I Samuel 2:12-26; 4:12-18       “Fathers Day’           June 15, 2008

     Have you ever had something go “bad” in your refrigerator?  How can you tell when food is spoiled?  Well, Milk is spoiled when it starts to look like yogurt.   Yogurt is spoiled when it starts to look like cottage cheese.  Cottage cheese is spoiled when it starts to look like regular cheese.  Cheddar cheese is spoiled when you think it is blue cheese but you realize you’ve never purchased that kind.  Whenever I ask Marley, “Will you smell this?”  It is usually it is time to throw it away.
     Now that’s appropriate for food, but what do you do when part of your family becomes “spoiled”? What actions should you take when your children start to act “rotten”?  You cannot just throw them away.  So what can we do?  This morning for Father’s Day, I want to look at a man in the Old Testament who had two rotten sons.  Eli was a priestly leader of Israel for forty years.  He was well known, successful, and prominent in his community.  But in the life of his family, he was a failure.  Let’s see what we can learn so as not to be like Eli.
     I Samuel 2:12 tells us that “Eli’s sons were wicked men; they had no regard for the LORD.”  What were these two young men doing that was so bad?   1 Samuel 2:13-17 tells us first of all that they were stealing from the offerings that the people were making to God.  Like Eli, these two sons were priests in the Tabernacle and they were to receive some of the offering as their pay for their work.  However, they were taking much more.
In addition, 1 Samuel 2:22 tells us that Eli’s sons “slept with the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.” 

     What did Eli do?  Vs 23-24 tell us, “Eli said to his sons, ‘Why do you do such things? I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours.”  So what difference did Eli’s words make?   Vs 25 says “His sons… did not listen to their father’s rebuke.”  And after that, Eli just ignored all that his sons were doing? 
       I heard of an Amish man in Pennsylvania who did not ignore his son’s misbehavior.  He caught his two boys drunk at a local tavern. The disappointed father promptly disciplined his sons. He told them “ Boys, I’ll take the horse home… and you bring the buggy.”  You see, that father did something to deal with his sons’ sins… but Eli didn’t. 
     You know, we all want what is best for our families.  But God’s Word tells us that if we have to do more than talk.  Proverbs 19:18 says, “Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death.”  True love for our families means that we provide discipline, boundaries, and rules.  
     I was at a baseball game last week and overheard some parents talking about their elementary children who did not want to play ball outside.  These kids just want to stay inside all day and play video games.  These thirty something year old parents went on and on about “this generation of kids.”  But I thought to myself, “Those children did not buy those games.  The parents are the ones who have made TV and computers into a baby sitter early in the child’s life.  Parents need to say no.”  
      Now many of us hear all this talk of discipline for our children and we say “amen.”  But discipline first begins with us.   You see, the root of Eli’s problem was not in his sons but in himself.  Eli had a problem… and we’re given a hint of that problem in 1 Samuel 4:16-18.  There was a battle and one man flees the fight and informs Eli: "I have just come from the battle line.  Eli asked, "What happened, my son?"  The man who brought the news replied, "Israel fled before the Philistines, and the army has suffered heavy losses. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured."  And Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and HEAVY. 
      Listen, I do not think it is an accident that the Bible tells us that Eli was a heavy man.  How did Eli get to be a heavy man? HE ATE TOO MUCH!  And where would Eli get his food? From the sacrifices.  In 1 Samuel 2:29 God rebukes Eli: “Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel?”  Did you hear that?  Eli KNEW his sons were robbing the sacrifices. And Eli was fat because he shared the food his sons had stolen.  These two young men had enriched the family by their stealing from the temple of God and Eli had been willing to share in that wealth.  He had grown comfortable and well fed in his retirement.  Are you hearing this?  It is hard to rebuke your kids for sins you do not want to confront in yourself.   It’s hard to confront kids who lie when a parent takes his kids to the movies and tries to pass them off as younger than they are so they can get them in at a lesser price.   It’s hard to control child with attitude problems when the parent often loses their temper.   We need to be honest with ourselves here.  It was hard for Eli to discipline his sons when he had so little discipline in his own life. 

       Eli refused to deal with the problems of his sons.  Eli refused to deal with his own faults.  But ultimately – Eli’s biggest problem was that he honored his kids MORE than he honored God.  In 1 Samuel 2:29 God’s prophet asks Eli “… Why do you honor your sons more than me…?”  We are told in the Word of God to love our family.  But we are told to put God first before all things.  That is hard for us, but whenever we love our children more than we do God… we’re setting our families up for failure.  
      A modern American lie tells us that we should not force our religious beliefs on our children.  We should let them decide.  But we do not let our children decide if they are going to school.  We do not let our children decide if they will brush their teeth.  NO.  And God expects us to give our faith to our children.  Deuteronomy 6:6 says,  “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. IMPRESS THEM on your children. TALK ABOUT THEM when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:6-9

     Children and teens are involved in so many things today.  It is Scouts on Monday night, baseball on Tuesday night, soccer on Wednesday, piano on Thursday, and the lake on the weekend.   Those are great things and it is good to keep kids busy.  But we get so busy loving our kids with activities that when Sunday comes, we are just too tired to get our kids to church.  Let me ask you honestly—Are you and your family spending way more devotion to some other activity than to God?  Young people need to be brought to know the ways of God.   There was a man who wrote, “I had a "Drug" problem when I was a Young Person and Teenager.  I was "drug to Church on Sunday Morning.  I was "drug" to youth group on Sunday night.  I was "drug" to Church on Wednesday night.  I was "drug" to Sunday School every week.  I was "drug" to Vacation Bible School in the summer. I was "drug" at home to read the Bible and pray. Those "drugs" are still in my veins, and they affect my behavior in every thing I do and say, and think.  They are stronger than cocaine and crack.  Those drugs are always in me to this day.”  

     I know this is hard to know what to do.  We do love our children and we want so many things for them.  But Eli honored his sons more than he honored God, and in the end, Eli failed to give his sons what they most needed. All those other things we buy and carry our kids to are great, but the best way to love your family is to love God and to guide them to love God.
    You know, in the middle of this story of Eli is another story.  It is the story of Hannah and her son Samuel.  Hannah could not have child.  But she prayed with God for a son.  She said, “O LORD Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life. And she had a son named Samuel and he became a great leader of Israel. 

     50 years ago, a church in Kansas had a sidewalk laid in front of their building. Before the sidewalk was put in, a dad gained permission to do something very special. When the cement was laid, and before it had hardened, he brought his little boy to the church and set his feet in the soft concrete, with the toes pointing toward the church building. As that boy grew up, every Sunday they went to the church, and the father pointed out those prints in the cement.  He reminded his son that his most treasured desire was that he would always put God first in his life.  That man is over fifty years old today but says that he has never forgotten the lessons of God given to him by his father.  I pray that you can give those same lessons to your family.  Amen.