BITTER FRUIT. 1st Samuel 4 Shiloh had once been the gathering place of God’s people, but “when every man did that which was right in his own eyes,” characterized the Israelites, the Lord was ignored. Forty years before the narrative in this chapter took place, Eli had become the priest at Shiloh, so there must have been a short revival, but it didn’t last. Spiritual darkness set in, and moral decay right after it; worst of all, it was right in Eli’s house.
As Samuel became recognized throughout Israel as the mouthpiece of God, the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel through His word. God was again on speaking terms with His people. Sadly, they were not on speaking terms with Him. They were away from God in their hearts and were overconfident in themselves. There was no interest on their part in finding the mind and will of God in resisting the advance of the Philistines, nor did they seek the counsel of Samuel, who was the prophet of God.
Overconfidence and self-will only display human weakness and inability. From the leaders of God’s people to the newest believer in an assembly, we all need to be conscious of our need for God personally and as a gathered company of saints in the name and person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Likely, there will be those who come seeking a place of leadership among God’s people, who will have to be confronted one way or another with the word of God. In every situation that arises, we need God’s guidance and strength to do what is His will.
A biblical principle is true for individuals, families, and nations: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever and man soweth, that shall he also reap." When disobedience or lack of obedience to God occurs, and when God's wisdom and will are ignored as being out-of-date or not applicable to us today, there comes a harvest of bitter fruits. "Cursed is the man that trusts in man and maketh flesh his arm." Israel went out on its own to battle the Philistines.
That same attitude is not just with those people of ancient times; people do the same today. For some reason, people think they can do what they want, when they want, and how they want - and what God says doesn't make any difference. In ourselves, we are no match for the advancing foes, the departure of our times, the compromise that people want, and the desire for acceptance by any and all. We need to remember that friendship with the world is enmity with God. Only when we are conscious of the Lord's presence will there be power over sin.
We need to be conscious of the fact that over-confidence really only displays personal weakness. Anyone who seeks their own glory or displays their own valor in the things of God will be brought down. We can say "Ebenezer" (stone of help) all we want, but if our help is in the arm of flesh, that will not change failure to victory. Obedience is what God expects and requests of us because when we are weak in ourselves, we are strong in the Lord. Valor is no substitute for faith and dependence on God.
If we fail to learn from the experiences of others in the past, their victories and defeats, we will have to go through the same things ourselves that happened to them. Regret for what has happened is one thing; repentance is quite another. Repentance brings confession of sin, forsaking sin, a complete change of direction, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to meet any opposition or obstacle that keeps us from doing God's will.
The people of Israel had ignored God's specific instructions regarding warfare as to how and when they were to engage in it. The Israelites didn't obey those instructions, nor did they seek the counsel of Samuel, who was notable all over the nation for hearing the word of God. The Philistines were descendants of Ham, Noah's son, who lived in five major cities in southwest Canaan and wanted the land Israel had claimed years before. That made the Philistines one of Israel's major enemies. In their history, they were aware of all God had done in Israel going back to their time in Egypt. After the Israelites lost 4000 men, they called a council, not to find out the mind and will of God, but to decide what they were going to do. They were only concerned with what they thought of themselves. "Let us fetch the ark ... unto us ... cometh among us ...it may save us."
In the war with the Philistines, the Israelites began to use the ark, a wooden and metal box, as a good luck charm. The ark was holy because of what it contained and because God had dwelled between the cherubim that were on the mercy seat - the cover of the box. The reason it was holy was because God is holy. It was a wood and metal box, not an object to be worshipped. Israel thought their glory was in the ark and God had deserted them. The problem was that they had deserted Him.
A symbol of God does not guarantee His presence and power. We cannot live on memories of God’s past blessings. We must keep our relationship with God new and fresh. When sin dominates our lives, even God-given joys and pleasures are empty. God demonstrates His power in how and when He chooses and responds to those who draw near Him in faith and obedience. Because God blessed us in the past, it doesn't mean He is with us now. When we go our own way and do things as a form, God is not in that with us. What God says - happens.
Hophni and Phinehas should have known better than to bring the ark, but they had long before gone their own ways and rejected what was right. Even the Philistines were afraid because they had heard about divine intervention on behalf of Israel from their forefathers. Now, all that Israel had was a form of godliness without power. The Israelites were smitten before the Philistines but not in their hearts before the Lord, and consequently, many thousands died. They had not learned the lessons of the past and now blamed God for their own failure in the present.
Instead of repentance, they tried to remedy their failure in their own way. They knew of the past victories the Lord brought in Israel and how the Lord used hornets, unnatural weather, and other means to bring them about. But they wanted the ark to fight their battle because they lacked interest in the Lord Himself. When the ark left Shiloh, it never came back there; the city never mentioned existing after that. It was probably destroyed either during Philistine rule or soon after.
God isn't among us because we say He is. There is evidence of the presence of God among His people when we follow the road He has laid out for us. When He is in the center of all we do, and when we gather together unto Him, not just symbols or symbolic programs, then we know He is with us because that is evident in the holiness of the gathering, the Christ-likeness of His people, the character and sincerity of their worship, and their obedience to His divine will revealed in the scriptures.
The ungodly sons of Eli had no respect for God and His glory. They had profaned that, which was holy in how they treated the sacrifices of the people they entrusted with. They did the same with the ark, which testified to God's presence. People made a great noise when the ark entered the camp, but heaven was silent.
Much noise doesn't mean God approves of what we do. He does not approve of what centers on us and ignores divine principles. Confusion in churches today should be a cause of repentance and humiliation rather than much noise and shouts of "praise" people make in God's name. Our testimony to His grace and power is not the outward form or appearance. Rather, it is in the degree to which we conform to Christ morally and spiritually. The times we read about our Lord raising His voice are at the grave of Lazarus, which was for the benefit of the people who needed to understand the extent of His authority, even over death. He "cried with a loud voice" when He knew He had accomplished the redemptive work needed to bring us to God when He was hanging on the cross with His strength still in fullness - so He could declare "Finished" in His victory over sin. When He calls His church at the rapture, He will declare victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil on behalf of His own - and we are changed to be like Him.
If the spirit of those like Hophni and Phinehas is left unjudged, God is not with us no matter how loud we shout, "Praise the Lord." The great shouts of the children of Israel did not stop the Philistines because it was only the sound of the flesh. Even though the Philistines heard the shout and were afraid that God had come into the camp of Israel to deliver them, it only made them more determined to defeat them. The battle was between two worldly fleshly interests and the strongest won.
Much religious noise is made today, but that will not defeat the sacrilegious and profane noises that are going on in the world. Both are simply sounds of the flesh, even though one uses religious words. Discipline and responsibility are needed when we see the works of the flesh taking over a work that is supposed to be of God. We must act rather than react to a situation we know is wrong.
Because of the willfulness and sin of the Israelites and the evil of the two religious leaders, Hophni and Phinehas, 30,000 more men died that day, bringing the total to 34,000, and also the prophecy regarding Eli's two sons dying the same day came to pass. "The Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man to his tent (home), and there was a very great slaughter." Even more serious was that "the ark of God was taken." Israel was left on its own - helpless, defeated, dismayed, and in disarray because they had ignored God and chosen to do things their own way. The prediction of Hophni and Phinehas dying the same day came to pass, and the whole city of Shiloh wailed when they heard of the disaster that took so many lives of the men of the nation. The lessons to us are unmistakable.
If we are ever inclined to make spiritual decisions based on our own opinions or the "majority rule" concept instead of what the word of God says, we are bound to lose the battle for the salvation of the lost. If we decide to take situations into our own hands without the strength of the Lord giving power to the work and the Holy Spirit guiding us, the outcome will be wrong. If we think we can fine-tune what the scriptures say to make it fit what we want the outcome, we will be found fighting against God and lose what we have and hope to gain.
It would have been very hard for poor blind Eli to sit by the road waiting for news about the death of thousands of Israelis. It would have been harder for him to hear about the death of his two sons just the way the man of God prophesied. But when he heard of the ark of God taken by the ungodly enemy, it was too much for him to take, and he died of a broken neck like an unclean donkey when he fell backward off of his seat. Phinehas' wife could not be comforted even when her son was born. Ichabod had to live all his life as a reminder of that dark day and the evil remembrance of his father. The desolation over Shiloh was so great that it became a lost city and a monument to unfaithfulness. Eli's death marked the end of the dark period of the judges in which Israel, for most of three hundred years, ignored God. The beginning of Israel's time in the land of Canaan was bright, but even today, there is spiritual darkness still over the nation. The time of the judges began with hope and ended with despair.
When sin takes over and dominates a personal life, a family, or a nation, even the natural joys like a child being born seem empty. However, God is not done with His people, and His purposes will be fulfilled because His sovereign will have established them. One man, Samuel, the last of the judges, became the first interim priest who offered sacrifices on behalf of the people in different places around the nation. He led a national revival that lasted over one hundred years and gave Israel a whole century of glory in which they came from nothing to being a world power. This is a foretaste of what will yet become of Israel in this world as God's earthly people. They are small and despised now, but a day is coming when they will be the major world power under the reign of the King of Kings. our Lord Jesus Christ. It is important for us to remember the lesson that when the leadership of the people of God fails, we can't expect any difference from those who follow them
1st Samuel 4:21. “And she named the child Ichabod, saying, the glory is departed from Israel because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband.”