Samuel’s story began with the backstory of his mother’s faith. She had been unable to conceive and longed to have children. The depth of her anguish over her situation, her desperate prayer and her devotion to God are detailed in I Samuel 1. She was so committed to God that she vowed when she would conceive and have a son that she would dedicate that child to serve the Lord. After her son would be weaned, Hannah would give him to the priest to raise and train. He would live apart from her and would become the Lord’s servant.
That’s a different level of faith. When what you long for you is something, you are then willing to sacrifice back to the Lord, well, that is a demonstration of tremendous faith. To me, it says that person trusts the Lord to sustain and fill and satisfy them more than the thing they are praying and longing for. Even though she desperately wanted a child, ultimately, she wanted to glorify God even more. Well, the text tells us she did conceive and have a son. She named him Samuel which means, “God has heard.” Even the name she gave her son demonstrated her faith in God. No one would convince her that she just got lucky and was able to conceive. No. She knew that she knew it was an act of her faith in God that brought about her miracle. Her womb had been opened by the hand of God. Do you know in faith that God hears you when you pray?
Samuel’s own faith developed early. By God’s providence, by God’s sovereign hand, He placed Samuel in the home of the priest because He needed someone there who was actually going to hear and revere the Word of the Lord. I’ll start by saying that faith has a starting point, and it must be developed. To grow our faith, we have to continue to respond to God when He speaks.
I Samuel chapter three tells us that one night, Samuel heard a voice calling to him. The voice spoke his name twice. Samuel ran to Eli, the priest, assuming it was the priest who had called to him. That happened three times, and on the third time, Eli had the perception to tell Samuel it was God calling. He instructed Samuel that when God called again, he should simply say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” I Samuel 3:9
I Samuel 3:11-14 records the words God spoke to Samuel. 11 And the Lord said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle. 12 At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family—from beginning to end. 13 For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons blasphemed God,[a] and he failed to restrain them. 14 Therefore I swore to the house of Eli, ‘The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.’”
Whoa. What would you do if the first time you heard God speak, He laid that kind of message on you? At least from what we understand, God’s first message to Samuel wasn’t, “I just want you to know I love you and am proud of you.” It wasn’t a word that said, “One day, I’m going to use you.” God didn’t show up and give him an exciting forward look about his own future, but he revealed the devastating future of Eli, the priest, his sons, and their entire family. It wasn’t a good news message.
How did the young Samuel handle that? Well, he had encountered God in such a way that he understood he had to be a steward of the truth. If you are going to activate your faith, you have to steward the truth. When truth was revealed to young Samuel, the revelation of truth became a test at the same time. What would Samuel do with the truth that God had revealed? That child spoke truth to religious leadership.
During Samuel’s lifetime, God spoke to him many more times. Everything Samuel shared, everything Samuel retweeted, all that God told him came to pass. I Samuel 3:19 says, “The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground.” He heard correctly from God, and he shared the truth with other people. None of his words failed.
Here’s what I know about Samuel and his life; He didn’t shut his ears to the Word of God, and he didn’t shrink from obeying those words. We live in a time when perhaps the majority of the culture has shut its ears to the Word of God. It isn’t an easy time to communicate on behalf of God. Oh, He’s still speaking, and to those who are willing to listen, He is speaking loud and clear. But many have closed their eyes and ears and hearts to the Word of God.
When you disconnect from the Word, from the voice of God, you have walked away from your strength, your support, and your satisfaction. Samuel could be the judge and prophet he was called to be because he clung to and acted upon the Word of God. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Romans 10:17 Revelation of the Word and obedience to the Word was what grew Samuel’s faith.
The Word of God, the voice of God, is fuel for your faith. Stop listening and responding to the Word, and you will run out of gas! Don’t resist hearing what God has for you today and every day. Don’t resist responding when you hear Him speak. Don’t be what the Bible calls stiff-necked or hard-hearted. Cooperate with God when you hear His voice. Samuel was willing to hear and respond to the voice of God.
Well, in time, the priesthood of Eli and the lives of his wicked sons came to a terrible end. The Ark of the Covenant, that which represented God’s presence in the midst of His people, it was stolen by the Philistines. It was a dark and difficult time. The Ark of the Covenant wasn’t just a mascot for the Israelite people, but it was the place where they would meet with God.
Well, the ark was eventually returned, and Samuel began to function as a judge in Israel. He was calling them to return to the Lord. I Samuel 7:3 he challenged them with this: “If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” Samuel knew the pathway to deliverance followed a deliberate act of repentance. Samuel, the judge and prophet, spoke truth to the Israelite people.
Israel responded. It was an awesome and timely time of national repentance. The Philistines mounted an attack on the Israelites, but God miraculously delivered them from the Philistines in response to Samuel’s prayer in chapter 7:10. You would think that would have cemented Samuel as Israel’s leader, that the people would have had an unwavering trust in God and in the leader, God had appointed, but instead, they had a growing desire to be like the other nations around them. The other nations around them had a king. Samuel appealed to them, telling them they only needed God’s leadership, but the people wouldn’t listen to him.
Samuel went to prayer over the matter, and this is what God said to him in I Samuel 8:7-10. 7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”
10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king.
He spoke God’s truth again to the Israelite people, telling them why it wasn’t a good idea for God to grant them a king. This time, however, they didn’t listen to God’s words. They were determined to be like the other nations. They rejected God for an earthly ruler. God gave them what they demanded. Saul became their king.
Almost immediately, Saul began to show himself to be a king that did not obey God with a faithful heart. Everything came to a head when God told Samuel to tell Saul to attack the people of Amalek and “utterly destroy” them. Saul was to leave absolutely nothing.
But Saul did not obey. He spared the best of the livestock—on the pretense of wanting to make an offering out of them; and he left the king of Amalek—King Agag—alive as a prisoner.
Samuel heard from God about Saul’s disobedience, and then went to meet Saul and to confront him. Samuel spoke truth to the King.
Samuel possessed a steadfast faith in the Word and counsel of God, even when religious leadership didn’t, even when the Israelite people didn’t, and even when the King didn’t.
There is more we could explore when it came to Samuel’s faithfulness to the Word of God, but just note, he never wavered in his faith in God’s Words to him. Whether it was received or not received, whether it was popular or palpable to those to whom he spoke, he maintained a fierce commitment to hearing and obeying the Word of God.
I want to be like Samuel. I want to have a resilient faith in the Word of God. I want to steward the truth. I want to respond right away when God calls to me. I want to be a messenger of the Word even when it is a difficult message to deliver. Can we make a fresh commitment this morning to hearing and obeying God’s Word by faith?
