November 5, 2014
1st Samuel 3:1-21
God Speaks….
I Hearing It
II Knowing It
III Finding It
Tell the story of Winnie and Samuel…
Here are three questions that I want us to attempt to answer in this lesson: 1) Does God really speak to people today? 2) If so, how do we know that it is God Who is talking to us? 3.) And how do we find God’s voice?
In order to answer these questions, we’re going to discuss one of the sweetest stories in the Old Testament, little boy Samuel, recognizing God’s voice answering it’s call……
I Hearing It
When I read the story of Samuel’s call, I feel like it’s one of those momentous happenings in the Bible---it ranks right up there with:
Noah and the ark.
Moses in the basket in the Nile River.
David and Goliath.
Jonah and the great fish.
for the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.
Daniel in the Lion’s den
Samuel hearing God’s voice for the 1st time…
When this story occurred, Samuel was about 12 or 13 years old. He was the servant of the priest Eli, who was by then, a very old man. Samuel was given to God, which meant, to Eli, to serve him in the Tabernacle when he was around 3 years old-----just like his mother Hannah, had promised God that she would do, if He would just give her a baby….( the author informs us, Eli’s eyesight had greatly deteriorated, so that his vision is seriously impaired (see also 4:15). With Eli’s age, weight, and visual limitations, he needed the help of a boy like Samuel. Samuel could bring Eli a drink of water or run other errands for him. It was only natural for Samuel to assume that a call late at night would come from his master. Eli, to his credit, was obviously kind and gentle with the boy, but it seems like, from this account, that he had never taught Samuel to listen and hear God’s voice,…….Seven, for the call of Samuel.
The night that Samuel recognized God’s voice, both, he and Eli had turned in for the night. So, when God spoke to him, I imagine, that it was either the latest part of the night or the earliest part of the morning. The boy was sleeping close to the ark of the covenant, right outside of the Holy of Holies, which is right where he should have been as someone who belonged to the Lord God…(Samuel) a voice said, and woke him up…
Samuel, thinking that it was Eli who had called him, rushed out to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me?” The old priest says, “No, my boy, I didn’t call you – go back to bed.” So Samuel went back to bed.
Again, God called out to the boy,(Samuel) and again young Samuel went to Eli. “Here I am. You called me?” The old priest again says, “No my boy, I didn’t call you – go back to bed.”
When this happened the third time, Eli finally realized, that it must be God calling out to the Samuel. So he finally gave Samuel some instruction about what to say… to say, “speak Lord, for your servant hears you.’
Now, the question is…. Why did it take Eli – the priest – and Samuel the young boy, living in the tabernacle, three times, to finally figure out that it was God who was calling? In the case of Samuel, the answer is relatively simple. He hadn’t yet been instructed on how to recognize God’s voice. He was a young boy who was an apprentice – still learning the ropes.
But Eli – the priest – now there is a different story. You see, Eli had allowed himself to wander from God’s grace. Eli had permitted corruption to permeate the ministry that God had charged him to oversee. Eli’s two sons were also priests – but they treated the ministry with utter contempt. These religious leaders didn’t honor God. They robbed God by putting themselves first – they took the best of the offerings up front. They lived immoral and impure lives. They extorted God’s people by threatening to use force to get the best of the offerings.
In short, they were arrogant, self-important bullies. And Eli, their dad, could do nothing to control them. In referring to this situation, the Scriptures say: “Eli’s sons were wicked men; they had no regard for the LORD… This sin of the young men was very great in the LORD’S sight, for they were treating the LORD’S offering with contempt.” (1 Samuel 2:12, 17) So, God was going to take them out of the picture, and put someone in the picture, who heard Him and obeyed Him and loved Him….someone who would take care of His people not corrupt or hurt them…..
If you read the text closely, you will notice the problem was mentioned in the very first verse of chapter 3…. God wasn’t talking to Eli and to Eli’s sons anymore. The verse tells us that prophecy and visions from God had all but stopped. Our very first verse says: “…In those days a prophecy from the Lord was rare; visions were infrequent.” (1 Samuel 3:1) God had just pulled away – removed Himself - from the ministry that Eli and his sons exercised. His voice had become scarce; He didn’t want to be identified with them any more. It’s no wonder that Eli failed to recognize God’s call.
So in talking to the boy Samuel, God was demonstrating that the time of repentance for Eli’s sons had long past, and that they were not going to get another chance, He had given them countless chances, and they had ignored Him, so He was going to give His voice to Samuel....
God still struggles to talk to people….people who aren’t listening, who have forgotten what His voice sounds like, or who have even forgotten that He still desires to come to us… to draw us close. And the reality is, that we remove ourselves from Him. We grieve the Spirit, by going our own way and by allowing our own sinfulness, to take over our lives, and when we do that….
we do to ourselves what Eli did – put ourselves in a position to miss God when He is speaking to us.
That is one reason that Paul wrote in (1 Corinthians 6:12) “Everything is permissible for me” - but not everything is beneficial.” We need to inprint this on our hearts, because, anything, that separates us from God is not beneficial. And the scary thing is, that if we persist in grieving God with a sinful life – He will, after many repentence and forgiveness opportunities, turn away from us, and we will no longer be able to hear Him. God does still speak, but we only hear Him, when we are tuned to his voice. That happens only as we live lives empowered by the Holy Spirit, and close to His word..
II Knowing It
Here’s the second question: How do we know that it is God Who is talking?
Here’s the first test: What does the voice that we hear tell us about Jesus Christ? You see, God will never point us to a false hope. When God directs us, it is always to the Lord Jesus – always to His Cross and His Resurrection – always to His forgiveness – always to His promises. John tells us, in His (1 John 4:1-3a): “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.”
This is an absolutely fundamental truth that we have to embrace if we want to walk in the Spirit…..
The second test that lets us know that it is God who’s speaking is,,,, God will never ask us to do anything that He has prohibited in his Word. If the voice that you hear tells you to do wrong – it cannot be from God…it isn’t from God! God will entice us to sin, or to commit adultery, or to steal, or to say things that hurt our brothers and sisters in Christ. God’s voice always encourages us in our walk of faith. In fact, Jesus was very clear about this - He said, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.” (Luke 8:21)
And the third test is that: When God speaks to us, it is always consistent with his Word. God will not add or take away from what He has revealed to us. Jesus tells us Revelation 22: 18-19, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.) To do this, we need to have a clear understanding of God’s Word and we need to check every message that we hear and compare it with the Lord Jesus’ teachings. We have to line everything up with the scripture…
:Up to now we’ve looked at the questions: “Does God really speak to people?” We said that He did, but that we needed to know that living a life committed to sin - like Eli’s sons - can cause God to walk away from us. We also asked the question: “How do we know that it is God Who is talking?” so we looked at three tests: What does the voice say about Jesus; Does the voice entice us to evil; Is what we hear consistent with God’s Word……so now its time for the final question…..
III Finding It
Now here’s the final question: How do we position ourselves to better hear the voice of God? Unfortunately, we aren’t very different from the world…we look for love in all the wrong places, we, way to often, measure it by the world’s standards….
” If we look for God in all the wrong places – we won’t find HIm. If we are looking in the wrong places, and think that we hear God’s voice – we need to look out! And then we need to run…because, God promises not to be: in horoscopes, tarot cards, fortune cookies,-------He will not be in anything that is inconsistent with His word or His nature…. We might be hearing a voice, if we are looking for God in these things – but I can guarantee you that it isn’t God’s voice.
So where do we look? Consider where Samuel was when God called to him. He was in the temple. He was where God promised to be. Samuel received God’s Word in a manner that was consistent with how God had previously revealed Himself. Samuel needed to be receptive to God’s voice: “Speak, Lord, for your servant listens.” And God come to him, and he was just a little boy. What does that tell us about the age that a person can be when they come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus----I don’t discount any age…
Today, we can hear God’s voice in the temple. It comes to us in living color and glorious expression through Baptism, and the Lord’s Table. It comes to us through the proclamation of the cross and the resurrection. It comes to us in the forgiveness, that we receive when we confess our sins….and that we give, when someone has hurt us… It comes to us when we hear and study his Word. It comes to us where God has promised to speak to us – here, in this physical place, but more importantly in this spiritual place, our hearts…
Sometimes, we just need to be quiet. We just need to be still and know that God IS.
I have a confession to make to you: This past year hasn’t been easy for our family (Parkinsons, drug reactions, complications from minor surgeries, moving, children moving, babies being born, a wedding, heart stints, just to name the big things….and I, at times, have found myself spending more time worrying and fretting about things, than listening to God. And then from an unexpected place, my tiny little Russian doctor, I heard the Lord speak to me---and He told me to just chill. He said, “Spend time with me”. Read my Word, pray, listen for my guidance….enjoy the good things I’ve provided for you…take the medicine, walk. Run, embrace me and all my good blessings” And as I’ve yielded myself to God – his Word has come. It’s been a wonderful reunion to find God just where He said He would be. Peace and joy have returned. God had never wandered – He’d been speaking to me all along – I just wasn’t listening. But 2 weeks ago, as I answered one of our questions about 5 things I’m thankful for and without hesitation I wrote good health….I knew I was listening to Him again and that I could hear what He was saying…
The truth is,,, God is always speaking to us… Why? Because God desires full communion – heart to heart with us. Why else would Jesus pay the price of the Cross?
So, today, who needs to find joy and communion with God? We all do---I don’t care what is going on… in the words of Dr. Nina Browner, we just need to chill out – and we need to make time for God and His Word and–we need to prepare our ears to listen to Him and our hearts to receive His word and obey it… and He’ll be there. In the name of Jesus., He will always be there…Halleijah Amen!
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