Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us today before the Philistines?
The advantages of defeat
This cry of amazement stands between two defeats. Defeat astounded Israel: it fell in despite of priests and religious parade. We should study defeats. Personal and corporate both. Army cadets at Sandhurst and Woolwich prepare to achieve victory by the study of military failures. Good will come of such study in spite of its sadness.
I. Defeat that compels enquiry into our moral discipline is good.
1. Defeat comes as a surprise. We are in the hosts of the Great King. We have been educated to expect victory. Our base, our supplies, our alliances, our history, have led to this.
2. We should be grateful to the first questioner in the Church, who demands research into the Church’s character. “Wherefore?” is the prelude of “Hallelujah.” So, too, in the life of the soul.
3. Enquiry will demonstrate the omission of some condition essential to success. A little later (1 Samuel 7:8) Samuel explains the double disaster. Our “Leader and Commander” has not promised unconditional triumph. “The promises are made to character.” “If ye do return unto the Lord. .. He will deliver you.”
4. Each day may be with us a day of battle.
II. It is no small gain when we see defeat to be the fruit of past neglect.
1. Had Israel been true long before, there would have been no Philistines now to vex and humiliate them. At the conquest of Canaan they had their chance. But fatigue set in, and enthusiasm faded away before the conquest could be completed. Awed and crippled remnants of heathen nations were left. Jebusites in Mount Zion, Philistines on the southwest border. They were the seed of future miseries and shames to Israel.
2. To every Christian there comes a time of special power and possibility. By laying hold on God’s strength it would be easy then to slay our native foes, our inbred sins. Conversion should bring us more than pardon. It should bring the mastery of sin. Too often, the forgiven soul carries into the Christian life sins which, though crippled, are by no means dead. Rightly taught, we should seek their extermination.
III. It is an advantage when defeat proves the worthlessness of superstition.
1. Some sacral warrior, looking on the field with 1 Thessalonians 4:4 slain, cried, “Let us fetch the Ark. .. that it may save us.” Superstition added to sin does not improve the position. Israel called for the Ark, instead of for the God of the Ark and of the nation.
2. High regard for the Ark was natural. Read its history. It was made on a Divine plan; and housed in the Holy of holies; it was the resting place of the Shekinah. By grand histories it had taken a deep place in their reverence and love. Here lay the danger. It is easy to cling to the visible loved symbol, whilst the invisible world of truth for which it stands is “let slip.” We may carry to life’s battlefields all our religious methods, and fail in the fight. Faith in God would have purified their hearts (Acts 15:9) and made them heroes in the fight. The historian Napier, speaking of our army in Spain, said, “Incalculable is the preponderance of moral power in war.” Superstition may be described as moral faith lowered from the living God to things. It is incapable of faith’s valiant movements. It has no grip of God.
3. Superstition shows itself in the Christian congregation. A modern form of it is Ecclesiolatry. The Church is unspeakably great, sacred, and dear. And it is not difficult to set it in the soul’s faith and love as a rival to God.
IV. It is a gain when defeat removes unworthy leaders. The peril of Israel lay as much in their leaders’ unworthiness as in their own vices. The nation was like a drifting ship. With men of high character at the helm she might have recovered leeway. But of her steersmen two were drunk with iniquity, and one lacked energy to the point of criminality. It was necessary to get rid of these helmsmen if the ship’s company was to be saved. First, Hophni and Phinehas were slain (1 Samuel 4:11). Next, Eli fell. With the death of these men a new era opens--the epoch of Samuel. Storms shake rotten wood from living trees to make way for fresh and healthy development.
V. Though defeated, we may win on the same site ere long. The battles were fought at Ebenezer (1 Samuel 4:1). Here the armies met again soon (1 Samuel 7:12). Then victory sat on the banners of Israel. It was a day of praise and monument raising. We improve our record of deeds done when we improve our character. (1Sa 7:2; 1 Samuel 7:4.) Let no man lose heart. Rather let him seek victory through repentance and faith in God alone. Defeat is not God’s design for us. “Thanks be to God which always causeth us to triumph in Christ.” (James Dunk.)
Let us fetch the ark. .. that when it cometh among us it may save us. (Compare with 1 Samuel 4:10, and 1 Samuel 7:3.)--
Superstition and religion
“Let us fetch the ark.” What was the ark? It was a chest made of wood. It was overlaid with pure gold, within and without, and crowned with a mercy seat of pure gold. What was its purpose? It was a material thing representing a spiritual idea. It was a thing made with hands to symbolise things not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. It was a temporality pointing to a spirituality. That is how humanity deals with unseen presences; it makes visible vestures for them, garments that can be touched. Here are ten thousand men, a nation’s army, moving with one step, to one music, on one mission. They are possessed by one sentiment, that of patriotism; they are swayed by one idea, that of freedom. But these sentiments and ideas are intangible, spiritual, unseen. The nation must give them visibility; they must become enshrined in vestures that can be handled and seen. So we give our army a flag, and a flag which cam be touched represents the unseen which cannot be couched; it represents patriotic sentiment, national enthusiasm, the common hope. Through that flag there gleams the idea of duty and of right. To abuse the flag is to insult the nation. The ermine which our judges wear is the symbol of an idea. That visible robe represents the unseen vesture of authority with which their fellow men have clothed them. All these are visible representatives of unseen forces and powers. Our very instinct leads us to give these unseen presences a local and visible habitation and name. And here was God, an unseen Power, and men hungered for some material symbol to represent the unseen and eternal. And God said: “Make an ark of wood and gold,” and it shall stand as the symbol of the meeting of God and man, the confluence of time and eternity, the blending of the unseen influences of heaven with the unseen aspirations of earth. Now the character of symbols depends upon the character of man as men become better, symbols become enriched. As men deteriorate symbols become degraded. Is that not so with the commonest of all symbolism which we call language? These words which I am now addressing to you are all symbols which I am using to represent my unseen thought. The corruption of language follows the degradation of man. Language loses significance; it becomes debased, and its deterioration must be traced to its essential cause in the deterioration of man. It is the same with other symbols besides language. They become emptied of their royal significance when men lose their royalty. The more high-minded is the soldier, the more illustrious is his flag; the more debased is the soldier, the more vulgar is the flag. And so symbols wait upon character, they can become gradually impoverished in their meaning, until at length they become as empty as those shells which are strewn in myriads along our shores, empty houses which have lost their tenants, forsaken and lifeless forms. But now, mark you, a strange foible and trick of human nature. When our feelings and enthusiasms have deteriorated, and the symbols have lost their life, we are prone to hug the empty shell, and we delude ourselves into the belief that the empty symbol can do what only could be done by its living guest. Thoroughly bad men wear a crucifix, an empty shell, a cross without a Saviour. One of the most notorious criminals of our time was found with a crucifix next to his skin. Now let us realise their position. They had lost the purity of their character, and they tried to pervert a religious symbolism into unreligious magic. They thought that a dead symbol would do the work of a living devotion, and that is superstition. It would be just as reasonable for a man who was being drawn headlong to ruin by drink to seek end save himself by putting on a blue ribbon, a symbol of sobriety, and yet to continue to grovel in the waste and slough of passion and lust. For bad men to send for the ark to protect them is evidence that their religion has degraded them into the grossest superstition. There are homes in which Bibles are kept, not to be read, but because their presence is supposed to surround the home with a certain sanctity and protection. But are we not prone to use these symbols and means as the Israelites used their ark, to obtain a sort of magical protection from physical peril, and not deliverance from the captivity of sin? And is not the divine purpose of prayer sometimes forgotten, and is it not often employed as a spell to save us from poverty and loss of danger, but not from sin? There is a short paragraph in the life of one of the saintliest men of our time which I will read to you, as it specially illustrates my argument. In one of his letters, written in manhood, he writes: “Once I recollect I was taken up with nine other boys at school to be punished, and I prayed to escape the shame. The master, previous to flogging all the others, said to me, to the great bewilderment of the whole school: ‘Little boy, I excuse you, I have particular reasons for it.’ That incident settled my mind for a long time; only I doubt whether it did me any good, for prayer became a charm. I knew I carried about a talisman--which would save me from all harm. It did not make me better, it simply gave me security.” Will you mark that last phrase? “It did not make me better; it simply gave me security.” That was what the ark did for the Philistines; is that all that prayer does for us--composing our fears but not affecting our morals, giving us a sense of security, but not delivering us from our sin? If the exercise has been thus debased, it will betray us when we need it most; refuge will fail us when we stand at last in the presence of the pure and holy God. (J. H. Jowett.)
A superstitious and religious use of sacred things
(1 Chronicles 13:14):--In the first text the children of Israel say, “Let us fetch the ark of the covenant out of Shiloh unto us.” The bringing of the ark then from Shiloh was a free and spontaneous act on their part. They had a purpose in sending for it--to save them out of the hand of their enemies. Remembering what had been done at Jordan and at Jericho through the instrumentality of the ark, they were satisfied that by having it with them they would be able to triumph over their foes. Consequently, on its being brought into the camp there was great joy on the part of the Israelites (1 Samuel 4:5) and great consternation among the Philistines (1 Samuel 4:6-7). The Israelites were disappointed in their expectations, for they, instead of being victorious, were defeated with great slaughter (1 Samuel 4:10-11). From the second text we learn that the ark came into the house of Obed-edom more by accident than anything else. He did not send for it; he did not express a wish to have it; and he had not even the expectation of its ever being brought into his house. These incidents, when placed side by side, are very instructive. The Israelites sent for the ark, and took it with them to battle, but for all that they lost the day. Obed-edom did not send for the ark, but only received it into his house, and the Lord blessed his family and all that he had. To the Israelites, who sent for it, the ark became a savour of death unto death; but to Obed-edom, who received it into his house, the same ark became a savour of life unto life. In the one case the ark was a snare, and in the other a blessing.
I. The superstitious use of sacred things. On the part of an irreligious man there is a tendency, when in sore straits, to betake himself, not to God, but to reading the Bible, or to what he calls prayer, in the hope that by “sending for the ark” his difficulties will be removed. And on the part of all there is a danger of our looking upon things sacred as charms, and therefore of contenting ourselves with keeping the Sabbath, reading the Bible, going to church, partaking of the sacrament, as if some special virtue was of necessity connected with the simple discharge of these duties. They are useful and profitable as means, but it is only in that light that they can profit anyone.
II. The religious use of sacred things. Respecting Obed-edom very little is known, but we are warranted in believing that he was a good man. He reverenced the ark not for its own sake, but as the token of God’s presence, and he was therefore blessed in his house and all that he had. His conduct suggests the profitableness of religion at home,
1. It is necessary to observe the word that is employed. It is not said that he was enriched, that he was made a prosperous man, or that he was raised above difficulties or trials. He was blessed.
2. He was blessed in his house, in his own person, in his family, in his dependents.
3. He was blessed in all that he had. He may have had burdens, he may have had trials, but he was blessed in his business, in his joy, in his sorrows. (P. Robertson, A. M.)
The form and spirit of religion
As is man, such must his religion be. Now, man is a compound being. To speak correctly, man is a spiritual being: he hath within him a soul, a substance far beyond the bounds of matter. But man is also made up of a body as well as a soul. He is not pure spirit, his spirit is incarnate in flesh and blood. Now, such is our religion. The religion of God is, as to its vitality, purely spiritual--always so; but since man is made of flesh as well as of spirit, it seemed necessary that his religion should have something of the outward, external, and material, in which to embody the spiritual, or else man would not have been able to lay hold upon it. Our religion, then, has an outward form even to this day; for the apostle Paul, when he spoke of professing Christians, spoke of some who had “a form of godliness, but denied the power thereof.” So that it is still true, though I confess not to the same extent as it was in the days of Moses, that religion must have a body, that the spiritual thing may come out palpably before our vision, and that we may see it.
I. In the first place then, the form of religion is to be reverently observed. This ark of the covenant was with the Jews the most sacred instrument of their religion. And, indeed, they had great reason in the days of Samuel to reverence this ark, for you will recollect that when Moses went to war with the Midianites, a great slaughter of that people was occasioned by the fact that Eleazar, the high priest, with a silver trumpet, stood in the forefront of the battle, bearing in his hands the holy instrument of the law--that is, the ark; and it was by the presence of this ark that the victory was achieved. It was by this ark, too, that the river Jordan was dried up. And when they had landed in the promised country, you remember it was by this ark that the walls of Jericho fell flat to the ground. These people, therefore, thought if they could once get the ark, it would be all right, and they would be sure to triumph; and, while I shall have in the second head, to insist upon it that they were wrong in superstitiously imputing strength to the poor chest, yet the ark was to be reverently observed, for it was the outward symbol of a high spiritual truth, and it was never to be treated with any indignity.
1. It is quite certain, in the first place, that the form of religion must never be altered. You remember that this ark was made by Moses, according to the pattern that God had given him in the mount. Now, the outward forms of our religion, if they be correct, are made by God. His two great ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are sent for us from on high. I dare not alter either of them.
2. And as the form must not be altered, so it must not be despised. These Philistines despised the ark. To laugh at the Sabbath, to despise the ordinances of God’s House, to neglect the means of grace, to call the outward form of religion a vain thing--all this is highly offensive in the sight of God He will have us remember that while the form is not the life, yet the form is to be respected for the sake of the life which it contains; the body is to be venerated for the sake of the inward soul; and, as I would have no man maim my body, even though in maiming it he might not be able to wound my soul, so God would have no man maim the outward parts of religion, although it is true no man can touch the real vitality of it.
3. As the outward form is neither to be altered nor despised, so neither is to be intruded upon by unworthy persons. The Bethshemites had no intention whatever of dishonouring the ark They had a vain curiosity to look within, and the sight of these marvellous tables of stone struck them with death; for the law, when it is not covered by the mercy seat, is death to any man, and it was death to them. Now, you will easily remember how very solemn a penalty is attached to any man’s intruding into the outward form of religion when he is not called to do so. Let me quote this awful passage: “He” (speaking of the Lord’s Supper) “that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”
4. And now, let me remark, that the outward things of God are to be diligently cared for and loved.
II. Now, it is a notorious fact, that the very men who have the least idea of what spiritual religion is are the men who pay the most superstitious attention to outward forms. We refer you again to this instance. These people would neither repent, nor pray, nor seek God and his prophets; yet they sought out this ark and trusted in it with superstitious veneration. Now, in every country where there has been any religion at all that is true, the great fact has come out very plainly, that the people who don’t know anything about true religion, have always been the most careful about the forms.
III. And now, in the last place, it is mine to warn you that to trust in ceremonies is a most deceitful thing and will end in the most terrific consequences. When these people had got the ark into the camp, they shouted for joy, because they thought themselves quite safe; but, alas, they met with a greater defeat than before. Only four thousand men had been killed in the first battle, but in the second, thirty thousand footmen of Israel fell down dead. How vain are the hopes that men build upon their good works, and ceremonial observances! But there is one thing I want you to notice, and that is, that this ark not only could not give victory to Israel, but it could not preserve the lives of the priests themselves who carried it. This is a fetal blow to all who trust in the forms of religion. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Regard for the Ark of God
I. ‘Tis so natural for men to claim the divine favour, in spite of their impieties; and when they disgrace the sanctuary, to rely upon the outward advantages and immunities of it. And ‘tis to be feared the case is too much our own, to be confident of God’s defence when we renounce Him in our lives, and to boast of the purity of our religion when we shelter our vices under it. Upon this calamity what counsel do the Israelites agree upon? Is there a solemn day of humiliation appointed by them? Do they resort to the Tabernacle of the Lord with tears and supplications? Do they bewail their own iniquities, and those of their forefathers? It was madness in them to presume that God would be their champion, as long as they retained their vices.
II. We know what mighty veneration was paid to the ark by God’s express institution; and that He gave it to His people to distinguish them from the idolatrous world, both by a token of His extraordinary tuition, and by reserving them to Himself as a peculiar treasure.
III. To return then to the Ark, and Eli’s passionate concern for it, let us consider the grounds and reasonableness of it:
1. With reference to the dignity of the Ark; and,
2. With regard to the danger of it.
(1) I begin with the first excellency of the Ark, as it was the symbol of God’s Presence. “There I will meet with thee” (Exodus 25:22). This then is the consequent thereof, That God blesses and defends a people with whom He dwells: And supposing the world to be governed by His Providence, we must acknowledge the necessity of His protection to succeed in any enterprise. To this purpose I shall argue upon two heads:
(1) That we may be secure in God;
(2) That we can be so in nothing else.
(1) That we may be secure in God, may appear upon three undeniable grounds; that no counsel can prosper in opposition to His wisdom; that no resistance can be made to His infinite power; and, that nothing can happen to us without His determination. From these considerations it may be seen how dismal a calamity it is to loss the protection of God; and how safe a nation is under this refuge, and this alone Let us compare it with the imbecility and deceitfulness of all human supports; none of which can bear the weight of our confidence, or justify our reliance upon them; and much less exclusively to God.
(2) Having thus considered the Ark, as it was the authentic token of God’s Presence; let us regard it, as it was the centre of the true religion: for thither the sacrifices were commanded, and the prayers of the congregation went constantly along with them; and to worship before it was in the sacred style to appear before the Lord.
For the plainer view of that assertion we may briefly consider three things.
(1) That religion is the greatest improvement of human nature, and does more distinguish it than all the endowments of reason: and that which raiseth the dignity of a man, and gives him the most honourable character, must in proportion increase the lustre of a community.
(2) Religion doth by a natural tendency promote the temporal peace and prosperity of a nation.
(3) Religion doth by a moral efficacy make a people happy, in that it engageth God to favour and protect them; His Presence goes along with the Ark of His testimony; and they that serve Him faithfully, have an especial title to the guardianship of His Almighty goodness.
(3) Supposing then, that pure religion is the greatest blessing of mankind, as united into public bodies, what more naturally follows from hence, than that good men ought to be affected as Eli was, and to be most warmly concerned for the Ark of God?
I shall briefly subjoin four reasons:
(1) Because the honour of God is dearer to them than anything else.
(2) Because nothing is more valuable to good men than what they expect in a better world; and desiring charitably for others what they justly prize for themselves, they consequently make religion their leading care.
(3) Another reason of concern for the Ark may be this, because God’s protection is removed from a people together with His presence: and hereupon, in the prophetic vision, the glory of the Lord departed out of Jerusalem, to presignify the destruction of it. Wherefore, if God departs from a land, nothing but darkness and desolation can follow: and religion is the only way of retaining Him.
2. This brings me to a prospect of the Ark, namely, as it may be in danger by the sins of those who are in possession of it: and so it actually went into captivity, when the heart of good Eli was trembling for it.
(1) This judgment of God’s removing Himself, and His Ark, is sometimes inflicted for national impenitence, when God hath long waited in vain for repentance of public sins.
(2) Another cause of God’s removing His Ark, is the contempt of Divine truth, and the undervaluing of revealed religion, and of the Holy Scriptures. And when we treat them with scorn and niceness, or with sceptical pride and curiosity. No monarch will endure the despising of his royal proclamations: and we cannot think that God is less jealous for His holy word. The Tables of the Law were kept in the Ark, to intimate what value God was pleased to stamp upon them.
(3) A cause of God’s withdrawing Himself and His Ark from a people, is the profaning of His worship: and this was the flagrant enormity which make it a spoil to the enemies of God under Eli’s administration.
(4) Divisions and contentions about religion are another cause of desolation to it.
(5) Lastly, the abuse of the means of salvation, and unfruitfulness under them, doth often provoke God to withdraw them. And ‘tis what our Lord threatens to His own people, the kingdom of God (that is, the Gospel, with the rich privileges of it) shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
IV. And now to conclude with some inferences from what has been said.
1. Considering how necessary to us God’s protection is, let us secure it as well as we can, and be careful not to unqualify ourselves for it. What the sins are that are most obstructive to our public peace, it is the business of the day to enquire impartially; and to dispossess them by prayer and fasting.
2. Considering that the great felicity of a nation is to have the true religion established in it, let us put a grateful value upon the communion of our Church; and bless God for the inestimable advantages of it; and improve them so well as to procure the continual preservation of them.
3. Considering how we ought to tremble in all the perils of the Ark, let us implore the Divine grace, that we may seriously lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; and let us ask our own consciences whether we have not deserved that God should take sway His gospel from us?
4. Let it be considered, that though we could be certain of having the Ark of God always with us; yet we should not be nearer to Him, nor to everlasting bliss, unless our adorations towards it were pure, and our lives answerable thereunto. And let us thus maintain the credit of our Church, and when the lustre of it will not be impaired by any eclipse. We think our religion is the best in the world; and if it be so, let not those that have a worse outstrip us in any virtue: let us strive to excel them in zeal and integrity, in peacefulness and moderation, in probity and temperance. (Z. Isham, D. D.)
The Ark of God in the camp
Two great lessons were taught the Israelites by God’s revelation and dealings, viz., the peril of irreverence, the peril of superstition.
I. Professing Christians, when contending with their spiritual foes, are tempted like Israel to take refuge in superstition, to put the form for the reality. For instance,
1. Mistaken view of sacraments. Reception of sick and dying regarded as a guarantee of safety.
2. Mistaken use of the Bible. Supposed virtue in the bare reading of a chapter. Like Pharisees of our Lord’s days, or Saul of Tarsus before conversion.
3. Mistaken view as to use of certain religious language--a “shibboleth.” These may be all either means or signs of grace, and may be full of blessing; but in themselves they are profitless, like the ark without God’s presence.
II. Professing Christians, trusting to such expedients, meet with disastrous failure.
1. What did the ark contain? The tables of the law, which only condemned. These ungodly men only proclaimed their own condemnation. The law cannot save.
2. What gave it its special holiness? The presence of the Sheckinah on the mercy seat; God manifesting Himself in atonement of sin. When this was absent, the ark could not save, any more than the temple saved Jerusalem from her foes.
III. Professing Christians should learn herefrom some important lessons.
1. God values the substance more than the shadow, the reality more than the form. He will even sacrifice His own ark rather than let it conduce to superstition.
2. God rejects superstitious worship, and requires the heart and sincerity.
3. The presence on the mercy seat alone gives strength for conflict or peace in trouble. (Homilist.)
The Ark of God
1. Learn that the formal is useless without the spiritual. There is the ark, made as God dictated--a sacred thing: the law is there; the mercy seat is there. Yet Israel falls by the arms of the Philistines, and the sacred shrine is taken by the hands of the idolaters. The formal never can save men; the institutional never can redeem society. This is, emphatically, the day of bringing in arks, societies, formalities, ceremonies. You have in your house an altar; that altar will be nothing influential in your life if you have it there merely for the sake of formality.
2. Learn that religion is not to be a mere convenience. The ark is not to be used as a magical spell. Holy things are not to be run to in extremity, and set up in order that men who are in peril may be saved. “That it may save us.” That sounds like a modern expression! To be personally saved, to be delivered out of a pressing emergency or strait--that seems to be the one object which many people have in view when identifying themselves with religious institutions, Christian observances and fellowships. We must not play with our religion. We might guarantee that every place of worship would be filled at five o’clock in the morning and at twelve o’clock at night under given circumstances. Let there be a plague in the city--let men’s hearts fail them with fear--and they will instantly flock to churches and chapels. That will not do! God is not to be moved by incantations, by decent formalities, and external reverence. He will answer the continuous cry of the life.
3. We learn that the Philistines took the ark of the covenant. But though they had captured the ark, that sacred shrine made itself terribly felt. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Ark of God of no avail
It seemed a brilliant idea. Whichever of the elders first suggested it, it caught at once, and was promptly acted on. There were two great objections to it, but if they were so much as entertained they certainly had no effect given them. The first was, that the elders had no legitimate control over the ark. The custody of it belonged to the priests and the Levites, and Eli was the high priest. There is no reason to suppose that any means were taken to find out whether its removal to the camp was in accordance with the will of God; and as to the minds of the priests, Eli was probably passed over as too old and too blind to be consulted, and Hophni and Phinehas would be restrained by no scruples from an act which every one seemed to approve. The second great objection to the step was that it was a superstitious and irreverent use of the symbol of God’s presence. Evidently the people ascribed to the symbol the glorious properties that belonged only to the reality. And doubtless there had been occasions when the symbol and the reality went together. In the wilderness, in the days of Moses, “It came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, Lord, and let Thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Thee flee before Thee” (Numbers 10:35). But these were occasions determined by the cloud rising and going before the host, an unmistakable indication of the will of God. (Numbers 9:15-22). Yet even superstitious men believe in a supernatural power. And they believe in the possibility of enlisting that power on their side. And the method they take is to ascribe the virtue of a charm to certain external objects with which that power is associated. The elders of Israel ascribed this virtue to the ark. They never inquired whether the enterprise was agreeable to the mind and will of God. They never asked whether in this case there was any ground for believing that the symbol and the reality would go together. They simply ascribed to the symbol the power of a talisman, and felt secure of victory under its shadow. Would that we could think of this spirit as extinct even in Christian communities? (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
Sin the reason of defeat
“The elders” hold a kind of council. Where were Eli the judge and Samuel the prophet? Neither had part in this war. The question of the elders was right, inasmuch as it recognised that the Lord bad smitten them, but wrong inasmuch as it betrayed that they had not the faintest notion that the reason was their own moral and religious apostasy. They had not learned the A B C of their history, and of the conditions of national prosperity. They stand precisely on the pagan level, believing in a national God, who ought to help his votaries, but from some inexplicable caprice does not; or who, perhaps, is angry at the omission of some ritual observance. What an answer they would have got if Samuel had been there! There ought to have been no need for the question, or, rather, there was need for it; but the answer ought to have been clear to them; their sin was the all-sufficient reason for their defeat. There are plenty of Christians, like these elders, who, when they find themselves beaten by the world and the Devil, puzzle their brains to invent all sorts of reasons for God smiting, except the true one--their own departure from Him. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Reliance on religious symbols
If this hypocrisy, this resting in outward performances, was so odious to God under the law, a religion full of shadows and ceremonies, certainly it will be much more odious under the gospel, a religion of much more simplicity, and exacting so much the more sincerity of heart, even because it disburdens the outward man of the performances of legal rights and observances. And therefore, if we now, under the gospel, shall think to delude God Almighty, as Michal did Saul, with an idol handsomely dressed instead of the true David, we shall one day find that we have not mocked God, but ourselves; and that our portion among hypocrites shall be greater than theirs. (William Chillingworth.)
God only for a crisis
Once an old Scotch woman was on board a steamship crossing the Atlantic. She was terribly afraid of storm and wreck. One day the wind and storm began to rise. Immediately she besieged the captain of the steamer with anxious questionings as to danger. At last the captain solemnly said, “Well, madam, I think we shall have to trust in the Lord.” “Oh,” cried the old lady, “has it come to that?” Such is a by no means uncommon tendency--to push away recognition of dependence upon God to the time of some great and squeezing crisis, and to refuse to remember that in the common calm of every day we are as much and as really dependent upon God. That is not true faith that grasps at God only in a crisis.