When God turns the tables

1 Samuel chapter 2. 1st Samuel chapter 2. And I'm going to be reading because these these narratives, uh, especially in 1st Samuel are are very powerful. And so, um, I'm going to pick up in verse 12, and I'm going to be reading through the rest of the chapter as we, uh, as we follow this storyline today. 1st Samuel uh chapter 2:12. Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord. The custom of the priest of the people was that when any man offered sacrifices, 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. and all the fork 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. Moreover, before the fat was burned, the priest's servants would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, "Give meat for the priest to roast, for he will not accept boiled meat, and you but only raw." But if the man said to him, "Let them let them burn the fat first and take as much as you wish," he would say, "No, you must give it now, and if not, I will take it by force." Thus, the sin of the young man was very great in the sight of the Lord. For the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt. 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 Elena 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. 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. 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 of the tent of meeting. And he said to them, "Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people." Now my sons, it is no good report that I hear the people of the Lord spreading abroad. If someone 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. But the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature, in favor with the Lord, and also with men. And there came a man of God to Eli and said to him, "Thus saith the Lord, did I indeed reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt, subject to the house of Pharaoh? Did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before him? I gave to the house of your father all my offerings by fire from the people of Israel. Why then do you scorn my sacrifices by and my offering that I command for my dwelling and honor, your sons above me, fattening yourselves with the choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel. Therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel, declares, I promise that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever. But now the Lord declares, "Far be it from me. For those who honor me, I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father's house, so that there will not be an old man in your house. Then in distress, you will look with envious eye on all the posterity, prosperity that shall be bestowed on Israel, and there shall not be an old man in your house forever. The only one of you whom shall I shall not cut off from my altar shall be spared to weep his eyes out to grieve his heart. And all the descendants of your house shall die by the sword of men. And this that shall come upon your two sons. Hoffne and Phineas shall be shall be the sign to you. Both of them shall die on the same day. And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind. And I will build him a sure house. And he shall go in and out before my anointed forever. And everyone who is left in your house shall come to implore him for a piece of silver or a loaf of bread and shall say, "Please put me in one of the priests places that I may eat the morsel of bread." This is God's word. Let's pray. Lord, we just come before you and I pray Lord that your word now would become the main voice of our time and our gathering. that you would uh just open our hearts to receive from the Holy Spirit what you have for us today. Lord, uh give me um sureness of speech so that I may uh um reveal, Father, the goodness and the truth uh that is here in your word today. We pray all these things in Christ's name. Amen. In uh in 1998, the officer Rafa Raphael Perez was arrested for stealing cocaine from an LAPD evidence locker. It was a police officer and he was facing charges and he began revealing details of a broader corruption in the police system. It was found that in the late 1990s the crash unit and the the anti-gang task force had broad corruption among the police force. These individuals who were supposed to serve and protect and dismantle gang activity that operated throughout the city had really operated as a gang themselves. They stole weapons and money and drugs. They sold them. They used excessive force. They planted evidence to get convictions, sometimes from innocent people whom they framed. They operated with no accountability. And when they were questioned by other authorities, the department defended them and hid them behind the blue wall of silence. Their actions severely damaged the faith that the community had in the local police. When leaders fail, it breaks trust. And today we are going to be looking at a text and a story of two leaders particularly who have created a system of abuse and scandal and corruption. And it is destroying the faith of a nation. It is destroying the trust that they have in the people that represent God and that call people to worship. And we see this happening in the lives of these two sons of Eli. Eli being the high priest. As we step into this text, I just want to review for just a moment last week. We will remember that Hannah was uh was barren. She couldn't have a child and uh and was crying out to the Lord um for God to give her a child. She year by year had to deal with the torment of the other wife in this polygamous relationship who would make fun of her and harass her because she had no children which was a grave shame uh in ancient near east uh times. Hannah cries out to the God of Israel and she asks God to hear her, to see her and to remember her. And then we see that God quietly orchestrates his plan uh by having Hannah not only pray that the Lord would give her this, but she makes a vow that one day if God would give her a son, she would dedicate him back to the Lord. Hannah has that son. Hannah then dedicates that son, that child to the Lord at the temple. And we see now Samuel serving the Lord and operating in the temple as a young boy at this point in time. And we left off at the end saying the the memory that God hears and God remembers. And we can oftenimes see the brokenness in our own life. We can see that we operate with sadness and tragedy in our lives and we can look to God and say, "Are you listening? Do you hear?" And as we step into this story today on a national level, we can see the evil in the world. We can see the corruption or the injustice even of of leaders of spiritual leaders and like ancient Israel. We can question and say is there a God? Does God see and if there is a God how can he allow this kind of corruption and injustice to happen in the world? But like we see time and time again in the scriptures is that God is working. Scripture reminds us time and time again that God has a plan, that he has a purpose, and it has its own time frame and doesn't always operate on the time scale that we presume that it should. But God is always working. And we're going to find today in this text as we see that God has a plan. And that plan started with Hannah. And it started with Samuel's role in this because God is going to use all of his work in remembering Hannah in moving through her broken life and all that saying I got a plan Hannah and now he's going to set up Samuel in Israel eventually and we will see the broader plan because God operates not just in the lives at an individual level but he operates in a tapestry of time and space and peoples and God sees the whole picture of it all and is working this plan. And sometimes we just see this little bit and we can't understand the way of God, the purpose of God, the plan of God, or his timing. So we begin to question and struggle our way through this. But God does remember, God does hear, and God does see. And what we find that time and time again is that uh is that God eventually turns the tables. Eventually, at some point, those who raise themselves up and commit acts of injustice, thinking God doesn't see. I don't believe in God. I can do whatever I want. I can get away with those things. God has a way of taking the proud heart, the people that are resistant, and bringing them low as he brings his justice. And then those like Hannah who are low and in poverty, low in spiritual poorness, God raises them up. And so God always tends to turn the tables. and he's turning the tables now this week on the house of Eli because God does see, he does hear, and he does remember, and he does take note. Um, we are reminded even through Hannah's song, which is at the beginning of this chapter, which I didn't go over last week and didn't read this week, that Hannah is proclaiming this truth. It's almost like the interlude in a story between chapter 1 and chapter 2 that as she sings this song to the Lord that she reminds us that God is always working. And she says this, I'm going to read it real quick in verse 2 6 and 7. She says, "The Lord kills and brings to life. He brings down to the grave and he raises up. The Lord makes poor and he makes rich. He brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and to inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the lords and on them he has set his world. And yet we live in this world and we can begin to look around and wonder, does God see? Does he remember? Is he working? Um one of my my favorite psalms that asks this very question, that's why I love the Psalms. is David himself writes in there that he struggled when he saw the evil and he thought what good is it? He asks this question in the psalm. What good is it to re live a righteous life? People seem to profit. They do all they want. They live how they want. They act like there is no God. They commit corruption and injustice in this world and they get along just fine. They profit off of it and nothing happens. And in this psalm right here in 73, uh, this this comes and David at the middle of the psalm says,"I pondered all this on my heart until I went into the sanctuary of God and then I understood their end." David here understands that eventually God turns the tables. that eventually everyone will have to give account for how they've lived, who they've been, and the choices they've made because God does see. We pick up here at verse 12 in uh in 2 Samuel, and we see now that Eli's sons are worthless men. The text says they're scoundrels. They live with corruption and they've perpetuated a system of of corruption and corrupt worship practices uh within the priesthood that we see here in this text. But what's so ironic is it says they did not know the Lord. They didn't know him. And you think these guys grew up in the epicenter of the church. They grew up in the epicenter of the temple. They are the priests. You know, they were preachers kids and now they're like preachers. themselves in a way, right? They're the priests in the temple of God. They've heard all of the stories over and over again from the uncles and the grandsons. I mean, from the grandfathers and the and the the the different family members, just time and time again, telling them about Abraham and about Moses and about Joshua and all of these different stories about the acts of God and how he worked. They knew the worship system in and out. They had been trained in every single way. And it's so ironic in this where we hear at the end of the day that they didn't know the Lord. And this is that reminder that we even see where Jesus says that that you can say not everyone who says Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven because it reflects the fact that those are the kinds of people who know the Lord. You can go to church. You can listen to all the stories. can sit in this seat and sing all of these songs and yet you can live all of that and experience all that and have not encountered the living God in your life. He's the savior, but is he your savior? He's God, but is he your God? Do you know him for yourself? You know, by the same token, we can raise our kids in the church. We can teach them all of the we can say, "Hey, the church is teaching them all these stories. We bring them here. We do all these things. They go to youth group. They do all these things." And yet at the end of the day, they cannot know the Lord. Now, God always is the one who saves. We can't save our kids. We can't turn their hearts and make them follow the Lord. But at the end of the day, we do have as parents a stewardship. We have a stewardship to not just take them to church, but to make sure that we are teaching them, to make sure that we are discipling them, to not just give them cerebral information, but to like look and disciple them, to speak to their hearts. And when we see things going on in their lives, to speak truth, to appeal not just to the mind, but to the heart as God does with us. that in a way through that stewardship we represent God to them. We represent this ambassador that helps point the way to God and to communicate these things deep down into them. And so we don't just look to the church. The church is just a partner of those things. It helps train you up so that you can do your job better as a parent to disciple your children. This doesn't do the job in place of you. It is our responsibility. That could be said for all of us. We should never look to the church to do the role because the church at the end of the day. All the the people that hold different places and positions, pastors in the church, they equip the saints to do the works of the ministry. Ephesians 4, they equip the saints so that we therefore are discipled. We learn and then we carry that out in all of the places of responsibility that we stand there as God has called us in our places of responsibility. But they didn't know the Lord. And they I think ultimately we see why they didn't know the Lord. And we could think through all the reasons, but it's because they wanted to live the kind of life they wanted to live. That's what unbelief ultimately boils down to. At the end of the day, we won't believe or we'll reject God because we want to perpetuate a kind of system and a kind of lifestyle. And it oftentimes will just lead us to not believe because we can't accept that God because it's in congruent with how we want the world to work, how we think the world should work, or how we think our own life should work. And I want this and I don't believe God can give it to me or I don't believe there is a God that will give it to me. And so we will ignore God in order to then live the kind of lifestyle we want to live. And we know the life of these priests was ultimately about gain. It was about gain. They wanted the gain whether it was the gain of of of their their system where they could eat and fatten themselves and and even sell the sacrifices. They would take them and some people look at scholars look at the meat that they would take even before it was sacrificed and they could either have it for themselves and cook it the way they wanted to cook it or they could actually take it and resell it if they wanted to. But they could gain from it. They could sleep around whoever they wanted to. they could use their position in an entitled way to live the kind of life that they wanted to live. They did not know God. And it's sad that you can grow up right there in the middle of the people of God and live a life that's a sham, but we see it over and over again. And it's so important in our lives to be sober, to be vigilant, to look at the state of our heart, to pray what Psalm 139 reminds us. Search me, oh God, and know me. Know my heart. Try my anxious thoughts. And if there is a wrongful or hurtful way in me, lead me to the way of life. Lead me to repentance. Be honest not just with God. Be honest with yourself. What's the state of your heart? Do you know the Lord? Do you walk with him? Is there unbelief in your life? We see right here in verses 13- 16. I'm not going to go too far into the sacrificial system, but this is really how the sacrificial system work. There's a number of different sacrifices. I won't get us into the weeds on it, but at the end of the day, this is what I want you to know. When you brought your sacrifice, some of it always went to God. Some of it always went to God. Some of it was was sacrificed and and then part of it was given to the priests. And for things like the peace offering, some of it would go to God as always. Some of it would go to the priests as it most often did. And some of it would sometimes come to you and you would have your portion as well. This is how the sacrificial system worked among these different types of sacrifices. And what we see here are a couple things going on. One, when I've got my own portion and I'm boiling it because I could take that piece of sacrifice meat and rebil it myself. And we don't know all the intricacies of of the worship system and how it played out day by day. We only have snapshots that we look at like the book of Leviticus to see this. But at the end of the day, they would come and take what they wanted. They'd take that three-prongong fork, as he said, stick it in that pot, and they'd take more for themselves, more than the what was allotted to them. And then when people brought their sacrifice to sacrifice it to God to burn the fat, which symbolize the best part, the most choice part for God, right? We all like a steak that's good and kind of juicy and a little bit fattening because it's just supposed to be the best part. That part's God's. But they would come in before it was even sacrificed. Don't even bother. Give me it. and if you don't give it to me, I'm going to take it by force. So, they just sort of blocked even the sacrifice itself to God. Don't even give God his part. I'm taking it all. And so, there's corruption and scandal. And when that begins to happen, people can look in their lives and say, "What's the point?" I mean, if these are God's people and and this is the priest and God lets them get away with this kind of thing, what kind of God is this? Who are we worshiping? And it's disheartening to the life and to the spiritual livelihood of the people. This system and this corruption that existed within here. They thought Hoffne and Phineas the delayed judgment meant no judgment at all. In the Bible, it often tells us the voices of these kinds of people. God does not see. God does not know. And we can often think that our sin and our lifestyle is in such a secret that no one knows. No one knows. We can live this life of of hiddenness and think that we can get away and that God does not see. But what we find constantly time and time again is that God does see and that God does know. This kind of same corruption existed and it can still exist today in the same way in our churches today. uh in the in the early 1500s Martin Luther who was a reformer at the time he was a monk so he hadn't reformed the church yet he was a monk in the Catholic church and he went and visited sort of the epicenter of the church he went into Rome and uh and this monk came in and he was appalled by the corruption that he saw in the Catholic church he saw uh times where people had to they there was a whole propheteering system of giving indulgences And you had to there were all sorts of things like relics that were for sale in the system and and they were profiting. And he living as a monk and sort of committing his life to God saw all this pomp and fortune and rich and and he and he struggled with this idea of like what's going on here? And then we have we have these cells of indulgences which said that essentially if you put money in you could get people out of purgatory. You could deliver them from it. And people were building huge estates in the Catholic church just from this. Uh he also saw open discussions uh among the priesthood among these different different clerics as he was visiting and you know swarming in these circles in Rome and hearing about you know their sexual lives the scandal the bribery that took place and they said it in the open and he was just he was horrified by that sort of inconsistency. They would run through mass in a big hurry and seem to not really even care. It was just like, "Yeah, we do this thing just over and over again." But we're reminded that God does see and that God will turn the tables. The delayed judgment doesn't mean that it's no judgment at all. I I was thinking about this even this uh past week. We think that our lives can be in such a secret. And I was hearing about um someone that uh that uh an affair was found in their life. And um just that constant reminder that in life we can think no one sees, no one knows. I'm living this other life over here and I'll never be found out. And then you're found out and the sobering reality of the judgment that comes. Yeah, you get away with it time and time again, but eventually the scriptures remind us that your sin will find you out. As it says in Numbers 2032, your sin will find you out. At some point, the day will come. It says in uh Numbers 32, I'll just read it. If you fail to do this, Moses says, you will be sinning against the Lord and you may be sure that your sin will find you out. And eventually, at the end of the day, it's this sobering rel reality and reminder that God uh does see and that he will in his right time bring his justice. He will bring his judgment. uh we see here as we move into the next text we see in uh 8:es 18- 26 really I I don't want us to get lost in this but this is really an important piece because this narrative is really a story this really happened in real life but the way that the story is being put together there's we can't see it but it's almost like a movie in many ways Hannah sings this beautiful song almost like an introduction where she proclaims this truth about God sees and God will turn the tables and God is working and don't you forget it. He's working in my life and he's working in the scan in the span of all people's lives out there. And then we see this corruption of Hoffne and Phineas and we think what is going on? God doesn't know what he's doing. Look at this failure and this thing and and how can God allow these to types of things and we're minded no God is working. And then we see really um a tale of two families here in verses 19 through 21. We see this list of different things that happen. It talks about Samuel's faithfulness. It talks about a mother's love. And then we see Eli blessing Elena and his family saying, you know, may the Lord increase and give. And he does. The text says it says that the Lord blessed her. She has five more kids. So life is coming forth in this family. Blessing is coming forth in this family. And then it marks off one more time Samuel's growth. But then we see in verses 22 to 26 that this mirror because a lot of times Hebrew writers would do this. They would put up these like comparison and contrast. And it's fascinating to look at this. But you can actually see the the Samuel's faithfulness contrasted with Hoffne and Phineas's unfaithfulness to the Lord. They even says that they they were sleeping with the women who served in the temple. We can see the mother's love contrasted with the father's sorrow as he rebukes his sons. What are you doing? This is not good. This is evil. This is wicked. And we see Eli's rebuke there contrasted with the blessing that he just spoke of this other family. And then this we see God's provision. But then we also see that they didn't repent because the text tells us because God had purposed to put them to death to pronounce judgment on their lives. And then we see here Samuel's growth is mentioned. And then we see at the end of this text once again, Samuel's growth mentioned in the midst of all of this corruption. And you can see on this next slide here, in the midst of all of this corruption, God is actually and the writer right here is sprinkling in a hint that God is at work. And you see it over and over again. Samuel is serving. It's mentioned in verse 11. And then you have all this corruption going on, Eli's sons and so forth. And then what's it say again? Verse 18. He just quietly just drops it right there for you. Samuel is serving. It's this reminder like, "Wait a minute. This story looks so dark and so bleak and it seems like they're getting away with all these things." And like the author is just putting in this reminder like God's doing something. God's doing something. And we see it again, moral sins by the priest, Samuel growing. And then we see the prophet come and he pronounces judgment on the house of Eli. And then as we move into chapter three, because there weren't chapters back in the days, this was all just one book. We see this another reminder, Samuel serving in the temple. And what the the what the the the narrator of this story is doing here is just reminding us God has a plan. God is working. Hope is not lost. Trust the plan and the process of God. And you know, when you were living in this day, in this time, you couldn't see that. You didn't like see Samuel in the temple serving and think put all the people. You saw a corrupt system and thought where is God? Is he working? And we do this in our own lives and struggle to to to see how God is working. But God always causes calls us to trust to trust his plan to trust his way to know that even when we can't see within the cracks and the gaps of life that God is working and does have a plan. we see Eli's rebuke of his sons though and I'm going to take a quick look at that. Um, so Eli rebukes his sons and he says um, Eli was very old and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing in Israel and how they lay with the women who were serving at the entrance of the tent of the meeting and he said to them, "Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people. No, my sons, it's not good to report the report that I hear the people of the Lord spreading abroad. At the end of the day, Eli calls his sons to account. Like I said a minute ago, your sin finds you out. And this is this is this is the moment, guys. The charade is up. What are you doing? And God, in a way, I want you to see this isn't just the the judgment of God. Sometimes we feel like yes, this is the judgment because the charade is up. They've been caught. And in that moment is a moment of God's grace. Because often times when we are caught in our sin, it's actually the Lord in a way giving us an opportunity to what? To repent. To like recognize, oh man, what have I done? What have I become? And in that moment there is the opportunity to to then turn from our way. But oftentimes some and sometimes or maybe oftentimes we don't. What do we do? We can rationalize it. You know we can ah you know I I had good reason for doing this or we can just not care. We can just be indifferent to it. We can callous our heart in a way that when the rebuke comes we just think it's not that big of a deal. What's the problem with this? For whatever they were feeling, whatever they were thinking, we know that ultimately God had allowed their hearts to be hardened in such a way that the rebuke of Eli didn't really mean much to them. They just, you know, seemed to shrug it off and not care and continue to live in this sort of way. But I also want to call out the fact that I want you just to notice something here. Eli fails. Eli fails in his rebuke here. He's the judge of Israel. He's the high priest over the whole country. He has the power and the authority to even remove his sons from their post. He could have right then stripped them of all of their titles and everything, set them aside and said, "Get out. Get out of here. Get out of the camp. Get out. You're done. You're finished. You're up." And if he would have pronounced that, that actually could have been a a sign of greater grace operating in their lives to actually pronounce the full judgment over their lives. Maybe in that way it would have broken them. Who knows how God could have worked through that? But Eli instead tried to protect them. In a way, he sort of, you know, slapped them on the wrist and mildly rebuked them. But he did nothing to actually create consequences. And sometimes we can do that in life where we can not give the full force of the consequences. Now, we don't need to be harsh with people. We don't need to be ugly with people e even with our kids. But there does need to be times where we're truthful and we're honest. And sometimes we can want to be light more than we can want to be true. And you know what that reveals often times that we can love God. I mean we can love people more than we love God. We can love people more than we love God. Eli right here loves his sons more than he loves God. And that is revealed in his heart and in his life. Eli could have rebuked his sons. He could have pronounced more severe judgment. But he shielded them. He thought he could protect them. And you know, it's not a good thing as a parent to always come in and rescue your children. I have seen people do that in their in in children's lives who have not who are now adults today. And rescuing your child every time they are in in peril only spoils them. It only doesn't it doesn't teach them about the true weight of consequences in life. And so they go through life and they then begin to experience the full weight of those consequences. But oftentimes their heart is already so calloused and so hard they can't see it and they live recklessly waiting for another day when somebody will come in and rescue them. Always rationalizing their sin and their lifestyle. Eli should have rebuked his children. Uh there's a proverbs that that oftentimes says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Um, this is an often debated, you don't know this probably, but this is an often debated verse by uh by biblical scholars because the Hebrew there is actually quite difficult when you look at it. Uh, in many ways it could also be interpreted almost like a a Hebrew uh sarcasm. Train up a child. This is what it sort of says literally. Train up a child in his way and when he is old, he will not depart from it. You see what I'm saying? Train up a child in his way. Let him have his way. let him do. Don't cross him. Don't rebuke him. Just save him or or don't say anything at all. Oh, he won't depart from that way. He'll grow older and he will live that out in his days. And so there's a there's another way to see and understand this verse. I hope I didn't ruin that for you because uh sometimes that ruins for people. They're like, "Oh man, I love that verse." But that is another way that some biblical scholars believe that can be interpreted. That's what Eli has done here. He's trained his children up in the way in their way. in their way. And we can fail as parents by defending our children even against God. We can want to love them but to love them more than we love God. And that is an idol, friend. That is a dangerous path. He thought he could save his sons. But what we're going to find is that it actually just brings the full weight of judgment on his whole house. Because sin if it's left alone it will only spread. And judgment if it is not if it is not given it will only increase because the weight of guilt and responsibility increases. And when Eli doesn't appropriately rebuke the weight of judgment doesn't just fall on his sons but he says now it happened on your watch and you've done nothing about it. You gave them a slap on the wrist, but you've not acted. You've loved your sons more than you've loved me. And so now we're going to see the full weight of God's judgment that comes. And it's it's a sad, sorrowful thing in our lives. We have to remember and revere this in so many ways. We should be truthful. We should be honest. We should be sober so that the that that our weight of guilt on our own account doesn't grow. We have to speak truth. And this doesn't isn't just about kids and families, guys. Ezekiel was supposed to speak God's truth to a country of people, to a nation. And God says, "If you withhold that word, I'm going to put their blood on your hands, and you're going to be guilty, more guilty than them." That's sobering. Our responsibility in in our in the places and the spheres that God has put us, whether it be in our family, whether it be other family members around us. I'm not saying we need to be harsh and like judging people all the time. That's not not what I'm talking about. There are moments when God opens the door when there are clear things that people are doing where you're like, are you have you taken inventory? Especially when it's in the house of God. This isn't judgment for outside the house of God. People that claim to love the Lord, that claim to follow Jesus and live a life that's completely different. It's hypocritical and the opposite. Doesn't mean we go around finding the log in their eye. But it does mean at moments we just ask them, take a look at your heart. What's the state? We are supposed to speak to one another in that way. We want to see everyone grow. Not to condemn people, but to say like, I don't want death for you. I don't want destruction for you. I want good for you. And I love you enough to be truthful with you, to be honest with you. And we have that permission in some people's lives around us to speak that. And God has placed us and set us up in that sort of way. And we have a responsibility just like Eli had over his sons to be truthful to those. Judgment begins with the house of God. The scriptures say. And we see here. It begins here. So I'm not talking about out in the world. We don't need to go get people out. I'm talking about in our own house. your own world. And so we see right here this beginning to happen. A prophet shows up one day and he comes and visits Eli and he pronounces judgment on the house and he really says three things here that I want to I want to highlight and call out. One, he says, "God is going to take your house away from you. Your priesthood, your right, your responsibility, all of it. I'm going to take this away from you. You had all this privilege and pomp and all of this this great thing. I gave you a gift. You were the religious leaders over these people. What an anointing and blessed place to be that I rose you up your house and your father's house and gave you this position and you have not held it well. I'm going to take it away from you. And then he says, "Not an old man. There won't be found an old man in your house. Everybody is going to die in your household. There will be one. There will be one. and he will weep his eyes out as he carries this. And then just to let you know that it's really coming, both your sons are going to die on the same day. And what we see in the scriptures is this is exactly fulfilled as it comes forth that Eli's um house was eventually removed from him. We find that in the book of Kings when Solomon uh becomes king, he takes the priestly line that was related to Eli and he moves him aside and he appoints a new high priest who was a different part of the lineage of Aaron's household. Therefore, and it even says it in the text, therefore fulfilling the prophecy spoken against the house of Eli. We're going to see in just a couple chapters, Hoffne and Phineas die on the same day. and the judgment of God revealed against the house of Eli. In that moment, we're also going to see that in chapter 22 that Saul is going to question the priest and think they're guilty of treason, and he's going to kill every single one of the sons of Eli, slaughter all of the priests at Noob except one who escapes. And he lived his days weeping his eyes out. And I don't say this to gloat. We should never gloat over the judgment of God. We should never say, "Aha, you got what you deserved." God longs to be gracious. He doesn't desire the death of the wicked. But the repentance and even here, you know, he spoken his word. He said, Eli, speak it to them. Tell them, make them sober. And Eli failed. And that judgment now isn't just on his sons, but on his whole household. Everybody else is reaping the reality of what Eli has brought upon his house. And we see this at times in scripture. It's serious. We have to understand and feel the weight of this. But this text doesn't leave us with doom and gloom. And it doesn't just leave us with judgment. The judgment of God will always bring redemption and life and restoration. That's what justice does. Justice is a good thing because it it it de it deems guilty but in a way it brings the goodness and the wholeness and the rightness that we so long for in the world. And here he promises I am going actually let me let me just read it really quick here. It says in verse 35, "And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind. and I will build him a sure house. And one day Jesus is talking and he's telling a parable. And he's really telling the priest through this parable, this metaphor if you will, that I'm taking the house from you. That you were stewards that I had given you this right and this position and I'm going to kick you out and I am going to build a new house. And Jesus stands up right after that and he says, "The stone which the builders rejected is now the cornerstone." And he's pointing to himself, the cornerstone, the most important piece you set for building a house. And Jesus is in essence saying, "The house is built on me. I'm the faithful servant. I'm the one that is being raised up by my father. I will be the faithful servant to serve as a priest to the people. And that's exactly what we see in the life of Jesus is that Jesus becomes that faithful priest who atones for the sins of the world and for the people. The failure of the earthly priests of this life who would fail. All the different priests that failed time and time again. Good priest comes, bad priest, good priest, bad priest over and over again because it's the failure of the human heart. So God says, "I will come. I will come myself and raise up my own son and he will be the faithful servant. He will be the one to lead people. He will be the one to atone for the sins of the world. He will be the one to call people to repentance and to wholeness and to life to purchase that for them what no other priest could do." And so we see this beautiful promise that God says, "It may be judgment and there may be brokenness and you're right. There's a failed priesthood, but I have not forgotten my people and I've not forgotten you. God is working. He is moving. And so what we see here at the end of the day, number one, delayed judgment doesn't mean no judgment at all. God eventually turns the tables. He has a plan. He is working. And when we see evil and brokenness in this world, we can know that God is still at work. We can look at our nation or our country and think, "Oh, people are falling away. They're turning away." The gospel is always the better story. It is the story that every human heart needs. It's what we all need at the end of the day. And everybody, they run down their own paths. They think, "Oh, this will give me what I need. This will fulfill me. This will give me meaning and purpose in life." And then we find that no, it doesn't. And they come to the end of themselves and they start looking again. The gospel is the answer. And we find time and time again, even in our own lives, we believe something else would give us that. But at some point, if you are in Christ, then you came to the end of that and you recognized, I need a faithful priest. But oftentimes it became through judgment. that sobering reality where whatever we thought whatever idol we thought we could serve whatever we thought would fulfill us whatever thing we thought which is all sin it's all turning away from God into our own way when we came to the end of that we found judgment but it was the opportunity for grace the opportunity for grace whenever wherever God has you stand be faithful proclaim claim that same truth to other people wherever he puts you in in spheres of influence and in your circles because he is faithful and he calls us to be faithful. When you feel hopeless about how God is working or not working in this world and the evil and the injustice you see and you lose faith, maybe you lose it even in the church, maybe you've been offended by religious leaders and people that that have failed you. Guess what? They're always going to fail you. They're always going to fail you. I will fail you. I hope no great moral failure. But I even for my own life, don't point to me. I would point us all to Christ, the faithful high priest. The one who does not fail. The one who is working, working for your good and for the good of this world, for his purpose to establish his church and his salvation in this world. When we fall, we have a high priest who is working and has worked on our behalf. We thank God for it. Let's pray. Lord, judgment is a sobering reality. It's not a It's not a fun topic. We don't like it in our culture, in our day. It feels judgmental. And yet, we know that every heart longs for justice. And justice comes via your judgment. Where those who raise themselves up against you and who promote corruption and injustice that you turn the tide, you turn the tables. You bring about your justice, but you also offer the opportunity for grace, for forgiveness, for redemption. And we thank you for it, Lord. I pray sober our hearts over this reality. so that we are not calloused to the call of God to turn to turn from our ways to repent as scripture reminds us to do so that all the blessing and the life and the good we see two families today one declining one inclining in you. I pray Lord for us and for our families and those around us. we would repent so that life and goodness and mercy may be the story that follows after us. We thank you for all these things in Jesus name we pray. Amen