40 Days in the Word: 1 Samuel | Feb 22 2026 (Part 2)

Once you turn with me in your Bibles to the Book of First

Samuel. Book of First Samuel, If you

don't know where that is, I think it's coming up there on

the screen. You can make your way there.

I heard there was like a hockey game or something going on

today, is that right? Did I hear that right?

You are here. Well done.

Like I'm serious, right? This is what worship is called.

Great sacrifices need to be made for worship.

Was talking to someone yesterday at the celebration of life

service saying, you know, super big hockey fan saying they gave

up cable last year and now they don't have to come to church.

But you know, this is an act. This is an act of worship.

So well done that you were here. Last week we began our Lenten

series on the book of First Samuel, and I think we're off to

a great start. Wednesday was the beginning of

Lent. And so as Deb was mentioning,

these journals were given out and they are free.

And there's still some left in the form if you'd like to take

one. This will walk us through not

just how to read first, like encouraging us to read First

Samuel daily, just a little bit daily over the next 40 days, but

also to reflect on the word and to engage that word.

How do we get ready to read the word?

How do we, how do we, how do we read it?

And then how do we respond to that word?

So I'm encouraging everybody to, to do a little bit of time every

day in God's Word as we walk through the book of First

Samuel. If you have not started, if you

missed the Wednesday start, no problem.

Just start fresh today. Don't even try to go back and

catch up. Don't do that.

Just start today and move on. And if you want to come back to

it, I bet after you've read First Samuel, you're going to

want to go back to the beginning.

Well, it's just an awesome book. This is an awesome book.

I'm so glad that you're here because the, the word, the the

message and the, and the passage that we're gonna look at today

has just been gripping me and and I hope that it's going to be

gripping you as well. The book of her Sammy was said

last week is an account of Israel's history in a very dark

time is the time of the judges where there was no king and

everyone did what they saw fit. What was right in my eyes,

that's what I will do. And it was absolute chaos,

absolutely devastating. And so in chapter 1, in the

context of this, we hear the story of Hannah's account of

Hannahs life. And Hannah is barren.

She can't have children and she is distraught because she's

being mocked and no one's understanding her and she is

desperate and crying out to God. In fact, she makes a vow to the

Lord. Lord, if you give me a child, if

you give me a son, I will give him back to you.

How many vows have we made? God, if you'll just Get Me Out

of this pinch, I'll do this, this and this.

But she was very specific. I will give this child back to

you. Well, she gets pregnant, God

answers her prayer. She pours out her heart to the

Lord, answers the prayer. She has a son and she literally

does after he is weaned about 3 or 4 years old, gives him over

to the House of Shiloh under the priest Eli.

Eli the priest to minister there.

It's Deb was is referring to in the children's message.

Wild, wild story. And then in chapter 2 she breaks

out into song. And the song is not about

thanking God for a child, even though she was very grateful,

but a song of worship of it's a hymn of praise for the

sovereignty of God who is up to doing things not just in my

life, but in the world. Like this is what God does.

He meets each one of us in our weakness, in our incapability,

And he does, and he shows his strength and he brings about

good things, all for his good purposes, all for our good.

But this is the kind of God that we worship, no matter how bleak

things look in life. And things looked very bleak

right here. God is always at work working

behind the scenes and doing many miracles, many miracles.

And we want to be attuned to those things.

So in verse 11 of chapter 2, it says then Elkanah went home to

Rama. So Elkanah is is Samuel's father

and his wife. But the boy that is Samuel

ministered before the Lord under Eli, the priest.

That's where we left off. So now we're heading into verse

12. Everybody ready?

Are you with me? You geared up, father.

Thank you for this gift that You've given to us in Your Holy

Word. Speak Lord for your servants or

listen in Jesus name. Amen.

First Samuel chapter 2, verse 12.

1 Samuel 2:12

Elie's sons were scoundrels. Wicked, disobedient, Dishonored.

And they had. They had no regard for the Lord.

Just pause there for a second. No regard for the Lord.

Something translations may have a literal ESD.

Literally, it means they did not know the Lord, They didn't know

the law. They knew about God, but they

didn't know God. They weren't in awe of who God

was. They weren't delighting in who

God was, and as a result, they weren't.

They had no regard for Him. Totally messed up their

ministry. Interesting that the priests

didn't know didn't know the Lord and yet there were there were

there were set in place to teach people about the Lord.

So dismal situation going on there.

Verse 13. Now it was the practice of the

priests that whenever any of the people offered to sacrifice, the

priest servant would come with a three pronged fork in his hand

while the meat was being boiled, and would plunge the fork into

the pan or kettle, or cauldron or pot.

Whatever the fork brought up, the priest would take for

himself. This is how they treated all the

Israelites who came to Shiloh. But even before the fat was

burned, the priests servant would come and say to the person

who was sacrificing, give the priest some meat to roast.

He won't accept boiled meat from you, but only raw.

And if the person said to him, let the fat be burned first and

then take whatever you want, the servant would answer no, hand it

over now. If you don't, I'll take it by

force. It's a great ministry going on

there. This sin of the young men, Eli

Sons was very great in the Lord's sight, for they were

treating the Lord's offering with contempt.

OK, what? What's what's going on here?

Interesting scene. So it says here that this is

this was the practice of the priests.

It's not saying that this is what was required in the law.

In fact, if we go back to Leviticus Chapter 7, we will see

Leviticus 7 · chapter mention

what's required of the law in the law.

So we talked last week a little bit about fellowship offerings

that were were given. An animal was presented and a a

part of portion of that animal is burned.

The choicest parts are burned. The fat parts are burned before

the Lord. They're given to the Lord.

Another portion is given to the priests in order to provide for

them and their service. And then another portion was

actually eaten by the family that that was offering this.

So they sit down to a feast, have a BBQ, you know, let's,

let's enjoy this together, be in the presence of God.

Well, the priest would have received.

So in Abicus Chapter 7 it says the priest gets the breast and

the thigh. They would have got that here,

but they wanted more. So they had Mr. Fork Man come

and he's plunging his fork into the pots, taking whatever would

come out. That was totally on top of what

they were expected. What what what they should have

been receiving. It's like little greedy guts,

right? But that you know, it even gets

worse than that because now they're saying, no, give us the

portions we're going to take the portions that have the fat still

on them, which was meant to be burnt before the Lord was a

pleasing aroma to God. They were taking what was

rightfully gods for themselves. So completely displacing God,

Total disregard for him. Horrible situation.

And then in verse 22, let's see here, verse 17 here where see,

see here. Yeah.

And then verse 22, it says that later on coming that they're

sleeping with the women who are serving outside the tent of

meeting. So in the very sacred place here

is we have sexual immorality going on like it was.

It was horrific. It says in verse 17, This sin of

the young men was very great in the Lord's sight, for they were

treating the Lord's offering with contempt.

You know, it's often said, you know, sin is sin.

All sin is the same, but it, it isn't really.

It's the same in the sense that all sin is a result of our lack

of trust in God, our refusal or, or, or, or or or failure to

trust God, and all sin ultimately, even if I sin

against you, Madeline, I'm actually sinning against God who

created you in his image. But there are some sins that are

worse than others in the sense that there's greater

consequences, there's greater weight to it.

And these guys in particular were completely disregarding

God's like to his face and to God.

This was great. This was a great sin and it

needed to be needed to be dealt with.

So we'll move on. Verse 18 A little bright moment,

but Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing a

linen ephod. Each year his mother made him a

little robe and took it to him. When she went up with her

husband to offer the annual sacrifice.

Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, saying, May the Lord give

you children by this woman to take the place of the one she

prayed for and gave to the Lord. Then they would go home, and the

Lord was gracious to Hannah. She gave birth to three sons and

two daughters. Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew

up in the presence of the Lord. See this contrast going on

between the selfless devotion of Hannah and her family, and then

the self indulgence of the priest.

Complete contrast there. And so in the middle of the

darkness of what is going on in the in the presence of God with

the sons of Eli, we have this that the kindness of God being

shown in the midst of it. That's what happens.

There's so much darkness in the world, so much darkness

surrounding us in our lives. And yet the kindness of God is

just this ongoing thread that holds everything together.

Here we have a mother who has made a little robe for her son.

Like seriously, a little robe? Don't you love that?

The pitch of that? He's like a little a little baby

priest, right? He he's ready to serve, which I

mean, the point that that Debs making is perfectly right.

Like, we are never too young to serve the Lord.

Remember Jacob, you know, how old were you, Jacob, when you

were playing bongos? Like in the early days of Forest

Field when we were in the senior centre, not very many people

were out for the worship team. And Jacob, I think, what, four

or five years old maybe at the most, playing bongos.

He was our drummer and he was gifted with the beat.

Like obviously right? Very talented, but using his

gifts early on any young, I guess most of the young people

are out, but we we need to encourage our young people,

right? Serve in the Lord at whatever

age, right? So God takes this very, very

seriously. But there's a blessing in store

for Hannah. So Eli prays a blessing over

Hannah and Elkanah, and she gives birth to three more sons

and two daughters. Like Elkanah is just shaking his

head. I didn't have to marry Penina.

Like I didn't have to marry a second wife, right?

God was gonna provide, but what a blessing and it and it tells

us a lot, right? Like there was a sacrifice,

obviously. Like, think about Hannah, after

all of what she went through and finally getting a son of her

own, she gives him over to the Lord.

That's a humongous sacrifice, but God, you know, he is he is

never one to make us feel like we're getting shortchanged

because he is every sacrifice we make, he's going to he's going

to match it right. Remember GAIL very she actually,

she continues to say it ongoing that when we first became

Christians, it felt like everything was sacrificed.

We were giving up so much because our lifestyle was over

here and now we're giving that that and we're going here.

It was a great sacrifice, but she would proclaim, continues to

proclaim, like I never knew that we would receive so much, so

much blessing again and again and again.

You know, Jesus, you know, even speaks about this in Mark

Mark 10 · chapter mention

chapter 10. He says, truly, I tell you, no

one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or

father or children or fields for me in the Gospel will fail to

receive 100 times as much in this present age.

Like Jesus is not promising Christians at an easy life.

But if you give up something, I'm going to give it back to you

in spades. It may not come in exactly the

same way, but you will be blessed.

And Hannah knew this. And we see this so beautifully

presented here in the middle of chapter 2, verse 22.

Keep moving on. Now Eli, who was very old, heard

about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they

slept with the women who were Sir who had who served at the

entrance to the tent of meeting. So he said to them, sitting his

boys down. Why do you do such things?

I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours.

No, my sons, the report I I hear spreading among God's people,

the Lord's people, is not good. If one person sins against

another, God may mediate for the offender.

But if anyone sins against the Lord, who will intercede for

them? Great argument.

His sons, however, did not listen to their Father's rebuke.

Absolutely No Fear of God whatsoever, for it was the

Lord's will to put them to death.

There's 26. And the boy, Samuel, continued

to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with people.

Here's Eli hearing all these rumours.

He knows his sons, right? He raised his sons and he's

sitting them down and he's giving them a harsh word, a

strong word, a rebuke, but they're not listen.

They're not listening at all. And and I think that it's really

easy for us to kind of fly over verse 25 here, listen to this.

So it's easy to read it like, OK, so here, you know, because

they did not listen to Elie's rebuke, then the Lord determined

to to put them to death. But that's not what it says.

This sense, however, did not listen to their father's rebuke.

For it's an important word. For there could also be

translated, because it was the Lord's will to put them to

death. Here they are going about doing

things as they see fit, complete disregard for God.

They have hardened their heart to our God, and now God has

determined to put them to death. And because of that

determination, because of that, they would not listen to their

Father. There is a hardening that goes

on in the human heart when we continue to resist God.

But Scripture also speaks about a hardening that God does to the

human heart. It's almost like God is saying,

OK, is that what you want? I'm going to add to it.

I'm going to give you more of what you want so that they're in

the place where I'm not even going to listen to any sound

teaching. I'm not even gonna listen to

wisdom. I'm not gonna listen to a

rebuke. I'm not gonna repent.

There's a point in which there's no return, and that's what's

being described here. And the reason why I want to

just pause here is because we have a glimpse of the holiness

of God that we need to let percolate in our minds and our

hearts. We need to, we need to

experience the gravity of a verse like this and say, I don't

want to go anywhere near this. I want to honor the Lord Dale

Davis. I liked how he he, he speaks

about this verse. He was, he's saying that that we

have to be very careful about how we respond to a verse like

this, that we can approach it in a very critical way, in the

sense of saying God, you're not very kind.

I remember growing up thinking, you know, I just thinking God

wasn't very nice. I don't know how I came to that

conclusion, but I thought I'm nicer than God.

I'm a much better person than God is.

I mean, think about the arrogance of that.

But anyway, there there there's a there's a, there's a way to

approach a verse like this and say, well, God's not very kind

and we can be critical of him for what he's doing.

But there's on the on the other side, Davis was mentioning that

there's a there's a there's an intellectual curiosity,

curiosity that can drive us as well, insane.

At what point would God harden somebody's heart?

Where where is that? Like, technically speaking,

there's talk about the technicalities of hardening.

You know, a lot of theologians will get it, you know, spend

expend a lot of energy and time trying to figure this out.

And Davis is saying don't go on either one of those directions.

They're just wrong. It's not our place to question

or to comprehend all of what God is about.

We're to tremble before a holy God.

We need to acknowledge Him for who He is, our Creator, who is

not harsh but His kind and merciful.

All of this is God's mercy towards His people.

This is unfolding here. So in verse 27 to 26, we're not

going to read all of this, but the rebuke extends to Eli.

There's a man of God that says in verse 27 who comes to see Eli

and said to him, this is what the Lord says.

So Eli, the father of the two boys, the priests, he's going to

be called under the carpet here for not restraining his boys.

And the way that the prophet speaks.

So this is God speaking to Eli. The word of God coming into the

middle of this scene is you've got it so good.

The priest, you and the the priests or the your, your

ancestors. You've had it so good.

I've revealed myself to you and I've chosen you and I.

I provided for you so much all of what you need and more.

So then verse 29 he says this. Why do you scorn my sacrifice

and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling?

Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves

on the choice parts of every offering made by my people,

Israel? There's a lot to this sentence.

I just want to hone in on this one statement where God says to

him, Why do you honor your sons more than me?

Why do you honour your sons more than me?

Eli had a love for God, but he loved his sons more.

He honored God with his life. He was a priest, but he honored

his sons more. He was not willing.

He was unwilling to say what needed to be said, to actually

do what needed to be done. He said what needed to be said

at this point, but he didn't follow through on it.

Now, he may not have been able to stop them from committing all

kinds of immorality, but he still could have removed them

from doing it as priests. And this is what he was being

confronted about. You honored your sons.

You weren't willing to say no, this is not going any further.

It wasn't willing to do that. He loved his sons too much,

loved his sons too much. We can love our children too

much. Too much means that we're loving

them over. We're loving the Lord.

We can honor other people more than we can honor the Lord, and

that ends in so much trouble. So much trouble.

And so there's an invasion of God's Word.

God is speaking directly to the situation, and he's going to do

something about it. This is what God does with his

Word because it's not saying, OK, I'm just gonna let this go.

I'm gonna fold my hands, I'm gonna pout and I'm be frustrated

or whatever. Know God is gonna move into the

middle of it and start bringing the healing that He brings.

Isaiah 55 speaks of God's word, says as the rain and the snow

come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering

the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed

for the sower and bread for the eaters, so is my word that goes

out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose

for which I sent it. God is speaking His Word and

it's gonna do something. Now he's he's cleaning house,

he's confronting where it needs to confront.

Why? In order to make us miserable.

Know the exact opposite. He wants to bring life.

Verse 12, Isaiah 55. Here's the result.

You will go out and joy and be led forth in peace.

The mountains and hills will burst into song before you and

all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

Talk about a massive celebration.

God speaks His word of life and this word that He spoke even to

Eli, it seems like a harsh word, but it's a loving word.

It is a merciful word. It is a protective word.

This is what God's Word does, and each one of us needs to hear

it on a regular basis. Let the Word of God cleanse us,

wash us, confront us, hold us, comfort us, direct us,

strengthen us. That's what the Word of God is

meant to do. Well, this word ends with the

greatest word of hope here in verse 35, God.

So God's God is going to remove Eli and his sons and all their

upcoming, all those who would, who would come after them,

remove them from their service as priests.

But he says in verse 35, the Lord says, I will raise up for

myself a faithful priest who will do according to what is in

my heart and mind. I will firmly establish his

priestly house and they will minister before my anointed one

always. Who's that faithful priest?

Could be Samuel. Immediate context, even though

Samuel was really a prophet. Could be Zadok, who was

established just after David had passed away.

But ultimately it's pointing to Jesus Christ.

And this is what we read in in Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 2 verse

Hebrews 2:17

17. It says for this reason, he,

that is Jesus, had to be made like them, that is like us,

fully human in every way, in order that he might become a

merciful and faithful high priest in service to God and

that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

Jesus is the faithful high priest and he's going to come

and make everything right. He is the one that has been

provided for us by the Lord human being so we can represent

us before God and also God who can bear the weight of the

judgment that we deserve for all of our sins.

So that all who put their trust in Him will be cleansed, will be

forgiven and will be strengthened to move on.

So strengthen our wobbly knees and continue to walk faithfully.

I want to, I want to leave you with three things that closes

this message that we need to do in response to this number one,

never despair. Never despair.

Hold your head up high. God is in charge.

All hell may be breaking loose, but God is working even in the

midst of the darkness, no matter how dark things are looking.

This text is giving continual reminders to us in the middle of

the dark, as I call this the the Sammy sandwich, the Sammy, Sammy

Samuel sandwich, all of the darkness that is spoken of and

of the Elis sons. You have these, these

sprinklings of, of Samuel in the middle of it, right, beginning

there in verse 11 and then and then on again to verse 18 and

then again in verse 26. And then even at the beginning

of, of chapter 3, these little glimpses how bad things are

looking in Israel. But then there's Samuel and God

is raising up Samuel in answer to the prayers of his people.

He's going to bring about something that's good.

And these, these sections that speak of Samuel, they're just

not, they're not filler. You know, sometimes, you know,

the, the way that, you know, good movie makers will have an

intense, super intense scene and then they'll lighten it up,

maybe even bring a little humor because we can't handle this

kind of intensity, right? And so it, it's just, it's all

about carrying the intensity over.

That's what this is about. This is about God instilling

hope to us in the middle of dark times when things are looking so

bad. You know, when you look self of

the border, you think of what's Trump doing or you think of the

Middle East and we get anxious about what's happening in the

Middle East or even look at, you know, our own government, what's

going on? You know, as Christians, how are

we going to do this right? Even if we look within our own

church, the Church of Jesus Christ, when leaders fall and we

it's so easy to lose hope. We can know that even in the

church, like judgment begins with the House of God, like God,

it's cleaning house. God is doing his thing.

And I think we need to get a little bit more in tune for

looking for not just dramatic signs of God at work, but even

in the little things, the quiet things, because in the midst of

all this, it's going on quietly. Samuel is being developed as a

priest and the trajectory of Israel is going to shift.

Same for us #2 so never despair #2 Honor no one above Yahweh.

I think that's a pretty, maybe a pretty obvious take away, but

Eli honored his sons more than he honored Yahweh.

He went easy on his sons, and there's a result.

There were major consequences not just for them, but for all

of Israel. So I think, OK, is there a

parenting lesson here? There's there's gotta be a

parenting lesson in here somewhere, right?

Think about it, Hannah valued God more than her son and as a

result she did what was best for her son and she was blessed and

so was He. Flip side, Eli honored his sons

more than God and as a result he was not willing to do what was

best for his sons. It's funny how that works, huh?

When our loves are out of order, life gets messed up.

We can say I love my children, I love my children, I love my

children, but we can love our children too much, as we said,

and the consequences can be incredibly dire.

We can be afraid to say no to our kids.

We'll do everything OK, you know, to try to divert their

attention or, or maybe we will, you know, try to say it lightly

or to try to change the topic or whatever you might do.

Our children really do need to be learned, learn that there are

limits to things and that no is a good word.

It's a good word, right? Elie's sons.

How would they have turned out if they learned no early on?

They just had more and more freedom.

They were never held to account and looked at where things took

them. Sometimes it's it's as parents,

we need to lay down the law. Now, I'm not talking about being

a harsh parent. This is, this is part of love,

right? We want to be gentle with our

kids, but we can be firm while we're gentle.

We can't let our children dictate our calendars.

We can't let our children dictate the agenda of our

families because we love our kids.

We feel like, oh, we can't deprive them of this activity

and this and this and this. Yeah, we can.

We, we, we, we have to, we have to put limits there in order

that they would learn to love the Lord, to honor the Lord,

that there's some things that are more important than other

things in this world. And so those limits are very

important for us to discern as parents.

You know, Hannah, Hannah gave her son to the Lord.

And even though we're likely not gonna be doing the same thing,

I, I don't want your 3 to 4 year old child serving here without

you here, OK? And you would break all of our

P2P policies, right? It's just not going to work.

But there is something about what she did that is for every

parent, and that is to give over our child to the Lord.

And it's only as we do that, it's only when we honor the Lord

over our children, that we'll have the capacity to say what

needs to be said to them, not worry about the fallout, and do

what needs to be done for them, truly loving them.

It's it's that that is the only way God is setting us, giving us

a reset there, giving them over. I would say the same thing goes

with just in our relationships outside of family, just

relationships with people. Sometimes we can value others

more than we value God. And as a result, when we do

that, we will make compromises in our faith in order to please

other people. And then we hear these lies.

OK, if I if I draw the line here, I might lose this guy or I

might lose this girl. I may never get another one.

That's just the lies of the enemy.

Or if I draw the line, if I say something here, if I don't enter

into this, these kind of activities, I'm not going to be

accepted, I'm not going to be respected.

Those are just lies of the other one.

And we need to stand up firm and say I'm going to honor God first

over other people, over all my other fears.

And does he bless? This is the message.

This is the message of this text.

God will bless. He will meet us and comfort us

because He is a kind and holy God.

Last thing, last one. Since God knows best, does he

know best? He he knows best.

Let his words speak. That's the other thing that I

pull from this passage. We need to expose ourself daily

to the Word of God. I look at my own life and I

think my resistance to reading and and pondering the Word.

And this is not just about my short sightedness.

There's just not a very wise thing to do.

But it's more arrogance to think that I could do my life better.

I mean, that's what that's how I stumbled into the Kingdom is

realizing I don't know how to lead my life.

And one of the the the first admissions for CR is I don't

know how to manage my life. I can't manage my life.

I need help from above and that continues to filter through in

our lives. We we need to acknowledge that

and our failure to acknowledge that God knows better and that I

need course corrections is going to do me in in the end.

And so we need a daily break in of the Word of God.

Literally. We need to open up and let the

Word of God break in and speak to me.

What I need to hear. Most of it is just going to warm

my heart. Some of it is going to confront

those places in my heart that need to be confronted.

Why? So that I will burst out into

joy and the and the trees will clap their hands.

It's all for our good. It is all for our good.

The Word of God living and active, sharper than any double

edged sword going to penetrate even dividing soul and spirit

joints and marrow, judging the thoughts and attitudes of the

heart. That's what it does and we need

to continue to open ourselves up on a daily basis.

So I encourage us all continue to read and, and, and Samuel

reflect on those words and let God speak to us and make us come

alive. Let's pray.

Gracious Father in Heaven, thank you for words like this, harsh

as they may sound, yet merciful in the end.

Lord, thank You that you care enough about us that you would

speak and that you would move, and that you would act on our

behalf in this way. Will continue to teach us and

walk us through this life that we may honor you and experience

the joy that you have intended, trusting you in it all.

Burts in Jesus name we pray. Hey, man.