Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Imagine you are living in Israel during the last years of the judges.
Your family has been settled in the promised land for about 300 years.
Eli is the High Priest.
Cycle after cycle of rebellion and judgment has put the country behind where you would expect a 300 year old country to be.
Foreign enemies are a constant threat.
For a country that has to live in a constant state of readiness, you are consistently disappointed in the behavior of it’s leaders.
The current leaders are failing the people.
It doesn’t look like the next generation will be any better.
If anything, it looks like things are only getting worse.
Little do you know, that God has a plan for the nation’s future.
It’s something you can’t see and you don’t know about it, but God is working out the details behind the scenes.
Of course, I’m talking about that little boy named Samuel.
From a very young age, Samuel was a special child.
His birth was prophesied to a woman who had previously been barren.
He was sent to serve at the Tabernacle from a young age.
His life is an enduring example of how God can work in a person’s life from a young age.
Even in verse 1 of our chapter, we see that Samuel is busy doing what he can for the Lord.
The Bible says that Samuel “ministered” or served the Lord with the High Priest, Eli.
What could a boy like Samuel do to serve the Lord?
Don’t discount the effect that a child or young person can have in service to God.
Samuel would have helped prepare sacrifices.
He would have helped clean up after services.
He would have run errands for Eli.
Though these may sound small and insignificant, they were not small or insignificant to God.
It does make you wonder, though, how many people walked past Samuel on a regular basis and never gave him a second thought?
As Israel slipped further and further away from God, Samuel grew closer and closer to Him.
As James 4:8 says “8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”
This is exactly what happened in Samuel’s life.
Though we might be guilty of belittling a child’s devotion, God does not.
Instead, Jesus holds them up as the examples for adults to follow.
In this passage, we see how God plans to use the little boy named Samuel.
Things had gotten so bad under Eli, that God had stopped almost all communication with His people.
The word of the Lord was scarce.
There was no open vision.
This is a sad state of affairs for a people that depends on spiritual leaders to go to God on their behalf.
If you were the average Jew, you did not have the same access to God that Eli had.
It wasn’t your fault that Eli and his sons were so corrupt.
Of course, that’s not the way things work today.
Any one of us can get a hold of God when we need to speak to Him.
Unfortunately, there are many in our day who choose to live a life where God’s word is scarce to them.
God’s silence, however, was about to be broken,
He speaks, not to Eli or one of his sons.
Instead, God calls out in the night to Samuel.
The Bible tells us that Samuel had laid himself down to sleep, when he heard a voice.
I’ve been woken up before by voices.
They are usually of the younger sort.
I don’t know what God’s voice sounded like, but to Samuel, it sounded as though Eli might be calling him.
Samuel’s response to this call is phenomenal.
Not only does he verbally respond to the voice, but he gets out of bed and he runs to what he thinks is the source, Eli.
Can you not picture Samuel in his pajamas, running through the priest’s house to find out what Eli wanted.
Samuel was ready and willing to help, and that’s why God called to him.
I have always thought that this was in the middle of the night and that Samuel is waking Eli up each time he goes to him.
But, the Bible never says that he was waking him up.
So, maybe all of this is happening early in the evening.
Or, maybe Eli struggled to sleep at night, and Samuel was somewhat accustomed to the priest staying up late into the night.
Standing before Eli, Samuel presents himself in response to the call.
Eli’s face must have been something else.
He had not called the boy, and yet here the boy was.
Was the boy imagining things?
Was he just trying to find an excuse to get out of bed?
Eli tells Samuel to go lay back down and go to sleep.
Samuel obeys the priest and goes back to bed.
Both of them must have thought that this was a strange situation.
As Samuel drifts off back to sleep, he is suddenly awakened again.
Someone was calling his name again.
He listened intently, and all he could think of was that this sounded a lot like Eli.
So, he ran back as he had before.
But, again, Eli sent Samuel back to bed.
Of course, if you know the story, you know that the Lord called to Samuel again, for the third time.
For the third time, Samuel gets up and goes to Eli.
Notice, it does not say that he ran this time.
Samuel does not know the voice of the Lord.
He’s never heard God speak before.
All he knows is that someone keeps calling his name.
This time, though, Eli starts to catch on to what is happening.
At one time, Eli knew what it was like to hear from God.
Though it had been a long time, and though he would never personally hear from God again, he realizes that God is calling to Samuel.
In the midst of the evil and corruption that had engulfed Eli’s house and most of Israel, God was speaking again to little Samuel.
Eli instructs Samuel to go back to bed again.
Only this time, if the voice calls him again, he is to answer it.
It is the Lord that is speaking and Samuel needs to talk back.
Can you imagine Samuel’s heart racing as he goes back to his room?
He has to be wondering if it really is God calling him.
Will he call again?
What will he say?
God calls Samuel for the fourth time.
Samuel has gone back, but he hasn’t gone to sleep.
How could he?
He’s lying there waiting to see if God will speak again.
God does call Samuel, and Samuel immediately responds.
He tells God that he is available and ready to serve.
This was not new, Samuel was already serving the Lord however he could.
God tells Samuel all about His plans to set things right.
Though it had seemed like Eli and his sons would never be dealt with, God would deal with them.
Though it seemed like wickedness and corruption were unstoppable, God would put a stop to them.
The common people of Israel had heard nothing but bad news for years, but God reveals to a small boy that everything is about to change.
The next morning, of course, Eli asks Samuel to tell him all that God revealed to him.
This is a test of Samuel’s faithfulness.
Will he reveal God’s message, even if it brings bad news to someone?
Samuel tells Eli exactly what God had said.
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