1 Samuel 2:12-3:21 (May 10, 2026)

Well, good morning, church.

It's a privilege to be able to worship with you guys this morning.

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them up to 1 Samuel chapter 2.

1 Samuel 2 · chapter mention

We're actually going to cover a lot of ground from verses 12 all the way through chapter 3, but don't worry, we're not going to go verse by verse and you won't be here until 4 o'clock.

We're going to go kind of hop in and hop out of the text a little bit this morning.

Jeff kind of Pastor Jeff alluded to this a little bit.

Back in 1992, my parents decided to move us across town in Crawfordsville.

It wasn't all that significant.

It was a couple only a couple miles because Crawfordsville isn't that big.

But for a fifth grader, it was a significant move from his first home that he's ever known.

And I began to meet the neighborhood boys.

And I was walking down the back alley and I saw this little blonde-haired guy playing basketball in his back driveway, and his name was Jeff Strickland.

Kind of a cocky guy, but that was okay because I was cocky too.

So it worked out.

But we played football together, we played basketball together, we played baseball together, and I think in our minds we imagined going into high school, and that was really the sports that we played together.

And you know, neither one of us got all that tall.

Pastor Jeff's a little better at basketball, and he'd be happy to tell you about that than me.

But uh we ended up by a series of events being on the swim team together our senior year.

And I don't think either one of us pictured a uniform being a speedo uh playing together, but uh there we were.

Um but one of the reasons that we ended up on the swim team was this guy named Gus Arsener.

Uh he was kind of a mystery.

He moved from the West Coast to Crawfordsville, Indiana.

I think he had a wrestling background, uh, but started coaching swimming.

Uh, all four of his sons were elite swimmers, and he had this uncanny ability to recruit athletes, get them in the pool, make them work their tails off, and be very successful and competitive, and took the team to new heights.

One of the reasons I think Jeff and I ended up being on the swim team is because he's just a really good leader.

And it's pretty sweet to be able to sit under the leadership of somebody who's really good at it, who does it the right way.

But it's equally as difficult to sit under poor and bad leadership.

For many of you, maybe most of us, like it's not all that difficult for us.

It doesn't take that long to remember a leader that maybe had failed you in some ways, maybe disappointed you, used their authority in a domineering way, or maybe use that authority to even harm others.

I know there are likely some of you this morning who have been really truly harmed by someone you should have been able to trust.

And that harm didn't just last in the moment, but it's lasted over years.

Maybe it was a parent or a relative or a boss or a pastor.

It's really painful when leaders fail.

This is why leadership's so important.

But what we're gonna see in the text today is just how deep the wound, the wound goes deeper when spiritual leaders fail.

Because it doesn't just affect the way that we see the person, it can affect the way that we see God.

And that's what makes 1 Samuel 2 and 3 so relevant for us today.

What the effect of what happens when we have corrupt leaders.

Shiloh is the setting of the story here in 1 Samuel, and it's become a very dark place.

Leaders are using their authority for selfish indulgence, and worshipers are being harmed in the process.

Maybe you you feel a little bit of that today.

I don't know your past, but maybe you've been failed by leadership in your past, and that automatically kind of makes you skeptical of leaders.

I think we can reasonably make the case that most of us have grown used to failed leadership.

We really aren't all that surprised when scandals hit the headlines and tell us that another politician has done something immoral or leaders are in the corporate world are embezzling from their company?

Has it just become part of the culture?

Are we just supposed to kind of expect leaders to be corrupt and just hope that it all kind of turns out okay in the end?

How are we to remain hopeful in the dark place ourselves?

That's what it's at stake today in today's text.

Are God's people just supposed to accept things as they are?

Are they supposed to expect more from their spiritual leaders?

What are believers supposed to think when spiritual leaders fail?

The book of Judges ends with this verse there were no kings in that day, and everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes.

And 1 Samuel picks up this theme.

Everyone is doing as they wish, and it's gotten so bad that now the very people who are supposed to point the people to Israel to God instead are now corrupt and exploiting God's people.

And you think, man, like if it's gotten to the point where the priests are corrupt, man, it must just be all over.

As we're gonna see in this story, with God, it's never over.

God preserves his people.

And that's the main idea I want you guys to go away with today is that God preserves his people even when leaders fail.

God preserves his people even when the leaders fail.

I really see two warnings about leaders in this text and one assurance for believers in this story that I want you to leave with.

See, in the background, we don't have time to go there, but in the background of 1 Samuel so far on chapter 1, there's been something, something happening that should catch our eye.

Even as things in Israel have gotten so bad, so dark, there's something that the Lord is doing that catches our eye initially in the birth of a boy to a woman who has been barren for years.

So we see in the beginning of 1 Samuel a priest named Eli who sees a woman beside herself praying earnestly, and Eli actually assumes that that woman is drunk.

It kind of gives you a clue of how bad things were at Shiloh at that point, that his first assumption at a place of worship with a woman praying is he assumed that she was drunk.

But this woman, Hannah, is praying for a child, and God supernaturally works and opens her womb, and a baby boy is born, and his name is Samuel.

In the midst of the darkness in Shiloh, there's this little glimmer of light, a hopeful story.

And then we pick it up here in verse 12, and it turns our attention to Eli and his worthless sons.

Take a look with me in verses 12 through 14.

Now the sons of Eli were worthless men.

They did not know the Lord.

And the custom of the priests with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant would come while the meat was boiling, and with a three-pronged fork in his hand, and he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot, and all that the fork brought up to the priest, they would take for himself.

This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

We see first that Eli's sons, Hophani and Phineas, are described as worthless sons.

The word that's actually used there is Belial.

Hannah just actually used that word in chapter one when Eli accused her of being drunk.

She said, No, no, no, don't regard your servant as a worthless woman, as a Belial woman.

Paul actually uses this language in 2 Corinthians 6 when comparing opposites.

He says this, for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness, or what accord has Christ with Belial?

We see that the early church, that they have taken the name Belial, capital B, and applied it to a name for Satan, which is the equivalent of pure wickedness and evil.

So when we see these worthless sons of Eli, he's referring to them as evil, wicked men, Satan's men, not a category you want to be in.

And it's kind of important to make sure that we understand what's being said here because we're not talking about your boss who didn't give you a bonus this year.

We're not talking about a boss who didn't give you a raise.

The application here is not to go to work and call your boss a son of Satan.

That would not be the application here.

Where you're instead we're seeing a real evil occur at this place where God has commanded his people to worship, where people are giving offerings to the Lord, offering sacrifices according to God's word for atonement of sins.

So for Hapni and Phinehas, they were taking a fork and they were thrusting it into these boiling pots of the people's peace offerings to God and helping themselves to whatever came out.

And it says in the text that it was custom.

They become normal, not as in God's custom.

This is something that they've made up.

That they've culturally let kind of grow into the culture and they've grown used to it.

Kind of like a fish that doesn't know it's wet.

It's the only thing they've ever known.

Leaders leveraging their position for their own selfish consumption.

It's just kind of the cost of doing business.

And God had made provision for his people in the law, for the priest to receive the resources in ministry.

But Hoffney and Phineas, they're greedy and gluttonous.

And with as most sins and leadership failure stories, it still wasn't enough.

They lost their taste for boiled meat, the text tells us, and now they wanted their servant to go around before the people even had a chance to offer their sacrifices so that they could really get their favorite cut of meat, so that they could roast it, the text tells us.

So stealing pot roast wasn't enough for them.

Now they wanted the ribeye so that they could grill it.

Verse 16 says, if someone asked to at least wait, ask them to wait just so long enough for them to burn the fat off, to properly worship God and give their offering, they would say, No, give it to us now, or we will take it by force.

Leadership, forcibly taking what they want, making people suffer.

And that's the first warning about leadership we see today is that unfaithful leaders make people suffer.

There's three ways we see it here in the text.

They disrupt and they disrupt disrupt and distort proper worship, they're stealing from the people, and they begin to even use the people.

Like, how do we get here?

When you trace it back, you may discover somewhere along the line someone tolerated the warning signs.

Either purposefully overlooked them or complacently ignored them.

If you think about it, this happens in all kinds of spheres in our lives, right?

In our homes.

When people are dating and they get engaged, they will overlook some of those warning signs just so they can have that spouse, assuming that they can change them over time, or parents that might purposefully overlook some warning signs of unhealthy behaviors in their kids, thinking that they might just outgrow it.

Coaches on sports teams will be kind of overlooking bad qualities in athletes in order to get a win, or maybe in the workplace, bosses and supervisors kind of uh doing what will benefit them as a board and promoting people, little to no understanding of the ways that it will hurt employees with certain unhealthy leadership styles.

Or certainly we see it in politics all the time.

Almost seems like they can do whatever they want without restraint.

The question for you guys is what will you tolerate?

Because culture is what you tolerate.

Everyone in here, you have some sphere of influence.

You lead somewhere, either in your home or the workplace or in the church or in schools.

If you're a leader, it starts with you.

You you cannot tolerate behaviors that foster an environment for these sort of leaders to ascend and have increasing authority.

And all these spheres and workplaces and teams and homes, they're all important atmospheres, but we're now talking about the place of the worship of God.

Those who have been tasked with ministering to God's people, how do they get to a place where God's people, the church, begins to tolerate spiritual leaders that are inconsistent with God's word?

How do they get to a place where they become unaware of what to expect from their pastors or even grow accustomed to unfaithful pastors, tolerating spiritual leaders who do not have the spirit?

It's because leaders who were not qualified were established and began to distort proper worship.

And if you don't know God's word, then you don't know what to expect from the leadership.

Hafni and Phineas had made it custom to come and take what they wanted from the offerings.

They normalized sin.

But again, as we see with such things, it still wasn't enough.

Stealing from God wasn't enough for Hafni and Phineas.

Now they set their sights on God's people to satisfy themselves.

We pick this up in verse 22 of chapter 2.

It says, Now Eli was very old, and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing to all of Israel, and how they lay with the women who were serving at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

And he said to them, Why do you do such things?

For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people.

No, my sons, it is no good report that I hear that the people of the Lord spreading abroad.

So we see Hafni and Phineas are spiraling out of control.

Not only now are they making a mockery of worship, they're preventing and preventing God's people from properly worshiping Him.

Now they're preying on the women of the church.

Women who are serving at the entrance, maybe cleaning or organizing for worship activities, or even people like Hannah who came near to pray.

Spiritual leaders on the prowl, unrestrained, and now not only using people to satisfy their cravings for food, but now their cravings for sexual gratification.

And Eli's kind of weak rebuke here gives us maybe a little bit of idea of how they got to this place.

He says, Why do you do such things?

It's not a good report that I'm hearing from the people of the Lord.

Eli appears to be a poor leader at best, an unfaithful one at worst.

It appears that he has tolerated certain behaviors and allowed his sons to ascend to leadership.

You would think at this point, this would be the mark where Eli removes them from leadership that that would have been the play, but he doesn't do it.

In the same way, there are in churches where unfaithful pastors work, somewhere along the line, someone or some people, they tolerated the unfaithful behaviors and warning signs.

Maybe they they saw the warning signs, but they didn't see another way.

They just didn't have another candidate, or they came to believe that this guy's charisma on stage would be enough to get through, and maybe, you know, forgetting what the Bible says about the character of a pastor.

And it seems like that's not something that we would forget, right, as Christians.

But where do we learn about what a pastor is supposed to be?

What he's supposed to do.

It's from the Bible.

We just saw that in Titus.

What happens when a church begins to stop reading the Bible?

It's over time, all that's getting said are the verses that we remember.

Then all of a sudden those verses begin to start being used in a way that the Bible doesn't mean, and then within a generation, suddenly there's a man standing in the pulpit who doesn't open his Bible to preach because the church doesn't have an appetite for it.

There are churches all over Indiana that are operating like this.

They don't expect the pastor to open his Bible.

They don't even know that they don't have an appetite for God's word anymore.

It doesn't really take much for a church to put an unfaithful leader in the pulpit to lead them.

A few concessions here and there, a couple overlooking non-negotiables, and suddenly you've got scandal, harm, and worship lost.

Eli, the established priest in Shiloh.

We don't know how he got here.

The text doesn't tell us how they got here and how Hoffani and Phineas were in their childhood years, but likely all the signs were there that these men were not qualified for the position that they had, and yet a leader elevated them to that position anyway.

Listen, by God's grace, the field's church will always install qualified men, qualified leaders in this church who will never disqualify themselves from ministry because you are centered on God's word.

Because the ripple effect of a pastor being unfaithful and falling in ministry is so destructive.

Churches fracture, people abandon the faith, bitterness and anger emerges amongst disappointment, real harm done to real people.

So how do we avoid such things?

First, let me encourage you.

Always know what a pastor ought to look like and sound like.

You ought to see him living the word.

You should see him speaking or hear him speaking the word.

Paul says to follow me as I follow Christ.

Your pastors are saying, follow my example as I follow Christ.

And then, second, pray for your pastors.

Man, they need it.

We are all sinners, not living perfectly, but your pastors, they're praying and striving not to disqualify themselves, to live above reproach in such a way that it'll be, you have to work really hard to even like accuse a pastor of misconduct.

Not because he's intimidating or threatening, but because of the way he lives.

If married, loving his wife well, being sober-minded and self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, improving and practicing all the time on how to teach God's word.

Not a drunkard, gentle, not violent, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, managing his own household as an example, and being well thought of by outsiders, even unbelievers.

You can see really quick why your pastors need your prayers because it is a weighty thing to take on this task as noble as it is.

But here's the same thing.

At the same time, don't lower the bar.

Never lower the bar for a pastor.

That's where the danger begins.

Expect this from your leaders in your church.

Be shocked when you hear stories of pastors who are unfaithful.

It should be shocking.

It should be jarring because it isn't supposed to happen.

We never lower the standard because God doesn't.

Make no mistake, God will not be mocked.

That actually brings us to our second warning I see in this text is unfaithful leaders will answer to God.

For some of you, again, I don't know your past.

This might serve more as a comfort than a warning because maybe a leader who has been unfaithful and maybe harmed you in some way has not yet answered for their wrong.

But they will.

In Scripture, leadership sin carries greater weight because leadership sin carries wider harm.

James 3 tells us, not many of you should become teachers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

The harm is spreading wide in Shiloh.

But now we get this plot turn in the story because up to this point, Eli and his sons are being able to do what they want, and it seems like they're not really paying for it.

That's about to change.

First, Eli goes to his sons and he's trying to get them to stop what they're doing, and he kind of warns them.

He says, If someone, verse 25, if someone sins against a man, God will mediate for him.

But if someone sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him?

But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death.

For Hophne and Phinehas, they were too far gone.

They had sinned to the point of judgment.

God had given them over to their desires.

You think about Pharaoh in Exodus with the hardening of his heart and giving them over to his own desires.

Romans 1, Paul says, God gave them over to a debased mind, flawed and sinful thinking.

God telling these people, okay, fine, fine, your will be done.

So he handed Hoffani and Phineas over to their desires, and that should serve as a warning for us first and foremost.

Also should be terrifying for us.

Do not be fooled by the deceitfulness of sin.

Like this second point could have easily just been sin will destroy you.

Like if any of you are flirting around with sin and see how God's word right now is warning you through this text.

Sin will take you further than you ever wanted to go.

It'll keep you longer than you ever wanted to say.

And you will, in fact, pay a price way more than you expected to pay.

Quite simply, see how gracious God is right now.

Through his word, he's reminding you to repent from your sin and come to him.

But make no mistake, God will not be mocked.

We start to see that in verse 27.

A man of God comes to Eli and is a prophet, and he says, Thus says the Lord, that should get our attention because God is speaking, and he pronounces judgment on the house.

Of Eli.

And the text tells us that Eli honored his sons and their sin above the Lord, meaning he knew what was going on.

He knew what his sons were doing, and he preferred the status quo over doing what was right.

And so we see God's answer to Eli in verse 31.

Take a look.

Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father's house, so that there will not be an old man in your house.

Then in distress you will look with envious eye on all the prosperity that shall be bestowed on Israel, and there shall not be an old man in your house forever.

The only one of you whom I shall not cut off from my altar shall be spared to weep his eyes out and grieve his heart, and all the descendants of your house shall die by the sword of men, and this that shall come upon your two sons, Hophni and Phineas, shall be the sign to you.

Both of them shall die on the same day.

Later on in chapter three, we're told, God speaking to Eli, pronouncing judgment, that uh his sin will not be atoned for.

There's only judgment, there's no hope.

God is going to, literal translation, cut the arm off of Eli's house.

All of his descendants are going to be killed.

God does not lower the standard for leaders in the church.

For those who abuse their positions, for those that cause harm in the church, they will be called before the Creator to answer for how they steward their responsibility.

It does, in fact, cause damage.

It does hurt people, and it does hurt the church.

But we're also reminded that despite these failed leaders, the gates of hell will not prevail against the expansion of God's kingdom and his church.

Something's happening in the backdrop here throughout this story as it's unfolded.

And in verse 18, after just being told of what Hopni and Phineas are doing and how dark things have gotten, the camera moves for just a second in verse 18 to Samuel, and it says that Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy clothed in a linen ephod, a boy functioning as a priest.

One that gets our attention because a boy's functioning as a priest.

But something hopeful, that's a positive thing happening.

And then it goes back to Hopni and Phineas and Eli again and negative over and over again.

But then all of a sudden in verse 26, we see now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and also with man.

This is where we see our third point today that assures us in the midst of really dark days, God preserves us through his word.

Perhaps you really know this story well, or you've been kind of reading ahead and you've kind of picked it up on to on to this at this point that there have been little short reminders of this hope that we have in Samuel that we're seeing in the text.

But now the camera zooms in and time really slows down a bit in this moment for Samuel.

We get a good look at what's going on in his life.

Check out chapter 3, verses 1 through 3.

It says, Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli, and the word of the Lord was rare in those days.

There was no frequent vision.

At that time, Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place.

The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was.

So in those days, there was largely silence from God.

No frequent vision, very few, thus says the Lord, moments.

And the Bible regularly uses the description of physical ailments to describe spiritual realities.

So for not for Eli, he's not only old and blind physically, it's describing him as spiritually blind as well.

Literally dark and spiritually dark.

But I think the author here does something in verse 3 that we should note.

Says that the lamp of God had not yet gone out.

The author could have simply said it was nighttime, but instead kind of points us back to the flame that's burning from sundown to sunup in the temple as a means of telling us it was nighttime and they were asleep.

I think the author does this to remind us that despite the spiritual darkness, God's light still burns in the darkness.

As dim as it may seem, there's still light.

It had not gone out.

So we get to see this account of God calling out to Samuel in the temple at Shiloh.

And it's revealed in this call that God was preserving his people.

He calls Samuel, it tells us in verse 19, and that the Lord was with him, and that none of his words would fall to the ground.

And so all of Israel knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord.

And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh.

For the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh.

How'd he do it?

Right there at the end of verse or chapter 3.

By the word of the Lord.

God preserves his people through his word.

It's a little bit confusing because Samuel seemed to be being called as a priest, right?

He was left at the temple as a young boy wearing an ephod, looking like a priest, certainly, and functioning in some ways as a priest, when the ones that, in the absence of faithful priests.

We're also told here that he's established as a prophet.

And if you read more of 1 Samuel, you'll note that Samuel actually functions a lot like a judge, like a king.

So we see Samuel as a prophet, priest, and king in 1 Samuel.

If you go all the way back to verse 35 in chapter 2, I skipped over.

I want to come back to this because we don't want to miss this.

As judgments being pronounced on Eli's house, God says this, and I will raise up for myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind, and I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever.

Like Samuel's been introduced as a pretty special person, born kind of miraculously to a barren woman, contrasted against very poor leadership of Eli and his worthless sons.

But especially as Samuel starts to appear, he is just a man, which means he will do nothing forever.

So Samuel may be the immediate partial fulfillment of what God's word here, but Hebrews 2 actually clues us in on that God's, what God's word is saying in 1 Samuel is pointing us to a greater and ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

Listen to this from Hebrews 2, verse 17.

Hebrews 2:17

Therefore he, being Jesus, used to be, or had to be made like his brothers and like us in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful priest.

And if Hebrews isn't enough, the Gospel of Luke picks up on this theme in Samuel, shows us that Samuel was just a preview of what would come.

You see in this story, a boy born to a woman particularly blessed in Hannah.

You think of Luke chapter 1, verse 28, Gabriel says to Mary, Greetings, O favored One, the Lord is with you.

Luke 1:28

Samuel born pretty miraculously to a barren woman, Jesus born miraculously to a virgin.

Got two boys that are left at a temple, Samuel on purpose.

Mary and Joseph left Jesus behind on accident.

But both stayed at the temple.

In verse 26 of chapter 2, it says that Samuel grew in the stature and wisdom and favor with God and man.

Luke 3.52 says Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

We have Samuel as this prophet, priest, and judge.

We look at Jesus, who is the faithful priest that God raises up.

We look to Jesus, who is the faithful prophet, who speaks the word of God because he is God.

We look at Jesus, who's the faithful judge, who is king over all, and he has declared judgment because he did all that was in the heart and the mind of the Father.

Samuel was used to restore his people.

Jesus was our sacrifice once and for all to restore us to God.

1 Samuel, we see unfaithful leaders outside the temple.

And they fork, or they pierce their forks into the meat offerings, they pridefully overpower the people to serve themselves.

We look to the gospel, we look to Jesus, and we see unfaithful leaders in the temple.

It looked pretty dark in that moment, guys.

The Messiah killed, but the lamp of God had not yet gone out.

Jesus rose three days later, revealing that Jesus is our perfect prophet, priest, and king.

Guys, no matter how dark it may seem, when things feel really hopeless, maybe even in your own life and in your home, things are kind of just so out of control, and you're really afraid to even try to bring that out into the public, into your church family.

Remember that the lamp of God has not gone out.

Guys, Jesus doesn't make people suffer.

He suffered in our place.

Jesus answered to God for us, taking on the punishment that we deserved.

God preserved us through his son, Jesus.

The word that became flesh.

Leaders in this life, they're they're gonna fail us.

People are gonna fail us.

We know that, and it hurts.

But we don't lose hope.

Because we know that Jesus is a leader that we can trust and that he will never fail us.

Let's pray.