1 Sam 6:5, So you shall make likenesses of your tumors and likenesses of your mice that ravage the land, and you shall give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps He will ease His hand from you, your gods, and your land. 
	Today, we have a most interesting observation made by the Lord in this book of the Bible. It involves the fact that after a period of 7 months, the Philistines were looking for some way to relieve themselves of the judgment of the God of Israel which was so heavily upon them. They had captured the Ark of the Covenant in battle and had prized it as a token of victory over the Tribes of Israel. The Philistines were treating it as just another spoil of war with no great regard for the truth of Who God was. They considered Him as just another one of the gods who were the means of ritualistic control over the affairs of daily life. 
	The nations surrounding the Israelites were aware of the deliverance of that people from Egypt. They had heard the stories of the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. They had witnessed the manner in which the God of Israel had given the Canaanite land to this people. These Philistines were not unaware of how the God of this conquering nation seemed to move heaven and earth to deal with those who would oppose His worshippers. 
	The Philistines had their gods and idols to which they gave the honor for the fertility of the soil and for the rain and for the sunshine. They gave their graven images the credit for births and the blame for deaths. They sacrificed their children and portions of their crops and flocks and herds to these figments of their collective imaginations. On that basis, they wanted to deal with the God of Israel in such a manner that He would choose to leave them alone. They did not disbelieve in the God called Jehovah or Yahweh by the Israelites. They just lumped the Lord into the category of another deity who had a place in the hearts of those who would choose to practice the worship that would gain His attention and response. 
	Notice, in the manner in which they were seeking some relief from the misery that was their portion from the God of Israel, that they intimated that He must be a very powerful God. This was so because His hand was afflicting not only the Philistine people, but their gods as well as their land. They wanted to honor this God of Israel, not as the Only True and Living Lord God Almighty, Who Alone is God. They did so with the hope that He would quit harassing them and their gods who must obviously be weaker. That is why those gods could not stop the onslaught of the conquering of the lands of these Philistines. They were just not as strong as this God of Israel. 
	Accordingly the Philistine diviners were dealing with the Lord in the manner in which they would deal with any of their obviously less powerful deities. They wanted this God to leave them alone, so they put forth those aspects of their limited spiritual knowledge into the means of appeasing this God called Jehovah. They made known the means that should show that this God of Israel not only was placated but truly was behind all the suffering and physically evident torment that they all were enduring. 
	While they were sincere in their attributing to Jehovah the fact that He was real and active and to be honored, they still were not of the mind that they should turn to worship Him singly and wholeheartedly. They just wanted Him to leave them alone so that they could continue with their normal and customary daily life, worshipping their own idols and gods without any more afflictions from the God of Israel Whom they had angered. They just wanted to be left alone to deal with each day as it unfolded according to their ideas and their beliefs and their customs and their rituals. 
	  This is exactly how this world considers the Lord God Almighty. There is recognition that there is a Supreme Being in the heavens who has His hands on the pulse of humanity. That is really not in dispute for the power of this age in its deception of mankind. Because God set the realization that there must be a god in the hearts of humanity, this age, rather than disputing that truth, seeks to fill that void with any other deity that can be imagined. 
Consider how many false religions are scattered across the globe with all those teachings which enslave and entangle the minds and the actions and the superstitions of so many peoples. As well, there are those idols of wealth and fame and earthly wisdom and power and prestige to which so many people, even many Christian people bow down and worship. The power of this age has so entangled and befuddled the atmosphere with all these deified imaginations of mankind that the true God, the Lord God Almighty is just lumped into this whole category of the control and the subjugation of the peoples of this earth. 
What we need to recognize is that even as blinded as the nations of the whole earth may be right now, there will come that time in the course of human history when the truth will be seen. God, Jehovah, Yahweh, Adonai will be glorified! He will be acknowledged not just as another god among so many other idols and deities of this age. He will be recognized and exalted and glorified by every man, woman and child who ever drew a breath on the face of this earth which God created. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that no other god is real, only The Lord God Almighty, Jehovah, Yahweh, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! He is the only living and awesome God in all this, His creation! 
For so many, horribly, that will come at the realization of their eternal damnation and separation from the joy of knowing this reality. They will learn this truth after they have recognized and confessed that they did not want to know who God was while they lived on this earth. They wanted to simply be left alone, without any interference in the manner in which they were choosing to live their deluded and pitiful lives. That is the futile echo of this morning’s passage…perhaps He will ease His hand from you, your gods, and your land. That is the hopelessness of their miserable and awful choice to live for themselves rather than to find their life in the truth of the acceptance of the free gift of God’s everlasting love and salvation. 
The Psalmist, in Ps 18:43-49, brings to light the truth that there will be the assemblage of all the nations before the Throne of God. While he dealt with the manner in which the Lord was gathering all the other nations under the umbrella of earthly sovereignty, this is all a type of what is in store for the entirety of the peoples of earth - past, present, and future! On that day there will be the universal acclamation of the Divine and Eternal Lordship of God. 
Ps 18:43-49, Thou hast delivered me from the contentions of the people; Thou hast placed me as head of the nations; A people whom I have not known serve me. As soon as they hear, they obey me; Foreigners submit to me. Foreigners fade away, And come trembling out of their fortresses. The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock; And exalted be the God of my salvation, The God who executes vengeance for me, And subdues peoples under me. He delivers me from my enemies; Surely Thou dost lift me above those who rise up against me; Thou dost rescue me from the violent man. Therefore I will give thanks to Thee among the nations, O Lord, And I will sing praises to Thy name. 
	Note how the Lord brings in those other nations who were not originally part of God’s chosen people. This is the heralding in of all the Gentiles who will receive their free access into, not just the nation of God, but into the very family of God in Christ Jesus! There will be countless multitudes of people who are willingly part of the chorus of God’s praise and worship and glorification. 
	Just as the Psalmist is led to praise God for all that is done by the Lord in establishing the Kingdom of God throughout the entirety of His creation, so do we join in that recognition that it is God Who establishes our place on this earth within His Kingdom. It is God Who delivers us from all the snares and tribulations and assaults of this age. It is God Who manifests His so great love to call such as us unto Himself, placing us under the Omnipresent banner of His Omnipotent protection and Omniscient guidance. We wholeheartedly shout forth the refrain of this passage - The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock; And exalted be the God of my salvation…Therefore I will give thanks to Thee among the nations, O Lord, And I will sing praises to Thy name.
This praise and giving glory to God by all creation is reiterated by the Psalmist in Ps 66:1-4. Ps 66:1-4, Shout joyfully to God, all the earth; Sing the glory of His name; Make His praise glorious. Say to God, "How awesome are Thy works! Because of the greatness of Thy power Thine enemies will give feigned obedience to Thee. "All the earth will worship Thee, And will sing praises to Thee; They will sing praises to Thy name."
	As His redeemed people, we are learning to obey Him willingly and to declare that He is both Savior and Lord of our lives even now on this earth. We are in the process, by the work of the Holy Spirit, fully in line with the Word of God, of coming into the living truth of what Jesus as Lord means as each day unfolds. 
We are being taught submission to His will in the outworking of our actions, our thoughts, our motives, our behavior, our attitudes, and our words manifested in how we deal with others and with the Lord. Therefore we can …Shout joyfully to God, all the earth; Sing the glory of His name; Make His praise glorious. Say to God, "How awesome are Thy works!
	On the other end of this passage, there will be that unfailing reality of The Lord God Almighty as the only true and living God. There will be evidenced all the horrible and awful choices that have been made by humanity over the course of history. The deceptive work of the power of this age will be set before all the peoples. Those who were willingly subjecting themselves to everything else but the free salvation given by God the Father through the Only Begotten Son will be aghast at their displayed stupidity and defiant folly. They will be petrified and horrified at the just and holy and deserved consequences of having so spurned that free gift of God’s Love.  
Herein we note that all the peoples of the earth, not just those who belong to the family of God, will recognize that they are subject to His Sovereignty and always have been! As much as they will argue, the fact of their willing submission to and worship of all the false gods and idols of this age will be set before them in such veracity, that they will have to offer obedience and worship to the One Lord God Almighty. It will be with utter revulsion in their hearts at the wasted cost of their sacrifices to all those impotent and utterly deceptive gods of human imagination unto whom they offered their earthly fealty and submission.
It will be fully displayed, to the chagrin and the horror of these deceived peoples, that God has always had His hand on all the course of this, His history! Nothing has ever been done that could set aside His plan and His purpose in Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son! Nothing could hinder or prevent the will of God from coming into full and glorious completion! As much as this world order has tried to rule itself, God has always been in control! He rules and overrules according to all that He has eternally purposed and brought to completion! 
The Prophet Isaiah joins in this chorus of the universal praise and worship of God as in Isa 42:10-12. Please open to this choral declaration and proclamation from every corner of God’s creation. 
Isa 42:10-12, Sing to the Lord a new song, Sing His praise from the end of the earth! You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it. You islands and those who dwell on them. Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voices, The settlements where Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Sela sing aloud, Let them shout for joy from the tops of the mountains. Let them give glory to the Lord, And declare His praise in the coastlands. 
	Notice that no one is excluded from this proclamation of the praise and the worship of God. There will that joy and that excitement and that wholehearted singing of the praises and the adoration and the glory of God on high from every area of God’s creation. This is a command! It is not a suggestion. The command will go forth! The response will be universal and growing in volume and intensity and comprehensiveness. There will be no area of exclusion from the testimony of the greatness and the splendor and the majesty of Our Lord God Almighty!
	The Prophet further details what the heart of the Lord will have in the manner of the universal praise and adoration that will be forthcoming because of His so glorious and awesome work throughout the history of His creation. Please turn to Isa 45:20-25.
	Isa 45:20-25, "Gather yourselves and come; Draw near together, you fugitives of the nations; They have no knowledge, Who carry about their wooden idol, And pray to a god who cannot save. "Declare and set forth your case; Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides Me, A righteous God and a Savior; There is none except Me. "Turn to Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other. "I have sworn by Myself, The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness And will not turn back, That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. "They will say of Me, 'Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength. 'Men will come to Him, And all who were angry at Him shall be put to shame. "In the Lord all the offspring of Israel Will be justified, and will glory." 
	This is a declaration that the glory of God will be evidenced in even those who were so foolish in the choices of ignoring Him in the days of their habitation on His earth. They will not be able to say that God was unjust or that He hid the truth from them. Here is clearly pronounced what the choices of humanity have always been. God has made known His salvation. God has declared the fact that He, Alone, is God, the Only God, the True and Living God. He has published and publicized the fact that every other thing that captures the heart and the worship of man is a false and foolish hope. 
	There is One True Living God and there is only one way to know Him! That is through the freely offered eternal life of believing upon Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten of the Father. He is the only way to come into the very family of God! This is what will be so clearly and gloriously proclaimed on that day when it will be that every man, woman, and child will bow down before Him and every tongue will acknowledge that …'Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength. 
	We will continue with the truth that despite man’s ideas and man’s customs, and man’s ignoring the certainty of the One True Living Lord God Almighty, they will all be giving Him the glory and the praise and the honor that He Alone is due. The gods and idols of humanity will all be incinerated before the throne of Jehovah, the Lord God Almighty! So be it.
So you shall make likenesses of your tumors and likenesses of your mice that ravage the land, and you shall give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps He will ease His hand from you, your gods, and your land. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 79:13. So we Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture Will give thanks to Thee forever; To all generations we will tell of Thy praise. Amen.