Before the Lights Went Out

Before the Lights Went Out 1 Samuel 3:1-20 Verse 3 says that this event happened before the light went out in the Tabernacle. This is more than just the physical light. The lamp in the Tabernacle was never supposed to go out because it represented the continuous presence of God with the people of Israel. Yet is says here that the lamp was about to go out, and everyone there would be left in the utter dark as the curtains from which the Tabernacle was made were thick. There should have been better care taken for the lamps. Oil should have been added to make sure the light would last until morning. This is one small detail which shows the carelessness that Eli and the priests had for the House of God. Should they have been sleeping in the Tabernacle would be a second concern. The lack of care for the lamp in the Tabernacle is symbolic of a greater darkness. God had promised Israel that He would care for them and be their God and they His special people. They were to be different than the nations all around them. If they lost their distinctiveness, they would be just like the heathen nations around them. Yet Israel, time and again, were captivated by the external culture and neglectful of the special relationship they had with Yahweh. This could be seen in the Temple itself. The High Priest’s sons were worthless people who stole meat which was to be offered unto the LORD alone. Worse than that, they were sleeping with the women who came to bring their offering to the LORD. This was just like the pagan priests of the fertility cults. It says that Eli was 98 years old at the time. His eyes were dim, and he could hardly see. This is another metaphor which also spiritually describes Eli. He accused Hannah of coming drunk to the Tabernacle because she moved her lips when she prayed for a son. Yet he was wrong, because Hannah was emotionally engaged with the very LORD that Eli should have had. The word of the LORD was rare in those days. Altogether, a picture of the spiritual darkness of Israel at the highest levels was deep. On top of this, Eli was blind to the faults of his sons. Yes, the Lamp of God was about to go out. The lamp had been flickering for a long time. Israel in the book of Judges records many backslidings which led the LORD to bring foreign nations against them. They would be in bondage and repent. Then the LORD would remember them and raise someone up to rescue them, only to have them backslide yet once more. At times the light of God shone brightly, but at other times it seems to have been in danger of going out completely. So the book of 1 Samuel continues the pattern of Judges. At this point, the lamp was about to go out once more. But God already had a plan to deliver Israel yet once more. The woman whom Eli thought was drunk and disgracing the holiness of the Temple had a son named Samuel. She had promised in her prayer that se would give him to the LORD’s service. So when this son was weaned, she brought him to the Tabernacle and gave him to the custody of the same person who had so ignorantly thought that she was a drunk. So the lad was raised in the Tabernacle. I wonder if he saw all that Hophni and Phineas were doing there. What an example of corruption these two would have been. Samuel saw, yet Eli was blind to his son’s faults. One evening when the boy Samuel had grown some, he was in bed at the time the lamp was about to go out. He heard a voice calling him by name. As Samuel did not know the LORD or his voice at this point, he logically assumed that Eli had called for him. But Eli was asleep in the dark. When roused by Samuel, he told the boy that he did not call for him. Who then? Hophni and Phineas? No, they were not there. So Samuel went back to sleep. Again, the LORD called and went to Eli. Again Eli’s spiritual sight was so dim. “Go back to bed; I did not call you.” And the LORD called Samuel the third time, and he went to Eli yet once more. This time, Eli finally started to perceive that the LORD was calling the boy. He told Samuel if he heard the voice again to answer the LORD and say that he was listening. The LORD’s report to Samuel was shocking. What He was about to do would be scandalous to Israel. He was going to judge Israel severely. This judgment would go to the very top. Eli’s sons were going to die and their houses. This would be the end of the priesthood as Israel knew it. God had seen the vileness of Israel’s son’s even more than Samuel had. So Samuel slept on this vision. Is says the next morning he got up early and opened up the doors of the Tabernacle. Light was coming into the House of God again. God was purging the wicked priesthood and setting up another in its place. Samuel would become the priest of the people in the place of Eli and his natural descendants. The first thing he did was to answer Eli’s inquiry about what the LORD had told him. Eli finally understood the gravity of the matter. His eyes were finally opened, and he realized that the LORD was just in judging him and his sons. Soon his sons would die in battle, and Eli would fall out of the chair and break his neck when he heard the report. The High Priest who had gotten fat from the offerings of the people would die, and the last thing his ears would hear would be the death of his sons. It says here that Samuel was held up by the LORD. None of his words fell to the ground. He gained respect among the people. God was doing a new thing in Israel. Samuel was a type of a greater priest and an even greater priesthood. As great as Samuel was, God had an even greater plan for Israel. Samuel would have son’s, but his sons turned out to be as corrupt as the son’s of Eli, so much so that Israel begged Samuel to find someone else. “Give us a king, just like all the other nations, they said.” Of course a king like the other nations was just the wrong response. Their king was Yahweh, and they were rebelling against His rule. They would get a king like the other nations. Saul was tall and powerful. But Israel fell under bondage to Saul. God rejected Saul for disobedience. He raised up a simple shepherd boy and made David the king. He was a king after God’s own heart. Yet David, like Samuel, were only types pointing to a day in which a better king and a better high priest would become. They point forward to the coming of Jesus of Nazareth. This Jesus was none other than Yahweh come in human flesh. Samuel was a priest and a prophet, but not a king. David was a king and a prophet but not a priest. But Jesus is properly Prophet, Priest and king. He was the light who came into the world to give it light. It is He who vanquishes darkness. The lamp flickered and almost wen out in Solomon’s day, the exile, and even when John the Baptist came to announce the coming of the LORD, the word of God had become quite rare. Almost four hundred years of silence. Then at the altar in the Temple, the word of the LORD came to Zacharias who was offering incense. Light was on its way, a lamp that would never go out. Jesus was on His way. The LORD Jesus has proised he would return. In the meanwhile we are called to be watchful and keep oil in our lamps. We are to be wise and not foolish virgins. Jesus does not just call Himself the Light of the World as He does in John. He says in the Sermon on the Mount: “YE are the light of the world.” This is only true as we are the body of Christ. Jesus commands our light to shine before men. We are to be the light of Christ which causes the blind to see. The world has to be shaken with the word of impending judgment to arise from their spiritual coma just like Eli had to have his eyes opened. We are also called “the Temple of the Holy Spirit.” We are to be the tabernacle of the Light of God as we sojourn through this world in the same way Jesus tabernacled with us. We are called to be light to the nations rather than to accommodate to this world and its practices. We are called to be better priests than Hophni and Phineas. Be assured that the churches which turn from the light of the gospel to ape and sanctify pop culture will pay a terrible price and be severely judged. Jesus promises to take away the candlestick from churches who refuse to be His light. Peter tells us that judgment must begin at the House of God. And if so, where will the ungodly and sinner appear? How is the light of God seen by the world? It is first of all seen in the proclaiming of the Gospel. If one wants to know what this looks like, I would invite them to look at the preaching in the Book of Acts. He you see bold and brutally honest preaching. Peter tells the Jews that they killed God. This comes before the call to repentance and belief. This step cannot be shortcutted. People need to know where they truly stand with God. They need to be awakened out of the stupor of self righteousness and self assurance. They must be shown their need for a savior. Then the way is open for good news about Jesus who died in our place for our sins. They can now appreciate that their situation can be changed by God’s grace from judgment to reconciliation, from death to life, from false assurance to a living hope. This Jesus rose again as proof of the acceptance of His offering in our place. He takes not the blood of an animal to the throne of God, but as our merciful High Priest bears His own blood as an offering of atonement before the Father. He is soon to be our returning and eternal King in person even as He already rules in the heavens. To the proper preaching of the Word, we need to show the Light of God to the world in our love for each other, our joy in all circumstances, and our suffering for Jesus’ sake. We must not just talk about the light. We must be the light. John the Baptist came to bear witness to the light. It is said that he was not the light himself. But as the body of Christ, we are called to be the Light of Christ, the light of Christ which shines in the darkness. Let us tend to the light so that it does not flicker but shines brightly.