Bible Questions Answered:
“Did God stop Eli's sons from
repenting?...”
Corliss/ Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Bible Answer:
Bible Text:
I Samuel 2:22-26 NLT
(Be sure to read the whole chapter.)
22 Now Eli was very old, but he was
aware of what his sons were doing to the people of Israel. He knew,
for instance, that his sons were seducing the young women who
assisted at the entrance of the Tabernacle.
23 Eli said to them, “I have been
hearing reports from all the people about the wicked things you are
doing. Why do you keep sinning?
24 You must stop, my sons! The
reports I hear among The Lord’s people are not good.
25 If someone sins against another
person, God can mediate for the guilty party. But if someone sins
against The Lord, who can intercede?” But Eli’s sons wouldn’t
listen to their father, for The Lord was already planning to put them
to death.
26 Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew
taller and grew in favor with The Lord and with the people.
The two sons of
Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were evil men, taking sacrifices for
themselves, and committed sexual impropriety with young women who assisted at
the Tabernacle (Exodus 38:8).
I Samuel 2:12-17
NLT
12 Now the sons of Eli were
scoundrels who had no respect for The Lord
13 or for their duties as priests.
Whenever anyone offered a sacrifice, Eli’s sons would send over a
servant with a three-pronged fork. While the meat of the sacrificed
animal was still boiling,
14 the servant would stick the fork
into the pot and demand that whatever it brought up be given to Eli’s
sons. All the Israelites who came to worship at Shiloh were treated
this way.
15 Sometimes the servant would come
even before the animal’s fat had been burned on the altar. He would
demand raw meat before it had been boiled so that it could be used
for roasting.
16 The man offering the sacrifice
might reply, “Take as much as you want, but the fat must be burned
first.” Then the servant would demand, “No, give it to me now, or
I’ll take it by force.”
17 So the sin of these young men was
very serious in The Lord’s sight, for they treated The Lord’s
offerings with contempt.
God had warned
Pharaoh of Egypt, 10 times, but he did not listen, until judgment
fell upon him.
Exodus 9:12 NLT
But The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s
heart, and just as The Lord had predicted to Moses, Pharaoh refused
to listen.
Hophni and
Phinehas, had been warned by the people, their father Eli, and The
Lord, yet they would not listen.
II Peter 3:9 KJV
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Genesis 6:3 KJV
And The Lord said, My Spirit shall
not always strive with man..."
Psalm 95:7-11
NLT
7 for He is our God. We are the
people He watches over, the flock under His care. If only you would
listen to His voice today!
8 The Lord says, “Don’t harden
your hearts as Israel did at Meribah, as they did at Massah in the
wilderness.
9 For there your ancestors tested
and tried My patience, even though they saw everything I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with
them, and I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts turn away from
Me. They refuse to do what I tell them.’
11 So in my anger I took an oath:
‘They will never enter My place of rest.’”
Proverbs 28:14
KJV
Happy is the man that feareth alway:
but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.
Proverbs 29:1
KJV
He, that being often reproved
hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without
remedy.
Mark 3:28,29 KJV
28 Verily I say unto you, All sins
shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith
soever they shall blaspheme:
29 But he that shall blaspheme
against The Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of
eternal damnation.
Romans 2:5-11
NLT
5 But because you are stubborn and
refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment
for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous
judgment will be revealed. 6 He will judge everyone according to what
they have done.
7 He will give eternal life to those
who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and
immortality that God offers.
8 But He will pour out His anger and
wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the Truth
and instead live lives of wickedness.
9 There will be trouble and calamity
for everyone who keeps on doing what is evil—for the Jew first and
also for the Gentile.
10 But there will be glory and honor
and peace from God for all who do good—for the Jew first and also
for the Gentile.
11 For God does not show favoritism.
Hebrews 3:12-19
NLT
12 Be careful then, dear brothers
and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and
unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.
13 You must warn each other every
day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be
deceived by sin and hardened against God.
14 For if we are faithful to the
end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will
share in all that belongs to Christ.
15 Remember what it says: “Today
when you hear His voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did
when they rebelled.”
16 And who was it who rebelled
against God, even though they heard His voice? Wasn’t it the people
Moses led out of Egypt?
17 And who made God angry for forty
years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the
wilderness?
18 And to whom was God speaking when
He took an oath that they would never enter His rest? Wasn’t it the
people who disobeyed Him?
19 So we see that because of their
unbelief they were not able to enter His rest.
Hebrews 4:7 KJV
"...To day if
ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.
God The Holy
Spirit, pleads with men today, to repent of their sins and to turn to
The Savior, but men refuse.
To refuse the
message of The Lord Jesus Christ, and the promptings of The Holy
Spirit, is to refuse man's only lifeline. If the lifeline is refused,
how may they be helped, answer, they “never,” can be, they are
lost forever!
It was not God,
but Hophni and Phinehas who forever refused, the lifeline, and who
reaped their eternal reward.
Epilogue:
I Samuel 2:27-34
NLT
27 One day a man of God came to Eli
and gave him this message from The Lord: “I revealed Myself to your
ancestors when they were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt.
28 I chose your ancestor Aaron from
among all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, to offer sacrifices
on my altar, to burn incense, and to wear the priestly vest as he
served Me. And I assigned the sacrificial offerings to you priests.
29 So why do you scorn My sacrifices
and offerings? Why do you give your sons more honor than you give
Me—for you and they have become fat from the best offerings of My
people Israel!
30 “Therefore, The Lord, The God
Of Israel, says: I promised that your branch of the tribe of Levi
would always be My priests. But I will honor those who honor Me, and
I will despise those who think lightly of Me.
31 The time is coming when I will
put an end to your family, so it will no longer serve as My priests.
All the members of your family will die before their time. None will
reach old age.
32 You will watch with envy as I
pour out prosperity on the people of Israel. But no members of your
family will ever live out their days.
33 The few not cut off from serving
at My altar will survive, but only so their eyes can go blind and
their hearts break, and their children will die a violent death.
34 And to prove that what I have
said will come true, I will cause your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas,
to die on the same day!
I Samuel 4:12-18
NLT
12 A man from the tribe of Benjamin
ran from the battlefield and arrived at Shiloh later that same day.
He had torn his clothes and put dust on his head to show his grief.
13 Eli was waiting beside the road
to hear the news of the battle, for his heart trembled for the safety
of The Ark Of God. When the messenger arrived and told what had
happened, an outcry resounded throughout the town.
14 “What is all the noise about?”
Eli asked. The messenger rushed over to Eli,
15 who was ninety-eight years old
and blind.
16 He said to Eli, “I have just
come from the battlefield—I was there this very day.” “What
happened, my son?” Eli demanded.
17 “Israel has been defeated by
the Philistines,” the messenger replied. “The people have been
slaughtered, and your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were also
killed. And The Ark Of God has been captured.”
18 When the
messenger mentioned what had happened to The Ark Of God, Eli fell
backward from his seat beside the gate. He broke his neck and
died, for he was old and overweight. He had been Israel’s judge for
forty years.
