Samuel shows us the importance of seeking God diligently, and the power of listening to God when we do so.

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The boy Samuel served the LORD in Eli’s presence. In those days the word of the LORD was rare and prophetic visions were not widespread.

1 Samuel 3:1

Times were bad in Israel. There was an old man who was supposed to teach everyone about God, kind of like a pastor, except he was the pastor for the entire country. His name was Eli. Eli had two sons, named Hophni and Phineas. These two sons were grown men, and they were supposed to help their father Eli with the work of teaching people about God and leading them in worship. Instead, they took advantage of their positions. They took food from people who had saved up all year so they could bring the food to the place of worship and celebrate with God. When people complained, Hophni and Phineas told them that they were working for God, and so the people had to do what they said. They did even worse things than that. They either seduced, or coerced the female workers at the tabernacle to sleep with them.

Their father Eli told them that what they did was wrong, but they didn’t stop doing those things, and Eli didn’t take any more action to put an end to it. As we look at 1 Samuel chapters 1-3, it seems like Eli is not a bad man, but he was weak-willed and he did not do a good job raising his own children.

This wasn’t the only reason times were bad. The text says, “In those days the word of the Lord was rare and prophetic visions were not widespread.” In other words, no one was paying attention to God, and so no one knew what he wanted to say or do. No one seemed to be seeking God. I think one of the things we can learn from these chapters of 1 Samuel is the importance of seeking God. Many, many years later, King Asa of Judah wanted to do the right thing. God brought the prophet Azariah to him, who said this:

The LORD is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. ³ For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without law, ⁴ but when in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them. ⁵ In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. ⁶ They were broken in pieces. Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every sort of distress. ⁷ But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.” (2 Chronicles 15:2-7, ESV)

The time that Azariah was speaking about was roughly the time of our text today – the time right before the boy Samuel began to seek God, and listen to him. The future of an entire nation was changed because a few people, like Hannah, and her son, were willing to seek God. Throughout the history of God’s people, he has reminded them that he will be there for those who truly seek him:

But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 4:29, ESV)

⁶ “Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
⁷ let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

(Isaiah 55:6-7, ESV)

¹⁷ I love those who love me,
and those who seek me diligently find me.

(Proverbs 8:17, ESV)

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD

(Jer 29:13-14, ESV)

Jesus Christ put it this way:

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

(Luke 11:9-10, ESV)

So God says, if you look for him, you’ll find him, if you are looking with all your heart. If you want to hear what he says, you will, if you really, truly want to. He will speak to you through the Bible, and he will affirm it in your heart. He will use circumstances and other people. But your seeking must be genuine.

However in the days of Samuel’s childhood, no one was doing that. It wasn’t that God was ignoring his people. People didn’t hear from God because they weren’t listening. They did not really truly want to know God better; they didn’t really want to know what he had to say to them. Probably, they just couldn’t be bothered. The result was four hundred of the darkest years in the history of God’s people.

But one person started to listen. It wasn’t Hophni or Phineas, the bad priests who were abusing their power and position. It wasn’t Eli, the old man who was supposed to lead the country in following God. It wasn’t a mighty warrior or a great scholar.

The one person who started to listen was a young boy. His name was Samuel. In the first of this series we learned how his mother held on to her desire to have a son, but also surrendered that desire to God. Because of that, after Samuel was born, when he was between four and six years old, she let God adopt him. Of course it was Eli, the old chief priest who took care of him and taught him at the house of God, but it was really as if Samuel was adopted by God.

It wasn’t necessarily right after he came to live at the sanctuary that Samuel first heard the voice of God. But it is clear that when Samuel started to listen to  God, he was still only a young boy. Both the Hebrew Text and the Greek Old Testament (called the Septuagint) agree on this point. The Greek uses a word that means “young child.” The Hebrew uses a word that can mean any child younger than thirteen years old. So he is definitely not a grown up; not even a teenager. It isn’t any more specific than that. He could have been twelve years old, or he could have been six. But we know he was only a kid.

Many of us know the story. It is right there in 1 Samuel chapter 3. One night Samuel was sleeping and he heard a voice call him. He thought it was Eli, the old priest. Now Eli took care of Samuel, and made sure he was fed and washed, taken care of and educated. But Samuel also took care of Eli, because Eli could not see very well. So Samuel thought it was Eli who called him. Maybe he thought Eli needed some help finding something or walking somewhere in the dark. Probably there were times when Eli did call him to come help for things like that.

So Samuel got up to see what Eli needed. Only Eli had not called him. He sent Samuel back to bed.  A little while later, Samuel heard a voice calling his name again. He got up and ran to Eli once more. Once more Eli sent him back to bed.

Then it happened again. Eli had his problems, but he wasn’t an entirely bad person, and it seemed like when he was caring for Samuel, he avoided the mistakes he must have made with his own sons. Eli realized that it must be God speaking to Samuel. So he sent Samuel back again, but this time, he told Samuel to ask God to keep speaking, and to listen to what God says.

Now there is something interesting about this story. I think a lot of people feel that if God speaks to them, it is going to be easy to hear him and easy to know that it IS God who is giving them the message. But that wasn’t the case with Samuel. It really was God. He was even speaking in a voice that Samuel heard audibly. Even so, it took both Samuel and Eli several tries until they realized that God was at work.

Many times, I think we don’t hear God because we think it should be easy. We think, “if God wants to say something to me, well, he can.” But that isn’t really seeking God, like Jeremiah and Jesus talked about. And even with Samuel, it took some time and energy to discern that God was speaking. You can see here again, one of the important things is that Samuel really wanted to hear God. He was willing to put in the time and effort.

It is not good to assume that everything that comes into our heads came from God. But at the same time, it is good to take a little time and energy to evaluate unusual thoughts or experiences, in case the Lord does want to speak to us through them. We evaluate it first of all through comparing what we think we heard, with the Bible. If it came from God, it won’t contradict the bible. Of course there are some things that aren’t in the bible, like what job we should take or where we should go to school. We should pray about those things too, and ask for God to speak to us, and then listen. When we think we hear something, we should talk with other Christians about it, and pray about what we heard, asking God to confirm it or not.

In Samuel’s case, what he heard was very much like something that another man of God had heard a few years before: Eli and his sons were going to be judged. The sons would be judged for the evil they were doing. Eli would be judged for allowing that evil to continue. This wasn’t actually a very nice or comforting thing to hear from God.

This is where Eli did teach Samuel an important lesson. The next morning, Samuel didn’t want to tell Eli what God said, because it was all about Eli and his family, and it was bad news for them. But Eli told Samuel that when God speaks, it is important to tell others what he said – even if it may be hard for some of them to hear. This is still true today. In fact, I think one of the biggest mistakes that many American pastors make is that they try to avoid saying challenging or difficult things to their churches.

I have to admit, I don’t like saying things that I know will be hard for people to hear. I don’t actually enjoy it when people are upset with me. In this day and age, the hardest things to say are about sin. People have conveniently “forgotten” that God does indeed care about our behavior, and that he judges certain things to be wrong. They expect churches to be places where they only hear things that are encouraging and accepting, and never anything that challenges or confronts them. So when pastors say anything like: “The bible says it is a sin for people to have sex outside of marriage,” or “The Bible says it is a sin to get drunk,” or “Greed is a sin,” it is offensive to individual people, and to the culture at large.

While pastors and Christian leaders have a special responsibility to say what the Bible says, all Christians share that responsibility to a certain degree. Teachers of the Bible will be judged more stringently by God (James 3:1), but all Christians are called to bear witness to what they know, when the opportunity arises. I don’t mean we should go looking for fights, but if someone asks, “Do you think it’s OK to ________ (fill in the blank)?” we need to be honest about what the Bible says. I have heard many Christian celebrities fail, in public, in this way, apparently mostly because they don’t want to lose their popularity. I am concerned that such people will be held accountable for leading others astray.

¹ Jesus said to his disciples, “Things that make people fall into sin are bound to happen, but how terrible for the one who makes them happen! ² It would be better for him if a large millstone were tied around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.

(Luke 17:1-2, NLT)

Eli coached Samuel, however, and with his encouragement, Samuel told him exactly what God said. Even though it was hard for Eli and his grown sons to hear, it was actually a very encouraging message for the rest of the people. Eli’s sons were bad men, and no one was stopping them. It was  a good thing for the people to hear that God himself was bringing their evil ways to an end. It meant that God cared about his people, and would not let someone treat them unjustly.

So what can we learn from all this? Are you like the people of Israel in those times? Could it be that you don’t hear from God and you don’t see him at work in your life because you really haven’t devoted much time or energy to seeking him? I don’t mean this to sound judgmental or condemning. I just mean that this passage shows us a connection between hearing God and seeking God, and we saw many other passages that show the importance of seeking God with our entire heart. It shows that even when God is speaking to us, it takes some effort and focus to realize that, and to hear what he is saying. It isn’t like a lightning bolt spelling something out in letters in the sky. We need to devote our attention to it.

Here’s another thing. It doesn’t matter who you are, or how old you are – God can speak to you. Samuel was a young boy. He was not an adult. He did not have the respect of a grown up or any relevant experience to convince people that they ought to listen to him. But God spoke to him. He chose him, out of all the people in Israel, to listen to God and to tell others what God was saying. You may think, “I’m just a kid,” or “I’m not a preacher” or “I don’t know much about the bible.” But all those were true of Samuel also. God can use any of us. In fact, he wants to use each one of us, in different ways.

I mentioned in the first sermon that these were some of the darkest days in the history of Israel. But because of one young boy, all that was about to change. People were going to begin to hear God again. I pray that we can all be like the young boy Samuel.