Still Blaming or Broken?

"So it was that the ark remained in Kirjath Jearim a long time; it was there twenty years. And all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD."

1 Samuel 7:2

After the Ark of the Covenant was taken by the Philistines to their country, it remained there for seven months.  Whilst the Ark was passed from city to city, God plagued the Philistines with great destruction.  The situation became so dire the Philistines decided the only remedy was to return the Ark to Israel with a trespass offering, and the five lords of the Philistines each providing a golden image of a rat that plagued the land and their tumours that caused them to suffer greatly.

The Israelites were harvesting wheat in Beth Shemesh when they saw the Ark of God on a new wooden cart amble into their land.  The people rejoiced exceedingly the Ark had been returned to them, and they promptly used the cart for firewood and sacrificed the oxen to the LORD as a burnt offering.  However, the joyous celebration ended in sorrow, for tens of thousands of men of Beth Shemesh died before the LORD when they transgressed by looking into the Ark contrary to the Law of Moses.  They wondered, "Who can stand before this great God?" They sent a message to the people of Kirjath Jearim and asked them to retrieve the Ark--which they did.  A man named Eleazar was sanctified as a caretaker of the Ark, and it remained in the home of his father Abinadab for 20 years.

While the Ark remained in Kirjath Jearim, all Israel lamented after the LORD for decades.  The prophet Samuel provided a path to restoration before God in 1 Samuel 7:3-4:  "Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, "If you return to the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths from among you, and prepare your hearts for the LORD, and serve Him only; and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines." ⁴ So the children of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and served the LORD only."  Brothers and sisters, recognise this:  grief, lamentation and sorrow over decades provided no penance for the people.  Their humiliation at the hand of their enemies or God was no substitute for humbling themselves before Him.  Regret was not repentance.  Samuel urged the people to return to the LORD by destroying their idols and preparing their hearts to seek and serve the LORD only.  The promise of deliverance from the Philistines God gave would be fulfilled in short order later in the chapter when God thundered against the Philistines who drew near to attack His people.

The Bible does not record the conversations the people of Israel had together over those 20 years of lamentation after the LORD, but I strongly suspect there was blame for their situation being thrown around without addressing their own idolatry.  There were likely people who blamed Hophni and Phinehas for bringing the Ark of the Covenant to the battle, and other blamed Eli who allowed them to continue "serving" in the priesthood.  Some blamed the Philistines for their brutality and oppression, and others blamed the men of Beth Shemesh for their own demise by looking into the Ark.  In a land and world full of sinners, there was plenty of blame to go around.  As long as they continued to blame others or even themselves without repentance, it revealed they were not yet broken for their sin.  It was after they accepted the blame for their own sin and repented of it they were restored to fellowship with God.  The Philistines remained idolatrous; the corrupt within Israel remained as corrupt as ever.  However, there was a sure hope of salvation for those who lamented after the LORD and prepared their hearts to seek and serve Him.

Today this pattern remains true as ever for God's people.  When we hear of tragedies and problems in the world, one of our first reactions can be to cast blame at the feet of a person, a political party, organisation or nation.  Lately the news has been inundated with reports of a "failed" referendum in Australia, a full-fledged war in Israel, a murder at a school in Sydney, and a mass shooting in the United States--and this only scratches the surface of the pain and suffering that overwhelms us.  Hear this:  as long as we are blaming we are not yet broken, and that is the place God desires to bring us to even if it takes decades!  In light of this, consider the value of brokenness before the LORD as it is written in Psalm 34:18:  "The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit."  Psalm 51:16-17 also says:  "For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. ¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart--these, O God, You will not despise."  Rather than lashing out at others for their wrongs, let us be crushed and broken before the LORD, repent of our sin, prepare our hearts before the LORD and serve Him only.