The Misuse of God

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 66:1-4
• Hymn — God of Grace and God of Glory
• Prayer of Invocation
• Prayer of Confession
• Assurance of Pardon — Romans 8:1-2
• Scripture Reading — 2 Samuel 23:1-17
• Offering
• Hymn
• Sermon
• Hymn — This Is My Father's World
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14

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Sermon Title: The Misuse of God

Scripture: 1 Samuel 4

I. The Misuse of God's Instruments (vv. 1–4)

A. Israel is defeated by the Philistines and the elders respond not with repentance but by fetching the ark from Shiloh, expecting it to save them (1 Samuel 4:3)

B. The ark is described in v. 4 with three layers of irony:

1. It is the ark of the covenant — a covenant conditioned on obedience to God's holy law, yet Israel and her priests (Hophni and Phinehas) are flagrantly breaking that law
2. It represents the mercy seat — sprinkled with blood on the Day of Atonement — yet Israel pauses for no confession of sin and seeks no mercy from God
3. It belongs to the Lord of Hosts — yet Israel treats him as if he is at their beck and call, a weapon to be wielded

C. There is no word from God directing Israel to bring the ark into battle — unlike the clear divine instruction seen in Numbers 10 and Joshua 6

D. Using God's instruments apart from God's word turns means of grace into means of judgment

1. Paul warns the Corinthians that eating and drinking the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner brings judgment, not blessing (1 Corinthians 11)
2. Treating physical instruments of grace as magical objects — like a rabbit's foot or a magic wand — is functionally idolatry: domesticating God to do our bidding

II. The Misuse of God's Battle (vv. 5–11)

A. Israel's shout when the ark arrives shakes the earth; the Philistines are terrified, knowing what Yahweh did to Egypt (1 Samuel 4:5-9)

1. The Philistines assume Israel worships many gods, yet display more reverent fear of Yahweh than Israel does
2. Grand religious spectacle does not guarantee God's blessing — God does not see as man sees

B. Israel is again routed: 30,000 foot soldiers killed, Hophni and Phinehas die, and the ark is captured (1 Samuel 4:10-11) — fulfilling the prophecy of the man of God in 1 Samuel 2

C. We must not confuse our personal battles with God's battles

1. God is not obligated to grant victory in every battle we claim as his
2. God often works through defeats — his power and goodness are not bound to our victories
3. Losses can be God's preparation for something greater; the sufferings of this life are not worth comparing to the eternal weight of glory (Romans 8)
4. Stubbornly insisting God fight our battles leads either to frustration with God or abandonment of faith altogether

III. The Misuse of God's Glory (vv. 12–22)

A. A Benjaminite messenger brings the news to Eli in stages, saving the worst for last: Israel has fled, there was a great slaughter, your two sons are dead — and the ark of God has been captured (1 Samuel 4:17)

1. It is the news about the ark that causes Eli to fall backward, break his neck, and die (1 Samuel 4:18)
2. Eli, as high priest, bore responsibility for the ark; its loss was his ultimate failure

B. The Hebrew word kavod (glory/heaviness) runs through the passage as a double entendre

1. Eli dies because he was old and heavy (kavod) — likely bearing not only physical weight but the weight of his iniquity
2. The heaviness of Israel's sin, and especially her leaders' sin, causes the weightiness of God's glory to depart

C. Phinehas's wife names her son Ichabod — "the glory has departed" — at her death (1 Samuel 4:21-22)

1. She is not entirely wrong in her grief, but she has the cause and effect reversed: the ark was not captured and then the glory departed — the glory departed because of sin, and the ark's capture was the consequence
2. A church can be filled with magnificent symbols of transcendence and grandeur yet have Ichabod written over its door if God's word, the gospel, and repentance are absent

D. The remedy is the opposite of Israel's self-assertion: decreasing so that God might increase, coming to the cross with nothing in hand, so that the weightiness of God's glory might rest upon his people