God Is Not Mocked

"Now Israel went out to battle against the Philistines, and encamped beside Ebenezer"

1 Samuel 4:1

At the very heart of the work of the church in the world there is a God-settled ministry that will be used by God for the furtherance of his kingdom and the upbuilding of the church. Amid all the darkness, and heathenism and ignorance that there was among God's people in this time, God came to Samuel and called him for that great work. God was giving the people a prophet.

Given that fact, is seems strange that over the next three chapters we hear very little of Samuel. In fact we hear nothing of Samuel from the beginning of chapter 4, until we meet him again in chapter 7. That fact itself is very instructive.

There are four things that are underlined for us in this fourth chapter. The first is the PROPHET WHO WAS REJECTED. I believe that this is the reason why Samuel is missing, for the most part, from these chapters in this great book, is because Israel refused to listen to and refused to obey the message Samuel delivered to them.

The second thing that we have here is a PROBLEM THAT WAS MADE WORSE. We are told about a battle that was fought by Israel in which they lost four thousand men. There was clearly a problem, which Israel tried to resolve, but only made worse because they fought the same battle at Aphek, but this time they lost thirty thousand men.

Thirdly the chapter tells us about a PROPHECY THAT WAS FULFILLED. God had said to Samuel "The house of Eli will be slain". Now here, in chapter 4, the house of Eli is slain. You see, you cannot mock God. God's word is fulfilled, and this particular prophecy finds its fulfilment in chapter 4.

Then we will look at the PROVIDENCE WITH WHICH THE CHAPTER CLOSES, the solemn providence of the death of the daughter-in-law of Eli, as she was giving birth to a son, whom she named Ichabod, 'The Glory is Gone'.

(1) A Rejected Prophet

The first thing to note in chapter 4 is the despised and rejected prophet. We must pay close attention to the way chapter 4 is outlined. We are told here that the word of Samuel came to all Israel. In other words, Samuel was obedient to his call. God set him apart to be a prophet, told him to deliver the word to His people, and Samuel did so. Samuel was faithful to that calling, to that commission, and to that sacred trust. And all Israel knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord. They could not argue with it. They knew that this was God's man in God's place at this time. Every single one of them knew that this was God's messenger to them. But it is possible to know that a man is God's messenger and still not listen to his message. It is possible to know that God has given us his message and his word, and for us still not to obey it.

Here was Samuel, in the midst of Israel, with Israel knowing that he was a prophet. Samuel brought the word of God to the whole nation and there was not a part of Israel that did not hear the word of God. The Book of Samuel explains to us later how Samuel accomplished this; how he judged Israel, going round different places, making sure that every tribe and family and part heard the word of the Lord.

The church has a duty to bring the word of God to all the people. It is the sacred trust and the sacred commission of God's church in the world: Go out and make disciples of all the nations. How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard? And how will people hear about Christ without a preacher? And how will men preach unless they are sent? God's activity in the world is mediated through the foolishness of preaching - not through foolish preaching, of which there is no shortage in our nation. There is no shortage of foolish preaching in the world. It is not the case that once a man stands in a pulpit you get gospel preaching. Unless that man knows the glory of the message he is proclaiming, he can put words together and produce a magnificent oration, but it is not preaching. It is not foolish preaching that saves men; God saves men through the foolishness of preaching, through the preaching that the world laughs at, ridicules, mocks, that this computerised, hi-tech age on the threshold of the twenty-first century does not need any more. Preaching is something for the past, it is said; something for the time of Calvin, and Luther and Knox, for the time of the Reformation and the time of the Disruption. Well they would say that, if these names and occasions meant anything. But we must affirm that it is through the preaching of the Gospel, the delivery of the Word of God to all the people, that men and women will be saved, and lives will be transformed.

Let me put it this way: How do you change a nation? You change a nation by changing individual human hearts, by taking men and women and confronting them with the great claims of the Word of God and the great truths of the Gospel, and by the blessing of God channelled through the preaching of the cross men and women will come to see that there is something better for them than this world's offer - something lasting, something real, something permanent, something of value, something that is worth having and worth holding on to. That is why God's people are drawn to his word, to the proclamation his truth - because God speaks to their souls - a voice from Heaven addresses their very need.

Samuel went out to all Israel to the word of God. But I want you to notice that it does not say here that all Israel went to Samuel. In fact, we are told that as soon as a problem arose the elders of Israel came together and said, "Now, how will we get out of this predicament? One suggests - we will go and get the Ark of the Covenant and bring it back. They all had different opinions and suggestions and ideas; but we do not read that any of them went to Samuel. Samuel came to them with the Word of God but they did not come to that word themselves. They put their trust in their own resources, and ingenuity and ideas. Not one said "Let us go and see what Samuel has to say about this". I believe that the reason Samuel disappears so quickly from this narrative is because Israel was so quick to ignore the word that Samuel preached. Israel was quick to turn its back on this God-sent, God-called, God-commissioned, God-appointed, God-anointed prophet of the Old Testament. They simply did not want to know. They had a better way of dealing with their problems, and with the great issues that confronted them day by day. No, we will not bother coming to Samuel - he can preach to us if he likes, but we will not go to him.

It is a fundamental idea in our society at the present time that men and women are saying, "Well, we'll let these people in the church preach if they like; we believe in freedom of religion, and in freedom of speech, and we believe that people can practice their religion if they like, but we will not bother coming to the word of God. See this current debate in the Scottish Parliament - we will allow every kind of religion to come and participate in the daily prayers of the Parliament - freedom of religion, of idea, of expression, of speech. But we will not turn to the Word of God ourselves and see what God has to say on this issue.

What happened in Israel long ago is still happening in our land. Men and women who have the very Word of God in front of them and the very Gospel of grace preached to them and the very oracles of God proclaimed in our cities, towns and villages, yet men and women do not want to know. A greater prophet than Samuel came into the world. The prophet of whom God said that he would come as the Great Prophet, the Last Prophet, the one by whom Jehovah was to give his last word to the world in these last days God spoke to us in one who is a Son, in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has come into the world as the great herald of Gospel blessing. He is the messenger of the covenant; in Christ there is everything you need, and everything I need; and tonight still the world is saying "Crucify him, Crucify Him", closing its heart and its eyes and its ears to the glory of Christ in the Gospel.

Let us make sure that we are not guilty of the same sin, of closing our heart and life, and of closing the door of our lives to the Christ of God, to the great prophet, the great mediator of the covenant and the great Saviour of sinners, just in case he disappears from your view as quickly as Samuel disappeared from the view of Israel. Here was this lone prophet proclaiming the Word of God in a day of darkness and faithlessness and apostasy; a day which, when problems arise no-one says "What does God say?" No-one says "What does the prophet have to say?" No-one comes to the Word of God. We need to get right back to this great foundation of our hope and our Gospel and our lives - not what men say about God, but what God says about men in his own Word and in his own Scripture. It is the foundation of our lives. It must become the bedrock on which we build - all other ground is sinking sand. But in the word of God there is a message from Heaven that points to Jesus and says, "this is my beloved Son, hear him".

(2) An Exacerbated Problem

Israel came to Aphek, where the Philistines were, and they engaged in battle. Israel made the first move. Israel was the aggressor, but Israel lost. Despite all their planning and all their strategy, four thousand men in the field were slain by the Philistines. This led to a counsel of war, in which the people asked "Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh to us, that when it comes among us it may save us from the hand of our enemies" (verse 3).

Now I believe that the elders of Israel at this point asked the right question, but gave the wrong answer. They knew that there was a problem. They knew that there ought not to have been defeat, or death. God had promised them the land; but here they were not only retreating from their enemies, but were being defeated by them. Something is wrong when God's people do not have the victory; when there is an obstruction in the way something is wrong. The elders of Israel knew that something was wrong, and their solution to it was this: "We'll bring the ark from Shiloh, and take it into the camp".

If you know your Bibles at all, you will know the importance of the Ark of the Covenant. It was the visible sign and symbol of God's presence among his people. It was a box, not very big, and not too heavy, made according to God's express command of a certain type of wood. It was about 120cm in length and about 76cm square; and inside the box there were the tables of the law, the pot of manna and Aaron's rod that budded. Over it there was a table of gold, the mercy seat, a lid of gold, and the cherubim stretching out their wings to each other. It was a beautiful box - the Ark of the Testimony, the symbol that God was with his people. Right through the wilderness the ark of God led them. Across the Jordan the Ark of God led them. Now the Ark of God was in Shiloh, and that was where God ordered that it should be. In fact, in the Book of Deuteronomy God said to them that they must not put the Ark anywhere except where God commanded that it be put, and that they must not move it except when God commanded that it be moved. But now there was no command. God did not say to them "Get the Ark from Shiloh and bring it to Aphek". No; the people decided that themselves. They decided that it would be a good idea to get the Ark so that the Philistines would not defeat them any more. Then they would have victory over the Philistines.

And what happened? The Philistines heard shouting when the Ark came into the camp of the Israelites and said "They have God in the camp". But it did not deter them; they fought against Israel and they won an even greater victory than before. What was wrong? Why did the Ark not save Israel?

Listen again to what the elders of Israel said. "Let us get the Ark of God and IT will save us". Do you see? IT will save us. The wooden box that symbolised the presence of God - that is what they trusted to for salvation. ""We will get this beautiful object that God commanded Moses to make; this great box that has meant so much to God's people down through the wilderness years - we will get the box from Shiloh and IT will save us". And Israel is putting its confidence in a box of wood - a beautiful box, a beautiful box, a religious box but nonetheless it is only a box. Israel is saying - once the box is in place, all will be well. God did not ask them to move the Ark. God did not say to go for it, but they reckoned that if the Ark came all would be well. When they ought to have put their confidence in the God of the Ark, they put their confidence in the Ark of God. Their trust ought not to have been in the Ark of the Covenant, but in the God of the Covenant. Not in the symbol but in the reality which the symbol signified. They turned the symbol of God's glory, presence, and power into some kind of superstitious idol and object of veneration and of worship.

It is amazing how many people there are who know what the problem is but who do not know what the solution is. There are many people who know that their lives need a religious dimension to them; men and women who are looking for peace and satisfaction, and who know that there is a God-shaped hole in their heart and life and soul, and they turn to religion to fill it. They turn to this religion, or that religion or the next religion, and they think that RELIGION will save their lives and take them out of the hands of their enemies. They will even face death - the last great enemy - in the strength of their religion. "We will get the Ark, and IT will save us". I tell you - no religion ever saved anyone. No religious relic, sign or symbol ever saved anyone. There are people who flock to church for mass, or communion, or the celebration of some other kind of religious festival, saying IT WILL SAVE US. I tell you - it will save nobody. The Ark of the Covenant in and of itself was only a sign, symbolising the glory of God. Yet here are the Children of Israel mistaking the sign for the reality. We must plead with men in our day not to do the same. It is a good thing to attend church and read the Bible. We could have no better pastimes. Yet we must learn that it is impossible for religious devotion, attendance, dedication or experience to save one human soul.

Many will go God on the last day, the great day of final judgement and they will say to him, "Lord, Lord, we carried the Ark. We saw the Ark. We were moved when the Ark came along. We shouted for joy at the presence of the Ark. In thy name we did this, and that and the next thing; we cast out devils". Jesus will say "I never knew you". It is possible to have all the apparent signs and tokens of piety and religion and devotion and still be strangers to grace and to God; possible to be content with a form of religion and deny the power of the one true God who alone can save.

What happened when the Israelites put their trust in the Ark? Their defeat was even greater the second time. The second battle of Aphek saw them losing thirty thousand men - more than seven times as many casualties in the second battle as in the first, because of a misplaced trust in the wooden box. The Gospel comes with a warning on the label - the warning says that it is not enough to have the outward form of a religion, however orthodox or biblical. The outward form of our house is worthless if our house is not built on the rock. When the storm comes and the winds blow, the great issue then will not be "What is our house like?" It will not be "How big is our house? How many rooms? What is the decor like? Does it have every modern appliance? Does it have a Conservatory?" This is not the issue; the issue is - is it built on the rock? Not on the Ark of the covenant, but on the God of the covenant. It is not a religion that saves, but a relationship with the God of Israel, revealed in Jesus Christ. Are we built on this one great sure foundation? All other ground is sinking sand. Our problem will only be compounded if our eye is fixed on the form of a religion and our heart is not one with the God of the everlasting covenant. There are thirty thousand men lying dead on the fields, and all because of a misplaced trust. The cost is far too high to put our trust in anything other and anything less than the finished work of Jesus Christ. There are people who will go to Hell because of a misplaced confidence. They had religion and religious orthodoxy, and forms and rituals and symbols, but they did not have Christ for their souls. The cost of not having Christ for your soul is great. What will it profit a man though he gain the whole world and lose his soul. Israel had the Ark but lost its soul.

(3) A Fulfilled Prophecy

This chapter tells us about Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, whom we have met before. They were immoral priests who cared nothing for the glory of God or the honour of his house. They were in it only for the money and what they could get out of it. They officiated at the altar, and they looked after the Ark and they were going to save the day, but they too fell in this battle. The Ark was taken, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas were slain - just as God had said. It really is the most sobering reminder of the reality of the Word of God if we go through the Bible and see how many fulfilled prophecies there are on the pages of the Word of God. Things that God said would happen, happened. You and I can only read the past, we can only read our history, what has already taken place; but there is a God in Heaven who can read what is yet to take place. There is a God who can look right into the future and who is able in his Word to tell us things that are still to be fulfilled in the experience of the world and in the experience of men and women. He said to Samuel - "Tell Eli that his house is doomed. Tell him his sons will fall. Tell him that there is no more sacrifice to purge their iniquity. Tell them that their days are numbered. Tell them that they despised a day of grace and a day of salvation, and they will not escape a day of judgement".

Here they are now, Hophni and Phinehas, the Rev. Hophni and the Rev. Phinehas, and they lie dead under the judgement of God on the battlefield of Aphek. Just as God said. Men who officiated at the very altar, yet were strangers to the God of all grace and of all salvation. God is not mocked. What a man sows, he will also reap. When you plant something in your garden, you know what to expect when the Spring comes and the soil is warm, and the shoots appear with the buds. You plant a seed and you don't expect another flower to grow. What you sow, you reap. It is the law of the harvest, and it is the law of the Gospel too. What a man sows, he reaps. If we sow for this world and all we can have in this world, we do not need to expect everlasting life. And yet there are many people who do that very thing. They take their lives and sow these lives like a seed in all the pleasures of this world, without any thought of God and without any thought of Christ. They think that if they will put in a little mix of religion, they will reap the blessings of Heaven at the end of the day. But it is impossible to sow to the flesh and yet reap the glory of Heaven. It is impossible to take a human life and sell it to the world and expect God to be pleased with it.

The law of the harvest requires you to sow to Jesus Christ and the glory of his salvation if you are to reap at the end of the day the blessing of his grace and peace with God. God is not mocked. Hophni and Phinehas could not pull their religious rank as they stood before God. They could pull rank over their fellow Israelites. They were the sons of Levi, the sons of Aaron. They were born to the priesthood. Is God impressed with this? Not at all - God says "They will fall, and they will die in their sin". That is his prophecy, and it now stands on the pages of the Bible, fulfilled, just as God had said. Does God say that there will be a Heaven for those who love him? Does he say that if we love Christ we will go with him, to be there for all eternity? Then we can believe that his prophecy will be fulfilled, and in a coming day he will gather all his people into the glory and they will be with him for ever and ever.

Does he say there will be a Hell in a lost eternity for those who despise a day of grace, and the offer of salvation through the Gospel? You can be sure that his word will be fulfilled. He is not mocked. What a man sows he will reap. Those who sow to the flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but those who sow to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. What will it be for us? In view of the great teachings of the Bible, what will we do with our lives? Will we give them to the world, or to Christ? The world will offer many bids for your soul, and will offer us all its pomp and glory, and promise us satisfaction and fulfillment and happiness; Jesus will offer us a cross to bear and a crown at last to wear; he will offer us to walk the narrow road with him and listen to him and obey him, and at the end of it all, he will give us a place with himself in the glory. He is worth trusting in and believing and having and following.

This chapter reminds us that the Word of God stands firm. It is not subject to the changing ideas of men. One day every eye will see him, and every tongue will say "He was right after all. He is Lord"; and every one of us will acknowledge the truth of everything he ever said to us from his holy word.

(4) A Solemn Providence

The chapter ends with this: when Eli heard about the Ark, he too was caught up in this malaise that trusted to the Ark. He heard that the Ark was taken and that his sons were dead and he fell back from his seat and he died on the spot. His daughter-in-law, Phinehas' wife was about to have a child. She heard that Eli and her husband were dead. The child was born and the women tried to comfort her. They said "Cheer up! You have a son!" But she could not be cheered. She called the child "Where is the glory?" Ichabod - the glory is departed from Israel.

I think she knew the value of the Ark and the God of whom the Ark spoke, and she said "How can I be cheerful when the glory is gone, and all the good things that the Ark symbolised are gone?" What did the Ark symbolise? There was glory ON the ark, because the top of the Ark spoke of atonement, and mercy and reconciliation with God. There was glory IN the ark, because in the ark there was God's law, the keeping of which brings peace and blessing. There was glory OVER in the ark, because it was down to this sacred spot that the presence of God came and dwelt. The Hebrew word to dwell or to reside or to stay gives us the word shekinah that we use to describe that glory cloud that came over the Ark - God stayed there.

But the wife of Phinehas saw in the departure and capture of the Ark the removal of that Glory. I wonder if there are hearts and lives from which the glory has departed? Maybe there was a time when we too thought seriously about God's law and God's commandments and about God's atoning, reconciling work in Christ; maybe we even felt his sacred presence in and through the Gospel. But these days are gone, and we are live as if they had never been in our experience at all. Where is the glory? Maybe there are homes that were once homes where God's word was read and loved and obeyed. We have forgotten to read our Bibles in our homes, to worship God in our homes, to ask God's people to our homes as those who lived in them once used to do. The glory has departed?

What about our nation, whose pulpits once rang to the great Gospel of the atoning, reconciling work of God in Christ? Whose laws were once fashioned and framed by God's commandments and God's law in Scripture - this land that once rang with the power of God in revival blessing. Where is the glory in Scotland?

The Hebrew word for glory is 'heaviness'. There was a day when our nation felt the heaviness of God and bowed before the glory. But now our nation speaks lightly, and speaks little of God, if at all. We need to pray for the glory to return so that our pulpits will once again preach the evangel in all its glorious fulness - Reconciled to God through the death of his son! - so that men and women and boys and girls will hear what they need to hear for the salvation of their souls - that there is a mercy seat, where atonement is made, where sin is sprinkled, and where God is pleased with what Christ has done.

We need to pray that God in a day of mercy and grace will come down once again so that we will feel his heaviness and bow before him and confess our sins and seek the Lord while he is to be found and call on him while he is near. If as we look back over our lives we can see and recall times when we once felt the glory, but tonight it is gone, let us seek him anew, because there is still a mercy-seat, still a place of atonement, and still a Saviour who says "Come unto me, all that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest". Those who know the Lord are safe under the atoning work of the Lord Jesus. How we need for the glory of God to return, and the Spirit of God to come down that the Gospel might be blessed. How we need to look beyond the symbols of our religion and the outward form to the soul-saving, life-changing work of God in Christ.

© Iain D. Campbell 2001