Thurs.’s Devo - God is Greater

Read: 1 Samuel 5:1-7:17; John 6:1-21; Psalm 106:13-31; Proverbs 14:32-33 The Philistines took the Ark of God to the town of Ashdod and placed it beside their idol, Dagon. The next morning, they went to see the Ark and Dagon had fallen on his face in front of the Ark of the Lord. They set Dagon back up but the next morning they found him face down in front of the Ark with its hands and head cut off. (I would have loved to see the battle that had taken place that night.) Only Dagon’s trunk was intact. *** The people of Ashdod and their surrounding villages were struck with a plague of tumors and they linked it back to the Ark. The rulers decided to move the Ark to Gath. The same thing happened to the people there, so they moved the Ark to Akron. The people of Akron cried out when they saw it coming and begged for it not to come to their city. They were plagued with tumors also. *** It took the Philistines 7 months to decide to take the Ark back to the Israelites. The five rulers of the Philistines all got together and asked their priests and diviners what they should do to get rid of the Ark. The priests told them they had to give it back to Israel and atone to their God. They were to build a new cart and hitch cows that had just given birth to lead it. They were to also put 5 golden rats and 5 golden tumors on the cart. The rats had brought their tumors. If the cows went straight to Israel, they would know that God had caused all this. *** God watched over his honor and the cows went straight to the field of Joshua and stopped beside a large rock. Joshua means “God is salvation”, and the rock stood for Jesus. *** The Levites took the wood from the cart and broke it up for firewood. They sacrificed the two cows and the gold on the rock while the 5 Philistine leaders watched. *** God killed 70 men of Beth-shemesh because they looked into the Ark. The Ark stayed at the home of Eleazar for 20 years. *** Israel mourned because it looked like God had abandoned them. Samuel explained that it was they who had abandoned God. If they wanted to return to the Lord they had to get rid of all their foreign gods and images of Ashtoreh and turn their hearts to the Lord and obey only him. Then he would rescue them from the Philistines. *** Samuel called a meeting at Mizpah where they confessed their sins and had a feast together. When the Philistines heard that they had all gathered at Mizpah, they planned to attack them. The Philistines arrived just as Samuel was sacrificing a burnt offering to the Lord. God spoke so loudly with thunder from heaven that the Philistine were thrown into confusion and the Israelites defeated them. *** Samuel rolled a large stone between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah and named it Ebenezer which means “the stone of help.” This marked the beginning of God helping them. *** The Philistines stopped fighting with them for a while. The Israelites captured the towns of Gath and Akron and restored them to Israel. *** Samuel led as Israel’s judge for the rest of his life and set up court in Bethel, Gilgal and Mizpah to hear their cases. He built an altar to the Lord at Ramah. *** In John, it was almost time for the Passover. Jesus climbed a hill and sat with his disciples. He soon drew a great crowd who came to listen to his teaching. Jesus asked his disciples where they could buy bread to feed all of them. He was testing them. *** Phillip said that even if they worked for months they wouldn’t be able to afford to feed them. Andrew stepped forward and said there was a young boy with five barley loaves and two fish but what was that to this large crowd. *** That was all Jesus needed. He told the people to sit down, Jesus took the loaves and thanked God then began breading the loaves and giving them to the disciples. The bread and fish multiplied in his hands and fed the 5,000 men plus their families. That evening Jesus took his disciples to the shore and told them to sail across to the other side. As they did a storm rose up. They saw Jesus walking on the water and called out to him. Jesus told them not to be afraid and as soon as he entered their boat, they were at the other side. *** Lord, we invite you into our boat. You are our peace and our only way to the other side. You are greater than any god man can manufacture.