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February 10, 2022 3:00 am
There are some people good at doing church knowledgeable about the Bible get involved a lot of ministries, but they don't actually know God today on Truth for Life will learn how the faith of a young child sometimes outshines the faith of religious leaders hears Alastair back with part one of a message titled consecration versus corruption here visiting today where we've embarked on a series of studies in first Samuel and we have reached the 11th are so first Samuel chapter 2 and were going to read from that various through to the end of verse 26 so I invite you to follow along as I read for Samuel to verse 11 and following, then LK and I went home to Ramah and the boy was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli the priest. Now the sons of Eli were worthless. Men they did not know the Lord, the custom of the priest with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice. The priest servant would come while the meat was boiling with a three-pronged fork in his hand and he would thrust it into the pan or R cauldron or part.
All of the four brought up, the priest would take for himself.
This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.
Moreover, before the fat was burned. The priest servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing give meat for the priest to roast, for he will not accept boiled meat from you but only raw and if the man said to him, let them burn the fat first and then take as much as you wish he would say no. You must give it now and if not, I will take it by force. Thus, the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord. For the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt. Samuel was ministering before the Lord. A boy clothes with a linen E4 and his mother used to make for him a little rolled take it to them each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would blast sell Canada and his wife and say. May the Lord give you children by this woman for the petition. She asked of the Lord. So then they would return to their home.
Indeed, the Lord visited Hannah and she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters in the boy Samuel grew in the presence of the Lord. Now Eli was very old and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting and he said to them, why do you do such things. For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people know my sons. It is no good report that I hear the people of the Lord spreading abroad if someone sins against a man God will mediate for him. But if someone sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him, but they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death. Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and also with man thanks be to God for his work.
We know gracious God, because your word tells us that the entrance of your word brings light and so we pray that you will shine into the darkness of our world and into our often darkened hearts with the truth that is ultimately discovered bias in the Lord Jesus Christ be on the voice of a mere man. May we hear from you, the living God, for Jesus sake. Amen.
While we pick up our study at the 11th verse. Hannah has gone home, leaving Samuel behind.
She leaves behind if you like a consecrated boy living in corruption and if you want a heading for our study, we could simply call it consecration and corruption or perhaps better consecration versus corruption. Remember in Hamlet that thing is Marcella's remarks upon seeing the operation of the ghost of Hamlet's father. He says something is wrong in the state of Denmark and as I read this passage during the week I find myself saying something actually a great deal is rotten in the city of Shiloh and what makes it so staggering is the fact that we are not learning here about the impact of the surrounding pagan culture intruding upon the righteousness of the people of God but were actually discovering that those who represent God, the very heart of the religious practice of the time are themselves guilty of the most willful and dreadful sins, and during the week. I thought this is a classic opportunity to use the what I thought was the accurate phrase we have met the enemy and it is ours.
When I wrote that down my nose.
I thought I should check that because it's not actually the original statement the original statement came interestingly little history at the battle of Erie. In 1813 when the commander of the naval fleet, the American commander, a fellow called Oliver hazard Perry had beaten the British somewhat decisively and had captured Royal Navy ships and he then issued the statement we have met the enemy and they are ours.
We have taken them over that then became we have met the man in the enemy and it is God's that was in 1970.
On the first Earth Day if you care to know and a poster was created to highlight the fact that apparently we are responsible for destroying everything and so the corruption of the statement from 1813 then became we have met the enemy and it is ours. While it may be a corruption of the original statement, but it is an accurate and most applicable acknowledgment of these worthless fellows and their somewhat inept father by the name of Eli. If like me you read narrative with music in your head and seeing it come alive in your mind because of just the way your put together then I think you will agree that the balance of this chapter is dark it would be if we were providing music in a somewhat discordant and probably minor tone and against that there will there come these little shafts of light where if you like the melody line. No goes to the major key, and you have these little shafts of light that penetrate the darkness you find them at one of them begins our reading in verse 11 where their light shines on this boy ministering to the Lord, you go down to verse 18 and once again you find the same thing a boy clothes with a linen E4 and in verse 21.
The same boy growing in the presence of the Lord and then in verse 26, growing in stature and in favor and so one and we all when we read the Bible bring ourselves to the text in our own background and everything and I find myself going to look for a song that we used to sing as children in Scotland as I thought of Eli and the darkness that pervaded his place and then it was almost as if I had a picture of of Samuel and and and he actually lit up.
You know he so he was. I don't how you do that, but he was. It was like lit he was. He was shining and the song goes like this.
It was written written by a lady in 1870 Lord, make my life a little light within the world to blow a little flame burns bright wherever I may go in the providence of God. God has chosen to do that in and through the life of this little boy a reminder to is, in passing, that we should never underestimate the part assigned to children in the purposes of God, that the work among children to children and actually intern through children is significant work, and many a child has gone on to be greatly used of God because of the care, the compassion, the diligence that has been shown to them in their infancy and who can, but we can only imagine what Hannah and O'Connor poured into the life of this little boy before they were finally going to leave him behind as they did so. Samuel is a reminder to me at least, and hopefully to you to that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness can put it out but it is then in verse 12 that we descend into the darkness into what we can only describe as a quagmire of spiritual and moral corruption without a passing reference to these sons of Eli back in chapter 1, were told there in chapter 1 that they were priests of the Lord. That is significant they were set apart for sacred purposes that their position in life was within the framework of the religious establishment of the day and in this respect. They were to follow their father and to follow the Lord. And what do we discover while we discover that they are worthless and worthless man that adjective worthless. We've already seen in chapter 1, when Hannah uses it because you remember that Eli and encountering Hannah to occur for a drunken woman, and he just missed the point entirely.
And it is in that context that she says to Eli. She says all please do not regard me as a worthless woman. The irony of it was awaiting eyes because he now is the father of these worthless sons. A significant part of the religious establishment, but you will notice that in verse 12 that they did not know the Lord did not know the Lord is not uncommon for people involved in religious life, not to actually know God. We may wonder at it, but it is absolutely true history of the Bible says it, and the history of church as it is clear that that is the case, what is it mean they did not know the Lord. The minute they didn't know who Yahweh was clearly doesn't mean that it means that the didn't know him and they didn't care about them and they paid no regard to him. They were involved in his service, but he had no living relationship with them at all. Whatever it being there in the early days has long since gone the way if you like an early version of the religious hucksters, to whom Jesus refers in his wars in Matthew chapter 23.
Remember when he says to them you are blind guides your blind guides you don't know where you're going and you're prepared to take other people into the same lostness that is yours.
In many ways we can be helped by considering Pharaoh in relationship to these boys on two fronts. The first of which is this that when Moses goes to Pharaoh and he says let my people go.
This is the word of God to you, Pharaoh, and you can read this in Exodus chapter 5 Pharaoh says why saying that to me. I do not know the Lord. I don't know the Lord. That wasn't an admission of ignorance that was an expression of defiance. That's what he was saying don't come here and tell me about what Yahweh says I don't know the Lord and I don't care that is the point that is being made here in relationship to these boy's reminder to is the scandal in the ranks of the clergy is not unique to the 21st century. They actually are the adversaries of the Lord that are mentioned in verse 10, in Hannah's prayer.
If your text is like mine, you can just look up the page you will see that in verse 10, the adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces against them. He will thunder in heaven.
Who would've thought that the adversaries of the Lord would be in the temple of the Lord would be in the tent of meeting at the tabernacle and who would've imagined that their sin.
Verse 17 would be so very great, inasmuch as they treated the offering of the Lord with contempt, and others. At the very place that God is appointed for the expression of forgiveness and for the expression of thankfulness for that forgiveness.
You have these two characters and in the middle of all that they do not know the Lord and they do not care how the background to their actions which are described for his first between verses 13 and 17 the background so that you will be able to find if you read in numbers and in Deuteronomy and in Leviticus. I have chosen not to go back and and prove this to you. I think you can trust me and a concordance will get you there when you get there you will discover that God has laid down if you like in a liturgical and sacrificial pattern. The exact way in which he wants these expressions of sacrifice and these expressions of thankfulness for sacrifice to take place. In other words, he is not simply given her a suggestion that we can accept and redefine on our own know you said this is exactly how it is to be done. There were reasons for that and other all purposeful reasons God has designed it to take place in a certain way and what were told here is simply this, that hopefully infinity as have totally rejected that were not going to operate on that basis instead out of their pride and arrogance heavy handedness greediness they have begun to introduce a whole new program. They don't even get involved in it themselves.
They have a servant and the servant here goes around you will see verse 14 with a three-pronged fork in his hand is home was is always humorous. If it wasn't tragic very well this fellow and he has is three-pronged for this is it is a kind of ancient version of phone do with a twist to it.
But there is nobody else goes in the pot. At this point except the servant with the three-pronged phone and so God has established a way whereby the provision for the priests was to be made when you read in the Pentateuch, you will discover that it came down to the actual pieces of the creature that was in the part and and so they said hey worry about that. The specifics just figured three-pronged fork going there and just get as much as you possibly can and bring it back for us and this was a one off. This was a pattern.
Verse 14. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there so everybody knew if you if you happen to go there and and you're making one of these Thanksgiving celebrations look out for the guy with the three-pronged fork because he's going to come and he's a servant of these characters, the sons of Eli the priest. And if that wasn't bad enough, they were also the record tells us robbing God of that which belonged to the Lord himself again.
Leviticus will help you with this again and again, you read that when God instituted these things.
The fact was to be burned off as a pleasing aroma to the Lord alright so when it if you think about it it's it's absolutely wonderful isn't it, that the physicality and the visibility of what God has given to his people in order that they might know what they're supposed to be doing how they're supposed to be doing it when they're supposed to be doing and as the aroma would emerge from there. The people were able to say and the reason that were not diving in right now is because this aroma is it is it is a sacrifice of praise to Yahweh, the God who has provided everything for us, not least of all forgiveness for our sin.
So often in finance and I want to do that either, and to give instruction to their servant.
If the worshiper protests when you go at them in this way and ask for the raw meat. Then just take them by force just manhandled to be bothered with it. Use force to secure our greedy godless parents.
Thus, 17 the sin of the young man was very great in the sight of the Lord. For the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt at this point the darkness lifts momentarily, the mood shifts. The melody is no longer discordant but tuneful and what we have a boy clothed with the linen E4 wearing the simple garments of priestly function.
A little boy shining in the darkness a little boy classically insignificant.
In contrast to the domineering forcefulness of these worthless. Another reminder that runs all the way through Scripture that when they all seem overwhelming when the darkness is apparently all encompassing.
God shines his light into the darkness and remember the overwhelming odds that were represented at the time when I great crowd of people had come to hear Jesus speaking and to perform miracles and now it's towards the end of the day and so the disciples with an expressed concern for the well-being of the crowd come to Jesus and say you know is probably a good idea to send all these people home because otherwise there to be stuck here and there's nothing at all to eat and remember Jesus as well. Does anyone have anything to eat and is a will there's a boy. As a young boy. He's gotta five loaves and two for the One-A-Day among somatic to which essentially Jesus is just wait-and-see just wait-and-see. If anybody looked at the situation.
It was said, what good is some little boy dressed up like a priest in the midst of all this darkness and all the scales you know my friends is exactly what people to say about the Lord Jesus Christ in our culture. Who is this what child is this that laid to rest in Mary's lap is sleeping in the midst of all this darkness, you see the domestic circumstances of Samuel stand in direct contrast to the domestic circumstances of hopefully in finance half and he had Finney asked have a dad who's AWOL.
Samuel has a mom who is on her game and I make no apology for loving their the. The intense humanity that is represented in this simple statement and his mother used to make for him a little role and take it to them each year.
This think about the his room, she would always go up each year. We know that from chapter 1, but when she went up it was a time of great bitterness and disappointment and pain because she was childless and she hated the thing and Antonina gave her the business and it was a disaster but she went circumstances of changed. She still goes now in the difference.
Listing to Truth for Life Telstra bag reminding us that children play a vital role in God's purposes and how we use them is of vital importance. One of the ways we want to come alongside you and help you as you raise your children and teach them about the Christian life is to recommend resources you can use and one of those resources were very excited about is a book called little pilgrims big journey. This book brings John Bunyan's timeless story of the Pilgrim's progress to life in language that elementary age children can easily understand each chapter and little pilgrims big journey ends with a short summary to help you explain the meaning of the allegory. There are questions at the end of the book that are perfect for prompting additional discussion on how to apply the lessons learned in real life, children will learn many important lessons about the Christian life to learn about things like the heavy burden of sin to be freed from it. The reality of spiritual battle how to be prepared with the armor of God, the importance of holding onto God's promises even in scary circumstances.
As a bonus, the book comes bundled with a coloring book and stickers. There's even a map included so the whole family can follow little pilgrims journey request little pilgrims big journey. When you make a donation through the Truth for Life app or online at truthforlife.org/donate by Bob Lapine.
People often rely on the miscues God's perfect patients. But God's patience is not actually endless. Join us tomorrow will find out what happens when God's patience runs out. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Learning is for Living