Speak Lord!

the following message is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truthfortheworld.org I invite you to turn with me to First Samuel into Chapter three and we will read I will read as you follow along essentially in the second half of this chapter they can gob virtually from where we left off in the morning our verse 10 first samuel 3 and verse 10 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 years of everyone hears it will tingle on that day I will fulfil against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end and I declare to him that I'm 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 for ever 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 amen father thank you for the truth that we're able to sing because of the fight that you have spoken to us finally and savingly in your son thank you for the glory of the gospel thank you for the way in which throughout all of history you have raised up your servants in order that this good news may be made widely known and thank you for the place that you gave to Samuel and as we think of him again tonight we pray that we might think of him and yet beyond him and ultimately to the wonder of who you are and of all that you are to us in the Lord Jesus Christ himself for it's in his name we pray amen well I encourage you to turn again to First Samuel and if you did not have the opportunity be with us this morning some of our people here tonight will say well you you dodged one that was pretty good but we need just to rehearse momentarily how we looked at the opening section we said that in verses 1 to 3 there was silence because of the rarity of the Word of God and then in verses 4 and on how God had broken into that silence in the calling of his servant Samuel and as soon as the call has been responded to as Samuel has been guided by Eli eventually to know how to respond properly in the awareness of who it is that's calling him both Eli and he now are aware that this is something way beyond them and is divine in its origin and so Samuel had gone back and once again laid down in his place and then the Lord spoke to Samuel and so that the pattern is is very clear he told Samuel what he was about to do and then samuel was to pass on the word that was given to him in other words when you look at the place of the prophet in the Old Testament it is the part of God to provide if you like the words and it is the part of the Prophet then to speak the words if you remember that amazing little section in Exodus where Moses recoils from the role of being the prophet of God and he says to the Lord could you please send somebody else and the anger of the Lord is kindled against Moses and he refers to Aaron his brother and he says I know that he can speak well he's coming out to meet you when he sees you he'll be glad in his heart and then it says in verse 15 of Exodus for you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and we'll teach you both what to do he shall speak for you to the people and he shall be your mouth and you shall be as God to him so in other words in the same way that God puts his word into the mouth of his servant so in this case Moses was to tell Aaron the word and then he was to proclaim it now the the striking thing about this of course is that as we consider now God's Word to Samuel as we noted just briefly in verse 11 it was as referred to here an ear tingling word it was a word that God says it's going to make everybody sit up and listen it's the word that is going to come and set people as it were on their heels and the word of course is in verse 12 I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house and if you have your Bible open and you look over to verse 31 of the previous chapter where the man of God comes and speaks the Word of God then the word that was spoken was behold the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father's house and so on and now God reinforces this word in calling of Samuel and he is telling Samuel I'm actually going to do what I said before I would do and of course we have learned in Hannah's prayer that the Lord is a God of knowledge and by him actions are waived and so it is that the judgment that is expressed in this is on account of the iniquity of the house of Eli it's important that we see exactly what is being said there in verse 13 and I declared to him that I'm about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew because his sons were blaspheming God and he did not restrain them and of course we've considered this before and it is a chilling word because the sons of Eli had placed themselves beyond forgiveness and all that therefore remains is the execution of the message of a judgment which is now irreversible now it's important when we come to passages like this in the Bible that we pause and we make sure that we don't fall foul of a kind of foolish and arrogant arguing with the Bible I remember years ago being a church I had a book with me in my hand it was back in Buckinghamshire in England and it was the evening service and I had a book I can't remember what it was about but it was called arguing with God and it had arguing with God right on the front of it and as I was shaking hands with the pastor Jim Graham he looked at me in any loop to the book and he says that's the problem with you fellows I said what problem he said you spend far too much time arguing with God you should get rid of that book and so I I think I did and I can't even remember what it was but I found myself Julie challenged by it so when we come to something like this there are certain things that we should just make a note of it's that we're in the Flyleaf of our thinking we should remind ourselves that because when you look at this you're tempted I least I am tempted to say goodness me it wasn't really that bad was it I mean he didn't restrain his sons and they were a bad group but well what we have to remember is we're not the ones executing the judgment it is God who is executing the judgment and God as the psalmist says is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day one of the reasons that we were able to look so cursorily at sin in our own lives and in the lives of others and in the life of our nation is in part because although we begin the day singing holy holy holy we don't fully grasp the fact that God is of such holiness that it is impossible for him to look on wickedness and yet that same judge in Genesis 18 is the judge of all the earth who will do what is right and it's not uncommon for us as I say when you come to something like this in the Bible certainly if you're in conversation with somebody else to begin to pontificate on things in a way that actually is distinctly unhelpful and I find myself going back to for example Romans 11 who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor you say that sighs yeah 40 yes it is but it's being quoted there in Romans 11 or again in Romans chapter 9 where Paul is forced to ponder virtually the imponderable and remember he says but who are you or man to answer back to God will what is molded say to its molder so that we are molded by God then the Lord God firmed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life you see how the doctrine of creation plays into this as well that God is actually fashioned as according to his own purpose he is the Potter we are the clay shall the clay call the potter to account so it's good to pause and acknowledge that the reason it is such a challenge is because of the horror and because of the terror that is attached to this message the you notice there how that word forever comes twice and I will I am about to punish his house forever and at the end of verse 14 and the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering for ever forevers a long time Eli's sons had rejected the sacrifice of God and in doing so they had rejected the very basis of forgiveness so having rejected the basis of forgiveness there is therefore now no basis for forgiveness saved the basis for forgiveness that has been rejected now in the New Testament and we noted this before but I think it's important for us to make sure we're clear in our own minds this is the explanation isn't it of one of the apostasy passages in Hebrews chapter 10 where if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth in other words if if after we have come to a place where we said yes I think I believe that and we are then defiant of God the find of his truth unwilling to obey and so on if we remove ourselves from the realm of God's grace of the realm of God's forgiveness then says the writer there is no longer remaining as sacrifice for sins but if only a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries this week I was helped in this regard and I hope you'll be helped by this quote and I'll quote it to you in full by a quote from Tim Chester a vicar in in England and this is what he says on this he says it is not that there are sins which are beyond the scope of the cross there are no sins which are too big for the grace of God in the blood of Christ to cover the point is this if you despise the cross of Christ then you reject the only means of salvation reject Christ's sacrifice and you have nowhere else to turn and that in is the significance of the word that God speaks to Samuel that takes us to verse 15 where we're told that Samuel lay until morning it's hardly surprising it would be hardly surprising if he decided to stay in his bed for a little longer on that morning after all he'd been up and down all evening now every time the word came he was up and running off to Eli and now as he lies in his bed it's interesting it doesn't say how about sleeping it does say that he lay there and samuel lay until morning i wonder did he sleep it's not difficult to imagine him wrestling with the implications of the word that he had just heard god had now spoken to him so very clearly and he had made a pronouncement of judgment on the house of the very man in whose company as samuel was serving the man who was the very priest of god who was the representative of the establishment if you like and so he lay until morning but when duty called and he went about his business and he opened the doors of the house of the lord it's a wonderful picture i don't know what age he is we don't let's guess let's make him 17 and he's 17 and he gets up and he says well I better just do what I'm supposed to do and his day begins and he opens the doors of the house of the Lord and the writer tells us but in his mind he was afraid to tell the vision to Eli well I don't think any of us would be so prai's by that I think we would have been afraid to tell the vision to Eli as well unfortunately in the Providence of God he doesn't have to find a way to broach the subject because in verse 16 Eli calls to Samuel and notices terms of endearment this has come previously and it's reinforced here and Eli called Samuel and said Samuel my son it's almost as if he looks on Samuel now and looks on him as the boy he wished he'd had for his own boys or a disaster and the judgment of God hangs over them Samuel my son and he said Here I am and he'll I said what was it that he told you 4:17 don't hide it from me may God punish you if you hide anything from me of all that he told you so I imagine that Samuel just took a big intake of breath and then verse 18 he told them everything and hid nothing from him here's the role of the Prophet now we know that Samuel has been set to the task for the responsibilities of a prophet is not that of invention or of creativity or of the ability to stimulate the mind of the listener with intrigue but it is simply to take from God God's Word and to convey God's Word to those who are to hear that word and in that same passage to which we referred in Exodus chapter 4 it's it's quite striking and also encouraging isn't it that God says to Moses I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak remember at one point he actually says to him who made your mouth there was no wonder that Moses recoiled when he realized what it was he was supposed to save what he was supposed to do you have a very same thing surely in Isaiah chapter 6 I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips and then this coal comes and touches his mouth and sends him out and what is the very first thing he has to say it's a message of judgment who wants to go out and do that who gets up in the morning and says I think I'll go out and just pronounce judgment on people well maybe some misguided Souls but nobody should other than those who are to speak the very word of God he spoke the Word of God and he held nothing back now there's a challenge in this and I want to pause on it for just a moment because the pattern is clear but it is not easy to do consider in more contemporary terms how many otherwise useful potentially useful servants of God are condemned by their silences condemned by the things that are left out people will always say but he's such a nice person he says so many nice things true and true where then with the problem lie well the role of the Prophet is to make sure that they say everything and that they hide nothing now I don't sit in judgment on those people because it is an easy temptation and I'll tell you where it comes up just as just like hounds on your heels more than any other in my experience and that is in the funeral service the conducting of a funeral service if you listen carefully to people reading the Bible in funeral services unless they're prepared to read the text exactly as it's written you will often find that Psalm 90 is a great favorite in funerals in fact it has become a funeral sound although really it's not about dying it's about living you remember it Lord you have been our dwelling place in all generations before the mountains were brought forth or you ever had formed the earth on the world from everlasting to everlasting you are God and it goes on and later on make us glad and and may your work and your glorious power and so on it's but right in the middle of it are two verses that are often skipped and this is what they read for we are brought to an end by your anger by your wrath we are dismayed you have said our iniquities before you our secret sins in the light of your presence you see you should never read that unless you have the gospel because it is such a chronicle of absolute and utter judgment and despair and finality because the person whose funeral you're conducting if they remain if they have remained outside of Christ have according to the Bible been lost forever forever now who but the prophet of God with the Word of God would say such a thing I'll tell you another one in the New Testament it's very common to hear people reading 2 Corinthians 5 and again I don't say this in any spirit of judgment I confess I've often been tempted to skip a couple of these verses you know for we know that the earthly tent we live in if it is destroyed we have a building with from God not made with hands and so on the wonderful picture of rolling up the tent of life and heading for our permanent dwelling and so on and yes we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord so whether we're at home or away we make it our aim to please him amen not so fast you just skip the kicker for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body whether good or evil it's a kind of selective prophesying you say well I are you are you suggesting then that the way to handle this is always to lead with this and always to emphasize this and so on no I I think as we're going to see Eli Samuel helps us in this there is a really unsavory dimension in the psyche of certain individuals who feel that to lead in this way you know is to really be doing the job we we're not like those who are cut not verse 7 and 8 of Psalm 90 we're not those who are leaving off a verse 10 no we're starting with verse 10 we are leading with verses 7 and 8 those are the polar extremes aren't they and the real challenge you see is in allowing the Scriptures themselves so to adjudicate not only on what we see but also how we say it and in what context we communicate it so for example Nepal says knowing the fear of the Lord we persuade men the the prophetic role the role of the preacher in every generation is is by definition a persuasive role is not simply the provider of information knowing the fear of the Lord we seek to persuade men we're not coming to it to say you can take it or leave it no and in that context says Paul it is the love of Christ that constrains us when lloyd-jones gave his lectures to the students at Westminster seminary back in the 70s at one point he asked the question rhetorically what kind of preacher do we need today and this is what he said the chief thing is the love of God the love of souls a knowledge of the truth and the Holy Spirit within you these are the things that make the preacher if he has the love of God in his heart and if he has a love for God and if he has the love of the souls of men and concerned about them if he knows the truth of the Scriptures and has the Spirit of God within him that man will preach so Eli said tell me everything hold nothing back from me interestingly lloyd-jones prior to writing that book in the UK was preaching on one occasion when a mutual friend was leading the service the mutual friend was a much younger man than the dr. Lloyd Jones preached in his normal fashion and it was an event to be present when he preached and he and he sat down or better still he collapsed into his seat and following the benediction my friend went to him and said dr. Lloyd Jones how do you feel long Jones said I feel tired unhappy with such a short response my friend Preston he said in what way he said young man I think this is the closest that a man will ever come to the experience of childbirth and he wasn't being funny the agony the ecstasy the carrying of something that has to be released has to be discharged all the joy that accompanies it all the pain that is part of it all that dimension no wonder it says that he got up and he opened the doors and he was afraid to tell Eli what God had told him to tell listen if we are not afraid if we are not fearful if we do not cringe from that responsibility then there's something actually wrong if there is not within our own hearts that which recoils from the reality of it all because it is such a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God and there is a large crowd in every generation that simply want you to tickle their itching ears to tell them something that they would like to hear that was what Paul said to Timothy in Ephesus and it's as true in Cleveland as it ever was in Ephesus and the danger was that Samuel would be tempted just to tickle the ears of Eli when the message was supposed to tingle both of the ears of Eli you know what the real challenge is the challenge in teaching the Bible and in preaching in in this way at all is in recognizing that you have to somehow or another make sure that in comforting that that in seeking to comfort those who are afflicted that you don't use it lose out on the opportunity to afflict those who are comforted and one of the unique challenges of a congregations ourselves as our own if I may just put it to you in plain terms is that the congregation is so diverse that in an average service here we have all of the categories of listeners to which Perkins referred in an earlier era Perkins said to the preachers of his day you need to be aware of the fact that these various categories of listeners are present when you preach the Bible I've told you them before you've all forgotten and I had forgotten but I keep notes and so here here's what he says when you proclaim the Word of God there will be non-christians present who know nothing about the gospel and don't care true right there will be non-christians who know nothing about the gospel but they're teachable there will be those who know what the gospel is but I've never been humbled to see their need of a savior there are those who have been humbled some in the early stages of seeing their need others who see that they need salvation not merely an improvement and are convinced that only Christ can save them there will be genuine believers who need to be taught there will be backsliders who are in that condition either as a result of failing to be taught or as a result of failure to live constantly in the light of what they have been taught what you have he says is a mixed congregation of believers and non-believers that simply heightens the challenge and reinforces what we say to one another about how the effectiveness of the delivery of the Word of God of the bringing home of the Word of God to the lives of a variegated group of listeners is surely directly tied to the prayers of the people of God praying home the Word of God it's as if the person is is firing the truth like arrows from a vantage point and and the end that people are are saying you know bring this home Lord bring it to me bring it home to people for that was going to be the issue in Samuels case and of course you'll notice that Samuel responds and in just a sentence we have what some commentators say was a kind of spirit of fatalistic resignation it is the Lord let him do what seems good to him this is where we need the video and I need to hear his voice did he go hey it's the Lord whatever or was this his greatest moment was this when he said you know it is Yahweh it is Yahweh like God do what God does that matters more than anything matters more than my welfare matters more than my family's continuance let God be God that's what he's saying I want to believe that's what he's saying and then in the concluding two or three verses we can simply say that God is no longer silent how many times are we going to read and Samuel grew if here it is again I wish I knew how old he was how tall he was don't you I mean how big is this this guy is gonna be a giant here if he keeps growing like this it's just a picture of progress though isn't it who could could Hannah have ever imagined this remember in her prayer the Lord brings them down and the Lord lifts them up which he ever have thought that this boy who was given to her for whom she longed for of whom she cried would be lifted up in this way to such a place in the purposes of God he grew in the presence of God and he delivered the Word of God and the Word of God accomplished the purpose of God none of his words fall to the ground because God speaks through his servant and remember in Isaiah 55 that my word says God through the Prophet will not return to me empty but will accomplish the purpose where unto I have sent it and that's what's being described here he doesn't need to mount a PR campaign he doesn't need to somehow or another send himself out as aware over the radio to let everybody know who he is know everybody knew all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord and once again the Lord appeared at Shiloh how does that mean what does that mean well the Lord revealed himself to Samuel and how does that work well by the word of the Lord well that was a thousand years ago and here we are tonight so what does the takeaway when you read a passage like this what are we supposed to do with that if we're not careful people will be saying well I see what it is we're supposed to pray like crazy now for a prophet to be raised up perhaps another Samuel who would arise in our day know it's good to pray for those who preach the Bible and so on but that's not what we need to do we don't need to pray for God to send a prophet why because of where we began our service god has sent his prophet in the past he is spoken in various ways by the prophets but now in these last days he has spoken to us in his son and remember the voice from heaven regarding his son this is my beloved son listen to him and Jesus sends out his followers the Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth and off they go there are only a few chapters into it before there's a hullabaloo somebody's complaining about something and the food distribution is not working as it should and immediately the practical ramifications of this burgeoning church comes to the knowledge of the Apostles and the Apostle say well we've area this thing sorted out and then the opening verses of chapter six that's exactly what they do and the express purpose in doing what they do is so that they might give themselves to prayer and to the preaching of the word of God and they do and then Luke records and the Word of God continued to increase and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly read church history and you will find there is a direct correlation between the Word of God being proclaimed believed obeyed shared and lived and the multiplication of the church because as we like to say to one another the Word of God does the work of God by the Spirit of God in the people of God and so tonight throughout the whole world his kingdom grows unabated no earthly Kingdom has been able to last the test of time but since Jesus is an ascended King we can be sure of victory in the end well let us pray together God our Father thank you for the way in which this turns us again to Christ and to the Living Word thank you that we were able to begin the day magnifying you the triune God in your holiness and in your grace and now as we seek to part from one another we remind ourselves that as the day ends and as a new day dawns your kingdom continues to grow and we rejoice in this and we pray that you will make us faithful help us Lord to be compassionate and yet to be clear to be truthful and yet to be kind help us not to be so focused on love that we we become so soft and and become absolutely hopeless help us not to so focus on truth that we become hard and embittered in like a refrigerator make us like Christ we pray for it's in his name we ask it amen this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living learn more about truth for life with alistair beg visit us online at truthfortheworld.org

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 15,267

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Keywords: Truth For Life, Alistair Begg, Biblical Figures, Samuel, Judgement, Word of God, Preaching

Id: seWWl3jLSEU

Length: 37min 34sec (2254 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 12 2019