"Where is the glory?"

This has been automatically generated, and therefore may contain some unintended inaccuracies.

Alright. Let's turn to 1 samuel 4 versus 12 to 22. And this will be found on page 2 7 5 of the church bibles. 1 samuel 4 Sorry. 1 time, we were chapter 4, reading from verse 12.

That same day, a Benjaminite ran from the battle line and went to Shiloh with his closed torn and dust on his head. When he arrived, there was Eli sitting on his chair by the side of the road watching because his heart feared for the ark of god. When the man entered the town and told him what had happened, the whole town sent up a cry. Eli heard the outcry and asked, what is the meaning of this uproar? The man hurried over to Eli, who was 98 years old and whose eyes had failed so they could not see.

He told Eli, I had just come from the battle line. I fled there this very I fled from there this very day. Eli asked what happened, my son? The man who brought the news replied. Israel fled before the civil Philistines, the and the army suffered heavy losses.

Also, your 2 sons hop in front of us are dead, and the ark of God has been captured. When he mentioned the arc of god, Eli fell backwards on his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died. For he was an old man and he was heavy. He had led Israel for 40 years.

His daughter-in-law, the wife of Finias, was pregnant and near the time of delivery. When she heard the news about the arc of God that had been captured and her father her father-in-law and her husband were dead. She went into labor and gave birth but was overcome with her by her labor pains. As she was dying, the women attending her said, don't despair. You have given birth to a son, but she did not respond or pay any attention.

She named the boy Icobot, saying the glory has departed from Israel. Because of the capture of the ark and the deaths of her father-in-law and husband. She said the glory has departed from Israel for the ark of God has been captured. Alright. Let's see if this work.

Oh, I'm trying to find a sermon. Should be some sermon notes, slides, Oh, well, they're not there. I'll go on without them. Okay. They're not on the system.

Should have the glory. Where is the glory? That's the first slide. Okay. Right.

Okay. The title of the sermon is where is the glory? Alright. What a passage? What a passage to be asked to preach upon?

What tragedy? This is a tragedy of, Shakespeareian proportions. Don't know about you, but I'm thinking I'm thinking hamlet I'm looking at that that play. Samuel 1 was written over 2 millennium before Shakespeare put quill to paper, and Shakespeare wrote a play about fictitious people. This is about real people.

And our initial natural focus, I don't know if you've read this before. I've read this as you can imagine many times when I've still come back to this focus, and my initial focus is the plight of these people. And I feel compassion for all 3 of them in this story. We've been looking at Eli, and I can I can identify with Eli? We've seen him through the first few chapters.

He is a mixture of good and bad, and weak behavior. I feel sorrow for the wife of Finius. We don't even know her name. But before we read about this, we knew that her husband was unfaithful to God and unfaithful to his wife. And I feel concerned for Iqabad.

I first came across this name, not in Juan Samuel, but actually in a Disney cartoon. The legend of sleepy hollow. Ikabod crane. What a name. What a name to have and what a name here.

I feel concerned not for Ikabod crane. I feel concerned for Ikabod in this passage. It's not surprising. I didn't come across him until much later because it's not the type of story that finds its way into children's illustrated bibles. Iqabod, think about it.

A few days before he was born, He would have they would have said, well, he's gonna be in the Apex family in Israel. The top 1 of the top families in Israel, his grandfather, high priest, his father priest, his uncle, priest, They've all gone, and his mother is about to die. I just if you've been here for the sermons, I just went back to the second chapter of Samuel where Anna has her prayer and her prayer contains how life is often reversed. God creates great reversals in lives. The higher brought low.

This is this is a example of that in this passage. I feel compassion for these people, and I know our lord Jesus felt compassion. The gospel writers are very keen to tell us that when Jesus saw in front of him, when he was confronted with need, suffering, and death, He felt compassion. And we too feel compassion. We respond initially to this passage.

I hope with compassion, but Jesus didn't just leave it there. He then acted. And nor should we leave the passage there on a compassionate emotional level. The people in this this passage are not focused on their own problems or plight. Their focus is somewhere else and that's where our focus needs to be this morning.

Now if 1 Samuel 4 12 to pay 2 was staged, we shouldn't focus on the actors on stage, but rather the props, the stage props. That's what the writer wants us to pay attention to. The stage props. A few head of motown? Yeah.

Excellent. Motor motor City USA, Detroit, Detroit, where they made all the cars. Well, I I come from, not Motown, unfortunately. I come from what was once known as furniture town. UK.

It doesn't have the same ring, does it? But it's actually it's Hywickham. You may have heard of Hywickham, not a bad football team. But in Highwickham, we had factories that churned out furniture. My maternal grandfather was a chair and cabinet maker.

My father was a chair and cabinet maker. In furniture town, we paid attention to furniture. And that's what we're gonna do this morning. We're gonna look at the furniture and see what it says to us. Let's pray.

Heavenly father, we bow in your presence. May your word be our rule? Your Holy Spirit, our teacher, and your greater glory, our supreme concern through Jesus Christ, our lord, amen. Let's start there. Okay.

I'm gonna try before we actually get into the passage to, establish the context of the passage I was thinking. This morning, it's half term. Should I ask people to do some work. And Allison. If you've been here for this series, I I'm interested in how much you remember because this is 1 of an amazing library books.

The book of Samuel is 1 of god's books. He's inspired by how he's grown. There's so much in it and knowing what come before helps us to understand what we're looking at now. But I'll leave you to do that in your gospel communities over the coming week, but I'll quickly recap the book of 1 Samuel starts with Hannah, Hannah, Once a child, she hasn't got a child. She prays to God that if the lord will give her a child, she would devote that child to the lord's service.

She has Samuel. She keeps a promise, Samuel is taken to the tabernacle to be an apprentice or a temple trainee. Unfortunately, the temple isn't a great place at this time. The people in the temple, the priests are not working as the lord will intend, but somehow, Samuel blossoms and grows. In the lord during that time.

And eventually, the lord speaks directly to Samuel makes him a prophet. That's the first 3 chapters of the book. That's a very quick run through. Attention moves from Samuel in chapter 4 towards the arc of the lord, and the people of God have been fighting the Philistines. They've lost using conventional weapons.

They've lost 1 major battle. And they decide it's time to go nuclear to move away for conventional weapons and instead use the arc to make God do what they want and to bring victory, but it leads to a greater defeat. And this is where we pick up the story this morning, making plain now what's the main thing of the story. Now if you have your bottles open, it will be helpful. The writer wants to draw our attention to 3 things, and first thing is the absence of the ark of the lord.

If you go down to verse 13, verse 17, verse 18, 19 20, 21 and 22, you'll see the arc of the lord mentioned. Interestingly, if you went back, we won't do this now. If you went to chapter 4, the first section, It's not simply called the ark of law. It's called the ark of the covenant of the lord almighty. The name being used is changed because the circumstances that the ark is in have changed.

So what is the arc? Bart reminders last week. The arc is a wooden box. It's it's, got dimensions. Its length is 2 and 3 quarter feet.

It's width and its height are 2 and a quarter feet. It's a a wooden box, a cabinet and this cabinet is lined with gold, and on the top is the mercy seat. Now the arc symbolizes many things. It is placed in the holy of holies. It is god's symbolic throne.

It is his physical if you like a physical representation of his throne, it's sometimes described as a foot stall of his throne in the Bible. It is the place where the high priest gives the sacrifice of atonement on the mercy seat on top of the ark. It is where God sometimes manifests his glory. He appears in clouds and makes his presence known to his people. So that's the first thing that the the writer wants to remind us of.

It's the invisible presence of God among his people. It's a symbol of his special relationship with his people. And then you need to look at, Eli's chair. It's mentioned twice. It's mentioned in, versus 13 and 19.

It's been mentioned once before. And why am I drawing attention to Eli's chair? We have loads of chairs We've even bought more chairs. We sometimes when we read the bible, we have a problem called presentism presentism, looking at things in the past through the eyes of the present. Now here's a here's a quote from a very famous historian.

I'm gonna read it to you. This is, from a guy called, Norman Davis. He said high back chairs with armrests were reserved in ancient times for ceremonial use. They enabled rulers and priests to assume a dignified and elevated position while everyone stood at their feet. Individual chairs didn't start to appear, and they didn't start to appear in Europe until the sixteenth century.

This idea of people sitting on chairs isn't common. It's a sign of authority. It's a sign of dignity. So when Eli's sitting on his chair in chapter 1, when he's sitting by the side of the road in this chapter, he's sitting on a throne. And the Hebrew word actually is throne, but it's been translated chair.

It's not a everyday everyday item. It is a throne. It's a position of authority, and this has incredible symbolism. So the writer wants us to remember the arc is at the center of this story, He wants us to remember the throne of Eli is at the center of the story, and he wants us to remember that the, the glory of the lord is at the center of the story. And he has a bit of a word play here, and we'll look at this as we go through the passage.

There are 3 words used in this, in this sense, Khabod, for the glorious glory has gone, and Cabod for the lord's glory. He's playing on words, which if you're a language scholar, you might want to look at. Okay. Let's look at the passage. Let's go back in our bibles to chapter 4 versus 13 to 18.

And the heading here imagine the heading. It's only a few words. It the heading would be the need for a great high priest. So we're looking at versus 13 to 18. And the story opens with an almost marathon runner.

How long is the marathon? Again, it's about 25 okay. Right. Anybody run a marathon? I can tell.

Well, this this is an almost marathon man because he's run somewhere between the battle lines of Ebonese on Afed. It's about 20 miles to Shiloh. Is not a full marathon. The first marathon apparently was run by a Greek soldier of, the army fighting the Persian. He ran from marathon to Athens, but that'll be centuries later.

This is not the same. This is not a run with good news. This is a run, runner with bad news. How do we know it's bad news? We'd know it's bad news before he even got to speak.

If you look at the description in the passage, He is wearing torn clothes. He's got dirt or dust on his head. This is a sign of we've looked at this this morning in a way. It's a sign of mourning. They have lost.

You don't need to ask. You just have to look. They have lost the battle, and Eli is sitting by the side of the road on his chair waiting to hear news. He's in on his throne. It says he's watching, but he's blind.

He's actually watching with his ears, if if you will, And what is interesting is not his sons, but what's happened to the ark. His concern is for the ark. The word is he fears for the ark. And why would he fear for the ark? Well, it's his responsibility.

He's the high priest. It belongs in the holy of holies. Only the high priest goes there. He is concerned. We don't know what happened to take when the art was taken into battle.

Did they ask Eli? Did they give him reasons for taking it? How was it taken? Did he help and take it out? Did he make sure they've followed the instructions for its transportation?

We don't know. But we do know he knew it was wrong to take it. They hadn't asked the lord's prophet, and the lord hadn't told them to take it. He knew it was wrong to take the ark out of its place. The people were supposed to come to the ark now, not the ark, come to the people.

And he knew the importance of the ark in the life of of the people of god. And he knew it represented god's presence, and he knew he was supposed to fulfill the atonement sacrifice every year on the day of Yon Kippur. Elon was 9 Elon was 98. He must have been thinking about the future. He knew God had said another house of Levi will take over the running of the temple.

And he must have been wondering how are they gonna do this now? They've done a bad job. His family, the house of United, done a bad job, but the least the ark had been there to do the act of atonement, the sacrifice of atonement. How was it gonna happen now the arc had been taken. Interestingly, the runner goes past him, ignores his throne, goes past him and goes to the town.

Eli is becoming yesterday's man people, are starting to ignore him despite his his throne saying that he's a person of authority. The man then comes back to Eli. Eli can't see him covered in dust and closed torn, so he asks him what's happened, and the messenger gives him the news. But he's taking his time. He doesn't get to the arc until he's listed all the other catastrophes that have happened and he gets to the arc.

And with that, Eli falls backwards on his chair, And this is incredibly symbolic. This is the end of his reign as high priest. He should have acted as god's judge. He's 1 of the judges, 1 of god's rescuers. He falls back on His chair, he pulls backwards, and he dies.

And the empty chair says there needs to be a successor. Now in verse 18, you see the word. It says heaviness that killed him his Cabed, but killed him. During his time as high priest, the glory and honor, which it should have gone to God in the sacrifices, some of it had been taken by the priests and it's found its way into Eli, and it's given him a heavy weight. And the writer says this is what kills him.

His weight kills him. And this is quite, quite shocking. This is really something that makes us stop and think. And, Tim Chester says, when we apply it to us, we too, he says, can rob God of his glory due to him not giving due due to him by us not giving our true worship to him. So let's try and apply this to our lives.

The tabernacle is now gone. It was superseded by the temple. The temple is now gone. There is no earthly high priest now sitting on his throne. What can this passage be saying to us as Christians this day this morning in our in our context we find ourselves in.

Number 1, no need for succession planning. Eli may have been wondering what on earth is gonna happen when I go. Now the arc is gone. What's gonna happen when it comes to high priests? We don't need to worry about that because we know we have a great high priest forever upon his throne.

Now it was gonna come up on the screen, so we're gonna look at it ourselves. Can you turn in the new testament in the absence of PowerPoint? To Hebrews, 6. And versus 19 to 20. Okay.

So we have a page number. 1 2 0 5. Thank you. Right. If you look with me at, I hope I got the right, the NOV, right NOB version.

It's page again, Abrita. Slide. Okay. Versus 19 to 20, it says we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where our forerunner Jesus has entered on our behalf.

He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. The book of Hebrews is full of high the high priestly role of Jesus, and this is just 1 part of it. So what does Jesus do as a high priest? Well, firstly, he's already offered himself as a perfect sacrifice for sin. He has established the new covenant, which we'll be celebrating in a few minutes.

He is our great high priest forever. He mediates for us in that new covenant with god, the father. He is our advocate and our intercessor before the throne of the father. As as our great high priest forever, he ensures that we have access to god, to the presence of god, and therefore our hope follows him there. So Eli reminds us that high priests, earthly high priests have gone, but we have an eternal high priest in heaven to represent us.

Let's move on to the second half of the passage. We leave Eli to 1 side, and we go to look at, Finis' wife now. And here, we see the need. So as a power point, it would say the need to know the lord's presence and to see his glory. Okay.

Looking at 19 to 22. Okay. Eli's daughter-in-law, obviously, is pregnant. And she hears the updated news. The news is such a shock that she goes into premature labor.

Close to death, she won't be distracted by our attendants. Her concern is not her immediate problems, her immediate situation. She is more concerned about the departure of god's glory with his arc. The word caveat here comes. And to mark this event, or memorialize it, she names her son, Icobot, no glory or where is the glory.

She was probably thinking about where on earth it's my son entry? What word is he entering into? Everything is in a state of chaos and flux. And I I identify with her because, when my youngest son was born, he was born 2 weeks after 9 11. And I when he was born, I said to Jane, I said, what world is he coming into?

When his elder brothers were born, everything seemed lovely and stable, and there's no major world problems, but suddenly the whole world seemed to be chaos. And this is what perhaps he's going through the wife of Finius' mind. And she names him Echebod, Echebod, Echebod, whereas god's glory, and the naming is to act as a reminder to the people. If you name him It could have people remember the day when all of this happened. It's a reminder to them, and she's worried about the arc of the lord.

It's where the lord at times of his choosing mate, his presence, man of is manifest presence known. The loss of the arc doesn't mean God has disappeared. He is always there. He is omnipresent, and he is sustaining presence keeps the word going, but his special presence appears to have gone. The remove of the arc from the people says God is in some way signaling he is distancing himself from his people at this time.

The relationship is not as it should be. And it shows the seriousness with which the people have made mistakes and they have sinned against the lord. They thought the ark could be used to get what they wanted. They tried to coerce God to do what he hadn't told them to do. They were trying to get their own way.

And the glory of god, the Cabot represented by the ark has been taken by the Philistines. And what she says, I suspect that the law law's glory has departed was voiced by some of the people in town of Shiloh. There was just a cry. We didn't hear individual voices here. We hear an individual voice.

Now she may have not known the whole picture. She sees that the The ark has departed, therefore god's glory is departed, but it's not as simple as that. The ark has departed because of some major things that have happened in the people of Israel. The tabernacle was misused by the priests. God's prophet Samuel has not been consulted.

They've ignored god's word through his prophets. They have used the ark in a superstitious way. And god's glory has departed, which led to the victory of the Philistines and the Ark's capture. So again, the tabernacle was replaced by the temple. Both are now gone The ark of the covenant disappeared during, the Babylonian exile.

So what does this part of the passage say to us in our, in our present day? Well, an interesting thing. Tim Keller, in a a sermon on the ark of the covenant later a later part of the story says the highest of all our needs in our lives is the immediate presence of god. Not just belief about god, not just ethical righteousness, but the actual presence of god. So how do we know god's presence in our lives?

Well, firstly, we know through the personal work of our great high priest, Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within believers. So we are able to get into the presence of god. And how do we now see god's glory? Well, I'm thinking of Christmas. Do you think you've won John 14?

Let me read it to you. The word of the lord became flesh and made his dwelling among us? We have seen this glory, the glory of the 1 and only son. Who came from the father full of grace and truth. That's in the first chapter of John.

And there's another passage. I won't get you to look at it, but it's in if you're taking notes, it's 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6, and I'll read it to you. For this is Paul, some this is Paul Depossel writing. For God who said, let the light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts. To give us a light of the knowledge of god's glory displayed in the face of Christ.

That's 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6. So how do we seek Christ's face? We can behold the glory of God in the face of Christ. Direct sight of that glory, we'll have to wait for until we go to heaven. But what we have now is partial sight of that glory potentially through our spiritual eyes.

It's not just intellectually believing that Jesus is glorious. It's seeking a relationship with him. Psychologists talk about something called the relational gate. If you want to establish relations with someone, you look them in the face. You look them in the face.

That's the relational gate. That says I want a relationship I want to know you. And we need to look into the face of Christ. How do we do that? We start by reading god's word, meditating in scripture, and particularly the gospels, and then turning to prayer, not just going to him for forgiveness, not just, taking our petitions, our requests, but considering him, his person, his words, and his work that he's done on our behalf.

Now this passage is incredibly challenging. It invites responses at 3 levels. It invites an emotional response from us. We hopefully feel for these people. We identify with these people.

But we're not to stop there as we understand the scripture. It also invites an intellectual response, wanting to know how these things are happening. What do they mean? And believe me, this is 1 that you can easily get tangled up in, but we need to move beyond an an intellectual response, we we act emotionally intellectually, but we need to respond spiritually. We need to dwell on this and say, what does this mean to me, spiritually?

How do I respond in my life to what it's saying about god's glory and god's presence? And so we come to the end of a book end The first part of Samuel is like 2 bookends. Chapter 1 is a woman who prays for a child. The end of Samuel 4 is about a woman who has a child and cries out in agony for the loss of the lord's glory, the loss of the lord's art. The Arco lord is the focus of this passage.

It's about to go into exile for 20 years, and the first part of that exile we'll learn about next week. Let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for this challenging passage. Help us to respond appropriately to what it has to say to us in so in so many different ways. Help us from this to be reminded and to hold some of the truth that we have.

The lord Jesus is our high priest in heaven today, who represents us before you. Thank you for him. We can come into here into your presence. Thank you that, through seeking his face, we can start to see your glory, the glory that we'll see directly when we come to heaven. In Jesus' name, we thank you, amen.