1 Samuel chapter 2, we're going to finish the chapter Lord willing today. 1 Samuel chapter 2 will begin in verse 27. This is God's holy and perfect word. Last time we looked at how the righteous and the wicked worship God, how they lived before God, there is a sense in which there are people who do not know God yet they claim to know Him, that they claim to worship Him. And we saw that in Eli's sons, how they were called, sons of Belial, and yet they were the sons of the priests, and they carried on as if they knew God, but the Bible said they did not know the Lord. They knew all about God, but they did not really know Him, and I challenged you last time, do you really know the Lord? Are you walking in such a way that others would say, yes, he or she knows the Lord. I see that in their lives, even if they say, I don't like it, but I see that that person lives for God. Well, we need to have that in our lives. And this morning, our text has something very significant in it, something that I think we shrink at wanting to hear about, and yet the scripture has it in so many places that we have to consider it. And that theme this morning is the judgment of God. That's what we see in our text in a very terrifying way. We see a pronounced specific judgment of God upon a man, upon his family, and God did that, and God does that. And that is our God. John Gerstner, one time, was preaching at a church, and as he was preaching, it was a church, must have been a church like my Lutheran church, where they had two lit candles in the front. I used to be the kid that would go up and light them with a little candle thing. And one of the candles had blown up, as Dr. Gerstner was beginning his sermon, and he used that to illustrate the point that that's the kind of God America wants, because God is both holy and righteous and vengeful and wrathful and just, and he will perfectly judge the wicked. And God is merciful and gracious and loving and kind, and he will save to the uttermost. But we only want to talk about this part of God, and we want to, as it were, blow out this part. And so often that's the case. And yet, if you have half a God, you have a false God. And this morning scripture sets before us, something that Jesus talked about more than anything else in his earthly life, the judgment of God, that God does judge God will judge. And not to be a powerful incentive. And I'm afraid that the church has lost a powerful incentive, and not preaching and talking about like Jesus surely did, the judgment of God. God gives us a powerful incentive to know him, to fear him, to believe in him, to live for him, and considering his judgment. So I would pray that each one of us that you would wrestle with this text, that you wouldn't say, well, I didn't like that word that Pastor Hypo brought, that you would see that it's God's word. God is the one who says he's going to judge. Let that word cause wrestle with the spirit this morning. Let that word be embraced by your heart. That it would have the impact that it should, that you would be more zealous to make sure that you know the Lord, that you're saved, that you're reconciled to him. Let's pray as we turn to God's word. Father, we thank you for all of your word. All of it's good to us. All of it is meant to show us the way of salvation, to urge us to prompt us as you Holy Spirit use natural means. As you use these means of language and logic and reason and communication and belief in your word, which appeals to our mind but by your spirit changes our heart. So we pray, Father, that we would understand it in the mind, but we also pray Holy Spirit that you would transform our hearts, that we who know you would know you more. And that if there be any this morning who don't know you, Lord God, that you would awaken them to the fact of the coming judgment, that they would make peace with you now while there is time. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Here now the word of the Lord, powerful word we have. And first Samuel chapter 2 beginning in verse 27, remember this is God's Holy Word. Then a man of God came to Eli and said to him, Thus says the Lord, Did I not clearly reveal myself to the house of your Father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? Did I not choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest to offer upon my altar to burn incense and to wear an effort before me? And did I not give to the house of your Father all of the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? Why do you kick at my sacrifice and my offering which I have commanded in my dwelling place and honor your sons more than me to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people? Therefore the Lord God of Israel says, I said indeed that your house and the house of your Father would walk before me forever. But now the Lord says far be it for me. For those who honor me I will honor and those who despise me will be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your Father's house so that there will not be an old man in your house and you will see an enemy in my dwelling place 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 who might do not cut off from my altar shall consume your eyes and grieve your heart and all the descendants of your 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 Hockney and Phineas. In one day they shall die, both of them. Then I will raise up for myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in my heart and in 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 down to him for a piece of silver and more so bread and say, please put me in one of the priestly positions that I may eat a piece of bread. May the Lord bless and establish this word in our hearts this morning. I pray. I don't know if this is a text that I would pick to preach on ordinarily. You know when you commit to preaching through a book you have to preach on the words that are next in line in that book. And unfortunately this morning I had to, well at the beginning of the week I had to deal with this text and I thought, what am I going to do with this text? But as you know, we believe that this is God's Word and that it's God's Word to us and that this is a good word to us. And it is good for us to wrestle with the judgment of God, the coming judgment of God. And I want you to notice how God brings the attention of Eli to these things. And so I want you to notice first of all that a holy God has blessed you, that a holy God has blessed you. Look at how God reminded Eli of how he had blessed him, of how God had blessed Eli in his house beginning in verse 27. Remember what's going on here in the text, maybe just a little background if you weren't with us last time. Eli was pictured in the tabernacle at the time there wasn't a temple yet. This is the time of the judges before David and Saul. And all of Israel would go up to the tabernacle to worship. And Eli was the high priest and his sons were priest. And so Eli and his sons were over the sacrificial system of the Lord. And yet we saw in those earlier verses, if you have your Bible, all you have to do is read from verse 23 to verse 25 and you see how awful Eli's sons were. And in fact, if you go earlier in the text, how they stole from the offerings, they stole from God. They stole his offerings. They threatened God's people if they wouldn't give them what was wrongly they were taking. And then they were even sleeping with women who were coming to worship God seducing them. They were committing sin after sin after sin. And Eli, though he rebukes them, he does not do anywhere near enough. In fact, scripture later on again says how he fails to restrain them. He failed to do what was right. Remember, Eli was the high priest. He should not have allowed that to happen. It was his purview to see that God's worship was kept holy. And when he saw knew what his sons were doing, he should have. He needed to stop it as the priest. And if he wouldn't have done it as the priest, he was also the judge. At the time, Israel's supreme ruler was the judge. And we read eventually at the end, Eli judged Israel for 40 years. He was the judge like Samson was the judge. Like Gideon was the judge, Eli was now the judge. So if he wouldn't have done it as priest, it was his duty to do it as the judge. These men were breaking the law. He should have held them accountable, even though they were his sons. And if he wouldn't have done it as the priest or as the judge, then surely his father, as a father, he would have pled with his sons, don't do this. God's going to judge you. And he would have forced them. He would have stopped them. He would have done what he could, thrown them into the prison, something. Get them out of that position. And yet the scripture says that what he was doing by not stopping them in verse 29 was honoring his sons more than God. He was doing that. He was not stopping them so that they would be in a sense dishonored. Oh, did you hear what Eli did? He removed his sons from being the priest. And there would have been talk and Eli's sons would have been definitely reduced in the eyes of the people, right? The reputation that would have been a dishonor to them. And yet by not doing that, he was dishonoring God. And so God holds him accountable. And he brings this awesome and powerful word. And the first thing he does is recount for Eli his blessings. He recounts from his blessings. Here the principle is to whom much is given, much is required. And God had given Eli much. He had given his family much. Even as he has given everyone in this room much. God has just think of the blessings God has given you. Since you got up this morning, how many blessings that we have here in America is Americans. But if you're a Christian, how much more so? And Eli, the text shows us and the commentators all agree. Eli was a believer. He was a converted person. And yet he was walking contrary to what he knew he should do. And he was given so much so that the judgment becomes so much more severe to whom much is given, much is required. Listen to what God gave to Eli. Verse 27. Thus says the Lord, did I not clearly reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt and Ferris house that I not choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest? He's talking about Aaron, right? Aaron was chosen out of all the Israelites to be the height priest. God chose the tribe of Levi to be those who handled the holy things. But only the family and line of Aaron could be the priests. And in particular here, he spells out the privileges that only the priests had. Look at it in verse 28. To be my priest, that is to what? To offer upon my altar. To burn incense and to wear an effort before me. And then the last part, did I not give of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? God provided for the priests living by giving them of the offerings of Israel, both the monetary offerings and the food offerings. That's how the priests made their living because their full-time job was being administered. The principal carries over into the New Testament where Paul says that the ministers are to make their living by the word. So that's the case as well. But here, Eli is given the privilege in the particular of burning the offerings, the offerings of the altar. Remember what the offerings were? You would come as an Israelite, you'd come to worship God, and yet because God was holy, God's judgment had to be removed from you. And that's what the animal represented. In other cultures people would bring what they called food to their God. Because they had false gods, so you'd bring Zeus some chicken or something. And you'd offer these offerings to the gods for food because the offers needed to provide food for their gods. In Israel, that wasn't the case. In Israel, they offered a propitiation. That's a big word, but we need to keep that word in our theological dictionaries. Propitiation means a satisfaction because God is holy and righteous and good. He must punish sin. Could you imagine a judge who would allow a heinous criminal to go free? Or if a police officer would allow someone that he knew was murder or rapist or someone awful to just go back out into the society? What an awful, awful policeman that would be. Well, God is not unjust. God is not going to be like an awful policeman or an unjust judge. He will punish. He must punish the evil doer. He must punish them. And so when God sees that we are sinful, that judgment that God has, that hatred of sin and evil that we want God to have, that must be removed before we can be accepted. How can we be separated from our sins? Well, that's what the sacrificial system showed in a picture that you would come before God to worship him. You must die because you're a sinner. So the animal would die in your place. That was the point. You would bring an animal, the one that God required. But you weren't allowed to offer it. You needed somebody to stand between you and God. And that was Eli's house, the priests. They were mediators who would stand before the people. And they would avert God's judgment by sacrificing that animal. So that God's people could be accepted. So that God's people could be embraced and loved and adopted out of the family of the devil, as Jesus said. That's where we all are, Jesus said. We're born children of the devil. We love the children of the devil. And to become the children of God, that sacrifice must take place. And only Eli's line were privileged to offer that sacrifice. And they were privileged to wear that effort. That's the holy precept, but also to burn the incense. And we think about the incense. We don't have incense. I used to be a videographer and I would do weddings. And I did several weddings in the Orthodox church where they would burn this incense. You know, you'd be up front. I'd be right there and the stuff's burning. And it was really strong. It was all I could do to just continue to videotape the wedding. But I think one of the reasons for the incense was the strong reminiscent and retinent factors that we get from our sense of smell. All right? Nothing invokes a memory like a sense of smell. That's a proven fact that you could smell something and you can remember something. It's one of the strongest ways to invoke memory, familiar sense of smell. Well, the incense that God gave to Israel, they were only allowed to make for the worship. So the only place you would make it, the ingredients are spelled out in the Old Testament. The only place you could make it, the priests were the only ones allowed to make it. And the only place it would be burned would be at the temple. So you could imagine every time you went to the tabernacle at the time, to worship, you would smell that smell. And it was God sort of helping you to get into a worshipful frame of mind. Oh, I'm at the temple now, I smell that incense. What a condescension of God. To give us people, even with their sense of smell, they're all factory sense, that it's time to worship now. How condescending God was. That is, people would recognize this holiness. Well, Eli and his house, they were given that privilege. They alone were given that privilege. To do all of those things, to allow God's people to come and do his house and to worship them. That they could stand between the people in God. And yet Eli rather than walking in that allowed his sons to so violate, to so obscure it, that they were actually causing God's sacrificial system to be abhorrent in the eyes of the people. And so these are the blessings that God had put Eli. You can imagine being in that position, Eli especially needed to be careful to walk closely to God. To whom much is given, much is required. When God brings us in, close to him, we are going to answer more than those who do not know him. That's true for us as Christians. We recognize that, right? The Bible says judgment begins with the house of God. The more I know God, the more I know about God, the more responsible I'm going to be if I turn away from that knowledge and sin against it. And so this is why Eli's judgment was so fierce and awesome because he was the high priest of all the people in Israel. He should have stopped this, he should have done something about it. So I want you to notice, secondly, your sins will find you out. Notice your sins will find you out. This is why God's judgment is so serious. By the way, that phrase, my point here is right out of the scripture. That's a verse of scripture. Your sins will find you out God says in the book of numbers to his people, to his people when they were about to come into the land. And he says, if you come into the land and start acting like my people and yet start doing evil, your sins will find you out. He says, well God would say that I think here to Eli. That's what we're seeing in the text. Look at verse 29. Why do you kick at my sacrifice and my offering which I have commanded in my dwelling place and honor your sons more than me to make yourselves fat with the best of my offerings of Israel, my people? The offerings were for God, they were supposed to burn them up and Eli and his sons were taking them and eating them. And in fact God even says it here to make yourselves fat. The clear implication is that Eli too was eating those offerings. Not only did he fail to stop his sons from stealing from God's altar, but when they did steal, he ate it. He ate the stolen food they brought back home. How unbelievably wrong of Eli to do this. And so we get this terrible judgment here from God which we read in verse 30. Therefore the Lord God of Israel says, I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before me forever. But now the Lord says, far be it from me. For those who honor me I will honor. But those who despise me will be lightly esteemed. The commentaries as I said agree that Eli was a converted person and yet he was allowing his sons to do this. He was dishonoring God, the high priest was dishonoring God. God will not allow, God will not tolerate within his people a presumption upon his grace, a walking against him what we know to be true. Could you imagine this morning if when I stood here and consecrated the bread in the cup, said it apart, that's how we believe we do it in the Protestant church. We don't believe it changes. But we do believe that we are setting it apart and God uses that as we believe in him not in this, not in me. But as we believe in what this is picturing what Jesus did for us, gave himself for us, that God does sanctify us. That God does use and visit us with his grace. This is one of the means of grace. Our Westminster's Catechism and Confession tells us as is the preaching of the word. It's not like this word somehow magically happens. No God uses this word in our hearts. Well God uses this sacrament too. But could you imagine if I stood up and I broke that bread and said those words that Jesus taught us to say, holds me responsible to say. And then I just started to throw it on the floor. Or we went out and fed it to the dogs or something. I mean, what an awful thing that would be. It would be like invoking God's judgment. In fact, we're going to read Lord willing when I do the communion. I'll read from 1 Corinthians 11 how the Corinthian church was abusing God's communion and how he was bringing judgment in their lives. Because of it, that some of them were getting sick, some of them were falling asleep. And we have no reason to believe that they weren't true believers. And yet, judgment was coming in their lives. You know, as Christians, I think sometimes one of the things that's plagued the church is this idea that once we become a believer, that God is always completely and perfectly and everlastingly thrilled with us. And he's always and only looking at us with that just joy and glory and delight. And he never is angry with us. He never is upset with us. He's never grieved with us. And yet, Scripture shows that we can grieve the Holy Spirit, that we can quench the Spirit, that we can bring God's judgment into our lives even as believers, that we can go through times of difficulty that we would not have had to go through if we would have responded to God in His grace. And Eli's house has brought some terrible judgments, which we'll look at in a minute. But I want you to hear how God warned. And I mentioned to you, you know, from 1 Corinthians 11, which would be one example, the letters to the churches would be another example where Jesus is threatening churches, particular temporal judgments, if they don't stop sinning against Him. But in Romans chapter 11, when the Apostle Paul was teaching the Gentile Christians how God had cut off some of the Jews to implant them into the tree. That he was planting, the tree of salvation, and he's using that image. And he says to the, he said some of the Roman Christians, he puts words in their mouth, he says, well, you will say, but God cut them off to graft me in as if, you know, I'm better. And what does Paul say to them? Remember when we looked at this back in Romans 11, 20, well said, because of unbelief they were broken off, but you stand by faith, do not be haughty but fear, Paul says. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. We can't do what Israel did either as Christians. We cannot consider that God's grace is something to be despised, that it's something to be mocked, that it's something to be presumed upon. Well, I've said the sinner's prayers the way I used to do it. I said the sinner's prayer, so I'm going to go out with my buddies and get drunk and party and do whatever I want. And I'm good to go now and God can't do anything about it. I got him. Got him on a technicality. Well, this verse says, far be it for me. Those who honor me, I will honor. But those who dishonor me, they will be lightly, lightly astained. And so thirdly, I want you to notice the fearfulness of God's judgment. I want you to notice the fearfulness of God's judgment. Our sins will find us out if we as professing Christians as really converted Christians live in a sinful lifestyle. We can expect that if God truly does love us, he's going to stop us from going that. In fact, I think if you're in a season, maybe you're in a season of judgment in your life where things are going very bad and you don't know why. Don't think, well, I must not be a Christian. It may be precisely because you are a Christian that God has brought this in your life to stop you to get you to wake up that maybe there's something in your life that God wants you to see and get out of it. Now it may be that you're like Job and you haven't done anything wrong and God is pruning you. That may be the case too. You don't want to think, oh, I must be seeing because something's happening, but it is something to consider. Jesus said in Revelation, verse 319, listen, as many as I love, I rebuke and chase him. Do you hear that? As many as I love, I rebuke and chase him. God, if you're in a time of rebuking or chasing, it may be a token of God's love to you that he's showing you. I'm not going to let you go. I'm not going to let you walk in this sin. I'm going to stop you and you may not like it, but I'm going to do it as a loving father, right? Is going to make sure his son is going to stop whatever he's doing that he shouldn't be doing. Whatever it takes, right? God says, as many as I love Jesus said, I rebuke and chase him. But then he says this, therefore, be zealous and repent. Consider, if you're being rebuked in chasing, be zealous and repent. Because what? We don't want to have to go through those things that maybe we wouldn't have to, if we would walk more closely to God. I think my life has been so many times proving this principle. Oh, that I would respond more quickly to God rather than to have to wait until he bops me on the head a few times. You know, I mean, the shepherd is a great image in Scripture. We say thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me, right? The rod and the staff of the shepherd would, you know, against the wolf, against the lion. You know, they would use the sling, whatever it was, to protect the sheep. They would also bop the sheep on the head or smack them in the leg. In fact, it said of the Israelites and of the shepherds back then who would be with their flocks all the time. If they had a sheep that was so troublesome that would continue to run away over and over again, they would break the leg of the sheep to keep it from running away. I mean, God may have to break some Christians' legs in a sense spiritually to keep us from those sins that would destroy us. And we don't want to go to that point in our lives. I want to read a couple of verses to you. First Corinthians, chapter 11. Well, no, I'll say that for later. Hebrews chapter 12, it talks about how Jesus says, well, it's the word of God, but whoever writes is writing the book of Hebrews. As he said before, if you are sons, God chastens you. God chastens as many as he loves. But then Hebrews chapter 12 says this about that chastening. Now, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Do you hear that? That's the Christians. No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. It's painful to walk contrary to God as a true child of God and have to be called back in some chastening way. And the fact that God sent this prophet to Eli, it tells me this was a call to repentance. Why else would he send the prophet that Eli would repent? That he would look at what he's doing in tremendous ways, that he could maybe avert some of these judgments. Look at these judgments. They're awful. I don't want to go through them at verse 31 through 33. God's going to cut off your arm. That means your strength, right? The arm is the symbol of strength. God brought Israel out of Egypt with what? His mighty arm and his outstretched hand. He did it by his strength. Well, the strength of Eli's house is going to be cut off. And then three times there will not be an old man in your house, 31. There will not be an old man in your house forever, verse 32. They'll die in the flower of their age, verse 33. What a terrible judgment. And the ones who live beginning of verse 33 are going to be the grievous ones. And there's some difficulty in understanding exactly what verse 32 is talking about, but it's still a judgment from God. Probably means that as the house of Eli goes down and Shiloh goes down, you'll see distress on my habitation even as Israel was brought up. And that might be what verse 36 is referring to. Eli's house is going to be reduced to poverty. What a just judgment of God. They're going to be begging for bread even as they're stealing bread right now. That is the way God normally judges. He brings about the very thing that we were abusing and he takes it from us. But these judgments are fearful and they're awesome. And they're on what commentators believe was a believer, Eli. And again, Hebrews 12-11, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Eli's house was going to undergo this unbelievable judgment. And his children were going to undergo. And in fact, if we get through all of Samuel and Second Samuel, we'll see where Doge the Eda might at one point kill 84 priests and only one of Eli's descendants is left abbeyathor. And then at the end of his ministry towards the end of his ministers, he's getting older. He's removed from being the priest. Listen to 1 Kings 2, 27. So Solomon expelled abbeyathor from being the priest, the last of Eli's house. From being the priest to the Lord, listen, thus fulfilling the word of the Lord that he had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shailah. 1 Kings 2, 27. Links abbeyathor is removed by Solomon when David's about to die and he says you need to get rid of abbeyathor. And he does. Because of what abbeyathor had betrayed him and supported one of Adonija, one of David's other sons. But that prophecy was carried out. This judgment occurred. God's judgments are fearful and awesome. And you know, as we see this temporal judgment, it's just a token of the awesomeness of the final judgment. All of these horrible things that no one would want their house to go through. It's just a small fraction of what God's final judgment will be like. I remember when I was unconverted, but I knew better and I knew I ought to be living better. And I started to really fear the judgment of God that if I died, I sort of knew where I would go. And my token in the back of my head was, well, when I'm older, I'll live for God. When I'm older, you know, when I'm very old, when nothing is fun in my life where nothing is worth living for, then I'll give my life to Christ so that I don't have to go to the hell that I deserve so much. And that's the way I sort of looked at it. You know, I hated God and the things of God, and I loved sin and things of sin. I wasn't letting myself understand that. But oh, when I get older, I'll make peace with God. And yet this thought of dying and my friend, I remember in March 1989, when we were on spring break, and my dad called me back from Daytona. We did awful things down there. It was awful. And my dad called me on the phone and said, one of your buddies is dead. And it sort of struck me. And when he told me who it was, and we used to race cars into all these stupid things, and he was killed instantly. And some of my fellow firemen were there to pull him off the telephone pole. His car flipped over and it wrapped around the pole. And I remember really, oh, I better straighten up. I better live for God. And I carry this cross in my pocket that says, I have this cross in my pocket. Because of this, Jesus is my saver, and I'm going to go to heaven. And I thought that maybe carrying that cross, you know, would do it. But I didn't want to change my life. I didn't want to live for God. And I continued to live against God and continued to not follow Him, continued to not. And I had a dream that I died, and I went to hell. It was one of the most graphic dreams that I wasn't in hell. I was sort of in a holding place waiting to go. I'm not trying to explain that theologically. I wasn't a believer at the time. But what I do remember was this overwhelming feeling of remorse that I was about to stand before God and be judged. And knowing that it was too late. Knowing there was nothing I could do. And knowing that in my life, I knew what I should have done. That I should have repented. That I should have believed in Christ. And now it was too late. And I remember in the dream thinking, oh, if this was only a dream. And I had another chance to believe. And I woke up sort of in a cold sweat. And I actually got one of those little Gideon Bibles. And I signed my name. You know, today I received Jesus Christ as my Lord saver. And it still didn't change my life. That helped me for a while. Till I experienced in the automobile accident. It took my friends life. And I remember praying to God and thinking. And it coming to my mind as strongly as anything. God will not hear your prayers. Because you've chosen to live without God. And I found a verse after that in Isaiah that hit me like a ton of bricks because it described what I went through that night. I was able to find it now because I wasn't planning on going there. But it's something like this. I think it's Isaiah 59. The Lord's arm. Oh, here it is. It is Isaiah 59. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. It's not that God lacks the ability. Nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear. It's not that he couldn't hear my prayers that night. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God. And your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear. He will not hear, though he could. Because the judgment has come. And it's too late. Well, love it. God gives Eli a sign here in verse 34. What a fearful thing to get a sign of judgment. Signs were tokens that we know that what the word has said will come to pass. God was saying, I will certainly do this Eli. And the sign was an awesome sign that his two sons would die on the same day. Hoffney and Phidius, the ones whom he was honoring above God, would have to answer for that. This is God's fearsome and awesome judgment. Beloved God will judge. We may escape it. We may deceive ourselves. I don't know what was going in Eli's mind that he was deceiving himself. That he was thinking it was okay. He knew better. And yet he kept walking in that sin. And God's judgment found. And it was decreed. And I don't doubt that Eli was a converted person and went to heaven. But he had a couple of broken legs because he would not respond. Because he continued to walk in rebellion against his God. And so, fourthly and lastly, I want you to notice our sure salvation by God's priests. Our sure salvation by God's priests. I want you to notice, I want to leave one on this somber note. Verse 36, because I want a more fully unpacked verse 35, which you and I know so much more than Eli knew. Then I will raise up for myself a faithful priest. You shall do according to what is in my heart and my mind. I will build him a sure house and he shall walk before my anointed, my Messiah, my Messiah, forever. Temporally and approximately, we know this is talking about Zatic. It's Zatic who replaces Abbiath of the priests. And the house of Zatic does continue throughout the whole line of David all the way through the captivity, through the captivity, through the Maccabeean period, even to Herod the Great. When he comes on the throne, the Maccabees are gone. The Hasmanians really is what they were. They were called the Maccabees a nickname like the hammer. But the Hasmanians, the line of Zatic, ends at Herod the Great. It goes that long, all the way up until the time of Christ. That they walked before God's anointed as God promised. Zatic's line will continue, but beloved Zatic doesn't do all that was in God's heart and his line. There were many sinful and wicked priests and even the good ones weren't perfect as David wasn't perfect. They didn't do what was all that was in God's mind. And God didn't build them a sure house that would last forever. This is looking beyond the priest who offered animal sacrifices. To the priest who would come, who would offer himself on the cross. To take away all of our sins forever. A sacrifice that would never have to be renewed again and again each year. But Jesus comes and offers Himself and His line, His priesthood, continues forever the book of Hebrews tells us because He lives forever. And His offering satisfies God's wrath so that if you believe in Christ, if you're an unbeliever and maybe I've unsettled you with some of the things I've said here this morning, then know that there's a priest who has offered an offering that will fully and forever forgive you. And all you have to do is look to Him and trust in Him and believe in Him. No matter how many sins you've committed, no matter how old you are, that no matter what you've done, if you while you draw breath, would believe in this priest, Jesus Christ, who has come, who offered Himself on the cross so that all of God's wrath was taken by Him so that you could have peace with God, you will have eternal life, you will be saved. You just have to believe. We'll have a few elders up front here after the service. I'll be in the back. If you don't know Christ, and you're not sure, talk to us, and we'll tell you what it means to believe in Christ and how you can be sure of that. But if you're a Christian here this morning too, we need to continue to look to this priest and to follow Him, to follow closely to Him, to whom much has been given, much is required. You and I, who call upon His name, need to walk closely with Him. We don't want to be chasing by this priest. It's not fun, it's painful. He's given us eternal life. Why would we live in darkness and death? Our future blessings are sure in Christ. He, just as I said the name of this sermon, you cannot escape from God. That's right. You cannot escape from the judgment of God, but Christian, you cannot. You cannot escape from the salvation of God. He will save you to the end, because he is a priest forever. After the order of Melchizedek, let's pray. Father, we thank you for sending Jesus Christ, not only our King, you're anointed, but our priest. He has made peace between you and sinners, and all who believe in Him, you promise us, will not be disappointed. They will be saved. Father, I pray if there's any here who don't know, you help them to truly feel your coming judgment, help them to truly feel the awfulness of their sins and that they should be judged. Help them to believe that into a scent to it, and Lord God, cause each one of them to see the salvation that Christ offers, that they would believe in Him. Father, for those of us who do believe in Jesus, how we pray, that the consideration of your serious and awesome judgments and chastisements would move in us to draw closer to you, not only that we could know you more, that we could love you more, that we could enjoy this life born, enjoy your blessings more, but that we could be a better witness, a better light to those among us who don't know you. Father, help us to live fully lives for Christ, glorifying Him, recognizing that whenever we turn against you, all we do is bring hardship and sorrow and pain. Let us not believe the lie of sin. Let us believe the truth of the gospel and draw us close to you, we pray, for your name's sake and Jesus' name, amen. Amen.