Reverse The Curse

Text: Malachi 4:6, 1 Sam 3:1-18, Title: Reverse the Curse, Date/Place: NRBC, , AM

A. Opening illustration: Boy Scouts this week, Article from Stetzer on Gay Marriage/Global snapshot,

B. Background to passage: We live in a world that is under the judgment of God. He is giving our world over to its own desires. A trend that we see that biblically brings about part of this judgment is failure in the realm of fatherhood. If we are to see a revival come to our nation, one of the contributing factor will be a rise in turning of the hearts of the fathers to their children. Many TV sitcoms have fathers who are bumbling, weak, subservient, inept, incompetent, idiots, who are the comic relief in most of the laughable parts of the scenes. Most of us don’t fall into that category, with the exception of bowing to the leadership of others in many parts of our lives where we should lead. There are many who do, and they are creating many boys who are prolonging childhood, and scaring young women in the process. Read two quotes from The Resolution, p. 15-16. But even though most of us aren’t in this group (although statistics say that many of our church goers are involved in some pretty worldly activities) unfortunately, these things have lowered the standards that most of us think that we should get a trophy if we simply go through the motions of religious life for our families or take some leadership position, when what God gives as a standard is much higher—read the resolution

C. Main thought: We must break these patterns of Eli that brought judgment

A. The Sins of the Sons (v. 2:12-17, 22, 3:13)

1. The first time we are introduced to these two boys most of your translations say that they did not know the Lord; except for the NIV and the NLT who capture the meaning rather than the literal translation of the text, which in this case helps us understand what is being said. These two were priests in their late 20s because their dad was a priest because they were in the priestly line, but they “had no regard/respect for” God. They took their portion first, rather than giving God his first. They ate it with the fat on it, which was strictly forbidden. If they were questioned, the took things by force. The overtone is that this caused the givers to look disrespectfully on the offerings, leading the people astray. And in v. 24, Eli says this exact thing. In v. 17 they hated/despised the offering of the Lord. In v. 22 they were picking up prostitutes at the temple gates. And people (including dad) knew about it! In 3:13, it speaks about making themselves vile—a word that means to detract or curse authority, used of cursing father/mother or kings, usually punishment was stoning.

2. Argumentation

3. Illustration: saw on FB the other day an article about a deadbeat dad who had 22 children by 14 different women, and everyone was busting on him pretty bad,

4. Is there a plague in our nation of fathers who do not have any regard for God. We even have some that come here, or other churches in our town regularly that don’t have any real regard for the things of God. Oh, they come with their family, but that’s about it. And don’t hear me wrong, don’t stop if that is you. I believe there is value in that. I told one about the value in that the other day. Some warnings though for those of you who do know the Lord, but take your relationship with God lightly—1) the commands of God in His word apply to you, and on judgment day, you will be held accountable for things that you knew or didn’t know. 2) Scarier than that is the judgment that would come upon these two men because they led others astray. Your lackadaisical approach to your spiritual life is obvious to your children at home. The way that you force your wife to lead, the way you never pray with them, the way you never do anything of spiritual nature, speaks volumes to your kids. And you will undo everything that is done here or that your wife strives to do. If you don’t believe me as some of the widows of husbands whose relationship with God was casual at best how their kids are doing. You don’t have time for me to give you the stats of kids and their faith and their health and their education and their job and their spiritual life related to the spiritual involvement of their father. And I haven’t even gotten to those obvious Baptist biggies that you hide so well. Pornography rages men! I watched one of the scariest videos I have seen in a long time this week! Addictions, some to drugs illicit and prescription, and some to electronics and video games, and sports and gambling and women and your job.