"God speaks"

The bible reading is from 1, Samu, 3. You can find that on page 273. The boy, Samu, administered before the lord under Eli. In those days, there were of the lord was rare, there were not many visions. 1 night, Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place.

The lamp of god had not yet gone out, and Samu was lying down in house of the lord where the ark of god was. Then the lord called Samu. Samuel answered. Here I am, and he ran to Eli and said, here I am, you called me. But Eli said, I did not call.

Go back and lie down. So he went and lie down. Again, the Lord called, Samu, and Samu got up and went to Eli and said, here I am. You called me. My son, Eli said, I did not call, go back and lie down.

Now, Samu did not yet know the lord. The word of the lord had not yet been revealed to him. At that time, the lord called, Samu, and Samu got up and went to Eli and said, Here I am, you called me. Then Eli realized that the lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samu, go and lie down.

And if he calls, you say, speak lord for your servant is listening. So, Samuel went and lay down in his place. The lord came and stood there calling is that the other times, Samu, Samu, then Samu said, speak for your servant is listening, and the Lord said to Samu. See, I'm about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle. At that time, I will carry out against Eli.

Everything I spoke against his family from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about his sons uttered blasphemies against god, and he failed to restrain them. Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli. The guilt of Eli's house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering. Samu lay down until morning, and then opened the doors of the house of the lord.

He was afraid to tell Eli the vision, but Eli called him and said, Samu, my son, Samuel answered, here I am. Who was it he had said to you? Eli asked, do not hide it from me. May god deal with you? Be it ever so severely if you hide from me anything he told you?

So Samuel told him everything hiding nothing from him. And Eli said, he asked the Lord, let him do what is good in his eyes. The Lord was with Samu as he grew up, and he let none of Samu words fall to the ground. In all Israel, from Dan to beersheba recognized that Samir was attested as a prophet of the lord. The lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and that he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.

And Samuel's word came to all Israel. Thank you, Yasmin, for reading that for us. Please keep the passage open in front of you. If you if you've not grabbed 1 yet, there should be a Bible somewhere near you. If you've not got 1, I hope there would be.

If not, well, you could look it up on your phone as well, but it might help you to have 1 Samuel 3 open in front of you or to be able to sort of cast your eyes favor it. Let me pray for us. Heavenly father, as we come to your words, the Bible, father, we pray, please, you'd help us to be ready to listen, to recognize your voice and to respond to it. Our man. Well, it's a good passage for us to come to, on this Thanksgiving, day as we give thanks for the little ones for Isabelle and Matilda.

We've got in this passage a boy growing up, in, well, in China, in a, a tabernacle, who's gonna serve as a prophet. He's gonna be a significant person, but at this point, he's growing up. And you kind of think, well, in the lord's goodness, as we came to this Sunday, this was the passage for today, and I thought, actually, it's quite a good 1 for us with this boy growing up. And his relevant for all of us, whether you're someone who goes to church regularly or whether you don't. Because actually the main theme of this passage is not really the growing up of Samuel, but it is about god speaking.

It's about god speaking. You've got god speaking in this passage, and people not recognizing god speaking. He speaks, and people don't know it's him. And maybe you've had that experience of people not listening to you if you're a pair you've definitely had that experience. Sam and Starla and Jack and Laura will have had that experience with their children already and will continue to do so.

And there are points where parents need to say to children, are you list sneem to get their attention. And it's like god's having to do that in this passage with Samuel to say, are you listening? Do you recognize my voice. And this is very significant for us, that god is a speaking god. It's significant if you're a Christian, because, of course, you then want to know what does god say?

How should we obey him? What does he tell us to do? What does he tell us about himself? What does he tell us about? How to be saved?

How? What does he tell us about? How to live for him? But it's really important if you're not yet a Christian as well. Maybe you're someone who's interested in Christianity, intrigued by it, but wouldn't then maybe call yourself a Christian?

And if that's you, you're in a a growing number of people in this country. It seems our our culture in this country has changed quite significantly over the last few years. Having had decline in church attendance for many, many years, it seems like there's a change in our culture. And in particular, people are noticing it's young men men who are coming back to church more. The statistics say now, 21 percent of men aged 18 to 24 are going to church at least once a month, which is a massive increase on what it used to be.

And the Guardian paper who picked up on this and wrote an article about it said, this is partly because of the desire for community, but also it says more people are searching for meaning in an ever changing and demonstrably politically unstable world and they're finding it in multiple forms of Christianity. So if you're intrigued by Christianity, you're thinking what's the meaning of of life? Well, it's really important that god is 1 who speaks because how are you going to find that meaning? How are you gonna find that purpose? If there's a god out there, how are you going to know?

Well, if god speaks, that answers that question, doesn't it? If god speaks, you know he's there. And you can find out things from him. It's not down to us to guess if the god of the Bible is real, and the god of the Bible is 1 who speaks. And if he speaks, we don't need to guess what he's like rather we need to listen.

So whether you'd say you're a Christian or not, would you come with me to 1 Samuel chapter 3? This passage, which is, has a major theme of god speaking. Now the context, 1 Samuel III is about a time about 3000 years ago in a place called Shiloh in Israel. And Shiloh was a very significant place because that's where the tabernacle of the lord had been put. Now the tabernacle was a tent.

It was if you remember the times of if you remember that you weren't there, but if if you know about the times of Moses and the to this, when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, god told Moses and the people to build a tent called the tabernacle, and God would meet with Moses there. Speak to Moses, and Moses would then pass on the word of the lord to the people. And that tent. When they came into the land, years after, now after Moses has died, they put the tent in the place called Shiloh. And so it was a sacred place.

A place people would go to worship the lord. And we find now Moses is not our and, there've been, sometime after that, that there's a guy called Eli, who is priest at this tabernacle, and his sons are priests there too. And at the start, of the passage, we find that the people of Israel are not in a good state. Things are not good for them. The writer says it in in quite a quite a clever way, but he he's saying to us that things are not good in Israel.

Would you just cast your eyes down to the passage with me? Just see what it says. Right at the beginning, page 2 7 3, it says the boy, Samuel, ministered before the lord, under Eli. Now, Samuel, someone will come back to. He's the boy who's growing up there.

And Eli is the priest, but it then says, in those days, the word of the lord was rare. There were not many visions. Same God god's word is not coming out very much. There's not much speaking from god. It's a rarity to have something from god.

And then he says there are not many visions, and then he goes on the writer goes on to describe Israel in a way which relates to light and dark that the people are in the dark because they don't have the word of god. I mean, literally in the dark, first, to 1 night, Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see as lying down in his usual place. Now I'm sure it was true. It was nighttime, at this point, and Eli couldn't see. But I think the writer is saying something about the people of Israel.

They're under darkness. Without the word of the lord, they are under darkness. And their leader, Eli, the priest, is so blind, he can barely see. Which, I mean, the writer could have said other things to describe him as being old, but he uses vision. And he's saying this leader cannot see.

He hasn't got the word of god. Now, I wonder whether we might think of, re be able to relate to this. But we might think, well, mankind, it feels like we are in darkness. It feels like there's a whole load we don't know. Of course, there's lots in our situation, which isn't exactly the same as 1 Samuel 3.

But I wonder whether you feel that mankind is in the dark. We don't know which way to go. And maybe you feel leaders are blind. Maybe that's how you feel about them. Glenn Scrivner, who's an evangelist, right, of course, called 3 2 1, which introduces people to Christianity and in it, he he puts forward a scenario.

He puts forward a a sort of scene. Let me let me give it to you, and I'll come back to it a couple of times in the sermon. He says, imagine, a, a, a space station, space station, and there's a woman called Sasha, who's on this space station. She wakes up. And she has no memory of why she's there of how she got there, and she's trying to work it out.

And she realizes after not very long that she's not alone, there's someone else there with her, a guy called Doc, and Doc's trying to work things out as well, and he's a scientist. So he's doing all kinds of tests and things on the space station and working out that it's very carefully made and very carefully designed. But there's someone else there as well, a a a lady called Hope. And Hope is is confident that there's a reason why they're there. There's purpose for them being there, but she's got nothing really to base this on.

She's just pretty sure that there is something. And Sasha, that person that I spoke about, well, she's just not sure. She hears what doc is saying, and that's useful. And but she's not convinced by hopes, sort of, things are saying there's definitely purpose when there's nothing to base it on. And Glen says, well, maybe that's how we feel about life on this planet.

Science is good. It's helpful. It describes what's around us, but there's lots that science can't do, like doc. Science can't do a whole load of things. We feel clueless about things like why we're here.

What's our purpose? And things that are important for living and and raising children? Like, who are we? What does it mean to be a human? Are we different from other animals?

In what way are we different? And about things like gender or or justice or equality, things like that, things which science can't really answer for us. And we just feel a bit in the dark a bit confused about them. And then there are people around us who maybe a bit like hope who go, no, no, there's definitely meaning, there's definitely purpose to life. And we think, well, that's lovely, but what are you basing that on?

It feels like we're in the dark, and it can feel like if there is a god out there, maybe his word isn't just rare, maybe it's non existent. But then for the people of Israel, thanks the chapter 3 doesn't end there. It goes on. And it says verse 3, the lamp of god had not yet gone out. And Samuel was down in the house of the lord where the ark of god was.

It seems like there's hope. If the land is in darkness and the leader is blind, yet there is a lamp, which has not yet gone out. It says. Now land would have been 1 in the in the tabernacle, which was lit in the evening and put out in the morning. And of course, that that was just true, but it seems like the writer is saying all hope is not yet lost because there's this boy, Samuel.

And he's in the house of the lord, and he's lying down to sleep where the ark is. And the ark, which was a box overlaid with gold, more than anything else, represented the presence of the lord. And it seems there's hope. And so we come to our second point. God speaks.

Have a look at verse 4. It says, then the lord called Samuel. Samuel answered, here I am. And he ran to and said, here I am. You called me, but Eli said I did not call, go back and lie down.

So he went and lay down. God speaks. In the darkness, god speaks. And Samuel doesn't know it's the lord. And so he goes to Eli, the old priest, the old blind priest, and says, yeah, here I am.

You called for me, and he sends him back. They don't recognize the voice of the lord. And we need to ask, is god speaking to us? Maybe we just think we're in the dark, but what if god is speaking, and we're just not recognizing it. Do we, maybe, need to take from this passage that we need to go and lie down at night and listen more carefully?

Do we need to learn to hear god speaking to us through nature or mystical experiences? Well, the Bible actually says you need to do that. Let me take you to a verse in the new testaments that is written hundreds of years later, a book in the book of Hebrews, where god says this, where it says this. In the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, he's spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also, he made the universe.

So that's saying a change has taken place. God used to speak through the prophets at many times and in various ways. And that includes Samuel and what we're witnessing in 1, Samuel 3, is the start of this. Samuel is hearing the voice of the lord, and he's gonna be telling people what god says. God spoke to his people through Samuel.

But now Hebrews 1 is saying, a change has taken place, something different. God has now spoken to us by his son. And that son is Jesus. And it says more out Jesus. In that verse, it says he is the heir of all things.

In other words, everything belongs to Jesus. And it says that he is the maker of all things. He made everything. He's the creator. So it's when the sun that is Jesus came and lived among us, this was god, the maker coming to us, and speaking to humanity.

And if you were exploring Christianity, this makes a huge difference. If you were to go back to the space station, you've got Sasha and Doc and Hope, and there are they're discussing, why they're there, what it's all about, and then something happens. A ship arrives and docks, and a man walks through the airlock, and Zock looks at him and says, how? And he said, oh, it's a long story. And Hope asks, where are you from?

And he says, home. Scrivener in the course then asks, does the arrival of that man change the conversation? Well, it must. Mustn't it? They can't just ignore him, they have to do business with him.

They might decide that they won't believe him. They might decide, well, he's just pranking them or that he's just from another part of the space station. He just happens to come around, and he's trying to fool a bit. They might decide that, but they are certainly gonna pepper him with questions. Well, the Bible claim is that Jesus is that that man who has come to us.

It's claiming he's our maker, come to us, who speaks to us. How does god speak to you and me? The Bible doesn't particularly incur just to lie awake at night and try and listen. But says god has spoken. He's spoken his definitive word.

He came in the flesh and lived minus. So I wonder what you make of Jesus. Have you investigated him? His life and his teaching? If you haven't yet, I wanna encourage you.

Look into this man, Jesus. Read it gospel. That's 1 of the books in the bible, which it covers his life. Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Have a read of 1 of them.

See what it says about, and you'd be amazed at him. Maybe, some here have been put off Christianity by bad experiences in the past, maybe bad experiences of church or of religion, and you feel I just I just can't be bothered with all that. Can I urge you, get back to the core of what Christianity is about, which is Jesus? Have a look at him and listen to him. When, Samuel, in our passage goes to Eli and keeps going back, and forwards because he keeps hearing this voice and keeps going to Eli.

Eli then twigs what's going on. And says to Samuel, when you hear that voice, say, speak lord. First 9, he says, go and lie if you hear and call, say, speak lord for your servant is listening. Well, that's the attitude we should have to Jesus. To be ready to listen to him, humbly, to listen to him, and to teach our children to do so as well.

And so Sam and Starler and Jack and Laura it's important to be reading the Bible with Isabel and Matilda Children's Bibles, you know, start with them. Don't start with the King James. Start with Children's Bibles, but start now. I I I've encouraged them both to to get started with it, right from when they're babies, from when they they're not gonna be able to hear. They're not gonna be able to understand.

But to start, and to listen to it humbly, could even say when we begin reading god's word to begin by saying speak lord for your servant is listening, because that's what we're doing as we come to the Bible. God speaks, and he speaks most most clearly in the person of Jesus. But what's the message? What is it that god is saying? Well, our third point is about god's message.

The message the lord had for Samuel was not a comfortable or an easy 1. But then it if the lord has a message for you, you wanna hear what it is, whether it's easy or difficult. No. This is gonna be an ear tingling message. It's a nice way of putting it, isn't it?

S 11. The Lord says to Samuel, see, I'm about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle. Not with excitement, but it's a fearful message. It's a mess that's gonna that the lord is gonna carry out judgment. That's what he says.

First 12 at that time, I will carry out against Eli, everything I spoke against his family from the beginning to the end. And if you last week, you'll see, you will know that the law did speak against Eli and against his family. And it says why, because his sons had blasphemed the law towards, and Eli didn't restrain them. And verse 14 would have been terrible to hear. Therefore, I swore to the House of Eli to Eli's house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.

Well, we need to ask what is god's message for you and me. If Jesus is god's word, god's definitive word, what is his message to us? Is it to say as he did to Eli, your sins won't be atoned for? Well, we'll come back to what god said to me you are in a few moments. But there is good news in what Jesus says to you and me.

It's good news that implies bad news. Imagine being back the space station very briefly for our last time. And the man coming through the airlock is quizzed by Sasha and DACA Hope. And 1 of them says to him, 1 you here? And he says, I've come to be your rescuer.

Do you see how that's good news mixed with a kind of implication of bad news? Because you want to more questions if you're on that space station. Why do we need a rescuer? What do we need rescuing from? How are you gonna rescue us?

Well, Jesus comes to Earth in that way. He didn't come to tell us a good job we're doing. And he didn't tell him to tell us we're a hopeless case. Kindly. But he came to be our rescuer, our savior.

Throughout his life, he made it clear. His mission was to come to us to head to Jerusalem and to die there. Why? Why did he have that as his big goal? We're told in the book of Romans, what Jesus' death achieved.

And it says this. Romans 3 verse 25, god presented Christ, that's Jesus. As a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. You see, the message to Eli was your sin is not gonna be atoned for. Jesus says to you and me your sin can be atoned for by his death, by his shed of blood.

He was presented as a sacrifice of atonement to deal with our sin. And that is good news. And it is an offer that held out to every 1 of us. It says you can receive it by faith. That is by putting your trust in Jesus, not not through you making up for the bad things you've done, but by putting your trust in Jesus and his sacrifice for you.

This rescue this sacrifice Jesus came to achieve is there for any of us who will receive it. But we still wanna know why was Eli's family? Why was theirs in not going to be atoned for? What had they done? Well, Eli's son had abused their positions as priests.

They'd slept with women who were served at the entrance to the tent of meeting. We learned this in earlier chapters. They'd slept with women at the entrance to the tent of meeting abusing their position taking advantage of these women. And they'd shown contempt for the lord's sacrifices. Now you can go back and see how they did that, but they they took bits of it that they shouldn't do eat for themselves.

And that by doing so they showed contempt for the lord and for his sacrifices. And that is very significant. Because the sacrifices were their god given means for dealing with their sin. So if you show contempt for the only means god gives you for dealing with your sin, there really is nothing that you can do. There can be no atonement because the very means god has given you for the atonement of your sin, you're rejecting.

It would be like blocking up a fire exit and then finding in an emergency that you've no means for leaving. And there's a warning for us here in 1, Samuel, 3. The warning is don't despise the means god has given you for dealing with your sin. Let me quote Tim Chester, who's a a lecturer in theology. He says this about this passage in 1, Samuel 3, in a in a plot he says this.

It's not that there are sins that are beyond the scope of the cross. There are no sins, which are too big for the grace of god in the blood of Christ to cover. But just pause there. Have you have you recognized that? Maybe some here thinking, oh, yeah, other people could be forgiven, but not me.

I've done this bad thing. Now, the blood of Jesus shed on the cross can deal with all your sin, any sin. He says there are no sins, which are too big for the grace of god in the blood of tries to cover. The point is this, if you despise the cross of Christ, then you reject the only means of salvation, reject Christ's sacrifice, and you have nowhere else to turn. So we need to learn from Eli and his sons.

Don't make the terrible mistake of ignoring the sacrifice or reacting it. Because without it, we're in big trouble. So how will we respond? We have in message, how Eli responded to god's word. Samuel having heard this message from the lord, is then afraid to tell Eli.

He goes back to bed. First 15, we're told he lays down until morning, then opens the house of the lord. And he was afraid to tell Eli the vision, but Eli insists and Samuel tells him. He tells him everything. By the way, he's being a good prophet.

He's telling people exactly what god says. Not sugar coating it, but same how it is. And Eli responds in verse 18. So Samuel told him everything hiding nothing from him, and then Eli said, he is the law thought that him do what is good in his eyes. Now I suppose we don't know the tone in which it was said, but it seems Eli was doing the right thing here.

Maybe this was his greatest moment. That's what some people have said of Eli. Because he recognized the lord's word and was humble before it and submitted to him. See, it is a humbling thing to be a Christian. To become a Christian is a humbling thing.

Because you have to say, lord, you are above me. You are greater than me. You're my creator, and you say my sin needs dealing with. And furthermore, my only way of being right with you is not through what I do, not through my impressive CV, but by coming to a carpenter who died 2000 years ago and asking him to be my savior. And that is a humbling thing to do.

Will we be humble enough to respond to word. And if you're a Christian, you need to develop a hunger for god's word. The chapter ends with the word of the lord going out through Sammy. You'll you'll have noticed it's now morning, and Samuel has opened the doors of the house of the lord. Things have changed from the beginning of the chapter.

Not only is it mourning, not only are the doors of the house of the lord open, not that they weren't before, but it's making a point that now they're open, but also the word of the lord is coming out to the people. First 19, the lord was with Samuel as he grew and that none of Samuel's words fall to the ground and all Israel from Dan to beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the lord. The lord continued to appear at shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word. And Samuel's way came to all Israel. So the situation has changed.

Now the word of the lord is going out. Now they're in the daytime. The doors of the house of the lord are open. The word is going out, and that is good news for the people, but you wonder then, well, how are the people going to respond? As they hear god's words, they need to respond positively to it, humbly before it, and to have hunger for it, to listen to it as do we, to read it day by day on our own with our children, and we pray that there will be a hunger for the word of the lord, for Is well and Matilda.

And do you have a hunger for the word of the lord? To hear it? To read it for yourself day by day? To come to the preaching of god's word. Now, in the book of acts, the preaching of god word is also described as the word of the lord, not that I'm infallible, but where I speak faithfully to god's written word, god's voice is hurt.

So do you have a hunger for the preached word of god, to be present at the gathering of god's people to hear his word preached. Are you hungry for it? Making it a priority? Well, the great news is God has spoke We are not in the dark. In the person of Jesus, god has spoken.

And his message is 1 of good news, which implies bad news, but it is a message of rescue. Will we reckon recognize god's voice, respond to it humbly, and hunger for it. If you've got questions about anything that I've said, do grab me afterwards. I'm very happy to talk about it to chat further about about this passage or about anything to do with the laws. Let's pray.

Father, thank you that you are a speaking god that you have spoken, your words, that you spoke through the prophets, and that we can read their words, we can read your words, and thank you that you came in the person of Jesus, your definitive words, and help us there for each 1 of us to listen to Jesus and to respond to his message. Thank you that he came to our rescuer. Help us to take hold of that rescue. We pray, and give us all a hunger for you and your word, amen.