Day 8: 1 Samuel 4:1–11

When the ark of the covenant of the Lord entered the camp, all the Israelites raised such a loud shout that the ground shook (v. 5).

I have noticed something specific to religious people who do not walk with God. They cannot tell the difference between legitimate faith and superstition. This was certainly true of Israel throughout much of the period of the judges. Finding themselves under the heel of the Philistines—a neighboring, but not neighborly, country—they had gone out to fight against them. But the Israelites met bitter defeat. About four thousand soldiers lost their lives in the battle.

Yet as a people who had rejected and ignored God for a generation, their first question upon being slaughtered by their enemy was, “Why did the Lord bring defeat upon us today?” (v. 3). That’s when the leaders sent for the ark of the covenant. No doubt their thinking ran that their ancestors had carried the ark when God won great victories, so if they had the ark, they would be victorious.

We can take a great lesson from their presumption. The sovereign God loves deeply, but He will not be disrespected. He will not permit us to take Him for granted. He will not honor our neglect.

Genuinely spiritual people recognize that the trappings of God’s presence—such as church buildings, human organizations, even the sacred ark—have no meaning apart from Him. Those who honor Him will respect the symbols of His presence, but they will not worship those symbols. They certainly will not allow them to take His place.

According to the 1 Samuel account, the very ones who despised and disrespected the sacred things of God, Hophni and Phinehas, came with the ark. No way under heaven was God going to give them this victory. They were treating the ark of the covenant as a good-luck charm. The ark had no power to save. Only the God who graced the ark with His presence had that power.

Likewise, the cross has no power to save—only the Christ who graced it with His presence. We must be very cautious to avoid ever approaching the Divine as a talisman.