Prophet

1 Samuel 3:1-4:1a

We're going to continue our series walking through the storyline of the scripture. We started several years ago back in Genesis. We're up now to the period of time in the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, of the kingdom, the monarchy of Israel, or better said, we're in a transition from the time of the judges to the time of the monarchy. And we've been introduced in the book of 1 Samuel to this new character, Samuel. Samuel is going to play this really pivotal important role in the storyline of scripture.

This morning we're going to look at 1 Samuel chapter 3. In this story, we're going to see the transformation of Samuel that's going to begin to reflect as a transformation of Israel itself. In the opening verse of chapter 3, Samuel is going to be described as a young boy. In the Hebrew, it's Nahar, a young boy. At the end of the chapter, he's going to be described as a Na'vi, a prophet. And so he's going to be described at the beginning as one who does not yet know the Lord. At the end of it, he's going to be one who knows the voice and the word of the Lord and is validated as a prophet. At the beginning of the chapter, Israel is in chaos. At the end of the chapter, there's a beginning of hope. So let's dive into the text.

Now, the boy Samuel, this is a Hebrew term for somebody that's no longer a young child, but is not yet a man. So they wouldn't have had the term teenager, but this is that place. And remember the story, Hannah, his mother, was barren and unable to conceive, and she prayed earnestly and persistently. She prayed until something happened, and God heard her prayer and blessed her, and allowed her to conceive, and she bore Samuel, and she honored the vow that she had made to the Lord, and she committed him to serve in the tabernacle at the temple at Shiloh. And so when he was old enough to be weaned, she took him there and placed him in the care of Eli the high priest. And there Samuel served the Lord.

"So the boy Samuel was ministering to Yahweh in the presence of Eli." So in the first couple of chapters, the author's been really intentional to create contrast. We looked last week at the contrast between Hannah and Eli. Now we're going to see a contrast between Samuel and Eli.

Eli is a descendant of Aaron. He's one of the priests that has been designated by God to serve the people of Israel as a mediator, to participate in the sacrifices and represent them before God. But he's not a good priest, and his sons who are taking over his role, they're really not good priests. But Samuel who's been brought in, Samuel's a descendant of Levi. So they're the servants in the temple that help out the descendants of Aaron, the priests. But what we find here in this story is that even though Eli is the descendant of Aaron and Samuel's the descendant of Levi, the Levite's doing the actual worshiping and servicing before the Lord.

It says, "And the word of Yahweh, the word of the Lord was rare in those days." Now that's a really tragic statement. The word of the Lord was rare in those days. Some of your Bible translations might say precious. The root Hebrew word there that we translate either rare or precious is a word that has to do with value. We all understand kind of the basics of economics that quantity determines the value of something. If there's a lot of something, the price of it tends to go down. If there's a very limited quality of something, the price of something goes up.

So when it says that the word of the Lord was rare in those days, it's not just saying it didn't happen very much, it's trying to communicate how important and valuable and precious the word of the Lord is, and what a tragedy it is that God's people, the one that God had covenanted with, the one that God had rescued out of Egypt, the one that God has always honored his promises to and brought them into the land, they have been turned away from God. We walked through the book of Judges. Everyone's doing what is right in their own eyes. They're not honoring or seeking the Lord. They're not keeping the covenant. They're a mess. And so the word of the Lord was rare. It was precious in those days. And there was no frequent vision. The appearance of the Lord.

Now when we read vision, you might start thinking like woo woo new age sort of vision type thing. That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about in the storyline up to this point, God had shown up over and over and over and over again. And yet now, because of the condition of Israel and its leaders, God wasn't showing up. We saw in the first two chapters, God explains this, "I will honor those who honor me, and those who don't honor me will not receive it." So there is, the word of the Lord is rare in those days and there was no frequent vision at that time.

"Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place." So here's Eli. And Eli, we've seen in the first couple of chapters like he is the descendant of Aaron. He is the high priest, but he's spiritually insensitive. He's demonstrated an inability to confront his own children. And he's made his own children his idol and allowed them to defame and blaspheme the name of the Lord. They have gone wild. They're stealing sacrifices for themselves. They're taking advantage sexually of the young girls that are there to minister in the temple. They are a mess. And Eli has let it happen.

And so this verse, "at that time Eli whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see was lying down in his own place," is deeply symbolic. Eli is blind to the Lord. There's been no frequent vision. He as a representative of Israel is a beautiful illustration of where Israel is at, where God's people have fallen. So Eli is blind and he's lying down in his own place.

Now contrast, we have the young boy Samuel and he's there in the tabernacle lying down in his place before the ark of the covenant. Samuel is this symbol of those that will honor God, of the one that is close to Yahweh. And I like that opening line, "the lamp of God had not yet gone out."

One of the instructions that God had given Israel when he gave them instructions to build the tabernacle and all the things that they were supposed to put inside of it, one of the jobs of the priests was that each night at sunset at dusk they were to light a candle and a lamp and that was to be they were to tend it so that the light stayed lit all night long. They weren't supposed to put it out. It was supposed to go out on its own eventually when sunrise came. But from sundown to sunrise, the priests were to maintain the light of Yahweh in the temple. It's a very symbolic activity that they are to do. Now Eli's not doing it, but Samuel is. And there's something about this that I think is, this is the point of this text. The lamp of God had not yet gone out.

So it's bad. Eli is bad. Eli's sons are uber bad. Israel is a mess. Everyone's doing what's right in their own eyes. Even the judges, we just come out of this period of the judges. Starts out really pretty well, ends unbelievably ugly. So if we're walking through the storyline of the scripture and here we are at this place where God has been gracious, God has been faithful, God has been good, and Israel has squandered the blessing and the grace and the goodness of God. They've run after other gods. They've broken covenant. They're pictured by Eli blind in the dark by themselves. But the lamp of God has not gone out. Isn't that beautiful? See, even when we are faithless, God is faithful. There's hope. There's hope.

And so it continues, "Then the Lord Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, his name is used here. Then Yahweh called to Samuel." So Samuel is in the tabernacle. He's sleeping in front of the ark of the covenant and all of a sudden says, "The Lord called Samuel". So he hears a voice and he's like, "Here I am. Here I am."

So now if you've been following along in this series and you remember the storyline of the scriptures, we're coming upon one of my favorite things are the threads that run through the storyline, the repetitions, the shadows and the fulfillment, the types, because it shows to us that God knows what he's doing. And so this is not the first time that God has called to somebody and they said, here I am. So this is an indication that something significant is about to happen.

So the Lord called Samuel and he said, "Here I am". And then this is how we know that he was a young boy. It says he ran to Eli. See, he thought it was Eli calling him. And so we know that he wasn't too far along in his teenage years. So he ran to Eli and said, "Here I am for you called me". But he said, "I did not call you. Go lie down again."

I wish that we could get tone in the scripture sometimes. I really wonder what's Eli's tone, especially because this is just the first time. It's going to happen a few more times. What's his tone? Eli's blind, lying in the dark. He's already had a prophet come and tell him that his sons are done, that he's done, that things are not good. And so there he is. And here comes Samuel running in. "Eli, I'm here. What, I heard you call me." "Go back to bed, dude." That might be in the Hebrew. I don't know. He says, "Go back to bed. I did not call. Lie down again." So he went and lay down.

"And Yahweh, the Lord, called again, Samuel. And Samuel rose and went to Eli and said, 'Here I am for you called me'. But he said, 'I did not call my son. Lie down again'."

Now the author tells us in verse 7 an important piece of information. "Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him." What does that mean? Because here, we've already seen he's been worshiping the Lord. He's been serving the Lord. So it doesn't mean that he doesn't know about Yahweh, that he doesn't know about the great deeds of Yahweh, that he doesn't know about the covenant and the responsibilities. He does know all that. It means literally what it says. He's not yet met him. He's not yet met him. Doesn't recognize the voice. I don't know about you, but when you hear God's voice, you know it. But if you don't know who it is, there's something going on here.

So Samuel did not yet know the Lord and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. So the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and he went to Eli and said, "Here I am for you called me." He's going, he feels like he's on something, right? Like what's going on? This is just crazy. "And here I am for you called me."

"Then Eli perceived that Yahweh was calling the boy." Interesting detail. So Samuel doesn't figure it out. He doesn't know. Eli figures it out. You got to kind of read between the lines that Eli has in the past heard the voice of the Lord, but he's lost that. So he comes to the conclusion, no, this is, I'm not calling you. There's nobody. God is talking to you, Samuel.

"So therefore Eli said to Samuel, 'Go lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, "Speak Lord, for your servant hears."'

So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Can you imagine he's this young boy? Do you imagine what it would be like? He walks in to the tabernacle. There's all the created crafted items and there's the ark of the covenant and you got the giant cherubim statue. And he walks in to this holy place and he lays down on his mat and he's like, God's been talking to me. He's not falling asleep at this point. You know what I mean? You got to imagine what that would be like.

So he went and he lay down in his place. And verse 10 is important. "The Lord came and stood." It's not a disembodied voice. This is not an altered state of dreaming or visionary experience. This is in the real physical tangible world. The Lord came and stood and calling as at other times. Calling as at other times. "Samuel, Samuel." Now I don't think it's just the three times that he's already called Samuel. He's calling as at other times like he called Abraham, Abraham. Like he called Jacob, Jacob. Like he called Moses, Moses. Now we have God coming and standing and calling Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant hears."

See this calling narrative of Samuel is letting us know. It's telegraphing because of the way that he is called. He's called like Abraham was called. Do you remember the story when Abraham and Sarah are finally given their son of promise Isaac and when Isaac is a young boy, God comes to Abraham and says, "Take him up to the top of the mountain and offer him as a sacrifice to me." And Abraham does it. He takes his son. He binds him up. He lays him on an altar. And as he's raising the knife about to offer his son of promise, God calls out to him, "Abraham, Abraham." And he says, "Here I am".

When Jacob, the father of the 12 tribes whose name is changed to Israel, when famine hit the land of Israel and they could not eat, they could not provide for themselves and Joseph had already been sent off into Egypt unbeknownst to him and he's considering going down to Egypt because there's food there, but he's concerned about leaving the land of promise, the land of covenant. He's not sure he should do it. And in that moment of his life, God shows up to Jacob in Genesis 46 and says, "Jacob, Jacob." What does Jacob say? "Here I am." God says, "Don't be afraid to go down to Egypt. It's part of my plan".

Now after 400 years of slavery, Moses who had a miraculous birth narrative and then grew up in Pharaoh's household and then killed a dude and ran away and hid out with the sheep for 40 years, one day he's out in the wilderness watching the sheep and he notices a bush that is on fire but is not being consumed. And there's a figure standing in the bush. And the voice calls out from the bush. What's it call out? "Moses, Moses." This two-fold repetition of the name, Moses, Moses. And what does he say? "Here I am."

So the author of 1 Samuel is clueing us in, Samuel is stepping into that line of people that God has called to, that God has shown up and revealed himself to, and people that have been used in significant transitions of God's plan. Samuel's going to be a really big deal. What does Samuel do? Well, he does what all of them, "Here I am. Speak Lord, your servant is listening." So Samuel's being identified with these patriarchs as having a significant calling.

He, Samuel will be the first national prophet of Israel since Moses. There's been other prophets, and in Judges we saw it. We saw Deborah the prophetess. We saw many unnamed prophets. Just a chapter earlier we saw an unnamed prophet come and speak to Eli. There were prophets. There were those that had the word of the Lord was rare, but there was some of it. But the way it functioned was a prophet would be sent to the tribe of Judah. The prophet would be sent to the tribe of Ephereim. There a prophet might speak to two or three of the tribes together like Deborah did. But there was no national cohesion. Israel is split up and so the tribes are doing their own thing. And more than that, as the book of Judges says over and over again, every man is doing what is right in their lives. So there's no national cohesion and identity. And that's what God is going to begin to transform here through Samuel. Samuel is going to serve as a prophet not to one tribe, not to his tribe, but to all the tribes.

So he says, "Speak Lord, your servant is listening." And the Lord, this is what it says.

Moses, you remember met with God quite a bit. I like this Deuteronomy 18:15. Moses said, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen." Moses was a prophet and he knew what lay ahead. He knew that Israel was going to blow it. He warned them. He pleaded with them. He did everything he could to try to move them towards covenant faithfulness. But he flat out told them like when you fail this is going to happen. And when that happens you need to look for a prophet like me, one from among the people. It is to him you shall listen.

We think about how Samuel is going to like Moses be now a prophet for the nation. And you remember how Moses would meet with God in Numbers chapter 7:8-9. It said, "Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with Yahweh. He heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony from between the two cherubam and it spoke to him there."

So understand the story here. Here was Moses, the great prophet, the one who led Israel out of Egypt and led them through the wilderness and led them to the border of the promised land. The one who said there's going to come a day when you're going to need to look for a prophet like me. And so now we're being introduced to Samuel and he's called like Moses was called and so it's not an accident that Samuel's in the tabernacle where the ark is and God is speaking to him there just like God did to Moses. So we're being clued in that the God who called and used Moses is now the God who is calling and going to use Samuel.

So back to 1st Samuel 3 says, "Then Yahweh said to Samuel, 'Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.'" That's just a fun phrase, right? I'm about to do something and everyone who hears it, their ears are going to tingle. It's interesting for a couple of reasons. One, that phrase is unique. It's only used twice in the scriptures. Once here with Samuel at the beginning of the monarchy. Then it's going to be used again in 2 Kings 21 and a parallel in Jeremiah chapter 19 at the end of the monarchy. And so the authors put this together so brilliantly.

So here's it, God says, "I'm going to do something." And everybody who hears it, their ears are going to tingle. There's probably kind of a reference to the power and the nature of God's voice just like causing your ears to ring and causing this sense of man, this is a big deal. I'm about to do something that's a big deal.

And he says, "On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end". So it's reference back to what we looked at last week, the unnamed prophet that came and told Eli, "Because of what your sons did and because of your refusal to deal with that, your house, your line is no longer going to have the honor of serving as high priest and priests. I'm going to end it."

So now God's coming to Samuel. The first time he gets to meet Yahweh, the first time he hears his voice, the first time he serves as a prophet, he's got to bring some really bad news. Right?

"On that day I'll fulfill against Eli all that I've spoken against his house from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever. I will give them exactly what they asked for."

So Samuel lay till morning. Yeah, I bet there's no going to sleep after that, right? Can you imagine what he's thinking through? Can you imagine the intensity, the depth of emotion? He lay there till morning.

And then I think this is one of the most beautiful symbolic images in the text. "Then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord." So as morning comes, as the sun breaks, he opens the doors of the house of the Lord.

And some of you who have been paying attention, you're like, "Well, the temple hasn't been built yet. And is this supposed to be the tabernacle? Why are there doors there?" And yeah, I remember back in chapter 1, Eli, when we first met him, he was laying in against the doorposts. And why do they, why does it keep, okay, so what we got here is that the tabernacle, the tent that was ordered by God has been moved to Shiloh where they are at and they have built some sort of structure around it. This is not an ordained temple by God that Solomon's going to do that later. But they have put something around it to protect it.

So he emerges from the tent, the tabernacle, and he opens the doors of the house of Yahweh. Because the lamp of God had not gone out. And now a new day is dawning for Israel. The house of the Lord is now going to be open to them. In those days, the word of the Lord had been rare. But now Yahweh has revealed himself to Samuel and things are going to change.

But it says this, "Samuel was afraid to tell what he saw, the vision, to Eli." Of course he was. He's a young boy. He's serving Eli. Eli's the high priest. It's not good news. No.

But Eli called Samuel and he said, finally Eli called Samuel all night long. "You called me?" "No, I didn't call you." Now Eli finally calls him. He wish he didn't. "Samuel, my son." And he said, "Here I am. Here I am". And Eli said, "What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do to you and more also if you hide anything from me, all that he told you."

That doesn't sound very scary in the English, but that's a curse pronouncement. Eli knows what's coming. He's many things, but he's not stupid. He knows what's coming. He's got to have this sense. He knows that God showed up not to talk to him, the high priest, to talk to Samuel. He knows that it was. So what did he tell you? Do not hide it from me. May God do to you and more also if you hide anything from me, all that he told you. What he's saying there is literally may God kill you if you do not tell me, if you do not fulfill your office of prophet and reveal what you have heard and seen.

And so Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And Eli's response and he said, "It is Yahweh. Let him do what seems good to him." There's something about Eli that I do appreciate. He's a mess. He's a wreck. He's really blown the glorious gift and grace that God has lavished upon him and his family, but he's not afraid at least at the end to own it. And he's like, you know what? He's God. He's the faithful one. He's the covenant keeper. He's the creator. Let him do what seems good to him because clearly I haven't got it right. There's something in there that I appreciate that deeply. It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.

"And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground." It's a great Hebrew idiom. Let none of his words fall to the ground. It means none of the things that he said didn't come to pass. When he spoke a word from the Lord, you could count on it. You could take it to the bank. It was certain. He was a trustworthy prophet.

In fact, the next verse says, "And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord". So remember, he starts as a young boy, a Nahar, he ends as a Na'vi, a prophet, and he's established. That's a word there that means secured. Later on in the story when David becomes king and God makes a covenant with David that he will establish his house forever, he will secure his house forever. That's the same word here. He is established in his role as prophet. God made him prophet of Israel.

"And Yahweh appeared again at Shiloh. For the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord." So this wasn't a one-off one-shot sort of thing. God and Samuel are going to meet regularly. God is going to speak regularly through Samuel to his people just like he did through Moses.

And chapter 4, the first part of verse one really ends this story. It says, "And the word of Samuel came to all of Israel." So chapter 3 introduces us to God establishing Samuel as a genuine prophet in the line of Abraham, Jacob, and Moses. That God is going to raise up and use this young boy in a time of great transition, that God is going to do something new through him and everything is going to change.

Samuel as a prophet like Moses points us towards Jesus who is the ultimate prophet like Moses. Again, this is one of my favorite things about the scriptures, the intertextuality, the way the stories unfold and the patterns repeat and the threads run throughout the entirety of the scripture. Moses was a great prophet and did amazing things and he blew it really bad. He blew it so bad he couldn't enter into the land of promise. Samuel is a great prophet. He's a great prophet but he won't endure. He'll start schools of prophets. He'll do some great things. He'll establish the monarchy and the kingdom, but he's not the one. He's not the true and great prophet. He like Moses is a shadow of that which is to come. So Samuel as a prophet like Moses points us towards Jesus who is the ultimate prophet like Moses.

We see this, we see this fact, this thread picked up from the Old Testament all throughout the New Testament. It's everywhere. Once you start to see it, you're just going to see it everywhere.

I love, there's a great story in John chapter one, the end of John chapter one after all the theological "the word was God and all that stuff." Jesus begins his ministry and Jesus goes into Galilee and he finds a guy named Phillip. And he calls Phillip and he says to him, "Hey follow me. Follow me Phillip." And now Phillip was from Bethsaida and that was where Andrew and Peter lived. But Phillip went and he found another guy Nathaniel. And so Philip goes to Nathaniel. And you remember what he said to him? He said to him, "We just found someone. We found the one whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote about."

So he's referencing that Deuteronomy 18:15 that we looked at before. Moses said, "After me will come a prophet like me from among you. Listen to him." This is Moses's instruction. And so here they are and they've gone through a lot. They went through the monarchy. It was great for a while. It got really bad. The kingdom was divided. The kingdoms were destroyed. They went into exile. God faithfully brought them back. They rebuilt a really bad temple. And the glory of the Lord never showed up. They're desperately waiting for God to honor and fulfill his promises. They're waiting for the prophet like Moses to come. They're waiting for the one like Samuel to come.

And so Nathaniel goes, Philip goes to Nathaniel and he goes, "Hey come and find we found the one that Moses promised. His name is Jesus and he comes from Nazareth". And you remember what Nathaniel said, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Which was like, I wonder what Nathaniel thought about when John wrote his gospel. He's like really you had to include that? Like you had to keep that piece in? Had to make me look that bad. But Nathaniel said to him, "Anything good out of Nazareth?" And Phillip doesn't argue with him. He says, "Just come and see. Let's go check it out."

And so they go and it says in the text in John 1, Jesus saw all this happening even though he wasn't there because Jesus was a prophet like Moses. So he saw all this, he saw Nathaniel coming towards him and then he says to him, "Behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit." That's a nice greeting. We don't know much about Nathaniel. We know he's a little skeptical, but Jesus looks at him and goes, "Here's a true Israelite. You're not going to play games. You're going to be honest. You're going to be straightforward. There's no deceit in you."

And Nathaniel said to him, "How do you know me?" I mean yeah those are nice words but you don't even, how could you say that about me? And Jesus said to him, "Before Phillip called you when you were under the fig tree I saw you." And Nathaniel falls down on his knees and says, "Rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel." And Jesus said to him, "Because I said to you I saw you under the fig tree, you believe?" He said to him, "Truly truly I say to you you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man."

Right at the opening of John's gospel, we get this theological description of the incarnation of Jesus coming and then we get this very relational physical reality. Jesus is like I'm here. And he is the prophet like Moses that they'd been waiting for.

You know, Jesus parallels Moses and Samuel in so many ways. You think about Christmas. We think every year we talk about the birth narrative. Jesus being born in a manger and danger being a part of it and having to escape Herod. And where do they flee? They flee to Egypt so that when Jesus is later older and returns back to Israel out of Egypt, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." But we think about the birth of Moses in a time of danger. Pharaoh is killing all the young children. He's preserved in the basket in the Nile and then he's raised in Pharaoh's household. We see these parallels.

I think the parallels are even greater. I did a sermon a couple years ago at Christmas time. I think Jesus, we all know Jesus wasn't born on December 25th. I'm pretty sure Jesus was actually born on Moses's birthday. The whole thing is God showing and demonstrating what he's doing.

Think about the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. The baptism Jesus comes and he's immersed in the waters of the Jordan. He comes up and the heavens split and God says, "This is my beloved son." And so that we have Jesus coming from the wilderness and then going into the wilderness and crossing the Jordan, which is what Moses did with the nation of Israel.

Jesus calls to himself 12 disciples just like Moses led the 12 tribes of Israel. Moses gives the law on the mountain. He gives the covenant on the mountain. Jesus in Matthew 5-7 sits on the mountain and says, "You have heard it said but I say unto you here are the terms of the new covenant." The parallels are everywhere.

Think about the transfiguration. Moses is allowed to go to the top of the mountain where the glory of the Lord surrounded it. And there he receives the tablets and the covenant. Jesus takes the three and they go to the top and who shows up but Moses and Elijah at the top of the mountain. And what does God say at the transfiguration? What does God say? Says to them, "This is my son." And then what does he say? "Listen to him." What does Deuteronomy 18:15 say? "You shall get a prophet like me from among your brothers. Listen to him."

Moses gave manna in the wilderness. Jesus is the bread of life. Moses struck the rock and water flowed. Jesus is the everlasting water and living water. Moses led the Israelites through the wilderness to the land of promise. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life who leads us to the father. Moses instituted the Passover meal remembering the Exodus from Egypt. Jesus transformed the Passover meal instituting the communion meal proclaiming the true exodus from sin and death.

We live in a day and age where it seems very dark and it seems like the word of the Lord is rare. There's so many voices competing. And in all of that, I want to say to you this morning, the lamp of God has not gone out. The lamp of God will never go out because we have a true and faithful high priest who has passed through and will intercede forever. And he does not offer sacrifices over and over again, but he himself was the once and for all sacrifice.

The lamp of God has not gone out. Let's be real. The lamp of the United States may go out. Nations come and go, but the lamp of God has not gone out. The lamp of God will not go out. God is faithful, church. God is faithful. You're going to have hard times. You're going to have bad times. You're going to have times where you don't know where God is. You don't know what's going on. And you've got to look back and remember. But the lamp has not gone out. Even when it looks bad, even when God's people are faithless, God will remain faithful. And Jesus is that which we have been longing for. He is that great and true prophet.

I love the opening words of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 1, "Long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets." And thank God for that. Thank God that he spoke to Abraham. Thank God that he spoke to Moses. Thank God that he speaks to Samuel in this chapter that we just saw. In many ways at many times God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. "But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. And after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high."

Hallelujah, Church. That's who Jesus is. That's who we worship today. That's who we're trusting today. Jesus is the lamp of God that will not go out. Jesus is the faithful and true one. He is the true prophet that speaks the word of God. So let us hear again the voice of God, "This is my beloved son. Listen to him. Listen to him."

So I don't have to ask this morning, is God speaking to you? Does God have something to say to you? God is a God who calls and speaks. That's not the question. The question is, are you listening? Will you hear? Will you trust? Will you honor him? Will you humble yourself because God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Church, listen to him, trust him, because the lamp of God has not gone out and it never will. Amen.

Scripture References

1 Samuel 3:1-4:1a (ESV) "Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD in the presence of Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. Then the LORD called Samuel, and he said, "Here I am!" and ran to Eli and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down. And the LORD called again, "Samuel!" and Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son; lie down again." Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, LORD, for your servant hears.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the LORD came and stood, calling as at other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant hears." Then the LORD said to Samuel, "Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever." Samuel lay until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the LORD. And Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, "Samuel, my son." And he said, "Here I am." And Eli said, "What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also if you hide anything from me of all that he told you." So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said, "It is the LORD. Let him do what seems good to him." And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the LORD. And the LORD appeared again at Shiloh, for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the LORD. And the word of Samuel came to all Israel."

Deuteronomy 18:15 (ESV) "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen."

Numbers 7:89 (ESV) "And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him."

Hebrews 1:1-3 (ESV) "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."