God Who Calls Samuel
Every conversation between two people begins with one calling the other. A friend calls a friend by name, a parent calls a child, and the conversation begins. Among these voices is the voice of God, who calls his children in a still, small voice. When a person calls, we can answer at once; God’s still, small voice, however, can be heard only with the spirit, which is why we must stay spiritually awake at all times. God called Noah, Abraham, and Moses, along with many prophets and disciples. Through that still, small voice the prophets and the other forefathers of faith came to understand God’s will, lived by faith, and walked boldly down the road of martyrdom. Yet his voice is not a sound the human ear can catch, nor can anyone hear it merely by wanting to. We hear it only when God opens our spiritual ears. It was in that still, small voice that God called Samuel.
Verse 1 calls Samuel a “child,” and the Jewish historian Josephus records that he was twelve years old when God called him. To minister to Yahweh before Eli means that, under Eli’s oversight, he had begun to take a real part in the duties of the priesthood and was serving in the temple. Though Samuel took part in the sacrifices, he was still a young boy, and Eli the priest had become corrupt, so for some time there had been no one to hear God’s still, small voice. That is why Yahweh’s word was precious in those days and visions were rare. Our own day is no different. There is a church in nearly every building, and pastors and churchgoers are more than plentiful, but few truly grasp the truth, and so God’s word is precious once again. The reason is plain: however many people fill the pews, those who do not live by God’s will have no ears to hear what he is saying.
Verse 2 records that Eli’s eyes “had begun to grow dim, so that he could not see,” and that instead of staying in God’s house he lay in his place, grown heavy. Eli’s dim eyes may mean in part that his bodily sight had failed with age, but they also mean that he no longer stood in the light and lived instead in darkness. Those who live by the flesh and say, “It is good for us to be here,” without any zeal for God are all, like Eli, spiritually dim-eyed and sluggish.
Deuteronomy 34:7, by contrast, records, “Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.” Moses had received the law, and because of that he could not enter Canaan, the land that foreshadows heaven. At God’s command he climbed Mount Nebo and died on the top of Pisgah, gazing out over the land of Canaan. Up to that day his eyes were not dim and his body was strong. Even so, because God told him that his work was now finished, he obeyed the word and met his earthly death. Moses had to die because the one who would lead the people into the land of Canaan could only be Joshua, a type of Jesus. Hidden in this is a deep truth: no one can enter heaven by the law Moses received, but only through Jesus Christ, by the gate of life. Knowing this will of God, Moses could obey his command even with Canaan, the goal of his whole life, right before his eyes.
Pastors and members who labor in God’s work must live as Moses lived. Only those who live by faith to the very moment they leave this world can lead souls into Canaan. To his last breath Moses told the people of Israel who God is and declared what God wills. All that he taught them with everything in him, how Israel must live once it entered Canaan, is written in the book of Deuteronomy.
Eli, however, did not give his best as Moses did. The young Samuel was in Yahweh’s temple, where God’s lamp burned, while Eli lay in his own room, though he was the priest whose office it was to tend it. Here lies the difference between the faith of Eli and the faith of Samuel. Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas, all of them priests, neglected their duties and left a young boy in charge of a lamp that must never go out.
Leviticus 24:3
3Outside of the veil of the Testimony, in the Tent of Meeting, shall Aaron keep it in order from evening to morning before Yahweh continually: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations.
This verse shows that Eli disobeyed God’s command. Keeping the lamps in order was the priest’s duty every evening: lighting the seven-branched lampstand so that the holy place would never grow dark. God had commanded plainly that Aaron the priest keep the lamps in order from evening to morning so that they would not go out. But though God’s lamp had not yet gone out, Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas left the young Samuel there alone and lay down, each in his own quarters. They ought to have checked whether the oil was running low or the flame was dying; instead they slept for their own bodily comfort. Those who had gone before should have set an example, but they lay down in idleness.
The parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25 explains why God’s children must keep watch. The ten virgins could not be married until they had met the bridegroom, so all of them had lit their lamps and were waiting for him. The five wise virgins reasoned that if the bridegroom came late, they might run short of oil to keep their lamps burning, so they set aside more oil in other vessels. They prepared beforehand, in case the worst should happen. The five foolish virgins, thinking they had already filled their lamps to the brim, never thought to bring any spare oil. Sure that they had oil enough, they left their lamps burning and fell asleep when the bridegroom was delayed. At midnight a cry went up to come out and meet him, and when they woke, the oil in all ten lamps was running out and the bright flames were dying. The five wise virgins, who had kept spare oil, refilled their lamps and kept them burning, but the five foolish virgins, because of their careless thinking, could not go out to meet the bridegroom. Had they all considered carefully, ahead of time, what it would take to welcome him with joy whenever he came, all ten would have shared the joy of meeting him.
What the virgins waiting for the bridegroom had to do was to give themselves wholly to keeping their lamps lit until the moment they met him. Anyone who prepares halfheartedly and carelessly, in their own way, will in the end suffer the misery of being unable to meet the bridegroom when he comes. In the same way, Eli should have served faithfully in the office of priest with everything he had. But he forgot how precious the office entrusted to him was. As a result his soul dried up and the eyes of his spirit grew dim, until he could no longer hear God’s still, small voice.
The pure oil obtained by beating olive leaves foreshadows the Holy Spirit, whom Christ sent when he had accomplished the work of redemption and ascended into heaven. Only with the help of the Holy Spirit can we tell good from evil and make ourselves fully ready to meet the Lord at his return. When Yahweh commanded that the lamps be lit with pure oil so that they would never go out, he was telling us to light up the world with the fire of the Holy Spirit and to help every soul receive Christ. We can reveal the glory of Christ only through the Holy Spirit, and so we must strive to obey his leading. It is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, and he alone, who fully knows the will of God.
Genesis 8:11
11The dove came back to him at evening and, behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth.
Inside the ark, Noah could not tell how far the waters covering the earth had gone down, so he opened the window and sent out a raven. The world was full of carcasses, and the raven, finding plenty to eat, kept flying about and never returned to the ark. In the same way, a soul that loves the world, once it leaves Christ’s ark for the world, never comes back. When the raven did not return, Noah sent out a dove. Finding nowhere to rest in a world covered with water and carcasses, the dove came back to the ark, and seven days later Noah sent it out again. This time the dove returned with a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak. That it came back with a fresh olive leaf from a world drowned in the waters of death foreshadows the coming of Christ, who would give new life to a dying world.
The raven flew off toward death, but the dove came back carrying the leaf of life. Like the dove, you must realize that there is no place to rest in a world drowned by the flood, and return to the ark of salvation. For if you are God’s pure children, you, like the dove, have no place to settle in a world filled only with death. Just as there was no safe place for Noah outside the ark, you must recognize that the world is no safe place for you, and abide in Jesus Christ alone.
Just as oil was obtained by beating those olive leaves, the Holy Spirit came through the atoning work of Jesus. Eli had been charged with keeping this precious fire of the Spirit from going out, and the unfaithfulness he showed before God is something we must never repeat. Eli was a priest who knew God’s will and his word, and you too know well what God’s will is and what the truth is. Because you know the word, you must give yourselves to being filled with the Spirit. You must depend on the Holy Spirit to go beyond your own limits, and only with a faith that can discern the darkness will you hear God’s still, small voice.
When Samuel first heard God’s voice, he did not recognize it. It never crossed the boy’s mind that God was calling him; he thought Eli had some errand for him and ran to Eli. We too may fail to discern the word when we first hear it. Someone reading the Bible for the first time will find it hard to grasp the truth in any depth. That is why we need someone who can show us God’s will through the word. Those who, like Eli, are further along in the spirit must teach the young Samuels who cannot yet discern the word well, so that they can walk the way of truth with ease.
Had Eli been filled with the Spirit, then at a moment like this, when God was present, he could have heard God’s still, small voice together with Samuel and taught him God’s will more clearly. But Eli was so spiritually dark that Samuel had to run to him three times to ask whether he had called. A person further along in the spirit ought to be more sensitive to God’s still, small voice, yet Eli could not hear the voice that Samuel heard. That still, small voice can be heard in prayer, in meditation on the word, in listening to a sermon, in serving with our hands, and in sharing the gospel, because those who grasp the truth and live according to God’s will are the very ones who have heard that voice and obeyed it. To hear God’s voice is not to catch a sound with the ear, as in a conversation between people; it is to discern, in the midst of serving, the direction and the plans God desires.
Matthew 16 tells how Jesus told his disciples that he must go up to Jerusalem, suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed. He was revealing to them the secret of heaven, that he would be raised on the third day, but Peter, who had no ears to hear, took hold of Jesus and tried instead to hold him back. Hoping the Lord would not go through with it, Peter protested that such a thing would never happen to him. His response came from love for his teacher, yet Jesus rebuked him. Peter was only worried for Jesus, but Jesus answered him, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.” That rebuke shows us that faith without understanding is nothing other than the mind of Satan.
When Samuel came to him the third time asking whether he had called, Eli realized that God was calling the boy. But he stayed where he was, lying in his bed, and told Samuel how to answer God. The word of the Almighty had come, and Eli taught Samuel without so much as rising from his bed; that shows how corrupt his faith had become. Far too many people live with this kind of faith today. They do not serve faithfully with all their heart; they know just enough of the word, and they do just enough of God’s work to get by. But faith that does not give all its heart and soul is not the whole faith God desires.
Churchgoers these days even mock those who strive to live by the word and fix their eyes on the truth alone, calling it blind faith, and they show their distaste by saying that such faith is a problem. People who talk like this are lying in their beds, like Eli, who did not fear God. There must have been a time when Eli, too, was faithful to God and gave his all to the office of priest. He could tell Samuel that it was God calling him because he had known such a time.
How grievous it is to see Eli, who had experienced it all, grow spiritually dull! That he had once heard God’s still, small voice and had once been faithful to God means that he knew full well what God’s grace and God’s wrath are like. Had he not gone about God’s work out of daily habit, he would not have grown proud, and God could have revealed more of heaven’s secrets through Eli than through Samuel. People grow proud in doing God’s work because they begin to credit themselves. They know a fair amount of the word, they learn by experience what God’s work is like, and then they use that knowledge to exalt themselves; that is how they become like Eli. In the end they fall, because they mistake that experience for faith, grumble when others do not acknowledge their faith, and set about lecturing them.
I hope that you will never grow proud, however much of God’s work you take up. May you be humble enough to accept counsel as you serve. If you remain faithful in a humble place until the day you meet God, God himself will lift you up. Your faith will be so dear to him that he will entrust you with a calling and give you a place to teach others.
In 1 Samuel 3:15 we read that Samuel was so afraid of God’s word of judgment against the house of Eli that he could not bring himself to tell it to Eli. Eli knew that Samuel could not speak, yet with perfect calm he said what amounted to a threat: if Samuel did not tell him everything, he wished God would punish Samuel. He knew he was about to hear a word that he and his descendants would all be judged, and still he was not afraid. Such an attitude is possible only for someone who has already abandoned the faith. Eli must have thought that, though his sons were doing evil, nothing could really happen to them while they were under the wing of a priest like himself. Eli’s attitude explains why his two sons had no faith, and why they felt no fear even after they had sinned. He had no intention of rebuking Hophni and Phinehas, even when they cheated the people and lay with the women who served at the Tent of Meeting before God. The man whose office it was to offer sacrifices and bear the sins of others was busy covering up the sins of his own sons. To love one’s sons more than God like this is no different from idolatry.
1 Timothy 4:1-2
1But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, 2through the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron;
Skin that has been branded with a hot iron loses all feeling. A conscience branded in the same way can no longer tell what it is doing wrong, or which words and deeds are sinful. A branded conscience leaves a person, like Eli, without the fear of God; but those who abide in the word, like Samuel, will see every word they speak bear fruit. The word came true in Samuel’s life exactly as it was spoken, a sign that God was with him. When you strive to live by the word, the souls who are to be saved will trust you, and they will go beyond trusting you to receiving God.
1 Samuel 3:21 tells us that Yahweh revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by his word. God works by his word and makes himself known by his word. And John 1:14 records, “The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus is that very Word, by which God revealed himself to Samuel, become flesh and come into the world. Jesus Christ bore sin in his flesh and washed it all away on the cross; now he has ascended into heaven and is waiting to come again.
So we must not try to see Jesus with our eyes but strive to meet him in the word. The Word is power, it is life, and it is the Creator himself. The Word who judged Eli’s house and blessed Samuel is with you now. If you listen for the still, small voice that God speaks through the word of truth and through the working of the Holy Spirit, he will make known to you the secrets of heaven. If you live by the word as Samuel did, you will receive wonderful blessings; but if you receive the word and go on living carelessly, as Eli did, you will not escape the judgment of God.
God’s grace is poured out alike on every heart, but the vessel that is to receive it must be ready before that grace can be received in full. If you stay spiritually awake at all times, you will hear his still, small voice.
May you always stay awake like Samuel and obey the word. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.
1 Samuel 4:17-22
17He who brought the news answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been also a great slaughter among the people. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and God’s ark has been captured.” 18When he made mention of God’s ark, Eli fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate; and his neck broke, and he died; for he was an old man, and heavy. He had judged Israel forty years. 19His daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, was with child, near to be delivered. When she heard the news that God’s ark was taken, and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and gave birth; for her pains came on her. 20About the time of her death the women who stood by her said to her, “Don’t be afraid; for you have given birth to a son.” But she didn’t answer, neither did she regard it. 21She named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel”; because God’s ark was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband. 22She said, “The glory has departed from Israel; for God’s ark has been taken.”