There’s a difference between humbling ourselves and being humbled by God. When God convicts us of a wrong we have done and we acknowledge our fault, and also ask Him to forgive us, we’re humbling ourselves in the privacy of our intimate time with Him. Another way God can correct us is when He sends a person of spiritual authority to bring the correction from Him. When this happens, and we accept the correction, and ask Him to forgive us, we can prove our true repentance by seeking to turn from the wrong thinking that led to the wrong behavior and find restoration back to our right standing with Him.
And when necessary, we make restitution when our fault caused damage to others because many times, asking God to forgive us is not enough. We also need to ask the one(s) we wronged to forgive us. If we have not done anything to repair or restitute the injustice or damage, there’s still a charge against us in the spirit realm. As we choose to take this humble step, and make restitution, God will give us grace and help us do the right thing, even when those we faulted against may or may not accept our apology. What we should concern ourselves with is being accepted in God’s eyes.
1 Peter 5:5
“You who are younger in the faith: do as your elders and leaders ask. All of you should treat each other with humility, for as it says in Proverbs , God opposes the proud but offers grace to the humble.” VOICE
There are people in the Bible who received judgment for dishonoring and openly rejecting the Lord. Some of them served Him with wrong motives and others rejected Him by engaging in idolatry. To them, their judgment was shown in what happened to their neck. The neck is related in spiritual things to whether we turn to God with our hearts or are rebellious against Him and His ways. The neck also has to do with governmental spiritual authority since it is connected to the head. However, our spiritual authority can be lost with continual rebellion, disobedience, and an abject rejection of God.
This means that our ability to count on God’s continual presence in our life, especially in times of warfare has to do with whether we seek Him daily and give Him a very important place of priority in our hearts and in our lives. God loves us all and is Omnipresent (present everywhere), but His presence accompanies those who choose to draw near to Him as the Scripture tells us. These are the ones who see victory in their battles.
James 4:7-8
“So submit yourselves to the one true God and fight against the devil and his schemes. If you do, he will run away in failure. Come close to the one true God, and He will draw close to you. Wash your hands; you have dirtied them in sin. Cleanse your heart, because your mind is split down the middle, your love for God on one side and selfish pursuits on the other.” VOICE
James gives us an important clue. It says that before we can see victory against the enemy we must first submit to God (obey Him and His Word). We start this submission by coming close to Him and washing our hands (from the guilt of our sin by turning from it). We also must cleanse our hearts and come out of double-mindedness by not trying to pursue God one day and our selfish pursuits the next day that are not His will for us or is not the right time for them. This double mindset leads to defeat.
We see this in the story of David and Goliath. We have heard of David’s constant pursuit of God and His ways. Even when he made mistakes, he turned to God for forgiveness and asked that His presence and His Spirit would not depart from him (Psalm 51:10-11). David made God’s presence a priority in his life, and even when he sat on a throne as king of Israel, God did not stop being a priority in his life. He worshiped him whether in private or in public.
David also passed down the awareness of this priority to his son Solomon when he was going to occupy the throne of Israel. But this choice of making God first did not start with David. We know that David is a descendant of Ruth. A woman that was born a Moabite. She came from a place and people who were highly idolatrous and had their origin with the sin of incest between Lot and one of his daughters.
But this did not stop Ruth from desiring to serve the God of her mother-in-law Naomi, and to worship Him for the rest of her life. God then showed Himself gracious to her and gave her favor among the people of Israel. This caused her to meet Boaz and later become his wife. From this union, she gave birth to Obed, who was the Father of Jesse. Thus, she became the great-grandmother of King David and ancestor of our Lord Jesus.
Ruth 4:13-17
“So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed is the Lord who has not left you without a redeemer (grandson, as heir) today, and may his name become famous in Israel. May he also be to you one who restores life and sustains your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.’
“Then Naomi took the child and placed him in her lap, and she became his nurse. The neighbor women gave him a name, saying, ‘A son (grandson) has been born to Naomi.’ They named him Obed (worshiper). He is the father of Jesse, the father of David [the ancestor of Jesus Christ].” AMP
On the other hand, in this genealogical battle, Goliath, David’s opponent, was said to be the son, along with four other giants of Orpah, also a Moabite. Orpah was the other daughter-in-law of Naomi. Some Theologians say that because she turned her back and left Naomi to reunite with her people and returned to her idolatry, her name was described as Orep- neck. This describes her rebellion against God after having served Him with Naomi and her family when her husband was alive. 1*
In addition, according to the Midrash Biblical Interpreters, what gave place to the birth of Goliath and her other giant brothers was Orpah’s continual involvement in promiscuity and other negative characteristics that could’ve been part of her idolatrous lifestyle. Thus, she was considered an immoral woman.1* This kind of lifestyle was also passed down to the next generation and we know from 1 Samuel 17 that Goliath the Philistine giant was a sorcerer from Gath who loved to intimidate and curse the army of Israel under the leadership of King Saul.
At the time of the confrontation, David demonstrated his courageous desire to fight this giant because he knew that the same God who delivered him from the paws of the lion and the bear would also be with him to defeat this giant. Here, a curious principle of warfare is that the loser team is demanded to serve the winning team, and Goliath even stated this principle when he threatened the army of the Israelites.
1 Samuel 17:9-10
“If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will become your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall become our servants and serve us.” Again the Philistine said, ‘I defy the battle lines of Israel this day; give me a man so that we may fight together.’” AMP
The defiant giant did not count on God giving the battle to the one who had a heart after His own heart and also showed Him his faithfulness. This battle was already determined by God to give David the victory and a great promotion. And so it happened that the uncircumcised Philistine was no match for David’s deliverer who used His supernatural power to sink the stone David threw into his forehead and killed him. By his defeat, the stiff neck of the genealogy of the giant was dealt with when his head was cut off with his sword.
1 Samuel 17:45-47
“Then David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the corpses of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that this entire assembly may know that the Lord does not save with the sword or with the spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and He will hand you over to us.’” AMP
Another case of a neck that was judged was that of Eli and his two sons Hophni and Phineas. In this scenario there was also a battle between the Israelites and the Philistines, but this time, the Israelites were utterly defeated. The reason, though they initially had the ark of the covenant of the Lord in their possession, which symbolizes the presence of the Lord, He was not with them. There was tremendous sin in their camp caused mainly by Eli’s two sons.
In this battle, this principle of warfare was also at stake and the Philistines did not want to serve the Israelites who had been their servants. The victory continued on the side of the Philistines because in 1 Samuel 3:13-14 the Lord had told Samuel the judgment rendered to Eli and his sons for their continual dishonoring and blaspheming Him by stealing the offerings of the people and other abominable behaviors in the sight of God that they engaged in while serving in the temple and their father didn’t do anything to stop them. The Lord told young Samuel,
“On that day I will carry out against Eli everything that I have spoken concerning his house (family), from beginning to end. Now I have told him that I am about to judge his house forever for the sinful behavior which he knew [was happening], because his sons were bringing a curse on themselves [dishonoring and blaspheming God] and he did not rebuke them. Therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the sinful behavior of Eli’s house (family) shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.’” AMP
Hence, the ark was captured by the Philistines in this battle, something that was devastating to the people of Israel, including Eli. When a messenger came to let him know what happened in the battle, he told Eli that his two sons had died in the battle but the high priest and judge of Israel already expected it to happen for Samuel had revealed to him what the Lord was going to do with them, and he accepted the judgment of the Lord (1 Samuel 3:18). That’s why he did not show himself emotional at the news, but when he asked what had happened to the ark and was told that it was captured by their enemies, he fell backward and broke his neck for he knew he could not live without the presence of the Lord. This was a sign of the public opposition of God against him for choosing his sons more than Him because 1 Samuel 2:30 says,
“Therefore the Eternal God of Israel declares: “I promised that your family would go in and out of My presence forever. But now I surely declare, those who honor Me I will honor, but people who choose to despise Me, I, in turn, will consider contemptible: those who hate Me will not matter to Me.” VOICE
If this was not enough, when Phineas wife, who was pregnant heard about the defeat of the army of Israel and the death of the men in her family, she went into sudden labor and gave birth to a son before she too died. And she named the child “Ichabod” which means “The glory has left Israel.” Therefore, as we have learned in this post, it matters when the presence of the Lord is with us and He helps us defeat every enemy of our destiny.
For this, we must humble ourselves before Him daily, and choose to draw near and submit to Him with obedience. We were born to worship Him and He loves it when we choose Him above all else. There’s nothing that can compare to being in His presence where we find comfort, love, joy, His loving kindness, and correction when necessary because He wishes that none should perish, but have everlasting life.
1 Samuel 4:21-22
“And she named the boy Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory has left Israel,’ because the ark of God had been taken and because of [the deaths of] her father-in-law and her husband. She said, ‘The glory has left Israel, for the ark of God has been taken.’” AMP
To God alone be all the glory.*
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1*. M, Michael, “Orpah and Her Interpreters: Evaluating the Justifications for the Traditional- Stereotyped Readings.” ECWA Technological Seminary, kagoro. OTE 24/2 (2011): 390-413.
