The Philistines Worldview Disrupted, Dagon's Instance

Hello, good evening

Tonight I'm covering an instance in the book of First Samuel 5

and we're going to cover the first five verses. And I'll give you a background, and then we're going to go from there

But before I do that, let me share my screen, and I'll give you an overview of the post today

So basically, I want to start with this statement. Like, God does not need you or I or anybody to defend him

He expects us to adequately present him as the Holy Scriptures describe him

So basically, he doesn't want you to try to paint a different picture by using your own eloquent words

All he expects from us as his people to present it from the Holy Scriptures and ask the Holy Scriptures to present him

So I've seen way too many people get caught up in arguments about defending on the faith, which is fine

Apologetics is good. We have to do that. But sometimes the danger is we're trying to, as we do that, we're trying to use our own intellect

And then we distort on the scriptures. So God himself has given plenty of evidence from his scriptures

So all he wants us to do is this. Look, present it the way you say, don't try to change it

Don't try to make it say what you're. it doesn't say. Now, I was having a conversation with one of my good friends. His name is

Albert, and I made the following statement, I said, contending for the truth in this day and age

is harder than it has ever been. And what I think there's some truth to the statement

I've recognized that contending for the truth isn't something new. It's always been this way

And like this idea of having like this relative, uh, political correctness and having this idea of God as like the relative, like, oh, well, you do what you want

I do what I want. Basically, relativism has been something that has been around for years

So it's not like something new today. It's just that we live in a different world now

And it's a different era, but it's still the same concept. And this instance in 1st, on Samuel 5, talks about it

So that's what we're going to be covering tonight. So I don't want to waste too much time talking, so we're going to get into the scriptures

and I'm going to read on the passage. All right? So, 1 Samuel 5, verse 1 to 5

Now, the Philistine, they had captured the Ark of God, and they took it back to Ashdad, which is a Philistine town

And I'll take it from here. Now, when the Philistines captured the Ark of God

they brought it from Ebenezer to Astard. Then the Philistines took the Ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagan or Dagon and set it up beside Dagon or Dagon

And when the people of Ashtar rose early the next day, behold, Dagan had fallen face downward on the ground before the Ark of the Lord

So they took Degan and put him back in his place. But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Degan had fallen face downward on the ground before the Ark of the Lord

and the head of Dagan and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold

Only the trunk of Degan was left to him. This is why the priest of Dagan and all will enter the house of Degan

do not tread on the threshold of Degan in Ahtar to this day. All right, so this is the passage, and now I'm going to jump into the PowerPoint presentation

and we're going to take that, and I'm going to kind of go from there

Okay, so the title is the Philistines, and I need to spell that better

World view disrupted. Deagan's instance. So again, I gave you the background, and this is the questions that I'm going to explore

What was the Philistines' attitude toward spiritual matters? And the next question is, how were they challenged

All right? And now, how did they view spiritual things? Now, this idea of coexist

Like, people think it is a contemporary. matter like they think this is something new but it's been around and how do i know that let's take a look at

verse one and two when the philistines capture the ark of god they brought it from ebenezer to ashdad then the philistines took the ark of god and brought it into the House of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon Now in the Philistines mind capturing the Ark of God

basically acquiring the God of the Hebrews, was just another routine conquest. They were just

collecting all the gods they could conquer in order to use them for their own benefits

So capturing the Ark of God meant to them capturing another God and adding into the

collection of gods. Now, folks do that today. When while vacationing, they collect like artifacts

and visit different religious temples just for the sake of experimenting like other religions. Like you

hear people, I watch this stuff on Netflix and you hear people that always want to travel to

different places in the world like India, China, Africa or whatever, wherever they go and they just

want to go into these temples and you just want to worship like those people. They just want to have that

experience. So to them it's just like, well, I'm just going to add more of these to my knowledge

or my collection of gods or my collection of little things that I've done in my life. You see what

I mean? Like it's some kind of preference thing. Let's go on to the next. Now, I highlighted

House of Dagon and Beside. Now, the reason why I did so is because they were adding to the

house of Dagon, more gods. They conquered. See what I mean? Like, this is the equivalent of people

putting in the back of their cars, the sticker that reads, coexist, which basically is another way of saying that religion is a matter of preference

which is true because religion is man-made. But what the Philistines fail to recognize

which will discover in the next verses, is that they treated the Ark of God the same way

but soon discovered an important statement God made about himself. I am holy, and there is none

beside me. And we're going to look at some verses that kind of like highlight those attributes

of God that he says about himself. Let me lower this real quick

Oh, actually, it's right here. Okay, so the first one I talked about was

1 Samuel 2-2. There is none holy like the Lord, for there's none beside you

There's no rock like our God. All right, and the next one is 2nd Samuel 722

Therefore, you are great, O Lord God, for there's none like you and there's no God beside you according to all that we have heard with our ears, senses, all right

And the next one is Isaiah 45, 6, that people may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there's none besides me, me as in God talking about himself

I am the Lord and there's no other. You see what I mean

So those are things that God said about himself. So keep this in mind, House of Degan and beside

We're going to go to the next slide. Now, Degan fell face down

How? Now, they woke up the next day, only to see that Degan was bound down to the Ark of God

And the question I had to ask myself is this. How did they think that the Statue of Degan move

Now, there are three options that I had. Clearly, no one would dare to move Degan from his initial position to bowing down to the Ark of God

Only Hebrews could be temps. to do that, but they weren't there

So that possibility had to be ruled out, right? They weren't there to do that

They couldn't defend it. They had been conquered. They have been defeated

Now, second option and the second inference I can make is that they thought they

they gone deliberately moved to bow down to the ark. And the third one is this

Like, or they thought it happened by accident. But I don't think that's the case

Because you know why? the arc of God was put beside Deagon and the next day when they woke up, he moved, right

And he was bowing before the Ark of God. So there is clearly a motion

So those two words imply that there was motion and he wasn't accidental. It couldn't move that way

Now, I don't know if that's a 90 degree angle or not, but it could just not move on its own

So that leads me to option number two. they thought Dagan moved to bow down to the arc and consequently they didn't like that

and didn't like Dagan's decision to, so they took matters in their own hands and they moved

the idol back to his initial position So they moved Dagan back to where it was before because they didn like that Dagan had to bow down They didn like it And they actually thought that Dagan moved on its own And the following day they were about to make another discovery

And that's what we're going to go next. Right? Now, but when they rose early on the next morning, this is verse four

Behold, Dagan 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. Now, the arrogance in their attitude was the fact that they even thought that Dagan was actually capable to move on its own

That's the gravest mistake they could have made to assume that a dead statue was capable of motion on its own

And the Lord exposed it by dismembering Dagan and putting his hands and head in the most shameful place possible, the threshold

This is probably the place where Dagan worshippers will leave their shoes prior to entering the

House of Dargan, that's what I'm assuming, right? They will leave the shoes there

That's the reason why God put the head and the feet and the hands over there

Now, only Dargan's trunk was left to him, and God was making a point to the Philistines

What he was saying is this, your idol is dead. He cannot hear, he cannot see, he cannot move a single part of his body apart from me

I will defy Dargan by putting its most precious parts on the threshold to show you just how

worthless your God is. And to understand that we need to check out what Paul said in Athens

And this is recording Acts 17, 22 to 32. So let's go up there. We're going to take a look at it

So Paul is in Athens and he sees that the whole place is given over to idols and he's like moved in

his spirit. He just wants to talk and tell him, guys, you need to leave this alone. And this is

address that he, this is what he talks about when he goes to the Ariopagus. And this is a place where a lot of people met to just talk about the new thing that was like popular. You know, they went there and they just talked about new dark streams, new things that came, new spiritual stuff. It's like the new age. People just want to talk about what is new now. Or yes, now we do this. So the Ariopagus is the place that was a place to go. They did nothing but just talk about new stuff. So Paul took the opportunity and he went there and this is what he says

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Ariopagus, said, Men of Athens are perceived that in every way you are very religious

For as I passed along and observed the object of your worship, I found also an altar with his inscription to the unknown God

What, therefore, you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God will make the world and everything in it being Lord of Heaven and Earth

does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed

anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from

one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined

allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God and

perhaps fill their way toward him and find him. Yet he is

is actually not far from each one of us. And the next sentence is important

In him, we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said

for we are indeed this offspring. So what Paul was saying in verse 28 was this

we are all capable of motion, we are all capable of moving our fingers or our mouths to speak

because of God. Without God, you can do nothing. because we live and brave in him so we totally depend on him

See, Paul said, I am what I am by the grace of God. And God said to Moses, I am who I am or I am what I am because of nothing

So I'm going to continue to read this. Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone

an image formed by the art of an imagination of man. the times of ignorance God overlooked but now he commends all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge or judge for the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead some were laughing at it They mocked But others say we will hear you again about this

Now, this is funny. Now, these are guys that are, like, purely superstitious. They have, like, religion

Yet, Paul mentions the resurrection, and they are laughing at it. So do they actually really believe in all these things

Probably not. It was just, for them, it was just a game. Because they were really religious, but then they laughed at the resurrection

Now, let's go back to the PowerPoint. Now, the holiness of God

Now, the exclusivity of the Lord. It's important for believers to be familiar with the doctrine of God

And I would recommend R.C. Sprold lecture on the holiness of God

It's so good. Like, he talks about it and he breaks it down for you to really understand it

If you get a chance, I will recommend it. Now, there are assertions that he has made about himself

I am holy means that there's no one like me. meaning God

This is what he said about himself. I'm holy. I'm set apart. There's no other like me

I'm transcendent. Like there's no one that you can compare me to because I am who I am

There's no one like me. Now, God doesn't need you or I to defend him

But what he really requires from us is that we present him just as he is

We live in a day of political correctness. We're presenting and sharing the doctrine of God

we'd be so offensive to a lot of people. They are just like the Philistine idolatrous

They just want a convenient God. And then presenting Yahweh the way he is

is really, people don't like that. You see what I mean? Like, check the verse below to understand the thought

Like, in verse 7, which is the verses after what I read

the men of Ashtar, when they saw how things were going, this is what they said

The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is hard against us

and against our Deagon, our God. Now, check this out. This is interesting

They put themselves before their God. You see, as they check the order of things in the sentence above

the people of Ashtar put themselves ahead of their God. They basically wanted to worship a God they could also control

Basically, this is what it was. They didn't like the fact that Daegon was bound down to the Lord

And Daegang couldn't even move. God moved it. But they didn't like it

So they moved it. and then the next day they found what happened, they didn't like that either

So they said, we don't like this. So therefore, God sends against us and against our God

Basically, they put themselves ahead of their God. Basically, this is saying

we want to worship a God that we can control, a convenient God that serves us

You see what I mean? And this leads me to my concluding thought

Now, ultimately, it isn't the lack of evidence that prevents people from acknowledging the Lord

as the only true living God. It is unbelief, unbelief and their unwillingness to submit to his authority

That's what people don't like. They don't like it. Now, people want a convenient God that they can control

and no one can control the Lord of Host, because we live and brave in Him

He is who He is. We depend on him. He doesn't depend on us. And then the other thing is this

like no one can believe in God, I mean Yahweh, the Lord of Host

unless he changes the disposition of the own hearts. Like the evidence the Philistines saw still didn't lead them to believe

They still, they knew it, but that did nothing for their, the way, they changed their way

of things. They still worship their own idols. They just wanted to get rid of God

They just wanted out of their lives and they just wanted to continue to do what they wanted

And so it's only by God's grace that one can be moved to believe. It's not something that we can do

on our own. It's God has to open our eyes to see these things and he has to grant. as repentance for us to believe

All right? And I'm going to stop sharing my screen here. Now, I will encourage you to really go and study this yourself

Like, take your time, read it, and allow the Holy Spirit to, like, eliminate your mind

And then take some time, don't rush it. It's really critical that we really understand the importance of really spending quality time in scriptures

Tonight is a heavy night for me. You know, I've been struggling a little bit

But I'm hoping that God is good, and I know He's good. It's been a rough, rough Christmas season

But I still say Merry Christmas to you. And have a good night