1 Samuel 2-6 | "Toppling Glorious Thrones"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Please take your Bible and make your way to the book of 1 Samuel.

You all thought I was going to say Matthew, didn't you?

Book of 1 Samuel.

If you need the Bible in the Pew rack in front of you, that is page 226.

It's important to have your Bible open to be able to follow along.

We're going to be working through four chapters this morning.

Surveying in a large part.

1 Samuel chapter 2.

1 Samuel 2 · chapter mention

A poor, barren woman pleads to God for a son in one family.

And God gives her the son for whom she prayed, and in return she gives the boy back to God forever.

An act by which that family receives a place of honor.

In another family, the aged patriarch dies by falling off of his seat of honor on the same day that his two sons are killed and his daughter-in-law dies in childbirth.

God brought life, and God took life.

God gave honor and glory, and God took away honor and glory.

Our passage for this morning could be addressed from many different perspectives, but as the Lord's people, we gather to give glory to our eternal Father and to his Son, the Lord Jesus.

And so my ultimate desire is to lead us to see this passage, not in light of a cultural holiday, but in light of Jesus, who reveals the glory of our Father who is in heaven.

If you have your Bible, I'd like you to notice 1 Samuel chapter 2, beginning in verse 6.

1 Samuel 2 · chapter mention

This is part of Hannah's prayer.

Hannah is the mother of Samuel the prophet.

I'd like to read verses 6 through 10 of 1 Samuel chapter 2.

1 Samuel 2 · chapter mention

The scriptures say, in the words of Hannah, Yahweh kills and brings life.

He brings down to Sheol and He raises up.

Yahweh makes poor and makes rich.

He brings low and he exalts.

He raises up the poor from the dust, he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.

For the pillars of the earth are Yahweh's, and on them he has set the world.

He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness, for not by might shall a man prevail.

The adversaries of Yahweh shall be broken to pieces.

Against them he will thunder in heaven.

Yahweh will judge the ends of the earth, he will give strength to his king, and he will exalt the power of his anointed.

Amen.

And it summarizes events that will take place in the following chapters.

Verse 6 and verse 7 that we've read here contain two declarations of the work of God.

Here, Hannah refers to God by his covenant name, Yahweh.

Your Bible might have that in all capital letters, the Lord in all capital letters, telling us here that Yahweh kills, and Yahweh brings life.

Yahweh makes poor, and he also makes rich.

And the end of verse 8 gives us a reason.

It's because Yahweh owns the world.

And he controls everything that takes place in the world that he owns.

And so he will be faithful to his faithful people in verse 9.

He will not allow the wicked to ultimately prevail over his purpose and his people, no matter how powerful they might seem, because it's not by might that people prevail.

And in the end, Yahweh's adversaries in verse 10 will be broken to pieces, and he will lift up the one he has anointed.

These details are fulfilled in the life and ministry of the prophet Samuel, the one to whom Yahweh has given life.

And it's also fulfilled in the high priest Eli and his family, whom Yahweh kills.

So we see evil triumphing until God steps in to cut off the evil people.

And Samuel becomes the anointed one in God's presence, the one lifted from a position of poor circumstances to lead God's people.

This is a sign, Hannah says, that Yahweh is the ultimate king over all the earth.

There's great significance in that truth because of the place this passage has in history.

This is the end of the times of Israel's judges.

Before there was a king functioning in Israel, it was a time when everyone did what was right in their own eyes, as it's described in the book of Judges.

That book is about God's representatives, his leaders called judges, whom God gave to his people to rescue them from oppression by their enemies.

The problem is that the people that God gave to rescue his people, those judges became increasingly morally corrupt.

So those sinful people who are to judge Israel as righteous leaders who issue righteous decisions cannot lead with justice and righteousness because they don't know what is righteous.

And that's a reminder that in unrighteous times, filled with unrighteous leaders, Yahweh, our God, is the ultimate judge.

The earth and all that is in it is his.

Consider our English phrase, he throws his weight around.

He throws his weight around.

You may have known somebody like that.

Now that could mean he's a very large person.

Or more likely, it means he thinks he's important, he thinks he's powerful, and he acts like it, and he and he pushes people around because he thinks he's powerful and important.

He's significant.

He throws his weight around.

That's the word translated as honor in verse 8.

A seat of weight, a weighty seat, an important seat, a significant seat.

Hannah knows that God can take insignificant, unknown people and put them in weighty places of importance and honor.

God can do that.

Why can God do that?

Because he owns the world.

It's his.

And we find this word again in verse 29, where God says that Eli honors his sons more than Yahweh.

Eli, the high priest, gives greater weight, greater substance, greater importance, greater significance to his sons than he does to his God.

Take note, families.

Take note.

Our children, our families are important.

But God knows and God sees when our hearts elevate them above him.

So God says to Eli, in verse thirty, I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever, but now Yahweh declares, Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

Those who give the greatest weight, the greatest significance, the greatest importance or honor to God, will receive significance and honor and importance and weightiness from Him.

That's exactly what Hannah prayed.

On the other hand, those who honor something or someone more highly than God, who give greater weight to something or someone than they give the weight to God, will be considered slight or light by God.

You want to lose weight?

Consider something more significant than God.

Then I will do that for you.

But if you reverse things, I'm gonna take away your weight.

I'm gonna take away your significance, your honor, and your glory.

Therefore, God says, I'm gonna take away your family.

There's not gonna be an old man in your house, verse 31.

Verse 32.

I'm gonna cut off your descendants, verse 33, verse 34, your your two sons, Hophani and Phineas, shall die on the same day.

And in your place, I'm gonna raise up a faithful priest and build him a sure house.

God took away the position of honor from the worthless priests.

And even more, he took away their life.

They would steal God's weight no more.

Now, second, we see in contrast that God lifts up those who listen to him.

Consider the prophet whom God honored in chapter 3.

Samuel is still a young boy in chapter 3.

He is a servant apprentice to Eli.

He's learning the ins and the outs of the patterns of worship, of sacrifice, and the upkeep of the building.

We don't know exactly how young he is, but he's quite young still.

Not only are we told that Samuel is young, we're also told that he has not yet had a conversion experience.

Notice what it says in verse 7 of chapter 3.

It says, Now Samuel did not yet know Yahweh.

Now, if you're tracking with me, you'll remember we've already heard that.

That exact same thing was said of Eli's sons in chapter 2.

They did not know Yahweh.

How fascinating.

We expect something to change here.

But at the beginning of Samuel's ministry, at the beginning of what we see about him, he does not yet know Yahweh.

He is categorized exactly as Eli's son.

They're on an equal plane.

And that is the equal plane that every human being begins.

That's where we start life.

We do not know God.

Isn't that what Romans chapter 3 tells us?

Romans 3 · chapter mention

There is none who know him.

No, not even one.

No one has a leg up in this world when it comes to God.

Everyone does not know him.

But everything from here on out in the life of Samuel puts him at a different place than Hafni and Phineas.

From here on out, the life of Samuel from a poor boy in Eli's service transforms to a prophet whom God honors, the exact thing that Hannah prayed.

God calls out to Samuel at night.

Perhaps you know this story.

And Samuel thinks it's it's Eli calling to him.

They're sleeping in different rooms in the temple building, but it's not Eli.

And that happens three times.

And finally, on the third time, Eli finally wakes up in the middle of the night and says, Oh, okay, you know what?

God must be calling you.

So he instructs Samuel, Samuel, go back and lay down.

And if he calls you again, say, Here I am, Lord, your servant listens.

Notice chapter 3, verse 10.

The Lord came and stood, calling out as at other times, Samuel, Samuel.

Samuel said, Speak, for your servant hears.

This is subtle, but it's important.

Eli encouraged his own sons to honor God with their actions.

That meant they first had to not only hear their father, but even more they had to hear what God said.

Eli's sons would not listen to their father, and thus they would not listen to God.

They did not have ears to hear their father, much less God.

But Samuel not only listens, he also obeys, and even more, he listens and he obeys God.

Here is a little boy coming to understand and know God.

Yes, vacation Bible school is absolutely important because children can come to know the living God.

Samuel comes to know all about sin.

Because God speaks to him first and foremost about the horrendous sin of Eli and his family.

He comes to know about the disastrous consequences of sin and God's terrible judgment.

He comes to know God's voice and God's word, and he listens to God and he obeys.

We might say he honors God above all.

Notice what the text says in verse 30.

Sorry, verse 19.

Samuel grew, and Yahweh was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground, and all of Israel knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of Yahweh.

So Hannah was correct.

His mother was right when she declared that God kills and brings down to Sheol.

She was right when God said, when she said, God raises the poor to inherit a seat of honor.

God killed the priests who did not honor him above all, giving weight, significance, and honor to the little one who listened to him.

Now in chapter four, God kills those who take honor for themselves.

Look with me at the patriarch whom God toppled in chapter four.

This is a chapter that is a sad pinnacle of irony.

The accounts of Hafni and Phineas and their father Eli are displayed here as a representation of all of Israel.

In general, all of Israel was like Eli, Hafni, and Phineas, because we are still in the time period of everyone doing what's right in their own eyes.

At the end of the times of the judges, even the priests and the high priest himself did what was right in their own eyes.

And doing what's right in your own eyes draws you into worthlessness.

But listening to God and following his ways leads to honor.

So on the whole, Israel is worthless.

That's what the writer of 1 Samuel is communicating to God's people.

It's a time when the nation is a group of people that is worthless.

They are sons of worthlessness, not sons of God.

On the whole, they are light rather than weighty.

They had no honor because they considered themselves more significant than God.

And one consequence of worthlessness is a worthless faith.

Israel goes into battle here against the Philistines in verse 1.

So to get a leg up on the enemy, they bring in the Ark of the Covenant in verse 4.

The Ark of the Covenant, you'll remember, is that golden box that sat in the Holy of Holies that had two cherubim, two mighty angels on each end, and God was said to dwell in the middle between those two angels, and so it was a symbol of God's presence.

So if God is there with them in the army, they're going to be victorious.

But they treated this Ark of the Covenant not like the presence of God, but like a magic box.

They think that the golden box contains a kind of power, a kind of magic that will overwhelm the power of the Philistines by merely being present with Israel's army.

Kind of like modern Christians who think that simply taking your kids to church or listening to a sermon once a week or knowing a Bible verse or two is sufficient for spiritual life and growth.

Israel assumed that the presence of the ark was enough because they trusted in a box rather than the God of the box.

And so their worthlessness led to a worthless faith.

They battle with the Philistines, and in verse 11, the ark of God is captured, and the two sons of Eli, Hophne, and Phineas died.

Follow along with me as we read, beginning in verse 12, chapter 4.

A man of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head.

It's a sign of mourning.

When he arrived, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road watching, for his heart trembled for the ark of God.

When the man came into the city and told the news, all the city cried out.

Eli heard the sound of the outcry and said, What's the uproar?

And the man hurried and came and told Eli.

Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his eyes were so set that he could not see.

The man said to Eli, I am he who has come from the battle, I fled from the battle today, and Eli said, How did it go, my son?

He who brought the news answered and said, Israel has fled before the Philistines.

There's been a great defeat among the people.

Your two sons, Hophni and Phineas, are dead, and the Ark of God has been captured.

As soon as he mentioned the Ark of God, Eli fell over backward from his seat by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken, and he died.

For the man was old and heavy.

He had judged Israel forty years.

Now his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phineas, was pregnant, about to give birth.

And when she heard the news that the ark of God was captured, and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed and gave birth, and her pains came upon her, and about the time of her death the women attending her said to her, Don't be afraid, you've born a son.

How comforting when you're dying.

But she did not answer or pay attention.

She named the child Ichavod, saying, Where is the glory?

The glory has departed from Israel because the Ark of God has been captured, and because of her father-in-law and her husband, and she said, The glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark of God has been captured.

Two elements converge here to intensify the irony in this passage.

We've already seen the theme of honor, which again has that idea of weightiness, of significance, of importance.

The other theme that converges here is the idea, the concept of a seat.

You're sitting in a seat.

Nothing unusual about that, but but the word for a seat can mean a stool, it can mean a chair, it can even mean a throne.

So a seat takes on greater significance based on the status of the person sitting in the seat.

So a seat for a king would be a throne.

And the same is true for a judge in Israel.

1 Samuel, Eli's seat.

It's more like a throne.

A throne from which he dispenses judgments and exercises authority.

And so 1 Samuel begins in chapter 1 with Hannah coming to the temple at Shiloh to pray.

And Eli is sitting on his throne at the house of God.

And then in Hannah's prayer in chapter 2, she declares that God raises the poor to inherit thrones of honor.

And in the flow of this account, who is it that sits in the seat of weightiness?

Who is it that sits in the seat of significance?

Who is it that sits on the throne of honor?

It's Eli.

It's Eli.

And now in chapter 4, what do we see?

When Eli hears about the disaster.

Chapter 4, verse 18, as soon as the Ark of God was mentioned, Eli fell over backward from his throne by the seat of the gate.

His neck was broken.

And he died.

Eli is toppled from his throne of honor.

Eli is toppled from his his his weighty, significant throne.

And he died because his neck was broken from his body's significant honor.

Wait.

How did Eli become so weighty?

Speaking here physically, not of his position.

Speaking concretely.

How did Eli become so heavy?

He became so heavy because he was benefiting from his son's robbery of the sacrifices that belonged to God.

Eli was weighty because he gave greater weight to his worthless sons than he gave to God.

And Eli gained a weighty, a significant throne from which he profited, and so God toppled the patriarch of priests from his weighty throne, ironically killing him through his own weight that came from stealing the weight that belonged to God.

Friends, it should be no wonder why the scriptures say so much about humility.

It's dangerous, both for our physical and our spiritual lives, to give greater significance to ourselves.

Eli stole God's weight for himself.

God killed Eli and his sons because they stole God's glory, God's weight for themselves.

And to make matters worse, Eli's daughter-in-law dies in childbirth, naming her son Ichabod.

Where is the weight?

Where's the significance?

Where's the importance?

Where's the glory?

Because the weight, the significance, the glory of Israel has departed.

The box is gone.

She wasn't talking about her husband or her father-in-law.

Israel put all of her importance in this box.

Not in the God of the box, but in the box.

So in chapters 5 and 6, God receives honor from those who oppose him.

God's priests stole his honor.

They were thieves of his glory and his weight, so God sent the box in which they trusted into the hands of the enemy.

So we've observed the priests that God killed, the prophet whom God honored, and the patriarch whom God toppled from his glorious throne.

Now we see the provider whom God toppled.

The provider whom God toppled.

In ancient times, a military victory was a religious victory.

It was a sign that a people's God was more powerful than the enemy's God.

So the Philistines victoriously and triumphantly go to their home city.

They place God's Ark of the Covenant in the temple of their provider God Dagon.

Dagon's a weird God, pictured as half fish, half man, an idol set up on a pillar.

He was believed to be a fertility God who provided grain for his people.

And since the Ark of the Covenant, the sign of Israel's God, was in their hands, they believed that Dagon was more powerful than Israel's God.

They were wrong.

They were wrong.

Look at chapter 5 and verse 3.

It says there, when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the Ark of Yahweh.

Nobody touched him.

God just said, Dagon will honor me.

If my people will not give me the weight that I deserve, then I will get my weight from a pagan idol.

Gets worse.

They set him back up.

He's toppled again, and this time he's broken to pieces.

Just like Hannah said in her prayer.

My friends, think again.

Think again before giving greater significance to something other than your God.

For he will topple whatever gets glory greater than he.

Your God is heavier.

He is more honorable.

He is he is more significant.

He is more important, more glorious than anything that you might imagine putting in his place.

And if you put something in his place, he will topple it or you.

So we read in chapter 5, verse 6, that the hand of Yahweh was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory.

Later on in verse 11, it says, They sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, let it return to its own place that it may not kill us and our people.

For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city.

The hand of God was very heavy there.

God killed the priests who claimed greater weight than God.

God toppled the patriarch who stole his weightiness from God, and God toppled the provider whom God's enemies believed had greater weight, and so God's hand was very heavy against them.

Do you catch the irony all throughout this?

Finally, after having had enough of God's weight, they realize they need to get rid of Israel's God.

So they send the ark back with an offering.

Notice chapter 6, verse 5, they get some advice, and the advice is make images of your tumors and images of the mice that are ravaging the land, and give weight, give glory, give importance, give significance, not to Dagon, but to the God of Israel.

Give him the weight so that he might lighten his hand from off of you, from off of your gods and your land.

God told Eli, those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

Those who give me weight that I deserve, I will give them weight.

In the end, among God's people, only the boy Samuel gave greater weight, greater glory, greater honor to God.

And in an ironic twist to the end of the story, it was Israel's enemies who ultimately gave the weight, the honor, the glory to God.

It's quite the lesson for us, don't you think?

If we are willing to admit it, we possess great weight.

We are honored with freedom, with wealth, with privileges of all kinds.

We're honored with families, with homes, with life.

Our weight can be described in all kinds of ways.

But have we, either by choice or in action, let the honors of our lives assume greater weight than God?

Have we let the patterns of life transform us into worthless sons of God?

Must our Father in heaven exact glory, honor, and weight from those who oppose him because we steal what belongs only to him?

I'm very thankful that this is not the end of the story.

Not at all.

One prophet listened to God.

Two priests were killed for not knowing God and blaspheming against him.

One patriarch was toppled from his heavy throne for stealing God's weight for himself.

The two sons reflected their father's glory, didn't they?

Like father, like sons.

In this passage, Samuel stands as a stark contrast.

He's the only one that listens to the word of God and obeys.

So he's the one that ultimately displays the Father's glory.

He's given weight to display the weight of God to a people that does not care.

Now, if we have ears to hear, this prepares us for the words of the Apostle John and his gospel in chapter one, where it says the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

We've beheld his weight.

Of the Father, full of grace and truth.

You see, the rest of the story shows us not Eli, but the true Father, to whom belongs the ultimate weight of glory, and who sits on a glorious throne above the circle of the earth.

And that glorious Father raised our eternal priest from the place of the poor and the destitute to glorify him as our eternal prophet to whom we must now listen.

And this glorious Father has settled his son, our priest and prophet and king in the place of ultimate honor, ultimate weight, so that he alone might be our eternal provider, the one who will not be moved, but the one who will topple all earthly powers until every name declares that he is Lord.

And this one displayed his weight.

He displayed his seat of honor and glory, not through the magnificence of his glory, not through the majesty of his weight, not through the significance of his throne, but through the humility of a cross and the shame of bearing our sin.

The richest one was made poor.

The exalted one was brought low.

The prince was made to be sin, stripped of all honor and glory.

The life was killed and sent to the grave.

But the Father, who kills, made Jesus alive, so that he might be our great and faithful high priest, the prophet to whom we listen, and the king upon whose glorious throne leads us to his eternal glory through his example of humility by forgiving us of our sin and saying, My son, my daughter, come home.

Rest in my wait.

May we see you in your word.

May we come to know that you are the great King, that you are the one who upset all of our paradigms by doing things the opposite of what we expect, so that our sin might be atoned for.

So that we, we who are too often like Hoffney and Phineas, we who too often are like Eli, might by your grace be given ears to hear, and eyes to see, and new hearts that humbly come and lay all of our glory, all of our honor at your feet, so that you might be lifted up above all.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

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