The Israelites had truly strayed far from God. They were no longer following God as a people. They were no longer acknowledging him and doing what God had called them to do.

Even worse, at Shiloh, where the tabernacle had been set up and the ark of the covenant was found, Eli’s sons were abusing the sacrifices that were being offered and even sleeping with the women who were serving at the tabernacle.

So when the time came to go to war with the Philistines and the Israelites were losing, the elders of Israel thought that they could possibly get an advantage over the Philistines if they were to bring the ark of the covenant to them there where they were fighting. They might have remembered how the Lord had previously gone before Joshua and the Israelites to empower them, to drive out the Canaanites, to allow the Israelites to defeat their enemies, even though they were a weaker people than those that the Israelites had found in the promised land.

When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the LORD bring defeat on us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the LORD’s covenant from Shiloh, so that he may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.”

So the people sent men to Shiloh, and they brought back the ark of the covenant of the LORD Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim. And Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

1 Samuel 4:3-4

The elders called for the ark to be brought from Shiloh, and Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s two sons, quickly obliged and brought the ark. And while the arrival of the ark gave the Israelites a morale boost, the power of God was not available to the Israelites because they had left God long ago.

I think that we can see in this story that we, at times, like to enjoy the benefits of God, even if we don’t enjoy God himself. The Israelites were far from God, and yet they wanted God to rescue them. They wanted the physical representation of God in having the ark by their side, maybe in the same way that we like to go to church or to other religious ceremonies, but we don’t necessarily want to spend time with him. We don’t necessarily want to do what he has said. We prefer the benefits of God without the true relationship of being the people that he has called us to be.

This is important warning for us as believers and followers of Jesus. It is critical that we stay in relationship with Christ, that we abide in him, that we obey what he has said that we must do. Otherwise, we will lose our connection to the source, just as the Israelites did. Otherwise, we will truly lose the power of God in our lives, just as the Israelites did. We will begin, instead, to substitute the benefits of God for relationship with God himself. We will begin, instead, to find boosts in morale when we think about what our relationship with God once was, or in symbols that represent a relationship with God, instead of walking with him in loving obedience on a daily basis. And we will be defeated before our enemy, just as the Israelites were before the Philistines.

Let us, instead, remain connected to Christ. Through the word of God, in prayer, in avoiding sin, and most of all, in obedience to all that he has called us to do, in all that he has called us to be. This is the way that we will show love to him and this is the way that he will be glorified in our lives.