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South Bay SDA Church

Jeremy Arnall

A Sacred Trust: Reverence

Lord, help us to comprehend the magnitude of this moment.

Help our hearts to be softened and subdued, to be humbled.

Help us to catch a glimpse of your glory.

So Lord, please wash us, cleanse us, cleanse me, fill me, fill each 1 of us, prepare us for glory.

We've come to worship you and to do that, Lord, help us to comprehend reverence, for without it how could we ever worship?

She wanted 1 in the worst way, a baby that is.

I'm talking to you this morning about reverence, yes, but I'm also wanting to speak to all of us, especially those who have children still at home, about the important role of being a parent.

Before you tune me out, if you don't have young children any longer, this is still for you.

Because Reverence is not just something we need to train the children.

So as I was saying, she wanted 1 in the worst way, a baby that is.

She, you see, and her husband had tried for some time but still to no avail.

So she finally, when you get to this point you start to make promises like this, she finally got to the point where she promised God that if she, if he would give her a child, She would give that child to him for his work.

All she wanted was for him to open her womb.

And thus God introduced to the world a little boy named Samuel.

Hannah and the Levite Elkanah would go on to have 5 more children.

But they would give the firstborn to the Lord when he was weaned.

During those first years of life, they would have to do all within their power to guide, to direct in the ways of God.

But their time with Samuel would be short.

You know it's interesting when you think of Moses, who by the way is in heaven right now according to Jude.

When you think of Joseph, When you think of some of the Bible greats, God demonstrated the power through men like Moses and through men like Samuel of the powerful influence a parent has in those first few fleeting years of life.

Open your Bibles, will you, to 1 Samuel chapter 1.

According to tradition, babies would be typically weaned from nursing around the year of about 3.

I shouldn't say according to tradition, that's just the way it seems to be.

Yet some believe that Samuel could have been a little older than that.

Perhaps he might have been as old as 5, maybe even older, but we, from everything we gather, Samuel was likely 3 to 5 years old when he was taken to be with priest Eli at the temple.

Today parents struggle and rightfully so to turn their children or set them out at the age of 14 or 15 for high school, or even 17 or 18 for college.

But imagine having to leave your youngster at 3 or 5 years of age for the service of the Lord at the temple.

And I mean yes, well what better place to put your child than at the house of the Lord?

But this house needed some house cleaning.

Most would think that the temple would be a safe place, yes, but 1 must remember the conditions of the temple during this time.

Eli's 2 sons, you see, hadn't turned out so well.

They were corrupt, evil in their ways, And yet Eli still appointed them to serve as priest in the sanctuary.

So as a parent, taking your child to the sanctuary, to the temple, and to deposit him there in the care of Eli, who couldn't even manage his own 2 sons, why, this would be a daunting, daunting task.

As the people, you see, would bring their sacrifices and offerings, Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas, would take what wasn't theirs.

They would threaten the people with violence, and they were known on occasion to sleep around with the women that would come there.

Treating the temple, you see, more like a heathen shrine than the house of the Lord.

Indeed, the church of the day was corrupt, Eli largely responsible for the problem, yet here amidst the dysfunctional home, in this, yes, supposed place of worship, young Samuel was to be placed.

It's interesting, if I just might take a side, it's been speculated, and I can't help but find it intriguing, I'll just share it with you, that 1 commentator stated that the name Samuel means asked of God.

But when you look at the word for asked in the original language, it sounds pretty much like Saul.

And Samuel would later be the 1 that would have to speak with God about Israel's request for a king.

And thus it makes 1 wonder if only They had stayed with what God had provided.

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 had brought up.

So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

Also before they burned 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.

If the man said to him, they should surely 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 were very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord." But Samuel, I want you to notice how interweaved within this story you have this comparing and contrasting.

Obviously, it appears that the Bible writer wants us to see the contrast between Samuel and Hophni and Phinehas, between how he developed and between how they developed, both being raised to a great extent, at least with Samuel, and fully with Eli, both being raised by the same man.

But Samuel ministered before the Lord even as a child, wearing a linen ephod, which was reminiscent of what a priest would have.

Moreover, his mother used to make him a little robe and bring it to him year by year.

And then she came up with her husband, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.

And Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, the Lord give you descendants from this woman, for the loan that was given to the Lord, and then they would go to their own home.

And the Lord visited Hannah so that she conceived and bore 3 sons and 2 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.

Now, no, my sons, for it is not a good report that I hear.

If 1 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." Can I just add there, some try to take that text and totally distort it?

Just like it says God hardened Pharaoh's heart, oftentimes the writer will give a credit to God, something that is simply a way of saying, this is what God will do because of what they have chosen.

That's a whole study in itself, but just don't let that rattle you too much there.

Verse 26, and the child Samuel grew in stature and in favor with both Lord and men.

Then the man of God came to Eli and said to him, thus says the Lord, did I not clearly reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house?

Did I not choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon my altar, to burn incense and to bear an ephod before me?

And did I not give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire.

Why do you kick at my sacrifice and my offering, which I have commanded in my dwelling place?

To make yourselves, notice how the word, it's written there, to make yourselves, who's he talking to?

To make yourselves, Eli, fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel, my people.

Sometimes we are better at telling other kids what to do than we are our own.

We know this in part because we see it more than once, but perhaps most apparently when he saw Hannah there praying in chapter 1, He sees her moving her lips, but he hears no audible sound.

Therefore, he surmises that she must be drunk, and he confronts her with it, only to find out that in reality she's praying for a child.

And when hearing and realizing her authentic plea, he is a bit put back, or how do I say it?

He is a bit sobered by what she possesses and what he lacks.

So while he could speak a strong word to others, he couldn't seem to do so with his own sons.

The Bible says he was nearly blind in his old age, which is rather ironic given the blind eye that he had cast towards his own sons.

When you consider the layout of the first 3 chapters of 1st Samuel, you sense that we are to compare and contrast the lives of Eli's sons with the life of Samuel.

You find Eli's sons mentioned in Samuel, then the sons, then Samuel and so forth.

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A Sacred Trust: Reverence

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