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August 26, 2026 | The episode focuses on a detailed study of 1 Samuel 2, contrasting the holy reverence of Samuel with the contemptuous behavior of Eli's sons. The message emphasizes the importance of treating God's holy things with respect, the dangers of sin creeping into one's life, and calls for repentance to remain receptive to God's voice.
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Okay, well, let me pray for us and then you guys after we pray go ahead and turn your Bibles to first Samuel and Nathan's gonna Take us through our message tonight. So let's pray Lord. I thank you I thank you for these group of men that can come together and we can Chuckle and laugh and talk about good stuff that's happened. But Lord, I know also that what we keep beneath the surface is that sometimes we've got burdens we've got Worries that we bring into our time of learning about you and so Lord I ask that you would meet each of us where we are needing you to provide and Needing you to go before us Lord. We love you And we ask that in these next few minutes that you would teach us from your word as we look at your servant Samuel in his life Lord. We love you. We pray all this in the name of your son. Amen Well, thank y'all for watching me fail that's just kind of how things go sometimes Yeah, someone gave me a hand for that. Someone started applauding because I didn't hit the cups. Thank you So tonight we're gonna be talking about First Samuel chapter 2 and if you've read this before which I hope you have you noticed a big contrast in characters so what we're gonna discuss tonight is we're gonna contrast what Eli's sons do and what Samuel does and I wanted to start off with a fun illustration of something that you probably witnessed before if any of you who raised your hand Who do working raise your hands real quick? Whenever I see a true world worker, I look to see if they wave like this You know if you're looking there's a finger missing and so what I've done is I've compiled some videos that I have found Someone on YouTube has really made these videos, but it's just as a showcase of a warning shot a warning to us So if you will turn your attention to the screen and enjoy something that might make you cringe a little bit Jeez hey, don't do that Are you for real? Hey, don't do that The final curtain My friend Hey, don't do that Hey, don't do that, what's your name? Thank you, no Logan see, you know Logan house then To see this don't do that Logan I like this one because He's like nonchalant about a year ago throwing the stick in there and that thing took off so quickly He pulled his hand back like oh, no that could have been me. No that could have been you bro. Hey Don't do that all right, so if If we were to title our message for tonight, that would be the message for the night of hey Don't do that as you saw what these guys were doing all these videos as they were taking something that should have been treated with a little more care Something's a little bit dangerous something that has a lot of power and we're kind of being nonchalant about it And so if you've had any time at all around power tools if you've had any time at all around Anything that is worthy of care that you don't handle it Well, you've probably had an incident like this and I can tell you story after story as I was learning how to do Certain power tools something would happen and I would take a step back and thank the Lord that I have all my fingers that I Have all my digits that I was wearing safety precautionary gear But what we're looking at tonight is some ways that we can really compare was Eli's sons They had something that was so powerful. They had something that was so important. It was so in need of care and They weren't really treating it with the respect that it deserved And we'll see later on in the chapter how all that Eli said to them was hey, don't do that But we're gonna dive deep into what that means for us. We're answering a big question throughout the series How does one hear the voice of God in our lives? So, how do we take this story of hey, don't do that and come and get us to the point of hearing the voice of God I think a big reason a lot of us don't hear from God more clearly is a lot of times The things that God has called holy in our lives. We kind of treat it Nonchalantly we treat it as if it's not holy and that's what we see the sons of Eli doing So as we jump into the passage I've printed it out for you on your table if you don't have your Bible or you can follow along on the screen if you prefer To do that, but we're gonna read the whole passage Then we're gonna break it down and we're gonna talk about some of the things that occur Here we are in 1st Samuel chapter 2 verse 11 says then Elkanah went to Rama But the boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli the priest So Elkanah is Samuel's father and then he took Hannah and the rest of the family back to Rama They left Samuel there and he began to be brought up in the priesthood Eli's sons were scoundrels They had no regard for the Lord Now was the practice of the priests whenever any of the people offered a sacrifice the priest servant would come with a three-pronged fork in His hand while the meat was being boiled and would plunge the fork into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot Whatever the fork brought the priest would take for himself This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh But even before the fat was burned the priest servants would come and say to the person who was sacrificing Give the priest some meat to roast. He won't accept boiled meat from you, but only raw If the person said to him will let the fat be burned first then take whatever you want The servant would answer. No, no hand it over now. If you don't I'll take it by force The sin of the young men was very great in the Lord's sight for they were treating the Lord's offering with contempt But Samuel was administering before the Lord a boy wearing a linen of fod Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when he she went out with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife saying may the Lord give you children By this woman to take the place of the one she prayed for and gave to the Lord Then they would go home and the Lord was gracious to Hannah. She gave birth to three sons and two daughters Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord Now Eli who was very old heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they slept with the women who served at The entrance to the tent of meeting So he said to them. Why do you do such a thing? I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours No My sons the report that I hear spreading among the Lord's people is not good if one person sins against another God may mediate for the offender But if anyone sins against the Lord who will intercede for them? his sons, however did not listen to their father's rebuke for it was the Lord's will to put them to death and The boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and his people so as we look at this passage, we see a pretty stark contrast between Samuel and Eli's sons Hothme and Phinehas and The reason that they that were told that they were treating the offering with contempt as we read through what they were doing They were having the servants come over and stick a fork in a big boiling pot and pull out me That was not the way that the sacrifice was intended to be orchestrated on your paper I believe I wrote it down there, too But if you want to look on the screen as well, but we see in Leviticus 7 28 to 32 the proper method For examining or for offering an offering to the Lord it says the Lord said to Moses say to the Israelites anyone who brings a fellowship offering to the Lord is to bring part of It as their sacrifice to the Lord with their own hands to present the food offering to the Lord there to bring the fat together with the breast and wave the breast before the Lord is A wave offering the priests shall burn the fat on the altar But the breast belongs to Aaron the sons you were to give the right thigh your fellowship offering to the priests as a contribution So what we see here in this passage is there was a way for the priests to receive part of the offering as food But what the priests were doing Phinehas and Hothme were doing was the wrong thing. They were jumping the gun They were saying we don't want the leftovers. What we want is the meat beforehand so they were taking what God had meant for an offering and they were Twisting it for their own needs and for their own desires they were taking their position and abusing their power and what that did is it didn't just Afflict themselves what they were doing is they were getting in between God and his people What they were doing was keeping these people from offering a legitimate sacrifice to the Lord And so God was not gonna have that you see God loves his people and God will not have Anything come between him and his people So the just thing for God to do is to offer this warning but What I want to do tonight before we jump into all of the rest of the lesson is take a moment and find out What do we learn about God from this passage on your paper on your table? I've given you a paper with some passages on both sides and what I want you guys to do is read Leviticus 20 and 26 20 verse 26 and Then first Peter 1 14 through 16 and I'm gonna give you about five or six minutes to read over that those passages
that I've given you on your paper, and then I want you to discuss, what do we learn about God from these passages, and from the passage that we just read here. So take about five minutes, go ahead and discuss. All right, my timer went off. So let me hear, nominate a spokesperson from your table, you're gonna speak real loud so the room can hear. What did these passages tell us about God? Go ahead and, someone raise your hand, I'll point to you. All right, Mr. Noble, what did these passages tell us about God? That he is holy. That he is holy. And he desires for us to be holy. And he desires for us to be holy, okay. Who else? Go ahead. Define holy. Define holy, set apart. Set thing that is sacred for a purpose to glorify God. Not doctrine of a church. There's a big difference between the two. Well, let's dive into that. So the answer that I had for this is, what do we learn about God? That there are some things that God does set apart as holy, and he expects us to respect those things. Now, what are some of those things that God has set apart for you? We see that the Lord had set apart the offering as something that was to be holy, it was not something to be treated with disrespect. There was a set order that he had said, this is how I want you to do it. He had commanded Moses to do it. There was a set order in the law. There was a set order in the way that he outlined his people to live. And he expects us to respect those things, even after Christ has come and offered us salvation. We have salvation, we have grace, we have mercy, but there is still an expectation for us to be set apart in the way that we live. There is still an expectation for our behavior to be holy, therefore, as he is holy. So what does that mean for us? We're playing with some dangerous things. We're playing with things that maybe sometimes we shouldn't be playing with, but understanding that they're tools that God has given us. So for instance, number one, your salvation. That is something that is holy. That is something that we should absolutely treat as holy. But sometimes we treat it flippantly and we engage in sinful habits and things that are not good for us. And we say, but it's okay, it's all covered under the blood. We treat it more like fire insurance than the holy thing that it is, the rescue out of the miry muck that it actually is. Sometimes we treat our families flippantly. They are set apart. God ordained marriage and God ordained family to operate in such a way that man and woman come together and they're a picture of Christ and his bride, the church. So your marriage should be held in reverence, but are we sometimes lazy with that? Do we sometimes treat our wife as if she is there to serve us all the time? Or do we do the other thing and we make her feel bad by saying how much we serve her and expect her to be thankful for our attitude? Or do we not engage in pursuing our wife and dating our wife like we did when we first met her? Have we become flippant and lazy? Have we started treating things that are holy as if they are not? Also our church. The Lord said that this is the thing that is gonna stave off the gates of hell. But do we treat our church in such a way that we come in and we check a box so we can get attendance and we think God will be pleased with our bare minimum? Do we come in and we have all of our consumeristic wants and desires out of a church that we expect the church to meet? Or do we come in and we serve? And the problems that we see instead of complaining about them, we say we'll be active in helping make that shortcoming come to life. If the church doesn't have what it needs to hit this ministry or make this ministry happen, I will step in and I will help make that happen. Or hey, we're having a love offering and we're so and so amount short and the church is not gonna have enough, too bad. Or do we step in and say, hey, I'm gonna make some sacrifices and make sure that we achieve the goals that God has ordained for us to achieve because I respect that. I respect what the church is doing. I respect that the church is ministering to those who do not know who the Lord is and they're trying to reach the city for the gospel. Which brings us to the other thing is your community, your neighbors. God loves his people. And God wants to call more people his people. And so when God created humans, he wanted to make sure that they heard the gospel. Blessed are the feet that go and share the good news. Holy are the feet that go and share the good news. But do we treat our neighbors flippantly? Do we only respect somebody when they treat their house in such a way that raises our home's property value? Or do we get angry at people and not talk to people because they don't look, talk, act, live the way that we do? And this is hard truths to think about. When I was preparing this lesson, I will be honest with you. I was looking for an illustration in my own life that would exemplify hearing the voice of God and treating something as holy as it is and being able to show you this is what happens. And I'll be honest, I had a really hard time. When I took an honest look at myself, I've been flippant with a lot of the things I just named. And so it's a challenge to me, it's a challenge to you. The only story that I can think of is back when I used to drive a forklift for a warehouse before I came to Bellevue. And a lot of you did not realize that one of your minister's backstory and background is driving a forklift and forklifting is fun. There's a lot of ups and downs in that line of work. There it goes, took you a second. Goes up, it goes down. That's all a forklift does. But in that job, it was supposed to be a Christian company. The managers were professing Christians, but they did not run it as such and they did not talk to their staff as such. And a lot of the staff had a lot of understandable grudge against Christians because of it. There were a few that were vehemently anti-Christian, they were devout atheists, and the longer they worked at that company, the more they hated the things of God. Because the managers and the leaders of this company that claimed to be Christian treated everybody very flippantly. There was one other coworker that I knew as a friend and he was a Christian and he and I had decided, you know what, there's one particular person that God has laid on both of our hearts and we're gonna make sure that as long as we're at this company, we're gonna really treat that person especially nice in order to share the gospel with them. And we started seeing every conversation as something to be respected. We did not talk in such a way that would ruin a witness whenever we were at work because we didn't want to be a reason that person could point at us and say, see, you're just like all the others. We treated our conversations with respect and with reverence. We made sure that we ate lunch with this person. He liked to watch a show that honestly was probably the worst made show I've ever seen in my life and I absolutely hated it. But even though I didn't really want to spend time with him because every fiber of my flesh said this is not the kind of person I would want to be with, there was something that just kept pulling me and pulling me and pulling me to continue to build a relationship with him. Fast forward a few months and eventually I have to leave that job and go to another job. And as I'm saying goodbye, he pulled me aside and he said, hey, I want you to know that I really don't like Christians. However, if I ever were to want to hear more about it, it probably would have been from you and I'm sad to see you go. And so if anything, I didn't get to the point of being able to open that door, but maybe I got a little wedge in just by being obedient and treating those conversations as reverent as they should have been treated. And so when you have relationships at work, when you have your relationships with your family, treat those conversations with some reverence because what you're doing is you are either damaging the witness of Christ or you're building up the witness of Christ. That's a holy thing. So we're gonna move on a little bit to the next thing. We've learned something about God. We know that he has set apart some things to be holy, which means treating them with reverence, treating them with the respect that they require, doing them as he's told us to do them. Next thing I want to do is I want to look at the two people in this narrative. You've got, or really it's three people. You have Phinehas and Hophni, the sons of Eli, and you have Samuel. And we see this huge contrast between the two. And we see that they were told, that the boys were told this. Eli was very old. He had heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel, and now they slept with the women who served at the entrance to the Tena meeting. So he said to them, why do you do such things? I hear from all these people about these wicked deeds of yours. Whoop, skipped too far. No, my sons, a report I hear spreading among the Lord's people is not good. If one person sins against another, God may mediate for the offender, but if anyone sins against the Lord, who will intercede for them? His sons, however, did not listen to their father's rebuke, for it was the Lord's will to put them to death. And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and his people. So we see the sons did not listen to the rebuke, but Samuel continued to grow in favor with the Lord and with people. Keep in mind, these boys are all growing up in the same place. So they're making personal decisions on how they're gonna live their life. They're making personal decisions on how they're gonna treat the things of God, if they're gonna treat them with reverence or if they're gonna be flippant about it. So what I want to do is take the next passage and discuss what do we learn about people. And I want you to look on your page. I've given you Hebrews 3, 12 through 15. What do we learn about people?
We're gonna do five minutes again, and y'all discuss and then we'll come back. Asking the question, what do we learn about people? All right, go ahead and finish up your statements. I would love to hear from somebody who has not spoken already so we can share the love. Give me a brave new soul. Who wants to share from their table? What do these passages tell us about people? Go ahead, back there, real loud. We need encouragement daily, okay? I like that. What else do these passages tell us about people? Okay, they're sinful. I saw a hand way back there in the back. It's easy to become hardened? Yeah, absolutely. All right, one more. Josiah? Kind of combining whatever they said, but that people's hearts are hardened by sin, but softened by encouragement and enduring things. There we go, I like that. The answer that I wrote down, and I think it encapsulates, I think you all hit the nail on the head. If we allow it, sin will creep into our lives and take over. If you allow it. Now, if you have other things like encouragement, and we'll talk about more things in encouragement, but if we take the initiative to keep sin from going into our lives, we can keep our hearts from becoming hardened. So, when I was thinking about this, when I was thinking about these passages I put before you, I was taken back to something that the Lord had convicted me on a few years ago. A lot of you don't know, so I did a lot of work in forklifts, I cleaned pools, I did a lot of stuff, but my degree, my college undergrad degree, is actually in basically social media, and rhetoric that goes into social media. And the more that I learned about social media, the more it absolutely terrified me. That was at the start of everything. That was several, several years ago when social media was really taking off. Everybody was looking at Twitter, everybody was looking at Facebook, everybody was looking at this, and they're still doing it now, and I can tell you it's because they were purposeful in designing this thing. And so I made a choice a few years ago to actually get off social media completely. And it was the best decision I could make. Because whether or not you realize it, you're slowly being overcome with advertisements for things you don't need. You're comparing your life to people whose lives are not real, and you're wondering why I don't have this thing, and greed starts to creep in. And then sometimes it's just entertaining videos, and your mind becomes numb to the things that are around you. You start looking at your phone, and all of a sudden you're two hours into a binge session on videos that are called brain rot. And you're not rested, you're more exhausted. You start talking to your family kind of angrily because you're actually more exhausted in your mind because you're so stimulated. And now you're not treating your family well. You're lazy because you're so tired from looking at your phone. But you don't know why you're so tired, and so you go back to your phone for entertainment. And it's a vicious cycle. Now that's one area, that's one thing in our lives that can cause us to dip into sin, and drift into that sinful pattern. There's so many other things. There's so many other bad habits that can cause us to become lazy, to become flippant with the things that we've already discussed that God has called holy. So what we learn about God is that there are some things that are reverent. There are some things he said, this is the way I want you to do it. And he's given us clear comments in scripture on how he wants us to live our lives. He's given us the Sermon on the Mount. He's given us clear, just exposition of this is the way, walk in it. But also, what happens is we let little things creep in. If you've ever heard of the, you've probably heard this before, and you can stop, well don't stop me if you're, let me finish it, actually. But what's more dangerous, a clock that is five minutes wrong, or a clock that's five hours wrong? Five minutes. And the reason if a clock is five hours wrong, you look at the clock and you say, that's not what time it is, show me something that is. Right. But clocked at five minutes wrong, you might look at it and say, oh, okay, that's what time it is, and you've missed your flight. And it's the same way with sin. A lot of times we don't fall to the big sins, we fall to the little sins. It's okay if I look at this for this amount of time, I'm not like dwelling on it. And then you look at it a little longer, and you look at it a little longer, and over time, what maybe started off as a glance has turned onto a full-on addiction. Or I can try this this one time, or I can speak to my coworker in a cruel way this one time, and over time, what started as kind of just a menial joke has turned onto a real attitude problem between you and your coworker. Sin can creep in in small ways, and then it expands. And we see this with Eli's sons. Again, they were raised in the same temple. They were given the same laws, Samuel and Eli's sons. One of them did not allow sin to creep in, but the sons let it take them too far, and now they're full-blown using the servants of the temple for their own nefarious needs. They're taking advantage of the people of Israel, all because they let sin creep in and take over. I'm sure if they could take a look back at their lives, if they were caring about what was holy, and they might wonder, how did I get here? What happened to me here? And so if we allow it, sin will take over our lives. Well, that leads us to our next question then. If we have something that God has called holy, which is our lives, it's our salvation, it's our family, it's our church, it's our community, and if sometimes, if we're not careful, we can let sin harden our hearts, well then, what's a command that we need to obey to kind of correct this? So the next passage that I want you guys to read and discuss is this, whoa, don't look at my answer. Goodness, sorry guys, I spoiled it for you. Read 1 Samuel 2, 26, and Hebrews 12, 14 through 17. It's on your paper. I'm gonna give you another five minutes, and then we'll come back and close. Go ahead and begin. All right, let's bring this in. I wanna hear from somebody that has not yet spoken so that we spread the love a little bit. Who is brave and bold and would like to share for their table? Not a brave soul in here tonight. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. Right. I can't wait till we get to the chapter, yeah, I cannot wait till we get to the chapter and talk about Ichabod. Does anyone know what the name Ichabod means? Exactly, the glory of the Lord has left. Yeah. Yeah. Spot on. No, I think that was spot on. Does anyone wanna second that, or we just wanna go with that one? We'll go with that one, that was good. Good job. The answer I wrote down is we must repent. Doing exactly that. Making sure that we are living our lives in such a way that is holy and pleasing to the Lord. Another verse that I gathered for us is you were taught with regard to your formal way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Earlier I mentioned that I gave up social media, and I'm gonna tell you guys right now, it was the best decision I made because with all the time that I saved from scrolling, just doom scrolling and making myself anxious and making myself panicky and making myself in a bad mood all the time, I started realizing I've got two little kids in that living room right over there that I can spend time with. I've got a wife who is awesome, and I'm gonna spend time with her. I've got a mom and a dad who live just down the road. I'm gonna call them. I'm gonna spend time with them. I've got friends that I can be involved in their life with. I've got neighbors across the street. I started seeing things that my eyes were blinded to because I was letting sinful patterns in. And so for you guys, as you begin to address the sinful patterns in your life, you probably, and those of you who have done this and walked down this road, when you address the sinful patterns in your life, you saw the opportunities where you could follow the Lord and become a person worthy of respect as you walked in holiness. These passages are gray reminders of what we're expected to do with our lives. We get rid of the things that are holding us back, and I wanna encourage you to hold each other accountable to do that. If you have to tonight before you leave, if you feel like I need to be held accountable and I just need somebody to help me, get the phone number of somebody that maybe you've never met before. Be brave enough to do that and start holding each other accountable and texting each other and say, hey, how are you doing today with that thing that you said you wanted to be better about? If we don't get serious with our sin, if we don't get serious with our bad habits and get rid of those things, then how can we expect to live lives that are holy and such that the Lord will want to be around us and will want to talk to us and we will hear the voice of the Lord? The thing is, is God is always right there. But sometimes we turn.
away and we harden our hearts, but as soon as we turn back the Lord is right there and he's saying I'm ready to come back. He's chasing after you but sometimes we avoid him and so what I'm encouraging everybody to do if there's any part of your life that you're that you've let sin harden your heart and you can no longer hear the voice of the Lord I would encourage you let go of that thing it's just not worth it. Jesus says to us if your eye causes you to sin do what? Exactly. That's intense. If he says your right hand causes you to sin do what? That's intense, but he's serious about it. If the Lord is so serious about sin in our life to say something like that we ought to take it seriously, but the thing is is God is not just giving you a list of instructions because he's a mean God who is just cruel and controlling. What he wants to do is have a relationship to you and God is holy. He is absolutely holy and he's speaking, but the thing is sometimes we are so crowded with sin and we've hardened our hearts to sin that we just can't hear it, and so my encouragement to you tonight is to start thinking about things that are maybe in your life that are creeping in and keeping you from hearing God's voice, and what I want y'all to do is follow along in an activity. I'm gonna ask you to all go ahead and close your eyes and I mean it. It does not work as well if you keep your eyes open. I'm looking at you and I can tell you if your eyes are open and I'll call you out. I'm just kidding, I won't do that, but what I want you to do is close your eyes and I just want you to experience these sounds for a minute, okay? This is something that we worked on to just showcase what we're talking about. If you could turn that up a little bit. This is your heart as you're trying to hear the voice of God. You're trying to listen to what he's telling you and you can't because there's so many sinful things crowding it out, but if you'll give up pride and put on humility, if you'll give up deceitfulness and put on integrity, if you'll get rid of selfishness and start serving, if you get rid of jealousy and greed and learn to be content, if you stop trying to isolate yourself and get into fellowship, and if you stop trying to search for endless entertainment and start taking up reading your Word and praying to the Lord, then I can promise you the voice of the Lord is gonna be really, really clear. I'm gonna pray. When I'm done praying, you guys are dismissed. Lord, we thank you so much that you do allow us to hear your voice. Heavenly Father, I do pray that if there is any wicked way in us that you would reveal it through your Holy Spirit and they would be willing to get rid of that and to pursue things of you, things that you've called holy. Lord, thank you that you've allowed us to give the salvation through Jesus Christ. I pray that we would cling to that and we would not be flippant with that, but we would take that seriously, for we know that we are to seek first your kingdom and your righteousness. And so, Lord, I pray that as we leave, we would do that. Remind us of that today. We thank you, Lord, for this time. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.