Impurity in the Church House

Well, Amen. It's good, as I've said, to be back in this pulpit. It's always a pleasure to me. I'm thankful to serve along with our friend and brother, Brother Chris. He's been not just a good friend, but a mentor to me for some years now. And I always say when I get to preach that I don't ever want to preach behind him and simply say things he's already said, and I don't want to preach ahead of him and to go somewhere where he's planning to go. But I desire to step just to the right of the trail, if you will, and keep our momentum. We're in a series from the pastor's heart.

Today, I just would amend that a bit and say it's just a message from the worship pastor's heart. We'll be talking about impurity in the church house. I'd like to once a year, at least, get a chance to talk about worship as I feel it is my God calling the area of oversight the Lord has given me. And what we'll look at today in this passage, as we look at two individuals who took God's worship in God's precious office and made it a very impure thing. And as we look at this, I think this will help us as a church.

Not that we are religious leaders who are in grotesque immorality, but that we may understand where we don't need to go, perhaps what God has brought us from, but also that we might fight for purity in God's house. So let's read the text, 1 Samuel chapter 2 verses 12 through 17, and then we'll skip down and do 22 to 24. Verse 12. Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord. The custom of the priests with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servants would come. While the meat was boiling with a three pronged fork in his hand, and he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot.

And all that the fork brought up, the priest would take for himself. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. Verse 15. Moreover, before the fat was burned, the priest's servants would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, "Give meat for the priest to roast, for he will not accept boiled meat from you, but only raw." And if the man said to him, "Let them burn the fat first." And then take as much as you wish, he would say, "No, you must give it now, and if not, I will take it by force." Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord, for the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt.

Verse 22. Now Eli was very old, and he kept hearing all his sons were doing to all Israel, and how they lay with women who were serving at the entrance of the tenon meeting. And he said to them, "Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings with all these people. Know my sons, it is no good report that I hear the people of the Lord spreading abroad." Let's pray. Father, I pray that we would see the horrible state the Hebrews were in as their leaders were in grotesque impurity. And I pray it would break our hearts.

God, as we can look to the right, to the left in our American culture, and we can see so much impurity that takes place in the name of Christ. Lord, may we leave here changed, leave here afresh and renew God that we would bring pure sacrifices before you. Lord, yes, this is a message for leaders, but this is also a message for laymen. God, as we read your text, we can see people throughout Israel felt cheated that they did not have a chance to offer their sacrifices. So God, give us this humble yet earnest prayer that you would always protect the pulpits and always protect our church leadership. In your name we pray. Amen.

We'll start with several observations from the text. See, as they come up on the screen, we'll see the titles, impurity in the church house, four main truths. We'll see impurity in church leadership, impurity in church practice, impurity abroad, and impurity of reputation. So let's go to main truth number one, impurity in church leadership. Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord in verse 12. Scripture tells us quite plainly God's opinion of these men. They were worthless. They were worthless not because people said so, but because God said so. And so we know the state of this condition.

Now I've had a chance just to let you guys in on something we've been teaching our youth through this passage and through other passages. And I felt I needed to spend some time both with the youth and in this context. How is it that God's people had priests? So only one group of people that were priests, those were Levites, and there was only one high priest and that was Eli. So by default his sons were on track to be the next high priests. These were the religious leaders. How is it they did not know the Lord? Verse 12 says quite plainly, Eli's sons were worthless men. They did not know the Lord.

We're in a bad situation when God's preachers are lost. Now we know that God's word is telling us that they were lost. They were unsaved. So it's possible that pastors in our day can be unsaved. And what a sad and pitiful state for the people who go to church. You know, many of you drive a long way to come here. I'm very appreciative of that sacrifice and your commitment, your willingness to come. But do you realize that Shiloh was a very long way? People went to the temple once a year to offer their sacrifices, sometimes more. They literally would have to drive in their day all across the country.

Now can you imagine the motivation to get up early on a Sunday morning to drive 25, 35, 45 minutes, maybe an hour to go to the house of God because it was the right thing to offer your sacrifices, knowing full well that the men who were in charge of that were going to squander it. That is the sad and pitiful state of worship in this day. They had two kinds of impurity. If you're taking notes, they had impurity in God's eyes. 1 Samuel 12 and 1 Samuel 2. It says they did not know the Lord. And so we are only right in God's eyes if we have one type of holiness. And that is holiness imputed. I've been teaching my youth this.

There's two types of holiness. There's holiness in God's eyes and there's holiness in man's eyes. So rightness in our relationship to God in this day in the church age, we only have that through Jesus Christ. We sang about it. "Your blood has washed away my sins. Jesus, thank you." That is holiness imputed. So I-M-P-U-T-E-D. I'm getting in the habit because of my classroom instruction at college. Make sure people understand that spelling because I want you to get that down. Imputed. That means God has covered us. We are justified just as if I'd never sinned.

But the second kind of impurity they had was not just in God's eyes, but they were impure in man's eyes. One in the nation of Israel knew that these men were godless. And as we'll see, they even felt as though these men could be a threat to their own families and their own children, their own daughters. Now the second type of holiness is not holiness imputed, but holiness imparted. What that means is as the blood of Jesus washes you and cleans you, then you begin a process of what we call progressive sanctification.

You ought to be able to go back to that time when you were born again and you ought to be able to take us on a journey of testimonies. A series of testimonies. This is when God used this passage or this sermon or this song or I was driving down the road or I was praying late at night, I couldn't sleep. This is what God did in my life and he changed me. And he corrected. This was an attitude I used to have. This was a lack of faith I used to have. And as we see this, progressive sanctification, we see holiness imparted. That means God begins to make you more like Jesus. He begins to make you not more of a Christian.

He can't make you any more saved, but he makes you more Christ like. But what we see here is that these men were not progressively sanctified. In fact, they were progressively worse. The further you get in this passage, the worse things get. Isn't that the state of what you might expect? Most leaders in the church can't progressively get better. You know, when they bring someone in view of a call, perhaps they look really great. But as time goes on in their tenure, things get worse. Perhaps they say things people thought, Oh my goodness. Or they make leadership decisions and the affairs of the church just seem to get worse and worse.

So the second truth this morning, we see not only impurity in church leadership, but we see impurity in church practice. So where you have impure leaders, you will always have impure practice, their policies, the other individuals they pull alongside of them, the people they recruit to help them. So the second main truth, Roman numeral number two, if you take notes the way I do, this is impurity in church practice. Let's read verse 13.

The custom of the priest with the people was that when any man offered sacrifices, the priest servant would come while the meat was boiling with a three-pronged fork in his hand and he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot. All that the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. So three truths that I want you to see about their impurity in church practice. Number one, this was unbiblical.

In Leviticus chapter seven, the Lord gave to Moses how the Levites were supposed to operate, how they were supposed to lead worship services and it was nowhere near what we see in first Samuel chapter two verses 12 through 15. In fact, this is the furthest thing from what God mandated. So what you would have is you would have the Levites and they were supposed to be in the tent of meeting, the tabernacle. And what would happen is people would bring annual sacrifices and this would usually tie into how wealthy, how blessed the person was. The person brings a bowl. This was their yearly offering.

So it was to make atonement for the sins that they had committed and the Levites were to take a portion for themselves that was sort of their revenue. It has always been normal for God's people to support God's pastors and they would take a portion of this meal and so the Hebrew Levites got their livelihood from the people of God. But in terms of this practice, what would happen is they would burn this as a burnt offering and the fat had to be consumed. Now Brother Chris has preached about hafnai and phineas before and as he's noted, the fat had to be completely consumed and this was God's portion.

God's portion wanted the meat to be thoroughly cooked and the fat was representative of blessing. So as God blesses you, you bless him and give him the offering and it is burned completely. And after the fat was burned completely, then the Levites could take their portion. But as you see in verse 14, he would thrust into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot all the fork brought up the priest would take for himself.

If we skip down to verse 15, moreover before the fat was burned, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, "Give meat for the priest to roast, for he will not accept boil meat from you, but only raw." And look at verse 16, "And if the man said to him, 'Let them burn the fat first,' then take as much as you wish, he'd say, 'No, you must give it now or I will take it by force.'" Now look at all the things we have going on here. First of all, Hophni and Phineas have recruited men, they have servants. And so now their servants are expanding. You can see their negative influence grow.

But also what you see is a violence. Give it or we will take it by force. And also what I think is particularly sad, what burdens and breaks my heart is how the people are trying to do right. It is a very sad thing when God's people try to or need to correct the leadership and the leadership won't be corrected. Now think about this, get this picture in your mind. You get up early in the morning, you drive an hour to church, the pastor is unbiblical and the pastor will not accept your, you're pleading with him to let your offering be biblical. Listen to what the people were saying. We've come all this way from all over the country.

We might be from the tribe of Ephraim. We might be from the tribe of Judah or Benjamin and we've come all this way, not just because we have to, but because we want to offer to the Lord right sacrifices. And you're hindering that, you're getting in the way. So the church practice was unbiblical. Second, the church practice was selfish, greedy and ungrateful. Selfish, greedy and ungrateful. Look in verse 15 again, before the fat was burned, the priest servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, give meat for the priest to roast. He will not accept boiled meat from you, but only raw.

And if you take a look at this, this is also a sign of their heart. Not only was their heart not covered with imputed righteousness, not only were they lost, but they were exceedingly sinful and impure because essentially what they're saying is God's provision for me as a minister is not good enough. Now, if you look and if you do research in scripture, what happens is the Levites were supposed to eat the breast of the beef and the shoulder. So they had a portion of a shoulder, not any shoulder, one specific shoulder and one specific area or cut of the animal, whether that be a lamb, whether that be a bull or what have you.

And so when you see Hophnain Finias, order their servants to take anything and everything, essentially what they're saying is God's, your provision for me is not enough. God, it's not enough that we have millions of people in the country, estimated two to three million at any given time. And that's just in the Exodus. And this is several, several years down the road. So you have Levites before them for generation to generation to generation. These portions of the animal has always, it's always been enough. It's always satisfied them. But Hophnain Finias have said, we are much better than all the other servants. The scripture goes on.

If you can follow this, they were very large and they were very overweight. And so essentially they had literally fattened themselves through gluttony, taking whatever came up first, taking the best for them. So the comparison then would be a pastor who is not satisfied with a church allotment that has satisfied leaders for a long time. And he's saying, you know, that yeah, thanks for the, for the, for the parsonage and thanks for the salary and thanks for whatever package you might have entail for the, for the leader. But I demand more. I demand more. I demand more.

I demand more, even at the expense of angering God, not only were they non-biblical, selfish, greedy, and ungrateful, but they were disorderly. It was very disorderly. In fact, this was the main complaint. The first in the Corinthians, if you look at the instructions of the Lord's supper, this was the main problem is that people were turning the Lord's supper, turning in that, that precious moment of worship to celebrate the broken body of Christ, the poured out blood.

They were turning that into a drunken festival where people would rush to the very front of the line and they would take the bread, symbolic of Christ's broken body and they would become stuffed. And they would take the wine designated to represent the blood of Christ and they would get drunk. And so his brother Chris is in this weekly sermon series from the pastor's heart. He's talking about purity in God's people. If we're talking about worship, no, about his church, it is a very important that we not only have a sense of orderliness, a sense of control in our worship, but that we also have a sense of sharing.

Now I don't think that we're going to, we have a problem with when we meet, when we have a fellowship meal, we don't have a problem with people being inconsiderate. But we're really not just talking about food. We're talking about everything. If we come, you say, what does being considerate and compassionate have to do with coming to corporate worship? It has everything to do with corporate worship because as a worship leader and I was actually leading music and leading songs into the church long before I was leading worship. This is a big difference. But I started playing guitar when I was 12.

I started leading groups of people and singing probably the first time I was around about 13, played all through college. And as a lost person, I can identify with this that righteousness had not been imputed and therefore righteousness was not imparted. And if I go back and I think about corporate worship experiences, when me as a lost person, I was leading them. Ultimately I was serving myself. Perhaps I was not getting fat or wealthy at the expense of other people, but my needs were preeminent.

And we should also, we always see in our people a group of selflessness, a group, an attitude of service, a heart that longs to glorify God through sacrifice. It's the opposite, the disorderly worship that you see with Hophniim Phineas. Matthew Henry says that God provided for them very well, but they were still unsatisfied because they were not serving God. They were serving their own bellies. And like Isaiah said, the people like this are greedy dogs that can never have enough. And what I hope you see not only is impurity in the church leadership and impurity in church practice, but impurity abroad.

Let's read verse 14 and I will read the last half of that verse. The very end, almost to chapter 15. That this is what they did at Shiloh to who? To all the Israelites who came there. See impurity spreads. Every single person in this nation would have been impacted. You go on to read about Hannah, you go on to read about her sacrifice of how she and her husband Elkanah brought offerings to the Lord there. As we read this in all the scripture, we can have this moment. Wow. That Hannah and Elkanah had to offer their bull. And anytime you see a sacrifice in this period, you know these men were abusing it. That's the context.

I think it's important to note that this takes place in the time of the judges. Judges 17 says there's a time when there was no King in Israel. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. So let's look at how, what impact Hoph 9 Phinehas had on the people. Let's look at two truths here. The first religion suffered. Religion suffered. You know scripture says that Hoph 9 Phinehas abhorred the offering of the Lord. It was as if they hated the offering of God. But as I was reading that, you know, I think the people probably started hating it as well. Have you ever gotten to a point where you hated going to church?

I don't know if you've had this experience, but if you've ever had church leadership, I've just been around church my whole life and I have known unfortunately lots of people who were not meeting biblical qualifications to be leaders. And when that happens, inevitably something happens within the heart and mind of people. You stop really getting excited about giving your offering. Can you imagine giving your offering maybe a sacrificial monetary offering only to know that this person is lining their pockets with the offering? There is something that happens in the people and they were caught because they could not go.

The Lord had commanded them to go and if they go to church, then it was almost as if they would become weary worrying about the unbiblical leadership. So religion suffered, but the whole nation suffered. Not only did religion suffer, the whole nation suffered. This eventually cost them huge military losses with the Philistines and the Ark of the Covenant was taken. Because of Hophni Phineas, they lose their lineage so their children will not become leaders. They lose this huge military battle to the Philistines and the Ark of the Covenant. Now that represented the manifest presence of God.

Now we know that just as God does not live in buildings, he's omnipresent, but he is with us as we gather in that it pleases him. He's commanded us to be here to worship and spirit and truth and we strive to be a lampstand church where he's with us and he's walking among us and he's speaking to us and changing us. So when the Ark of the Covenant left, that's symbolic of God's presence leaving the people. So religion suffered, Israel suffered and I think about these people, their offerings suffered.

You realize if they brought an offering and even if they gave it in the right spirit, the Lord became angry with the offering because of Hophni Phineas. Now I believe that when saved people come and if there's a church leader who's over that, I believe God will hear your prayer. At times where I have seen on biblical church leadership, we went any way, we prayed any way, we gave any way. But there's almost a dark cloud over the worship when people feel as though their offerings are used incorrectly. And the fourth major truth, not only do we see impurity in church leadership and impurity in church practice, there's impurity spread abroad.

There was also impurity of reputation. Not to sound redundant, but let's skip to verse 22. As we could see that although Hophni Phineas had a reputation that was known and it was not good, it gets worse. It gets worse. Verse 22, "Now Eli was very old and he kept hearing." If you write in your Bible, underline that portion if you would, kept hearing. He's been hearing this his whole life, but now he's hearing things that are even worse. In verse 23, "And he said to them, 'Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings with all these people.

No, my sons, it is no good report that I hear spreading around, spreading abroad.'" So what was the reputation that they were hearing? He was hearing first a scandalous reputation. Let me go back to verse 22 and read this scandalous reputation. "Now Eli was very old and he kept hearing all his sons were doing in Israel and how they lay with the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent, the meeting." So if I can just unpack this. This was before the temple was in Jerusalem. This is actually before the temple, long before the temple. This was in the area of the judges.

This was shortly before about perhaps the end of this takes place about a year before Samuel was born. And Samuel would grow into the last judge, the last great prophet and judge of Israel. But what people would do is that they would come to Shiloh that was at the center and here you'd have the tabernacle, which is sort of the portable temple of God. And these men got their livelihood from the offerings as we've already mentioned. And what would happen is if a man was coming and he was of the tribe of Visikar, he may have young girls and his young girls, young ladies would participate in helping.

Now there was no official office for young women in the church. But just like in our church we may have our young teenage daughters may help out in the nursery. These kind of things were necessary and not unbiblical. So Hophni and Phineas took advantage of these young ladies. And if we think about this, it ought to not just grieve us, but it ought to grieve us and we ought to see the depth of this. Because these were not prostitutes or even temple prostitutes. This is not a person who drives to the red light district and participates in wicked prostitution. That's bad and that's evil. But these are God's servants and God's daughters.

Specifically, these are God's people bringing their daughters to help out to participate. And it would be as if someone is stealing and robbing the most precious thing. Matthew Henry notes also, Hophni and Phineas had wives. They had children. And they took God's offering and they misused it. They took God's girls and misused them. And they took God's glory and misplaced it. And what we see in today's church is when you have lost leaders who are using God's resources for themselves. It ought to especially grieve us. Now we strive for a place where that doesn't happen here. We strive very, very hard. This does not happen here.

But think about what this, in application as I close, what does this apply to us? How does this apply to us? Well, we should strive for purity. Colossians 3-5. It's a four points of application. The first, we should not tolerate impurity. Colossians 3-5 says, "Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you? Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming." So the purpose of leadership today in the church age is that Godly church leaders should help you put to death that which is ungodly within you.

I'm going to challenge you to go back and read Colossians 3-5. Highlight it, underline it, put a star by it. And look at, if you would, listen to this verse. "Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you." So what this verse indicates is that there are earthly, evil, wicked things in the lives of believers that spring up. A thought here, an attitude there, a temptation here, selfish motives here, and the purpose of religion and the purpose of worship. The reason why you're here today is you stand and sing, and when you hear a sermon, it may not have anything to do with corporate worship or purity and worship.

Any time you come is an opportunity for the Holy Spirit within you to correct something. And we ought to come as we stand and sing, even as we come to bow our heads silently before we get started. That ought to be an opportunity. We take this seriously, that we not have any impurity. And I pray that you've had these moments already here at church since your time here at NOLA. I hope it's a weekly thing that the Holy Spirit just gently corrects you, just gently nudges you. See, the problem with Hophni and Phineas is they took no correction.

They went, if this is holiness and purity and striving and progressive sanctification, they went this way and they ran as fast as they possibly could. Now what would it look like if we, as a church, headed towards purity in worship, purity of motives, purity of our attitudes, selflessness, sacrifice, giving, week in, week out. And this is not a new message. These are messages that we hear. And sometimes taking a sacrifice, maybe you drive a long way here, maybe you come. Maybe this is another opportunity for you to say, yes, Lord, what can I change? How might I strive for purity in my worship practice?

We should not, for the first point of application or the first charge or challenge I give you, we should not tolerate impurity. We should not tolerate impurity in our worship practice. We should not tolerate impurity in our worship practice. First Samuel shows us what happens when religion fails and worship is impure. And so again, you might ask, I'm not leading worship. I'm not preaching. I'm not a religious leader. But worship for you can be impure if you bring impurity with you. Brother Chris has been talking about the Corinthians. They went out into Corinth, they were influenced by Corinth, and they brought that influence into the church.

This is a reminder, even as we sing, we can be dealing with thoughts. Perhaps if we're not shutting the gap, if we're going out in the Corinth, perhaps that is affected in our distraction, in our focus, and just singing with joy. If we're too worldly, if we're too involved in things of this world, perhaps we're not meditating on the things of God, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Maybe when we come Sunday, our song just doesn't have that extra spark. I've been singing my whole life. I've been leading worship as a saved individual since 2003, and I have seen lots of different facial expressions when we sing.

In fact, I didn't think it was possible for someone to look just mean and ornery and unhappy while they're singing. I can't tell you the number of people, in fact, some entire congregations that I've sung in front of to lead and sing. We're singing songs of the God who redeemed us, who purchased us, and some people not even singing at all. Could a reason behind that be perhaps our mind isn't really thinking about what God has done? Our mind really hasn't been rejoicing. Our sacrifice is not costing us anything because of what we're not doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Perhaps when we come to sing a song, maybe our mind is on the football game. Maybe our mind is on that deer that got away. I think that the more we're consumed with worldly things, the more impurity will be in our worship practice. The third point of challenge, we should remember that reputation matters. Hapha and Phineas had a reputation that started to spread. I think your reputation out there will affect your worship in here. I was reading the King James Version, the 1st Thessalonians 5, 22. I like how the King James words this verse.

It says, "obstained from the appearance of all evil." The ESV, which I routinely preach from and read, says, "obstained from all forms of evil." But if you read that King James and if you take that, we should not even be around things that look bad. We shouldn't even be around things that just could possibly, and you think, well, can't everything possibly be looked back? Well, like Brother Chris has been talking about. He talked about, "Thou ought not question mark." He said from his own experience that if he had one alcoholic beverage in public and one person sees that, that is not avoiding the appearance of all evil.

It's not avoiding the appearance of all evil. That's why he's a teetotaler. But the idea here is if you think about, no, this is not people, this is not living for the opinions of man. This is saying, I want to protect the reputation, not just my reputation or my family's reputation, but God's reputation, the reputation of the church. That reputation matters. What happens out there affects how we sing in here. And finally, the last point of challenge. Remember that how we treat our family affects the purity of our worship. When Hophni and Phineas were being immoral, they were sinning against their wives and their children.

And if God was not angry already at their offering, he would be then. I have known people who are living in sin against their family and then come into church on Sunday morning and raise their hands, maybe even cry crocodile tears. You see it happening in real time. I know how this person's living. I know, hey, they may be sincere. They say, you know, I'm just a sinner saved by grace. As a church, how we treat our families impact our worship. If we are a church that cares about worship, we should take the areas of family life and put them at the preeminent top place. I'll leave you with one verse and then we'll close.

Romans 8, 5, "For those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, set their minds on the things of the spirit." Tonight we're going to look at purity in worship. We'll look at the case of Hannah and Elkanah. Even as Hophni and Phineas were in grotesque immorality, here you have Hannah and Elkanah together. They bring in their offerings and they eventually offer up their precious son to be in the service of the Lord. If we can learn anything from Hannah and Elkanah, is that they set their minds on the things of the spirit.

Monday through Saturday, does that mean it's wrong to engage in some sort of recreational activity? No. Does that mean that it's wrong to engage in watching a program here or there? Maybe not. The real question is, do I have my mind set on the spirit? Am I meditating on the things of God so that Sunday when we come and we offer songs? They're honoring to the Lord. When we listen to the word, we are not hypocritical. That the life that our kids see us lead is not inconsistent with the life that we live behind the pulpit or in the pew. Let's pray.

Father God, we come before you and we ask you to give us lives of purity and holiness, that how we treat the people in our workplace, how we treat our families, and how we treat people at church.