Rising and Falling (Part 1)

1 Samuel 2:1–26 | Pastor Sean Powers

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It's not like God does his best work in the Bible and then slacks off in your life, as if he ordains and guides the lives of the characters in the Bible and then forgets about you and your story. No, that is why reading the stories of the Old Testament are so good for our faith, because they remind us, look at how God works. Look at how he leads and directs.

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The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

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The rest of us will be in the book of first Samuel chapter two, and as I preach through Samuel, I'm gonna be referring to first and second Samuel, sometimes just as the book of Samuel. It's really just one book. We've split it into two parts in scriptures, but it's written as one book, so my terminology there is going to jump back and forth. Last time I preached we started with the story of Hannah, which

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is a story that begins the bigger story of Samuel. If you remember Hannah could not have children,

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and in her vexation and in her distress and out of trust in the Lord she prayed to him that she would The redemptive plan by answering the distraught prayers of a faithful and barren woman. Now this morning we're going to pick up in one Samuel chapter two. This is Hannah's song of praise that she writes to God thanking God for the son he's given her. Now this prayer is foundationally important for the rest of the books of Samuel, the book of Samuel, because it establishes themes which are repeated throughout the entire book. In fact, we're gonna see an example of one just this morning.

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We're gonna take some time to really draw out the richness of this Psalm of hers, because again it is very important for the rest of the book, and then we'll jump back into the narrative timeline and see in that little story we're gonna cover a few of the themes from Hannah's prayer actually working their way out into the fabric of the story with Eli's fall and Samuel's rise. So we will get into all that right after I pray.

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God, it's so joyful and humbling to be

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a part of your story, to be someone upon whom your favor rests, to be someone for whom there is no condemnation because we are in the anointed one. We are in the Christ. Thank you for that. Father, let this story today from your word strengthen us and make us amazed at you and thankful that you are our God. Thank you for doing this, for letting this be true.

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What we're reading about has been actually done in history, and it gives us faith. We thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. So we ended last time. I read through Hannah's song.

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We're gonna read it again, but go slower, and again break it into the three themes, which will solidify themselves into themes in the book of Samuel. Let me begin in verse one. And Hannah prayed and said, my heart exalts in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies because I rejoice in your salvation.

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There is none holy like the Lord, for there is none besides you. There is no rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly. Let arrogance come from your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The first theme Hannah establishes here is this idea of reversal, the mighty being brought low, the lowly being raised up, the haughty being humbled, and the humbled being exalted and established.

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This is the idea of established norms and expectations being turned on their head, an established fortune being changed upside down, suddenly turned on its head. Hannah herself has experienced this in the book of Samuel as she began the book lowly and downcast, having no strength over Peninnah, her rival, having no strength over the circumstance that she cannot have children, but now after her prayer, God has reversed all of that, and she's praising the Lord for it. In the midst of her exaltation, she derides her enemies, which are also the enemies of God, and notice she specifically rebukes them for speaking proudly and speaking arrogantly, the ones who think they've gotten where they are apart from the Lord, the ones who think that by their own might they have established themselves, they have raised themselves up. We see that is not at all the case. She calls them not to speak arrogantly because it is God who is the arbiter of where actions go, and he weighs whether an action is worth anything or not.

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You may be successful in the world's eyes, but very failing in God's eyes, and of course God can switch that all around in the moment, so there's a rebuke there for the haughty. Now think back on the stories and teaching you've had throughout your childhood or adult years. You can get what she's saying here. Have a good idea of what she's saying. Think about things like pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

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Think about the fact that Jesus Christ chose fishermen over Pharisees to be his disciples. Think about the fact that God was born in a manger, or think about the fact that the widow's mite was counted as more worth in God's eyes than all the riches of the rich people donating to the temple, that kind of reversal idea. Bring those stories to mind, and you'll have a good idea of what Hannah's getting at here. It's that twist, that reversal of expectations, of norms, that reversal of fortunes we so often see God doing and being in the Bible. She continues, The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength.

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Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has born seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. Again, and notice the reversal of fortunes here, and you'll be amazed. Just keep this in the back of your mind. As you go through Samuel, you're gonna be amazed at how this is woven into the fabric of the story of Samuel itself, the fall of the established Eli's house and the rise of Samuel's house, the fall of mighty Baal before the captured ark, the fall of Goliath before the shepherd boy who's then exalted, or the fall of Saul, the king of man's choosing, before the rising up of David, the king of God's choosing.

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So keep your eyes open for it. You're gonna see this happening over and over again. You see, Hannah is praising God for this characteristic of himself. It's more than a part of a story. It's this way God works.

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He is one who reverses our expectations, who surprises us with his ways and how joyful they are, who, as it says in Romans five seventeen, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. And of course, what Hannah's talking about here you see perfectly where? In the resurrection of Christ, the low being brought up. This how God works. He's a resurrection God who brings life out of death and joy out of misery, and Hannah in her prayer now is honing in on that part

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of God, and she's felt it because she's seen it when God gave her Samuel. That's gonna

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be something we see throughout the book. Secondly, you'll see Hannah expand this idea of reversal, the lowering down and the raising up, by praising God's sovereign direction over all these things. Let me draw your attention here in six through eight. The Lord kills and brings to life. He brings down to Sheol and raises up again.

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The Lord makes poor and makes rich. He brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust. He lifts up the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.

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The second theme Hannah establishes is God's sovereign providential guiding over human fates. From the destinies of kingdoms to the actions of individuals to the circumstances of everyday life, God is the one writing the story. He's in charge of the entire earth, and in the mystery of God's providential power, he directs the hearts, the choices, the motivations of everyone in his story, leading everything to exactly where he plans it to be. Again, as you pay attention and we move through Samuel, you'll be noticing this. You'll notice the rise and the fall of many characters as a result of just circumstance or coincidence or fate, happen to be in the right place at the right time or vice versa.

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We know from Hannah, we know God's behind that. Or you're gonna see characters rising and falling based upon their own choices, either good or bad choices, and the consequence of those

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choices. While of course this is the experiential lived out human reality, what we see, what Hannah draws our attention to, is that in all those things, God is providentially guiding and directing that reality. He is the one who brings low and rises

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up. Just as he intended Joseph's brothers to sell him into slavery so that Joseph could then save all of Israel, just as God hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he could stretch his hand out over Egypt in strength, just as he determined that evil men would crucify his own son in order that salvation could be brought to all who believe in him, so God directs the fortunes of all men in the book of Samuel. Here Hannah extols a truth about God that's neatly summed up in Proverbs twenty twenty four. It goes this way. A man's steps are from the Lord.

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How can man understand his way? Or again in Proverbs 20 one:one, A king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he wills. So keep this in mind. As we move through the story, we hear all the twists and the turns and the good and the bad decisions that every character makes, but we see how they simply move forward God's plan to establish the Davidic kingdom, paving the way for the future rule of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

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And so we have Hannah emphasizing reversal in verses one through five, and in six through eight she extols God's providential direction in all this. Now what we see in nine through 10 is this theme of God giving strength and support to his anointed one. It says this, He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness, for not by might shall man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces against them he will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth.

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He will give strength to his king and exalt his anointed. Now this is the most impressive part of the prayer for a number of reasons. Firstly, it appears here that Hannah is prophesying. Notice she speaks of a king and of anointed one. Well, as of yet, there is no king in Israel.

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There has not been a king in Israel yet, and yet she is speaking of God's faithfulness to his king and his anointed one. How is she doing that? Well, she is building off messianic themes already established in the scriptures. We went over a number of these in my first sermon in the series about the Christ because the scriptures are already giving hints that there will be an anointed king coming for Israel. Quick review on that is Genesis seventeen:six and 3five 11.

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God says there to Abraham, Kings are going to come from you. You see it again in Genesis 49 where we hear that there is going to be a king who comes from Judah, has a ruler's scepter into whom people pay tribute. Also in Deuteronomy 17, God outlined the laws that he wanted his king to eventually follow, and so Hannah believes that, and she is faithfully placing herself in line with these texts declaring that God will in fact bring a king and will be faithful to him. But there's more here. What's so amazing about Hannah's prayer is not only that it establishes themes for the book of Samuel, but that we see a parallel song, a parallel prayer written all the way at the end of two Samuel.

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You see, in two Samuel 22, all the way at the

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end of the story, we have

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a Psalm of David, and that beautifully parallels this song here at the beginning of the story, the

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two of which outline and frame the entire book of Samuel. So David's song, at

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the very end, builds off the same imagery and the same themes as Hannah's song, and it expands those themes showing how the very prayer that Hannah offers here has actually been answered throughout the entire story of first and second Samuel. You see, you have this declaration here at the very beginning by Hannah that God will protect and fight for his anointed, and then you see the fulfillment of that in David's psalm, how that is exactly what has happened throughout the story. So think of it this way. Hannah here is really praying for David at the beginning of the book, and at the very end of the book we see David's own prayer affirming that God has answered Hannah's prayer and truly been faithful to him throughout the

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whole time. Let me show you how this works. So you've got

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a parallel tone and a parallel imagery between David at the very end and Hannah at the very beginning. Hannah says in verses one and two, My horn is exalted in the Lord. David calls God the horn of my salvation. Hannah says, for there is none besides you. There is no rock like our God.

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David says, for who is God but the Lord, and who is a rock except our God? The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be my God, the rock of my salvation. The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my rock in whom I take refuge. Hannah says, My heart exalts in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord.

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David says, You exalted me above those who rose against me. So the themes in the wording here are very closely aligned. And then Hannah gets into this idea, as we've just mentioned, of that God will someday defend and fight for his anointed. We see in David's song that God has done just that. Hannah says, The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces against them he will thunder in heaven.

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And David affirms in the end, In my distress I called upon the Lord. To my God I called. The Lord thundered from heaven. The Most High uttered his voice. It's the exact same wording, exactly as Hannah prayed for.

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God has done. Hannah also prays, He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness. And listen to what David specifically thanks God for in his psalm. He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me in a secure place on the heights. You gave a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip.

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I pursued my enemies and destroyed them. I consumed them. I thrust them through so that they did not rise. They fell under my feet. You made those who rise against me sink under me.

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Think about that. Specific answers to Hannah's prayer, sundering from heaven, guarding David's feet, cutting off his enemies, and again, notice the rising up and the falling down imagery in David's psalm as well. It's spectacular to see how God works out the whole story of first and second Samuel according to Hannah's prayer. But I've saved the very best little detail for last here. Look how Hannah ends her prayer.

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He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed. And how does David end his prayer? Great salvation he brings to his king and shows steadfast love to his anointed. That's amazing. Who could do that but God?

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Who would bother to do that but God? How can God determine the twists, the turns, the fates of the characters, their rising and falling? How can God be determining to protect David? And yet he's doing all this in response to and in accordance with Hannah's prayer at the very beginning of the story. It's inspiring to think about.

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And just as an aside here, while the thought is fresh in your minds, it's not like God does his best work in the Bible and then slacks off in your life, as if he ordains and guides the lives of the characters in the Bible, and then forgets about you and your story. No, that is why reading the stories of the Old Testament are so good for our faith, because they remind us, look at how God works. Look at how he leads and directs the lives of the people in the stories we're reading to bring about his purposes. Look how he paves the way for his anointed Christ generations before he is born. Look how he provides for David according to Hannah's prayers.

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And it's not just here in Samuel. All the stories of the Old Testament show that same faithfulness to the Christ, the anointed. Look at and consider Genesis 24, where Isaac's servant is going to find Isaac a wife, and he just so happens to show up at the well at the exact time Rebecca is coming down to the well. Rebecca, the one who God had ordained for Isaac to marry. God says, That's the one right there.

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And Rebecca marries Isaac, and one of their descendants is Jesus. If Rebecca hadn't come down to the well at that exact moment, you would have had no Jesus because there would be no Isaac and Rebecca. Look how he ordained that. The same is true of Jacob. And deceiving his brother Esau, he's forced to flee to his uncle Laban where he meets his wife Rachel who gives birth to Judah, which is the one through whom Jesus comes eventually.

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If Jacob hadn't deceived his brother and fled from Esau, there would

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have been no Jesus because he

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would not have met Rachel. Look how God was so faithful to Joseph through hardship, slavery, false accusations, and betrayal. All the time though, all the time, working it for good, leading him, being with him the entire time. God had a plan for Joseph to save all of Israel, the people through whom Jesus would come. If Jacob's brothers hadn't thrown him in the pit and sold him

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to slavery, there would be no Jesus because he would not have been there to provide for all of Israel.

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Look how in the book of Esther, which is the best example of irony and how God works, the king just happened to have a little insomnia, and so calling for his servant to come and read to him the record of the deeds done for the king, he's reminded of Mordecai who saved his life, and honoring Mordecai for this eventually leads to the foiling of Haman's plot to kill all the Jews. If the king had fallen asleep that night,

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the Jews would have been destroyed, and there would have been no Jesus. God's providential faithfulness to his anointed one is much larger than Hannah's prayer, much larger even than God's faithfulness to David. Ultimately, what we see here and throughout the scripture is that God's faithfulness to his anointed is his faithfulness to Jesus Christ, the anointed one, and get this, it is his faithfulness to us. Yes, to us as Christians. He is faithful to us the same way we see him be faithful to his anointed Christ throughout scriptures because we are also his anointed ones.

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That's what the word Christian means. It's got the word Christ in it.

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It means we are little anointed ones, and we know that by virtue of our union to Christ. We hear that theology all the time, but maybe we don't think of the full implications that we're unified to the Christ, that we are anointed with his spirit, that we are part of his body, that we are in the Christ, and by virtue of that union, the same sovereign leading that we see in David's story, the same sovereign leading that we hear about in the stories of scripture that lead up to Christ, that same attention and compassion and guidance and faithfulness and steadfastness is towards your story now and my story now as we are God's anointed ones. Second Corinthians one twenty one says, and it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us and who has put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. That seems too good to be true when you think about it, but that's always the way the gospel works. You know you're starting to grasp the gospel when it seems too good to be true.

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That's just how it goes. God's sovereign care, all

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his attention, all the work that he did in leading to the birth of Jesus Christ, all the work that we're gonna see him do in David and David's life here, your story is a recipient of that same care and leading and attention. As much as Hannah's prayer is about David, the anointed, it is about Jesus, the anointed, and as much as it's about Jesus, it is about us as well by virtue of our union to him. And so as we go through Samuel, if you find yourself thinking, as I often do, Wow, I wish God was involved in my life like that. I wish God would care for me like he cared for David. He loved David so much.

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Wish he cared for me that way. I wish that God directed my life the same way he directs the stories in the Bible. Remember that he absolutely does. He absolutely is, And even now Hannah's words remain true. God will exalt the horn of his anointed, and that's us by virtue of our union to Christ.

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So there is Hannah's prayer. You got the themes of reversal, God's providential direction in that, and God's faithfulness to his anointed one. Now let's move into the narrative of chapter two and see how right off the bat some of these things start to actually happen. Verse 11. Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, and the boy was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli.

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Notice the narrative shifts now. We're seeing Elkanah leaving this place, which means as a narrative, we're left here at Shiloh. We're staying with Samuel in the narrative now, and all is

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not well in Shiloh. Samuel is ministering faithfully, but look at the contrast of Eli's sons, the priests. 12,

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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.

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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 for you, but only raw. If the man said to him,

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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

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it by force. Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord. Now don't get confused with the

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ritual details here.

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It might seem arbitrary, boiling versus roasting, or eating the meat before the fat is gone, but when these rituals you are to perform as a priest of God, and God has specifically told you what to do and written them out in his law, and clearly prescribed what to do, ignoring these things really has damning consequences, and what we see here is that Eli's sons, Hofne and Phineas, and that's not the Phineas my son is named after. He's named after a much more faithful one that we should hear about next time,

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But what we see from them is that they don't fear the Lord. They don't even know him, and they have no respect for God's law whatsoever.

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And this is made most obvious in their eating of the fat, because you see the fat is consecrated to the Lord. So the fat is the richness and the abundance of the animal. It's the best of the animal. It was to be given to God. The fat is to the animal as cream is to the milk.

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It's the richest portion that rises to the surface, and it was meant to be consecrated to God. God was not vague on this. Leviticus three sixteen, All the fat is the Lord's. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwelling places that you eat neither fat nor blood. Again, in Leviticus seven twenty five, for every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which a food offering may be made to the Lord shall be cut off from his people.

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So God wasn't vague about this at all. Even the lay people, even the people bringing the offering tell the priest, Hey, don't take it when the fad's still there.

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This is a willful, and prideful,

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and self serving contempt against God we're seeing here. And so as astute readers of this story, we know they shouldn't have taken the fat. We saw they did. Now we're kind of tensing. We're just thinking, oh, it's gonna get really bad for Hofne and Phinehas.

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But again, the narrative now changes from the house of Eli back to the house of Samuel. We get this contrast. 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.

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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. See that contrast? The house of Eli is crumbling. The house of Samuel is being blessed and established.

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You can picture this in a movie, the scene cutting back and forth between the good guy, the protagonist, and he's working faithfully, and the scene cuts back to the bad guys, and they are doing their nefarious deeds and amounting judgment for themselves. You know it's coming, And so now the scene cuts back to the house of Eli in '22, and we see this. 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

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said to them, Why do you do such things?

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For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people.

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No, my sons, it is no good report. I hear the people of the Lord spreading abroad. If somebody 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.

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Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and also with man. Notice the contrasting between the two again. And really, this is one of the most tragic parts of the story here because we have Eli. Now remember, we talked about Eli last time. We characterized him as maybe a little bit passive, someone who makes bad judgments,

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someone who makes mistakes, but an undeniably good natured person as well. He's the one who blesses Hannah. He's blessed her continually. But what do we

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see of him here? Well, he keeps on hearing the reports of his son's sin. And the problem is he isn't doing anything about it. The narrative has expanded on the sin of Hophni and Phineas saying that not only are they stealing the offering, now they're laying with the women at the entrance of the tent of meeting. It's clear these kids are out of control, and if Eli were really on the ball, he'd have had them stoned already to be executed by the community in front of whom they've sinned, to be executed before the Lord against whom they've sinned.

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He would have known this. Deuteronomy twenty one eighteen through 21 makes clear that sons who live in this sort of continued rebellion are to be stoned. Leviticus twenty two nine calls for death for those who profane the sacrifice as they've clearly been doing. Deuteronomy seventeen twelve gives directions for the execution of those who act presumptuously, not obeying the priest. So it's clear with the sins of his sons, they really should have been dead by now, wanna go, but rather than enforcing the law as a judge of Israel is called to and as a priest is called to, Eli gives them this kind of milquetoast slap on the wrist.

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He just says to them, Why do you do such things? No, my sons,

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it is no good report I hear from the people of the Lord spreading abroad. Now that's

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the tragic part right there is that Eli is clearly vexed and confused. He can't understand how his sons turned out so bad, but he seems to feel powerless to stop it. That's the catch. He's not powerless to stop it. He has the ability.

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He's their father. He has the duty, the responsibility, and the ability to restrain them. And I'm not reading that into the text. We know that from chapter three. Listen to what God says about Eli in chapter three.

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I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew because his sons were blaspheming God and he did not restrain them. So it means his little rebuke he just gave

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them did not count. That was not enough. He could have done something, but he didn't. And so as we hinted in the first sermon here, Eli's downfall is that he was passive. It's not that he opposed God, it's that

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he didn't oppose sin enough in the lives of his sons. It's here that we see some of those themes from Hannah's song begin to work their way into the story. We've got that reversal that we talked about in the beginning. Eli's house starting to teeter and crumble, and Samuel's house beginning to rise. Then we also see God's sovereignty in all of this.

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As Hannah said, God's the one who brings down the Sheol and raises up, because notice how God is orchestrating the fall of Eli's sons. I'll emphasize it for you once more in verse 25, but they would not listen to

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the voice of their father for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death. So Eli was right that there is no one to intercede for them. Their blasphemy is against God

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who is the righteous and rightful judge, jury, and executioner. No priest can intercede for them now, and now God is not even allowing the possibility that they listen to their father and repent because God intends to have them put to death. Here is an exquisite example of what Hannah was talking about, God's mysterious providence, the seemingly paradoxical balance between God's will and man's will. Because think about this. God wills to put them to death.

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Okay. We've got that. So why don't he just strike them with lightning or something? Well, instead he works through their will, the natural consequence of their own decision to disobey their father. Okay.

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That makes sense. But wait a minute. We see that they did not obey their father because it was the will of God to put them to death in the first place. It was like a chicken and an egg type feeling here. So did they even have a choice?

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How does that work?

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Well, that's exactly, again, what Hannah was talking about. We see that at the root, it's the Lord who brings down and who rises up.

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And, of course, we're not told how it works. Not here. Not in the New Testament either. You're never told in the whole scripture how this works, and I'm not sure why we feel like we should know how that works. I'm not sure why we feel like we deserve to know how God's will works.

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Who here knows how their iPhone works? How do you pick up a piece of glass and talk to someone across the entire world? Nobody knows how that works. So why should we know how God's will works? Or consider this, scientists don't even know how our own brain works, Our own will.

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If we as human beings cannot understand our own will and how it works, why do we feel like we should be able to understand God's will and how his works? It's not really even a logical thought there. So what we know from scripture is that God does have a will. Man does have a will. God is infinitely greater than man, and somehow his will encompasses and apprehends and sovereignly guides man's will such that God is always able to bring about his plans exactly as he wishes.

Sean: 38:01

That's what's clear in Scripture. Nothing beyond that. We don't get the metaphysics of how that works, but we do see that, and we see it here. We see examples of it all the time. We're gonna continue to see examples of that throughout all of Samuel.

Sean: 38:17

So now listen, we're gonna

Sean: 38:19

have to put in the bookmark into our story about halfway through this mini story of Eli's downfall and Samuel's rise,

Sean: 38:28

but what we've seen here this morning is Hannah's song establishing those themes of reversal and God's sovereign guiding in that and establishing his anointed. I see that time and

Sean: 38:42

time again, and then we're already starting to see the way that works itself out into the actual fabric of the story with Eli's house and Samuel, and how God is mysteriously behind that the whole time paving the way. So we'll pick up next time with the second half and see what happens to Hofney and Phineas and Eli and Samuel. Let me close us in prayer.

Sean: 39:10

God, I'm thankful, really we're all thankful that you are in charge because you are good. Of course, if you were not good, then being in charge would

Sean: 39:23

be a nightmare, but Lord, you are so good, and we are those upon whom your favor rests. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you that we can trust you with decisions we could not trust ourselves with, we cannot trust anyone with. Lord, thank you for your goodness, your mercy, your favor, your kindness, your direction that you give to us daily and you remind us of through these stories in scripture.

Sean: 39:50

Thank you for working out all of history such that Jesus was born and lived and died and rose again and offers salvation to all those who trust in him. Thank you

Sean: 40:05

that we're a part of that. God, let us be humbled this morning, and let us feel the blessing we have from you, and let that all work towards a faith trusting in you when the the pages of our story don't seem to to match up with what we think they should be. But we can know by faith that we are the ones you favor, the

Sean: 40:32

ones you love, and the ones for whom you work out all things for good. Thank you that that's true.

Sean: 40:37

Help us to know it's true more so. In Jesus' name, amen.

Caleb: 40:40

Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.