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(compare with 1 Samuel 3:7): — Hophni and Phinehas did not know the Lord; their lives showed it. Samuel did not know the Lord, and his actions showed it also. But as between the illustrative acts, so also between the meaning of the words in the two cases, there is as wide a difference as it is possible to conceive. It will help us if we here remember how wide a ground in Scripture this expression "to knew" or "not to know the Lord" covers. The first form is at times a synonym for salvation, for the whole course of perfect redemption and complete sanctification. The second, the negative form, is one of the intensest expressions that Scripture uses to state the condition of a sinful soul, and for showing the origin of some of the darkest enormities that have ever degraded the name of religion. The New Testament puts this before us very definitely. When Christ would express His perfect Albion and intercourse with the Father even on earth, He said, "I am not come of Myself, but He that sent Me is true; whom ye know not, but I know Him." "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. O righteous Father, the world tins not known Thee, but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent me." John accounts for worldly antagonism to the saints of old in this way — "The world knoweth us not because it knew Him not."

I. THAT THE EXPRESSION "NOT KNOWING THE LORD" MAY IMPLY AND ACCOUNT FOR EVERY KIND AND DEGREE OF SIN. This is sinful ignorance of God. In the case now before use, it explains some of the most degrading transgressions of which man can be guilty.

1. But this sinful ignorance of God may co-exist with full knowledge of the truth of God — that is, intellectual knowledge, received by means of education, by example of others, by home training, by social custom or general habit. You may see this in the example of the two young priests. It is certain that they knew the law of the Lord which is perfect. They knew the truth of God, the ways of the Lord, the expectation and hopes of the Almighty that were associated with their priesthood and the offering of sacrifice. They knew the truth, but they knew not God. Their hearts and His were at enmity. Let us make the same distinction for ourselves, between knowing the truth of God and knowing the Lord; between knowing what God has said and knowing God Himself. Is it not one of the saddest facts that some of the worst lives are those that like Hophni and Phinehas know the way of the Lord, have had holy training and gentle nurture, many associations with God's house, much hearing the Word, and still show that they know not God? Not the knowledge of truth or forms of truth, not correct beliefs or anything of such kind can be depended on to put us right with our God.

2. Notice, again, that there is an ignorance of God that is sinful in its consequences, but is at the same time not guilty. We can understand the vast transgressions of great cities, the brutal tendencies of so large a mass of the population by remembering their inheritance of gross ignorance and animalism in body and mind, their entailed heritage of utter ignorance of God, of inability almost to realise or even to recognise a God and Father of love, or see any meaning in the cross whereon their sins were borne. Is not some of the responsibility resting with Christians, on whose part there has been neglect of extending the light of the glory of God.

3. We must further note that there are cases in which ignorance of the Lord is in it, self a greater transgression than the worst sins that it may beget or account for. These two priests ware as evil in some things as men could be. But more shameful than their deepest impiety was that which was the cause of it — even their wilful ignorance of God. There is practically no restraint left that can touch the heart. To know God is to have now the root of eternal life within us; not to know God is to have the seed of eternal death growing in us now, and in the world to come to be altogether defiled.

II. NOT KNOWING THE LORD MAY COMPRISE AND ACCOUNT FOR EVERY DEGREE OF IMMATURITY IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. There is a sinful ignorance, as we have seen; and now we have the ignorance of immaturity, of the childlike state. Of this state Samuel the child is the illustration. Samuel had had the preparatory training of his mother's love, the reverent guiding of his life along the way that literally leads to God; but still the moment of intelligent revelation of God to him had not yet come. His love to the Lord had grown like a little seedling plant; now it was to be transplanted into fuller soil, freer air — to have snore root room, more life room altogether. Stronger and more vigorous and bracing winds were to breathe their blessing upon it; hotter sunshine was to stimulate it; elements snore maturing were to lie about the roots. Soon the day of revelation, the night of the opening of heaven in solemnity to his young soul, came; but in prospect of that visitation by which his life was fixed forever, Samuel did not know the Lord. He rested till then as in the arms of God; he lived on God as once he had hung upon his mother's breast — not knowing the love that held him though he lived in it and by it; not seeing clearly the face that bowed over him in unspeakable affection, though his own features bore the same lines and carried the same marks. He did not yet know; but this was the ignorance of imperfect growth, of incomplete development. To some there may be a special need of considering this aspect of Samuel's life, and a particular advantage in noting its obvious meaning. For this certainly means that there may be life in God before there is intelligent recognition of it. The father sees his image in the child before the little one recognises it. The Lord was in our life, and we knew it not; nor did we know Him till He Himself drew aside the veil. Or, as it seemed at times, we rambled, as a child might in the tabernacle, into that which is within the veil, into the very Holy of Holies, and there, instead of mighty glory and awful power, we found One gentler than any of earth, a voice speaking more softly than a loving woman, saying, "My son, give Me thy heart!" and, as to presences, we could not see in the Holy Place, "This is My beloved Son." We knew not God, but he knew us as His. "I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known Me. I girded thee, though thou hast not known Me." "Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord." It may be Chat we are all involved, to some extent, in blame, for we have not attained that knowledge which depends on earnest seeking after God. God will not teach the souls that will not wait on Him. God cannot show His beauty to eyes that are turned away from Him. He can reveal His secret only to those that fear Him. If we give up life's strength, and all the power of our days, to one or to many inferior earthly things, giving to the Lord none of our strength, how can we expect the Lord's light and knowledge, with the consequent blessing of our advance in holiness, to be ours?

(G. B. Ryley.)

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KJV: Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the LORD.

WEB: Now the sons of Eli were base men; they didn't know Yahweh.