This weekend I started a study on the 10 Commandments. I learned some awesome things... some I already knew but is is fantastic when God reveals a new light to things you have read before ... or He shows you things that your don't remember reading.
The study starts out talking about how Moses took the tablets (10 commandments) down to the people who were frolicking in sin. He got mad and threw the stones and they broke. God called him back up and talked to him again... wrote it out again on new stones. This verse I love: "When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God."
Exodus 31:18
Another thing I was amazed by was those Philistines... but not in a good way. Moses built an "Ark of the Covenant" for the tablets. They were sacred to the Israelites and they carried them from place to place because they had not settled in the land God had for them yet. So they hauled them around.
Until the Philistines attacked and stole it! They took it to their temple and set it next to the statue of their God (Dagon). A funny thing happened... the next morning Dagon was face down. They set it up and the next morning it was not only facedown... but broken! lol! That's our God for you! He was being gentle at first just showing them who was God.
But they kept the Ark and God plagued them with tumors. So they decided to get rid of it and unloaded it on the people of Gath.... the tumors went with it. So they sent it to Ekron.... the people fared no better and many people died!!! By now the Philistines were getting the picture that the God of Israel was NOT happy!!!
They decided to try an experiment to see if the God of Israel was the One and Only God!!!!!
They sent the Ark of the Covenant in a cart pulled by 2 mama oxen. They locked up the babies. Now by nature... mama's won't leave their babies behind. The oxen went strait to the Israelite camp without a glance back! Israelites were thrilled to have their Tablets back.... the Philistines were thrilled to be rid of them.
God is amazing. He can control everything. ;D
What I don't understand though.... you would think that would have turned the Philistines heart over to God, wouldn't you?
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