God is calling you

Verse one. 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 were 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. When the Lord called Samuel, he said, "Here I am." And he 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 arose 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 the third time. And he arose and he 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, "Lay down in his place." And the Lord came and stood calling as at other times, "Samuel, Samuel." And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant hears." Then the Lord said to Samuel, "Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel, which the two ears of everyone who hears will tingle. On that day, I will fulfill against Eli all that I've spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. And I declared to him that I'm about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew because his sons were blaspheing 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 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 best, seems good to him." And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersa 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. This is God's word.

The main thing to note, we looked last week at sort of the darkness and the dark times of uh of this this time period in Samuel and uh and there's a there's immorality among the priests themselves. And uh and yet in the midst of all of this, God wants to make his word known. He wants to reveal himself clearly to his people. It's it's the main thrust of this passage. In fact, this passage starts out with the idea, it says right there in verse one that in those days, the word of the Lord was rare. There were no frequent visions. God is not speaking or appearing or making himself known in any way. And by the end of the chapter, we see that the Lord has appeared again. He's been seen again. He's shown up again. And that his word is now being revealed. God wants to make his word known to his people. Why? What's the importance of something like that? Maybe to think about it in this way. Uh in the 1960s and the 70s was a time when God's word was fading so much from the culture and the land that lots of people looked and said religion is dying. It's going away. The Christian faith will end. It was the time period of the reign of science, the triumph of modern philosophy and all of these different things. In fact, there was a whole movement of God is dead and most people thought that it would in scholarly circles that Christianity would die out. It would end. There was the rebirth and rise of all sorts of immorality in the culture. There was the sexual revolution. There was the experimentation of drugs. There was the anti-religious movement. There were all of these things that were happening in the culture. And yet what also was happening in the midst of that is it created a hunger, a hunger and a desire that nothing of these different philosophies and schools of thought outside of the Christian faith could satisfy. And so all of a sudden the answer, God's word went forth and it began to penetrate the culture. You had things like the Jesus movement. You had the the evangelical sort of renewal and rebirth that was happening in all sorts of ways. You had Carl Bar who was a theologian at the time talking about the word of God and the importance of the word of God. And now this is scholarly but it trickled down to the church and it helped people to see that like that you could have a personal relationship with God that God wanted to reveal things about himself to you. And see there's an importance because if this is the importance of not knowing God's word. If we don't know it, how do we know who God is, who we are in light of that and how to live, God's word is the answer to the human questions of life, to the deep questions. And anytime that the culture forgets that, anytime the land forgets that, we slip and we fade and we we stumble our way along. And everyone is looking to fill that void that only God himself and his word can fulfill and fill within us. And so there's this hunger and this emptiness and this desire for something. And so God in those moments and in this moment sends forth his word to make himself known to call his people to himself. That's where Israel finds herself today. It's in a time of darkness. It's in a time when she is losing her way, forgetting her calling, forgetting her God. And if she's left to her own devices, if they are left to their own devices, it will lead to their ruin. It will lead to their ruin. But God always acts. He always intervenes in those moments because he is a loving God. and he reaches out and he sends forth his word for his purpose. But and we're reminded as it says in uh in Deuteronomy 8:3 that man doesn't live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. God's word gives us life. Speaks to the deep questions of life. But Israel is losing her way. And so God's word needs to come and penetrate into that darkness and into that time period. And that's why where we find ourselves today. We're going to look at the movement of God's word through this chapter. And I'm going to kind of bucket it in three ways as we see it. God's going to move in this chapter from scarcity to clarity to responsibility. This will be the way that God's word travels through this passage from from scarcity to clarity to responsibility.

So let's take a look first. Scarcity. Scarcity. The text says as it as I just read that the word of God was rare in those days. It was scarce. It wasn't active among the people. It wasn't operating and penetrating their lives, reminding them of how who they are and how they should live in light of who God is. And so we find that it was rare. And why was the go word of God rare in those times? Well, one of the things that we find is that God's word is often rare in among a people and in a period of time as really a sign of judgment. In fact, in the book of Amos, Amos talks about the idea that God's word is he's going to send a famine in judgment upon the people. And it will not be a famine. Yeah, I'll actually just read it. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of the hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east. and they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, they shall not find it. And so in signs of judgment, God at times will when people are hard-hearted to God, when they won't listen to his word, God oftenimes says, "Then I will just stop speaking and I will let you go your way." As a sign of judgment, as a sign so that you can feel what it's like to be removed from God. what it's like to not have his voice reminding and encouraging and convicting and speaking his words to you, directing the path of your life. And so, it can be a sign of judgment. It could have been a sign of judgment on Eli's household that was corrupt in the priesthood. But we also know that it's a sign of judgment on the people because, as I said before, this is the end of a time period we know as the time of the judges. The time of the judges. And that t that time is is seen and encapsulated in this idea. And there was no king in Israel. And every man did what was right in his own eyes.  Everybody lived the way they wanted. They did what they wanted to do. And so God just let them have their way. And so there's a scarcity of the word. But what happens when God's word is scarce? What happens when we don't know who we are? What it means to live fully human? what it means to live in light of that lawlessness. When we see that uh all the time through the book of Judges, lawlessness in the land. Everyone does what's right in their own eyes. They run after their own ways of living. And you find just just times of like child sacrifice. You find times of anarchy. You have times of people just committing all sorts of immorality in the land. People living the way they want. And that kind of lifestyle ultimately leaves them in captivity. In fact, when there's a famine of God's word, God says that my people go into captivity for their lack of knowledge, their lack of God's word, because they don't know how to rightly live or they won't listen to that voice. And so when God begins to not speak and the word of God is scarce, we begin to see in our own lives this just void, this lawlessness. And we become less and less like God designed us to be and how he designed us to live and who we are supposed to be in the midst of that. Israel finds herself on this path. She's losing her identity. She's losing her calling. If you'll remember back, Israel was brought out of the land of Egypt and God set them up to be his chosen people. Not just for themselves, not just to have for themselves, but he said, "You'll be this priestly people that my light and my salvation will go forth from you." And then God does what? Right after he enters in covenant, you know what he does? He gives him his word. He gives them the ten commandments. He begins to tell them who he is and what it means to walk before him and to please him. Ultimately, we know that when you walk that out, you're actually walking the way God designed you to live. There's good for your own soul in that. And when we reject God's word, when it becomes scarce in our life, we quickly lose that path and we lose our way. And we see it here uh in the time of Judges. We are no better off in our society today. There's a scarcity of God's word. I we we look around. I've actually I was talking to a guy that teaches in Rock Hill and he was saying in his class he said he was talking about Moses and nobody knew who Moses was. And he just thought these high schoolers don't know who Moses is. But there's this just great lack and scarcity of God's word in our land. But we can look around at our land and see that we are the most affluent country probably in the history of humankind. And yet we are the most in debt. We're the most obese. We are the most overmedicated. We are the most mentally depressed. We are just we're falling apart in every way as a culture. We don't we have identity issues. We don't know who we are. We don't know what it means to live fully human. Scarcity of God's word doesn't answer the deep questions of of God's life. And so like Israel, we can quickly lose our way, lose our calling, lose our purpose, and we're just floundering. Just wandering along, stumbling through life, trying to make sense of it on our own because we have no word to inform and enlighten and tell us who we are, what it means to live before God. But because of God's graciousness, in the darkness of times, in the darkness when there is no word and when people seem to be all doing their own things, God always pursues people because God is a loving God. God is a gracious God and he often chases after people to reveal and make himself known. This goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve sin. They fall. They hide themselves. They're not coming back. They're out. They're scared. God comes down and calls them. And we have right here God coming down to Israel and through the prophet, he's calling starting with one person, he's calling Samuel. He's revealing himself. But one of the things that we see first in this in this chapter or in this text here is that no one even among the priesthood and even in the house of God actually has that clarity. We look and see that um that the priests do not know God. The two sons of Eli it said in the last chapter Hoff and Finnus don't know God. They don't know who he is. You know Eli and this is just a rich and powerful thing. the when Hebrew narratives drop little parenthetical insertations into the text, they're not accidental. He doesn't just mention these things as side notes. So right here, verse one, 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 were no frequent visions. God's word isn't active amongst the people. It's not active amongst the priesthood. And then in verse two he says at that time Eli whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see was lying down in his own place. Now okay so we can't play baseball or something like why does he mention that? And oftent times your your scholars will tell you these are inserting imagery and thoughts into the text to sort of almost like a metaphor help us see it's not only that the that the visions and the seeing and the hearing of God is rare in those days. The priesthood don't know God. Eli is losing his sight. He cannot see. And it's there's this metaphor this idea that even the priesthood is blind.  God's word is rare and even the people that are supposed to see it and supposed to be able to teach it, supposed to be able to proclaim it can't. They can't. And then there's this other insertion here. The lamp of God had not yet gone out. Now, the lamp of God burning in the temple is this. It represents the presence of God and the the leading and guidance of God. It's supposed to be that it burns every night in the temple. Why mention this? Like why? Like it was about 7:30. Like why mention the lamp of God? Because it's the reminder that God has not abandoned his people. Yeah, the priesthood is blind. The word of God is rare in those days, but he hasn't forgotten. God always has a remnant and a purpose and a plan. And in the midst of this right here, he the text and the author is trying to drop this little hint, let us know God still is working. He's still going to let his word go out. He's still going to guide his people. And so what does he do? He can't do it in the priesthood. They've turned from him. The people have gone their own way. They're doing what's right in their own eyes. So God finds a little Levite boy that's sleeping by the ark in the temple. He says, "I'll call him. I'll start with him." And so God does that. The boy doesn't even know. Says he doesn't even know the Lord. He has no experience at this. Right? God calls and he runs to Eli. He runs three times to Eli. But God persistently, persistently wants to reveal his word. And how often does he do that in our lives as well? You don't get it. You run into brick wall after brick wall in your life. And God's just constantly calling you, leading you, picking you back up again, and guiding you with his word, guiding with you his voice, inviting you to know him, to join him, to walk before him in your life. And so the author wants to just help us to see that God has a purpose and a plan that he's still going to send his word forth. He's not going to raise up a deliverer as he did in the time of Judges who would be military might. No, he's going to raise one up who can make his word and his will known to the people again so that he might revive them again.

So God brings clarity. And why does God want to provide that clarity? And number one is to avoid scarcity. We see the impact of when we don't know God's word, everyone goes their own way. We're crashing and burning. Israel is crashing and burning. She's losing her identity. She was designed to walk in the light of God's word, but also to reflect that light to the land around her. That if you look at the moral code of the Old Testament, like they're incredibly good for their time period in the ancient near east. like all the moral codes about justice and care for even foreigners and for the poor like that didn't exist in any of the other nations around and the ways that they lived and and and broadcast God's will for how a people should live care for the poor and the weak and the oppressed looking out for those justice in the land those just didn't happen in lawless societies in ancient times and when they lived that their light began to shine shine to the world around them. And other nations would look on and be like, "What is so good about them and they would want to know that word?" That was her calling. But Israel constantly flounders in that. And she loses her sense of vision and calling and purpose. And so God ultimately sends forth his word and gives clarity in these different times, in the darkest of times because he wants to accomplish his purposes for his people. He wants to send forth his word. Uh the word tells us um that God wants to send forth his word. And uh I don't think the verse is here, but it just reminds us that God sends forth his word and it will accomplish the purposes that he sent forth. it won't return to him void. And so God is beginning to reveal this here. And so we have clarity, but but also what does God's word reveal to us? It answers the deep human questions. It gives food for the hungry soul. It tells us of God. Tells us who we are. It tells us how to live. Like those may seem like trivial things, but think about that for a minute. In a world that is naturalistically created, devoid of God, then you were just created by an impersonal universe, by impersonal forces. So, you know, the universe spits out people. It spits out rocks and it spits out grass. Your life has no more meaning than a blade of grass in that kind of universe. As much as philosophers and scholars want to anchor it down into something and and give us some sort of meaning, if you were impersonally created, then what meaning is there? And so we are starving to find the answers to life's questions. And we can't. There is no meaning outside of God. And so we flounder looking for it. God has to send forth and reveal and answer these deep human questions for us because otherwise we don't know who we are. And it also answers the deep longings of our heart because deep within our our own hearts and deep even within Israel itself, she's looking for meaning, for belonging, for thriving, for joy, for satisfaction. And these only come to us from God. Israel will turn to different idols. She will say, "I'm going to live the way I want to live." And it gets her nowhere. She just spirals down, as we've seen throughout the book of Judges. And we see it in our own land today in our own lives as we do. Do do whatever you want. Live how you want. Be devoid of God. Don't listen to his word. And it will create a starvation within your own soul because you don't have anything to tell you who you are. And you just think about it. I have no identity. I want belonging, but I can't find it. I'm looking for joy and satisfaction. And yet it's an infinite infinite kind of joy. And none of these things, a career or or pleasure or none of these, they're sugar highs. They cannot fulfill me in the deepest ways, the deep longings of my heart. And if you look in our land today, in our culture, and we're part of that culture, we can think about it today. How many of us are looking for identity? How many of us are looking for belonging? How many of us are looking through pleasure and all these different pursuits for joy, for gladness? And God's word answers every single one of those things. He tells us who we are. Tells us that you were loved. You were made especially. You were made and created with in the mind of God with purpose, with intent, and with value. It tells you that you belong in God's family in his house. He invites you not not he doesn't just create you and leave you to yourself. He wants to know you and you to know him. So all of a sudden the belonging, the identity, who am I? It's answered in God. And then all of the joy and the love that we so long fills our heart with the joy that we truly seek that nothing in this world will actually satisfy. And when God enlightens our minds and helps us to see and understand that the questions of life and the longings and the hunger of life become satisfied. Isaiah 55 talks about this. Uh 55 1-3 says, "Come all you who are thirsty." This is God speaking to his people. Come to the waters and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come by milk. Come by wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy. Don't turn and chase after these things. None of those things is going to fill you in this life. It's just trading one idol for another over and over. sugar high to sugar high and it will never satisfy. Why chase after those things? Listen. Listen to me and eat at what is good and you will find delight in the richness of fair. Give ear. Come to me. Listen that you may live. God's word speaks clarity into our lives. This is not just a novel high concept in this chapter. If God does not speak into Israel, if he does not reveal himself in these dark times, Israel will fail. She will flounder. She will not find her identity. And the same is true for you and I. If God does not give clarity and reveal himself into our lives, we just go our own way. Off to destruction, off to floundering, off to meaninglessness. Life, eat, drink for tomorrow, you're dying. Nothing here today, gone tomorrow. And there's no narrative or no story or no word to add anything or any value to that itself. It's only the promises of God that reveal God to speak to the deep longings of our heart. And clarity comes by availability. Samuel is in the temple in the quiet. And but God doesn't just speak to Samuel. He doesn't just go, "Hey Samuel, hey, come here real quick. I'm going to tell you something. Or he doesn't just like show up there for some reason. God calls and he calls again and he waits for Samuel to really be available to respond. Speak Lord. And so often times God will work in our lives in that same way, calling us, drawing us, but we have to come to a point where we want to hear, where we want to see, we want the clarity in our life.

So God is persistent in seeking us and giving that clarity. But that clarity brings a responsibility. It requires a response. And so God God tells and reveals his word to Samuel. And yet the text tells us that Samuel didn't want to tell Eli. He didn't want to reveal God's word to Eli. Why not? Because even little Samuel knows God spoke something to you. And you have to deliver it. You have to deliver God's word. You have to respond to God's word. And in this case, because it's a word for someone else, little Samuel knows, I've got to deliver this word. And yet, he does not want to do it. And that's always the challenge is God sends forth his word into the scarcity and he gives that clarity and then we have to decide what we're going to do with it. Are we going to receive it? Are we going to believe it? Or are we going to reject it? Are we going to turn away from it? And so right here as as as Samuel is debating what he needs to do and probably trying to avoid Eli a little bit, Eli just calls him out, brings him before him and he says, "Don't hold anything back because if if it is, that judgment will be on you. May it come about on your own life." And it's so ironic that Eli says that Eli is experiencing has a word of judgment spoken against him and yet it's because he won't do what God has called him to do. He won't follow and receive and obey God's word over his life. And yet he tells this young boy, "But you you need to respond to God's word. You need to obey God's word." And yet Eli won't do it for himself. the blindness of all of it, the audacity of all of it. But Samuel holds nothing back. He's obedient in this moment. Even though through a reluctance of his own, he responds by making and not the text says not hiding anything or holding anything back. He makes the god word of God fully known. And uh and yet Eli hearing this, what is so striking about this is that Eli hears this word once again? He's familiar with it. It's been told to him before. And yet, what's his response about this in the text? What does he do? Well, it's the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him. God is God. I'm just going to submit to his sovereignty. Is that how people often respond when there's prophecies of judgment spoken against them in the Bible? When Jonah went to Nineveh and proclaimed God's doom upon them, did they go, "Well, God is God." No. What did they do, man? They repent. Come on. You like, "Let's just hope that God will forgive us. Let's hope that," and these are pagans. And time and time again in the scripture, that's the way that people respond. you know, God gives this judgment and this doom spoken against them and they're like, "Well, let me at least be sorry for it. Let me at least show some sort of remorse." But Eli just shows stoicism. I'm just going to take it on the chin. I'm not going to respond. I'm not going to repent. I'm not even going to do anything about my sons. There's still a chance. God is gracious. Jonah knows this about it. Other people know this in the scriptures. Eli's blind. He's down this course and his ship is sinking and he doesn't turn. He doesn't open his eyes. Even the word is spoken to him here and Eli won't open his eyes to it. He responds in the wrong way. He gets it wrong. And so he will ultimately have that judgment on his own life. But he didn't have to. And God didn't just tell him one time, but you see here the grace of God that now even he just did in the last chapter. Now again, just telling him again almost in hopes, turn Eli, turn. It doesn't have to be this way. I am gracious. Eli's blind. And it's odd here that we see once again the growth of Samuel, you know, as the as the chapter begins to to end up that Samuel in verse 19, Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to to the ground. Samuel is on the upward trend here, growing into the person who will proclaim and make known God's word. And Eli is blind and rejecting, walking without clarity, walking into scarcity, just going backwards in his life. Two paths, two ways of living. But when God reveals his word to you, you have a responsibility to respond to it. Sometimes it's just worship. God reveals an encouraging word that lifts yourselves. Sometimes it's a word of conviction that you need to turn. Sometimes it's a word that tells you to move out. But whatever it is, God will invite you in some way because God's word has a mission. He sends it forth to accomplish his purposes as it says in Isaiah 55. And it will not return to him void. So Samuel declares God's word. He makes it known and he will help restore a people and a nation in a time of darkness because all of a sudden what's it say in the text there at the end? It says, "And the Lord appeared again shalom." He shows back up. The light of God is not gone out. And as Samuel grows, he will begin to lead the people and proclaim God's word. And there will be renewal. there will be hope so that Israel can recover her calling, her purpose, her identity.

But Samuel's a prophet and he only speaks in mysteries and sometimes in riddles and he only knows what he hears that he can reveal to God and reveal about God to the people. And because he's human, he also cannot fully embody God's word. He can't live it out perfectly. He can't model because he can't even fully know. No human fully knows what God is completely like. All of his revelation. And so it will always be flawed and imperfect in some way in his life because he is just a prophet. The people need someone to lead them out. someone to live and embody that word and the word of God in their life. They almost need a king to do so. A king that is like a prophet. And yet what we will see later in this chapter is that the human kings that arise, they will not be able to embody God's word either the way. And so we see one day in John 1 that God sends forth his word. And scripture reminds us that God says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Jesus fully God coming fully human to embody and live and proclaim and reveal God, who he is, what he's like, and what it is to live before him. And Jesus does it all in his life. He shows us what we really need to know. He teaches it to us. But he also lives it as our forerunner. And he calls all of us what? To turn and follow him. We can't do it on our own. We'll never be able to fully embody it. We can't be Samuel can't be it. Samuel fails as the as the ultimate. He's only pointing to something else outside and further beyond himself. And the kings are the same way. They can't. No good king can do it perfectly. We need a king and a priest and a prophet who comes and embodies God's word and makes it known. And Jesus is the one who does that perfectly before it as he lives it out. And he came in a time of scarcity because Jesus came as it says in the darkness a great light shone. and he came and gave clarity and he called you and I to respond, to follow and to make disciples and to walk in his footsteps. So, as we see this, we have God's word more clearly now because of Christ than ever before. We have the word of God that records the life of Jesus and because of distribution these days and internet and Bible apps and everything else. It's so prevalent and yet it's so scarce often times in the church itself. We know the go word of God less and less and as we see we it adds to life. It empowers us. It changes us. It shapes us. We need it. They need it here and we need it today. And yet it's so present. And yet we oftent times so easily neglect it even though it is so available to us. Is there scarcity of the word of God in your life? Do you know his word? Do you know him and what he reveals through his word about himself to you? He speaks every day. Every day through his word. Come to know him. Come to hear from him. Again, take the bread of life that he offers. Drink of the living waters. It's free and it's available. Is there a lack of clarity? Are you living in darkness? Have you rejected God's word? Has it led you to blindness? Where is God speaking? And perhaps you're not willing to see. How is God calling you to respond? To forgive, to love the weak, to be generous or compassionate, to go to speak. Do you know who you are and who he has called you to be in him? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it goes forth and it accomplishes a purpose. Your word has a purpose. It's not just an FYI or a nice to know and it's going to call us to a response. And I pray, Lord, that our hearts would be open before you because when we hear your word, when you speak it, I just see how it fills life in my own soul. And I know for each one of us, God, it's available. It will change us and shape us. It will heal us. Lord, we pray for the same for our land and our country, even for our city. Lord, in a time when so few know your word, the lamp of God has not yet gone out. And we thank you that even in this time, Lord, you have chosen the people of God, your church, to carry forth your word, to shine the light in the darkness, to proclaim the mercies of him who called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Jesus name we pray. Amen.