THE GLORY DEPARTS
LESSON FOR THE JUNIOR CLASSES
STUDY SCRIPTURE:
1 SAMUEL 4:12-22
Key Verse
“And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel, because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father in law and her husband”.
1 Samuel 4:21
INTRODUCTION.
It is in our very nature to like companionship. We like to be around parents, brothers and sisters, and the friends we have in school, in our community, and in our church and in the clubs that we might have joined.
God made us and He wants to be with us in close fellowship. But we also know that God is extremely loving, beautiful in all His ways, is very kind and compassionate and caring, and is very creative. That is why there are so many different kinds of beautiful plants, beautiful flowers with all kinds of shades of colour, amazing scenery, beautiful sunsets, beautiful but sometimes funny looking animals which make us laugh. There is so much variety in the world that God has created. So we know that God is glorious. Its glory is seen in the plants and animals and land formations in the earth, as well as in the sunset. We also know that God wants us to be with Him so that we can enjoy His glory, and be showered with many blessings.
God however had chosen the nation of Israel to carry the message about who He was and what He was doing to make life better for mankind. They knew that the things that God gave them to help their spiritual development were not the same as He was, for the things He gave were material things and these things could not be compared to the glorious God.
But many times even though they knew that God was beautiful and full of glory in all His ways, righteous and absolutely holy and without fault of any kind, they turned away from Him and began listening to those people that were really enemies of God. When these enemies fought against the nation of Israel instead of turning to God and being guided by the prophet Samuel that God had appointed, they listened to those people in high positions that were not really following God or being great models of Godfearing peole. But God in His mercy warned them to change but they didn’t change.
When they had to protect themselves against their enemies they went into battle with their enemies and they lost for 4,000 men in the fight. So they talked among themselves and tried to work our the reasons this had happened. They suspected that God had not been on their side because every time the nation of Israel went into battle, as long as there was no sin among them, they were victorious. So now they were facing a tragic situation and they knew that something was wrong. But instead of going to ask the prophet Samuel to talk to God they decided to take the Ark of the Covenant with them into the fight with the Philistines. Now the Ark of the Covenant contained the 10 Commandments, a pot containing the food that God had given to the people during their 40 year travel through the wilderness, and it contained the rod of the high priest Aaron which miraculously started to blossom and bear fruit even though it was just a dead piece of wood. This event showed God’s greatness and God’s ability to do all things. So the Ark of the Covenant was very important and it was lodging in the sanctuary at the town of Shiloh where Eli was the High Priest. But Eli, his son Hophni and Phinehas were not good people and they disobeyed God constantly. The elders of the people who were the civil leaders also did not behave properly either and the people did not stand up for the rule of godliness in the nation.
So after they lost the first fight they decided to take the Ark of the Covenant which God had given to them into fight believing that the presence of the Ark would guarantee that they would be victorious. The problem was that they were confusing God Himself with the things that God had given to them to help them in their spiritual life. They were confusing things that were good in themselves with God Himself.
So you can guess what happened. They lost this battle. The evil priests that had been with the Ark of the Covenant were killed, and the Ark of God was taken and captured by the Philistines. That was a great disaster and when Eli the High Priest heard what had happened to the Ark he fell down and broke his neck and died.
His daughter in law was pregnant and was about to have a child and when she heard of the terrible loss of life suffered by the Army of Israel, the death of her husband Phineas and his brother Hophni, and the death of her father in law Eli, she went into labour and had a son whom she named Ichabod. The name she gave to the child meant the glory of God had departed from Israel. That was true for God Himself had turned against the people of Israel and so God allowed the ungodly and idol worshipping Philistines to capture the Ark. But even then after they captured there they could not keep it for God destroyed their pagan gods and their people got so sick that they had to rush to send the ark back to the land of Israel.
So we learn several lessons. We should not make decisions on our own without asking God what we should do. Then we also should not tolerate sinning in our community. We should not go along with the fact that the leaders did not recognize that people were doing things that were offensive to God and accept and made no effort to correct them. We also learned that parents should bring up their children in the right way so that they would love God and follow the commandments of God.
These and many other lessons are contained in this Chapter 4 in the Book of 1 Samuel. It is very important that we read it through carefully and make sure we learn the lessons for that would be of great benefit to us.