3 SAMUEL’S CALL

In the story of Samuel’s development as a man of God we first see how industrious Samuel was in serving God. He was just a child, but ministered before the Lord under Eli. The sons of Eli were wicked. They rebelled against the Lord, but Samuel ministered to Him. They evidently ignored their father’s instructions, but Samuel obeyed them. Samuel ministered before Eli, under his eye and direction. It was to the praise of Samuel that he was so far from being influenced by Eli’s son’s bad example that he did not follow it, but improved and went on. And it was a preparation for the honors God intended for him. He who was faithful in a little was soon after entrusted with much more. Let those that are young be humble and diligent, which they will find is the surest way to advancement in God’s eyes. Those are fittest to rule who have learned to obey. The scarcity of prophecy made the call of Samuel a greater surprise to himself and greater favor to Israel: The word of the Lord was precious in those days. Now and then a man of God was employed as a messenger on an extraordinary occasion as we observed in an earlier lesson, but there were no settled prophets, to whom the people might have access for counsel, nor from whom they might expect the revelations of the divine will. The rarity of prophecy made it the more precious in the view all those who knew how to put a right value on it. It was precious, for what there was was evidently private: There was no open vision, that is, there were none that were publicly known to have visions. Perhaps the ungodliness and impurity that prevailed in the tabernacle with Eli’s wicked sons had corrupted the whole nation and provoked God so much that He indicated His displeasure by withdrawing the Spirit of prophecy until a more faithful leader would soon be raised up. Then Samuel entered the stage. The manner of God’s revealing Himself to Samuel is related here very particularly. It was interesting and unusual.

1. Eli had gone to bed. Samuel had waited on him to his bed, and the others who served at the sanctuary had gone to their rooms for the night. Samuel too had laid down to sleep, in some room evidently near enough to Eli’s room to be ready and within call if the old man should need anything in the night. Eli chose to give Samuel, not his own sons, this responsibility as he observed such good character in him. When his own sons were a grief to him, his little servant was his joy. Let those that are disappointed in their children correct them and thank God if they have anyone around them in whom they are comforted. Samuel had laid down before the lamp of God went out. Perhaps he lay somewhere near the holy place so that he went to bed by that light, before any of the lamps in the branches of the candlestick went out which probably was towards midnight. The main lamp never went out. Until then Samuel had possibly been busy in some good exercise or other, reading, praying, cleaning or making the holy place ready for the next day and then went softly to his bed. God chooses carefully whom He calls? Can we expect God’s gracious visits to be more likely if we are  diligent in our duty?

2. God called to him by name, and taking it for Eli’s call, Samuel ran to him. Eli possibly slept closer to the holy place, yet he did not hear this voice when Samuel did. We can see Samuel’s readiness to wait on Eli. Supposing it was he that called him, he hastened out of his warm bed and ran to him, to see if he wanted anything, and perhaps feared he was not well. “Here am I,” he said—a good example to servants, to come when they are called; and to the younger, not only to submit to the elder, but to be careful and attentive to them. Samuel did not know it was God’s voice. Such mistakes as these we make more often than we think. God calls to us by His Word, and we take it to be only the call of another person and answer it accordingly. He calls to us through various tools and we look only at those tools. God’s voice cries, but it is only here and there that a man or woman of wisdom understands it to be His voice. Eli assured him he did not call him, yet did not chide him for disturbing him with being too concerned; did not call him a fool, and tell him he dreamed, but kindly told him to lie down again, he had nothing for him to do. If servants must be ready at their masters’ call, masters also must be kind to their servants. God calls many by the ministry of the Word, and they say, as Samuel did, “Here am I;”

However, unfortunately, some are not looking at God, or discerning His voice in the call, it’s impressions are soon lost so some lie down again, and their “convictions” come to nothing. If someone’s called, he or she needs to take it seriously. The same call was repeated, and the same mistake made, a second and third time. The call God gives to us is often repeated until we come at the call. God is patient. Samuel was still ignorant that it was the Lord that called him. Samuel did not yet know the Lord. He knew the written Word, and was acquainted with the mind of God in that, but he did not yet understand the way in which God reveals Himself to His servants the prophets, especially by a still small voice. This was altogether new and strange to him. Perhaps he would have been sooner aware of a divine revelation had it come in a dream or a vision; but this was a way he had not only not known himself, but had not heard of. Those that have the greatest knowledge of divine things must remember the time when they were babies, unskilled in discerning the voice of the Lord. When I was a child I understood as a child.

Yet let us not despise the day of small things. Even the great prophet Samuel, at the beginning, blundered one time after another, but afterwards he understood his duty better. The witness and strivings of the Spirit are often mistaken, and so the benefit of their revelations or convictions is lost. This takes practice. Job 33:14 says, “For God does speak—now one way, now another—though no one perceives it.” Samuel went to Eli this second and third time, the voice perhaps resembling his, and the child being near to him; and he tells Eli, with great assurance, “You did call me; it could be no one else.” Samuel’s willingness, his inclination to serve as needed and to come when he was called, though just by Eli, proves him dutiful and active, qualified him for the favor now to be shown to him; God chooses to work through people like this.

So Samuel came to know he was called, and Eli also knew that Samuel was called! This might be humbling to Eli, as he might understand Samuel’s call to be a step towards his own family’s being laid aside. Now, when God had something to say, He would choose to say it to the child Samuel, His servant that waited on Him, and not to him. And it would humble him the more when afterwards he found it was a warning message to himself and yet sent to him by a child. He had reason to look on this as another indication of God’s displeasure. This would get him started wondering what it was that God said to Samuel, and would be abundantly clear that whatever Samuel heard that night for certain came from God. Eli could not deny it. The weaknesses and mistakes of God’s servants (Eli in this case), are overruled by infinite Wisdom. God was speaking to Eli even as He called to Samuel.

3. Eli, perceiving that it was the voice of God that Samuel heard, gave him instructions what to say. It was a disgrace to Eli for God’s call to pass him by, and be directed to Samuel, yet Eli gave Samuel instructions as to how to receive God’s message. Had Eli been totally envious of this honor done to Samuel, he would have done what he could to block it or deprive him of it. Eli would have told him to lie down and sleep, and never worry about it; it was but a dream. After all, Samuel did not understand it himself. But Eli had a better attitude than that and gave Samuel the best advice he could. The elder coach and mentor should, without grudging, do his or her best to assist and improve the younger that are rising up even if they see themselves likely to be surpassed by them. Let us never hesitate to inform and instruct those who are coming after us, even those who will soon be preferred before us. The instruction Eli gave him was, when God called the next time, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ He must call himself God’s servant, must desire to know the mind of God. “Speak, Lord, speak to me, speak now:” and he must prepare to hear, and promise to listen and obey. We may expect God will speak to us, when we set ourselves to listen to what He says. Habakkuk 2:1 says, “I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.” When we come to read the Word of God, and to serve in the preaching of it, we should come submitting ourselves to the commanding light and power of God’s Word, with these words fairly fixed in our minds, ‘‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

It seems that God spoke the fourth time in a way somewhat different from the other times, though the call was, as at other times, a call to him by name. Now he stood and called. It is possible there was now possibly some visible appearance of the divine glory but personally, I think that if that had been the case the text would say so. At any rate, Samuel was satisfied that it was not Eli who had called. Now also the call was doubled—Samuel, Samuel, as if God delighted in the mention of his name, or to suggest that now he should understand who spoke to him.

It was an honor to Samuel that God was pleased to know him by name as Moses also had experienced as recorded in Exodus 33:12, You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ God’s call was powerful and persuasive when God called him by name, as He would call others such as Saul, Saul. In this way God had also called to Abraham by name as Genesis 22:1 says, “Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”” Samuel said, as Eli had taught him, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Good words should sometimes be put into children’s mouths which will prepare them to speak with a correct attitude. For that matter it is not a bad idea for older ones too to be prepared to respond with the right thing to say.

Samuel did not now rise and run as before when he thought Eli called, but lay still and listened. Let all tumultuous thoughts and passions be put aside, and everything be quiet and attentive in the soul, and then we are ready to hear from God. All must be silent when He speaks. But observe, in his response, Samuel left out one word; he did not say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,” but only, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Samuel would have to learn to say, “Speak Lord.” At any rate, the way into his soul was made for the message he was now to receive, and Samuel was made to be acquainted with the words of God and visions of the Almighty. 

4. The message which, after all this introduction, God delivered to Samuel, concerned Eli’s house. God did not come to Samuel now to tell him how great a man he would be in his day, what a figure he would make, and what a blessing he would be in Israel. Young people have commonly a great curiosity to be told their fortune, but God came to Samuel, not to gratify his curiosity, but to employ him in His service and send him on an errand to another person. This was more realistic as a call. The matter of this first message, which surely made a very great impression on Eli, might be of good use to Samuel afterwards, when his own sons proved, though not so bad as Eli’s, yet not so good as they should have been. The message is short, not nearly so long as what the earlier man of God had brought, though on the same subject. It is a sad message, a message of anger and displeasure, to further support the message that had already been given and is recorded in chapter 2. This supporting message was evidently necessary because perhaps Eli did not give as much regard to that one as he ought to have. The Lord speaks again about what had been said earlier about the sin of Eli’s sons and the punishment they should expect.

5. Eli had known about the sin of his sons, but did nothing about it. Verse 13 says, “For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons blasphemed God, and he failed to restrain them.” The nameless man of God had told him of it, and many times his own conscience had told him of it. Oh, what a great deal of guilt and corruption there is in us of things we knew about it but do nothing to correct. Eli may have shown his dislike of his son’s wicked deeds, yet not to that degree that he ought to have. He did reprove them, but he did not punish them for the evil they did, nor deprive them of their power to continue the wrong. As a father, high priest, and judge, he should have been much more firm. Eli’s sons made light of God, and made His offerings evil in the people’s eyes; but the shame returned back on themselves; they made themselves vile. Those who do not restrain the sins of others, when it is their responsibility and in their power to do it, make themselves partakers in the guilt, and will be charged as accessaries. Those in authority will have a great deal to answer for if they do not correctly use their authority to stop the evil they could.

6. Samuel was inclined to hide the sad message. Verses 15 - 17a say, “Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the Lord. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision, 16 but Eli called him and said, ‘Samuel, my son.’ Samuel answered, ‘Here I am.’ 17 ‘What was it he said to you?’” Samuel had evidently opened the doors of the house of the Lord, in the morning, as he used to do, being up first in the tabernacle. That he did so at other times was an instance of extraordinary faithfulness to the task in a child, but that he did it this morning was a demonstration of great humility. God had highly honored him above all the children of His people, yet he was not proud of the honor, nor puffed up with it, did not think himself too great or too good to be employed in these common tasks, but, as cheerfully as ever, went and opened the doors of the tabernacle. One would have expected that Samuel might be so full of his vision as to forget his ordinary service, that he would go among his companions, as one in great personal satisfaction, to brag to them what a conversation he had had with God in the night, but he modestly keeps it to himself, tells the vision to no one, but quietly goes on in his business.

7. Eli wanted to know and when Samuel answered him, Eli accepted the message as verse 18 says, “He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.” We have looked at a major step in the making of a prophet. Samuel went on to establish a great reputation. Verses 19 - 4:1a say, “The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord. 21 The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word. 4 And Samuel’s word came to all Israel.” God gave Samuel many other words throughout his lifetime. God will graciously repeat His visits to those that receive them correctly.

Those to whom God shows Himself, He makes and keeps low in their own eyes, and willing to stoop to any thing by which they may serve to His glory even if being just a door-keeper in His house. Our secret communion with God is not to be proclaimed on the house-tops. We will suppose it was rather because Samuel was afraid to grieve and trouble the good old man that he was so shy. If he had run immediately with the tidings to Eli, this would have looked as if he anticipated the woeful day and hoped to build his own reputation or family on the ruin of Eli’s. It was better for him not to be eager to declare the vision this time and this vision. No good man can take pleasure in bringing  sad or bad news.

Good news or bad, as we proceed with several lessons about Samuel, we will find that he was a model, faithful, obedient prophet. A good example for us to follow.