Honor for Honor
(No. 2906)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1904.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 7, 1876.
"Those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be
lightly esteemed." 1 Samuel 2:30.
GOD is certain, sooner or later, to recompense men according to the
rule of Infallible Justice and if it is so among saints, it is equally
so among sinners. If we could really know the secret history of any
man's life, we would be able to understand his career better than we
now do. There is many a life of which we have had to say to the Lord,
"Your way is in the sea, and Your path in the great waters, and your
footsteps are not known." Yet if we had known more about the man, it
would have been all plain enough. If we had seen the sin that was
hidden from human eyes, we would have understood the sorrow that was
evident to all.
That will suffice with regard to the general principle that is
enunciated in our text. If we honor God, He will honor us. And if we
despise Him, we shall be lightly esteemed. Now, taking only the first
clause of the text, there are two things upon which I wish to speak
with great earnestness. The first is, here is a plain duty, namely, to
honor God and, secondly, here is a very generous reward–"Those who
honor Me I will honor."
I. First, then, HERE IS A PLAIN DUTY–to honor God.
It is the natural duty of every creature to honor its Creator and with
such a glorious and blessed God as Jehovah is, it certainly must be
incumbent upon all who have any understanding of His existence, to
render honor and homage to Him. Such is His personal grandeur, such is
the perfection of His Character, such is His almighty power and such
are the obligations under which we are placed to Him as our Creator,
that altogether apart from spiritual things, it is, undoubtedly, the
duty of every creature to honor God!
But what shall I say, Beloved, of those of us who are the Lord's chosen
people? Do I need to prove that we should honor our God? He is our
Father and He said long ago, "If then, I am a Father, where is My
honor?" Ordinary children are told to honor their father and
mother–then how much more should the children of God honor their
Father who is in Heaven? He has done so much for us above and beyond
our creation–in our election, in our effectual calling, in our
regeneration, in the blood-washing, in the daily supply of our needs,
in the continual preservation of our souls from going down into the
Pit–that we are overwhelmed with indebtedness to Him–and the very
least return that we can make to Him is to render Him all the honor
that we can. He has made Himself known to us in a way that He has not
revealed Himself to the rest of His creatures. His handiwork is seen in
the whole visible Creation. In every star His glory shines. But He is
not seen there as He is revealed to us in Christ Jesus and, alas,
unrenewed men have not eyes with which they can see the resplendent
Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But He has given to us this
spiritual eyesight! He has taught us much about Himself by His Spirit
and the Spirit has revealed to us even the deep things of God. If it
were possible for us to not honor Him after all that we know of Him,
what criminality would be ours! But the knowledge and the Grace He has
given us compel us to honor Him and the more we know of what He is, and
of what He has done for us, the more do we feel that we must and will
honor Him. Glory be unto Your holy name, O gracious Father, that in our
inmost spirits we adore, honor and worship You at this moment! And, by
Your Grace we will do so till time shall be no more!
I hope you see clearly that it is your duty to honor God, so let us
enquire in what way that duty comes home to each one of us. First, I
think that we are to honor God by confessing His Deity in all our
prayers, praises and, indeed, at all
times. May none of us ever fall into the various heresies which some
have held concerning the Persons of the blessed Trinity in Unity! Of
all errors, these most closely touch the very vitals of true religion.
I suppose if any man looks long into the Doctrine of the Trinity, he
will be like one who gazes upon the sun and will be apt, first, to be
dazzled and then to be blinded by the excessive light. If a man asks
that he may understand this great mystery and refuses to believe until
he does, then he will most assuredly be blinded! How can you, O man,
hold the sea in the hollow of your hand? And how can you see God's face
and yet live? Do you marvel that your mind staggers under the load that
you try to put upon it and that your reason begins to reel? We cannot
comprehend God! But we can honor the Father by worshipping Him and
honor the Son by adoring Him–and honor the Holy Spirit by paying
homage, reverence and glory unto Him–and never countenancing in our
spirit any error which would detract from the Glory of Father, Son, or
Holy Spirit, for, if we do, we shall not obtain the blessing promised
in our text–"Those who honor Me I will honor."
God save us from believing any doctrines which cast reflections upon
our Lord Jesus Christ, or upon the Divine Spirit! I am afraid that the
Church of Christ has never yet sufficiently honored the Spirit of God
and that, in the ministry of the present day, there is such a general
ignoring of the Holy Spirit and His work that many hearers might say,
as those disciples at Ephesus did, "We have not so much as heard
whether there is any Holy Spirit." If that is the case, it ought to be
repented of and avoided in the future–for you may depend upon it that
honoring the Triune God is absolutely essential to obtaining the
blessing promised in our text, "Those who honor Me I will honor."
Secondly, we can do this by confessing the dominion of Godand proving
the reality of our confession by yielding obedience to Him. It is no
use for you to say, "I honor God," and yet to continue to live contrary
to His Law. If we do honor Him, we shall seek to obey His commandments
and though, by reason of infirmity, we shall fall short of the
perfection of obedience, we shall honor the Lord by weeping over our
imperfections. We shall not quarrel with the requirements of God's
commands, but we shall ask the Holy Spirit to help us to be conformed
to them. That man does not honor God who goes picking and choosing
among the Divine Precepts, attending to one, but not to another! He is
not honoring God who does not render obedience to His will in all
things–the social duties that appertain to the hearth and home, the
duties that are associated with the Church of God and the duties which
concern the common life of ourselves and others. It is never right to
offer to God a sacrifice stained with the blood of a duty–and it is by
endeavoring to be obedient to the Lord in all respects that our desire
to honor Him is to be proved. If there is anything about the Lord's
will that you do not like, my dear Brothers and Sisters, that is a
point in which you are wrong! It is an indication of the true state of
your soul when there is any Divine Precept against which you kick–and
you should pray very fervently that you may overcome that sin and be
conformed to the Lord's will in all things–for, unless you honor Him
by seeking to render universal obedience to Him–unless, being saved by
His Grace, you abhor all sin and seek, by the help of the Holy Spirit
to walk blameless in all the commandments of the Lord, you have not
given Him the honor which He rightly claims and you cannot expect that
He should honor you!
In the next place, seeing that we have all sinned, we must honor God by
confessing sin and so glorifying His Justice. I believe that God is
greatly glorified by a man who is overwhelmed with a sense of his
guilt, when he comes and bares his bosom to the Divine inspection,
acknowledging all his offenses, grieving over them and, as it were,
laying his head upon the block and saying, "Lord, if You execute me. If
You let the axe of Your Justice fall upon me to my utter destruction, I
dare not complain for I deserve it all." Therefore, dear Friends,
submit yourselves to the sentence of God–acknowledge how just it would
be if He were to execute it upon you, for so you shall find favor at
His hands. I do not know what else a poor convicted sinner can do that
can be more acceptable to God, with the one exception of his coming to
fully believe in Christ. So, guilty one, glorify God by making
confession of your guilt. You have broken His Holy Law–acknowledge
your offense in having broken it. Pay respect to the commands of God by
confessing that you ought to have kept them. Admit the heinousness of
the sin by which you have violated the will of God, for, in so doing,
you will be honoring the
Lord!
And you, dear child of God, conscious of so many imperfections,
remember that you honor God when you lie very low before Him–when you
loathe yourself–when, as in the very dust, you cry, "Lord remember
Your poor unworthy child and have pity on me!" You are thus magnifying
and glorifying the holiness of God to which you feel that you have not
yet attained. If you admit that you are but dust and ashes in His sight
and not worthy to be regarded with favor by Him, that humility of yours
is honoring and glorifying to Him.
Further, we can honor the Lord by submitting to His teaching. A great
many people go to the Bible to find texts in it to endorse a system of
divinity which they have already embraced. That is not honoring God.
The right course is to get your system of divinity out of the Bible
under the unerring teaching of the Holy Spirit. This is the Book that
is to teach us–we are not to try to square it to our scheme, but we
are to make our scheme–if we have one–embrace all that is here
revealed so far as we can ascertain it. Young man, I can speak from
experience when I say that nothing will give you greater peace of mind
than taking the Word of God as your only guide from the very beginning
of your Christian life. It is commonly said that "the Bible, and the
Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants," but I scarcely know of
any sect of Protestants, with one exception, of which that is true.
There is something that all the others believe which cannot be found in
the Bible and they have some other book or tradition tacked on at the
end of the Bible. Sit down, my Friend, and study the Book without note
or comment, asking the Holy Spirit to teach you what it means–and
whatever it means, you believe it! You will not discover all that it
means–there will be mistakes in you, as in your fellow Christians, but
follow the Truth of God, as far as you can see it, wherever it may lead
you, even if following it shall cause you to stand quite alone, for, in
so doing, you will be honoring it and it will honor you.
It is such a sweet thing to be able to say, "I may have been mistaken,
but I have honestly sought to know the mind of God and with earnest
dependence upon the Holy Spirit I have desired to accept His teaching.
And, as far as I have learned it, I have followed it, regardless of the
consequences of doing so, knowing that it must always be safe to follow
where the Spirit leads the way." Act thus, young men and young women,
whatever others may do! Some of them are content to follow the
erroneous customs of former generations, although they are clearly
contrary to the Word of God. Do not follow their evil example, but
while the wax is soft, let it take the Divine impression of the Truth
of God and so may you grow up to honor God beyond all who have gone
before you!
There is another way of honoring God and that is by simply trusting Him
at all times. Always remember that the greater our troubles, the
greater our weakness, the greater our infirmities–the greater is our
opportunity of glorifying God by the aid of His Holy Spirit. "They that
go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these
see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep." They see much
that landsmen never see and those who have deep experience of trial and
trouble are the people who see most of the wonders of the Lord in the
spiritual realm. Dear Brother, all seemed to go well with you until you
trusted God–but since you did so, everything has seemed to go wrong
with you! Can you trust Him now? Faith, when we are in smooth water,
honors God, but faith, when we are in rough waters, will glorify Him
far more! It is easy to bless His name when the barn is full and the
table loaded–but can you glorify Him now that the homestead has burned
down and the cupboard is bare? Ah, good woman–you could glorify God
when your husband was in vigorous health and your children were all
round about you–but now that He has been taken from you and your
children are following him, consumption seizing upon them one after the
other–can you trust the Lord now? And you, my Brother, now that your
leg is broken, or your lungs begin to fail, or the asthma comes upon
you, or old age is coming to cripple you–now that your circumstances
are changing and your friends, like the swallows in autumn, begin to
forsake you–can you rejoice in the Lord and glory in the God of Your
salvation now? If you can do so, it is now in your power to honor God
in a very wondrous way. It is glorious to be able to say, with Job,
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Whatever happens to you,
never doubt the wisdom of God's working, or the love of His heart, but
still, "rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him." If you do this,
you will honor Him and He will, in due time, honor you!
I might remind you of many other ways in which we may honor and glorify
God, but I will only mention one more. And that is this– when we have
not any particular trouble, we ought to honor God by great joy. I do
not mean by such joy as the worldling has in his corn and wine, but by
holy joy. How few Christians speak of God as their exceeding joy! I
think we do meet with cheerful Christians, nowadays, more frequently
than we used to, for we were, at one time, taught that the longer a
man's face, the greater was His Grace. We do not believe in any such
notion as that! Yet, to my mind we seldom, if ever, attain to the
standard of joy which ought to be the abiding portion of a child of
God. The elect ought to be the happiest people beneath the sky! Look at
a great furnace when there is a strong blast blowing upon it–what
intense heat there is there! A Christian ought to be like that furnace,
glowing with intense delight, fervent love and overflowing joy! Why
should you not rejoice, Beloved? Your sins are forgiven you! You are an
heir of Heaven. You are, it may be, within a month or two, or within a
year or two of being at God's right hand–to go no more out forever!
Why
should you not rejoice? Even now His Spirit dwells within you, His
heart burns with love towards you and He rejoices over you–why should
you not rejoice? If you rejoiced more, you would honor the Lord more
and He would honor you even as He has promised! The poorest saint here
can share in this great blessing simply by honoring God. The man with
the least talent can honor God! The most ignorant Christian, the one
who is least instructed in worldly learning can honor God! The weakest
in bodily health, the sick, the dying can all honor God if they are His
people! This plain duty is one which is possible to all the saints, by
the Holy Spirit's gracious aid. May He help each one of us to carry it
out and truly to honor God!
II. Now I turn to the second point–HERE IS A VERY GRACIOUS
REWARD–"Those who honor Me I will
honor."
First, this is true in the Church of God. The sons of Eli–Hophni and
Phinehas–were priests, but they did not honor God and, therefore, God
did not honor them. The people despised them and loathed the very
services of the sanctuary because of their sin–and God thrust them out
of the priest's office. I believe, my Brothers–and there are many of
us who either are already ministers of the Gospel, or are in course of
training for that high office–I believe that unless we with all our
hearts honor God in our ministry, He will never honor us. My dear
Brother, if you ever go in for anything else but glorifying God, you
will make a failure of it! If you start with the idea of being a fine
preacher, one who is able to orate in rounded periods and flowery
sentences, or if it is your great ambition to gain a good position
among respectable people, you will certainly come down with a crash and
great will be your fall! But if any young man, truly called of God,
says to himself, "I will glorify God whether I live or die–whether I
am poor or whether I am prosperous–whether I am the means of bringing
many souls to Christ, or am, apparently, a failure in my ministry, I
will, at least preach the Truth of God and I will pray over it, and I
will agonize in prayer for the souls of men. My teaching shall not aim
at glorifying philosophical opinions, or displaying my own culture and
my own powers of thought, but I will, above everything else, honor God.
I will honor the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I will preach
nothing up but Christ and nothing down but sin. I shall not seek to
honor the denomination to which I belong, but I will live and labor
simply to honor God"–well, my Brother, if that is your resolve, then
the Lord will honor you!
Then, next, this promise is true with regard to our own households.
Poor Eli, I have no doubt, wished to have honor in his own house, so he
paid great deference to his wicked sons. He knew that they were doing
very, very wrong, but he spoke very gently to them, just as some
Christian people whom I know are doing in their own families. Their
boys are living as badly as ever they can, but they only say, "Our sons
are so high-spirited and so easily offended that we must only
indirectly hint that they are doing wrong. It would never do for us to
pull them up sharply and say to them right straight out, 'You are going
headlong to Hell and we implore you to stop, for, if you continue to
act as you are now doing, you will be ruined forever.'" Yes, and in
many a house God is not honored by family prayer–and the boys and
girls are taught to look after money as if that were the chief end of
life! "You go in for business, John, and make money somehow and do not
be too particular about the means you employ in getting it. And, Mary,
that is a very nice young man, an excellent Christian man, too, who is
coming to see you–but he will not do for a husband–he has not enough
money and that is the main thing to be considered nowadays." The
worship of Mammon, the golden calf, prevails almost everywhere. God
commanded His ancient people not to offer their children to Moloch, but
it is done very often today–many parents are offering their sons and
daughters to Moloch–the Moloch of fashion, the Moloch of
wealth–daughters are given to men without characters as long as they
have a sufficient quantity of gold.
Well now, if the father or mother, instead of falling into that sin,
says, "My chief concern for my dear boys and girls is that they should
know the Lord. I should be glad to see them succeeding in business, or
happily married to those who are in a good position, but my great
longing is that they may know Christ and be found in Him, for that is
the main thing, after all, and I will not tolerate in my house anything
that Christ would not look upon with approbation, neither will I
permit, as far as my power can go, anything that would grieve the
Spirit of God." I believe that wherever parents thus seek the honor of
God, God will honor their families very wonderfully. You will find,
almost everywhere, that when a man gives everything up for God and does
not look so much for the advancement of his own family as for the good
of God's family as a whole, the Lord says to him very much what Queen
Elizabeth said to one of the London merchants of her day. "I want you
to go to Hamburg to attend to some business of mine," said the queen.
"But Your Majesty," said the merchant, "my own business will suffer in
my absence." "No," said the queen, "it will not, for if you attend to
my
business, I will attend to yours." And the Lord says to us that if we
honor Him, He will honor us. And even in this present life He will give
us a hundred fold for anything we give up for Him–and in the world to
come? LIFE EVERLASTING!
May none of you, dear Friends, ever be like Eli who had to mourn over
the destruction of his sinful sons. But may you honor God in your
families, for then He will also honor you there. Who is so honored as
the venerable Christian who has his sons and his grandsons around him?
He is a king, every inch of him, though, perhaps, he never earned more
than a day-laborer's wages. As he lays his hands upon the heads of his
children's children and implores his God to be their God, also, I seem
to see a Patriarch stand before me in a grandeur which an emperor might
envy! God will honor you in your family if you honor Him there.
Then, again, God has a way of honoring His people in the society around
them. You, young man, going into that warehouse and taking a clerkship
with many others–if you are consistent, true to your colors and serve
God faithfully–they will ridicule you, very likely, for a while. But
if you continue to be consistent, they will soon respect you. If you
honor God, God will honor you and you will find that, in society, it is
the wise and safe method to keep the Lord always before you! Some of
you young men who have come up to London from the country are apt to
think that as others do not go to a place of worship on the Sabbath,
you will not do as you did at your home. But I pray you to keep up your
good country custom, for your employers and those who are about you
will think far better of you if you do so. And, although this is, by
itself, a low and ignoble motive, yet it has its place among the higher
reasons for attending the means of Grace. If you honor God, you will
get honor in the eyes of those whose opinion is worthy of your regard.
Again, if we honor God, He will honor us in the wide, wide world, so
far as our influence may reach. Look at that great crowd gathered in
Smithfield! Who is that poor wretch standing in the middle? Many of
those around him look upon him with the utmost scorn and derision. They
have chained him up to a stake, and they are bringing dry firewood, for
they are going to burn him to death! Who is that man? People in the
crowd cry out that he is a dreadful heretic who deserves to die! But if
you turn to Foxe's Book of Martyrs, you will find his name recorded
there among the noble army who died as heroes of the Cross. Because he
suffered for Christ, God has honored him and, at this present day, who
among us would not rather be the martyr who was burned than the
cardinal who was the means of getting him burned? Who would not rather
have been numbered among the faithful multitudes in the valleys of
Piedmont whose names are all unknown, than have been the Duke of Savoy,
or the King of France, or the Pope of Rome who conspired together to
put them to death?
And, dear Friends, if God did not honor us before men at all, it would
not matter much, for those who honor Him, He honors in their own
consciences. God can honor you in such a way that you will be more
contented with that honor than if your name and fame were blazoned
forth before the whole world even though nobody else sees that He does
it! The orator who addressed an audience and found that all his hearers
went away with the exception of one man, was quite content with his one
auditor, for that man was Plato! And if, in this world, you should so
act that you should have no approbation left except the approval of God
manifested to your own conscience, you might well be content! "I,
Athanasius, against the world," was a grand thing for that staunch hero
of the faith to be able to say, but if God was with Athana-sius, he
might just as well have said, "I, Athanasius, against fifty thousand
worlds," for what is the whole universe in comparison with God? "If God
is for us, who can be against us?" Honor God, my dear young Friend
leaving the parental roof and coming to London. I pray you to honor God
and even if you should not meet with the esteem which a good character
ought to win for you from those by whom you are surrounded–if you
should come under a cloud–if you should, after all, have to live a
life of poverty and obscurity–yet the fact that you have done what is
right and that God smiles upon you with approval and gives you peace of
conscience and quiet confidence in your soul will be a sufficient
reward for you!
I close by reminding you that we never know, any of us, how much God is
honoring us. You did a noble deed the other day, my Brother, yet no one
said, "Thank you," for it. You gave all you had, poor widow–the two
mites that were all your living and nobody knew anything about it. But
do you suppose that there is no fame except that which is spoken of by
the breath of man? There are blessed spirits hovering all around
us–multitudes of holy angels are watching the saints–and they see and
approve all that is right! And I doubt not that there is often a worthy
affirmation uttered by angelic lips when they see the devotion of the
saints of God–the devotion which is unseen by mortal eyes!
And, last of all, there shall come a day when this earth shall be all
ablaze and, amidst the terrors of that great consummation of the age,
the dead shall rise and you shall be among them, Brothers and Sisters.
Then shall the trumpet sound exceedingly loud and long–and all human
beings and the fallen spirits, too, shall come to judgment! And there,
amidst such a throng as never was before beheld, the despised,
misrepresented, persecuted follower of the right who honored God at all
costs shall receive, before the assembled universe, honor from the Lord
of All! Lift up your heads, O you children of God, for your Redemption
draws near! It is a grand day, with some men, when they receive the
Victoria Cross from their sovereign's hand, or when they are elevated
to the House of Lords. But it will be a far higher honor when Christ
shall say to the righteous, "Come, you blessed of My Father; inherit
the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," and
when He shall say to each one who has faithfully served Him, "Well
done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful in a few
things, I will make you ruler over many things; enter you into the joy
of your Lord." Brothers and Sisters, if God has saved us, let us live
as in the light of the coming Day of Judgment! And may the Lord have
mercy upon us in that day and honor us because first, by His Grace, He
enabled us to honor Him!
As for you who never think of honoring God and never care about Him,
your destruction is certain if you continue in the way in which you are
now walking. If you want to know how you may be damned, it is only a
little matter of neglect that will ensure it. "How shall we escape if
we neglect so great salvation?" I fear that many of you are living in
that neglect. May the Holy Spirit graciously turn you from it and cause
you to seek the Lord and believe in Jesus this very moment–that you,
too, honoring God by your confession of sin and by believing in His
Son, Jesus Christ, whom He has set forth as the one Propitiation for
sin, may find the promise of our text true to you, also–for He will
honor you even as you have honored Him!
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 SAMUEL 2.
Verses 1-3. And Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoices in the LORD,
my horn is exalted in the LORD: my mouth is enlarged over my enemies
because I rejoice in Your salvation. There is none holy as the LORD:
for there is none beside You: neither is there any rock like our God.
Talk no more so exceedingly proud; let not arrogance come out of your
mouth: for the LORD is a God ofknowledge, and by Him actions are
weighed. This is a very suggestive and forcible expression. God does
not judge our actions by their appearance, but puts them into the
scales of the sanctuary and weighs them as carefully as bankers weigh
gold!
4-8. The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are
girded with strength. They that were full have hired out themselves for
bread and they that were hungry ceased: so that the barren has born
seven and she that has many children is waxed feeble. The LORD kills,
andmakes alive: he brings down to the grave, and brings up. The LORD
makes poor, and makes rich: He brings low, and lifts up. He raises up
the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the beggar from the dunghill, to
set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory:
for the pillars of the earth are the LORD'S, and He has set the world
upon them. What a clear view Hannah had of the Sovereignty of God and
how plainly she perceived that God overrules all mortal things and does
as He wills! How she seemed to glory in the power of that almighty hand
whose working unbelievers cannot discern, but which, to this gracious
woman's opened eyes, was so conspicuous everywhere!
9-12. He will keep the feet of His saints and the wicked shall be
silent in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail The
adversaries of the LORD shall be broken topieces; out ofHeaven shallHe
thunder upon them: the LORD shall judge the ends of the earth; and He
shall give strength unto His king and exalt the horn of His anointed.
And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the child did minister unto
the LORD before Eli the priest. Now the sons of Eli were corrupt; they
knew not the LORD. Yet they were priests and when a man stands up to
minister in holy things, and by virtue of his office is supposed to
know the Lord, yet really does not, he stands not only in a position of
the utmost guilt, but also in a position in which he is never likely to
get a blessing. He seems to be beyond the reach of the ordinary
agencies of mercy because he has assumed a position to which he has no
right.
13, 14. And the priest's custom with the people was that when any man
offered a sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was
boiling, with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his hand and he struck it
into the pan, or kettle, or cal-
dron, or pot; all that the flesh-hook brought up the priest took for
himself So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came there.
There was no such rule or regulation given by God, but these sons of
Eli had made rules for themselves. It is always wrong to alter the
regulations of the Lord's House. Even the least of them should be
obeyed exactly as it stands.
15, 16. Also before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came and
said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for thepriest; for
he willnot have boiled flesh ofyou, but raw. Andif any man said unto
him, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much
as your soul desires, then he would answer him, No, but you shall give
it to me now: and if not, I will take it by force. There were
sacrifices in which God had His portion in the burning of the fat upon
the altar–and the priest had a portion allotted to him. And the
offerer himself had a portion upon which he fed, in token of his
communion and fellowship with God. The priest ought to have been
content with what was an ample portion for him, but the greed of these
young men prostituted holy things and defiled the House of the Lord.
17. Therefore the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD:
for men abhorred the offering of the LORD. They not only grieved God,
but they also grieved His people so much that they ceased to come where
their consciences were wounded and where their most tender
sensibilities were perpetually shocked.
18. But Samuel ministered before the LORD, being a child, girded with a
linen ephod. What a contrast there was between little Samuel and the
sons of Eli! He was not led astray by the evil example of those who
were older than he and to whom he would naturally look up because of
their high office. This dear child escaped contamination because God's
Grace preserved him and also because his mother's prayers, like a wall
of fire, were round about him.
19-21. Moreover his mother made him a little coat and brought it to him
from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the
yearly sacrifice. And Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife, and said, the
LORD give you seed of this woman for the loan which is lent to the
LORD. And they went unto their own home. And the LORD visited Hannah,
so that she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. And the
child Samuel grew before the LORD. She lent one child to the Lord and
she had five others given to her! God always pays good interest on all
His loans. "He that has pity upon the poor lends unto the Lord." It
would be well if more would see how much interest they could get from
such a loan as that!
22-25. Now Eli was very old, and heard what his sons did unto all
Israel and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of
the tabernacle of the congregation. And he said unto them, Why do you
do such things? For I hear of your evil doings by all the people. No my
sons; for it is not a good report that I hear: you make the LORD'S
people to transgress. If one man sins against another, the judge shall
judge him: but if a man sin against the LORD, who shall entreat for
him?That is the way Eli rebuked his sons. "And very gently he did it,
dear old man," says someone. Yes, but don't you imitate him! If you do,
you may also inherit the curse that came upon his house! There are
other virtues in this world besides gentleness. There is sometimes
needed the power to speak sternly–to rebuke with firmness and
severity– and Eli had not this. He was an easy-going old soul. Ah, but
when the honor of God is at stake, such action as his is out of place!
It is all very well to have everybody saying, "Mr. So-and-So is such an
amiable man! There is no sectarianism and no bigotry about him. He
never says a word to offend anybody." Just so, but Martin Luther was
not at all that kind of man and where would we have been without such
protests as his?
25. Notwithstanding, they listenednot unto the voice of their father
because the LORD wouldslay them. They had gone so far in their sin that
the Lord permitted them to go still further–and to bring punishment
upon themselves for their evil deeds.
26. And the child Samuel grew on and was in favor both with the LORD,
and also with men. How vividly the Holy Spirit brings out the contrast
between Samuel and these two wicked young men! They grew on in sin, but
the child Samuel grew on in favor, both with God and with men. The Lord
loves to watch His lilies growing among the sharp thorns and to see how
brightly His stars are shining in the blackest night.
27. 28. And there came a man of God unto Eli and said unto him, Thus
says the LORD, Did I plainly appear unto the house of your father when
they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? And did I choose him?That is,
Aaron–
28-30. Out of all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, to offer upon
My altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before Me? And did I give
unto the house of your father all the offerings made by fire of the
children of Israel? Why do you kick at My sacrifice and at My offering,
which I have commanded in my habitation, and honor your sons above Me,
to
make yourselves fat with the chief of all the offerings of Israel My
people? Therefore the Lord God of Israel says, I said indeed that your
house and the house of your father should walk before Me forever There
was a condition attached to that promise–a condition implied, if not
expressly stated.
30, 31. But now the Lord says, Be it far from Me; for those who honor
Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.
Behold, the days come that I will cut off your arm. That is, "the
strength of your family shall be taken away"–
31-33. And the arm of your father's house, that there shall not be an
old man in your house. And you shall see an enemy in My habitation, in
all the wealth which God shall give Israel: and there shall not be an
old man in your house forever. And the man of yours whom I shall not
cut off from My altar, shall be to consume your eyes, and to grieve
your heart: and all the increase of your house shall die in the flower
of their age. God does not think little of sin in His ministers and in
His sanctuary! There is a difference between sin and sin. The place
where it is committed may make a difference and the office of the man
who commits it may make a difference. Sin makes its culmination when
the sinner is highly favored and brought into close relationship with
God by office.
34, 35. And this shall be sign unto you, that shall come upon your two
sons, on Hophni andPhinehas; in one day they shall die, both of them.
And I will raise Me up a faithful priest that shall do according to
that which is in My heart and in My mind: and I will build him a sure
house; and he shall walk before My anointed forever. No doubt first
referring to Zadok who succeeded afterwards to the priest's office, but
looking still further forward to our Lord Jesus Christ who is the
ever-faithful High Priest who always does according to that which is in
the mind and heart of the Father!
36. Andit shall come to pass that everyone that is left in your house
shall come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of
bread, and shall say, Put me, I pray you, into one of the priests'
offices, that I may eat a piece of bread. Or, rather, as the margin has
it, "Put me, I pray you, into somewhat about the priesthood." "Put me
into something that has to do with the priesthood." So the house of Eli
passed from its honorable elevation into degradation and poverty.
However highly favored any of us may have been, let us never presume
upon that and turn aside to sin. If we do not know the Lord and do not
honor Him in all the acts that we perform in His name, it may be a
degradation like that of Eli's house may come upon us because we have
despised the will and the words of the Most High.