ichabod

Read I Samuel 4 and Jude

And she named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel.” I Samuel 4:21

But these people blaspheme all they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them. Jude 10 & 11

The name Ihabod is a combination of two Hebrew words. The first part of the word is woe, which in Hebrew, is the sound of someone in mourning. It is also the word for a wolf or jackal, named for the howling sound these animals make in the middle of the night. The second part of the word is glory. You could say Ichabod means: woe has taken the place of glory.

If you have read I Samuel chapter 4 you will know that the mother who named her son Ichabod was the wife of Phinehas who was one of the two wicked sons of Eli the priest of Israel. Chapters 2 and 3 in I Samuel are prophesies against Eli because he refused to restrain the blasphemous behavior of his two sons.

There is a curious connection between religiousness and sexuality. The primitive religions all include some sort of fertility ritual. Eli’s two sons would have sexual relations with the women who ministered at the temple in Shiloh. To us, such behavior seems outrageous. It was an outrage to God. But among the primitive people, part of their religion was the sexual acts the priests had with the women who served at the temple.

In Proverbs we read the adulterer saying to her lover, “I have offered my sacrifices and today I have paid my vows; and now I have come to meet you.” Proverbs 7:14

Long before I came to know the Lord as my personal Savior, I loved religion. I was never more at peace than when I was singing one of the beautiful hymns like, “Oh My Savior Crucified,” or “The Holy One, who knew no Sin.” Feelings are not wrong. Some godly men have written that they are “soulish” and thus not worthy of a Christian. But I know from all the good emotions I feel when reading the Psalms that this is not correct. David wrote, “I was glad when they said unto me, “Let us go into the house of the Lord!” Psalm 122:1 King David was a man of great emotion,

At the same time, giving emotions a place of preeminence will quickly and grossly lead one astray. Our  feelings can truly magnify our praise to our glorious Lord but in a perverse, sexual context such feelings can cause us to excuse behavior that hideously shreds any glory that our Lord so wonderfully deserves—for what is more disreputable to the Lord than when one of those who claim His name fall into sexual sin?

We have a friend who has taken up a homosexual lifestyle. He has claimed that he has never felt closer to God since he has embraced this aberrant sexuality. We have another friend whose wife left him. She told him her reason for leaving was because God led her to this other man. “How can it be wrong, when it feels so right?” crooned pop/gospel singer Debbie Boone. These people are excusing their godless behavior in the name of “religion.”

Our Lord has His strongest words of condemnation for those who confuse and mix their sensuality with their religion—read the book of Jude.