Holy Contempt
Notes
Transcript
A. Rapport for the time
B. Reading of the text
C. Review of the text
D. Relevance of the text
I. Living like God is Ordinary
I. Living like God is Ordinary
12 Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord.
If you will remember back with me to the introduction of Samuel we set a people list out of who would be involved in these earlier chapters. Eli’s sons Hophni and Phinehas are actively involved in chapter 2 but not in a good way. They are called worthless men. This is the same term that Eli used on Hannah in chapter 1.
16 Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.”
Remember, Hannah was praying to herself and in the midst of her prayer she is just moving her lips and Eli things her to be drunk and tells her to get out. The word for worthless is the Hebrew word “belial” which is associated with death, wickedness and rebellion. In all honesty that is not the worst part of vs 12. The fact that they are the priestly leaders but “They did not know the Lord” is of much greater concern and helps us understand why they are worthless.
2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”
10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
Now don’t think for a minute that Hophi and Phineas did not know how the Lord should be worshiped at Shiloh. Also, understand that they are the priestly leaders in charge of showing God to others and bringing others to know God yet they themselves do not know him. This is what we would say is the blind leading the blind. The leadership of Israel is not concerned with the ways of God and desires to do their own thing looking out for self first. What will others in Israel look like?
Think about this… “This was Israel, the nation chosen by God out of all the earth to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. This was Shiloh, the place, for the time being, where the holy tabernacle was set up as God’s dwelling place among his people.”
They are responsible to represent God and they fail to know him. Now they know about him, they have all the information in the world but they do not know the Lord.
Hannah spoke about this in her prayer
3 Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.
Beloved God will only let this go on so long before his long suffering wears out and he responds. He did not forget Phineas and Hophni like they had forgotten him. He will take action for “His names sake.”
v 13-16 describe the way in which Eli’s sons went about the business of being priests before the people.
13 The custom of the priests with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come, while the meat was boiling, with a three-pronged fork in his hand,
14 and he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot. All that the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.
Now understanding that what they are doing doesn’t make a ton of sense to you and I who do not make these types of sacrifices anymore leads us to:
28 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
29 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever offers the sacrifice of his peace offerings to the Lord shall bring his offering to the Lord from the sacrifice of his peace offerings.
30 His own hands shall bring the Lord’s food offerings. He shall bring the fat with the breast, that the breast may be waved as a wave offering before the Lord.
31 The priest shall burn the fat on the altar, but the breast shall be for Aaron and his sons.
32 And the right thigh you shall give to the priest as a contribution from the sacrifice of your peace offerings.
33 Whoever among the sons of Aaron offers the blood of the peace offerings and the fat shall have the right thigh for a portion.
34 For the breast that is waved and the thigh that is contributed I have taken from the people of Israel, out of the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons, as a perpetual due from the people of Israel.
35 This is the portion of Aaron and of his sons from the Lord’s food offerings, from the day they were presented to serve as priests of the Lord.
The Lord established his way with his people on how he would be worshiped. From the moment they leave Egypt God is establishing his way with HIS people. God determines the relationship with mankind not the other way around. We do not tell God under what conditions he is worthy of worship.
Eli’s sons had knowledge of God but nor relationship with the King therefore their hearts are set upon themselves.
Expository Commentary “Eli’s sons, discontent with God’s allocation, grab more than their quota. it is implied that their three-pronged fork is not randomly thrust into the pot but aimed at the choicest portions. All who sacrifice at Shiloh become victims of their greed.
15 Moreover, before the fat was burned, the priest’s 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.”
16 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.”
The people that are representing God before the people are using force to take from those they have been placed in charge to care.
17 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.
Contempt—the feeling that someone or something is worthless or beneath consideration
When you read that definition and think that is how Men of God are treating what God has placed before them is is extremely scary but shows you how far Hophni and Phineas had gone.
The standard by which these young men lived by was a standard they set for themselves and that led them far from God. They are but a small picture of the Israelites that we have read about during this time of Judges. They do not recognize God but God has not forgotten about them.
Still true today.
T.S. The passage takes us from people that live as though God is ordinary to those that recognize him as Holy.
II. Living like God is Holy
II. Living like God is Holy
18 Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy clothed with a linen ephod.
19 And his mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.
20 Then Eli would bless Elkanah 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.
21 Indeed the Lord visited Hannah, and she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew in the presence of the Lord.
Ministering before the Lord--
Ephod--The linen ephod is a garment reserved for the priesthood (see 2:28), so this is an indication that Samuel has become involved in an apprenticeship. The ephod was most likely a type of apron. Linen was the basic material, though higher ranking priests would have had gold thread woven into the fabric.
Matthews, V. H., Chavalas, M. W., & Walton, J. H. (2000). The IVP Bible background commentary: Old Testament (electronic ed., 1 Sa 2:18). InterVarsity Press.
Elkanah and his Family worshipped the Lord by coming to Shiloh yearly to make a sacrifice before the Lord. We see this contrast between Hophni and Phineas and the family of Elkanah in their desire to follow what the Lord requires. One seeks after the Lord and the other is driven by personal interests and desires. Elkanah and his wife Hannah find themselves blessed in their relationship with the Lord. This blessing will give Hannah 5 more children.
This marks a transition from Elkanah and his family to the boy Samuel who:
vs 21 And the boy Samuel grew in the presence of the Lord.
Samuel “became great” literal translation of Grew.
26 Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and also with man.
19 And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.
One set of priests do not know the Lord and another, Samuel, grows in the Lord. What a contrast in such a short time period between two groups of people and their relationships with the Lord.
T.S. What we find is that God is not idle and does truly care for his own name. It’s important to see that God cares.
III. Living Knowing God cares
III. Living Knowing God cares
22 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.
23 And he said to them, “Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people.
24 No, my sons; it is no good report that I hear the people of the Lord spreading abroad.
Vs. 22 begins with Eli was very old. Between 90-98. Eli who sat as Judge over Israel who had been priest and helped raise Samuel in the ways of the Lord has a problem with his own household. He is no longer active in the day to day affairs but finds himself hearing about what his sons are doing. We are now told that they not only had Hophni and Phineas been threatening, and stealing from God but now they are sleeping with the woman that are there in Shiloh to serve God. They are taking everything that the Lord set aside to be Holy and have gone in the opposite direction taking what God has designed to be holy and precious and treating it as a personal playground.
Eli talks to his sons in his old age. Eli has obviously known that his sons have headed in the wrong direction for some time but now decides to talk with them. Notice that Eli does not talk to his boys about repentance or even seem to fuss at them for what they have done. They are defaming the name of God as they are to be representing the one true God and instead they are acting as though God has no power or doesn’t care about the standards that HE put into place.
1 Samuel—Looking for a Leader Old Eli Spoke (vv. 23–25a)
The New Testament equivalent to this argument is found in the Letter to the Hebrews. The person “who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified” must understand that then “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins” (10:29, 26; cf. 6:6). If your sin, like the sin of Hophni and Phinehas, consists of contempt for the very means God has provided for your salvation, what hope remains?
25 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.
In their failure to listen to Eli they sealed for themselves the Judgement of God. If a person does not respond to the very thing that brings salvation their is nothing that can be done to bring about that spiritual truth to their life. The truth is that Eli’s sons loved their sin more than they did God. The truth sat before them but they refused to respond.
4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,
5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;
27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
1 Samuel—Looking for a Leader Old Eli Was Ignored (v. 25b–c)
Eli does not seem to have been a wicked man, but in his old age he was not able to provide the leadership that Israel needed. His words to his sons expressed his sorrow and distress at their behavior, but he did not have the strength to curb their conduct. Shiloh suffered from the corruption of Eli’s sons and the ineptitude of their old father.