“And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore.” (1Sa 4:7 AV)
Boy, do we need God to come into the camp! There is no fear of God in the eyes of the world. We have totally gone after our own ways. Not since the days of Noah has the whole of humanity gone after wickedness. We need God to come into the camp! The words of the Philistines are profound. They had enough capacity for fear that they recognized the hand of God when they saw it. The same could be said for those who will live during the tribulation. The Revelation of Jesus Christ tells us that those who suffer during those seven years will curse God to His face, yet they will refuse to repent. The Philistines repented in as much as they returned the Ark to Israel. The tribulation dweller will not. God needs to come into the camp. Not only is the world calloused, but God’s people have become so, too. As a preacher, I can testify to a lack of movement among God’s people. The days of altars with tear-stained spots are gone. The days of life-changing decisions, deep repentance, crying out for the mercy and grace of God, and a clear moving of the Holy Spirit are in the past. Any revival that is reported is more than likely not a genuine one. I know that will offend, but let me ask you a question. How much are repentance and forsaking a part of what is commonly believed to be a revival? I would dear say not much. Revival is when God’s people get right with God. The result is that the lost come to Christ. We need God to come into the camp.
Some read the account of the cleansing of the temple as only one event. Some commentators go so far as to assume an error was made by one of the gospel writers. How sad. Rather than take God at His word and assume His word is perfect, criticism robs the bible student of a great truth. At the very beginning of His ministry, our LORD visited the temple. He made note of the commercialization of worship. There were profiteers making a living off of people’s worship. They would exchange money at a profit. They would sell sacrificial animals and an exorbitant rate. The house of prayer had become a hose of thieves. So, the LORD visited the temple at overturned the tables. Money went flying. He was not the timid, meek Savior most want to make of Him. Jesus was a Savior full of wrath at what worship had become. What a way to start a ministry! The second occurrence came at the end of His ministry. He repeated the same cleansing that occurred three years prior. Israel didn’t learn its lesson. God came to church and overthrew everything. He had to do it again three years later. We would like to think that once God does a drastic thing such as angrily throwing tables around would permanently fix a problem. Not so. God came to church and dramatically stirred things up.
We need God to come into the camp once again. We need a drastic and dramatic moving of the Holy Spirit. We need God to come to the camp! We need to feel uncomfortable again. We need to come under deep conviction again. We need God to come into the camp. We need to feel godly and holy fear. We need to see our sin as wicked as God sees it. We need God to come into the camp! We need to face our faithlessness and the offense that it is. We do not want to trust God because something else is telling us that we cannot trust Him. The world seems to be a greater influence than the Creator of it all. The Devil seems to think the church is his personal playground. The flesh rules every moment of every day. We need God to come into the camp! Our families know more about a Disney character than they do the God who made them. Our homes are ruled by amusement. We know more about our fantasy league than we to about prophesy. We need God to come back into the camp! Family prayer time does not exist anymore. We use the events of life as a distraction from more spiritual concerns because to do so requires a bit of discomfort. We have quenched the work of the Holy Spirit and wonder why our pews are slowly becoming empty. We rely on tradition more than on truth. We are in a rut of slowly dying out, and we cannot shake the apathy. We need God to come into the camp! When God came into the camp, the Philistines reacted. They did the only thing they knew to do. They recognized God for who and what He is and fearfully worshipped Him by respecting the Ark. When God comes into the camp, we are compelled to do something! We need God to come into the camp!
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