The Book of 1Samuel 2:27-36

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1 The Book of 1Samuel 2:27-36 The Importance of Godly Leadership Pt.3 (2/22/15) As we have already said, the background for the book of 1Samuel is that it opens up during the period of the Judges. The period of the Judges was one of the blackest periods in Israel s history. This was a time when the leaders of Israel both political (judges) and spiritual (priests and prophets) were extremely corrupt. If the leaders are corrupt and forsake God s laws so will the people which is exactly what happed during the period of the Judges. However God in His mercy sought to judge the wicked spiritual leadership of Eli the high priest and his sons and replace it with the godly leadership of Samuel. We have divided this section into two main parts: 1. The Corruption of Eli s Sons in Ministry 2. The Preparation of Samuel for Ministry 1

2 I. The Corruption of Eli s Sons in Ministry A. The practices of Eli s sons v.12-17, 22 B. The problem of Eli s sons v Let me just say up front that one of the big problems with Eli s sons was Eli himself. C. The prophecy against Eli s sons v The accusation v Samuel 2:27-29 (NKJV) 27 Then a man of God came to Eli and said to him, "Thus says the LORD: 'Did I not clearly reveal Myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? 28 Did I not choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, to offer upon My altar, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod before Me? And did I not give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? 29 Why do you kick at (scorn) My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?' So here we see God indicting Eli as high priest of Israel for not being faithful to the call of God in his ministry. The Lord reminds him of how He called his family to be priests while they were still slaves in Egypt. 2

3 That would be a reference to how God called the family of Aaron, Moses brother, to be priests in Israel and allowed them To offer upon My altar, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod before Me In other words God allowed the family of Aaron to stand before Him to offer sacrifices to atone for the sins of the people, to burn incense on the golden altar of incense representing prayers offered for the people and to wear the ephod a way of determining the will of God for the people. The Lord was reminding Eli what a great privilege it was for his family to be singled out by God and anointed to be His priests in Israel. And in return for their service the Lord reminded Eli how He had allowed him and his sons to take certain parts of the animals after they had been sacrificed to eat for themselves and their families. And yet for all of God s blessings Eli didn t honor the Lord in his ministry Why do you kick at (scorn) My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people? The Lord is indicting Eli for not putting his loyalty to Him above his loyalty to his corrupt sons. They were using the ministry to bless and enrich themselves instead of seeing it as a way to bless and honor the Lord. 3

4 It reminds me very much of the indictment God brought against the shepherds (priests) of Israel in the days of Ezekiel and Jeremiah Ezekiel 34:1-6 (NKJV) 1 And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD to the shepherds: "Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? 3 You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock. 4 The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost; but with force and cruelty you have ruled them. 5 So they were scattered because there was no shepherd; and they became food for all the beasts of the field when they were scattered. 6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill; yes, My flock was scattered over the whole face of the earth, and no one was seeking or searching for them." Jeremiah 23:1-4 (NKJV) 1 "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!" says the LORD. 2 Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: "You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings," says the LORD. 3 "But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. 4 I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking," says the LORD. 1. The accusation v The condemnation v Samuel 2:30-31 (NKJV) 30 Therefore the LORD God of Israel says: 'I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever.' But now the LORD says: 'Far be it from Me; for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed. 31 Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father's house, so that there will not be an old man in your house. 4

5 When the Lord said that the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father s house He wasn t speaking literally. The arm was a picture of strength and might in Hebrew thinking Psalm 77:15 (NKJV) 15 You have with Your arm redeemed Your people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Psalm 10:15 (NKJV) 15 Break the arm of the wicked and the evil man; Seek out his wickedness until You find none. So when the Lord said He was going to cut off the arm of Eli and his family He was saying that He was going to remove them from being priests in Israel but not only that. 1 Samuel 2:32-33 (NKJV) 32 And you will see an enemy (Heb.- distress ) in My dwelling place, despite all the good which God does for Israel. And there shall not be an old man in your house forever. 33 But any of your men whom I do not cut off from My altar shall consume your eyes and grieve your heart. And all the descendants of your house shall die in the flower of their age. God had earlier promised Aaron that he would have a perpetual priesthood in Israel. So how could that be if Eli s family is cut off from the priesthood? Aaron had four sons his first and second born, Nadab and Abihu, were judged and executed by God when they offered incense to Him while drunk. And that left Aaron s third son Eleazar and his fourth son Ithamar. 5

6 Eli was a descendant of Ithamar and it was this line of the priesthood that God would judge and bring to an end the line of Eleazar would alone continue (Eleazar means comforter the same title Jesus gave the Holy Spirit in John 14). This was fulfilled many years later, in Solomon s day. Under David, both Zadok and Abiathar served as high priests (2 Sam. 8:17), but when Solomon became king, he removed Eli s great-great grandson Abiathar from the high priesthood because he had cooperated with David s son Adonijah in his attempt to seize the throne. Solomon appointed Zadok to serve as high priest he was a descendant of Eleazar. 1 Kings 2:27 we read, So Solomon removed Abiathar from being priest to the LORD, that he might fulfill the word of the LORD which He spoke concerning the house of Eli at Shiloh. 1 Samuel 2:34-35 (NKJV) 34 Now this shall be a sign to you that will come upon your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall die, both of them. 35 Then I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in My heart and in My mind. I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before My anointed forever. We re going to see in chapter 4 how Eli and his two sons all died in one day. When the Lord said, Then I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in My heart and in My mind... (v.35) In the short term He was talking about Samuel but in the long term about the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ our Great High Priest. 6

7 1 Samuel 2:36 (NKJV) 36 And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread, and say, "Please, put me in one of the priestly positions, that I may eat a piece of bread." ' " The judgments of God are absolutely righteous as we see in this case As one writer said, The gluttonous bullies will become hungry beggars. It is just as Hannah had said: Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread (1 Samuel 2:5). The bottom line is that ministry is a privilege and at any time if someone is unfaithful to the Lord He can and will remove them from the ministry. I have seen this just recently with God removing two celebrity, mega-church pastors from the ministry for various sins one that pastored in the Pacific Northwest and the other in the Southeast. They had two of the largest churches in America both now realize that ministry does not belong to any man or woman as a possession to be taken for granted and used for their personal glory and financial enrichment. The ministry belongs to Jesus Who graciously allows us to serve Him for His honor and glory. Ephesians 4:11-12 (NKJV) 11 And He [Jesus] Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, I believe these two pastors really know the Lord and I pray that they will get their lives right with God and serve Him once again in some capacity. 7

8 However many others in ministry today are false shepherds that don t know God as was the case with Hophni and Phinehas Now the sons of Eli were corrupt; they did not know the LORD. (v.12) As I have already said, the church has become infested with false teachers and preachers even though God warned us over and over in His Word to be on guard against them. False prophets are nothing new or unique to the Church Age they have been around from the beginning in fact much of the ministry of God s true prophets in the O.T. was taken up with confronting, correcting and rebuking false prophets who were like a cancer in the land of Israel Jeremiah 23:11-14 (NLT) 11 Even the priests and prophets are ungodly, wicked men. I have seen their despicable acts right here in my own Temple, says the LORD. 12 Therefore, the paths they take will become slippery. They will be chased through the dark, and there they will fall. For I will bring disaster upon them at the time fixed for their punishment. I, the LORD, have spoken! 13 I saw that the prophets of Samaria were terribly evil, for they prophesied in the name of Baal and led my people of Israel into sin. 14 But now I see that the prophets of Jerusalem are even worse! They commit adultery and love dishonesty. They encourage those who are doing evil so that no one turns away from their sins. These prophets are as wicked as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah once were. But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you (2Peter 2:1 NLT) There was an article that came out three days ago entitled, Rob Bell Trashes the Bible and Marriage on Oprah the author writes, For those who had any questions, Rob Bell has now made himself totally clear: He is willing to trash parts of the Bible as "letters from 2,000 years ago" when God's Word contradicts his views on same-sex "marriage." 8

9 Bell appeared on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday program together with his wife Kristen to promote their new book The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage. In an interview last December, Bell explained that on page 16 of the book, he and Kristen give their "whole hearted affirmation" to same-sex "marriage." That was no surprise in light of his announcement in 2013 that he supported redefining marriage. In fact, that had been his position for years, although he had not proclaimed it publicly prior to But on Oprah's show, he and Kristen went much further, dismissing the words of Scripture and criticizing churches that were determined to be faithful to God. Explaining to Oprah why they included "gay marriage" in their book, Rob said, "One of the oldest aches in the bones of humanity is loneliness. Loneliness is not good for the world. Whoever you are, gay or straight, it is totally normal, natural and healthy to want someone to go through life with. It's central to our humanity. We want someone to go on the journey with." Of course, he's absolutely right in terms of the importance of intimate personal relationships. God made us to be relational beings, but in a very specific way. He formed Eve as the fit companion and helper for Adam, the two of them uniquely designed to complement each other in the journey and mission of life. And Paul's solution to loneliness (and, even more so, to temptation) was specific as well: "because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband" (1 Cor 7:2).He didn't say, "Each person should have his or her own companion," because that was never God's intent for His creation. In contrast, what the Bells want to do is take God's very specific, beautiful blueprint, and radically redesign it in the name of "love." To be sure, the church needs to take on the burden of those who struggle with same-sex attraction, helping them in every way possible find personal and relational wholeness in Jesus. But we are hurting them rather than helping them when we think we know better than God. Rob Bell was then asked by Oprah when the church was going to embrace same-sex "marriage," to which he responded, "We're close," with Kristen adding, "I think it's evolving." Rob then explained that, "I think culture is already there, and the church will continue to be even more irrelevant when it quotes letters from 2,000 years ago as their best defense. When you have in front of you flesh and blood people who are your brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and coworkers and neighbors, and they love each other, and they just want to go through life with someone." 9

10 So, according to Rob Bell, the church of Jesus should follow worldly culture and deny the plain teaching of God's Word in order to be "relevant." And according to Bell, human feelings trump God's Word, which can easily be dismissed as outdated 2,000 years outdated, it appears. I guess what's trending on Twitter trumps the timeless wisdom of the living Word of the living God. I guess an emotional appeal carries far more weight than transcendent truth. Rob Bell in his book Love Wins said that hell doesn t exist and blasphemes God by saying that if God really sent anyone to an eternal place of torment i.e. hell then He s basically an evil God. In an article written by Brett McCracken, author of the book, "Hipster Christianity: Where Church and Cool Collide" Brett writes about how young people are leaving the church and how many churches are panicking and trying hard to be culturally relevant in an effort to get them back he writes: As a 27-year-old evangelical myself, I understand the concern. My peers, many of whom grew up in the church, are losing interest in the Christian establishment. Recent statistics have shown an increasing exodus of young people from churches, especially after they leave home and live on their own. In a 2007 study, Lifeway Research determined that 70% of young Protestant adults between stop attending church regularly. Statistics like these have created something of a mania in recent years, as baby-boomer evangelical leaders frantically assess what they have done wrong and scramble to figure out a plan to keep young members engaged in the life of the church. Increasingly, the "plan" has taken the form of a total image overhaul, where efforts are made to rebrand Christianity as hip, countercultural, relevant There are various ways that churches attempt to be cool. For some, it means trying to seem more culturally savvy. The pastor quotes Stephen Colbert or references Lady Gaga during his sermon, or a church sponsors a screening of the R-rated "No Country For Old Men." For others, the emphasis is on looking cool, perhaps by giving the pastor a metrosexual makeover, with skinny jeans and an $80 haircut, or by insisting on trendy eco-friendly paper and helvetica-only fonts on all printed materials. Then there is the option of holding a worship service in a bar or nightclub (as is the case for L.A.'s Mosaic church, whose downtown location meets at a nightspot called Club Mayan) 10

11 But one of the most popular and arguably most unseemly methods of making Christianity hip is to make it shocking. What better way to appeal to younger generations than to push the envelope and go where no fundamentalist has gone before? Sex is a popular shock tactic. Evangelical-authored books like "Sex God" (by Rob Bell) and "Real Sex" (by Lauren Winner) are par for the course these days. At the same time, many churches are finding creative ways to use sex-themed marketing gimmicks to lure people into church. Oak Leaf Church in Cartersville, Georgia, created a website called yourgreatsexlife.com to pique the interest of young seekers. Flamingo Road Church in Florida created an online, anonymous confessional (IveScrewedUp.com), and had a web series called MyNakedPastor.com, which featured a 24/7 webcam showing five weeks in the life of the pastor, Troy Gramling. Then there is Mark Driscoll at Seattle's Mars Hill Church who posts Q&A videos online, from services where he answers questions from people in church, on topics such as "Biblical Oral Sex" and "Pleasuring Your Spouse." The article ends by saying that many young people can see through these gimmicks and are not being drawn to church through all the hype. So many churches are making the fatal mistake of taking the focus off of God and putting it on people. As a result their churches are designed to put human opinion above God s Word and human desires and pleasures above God s glory just like we see in our study of 1Samuel. God rebukes Eli for putting his sons before Him but it doesn t matter if a leader in the church puts his sons and daughters before the Lord or other people s sons and daughters before the Lord The bottom line is that it is wrong and misses the whole point of ministry which is to put God first and to make Him the focus. 11

12 Look, Eli s sons were unbelievers which means Eli was guilty of being more concerned with pleasing unbelievers than he was with doing what honored and pleased the Lord. Someone has lamented how this very attitude has taken hold in the church with these words, When are churches going to stop entertaining the goats and get back to feeding the sheep? The Church in America has fundamentally lost its way. Somewhere along the way church leaders got it into their heads that it was our responsibility to build Jesus Church when He clearly said, I will build My Church. And we read in the book of Acts And the Lord added to the church daily those being saved. When the Lord restored Peter after he had denied Him three times He said, Peter do you love Me? feed My sheep. Peter do you love Me? tend My sheep. Peter do you love Me? feed My lambs Two out of the three times Jesus told Peter, a shepherd in the early church, to feed His sheep with the Word of God. Hosea 4:6 (NIV) 6 my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. 12

13 Jeremiah 3:15 (NKJV) 15 And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. Revelation 3:7-8, (NKJV) 7 "And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, 'These things says He who is holy (not hip ), He who is true (not trendy ) 8 I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name 11 Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. 12 He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name. 13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." ' 13