1 Samuel Chapter 4

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Mr.

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Berry will you open us up with a word of prayer? All right, let's open up our Bibles to 1st Samuel chapter 4 Now Israel went out to meet the Philistines in battle and camped beside Ebenezer while the Philistines camped in Aphek The Philistines drew up in battle array to meet Israel and when the battle spread Israel was defeated before the Philistines who killed about 4,000 men on the battlefield When the people came into the camp the elders of Israel said why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us take to ourselves from Shiloh The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord that it may come among us and deliver us from the power of our enemies so the people sent to Shiloh and from there they carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts who sits above the cherubim and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas were there with the Ark of God as The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came into the camp all of Israel shouted with a great shout So that the earth resounded and shook and when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout they said what does this noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean and They understood that the Ark of the Lord had come into the camp The Philistines were afraid for they said God has come into the camp and they said woe to us For nothing like this has happened before Woe to us who shall deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods These are the gods who smoke the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness Take courage and be men Oh Philistines or you will become slaves to these Hebrews as they have been slaves to you Therefore be like men and fight So the Philistines Fought the Israel and Israel was defeated and every man fled to his tent and the slaughter was very great For there fell of Israel 30,000 foot soldiers and the Ark of God was taken And the two sons of Eli Hophni and Phinehas died now a man of Benjamin ran from the battle on and Came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes torn and dirt upon his head And when he came Behold Eli was sitting on his seat by the road Eagerly watching because his heart was trembling for the Ark of God So the men came to tell him in the city and all the city cried out and when Eli heard the noise of the outcry He said what does this noise of this commotion mean? And then the man hurriedly and told Eli and Eli was 98 years old and his eyes were set So that he could not see and the man said to Eli I'm the one who came from the battle line and and indeed I escaped from the battle line front today and he said How did these things go my son? and then the one who Brought the news replied Israel has fled From before the Philistines and there has been a great slaughter among the people and your two sons Are dead and the Ark of God has been taken and when he mentioned the Ark of God Eli fell from his seat backwards beside the gate and his neck was broken and he died for he was heavy and old Thus he judged Israel 40 years Now his daughter-in-law Phinehas wife was pregnant about to give birth And when she heard the news that the Ark of God was taken and her father-in-law and her husband had died She knelt down and gave birth for her pains had come upon her and about the time of her death The women who stood by her said to her do not be afraid for you have given birth to a son But she did not answer or pay attention and she called the boy Ichabod Saying the glory of the Lord has departed because the Ark of God has taken and I'm sorry because the Ark of the Lord has Taken because her father-in-law and her husband have died She said the glory of the Lord has departed from Israel for the Ark of the Lord has been taken all right, so we're entering a Section of Scripture from chapter 4 through chapter 6 be the next three chapters to where we're really not going to be dealing with Samuel anymore we're going to be actually dealing with an object and that object is the Ark of the Covenant and it would be the Centerpiece of what would be the tabernacle and later be the temple Anybody remember what was contained within the Ark of the Covenant? Aaron's rod manna And in commandments, that's right The Ark of Covenant would be a dead giveaway when it comes to the tablets being in there So anybody remember why the manna was put in there? back when they were going through the wilderness It was to signify that God had preserved him all those years with food and why was Aaron's bud Aaron's rod that bud had put in there Because he was the only one that God chose to be the testimony in the line of the high priest for generations to come So it would be that was to show that Aaron's line only would be the ones that would stand before the Ark of the Covenant So let's go back and kind of walk through this.

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It says In verse 1 about the first part.

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Remember we put in last week.

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It fits in very odd with chapter 4 Now Israel went out and they met the Philistines in battle and camped beside Ebenezer while the Philistines and camped at Aphek.

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So If here we'll say this is the Sea of Galilee not quite known as the Sea of Galilee yet And you have the Dead Sea and over here you have Mediterranean so about this would be the land of Judah kind of right here if I put too many lines on here won't make sense, but The Philistines land that they had at the time was about like this You would have had Shiloh would have been somewhere right here.

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This is where the Ark would have been at the time Then you would have had Mizpah Right here Bethel This would have been Jabez which ultimately Jerusalem then you had Aphek which would have been right here And you had Ashdod Ashkelon then down here would have been Gaza And then right about here would have been Ekron Here would have been Gath These are the five Where the five lords of the Philistines would have came from right here So here's where this battle is going to take this is where the they're in camps right now This is where the Ark is at It says though.

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This is the first time we hear the word Ebenezer brought up.

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Okay the whoever the writer of the book of Samuel is is making an Assumption that they know where this place is at if you've been reading through Samuel at all Ebenezer is really not established until chapter 7 so two places Ebenezer could be one is Believed to be right in this area because of chapter 7 Which I'm not sure that's where it would be because it wouldn't make sense for this narrative and I'll show why I do believe it Somewhere out here Because I do believe that there could be two Ebenezer's Ebenezer's just a place of great stone where there was a great sacrifice and where God helped him.

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That's what that means Remember that song we ever sang in church raise your Ebenezer I mean pick up a big stone and make a monument, but I do believe it's here.

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I'm gonna show you why in just a second So we go on Says in verse 2 that the Philistines drew up in battle array to meet Israel and the battle spread and Israel was defeated Before the Philistines and it killed 4,000 people Remember, this is the camp This is where the battle is going to take place in here somewhere This is where they're in camp So it goes on to say 4,000 died verse 3 and when the people came into the camp The other bidder said why has the Lord defeated us today? Interesting.

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How did they see just defeating them? God Anybody want to make any comment why they saw this being God? Were they great Calvinists and thought they were just the sovereignty of God.

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I Do believe they believe that God actually controlled all things But I do believe that they knew at this time that they they were not following God And they knew that anytime you go look all through all through Scripture in the Old Testament every time they went into battle and people Died what was wrong? Sin, we'll just take AI when they took yet when they an Aiken what happened? That's it and they have to come back and then they find out you know They narrow it down narrow it down there down there down and they finally figure out who it is they take a all the Aikens family and Kill them Children at all so It says why has the Lord defeated us today? Let us now take up for ourselves from Shiloh the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord That it may come among us and deliver us from the powers of our enemies.

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So the people sent From Shiloh and for they carry the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord post who's above cherubim and hop time Phineas were with them So here's where it would have been for them to carry from here to here Wouldn't make sense Okay, if they were in can't hear if it happened in the area of an easer it would make sense if the battle is in if you've ever looked at a map, this is like a Valley where thousands of people could have Gathered for battle and if you look what's going to happen next you're talking about 30,000 people I'm a small football stadium for some people to die.

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So it was probably carried somewhere this way in hopes that it would go before them we have seen in times past where they carry it with a the the The Levites would carry the Ark ahead of them what happened when they got to the River Jordan And who was the first feet that hit it and they were carrying the ark It was the priest and boom God do what he was a part of the the the Jordan River So they they see this as I believe it's very superstitious.

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What's that? Sure, it's very superstitious a good way.

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Yes, very superstitious that they believe Okay, we if we take this out there ain't no way they gonna beat us You know and if you go back even to judge as you remember back when we had the Micah's idolatry situation He was a little superstitious to remember set up his own shrine he called it a place for Yahweh to be worshipped and then when he got the One to be in Moses grandson Jonathan he wound up in and making him to be the priest of that shrine He was like man.

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God's gonna bless me for sure now because I really have a Levite with me same idea We're gonna carry the ark before us.

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God's not gonna let himself be defamed.

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It's basically how they're seeing it and as the the Ark of the Covenant went into the camp All of Israel shouted with a great shout so that the earth shook and when the Philistines heard the noise they Shouted and said what does this noise of this great shout in this camp of the Hebrews mean and it goes on and it? recollects somewhat with some Some little nuances of how it actually took place up to chapter 9.

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I mean up to verse 9 But understand and this has been some 500 years since the Exodus.

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All right, and what do you see that the Philistines are still recognizing? Hey and but and they still remember in the plagues not just hey God took these people and delivered them brought them through the sea and Craig crossed the Jordan they're going.

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Hey, he he slayed those Egyptians with plagues So that was still fresh into their mind still 500 years later and In verse 10 it says so the Philistines Fought and Israel was defeated and every man fled to his tent a great slaughter on that day fell and the house of Israel lost 30,000 people well 30,000 foot soldiers so now we're 4,000 30,000 Fixing to be one more and actually we can I'll say there can be an extra one in here in a second Yeah, the mother.

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Yes, sir Yeah Like a relic Mm-hmm Yeah, and if you go back and think about how what hot thigh and Phineas were and I said this Was it last week or week before how they're very they're very good example of a foot the false teachers are today They manipulate people every time it you look at false teachers anytime.

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There's large amounts of money their sexual immorality What were they doing? There was drunkenness within the the assembly there was immorality same thing These men are doing now.

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What does the false teacher always want to do? They want to manipulate God into doing what they want to do.

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Hey, what's hot fine thing? You sticks to do when they carry this thing off They're gonna try to manipulate God to get them to do what they want him to do and God's not going to be Manipulated by anyone.

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Yes, sir Also you talk about Yeah There was an actual Recognition that the God of Abraham or in this case they say God's the gods of Abraham Isaac and Jacob was a legitimate God So when I say that I don't believe that all other gods are legit Okay, but under their mind they were in this vast array of pantheon of gods, I mean understand that Samson had this town had already crushed in Gaza had already crushed the The temple of Dagon.

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Okay, we're fixing to see coming up shortly Where are they back at another temple of Dagon? So they believed in these pantheon of gods and that one God could be superior than another but these gods were all real They do understand that the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob was a powerful God He was a true God because he slayed all of the Egyptians.

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So there is a recognition You understand that were fearful when they saw this and what was the symbol of their fear? Hey, man, the Ark of the Covenant That's where their God resides or quote their gods reside Sure Yeah, I remember that.

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Yeah Okay, so Where we at verse 11 and the Ark of God was taken.

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So 30,000 men foot soldiers were taken.

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So now we have Fatherless children we have Wives with no father I would know husbands and we have mothers with no sons 30,000 Plus the four that happened before that Now we've got dirtbag one dirtbag two Are dead They're gonna come into the camp Wanting to know what's going on Eli heard the great noise I'm sorry back.

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Let's go back to 13 verse 13 He came in and behold Eli was sitting on his seat by the road eagerly watching he would have been by the gate Because his heart was trembling for the Ark of God understand he wasn't worried about his two sons I really do believe okay This is an inference based on what the tech and inference is drawing a conclusion based on Internal and external evidence, but not explicit That's what an inference is is I do believe that he knew in his mind his sons were probably going to die Why he'd already been told by one godly man that came we don't know his name And then the first act of prophetic word from his young his run his young disciple.

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What did he tell him? That your sons are fixing to die So I do believe when he was coming back.

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He said hey, they're probably gonna die here this great battle already before thousand die, so He did know that taking that ark into out of the Ark of the Covenant or out of I mean out of the tabernacle Was wrong that was not to be done.

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It was not commissioned by God to do so so then when these are gone This probably didn't surprise him And how do we know that because he said he was waiting for the art to see what happened to the Ark of the Lord It said so the man The man came and in trembling into the city the city cried out and when Eli heard the noise of the outcry He said what does this noise and this commotion mean? said the man hurriedly he came and he told Eli was 98 years old and his eyes were set some of your translations may say dim or blind or something That's basically the same thing when someone's blind.

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They just gaze out or as gazed as fixed anybody says gazed as fixed anybody His gazed was set he could not see and then or 16 the man said to Eli I'm the one who came from the battle line the front line and indeed I escaped the battle line today And he said how did things go my son? And when then when the one brought the great the news replied Said Israel has fled from the Philistines and there Has also been a great slaughter among the people and your two sons hop not Phineas They are dead and the Ark of the God was taken and here it is not We don't see anything about his sons here But when he heard that the Ark of God to take Eli fell back on on his neck backward at the gate Breaking his neck and he was old and heavy.

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So when he heard this, so here it is How old if he was 98 years old when did he start judging the nation of Israel They have 40 years.

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He's 58 years old 58 and Verse 19 now his daughter-in-law Phineas wife was pregnant and about to give birth And when she heard the news and the Ark of God had been taken and her father-in-law and her husband had died She kneeled down and gave birth So at the hearing of this great catastrophe at hearing of this great grief one husband's dead father-in-law's dead and The the great presence of the Lord is gone She caused her to go it may be into premature birth We don't know but obviously she began to have labor pains and she had she began to give birth And at that time one at the time of her death, that's in verse 20.

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So whether she was bleeding out Whatever it is.

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There was nothing there to save her at that time at the time of her death the woman that stood there by her giving birth said do not be afraid you have Given birth to a son, but she did not answer or pay any attention and she called the boy Ichabod saying the glory has departed from Israel because the Ark of God has been taken and because her father-in-law and her husband and Then verse 22.

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She said the glory has departed from Israel for the Ark of God has been taken.

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So here it is That's the next one so we've got thirty four thousand two three four right 34,000 four people die And the vast majority of that lies at the feet of the the bad the bad priesthood Had they not tried to manipulate God they could have this could have been preserved Why didn't they just cry out to God? God intervene in a time of repentance in a time of contrition and turn to the Lord and we're going to see in Chapter 7 when the Ark obviously this the Ark is fixing to be gone The Arc's been taken to the land of the Philistines and it's going to be gone a total of Seven months into the land of the Philistines.

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Okay, it's gonna be gone.

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It's gone forever from Shiloh Okay, it never returns to Shiloh so it'll be gone seven months before it finishes wreaking havoc on those five cities and then we're going to see a timeframe come up of about 20 years When they actually recognize that the Spirit of the Lord Dwelling over the Ark is gone and they repent and then Samuel begins to do great ministry work and then we actually see then another a setup of the the Establishment of the true Ebenezer.

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Okay, so the Ark of the Covenant.

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Yes, sir It doesn't explicitly say I'm making an inference Okay I would say no and I'm gonna explain to you why and why I can get in short No, when he goes out to battle the presence of the Lord, I don't believe is over the Shekinah glory We know the two were the two cherubim like this.

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I do not believe that we don't see the power of the presence of God We don't see God doing any great act of defeat, right? But what happens when they carry it into the next few cities see when it leaves here.

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It's going to go to The Philistines brought it from Ebenezer That's why I believe well that Ebenezer somewhere right here because as we went from Shiloh this battle was somewhere right here It would have been captured somewhere right here and Chapter 5 it goes first to Ashdod Which would you can still see part of it? It would go if it was here The first major city it would have went to would have been Ashdod and we don't know that from here to here We don't see any any people dying or any type of cursing from God But what happens when he gets to Ashdod you remember in the story? Muzz getting crazy hemorrhoids and all kinds of stuff God begins to afflict those people with great slaughter too as it goes from city to city I mean, they're gonna pass this thing around like a hot potato.

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Hey, man, y'all take it Y'all take it y'all take it and even it goes not even does it go from those five cities it's list three, but as we walk through the text it actually it talks about making an Offering of trespass for the five cities.

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So I do believe that hopped around and passed through all five But even once it goes to Beth Shemesh and God strikes down people there, too And those are God's own people for disrespecting the ark, so I don't believe from here to here Where that battle took place and it was captured.

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I do not believe that the the glory of God was hovering over it.

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I do not Yes, sir But if you find something different let me know because I just don't know there's there's not any indication of that Worship God in spirit and in truth and even God's people here thought of God no differently than the Philistines did As just as oh this whole trophy this whole thing And so when we see the glory of the Lord is is where people worship him rightly and and it's tied to obedience Of his people.

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So when you see them treat God is no different than the Philistines Of course the glory departs when there's disobedience even amongst God's own people Yeah, the power of God's gone.

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Yeah, the power of God's gone and If you were going to do biblical theology Biblical theology is on a line because it's a development from let there be light In the garden to this which will be the consummation of new things But in the beginning he said let there be light there was a place that Eden what the Eden represent the dwelling place of God This is where God walked in the garden with Adam, but what happened when he disobeyed The glory of God was no longer available to him He no longer walked in the garden matter of fact Once he got here he was they were exiled From the garden Exiled from Eden.

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He puts a chair of him and blocks it off where they can't even get back So so the dwelling place of God is broken and can no longer be coming come to Or come in front of because of sin now Once this take place every long that was two days three days after creation was done.

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We don't know But you know that we don't see anything about the dwelling place of God My line should have went that way somewhere Until you get to the tabernacle That's a long time That's a very long time and The idea of the dwelling place of God when you're doing biblical theology, which is how How the the flow of redemption comes out through history that should be a constant reminder Where's the dwelling place of God because it develops up and he was walking with him here Okay, perfect communion with his wife and his creator and all of creation that are exiled Well, then when you get to the tabernacle, not everybody can come to the tabernacle Only the Levites can move with inside of it Then you have the rings with inside the Levites and only certain Levites could do certain things So you see that things get narrower and narrower Well, then who could only come inside the tabernacle to see the dwelling place of God one time a year.

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Who was that? It was a high priest and who'd he have to be a line of? Aaron So as we move forward we see the dwelling place of God always leaves Because of sin like you were saying always leaves because of sin when the temple Okay, the tabernacle is going to go They're gonna bring it back to Some some 60 years after now.

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This is I know this is like some history 60 years after this event David's gonna actually have the tabernacle come back from the From Edom Obed and Abinadab's house.

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They're gonna establish it in Jerusalem.

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Once the temple Is established that is the permanent Dwelling place of God the temple That's it But where is it? Is it it's still a place where people have to come to right? Is it it once again is the temple approachable by anybody? No, I mean they even actually did actually make fenced it and made it bigger You had Solomon's temple Okay, and when Solomon's temples destroyed as well like you we see the glory of the Lord depart from it as well The the tabernacle was there at a time.

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I mean the the Ark of the Covenant was there but the but the glory departs There's something a little little history lesson you know the last time we actually see the tabernacle Is when it comes back here? when the temples ransacked in 586 The actual Optic of the tabernacle.

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I mean of the Ark of the Covenant is never seen Again now we do have some extra biblical Writings that talk about what happened and I don't know if y'all ever read the the Apocryphal books of I say apocryphal not the not pseudo apocryphal But you have what was the intertestamental times the book of Maccabees, which is a very historical Accurate what took place in the time between Malachi and the time of Matthew gives a lot of narrative of what took place some people believe at 586 under the Maccabees that when the Ethiopian Jewish Israelites took Jeremiah off to Egypt it says that he hid the Ark Somewhere so that it could not be found and at a time it would be later Revealed by God to his people to bring back to the rebuilt temple that we don't know But we know this the last time we see it is when it goes in at the building of the temple of Solomon That's it.

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That's the last time we actually see it in Scripture But the dwelling place of God is should be the development you should be going.

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Okay, here it is The God was with his people when they were doing what they were supposed to do He was with them.

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They would break his his commands.

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God was still gracious But then God's patience and long-suffering is only for so long and then he exiles or takes his glory away And that's the continual pattern until the New Covenant comes Any questions so far No Okay, so Ichabod cabode means glory Ichabod the glory has departed that is the truth of what has just taken place among the people God's glory has departed from Shiloh never to return and understand to The tabernacle as we see it set up here in Shiloh is never seen again either It is believed that after that battle of Aphek Aphek was over here once they remember what they got wherever in that center once they had won that battle it's believed that they went to Shiloh for more booty and And ransacked the tabernacle That's what's believed because we never see the tabernacle again.

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It's it it's gone That's why God says I think it's in the preaching of Jeremiah when he's Blasting the false prophets you say peace peace when there's no peace and you say God won't do this This is this temple to the Lord temple to the Lord and he says don't you remember what I did to you in Shiloh? Don't you remember what I did to your sister? Israel the ones I hauled off into captivity and stomped them down like mud in the street He says don't think I won't do it to you So God does not play with the continual disobedience of his covenant people.

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Oh Okay so here it is the the the Eli priesthood has come to a halt And I'm gonna write this and this would have been Aaron this would have been a dab By We know these guys ministered all of about ten seconds About time they lit the the wrong sensors And said incinerated him somebody else asked me the same question you did.

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Why would I say incinerate? Because that's what God should do And if you look at through Scripture God is a consuming fire because he said not everybody last week.

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It's a good question God didn't always do that In this case God's revealed himself as a consuming fire He he smoked these guys in their tunics It said he consumed them and they drug their clothes out with whatever ashes was left in there then we do see at other times when God's People have not held him holy or not regarded him as holy what happens he opens the ground up consumes them with fire Constantly God has looked at in the Old Testament and the New as a consuming fire When God does not consume someone by fire that is still an act of his grace You have His uh, Aaron's other son If Ammar Eli Is from this line somewhere along the line He was established but somewhere in between Here and here It went from the elder to this guy and we don't know we don't have any indication but if you could and I don't have time to do it, but if I could draw you the Lines of all these men this is very short This one goes on to where Zadok's free established as the the godly priesthood, but this here would have been hopfi And Phineas And they got whacked but you have him who has Ichabod So He would have been in line for the priest and once he gets over correct, yeah, we'd agree if we're following We don't know what happens to this dude But there is a Himalaya And we'll get to this in the book him then you have Hitu and Haja And they have Avatar or a by far have you want to pronounce it? You remember me reading last week.

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He was the last line Of Eli he gets when he actually is extinguished from Eli's y'all remember me reading that last week second Kings first Kings chapter 2 So we do see an immediate that God cuts off the priesthood from the house of Eli right here But it's not done in its fullness till we get down to here.

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So you have another four generations, right? Yeah, four generations before God actually brings that into its fullness And if you want to go back and read I think it's first Kings chapter 2 He actually said when he removes a by a by afar from his position This is to fulfill what the Lord had spoken to the house of Eli in Shiloh And then it's getting from here it goes back it's transferred back to the elder All right, I have a minute and a half for questions comments outbursts and or letters to the editor right for demonstrations No First three and three when he when because remember the first one comes from the man We don't know the second one comes from From Samuel Actually reaffirming what the man of God we don't know who was yes, sir.

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Yeah, because it came at Shiloh.

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Yeah All right, we're done All right.

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Hey, I'm gonna try to next week.

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I don't know if y'all read ahead I'm gonna try to do five and six next week because it's a lot of the The same thing over and over so if y'all read ahead, I'm gonna try to do five and six, okay, let's pray Father God, thank you for your word.

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Thank you that you have established it As faithful and true and that father we have a book that we can open up examine to see how you reveal yourself through history Father, thank you for the new covenant where your spirit will never depart from your people where you have implanted your spirit To guide us to live us to godly life and to lead us and guide us into all truth father God Thank you for your word again.