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Hi, my name is Dean Smith and in this podcast, I want to discuss the tendency many of us have to treat God as little more than a good luck charm.
It showed up in two battles separated by nearly 3,100 years when two armies tried to use a God-good luck charm and it failed miserably.
One involves a battle between the nation of Israel and the Philistines around 1000 BC and the second is a more recent battle that took place during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
You may have heard of the sinking of the Moskva, Russia’s flagship in the Baltic Sea on April 14, 2022. The high-tech missile ship provided protection to the Russian fleet trying to supply the country’s army that had invaded Ukraine.
Like the Titanic, it was considered invincible.
But Ukraine’s military sunk the ship with land-based cruise missiles. It was a humiliating defeat that the Russian government initially tried to cover up by suggesting there was a fire on board the ship.
Moskva had a crew of over 500, and it is uncertain how many lives were lost in the attack. But it was the largest warship sunk since World War II.
There were also reports, that Moskva may have had nuclear warheads on board when it went down. But that was not all the warship had as part of its arsenal.
There was also a good luck charm.
The Jerusalem Post reports that the Moskva also carried a fragment of the True Cross on which the Romans crucified Christ.
In 2020, Sergiy Khalyuta, an archpriest with the Russian Orthodox Church, told the Russian news outlet, TASS, that the church had put an ancient Christian relic, a piece of Christ’s True Cross, onboard the Moskva.
I had heard of the archangel Michael, but never heard of archpriests before, but apparently, they oversee several parishes.
The relic was embedded in a 19th-century metal cross used onboard the ship during services in the Russian Orthodox chapel.
Though medieval writers reported that there were enough pieces of Christ’s cross circulating at that time to build a cathedral, the Russian Orthodox Church claims that this particular relic was special.
According to church tradition, Empress Helena, the mother of the Christian Emperor Constantine who ruled Rome between 272 AD and 337 AD, had found the original cross on which the Romans had crucified Jesus.
Over the next few years, Helena distributed pieces of this cross to churches throughout the Roman Empire.
In an interview with TASS, ArchPriest Khalyuta said:
“This relic used to belong to a Catholic church, but was acquired by anonymous patrons of arts, and it was their will to send the relic to the [Black Sea] fleet. The Moskva cruiser has an onboard chapel, where services take place.”
Though it’s highly doubtful that this fragment was part of Christ’s original cross, the Russian Orthodox church believed it was, and it seems to be part of human nature to treat religious artifacts as good luck charms.
Sure radar and missiles are nice, but nothing provides a shield of protection like a relic.
How would God allow any enemy to sink the Moskva if it had a piece of Christ’s original cross on board?
But you know nearly 3,100 years ago Israel tried that same trick with basically the same result.
Israel was involved in a war with the Philistines and during the first day of the battle, Israel suffered a crushing defeat losing over 4,000 men. The battle is recorded in 1 Samuel 4.
It was an absolutely devastating loss and immediately people asked what happened?
Who was to blame?
What caused this catastrophic defeat?
And Israel’s elders in full political, scapegoat, mode blamed God.
“Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines?” the elders whined in verse 3.
They actually claimed it was God who beat them. God was fighting on behalf of the Philistines.
What an outrage!
So if this was true, there was an undeniable solution. The elders needed to find out why God was doing this and then repent of that sin.
It was a very simple formula.
But the elders came up with a better plan. A more devious plot. They ordered that the Ark of the Covenant be brought to the battlefield.
The Ark of the Covenant was the most valuable item in Israel’s religious life because the very presence of God rested between the golden Cherubim located on top of the Ark which was located in the Tabernacle of Moses at Shiloh.
After the order was given, a couple of Jewish priests hauled the Ark to the front line of the conflict, literally putting it in danger.
Though the elders never said this part out loud, by doing this, they were basically threatening God, either you fight for Israel or the Ark of the Covenant will be lost to a pagan nation.
They were forcing God to fight for them, or else.
Well, the ‘or else’ happened. Israel was smashed again. God will not be mocked.
In fact, ten times more men died in the second battle than had died in the first. Not only was Israel soundly beaten, but the Philistine army captured the Ark of the Covenant and killed the Jewish priests who had brought the Ark to the front lines.
The victorious Philistine army hauled away the prized Ark of the Covenant and set it up in one of their pagan temples.
However, this arrangement wouldn’t last long, as God revealed that He was quite capable of looking after the ark and brought a series of devastating judgments upon the Philistines.
By the time God was done, the Philistines were using overnight delivery to ship it back to Israel.
God’s judgment included mice that wiped out their crops. In 1 Samuel 5:1-6, God judged the Philistines with emerods, which some believe included severe cases of bleeding hemorrhoids. Yes, I said hemorrhoids.
The Septuagint, which is based on Hebrew texts hundreds of years older than what is used for our modern Bible translations, suggests that God may have also judged the Philistines with the Bubonic plague because it adds this statement:
“And in the midst of their land rats sprang up, and there was a great death panic in the city.”
Whatever the case, by the time God was done, the Philistines, desperate to stop the pain, returned the Ark of the Covenant to Israel.
God was quite capable of defeating Israel’s enemies and had done so several times in the past.
But we can’t force God’s hand. We are not to test God, and we are not to treat God as our servant or good luck charm.
There is only one thing that pleases God. We are told in Hebrews 11:6:
6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
READ: Sunken Russian warship may have carried Christian relic ‘True Cross’ piece
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