in Exodus 33 verse 11 we read
this and the Lord spake unto Moses face to face as a man speaketh
unto his friend that's an amazing text isn't it that the infinite
holy God the Lord should speak to a mortal man a sinner how
big a sinner well let's not forget Moses was a murderer He slew
the Egyptian when he saw the children of Israel being persecuted.
And yet the Lord spake unto Moses face to face as a man speaketh
unto his friend. Here's my question. Has the Lord
ever spoken to you? Has he ever spoken to you? Think
about speech. What is speech? We take it for
granted as people. We speak to, we communicate all
of the time. starts with ideas in the brain,
and the ideas form themselves into words, and the words travel
through the space between us into your ears, into your hearing,
and you hear, and your brain understands, and reacts, takes
the information in, does something about it. You see, we as human
beings are made in the image of God. when God made man when
he created man he made him in the let us make man in our image
said the triune God let us make man in our image we're made in
the image of God and the distinguishing mark is speech we're distinguished
from the animals that is the distinguishing mark above all
others that we communicate with speech I heard a guy on the radio
on a scientific program and you know everything on the radio
and in the media now is completely evolutionary based but He was
saying that a hundred thousand years ago there was a divergence
in one of the genes in the makeup from which we come. And that
mutation of that gene meant that we, unlike the apes that were
before us, are now able to verbalize. So you can look at words, and
I can go delusion, I can go answered, I can formulate words, you know,
and it's because of this gene. And the only difference between
us and the apes is that their genes, poor little things, stayed
where they were and ours branched off and we now have speech. No, no, we're different because
God made us uniquely in his image, made in the image of God. But
here's the question again. Has the Lord ever spoken to you? Your friends have spoken to you,
your teachers at school, your colleagues at work, your bosses,
the people that report to you, whoever it might be, your husband,
your wife, your children, your family. But has the Lord ever
spoken to you? We read and we hear of people
testifying that the Lord has spoken to them, don't we? And
some of it you can tell is false delusion. You know, people who
get it in their minds that the Lord has told them to go and
do some crazy thing. But others, it's undoubtedly
true. The Lord has spoken to them.
Has the Lord spoken to you? Perhaps, perhaps you put yourself
where God is likely to speak to you. Go to church. Doesn't God speak to people at
church? There's a record of God speaking to people at church.
Don't just go to any church. You go where there's sound doctrine,
where there's scriptural, biblical doctrine. Go where there's a
clear gospel and not a false gospel, not false hope of idolatry. but there's still, despite you
being there, despite you hearing the words of a man, despite you
singing hymns with good doctrinal content and reading the scriptures,
there's still a need for God to speak to you individually. Let's look at this young man,
Samuel. I don't know exactly how old
he is. I suspect when chapter 3 starts that he's probably in
his early teens. I don't know. I wouldn't be dogmatic
about it. But let's look at him to learn
some lessons about God speaking. He was in the right place. wasn't
he? In Israel, he was in the right
place. He was in the temple where the Ark of God was. He was in
the temple, that's where he was. What's the temple? The temple
is symbolical of the fellowship of God with his people. Remember
when we were doing the Revelation series and we got right towards
the end to the New Jerusalem you know in the temple I mean
this was the tabernacle then it wasn't the temple in Jerusalem
it was the tabernacle but nevertheless In this structure it had a holy
of holies which was a cube, a small cube and nobody dared go in.
Only the high priest once a year on the day of atonement with
a suitable blood sacrifice could go in there and that was carried
on into the temple. This cube was the presence of
God and the most intimate sinless, blissful fellowship with God
and his people. And when we get to Revelation,
the new Jerusalem, the new Zion that comes down out of heaven
from God, the bride of Christ, that is a cube, it's a gigantic
cube, because it has to hold, symbolically, a lot of people,
a multitude that no man can number. That's what the temple pictures,
fellowship with God. Samuel was in the right place,
he was in the temple. Eli, the high priest, slept in
the temple. Samuel, the apprentice if you
like, slept in the temple. And there in the temple in the
Holy of Holies was the Ark of God, which was that box, which
was, well, most of you can't see it, but see that coffee table
down in the corner which is about, now again, sorry for you listening
online, but I'm holding my hands out to say it's about that long,
and it's about a foot and a half high and about a foot and a half
wide. It's a box. It's a box of wood overlaid with
gold. But it isn't just a box. It's
symbolical of the gospel of grace. It's symbolical of how God saves
his people from their sins. How God remains just. For he cannot remain God if he
does not remain just. And yet he justifies the sinners
that are the people of his choice. Samuel was in the right place.
There were all the right things there. The fellowship of God,
the things that caused acceptance with God, the symbol of the gospel
of God's grace, it was there. But look, in verse 1, the word
of the Lord was precious. You know, precious things, there's
not many of them, are there? That's why they're precious.
You know, you've got a very expensive diamond ring. It's because there
are not many of them. That's why it costs a lot of
money. They're precious. Precious. Rare. Rare. You know,
if there's loads of them, if I said to you, I'm going to give
you a gift of a stone out of my garden, you'd say, well, no
thanks, I don't particularly want one. Why? Because there's
loads of them. They're not precious. They're not rare. They're common,
that the word of the Lord was precious. It was rare. Even though
they were in the right place, it was rare for God to speak. Why? Well, it's all in the sovereignty
of God, but you can see some signs. We saw them last week. Eli was the high priest. He was a true believer. I believe
he's a saved man, but he had failed to restrain his sons. Verse 13. The iniquity of Eli's
house, which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile,
and he restrained them not. And in the process, he was doing
Satan's work. Because what is Satan's work?
It's to distract the people of God from the gospel of Christ. The ark, as I've said, symbolized
the gospel. It pictured Christ. On the top
of it was a thing that was called the mercy seat. Do you know that
word translated mercy seat is the word propitiation. You say
I'm no wiser. What do you mean? Propitiation.
Turning away the anger. Turning away the just wrath of
God. That's what it is. On that mercy
seat there was a, what turned away the anger of God? The blood.
of an acceptable sacrifice. The high priest went in with
the blood of an, not any old animal sacrifice, the blood of
an acceptable sacrifice according to that which he had prescribed
and the priest took that blood in there and sprinkled it on
the mercy seat and God said I will speak to you face to face. Just
as he'd spoken to Moses as a man speaks to his friend. Now we'll
come back to this ark and the gospel that it symbolizes, that's
my intention anyway, in more detail next week. But the point
is, despite being in the right place, despite having all the
things there that would lead to you thinking that you would
know the word of the Lord, look at verse 7. Now Samuel did not
yet know the Lord. Neither was the word of the Lord
yet revealed unto him. He didn't yet know the Lord.
He hadn't seen it. He hadn't had it revealed to
him. Because you know something? You
cannot go to a college to understand this. You must have it revealed.
The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God,
they're foolishness to him, neither can he know them. Why? They are
spiritually discerned. Who is it that gives spiritual
discernment? It's the Spirit of God, who comes
and reveals the truths of the gospel. Colossians 1.26 tells
us about the mystery. Why is it a mystery? Because
not many people know it. Look around the world today,
how many people, what proportion know what the Bible teaches about
the gospel of God's grace? Very, very few. It's a mystery. And yet, he reveals it, it says,
to his saints. Who are his saints? The multitude
that he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world.
Let's apply this to us. You come here, or to places like
this, for years. You listen to preaching on the
internet. this is one of the blessings
with all of the sin and abuse that there is connected with
the internet with all of the crime and deceit and deception
with all of the pornography and evil that there is on the internet
what a blessing that we have it because of preaching what
a blessing it's a tremendous blessing you think back twenty
years ago you couldn't do what we do today as short a time ago
as that we listen to preaching You come to a place like this,
you hear preaching, but you remain unmoved. You perhaps wonder why
some of us take it so seriously, why for some of us there's nothing
more important in life of all the things that we love and of
all the things we appreciate there is nothing more important
than the gospel of God's grace and the worship of the living
God no you can be in the right place never mind being in the
wrong place you can be in the right place but it may be that
like with Samuel in verse seven the Lord has not yet spoken to
you how would you know if the Lord has spoken to you how would
you know How do you discern the Lord's voice? How do you discern
it? Or how do you not discern it?
How do you glibly go on not hearing it? You see, Samuel, when he
heard the Lord call him three times, Samuel, Samuel, he thought
it was Eli. He didn't discern that that was
the Lord's voice speaking to him. But in verse eight, when
Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child and when he
told him it's the Lord that's calling you Samuel is willing
for God to speak and for himself to hear. He says go back and
when you hear him say speak for your servant hears and he went
and when the Lord called he was willing I think I told you a
story a little account some time ago about the man with his dog
and somebody went to visit him and he was amazed at the dog's
attentiveness to the man his master and he said he's all ears
he's all ears The child of God, listening to God, is all ears,
waiting to hear what you will say to me, waiting humbly, waiting
willingly. We've just sung that well-known
hymn, Master speak, thy servant heareth, waiting for thy gracious
word, longing for thy voice that cheereth. When we gather together,
do you long for the Lord to speak to you? through what we do, through
the Word, through the preaching, through the hymns, as we read
the Word of God, the Lord speaks. Lord, speak to me. This should
be our prayer every week when we come together. Give me Samuel's
ears. I don't just want to be in the
right place, I want my ears open so that I hear the Lord speaking
to me. And praying for God to speak. Praying. Look at verse 10. The
Lord came and stood I should make you stop and think.
God came and stood. Who was it that came and stood?
Surely this is a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is a theophany. A man came who was God. The Lord
came and stood. in the form of a man. He appeared
many times. He appeared to Abraham. He appeared to Gideon. He appeared
to Samuel's parents. They thought they were going
to die because they said we've seen the Lord. Woe is us. It's all
up for us. He appeared to Isaiah in the
temple in the year that Uzziah died. he saw the Lord, high and
lifted up, and his train filled the temple. There he was, these
pre-incarnate appearances of the God-man, of the one who is
God, yet manifests himself to man. In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, but it wasn't just with God,
the Word was God. the word was God he came and
dwelt among us no man cometh to the father but by him to Philip
have I been so long with you Philip that you have not known
me he that has seen me has seen the father for I and the father
are one This is the one who came. The pre-incarnate Lord Jesus
Christ came and stood and called. He spoke. Speech. He spoke. Relationships need speaking,
don't they? A marriage is in a very, very
poor condition if there's no speaking between the husband
and the wife. A family is in a very poor state
if there's no speaking, no speech between the members of the family.
A business is going to suffer very badly if there is not good
communication within the business and within the trade that it
does. In government, what's the highest court? in our land as
far as the legislature is concerned. It's Parliament. What does Parliament
mean? Parley. To speak. Speaking. It's where they go and they speak
and we often watch the ding-dong that goes on at Prime Minister's
question time, the theatre that goes on, but the purpose of it
is in the chamber and in the committee rooms. What do they
do? They speak. They speak. It's vital. If we
need human speaking, How much more do we need God to speak
to me? Lord, speak to me. Master, speak,
thy servant heareth, waiting for thy gracious word. We speak
this. You see, God discriminates in
who he speaks to. Oh, that's not fair, I don't
like that. Well, that's the way it is. That's the way he's revealed
it. Our God is a God of grace. Our God is a God of grace, but
do you know something? You can pray to him. There's
a hymn that says, pass me not, O gracious Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others thou art calling,
do not pass me by, because if you pass me by, you leave me
to the capability of my flesh, which is fallen, and I'll go
to hell, for I have no way of being right with you. Pass me
not, O gracious Savior, speak to me. Master, speak, thy servant
heareth. Well what do you want the Lord
to speak to you? What do you want him to say to
you? Do you want him to speak to you? What do you want him
to speak to you? Teach me your truth. Direct me. Conform me to your doctrine of
effectual salvation. That's what we want. conform
me to your doctrine. This is our prayer to God, conform
me to your doctrine of effectual salvation. Do you know the difference
between the true gospel and all the ones that sound like it in
so many ways but are actually false? Their salvation is not
effectual. They have a salvation that is
only made effective when you believe rather than the scriptural
salvation which is from before the foundation of the world.
God chose his people in Christ before the foundation of the
world. That salvation that he gave us in Christ before the
world was made, as it says in 2 Timothy 1 verse 9, I think
it is. Show me that. Speak that to me. Show me the truth of that gospel,
that true gospel. Not the gospel that man might
have taught me, falsely. Show me the true gospel. Speak
through your word, by your spirit. Spirit of God, come to me when
I read these words. Speak to me the voice of God
and show me. Show me what? Show me my sin.
Make me feel the truth of God. Have you ever done that? Have
you ever felt the truth of God? You've not just heard it, but
God's spoken to you. And you've felt it in your heart,
in your core. I know I'm a sinner. I know I
stand condemned before the justice of God, the holiness of God. I know that God cannot pardon
me for my own sake, absolutely not. He can only do it for the
sake of his son, who has paid redemption's price for his people. Show me these things, speak by
your spirit. Don't let me twist your word
to fit my doctrine. That's what's wrong with the
majority of religion today. They have an idea of how salvation
is accomplished and they twist the word to fit their false doctrine. That's what they do. What do
we want God to do? Rebuke me when I need rebuking. Chastise me when I need to be
chastised. Show me my sin if I'm blasé about
it. Make me feel the truth of it
and comfort me. What with? Comfort me with the
truth of accomplished redemption. Do you know, for years before
I heard the true gospel, and I'd only heard a false gospel,
do you know what my hope rested in? My believing. Had I believed
properly? Had I invited Jesus into my heart
effectively and sincerely enough? Because if I hadn't, I was going
to hell. And it all hinged on what I had done. And I heard
the true gospel, that it was all of grace, and that it was
all accomplished. And that in Christ Jesus, in
Christ Jesus, there is forgiveness of sins, for he has paid the
price of the sins of his people, specifically, particularly. Comfort
me with the news of accomplished redemption, reassure me, soothe
me with the promises of eternity. So the Lord speaks. Look at verse
11. The Lord speaks to Samuel. 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 things which I have spoken concerning his
house. In the previous chapter, God had already told Eli that
this judgment was coming. When I begin, I will also make
an end. don't think it's going to go
away he's going to do and complete exactly what he said he will
do for I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the
iniquity which he knows he knows about the iniquity his sons were
vile the sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not
in the in the power and authority that he had as high priest he
had the power and authority to discipline those those wayward
sons to take them out of the office to take all of those things
away from them which they were abusing and corrupting and making
vile things which pictured the salvation of God they were corrupting
and polluting and making vile and he didn't do that and because
of that his house was judged and therefore I have sworn to
the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged
with sacrifice nor offering forever he's gone too far his household
has gone too far Who did God say this to? Who did the Lord
speak to? He spoke to Samuel. He spoke distinctively. He spoke discriminately. He spoke
to Samuel. He didn't say it to Eli. He burdened
the young boy, Samuel, with the message from the Lord. He put
a burden upon him with his message. He delivered that message. What,
was Samuel super holy? No, he was just an earthen vessel,
as are all others. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no,
not one, not even Samuel, not Moses, not Abraham, no, none
righteous, no, not one. delivered to an earthen vessel,
just an earthen vessel, he put the treasure of his truth in
an earthen vessel. What a privilege to hear it,
what a privilege to have it applied to the heart. You know parents
speak to their children, so God is likely to speak to his children
isn't he? He speaks, God speaks, how does
God speak? How does God speak? He speaks
in creation. We can look all around us and
all men are without excuse for not believing the living God
because He speaks in creation. Do you know the reason why they're
so keen on evolutionary theory? Do you know why it's the fundamental
basis for all our society and our education and everything
that people do? I'll tell you. Simple. The Word
of God says it. Romans 1. Man did not like to
retain God in his knowledge. That's the reason why. And so
they're without excuse. For God has spoken in creation.
He speaks by providence. the ways he works, the things
he does, if you're a child of God you know all things work
together for good to those that love God who are the called according
to his purpose, he speaks through providence, you see his hand
leading and guiding he speaks through the circumstances that
happen to us in life and death, perhaps somebody dear and near
gets a fatal illness, a terminal illness and dies. And it speaks,
God speaks powerfully. God speaks powerfully. most of
all he speaks through his word we sang the hymn at the start
how firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord is laid for your
faith in his excellent word what more can he say than to you he
has said you who unto Jesus for refuge have fled he speaks through
his word he speaks through true gospel preaching not as some
hear preaching You know, there's some who hear preaching like
this in Ezekiel 33. Let me read verse 30 down to
the end for you. Also thou son of man, the children
of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and
in the doors of the houses and speak one to another. everyone
to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is
the word that cometh forth from the Lord. And they come unto
thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people,
and they hear thy words, but they will not do them. For with
their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their
covetousness. And lo, thou art unto them as
a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can
play well on an instrument for they hear thy words but they
do them not and when this cometh to pass lo it will come then
shall they know that a prophet hath been among them you see
that's how many people hear the word of God oh it's a lovely
song it's very nice is that but they hear it but they don't do
it the right way to hear preaching, as those who have heard the voice
of God's Son. John 5, 25. Verily, verily, I
say unto you, the hour is coming, these are the words of Jesus,
the hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. Well
look at verse 10. The soul hearing, the soul hearing. Verse 10. The Lord came and stood
and called, as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered,
Speak, for thy servant heareth." Thy servant heareth. There are
none, as the saying goes, there are none so deaf as those that
refuse to hear. You know? They put their fingers
in their ears and go, la, la, la, they don't want to hear what
you're saying to them. None so deaf as those that refuse to
hear. But to the willing heart Lord,
if you speak, of course I hear. If you speak, of course I hear.
When the Lord truly speaks and you truly hear, nothing else
will do. When the Lord has spoken the
truths of redemption and propitiation to your soul, you don't want
anything else, do you? You don't want to hear anything
else. A lot of people contact me. As I say, since we've been going
and putting the services on the internet, the internet congregation
has grown, and I'm sure we only know the tip of the iceberg,
but it seems like every few days, somebody that I've never heard
of before writes to me to say, I've been listening to your messages
for a long, long time. And I often tell us here, don't
I, that we may only be a handful in this room, but out there this
goes out and there are, I don't know, there must be hundreds
altogether just from the tip of the iceberg I know about people
out there listening and the reason there are so many is because
the churches that they went to have attempted to mix law with
grace and you can't you know they say oh yes we believe in
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and that we're saved by the blood
of Christ and yes but you know now the law is the believer's
rule of life and you better live according to the law otherwise
you'll be called to account and you'll lose out on your reward
and there'll be things that you'll spend your time in eternity in
deep deep regret for all the things that you didn't do that
you should have done as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ and
it's a mixture of law and grace and you know as soon as you mix
the one with the other it's not just that yes the grace is still
there but he puts law in with it but I can leave the law out
and just listen to the grace no you can't you can't anybody
listening to this if you're in a place that mixes law and grace
I tell you come out come out don't stay there because the
message will corrupt you just come out from amongst it Or else
the worthless baubles of charismatic fantasy, which is so prevalent
in our day, come out from among that. Because whatever you're
enticed with, it won't speak to you. It's hollow. It's empty. It's like those things at Christmas
that sparkle, but there's no substance to them. or the empty
mysticism of traditional religion, you know, we need to be in our
particular cathedral with all its lovely architecture. You
know, I don't knock the architecture, I'm quite impressed with some
of the architecture that there is, but don't for one moment
think that because you're in that place that there God will
speak to you he won't there's no gospel of God's grace you
listen to it on the radio no don't listen to it but I tell
you occasionally we do we did this morning the service that
was going on from wherever it came from There's no gospel of
Christ. There's no peace to the soul,
none whatsoever. The people that are going through
the motions of religion haven't got a clue what they're talking
about. Their only message is that Jesus came to try and make
us all be kind to one another. No, he didn't. Jesus said, I
pray not for the world, but for those that you've given me. Jesus
came to save his people from their sins. That's why he was
called Jesus. No, you don't want anything else. When God has truly spoken the
gospel of grace, I remember, it's probably thirty years ago,
no not quite thirty years, twenty-eight years ago, and this lady on the front row
and her husband Bill were sending us tapes from Henry Mahan and
Don Faulkner we heard the gospel of God's grace and I remember
saying we've got to get out of what we're into and we've got
to go somewhere else where we can hear this gospel preached
because quite honestly nothing else will do I don't care the
elements, the grains of truth we hear it either has to be pure
gold or I don't want any mixture because Like Bill always used
to say, here's a glass of water, right? I'm happy to drink this
water. It's just come straight from the filter on the fridge,
right? That's good water, that. Right. You get a bottle of cyanide. You just put one drop in there.
It's only one drop. Only one drop. It's still, it's
still probably 99.99% water, pure water. You've only put one
drop of poison in it, surely that's okay. No, I won't drink
it. It's poison. The one drop has
poisoned the whole thing. The little bit of leaven has
leavened the whole lump. No, you want the true gospel
and nothing else. Go where you can hear it. And
if there isn't a place, get on the internet, you'll find it
there. When God speaks gospel truth personally in your ear
and you bow as his servant in submission and belief, he won't
let you go. And you won't want anything else.
You'll keep listening. You'll learn whose you are. Whose
you are? Who you belong to. How do you
belong to them? By divine purchase. You are not
your own. You are bought with a price.
And you learn whom you serve. How? by the law coming and snapping
at your heels? No, the willing bondservant.
You know the law of the bondservant in the Old Testament? The servant
after seven years could go free. It was the law. But some didn't
want to. Why not? They loved their master.
They loved that household. They wanted to stay there. Put
a mark on me that I am your servant, willingly. I am here because
I want to be. Press men and volunteers, anybody
that's been in any team leading whether it be in business or
military, you'll know that one volunteer is worth ten pressed
men, possibly more. Willing bond servant, when God
has spoken, when the Lord has come and spoken, that's the way
it is. The result of the Lord speaking.
Verse 19, and Samuel grew. And the Lord was with him, and
did let none of his words fall to the ground. Look, the Lord
was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.
And the result, all Israel, from Dan, even to Beersheba, the whole
lot, 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. Do you
notice in verse one, there was no open vision. In the days of
Eli there was no open vision and now the Lord revealed himself
to Samuel in Shiloh. How? By the word of the Lord.
Lord speak to me that I may speak in living echoes of thy tone.
The Lord appeared again where there had been no open vision
now that the Lord speaking to Samuel there is vision. The Lord appeared again to him.
There had been a famine of the Lord speaking to his people.
Why? Because of the wickedness, the
unrestrained wickedness of Eli's sons. But God will save the people
of his eternal choice. Did he leave them alone? No.
He raised up a Samuel. This boy, this young man, teenager. I don't know, might have been
heading for 20 years old. Young, young. he raised this one up
so that he would save his people from their sins because the line
must continue Christ must come according to the scriptures David
must be raised up and you know Samuel was the prophet that picked
out David at the Lord's instigation from the sons of Jesse You know,
I went through all the strapping young lads who look so likely
to be a king in Israel. No, no, not this one, not this
one, not this one. Have you any more? Yeah, well,
there's the young lad, he's out on the hill. You surely don't
want to bring him in. David, this is the one. A man
after God's own heart. David must be raised up. that
David's greater Son, this is Christ, David's greater Son,
might come and redeem his people from the condemnation of their
sins. Verse 21, the Lord revealed himself to Samuel by the word
of the Lord. By the word of the Lord. Solar
scripture. Only the Bible. This is, you
know, where's your creed? What's your confession of faith?
What's our confession of faith? This book. This book. Because
I tell you, there's some good ones, but everyone is tainted
by the views of man. They become revered, they become
quoted as having more power than scripture. The scriptures is
our creed, let that be our creed. The Lord revealed himself to
Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord and all Israel knew
that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord. God
raises up preachers of the true gospel to be a blessing to the
Israel of God, as Samuel was. We live in dark days. When we
went through Revelation, we got to Revelation chapter 11, and
we saw the two witnesses, the two prophets, lying dead in the
streets and the sinful world around rejoicing over the fact
that they were lying dead in the streets and it's such a picture
of the church certainly in this land in these days that which
had been seen to be a testimony for the truth of God to all practical
purposes looks like it's lying dead in the streets dead in the
streets but they don't stay dead In the vision of Revelation they
don't stay dead. The truth of God must be declared
and fear fall on all who despise him before the end. Pray that
God will speak to individuals. Pray that God will raise up preachers
to declare the truth of God. You know, in this account we
see the young boy Samuel, that gift to Hannah, give me a son
and God gives her a son and she gives him back, she lends him
back to the Lord and the Lord pays such good interest on the
loan of Samuel by giving her more sons and daughters and here
he is this young boy in the service of the Lord but he's anointed
by God and blessed by God and God speaks to him and God gives
him his word and the blessings that come from it and perhaps
in these days somebody listening someone listening some young
man perhaps God will call you to be a prophet of the Lord I
know as you know you might look and think well you're not so
old yet well I'm retired and I'm getting on and you sort of
think well who's going to pick the baton up and start preaching? Who's going to pick the baton
up? Perhaps God will call you to be a prophet of the Lord.