IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

 1 Sammuel 4:1b-11
Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity (Joel 2:13b).

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
Norayr (Norman) Hajian
Whitehorse, Yukon
Territory Canada
Pastor
Church of the Nazarene 

"In case of emergency, break class." We've all seen signs like that posted beside emergency equipment. For the Israelites, their "in case of emergency" resource was the ark of the covenant.

After an initial defeat at the hands of the Philistines, the Israelites brought out the ark of the covenant, believing that with the ark in their presence, they were to sure have victory over their enemies. The Philistines also believed in the power of the ark, as seen in their fearful response. Both sides were surprised when the Israelites were soundly defeated a second time, having lost 30,000 soldiers.

What went wrong? The Israelites knew the ark represented the powerful presence of God and assumed that having the ark, they had God on their side. What they learned was that they couldn't simply bring God out whenever they needed to win a war.

Then, and today, God wants to be part of our lives, not just in case of emergency when things go wrong, but every day and in every situation. He is not there just for emergencies.






[God] will not be anybody's good luck charm (Harold Bonner).

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