Samuel, An Activated Faith
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
Faith in Christ enables us to live a confident and assured life.
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6
Faith in Christ enables us to please God and to experience the rewards that flow from a relationship with Him.
Do you want to live confident and assured? Do you want to please God and experience His blessings? Then activate your faith in who God is, in what He has done, and in what He will do by earnestly seeking Him.
Today we are coming to the end of the list of names in Hebrews 11. It has been a rich study for me, and I hope for you as well, as we have gone back into the Old Testament to study the lives of those who were listed in what many have called the “Hall of Faith.” Last up for our consideration is Samuel. His name is simply mentioned in Hebrews 11:32. He was the last of the judges and was also the first of the prophets.
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.” Isn’t that cool? 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 this morning that God hears you when you pray?
She also went on to have several more children, but that firstborn, that special son, as soon as he was old enough to live apart from his mom, was sent to “boarding school” to become part of the priesthood.
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. The priest’s family was corrupt, and even though Eli wasn’t part of the corruption per se, he didn’t handle what needed to be corrected. He allowed profane behavior to corrupt the holiness of the priesthood, to corrupt the worship of God. It took the bold faith of Samuel to deal with the corruption.
Let me set the stage for that confrontation. I’ll start by saying that faith has a starting point, and it must be developed. Can you apply that idea to your own life? Has your faith gotten off the starting blocks? Have you begun your walk with God through His Son, Jesus Christ? If so, have you been developing your faith? Can you list the ways you have been developing your faith? Picture a runner who lines up with everyone else on the starting line, who stretches and readies himself or herself to listen for the starter pistol, who anticipates going the distance and winning the race, but when the gun goes off, they take two steps and then stop.
The image is comedic, right? But do many believers find themselves in that reality? Have many started the race of faith, but have stopped running as quickly as they began? As I trained to become a musician, I remember one of my instructors saying, “Music grows or it dies, but it never stays the same.” I would say the same about faith. It is either a growing faith or it is a dying faith. To grow it, 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
So, that’s what Samuel did. He waited for the Lord to speak again and then acknowledged that it was God speaking to him. I want us to take note that God’s voice wasn’t immediately discernable to Samuel. Even though Eli, the priest, had “issues,” God used him in Samuel’s life to help him discern God’s voice. People of faith realize they need other people in their life to help them discern God’s voice and to distinguish God’s voice from their own desires, from the call of the world, and from the temptations of Satan.
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.” No, that message reminds me of one of the roller coasters we rode at Six Flags near Chicago this week. We went from 0 to 78 in about two seconds! It was called “Max Force.” We felt like we were literally being shot out of a cannon. I’m guessing that is what Samuel felt when he heard God speak. 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?
Eli had known that God had called again to Samuel, and so, in the morning, he asked Samuel what God had said. The text says that Samuel was afraid to tell him what he had heard, but he didn’t withhold the information from him. Samuel wasn’t telling Eli anything God hadn’t already spoken to him in chapter 2. The boy Samuel was confirming what Eli had already heard from God. Imagine having a word of condemnation from God confirmed to you through a child. How humbling that would have been for the priest. A 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. It reminds me of the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7. In verse 57, as Stephen was hearing from God and was seeing a vision of heaven and was trying to describe it to those who were getting ready to murder him, those who were picking up stones to kill him began to put their hands over their ears so that they didn’t have to hear what Stephen was saying.
I know many people who used to walk by faith, who used to prioritize a relationship with God, people who used to have a commitment to being in church every time the doors were open, who now live for themselves, apart from God, and are suffering greatly for it. I don’t know every detail about the “whys” in their life, about why they walked away, but I can tell you the “when” for every single person. I can tell you when it happened that they turned their back on God and began to live for self and the things of the world. I can tell you when they started going down the wrong road. It happened when they stopped listening to the Word of God and obeying it as the authority for their life.
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.
I’m guessing that Samuel’s mom thought that by sending Samuel to live with the priest he would be protected from things he ought not see and experience and would only be influenced by that which was sacred and holy. But Samuel didn’t grow up in a holy environment. Eli’s sons were profane. They were sexually immoral. They were materialistically greedy. They took advantage of other people. Instead of being shaped by their behavior, however, Samuel proved, that even as a young person, it was possible to be fiercely committed to the Word and work of God. and people started to take notice of his faith. When you walk by faith in the Word of God it will be obvious to others around you.
“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.” I Samuel 3:19-21
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. He was often hypocritical—putting on a big spiritual “show” for the people, but not doing as God had told him to do. Saul was often guilty of “partial-obedience” to God—which is the same as being disobedient. 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. (Interesting to note that later in history, it would be one of the descendants of this man—Haman—who would nearly destroy the people of Israel in the times of Esther). Saul’s disobedience would have terrible consequences later on, and it truly grieved God that Saul was king. God told Samuel this; and Samuel cried out to the Lord all night long.
Samuel then went to meet Saul and to confront him about his disobedience. Saul made a whole host of excuses—blathering on about the pressure of the people and about making an offering, and of how he really obeyed the spirit of God’s command. But Samuel faithfully delivered another hard message from God, this time not to a priest, but to the King. I Samuel 15:22-23- 22 But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.” 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?
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