Sermon Tone Analysis

Superstitions

Common Superstitions

Spilling Salt

Friday the 13th

Baseball Superstitions

Don’t step on the foul line

Wade Bogs always takes batting practice at 5:17

He always ate fried chicken

Review

Define Superstition

While these superstitions seem unreasonable and irrational, superstions are at their core an attempt to control things that we have no control over.

they are at thier core a belief that some sort of action will be able to manipulate God’s behavior.

And that is certainly what we see in today’s passage.

Review

Hophni and Phinehas are corrupt priests

Eli told them, but allowed them to remain serving

It has been prophesised that they will be removed

God has been silent

The only thing spoken has been the prophesy that they will be removed

God commissioned Samuel as Prophet

The Battle

1 Sam 4

Location

Agressor

Questions

Not unreasonable thought-Doesn’t seem entering into battle is out of the question

Loss

Transition-Regroup

They ask why?-the thought of the battle wasn’t questioned, just why they lost

Had they known the scripture, it would have been obvious

, Moses

The book of Deuteronomy lays it all out.

,

Deut 28

Deut 28

Had the Elders known the scripture, it would have been obvious why God had brought the defeat on Israel.

They were not following God’s word.

In what ways were they not following God’s word?

There ay have been other ways that they were not following God’s word, but the important one here in 1 Samuel is in regard to the priests, Eli’s leadership, and the matter of how the sacrifices were being conducted.

.

The elders would have been in close contact with Eli, and Hophni, and Phinehas, so they would have know that they were being unfaithful to the priesthood, and leading Israel to treat the offerings with contempt, but still they asked why.

The Elders surely knew the scripture.

Even the everyday people knew that the priests were doing wrong.

Back in chapter 2 we learned that people would confront the priests and tell them what they were doing wasn’t right, but they didn’t listen.

The elders either ignored scripture

Or their pride kept them from doing what they should do.

So it must have been something else.

It must have been pride.

It was their pride that they knew better, or their pride that led them to believe that they were entitled to the extra portion.

It was the pride that they were the Chosen of the Chosen?

You know they thought they were the REAL JEWS not like the rest.

They were were the ones dedicating their whole life to God, not like the people that only come on Saturday.

I can see it happening.

So then they hatch the plan.

God is our God, he is on our side, they are so prideful they don’t even see their sin.

They think it is because they need to do something to get God to help them.

They take the ark and bring it into battle.

That is their solution.

Throughout this passage we read phrasing describing the ark as, the Ark of the Lord, the ark of the Lord’s covenant, the ark of the covenant of the Lord Almighty, with phrasing like that it is unlikely that the elders actually thought the ark was magical.

They still seem to think that the Lord is the actual power behind the ark.

But where they go wrong is to think that they can determine the Lord’s hand, or make the Lord behave in a certain way according to their actions.

The elders are standing on the covenant of the Lord.

God said we are his people and he will protect us, so they carry that symbol into battle.

But they are missing a very important piece of the puzzle.

Although the Abrahamic covenant was one-sided, in that Israel was a chosen people.

That God chose them to be his people, they were to live under the Mosiac covenant that Moses recieved at Sinai.

That was the covenant carried and symbolized by the ark.

While a chosen people they were still to live according to God’s laws.

The covenant God made with Moses at Mount sinai, was an agreement of blessings and curses.

God said, do well and follow the law, and I will bless you.

Stray from me, do wrong and you will be subject to the curses.

What the elders should be doing is leading the people in a time of repentance.

They should be seeking the Lord’s forgiveness for their unfaithfulness to their end of the covenant.

They needed to be humbly accepting the word of God and its impact on their lives, rather than parading their grace in front of the pagans.

Here is a little illustration on this point.

Let’s suppose a married couple.

Now all week long the husband throws his clothes on the floor, leaves a pile of dirty dishes everywhere, and doesn’t do any chores.

His wife is getting more and more angry, but she is patient and thinks on Saturday he will do his part.

Now suppose the husband has some single friends that are going fishing on Saturday.

Without discussing it with his wife, the husband heads out to go fishing, leaving her with the chores and the kids.

He gets home and she is mad at him, of course.

So he decides I know, next Saturday I will take her fishing with me.

Once, when were on vacation she really enjoyed fishing.

The husband says I can see that your mad, so you can go fishing with me and the guys next Saturday.

Then, when she gets even more angry, he holds his ring up to her and says, honey you have to do this, we are married, we have a covenant.

Although Israel is God’s people, he is not going to protect them as long as they are not living according to the agreement he has with them.

Bringing the ark into battle is nothing more than an attempt to try and control God, based on rules and regulations rather than a relationship.

The idea of the relationship comes from the reference to the ark .

It is not just called the ark, Instead it is called “The ark of the covenant of the Lord Almighty who is enthroned between the cherubim.”

The author specifically mentions the top of the ark and cherubim.

The ark was a wooden box, overlaid with gold, it contained the 10 commandments a symbol of the covenant, the rules to live by as God’s people.

The cover of the box is called the atonement cover, had 2 cherubim on it, and it in , God says that is where he will meet with his people.

The priest

The priest sprinkles the blood of the sacrifice on the cover to cover over the violations of the law, and God meets with his people.

God up to this point had given them all the clues that the relationship between Him and his people was severed.

He wasn’t speaking to them.

He gave the prophecy regarding the failure of Eli to restrain his crooked sons, the priests Hophni and Phinehas, and now he gave them the defeat at the hands of the Philistines.

Everything is pointing to the need for repentance, but somehow their pride is still in the way.

Even the people missed this.

This is reminiscent of the glory days.

The days of when they first came into the promised land.

In those days the Lord himself told them to march the ark around the city of Jericho. the Lord told them to march around the city 7 times.