1 Samuel 3 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the
Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him. 8 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 for ever 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 wit,
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 to
Inshilo, for the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel Inshilo by
the word of the Lord. And it is this last verse that
I desire to speak to you on this morning with the Lord's help.
The Lord appearing to Samuel and especially here appearing
to him again. We are told in the book of Hebrews
that God is at sundry times in diverse or different manners
spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, but has in these
last days spoken unto us by His Son. And we know that God does
speak to His people, He does reveal Himself to His people,
but not in the same way today as He did in Samuel's day, and
not indeed in the same way as the Lord appeared to those in
the days of His flesh, because there He appeared to them in
bodily form, a real man, And yet many, they just saw that
man. They did not see the Christ,
the Son of God, but those that were favoured with that, that
were chosen by God, that He should reveal Himself to them, they
were very favoured and blessed to really see, not just Jesus
of Nazareth, but the Lord. And no doubt they all remembered
that first time when the Lord appeared to them and showed himself
to them. And in these Gospel days it is
the same. Paul, he says to the Corinthians
that though we have known Jesus Christ after the flesh, yet Him
we know no more. Not in that way. But he does
reveal himself to his people. We read in Hebrews we see not
yet all things put under him put under christ but we see jesus
we do see our lord and savior and we see him by faith and we
see him through the letters of his word and so I wanted to speak
this morning from these words here, which they truly set forth
something of the revealing of the Lord to his people. And so, based on these words,
I want to think first of the time when the Lord first appears
to his people because our text it says that the Lord appears
again to Samuel so there was a time before in fact the reading
began where the Lord first appeared to him and then secondly the
place where he appears to his people we're told in our text
that in this case it was in Shiloh And then thirdly, how he appears
to his people. Our text says that he appeared
to Samuel and revealed himself by the word of the Lord. And
so I want to look then just briefly at these three points. The first is the time when the
Lord first appears to His people. May we remember that all of us,
as we're born into this world, we're born dead in sin and shapen
in iniquity. We do not know the Lord. And
this was highlighted in the portion we read. Samuel did not yet know
the Lord. If it had been said he did not
know the Lord, that was true. He didn't. but in the very way
that it's worded there's a real hope he did not yet there was
to be a time and this time was right now when the lord was going
to reveal himself to him and so it is a ray of hope to all
of us that pray for loved ones the yet in darkness and in ignorance
of unbelief the Lord has not appeared to them that it may
be that it is like with Samuel we pray it will the Lord has
not yet appeared but he will appear in his time and way something
to to really pray for but I want to be under the Lord's hand may
the Spirit bring some of you dear friends back to when the
Lord first revealed himself to you, because there was a first
time. Sometimes it might not be very
clearly remembered as to a specific day or time, but a period of
time, perhaps a year in your lives that the Lord gradually
unfolded and appeared But many of us, we do have those specific
times and Samuel here would have had that time here when the Lord
first appeared to him, first knew that secret of the Lord
which is with them that fear Him. We think of when our Lord
was on earth and the wonder of those that first saw him. When John the Baptist was sent
and he says, I knew him not but He who sent me to baptize, he
said, Whomsoever ye shall see the Spirit of the Lord descending,
that is the Christ. And he bore witness that the
Lord Jesus was the Christ. And it's a good measure also
for the Church of God to know who are the Lord's people. The
Lord Jesus had the Spirit without measure upon Him, but all of
God's children have the Spirit in measure. And where we see
that Spirit, and we are to try the Spirits, whether they are
of God or not, that is how we know the people of God. The same
Spirit in measure that was on the Lord Jesus Christ will rest
upon them. Well, we think of when Nathaniel
was called by Philip to go to the Lord. He said, we have seen,
found the Christ and Jesus of Nazareth. And Nathaniel said,
can any good thing come out of Nazareth? And Philip wisely said,
Come and see. Well, when Nathanael was coming,
the Lord said, An Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. And Nathanael
was amazed. He said, Whence knowest thou
me? He said, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under
the fig tree, I saw thee. And Nathanael's response was
immediate, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King
of Israel. And how did he know? You could
not have seen anyone underneath a fig tree, the great big leaves
that they are. And to be told that this man,
Jesus of Nazareth, saw him when natural man could not, and could
pronounce what he did. That was used so that Nathaniel
was able to look past his prejudice, can any good thing come out of
Nazareth, and to see the Son of God. Those are precious times. The woman at the well of Samaria
was the same. Come see a man that told me all
things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? After the Lord rose from the
dead, He appeared to His dear disciples then, so sovereignly. Thomas was not with them that
first time, and they said to Thomas, We have seen the Lord. And that is a blessed thing to
be able to say. And may it be true of each of
us this morning that we have seen the Lord. There has been
a first time that He has revealed Himself to us and that we have
seen Him. with Samuel, the account we have
read, and in our text we read that the Lord appeared again
in Shiloh. So, not only does the Lord appear
once, but He appears again. And may there be those times
that we also remember, not only the first time, but the again
times. So on to think with the second
point at the place where the Lord appears to his people. Here it is said, again in Shiloh,
That was where the Lord first appeared to him, and this is
where he appears to him again. One of the hymn writers says,
does thou mind the spot and place where Jesus did thee meet? Now
when I was first called, the Lord was pleased to appear to
me in my home. and blessed me there. And it
came that I expected that that's where I would be blessed. I remember
saying to a dear godly friend that I had then, a Dutch friend,
that I felt that the Lord could bless just as much in the home
as he could in his house. And the look of horror on his
face, it made me really search my heart. What had I said? And
I realized that because of those blessings, I was not actually
expecting them in the house of God. And from that time, I really
prayed for it and asked for it there. And I was very, very troubled
that I hadn't been blessed in the house of God. and really
made it a matter of prayer. And one time, and this was, I
was fairly in the way, I was reading sermons in the public
worship then, and the Lord appeared to me through a sermon I was
reading, and just in a moment of time He brought to my remembrance
with real sweetness all the blessings I had had from home, and as if
it were gathered them all up together and said now here they
all are here they are in the house of God This is the blessing
here, but it is good for us to remember the Lord does bless
in the home. I pray the Lord does. I know
you do know he blesses you in the pilgrim home there. I know
you're not able to go to the house of God, but the house of
God is a place where the Lord has so promised his blessing
and his presence He loves the tents of Jacob well, but he loves
the gates of Sion more. And one day we shall be with
the Lord, and in that heavenly Jerusalem, and in the church
of the firstborn in heaven, the hemrider says, thereby my best
friends, my kindred dwell, their God, my Saviour reigns. And so I would, just on this
point, as a prompt to some of you, to think where did the Lord
appear to you? You might, as I, I could have
gone to my home there where the Lord first blessed me. I could
take you to every room in that home and where the Lord had appeared
and blessed me in that house. Some of you, the churches where
you've come from, whether it be down this way or further up
north, whether it be in a little church or a big church, you can
think of where you were blessed through the ministry, where you
saw the Lord, where you heard the Word preached and where you
believed. And so, from this sermon this
morning, You go and meditate in the day, those times where
the Lord has been pleased to reveal Himself to you, show Himself
to you. So on to look then at the last
point, how He appears to His people. Our text says that He
revealed Himself to Samuel by the word of the Lord. And this
is the predominant way, of course, we don't look for visions, for
those things like that, but we have the Word of the Lord, and
this is how He appears. And I well remember that first
time the Lord revealed Himself to me, and it was through reading
the account of Jacob wrestling with the angel. They wrestled
a man with him. until the breaking of the day.
And the Lord so shone on that word man. This was the Lord Jesus
in the days before his incarnation, appearing as a man, because Jacob
was given the name of Israel, for thou hast wrestled with God
and with man, and hast prevailed. And that first seeing through
the word of God that I'd read many times, seeing here is the
Son of God, here is Christ. And those other times, the time
in Psalm 80 and verse 17, Let thy hand be upon the man at thy
right hand, the son of man, that thou mayest strong for thyself. Again, the Lord Jesus Christ
at the right hand of the Father, and that he should lay on him
The sins of his people, he's made strong to be the bearer
of his people's sin, to bear them away. My son, said Abraham,
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. There,
in Psalm 80, was the Lord Jesus Christ, through the word of God.
And maybe that you also have those times, those passages,
you esteem all the Word of God as the Word of God, you love
it all, but there's certain verses and words you say, the Lord met
with me there. The Lord visited me there. Many
of the Lord's servants may be preached from one text many,
many times. And I know I marveled at that
with some of the Lord's servants. And then they've had their funeral
and it's come out, that text had been blessed to them very
early on in their experience. And they've returned to it again
and again, rightly so. That's where they saw the Lord.
Now when the dear disciples saw the Lord crucified and slain,
where did they go? Where did they go to see Him?
To the tomb. But He was risen. Why seek ye
the living amongst the dead? But they went back where He was
and where they'd last seen Him. And so You may also, in your
mind, you maybe cannot go physically, and maybe if you could, the place
wasn't even there. Some sadly, the places of worship
are no longer there, but the Lord is still there. Heaven and
earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. And Jeremiah said, thy words
were found, and I did eat them. They were to the joy and rejoicing
of my soul. So it'd be a wonderful thing
if this morning, and anticipating soon, we remember the coming
of the Lord to this earth. But the more important is where
He first came to you and to me, where He first revealed Himself,
how He did so, and to have that expectation as in the Word that
He revealed and appears to us again. And it may be that your
prayer, Lord, come to me again. Visit me again and bless me again. through thy word and may we then
be helped to sing the second hymn on our hymn sheet because
that hymn the second verse where is the blessedness on you when
first i saw the lord when first i saw the lord and it's lovely
to remember those first times and the sweetness and the blessedness
then