Now we read here that the sons
of Eli are sons of Belial and what that
means is that they are sons of the devil. Now that might be
a term that's difficult for some people to grasp in this day and
age because when people talk like that they talk about murderers
and thieves and horrible drug pushers And it's easy to say
those folks are following the devil. And what people think about the
devil is so foolish and cartoonish and comic book like that it's
hard to make people understand that religion without Christ
is demon possession and devil worship. Our Lord said to the
Pharisees in John chapter 8, the Pharisees, mind you, who
were Abraham's seed, who practiced the Jewish religion fervently. One man, Paul the Apostle, when
he was Saul of Tarsus, said that before the law he was blameless.
You couldn't charge him with any sin. These folks were not
born of fornication like the Gentiles. They had one father.
Their father was God. So they said, and our Lord said
to them in John chapter 8, Ye are of your father the devil. the devil. These are called sons
of the devil. And they are not irreligious
men. They are priests of the temple
of the Most Holy God. And they are described so because
they are priests who know not the Lord. Priests who know not
the Lord. And this is the core of their
entire problem and the source of their entire error and sin. They know not the Lord. They
are religious. They go about their duties and
they do what they ought to do according to the law, except
for some traditions that they've added along the way. But they
don't know Christ. What is eternal life? What is
salvation? Look over at John chapter 17.
Our Lord in His high priestly prayer before He went to the
cross said this in verse 1 through
3. These words spake Jesus, and
that's talking about the words He spoke in chapters 13, 14,
15, and 16 to His disciples. And then He lifted up His eyes
to heaven and said, The hour has come, that is the hour of
his crucifixion. Glorify thy son, that thy son
may also glorify thee, as thou hast given him power over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given him. And this is eternal life, that they might know thee,
the only true God, even Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. So
to say of these sons of Belial that they don't know the Lord
simply means they have a real, vital, strong, and powerful driving
force in their life called religion, but it has nothing to do with
Jesus Christ. It has nothing to do with God
the Savior. Their religion, as we've seen
in our study thus far, is self-serving. and they grow rich off the backs
of those who endeavor to worship God as He's designated that He
is to be worshipped in Scripture. The order of the sacrifice was
specific. This particular sacrifice, the
peace offering, which was an offering of thanksgiving and
praise for what God had done for His people on the altar of
the burnt offering, when He accepted the sacrifice of Christ fully
for all the sins of all the people, This sacrifice, the peace offering,
was offered in thanksgiving for what that other offering accomplished.
Now both of these offerings represent Jesus Christ. Christ is our substitute. He fully satisfied God's law
for us, and that's pictured at the burnt offering. God's wrath
consumed Him. God accepted the sacrifice. Now
the people are free to offer praise and thanksgiving for what
God has done. And the order of this sacrifice
was very specific. First, the lamb was to be slaughtered,
and the fat was to be burnt immediately as a memorial to God of the burnt
offering, which pictured God honoring, God satisfying, law
and justice satisfying, sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the immediate thing. The moment this animal is slaughtered
in skin, his fat was removed and that was immediately burnt.
Why? Before anything else is done. Before praise and thanksgiving
is made. as is pictured in the other parts
of the offering. Before anything is done, God
must be honored. His covenant must be remembered.
He must be memorialized for who He is and what He's done. So
the fat was burnt first. That was the first thing. Secondly,
the shoulder and the breast of the lamb were to be given to
the priest for food. And they signified the sufficiency
of Christ in our salvation, and the sufficiency of Him for every
sinner's need whom He died for. The shoulder represents the fact
that He carried us upon His shoulder. The shoulder represents that
the government is upon His shoulder. His breast means that His heart
is for us, and He carries us in His heart. All these things
are represented. These things are to be consumed,
to be eaten. and there to be eaten as we feed
on the Lord Jesus Christ through the Word of God. All that is
representative of the priest. We are the priesthood. We are
a royal priesthood, a holy nation separated unto God. The remainder
or the third thing of the sacrifice was to go to the person who brought
the lamb for the offering, the offerer, who made the offering,
And then he took these elements that was left over and made some
kind of stew. He boiled it in water. He boiled
it in water. And he used that for food. So
you have the fat being offered up to God, the shoulder and the
breast being offered to the priest, being given to the priest, and
the remainder being given to the one who offered. Now all
this paints a simple picture. This is an offering of thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is to God. Thanksgiving to God is all for
what he's done. But what God has done is our
supply. What God has done is our food.
What God has done keeps us going. And so we offer up Thanksgiving
for all that he's done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. So
that's this simple praise offering or peace offering. And this order
was to be strictly adhered to. This was the order that God set
up. This is the way you worship me in the peace offering, he
said. Now the sin of Eli's sons was
manifold. They, as David said, did not
worship God or did not seek God after the right order. They changed
things around. Before the first necessary thing,
the burning of the fat, The priest came to where the lamb was slaughtered
and took not only what was due him, but took more than was due
him. He wanted his meat roasted and
not boiled, so he took from the offerer the meat that belonged.
to the offerer. Now the breast and the shoulder
belonged to him. But he came and took it from
the offerer. And if the offerer said, No,
let's wait at least until we burn the fat. Let's honor God
first. He said, Give it to us or we'll
kill you. We'll take it from you by force. He wanted his meat
roasted. Then the priest came back for
more after the offerer began to make his stew of what remains.
Then he took more. He dipped into the stew with
the trident and whatever came out of the stew he kept for himself.
So he gets what is due him. Then he takes what is not due
him before it is boiled. Then he goes and takes what is
boiled and for himself. So he's getting a threefold,
what he would call, I guarantee you, a blessing. he would call
it a blessing. Now what we saw in doing so,
we saw the priest robbed God of his glory to start with because
the fat was not burned and he robbed the people of their offering
and took what belonged to God and his people for himself. This person is a thief, he's
a robber. Robber I'd say more he's a robber than a thief because
he a robber does something face-to-face when you get robbed somebody
got a gun on you or they're facing you off and taking what you was
a thief might sneak in by night and Take you without you even
knowing do you wake up and find it's gone, but these folks are
robbers They come face to face and force the person to give
up what belongs to him They refuse to let him offer an honor to
God in the sacrifice of the fat. So these men robbed God face
to face and they robbed these people. face to face. Now this
easily equates to those in religion who rob God for the glory of
His salvation by making the sacrifice of Christ a secondary thing and
putting forth the glory of their own will above that of God. Put forth their own needs upon
what is due to God. And the end result is that the
offerer holds the sacrifice in low esteem. How could he not?
You think people out here in religion today think highly of
Jesus Christ? I mean really. They think they
can do with Him what they will. They sing songs like, What will
you do with Jesus? You must think Jesus is nothing
to sing a song like that. You must value Him very small.
Jesus hands are tied. He can't do anything you let
but to what you let him. That kind of language declares
that they think the sacrifice to be nothing. Where'd they get
that from? They got that from their preachers. They got that
from the pulpit. The end result is that the offerer
holds the sacrifice in low esteem because he sees that the hierarchy
of religion greatly benefits, gets glory for himself, and the
worshiper is left with scraps. for which he finds it hard to
be thankful. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? Such a thing causes you to offer
to abhor the sacrifice and praise and thanksgiving comes then to
men and not to God. Look over at the end of what
began here. Let's look at the book of Malachi.
The last book of the Old Testament right before the book of Matthew.
Our Lord, after he wrote this book, after he had his prophet
write this book, he did not speak another word to any prophet for
400 years. Not one word. These are the last
words God spoke to Israel, his nation. These are the last words
that he spoke to the priesthood that had begun this tradition
with Eli and Hockney back in Samuel. right after the time
of Judges and the time of Ruth. Malachi chapter 1, look at verse
6. The Lord says, A son honoreth
his father, and a servant his master. If then I be a father,
where is mine honor? And if I be a master, where is
my fear or my worship, saith the Lord of hosts unto you? O
priests, that despise my name. That doesn't seem to even go
together, does it? It shouldn't. But our Lord said, O priest that
despise my name. And they say, because they don't
believe God, they say, where in have we despised thy name?
He said, you offer polluted bread upon my altar. Polluted bread. What is bread? It's a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ. How can you pollute Christ? By
adding anything to Him and to His work. And you say, wherein
are we polluted? Then you say, the table of the
Lord is contemptible. What's going on back here? They're
taking the food that belongs. First, the food that belongs
to God, that sweet-smelling savor of the fat being burnt. Then
the food that belongs to the people. They're taking from them. They made the table of the Lord
contemptible. The fellowship that ought to
be around the table contemptible. It says you offer the blind sacrifice
for a sacrifice. So now it is going all the way
down to the fact that the people who bring the offering are so
aberrant toward the priest and the priesthood for what they're
doing, they don't even care what kind of offering they bring.
They don't care anything for Christ, so they don't care if
the Jesus they bring can't do anything, that he's blind and
he can't see what's going on. He says, is it not evil? and
you offer the lame and the sick? That's a picture of the Jesus
that's being printed, being preached today. Is it not evil? He said, won't you try that with
your boss man? Won't you try that with the governor?
See how he holds up. If you offer him the worst you've
got instead of the best you've got, will he be pleased with
thee or accept thy person, saith the Lord? And now I pray you,
beseech God, that he will be gracious unto us. Go ahead, priests,
pray on. Oh Lord, be gracious to us. This
has been by your means. Will he regard your person, saith
the Lord of hosts? Look down at verse 12. But ye
profaned it, in that ye say, The table of
the Lord is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even his meat,
is contemptible. He said, Also, behold, what a
weariness it is, and ye have snuffed at it, said the Lord.
And ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick.
Thus ye brought an offering, that should I accept this at
your hand, saith the Lord? Be cursed, but cursed be the
deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and boweth and sacrifitheth
in the Lord a corrupt thing. For I am a great king, saith
the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen. Now look at chapter 2 and verse
13, And this ye have done again, Covering the altar of God with
tears With weeping and with crying out in so much that he regardeth
not the offering anymore and neither received it at the goodwill
Goodwill that you'll hate this is where they've come and it
all started right back here It all started right back here This
was the crime of Eli Eli's sons Hopni and Phinehas This was not
the only crime that the sons of Belial did. Look at verse
22 back in our text. And Eli is now speaking. Now
Eli was very old and heard all that his sons did unto Israel,
and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of
the tabernacle of the congregation. Not only did they steal from
everybody, they were rapists. They were rapists. They turned
the house of God into a house of ill repute. The women referred
to here are not prostitutes, though I'm sure that these wicked
priests would have called them such. These women were victims
of rape. Women generally came to the temple
about eight weeks after the birth of a child for the rights of
the child's purification according to the law. And for this ceremony,
other women friends often accompanied the mother for this happy occasion
when the child was purified in the temple. And these women would
come with the offering of turtle doves. It's a poor man's offering,
but it represents the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
sons of Belial somehow figured out a way to delay the sacrifice
when they came and keep the women overnight. And during the delay,
these men took these women into an inner chamber of the temple
and raped them. That's what they did. Who are
these fellows doing this? They're priests. And the occasion
that they used To rape these women was the occasion of the
sacrifice, the occasion of the purification of a child. And
in this they revealed the hatred for the sacrifice and for those
who made the offering. They committed their iniquity,
however, in the name of the Lord. They didn't do this in the name
of the devil, though they were operating under him. They did
it in the name of the Lord. They say we're doing the Lord's
business. Now this has become traditional. I'm sure this practice
was picked up from the pagan countries around there who actually
used prostitutes in the temple. But these men raped these women.
They raped these women. They carried out their duties
in this perverse manner and destroyed the people's confidence in the
priest and ultimately in the sacrifice. And that's the way
it has to be. You think about this. God has given you the law.
He's told you what to do. He's told you how to do it. And
when you come to do what you're supposed to do, to offer unto
God, an offering of thanksgiving unto God, by which God will be
honored, and the priesthood will be taken care of, and you also
receive from Him. You've done all this. And when
you get there, the priest takes more than is due him. The priest
refuses to burn the fat. The priest rapes the women who
come with sacrifice. What are you going to think about
this whole thing? What would that be like for you
if that was going on here? What if you came in here and
I said, all right, y'all bring all your wallets up here, I'm going
to go through them. I'm going to take everything.
And I'll give you a little bit to go home with, but the rest
of it is going to be mine. And then when the women came in,
I'd rape them and leave them out there in the vestibule. And
refuse to talk about Christ and what He's done. What would you
think about Christianity? You say, ain't much to that,
is it? That's what it means when they say they abhorred the sacrifice.
How else could they not? They're doing all this and they're
looking at what the church is doing, what the religious people,
what the righteous people, what the people whom God has supposedly
appointed in this office are doing, and they're all torn up.
And they should be. They should be. These folks did
not despise the sacrifice, in fact, but they knew that what
was going on did not in any way honor God. And if those who were
supposedly responsible for proper worship did such things, what
possible value could there be to the sacrifice? It's just common
sense, folks. And what they had done had become
tradition. And you know tradition, and fifty-five cents will buy
you a cup of seniors coffee, at McDonald's. Tradition. This is common practice. All
the priests did it. All the priests did it. And our
God says this, their activities are worthy of death. They are worthy of death. God would not bring them to repentance
Though their father Eli dressed them down for what they did,
it was to no avail. The Lord had set His vengeance
upon them, and from that there is no escape. They will not be
allowed even the common human response of remorse. They are
marked for death, and nothing can turn it back. That's what
it says in verse 25, last phrase, Notwithstanding they hearken
not unto the voice of their father, because the Lord would and that
means is pleased or was pleased to kill them. This is what the
Lord intended to do. He intended to kill them. I looked
at this and thought about this. I wondered in my own mind what
will become of those who speak of Christ in such lowly terms
for I hear it on every hand. What will become of those who
make his sacrifice of no value unless men with the trident of
their wills make profit for themselves? What will become of men who because
of their hatred for Christ cause the people who come to worship
begin to see no reason to praise God for the sacrifice at all?
God loves everybody and some people go to hell. What is the
value of the love of God after all? If Christ died for everybody
and some people go to hell, what is the value of Christ's sacrifice
at all? Do you see what I'm saying? They're causing men to despise
the sacrifice. To abhor the sacrifice. What
will become of those who so misdirect people from honoring God to the
point that they cannot be thankful? Not to God. Their end is set,
God said. Their feet are on a slippery
slope and they will slide in due time. They will not repent. They fill their coffers with
the praise that belongs to Christ alone. They seek to gain from
God before they honor God for who He is and what He has done.
Their concept of worship is what they can gain. Does that sound
familiar at all? You take the first step and you
do something for God, He'll do something for you. That's the
religion of this day. What benefits them? What they
do is worthy of death. Yeah. And they are slated for
destruction. Read the book of Revelation,
Thessalonians. Find out what God's going to
do with these enemies. And these are not irreligious
folks. These are religious enemies. Why did Hopnes and Phineas come
to this state of blasphemy? Why did the church, so called
in the world today, come to this state of blasphemy? They arrived
here because they knew not the Lord. It's that simple. The implication
here is that if they knew the Lord, they wouldn't be acting
like this. Isn't that right? They wouldn't be doing this.
If they knew the Lord, if they knew who He was, that He was
King of kings and Lord of lords, if they knew that He was the
all-sufficient sacrifice that actually redeemed His people
and made them holy and righteous before God, if they knew that
He's high and lifted up and holy and every knee is going to bow
to Him, if they knew Him, they wouldn't do these things. Here
is the dilemma and the blasphemy of trying to be a Christian without
Christ. The giant umbrella of Christendom envelops hordes of
people who talk of the blessings of God. People talk about it
all the time. You don't believe, sir? Turn to these religion channels
and see how long it takes some preacher to tell your plan to
see if God will bless you. God will bless you. What will
He bless you with? Oh, He'll give you a Cadillac. He'll give you a
Lexus to drive. He'll give you health and wealth.
You'll never be sick no more and you'll run the devil out
of town. Tell that to Ralph. Ask him where he got his cancer.
Ask Jenny where she got her cancer. These folks are blessed of God,
not the way that religion says they're blessed. The way religion
says they're blessed is, we'll have a worship service and I'll
go out with my three-pronged hook and I'll take what you want.
And I'll not bother to honor God, but I'll talk about all
of the blessings that I have. And I'll even say He did it though.
I'm going to take credit for it by my own free will. People
offer thanks to God, but never consider that worship is not
what they can get, but what honor and glory belongs to God because
of the accomplishing death of Jesus Christ. People talk about
what they can get from God. Listen to me. If you get what
you deserve, you're going to hell. Anything else than that
is God's mercy and grace. Anything. Worship begins with
the burning of the fat and rejoicing in the benefits of knowing Jesus
Christ. This is eternal life. This is
what it is to know God. We burn the fat and feed on Christ
and we only have what has been freely given to us by His grace.
And you know what? The believer is fine with that.
The believer's fine with that. He's so crazy, the believer is,
that when his brother does well, he gets so excited and so happy
for him, he don't envy him and say, I wish that was mine. He
says, I'm so happy for you. So glad that you got a new car,
so glad that you're feeling well. I'm so glad. The believer wants
for nothing. but what is in Christ, and what
is His in Christ, and what is yours. That's what the believer
rejoices in. If you don't believe so, find
somebody that loves Christ and talk to them. They'll tell you
what they're happy about. Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
justification, redemption, imputation, substitution. Things like that's
what floats a Christian's boat, floats a believer's boat. The elect are joyous because
they are complete, and have need of nothing. And they disdain
the thought of seeking more than what God has given. The things of this world are
not to occupy the thoughts of the believer, because they are
promised to those who seek the kingdom and His righteousness,
but they are never to seek after them. They are never to seek
after. Those who despise the sacrifice
look to gain from the world by their affiliation with religion.
I've heard people say, you ought to join a church when you go
to a new town. It'll get you some networking to make business
better. You see, what does a believer
really want in this world? He wants Christ. He wants that sacrifice
like it's supposed to be. That sacrifice that honors God.
That sacrifice that makes him as a priest lean upon the breast
of Christ and lay upon His powerful shoulders of sovereignty. He
wants to feed on what Jesus Christ has bought for him and the person
himself. The believer wants Jesus Christ. He wants to glorify God by Christ
and nothing else matters. The rest of this stuff, if it
comes along, fine. But if it doesn't, fine. Fine. Matthew chapter 6. Begin reading in verse 24. No
man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and
love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the
other. You cannot serve God and man. worship God and be grabbing
for this world. You can't worship God and want
something that you don't have. That's covetousness, which is
what? Idolatry, according to Colossians. He says, therefore, knowing that's
the fact, I say unto you, take no thought for your life. Take
no thought what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, nor
yet for your body. Know what you shall put on. Is
not the life more than meat, and body more than raiment? Behold
the fowls of the air. I was sitting at the dentist
office yesterday. I had to put a crown
on one of my teeth. And I was sitting there, you
got a bird feeder outside. his window, about a foot from
his window. And I was sitting there, and
he had some other patients, so I was just sitting there for
a long time, and I was watching this cardinal. Prettiest bird. That's the prettiest bird. Up
close, they're just absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. This beautiful bright
red male cardinal with his yellow beak and that little black area
there, just so pretty. He flew up there and he'd get
a seed, but he didn't eat it. He flew over to the railing there
and he'd give it to his wife. He'd put it in her mouth, she'd
break it up, and he'd come get another so he could give it to
his wife. And I thought, man, that's just wonderful. That's
just wonderful. God trained them to show forth
the glory of what Christ does for us. He does it all and gives
it to us. He does it all and gives it to
us. Behold the fowls of the earth. They don't sow. They don't plow
no garden. Neither do they reap. They don't
even harvest. nor gather in barns. They don't build barns or bigger
barns to hold all that they own. Yet your Father in heaven feeds
them. Are you not much better than
they? Are you not the crown of His creation? Aren't His elect,
His chosen ones? Which of you, by taking thought,
can add one cubit to a statue? Can you make yourself, by thinking,
bigger, stronger, more powerful? No. Why take you thought of Raymond? Why you worry about that? Do
you look at, all you got to do is look at the lilies in the
field. Out here by the stump, we planted those day lilies.
They're starting to break out. Boy, they're pretty. And that
mountain, that orange mountain rhododendron that we planted
by the stump, for some reason it went nuts this year. It took
off like crazy. Oh, I'll walk into it. an orange
display as I walk into my door every day, a beautiful orange
display. I look at those things. The Lord says, look at those
things. Do they worry about raiment? Do they worry about how they
are dressed, how they look? They don't toil, they don't spend,
they don't make their own clothes, and yet I say unto you that even
Solomon in all his glory is not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore,
if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today it is,
that tomorrow is cast into the oven, if God clothes these things
which are cut down and wither and die and fade away, shall
He not much more clothe ye, O ye of little faith? Therefore take
no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink,
or whitherall shall we be clothed? Look at the next phrase, For
all these things do the Gentiles seek, and Lucas says, All for
all these things does the world seek for. Your heavenly Father
knoweth that ye have needed these things, But seek ye first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness. That's the sacrifice. Seek first
to burn the fat. And then seek to honor the righteousness
of God, which is Jesus Christ. And all these things, these other
things, these things you're not to think about, God said, I'll
take care of that, they'll be added to you. You'll have those
things. You'll have those things. Take therefore no thought for
tomorrow, for tomorrow shall take thought of the things of
itself. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Well, I'm just worried
about tomorrow. Wait till you get there. It'll take care of
itself. Trust me on this. I've lived many tomorrows. They've
all taken care of themselves. And I found this to be too sufficient
unto that day was the evil of itself. There's plenty of evil
to go around. Don't worry about these things.
Don't worry about them. World religion stands like the
horse leech. And Christ, give, give, give. World religion stands like the
harlot in the Bob Dylan song that stood by the doorway and
said, give me more, give me more. And believers say, I am complete
in Jesus Christ. I am complete. Father, bless
us through our understanding, we pray in Christ's name. Good night,
God bless you.