 1 Samuel chapter 2. We're going to be looking at verses 27 through 36 as we continue our verse by verse study here in the book of 1 Samuel. So let's begin reading in 1 Samuel chapter 2 at verse 27. We'll read to verse 36 and get into our study. 1 Samuel chapter 2 beginning at verse 27, then a man of God came to Eli and said to him, thus says the Lord, did I not clearly reveal myself to the Lord rather to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? Did I not choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon my altar, to burn incense and to wear in a Fod before me? And did I not give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? Why do you kick at my sacrifice and my offering, which I have commanded in my dwelling place, and honor your sons more than me? To make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel, my people? Therefore the Lord, God of Israel says, I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before me forever, but now the Lord says, far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father's house, so that there will not be an old man in your house. And you will see an enemy in my dwelling place, despite all the good which God does for Israel. And there shall not be an old man in your house forever, but any of your men whom I do not cut off from my altar shall consume your eyes and grieve your heart, and all the descendants of your house shall die in the flower of their age. Now this shall be a sign to you that will come upon your two sons, unholy and finous, and one day they shall die, both of them. Then I will raise up for myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind. I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before my anointed forever. And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread, and say, please put me in one of the priestly positions that I may eat a piece of bread. So we have a very cheery Bible study this morning that we're going to be enjoying together. We're going to be looking at how the Lord deals with sin. We know that as we've gone through 1 Samuel, we've been introduced to a man by the name of Eli. Eli served as what would be called in the nation of Israel a high priest. And Eli as a high priest had sons who were also priests, and they, Haphne and Phineas, are spoken of in verse 12 here in chapter 2 as being corrupt and not knowing the Lord. And as I was mentioning last time we were together, when he says they were corrupt, it's another way of saying they're unsaved. These are people who would literally be called sons of the devil or sons of Belial. And so Eli, though a godly man, has two ungodly sons. They have no knowledge of God. And these men with no knowledge of God also have no fear of God. And I mentioned to you that when somebody doesn't have a fear of God, then they're willing to sin without concern for any repercussions. When people have no fear of God, they're willing to do whatever and they don't really care. They don't care if they're in the tabernacle like these men were. They don't care if they're there robbing God, robbing the people, bullying them, causing them not to care about God. They didn't care that they were sleeping with the women who were there trying to serve the Lord. It didn't matter to them at all because when you have no fear of God, you're willing to do anything because you're not afraid of consequences. And today we have a lot of people with no fear of God within them at all. I mean here in this church we've had to deal with things that are unbelievable, really. I mean here we have to have people walking through the parking lot to protect your vehicles while you're serving the Lord here when you're here to receive the word of God. We have security that walk around because they have to because there have been times in the history of this church that people's cars have been broken into, radios have been stolen, cars themselves have been taken off the parking lot. That should cause you to be a little nervous about right now, right? Who is my car? I hope it's my car. We've lost cars here. There's no doubt about that. We've seen that. When we finished building the children's wing over there, and it hadn't been opened more than a very short time, maybe a week or two, three weeks at the most, some kids decided that the best thing that they could do to show how much they respected church property was to take out some kind of sharp tool and to write their name all over the mirrors and things like that so they tagged in there and you go into a brand new place and they've already put their names and things like that. As a matter of fact, they did it all over the place here. If you look at the chapel and you look at the west side, and if you were to look at the area there, the west side there on the southern section, you'll see that there is a big window there with a big old decal on it. You may wonder why do we have that? We have that because these kids had written all over the glass there, so rather than us spending the kind of money that would take to replace that glass, we simply put a decal over it just to hide it. We had to do that because people came on to the church grounds and decided that the best thing they could do was write all over the windows and just do acts of vandalism. A few weeks ago on a Saturday night, we had a Saturday night service and some people came on the ground and stole palm trees. They dug palm trees out of the ground and dragged them across. We saw the dirt from where they stole the palm trees and they dragged the dirt, dragged it and left the dirt trail and stole palm trees from the church on a Saturday night. I called Raul and I said, listen, man, if you needed a palm tree, you should ask me. We'd have given it to you, but no, he's got to come and steal it. I'll tell you. A thing that blew my mind is recently we did inventory and in our bookstore and we discovered that we have a shrinkage of about 8%, which means that taking into consideration that perhaps there's some receiving, perhaps some paperwork problems and that's not accurate, it means that people are coming into the Christian bookstore and stealing. They steal things and we know that they do that. I mean, we've seen that, but the thing that blew my mind the most is somebody actually came into the church and took a $90 Bible. I had Morocco leather and this and that. They took a $90 Bible, put it in a $24 case, so they took it to the, and they bought a $90 Bible for $24 and I thought, man, you ought to read Exodus chapter 20. It says, thou shalt not steal there. They probably ripped it out and rolled up a cigarette. I don't know, but I'm telling you. I'm telling you that's the way it is and really, realistically, listen, if anybody here needs a Bible, please don't steal one. I'll give you one. I'll give you a Bible because it's just not what you should do. You shouldn't do that, but when you have no fear of God, when you, it will not bother you at all to do those kinds of things. It won't bother you. And these men did not have a fear of God and because they didn't have a fear of God, they're referred to as being corrupt. They don't know the Lord. They don't have a fear of God at all. That's why they're willing to steal God's sacrifice. That's why they bully the people and cause them to abhor the sacrifice of the Lord. People didn't even want to come to Shiloh anymore to make their offerings because of the way that these two men, Hoffney and Phineas, were acting and as a result of that, the Lord is going to now deal with them. Now Eli tried to reprove his sons for the things that they were doing, but by now he's an old man and his sons are rejecting what he has to say. Their hearts have been hardened in their sin. They have gotten to the point of being beyond repentance and so God now is going to deal with them. He's going to bring judgment upon them all. Notice verse 27, how it says, A man of God came to Eli and said to him, Thus saith the Lord. God has made a determination to bring judgment on Eli and his sons, but before he does that, he sends a message to him through a man of God. The phrase man of God is a title of a prophet. You see that phrase, the man of God used in the book of Judges, here in 1 and 2 Samuel, as well as in 1 and 2 Kings. So it speaks about him sending a prophet. So God sends his prophet to speak to Eli because he's going to prepare him for what is about to take place. God has been waiting for some time to deal with this and his patience has now reached its end. God's mercy is often expressed in what is called his long suffering because God gives men and women time to repent. God doesn't come down on us, in other words, the first time we sin, but he gives us opportunity sometimes over months, weeks, even years to finally say, God you're right and I'm wrong. He's merciful in that way. The Bible makes it very clear in 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 9 that the Lord is not slack concerning this promise as some encounter slackness, but it's long suffering to us word, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And so God patiently has been waiting so that Eli and his sons would get it together. There's no doubt he didn't move quickly on them, though God has made a determination that he is going to deal with them. But the Bible makes it clear that his long suffering, the long suffering of the Lord is salvation. That's what Peter said in 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 15. So it would seem that the Lord has waited patiently for Eli's sons to repent, but now Eli is very old. Notice verse 22 how it says that. It says Eli was very old and he heard everything his sons did in all Israel. How they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the Tabernacle of Meeting. He heard because the rumors had come to him. The reports had finally reached his ears. I'm certain he was aware of it. Any father knows their sons. Any father knows the sons are capable of doing certain things. And this is more than likely simply validating and verifying what he pretty much knew about them already. He's very old. Now last time we were together I mentioned to you according to chapter 4 verse 15 that Eli dies when he's 98 years old. And so when I was here speaking to you last time I had said he was probably around 98 at the time actually to correct myself. He's not 98 at this time. He's probably around 80 years of age at this time and God is giving to them more time to repent. There's a reason why I'll show you that and I'll touch this very briefly. Notice verse 21 here in the same chapter. It speaks of the child Samuel. And notice again verse 26 it speaks of the child Samuel. And so that speaks to us concerning the fact that he's still very young. In chapter 3 verse 1 it says the boy Samuel. And so what you have is you have time that is going to be occurring in his life. Because by the time you get into chapter 3 verse 19 it says Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and that none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel had been established as a prophet of the Lord. All of that was going to take some time. So undoubtedly the Lord begins to minister in a very specific way when Eli's between 70 and 80 years old. But he's going to ultimately bring his final judgment on them when Eli becomes 98 years of age. The fact is though that they've been sinning terribly for some time and God is acting and he sends a prophet to speak to Eli in order to rebuke him. Notice it says in verse 27 again. Thus says the Lord did I not clearly reveal myself to the house of your father. Now this is something that he's been warned about. Something that he's aware of. And so if you don't act when you first become aware of something what happens is the thing that you do not correct eventually becomes the thing that becomes part of their character and it becomes who they are. When our kids are small and they do certain things that are wrong if we correct them quickly we may be able to help them to see that that is wrong. But if I allow them to continue doing something and it becomes part of their habit it becomes part of the way they are and ultimately becomes their character. In Ecclesiastes chapter 8 verse 11 the writer said because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully said in them to do evil. So we are supposed to act quickly to help people our kids especially to see that this is wrong. Well that didn't happen. So over time God had given them opportunity to repent they refused to and now he acts. Eli knew that God was displeased with what was happening. He did nothing to stop it and years have passed and now God sends a prophet to confront him. Notice what he says here in verse 27. He says thus says the Lord did I not clearly reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house did I not choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest to offer upon my altar to burn incense and to wearing a fad before me and did I not give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire. So what he does is he reminds him of the history of how he has worked with his family. He goes all the way back to the time that the children of Israel were in bondage and he speaks concerning the fact that he had actually intervened in their behalf and actually had set them free. He wants to remind him of how good he has been to all of Aaron's descendants and how he revealed himself while that nation was in bondage because while they were in Egypt God had selected Aaron and his descendants to be priests and you see this in the book of Exodus chapters 28 and 29. In Exodus chapter 29 verse 9 it says the priesthood shall be theirs for a perpetual statute and so God had established the priesthood with Aaron and his descendants and so he's reminding him and he's saying listen don't you remember there was a time when your family was in bondage in Egypt that's what he's referring to when he says did i not clearly reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house you at one time were in bondage but God has set you free and chosen you to serve him that's what he's saying there was a time when you were in bondage when your whole lineage was in bondage in Aaron and there was a time when you were there serving in bondage in Egypt with pharaoh don't you remember that and how that God he's saying how i delivered you and i gave you blessings to to be able to serve me i gave you an honor you didn't deserve i gave you the ability to serve me i i saved you out of bondage and that's an honor i gave to you the ability to serve me that's an honor that you don't deserve and you don't care now that's a very powerful thing to say i saved you out of bondage you don't care i gave you an honor you didn't deserve but it is a light thing with you it doesn't matter to you you see god's desire for the nation of israel was for them to be his own special people and and this nation to serve god in the book of exodus in chapter 19 verse 6 it says you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation these are the words that you shall speak to the children of israel in other words you're going to be both a kingdom and a nation you're going to be a multitude of peoples connected together not a scattered and disorganized people but a royal nation you will have your own religious rights you will live under your own laws you will be subject in spiritual matters only to god and in things civil to every ordinance of men for god's sake you were in bondage but i have brought you out you were at one time in bondage but i gave you the privilege of serving me you at one time were in bondage i set you free and you don't care there are a lot of people who profess to be christians that don't care it doesn't matter to them and i suspect that it's because they're still in bondage probably have convinced themselves that they are christians when in reality they've never really experienced the joy being set free from the bondage of sin and so they don't understand and so it means very little to them i've seen it to be true where where parents have a fantastic experience with god where a mom or a dad got saved in a great way in a glorious way and and god moved in a tremendous way and worked in their life and and they raised kids who could care less about christ who care less about church who care less about serving god it matters not to them i've also seen people who at one time have professed faith in christ who ultimately go back to the world because they never really were set free from the bondage they remained in bondage but god is speaking to him now and he's saying listen i called you and your family out of bondage so that you might serve me that you might have the honor of serving me and i've been good to you well you know believers at one time before we got saved were in bondage but now we're in we're free in jesus christ jesus in in john 8 36 said if the sun makes you free you shall be free indeed and god when he came into our life when we received christ god sent us free and he made us capable of serving him in first peter in chapter 2 verse 9 the apostle says you are a chosen generation a royal priesthood a holy nation his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous life you are this generation he's speaking to the church we are called a royal priesthood because we read the word of god and we can make our spiritual offerings to god we don't need to go through a mediator outside of jesus christ and we can come to him the offerings have already been made jesus died on the cross for us he already poured out his blood for us he's already made the way accessible to us we can now go to god boldly with confidence we can take our needs to impetition him and request of him because he's our father and that's what takes place when you get saved i received an interesting email this week somebody wrote me and said pastor david i'd like to share something with you he said um about 16 years ago he says i was driving in my car and i turned on the radio and it just so happened the voice over the radio said do you know god and he said so i answered that voice i said of course i know god he said and i got angry and i even turned the radio off how dare that guy asked me if i know god he says i turned the radio off he said and i began to think he said you see he says i was raised in the catholic church he says i i went to catholic elementary school junior high school he says i wanted to go to catholic high school i wasn't able to get in but he said i remained a very strong catholic he said i i i had i had a belief that i knew god he said in and he said and and i went through my early formative years like that and so when i'm listening to you he said ask that question um do you know god he said i got angry and i turned the radio off and i said how dare you ask me if i know god of course i know god he said but at the same time there was an emptiness in my heart he said and i and i didn't know exactly how to fill it so what i was doing is i was very active in my church he said i lived in chino hills and he says and i was serving at the catholic church and he said and and i i started having this aching and and all and so he said i went i spoke to my priest and and the priest said oh don't worry about it keep serving and keep coming to church he said and that's what i did but there was something inside of me an emptiness he said and so what did i do he said i turned the radio back on he said and i'm driving again one day and i turned the radio back on to here and he said and then you said it again do you know god he says i've already answered that question he said and then you said this do you have a relationship with god through jesus christ he said that stopped me in my tracks he says because i had never considered that i should have a real he said and i i said no i don't i don't have a relationship with jesus christ he says i was so filled with trying to do things to please him that i never even got to know him and so i waited to the end of the program i heard the conclusion found that you were in our area he says and i came that wednesday night he said and on wednesday night 16 years ago i gave my heart to jesus christ he says and i wanted to tell you that i've been serving the lord as a missionary in china now for many years i'm on furlough i'm he lives in orange county he's in orange county with the family he says i'm in orange county right now with my family and i just wanted you to know that i committed my heart to christ 16 years ago at church but now i'm serving full time and have done so for many years in china bringing the same message to people asking the same question not just do you know god do you have a relationship with god through jesus because there are a lot of people if you ask them do you know god they'll say oh of course i know god but if you ask him are you saved when you die are you going to go to heaven how do you know you're going to go to heaven if jesus were to ask you the question why should i let you into my kingdom what would your answer be would it be because you go to church would it be because you were water baptized would it be because you try to be a good person would it be because you serve or you give what would your answer be because if i gave any answer outside of because i received you as lord and savior because i put my faith and trust in you and i have a relationship with you of faith because i know who you are and invited you into my life then i'm just religious and what he's saying here is listen he's saying i gave to your family the privilege and the honor of being my priests to be taken out of bondage into a relationship with me that was an honor that you don't deserve but you don't care about that it didn't matter to you at all it doesn't matter to you at all in verse 28 he says did i not choose him out of all the tribes of israel to be my priest to offer upon my altar to burn incense to wearing a fad before me when he says to wearing a fad then a fad is a priestly garment it's like a robe and did i not give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of israel made by fire not only did i give you the joy of freedom but i provided for you generously this nation gave large amounts of sacrifice and the priests were received from that sacrifice a portion of it and therefore they had become wealthy and they were of high rank within the nation of israel so he said i have blessed your life i have given to you a prestige and have honored you with prosperity and it doesn't matter to you now in second Corinthians in the new testament chapter eight verse nine paul said you know the grace of our lord jesus christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that you through his poverty might become rich and i've heard people say see that means that we're all supposed to be millionaires because we're christians is that what he's talking about no because in Ephesians chapter one verse three he tells us what the riches of christ are he says blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in christ god has given to us peace and joy and love god has given to us the graces of his spirit god has made us rich in jesus christ but again some people don't care it doesn't matter he's saying to elie your family was cared for you received honor you received wealth and you received a variety of blessings for me simply because i chose you out of bondage but it doesn't matter notice verse 29 why do you kick at my sacrifice and my offering which i've commanded in my dwelling place and honor your sons more than me to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of israel my people when he says why do you kick at the term kick at refers to rejecting the yoke they tried to get rid of god's authority over them in other words why have you treated my ordinances which have provided blessings for you as a burden to you why have you done that you see they enjoyed the benefits but they rejected god's authority over them so he goes on in verse 30 and he says this therefore the lord god of israel says i said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before me forever but now the lord says far be it for me for those who honor me i will honor and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed now in israel the priesthood was derived from erin erin was the first high priest erin's family line was broken over time into various lines of descent so there are various families that are all looking back to erin as the first priest but their family line is broken down so there are other family lines that all derive the origin from erin i was sharing in second service to try and make this seem practical it's kind of like this my last name obviously comes from my father my father receives his last name from his father now my father's father my grandfather his last name is rosales his wife my grandmother's last name was corona my mother well her father's last name was salsa my mother's mother's last name was alba and so you have is you have four houses that combine into the one house and so that one house is the line of rosales that's my line but i have cousins who have different last names and these are like sanchez's and others there they have last names that are different but they're my blood still but a different line of descent and that's how it worked in the time of israel you have erin the high priest who has sons who have lineages that are derived so what you have is elie you have elie coming from a certain lineage all the way back though to the high priest erin what god does is he removes from elie the high priesthood and he gives it to another line another family member that is of a different descent it all goes back to erin but it will never again be enjoyed by erin rather by elie and his family so god is saying your descendants will no longer hold this high position position now notice in verse 30 how he says those who honor me i will honor those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed your family has not honored me i will not honor you you have kicked against my ordinances you don't understand that you at one time were in bondage and i set you free you've disregarded the value of the priesthood and how i blessed you you have honored your sons over me because you know what my word says concerning my sanctuary and how things ought to be done but because you didn't want to deal with your sons who are in sin you allowed people in israel to no longer want to bring sacrifice you have known but you haven't done and because you've known and not done i will hold you accountable for that in james chapter 1 verse 22 james says it this way he says be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your sounds it's easy for us to have a bible study to hear the things that are said to walk out saying i've been equipped but not to do a single thing and so god says you need to be somebody who understands and does so he continues in verse 31 behold the days are coming that i will cut off your arm and the arm of your father's house so that there will not be an old man in your house so his result the result of him not dealing with the sin is to see his house fall when he says the days are coming that i'll cut off your arm to cut off the arm is a picture of cutting off his and his family's strength the arm represents strength and psalm 3717 the arms of the wicked shall be broken the lord upholds the righteous so he's saying i'm going to deal with you and your sons and your house is going to fall in verse 32 he says you'll see an enemy in my dwelling place despite all the good which god does for israel there shall not be an old man in your house forever and so when he says you'll see an enemy in my dwelling place a dwelling place is the tabernacle it's where god meets with the people the enemy speaks of the calamity that he's going to see when he sees the defeat of the jews he sees the capture of the ark he sees the death of his sons and the triumph of the philistines you're going to see this but not only that but i want to point something out in verse 32 when he says there shall not be an old man in your house forever now what does that mean older men represent wisdom that comes with age and experience we have a hard time today understanding that because my generation doesn't want to grow old we don't want to grow old you know i was talking to one of the ladies in our fellowship this morning in the first service and she's a doll i mean she's very sweet to me and she's she's old enough to be my my mom she's my mom's age and and as i was speaking to her and all i was sharing with her and i said i want to i said you know something that i think she says what's that i said my dad when he was my age when my dad was 58 my dad is was older than i am at 58 i said does that make sense to you and she goes no you stupid child no she said yes she says that makes sense to me i said you know what i mean when my dad was 58 he was older than i am at 58 because my dad came from a generation that worked hard scraped for everything they had my dad was just of that generation and and they ended up giving to me things that they themselves lacked so i didn't gain experience like my dad my dad was working and when he was like 13 years old my dad was already working 14 years old my grandmother you know his his mama my grandmother gave birth to one of his one of his brothers and the same day that she gave birth was in a field working that was my grandmother the day she gave birth she was in a field working she had just given birth to one of my uncles and there she is working that's how their generations were ours is entirely different and so i i realized that people my age don't want to even admit that they're my age that blows my mind i mean you have people say they're 50 something what you mean 50 something come on now what's this all about i'm 30 something now you're 30 immature why don't you just say i'm 35 but we don't do that why we don't want to admit it now do we we don't want to say how old we are why because people are going to be shocked i'm i'm 38 like i care but we do that don't we we do we don't want to grow older and here's the problem when you refuse to grow wisdom and it you refuse to grow older you refuse to have wisdom because wisdom normally comes with age and experience and what happens is we're too busy trying to be cool and young and we stop being examples and mentors to those who really do need our advice because a lot of young people already think they know more than we do they think that when they were born they know more than we they my kids are that way i'm sure my grandson's going to be that way they just have this idea that they already know more than you it's kind of like mark twain when he said when i was 17 my father i thought my father was was was was stupid and he says but when i turned 21 i was amazed at how much the old man had learned in four short years what happens is is we when we're young think we know it all but that's why we need those who are older because they can say been there done that do this you will live i wanted my kids to have a different testimony than me because i did not want my kids to go through what i went through to learn the things that i have learned i wanted them to bypass that because there's a way that they can do that by simply listening to the one who's gone before them someone was telling me not that long ago about an older woman who was there with her daughter her daughter's in her early 30s and this older woman is telling this friend of mine how that she and her daughter go out to the clubs together clubbing now there's women's in her 50s and i'm thinking it's dark in there isn't it because you come out into the light baby i don't care how much spackle you put on that face it's an old face i mean can you grow up sometime can you wake up and realize your daughter doesn't need a play friend she needs a mom she needs someone with maturity and experience some wisdom to help her because she's making bad decisions but if you become her club buddy what are you trying to do and what are you showing her what are you teaching her and how she's going to respect you she's not going to and we have to understand that you see this phrase here there shall not be an old man in your house is another way of saying your house lacks wisdom because wisdom comes from time and experience in Job chapter 12 verse 12 wisdom is with aged men and with length of days understanding and so at the point he's making is your house will lack a wise man to lead you back to god's blessings in verse 33 he says but any of your men whom i do not cut off from my altar shall consume your eyes and grieve your heart and all the descendants of your house shall die in the flower of their age your younger men are going to cause heartbreak they will not die peacefully they will meet an untimely and violent death in verse 34 he says now this shall be assigned to you that will come upon your two sons and hop the infinities in one day they shall die both of them and so he's saying this is what's going to validate this and this does occur by the way we'll see this in chapter 4 when we arrive there but he goes on in verse 35 and he says then i will raise up for myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind i will build him a sure house he shall walk before my anointed forever and it shall come to pass that everyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread and say please put me in one of the priestly positions that i may eat a piece of bread though Eli and his family will no longer hold the office of high priest the priesthood will remain he's saying that he will raise up someone who will faithfully do his will this reminds me of something a very brief thing here but it reminds me of something it reminds me that no one is indispensable no one is indispensable god will use whomever is ready and whomever is available we need to be prepared that we might be used by him and we should be prepared at all times in isaia in chapter 6 isa says he saw the lord he was high and he was lifted up the train filled the temple he said i saw the seraphim and they were crying out holy holy holy he says that i i realized that i'm a an unclean man dwelling amongst the people who are also unclean and and yet i heard a voice and the voice spoken and it said whom shall i send and who will go for us and and then i said here am i send me you know i became aware of myself and and i realized that god wants to use somebody so i said god i i've seen your holiness and i and and i'm enjoying your presence and and now i want to be used by you god will use you if you're open to it and and and yet on the one hand we're not indispensable but on the other hand he will use us if we're in the place to be used i've said this to you before it bears repetition at this point here some of you've never heard this particular story others have bear with me if you've already heard this i was about 24 years old i had been saved now for around four years spent my time in the military gotten out started going to school before i got saved i used to like to drink party and do all of that i especially had an alcohol problem consider myself to be an alcoholic because i wasn't somebody who could drink a beer i drank a six pack and then i went and bought another one that's how i drank i didn't drink just a glass of wine i drank the bottle of wine i didn't drink for the taste i drank for the buzz and that's how i was and every time i drank i got drunk i did not drink in any other way other than to be drunk and that's how i was for a long time so i got saved when i got saved god started doing some cleaning up in my life and one of the things that i no longer really needed was alcohol and i had stopped drinking and and yet i was also saying you know a beer here and there isn't going to kill me and one day i was with a friend of mine we were in one of the beach cities and we went into a pizza parlor and while we were there i was seated at this table and and my friend was facing me and and we were ordering some pizza and he said to me you know what would go good with with this pizza is is a beer so i said well if you won't you know go ahead get it so he got a picture and they bring the picture and they put it in front of us and i took my glass and i poured a glass of beer i hadn't really had any of it i just put it in front of me as i put this beer in front of me i see an old man old to me i was 24 this older man was probably in his 70s and he came walking in in and he sat directly across from me my table is i'm sitting behind my table facing my friend and now facing this man who's in my direction and he's only within 10 feet of me or so so as he sits there i look at him his shoulders are slumped i i still remember some of this his shoulders were slumped and he was looking at his hands there when he was ordering and you could see that the weight of the world was on this poor man and as i was looking at him i sensed the lord speak to my heart saying share my love with him share my love with him and i looked at him and i looked down and i looked at the beer that was in front of me the picture was directly in front of me and i remember thinking this as i heard the voice in my heart say share my love with him i remember saying i can't because i have beer in front of me and he won't listen to me i remember saying that i can't i have beer in front of me he won't listen to me and as i was saying that no i actually remember saying no i can't and this is before the lord this is before god and his witnesses this is the truth when i said no i can't because i have beer in front of me two young men walked in off the street there and one sat on one side the other sat on the other and the man sitting on the man's right side my left the man pulled out a bible and started telling this man i was there i saw it i'm right ten feet away and he started saying do you know that god loves you i heard him and i remember looking at that beer and looking at that pizza and the voice of the lord spoke to me and i have never forgotten it i have never forgotten it the voice of the lord spoke to my heart and said if i can't use you i will use somebody else i have never forgotten that is that beer worth it now i have people right now we're thinking i can drink beer if i want that's between you your conscience and your god i am not saying that you're not hearing me can you effectively serve god when you're a stumbling a block stumbling blocked others and the answer is no you cannot you can't i made a decision a long time ago with my liberties and freedoms to put them under the blood of christ so i could be used by god because i know nobody's indispensable i know that i know that if god can't use me he'll use somebody else but i want to be israel i want to say here am i send me i want to be used oh are you willing to stop drinking your bud yeah who cares you gave me new wine lord i don't need beer anyway you gave me something beyond that do you hear what i'm saying because some people don't because some people the minute you say you know this is what happened i get letters from people i couldn't drink if i want to no word does it say i can't really what kind of ministry do you have tell me about it i'd like to hear how effective are you well my friends when we're drinking our beer we talk about jesus that's product right that's your fellowship right beer and pizza you missed the point is that your communion elements i use grape and i use a cracker you use beer and pizza you haven't communion as far as i'm concerned i want to be used by god and there are things that i will voluntarily not do though people will argue with me and they do they're missing the point the point i'm saying is this no one's indispensable there needs to be something about your life that makes you capable of sharing it isn't legalism when you choose out of love's sake to let things go that you don't need in order that you can bring something that people need you can bring that and deliver it to them so that they might hear that god cares about them elie was being removed because elie honored his sons more than he honored his god and god said you can't do that god said you cannot honor your kids more than you honor me i'm going to remove you and by the way i'm going to raise up a faithful priest during the reign of king david a man by the name of zadoch becomes the priest that is raised up that would fulfill that and what is interesting is zadoch's priestly line is mentioned in the prophetic book of ezekiel ezekiel 44 verse 15 in reference to them serving in the millennial reign of the anointed the messiah and you see that in ezekiel 44 15 where it says the priests the levites the sons of zadoch who kept charge of my sanctuary when the children of israel went astray from me they shall come near me to minister to me they shall stand before me to offer to me the fat and the blood sayeth the lord this occurs in the millennial reign of christ and so they continue to minister and he goes on to say in verse 36 it shall come to pass that everyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread and say please put me in one of the priestly positions that i may eat a piece of bread that's the punishment that they receive for their sin and the punishment fits the sin in other words you who gorged yourselves on the sacrifices are going to end up begging be not deceived god is not mocked for whatsoever a man sows that also shall he reap if you sow to the flesh from the flesh you reap corruption if you sow to the spirit from the spirit you reap everlasting life Paul said in Galatians 6 7 and 8 and so the punishment fits the crime Eli you did not obey you did not follow you honored man more than god i'm removing the priesthood from you i will give it to a faithful priest who will continue to do so you didn't care others will i will use the ones who care now for me i read the scriptures with a heart of application and so i'm constantly saying lord whatever it is that you want to remove from me i want that removed so i can be used by you i want to be used by you because there's no greater joy than to be used by god i'm moving in your life blessing your life there's no greater joy than that so lord as i read this i want to honor you and i want to thank you you took me out of bondage i thank you lord you have blessed my life i thank you lord you say i should honor you even more than i honor my kids meaning i should put you first and then care for them according to your word i want to do that lord i want to be used by you because there's no greater blessing than to be used by you i realize that no one's indispensable i know that you could get somebody else that you could use but lord here am i use me and i want to be in that position and i pray that we as the church have that heart in us too to be used by the lord our father we asked that you would work in us today i asked that you continue to reveal yourself lord in our lives we want to be used by you and and we take these stories lord and and we look for application and so we ask that you would work in us lord and we see elie a man who as he grew older i'm certain wanted to serve you lord but at the same time he never really dealt with the issues that needed to be dealt with and he ultimately reaped what was sown father i asked that we would be those who sowed to the spirit that from the spirit will reap life i lift up this congregation i pray for us lord that we would love you and serve and be in the place that we can be used by you lord so work in us and continue to show yourself to us lord and and may we take those liberties that you have given to us and may we may we live those liberties out loving others and loving you first lord so we lift all of these things to you now and we pray that you would work in us lord that we might bring glory to jesus christ even as our eyes are closed and our heads are bowed perhaps i have some who need to get right with the lord right now right where you're at if you know the spirit of god is speaking to you that you need to get right with him i want to pray for you right now and if you need to would you raise your hand let me pray for you right where you're at father you see these hands and you know the reason why they're being raised to you right now and i'm asking in jesus name that you would reach down and you would touch these lives the hearts are opening to you right now father i'm asking that you would fill their hearts as you have cleansed them fill them lord with your spirit with your presence and from this day on lord may they be used by you to glorify you lord i ask that you make them brand new from this moment lord even as their hearts are opening to you wash them and cleanse them fill them and use them for your glory from now until forever lord and we give you praise for this and thank you lord we bless you thank you lord you can put your hands down and jesus please keep working in us and working on us that we might be those that really are a kingdom of priests lord a holy nation that we have been called out to be used by you to bring glory to you in your name we pray amen let's all stand we'll close with a word of prayer and a song you know we do have our ministry fair outside you might want to look at it we have our evening service tonight men i invite you to be with us next saturday i encourage you to come and be with us and let's see what the lord wants to do in us if we just open our hearts to him let's see what he wants to do father i ask that you use us to your glory we leave this place now into a mission field may we be found faithful as we serve you we give you praise we give you honor we give you glory in jesus name amen god bless you