FBCWest 723 | Even Idols Bow
Recorded On: 08/02/2026
Bulletin
SCRIPTURE READING – Psalms 47
Giving of Selves and Our Offerings
OFFERTORY PRAYER
OFFERTORY MUSIC – Pru Hungate
Praise and Worship
“In the House”
“Praise You Anywhere”
“What an Awesome God”
Proclamation of the Word
Message by Pastor Joe
“Even Idols Bow”
PRAYER TIME / Time of Reflection
“Great I Am”
Sermon Notes
1 Samuel 5:1 – 5 The Philistines took the Ark of God and placed it in their idol’s house, but it fell on its face twice and the second time its head and hands broke off
1 Samuel 5:6 & 7 God ravaged the Philistines with a plague
1 Samuel 5:8 - 12 The Philistines kept moving the Ark to different places, but the plague came to wherever they moved the Ark
Philippians 2:9 – 11 Every knee shall bow
Malachi 4:1 - 3
Scritpures
Transcript of Service
In the last time we spoke, I saw how after Israel lost a battle, they decided what they needed to do was to take the Ark of the Covenant with them into the next battle. But instead of winning, they had a major defeat, so much so that tens of thousands of their soldiers died, and the Ark of the Covenant was captured. This week we're going to discuss how God alone by himself without the aid of anyone else, not only defeats the enemy's idol, but also so causes pain upon them that they voluntarily decide to return the Ark, which means that whatever battle you may be facing, God can give you victory. This message, the message next time, are kind of like a trilogy, they're all dealing with an essence to the Ark of the Covenant, and as a result, I'm going to step back and start where I left off in my message last time. Seeing the Ark, they should have been willing to die for it. I don't want you to be misunderstanding what I think the power of God is. First of all, when there are people who are weak and being taken advantage, it is right for us to defend them. Now if the weak are wrong, it would be wrong to defend them because that would be injustice.
So we should do what is right. When the strong are being improperly dealt with, we should stand up for what is right even though they're strong and may not need our assistance. When it comes to God, He does not need me. As a matter of fact, I may even get in His way trying to defend Him, but it is right to defend our God.
We will see in a message from now where there was a young man who was incensed that the name of God was not defended, and he decided to do something about it. And so we're going to see in this message that anybody's help to defend Him, but it is still right to defend Him. So if you have your Bibles and you should turn to 1 Samuel chapter 5 and we're going to take a look at it. Now the context is that Israel had suffered a defeat. So they thought the problem was that they needed to take the ark of the covenant with Him because in the past they were successful in doing things with the ark and therefore that must have been the problem. And not only did they suffer even a more catastrophic defeat, the ark of the covenant captured by the Philistines. And so that is where we are now. So in verse 1 it says this.
Now the Philistines took the ark of the God and brought it from Ebenezer, that's where it was, to Ashdod. And Ashdod is a town of city to the Mediterranean Sea and basically it's kind of like the capital at the particular time for the Philistines and it's where their supposed God was. And so they took it there. And then the Philistines took the ark of God to the house of Deygun and set it by Deygun.
So their God, the one that they worship, is named Deygun. And so pretty much like a offering because we've defeated the God of the Hebrews, the God of Israel, we're going to take what represents God and as an offering to our God because clearly our God is better than the God of Israel. And so they set it in front of them. But I'm not to them when the Ashdodites rose, arose earlier the next morning, the whole Deygun had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Deygun and set him in his place again. So basically what I see here is God saying everyone will bow to me. So your God, you thought your God prevailed, your God worships me. So he falls on his face, symbol of worship.
Notice no one needed to help God do this. God did it himself. He's that powerful. So not satisfied they took their idol and put him back in his original place. But when they arose early the next morning, the whole Deygun had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. So again, he's bowing before them but and the head of Deygun and both the palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold and only the trunk was left to him. Now I want you to notice there's a very specific word.
It says cut off. It did not say broken. You would think when this idol fell that maybe its head broke off and its hands broke off. That's not what it said. It said and his feet were cut. I mean his hands and his head were cut off. The symbol here is that when you defeat your enemy you cut off their head and sometimes they're hand.
After when there was a young man and when he was victorious he cut off his head. So God is saying not only will idols bow to me, I am victorious over them. Their heads aren't just broken off. They are cut off. So I'm pretty sure that when they came Jaget it was sliced off in the hands.
In essence God is saying I am victorious over your gods. Therefore neither the priest of Deygun nor all who interdeyguns house tread on the thread and ash dot to the state. They were spooked.
They're going way too many. One time there might have been an earthquake or something but this is unusual because that only did he fall down his head and his hands are cut off. So their understanding that something more than their God is in their midst and since they worship Deygun they decided they're not going to approach it anymore. Unfortunately it seems that people who have a hard heart can be in a hard heart. Maybe they should have said, you know maybe this God that we are worshiping isn't God or at least he's not as powerful as the God of the Hebrews. Maybe we should worship him instead but instead they decided we're just going to avoid this place for a while. But God has not finished with them yet.
Now the hand of the Lord was heavy on the ash dites and he ravaged them and spoke them with tumors and his territory. Now some of your translations may say hemorrhoids. Tumors is probably a better translation.
Now the reason they probably say hemorrhoids is because the tumors were generally kind of in the growing region in elsewhere. I believe in I will, the next message will kind of confirm more. I don't believe it's hemorrhoids. I believe it's a probotic plague. God is hitting them with what the dark age is called the black death. God is having a heavy hand on him and they are. Notice it's in a locality where they took the arc. And it's surrounding territories.
We're struck with what I believe and I will comment further in the next message. The plague. And when the men of ash doth saw that it was so they said the arc of God of Israel must not remain with us for his hand is severe on us and on Dagon our God. So again, maybe they should say God is, he's not happy with us. He's not happy with our God. Maybe we should worship the true God, the God of heaven and earth. But no, they said, I have an idea. Let's get rid of it.
We need, it should remain with us because that's the problem. The problem is that they're worshiping the... So they sent and gather all the lords of the Philistines to them and said, what shall we do with the arc of God of Israel? What are we going to do with this situation? And they said, let the arc of God of Israel be brought around to God. So I know we'll move it to another place that we control. We don't want it here, so we'll move the problem to somebody else.
Again, that is not necessary and answer to a problem. And a lot of times that's what we do. We have a problem, so what do we do? We move. And the problem with moving is you take yourself with you when you move or you take your problem with you when you move. And so they said, instead of worshiping the true God, we'll just move it to another town.
And they brought the arc of God of Israel. And after they had brought it around, the hand of the Lord was against the city with very great confusion. And he spoke to men of the city, both a young and old, so that tumors broke out on them. So now he's up the end, not only as he, in my humble opinion, not so humble, gave them the plague.
He's also giving them confusion. They don't know what to do. They're confused in this situation.
God is impacting the city of God because it doesn't belong there. It belongs where it belongs. So God is continuing. He's saying, you didn't fix the problem.
You just move the problem to another area. So more people will suffer. So they sent the arc of God to echron. Arch of God came to echron.
The echronites fried out saying, they have brought the arc of God of Israel around to us to kill us and our people. So the world is spread it out. They're moving the arc. And every time the arc is moved to a new location, people are dying.
And we thought Israel was a problem. You're trying to kill us by moving the arc here. And so they're not happy with the arc being moved. So this is the third time that it's been moved.
And the people already know what the reputation of the arc is. You're going to die. So they sent therefor and gather all the lords of the Philistines that said, send away the arc of the God of Israel. And let it return to its own place so that it will not kill us and our people. For there was a deadly confusion throughout the city. The hand of God was very heavy there.
Now I want you to notice, they came up with the idea. Every place we move it in our territory only means death and confusion. So what is they decided to send it back to where it belonged? That was a decision. Again, the better decision would have been to send it back and say, we're going to worship the Lord God because he is God. But instead they just want to get rid of the problem. But at least they come to the... The men of Israel didn't defend the arc because they used the arc improperly.
No one came to rescue the arc of God. No one decided, I know we'll do. We'll go... Ashtod so that we can get the arc back. God delivered his arc on his own power. He gave victory not because they were worthy but because he is. Because he is God.
So like I said, necessary to defend God because he is the powerful enough to defend himself and he is the one who grants victory. And as we oftentimes sing, the battle is the Lord's. We should give us hope in the sense of when nothing seems... One else wants to help us. We're not helpless. Our God is victorious in battle. And he can deliver no matter what the situation is. He didn't organize a group to raid himself delivered his arc so that the people said we need to get rid of it because again they know who's fighting against them.
Sure they could defeat Hebrews. They could not defeat the God of the Hebrews. So they to surrender. They've decided they're going to send the arc back where it belongs. And the men did not die. We're spitting with tumors and the cry of the city went up to heaven. So they are not the decision wasn't sufficient.
They are still suffering. God is not decision. God is saying until you deliver the arc back to where it belongs, you are going to continue to suffer under my hand. A lot of times we think, well if we just make the right decision it'll be okay. I say no, you follow the right decision with the right action. Unfortunately we're going to see next time. It seems that the enemy of God treated the arc with more holiness than the people of God will when it's delivered. But say something.
And the people who don't follow God take sleep than we who do. In Philippians it says this chapter 2 verse 9 to 11. For this reason also God highly exalted him being Jesus and the name which is above every name. There is not a name more powerful with more authority than Jesus. There is no other name in which we might be saved than the name Jesus. Oh, that if the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth. It doesn't matter if you're living or you're dead. You're a saint or a sinner or one who doesn't is a God.
Every knee will bow. Now you can be a believer confess because it's true or you can be like Deagan who will bow and be cut off and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, glory of God the Father. That one listening to me is going to confess that Jesus is Lord. There are no exceptions. Everyone will confess that Jesus is Lord, presently forever. You can either do it willfully, willingly because it's true in your, or it can do so because of the heavy hand of God. I would say it's probably in your best interest to confess it as a truism in your life. And even if you refuse to, as ultimately the Philistines did, God is God.
Just remove him from our midst. You can live a life that removes God from your midst. And you can reflect this actions in your life, how he's trying to get you to follow him. But there will be a day that you will confess is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
It is much better to worship, to see who he is than to be forced to because you must. And this story, this narrative tells us, it seems like there's no one there to help. And your problem is so immense that nothing anybody can say or do will deliver you from your situation. God can buy himself. Just the need of majority, doesn't need a minority. He doesn't even need one as he showed us in this passage. And the people who were opposed to God recognized it. That is how powerful he is.
He did so in such a way that he got glory in the victory. And I'm sure when he delivered his people from Egypt and some 40 years later, a woman who was a prostitute said, I heard about that God. And what he did 40 years ago to those people, I've decided I'm going to follow him.
I'm sure there are some people who survived the plague who said, you know, maybe out of worship, the God of heaven and earth. Yahweh, Jehovah. I am who I am. This is name. Worship him down. Worship him later.
It's up to you. Now a God's people said.