THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR"Eli’s Failure as a Father”Rev. Carl Haak(e-mail: Rev. Carl Haak) June 18, 2006; No. 3311(Printed copies in a four-message booklet
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Dear radio friends,
The passage that we
consider today on the occasion of Father’s Day is a very sobering and humbling
one. It is taken from the life of
Eli. It is found in I
Samuel 2 and 3. It constitutes a
warning of God in love to us as fathers.
We read in I Corinthians
10:11, “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon
whom the ends of the world are come.” Do
not do, father, what Eli did.
What was it that
Eli did as a father? It was not that he
did not love the Lord. He surely
did. Nor was it that he did not love his
sons. He did. Nor was it that he did not warn them. He did.
Nor was it that he did not love the cause of God. He certainly did. What was his failure?
We read in I
Samuel 3:13 God saying this: “I have
told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he
restrained them not.” Eli, as a father,
spoke – but he did not carry it out. He
warned – but he did not see to it. It
was too painful for Eli to displease his sons.
He honored his sons more than God.
And his sons knew that Dad would not do anything about it.
Now we love our
sons and our daughters. The very thought
that any one of them would grow up like Eli’s two sons, Hophni
and Phinehas, to be ungodly and to kick at the
worship and service of God, to show contempt and indifference at the very
things of God – the very thought of that is enough to make us weep. More, the very thought that the church of the
living God would be ridiculed on account of the wickedness of one of my
children is a horrible thing to consider.
Therefore, the
warning of the Word of God to us as fathers today is that we be not blind to
the failure that is very common among fathers and parents – a failure that Eli
knew he had committed. We read that God
would judge him for the iniquity which he knoweth. Eli knew that he had honored his sons above
God.
But looking upon
Eli today will also be an opportunity for us to have good hope and
encouragement, for we also read in Romans
15:4, “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our
learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have
hope.” Hope is found when God tells us
where Eli went wrong. Eli honored his
sons above God. God calls us positively,
as fathers, to the basic principle of child rearing – to honor God. For those who honor God will God honor.
To honor God above
our children does not mean that we cut the nerves of our fatherly love and
instinct. It does not mean that we
become a brute and insensitive. That is
sin. But it means that we, in our heart,
have the interest that God has in our sons and in our daughters – that they be
God-fearing. When you honor God above
all things, your home will be on target, your home will be warm, your home will
be healthy, your home (in one word) will be
God-centered.
Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, we read in I
Samuel 2:12, were sons of Belial.
They knew not the Lord, they made themselves vile. A son of Belial means “worthless,
empty.” Eli’s two sons were thieves and
fornicators. They were covetous and adulterers. They took the meat of the thank
offering. Eli was the priest. He was in charge of the sacrifices of God in
the tabernacle. His sons took the meat
of the thank offering. The law was that
first the offering was to be given to God, and after that, the leftover went to
the priest. Eli’s sons turned that
around and took for themselves first. In
addition, they fornicated with the women who served at the door of the congregation. They said of those women who were there to
serve and worship God, “their bodies are for me.” They said that the figure of a young girl is
there to serve the lust of their eyes.
Their lives were ruled by lust, by what they wanted, when they wanted
it, and as they wanted it. They had no
higher interest in their lives, these two sons, than sex, pornography, and
pleasures. We can see the same things
often in the church: professing
Christian youth saying, “It’s all about me.
It’s all about my pleasure. It’s
all about good times. Later on in my
life, perhaps, I’ll be godly. But now sex and drinking.
And it doesn’t matter.”
What did others
say? Perhaps many looked at the wild
life that these two sons were living and laughed over their escapades. But God’s judgment upon it was this: worthless, empty, vile, consuming others at
the puny altar of their own self.
But behind that was
Eli’s failure as a father. This does not
let Hophni and Phinehas,
his sons, off the hook. They were, of
course, responsible for their actions, as is every covenant son or
daughter. But in all of those wicked
acts, Eli did not stop them.
Now it is possible that parents not be
guilty of Eli’s failure, and yet their children live an ungodly life. But the Holy Spirit here is focusing upon the
life of Eli, the father, and his place of responsibility. His failure was this: He did not restrain them, we read in I
Samuel 3:13. And, down in his soul,
he knew that. Eli did not look at his
sons in their wickedness and say, “What did I do wrong?” Though it was hard to admit it, he knew the
failure was this: he did not restrain
them.
At first, that
might seem not to be true, for we read in the Scriptures (I
Sam. 2:23, 24) that he did rebuke his sons.
And he rebuked them pointedly. He
put his finger on their sins. He said
unto them, “Why do ye such things? For I hear of your evil dealings by all this people. Nay,
my sons; for it is no good report that I hear:
ye make the Lord’s
people to transgress.” He said, “Your
lives are bringing a reproach upon the name of God. The worst of it is not simply what you
do. That’s awful. But worse still is that your actions are now
making the people of God to sin when they see you, as the servants of God, my
sons. They say, ‘Well, if that’s what
the service of God is, if that’s what it means to be a Christian, you can keep
it.’” Eli got right to the point. Eli, and that is a
good example to us as fathers, got to the point. “Son, daughter, what is
your life saying about God? What
will others say about God from your life?
Will others show contempt of God because you take His name upon your
lips and you live that way?” Oh, Eli’s
words were to the point. And Eli’s words
were sharp.
But the problem was
that that is all that he did. He did not stop them. He did not bring them to the elders in the
gate. He did not depose them from their
priestly office. He did not remove their
priestly garments. He did not bar them
from performing sacrifices. He did not
call the people to stone them for their fornication. That all was required in the Old Testament
law.
But this is what
characterized Eli’s life as a father: he
spake, he yelled – but he did not back it up. He was indulgent. He had a hard time saying “No.” It hurt him when he had to say “No.” He did not displease his sons. He did not spank. He did not want to cause his children
pain. He did not want to run the risk
of, perhaps, upsetting them and making them angry.
Eli is not
alone. We read even of the great and
mighty David, that he did not restrain his son Adonijah,
who later attempted to usurp the crown when David was an old man. We read of Adonijah
and David this in I Kings
1:6: “And his father had not
displeased him at any time.” He did not
say, “I’m not going to give you what you’re asking for because it’s not good
for you. We can’t afford it.” He did not say, “You are going to obey the
simple rules of this family. I will see
to it.” But David’s son knew the bottom
line, as did Eli’s sons, that Dad would talk but
that’s all.
Beloved, this is a
warning to us today as fathers. We must
not, of course, try to correct this indulgence of our flesh by going to the
other extreme. We are prone to do
that. This Word of God is not saying,
“Be harsh, rigid, without compassion. Be
a tyrant over your family. Provoke them
unto wrath.” The Scriptures warn us not
to do that. That is an evil that we must
be warned against and against which the church may not be silent. Children may not be abused! They may not be abused with cruel, hateful
words. They may not be abused in
beatings out of our own frustration.
They may not be sexually abused.
But the warning is
also this to us as fathers: You must not
simply talk. There comes a time when you
must act. Children must know that when they
walk in a way that blasphemes God, Dad will do something about it. He will not tolerate defiance of Mother. He will not tolerate watching pornography on
television. He will not tolerate
skipping church. Children must know that
if they do those things, Dad will make them suffer.
There are a number
of things in the text that show the seriousness of Eli’s failure. First of all, the seriousness was found in
what was said about God and about His cause and about His name and about
everything that we hold dear. Men, we
read, abhorred the offering of the Lord.
Eli said to his sons, “Ye make the people to transgress.” You can imagine. Who would want to bring any offering to the
Lord’s temple when the priests took what they wanted and when they committed
fornication with the women publicly, out in front of you? Who would want to come to church? Who would respect anything of the
tabernacle? Who would respect anything
of religion? They would say to you,
“Keep your religion. Why pay attention
to the church if the young men of the church act this way? Why should I have any respect at all for your
religion?” That was the worst of it, yes it was, even for Eli. You might say that the worst of it for Eli
was to see his sons go in the way of wickedness. That did hurt. But you have to give this to Eli’s
credit: the worst of it for Eli was what
his sons’ action said about his God, about his God’s Christ, and his God’s
name. He saw that the church was
corrupted. And right there is the nerve
of God’s grace. Do you have the
sensitivity of the grace of God in your heart?
Then you say, “What does my action say about God?” That, ultimately, is the thing that
matters.
The second thing we
see here from Eli’s failure is that God does indeed take the training of our
children seriously – so seriously that He judged not only Hophni
and Phinehas, but also Eli for his failure. God says, “Train your children in the
way. Train them as those who must not
follow their own way, the bondage of their own feelings, or bow down at the
idol of their own ease. They must not
simply say constantly to responsibilities and to spiritual matters: “I’m too tired. I’ll do that some other time. It hurts me right now to have these
disciplines of godliness.” You must not
give way to your child’s sloth.
And, as a parent,
you must not live for your own ease, because you know that it will be painful
for you to exercise in a wise, loving, consistent, thoughtful manner proper
discipline. Oh, there is a hurt there. And it requires diligence and thought and
prayer. As fathers we may not kick at
that. We may not say, “That’s asking too
much. Instead I will smile indulgently
at their disobedience to me as a little child.”
No, God says, “Mount up in faith.
Teach them with an open Bible in your hand, with the love of God in your
heart. Teach them the simple rules of
godliness.”
Hophni
and Phinehas knew not the Lord. We would say, “How can that be? Certainly they knew about the Lord!” Oh, yes.
They had it all straight in their head – but not in their heart. They knew all about the temple and the
sacrifices and the history of
Our children must
know that when we say “No,” we mean no!
Our children must learn that we do not believe the lie of the devil that
it is a phase young people go through when they drink, when they fornicate,
when they listen to evil CDs. Our
comfort is not, “Well, they all do it, and they’ll come out of it
someday.” That is the deception of the
evil one. But our children must learn
the discipline of our taking the CD and breaking it; of evil behavior that, by
the grace of God, is stopped; of car privileges that are taken away. They must know that I as a father will see to
it, even if it means much inconvenience to me, that my children know the loving
services and the disciplines of grace – that there will be substance in this
confession: that everything in this home
is yielded to the honor of God. And
remember, father, that when they are nineteen or twenty years, or sixteen or
seventeen years old, you do not begin then to think about discipline. Your discipline is done then. At the ages of five, six, seven, eight, your
discipline is half done. Your discipline
begins when God gives them to you. You
must love them in Christ and strive that Christ be formed in them.
But with respect to
all these things, Eli was a failure. He
did not restrain his sons. And, in
refusing the pain that punishing his sons would cause him in his own life, he
experienced a greater pain of seeing his children grow up into a worthless
life. Now, Eli was a believer. He was troubled over his sins. He was troubled over the sins of his sons. We would go to Eli and we would wrap our arms
around him and we would grieve with him.
He hated what his sons were doing.
He wept. He loved the Lord. It hurt.
And, as I said, it hurt most of all in what it all said about God.
In the next
chapter, if you read in I
Samuel 3 and following, you will see that Eli was humbled before God. And he humbled himself before God. But God’s loving chastisements are very
severe upon Eli. And His loving
chastisements upon His son Eli make me silent, and make me tremble, and bring
me to my knees for mercy. The judgment
of God came upon Eli’s house. His sons
would die in one day, impenitent. The
priesthood would be removed from his family.
All of his descendants would die young.
The service of God would suffer.
Yes, God gave him
mercy. Yes, God pointed out to him the
Christ. Read verse 35 of I
Samuel 1, and you will see Jesus there.
In the midst of Eli’s failures, God pointed him to Jesus and told him,
“You are saved by Jesus.” Yet the
consequences were painful. God’s
judgment of Eli’s failure was that the worship of God was now corrupted, the
church was corrupted. That was the worst
of it. And the judgment was this: A generation arose that did not want to be
and would not be restricted or restrained from the way of evil but would give
themselves to every way of evil. They
would not be told, as teenagers. They
would not be admonished in the preaching of the gospel. They did not like, they did not want,
preaching like that. They said,
“Preaching must make us feel good. We
must be able to indulge ourselves. We
will not go to a church that talks about sin and the
call of repentance and the power of a holy life in self-denial. We won’t go there.” Then elders, deacons, and ministers came up
out of such a generation. And these are
the ones who begin to clamor for laxness and say that the difference between
the church and the world is really insignificant. And the leaven of disrespect for God is sown
in the whole house of God.
As we see Eli’s
failure as a father, we are pointed also to the perfect cure. And that cure is faith in the promises of
Jesus Christ, our risen Lord and Savior.
It is faith in the blood of Jesus Christ that forgives our sins, for
sure. But faith in the blood of Jesus
Christ that strengthens us shows us our responsibilities as parents and as
fathers, lays that responsibility upon our hearts, and
by the Spirit of the risen Lord gives us a wisdom to go about that
responsibility in a God-honoring way. God’s
Word comes to you and to me today as fathers and says, “Honor Me in your
children. Stop them in the ways of
sin. Don’t say, ‘I can’t.’ Don’t say ‘I can’t stand to
see them not happy.’” Honor God
and show them the blessedness and the privilege and the joy of serving God.
Then God’s strength
will work through our weakness as fathers.
God’s mercy will be shown to our children and to our young people, who
will be equipped to stand faithful in the battle of faith. They will be ready to choose the paths of
difficulty, suffering for Christ’s sake, and to honor God, at the expense of
their personal ease, because parents, fathers, have taught them to honor God,
and have taught them to honor God by not only saying “No,” but by restraining
them and stopping them in the way of evil.
Yes, that will
cause pain. That will come at the
sacrifice of our own ease. But, through
this, through fathers who are dedicated to honor God first, God will build His
house, and God will equip a generation of children and young people to stand
without shame to serve Him.
Let us pray.
Father, we are
indeed humbled before Thee today, humbled before Thy Word. Oh, Father, look upon us as fathers, as we
stand in Thy name, and equip us in our hearts with all spiritual wisdom, all
understanding, all zeal, and all love of Thee, that we may teach our children
to honor Thee and that they may see one thing:
that Dad will honor God. In Jesus’ name, Amen.