The End of the Famine

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Don Filcek; 1 Samuel 3 The End of the Famine

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listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series in 1
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Samuel, Timely Prophet, Tragic King. Let's listen in. All right, well, good morning, everybody.
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I'm glad that you're here. As Dave mentioned, I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here. And I just want to start off just as he did by welcoming you.
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I'm glad that you're here. And I am personally grateful for another chance to come together on a Sunday morning here in Mattawan to worship
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God as a church, as a gathering. Church just is a word that means a gathering of God's people in a community.
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And so that's what we are. We are a couple months into meeting in this space, and I am still so grateful for what
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God has done here for us in providing this space for us. I have to confess that it's a little bit weird having this huge contraption behind me here.
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Obviously it's not done yet. And I bought back one more week of not preaching on a raised platform.
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It's not my preference to preach on a raised platform. But next week it is going to be even vastly different than it is today.
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That's going to be carpeted, steps all the way across the front, and then there is going to be a raised elevated area right here. So just hopefully the awkwardness of having that thing up there isn't a distraction to anybody this morning.
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And eventually we'll get to the point where this will become the new normal and everything's going to feel just like we won't even remember the way that it was before.
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So, but let's look past all of those things to really get into where we're heading in the word this morning.
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I like to do that. I like to give a short introduction to the sermon before we come to God worshipping him and singing.
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And some people have the mindset, and I've been a part of churches, and sometimes we do it one way, sometimes we do it the other, but the idea that we're going to sing to get our hearts ready to hear from God's word, and I like to flip that a little bit.
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I like to read God's word so that we're worshipping him in song according to who he is.
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And that's, I think, the right flow to some degree is that as we come to know God, as he has revealed himself, our hearts begin to explode with worship to him and we're moved in our spirits to recognize how much he has loved us, how much he has done for us, how awesome, how glorious, how majestic, how holy he is.
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And then it's from that place of encountering him as he's revealed himself through his word that then we can really be lit up for his glory in singing.
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And so I believe that the word of God prepares our hearts for worship as we see who God is and the way that he rolls.
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And so that's why I give a little introduction and then we read the text before Dave comes and leads us in songs each morning.
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And our text this morning is going to show us a couple of big lessons through this story about the call of Samuel the prophet to be, that calling to be a prophet of God.
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So far in the text of 1 Samuel, as we've been going through it, he's a little priest in training.
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He's a young boy and he's there working in the tabernacle alongside of the priests. But we're going to see a unique calling on his life that is different.
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A calling that is going to ultimately push him outside of the priesthood into a role of prophet, the very mouthpiece of God.
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And I've read this account quite a few times over the course of my life, reading through the Bible in a year or I've heard sermons on this passage before.
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But one thing that I think I've missed in all of those years of reading this is the fundamental movement in the text that we're looking at this morning from verse 1, and you can listen to it while I'm reading.
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But in verse 1, the scriptures are going to tell us that the word of the Lord was rare in the times of Samuel.
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That it was rare for them to hear from God. That it wasn't a common occurrence every day, it wasn't like every day
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God was coming and saying something to people. But we're going to see a movement from verse 1 all the way back to the very end of this, verse 21, to where the text declares, the last verse of our text this morning in chapter 3 declares that Samuel is established as a prophet of the
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Lord, and the Lord appeared to him and continued to appear to him regularly and kept revealing himself to Samuel by the word of the
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Lord. Going from a place where the word of God was scarce, it was rare, it was uncommon, to a place where Samuel was raised up by God to bring the word of God to bear on his people consistently and regularly.
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And that's the movement of the text this morning. The centrality of the word, the value of the word coming in and connecting with God's people in a way that is for conviction, is for correction, is for declaring to us who our
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God is. You see, fundamentally, and I think this is very vital for all of us to grasp in our daily lives in the way that we roll, in the way that we do things, is that we serve a
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God who communicates. He speaks, he talks, he interacts, he wants his creation to know him.
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He wants us to relate to him, and he wants to relate to us. He reveals himself to his people.
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And down through the ages, that revelation has not been consistent. It hasn't been.
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It's had times that it was slower and times that it would take a more aggressive approach to bringing forward his word, and during, obviously, the life and ministry of Jesus Christ was a time of significant revelation of knowing who
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God is. But down through the ages, it hasn't been consistent. There's seasons where it's been like a famine of revelation, and that's where we come into the text this morning.
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There are times and seasons where either nobody is listening, or God is not revealing.
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Times when we aren't listening to him, or times that he is hiding his face from us.
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And I think we would all do well to consider our current culture as well as our own lives as individuals. I think it's good for us to have a handle a bit on the way that things are going around us.
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How many of you have a little bit of that? Do you read the news? Do you see the things that are going on, unfortunately? Raise your hand if you read the news once in a while, so I know how to pray for you.
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I know how to pray for you for encouragement. If you're reading the news, you can get down sometimes, right?
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It can be discouraging and depressing, and even just, sometimes it's frustrating to even know what is and isn't true, right?
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And so we should have one hand though, and we shouldn't just give up on it because of fake news or this or that or whatever.
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We should continue to try to seek to understand what's going on and have a finger on the pulse of our culture around us, but it can't just rest there.
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It can't rest with conviction for those outside of us, but we must first and foremost look into our own hearts and allow the word of God to have its way in us, to convict us, to correct us.
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And that's what we deeply need. I believe that our culture right now, as strange as this might sound,
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I believe that our culture is going through a famine of the word of the Lord. I think that's a reality in our culture, and you might go,
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Don, how in the world is that possible? Surely, though we couldn't have a famine of the word of the
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Lord when you can go to any bookstore, you can download it on your phone, it's in everybody's house, isn't it?
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It's everywhere. It's on the internet. You can listen to it. If you can't read, how many of you know you can still take in the word of God?
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We live in a culture where it's available and accessible. How could there possibly be a famine of the word of the
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Lord? And God is certainly not silent in our era. Anybody can buy a
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Bible, anyone can read. We give out Bibles, don't we? But the question is, are we really availing ourselves?
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It's like the banquet is set and nobody's eating. Nobody's hungry. Are we really digging into this awesome, awesome banquet that he set before us in his word?
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And that's something that each one of us needs to deal with. How is our culture going to change from a famine to a feast?
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And I would suggest it's going to be one person at a time. One person at a time, taking seriously his word and recognizing the glory, the beauty that we have accessible to us in the very revelation of God in writing to us.
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Are we really digging in? God's going to, in our text, raise up a prophet at the right time, at the right place.
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That's why I've titled this entire sermon series The Timely Prophet, and then we're going to get to the
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Tragic King later in the book. But the timely prophet, the prophet that God raises up at the right time and the right place to bring forward his word.
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You see, God is faithful to communicate. God is not silent. But the fundamental question for each one of us this morning is, are we listening?
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So, I think it would be appropriate at this time to listen to God's word. Let's go ahead and open to 1 Samuel chapter 3, if you're not already there.
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If you don't have a Bible or a means to navigate to the Bible, I'd encourage you to take the Bible in the seat back in front, under the seat in front of you, and pull that out and turn to page 130.
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Very easy way to find out where we're going to be reading. Page 130. We are going to read 1 Samuel 3 in its entirety.
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I think this is one of the most valuable things that we can do together as God's people, is to take in his word together.
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That's why I read it. It's not that I think that you're juvenile and unable to read it yourself. I think there's something that's just good, and it's a blessing to be able to read this together and to take it in.
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And so, 1 Samuel chapter 3, and again, I say this every week, if you don't have a Bible at home, you can take that one that's under the seat in front of you, take that home with you.
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I want everybody to have a copy of God's word to be able to read and follow along. But please follow along as I read this right now.
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1 Samuel chapter 3, now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli, and the word of the
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Lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision. At that time, Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place.
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The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the
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Lord where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel, and he said,
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Here I am, and ran to Eli, and said, Here I am, for you called me. But he said, I did not call, lie down again.
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So he went and lay down, and the Lord called again, Samuel. And Samuel rose and went to Eli and said,
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Here I am, for you called me. But he said, I did not call, my son, lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the
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Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel again a third time.
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And he arose and went to Eli and said, Here I am, for you called me. Then Eli perceived that the
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Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, Go lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say,
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Speak, Lord, for your servant hears. So Samuel went and lay down in his place, and the
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Lord came and stood, calling as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said,
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Speak, for your servant hears. The Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.
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On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming
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God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.
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Samuel lay until morning. Then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.
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But Eli called Samuel and said, Samuel, my son. And he said, Here I am. And Eli said,
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What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.
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So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.
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And Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and and let none of his words fall to the ground.
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And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the
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Lord. And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the
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Lord. And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Let's pray. Father, I rejoice in your word.
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I thank you that we have that opportunity, the privilege, the awesome and glorious privilege of even reading it together this morning.
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I believe that there is power in your word. Otherwise, I'd be getting up and giving a series about being a better father or being a better mother, being a better whatever, better employee.
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And I'd be off on my own, given pearls of wisdom from my life experience.
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But instead, Father, I'm convinced. And real hope rests in your word, the knowledge of you, the knowledge of the way that you work, even in this first revelation to Samuel, young Samuel, a first revelation, a first call to prophecy centered on your judgment.
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What a countercultural message. But the first thing that you bring to your servant Samuel, a recognition that you take sin seriously, a message that we need to hear here in Matawan in 2018.
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So Father, I pray that you would faithfully let your word flow into us and that we would be students of your word.
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We would be hungry for your word. That's something that only your spirit can produce in everybody sitting here. We can't make ourselves love your word.
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It's only going to be as we, as your spirit testifies with our spirit that this is truth, that we'll understand the value and we will begin to hunger and thirst for it.
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So Father, I pray that you would give us all an appetite for you. Father, I thank you that you are indeed a God who reveals himself and therefore, we have the opportunity to worship you in truth this morning.
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I pray that you would allow us to worship you in spirit and in truth, that the words that we sing would be accurate and they would accurately reflect our hearts toward you, but also that our emotions would be engaged this morning,
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Father. Be shameful for us to sing these songs academically this morning, to only look at the words and analyze them and parse them out and think, yeah, that's true.
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Father, would you move us in our spirits? Would you give us an enthusiasm, a joy, an excitement that our fate is not that of Eli's because of the salvation that we have in your son,
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Jesus Christ. There is hope for us because the sacrifice has been made on our behalf. Now move us to joy and delight this morning as we know you and we've known your son and we've known his salvation in Jesus' name.
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I really want to just thank Dave and Linda for leading us this morning in worship. Grateful for the time and energy that they put in each week and obviously with the stage, it was just very grateful for Dave's flexibility and not having the full band up there and just being willing to roll with that.
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Just very grateful for the gifts that God has given to him that he hasn't given to me. And then
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I just encourage you to get comfortable over the next half an hour or so. We're going to be focusing our attention on God's word but if that means that you need more caffeine, if you need more coffee or juice or donuts while supplies last back there, you're not going to distract me if you need to get up and stretch out or whatever.
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But I do ask that you please keep your Bibles open to 1 Samuel chapter 3. We're going to be referencing that.
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I'm going to be referring to that regularly over the next half an hour or so as we dig in and so it's beneficial to have that up in front of you so that you can see the things that I'm saying are coming from God's word.
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I just want to start off by giving a little bit of the setting again. It's been a couple of weeks since I mentioned the context in which
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Samuel is coming to us, what's going on there in the setting. So Samuel was born into a time of significant spiritual famine.
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The general culture of his day and age was summarized by the very last verse of the book of Judges in the
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Bible. It's not the Bible book that comes right before 1
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Samuel, but historically it's the context in which Samuel was born. So he was born at the very tail end of the
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Judges. Samuel's going to be known and is known by most scholars, they call him the kingmaker. He's the prophet who ushers in the era of the time of the kings of Israel.
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Ultimately, he's used in God's big picture to be the one who establishes a kingdom that is a precursor, is a sign, is a symbol of the kingship that is to come, of the one true and right king who's going to come and fix everything.
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Even Jesus is styled as the greater David, the greater king who comes after King David and comes from his line that is going to be the king over all down through the ages.
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But the setting for Judges, that last verse gives us this indication about the cultural atmosphere of the time and era that Samuel was born and it says this, in those days there was no king in Israel.
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It's kind of setting you up for there being a king, right? So in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
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In other words, everybody was a law unto themselves. Everybody did what they felt like doing.
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How many of you think that's a recipe for disaster in a culture? No standard except the one that you adopt for yourself and how many of you know you can be a little lenient on yourself from time to time?
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Do you know what I'm talking about? Even those of us who would kind of say we're a bit hard on ourselves are still pretty lenient.
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Like at the end of the day we would cut ourselves some slack, we would recognize our own motives and go well that's not really me, that was, I didn't really mean to say that.
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How many of you ever said that phrase to someone? You said it, didn't you? What do you mean you didn't mean to say it?
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You're the one who, your mouth moved and you're the one who said it. So you had to mean it at some point. You're not really getting off the hook that easy and your spouse knows it.
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She can tell you, he can tell you that you said it, I heard you, I was there. So everybody did what was right in their own eyes, a pretty rough setting, a pretty rough culture to begin with and then we saw last week just how low the religious establishment of this time had stooped with two of the priests, the sons of the high priest
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Eli, they're sleeping around with the ladies, they're stealing from the offerings that belong to God and the offerings that belong to the people, even threatening them and coercing them and then when their father the high priest confronts them, they refused to repent.
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In other words, they refused to turn away from those behaviors. They said we know better than you dad, we got this, we got this and they just kept doing the things that they were doing.
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They refused to turn away from their sin. That's the religious establishment during the era in which
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Samuel was born, in which little Samuel as a child is being raised up in the tabernacle by Eli the high priest, working alongside of these two jokers,
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Hophni and Phinehas, the two priests that we saw in the text last week. So we come to our text this morning and see that Samuel, even as a boy, was ministering to the
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Lord in the presence of Eli. And we find an interesting phrase in verse one that describes even further the spiritual atmosphere of this time.
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Not only was it wicked and everybody did what was right in their own eyes, we're going to see why here in the text.
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The word of the Lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision.
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Now if the word of the Lord is rare in a culture, if the word of the Lord is rare in a church, if the word of the Lord is rare in us, where do we find a standard with which to live?
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Ourselves. Do you see the logical correlation between the absence of the word of the
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Lord and the presence of this culture that says, I do whatever
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I feel like. I am my own law. I am my own rule. Well you're throwing out the rule. You're throwing out the law.
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You're not paying attention to the word of the Lord. And if you're not paying attention to the word of the Lord or he's not speaking to you, then you become a standard to yourself and that's the context, that's the atmosphere in which
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Samuel is brought in the picture. That's why he's such a timely prophet. He's brought at the right time in history
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God's grace, God's mercy coming to a people and saying, I'm going to be faithful to bring my words to you.
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So I think that sometimes we might read the Bible and assume that back in ancient times,
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God was talking to people all the time. How many of you have kind of felt that way? There's just a miracle going on all the time.
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He's just speaking, speaking, speaking. God was more chummy with people back then and they'd just hang out and he'd walk with them and talk with them and super cool.
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Well we have some stories like that but this is by no means an exhaustive, this is not telling you all the history.
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How many of you know there were more people alive during the era of the Bible than the ones that are mentioned in here? Did you know that?
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And they're living normal lives just like you or me. The word of the Lord wasn't coming to people just all the time everywhere and everybody was just hearing a word from God and they're writing it down and recording scripture and miracles around every corner.
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That's wrong thinking about ancient times. That's not the way that it was.
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But according to this verse, there was a famine during this time of hearing from God during the era in which
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Samuel was born. And I find it interesting that even without God speaking, there was still plenty, are you ready for it?
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There was still plenty of religious activity going on. God's not speaking.
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God's not giving vision to his people but there's plenty of religion. There was little to no spiritual life and reality going on inside the people but there was plenty of doing religion.
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And I think that we all need to be wary about this when we consider where we live and where our own hearts are.
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Religious people can become very comfortable doing religious things long after God has stopped talking.
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Long after he stopped speaking, long after we have put the word of God on a shelf and decided we're going to go our own direction, we're going to do our own thing, we're going to come up with our own creative messages and our own creative things that we think our culture really needs to hear.
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God, let's put your word aside and let's just do our thing. And there can be plenty of religion going on without the revelation of God's word, without him speaking.
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You see, during this era, God wasn't talking. God wasn't giving them visions to guide them and direct them into holiness and righteousness during this era but they just kept moving on without him instead of waiting for him to speak.
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Wait for the Lord is a theme in Scripture. Don't walk where he's not walking. Don't get out ahead of him.
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If he stops, we stop. If he moves, we move. If he moves faster, we move faster. If he walks slowly, we walk slowly.
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And that's one of the prayers for my life in ministry, one of the prayers for Recast is that we don't run ahead of him but we don't lag too far behind.
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We stay with him. We stick to him. And when he moves, we move. When he stops, we're not a movement of people who are making things happen.
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We are a people who is waiting on the Lord God Almighty to show us where to go, to tell us what to do, and to walk in his ways.
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God wasn't talking but they were fine moving out past what he was saying.
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I would suggest to you that we've got to be careful because over time, we can lose our appetites for God's word and instead become satisfied and settled with our own religious routines.
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And I think that that, we've got to be careful of that as we age because I think it's more often a byproduct of the aging process where we become a little settled in the way that we do things and we kind of get our patterns and our routines and eventually, you know, even when we get in like a,
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I mean, some of you maybe in the room are in a sweet spot of having a time with the Lord every day but if you're just honest, it's a routine and it's a habit that you do that isn't as much about connecting with God as it is about just doing the thing that you do every day.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? All of us have to be careful about that, recognizing that God speaks to us through his word and we have that privilege of coming to him every day and hearing from him and learning about him and knowing him in deeper ways and he'll be faithful to reveal himself to us if we have eyes open to look and to take it in with an appetite for him.
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If God were to, I'd suggest that part of the problem with our appetites, part of the problem with taking in God's word is, has anybody in the room ever been cut by God's word?
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Saying it out, being like a sharp sword that cuts into the darkness and my heart has been cut by God's word before and it's not comfortable.
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Like sometimes there's a reality in which he points and identifies something that I need to remove or needs to be removed from my life and I'm like, this isn't gonna be good, this isn't gonna be fun, this is gonna hurt, this is gonna be painful and I think that some of us, if we're honest, we're a little bit afraid of God speaking to us because what's he gonna say?
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We might not like what he has to say so we just keep doing things regardless of whether or not they're the right things or specifically the things that God is saying.
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So it's in this setting where God wasn't speaking very much that Samuel is called to be a prophet.
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He's gonna be called to be more than just a priest. We see him as a little boy with an ephod on. An ephod was a robe that the priests wore and he's got, his mom said in the last week it said his mom would make a new one for him every week and she'd bring it up to him during the annual sacrifices as he was growing as a young boy and he's there practicing and learning how to be a priest but now
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God calls him to a distinct ministry in the nation of Israel. He is being called out and singled out in this very text to be a prophet.
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That is the mouthpiece of God. The priest is an intercessor who makes the offerings, who prays for the people and does this thing in worship every day and throughout the days and the cycles of the year and during ceremonies and things like that but this is something more than that that little
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Samuel is being called out to. He's being called out and chosen as God's mouthpiece to a generation at a pivotal point in the history of God's people when
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God is bringing forward his kingship. So one night the high priest in the text, the high priest
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Eli hits the hay and we see just this one artistic observation about the high priest here.
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There's an artistic play on words that goes throughout the first three verses of this chapter and it's really cool how
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God does this. It's like a play on words, a double meaning that's going on and it's flowing because we're getting the literal setting of what's going on this night, this particular night but it's also playing on words with a bigger picture, metaphorically speaking about the things that are going on in the culture around them.
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It says that there was not frequent vision from the Lord. Vision, you know, vision but also vision like the revelation of God, the sight of what he's really wanting to do but there was not frequent vision from God.
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The high priest has little eyesight anyways the text tells us. The author is creatively teasing at the edges of both the physical blindness of Eli who it's testified later in another chapter that Eli was indeed blind, he's physically blind but also there's a teasing out of him being spiritually blind as well.
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The indication is that even if God showed up in a vision, Eli would not have eyes to see it, metaphorically speaking.
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It's a really nuanced, artistic way of writing here. There's a beauty in the way that scripture is revealed and the words and the terms that are used even have a depth and a richness to them.
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The artistic author even continues to play with the metaphorical language by telling us that the lamp of God has not yet gone out.
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The lamp of God had not yet gone out. Now there was a lamp, a menorah, I don't know if we've, is there a menorah in there?
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It's gone, you can throw the menorah up there. But it's the, I think it's seven or nine, I don't remember the number of branches on a menorah but it's a
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Jewish symbol and it was lit in the tabernacle and yeah, not that kind of lamp.
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That's not the lamp that we're talking about there. That's a different kind of lamp. But the idea is that this would be lit at night and by morning it would go out and then they would relight the lamp the next night and then it would go out and so it's just basically indicating for us the time that this revelation comes to young Samuel.
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It's gonna be in the middle of the night that it happens. But it's interesting that he says that the lamp of God had not yet gone out.
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Now think about the way the terms are used in these first three verses. God is telling us that there was not frequent vision during this time.
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Eli had a hard time seeing but don't worry, the lamp isn't completely out yet.
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There's still hope. There's still hope. God is not done with his people. The lamp has not yet been extinguished.
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There is still light on its way. These are real observations about the setting.
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This is really what's going on but also double meanings on the spiritual atmosphere of Israel during this time. So Eli's counting sheep in one room of the tabernacle while little young Samuel lays down in the other.
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I don't know what picture you have in your mind about Samuel but picture a young boy of about 8 to 12 years old.
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I get that from scholars who know the different words that are used for youth and the word that's used for boy in this text is about an 8 to 12 year old and you've gotta picture him with long hair.
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He has to have long hair in your imagination. Because his mother had vowed to never touch his head with a razor.
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She promised that to God before he was ever even conceived, before he was born. She said if you give me a child, I will never cut his hair.
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And so you have to picture a child here with long hair. She took a Nazarite vow for her son at that time.
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Samuel would have had long hair his entire life and it was sometime in the middle of the night before the lamp ran out of oil that Samuel hears a voice.
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And we know from our perspective, we're given information right away that Samuel didn't know, Eli didn't know, but we're in on the secret.
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It is the Lord, Yahweh, the great I Am is the word that's used there and He is the one who is calling out to Samuel.
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He is the, the I Am means the self -existent one, the one who exists with no external help.
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He doesn't need oxygen, he doesn't need food, he doesn't depend on anybody. He needs no one else to be.
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And that's, that's him. He's calling out and he says the name Samuel. And Samuel responds with the most common response that we see in Scripture when
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God calls someone's name. It's almost always this response that we see in Scripture.
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Here I am. Here I am. Now that might sound like a strange thing in the
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English language, right? Like God calls you and you're like, here I am. Is it like you didn't think
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God knew where you were? You're informing him about your location? I'm right here, I'm over here.
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That's not what the phrase means in the Hebrew language. I wish that translators would interpret this more, a little bit more along the lines, they want to give us the actual words and I understand that, but the real heart behind this statement whenever it's uttered in Scripture is at your service.
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That's what he means. That's what this phrase means. At your service. I'm here to do your bidding.
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Here I am. I'm ready and I'm eager to do what you ask of me.
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But he doesn't realize he's saying it to the Lord. He's saying it to his master Eli who is, remember he's a young priest in training.
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He's under the leadership of the high priest and he assumes that the high priest is calling him from the other room.
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He doesn't realize it's the Lord's calling. He heard an audible voice and therefore assumes that it's Eli in the other room so he runs in to see what the blind old priest needs from him.
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At your service. You need a drink of water? What do you need? I'll get it for you. But Eli didn't call him and sends him back to bed.
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Now I don't know how many of you have ever tried to put a young boy to bed, and particularly if you've tried to put a young boy to bed when they don't want to go to bed, but I wonder if Eli saw a little bit of a stalling tactic here on little
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Samuel's part. Is he just stalling, like what's he, come on, let me sleep, dude. Go back to bed.
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I mean I wonder, you know this is gonna happen multiple times, I wonder if there's a little bit of exasperation increasing in Eli here.
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You know for my family it would usually center around one more story, I need a drink of water, or I just can't sleep.
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You can come up with your own family excuses, what would your kids say to you around that time or what would you say to your parents as a child.
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But let me just suggest to you this one thing. I keep hearing voices would rank up there in the creepier section of children's complaints in the middle of the night.
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Kid comes in consistently saying, someone keeps saying my name. This is like, let's all sleep in the same bed tonight.
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You know what I'm talking about, this is gonna be one of those nights where everybody, we're gonna get all the other kids, we're just gonna sleep in here tonight, this is gonna be alright, we're all gonna just stay cozy and snuggle tonight.
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This is a family bed tonight. But three times this occurs where he hears this voice and he's consistent about it.
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I mean I think if I was Eli I'd be a little bit creeped out. But Samuel runs in, keeps running in to talk with Eli, but between the second and third time that God calls out
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Samuel's name, we see in verse seven if you'll look there, in verse seven that Samuel did not yet know the
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Lord. He didn't recognize the voice of God yet. Now this is not primarily a relational thing in context, it's not saying that he didn't have any type of relationship to God, he just didn't know, he had not heard a voice like this before, he didn't recognize the voice of God.
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And the word of the Lord had not yet come to him. So the reason given for God's persistent call and Samuel not responding is that he was inexperienced up to this age in the word of the
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Lord. He was inexperienced, he didn't know how this whole thing worked. So what verse seven makes clear is that this experience of Samuel hearing from God is the initiation of a relationship between a prophet and his
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God. This is the beginning of Samuel recognizing the voice of the Lord and hearing from him regularly.
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But Samuel's not the one who figures it out. After the third time that this occurs, Eli, Eli the high priest,
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Eli the one who wouldn't call out sin in his own sons, Eli the one who's gonna be judged is the one who makes the connection.
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He realizes what's going on and he suggests that, hey Samuel, I think God is calling out to you,
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I think it's the Lord, so he gave Samuel instructions to go back, stay in bed, and if the voice calls again, respond this way, say, speak
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Lord, for your servant hears, and then listen, and then listen and hear what happens. So a fourth time the
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Lord calls out to Samuel, and this time he doubles it up for emphasis. Samuel, Samuel, he says, and Samuel almost, little boy, almost follows
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Eli's instructions. He says speak for your servant hears, he leaves out the word Lord there. It's unclear why he left out the word
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Lord, because you can see exactly what Eli told him to say and then you see exactly what Samuel said and it doesn't match up and I think scripture is recording that for us intentionally to say what
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Eli told him and what Samuel actually did say. But keep in mind, he's a little boy and he might very well have been a bit flummoxed and tongue tied at the thought of speaking to the
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Lord God Almighty, so cut the kid a little bit of slack in not getting this one right, like he gets it part way right, but he still responds and says speak for your servant is listening.
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Now what God goes on to tell him there is nothing new to us and there's something that's important about that, because you look at this and as you're reading it you might go, well this is redundant, why is
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God revealing this again? Didn't he send a man of God to Eli already in the end of chapter two, last week we talked about it,
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God sent a man of God to Eli to convict him of these things and so there's no new content here and I would suggest to you that the content here does not matter as much as the actual person to whom it is revealed.
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God is starting something new in this young boy's heart even despite the fact that the content of the message is not new.
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See God tells little Samuel that he's about to do something that is going to cause all the ears to buzz, all the ears in Israel to tingle, everybody who hears this message, their ears will be tingling.
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To talk about ears tingling in Hebrew and it's used in scripture and other places but it's also used in other documents that we have recorded and so this idea bears with it the idea that whatever information is being heard that causes the ears to tingle is shock, it evokes shock and wonder, the message is like startling, it's like eyes open, like are you serious that that's going to happen?
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And the phrase is most often used in the Hebrew language in the context of divine judgment.
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Your eyes, your ears are going to be buzzing with the notion that God is going to judge in this way, he's going to do this thing.
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So God tells Samuel that a day is coming and on that day he says I will fulfill my judgment against Eli and it's coming soon, it's going to happen.
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He's basically updating the information that Eli's already received, giving it to his protege, the person that he's mentoring and basically saying this is coming and it's coming soon now, the day is close and I love the phrase on that day.
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You see, I think that fundamentally we have in our minds God working in kind of figurative days, there's the day, the day of the
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Lord, this nuanced thing but God works on real days, God works on calendar days and he reveals here that there is a day coming for Israel, there is a day coming for Eli and his family.
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Their wickedness will be judged and the people will be set free from the evil of an oppressive religious establishment in Shiloh.
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Remember that this family, this Eli family is causing problems for everybody who wants to worship
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God in Israel, they're stealing from them, they're sleeping around with the ladies that are trying to do their job at the tabernacle, they're stealing from God the choicest portions of the meat that's supposed to be offered on the altar and they're taking it for themselves and the text even says they're growing fat on this extra offering that they're taking in, they've been acting oppressive like thugs and I find it very interesting and I think even important for us to grasp that the very first revelation given to the prophet
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Samuel is here and as a little boy it's a message of judgment, it's a message of judgment.
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Starting a relationship with God based on the understanding that he judges sin is a good and gracious start to your relationship with God.
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If that's the first thing that you come to understand about God you will be stronger for it and if you haven't come to grips with the reality that God hates, despises and always judges sin then you're missing a fundamental component of the knowledge of our
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God. Fundamental starting blocks type of stuff, the foundation of an understanding about who our
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God is as revealed in scripture, the starting point for the prophet Samuel is that God hates sin and will judge it.
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Samuel is reminded from his very first encounter with God that he should take sin seriously, this is a gracious start to our relationship with God, a fundamental place,
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God takes sin seriously. The content isn't new, we already knew that Eli's family was going to be judged but that God reveals this as his first message to Samuel, shows how vital judgment is in the revelation of God.
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I would suggest that all of us consider that for just a moment. Anybody who tells you they are teaching about the
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God of the scriptures, the God of the bible, the almighty one who has revealed himself here, anybody who's telling you that they're teaching you about him but never mentions judgment for sin, never mentions the dangers of sin, never encourages repentance or confession of sin, they are not bringing a revelation from God.
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They may be expressing their thoughts about God, their wishful thinking about God, they may be sharing half truths, half the story about God but step one in the making of a man or woman of God who is going to bring the truth of God to others in their culture is the recognition of his awesome, awe -inspiring holiness that judges all sin and you say wait a minute
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Don, does that mean he's going to judge me? Well, only if you're not in Christ but does he judge all sins?
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Yes! Every time you have sinned, he has laid that sin, if you're in Christ, he has judged that sin on his own son at the cross but it has been judged and it's been judged grievously.
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It's been paid for but not without pain and suffering. He always, always, always judges sin.
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Every sin. Every breach of relationship with him, every breach of relationship with others, every time that we take a self -centered stance towards him, every time we ignore him, every time we put him off to go our own way, he always judges sin.
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Why? Fundamentally, to know God is to recognize he is holy, he can't stand sin, he hates it, he despises it.
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Hate is a strong word but God uses it for his attitude towards sin. Verses 13 through 14 explain the judgment of God on Eli's house very clearly.
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They have indeed sinned and I would suggest to you that their sin is no worse than our sin. It's just that they remain and stand in a place of unrepentance toward their sin.
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A place of lack of confession. They would, if given God on one hand or their sin on the other, they would choose their sin and they have time and time again done so.
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That's the difference. So God is going to judge the house of Eli and he talks to Samuel about it.
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He says he's going to punish his family forever. Eli is judged for knowing the iniquity and sins of his son all the way up to the extent of their blasphemy, their mocking, their deriding of the almighty one himself.
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When you see the word blasphemy, think of it as a mockery of God, a high hand in making fun of him to others.
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God's not going to judge. God won't judge, he's just, he's easy, he's light.
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Don't fear God, fear me as I steal your meat and take your ladies.
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That's the attitude of these priests. And Eli does nothing, zero, to restrain his sons.
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Even when the man of God confronts him, he's like, boys are going to be boys.
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He doesn't say that, but that seems to be his attitude. God declares that their sins will not be covered by a sacrifice or an offering.
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A little bit more on that later. Samuel stayed in bed until morning, maybe a bit sleepless, you think?
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There's no indication of him waking up in the morning, so it doesn't say that he woke up, he got up. There's a word for waking up.
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I think he was sleepless that night. The whole revelation thing probably rattled him a bit, especially the content.
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So he set about to do his morning work, opening the doors, letting the light into the tabernacle and getting all of that in order.
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Probably had his morning routines that he had to go about as a servant in the service of the high priest.
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And he sought to avoid Eli. It says it right in the text, because he was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.
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He didn't want to be the one to share that information. And little Samuel learns from his first encounter with the Lord something that would be beneficial for all of us to recognize, and that is simply that being chosen to carry
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God's word is both a blessing and a burden. To be the mouthpiece of God, to bring
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God's word to your workplace, to bring God's word to your family, to bring God's word to those around you is both a blessing and a burden.
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Have you felt it? Have you experienced it? A blessing, the truth, the beauty, the glory of hope.
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A curse, the reality of wrath and anger of God towards sin and anyone who would not repent.
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So it's a heavy, heavy message. Sometimes speaking God's word requires us to say things that are a bit uncomfortable.
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In God's word, we find life and hope. And in God's word, we find the threat of judgment and wrath.
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We live in a time where people, and even well -meaning Christians, want to skip over judgment and only teach on the feel -good stuff.
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How many of you like a good feel -good message? That's not one of them. It's very easy in our culture to skip over judgment, skip over God's wrath.
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I mean, how many times have you used the word wrath? How comfortable, that doesn't settle on any of us well, does it?
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The word wrath is a, you know, let's talk more about God's love, let's talk more about his forgiveness and his big grandfatherliness toward us.
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The first message the prophet Samuel receives is an excellent message to orient him to the calling
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God places on everyone and anyone who is going to have a genuine ministry of bringing God's word to their culture, to their setting, to the people around them.
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And by the way, you can look up here and say, well, pastor, that's your job. No, it's not. It's all of us.
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It is my job, but it's no less yours. All of us to bring the word of God to those.
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There are people that you can reach that I can't. You invite them, they won't come. They won't come and listen to me preach.
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But you've got a relationship with them. They're going to come and they're going to share with you and ask your advice about their impending divorce.
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They're going to come and ask your advice when the bottom falls out on their Friday night partying and they find themselves in a bit of trouble.
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They're going to come to you and they're going to ask you about it. They're not going to come to me and ask me about it. Those are opportunities that God grants you to bring the word of God into their lives.
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And the word is, it is a blessing, right? To be able to say, if you'll turn from this and embrace
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Christ, He's there and there's freedom in it. But if not, the wrath of God is real and there is a hopelessness that is a real hopelessness.
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There's a despair that's a worthy despair without the Son of God. We're willing to bring that to our culture, to bring the reality of judgment for all who reject
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God, but the hope that anyone who turns to Him can be saved and adopted into His family. You see, our message, what we each one are called to bring to the world around us as salt and light, is burden and blessing.
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Burden and blessing. Well, Samuel's not quite sure he wants the burden.
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Eli forces it out of him. And I think, again, a grace of God to this young prophet who is first time experience, he's inexperienced in these things, and so the very first thing he wants to do with the first prophecy that he's ever given is seal it up, hide it away.
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I'm not gonna tell Eli about this. So I think it's actually God's grace that Eli pesters him and literally threatens him with the judgment of God, if you don't tell me, tell me what the
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Lord said, tell me what the Lord said, or may the judgments that He's given to your mouth and in your mind come upon you even more so if you don't tell me.
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Well, Samuel learns a lesson in being a faithful prophet right from the beginning, and he tells the high priest all that God told him.
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He doesn't leave out a word. Samuel starts off as a faithful prophet who tells the whole message of God to Eli.
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Doesn't spin it, doesn't twist it into a good or a positive, well, look at it from the good side, or anything like that.
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He says he hid nothing from him, including the reality that God told Samuel that the sacrifices and offerings would not change the judgment.
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I'm worried about that, because that seems strange. It seems kind of weird that God would add that in there.
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But I think it's coupled with Eli's response. There's something unique going on here. Eli's response at first glance is a bit surprising.
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For this guy who refuses to confront his own sons and rebuke them and really restrain them and pull them out of the ministry because of their behavior, basically he says, okay,
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God's going to judge me. I hear you, Samuel, I get the message. He says he's the self -existent one, he's the
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Lord. He uses that same word that we would, there's an important word, Yahweh, the one who is almighty, the one who exists all on his own.
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He's the almighty one, let him do what seems good to him. At face value, that looks like a deep -seated trust in God's will, doesn't it?
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He's just like, yeah, God's God, and he's going to do what he wants, and I guess I'm just going to be okay with that.
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Like, I mean, if this is what he wants, then this is what's good, and okay. Does it seem brave in the face of judgment to any of you?
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Tracking with me? It seems to me to be very brave. But after deeper consideration, after study this week and just looking at the context and letting the words roll over my mind and thinking about it and praying about it and reading what other people say about it,
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I believe that what Eli is offering here is a soft resolve to avoid repentance and take his lumps.
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He says, I'm not going to turn from this. I'm still not going to go to my sons and tell them to stop.
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We're still going to enjoy the filet mignon. We're still going to go with the three -pronged fork and dig in, you know, but God's God.
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If he wants to judge that, he can. Imagine that attitude from the high priest.
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That's the extent, the depth of his lack of repentance, the extent of his lack of respect for God.
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Eli has no intentions of even trying to make things right, even in the face of judgment. You see, there's others in the
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Old Testament that faced at least this type of hopelessness. Some even more. Jonah, the prophet.
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I preached on that a few years ago. That series is available online if you want to check that out. Jonah was sent to Nineveh.
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And the interesting thing is, he was only given a few words in the language of the Ninevites to speak.
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In other words, he couldn't say anything. He was like a tape recorder sent to the city of Nineveh and pressed play, and he could only say these things.
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This is all the message that he had to give to the people of Nineveh. 40 days and the city will be overthrown.
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40 days and the city will be destroyed. 40 days and you're all going to die. That's the message that he was given for Nineveh.
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Not a lot of hope for repentance. No, 40 days and the Lord's going to destroy it. But if you repent in dust and ashes and you humble yourself before the
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Lord and you confess to him, then you will be saved. Nothing like that. 40 days, you're done.
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There's only hopelessness in that message of impending destruction. Similar to the message that Eli receives.
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But the people of Nineveh repented. The king of Nineveh humbles himself and grovels on the ground in prayer before the
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Lord saying, forgive us. Have clemency, have mercy on us. 40 days, that 41st day,
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Nineveh's still standing by the grace and mercy of God who forgives.
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It's a hopeless message, but God turned at their repentance. He turned his wrath away when they humbled themselves before him and said, save us, forgive us.
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We are wrong and you are right. And I actually think that if you go back and you look at verse 14 and think about it in terms of instead of God saying you can't repent, he's not saying in verse 14 to Eli, even if you repent, even if you offer sacrifices,
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I'm not gonna forgive you. Instead, I believe that the way, the correct way to read verse 14 is this.
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I am the almighty, I am the sovereign one and I know this to be true. You will not repent.
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You won't. You will not offer sacrifices. You will not turn back to me.
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I know it. And Eli didn't. And Hophni and Phinehas didn't.
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Instead, we see the high priest over the religious practices and the worship of God over all of Israel, resign himself to whatever came his way instead of turning away from sin, instead of restraining his own sons.
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And from verse 19 through 21, we see the contrast. Samuel growing in a relationship with the
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Lord. The Lord was with him. And the words Samuel spoke from the Lord had power and authority.
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They went out and accomplished that which God revealed them to do. They were not wasted. The word, the phrase in Hebrew is they didn't fall to the ground but they went out with power and authority.
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Power and authority not of Samuel but of the Lord who Samuel represented.
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And all Israel from north to south. Dan, the northernmost city in Israel. Beersheba, the southernmost city.
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So all of Israel began to recognize this young boy somewhere probably between 8 and 12 years old as an established prophet of God.
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And here at the end of chapter 3 at the end of the chapter in verse 21 we find that the Lord appeared again at Shiloh and kept, the verb there is kept revealing himself to Samuel by the word of the
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Lord. The ministry of the word of the Lord was restored to the people of Israel through Samuel.
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And even the opening of the text I'm sorry, even the opening of chapter 4 the very opening really belongs to this.
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And it says the word of Samuel came to all of Israel. He was a prophet of God for the people.
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So what do you make of this calling of Samuel? What does this have to do with us? How does it apply to where we live? Well you probably grabbed a couple of applications along the way but let me just give you three that God impressed on my heart as I was studying this and digging in and again my hope is that none of my three applications that I'm going to give you distract from what the
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Spirit wants to communicate to you. These are things that I share with you that God has said to me and you might adopt one of those but my encouragement is every time that you hear the word of God open that you open your heart to what the
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Spirit wants to communicate to you through this. And I might not hit your the hot button issue that's going on in your life but I am confident that the
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Spirit can use this text to grab you this week. Here's what I got.
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First and fundamentally don't starve yourself. If you're spiritually weak
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I would suggest to you that in our current culture our current climate that if you're spiritually weak it is not for lack of available nutrition.
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It's not because it's not available to you that you're weak. God has given us now in our era a written word.
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You can download it for free. You can listen to it on your device.
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You can read it. You can study it. There's no ending sight of the possibilities of your intake of God's word.
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So many ways that you can take it in. But I fear that many of us like young Samuel do not yet know what the
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Lord sounds like when he calls. And I'm not talking about voices in your head.
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I'm talking about knowing him as he is. As he's revealed himself. He's ready to speak to you through the pages of scripture.
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Pick it up and read it. Not read it as a manual like how to program a
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VCR or how to program your life to do the right things and avoid the wrong things. To know him.
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Do you hear the difference? Reading scripture to know him as he is. I believe that weakness in the church globally and even here in America is often a symptom of not listening to the word of God.
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We will only know what he says about himself and what he desires of our lives.
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You've got to listen to him to know what he desires of you. He will call you through his word.
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So the fundamental question of the first application is are you listening? The second thing is repent of your sins.
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Whenever God's word convicts you of your sins, whenever it points out your guilt,
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I would encourage you to turn from that sin and come back to the cross as the place of forgiveness and hope. Don't allow sin to run unchecked in your life.
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Don't pretend that you've got sin under control. No one ever controls sin.
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Sin controls you. And it'll be running the show before you know it. Eli let sin slip by and eventually he lost the will to repent and turn to God.
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Lastly, rejoice in the provision of his word. Rejoice in what God has given us in his word.
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It's a beautiful and awesome thing. Here are some realities that are in my life because of God's word.
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Without God's expression of his holy standard, I would not understand my own depravity and sin.
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Without him revealing that to me, I wouldn't know how far I've fallen. Without scripture that speaks of my savior,
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I would be lost forever. Without the revelation of his eternal kingship, I would have no hope for a life beyond this one.
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Without the gospel expressing the ultimate sacrifice for my sins, I would be left to a life of terrifying futility.
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So as we come to communion this morning, please take some time for self -assessment. Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross to cover your sins?
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Just as scripture declares. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the rightful lord and king over you?
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Just as scripture declares. Have you asked Jesus Christ to save you? Do you believe just as scripture instructs you to do?
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If you've not taken these all -important steps, then please skip communion, and I'd encourage you to come and talk with me after the service so that you can begin a relationship with Jesus Christ and walk from this place forgiven with a fresh start.
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But if after some time of reflection, you're confident that Jesus Christ is your savior and your king, then please come to any of the four tables that are set up in the corners of this room.
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Take a cup and a cracker, the cup we take to remember his blood shed for us, the cracker we take to remember his body broken for us.
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In recast, let's go out from this place this morning rejoicing that he has given us his written word, his faithful to give us all that we need to know his love, all that we need to know his forgiveness, all that we need, most importantly, to know the way that he has given to us to come out from underneath his divine wrath and judgment so that we can be adopted into his family forever.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for the opportunity that we have to hear what you did in the life and calling of Samuel, what you were doing in his age and in his era to demonstrate to this young boy the reality of your judgment, the reality of your wrath, the reality of your disdain and despising of sin.
01:01:37
And Father, from our vantage point, we thank you that our sin can be dealt with through a greater sacrifice, not our offerings and sacrifices of bulls and goats and rams every year and multiple times throughout the year to atone for our sins and our failures, but one sacrifice made for all time, your son sacrificed for us.
01:01:56
I pray that that reality would strike us all in our hearts with joy and with gladness that we've been set free. And Father, if there's anybody here who doesn't know that freedom yet,
01:02:03
I pray that today might be a day of salvation for them, that you would give them boldness to come and talk with me at the door and we'd be able to connect and talk deeper about how hope can be theirs through Jesus Christ.