The Sons of Eli SEPTEMBER 13, 2026 Pastor Steven L. Anderson

Man, this evening I'm preaching on the subject of the sons of Eli, and we're first introduced

to the sons of Eli in 1 Samuel chapter 1, and we kind of see the story of the sons of Eli

1 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

alongside of the story of young Samuel growing up and becoming a great man of God.

And really the sons of Eli are there just going the exact opposite direction, just

super wicked, reprobates, evil people.

So in 1 Samuel chapter 1, we have the story about Samuel's parents and how his

1 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

mother can't have a child, and it says in verse number 3, this is talking about

Samuel's father, this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to

sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh, and the two sons of Eli,

Hophni and Phineas, the priests of the Lord, were there.

So these two sons of Eli are really the two guys who are in the most important

positions imaginable in the house of God.

I mean, these two guys are running the house of God.

They're the main priests at that time because Eli is their dad.

He's the high priest, but he's older.

And so Hophni and Phineas are the ones who are pretty much doing it on a daily basis.

Now go to chapter 2 verse 12, and we're going to find out some of the

problems with the sons of Eli.

What are some of their major sins?

It says in verse number 12, now the sons of Eli were sons of

Belial. They knew not the Lord.

That's just a way of saying, number one, they're not saved.

When it says they don't know the Lord, it's saying that they're unsaved.

And when it says that they are sons of Belial, it is saying that they are

reprobates.

Sons of the devil is what that means.

Belial is noticeably in capital letters.

And this is a word used to refer to Satan or the devil.

Belial, Belial, Belial, Belial is above.

We're talking about the devil.

They're sons of the devil.

Now there's some people out there who just think, oh, every unsaved person

is a son of the devil.

That is false.

That's not true.

We're all sons of Adam.

We're all children of disobedience.

We're all children of wrath before we get saved.

But we're not sons of the devil.

These are people that are reprobates, like the Bible talks about

the Pharisees and the scribes.

They would come past see and land to make one proselyte.

And when he is made, they would make him twofold more

the child of hell as themselves.

And so the sons of Belial are reprobates,

meaning that they're just doomed.

They're super wicked.

They're not gonna get saved.

It's too late for them.

They're reprobates.

They're rejected.

So it says that they're sons of Belial.

They knew not the Lord.

And then it says in verse 13, the priest custom

with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice,

the priest's servant came while the flesh was in seething

with a flesh hook of three teeth in his hand.

And he struck it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot.

All that the flesh had brought up,

the priest took for himself.

So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites

that came thither.

Also, before they burnt the fat,

the priest's servant came and said to the man

that sacrificed, give flesh to roast for the priest,

for he will not have sodden flesh of thee but raw.

And if any man said unto him,

let them not fail to burn the fat presently

and then take as much as thy soul desireeth.

Then he would answer him, nay, but thou shalt give it me now.

And if not, I'll take it by force.

So what's going on here is that

the priests are getting greedy, right?

God has a certain law about the priests

that they're supposed to get fed

from the offerings of the Lord, right?

And God's not trying to muzzle the ox here.

The workman is worthy of his meat.

The labor is worthy of his hire.

The priests are supposed to be able to get the food

and the bounty and everything that they need

to keep the work going,

but these guys are just getting greedy.

And so what they're supposed to do

is burn off the fat unto the Lord.

They're supposed to sieve the meat.

It's supposed to be sodden or boiled or cooked

in such a way where the fat is burned off unto the Lord

because the blood thereof and the fat thereof,

they're not supposed to be eating.

That stuff is offered in sacrifice unto the Lord.

Now, I don't wanna go into a big, long dissertation on this,

but just to give you the basic idea,

when animal sacrifices are made in the Old Testament,

the parts of the animal, like the fat and the organs

and those type of things,

are offered as a sacrifice upon the altar.

And then the meat, the edible part of the animal

is given to the priests and the priests are gonna eat that.

There are certain parts of it that are holy unto the Lord

and certain parts of it that are for human consumption.

Now, sometimes they'll do what's called

the whole burnt offering.

That's what the King James Bible calls it.

This is also known as holocaust,

or in Spanish it'll be holocausto.

And so the holocaust or the whole burnt offering

is when they just take the whole animal

and just burn the whole thing

and they don't eat any of it, right?

All of it is just offered in sacrifice to the Lord.

But that's not the typical offering.

Typical offering involves meat that is eaten

by the priests and possibly by others.

And so the point here is that these guys,

they're like, well, no, we don't just want meat here.

We wanna have a party in our mouth.

We want those fatty cuts of meat.

We wanna put this on the barbecue

and we wanna saute this or fry it up in a way

where we can basically get this fatty meat

because let's face it, the fat of the meat

can sometimes give the most flavor, right?

And so they're wanting a party in their mouth

even in violation of God's word.

So the point is that, yeah, God wants us

to get the food that we need.

God wants his servants to be paid.

It's biblical for pastors to be paid in the New Testament.

It is biblical in the Old Testament

for the priests to live off the sacrifices.

But at the end of the day, human nature is such

that people often get greedy and you'll have pastors

just getting these insane salaries

and just living in giant mansions

and having all their mansions

and private jets and things

and just getting greedy and just going overboard.

Instead of just the workmen being worthy of his reward

or the elders that were well

being counted worthy of double honor,

it just becomes just this obscene level

of wealth and lavish luxury.

Look, these guys have everything they need.

The priests are supposed to get the offerings,

but no, no, no, they just want

the fattiest, choicest cuts of the meat

and they really are just gluttonous

and greedy is what it comes down to.

And then the problem is, the people,

they know what the Bible says.

So they're barking at this when they're saying,

hey, we want the raw meat.

We don't want the sod meat.

Then the people are saying,

hey, why don't we let them burn off the fat presently,

then take as much as you want?

So the people here know what the Bible says.

And then the priest servant basically just threatens them

and says, hey, shut up and give me what I want

or I'm just gonna take it by force.

And so this causes people to despise the church

and despise the offering of the Lord.

Look at verse number 17,

wherefore the sin of the young men was very great

before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord.

Now look, obviously all sin is bad.

All sin is abhorrent unto the Lord.

But at the end of the day though,

when God's house becomes a day of iniquity,

this is especially offensive to God

because it causes people to hate the church

or despise going to church.

I mean, it's hard to go to church with a good attitude

if you knew that people are stealing money

and that people are just defying God

and disobeying the Bible

and that the staff is corrupt and evil.

You're not gonna have a good attitude about going to church.

You might even just get out of church.

And this is a stumbling block for a lot of people.

And that's why the Bible talks about false prophets

in 2 Peter chapter two, how they creep in unawares

and because of their covetous practices,

they'll make merchandise of you.

And then it says,

many will follow their pernicious ways

by reason of whom the way of truth

will be evil spoken of, right?

It just gives Christianity a bad name.

It gives church a bad name.

And this obviously is very displeased into God

when now people are mad at church,

they don't wanna even give offerings to the Lord

because of what these people are doing.

So the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord.

So you might think to yourself, well, this is not a big sin.

You might think like, well, murder is a big sin.

Adultery is a big sin.

Stealing is a big sin or whatever.

But here's the thing, to God,

God's looking down at this and saying,

this is a major, major sin

because it is causing people to abhor the offering of the Lord.

And so I would say that misappropriating church funds

is a pretty big sin

if it's gonna cause people to abhor the offering of the Lord

and people are not gonna have confidence

and people are not gonna wanna give

if the money is being squandered

and used on wicked things, okay?

So it's important that we understand

that they are in direct violation of the Bible here

in such a way that is offending people

and causing people to abhor the offering of the Lord.

This is a big deal in the eyes of God.

So it says in verse 18,

but Samuel ministered before the Lord,

being a child, girded with a linen e-pod.

And what you're gonna see is that there's constantly

like a back and forth between the sons of Eli

that are just these evil, wicked thieves and reprobates

and then the good boy Samuel

who's just growing up and right with God

and so forth, there'll constantly be a back and forth

between those two.

Now jump down to verse 22.

It says, now Eli was very old

and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel

and how they lay with the women

that assembled at the door of the tabernacle

of the congregation.

Now look, of course, this goes hand in hand.

If you're gonna be greedy in one area of life,

you're probably gonna end up being greedy

in another area of life.

If you're willing to cross these major lines

spiritually over here,

you'll probably cross them over here as well.

So is it any wonder that the same people

that are gonna be stealing from the offering played

or stealing from the church,

misappropriating funds, robbing the offerings of God

are the same people that are gonna be out there

committing fornication and adultery, right?

Because obviously they're wicked

and so they're not living within the bounds

of God's word and people are greedy

and saying, hey, I'm just gonna gratify my flesh

in one area.

You know, they're probably gonna be willing

to gratify it in another area too.

And by the way, this is why all of us

need to take the apostle Paul's advice

and keep under our body and bring it into subjection.

What do I mean by that?

Is that we should not go through life

just fulfilling every lust and every craving of our flesh.

We have to learn to have the character

to tell our flesh no, right?

I mean, sometimes we have to skip meals

or sometimes we have to be austere

about what we eat and drink.

And sometimes we have to abstain from things

and say no to things and not to just indulge

every impulse like King Solomon or something,

just anything you see at the store,

you gotta buy it, any food that you crave,

you just gotta eat it.

You know, that is not the way to go through life.

You gotta keep under your body

and bring it into subjection.

That's what the Bible says.

You know, we don't live to eat, we eat to live, right?

We don't wanna just have just an unfettered,

just filling every craving for food,

just totally unhinged in our eating.

We need to stop and think about what we're eating

and we need to be eating healthy, nutritious food

and not eating in excess.

And look, I'm not saying that I'm perfect about this

because I tend to overeat.

I mean, if I just ate whatever I wanted every day,

I would be like 500 pounds, okay?

Like, I wanna eat, who came up with three meals?

Like, I wanna eat four major meals a day.

If it was up to me, I wanna eat four major meals a day

and I want two pints of milk with every meal, okay?

Then I may grow thereby, all right?

So I want two glasses of milk with every meal.

I want four major meals.

I mean, I eat every three hours, you know?

It's just like, that's how often I wanna eat.

You know, it's funny, I took my wife several weeks ago,

we were doing like a little anniversary thing

and so we did a quick little trip over to L.A.,

I preached at the L.A. Church with Pass.

It's funny, they offer you like a food pass,

like a meal pass.

Who knows what I'm talking about,

where you're at a Six Flags and get the meal pass.

And here's what's funny about the meal pass.

This sounds funny, but it's just too real

because they give you a meal pass,

you're allowed to eat every 90 minutes you get a meal.

So every 90 minutes on this thing, you get a meal.

Every 10 minutes, you can get something to drink.

So I mean, my wife and I were like,

all right, synchronize our watches.

I mean, we're there every 90 minutes, get in a meal.

You know, now, admittedly, at least there were two of us.

So at least we're splitting it between two people.

So then I guess it was tantamount to eating

like every three hours,

which is kind of what I do at home anyway, okay?

But look, you've got to control yourself.

Like I've heard people say that there's, you know,

it's genetic.

Being obese is genetic, that there's an obesity gene.

Well, let me tell you something, if that's true,

I've got it, okay?

Because the obesity gene is the one

where you're just hungry all day, every day, that's me.

I'm constantly starving, I'm constantly hungry.

And you know what?

If I don't spend a few hours every day

just absolutely hungry, then I gain weight.

Like I'll just start putting on pounds.

So I have to be hungry every day or I gain weight.

Those are my two choices, gain weight

or be hungry every day.

But you know what?

I end up choosing hunger a lot

because I don't want to become gigantic, okay?

It's not good for you.

You know, God wants me to take care of the temple here

and obviously if I'm gonna be able to serve God,

if I wanna be able to preach and live a long time

and work hard and get things done,

you know, I need to be healthy.

And so I don't think that my wife is interested in me

putting on 100 pounds either.

You might think that I'm just making this up

and just oh, you know, skinny pastor up here making this up.

I'm not making this up.

I went on the road trip with my kids

and you know, we were out there for four weeks on the road.

I gained 13 pounds in four weeks

and that was with exercising for an hour every day

and skipping meals and stuff.

And I still gained 13 pounds in four weeks

because I'm telling you, you know, I eat too much.

And so I have to constantly exercise

to try to burn it off.

I have to constantly skip meals.

Okay, but these guys right here,

you know, they don't care about any of that.

It's just to them, it's just if it feels good, do it.

You know, and just just eat and eat and eat

and give me the fattiest meat

and give me all of the high calorie stuff.

And you know what, we in our society struggle with this

because of the fact that we don't burn

as many calories as people used to burn.

And look, I'm not hating on fat people.

I've seen people say like, oh, in order to be fat,

you just have to be a totally gluttonous and lazy.

That's not true.

Because like I said, I could easily get fat.

I could show you how to get fat if you want.

And like,

and by the way, in our society,

sometimes the hardest working people get fat.

And let me tell you why,

because they're doing work that's not physical work.

So it's like the harder they work on their computer job,

the fatter they get.

You know, because I find myself, when I'm busy with work,

it's like, why don't I have time to exercise?

I'm too busy with work.

But the problem is the work's not burning any calories.

Everybody understand?

And I know many people have just turned off the sermon

now, you've just totally tuned out.

But listen to me, I'm telling you, in our society,

because we're so inactive,

we got to be careful about this.

We got to watch out.

And look, I'm preaching this to you because I love you

and I don't want you to become morbidly obese

and suffer all the consequences that go with it.

You're going to be a lot happier

if you just suffer a little bit,

put a knife to your throat as the Bible says,

if they'll be a man given to appetite

and control those impulses.

And here's the thing,

if you control your impulses when it comes to eating,

that's also probably going to help you

to just build some character in other areas as well.

Because you also don't want to give in to other impulses

and just fill your eyes with everything

that they want to see

and just gratify your flesh

with everything that it wants to do.

You know, what does the Bible say?

The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh,

the pride of life.

These things are not of the Father, but are of the world.

These are our enemies.

And so we've got to work at controlling those impulses

and not just going crazy and just eating and drinking.

And well, you know, whatever we want,

no, we got to control ourselves.

And so, you know, these guys are,

overeating, they're overindulging,

they're stealing money,

people despise the offering of the Lord,

and then they're committing fornication.

They're basically using church as a fishing hole

just to find more opportunities

for fornication and adultery.

I mean, that's super wicked, right?

I mean, fornication and adultery are bad,

but when you're sitting there

and corrupting the ladies of the church,

I mean, that's just heinous.

That's horrible, that's terrible.

And so it says in verse number 23,

this is Eli, you know, correcting his sons.

He said unto them, why do ye such things?

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

Nay, my sons, for it is no good report that I hear.

You make the Lord's people to transgress.

Now look, this is kind of a weak rebuke here

in light of how bad their sins are.

I mean, these are wicked, horrible, major sins.

I mean, these guys should be taken out and killed.

They're so evil.

But he's just like, hey guys, come on, man.

Like, why though?

Like, why are you doing this stuff?

You know, I'm hearing about all this stuff

and I mean, it's not a good report that I'm hearing.

Like, that's kind of an understatement.

I'm not getting a good report on you guys.

You make the Lord's people to transgress.

If one sin against another, the judge shall judge him.

But if a man sin against the Lord,

who shall entreat from him?

Not with sinning, they hearken not under the voice

of their father because the Lord would slay them.

So basically, their dad is verbally trying to correct them.

It's not enough.

It's too little, too late.

He should have brought the hammer down on these guys.

But he's obviously going soft on them

because they're family, right?

And this is what people tend to do

is they tend to be soft on family

and there tends to be nepotism

where the boss's son can any organization,

but especially not the house of God.

You can't just give up pass to the pastor's kids

or the deacon's kids or whatever.

No, it's gotta be everyone treated the same.

You know, if anything, you know,

they should be held to a higher standard,

not just being allowed to get away with murder.

And these guys are clearly actually full-time servants

of God in the ministry.

I mean, they need to be held to that standard.

These guys should be toast, not just Eli telling them,

hey guys, why are you doing this?

No, you shouldn't be doing it.

And then the Bible says that they didn't listen to their dad

and the reason why they didn't listen to their dad

is because God wanted to kill them.

I mean, that's what that means when it says

the Lord would slay them.

That would there is an old way of saying that he wanted to.

The Lord wanted to slay them.

And so what you'll find all throughout scripture

is that when someone doesn't listen to correction,

they don't listen to rebuke.

It's often because God has just had it with that person

and is ready to judge that person.

So he will actually harden their heart

and then basically they'll get smoked

because that's what they deserve.

I mean, that's a scary place to be

where God's just like, well, I wanted to destroy you.

So, you know, like I'm glad you're not obeying.

I'm glad you're not listening to dad

because I wanted to kill you anyway.

I mean, that's a really wicked person

when you get to that point.

And then again, just kind of just back to Samuel,

the child Samuel grew on and was in favor

both with the Lord and also with men.

It's kind of interesting the contrast

between the sons of Eli and Samuel.

And here's what's interesting.

You know, the sons of Eli,

these guys have not the royal blood,

but they have the priestly blood, you know,

they're in that bloodline of the Aaronic priesthood.

And so these are the guys that should be

serving God in a great way.

And they're just complete losers, complete trash.

And then Samuel is the adopted son

who's not even the biological son of Eli.

He's just adopted and he's a Levite

but he's not of the priestly lineage.

He's not of the sons of Aaron.

He's just a Levite in general.

And yet Samuel is the one that is doing right

and serving God.

And so here's the thing, you know,

serving God unfortunately is not hereditary.

There is no, you know, we talked about

the obese gene or whatever, you know,

if that's even a thing.

But I'll tell you what,

there definitely is not a serving God gene.

There's not like a godliness gene and ungodly.

No, because those are spiritual things.

They're not having anything to do with the flesh.

They have to do with the spirit and being spiritual.

So therefore, just because someone is the son of someone else,

it does not mean that the zeal for God is gonna be there.

And the problem that a lot of people have

is that you'll have a pastor who's preaching

and doing great work for God, powerful man of God.

And then it's like, well,

let's just put his son in charge of the church.

Or let's put the son-in-law in charge of the church.

And you'll see this constantly in the old IFB

where the pastor's children

or the pastor's children's husbands are on staff

or taking over the church.

They become employees.

They become pastors.

And, you know, it rarely is a good fit for those people.

Now, I'm sure that there are good examples.

And I'm sure that there are good examples

of these kind of daddy-ordained pastors

where basically like, you know,

they just got coordinated pastor

because their dad's a pastor

and then they became a pastor or what have you.

I'm sure there were good examples of this,

but I can't think of any.

I'm sure that there are good examples.

And I guarantee that they're out there,

but I can list for you just so many bad examples

of the guy who just automatically becomes a pastor

because his dad's a pastor

or he automatically is put on staff

because his dad's the pastor or deacon or whatever.

And you know what?

This is not the way that things should be.

Everything in the church, as far as position,

should be merit-based.

Merit-based, you know?

So the pastor should be chosen

not because of who he's related to

or what his last name is,

but rather based upon his walk with God,

how serious of a Christian he is,

how godly of a person that he is.

That's what it should be based on.

And again, let's say that if a pastor's son

wanted to go into the ministry and become a pastor,

he should probably be trained and or ordained

by someone else because it's hard for us sometimes

to be able to see things in our own family

that other people could easily see,

but for us, sometimes the blinders are on

because they're family.

And people always wanna kinda give a pass to family

and just think like, hey, he's family, so he gets a pass.

Well, no, that's not the way things work, you know?

Right is right, wrong is wrong,

and the Bible makes it very clear that in the church,

we are to do nothing by partiality.

We are not to prefer one above another

and have respect of persons in judgment,

but that rather the same rules

should apply for everyone.

And so Samuel ends up being the great man of God

and the actual biological sons of Eli are both trash.

Literally, that's what reprobate even means.

Okay, so let's look down here at what the Bible says.

It says in verse number 27,

there came a man of God unto Eli

and said unto him, thus sayeth the Lord,

did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father?

And when they were in Egypt and Pharaoh's house,

and did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel

to be my priest, to offer upon my altar to burn incense,

to wear an ephod before me,

and did I give unto the house of thy father

all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel?

He said, look, I gave you food to eat.

I gave, it wasn't the exact meal that you wanted,

but I gave you the offerings made by fire.

You got your protein, you got what you need,

you got the food that you needed,

maybe not necessarily the party in your mouth,

maybe not necessarily eating every 90 minutes,

like you're at Six Flags or something.

But it says, you know, I gave you that,

wherefore, verse 29, which means why,

kick ye at my sacrifice, and at my offering,

which I've commanded in my habitation,

and watch this, this is the key, don't miss this,

and honor is thy sons above me.

So you might sympathize with Eli

and think like, well, Eli did tell him no,

it's not Eli's fault that they're not listening,

but God looks down and says, you know what,

you are honoring your sons above me

to make yourselves fat with the cheapest

of all the offerings of Israel, my people.

And notice how he ends up being lumped in with the sons,

because they're the ones that are stealing the food,

but notice that Eli is actually benefiting from it as well.

Eli is eating of the stolen food,

like the food is stolen by the sons,

but he's eating it too, okay?

And that's why later on in the story in chapter four,

when he dies, it talks about how Eli was a very heavy man,

and he ends up dying by falling out of his chair

and breaking his neck, because he's just so obese

that he is shocked and slips and falls

and the chair breaks, and he breaks his neck

and whatever.

So notice here that Eli is being blamed

for also eating of the stolen food,

because he says, you have made yourselves fat.

And he said, with the cheapest of all the offerings

of Israel, my people.

And then later he's gonna explain exactly

what the problem is with Eli.

He tells him, you did not restrain your sons.

So the idea here is that it's not enough

to just tell them no, you have to actually physically

put a stop to what they're doing.

You have to actually restrain them, okay?

And so it's not enough to just tell people no.

I mean, think about what if we were in the church

and we in the church said, hey,

we're not gonna have any fornication in the church.

We're not gonna have drunkenness in the church.

We're not gonna have railing in the church.

But then people fornicate, get drunk, rail,

and then we just go like, well, we told him not to.

We said no, we preached against it.

What can you do, right?

Is that acceptable?

No.

What needs to happen is there has to actually be enforcement.

And this is what we call, by the way, church discipline,

okay, and it's straight out of first Corinthians chapter five.

It's straight out of Matthew chapter 18

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

that there are times when unfortunately

people cross the line, they go too far.

They're in grievous, unrepentant sin

and they have to be thrown out of the church.

They have to be excommunicated from the church.

And it's called church discipline

because here's the thing,

if there's no such thing as church discipline

then there's really no enforcement,

then the rules might as well not even exist.

If we just got up and said, no fornication, period.

And then it's just people are just living together

and they're not married.

And we're just like, well, we preached against it.

We said no.

Now, I just wanna tell you this.

There are huge segments of evangelical Christianity

that do not believe in or practice church discipline.

And in fact, I would say the majority of the old IFB

does not believe in or practice church discipline.

When I was at Hiles Anderson College,

the idea of church discipline was totally foreign

to First Baptist Church of Hammond

and Hiles Anderson College.

And I remember there was a guest preacher who came in

and he was teaching in the college

and he was talking about church discipline

and the staff member that was there

was just like, he looked so horrified.

And he was so confused.

He's like, I've never heard of this.

So then like during the break,

I'm like talking to the staff member

and showing him First Corinthians five and Matthew 18

and kind of, and I was being really polite.

Like I wasn't schooling him.

I was kind of saying, well, let me tell you

what the guest preacher's talking about.

Here's, you know, here's where he's coming from.

I'm thinking to myself, like, yeah,

and he's 100% right and you're 100% wrong.

But I didn't say it that way.

I was just like, you know,

let me just kind of show you

where Bro is coming from.

And I'm showing him the verse that he's just frowning

and looking at the Bible.

I've never heard of this.

This, this doesn't seem right.

It says, I mean, to us, that's bizarre.

Obviously because the Bible is so clear.

We take church discipline for granted.

And man, I wouldn't even want to be a pastor

without the tool of church discipline.

That would stink.

Being a pastor and just having to just leave

all the cancer in the church to just fester

and sour and get worse.

But the point is saying no isn't necessarily enough.

You know, when it comes to enforcing things in your home,

when it comes to enforcing things in the church,

I mean, does the government just,

do they just tell us no about stealing

and then if we steal, they just kind of throw up their hands?

It's just stupid and doesn't make sense.

If there's no enforcement,

then there's pretty much not even a rule at that point.

And you better know God enforces his rules.

Be not deceived.

God is not mocked for whatsoever a man sowed

that shall he also reap.

Whom the Lord loveth, he chaseneth

and scourges every son whom he received.

That sounds like enforcement to me.

And so the problem with Eli here

is he's not enforcing anything.

He's not restraining.

The Bible says that his sons made themselves vile

and he restrained them not.

Now obviously Eli's sons are not children.

They're adults.

So you could say, well, they're adults.

Yeah, but here's the thing.

They're still under his authority though,

because he is the high priest

and they are under his authority.

They're working for him.

He's like the senior pastor

and they're like assistant pastors or whatever

if you wanted to think about a modern analogy of this.

He works for them.

Or they, excuse me, they work for him.

And so he does have authority over them

as the leader in the house of God

as their employer.

And he's basically turning a blind eye.

He tells them no, but he doesn't really stop them.

And ultimately God looks into his heart and says,

well, you're honoring your sons more than you're honoring me.

And we're gonna come back to that a little later.

I got to hurry for sake of time, but let's see.

Where did I leave off?

Verse number 30.

It says, wherefore the Lord God of Israel said,

sayeth, I said indeed that thy house

and the house of thy father should walk before me forever.

But now the Lord sayeth, be it far from me.

For them that honor me will I honor

and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

He's saying, you know, by honoring your sons above me,

you know, it's like you're dishonoring me.

You're despising me.

Look at verse 31, behold today's come

that I will cut off thine arm

and the arm of thy father's house

that there shall not be an old man in thy house.

And thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation

and all the wealth which God shall give Israel

and there shall not be an old man in thy house forever.

And the man of thine whom I will not,

whom I shall not cut off from my altar

shall be to consume thine eyes and to grieve thine heart

and all the increase of thine house shall die

in the flower of their age.

He's saying, and he repeats this over and over again.

There's not gonna be an old man in your family.

Everybody's gonna die young, you know?

And here's the thing, you know,

dying young, dying in your 30s, 40s,

that's not a blessing, right?

Most of us wanna have it be well with us

and that our days would be long on the earth, right?

We wanna live to be 70, 80, 90, 100 years old.

We don't wanna be dying in our 30s or dying in our 40s.

Now obviously, there are exceptions

where good people can die young.

Of course that happens.

It happens in the Bible, it happens in our lives.

But at the end of the day though, in general,

long life is a blessing from God

and being cut short is the fate of the wicked.

The wicked should not live out half his days.

I mean, look how many of the celebrities of Hollywood

and how many of the rock stars and stuff.

You know, yeah, you're gonna have the Keith Richards

that's like 150 years old or whatever,

but you know, look at how many of them die young.

Just constantly dying in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s.

You know, that's not a blessing.

And so he's saying, hey, here's the curse

that's gonna come upon your house.

Everybody's gonna die in the flower of their age.

They're gonna die in their prime.

They're not gonna live to be an old man.

It says in verse number 34,

and this shall be a sign unto thee

that shall come upon thy two sons on Hophni and Phineas

in one day they shall die both of them.

And I will raise me up a faithful priest

that shall do according to that,

which is in my heart and in my mind,

and I will build him a sure house

and he shall walk before mine anointed forever.

Obviously part of this is prophetic

of the Lord Jesus Christ, you know,

being the ultimate priest that has raised up,

that will walk forever.

The short term fulfillment of this

is the priesthood of Zadok

who replaces the line of Eli as the high priest.

But it says in verse number 36,

it shall come to pass that everyone

that is left in my house shall come

and crouched him for a piece of silver

and a morsel of bread and shall say,

it put me, I pray thee, into one of the priest's offices

that I may eat a piece of bread.

And of course, this is the poetic justice

because they are stealing food

and gorging themselves on the fattiest foods.

You know, it's like they're gonna be

just wishing for bread and water.

As a punishment, God's gonna make them super hungry

to where they're just begging for a piece of bread.

Okay, look at chapter three, verse 11.

I just wanna hurry up and get through all this here

before we run out of time.

It says in verse 11, and the Lord said to Samuel,

behold, I will do a thing in Israel

at which both the ears of everyone

that heareth it shall tingle.

In that day, I will perform against Eli

all things which I have spoken concerning his house.

When I begin, I will also make an end,

for I have told him that I will judge his house forever

for the iniquity, watch this, which he knoweth.

So it's like he knows that this stuff is going on.

He knows about the fornication.

He knows about the adultery.

He knows about the gluttony.

He knows about the embezzlement

because his sons made themselves vile

and he restrained them not, right?

It's not enough to just say no.

You have to put a stop to it.

You have to restrain them.

You have to put an end to it.

Don't let these things happen under your watch.

Verse 14, and therefore I've sworn

unto the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house

shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever.

Now go to chapter four

and let's see God's judgment begin to pour forth.

So we've seen the sins of the sons of Eli,

they're not saved, they're reprobates.

You know, and here's the thing,

if you grow up in church

and you're hearing a clear presentation

of the gospel all the time

and then you're unsaved,

it's a pretty good chance that you're a reprobate

at that point.

You know, if you can just go years and years

and decades hearing all this great preaching

and then you're unsaved,

you know, possibly you're just a reprobate at that point.

And that was the case with the sons of Eli.

Eli's not a reprobate.

I mean, Eli's a saved man.

I mean, we're going to get to heaven

and you know, he'll probably be thinner in heaven.

You know, he's probably going to be young and thin.

But when we get there, we're going to see Eli.

Otherwise, you know, it'll just be like

the ghost of Eli is going to be this big guy

or something, I don't know.

But I'm saying when we get up there,

you know, Eli's going to be there.

He's a saved Christian,

even though he's a failure as a leader here.

And why is he a failure as a leader?

Because he's not restraining his sons who are on staff

and he's allowing them to do this on his watch, okay?

But the sons of Eli, they're reprobates,

they're fornicators.

And you know, it says that they're laying with the women

who assemble at the door of the Congress.

You know, it's probably married women too.

Then that would be adultery into the mix.

You know, fornication, adultery.

They're also cheating on their own wives,

presumably as well in the course of this.

And so super wicked, they're stealing,

they're embezzling, they're gorging themselves

and whatever.

So now let's see the punishment

that God has said he's going to bring upon them.

In verse number four of chapter four,

it says, so the people sent to Shiloh

that they might bring forth thence or bring from thence

the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts

which dwelleth between the cherry-bims

and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas

were there with the ark of the covenant.

So just for a second of time,

let me just give you a rundown on the story here.

Basically, the Israelites are fighting

against the Philistines and they're losing.

So they have this idea, hey,

let's go get the ark of the covenant.

And if we bring the ark of the covenant into the camp,

then we're gonna have the power of God on our side

and then we're gonna defeat the Philistines.

But the problem is, God's not gonna bless

the children of Israel because of this grievous sin

of Hophni and Phineas, so he's not gonna do that.

So what happens is, they go

and they get the ark of the covenant

and the Bible says Hophni and Phineas,

they weren't at the first battle.

They're with the ark of the covenant.

But then when the ark of the covenant goes to battle,

they go with it because they're there

as custodians of the ark of the covenant

and this is how they're ultimately

gonna end up getting killed.

Because remember, God said, this is gonna be a sign unto you,

both of your sons are gonna die the same day.

Now, normally, they probably wouldn't even be

in harm's way.

Normally, they're back working their clergy job

and the chance of them both dying

on the same day would be slim.

But it's because of the fact that the people

grab the ark of the covenant and take it to battle

and then Hophni and Phineas go with them,

that's where they end up getting killed as a result.

And so it says in verse 11, the ark of God was taken

and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas were slain.

They were killed.

Look at verse 17.

And the messenger answered and said,

Israel is fled before the Philistines

and there have been also a great slaughter

among the people and thy two sons also,

Hophni and Phineas are dead

and the ark of God is taken.

And then of course, we have the daughter-in-law of Phineas,

or the daughter-in-law of Eli, Phineas' wife,

she is about to give birth

when she hears the news in verse 19.

And then it says, when she heard the tidings

that the ark of God was taken

and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead,

she bowed herself and travailed for her pains

came upon her and about the time of her death

the women that stood by her said unto her,

fear not for thou hast borne a son.

But she answered not, neither did she regard it.

And she named the child Ichabod,

saying the glory is departed from Israel

because the ark of God was taken

and because of her father-in-law and her husband.

And she said the glory is departed from Israel

for the ark of God is taken.

So anyway, she's dying.

She dies giving birth to this son Ichabod

and it's all over, we're doomed.

Now if you would go to 1 Samuel chapter 22,

1 Samuel 22 · chapter mention

1 Samuel chapter 22.

1 Samuel 22 · chapter mention

So when it comes to the judgment upon the house of Eli,

it really comes in three stages, okay?

So stage one of the judgment upon Eli

is when his two sons, Haphni and Phineas,

both die the same day, right?

They go with the ark into battle

and they both end up getting killed.

But that's not really everything

that God said he was gonna do.

I mean, God said that he was gonna pretty much

just wipe out all of Eli's descendants.

He said, remember, they're all gonna die

in the flower of their age.

There's not gonna be any old men.

They're all gonna be killed

and I'm gonna just totally switch over

to a different lineage of the sons of Aaron

to be the priest.

That's ultimately gonna be the Zadok lineage.

But look what the Bible says here

in 1 Samuel chapter 22.

1 Samuel 22 · chapter mention

This is King Saul and if you remember King Saul,

he's chasing after David.

And you remember how the priests of the Lord

end up helping David.

They didn't even know that David's on the run.

They don't even know that there's any smoke

between David and Saul.

So they just kind of innocently

just give David the sword of Goliath

and they give him to show Brad

and he eats the show Brad and everything like that.

Well, Saul shows up and he finds out about it.

And it says in verse 16,

The king said,

Thou shalt surely die, Ahimelech,

Thou and all Thy father's house.

Now who is this?

Ahimelech is the great grandson of Eli.

So this is Eli's great grandson.

This is that family that got cursed by God

because of the sins of Eli and his two sons.

They're totally cursed.

And so what does the Bible say?

That God will visit the iniquities

of the fathers upon the children

under the third and fourth generation.

This is the third or fourth generation,

depending on how you look at it.

And so this Ahimelech is the grandson of,

or excuse me, great grandson of Eli.

Now look, obviously it's not right for King Saul

to murder the priests of the Lord.

Really, he doesn't do it himself,

but he has doeg the Edomite

do the actual murdering of the priests of the Lord.

But ultimately this is a fulfillment of prophecy though,

because this is a huge number

of Eli's children getting killed.

It says in verse 17,

the king said unto the footmen that stood about him,

turn and slay the priests of the Lord

because their hand also was with David

and because they knew when he fled

and did not show it to me.

But the servants of the king would not put forth

their hand to fall upon the priests of the Lord.

So look, obviously murdering innocent people is not right.

And so the right people, the good people,

even when they're ordered to kill the priests of the Lord,

they're like, no way,

we're not just gonna murder innocent people,

we're not gonna kill the priests of the Lord.

They wouldn't do it.

And the king said to doeg,

and doeg is a total reprobate too,

the king said to doeg,

turn thou and fall upon the priests.

And doeg the Edomite's like, sure, no problem.

Turned and he fell upon the priests

and slew on that day four score

and five persons that did wear a linen ephod

and knob the city of the priests,

smody with the edge of the sword,

both men and women, children and sucklings,

oxen and asses and sheep with the edge of the sword

and one of the sons of a Himalayan,

the son of a Hiteb named Abithar escaped

and fled after David.

Now look, is this not a fulfillment of the prophecy

that was given about Eli and his son saying,

hey, there's not gonna be an old man.

They're all gonna die in the flower of their age.

And here's the thing.

Yeah, obviously good people

would refuse to carry out this murder.

Bad people would carry out the murder,

but at the end of the day, prophecy is fulfilled.

Because let me just break this to you.

The whole world is filled with a mix

of good people and bad people,

people with no morals, people with morals.

There are plenty of evil, wicked, sick people in this world

to carry out all kinds of destruction and devastation.

And you know what we wanna have

is we wanna have the protection of God in our lives.

We wanna have the blessing of God.

We want God protecting us.

We want the angel, the Lord and camping round

about those that fear Him.

So of course it's not like,

oh, it's okay for Doeg the Edomite

to murder these people because he's fulfilling prophecy.

Well, I mean, the Antichrist is fulfilling prophecy too.

I mean, obviously God could use events

that are wicked and ungodly

in order for his ultimate will to be carried out.

But at the end of the day,

this is a punishment from God

because God could have worked it out.

I mean, think about, let me just illustrate to you this way.

What about when Saul said,

all right, everybody, we're gonna kill Jonathan, my son.

And Saul actually orders Jonathan to be executed.

Now, Jonathan was not a bad guy, okay?

And here's the thing.

The people end up saying,

no, we're not gonna kill Jonathan.

And they end up talking Saul off the ledge

and they end up protecting and saving Jonathan's life.

So couldn't the same thing have happened right here?

Because what happens with Saul?

Saul's like, okay, kill the priest of the Lord.

And everybody is saying, no,

we're not gonna kill the priest of the Lord.

This could have ended up like a Jonathan situation.

Hey, let's kill Jonathan.

No, we're not gonna kill Jonathan.

Okay, fine, we won't kill Jonathan.

The similar thing could have happened here.

Or even if he would have had some wicked person

that would kill the priest,

they're not necessarily gonna kill the women

and the children and just the whole town

and everybody's animals and everything.

I mean, just slaughtering the whole town.

This was a special job for Doeg the Edomite.

You had to have just this super rotten guy

who's just gonna just kill everybody.

Couldn't God have worked it out

to where Doeg just wasn't there that day

and nobody would have been willing to do this?

But God worked it out to where Doeg was there.

Why?

Because ultimately, his hand of blessing

and his hand of protection is off of Eli's family

because of this wickedness

because they're running the house of God

and they're doing a bad job

and so he's gonna take them out.

It's a sobering thought, but that's what happened.

Now let's go to the last place.

Go to First Kings, chapter two.

First Kings, chapter two.

So again, we said there's kind of like

three main stages to the fulfillment here.

And prophecy in the Bible,

there's always like a dual fulfillment.

Sometimes there's a triple fulfillment.

So the first thing we saw was

Haphne and Phineas themselves get killed, right?

And then obviously Phineas' wife,

dying and childbirth is also like a foreshadowing

of just more curse and negativity on that family

and the glories departed, Ichabod and all that.

Then we fast forward to 1 Samuel 22

and we get down to that third, fourth generation

and everybody's getting killed in the flower of their age.

Just the entire town, the entire family

is wiped out to the tune of 85 priests

plus all these other men, women and children

that were not wearing the Ephod.

So it's way more than 85 people murdered.

And then when we get to First Kings, chapter two, verse 26,

it says, unto a biathar the priest said the king.

And remember in 1 Samuel 2220,

it says that there was this one guy who escaped

when the 85 priests and all their people got killed.

The one guy who escaped, his name was a biathar, okay?

So now we get to verse 26 here.

It says, unto a biathar the priest said the king,

get thee to anathoth unto thine own fields,

for thou art worthy of death,

but I will not at this time put thee to death,

because thou bearest the ark of the Lord God

before David my father and because thou hast been

afflicted and all wherein my father was afflicted.

So Solomon thrust out a biathar

from being priest unto the Lord

that he might fulfill the word of the Lord,

which he spake concerning the house of Eli and Shiloh.

So this is kind of like the last step here

is that there's one pretty good guy that had survived

and God has used this guy a little bit

and so he gets spared being put to death,

but he's kicked out of being the priest.

He's told, hey, just go get a secular job.

You know, you're just gonna go back to your fields

because you can't be a priest anymore.

And that was fulfillment of the word of the Lord,

which he spake concerning the house of Eli and Shiloh.

Look at verse 35.

It says the king put Benaiah the son of Jehoida

in his room over the host

and Zadok the priest did the king put

in the room of a biathar and it's Zadok

and his descendants that actually continue to be the priests

all the way up until the time of Jesus Christ,

which is why the priestly faction

in the New Testament are called Sadducees.

If you look at the three main consonants in that word,

you have the S, sad, you see,

you have S, D and C, which comes from the name Sadok.

So the Sadducees are the sons of Sadok.

They are the priestly faction.

And of course, by the time Christ comes on the scene,

they've got horrible doctrine.

They're basically like United Methodists or something

where they deny all the miracles and the angels

and the resurrection and they don't believe

in life after death and they don't be stupid, wrong beliefs.

But Zadok himself is a good guy

and his line is good for a while.

Everything ultimately deteriorates and degenerates.

So the final thought that I wanna leave you with

on this story of the sons of Levi, excuse me, Eli,

is that Eli honored his sons more than he honored God.

He basically put family ahead of serving God

and this is the wrong order.

We've gotta put God, number one, family comes after God.

And I mean, Jesus Christ is crystal clear on this.

He says that you have to forsake everything

and follow him and he that loveth son or daughter

more than me is not worthy of me.

He that loveth father or mother more than me

is not worthy of me.

He that taketh not his cross and followed after me

is not worthy of me.

I mean, he flat out tells you,

you've gotta put the Lord first above family,

above mother and father, above son and daughter,

above all our loyalty is to Christ.

That's clear in the New Testament

and in the Old Testament, God is number one.

Now listen, a lot of people today believe

that family is number one.

You know, and I feel like there's a lot of just movies

and TV and books and media that really push

almost like a cult of the family.

It's almost like a religion of family

where family is everything.

Family is number one and it's all about family.

But we always have to keep this in its proper perspective

that no serving God trumps family.

The Lord trumps family and so what did Eli do?

Eli honored his sons above God.

He put family, he put his children before serving God.

Now, how did this work out for him?

Think about the poetic justice here.

Because he puts family first, does his family end up?

Well, he invested in family.

Well, what happened to his family?

Everybody dies.

I mean, that's pretty bad.

I mean, think about just having hundreds of descendants

and there are dozens of descendants

and they're all, they all just get murdered, all of them.

You know what I mean?

So here's the thing, if you serve God,

if you put God first, if you put Jesus Christ number one,

the way the Bible clearly commands you to do,

whether it's popular or not,

whether that's what movies and TV are telling you to do,

you know, if you put Christ first,

you're actually laying up treasures in heaven.

You're earning eternal rewards.

And at the end of the day, you know,

you have your physical family,

but you've also got your brothers and sisters in Christ.

You've got your spiritual sons and daughters.

You got your spiritual family in the church.

And at the end of the day,

like nobody can ever really take that away from you.

You know, the work that you do for God is an eternal work.

The souls that are saved over in Barbados

or on the White Mountain Apache Reservation

or here in Phoenix on the weekend, week out basis,

those souls that are saved,

I mean, nothing can ever change that.

Nothing can ever make those people unsaved.

Nothing can ever undo the work

that you accomplish for the Lord.

And your brothers and sisters in Christ

that are saved children of God,

they will be in heaven with you forever.

You're never gonna be permanently severed from those people

because you're gonna see them in heaven.

You're gonna have all eternity to rejoice those people.

Whereas if you make an idol out of anything in this world,

God could just take it away from you.

Because he's like, well, if you're gonna put this

before me, I'll just take it away.

You know, somebody, and it could be anything.

Like somebody says, well, I'm gonna,

for me, sports are more important than serving God.

Well, then God could cause you to get injured

or you lose the ability to have sports.

Or, oh, my business is more important than serving God.

You know, God can take away your business.

And if you're gonna sit there

and make an idol out of family

and say, well, I'm gonna put family first,

family's everything.

Family's the one and you're willing to disobey the Bible

or you're willing to just put God on the back burner

and honor your sons more than God,

honor your family more than God.

You know, at the end of the day,

God can take that away from you too.

And that's what he did to Eli because, you know,

all of his descendants virtually get killed.

And then the one that's even alive,

the exception is like, okay,

but he can't be the priest anymore.

He has to just kind of go off and into the sunset.

So, you know, I think that the big lesson here,

besides the fact that we have to obviously enforce things

and it's not enough to just say that there are rules,

but we have to actually enforce rules

and that we should also not have nepotism

where we're just giving people favoritism

because of who they're related to.

But also, I think a big takeaway is

don't put anything before Christ.

Don't put anything before God.

God's gotta be number one.

Christ's gotta be number one.

And if you seek first the kingdom of God

and his righteousness,

all these other things will be added under you.

But if you seek all these other things,

it's not gonna work.

You know, another example I like to bring up is Gideon.

I mean, Gideon had all these wives

and so he ended up having 70 sons.

And you can just see him being such a proud dad,

like, hey, I got 70 sons.

But then what happens?

As soon as he's dead,

all 70 of his sons get murdered except one.

I mean, it's like, wow,

okay, that didn't really go anywhere.

So the point is everything in this world

is transitory, temporal, you know?

You can't sit there and think, families forever.

Well, go join the Mormon church

if you think families forever, okay?

But at the end of the day,

it's Christ that is eternal.

It's heaven, it's the rewards.

You know, yes, family's important.

Yes, we should love our families

and do things for our family

and spend time with family.

And obviously, our marriages are super important

and spending time with our children,

spending time with other loved ones.

And look, those family relationships can be beautiful.

But you know what?

Sometimes those family relationships

are not beautiful at all

because sometimes someone will choose

to go down an evil path.

And someone will choose to be a Hothni

or a Phineas and choose to be wicked

and choose to be a son of Belial.

And you can't just be like,

yeah, but they're family, family first.

It's like, nope, Christ first.

Throw Hothni and Phineas under the bus.

That's what, if Eli would have thrown

Hothni and Phineas under the bus,

he would have lived happily ever after.

You wouldn't have 85 of his descendants

being murdered a few chapters later.

Let's bards and have a word of prayer.

Father, we thank you so much

for this cautionary tale, Lord, about Eli.

Lord God, help us to control

our physical appetites, Lord.

Help us not to indulge especially

in wicked things like fornication

or adultery, Lord, drunkenness, drugs,

or even just being gluttonous

and just overindulging in anything, Lord.

Help us to control our impulses

and Lord, help us to always put you number one

and serve you first and foremost

and not put anything above you,

even family, Lord.

Help us not even to put that above you.

And Lord, bless us now

as we go our separate ways.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.