Ripe For Judgment • 1 Samuel 2:11-36

36:30 Teaching begins

Notes

1 Samuel is about Israel being at its absolute worst and God reviving His work in them.

We’ve seen how God has so worked through a barren woman’s suffering so that she would bring forth a son who will be devoted to God all his life, and do all God’s will.

Today we see why that is necessary. The heart of the nation is its worship. If the worship is corrupt, the people will be in darkness and the nation will be in a mess.

The priests are so far gone that they can’t be revived. They are not listening to God, therefore they disobey God. They are ripe for judgment.

I’m reading in 1 Samuel 2 from verse 11.

1. Samuel begins ministering to the Lord, v. 11. 

A. His mother Hannah couldn’t have children and suffered terribly.

B. At her lowest time she humbled herself before the Lord. She said if You will give me a son, I will give him back to You all the days of his life. He will be devoted to doing all Your will.

C. God answered her prayer. Not by might shall a man prevail, but through the grace of the Lord.

D. And she has taught Samuel for three years that God is good, He is why you exist, you are to know Him and to do all His will. She fills his life with the goodness of the Lord.

E. Now Samuel begins his life’s career, serving God at the house of God in Shiloh.

2. Hannah’s accomplishment is all the more amazing when you realize Samuel is beginning his work in a corrupt environment, vv. 12-17.

A. These sons of Eli are worthless, no one would accept them as adequate. Everyone who sacrifices in Shiloh knows it, and God knows it.

B. They didn’t know the Lord.

1. They knew about the Lord, they knew about how to sacrifice, they know intellectually.

2. But they had nothing to do with God. They did not submit to Him. They didn’t listen to His word or obey it. They had no relationship with God in the way that Hannah did. She suffered, she went through difficult times, she sought the Lord, she prayed to Him, she humbled herself before Him.

C.. These guys abuse their privilege and authority. 

1. They were born into the priesthood. It’s hereditary. It was all given to them.

2. They do not understand the privilege and the responsibility of representing God and man. They ignore what the word of God says they are to do.

3. In Leviticus 7:31-34 God assigned the priests a portion from the sacrifices in Israel. The priest shall offer up the fat in smoke on the altar, but the breast shall belong to Aaron and his sons. You shall give the right thigh to the priest as a contribution from the sacrifices of your peace offerings. The one among the sons of Aaron who offers the blood of the peace offerings and the fat, the right thigh shall be his as his portion. For I have taken the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution from the sons of Israel from the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons as their due forever from the sons of Israel.

4. So these two brothers help themselves to more meat than they are entitled, and there’s a lot of meat in the right thigh and the right breast.

5. Then they don’t want boiled meat. They ignore burning the Lord’s portion of fat on the altar, they go right for the meat cuts they want so they can roast it their way.

D. Men despise the offering of the Lord.

1. The word is out: Don’t go up to Shiloh. Those guys are only in it for the meat. Nothing there is connected with the Lord. They’re only out for themselves. Better stay home.

2. Everyone knows these guys are not carrying out the will of God because that will is specifically written down and everyone can see that they are not doing it. They offend man and God.

3. In the midst of this corruption the scene changes. We are shown how God blesses Samuel’s family, vv. 18-21.

A. Now we know that Samuel is serving in a moral cesspool.

B. His mother and father keep coming up year after year to worship and see him. His mom makes him a new priestly robe every single time. What that means is she loves him.

1. Parents are supposed to talk about the Lord with their children so they get to know the Lord as a matter of life.

2. Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it. That doesn’t mean that you forcibly indoctrinate your child like he was in a cult or a political party. It means you find the way to your child’s heart and teach him in a way that he can receive. You love your child and communicate that love to him.

3. Hannah loved the Lord. She loved Samuel and communicated that love to him. Every time they’re together she loves him and he loves her. He knows God because she loved God. Samuel doesn’t yet know the Lord, not till next chapter, but he knows what God is like because he can see God in his mom.

C. Eli blesses the family, and God blesses the family. There are even more in the family! Samuel gets brothers and sisters.

4. Eli’s family is growing more corrupt. He tries to tell his sons to stop sinning, but they don’t listen, vv. 22-25.

A. Now they’re sleeping with the women who minister at the door of the tent of meeting.

1. We don’t know much about these women, but evidently they serve through worship and prayer.

2. But Hophni and Phineas corrupt these women away from worship to sleeping with the priests.

B. Eli tries to reason with his sons but they ignore him. He has great reasons but they are extremely confident, don’t you think? Their attitude is: We can do anything we want. Everything is going to stay the same. Nothing is going to happen.

C. Samuel is growing in favour with God and man. He is fulfilling God’s will, and people can see it. This guy is the real deal. A godly boy. Wow.

D. These worthless men are confident that everything is going to be fine and nothing is going to happen. But it says here that they didn’t listen to Eli fret over them, and they keep ignoring him, because the Lord wants to kill them. They are already dead men and they don’t know it.

5. Even more alarming, God tells Eli he is responsible for his sons, and He is going to judge Eli’s family forever, vv. 27-36.

A. The man of God tells Eli that God specifically gave blessings and privileges to Eli’s family that have come down to him and his sons, the best of everything in Israel.

B. They kick at it like it’s nothing. They treat the worship of God like it was nothing.

C. But you honour your sons above Me. They are more important to you than Me.

1. That is breaking the greatest commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.

2. He pampered those boys, he probably never rebuked or disciplined them. They may not like me. I don’t want to be a harsh parent. I want them to love me.

3. He taught them that they can do what they want and nothing is going to happen. Where is that love of God in Eli’s life? You can’t pass on what you don’t have. He loved those boys more than God, and that’s what they learned from him: you can love something else other than God first, and that’s okay. Nothing is going to happen.

D. But that is not true. Something is going to happen. God is going to judge Eli and his family forever.

1. God says, I did say that you would walk before Me forever, but may that never be. I don’t have to bless anyone who despises Me.

2. There will be no old men in your house forever. You’re an old man, but you are the last one. Everyone from here on in is going to die in the prime of life, beginning with Hophni and Phineas. They are going to die on the same day, just so you know it’s Me talking. That’s the opposite of the commandment Deuteronomy 5:16 Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

3. I’m about to destroy my dwelling—you will see the enemy destroy the worship of God. I’m going to destroy this place and start over.

4. I won’t cut off every man from serving me, but those who survive will grieve you. They will not bring you joy.

5. I’m raising up for Myself a faithful priest who will do all that is in My mind and My heart. I’m choosing someone else to serve me.

6. Anyone left of your descendants will beg a job from him so he can eat a little. Your descendants are going to live a rough, difficult life forever.

E. If a man of God came to you and told you this, would it freak you out? Would you repent before God and seek Him and humble yourself before Him? Would you get desperate? This is incomprehensible—Eli does not respond to God. We know this because we’ve read ahead and we know that God is going to carry out His word.

F. Eli’s sons don’t listen to their father. Eli doesn’t listen to God. Eli’s sons do not know the Lord. It seems reasonable that Eli doesn’t know the Lord either.

6. So what?

A. You can thank God that you are suffering right now. God is doing you a favour. It shows you your weakness and poverty of spirit, and how much you need the Lord. You can pray and seek God and He will help you to know Him. That’s the most important thing you can receive in this life, because you can’t lose it. That’s your whole life. That’s your eternity. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

B. You need to know the Lord. Eli’s sons were despicable and Eli was nice. But none of them knew the Lord. It’s not about being nice, it’s knowing the Lord.

C. If you don’t know the Lord you also don’t know how you are offending the Lord. You have no clue that you are headed for eternal judgment. Whether you believe it or not doesn’t change anything. Not knowing God leads to disobeying God, and disobeying God leads to judgment and condemnation. Woe to you when you receive your good things now. You are full now, but you will be empty. You will lose all your good things and then you will bear your judgment and your shame forever.

D. You know you know the Lord when you receive Jesus as your Saviour and Lord. You repent of being your own boss and not listening to God. Then you put your trust in Jesus, that He died for your sins and rose again from the dead. You receive Him, and He lives in you through His Spirit. You are born again, your life is filled with love from God, and you love others. Hannah knew the Lord because she loved God and she taught Samuel to love the Lord.

E. 1 John 4:7-14 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

F. You know you know God when you love Him, and you listen to Him and you obey Him. The nicest person in the world who ignores and disobeys Jesus is worthy of condemnation. Jesus asks the question, Luke 6:46 “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” What answer will you give Jesus today? Do you know Him?

Let’s pray.