How Long?

1 Samuel 6:6

“Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did?”

You have to know when to say when. You sometimes just cannot keep things in play and hurt any less. The mess just keeps getting uglier and uglier. When we were kids we wrestled all the time. One key factor is tapping out. You have fought the good fight and tried to wrestle the kid to the ground but he has the upper hand and is turning the screws to make it hurt. That’s when you tap out. You have had enough. 

The Israelites again had issues with the Philistines.  In this battle, Eli’s sons are struck down, the army of Israel is routed, and they suffered many losses.  The Israelites were losing the battle so they decided to bring the ark of the Lord out to the battlefield so they could win.  In an interesting turn of events, they lost the battle despite having the ark of the Lord with them. The Philistines then captured the ark of the Lord. 

They put the ark of the Lord in Dagon’s temple beside Dagon the Philistine god.  Here is where the story goes crazy.   The next morning they find the Dagon’s statue on its face bowing before ark of the Lord.  The Philistines put Dagon back up and went about their day but the following morning they find Dagon, again, bowing before the ark of the Lord. Although this time his head and his hands had been broken off.  The Philistines then are struck with large tumors and rats everywhere.  They move the ark to Gath because all this happened when the ark of the Lord showed up.  Gath was struck with tumors as well and so the Philistine leaders agreed to get rid of the ark of Lord.  So they agreed to put the ark on a cart pulled by two oxen and send it away. 

The oxen, guided by God, pulled the ark of the Lord all the way back to Israelite territory without a driver and it stops in a field where some of the curious Israelites look into the ark and the Lord strikes them down.  So the priest finally came to get the ark and bring it back to Abinadab’s house were it stayed for 20 years. 

You may be going through some messy stuff, maybe a sickness, maybe a hard class, maybe your own bad choices have been playing out right in front of your own eyes.  This is what the Philistines were dealing with.  Only after the Lord began to put the hurt on them did they say what is in verse 6, “Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did?”. You see, even the hand of God is witnessed by all in the middle of such strange circumstances. 

The question is where to you turn when things get nasty?  Do harden your heart against someone or something or worse do you harden your heart against the Lord?  God sets things in motion to gets you to realize that He is in control.  The longer you refuse to address Him the longer you will remain in your situation.  Putting the Lord in His proper place, at the center of your life, is when you will see your circumstances start to change and not until then.  We’ll always have a Philistine wanting to invade our territory or make our lives hard but with the Lord an the center of your life, the enemies are kept at bay.  How long will you harden your heart?