Our reading this morning has
been from 1 Samuel 3 and it's a very interesting passage. You
will notice in verse 1 something significant about the times in
which this passage refers. We are told in this opening verse
that the word of the Lord was precious. The word of the Lord
was precious in the way that rarity gives value to a desirable
thing. The Word of the Lord is precious. The Word of the Lord is valuable.
The Word of the Lord is needed. And if the Word of the Lord comes
to us, it is a privilege indeed that we hear the things of God
declared to us. The Word of the Lord was precious,
but it was precious in the sense that it was a rare thing to hear. It seems as though There was
few in Israel at that time who had any true understanding of
the things of God. How blessed we are if the Lord
gives a word to us from himself. Why have we come here this morning?
Why have we gathered here today? Is it that we seek a word from
the Lord? Can I assume that that is why
you are here this morning? Can I assume that we have gathered
here in order to hear a word from the Lord, that our hearts
desire such a thing? And have you asked for it as
you came out this morning? Have you pleaded to the Lord
that he might speak to us today and that we might hear what he
has to say to us? This is a question for each of
us this day. Are we serious about what we
are doing? Are we serious about the needs
that we have? Do we understand our own nature? Do we understand our own lack? Do we understand the slowness
and the dullness of our own souls? And do we yearn for a word from
the Lord to comfort and to help us in our souls? It is a precious thing if the
Lord speaks to his people. It is a precious thing if he
speaks to our hearts, if the Lord whispers to our souls. More so, it is a precious thing
if we have waited long to hear him. How long have we waited
to hear the Lord speak words of peace to our souls? Do you know that you have peace
with God? Do you know that your soul is
right with Almighty God? In our hearts, we know the true
nature of our person. We know what it is to be a sinner. We know what it is to fall far
short of the standard of God's holiness. What right have we
to claim a word from the Lord? What right have we to imagine
that he whom we have railed against, we whom we have rebelled against,
whom we have purposefully set behind us and pursued our own
desires and gone our own ways, should ever have anything to
say to us but the words of judgment that came to the house of Eli,
that there will be no forgiveness, that there is no offering of
sacrifices for you. But God be praised. He whispers
words of love. He speaks of grace and mercy.
He declares to His people that He has longed for them to return
to Him. And He has effected that way
of approach. He has opened up the door. He
has sent His own Son to bear the consequences, to bear the
very sins that we have committed. And He has forgiven His people. Oh to hear a word from the Lord
speaking peace to our souls this morning. Let it be our prayer
as we gather. To wait long upon that word and
then to hear it is like a thirsty man in a dry land being given
a cup of water. Psalm 63 verse 1 is called a
Psalm of David which he when he was in the wilderness of Judah. And David declares, O God, thou
art my God. Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth for thee in
a dry and thirsty land where no water is. We live in a dry
and thirsty land. I'm not talking about the rain
that falls or the snow that we get. I'm not talking about our
water holes. I'm talking about the fact that
there is a dearth of the preaching of the Word of God. I'm talking
about the fact that the Word of God is precious because it
is rare. I'm talking about the fact that
if we have the Word of God, we are kings in this world. We are a holy nation. We are
kings and priests, bestowed with the blessings which alone He
could give. We are wealthy, my friends, if
we possess the precious Word of God in our hearts and in our
souls. And oh, if the Lord speaks these
precious truths to us, we will never be the same again. Truths
to the heart. Truths to the heart from the
lips of God. Truths about mercy to those who
deserve none. Truths about love to those who
were and are unlovable. of peace and reconciliation when
we were far from Him and careless about our soul's need, of forgiveness
when He has taken away that sin which spoils our very soul, and
redemption which He has accomplished on the cross at Calvary, not
because we deserve it, but because he is gracious despite what we
deserve. Grace it is, grace and grace
alone that brings a word from the Lord. Grace it is that brings
the Lord near to a sinner. We cannot in our sinful, we will
not, we desire not in our sinful state to go to him. but he draws
near to us. The word of the Lord is precious. The word of the Lord is blessed. Look at verse two and three of
this passage. There's something very solemn
about these verses. Eli slept, it would appear, in
the tabernacle. He slept beside the covenant,
the Ark of the Covenant. Eli was the high priest, he alone,
although it also seems that some way away from Eli, although within
hearing distance, probably for the care and attendance of this
old man, slept a young boy also. There within the tabernacle,
Eli slept beside the Ark of the Covenant. You know why he did
that? So that he could be there to
hear when the Lord spoke. Because the Lord dwelt, as he
had done from the time of Moses, through all that wilderness journey
of the children of Israel out of Egypt, to the establishment
here in Shiloh. in the land of Ephraim, in the
land of Israel, of this place where the Jews went to worship. We remember Elkanah and Hannah
going up there to what's called the temple, but it was really
just the tabernacle where the ark of God was maintained, and
Eli was the priest who tended its care. But there's something very solemn
about Eli's representation here in this passage. Eli slept beside
the ark. It was he who ought to hear the
things that God declared. It was he who ought to see the
presence of the Lord there in that holy place. But we are told
his eyes were dim. We're told that the light of
God was going out in Israel because there was no open vision anymore. God had withdrawn and those who
ought to have heard, those who ought to have seen, those that
represented the priesthood, those who went in to the presence of
God in order to hear his word, they were blind. Their eyes were dim. Now they
could not hear the voice of God. It speaks of religion in so many
ways. People have a structure. They have their tent. They have
their tabernacle. They have their buildings that
they build. And they dwell in that tabernacle. They live in that place. They
give it their time. They give it their energy. They
give it all their resources. They would sleep in the place
if they thought it would do them any good. But their eyes are
dimmed to the spiritual realities of the truth of God. They no
longer hear God speaking because the word of God has become rare. And it is a precious thing if
it is heard at all. Can we be close, that close to
God and yet miss him? So preoccupied with the formalities
with the rituals, with the doings, that we don't hear that still
small voice any longer. That we have come to take it
for granted that this is what religious life is. This is what
it is to be a Christian. And we've lost that first love.
We've lost that first thrill of the presence of God Do you
know that it took three occasions for God to speak? Three occasions
for God to speak there in the tabernacle for Eli to realize
it was God who was speaking. Oh, he'd forgotten what it was
like to hear the Lord speak. Francis Crosby wrote these words. Pass me not, O gentle Saviour. Hear my humble cry. While in
others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Verse four says that before the
lamp went out, these lamps would have been lit in the night as
the priests were retiring to sleep, these lamps would be lit
so that there was a light that shone throughout the night there
in the tabernacle. But they would start to go out,
there was probably a number of them, but they would start to
diminish and decline towards the dawn of the day and towards
the sunrise. And we're told that Before the
lamp went out, I think we can typify that, we can spiritualize
that, because what we're being told here is that in a very real
sense, the light had gone out in Israel, or the light was going
out. There was no more word in Israel. It was a rare and a precious
thing. There was no open vision. The light was going out. But before the light was totally
extinguished, the Lord spoke again. Just there, just at that
moment, just as the light was going out, when there was none
in the land to hear the things of God, the Lord spoke and he
spoke to a young lad. He spoke to a boy, to a child. Let me tell you something. That's
grace. That's grace. Because old Eli,
he couldn't do a thing about it. He was blind. As far as the Lord
was concerned, he was deaf. Oh, he had the trappings of religion. He slept in the tabernacle. He
went through the motions. He knew what it was to sacrifice
the animals. He knew what it was to cut their
necks. He knew what it was to burn them and to roast them and
to see the smell and to have the place fill. He knew what
the ritual was, but he didn't understand the spiritual realities
of a relationship with God, not anymore. The light had gone out. And it was only of God's grace
that he should speak, that he should come again. And to whom
did he come? Not to the religious people,
not to the man you would have expected, not to the man that
the Lord would have directed us to expect, but to a child,
to Samuel. He left not himself without a
witness. It's a lovely thought. that the
Lord is faithful to his people. When they have lost sight of
him, he does not lose sight of us. When we have lost the ear,
the sensitive ear to hear his precious word, he does not lose
sight of us. He hears us and he knows our
needs and he comes to us just as the light is going out. and
he whispers our name in our ear. Eli didn't deserve the Lord to
speak to him. Neither did his sons by any means,
nor the people. In fact, neither do you and neither
do I. We don't deserve God to speak
to us. But if he speaks to us, it is
grace to our souls. Let us value the word of God. This was the Lord Jesus Christ
that was speaking here. Did you know that? Did you know
that? This was the Lord Jesus Christ
that was speaking. He is the word. He is the voice. He is the eternal Word of God. In the beginning was the words,
the voice, the revelation of God, all we know of God, all
we understand of God, all that the infinite, unknowable, ineffable
God. has revealed to men and women
like you and me, has been revealed through and by the person of
the Lord Jesus Christ, none else, none else. You don't know God
except by that which the Lord Jesus Christ has revealed of
him. And yet he has revealed himself. Can we imagine that? Can we imagine
that? Hollywood, you know, it sets
all these premises, you know, space travelers and people that
look for life. I noticed, was it NASA or someone
had said that they've got new evidence that means so much.
to the narrow-minded man of this world. Listen, I'll tell you,
how are we ever going to communicate with the incommunicable God? Send our radio waves out into
space and hope that maybe God will pick them up. God has come to us, and he's
come to us in a way that we can understand. He's come to us as
a man, the man Christ Jesus, because that's the only way we
would have known, the only way we could understand. And notice this, that the Lord,
the Lord Jesus Christ, called Samuel by name. I like that,
I like that. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
speaks personally. Now hear me, hear me because
this is important. The Lord Jesus Christ speaks
personally to men and women. Now my gospel, my gospel, My
sermon this morning is preached indiscriminately. That means
that it goes out to whomever is within the sound of my voice. If you're within the sound of
my voice, you'll hear what I'm saying. It's indiscriminate. We would long to be able to take
this message to many more because it is an indiscriminate message. It is a message that we are to
go out into the world and preach to whomsoever will listen and
we endeavour to do so. That door is open. Men and women
can come in and sit down and partake of this gospel as they
see fit. But listen, when God speaks,
when the Lord Jesus Christ speaks, when a word is sent to an individual,
it comes personally. It comes to you and no one else. It's your word from the Lord. The word of God is personal and
it will pass one by in order to be heard by another. It goes to whomsoever he sends
it. In verses five through nine,
we're told that the Lord called Samuel four times, four times. And Samuel didn't know the Lord. The voice sounded like Eli's. It sounded like Eli's voice. What else was this child to think? He was in there in the tabernacle
and the only other person that was there was Eli. So time after
time, he gets up out of his bed and he goes to the old man and
he says, here am I. What can I do for you? How can
I help? What do you need? That was the
natural thing for Samuel to think. Because, verse 7 tells us, Samuel
did not yet know the Lord. Neither was the word of the Lord
yet revealed unto him. Who's the word again? We know
that. It's the Lord Jesus. The Lord
Jesus had not yet been revealed to him. He understood the spiritual
dimension of this worship. He had a sense of meaning behind
this ritual, but he yet had not understood, he had not met personally
the Lord Jesus Christ. When the word of the Lord comes
to an individual personally, when the Holy Spirit begins to
speak in a sinner's heart. That sinner may run here, there,
and everywhere, trying to find out what to do. That's just the
way of it, because they don't know the Lord, but they know
something's wrong. They know they've got a need.
They know there's been a call. They know that something has
disturbed them. Something has roused them out
of their sleep. They heard a voice and they don't
know who it was. So what do they do? Well, they
run to Eli, of course. They run to good works. That
was his job. His job was to look after this
old man. So he gets up out of his bed.
The Lord speaks to him and he gets up out of his bed and he
doesn't look over there to where the Lord's standing. He looks
to the door. He looks to Eli's bedroom and
he says, Eli, what do you want me to do? He goes to religion. That's the first place. People
who have a word from the Lord, people who hear, who are disturbed
by the things of God, they go to good works. They go to religion. They go to their own efforts.
They go to legalism. They go to law. They say, what
does God require me to do? Show me what I have to do and
I'll do it. But the reality is that time
after time, they will get no satisfaction. It just won't do. And what does religion tell them?
Go back to sleep. Go back to sleep. Go back to
sleep. Don't think any more about it.
Don't let this voice, this word disturb you any more. But you see, Samuel had an appointment
with the Lord Jesus Christ. And though he was slow to understand,
the Lord was persistent. The elect of God, the chosen
of God will be pursued. Will be pursued. Let me tell
you something this morning. If the Lord has you in his sights, You run all you like. You go
where you like. He'll get you. He'll get you. The Lord Jesus Christ is a people.
He has what he calls, what he calls, his purchased possession. Oh, we all have our purchased
possessions, don't we? We know what's ours. We get something
in our house that doesn't belong to us. We know all our lives
that that doesn't belong to us. We know what's ours and we know
what's not and we know what someone else's. And the Lord knows those
that are his. He has a purchase possession
of people that he has bought. not with money, not with silver
and gold, but with the price of his own precious blood. He
died on the cross for that people. The Lord Jesus Christ's death
was not universally for everyone. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
die on the cross for everyone. The Lord died for a purchased
people. And those are the people that
God sends his voice to. Those are they whom the Holy
Spirit pursues. Those are they who hear their
name spoken by God himself. Eli didn't understand. The child came through time after
time and Eliyette was oblivious to the fact that the Lord was
speaking. What is it that disturbs you?
What is it that disturbs you? How would you know if the Lord
was speaking to your heart? How would you know? Now speak to little ones as well,
younger ones here. Listen to me, you youngsters
that are here, listen to me. Samuel's just a child, but God
speaks to children. God speaks. Don't think this
is just for your mum and dad. Don't think this is just for
grownups. Samuel's just a little boy. And God passed by all the
grownups. Passed by all the ministers and
the preachers and the pastors. Passed them all by to speak to
the little one because that little one was one of his. Samuel, Samuel, how would you know if God was
speaking to you? The means that God uses to speak
to his people is the message of Jesus Christ crucified. When
you hear the gospel preached, when you hear the gospel, the
good news, why is it good news? It's good news because it tells
us of a purchase that has been made. Another word for a purchase
is a redemption, a redemption that has been made, that the
Lord Jesus Christ has spilled his blood, has borne the sins
of his people, has carried their guilt, has gone before God as
their representative, as their substitute, who has stood up
on their behalf and said, don't punish them, punish me. I will take, like the lamb, like
the sacrifices that Eli was so handy at dispatching there before
the altar of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
fulfillment, the reality, the antitype of those sacrifices. He is the lamb of God that taketh
away the sin of the world. Maybe Something disturbs you
in the message that you hear. Maybe something rouses you, maybe
something you think, huh, that's not the way I see it. Or, not
seen it like that before. Or, well, does that mean that's the Lord? That's the Lord. He prods. He pokes. He whispers. He speaks. He disturbs. He disturbs us. He disturbs the way we think
about things. He disturbs the views that we
have. He shows us something different,
something new. He alters our appreciation. He changes our grasp of things. He converts us. Eli said to Samuel, look, don't ignore it. If you hear
that word again, don't ignore it. If that message comes to
you, Samuel, Samuel, that personal call, don't ignore it. The gospel is spoken to the hearts
of men and women today. The Lord Jesus Christ is lifted
up before men and women today. His works, His will, His ways,
the things of the Lord Jesus Christ are set before men. If
that starts to disturb you, don't ignore it. Don't run away to your own works
or run away to your religion or be put off by someone who
says, just go back to sleep. Say, rather, speak, Lord, for
thy servant heareth. That's not hard, is it? Not too
many big words in that sentence. Pretty much all of us could grasp,
speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. You know what? Samuel got his words wrong. Samuel couldn't even follow what
Eli said. When the Lord did speak to him
again, Samuel forgot to say, Lord. He said, speak, for thy
servant heareth. But you know what? It didn't
matter. Because it wasn't about Samuel.
It wasn't about what Samuel said. It wasn't about what Samuel did.
The grace of God was from him to Samuel. He was going to give
to Samuel. It didn't matter if Samuel got
his words right or wrong. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't
matter if the young people don't know what to say. None of the
older people know what to say either. Speak, Lord, for thy servant
heareth. It's about need. It's about humility. Your servant, it's about humility
before God. It's not about what I can do.
It's not about what I feel. It's not about what I say. It's
not about who I am. Speak, Lord, for thy servant
heareth. We come in childlike trust to
the Lord Jesus Christ. We come as a child. Each of us
must do. Let's think about the Lord's
gracious coming. Let us think about the things
that the Lord has here done for this child, Samuel. The Lord
came and he stood And he called three things. The Lord Jesus
Christ appeared to Samuel, he came, he stood, he called. And
I think the writer here of the passage has given us three powerful
descriptions of the grace of God. He came. The Lord Jesus Christ
came into the world as a man in order that we might understand
God's revelation to us. God has come. God has come into
this world as a man. He stood. The Lord Jesus Christ
stands before God. He stands before God as the surety
of his people, as a substitute for his people. He stands in
the sinner's place. The Lord Jesus Christ came and
stood, and the Lord Jesus Christ called. He calls to all for whom
he died. He calls us to hear. He calls
us to see. He calls us to know. gives us
a word from the Lord. Wherefore he saith, Ephesians
5, 14, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and
Christ shall give thee light. Christ shall give thee light.
He called Samuel by name. Samuel, Samuel. This isn't a
general call. This is not a call that goes
to everyone, it's a call that went to Samuel. Grace makes no general calls. This is a particular call. Common grace is a common fallacy. We speak of free grace, not because
it comes freely to everyone. or because it is received by
man's free will, but because it is bestowed without precondition
or qualification upon all and only all for whom Christ died. There is a limitation in the
extent of the death of Christ. It's the only way to understand
the significance of what Jesus Christ did in the cross is to
understand that it was particular grace. It paid the price for the sins
of those that had been given to Christ before the foundation
of the world. And he is that lamb that was
slain from the foundation of the world, died for their sins
alone. When men and women go to hell,
as men and women will, who have no covering of righteousness
and the blood of Christ, they will go to hell for their own
sins that they have committed, and Christ never paid for those
sins. Grace is God's free gift, not
free for the taking, but freely given as a gift to whomsoever
he chooses so to bless. And as if to emphasize that,
Samuel is told, the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged
with sacrifice nor offering forever. Those are solemn words. The iniquity
of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever. But what if they repent, Lord? What if they repent? The iniquity
of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever. What if they offer sacrifices,
and a lot of them? No purging of sin for Eli's house. What if they live better lives?
No purging of sin for Eli's house. What a message. There's some
suggestion the boy was probably about 12 years old at the time.
I had speculation. They don't know how old Samuel
was. He was just a child. But what
a message for a child to receive. What a message for a child to
receive. The house of that man whom you serve will not be purged from their
sin. I, the Lord God, have declared
it to be so. I will start and I will finish
the judgment. Samuel understood free grace. He understood that it came to
whomsoever God gave it. He understood that it wasn't
for everyone, that if it came to him, it certainly didn't come
to Eli's sons and Eli's house. So it seems that Samuel's lessons
started early. Samuel, we're told, told to Eli
every whit. That means he told him everything.
Eli said to him, Samuel, come over here, son. Samuel was away
closing or opening up the doors of the temple at that time. There's
humility for you. He'd just spoken to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And what does he do when he gets
up in the morning? He goes and opens the door of the church.
That's nice. That's nice. But Eli wanted to
know what God had said. Come over here, Samuel. You tell
me everything. And I'll tell you this, worse
will happen to you, Samuel, if you don't tell me everything.
You see, that's a preacher's job, a preacher's job, a prophet's
job, Samuel's job, just at maybe 12 years of age, was to tell
everything that God says. Everything that the Lord Jesus
Christ has revealed has to be declared. Everything has to be
declared. And it is through the declaration
that God then speaks to his people and lays upon their heart and
disturbs them in their natural condition and brings them to
himself. The faithful prophet declares
God's message, keeping nothing back. And so Samuel learned not
to fear men and to hide nothing of God's word, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Look at Eli's reaction. Here
was confirmation of God's judgment upon his house, and it had come
by a child. But Eli declares, it is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. That's a solemn testimony. It
is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good. I think probably Samuel
would remember Eli's reaction many years later when he reflected
upon his own household. Samuel's own sons, a generation
later, walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre,
wealth, money, took bribes and perverted judgment. Samuel's
sons could be bought and they paid the price for their pursuit
of money. Our God is good. He does good. All his will is good, even his
judgment is good, and his judgments will be universally acknowledged
to be so, as it was here by Eli, shall not the judge of all the
earth do right. I want to draw one more thing
to your attention, and then we're over this morning. Look at verse
19, look at verse 19 through 21 with me, please. 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, that's pretty much
from the north to the south, so it's the whole country. All
Israel from Dan 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. John 1 says, In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And it was by the word of the
Lord. that God spoke to Samuel here. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
Samuel again in Shiloh. It was the Messiah, it was the
Christ that walked and talked and communed and fellowshiped
here with Samuel. The Old Testament saints knew
the same Christ that we know today, no different. There wasn't
another way of salvation in that day as to there is now. The dispensationalists
have got that wrong. This is the same Christ coming
by the same means. And all of the fellowship that
men and women have with God is through the Lord Jesus Christ
and is predicated upon that which he accomplished at the cross
of Calvary. But I want to show you something
in verse 21. It says there that the Lord appeared
again in Shiloh. Shiloh was the name of the town
where the tabernacle was located. It had been there for many, many
years. Joshua had come to Shiloh, and that was where he divided
up the nation of Israel, the land that had been taken in the
conquest of that land of Canaan. and gave it to the respective
tribes. That was all done at Shiloh.
And that was where the tabernacle that had been brought. Remember
Jericho? Remember how the tabernacle went
all the way around the city and the walls fell down? That was
the same tabernacle that had been put here in Shiloh. That
was the name of the town, the name of the location. It was
a town in Ephraim. And it was here that Eli became
high priest to look after the tabernacle, and it was to hear,
to Shiloh, that the people came from throughout Israel in order
to worship God and sacrifice. But Shiloh is also one of the
Old Testament names of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is called Shiloh,
comes back from the days of Jacob, Jacob and his 12 sons. Jacob blessed his sons. Jacob prophesied in Genesis 49
verse 10, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver
from between his feet until Shiloh come. And unto him shall the
gathering of the people be. So while we see in picture form
the gathering of the people of Israel to Shiloh to worship God,
the true reality of that image, that picture that we have there,
is actually the Lord Jesus Christ. He is Shiloh. He is the one who
comes and rules. He is the one who is the lawgiver.
He is the one who establishes his reign and his rule over not
simply Israel now, but through the whole world. And he calls
his church and his people to himself to worship him. So there,
as it were, in picture or by analogy, we see Shiloh in Israel
drawing people and we see Christ in his messianic office, his
role as saviour and deliverer, gathering his people from all
the world. What have we here then but that
Shiloh has come to Shiloh. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
Shiloh. Shiloh has come to Shiloh. And what was it that Shiloh said
to Samuel at Shiloh? What did the Lord Jesus Christ
say to this boy here at the tabernacle? Well, what he had to say was
said in verse 11. I will do a thing in Israel at
which both the ears of everyone that heareth it shall tingle. Something that had never been
seen before, something that had never been revealed before, and
God was going to do it. I will do it, says Shiloh. I
will do it, says Christ. What is it that God would do?
Well, he goes on to speak about the judgment of Eli's house,
but it's bigger than that. He was going to abandon Shiloh. That was what he told Samuel.
I'm going to abandon Shiloh. He would, within a few years,
cause Shiloh to be completely neutered. The tabernacle would be captured
by the Philistines. He would bring judgment upon
Israel for their sin and their wickedness. And it would be many
years later before David, the King David, long after the time
of the judges, the King David would bring the Ark of the Tabernacle
back from the land of the Philistines. And ultimately Solomon would
build the temple and the Ark would be placed inside the temple.
But now the tabernacle was going to be abandoned. Now Shiloh was
going to be abandoned. Psalm 78 verse 60 speaks about
this. It says, so that he forsook the
tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed amongst men. That's what God did. God forsook
the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men. Now stay with me here. Is not that exactly what the
Father did when the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross? Did
he not forsake the tabernacle of Shiloh? Did the Lord Jesus Christ not
cry out, Eli, Eli, Lamas, Abanthanai? That is to say, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? That's quite a weight to leave
on the shoulders of a young man like Samuel, that he should see
such a thing, that he should alone because to understand what
God was going to do to the people of Israel. But what a glimpse
of the eternal purpose of God, that God himself would come in
a day to come, stand upon this earth, tabernacle with men in
the body of our flesh, and be abandoned by God as he
bore the sins of his people. Samuel was 12 years of age when
God showed him that. This youth saw something wonderful
about the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, something that I trust
God the Holy Spirit will cause us to see today. The word of
the Lord was precious in Israel. The word of the Lord is precious
still today. Christ himself ministered these
things to his servant and he caused Samuel to become a prophet,
a declarer of the revelation of God. So Samuel's message was
exactly the same as the message that I preach to you today. It
was a crucified Christ abandoned by his father as he carried the
sins of his people. And yet we remember that the
Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead. We remember that the Lord
Jesus Christ is now ascended on high. And what does that tell
us? that the abandonment accomplished its end, that the sacrifice was
accepted, that the price was paid, that the blood availed,
the precious blood of Jesus Christ, that he saw Christ forsaken on
the cross and God delivered his elect people upon the merits
of the blood of the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made. Samuel
saw what we have seen. He saw Christ made sin. He saw Christ crucified, forsaken,
slain upon the cross. And he understood. We're told
earlier in the passage, Samuel did not yet know the Lord. Neither
was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him. Well, now
it was. And he was converted. He was
changed. He was anointed. He was sent
to declare the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to his generation. And I don't deny that it was
still dark. I don't deny that it was still
limited, that the full extent was yet to be revealed. But we
can trace the whole work of the Lord Jesus Christ through the
prophetic testimony of the Old Testament. So that when the Lord
Jesus Christ came, these men who crucified him were without
excuse. because the testimony was there for all to see. He
understood how the salvation of God's people would be accomplished. And thus the Lord revealed himself
to Samuel in Shiloh by Christ. May the Lord Jesus Christ reveal
himself to us also, that we may behold him as he comes as he
stands and as he calls us by name. Lord God Almighty, show
thy people mercy and send thy grace upon us as we pray. Amen.