Delivered January 15, 2012
This seems to be a good text to preach about on this Sunday of Martin Luther King’s birthday. King is often called a prophet. He would not have used that term for himself - certainly not in the sense of a biblical prophet; he was a Baptist preacher after all. He knew the difference between and preacher and a prophet. But many others have described him by that word. In fact a 2003 biography of King, with a forward written by his wife Coretta Scott King shortly before her death, is entitled, “Martin Luther King: Spirit-Led Prophet.”
Samuel was a prophet in the Bible, and today we are going to look at the story that is usually called his call to ministry. To begin I need to put this story in historical context. This story occurred at the end of the period of the judges, before there was any king in Israel. In fact Samuel is a transition figure between the period of the Judges and the Kings. He is the last judge and he anoints the first king, Saul. At the time of this story Samuel is a boy of about 12 years of age. He has been living with the High Priest Eli at Shiloh where the tabernacle was. They actually lived within the grounds of the tabernacle, which was a tent which served as the place of worship before there was a temple in Jerusalem. That gives us the basic setting of the story.
This story is about Samuel hearing God for the first time. I want to explore this story using that theme and relating it to our lives. Do we hear God? How do we hear God? Does God speak today or is it limited to biblical times? How do we know if God is speaking to us and what he is saying? Most people who are interested in spiritual matters want a real living connection with God. They don’t want just rituals and dogma. They want to know God – to experience God and know his will for their lives. Samuel knew God, heard God, and discovered God’s will for his life. Therefore this text has something to say to us today.
1. First, God is heard when God speaks. This might seem at first to be too simple to even have to state, but it is an important Biblical concept. It is called revelation. Christianity teaches that God reveals himself to human beings. Left to our own resources we cannot know God. In fact our text says of Samuel in verse 7 “Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, nor was the word of the LORD yet revealed to him.” To hear the Lord, you have to know the Lord. But it is sort of a Catch 22 because you can’t know the Lord until the Lord speaks to you. Atheists do not believe in God, and therefore any so-called communication from God is imaginary conversation with an imaginary friend. Agnostics say that even if there is a God, we cannot know anything about God. In a strange way they are right. Left to our own resources we will not know God nor know anything about God. God has to make himself known. That is called revelation.
Theologians talk about general revelation and special revelation. General revelation is to all people – in nature and in the human conscience. Special revelation is to specific persons or peoples. What we have in the Bible is God’s special revelation to the people of Israel, culminating in the special revelation in Jesus Christ. The Book of Hebrews opens: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.” God can speak any way he wants, but we confess that he has spoken in special ways – to Israel through the prophets whose writings we have in the Old Testament and supremely in Jesus Christ, the record of which we have in the NT.
But God also speaks to individuals. In our story of Samuel, the Lord calls Samuel by name – “Samuel!” God calls us by name. God is not limited to speaking generally to humankind through breathtaking landscapes or the starry heavens on a clear night or even through scripture. Jesus taught that God speaks to individuals through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in our souls through our faith in Christ. Jesus told his disciples: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth….” This is basic stuff, but it is important to state, because if we do not believe that God speaks to us, then we will not hear him when he speaks. If you have already ruled out the possibility of God communicating to human beings as crazy thinking, then there is no way you will hear him. So I am asking that we keep an open mind in this matter; be open to the possibility that God does speak and we can hear him when he speaks.
2. Second, God is heard rarely in these days. The opening verse of our passage says, “Now the boy Samuel ministered to the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.” I think the same can be said today. I subscribe to USA Today. Every Monday at the back of the first section they have a religion article – an opinion piece. On January 3 (Tuesday because Monday was a holiday) it was entitled “God, Religion, Atheism – So What?” It describes the upsurge of what this author called apatheism – meaning that increasingly large numbers of Americans are spiritually apathetic. They simply do not care about spiritual matters at all. It says the reason why these folks were not counted earlier was that the right questions were not being asked in the surveys. Let me give you some of the figures: 44% told the 2011 Baylor University Religion Survey they spend no time seeking “eternal wisdom” and 19% said, “It’s useless to search for meaning.” 46% told a 2011 survey by LifeWay Research they never wonder whether they will go to heaven. 28% told LifeWay, “It’s not a major priority in my life to find my deeper purpose.” And 18% scoffed at the idea that God has a purpose or plan for everyone.
If people do not care about God and are not thinking about such matters, then they are not going to hear God if he were shouting through a megaphone. That is the way it was in Samuel’s day. When you read the context of this story we see that even the religious leaders did not believe. The high priest Eli’s two sons were very corrupt and immoral men in every way you can imagine. Eli did nothing to restrain them in corrupting the religious system. As the religious leadership went, so went the society. So it is not surprising that “the word of the Lord was rare in those days.”
3. Third, God is heard by the pure in heart. In the story no one hears God but this 12 year old boy. The chief priest Eli, who was the head of the Hebrew religious system, did not hear God. Only this boy. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.” It is also true that they shall hear God. When it comes to us, we cannot expect to hear God if our hearts are not right with God. This does not mean that we have to be perfect. In fact those who think they are perfect are in the worst spiritual condition possible. To be right in our relationship with God means that we have confidence before God that our sins are forgiven. If we are forgiven by God, then in God’s eyes we are as innocent and sinless as a new born child. It means to trust God as a child trusts. That is why Jesus said that we had to become as little children to enter the Kingdom of God. It doesn’t mean we are naïve and gullible. It means we trust God and give ourselves unreservedly to God. We have an attitude of openness to God. If our hearts are open, then we will hear God. You don’t hear God with your physical ears or even as a voice in your head. If you start hearing voices, you better get yourself to a mental health specialist. I am not talking about hearing voices in our head; I am talking about sensing the Spirit of God in your spirit. The apostle Paul talks about God “speaking spiritual truths in spiritual words.” That is what I am talking about. There is a huge difference.
4. Fourth, God is heard in God’s house. Samuel heard God speak to him while he was in the tabernacle of God. God is heard elsewhere also. Scripture is filled with such examples. It is certainly true that God is heard by people today in nature. But I am not talking about that type of general revelation of God in nature. That is very limited in what can be communicated. If you want something more than a feeling of God’s majesty and power communicated through the natural world, then God’s house is the place to be.
That is why I think that so-called “organized religion” is important and necessary. I know it isn’t popular these days. People like freelance individual spirituality, but that won’t take you very far in the spiritual life. There is a need for community. There is a need for the wisdom of the ages as contained in scripture. There is even a need for religious tradition, even though that is on a different level than scripture. This might seem like a strange thing for a Baptist to say. We tend not to be very keen on tradition; we speak of “scripture alone” – sola scriptura. But every church and every denomination has a tradition, whether or not we admit it and whether we call it that. Those who don’t acknowledge their tradition are the ones most enslaved to it. Religious rituals and creeds and confessions of faith and forms of church government have value in conditioning our souls to be receptive to the Word of God. They may also mask and blind us to the Word of God. That is the danger of religious tradition and organized religion. Like anything, religion has to be used wisely and not made into a substitute for God. But if church is done right, then it can help us hear the voice of God.
5. Fifth, God’s voice – even when heard – is not always recognized. In the story the boy Samuel heard the voice of God in the tabernacle, but he did not recognize it as God’s voice. He thought Eli was calling him from the other room. So he runs to Eli, and say, “Here I am. You called.” Eli answered, “No I didn’t. Go back to bed.” This happened again. Finally the third time it happened, Eli figures out what is going on. Verse 8-9 “Then Eli perceived that the LORD had called the boy. 9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and it shall be, if He calls you, that you must say, ‘Speak, LORD, for Your servant hears.’”
This tells us something interesting about the old man Eli. It shows us that there was once a time when Eli knew the voice of God. He hadn’t heard God for many years, but he recognized the characteristics of it in Samuel’s experience, and he was able to instruct him. Here is an example of the importance of religious instruction. Eli had been instructing the boy Samuel throughout his childhood, and here again he was instructing him correctly as to how to hear the voice of God. Even Jesus acknowledged the value of the Pharisees’ teaching, even though they were his fiercest opponents. Jesus taught the people concerning the Pharisees, “Do as they say but not as they do.” Eli was not doing what was right, but he still played an important role in teaching Samuel how to hear the voice of God, even though he himself had gone spiritually deaf long ago.
The boy Samuel heard the voice of God, but he did not recognize it as the voice of God. That is also true today. I believe that God speaks today. I believe God speaks to you and me. But often we do not recognize God’s voice. If someone we know calls us on the phone, and we recognize their voice – even if you don’t have Caller ID. The same is true of God’s voice. If we hear God’s voice enough, then we will recognize it. The best way to get to get familiar with God’s voice is through Scripture. We call the Bible the Word of God. We believe that God spoke through the prophets of the OT and the apostles of the NT. If we read it enough then we become familiar with the way God speaks. So when we hear the same Holy Spirit who inspired scripture also speaking in the depths of our souls, then we will recognize it as God’s voice.
We have thousands of voices speaking to us each day. Family, friends, government, the TV, computer. I have a GPS which literally speaks to me and tells me where to go! We have all these competing voices telling us things. It is difficult to discern God’s still small voice in the midst of the whirlwind of contemporary voices. But if we familiarize ourselves with God’s Word, then we will know his voice when we hear it. That is one reason why I am encouraging people to read through the Bible in 2012. Even if you don’t understand half of what you read, it is training your heart to recognize the voice of God.
6. Sixth, God is heard when we are ready to hear. In the story Samuel only hears God after the third time. Verse 10 “Now the LORD came and stood and called as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant hears.” On this third occasion, Samuel does not go to his religious instructor and adoptive father Eli; he responds directly to his heavenly Father. He doesn’t go to the priest, he responds directly to God. We Protestants call this the priesthood of all believers. We relate directly to God without any intermediary other than Jesus, who is God himself.
In this story, Samuel says, “Speak, for Your servant hears.” That is the beginning of his relationship with God and a ministry which lasted for many years. The same is true for us. The spiritual life is a conversation with Almighty God. It is living our lives in his presence and being directed by his Spirit. But it can only happen if we hear and respond to God. It only happens when we are ready. Are you ready?
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