1. "Instead of reflecting God's character like a clean, flat mirror, Israel's leaders and their own character presented an image that was a disgusting distortion."

2. "The altar does not sanctify the priest. Position does not guarantee godliness."

3. "We as a congregation do not have the power to keep anyone from sinning unrepentantly. But Jesus has given us the solemn authority to prevent them from doing it as members of this church. We can't stop anyone from sinning, but we can take off the Team Jesus jersey that they're wearing as they persist in it unrepentantly."

4. "There's a difference between knowing the right thing, saying the right thing, and doing the right thing. You can know the right thing but not say it. Like Eli, you can say the right thing but not do it."

5. "Every sin involves taking the wrong side in a competitive contest of honor. When their claims conflict, who will you honor more? God or yourself? God or your parents? God or your children?"

6. "Count on it. If you dishonor God, then sooner or later, now or in eternity, he will see to it that you are dishonored."

7. "God's answer is not to get rid of leadership, but to provide a leader who will be faithful to him. His answer isn't to get rid of his demands or soften his demands, but to enable someone to fulfill them."

8. "Too often, instead of submitting to God's judgment on us, we sit in judgment on him."

9. "Those standards you're so keen to apply to other people and see how they fall short, hold them up to yourself as a mirror. Don't be blinded by self-righteousness when other people's sins are so obvious. Ask whether your own sins are that obvious to you."

10. "You can die of starvation both from lack of access to food and lack of appetite. You can perish with the meal sitting right there in front of you."

Observation Questions

1. According to 1 Samuel 2:12-17, what specific sins did Eli's sons commit regarding the sacrifices, and how did the text describe their fundamental spiritual condition in verse 12?

2. In 1 Samuel 2:22-25, what did Eli hear about his sons' behavior, and what was his response when he confronted them about it?

3. What does 1 Samuel 2:29 reveal about the charge God brought against Eli through the prophet, particularly regarding whom Eli honored?

4. In 1 Samuel 2:30-35, what consequences did God pronounce upon Eli's house, and what promise did God make about raising up "a faithful priest"?

5. According to 1 Samuel 3:1, what was the spiritual condition of Israel regarding God's word at the beginning of the chapter, and how does this contrast with the description in 3:19-21?

6. In 1 Samuel 3:10-14, what message did God give Samuel to deliver to Eli, and what reason did God give for the severity of His judgment?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is the statement that Eli's sons "did not know the Lord" (2:12) so significant, given that they were serving as priests in God's tabernacle? What does this reveal about the relationship between religious position and genuine faith?

2. The sermon emphasized that Eli "knew and said the right thing but did not do it" (2:23-25). How does Eli's failure to remove his sons from the priesthood—despite having the authority to do so—help us understand the nature of his guilt before God?

3. What is the significance of God's statement in 2:30, "Those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed"? How does this principle help explain both God's judgment on Eli and His raising up of Samuel?

4. How does the promise of a "faithful priest" in 2:35 who will do "according to what is in my heart and in my mind" point beyond Samuel to an ultimate fulfillment, and why is this promise essential to understanding God's response to corrupt leadership?

5. The sermon noted that Israel went from "a famine of the word to feasting on the word" through Samuel's ministry. What does this transition (from 3:1 to 3:19-21) teach us about how God renews His people and addresses corruption among them?

Application Questions

1. The sermon asked whether you are ready and willing to "hear and do everything God says" as Samuel was (3:10). What specific area of Scripture have you been hearing but not obeying, and what concrete step could you take this week to move from knowing to doing?

2. Eli honored his sons above God by tolerating their sin rather than removing them from office. In what relationships or situations might you be tempted to honor someone's approval or affection above obedience to Christ, and how can you prepare yourself to choose faithfully?

3. The sermon challenged believers not to let God's word be "rare" in their lives. What practical changes could you make to your daily or weekly routine to ensure that Scripture has a more consistent and cleansing role in your life?

4. If you have been hurt by the hypocrisy or sin of professing Christians or church leaders, how does seeing God's unflinching judgment on Eli's house—combined with His promise of a faithful priest—help you process that pain and continue trusting in Christ?

5. The sermon emphasized that churches must practice discipline toward unrepentant members, not tolerating sin as Eli did. How can you personally contribute to a culture of loving accountability in your church community—both by inviting correction into your own life and by caring enough to speak truth to others?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Leviticus 7:28-36 — This passage provides the background for understanding the specific portions God assigned to priests and why Eli's sons' theft of sacrificial meat was such a grave offense against God's commands.

2. Numbers 15:27-31 — This passage explains the distinction between unintentional sins (which sacrifice could cover) and high-handed sins (which could not be atoned for), illuminating God's severe judgment on Eli's house in 1 Samuel 2:25 and 3:14.

3. Hebrews 7:23-28 — This passage describes Jesus as the perfect, eternal high priest who replaces the Levitical priesthood, showing the ultimate fulfillment of God's promise in 1 Samuel 2:35 to raise up a faithful priest.

4. 1 Timothy 3:1-7 — This passage outlines the character qualifications for church elders, demonstrating how the New Testament applies the lessons of Eli's failure to the ongoing life of the church.

5. Revelation 2:18-29 — This passage records Jesus' rebuke of the church in Thyatira for tolerating sin, directly paralleling Eli's failure and showing that Christ holds churches accountable for the unrepentant sin they permit among their members.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Question: Is Christian Hypocrisy a Valid Reason to Reject Christianity?

II. Point One: Rebellion—The Corruption of God's Appointed Leaders (1 Samuel 2:11-26)

III. Point Two: Rejection—God's Judgment on Eli's House (1 Samuel 2:27-36)

IV. Point Three: Renewal—God Raises Up Samuel as Faithful Prophet (1 Samuel 3:1-21)

V. Application: How God Responds to Hypocrisy and What This Means for Believers and Unbelievers

---

Detailed Sermon Outline

Is the sin of Christians a good reason to reject Christianity?

If you're not a believer in Jesus, would you give Christians bad behavior as a reason why you don't believe?

Across centuries and continents, haven't Christians not merely committed violent atrocities but done so in the name of Christ in order as they thought to advance his cause? You can think of the Crusades, or of the Thirty Years' War in the 17th century, which was one of Europe's bloodiest ever, and was fought by competing Christian factions. Or maybe your objection would come not from history, but from your own personal experience.

Maybe it comes from seeing Christians sin against others you love, or from suffering the effects of Christians' sins against you.

That suffering is often more profound and more disorienting when it's committed by someone who's in a position of spiritual leadership. All too often, those who profess faith in Christ are not merely sinful but hypocritical, not merely imperfect but living in ways that flagrantly blatantly contradict the character of Christ and the way he tells us to live. That's often true not just of professing Christians but of church leaders. It's sadly common for someone to come to a church expecting an alternative to the world but then only find more of the world beneath the surface. If the sins of Christians have made it harder for you to believe in Christ, I understand.

Something is seriously wrong. When the actions of Christians make God's Word not more attractive but repellent.

If this objection to Christianity resonates in your mind and heart, I've got a question for you. Assume for the sake of argument that the God of the Bible exists, that he is who he says he is. If that God exists, What do you think he thinks about his people's hypocrisy?

When God's people are corrupt, does God have anything to say about it? Does he have anything to do about it? This morning we continue a series in the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel. We'll consider chapter 2 verse 11 through all of chapter 3. You can find the passage on pages 226 and 227.

Of the Bibles and the seats. And like Troy mentioned, if you don't have a Bible, we'd be glad for you to take that one home with you and read it. The history that this book records takes place during the period of the judges. Israel is living in the land of Canaan, but they're in disarray spiritually, politically and morally. And as our passage is going to show, the appointed leaders of God's people were corrupt and hypocritical.

Instead of reflecting God's character like a clean, flat mirror, Israel's leaders and their own character presented an image that was a disgusting distortion. So the big question our passage answers is the one I've just posed: what does God do about the hypocrisy of his people?

We'll discover the answer in three steps as we walk through the passage. Rebellion, rejection, renewal. The first point is obviously the human problem. The second two are God's solution. Rebellion, rejection, renewal.

We'll see rebellion in chapter 2, verses 11 to 26.

Rejection in verses 27 to 36. And then renewal in all of chapter three. Point one, rebellion. The rebellion of God's appointed leaders is the dominant note of chapter 2:11-26. Now, our first sermon in this series left off at chapter 2:10.

At that point, God had answered the prayers of Hannah, who was a barren woman, and he'd given her a son, Samuel, and she gave that son Samuel back to the Lord to live in the temple and be devoted to his service. So, we pick up our story now in verse 11. Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, and the boy was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli the priest. So young Samuel is now an apprentice priest serving the Lord under the priest Eli's guidance. But all is not well in God's dwelling.

Look at verses 12 to 17.

Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord. The custom of the priests with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant would come while the meat was boiling with a three-pronged fork in his hand, and he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot. All that the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

Moreover, before the fat was burned, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, 'Give meat for the priest to roast, for he will not accept boiled meat from you, but only raw. And if the man said to him, 'Let them burn the fat first, and then take as much as you wish, he would say, 'No, you must give it now, and if not, I will take it by force. ' Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord, for the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt.

The crucial background to this passage is Leviticus chapter 7 verses 31 to 36 where the Lord provides specific portions of the sacrifices that are offered to be the priests' meat, to be their meals. So they were given the breast and the thigh, but the fat belongs to the Lord and it was to be burned up first before any meat was consumed. The point there is symbolic. The best belongs to God and he gets it first. Of course, the Lord doesn't need sacrifices.

His point in appointing this order and these portions is that the people of Israel would learn to put him first and give him the best in all that they do. But Eli's sons do exactly the opposite. Instead of being content with the portions assigned to them by law, they had their servants pillage the sacrificial meat while it's being cooked and they take whatever they want. Verse 15 specifies that before the fat was burned, the priest's servant would come in and demand meat. Then an Israel might try to remind the priest's servant of what God himself had said, let them burn the fat first.

That's a parody they're saying, Remember the Scripture. Wait your turn. What are you doing? That's what the everyday Israelite is saying to try to stop the priest. But at that point, the priest and their servants' hearts were so hardened and their consciences so deadened that instead of listening to a rebuke from God's word, they threatened violence.

To get what they wanted. Instead of serving Yahweh, the priests served themselves. Instead of putting Yahweh first, the priests literally cut in line in front of the Lord of the universe.

What's the root of their problem? Verse 12 tells us, They did not know the Lord. Now, that doesn't mean that they had a sort of innocent ignorance of him and they just lacked information. It means their hearts were not set on him. It means they didn't, live in a loving, devoted, submissive relationship to him.

That's the root of their problem. As Paul says, very similar characters in Titus 1:16, they profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. That's the root of their problem. And the fruit of their problem is unrestrained appetites.

Unbridled lusts. Because they didn't submit to God, they couldn't control themselves. Look again at verse 17. Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord, for the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt. Now, why did God care so much about how they treated his offering?

It's because it revealed their hearts posture toward him? Will you care more about a hunk of meat or about obeying the Lord of all? That's the test these priests faced and failed. They scorned God's offering and thereby scorned the God who ordained it. They showed that, as Paul says, their God is their belly.

The altar does not sanctify the priest. Position does not guarantee godliness. This is why Paul lays out character qualifications for men who would serve as elders in local churches in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. You can't appoint a man as an elder and then hope his character will live up to the standard. We as a congregation have to observe and assess and vet a man before appointing him to that office to discern as best we can whether his life matches those qualifications.

But now our scene cuts So let's back to Samuel. It's going to do this several times, from Eli and his sons to Samuel back and forth. Look at verses 18 to 21.

Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy clothed with a linen ephod, and his mother used to make for him a little robe. Take it to him each year when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, 'May the Lord give you children by this woman for the petition she asked of the Lord. They would return to their home. Indeed, the Lord visited Hannah, and she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters, and the boy Samuel grew in the presence of the Lord.

This passage is not a promise that if you give back to God what he has given you, he will mathematically multiply his blessings to you in some kind of five-fold way. Instead, it's simply reporting how our loving and generous God graciously dealt with one of his faithful servants. But we still see something of God's character in this passage. We see that God is more generous than you can conceive. We see that God delights to give good gifts to his children.

We also see that God loves to abundantly reward the sacrifices that we make for his sake. As one commentator put it, no sacrifice ever seems to impoverish one of Yahweh's servants. Or in the words of Jesus in Mark 10:29-30, Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. Be still, my soul, thy Jesus can repay from His own fullness all He takes away. The story again cuts back to Eli and his sons, and unlike this picture of devotion and prayer and blessing, we get an even worse picture of rebellion, corruption, and an ineffectual attempt to restrain sin.

Look at verses 22 to 26.

Now Eli was very old and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting. And he said to them, 'Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people.' no, my sons, it is no good report that I hear the people of the Lord spreading abroad. If someone sins against a man, God will mediate for But if someone sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him? But they would not listen to the voice of their father.

For it was the will of the Lord to put them to death. Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and also with man.

Here we learn of yet more wickedness on the part of Eli's sons. Like Eli, his sons were priests. And in addition to robbing the Lord through their gluttony, they also sinned against the Lord and other people and defiled God's holy dwelling by committing sexual immorality. The text doesn't tell us any more about the specifics of their sin, but this is more than enough. To paint a portrait of men who were utterly lacking in self-control, and utterly destructive to others around them.

While the term can be misused and overused, this is certainly an instance of what many today would call spiritual abuse. These men abused their position of spiritual leadership to serve their own sinful appetites. Eli doesn't commit these same sins necessarily. But he does hear about them. Verse 22 says he kept hearing about them.

Verse 24 says he heard about them from multiple reports. Now it's important to remember that Eli, in addition to being priest, is also judge. First Samuel 4:18 tells us that. So Eli is Israel's primary political and spiritual leader, which means Eli had the authority if he chose to get his sons out of the priesthood. There is no human authority that would have stopped him from doing that.

And he kept hearing over and over again about the wicked things his sons did. So here's what the text doesn't explicitly say but devastatingly implies: Eli heard about it. Eli had all the authority he needed to do something about it and he did nothing.

At the very least, Eli should have deposed his sons from the priesthood. As soon as he heard credible, confirmed reports of what his sons did, he should have divested them of their authority but he didn't. He let their sickness linger, he let their evil yeast spread. So when he pleads with his sons here in this passage, I think we're right to hear his appeal as a little bit tepid, a little passive, kind of pathetic. He does warn them and he speaks the truth.

But it's too little, too late. Dan Winger emailed me an insightful comment on these verses this week. He pointed out that there's a difference between knowing the right thing, saying the right thing, and doing the right thing. You can know the right thing but not say it. Like Eli, you can say the right thing but not do it.

Eli's question in verse 25 is haunting. If someone sins against a man, God will mediate for him, but if someone sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him? Eli's point is that if you sin against another human being, there are all sorts of ways in which our sovereign God can intervene and settle the dispute. But if you sin against God, who's going to plead your case? Who's going to be your third party arbitrator with the Creator of all?

Who's going to go talk to God for you and say, yeah, I really think you should go easy on him?

Eli's question is a photo negative of the gospel. He points out our need with no hint of the solution. What's the solution? 1 John 2:1-2. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Did Eli's appeal work? No, his sons didn't listen to him. And the second half of verse 25 tells us why.

But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death. You have to note the logical order here. It wasn't that the Lord willed to put them to death because they didn't listen to their father. It was that they didn't listen to their father because the Lord had willed. To put them to death.

This is exactly what we were studying this past Wednesday night in Bible study in Romans 917-18, verse 18, He has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills. And if the very next thought in your mind is, well then how can God be fair in punishing one and forgiving another if he ultimately decides who's gonna be softened by this appeal or hardened by that appeal? Well, Paul anticipates that very question in the very next verse. He should come back on Wednesday night at 7:00 PM.

Verse 26 concludes this section with a glimpse of the work God is doing in raising up Samuel. But before we get to more of that work, we first have to hear God's unflinching response to this corruption and hypocrisy among the leaders of his people. So that's our next point. Point two, rejection. Point two, rejection.

We see this in verses 26, excuse me, 27 to 36. God responds to this corruption by rejecting Eli and his whole family line, by deposing them from office, by imposing on them a punishment that is both fair and poetically fitting with the ways they've sinned against him. We see this punishment of rejection throughout verses 27 to 36. So first in verse 27, the narrator introduces an anonymous prophet who comes from God to denounce Eli. Look first at verses 27 and 28.

And there came a man of God to Eli and said to him, 'Thus says the Lord, 'Did I indeed reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt subject to the house of Pharaoh? Did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel? To be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me. I gave to the house of your father all my offerings by fire from the people of Israel. So here the Lord, speaking through his prophet, recites all the privileges that he's given to Eli as a priest and the ways he has provided for him.

His point about revealing himself in Egypt is that at the very beginning of Israel's life as a nation, God singled out Aaron and the other descendants of Levi to be priests and to have care over the tabernacle. So he chose that specific family line then the priesthood was hereditary. And the way God provided for these priests, as we've seen, was by giving them a portion of his offerings. That was their living. God saying, I gave that to you, that should have been enough for you.

Then verse 25 levels a charge as the basis for the judgment that's going to follow. Verse 29, why then do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded for my dwelling, and honor your sons above me? By fattening yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering of my people, Israel. This verse may imply that Eli actually ate some of the stolen sacrifices from his sons since the charge of fattening yourselves is directed to him and seems to include him. But even if that's not the implication, we'll see in this passage and later on that Eli is still being held accountable for sins he tolerated even though he did not commit them himself.

They happened on his watch, they happened under his authority. Even if Eli couldn't have kept his sons from sinning, he could have kept his sons from sinning as priests. Brothers and sisters, members of CHBC, you and I do not have the power to keep anyone from sinning unrepentantly. But Jesus has given us the solemn authority to prevent them from doing it as members of this church.

We can't stop anyone from sinning, but we can take off the Team Jesus jersey that they're wearing as they persist in it unrepentantly. All Christians sin. The question is whether you repent. The requirement for church membership is not perfection, but repentance. God held Eli accountable for the unrepentant sin he tolerated.

In his priesthood and Christ holds local churches accountable for unrepentant sin we tolerate among our members. This is exactly what Jesus himself says to the church in Thyatira in Revelation 2 verse 20. But I have this against you that you tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. So as a church, we should gently and eagerly restore those who repent. We should delight to extend forgiveness.

We should delight to help people up when they fall. But if a person refuses to repent, both Jesus and Paul command us to remove that person as an act of discipline. What Eli failed to do, every local church must do. Notice the specifics of God's charge against Eli in verse 29. God asks Eli, why do you honor your sons above me?

Every sin involves taking the wrong side in a competitive contest of honor. When their claims conflict, who will you honor more? God or yourself? God or your parents?

God or your children?

Many parents in this church have such young children that it can be difficult to imagine that a day might come when you will face the same challenge Eli faced, where you have to choose between honoring God and honoring your adult child who's rejecting God in his ways. But a day may well come when it's Jesus versus your kids. God does not promise to spare any of us that test. What if a day comes when your adult son or daughter starts calling love what God calls hate and calling hate what God calls love? What if they start calling love what God calls sin?

All they're asking is your approval. All they're asking is for you to tell them that they're in the right.

I've seen parents who professed faith in Christ for decades shift their fundamental moral commitments to now disagree with God and agree with the world in response to the decisions of an adult child? Will you continue to honor Christ even if your children don't understand what you're doing? Will you continue to honor Christ even if they're accusing you of hating them? Your desire to retain your child's affection might seem so strong that it almost feels like you have no choice to make, but you do. It's just going to be one of the hardest decisions you ever make.

So decide in advance that if their claims ever compete, you will honor Christ above your children and not vice versa. Jesus teaches in Matthew 10:37, Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

So then in the following verses, starting in verse 30, the Lord tells Eli what he's going to do and why.

Verses 30 to 36: Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, declares, 'I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever. But now the Lord declares, 'Far be it from me to do such a thing. For those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father's house, so that there will not be an an old man in your house. Then in distress you will look with envious eye on all the prosperity that shall be bestowed on Israel, and there shall not be an old man in your house forever.

The only one of you whom I shall not cut off from my altar shall be spared to weep his eyes out, to grieve his heart. And all the descendants of your house shall die by the sword of men. And this that shall come upon your two sons, Hophni and Phineas, 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 priest's places. That I may eat a morsel of bread.

Count on it. If you dishonor God, then sooner or later, now or in eternity, he will see to it that you are dishonored. The substance of God's judgment here is that he's going to reduce the house of Eli to poverty. He's going to inflict on them a series of untimely deaths. And he's going to revoke the privilege of priesthood.

So in this judgment we see both fairness and poetic justice. As for the poetic justice in verse 36, the Lord warns that Eli's descendants will be reduced to begging for scraps of food from a priest because of how when they were priests they fattened themselves. There's a broader element to this judgment too. Back in verse 27 we saw that God mentioned the house of your father, namely Aaron and his line. Now here in verse 30, God revokes the promise that he made to that same father, which given the context seems to be Aaron.

In other words, here God prophetically declares that there will be an end to the priesthood descended from Aaron. Yet in verse 35, God declares that he will raise up a faithful priest, one who will minister forever. Now, what does that remind you of? The end of one type of priesthood, the beginning of another that arises from some other source and continues forever? Yes, that would basically be the whole argument of the book of Hebrews that Mark's been preaching through all year.

So, when verse 35 says that God will raise up a faithful priest who will do all that is in his mind and in his heart, he's saying that he's going to solve the problem of corrupt leadership. By providing a leader who will perfectly fulfill his will. God's answer is not to get rid of leadership, but to provide a leader who will be faithful to him. His answer isn't to get rid of his demands or soften his demands, but to enable someone to fulfill them. His answer isn't to abandon his project of dwelling with his people, but to provide a mediator, to provide an intercessor who can perfectly atone for sin and ensure that that relationship will be healed and perfected forever.

Now, there's a sense in which we get some pre-fulfillments of this passage through different figures. So Samuel seems to provide a kind of down payment on the promise. He's called a prophet later in chapter three, verse 20. But he also grows up wearing an ephod, which is a priestly garment. And he grows up dwelling in the precincts of God's tabernacle.

David also offers some shadows of fulfillment. Even though he's a king, 2 Samuel 6 tells us he too wore an ephod. When the ark came into Jerusalem, he's the He's the one who guided and directed it and it says he offered sacrifices, which is something priests do. But full fulfillment of this promise won't come until Jesus the Messiah does. Jesus is God's eternal son incarnate and he was and is a perfect priest.

There's no hint of corruption in him, not the slightest shadow or suspicion of abuse. His whole life was a perfect single act of total self-giving to God and others. A complete sacrificial offering of himself before he ever got to the cross. That's all that we see him doing is selflessly serving God and others. And on the cross, Jesus paid the penalty for all the sins of all those who will turn from sin and trust in him.

He rose again from the dead three days later to triumph over death, to inaugurate his kingdom, and to go ascend to God's right hand where he now reigns in power and glory, and from where he calls all people to repent and trust in him. Jesus now holds heaven open for all who will repent and believe in him. He holds out instant forgiveness, instant reconciliation, a record wiped clean of all the sins you've ever committed, and his perfect righteousness counted to you. That's the good news that the whole Bible proclaims and that this verse kind of enigmatically foreshadows about a faithful priest who will do all that is in my mind and heart. So if you've never turned from sin and trusted in Christ, trust in him today.

Believe in him, rely on him, give up any hope of making yourself right with God through anything you can do on your own behalf and trust in Jesus alone to save you. If you're not a believer in Jesus, I want to return briefly to the question that I opened with: what does God do about the hypocrisy of those who profess to know him? We've seen already in our passage that God deals with sin through both judgment and grace, and we need both. We sinners need grace in order for us to be reconciled to God. But we also need judgment.

We need to know that God does not wink at sin. We need to know that God does not let evil and corruption and hypocrisy off the hook. You might think of the Bible's teaching on judgment as a mean, nasty doctrine that produces mean, nasty people. Certainly there are mean, nasty people who claim it's their justification. The Bible's teaching on judgment.

But I would submit to you that the true biblical doctrine of judgment, rightly understood and applied, produces exactly the opposite. Because it leaves us with no excuse, it leaves us with nothing to boast in, it leaves us with a scary sober realization of just how bad we are and just how powerless we are to fix ourselves. So the true biblical doctrine of judgment rightly applied It turns us not into haters, but it makes us humble. It makes us tremble before him. It makes us quick to accuse ourselves and excuse others.

If you're troubled, whether intellectually or personally, by the hypocrisy of those who claim to know this holy and true God, look at both halves of how God deals with it. He holds out grace to those who repent and he threatens severe and unflinching judgment on those who don't. And I hope you can start to see how even that judgment part is good news. Too often, instead of submitting to God's judgment on us, we sit in judgment on him. My wife, Kristen, and I went to college about an hour from each other, and in the first year or two of college, we had a complicated friendship.

Kristen, at the time, was a professing believer but not yet converted, and I was a believer and was really growing in my faith and just starting to grow deeper in understanding of God and his word, and I was full of zeal and conviction. So we would sometimes talk on the phone and have conversations in which many sparks flew. She was more persuaded by a kind of worldly picture of feminism that would contradict and argue with what scripture teaches about the relationship between men and women and what our roles should be in the church and in the home. And she would argue with me and I would argue with her and I would try to persuade her of scripture and try to defend its teaching and she would say, well, but what about all these abuses committed in the name of all this kind of thing? And sometimes when I would kind of run out of arguments and not know what to say, here's the last one I would give.

And I honestly would commend this to you if this is a struggle for you. And Kristen, I have her permission to share this story. She cleared it in advance, just in case you're wondering. I should have said that at the beginning. Here's where I would end and I would genuinely commend this to you.

Romans 3:4, Paul says, Let God be true. Though every man were a liar. Don't let it matter to you decisively what anybody does or says about God. Let it matter what God says about God and what God does about God. Let it matter where you stand before him.

Those standards you're so keen to apply to other people and see how they fall short, Hold them up to yourself as a mirror. Don't be blinded by self-righteousness when other people's sins are so obvious. Ask whether your own sins are that obvious to you. Ask what a holy God should do about your sins. Do business with him.

Don't make excuses to try to shield yourself. From the force of God's judgment. This is a genuine struggle. I appreciate there can be good faith questions here. I don't mean to dismiss that at all.

But on the last day, God will be true over against everybody who's lied about him. And you want to be on the side of that truth personally because none of your accusations against anybody else will do you any good on that day. What does God do about the hypocrisy of those who profess to know him? He rejects those who persist in rebellion and he raises up a priest to rescue those who trust in him. Point three then, renewal.

Renewal. That's a summary of the work God is doing in and for his people throughout chapter three.

We'll take the chapter in a couple of big chunks. Look first at verses 1 to 10.

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.

Just to be clear, this is not a paradigm for how God gets pastors or missionaries appointed today. This is not a model for how you should make vocational decisions. Just lie in bed and wait for the voice. Instead, what's happening here is that God is using an extraordinary means to call someone to an extraordinary office. Prophets heard the very words of the Lord and delivered those words verbatim to the people.

So the Lord here starts as he means Samuel to go on. And we see in verse 9 the crucial prerequisite for Samuel's prophetic office. Speak, for your servant hears. The Hebrew word for hears has a range of meaning from listens to obeys. There's an important word play going on here.

The point is not merely that Samuel's ears will receive divinely initiated sound waves. The point is that Samuel's heart is ready to obey and deliver all that God says. To sign up for the Office of Prophet, Samuel writes the Lord a blank check to say whatever God is going to tell him.

Speak for your servant hears. That's the posture not just of a prophet but of all of God's people. A crucial test of all of our claim to know God. Is whether you are ready and willing to hear and do everything God says. In verses 11 to 14, we learn what God tells Samuel.

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.

Here the Lord tells Samuel what he earlier told Eli. Because Eli tolerated his sons' sins, God will no longer tolerate operates Eli as priest. God holds Eli accountable for not holding his sons accountable. Verse 14 uses technical language to classify Eli's sin as high handed, meaning sins that sacrifice will not atone for. God teaches his people about that in Numbers 15 and you might remember some of this from Mark's teaching on Hebrews 9 and 10.

The Lord is treating Eli's sin as equivalent in gravity to apostasy. This kind of sin puts him beyond the reach of any sacrifice. It's so parallel to what we heard last week from Hebrews 10:26 and 27. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. So this is the message Samuel has to give to Eli.

We next find out what he did with it in verses 15 to 18. Samuel lay until morning. Then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, Samuel, my son. And he said, Here I am.

And Eli said, 'What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.' so Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he, that is Eli, said, 'It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.

Good evening, Samuel. Welcome to your new role as a prophet. We hope you enjoy your teammates and appreciate the office we've given you. Your first assignment is to go to your adoptive father and vocational mentor and tell him that God has rejected him forever because of his sin.

It's understandable that Samuel trembled The prophet himself had to learn to honor God above man and to fear God more than man. Eli's response in verse 18 is a little tough to interpret. I think it's not so much pious dedication as passive resignation. Eli shows some knowledge of God. He knows that if the Lord says he's going to do this, he's going to do it and there's no use arguing about it.

But it doesn't seem to make any difference in his life. Not to this point and not going forward. So Samuel delivers his first message and Eli receives it. The last verses of the chapter then zoom out and show us how Samuel's prophetic ministry developed and was solidified. Look at verses 19 to 21.

And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.

Verse 19 is really important here. When it says, the Lord let none of Samuel's words fall to the ground, it's saying that that everything Samuel prophesied came true. So the Lord revealed his word to Samuel, Samuel declared it to the people, and then God authenticated Samuel's ministry by fulfilling promise after promise, prophecy after prophecy, prediction after prediction. That's why the text tells us that all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet. Dan's in the far north, Beersheba's in the far south.

God is establishing his anointed prophet and God's word is getting around. We see this kind of geographical spread of God's word. Samuel's ministry reaches the whole borders of Israel. So what's going on here is that the Lord is regularly revealing himself by his word. And to understand the full significance of that, you've got to go back to chapter 3 verse 1 and see the contrast.

Chapter 3 verse 1, second half of the verse, and the word of the Lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision, meaning prophetic vision. So back then, right when our story begins, the word of the Lord is rare. But now, with Samuel established as a prophet, God is revealing himself regularly through his word. Imagine a spigot on the side of a house, the kind that you can attach a hose to.

At the beginning of this chapter, the spigot is just barely leaking out a few drips. There's not much you can do with that. You can't clean, you can't water plants, you can't put out a fire. But now, with Samuel established as prophet in residence in the tabernacle and all Israel benefiting from his ministry, that spigot is turned on and flowing freely. God's word is now abundant, gushing out, able to do all kinds of new things.

God's word is now going to be doing a whole lot more of its cleansing purging and renewing work. God creates his people through his word. God corrects and cleanses his people through his word. God remakes and reforms his people through his word. He tells us this in Isaiah 55:10 and 11.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Israel in Samuel's day went from a famine of the word to feasting on the word. What about in your life? Is the word of God rare in your life? Was the word of God rare in in your week.

Now, today we have Bible translations printed in all kinds of formats, available online, free audio recordings on your ESV app. You would not have a very strong argument if you wanted to say, well, God's word is kind of tough to access. It's a little rare. So if God's word is rare in your life, I don't think any blame can be laid on God.

God's word is what you need to break through spiritual log jams. It's what you need to pour into desert areas of barrenness in your life. It's what you need to bring clarity and light when there's sins that you've been hiding and ignoring and silencing your conscience about. Don't let God's word be rare in your life. You can die of starvation both from lack of access to food and lack of appetite.

You can perish with the meal sitting right there in front of you. This week, what will you do to invite the cleansing and reforming work of God's word? Into your life on a regular basis?

How does God respond to the hypocrisy of those who profess to know him? What does he think about it? What does he say about it? Most importantly, what does he do about it? If you're not a believer in Jesus, I want to close by asking you two more questions on this theme.

First, where do you get the moral standard by which you evaluate the actions of other people? What is that standard? Where does it come from? Why do you think it should have the authority that it clearly does for you?

A second question: How well do you live up to your own standard? When you violate your own values, those values can't forgive you. They can only judge you.

As the Christian evangelist and writer Glenn Scrivener has put it, Above the values you prize is a person who embodies them.

Beneath the values you violate is mercy to forgive you. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for revealing yourself in your Word. We thank you for your pronouncing both judgment and mercy. Father, we pray that we would submit to your judgment in order to receive your mercy. We pray that you would grant us to be merciful to those who doubt. We pray that you would grant us to be renewed by your word and walk in holiness.

In Jesus' name, amen.