Answers in Genesis--Spring 2017--Lesson 9, God Calls Samuel

Hope you guys had a good week in the Lord. We're gonna be jumping into First Samuel this morning. Seems like every book I, we study is my favorite book. It's like now I'm a big fan of First Samuel.

There was a commentary, we, we read through first Samuel a few years ago for one of those summer reads. You guys remember that? And there's a commentary by Davies. Just a, it was just a little commentary that was suggested by Pastor Milton and it was just fantastic.

I should have brought it here. I'll, I'll, if I remember, I'll, I'll send you guys the link. Davies, I think that's his last name. And a But we went through it as a family and it was just really, really good.

But let's go ahead and pray and we are going to jump into Samuel. Lord, we thank you so much for your word and how relevant it is, how much we are instructed and encouraged. We pray that you'd fill us with your spirit this morning. As we, Continue or for some of us just begin this day of worship with the study of your word and then as we move into our service in time of singing and preaching and giving.

Also, as we just enjoy fellowship this afternoon for many of us with our small groups, we just ask that you would Receive the worship that we offer you today. Lord, that your people be encouraged, that people that don't know you, that That they would, their hearts would be open to the gospel. we just thank you for your great love for us. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. All right. Our little teaser question is, do you have a good luck charm? And we may talk about good luck charms.

A little bit later, I wanna pose a different question as I've been ruminating on the chapters this week. And that is how do you use the doctrine of God's sovereignty. the Puritans, when they would preach their messages in early, both in the British Puritans but also early American history. the form of sermons is you would have the, the reading of the text.

You would have an exposition of the biblical text. And then you would have the section of the sermon called the uses of the doctrine or the use of the doctrine. And that's like what we would tend today call application. But in Puritan sermons, they really did a good job.

And talking about right and wrong uses of doctrine. any truth that you have in the Bible can be used rightly. And it can be used wrongly. And so, this morning, one of the themes that we're gonna focus on is the right and wrong use of the doctrine of God's sovereignty.

And I'm gonna start with an illustration. And then we'll, we'll move into the text. Years ago, I was at a different church before I started coming to Cornerstone. I started coming to Cornerstone in 1993.

but there was a gal that as, our church was ministering to and And She had fallen in back into this relationship with an old unbelieving boyfriend. She knew it was She shouldn't be dating an unbeliever. She knew that this was gonna lead her into sin and, and, into the practices that we're not going to honor and glorify the Lord. But part of her rationale was.

Why did God, bring my boyfriend to my workplace that day wearing the exact type of cologne that I love. Why would God do that to me? So, here I am walking, following the Lord. Suddenly, he brings my ex non-Christian boyfriend right into my workplace that day wearing that tempting cologne and what was God to expect me to do.

God could have kept that boyfriend out of my store and now we wouldn't be dealing with this problem. What is she appealing to? She's appealing to the providence of God and God's sovereignty, but is she using his, the doctrine of God's sovereignty in the way that it's intended to be used? I would argue, no.

Fast forward to a few years later, we actually had a A church discipline situation at Cornerstone. that we disciplined a particular individual out of the church, but the good news was, is that several years later they repented, they came back to the church. They actually met with the elders and said, I acknowledge my sin. I acknowledge that what you guys were asking me to do was, was right and biblical and what I did was wrong and unbiblical.

But in the middle of the confession, this individual said this, but, one of the things that I've realized. Is that Because I've gone through these problems, there's certain things that I've grown in, and I'm a better person because of this sin. If I'd have never gone through this sin, I probably wouldn't have learned X, Y, and Z. That's a little trickier But we stopped this individual and said, what, we appreciate the fact that you're trying to work through God's providence in this, but let's imagine a different scenario.

Let's imagine that you would have followed the counsel that was being given to you and where would you be today if you had followed that counsel. In a subtle way, this individual was trying to basically say that God led me through this sin. And now I'm a better person today because of the sin than I would have been otherwise. And we had to stop them and help them think through the right and wrong use of that doctrine.

Let's give you one final scenario. A person like David. David. Sins with Bathsheba.

God tells David that you will now warfare will never leave your household. And he confesses his sin. He repents of his sin after he's confronted by Nathan. And.

There are many good things that continue to happen in David's life, but there are certain consequences that follow him to his grave, correct? And so, there's one day where he's being run out of Jerusalem by his own son Absalom. So he has to get out of his own palace and take off with his mighty men. And there's this very odd scene where a prophet-like character named Shamai.

is up on a, a cliff, hurling rocks down upon David and pronouncing curses on him and saying, you murderer, you murderer of Saul's sons. So Shamai is actually pronouncing curses on David that don't totally accord with God's, with the truth of what God's word had said. God was the one that brought Saul in and moved, brought David in and moved Saul out. And so the actual content of the curses were incorrect, but Shamaya is still up here throwing rocks down upon David.

Do you guys remember this scene? What do David's mighty men want to do in response? They say, Let us go up there and we'll take this guy's head off. David has a very interesting response to this.

He says, No, the Lord has sent him to buffet me. He acknowledged that in God's sovereignty, God had told him that warfare would never leave his household and there were certain consequences. While he had been forgiven of his sin, there were certain consequences that he would not escape. And so, even though he did not acknowledge the truth of what Shamai was saying, he acknowledged God's sovereignty and providence in bringing this buffeting upon his life, that Absalom was running him out of town.

An ungodly son and Shamai was throwing rocks on him and God or David was seeing this is all coming from the hand of the Lord. I wanna suggest to you that that is the right use of the sovereignty of God, that there's times where we do make decisions in our past. Where we can look back and say, what, I wish I would not have done that. It's water under the bridge, the Lord has forgive me.

I'm not gonna overly obsess on things I've done in my past. At the same time, I'm going to accept the consequences of my past decisions as a goodness from God. And, and these are very difficult, these can be challenging lessons to learn. How do we use doctrine in life, day to day life?

How do we use the sovereignty of God? And I want to suggest to you that when we look at what we're gonna see here in the 1st 4 chapters, there are some really amazing lessons on how to rightly or wrongly use God's teaching or the doctrine that we see in the scriptures. So, let's go ahead, let me say one thing before we move into our material, just a reminder, next week is the beginning of the finance class. So, if you're interested in this, we would encourage you to sign up online and then, it's gonna be meeting right over here in 103.

So again, that gets rolling next week. but let's go ahead and let's open up to First Samuel. Say it again. Yes, we'll still meet here.

We're still gonna be going through First Samuel. And, And then Bill will be teaching over there. Yes, this will still be, yeah, we'll still tape this and so you, you can listen to it later if you want. And don't worry, there's, Bill and I, we're not competing, we're not like, wrestling in the back afterwards or something like that or trying to steal each other's people or this is all to serve you guys, so.

that would be a pretty funny scene to have Bill and I kinda In the background, getting into a wrestling match or something. OK. So, let's do just a, a quick little review from last week cause it will factor in a little bit this morning. Anything stand out to you guys?

About last week. Yes Oh good. You didn't like it? Yeah, they try to create this conflict where Boaz is anti-Mabite, but then eventually he moves over.

Yeah. Why did I like it so much? No, that's a great question. normally, I do tend to be very critical of movies that portray scripture, But I guess over the years, my expectations have been blown away time and time again to where now I have very low expectations of anything that comes out of Hollywood when they try to do something biblical.

And so the fact that that movie had even a certain percentage of content from the Bible made me ecstatic. But part of what I liked is the way that they really did their homework on Moabite culture. And they brought in the Moabite worship. They did some things at the front end of that movie that would be completely unacceptable today from a political correctness standpoint.

They really talked about the exclusivity of Judaism versus Moabite worship. They did not shy away at all from child sacrifice. In fact, they really brought the horror of that out. And even though we don't know that Ruth was a priestess, perhaps not.

I thought that artistic decision to make our priestess enhance the conflict and made for some interesting storytelling. But yeah, when Boaz came out and tried to drown the Moabite guy and, I was just like, what is this nonsense? But also I thought the actress, I thought the acting was amazing to me personally. and the lady who played Ruth, I think her name is Eden something, she was phenomenal.

there's certain just Things that she did facially and just with her acting that is very difficult to communicate. There were certain things that she did without words that were just absolutely amazing to me. So, I don't know. Normally, I'm not always very, I wasn't real kind towards the exodus with what's his name?

Or it was that one that was Russell Crowe. I, I hammered that one. Yeah. Was that the Xis?

No, no, yeah, Noah, I thought was terrible. Yeah, but you have to in that one, if you understand that the writers weren't even really trying to tell the biblical story, they were going back to Gnostic tellings of the flood story, and then they added some weird things, but it wasn't even supposed to be a biblical, portrayal of the flood. It was a Gnostic portrayal of the flood. And once you understand that, then it makes sense what they did in that movie, yeah.

Oh. I but it's like it's Oh, could you send me a link, or maybe I could, maybe we could do a Sunday school outing. We'll, I'll send you guys the link and pick a day and we'll say, hey everybody. You guys can, we'll, we'll give you an indulgence if you attend.

The, that particular showing of Ruth. Few less years in purgatory. Yeah, Ruby. Oh, they're gonna do Abraham and Sarah.

Wow, nice. Oh, do they? OK. Great.

I haven't been to a production in a little while. That'd be great to see Ruth. But yeah, I can understand, Barbara, why you wouldn't like it. There was part, part of me, there was things I just didn't like, but I got really, maybe I got overwhelmed with the artistic film side and Maybe I compromised.

I don't know. I was glad you told us about it. Yeah. Oh, cool.

Yeah. There's one other thing you said, Barbara? It could be I don't know. I do have a little, not everybody knows this, but I do have a little bit of a right brain.

Is it right brain? like artistic type of side to me where sometimes I'll watch things that my wife just thinks, why in the world are you watching this strange, depressing movie? And I'll be like, the cinematography is awesome. And it's like, it's depressing.

I know that's why I like it. So anyway, All right. But anyway, yeah, so the, Ruth, we're gonna compare Ruth a little bit, actually, Naomi to Eli here in a second, as we, as we look at the text. So what we're gonna do is I think, are you guys gonna just hit play?

OK, that's cool. So open up to First Samuel, If you guys, Tory, if you wouldn't mind, we're just gonna do chapter one. And then stop and then I think I'm going to read chapter 2. And then we're gonna play chapter 3 and 4.

If we could do that. So, so open up to first Samuel. Let's, let's do chapter one right now. We'll read through it.

OK, thank you. OK, good. I just love biblical narrative. This is just an amazing.

tale and just even the way it's told. We see things that we can obviously relate to because we're human beings, but we're also dealing with literature that's about 3000 years old in a completely different culture and we see that, right? so we've got the main characters, Elkana and Hannah. And Eli.

And what has caused, what's part of the conflict that we see in this? Historical narrative. Right out the gate. Yeah, she doesn't have a baby.

And two wives. So, remember when we're reading historical narrative, a lot of times it's gonna report for us what happened. But there's a lot of times where the scriptures are not necessarily going to tell us. Exactly what should be the moral conclusion to every aspect of the narrative.

What we do know is that Elka had, Elka had two wives, probably, married Hannah first. She was not able to bear children. according to the culture of this time, it wasn't uncommon at all, both in Jewish culture, but also in surrounding cultures. If you had a wife that was barren to marry a second wife, the second wife has children, and then you have this rivalry that's, that's now going on.

According to verse 5, what is the ultimate cause? Of Hannah's barrenness. City? Yeah, it says, although the Lord had closed her womb, and then there in verse 6 again, the Lord had closed her womb.

now, you'll hear secularists and people that are, that try to argue against Christianity. They'll make fun of these types of statements. Scientifically, we know why women cannot have children or why men are unable to produce children and the Bible is such an unscientific, ancient book. It has no idea and it just says the Lord closed her womb.

Just like the Bible will say things like God brings the clouds to cause rain. We know that God doesn't cause rain, it has to do with atmospheric pressure and systems and all this stuff. No, the Bible knows all that stuff, but what they don't realize is that the Bible looks beyond merely what we would call second causes. Or second causation, the Bible's very comfortable with assigning second causes and what we call first causes.

The second cause, the sec, the scripture doesn't really say. We do know that Hannah couldn't have children and then later on, she could have children. There's lots, those of you guys. and gals, as you've had children and try to have children and you guys are aware of some of the peculiarities.

Katie and I, we got married in '95. And we decided, I wouldn't have done this now the way we did it, but we decided that I needed to get mostly done with seminary before we would have our first child. And I regret that somewhat now, but it's underneath God's providence and sovereignty, but I'm not gonna blame God for it. So, but around my final year of seminary, we said, OK, let's start having children and I just thought you start to try having children and then, a couple of days later, your wife says, hey, I'm pregnant and we all cry and we have, we go rejoicing and so 1 week went by and 2 weeks went by and then a month went by and 2 months went by and we're kinda like, I thought this nature is supposed to take its course here.

What's, what is going on? And So, we started to get a little concerned and then we talked to Doctor Kumi. Doctor Paul K Kumamoto and he gave some suggestions which I will not talk about here, but if anybody wants to talk to me later, if you're having some issues, let me know. And so I put those, we worked on that and then all of a sudden, Katie came out of the bathroom one day, she's crying and it was a little blue strip.

And we were pregnant with Joshua. And so there were, there were. Secondary causes to that whole process, but ultimately, we, we, we're very comfortable saying the Lord gave us Joshua, right? We understand that.

And so the Bible is very comfortable talking about the Lord closing her womb here. Now, what is the, at this point in Israel's history, where are people going to worship the Lord? Shiloh. OK.

So this is pre-Dic temple, right? The temple has not been built, in Jerusalem yet, so people are going to Shiloh to offer their sacrifices and so on, so many times a year. And so Hannah would go down year after year. And she's crying out to the Lord in anguish at the language here pouring out her soul before the Lord.

Eli's the, the high priest at this time in Israel's history. And what is it that he, he has a certain perception about her pouring her soul out before the Lord? What's his perception initially? Say it again.

A wicked woman because she is What do you guys think about that? Yeah, Jennifer Yeah, people have different takes on that. Again, this, the, the narrative doesn't tell us she thought he or, or he thought she was drunk and here's what you should think about that. It just reports it.

But it doesn't, I think the narrative, it seems like it's intending for us to see that as strange. be OK, so maybe, yeah, Judy's saying maybe he's actually seen this, that there's people that will show up at the temple drunk. You can tell me, you could dismiss this if you think, but Isn't it true that a lot of times people will identify things in other people when there's sins in their own life or maybe in their own family? We know later in the narrative that his sons are not peaches and pie, right?

And, his sons are pretty bad dudes and, and so, and yet Eli has not been willing to discipline them. And so now he's looking at this poor lady who's pouring her heart out before the Lord, and the first thing he's thinking is not, oh, I wonder what's wrong with this gal. What can I do to have compassion on her? It's Hey, chick, why are you coming to the temple drunk?

what are you doing? It just seems offensive to me, it, if, if I, I, I, I could be wrong, but it seems like if I was there at the moment and I was observing. It would feel offensive for Eli to confront her that way. That's like the first thing that he says to her.

Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, he does eventually pronounce a blessing over her, but it's Yeah, it's a little bit odd, yeah. Yeah Right, totally. Yeah, Barbara.

Hm. Huh, OK. So he's reacting, not responding, so he's just reacting to the moment. Yeah, at, at the very least, I think we could say this, the initial narrative does not, from the very get-go, we don't get a positive impression of Eli.

Would you guys agree with that? we don't walk away saying, wow, he, what an amazing guy that he told her that perhaps or rebuked her for being drunk. Yeah, exactly. That's the other issue, so, OK, so she clarifies for him.

And and, and then she, she, she blesses or Eli blesses her and, and, and then she is the Lord opens up her womb and she has a child and names the child heard by God because the Lord had answered her and. And then, she had been pretty diligent about going up to Shiloh year after year, but then she's like, well, I'm not gonna go up to Shiloh this year. Let's wait until he's weaned. Elkin says that's fine, but make sure you fulfill your vow to the Lord.

I'm not sure exactly how we should read that. you can understand, Hannah is a mother. It makes me wonder how long she took to wean him. So.

You think so? Yeah, maybe, yeah, exactly. Yeah, with Moses. Yeah, so, I think the, the general tradition during this time period would have been about anywhere between 3 and 4 years old or 2 to 4 years old.

So maybe around there. So, that's another thing that you just think, wow, isn't this just supposed to be natural and then it, well, my wife is getting a consultation, nursing consultants to help with the kids and, so she, so she weans him, brings him up, and, and hands him over to Eli, and then they worship the Lord there. So this is, this is very strange to us. This almost has the feeling of some Buddhist kung fu movie where somebody brings a little kid up to some high temple and drops him off there for the sensei to train him.

but again, we're dealing with ancient culture. she had made this vow before the Lord. to me, I don't know about you, but when, if somebody would have accused me of drunkenness while I was in the middle of prayer, and if, and if they had sons that had the reputation of Eli's sons, I'd be a little reticent to turn my child over to this educational system, Eli, and, but she just had to trust the Lord. She had made the vow and the Lord had answered the prayer and so she turned him over and trusted the Lord.

Yeah, wait. Yeah. Totally. Totally.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, totally. Yeah, so, yeah, Wade brings up a great point, we just got to remember the flesh and blood reality of here of Annah, a mother, Hannah, a mother who was really wanting children and now she's turning this child over to the temple and just, and that's an amazing step of faith. And I think of my little guy, Samuel. Yeah, his name is Samuel, 8 years old.

just bringing them. I wouldn't even take them to a boys camp and drop them off for a week. but here she is dropping them off at a temple and she's gonna see him year after year, but here he is. And, Yes, Yes, Yes.

Yes. That's a, yeah, it's an amazing point that Wade is bringing up that God is using all of these circumstances, even the, the sin of Elk Elkanah's other wife to move Hannah to this place of just, Lord, I wanna worship you and I wanna give everything to you, including any children that you bring into my life. And so we do see God's providence, even, even in the, the trials and, and the sins that other people. may be committing against us.

And so then Hannah goes into this prayer and we're not gonna take time on this prayer. I would encourage you to read it. however, I, I, I, I think there's lessons here that as we're praying and worshiping the Lord, This is very specific and it's not, it's, it's specific about what God has done. It's also specific about how God treats enemies, and so I think we, our prayers should be willing to be informed by the prayers of the Bible.

And there's certain themes and places that Hannah goes here that we might be afraid to go there in our prayers. And but I'd, I'd encourage you to take a look at that. And see what you think. Let's, we're gonna, I'm gonna read now at verse 12 and following.

And I'll just read this and then we'll come back and do the audio for chapter 3. So let's start in verse 12. So now we have another scenario. we've, we're still in the same time period, but now we're gonna focus on back to, to Eli and his sons.

Now, the sons of Eli, I'm reading from the New King James, were corrupt. They did not know the Lord. And the priest's custom with the people was that When any man offered a sacrifice, the priest's servant would come with the three-pronged flesh hook in his hand while the meat was boiling, and then he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot, and the priest would take for himself all that the flesh hook brought up. so they did in Shiloh, to all the Israelites who came there.

Now, there's nothing wrong with what's been said so far. This was actually relegated or it's in the law that the priest had the right to take the shoulder, so to speak, or this is literally where the idea of potluck comes from is stick the fork in, you pull out, and you get what you get. I will sometimes use this doctrine as a pastor. I, I don't know if this is the proper application, but sometimes something will fall to me as a pastor.

Somebody leaves something behind in our, our refrigerator in the kitchen. I haven't brought my lunch. I look in there and find something that's unmarked, and I'll go to pastors like this and say, well, I'll take my shoulder piece. I'm joking, but.

But yeah, so this was a this was a calm practice. Nothing wrong with this idea. This was just how the priests were able to eat and survive. However, continue on.

also, before they burn the fat, the priests, and I don't really like also that probably should be, however, in verse 15, what do you guys have for that conjunction in different translations? Moreover, that's better. But even, OK, OK, that's a little better. New King James has also, I don't really like that.

before they burn the fat, the priest would come and say to the man who sacrificed, Give me meat for roasting to the priest and he will not take boiled meat from you, but raw. Well, it sounds like Gollum there, but if the man said to him, they should really burn the fat first, then you may take as much as your heart desires, he would then answer, no, but you must give it now, and if not, I will take it by force. This doesn't really sound like Pastor Milton, right? Or somebody, so you can just imagine Pastor Milton, you're walking into the church and he's like, Give me a dollar.

What, what, what for? Well, give it to me. I'm gonna take it by force. I think you'd find another church, right?

But at this time, all you had was the, the community, local community church of Shiloh, right? It was just Shiloh Bible Church, so that's all you had and so you went to Shiloh Bible Church. Therefore, the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord, no fear of God here. But, and I like that conjunction and choice, Samuel ministered before the Lord even as a child, wearing a linen kod that would be garb of a priest.

Moreover, his mother used to make him a little robe, that's just so cute, bring it to him year by year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice, and Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, the Lord give to your descendants from the woman. for the loan, that was given to the Lord, and, then they would go home, go, to their home. so, Eli would recognize that they'd come and the sacrifice that they had made and he would pronounce a blessing over them.

And the Lord visited Hannah so that she conceived and bore 3 sons and 2 daughters.

Meanwhile, the child Samuel grew before the Lord. So here, again, we could talk about second causation, but first causation is the Lord opened her womb and gives her 5 children. And so the Lord blesses her, visits her. And then we have Samuel growing up before the Lord.

Verse 22. Now, Eli was very old. And he heard everything his sons did to all Israel and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. And he said to them, why do you do such things?

For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people. No, my sons, for it is not a good report that I hear. You make the Lord's people transgress. If one man sins against another, God will judge him, but if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him?

Nevertheless, they did not heed the voice of their father because the Lord desired to kill them. Now, that is one of the most amazing verses in the Bible. There is so much stuff going on in verse 25. It could take us quite a while to talk about, but I'm just gonna, we're gonna go straight to the punch here about 1st and 2nd causation.

Let's look back at the top of verse 25. Eli says, if one man sins against another, God will judge him, but if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him? He's acknowledging human responsibility. He's, he's trying to rebuke his sons at least verbally for their sins.

Nevertheless, they would not heed the voice of the Father. So they, when you hear the word heed, this is the same idea of hear, O Israel. It's like, listen with the intent of obeying. They would not listen with the intent of obeying.

So from the language there, the implication is, are they responsible for their actions? Yes. They would not listen to Eli. They should have listened to Eli, but they chose not to.

They're using their volition. They're hearing his, the words of their father. And they are choosing not to heed, not to obey. But then the Bible tells us why the first causation reason why they did not obey, because the Lord desired to kill them.

So in this verse, and we see verses like this throughout the whole Bible, we have human responsibility, we have volition that people can and will be held accountable for, but we have first causation of God doing things in his providence without violating their volition. we've talked about this in the past. we call it divine compatibility. The fact that human beings are responsible for their choices, they make real decisions, and yet God is completely sovereign over everything that happens.

And I don't, there's, for us, there's almost no other way to explain this. We can't do this. We're not human. We're not God.

We're human beings, we're creatures. But God, who is the Creator. can move in such a way to where people are making volitional choices that they will be held accountable for, and yet God, how else can you read this other than to say, God moved sovereignly to not allow them to listen to their father because God had other things in mind, namely to kill them. To pass his judgment upon them for the sins they had done.

This is a challenging verse, admittedly, but there should, if we're really serving the true God of the universe who is sovereign overall, there should be differences between him and us, right? And, and so this is just a crazy verse. May this never be said of any one of us. May God protect us from it ever being said from any one of our children.

But no doubt, God is sovereign and this no doubt is not the only time in the history of the universe that God did such a thing where he says, I am not going to allow such and such to happen because I have greater judgment in mind for that person. That's spooky. It hearkens to some of the psalms that say, why do the wicked prevail? Why God, when we look out at the wickedness that we see people prospering and to which part of God's answer is, because I am building up my case and judgment against them.

I am delaying so that the wrath will be greater upon their heads. That's spooky, right? How many times in the Old Testament do you say God saying, delaying judgment, saying the cup of their iniquity is not full yet? 400 years, right?

Abraham was, was told 400 years before the fact that there's coming a time when this, the iniquity of this land will be filled and then I will bring judgment upon the peoples of Canaan. And so we see both the goodness and the severity of God. Throughout the scriptures. But then contrast that with the very next verse, 26, and the child, Samuel grew in stature and in favor both with the Lord and men.

This is meant to be by the inspirational Holy Spirit, our authors contrasting the sons of Eli with Samuel. These guys, the Lord's intending to kill him, and here, Samuel is growing up. In favor with the Lord and men. In fact, many commentators say it's no accident that the New Testament picks up the same language and, and refers to Christ in the book of Luke.

Remember over there in Luke? And so Samuel is, he's a human, he's imperfect, he's sinful, but he's a type, a pointer to this future prophet, Jesus Christ. Let's continuing the, the chapter. Then a man of God came to Eli and said to him, this is a very interesting character.

We're, we're given no name. It's a man of God Thus says the Lord. So as soon as someone says thus says the Lord, if they're really and they're already identified as a man of God, what's about ready to follow? What would we call this speech?

Prophecy. So this guy's been identified as a man of God. He stands up and he says, thus says the Lord, we're about ready to hear prophecy. Did I not clearly reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt and Pharaoh's house?

Did I not choose him out of the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon my altar to burn incense, to wear an ephad before me, and did I not give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? Why do you kick at my sacrifice? In my offering, which I have commanded in my dwelling place and honor your sons more than me. To make yourself fat with the best of the offerings of Israel, my people.

Therefore, the Lord God of Israel says, I said indeed that your house, your house, and the house of your fathers would walk before me forever. But now the Lord says, far be it from me. For those who honor me, I will honor those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father's house.

So there will not be an old man in your house, and you will see an enemy in my dwelling place and despite all the good which God does for Israel, and there shall not be an old man in your house forever, but any of your men whom I do not cut off from before my altar shall consume your eyes and grieve your heart. And all the descendants of the house shall die in the flower of their age. Now, this shall be a sign to you. That will come upon your two sons on Hofney and Phineas.

In one day they shall die, both of them. So a prophecy, part of the nature of prophecy is something is pronounced directly from the Lord and then there's a sign that's typically given. Here's how that I'm not a, a quack. I'm gonna predict something that will be very objective that nobody can deny.

Unlike some of the quacks that we see today that are claiming prophecy, these folks give undeniable predictions. In one day, both of your sons are gonna die. Then I will raise up for myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in my heart and my mind, and I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before my anointed forever. And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left in your house will come and bow to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread and say, please put me in one of the priestly positions that I may eat a piece of bread.

That is the sermon, that is the prophecy delivered to Eli. This does not have a fun, happy application with a three verse hymn. At the end. This is a very depressing message.

And at this point, we don't really hear Eli's response. We know that Eli has delivered the message, but we're not really sure what he's going to say yet. But I think we're gonna get a little bit of a clue of Eli's how he tends to respond to the Lord in the next chapter. Could we go ahead and play Tory the the clip for chapter 3?

So we're gonna, now we're gonna listen to chapter 3 and we'll come back and wrap this up. OK, that's good right there. OK. Amazing, amazing turn of events, amazing chapter.

Many of you, I'm sure have heard this story several times. So, we have a period in Israel's history again where there's just not a lot of prophecy. We had just heard from this man of God, but now we find out that that's an oddity. And so, the word of the Lord or prophecy is actually pretty rare.

Samuel's sleeping near the ark. That is not incidental. We're gonna hear more about the ark in the next chapter. And so, he's there before the Lord, before the ark.

When it says he didn't know the Lord yet, what does that mean in this context in verse 7. Yeah, so he had, he hadn't heard his voice yet as a prophet. I don't think this, this doesn't have the same idea. of, of other places where somebody is against the Lord or like it says, it uses a similar phrase of Eli's sons.

They didn't know the Lord. That means they're not worshiping, they're not following, there's no relationship with the Lord. In this case, Samuel, he doesn't seem to know the Lord by experience yet as a prophet. Yeah, neat.

Yeah, it could be, that's a good question. I guess it could be that this should be seen as a couplet where no and reveal should be viewed as synonymous. But I think. There seems to be a clear contrast between Eli's sons and Samuel.

And so, I don't know that we should read and know the Lord in the same way that we, you or I might use that term today. So, if you and I are talking about somebody, hey, do your parents know the Lord? That would mean, are they Christians, right? Have they repented of their sins?

I don't know that we would use it in the same way. Here, Samuel has clearly been involved in the sacrificial system. He's involved in the daily worship. He's learning about how to do the duties of a priest.

So I don't know. So definitely I don't think you would imply by this that he is against the Lord the way Eli's sons were. When it says there they didn't know the Lord, it wasn't that they were lacking in factual knowledge. It's that they were against the Lord.

So clearly that's not being meant here by Samuel. Yeah. Yeah, I have yet to. I'm not, I'd, I'd have to look at the, I'm not sure what the original says.

Not yet. Yeah, Yeah, But yeah, the clear point is, he as a prophet, he hadn't yet heard the voice and didn't recognize his voice. Yeah, Justin. I would assume so, but I'd have to go back and look.

It's a good question. I go back and check it out. Hebrew, it tends to be less precise. There's not as many words in biblical Hebrew as in biblical Greek.

And because of that, there's a lot more questions, interpretive questions, a lot of times when you're reading your Old Testament. It's just not as precise of a language. We don't know. Yeah, there's no evidence of how old he really is.

Yeah. Yeah Yeah, it's true. Yeah, he's around people that don't know the Lord, but we've already had narrative indicators that say he's been growing in favor with God and man. So there's already been lead up to this point that indicates that he is to be viewed as different from the sons of Eli.

Yep. Yeah, over there in Luke. Yeah, totally. Growing up in the stature of God and men.

So it seems like we're definitely meant to view Samuel regardless of where he's at in his relationship with the Lord. We're meant to view him as different. and then he, the Lord does begin to speak with him and, from our viewpoint, it's somewhat of a cute story to start, he doesn't realize the Lord's talking to him. But then If, if we're really trying to like do true to life stuff, the Lord reveals this very disturbing message.

Samuel's afraid to talk about it. And then Eli does, again, this strange turn to me. If you don't tell me everything, it's gonna happen to you, buddy. And who knows how old this kid is, but let's say he is an 8 year old.

isn't that kinda like, today, we would almost call that kinda like verbal abuse or something., so Samuel's like, all right, I'll tell you everything. And here's, here's where I wanna end things, is over there in verse 18. Is Samuel, now at, at least for the second time, Eli, he's hearing this message, first from the man of God, now from Samuel. His response is, it is the Lord.

Let him do what seems good to him. And on the surface, that sounds like a pretty good response. He's heard this prophecy about how God's gonna bring judgment upon his sons, and he says, all right, well, this is the Lord's will. I trust in God's sovereignty.

Let the Lord do whatever is good to him. I wanna at least suggest to you guys, you can research this just this week, is, is that really the response that God was after in Eli's life from the, from a human volitional perspective? And I wanna suggest to you, probably not. We have examples all over the scripture where God says, I'm gonna come and bring judgment like in Nineveh, but guess what?

Nineveh repents and then God withholds his judgment. who was it? What was the king that he added extra years to his life that was, Hezekiah? Was it?

And so, this is that whole, how should we use our understanding of God's sovereignty? was God going to kill Eli's sons? From the text, it seems pretty apparent that, that God was going to bring judgment upon them. But what was he trying to get out of Eli at this point?

would it not be, hey, instead of just giving some verbiage to your sons, you need to get them out of there. Remove them, put somebody else in their place. Bring, he had the power to bring the hammer down on these guys, but instead he stands back and kinda hides underneath the sovereignty of God. Oh, God's good, he's gonna do what he wants to do.

And, I, I, I think I've fallen into that trap in the past and I've seen other people do that as well, that they make some choices that were just bad choices. I, I can remember years ago, being in a counseling situation where, a spouse had committed adultery on their spouse and, and then they were found out and they had gone through the motions of repentance and. And, and the wife was just having trouble forgiving and really struggling, and in the middle of the counseling, the husband was like, hey, you need to forgive me and get over it.

The Lord's forgiven me.

And by the way, this is all underneath God's providential plan anyway. This was meant to happen. And I could have just got the boxing gloves out and said, handed them over to the wife and said, hey, why don't you take a couple of swipes here, that's not how you use the sovereignty of God. And, and so I think in this, in this text, we'll end with this, Eli, I think, is an example, and again, you can do some research and pray and I think an example of how not to use the sovereignty of God.

We clearly see God's providence all over this text. But we also see an example of how to be careful not to use God's sovereignty as an excuse for your own sin and as a reason to not use your choices to repent of sin. go backwards to Naomi, however, and Naomi is experiencing God's sovereign hand in her life. She's experienced the bitterness, she's struggling, and yet she's reaching out to the God who is in charge, who has brought this, this affliction into her life.

And yet she's choosing, she's making certain choices, right? Her and Ruth are working together to improve their situation. They're approaching Boaz, they're being proactive in their lives, and then they're seeing God move the pieces, even using their choices for good. This is mysterious, I know, but I think the bottom line is, is when we're looking at things in our past that are completely out of our control, we just say, what, I, Lord, I just trust your hand.

I don't understand everything that's going on, but I trust you. If there's things we've decided in our past that, that have created consequences for ourselves and for others, we own that. We say this is in the past. I'm not gonna sit here and dwell on every, all the bad things I did in the past.

If you, once you hit a certain age, we're all gonna have regrets, right? We can sit around and just, just regret ourselves into the grave, but that doesn't mean we don't also own certain consequences. There's things I've done in my life as a 48 year old man that I can never take back and, and there are certain residual consequences that I just have to own at this point in my life. And at the same time, I can make decisions now that can be positively can positively influence my future, right?

I can own my sinful choices before people I've sinned against and humble myself before them. I can acknowledge God's goodness to me and why is he so good to me though I've made some bonehead decisions in my life. And so, this, this is what we're talking about. We talk about the right uses of a doctrine.

How do we think through what the Bible clearly lays out to us and it, it takes wisdom and we do it in community. So, let's pray if there's questions you guys can come up afterwards, we'll talk more about it. Next week we'll continue on, in the book of, of Samuel. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for your kindness and goodness to us this morning. you are the God who is in charge of absolutely everything. You do whatever you wish. And, and we acknowledge that your choices are right and good.

We acknowledge that you are the one that will judge your enemies and yet you have compassion upon thousands. we thank you for your compassion and mercy upon us. We pray, Father, that you'd help us to appropriately think about our past. That we would not dwell in the arena of regret and understand forgiveness at the same time, help us not to deny the responsibility that we have for decisions we've made and to own that under underneath the cloak of your love and help us to respond appropriately when we need to repent, that can so that we can really drink in the full benefits, and desires that you have for us.

Thank you for this, the, the practicality of your word, the beauty of it, and we pray that by your Spirit, we'd be able to put it into practice and worship you because of it. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right, awesome.

We will see you guys next week as we talk about Israel rejecting God as King and King David coming to the throne. Next week, that'll probably be my favorite passage in the Bible.