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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends.
This month we’re tracing the chronological journey to Christmas, and I’m trying to help us see how several Old Testament events pointed forward to what we know as Christmas.
Here’s the third one that I’d like us to consider… 1 Samuel 2:35. That’s right… Samuel!
Yesterday we looked at Moses and the Exodus story and how that was a powerful picture of Jesus leading us out of our sin bondage into freedom with Almighty God.
That Exodus event took place about 1450 bc. Let’s move ahead to about 1100 bc.
The Tabernacle of worship for God’s people is in Shiloh. The High Priest is named Eli. He and his two sons Hophni and Phinehas, are the spiritual leaders of Israel, but there’s a serious problem. Hophni and Phinehas are wicked men. They don’t have any respect for God or the worship of God’s people. In their roles as priests, they abuse the people and mock their worship!
God is gracious, but He is also a Holy Just God, and God sends a ‘man of God’ to give Eli a message of doom. You’ll find the man’s shocking and dreadful message to Eli in 1 Samuel 2:27-36. God was removing His hand of blessing on Eli and imposing His hand of judgment. No one in Eli’s family would ever become High Priest again, and both Eli’s sons would die on the same day! Oh, my! Specifically take note of verse 35 where God says “I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest, who will do faithfully what is in My heart and My mind.”
Now I invite you to think for a moment about what Jesus encountered, when He started speaking God’s truth in Israel. His strongest opponents were the religious leaders. These very men who had dedicated their lives to studying God’s Word and the history of God working with His people, these men should have been the ones to first recognize Jesus as God’s Son, the Messiah. They should have called all Israel to recognize Jesus as their long awaited Messiah, and worshiped Him! Instead they mocked Jesus, they argued with Jesus, and eventually arrested and condemned Jesus to death! Do you see the similarity of what was happening in Eli’s time with his sons, and what happened in Jesus’ time?
So in fulfillment of 1 Samuel 2:35, God worked a miracle in a women named Hannah… remember her story?
One of the families who came annually to Shiloh for worship was Mr. Elkanah and his two wives Hannah and Peninnah. You’ll remember in those days there were several God honoring reasons for a man to have more than one wife. First of all, if a man died leaving his wife a widow, and they had no sons who could care for the widow, the deceased man’s brother was to take responsibility for the widow, including marrying her and if possible have children with her, thus providing descendants to keep the man’s name and inheritance alive. (You’ll find that in Deuteronomy 25:5-10)
Second, if a man married a woman and she was found to be barren, unable to bear children, rather than divorcing her and leave her destitute, the man was permitted to marry a second time, and have children with the second wife, while retaining responsibility to love and provide for the first wife. You can see that in the story of Jacob. We don’t know the exact reasons why Elkanah had two wives, but 1 Samuel 1 tells us his wife Hannah was barren, while Peninnah bore Elkanah several children.
You may recall Hannah was a godly, prayerful woman and earnestly asked God for a son, and promised she would dedicated that son to a lifetime of service to the LORD God. 1 Samuel 1 & 2 give us the tender story of Hannah’s prayer and God blessing Hannah with a miracle son. She named that little boy Samuel, and after he was weaned, Hannah brought him to live at the Tabernacle, at Shiloh, and serve God there. Remember? Her intention was to both honor her vow to God, and also to give her son the rare privilege of growing up under the teaching and care of Eli the High Priest. She had every reason to assume Eli was a God honoring man, and would lead Samuel in his spiritual and moral development.
What dear Hannah didn’t know was that Eli was failing as a Dad and not holding his two sons accountable for their evil behavior. She also didn’t know that God had sent a message of doom to Eli. God’s judgment was coming against Eli and his wicked sons. But God was working His Sovereign Plan for His people and was including Hannah and her miracle son, Samuel!
1 Samuel 3 gives us the powerful story of young Samuel’s encounter with God. God awakened in little Samuel an insatiable hunger to know God and His Word, and honor God with his life. God also re-affirmed His message of doom regarding Eli and his wicked sons.
In 1 Samuel 4, the judgment of God falls on Eli and his boys. The army of Israel is in a battle, and they are being defeated by the Philistines. In fear, they sent elders to Eli and requested that the Ark of the Covenant of God be removed from inside the Most Holy Place in the Tabernacle, and brought to the forefront of the battlefield, as some sort of good luck charm! Eli agrees amazingly and sends his two sons Hophni & Phinehaus along with the Ark.
You may recall my friends, the Ark was sacred and never to leave the Most Holy Place unless the Tabernacle was moving. It was the place of prayer and repentance for the High Priest, on the Day of Atonement (We’ll see that in Leviticus 16). God poured out His judgement for this horrific mockery of His holiness.
The Ark was captured by the Philistines and both Eli’s sons, Hophni & Phinehaus were killed in battle! A runner ran from the battlefield back to Shiloh, and when he reported the terrible news, Eli fell backward off his chair and broke his neck and died right on the spot. Also, Phinehaus’ pregnant wife went into labor and died while she was giving birth (You’ll see that in 1 Samuel 4). The son born in that terrible moment was named “Ichabod” which means, “The glory has departed from Israel”. It was one of the darkest moments in the entire history of Israel, for those responsible to give spiritual leadership to Israel had failed miserably.
But God… don’t you love those two words my friends… But God!
Even though Samuel was still young…, with Eli, and both his sons dead, and the Ark of God captured, the people of Israel turned to young Samuel. He was a miracle boy born to a barren woman. He was a tender hearted, honest boy, who had been seeking to know God. He was a young man of prayer, and had a deep love and respect for the God’s Word. It soon became evident, Samuel was the fulfillment of God’s promise “I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who will do faithfully what is in My heart and my mind.” (1 Samuel 2:35)
Do you see, my friends, how God did the same in the Christmas story? The religious leaders were failing the people badly. God sent an angel to a young woman who was engaged but had never intimately known a man. The Holy Spirit came upon Mary and she conceived and bore a son, Jesus, who would be “God’s faithful priest, who would do faithfully what was in God’s heart and mind…”
You may remember Jesus frequently stepped away from the crowds to have quiet time with His heavenly Father, to be sure He knew what to say and do, in obedience to the Father. Consider Mark 1:32-39.
Compare that to 1 Samuel 3:19-21 where it says “The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of His words fall to the ground…The LORD continued to appear at Shiloh,and there He revealed Himself to Samuel through His Word.”
The people didn’t know it, but they were receiving a preview of Christmas! As God was responding to the desperate need of His people to have a God honoring leader who would only do what God led him to do in the days of Samuel… so about 1100 years later, God would raise up another God honoring man, His Son Jesus, to bring God’s truth to the world!
Oh thank you Almighty God for the powerful story of little Samuel and how it points us forward to Christmas. Would you help us to look at ourselves, God? Are we men and women who are determined to know you, oh God, to listen to you, and to follow you faithfully, and to do what is only in your heart and your mine. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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