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1 Samuel 4:1-10

Consider your home ground as your camp. Now, this was what happened to the children of < ?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>Israel in their camp: they lost a battle they should have won; the battle was lost in their camp (home ground). It is possible to have God in your camp and be camped out unto defeat. 1 Samuel 4:5, ÒAnd when the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted so loudly that the earth shook.Ó They were able to shake the earth, but not the heart, of the Philistines. The children of IsraelÕs noise were empty because they were empty before God. If you are empty before God, your enemy will empty you. How far are you from God? In vs. 6&7, ÒWhen the Philistines heard the noise they wondered why the noise and they understood and said ÔGod has come to the campÕÓ. Notwithstanding, they fought and Israel was defeated, and a great slaughter was recorded for Israel, and the ark of God was captured. One will wonder how that could be when they had God in the camp. With God in your camp, have you been facing defeat? If so, there is a need to check your distance from God.  It could be that you are consciously or unconsciously far from Him by virtue of carelessness. He has sent His word that He will never leave us nor forsake us.