The Sun That Melts Butter Hardens Clay

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Are you holding onto something inferior simply because it's familiar? The story of the Philistines and the Ark of the Covenant reveals our human tendency to seek workarounds rather than embrace transformation.

When the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant, they placed it as a trophy in their god Dagon's temple. But God wouldn't share His glory with demons. The statue of Dagon mysteriously toppled, and plagues of tumors and rats struck the Philistines' land. After seven months, desperate for relief, they crafted golden tumors and rats as offerings rather than changing their ways. This ancient account mirrors our modern resistance to surrendering control to God.

The Philistines' fertility cult culture prioritized sexual prowess and agricultural abundance—precisely what God's judgment targeted. This reveals a profound truth: "The same sun that melts butter hardens clay." God's presence brings liberty to those who receive it but has a hardening effect on those who reject it. We often cling to harmful patterns out of pride or familiarity, trying to appease God through religious acts rather than relationship.

Jesus stands at the center of God's invitation to transformation. He offers not religion but relationship—not appeasement but freedom. He took our guilt, fear, and shame upon Himself at the cross so we could experience the newness of life. What God offers is infinitely greater than what we possess, though it costs us the illusion of self-determination.

Ready to exchange inferior ways for God's best? Stop making "golden tumors" and embrace the life-changing relationship Jesus offers. Connect with us at [e-mail] to continue the conversation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
If you're just joining us, we've been looking
into the book of 1 Samuel andright now we're in chapter 6.
But leading up to thisparticular chapter, we saw how
the God of Israel, the Lord, godAlmighty, really just toppled

(00:21):
over the demon god system in thePhilistine territory.
I mean, they were part ofwhat's known as the fertility
cults all throughout Canaan, andthat was prior to Israel
conquering Canaan, the promisedland that God had given to

(00:43):
Abraham, the promised land thatGod had given to Abraham.
And the people that occupiedthat territory were just vile
and their worship system, whichwas part of their culture,
involved them practicing whathas been termed sympathetic

(01:04):
magic, where they would take andoffer their seed, their sperm,
to the gods by virtue of havingsex with prostitutes, men or
even beasts.
It was their way of securingthe favor of their gods that

(01:27):
they worshipped their idols and,in part of Israel's demise,
during their time of compromise,the Ark of the Covenant, which
represented God's presence toIsrael, got captured by the

(01:47):
Philistines and they took thatArk into their land and put it
in the temple of their god,dagon, as a sign of their
supremacy, kind of a trophy roomthat they had, war trophies,
and the Ark was one of them.
Well, the ark wasn't just anyother piece of furniture.

(02:09):
It was holy, it was consecrated, dedicated, as the very symbol
of god's.
It was a copy of what was inheaven, and so it carried with

(02:29):
it the very backing of Godhimself, and he was not going to
share his glory with any demon.
God, because he said he wouldnot share his glory with another
, just wouldn't do it.
There's no one greater than God.

(02:52):
And he proved it by topplingthe idol, this huge statue of
Dagon that was in the templetoppled over, with no one in

(03:14):
that temple except the Ark ofGod and the presence of God,
which toppled over that evilstatue, that evil statue.
Well, also, as a result of thePhilistines capturing the ark,
they had plagues that started tocome into their land, much like

(03:38):
what took place in Egypt whenit was time for Israel to be
delivered.
God sent plagues to causePharaoh to repent and let the
people go, but he wouldn't.
He hardened his heart, becausethe same sun that melts butter
hardens clay.
The same presence of God thatbrings liberty when it's not

(04:02):
received, has a hardening effect.
Well, the Philistines didn'twant anything to do with the ark
or the presence of God, muchlike our cultures in the world
today, try to remove God fromwithin the culture and get God

(04:26):
out of the picture, becausethere's a desire to do things
that would be more in compliancewith the carnal nature.
The Philistines were nodifferent, and so we're picking
this story up in chapter six,with the philistines wanting to

(04:50):
get rid of the ark and thepresence of god from their
culture because they were afertility cult culture.
They pride themselves on theirsexual activities and, with rats
eating up their crops and withtumors making their whole
appearance ugly, the two thingsthat they really were prideful

(05:14):
of were being literally exposedand experiencing the contraire,
right the opposite.
So in chapter six we read whenthe ark of the Lord had been in
the Philistine territory sevenmonths, the Philistines called

(05:38):
for the priests and diviners andsaid what should we do with the
Ark of the Lord?
Tell us how we should send itback to its place.
They answered If you return theArk of the God of Israel, do
not send it away empty, but byall means send a guilt offering

(06:03):
to him.
Then you'll be healed and youwill know why his hand has not
lifted from you.
The Philistines asked whatguilt offering should we send to
him?
They replied five gold tumorsand five gold rats, according to
the number of the Philistinerulers, because the same plague

(06:25):
has struck both you and yourrulers.
Make models of the tumors andof the rats that are destroying
the country and pay honor toIsrael's God.
Perhaps he will lift his handfrom you and your gods and your
land, from you and your gods andyour land.

(06:45):
Why do you harden your heartsas the Egyptians and Pharaohs
did when he treated them harshly?
Did they not send theIsraelites out so they could go
on their way?
Interesting no-transcript,which would have been easier to

(07:26):
make these golden images of thetumors and the rats and send
them away with the Ark, or tochange you know what's easier To

(07:55):
make those images Sometimes.
Change is not the easiest way togo.
Have you ever found that out inyour own life?
It's kind of easier to try tofind ways around that change.
And what I mean by that changeis that change of life that

(08:20):
takes your life and hands itover to God life and hands it
over to God.
Where you submit yourself overto God and recognize his
supremacy, where you stop tryingto play God and do things your

(08:46):
own way, Even if your own wayproduces harm for you.
Pride sometimes prevents usfrom change, and if you're

(09:06):
listening to this and you'vefound in your life that you are
running up against some thingsthat just are pointing to the
cause of the problem being youand the way that you view God,

(09:34):
it's time to change.
It's not time to find a way toget around the situation.
It's time to change.
See the Philistines they wantedto get around the situation, get
back to what they were doing.
See the Philistines they wantedto get around the situation,
get back to what they were doing.

(09:56):
But God was actually offeringthem an opportunity to change,
to exchange something that waslesser for something greater.
But in order to make thatexchange, you have to believe.
You have to believe that whatGod is offering is greater than
what you have, even though it'sgoing to cost you giving up the

(10:19):
control of your life.
What you're really trying tocontrol is negative.
It's killing you.
But because it's familiar andbecause there's pride involved,
because there's the lust of theeyes, the lust of the flesh and

(10:42):
the pride of life, instead ofchanging, you try to hold on to
it.
It's time to let go.
It's time to let go of thoseways that are inferior.

(11:10):
So how do I know they'reinferior?
I can't see God.
You have to take him at hisword.
He's not a liar.
He's telling us the truth whenhe says to us I am the way.

(11:33):
The truth and the life is theone who models for us the

(12:01):
magnificence of God, thesupremacy of God, when we get a
glimpse of Jesus.
And that's what this is allabout.
That's what these stories areall about.
These stories are all about usbeing shown that the ways of the
world are inferior, in contrastto what God has provided.

(12:22):
And God has provided Jesus.
He's provided Jesus for us sothat we can have someone who
understands, someone who standson our behalf, someone who went

(12:42):
on our behalf and took our guilt, our fear, our shame and nailed
it to the cross where he died.
He died both for those things.
He died with those things beingplaced upon him, and he took it
so that we don't have toexperience the judgments of God,

(13:06):
the plagues of God, and if wehave, it's only for us to be
shown the inferiority of the waythat we're going.
It's a wake-up call.
It's the fact that the same sunthat melts butter hardens clay.
It's not God picking on you.

(13:28):
It's the result, it's theconsequences of choosing
something inferior.
It's actually what those thingsprovide.
They just don't provide it upfront, god exposed it and shows
you what it really is all aboutin the end.

(13:55):
So, jesus, jesus is the one whooffers to us eternal life.
In his love, in his weakness,he overcame the powers of
darkness.

(14:15):
Jesus overcomes any demonicentity.
Jesus overcame Dagon, the Arkof Godagon, the Ark of God, the
Ark of the Covenant.
Jesus is the one who sits onthat throne.

(14:37):
He's the one, by the work ofthe Holy Spirit, toppled over
Dagon, and he could topple overany idol that's in your life.
We can turn, you can turn fromthose things and look to Jesus,

(15:06):
regardless of whether or not yousay that you have done this in
your head.
Perhaps you've only done it tokeep people quiet and you've
never really surrenderedyourself over.
You've reserved things foryourself, just in case.

(15:30):
Just in case this isn't real.
Well, it is real.
Jesus is offering to ussalvation, meaning deliverance
from evil and the experience ofthe newness of life.

(15:55):
You see, we don't have to belike the Philistines, trying to
contrive a way to appease Godthrough our religion, because
it's not about religion, it'sabout relationship.
We don't have to try to find away to get God out of the

(16:22):
picture so that the plague willstop.
We need to invite God into thepicture so that he can consume
our lives.
The plague will stop, and notonly will the plague will stop,

(16:42):
and not only will the plaguestop, but we will be recipients
of eternal life, the very lifeof God, being born of His Spirit
supernaturally, no longer justfighting off the inevitable, but

(17:06):
yielding over to the eternallife of God.
Jesus.
Jesus reaches out to you todayand invites you to follow him,

(17:32):
and what it will cost you iseverything, but it's worth it.
He is worth it, he is worth it.
Relationship with God,citizenship in his kingdom, his
kingdom, it's the pearl of greatprice.

(17:56):
It's worth selling all to havethat, and he offers it to us.
If we believe in him, we placeour confidence in him, no longer
in ourselves, in our religion,but in him.

(18:21):
What he accomplished on ourbehalf, he will credit that to
us as righteousness, meaningwe'll have right relationship
with God.
Let's pray, father, thank you.
Let's pray Father, thank you.

(18:44):
Thank you that we don't have tomake golden rats and golden
tumors to appease you, but thatyou want to enter into our lives
to free us from the evil,delivering us from evil.

(19:05):
You sent your Son to accomplishthat.
And, holy Spirit, thank you forrevealing Jesus, thank you for
revealing who he is and how hegoes about transforming us from
the inside out.
We invite you to establish hislife in us and we give you our

(19:31):
lives completely.
Cleanse us, free us from thebondage of our own selves and
release us into life in yourkingdom.
Teach us your ways.
Oh Lord, we stand here in thename of Jesus and we declare

(19:52):
these things to be true and realand we say amen, amen, amen,
amen, amen.
All right, folks, we love you.
If you have any other thoughts,questions, concerns, please
feel free to drop us a line atlifearoundthefire at gmailcom.
We would love to hear from youif you want to type in

(20:16):
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Check it out In the meantime.
God bless you.
Adios amigos.