1 Samuel 3:1-20
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 Lordwas 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.
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. This morning's Old Testament reading is a well known story for for many people. It's a popular one for kids. We often tell this is a big feature strongly in VBS curricula, or in Sunday school curricula, because it's got a kid in it. Right? We've we've heard this story over and over again. And you imagine Samuel is in the temple? Well, that would have been the tabernacle at the time. Usually in our imaginations. He's like an eight year old boy, about that tall. And he hears the Word of the Lord and responds with joy. Pretty great, right? This story is one of those stories. There are lots of them, where we forget about the details. And imagine the story in our heads. We have lots of stories that have the traditional way of learning them have covered up with the Bible actually says, I think the most important one is the Christmas story from Luke. Do you know that story, right? Mary and Joseph, go to Bethlehem. Mary is giant. She's like nine and a half months pregnant. She's riding on a donkey. And just as they see the city of Bethlehem she goes, Oh. And Joseph goes banging on every Motel Six in the town. Right. John, just about everything I told you in that story is not in the Bible. No donkey. No in no rush to the pregnancy. You're like, wait, wait, wait. The Bible says in their word hotels back in the day. They didn't exist. That word is just, there is no room in the upper room of the house. Just about everything that we imagine in that story comes from tradition. And the retelling. What the Bible says is they went to Bethlehem, and the child was born. And that's it. And they placed him in a manger, because the guest room was full of other stories like that. And this one that we read today, sent about Samuel is like that. Samuel was likely not an eight year old boy. He was a young man, having served Eli in the tabernacle for many, many years. After Hannah, his mother had dropped him off. And the history of Samuel goes like that. So Hannah comes to the tabernacle, she can't have a baby. And the other wife of her husband is teasing her because of it. Because that's what happens when you have two wives. They fight over that kind of stuff in the Old Testament. So she's depressed, she's upset. She goes to the temple and she prays give me a child and I will give him to you, Lord. She has a baby Samuel. After the baby is weaned. She brings him to Eli and says here to take the child. And I want you all to know that the Punic household is not taking children as offerings.
She brings the child to the temple and gives him to Eli and he serves in the tabernacle for the rest of his life. What happens before this reading is every year Hannah comes to the sacrifice and she brings a new piece of clothing for for Samuel to wear as he grows. And we get a sentence that says And Samuel grew and became strong and was filled with wisdom before God and man, which is that way of saying and the boy grew up. And so Samuel is now a young man, about the same age as David was when he went to fight Goliath. And, like a teenager, is likely the timeframe. He has been serving Eli basically Eli is his dad now. And now Eli is blind. And he has been serving Eli for many, many, many years basically his whole life. God comes to him and says Samuel and you get the drama. Samuel rushes over to Eli. And he says, I'm here you called me and he like goes, Why did you wake me up? It happens again. And finally Eli knows what's going on. He says, it's the Lord. When you hear the voice, say, speak, your servant hears me goes back and he lines down, he hears the voice, Samuel, Samuel. Speak, your servant hears. And that's where our lectionary says we should end the story. In our lectionary, there's a number of readings that have a suggested end. And then there's a parenthesis with optional readings afterwards. Right. And so what they say is pastors, if you really want to take a shorter reading, you can, if you want to take the longer reading, you can as well. And I think it's really fascinating the way the lectionary divides this up, I mean, take a look, the Lord came and stood and called at other times, Samuel, Samuel, and Samuel said, Speak for your servant hears. And if you end the reading there, it is a wonderful and beautiful moment. you've imagined that in your head when they told it to you in Sunday school, the boy, he looks up and he says, I am here for you, Lord. And that's it. And we tell them, you two children can be used for God, this wonderful, beautiful moment of calling. There's a reason people don't like what comes next. What's yours yourself, in the place of this young man? When you hear these words, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two years of everyone who hears it will tangle This is about to go viral. On that day, I will fill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. And I will declare to him that I am about to punish his house for ever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. And 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. And the next thing goes, Samuel lay until morning. I can imagine he lay until morning staring at the ceiling. Right. Speak Lord, Your servant here. Go tell your dad I'm about to punish him for what's been going on in the family of Eli? Well, a lot. Eli's sons, their names were Phineas and Hockney. They were also priests of God in their tabernacle is that office is passed down from father to son. And they have been bad guys. Samuel earlier, this book tells us that they did not know the Lord. And they were doing pretty awful things. On one part, they were stealing portions of the sacrifice that were not allotted to them. The order of God's sacrificial system allowed for the priests to take particular pieces of the sacrifices as the way that they would eat. But these guys thought they needed the better pieces, not the pieces that were assigned to them. That's only the beginning. They also were sleeping with the ladies who served at the front of the tent of the meeting. Also not so good. And in fact, then they were threatening people with violence if they came to God's temple and didn't listen to them. And Eli knew about it. How could he not since it would happen right in front of him. He even told them Hey, guys, you gotta stop this. But he didn't actually stop them. Not too long before this story. It says no, a man of God came to Eli and said to him, this is what the Lord says, Did not clearly reveal myself to your father's house when they were in Egypt under Pharaoh. I chose your fan Lay Out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense and to wear an ephod in my presence. I also gave your father's house all the offerings made with fire by the Israelites. Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do your you honor your son's more than me, by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering I made by my people, Israel. Therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel declares, I promised that your house and your father's house would minister before me forever. But now the Lord declares, Far be it from me. Those who honor me, I will honor but those who despise me will be disdained. The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your father's house. Yikes. So God sent a prophet to Eli to say, What's your son's is doing is not cool. I'm going to cut off your house. And then he says the same thing to Samuel. This is what's going to happen, Samuel. So Eli comes to Samuel, who obviously doesn't want to say anything? I wouldn't, either. And he says, You better tell me all, May God punish you if you don't. And so Samuel will die. What a position to be in. How much pain must have caused Samuel to go from hearing the voice of God for the first time. And the message you get is this message?
What's the question? He would ask himself all night as he stares at the ceiling, when Eli comes to him and says, Tell me everything? And it's a very simple question and the title of my sermon, how do I tell the whole story? Do I tell everything? Or do I make something up? Samuel told Eli the whole story. He told him everything that God had said. And I think it's a good question for us when we're put in a position where we have to ask what do we tell? When we tell the story of God to people? We ask ourselves, do we tell the whole story? When God gives a word of judgment for the world? How do we speak it? When God has a message for sinners, how do we say it? That's a tough question isn't? Most of us can actually imagine being in the situation that Samuel is because we have relatives and friends weren't Christians, right? We have friends who are not in the salvation of Jesus Christ. We have family who have left the church and are looking forward only to judgment on the day Christ returns. Do we tell them the whole story? Or do we let them know what God says about our sin? That's a hard one, isn't it? Because we ask ourselves, I don't want to get them upset. I don't want them to turn away from the church. I don't want to hurt their feelings. But the story of God, the story of Jesus Christ doesn't make sense without a word of judgment, does it? Let's think about Jesus Himself. Right? We talk about Jesus is the Savior of the world. He came to show God's love for the world and to give his love for the people. But the cross doesn't make any sense without judgment on sin, right? Jesus the story of Jesus is he comes down he becomes a child he grows up and then he dies. You don't need to die on a cross. Just to love right Without God's judgment on sin, the cross makes zero sense. Jesus could have come down and hugged a whole bunch of people that would have been easy. Right? Pat everybody on the head and say God loves you just the way you are trophies for everyone. Then the cross wouldn't make any sense. Jesus wouldn't have had to die to take away the sin of the world. He wouldn't need the whips and the note the the nails through his wrists and feet, the crown of thorns on his head, he wouldn't have had to cry, Oh, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Only make sense. If God actually judges sin. If God threatens the sinner with eternal death, forever, we can look at the cross and we can say, that is what I deserve. And that is what was supposed to be for me. And he took it instead. How amazing. I am not judged like Christ because He was judged for me. I will not be cast into hell because he was judged for me. And now I have the life that he deserves. The cross only makes sense when you know about the judgment that was placed on Christ instead of on you. And the same thing is true when we look at our confession and absolution, right? Think about how that works in our lives. What happened if you took only one part of that story? Let's start with what has happened if we just had the love part, right? I forgive you. And everybody's like, Yay, everything's great. Jesus just loves me. You tell people that over and over and over long enough? And they just say, well, great, isn't this awesome? I don't have to worry about this stuff anymore. Jesus just loves me. And I can go and do whatever I feel like. What happens if you just have the confession? I am by nature, sinful and unclean. I've sinned against you thought, word and deed by what I have done, and by what I have left undone. I justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. And then you stop. That would be kind of depressing to right. And so if you just give them the grace, that doesn't work, and if you just give them the law, that doesn't work. But when you bring it together, I'm a sinner, I justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. And then the pastor says, I forgive your sins. What we get is the whole story. I'm a sinner. On my own, I'm going to hell. But Christ came to die for me to give me like, there's a reason that I gather around Christ in His Word, is because I need that salvation. I need the whole story to be saved. My sin, his grace. And it's the same for those who are not a part of the church. If we just tell them if God loves you, and Jesus came to give you His love, they will say that's awesome. Thanks a lot. I'm gonna go do my own thing. Because it's not the whole story. For those who are outside the church, those who are happy in their sin, they need to know that God threatens judgment for all who turn away from Him. That our sin places us outside of God's grace and threatens hell.
That's the only way to point them to the Gospel. And then when they go, oh, yeah, that's right. It's easy. And Jesus came to die for you. The story doesn't make sense without both pieces. What I think is fascinating about First Samuel, and this story is how Eli reacts to the word that Samuel gives him. This is really interesting for me. Samuel tells him everything it goes. So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from of from him. And then Eli said, it is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.
Eli just heard that his sons are going to die, and so is he, and it's his family is going to be cut off, they will never be priest, all that terrible stuff is going to happen. He's like, Oh, yeah. Okay. God does what he wants. And I can accept that. Eli is still a faithful priest, even if he can't control his sons. When he hears the word of judgment, He accepts what God is going to do. And sometimes, when the word of of judgment is told, when we explain God's law to people, they go, Hmm, that makes sense. Maybe I do need Jesus. That's the way to gather them into the faith. We can tell the whole story because that is what is necessary to become a Christian. It's necessary in your life. Because you need to hear about your sin, to receive forgiveness. And it's necessary for those outside the church to we have to tell the whole story, or else Jesus doesn't make sense. In his name, amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai