Well, today’s video is about an iconic passage in the book of 1 Samuel, but first I want to start with a story about a Christian professor who was on a plane next to two businessmen. He struck up a conversation about God and asked, “Do you believe in God?” They had two different answers. One of them said something to the effect of, “Well, of course I believe in God. Look how intricate the universe is. There is no way this universe could manage itself.” But the other said, essentially, “Well, if you look at how big the universe is, even if there was a creator, there is no chance He would be interested in someone as small and insignificant as me.” That is an interesting perspective. Somebody has coined a term for that view: if there is a God, He would be a cosmic watchmaker, one who created the watch, wound it up, set it off on its own, clicked the little bar on the side, and the universe has just been winding down ever since. In that view, they would say that if there is a God, He does not actually care about little old me. He does not care about the intricate details of my life. He is not concerned about all the little things we face here. God is absent; there is no bearing on my life. The universe has been winding away ever since, but this cosmic watchmaker God has no bearing on my life. The spiritual realm is invisible, and since I cannot see God, I do not really believe in a transcendent God. A lot of people would be in that situation. Well, if you are new here, my name is Pastor Ryan Rench. I am the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California. We have been going through a series in 1 Samuel on this YouTube playlist, and we made it through chapter 4 in the last video. Now we are into the second part of the story that started last time. They were in the middle of this battle, and the bad guys, the Philistines, had captured the ark of God and put it in their temple, in front of their god. So today we are going to talk about all kinds of Dagon philosophies. Dagon was the god of the Philistines, the god of the enemies of the Jewish people.
Dagon Philosophies
So we made it through the end of chapter 4 last time, and now we are at the part where the Philistines have won the battle, captured the ark of the covenant, the ark of God, and put it in their temple in front of their god Dagon. Today we are going to talk about all kinds of philosophies about God. There are false gods, and even the idea of no God, that exalt themselves against God, but I am going to lump all of those together in this story as the philosophy of Dagon. We will put everything that is God on one side and everything that is not the God of the Bible on the other side. There is the philosophy of the biblical God, and then what I am calling today the Dagon philosophy. I make these videos for our church. I am thankful for people outside our church who are being helped by them, but the target here is Christians. I am talking to church members, and by definition those are people who believe in God, who believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our sins. And yet even within that circle, that audience, you would probably be surprised how many Christians still have a Dagon philosophy. Even though they espouse the teachings of the Bible for their salvation, they still allow the world to influence their thinking. Maybe that is you. You may not say it out loud, but you think, “Well, I got saved. Sure, I believe in Jesus for my salvation. Yeah, but I prayed to Him, and nothing happened. I have gone through some things, and God was not there for me. Where was God when I…?” They have this accusatory tone, wondering where God was, as they go back to the place of hurt, back to the situation in their life where they got hurt. They remember the pain, the deadness of soul, the distance they felt from God, and they are led to conclude maybe the same thing as that guy on the airplane: “If there is a God, He is not a transcendent God, or He does not care about me. He is too busy with all the big important things of this world to worry about me.” Now, that is a philosophy of the world. It is like a statue you have set up, an image, a god of your own making, but that is not the God of the Bible. You might show up to church, and they open this Book that says something different from the image of God you have created in your own mind. We read a Book that says that not only does God care about you, He cares about you so much that He sent His Son to die for you.
The Gospel in a Nutshell
If you are new to God and new to church, the gospel in a nutshell is simply this: we broke God’s commandments. That is sin. When we have broken God’s eternal commandments, that is eternally serious to God. In your sin, you cannot be in the presence of a holy and perfect God. But while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The eternal God took on flesh, died on the cross, was buried, and rose from the dead to conquer death, and in conquering death, He conquered the very sin that separates us from God. So salvation is admitting that your sin placed Him on that tree, and receiving His righteousness. He gave you His righteousness on the cross. Everyone you know who is a Christian believes that Jesus died for our sin, took our sin on Himself, and in return gave us His righteousness. You are not a Christian unless you personally believe and have personally received that free gift of salvation. That is what the Bible defines as salvation, and you cannot be a Christian unless that is what you personally believe. There are those who have a head knowledge of that. They have grown up with an understanding of God. I was like that. I was a pastor’s kid, and I had a head knowledge of God for a while, but I had never personally received Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour. I went from head knowledge to a personal Lord and Saviour. When my brother asked me, “When did you become a Christian? When did you get born again?” I did not have a good answer, until that moment of birth, when I went from death to life, when I called on Jesus to save me from my sins and made Him my personal Lord and Saviour, and He forgave me. I was a pastor’s kid with a head knowledge for a while, but when I trusted the Lord with my whole heart and soul, that is when I became a child of God. That is when I received the Lord as my Saviour, when I believed in my heart and placed my trust in Him.
Is God Distant?
But very likely those in our church are already saved. But even so, many people watching this video will still have this Dagon philosophy. Even though you have been saved, there are still many who treat God as though He is distant, as though that is His fault. Well, I am just saying that is a false god we have set up. If your view is that God is just this cosmic watchmaker, that is a false god. That is just one example of a false god, but anything that exalts itself against the real God of the Bible is a false god. So if I am ever feeling like God is distant, I cannot allow myself to believe that that is the real God. That is a god I have created. That is a Dagon. That is a false idol. The real God of the Bible says this in Matthew 6: “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” Matthew 10 says something similar: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.” Luke 12: “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.” Now, for some of us there is a little less numbering to do, but every one of your hairs is numbered. “Consider the ravens,” verse 24 says: “Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?” So a philosophy that believes God is distant is a false philosophy of God. Those are nothing new, though. That is sort of in line with Israel’s false philosophy of God in 1 Samuel chapter 5, and with the Philistines’ false philosophy of God. Israel had bought into the world’s philosophy, the Philistines’ philosophy, that God was nothing more than an idol. In the last video we talked about them bringing the ark of the covenant into battle as if it were a genie, a good-luck charm. Now, the ark of the covenant was so much more than that. It was the Almighty God’s representative, but it was not the Almighty God, as if they thought they could contain God in a box. It is as if they were thinking, “Yeah, we can carry our God around too. See, we will carry Him into battle.” “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity. Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb: And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.” “No, you do not carry Me. I am the One who carries you.” If you think you carry God, God is setting the record straight and saying, “That is a false philosophy of who I am.” I am saying that God’s people had allowed the world to change their thinking. The Israelites had allowed the world to change their thinking about who God was. They viewed the ark of the covenant like a good-luck charm. They viewed God as if He were bound to this box, and that was allowing the world to change their thinking. They viewed the ark as nothing more than an idol.
The Self-Sufficiency of God
Now, the old Babylonian Gilgamesh epic describes a flood story where the hero offers a sacrifice, and the gods come swarming like flies because they are so hungry. They have been starved because no one on earth was offering sacrifices. So in that story, it is as if the gods depended on us, on our sacrifices. Again, that is the world’s philosophy, but that is not the philosophy of the Bible. God does not depend on us. I believe one of the main intentions of this passage in 1 Samuel chapter 5 is to help us see the self-sufficiency of God. It is as if God is saying, “Oh, you think your God fell into the hands of the Philistines? No, no, no, no. It is the other way around. You fell into God’s hands, Philistines.” The Bible says the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them. To think that humans compare to God in any way, it does not work like that. We do not enrich the Lord. “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.” We may not say so, but often the world’s philosophies creep into our thinking, and we think, “Well, I am enriching God. I am feeding God.” God says, “You are not feeding Me. I am not hungry.” We sometimes think, “Oh boy, is God not sure lucky to have me? I bring a lot to the table. I sure taught a good lesson in church last week. I have influenced a lot of people over the years. I have sure raised up some good kids. Boy, I am something else. I am a good parent. I sang quite an amazing song last week; boy, I am such a singer.” Or, “I was so encouraging to that person today.” Or, “Man, in congregational singing, I am probably the loudest singer in the whole church. Nobody sings as well as me. I am sure they are not growing nearly as much as I am. Look how far I have come in my spiritual walk. I am such a super-Christian. I bet no one else prays like me. Wow, I am generous. I am such a giving person. I sure hope someone notices how much I give to this church. I bet our whole budget would fall apart without me.” Or you might say, “Everyone is so busy except me. I take the time to notice the outcast. No one would do anything for them if it were not for me. No one serves as much as me. I do so much of the work around here. I do everything.” Or, “Man, I am the only one who cares about souls around here. No one cares for souls as much as me. God is sure lucky to have me.” Now, folks, that is not a Bible philosophy. That is the world’s philosophy. That is the flesh speaking. That is the devil tempting you to take credit when all the credit for anything good belongs to God. That is a philosophy of the world, a philosophy of Dagon, I will call it. I believe that is good for us to hear. It is humbling, but that is a good thing. God says, “The world is mine, and the fulness thereof. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee.”
Dagon on His Face
The world’s philosophy says, “Well, look, our god conquered the puny Israelites’ God.” And God says, “Well, this is just an idol. This is nothing to Me.” So in this story, the Philistines put the ark of God beneath Dagon, their god, and they wake up the next morning… “And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Eben-ezer unto Ashdod. When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. 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.” It was as if Dagon was worshiping God. Now, at our church we do that on Sundays. We fall down on our faces to recognize that God is the One who is exalted. You can worship in a lot of different ways, but as we go through the Scriptures week by week, it is convincing to me, at least, that worship in the Scriptures is associated with bowing. So they are very, very embarrassed about their god Dagon bowing to the ark of the covenant, worshiping God, and they set that thing back up on his pedestal and get Dagon all fixed up again. It says they took Dagon and set him in his place again. They are all embarrassed about that, so they set him up again, and they arose early on the morrow. Verse 4 says, “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.” Man, he was decapitated, and his hands were cut off. In my study, I found ancient archaeological carvings showing the hands of people who lost in battle being cut off and cast before the king as a ceremonial way of showing his victory. So this is a military loss to the God of the ark of the covenant. Maybe the first time it falls, it is a coincidence, but then the next morning it falls, and the head is chopped off, and the hands are chopped off, and it is like, “Nope, it is not a coincidence.” Verse 5 says, “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.” That gives a little historical reason for why they step over the threshold: “Man, that is where his head and his hands were. We do not want to tread on our god.” And it gets worse. God plagues the people with emerods. You can look up the word emerods. It means a hill or a rising, perhaps a swelling in the lymph nodes, but verse 9 says it is a swelling in their secret parts: “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.” Perhaps the armpit and groin area. It does not tell us exactly what emerods are, but in chapter 6 we see the Philistines returning the ark with golden mice, so some have said maybe it was a bubonic plague carried by mice, which could have caused pain in all these areas. But I happen to believe it was probably some kind of hemorrhoids. It does not say hemorrhoids exactly, but it does not need to. The Philistines got the point: Israel’s God is stronger than our god. So they are saying, “Man, get this thing out of here.” Verse 7 says, “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.” The hand of God is sore upon us. So they take it to Gath, another of the major Philistine cities, and the hand of the LORD was heavy upon that city. So they take it to Ekron, marching this thing all over the countryside, but Ekron says, “Man, no way. Get that thing out of here.” Skipping down to verse 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.” In the next chapter, verse 1, it says it was in the country of the Philistines seven months. By now all chance of this plague being a coincidence is gone. They soon realized, “Man, this is the hand of the Lord.” Verse 11 says the hand of God was very heavy there, and they go, “Man, I do not want to be under that.”
Israel’s Defeat Was Not God’s Defeat
But you say, “Okay, what is the point of all this?” Well, the point is that we can learn something about our God from this Old Testament passage. We can even learn from some Philistines. Verse 7 says it right there; I will read it again: “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.” They are seeing all this going on, and they realize, “Look, our god is nothing compared to the God of the Israelites.” One author said it like this: “In sum, the Philistines have now learned the hard lesson which the Israelites themselves learned in chapter 4. No one can manipulate or control Yahweh simply by obtaining possession of the ark of the covenant. He is sovereign and free, and though He is enthroned between the cherubim atop the sacred sarcophagus, the sum of His personhood can never be reduced to it alone. He is not chained to His throne. Yahweh is simply bigger than the Israelite or Philistine theological configuration of Him. They have both grossly underestimated His power and holiness.” Now, it might have looked like God was defeated, but Israel’s defeat was not God’s defeat. God cannot be defeated. It is not as if God was up there all nervous in heaven: “Oh dear, oh dear, what am I going to do now?” No, no, no, my friend. God is self-sufficient. He is the Almighty One. He cannot gain any more power; He already has it all. He cannot get any stronger; He already has all strength. God cannot learn anything new; He knows all things already. He cannot get any smarter; He is already the source of all wisdom. “Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” There might be seasons when it feels like God is distant, or God is defeated, or God is dead, as some have even claimed. But if we are learning anything from the story of 1 Samuel, it is that God will always be victorious. God does not depend on us. When it looks like God is dead, just wait a minute. He is the ultimate Victor. Even if we do not see it, He will have the final say, the final conclusion, the final word. Just read the book of Revelation, and you will see God is not dead.
God Is Not Dead
I put a note in our bulletin about Friedrich Nietzsche’s phrase “God is dead,” which was popularized in the late 1800s. He was despairing over the decline of religious authority in society, and as society grew more secular, he reasoned that it would decline into nihilism, a meaningless existence, no purpose, no reason to live, just existing. His argument was that without God, who had shaped our society for so long, why would people exist? With that premise, I agree. His answer was that you have to find meaning in yourself. And here we are more than a hundred years later, and how is that working out for us? The Disney philosophy is, “Man, just follow your heart, trust your feelings, live your truth.” That is the philosophy of our day. There is no anchor in our lives. There is no mooring of the Word of God in our society. Our society creates its moorings all on its own, coming up with them based on whatever feels good, or, they would say, whatever contributes to the flourishing of society, whatever is good. Hang on. The Bible says, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” There is a philosophy of the world, I will call it a Dagon philosophy, that exalts itself against God. There is a philosophy of abortion that says, “Kill the baby, and it will be good. If you stand for life in the womb, you are the evil one.” That is the philosophy of this world. But God is not mocked by the philosophies that exalt themselves against God. God is not dead. God is not worried about what man thinks. He is the self-sufficient One. He will cause every knee to bow before Him and every tongue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. That is just a Dagon philosophy that is going to end up on its face before the Lord. There is a Dagon philosophy that says, “I have a right to be happy. I can choose my gender. I can decide my fate.” “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” There is a Dagon philosophy that says, “I am the provider for my family. It is all up to me.” And Jesus says, “O ye of little faith.” Verses 32 and 33: “(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” There is a Dagon philosophy that says, “I have got to take vengeance,” or, “I have got to fix somebody. I have got to fix my spouse. Prayer does not work. I have got to do it.” That is a philosophy of God you are not getting from the Bible. You cannot say, “Prayer does not work; I have got to do it. I have got to fix my spouse.” No. There are philosophies that say, “Well, the Bible is full of fairy tales; I have got to do it,” or a philosophy that says church does not work, the Bible does not work, God is distant, God is not interested. Oh, my friend, it is the Dagon that exalts itself before God. You have to hear this today: God will never be defeated. Dagon has been trying for thousands of years now, and God has triumphed over Satan, ultimately at the cross, and He will triumph over Satan in the end, because of the cross and the empty tomb, the resurrection. I am just trying to help our faith here, in believing that God is enough and God is sufficient. It is not “God and I are enough.” It is not about getting God on my side. No, it is about me getting on God’s side.
The Fly and the Elephant
There is an old story about a fly sitting on an elephant’s ear, and the elephant is crossing a rickety old wooden bridge suspended by ropes that look about a hundred years old. It is creaking and swaying, and they get to the other side, and the fly says to the elephant, “Whoo, we really shook that bridge, did we not?” In case you missed it, we are the fly. We preach a lot about serving the Lord and allowing God to use our giftings and all of that, but this study in 1 Samuel is not that. The message of this text basically shows us, “Look, God does not need us to succeed.” He is a pretty big God. He is not bound to us in any way. Modern Christianity says, “Man, do not say God does not need us. I am somebody. I am important. My self-esteem is important.” I have been told by these TV preachers that I can be anything I want: “I am a champion. Find the champion inside me. I need to look inward, and I will find the answers. I am a champion, and I have all the answers in myself.” Folks, that is a philosophy of this world that exalts itself against God. You cannot say, “I am a champion. I need to search inward and find myself more.” God says that is a philosophy of Dagon, and any philosophy that exalts itself against God must be cast down. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” So we just have to be careful that we are not finding meaning in anything other than what Jesus says you are. You are a child of God. You are bought with His precious blood. You are worthy, not in yourself, not in what you bring to the table, but because of what He gives you.
There is a man named Caesar who came to our church camp about ten years ago and made a profession of faith with his uncle, but years later realized he did not fully understand that his sin was what separated him from God. Just a couple of weeks ago we took a couple of hours and went through the gospel. One of his holdups was, “Man, how could murderers and thieves and rapists and adulterers get into heaven just by belief, just by asking forgiveness? Some things just seem too unforgivable. There has got to be something else. They have got to pay for what they have done.” But then we went to the Bible, and it finally clicked: the ground is level at the cross. We are all equally guilty before God. In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Compared to murderers and adulterers and thieves and really bad people, we might say, “I am not so bad.” But it finally clicked with him: “I am not going to be judged on my good works compared to theirs. I am going to be judged on whether I have broken God’s law. Man, you are saying I am as bad as them? Those are the really bad people. You are saying I am as bad as them?” And the answer is, yeah, we all are. We all need a Saviour. That is humbling, but that is what we need. There is a Dagon idol that exalts itself against God, and if it is in our own hearts, that Dagon idol needs to come down. So Caesar saw his sin that day in a new light, and saw Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for us, and Caesar called on Christ to save him, and he was baptized a couple of weeks later. Glory to God for that. Folks, what I am asking is, what false belief are you believing that exalts itself against God? We can give glory to God, but only when we are believing His philosophies, only when we are believing what the Bible says. If there is anything in your life like a Dagon philosophy, any Dagon in your life, it will not ultimately stand. It is best to just surrender it before the Lord today. Well, I think that is a good summary of that chapter, and it is a lesson we can learn from Dagon falling down before the ark of the covenant. I am looking forward to the next chapter. We will see you in the next video and our next study of 1 Samuel. God bless you. We will see you then.
