1 Samuel 2:25

1 Samuel 2:25

I. The lesson of the text is that there were some on whom advice was wasted, for the law of God's providence was that they must perish; that they had neglected such great means of grace so long and so obstinately, as to have hardened their hearts beyond repentance. There was a time, even with Hophni and Phinehas, there was a time with all the souls who who may since have been equally lost, when God willed not to slay them; when His words to them were thus recorded by the prophet Ezekiel: "Why will ye die? Turn yourselves and live ye." God does speak to us now in the words of Ezekiel; He may and will, if we are obstinately careless, speak to us hereafter in the words of Samuel; we shall not listen to the voice of God's word, because we have sinned beyond repentance.

II. Nor will it avail to complain that we should not have been so fatally hardened had the means of good been more sparingly given us; that we should have loved the service of the tabernacle more had we been less familiar with it. The same page of Scripture which tells us of the sons of Eli tells us of Samuel also; not born indeed, but brought by his mother, at his earliest years, to be in that same place, and to draw grace and strength from those very ministrations which, to the sons of Eli, had been the savour of death unto death. It is for us to determine whether we will be as Samuel or as Hophni and Phinehas; whether we will gain the habit of profiting by holy things or of despising them.

T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. iii., p. 218.

References: 1 Samuel 2:26. F W Farrar, In the Days of thy Youth,p. 99; J. Edmunds, Sermons in a Village Church,p. 178; R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons,3rd series, p. 130. 1 Samuel 2:30. W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit,vol xxi., p. 2; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxx., No. 1811; A. W. Hare, Sermons to a Country Congregation,vol. ii., p. 35; C. J. Vaughan, Lessons of Life and Godliness,p. 131; H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. iii., p. 357; J. Burns, Sketches of Sermons on Special Occasions,p. 157; Homiletic Magazine,vol. xii., p. 75 1 Samuel 2:33. Parker, vol. vi., p. 238. 1 Samuel 2:1. F. W. Robertson, Sermons,4th series, p. 1; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 194; Parker, vol. vii., p. 58.