Dashed Hopes - Part II

When we last left Israel they were devastated.

Absolutely every foundation seemed to have been kicked out from under them.

What's more, God . . . the God they had always known . . . always depended on . . . the God Who always caused them to triumph - had let them down.

In fact it appeared that He was fallible. His Ark had failed to bring victory over the enemy - even worse, it had been stolen!

I remember reading about discipline when R. and I had very small babies - I think it came from a James Dobson book. Anyway, the writer was talking about the perils of never saying "no" to our children. It gives them an undue sense of power. The writer said their is nothing more terrifying than for a child to be the biggest thing in his world.

When we feel that God is fallible - it can be very terrifying.

I was happy to continue reading the story, because I learned that the God of this Ark of the Covenant that was stolen began to wreck havoc all over the place in the land of the Philistines!

They placed the Ark -like a trophy - in the temple of their idol god, Dagon. The next morning Dagon was on his face before the Ark.
Marking it up to coincidence, they set the false god back up and the next morning he was prostrate again... this time his head and hands had been severed.

The people broke out in tumors (some say that these tumors were hemorrhoids but I digress) and other plagues descended on their nation. And the people in each town were in such a hurry to get the Ark out of their town that it developed into something of a nationwide tour!

After seven months of pain and torment, they sent the Ark back.

See, God's power was not diminished in the least. In fact, it's amazing to me but He proved that He could defeat these enemies with or without an army.

This proves that the Israelites were not defeated because God had left them. . . it was rather because they had left God. And in this case, His idea of what would be best for them - was a gully-washer of a defeat.

There was another instance in which people watched and waited for God to come through at the last minute.

As Jesus hung on the cross . . . just a vulgar shell of Man in appearance now. . . I think some of those boys that had followed Him around for three years, just knew He would pull out a game-saving play at the end.

Then He cried "it ... is ... finished ..."

...and breathed His last.

What a moment of dashed hopes!

Despite what He had been telling them for the past few days ... despite the fact that His mood had darkened and become more sorrowful and heavy ... they still thought He had a trick up His sleeve.

He had something better for them... and the only way to get to the better was by going through defeat.

And dashed hopes.

I heard a sermon the other day by a Presbyterian Pastor by the name of Pratt - my in-laws had ordered a CD after hearing the sermon at a church in Memphis. It was from the first chapter of Acts.

Being a Charismatic-Pentecostal who is now wading cautiously into the deep waters of Reformed Theology - I was curious to see what he would do with the second chapter of Acts.

His point, however, revolved around a verse in the first chapter in which the Apostles asked Jesus if He would now restore the KINGDOM.

They were still looking for something different from Christ's plan. They still wanted to see Jesus set up shop here on earth and kick those Romans out of His house! They had some preconceived notions as to what the Kingdom of God would look like.

When Jesus indicated that it wasn't for them to know... their hopes were once again dashed.

Pratt did a good job of pointing out how truly disappointed they were, it seemed as if Jesus had let them down.

To illustrate, he talked about how many Christian Americans have thought of our nation as something of God's kingdom here on earth... we feed the nations, the gospel is preached in abundance here and multitudes are launched from American churches into mission work on foreign soil. . . this must be God's kingdom - or something like it!

Yet when we see the nation turning so rapidly in another direction as we have seen over recent years - our hopes become dashed.

We may even feel that God has let us down - when unjust laws are not overturned - when evil is rewarded - when the good are put down ....

It might feel something like getting kicked in the stomach.

That's how those apostles felt.

The good thing is: their hopelessness drove them together and together drove them to prayer.

Days later, despite the fact that the KINGDOM didn't quite come as they'd planned - the church was launched!

God had something better for them ... but to get to His "better" they needed to go through a time of having their hopes dashed.

'Hopes dashed today?

Let it drive you to prayer.

I think you will emerge to see that God had a "better" thing planned all along!

Let Down by God - Dashed Hopes

This post will not involve any more babbling on about snakes.


How's that title for provocative?

I read of an incident a couple weeks ago in the book of I Samuel (that's in the Bible) that brought to mind the idea of God failing to come through.

You know, we Christians often count on the Lord as some spiritual cavalry Who always rides in at the last moment with the clarion call of the bugle and saves the day (watch the one of the later scenes of the movie "Stagecoach" for an illustration of this point).

So what happens when He doesn't ride in? How do we react when the "Hail Mary" pass falls short, clock runs out and the game is lost?

That is one of those possibilities that we Christians may think we shouldn't talk about- the possibility that God won't answer our prayer or at least that He won't answer as we think He should.

Do you remember me lamenting on the book of Judges in the Old Testament and how it was just a picture of the nation of Israel spiraling down? Well in the early part of I Samuel we see the result of that downward spiral: a void of sound, godly leadership and corruption and abuse from those the people looked to for help.

It all came to a climax.

The climax began with a tender voice calling in the night to a small boy... "Samuel, Samuel!"

If you went to Sunday School as a child, you heard that story.

Samuel listened to his mentor, the old man - Eli, and followed his instruction when the Voice called again.

"Speak Lord, I'm listening..."

And God foretold the peril that would strike the nation and the corrupt household of the old priest, Eli.

It all happened.

A battle erupted and the Israelites were losing so they decided to bring the Ark of the Covenant - the representation of God's presence on earth - into the battle.

I'm sure they mistook symbolism for substance and remembered tales of times that "God came into the camp and turned the battle". So they figured the Ark would do the trick.

God is not into parlor tricks.

The Philistines -perennial nemesis to the nation of Israel - thought the same thing as the Israelites; when word came to them that the Ark was in the camp, they were sure their proverbial geese were cooked. Their leaders essentially told them to "man-up" and go down fighting.

Well they all thought wrong. Because this time, God didn't come through.

To add insult to injury, the entire household of the old priest, Eli all died. . . including Eli.
As his daughter-in-law went into labor and died in childbirth, she cursed the infant with the name - Ichabod . That means - the glory of the Lord has departed.

Worst of all, the Ark was stolen. The Glory truly had departed.

Surely they thought that their last link to God had slipped through their fingers and they couldn't get God back.

The only description I can give for how I think they felt is that feeling of being kicked in the stomach.

Their hopes were dashed.

I hope to say more about that later.