And Samuel, 1 Samuel 3. And my subject this evening is
submitting to the Lord. Submission to the Lord. It says
in verse 18 here. And Samuel told him every wit,
told him everything God said. And he had nothing from Him.
And this is what Eli said. It is the Lord. Let him do what
seemeth him good. Now he had just had an awful
judgment message told him. But let's go call back to, you
know, look over where we've been. The beginning of this, Hannah
was chided for not having a child. She prayed and God gave her a
son. But before that son was ever formed in her womb, she
dedicated that son back to God. And when he was weaned, she took
him up to the temple. And that's where he lived the
rest of his life. And he was a rare child, an extraordinary
child. He grew physically, he grew spiritually. And here in chapter 3, he's probably
not just a boy anymore. He may be a teenager, maybe 18,
19, 20, 21 years old. I don't know, but he's a young
man. And Eli's an old man now. He's almost blind. And Samuel
is the keeper of the gate. He gets up in the morning and
he opens the temple up and he keeps the lamp burning there
before the altar of incense. And yet, in
those days, the word of God was rare. Visions were scarce. And
when God was silent, God wasn't hardly speaking to anyone. The
word of the Lord was very precious, very rare. God came to him and
called him to be a prophet. Called him to be a prophet. And
oh, what a prophet he was. Hadn't had a prophet in a while.
God calls him to be a prophet. And his first message His first
message was one of God's judgment upon Eli and upon his sons. That
would be a tough message to bring, but that's what the gospel does.
It brings condemnation before it ever brings peace. It brings
guilt before it ever brings joy. It brings stripping before it
ever clothes. It empties a man before he ever
clothed. And He wounds a man before he'll
ever heal him. And that's the way it is. Always
has been and always will be. And Eli wanted to know what God
had said to Samuel. Samuel told him, God told me
that He's going to judge your house. And when he starts judging
your house, he's not going to stop until your house is done.
There might be an old man left in your house, and I'm going
to kill both of you boys in one day. And I'm going to, I'm not going
to let you, you're the high priest, but I'm never going to accept
another offering from you. I'm never going to accept a sacrifice
from you. Nothing you do will undo what
you've done. No more sacrifices, no more offerings.
no more offerings that would be a horrible thing to have to
face is that God himself says you have sinned so you have so
ignored my word and my will and my way and you so perverted the
priesthood and the word of God and the tabernacle and the sacrifices
that I will not take a sacrifice from you I won't take one from
you But here's what Eli's response was. It is the Lord. It's the
Lord. I'm going to put an end to you,
Eli. It's the Lord. I'm going to kill your sons,
Eli. It's the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. Now boy, that's submission, ain't
it? That's submission. And I want to talk about biblical
submission tonight. What the Bible says about submission.
And I want to first of all start with what submission is and what
fatalism is. Now let me tell you what fatalism
is. Fatalism means that everything
that happens in this world, you're in the hands of fate. And fate
is blind. Fate has no beginning and no
end. Fate just makes a person resign
to whatever is going to happen to him in his life. Muslims are
that way. Muslims are fatalists. That's
why they don't care to kill themselves. Because they just don't see no
end. And so fatalism and submission
is two different things. A man with fatalism, he just
grits his teeth and resigns himself to whatever is going to happen
to him in his life. He sees no order to it. Fatalism
sees our destiny. And it's unaffected by what we
say, what we do, what we believe. No matter how things turn and
go, they're all going to turn out the same. You're just in
this world, and you're in the hands of fate. And you don't
know what fate's going to do with you. But whatever it does,
you just resign yourself to it. But let me tell you something.
And fatalism is an awful, awful thing. I mean, there's no Christianity
about it. It's why this thing is the same
thing as karma. Almost the same thing as karma.
You know, you do good, good will come to you. You do bad, bad
will come to you. But in fatalism there's no sense
in doing any good. There's no sense worrying about
doing bad. There's no sense in even worrying
about life because life is going to just give you a deck of cards
and you don't know what cards are going to come up from day
to day and you're in the hands of fate. Destiny has already
put you in its hands. But fatalism is not the same
as God's decree. Here's the difference. And bless
God, here is the difference. Fatalism is not the same as God's
decree. We talk about God's decrees.
But God has one decree. And everything that happens in
time comes from that one decree. And in God's eternal decree,
He's determined what's going to come to pass. He's determined
every event. He's determined every moment. He's determined every circumstances
has been foreordained. Here's the difference. Fatalism,
you're in the hands of fate. In decree, you're in God's hands.
Would you rather be in the hands of fate or would you rather be
in God's hands? Would you rather fate just to
take and deal with whatever comes out? Or would you rather God
to give you what He wills to have? Which one would you rather
have? But unlike fatalism, but unlike fatalism, God's decree
does not relieve us of our responsibility. Every one of us make daily decisions
for which we bear responsibility for our decisions. You know we
may make a decision and it may be the wrong decision and we'll
pay the consequences for it. And we make daily decisions for
which we bear the responsibilities. Our actions affect the directions
of our lives. Even we're living in God's decrees. Now the cross is a perfect example
of that. Everyone at the cross done exactly
what they wanted to do. The Pharisees and the scribes
and them, they brought Christ. They lied on Him. They did everything
they wanted to do to Christ. And punished, judged our Lord
Jesus Christ and abused Him and mistreated Him. And they done
what they wanted to do. But at the same time they was
doing exactly what God willed for them to do. They wasn't in the hands of fate.
They was in God's hands. And that's what we want in fatalism. And I'll tell you what, there
is some people that you know they believe if you're elected
it doesn't make any difference if you ever hear the gospel or
not. That's fatalism. You want to know you're one of
God's elect, can you get there? So you're just going to sit back,
twiddle your thumbs, find one of God's elect and he ain't going
to call me? Or I don't want to know until I get to heaven? No, no, no, no. In fatalism,
there's no human freedom whatsoever. And fatalism leads to resignation. We just resign ourselves to whatever
we'll be. Fatalism is given in to the inevitable. But I want you to know something.
Eli was not given up to the inevitable. The biblical view is it is what
God has determined. He said it is the Lord. God determined
my life for me. God determined the end of my
life. God determined the end of my son's life. God determined
to judge me. God determined not to let me
have a sacrifice and never accept another sacrifice. It is the
Lord that done this. And let Him do what seems good to Him. He didn't just resign,
didn't grit his teeth and say this is what the Lord is going
to do. I'll just have to accept it. I'll just have to put up
with it. I'll just have to deal with it.
Let me tell you something else about biblical submission. Biblical submission, and here
Eli submitted to the Lord. He said it is the Lord, let him
do what's good. Biblical submission is not a
submission by compulsion. Nobody makes you submit. Now
what I mean by that is in a forced submission, when somebody forces
somebody to submit, The weaker always surrenders to the strong. A strong man or a strong country
can make weaker countries and weaker people bow and submit
to their will. And that's what, you know, that's
what wars are about. That's what wars are about. You
take a strong nation and they get into a war. And they start
war and they go to fight in a battle and go on raging in a battle.
That country that wins, they say, you surrender, absolutely
surrender. They're not surrendering because
they choose to surrender. They submit because they surrender
because they defeated and the strong has said, you're going
to submit to us now. That happened when they brought
the Japanese on the Missouri. They said, looky here. You're
going to surrender absolutely. It's a complete, absolute surrender. You're not even going to have
an army from here on out. Do you understand me? They didn't say they was going
to give them anything or anything. Absolute submission. The Civil
War. When Lee went up to Appomattox
to surrender, he didn't say, well, half of my army is not
going to surrender. We're going to keep it. No, no.
Grant said, come up here and stack your arms. And buddy, they stacked their
arms. Nope. Nope. I'll give up only
on this condition. There's no conditions. You're
going to surrender. And it's not surrender by choice,
but it's surrendering by force, by the power, most powerful.
And here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The
scripture says every knee shall bow, that God hath given
him a name which is above every name, and that at the name of
Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." That
is God saying, I'm going to make you, I've got all the power,
and you ain't got none. You're going to bow. And not
every lost person, every condemned man, every soul on this earth
at that Venn is going to come down and every single one of
them is going to bow to Jesus Christ. They're going to, when
they get up off their knees, they're going to go to hell.
They're going to perish. But they're going to bow. Are
they bound by their free will? Are they bound because they choose
to bow? No, no. God said, I swear that
every knee is going to bow. Huh? And I tell you what, the
lost and the condemned, they won't be bowing willfully. But there is a people who bow
willingly. And that's the next point. Biblical
submission is motivated by love and faith and trust now here's
the situation Eli had sinned and God was justly, justly punishing him, disciplining him
he pronounced judgment upon his two sons you know over here in
chapter 2 and verse 25 look what it says we preached on this here
a while back Now this is Eli talking to his
sons. I hear what you're making people
to transgress. You're having evil dealings.
If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him. But
if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him? Notwithstanding,
they hearken not unto the voice of their father. Why? Because
the Lord is going to slay them. God's going to kill him. God's
going to kill him. Look what he says down in verse
34 chapter 2 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 in one day and so Eli was justly under God's
God confirmed this judgment through Samuel and Eli by his words in
verse 18 of chapter 3 what he's saying is God is always right
no matter what he does if he kills my sons he's right if he
judges me he's right if he takes me out of the ministry he's right
that's what Eli is saying it is the Lord Let him do what seems
good. And what he said is God's ways
are perfect. God's holy, God's righteous,
God's nature being what it is, it's impossible, absolutely impossible
for God to ever do anything wrong. He cannot possibly do anything
wrong. And that's what Eli said. And
you know in Genesis 18-25, all of you have heard it all your
lives. It will last many years anyway. Shall not the judge of
all the earth do right? Ain't that what Abraham said?
Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? I'm going to show you some things.
Look over here at Deuteronomy chapter 32 with me. Let's look
at this. Deuteronomy 32. I want us to
look at a couple, three verses of scripture here and look at
them together. Oh, where there's love and where
there's trust, that's when we submit. Oh my, look what he said
here in verse 3 of Deuteronomy 32. This is what Moses is saying. Because I will publish the name
of the Lord. Ascribe ye greatness unto our
God. He is the rock. Now listen to
this. His work is perfect. For all His ways are judgment.
A God of truth without iniquity. Just and right is He. In everything
He does. Now, look over here in Job. That
before you get to the Psalms, Job's is right there. Look in
Job chapter 8 with me. Just look in this. Talking about
God doing everything that's right. He cannot do anything but what's
right. He cannot do anything but what's perfect. He cannot
do anything that's not absolutely perfect in everything He does. Would God condemn a man unjustly? and look what he says here in
verse 3 Job 8.3 doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty
pervert justice? he's asking a question and then he goes down here I
think it is in verse 20 and look what he says here's how holy
and just and right God is He doesn't pervert judgment and
Almighty God doesn't pervert justice. Behold, God will not
cast away a perfect man. He won't do it. He can't do it.
That's why He never cast away Christ. And He can't cast us
away. We're perfect in Christ. But
God will not cast away a perfect man. If He can ever find one.
Neither will He help the evildoers. He won't do it. He can't do it.
Look in Job 34. Job 34 talking about God being
a just God. God being everything He does
just right. Look here in verse 10 when you
get there. Job 34 10. Therefore hearken unto me ye men of understanding
far be it 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. Surely God will not do wickedly,
neither will the Almighty pervert judgment." And I tell you what
he said here. That's what he said. It's the
Lord. He cannot pervert judgment. He
cannot be wrong. He cannot ever do anything except
perfection. And so biblical submission. What
Eli has here is based upon love and based upon trust. We willfully,
willfully, gladly, joyfully submit to God. Why? Because He and His eternal love
and the love that He brought to bear upon our hearts and upon
our souls And I tell you, we willfully bow to this God, submit
to this God, who has an infinite capacity to love. And His dealings
with us, every one of us, we say His dealings with us is always
gracious. Has He ever dealt with us any
other way than gracious? Has He ever, ever dealt with
us other than having a heart full of love for us? Oh, and here we know this, we
know that He's working for our good. What God does in this world
for His people, He's doing it for their good. He's working
at all things for their good. And it's God's infinite love
that has drawn our hearts to Him, drawn our minds to Him,
drawn our souls to Him. And to love Him and adore Him.
And what He done, and this is a work of grace. This is a work
of grace. This is not natural. He's turned
our hearts. He's turned our hearts by transforming
grace from ourselves to Him. To love Him, to submit to Him,
and to call on Him, and to look to Him. He's took our eyes off
of self and fixed our eyes on Him. And I know lots and lots of people
in this world. They're not satisfied with what
God does. They're not satisfied. They don't
like God's sovereign prerogative. They don't like God's sovereign
prerogative to do what He will with what's His. They think everything
is theirs. If they work hard enough, they
ought to have success. And if they take care of things,
it belongs to them. They work for it and everything
they got is theirs. God didn't do anything for them.
And then when something befalls them, some disease, loss of a
job, child gets sick or something like that, they say, why me?
Why me? Why me? And the question is not why me,
but the question is why not me? The next time you hear somebody
say that, you say, would you rather it happen to somebody
else besides you? Would you rather have somebody
else go through this than you? Are you mad at God because God
does this to you? And what Eli's doing when he said,
in is the Lord, let him doeth what seemeth good. He's declaring
God's right. And that's like Job. God took
everything, Job, that was dear to Job. Took his children, took
his wealth, took his health. And you know
what Job said? He says, the Lord hath given
And the Lord hath, naked came up from my mother's womb, naked
I'll return to my mother's womb. The Lord gave, the Lord hath
taken away. That'd been fine if that's what
he said. But you know what he ended up
saying? Blessed be the Lord. He praised God for it. He said, oh it's one thing God
take everything I have. Well, I was naked when I got
here and I'm going to live here naked. I'm not taking a thing
in the world with me. And he said, blessed be the Lord. Praised him. Oh, this was also in the heart
of Eli. When news came that his sons,
look over here in chapter four with me. I want you to see this.
when news come that his sons had been killed and the ark was
taken captive his heart was broken not by the news that his son
was dead but now watch what he says here in verse 14 Samuel
4.14 and when Eli heard the noise
of the crying he said what meaneth the noise of the tumult and the
man came in hastily and told Eli now Eli was 98 years old
and his eyes were dim that he could not see and the man said
to Eli I am he that came out of the army and I fled today
out of the army and he said what is there done my son and the
messenger answered said Israel has fled before the Philistines
and there has been also a great slaughter among the people thy
two sons also Hothni and Phinehas are dead and the ark of God is
taken now listen to this and it came to pass when he made
mention of the ark of God not that his sons was dead but when
he made mention of the ark of God that it was taken that he
fell from off the seat backward by the side of gate and his neck
break and he died for he is an old man and he is heavy and just
Israel forty years And then this woman, Phineas' wife, she had
a son. Look down here in verse 20. And oh my! And she died having
this child. And she named the child Ichabod. What does that mean? The glory
is gone. The glory is gone. The glory
has departed from Israel. And that's why Eli was so still,
taken up with God being God, that when he heard the ark was
taken, it killed him. But when he heard about his sons,
it didn't bother him. I'm not saying it didn't bother
him, but losing the ark was the worst. And I tell you, beloved,
when that thing happened, the glory had departed. And may our
prayer be like our Lord Jesus Christ told his disciples. Pray
after this manner. Our Father which art in heaven,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, here among us, even
as it is in heaven. And do that and submit to it
willingly. That's what Eli said. It is the
Lord. Let him do what seems good to
me. And I'll tell you this. I know
this without a shadow of a doubt. Not a lost man, not a saved man,
not a person on this face of this earth that lived long enough
to grow up will be able to say God was not good to them. Not
one soul will be able to say that. Not one man will stand
in front of God and say, God is not good to me. Every atheist
who said God don't even exist, he'll have to say, well, he's
good to me. He should have sent me to hell
years ago. But he didn't. But he didn't. God is good. And every man is going to find
out how good he is. Our Father, in the precious name
of Christ our Lord, I thank you for your great and
abundant mercy. Thank you for your grace. Thank
you for your strength and your upholding grace. Lord, it would
be an awful thing not to be upheld by the grace of God. It would
be an awful thing to not have a sacrifice. and be able to approach
you. But Lord, you gave Christ as
our sacrifice. And Lord, we've come through
Him, by Him, because of Him. So hear us, forgive us of everything
that's so unlike you. In Christ's blessed name, we
pray. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his And the things of earth will
grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace.