Now, in chapter 4, we're picking up the story of Eli's wicked sons, Hophni and Phinehas,
and we're going to see them finally meet their doom in this chapter.
Of course, in chapter 3 was where God had spoke to Samuel, and he thought it was Eli
calling him because he actually heard an audible voice speaking to him, and he heard God's
word and he repeated it unto Eli, even though it was a very negative message, he repeated
the message to Eli that God was very angry and that God was going to punish him and his
children, and a prophet had previously told him that they were all going to die on the
same day.
And so, if you look, if you would, at the end of chapter 3, so we can get the context
here in verse 19, it says, And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with them, and did let none
of his words fall to the ground.
And all Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet
of the Lord, and the Lord appeared again in Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to
Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord.
So we see here that Samuel is receiving God's word, and everyone in the whole nation knows
who Samuel is, they've heard his preaching, look at the beginning of verse number 1 of
chapter 4, it says, And the word of Samuel came to all Israel.
So get the picture here, Samuel is a righteous young man, he's got God's word that he's received,
he's preaching it, and he's preaching it to all Israel, and everyone in Israel is aware
of his preaching, that's what God's trying to show us here.
But yet, they have not changed their ways, they're still worshiping other gods, Hophni
and Phinehas are still there, fornicating with all the women in the church, and stealing
from God's offerings, and making themselves fat with the cheapest of his offerings.
You remember how they were supposed to eat the meat after the fat was burned off, but
Hophni and Phinehas are just gorging themselves on the flesh and the fat, and the Bible accused
them of making themselves fat with his offerings.
Look at verse number 1 again, it says, And the word of Samuel came to all Israel.
Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Ebenezer, and
the Philistines pitched in effect.
And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel, and when they joined battle,
Israel was smitten before the Philistines, and they slew of the army in the field about
4,000 men.
So Israel goes out to fight the Philistines, they lose the battle, and 4,000 men are killed.
Now it's significant that God tells us the location of the battle, Ebenezer.
Later on, a few chapters later, and many years later, over 20 years later, the Israelites
are going to defeat the Philistines in that exact same location, Ebenezer.
Which is showing here that at this time they're getting defeated, later they're going to win
the battle.
Same enemy, same location, we're going to see what the difference is.
It says in chapter 4 verse 3, And when the people were coming to the camp, the elders
of Israel said, Wherefore, wherefore means why, wherefore hath the Lord smitten us today
before the Philistines?
Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that when it cometh
among us it may save us out of the hand of our enemies.
So they're wondering, why?
Why have the Philistines smitten us?
Why are we losing this battle?
Let's fetch the ark of the Lord, it will save us.
Now the strange thing about that is, why would it save them?
Do you notice that at the end of the verse it says, Fetch it that when it cometh among
us, it may save us?
The ark of the covenant can't save them.
The ark of the covenant is a box.
The ark of the covenant is a box overlaid round about with gold.
It's the Lord that dwelled between the cherry bins of the ark of the covenant that was going
to save them.
If anyone's going to save them, it's God that's going to save them.
Not an object, not a box, not a figure.
Now the Bible tells us very clearly in Hebrews chapter 9 that the ark of the covenant was
a figure for the time then present.
It was symbolic of the presence of the Lord, but just having that box does not ensure having
God's presence there.
It was only symbolic of God's presence.
It did not bring God's presence.
Now when they brought it that it might save them out of the hand of their enemies, look
what happens in verse 4.
So the people sent to Shiloh that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant
of the Lord of hosts which dwelleth between the cherry bins.
And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas were there with the ark of the covenant.
Now there's the problem, these two wicked priests, Hophni and Phinehas, these fornicators,
these sons of Belial, these drunkards and gluttons, they're with the ark of the covenant.
So when they go fetch the ark of the covenant, they fetch them too.
They bring these two wicked guys with them.
And so God's presence is not going to be among them.
Just because they bring the physical object because this wicked sin that's infested Israel
and especially in the leadership.
It says in verse number 5, and when the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the
camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout so that the earth rang again.
And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, what meaneth the noise
of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews?
And they understood that the ark of the Lord was coming to the camp.
And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is coming to the camp.
And they said, woe unto us, for there hath not been such a thing heretofore, woe unto
us, who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods?
These are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness.
And on and on, we'll come back to this, but look at verse 10.
And the Philistines fought and Israel was smitten and they fled every man into his
ten.
And there was a very great slaughter for their fell of Israel, 30,000 footmen.
So how many died the first time?
4,000.
How many died this time?
30,000.
Because God's presence was not with them.
If the Lord had been with them, they would have won the battle.
I mean, the Philistines themselves said it.
They were scared to death saying, oh, wow, God is among them.
And this, and of course, they're using the plural, these gods.
Of course, there's only one God, the Bible's clear on that.
First Timothy chapter two, verse five says, for there is one God and one mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus, but they're using the plural because they don't know anything
about it.
So they're the Philistines and they're saying, oh, these are the mighty gods that sent the
plagues on Pharaoh, woe unto us, what are we going to do?
Now look, if God had really been among the children of Israel, then it would have been
woe unto them.
They would have been right.
They would have said, oh man, what are we going to do?
I mean, this is the same God that a few chapters later is going to use David, a young man,
to slay the giant Philistine just with a sling and a stone.
This is the same God that a little more than 20 years from now in the exact same battlefield
is going to cause the Israelites to defeat the Philistines with a great slaughter.
Go a few pages forward in your Bible to chapter seven, verse three, and we'll see why they're
going to win the battle more than 20 years later.
It says in 1 Samuel 7, 3, and Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, if ye
do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtoreth
from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only, and he will
deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.
Even the children of Israel did put away Balaam and Ashtoreth and served the Lord only.
And of course, look if you would at verse number 10, and as Samuel was offering up the
burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, but the Lord thundered
with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines and discomfited them, and they
were smitten before Israel.
And then the rest of the chapter just goes on to explain just how badly they were smitten
and how badly the Philistines were defeated, because God was among them, because they had
God on their side.
God promised them in the book of Deuteronomy, one of you shall chase a thousand, and two
of you shall put ten thousand to fight.
It had nothing to do with the odds.
They must have had a lot of soldiers if thirty thousand died.
If thirty thousand died, they had a pretty big army.
They had the Ark of the Covenant, they had their religious object, but they did not have
the presence of God with them.
Just because the Philistines thought that they had the presence of God with them doesn't
mean that it was there, because the Philistines are not the best judges of whether God's presence
was there.
It says in verse number 6, go back to 1 Samuel chapter 4, it says, when the Ark of the Covenant
of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth
rang again.
And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, what meaneth the noise
of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews?
And they understood that the Ark of the Lord was coming to the camp, and the Philistines
were afraid, for they said, God is coming to the camp.
Now, did God really come into the camp?
No.
Because if God had been among them, we could turn to all kinds of verses in the book of
Deuteronomy to show that if God had been among them, they would have won that battle.
No matter what the odds, no matter what the enemy had, what kind of weapon.
I mean, later on, God sent a great thunder, and God sent a storm that helped them win
the victory.
God was not among them.
But notice how the Philistines of this world, and even the children of Israel themselves,
they mistook people shouting like that's God's presence.
And you know, today we have the same thing in churches.
There are a lot of churches that have a lot of shouting.
And I've gone to churches where people are hooping and hollering, you know, where people
are, woo, Ethan, brother, you know, and they're running around and they're, you know, and
jumping on the pews and, you know, throwing the Bible in the air and giving each other
high fives.
And that doesn't mean that God, I've seen it, who's seen it?
Amen.
You're, you're trying to start it now.
But you know what, I've seen it, but that doesn't mean that God's presence is there.
Just because there's a great shout, just because you have a religious object, just because
you have these big name religious guys and these high priests and important people.
That is not what brings God's presence.
And I've been in some meetings where people are shouting and yelling and hollering.
That doesn't mean that God's presence is there.
That just means that people are yelling and screaming.
I mean, is God's presence at a basketball game?
Cause there's a lot of yelling and screaming there too.
Is God's presence at every football game and every high school pep rally in America?
No.
But I've literally heard people think that that is what the spirit of God is.
I've seen, and of course the charismatic movement with the rolling in the aisles, the ecstatic
speaking, the falling on the ground.
They think that that represents spirituality, just all that excitement and commotion and
an emotional experience.
The children of Israel were having a very emotional experience.
They were excited.
They were really happy about the Ark of the Covenant being there.
They were excited.
In fact, they yelled so loud that it was just echoing and shaking up the whole place because
of all that screaming.
But did it help them win the battle at all?
All the excitement in the world is not going to help you when you don't have the truth.
When you've got wickedness and sin dwelling among you, God is not going to be dwelling
there with you.
Okay?
And a church that's filled with sin and iniquity and wickedness, God's presence is not going
to be there in that church.
God's presence is not going to be there giving the victory.
It's going to be a losing church.
And you can try to yell and scream and hoop and holler to try to cover that up, but it
doesn't change anything.
I remember we had an evangelist come one time and preach at our church when I went
to church in Sacramento, California when I was a young person.
And this evangelist came in and he said, you know, y'all church is dead.
You know, he's telling us your church is dead.
You guys are dead.
He was telling us about how he'd been in these other churches where, you know, they would
grab the American flag and the Christian flag and run laps around the church and all this
yelling.
And he's like, you guys are dead.
You guys need revival.
You know, that's why you called me, you know, cause I'm here to preach revival.
And I'm, and I'm thinking to myself, you know what?
Our church has a ton of people out soul winning every week.
You know, this is at a time when that church I was going to in Sacramento was really thriving
and we had scores of people out soul winning.
We're getting all kinds of people saved.
All kinds of great preaching is going on.
All kinds of lives are being changed.
But no, no one was swinging from the chandeliers during the service.
And this guy's just pronouncing us a dead church.
That's ridiculous because emotion can be great and excitement is great and zeal and shouting
is great.
I'm not against shouting, but when shouting becomes a substitute for being right, that's
where it's, it just becomes a joke or a circus, you know, becomes a circus or a show or something
like that.
You know, what's going to get you through the Christian life is, is actually real Bible
doctrine, learning it, knowing it, applying it.
It's not one service.
You know, you live a wicked life for decades.
You don't seek after God for decades and then just one day you just bring out the arc and
have a big service.
That's not going to fix things.
That's not going to fix the problem.
And you know, I've been in a lot of great tear jerking services in my life, but I can
honestly say that no single preaching service has ever changed my life.
I can never look at one service and say that service or that sermon changed my life.
It's line upon line.
It's precept upon precept.
It's the consistency of going to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, being
consistent, serving God at all seasons as the apostle Paul said.
Not just a one time, excuse me, not just a one time sprint, but rather a marathon.
You know, somebody who's in it for the long haul, not just one quick service.
And I've seen a lot of people come down a lot of aisles crying at a lot of services
and going to get right with God and everything like that.
But then the next day it's just the same thing because they didn't really learn anything
that changed their life.
They didn't really make a decision to change anything and get the sin out of their life.
And so everything stayed the same even though they cried and I believe they were sincere
as they cried and shouted and they're so, they love God so much and they're gonna make
all these changes.
But really it was just shallow.
And what we see here in the children of Israel, it was a shallow thing.
It was a lot of excitement.
There was a lot of noise, a lot of movement, but there wasn't anything real there.
Go to 2nd Chronicles 7.14.
This is a really famous verse.
I don't think I've really preached on it very much, but I've heard a lot of preaching on
2nd Chronicles 7.14.
Very famous passage, but in 2nd Chronicles 7.14, the Bible reads, if my people, which
are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their
wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their
life.
This is exactly what happened in 1st Samuel chapter 7.
In 1st Samuel chapter 7, when they win the battle, you don't see a bunch of shouting.
You don't see them screaming and yelling and cheering and you don't see the Philistines,
the worldly, and keep in mind, the Philistines are ungodly, wicked people.
You didn't see them looking at it saying, wow, God is really present in that service.
See in chapter 7, what you see is a lot of prayer.
We see people saying that they're sorry and getting the sin out of their lives and turning
from Baal, turning away from Asheroth, Samuel's praying, the people are turning from their
wicked ways, and it was a humble attitude that they had in 1st Samuel 7.
That's what got them the victory, this formula right here in 2nd Chronicles 7.14.
Not all the shouting.
And let me tell you this, when the world and the Philistines of this world, when they look
at your church and say, wow, God is really in that church, he's probably not there.
Think about it.
I mean what does the world know about God or about the Lord Jesus Christ?
I mean the preachers that the world loves are the preachers that don't preach the Bible.
I mean the most popular preachers among the world would be like Joel Osteen.
You know, I mean that's the number one thing that people are going to watch on TV.
And I've literally gotten emails from people saying, well you know, I'm an atheist and
even I really like Joel Osteen, I really respect Joel Osteen.
Why are you criticizing Joel Osteen?
You know, and I've got an email that said, well I'm an atheist and I think even I like
and respect Billy Graham.
And it's like, you know, you're proving my point right now is what I want to say to these
people because the Bible says woe unto you when all men speak well of you for thus they
did to the false prophets.
You know, the world, when they look at a church and they say that's a great church.
You know, when the President of the United States is inviting you to the presidential
prayer breakfast, you're not preaching the Bible.
You're not really preaching the truth because Jesus said, marvel not my brethren if the
world hates you.
If they called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his
household?
The world cannot hate them because they're of the world, he said.
And they're not going to love you because you're not of the world, even as I am not
of the world is what Jesus Christ said.
And so when you see the world praising a preacher and when you see a preacher being lifted up
by the TV stations and the media and the world and by political leaders, you know, and let's
just name the name, Rick Warren.
You know, Rick Warren was the guy who held the Bible out, I think, wasn't he, for Obama
when Obama was sworn in.
And remember he held out the Bible and Obama tripped on his words and, you know, he couldn't
remember his name or whatever.
Ibarak Hussein Obama, he started to say Barry Satoro or something, because if you remember
he actually messed up the vow, or what he called the oath of office, he messed up the
oath.
And then they had to redo it later, but, you know, Rick Warren was holding out that Abraham
Lincoln's Bible, you know, for him to put his hand on or whatever.
But to be invited to that is not an honor, it's a shame, because Jesus said woe unto
you if the world, you know, praises you and loves you.
He said that's what they did to the false prophets.
He said blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of
evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they
the prophets which were before you.
And when the world is praising a church or a religion or a denomination, just mark it
down.
It's not right.
And when the Philistines are saying, well, God is in the camp, well, guess what, he's
not in the camp.
That's just a bunch of people shouting and excited because they think that that object
was going to save them.
They literally thought that just the Ark of the Covenant, they said it is going to save
us.
Not let's get the Ark of the Covenant and then God's going to save us, but no, it'll
save us.
It can't save you.
People today sometimes have the same mentality.
Go back to 1 Samuel 4.
They have a religious object that's like a good luck charm, you know, like a crucifix.
And they'll carry that around and they think it's going to protect them.
And other people will carry around little idols of Mary or idols of whatever and they
carry around like a little statue or a little trinket and they have beads and bracelets
and even people that don't even claim to be Christian, they have their rabbit's foot
and their, well, what else, what do people have?
A horseshoe.
I'm trying to go through the cereal, you know, Lucky Charms.
Let's see, there's the horseshoe, the four-leaf clover, thank you.
The hot air balloon, I don't know what that, I don't think that was really a, I think that
came out later.
That was some kind of a special, who remembers the little balloon-shaped, yeah, Brother Brad,
we're the same generation, everything I say he always remembers, so we grew up the same.
But anyway, it's not about a luck charm here and that's what they thought that the Ark
of the Covenant was, like, oh, this is our good luck charm.
If we bring this Ark of the Covenant, it's going to protect us, it's going to save us.
And some people can even treat the Bible that way.
Now look, I'm all for, you know, people have called me, they've accused me of worshipping
the Bible and they call it Bible all a treat.
Well, hey, guilty as charged.
I will worship, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word
was God.
But I don't worship, I'm not going to worship the physical book, though.
You know, it's the Word, it's the words of God that are in the book, but not the physical
book.
And what I mean by carrying it as a luck charm, I've seen people who literally carry a Bible.
Was it you that we were out soul winning and we talked to somebody, and this person had
never read the Bible, didn't know anything about the Bible, and they carried the Bible
everywhere with them.
They just had it in the car with them and they're like, oh man, I don't go anywhere
without a Bible, I always bring the Bible.
But they didn't read it, they didn't know it, they just bring it with them.
It's not going to, you know, or maybe you put it under your pillow at night and then,
you know, you wake up and you know the Bible.
It's not going to work that way.
And so, you know, even the Bible, because if you think about it, the Ark of the Covenant
was similar to the Bible because it actually had part of the Bible in the Ark of the Covenant.
Because in that box that was the Ark of the Covenant, remember what was in there?
The tables of the Covenant, which was the Word of God etched in stone by the finger
of God.
And then there was also the golden pot that had manna.
Manna, of course, represents what?
The Word of God.
He fed thee with manna, Deuteronomy 8-3, that thou mightest know that man doth not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
So the manna represented God's Word.
The tables of the Covenant was God's Word.
And then, of course, Aaron's rod that budded and flowered and produced almonds and brought
forth fruit.
Okay, God's Word is powerful.
God's Word has the power to defeat the Philistines.
God's Word had the power to win the victory, but not if it's closed in a box and carried
by wicked, ungodly people who didn't care what that book said, did not obey what the
book said, carrying the book around and hop now and finish, you know, they had their Bible
with them, you know, they had the Ark of the Covenant, but it didn't do them any good because
they didn't believe it.
They didn't read it.
The Bible makes it clear a couple chapters earlier that they were not saved.
They were men of Belial, and on top of that, they were living a very wicked and ungodly
life.
So that was the problem.
That's why they lost this battle.
And how do we apply this today?
Well, we need to make sure that our church is not filled with sin, because if it is,
God's power and God's Spirit will depart from us.
Now, you know, don't get me wrong.
Obviously, we as New Testament believers, we are indwelled by the Spirit of God.
No question about that.
And that is permanent, that indwelling.
The Bible says if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of his.
And I firmly believe, and I have plenty of scripture to prove it, that the moment that
you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and call upon Him, hey, God's Spirit is living inside
of you, and He will never leave you nor forsake you.
But there's something beyond that.
There is the permanent indwelling of every New Testament believer.
Let me ask you this.
Did the Old Testament believer have that permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit?
No, he was not indwelled by the Spirit of truth.
He did not have the Comforter.
It was only when Jesus Christ was glorified that the Holy Ghost was given, according to
John 7.39.
And so that indwelling of the Holy Spirit did not exist in the Old Testament, it exists
in the New Testament.
But if you do remember that in the Old Testament, the Spirit of the Lord would come upon people.
Not a permanent indwelling as in the New Testament, but the Spirit of the Lord would come upon
them and they would fight a great battle or preach a great sermon or be a great leader
like King Saul, King David, all these different men, Oded, the prophet, Samson, Gideon, all
these great leaders and great prophets and preachers, they had the Holy Spirit of God
upon them.
Now here's the thing, that was not permanent because if you remember when Saul sinned,
the Spirit of the Lord was removed from him, the Spirit of the Lord departed, okay?
Here we see a similar statement that the glory is departed.
But if you remember David, when David sinned with Bathsheba, he committed a wicked sin.
Yet lust conceived in his mind and brought forth sin, sin when it had finished brought
forth death and David committed adultery with another man's wife and then he had that woman's
husband killed in order to try to cover up his sin.
So he committed adultery and murder and if you remember when he's praying and getting
right with God in Psalm 51, he says, Cast me not away from thy presence, O Lord, and
take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
Not talking about the New Testament indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that did not exist at
that time, but talking about the fact that David had the Spirit of the Lord resting upon
him, mightily in power from the time that Samuel anointed him with the holy anointing
oil.
He had the Spirit of God upon him and he did not want the Spirit of God to be taken from
him as it was taken from his predecessor, Saul and so he said, Take not thy Holy Spirit
from me.
He said, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit.
Notice, he didn't say restore my salvation, he hadn't lost his salvation, he had lost
the joy of his salvation, because obviously living in sin will cause you to lose the joy.
You say, Well, wait a minute, Pastor Harrison, that was the Old Testament.
What does that have to do with us today?
Well, when God introduced the indwelling of the Holy Spirit after the glorification of
Jesus Christ, according to John chapter seven, when he breathed on them and said, Receive
ye the Holy Ghost, and they were indwelled by the Spirit of God, and he opened their
understanding of the scriptures, he was not replacing the Old Testament Spirit of the
Lord upon you.
He added the indwelling, because even after the disciples were indwelled by the Holy Spirit,
in John chapter 20, he still told them to wait in Jerusalem until you be endued with
power from on high.
He said, John truly baptized with water in Acts chapter one, but ye shall be baptized
with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence.
He said, Wait for the promise of the Father, which sayeth he, Ye have heard of me.
For John truly baptized with water, but ye should be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not
many days hence.
And he said, Ye shall be witnesses unto me.
He said, After the Spirit of God has come upon you, ye shall be witnesses unto me, both
in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the other most part of the earth.
And so we still today, yes, we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit just by being saved.
But if we live in sin, we're not going to be filled with the Spirit.
We're not going to have the Spirit of God upon us.
We're not going to have the power of God in our lives.
I'm not going to be able to get up here and preach a powerful sermon if I'm in the flesh,
if I'm living in sin, if I'm living a half knife and he is kind of life or if I'm living
a life like King Saul was living and if I'm in disobedience to God's work and if I'm going
home and turning on the TV and watching all the porno and all the skin and all the garbage
and all the blasphemy and all the sodomy and all the wickedness that's on that TV and I'm
walking in the flesh and I'm not walking in the Spirit.
I'm not going to be able to just get in the pulpit and preach in the power of the Holy
Spirit just because I've got my Bible here and the Ark of the Covenant and everybody's
shouting and we've got a pulpit and we've got artwork and we've got a Bible verse and
a Bible and wow, it's powerful to know there's no power there because the pastor is living
in sin.
That's why.
Or because the congregation is filled with sin.
Remember Aiken committed sin and God was angry with the whole congregation.
You know people in sin in the church, if one member suffers the whole body suffers and
you wonder where the power is today in churches in America or in churches that we've been
in in our own lives, it's an abundance of sin that causes the Spirit of the Lord and
the glory of the Lord and the power of God to depart from any group of people.
It's the sin that needs to be removed.
What was the problem in 1 Samuel 4?
Sin, fornication was the problem, other gods were the problem, idolatry was the problem
and gluttony and drunkenness was the problem.
I mean that's what we see.
That's what these guys were involved in.
We've been studying for the last three weeks.
We've seen what these guys were like that were leading them and we've seen what the
children of Israel are like from reading the rest of the book of 1 Samuel.
That was the problem and if they would have turned from their wicked ways like they did
20 some years later, they would have had the victory.
Same thing today.
We can never have a powerful church or a powerful ministry or powerful soul winning or powerful
preaching without getting the sin out of our lives.
This is what's wrong with the new evangelical movement today.
The new evangelical movement today says, well it's all about getting people saved.
That's all that matters.
Well, you know, amen to getting people saved but no that's not all that matters, sorry.
This is a thick book in my hand and it's not only about getting people saved.
Now I think that getting people saved is the most important thing but I don't think it's
the only thing.
It's one of many important things.
And the new evangelical movement says holiness doesn't matter.
The do's and don'ts of the bible don't matter.
In fact, they disdain and despise the word religion and say, oh religion's a bad word.
It's all about a relationship.
And they'll disdain, well the bible says pure religion and undefiled before God and the
father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself
unspotted from the world.
That's what religion is according to the bible.
I think religion is a good thing.
I think we ought to keep ourselves unspotted from the world.
I think we ought to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction.
And I think that today this philosophy that says well we don't need the do's and the don'ts,
we don't need the religion, we don't need holiness, we don't need all the legalism and
all the rules and all the strict stuff, let's just reach the world right where they're at.
You know, it's just all about getting people saved and hey, if we use the world's music
we're going to get more people saved because they're going to be more comfortable coming
to our service.
And if we dress down and if we listen to rock and roll with them and if we have a beer with
them, hey, we're going to get more people saved.
Now humanly speaking, this philosophy works, humanly, from a human standpoint, like if
we were to take God out of the equation and say okay, how are we going to reach the most
people?
You know, take God out and just from a human standpoint, how are we going to reach the
most people?
Yeah, free beer.
Hey, that's going to bring in a lot of people, right?
Free beer.
So, I mean, if you take God out of the equation, yeah, that's a great, you know, and then they'll
find a lot of verses that they can use to say that alcohol is fine.
And then okay, free beer, free rock concert, you know, you know, meet all the singles and
it's all just, it's just a really short service.
We're not going to rip on your sin.
We promise to never hit on anything that offends you and we're going to have drama and plays
and fun.
Humanly speaking, it sounds like a great idea, man, we're going to bring a lot of people
in.
And that's what they're doing.
They are bringing a lot of people in.
I mean, if you look at the churches that embrace the new evangelical philosophy of no rules,
no hard preaching, don't preach on sin, don't be controversial, and they even disparage
of the word doctrine.
I mean, who's ever heard the word doctrine used like in a negative way, like, oh man,
you know, you say too much doctrine.
Hey, the Bible is all about doctrine.
Doctrine is a good thing.
And they want to throw out doctrine and religion and everything and it's just all in the name
of reaching people.
I heard an independent fundamental Baptist pastor not too long ago, you know, he said,
we need to quit preaching on this, you know, stuff like the way people dress or, you know,
the music.
We need to get off that kick because, you know, the rapture is going to happen at any
moment and we just need to get as many people saved as we can, you know, and we just need
to put us out.
Well, first of all, no, the rapture is not going to happen at any moment.
Read Matthew 24 again and in fact memorize it and in fact write it out longhand on the
wall of your bedroom or something.
You know, Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 17, Luke 21, and 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2 are a good
place to start, buddy.
Sorry, Harold Camping, sorry, Tim LaHaye and Kirk Cameron, okay.
But the bottom line is they say, whoa, you know, we just got to hurry up and get everybody
saved.
No.
The reason now, we're going to get more people saved if we're holy because God's power is
what it's going to take to really get people saved.
Not our human efforts.
Jesus said, without me, ye can do nothing.
And so we can sit there and say, well, we can use these methods, it's going to get more
people saved.
Yeah, in your own strength, in the flesh, but in the flesh you accomplish nothing.
It's all about having God's presence with you.
One man with God's presence could chase a thousand according to the Bible, but an entire
army of tens of thousands of trained warriors goes running scared in the other direction
when God has departed from them.
So what are we going to do as a church?
Are we going to say, you know what, let's lean upon our own understanding, let's use
our own rationale of what's going to bring people in, or are we going to say, hey, let's
get the sin out, let's keep our church clean and not just the pastor.
It's not enough just for the pastor to live a clean life.
Oh, the pastor lives a clean life while the pew is in sin.
That's not going to be enough.
That's why I have to not only live a clean life, listen to me now, there are plenty of
pastors in this country that live a clean life, but they won't preach clean living.
So they're living a clean life, but the rest of the congregation is out living in sin because
they're not getting the preaching that they need to guide them and lead them to live a
cleaner life.
So we got to have a pastor who's living a clean life and then we need him to preach
that others, because look, once Samuel took charge, these guys died.
It was still over 20 years before they won the victory, even after Samuel was in charge
because it was 20 years before Samuel's preaching could get the people of God to finally break
down and get right with God and get the sin out of their lives.
So it takes a righteous preacher and a righteous congregation, a righteous church.
That's why the pastor has to preach hard on sin and you say, well, the preaching hard
on sin is going to turn people away and cause the unbeliever and the unchurched to not like
the church, but it's worth it.
Yes, it will.
You're right.
It will, but it's worth it.
It's worth it to have God's spirit and God's presence because we're following God's commandments
and then we'll go out there in the power of the Holy Spirit and it won't take many of
us to go out and get a bunch of people saved because the spirit of the Lord's with us and
God can take the five loaves and two fishes that we have and multiply it to feed thousands
or else we could go out in our own strength with hundreds and hundreds of people, but
if God's not with us, we're going to be a failure.
We can do nothing and that's why the New Evangelical movement is failing.
That's why since that movement has swept our nation and since churches have drunk the New
Evangelical Kool-Aid, now we see our nation more wicked than it's ever been and the more
we go soul-lending, we run into more and more people that are not saved in these churches
that are not saved and remember, that's all they cared about.
The only thing that matters is just giving people and then they failed to do that because
guess what?
Face it with me tonight, I'm not afraid of you.
Listen, I knock the doors of all these members of Calvary Chapel and guess what?
They're not saved and I'm not saying everybody who goes to Calvary Chapel is not saved because
I've known saved people who go to Calvary Chapel.
I've known people that I know for sure were saved that go to Calvary Chapel, but look,
come out soul-lending with me and let's knock all the doors around Calvary Chapel over here
in Tempe or one of the other Calvary Chapels and knock all the doors with me and the majority
is going to tell you they don't know for sure they're going to heaven or that you got
to work your way to heaven or that you can lose your salvation.
It's just the facts.
I'm not making this up.
Anybody who goes soul-lending knows I'm telling you the truth.
I knew an independent fundamentalist preacher friend of mine who he won the deacon of Calvary
Chapel to Christ at the door and the guy came to his church the next Wednesday and was crying
and saying I was the deacon at Calvary Chapel, I wasn't even saved.
And why?
Calvary Chapel on paper has a lot of the right doctrine, but they won't rip on sin.
They won't preach hard because they're a new evangelical church.
That's what they are.
And they fail as a new evangelical church because when you're living in worldliness
and in darkness and in sin, you are not going to have the power of God.
And you can have all the right names and the right terminology.
I mean they called God by the right name.
They weren't Muslims in 1 Samuel chapter 4.
They weren't Buddhist.
They weren't Hindu.
I mean they worshiped the Lord.
They had the Ark of the Covenant of God with the real Bible in it.
But since they're living a wicked sinful life, God's power wasn't there.
God's presence wasn't there.
And they failed.
And they continued to fail for decades until finally Samuel's preaching got through to
them.
Get the sin out of your life.
And that's what got the sin out of their life.
And that's when they started doing something for God.
Let me just warn you.
King Saul in the Bible, you say, oh that's totally different.
It's totally different.
Old Testament.
Hold on a second.
The Bible says that these things in 1 Corinthians 10, were you here on Sunday night?
These things were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come to
the intent that we should not lust after evil things as some of them lusted.
And we see the children of Israel in the wilderness.
We see King Saul.
We see King David.
They are examples to us today that if we allow sin to creep in in our life to the extent
that sin comes in, God's presence and God's power and spirit goes out.
You know you think a little leaven can be allowed but a little leaven leavens the whole
lump and you start letting in the worldliness and letting in the sin and ungodliness.
You start playing around with fornication, with the stuff on TV, all the adultery and
fornication.
And look, I don't know.
I don't think that probably anything on TV is appropriate.
I haven't had a TV in a long time.
I haven't watched TV in like eight years or something.
I don't think there's anything on TV that you could even watch.
You know what I mean?
I don't know.
I don't know because I don't have one.
But I'll tell you what, back when I had one, back when I was watching, there wasn't anything
that I could find that was decent on there because even I was watching the most benign
thing I could watch.
I was watching one of my favorite episodes of the Twilight Zone, the old black and white
Twilight Zone.
But you know what?
Then the commercial comes on and it's all kinds of underwear ads and garbage.
And finally I said, that's it.
And then I was watching a trivia show, one of the, I think it was like Who Wants to Be
a Millionaire or Something.
And then some queer sodomite is the contestant.
I'm like, I don't want to watch this guy.
And it just seemed like everything on TV is there with an agenda.
We need to just shut that stupid thing off, cut the cord, throw it in the trash, you know,
and get in the Bible, get in the Word of God.
I want God's power in my life.
I want God's Spirit to be upon me as I preach.
I want God's Spirit to be upon our church.
And so I'm not going to see how close I can get and play with sin and fool around.
I'm not really committing for occasion, I'm just watching it on TV.
I'm not really blaspheming anything, I'm just watching a blasphemous show like South Park
or whatever.
You know, I'm not really dressing scantily clad, but I'm watching a bunch of people on
TV that are dressed scantily clad.
Look, you are losing power.
You're losing power.
And I'm almost out of time.
Let me just hurry up and point out one other thing.
The Philistines are scared, right?
Look what they say in verse 9.
Be strong and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto
the Hebrews as they have been to you.
Quit yourselves like men and fight.
And of course, they won the battle in their own strength, in the flesh.
It was the Philistines' flesh against the Israelites' flesh.
The Philistines fought harder, were stronger and manlier, they won.
Nothing to do with God.
And in fact, I think God was probably fighting against the children of Israel because they
did worse.
Notice, go to 1 Corinthians 16, 13.
I want to show you this.
1 Corinthians 16, 13.
It's almost the same as what the Philistines said, what God is telling us in 1 Corinthians
16, 13.
Did you notice that more people died when they brought the Ark than when they didn't
have the Ark?
When they didn't have the Ark of the Covenant, how many died, do you remember?
4,000.
How many died after they brought the Ark of the Covenant in?
30,000.
It reminded me of when Jesus Christ was preaching in Matthew 23, and He said, woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense
make long prayer, therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
He told the Pharisees they were going to receive greater damnation because of praying before
they did wrong.
Because it's one thing to do wrong, but then it's another thing to try to bring God into
it and apply God's name to it when you're doing wrong.
So it's one thing to just be a sinful person, but then when you're going to bring out God's
Ark and God's name and represent God, and really this event made God look bad.
You think the Philistines are more likely to get saved or less likely to get saved because
of that battle?
They're less likely to get saved because at first they did have a healthy respect for
the God of Israel, right?
They had a healthy respect for Him.
Wow, this is those mighty gods that plagued the Egyptians.
But once they defeated it, that's going to cause them to lose some respect for God's
word and the things of God.
And that's why today you see a lot of people don't have a lot of respect for God or the
Bible.
It's because of all the phonies out there that have pulled out the Ark of the Covenant
and carried it around on their 4K-8 shoulders and they've given God a bad name.
And that's what we saw there.
But again, so that's why I think they did worse once they brought out the Ark of the
Covenant, okay?
They received a greater condemnation.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 16, God is telling us Christians in verse 13, He says, Wachi,
stand fast in the faith.
And look, it's almost the same thing that the Philistines said back in 1 Samuel.
Quit you like men, be strong.
So God's telling us, be strong, quit you like men, stand fast, stand firm, be a man, fight
for what's right, fight the battle.
That's what God's telling us in 1 Corinthians 16, that's what the Philistines were telling
their men.
Because obviously, you know, no one wants to be weak.
And God never tells in the Bible, be weak, lighten up.
Go soft.
Men, you're too manly.
Like where are you going?
Show me where this is in the Bible.
You're too manly.
You need to get in touch with your feminine side.
But don't you hear that out in the world?
You need to get a little more sensitive.
You need to get in touch with your feminine side.
You're a little too manly.
You're a male chauvinist.
You're misogynistic.
You know, they disparage you for being manly.
I can't find anywhere in the Bible that says you're too manly or you're too strong.
You need to go weak.
You need to go strong.
No, the Bible says be strong in the Lord and in the power, in the power of His might.
God's the God of strength, power, okay, not weakness.
And God wants us to be strong and powerful.
The Philistines are telling their people, quit you like men, be a man, stand your ground,
be strong, fight this battle and they won that battle because they were fighting against
a weak enemy, an ungodly enemy.
That's the only reason that they won.
Those same men could have gotten that same advice when God was with the Hebrews and the
Hebrews destroyed them.
But God wants us to be strong.
God wants men to be manly.
He wants men to play the part of men, to quit you like men and not to be effeminate and
today men are being stripped of their manhood in America.
I'm sick of it.
Be a man and you know this is only of the men now, ladies, stop being a man, you know.
Quit men, quit you like men, ladies, quit trying to be a man, okay, so you need to quit
something, okay.
Quit being effeminate if you're a man and quit being manly if you're a woman.
We need a distinction of the genders again and this is probably part of why God's spirit
is departed too because it's a sin, did you hear me, it's a sin for men to be effeminate.
First Corinthians 6 verse 9, it's a sin for men to wear women's clothing and for women
to wear men's clothing.
Deuteronomy 22 verse 5, it's a shame for a man to have long hair in First Corinthians
11 but a woman's hair is glory under.
God does call these things out as sin when men are feminine and when women are masculine.
It's a sin and this is just one among many sins that could cause us to not be right with
God and God not to be pleased with us to where He removes His blessing and power from our
battle and we're always in a battle.
The Bible says fight the good fight.
Are we going to win this battle or are we going to lose the battle in our own personal
lives and in our church?
Well, if God's with us, we're going to win.
If God be for us, who can be against us?
And He commands us to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might to play the
part of men to stand firm as He said in First Corinthians 16, 13, not giving any ground.
Now anybody who knows anything about warfare knows that in a battle, the worst thing you
can do is start backing up.
If you've studied war, if you've studied the American, you know, I've studied certain wars,
I've studied the French Revolution and the American Revolution, probably the most heavily
I've done, I've studied the Civil War a little bit, you know, when you break rank, that's
when you start losing.
You know, when people start turning around and running, when you're in retreat, that's
a bad thing.
Now, it's really the same thing in boxing, you know, you watch people fighting and you
see somebody backing up a lot, you know, pretty soon they're going to be against the ropes,
getting beat up pretty bad.
You know, you don't want to be backing up.
You don't want to be running away.
You've got to stand your ground and constantly in boxing here, you know, don't give them
any ground.
Don't give them that ground.
Stand firm.
And that's what God is saying here when it comes to what we believe in, when it comes
to our doctrine, when it comes to our religion, when it comes to our do's and don'ts of the
Bible.
Hey, let's not give any ground because if you give the world an inch, they'll take a
mile.
You give the devil an inch, he'll take a mile.
You give the flesh a finger and he'll take the whole hand.
Stand firm.
The Bible says, stand fast and hold the traditions which you've been taught, whether by word
or our epistle.
Be strong in the Lord and the power of his might.
He said, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.
That's not backing up.
And having done all to stand second time, stand therefore three times right there, stand
firm.
Stand your ground.
Don't give an inch.
Fight the good fight, but you've got to have God with you.
You've got to have God on your side.
Quickly, I don't really have time to go through all this verse by verse.
I wanted to focus on that first part of the chapter, but in verses 10 through 22 of 1
Samuel 4, we already read it before the service or before the sermon that is, you know, we
see the aftermath.
The Israelites are defeated.
Eli is sitting on a chair.
He's wondering what's going to happen, what's going to happen.
Eli, you already know what's going to happen.
You've already been told by a prophet a few chapters ago.
It's already been preached to you by Samuel.
You know what's going to happen.
Your two sons are going to die because they're wicked and God's going to kill them.
That's what's going to happen, Eli.
And of course he's waiting and he's on pins and needles and everybody's on pins and needles
and they all hear the news that the ark of God is taken, it's been stolen by the Philistines
because not only did they defeat the children of Israel, they stole the ark and took it
home with them.
Well, what happens when they find out?
It says that they're all wailing, they're all crying.
It says, let me find it for you.
It says in verse 13, when he came, lo, Eli sat upon his 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.
Is this a cry of victory?
Is this the shouting that we saw?
No, this is weeping and mourning.
This is how they should have started the chapter.
They should have started out humble and crying and upset because of their sin, not because
their lucky charm had been stolen from them.
And the gold, they were probably worried about the gold that it was overlaid with and how
it had given them power.
No, that ark did not give them power, it was God that gave them power.
And so they're weeping and mourning.
That's what they should have done in the beginning.
Of course, when Eli hears the news, he falls out of his chair.
It just was too much for him to handle the news, the bad news.
So he falls out of his chair, breaks his neck and dies.
And then of course, Hophni and Phineas were his two sons.
One of his sons, Phineas, was married, you know, yeah, he was married.
Can you believe it?
And after all the garbage that he's doing with all these other women, remember the last
few chapters, how he's laying with all the women who assembled themselves at the door
of the congregation?
So not only is he a fornicator, he's actually an adulterer because he's married and his
wife's pregnant and he's doing all this stuff.
Isn't that horrible?
This guy, Phineas, was a wicked guy.
Well, we don't know about his wife, you know, whether she was a godly person or an ungodly
person.
We don't really know much about her.
But she's giving birth and she hears the news and it actually causes her to go into
labor.
And that's true that bad news and shocks to your system can actually cause you to go into
labor prematurely, in fact.
And maybe that's why she died while giving birth, because maybe she went into labor prematurely
because of the shock to her system.
And a lot of women have had miscarriages just because of really bad news or really horrible
things happening in their life.
And so this caused her to go into labor and somehow she dies while giving birth to this
child.
And that child is prophetically named Ichabod.
She names him that as she's dying, which just means the glory has departed.
The glory has departed.
So that's a gloomy chapter.
We end up tonight on a gloomy note.
The glory has departed.
God was not with us.
God's Spirit is not with us.
Of course, we're going to see that restored in the future as they get right with God.
But at this point, the children of Israel, the glory has departed.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, thank you for the book of 1 Samuel and for the things that we've learned so far.
Help us to let these things sink down into our ears, dear God.
And help us not to make the mistakes of chapter 4 here by thinking that shouting and religious
objects and big name people and going through the motions and talking about God is a substitute
for really cleaning up our lives.
Help us understand that if we're going to have your Spirit among us, we need to cleanse
ourselves from wickedness.
And God, please help us to do that.
Help every single person who's here to take the sermon seriously tonight, dear God.
And help me to take it seriously and to keep my life clean.
Help us all to keep it clean and get the sin out so that we can have your Spirit mightily
present at Faithful Word Baptist Church.