1 Samuel 4 today....... 1_Samuel 5 tomorrow....

Read it and catching up on blogging as quickly as possible... sorry for the delay.
sandJ

Chapter 4: verse 1... kind of a continuation of chaper 3 verse 19-21... all that Samuel said came true... it was from God and upheld by God... and now... du, du, duuuu (suspense music?)... Samuel's word has come to Israel... I don't know why, but the words to a Christmas song popped into my head "You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why..."... for the Isrealites, the remainder of that chorus would be "Samuel is coming to town"... ok, obviously getting tired... sorry for the divergence... moving on... :)
verse 1-3... so, now, after the defeat they are going to include God? already commented on this several times before, so won't go into great detail again here, but really, we should be taking note, so we don't do the same in our own lives... does make me wonder if they asked God if He wanted to be there, or if He thought they should be there... do we sometimes just assume that "where we are God is" instead of realizing that it should be the other way around... that where "God is, we should be"... funny how things don't work out when we try to play God and make Him fall in line with our plans... even funnier how things DO work out when we realize that we need to follow His lead... anyway, just some things to think on...
verse 4-9... interesting that the Philestines, even though they didn't personally know God, yet they seemed to revere Him more than the Isrealites, God's own people
vesre 7... "nothing like this has happened before"... apparently the Isrealites were not in the practice of including God in their daily lives... sad when the people of God are not known for acting like the people of God... sad that that is all too true in our time/lives now.
verse 8... sad, too, that the Philestines didn't even know that God was ONE God, not many gods... the Isrealites were not doing a good job of truthfully and gloryifyingly spreading God's name or fame... again, though, how much better are we nowadays at clearly telling others of who God is and how Jesus can save them... instead, we let outside things seep in, until Middle Eastern countries are saying (truthfully, this is true, maybe paraphrased, but still true), they are saying that they don't want their children to become Christians because Brittany Spears is from the Christian nation and so she must be Christian and they don't want their daughters to be like her.... when will be speak up, as Christians, against those false ideas, and start to clarify what God says a Christian is, and not only verbally clarify it, but begin to bring it into full focus by living it with our lives?!
verse 9... that is a line that should be in a movie like "Braveheart"... wow!
veres 10-11... not surprising... if they don't appreciate what they've got, why should God stay with them?... sometimes we don't realize how great what we have is, until it is gone (I think that is a song lyric of some sort, too... still true though, I think)... why does it have to be that way, though... maybe God didn't mind being with the Philestines, I mean afterall, they gave Him honor and glory and reverence... kind of a hard pill to swallow to think that our "enemies" might have a better understanding of our God than we do... another thing to guard against... and important one, at that.... makes sense that Hophni and Phinehas died, too... their job was no longer needed, as their "employer" was no longer around... sometimes we "work ourselves out of a job" becasue we don't put our hearts into God's work... yes, God is merciful and full of grace... but He is also a just God, and as such must carry through with what is due us when we refuse to repent and turn from our sins and back to Him.
vesre 12... clothes torn and dust on his head... a sign of repentence or just a sign of grief?... makes me think about how sometimes we are just sorry we got "caught", and how that is not the same as true repentence (sorry we that we did it, or even thought to do it at all, and really wish we could undo it and make up for it becuase we realize how sinful and hurtful and bad it was that we chose to do it and we are really sorry for brining pain like that on our dear loving wonderful God...)
verse 13... good old Eli... I am proud of him... he didn't fear for his sons or for the people... his heart was in the right place and he feared for the ark of the Lord... however, it does make me wonder why, if he feared for it so much, he didn't stop them from taking it?
verse 14-18... he died because of the capturing of the ark... no that was not true... at least not totally... he died because of his overindulgence that led to his "heaviness"... that and the shock of it all in his old age... sometimes I think that there are somethings that we can not prevent, but there are plenty of other things that we bring on ourselves.
verse 19-22... odd how it took the ark being captured for the people to realize its significance and importance... I think it is interesting, too, that no one is solely focused on the loss of the ark... they all are duly focused on the loss of personal as well as the ark... makes me think about how often we can be duly minded, and instead of focusing on the glory of God, we can become preoccupied with how it will affect us... it is so not about us, yet we can so easily make it about us, and so often do... yet, when we do, we must remember what happens... whether over time (like throughout the past several books), or immediately (like this chapter)... when we take our focus from being solely on God, the glory of God departs... not to say that God's glory is gone because of us, but that God's glory is gone from us... we can't get rid of God's glory... just like here, God is still God, He is just with the Philestines now... the same is true in our lives... God still remains God, it is just that we do not get to be within His glory... and that is a sad place to be... I think that despite the fire and torture of Hell, the worst part of it all will be that we will be completely cut off from the glory of God forever... I guess in a way, for the Isrealites, this chapter could be titled something like "Welcome to Hell"... or at least the preview... hopefully they will take the hint and choose to not remain there... what choice will we make?
sandJ