This Sunday, as we continue our series in the book of 1^st Samuel, we are going to be looking at a much longer section of scripture: chapters 5 through 7:2.  In this lengthy passage we see one narrative about God’s judgment on the Philistines who think they have defeated Israel and their God.  After all they have His ark of the covenant that they have stolen from Israel.  So, to celebrate they set the ark in the main worship center of the city of Ashdod right next to their pagan god, Dagon.  They probably assumed (wrongly!) that their god was more powerful than Israel’s God as Dagon “gave them” the victory in their battle with the Israelites.  But it doesn’t go well for them, and they find themselves rather quickly wanting to get rid of the ark.  The bigger problem is that they don’t see, don’t get, that Almighty God is at work; and their need to submit to Him.  But neither do the Israelites: represented by the foolish people of Beth-Shemesh.  Our scripture reading this Sunday is 2 Timothy 3:1-17 where the Apostle Paul speaks about the expanding evils of the end times, and how so many then [now] just don’t get it as Israel and Philistia didn’t.  What can we learn about the responses of Philistia and Israel in these chapters where the text shows people who totally miss what God is doing and saying?  I’ll show you this Sunday morning!

See you Sunday,

Pastor Weaver