We communicate in many different ways. We communicate with our words, with writing, with signs, and with our behavior. One of the things we need to be careful of as believers is that we are always walking in the way that God wants us to walk. Not only that, but we’re communicating that not only to other people, but to God as well.
There are people who can say one thing but do another. There was a famous commercial about phones and teenagers where a parent and child were yelling at each other, but they were being positive. They were screaming at each other and arguing, but the words coming out were very loving and caring. There was a conflict in the way it was understood. That was the marketing ploy. But that’s not the way we normally live. A lot of the times, the words we say and the actions we take portray a certain way of belief and the way we come across.
We want to make sure that we are aligned with how we speak, how we act, and the Word of God, and what God wants for us.
When God’s People Said No
The story in 1 Samuel 5 takes place before the kings, before Saul and David, during the period of judges. Samuel the prophet was the last judge, bridging between the judges and King Saul. Before Samuel became part of the story, the priest in charge was Eli, and he had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. They lived a certain way of life that wasn’t what God wanted.
Throughout the book of Judges, you hear this repeated refrain: there was no king in Israel, everybody did whatever they wanted to do. People were living as though God had never given the law through Moses and Joshua. They would forget about God, start doing whatever they wanted to do, and go off and serve other gods.
During this time, the people were being oppressed by the Philistines. The Philistines and Israel went to war with each other, and the Israelites got routed. Part of it was because God was dealing with them, punishing them because they weren’t following along and weren’t doing what they were supposed to do.
The Israelites decided to go get the Ark of the Covenant and bring it to the battle. This energized everybody. They thought having the Ark of the Covenant meant God was going to be with them and they were going to beat the Philistines. The Philistines were a little worried because the Israelites were all energized. But they mustered up, went and fought, and wound up beating the Israelites.
Just because the Israelites had the Ark of the Covenant didn’t mean God was going to be with them. God was punishing them. The Philistines beat all the Israelites, killed Phinehas and Hophni (Eli’s two sons who were in charge of the Ark), and worse than all of that, the Ark of the Covenant got captured by the Philistines.
When False Gods Face the True God
After the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod and brought it into the temple of Dagon, placing it next to his statue. Dagon was the Philistine god.
When the people of Ashdod got up early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen with his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. They took Dagon and returned him to his place. But when they got up early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen with his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord again. This time, both Dagon’s head and the palms of his hands were broken off and lying on the threshold. Only Dagon’s torso remained.
That is why to this day the priests of Dagon and everyone who enters the temple of Dagon in Ashdod do not step on Dagon’s threshold. The Lord’s hand was heavy on the people of Ashdod, terrorizing and afflicting the people of Ashdod and its territory with tumors.
When the men of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said the ark of Israel’s God must not stay here with us, because His hand is strongly against us and our God Dagon. They called all the Philistine rulers together and asked what they should do with the ark. The rulers replied that the ark should be moved to Gath.
After they moved it, the Lord’s hand was against the city of Gath, causing a great panic. He afflicted the men of the city from the youngest to the oldest with an outbreak of tumors. The Gittites then sent the Ark to Ekron. But when it got there, the Ekronites cried out that they had moved the Ark of Israel’s God to kill them and their people.
The Ekronites called all the Philistine rulers together and said to send the Ark away. It must return to its place so it won’t kill us and our people. The fear of death pervaded the city. God’s hand was oppressing them. The men who did not die were afflicted with tumors, and the outcry of the city went up to heaven.
The God Who Cannot Be Conquered
This is a really interesting story. The Ark of the Covenant gets captured. The Philistines put it in the temple of their God, Dagon, and they’re waking up and Dagon’s always falling down. It’s like they fall down, they put it back up, it falls down again, it’s breaking off his head and his hands, they put it back up again. Then God’s like, okay, that’s not enough, and He’s sending tumors and killing people. They move it to another city, and everyone’s starting to realize this is God, this is Israel’s God, and He is punishing us.
Imagine the thought that goes into this just for a second. Israel’s God is punishing the people who conquered the Israelites. He is bringing tumors. Later on, when they send the Ark back (because nobody wants it anymore, they’re like this God is too powerful for us, He’s going to wind up killing everybody), they send it back with gold tumors. They make tumors out of gold and make gold rats because somewhere along the line, rats were probably spreading disease throughout the Philistine land.
They make five tumors and five rats, each for one of the big leaders of the Philistines, and send it back to Israel. But imagine the thinking here. Now we beat the Israelites, we conquered them, we conquered the Ark of the Covenant which belongs to their God, but their God is too powerful for our God. Think about what that means just for a second.
They’re realizing that the God of Israel is more powerful than their god. They conquered the Israelites but they can’t conquer the God of Israel. They can have the Ark but they can’t overcome the power of God. They are in the presence of the one true God and their false god cannot stand.
When We Think We Don’t Need God
Think about all the people who are saying no to God today. Think about all the people who are like, you know what, I don’t need religion. I don’t need God. I can do it all myself. I can do what I want. And they’re just living their life. They’re living however they want to live. They’re doing whatever it is that they want to do.
We see this story here about how the Philistines were no match for God. Even though they had conquered the Israelites in battle, even though they had the Ark of the Covenant in their possession, they could not stand against the power of the living God. False gods fall. Human pride crumbles. Self-sufficiency fails.
When you say no to the Lord, you say no to His ways, no to His Word, no to His life. You’re choosing to walk your own path, thinking you know better, believing you can handle everything on your own. But that path leads nowhere good. It leads to emptiness, purposelessness, and ultimately separation from the source of all life.
The Man Who Said Yes
In Mark chapter 5:18-20, we read about what happened after the demon-possessed man in the region of the Gerasenes was set free. Jesus is getting into the boat, and the man who had been demon-possessed kept begging Him to be with him. Jesus is leaving and the man’s like, no, hey Jesus, I want to go with you, I want to hang out with you. I mean, there’s no other place.
Can you imagine? There had to be a little bit of awareness. He knew the life he’d been living. He knew he was being possessed by a demon, but at the same time he couldn’t control it. He knew that life and he didn’t want that life. He wanted to be with Jesus because Jesus was more powerful than that demon, more powerful than a legion of demons.
But Jesus would not let him. Instead, He told him, go back home to your own people and report to them how much the Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you. So he went out and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And they were all amazed.
The Decapolis was a series of ten cities. They were Greek, they were Gentile, and one of the reasons we know that is because there were pigs there, and Jews didn’t have anything to do with pigs or anything to do with swine. So this guy was probably a Gentile. Jesus was going on to help the Jews and minister to the Jews. Having this guy with Him probably wouldn’t have been the best thing because he was a Gentile and people would be like, hey, you’re bringing in Gentiles.
Jesus tells him, no, hey, you know what, go your way, go and tell everybody what God has done for you. And the thing is, this guy does. He goes out there and shares. Later on, when they hit the Decapolis, people are interested in what is going on. Probably because of this guy. This guy was probably the first missionary, the first Christian missionary. He’s going out and sharing what Jesus had done for him.
The Choice Is Yours Every Day
He said yes. He said yes to the things of God. When you say yes to the things of God, you come away with purpose. You come away with peace. You come away with hope. You come away with life.
His life was completely changed because he said yes to Jesus. Yeah, Jesus, I’m not gonna go back to my old lifestyle. I’m not gonna go back to the way things were. I’m gonna go ahead and live the way that you’re telling me to do. And I’m gonna go and praise God and share this with everyone out there.
You can say no to the things of God and live without peace and live without hope and live without life, eternal life. Or you can say yes to the things of God. Say yes to purpose, yes to peace, yes to hope, yes to life.
Even God’s people get caught up in saying no to God. This is not just about saying yes or no in the context of salvation. That’s the first step. We say yes to Jesus. We accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We say yes to Him. But we make decisions every single day.
More than likely, Hophni and Phinehas, they started out right. They started out like priests should start out. And as they went along, they started saying, oh, well, you know, I’m not going to say yes to God, but I’m not going to say no. Let me kind of be somewhere in the middle. And eventually they just started saying no, started doing their own thing.
We have choices every single day. You get to make a choice to say yes or no to God. You have that choice. And from my experience, and what I know, and what you know, and what we read, we always want to say yes.
Yes and Amen in Christ
Second Corinthians 1:19-20 says, “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timothy, did not become yes and no. On the contrary, a final yes has come in him. For every one of God’s promises is yes in him. Therefore, the amen is also spoken through him by us for God’s glory.”
Yes and amen because of Him. Yes and amen because of what Jesus has done. We get to say yes to the things of God. We get to say yes to purpose. We get to say yes to peace. We get to say yes to hope in this life. We get to say yes to eternal life in the next.
When we say no to the Lord, we say no to His ways, no to His Word, we say no to life. But when we say yes, we’re not just saying yes to this life right here, we’re saying yes to eternal life. Say yes to eternal life.
Every single day you have a decision to make, and that decision is for Him. Become a great decision maker for God and say yes more and more each and every day. Be the people that bring Him joy. When He looks down upon you, let Him see people that bring Him glory.
Be like the guy from the Decapolis, the former demon-possessed guy. We don’t even know his name, but we know that he made a difference. You can be the same type of person in this world. Always say yes, because saying yes is the best thing.
Peace,
Todd