Amen. While you may turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel 2, or it's also in your bulletin, 1 Samuel 2. We'll be looking at verses 11 through 26 this morning. 1 Samuel 2, 11 to 26. The book of Samuel is all about contrasts. There are many contrasts within the book of Samuel. We saw that in Hannah's song, how God lifts up the humble and how he puts down the proud. And we ought to see that in other ways. This morning we see I think really this contrast between the righteous and the wicked. Now we ought to know what those terms mean. We're not saying that there are people out there who are sinless. But we're using the word the way the Bible often uses the word. That those servants of his who are faithful, who trust in him, who live for him, the Bible often calls righteous. The Job is called righteous. Zacharias and Elizabeth are called righteous. It's not saying that they're without sin, but it's saying that they're living godly lives. I like to compare to what we call members in good standing in the church. People who not only profess their faith, which anybody can do, but are actually pursuing and living in order. Are they sinners? Yes. But they are acknowledging their sin, turning from their sin. This is what the Bible calls righteous in that sense. They are walking before the Lord using the means of grace, trusting in Christ for salvation, and so forth. We see the contrast between the righteous and the wicked in this text. And we ought to see that contrast in our lives, right? We should see a contrast between the Christian family and the un-Christian family. There should be a visible difference. There should be a difference for those of you who came to Christ later in life like I did. There should be a difference in your life before you were saved and after you were saved. You should see it and the people around you should see it if it's real. We saw that in Hannah's song that we are never to trust in our own strength, in our own wisdom, in our own might. But we're to trust in God. That's what the point of I think her song was. That it was God who puts down the mighty and God who raises up the humble. Well, today we see this. We're going to look more at this contrast between the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked, especially with regarding or with regards to worship. How is it that makes Christian worship different from the worship of those who just go through the motions? What accounts for that? And how can you and I pursue and make sure we're pursuing real righteousness in our lives? That righteousness, yes, that's imputed to us, that's not ours at all, but it's entirely Christ. And yet that righteousness, which God is more and more pouring into us in sanctification, we are being changed. How do we pursue that and how do we avoid the wickedness that we often slip into and are tempted to believe that's what we see in our text this morning. Let's pray as we turn to God's Word. Father, we thank you for this contrast, this incredible piece of literature. This, your Word this morning, your perfect and fallible and errant Word that shows us very clearly what it means to pursue and to worship and to live for God. Father, help us to not only see and understand it, but to walk in that grace in our lives. We would be those people who would be pursuing righteousness, zealously and diligently and that we would be doing it all because of your grace as it stirs up our hearts and causes us to work with you in that wonderful process of sanctification. Lord, help us now this morning to be hearers and doers of your Word for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I'm going to begin reading in verse 11 this morning. We'll read through 26, just a quick comment on the layout of the text here. I included verse 11 again because this passage forms a certain literary structure that many commentators notice. And it's sort of like a chiasm, a structure, a linguistic device to help us to see certain points that are emphasized. And you see it, let me just do it quickly before we read the text. In verse 11, our first verse, we have this statement about Samuel and his godliness. And then in 12 to 17, we have the sons of Eli and their ungodliness, the contrast, right? Then we have Samuel and his parents, again a godly example in verses 18 to 21. Then we have Eli and his sons, another contrasts an ungodly example in verses 22 and 25. And then to round out the section, we have Samuel again in verse 26. So you see this perfect structure, this literary device, they're on purpose not only by the human author but by the Holy Spirit. Let's consider this as we read God's Word. Then Elcana went to his house at Rama but the child ministered to the Lord before Eli the priest. Now the sons of Eli were corrupt, they did not know the Lord. And the priest custom with the people was that when any man offered a sacrifice, the priest servant would come with a three pronged flesh hook in his hand while the meat was boiling. Then he would thrust it into the pan or cattle 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. Also before they burned the fat, the priest servant would come and say to the man who sacrificed, give meat for roasting to the priests, for he will not take boiled meat from you but raw. And if the man should say to him, they should really burn the fat first. Then you may take as much as your heart desires. He would then answer him, no, but you must give it now. And if not, I will take it by force. Therefore, the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for the men abhorred the offering of the Lord. But Samuel ministered before the Lord even as a child wearing a linen effort. Moreover, his mother used to make him a little robe and bring it to him year by year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. And Eli would bless Elcana and his wife and say, the Lord give you descendants from this woman for the loan that was given to the Lord, then they would go to their own home. And the Lord visited Hannah so that she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the child Samuel grew before the Lord. 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 tent of meeting. So 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. And the child Samuel grew in stature and in favor, both with the Lord and with men. And the Lord established this word in our hearts this morning. I pray. Well, I hope you feel that contrast running through this text, isn't it? Incredible, the way it's set before us. Again, on purpose, that we would be able to see it, that we would see what God was doing in Israel, hopefully that we can see what God is doing in our midst, right? In our lives, in our family, in our worship. I want you to notice, first of all, this morning, the worship of the wicked. I'm called this the righteous and the wicked. So I'm going to stay with those terms, the worship of the wicked. We want to look here now at verse 12, the sons of Eli. It says, the sons of Eli were corrupt. You know, that word in the Hebrew is that same phrase we saw on chapter 1. It's the sons of Eli were the sons of Belial. That's the way you read it in Hebrew. The sons of Eli were the sons of Belial. Remember when Hannah was praying at the temple, and her lips were moving, but she wasn't speaking because of the burden on her heart. She was hesitant to even speak before the Lord. And yet she poured out her heart before the Lord. Remember how Eli thought she was a drunkard? And he rebuked her, and she said, oh, no, my Lord, in verse 16. Do not think your mate servant is one of the daughters of Belial, same phrase. Here Eli was so quick to rebuked this stranger who was actually doing right. And as we're about to see, he was not as quick to discipline his sons who actually were. Scripture says, the sons of Belial, the sons of worthless ones, the sons of utter sin or flagrant sin to be a son of Belial, would be someone who doesn't even attempt to hide their sin. It probably comes from the Hebrew word which means to swallow, to swallow or consume. So you could think of maybe the sons of the abyss, the sons of those who go down to the abyss. Maybe like Jesus, when he talked to the Jews in John 8, the children of the devil. It really has that kind of a reference, Belial, a demonic type of thing. That's who Eli's sons were. It says in Scripture, well, how do we know that? It says it gives the further qualification in traditional Hebrew parallel phrase. That is, you could read it this way. The sons of Eli were sons of Belial. That is, they did not know the Lord. They did not know the Lord. Now, how could that be? They were sons of Eli who was the high priest. They would have been trained in the ways of the priesthood. They certainly would have known Scripture probably had huge sections of Scripture memorized. They were priests. What do you mean they didn't know the Lord? If you would have asked them who their God was, they wouldn't have said, Bale? You don't see them worshiping Bale or Astrid. They worshiped the Lord. They were in charge of the sacrificial system. They would have said they know all about God. And they certainly did know all about God, but they did not know the Lord. To know there is a God is not the same thing as knowing God. I remember learning that as a kid when I was at young man at Penn State, New Ken. I went there for two years so I could keep my job at shop and save and keep my car and keep my life. Not that I was interested in good things, but I had some friends who were Christians. And I remember the one girl did the whole diagnostic test on me. If you were to die tonight, Christ would have asked you why should I let you in my heaven? What would you say? And I understood growing up in the Lutheran church, the mainline Lutheran church, how important it was to believe in God. And it's not by our works, but because we believe in God. And I said to her, well, it's because I believe in God. And she actually showed me through that it wasn't enough to just believe in God, that there is a God, that the God of the Bible is God. All those things I would have said, that God is triune. I knew the Trinity. We had so much that we memorized in the Lutheran church, even in the mainline Lutheran church. We memorized passages of Scripture, the 23rd Psalm. We memorized the fact I still can't say the Apostles Creed when we say it here in our church unless I read it because I'll say it in the old Lutheran way that I learned it, that we would say every week. I believe in God, the Father, Almighty Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, we don't say I believe again in the Lutheran church. We just say I believe once. And in Jesus Christ, the only Son on our Lord, who was conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost and born through it. We don't say the power of here. I always stumble on that. I never see me reading it. Father's me. I can't do it by memory anymore because it was so ingrained into me. But I knew a lot, you know, in that sense. And I had read the stories. I remember I mentioned the picture Bible. I knew those things. I believed in God. I believed God was triune. I believed Jesus was the Son of God. I believed in the right God. But Jesus was not my Lord and Savior. I did not know the Lord. I knew a lot about God. More than most people, I guess. But I didn't know the Lord. That's what it means here. Remember, when we were back in the book of Romans, and I emphasized to you that passage in Romans chapter one, which I think is so important for us to understand as Christians, that we understand rightly what the phenomenon of unbelief really is. What does unbelief about? We all family members, right? People that we know, that are intelligent, that we would say are good people. And Robin and I talk about some of our good neighbors who are very good and kind, who do not know the Lord. On what sense? Because the Bible says in Romans one, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, how do they do that? Verse 19, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, because God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and divine nature so that they are without excuse, because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they grateful. And I've emphasized to you there, and we've talked about this before, that everybody knows God. Everybody knows there is a God. Everybody knows they're accountable to God. There's not a person in their right mind today that doesn't know that they were created by God, that they're going to be judged by God, that they have to answer to God. Unbelief is not an intellectual problem. It's not an innocent ignorance. That's the whole point of Romans. They are without excuse. They're not going to be able to say, oh, I just didn't know. No, you knew God. And yet you did not bow down to Him as God. You did not honor Him as God. You were not grateful to Him as God. The same thing we could see back in chapter 2, because Romans 1 is talking a lot about pagan people, right? Talking about everybody, maybe who never professed in God. But the sons of Eli would have professed in a God. They were the priests. They would have read the scriptures. How do we understand they're not knowing the Lord? Well, let's like what we read in Judges chapter 2. Remember the book of Judges? Immediately preceded Samuel in the Hebrew canon. And Samuel is actually living in the time of the Judges. Samuel becomes the last judge, even as Eli is the judge. Not only the high priest, he's the judge of Israel. Well, the book of Judges begins with this very ominous statement in Judges chapter 2, verse 10. And it's talking about the generation of Joshua. Remember Joshua was Moses' servant. He was faithful. He conquered the land by the grace of God. And then it says this about Joshua and his generation. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them. Listen, who did not know the Lord, nor the work which he had done for Israel. That's who the sons of Eli were. They did not care to know the Lord. They did not care to really walk after the Lord. They lived as if they had no knowledge of God. That's the way the children of Israel began to live because they began to worship other gods. Well, we don't see Eli's sons worshipping other gods outwardly, but in their hearts, we're going to see great and abhorrent idols that they bowed down to, and they brazenly sinned against God. We see that in the worship practices of the day. Look at it in verses 14 and 15. Well, beginning in verse 13. So here are the sons of Eli, the priest. They're at Shiloh. The place where God set his name for more than 300 years at this point. That's where the ark was, that's where the tabernacle was. That's where all the Jews had to go up and worship. So that's where the priest should have been. And that's where they were, Eli's sons. And get, listen to this and see if from your knowledge of the Old Testament you don't hear what's wrong with this. And the priest's custom with the people, verse 13, was that when any man offered a sacrifice, the priest servant would come with a three-pronged flesh hook in his hand while the meat was boiling. All right, so you got that picture. And he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot, whatever it was. And he would, so he'd take basically a trident, right? And he would just thrust it into the pot. And whenever it came up, that was the priest. Now, if you remember Leviticus chapter 7, Exodus chapter 29, you remember how God did provide for the priest from the sacrifices of the people. But there are no tridents mentioned. There are no three-pronged flesh hooks in the Levitical books. What were they supposed to do? They were supposed to take the breasts. God had given the breasts to the priests and to their families. And he gave the thigh, the right thigh to the priests and to their families. And these things were given to the priests and their families from the sacrifice of peace offerings, the thanks offerings, that the people would eat up. And so the priests would get to eat of these things. And that's how they were provided for. Because remember, they weren't allowed to be farmers and shepherds. They had to give their time being priests. And so God's people provided for them from the tithe and from their crops and offerings. But that's not what happens here. Notice it's the custom of the priest in verse 13 that the servant would come while the meat was boiling, take whatever the hook speared. Maybe there was some kind of superstition. Oh, well God is sovereign. And whatever comes up, he must have wanted me to have. No, we can play those kind of gains with God's sovereignty. But some, for some reason, it became the tradition. It trumped the word of God. Very precise and careful word for worship. And now they were doing this. And notice it says at the end of verse 14, so they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. Everybody who came was treated the same way. And that way they were consistent. They consistently violated God's law for worship for everybody. And that's not the worst of it. Verses 15 and 16 show it even more graphic. In verse 15 you have the burnt offering with the first thing that was to be done was the fat portions were to be given to the Lord. And the choice is portions. That's what the fat was about. You know, we look at the fat now and we cut off the fat. You know, you push it off your plate. But the fat portions were considered to be the choice is portions. And certainly when, you know, the fattier portions are the tender portions, right? In fact, when, you know, I commented about this, I'll probably work a few of these things in my sermon here today. But tomorrow is the first day of buck season. And any of you hunters know, if you get a buck and you want to get burger made out of part of your deer, they can't make it out of just the deer. You guys know that. If you've gotten a deer why? Because there's so little fat in the deer that the burger won't stick together. So they mix in with it pork or beef or something else and some of the butchers will ask you, what do you want mixed in with your deer so we can make hamburger? You know, we can make burger for you because it won't stick. There's no fat. Well, the fat portions were the choice portions. That was supposed to be burned up to God first. And yet before that happened, the priest sends his servant and threatens the worshipper. You give it now or we'll take it from you by force. Even when the worshipper was like, okay, look, just burn the fat, then you can have not just the breast the thought you can have all you want. I mean, how condescending and gracious on the part of the worshipper. How gross and heinous were the sins of these priests that even the common worshippers were rebuking in a sense were admonishing them. They ought not to do this. And yet they did it, stealing not just from the worshipper but stealing from God. The fat was God's and they were demanding it before it was offered to God. What an awful, despicable and really brazen and provoking presumptuous kind of sin here they were committing in corrupting the very worship of God's people. It says in verse 17, therefore, the sin of the young men. It's actually the same word throughout, both referring to the sons of Eliantus Samuel, the word that means lad or youth or young man. The sin of the young men was very great before the Lord. For the men, I think there should be a done there. The men is talking about these two men. They abhorred the offering of the Lord. They despised it. What was holy? What was supposed to make reconciliation at least in type and in symbol between the offer and God? And they treated it with contempt. They made a mockery of God's worship. One of the reasons why I left the television ministry when I was in it to go to Fox. There arose this movement that really all of the ministries were latching on to. I don't know if you remember it. It was from the mid 1990s. It was called holy laughter. Anybody remember? Holy laughter. I was a new Christian. And I was reading my Bible and I'm learning about the scriptures. And we started to promote holy laughter. There was a little bit of a conversation. Some of the workers didn't really appreciate it. But it was the new movement within Pentecostal, charismatic churches. And so even though they were resisting the Toronto version, they came up with their own version in Pensacola. And it was being promoted. And it sort of was the last straw for me. I couldn't take it anymore. And I saw this as just a mockery of God. And people were defended. So what couldn't God make people fall on the ground? And what would happen is there would be these services. And you'd have these people who had this anointing from God to spread this holy laughter. And they would begin to give messages. And then people in the congregation would just start breaking out and laughter. And they would fall on the ground. And some of them would roll around on the ground. And we had a few services. I remember I had a handheld camera. And this was the actual... I started... I updated and sent out my resume after this service. But we had... I was the handheld. So I have to go in and get all the good close-up shots and stuff and get them quick. And it's a fun position to be on if you like being a cameraman. But I didn't want to be it for this day. But anyways, I'm there. And I have to go to all the people who are starting to be affected by the holy laughter. And I never forget there was this couple that went up missionaries and they had this little boy. He couldn't have been more than eight years old. And they're holding his hands, you know, and the people that were there, you know, the latest laughing evangelist were about to do their thing with the people and they start putting hands on them. And the father falls down laughing. And the mother falls down laughing. And the child is terrified. You could see it on his face. He doesn't know what's going on. He's looking at his mom. He's looking at his dad. And they're no longer holding his hands. And he's just standing there like this. And I wanted to grab the boy and just brush him out of there. I was so mad at what we were doing. So mad at these people for doing this and saying it was from God. And yet I remember them saying things like, well, couldn't God do that? Couldn't God make somebody fall down on that? Couldn't he do it? Couldn't it be God? Maybe it's God. But loving God makes it clear to us what is appropriate in worship. What we do in worship. You may, I don't know if you ever wonder why do we do the things that we do in worship? Or why do some churches do different things? I think we see this same kind of thing today. Not like what we see with the Eli and his sons. People aren't threatening doing things like that. But what arose about that time in the 90s was another phenomenon that people called just in general. And it's sort of an old phrase now. But the seeker sensitive worship. Remember where the whole idea, the philosophy behind it was, we need to craft and make our worship services according to what people want, what they like. If we make our worship services, what people like, more people will come, more people will hear the gospel, more people will get saved. So there certainly was a legitimate concern and desire. Everybody wants to see more people come and go know the Lord. And there certainly are things that we ought to do that we can learn from the seeker sensitive movement. They were very big on doing things right, doing things orderly. That's very true. One of the things that we emphasize, I don't know if I emphasize it this year in the New Members class, but when we started the orchestra, and we brought Jonathan in, Frank Sun was our first music director, the word was excellence. That was what we constantly talked about in meetings, excellence in worship. We want to offer our best to God. We don't want to make mistakes. We don't want things to go wrong. We don't want things to sound bad. We want to do the very best we can for God. Recognizing it's only by His grace, right? And you know, even my pretty bad voice is pleasing to God when I sing it in faith, it's not about that. And yet shouldn't we try to do our best outwardly? Or should we just come up here and you know, just have me banging on the piano and, you know, one of the couple people who can't sing up here leading people. Would that, you know, we could say, well, it's all about faith. You know, yes, we have to have faith in its God's grace, but we should try to do our best. We should have people who are good at things do and lead us in things. And so we emphasize that. And there's a lot of that in the secret sense of movement that was right and good, having a clean sanctuary, having clean church grounds, making sure everything's manicured, cured, right, and inviting, having people welcome you in. All that stuff is good and we ought to be doing. But when it comes to the worship service that we would do things that we would, you know, for example, I know of a church where on Valentine's Day, the pastor announced to the folks, we're not going to have a sermon today. Because it's Valentine's Day, Sunday happened, hit on Valentine's Day. So I'm going to talk to the men on this side of the sanctuary. My wife's going to take all the women and we're going to have this powwow about what it means to be a good man in the Lord, a good woman, a good idea, nothing wrong with that. But you don't trump the worship service for it. You want to do that in Sunday's school, you want to have a special service for that fine. But God says to preach the Word in a service. And yet we have all kinds of churches that minimize the sermon. Our minimize scripture reading, well, when a lesson prayers, or have the kind of prayers that people want to hear. And what's driving all of that? What people want. And yet who are we trying to worship? Are we worshiping God? And has he told us what we ought to do? If worship is about God, shouldn't we do what God has said he wants to do? And that is the distinctive that one of the things that I love about the reform faith, that marks the reform faith, is we have that principle whereby we regulate our worship according to what God has commanded. You know, the sons of Eli could have said, God's never forbidden us from taking a trident and stabbing it in the pot and taking meat. There's nothing about forbidding that. You know, the sons of Eli remind me of two other sons. If you remember, the sons of Aaron, they dab and abayhu. Remember from Leviticus 10, where they too thought they could innovate things in worship. God had never forbidden offering strange fire, whatever that was, but they did it, and God killed them for it. And we see, by the end of this text, that God wants to kill Hoffney and Phineas, the sons of Eli, for doing the same kind of things, although much worse, even threatening the worshipers. Beloved, this is the worship of the wicked. They worship God for themselves. They participate in it. They're there, but they're not doing it. To glorify God, they're doing it to get something out of it for themselves. I always, I never like to hear when people say, well, yeah, you know, I went to another church today and I didn't get anything out of the service. I never like to hear people say that, because that's just the wrong thing to say. It may have been a bad service, but you ought not to be going to a service looking to get something out of it. When you see the difference, worship is an act of sport. It's not a passive sport. The Westminster Confession says that we are to attentively listen to and be diligent hearers of the word, listening to hearing actively, pursuing God in worship. It's our job as worshipers to pursue God as worship, not to sit back and say, entertain me. Give me something out of this. Charge me up for the week. That's not what the service is about. The service is you and I, glorifying Him, looking to bring nothing, looking to get nothing, glorifying Him. And the only thing in Scripture is that when we do that, when we come to worship seeking just God's glory, that's when we get the most out of it. So, secondly, I want you to notice the worship of the righteous. Well, look at little Samuel 1 verse 18. Samuel ministered before the Lord even as a child wearing a linen effort. I don't believe that he was trying to imitate or mock the priest here. Hannah understood the importance of the effort. The priest wore the effort. David wore the effort at religious ceremonies because David was sort of a different kind of king. And there were some religious officials who did that too, but all the Levites wore the effort underneath their holy garments. You know, the high priest had the blue, but Hannah recognizing that Samuel has been accepted by the priest. If you look in verse 11, Elkana is training Eli. I'm sorry, Eli is training Samuel. He's ministering to the Lord before Eli. Eli, Eli, the high priest is making sure it's being done right. And yet the Lord is with Samuel. He's ministering before the Lord. He's ministering to the Lord. And so Hannah is making sure that he's clothed properly with the effort. He's, in other words, he is honoring God's commandments in worship. Doing what he should do. The whole family encourages and continues to worship. Look at verse 19. Moreover, his mother used to make him a little row. And bring it up to him year by year as she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Notice how their great sacrifice and giving to the Lord does not cause Elkana and Hannah and their family to stop giving to the Lord. I think a lot of times we can fall into that. Well, you know, think of what Elkana and Hannah could have said. We've given more to the Lord than any family in Israel. We gave our son. We don't need to go up to this yearly pilgrimage. It's a lot of work and hassle and it costs money. We've given our son and he's there. We don't need to go up. We don't need to keep offering sacrifices. You know, they could have taken that. And said, look at what we've done for God. We've done enough. We've done enough. Rather, their great sacrifice gives them an incentive to do more. Hannah can't wait to go up and see her son again. And she makes him a new robe every time he goes up. And again, that would have been fitting for him in the presence of working with Eli who also would have had a robe and an effort. And so Eli training this little boy, he too, is properly addressed. A properly dressed to worship the Lord. In whatever way and leading in whatever way a little boy would have been proper for him obviously. They wouldn't have had him doing things beyond what he was capable of doing. But they're honoring God's commandments. They're worshiping God rightly. And the whole family is encouraging them. And here's where you see the blessing that comes from Godly worship. When, you know, the principle is, and this is the thing with the, too often times with, you know, with the secret sense of, or even more, the prosperity gospel, the word of faith movement where, you know, you're supposed to look at God in a certain sense and claim what you want. And you can have it. But there's always this twist on it because it's, you know, you do whatever the preacher's telling you at the time. And you're really, the incentive is, do this to get this. The incentive is what you want. And the, you know, the horrible thing about that is, one of the horrible things is that, yes, it fleeces God's people and a lot of these ministers line their pockets. But the worst thing, much worse than that, I think, is that they actually take a legitimate incentive that we have. That God does give back to us in worship. That when we come to worship, God is going to give more than whatever we give to him. They take that and they turn it upside down. And they make us come to worship for that. Rather than to come to worship just for God, not seeking to get anything and recognizing that when we come that way, that's when God will give it to us. That's when he'll give us more than we thought or could have met. And there's this blessing that comes upon, and that's what I want to see you to see here. So here is this family who are worshiping God to right, and Eli blesses them, verse 20 and 21. May the Lord give you descendants from this woman for the loan that she has given. They would go to their home and eventually God repeatedly here visits Hannah. She conceives, she bears five children. There is a blessing that comes to God's people when we pursue him, when we worship him rightly. First Samuel chapter 2 verse 30 talks about it. God says to Samuel, I will honor him who, let me just read it from the verse. The last part of the verse, far be it for me. For those who honor me, I will honor. If we honor God in worship, he promises to honor us. Jesus says the same thing in John 12, 26. If anyone serves me, him, the Father will honor. It happens. If we serve God, if we worship God, God does bless us. But to do that for the blessing, do you see the difference? To not want to worship God primarily, but to want to get something from God. It's to just use God. It's to mock God. And it is a difference between night and day, and that's what's the problem with this prosperity and word of face. It turns everything on its head. We should go to God seeking to exalt him alone, and that is when we will be blessed. We don't go to God to get a blessing. That's when we're seeking to worship ourselves. I wish I could stand up here and say to you, well, Hannah gets all these children that she wanted, and she was bearing. I wish I could say that, you know, well, if you're bearing and you worship God rightly, you're going to have children, or whatever it is. If you have cancer and you worship God rightly, you're going to be cured. I mean, I can't promise that. I can promise you this, though, that if you truly serve God, you will get more out of it than you give to Him. Does anybody want to deny that? That God never causes any who come to Him in real worship, and who really follow Him, and who really trust in Him, who really live for Him to have given Him more than He gives to them. There's a verse in Matthew, chapter 20, where the disciples bring this up. They're talking about, you know, all the stuff they've given up. In fact, Peter says, but Lord, we've given everything to follow you. And then he says this. I love it when Peter says this. So what do we get? When he actually asked that question, when Peter would do it, but Jesus answers him. And in the midst of the ants, I'm not going to read the whole answer because it's long, but Matthew 20, 29. Everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, and mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundred for hold. And in her any eternal life, the thing is, when you come to God, knowing that you're a sinner, knowing that there's no reason in you for God to bless you and not seeking anything but to exalt Him. And can you get your mind around there? I'm just here to exalt God. I'm giving this time to God. I'm not going to think about work. I'm not going to think about the game. I'm not going to think about the food that I'm going to eat when I leave. I want to honor God right now. And I want to really mean it when I sing the songs. And really mean it when I pray the prayers. And the lesson of Samuel is for those of you kids, you young kids, you're never too little to worship the Lord rightly. I think that's the thing. Samuel, in the midst of this, these adult, you know, young men of Eli's sons who are already walking in the priesthood so they're more than 20 years old. And Samuel is probably what, here? About five, maybe eight, not much more than that. And he's worshiping God rightly, no matter how young you are, if you just trust in Jesus. And you want to glorify Him as much as your mind of five, six, ten can understand that. God is pleased by that. God accepts that. What a wonderful blessing. This is the worship of the righteous. They worship God, and they trust in God by His grace to accept them. And then finally, I want you to notice God's active judgment of the righteous and the wicked. Notice God's active judgment of the righteous and the wicked just the third point here to summarize them both since we go back and forth. It truly is a fearful thing to mock God's worship, to mock His people, to become so brazen in your sin to do what Eli's sons did in verse 22. It says that they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the Tena meeting. I showed you an Exodus and in Luke, where there were women always at the temple who ministered in various ways. They must have worked somehow with the Levites and with the priests. But they were the ministering women who ministered at the tent. And these women were there to worship God. And these sons of Eli used their position to seduce them and to sleep with them. To commit adultery, to commit fornication. It would have been bad enough if the sons of Eli would have gone to the prostitute somewhere. But at the house of God, at the place where women were coming to worship God, they seduced them into sinning against God. And this is a sin that has plagued the ministry from the beginning. We saw it in the 1980s with many Protestant ministers, well-known ministers, the Tello evangelists falling into all sorts of sexual scandals. And in the 1990s, and then in the 2000s with the Roman priests falling into many of the same sins and even unnatural sins. And using their positions. I remember being at seminary, and I'm not going to name the name of the denomination, but there was a minister. We would go out to lunch a bunch of us. He was an older minister in a different denomination. And he had actually risen up into the upper echelons of his denomination. It was more hierarchical than the PCA. And he had gotten into these upper circles. And he said he started to just become appalled at what he saw. That there were some of these well-known operas. And this is a denomination where you have big churches. And he would see these ministers who would make the rons and he was making a visiting rons for one of these ministers. And there were actually women who expected illicit favors from him when he went out. That there was expected that he would sleep with some of these women. On his visitations as a pastor. He left the denomination. They set up things in the service. I don't even want to repeat it because I don't even want to put it in the image in your mind. But the way in which these ministers would have some of the young women dressed in the service and what they would do with them. It was awful. And he saw this in this denomination. They used their position. You see, a person's a minister, people trust him. They expect that he's not going to take advantage of him. And these men and these sons of Eli used that to lead God's people into sin. No wonder it says in Scripture. At the end of verse 25 at the end of Eli's warning. Nevertheless, they did not heed the voice of their father because the Lord desired to kill them. Don't think that God doesn't judge people today. Don't believe that. Sometimes we'll hear, well, God always loves me just the way I am because He always sees me just in Christ. And, you know, God doesn't matter whether I do good or do evil. You know, God always sees me exactly the same thing. And that's not true. I'm here to tell you that's not true. If you're a child of God, yes, you are in Christ. It's by His righteousness alone that you're accepted before God. But God still cares about your sin and doesn't like it when you sin. Bible says we can grieve the Holy Spirit. And there were people in Corinth to give you a good example. And we'll look at this next week when we do the Lord's Supper. Because I always read it first Corinthians 11 where Paul says, some of you are sick, and some of you have fallen asleep. Why? Because they were brazenly corrupting the Lord's Supper and abusing it for their own greed. And God doesn't tolerate that kind of thing. And we invite His judgment and Eli's sons invite His judgment to the point where now God is beginning to harden their heart. I bet you they weren't sleeping with women at the temple at the beginning. They hardened into that. They got more brazen, more corrupt. When we come before the Lord thinking we can do whatever we want. We're inviting His judgment and God does judge people. He does harden people. He does bring His judgment in fearful in awesome ways, as we will see with the sons of Eli. But Eli does try to rebuke them, right? Verse 22, it says he heard everything his sons did. And he says to them, why do you do such things? I hear of your evil doings from all the people know my sons. It is not a good report that I hear. You make the Lord's people transgress. Eli does well in trying to call them back, but he does not do nearly enough. He is way too over-indulgent with His sons. In fact, you don't have to take my word for it. Look at verse 29, God says to Eli what he was doing. You honor your sons more than me. That's God's charge, not mine. When we don't properly discipline our children, it's another little lesson here. But you could see the godly family life versus the ungodly family life. I have no doubt that Eli is converted. There's nothing in the text that would make us think that he wasn't, but he was not doing rightly by his family. He was not properly disciplining his children. And however that happened to the point now where they're adults and they were not doing right. Eli should have done more. It's not good when we're over-indulgent with our children. It's just not a good thing. I know I was more tempted to that, I think. And yet sometimes what you make up for that, and then you fly off the handle. There is abuse, and that's real in our culture. For parents are way too harsh and cruel to the children. But there is also the problem of no discipline, no control. Well, Robin has a cousin. We see them every Thanksgiving. I talk to him. He teaches at Westinghouse. He used to teach a P-body. He should hear his stories. He tells you about those schools. The kids will come up and they will say every word to his face in the book. Try to provoke him. Try to get him to do anything to get him fired. And they've gotten teachers fired. And they're not allowed to say anything back to the kids. In public schools. It's absolutely awful. They have no disciplinary measures to take. They have none. These kids do whatever they want. They get up. They throw things. They mock the teachers. They curse at them. There's nothing they can do. In fact, he's turned it around and we're like, he just has to try to out with them. They'll say something to him. And he'll say, well, how do you know what that's like? And then the other kids will make fun of that kid and then they'll be diffused. And that's the only weapon against them. Try to out with the person who's mocking you. That's where our society has come to. We don't want to discipline children anymore. At all. I remember, you know, we talked about the parenting class. Robin and I, we took our first parenting class at New Life. We didn't have any children. And Pastor Scott Johnson did such a good job as we were going through shepherding a child's heart. And we were looking at when we should discipline. When we should specifically spank. And the book makes the case, and Pastor Johnson made the case, that it's when the children are defiant. You have to stop defiance. It's not. See, the abuse of it is your children embarrasses you in public. And then you want to punish them. You should never do that. If a child does something, he doesn't know that's wrong. A child does something that didn't realize was wrong. You didn't tell them the rules. That is not a time for discipline. Even if it cost a lot of money. I won't say who it was, but we had a child. At one point we were in a, Robin and I were in the blockbuster store. The child was very young. Walks over to the, you know, we're standing around. He sees the little thing on the wall that says pull. So he goes up, and he pulls it. All of a sudden we hear the fire alarm going off. And by the grace of God, when we saw what had happened, we did not yell at our child, we did not punish him. He did what he thought we were supposed to do. It says pull. He pulled it. That is not a time to discipline a child. That would be a selfish and wicked thing for a parent to discipline a child. Because they've embarrassed them. But when the child defies you, listen to some of these verses from Proverbs. Whoever spares the rod hates his son. It's always said, no, no. I don't speak because I love my child. Well, the Bible says whoever spares the rod hates his son. It's not about speaking. It's about discipline. There are children that ought not to be. If they haven't done anything wrong, they shouldn't be spayed. But he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. If you really love your children, you have to discipline them. Another verse. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. I used to read that verse to the kids when they were little. Folly is bound up in the heart. I can't change my kids' hearts. I can't make them believe. But I can keep Folly from taking root in the heart. I can do that. And it'll benefit them in their whole lives. Even if they don't become believers, they'll be decent people. Many other passages. Well, let me just wrap this up because I'm going on too long here. One thing that comes out of this. Eli says something in verse 25. If one man sins against another, God will literally, same word, intercede for him. But if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him? What's he talking about here? I think he's talking about what Hebrews calls the presumptuous sin, the high-handed sin. Hebrews 10.26. If we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation, which will devour the adversaries. What are the sons of Eli doing? They're using the means of reconciliation, the gospel as it were, the sacrificial system. They're using it to sin. What hope is there? There's no intercedure anymore. That's what happens if we would use, you know, I believe the same sin is probably what Jesus is talking about with the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. What does the Holy Spirit do? He witnesses to you that God forgives sinners that you ought to believe that you ought to repent. And if you blaspheme the one who would convert you, well, there's no salvation. Well, that's what I think Eli's sons here. Lee lines warning his sons of doing. But in the midst of this, we have this verse. And I wanted to spend more time on it, but I'm not just to keep, not keep you any longer. But verse 26, and the child Samuel grew in stature, and in favor both with the Lord and men. Do you hear that verse? Does that remind you of something? Does that remind you of a verse in Luke chapter 2 that we often read this time of year? And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. That was when Jesus was 12, it said then. Maybe that's about how old Samuel was. The commentators nearly all agree that Samuel under the inspiration of the Spirit was, or that Luke under the inspiration of the Spirit was reflecting on Samuel when he was describing young Jesus' life. Because you get the same kind of thing. What is that showing us? That in the midst of this rebellion, in the midst of this corruption, in the midst of this ungodliness in Israel, there was the Redeemer. Now, Samuel's not the ultimate Redeemer, but he is a type of Christ, because Christ was in him. And that's why I can say the same kind of things about Samuel, that it says later about Jesus. The child Samuel grew in stature and in favor both with Lord and man, because the true Christ, who was coming, was in Samuel. So the way of redemption, the way of atonement, the way of forgiveness was right there, in the midst of the nation. No matter how corrupt it was, Samuel was ministering to the Lord, and he was showing forth what the Savior Jesus would do when he would come. And we know that Jesus fulfilled, and Jesus is the one who made it possible for not only Samuel, but for you and I, because we, by the same spirit, can worship the Lord rightly and be accepted by him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you are God. We thank you that we have this example of Samuel who serves as a type of Christ, as a type of the one who, even when he was a boy, your spirit was in him, and you were ministering to him and through him. And what a mighty prophet he would become, and how he would serve you, and yet Lord, all of his might, and all of his good deeds came from Jesus who was yet to come. The spirit of Christ was in him. Lord God, help each one of us to walk after you, the way Samuel, the way Hannah, the way Elkana walked after you. That your spirit would be quickening us, Lord God, that as we serve you, you would be honoring us, even as you said, Lord Jesus, when you were on the earth, you promised that this would be the case. Help us to be encouraged by your promise, that the Christian life is trusting in Jesus, it's serving God, it's worshipping with our hearts as we enter these gates, and knowing then that you will bless us and be with us. Or do this for your name, say, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.