Ichabod: When the Glory Departs (Part 2)

When Ichabod Meets Restoration

Roughly 3,000 years have passed since the prophet Samuel recorded this history in the book of 1 Samuel. Eli was the high priest — old, with failing eyesight — and it was a season of real decline in Israel's devotion to God. The cancer of living like the ungodly nations around them had become the norm.

Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were in charge. Here is what God's word says about them:

The sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord. (1 Samuel 2:12)

Now the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord, for the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt. (1 Samuel 2:17)

Eli was very old, but he was aware of what his sons were doing to the people of Israel. He knew, for instance, that his sons were seducing the young women who assisted at the entrance of the Tabernacle. (1 Samuel 2:22)

This isn't just an old, old story. Hophni and Phinehas weren't trying to hide their behavior — the other worshippers knew about it and reported it to Eli himself. You'd think Eli would have told them, "You two can fool people, but you will never fool your Maker." Instead, when Phinehas's wife was near death giving birth to their child, she named the boy Ichabod — meaning "the glory of God has departed."

An Old Story, A Familiar World

Does something that happened 3,000 years ago still resemble the time we live in? Look around. Shame — what is that anymore? Truth, morality, honesty, decency, treating others the way you'd want to be treated — all of it dismissed as old-fashioned. We live in a modern age where it's all about me, myself, and I. The same cancer that destroyed the Israelites in that era is destroying the world each of us inhabits today. Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves (Matthew 7:15).

The Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated — every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was great; Israel lost 30,000 foot soldiers. The ark of God was captured, and Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died as well (1 Samuel 4:10–11).

God Restores What Was Lost

God always finds a way to restore His glory. In that same household where Eli raised those two scoundrels, young Samuel was also being raised. Samuel was likely around three years old when his mother, Hannah, brought him to live at the temple with Eli. From Samuel to David — the man after God's own heart — the glory that Hophni and Phinehas had trampled began to be revived.

Simple, Yet Complex

The glory of God is both deeply simple and deeply complicated for mere mortals like us.

It's utterly simple when you read verses like these: So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3:17). How much more simple could God make it? Anything and everything we do, from the moment we wake until we lay our head on the pillow, done with that attitude — learning to pray as David prayed: "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you" (Psalm 19:14).

But while God can guide us to live for His glory in the simplest terms, living it out is also deeply complex. Ask the Apostle Paul. There's another law at work in him — and in you and me — a sin nature we all inherited from our first father, Adam. He described it this way:

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (Romans 7:14–20, excerpted)

Your problem, my problem, and the problem of everyone who deeply longs to live for the glory of God is this: as long as we breathe, we carry sin — a sin that always wants more. Whatever your "more" is, it might be money, fame, status, a bigger house, or the latest toys in the driveway. For Hophni and Phinehas, it was the best cuts of meat worshippers brought for sacrifice, and the women at the temple they could seduce. Phinehas had a wife at home, expecting their child — and she wasn't anywhere near the top of his mind.

David's Difference

It wasn't just those two scoundrels. Consider David, the man who wrote most of the psalms we love to read and memorize. Things were finally going well for him. Saul was dead, and no one was trying to assassinate him anymore. He could finally take it easy after years of running — a good delegator now, with time for afternoon naps and evening strolls around the palace grounds.

Then his eyes caught something: a woman bathing. A king gets what a king wants. He sent a soldier to find out who she was. The soldier did some reconnaissance and reported back: "King, her name is Bathsheba — she's the wife of Uriah, and Uriah is one of our loyal soldiers, currently on the battlefield fighting for us." The king answered, "Don't worry about the details. Nobody will know. Don't you know I'm the king?"

If only that soldier had reminded him: the wages of sin is death. Of course — Paul hadn't written that yet. We all know the rest of the story. If only David had known the cost of that temptation before he paid it.

Here's the difference between Hophni, Phinehas, and King David: David knew how to repent — something those two priests never learned. Without repentance, faith is worthless. A life without repentance toward our Maker, and toward those we've wronged, without the least bit of remorse — what value does that faith really have? Read Psalm 51 to see what real repentance sounds like. David knew how to swallow his pride and lay his whole wretched sin before God and the world. That's why God called him "a man after my own heart."

Far Too Easily Pleased

C.S. Lewis put his finger on our real problem. In The Weight of Glory, he argued that our trouble isn't that our desires are too strong — it's that they're too weak. We're like a child content to keep making mud pies in a slum because he can't imagine what's being offered when someone invites him to a holiday at the sea. We settle for far too little. That's your problem, and mine.

God has always found a way to cut the umbilical cord tying us to this world and make us His own. God the Father sent Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, to become sin on our behalf — so that we would no longer need to be slaves to Satan or to the things of this world.

Signed, But Not Yet Received

Jesus Christ paid the price for all our sins — past, present, and future — on a cross 2,000 years ago.

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring freedom for enslaved people. But geography, war, and deliberate suppression kept that news from reaching everyone. It wasn't until Union troops landed in Galveston, Texas — two and a half years later — that many enslaved people finally learned they were free. On paper, the proclamation existed from day one. In practice, many people continued living as slaves for two and a half more years, simply because they hadn't received the news.

What about you? Jesus signed your emancipation on a cross 2,000 years ago. If you only knew — it was God Almighty Himself, hanging there as Jesus Christ, to redeem you and me and set us free from slavery to Satan and to the things of this world.

You now have the freedom to live for the glory of God — to spend your days serving Jesus Christ, from life's smallest matters to its most important ones. Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. When Christ crucified becomes your reason to take another breath and live another day, you'll understand the hunger behind the old hymn "Give Me Jesus" — the conviction that no matter what the world has to offer, Jesus alone is enough, in life and at the hour of death. Someone with that kind of hunger for God knows what it means to live and die for His glory.

The wicked flee when no one pursues them, but the righteous are as bold as a lion... Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity (Proverbs 28:1, 13–14).

God created you and me for His glory. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1–2).

Those who make every effort to understand God's living Word — the Bible — and to obey it through the power of the Holy Spirit, are the ones truly living for the glory of God.