Is Your Worship on Target?

I Samuel 4:1-11

They started worshipping, making such a great noise that their enemies heard them from over in the next valley. This was a great celebration with singing, praising, and dancing till the earth shook. Surely God would answer and grant them victory over the obstacle looming in their path. Unfortunately with all of their noise and with all of their ferver, the people of Israel did not stop to listen for God’s answer. Israel attacked the Philistines who proceed to apply an old fashioned beat down, the second in only a few days. In defeat Israel ran home to lick their wounds and to try to figure out why God allowed the Philistines, the great enemy of Israel, to win.

Like many of us today, Israel blamed God when things did not go their way the first time around. "How could God do this to us?" they implied (v.3). They sent for the Ark of the Covenant and when it arrived in the camp they broke into the aforementioned celebration. They assumed the presence of the Ark brought with it a guarantee of victory. But in their pre battle zeal they forgot to ask God why He allowed the initial defeat.and in the sorrow of defeat. Had they done so they would have seen the truth. They would have seen that they had no one to blame but themselves.

Prior to the battle, Israel was spiritually off base. Hophni and Phineas, two of the top temple priests, were selfish and corrupt. They were not concerned with the things of God, using the ministry for their own personal gain. Under their leadership God became an afterthought. Not until after suffering defeat at the hands of the Philistines did Israel decide to seek God. Even then they put their faith in the presence of an object, never taking the time to pray or to call out to find the Lord’s will. Instead of seeking God their worship was based in an assumption that doing something religious would give them power over their enemies.

Yes their worship was loud and full of energy but their hearts were wrong. Winning was the priority not seeking God as demonstrated by the fact that they never once stopped to pray. Like their religious leaders the people were all about self gain, using religion as a means to achieve their goals. Their worship was honest but misguided leading to a terrible defeat. We must make sure not to follow this path in our worship today. We must make sure our worship is on target, with the goal of truly seeking the Lord.