Bad News for Him Who Does Not Do the Will of God

"Bad News for Him Who Does Not Do the Will of God" 1 Samuel 4:12-22 A God who only asks to be loved. When Israel went out to meet the Philistines in battle at Ebe-ezer, they lost four thousand men. Trying to win the battle, the elders brought "the Ark of the Covenant” from Shiloh to the camp. (1 Samuel 4:3-11) The Israelites rejoiced greatly "when they saw the Ark" and the "Philistines" feared greatly because they knew Jehovah's reputation (opinion, esteem, prestige). But they encouraged each other and approached the battle again. To their astonishment, the Israelites "fled and fell" thirty thousand footmen, the priests Hophni and Phinehas were slain (1 Samuel 4:10-13), and the very "Ark was taken!"

I. Lament for the one who does not fight.

A. Failures in heaven because of the disobedient.

1. Eli, although blind and heavy, did not stay in his room, he knew and could understand that at this moment the glory of God was at stake, so he stood by the road so that he could receive the first communication, the reason, "because his heart was trembling because of the Ark of God".

2. He had also realized the impending danger.

3. Israel had lost the right to have the Ark (especially his children).

4. (1 Samuel 2:32) He did not use his authority to prevent the Ark from being transported to the camp, he did not sanctify his own, and he went mad.

5. The good man places the interests of God's church above all personal or secular interests.

6. How could Eli be at ease when the glory of God was about to leave them?

7. If the Ark of God was in danger, Eli must have been admonishing his wicked sons.

8. Though he could not see, he could hear (14) the cry of the people and understand that it was a cry of lamentation.

9. He was the judge of Israel; it must have been painful for him because the defeat of the army and the slaughter of many of the soldiers was very sad for him.

10. The death of his two sons was a very severe blow to his paternal heart.

11. He does not interrupt the informant with regret for his children.

12. He is impatient to hear the end of the story and does not doubt that the man, being an Israelite, would also say something about the Ark; and "the Ark has been taken," his heart was beaten very hard, and he fell backwards, breaking the back of his neck.

13. Thus, his final ruin was the folly and perversity of those sons of his, whom he did not rebuke with the severity (harshness, severe, harsh, inflexible, or crude) which they deserved.

14. However, we must bear in mind, for the praise or justification of Eli, that it was not the death of his sons that caused his death, but the loss of the Ark.

15. A sad, painful, and shameful account of the disobedience and consequences (19-22) of the house of Eli, the grief, heaviness caused by the news of the loss of the Ark, is that concerning the death of the wife of Phinehas, one of Eli's wicked sons, who had brought so much evil upon Israel.

16. She was a woman with a very sensitive heart and was about to give birth.

17. When she heard the news of her father-in-law's death, and her husband’s; her father-inlaw whom she respected, perhaps one can have sorrow for her husband, even though he was wicked, "but especially for the 'loss of the Ark,' she bowed down and gave birth, because her labor pains came upon her suddenly. (19).

18. She had enough strength to give birth to the son; He fainted shortly afterwards and died.

19. It seems that hearing of the death of her father-in-law and her husband did not affect her as much as the news that the Ark had fallen into the hands of the Philistines.

20. This caused her to give the child a name that would perpetuate the memory of the calamity and the impact it had "wrought upon it."

21. Eli did not hinder Phinehas' sin, and the grandson was left motherless, and there was no joy.

22. She commanded that he be called Ichabod (without glory, where is the glory? The glory has departed from Israel!).

23. Which she herself explains thus with her dying lips: "The glory has departed from Israel!" Because the Ark of God had been captured, her father-in-law and husband were dead.

24. A sign of God's presence amid his people.

25. If God goes, His glory goes away, and with it, "the fountain of so much good." Amen.