Truth Told

Then she said, “The glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark of God has been captured.”

Holy Bible: New Living Translation (1 Sa 4:22). Tyndale House Publishers.

21 She named the child Ichabod (which means “Where is the glory?”), for she said, “Israel’s glory is gone.” She named him this because the Ark of God had been captured and because her father-in-law and husband were dead. 22 Then she said, “The glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark of God has been captured.”

Holy Bible: New Living Translation (1 Sa 4:21–22). Tyndale House Publishers.

At this time in Israel’s history this was a very dark hour. The Philistines had given the Israelites a major military defeat, thirty-thousand soldiers had been killed, the prophet Eli’s two sons had also been killed. So speaking the words in the above scripture was a woman having just come through child birth and then faced with the news of her husband having also been slain. However, the most devastating news of all was that the enemy had captured the Ark of the Lord. The Ark was both a symbol of and a pledge that The Lord God Jehovah was right there in the midst of His people. They had owed everything or anything beneficial in their lives and their existence to the presence of God being in their midst. Israel had no glory nor power or wisdom outside of her relationship to God.

The ongoing spiritual significance for us is obvious. The people of God in any age of history have no glory except for the manifest presence of God in their midst. When God’s presence is lacking in the church or in any Christian then they are pretty poor indeed. As far as material and earthly things go, at times they may appear to be prosperous or successful and they may believe they are in need of nothing. But I suggest to you these spiritually needy people are blind, poor and naked. It is a miserable existence to be a Christian trying to live a Christian lifestyle or to be a church doing Christianity without God being noticeably present.

There is absolutely no mistaking God’s absence when His presence isn’t noticeable in our midst. Worldly people recognize when a Christian ministry or organization don’t have the power of God’s presence. When outsiders take notice that God’s presence isn’t existing, they more often than not hold a contempt towards that organization or person.

To have a sense of God’s presence may seem mystical and defying explanation but it is the one thing that gives believers a distinction from any other people.

When God’s presence is absent, there is no glory, we are ICHABOD!

Larry Anderson