1 Samuel 3 The End of the Famine

Recast church in Matawan, Michigan this week pastor Don Filsex preaches from his series in first Samuel Timely prophet tragic king. Let's listen in. All right. Well, good morning everybody. I'm glad that you're here as Dave mentioned.

I'm Don Filsex.

I'm the lead pastor here and I just want to start off just as he did by welcoming you. I'm glad that you're here and I am personally grateful for another chance to come together on a Sunday morning Here in Matawan to worship God as as a church as a gathering.

Church just as a word that means a gathering of God's people in a community 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 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. Obviously, it's not done yet. And I bought back one more week of not preaching on a raised platform. 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. 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 and eventually We'll get to the point where this will become the new normal and everything's gonna gonna feel Just like we won't even remember the way that it was before.

So. But let's look past all of those things to really get into Where we're heading in the word this morning. I like to do that. I like to give a short introduction to the sermon before we come to God worshiping him and singing.

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.

I like to read God's Word so that we're worshiping him in song according to who he is 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 are removed 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? 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 and singing. And so I believe that the Word of God Prepares our hearts for worship as we see who God is in the way that he rolls. 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 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 now. We so far in the text of first Samuel as we've been going through it. He's a little priest in training. He's a young boy, and he's there working in the tabernacle alongside of the priests but we're gonna see a unique calling on his life that is different.

A Calling that is gonna ultimately push him outside of the priesthood into a role of prophet the very mouthpiece of God. And I've read this account quite a few times over the course of my life reading through the Bible in a year.

I've heard sermons on this passage before 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.

But in verse 1 year the the scriptures are gonna tell us that the word of the Lord was rare in the times of Samuel. 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 God was coming and saying something to people. But we're gonna 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 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 Lord going from a place where the Word of God was scarce.

It was rare. It was uncommon to a place where Samuel was was raised up by God to bring the Word of God to bear on his people consistently and regularly 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 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 God who? Communicates. He speaks he talks he interacts.

He wants his creation to know him. He he wants us to relate to him and he wants to relate to us. He reveals himself to his people. And down through the ages that revelation has not been consistent. It hasn't been.

It's had times that it was slower and times that it was would take You know more 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 God is.

But down through the ages it hasn't been consistent. There are seasons where it's been like a famine of revelation and that's where we come into the text this morning. There are times and seasons where either nobody is listening or God is not revealing.

Times when we aren't listening to him or times that he is hiding his face from us. And I think we would do 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.

How many of you have a little bit of that? Do you read the news? Do you 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.

I know to pray for you for encouragement. If you're if you're reading the news, you can get down sometimes, right? It can be discouraging and depressing and even just sometimes it's frustrating to even know what is and isn't.

True.

Right, and so we. 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. 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 but it can't just rest there. 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 To have its way in us to convict us to correct us.

And that's what we deeply need. I believe that our culture right now. As strange as this might sound 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.

Don how in the world is that possible? Surely though we couldn't have a famine of the Word of the Lord when you can go to any bookstore. You can download it on your phone. It's it's in everybody's house, isn't it?

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. We live in a culture where it's available and accessible. How could there possibly be a famine of the Word of the Lord and God is certainly not silent in our era.

Anybody can buy a Bible anyone can read we give out Bibles, don't we? But the question is are we are we really availing ourselves? It's like the banquet is set and nobody's eating.

What he's hungry.

Nobody's nobody. Are we really digging into this this awesome awesome banquet that he set before us in his word. And that's something that each one of us needs to deal with on an interval. How is our culture gonna change from a famine to a feast and I would suggest it's gonna 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.

Are we really digging in God's. God's gonna in our text raise up a prophet at the right time at the right place. That's why I've titled this entire sermon series the timely prophet and then we're gonna get to the tragic King later in the book.

But the time we profit that the prophet that God raises up at the right time in the right place to bring forward his word. 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?

So I think it would be appropriate at this time to listen to God's Word. Let's go ahead and open to 1st Samuel chapter 3 if you're not already there. 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.

You can pull that out and turn to page 130 very easy way to find out where we're gonna be reading page 130. We are gonna read 1st Samuel 3 in its entirety. 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.

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.

So 1st 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 when everybody 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. First Samuel chapter 3 now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli and The Word of the 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. The lamp of God had not yet gone out and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was.

Then the Lord Called Samuel and he said 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. So he went and lay down and the Lord called again Samuel.

And Samuel rose and went to Eli and said 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 Lord and the Word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him and The Lord called Samuel again a third time and he arose and went to Eli and said here I am for you called me.

Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel go lie down. And if he calls you you shall say speak Lord for your servant hears. So Samuel went and lay down in his place and the Lord came and stood calling as at other times Samuel.

Samuel and Samuel said be speak for your servant hears. The Lord said to Samuel Behold, I'm about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle on that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end and I declared to him that I am about To punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew because his sons were blaspheming 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. 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.

But Eli called Samuel and said Samuel my son and he said here I am. And Eli said 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.

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. And Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and and let none of his words fall to the ground and all Israel from Dan to Beersheba Knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord and the Lord appeared again at Shiloh for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord and the word of Samuel came to all Israel, let's pray Father I rejoice in your word.

I Glorious privilege of even reading it together this morning. I believe that there is power in your word. Otherwise, I'd be getting up and giving a series about being a better father being a better mother being a better Whatever better employee and I'd be off on my own Given pearls of wisdom from my life experience, 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 what a counter cultural 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.

So father, I pray that you would faithfully let your word Flow into us and that we would be students of your word. 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. It's only gonna be as we as your spirit testifies with our spirit that this is truth. That will understand the value we will begin to hunger and thirst for it. 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, 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 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.

Father, would you move us in our spirits? Would you give us an enthusiasm a joy? And an excitement that our fate is not that of Eli's because of the salvation that we have in your son 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. Amen. I really want to just thank uh, dave and linda for leading us this morning in worship.

Uh.

Grateful for the time and energy that they put in each week and obviously with the stage it was just uh, very. Very grateful for dave's flexibility and not having a full band up there and just being willing to roll with that.

So just very grateful for the gifts that god has given to him that he hasn't given to me. So.

Um.

And then I just encourage you to get comfortable over the next half an hour. So we're going to be focusing our attention on god's word. But if if that means that you need more caffeine if you need more, uh, coffee or juice or donuts.

Well supplies last back there. You're not going to distract me if you need to get up and stretch out or whatever. But I do ask that you please keep your bibles open to first samuel chapter three. Um, we're going to be referencing that i'm going to be referring to that regularly over the next half an hour.

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.

Um.

I just want to start off by giving a little bit of the the setting again. It's been a couple of weeks since I mentioned the context in which samuel is coming to us. What's going on there in the setting?

So samuel was born into a time of significant spiritual famine. The general culture of his day and age was summarized by the very last verse of the book of judges in the bible um, that's the it's not the most it's not the not the um, The bible book that comes right before first samuel, but historically it's the context in which Samuel was born so he was born into the time of at the very tail end of the judges.

Samuel is going to be known and is known by most scholars. They call him the king maker. He's the prophet who ushers in the era of the time of the kings of israel. Ultimately, he's used in god's big picture to be the one who establishes a kingdom.

Um 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 and and uh, even jesus is styled as the uh, 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.

Uh down through the ages and so but the setting for judges that for that last verse gives us this indication about the cultural atmosphere of The the time and era that samuel was born and it says this.

In those days, there was no king in israel. It's kind of setting you up for that 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.

In other words, everybody was a law unto themselves. Everybody did what they felt like doing. How many of you think that's a recipe for disaster in a culture? Had 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? 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 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 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? 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.

She can tell you he can tell you that you 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 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 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.

They refused to turn away from their sin, that's the religious establishment. During the era in which 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 hoffman and phineas.

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 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.

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 the word of the lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent.

Vision.

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? Ourselves. Do you see the lat the logical correlation between the absence of the word of the lord?

And the presence of this culture that says I do whatever I feel like. I am my own law. I am my own rule. Well, you're you're you're throwing out the rule. You're throwing out the law. You're not 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 samuel is brought in the picture.

That's why he's such a timely prophet. He's brought at the right time in history. God's grace God's mercy coming to a people and saying i'm going to be faithful to bring my words to you. So I think that sometimes we might read the bible and assume That back in ancient times god was talking to people all the time.

How many of you have kind of felt that way like there's just a miracle going on all the time. 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. Well, we have some stories like that, but this is by no means an exhaustive. This is not telling you all the history. 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 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.

That's that's a wrong thinking about ancient times. That's not the way that it was. But according to verse according to this verse there was a famine during this time of hearing from god. During the era in which samuel was born and I find it interesting that even without god speaking there was still plenty.

Are you ready for it? There was still plenty of religious activity going on. God's not speaking. 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.

And I think that we all need to be wary About this when we consider where we live and where our own hearts are. Religious people can become very comfortable doing religious things. Long after god has stopped.

Talking.

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 with our own creative messages and our own creative things that we think our culture really needs to hear 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. 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. Wait for the lord as a theme in scripture.

Don't walk where he's not walking. Don't get out ahead of him. If he stops we stop. If he moves we move. If he moves faster We move faster. If he walks slowly we walk slowly and that's one of the prayers.

For my life and ministry one of the prayers for recast is that we don't run ahead of him, but we don't lag too far behind.

We stay with him.

We we stick to him and when he moves we move and when when he's when he stops. We're not a movement of people who are making things happen. 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. God wasn't talking but they were fine moving out past what he was saying. 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 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 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 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 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. Do you know what i'm talking about?

All of us have to be careful about that recognizing 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.

To take it in with an appetite for for him. 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?

That we're saying about 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. 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 because what's he gonna say? 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.

So it's in this setting where god wasn't speaking very much that samuel is called to be a prophet. He's going to be called to be more than just a priest. We see him as a little boy with an ephod on an ephod was a was a um a robe that the priest swore and he's got uh.

His mom had 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 the annual sacrifices. As he was growing as a young boy, and he's there.

Um practicing and learning how to be a priest but now 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. 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 every uh, Every day and throughout the days in the cycles of the year and during ceremonies and things like that.

But this is something more than that that little 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 god is bringing forward his kingship. And so one night the high priest in the text, uh, the high priest eli hits the hay. And we see just this one artistic observation about the high priest here.

There's an artistic play on words that goes throughout the first three verses of this chapter and it's really cool how god does this. It's like a 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. It says that there was not frequent vision from the lord vision, you know vision.

But also vision like the revelation of god the the sight of what he's really wanting to do. But there was not frequent vision from god. 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 had testified later in the 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.

The indication is that even if god showed up in a vision Eli would not have eyes to see it. Metaphorically speaking. It's a really nuanced artistic way of writing here it's there's a beauty in the way that scripture is revealed in the.

The words and the terms that are used even have a a depth and a richness to them. The artistic author even continues to play with the metaphorical language. By telling us that the lamp of god has not yet gone out the lamp of god had not yet gone out.

No, there was a lamp a menorah. Um, I don't know if we've. Do we get them? Is there a menorah in there?

It's coming.

You can throw the menorah up there, but it's the um, I think it's seven or nine. I don't remember the number of branches on a menorah, but it's a it's a jewish symbol and it was um lit in the tabernacle.

And um, yeah, not that kind of lamp. That's not the lamp that we're talking about there. That's a different kind of lamp.

But um.

The idea. Is that this would be lit? This would be lit at night and by morning it would go out and then they would relight the lamp. At 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 it's going to 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 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. Eli had a hard time seeing. But don't worry the lamp isn't completely out yet. There's still hope. There's still hope god is not done with his people.

The lamp has not yet been extinguished. There is still light on its way. These are real observations about the setting. This is really what's going on, but also double meanings on the spiritual atmosphere of israel during this time.

So eli is counting sheep in one room of the tabernacle while little young samuel lays down in the other. 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.

I get that from scholars who know the different words that are used for youth and. And and the word that's used for boy in this text is about 8 to 12 year old and you've got to picture him. With long hair.

He has to have long hair in your imagination. Because his mother had vowed to never touch his head with a razor. 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.