To Encourage You

1 Samuel 2:12 “Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord.”

“Worthless”: it’s such a sobering word.  One of the things that comes to my mind when I think about this word is a tool that no longer works for the purpose for which it was intended.  Take a chainsaw, for example.  I’ve had some over my lifetime that never worked right.  I bought a used one once, and every time I tried to cut wood with it, it would stall.  Although its sole purpose was to cut wood, it was utterly worthless because it wouldn’t run.  It was good for nothing but the trash heap, and if I had continued to try to work with it, it would have been nothing more than a source of irritation to me. 

In the verse above we have the word “worthless” applied to men.  God calls these men, these two sons of the priest Eli, totally and utterly worthless.  You see, their purpose in life, like that of their father Eli, was to be priests of the Most High God.  As priests they were to be intermediaries between God and men.  They were to offer sacrifices to God on behalf of the Israelites who had sinned, and they were to be messengers from God to the people as they shared and interpreted God’s Word.  Tragically, despite their high calling, we are told that “they did not know the Lord.”  It was for this reason that they were called “worthless” by God.  Because of their wickedness, rather than offer sacrifices that were holy and acceptable, they used those sacrifices for themselves and sinned with them in the process. 

Jesus used similar language in His Sermon on the Mount when He said, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet” (Matthew 5:13).  In this metaphor, Jesus talks about the “saltiness” of salt.  Salt has a function – to improve the taste of food, and to preserve food from decay.  Those are salt’s two main purposes.  Therefore, if salt’s very character of “saltiness” is lost, it becomes altogether worthless.  In the same way, believers in Christ are to live lives of “believing.” It’s their function and life purpose.  They are to believe what Jesus has said to them, and they are to act on that belief each and every day. It is in this way that their function is realized.  Put another way and in a parallel to Eli’s sons, Christians have been told by God that they “are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that (they) may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called (them) out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). As Eli’s sons were to be representatives of God to man and man to God, so believers are to be vessels through which God shares His gospel of eternal life with the world, and they are to be those who talk to God about men in prayer.  That’s every Christian’s main function. It’s why we’re still here on the earth.  However, if we fail to do this, if we live like the rest of the world that does not know God, we are just as worthless for the purpose to which God has called us as were Eli’s sons.

May God help us who call ourselves Christians to live as Christians in this world.  May those who don’t know our Savior see the life of the Savior being lived out in our lives, and may our mouths continually proclaim the message of Christ to this world.  Put to us in another way by our Lord, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).