God Never Forgets

As the troublesome period of the judges was coming to a close in early Israeli history, God appointed Eli as a priest and judge of Israel (1 Sam 1). Eli knew the Lord and was able to point young Samuel in His direction when necessary (1 Sam 3:8). Eli's sons, who were also priests, did not know the Lord (1 Sam 2:12). They continued sinning by seducing female workers in the tabernacle and stealing God's portion of the Hebrews' sacrifices. Eli knew about it and, by default, participated in the sons' sins as he refused to discipline his sons. That's why the Lord promised in 1 Sam 2:27ff. to remove Eli's family from the royal priesthood, not allowing any of his family members to live long or serve as priests. To confirm this, God's prophet predicted that the sons (Hophni and Phinehas) would die on the same day. They did in battle.

Now let's fast-forward to 1 Kings 2:21. Israeli history records the deaths of Hophni, Phinehas, Eli, and Ichabod's mother in 1 Sam 4. Though occasional characters pop up, the fulfillment of the prophecy above seems complete (or forgotten) until this 1 Kings passage. Abiathar the priest had been faithful to David for most of his reign. After David's death, however, Abiathar did not support David's choice to put Solomon on the throne. Solomon didn't murder Abiathar because of his faithfulness to David. However, he deposed Abiathar of his priestly duties. Check out 1 Kings 2:27, which indicates that this deposition was meant to fulfill the Lord's prophecy originally given to Eli at Shiloh.

We're talking about a VERY old prophecy that came when Samuel was just a boy, before he became a judge, before Eli died, before Saul was king, before David was king, before all the wars, and before Solomon was king. God never forgets, does he?

Why is this blessing me so much? It blesses me because one might ordinarily think that it's a small prophecy to fulfill after so many years had passed. I'm not sure that the majority of God's followers would notice had Zadok simply remained high priest with Abiathar on staff. That's just not how God works though. He says it and He does it.

If He does this in something that seems relatively insignificant to our salvation, what about the big things? What about His promise that He has already overcome the world? What about His promise that He's coming back to take us to the place He is preparing? What about His promise to keep us for eternity? We serve the God who doesn't forget things, small or big. We serve the God who has promised to draw all people to Himself, who is doing it, and who is making us completely new people who live in the freedom of life in the Kingdom of Heaven! Praise Him forever!