We'll turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter four. 1 Samuel chapter four. The last time we spoke we were In the first half of this chapter, I'm going to take the time to read the entire chapter so that we're reminded of what we saw two weeks ago and the general flow and even, I hope, something of the impact of the chapter. The word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out to battle against the Philistines and encamped beside Ebenezer. And the Philistines encamped in Aphek. And then the Philistines put themselves in battle array against Israel. And when they joined battle, Israel was defeated by the Philistines who killed about 4,000 men of the army in the field. And when the people had come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, 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. So the people sent to Shiloh that they might bring from there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts who dwells between the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the Ark of the Covenant of God. And when the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted so loudly that the earth shook. Now, when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, does the sound of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean? And then they understood that the ark of the Lord had come into the camp. So the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God has come into the camp. And they said, woe to us, for such a thing has never happened before. Woe to us, who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. Be strong and conduct yourselves like men, you Philistines, that you do not become servants of the Hebrews as they have been to you. conduct yourselves like men and fight. So the Philistines fought and Israel was defeated and every man fled to his tent. And there was a very great slaughter. And there fell of Israel 30,000 foot soldiers. And also the Ark of God was captured. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas died. And then a man, a Benjamin, ran from the battle line the same day. and came to Shiloh with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. Now when he came, there was Eli sitting on a seat by the wayside watching, for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city and told it, all the city cried out, And when Eli heard the noise of the outcry, he said, what does the sound of this tumult mean? And the man came quickly and told Eli. And Eli was 98 years old, and his eyes were so dim that he could not see. Then the man said to Eli, I am he who came from the battle, and I fled today from the battle line, and he said, What happened, my son? So the messenger answered and said, Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter among the people. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured. Then it happened when he made mention of the Ark of God that Eli fell off the seat backward by the side of the gate and his neck was broken and he died. For the man was old and heavy. And he had judged Israel 40 years. Now, his daughter-in-law, Phinehas's wife, was with child due to be delivered. And when she heard the news that the ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, She bowed herself and gave birth, for her labor pains came upon her. And about the time of her death, the women who stood by her said to her, do not fear, for you have born a son. But she did not answer, nor did she regard it. And then she named the child Ichabod saying, the glory has departed from Israel because the ark of God had been captured and because her father-in-law, of her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, the glory has departed from Israel. The ark of God has been captured. 1 Samuel chapter 4 has 22 verses in it. 11 out of those 22 verses speak of the ark of God or the ark of the covenant. In fact, chapter 4 begins a narrative, an account that has the ark as its focus. The ark is mentioned 31 times from chapter 4 verse 1 to chapter 7 verse 3. What becomes evident in this narrative is that there were widespread misconceptions concerning the Ark of the Covenant held by both Israel and, as we will see, by the Philistines as well. Those who had a right understanding and a right esteem of the Ark were few and far between. Israel, remember, is in that state of great spiritual decline and spiritual darkness that is related in more detail in the book of Judges. And it's in this particular narrative that we see that decline at its very lowest point. This is the lowest point of that. In fact, as I have alluded to before, as I will speak again, this in the history of Israel is one of the three lowest points in Israel's history. You have this, you have the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity, and then you finally have the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army. Now, this message, to be true to the text, must be heavy and dark. You can't preach from this text and preach a very bright and sunny message, right? It wouldn't be true to the chapter. We would be failing to expound the chapter with accuracy. But I do want at the outset as we return to this chapter to remember three things that will keep us from being overwhelmed with the darkness of the chapter. and none of these three things are being forced into the text. They're lying there somewhat under the surface but they're there and we need to note them and remember them. The first is that God's glory is not diminished even at those times when there is no faithful witness to his glory and at those times where he may seem to withdraw his glory. What we have in this chapter is God withdrawing his presence from Israel. We have God, as it were, seeming to throw a shroud over his glory as the Israelites, and as the Philistines could see it here. And yet God is not at all diminished in his glory. None of his glory has gone away. God has not lost his mojo, to put it in the vernacular, all right? It's still there. And that's the message of chapter five and chapter six. The ark may be captured, but God isn't, all right? And so that's the first thing. The second is to note that even at this lowest point of spiritual declension, God has already brought Samuel into the picture. And Samuel, as we will see in chapter 7, is the one who will be used by God to activate motions of reformation and of renewal in the nation. Samuel, it is true as we saw at the end of chapter 3, is becoming known through the nation. And yet, not as the one to turn to, to lead Israel, to lead Israel out of the state of declension. He's a bit more in the background. You can almost, to use the sports analogy, you can almost look at Samuel as being there on deck, warming up, the next batter up. People don't realize yet what God's going to do with Samuel. But he's there. He's there on the stage. And we know, we know the rest of the story, right? We know what God is going to do with Samuel. So as we read this chapter and the heaviness and darkness of it, we see Samuel not mentioned here, all right, in the account of chapter four, but we know he's there. And that's a bright spot here as we consider this. And the other, the final one is perhaps not nearly as obvious, but again, we who have a complete Bible, we who live on this side of the cross, we who have the realities of the new covenant all having been accomplished, have another key perspective on this chapter that those going through it may have struggled even more to lay hold of. But even they, if they were remembering their Pentateuch, would have it. There was a promise to Adam and Eve in the garden of the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head. And so in this darkness, it just seems to be overwhelming. There's still that promise. And it hasn't yet been fulfilled. And so no matter how dark the picture, there was always this glimmer of light that there would be a victory worked by the seed of the woman. The types and shadows that existed, The ceremonial law that was in place at that time kept screaming, the seat of the woman hasn't come, hasn't come, hasn't come, the victory hasn't been won. The ceremonial law again was designed to constantly scream out, this is not a solution, right? Offer a thousand sacrifices and you're not going to turn one heart of Israel out of spiritual darkness. Nothing in the ceremonial law can do anything, anything of any good whatsoever. for Israel's problems. And so there was this light, the glimmer of light in the darkness at all. Well, the portion of the narrative that we look at today, beginning at verse 12, shows us the response of what I believe are two godly people to the news that the Ark had been captured. We saw last time the Ark being captured. And so we're going to see the response of Eli, and we expect that to be part of the story, right? Eli is figured heavily into the narrative. We expect for God to tell us, how did Eli respond? The other one is unexpected. We have Eli's daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas. wife of one of those two sons that God killed in battle in judgment against their sin. Again, we don't expect this in many ways. Her response, relating her response, is a real surprise to us as we read the account. Maybe not if you've read it a lot of times, but if you were reading it for the very first time, I think it would be somewhat of a surprise. And we'll talk about that more in a minute. But what's ironic is that it's her response that is in many ways the most helpful for us to understand the text. Now before we look at Eli and Phinehas's wife's response. I do want, though, to take a moment to think on the significance of the Ark of the Covenant. Again, it is so often mentioned, it's obviously the centrepiece of the story. Now, without a doubt, the central item of furniture in the tabernacle, later in Solomon's temple, was the Ark of the Covenant. It was the most holy object in the place of worship. The Ark of the Covenant, if you do not remember, was located in the innermost chamber of the tabernacle, later the temple. We often refer to that innermost chamber as the Holy of Holies. or the most holy place. Remember that no one but the high priest entered that place in the tabernacle or temple. The high priest only entered there one time every year. It was in the observance of the Day of Atonement. He entered into the Most Holy Place. He sprinkled blood on the mercy seat over the Ark. We don't know what else may have gone with that ceremony, but I think that it's likely that he was not in the holy place or in the most holy place for very long. He was in there, observed the ceremony that was required and out. Only one time a year for only a matter of minutes. And that means that only one person every year for a matter of minutes ever observed or saw the Ark of the Covenant. Now, What's really remarkable is that when you have something that God clearly was setting in a place of extreme carefulness, holiness. Holiness, remember, has the sense of being set apart. You can't get more set apart than the Ark of the Covenant was, right? What I find and always have found as I read through the instructions of building the furniture of the tabernacle is how understated the Ark of the Covenant was. Now, if this had been pagan idolatry, right, and you had the most holy object in the entire nation, you can just imagine what it would have looked like. But the Ark was really very, very understated. And I think that that was intentional. In fact, I think that you will find a pattern in your Bible. In those things that are the most sacred and that point to God's presence in the most extreme, you will find simplicity and understatement. We last week observed the Lord's Supper. The Roman church takes the Lord's Supper, makes it ornate, makes it very extravagant. That's not a biblical institution of it. The biblical institution is so stunningly simple. And you will see that as a pattern in your Bible. I don't want to dwell on it more, but keep it in mind. Now, let's talk about this ark. The ark was a box. It doesn't seem irreverent to refer to it as that, but that's what it was. It was a box. It was fairly small, it was two and a half cubits long, one and a half cubits wide, one and a half cubits high. If we assume an 18 inch cubit, that means it was 45 inches long, just a little under four feet. It was 27 inches high and 27 inches wide, just over two feet. So four feet by two feet by two feet. Not very big. Not very big. I remember that when we would have family devotions, and the kids were young, and we were going through the building of the furniture. We have a different one now, but about the same size. We have a chest there in the family room, and that's not too far off, really, from the dimensions. Not very big. It was made of wood, overlaid with gold. Yes, overlaid with gold, but made of wood, overlaid with gold. There was purpose in the wood overlaid with gold, pointing and representing as the type and shadow of Christ. The gold would have been striking for sure, but at least my recollection, I don't remember there being any ornamental work on the ark itself, on the box itself. Now, on the box was a cover, a lid, that went on top of it. That lid was called the mercy seat. Now, if there was anything ornamental about the Ark, it was here. It was the mercy seat. This, unlike the Ark itself, was made of solid gold. On that cover, there were two cherubim made of solid gold. two angels, at least as people have tried to reconstruct what this would have looked like, even these would not have been all that ornamental. But there were two angels, their wings stretched forward so they reached over the mercy seat and touched each other and the faces of the angels looked down on the mercy seat. Now, it was in that space and in that point between the cherubim at the mercy seat that God was said to dwell in the most sacred way. It was at that point that there was the most astounding display of God's holiness. Now, God is everywhere present. But God does manifest and demonstrate his presence in special ways in special places. And this was it. I mean, this was it. And in fact, you have, if you look at verse four of chapter four, you'll see that phrase that occurs other places in scripture, used to identify and address God, the Lord of hosts who dwells between the chair of him, all right? So this was the most, you're in the most holy place, but in the most holy place, if there was a most holy, space, it was right there, between the cherubim, over the mercy seat. Now again, we don't have time to explain why all that was, and it really wouldn't serve our purpose. But what I want, what I'm driving at is that the special thing about the ark was really God's presence. All right? That was the thing that God made stand out. In fact, you remember that there was the Shekinah glory that we talk about. There was the pillar of cloud. There was the pillar of fire that followed or that led the way for Israel in their wilderness wanderings. And that Shekinah glory came to settle over the tabernacle. But what part of the tabernacle? focused on the most holy place, really funneling down to focus on that one place. The special thing about the Ark was God. The special thing about the Ark was God. It was God's presence. It was God's holiness. Now again, I don't want to trivialize the ark and the mercy seat, but I do want to point out that given the overwhelming magnificence of what is being represented, the ark and the mercy seat together was surprisingly understated. And what it underscored and what it should have underscored in the minds of those Israelites was that it is God that is the glory. In fact, if I haven't worked this point to death yet, let me take it one final step. Solomon constructs this magnificent temple, stunning. It must have been, if it had been preserved, it would have, I think, probably ranked as one of the wonders of the world. It was stunning. Everything about it just meant to make your jaw drop to the floor. And he constructed this brazen altar. Remember, that thing was massive, just massive. But you go into the holy place and what's in there? There's no instructions for Solomon to build another ark. The ark that they put in this massive room, all overlaid with gold, with all of the ornamentals, carvings in the wood that the gold overlaid, what you have, is the box. You have the ark that was first made when the people were in the wilderness. Because the point wasn't the ark. The point was God. Now, why have I labored this so much? The ark without God's presence was nothing. And we said last week, when the people took the Ark into the battle, Israel made really two fundamental errors. And the first is that it was the Ark, not God, that was their focus and hope. In fact, we pointed out the irony that when the Ark comes into the camp, It's only the Philistines that get the point of the ark, right? They say God's in the camp. Israel's like, the ark's in the camp. All right? But the other was that we said that the Ark was seen as a way to obligate God. Where the Ark went, God must go. If the Ark went into battle, God would be compelled to defend the Ark and therefore defend Israel from defeat. You see, the problem was that Israel had lost their focus on the glory of God. And that's how they got in the point that they were. Now, what's practical in application here? I suppose we could just park here and unfold all sorts of practical applications, but let me bring this one to mind that I find is extremely helpful practically. We rightly emphasize the importance of all the means of grace that God has ordained. membership in a true church, faithful attendance at public worship, the keeping of the Lord's Day Sabbath, family worship, private worship, our personal devotions with a daily reading of God's Word, time in prayer. All these things are emphasized. All these things we ought to feel the pressure of conscience. that we must keep them and maintain them. They're all very important. And all of them involve interacting with God, right? Even membership in a church. This is where God makes his presence known in a way that he doesn't elsewhere. So we rightly emphasize those things, but every one of those means of grace can and does at times become our focus exactly the same way the ark was viewed by those who took the ark into battle. And brothers and sisters, this can be so easy to fall into. I have fallen into it. I would be surprised if you haven't as well. Every one of those means of grace, every single appointment in our worship can become the focus and hope rather than God. And be looked to as a means of placing God under obligation to bless and protect us. Forgetting that none of those things has nothing apart from God's glory being seen in them. Let me just illustrate how easily this can be done. When regard for the Lord's Day Sabbath outshines the glory of the Lord of the Sabbath, some very grotesque distortions and corruptions occur. We see them in the New Testament, in the practices of the Pharisees. We see them at various points in church history. We perhaps have seen them in ourselves. Let me give you one other subtle way that this can happen. I've been here. You have a day when you are facing a very difficult thing. I don't know, you name it. Maybe something you're very afraid of. Maybe something like really big and you don't know whether you're up to it. And like this is, this is going to be a difficult day. And you're rushing around in the morning and you almost decide, well today I just don't have time for personal devotions. And here's the thought that crosses your mind. Well, I better not, because today I've got to face such and such. And I got to make sure that I don't provoke God by skipping devotions today. See what we've done? See what we've done? We've taken the ark into battle. We just made personal devotions a rabbit's foot. That's what we did. That's what we did. And it always happens when our focus is not God in His glory. All right. The point being, your heart should desire to be in God's Word and spend time praying to Him regardless of what you've got going on in your day. All right, well, so lengthy introduction. Let's look at Eli and his response to the ARCS capture. And we're looking here at verses 12 through 18. I read these verses before we started. I'll not take the time to read them again. I'm going to purposely pass over many of the details of the account there, here. I want us to kind of focus on some bigger themes in it. can be looking at those verses as I go through this. I'm going to give a quick survey of the high points. There's this man, we don't have his name, that comes from the battle with the Philistines to Shiloh. And Eli is sitting there waiting for news to come. Now, I want you to notice where Eli is at. Eli is clearly in an anxious state. We get that as we read the passage. We have several indications of that. He's sitting there anxiously waiting to find out what will happen. The fact that the Ark went into battle, I think it is safe to say, was what placed Eli in this anxious state. But probably there was much more. Remember, he has now two prophecies of judgment, the unnamed man of God who had come to him, and then Samuel. And it's hard for me to imagine that as Eli has been seeing events unfold, as the ark is taken into battle, that he's not sitting there with a heavy sense of foreboding that is just amplifying the concerns he would otherwise have. He knew, remember, that God would kill Hophni and Phinehas together on the same day. And now his two sons are at the battle with the Philistines on the same day. He knew that God had said that he, Eli, would see an enemy in his habitation. And here's the ark in battle, exposed to the Philistines. Now with this fear and trembling over the state of the Ark we can safely assume that Eli had had misgivings about the removal of the Ark from the tabernacle. Here I may be speculating a bit more, but I think that the evidence is clear that he wasn't particularly happy about the situation and that he may not have been a willing participant in it going into battle. But if Eli acted at that point as he had before with his two sons, we can imagine that Eli's protests were too mild and his objections too weak, and he knew what should not have been done, but he did not do what he could have to prevent it. We can imagine that in the hours since the Ark had left Shiloh, as he sat waiting to hear how it went with Israel, the first one point and then another of the prophecy of judgment came into his mind, the sense of foreboding growing heavier with each passing hour. Eli is blind, he does not see this man who comes from the battle, heads into Shiloh, he doesn't see that, but he hears the response of the people to the news that this man brings and he calls for the man to tell him what happened. It's fascinating to see how this messenger delivers the report to Eli. First of all, a lot different than I would have. It's straight to the point. There are four staccato statements that he makes. He says, Israel has been defeated. That's stunning. But then he says, there has been a great slaughter of the Israelites. The numbers here for reasons that we'll actually deal with in a later chapter are a little bit unclear, but what is clear is that the number who died in this battle were many, many more than had died in the previous one. Things had not gotten better. Israel had not only been defeated, they had been defeated with a great loss of life. but the messenger is not done. He says, your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead. Now, these statements may have come in fairly rapid succession, but your brain can process things very quickly. And when he said that, Eli knew instantly what territory they were in. This is not just the defeat of Israel on a battle. Remember that God had said, this will be the sign of judgment. Your two sons will die together on the same day. This staccato statement, your sons, Hophni and Phinehas are dead, signaled to Eli, this is God's judgment on you. And then, the last statement, the Ark has been captured. Verse 18 seems to be very forceful and clear that it was this statement, the ark of God has been captured, that produced the shock in Eli that caused him to fall from his bench to his death. It would seem that he could have absorbed the accumulated shock of the other three, but it was this point, it was this, word that he could not absorb. The thought that the Ark had been taken from Israel and was now in the hands of the Philistines who would do who knows what with it. He could not absorb that. We can easily imagine Eli here thinking, this is the end. I mean, is there any prospect that you retrieve the Ark from the Philistines? Not on your life. I find the account of Eli's response both jarring and frustrating in this sense. As far as we know from the biblical narrative, Eli died without speaking a word. His thoughts were known to God. and known only to God, we can only attempt to guess of what his thoughts were. And I've already spoken of some of these. As we've said before, we cannot doubt that Eli was a man who believed God. We're also equally clear that Eli was a man whose unfaithfulness had provoked God. Eli, it's important to know, had placed his sons And the gain that he enjoyed from their corruption, I had a full obedience to what he knew was his duty to God. And now what had come of it. This had been more important to him than doing what God required. And now he didn't have that. The thing he had placed before God had been taken from him in judgment. I believe that with a very clear, or I'm sorry, I think that Eli did have a right perspective on the ark and the glory of God. And I think that's why it impacted him so greatly. You know, those who look to the things of God as their charms, have remarkable resilience when their charms are taken from them. They just find another good luck charm. But that's not the case with Eli. I believe that with the very clear prophecies of judgment on his conscience, Eli recognized that the loss of the ark was not just the loss of the ark. there was something almost, there was something impossible to put into words involved here. He saw that God had allowed the ark to be captured because God had, in judgment, withdrawn the blessing of his presence from Israel. God withdrew his presence, and then it was like, I don't care what you do with the ark. What does it matter what happens to the ark? I'm not there. It's a box. But you didn't worry when my presence was being withdrawn. Now you're worried about the ark. You should have been worried about whether I was with you. No words are spoken by Eli that we have recorded to exegete to explain the horrifying effects of that day. Shockingly, the explanation comes from the lips of Phinehas's wife and so we look at her response. And I am going to just take the moment in time to read verses 19 through 22 to refresh our minds. Now, his daughter-in-law, Phinehas's wife, was with child due to be delivered. And when she heard the news that the Ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and gave birth, for her labor pains came upon her. And about the time of her death, the women who stood by said to her, do not fear, for you have born a son. But she did not answer, nor did she regard it. Then she named the child Ichabod, saying, the glory has departed from Israel. because the ark of God had been captured and because of her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, the glory has departed from Israel for the ark of God has been captured. I suspect for many of us we feel like saying when we read those verses, wait a minute, don't pass on so quickly. Where has she been all this time, right? We want to know more about her. We want to know more about who she was. what her history was, what becomes of her, what becomes of the child and so forth. We do not even know her name. We only know that she is Phinehas's wife. We have just these four short verses to get acquainted with her. But everything that we read in these four verses would lead us to conclude that here is a woman who seems to be truly pious and spiritual, But she's Phinehas's wife. Now, again, I say, as I have so many times, you have to, when you read these narrative accounts, put yourself into the narrative. There is so much we lose from reading our Bibles when we don't try to put ourselves into the narrative. All Israel knew that her husband was on a regular and habitual basis committing fornication with women who served in and around the house of God. Put yourself there. For how many years she had been interacting with all around, knowing that her husband was nationally known for being a philanderer. Surely she knew about it, if all Israel knew. It would be the biggest secret ever known to man if she didn't know. What kinds of heart-rending sorrows and grief had this woman experienced in her life? Hannah was filled with sorrow and grief, but she had a husband who loved her, and that was worth more than 10 sons. This woman lived with the national disgrace of being married to one who rather openly flaunted his fornication, the bitter sorrow of being married to one who betrays your love, who knows how many women, probably he couldn't count them. She clearly has a profound reverence for the Ark and the glory of God. Her husband treated both with contempt. What conversations did she and Phinehas have? We want to know, right? But God hasn't told us. What might she have said or expressed to Phinehas that should have been, could have been a rebuke or a call to repentance? How had she managed to remain faithful to God? How had she managed to rise above the hypocrisy and the corruption that her household was known for? We do not know the boundary between necessary conclusions to be drawn from the text and what is speculative, I suppose. Had she remained entirely faithful? Were there in this some fruits of repentance? We don't know. But clearly, this woman knew who God was. And clearly, she understood that the ark was not the point. It was the glory of the Lord. What's the practical value here? It's a very interesting story. What we do know and what this underscores for us is that God can preserve faithful people in the midst of conditions of great spiritual decline. Brothers and sisters, there is no excuse for disobedience. You can't say, well, I was surrounded by some pretty bad people. There were some spiritual leaders in my life that were unfaithful. That's why I'm the way I am. No. Here, being surrounded by carnality and hypocrisy in professing Christians does not give us any leeway to be unfaithful or unbelieving. Hear that well. Hear that well. Is it an awful thing for people to be hypocritical in claiming to be Christians when their lives show that they're not? Yes. Will God judge that severely? Absolutely. Does that give you any excuse to be unbelieving? No, not at all. They were a hypocrite. That's why I don't believe. No. No, the fact that they were a hypocrite only removes your excuses. Because you clearly understood what hypocrisy was. You think it's a hypocrite and it's sincere to continue an unbelief? I don't think so. No. It doesn't give us any excuse. It doesn't give us any excuse to become careless. It doesn't excuse any of our falls into sin. The fact that there are others who may claim to be Christians who are loose and are involved in things that they ought not to be, none of that gives any excuse. Here's 2 Timothy 2.19. Nevertheless, the solid foundation of God stands having this seal. The Lord knows those who are his and Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. It's an amazing thing that 2 Timothy 2.19 puts those two together. The Lord knows those who are his. Christ knows his people and he will keep and preserve them. Oh, then it doesn't matter if I sin. No, then he puts with it, let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. So, no. Influence, God, the ungodly influences, no excuse. Ungodly influences are ungodly and God will judge. But it doesn't change where you are in relation to God. So we kind of looked at verse 19. Look at verse 20. About the time of her death, the women who stood by her said to her, do not fear, you have born a son. They think it will cheer her up. It will remove her fears that she has born a son. But she did not answer, nor did she regard it. Ordinarily, the birth of the son would have been a cause for rejoicing, but her heart, her mind, her entire spirit is so absorbed in processing the shock of what happened with the Ark and with her family, she doesn't even acknowledge the news of the birth of her son. Not that she didn't know, by the way. Something you see of far greater weight and significance is demanding the attention of her being. And we see in verses 21 and 22, when she names the child Ichabod, the name Ichabod means where is the glory, or alas for the glory, or there is no glory. She surveys the horrible and shocking circumstances that are before her and concludes, that God has removed his glorious presence from Israel. They no longer have the blessing of God. They've lost God. They lost an ark, but that's not the problem. They lost God. Verse 21 says that there were three things in her mind that caused her to conclude that God had departed in judgment. I look at these in reverse order, backing up to the thing that was the greatest focus. There was the loss of her husband. And as we've already said, she must have known the wickedness of her husband. If she was devout, as it would appear, she could not be in doubt at this point that this was the hand of God's judgment on him. If she was devout and godly, she still loved the man. as wicked as he was, and it would have been still a great grief that now he had departed this life into eternal judgment. There was the loss of her father-in-law. Again, her being devout, we could imagine that Eli blessed her as he had Hannah. She must have had great affection for Eli as a man of God, but perhaps she too struggled to understand why he did not do more to restrain the wickedness of his son, her husband. Perhaps she had gone to Eli on various occasions looking for him to do something. He was the judge of Israel and the high priest. Certainly she would not have been misguided to look to him to act, and yet he had not. But think of what she saw when these two came together, beyond the fact that this was her family. In a single day, God had decimated the priesthood of Israel. High priest, priest, gone in a single day. Not all from the priestly line, of course, but this was a shock. And then there was the ark. Simply on the surface, just think the combination. The priesthood gone, the ark gone, the place of worship made an empty shell. If it existed at all, many believe that Shiloh was destroyed. As we see in the following chapters, there's an eerie silence as to what really happened with Shiloh. Even when the ark returns, there's no mention of Shiloh. When the ark returns, for that matter, there's no mention of the ark at all until more than 60 years later when David brings the ark to Jerusalem. From all that she could see, God's judgment was more than allowing the ark to be captured. God had allowed the entire system of worship to be brought to nothing. How could that be? This was the equivalent of the Babylonian captivity. How could God allow the dismantling of his worship? The people of Israel said to Jeremiah, you must be prophesying falsely. God would never allow his worship to be destroyed. A lot of people in processing this whole COVID-19 thing talked about what we need to worship. What happens if God brings a judgment so severe that you can't even worship the way that he appointed? What does that say? I think it says that God is looking and saying, you weren't worshiping me anyway. That's how he explained it to Jeremiah. You weren't worshiping me anyway. Get rid of it. Get rid of it. Verse 22 makes clear that of these three things, the loss of her husband, the loss of her father-in-law, the loss of the ark, it was clearly the capture of the ark that outweighed all the other terrible things that occurred that day. Israel assumed if they had the ark, God's presence must follow. But what Israel found out was what they needed was God's presence. the ark would follow. God had endured their provocations with long-suffering, but now he rose in judgment. And what a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living God. I conclude with these exhortations. Brothers and sisters, what sins have we been indulging? What sins have we been provoking a patient and long-suffering God with? How many warnings has he given that we have not heeded? What if today is the day he rises in judgment, rises in chastisement for our indulgence in sin? What if today is the day he withdraws the blessing of his presence and the heavens become like brass to us? Here is, in the words of the New Covenant, a New Covenant phrasing of the lesson of this chapter. Hebrews 3, 12-15, Beware brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God, but exhort one another daily, while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence. Steadfast to the end while it is said today if you will hear his voice Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. Oh the first Samuel that's Old Testament stuff That's the types and shadows Yes, it is but Hebrews says Christ is better and Sinning against Christ is worse He says we have become partakers of Christ. So for us to be hardened in sin, for us to be neglectful to continue in sin, is far worse than what Eli did. Far worse. If there is sin that we have not been dealing with, time will tell whether our state before God is that of Eli or that of his sons. This passage, all three die, but the three die in two very different ways. Eli's sons die in judgment. A God who is judge and who will condemn the wicked to eternal damnation is dealing with Eli. He takes his life, but not as the angry judge, but as a father who says, you have been a rebellious child. And I've been warning you. but it's time to go to the woodshed. Which is it? If we are neglectful, if we continue in sin, sometimes you don't know which it is. Sometimes you don't know which it is. If you are here today as one who has no hope in Christ, it doesn't matter whether you're a religious hypocrite or whether you make no profession of faith at all. You may be free in saying, I'm no Christian. I wouldn't claim to be. I know I'm not. Really doesn't matter whether that's your state or whether you are pretending to be a Christian, you're not. Either way, you're lost. You need to look very closely at what we've seen. And there can be no other logical conclusion for you coming from this passage than one of sheer terror. And I mean terror, terror. See how severely God deals with Eli, one of his own people. This is, Eli is one that God loves. Eli loves God and see what he does to Eli. What will be his dealings with you who have not believed on him and have refused this offer of peace and salvation in his blessed son? Well, again, I think the New Testament has a very helpful interpretation of our passage for you. Here it is in 1 Peter 4, 17. For the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God. And if it first begins at us, what shall the end of them be that obey not the gospel of God? If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? Can you think of anything in the Bible that would more clearly summarize the lesson for the unconverted out of this passage? But you need not be condemned. Here's the thing. You don't need, no one here needs to be unconverted. No one. You don't need to walk out those doors unconverted. You don't need to be unconverted 10 minutes from now. That's a choice you're making. but it's not one to make, not one you should be making. God has provided salvation in Jesus Christ to all who repent of their sin and trust the Lord Jesus. But if you continue to refuse Christ, then how, given what we've seen in this passage, can you hope to escape? when inevitably the day comes that you fall into the hands of an angry God. Let's pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, our minds go back to that tragic moment in the garden. You told Adam and you told Eve to not eat of that one tree. In the day that you eat, you'll surely die. Oh God, you warned, you pleaded with them not to do that. You knew what it would do. You knew what it would do to them. You knew what it would do to all their posterity. Oh God, we could look at them and say what fools they were. But how often you have warned us. My child, don't dabble in that sin. Nothing but misery will come from it. Don't play around with that sin. I love you too much to let you do that. If you will not stop, we're going to have to go to the woodshed. And the Apostle Paul says that some, coming even to the Lord's Supper, continuing in that sin, you have taken their lives. because you love them. Now, our God, there are some here who are unconverted. They have refused you, they've refused salvation in Christ. We plead with you for just a moment for them. Oh God, you are a God of mercy. We pray that you might direct your mercy toward them now. that your love will burst forth on them, overwhelm them, and capture them to make them your own children. Save them, our God, from that dreadful day when sinners fall into the hands of an angry God. O God, we pray these things. for the glory of your great name and of your son who died that we might live. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, you have two hymns on your handout. Make sure you grab your handout as we head out. And I think we'll... Are you ready to head out there, David, or not? You're ready to head out?