[0:00] Well, recently I was collecting somebody from the airport, and if you want to put a spring in your step or some wind in your sails, if you go to the arrivals section of the airport, the arrivals gate, it is a joyful place where people are coming in from these long haul flights from America or from Australia.
[0:21] And family or friends are being reunited, maybe husbands and wives or parents and children or grandparents and grandchildren. Friends and family greet each other with hugs and smiles, this joy and delight at the arrivals gate.
[0:37] The other side of the coin is the departure's gate, which is really a sad place when you see families saying goodbye to each other, either for a short time or for a longer time.
[0:52] And maybe you know somebody who won't go with their loved ones to the departure gate because it's just too hard to watch them leave through that gate.
[1:04] In 1 Samuel 4, we have this departure in verse 21. The glory has departed from Israel. And again in verse 22, the glory has departed from Israel.
[1:19] 1 Samuel, in a sense, brings us to this place of sadness, this place of departure. The glory mentioned here, the glory of God is this powerful, weighty presence of God with his people to bless them.
[1:38] And so this Samuel chapter 4, where the glory has departed from Israel, is a dark day. It is a tragic day in Israel's history.
[1:49] In this chapter, we see what life without God looks like, in a sense. And God wants us to see this, wants us to hear this.
[1:59] And if this describes your life, life without God, we need to realize what it is that that sort of life is like. Or if you are a follower of Jesus and you know life with God, maybe at times you're tempted to think of going back to your old life, life without God.
[2:22] This shows us clearly that it is not something to return to. And by contrast, we will see an alternative.
[2:33] But let's reflect for a little while on life without God. And what we see, first of all, is that without God, victory is swallowed up in defeat. Victory is swallowed up in defeat.
[2:45] We see in verse 1, Israel going out to fight against the Philistines. The Israelites camped at Ebenezer and the Philistines at Aphek. Now, this is hand-to-hand combat.
[2:57] So this isn't drones being flown in, bringing death and destruction from afar. This is swords clashing, the metal ringing out around the battlefield, shields and horrific injuries and death.
[3:11] In verse 2, we see that there is a vast defeat. The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel. And as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about 4,000 of them on the battlefield.
[3:27] 4,000 died. Now, my hometown is about 1,000 people, give or take. So this is four times that. And the account of this battle is brief.
[3:39] But what our attention is drawn to is this great defeat. And the question is, why were they defeated so badly? Why were the Israelites defeated so badly?
[3:51] And one way you could answer that is found in verse 2. Israel was defeated by the Philistines. There is the answer, because the Philistines beat them. But of course, there's more to it than that, because we're also told that it was the Lord.
[4:06] In verse 3, when the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, why did the Lord bring defeat on us today? These elders of Israel have a big God theology, as we had Hannah in the earlier chapters of Samuel with this big God theology, which means that it's never enough simply to ask at a human level, why did something happen, but to try and discern what this means at a higher level, at a deeper level.
[4:35] Why did the Lord bring this defeat about, is the question that they ask. And the reason that they settle on was, well, we didn't have the Ark of the Covenant with us.
[4:48] And so in verse 3, they think, let us bring the Ark of the Lord's Covenant from Shiloh, so that he may go with us and save us from the hands of the enemies, our enemies.
[4:59] And so they bring the Ark of the Covenant, which we find described in verse 4, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim.
[5:10] So the Ark of the Covenant, this box that had the Ten Commandments of God in it, they had these cherubim with their wings outstretched on the top of it, and there in between the wings on top of the mercy seat, as it was called, the powerful presence of God was made known to bless his people.
[5:29] And so they're thinking, if we can just get the Ark of the Covenant into the battle, then we will win. But as this story is told, there is a worrying mention in verse 4 of Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who are there with the Ark of the Covenant.
[5:48] And if you've been with us in recent weeks, you will know that Hophni and Phinehas are not nice men. And you're kind of thinking, hopefully, this won't be an issue, the fact that Hophni and Phinehas are in the middle of this.
[6:04] Well, anyway, they go out and try again in battle in verse 5. When the Ark of the Lord's Covenant came into the camp, all Israel shouted, and the ground shook.
[6:15] Our traffic warden, our school warden at school, she lives near to Musgrave Park. And so in the summer months, when they have the concerts on there, she is used to hearing the roar of the crowd as the band comes out onto the stage.
[6:31] In fact, she can listen to every concert free of charge because she lives so close to Musgrave Park. And for the Philistines, they hear this roar going up from the Israelites, and they wonder, what can this possibly mean?
[6:46] The Israelites think this is going to be different the second time around. The Philistines think it'll be different as well. In verse 7, they're afraid. And they say, a God has come into the camp.
[7:00] Oh no, nothing like this has happened before. We're doomed. Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? They are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness.
[7:11] Now, the Philistines' theology isn't super precise, but they get the basic gist of it, that this God has come into the camp of the Israelites, and this is the God who has delivered the Israelites out of Egypt.
[7:27] We're in trouble. We are in trouble, is what the Philistines think. This is going to be different, they think. And so, the battle commences, and it is different.
[7:41] In verse 10, the Philistines fight, and the Israelites are defeated, and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great. There's the difference.
[7:53] It had been bad. Now it is very great. They lost 30,000 foot soldiers. And to have been in that battle must have been a frightening experience, as you see the whites of the eyes of your fellow men falling one after the other by the sword, by the arrows.
[8:15] And as 30,000 men fall on that occasion, the question that rings out throughout the land is, what do you do with 30,000 men who have fallen, who have died?
[8:27] How will we even identify these bodies? How will we even get near to them when the Philistines are dominating the battle? And how is it that we have lost again?
[8:39] We thought we had done it right this time. The Philistines have defeated us again. The Lord has defeated us again. And this growing realization must have been that the Ark of the Covenant is not this superstitious rabbit's foot horseshoe that you just bring with you, and all will be well.
[8:58] And again, Eli's sons is where the story lands in verse 11. The Ark of God was captured, and Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.
[9:13] And it isn't a coincidence that that is where the story ends. Because we have heard about Eli's sons before, that they did not know the Lord, that they did not acknowledge his kindness, that they did not listen to his warnings, that they disrespected the Lord, they disrespected the people, and they disrespected the sacrifices that God had given them.
[9:37] And so Israel have taken it upon themselves to go into this battle without any basis from God, while their leadership are in open opposition to God, and victory is swallowed up in defeat.
[9:50] And you know countries will do the same in our day. Maybe in some situations, you can make the case biblically for a just war, maybe.
[10:04] But so often it is just a land grab, or a power play, or a pursuit of natural resources, where leaders who don't know God and are opposed to him will go into battle with no biblical basis, and the outcome will always be victory swallowed up in defeat.
[10:24] Now sometimes it'll be a military defeat on the battlefield, and it won't just be their enemies that have defeated them, it will be the Lord. But sometimes it is a military victory, but a moral defeat.
[10:41] Because if somebody takes this route, grabbing land, a power play, natural resources, even though they may have the victory, they will need to stand before God and be accountable for what they have done.
[10:57] And so we realize that without God, victory is swallowed up in defeat. And we need to see that this is a pattern, not just for countries going into battle, this is a pattern in our lives as well.
[11:10] Because we are in a battle, not against the Philistines, you'll be glad to hear, but against spiritual forces, sin and Satan. The good news is that Jesus has had the decisive victory.
[11:27] But here's what we need to hear, that any time we try to fight a battle to be good, without God, it is going to be a loss.
[11:38] It is going to be a defeat. Any victory we might have will be swallowed up by defeat. What do I mean by that? I mean that if we fight to be good without God, we will either end up in pride, because how great am I?
[11:52] Or we will end up in despair, because we fail again. And so we need to realize that without God, victory will be swallowed up in defeat.
[12:04] You think of what the Apostle Paul says about all the good that he did without God. He says, Whatever gain I had, I count as loss for the sake of Jesus.
[12:16] I count everything as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus. I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, or, to translate it more clearly, as dung.
[12:30] Paul realizes that without God, even so-called spiritual victories are swallowed up in defeat. They are dung. Because they fueled his pride and self-righteousness.
[12:44] He sees them for what they are, and we need to see them for what they are as well. That without God, victory is swallowed up in defeat. We see, secondly, that life without God, life is swallowed up in death.
[12:59] So the battle has happened. The battle is over. And now the story of the battle rings out like a shockwave through the land. We find Eli sitting, in verse 13, he's seen on his chair by the side of the road watching, because his heart feared for the ark of God.
[13:14] And it's interesting to hear that Eli was watching, because we see down in verse 15, that he could not see. His eyes had failed. And so Eli's watching was actually probably more like listening intently for every little sound to hear whether the ark of the covenant was coming up the road.
[13:33] And you can imagine that the ark of the covenant, this big heavy box being carried with the poles by four men in unison, would have a very different sound to the sound of one man running quickly up the road.
[13:47] And it is one man running quickly up the road that Eli may have heard in verse 12, a Benjaminite runs from the battle line, goes to Shiloh with his clothes torn, dust on his head.
[14:02] And whether or not Eli heard this man running, he certainly heard the shout that goes up in the city.
[14:14] In verse 13, at the end of the verse, it says, when the man entered the town and told what had happened, the whole town sent up a cry. And in verse 14, Eli heard the outcry and asked, what is the meaning of this uproar?
[14:33] And what Eli is going to hear now is not the bad news and the good news. What Eli is going to hear now is the bad news and the worst news. In verse 14, the man hurries over to Eli, who was 98 years old and whose eyes had failed so that he could not see.
[14:49] He tells Eli, I have just come from the battle line. I fled from it this very day. Eli asks, what happened, my son? The man who brought the news replies, Israel fled before the Philistines.
[15:02] Bad news for Israel. And the army has suffered heavy losses. Bad news for the army. Also, your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas are dead. Bad news for Eli.
[15:15] And the Ark of the Covenant has been captured. Bad news for the Ark of the Covenant and for God's people. And it is this list, last bit of news that causes Eli to topple backwards off his chair in verse 18.
[15:33] By the side of the gate, his neck is broken and he dies. For he was an old man and he was heavy. He had led Israel for 40 years.
[15:45] And so as we hear Eli falling and this dull, sickening thud as he dies, we wonder why is there this strange detail about him being heavy?
[15:58] And in some ways, it's simply describing what was a seemingly small fall resulting in him breaking his neck.
[16:08] But if you heard this in Hebrew, you would realize that this word has been used previously in 1 Samuel. Back in chapter 2 and verse 29, God said this to Eli, Why do you honor your sons more than me?
[16:26] By fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel. God says to Eli, Why do you honor your sons more than me?
[16:38] By fattening yourself, by making yourself heavy on the offerings that are mine. And it is the same word that is used of Eli here. And what we're being shown vividly is that by Eli putting his own self, his own desires, his own pleasures, his own indulgence at the center of his life, this has literally crushed him.
[17:04] Having his pleasure at the center of his life has crushed him. It has consumed him. The same way if you have a black hole in the universe, it consumes and crushes everything around it.
[17:22] What should have been at the center of Eli's life? The glory of God. In verse 21, the glory has departed from Israel. And this word glory is the same word that is used to describe Eli.
[17:38] Heavy. The glory of God is this heavy, weighty, manifest presence of God with his people. There's a heaviness to having God in the middle of your life because everything starts to orbit around him in a good way, in a harmonious way, the way all the planets orbit around the sun in our solar system.
[18:01] And so what this is showing us is that for Eli, who had put something else at the center of his life, the result was him being crushed by his sin instead of having the glory of God at the center where everything rotated and orbited in harmony around it.
[18:20] And the death of Eli is a tragedy. He might have died on his bed surrounded by his sons and his family, but he dies on the side of the road. His sons have passed away and the Ark of the Covenant has been stolen.
[18:36] Eli's death is a tragedy and you realize that without God, life is swallowed up by death. And any death without God is a tragedy.
[18:49] Any life lived with something other than God at the center is a tragedy. And ultimately, it will swallow us up. The things that we give ourselves to or center our lives on or anchor ourselves in will crush us.
[19:06] The things that we put at the center will consume us. C.S. Lewis, in his book, The Great Divorce, he is imagining this idea of heaven and hell and he describes this lady who has put her son at the center of her life and she meets this angel and she's arguing with the angel and she says, I believe in a God of love.
[19:33] No one had a right to come between me and my son, not even God. Tell God that to his face. I want my boy and I mean to have him.
[19:43] He is mine, do you understand? Mine, mine, mine, forever and ever. You realize that she has idolized and put her son at the center in such a way that it is consuming her.
[19:57] She says, I hate your religion. This is to the angel. I hate your religion and I hate and despise your God. I believe in a God of love. And C.S. Lewis always chooses his words extremely carefully and there's this awful irony in the fact that she's saying she believes in a God of love and yet she's saying she hates and despises the true God.
[20:21] The angel has already said to her, you cannot love a fellow creature fully till you love God. In other words, if you put anything or anyone at the center of your life, it will do what it did to Eli which is to crush you and consume you.
[20:39] Life without God means that life will be swallowed up by death. Lastly, what we see here is that life without God, joy is swallowed up in sorrow.
[20:50] So we move from the death of this man in his 90s to the birth of a baby and we think, finally, some good news. In verse 19, his daughter-in-law, that's Eli's daughter-in-law, the wife of Phineas, was pregnant and near the time of delivery.
[21:08] And you think, this is going to be a joyful scene. But the shockwaves of the defeat in the battlefield continue to ring out in verse 20, sorry, verse 19, when she hears the news that the ark of God has been captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she went into labor and gave birth, but was overcome by the labor pains.
[21:30] And so this baby is born and what would usually be a time of joy is swallowed up with sorrow as the lady herself passes away.
[21:44] And before she does, she names the boy Ichabod, which is an unusual name, but you'll see in there the C and the B and the D, which is the same word that was used of Eli, the heaviness, the weightiness, the same word that was used of God, the glory.
[22:00] But here what it means is no glory. The glory has departed from Israel. In verse 21, the glory has departed from Israel.
[22:11] In verse 22, she said the glory has departed from Israel. And whether she screamed that in despair or whether she whispered it under great strain, we don't know.
[22:24] But it is like this funeral bell tolling the end of this chapter as we realize that a life without God, no matter how joy-filled, will ultimately be swallowed up by sorrow.
[22:40] I want to tell you about a man named James and a man named Michael. So James and Michael are building a road back in the 1800s in Ireland in the west of Ireland and James is a junior on the job.
[22:55] So it's his first day on the job and he's enjoying the work. The sun is shining down on his back and he's choosing these stones for the roads that they're building and he's putting them in their best-fitting place and sweeping them over with sand and tamping them down and he's just enjoying it.
[23:14] And as he stops for his tea break with Michael, Michael, he's explaining to Michael how he's really enjoying this work. It's giving him meaning and purpose and so on. And then he asks Michael, where's the road going to lead to?
[23:29] Where are we building this road to? And Michael kind of looks at him a little bit confused and he says, what do you mean? And James says, well, where are we building this road to?
[23:39] The whole point of a road is that it goes somewhere. And Michael says, but James, did they not tell you? This is a road to nowhere. What we will do is we will use up the stones that we have.
[23:54] We will see how far we get and we might get to the next field or the field after that, but this is a road to nowhere. Nobody will ever walk on this road. Nobody will ever see this road.
[24:06] Not long after we're finished, this road will be covered over with thorns and brambles and grass. And James says, well, what's the point of it then? And Michael says, there is no point.
[24:19] And James says, well, how can I take any joy in this, any meaning in this, any purpose in this? And Michael says, well, I had kind of wondered why you came in with a big smile on your face.
[24:32] And James says, how can we even call it a road? And Michael says, well, we have to call it something. And at this, James slumps down in sorrow as he realizes that what he had been taking such joy in is actually pointless and meaningless.
[24:53] And he stares vacantly into the distance as his joy is overcome with sorrow. As he realizes that he had been attaching meaning to something that ultimately was meaningless.
[25:05] and that's what's happening here. We are realizing that life without God, that joy is ultimately swallowed up in sorrow.
[25:20] And the chapter ends just like that. But the story doesn't end. The story doesn't end there.
[25:31] The chapter ends with Ichabod, this baby being born. And his name essentially means God is not with us.
[25:43] The glory has departed. And what it reminds us of and points us to many, many years later is another baby who was born. And they would call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
[25:59] And you think, how is it that God can come and be with us the way he is in the flesh in the Lord Jesus Christ?
[26:11] How is it that we can have God dwelling with us the way John speaks about Jesus that he came and dwelt with us? And we saw his glory.
[26:22] Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. well, the way it will happen is that Jesus will come to overturn all the destruction that we had brought about.
[26:39] On that first Easter morning when Mary meets, no, she doesn't meet Jesus yet, on the first Easter morning when Mary comes to the empty tomb and Jesus' body is gone and she's thinking, it's happening again.
[26:52] God has left again. We thought God was going to do something great through this man Jesus but he's left us again and Mary turns and sees somebody who thinks she is, who thinks he is the gardener.
[27:05] And of course, it's Jesus. And what Mary is going to realize is that Jesus is the greatest gardener that ever lived because he is going to overcome and restore all the destruction that has been done.
[27:16] that instead of victory being swallowed up by defeat in Jesus, defeat has been swallowed up by victory. Victory over sin, victory over Satan, victory over death so that we in the here and now can fight temptation and sin in light of his victory knowing that one day we will no longer sin.
[27:39] And what Mary realized and what slowly dawned on her as she saw Jesus risen from the dead is that instead of life being swallowed up by death, in Jesus, death is swallowed up by life.
[27:52] That this is life forever, life to the full that we are promised in him. And that isn't just for future, that is for now so that the psalmist is right when he says that even in old age we will still bear fruit, that we will stay fresh and green because this eternal life that has been given to us in Jesus does work even in the here and now as we grow to be more like him.
[28:23] And as Mary turns to see Jesus and realizes who he is, she realized that instead of her joy being swallowed up by sorrow in a way that you would wonder how she could ever recover from, her sorrow is swallowed up in joy, that in Jesus he has done something that will overwhelm every sorrow that we have ever experienced.
[28:46] And you know, Mary wasn't standing there taking notes, ticking the boxes of what had happened in Jesus. She was simply overjoyed and wanted to hold on to him and cling on to him.
[28:57] And he says, Mary, don't cling on to me. Go tell my brothers. Spread the news, Mary. This is news that will send shockwaves throughout the world.
[29:11] The glory had departed, God had left us, but now God is with us in Jesus, never to leave again. So that the Apostle Paul is right when he says that those who trust in Jesus, we will be with the Lord forever.
[29:30] The psalmist is right when he says we were like those who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. That is what we will be like when we see our Savior face to face.
[29:43] That is what fills our hearts and our lives with joy even now. That in him victory has swallowed up defeat, life has swallowed up death, joy has swallowed up sorrow, and we want to praise God that he has not left us.
[30:01] He is with us now and forever. And so let's ask him now to impress this on our hearts. Father, we pray that you'd help us, Lord, this week to realize all that you have done for us in Jesus.
[30:15] And Lord, when we despair and we feel, Lord, like all hope is lost, lift our eyes to our Savior again. Father, we realize that life without God is hopeless, but life with you, there is this sure and certain hope in Christ because of all he has done for us on the cross.
[30:33] Lord, we rejoice in that and we pray that you'd help us, Lord, to sing your praises in the days ahead. Amen.