Comparisons help make things clear. So Daniel asked the Babylonian offi­cial to ‘compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.’ (Dan 1:13). When those who ate the royal food were compared with those who did not then there was no question but that Daniel and his colleagues were healthier. The comparison made that clear.

Comparisons help us get things in perspective. So Paul writes, ‘I con­sider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.’ (Rom 8:18). If our focus is only on the pre­sent, then our thinking gets out of perspective. However, when the pre­sent is compared to eternity, then we see the present in a new light. The comparison corrects our perspec­tive.

Here in 1 Samuel a comparison is being made between two different responses to similar situations, and the different outcomes that re­sulted. But who were the people of whom we read in this chapter? These were God’s covenant peo­ple, and they were now living in the land that had been promised to them. The greatest privilege of these people was to be allowed, and enabled, to live in relation­ship — covenant relationship — with their God.

And that is also our greatest privi­lege. We were slaves to sin, and there we would have remained had not our loving God sent His Son to deliver us. God become man, the righteous one for those under con­demnation, the sinless one for sin­ners. He died the death we deserved that we might enjoy resurrection life, abundant life, eternal life — and all in Him and through Him. So all that we have, all that we enjoy, results from our relationship with Him — that we are in Christ.

So what can we learn from these verses here in 1 Samuel about God’s covenant people — then and now? There are three points:

1. A Needy People but also a Cove­nant People⤒🔗

The Promised Land was surrounded by other nations — nations more often than not hostile to God and his peo­ple. That was the situation in these verses. The Philistines had deployed their forces; the Philistines came up to attack them. But it was not only that external threat that made God’s people needy. They also struggled internally with sin, something they were very aware of as they brought their sacrifices to the Lord.

The tabernacle symbolised the pres­ence of Almighty God among them­ in their very midst. But when they came to the entrance, what they met with — what was placed between them and the significantly named ‘Most Holy place’ — was the altar of sacrifice. That was the access God had made possible between a sinful people and a holy God. It was through a substitutionary death, the death of one of their most prized­ because it was one their most per­fect — animals. In their need they were dependent on God, and the way God graciously opened for them to draw near.

And beyond the external threats and the internal struggles was life lived in a fallen world. Like the rest of mankind, God’s covenant people face circumstances that underline their neediness. They experience ill­ness, infirmity, weakness, bereave­ment; they lack wisdom, resources, strength; they are a needy people. And what was true of that people living then is also true of us living today. We are also needy. We may not have the Philistines oppos­ing and attacking us at every turn but we do face opposition, even persecution. We are just as needy as they were.

But — and it is a very big but, and a most wonderful but — in our neediness we are also God’s covenant people. We rejoice to call God our God and to be known as His people. We are not left to live on our own, or to depend on our own de­vices. Indeed our situation is more wonderful than God’s covenant people of that day because while they only had signs and pointers to the One who was to come; that Prom­ised One has now arrived. And so we look not to the signs, but to the reality to which the signs pointed — we look to Jesus.

In our struggle against sin we do not rely on the sacrifices of bulls and goats, or on priests who were themselves sinful. No, in Jesus we have a great High Priest; and

Such a high priest meets our need — one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.Hebrews 7:26-27

In our neediness, then, we can ask for a wisdom that is not our own (James 1:5); we can depend on the God who provides (Gen. 22:14); like the Psalmist we can testify, ‘The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.’ (Ps 28:7).

We are a needy people, but we are also a covenant people.

2. Priorities Expressed in Choices←⤒🔗

How should needy people who are covenant people live? How does anyone live? They live as the people they are. Kiwis don’t speak of ‘fush and chups’ just to provide amuse­ment to their neighbours over the Tasman. That is what Kiwis do; that is how they live. And Aussies live as Aussies. That is what we do. And therefore when we ask how God’s covenant people live then the answer is obvious — they live as God’s cove­nant people. And that answer is un­derlined in Scripture. So Paul writes to God’s covenant people in Ephe­sus, ‘I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.’ He reminds them that ‘you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.’ (Eph. 4:1; 5:8).

The problem is we don’t, at least not consistently. And that brings us to our first comparison in these verses in 1 Samuel; for our priorities are of­ten expressed in our choices. The situations that triggered the dif­ferent choices were very similar. In both cases Israel was under threat from the Philistines; indeed, in chap­ter 4 they had already experienced a defeat — about four thousand men were killed. And when the soldiers returned to camp, the elders asked the right question, ‘Why did the Lord bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines?’ But they already had their answer worked out, ‘Let us bring the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our ene­mies.’ (1 Sam. 4:3).

The ark of the covenant was the gold-covered box which sat behind the curtain in the Most Holy Place. The ark pointed to the Lord’s rule — it is called, ‘the ark of the covenant of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned be­tween the cherubim’ (1 Sam. 4:4). The ark pointed to the Lord’s revela­tion — it contained copies of the Ten Commandments. The ark pointed to the Lord’s reconciliation — the lid of the ark, the ‘mercy seat,’ was sprin­kled each year with the blood of sacrifice. So the ark pointed to the Lord — the ruling, speaking, forgiving, covenant God.

But the thinking behind their choice to bring the ark to the battlefield was also clear — if we bring the ark to bat­tle, the Lord will be forced to deliver us to protect his honour. God will not allow anything to happen to the ark, he’ll have to save us now — his hon­our’s at stake. They had it all worked out. They knew what needed to be done, and they were doing it. But their choice did not express faith but superstition — what one writer calls ‘rabbit-foot theology.’ Israel was treating the ark of the covenant of the Lord Almighty like a lucky rabbit’s foot!

Whenever God’s covenant people­ Israelites or Christians — live this way, we show that our concern is not to seek God but to control Him, not to submit to God but to use Him. We are showing by our choice that we prefer religious magic to spiritual holi­ness; we are interested in success, not repentance.

Their fool-proof scheme flopped. Verse 10 couldn’t have expressed it more tersely — ‘So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were de­feated and every man fled to his tent.’ (1 Sam. 4:10). Not only that, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord was captured. It was a Titanic moment — the unthinkable had taken place! So what had happened? We are forced to two conclusions — first, the covenant Lord will suffer shame rather than allow His covenant peo­ple to carry on a false relationship with Him; and second, the covenant Lord will allow His covenant people to be disappointed with Him if it will awaken them to the sort of God He really is.

And we dare not think that we are immune from this rabbit-foot faith. Whenever we confess with our choices (what we might never say with our lips) — that Man’s chief end is to be benefited by God and to use Him forever — then you know the ark of God has been captured again.

Between chapters 4 and 7 we learn how almighty God makes it very clear to the Philistines who had captured the ark, and to the Israel­ites when it was returned, that He is quite capable of looking after His name and His reputation. It was a painful lesson for both Philistine and Israelite to learn. But learn it God’s people did, and so in chapter 7 we read, ‘all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the Lord.’ Samuel’s pastoral sensitivity is seen in addressing their longing and remorse in his preaching. Repentance frequently begins with such grief and a consciousness of misery. But true repentance con­sists of something more substan­tial. Genuine repentance, Samuel says, does not stop with tears and weeping but moves to concrete action — ‘rid yourselves of the for­eign gods and the Ashtoreths.’ True repentance will meet the Lord’s demand for exclusive alle­giance — ‘commit yourselves to the Lord and serve Him only.’ Genuine repentance is the proper prepara­tion for God’s mercy — ‘He will de­liver you out of the hand of the Phil­istines.’ (1 Sam. 7:3). Not that re­pentance coerces such mercy. There is no merit in such repen­tance, but neither is there saving help without it. Repentance is not the cause but only the condition of the Lord’s deliverance.

So there is hope in their re­sponse — ‘the Israelites put away their Baals and Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only.’ And on that basis Samuel told all Israel to as­semble at Mizpah and ‘I will inter­cede with the Lord for you.’ ‘On that day they fasted and there they confessed, ‘We have sinned against the Lord.’ (1 Sam. 7:5, 6). But the Philistines heard about the gathering and came up to attack them. And so we are back where we started in chapter 4, with the Philis­tines gathered for battle. What choice would these needy people who were also God’s covenant peo­ple make this time? They said to Samuel, ‘Do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us, that he may res­cue us from the hand of the Philis­tines.’

We are surely meant to notice the contrast between an Israel that thinks she has twisted God’s arm by parad­ing the ark, and one who in her help­lessness can only resort to desperate prayer. Here in chapter 7 Israel is not dabbling in religious magic but walking by sheer faith. Their only weapon is prayer, their only hope that God will answer the cries of His peo­ple. There are no strategies; no pro­grammes; no gimmicks. All they have is their covenant God and it is to this gracious God they cry. They haven’t balanced their risks; all their eggs are in one basket — their hope in God.

This is not cop-out prayer but desperation prayer; it is the cry of a people who realise that their future — if they are going to have a future! — all depends on God. I wonder, have we, has our church, been brought to this point yet? Or do we think we still have a couple of tricks up our sleeves? Our choices will show our answer.

3. Choices have Conse­quences←⤒🔗

The contrast continues as we are shown that these two choices lead to two very different results — they are even marked with memorable names! As we have seen, the ark pointed to the Lord. Was it then not quite ap­propriate for God’s covenant people to bring this symbolic box to their aid? No, emphatically no, because a trust in the ark is not at all the same thing as a trust in God! The Lord Je­sus makes the same point — Not eve­ryone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Fa­ther who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matt. 7:21–23).

When we put our trust in anything other than God, then He will make the falseness of our trust clear. The Israelites had thought the presence of the ark meant God was bound to help them. How badly they got it wrong! And so the consequence of their choice should not surprise us­ Israel was defeated; Hophni and Phi­nehas, the corrupt priests, were re­moved; and the ark was captured. When Eli the priest heard the news, it wasn’t the defeat, or the death of his sons, but the news of the capture of the ark that caused him to fall from his chair to his death. His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, went into early labour at the news and gave birth to a son. With her dying breath she named him Ichabod. She said, ‘The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured.’ (1 Sam 4:22).

H. L. Ellison describes the story of Phinehas’s wife as ‘one of the most touching in the Bible, but’ he adds, ‘she was wrong. The glory of God had indeed departed, but not be­cause the ark of God had been cap­tured; the ark had been captured be­cause the glory had already de­parted.’

When a people — whether nation or church — who know the inestimable privilege of being the covenant peo­ple of Almighty God choose to put their hope, their confidence, their trust in anything — anything at all­ other than God, then the game’s up — Ichabod, the glory, has de­parted.

Compare that outcome with what happened when God’s people chose to put their trust in him. That day, we are told, the Lord blasted the Philistines with His thunder and threw them into confusion, and so a situation which seemed hopeless was turned around by the God of hope.

It was a deliverance worth marking, so Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far has the Lord helped us.’ (1 Sam7:12). But it was surely more than the Lord’s help that day which was commemorated. ‘Thus far’ speaks of a whole chain of mer­cies remembered, and at the same time it looks to the future, with hope, for ‘thus far’ implies that what the Lord has been for His people He also will be.

But perhaps you ask how the events of 1 Samuel 4 fit into all this. It sounds nice to say ‘Thus far has the Lord helped us,’ but how was the Lord helping when the ark was captured, and Israel was defeated, and so many died? W. G. Blaikie suggests an answer — ‘All that,’ he says,

Samuel has considered well. Even amid the desolations of Shiloh the Lord was helping them. He was helping them to know themselves, helping them to know their sins, and helping them to know the bitter fruit and woeful punishment of sin ...The links of the long chain denoted by Samuel’s ‘thus far’ were not all of one kind. Some were in the form of mercies, many were in the form of chastenings.

You see, trusting the Lord is not some magic button we press to make all our problems disappear. If we were to conclude from the comparison in these chapters that doing the right thing will always re­sult in blessing and doing the wrong thing will always result in harm, then we would be failing to take account of the wider teaching of scripture and of our daily experience. And if the consequences were so obvious then sinful men and women, who are nothing if not pragmatic, would soon be able to joint the dots and come to the obvious conclusion as to how they should live.

No, the covenant relationship which we are privileged to enjoy is a cove­nant of grace. There is nothing earned or deserved or mechanical about it. For the God of grace has greater and deeper and wider con­cerns for His covenant people than we will ever realise. God, in His love and mercy and grace, is not simply opening the door to heaven, He is preparing His people to live in cove­nant relationship with Him, and to do so for eternity. God wants His people to be holy as He is holy; He wants to make us like Jesus.

We all make choices every day, and these choices have consequences. We need to ask therefore, each time we choose, will this choice hallow God’s name, will it advance God’s kingdom, will it lead to the more per­fect doing of God’s will? Or in terms that really get to the heart of the mat­ter, we need to ask, Who will get the credit from this choice? Who will get the praise? Who will get the glory? Man’s primary purpose is not to glo­rify himself, but to glorify God; not to enjoy ‘the good life’, but to enjoy God. And that is why the Lord, our covenant God, says to us —

Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man  boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he under­stands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, jus­tice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the Lord.Jeremiah 9:23–24