Are You Taking God for Granted?
Bible Text: "1 Samuel 2:12-17
Have you ever experienced being taken for granted by someone - perhaps a friend or a family member? How did you feel? Is in it sad that it is often those closest and most familiar with us that mostly take us for granted?
Now here is the question: have you ever taken God for granted in your own life? Sadly, the answer is "yes" for most people, including Christians! In fact, the bible records several instances in which people in priviledged relationships with God took Him for granted, with dire consequences. Let's take a look at one such instance.
Eli, Hophni and Phinease Took God, His Temple and His Ordinances for Granted.
Text: 1 Samuel 2:12-17
Now the sons of Eli were corrupt; they did not know the LORD. 13 And the priests' custom with the people was that when any man offered a sacrifice, the priest's servant would come with a three-pronged fleshhook in his hand while the meat was boiling. 14 Then he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; and the priest would take for himself all that the fleshhook brought up. So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. 15 Also, before they burned the fat, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who sacrificed, "Give meat for roasting to the priest, for he will not take boiled meat from you, but raw." 16 And if the man said to him, "They should really burn the fat first; then you may take as much as your heart desires," he would then answer him, "No, but you must give it now; and if not, I will take it by force." 17 Therefore the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD, for men abhorred the offering of the LORD.
Hophni and Phinease, the sons of Eli were the corrupt priests described in the passage above. The first indication of these two men's disregard for God is their disregard for holy things. The word holy means set-apart, consecrated, or dedicated. In the bible, “holy” is not only used for God, but also for everything dedicated to God, including the utensils of the temple, place of worship, people, and the sacrifices offered to God (Lev 22:1-13). In Lev. 22:15, God specifically warns the priests that “They shall not profane the holy offerings of the children of Israel, which they offer to the LORD.” As priests, Hophni and Phinease must have been keenly aware of the sacredness of the sacrifices which they offered to God in behalf of the people of Israel, including the ordinances pertaining to those sacrifices. However, these priests chose to treat the sacred things as ordinary and mundane. They chose to treat sacrifice meat no differently from and the meat they would have eaten at the dinner table. It’s all meat for food. They abused the offering and sacrificial meat so much so that they fabricated a big 3-pronged fork which they would plunge into the sacred meat cauldron and took for themselves however much meat that came out. They recklessly profaned God’s ordinances and holy courts with sacrilegious acts. But the irreverent handling of the meat of sacrifice was a mere indication of something more sinister within their heart - the disesteem of God Himself.
The truth is that handling God’s sacrifice as they would ordinary meat shows that in Hophni and Pheneas’ minds there wasn't much that separated the sacred from the secular, or the divine from the human. They felt they could handle what belonged to God in the same manner as what belonged to humans. Such mindset is symptomatic of a person who has either consciously or unconsciously devaluated God to the level of mortal men. Imagine for a moment that you had the uncommon privilede of hosting an important dignitary such as the president of your nation. What kind of reception would you give him? It's very unlikely that you would welcome the president as you would a co-worker or a family friend. Chances are, your house, or at least the reception area would get a facelift. You probably wouldn't even use the same tableware that you use for everyday meal? And of course, fast food for a presidential reception? Who in the world would do that? New tableware, new décor, the best recipe one can find, and even perhaps employing professional reception-hosting service - you would stop at nothing to ensure that the president's reception is as exquisite as possible. After all, it is expected that if you ever have the rare privilede of hosting a presidential reception, you would want to spare nothing in hosting such an eminent personality.
Now, on the other hand, if an old buddy is coming over, you might just order a fast food. I doubt if you would go as far as buying new tableware, new décor, new recipe, etc to host a co-worker. Probably not. In fact, a friend would be lucky if you don’t ask him or her to join you in the kitchen to prepare the meal. But the questions is: Why should there be such a stark difference between the two receptions? After all, the president and your friend are both humans. Why would your reception of this two mortals be worlds apart? Social status! That's what makes the difference. The president, though human, is of a much higher social status than your buddy. His position as the president of a nation intrinsincally confers on him much more prestige than your friend, an ordinary citizen. Of a necessity, you must provide him a reception on a totally different level.
Now, imagine a slightly different senario. Supposing you visited a very small, little-known third-world country, whose sitting president you didn't know by face. And supposing your host happened to be a very close relative of that country's president, and just by pure coincidence, a week after your arrival, the president made an unofficial, unannounced, low-profile, no-motorcade (at least in sight), family visit to his relative - your host. But it just so happened that he came an hour earlier than scheduled and you found yourself having to host him for some time before his intended host arrived. Now remember, you had no idea of his personality or of his office. Would you have welcomed him in any grandiose way, fitting for a president? Most likely not! He would have been just a common visitor to you. He would probably have gotten nothing more than a standard reception of a ordinary visitior. Now supposing your buddy, the president's relative showed up later, and informed you that the man you had hosted for the past one hour was the president of the country - how would you feel? Probably terrible and embarrassed! You would feel totally awkward to discover that you had given the president of a nation such an ordinary, undignified reception, even though you had no idea who he was. That you would be compelled to apologize would be and understatement. No doubts, you make sure he realized that you were completely in the dark as to who he was. The lesson in this hypothetical scenario is that you would have welcomed the president - the highest official of a country based - on a faulty perception - as an average visitor. The point? The real problem was not primarily your manner of reception, but your uninformed and mistaken perception of who he was. You failed to recognize the president's identity or personality, which then led you to giving him a very unpresidential reception.
Perception - that was the deeper problem of Hophni and Phinease. Their irreverent and indiscriminate handling of God’s sacrifice demonstrated their impared perception of God's glory and majesty. If they were to have the correct view of God’s greatness, holiness, majesty, and might, it's inconceivable that they would have dared to meddle with His holy offerings and sacrifices. They would not have disregarded the holy things which belonged to the Most High God. So, in actuality, the problem was not much of the priest's handling of God's sacrifices, as it was their failure to recognize the highness and holiness of God. But it wasn't just Hophni and Phinease; Eli, their father also took God for granted by allowing the sins of his sons and the desecration of the temple to continue, even though he “knows” (1 Samuel 3:13). But the pure disregard and dishonor of God by Eli and his sons did not go unpunished. God pronounced a hefty judgment upon the prophet's household through another man of God (1 Samuel 2:27-31), and later by the little boy Samuel. Eli forfeited the covenant of priestly prosterity; both Hophni and Phinease tragically died in battle (1 Samuel 4:10-11), and their father fell and fatally broke his neck upon hearing the news of his sons' death and the capture of the ark of covenant.
We must recognize that taking God for granted is a dangerous thing. God is not a man. God is infinitely and incomparably greater than man. Like the priests, Hophni and Phineas, taking God for granted usually emanates from dangerous familiarity and low view of God’s greatness and glory. As such, the bilble instructs and warns God's children against over-familiarity with God in Psalm 89:7: "God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, And to be held in reverence by all those around Him." When God's people slips into the error of over-familiarity with the Great Potentate King, that perceptual error invariably manifests itself in the way we conduct ourselves in His presence, and how we handle holy things. We would do well to learn from the story of Eli and his two sons. We must desist from treating God like a man. In fact, the scary thing is that, in most cases, God's children treat Him less than they treat mortal men. Yet God asks, “To whom then will you liken Me, Or to whom shall I be equal?" says the Holy One" (Isaiah 40:25).
Are their ways in which you also could be taking God for granted in your life because you have failed to recognize His glory and greatness? For example, using the holy name of God in vain, using God's holy name with profanity, lying and yet swearing in God's name - all these equal dishonoring and profaning His name. What about making a vow or pledge before God, while knowing fully well that you could or would not perform the terms of the pledge? How about walking into the church service at anytime that it's convenient for you to get there (of course God should understand that your schedule is very tight)? What about knowingly disregarding what God has been telling you to do or stop doing? If you are a church worker, a choir member, an usher, a Sunday School teacher, a teacher, or a minister, but you are living in fornication or adultery, but you still boldy come to the altar of God Sunday after Sunday to perform holy duties before God, is that not taking God's hoiness and presence for granted? Like Priest Eli, how many pastors and preachers are aware of the unholy and defiled lifestyles of their parishioners and choose to look the other way? What about parents who are aware of the ungodly lifestyle of their children and simply dismiss it as “just being teens” or “just being rebellious.”
As a pastor or a parent, when you know that those under your care are living contrary to God's ordinances and you are mute about it, you are basically honoring them above God, which is the same as being complicit to the sin of taking God for granted. In fact, that was the very sin God accused Eli of in verse 29 of the same chapter (1 Samuel 2:29). There many ways in which God's own children slight Him. As a child of God, you must never forget that the same loving God has also given His children a cautionary advice: "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28-29; emphasis added). If this scripture is what is sounds like - God is a consuming fire - then it doesn't sound like a good idea to take God for granted. That would mean taking fire for granted.