Fairhaven Shorts 6-2-2024

Sins of Omission

Eli is about to fall, because Eli's sons have been blaspheming God over and over. Specifically, they have been verbally abusing the worshippers that come into the temple. They have been stealing the offerings that people were giving to God and claiming them for themselves. And they were forcing the female servants in the temple to have sex with them.

So Eli, their father, didn't take any part of this, but he didn't stop them. And the Bible tells us that in general, there are two types of sins. Sins of commission, things we do we shouldn't do, and sins of omission, things that we don't do that we should do. And Eli's sins have been committing both, and Eli himself hasn't been doing anything about it.

And God says to Samuel, I have told Eli that I'm about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew because his sons were blaspheming God and he did not restrain them.

God Knows Us Completely

For all of us imperfect human beings to stop and think about how well God knows us can be a bit awkward, unnerving to think that God knows every thought, every daydream, every little thing we do. As David says, God, you know when I sit down, you know when I get up. You can see my very thoughts, you know every word before I speak it. And David says such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

And the word wonderful here doesn't mean how exciting. It means how incomprehensible. It goes beyond understanding how well God knows us.