Dagon leads the way

1 SAMUEL 5:2-4
[The Philistines] carried the Ark of God into the temple of Dagon and placed it beside an idol of Dagon. But when the citizens of Ashdod went to see it the next morning, Dagon had fallen with his face to the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord! So they took Dagon and put him in his place again. But the next morning the same thing happened—Dagon had fallen face down before the Ark of the Lord again.

Dagon fell face down, and not just his idol … Isaiah 19 talks of the idols of Egypt trembling; Isaiah 46 of the gods of Babylon bowing low to the ground; Philippians 2 that every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. So down he falls, face down before the ark, even though the ark was placed to the side. “Facing,” as Matthew Henry puts it “the conqueror, to whom he is constrained to yield and do homage

All creation will worship. And will do so at the place where it is and even within its own stronghold. Dagon was in the place of his greatest strength – in his own temple, the place where he received worship. The Philistines wished to claim their greater strength by placing the ark into their temple, subservient to their god. But this plan failed. How could they claim that they were greater than the Israelites if their God could not stand before the ark. They believed that their power was tied to the strength of their god, but, as Matthew Henry also says, “by falling prostrate before the ark of God, which was a posture of adoration, [he] did as it were direct his worshippers to pay their homage to the God of Israel, as greater than all gods.” Their hope was misplaced and their strength in a creature who could not remain on his feet in the presence of their enemies’ law or the signs of their enemy’s God’s goodness and saving power (the tablets, mannah and rod kept within the ark. In fact Aaron’s rod which, as a content of the ark, they brought into their temple had already demonstrated its superiority over the gods of Egypt by, as a snake, swallowing the rods of the Egyptian priests.)

What are our idols? To what, other than God, do we pay tribute? One day these will bow alongside us before God; they will recognise that He is greater than they. How foolish will we then feel for having given them, at times, greater regard than we gave to the Lord? If we have set the law of God within our hearts and we become a visible testimony to the goodness and saving power of God, then we must take heed to the ark and to this verse. We have no need to be subservient to false gods; to be so is to dishonour the God we serve and bear witness to. We must bring the idols that surround us crashing down. We must worship God alone.

.....My hope is built on nothing less
.....Than Jesus' blood and righteousness,
.....I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
.....But wholly lean on Jesus' name.
..........On Christ, the solid rock, I stand,
..........All other ground is sinking sand.

Place me on Solid Rock.