Samuel, Eli, and the Ark of the Covenant

(We are currently in a series on the life of David at Chelsea Village. As I’ve written before I attempt to write a full manuscript of my sermon before preaching. Throughout this series I’ll be posting some of the sermons I think will be helpful. If you would rather listen to the sermon, you can find it here.)

Any person who has been a Christian for more than a few days figures out pretty quickly that you go through times where you wrestle with half-heartedness and sin. Our enthusiasm for our walk with the Lord and our consistency in our walk with him waxes and wanes. Now, we pray as we grow that the times of dryness and moving backwards will be less frequent, but both new Christians and people who have been Christians for decades all deal with this. Then, the longer your dry spell lasts the more you feel guilty. The guilt drives you even further away.

Here’s the good news, God does not waver in his love for you when you waver in your love for him. You belong to him and he remains steadfastly committed to his people. What he does do though is to work to bring us back to him. This isn’t just true for you as a person, he also does this with churches. Local churches collectively can have high times when they are passionate about Jesus and bringing glory to him, and there are times when churches collectively grow lethargic and half-hearted.

Christians in 2015 are not the first people to grow cold in our love for God or to struggle with sin. In fact the Bible is filled with examples of God’s people living in half-heartedness and rebellion, and then God calling them back to him. So this morning we want to ask, how does God work to bring his people back to him? What does he do to pull us out of half-heartedness and sin and into walking joyfully and passionately for him?

We are going to look at this today from a large swath of Scripture in 1 Samuel. We will look at 1 Samuel 2:12-7:17. Now ordinarily I would read the entire passage we are going to talk about, but today we would not have time to talk about much else if we did that. So what we are going to do is to read a section at the beginning and we will read a few more sections as we work through this passage.

We started last week this new series on the life of David called the “Shepherd King.” Now we did not really talk about David last week and we won’t much this week or next week. We won’t meet David until the next week, but we need to understand the times in which David lived in order to understand what the Lord was doing through his life. Plus, last week we met a baby named Samuel and next week we will meet a man named Saul. We need to meet them and find out what the Lord is doing through them because of their prominence in the life of David.

By Giving His Word to Us

In the first chapter the writer mentioned Hophni and Phineas who were the priests at the temple in Shiloh. Their father Eli was a priest there as well. We find out in chapter 2 that they are wicked men. They short circuit the way they are supposed to offer sacrifices so they get better cuts of meat in direct violation of the Lord’s word. They also were laying with the women who served at the temple. So they did not trust that what the Lord gave them was good enough and took something else for themselves and viewed the women serving the Lord as playthings to be used for their pleasure.

A man of God came to Eli and told him the Lord was going to bring down his house. We pick up with this man’s words and the Lord’s answer.

“And this that shall come upon your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, 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 a morsel of bread.”’”

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD in the presence of Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.

At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was.

Then the LORD called Samuel, and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down.

And the LORD called again, “Samuel!” and Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.

And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant hears.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

And the LORD came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.” Then the LORD said to Samuel, “Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”
1 Samuel 2:34-3:14

So the man of God comes to tell Eli his house will be dethroned. The evidence of this will be his wicked sons dying on the same day. Then he says he will raise up a faithful priest who will do the Lord’s will. The Lord will build this man a sure house and he will go in and out together. Now we’re about to find out this immediately refers to Samuel, but we need to remember there is something in the Bible we call “double fulfillment.” Often the prophets who spoke had an immediate reference and a future reference. So here we see there is going to be a priest raised up who will be faithful to the Lord. Samuel will die one day though. Then the Lord will raise up for himself his ultimate priest- his own Son. Jesus will be faithful as a priest over God’s house. In fact, didn’t we see this very language about Jesus when we looked at Hebrews 10 two weeks ago? The Lord has deposed the sinful priests. He’s going to raise up a faithful one, but he’s going to die. Ultimately the Lord will raise up a faithful priest to represent his people who will never die; and when he did, he was raised from the dead.

Then we turn from the prophecy of the fall of Eli’s house to the reminder of Samuel in the temple. The writer emphasizes the lack of prophetic words from God in those days. Revelation was still unfolding and God going quiet was always the sign something was amiss, but also the sign something astounding was about to happen. This is borne out in Amos where he prophesies there will be a famine among the people, but not a famine of bread or water. This would be a famine of God’s word. However, when you reflect on the times God went silent, something incredible always happened when his word was heard again. There were the four hundred years between Genesis and Exodus. When the word of the Lord came it came through Moses leading the people out of slavery. Here we see silence in the period of the judges, but the Lord is about to raise up the prototypical King. There were also four hundred years after the return of Israel from the exile, but that silence was broken by John the Baptist and ultimately Jesus. Since then there has been no silence from God since as his word thunders forth to the ends of the earth.

Samuel laid down to go to the sleep in the temple. Three times the Lord calls Samuel’s name and three times Samuel goes to find out what Eli wants. Eventually Eli perceives the Lord is calling Samuel and Samuel says, “speak Lord, for your servant hears.” The Lord tells Samuel he is going to do an amazing thing in Israel, and it begins with the Lord reiterating his promise to depose the family of Eli from the priesthood. Eli asks Samuel what the Lord says and Samuel tells him. Eli knows this is from the Lord and knows he cannot stop it, so he submits to it. By the way, this is a completely different response from the King of Nineveh who heard God was going to destroy them and he called everyone to repent. Instead of repentance, Eli simply accepts what happens.

As Eli’s house would fade, Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord. The Lord revealed himself by his word to Samuel. The people of God were now no longer without a prophetic word. Okay, let’s think about this practically. When is God the most distant from us and when do we grow the most spiritually lethargic? Doesn’t it seem to happen the most when God’s word is distant from us? When we neglect the Bible, we will not grow spiritually for any substantive amount of time. However, when we are attentive to the words of the Bible we see more of God, more of the Gospel, and more of his fruit being borne in our lives. I want to encourage you today to make God’s word a priority in your life. So for a lot of you you are getting into a new routine as school begins. What if one of the things you did was to reevaluate your morning and evening routines to see when the best time would be for you to devote time to God’s word? Then what are you going to read in God’s word and what are you going to work on studying and memorizing? If you are stuck with where to start here is what I would encourage you to do. Everyday read one chapter of the Gospel of Mark and ask yourself two questions. First ask, “what is God saying to me in this passage?” Second ask, “how am I going to respond?” Can you imagine the tangible growth that will take place in the life of a Christian if every day you are asking what God is saying through his word and thinking through how you should respond to it?

By Showing His Glory to Us

After this we read the Lord’s word went out from Samuel to all of Israel. Then the Philistines came up against them from the west. The Israelites and the Philistines went back and forth in battle many times, particularly in the book of Judges. They defeated Israel and killed four thousand of their soldiers. Israel could not believe they had lost and wondered why the Lord was against them in battle that day. Then they had an epiphany. When they were marching across the Jordan River and taking the land of promise, they had the ark of the Covenant with them.

The ark of the Covenant was a box which was 45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches high. It was laden with gold both inside and out. There were rings on each leg with a pole running through it could be carried. The ark of the Covenant contained the testimony of the Old Covenant and Hebrews tells us it also contained Aaron’s rod and a golden pot which contained manna. On top of the ark was the mercy seat which had a cherubim at each of the ends facing each other. The ark was supposed to remain in the holies of holies because this was the place where the high priest made atonement for himself and the people on the Day of Atonement. The presence of the Lord would meet with his people at the ark of the Covenant.

The ark of the Covenant tells us something about God. Every other statue of monument of a god was chiseled into an image of the god. What was on top of the ark though? There were two angels bowing down presumably before the presence of the Lord. Is there an image of him there? No! How can you contain the glory, the majesty and the might of the almighty God in an image? This is why the second commandment forbids making graven images. There is absolutely no way any human creation, no matter how beautiful it looked, could ever give us an accurate image of who he is. Furthermore, what compels us to worship him is his character, his being, his majesty, and his might. Besides, if we were even able to come close to visually capturing the glory of God, you wouldn’t be able to look at it. When the people of Israel heard God speak at Mount Sinai they asked Moses to talk to God so they would not have to. God is overwhelmingly glorious, and it’s the absence of a visual image of him which shows how glorious he truly is.

At the same time I think it’s instructive that where you would expect an image of God to be on the ark is the mercy seat where the priest would sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice. This tells us something important about God. The incredible glorious God is a God of mercy and grace. He forgives the sin of his people and he restores us back to him. He is infinitely holy and majestic, yet he forgives his people and draws near to us.

Israel brings the ark out because they think of it as a good luck charm. I read someone this week say they treated it like a lucky rabbit’s foot. Now knowing what we know about God, does he seem to be honored or even amused by using him for our own purposes? In chapter 4 we see Hophni and Phineas carrying the ark. They march out into battle with the ark, one of the major symbols of the Lord’s presence among his people. They begin to fight and the Philistines thoroughly route them. Everyone who survived ran to his own home. Thirty thousand of them did not make the trip home thought because they died in battle. Hophni and Phineas both died in the battle, fulfilling the prophecy about them. The ark gets captured and taken back to the land of the Philistines. When the report of what has happened reaches Eli, the ninety-eight year old man falls over backwards and breaks his neck. The writer makes sure we know Eli was a heavy man and this led to his death. His daughter-in-law hears about her husband, her father-in-law, and the ark, which causes her to go into labor. She names her son Ichabod because the glory had departed from Israel.

“When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.”
I Samuel 5:1-4

The Philistines bring the ark in and put in in the room with their god Dagon. Dagon was the corn god and they viewed their overwhelming victory to be the victory of Dagon over the God of Israel. They came in the next morning and Dagon had fallen flat on his face before the ark of the Covenant. They stood him back up. I think we should point out that this is a perfect example of what our personal idolatry looks like. Their god could do nothing for them, but they had to do everything for him. How pathetic is a god who has to be stood up? Isaiah makes this very point in Isaiah 46. The false gods they were tempted to worship had to be carried. They were heavy and wore down their donkeys and mules who had to carry them. Then he contrasts that with God who is the one who carries them. Then he uses this to go into a diatribe about the incomparability of God. God alone is the one who can defend his people, carry his people, and protect his people.

God’s incomparability is demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt the next morning. The people come in to find Dagon lying flat on his face before the ark of the Covenant with his hands and feet cut off. Think about it for a second. He is an impotent God who has no power, no knowledge, and is unable to do anything or deliver anyone. Then the people of the city begin to be afflicted with tumors. They recognize God is against them and their God, so they send the ark to another city. The same thing happens there is Gath so they try to send it to Ekron. By now the word has gotten around about the fate of the cities who hosted the ark, so the leaders meet the Ark at the entrance to the city. “They have brought around to us the ark of God to kill us and our people.” Then they determined to send the ark back to Israel.

What do we learn from seeing the visible sign of the Lord’s presence wreak such havoc? Here we see the incomparability of God. There is no one like him and he has no rivals. He alone set the world in its place and he alone dwells in eternal glory. The Lord alone should be praised and the Lord alone should inspire the love and awe of his people. As Israel was prone to look to the gods of the nations around them for protection and deliverance, we tend to look to manmade things to provide us with protection, security, joy, and fulfillment. How often have you looked at your money and said, “you are my security?” Then when there is not enough money how often have you felt exposed and insecure? Have there not been many times when you looked at the approval of other people and found your identity there? Then when you found the disapproval of other people doesn’t that tend to kill our joy and make us wonder who we are? We need to ask ourselves where we find our joy, security, and sense of identity. At the same time we need to look at the things which make us insecure, miserable, and lose our sense of identity. These are the things we are looking to instead of the Lord of glory. What we want to see is the Lord in all his glory. We want to remove anything we desire which could lead us away from him.

By Demonstrating His Mercy to Us

Now the Philistines brought the ark back to Israel and made an offering there. Some of the people of the town were stuck down because they looked upon the ark, leading the people to exclaim, “who can stand before the Lord, this holy God?” Who is it who can stand before this unique God? Who can stand before his triune glory and not shutter? Who can stand before him with us being sinful and him in his shining holiness?

“And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the LORD with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the LORD only.”

As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the LORD thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel. And the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them, as far as below Beth-car.

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the LORD has helped us.” So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel. And the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The cities that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron to Gath, and Israel delivered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. There was peace also between Israel and the Amorites”
1 Samuel 7:3-4; 10-14

Samuel brings the people together and calls them to repentance. What we mean by repentance is a mourning over sin and a whole hearted turning to the Lord. Samuel puts it here as “returning” to the Lord. The picture here calls to mind the prodigal son returning from his journey in shame hoping his father will take him in. What did the prodigal find though? He did not find the father shaking his head in disappointment. Rather he found the father running toward him. Middle eastern men did not run. They had no desire to look foolish. Yet this father picked up his robe and ran to greet the son. Jesus tells this story because he wants us to see the attitude of the father towards the sinner who comes home. The father welcomes us with open arms.

We must understand the joy of repentance. We don’t see repentance as a joy because our enemy has convinced us that sin brings joy. Honestly though, has sin ever followed through on what it promised? Did sin ever give us any real lasting joy? Did it ever satisfy us for more than a season? The problem is we are so quick to believe the lies of the evil one. Remember in the garden the serpent was not wearing a sign that said, “I’m here to destroy you.” No, he appealed to Eve’s eyes and her heart. After he spoke she saw the fruit was a delight to the eyes and desirous to make one wise. Then she ate it. Notice how she saw sin as enticing. The same thing happens with us today. Satan knows us well and he will use whatever bait he has to so we will take the hook. Therefore we must know his schemes and be quick to run to the fountain of true joy. When we find ourselves running away from the Lord, let’s turn and run back. There is more joy for one second in Christ than there could every be in a lifetime of sin.

Notice what repentance entailed here. First it had to do with the Israelites putting away their foreign gods. Apparently with some of the losses Israel had seen over the years the people had begun to turn to the foreign gods seeking protection. These gods, which they worshipped in direct violation of God’s covenant, had to be put away immediately. The people then came together and they admitted their sin before the Lord. Samuel prayed for them and led them that day. He offered up a burnt offering for the people and the Lord answered the prayer of Samuel. The Philistines came up against Israel and Israel prevailed. Their cities were restored and they began to live in peace.

This entire passage if you look at was about the Lord taking away Israel’s evil leadership and enthroning a godly leader. This leader was both a prophet and a priest. He spoke God’s word to the people, prayed for the people, and sacrificed for the people. Have you noticed how much of the Old Testament is taken up with this theme of the leader of the people? We saw it with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, the Judges, Samuel, and we will soon see it with Saul and David. We know intuitively that we need a victorious warrior to fight for us, we need a king to lead us, we need a priest to make atonement for us, and we need a prophet to teach us. Samuel was never all of these things, and soon enough Samuel is going to die. I don’t want to blow next week just yet, but Saul will be a disaster, David is coming next and he will be the prototypical King, but he will sin and he will die. Yet the Bible reaches its ultimate point in the prophet, priest, and king who never sinned. This man, Jesus, did die, but his death was not like the other deaths. He had no sin for which he should die, so he gave his life for us. Then he was victoriously raised from the dead. We can entrust ourselves to this leader because of who he is, what he has done, because of what he is doing now, and what he will do when he returns and we see him in all his glory.

Samuel does something interesting here. He sets up a stone and calls it “Ebenezer” because the Lord has been their help. So when we sing “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and we get to “Here I raise mine Ebenezer,” this is what we are talking about. The Lord is our helper. Have you noticed how often in the Bible the Lord gave the people tangible reminders of what he has done? Think about it- the ark of the covenant, the Ebenezer stone, the temple, the stones in the Jordan River, and then for us the Lord’s Supper. Why does the Lord keep giving his people these physical reminders of the things he has done? The answer is simple really, we are a people who are quick to forget what the Lord has done. We forget the Gospel.

You want to know why your love for God grows cold? Do you want to know why we go through times of spiritual dryness? Do you want to know why there are times when sin seems better than holiness? This happens because we forget the Gospel. We forget the extravagant love of God we have received. We forget the mercy and the grace we have been shown. We forget our position as the children of God. We forget that we have died to sin and now live to God. We forget our redemption from previous sins. We forget the glorious inheritance that is ours in Christ. We forget about the dear dying lamb who gave his life for us and the victorious king who rose from the dead for us. Today, recover the beauty of the Gospel in your own heart. Remember the mercy you have been shown and remember the promise of eternal life. Remember you are a child of the king and you will reign with Christ forever. Flee from sin, flee from half-heartedness, and run to Christ in whom we find rest and redemption.

Related Posts:
“Hannah and Samuel”

For Further Reading:
1 Samuel: Looking to the Heart by Dale Ralph Davis