Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Putting God First in the New Year
## 1 Samuel 2:11-26
### Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Beautiful setting for that psalm, produced at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, I believe, by one of the men there. I’ve always thought that song would be a wonderful tune with various variations to be playing in the background of a movie, a theme song. And the text we read today is perhaps what such a movie could be based upon.

We’re turning to 1 Samuel chapter 2, beginning at verse 11. We’re reading of the fall of Eli’s house—not built upon the Lord—and the establishment of God’s house, and specifically the house of Elcana and his household being contrasted with that of Eli, as those who put God first.

So please stand and I’ll begin reading at 1 Samuel 2:11, and we won’t read the two prophetic statements against Eli’s house. That will be the subject of our sermon as well, that aspect of the story.

All right. Beginning at 1 Samuel 2:11: “Then Elcana went to his house at Rama. But the child ministered to the Lord before Eli the priest. Now the sons of Eli were corrupt. They did not know the Lord.

And the priest’s custom with the people was that when any man offered a sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come with a three-pronged flesh hook in his hand while the meat was boiling. Then he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot. And the priest would take for himself all that the flesh hook brought up. So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

Also, before they burn the fat, the priest’s servants would come and say to the man who sacrificed, ‘Give meat for roasting to the priest, for he will not take boiled meat from you but raw.’ And if the man said to him, ‘They should really burn the fat first, then you may take as much as your heart desires.’

He would then answer him, ‘No, but you must give it now, and if not, I will take it by force.’ Therefore, the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord.

But Samuel ministered before the Lord, even as a child, wearing a linen ephod. Moreover, his mother used to make him a little robe and bring it to him year by year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.

And Eli would bless Elcana and his wife and say, ‘The Lord give you descendants from this woman for the loan that was given to the Lord.’ Then they would go to their own house.

And the Lord visited Hannah so that she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the child Samuel grew before the Lord. Now Eli was very old and he heard everything his sons did to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

So he said to them, ‘Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people. No, my sons, for it is not a good report that I hear. You make the Lord’s people transgress. If one man sins against another, God will judge him. But if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him?’ Nevertheless, they did not heed the voice of their father, because the Lord desired to kill them.

And the child Samuel grew in stature and in favor both with the Lord and men.”

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for the greater Samuel, the Lord Jesus Christ, who grew in stature and favor with God and men. Father, we thank you for this text of Scripture. We thank you for this new year that opens up in front of us. And we pray that this would be a year that by the strength and empowerment and encouragement of your Holy Spirit, we would put you first in everything in our lives.

Help us to read this cautionary tale, Lord God, today. Help us to hear it. May your Holy Spirit write it upon our hearts that we might fear properly before you the fall and destruction of our own houses should we fail to put you first in all things, and motivate us, Lord God, to do that today. We pray this through the wonderful, blessed, and marvelous name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for the sake of his kingdom which shall never falter.

Amen. Please be seated.

I had originally intended to title this sermon “Putting God First in the New Year.” And that was before I actually decided on this particular text. We’ll be turning to Hebrews chapter 13 in two weeks. Next week is our anti-abortion day of the Lord liturgy, but two weeks from today we’re returning to Hebrews 13. And really today’s sermon is meant to be an introduction to that final section of the book of Hebrews where we have all this application.

The cautionary tale told to us today in the scriptures is sort of summed up on the cover of your order of worship today. That’s Eli falling off of his chair—his throne—breaking his neck, the judgment of God upon him and his house. In one day his two sons and he both die. The ark is taken into captivity to the Philistines. Phineas’s one of his sons’ wife gives birth. She dies in childbirth on the very same day, and the son is named Ichabod.

The glory has departed. May the Lord God grant us grace that in our homes, in our houses, in our vocational houses, in this house of the Lord, and in the communities that are house as well, we may be motivated by today’s sermon to do one thing: to put God first in everything that we do.

I’m kind of talking like Doc Wilson today. There’s one string on the ukulele today, one note: put God first. And maybe a chord. There’s several places that the text tells us where men don’t put God first, where we should. We’ll talk about that. But the real thrust of today’s sermon is to leave here with a renewed commitment. When you come forward to offer yourself to God and all that you have through means of the tithes and your offerings, may you commit yourselves afresh to putting God first in everything. That’s today’s sermon.

And really, it’s going to be tested. Today is a sermon that’s kind of a general introduction to this topic. And I’m going to mention some specific areas in which we’re going to be encouraged to put God first, but I won’t give a lot of details on how to do that. We’ll be doing that more over the next couple of months.

If you look at Hebrews 13 for just a minute, turn there in your Bibles, please.

I was down in California, of course, last weekend. In the grace of God, he put me in a motel. It was just a 5-minute walk from a good Lutheran church. So I was very thankful to him for that. And I had a nice trip.

Thank you, thank you all for your cards and your prayers and your comments to me about the death of my sister. It was a good time connecting with her children again and renewing my commitment. I used to be pretty important in the lives of some of them, and I’ve really failed miserably as an uncle. So pray for me that I could follow through in this year by putting God first—by renewing my commitment to her children and her husband as well.

We got talking down there—some of my brothers and my brother-in-law—and we were talking about the things you’re not supposed to talk about: politics and religion.

Well, we’re going to be talking about that stuff, too. We talk about religion, of course, every Lord’s Day. We talk about politics next week. And as we continue through this text in Hebrews 13, we’re going to talk about some pretty personal stuff as well.

If you look at Hebrews 13, I believe that we can look at verse one as kind of a summary statement: “Let brotherly love continue.” Though we will spend a whole sermon on that topic, but what does it mean?

The next couple of verses talk about hospitality, and so putting God first in the entertainment of people in our homes—that’s kind of a personal deal. We’ll be touching on the use of your home and wanting to see it for God’s purposes and hospitality. Verse four talks about marriage, well okay, but the second part of that verse also talks about the marriage bed. So we’re going to talk about sex in addition to religion and politics and your own homes—pretty personal stuff.

God claims ownership over every area of our lives. So when we get to that section of the text, we’ll be talking about putting God first in our relationship to the opposite sex, in our marriages. And very specifically, we’re going to have to at least touch upon putting God first in terms of sexuality, because that’s what the verse is in part about: “Fornicators and adulterers, God will judge.” We’ll see that in today’s text.

Eli’s sons were fornicators and adulterers. God judged them. So we’ll be talking about that pretty personal matter.

Verse five: “Let your conduct be without covetousness.” We’re going to talk about money. Going to talk about your work. That’s what your conduct is—your walk in life. But I think here its primary focus is your vocation. So we’re going to talk about putting God first in your money and in your desires for things and covetousness—pretty personal stuff we’ll be talking about here: contentment.

Then in verse seven: “Remember those who rule over you.” And that begins kind of a long section. And if you drop down to verse seventeen: “Obey those who rule over you.” So I think those are kind of markers over that text. And that text talks about religion and what we eat. So eating is a pretty personal topic. And then the topics of rulers, and I think we can see all at least—if not deliberate references, certainly rulers in the church—but also I think rulers in the state.

Over the next few months we’re going to be talking about some pretty personal topics: sexuality, money, business, politics, the use of your home, and all your personal resources for the purposes of God’s kingdom. So this text today, I’ve chosen to get us going with a commitment before we get to these hard things: a commitment to put God first in everything.

And if we do that, if we have that kind of attitude as we approach Hebrews 13 in two weeks and spend a couple of months on those verses, well, then we’ll be okay, I think. But if we don’t—if we don’t put God first—you’re going to find some objectionable material in the preaching in the next couple of months.

So we’re now at that place in Hebrews where very specific application is made to your life in very specific ways over areas that we like to think of as our own. So putting God first.

And now we’re going to turn to 1 Samuel 2:11. I hope you have the handout because it kind of structures this long text for us. And on that first page, I’ve got no outline notes here. All I’ve got is the text laid out in the way I think it should be laid out.

Let me just say that this sermon is a result really of Kings Academy. I’ve been doing chapel service, of course, and then Bible for King’s Academy. I’m teaching through Peter Leithart’s book, *A House for My Name*. And this is where much of this material came from. So it seemed excellent to me, as I taught this to the students a couple weeks ago, that really that’s why I chose it for this, my first sermon of the new year: putting God first in the new year.

And this so clearly tells the story of people that didn’t put God first and contrasts them with people that do put God first, as we’ll see in the text.

So we’re going to look at this text. The big context first of all—and I’ll return to this next week a little—but the big context is a transition, a major movement in the history of the Old Testament and the history of the world. This text is the beginning of the transition from the tabernacle, which will be destroyed by the end of this narrative, and the construction later of the temple.

So there’s a transition from the tabernacle to the temple. It’s kind of interesting that this is significant. You may look at the picture on the front of your order of worship and think, “Well, I didn’t really pick it that way. I kind of thought of him as a rocking chair out in the middle of nowhere somewhere, and he falls over backwards, kills himself.”

Well, when Hannah goes to Samuel—I think Doug touched on this last week—when Hannah goes to Eli rather and prays, the Lord had grant her a son, Eli is sitting in a chair next to the temple, in the court next to the pillar of the temple. Wait a minute. There ain’t no temple yet, folks.

And yes, that’s the first place where the word “temple” is used. And this will be the word that will refer to the temple as Solomon builds it. Now, the people that wrote the Bible, this would be a rather obvious mistake if it was a mistake—a stupid mistake that would have been caught long time ago.

Now, the text is using a word that could be used, translated “place”—doesn’t have to refer to the temple of God—but that’s the way it’s almost always used. And in 1 Samuel 1, you see, it’s setting us up for the transition. If we know our Hebrew, we know there’s already a reference to what will become the temple. The tabernacle and the temple really are one. The temple’s a glorious mature tabernacle.

And you know, what’s happening here is the movement from tabernacle to temple is the glorification of the house of God. You know what was silver in the tabernacle becomes gold in the temple. What was gold in the tabernacle becomes pure gold in the temple. The dimensions double. So it’s growing. It’s becoming heavier, more glorious, larger, more beautiful. And this is preparation for the great glorification of the house of God, which is his people.

It’ll happen when Jesus dies for our sins, raises up the temple—his body—and we’re his body. So this is part of that maturation.

There’s a change in religion that’s going to happen here. There’s a change in how men worship. We’ll go from the tabernacle—it’ll be destroyed here by the end of this narrative structure in 1 Samuel. And then David will recover a tabernacle. He’ll build a little tabernacle in Jerusalem where the ark goes, but nothing else from the tabernacle—tabernacle of David. And then eventually the temple will be built.

So there’s a transition in the religious house of God. There’s also going to be a transition in the political house of God.

You know, in Tower of Babel, it wasn’t just a tower. It was a tower in a city. And in Greek structures, there was a high place—a religious high place—and then the marketplace at the base of it: a tower, city, Acropolis, and agora.

And in the Bible, there’s this same thing. I mean, the worship of God produces a culture downstream. Down at the bottom of the mountain, you got a city. And so the way that city is governed will also transition. And when religion transitions, government transitions. We’re going to be moving, of course, from judges to kings as ruling authorities. And that’ll happen through the narrative—this narrative as well—in 1 Samuel.

So this is a time of great transition. And transition involves death and resurrection. And there’s going to be death and there’s going to be resurrection. We’ve seen it over again in the early portions of God’s word where God’s people are judged and raised up better. So history matures. It’s not cyclical. There are patterns, but it’s always getting better. That’s the big context for this: this big transition in religion and in government.

And when we talk about government next week and then later in Hebrews 13, you see, it is a Ichabod church that teaches the importance of religion without seeing its significance for the way our communities are governed and structured. It’s a church of which the spirit of God has departed. You can’t restrict God to your religious sphere somehow and think that everything’s going to be okay.

Again, in this story, they bring out—you know, the ark of the covenant—when they battle the Philistines later on. We’re not going to read this text, maybe next week. They think, you know, “We just got God on our side. Everything’s going to be fine.” Well, it ain’t fine. 40,000 die and the ark goes away.

So this is really this period of transition, and it’s important and significant for us: putting God first certainly on our religious duties. We’ll see that next week. We’ll see that’s the beginning place, but it’s not the ending place. It moves into the culture.

All right. We have this contrast then. The big picture of course is that you got Samuel, that Eli refers to at the end of the text—and in the part we didn’t read but what’s on your outline—Eli refers to Samuel as a son. Eli has two wicked sons. So we’ve got a double wicked son over here and we got a good son over here, and those are contrasted.

But in addition to that, the house—the concept of the house is a big one here. It’s repeated over and over and over again. The word “house”—there’s a contrast between Eli’s house. Well, actually, there’s a comparison: when Eli’s house is destroyed, God’s house will be torn down. And the contrast is that God’s house will be reestablished; Eli’s won’t.

And the other contrast is the faithful household of Elcana in the narrative that I’ve laid out for you—the first three sections which are kind of chiastic. The middle one of those is the story of the faithful household of Elcana and Hannah. And that faithful household, putting God first as we’ll see, is contrasted with the household where God wasn’t put first.

So there’s two households here as well, two kinds of sons.

And this narrative that I’ve laid out for you on the outline is stitched together with references to the growth of Samuel. See, big picture stuff. God’s house is going to grow and mature. Samuel’s growing and maturing. He’s becoming more glorious through servanthood. Eli’s sons are becoming more glorious through eating a lot of fat that they weren’t supposed to eat. And so Eli gets fat and heavy. And so there’s a counterfeit glory going on with them, and a true glorification, a progression of Samuel as he grows.

And what I’ve done here on the text in the handout for you is I put these sections in brackets where they’re stitched together. So you got—if you look at the bracket text—it brackets the middle section of the first part of the outline or handout or text, but it also then begins the next section and brackets it. So it’s a stitching idea. Do you understand? In other words, it’s not ABA. It’s ABA. And that A serves as the beginning for the next B, which goes back to another A. And the thing that stitches all these texts together in this narrative is the maturation of Samuel both as a priest and as a prophet, his growth.

So he’s the focus, and of course he’s a type of the Lord Jesus Christ.

All right. So let’s look now at 1 Samuel 2, beginning at verse 11–26.

So in the overview, you got Samuel, the sons of Eli, and Samuel. That’s the contrast. Then you’ve got Samuel, Elcana’s house, and Samuel. So we got the house now. And then we’ll have two prophetic messages at the end of this section. First, an unnamed man of God prophesies against Eli’s house. And then second, Samuel himself prophesies against Eli’s house. So a double witness to the destruction of Eli’s house.

And so the message is: put God first, or else. Putting God first is the message of the first couple of sections. And the “or else” is the judgment that comes upon people in their houses that don’t put God first.

All right. So first, 1 Samuel 2:11–26. Again, we have here: “the child ministered to the Lord before Eli the priest.”

So the priestly ministry of Samuel. And then we have a description of the sons of Eli.

You know, if you’re brought to church court in this church—what Presbyterian churches—this is the way it works. The charge is the big picture item of what you’ve done wrong. You despise God. The specification of a charge is the specific detail in which you’ve done wrong. So you can tell your kids, “You know, you dishonored God. What was the specifics? Well, the specific was you said something bad to your mom or your dad.” Those are specifications for a general charge. You see the difference? So it’s a violation of some truth of God’s word, and then there’s a specification of that charge.

Well, that’s what we have here. You see? Beginning and ending of the story of Eli’s sons, we’ve got general statements: “The sons of Eli were corrupt. They did not know the Lord.”

Now, they knew the Lord intellectually, but they didn’t know the Lord, right? Knowledge is not intellectual. Knowledge is ethical. And so if we want to put God first, it doesn’t mean just knowing what we’re supposed to do to put God first. If that’s all we do—is know it and don’t do it—we’re just like Eli’s sons. We’re like those terrible looking guys at the end of the outline on the handout, the coloring page. Those guys look pretty wicked, and they are. They were.

But don’t—don’t miss it here. They’re wicked because they don’t ethically know God. They don’t walk in his ways. They’re corrupt.

And at the end of the text as well—well, I misarranged my pages—at the end of that text as well, verse 17: “Therefore, the sin of the young man was very great before the Lord. For men abhorred the offering of the Lord.”

Okay, so there’s the specifications. They’re corrupt. Their sin is very great. And this is the same word where Samuel becomes great and great and great. Their sin is growing and growing, getting bigger and bigger. So as Samuel is growing in obedience, the bad sons—Eli’s sons—are growing in disobedience.

And at the center then of that general description is what the specification of the charge is. What did they do wrong? Well, they didn’t burn the fat first.

Now, the fat—we don’t know why, but in Leviticus the fat is special. It’s dedicated. In any offering, the fat of it is dedicated to God. Can’t eat the fat. Now you can eat fat in food, you know. You can infer from that the fat’s the best part, and there’s nothing wrong with eating fat in food. You can infer from that only God should eat fat, so it’s bad for us. We can infer a lot of things about that. We don’t really know why, but we know this much: we know the priests were not supposed to eat the fat, and we know that is exactly what Eli’s two sons do. They eat the fat.

Now, what’s that telling us? That’s telling us that Eli’s sons are not putting God first. You see, He said, “Here’s this big chunk of meat, and you priests can have an awful lot of it, but you got to put me first with your sacrificial work. You got to put me first in what’s offered. You got to give me the fat.” They refused to put God first.

Now, this has a direct reference to us putting God first in the worship of the church. It means prioritizing the worship of the church. This is how the world begins—on the Lord’s day. And if we fail to put God first by failing to properly prioritize worship and gathering with him, then we’re moving toward the track of Eli’s sons.

It says more than that. Of course, we could draw an inference that this, of course, was the vocation of Eli’s sons, right? They’re working. This is their work. And in all of our work, we’re supposed to put God first. He claims ownership over everything, and he wants us to prioritize him in how we go about our work and our vocation.

The priests are a picture of everybody else. There’s a religious transaction. Jesus says in the book of Revelation that occurs on the Lord’s day: “Come buy for me—sap for your eyes so you can see and find clothes. Buy at no price. God graciously gives it to us.” There’s a transaction in worship. That’s why I think economic transactions are not to be done on the Lord’s day—and put off—not because they’re bad, but because they’re prioritized with this first: putting God first in our economic transactions, in our transactions on the Lord’s day.

So what it says is that the work of the priest is a picture or model for the work of you—as you’re a priest—consecrating your workplace to God. You’re to put God first in your job. Now I don’t know what that means to you. I don’t know the specifics of how you’re going to do that. I know there’s one economic specific we’ll talk about in a minute. But you should do it. You should get up every day. If you’re going off to a vocation some way, you put God first. No matter what happens that day, you may be tempted not to put God first. May be tempted to put yourself first or somebody else first.

Don’t do it. Because then you’re drifting toward Eli’s sons—into destruction and judgment. Put God first in your vocation. Put God first in your offering, your money, your production. Because that’s ultimately what’s being talked about here: is the people brought this stuff forward to God, and they were supposed to take the best of their flocks and bring those forward to God.

Putting God first means putting God first in our money—private stuff being touched now by the pastor. But this is what it means. You should be tithing. I believe that’s true. Now, some people don’t believe in tithing. They think that’s Old Testament; that we should be offering. Well, we could talk about that. But what we cannot talk about—what we cannot disagree about—is the scriptures clearly say that we’re to put God first, whether it’s our tithes or our offerings. We’re to put God first.

Now, in this church, if you’re a member, we believe in tithing, and you sign a covenant saying you’re going to do that. We’re not binding your conscience, but we are binding your actions, and you’re supposed to put God first.

And the way we see that, in money and in your production of your wealth, is to bring forward the tithes and offerings to God and worship. So God claims the first part of everything. He wants us to put him first by prioritizing worship. He wants us to put him first by seeing the implication of this for our vocations. And he wants us to put him first in our money.

Now, the Lord God is gracious, and he forgives. And maybe you’re thinking of ways you didn’t do that right this last week, month, or year. You can do it today. The Lord God forgives you your sins. The good news is this is what he’s called you to do and empowered you to do.

The word of God comes to you as it came to these sons of Eli. Eli’s sons didn’t hear the word of God in that they didn’t obey it, and they were killed in one day. And their dad, who didn’t do anything about it, his neck was broken.

You see, that’s not what we want. Put God first, or else face the destruction of all these things.

“Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” Except the Lord build your house—by you obeying his instructions to put worship first—you’re laboring in vain to build your house. Then if it’s some kind of secondary thing, if you put God’s tithe or his offerings in front of or behind yours, you’re building in vain. And if you try to build your vocation by not putting God first and just tacking them on to the end of the day or something, you’re building that vocational house in vain.

And you young men searching for a vocation—I know it’s hard in this day and age, but you know, if you just pledge to God that you want to honor him and serve him above all other things, that’s the most important step for you as you seek out vocational calling from God. Putting God first and a commitment to it.

These wicked sons of Eli don’t do that. And as a result, they’re going to die.

Now, we’re to put God first in our families as well. So the contrast here is not just between these wicked sons, but—look, by the way—one other thing before we move on: they tell God’s people that if you don’t give us the stuff first, if you try to take the fat out and honor God first, we’re going to take the meat from you by force.

Now, there’s something very significant about that statement being included here. This kind of force or compulsion, you know, is the kind of raw power manipulation of other people that is of the ungodly line of Lamech. He was the big guy to do everything by force and beat people up. That’s not our way. It’s not our way. Well, they were that way.

So if we don’t put God first, we become kind of monsters coercing other people. They didn’t put other people in their proper place either. You see, they should have thought of the other people—the people of Israel—as more important than themselves. We’re to put other people first as well. We put God first. And if we think that’s just a hard attitude or just between us and God—no, no, no, no, no. If you think you put God first and don’t prioritize your respect and submission to the authorities of God in the family, church, workplace, and state, you got it all wrong.

John says, “You know, how can you say you love God whom you haven’t seen if you don’t love your neighbor whom you have seen?” People that don’t put God first don’t put other people before themselves either, and they end up prioritizing themselves above other people.

Now, there’s a contrast in houses. Samuel ministered before the Lord even as a child, wearing a linen ephod. So the priestly work of Samuel—there’s a priestly aspect of childhood. Just do what you’re told. That’s what Samuel does here.

And then we have this nice little section in the middle of these two references to Samuel growing before the Lord—about the household:

“Moreover, his mother used to make him a little robe, bring it to him year by year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.”

See, they put God first. They knew what they were supposed to do in Jerusalem. They did it. They put God first.

“Eli would bless Elcana and his wife and say, ‘The Lord give you descendants from this woman for the loan that was given to the Lord.’”

Now, that’s a word that’s translated different ways, and we could talk about it, but the idea is that Hannah had dedicated her firstborn to God. She asked for a son that she would loan, give—she was given a gift, I don’t know. But the idea is the prioritization of the first of her children to God, you see.

And by way of illustration for that, this blessedness of Elcana’s family is in contrast with Eli’s family. And in Elcana’s house, they worshiped God by doing the annual festival at Jerusalem. They brought up the sacrifice. They worshiped him with the first of their produce. They put God first in his worship and in their money. They put God first in their family. They saw their firstborn son as dedicated or given to the Lord. And as a result of that, God gives them five more children.

See, Hannah had prayed in her song—you know, that confidently—that God would enlarge her house, but the one that has many children will be destroyed. Well, that’s Eli. We don’t see it in the text at that time. But as the story unfolds, the one who has a couple of kids here—two sons—his house is going to be destroyed. And Hannah and Elcana’s house is going to grow.

Now, Elcana was polygamous. That’s bad. He’s human. Some sins made—I don’t know how it happened—but he’s forgiven, and he’s dedicated himself to God. And some of you know, we all have sins, so we can identify with Elcana. But we should want to identify with Elcana and Hannah as those people that build their house by prioritizing God.

Unless the Lord build the house, they build their house upon God, and that’s demonstrated—see—the primacy of God over their household is demonstrated in them giving Samuel to the work of the Lord, you see, dedicating him in that way. So we’re to prioritize God in our families, in our homes, you see.

So putting God first in our worship, in our vocation, in our money, and putting God first in our homes with evident demonstrations of religious consecration—the consecration of our money, consecration of our children to the service of God. You want your house to grow like Hannah and Elcana? Well, then follow them. Put God first.

And very specifically, they put God first with their children. Their children are consecrated and dedicated to God. The first stands for the rest. You can’t tithe and then use the money whatever way you please. You got great liberty to use that money, but you can’t use it sinfully. It’s still for the purposes of Christ’s kingdom. So the part stands for the whole. The first child to Elcana and Hannah stand for all their children. And their children were seen as consecrated to God.

Eli failed in this very respect.

So this contrast between Eli’s sons and Samuel—his true son—and the contrast now between householders: Eli’s house and the house of Elcana and Hannah. And so we have this great importance of putting God first in our homes: putting God first in our homes.

Now we have the contrast again between Samuel and his house with Eli.

“Now Eli was very old. He heard everything his sons did to all Israel and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.”

Well, here’s the second charge. They sin against God by this specification of laying with the virgins at the temple.

Now, in Exodus 38:8—very not a verse very well known—we’re not going to turn to it, but in Exodus 38:8, it says that there were virgins, young women, who served God at the tabernacle. The story of Jephthah, people think he killed his daughter. He didn’t kill his daughter. The word whole burnt offering means to go up or ascend, and she went, became a virgin at the tabernacle. So this is what he did: he caused her to do that at the tabernacle. And this is the kind of women that these two priests—Hophni and Phineas (that’s an ironic name in light of this)—they commit adultery.

Now when it gets to the specification of what God tells—when God tells Eli, “I’m going to destroy your sons,” he’s going to say, “Because they didn’t put me first with the offerings.” It’s kind of interesting.

Modern analogy would be: pastor, you know, steals the tithe, runs off with the money and with church secretary. And we are more—usually we’re more morally indignant over sexual affairs than we are with, you know, theft of the offering, typically. Well, that’s because we’ve lost a sense of the honor and glory of God and putting God first. God says that, you know, it’s the theft of the offering stuff—the failure to put him first with money and with the worship service—that is the primary reason.

So there’s a, you know, I’m not saying sexual sin is not important. It is. The text is telling us here: you know, idolatry and adultery are connected in the scriptures. They’ve got a failure to control their appetites, right? Their food appetites and their sexual appetites. In Proverbs, you know, the adulteress commits adultery, then she wipes her lips off and thinks she’s done nothing wrong. There’s a connection, you see, between adultery and eating.

Throughout Proverbs we train young men and young women not to become adulterous or fornicators by training them to be disciplined in their eating habits. You see, it’s just appetites—sexual or with food. And these guys are undisciplined because they don’t put God first.

And here’s another specification. They sin with these young women, and the onus is put upon them—just like with David and Bathsheba—the primary problem is David. Bathsheba sinned. These young women, you know, we don’t know—maybe it was forcible rape, I don’t know. But the point is the text wants us to see the importance of the leaders who are supposed to be taking care of these young gals as priests, actually abusing that privilege.

So these are wicked guys—these are wicked guys.

And Eli hears about this. So 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 a good report that I hear. You make the Lord’s people transgress.”

See that? The importance of leaders—fathers—you make your kids transgress when you don’t put God first. Church elders, if you don’t exercise church discipline, you make people transgress. There’s a covenantal responsibility to priests. And specifically here, it’ll come to Eli for his role in all of this. They make God’s peoples transgress.

“If one man sins against another, God will judge him. But if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him?”

Well, Eli’s got that right. Eli is part right, part wrong—but mostly wrong. But Eli’s got it right: this is bad what they’re doing. And it’s bad because specifically he knew more than we do. He knew it was bad because they didn’t put God first.

So as we start this year, if we don’t renew our commitment to put God first in our worship, vocation, money, sexuality, our families—you see—then we know less than Eli did. We got to put God first.

“Nevertheless, they did not heed the voice of their father because the Lord desired to kill them.”

Well, we think, “What is that?” Well, you see, they had committed capital crimes here: capital crime not to put God first in the offering of things in the offering, capital crime to commit adultery this way, you see. That’s capital crime. And God did want to spare them—might have brought them brought them forgiveness, but he didn’t want to spare. He wanted to kill them.

God wants to kill certain people. We’ll talk about that next week, you know. Murder is a bad deal. You know, it isn’t just something that’s kind of inconvenient or too bad or whatever. God is the one who brings capital judgment against people. He’s going to do it with these people. He’s going to kill them. God is not pro-life indiscriminately, you see. He’s pro his honor and glory and the well-being of the world. And that well-being is suit and advanced through capital punishment. That’s what he does here. He desires to kill him.

“And the child grew in stature and in favor both with the Lord and men.”

So you see, we have this contrast, don’t we? And now we’ve got—whether we’re going to put God first in our homes or not—appetites for sexuality, etc. So we want to put God first. And this story is a story where these guys didn’t put God first.

All right. The next part of the text—the part we did not read—is about the two statements against Eli the priest. Verse 27, chapter 2, is on your handouts—it’s the next page.

“Man of God came to Eli, said to him: ‘Thus says the Lord, did I not clearly reveal myself the house of your fathers when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh’s house?’”

Notice that. Mark that. Make a little note in your mind or piece of paper. There’s a reference to Egypt here. So he says, “I revealed myself to you. And then not only did I reveal myself, I chose your household out of all the tribes to offer upon my altar. And third, I gave to the house of your fathers all the offerings of the children of Israel.”

Judgment begins with a recitation of the good graces of God toward this man, toward the priestly line that he had come from. He says, “Look, you represent all the priests, and look at all the blessings I gave you.” You see, when we discipline our children, we should remind them of the good gifts of God, the grace of God that God has brought to them. When we discipline people in the congregation or civilly, you see, God begins by citing the good gracious stuff that he did for them. It’s not his fault, you see—it’s not his fault that they sin. He reminds them of those great things.

And then he says, verse 29: “Why do you kick at my sacrifice, my offering? You see, he’s not—he’s not talking about the sexual sin. That’s important, but he’s talking about the failure to give God the fat, the first of the offerings which I have commanded in my dwelling place and honor your sons more than me to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people.”

I’ve got it structured the way it does because there’s several references to Eli’s house. Then there’s a reference to the dwelling place of God. And then there’s a bunch more references to Eli’s house. The contrast is that Eli has his house, his family. He’s enriching it. This text tells us—as opposed to the dwelling place of God—he hasn’t prioritized God’s house first. He hasn’t established his house based upon putting God first. And God’s going to rip down his house.

And why does the judgment come upon Eli? You know, this is the statement about what’s he’s done wrong. Then it’s going to have a statement of what God’s going to do to him because of what he’s done wrong.

At the center of the charge against him is him honoring his sons more than honoring God. He fails to put God first, you see. He’s contrasted with Hannah and Elcana, isn’t he? They put God first with their kids. Their kids were dedicated to God. God was more important to them than their kids. And to Eli, his sons were more important to him ultimately than God. Oh, he tried to jawbone them and talk them out of it, but he wouldn’t restrain them. The text is going to say he honors his household more than he honors God.

I have been concerned for the twenty some years I’ve been pastoring—and I understand that you know there’s something to be said for this perspective—but I’ve been very concerned over the years. Had several discipline cases involving families, and you know, all the families always want to say, “Well, we have to unconditionally love our kids, and we can’t, you know, treat them as excommunicates in the context of the family.” You know, I don’t understand that. It seems to me, as best I can understand, that’s the sin of Eli: it’s wanting to honor our children more than we honor God. We’ve got to be willing to restrain them.

Now, when it says that in the text, you know what it says? The word “restrain” that’s used—where is this used? Uh, well, there it is. Look down at chapter 3, verse 13. This is in the second statement. We have this man of God coming and talking to Eli. Now we have Samuel—God talking to him in chapter 3:13. God tells Samuel, “I’ve told him I’ll judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows about, because his sons made themselves vile by putting themselves first, and he did not restrain them.”

Our obligation is not just to jawbone our children. It’s to restrain them. But it’s an interesting word, this word “restrain.” You know what it means? He didn’t put out their lights. That’s what it means literally. His eyes grow dim. God is putting out his light. And it’s the same word here. This word “restrain” means to go dark—means to go so bad that God just takes you out.

Now, you know, it’s like that funny line from *O Brother, Where Art Thou?* You know, he says, “I’m the pater familias—I’m the head of this family.” And then Rome—the power of the father of the family, the pater familias—he could take kid out like that. Funny Bill Cosby line: “I brought you into this world; I can take you out.” Well, that’s what they thought and practiced in Rome. The dads could do that at one time in Roman history. That’s not what he’s talking about here. But he is saying you had an obligation—not just to bring some corrections to them with your words, or not even just to—when they were kids, spank them. You had an obligation when they did this stuff. You had an obligation to take them out of office and actually to ask the civil magistrate to proceed with criminal charges and to see them executed.

That’s why God wanted him killed. He desired them to be executed for their sins. They repented—great. Still going to execute him. You see, Eli put his sons’ honor above the honor of God. He honored his sons more than he honored God. And the demonstration of that was a failure to excommunicate him, a failure to exercise church discipline, a failure to want the civil magistrate to exercise strong discipline against them, you see—a failure to restrain them in the ultimate sense, to remove their light.

Now, notice something here. These are not little kids. These are grown men. And judgment doesn’t come to them. The word of judgment comes to Eli. Now, there’s some redemptive historical stuff going on there. You got the head priest and the priestly line that’s going to be cut off. It says that God says, “I’m going to raise up a faithful priest.” He’s not talking about Samuel here; ultimately he’s talking about Jesus. But in between time, years later, Eli’s line—the end of his line—is a guy named Abiathar, and he’s going to be cut off as high priest and Zadok is going to become the new line.

So there is a transition from who gets the high priestly lineage coming down from Aaron that’s happening here. And so, you know, Aaron’s house is going to be established through a separate genealogical line through a guy named Zadok, which is important for intertestamental history. And we’ve talked about that. We talked about Daniel. The point is a more faithful priest is going to be raised up, and Eli’s house is going to be struck down. And there’s clearly redemptive historical stuff.

He’s head of the priestly line, and these are priests. He should have taken them out. But this is a family, and the text has self-consciously contrasted Eli and his kids with Elcana and Hannah and their kids. So there’s a very important application to make in our families, you know, here in the church, in your home.

Eli’s kids were not little. They didn’t live with him anymore. They lived someplace else. But God’s judgment comes to Eli. He’s the head of that house. You see, he’s the head of the family. We’re the head of families. Even when our kids move out, covenantal headship is not geographically determined in the Bible. I don’t know. You know, there’s nothing in there that says that when a guy’s supposed to leave and cleave, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not going to live next to dad or even in his house. A lot of times they do—in many countries in the world. Well, they have to, economically. It’s not a sin. He’s supposed to leave the covenantal oversight of his family and establish his own covenantal oversight. Now, he’s still got some bound, you know, but some relationship back to dad, but it’s a covenantal leaving.

These kids, you know, they’re not geographically with dad. And yet, dad is being held accountable for their sins, responsible. They’re old guys, and dad is being held responsible that if he can, he’s supposed to put their lights out.

Now, I think what that means is if we’ve got adult kids—dads, and we’re getting older, aren’t we?—we got grandkids now, many of us. Well, it means we have responsibility for our children, too. Now, it’s changed when they establish their own home and all that stuff. I know that. But I’m saying you can’t just write it off because some young man moves out of the house or even gets married. And young men, understand that what you’re doing has implications for your family line.

My son Ben had a license plate tour on it, you know, kind of made me feel good. But it also increases culpability, right? You know, it’s like our van out there. You don’t want to drive that thing wrong when it’s got “Reformation Covenant Church” on the side of it. You want to do good out there because you’re bearing witness to the church’s name. And Ben bears witness to the name of the Tuuri family, you see? Well, the same thing’s true, man—granddads. You have responsibility. And young man, understand that your actions—I don’t care where you live—your actions say something about your parents, and your parents have to be responsible to help keep you in line, and if necessary, take you out. Go to the church and say, “Excommunicate him. He’s sinning.” You see? Go to the state and say, “He’s broken the law. Deal with him.” Don’t kick against that responsibility.

Parents, we’re we’re prone. You know, I—when I sent this sermon title out—sent out a series of sermon titles to John Anger for songs for the next couple months, and somehow John Stew got on the distribution list down in Sacramento. And he said, “I just got to ask: who else would you put first?” Well, you know, we put all kinds of things first before God, don’t we? I mean, let’s be honest. We put our own desires and wants first—economically, vocationally. And so often, you know, we can put the well-being of our sons more important than God. We honor them more than we honor God with our actions. Maybe not with our heart, with our words. But so often we’re we’re prone to this. We’re prone not to want to hold our kids responsible.

You know, if you’ve been like that in your life as a dad, repent right now. Tell God in your heart, “Lord God, I’m sorry for honoring my children more than honoring you. I must restrain them to whatever degree I can.” That’s what God wants out of us.

There’s a funny word here—Phineas. You know, if you know the story of Phineas in the Bible, it’s a very important name. There was an earlier Phineas—long before, in the time of the wilderness—where there, you know, Balaam’s strategy: the only way to get God’s people to lose is to get them to sin against God. That’s the only way. He’s turned against them. There’s no enchantment. I always love Psalm 13. There’s no enchantment against Israel, no divination against Jacob. Balaam said, “We can’t be hexed by anybody.”

But we don’t worry about superstitions. But what we should worry about was Balaam’s strategy. He brings in the pretty Midianite women and seduces the men of Israel. That’s what they send in. That’s the Balaam strategy: get God’s people to sin, and God won’t hear their prayers and won’t deliver. He’ll turn against them. That’s what he does here. So the judgment of God comes against Israel in the wilderness, and the plagues happening. And Phineas gets up, takes a spear, and he spears a couple embracing one another—an Israelite man and a Midianite woman. And it’s a member of his own family, own tribe. And because Phineas does that, you see, the Levites then get restored from their curse when they put their family first. When they did sinful things against their God, long story here—confusion—but suffice it to say that the word Phineas, the name Phineas, is a name of a guy who put the honor of God as more important than honoring his tribe. And because of that, the Lord God exalted his tribe, you see, another picture.

Are you willing to throw the spear through your children? Are you willing to restrain them, excommunicate them, take them to the civil magistrate if they’ve done a capital crime? Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to say those things to them in love? I think you can do that in love. But to do it—well, Eli didn’t. And so his Phineas committed adultery, and dad wouldn’t throw the spear. And so the judgment upon Eli’s house is great.

We are responsible to put God first in our vocations, in our worship. We’re here putting God first with our time. And we’re using our money with tithes and offerings to put God first—with our vocation by which we made this money—and to put him first with our offerings. We’re doing exactly the opposite of what Eli’s sons did. I hope that we could be doing here and going through the same ritual and not putting God first in our hearts, and then we’d fall into the same judgment.

We’re here praying that the Lord God—we’re praying, confident, God will establish our homes, building our homes upon the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing he’ll establish them. But in order for that prayer to be effective, in order for that to be real in the year, we’ve got to honor God more than we honor our children, our grown children, if necessary. You see, we’ve got to put God first. That’s the one string of this banjo today.

The Lord God calls us to do that.

Now, the end result of this story is significant for us. I don’t know about you, but frankly, if we hear a sermon about putting God first in a general sense, we can say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re doing that.” But in a very specific sense, I’m sure that there are things you did this last week, month, year, or maybe for many years where you didn’t put God first—where you honored yourself, your wife, your kids, your husband, your church, whatever it is—your institutional church, your neighbors—you honored them more than God.

We all can think of ways we’ve done that. We can feel guilty.

What follows this story in 1 Samuel is an Exodus story. It’s real interesting. There’s, you know, Philistines come and they wage war against Israel at Aphek. And one day, Phineas and Hophni—Hophni and Phineas—they’re killed. And then Eli hears about it. He falls off that throne chair. That’s what it was—throne chair. That picture is a good one. Falls over backwards. He’s so heavy, you see. Self-glory—glorifying himself, honoring himself and his kids more than God. And that’s what kills him. It breaks his neck. He got breaks off his authority, his power, his house in one day.

And also what happened there was the ark of God is taken into captivity. Exile story. And while God’s in captivity, he destroys Dagon and at the threshold—the power place of his temple. He goes around there—all these boils against the Philistines. Wherever he goes, he sends them to the five different major cities. They get boils and tumors and stuff. And they use the words—as this text did—Egypt. Egypt. This is Egypt happening again.

And then God is sent away by them. And he’s sent away on a cart, you remember the story if you know your Bible, laden with these golden things—hemorrhoids, tumors, rats, whatever they were, big lumps of gold—go with him as he comes out. What is it? Well, it’s another Exodus story. The people of God go into exile in Egypt. They come out of Egypt through the mighty hand. God plagues the Egyptians and Pharaoh with boils and different kinds of curses. God works against the gods of Egypt. Right? He brings them out laden with gold from the Egyptians. He plunders them and brings them into the promised land.

So that’s what this is, right? Very explicit ties. The Philistines actually are the tied themselves in Genesis 10, the table of nations. The Philistines are descendants of Mizraim, who was the founder of Egypt. The Philistines are Egyptians. So we got Egyptians, God going into exile in Egypt, tumors and judgments against them, coming out laden with gold, and while he’s there, he destroys the gods of Egypt—the gods of the Philistines.

What’s the difference? The difference is God’s people don’t go into captivity. God does. God’s people aren’t exiled. God takes that upon himself. God’s people don’t have to pay the price for our failure to put him first. The Lord Jesus did that, right? He went to the cross for us. He went to exile for us. He took upon himself the punishments of our sin. And when he did that, like Aslan at the stone table, he defeats the gods of Egypt—the gods of the Philistines. He defeats all of our enemies. And when he ascends and returns to us through the power of the spirit, he brings gifts to men. He’s laden with powerful gifts, and he empowers his people.

Yeah, we’ve sinned. We have not put God first in the past year. We desire to put God first in the new year. And God says, “Yeah, you can do that because Jesus Christ, the greater ark of the covenant, the presence of God himself, died for your sins, defeated your enemies, came out victorious, and has brought you into the promised land of his blessing.”

May the Lord God grant us in this new year a year of great blessedness and joy and rewards and blessings in this church. May he expand our outreach into our community. May he expand your house. May he give you children and grandchildren, or if not children, may he expand your ministry and what you can do in your relationship. If you’re single, may he grant you an increasing knowledge and commitment to serve him explicitly.

May God build our houses—the house of this church, the house of your family, his civil house—as we impact the neighborhoods round about us in our state—Oregon and Washington—for God as well. May God grant us the expansion and the expansion of his house.

Samuel had a robe. Every year it grew. Every year mom bring him a new robe. What’s the robe in the Bible? It’s the thing of authority and power. Eli’s power—the throne broken off. Samuel’s power, indicated by the robe, gets bigger, bigger, bigger every year. You see, that’s where to be. Our influence, our blessings from God, our authority to rule for him is to grow and grow and grow. And in Christ, it will, if we put God first—in our vocations, money, worship, our homes, and one another.

Lord, God is so good to us. May he indeed grant us blessing and expansion of his kingdom made visible in our homes and our church and our communities this year.

Let’s pray.

Father God, give us a sense of putting God first. Help us to keep the visual imagery of this text before us—these contrasts between Eli’s wicked sons and their failure to use their offerings correctly and in their sexual appetites, Lord God, and their despising you. Help us to keep that image contrasted with Samuel, who grew in piety and obedience, who brought your word, Lord God, to Samuel.

Help us, Father, put your word first in this year. We love the way this text comes to a conclusion by drawing a relationship between your revelation to us and your word, the word spoken to Samuel and the word spoken to us by your spirit through your inscriptured word. Help us, Father, to put your word first in our lives this year.

Help us to grow our homes based upon a commitment to honor you more than ourselves or our children. Help us, Lord God, to put you first in everything that we do and say. May we, Lord God, stream forward now with our tithes and offerings with it being our very heart’s intention—by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the great work of the greater ark, the greater Samuel, the Lord Jesus Christ—and bringing us into victory through his power. Grant us, Lord God, that we come forward committed to putting you first in everything in this new year in Jesus name we ask it.

Amen.