God calls Samuel. Gives him a
call. And you remember last week we
talked about how the word of the Lord was scarce. The visions
were very scarce. God was silent. And we turn now
till we see Samuel and his call. And this child was promised to
God before he was ever born. You know, Hannah prayed and said,
Lord, if you look upon the affliction of thine handmaid, and if you'd
be pleased to give me a man child, I will promise I'll bring him
back and give him to you. And no razor will come upon his
head. He'll be a Nazarite. So he was given to God before
he was born. And God, he gave him to Hannah
because Hannah says he's going to be your servant. He's going
to be your child. And she kept her vow. She kept her vow. He
was a remarkable child. I mean, he was. He was a... I've
known some remarkable children in my time. I mean, really remarkable
children. I mean, Houston, from the time
he was a little bitty fella, he'd just been... He'd just been
a serious kind of kid, and just has been unusual. And Ryan, the
same way, and so... You know, we're very grateful
that the Lord has his hand on these children. But here, look
what he was a remarkable child. Look what it says over here in
verse 11 of chapter 2. And Elkanah went to Ramah to
his house. They went back home. And look what it says, and the
child, he's just a child, did minister unto the Lord before
Eli, the priest. Look what it says down in verse
18. But Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child. And
listen to this, girded with the linen ephod. Now priests were
the only ones that were supposed to wear an ephod. And as a child,
they made him an ephod, and he wore an ephod like a priest.
And an ephod is a garment that went over your shoulders, and
it was hooked together right here. And remember the high priest,
he had his ephod, and a girdle around it, a sash around it,
and it had gold up here, and gold taches hanging off of it,
and the names of the children of Israel on the shoulders, and
on the breastplate. So he had a special ephod. But
a priest always wore the ephod. So as a child, they put him in
an ephod. And God just blessed the priesthood
to have the ephod. And the ephod was something that
even the people would go and say, what does the ephod? We're
going to inquire the ephod. We're going to inquire the priest.
And the child ministered unto the Lord before Eli. God had
been silent. Now he's going to speak. But
he's going to speak to one man. He is going to speak to Samuel.
He is going to speak to Samuel. That is the way it is with our
Lord Jesus Christ. God is going to speak. But He
is going to speak by one man. His blessed Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And God is going to speak to
this man here, this child, this child. Now He is going to call
Samuel. And I tell you, it was clear
that he was sanctified from the womb, from his infancy. He was set apart from the time
he was born. For this word, God set him apart.
And David said this, he said, Lord, I was cast upon you from
my mother's womb, and you've been my God from my mother's
womb. He said, you're my God from the
time I come from my mother's womb. And Jeremiah, God said
this about Jeremiah, He said, Before you was ever formed in
your mother's belly, I called thee to be a prophet. Before you was ever formed in
your belly, I put you there to be nothing but a prophet unto
me. And John the Baptist, when Elizabeth met Mary, and Mary
told her she's going to have a child, John the Baptist slept
in her womb and the scripture said he was filled with the Holy
Ghost from his mother's womb. So there's people that God sets
apart from the womb and Samuel is one of those. And he sets
us apart in Christ before the foundation of the world. But
he's no longer a small child. He's grown some. Look what it
says here in chapter 3 and verse 15. He's grown some. He's not
just a small child anymore. He's grown some. And he's entrusted
with opening the doors of the temple. And he said here, and
Samuel lay until the morning and opened the doors of the house
of the Lord. So in the morning, Eli was blind. He was blind, he couldn't see.
So he'd get up in the morning, he'd go open the doors. Before
daylight, everything was opened up. So people could come and
go and offer their sacrifices. And so he was faithful. He was
faithful. God blessed him with holiness.
God made him trusted Christ. And he was fulfilled his duties. Whatever he was to do, he did
it. And he was faithful. Listen to
this. He was faithful to Eli. And he was submissive to Eli. Whatever Eli said, Samuel did
it. And it tells us that he was asleep. And he was awakened from his
sleep. By a call. A voice calling his
name. He gets up and goes to Eli. And
said, here I am. Here I am. He said, Dario, you
call me. And this is different than Eli's
own sons. Eli's own sons wouldn't even
listen to his father. Wouldn't submit to this father.
But little old E Samuel, he goes up there and says, Father, Lord,
Master, You calling me? He said here I am. Told him go
lay back down. He went and laid back down. His
own son. God's gonna kill his sons because they were unsubmissive
to their father. But old Eli wasn't like that.
He was faithful Eli and he submitted to Eli. And when God calls, when
God calls Samuel, he didn't recognize God's voice. You know why? He'd
never heard it. It never heard it. It was scarce
in those days. And a lot of times you'll start
hearing the Lord's voice and you don't know what it is. You
just start getting in trouble and you don't know that God's
speaking to you. You just know that something's happening, something's
going on. And look what it says down here in verse 7 in chapter
3. Now Samuel did not yet know the
Lord. He do not the Lord and listen
to this neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto
him and they go together When God reveals Himself, He reveals
Himself in His Word too. And when He reveals Himself in
His Word, He reveals Himself too. They go together. You can't
know God apart from His Word. And you can't know the Word unless
you know God. They go together. And the living
Word and the written Word. So I'm going to... God calls
Him. Here's the first thing I want
you to know. God calls Him by His Name. God calls him by his
name. First thing is it was a personal
call. Called him by his name. It's said here in verse 4. The Lord called Samuel and he
answered, Here am I. Oh my. Called him by name. Now
let me tell you something. Nobody else was there. No one
else heard God's voice. This voice, this call was for
Samuel and Samuel alone. And when God calls us, He calls
us along. He gives us a personal call,
us along. We are the only one who will
hear His voice when He calls us personally. Nobody else will
hear it. I'm telling you what, God spoke
to him in an audible voice, but God don't speak to us in an audible
voice. If we hear the voice of God, if you sat and you're unconverted,
Or sometimes any other time when God speaks, you'll be, if you're
in love, you'll be the only one who hears that word. Because
you know why? It's for you. I don't know how
many times through the years somebody's come up to me and
told me, said, preacher, that message was just for me. Of course it was. Who else would
it be for? But that's what Samuel was doing.
He was, you know, in our salvation. It comes as a call. And it comes
as a personal call. 2 Thessalonians 2.13 says this,
that Brethren, we're bound always to thank God for you, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you unto salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Now listen to it. We're
unto He called us by the Gospel. We get a call. God calls us. And we hear that call. We hear
that call. Make your calling and election
sure. For you see your calling, brethren.
And you know our Lord Jesus says this, My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they know me. He said, I call my sheep
by name. I call my sheep by name. And all He said, for whom He
did predestinate them, what do y'all want to do with them? Called
them. Called them. And our Lord Jesus
was sent into this world to die, suffer and die for His people
personally, each and every single one of them. And He calls everyone
for whom He died. He will call them to Himself. And He will make sure that call
is like Samuel's. It's effectual. You'll listen
to it. You'll hear it. There's no danger
of God's voice not being heard when God blesses you to hear
His voice. There's no danger. People say, I think God's trying
to speak to me. If God's speaking to you, you'll
know it. There be no mistake in that. And Samuel was called to be a
prophet and also called to be a priest. And God places particular
calls upon men to offices. Everybody in the church don't
have the same office. Everybody's supposed to witness
the gospel. Everybody's supposed to gossip the gospel. But God
places particular calls upon men to the office of pastor and
teacher. And a man, no man takes this
upon himself. What kind of a fool would take
it upon himself to be a preacher? Unless God puts him in the ministry. And that's why God told Timothy,
I put you into the ministry. That's what God told Paul. I
put you in the ministry. You didn't get in the ministry.
I put you in the ministry. And that's the way it is with
Samuel. God said, I'm going to call you to be a prophet. And
you're going to be a priest. You're going to wear an offer.
And you're going to offer sacrifices. No, my soul don't take that call
on yourself. And then here's the second thing.
Not only was it personal, but it was a persistent call. You
know how many times he called Samuel? First time he called
him, he jumped up and ran to eat lunch and said, here I am,
Father. I didn't call you. I was asleep. Go back to bed. Second time,
go back to bed. Third time, go back to bed. God will not stop. When he sits on your trail, mark
it down. He's going to get you. When he goes into that wilderness
seeking that sheep that's lost, mark it down. He's going to find
it. And when he finds it, he's going to keep on looking and
looking and looking until he finds it. Then he lays it on
his shoulder and brings it home. And that's the way it was with
Samuel. And verses 4 through 10, the word call is used 11
times. 11 times. God called and called
and called upon Samuel, till he heard for himself. Oh, Eli
said, go back and lay down, and when the Lord speaks, say, thy
servant heareth. And God began to speak to him.
And I tell you, God's gonna keep on, keep on. And you know Samuel,
he didn't comprehend what was happening. He didn't comprehend. And when God first began to deal
with us, we didn't comprehend what was happening. Most of us
did not comprehend. We know that we was in trouble. We know that we didn't know hardly
what to do sometimes. We was, we was, we was, oh my,
what am I supposed to do this? What am I supposed to do that?
Do I need to go here? Do I need to go there? What should
I do? Then Samuel, he didn't comprehend. He never heard God's
voice before. But the fourth time, God said,
Samuel, Samuel, speak Lord, speak. I'm listening. I'm listening.
And oh, beloved, I'm telling you something. The call to salvation
is a persistent and effectual call. You go through the Scriptures.
When God sets up, you know, you look at the men in the Scriptures.
Saul of Tarsus is one of the best examples. God, when He persists
after a man, He's going to Paul just kept going on and on and
on. And then finally one day, the
light above the brightness of the sun shone on him. And he
heard a voice! Now listen, everybody else heard
something. But they didn't hear what God said. Paul said, I was
the only one to hear that voice. He said, Saul, Saul! Why are
you persecuting me? And he said, well who art thou,
Lord? I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom
thou persecute. And I'm telling you something.
He said, you know, it's hard for you to kick against the pricks,
ain't it? You just keep on kicking at me, and I guarantee you, I'll
break your legs if I have to, but I'm going to put you down.
I'm going to bring you down. You're coming down. You're going
to get off that horse. You're going to get off of that
high-mindedness. You're going to get off your sin. You're going
to get out of your hatred. You're going to get out of your
pride and your religion and your self-righteousness and your hatred
and your enmity and your rebellion. You're coming down. And when
God says that about a man, boy, when he gets through with him,
he's down. That's what he did with old Jacob. He got a hold
of Jacob. Jacob didn't get a hold of the
Lord. The Lord got a hold of Jacob. And he got what he wanted for
him when the day broke. He got what he wanted. And I'm
going to tell you something, beloved, when God's call to salvation
is persistent and effectual, And you know conviction of sin,
that's something you hear very, very little about. But conviction
of sin is a hard, hard thing to go through. I'm telling you
what, you remember when you started being convicted of sin? I mean,
you're being convicted of your thoughts, of where you go, what
you do, the way you feel, things you've done, where you've been,
things you believed, things you shouldn't have believed and things
you should believe. I mean when God starts convicting you of
your sin and convicting you of sin, it's a hard, hard thing
to go through. He will not stop And I'll tell
you what, here's what we do. Every person I know that's been
saved from out of religion, when God begins to deal with them,
the first thing they run to is an old profession. Or they'll
run to how good they've been, and how dedicated they've been,
and how honest they've been, how sincere they've been. And
run to their Bible knowledge. And God will give you, run to
what? He'll just jerk it out of you. You run to another, he'll
reach and get that. He runs and you run here, you
run there, you keep running to all the things you think. And
then all of a sudden, you reach for something and ain't nothing
there. Ain't nothing there. What are
you going to do now? Oh, Lord, have mercy on me. Oh, have mercy on me. I'm the chief of sinners. Oh,
Lord, hear me when I cry. Oh, that's where we go. Oh, we, and I tell you what,
it's, and that's something that those folks that never have experienced
and never will, never will. So it was a personal call, a
persistent call. Samuel, Samuel, Samuel, Samuel. Finally, Samuel says, speak Lord.
I serve it here. Oh my. Here's the third thing
about Samuel's call. It was a perplexing call. It
was a perplexing call. Samuel was stirred by what he
heard. He stirred. God spoke to him. And oh God,
at first he didn't recognize God's voice because it came in
the middle of the night. But this call was perplexing.
But let me tell you why it was perplexing. Because of the message. Because of the message. That's
what's perplexing. Look at what God said to him.
First thing God said to him here in verse 11. What God said to him. Oh, these
calls are perplexing. Oh my, when am I ever going to
get any rest? When am I ever going to get any peace? The only
way you can find it is coming to Christ. Christ alone. And the Lord said in verse 11 this
is what he said this is the first thing he gave him he gave him
a message and you talking about perplexing listen well how would
you like to have a message like this and the Lord said to Samuel behold I will do a thing in Israel
at which both the ears of everyone that heareth it shall tingle
in that day I will perform against Eli all which I have spoken concerning
his house. And when I start, when I begin,
I'm not going to stop until it's over. And listen to this now,
for I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the
iniquity which he kneweth, because his sons made themselves vile,
and he restrained him not. Now, oh my, this is serious. Now listen to this. And therefore
I have sworn, God swore, when he swore it by none greater than
himself, and Samuel, and I've sworn unto the house of Eli that
the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice
nor offering forever. Do you know what it'd be like
to not have a sacrifice that would put away your sin? not
have a sacrifice that would purge you from your sin. And that's
what God said. That's the first message that
he's given. How would you like to have a message like that?
That here you serve before the Lord with this old man who's
blind. And the first thing God tells
you, this is what you got to go tell Eli. that I'm going to
start on you and I'm going to do something for you and I'm
going to bring it into your house and I'm not going to accept any
sacrifice you ever offer. I will not put away your sins.
I will not purge you from your sins. I could not imagine a worse
thing being told me than I don't have a sacrifice with which to
come before the Lord. That I would not have someone
that would purge me from my sin. But blessed be the Lord God of
heaven and earth. He said He by Himself purged
our sins. And after He done that, He sat
down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. We've got to sacrifice God made
one for us. Gave one for us. And He only
gives what He will accept. And He only provides what He
will accept. So He gave a sacrifice acceptable
to Himself. And not only acceptable to Himself,
but He makes it so acceptable to us that it's the only one
we want and we'll never look to nothing else but Christ and
His blessed sacrifice to purge us of our sins. Oh, and I tell
you what, this message troubled Samuel. Oh, and God told him
that's how it is. It troubled Samuel. Look what
it says there in verse 15. And Samuel lay until the morning,
and opened the doors of the house of the Lord. He couldn't sleep.
He lay there all night, troubled, worried, thinking, what am I
going to do? And Samuel feared to show Eli
the vision. Oh my, I've got to go. Tell Eli
what the Lord said. What the Lord's going to do.
And I tell you, God's call to many is perplexing. And here's
why. He calls for absolute submission. He will not settle for anything
less than absolute submission to Himself. He won't do it. You
remember the rich young ruler? Our Lord said, you know, said,
if you know the commandments, keep the commandments. He said,
oh, listen, I've done that since I was a little boy. Oh, I've
done that since I was a little boy. Like Jim Byrd said, he was
on the, he was on the cradle, cradle row, that before he was
born, his mommy brought him a little pair of boots, a little pair
of shoes and said that, you know, they put him on the cradle row.
He hadn't even been born yet and they put him on the cradle
row because that's what they do in them churches. And so you
know he was raised in a church that put him on the cradle roll
before he was ever born. Brought him little shoes, sent
him there, said, well we got a baby, he's gonna come and he's gonna
be put on a roll just as quick as he gets here. Oh my. But that rich young ruler said,
oh I've kept all this for my youth. And you know what our
Lord said to him? He said, if thou wilt be perfect. And that's what you gotta be.
perfect. If thou wilt be perfect. Oh my, we're going to get that
bad. If thou wilt be perfect. He said, I'll tell you what you
do. Go sell everything you've got. Every single thing you've
got. And then you go around to all
the poor and start giving it away. And he said, oh, that's just
too hard. That's just too hard. That's
just too hard. I can't do that. He went away
sorrowful. Do you know why? For he had many
possessions. If he hadn't have been talking
about how he kept the law, if it had been like that publican
smote his breast, the Lord would have took him. And that's why
Paul said, demons hath forsaken us, having loved this present
evil world. And the gospel, and the gospel,
he's talking about trouble, he feared to show Eli the vision.
The gospel is a message that's hard to preach. It really is,
it's hard to preach. And it's hard to believe. It's
hard to believe. In fact, you could not believe
it and I could not believe it unless God Himself made us believers. Like Joseph said, when you hear
the grace of God, like his father-in-law told him, when you hear the grace
of God, He exposes you for nothing but that. You can't have nothing
but that. God Himself has to be the one
to make you a believer. You cannot believe unless God
makes you a believer. And I tell you, it's a hard message
to preach. First of all, you have to start
with condemnation. You men are sinners. They're
not good people. They weren't born good. Man's
not going to be lost. He was born lost. Man don't grow
up to be a sinner. He was born a sinner. And that's why, you know, how
did he become a sinner? Oh, listen, so you know, it's
a message of condemnation first. And before it'll ever be a message
of joy, it'll be a message of condemnation. And once you feel
that condemnation, and then the Lord comes with the gospel, and
He starts telling you about the salvation being accomplished,
and that you don't have to do anything. Christ did it all.
And He makes you believe that and puts that in your heart.
Your heart leaps for joy. Oh, it leaves for joy. And you know why it's hard? It's
hard. Because it calls for men to deny
themselves. Men will do a lot of things,
but he won't deny himself. But if you're going to be Christ,
you're going to deny self. Self ain't got nothing. Self
can't do nothing. Self never accomplished nothing.
Self can't save itself. Self is sorry, wretched, miserable,
poor, blind and naked and a man is going to deny himself and
he ain't got nothing good to say about himself before God. Ain't that right? What am I going to say? I'm nobody. From nowhere. And God's the only one that made
the difference. The only one that made the difference.
And it calls for a man to humble himself, confess his sin, and
confess his helplessness. And the gospel, the salvation
is a narrow way. And it's the way of following
Christ. And I'll tell you something, beloved. We follow Him until
we die in faith. There ain't no starting and stopping
it. When we're in this way, we stay with it by God's grace until
we die in faith. Now listen, let me show you what
Samuel told Eli. Now let's go back over here again
now. Look here with me in verse 16. This is what Samuel had to say
to Eli. Samuel got up and opened the Lord's house that morning.
Then Eli called Samuel and said, Samuel, my son. He answered,
I'm here. And he said, what is the thing
that the Lord said unto you? God came and spoke to you. God
came and revealed himself to you. And I pray thee hide it
not from me. Don't hide it from me. God do
so to thee and more also if they hide anything that he said unto
thee. And Samuel told him every whit. Told him every whit. And hid
nothing from him. And you know what he said? It
is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. Oh, what a mercy. And then last of all, last of
all, let me say something about this. Not only is it a personal
call, persistent call, perplexing call, but it's a powerful call.
When God called Samuel, now listen to what I'm going to tell you
now. When God called Samuel, He gave
him the power to hear God's voice and to believe God's voice when
it came. He didn't know it. He didn't
know God, didn't know God's Word. And beloved, He enabled him to
hear, enabled him to understand. And that's like our Lord Jesus
Christ. He told a man, He had a withered hand. He said, stretch
forth thy hand. A man with a withered hand can't
stretch forth his hand. But when Christ says, stretch
forth your hand, with the command comes the ability to do it. And
so with the command comes the power to do it. When God said,
I want you to hear me, Samuel, He gave him an ear. And He gave
him understanding. And He gives him the power. And
if He tells you to believe and you got in your heart to believe,
He gives you the power to believe. Enables you to do what He tells
you to do. And Samuel would be the first
in a long, long line of prophets who stood boldly before kings
and before the rebellious children of Israel, God's people. There's
Ezekiel. God sent Ezekiel. I'm going to
set people's face against you. I'm going to make people's forehead
to be so hard that when you preach to them their heads going to
be so hard they ain't going to hear a word you say. But you going
to preach anyway. Now you think about that. Go
out and preach to people whose heads so hard they won't hear
a word you got to say. Let me show you something over
here in 1st Kings 22 right over to your right 1st Kings 22. I
want you to see this You know God's always had his prophets
and here's a prophet 1st Kings 22 In verse 6, look what happens. Now they're fixing to go and
do some things. You know, the king of Israel
and the king of Jehoshaphat, and he's fixed to go to war with
some other men. And he called all the prophets
in. And in verse 6 here, 1 Kings
22 16 the king of Israel gathered the
prophets together about 400 men and said unto them shall I go
against Ramoth Gilead to battle or shall I prepare and they said
go up for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king
and Jehoshaphat said is there not here a prophet of the Lord
besides that we might inquire him and the king of Israel said
unto Jehoshaphat there's yet one man Micah, Micaiah, the son
of Imlai, by whom we may inquire the Lord. But I hate him, for he does not prophesy good
concerning me, but evil. Whoever you call, don't call
him. And he called him and he said, oh yeah, are we going to
go up? Yeah, go up. Yeah, yeah, everybody's told
you to go up, go on up. But he said, I'll tell you what's
going to happen. And he told him everything that you watchmen's
going to do. And he said, oh, listen, don't send him. But now look what else happens
over here, back over in 1 Samuel 3. There in verse 1 of chapter
4. You know, Samuel grew and the
Lord was with him and did let none of his words fall to the
ground. When Samuel said something, I mean God blessed it and made
it effectual. And listen to what it says now.
In verse 1 of chapter 4. And the word of Samuel came to
all Israel. God's prophet and the word by
Samuel came unto all Israel. And I tell you what, beloved,
God blessed him and his word went out over all Israel. What
a testimony of God's grace that he persevered And what a testimony
of God's grace that we persevere. You know what every believer
testimony is? You know what it is? He is able. He is able. I know whom I have
believed. And I'm persuaded, I am absolutely
convinced that He is able to keep that that I've committed
on Him against that day. And that's what Samuel did. That's
what we're going to do. God gives us a powerful call and He never,
ever, never lets that call go. And have you been called? God won't speak in an audible
voice now. He speaks by His Word through
His preachers and those who witness. Oh, Simon Peter said to Him one
day, he said, We've left everything. We've left everything to follow
you. You know what our Lord told us? He said, there's no man who has
left father, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, lands, houses
for my sake and the gospel that he shall not receive a hundredfold
in this life. houses, and lands, and brothers,
and sisters, and mothers, and fathers, and eternal life in
the world to come. And you know, and I told you
this before, I've got more places than I can get to division more
beds than I can sleep in I've got lots and lots of sisters
I've got lots of mothers and I've got a couple ladies in here
that's good mothers I've got wonderful sisters and I've got
grandmothers and I've got kids and I've got beds and I've got
houses and then on top of that I've got all you! Huh? what a blessed Savior our
Lord Jesus Christ is. Amen? Our blessed, blessed Savior,
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for allowing
us to meet here tonight. Thank you for the gospel. Thank
you for the truth. Thank you for the calling. Thank
you for calling us, persisting in your call. just would not
let us refuse. Father, we bless you for that.
And Father, we pray that you'd call others here in our midst. Call others from themselves,
from their sin, from their self-righteousness, from their false hopes, from
their experiences. Call them. Add to the church here those
who should be saved. We ask in Christ's blessed name. Amen. Every moment... What? Is that it? Every moment?
Every moment of every... Is that it? Every moment, hour
of every day moment and in every way I'm leaning
on Jesus He's the rock of my soul I'm singing His praises
wherever Amen. We have a good night.