RUSSELL SANDERS
1-7-2025
THE LIFE OF SAMUEL
PART 3- THE ARK OF THE COVENANT
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As previously mentioned in yesterday’s message, the Philistines had taken the Ark of the Covenant and placed it in their pagan temple next to their false god Dagon. Dagon kept falling down and its head, and the palms of its hands were cut off, leaving only his stump. It brought such fear that Dagon’s false priests never went into that temple again (1 Samuel 5:5).
The hand of the Lord was heavy against the Philistines for taking the ark. Many men died, and those who did not die were smitten with emerods (hemorrhoids). After seven months of this, the Philistines decided that the only path to relief was to send the ark back to Israel, which they did.
The used milk cows to carry the ark on a cart to Israel and it came to rest at Beth-she-mesh, where there was a very large stone. The Levites took the ark off the cart and offered the cows and the cart as a burnt offering to the LORD. They placed the ark upon that stone, the stone of Abel.
The curious men of Beth-she-mesh opened the ark and looked into it. Consequently 50,070 men died because of what they had done. The ark remained on that stone (1 Samuel 7:2). Then Samuel gathered the people when the people cried for deliverance from the Philistines. The people repented, so Samuel made a burnt offering to the LORD. As he was offering this sacrifice, the Philistine’s army came to battle with them. The Lord brought a great thunder upon them and scattered them which allowed the Israelites to defeat them.
The Philistines were subdued, and Israel retook all the cities that had been taken from them.
In 1 Samuel 7:12, Samuel took a stone and placed it between Mizpeh and Shen as a testimony of God’s help. He called the name of it Ebenezer, which means “the stone of help.”
Samuel judged Israel all the rest of his days (1 Samuel 7:15-17). He is what we would call a “circuit rider” going from his home in Ramah to Beth-el, Gilgal, and Mizpeh every year. He built an altar unto the LORD at his house in Ramah.
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