The Distinction Between Righteousness and Wickedness in Eli's Family

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now, come along.

Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

We're going to start our Bible study here this evening.

If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in First Samuel, chapter two, First Samuel, Chapter two.

We're going to continue our study.

If you've missed our first two studies here in First Samuel, we've talked about a few different things.

I'll try to catch you up the best way that I can.

We start out the book of 1st Samuel focusing on a woman named Hannah.

Hannah's desire was to have a child, but at that point in time, God had not allowed her to have a child.

And she was married.

And her husband was also married to another woman who was blessed with children.

And the other wife had a lot of pride and ego with that.

And she would brag in front of Hannah and give Hannah problems with that.

And obviously, Hannah was seeking the Lord's guidance on this and asking the Lord to bless her.

And so in the midst of one of their travels to worship, Hannah's out praying, and God intervenes in her life by bringing a guy named Eli, who was the high priest at the time.

And Eli tells her basically that God is going to bless you with a son.

And if you remember, Hannah's promise to God was that if you bless me with a son, I will give him to you.

I will give him to you in worship and in service.

And so Eli's prophecy about her having a son comes to pass, and Samuel is born to Hannah, and she's so excited that she gives praise to God.

That's all of the first part of chapter two.

The first 11 verses in chapter two is Hannah's worship song and prayer to God for blessing her with a son.

And we see that Hannah does keep her word.

Hannah gives her son to the Lord by giving him over to Eli.

And Eli, being the high priest, was going to utilize Samuel as a young man to minister for the Lord.

And obviously a difficult thing for Hannah to do, right?

God gives her a blessing, but yet she keeps her word by committing her promise to the Lord there.

And so that's where we left off.

We left off with Hannah giving her son Samuel over to the Lord, giving Samuel over to a guy named Eli who's the high priest.

But the Bible already mentioned in chapter one that Eli had a few sons.

And Hophni and Phineas are their names, Hophni and Phineas.

And we're going to find out that even though Samuel is a man of integrity, or at this point, a boy of integrity, Eli's sons are not.

Eli's sons are publicly living in sin.

And we're going to see basically a contrast between the purity and righteousness of Samuel and his obedience to God and the other side of the coin, which would be rebellion and sinfulness.

And that's going to be seen in the sons of Eli.

And actually, what we see in this passage is that Eli does not raise his children well.

He does not put them into discipline.

He actually fears his children more than he fears God.

And because of that, there's great punishment at the end of chapter two.

So with that being said, let's look at verse number 12, and we're going to pick up the story here.

This is going to be discussing the two sons of Eli.

And it says here in verse 12.

Now, the sons of Eli were sons of Belial.

Now, we might not understand that statement in our context, but Belial was a pagan God of the time that represented rebellion, evil, hopelessness, all those different things that we discuss when it comes to sin and the results of sin.

And so essentially what he's saying is that Eli's sons are sons of worthlessness and sons of wickedness.

That's not what we would want to be described as.

Okay, if someone's describing me, maybe they.

They say, you know something about me.

I would not want to be called a son of Belial, which means I'm a son of wickedness.

These two men were characterized by their wickedness.

And we see a little bit about their wickedness in this passage here.

And what we can see is that actually these two boys, these two men were supposed to carry on the priestly line.

If you remember back in.

Further on in the Old Testament, the line of the priests were through the line of Aaron.

And so Eli is in the line of Aaron.

And so this would be something that was passed along biologically, but at the same time, there were still responsibilities of holiness that the priests needed to.

To live out.

And.

And we're actually going to see that it's not just a behavioral problem.

We actually are going to see here in a few moments that it was a relationship problem and not a relationship problem with their father.

Even though that was a big problem.

There was a bigger problem in who they didn't have a relationship with.

And so it says now the Eli.

The sons of Eli were sons of Belial, and they knew not the Lord.

And so really, the core of the issue of these two men really was the fact that they did not know God.

They did not have a relationship with God.

They did not fear God.

They did not obey God.

They did not love God.

And so even though their father Eli knew the Lord, Eli was not a perfect father, but Eli did know the Lord.

Eli did have knowledge of the goodness of God, but he did not pass on to his sons the same type of lifestyle.

And what we can see here is that they did not know God for themselves.

And we actually see that through our own culture today that many people look to their parents or their grandparents as their hope for their salvation.

I've even talked to people and I say, you know what?

Hey, do you know the Lord?

Are you saved?

Do you have faith?

And they go, well, my grandfather used to go to church or my.

My dad's a pastor or whatever it is.

Those are all good things.

But that does not necessarily equate an individual to have a relationship with God.

It doesn't pass down genetically like the line of Aaron did.

Just because I'm a Christian, that doesn't mean that my children are automatically Christians.

I have to witness to them.

I have to share my faith with them.

I have to live a life of the Gospel in front of them.

And I always tell people, my greatest evangelistic field, my greatest mission field is my home.

If I'm trying to win people to the Lord outside in the community and forget about my own children, I'm missing the point of what God has laid out for me in my life.

And so Eli was ministering to the people of Israel.

I mean, he was doing the priestly duties, which.

We'll talk more about what those priestly duties were.

But one of those duties was basically to be the intermediary between God and man to go to the Lord for these people.

And so he would do that.

He would minister to these people, he would serve these people, but in the same time, he neglected his own sons.

And so it's.

We see the disconnect here is that the sons of Eli were sons of Belial.

They were sons of wickedness.

But at the core of it, again, it's not a behavioral problem.

A lot of times people think, well, that person's just a bad person, or that person just has a lot of sin in their life.

Yes, those are the outward workings of an inward problem, and the inward Problem is that they did not know God.

And so if I'm dealing with a person and they're living a life of rebellion, if they're living a life of sin, if they're living a life of brokenness and emptiness and whatever you want to fill in the blank with when it comes to evil things, I don't just look at them and say, stop doing what you're doing.

Here's some tools that get past these struggles in your life.

No, we go to the heart of the issue.

We go to their heart.

We go to the spirit behind all of their action.

And for us as Christians, what do we appeal to?

We appeal to the Holy Spirit.

We, we appeal to conviction.

We appeal to the idea that the word of God speaks truth to us and then therefore we obey him.

And so that was impossible for these two brothers because they did not know God, they did not have a relationship with God.

And so that's the, that's the setting.

The setting is this.

We have two men that did not have a relationship with God.

And because they didn't have a relationship with God, the outcome was that they were the, what, sons of Belial or sons of wickedness?

Let's go to verse 13, because what we're going to see here is that even though they were not qualified to hold the role of a priest, they were still doing the work of priests and they were actually abusing the people that were coming to worship.

They were abusing and using and stealing and really at this case, lying to many people for what they were doing.

In verse 13.

And the priest custom with the people was that when any man's sacrifice, the priest's servant came while the flesh was in seething with the flesh of three teeth in his hand.

So you say, what on earth are we talking about?

Okay, so what would happen is, is as you know, the people, the way that they worship back then is they would give sacrifices of animals, right?

And what would happen is, is they would come and bring their animal for sacrifice.

The animal would be sacrificed and what they would do is they would cook the animal meat.

And back, farther back, we know that the priests were supposed to take their portion for their food.

Okay, so back earlier on in, in the line of Moses and Aaron, originally the priest would take the shoulder and the breast meat.

But for some reason for the, for these years that have passed along, the.

The change had been that what they would do is the meat would be cooking in the pot.

They would take a three pronged hook and they would throw it into the pot.

And whatever meat they pulled out would be their meat to keep the priest.

Okay?

That would be the custom.

So they were offering these offerings to the Lord, but ultimately the priest would be able to take some of the meat.

And so that was the custom of the day.

And so when people are bringing the sacrifices to the temple, their assumption was that this was going to the Lord.

And so a portion was given to God, a portion was given to the priest.

And actually, in some cases, a portion was kept for those doing the offering.

And so according to the old Testament passages, 400 years before this, there was a particular part of the animal, like I mentioned, that should be taken.

It was the shoulder and the breast meat.

But in this time, this custom had changed.

And they would throw a flesh hook in the pot.

But everything sounds good until what happens next, okay?

And he struck it in the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot.

All the flesh hook brought up, the priests took for himself.

So they did in Shiloh.

And to all the Israelites that came thither, so he.

This is what they would do.

They would pull up the meat in Shiloh.

That's where the tabernacle was, and that's where they would bring the meat up.

But verse 15 tells us where they go astray also.

Before they burnt the fat, the priest servant came and said to the man that sacrificed, give flesh to roast for the priest, for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw say, what?

What are we talking about?

And if we could get really lost in the weeds if we don't understand essentially what he's saying, the.

The priest servants would come.

So these two brothers would come and they would say, give us the meat before it's cooked.

You'd say, well, why is that a big deal?

Because they were wanting to steal that worship and use it for themselves.

Either to eat themselves and cook it themselves, or possibly to go take that meat and go sell it and make a profit.

And so instead of allowing it to be worshiped for the Lord, they were stealing it for themselves.

And we actually see in verse 15, it says, and before they burned the fat, you say, what's so significant about the fat?

Well, back at that time frame, the fat was the most important portion of the meat.

They got their nutrients from that.

It was a sign of wealth.

It was a sign of excess.

And so the fat was supposed to be the first thing that was cooked for the Lord.

That was the first measure of the offering.

So the Lord would always take the fat and then the rest of the meat, the Scraps would go to the priest.

So what was happening is, is that Hophni and Phinehas said, we don't want the extras.

We.

We want to take everything.

And so what did he say?

He says at the end of verse 15, the priest doesn't want it cooked, the priest wants it raw.

So this gives them opportunity, this gives them options, this gives them an opportunity to essentially steal from these people.

And.

And before God's portion was.

Was given to him.

And so basically they're stealing people's worship.

And so the fat was supposed to be luxurious.

The fat was supposed to be the first thing that was given to the Lord.

And so it was their pride that said, we want the fat, we want the first fruits, we want the best, instead of saying, we got to give God the best.

And we're going to see that even today in our culture, there are many people within the church setting that are utilizing this type of persuasion and manipulation and lying to get things for themselves.

And so verse 16, he says, and if any man said unto him, let them not fail to burn the fat presently and then take as much as thy soul desire, then he would answer him, nay or no, but thou shalt give it to me now, and if not, I will take it by force.

And so if people are like, no, no, no, I don't want you to take it.

I want to see it cooked, I want to see it worshiped to the Lord, they would say, well, then we're taking it by force.

We're just going to force you to do this.

And so this shows their heart.

So, so why did the sons of Eli not want this meat to be cooked?

Well, I mentioned before, maybe they wanted to cook it a different way.

Maybe they didn't want boiled meat.

Maybe they wanted to throw it on the grill and have it a different way, or maybe they wanted to sell it and make profit.

But at the end of it, it's a selfish thing, it's a, it's a prideful thing, it's a.

It's greedy.

And so the greed of Eli's sons was so bad that they didn't even hesitate to use violence and threaten people if they weren't going to do it their way.

And that's essentially manipulation.

It's trying to control the people.

And what they were doing is they were misleading the people in worship and then utilizing those people's honest gifts to God as their own personal gain.

And this speaks to, you know, people today that manipulate people, lie to people, say, worship a certain way, give us a Certain thing, give it our way, and therefore they can use it for their own good and their own wants and their own greed.

And so I think that we can certainly see many of those principles still lived out today.

And so verse 17, he says, Wherefore, the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord.

So they weren't getting away with it.

They were.

They were essentially getting away with it with the people that they were with.

People maybe got manipulated and didn't understand really what they were doing.

Maybe some did, but at the end of the day, we know the Lord noticed what they were doing.

And it says that the Lord noticed that they were in great sin.

It says, so wherefore.

The sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord.

And so what we can actually see here happening is that not only did God notice that they were sinning, and ultimately they're going to be judged for this sin, but they were affecting other people's worship.

And so the.

The great sin of these two men, it was becoming so evidently clear that their greed and violence, intimidation was affecting other people.

It was affecting their worship.

And so their sin was not only affecting their own lives, but their sin was affecting people that were trying to come to God and worship God.

And so it was bad enough that they were sinning themselves, but I believe the greater sin was that they were coming and hurting other people with trying to come and worship the Lord.

And I would say that again, this is the type of abuse that it didn't end there in First Samuel.

It happened in the New Testament with the Pharisees.

Some of you know the story of the Pharisees, they would come in and they would basically steal money from widows.

The widows would come in and the widows would need help.

And the Pharisees would say, hey, we're going to help you out.

We're going to try to get your affairs in order.

We're going to take over your land, let us do the business.

And essentially they were stealing all the money from the widows.

And you get the story of the widow with two mites and all that.

And so we've always seen people, in the guise of religion, abuse people for financial gain or for material gain and control.

And that was happening in 1st Samuel, was happening in the New Testament.

It's happening today.

And we have to be cautious of that.

We have to be aware, because when the individual or the group of people that are telling people that they're worshiping God, but yet using fear Tactics, abuse, violence.

When they do that, it definitely affects people.

It says, for men abhorred the offering.

So what that meant was this.

People did not like going to the temple anymore.

They didn't like coming to the tabernacle.

They were.

They were uncomfortable with worshiping God.

And, you know, can we take that picture and move it to today?

Sure.

I mean, I think that one of the saddest things is when someone has some of the greatest hurt within a church.

You've heard people use the term church hurt.

Like I got hurt at church.

And because of that sin of that person who may be abused or maybe lied or maybe, you know, stole from somebody, then what happens is that people project that God is the source of that evil, and therefore they don't have joy in worshiping anymore.

And how much of a responsibility is it for the church to live above that, to live above reproach, to try to do everything that we possibly can to take away all hindrances for worship?

And so these two men were causing people to hate, to bring their offering to the Lord.

And so they were hurting other people.

And oftentimes people think, well, this isn't hurting anybody.

You've heard people even say that, well, my, My.

My sin isn't hurting anybody.

So it's okay.

It's.

It's the classic state of, like, if I'm not hurting anybody, I can be free to do what I want to do.

And even though we are free to choose what we want to do, we are not free to choose our repercussions and the punishments for our sin.

And a lot of times what happens is that we think our sin isn't hindering anybody, it's not hurting anybody, but it really is.

And in some cases it hurts people in their own Christian walk.

And it's a stumbling block for other people.

And that's exactly what was happening here for these.

These two men.

They were a stumbling block for people to come and worship the Lord.

So not good guys.

Not.

Not good guys.

They are not doing what God has called them to do.

And so they're basically in the position of religious leadership, but they're abusing that leadership.

Now pause there.

We're going to insert Samuel into the story, and we're going to see a completely different type of person.

Verse 18.

But Samuel ministered before the Lord being a child.

So you see these two men, and for pretty much what we can understand in this context, they were adults.

So you have Hopney and Phineas, the sons of Eli were adults.

They should be acting like the spiritually mature ones.

And then you have a boy named Samuel.

We know he's a boy through this passage here.

He's the one that's actually living a life of spiritual maturity.

It says, but Samuel minister before the Lord, being a child girded with linen ephod.

And so this is describing who Samuel is and what he would do.

And so, just as bad as Eli's sons were, Samuel was different.

He was distinct.

We know that God was leading Samuel, and Samuel was walking in obedience.

And it even says at the end of verse 18, he was wearing a linen ephod.

What does that mean?

Well, that means that he was distinguishing himself in the service to the Lord.

And so it was actually like a priestly garment that he would wear.

So he was not ashamed of living boldly for the Lord at this time.

And it says, even as a child.

So even though he was a child, he was acting in a better way than the sons of Eli were.

And so we look at verse 19.

Moreover, his mother made him a little coat and brought it to him for year to year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.

And so I like verse 19.

I find, you know, you know, there's some verses in Scripture that you're like, why is that there?

I. I would read that.

And I'm like, oh, that's kind of like an interesting point.

But I think that's a beautiful verse to tell us that Samuel did not lose contact with his mom, Hannah.

Hannah did not lose contact with her son, and there was still that relationship.

And the.

The awesome thing that we're going to see here in a few verses is that God did not forget about Hannah.

It kind of, if you just left the story of Hannah having a child and giving it over to Eli, and then she has to go back and basically live a life without a child in her home.

It seems kind of like, sad.

It kind of seems incomplete.

But we know that that's not the end of the story.

It just says in verse number 20, and Eli blessed Elkanan, his wife, and said, the Lord, give the seed of this woman for the loan which is lent to the Lord.

And they went unto their own home.

And the Lord visited Hannah so that she conceived and bear three sons and two daughters.

And the child Samuel grew before the Lord.

And so what we can see here is that even though Hannah had a relationship with Samuel, God then blessed her even more and gave her three more sons and two more daughters.

And God allowed her to live that life of abundance that she was seeking in chapter one.

And so he gave her.

So gave her so much.

And that's really what God does.

He gives us life and life more abundantly.

He blesses us in many ways, in many gifts.

And even James 1:17 tells us that every good gift comes from God.

And so we see this insert of Samuel's life right in the middle of a description of these sons of Eli.

And I think it's just a way to show us the difference between the two.

One had a godly mom who loved him and showed him the truth, and Samuel obeyed.

And then one, we see Eli who had a lot of issues with raising a son.

And ultimately these sons were living in rebellion.

Now we're going to get into some little bit more difficult things here.

Verse 22.

This is Hophni and Phineas's second offense.

So their first offense was stealing from the people, abusing the offerings.

And now we're going to see that they allowed other things to seep into their work.

Verse 22.

Now, Eli was very old and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel.

So now we can see in this text that this isn't just private sin anymore.

All of Israel knew what was happening.

So now Eli is not just known for being the high priest, he's known as being the high priest that has the two sons who are living in public sin.

It says, and how they.

This is what their sin was and how they lay with women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

So this means that the sons of Eli were committing sexual immorality with the women who were coming to worship at the temple.

So it went from just material lust to then physical immorality.

And many times we see that abuse within churches happens really in those two categories, with money and with immorality.

And that's what we see happening here with these two men.

They, they are wanting more.

With their greed, they're getting more.

They're stealing the worship, they're stealing the funds, they're stealing everything that's coming in.

And then on top of that, they're abusing people.

And by context, we see that these women that would come were coming in light of worship.

They, the culture would have been that the women would have come for worship, and then they were misusing them.

And so we don't know exactly how it all went about, but it says that the women assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, most likely to worship.

And so there would have been some type of manipulation.

There would have been Some type of usage to say, hey, look, you know what, if you want to worship God.

And of course they abused that power and that privilege.

And so this means that the sons of Eli were committing this immorality with those that came to worship.

And so this would have been essentially like a modern day scandal that we're seeing in our churches today, all over the place that they're abusing their position.

And it's sad, but we do see that history repeats itself.

We see that a sin works in similar ways throughout history.

And one of the things that we have to guard ourselves against within the church, not just leadership, but all of us in the church, we have to guard ourselves against those two terrible things.

The, the greed, the, the money, the love of money, not money, by the way, the Bible doesn't say money is the root of all evil, right?

Because we know that there are very godly people who lived with money.

But it's the love of money, it's the love of that material wealth.

And then we obviously know that that immorality, that lust can consume people.

And sometimes with power comes the feelings and beliefs that that can be abused.

And so we have to be so on guard for that.

I've mentioned this before, in even recent news, you've seen that there have been some really high level Christian authors and pastors that have confessed to terrible sins.

And you wonder, how could that even happen?

It comes through not being on guard, not allowing the Lord to pair our steps, not allowing ourselves to get to a place in our life where we fall into that, that sin of lust.

And so therefore Eli's sons are abusing these people.

So Moving forward, verse 23, this is Eli's response.

He could have responded in obviously many different ways, but he is going to come here and basically say, what are you doing?

He, Jesus says in verse 23, and he said unto them, why do you do such things?

It's a little bit too late to ask that question.

He's like, why do you do this?

Well, he probably already knows why.

He knows their character.

But he's asking that question of why are you doing these things?

For I hear of your evil dealings by all this people.

It says, name my sons, for it is no good report that I hear you make the Lord's people to transgress.

So obviously Eli recognizes the problem.

He recognizes that it's not just them sinning on their own, but they're affecting other people.

And it is an understandable question, but one that I don't think he needs to ask because he should know why they're doing it, because they're living in sin and they're living in rebellion.

And Eli basically does.

He doesn't correct them.

He doesn't really correct them.

He just talks to them.

And we're going to see a little bit here.

Verse 25.

He says, if one man sin under against another, the judge shall be judged.

But if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat not him.

And so there's this idea that there is problem here.

Notwithstanding, they hearken not unto the voice of their Father, because the Lord would slay them.

And the child Samuel grew on and was in favor both with the Lord and also with men.

And so, so here in this case, we see that he just comes to them and he essentially says, why do you do this?

You're making other people of the Lord sin.

And again, he's just explaining what they did wrong.

And so he says, if one man sins against another, God's going to judge him.

But if a man sins against the Lord, who's going to intercede for him?

He basically says this.

You're sinning against other people, but you're sinning against the Lord.

And if you sin against the Lord, who's going to be on your behalf?

Well, thankfully we know that answer in First John, chapter one, or, excuse me, First John, chapter two, verse one.

The Bible says that we have an advocate, Jesus, who, who intercedes for us.

But when someone's living in rebellion to God, you know who's going to answer for this?

Who's gonna.

Who's gonna get away with this?

And we know the answer.

No one's going to get away with this when you sin against the lord.

So verse 27.

This is interesting.

There came a man of God.

Now, we don't know who this man is.

There's some speculation of who this man might be, but he's an unknown man.

But he is a man of God used by God to state the judgment that's going to come to Eli's house.

And there came a man of God unto Eli and said unto him, thus saith the Lord.

Did I plainly appear into the house of thy father when they were in Egypt and Pharaoh's house?

And so he's asking a question.

Basically, he says, didn't I show myself to your house when the people were in Egypt?

And of course the answer is yes.

And, and did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me?

And did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by fire the children of Israel, wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and mine offering which I have commanded in my habitation, and honor thy sons above me.

So verse 29 tells us that, hey, look, these are all the things that God has done for you.

Why don't you realize that?

And why do you fear your sons more than you fear God?

That's essentially what he's saying here.

He says, why do you honor thy sons above me?

So essentially, what we see happening with Eli here is that he has gone.

And some would argue that he probably didn't discipline his children because he was worried about his children liking him more than obviously honoring God.

And so the essential teaching that we see here is that one of Eli's biggest mistakes was that he was honoring his sons more than he would honor God.

And that's sometimes a common misconception as a Christian, like, well, I need to make sure that I put my family first.

Well, that is a good statement.

But if we put our family first above God, then that's where we have a lot of issues.

We got to put God first.

And if we are putting God first and respecting him and loving him and obeying him, we'll be the type of parents that we need to be, will be the type of spouse we need to be, will be the type of whatever we are in the Christian life, the type of person that we need to be.

So essentially, what happened with Eli is although he loved God, he was submitting himself to the will of his sons, and that became a problem.

He says, and honors thy sons above me to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel, my people.

And so he's calling him out.

He says, look, you have been called to be a priest.

You called to do these things, but at the end of the day, you have not done what God has called you to do.

You have failed.

Even though there are some things that you have done well, you have not completely followed me and obeyed me.

And he says that you're honoring your sons more than me.

And so since Eli did not correct his sons the way that he should, he basically is showing more preference to them than to the will of God in our lives.

And that's a tough thing to do.

I know that many of us that probably have had opportunities in our life, we've.

Honestly, as a parent, I've.

I've failed in this.

You know, I've looked at something that might be easier to do or it might be something that might cause me less stress in my life, but the reality is, is that we're always supposed to do what God's will is, no matter how difficult it is, and how often that might cause us some stress in our own life.

And so ultimately, Eli didn't want to press the issue early on, and now he's reaping what he was sewing earlier on in his life.

So verse 30, he says, wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed, that thy house, and that the house of thy father should be before me forever.

But now the Lord saith, be it far from me, for them that honor me, I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

And so what we're seeing here in this case is that God is bringing judgment to the family of Eli, to the line of Eli.

Behold, the days come that I will cut off thine arm.

Now, that doesn't literally mean that he's cutting off Eli's arm.

The anytime in scripture that you see the arm mentioned, it's talking about strength.

So he says, I'm going to cut off the.

The strength, the dexterity of your family.

And he says, in the arm of thy father's house that there shall not be an old man in thine house, meaning nobody's going to grow to be old in your house.

There's going to be judgment upon you.

Verse 32.

And thou shalt see an enemy in mine habitation, in all the wealth which God shall give Israel.

And there shall not be an old man in thine house forever.

And the man of thine whom I shall not cut off from mine altar shall be to consume thine eyes and to grieve thine heart, and all the increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their age.

And this shall be a sign unto thee that shall come upon thy two sons on Hophni and Phineas.

In one day they shall die, both of them.

So he says, there's going to be judgment to your family, not just now, but forever.

And then he says, the way that I'm going, the way that God's going to prove that.

So remember, this guy's speaking for the Lord.

He says, the way that God's going to prove that is by confirming that with both of your sons dying on the same day.

And so God promised that the priestly line would not stay in the family of Eli.

And that would mean the descendants of Aaron.

And this was fulfilled later on in.

In Solomon's day.

King Solomon's day.

So you have King Saul and then King David and King Solomon.

This prophecy is ultimately fulfilled in that time when the line of Eli's family was changed to be replaced with Zadok, who was from another family.

So that's in First Kings, chapter 2, verse 27.

And so eventually this does come to pass.

And this is a big deal because it's taking the line out of Eli's family and this is showing that he's being judged.

And so it's repeated twice that there would not be anyone that's going to grow to be old in his family.

The descendants of Eli, who would not live very much longer, he said, will be completely seen in the sign of both of his sons being killed on the same day, which we know does come to pass.

Then we look at verse 35 and 36, which is actually a really interesting passage here, because he says that he will raise up for himself.

God says he will raise up for himself a faithful priest.

Now, this could be partially fulfilled in Samuel, which we know could be the case.

But then many people argue, which I would argue, that ultimately this is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

So he says, I will raise up.

I'll raise me up a faithful priest that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind.

And I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before mine anointed forever.

And it shall come to pass that everyone that is left in thine house shall come and crouch to to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread and shall say, put me, I pray thee, into one of the priest offices that I may eat a piece of bread.

So I believe that this promise about this faithful priest to come is partially fulfilled in Samuel.

Obviously, we know that Samuel was a godly priest.

He played a huge role in the anointing of King Saul and King David.

And the promise was partially fulfilled in Zadok, who was the new line of priests that we see in the days of Solomon.

But again, one could argue that this is a promise ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, because we know that in Hebrews chapter seven, the Bible says that Jesus is the priest in the order of Melchizedek, which Jesus is prophet, priest and king.

So Jesus isn't just limited as priest, even though he is our great high priest, as Hebrews chapter four says.

And so I believe that this is a promise and prophecy of the great high priest who is to come, and that is Jesus Christ.

And so essentially what he says at the very end of verse 36 is this your family line will come into judgment and ultimately humble themselves before the mighty high priest, which we know is fully seen in Jesus Christ.

And so one day he's saying, basically, Eli, your family is going to be reduced to begging.

They're going to be going around asking that they may have a piece of bread.

So this shows the judgment that is found in the life of rebellion.

And some people read this passage and they say that's pretty extreme, that God would do that to Eli and his family.

But ultimately, God deals with sin.

God does not let sin go unnoticed.

And when there's rebellion, there always is going to be judgment.

And until they come back in repentance, there is not going to be found forgiveness.

And so God brings upon the line of Eli that shame and ultimately that judgment.

So we see in that passage of Scripture two descriptions of very evil young men.

And that ultimately is found in Hopney and Phineas.

And they're stealing and they're materialism and their greed and ultimately their immorality.

But then we also see a picture of an obedient young man.

And that is the life of Samuel and his obedience to the Lord.

And we know that coming up here in chapter three, there's this call from God to Samuel.

And here I am, right?

It's a recognition of obedience.

And so the reason why Samuel is walking with the Lord is not just because he's a good boy.

The reason why Samuel walks with the Lord is because the difference between Hop the infinious did not know God.

Samuel knew God.

He had a personal relationship with God.

And I think that's important for us to note as well.

A person that is blessed by God is not just a person who's a good person, who has a good disposition, who is obedient.

The person who stands before the Lord in a righteous setting is someone who knows the Lord and understands his forgiveness.

And so that's the distinction.

You know, kids can be born and grow up, and they.

You.

You all know you could have one child who is a certain way and the other child who leans more to this disposition.

And that doesn't effectively make them any better or worse than the other.

But what makes it different is that does that child have a relationship with Jesus Christ?

And ultimately, does that human.

Does that adult have a relationship with Jesus Christ?

It's not a matter of saying someone's a good person, saying someone's religious, saying someone tries really hard, someone has good intentions.

I mean, the reality is, is that I could have great intentions, but if I'm not walking in the knowledge of who God is and what he has done for me, and then walking in faith in that, then that doesn't do anything for me.

And so what we see here, I think if we could condense down the thought in First Samuel, chapter two, especially the second half of chapter, it's this.

The ones that were in rebellion did not know God.

The ones who were in obedience knew God.

And that's, that's what we can see in that picture there.

And then ultimately that God judges those that are in rebellion, that God does not take lightly, those that abuse his own.

And, and there, there is judgment for those that manipulate, steal from and abuse other Christians.

And I would say that God doesn't deal with that lightly does.

A lot of people might think that people got in.

And on this side of eternity, there might be people who have gotten away with that and didn't get in trouble.

But at the end of the day, we know that God ultimately is the one who is in control and he doesn't let anything go unnoticed.

There is forgiveness found in sin.

But God is a righteous judge and he will make right all those things that we see in this world that don't add up.

And I know that that's something that all of us probably are struggling with at some degree, because there's times in my life where I look at something, I say, why did.

How did that person get away with that?

How is that person able to abuse and use these types of people specifically within the church?

But ultimately God does make that right.

And the Bible talks a lot about that in the New Testament about the characteristics of a false teacher.

And one of the things that you'll see in tandem with what we see in this passage is that there's a mark of where's their love?

Is there love about the almighty dollar?

It says they're lovers of themselves, they're lovers of money.

And the other thing about it is that they live in immorality.

They live in open rebellion to what God's word says.

And so those are marks of a false teacher with their character.

But at the end of the day, you also look to what they're saying.

If they're not preaching Jesus and Jesus properly, then that's.

That's a huge issue.

There's going to be a lot of other fringe issues that can be highly debated, but one thing that cannot be debated is the truth of Jesus Christ.

Now, obviously, Hopney and Phineas didn't understand that completely.

They were not living in obedience to the word of God.

That's evident by the way that they were living their lives.

And so we'll stop there.

That's a study for another time.

But we come back next week if you can.

We'd love to have you come back.

We're going to look at the classic passage where some of you know this story I remember this is one of my favorite stories in Sunday school growing up.

You know, God speaks to Samuel and Samuel's like going into Eli, Eli what?

And Eli's like, what?

Stop waking me up.

And that's, that's the whole story we're going to talk about next week.

But it's a really, really great story.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

You would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow along for future future podcast and updates.

Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.