A TRAGIC CONTRAST I Sam. 2:22-36 I m sure you agree with me that our children are a most precious gift from God. They may cause us anxiety and tears but they also give us much joy and happiness. We have been studying the joy that the birth of Samuel brought, particularly to his mother. I think it is fair to say that every faithful Christian parent earnestly desires their children to be saved. It is our sincere longing that we shall stand around the Throne, accompanied by our children. But our children themselves need to come to the place where they personally repent of their sin and receive Christ as Saviour and Lord. The Bible teaches that our children, - the children of believers, - are especially privileged. Paul describes it like this, I Cor. 7:14, For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. That simply means that the unbelieving members of our families are within the sphere of those who God has blessed to come under the influence of the Gospel, - in both the home and the church. Because you as a Christian are their parent, it does not save them but it places them in a position of privilege whereby they are faced with the opportunity of the Gospel. They are taught to pray, to read God s Word, attend Sunday School, CE, YF, church etc. They are prayed for, encouraged by the people of God, and they are urged to embrace salvation by faith. That is how then, we expect our children to have different morals and standards and we expect God s blessing to be upon them. As a Christian parent I pray for and I do expect my son to come to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; I know there are many things to pull him in the opposite direction but I am praying and trusting God to save him. It is what a Christian parent desires, more than anything! It is therefore always a great blessing when a child is born into a believing home, and when that child professes faith and follows the Lord. It is a sad tragedy, however, when the child of believing parents rejects their parents faith. It is a particular sadness that must break their hearts. In the Old Testament the children of Israel rejected God and He mourned their apostasy. In the New Testament Jesus looked out over Jerusalem and He wept over the people of that city. Already in I Samuel we have seen the joy of Hannah in the birth of her son Samuel and in his dedication to the service of God s house at Shiloh. In her song (2:1-10) she recognised the blessings of God s everlasting covenant. She expected her son to be blessed and to be a blessing and in the grace of God her prayers were answered.
Another family now enters ch.2 (vv.11-26) and it is such a tragic contrast. We are introduced to Eli and his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. A Godly father and two ungodly sons. THEY CORRUPTED THE PEOPLE S VIEW OF WORSHIP This was a covenant community with unbelieving priests. This community was established upon the basis of the Covenant drawn up with Moses. These people covenanted to obey God s commandments and to live by them! How was it then allowed for two unbelieving priests to stand before the congregation in Shiloh and nothing to be done about it? Isn t it a terrible condemnation and testimony about the state of that congregation to allow such a thing! These two men were the mediators between the people and God and yet they knew not God for themselves. The consequence was that they were leading the people away from God. Pray for congregations whose leaders are leading the people away from God. They lead their people into accepting other gospels, - they don t want to offend anyone, it s not to their own advantage (whether financial or popularity, etc.) They lead their people into accepting activities that God calls sin (with unsaved and erroneous doctrines and teaching), They stubbornly contradict His Word and level accusations of narrow-mindedness to those of us who do not see it as they do. Hophni and Phinehas were teaching the people to be covenantbreakers and ultimately God-deniers. There are many Hophni s and Phinehas in churches today and they are leading people away from God s truth. Their gospel is exactly that, - their gospel. It is not the Gospel handed down through the ages but it is a gospel that has man s convenience in the centre. How it must have broken Eli s heart when he heard and saw what his two sons were up to! He was an old man and he had lost his grip. It is a straightforward statement the Holy Spirit uses to describe these two men, they were v.12 sons of Belial; they knew not the LORD. They plundered the meat of the sacrifices brought to the Old Testament Lord s Table by the Old Testament people. 2
1. They used a fleshhook of three teeth (a three pronged fork, v.13) to extract from the pan more than they were privileged to. They disregarded the precise restrictions of Lev. 1-7, and in particular 7:31-36. In other words, they set aside God s law and did what they wanted to do (vv.13,14) in order to suit their purposes. 2. The fat of the animal was reserved for God, - to eat it was forbidden by law and the penalty for doing so was punishable by death (Lev. 7:22-25). However, Hophni and Phinehas wanted their piece of meat (literally!) before God got His! These were two wicked rascals who were leading God s people into sin (v.17). They corrupted the people s view of worship. THEY CORRUPTED THE PEOPLE S VIEW OF THE FAMILY Children were to obey their parents, - that s what the Law said and yet these two religious leaders in the community were dishonouring their father. Husbands were to care for their wives, and their wives were to honour their husbands yet these two priests were living to a different set of rules as to how they had been brought up. What a contrast to the family life of Hannah and Elkanah and their six children and the way those children would have been brought up! But Eli s family was an absolute mess! Hophni and Phinehas had no regard for their father s Godliness. We are not told anything about their early home life but it is absolutely clear that all parental authority had been lost! They didn t respect their father. The two sons v.22 lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. They took every opportunity to enjoy themselves, - they were making the women to be like the sacred prostitutes at the Canaanite shrines of idolatry. It had become a public scandal for they were abusing their status as priests. It must have been terrible for Eli to consider what kind of evil sons he had reared! He rebuked them but they ignored him. But, then when you look a wee bit closer, part of the problem can be seen here in that Eli was unwilling to keep all of God s Law. Dt. 21: 18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: 19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; 20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a 3
glutton, and a drunkard. 21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. Eli himself hadn t been keeping God s law and his sons had hurtled out of control. When Eli saw their sin all he did was to scold them and leave it at that! But in God s eyes that was not enough, - just simply to register his dissent, - according to God s law he ought to have called them to account and to purge away their sins. These sins were blighting the worship of God s people and therefore eating away at the covenant relationship the people had with God. It was affecting not only the two sons, it was also affecting all who came to Shiloh to worship. So, they corrupted the people s view of worship in that they took that which they had no right to take, - they took that which belonged to the Lord. Secondly, they corrupted the people s view of the family when they slept with the women at the altar and when they rejected and abused their own father s wisdom. THEY CONTRASTED WITH THE TRUE WAYS OF GOD. Do you notice the But? (v.18) This is something God has always done, - He always keeps a people unto Himself... a remnant. One of the terms the Bible uses to describe this remnant is the Elect. God had kept faithful unto Himself godly priests and devout people in the land, (hinted in v.24; a man of God in v.27). They abhorred the activities of Hophni and Phinehas. When the man of God went to visit Eli he reminded Eli of all that God had done for him and his generation of families (vv.27,28). He brought him back to the history in Egypt and how God s promises were to be fulfilled to the sons of Aaron. Eli could trace his family back to Aaron s fourth son, Ithamar and Eli and his sons were priests according to that old promise. However, because of their sin and Eli s failure to confront it they were to be set to the one side and it was another high priest, - Zadok and his family, - whom God blessed that would continue. The Lord judged that Eli was tolerating his sons sins rather than confronting them and firmly standing for God and His Word against them (v.29). 4
God spelt it out plainly to Eli, v.30 them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Eli s sons were going to die in the prime of their lives. Heb. 10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. They were judged by the God they were abusing. CONCLUSION Do you pray for your children? If you don t have any children of your own, do you pray for the children over whom this fellowship has influence and responsibility? Yes, you could sit back in an ivory tower and castigate them and run them down but that is not what God would have you do? Do you pray for the salvation of the children who come along to our church and show them an example of Christ in how you live? It s no good blaming the society: Samuel lived and was brought up in the same society as Hophni and Phinehas; all three of them were brought up in the church ; all three of them knew what the sacrifices and offerings meant. But do you see what Hannah did that Eli doesn t seem to have done? Hannah handed her son over to the Lord; Eli took for granted his two sons, - by virtue of following in his footsteps, - would turn out to be okay. Hannah prayed for Samuel, - she took him to the Lord. Eli, - what did he do? He went and spoke to his two sons instead of taking his two sons to the Lord. Look again at 1:12 And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth. I think it is fair to say that Eli didn t spend the time before the Lord on behalf of his family as Hannah spent before the Lord praying and trusting Him for her son. Our families are a gift from God, - His Word says that. Our families are also a responsibility that we have unto God. We don t just shove them out when they become 18 and rub our hands of any responsibility, - we have responsibility and we always shall have. Do we bathe that responsibility in prayer? praying for those of our children who are saved that God will mightily bless and guard and guide them or for some of us, praying that God will bring our children to a knowledge of saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? 5