It is Faithfulness
First Samuel Chapter Four records the Israelite loss of about four thousand men in a battle with the Philistines. The Israelite elders recognized that God had smitten them before their enemies. However, they did not seem to recognize that they would need the Lord to win. Instead, they supposed the Ark of the Covenant would save them if they carried it into a rematch with the Philistines . It is true that their ancestors had lost to the Amalekites and Canaanites when they left the Ark at home, as recorded at the Fourteenth of Numbers. It is just as true that the Ark went with the Israelites in the defeat of Jericho at the Sixth of Joshua. Yet, in the rematch with the Philistines, though they took the Ark into battle, the Israelites lost not only another thirty thousand footmen, but also the Ark itself. It was never just the Ark itself, but the presence and blessing of God, to which the Israelites owed their victories, and God’ s presence depended upon their fidelity to Him. It is not the symbols one may posses of his alleged faith that will save him. It is faithfulness .
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Written and voiced by David H. Prophater