May the mumbling commence!
As we continue reading on from 1 Samuel 2 and in the early chapters of 1 Samuel, we find the ministries of Samuel are contrasted with the ministries of Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s sons. Eli finally does rebuke his sons, but the rebuke has more to do with sleeping with the women that serve at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Eli said nothing about their disregard for the Lord in how they handled the offerings of Israel to the Lord.
The Lord sent a man of God to underscore this evil. The bottom line is found in 1 Samuel 2:29: “Why then look with greedy eye at my sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded, and honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel?” The family of Eli, that once had the Lord’s blessings, now saw those blessings taken away. They were to be replaced. Read form 2:35: “I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind. I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed one forever.”
Who would this priest be? Verse 26 gives us a strong indication: “Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people.”
But the youthful Samuel still had much to learn. As I was reviewing that old familiar story of the calling of Samuel in chapter 3, I noticed a theme I did not notice before. Even though Eli was failing in many ways, Samuel still needed his direction to understand the Lord. Look at verse 7: “Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.”
The training of Eli and the faithfulness of Samuel to the Lord combined to lift Samuel up to be the priest that the Lord would have stand before His anointed forever. Look at the last several verses of chapter 3:
As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-Sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord. The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord. (19-21)
And the word of the Lord and visions were rare in those days (3:1). I have no doubt that Samuel was and is that faithful priest that the Lord would have before His anointed. But, who is the Lord’s anointed? We will read about Saul and David, but both those men are dead and gone. What about Solomon? He is also dead and gone. The only Anointed One of God who lives forever is Jesus the Christ. Samuel or the Spirit of the living God which inhabited Samuel serves forever before Jesus.
Samuel hung on every word from God. But Eli’s sons did not. When Israel sought to fight the Philistines and failed, they came to Shiloh. Hophni and Phinehas took the ark of God into battle. There is no mention of inquiry of the Lord; they just went. There is no mention of how they carried the ark into battle. Scriptures said that Levites had to carry it.
Israel took into battle the ark, which represented the Lord’s presence to them and their enemies. And not only did they lose the ark but they also lost many lives – including the lives of Eli’s sons. Eli fell over dead when he found out about the ark’s capture by the Philistines. The Philistines quickly learned that the Lord had not defeated Israel by their hands because of the Philistines’ worthiness. They were cursed with a plague of tumors.
May you and I learn to hang on every word that comes from the mouth of God. May we resist chasing after our own desires – even when they have the pretense of following the will of God.
Enough mumbling for today…
Peace Out
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