We are reading in 1 Samuel chapter
four, and we're going to read from verse one. And the word of Samuel came to
all Israel. Now Israel went out against the
Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Ebenezer, and the Philistines
pitched in Aphek. and the Philistines put themselves
in array against Israel and when they joined battle Israel was
smitten before the Philistines and they slew of the army in
the field about 4,000 men. And when the people were come
into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the
Lord smitten us today before the Philistines? Let us fetch
the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that,
when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our
enemies. So the people sent to Shiloh,
that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the
Lord of hosts, which dwelleth between the Cherubims. And the
two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the
covenant of God. And when the ark of the covenant
of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great
shout, so that the earth rang again. And when the Philistines
heard the noise of the shout, they said, what meaneth the noise
of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood
that the ark of the Lord was come into the camp. And the Philistines
were afraid, for they said, God has come into the camp. And they
said, Woe unto us, for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. Woe unto us! Who shall deliver
us out of the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods that
smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. Be strong and quit yourselves
like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews,
as they have been unto you. Quit yourselves like men and
fight. and the Philistines fought, and
Israel was smitten. And they fled every man into
his tent, and there was a very great slaughter, for there fell
of Israel 30,000 foot men. And the ark of God was taken,
and the two sons of Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas were slain. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
reading from his word. We shall spend a few weeks thinking
about some of these historical passages, the historical events
recorded by Samuel in these early chapters of his book, 1 Samuel. It seems from the opening verse
that Samuel's reputation as a prophet was spreading throughout the
land of Israel. Now it is perhaps possible that
that reputation was particularly to do with the prophecy that
he had received from God concerning Eli and the sons of Eli and the
removal of the priesthood from the family of Levi. but his reputation was known. It was known that Samuel was
a prophet of God, and he had received this prophet from the
Lord in the night. So the people knew that Samuel
was the Lord's prophet. However, knowing that, it did
not mean that they went to Samuel in order to hear what the Lord
would say. And I don't know whether that
was because of Samuel's age, because he was still young, or
perhaps it was because Eli was still alive at this time, though
now he was an old man. Or perhaps it was because there
still was this presence at Shiloh of Hophni and Phinehas, taking
more and more responsibility in the role of priests there
around the Ark of the Covenant and the worship of God, despite
the fact that they were notoriously evil men. but neither the will
of God nor the advice of God's chosen spokesman, Samuel, was
sought after in the matter of this battle between the Philistines
and Israel. The people did not seek Samuel's
advice concerning fighting, nor did they seek his advice with
respect to the removal of the Ark from Shiloh. The elders of
Israel were able to call for the Ark to be brought into the
camp, the army's camp, and then onto the battlefield. That Ark
of the Lord, or the Ark of the Covenant as it is called, is
the same Ark that was constructed in the days of Moses in the time
of the wilderness and it was carried into the land of Canaan
at the time when Joshua and the people of Israel crossed the
River Jordan into the land and it had been placed at Shiloh
some 350 years earlier. It had not moved from Shiloh
in 350 years. That's a long time. That's a
long time. And now, in the midst of this
battle, these elders of Israel took the Ark of the Covenant
away from Shiloh, brought it into the camp of Israel, took
it onto the battlefield. And there it was lost. It would
not be lost to Israel for so very long, we're going to come
to that on another occasion, but it never again returned to
Shiloh. These events changed everything
in the experience of the Lord's people. This battle took place
in Israel, in the land of Israel, so it would perhaps appear that
the Philistines were the aggressors at this time, and it took place
when Eli was about 100 years old, and he had served as judge
for 40 years. And this may be actually the
length of time from the time of Samson. So you remember how
we've spoken about the judges and how that Samson was perhaps
one of the last of the judges, although Eli here is said to
have judged Israel as well. though he was high priest. So
whether he was a judge or a high priest, or whether he combined
both offices, we perhaps don't exactly know how that worked. But Samson's death was perhaps
40 years previously, and the Philistines, it seemed, had recovered
from the devastation that had afflicted them at the time of
Samson's death. They'd recovered their losses,
they'd recovered maybe their numbers, they'd recovered their
boldness and now they felt strong enough to attack Israel. And Israel gathered an army and
went out to meet them. However the battle went against
Israel and we learn that 4,000 men were slain on the first day
of the battle and the people when they returned to their camp
looked for a reason. and the elders decided that it
was because the Lord was not with them. Well, in a sense they weren't
far wrong. They were correct because the
Lord wasn't with them, but what they did not seem to realise
was the reason that the Lord was not with them was because
of their sin. Nevertheless, the elders called
for God to be with us. How presumptuous it is for men
who are not spiritual to imagine that they can call upon God to
do their bidding, that he is at their beck and call So many
people today still imagine that they can call God to do their
bidding. They imagined that the presence
of the ark would mean that the Lord was with them. And so the
ark was called for and the two sons of Eli travelled with the
ark and this brought them to the place where according to
Samuel's word they would be slain in one day as the Lord had heard. when the Ark of the Covenant
being brought, either carried by these two sons or being overseen,
its carriage by other priests being overseen by Hophni and
Phinehas, there was great joy in the camp. It was brief joy
but it was joy nevertheless. There was great encouragement
in Israel and such a shout went up that it caused consternation
and fear amongst the Philistines who were almost ready to run
away. Their captains rallied them with
threats of becoming Israel's slaves. And once again, the Philistines
joined battle with Israel. And once again, they overwhelmed
Israel. And the number of dead this time
was much, much greater. The Ark of the Covenant was captured. Eli's two sons were killed, probably
defending the Ark of the Covenant to no avail. and 30,000 soldiers died from
the ranks of Israel. It was a day of reckoning in
Israel. Israel had forgotten God and
sunk into wickedness and idolatry. Pushed on, sadly to say, by the
priests themselves, the very ones who ought to have upheld
the testimony of God. And I think there's a couple
of lessons that we can take from this passage and I'd just like
to leave them with you. The first one is this, that the
Jews' idea of the presence of God being with them was wrong. Men and women and boys and girls
can be religious in an outward way without any true spiritual
life within them. Let me just repeat that. People
can be religious in an outward way without any true spiritual
life within. They can use religious words.
They can go to religious places. They can do religious things. but be totally devoid of any
true spiritual knowledge of God. And this is what these Jews were
like. They had a form of godliness,
but they did not know the power of God in their souls or in their
experience. When the 4,000 soldiers died
on the first day of the battle, it might have been a sign to
the elders of Israel and the people of Israel to humble themselves
and ask God for help. Ask for God's forgiveness for
their sins, ask for his direction. But instead of going to the Lord,
they decided to bring the Lord to the people. Instead of being
humble, they proudly tried to use God like a lucky charm to gain the victory and to gain
the glory that they desired. And it is how many people use
faith even today. For such people, faith is not
true faith in the Lord. It is not true faith in His death
on the cross. For such people, faith is merely
the hope that God will make up the difference between what they
can do for themselves and what they can't. That they'll do their
bit and God will do his bit and everything will work out right
in the end. But that's an empty shell of
words and actions that people can call Christianity if they
like, but it isn't the real thing. God never asked for such faith
and he never sanctions such worship. And I don't want you young folk
who are listening, growing up, thinking that true religion is
simply going to church or listening to sermons. It isn't the listening,
it's what you hear that matters. And it's what you hear with ears
to hear. That's what we were reading in
that little passage from Luke. You who have ears to hear, listen
to what is being said. The true gospel, pure religion,
as James calls it, is being cleansed from our sin by the blood of
Jesus Christ and following him daily in a living relationship
of faith. There's lots of religion in this
world. and a lot of it goes by the name
of Christianity and claims to be the religion of God, but it
is a broad way that leads to destruction and leads to hell,
for there is no true spirit in it. There is true faith in Jesus
Christ, and that leads to salvation and to heaven, but it's a narrow
way, and there are few who find it. And while I'm on the message
or this thought here, let me also mention the perception that
the Philistines had because the Philistines too had a wrong notion
of what it was for God to be with his people. These people
knew very little about the God of Israel. Sure, they had heard
stories about his mighty works in the past. They'd heard what
had happened in Egypt. and they were afraid for that
reason, that they might suffer in the same way as Egypt suffered
because they heard the cheering, they heard the joy in the camp
of Israel. But do you see what happened?
Because the Jews did not know God, because the Jews, the Hebrews,
misrepresented God's presence with them, the Philistines ultimately
were given cause to mock the Lord. When they defeated Israel and
they captured the Ark of the Covenant, they were able to mock
God. And today, many churches try
to water down the Gospel and make it more accessible and more
available to unbelievers, thinking that this is the right way for
them to act. But it does not encourage faith. It mocks God and it gives occasion
for the world to laugh at God, to laugh at the way of salvation. God will not off honour such
efforts by men. But there is another side to
this as well. Even in Israel at this time there were true
believers, people like Samuel who knew the Lord, people like
Hannah his mother who served the Lord and trusted in his word. Such people were few, they always
were, they were a remnant people even in Israel and they were
often hidden away No one took much notice of them. They didn't
march to battle with God's ark on their shoulder. They didn't
shout for joy when the ark came into the camp. They understood
that the presence of the Lord was a personal, intimate relationship. They loved the Lord because the
Lord loved them and because he revealed himself to them spiritually. He had spoken in a still small
voice to them, just like he did to Samuel. And they had been
given ears to hear and faith to trust in the one true God
and to trust in the Saviour Jesus Christ. For these people, the
presence of the Lord was not found in the emblems and the
rituals and the trappings of religion, even at Shiloh. even in the midst of the hypocrisy
of these priests who so defiled the sacrifices that they made. But it was found in the Lord
Himself. And that's true for all the Lord's
people in every age. He has promised, I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee. And when the Lord quickens our
spirit, when the Lord gives us new life in Christ, when we trust
wholly in Christ for cleansing and righteousness and acceptance
with God, then we shall never be without the presence of the
Lord, our Saviour. That's not to say we won't lose
sight of Him from time to time. That is an aspect of even our
Christian walk and experience. because we look away but he will
never leave us and he will keep us safe and secure in his love
and in his grace and in his mercy. Just one little comment and then
I'm done. We didn't read it but the end of this chapter deals
with the death of Eli. Eli's two sons were dead on the
battlefield And when that news returned to Shiloh, when, I think
it was about 40 miles away, when that news returned to Shiloh
about the defeat of the army, about the death of the sons,
and particularly to the ears of Eli about the capture of the
Ark of the Lord, the old man was heartbroken. He fell off
from the seat in which he was sitting backwards and he broke
his neck and he died there. It was a sad end for Eli. Now it's not for me to say whether
this man is in heaven or hell today. The Bible doesn't tell
us explicitly, I don't believe. If you think I'm wrong, then
you can let me know, but I'm not going to make a clear statement
either way. I will say this, no doubt his
sons are in hell. The Bible is very clear about
their wickedness. But let me simply say this, hell
and judgment is what we all deserve. but God has made a way of salvation. If Eli is in hell, he is there
because of his sins. If he is in heaven, He is there
because of God's grace to him in Jesus Christ. He is there
because he understood the significance of the sacrifices that he made
for so many years there before the Ark of the Lord and upon
the altar of God. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 tells
us this, For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that
not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest
any man should boast. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today. Amen.