Seeking once again the help of
God, I'd like us to turn together to the chapter that we read together.
1 Samuel chapter 3, and the text you'll find in verse 18. And Samuel told him every wit
and hid nothing from him. And he said, it is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. We looked at this morning about the voice of one crying in the
wilderness and how John the Baptist was a faithful messenger of the
Lord, that he faithfully did all that the Lord commanded
him to do and faithfully proclaimed a message of the gospel to those
who needed to hear. He confronted sin He confronted
the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and he proclaimed the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God that takes away the
sin of the world. And there were those who heard
that message. We heard of the soldiers, those
hardened men. who received the message and
asked, what shall we do? And Jesus tells us that even
the publicans and the harlots repented at the preaching of
John the Baptist. And so we see the way in which
the Lord used this man as a mighty instrument in his hand to bring
the most unlikely or the most sinful of society to repentance
and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and they desire that to walk
in obedience to the commands of the Lord. They believed and
they were baptised, they were appointed to the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ and it was likened to even today as the
ministers proclaim the Word of God as they are, like John the
Baptist, they are a voice crying in the wilderness of this world,
prepare ye the way of the Lord, prepare your hearts for the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ, for one day he will come again. And we go back into the Old Testament,
we have the prophets of God, those men who God isolated to
or called out to be his spokesmen, those men who were used by him
to proclaim the message that he wanted to bring before the
people of Israel. And we have young Samuel, as
we looked at in the Sunday school this morning, how his mother
was in such despair regarding the condition of her life, that
she was being bullied by her co-wife and it was causing her
great sadness and sorrow. And so she comes to the temple
and she lays out her concerns before the Lord. She unburdens
at her heart and asks for a son and then she promises that she
would give that son to the Lord and little did she know that
that prayer was a spirit-inspired prayer, little did she know that
she had been moved by the Lord to pray such a prayer, to promise
to dedicate her son to the Lord and that that son would grow
up to be the Prophet Samuel and how She weaned him. And she takes him then to the
temple and she pays her vow. She is obedient to her promise
and she gives little Samuel to the work of the Lord. And we
saw in the Sunday school that every year she went to visit
him at the feast at the time of the yearly sacrifice, the
Day of Atonement, as she went with her family, her husband
and the others. They went to offer those sacrifices
to the Lord once a year. and she took a little coat to
her son and that son Samuel became the prophet of the Lord and his
first message that he has to deliver when he first hears the
voice of God calling him, not really understanding what is
taking place, but as he lays down to sleep, the Lord calls
him and he runs to Eli. Eli tells him, I haven't called
you, go back to bed. And the Lord calls him the second
time. He runs to Eli and Eli sends
him back again. And then the Lord calls him that
third time and Eli perceives now the Lord is at work here,
the Lord is doing something here in the life of this young boy. He is calling him for the work
and so he tells him, he guides him and says to him, now say
this, speak Lord for thy servant heareth. We see little Samuel, he doesn't
say speak Lord, he says speak. for thy servant heareth. And the Lord gives him a message. A message that is extremely solemn. A message which no doubt no person
would really ever want to hear. As I read this morning, the children
were reading, and as I read it yesterday, such searching and
solemn words that this little boy had to take to Eli. He says in verses 13 and 14,
or you can go from 12, in that day I will perform against Eli
all things which I have spoken concerning his house. I will
begin, I will also make an end. For I have told him that I will
judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knoweth because
his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not. And
therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli that the iniquity
of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever. What a hard message. he had to
bring. You can see why maybe he couldn't
sleep for the rest of the night and he got up early and he opened
the doors of the temple and he pretended as though nothing had
happened but Eli knew. And I think these first three
calls that Samuel had were to make Eli realise that the Lord
is at work and that he was made aware that the Lord was working
in this young boy and that he had a message given to him. And
now Eli is fully aware of what is going on and he says, what
did the Lord say? And Samuel told him every wit. or everything and hid nothing
from him. So this was his first message
that he had to tell. You imagine this old man Eli
and this young boy having to declare such a solemn message
that no sacrifice would purge the sin Eli's family and that Eli's family
would be cut off from the priesthood forever and that God, if we read
2 Samuel, that God would raise up a priest, 1 Samuel chapter
2 sorry, he would raise up a priest forever which would be in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so Samuel's first test to
deliver a a truly solemn and searching message. He had to
tell it all and the scripture says he told everything. If he didn't tell everything
then he would not be a faithful prophet of God. He had to tell
everything. The false prophets We go to Jeremiah,
we go to the New Testament, and we see the false prophets. They
proclaimed a false message. They cried, peace, peace, peace,
when there was no peace. And in the book of Timothy, Paul, as he writes to Timothy,
tells him that the time is going to come. when these false preachers
are going to rise up and they're not going to bring the full message. They're not going to proclaim
the whole counsel of God but they're going to pick and choose. They're going to twist the scriptures
to make it fit their own understanding. They will not proclaim sound
doctrine but they will preach a message that the people want
to hear. in 2 Samuel chapter 4. He tells him there I charge thee
therefore before God and before the Lord Jesus Christ who shall
judge the quick or the living and the dead that is appearing
at his kingdom preach the word That was his charge. He wasn't
to tell funny stories. He wasn't to act out funny things. He wasn't to entertain the masses. He wasn't to be a clown or a
comedian. He was to preach the word. In season. Be instant in season
and out of season. Reprove. Rebuke. exhort with all long-suffering
and doctrine. We see in John the Baptist reproving,
rebuking, exhorting, encouraging those who were believers to press
on in a godly lifestyle. to pursue after those things
that are pleasing and honourable and right for a believer and
that is the charge given to Timothy and that is the charge that is
given to every faithful man of God is to preach the whole counsel
of God, is to reprove, is to rebuke, exhort with patience
and doctrine. Why? For the time will come they
will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts they
shall heap up to themselves teachers having itching ears and they
shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned
unto fables. And so Paul says the time is
going to come when they will reject the preaching of the word
of God, they will heap up ministers, they'll say, no, we don't want
you, we'll have you because you itch our ears, you preach a message
that tickles us, that makes us feel good and nice and pleased
with ourselves, that we can come in feeling sad and we can go
out feeling happy and everything's wonderful. And we see it in the
likes of people like Joel Osteen, who just want to encourage and
bless and love and everything's wonderful. And God wants you
to have such a blessed time here on earth. He wants you to have
a nice house, a nice car and no sickness and just say the
word and it will be done and all these wonderful things. And
if you look at the congregation, fill stadiums with thousands
and thousands of people. Why? Because the message makes
them feel good. It doesn't challenge. There's
no rebuke. There's no exhortation to godliness. There's no reproving, rebuking. There's just itching ears. They don't want the truth. And
so they heap up a false prophet to tell them what they want to
hear. Remember, Jeremiah was telling
them, you know, Babylon is going to come. You're going to be overthrown. Turn from your sin back to the
living God. Get rid of your idols. And they
wouldn't listen to him. But they listened to the false
prophets because they told them what they wanted to hear. They
didn't want the truth. They wanted lies. Eli, he wanted
the truth. But the truth was painful. It was a painful reality of the
consequences of his failure to rebuke his sons and to chasten
his sons. He had been warned already by
a man of God. He heard all that his sons did
unto Israel, how they lay with the women at the assembly at
the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And he said
unto them, why do ye such things? For I hear of your evil dealings
by all this people. Nay, my sons, for it is no good
report that I hear You make the Lord's people to transgress.
If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him. But
if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat him, notwithstanding
they hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the
Lord would slay them. He knew what they were doing
and he had the ability as the priest and as their father to
remove them from office to deal with them in the correct manner
but he just spoke to them and allowed them to continue on in
their sin. And he knew the consequences
of their sin. He says if a man sinned against
a man, there's a judge. They can go to the judge and
he can reason it out. But if a man sinned against the
Lord, who shall entreat for him? Eli knew that their behavior
was a direct violation against God and God's holiness by using
their position as priests in the temple to commit profane
acts with the women and to abuse the sacrifice system as they
stole for themselves the meat offerings that the people came
to offer. And then when people questioned
them, They became angry and annoyed and shut them down. They were to have what the Bible says is the offering
was given to the Lord is put into a seething pot and they
were to put in a fork and whatever came out it was theirs. But before
the meat, before the offering got to the pot they took I said,
we don't want sodden meat. We don't want stewed meat. We
want roasted meat. And they took and they made themselves
fat with the offerings of the Lord. And Eli knew that it was
a sin directly against God. And yet he failed to come down
in harshness over them, on them. And so he knew, but then the
Lord also warned him again. In verse 27 of chapter two, there
came a man of God unto Eli and said unto him, thus saith the
Lord, did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father when
they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? And he goes through how
that Aaron's lineage excuse me, would be the priests, the high
priests, and the Levites of the temple. And then he warns him that they were kicking
against the sacrifices of the Lord. Verse 30 says, Wherefore the
Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house and the
house of thy father should walk before me forever but now the
Lord says be it far from me for them that honour me I will honour
and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. And he tells
him this is what is going to happen. So that you know Eli
that my words are going to come to pass that your sons, Hophni
and Phinehas, shall both of them die in one day. In verse 34, And this shall be
a sign unto thee, that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni
and Phinehas, in one day they shall die, both of them. And
God says, I will raise me up a faithful priest shall do according
to that which is in my heart and in my mind and I will build
him a sure house and he shall walk before mine anointed forever. We see that Hophni and Phineas
were were killed. And we see that as Jerusalem
was destroyed just after the Lord Jesus Christ, that earthly
priesthood finished. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
to do the heart and mind of God and to establish a priesthood
forever, that his people would be kings and priests in him,
that he would build a sure house and that he would walk before
the anointed forever and so in the pulling down of the house
and lineage of Eli there is that blessed promise. that there would
one day be a faithful priest, not a corrupt one, a one that
would not fail, that would not fail in his service, that would
conduct his duties in that correct and perfect manner, and that
would be the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm just reminded of Adam and
Eve when they sinned against God. and how immediately sin
entered into the world, but then God blessed with that beautiful
promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's
head. And so here is a similar promise
for such that, yes, Eli's lineage, Hophni and Phineas are going
to be done away with. They're going to die, both of
them. but there's going to be raised up a faithful priest,
a priest that would continue forever, that great high priest
of the Lord Jesus Christ, who ever lives to intercede for his
people, tried and tempted in all points as we are yet without
sin. Yes, he understands the weaknesses and the frailties
and the concerns of his people for he has walked this pathway
before. And so as little Samuel had to
give this hard message to this great priest of the Lord to rebuke
him regarding his failure for the lack of discipline and for
removing his sons from office, that his boys, that they were
going to die. And in chapter 4 we read of that sad day and the fulfilment
of that prophecy. Chapter 4, verse 11, the ark of God was
taken. And the two sons of Eni, Hophni and Phidias, were slain. And as the messenger runs back
to the city, the city is in uproar, those that remaining are crying
and Eli hears, maybe he's blind, he can't see what's going on,
but he hears what is going on and what means this tumult, the
noise of this tumult. And the man came in hastily and
told Eli, Now Eli was ninety and eight years old, and his
eyes were dim, that he could not see. And the man said unto
Eli, I am he that came out of the army and fled today out of
the army. And he said, What is there done,
my son? And the messenger answered and
said, Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there hath
been a great slaughter among the people. And thy two sons
also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken. And it came to pass, when he
made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from the seat backward
by the side of the gate, and his neck break, and he died.
For he was an old man, and heavy, and he judged Israel forty years. The last thing that he heard
was the fulfilment of the message that was given to him by Samuel,
that his two sons were dead, that the ark of God was taken the solemn thing it is when we
are confronted with our sin, but not only our sin, but the
effects and consequences of our sin on other people. You know,
Eli, he could have stopped his sons from holding office. He had that authority from God.
He had that authority even as a father to stop them. But he failed in that. We know
that raising children is a very difficult thing and many mistakes
are made. But when you have to look on
and you see the outcome of those mistakes and Eli as he hears
that news, your sons are dead. Your sons are dead. and there
is no amount of burnt offerings that will be able to redeem these
two young men. In other words, there's no hope
for them. They have gone to hell. And Samuel told him every week,
and hid nothing from him. Eli's response I find quite unusual. He says, it is the Lord, let
him do what seemeth him good. Either it is a strange response
or it is complete submission to the will of God. Having just
heard that there's no amount of burnt offerings that are able
to redeem your sons, there's no amount of burnt offerings
that are able to change the mind of God, there's nothing that
can do. God's mind is fixed. What he has said is going to
take place where he says it keeps sticking out in my mind
Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever
having just heard that to then say it is the Lord let him do
what seemeth him good is either a blasé statement having not
really considered what is taking place or it's like I've tried
but I've had no effect I've given up completely or it is that he
truly is submissive to the will of God and knows that it is a
just sentence from the Lord. Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right? And it's having that right understanding that what
God does is always good. And even if it is, condemning
people to hell, then it's good. No amount of sacrifice would
be able to purge their sin forever. It's a sentence that was passed
and a sentence that was deserved. In 2nd Kings we have a similar account. 2nd Kings chapter 20
with Hezekiah. Verse 18. Hezekiah had shown the king of
Babylon all the gold and silver and treasures of Israel. And Isaiah comes to
him and asks him, what have you done? And he speaks to him. He tells
him, this is what I've done. I've showed them everything.
There's nothing that I've hid from them. And Isaiah says under Hezekiah
verse 16, hear the word of the Lord. In those days, it must have been
a terrifying thing for a prophet to come on to you and say, hear
the word of the Lord. This is what God has to say to
you through me today. Behold, the day is come that
all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid
up in store unto this day, shall be carried unto Babylon. Nothing
shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue
from thee, which thou shalt begat, shall be taken away, and they
shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. You would
think if you have heard a statement like that because of you, you
have just gloried in showing all your treasure. Then the prophet
comes and says, hear the word of the Lord. This is the word
of the Lord for you. Everything that you have, all
this treasure is going to be taken away to Babylon. And your
sons are also going to be taken away and be made eunuchs in Babylon. And Hezekiah then said Hezekiah
unto Isaiah, good is the word of the Lord, which thou hast
spoken. And he said, it is not good if
peace and truth be in my days. That's such a, to me, a strange
thing. Yes, good is the word of the
Lord, but he's happy. It seems that he's happy or he's
content that he's going to have a peaceful time. But it's his
children. that are going to suffer. It's
his children that are going to bear the consequences of his
sin. And he says good is the word
of the Lord, a just sentence. A just sentence from a good God. When we pass through situations
in life and we know that we are the cause of them and we We see
that our behaviour has caused others to err or to continue
on in sin and then we are judged for it. To respond like Eli, it is the
Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good.
Like Hezekiah, good is the word of the Lord. Think of Job as
Job entered into great trial. He shaves his head, he tears
his clothes and he said, the Lord gives and the Lord takes
away. My mind also went to the sons of Aaron. We know in
our minds we shrink sin down into a small thing. We can become
so used to sin that it becomes not really a big deal. We hear
things that take place and we just think, well, you know, that's
how things are. That's how they are. We may even
hear things like Hophni and Phineas, things taking place in the church
of profanity and abuse and things like that. And we just almost
brush it over. But, you know, sin is serious. and it bears massive consequences. Just because we live in a gospel
today where God does not deal with sin immediately, as he did
in the Old Testament, but the Old Testament is there for our
warning and for our learning that we can see the serious consequences
of sin, that God has a holy law, and if that holy law is broken,
then it is sin. and it bears a consequence. And
even we might say a trivial thing like the sons of Aaron, how they
offered strange fire before the Lord yet the Lord had commanded
specific ingredients for the incense. And they said, well,
we're going to do what we want. We're going to do our own thing.
Maybe we think that God's incense is not a very nice one. It has
a peculiar smell. We're going to make our own and
therefore they did their own thing. But they died in an instant. Nabdah and Abihu, the sons of
Aaron, took either of them his censer and put fire therein and
put incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord
which he commanded them not. And they went out fire from the
Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord. Then Moses
said unto Aaron, This is it that the Lord spake, saying, I will
be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people,
and I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace. His
sons had just been consumed because they had offered strange fire
before the Lord, and he could say nothing. They had disobeyed
God and God had judged them immediately, taken their lives from them. And he had to hold his peace. Eli, it is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good,
for God is good. He is the judge of all the earth
and he will do right. He never acts in a bad way. a sinful way there is no sin
in him he is holy holy holy the lord is good and he works all things for the
good of his people and even this event that took place as the
Ark was carried off into the camp of the Philistines and all
the things that took place there that their God fell down before
the Ark and the Ark was then returned that God worked all
these things out. and that Samuel became the great
prophet of the Lord and everybody knew who he was that none of
his words fell to the ground and all Israel from Dan even
to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be the prophet
of the Lord and the Lord appeared again in Shiloh for the Lord
revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord. It is the Lord. Let him do what
seemeth him good. And you think of our Lord Jesus
Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, if it be possible. let this cup
pass from me nevertheless not my will but thy will be done.
It is a surrendering to the ultimate will of Almighty God that God
is sovereign, that God is good, that he works all things out
for the good of his dearly beloved people and even in his judgments He never can act in an unjust
way because everything we receive at his
hand is only by his grace and his mercy. Everybody who is in hell deserves
to be there. Everybody. And that's a hard thing for a
human mind to comprehend, that everybody who is suffering in
hell, even at this moment in time, deserves to be there. They have fallen under the just
judgment of God for their sin because they have rejected the
only way of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is
the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. And every person that is in heaven
does not deserve to be there. They are there only by the grace
of God, through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If Christ did not rise again, then heaven itself would be empty
and every single one of us at the end of our lives would drop
into our just judgment, our just deserts. in hell forever and
ever. And he said, it is the Lord.
Let him do what seemeth him good. Can we say in our lives when things take place, hard
things and difficult things, Can we say like Job, the Lord
gave and the Lord has taken away. Can we say like Eli, it's the Lord. Let him do what
seemeth him good. Can we say like Hezekiah, good
is the word of the Lord. It's a hard thing to comprehend
when such desperate things happen in the lives of people. Yet having a right view of God
and his dealings with his people is essential for the people of
God. We want to grow in grace and
in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to
press on in this narrow way that leads to life. We've got to keep
feeding from the Word of God. We've got to keep looking to
the Lord Jesus Christ and to grow in our faith that these
things that were experienced in the Old Testament and even
in the New Testament by the Lord Jesus Christ nevertheless not
my will but thy will be done, a complete surrendering to the
will of God, knowing that God is good. And Eli, he says, let him do
what seemeth him good. And the last things that he ever
hears is the fulfilment of that word, thy sons are dead. They knew then that that was
the end of his lineage. There was going to be no old
man in the lineage of Eli, but there was going to come a great
priest, a priest that would do the will of God, a priest that
would be obedient to the will of God, and that was fulfilled
in the Lord Jesus Christ. our great High Priest. And there
he is, even today, interceding at the right hand of the Father
for his people. May the Lord bless us and grant
us with that ability to rest under the sovereign work of an ever good King. It is the
Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. Amen. Let's sing our closing hymn from
God's peace. Hymn number 244. 244 Our Jesus is the God of hope.
He works it by his power. It holds the weak believer up
in the distressing hour. Hymn number 244 to the tune 864. God of fruit, he went in for
his bread. ♪ Expect to prove that all is true
♪ ♪ Throughout this sacred world ♪ ♪ True love knows how forests
change grain ♪ ♪ And flowers that all may learn ♪ ♪ Yet time
slips away ♪ And they can give it all, till
the winter we go to sleep. And dear Lord and almighty God
we do thank Thee that Thou art the just judge of all the earth
and that Thou wilt do right and we pray that we may be granted
those hearts that will receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our
Saviour that we may be saved from the just consequences of
our sins. We know Lord that we do not deserve
heaven but we deserve hell. are we thank thee by thy grace,
by the grace of thy beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that sinners
are able to be cleansed from all of their sin and clothed
in a righteousness that is not their own, and are able to be
proclaimed sons and daughters, priests and kings, and saints
of the living God. We thank thee, Lord, for the
privileges of salvation and we ask for hearts to receive thy
truth, to dismiss us with thy blessing. And now may the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father, with
the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit, to be with
us each now and forevermore. Amen.