God told Samuel that because of Eli’s sin and the sin
of his sons, God would bring judgment on Israel and Eli’s family forever. Soon after this the Israelites were in a
losing battle with the Philistines that took the lives of 4,000 men. The elders of Israel conceived of a plan –
take the Ark of the Covenant – the Presence of God into battle. Israel lost in the ensuing battle, the Ark
of the Lord – the very Presence of God was captured, and “the two sons of
Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died.”
(1 Samuel 4:11, ESV)
When Eli heard the news of his sons, he was grief
stricken. When he heard of the news of
the Ark, he fell over dead. The
Philistines had the Ark, but the Philistines had a problem, we see that in
Chapter 5. Their god, “Dagon had
fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and put him
back in his place.” (1 Samuel 5:3, ESV). Eventually their response was “The
ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is hard against
us and against Dagon our god.” (1 Samuel 5:7, ESV).
Now all along, even these pagan people, had good
reason to suspect that it was the God of Israel that was doing all this to
them. But they needed to cover their
bases. So the conceived of an idea.
“Now then, take and prepare a new cart and two milk cows on which there has never come a yoke, and yoke the cows to the cart, but take their calves home, away from them. And take the ark of the Lord and place it on the cart and put in a box at its side the figures of gold, which you are returning to him as a guilt offering. Then send it off and let it go its way and watch. If it goes up on the way to its own land, to Beth-shemesh, then it is he who has done us this great harm, but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us; it happened to us by coincidence.”” (1 Samuel 6:7–9, ESV)
Anyone who
knows milk cows would know that natural instincts would make certain that the
cows would not leave their calves and would stay near them. Not only that, just to make
sure that this experiment worked, the Philistines took two cows that have never
been yoked and set them on the cart.
This was a great experiment because nothing in nature would permit it
to exceed. Nothing! But they knew this: if God was truly behind
all this those cows would leave and go to Beth-shemesh. This was their thinking: if the cows came
back to their calves and refused to pull the cart, this all happened by
chance! The point is that it was either
God or chance! That is an amazing choice.
Again don’t miss the point of the experiment. They concluded there were only two
options: God or chance.
So what happened?
“And the cows went straight in the direction of Beth-shemesh along
one highway, lowing as they went. They turned neither to the right nor to the
left, and the lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the border of
Beth-shemesh.” (1 Samuel 6:12, ESV). Since all the odds were stacked against this succeeding, the God of
Israel made sure the experiment was conclusive and without doubt. Those milk cows went straight to their
destination, didn’t turn left or right and to add confirmation – they went
“lowing as they went”.
The point of
this story can be summarized by a question?
When you view current events in the world and indeed in your life, is it
“chance” or is it “God”?
Someone might raise an objection to such a narrow
question. Surely there are other players
in the universe than the two options: Chance or God? Some would like to add other elements into
the equation, like, 'Mother Nature' did that; or this was due to man's free
will; or even Satan caused that. These
pagans brought the discussion down to 2 options: God or chance.
In my next installment, I’ll attempt to answer the
question, “Why is it only, ultimately, God or chance?”
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