If you will, let's open our Bibles
to 1 Samuel, chapter 2. 1 Samuel, chapter 2. I want to
tell you a little bit about Samuel. I hope to be here some with all
these conferences coming up. I've always enjoyed this. It's
something familiar to go to. It's that old, old story. How
the Lord calls His prophets and how He deals with His people.
what He declares. I want to look today at biblical
submission, true submission. Have you submitted to God? Have
I? Who's going to? When are they
going to? We'll see that in Eli today,
Lord willing. This book of 1 Samuel starts
off with Hannah. Samuel's mother, and she wasn't
able to have children, and they chided her. They were angry towards
her, mean to her, had mean things to say to her, picked on her,
something horrible. And so she went to the house
of the Lord, and she prayed, and she prayed. She got sad,
and a lot of times she had a bad spirit when she went, but she
sought the Lord to give her a child. And the Lord gave her a child.
And she said, Lord, he's yours. A razor will never touch his
head. He's going to be a Nazarite. He's going to serve you all the
days of his life until you take him home. He's yours. People say, boy, that's something.
Talk about giving the first fruits. You don't give what's left over
at the end. You give first, and then you worry about all that.
I never preached on giving here, but she gave her firstborn to
the Lord. And you know what the Lord did?
He gave her three sons and two more daughters and blessed her
abundantly, didn't He? He took care of that. She gave Samuel
to the Lord as soon as he was weaned. How old do you reckon
Samuel was? I don't know. He was weaned.
A year and a half, two years back then, maybe, I don't know,
maybe three. He was a toddler. Enough caused trouble and terrible
twos were upon him. And she took him to Eli. And
I thought, Eli had a lot of stuff going on. He didn't want a baby
running around the temple. She took him to the temple and
said, He's the Lord's. He'll serve Him forever. Eli
had his own sons and they weren't doing too well. They were in
the family profession. That ain't God calling a man
to the ministry. Sometimes the Lord does call members of the
same family, and boy, that's a blessing to them and to us.
But they went into the family business, and they abused the
people. They fed on them and their offerings
on their own lusts. They filled their bellies, and
they took advantage greatly. And Eli spoke to him. And this
is beautiful. It says here in 1 Samuel chapter
2 verse 24. Eli had heard of this. He was really
old. And he had heard all the debauchery
that was committed by his sons. And he said in verse 23, And
he said unto them, Why do you do such things? For I hear of
your evil dealings by all this people, and my son, nay my sons,
for it is no good report that I hear. You make the Lord's people
to transgress. What you're doing is wrong."
And he asked him a question. He said, Sin against another. The judge shall judge him. Something
happens, you and your neighbor get into it, and he breaks something
of yours. You can go to a judge, and somebody will stand there,
and they'll judge this situation. You can get a representative.
But if a man sinned against the Lord, that's what you've done,
who shall entreat for him? Who's going to be a mediator
between you and a holy God? That's capital L-O-R-D. The Lord
of hosts. Notwithstanding, they hearkened
not unto the voice of their father, because..." Why didn't they listen
to their father? "...because the Lord would slay
them." They willfully rebelled, they willfully did not listen
to their father, "...because the Lord would slay them." They
were completely responsible in that. And you know who's going
to suffer the cost of that? Their father is, Eli. What did
he do? He went and rebuked his children,
didn't he? And the Lord said, "'Cause you
didn't rebuke them." You didn't chase them. You didn't make them
do what they're supposed to do. I'm going to kill them." He was
accountable. They were responsible. I'd like
to bring a message out of that for too long too. We're responsible. We'll touch on that in a minute.
But the Lord sent a messenger there in verse 27. A man of God
come to Eli. He told him everything that the
Lord was going to do to him and why. He said, Eli, I'm going
to take your sons from you. I'm going to take your arm, your
ability to work. I'm going to take your ministry
from you. You can give up all the sacrifices you want, and
I ain't going to have it. You ain't going to preach no
more. I ain't going to bless your message. Your doctrine could
be dead on, but if the Holy Spirit doesn't bless it, ain't nothing
going on. He said, I'm taking it from you. I'm going to do
all these things. There won't be an old man in
your house. Nothing of your lineage is going
to make it of age. They're not going to have a fruitful
life. That's what He told them. So we pick up in verse 3. And
the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. The child
Samuel. Young Samuel. And the Word of
the Lord was precious in those days. There was no open vision. The Word was precious. The Word
was precious. It was few. It was far between. Oh, what a high price it was.
How rare it was. And there was no open vision.
The Lord wasn't speaking through His prophets. He wasn't speaking
through anything else to the folks. They didn't have much
of the Word written at that time. The Word was precious. Is it
in our day? 9,999 churches out of 10,000
don't preach the Gospel, and that's me being conservative.
I'm not being generous in that. I do too poor of a job, but it's
precious. It's precious. But God called
Samuel. He woke him up three times. He
said, Samuel, Samuel. He said, here I am. And he went
running to Eli and said, what do you want? And Eli said, I
didn't call you, go back to bed. Samuel, Samuel, here am I. And
he ran to Eli and said, what you need? And he said, I didn't
call you, go back to bed. Third time, same thing, go back
to bed. That third time, Eli, God's prophet,
this is how rare and precious the word is, he said, whoa, wait
a second, that might be the Lord. Took God's prophet three times.
We think we can hear on the first go around? He said, that might be the Lord.
He said, whenever he calls again, you say, Lord, hear my, your
servant hears you. He told him what to tell. And
he did. Here in verse 11 of chapter 3,
it says, And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing
in Israel at which both the ears of everyone that heareth it shall
judge, shall tingle, I'm sorry. In that day I will perform against
Eli all the things which I have spoken concerning his house.
When I begin, I will also make an end. Everything that I sent
my man to tell him before is going to come to pass, and once
I start it, I ain't going to get halfway and get tired. I
ain't going to get halfway and change my mind. I ain't going
to get halfway and just, oh, I feel real bad for you. When
I start it, I'm going to end it. I'm going to do exactly as
I said. Verse 13, For I have told him that I will judge his
house forever for the iniquity, which he knoweth. He knows about
it. 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. And Samuel lay into the morning. Here's your first message to
go preach, Samuel. Talk about a message of condemnation,
isn't it? You're going to go to that man
that's all you've known as a father your whole life, since you were
weaned. You remember being weaned? I don't. All he's ever known
is Eli. And Eli, like many other times,
you mess up on the first couple and you try harder on the younger
ones. You don't know what you're doing in the first couple sons.
They didn't turn out too good, but this time I'm going to do
it right. I'm going to raise Samuel up right. He loved him. He'd come to him in the middle
of the night. He heard a voice and come running. Samuel loved
Eli. And here he's going to be God's prophet. He's going to
preach his first message, first gospel message, and he's going
to go to the very one he loved and say, remember all the things
God told you? I remember that. He's going to do it. He stayed
up all night long. I think he tossed and turned. As a psalmist said, that bed's
too short and the cover ain't big enough to cover all of it. That's always the message. That
sounds bad if you package it that way, doesn't it? That's
the message of the gospel. Condemnation first. and then
the glory. That's how it comes. There's
always in that order. There's stripping and then there's
clothing. There's wounding and then there's
healing. The Lord tears down first. First. And then He builds up.
That's what it is. Read the Beatitudes. Blessed
are the poor. Blessed are those that mourn.
You read all of them in order, and you're like, that doesn't
sound too blessed to me and you, does it? Oh, but there's a colon,
there's a semicolon there. It tells you what those poor
end up. It tells you those that mourn, they'll be comforted. That's the order it always happens
in. Let's measure the condemnation first. There's two types of submission
here. We'll keep reading. Remember
verse 15. and opened the doors of the house
of the Lord. And Samuel feared to show Eli the vision. He didn't
want to tell him. And Eli called Samuel and said,
Samuel, my son. And he answered and said, here
am I. And he said, what is the thing that the Lord hath said
unto thee? He knew what was that. I pray thee, hide it not from
me. God do so to thee, and more also if thou hide anything from
me of all the things that he said unto thee. He said, you
tell me, everything you got Don't hold nothing back. Verse 18,
And Samuel told him every wit, and hid nothing from him. The
message that the Lord gave Samuel, He gave every bit of it to Eli. What if it hurts? He's given
every bit of it. What if he rejoices in it? He's given every bit of
it. That's what His messengers do. They preach the full gospel. And he said, Eli responded to
this message of condemnation, it is the Lord. It's the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. That's submission to the Lord. There's two types of submission.
There's submission by force, where there's no hope. There's
no love in that. There's no grace in that. There's
no trusting in that. There's submission by force and
there's willing submission. Hope comes through that. Trust is in that willing submission.
Love is in that willing submission. That's the source of it. I thought
of two really good examples that come to me. One of them was on
April 9th in 1865. A place called Appomattox Courthouse.
Robert E. Lee went up to Ulysses S. Grant,
and he surrendered. He didn't surrender half his
army. He didn't surrender most of his army. He wasn't there,
just hugging, hey brother, how are you? I'm here to surrender. Begrudgingly, he surrendered
his army. I thought that one may be a little
foreign. I'm on the wrong coast. I don't think there's a lot of
Civil War buffs out here. So on September 2, 1945, on the
USS Missouri, Japan surrendered Allied forces. They gave all
to them. They laid down their arms. They
laid down their weapons. The United States said, you ain't
getting an army no more. You got an army? You ain't got
it now. It's mine. We're taking them tanks. You
got schools you're teaching in, you're going to teach what we
say you're going to teach in. All your power plants, you're making
energy for your homes, mine. You just surrendered everything. You think he was happy about
that? He wasn't happy about that. There wasn't love there. There
wasn't trust, comfort, hope, an expectation of good things
to come. Knowing it's going to be good.
That's defeat. There's no traveling. There's
no moving around. You're just going to sit still
and take it. That's submission by force. Then there's submission
by love. Willing submission. And the first
thing I thought of was in Papua, Kentucky back in the 80s, God
saved a dentist. I like that man, Sam Robinette.
Later on, the Lord saved his son too. Sam was a dentist. And I was a young guy and I had
a big old cavity. And boy, it hurt. It hurt real
bad. Sam, half a metal in my mouth,
Sam put in me. And I went to Sam and I said,
my tooth hurts. And Sam didn't say, here's a
drill, Kevin. There's a mirror. Knock yourself out. Here's some
needles. Do you want to numb yourself?
No, uh-uh. How do you think I ought to do
it, Kevin? I don't know. You're a dentist. You drill my
head. That's your business. In love and in trust, I willingly
submitted to that dentist. I laid down. I gave him my mouth,
my head, my arms, my legs were stretched out, laid clean out
on that table and said, do with me as you will. I trust you.
I believe you. You know what's right to do. I have hope and I ain't gonna
hurt when this is over. I love you and I trust you. I'm just
going to sit still. I'm going to lie here. With all
hope, expectation, and full happiness, willing to submit, and necessity,
this is necessary. It must happen. In love, in trust,
and with joy. What's those four submissions?
There's no hope. There's no happiness. There's
no joy. There's a necessity. By force,
it has to happen. Just submission by force is all
there is. I want to look first at submission
by force and then look at the willing submission. At submission
by force, there's two types of that that come to mind I want
to look at. Both of them are religious that the Lord deals
with. The first one is fatalism. Man
doesn't have any responsibility or accountability in their mind. They say man's not accountable.
There's a divine fate. Fate happens. Something's going
to happen. The deck's stacked. Whatever cards come down, that's
what's going to happen. And I just blindly submit to
it. I have no accountability and I have no responsibility.
I can't keep from it. And so I just give up. That's
called fatalism. Man's fully responsible while
God is fully sovereign. We don't understand that, do
we? That's a hard thing to preach on. There's a whole section or
denomination of religion where I come from that relies solely
on fatalism. They said the Lord elected a
people, they don't ever have to hear the gospel preached,
and you're either going to be saved or you ain't. That's the
same people who cross their arms, sit back and say, I want a preacher.
If God wants me to have a pastor, he'll send one. I ain't asking
nobody to come out and preach for us. I ain't going to go ask.
I ain't going to treat the Lord for it. I ain't going to ask
somebody to come preach. If the Lord wants one, he'll just send
one to me. Well, He will, but what did He tell Israel? You're
going to inquire of me. I'm going to do it. You're going to ask
me to do it. Isn't it? That's something we
can't wrap our minds around, is it? Man's fully responsible. And for His people, for the Lord's
people, Christ is fully accountable for them. Every bad thing I've
ever done in my life, the Lord didn't do that. I did. I did
every bit of it. Who was accountable? Christ was. Christ was. Where is the best
example of that shown? Of man's responsibility and Christ's
accountability? That's on the cross, isn't it?
We can read that there in Acts 2, verse 23. Everything by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God come to pass, and men
did it. They fully went pilot and every
one of them down there did exactly what they wanted to do to the
Lord that they thought was perfect. Here's what we're going to do.
Let's put a crown of thorns on him. Let's make him a fake robe. Let's put
a sign above his head in a couple of different languages. They
were responsible fully. And it was all by the determinate
counsel and full knowledge of God for the love of His people
in Christ His namesake. This happened. This took place. There's another type of submission
by force, other than the fatalism. And fatalism, the Pyramid of
Baptists where I grew up from, where I grew up at, that's what
they, there were a lot of them big on that. They bow to the
Lord's providence. There's a sovereign God. Do you
know you can bow to a sovereign God? You can bow to providence
and never bow to the God of providence. You can bow to election. You
can submit willingly to election. Oh, that's what the scriptures
say. These words add up together and make sentences. Sentences
make paragraphs. It says election. I believe in election. I bow
to election and not bow to the God of election. That's the difference
between a forced submission of fatalism and willful submission. The other type of religious submission
is karma. You ever heard of karma? You
do good and good things will happen to you. You do something
bad, bad things will come back to you. You know what that is?
I get tickled every time I see somebody that goes karma. That's
all religion that ain't grace. You know that? Every bit of works,
don't matter who you are. Catholics, Buddhists, whatever.
You just rattle off all them denominations because they can't
go along to get along unless they're fighting one of the Lord's
people. Every bit of it. You do good, you get good. You
do bad, you get bad. That's submitting to the law.
That's to look to the Lord's Scriptures. Look at His law and say, I submit
to the law. Something's got to be done about
this and I'm going to try my hardest. I'm going to do my best. You're going to wind up in forced
submission. It ain't going to work out good for you. There's
a willing submission also. It says in verse 18, 1 Samuel
3, 18. And Samuel told them every wit
and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord.
Let him do what seemeth good to him. Eli submitted willingly. It wasn't long. There wasn't
a whole lot of explanation to it. It was short and simple.
It's the Lord. I'm going to kill your sons, take
your livelihood from you, end up killing you. The Lord ain't
never going to bless your lineage again. He said, it's the Lord. The holy God. He's holy. What he does is right. He don't
do what's right. What he does is right. You're
going to kill my sons? You're right. You're going to
kill me? You're right. Lord, you're going to send me
to hell? You're right. You're right in doing so. He took sides
with the Lord against himself. And he said, let him do what
seemeth him good. He didn't let God. That's obviously
out of context. People take scriptures and twist
them any way they want to. But he knew the Lord. And he
said, let him do what seemeth him good. Let him do what pleases
God. This holy God. That's what's
going to happen. He's going to do what pleases Him. And He's
the one that knows what good is. He knows what's good for
himself, for his church, for his namesake, for me, for every
member of that body. He knows what's good. I don't.
I think I do because I'm big head enough to be that ignorant.
He does. It's the Lord. Paul wrote in
Philippians 2, Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him,
and given him a name which is above every name, that at the
name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and
things in earth, and things under the earth. That's everything.
If it's on, in, or under. That every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
There's going to be submission. It's either going to be forced
or it's going to be willing. Every knee will bow. I don't leave none out. Everything's
going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. People say I made Christ
Lord of my life. No you didn't. He already was.
That's you saying, I think I'm going to submit on Tuesday. That
ain't going to happen. There's either forced submission
or willing submission. Every knee, every knee is going to
bow. Paul told us in Romans 14, for it is written, as I live,
saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall
confess to God. So then every one of us shall
give account of himself to God. Does that frighten you? That ought to get a hold of you. All will bow, but some's gonna
get up off that knee, turn around and walk to eternal damnation. These did not bow willingly,
but they bowed. It was a submission by force,
by power, and there's no hope. There's no expected good outcome.
There's no love, and there's no warmed hearts at the end of
that. Turn over to Isaiah 45. What account will we give? Isaiah 45, verse 22. The Lord declares Himself, and He
says in verse 22, Isaiah 45, 22, Look unto Me and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else.
I have sworn by Myself, the Word is gone out of My mouth, and
righteousness and it shall not return, that unto me every knee
shall bow, every tongue shall swear." Here's the account of
the righteous. Verse 24, "...surely shall one
say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength. Even to him shall
men come and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. And in the Lord shall all the
seed of Israel be justified and shall glory." He says, surely
shall one say, one, One. All those made one in Christ. They will cry with one voice.
We will sing one song in unity, in unison. And what will they
say? All my righteousness, all my strength is in the Lord. In
the Lord have I righteousness and strength. Not in myself.
Not in the I. That's all religion, isn't it?
I. You've saved? How did you get saved? I. How
did the Lord find you? I. Not in the beginning God. It didn't begin with me or anything
I did in the beginning, the Lord acted. Then the others, there's
always two sides in it, day and night, darkness and light, regenerated
and reprobate, saved and lost, grace and works, a sovereign
God and fatalism. The others are incensed against
Christ and against those who willingly bow to Him. They're
infuriated, they're enraged against Him. They're biting and devouring
one another. That's not in day 2. What did
the Lord say? People arguing over this stuff.
The Lord didn't say, here's how everybody's going to know you're
my disciple. If you know what 2 Corinthians 5 means. You can
explain that real good. If you know what superlapsarian
is. He said, here's how everybody's going to know you're my disciples.
If you have love one for another. Is that biting and devouring?
Love. Have love one for another. There's
people that take knowledge, and they take teachers unto themselves,
and then there's other people, instead of having to know everything,
they have faith in Christ. They believe the Lord. Those
will all be ashamed. They will be forced to bow unwillingly
to submit. It will happen. For every child
of God that willingly submits to Christ our Lord in all things,
all things required of the Father, What's needed? You need righteousness?
Christ is my righteousness. I need wisdom. You need wisdom?
Christ is my wisdom. Everything. What's required of
me? Christ is required of me. What do I bring to the Father?
I bring Christ. Don't bring nothing else. You'll get knocked to the
ground. And we do that in love and in
trust, don't we? I don't trust myself, but I trust
Him. Eli said, if He kills my sons,
He's right. If He judges me, He's right. If He removes me
from the ministry, He's right. It's the Lord letting do what
seemeth good to Him. Eli's saying God's holy. He's
righteous. His ways are all perfect. And
it's completely impossible for God to do anything wrong ever. We do wrong. Eli did wrong. Not God. He don't. When Abraham was interceding
for Sodom, when he was interceding for Lot in Sodom, he said, Shall
not the judge of the earth do right? Where there is love and
trust, there is willful submission. Deuteronomy 32 says, Because
I will publish the name of the Lord, ascribe ye greatness unto
our God. He is the rock. His work is perfect
for all His ways of judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity,
just and right is He. Is that the God you willingly
submit to? Or does that make you mad? There's a famous author, John
Steinbeck, who wrote a book. He had writer's blocks, so he
traveled to southern United States and he's in Louisiana in the
book. And he came across a preacher.
And in those years, there's only one man that anyone knows of
that preached the gospel. One prophet in America. And John
Steinbeck wrote of this man in his novel, and he said, that
man was preaching a sovereign God that did what he wanted,
when he wanted, as he wanted, anytime he wanted. And he said,
boy, he was on fire. We had been a few friends, and
I had a real good idea who that preacher was. And he said, this
is the most accurate thing I've ever heard, honesty. This is
honest. John Steinbeck said, if I was going to serve a God,
he's admitting he won't. Willfully, he won't do it. He's
responsible for that. He said, if I was going to serve
a God, that's the God I'd serve. If you know Him, if you've been
made willing in the day of His power, how are we willingly going
to bow if we ain't nothing but sin? We have to be made willing
in the day of His power to bow to Him. That's the only one you
can bow to. Ain't another one around. Everything else is a
figment of man's imagination. I'm going to have to hurry. Men
will say, concerning election, you say God predestinates men
to hell. Absolutely not. Predestination
means something totally different in the first place. But when
a man goes to hell, that eternal death is the wage for earned
sin. They're the ones that sin. They're
the ones that earn the wage, and the payment of that is eternal
death. Would God condemn a man unjustly?
He told Job, or Job spoke in Job 8.3, Doth God pervert judgment? That ain't what judgment is,
is it? Doth Almighty pervert justice? And he says in Job 8.20,
Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he
help evildoers. Boy, there's a whole lot in that
verse. That's why Christ is risen. His perfection satisfied the
Father, and He will not cast out that perfect man. And He
will not cast out those put in Him, made perfect in Him by His
act. They're not cast away. They fully
surrender as Christ came to this earth and fully surrendered.
What a thought! What about that other half? They
just needed a little help along the way. And the Lord said, I'll
neither help evildoers. Lord, help me. I'll do half of
it. You do the other half. Let's compromise. That ain't
going to happen. It's going to be all in His Son
and that perfect man, or it ain't going to happen. What about those
that half surrendered? And Job 34, 10, it says, Therefore
hearken unto Me, ye men of understanding, be it far from God that he should
do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should commit iniquity.
For the work of a man shall he render unto him. and cause every
man to find according to his ways. Yea, surely God will not
do wickedly, neither will the Almighty, pervert judgment."
The Lord is going to give every man and woman exactly what they
want. You're going to show up to Him, and you're going to say,
I want to be judged on my works. Watch out. That's what's going
to happen. I want to be judged on an experience
I had, a baptism I had, a day I kept, whatever. A circumcision. I want to be judged on who my
mom and dad was. What Grandpa did. The Lord will judge you
exactly the way you want and you will come up short. And if
you come to Him and say, I beg mercy. Lord, don't look at me. Look at your son. Look at the
one you sent as my substitute. See him. The Lord will say, alright. I'm going to look at my good
and faithful servant and I'm going to look at you and say,
you're my good and faithful servant. Why do people complicate that?
They're trying to put themselves between the gospel of salvation
and the sinner. That's simple, isn't it? Come declaring Christ. The reprobate thinks they've
earned everything for themselves. They picked themselves up by
the bootstraps. They earned all of it. And worse
yet, in our generation, people mouth off about how they ought
to run everything, and they have never earned anything. Everything
ought to be given to them. They want it handed to them.
And then the day comes when everything is stripped away. I built bridges. I built wealth. I built a family.
I built a church. I dug a well for homeless children
in Africa. I did all these things. And it
all gets ripped away, every bit of it, just like Joe. And they
cry out loud, why me? Why me? You'll be forced to submit. If the Lord had worked in their
hearts, given them a new heart, a new creation in them, revealed
Himself to them, they would be crying, why not me? I deserve
every bit of it. The Lord's right to kill me.
My friend Donnie Bell said one time, next time somebody says,
why me? Look at them and say, would you
be happier if it's somebody else? They might tell you, yeah. They
may answer, yes. Are you mad at God for giving
you something and taking it away? That's what's happening, isn't
it? That final servant came to Job and everything's gone. All
your children are gone. That was the last thing they
told him. You lost all your cattle, everything. Your wealth, everything. Gone.
Plumb gone. Job arose and ran his mantle
and shaved his head and fell down upon the ground and worshipped. He said, naked I came out of
my mother's womb and naked shall I return. Then the Lord gave,
the Lord hath taken away. That's exactly what Eli said.
It's the Lord. Whatever he does is right. Blessed
be the name of the Lord. And he praised God for it. That's
willful submission. He was given a heart to do so.
He willfully submitted. And that's what Eli was saying.
Let's see what happens to Eli. What happens after this is important,
isn't it? He said something real short. Let's turn back to 1 Samuel
chapter 4 and I'll let you go. 1 Samuel 4. It says in verse 12, And there ran
a man of Benjamin out of the army and came to Shiloh the same
day with his clothes rent with earth upon his head. And when
he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching, for
his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came
into the city and told it, all the city cried out. And when
Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, what meaneth 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
I fled the day 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 also a great slaughter among
the people. And thy two sons also, Hocnai
and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken.'" Your sons
are dead and God took the ark. Verse 18, "'And it came to pass,
when he made mention of the ark of God, This didn't come to pass when
he made mention of his two sons who just died. That was the first
news. Give me the bad news first. They
didn't. Your sons are dead and the Lord's
ark is gone. Verse 18, And when it came to
pass, when he had made mention of the ark of God, that he fell
from off the seat backward by the side of the gate and his
neck broken, he died. For he was an old man and heavy, and
he had judged Israel forty years. It's the Lord. Let Him do as
He sees fit. What was Eli's concern? Keeping his boys alive? That's
important, isn't it? That's instinctual in our bodies. Look out for little
ones, whether they're mine or somebody else's. He had a new
heart. He willingly submitted to the
Lord and his desire was for the glory of God. For the glory of
God. It had departed. That's what
killed him. Lord, be pleased for you and
I to serve Him and have His glory put in preeminence above everything
else in our lives. That's called willingly submitting.
That's true submission, not halfway. I pray He would make me, give
me the heart to put His glory above everything else. We saw
this morning, let us pray. When we pray, say, Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. That's the Holy
Lord, the Lord of hosts. Thy kingdom come. Not mine. His. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be
done. As in heaven, so in earth. All
things above, on, or under the earth. That's what's going to
happen, isn't it? We can bow to Him now. I pray the Lord gives
His people the heart to bow. They will. They will. But they'll
come a day. Every knee will bow. And every
tongue will confess that He's Lord.