Struck by Holiness
Tuesday (September 9)
Struck by Holiness
1 Samuel 6:19, 21
And he struck some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked upon the ark of the LORD. He struck seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the LORD had struck the people with a great blow. … So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the LORD. Come down and take it up to you.”
Holiness is a threat to unrighteousness because unrighteousness is an afront to Holiness.
Read that again a few times and let it sink it. Perhaps ‘threat’ seems like an odd word to use about something that is purely good, but it’s the most precise word in the English language that I can find. Because whenever unholy men, even if they’re relatively good men, even if they’re upstanding fathers and husbands and citizens in their communities, come face to face with a Holy God, either the collision will throw them to their knees in a metamorphosis of repentance, or it will wipe them out instead. It isn’t just the baddest of bad guys who need to fear an encounter with a perfect LORD. Oh no—such an appearing would destroy us all.
But why does God only strike a few of the men of Beth-shemesh and not all of them? Does He only strike dead the men who looked at the ark? And, further, was it the fact of their looking that drew God’s ire or perhaps the manner of their looking? In other words, did some of the men go beyond a contrite glance and perhaps stand near the ark, looking closely at all the extravagant detail, baulking at the sacred symbol as if it was some prized display at a museum? We don’t know. But we can assume that they’d gotten so used to living life without God that they’d forgotten their place in the world—and God’s.
God isn’t content to send dumb Dagons crashing to the floor in a thousand pieces. He desires to mold His people into His image: “Be holy as I am holy,” He declares. For some, it takes the death of a loved one to get the ball rolling. For some, it takes prison. For some, it takes cancer. For some, it takes fatherhood. Oh, but for us today, let it be the reading of 1 Samuel 6:19 that awakens our hearts to the fear of the LORD.