Passage: 1 Samuel 4; Joshua 6:1-20

The Big Idea

Trials expose what we’re really trusting. After Israel lost a battle to the Philistines, the elders asked the right question, “Why has the Lord defeated us?”, and then reached for the wrong answer: bring the ark, a religious object, instead of seeking God’s face. They remembered how the ark went before Israel at Jericho, but skipped the worship, the following and the waiting. The result was disaster: thirty thousand fell, the ark was captured, and a baby was named Ichabod, “the glory has departed.” Even religious activity can be trust in the flesh. Victory is always found through abiding in Jesus.

Trials Reveal What We Trust (1 Samuel 4:1)

Israel went out to battle against the Philistines.

When Israel came into the Promised Land, there were many battles. Life wasn’t easy.
“I thought following Jesus meant freedom from battles, struggle and pain!”
Don’t think it strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you… but rejoice to the extent that you share Christ’s sufferings (1 Peter 4:12-13).
Trials are good. Why? Because they expose what we’re really trusting in and who we really are.
He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver (Malachi 3:3).

God is actively purifying our lives. He’s already forgiven us and made us holy; now He wants us to believe it and walk in it.

Do you believe you’ve been given a new spirit, indwelt by the Holy Spirit? That makes you spiritual. That’s the pure life of Jesus living through you.
But we can still choose to live from the flesh. If we believe the flesh is the path to victory, that’s faith in the flesh: self-sufficiency.
Living by what my five senses tell me and what I can produce is called carnal, “fleshly.”
So is believing that, deep down, I’m still the old me and what I really want is to sin. That’s walking in the flesh too.

I could not speak to you as spiritual people but as carnal, as babes in Christ (1 Corinthians 3:1).

We all start as babies in Christ. We don’t know how much we don’t know, so we walk in the flesh because it’s all we know.
Through trials, we’re freed from fleshly living, because we learn that deliverance is never found in the flesh.
Our victory is only in Jesus, in our union with Him.
God lets us face this battle daily. Will we trust Him and live in His victory, or walk in our own wisdom and miss His joy?

Defeated (1 Samuel 4:2-3)

Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men in the field. When the people came back to camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has the Lord defeated us today?”

They got hammered. Is God in it when we fail? Yes. Did He cause their sin? No. But He’s in it, and He uses it for His purposes every time.
The elders rightly sensed God was involved. Why would He allow this? To refine them, and to reveal what they were really trusting.

“Let’s bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh, so that when it comes among us it may save us from our enemies.”

Instead of looking to God, they looked to a religious object.
Is God impressed when we get more religious? No. He’s moved only by real faith.
Why did they think the ark would save them? And do we reach for religious things before we truly seek His face?

God Was Right There (1 Samuel 4:4-5)

So the people sent to Shiloh and brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, who dwells between the cherubim. Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s sons, came with it.

The writer stresses it: the Lord of hosts, who dwells between the cherubim. God was right there! They could have sought Him the whole time.
“I don’t know how to get out of this mess. I went to church. I talked it over with my friends. I complained about it endlessly. What more can a child of God do?”
Did you seek God’s face in prayer and His Word until you found Him and His will? “That’s too hard. It’s scary to get that vulnerable with God. And I don’t really want to give up the idols in my heart.”
But He promises that whoever seeks Him will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13).

When the ark came into the camp, all Israel shouted so loudly that the earth shook.

Now they were confident, because they had their religious relic.

The Philistines’ Theology (1 Samuel 4:6-9)

The Philistines heard the shout and learned the ark had come. They were afraid and said, “God has come into the camp! Woe to us!… Who will deliver us from these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all the plagues.”

Even the Philistines knew no one could stand against God!
They recounted His mighty deeds. God’s enemies had more confidence in His power than His own people did.

“Be strong and act like men, Philistines, so you don’t become servants of the Hebrews. Act like men, and fight!”

When it comes to living by the flesh, the Philistines were experts.
They were just doing what came naturally to them.
But that won’t work for God’s people. Our old self was crucified with Christ. We’ve been made new and given the Spirit. If we go back to depending on the flesh, we’ll fail.
God really wants to bless us, but only through the Spirit, through grace, through His Son. Humility and faith.

Disaster (1 Samuel 4:10-22)

Israel was defeated, and every man fled to his tent. There was a very great slaughter: thirty thousand foot soldiers fell. The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

A man from Benjamin ran to Shiloh with torn clothes and dust on his head. Eli, ninety-eight and nearly blind, sat by the road, his heart trembling for the ark of God. When he heard that his sons were dead and the ark captured, he fell backward, broke his neck and died. His daughter-in-law, about to give birth, went into labor at the news. As she was dying, she named her son Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel, because the ark of God has been captured.”

This disaster came from trusting the flesh instead of God.
Even trusting religious rules or religious acts is still trusting the flesh.
When we trust the flesh, we ask, “What can I do?” When we trust the Spirit, we ask, “What has Jesus done?”
We can’t display God’s glory while living from an old nature that, in Christ, has been put to death.

Trusting the flesh can be tricky. We think we’re doing the right thing by going to church or doing other religious things. But the flesh doesn’t care whether it’s “sinning” by doing bad things or by doing good things, as long as self gets the glory.

Remembering Jericho (Joshua 6:1-20)

Why did they think the ark would win the battle? I think they remembered Jericho.

The Lord said to Joshua, “See! I have given Jericho into your hand.”

There’s the promise. God is always making promises. That’s how grace works.
What do we do with a promise? We believe it, enough to live our lives depending on it.

God told them to march around the city once a day for six days, with seven priests carrying trumpets before the ark, and seven times on the seventh day. Then the priests would sound a long blast, the people would shout, and the walls would fall flat.

By faith they didn’t fight. They didn’t strain. They didn’t wage war.
By faith they walked. They played music and listened.
They followed the Lord’s lead.
They kept their eyes on God’s presence.
They shouted in praise.
And they went in to victory.

What a victory! Israel surely retold that story for generations. But by Eli’s day, about three centuries later, the word of the Lord was rare (1 Samuel 3:1). They’d heard the story, but they hadn’t seen God move in their own lives. They’d forgotten how to have a relationship with God and slid back into religion, like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son, working in the fields of religion, as far from the Father’s heart as the younger brother who ran away.

Do we go to church only because we know we should? That’s religion, hoping in something we feel we have to do. Or do we really seek the face of God? He’s right there, at church, in your backyard, on your couch, at your dining table. But we can easily miss Him.

At Aphek, they brought the ark and shouted, just like the old story. But they skipped the worship, the following and the surrender of their will. They skipped all the relationship. They didn’t want to invest a week. They didn’t even pray and ask how to proceed. They just wanted to win.

Seek His Face

In our relationship with God, victory is always available. But it’s always found by abiding in Jesus, never any other way.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).
When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8).

And God’s heart is to draw us back into relationship, not religion:

“Behold, I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness and speak comfort to her. I will give her vineyards there, and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope… And it shall be in that day,” says the Lord, “that you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer call Me ‘My Master'” (Hosea 2:14-16).

Grace Takeaway

When the battle goes badly, don’t reach for a religious relic or a quick fix. The Lord is right there. Seek His face. Victory was never in the ark; it was in the God of the ark. Trust Him, not your flesh, not even your religion, and let your trials become a door of hope that leads you back to His heart.

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