Consecration vs. Corruption (Part 1 of 2)

There are some people who are getting involved in a lot of ministries, but they don't actually know God. Today on Truth for Life, we'll learn how the faith of a young child sometimes outshines the faith of religious leaders.

Here's Alistair Begg with part one of a message titled, Consecration versus Corruption. If you're visiting today, we have embarked on a series of studies in 1 Samuel, and we have reached the eleventh verse of 1 Samuel chapter 2, and we're going to read from that verse through to the end of verse 26. So I invite you to follow along as I read 1 Samuel 2, verse 11 and following. Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, and the boy was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli the priest. Now the sons of Eli were worthless men.

They did not know the Lord. The custom of the priests with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant would come while the meat was boiling with a three-pronged fork in his hand, and he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot. All that the fork brought up, the priest would take for himself. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. Moreover, before the fat was burned, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, "'Give meat for the priest to roast, for he will not accept boiled meat from you, but only raw.'

And if the man said to him, "'Let them burn the fat first, and then take as much as you wish,' he would say, "'No, you must give it now, and if not, I will take it by force.' Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord, for the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt." Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy clothed with a linen ephod, and his mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, "'May the Lord give you children by this woman for the petition she asked of the Lord.'

So then they would return to their home. Indeed, the Lord visited Hannah, and she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters, and the boy Samuel grew in the presence of the Lord." Now Eli was very old, and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing to all Israel and how they lay with the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting. And he said to them, "'Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people.

No, my sons, it is no good report that I hear the people of the Lord spreading abroad. If someone sins against a man, God will mediate for him. But if someone sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him?' But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death.

Now the boy Samuel continued to grow, both in stature and in favor with the Lord and also with man." Thanks be to God for his Word. We know, gracious God, because your Word tells us that the entrance of your Word brings light, and so we pray that you will shine into the darkness of our world and into our often darkened hearts with the truth that is ultimately discovered by us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Beyond the voice of a mere man, may we hear from you, the living God. For Jesus' sake. Amen. Well, we pick up our study at the eleventh verse.

Hannah has gone home, leaving Samuel behind. She leaves behind, if you like, a consecrated boy living in corruption. And if you want a heading for our study, we could simply call it consecration and corruption, or perhaps better, consecration versus corruption. You remember in Hamlet that—I think it's Marcellus—who remarks upon seeing the apparition of the ghost of Hamlet's father. He says, Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. And as I read this passage during the week, I found myself saying, Something, actually a great deal, is rotten in the city of Shiloh.

And what makes it so staggering is the fact that we're not learning here about the impact of a surrounding pagan culture intruding upon the righteousness of the people of God, but we're actually discovering that those who represent God at the very heart of the religious practice of the time are themselves guilty of the most willful and dreadful sins. And during the week, I thought this is a classic opportunity to use what I thought was the accurate phrase, We have met the enemy, and it is us. When I wrote that down in my notes, I thought, Well, I should check that, because it's not actually the original statement. The original statement came, interestingly—a little history—at the Battle of Erie in 1813, when the commander of the naval fleet, the American commander, a fellow called Oliver Hazard Perry, had beaten the British somewhat decisively and had captured Royal Navy ships. And he then issued the statement, We have met the enemy, and they are ours. We have taken them over. That then became We have met the enemy, and it is us. That was in 1970, on the first Earth Day, if you care to know, and a poster was created to highlight the fact that apparently we are responsible for destroying everything. And so the corruption of the statement from 1813 then became We have met the enemy, and it is ours. Well, it may be a corruption of the original statement, but it is an accurate and most applicable acknowledgement of these worthless fellows and their somewhat inept father by the name of Eli. If, like me, you read narrative with music in your head and seeing it come alive in your mind because of just the way you're put together, then I think you will agree that the balance of this chapter is dark.

It would be if we were providing music in a somewhat discordant and probably minor tone. And against that, there come these little shafts of light, where, if you like, the melody line now goes to the major key, and you have these little shafts of light that penetrate the darkness. You'll find them—one of them begins our reading in verse 11, where the light shines on this boy ministering to the Lord. You go down to verse 18, and once again you find the same thing—a boy clothed with a linen ephod. And in verse 21, this same boy growing in the presence of the Lord. And then in verse 26, growing in stature and in favor and so on.

And we all, when we read the Bible, bring ourselves to the text and our own background and everything, and I find myself going to look for a song that we used to sing as children in Scotland as I thought of Eli and the darkness that pervaded his place. And then it was almost as if I had a picture of Samuel, and he actually lit up. You know, I don't know how you do that, but he was, like, lit. He was shining.

And the song goes like this. It was written by a lady in 1870, Lord, make my life a little light within the world to glow, a little flame that burneth bright wherever I may go. And in the providence of God, God has chosen to do that in and through the life of this little boy. A reminder to us in passing that we should never underestimate the part assigned to children in the purposes of God—that the work among children, to children, and actually in turn through children is significant work. And many a child has gone on to be greatly used of God because of the care, the compassion, the diligence that has been shown to them in their infancy.

And who can but… We can only imagine what Hannah and Elkanah poured into the life of this little boy before they were finally going to leave him behind as they did. So, Samuel is a reminder to me at least, and hopefully to you too, that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can't put it out. But it is then in verse 12 that we descend into the darkness, into what we can only describe as a quagmire of spiritual and moral corruption. We've had a passing reference to these sons of Eli back in chapter 1. We're told there in chapter 1 that they were priests of the Lord. And that is significant.

They were set apart for sacred purposes—that their position in life was within the framework of the religious establishment of the day, and in this respect, they were to follow their father and to follow the Lord. And what do we discover? Well, we discover that they are worthless men. Worthless men. That adjective, worthless, we've already seen in chapter 1.

When Hannah uses it—because you remember that Eli, in encountering Hannah, took her for a drunken woman, and he just missed the point entirely, and it is in that context that she says to Eli, she says, Oh, please do not regard me as a worthless woman. The irony of it was awaiting us, because he now is the father of these worthless sons. A significant part of the religious establishment—but you will notice there in verse 12 that they did not know the Lord. They did not know the Lord. It's not uncommon for people involved in religious life not to actually know God. We may wonder at it, but it is absolutely true. The history of the Bible says it, and the history of church says it.

It is clear that that is the case. Now, what does it mean, they did not know the Lord? Do you mean they didn't know who Yahweh was? Well, clearly, it doesn't mean that. It means that they didn't know him, and they didn't care about him, and they paid no regard to him. They were involved in his service, but they had no living relationship with him at all.

Whatever had been there in the early days has long since gone. Beware, if you like, an early version of the religious hucksters to whom Jesus refers in his woes in Matthew chapter 23. You remember when he says to them, You are blind guides. You're blind guides. You don't know where you're going, and you're prepared to take other people into the same lostness that is yours.

In many ways, we can be helped by considering Pharaoh in relationship to these boys, on two fronts, the first of which is this—that when Moses goes to Pharaoh, and he says, Let my people go—this is the word of God to you—Pharaoh—and you can read this in Exodus chapter 5—Pharaoh says, Why are you saying that to me? I do not know the Lord. I don't know the Lord. That wasn't an admission of ignorance. That was an expression of defiance.

That's what he was saying. Now, don't come here and tell me about what Yahweh says. I don't know the Lord, and I don't care. That is the point that is being made here in relationship to these boys.

A reminder, too, is that scandal in the ranks of the clergy is not unique to the twenty-first century. They actually are the adversaries of the Lord that are mentioned in verse 10 in Hannah's prayer. If your text is like mine, you can just look up the page, and you will see there in verse 10, the adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces, against them he will thunder in heaven. Who would have thought that the adversaries of the Lord would be in the temple of the Lord, would be in the tent of meeting, at the tabernacle? And who would have imagined that their sin, verse 17, would be so very great inasmuch as they treated the offering of the Lord with contempt? In other words, at the very place that God is appointed for the expression of forgiveness and for the expression of thankfulness for that forgiveness, you have these two characters, and in the middle of all of that they do not know the Lord and they do not care. Now, the background to their actions, which are described for us first between verses 13 and 17, the background to that you will be able to find if you read in Numbers and in Deuteronomy and in Leviticus. I have chosen not to go back and prove this to you.

I think you can trust me, and a concordance will get you there. When you get there, you will discover that God has laid down, if you like, in a liturgical and sacrificial pattern, the exact way in which he wants these expressions of sacrifice and these expressions of thankfulness for sacrifice to take place. In other words, he has not simply given a suggestion that we can accept and redefine on our own. No, he has said, This is exactly how it is to be done. There are reasons for that, and they're all purposeful reasons. God has designed it to take place in a certain way. And what we're told here is simply this—that Hophni and Phinehas have totally rejected that. We're not going to operate on that basis. Instead, out of their pride, arrogance, heavy-handedness, greediness, they have begun to introduce a whole new program.

They don't even get involved in it themselves. They have a servant. And the servant here goes around—you will see verse 14—"with a three-pronged fork in his hand."

It's almost humorous if it wasn't tragic. So he brought this fellow, and he has his three-pronged fork. This is a kind of ancient version of fondue with a twist to it. But nobody else goes in the pot at this point except the servant with the three-pronged fork. And so God has established a way whereby the provision for the priests was to be made. When you read in the Pentateuch, you will discover that it came down to the actual pieces of the creature that was in the pot. And so they said, Hey, don't worry about the specifics.

Just take your three-pronged fork, go in there, and just get as much as you possibly can and bring it back for us. And this wasn't a one-off. This was a pattern. Verse 14. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

So everybody knew. If you happen to go there and you're making one of these Thanksgiving celebrations, look out for the guy with the three-pronged fork, because he's gonna come, and he's a servant of these characters, the sons of Eli the priest. And if that wasn't bad enough, they were also, the record tells us, robbing God of that which belonged to the Lord himself. Now, again, Leviticus will help you with this. Again and again you read that when God instituted these things, the fat was to be burned off as a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

All right? So if you think about it, it's absolutely wonderful, isn't it? The physicality and the visibility of what God has given to his people in order that they might know what they're supposed to be doing, how they're supposed to be doing it, when they're supposed to be doing it. And as the aroma would emerge from there, then the people were able to say, And the reason that we're not diving in right now is because this aroma is a sacrifice of praise to Yahweh, the God who has provided everything for us, not least of all forgiveness for our sins. So, Hophni and Phinehas said, Now, we're not gonna do that either. And they gave instruction to their servant, If the worshiper protests, when you go at them in this way and ask for the raw meat, then just take them by force. Just manhandle him. Don't be bothered with it. Use force to secure our greedy, godless ends.

Thus, 17, The sin of the young man was very great in the sight of the LORD, for the man treated the offering of the LORD with contempt. Now, at this point, the darkness lifts momentarily. The mood shifts.

The melody is no longer discordant but tuneful. And what do we have? A boy clothed with a linen ephod, wearing the simple garments of priestly function. A little boy shining in the darkness.

A little boy classically insignificant in contrast to the domineering forcefulness of these worthless men. Another reminder that runs all the way through Scripture that when the odds seem overwhelming, when the darkness is apparently all-encompassing, God shines his light into the darkness. Do you remember the overwhelming odds that were represented at the time when that great crowd of people had come to hear Jesus speak and to perform miracles?

And now it's towards the end of the day. And so the disciples, with an expressed concern for the well-being of the crowd, come to Jesus and say, You know, it's probably a good idea to send all these people home, because otherwise they're gonna be stuck here, and there's nothing at all to eat. And remember, Jesus says, Well, does anyone have had anything to eat? And they say, Well, there's a boy.

There's a young boy here. He's got five loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many? To which essentially Jesus says, Just wait and see.

Just wait and see. If anybody looked at the situation, they would have said, What good is some little boy dressed up like a priest in the midst of all this darkness and all this chaos? You know, my friends, that's exactly what people do say about the Lord Jesus Christ in our culture. Who is this? What child is this that laid to rest in Mary's lap is sleeping in the midst of all this darkness? You see, the domestic circumstances of Samuel stand in direct contrast to the domestic circumstances of Hophni and Phinehas. Hophni and Phinehas have a dad who's AWOL. Samuel has a mom who's on her game. And I make no apology for loving the intense humanity that is represented in this simple statement. And his mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year.

Just think about this. She would always go up each year. We know that from chapter 1. But when she went up, it was a time of great bitterness and disappointment and pain, because she was childless, and she hated the thing, and Penina gave her the business, and it was a disaster. But she went. Circumstances have changed.

She still goes, now in a different spirit. You're listening to Truth for Life. That's Alistair Begg reminding us that children play a vital role in God's purposes, and how we raise them is of vital importance. One of the ways we want to come alongside you and help you as you raise your children and teach them about the Christian life is to recommend resources you can use. And one of those resources we're very excited about is a book called Little Pilgrim's Big Journey. This book brings John Bunyan's timeless story of the pilgrim's progress to life in language that elementary-aged children can easily understand.

Each chapter in Little Pilgrim's Big Journey ends with a short summary to help you explain the meaning of the allegory. There are questions at the end of the book that are perfect for prompting additional discussion on how to apply the lessons learned in real life. Your children will learn many important lessons about the Christian life.

They'll learn about things like the heavy burden of sin, how to be freed from it, the reality of spiritual battle, how to be prepared with the armor of God, the importance of holding on to God's promises, even in scary circumstances. As a bonus, the book comes bundled with a coloring book and stickers. There's even a map included so the whole family can follow Little Pilgrim's Journey. Request Little Pilgrim's Big Journey when you make a donation through the Truth for Life app or online at truthforlife.org slash donate.

I'm Bob Lapine. People often rely on or even misuse God's perfect patience, but God's patience is not actually endless. Join us tomorrow when we'll find out what happens when God's patience runs out. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.