The Spirit Of The Sons Of Eli/The Spirit Of Lot’s Daughters/ The Prodigal Son (The Vagabond Spirit)

Throughout the Bible God speaks of the importance of parents raising their children to obey the Lord.

After Lot's wife had turned back to look at Sodom and turned to salt, Lot and his two daughters fled from the plain up into the hills, where they could be safer. There were no settlements there, and Lot and the two girls huddled for shelter in a cave. They believed they were the only surviving members of the human race, and that all other people in the world had been destroyed. This was bad enough, but the two young men who had been promised husbands were now dead, and the young women saw no hope of ever having children of their own.

They decided on a ruse to get themselves pregnant. It was the idea of the older sister: they would get their father drunk in the evening and have sex with him as he lay in a stupor. This they did, both of them, on separate nights.

Sure enough, both girls became pregnant and eventually bore a son each. The older girl called her son Moab, and he was named as the ancestor of the Moabites, a tribe with whom the Israelites were often at war. The younger girl called her son Ben-ammi and he, the Bible says, was the ancestor of the Ammonites - another tribe with whom the Israelites fought. Thus, both of the enemy tribes, the Bible proposed, were the result of acts of incest between Lot and his daughters.

Also, in the first few chapters of 1st Samuel the Bible speaks of a priest named Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas. Eli's sons were wicked in the sight of God, disobeying their father Eli, and the Lord.

Here are some of the words or phrases used to describe the sons of Eli:

· "Worthless men" (1st Samuel 2:12)

· "They would not listen to the voice of their father" (1st Samuel 2:25)

· "The sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the LORD" (1st Samuel 2:17)

· "The men treated the offering of the LORD with contempt" (1st Samuel 2:17)

· "They did not know the Lord" (1st Samuel 2:12)

In 1st Samuel 3:11-14, in a vision to the Samuel, the Lord tells Samuel that Eli's house will be punished:

"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. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. 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, and he did not restrain them. 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."

To me one of the saddest parts of this passage is that Eli knew his sons were disobeying the Lord, yet he did not stop them from their sin. Parents have a very important responsibility to discipline their children. Children must be taught to obey their parents as well as the Lord. As Ephesians 6:4 states: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." It is vital that children are taught to obey the Lord, for if they are not, they could depart from the Lord like Eli's sons.

The spirit we are dealing in this chapter is basically the vagabond spirit. This spirit manifests rampantly in the children and scions of ministers of the gospel and children of God; Christians.

The word vagabond is translated from the Hebrew word Nuwa (Strongs 5128) a fugitive; to wander up and down; Hebrew word Nuwd (5110) to wander, flee or disappear; Greek word Perierchoma i (4022) to stroll, to wander about.

The Webster Dictionary defines the vagabond as a person moving from place to place without a fixed home, a wanderer; of relating to or characteristic of a wanderer, leading an unsettled, irresponsible, or disreputable life.

The shortest depiction of this vagabond anointing is found in the parable of the prodigal son found in Luke 15:11-20

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So, he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.