1st Samuel 4 BITTER FRUIT There is a biblical principle that is true for individual, families and nations - and that is "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 When disobedience or lack of obedience to God takes place, and when God's wisdom and will is ignored as being out-of-date or not applicable to us today, there comes a harvest of bitter fruits. "Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm." Israel went out on their own to do battle with the Philistines. That same attitude is not just with those people of ancient times but people do the same today. For some reason people think they can do what they want, when they want and how they want - and it doesn't make any difference what God says. 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.
We need to be conscious of the fact that over-confidence really only displays personal weakness. Any who seek their own glory or to display 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 it is when we are weak in ourselves, we are strong in the Lord. Valor is no substitute for faith and dependence on God.
The Philistines were descendents from Ham, Noah's son, who lived in five major cities in southwest Canaan and were wanting the land Israel had claimed years before. That made the Philistines one of Israel's major enemies. In their history was awareness of all God had done in Israel going back to the time they were 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 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 wood 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, 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 how and when He chooses and responds to those who draw near to Him in faith and obedience.
Hophni and Phinehas should have known better than to bring the ark but they had long before gone their own ways and had 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. Because God had blessed us in the past 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. 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 to pass in Israel and how the Lord used hornets, unnatural weather and other means to brings those victories about. But because of their lack of interest in the Lord Himself, they wanted the ark to fight their battle. When the ark left Shiloh, it never came back there and in fact, the city is never mentioned existing after that. Probably it was destroyed either at that time of 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 the way they treated the sacrifices of the people with which they were entrusted. Now they did the same with the ark, that which testified of the presence of God Himself. People made a great noise when the ark came into the camp, but heaven was silent. A lot of noise doesn't mean God is approving of what we do. He does not approve of that which centers on us and ignores divine principles. Confusion in churches today should be a cause of repentance and humiliation rather than a lot of noise and shouts of "praise" that people make in the name of God. Our testimony to His grace and power is not the outward form or appearance. Rather it is in the degree in which we conform to Christ morally and spiritually. The times we read about our Lord raising His voice are at the grave of Lazarus, and that 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 shout as a declaration of 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 who are 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 that followed was simply a battle 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 need to act rather then react to a situation which we know is not right.
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 the fact 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 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 to be the outcome, we will be found fighting against God and we will lose what we have as well as what we hoped to gain.
It would have been very hard for poor blind Eli sitting by the road waiting for new to hear 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 backwards 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 came 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 seems empty.
However, God is not done with His people, and His purposes are going to be fulfilled because they have been established by His own sovereign will. One man, Samuel, though he was 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 in which 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 lessons that when the leadership of the people of God fails, we can't expect any difference from those who follow them