Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning, church.
What a joy to be together today. Amen.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: I gotta tell you guys, I'm stoked.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: To be here with you today.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: And you may not believe that. And that's fine. That's fine.
I did spend my Friday. Here's how I spent my Friday evening.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: We went and swam in the ocean.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: And watched the sunset. Like that's what we did.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: And then we got in the car and drove straight through the night and.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Arrived to 21 degrees in snow. And so that's not great.
That's not great. But I am grateful to be here. And I'll tell you why.
Because I spent 12 hours in a.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Rental car before camp.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: And so being home.
Being home is a gift from the Lord.
All joking aside, I actually thank you.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: So much for letting my family get away. It was wonderful. We feel so refreshed. It was such a beautiful time.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: But I am excited to be here and to be together and for us to step back into this study in first and Second Samuel. We only got like a few good weeks in before we started Christmas. And so the good news is we're going to be nose down in this book, with one exception, all the way up till Easter. We're going to be digging through some of these really powerful stories that I'm.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Excited for us to look at today.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: We're going to be in 1st Samuel 2 today. If you want to go ahead and turn there.
If you don't have a Bible with.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: You this morning, we have house Bibles around the room.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Just look under the rows in front of you. We also have CSB Bible journals for.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: 1St and 2nd Samuel that are a.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Gift for all of you guys. If you didn't get one of those, I don't know.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Talk to Kurt. Talk to Kurt.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Kurt will get you one.
Sorry, Kurt.
We do. We have several of you didn't get one of those. It's just the CSB copy of the text, but it has notes next to each page for you to take notes. And it's a crucial to have as.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: We'Re going to spend some time in this book.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Okay. So this first section of Samuel, we've kind of lumped it together into one series that we're calling Faithful. And what we've been talking about in this first chunk of the book of Samuel is really this idea of what it means to be a person who wants to live with faith at our core.
I think that's a really common thought process and struggle. Like if you're the kind of person who to wants. Who shows up to Church on a Sunday, you very likely are the kind of person who wants to live a life with faith at the core of your person. And yet we all know by experience that that's incredibly difficult.
That as much as we may love the Lord, as much as we may have drenched our hearts in the Gospel, as much as we may build rhythms of church attendance and community, when we get into the weeds of the moment by moment, hour by hour of our lives, it is easy, easy to let.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Go of our faith and to live in the world.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Why is that?
Why is that?
That's what question we're asking as we.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: Go through these first eight chapters of Samuel.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: And what we've seen so far is we've looked at this positive example of faithful fullness in the story of Hannah, dealing with her barrenness and God's blessing on her through the birth of her son Samuel. And in what we really saw in that opening section of the book is not this idea of, wow, look how awesome Hannah is. You should be like Hannah. I mean, she is a cool example, but really what we saw is the faithfulness of Christ to her. The actual lesson we learned from Hannah is the idea that the circumstances of our life oftentimes don't change or get better, even when we have faith. But somehow enduring the trials of life with Christ, rather than having Christ simply remove the trials of life, somehow, that is actually sufficient to meet the needs.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Of the human heart.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: And what we're going to do today is transition in the second half of this series away from looking at the positive example of Hannah's faith. And we're going to begin to contrast it with the negative example of the priest Eli and his family.
As much as we've been looking at Hannah's faithfulness, we're now going to look at Eli's faithlessness.
And I think it's going to open up for us a really powerful spiritual question.
I mean, the reality is, as we go through this first text, we're going to be challenged to look at the ways that we are faithless, like Eli.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: And like his sons.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: But more than that, I think today we're going to ask this hard question of why does God allow bad people to do terrible things, especially in his name?
Like, why does God allow spiritual leaders.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: To do bad and terrible things?
[00:04:47] Speaker B: And I think what we're going to see in our text today is that in spite of the reality of sin, in spite of the reality of the.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Evil of this world, God's purposes are not thwarted by the faithlessness of humanity.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: That God still sees sin and God.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Still accounts for sin.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: And ultimately, and this is my main.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: Point today, God's gracious purposes will prevail.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Regardless of what we experience in life, and regardless of how people may live out a faithless life that is destructive and evil to others, God's gracious purposes will prevail. And I say that knowing full well that for some of you in this room, that very idea is an open infestation, festering spiritual wound.
Okay, it's one thing to see the problem of evil and suffering in this world as this abstract theological issue that so many like gotcha atheist books and Reddit posts can like, throw out there. But in a room like this, I know many, if not most of us have experienced very real and very personal evil.
From the huge things, traumatic evils like.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Abuse and violence, they'll leave permanent scars.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: In our hearts to the everyday evils of just bullies or friends who stab.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: You in the back.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Like many of us need look no further than our own lives to ask the question of whether or not God is really good and whether or not he's really faithful to us in this world.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: Why it seems like he doesn't look out for us.
And if that's you today, I want to encourage you to jump in this prayer with me for a moment and to engage this text. I really believe God has a word of grace and healing for your soul to know.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: And what has been for me as.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: I've considered this text, and I think it will be for all of us.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: So pray with me.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Let's jump into this. Jesus, we just. We just need you today.
We need you to be our disciple. We need you to be our teacher. We need you to be the healing balm on our soul today, Spirit, for those of us in this room who have grown callous in our hearts and are seeing our souls drift because of comfort and familiarity, we're seeing ourselves move away from holiness and toward the fleshly things of this world. I pray that you would challenge and convict us today, Lord. But more than that, for each of us in this room, I pray that you would be the healing balm on the wounds of our heart.
This world is difficult, painful, has left us with limps and scars.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: And Lord, we like children, need you.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: To be our strength to carry us along, to help us to endure what this world offers.
Jesus, we trust you for this. We need you to do this work, spirit. So we pray it in your name, Christ. Amen.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: First Samuel, chapter two. Starting in verse 11, we read this.
Elkanah went Home to Ramah.
But the boy served the Lord in.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: The presence of the priest Eli.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: So this is just kind of an opportunity for us to remember and recap the story a little bit. Remember, this is the time of the Judges. Israel is divided. Israel struggles with, with consistent, faithful worship to God. This is kind of a brutal and divided time in Israel's history. And we spent some time looking at this woman, Hannah, who lived in, in the region of the Ephraimites. And she struggled with barrenness. She longed for a son. She was a second wife and her rival wife would mock her.
She begged the Lord for a son. And eventually, in this act of deep and passionate faith, she promised to give her firstborn son to the Lord and service to him. She chose worship of God over the very real desire of her heart.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: She took this thing, this beautiful good desire that could become a life dominating idol, and she put it at the feet of the Lord and God met.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: Her in that she conceived and gave.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Birth to Samuel, who she, in faithfulness to her vow, dedicated to a life.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Of service to the Lord.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: And so the baby Samuel was taken.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: To the tabernacle, the place of worship at Shiloh.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: And he was raised as a sort of adopted Levite by the priest Eli himself. That's where our text picks up. It says, Elkanah, Samuel's father, he goes home.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: They leave.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: Samuel lives at the tabernacle with the priests and he serves the Lord in.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: The presence of the priests.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: And as we step back into this narrative today, right, like not just getting our heads wrapped around the story, it's really important thematically to remember that Samuel is not a normal child.
He is this child of promise that's thematically important for this whole section of the book. Like specifically, even, but really specifically. Think about our text today. Like, Samuel is a son who was born out of Hannah's sorrow, out of.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: Her weeping, out of her vow.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: He actually has almost no role in our text today. Like, he's kind of just sort of quietly there. But his very presence as this child of God's provision is going to stand in this stark contrast to what we see in the family of Eli. And so I want you to kind of notice that in our story today, Samuel, this child of promise, this child of God's faithfulness, this child of provision, he's kind of a background set piece.
And so we're going to go through these pretty heavy chunks and each one at the end will go, yeah, well.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Remember Samuel, look at him, he's doing fine.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Like, that's Kind of the role he's going to play in the story today.
And I think it's really helpful for us because what we'll see in this is that while Eli's family, they're Levites by blood, right? Their. Their priesthood is based on a hereditary system. But Samuel is there serving the Lord.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: Because of a hurting mother's vow.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: He's something different.
He's something set apart.
What we're going to see here is that that's a good thing.
So read on with me. Verse 12.
Now, Eli's sons were wicked men.
They did not respect the Lord or the priest's share of the sacrifices from the people. When anyone offered a sacrifice, the priest servant would come in with a three pronged meat fork while the meat was boiling and plunge it into the container, kettle, cauldron, or cooking pot. And the priest would claim for himself whatever the meat fork brought up. And this was the way they treated all the Israelites who came there to Shiloh. Even before the fat was burned, the priest's servant would come and say to the one who is sacrificing, give the priests, the priests some meat to roast, because he won't accept boiled meat from you, only raw. And if the person said to him, the fat must be burned first, then you can take whatever you want for yourself. The servant would reply, no, I insist that you hand it over right now. If you don't, I will take it by force.
So the servant's sin was very severe.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: In the presence of the Lord, because.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: The men treated the Lord's offering with contempt.
Samuel's servant Lord's presence this mere boy was dressed in a linen ephod. And each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Him when she went with her husband to offer their annual sacrifice.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: And Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife. May the Lord give you children by.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: This woman in place of the one she has given to the Lord.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: And they would go home. And the Lord paid attention to Hannah's need.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: And she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: And meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew up.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: In the presence of the Lord.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: This first section of text, it plunges us into some historical realities that are likely very foreign to us at first glance, right? Like, it's kind of obvious that the author is telling us, oh, Eli's sons are bad guys.
And we can infer from context clues that Samuel must be like the good guy. But generally this is a weird story for us, right? Like there's meat forks and boiling pots and linen ephods and God replacing lost children. Like, that's not necessarily how we necessarily, like, think of spiritual stories. Right? So let's do this. Let's take a minute to walk through a couple of the historical facets of this that I think will illuminate the text and the story for us. So first, let's talk about the tabernacle at Shiloh. You may not know this because it's such, like, a weird Bible Y word, but tabernacle is the term we use for the center of Jewish worship. Before the temple was built, the tabernacle was like a mobile temple. And this part's really important.
Designed directly by God and given directly to Moses, the tabernacle's design was considered completely perfect because no human being was involved in it. At Mount Sinai, when God was giving the covenant to Moses, he specified the exact construction of the tabernacle. This is how you will build it. This is what it will be made of. This is what you will do with each piece. This is the contractors you will hire to build it.
That was incredibly exact.
And it was designed to be this kind of mobile temple. And the Levites were charged with caretaking the sacred tent. We have a picture of kind of.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: What it looked like that the scripture describes it so specifically.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: You see this big, large tent in the middle, and then these kind of fabric or canvas walls set up around it in this outer courtyard. This would be set up in the center of the camp of the Israelites, and it stayed with them all through their wanderings in the wilderness.
But by the time of the Judges, Israel had entered the promised Land, and the tabernacle had been permanently settled in Shiloh.
What's interesting about this is that this mobile tent temple that traveled through the wilderness, it really figured out how to become permanent. Modern archaeological digs at Shiloh.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: We have a picture of the current.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: Archaeological dig at Shiloh show us that they really kind of made the tabernacle permanent.
They took the canvas outer walls, they replaced them with fieldstone walls. They set up a foundation and kind of built up the inner sanctuary tent over the top of it. And the reason for this is simple. The Israelites worshiped God in the tabernacle at Shiloh for almost 400 years.
It was well established for multiple generations. And so the original canvas sewn together in the desert like that, that wasn't lasting 400 years later.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: And so they built it into a little more of a permanent structure. By the time of our story, the sacrificial worship of Israel has been Settled in this spot for generations.
And throughout the whole story of Judges, all the Israelites who had remained faithful to Yahweh and all the ups and downs of the era of the Judges, like they had been coming to this place for their worship.
And that really brings us to this understanding of the Israelites worship and the.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Levitical priesthood and how that whole, whole thing worked.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: You can read about this in excruciating detail in the book of Leviticus.
That's what that book's about. It's to the Levites, it's their instruction.
But the Levites had a super unique.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: And important role in Israel life and worship.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: See, each of the tribes was given.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: An inheritance in the promised land. This was theirs in perpetuity forever.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Except for the Levites.
The inheritance of the Levites was not the land of Israel, but rather the privilege of administrating the worship at the tabernacle.
This is an immense privilege. This was their inheritance, but it was also a weight to carry. In Leviticus 10 we see that Aaron's sons actually literally died.
They were consumed by the holiness of God because they misappropriated the worship. They did it wrongly and led Israel poorly. And the holiness of God consumed them in fire.
So the privilege of the Levites was also a burden for the Levites.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Right?
Now here's the thing.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: Us modern Western New Testament Christian believers.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: Like we can get really confused and I think even kind of turned off by the seeming complexity and messiness of Old Testament worship, especially the sacrifice system.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: But you shouldn't dismiss it.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: It's actually vitally important to understand how the ancient Israelites worshiped. You have to remember, guys, this is a time before Christ, before the cross, before the grace of the Gospel as we know it.
And yet God has not changed.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: It's not as if in the Old Testament God is like this grouchy, violent person who loves tons of blood and guts. And then we get to the New.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Testament and magically he's a hippie.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: But that's not what we're talking about. God is God. He is eternal.
He does not change.
So what we see in the Old Testament is the same loving grace of God, but contextualized to the ancient Bronze Age, right?
Like a time that we can't imagine what it was like to be a human.
These people lived in a world that was brutal and difficult, where they assumed the spirits and gods in every area were pretty much always angry and wanted blood and sacrifice. And you never knew where you stood with them. If you read about the religious practice of the ancient near east in the time when the Old Testament was written. It's horrific.
You read the creation myths they put together. It involves gods sexually assaulting each other and ripping each other to pieces and building the earth out of each other's blood and guts.
And they're always angry and they hate humanity and humanity has to appease them through more blood and guts. You never know where you stand. Did you get a good harvest? Did your family get sick? Did you do well in battle? All of that is built on this weird mystery soup of whether or not you did the right bloody, gory things to make the gods around you not.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Mad enough to not kill you as.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: The world they lived in.
And our gracious, loving, wonderful God steps.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Into that world to introduce himself.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: He introduces himself in a way that.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Makes sense to people who live in that world.
Because you have to understand this piece.
The creator God of the universe spelled out in Leviticus exactly how his people could live with him.
You need to understand the freedom that went with that.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: In a world where everything was unsure, where you didn't know how weather worked, where you don't know that germs exist, where you don't know if this flu will kill your whole family or upset.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: Your stomach for a day, in that.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: World of uncertainty, God comes in and says, this is who I am.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: This is who you are.
And this is exactly how you can live with me in peace.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: I know we say that Leviticus is the book of the Bible. Where I read the Bible, in a.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: Year, plans to go to die.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: And there's a reason for that.
It's hard to get through.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: But it's important and I would encourage you. This year, when you get there, look for this for free.
For 10 chapters, it just spells out sacrifice after sacrifice.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: Cut them up, pull out this part, take the kidneys, do them here, the fat over here, mix some salt. And you're just going, gross, gross, gross.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: Each one ends with the same refrain. I want you to look for it when you read Leviticus. The refrain of Leviticus is this, and your sins will be forgiven.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: That is the message of Leviticus, not blood and guts.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: It's, and your sins will be forgiven.
And your sins will be forgiven.
And your sins will be forgiven.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: See, for the Israelites, they never had.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: To fear where they stood with their God.
They never had to sit in anxiety and worry.
Is our crop failing because Yahweh is mad at us?
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Did we not do the right thing?
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Is he going to curse us now?
To the Israelites, they could always know exactly where they stood with God because He defined it for them.
The sacrificial system is weird for us because we're not Bronze Age people.
But you must understand in its context, it's a picture of the grace and the love of God.
The sacrifices administered by the Levite priests.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: Were the concrete experiential way by which God's people knew and tasted God's love and forgiveness.
They were a conduit for relationship between God and his creation.
His creation, that he, that he longs for his creation, that he's moving forward in love and grace. The sacrificial system, the Levitical worship. Guys, it's beautiful, it's sacred, It's a gift of grace.
And Eli's sons desecrated it.
Desecrated it.
Hophni and Phinehas are committing a grievous evil.
They're taking God's wonderful gracious contextual expression of life and grace and they're perverting it.
The text says they were sending their servants to snag some meat. Let's talk about this strange scene for a minute. So the way the sacrificial system of worship worked for the ancient Israelites was through animal death.
You commit a sin, you bring the correct animal to the tabernacle. The priests would slaughter it. And depending on the specific kind of sacrifice, you do different things with the blood and the parts. But generally it went like this. The fat of the animal was burned on the altar.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: And it says that God liked the smell. It's the way they talk about it, Leviticus.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: The fat was burned up and the smell goes up and the rest of the animal is usually cut up and then divided. Some might be burned up in the sacrifice, but some is set aside for the priest and their families. Leviticus 7 describes that for us. The Levites portion and then the rest goes to the family who's offering a sacrifice. And oftentimes a lot of the sacrifices would involve a familial feast to celebrate worship and restored relationship with God.
But you have to remember that piece. God has provided for the Levites through the sacrificial system. Like they're not out working the fields and raising their own cattle. And the scripture says those who labor in ministry should be cared for by those who receive the benefits of ministry. And so God is incredibly generous.
If you actually look at it. The Levites actually, after God get the choicest part of the sacrifice, they get the good part of the animal set aside for him.
And so the. The family, they had this feast and.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: They Celebrate and they worship. But the Levite's family is taken care of.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: They get a good portion.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: But Haffee and Phinehas weren't content with with God's provision.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: And so they would send their servants into the family's preparations for their worship feast, and they would take some extra meat for themselves.
This whole thing with the meat fork like this isn't Scriptural.
The text is telling us here that these guys made this up.
This was their intrusive way of stepping into another family's celebration of God's provision.
This wasn't modeling God's provision. It was intruding on him. It was. It was because it was teaching that we have to seek out our own good, that God doesn't take care of us.
We didn't even stop there.
It says they began sending their servants to the families before they could even slaughter the animal, and demanding the first and best portion with the fat still on it, because they wanted to roast it. They weren't content with the stew God provided. They wanted their own barbecue, right?
And so when the Israelites point out, hear this to their own priests, hey, you shouldn't do that.
That's not how that works. God gets the first portion, he gets the best. When they point out to their own spiritual leaders, here's what you're doing wrong, the priests then begin to threaten God's people with violence.
Guys, I can't overstate how much God.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Takes this kind of sin serious.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: The very men who are charged with the duty and the privilege of leading God's people into the grace and love of God are instead accosting those same people and creating barriers for them to connect with God. These men, instead of administrating the sacrifices, are desecrating, even nullifying them.
At a similar but different moment in.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Israel's history, the prophet Malachi described priests who were doing something really similar with the sacrifices.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: He said, you show that you hate.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: God through desecrating his worship like that.
You hate Him. You should treat him and treat his people like that. And the author of our text says functioning the same thing. This phrase that we read is, they have no respect for God, means they don't even know him or even know.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: And all this is contrasted with young Samuel.
The text tells us that each year.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Hannah makes him a new robe, a linen ephod.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: These were special robes worn by the.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: Priests as part of their ministry. And the image here for us is to be this young boy who's too young to actually do the work of the priests, but he's wearing the priestly garments because his mother, although absent, loves him and seeks to attend to his call and to his ministry.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: And all this is connected to this tag where we see God giving Hannah other children. And if you remember back a few.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: Weeks to when we were looking at Hannah's story, this isn't some, like, biblical prescription to, like, you know, convince God to fix your barrenness. Like, this is a very specific historical piece.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: You have to remember that women, especially.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: A second wife in this day and age who didn't have children, were in extreme danger because they're totally dependent on the men in their life for protection and for welfare, especially in their old ages. She didn't have sons, that she wasn't fully participating in the family project, that she had no protection in her old age.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: This is a tag at the end.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Of the story where we see God's provision for Hannah. We're reminded that even though Hannah freely offered to God the deepest desire of her heart, God is providing for her abundantly, more than she needs.
Right.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: At the same time as the priests.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Are scoffing at God's provision, Hannah is delighting in God's provision, resting in God's provision.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: You guys, we shouldn't miss the stark contrast here or the plain language used.
Like, some of us in this room have trouble with the very idea of.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: Trusting religious structures and religious leaders.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: That makes sense, right? Like we live in a moment where the hypocrisy and bad spiritual leaders of the world, like, it's continually exposed through social media. Media, whether it's mega church pastors living extravagant lifestyles or. Or faith healers who are stealing money from grandmas, our cackles get up.
When we see any kind of earthly.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Spiritual leader presiding in authority over people, especially if they're operating in hypocrisy. Right?
If that's you, I think it's actually really good to stop here for a moment and look how stark the language is here and to realize that God himself takes that pretty seriously, that God.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Himself is roused by this kind of hypocritical evil.
It's important to remember there is no.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Sin that God does not see.
There's no sin that the God of the universe doesn't account for.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: God was being dishonored by the priest's selfish desecration of worship. And beyond this, Israel itself was being blocked from their full worship and communion with God. And God sees this and God intervenes.
Like, make no mistake, God sees this sin and he engages it.
Texts like this ought to strike abject.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Terror into the hearts of prosperity preachers and charlatan televangelists.
We would be fools to not see the intensity with which God engages this kind of hypocrisy and sin.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: But hear this. We would also be fools if we.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Assumed this is just to the televangelists and prosperity preachers.
This is for us as well.
All of us, all of us will face the judgment of a holy and righteous God.
There's just a strong warning in here for us. J.D. greer, in his commentary in this text, he says the familiarity breeds contempt.
Eli's sons lost their fear of the Lord because they were too close to the holy things without being holy themselves. Can we stop there for a second?
They lived every day, year in and year out, around the most sacred things. But the reality of Yahweh's heart had not penetrated their hearts.
Come on, church, especially us church for us who grew up around it, who had the rhythms of going to church every Sunday, who went to youth group and every summer camp. Come on.
Is your history with your faith?
Does it connect you to Christ?
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Does it lead you to deeper worship.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: And deeper connection to Christ?
[00:30:13] Speaker B: Or maybe is your faith more defined.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: By head knowledge, by routines, by traditions?
It's a really good gut check for us. What are you actually offering to Christ in your own worship, in your own spiritual life?
You offer up the first fruits, the best of yourself, your heart, your person, your tie in your life.
You trust in God's provision for you.
Because I think the reality is, when we look at Hophni and Phinehas, it's so easy to stand in judgment over them because they're hypocritical spiritual leaders and we should stand in judgment over them. God takes that sin seriously.
And if you're someone who a spiritual leader has mistreated, you know that God sees that and takes it seriously.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: But you ought not forget that all.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: Of us are susceptible to this kind of heartthreat.
The familiarity, the regularness, the normalness, the mundaneness of living out your life of faith can cause your heart to drift away from the holiness of God, away from intimacy with him and towards the flesh.
Some of you today, it's happening in this room.
You're moving farther from Christ and putting your reliance on tradition, on showing up, on singing the right songs and having the right feelings and raising your hand at the right time and meeting with friends and having connection.
There's just no. Just no that will always lead you to lessen the holiness of God in your life and the life of those around you so what do we do with our ever worldly hearts?
Like how do we engage that reality that all of us are want to drift Read honestly. I think we'll get an answer.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Verse 22 we read this now. Eli was very old.
He heard about everything his sons were.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Doing in all Israel and how they were sleeping with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: And he said to them, why are.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: You doing these things?
[00:32:05] Speaker B: I've heard about your evil actions from all these people. No, my sons, the news I hear the Lord's people spreading is not good.
If one person sins against another, God.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: Can intercede for him. But.
[00:32:16] Speaker B: But if a person sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him?
But they would not listen to their.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Father since the Lord intended to kill him.
By contrast, the boy Samuel grew in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people.
As a father myself, this chunk of the text chills me to the it chills me because I can so easily see myself in this this chunk of the text is all about Eli's poor leadership.
He's getting old.
He's nearing the end of his life and his ministry. He's in the season where people begin to focus on legacy.
What are they leaving behind in the world?
[00:32:54] Speaker B: And for Eli, that means handing off the administration of the priestly duties to his sons.
But the reality is they are terrible and evil and Eli knows it. They weren't just desecrating the sacrifices in worship. They were engaging in sexual immorality with the women on rotation serving at the tabernacle.
Now let's talk about that for a second.
The Levites were spread all over Israel, but they served in a rotation from all the places they were dispersed. They would take turns coming in and.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: Serving and fulfilling the duties at the actual tabernacle. These women are far from home, far.
[00:33:29] Speaker B: From the protection of their family, taking.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: Their turn serving at the temple.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: And the spiritual leaders who should have been spiritual fathers for them taking on the role of protection, were actually leading them into sexual sin.
It's important to note this guys like.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: These men are leaders for Israel.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: They're next in line to be in charge of the tabernacle. And the author speaks bluntly here. Their sin is against God and all the nation of Israel.
Everyone can see the evil they are living out.
And again, the author contrasts Eli's family with Samuel's growing holiness and dedication to his call and to his credit, like Eli, he pulls his sons aside and he calls them out.
But his rebuke is too little Too late, right?
He's no fool.
He knows these things are going on and has known they've been going on.
But by the time he talks to them, they've been going on so publicly and for so long that everyone in Israel knows about their sin is public, it's ongoing, and Eli has not stopped it.
He didn't get ahead of it at the beginning.
He didn't stop it as soon as he found out. And even now, when he warns them and they dismiss his warning, he doesn't remove them from their role.
He had authority over them, both as priest and as their father.
But he passively allows this dreadful sin to continue.
And he even knows the severity of it. He warns them their sin is against God, against the very system that allows them to have communion and reconciliation with God. But still his warning is talk and nothing else.
We see is that in the next.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Chunk of text that God looks at Eli's failure of leadership here and says, you simply love your sons more than me.
And the thing of it is, guys, I think that is why this story is so dreadfully relatable, because most of us have been there.
We're someone we love, someone we have a level of responsibility for. Someone we're connected to is making sinful and destructive decisions. And we're left figuring out how to navigate it.
And don't get me wrong, it's incredibly complex to figure out how to navigate your responsibility to the sinful behavior of others.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: That's a hard road to walk because ultimately you're not responsible for the decision someone else makes, right? We all stand before God and give an account of our own lives.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: Sometimes that friend, that relative, that child, needs to simply make their own decisions and face their own consequences.
Sometimes that's how we best learn.
But there's also an incredibly important distinction in our text that we need to pause and look at, because first off, Hophni and Phineas, their sin was affecting the worship of all of Israel. Their sin wasn't simply their own destructive path. It was having very real spiritual implications for others.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: But beyond that, Eli was in a position of authority to take responsibility for this area. They were sinning.
He also had responsibility for them as their father. Like this was exactly his spite to jump into, and he didn't.
He had authority in their lives. He had responsibility for their actions, but he didn't act. And I think a lot of us, if we're honest, can relate to this. Like, even the most bold, intense a personality of us in the room have had one time or another where we experience fear or hesitation around conflict when it's family or people you work with.
[00:37:03] Speaker A: Can be so much worse, right?
[00:37:05] Speaker B: Like you have to live with them, you have to see them at Thanksgiving, you have to work next to that cubicle for who knows how long.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: And after all, isn't loving them giving them the freedom to do what they want?
I think this is a trap most of us fall into.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: And although the text doesn't say it specifically, I think this is the trap.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Eli did fall into was misunderstanding his love for his children.
Because it can feel in the moment.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Like love to avoid conflict with those.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Who are close to us, right?
[00:37:42] Speaker B: Because sometimes it is love to simply.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Cover over an offense.
So it can feel like love when we avoid a conflict. That co worker, that direct report, that grandchild, that adult sibling, those kids, let them make their own decision.
You just be there, the safety and support for them.
But the reality is, beloved, we have to understand that this mindset means taking our cues from the world's definition of love rather than scripture.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: Like we live in a cultural moment.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: That defines love as an unconditional acceptance and promotion of the object of love, no matter what they're saying or doing.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: That that is the cultural narrative is.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: That love means acceptance and proclamation.
This is the mindset that pushes our.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: Culture to promote lies and self possession and even unmanaged mental health issues as.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: Expressions of love and liberty.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Whether it's cultural hot button issues like LGBTQ or pro life issues, or even the more mundane things of just watching.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: People we love destroy their lives over social media self improvement obsession.
Our culture says love means freedom, acceptance and promotion no matter what.
But the Bible describes love as much more involved and much more complex and much messier.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: Because biblical love gets in your kitchen, it makes a mess.
Biblical love involves the severe mercy of.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: Correction more than this. Hear this church, hear this church.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: Biblical love requires correction.
Requires it.
Love means desiring the flourishing of the object of love.
Beloved, people only flourish when they are.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: In connection with Christ.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: Loving folk requires pointing them to Christ and his gospel grace for them.
So let's get real for a minute in your own mind and your own heart.
Who are you, Eli?
[00:39:43] Speaker A: To who in your life do you have responsibility toward?
[00:39:49] Speaker B: Do you have authority over who? Do you long to see them flourish?
[00:39:55] Speaker A: Your spouse, Your children, grandchildren?
Your brothers or sisters in Christ here in this room?
Beloved, you must know loving them will always mean pointing them to God's ultimate good for them.
You know, if they're not professing believers like that looks a certain way right you can't be surprised when non Christians act and believe like non Christians.
But your love, even for non Christians, should still be loving enough to act on truth, to point them to God's good and God's better for them.
Beloved, to love someone means to care about their holiness.
For those in your life who profess Christ, that means active love. We are called, commanded by scripture to.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: Love fellow believers enough to speak the truth to them and hold them accountable, to call one another up and out into greater holiness.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: We're commanded, but brothers and sisters and cry.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: So what do I mean by that?
[00:40:53] Speaker A: That's contextual to every relationship.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: But I have a feeling, as we're.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: Talking, like the Holy Spirit is already.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: Putting a specific person and a specific.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: Thing in your mind, in your brain.
[00:41:03] Speaker B: Your friend in faith who's dropped out.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: Of community or rarely attends on Sundays. Do you love them enough to get in their kitchen?
But their personal holiness?
Your brother or sister in Christ who's living in sexual immorality or abusing substances.
Do you love them enough to point them to the better that Jesus has for them?
How about your parenting?
[00:41:27] Speaker B: As passive parenting is often just a.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: Form of self love. If we're honest, right? This is too hard, too painful. I don't want to have this conflict, whether our kids are toddlers or adults on their own.
So we sacrifice their ultimate good for our peace.
I can fall into that very easily. Amen. That's rough.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: I can keep going through example after example. But ultimately the question from God to us today is simple. Who in your life do you love enough to tell the truth to?
Because make no mistake, as hard as it may be to live out the.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: Love of Christ around us to those.
[00:42:05] Speaker B: In need of it, God is not.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: Slack in his love, he abounds in it.
He sees sin, theirs and ours, and his gracious purposes prevail. His love acts in our lives, acts actively convicts us of sin, moves us to holiness.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: He's not slacking that got a lot.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: He calls and invites us to participate with him. Let's end out with this last big chunk here. What? We use it to land us out. Verse 27 man of God came to.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: Eli and said to him, this is what the Lord says. Didn't I reveal myself to your forefathers family when they were in Egypt and belonged to Pharaoh's palace? Out of all the tribes of Israel, I chose your house to be my priests, to offer sacrifices on my altar, to burn incense, to wear an epod in my presence. I also gave your forefathers family all the Israelite food offerings. Why then do all of you despise my sacrifices and offerings that I require in the place of worship? You've honored your sons more than me by making yourselves fat with the best part of all the offerings of my people, Israel.
Therefore, this is the declaration of the Lord, the God of Israel. I did say that your family and your forefathers family would walk before me forever. But now this is the Lord's declaration no longer.
For those who honor me, I will honor. And those who despise me will be disgraced. Look, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your forefathers family so that none in your family will reach old age.
You will see distress in the place of worship in spite of all that is good in Israel. And no one in your family will ever again reach old age. Any man from your family who I do not cut off from my altar will bring grief and sadness to you. All your descendants will die violently. This will be the sign they will come to you concerning your two sons, Hophee and Phinehas. Both of them will die on the very same day. And I will raise up a faithful priest for myself, and he will do whatever is in my heart and mind, and I will establish a lasting dynasty for him. And he will walk before my anointed one for all time. And anyone who is left in your family will come and bow down to him for a sliver or a loaf of bread. And he will say, please appoint me to some priesthood office so I can have a piece of bread to eat.
[00:44:18] Speaker A: And this is the word of the Lord.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: Woof.
Our story takes a dark turn here.
Sometime later, an unmanned name of God arrives and speaks some really hard words to Eli.
God's judgment on Eli's family is swift.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: It's harsh. They are done.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: But God is not.
God says he will raise up a.
[00:44:43] Speaker A: Faithful priest who will walk with his anointed one forever.
But there's something really interesting going on.
[00:44:48] Speaker B: Here because this, this prophecy will have.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: Very real historical consequences for Eli's family. Hathi and Phinehas will die on the same day. Just a couple chapters and the main.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: Priestly ministry will eventually pass from Eli's.
[00:45:01] Speaker A: Family to another Levite family, and it will be the dynasty under David, God's anointed leader.
[00:45:06] Speaker B: This will happen in real history when.
[00:45:08] Speaker A: Zadok becomes the high priest under Solomon.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: But like so many biblical prophecies, this also, this has an immediate historical fulfillment, but it also has a larger theological fulfillment. This prophecy, beloved, points us to Christ.
The reality is that the best Levite.
[00:45:24] Speaker A: The best spiritual leaders are still sinners and still fall short. We need an intercessor who will meet us in our sin and connect us to God.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: And praise be to God.
Praise be to God. That when the priesthood fails, God does not abandon his people.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: He provides a priest.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: He provides a priest who doesn't take.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: Our best portions for himself, but rather.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: Gives his own life as the good portion and our perfect High priest. Jesus does not serve the anointed. He himself is the Anointed One, the Messiah, the fulfillment of all the needs.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: Of the human heart in a broken world.
I love that our text reminds us of this amazing truth in the midst of such a larger, difficult text. Right?
[00:46:11] Speaker B: The reality is that God's judgment is real.
God sees sin, he takes it seriously. But his sovereignty and his goodness is our hope below, even as top the infineas are failing Israel. God was already planning to rise up Samuel. We saw that bit by bit in our text. And eventually he'll raise up David and eventually Zodok and eventually Solomon. God was working ahead of the failures and sins of his leaders and even beyond them to Christ and the Cross itself.
It is such hope to me.
[00:46:44] Speaker A: Remember that when we see faithless leadership.
[00:46:47] Speaker B: We need not despair because our God has gone ahead of us.
Regardless of the sins of this world and the terrible decisions people make, God's gracious purposes will always prevail.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: A text like this, I think ultimately calls us back to trust.
[00:47:05] Speaker B: I mean, here's the thing. Yes, this text should challenge us. We should stop.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: We should say, oof, am I hoffing Phineas? Like am I my spirit drifting?
[00:47:14] Speaker B: And we should stop. We should go, oof, am I Eli?
[00:47:17] Speaker A: Am I, am I not willing to speak bold truth?
[00:47:19] Speaker B: Like that's. That's good self reflection.
But I think more so than you being Hafi and Phineas or you being Eli in this text, I think much, much more. We are Israel, normal people trying our sinful best to live a life seeking God. But we see all the public ways that those who should be leading are falling short.
And even if you haven't had a personal experience with a spiritual leader who.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Fell short and damaged you or your.
[00:47:47] Speaker B: Faith, like we live in the world.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: With the news cycle, right?
[00:47:50] Speaker B: The near constant failure of politicians and celebrity pastors who claim the name of Christ but live nothing like him, the faithlessness of others can destroy our ability to ground our own hearts in faith in Christ.
[00:48:08] Speaker A: In that reality, it's so important to remember that God does see the sin that's affected you.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: He does see the evil done to you. It's not ignored.
[00:48:17] Speaker A: God will account for every wrong done to you.
But second, and even more important than that is the truth that our God is still faithful.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Our God is faithful even when leaders are faithless.
You may only see the Eli's in.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: This world, but you can trust in. In the ultimate victory of God's gracious purposes.
[00:48:39] Speaker B: He has gone ahead of you.
He is raising up the faithful priest Jesus to make a way to heal.
[00:48:46] Speaker A: Your heart and to ground you in him.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: And that, beloved, is where life is held.
And by the way, that's not like.
[00:48:52] Speaker A: That's not an easy, simple thing.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: That's an easy thing for me to say up front, like, oh, you just. You trust Christ, like he's gone ahead of you and he makes up for all the ways that you've been wronged and hurt. And that's really beautiful and true thing to say. But in real life, it is not that clean.
It's not that easy.
When Kim and I were really new.
[00:49:11] Speaker A: In our marriage and younger ministry, we went through a really awful, traumatic thing. I was in youth ministry and we had a student. We took his own life and we found his body, and it was really traumatic.
[00:49:21] Speaker B: And we ran a church at the.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: Time that just didn't know how to lead Kim and I through that and didn't know how to engage us in that part of our life.
And so it left us in this really spiritually vulnerable and lonely and isolated place, trying to navigate this trauma, this hurt, this sorrow, being in a church family that just didn't know how to meet us in it.
[00:49:45] Speaker B: And it led us to a place.
[00:49:47] Speaker A: Where some wolves in sheep's clothing took advantage of us.
Some people who claimed to be spiritual leaders, who claimed to offer soul care for us and claimed to be counselors who said they would walk alongside us, us instead grabbed a hold of our hurt and our trauma and just spoke lies and distorted, awful, evil things that really jacked us up. We really jacked up our ability to rest in Christ, to trust the church, to submit to spiritual leadership, to walk in mental and emotional stability in the world. And it's so much work.
It's one of the most difficult things I've ever gone through my entire life was Kim and I walking through that.
And here's the thing, guys.
I'm speaking genuinely when I say this.
God's gracious purposes prevail.
God goes ahead of the dark and painful spiritual things we experience.
And he does, does Provide justice, but also healing and restoration.
Let me tell you what it doesn't look like.
You don't get your life super jacked up, and then you sit down and go, oh, God's still good. He's trustworthy. And so I'm gonna just pray real quick and be like, lord, I trust you. Thanks. And then you're good and you move on.
No, no, no, no. It's a mess fight.
It's day by day and week by week and month by month and year by year.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: A big digging back through that garbage.
[00:51:18] Speaker A: And bringing it back to Christ in trust again and again and again. Having three steps forward to the healing growth, and then two steps backward and.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: Sliding back into patterns. It is a mess.
[00:51:29] Speaker A: It's a mess to walk in the healing and restoration of gray.
But I'm here to tell you from experience, it does happen.
God's gracious purposes do prevail.
The gospel of Jesus is.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: It is beloved.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: It is sufficient to heal the hurts of your heart.
[00:51:51] Speaker B: There is no evil you've experienced, no darkness you've fallen into.
[00:51:54] Speaker A: So deep, so dark and so evil that Christ is not sufficient to heal.
I promise you.
It may take a stink of while to hold his hand and climb out of it, but that is what the gospel does.
Dan, if you want to come back up, if the cross does in fact win.
But it's a slow cooker.
It's a slow cooker.
[00:52:24] Speaker B: It takes time.
It takes showing up. It takes small decisions of trust. It takes good friends who walk with you for years.
It takes wonderful godly leaders who can rewrite what bad leaders broke. It takes time, but it can. It does happen. And hear this, beloved, God has that for you.
He has that for you.
You are not somehow absent from the healing power of Christ.
The invitation is for you to walk.
[00:52:59] Speaker A: In the wholeness, healing and freedom. And beloved, today can be your first step on that journey.
This month you can take a step toward Christ and trust, and you can grow in healing. Let's take a moment in prayer. And I want to encourage you to simply ask Christ one question this morning.
And it's just this.
What step of trust do you need to take toward him today?
If you're in this room and you're not in Christ and you're considering faith, I mean, that's a real big step of trust to come before him and admit the helplessness before your sin and to trust him to, say, anyone.
But if you're in Christ, I would encourage you to stay there. There is still a step of trust. We can take toward him today.
It might mean reopening up that part of your story you don't like and asking Christ to begin it to be your healer.
It might mean looking at areas of relationship or involvement in your faith that are tender, asking Christ to move you forward in holiness and healing.
But I encourage you to take just a moment ask Christ what your step of trust looks like today.
Let yourself sit with him and hear from him when you've done so, when you feel like you've heard the Lord and the way your heart needs. For those of us in the room who are in Christ, I'd invite you to continue a response in communion today.
What a right and proper way to consider our faithful priest Christ and take a communion.
Those sinful, awful, fleshly priests. They took the best portion for themselves and left Israel out in the cold. But our God gives Himself to us as the best portion. Amen.
I'd invite you today, after you've met with the Lord, to come and take and eat his body broken, his blood poured out, the good portion sacrificed for us to celebrate the sufficiency of his work for your heart. Beloved, take the time you need to do the work with the Lord this morning.
