Show Notes
1 Samuel 3:1-4-1
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Amen.
[00:00:07] Let's pray now and ask God to bless us as we come to the reading and preaching of his word.
[00:00:14] Our heavenly Father, we thank you for the words that we have already spoken by your power and the words that you have spoken to us by your strength. We ask, Lord, that you would continue to communicate to us now and that we would be hearers, believers, doers of your word. We thank you that we have so much access to the word of God, written, preached, shared in various ways, taught in various ways.
[00:00:52] Please illumine our minds that we might understand, work in our hearts, that we might believe and act.
[00:01:02] And as we pray for ourselves, Lord, we also pray for others here in our own presbytery and around the world. We pray for the new church work in Levine. We pray for Pastor Johnson and ask that you would bless them as they meet this morning. We pray for Joanna Grove and the other servants serving in Uganda, that their work would be faithful and true and that your word would be established there. We pray for all the churches that are closed this morning throughout the southeast and all the people there as they suffer under the floods and storm damage. Please encourage them and allow your light to shine brightly in the midst of so much destruction. And we pray for our church family members who are not able to be here this morning, be due to health or other reasons. We ask that you would bless them and encourage them where they are.
[00:02:06] Lord, as we come to your word, help us to be good listeners, to be attentive. And I ask that you would encourage me and strengthen me in clarity as I preach. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:02:24] Well, please remain standing and let's turn to first Samuel chapter three as we continue through this book and see the ways in which God is establishing his people.
[00:02:41] This is a wonderful piece of the history of our church family. I'm going back a very long way, of course, to those who have come before us, to the ways that God is working in their lives.
[00:02:58] Here we see the continuing of what we've already heard, the fall of Eli and in the midst of that, the call of Samuel and the Lord establishing his word among Israel.
[00:03:15] So one Samuel, chapter three through chapter four, verse one.
[00:03:22] Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli and the word of the Lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision and at that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was.
[00:03:48] Then the Lord called Samuel. And he said, here I am, and ran to Heli and said, here I am, for you called me. But he said, I did not call. Lie down again. So he went and lay down.
[00:04:04] And the Lord called again Samuel.
[00:04:07] And Samuel arose and went to Heli and said, here I am, for you called me. But he said, I did not call my son. Lie down again.
[00:04:16] Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord. And the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Heli and said, here I am, for you called me. Then Eli perceived that the lord was calling the boy.
[00:04:34] Therefore Eli said to Samuel, go lie down. And if he calls you, you shall speak. Or you shall say, speak, lord, for your servant hears. So Samuel went and laid down in his place.
[00:04:48] And the Lord came and stood calling as at other times Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said, speak, for your servant hears. Then the Lord said to Samuel, behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel. At which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle on that day. I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever. For the iniquity that he knew. Because his sons were blaspheming God. And he did not restrain them. Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli. That the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.
[00:05:33] Samuel lay until morning.
[00:05:36] Then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel was afraid to tell thee a vision to Eli. But Eli said to Samuel or called Samuel and said, samuel, my son. And he said, here I am. And Eli said, what was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you. And more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you. So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said, it is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.
[00:06:13] And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him. And let none of his words fall to the ground.
[00:06:19] And all Israel from DAN to BEErsheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh. For the lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.
[00:06:34] And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. You may be seated.
[00:07:02] A lot of people struggle today with wanting to find connection with goddess.
[00:07:08] They want to find something in the world, something in the universe, something out there, something that's bigger than themselves.
[00:07:20] But I don't think people really would just want a higher power. They want a deep and true relationship with the truth, with reality. And we could say, even with God himself, people want to know that what they do, what they hope for, what they strive for, that these things are not in vain, that life is not pointless, that life is not just a vanity of vanities and chasing after the wind. They want connection. They want communion. We want connection. We want communion. But we struggle to find that. We wonder if we have it with God.
[00:08:04] I remember once as a kid, and I was lying on this rock, wondering if God was really there.
[00:08:14] I remember laying on that rock, looking up at the clouds, and I thought, okay, here's what I'll do. This is a true story. I said, here's what I'll do. I will command that cloud to move.
[00:08:27] And if the cloud moves, that will be my sign that God is present and that he hears me and these kind of things.
[00:08:36] Now, the cloud moved. But I'll tell you what, it didn't give me much confidence, despite the fact that I'm the one that set the whole thing up, prepared the sign, prepared the test and all of that.
[00:08:48] Why didn't it give me much confidence? Why wasn't I all of a sudden assured of the Lord's will for my life and his presence and connection with me? Well, you probably know some of the answers. First of all, this wasn't a test that God gave me. It was a test I decided to put on him, which he has no obligation to take.
[00:09:11] The second of that is, I had all kinds of other doubts, right? Was it my imagination that the cloud moved? Was it? Of course, the wind. Clouds move all the time.
[00:09:21] There's a better way of finding connection and communion with God than making up tests and creating silly signs.
[00:09:32] The better way is to look at the scriptures, at the hundreds of tests and proofs that God has already given to us, that he is who he is, that he will do what he says. He will do tests that he's already passed, things he's already accomplished. In Samuel's case, we read that he did not let the words that he gave Samuel fall from his mouth. He made Samuel faithful, sure, true, just like the priests, the promised priest. From the last chapter, God speaks to Samuel, and Samuel listens.
[00:10:14] That's how there's communion and connection with God.
[00:10:19] And that's what we have to learn if we're going to have fellowship with the Lord. If we're going to commune with the alpha and omega of all things, we have to hear what he says and respond. If we're going to glorify and enjoy God now and forever, we need to find communion, communication in listening, in responding, attuning to what God says, especially through his prophets, and especially, especially through the last and final, the chief of all the prophets of the Lord Jesus, the apex.
[00:11:01] And we'll talk about what this looks like this morning. But first, let's think a little bit more about the connection between communion and communication.
[00:11:11] The connection between communion and communication.
[00:11:15] We can start by thinking about human relationships first, and we can look at an intimate relationship like marriage.
[00:11:24] Marriage is formed when a covenant is made. And you know, as covenant OPC, right, that a covenant is a solemn promise that establishes a relationship. A covenant is a promise that establishes a relationship. When two people get married, they hear the promises that one another make, and in that a marriage is formed.
[00:11:51] And we can say also that it's through communication that a marriage is kept.
[00:11:58] If we don't talk to one another, if we don't communicate with one another, people quickly fall apart.
[00:12:05] This is how we know one another. This is how we come.
[00:12:10] That's okay. This is how we come together.
[00:12:15] This is very memorably captured in the word intercourse, which is a word that both means physical intimacy and union. And also, we don't use it this much anyway anymore. But conversation, a word that we see both of these meanings coming together in intimacy, in unity, in fellowship and communion. But also in communication, there's a giving of one to another.
[00:12:46] If couples or friends or bosses and employees or citizens want to be close to one another, if we want to be united with one another, we have to learn to listen. We have to learn to listen and listen well.
[00:13:06] There's a sociologist or psychologist, I forget how he describes himself, who describes good listening. John Gottman is his name, and he's published a number of books, a lot of where he studies couples. They go into this place, I think it's called the love lab, and he brings them in, and they've been doing this for years. They've analyzed hundreds, maybe thousands of couples, and they watch them have conversations, and they take little detailed notes and analyze everything, and then they come up with conclusions about what brings about failures in relationships, what brings about success in relationships, what does listening actually look like? What does it mean?
[00:13:55] And he came up with a helpful acronym that I share with couples and premarital counseling and try to think about myself in my own marriage and other relationships, that acronym is attune. Att.
[00:14:08] U n e a tune. A stands for attend. Right? To give attend or attention to someone who is speaking. It's the first part of listening. Right. If you're not doing, if you're not attending to them at all, it's hard to imagine how you're listening. And there's various ways in which we don't attend. Well, in our listening. Right. We're distracted, we're doing other things, that kind of thing. The two t's stand for turn toward. In relationships, he advises that you physically face the person. Right. There's a difference between if I'm talking to you like this and I'm talking to you like this, there's a difference to turn toward. It's interesting that many of the metaphors used in scripture about the Lord's relationship to us have to do with turning right his face toward his people or away from his people. When we turn towards someone, there's fellowship, there's intimacy, there's communion, and it's an important part of listening.
[00:15:19] U stands for understand.
[00:15:22] Understanding means that we listen to what they say, trying to understand what they're saying and why it's important to them.
[00:15:31] What are they saying? Why is it important to them?
[00:15:35] N is non defensive listening. Kind of an. A little bit of an awkward one there, but you get the idea. Non defensive listening. As we hear what they're saying, as we listen to what is being said, we're not instantly coming up with reasons why we should push back.
[00:15:54] Now, there's times to push back. There's times to disagree. There's times to even be defensive, honestly. But there's also a sense in which, in the task of listening, there ought to be openness, a sense in which one is truly trying to hear and understand.
[00:16:13] The last letter here is e, and that's empathize. We don't want to just hear what they're saying and why they're saying it, but we want to understand what they're feeling and why they're feeling it.
[00:16:28] Now, as you think about these different aspects of good listening, think about which one maybe you're weakest with. Right? Is it attending to the person? Is it turning toward?
[00:16:41] Is it understanding or non defensive listening? Or is it empathizing?
[00:16:49] Recently, I was trying to help someone, and it wasn't working. I got kind of frustrated about it. I was trying to help someone. I was paying attention. I was turning toward them, I was understanding, I was being non defensive. And yet I got this strong reaction back of like, you're not helping.
[00:17:10] What? I'm doing everything right. I think in my mind, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do. I'm being open, I'm being quiet, I'm all these sort of things. I'm right here.
[00:17:21] But I was missing one.
[00:17:23] I was missing the e. I wasn't empathizing, I wasn't getting in their shoes, I wasn't understanding their feelings, I wasn't letting my heart, in some ways, sync with theirs, not realizing that it was shocking and frustrating. I thought I felt like I was doing everything right, being a good pastor, listening well, and yet there was something that was missing there, and perhaps you felt that, too. You feel like someone's listening to you, and yet when they respond to you like, they don't get it, they don't understand what I'm going through, and there can be a frustration there, so you can pick yours. Empathy might be mine, maybe you have another one. But this kind of listening as a holistic thing is really important. And when we don't listen, you all know the consequences. Things fall apart fairly fast.
[00:18:20] We get frustrated, there's misunderstandings, we push back on one another, and if things get bad enough, we turn away and we say, I just can't do this anymore. This is not working. And sometimes that is the best thing to do because it's all that there's left. But that's not what our goal is, of course, in communion. Togetherness.
[00:18:44] Our goal is togetherness, and we achieve that largely in part through good communication.
[00:18:54] That's all true of human relationships. And that should be really obvious. And there's all kinds of scriptures that talk about these things, about how we are slow to speak and quick to listen, and these kinds of things.
[00:19:08] What I want to say this morning is that everything that I'm saying about these, our human relationships is also true of our relationship with the Lord.
[00:19:19] We are called to listen to him.
[00:19:23] And not in a kind of half hearted, sort of, kind of defensive way, are we?
[00:19:29] No. We're called to really attend to what he's saying, make time to hear his words.
[00:19:37] We're to turn toward him. We can't do that physically, obviously, but we do it in our hearts. We do it when we position our hearts and ourselves as eager to hear, ready to hear.
[00:19:54] When we seek to understand God's word, we do it when we hear the words and we think about them. We don't just assume we know what he means as soon as he says it. No, we study it. We have Bible studies for a reason. We are trying to understand.
[00:20:11] We are trying to hear what he's saying, understand why he's saying it, not just in this part, but also in this part, and hold it all together.
[00:20:22] We are to be non defensive when we listen to the Lord, when the Lord speaks, I promise you that your flesh is constantly rising up in you, trying to come up with excuses to not hear the word of the Lord.
[00:20:37] Satan will tempt you with ways to mishear, to misunderstand the word of God. We have to mortify that, push it down, push it away, and be ready to hear and to receive.
[00:20:56] One of the favorite things that I heard when I was in seminary, this is from Michael Horton. And he might have gotten it from somewhere else, but he said, in order to understand anything, you have to stand under it.
[00:21:09] There's a humility that has to happen when we learn, and especially when we hear and we learn from the Lord. We are to be non defensive. What right do we have to be defensive with the Lord, with human beings? Perhaps you could make a case that in this or that instance, we should be on guard. Certainly. But with God, no.
[00:21:33] We have a good example in Eli. When he says, after pressing Samuel for the word that God had spoken to him, he then says in verse 18, it is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him, or job putting his hand on his mouth. I am done.
[00:21:58] I am not going to say anything anymore. Speak, o Lorde. I am a hearer. There's humility and non defensive this and that, and of course, empathy. Now, it's not right to say that God feels in the same way that human beings feel, or that he speaks in the same way human beings speak, or any of these things. But there is a parallel here in that our hearts are supposed to be after his heart.
[00:22:26] Remember how we thought about this, in the words that were spoken in the last chapter, about this faithful priest to come, our savior Jesus, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my soul.
[00:22:42] We are to align our feelings and our thoughts and our consciences and our whole inner selves and lives with the Lord, loving what he loves, hating what he hates. And sometimes there are ways in which God is speaking, these emotional ways in which God is speaking that we're not always paying attention to.
[00:23:06] At least I'll speak for myself as one who maybe struggles a little bit with empathy. How do we align ourselves with God's feelings? Are we upset about the things he's upset about? Do we burn with passion and zeal? In the way the Lord does, for the things he does. This is part of listening to him, getting in sync with him, if I can say, having communion and fellowship with him to strengthen these kinds of things. You could think about their opposites, right? Turning away from God, not wanting to understand his word, misinterpreting, misrepresenting or just feeling and living in whatever kinds of ways we want to, contrary to who he is. That's nothing, not true. Listening.
[00:23:57] Now all of this really matters and comes out in one Samuel. Because we have this great story about a young man who has not yet, we read in verse seven, did not yet know the Lord in this extraordinary way as a prophet, that he would soon the Lord had not yet been revealed to him again in this way. That's about to happen. But that's happening. It's coming. We see the story about this young man, probably about twelve years old, something like that. At this point in time, who's trying to be responsive, who's trying, who is in some ways very close to the Lord. It says he's sleeping near the ark of the Lord. Certainly, I think we could probably suppose that he's not in the most holy place, but outside of it, in the temple somewhere.
[00:24:50] We read that it's the middle of the night. The light of the Lord that menorah, that lamp of the Lord that is outside of the curtain that was outside of the most holy place is still burning, lit at the beginning of the night, fading out throughout the course.
[00:25:08] It's probably the middle of the night.
[00:25:11] Samuel hears this word and he thinks it's Eli.
[00:25:17] He's not quite hearing. It's not his fault, right? The Lord has not yet revealed himself to Samuel in this way. It specifically says this. The Lord is not criticizing Samuel or faulting Samuel. Samuel seems to be doing what he should do.
[00:25:34] But nevertheless he doesn't have that same revelation that he will in a little bit, does he? At the beginning of the story, the same kind of fellowship, the same kind of communion that he will as a prophet. And this reminds us that we do not hear the word of the Lord unless the Lord speaks.
[00:25:55] We're totally, 100% dependent on that. We don't just lay on rocks and command God to do things.
[00:26:05] We are receivers of what he does. Listeners to what he says.
[00:26:12] Samuel and you and I are all totally dependent on the word of the Lord being spoken to us. And here the Lord speaks.
[00:26:24] The Lord speaks and he calls Samuel. And Samuel responds, of course, he goes to Eli. Eli says, I didn't call you go back. There's a kind of increasing intensity. And then finally, Eli perceives we readdez in verse eight that the Lord was calling the boy.
[00:26:42] It's very interesting here that Eli does not hear any of this.
[00:26:47] Samuel's hearing it. Another reminder that we hear what we hear.
[00:26:54] The Lord is first in this, as he speaks.
[00:26:58] This is connected with Eli and all that is happening to him. It's a sad story in some ways, mixed with this, the glory of the Lord calling Samuel. We see Eli fading.
[00:27:13] At the beginning of the story, we read that the word of the Lord was rare in those days, not a good sign.
[00:27:23] There was no frequent vision.
[00:27:26] Just as God, one commentator I read said insightfully, just as the Lord can take away food, the Lord can take away words.
[00:27:38] Things were not good in Israel. And we know some of the reason why, when we think about Eli and his sons and the things that they were doing in the temple of the Lord, called to minister to the Lord and serve his people. And instead, in this audacious way, they were taking the offerings that belong to Goddesse. They were sleeping with women who were called, who were part of the ministry.
[00:28:05] They were abusing and stealing from the people of God and all out of their office as priests. It's horrible. And they were doing it a long time, and they were doing it in these egregious ways. And it was well known, the word of the Lord.
[00:28:25] The vision of the word was rare. It was not frequent.
[00:28:30] And I think there's something of a parallel here, intentional parallel, as the Holy Spirit tells us that the eyesight of Eli had been grown to grow dim.
[00:28:42] I think it means physically he was old and blind.
[00:28:48] He could not see. But it's also a spiritual meaning, isn't it as well this verse two, right on the tails of the tale of there was no frequent vision. He could not see.
[00:29:01] Not that physical eyesight is necessarily tied to spiritual eyesight.
[00:29:08] But in all of these ways we see Eli is not doing well.
[00:29:14] He is dying.
[00:29:17] He is finding greater and greater separation from the Lord.
[00:29:22] But there is this hopeful word, a kind of double meaning in verse three when it says, the lamp of God had not yet gone out.
[00:29:32] I think on the one hand, the Holy Spirit, as he narrates this passage for us, on the one hand he's just telling us the time of day, that this is night. It explains why Samuel is sleeping and why Eli is in his room and the getting up and going back and forth and all of this. But there's something else there, I think, as well.
[00:29:52] He's not just an indication of the time of day that all of this happens, that the lamp of the Lord was burning. But it was a promise that the Lord was still present.
[00:30:03] That despite the darkness of vision, despite the darkness that was in the heart of Eli and his sons and the people of Israel as a whole, the Lord was still at work. The lamp of God had not yet gone out.
[00:30:19] And then the Lord calls to Samuel.
[00:30:22] Here I am.
[00:30:24] Samuel says God heard the prayer of Samuel's mother.
[00:30:31] He prayed and she responded. And now God speaks to her son. He calls him this one who, God.
[00:30:42] This one who is named after God's action of listening is now calling. And he calls Samuel eventually to the point of coming very close to him. Did you notice the detail in verse ten?
[00:30:57] At first there's this auditory thing that's happening. Samuel hears. And then in verse ten it says the Lord came and stood calling as at other times Samuel.
[00:31:10] And then again his name, Samuel.
[00:31:14] What's probably happening here is some kind of theophany, a vision of God in some way in which Samuel not only hears but now sees the Lord in some way.
[00:31:28] It doesn't describe why. And this is the only time this word stood is used in the Bible to describe of the action of the Lord. This coming and this standing.
[00:31:38] What do we have here, especially as we compare it with other passages of scripture? We have the calling of a prophet.
[00:31:46] We have the calling of a prophet. God is establishing Samuel as his mouthpiece. God is revealing himself to this boy and he is going to speak his words to him. And Samuel partly through the ministry of Eli to the praise of God is prepared.
[00:32:07] Speak for your servant. Hears.
[00:32:12] Samuel had identified himself as Eli's servant and he was. And now he identifies himself as the Lord's servant, as he is.
[00:32:22] And then the Lord gives Samuel this hard word, Eli, a kind of spiritual father, this old man that he works with and has been with presumably every day since he was probably about three years old when he was weaned and Hannah brought him to the temple. You have about a decade of relationship, all of these kinds of things. The Lord speaks this word against Elijah.
[00:32:56] We can probably presume that at the age of twelve and being sensitive to the things of the Lord, Samuel not only knew Eli in the good things but probably in the bad things.
[00:33:09] Some way or another, this boy had also been seeing the things that were going on, watching the things that were happening in the temple.
[00:33:18] And we can point out was preserved by God from those evil things as God prepared him.
[00:33:26] A wonderful thing that God was doing in the life of Samuel, preserving him, preparing him, protecting him from the things that were going on even before he officially calls him.
[00:33:38] And then he calls him and he hears this hard word against Eli, the word that the Lord says will make the ears tingle, a word that's used, a metaphor, that's used in other places of coming judgment.
[00:33:56] Samuel's hesitant.
[00:33:58] He doesn't want to say to Eli. He maybe even seems to be kind of avoiding him. He goes and he opens the doors of the temple. He's away from Eli enough that Eli has to call to him and I was going to say encourage. It's more than encouragement, right? He threatens Samuel with a curse. Right? May the Lord do to you, and even more if you do not tell me this. That's an intense way to talk to a twelve year old.
[00:34:32] So Samuel says, samuel speaks to Eli the word of the Lord. And the scriptures emphasize that he told him everything.
[00:34:42] Why? Because that's what a prophet does.
[00:34:46] That's what a prophet does. And that's what someone who is in communion with the Lord does, who hears and listens and responds not in his own way, not in accord with his own frustrations or feelings or fears, but in accord with what God has said.
[00:35:03] He speaks of the word of the Lord. Verse ten we read that he let none and then the Lord, as Samuel grew, let none of his words fall to the ground.
[00:35:17] Verse 20, the comprehensiveness and the certainty of Samuel as prophet is mentioned. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord. That's what's going on here, isn't it? Samuel is being established as the prophet of the Lord.
[00:35:36] So we have all of these notes about hearing Eli. You remember in the last chapter was not hearing well, we see he's not hearing the word of the Lord. But what is he hearing? All the reports of his sons. He's hearing all of these reports that the sons are doing. And what does God say about them? He did not restrain them.
[00:36:01] He had power, he had opportunity, he had time, he had knowledge.
[00:36:07] But he didn't have the will.
[00:36:11] He didn't have the backbone.
[00:36:13] He didn't want to do it.
[00:36:16] You could probably guess all kinds of obvious reasons why he didn't do those things, based on your own reasons and the excuses that you've made, why you haven't done the things that you know you ought to do when you ought to have done them.
[00:36:30] But now things are clear. Now Eli's hearing. Now Eli is responding.
[00:36:37] He's attuning to the word of the Lord. And Samuel is attuning to the word of the Lord. And really there's a call here in all of this to Israel as God's people to hear, to attune to the word of God and to respond.
[00:36:53] Israel is supposed to recognize in this moment of history and in the moment in which the book is written that you need to listen to the Lord. That's the whole problem. It's the problem in Eli's household. It's the problem in Israel. It's the problem throughout the judges. It's the problem in our own lives. We're not listening. We're not hearing.
[00:37:16] We're going our own way. We're doing our own thing. We don't know our right hand from our left hand.
[00:37:22] The Lord's word brings clarity.
[00:37:25] The Lord's word brings judgment, and the Lord's word brings salvation. And here that salvation is coming in the raising up of this prophet in marriage and friendship and other relationships, we might say we could put a bumper stick on that whole thing and say, listen or fall apart. Listen or die. And that's really true when it comes to our relationships or our relationship with the Lord.
[00:37:56] Matthew four four. Jesus speaks to Satan and says, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
[00:38:08] How do you live? By every word that comes from the mouth of God, not by food.
[00:38:15] It's pretty clear. John 663.
[00:38:19] Jesus says, it is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
[00:38:32] To listen is to live.
[00:38:36] To listen is to live, to not listen, to not attune. To walk away is to die.
[00:38:45] And in this story, we see how that communion is entirely based on communication. God communicating to Samuel his word, his power, his effectiveness. And by God's grace, Samuel hears, believes and obeys.
[00:39:01] Eli, on the other hand, has been hearing the word of the Lord, but failing to act on it, you might say, well, I thought Eli wasn't hearing the word of the Lord. Well, it's true. The word of God through the prophets was not frequent in those days. But what did Eli have? Eli had all the words that had been spoken before that time.
[00:39:23] Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, deuteronomy, and maybe also Joshua and judges and ruth.
[00:39:36] This knowledge of the word, I, the Lord, the things that have been spoken, at the bare minimum, the covenant that God made with Israel, this covenant in which he united with his people and established in the land and said, do this and you shall live.
[00:39:55] A covenant which also promised a prophet in Deuteronomy 18 that God would raise up. Moses says to the people in that chapter that the Lord would raise up one like him after him, by which the word of the Lord would be established.
[00:40:17] In this story we see not only in the individual moments of the lives of these people, but in the corporate life of the people of God, and even us as well, how God is working to communicate, to fulfill his promises. And he does so here through this prophet. That's the good news in this chapter.
[00:40:38] Even as God silence was deafening at this point in time, even as Eli couldn't hear, God was speaking a new word.
[00:40:47] And he was speaking this word through Samuel.
[00:40:50] This is a word that was a fulfillment of the old word in Deuteronomy 18, the word that the Lord would raise up. One would establish his words in his mouth and who would prove by his actions and words that God was with him and all this was happening with Samuel.
[00:41:10] This chapter is building our trust in Samuel as a prophet. But more importantly, Samuel is pointing forward to Jesus, this prophet that has come, that ultimately fulfills the things that Moses prophesied.
[00:41:26] When you think about Jesus in parallel with Samuel, think about these things.
[00:41:32] Did God raise him up in a lot of ways God did. From when he was conceived, when Jesus in his humanity was conceived to his rearing as Samuel was. We readdez that Jesus grew in stature, his body, his mind, his heart. These things grew.
[00:42:00] We read that Jesus was raised up into his ministry in his baptism. And we read finally that Jesus was raised up in his resurrection and then his ascension.
[00:42:14] There's no one that was raised up. We could say more than Jesus Christ. No one. And God himself of course, doing it all in the son of God who's forever in this amazing sense that any confidence and we should have a lot and Israel had a lot from Dan to Beersheba in Samuel. Think about the kind of confidence that we should have in Christ.
[00:42:41] The kind of confidence that we should have in Christ as we. I need to begin to close here. I want to remind you of this event that happens on something we call the mount of transfiguration. There's other ways of referring to it.
[00:43:00] There's this moment.
[00:43:02] I'll read to you what happens. Jesus goes up onto a mountain with Peter and James and John his brother.
[00:43:10] You'll see why this is very relevant in a moment.
[00:43:13] We read in the scriptures this he was transfigured before them. Jesus was. His face shone like sun, his clothes became white as light.
[00:43:23] And behold, he appeared to them with Moses and Elijah, these two other great prophets talking with him. And Peter said to the Lord, Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here. One for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.
[00:43:40] Peter was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And a voice from the cloud said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.
[00:43:58] Listen to him.
[00:44:00] When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, rise and have no fear. And when they lifted their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus. Only makes me want to cry. Can you imagine the power of that moment, seeing the Lord, the one that you're following? You literally are following as Christ followers, as disciples of Jesus, transfigured before your eyes in this vision like John has in revelation, bright and shining. And there's Moses and Elijah. It's pretty clear at this moment that Jesus is a prophet.
[00:44:48] He's standing with these prophets. He's there, transfigured in this way. He's fulfilling all these things. And then this bright cloud, a cloud in some ways similar, like, appeared, like the one that appeared on Mount Sinai when God spoke there. This cloud overshadows the whole thing. And the father speaks, says, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.
[00:45:18] It's time to listen. It's time to hear. And that's what they do. The disciples hear. They fell on their faces, and they were terrified because they heard what was spoken. And then they hear again.
[00:45:31] They hear again. Jesus touched them. He says, right. He says, he speaks. He communicates to them. He says, rise and have no fear.
[00:45:41] And they lifted up their eyes, and they saw no one but Jesus only. And they continue on. They didn't die. They lived because the Lord speaks.
[00:45:52] And they listened.
[00:45:55] Hebrews one one and verse two says this.
[00:46:00] It begins in this really epic way.
[00:46:03] If you haven't heard this in a while, this is great to hear. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he is spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he created the world.
[00:46:24] What an epic way to begin talking about how all the things in the Old Testament connect to the things that we have now and who Christ is.
[00:46:35] In these last days, God has spoken through his son.
[00:46:40] He's the new Samuel.
[00:46:42] Listen to him.
[00:46:46] We listen to him not only because he is the word of God. But he is the prophet of God, much like as he is also the priest and the sacrifice. Jesus is the whole package, as we might say.
[00:47:00] He brings all of these things together and he does it in speaking a word of judgment and a word of salvation, a word of judgment that comes against the world, against all of their sins and their high handedness, against God, against sins like Eli and blasphemy, and all the people of the world who give God the middle finger and say, I'm not listening to you, I'm out, I don't care, I don't love, I don't want, I want to do my own thing in my own way.
[00:47:30] Judgment.
[00:47:32] Life in God comes from listening to Goddesse, hearing and obeying.
[00:47:39] But we know who are sinners, who have done some of the very things I've just described, that there's no obeying God in the way that we need to obey. There's no listening to God in the way we need to listen apart from him working in us and changing us.
[00:47:58] And really even more than that, in simply giving to us all of the works of Christ, imputing to us his righteousness and taking all of our sins on himself.
[00:48:13] Jesus comes with this word of judgment, a judgment that is displayed publicly on the cross as Jesus takes on a sin, a judgment that will be very evident when he comes again.
[00:48:25] But it's also a message of salvation, a word that's preached over and over again, that if we hear the promise of faith, which is repent and believe, and you will be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Confess with your mouth that he is Lord. Confess with your mouth that he is God and you will be saved.
[00:48:48] As we put our faith on him, the Lord promises to lift us up.
[00:48:54] Just as Lazarus, who was dead, heard the word of Christ by the grace of God and left his tomb, we hear the word of the Lord calling to us and we say, here I am. How do we hear? By the miracle of the Lord, by him coming to us, by him revealing to us. But my question to you is, what do you do when you hear?
[00:49:17] You respond?
[00:49:19] You say, yes, Lord, here I am. Send me. I will go. I will listen. I will follow. Lay down your nets and follow me.
[00:49:29] Pick up your cross and follow me.
[00:49:33] This is my beloved son in whom I am pleased, well pleased. Listen to him.
[00:49:39] This is a story that reminds us of the enormous blessings of hearing that when God communicates to us and we listen to him, we find communion and fellowship with him.
[00:49:54] Those who spurn the word of the Lord will face great punishments. But those who return to the word of the Lord through the promise of the gospel will find salvation in this life and in the life to come.
[00:50:08] If you are feeling disconnected from God, if you feel like you would like greater fellowship or intimacy with him, you know what to do now.
[00:50:20] You need to listen to his words.
[00:50:24] You need to hear what he says. The promise that comes to us through Jesus the prophet. A promise that is strengthening and growing and crescendoing until this moment when Jesus comes. A promise which has this ripple effects throughout the world, that Jesus Christ comes to save sin.
[00:50:47] And as we put our faith in him, as we respond to him, we also obey him. We listen to his words and we heed them, and we are willing to sacrifice everything for him and for this salvation.
[00:51:01] If we are feeling disconnected from the Lord, we need to listen to the Lord. We need to attune to what God says each day.
[00:51:12] And so I ask you, as we close to simply think about your own life and the ways in which you do and you don't listen to the Lord.
[00:51:25] Do you spend time in his word?
[00:51:29] Do you have opportunities? Do you attend to hearing God?
[00:51:33] When you hear, do you turn your heart toward him? Do you seek to understand him? Do you seek to align your thoughts and your feelings with him?
[00:51:44] Or do you turn away?
[00:51:46] Do you throw up defenses? Do you make excuses?
[00:51:52] As we hear the story of Samuel, let's be excited about hearing the word of the Lord. Let's be thankful for the word of the Lord that we heard this morning. And as we think about our savior Jesus Christ, let's remember the word that he spoke over and over again.
[00:52:12] And let's remember the power that he exhibited as a prophet of God in his healing, in his raising, in his strengthening everyone who turned to him. That promise of salvation is for you as you believe in him. Let's pray.
[00:52:30] Our heavenly Father, we ask that you would humble our hearts before you and that you would make us zealous and eager to hear your word, to seek it and to find it. We thank you that you have spoken in Christ and that you have established that word of Christ through the apostles and prophets. We thank you that through Jesus Christ the world itself was created and that every mountain and tree, every fish and man were all under. And through a hymn.
[00:53:04] It is therefore to him we bow, to him. We listen not only for all the things in this life, but the life of the world to come.
[00:53:14] He is the one who speaks and brings the word of the Lord into existence, who causes us to rise from our tombs to find forgiveness for our sins, to find healing in our bodies.
[00:53:29] O Jesus, save us. Have mercy on us, for we are sinners. Speak to us not only a word of judgment, which is fair and right and true, but speak to us a word of grace. Give to us again the promise and hope of salvation, and help us to respond to believe and to trust.
[00:53:54] Trust in you for all things, to find fellowship with you, communion with you, and to follow you in every way. Help us to attune to you and all of our thoughts and our words and our works. Help us to praise you for all that you have done.
[00:54:10] We pray this in Jesus name, our only savior, prophet, priest, and king. Amen.
