was special for some reason.

We can see the Philistines were persistent in their beliefs.  They were not going to let themselves be swayed by signs that seemed to favor another God over their own, especially since they believed they had captured the Israelite God in battle.  Further, they wouldn’t allow themselves to be fooled by what they might have considered cheap tricks masquerading as signs.  They probably reasoned that if it could be done by human hands, then it probably was.

It might be helpful to consider if there was any better way the Lord could have communicated with the Philistines the mistake they were making worshipping Dagon instead of God.  The signs of having Dagon fall and having his head and hands cut off was simple and clear, but can we think of any better way?  Just for grins, I thought up some options.

·      What if the roof had fallen in on Dagon but not the ark?  It might be hard to see with the roof fallen in.

·      What if Dagon had just been broken into tiny pieces with the ark?  That might just look like Dagon had left, and it wouldn’t do the job of showing he had no power.

·      What if Dagon had been broken into larger pieces?  That still doesn’t give anything better than the simplicity of Dagon losing his head and hands.

·      What if Dagon had fallen by itself with the ark not there?  That wouldn’t communicate anything about the God of Israel having power over Dagon.  The presence of the ark and Dagon falling before it communicated God’s power had the ascendency, even though the Philistines thought Dagon had won the battle at the beginning.

I think those two signs were adequate for their purpose and couldn’t be improved upon.

But the Philistines didn’t listen, so now what?

The Plagues Begin

6 But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof.

7 And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god.

8 They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines unto them, and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about unto Gath. And they carried the ark of the God of Israel about thither.

9 And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts.

10 ¶Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And it came to pass, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of the God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people.

11 So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to his own place, that it slay us not, and our people: for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there.

12 And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven. (1 Samuel 5:6-12)

Next the Lord sends plagues on the Philistines of emerods. The footnote says emerods could be hemorrhoids.   Also, according, to 1 Samuel 6:4-5, we might assume that mice were involved as well.  Some believe the mention of mice suggests that an outbreak of bubonic plague was included.

You’d think the Philistines would be wise enough to say, “Because the God of Israel’s hand is sore upon us and upon Dagon our god, and Dagon has not saved us, we must worship the God of Israel instead, for He has power over us as well as in His own land.”  But they don’t.  Instead they say, “The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god.” (2 Sam 5:7)  (Does anyone else think it strange that they want to keep a worthless god and get rid of a powerful God?)

So they send the ark to Gath instead.  And the same plagues happen in Gath too.  And they try to send the ark to Ekron.

The plagues of emerods and mice were difficult to ignore, as disease, death of one’s loved ones, and destruction of crops usually is.  They seem to observe the plagues began in cities where the ark was, and this led them to conclude that the ark of the God of Israel was responsible.  Thus, Ekron, out of self-preservation starts to connect the dots and protest to save themselves from having to take in the ark.

Now, with our modern understanding of disease theory, we might wonder if the ark was a vector of disease and had some kind of germ on it that was spread by contact.  However, I think the mention of mice involvement in the plague suggests that mice were the vector, with their fleas that would bite humans and spread whatever nasty bug they had.   The Lord could bring plagues at will, as He did in Egypt when Pharaoh would not let the Israelites go.

Another thing I notice is that 1 Sam 6:4, 17 mentions that the trespass offering to appease God would be five golden emerods and five golden mice, one for each Philistine town and lord because “one plague was on you all, and on your lords” (1 Sam. 6:4).  This suggests that the plagues spread beyond the presence of the ark into all the other Philistine cities as well.  The text doesn’t put emphasis on this, and it is worth thinking about why that is.

I think the text wants us to have in our head the image that where the ark comes, the Philistines are plagued and die.  It’s an image that communicates if you come into the presence of God, you will die.  This suggests that we are to learn the principle that to have God come when we are not prepared to receive Him would be a curse to us, not a blessing.  It’s a statement not just about physical death, but spiritual death and being cast out of God’s presence, which leads us to better understand the need to be redeemed and purified.

What to do?

1 And the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months.

2 And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the ark of the Lord? tell us wherewith we shall send it to his place.

3 And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you.

4 Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.

5 Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.

6 Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed? (1 Samuel 6:1-6)

It is at this stage the Philistines decided to get rid of the ark, but they want to do it in such a way as to appease the Lord so the plagues will end.  So there is some discussion about how to do this.

Do they consider talking to the Israelites and asking about the Law of Moses and the rules for trespass offerings?  No.  They consult their diviners. 

There’s a nice little lesson here.  If you want to know how to repent, do you ask those who know about God—apostles and prophets and church leaders--or do you go to leaders of other religions?

The diviners really don’t know what’s going on either.  They say, “but in any wise return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you.” (1 Sam. 6:3)  If you notice, they promise healing, but in case that doesn’t happen, they promise the people will know why they haven’t been healed.  They aren’t committing to a prediction because they are afraid they’ll be wrong, so they’re hedging their bets.

The diviners give directions according to the Philistine idol theology.  The trespass offering must be images of their plagues made out of gold.  To their mind, the emerods and mice have power, so that makes them gods, so they should make idol images and send them with the ark, thinking that the God of Israel will command those plaguey mini-gods to leave them alone.

The one useful thing the diviners say is this:

Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed? (1 Samuel 6:6)

The diviners remind the Philistines of the events of Exodus when the God of Israel plagued the Egyptians to get them to let the Israelites go.  The diviners and the people knew the stories, so they weren’t completely ignorant. 

I think the Lord knew the Philistines knew the story of Exodus, and used that to craft the message to the Philistines.   Just as the Egyptian magicians eventually had to acknowledge their powers (and the powers of the Egyptian gods) were inadequate in comparison to Jehovah, the destruction of the idol god Dagon demonstrated the same thing.   And just as the refusal to acknowledge the God of Israel led to plagues in Egypt, the refusal to acknowledge the God of Israel led to plagues in Philistine territory.

The Philistines were plagued far less than the Egyptians, and they could easily liken the Egyptian’s situation to themselves, which led to a determination of what they should do.  They probably used this reasoning-- “The Egyptians were plagued by Israel’s God for not letting Israel go.  We are plagued and Israel’s God’s ark is here.  We should let something go, but we don’t have Israelites here, just the ark.  Therefore, we should let the ark go.”  

However, they were still in doubt as to whether the God of Israel was really behind the plagues, because unlike in Exodus when Moses warned of the plagues beforehand, these plagues have no prophetic introduction that they can discern.  They just hit.  So the Philistines suspect the truth, but they are in doubt about it.  (They ignored the Dagon idol destruction, remember, and they were reluctant to accept the implications the story of Exodus had for their situation.  The diviners were right to ask them why they were hardening their hearts.)

Because they were still in doubt, the diviners recommend a test. 

7 Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them:

8 And take the ark of the Lord, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go.

9 And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Beth-shemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us.

10 ¶And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home:

11 And they laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods.

12 And the kine took the straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh.

13 And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it.

14 And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the Lord….

16 And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day. (1 Sam. 6:7-14, 16)

The test was a rather ingenious one because it would fulfill two functions for the Philistines.  1) It was a way to wash their hands of the ark.  2) It could become a sign about whether the God of Israel really was behind the plagues they had suffered. 

Their test was simple—require the God of Israel to drive the cart holding the His ark in a specific way to a specific place.  And they make it as hard as possible for it to happen naturally.  It can’t be a coincidence.  It has to have divine intervention to get there.

Let’s see how they construct this test.

1. They put the ark on a new cart.  This could be to show honor to the God of Israel, but it is also an unproven piece of equipment.

2. They yoke two milch cows to the cart.  Milch cows are milk cows and they are not draft animals, so they aren’t trained to pull things.  They probably wouldn’t know how to respond to a yoke and they’d probably have a hard time working together.

3.  They take the calves away from the milk cows.  The cows aren’t going to want to leave their calves.  They’d also probably have discomfort if the milk pressure in their udder isn’t relieved when it should.

4.  The cows and the cart were to be let loose to see where it would go.  No one was to drive it.  It could theoretically go anywhere. 

5.  The Philistines declare that if the cows took the cart straight to Beth-shemesh in Israel, then they would know that Israel’s God was behind the plagues they had suffered.  If it went anywhere else, then they’d figure the plague was just by chance.

Well, the impossible happens; the Lord takes the ark straight back to Israel on the highway to the very town the Philistines named, so in all respects the impossible sign was fulfilled.  Five Philistine lords follow it the whole time, so there are five witnesses that the cart goes straight to Israel.  

Does this have any effect on the Philistines?  Not that we can tell from the text.

The fallen Dagon idol, the plagues of emerods and mice, the unmanned cow cart going straight to Israel could have led to conversion, but it didn’t.  The Philistines tried to resist for as long as possible the thought that Israel’s God was responsible for what was happening, and even when they were trying to figure out how to appease Israel’s God and stop the plague, they were still resisting God.   They would not submit.  Perhaps they saw submission as too costly to them personally and to their culture.  We see here that all the signs in the world can’t convince people who are determined to resist the Lord. 

The Philistines illustrate that the Lord can only do a limited amount with people who refuse to listen to Him. 

1)    He can warn them, to demonstrate His justice and mercy, whether or not they listen.

2)    He can wait, hoping they will repent.

3)    He can use them as instruments of wrath to chastise other wicked people with war.

4)    When something specific needs doing, He can plague them.

5)    He can take them from the earth.

But there’s a cool thing here too. What happened among the Philistines shows me that the Lord doesn’t just want to reveal Himself to Israel; He wants to reveal Himself to the world.  It is human stubbornness, pride, and incorrect traditions that prevent men from seeing the true meaning of the miracles and signs the Lord does. 

Looking at this story in another way, in the capture of the ark by the Philistines and its journey back to Israel, we see a type of Jesus Christ, who allowed himself to be put to death and then raised Himself from the dead, with none to help Him.  “O death, I will be thy plagues: O grave, I will be thy destruction” (Hosea 13:14).

Now, where do you suppose the Lord would take the ark when He’s taking it back to Israel?  Where is the best place in Beth-shemesh to leave it?  He takes it into a field belonging to a man named Joshua.  We don’t know much about Joshua and why he was chosen for this privilege, but note his name means “Jehovah saves.”  That’s an excellent final message, confirming Jehovah can save Israel and Jehovah can save His own holy things.  Jehovah certainly saved the ark.

Sadly, the people in that town didn’t have proper respect for the ark and they ended up plagued too.

Time to Sum Up

1 Samuel 5-6 is hard to apply to ourselves if we are determined to see it merely as an amusing story of the Philistines’ rebelliousness.  What we should be doing is looking for ways in our life that we make the mistakes the Philistines made and figuring out how to avoid those mistakes in the future.

Some Ways God Guides Us

To look at it in a positive way, these chapters tell us about a few of the different ways that the Lord might use to try to guide us back to him when we are way off track.  He may use signs that speak clearly and warn us of the errors we are in.  He may destroy our idols so that we see they don’t have power to save us.  He may allow disease and disaster to bring suffering in our lives in hopes it will motivate us to change as we search for relief and meaning in the experience.   (However, disease and disaster can happen to anybody, so it can’t be used to judge others.) He creates circumstances in our lives that recreate what we know of stories in the scriptures so that we can apply those stories to ourselves and make appropriate changes.  These seem to be for times when we are so hardened that nothing softer works.  (We don’t want to get to that point; it is far better to be quick to obey.)

The Philistines’ reaction demonstrates how efforts to reclaim us may cause us to react with unbelief and resentment.  Because the Philistines knew the story of Exodus and could apply that to themselves, they already knew what their problem was, but they didn’t like the implications.  They didn’t like the message of change that went with it that would require so much of them.  They didn’t want to see that God had a hand in their lives and they rejected that guidance.  So they kept looking for something else and that left them in doubt.  When their pain demanded an answer, they just wanted to know what caused it without letting that push them toward change.  

What would be a better way to react?

Just ask yourself--Who is better at following God’s guidance in this story, the Philistines or the cows that draw the cart with the ark in it?

Consider that even though the Philistines would not allow God to guide them and teach them, God could guide a pair of milk cows to 1) pull a cart with the ark 2) together 3) straight on the highway 4) straight to Beth-shemesh 5) even while every instinct those cows possessed screamed out that they needed to go find their missing calves.

What happened with those cows is encouraging because it shows me that if I am humble enough to listen and obey the Lord, He can guide me even if I am untrained for the task I’m given.  He can guide me to work with others.  His guidance can take me straight to the precise place He wants me to go, even if everything in me screams this was never supposed to happen.

Do you ever feel like those cows—set free in a wide open space with a burden to drag around and you could go anywhere and do anything, but you feel driven to do something specific and you don’t quite know why or where it’s going to take you?  I do, especially about writing for this blog. 

When we notice these things, I think we, like the cows, are meant to be a sign to others that God guides.  Maybe the glory of our lives is the direction we go.  Maybe that direction is obvious to everyone else, even while we ourselves wonder and struggle.  Maybe seeing us make our way slowly but surely in that direction strengthens others in their own faith journeys.

Also consider that just like the Lord guided those cows out of Philistine territory and straight to Israel, the Lord can guide each of us out of Satan’s territory and straight into the Lord’s kingdom.