August 2, 2023

God's presence doesn't mean your victory if you're outside His will.

1 Samuel 3 - 4

Mark Hapka
Wednesday's Devo

August 2, 2023

Wednesday's Devo

August 2, 2023

Wednesday's Devo

August 2, 2023

Wednesday's Devo

August 2, 2023

Big Idea

Outward appearances can be deceiving. God looks at the heart.

Key Verse | 1 Samuel 4:5, 10

As soon as the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel gave a mighty shout, so that the earth resounded. . . . So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man to his home. And there was a very great slaughter, for thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell.

1 Samuel 3 - 4

The LORD Calls Samuel

1 Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD in the presence of Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.

2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. 3 The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was.

4 Then the LORD called Samuel, and he said, “Here I am!” 5 and ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down.

6 And the LORD called again, “Samuel!” and Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.

8 And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. 9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant hears.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

10 And the LORD came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.” 11 Then the LORD said to Samuel, “Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. 12 On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. 13 And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, 1 3:13 Or blaspheming for themselves and he did not restrain them. 14 Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”

15 Samuel lay until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the LORD. And Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. 16 But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” And he said, “Here I am.” 17 And Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” 18 So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said, “It is the LORD. Let him do what seems good to him.”

19 And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the LORD. 21 And the LORD appeared again at Shiloh, for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the LORD.

The Philistines Capture the Ark

1 And the word of Samuel came to all Israel.

Now Israel went out to battle against the Philistines. They encamped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines encamped at Aphek. 2 The Philistines drew up in line against Israel, and when the battle spread, Israel was defeated before the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men on the field of battle. 3 And when the people came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has the LORD defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD here from Shiloh, that it 2 4:3 Or he may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.” 4 So the people sent to Shiloh and brought from there the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

5 As soon as the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel gave a mighty shout, so that the earth resounded. 6 And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shouting, they said, “What does this great shouting in the camp of the Hebrews mean?” And when they learned that the ark of the LORD had come to the camp, 7 the Philistines were afraid, for they said, “A god has come into the camp.” And they said, “Woe to us! For nothing like this has happened before. 8 Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness. 9 Take courage, and be men, O Philistines, lest you become slaves to the Hebrews as they have been to you; be men and fight.”

10 So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man to his home. And there was a very great slaughter, for thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell. 11 And the ark of God was captured, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

The Death of Eli

12 A man of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head. 13 When he arrived, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road watching, for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city and told the news, all the city cried out. 14 When Eli heard the sound of the outcry, he said, “What is this uproar?” Then the man hurried and came and told Eli. 15 Now Eli was ninety-eight years old and his eyes were set so that he could not see. 16 And the man said to Eli, “I am he who has come from the battle; I fled from the battle today.” And he said, “How did it go, my son?” 17 He who brought the news answered and said, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has also been a great defeat among the people. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured.” 18 As soon as he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell over backward from his seat by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for the man was old and heavy. He had judged Israel forty years.

19 Now his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant, about to give birth. And when she heard the news that the ark of God was captured, and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed and gave birth, for her pains came upon her. 20 And about the time of her death the women attending her said to her, “Do not be afraid, for you have borne a son.” But she did not answer or pay attention. 21 And she named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed 3 4:21 Or gone into exile; also verse 22 from Israel!” because the ark of God had been captured and because of her father-in-law and her husband. 22 And she said, “The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured.”

Footnotes

[1] 3:13 Or blaspheming for themselves
[2] 4:3 Or he
[3] 4:21 Or gone into exile; also verse 22

S2:148 1 Samuel 3 - 4

Listen Now

Dive Deeper | 1 Samuel 3 - 4

Ten years ago, I was creating a god in my own image based on what I thought God was like and wanted of people. It seemed right to me, but ultimately led to death. Between the Believe Team and Equipped Disciple and by the grace of God, the gospel was clearly presented to me, I trusted in Christ for eternal life, turned from my former way of life, and built a relationship with the Lord through His Word.    

Samuel grew in wisdom, knowledge, and relationship with the Lord through revelation from the Word of God (1 Samuel 3:21).  As believers, we have an assurance that we can approach God with freedom and confidence and trust that, through His Word, He will reveal His nature. The Scriptures are an inexhaustible well of Truth, a grace of God where He reveals Himself to those seeking Him. This is a gift we will never outgrow! In meeting with the Lord, I've learned His character and to wait on Him, while trusting He hears and will act for His children (Isaiah 64:4).  

Israel's shortcomings are also instructive. In 1 Samuel 4:3 they start off asking the right question "Why has this happened?," but they quickly try taking things into their own hands.  Instead of inquiring of the Lord, they just tried to propel God into action. While their intentions might have been good, their actions were suggesting, "Let's bring our good luck charm" to ensure victory. Israel didn't seek the word of the Lord, rather they thought they could just compel Him to act because beating the Philistines was a good thing, but this led to serious consequences.

Perhaps I'm not rolling an ark into my office or home, but I'm prone to think God should be compelled to act for me in ways I think are good because I read my Bible, am a Church member, serve, or even have hung a cross on my wall. Like Israel, I'm placing God in my debt to act. 

Let us meet with God and trust that He will act in His own time and in accordance with His will, instead of mistakenly thinking we can manipulate Him into action.

This month's memory verse

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

– Mark 10:45

Discussion Questions

1. How often and when are you meeting with God in His Word and creating space for Him to reveal Himself to you?  

2. When something doesn't go as expected at work or home, are you more inclined to rely on your own wisdom or seek God's wisdom? How so?   

3. How can you strengthen your faith muscle to turn to God first?

4. Read Judges 11. Jephthah was trying to please God by doing what seemed right to him, but it resulted in "great trouble" to him. What areas might you be creating a god in your own image?

As we gear up to release even more features for Join The Journey in 2025, our staff team, unfortunately, no longer has the margin to continue to support the comment functionality. We have big things in store for Join The Journey 2025. Stay tuned!

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Hugh Stephenson

Good morning, Mark!! THANK you for the ways you and Amber bless all of us! We are so very lucky to have the Hapkas at Watermark! Love your first and last sentence- “Ten years ago, I was creating a god in my own image based on what I thought God was like and wanted of people. It seemed right to me, but ultimately led to death.” “Let us meet with God and trust that He will act in His own time and in accordance with His will, instead of mistakenly thinking we can manipulate Him into action.” Well said. Q1. I learned from JP to have a time, a place, and a plan. Mine is first thing in morning, living room chair, JTJ. Q2. God has burned off a lot of dross in this smelter called life. Mostly I have learned. But there is still refining to be done. A reprise- “The refiner of silver will continue to refine it until the point where He can see his image.” Q3. Building faith muscles for me is most effective when I embrace that trials, adversity, and pain are His refining tools. Q4. What areas? This is a HAHA question. ALL OF THEM! The most fertile area for God’s work is parenting adult children. They are as rebellious sheep as I am.
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Hugh Stephenson

A Tap, a Slap, and a Brick to the head. If you’re a follower of Jesus, what did your call look like? Did you live a largely virtuous life? Were you shepherded, guided, and mentored in the faith by your parents, family members, church, and friends? One of those? All of those? Something else? My guess is that Samuel was the “largely virtuous” process. It is a HUGE blessing to have so many friends at Watermark that came to the LORD that way. Not only are they great models and mentors but they are also great teachers and shepherds. Importantly, it gives me a great contrast, therefore a great motivation, to obey God’s call to proclaim, witness, and teach, (Psalm 71:18, Acts 1:8, Matthew 28:19-20). My call was, sequentially, Tap-Slap-Brick. The Tap- Being born and raised on an island off the Georgia coast outside Savannah I was deeply imbedded in nature. Looking back it was clear to me that this spectacular, beautiful, and massively complex ecosystem was in no way random. Later in life I was taught Psalm 19:1, Job 12:7-10, Psalm 96:11-12, Psalm 95:4-5. The Slap- Running my life on my own terms got me to the three-alarm dumpster fire on 12/10/10 https://www.watermark.org/blog/real-peace The Brick-To-The-Head This was the one that put me over the finish line. A supernatural event that only came when I hit my Luke 15:16 bottom two years later on 12/1/12 (See above link to WM News story).
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Hugh Stephenson

Every day God gives me a choice of how I want to interact with Him. -Do I SPEAK by sending him my daily needs, requests, intercessions, wishes, desires? This is not a sinful request but I know this is not the main way for this relationship to work. AND/OR -Do I LISTEN like Samuel does after the word of the LORD has been revealed to me? If my deepest desire is to love and serve Him and others my first prayer request should be the same as Samuel. To me, that’s what obedient surrender looks like. So, 1 Samuel 3:19-21 should be where my heart is oriented- “And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord. 21 And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.” https://www.gotquestions.org/Elkanah-in-the-Bible.html https://www.gotquestions.org/life-Hannah.html https://www.gotquestions.org/life-Samuel.html https://www.gotquestions.org/Hannah-and-Samuel.html https://www.gotquestions.org/Eli-in-the-Bible.html https://www.gotquestions.org/Hophni-and-Phinehas.html https://www.gotquestions.org/Ichabod.html -------------------- Long-ish comments from the notes This chapter also shows that God rewards faithful obedience to His word with further ministry opportunities (cf. 1 Tim. 1:12). Samuel became the communicator of God's revelations to Israel. He continued to receive revelations from God and to represent God on earth because he remained faithful. He became the most powerful man in Israel, even anointing the nation's first two kings. Like Moses, Samuel became an excellent leader of the Israelites (cf. Jer. 15:1). He functioned as judge, priest, and prophet. Yet he glorified the kings he appointed, who were the LORD's anointed servants, above himself. In many respects he foreshadowed the Lord Jesus Christ. Chapters 1 through 3 prepare us for the rest of 1 and 2 Samuel historically and theologically. They teach us that God responds to the faith of people—even insignificant people. A barren and therefore despised woman became the mother of Israel's most powerful man because she trusted and obeyed God. This was a complete reversal of what one would naturally expect. These chapters also show that God blesses with fertility those who commit to His revealed will contained in His Law, but He cuts off those who do not. "The birth of Samuel was God's means of dealing with His chosen people. The rest of the narrative deals with a similar theme. The righteous ones who are chosen by God will prosper while the ones who are chosen by the people and oppose God's rule will be cut off. This is true even if those who oppose God's rule (i.e., Eli and his sons) are a part of the covenant community." There are four conflicts and reversals of fortune in these chapters: Peninnah and Hannah (ch. 1), the arrogant and the innocent (2:1-10), Eli's sons and Samuel (2:11-36), and Eli's line of priests and Samuel's line of prophets (3:1—4:1a). God decides who will prosper and who will perish. The basis of His judgment is His faithfulness to what He has said He will do when people respond to His will (Deut. 28).
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Michael Sisson

Re: 1Sam 3:1 1Sam 3:1 (NASB) Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD before Eli. And >>>word from the LORD was rare in those days, visions were infrequent.<<< Not unlike today. Perhaps that tells us more about the times in which we live, and invites us to re-examine the cessationist position.(Rom 11:29) Re: 1Sam 33:3 1Sam 3:3 (NASB) and the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and >>>Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD where the ark of God was,<<< Was Samuel lying in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle? While this passage occurs in the Tabernacle, it’s worth noting later, in the Temple, the space above the Holy of Holies was known as the "bedchamber." (2Kings 11:2) Re: 1Sam 3:13 1Sam 3:13 (NASB) “For I have told him that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves >>>and he did not rebuke them.<<< Eli’s culpability is stated explicitly. Re: 1Sam 3:18 1Sam 3:18 (NASB) So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said, >>>“It is the LORD; let Him do what seems good to Him.”<<< While Eli failed to discipline his own sons (even after hearing G-d’s judgment, he still doesn’t relieve his sons of their duties), in his response to Samuel he somewhat models how to take correction. Re: 1Sam 4:3 1Sam 4:3 (NASB) When the people came into the camp, the elders of Israel said, >>>“Why has the LORD defeated us today<<< before the Philistines? Let us take to ourselves from Shiloh the ark of the covenant of the LORD, that it may come among us and deliver us from the power of our enemies.” Their defeat was attributed to the L-RD, not the Philistines. Re: 1Sam 4:3-11 As the Purple Puzzle Tree album (https://www.ebay.com/itm/325234696992) of my youth put it, the Israelites foolishly treat G-d (and the Ark of the Covenant) like a jack-in-the-box Who can be weaponized against their enemies. Re: 1Sam 4:17 1Sam 4:17 (NASB) Then the one who brought the news replied, “Israel has fled before the Philistines and there has also been a great slaughter among the people, >>>and your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead<<<, and the ark of God has been taken.” The fulfillment of 1Sam 2:34. Re: 1Sam 4:21 1Sam 4:21 (NASB) And she called the boy >>>Ichabod<<<, saying, >>>“The glory has departed from Israel,”<<< because the ark of God was taken and because of her father-in-law and her husband.
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Michael Scaman

Hophni and phinease get the double designation according to Eaton's Bible dictionary of "sons of Eli" and (the King James Version) "sons of Belial" . Sad combination. Phineas (face of brass) namesake from Moses' time was a defender of the faith and leader. Phineas had that as part of his heritage but didn't live up to his heritage. He may have thought so tho because 'the heart is decietful who can know it'. There is such a thing as s true assurance of security in God's promises and a false sense of secirity as well. Hphni and Phinease had bad scandalous behavior. But they thought somehow God was with them. Samuel already was warned by God he would be replaced for curruption going on. Did he listen, act or repent? Doesn't look like it. God said he would replace Eli. God was pateient waiting till Eli was old. God did what he said. It appeared all Israel got the gist of what God said between Samuel and Eli. " And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the LORD. ... And the word of Samuel came to all Israel."
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Jason Cromwell

We must remember when reading through Samuel, or really any portion of the Old Testament, that all of these stories happened before the Cross. We are not under the same punishments as long as we are saved because of Jesus finished work. Pray and confess your sin but if you are continually reminded of it you're not being convicted you're being condemned by the enemy. So please remember to keep in mind the Old Testament = people trying to be Holy by keeping God's Law. New Testament and after= We are declared Holy by Jesus finished work and not our own efforts.
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Sue Bohlin

Hey Mark! Thanks so much for all you do! Eli's story is instructive about the sad consequences of passivity, which I see is the primary sin ditch for men (tracing back to Adam in Genesis 3). His failure to rebuke or discipline his unruly and ungodly sons was characterized by God as honoring his sons more than Him. Apparently he also let the Philistines steal the ark of the covenant. Interesting contrast between Eli, one of the worst fathers in the Bible, and Samuel, one of the best men in the Bible. Shout out to Hannah, who was apparently an amazing godly influence on her son despite him living with Eli and hanging around Hophni and Phineas. Which encourages me, given the evil and destructive cultural ideas our kids are surrounded by these days . . .
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Amy Lowther

1. I meet with God in His Word 8-10 times a day. I create space for God to reveal Himself to me and others 24 7. This helps in understanding God. 2. I try to see things like God and use God’s wisdom. This helps things make more sense and produce the best results. 3. Faith muscles to turn to God first are strengthened by attending service on Sundays and by studying the Bible. 4. I was a parent pleaser growing up. The results were not what I preferred. I went to God to change my behavior. God helped me meet my real parents and have opportunities to share lots of good, relevant stories with them.