A Guide to Mistreating Worshipers

Deuteronomy 18:3-5 spells out which portions of the offerings belonged to the priests. Hophni and Phinehas sent servants to take more than what was allotted, and to do so early in the process. While Leviticus 7:31 commanded that the fat be burned on the altar, they wanted their meat raw. Anyone who grills steaks understands that a little fat flavors a steak.

God was not big on barbecuing. He was looking for obedience.

The Lord did not take kindly to their treating His commands so lightly. Their offense was “very severe” (2:17).

3) They treated the Ark of the Covenant as a magic totem.

In I Samuel 4, Hophni and Phinehas carried the ark of the covenant into battle against the Philistines. They were counting on the enemies to panic once they saw the Israelites had “their god” leading the way. But it didn’t work out as they had intended.

God had said that He dwelt above the Ark, in between the cherubim. So, for the carnal-minded—and Hophni and Phinehas were nothing if not carnal—that was good enough for them. To carry the box into battle obligated God to come along and guaranteed a victory over His enemies.

People are always saying God is obligated to do this or that because “we have His word on it.” Maybe we do, but we also have Psalm 115:3: “Our God is in the Heavens; He does whatever He pleases.”

God has plans He has not told us about and is as unpredictable as the wind (see our Lord’s statement on that in John 3:8).

Instead of intimidating them, the presence of the Ark actually motivated the Philistines to greater effort. “Boys, we may be in trouble. They have their god with them today. If you ever fought before, you’d better fight now.”

“So the Philistines fought and Israel was defeated. … The slaughter was severe—30,000 of the Israelite foot soldiers fell. The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died” (I Samuel 4:10-11).

Too late, the priests learned the Lord’s presence was no magic guarantee against defeat, that possessing the ark did not automatically mean He was present and that His blessings could not be manipulated as they wished. John MacArthur says “they confused the symbol of the His presence with His actual presence. In this way, their understanding of God resembled that of the Philistines.”

Simply stated, God wanted the Israelites defeated.

Nice little benign history lesson, right? Nothing there for our sophisticated generation of church leaders, right?

Bad wrong. There is a world of instruction here.