Danger Signs of Marital Erosion, Part 2

Today on Insight for Living from Chuck Swindoll. We need to pay real close attention to folks who are with our children when we're not there. We need to listen to reports from the teacher at school. We need to listen to the principal. We need to listen to the coach.

Rather than finding blame in the teacher or the principal or putting down the coach, you need to say thank you. Help me know what's going on. Few things drive a wedge into a marriage relationship quite like children who show signs of rebellion. All too often, a husband and wife ignore the warning signs or they disagree on how to help their teen get back on track. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll continues a message started yesterday in which he identifies these pitfalls and he provides biblical wisdom on how to protect and nurture our most cherished relationships. Teaching from the Old Testament book of First Samuel, Chuck titled today's message Danger Signs of Marital Erosion.

We know what's going on when all the while it is eating away, disintegrating, destroying, slowly, silently, subtly. We begin well by coming first to the cross. And we come to our savior and acknowledge that there's nothing in ourselves we can bring and it's only by his grace that we're able to approach him and take his offer of eternal life by faith.

We start our life with him. By and by in the process of time, cracks brought on by character flaws that are unsuspected and undetected by others widen, begin to take their toll in our lives. A compromise here, an off-color statement there and some contamination from here and before you know it, like in the case of King Saul, that life once standing tall and strong begins to weaken and finally collapse.

Erosion. What can happen in a building and what can happen in a life can occur in a family. Every couple begins at an altar or before the justice of the peace and they stand and say all the right words. They're called their vows. We had a lovely wedding here just yesterday afternoon and one of our own staff members marries a lovely young lady who was a part of our Insight for Living ministry and it was just perfect. They said all the right things and several times my wife would squeeze my hand and maybe to remind me that's what we said way back then and then I nudged her and we all felt warm all over.

It was all just so good. Marriage starts like that. But as the bride and groom were reminded yesterday, don't end this relationship. Don't let that happen.

Don't give up on this. Now why would the minister say that? Because he understands erosion, busyness, the whole time factor, the demands and deadlines, life being what it is before you know it, both are busy at their work, engaged even in ministry. A little slip here, a little slide there. And along come children. I've always found it interesting that brides and grooms and husbands and wives who think their lives are somehow difficult and having struggled, they think maybe having a child will help. That's the first step toward erosion when you begin the process of rearing the children and all that they bring and then there's not one, there's two and then there aren't two, there are four and then there aren't just four. There are friends and there's schooling and there's all this stuff of life and before you know it, you've lost touch. You may be surprised to know that that's not a new phenomenon.

It's happened since time immemorial. My Bible is open to an ancient book filled with the stories of what we would call ancient people who live very relevant lives. Here is a very responsible man rearing not just two sons of his own but now an adopted son whom the Lord brought to the mother in a very special way as we just read, but things begin to be unraveled. It occurred to me that there are erosion verses in the Bible.

Listen to a few. It was said of Samson in Judges 16, 20, he did not know that the Lord had departed from him. How could you not know the Lord has departed from you? Well, if you'd lived the life Samson had lived in the latter part of his time, you can understand erosion.

He had gotten so used to operating without the Lord's power, it was all about Samson. Hosea the prophet ministered to a wayward group of people known as the people of Israel in the northern kingdom. And on one occasion, the Lord gave Hosea the prophet a word to give to the people. You sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. That's an erosion verse. Hosea 8.7, you sow the wind, meaning what?

You're already moving in the wrong direction and the more you move, the more rapid the wind, and the more the wind, the deeper the decline until you have eroded as you find yourself now. Jeremiah said similar words to the people of Judah. If you have run with the footmen and they have made you tired, what will you do when the cavalry comes? And if in a time of peace you trusted and couldn't make it, what will you do in the swelling or the jungle of the Jordan? If your walk is beginning to erode when days are peaceful, what will you do when jungle fighting comes?

And you've got to find yourself defending and you're too weak to fight. Probably the most familiar erosion verse is from Paul's pen. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man sows, what? That shall he also reap. You sow to the flesh, the next verse says, you will from the flesh reap corruption.

That's an erosion verse. Eli did not know that it was eroding. I mean, he didn't know at the time. It's silent. It's slow.

It's subtle. There were no blasts of trumpets. There was not a voice from heaven announcing. He was just a deity, just busy about his work, laboring over the affairs of the tabernacle. In fact, he did it for 40 years, not only as a priest, but as a judge. It means little to us today since we're not led so much by judges. But in those days, a nation was led by judges. That's where the book just before Samuel gets its name.

A list of judges who were the authority of the people, over the people. So Eli has a double job, the high priest, not just any priest, and the leading judge. So he's dealing with religious affairs and civic affairs and political affairs and the demands of this and the deadlines of that.

And before you know it, these boys sort of raise themselves, we say nowadays. Maybe you've never met Eli. The first mention of him in all the Bible is chapter 1, verse 9, where we're told in the book of 1 Samuel that Eli is sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. It's where people and authority sat who judged and who led those of that day. He's a priest. He's the high priest. Chapter 4, verse 18, we just read earlier, tells us that he judged Israel for 40 years.

So this is no fly-by-night leader. He's been at it for decades. And his children, his boys have seen him growing up. All of their early years, their daddy was the judge. My grandfather, L.O. Lundy, who was really a well-known individual in my hometown of El Campo down in South Texas, was the justice of the peace for as long as I knew him. When I was born, he was already the justice of the peace. In fact, my father always referred to his father-in-law as Judge Lundy.

He was Judge Lundy, probably the most well-known name in the town. This is Judge Eli. This is the priest Eli.

Today we would call him a statesman. Let me also add that verse 22 of chapter 2 adds that he is very old. He's very old. Verse 8 of chapter 3, he is also discerning that the Lord is speaking to Samuel, and so he may be losing his eyesight according to verse 3. His eyesight had begun to grow dim, but he's still sensitive to the Lord's voice. And so he's telling Samuel, the voice you're hearing in the night is the voice of the Lord.

Stay there and listen carefully. So Eli has not become deadened to the things of God. He's just out of touch with his boys at home. He's not the last preacher to lose touch with his children at home. The people respected him, at least for a while, and he's still spiritually sensitive according to what we just read. In fact, let's get a complete picture and notice in verse 15 of chapter 4 that he is now 98 years old and his eyes were set so that he could not see. So in the passing of more time, he loses his eyesight. And the end of verse of the 18th verse, Eli falls off the seat backward beside the gate. His neck is broken and he died, for he was old and heavy. Well, we'll leave it at that.

No need to make that even more clear. He is a large man who has lost touch with his family, still stayed in the stirrups, still did his job, still doing his job, but his boys no longer respect him. Let's meet his sons. They too were priests, if you can believe it. Verse 3 of chapter 1. I wish I could give all of this in one simple section of Scripture, but you've got to go back and forth in these first four chapters, so bear with me here.

We're building toward a case. Verse 3, the two of his sons of Eli were Hophni and Phinehas. They were priests to the Lord there. So they're younger priests. Their daddy is the high priest.

What kind of boys are they? Verse 12 of chapter 2 just comes to the bottom line. The sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord.

They're not the last preacher or priest to serve a church who didn't know the Lord. There's a good place for me to add here that you need to pay close attention to whom you follow as your spiritual leader. Be very careful, very discerning who you listen to, who you watch on television. Pay close attention to what is said and what is not said. Look at what they write. Watch how they lead and live. Here were boys who were doing the work of the priesthood in a perfunctory, even cynical manner, taking advantage of the people, even according to verse 22, they lay with the women who served at the door of the tent of meeting.

How vile can you get? Eli is so out of touch, these boys are out of control, and he's going right on with his judging and preaching and leading. It can happen.

Now let me pause for a caveat here. Sometime a dad does what he ought to be doing and the kids just go bad, okay? Kids have a will of their own. Let me just set that straight lest you think I'm not aware of it. Sometimes it's rare, but sometime a father has done all that could have been done and the kids turn out wrong.

More often than not, however, the dad is too busy, too involved, and therefore out of touch. Verse 12 makes it real clear in chapter 2 that they were worthless. Now that's a pretty strong word.

We'd say in Texas, sorry. They're a sorry couple of guys. That's a Texas expression. God uses the word worthless. They have no plans to repent. They're too old now or they're too set. They're too stubborn to change. In fact, when their own father says something to them, they don't respect him. They turn against his reproof.

Verse 25 says they would not listen to the voice of their father. Eli in his half attempt to correct things a little late does not get the attention of his sons. And then there's a third boy. His name is Samuel. He's not Eli's son. He's Hannah's. Hannah and Elkanah have had this boy, and Hannah promised if the Lord would give her a child, when she weaned him, she would bring him to Eli and she would have Eli mentor him as he would grow up there in that tabernacle. You know, maybe Hannah did not know the setting.

Maybe a lot of people for a long time didn't know. It can happen. Erosion is like that. These boys are making decisions behind the scenes and their lives are turning in the wrong direction. Samuel reminds me of a beautiful rose that grows and blooms over a cesspool, a flower that blossoms near a swamp. It's a bad environment, but the guy turns out great. He's never contaminated by the lives of Hophni and Phinehas. It just occurs that maybe by now Eli realizes that the other boys are too far to help.

Maybe his one chance is with Samuel, and he pours himself into him. I don't know. What were the sins of the older sons? Well, no reason to linger here needlessly, but verse 17 of chapter 2 states, The sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for the men despised the offering of the Lord.

They're cynical. They would drive their flesh hook into the meat that was brought for sacrifice, and they were to take out only the part that stuck to the hook, and not them. Those boys took out whatever they wanted. They served themselves, and the people were insignificant. It was all about them. To make matters worse, they became lustful, taking advantage of the women who would come for worship, if you could believe it.

And before long, everybody knows about it. Verse 23, Eli, when talking to the boys, says, Why do you do such things, the evil things that I hear from all these people? People are not talking. You can't live like that and think it's going to stay quiet.

It's going to get back to the dead. Verse 24, No, my son, the report is not good, which I hear the Lord's people circulating. You see, Eli's being warned by different sources. He's got the people who came to worship telling him. Look at verse 27 of chapter 2. He's got an unnamed man of God, a prophet who came to Eli and said, it gives him a little historical lesson on the people of the Hebrews, and says to him in 29, Why do you kick at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I've commanded in my dwelling, and honor your sons above me by making yourselves fat with the choice of every offering of my people Israel? That's how he got fat.

He fell into the trap of his own son's habit of eating more than they should and taking what they shouldn't. And now the Lord is reproving this dead saying, You're beginning to look a lot like your sons. And you remember Samuel asleep at night and getting the... I remember in Sunday school being told that Samuel was asleep on this little cot and he wakes up and he hears the voice. The story is in chapter 3.

I remember seeing pictures in Sunday school class that were on the wall. One of them was always Samuel as he's sitting up on the side of his cot listening to the voice of the Lord. And the Lord says, Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel thinks it's Eli. So he runs into Eli and Eli discerns finally this is the Lord. So Samuel lies back down and happens again and he does it again. And finally the Lord tells him what he has on his mind. By the way, in Sunday school I never learned what God said.

I thought, How come you woke him up three times and you never said anything? Well, he said a lot. In fact, he said to Samuel, he said to Samuel, verse 13, I've told Eli that I'm about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew because his sons brought a curse on themselves and he did not rebuke them. So he tells Samuel. And you could believe it, the very next morning Eli wants to know what did he say? So Samuel tells Eli.

So he's not only hearing it from the people, from a nameless prophet, he's hearing it now from the Lord himself through the lips of Samuel. And his response, it's a little pathetic. You know why? Because by now he is numbered with them. He sort of falls into that trap as I mentioned earlier. He's sort of wringing his hands in chapter 2, verse 23 saying, Why do you do such things?

Why do you do these? And the classic case of the passive father is chapter 3 and verse 13. The Lord says, I've told him that I'm about to judge his house forever which he knew because his sons brought a curse on themselves and he finally just stopped rebuking them.

Just no longer rebukes them. I want to add a word to all of us who are parents. We need to pay real close attention to folks who are with our children when we're not there. We need to listen to reports from the teacher at school. We need to listen to the principal when his office or her office contacts us. We need to listen to the coach who said I'm asking him to leave the team. You need to listen. You need to ask why.

Rather than finding blame in the teacher or the principal or putting down the coach, you need to say thank you. Help me know what's going on. Thank you for telling me. Let me hear what it is that you've found out. Warnings are given to families along the way and often they verify our worst fears.

In John White's moving book, Parents in Pain, he gives this story. Honey, a police car just pulled in front of the house. Jim and Elaine stared at it, ominous, even without flashing lights. A couple of bystanders stopped to watch along with some neighborhood children. Curtains across the street were slowly drawn aside. For a minute, nothing happened. And from the car emerged two uniformed city police officers.

One of them held the door open to allow a bedraggled youth to get out. Peter. Elaine said hoarsely, it's Peter. Yet she was not surprised.

Listen to this. She had long feared this very scene. Slowly, Peter, his head held high and defiant, walked up the path between the two officers. Jim and Elaine felt suspended in the foreign universe.

Yet when the trio finally reached the front door, the bell sounded with unnatural clarity. Oh, God. Elaine said softly, what do we do now? Well, by all means, be sure to join us when Chuck Swindoll continues this message. He's talking about the danger signs of marital erosion. And on tomorrow's edition of Insight for Living, Chuck will identify four very specific red flags that will help us know when our marriage is running into trouble. And to learn more about today's topic, be sure to visit us online at insightforliving.org. And then, as an added resource to you, remember, Insight for Living provides interactive study notes for every message. Please take a few moments to review this popular resource.

You'll find the entire series, Marriage from Surviving to Thriving, available right now in the Searching the Scriptures section of our website. There's no cost to access these interactive study notes. In fact, there's a link to that in the description.

You can print them out and share them with friends. Just go to insight.org slash studies. Plus, Chuck wrote a full-length book on this topic. Like his eight-part sermon series, the book is also titled Marriage from Surviving to Thriving.

It includes an entire chapter on the topic we addressed today. And there's another chapter on staying young as your family grows older. This book on marriage is for everyone. No matter your age. You know, good marriages need to heed the danger signs.

And even healthy relationships need a tune-up every now and then. The title of Chuck's book again is Marriage from Surviving to Thriving. And it's available when you call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888.

Or go online to insight.org slash offer. We rely on your support to make these daily Bible studies with Chuck possible. And we're grateful to our monthly companions and all those who give one-time contributions.

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Wednesday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Danger Signs of Marital Erosion, was copyrighted in 2005, 2006, and 2022. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2022 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.