1st Samuel chapter 3 and reading
from verse 1. And the child Samuel ministered
unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was
precious in those days. There was no open vision. And
it came to pass at that time when Eli was laid down in his
place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see. And ere the lamp of God went
out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, and
Samuel was laid down to sleep, that the Lord called Samuel,
and he answered, Here am I. And he ran unto Eli and said,
Here am I, for thou callest me. And he said, I called not, lie
down again. And he went and lay down. And
the Lord called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to
Eli and said, Here am I, for thou didst call me. And he answered,
I called not, my son, lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet
know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed
unto him. And the Lord called Samuel again
the third time, and he arose and went to Eli and said, Here
am I, for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the Lord
had called the child. Therefore Eli said unto Samuel,
Go lie down, and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt
say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay
down in his place. And the Lord came and stood and
called, as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered,
Speak, for thy servant heareth. And the Lord said to Samuel,
Behold, I will do a thing in Israel at which both the ears
of every one that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will
perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning
his house. When I begin, I will also make
an end. For I have told him that I will
judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knoweth, because
his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. And
therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli that the iniquity
of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for
ever. And Samuel lay until the morning
and opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel feared
to show Eli the vision. Then Eli called Samuel and said,
Samuel, my son. And he answered, here am I. And
he said, What is the thing that the Lord hath said unto thee?
I pray thee, hide it not from me. God do so to thee, and more
also, if thou hide anything from me of all the things that he
said unto thee. And Samuel told him every whit,
and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. And Samuel grew, and the Lord
was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.
And all Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, knew that Samuel
was established to be a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared
again in Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in
Shiloh by the word of the Lord. Amen, may the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. This chapter is, I think, a very
straightforward account of the start, the beginning of the Lord's
dealings with Samuel. As a child, Samuel had been brought
to Eli, brought to where the Ark of the Covenant was at Shiloh,
and he had ministered there before the Lord. He had ministered in
that religious place where the people gathered in order to worship
God. and he served God by doing the
tasks that a child could do. Tasks like opening the doors
in the morning and closing them at night. Tasks like lighting
the lamps in the holy places. Perhaps he was involved in some
small way even in worship and in carrying and fetching for
Eli. We don't really know how old
Samuel was at this time. It's likely that he was no longer
an infant. Perhaps it's unlikely that he
was as much as 12 years of age. So maybe somewhere in between
that is the age of Samuel at this time. and he had proved
to be useful in the service of the Lord and he had proved to
be useful to Eli. Now I want to mention something
about Eli just as we progress here. Eli was now getting old
and we're told that his eyes began to wax dim. That means that they began to
get dim. Progressively they were becoming
dimmer and dimmer and he was less able to see. He was going
blind basically. His eyes began to wax dim that
he could not see. And perhaps for this reason Samuel
was particularly helpful to Eli. Eli had served as high priest
for many years and it seems that this was a devout man and a man
who was sincere about his service to God. However, we also learn
that there was a darker side to Eli's testimony because he
was a weak father and he had two sons that were evil, worthless
men. Two sons, Hophnei and Phineas,
and they acted wickedly In the sacrifices of the temple precincts
there, they acted wickedly by stealing from the sacrifices
that were offered to God and by abusing women who came to
worship there at the door of the tabernacle. And this wicked
conduct was widely known. It was known throughout the land
that these two men acted in the way that they did. But Eli was
too soft and he was too indulgent to stop them. and this brought
God's name into disrepute and it brought down God's displeasure
on the family of Eli. Eli was warned He had been warned
already in chapter two, we passed over that, it was the end of
chapter two after Hannah's other prayer, but he had been warned
by an unnamed prophet that this is what was going to happen.
And now the Lord comes to Samuel in the night and he conveys the
same message to Samuel that Eli is going to be punished because
of his son's wickedness and that the high priestly role and office
which he fulfilled would be taken away from his family. So this
message was given by the Lord to Samuel and it was the second time that
Eli was being told. His two sons would also be slain
in the one day and the honour of his high priestly role would
be taken from him. It was a solemn message. It was
a solemn message to hear. It was a solemn message for Samuel
to report to Eli after the Lord had spoken to him and it probably
accounts for his reluctance to share the Lord's revelation with
this old man. So much for Eli at the moment. Another thing that we learn from
the opening section of this chapter is that the word of the Lord
was precious in those days. Now you might think that's a
little bit strange to say that. Well, Let me say this, the Bible
is precious at all times. We call the Bible the word of
the Lord. That's another, sometimes we
call it the scriptures, we sometimes call it the holy scriptures,
we sometimes call it the Bible, we sometimes call it the word
of the Lord. But the word of the Lord is always precious to
us. And this meaning that we have
in the chapter here is slightly different from that. When we're
told that the word of the Lord was precious in the time of Samuel,
what it really means is that the revelations which came from
God, God speaking to his people, so that's the word of the Lord,
God speaking to his people, had become rare. And because it was
rare, it was precious. might actually be one of the
reasons why neither Samuel nor Eli recognised the Lord's voice. It had become so rare, Samuel
may never have heard of this thing before, and Eli had forgotten
that God sometimes spoke in this way. It was rare for God to speak
This was about to change because God had chosen Samuel, though
still just a child, to be his prophet in the land of Israel. And through Samuel, God was going
to speak to the nation once again. Now because the story of Samuel's
calling is really so very clear and straightforward, it doesn't
really need me to give too much of an explanation. So I want
to move right into just a few applications which might be useful,
especially to our younger hearers today. And I want us to notice
this in the first instance. Though Samuel was still a child,
the Lord visited and spoke to him. Don't ever think that because
you're so young or because you're just a child or because you're
not an adult or because you don't have much responsibility or authority
or anything like that, that the Lord won't speak to you. That's
not how the Lord works. The Lord does speak to young
people as well. And it shows us that he speaks
to children because he spoke to Samuel. In times past God
spoke in various ways. He spoke by dreams, he spoke
by visions, he spoke by voices, he spoke by signs and as we've
been studying these early chapters of the Bible, the Judges and
to do with Joshua and going back to Moses and Aaron and the children
of Israel in Egypt, we've learned lots about God speaking in different
ways to his people. And we've seen the signs and
the dreams and the visions and all of these things taking place. Nowadays, the Lord does not speak
in such ways. The Lord doesn't speak with an
audible voice because he has given us his word in the scriptures,
in the Bible. And he also speaks to us when
the scriptures are read and when the scriptures are preached. So the Lord speaks in his Bible
and he speaks in the preaching of the gospel. And he speaks
to us all. He speaks to children and he
speaks to young people as well as speaking to adults and older
people. And note this, that though Samuel
clearly heard the voice of the Lord, he didn't recognise it. Verse 7 tells us, Now Samuel
did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet
revealed unto him. And that still happens, that
still happens today. Maybe you wonder, how Would you
know if the Lord spoke to you? How would you know if the Lord
was speaking to you? Well, let me explain how you
would know. Maybe you are reading your Bible
and you discover something new. Or you're struck by something
that you didn't realise before. and rather than just forgetting
about what you read and what you saw, that comes back to you
and it comes back to your attention and it sticks in your thoughts.
In such ways, God speaks to us. He reminds us of the things that
we have read in his word. It's as if the word of scripture
is speaking to our mind and then the Lord's spirit comes and reminds
us of those things. And it's just like the Lord speaking
to us. It's in such ways that the Lord
speaks to our hearts. Or maybe you hear a sermon and
something in the sermon strikes you that never seemed important
before, but you can't get it out of your mind. Again, in such
ways, the Lord speaks to his people. Or maybe you're going
through a difficult period, maybe at school, maybe with your friends,
maybe with your parents, Who knows, you're going through a
difficult period and you're worried about something, or you're afraid
about something, or you're sad about something, and you ask
the Lord for help in your prayers. and he reminds you of something
that you've read or something that you've heard or he gives
you a verse of scripture that brings encouragement and brings
a sense of peace and calm into your thoughts. In such ways,
the Lord speaks to us today. But when we are young and we've
not experienced this, we may not realise that it is happening.
And it may be that the Lord has to speak to us several times
as he did with Samuel before it dawns on us that that's what's
actually happening. That this is what is going on,
that the Lord is speaking to me through this Bible passage,
through this verse, through this sermon that I heard that I just
can't get out of my head. And then, when that dawns on
us and we realise that in such ways does God speak to his people,
in such ways does he speak even to young people, then we can
say like Samuel, speak Lord, for thy servant heareth. And
I would like you to think about this, and I would like you to
practise it. When you read your Bible, and
I hope you read your Bible, I hope you do. And I know you're listening
to the preaching of the gospel today. So these are two avenues
by which the Lord speaks. You should be looking for the
Lord to speak to you through his word, through the preaching,
not just in your mind, but in your heart. And in a powerful
and in a moving way. When you hear me preach, you
should be listening not just to my voice, not just to my words,
but for the voice of the Lord speaking through the gospel in
a deeper and in a spiritual way. And it may be, like Samuel, you
do not yet know the Lord. That's what it says, Samuel did
not yet know the Lord. The Lord was speaking to Samuel,
but Samuel did not yet know the Lord. You know about him, you
know facts and you know stories and you know Bible truths, but
maybe you do not yet know the Lord in a personal and in an
intimate way. Maybe you do not know the Lord
in the way that you trust him, that your sins are forgiven.
Ask the Lord to speak to you and to teach you to know him
and he will guide you into all truth. Here's another thing that I want
to just leave with you to think about. When the Lord does reveal
to us himself, It is a very blessed thing that he does. It's a work
of grace. It's a work of grace if God speaks
to us through the Bible or through the preaching of the gospel.
It's a work of God's goodness to us. He doesn't speak to everyone,
but if he speaks to us, it's a blessing and it's a work of
grace. The Lord did not speak to Eli's
two sons. He didn't speak to them. Though
they had been blessed by being born into a godly home and by
being familiar with the worship of God from an early age and
from seeing those sacrifices slain on the altar which spoke
about the Lord Jesus Christ. These men stole, they stole the
meat from the altar. They stole the sacrifices from
the altar. So little did they understand
of the glory and the goodness of God and they grew to be wicked
men. It's God's grace alone that makes
the difference and we should treasure the Lord's voice and
we should seek the Lord's voice. And if we have been given grace
to be hungry to hear the Lord speaking and thirst after righteousness
and desire salvation to know the Lord Jesus Christ personally,
then we should go to where he can be found. Read your Bible
and hear the Word of God preached and store it up in your heart.
Memorise it. Think about it. Think about what
the Lord is saying. Samuel heard the Lord speaking
and he lay in his bed and he thought about what the Lord had
said to him until the morning. Let me just speak personally
to you about myself for a moment if I can. When I was young and
when I first heard and felt the Lord speaking to me, I was going along to Sunday school,
I was hearing my own parents reading the Bible to me, I was
listening to what was being said in church. But as I've grown
older, I've learned to be grateful for those early approaches that
the Lord made to me in those early days. Even although I have
not always been faithful to him, he has been faithful to me. Let us not despise small voices
and even when we're older let the blessedness of those early
impressions remain upon us and remind us of the Lord's faithfulness
in revealing himself to us and keeping us safe all through the
years of our lives in this evil world. How easy it would have
been for Samuel to have been badly influenced by Eli's two
wicked sons. But the Lord preserved him and
protected him and kept him because he had a work for Samuel to do. May the Lord speak, may the Lord
save, may the Lord protect us that we might learn to follow
him and serve him in the years to come. And finally, just a
wee thought and then we're done. In verse 19 we read that Samuel
grew and the Lord was with him. And I hope that we all have the
experience of growing in grace and a knowledge of the truth
under the guidance and in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. No matter what start in life
Samuel had, or anyone has, no matter how blessed or how deprived
a life might be, The best thing in the world is to know the Lord
Jesus Christ and to come to trust in Him. I don't know what your
life will hold, but I do know that it will be better if the
Lord is with you. I don't know what trials you'll
have to face, but they will be easier if the Lord is with you. I don't know where you will go
and what will become of you but when the Lord is with you then
you are safe in his care and keeping and you're saved in this
world and for the world to come. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today. Amen.