GOD WILL NOT SHARE HIS WORSHIP WITH ANOTHER
The Philistines had defeated the Israelites in battle and had captured the Ark of the Lord. They assumed that the Ark would make a nice addition to their temple to Dagon, so they placed it next to the idol of Dagon.
The Philistines were a seafaring people that had settled along the shores of the Promised Land. They fashioned an idol of Dagon as a kind of mer-man, with the upper half being a man and the lower half a fish.
After they defeated the Israelites in battle, they may have assumed that Dagon was more powerful than Yahweh. So they put the Ark, which represented Yahweh’s throne next to the image of Dagon as a kind of defeated subject. Or perhaps even more likely, they added the Ark to Dagon’s temple thinking that they would worship Yahweh too, as polytheistic peoples are want to do. In this way, they covered all their bases. For they had heard how Israel’s God had delivered them from Egypt.
They were surprised to find the image of Dagon lying on its face before the Ark the first morning after they had placed it in their temple. So they stood the image of Dagon back in its place. However, the next morning, they found Dagon had fallen face down before the Ark again. Except this time, his head and hands had broken off, perhaps showing the falseness of his divinity (head) and power (hands). They realized then that they had to get the Ark out of Dagon’s temple for Israel’s God is God! As the prophet Isaiah later wrote of God, “I am the LORD, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images” (Isa. 42:8).
We can be like the Philistines. Instead of worshiping the Lord only, we try to add Him to our pantheon of idols. We too try to cover all our bases. But God will not allow this. If we would have Him as our Lord, He must be recognized as Lord over all. Or He is not our Lord at all.
PRAYER: Dear Father, we have come to You through Jesus Your Son, believing in His payment on the cross for our sins. We declare that He is both Savior and Lord over us, over our heads and our hands, over our plans and our work, over our possessions and our families, over all that we have and all that we are. In Jesus’ name, amen.