2 TWO NAMELESS PROPHETS

After seven years of suffering at the invasions of Midian, Israel’s sense of God’s hand revived at last. Seven years, year after year, the Midianites made these inroads against them as verse 1 says, “The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.” But the story does not end there. “Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.” This was a good sign and the story is about to change for the better as God will raise up Gideon and Israel will be delivered. But first a necessary step must be taken. God will send a messenger and to do that He needed a prophet. We do not know the name of the man he sent, but before the angel came and spoke to Gideon and before the deliverance came, Israel needed to hear the bad news that must precede the good news if the good news is to have its proper effect. Israel has sinned and she needed to know it. God needed a prophet.

God was aware of their situation. He heard the cries of Israel, when they were finally directed toward Him. Though in their prosperity they had neglected Him and showed undue interest in rival gods, and though they never looked toward Him until they were driven to it by extremity, yet, when they cried out to Him and prayed, He was quick to show mercy, and reveal how very eager He always is to hear prayer. Why wait seven years to begin to do that?

1. Before God sent an angel to raise them up a savior, he sent a prophet to reprove them for sin, and to bring them to repentance. This prophet is not named, but he was a human, a prophet, not an angel. Whether this prophet delivered his message to the children of Israel when they had met together in a general assembly, at some solemn feast or other great event, or whether he went from city to city and tribe to tribe, preaching his message, we do not know, but his errand was to convince them of sin, that, in their crying to the Lord, they might admit it, confess it with sorrow and shame, and not waste their breath complaining any further of their trouble. They cried to God for a deliverer, and God sent them a prophet to instruct them, and to make them ready for deliverance. We have reason to hope God is designing mercy for us if we find He is by His grace preparing us for it. So the first thing we learn from this situation is that God has a way of preparing our audience. Would it not be therefore important that before we go to pray the Lord will prepare our hearers? And should we not be careful to go only to those audiences in which we feel God has gone before us to prepare them? Sending prophets to a people and furnishing a land with faithful ministers is an indication of good to come and an evidence that God has mercy in store for them.

2. Here are three subjects this prophet addresses. This is not to say that today we need to limit ourselves to these three or that we need to always include these three, but nevertheless here is the model God gives to us in this instance. A. The prophet tells them the great things God had done for them as verses 8,9 say, “I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land.” They had worshipped the gods of the nations, as if they had had no God of their own to worship and therefore might choose whom they pleased. But they are reminded here of the One whom they had forgotten who was known by the title of the God of Israel and to Him they must return. They had turned to other gods, as if their own had been either incapable or unwilling to protect them and therefore they are told what He did for their fathers, the benefits of which still descended and remained available to them, their ungrateful offspring. He brought them out of Egypt where had He not done so they would have continued in perpetual poverty and slavery. He delivered them out of the hands of all that oppressed them. This suggests that the reason they were now not delivered out of the hands of the oppressing Midianites was not for lack of power or good-will in God, but because by their iniquity they had brought their problems on themselves. God would not redeem them until they by repentance revoked their mistake. God gave them this good land. This not only increased their sin, and showed their thanklessness for it, but it justified God, and cleared Him from blame for any of the troubles they were in now. They could not say He was unkind, for He had given all possible indications of His desire to do well for them. If bad things happened to them, they must thank themselves.

B. The prophet shows the goodness and fairness of God’s requirements and expectations from them as verse 10 says, “I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’” “I am the Lord your God and you have an obligation to me. Don’t respect the gods of the Amorites. Hey you! I am your God. Listen to Me. Pay attention to Me. Do not worship them, or show any respect to them; do not worship them for fear of their doing you any damage, for what hurt can they do you while I am your God? Fear me, the true God, and you need not fear them.”

C. The prophet charges them with rebellion against God, who had laid on them this command to worship Him only. Verse 10 ends with this phrase: “But you have not listened to me.” The prophet is succinct, but comprehensive. This charge was at the heart of all their sin. They did not listen to God. One of the definitions of sin is “not to listen.” It was disobedience to God to not listen to God and therefore it was this which brought those calamities to them under which they were now groaning. The prophet intends through this message to bring the Israelites to repentance. Repentance is correct and genuine when the sinfulness of sin, as disobedience to God, is what we chiefly lament. We do not know what effect the prophet’s sermon had on the people, but we may hope it had a good effect, and that some of them at least repented and reformed.

The next thing we have in the Scripture narrative is the angel speaking to Gideon. This might hint that at least some of the people repented and began to call more seriously on the Lord for deliverance from the Midianites. The nameless prophet delivered his message and we must assume that God’s Word did not return void. “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me  empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it”’(Isaiah 55:10,11). Gods people have needs and God has messages. Will you be one of His prophets?

1 SAMUEL 2:27-36

Eli the priest reproved his sons too gently and did not correct them as he should and therefore God sent an unnamed prophet to him to reprove him sharply and to threaten him. By Eli’s weakness in not correcting his son, he had strengthened their hands in their wickedness. If good men are weak in their duty and by their carelessness and negligence contribute to the sin of sinners, they must expect to hear of it and to suffer for it. Eli’s family was now nearer to God than all the families of the earth and therefore He will punish them. Amos 3:2 says of Israel, “You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins.” The message is sent to Eli himself, perhaps because God would bring him to repentance and save him; not to his sons, whom he had already determined to destroy. And it might have been a means of awakening him to do his duty at last, and so to have even prevented the judgment. But we do not find evidence that it had any great effect on him. The message this prophet delivers from God is very harsh.

1. He reminds him of the great things God had done for the house of his fathers and for his family. He appeared to Aaron in Egypt in the house of bondage, as an indication of further favor which He designed for him. He advanced Aaron to the priesthood, assigned it to his family, and dignified it above any of the families of Israel. He entrusted him with honorable work, to offer on God’s altar, to burn incense, and to wear that ephod in which was the breast-plate of judgment. He placed on him an honorable provision, a share out of all the offerings made by fire. Verses 28 and 29 say, “I also gave your ancestor’s family all the food offerings presented by the Israelites. 29 Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel?” What could God have done more for them, to encourage them to be faithful to Him? The distinguishing favors God’s ministers have received, especially those of the spiritual priesthood are possible temptations to sin and if we neglect our responsibilities and betray our trusts it will be remembered against us in the day of our accounting.

The prophet declares a high charge against Eli and his family. His children did wickedly, and he allowed it and in doing so involved himself in the guilt. The charge of sin therefore is against them all. His sons had in an ungodly way made light of the holy things of God: “You kick at my sacrifice which I have commanded; not only trample on the institution as a common thing, but spurn it as a thing to which you hate to be obligated.” They did the utmost despite imaginable to the offerings of the Lord when they took their favorite parts for themselves and ate it. Those that allow and go easy on their children in any evil way and do not use their authority to restrain and punish them, do in effect honor them more than God, being more tender of their appearance in the eyes of men than of God’s glory and want more to humor them than to honor Him. God was displeased and sent a prophet to let Eli know of it.

2. The prophet declares that the high priesthood will be cut off from his family. Verses 30 - 32 say, “30 Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that members of your family would minister before me forever.’ But now the Lord declares: ‘Far be it from me! Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained. 31 The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your priestly house, so that no one in it will reach old age, 32 and you will see distress in my dwelling. Although good will be done to Israel, no one in your family line will ever reach old age.” We must dwell on this passage a few moments. The Lord God of Israel, who is jealous for His own and Israel’s honor, says, and lets you know it, that your commission is revoked and suspended. Walking before God is the great condition of our relationship with God. Now that you cast me off, you can expect no other than that I would cast you off. If you will not walk before me as you should, therefore you will not walk with me at all. Such wicked and abusive servants God will discard and put out of His service. In four generations, in Solomon’s time, Zadok, who descended from Eliazar, not Eli, replaced Abiathar a descendent of Eli and this prophesy was fulfilled. God is the fountain of honor and dishonor and He can exalt the lowliest and lower the greatest. We ourselves, not others, decide more than is commonly supposed. As we deal with God we must expect to be dealt with by Him, and yet still be treated better than we deserve as Psalm 18:25,26 make clear, “To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, 26 to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd.” The way to be truly great is to be truly good. If we humble and deny ourselves in order to honor God, and have a single eye toward Him in our efforts to glorify Him, we may depend on this promise, He will lift us up. John 12:26 says, “My Father will honor the one who serves me.” He lowers those who do not serve Him. Eli’s son’s and their family history in the next four generations demonstrate this as they were demoted from the priesthood.

3. The prophet foretells judgments to come on Eli’s family. A curse was to be placed on his posterity, and a terrible curse it is, and shows how jealous God is in the matters of His worship and how negatively He takes it when those who are bound by their spiritually high profession to obediently preserve and advance His glory, are instead false to their trust, and seek to satisfy their own fleshly desires. If God’s ministers, who are to seek to glorify God, look disrespectfully on the sacrifices God’s people bring to Him, how much worse punishment will they receive here and forever than other sinners! Let us read of the doom pronounced here on Eli’s house, and tremble. Here are 5 particulars judgments.

A. Their power will be broken as verse 31 says, “I will cut short your strength and the strength of your priestly house, so that no one in it will reach old age” They will be stripped of all their authority, relieved of their positions as priests, and have no influence on the people as they had had. Eli, their father had not used his power, as he ought to, to restrain and punish them, and therefore it was justly threatened that the arm should be cut off which was not stretched out as it should have been.

B. Their lives would be shortened. He was himself an old man; but instead of using the wisdom, gravity, experience, and authority of his age, for the service of God and the support of true worship, he had allowed the weaknesses of age to make him cool and negligent in his duty, and therefore he was told that none of his posterity would live to be old as verse 32 makes clear. “. . . no one in your family line will ever reach old age.” This is further supported in verse 33, “. . . all your descendants will die in the prime of life.” This would not mean that they would become totally extinct, but that none would live a full life or become a person importance.

C. All their comforts will be removed. This was fulfilled in the Philistines’ invasions and the harm they did to Israel, by which the country was impoverished. No doubt the priests’ incomes were greatly reduced. The death of his evil sons and then the captivity of the ark were such acts of hostility that they broke Eli’s heart. Eli fell over backwards and died when he heard the news. Grief for a dead child is great, but wouldn’t grief for a bad child be even greater?

D. Their substance will be wasted and they will be reduced to extreme poverty. Verse 36 says, 

“Then everyone left in your family line will come and bow down before him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread and plead, ‘Appoint me to some priestly office so I can have food to eat.’” Eli’s sons must have the best pieces of flesh, but their sons will be glad of a morsel of bread. Those who could not be content without dainties and varieties are brought to conditions of great need even for the essentials. Plenty and power are forfeited when abused.

E. God would soon begin to execute these judgments in the death of Hophni and Phinehas, the sad news of which Eli himself should live to hear. Hophni and Phinehas had many a time sinned together, and it is foretold here that they should die together both in one day.

In the midst of all these threatenings against the house of Eli, here is mercy promised to Israel. Verse 35 says,  I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. The wickedness of ministers, though it destroy themselves will not destroy the ministry. How bad soever the officers are, the office will continue always to the end of the world. If some betray their trust, yet others will be raised up. The message the nameless prophet delivered to God’s priests would have been difficult to present, but the nameless prophet did what he was told and said what he was to say. That is the ministry of a prophet. Will you be a prophet for God?