Those Who Honor God

When people respect someone, the first thing that changes is their attitude. With someone they respect, regardless of that person’s sex, age, or rank, they naturally speak politely and bear themselves humbly. If they say they respect someone but their attitude stays the same, they are lying. In the same way, the attitude believers take toward God shows what kind of faith they have.

Pastors likewise weigh the faith of those in their care by their words and actions. Faith in the end shows itself in action, so how people in the church behave makes it easy to see what stage of faith they have reached. Those who are mature keep every part of their conduct in good order, from the way they worship to the way they live in the world. They strive to show their love for God, strive to know him better, and strive to win his approval. That striving becomes the very measure of their faith. Believers will act with goodness, humility, and an overflowing love, because they lay aside the world’s yardstick and live as the God of order desires. So when someone in the church belittles, criticizes, or judges others, we can trace it to the folly of failing to honor God.

Satan, who manipulates people into committing evil sins, is disorderly and violent and drives people to handle everything in hot temper, so wherever someone is under his control, everything around them is always in uproar. He stirs people up and deceives them with lies in order to create trouble, damage every relationship, and make the word of God fall to the ground. He does this for one reason only: to hide the glory of God and keep souls from the way of salvation. Many people living today have been deceived by Satan in this way and have lost their judgment. You can see it in how many make themselves their own standard and insist that their own thinking is right. With Satan keeping them from grasping God’s will, such people grow spiritually darker and darker.

The same is true of preaching God’s word. However deeply someone preaches, if the preacher’s words and conduct are not upright, they turn even the word into a lie. Whatever vessel holds the word of God, it does the holy work of giving life; but if the vessel of the heart is unclean, it cannot fully pass on the holy life it contains. So before preparing a message that will give life, it is vital to cleanse the vessel of the heart that will carry that precious word.

In the world, too, there are people of mature character and gentle temperament who live upright lives. There are also people who, though they do not know God, are patient and handle things wisely. Such people are widely respected and served. But we must keep firmly in mind that there is no eternal life in them. An upright character matters a great deal in this life, but because such a life is confined to this world, we must give ourselves all the more to evangelism. And since people in the world also live with patience and good character, if our words and actions are not right when we share the word, that alone stands in the way of the gospel. So we must take great care.

If you honor and love God’s word, I hope you will show your faith through words and actions fitting for children of God. The word you now know and understand is precious truth. Holding the truth as you do, you must become like Jesus Christ in character and hold high the lamp that lights the way of Christ. If those who carry the lamp lose their way and lead people to the edge of a cliff, everyone will lose their life. That is why our calling matters so much. Those who grasp the deep will of God and rightly lead the people of the world, slaves of darkness, onto the way of Christ, God will exalt, love, and hold close.

Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, did not honor or exalt God, and that failure led them into the sin of despising Yahweh’s offering. But the boy Samuel, wearing a linen ephod, always served Yahweh, the Holy One. Because Hophni and Phinehas despised the offering, they spoke and acted wickedly; because Samuel treasured the sacrifices offered to God, he could always faithfully fulfill his priestly duties before Yahweh. Their conduct differed sharply, according to the faith and character with which they served God. People act on what is in their hearts, so although the heart cannot be seen, it cannot be hidden.

Leviticus 10:9-10

9“You and your sons are not to drink wine or strong drink whenever you go into the Tent of Meeting, or you will die. This shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. 10You are to make a distinction between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.

We must be able to discern good and evil by the Spirit. If we cannot discern spiritually between the holy and the unclean, our lives will swerve to the right and to the left, and it will be hard to walk the true way of truth. So God forbade the priests to drink the world’s wine or strong drink, so that they would have spiritual discernment. Like the priests who did not drink the world’s wine and strong drink, we must not drink the wine and strong drink of lust, nor the wine and strong drink of a false gospel that Satan has made from wormwood. Only then will the eyes of our spirit be opened to discern the holy from the common, and we will rightly distinguish the unclean from the clean.

I hope you will examine what you are drinking now: is it the wine of life, or the world’s wine made from wormwood? If you are deceived by a false gospel, which is like the wine and strong drink God forbade, you will never be able to discern the spirits. When our eyes and ears are covered and we cannot fully discern the word, a false spirit leads us not to serve Christ but to trust and exalt human beings. Look at people caught up in cults: they seem full of faith, but what they believe in turns out, every time, to be a human being. They are drinking the wine the world gives and the strong drink Satan gives, yet, not even knowing they have drunk it, they have no power to discern.

Unable to lead souls in the way of truth, those seized by the spirit of Satan exalt themselves, exploit people’s possessions, and block their salvation. Just as Hophni and Phinehas used their priestly office to plunder the offerings the people brought to God, cults use the office of pastor to plunder their followers’ wealth. If those followers knew even a little of God’s love, they would never be deceived. But because their eyes and ears are covered, they live as slaves of other people. We cannot blame such misguided faith only on the pastors who taught it wrongly. It is also because the ignorance of those who received the word and still became spiritually blind made them choose the wrong path of faith.

Jesus, too, rebuked the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites and called them wicked, saying that they shut the Kingdom of Heaven against people, neither entering themselves nor letting in those who are trying to enter. To this day, how many pastors and church members sell the name of God to sit in high places and be served! They preach a word they themselves have not understood, and they use that word to live in the world as if every day were a feast. What we must clearly understand is that even Satan masquerades as an angel of light.

1 John 4:1 says, “Don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” The Spirit of God helps us confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. So if a spirit does not confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, it does not belong to God; it belongs to the spirit of the Antichrist. There are many today who have received the evil spirit of Satan; they claim to be Jesus, and some people are deceived by them. However much they speak with the tongues of angels and quote the word of God in their preaching, their spirit is the spirit of the Antichrist, which in the end leads souls to destruction, and so we must not be deceived.

There are two ways to discern the spirits. First, see whether a person speaks and acts within good faith. Second, even if someone seems born again, weigh by the word whether they are truly living for Jesus Christ. If you have been born again through the word, you need not worry greatly, because you have the power to do both at once. However evil the world may be, the children of God must, like Samuel, wear the linen ephod, act according to Yahweh’s word, and obey the truth.

Satan tempted Eve in the garden of Eden, so it is nothing new that he is at work in the world we live in now. The cunning deceiver will still do his utmost if only he can lead God’s people down the road to death. He always approaches people by imitating God closely. But if the word is at the heart of our lives, we can easily tell whether something is the real thing or a convincing counterfeit. If we know the real thing clearly, a counterfeit will never fool us.

Satan, too, has the power to bring fire down from heaven, and he looks like an angel of light, so human judgment by the flesh can never discern him. Even those who believe in God may waver when many around them chase after miracles and exalt the ones who perform them. But if our minds are renewed by the word of God, we will be able to discern what pleases God and whom God approves.

Look at the world today, and you see Satan raising the level of evil with great cunning. He changes the environment little by little, altering circumstances so that people feel no aversion. Homosexuality, song lyrics and music videos, performances that use the body: at first they all began very cautiously. But because he raises the level so gradually that no one notices, people now accept everything without resistance.

You must be able to see Satan’s movements keenly in the light of the word. Satan never hurries but works steadily, and as a result, acts of Satan worship have been put on stage under the name of artistic performance, shaking many souls. Ways of thinking and acting that God has called evil have already worked their way deep into people’s lives, yet people take all of it in without the least alarm. To win over young children, he approaches them through movies, clothing and accessories, toys, animation, and the like, and things have reached the point where even God’s people accept it without resistance. May you keep in mind that unless you stay awake, you too could easily come to sit where Hophni and Phinehas sat when they fell.

1 Samuel 2:22

22Now Eli was very old; and he heard all that his sons did to all Israel, and how that they slept with the women who served at the door of the Tent of Meeting.

The conduct of Eli’s sons was so evil that it provoked God’s wrath. Contempt for God in their hearts drove them not only to take the offerings the people brought but even to commit the sin of sleeping with the women who served at the door of the Tent of Meeting. All these sins came from hearts that did not love God. Had they believed in God as one who lives and acts, they could never have done such things. Priests who offered sacrifice in God’s sanctuary sleeping with women who served at the door of the Tent of Meeting: there could be no starker picture of how far they had fallen. And what does the church look like today, the church that claims to believe in God? With our lips we proclaim the word and confess our faith in God, but in our hearts are we not loving and longing for the desires of the world? Now is the time to look hard at ourselves and ask whether we, like the world, are sexually immoral and greedy for wealth.

Priests sleeping with the women who served there was a lewd ritual custom of the pagan nations. That custom had now worked its way deep even into the worship of God, which ought to be wholly separated from the world. When human beings fall into sexual corruption, the forces of darkness are at their strongest. If the priests had fallen this far, there is no need to say how corrupt the people must have been. They had been given the special favor of going up to the altar, burning incense before God, and wearing the ephod; yet they forgot to be thankful and defiled the offerings and gifts brought to God in the same way the pagans served their gods. The very priests chosen to serve God had betrayed him.

Looking on fallen Israel, the prophet Jeremiah lamented that the people who bowed down on every high hill and under every green tree to play the prostitute had been planted by God as a noble vine, from wholly true seed. How, he asked, had they turned into the corrupt branches of a foreign vine? Once Israel came to live in ease under God’s protection, they forgot his grace. Instead of walking the right path as God’s people, they followed the ways of the nations, who were wealthier than they were and sexually corrupt.

As both father and priest, Eli should have rebuked his sons’ sin. But because he held his sons dearer than God, far from rebuking them, he abandoned God instead. A father’s foolish judgment drove his sons to their death. The problems arising in the church today, examined closely, are little different from what Eli did in overlooking his sons’ sin, or from what Hophni and Phinehas did in failing to turn back from the way of sin. As you yourselves probably sense, the way the church speaks and acts today differs little from Israel’s betrayal of God.

Pastors are people specially called and set apart for the task of proclaiming God’s word. Having received so weighty a charge, they must above all prepare a clean vessel that can hold the holy word. They must always come before God in fear, asking themselves whether they think of the pastor’s calling as a mere job, a way of solving the problem of making a living by selling God’s name. Such conduct is a filthy faith, like that of the priests Hophni and Phinehas, who slept with the women serving at the Tent of Meeting. Those who chose the path of a pastor as a means of making a living will surely face a day of reckoning with God. That is because they have rendered worthless the message of the cross, through which God, in the astonishing love that gave itself up for souls, made eternal life ours.

Eli’s two sons despised God, yet their consciences were so seared, as with a hot iron, that they felt no guilt as they carried out the office of offering sacrifice. In the same way, if someone disguises a false faith and stands in the place of preaching as though holy, they are committing adultery with Satan, and their end will be eternal death, like that of Hophni and Phinehas. Quarrels and crimes between people leave every opportunity for repentance. But sins against God, like those of Hophni, Phinehas, and Eli, bind us to Satan unless we repent at once, and then we lose the chance to be forgiven.

In verse 32 of our passage, God says, “You will see the affliction of my habitation, in all the wealth which I will give Israel; and there shall not be an old man in your house forever.” This means that those in Eli’s house would not live long. Just as this word of curse declared, Eli’s sons died young on the battlefield, his daughter-in-law died giving birth, and other terrible things befell the family. God’s answer, his wrath, was carried out through Eli’s two sons and their descendants. The word of God is fulfilled exactly as it comes from his mouth, because that word is God himself.

Just as Eli did not turn back until the word of curse came upon him, the world today walks the road of corruption, not knowing how fearsome God is. And now, as the world sinks into frightening corruption, where are you, children of God? Let us take to heart that whoever stands beside Eli, who would not turn back even when God raised the rod of his wrath, cannot escape judgment with him.

That the death of Eli’s sons is itself the answer is a truly fearful word. God rebukes us in order to give us one more chance to repent before the rebuke is fulfilled. So we must turn back and ask for forgiveness before the word of curse falls on us just as it was spoken; only then can we live. To live by God’s word is to honor God, and God in turn honors and blesses those who honor his word. May you be precious children whom God honors and lifts high.

Hophni and Phinehas died on the same day in the war with the Philistines. In this way, the affairs of the world move and come to pass within God’s word. Just as the curse fell on Eli as God had told him, blessing will come, as promised, upon the children who live by his word. If we believe that God works according to his word, let us be people who honor God and lift him high.

1 Samuel 2:35

35I will raise me up a faithful priest, that will do according to that which is in my heart and in my mind. I will build him a sure house; and he will walk before my anointed forever.

God’s word that he would build a sure house for one who acts according to his heart and mind is a promise to help Samuel, who gave his best for God, to the very end. Having received grace, Samuel bore the fruit God desired, like a true vine rooted in good soil. God also poured out grace on Eli’s household and helped them so that they could fulfill the priestly office. But Eli, along with Hophni and Phinehas, was like a wild vine rooted in rocky ground and did not bear whole fruit.

It is beyond doubt that Samuel became a faithful priest because God held him fast. But we should also see that, before this, his heart had become good soil thanks to the prayers and the training in faith of his mother Hannah, and that is why God chose him. In the same way, if you do your best to make your heart good soil, God will call you, choose you, and help you bear spiritual fruit.

If you are to know God’s heart and act according to his will, it is vital first that the word take root in a heart that has become good soil. If you sow the seed of God’s word without preparing the ground of your heart, you will act on human thinking, as Hophni and Phinehas did. That is a failure to honor God, and it gives birth to the evil of despising his sacrifices, worship, and offerings.

God said that Samuel would walk before his anointed forever. He blessed Samuel to become one who would serve forever Jesus Christ, the eternal King whom God anointed. This astonishing blessing Samuel received had originally been given to Eli and his sons. But because of the sons’ sins, and of Eli’s sin in failing to rebuke their wickedness, his whole house came under the curse of dying young.

It is a blessing for parents to be able to make wise decisions. Children whose parents obey God’s word and pray have received God’s blessing. When parents trust in nothing but the living God and train their children in faith, that is a blessing for the descendants yet to be born in that family. To raise children as people of God, we must raise them wisely, so that they keep the word in their hearts, and with understanding, so that they can use that wisdom well in the world. If, like Eli, we do not rebuke our children and hurry only to cover their sins, there will be no escaping God’s judgment, just as there was none for Hophni and Phinehas. But if we pray for our children as Hannah prayed for Samuel, God will raise them to be wise and discerning priests of God.

Whether you raise your children as precious fruit like Samuel, as Hannah did, or as evil fruit like Hophni and Phinehas, as Eli did, depends on the faith of each one of you. That choice of faith will bear its fruit on the last day as God’s blessing or his curse.

May you receive great blessing from God through a faith that is wise and discerning. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.

1 Samuel 3:1-9

1The child Samuel ministered to Yahweh before Eli. Yahweh’s word was precious in those days. There were not many visions, then. 2At that time, when Eli was laid down in his place (now his eyes had begun to grow dim, so that he could not see), 3and God’s lamp hadn’t yet gone out, and Samuel had laid down in Yahweh’s temple, where God’s ark was; 4Yahweh called Samuel; and he said, “Here I am.” 5He ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am; for you called me.” He said, “I didn’t call. Lie down again.” He went and lay down. 6Yahweh called yet again, “Samuel!” Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am; for you called me.” He answered, “I didn’t call, my son. Lie down again.” 7Now Samuel didn’t yet know Yahweh, neither was Yahweh’s word yet revealed to him. 8Yahweh called Samuel again the third time. He arose and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am; for you called me.” Eli perceived that Yahweh had called the child. 9Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down. It shall be, if he calls you, that you shall say, ‘Speak, Yahweh; for your servant hears.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.