1 Sam 5:11, They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines and said, "Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people." For there was a deadly confusion throughout the city; the hand of God was very heavy there.
	This week we have a most earnest consideration presented to us by the Lord. There is something which requires our seeking after God in the manifestation of the operation of the Holy Spirit. This is within each of us individually as children of God, as well as in us corporately, the members of this fellowship. What does the Lord need to do in our hearts and minds and lives to bring forth His plan and His purpose within those who should be honoring Him as the only living Lord God Almighty? 
	Our reading this morning detailed how God showed Himself mighty among those who did not know Him. They suffered because of their unwillingness to acknowledge Him, Alone, as the Only True and Living Lord God Almighty. He was, to those Philistines, just the God of Israel, and nothing more than one of the many deities of other peoples. Therefore the Hand of the Lord was on them for their destruction.
	In us, however, we experience the Hand of God upon us for a completely different reason. He works to show us that He, Alone, must be recognized as the Only True and Living Lord God Almighty in our lives and our hearts and our minds as those whom He has rescued from the realm of sin and death and darkness. 
	We are at that point in the history of our lives at which we once again must come face to face with the necessity to acknowledge that God has His Hand upon our lives for His plan and His purpose to be accomplished in our lives. This is something which can be very painful as He works to show us where there are those needs for His utmost Sovereignty to be in place. 
Prayerfully, we are no longer babes in Christ with the need of milk for our nourishment. We are a mature fellowship in terms of the years of our lives on this earth. As well, consider the number of years that we have been gathering together to learn His ways and His heart and His plan in this living relationship with Him. 
We are His people! We are worshipping Him together! We are encouraging each other to go on in Christ! We must not settle for customary and the ritual and the human standard of doctrinal statements which limit the growth of spiritual maturity. Let us grow together into the fullness and the knowledge of what God has opened for all those who have been redeemed by the precious and wondrous blood of Jesus. We are now fully partakers of His Righteousness and His Holiness.
	 Please turn to Deut 2:14+15, and read together concerning what took place with the Hand of the Lord upon those whom He had rescued from their captivity in Egypt. They had refused to go on with His guidance into the Promised Land. Their fears and their distrust of the Sovereignty of God to go before them had caused them to turn away from Him. 
He had proven Himself their Provider and their Savior over and over and over again! Still they turned away from Him and served the other gods of their own making and the various gods of the people surrounding them. Accordingly, God put His Hand upon them as we read in this passage, and destroyed that first generation before the children could go into the Promised Land.
	Deut 2:14+15, Now the time that it took for us to come from Kadesh-barnea, until we crossed over the brook Zered, was thirty-eight years; until all the generation of the men of war perished from within the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. Moreover the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from within the camp, until they all perished. 
	Note how the Hand of the Lord was against this first generation until they were all dead. He provided their material needs for those 40 years as they died off over time. Then the remnant of first generation chose to adopt the gods and the behaviors of the Midianites with the despicable worship evidenced at Baal-peor. They even took it to the door of the Tabernacle of The Lord God Jehovah. It was then that that vile and faithless and wicked generation was thrust through with the hand of the Lord as represented by Phinehas and the javelin so used for this purpose. Judgment was meted out to those who had so rejected the freely offered relationship with Yahweh.
	The next considered point of contact with the reality of the Hand of God on a life is found in the Book of Ruth, Chapter 1, verses 12-14. Here was the cry of the widow, Naomi, who also lost her two sons. She was returning to her hometown of Bethlehem to try to find someone who would take care of her. She was bereaved and was looking at facing her waning days in solitude. Her two daughters-in-law were going with her when she made the following proclamation. 
	Ruth 1:12-14, "Return, my daughters! Go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope, if I should even have a husband tonight and also bear sons, would you therefore wait until they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters; for it is harder for me than for you, for the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me." And they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. 
	In the midst of her grief, Naomi laid it all at the feet of the Lord. She set the deaths of her beloved husband and her two sons right there as the cause of God’s hand upon her life. We often do that when we are grieving and when we are hurting and when we are depressed and when we are feeling defeated. We put the blame on God. We carry this same attitude and demeanor in our beings. It often finds us thinking, if not verbalizing, the idea that if we did not belong to God, then we would never have to go through all the pain and anguish and the tribulation of this death to self that is so vital within our life on this earth. 
	What we see, however, as this whole story unfolds, is that it was because of all these circumstances that Naomi and Ruth were brought back to Bethlehem. It was there that Ruth met Boaz and Naomi was blessed with a grandson, who carried forward the lineage of David, and ultimately the earthly lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ. There was the hand of the Lord in operation throughout this entire detailing of the heritage that was borne through the suffering and then the eventual blessing of Naomi and Ruth and Boaz.
	The Psalmist, next, in Ps 32:1-5, brings to the forefront how we are to see the Hand of the Lord upon our lives in respect to how He shows us our sin and our rebellion and our transgressions. He works in us to cause us to recognize that when we give in to those sinful lusts and activities, we are unable to find our peace and our righteousness and our joy in Christ Jesus. We will constantly be face to face with what we are doing and have done until we seek after the Lord to work His cleansing ministry in our lives and in our hearts and in our minds. We need His Hand upon us to show us what is necessary in order for our relationship with The Lord to flourish and to blossom in all the fruit of the Holy Spirit. That will never take place while we are hiding ourselves away in the futility of our disobedience.
	Ps 32:1-5, How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit! When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin to Thee, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord"; And Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. Selah. 
	In a lament, similar to that of Naomi, yet in greater detail, we have the Psalmist, in Ps 38, describing the manner in which the Hand of the Lord can feel so heavy upon our souls, upon our spirits, and even upon our physical bodies. There is no area of our lives which the Hand of God cannot access in bringing to the forefront the need for our cleansing and for our obedience. 
This is not a matter of torment and torture by God. This is despite that feeling that the entire world is against us and that we are being attacked on every level. Sometimes, as in the case of the Psalmist, that was an actual physical attack from those surrounding and usurping enemies. However, the hand of God is our salvation through it all. He protects as He works to make His victory over every enemy the reality of our lives. It is the means of His love for us working together with our love for Him and what is necessary for that living relationship to grow and to flourish. 
	Ps 38, O Lord, rebuke me not in Thy wrath; And chasten me not in Thy burning anger. For Thine arrows have sunk deep into me, And Thy hand has pressed down on me. There is no soundness in my flesh because of Thine indignation; There is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities are gone over my head; As a heavy burden they weigh too much for me. My wounds grow foul and fester. Because of my folly, I am bent over and greatly bowed down; I go mourning all day long. For my loins are filled with burning; And there is no soundness in my flesh. I am benumbed and badly crushed; I groan because of the agitation of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before Thee; And my sighing is not hidden from Thee. My heart throbs, my strength fails me; And the light of my eyes, even that has gone from me. My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague; And my kinsmen stand afar off. Those who seek my life lay snares for me; And those who seek to injure me have threatened destruction, And they devise treachery all day long. But I, like a deaf man, do not hear; And I am like a dumb man who does not open his mouth. Yes, I am like a man who does not hear, And in whose mouth are no arguments. For I hope in Thee, O Lord; Thou wilt answer, O Lord my God. For I said, "May they not rejoice over me, Who, when my foot slips, would magnify themselves against me." For I am ready to fall, And my sorrow is continually before me. For I confess my iniquity; I am full of anxiety because of my sin. But my enemies are vigorous and strong; And many are those who hate me wrongfully. And those who repay evil for good, They oppose me, because I follow what is good. Do not forsake me, O Lord; O my God, do not be far from me! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation! 
	The Prophet Isaiah, in Isa 13:4-9, is our next input on this matter of how God’s hands are actively working even upon the lives of those who reject Him. As much as He works for the sake of the up building of His people, He also brings low those who have no place for Him in their hearts and minds. For those who reject the love of God, there will be that work within every nation and people resulting in their utter destruction by His Holy judgment and His Righteous indignation. 
He is the Savior of those who turn to Him. He is also the Righteous and Holy Judge of those who choose to rather revel in their sin and self-indulgent blasphemy against Him. No one can avoid or hide from the Omnipotent and Omniscient Hand of God in operation.
	Isa 13:4-9, A sound of tumult on the mountains, Like that of many people! A sound of the uproar of kingdoms, Of nations gathered together! The Lord of hosts is mustering the army for battle. They are coming from a far country From the farthest horizons, The Lord and His instruments of indignation, To destroy the whole land. Wail, for the day of the Lord is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will fall limp, And every man's heart will melt. And they will be terrified, Pains and anguish will take hold of them; They will writhe like a woman in labor, They will look at one another in astonishment, Their faces aflame. Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning anger, To make the land a desolation; And He will exterminate its sinners from it. 
	Finally, please open to Ezek 39:21-29, where the Prophet lays before all the fact that the entire history of mankind is in the Hand of the Lord. Every government, every civilization, every country, every man, woman, or child, will come to the realization that God is exactly Who He says He is. He works according to His plans and His purposes. He uses every means which He has created and brought into being to accomplish that marvelous and miraculous and perfect objective. When the end of time is upon all, there will be the unfolding landscape of how God worked every moment of every day in the accomplishment of all that His Hand was set to do. 
	Ezek 39:21-29, "And I shall set My glory among the nations; and all the nations will see My judgment which I have executed, and My hand which I have laid on them. "And the house of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God from that day onward. "And the nations will know that the house of Israel went into exile for their iniquity because they acted treacherously against Me, and I hid My face from them; so I gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and all of them fell by the sword. "According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions I dealt with them, and I hid My face from them."'" Therefore thus says the Lord God, "Now I shall restore the fortunes of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I shall be jealous for My holy name. "And they shall forget their disgrace and all their treachery which they perpetrated against Me, when they live securely on their own land with no one to make them afraid. "When I bring them back from the peoples and gather them from the lands of their enemies, then I shall be sanctified through them in the sight of the many nations. "Then they will know that I am the Lord their God because I made them go into exile among the nations, and then gathered them again to their own land; and I will leave none of them there any longer. "And I will not hide My face from them any longer, for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel," declares the Lord God. 
What this world has considered as exile and banishment and the Lord giving up on His people, will actually be seen as the means through which God manifested Himself in greater measure and abundance and sustenance to His chosen ones. All those who are now the people of God will be lifted up and shown in the sanctification of Jesus Christ for all the eternal ages upon ages. The Hand of God will be fully in evidence as the loving manner of how God worked to bring righteousness, peace and joy into the very core of those who turned to Him and trusted in His good and perfect work. 
When we face all animosity, all adversity, all disappointment, illness, pain, rejection, suffering, trials, tribulations, and abusive treatment from this realm, how do we respond and react? Is it in the knowledge that God will see us through it all? Or is it by putting the blame on the One Who is really and eternally Our Sustainer, Our Provider, Our Defender and Our Source of Everlasting Life?
It is now, for us, to be the Children of God in whom there resides that confident assurance that God has all things well in His Hand. We are to be the living and joy-filled expression of the difference that the life of Christ Jesus makes in our every decision, our every testimony of His love, our roles as parents, as spouses, as children, as neighbors, as workers, and as employers. How we treat others around us will show just how much we value the living relationship that God has opened unto us through the death and the resurrection of the Only Begotten Son of God. So be it!
They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines and said, "Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people." For there was a deadly confusion throughout the city; the hand of God was very heavy there. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Mal 1:11, "For from the rising of the sun, even to its setting, My name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name will be great among the nations," says the Lord of hosts. Amen.