I Samuel 3:1 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
Have you ever pretended like you didn’t hear someone when you actually did? Sometimes we pretend we don’t hear people when we are really listening in on their conversations. This is similar perhaps to feigning ignorance, pretending like you don’t know what is going on when you do. A very practical example of this is to say it is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. So many people live their entire lives in the dark and in willful ignorance.
In I Samuel 3 the people of Israel were living in the dark ages, the age of the judges. They were not hearing from God. In I Samuel 3 the entire point is to show the beginning of the ministry of Samuel, the last judge, and God speaking to and through him. I Samuel 3:1 says, “And the children Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision.” God was not speaking. The reason He was not speaking was because no one was listening.
I thought of something Oswald Chambers said when I read I Samuel 3 this morning. Chambers basically said, “This is how I show God that I don’t love or respect Him. I act like I can’t hear Him even though He is speaking to me clearly.” Later he said, “If I had been listening, I wouldn’t have consciously disobeyed.” Most of us don’t care enough to listen. If you show someone respect or love, it may not be syrupy or sappy; it may just be caring enough to listen and pay attention. So, there was no open vision in Israel.
Verse 10 says that Eli counseled Samuel to reply, “Speak; for thy servant heareth,” when God spoke to him. That is exactly what Samuel did. Verse 19 says, “Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.” Three times in the first chapter of I Samuel we find that Samuel was growing and developing. God did not let him utter anything that was not true. When God spoke to Samuel, he was faithful in communicating that to all the people of Israel. All of Israel, from one end to the other, knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord. The point of this narrative is that Samuel was listening when God was speaking.
Verse 21 says, “And the LORD appeared again in Shiloh: for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the LORD.” Something you can learn from this is that God speaks to those who will listen. Maybe you need guidance from God today. Maybe you need to know which way to go. I want to encourage you that God will speak, but God will speak to those who will listen. It is not that they will listen, like it is some passive thing that happens to them. No, they choose to listen. God speaks to those who will listen.
This is not a matter of age or position. Eli was an old priest. I have much sympathy for Eli, but there was a sense in which he was not listening. God said of him in verse 13, “For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.” So, it is not age or position you need to hear God; it is just surrender. The Bible says, “And the child Samuel ministered.” We know Samuel as an old man, as a mighty man in his prime, and here we see him as a child. It is not age or position; it is surrender that results in God speaking.
God said of Eli, “He knew, but he didn’t.” He knew what God wanted, but he did not do it. He did not restrain his sons. Let me say, begin young and start small if you want to develop a conscience and a discernment to listen and hear God. Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” God is not talking about Vision Sunday, some goal or vision you cast to your people. He is talking about the literal utterance of God. Specifically here it is the Word of God because the parallel in this verse says, “He that keepeth the law, happy is he.” “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Literally, it means the people are unrestrained. God said to Eli, “Your sons did evil and you restrained them not.”
Are you acknowledging God’s truth and hearing His voice? What restrains or motivates you? “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. The Bible is talking about the Bible in part, God’s revealed truth. I can’t always trust my feelings. Someone may say, “God is leading me.” Well, God does lead us. Is that divorced of feeling? No, but God’s will is most authoritatively stated in God’s Word. It is not my feeling. It is God’s truth. I may have emotions involved in that, but what really matters is what God has said in His Bible in black and white.
In Luke when the rich man lifted up his eyes in hell and wanted to send someone from the dead to warn his brothers, Abraham said that they had Moses and the prophets and should hear them. By Moses and the prophets, he meant God’s words in God’s Word, the Bible. The rich man argued with Abraham, but Abraham said that if they did not receive Moses and the prophets, they would not be persuaded even if someone rose from the dead.
Let me encourage you that God wants to give you guidance. You can begin just by what is right and wrong, what is true and false, not even thinking about some specific plan for five years from now, but what is the right thing right now. I just want to tell you that God does speak and He speaks to those who will listen. It is not a matter of your age or position; it is a matter of surrender. So, begin young, start small, and you hear when you acknowledge the truth.