When someone says “Marco,” what do you say? “Polo.” That is called a call and response. The military has cadences where they do a call and response. It keeps everyone in rhythm when they are marching. The unit leader calls out something, and the runners shout it back. At our summer camp, they do cheers led by the college counselors: the counselors say a phrase, and the campers echo it, and then the counselors say the next phrase, and the campers echo that. One of my favorite calls and responses is on a ride called Accelerator at Knott’s Berry Farm. It takes off, and you are going eighty miles an hour within a couple of seconds. The operator on the mic sometimes tells jokes, and he will say something like, “Are you ready for a good ride?” and everyone goes, “Yeah!” And then he says, “I say ooh, you say ah.” Just about that time, the countdown lights are going red, orange, yellow, and right when it is about to turn green, he says, “Ooh,” and the ride launches forward, and everyone goes, “Ah!” They are screaming. That is a call and response. Well, here in 1 Samuel 3 we hear the call and response of Samuel, the boy who would be the first permanent prophet in Israel. Hi, church. This is the fourth video in our series through 1 Samuel. Today we are covering chapter 3, about the call of God and the response of Samuel, and this is a great lesson for all of us. If you are new here, I am Pastor Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, and we often say, “We bring the Bible home.” If you are at home right now, we are literally doing that as you study God’s Word. Not just on Sundays; we want the Word of God to continue through the week too, so we are doing these Bible study videos to help you continue with God’s Word throughout the week. As I have said in previous weeks, we are reading an Old Testament narrative in light of our New Testament faith, which is shaped by Jesus Christ. So what the original readers of 1 Samuel 3 would have taken from it would be a little bit different from the way we will filter it. They would have received what the Bible calls here an open vision. What we have received is very similar, but still different: what we have received through the open vision is the entire Word of God.
The Word of the LORD Was Precious
By vision I mean what verse 1 says: “And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision.” “No open vision,” meaning it was rare. It was not readily being spoken. Now, the Levites were the ones who were supposed to teach the people the Word of God. They were supposed to spread throughout the land. They knew the law, and they were supposed to teach it to the people, but all they had was the law, and that was about it. So any new message from God, such as what Eli received from the prophet who came to him in the previous chapter, was intermittent. It was rare. It was precious. There was not a permanent position; there was just this man of God. Sometimes a man of God would show up, but that was not established forever on a national scale. Now all of that is changing. We have the calling of Samuel, and we will read the story here as we look at some highlighted verses. You have probably read it before. Verse 3 says, “And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep.” This is when the call of God was happening in Samuel’s life, before the lamp of God went out. This is the golden candlestick, filled with oil. It was never supposed to burn out, so every morning it was their duty to trim the lamp and refill the oil. Apparently Samuel and Eli are in a kind of annex to the temple here, some kind of living quarters nearby. God calls Samuel repeatedly. You might know the story: God calls Samuel, and Samuel does not really understand what is going on. He has never heard the call of God like this before, but God calls him repeatedly. Now, do not fault the kid for this. Verse 7 says, “Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him., and before the word of the LORD was revealed unto him” That same phrase, not knowing the Lord, was used of Eli’s sons, but they did not know the Lord for a completely different reason than Samuel. They did not know the Lord because they rejected Him, and they were under His judgment. But Samuel did not know the Lord here because he had just never heard that voice before. He was in uncharted territory. He had never been here before. So every time he hears the Lord’s call, he runs in to Eli, and finally Eli perceives that this is the Lord. Verse 8: “And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the LORD had called the child.” Finally he picks up on it, and he tells him in verse 9: “Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.” So that was God’s calling. There is no doubt that it is God’s calling. There are so many references to it, as I have highlighted in pink here, so many references to the call of God: called, and called, and called. It comes up about ten times in this passage.
A Message of Judgment
So what is this calling? Well, this time the calling of God is the judgment of God, and it is a scary message Samuel hears from God about Eli. Verse 11 says, “And the LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.” This is a scary message of judgment against Eli. Since Eli was not faithful to God’s Word, he would be purged. That was the message the man of God gave earlier. This might have been the very first Samuel had heard about it. He might not have thought of Eli as anything but a good guy, but here we are hearing about the judgment of Eli. Verse 15: “And Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the house of the LORD. And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision.” He feared to show him that. When you have been given the command by God to declare God’s Word, it does not mean it is automatically going to be easy. Samuel did not relish this message of judgment that he had to give Eli. It was not like, “All right, old man, it is my turn. Get out of here.” No, he is not happy about this at all. No one should be gleeful about declaring judgment on this world, as if it is a good thing that people are going to hell. Absolutely not. The judgment of God without Jesus Christ means that people who are lost are on their way to hell, but man, I have heard some people who are almost happy about that, and I do not think that is right. When God brings judgment, it is not like, “Man, this wicked Hollywood crowd, and those adulteresses, and this evil world. I cannot believe those stinking adulterers. Look how evil this world is.” 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 says, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” We would never want our missionaries to go to pagan lands, go up to Buddhist temples, and say, “Look, you people are getting what you deserve. You have rejected God. Now take that. I flew all the way over here as a missionary to tell you that you are doomed. You are under God’s judgment.” Well, of course not. Any good prophet with the spirit of Samuel here is not going to be happy about a message of destruction, a message of judgment. It is as if Samuel was saying, “It brings me no joy to tell you this, but God must judge your sin.” The prophets of the Old Testament, Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, all had messages of doom on the nations of Israel and Judah and Edom and Moab. But why would God send those messengers? Why were the prophets sent to declare doom on those people? Was it because they could do nothing about it? Well, no. The beauty of a message of doom is that there is hope to avoid that doom. Often with a message of judgment, there is actually a message of hope. It is a warning to avoid the judgment. No one is happy about declaring the judgment, but we must be a people who declare that there is a real place of hell, a real judgment, a place reserved for the devil and his angels. We do have to declare that those who continue in their sin will end up there, separated from God eternally in hell. But the message is a message of hope: Jesus died to save us from our sin, and we can avoid the lake of fire one day by trusting Jesus Christ as our Saviour. Well, Samuel here had a message of judgment, a message of doom, and this one was a message for Eli that God’s longsuffering was done. For him this was the final message. His fate had been sealed already. This was the end of a long life of having rejected the direction of God in his life. God’s longsuffering was done. The consequences of his neglect had caught up with him. There are situations where, even though you have repented, even though you are saved, even though you are trying to follow the Lord, some things still follow you. There are still some habits, some things from the past, that show up again later to hurt you. You are not always absolved from all the past issues you dredged up, and that is the case here with Eli. His past had caught up with him. And here is this prophet’s first message, all the way down in verse 18: “And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the LORD: let him do what seemeth him good.” He hid nothing from him. That is the prophet’s job right there: to hear the Word of the Lord and then to declare every whit, to hide nothing from the people.
What Is This Passage About? The Call of God
So we read this passage and think, “Okay, it is a message of doom and gloom. It is a call and response, God calling a young man to be a prophet, to hide nothing, but to tell every whit.” But what are we supposed to do with this passage, you might ask. What is this passage really about? Well, I look at this, and I see that this passage is about the call of God. We read repeatedly about the call of God, but it is not as though there is a formula for hearing the call of God. It is not that you have to be an apprentice to an old priest and be awakened in the middle of the night, and that is the only way you can hear from God, or that you have to be named Samuel. No, that is not how we read the Scriptures. Sometimes people will derive principles from messages like this, and it is only up to their imagination to come up with the idea God has for them in it. No, you do not have to be named Samuel. There are no limitations on this. This is about Samuel’s call, yes, but the word calling is defined like this: called by name, or called to duty, from which it has been taken to mean one who is summoned, or called for a specific assignment. So we can look at that more broadly and ask, “Okay, what is Samuel’s calling?” He has been called here to declare the Word of God. So when God speaks to a people, that is the grace of God to them. God could have left us in darkness, but instead He chooses to shine the light of His truth on us. That is a calling by God’s grace; that is God’s grace calling out to us. Now, part of God’s judgment sometimes is that He removes that calling. He removes that Word of God. Psalm 74:1 says, “O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?” Psalm 74:9 says, “We see not our signs: there is no more any prophet: neither is there among us any that knoweth how long.” As a sign of God’s wrath and judgment, Amos 8 says, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.” Later in the book of 1 Samuel, in chapter 28, we will see Saul trying to hear from the Lord, and the Bible says the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. So we see in Scripture that part of God’s judgment has been, “If you do not want to hear from Me, all right, I will not talk.” And in those days, the days of the judges, verse 1 already said there was no open vision. But all of a sudden God’s grace shows up on the scene. God’s grace moves in, and a baby is born named Samuel, and now Samuel is this prophet called by God, and his main job is to declare the Word of God, to declare His Word. That is the prophet’s calling. Notice how much of this is about the Word. Verse 1, way up here: the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD, and the word of the LORD was precious in those days. Verse 7: Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him. Verse 8: Eli perceived that the LORD had called the child. Verse 12: “I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house.” Verse 15: Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision. This is all from the Lord. Verse 18: Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. Verses 19 through 21: “And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan even to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the LORD. And the LORD appeared again in Shiloh: for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the LORD.” So we see over and over that this is the Word of God coming from the man of God.
We Have the Word of God
But this is not the only application, as if God is going to call you to preach, so it is just about a call to preach, and if you are not a prophet, well, too bad for you. No, no, no. If we are looking at the call of God to take the Word of God to a group of people, then where do you find yourself in that story? Maybe you are one of the people of Israel, and you might be thinking, “Well, do I have to pray for a man of God? Do we need a prophet to come bring us God’s Word?” Hang on. No, we have the Word of God. There is nothing lacking. Do you think we do not have clear revelation right now? We absolutely do, through Jesus Christ and through the Word. Hebrews 1:1–2 says, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.” So we already have the clearest revelation of God, since He sent us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. We were literally hearing the voice of God when Jesus spoke, all right? But Jesus is not here with us today, is He? So how do we hear from God? We hear from God through the Word of God. So I am just saying, do not look for a prophet to bring you God’s Word when you have God’s holy Bible sitting right there on your lap. Someone says, “Oh no, I want to hear an audible voice from God.” And someone else said, “Okay, then read it out loud.” In 2 Peter 1, Peter almost doubts his own senses: “For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.” So when you are opening up God’s Word and reading it, you are hearing the voice of God. “Oh man, I just really wish we had a prophet to really tell us the Word of God.” No, no, no. That is what the Bible is. We never have to improve on the Word of God. We can open up the Bible and hear from God, and we are never going to get better than that. We are never going to improve on that. We just cannot turn church time into a social club, a gathering of Christians who have nothing to say. It is only a gathering of Christians in vain if it is not the Word of God being declared. Samuel on his own had nothing to say. It was not about Samuel. It was about God speaking through His Word. So the call of God on Samuel’s life was about declaring the Word of God. When the first church in Jerusalem was getting bogged down with ministry, and that is not a bad thing; helping people is not a bad thing, they appointed helpers. I believe they are deacons in Acts 6; you might disagree, and that is fine. They appointed helpers to care for the widows so that they could give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. “And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.” Man, we want the Word of God to be the driving force of our church. Whether it came from my dad, our church’s founding pastor, or whether God calls other preachers, look, a preacher’s job is just to take the Word of God and declare every whit, to hide nothing of the Word of God. The declared Word of God is going to bring growth to the people, and that is a gracious gift of God. He is not trying to hide Himself from us. We have this wonderful Bible. It is not shrouded. It is not hidden.
How Are You Responding?
So there is this call of God on Samuel’s life, and this call of God is to take the Word of God. The call on our lives is the same thing: the Word of God. I am not talking about you becoming a preacher, a prophet, or anything like that. I am just asking: when God speaks, what do you do with the Word of God? I mean, to Eli’s credit, as we read the story, he just took it like a man. That thing was direct judgment against him. And maybe you are hearing about Eli’s judgment, and maybe you watched the last video, on the dam breaking because of neglect, and maybe you are realizing some things in your own life that need to be shored up. You need to strengthen your own spiritual life. Sometimes you hear a message, and it feels like a message of judgment, but God is telling you to fix some things. That is the call of God, and the response is your job. God is calling, so how are you responding? Are you responding like Samuel? Repeatedly in the text he says, “Speak; for thy servant heareth.” “I am open to whatever God’s Word has to say. Whatever You say, God, I am here for it.” Every time our church has a preaching service, we follow it up with an invitation. We have an invitation every service to invite you to respond. If it is the judgment of God, or just any message from the Word of God, that is not a light matter. That is something to be responded to. This Bible that we read and listen to is not just any other book. We are declaring God’s truth, and sometimes, even when it is right here, we are just not listening to it. Sometimes we can have Bibles right there in our laps and at our fingertips, and we might be in the same spiritual state Israel was in back then, where it might be said of our own lives that the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision. That is not God’s fault. It is not because God is not speaking. It is because we are oftentimes not hearing. There is no Samuel response. There is nobody who says, “Speak; for thy servant heareth.” It is a call and a response that God is asking for. So the question is, how do you respond to the call of God? What is this video about, what is this message about? It is pretty simple: Samuel’s response to God’s call to declare His Word should be our response. “Speak; for thy servant heareth.” I just want to end with another verse that summarizes this really, really well, Isaiah 66:1–2: “Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” That is the call and response. That is the kind of response God wants from every single one of us. So let’s respond to whatever God has for us. We will see you in the next video; we will be tackling the next chapter of Samuel. God bless you.
