Samuel: Formalism or Glory?

I believe this will fit in with what we've just been hearing. Turn with me please to 1 Samuel chapter 3. 1 Samuel chapter 3. We've been hearing about the danger of man's thinking being brought into the things of God. That's exactly what is going to happen in chapter 4. We've been hearing about, let him that glory, glory in the Lord.

And what happens again at the end of chapter 4 is the glory is departed. And so 1 Samuel chapter 3 and verse 1. And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious in those days.

Notice there's a number of things that are going to be given to us to set the context historically and spiritually of what's happening. Every year at the beginning of a year, the President of the United States gives to the Congress what is called a State of the Union address. It tells about the condition of things.

That's somewhat what you have here, a little bit of a State of the Union that God is giving to us by the Spirit of God. Notice what it says here. It says, the word of the Lord was precious in those days.

There was no open vision. And it came to pass at that time when Eli was laid down in his place, his eyes began to wax dim. So now you have another condition, a priest that can't see, that he could not see and e'er the lamp of God, again something else being told to us, the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord.

Now you know that there was no temple per se at this time, but a larger structure that would have encompassed what would have been the tabernacle and the items of the tabernacle and so on. But the lamp of God was going out. That's a spiritual statement, not just a physical statement that God is letting us know about the condition of the nation.

And Samuel was laid down. You'll notice the words to sleep are supplied so that he was not sleeping, but he was laid down. And the Lord called Samuel.

And he answered, here am I. And he ran unto Eli and said, here am I, for thou callest me. And he said, I call thee not, lie down again. And he went and lay down.

And the Lord called yet again Samuel. Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, here am I, for thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not my son, lie down again.

Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, here am I, for thou didst call me.

And Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child. Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, go lie down, and it shall be if he call thee that thou shalt say, speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

And the Lord, notice this statement, I just noticed this this week, I had never noticed it before, and the Lord came and stood and called as at other times. Samuel, Samuel, one of those wonderful double calls. Then Samuel answered, speak.

I used to wonder why didn't he say, Lord, just as Eli had told him. He drops that. It was no, it was no article of disrespect.

The fact of the matter is he did not have to call upon the Lord, speak Lord, because the Lord was standing right in front of him. He actually was in the presence of God. Speak, for thy servant heareth.

And then the Lord gives Samuel a message of judgment that's going to happen to the house of Eli and his sons, that which was already given initially in chapter 2, and it is repeated again, but this time to a young boy, Samuel. Imagine giving that message to Samuel, who had not known revelation before, did not know the Lord experientially in this sense, and now this is the first message that Samuel is going to have to give. I think of at times there are men that are afraid to give messages, and we like to hear things that will tickle our ears, and we like to hear things that will just pat us on the back and send us on the way, but look at the content of most of the prophets of the Old Testament.

Look at the Isaiahs, the Jeremiahs, the Ezekiels, the Malachi's. Look at the messages they thundered out to the people of God, so often calls to repent and return. That's the first message that Samuel is going to have to give.

My God raise up men that are not afraid to speak the Word of God, like a Samuel. And so it says here as we continue down, verse 15, and Samuel lay until the morning and opened the doors of the house of the Lord. That again is a spiritual statement, and Samuel feared to show Eli the vision, but he tells him, we're going to go down to verse 18, and the end of verse 18, and he said, it is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good.

And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground, and all Israel. That's an interesting expression that you read of. Mark that when you see that in the Scriptures, all Israel.

It's interesting, the last time in our Old Testament that that expression occurs is in Malachi chapter 4 and verse 4, and God is reminding all Israel of the commandments of Moses that he gave the people to follow, and they had so often broken. But the mercy and the grace of God the last time in our Bible that you read of that expression, all Israel, is in Romans chapter 11 and verse 26, so then all Israel shall be saved, and God moving in salvation for the nation. Verse 21, and the Lord appeared again.

No, sorry, verse 20, and all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord, and the Lord appeared again in Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord. Chapter 4 verse 1, and the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now, most commentators would suggest that this statement is a disconnect from chapter 4, and you should connect it to chapter 3, so the end of chapter 3. So chapter 3 ends, all Israel knows that Samuel is to be established a prophet of the Lord.

It ends with, and the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now, new subject. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Ebenezer, and the Philistines pitched in Aphek.

Now, let me tell you something. Ebenezer didn't exist at this time. Ebenezer doesn't exist as a literal place until chapter 7, and I believe it's verse 12.

Ebenezer means stone of help. This is what they are assuming. They're going to assume this.

They're going to make this place up. They're going to invent this, and they're going to call this place this. Notice what happens.

Nobody told them to go out to battle. There was no direction given. Let's keep going, and the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel, and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines, and they slew out of the army in the field about 4,000 men, and when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, wherefore hath the Lord smitten us today before the Philistines? Good question.

Problem was they didn't ask the Lord. They asked each other, and they took their own answer. It's nice.

You ever ask yourself questions, and then you answer your own question? You never think wrongly, right? But you'll often be wrong, and that's exactly what happened. Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that when it cometh among us, it, notice this, that when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. Talking about, we were just hearing man's thinking.

That's exactly what you have here, man's thinking. So the people sent to Shiloh that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth between the cherubims, and almost there's something almost about that statement. You can see that they're draping it with, this is going to win our battle.

This is the good luck charm that we need. And it says here, the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. And when the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again.

The idea here is it echoed. It bounced off the ground. They yelled so loudly.

They shouted so loudly. And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, what meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And so on. Let's go down to verse 10.

And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten again. And they fled every man into his tent. Now it's even worse.

The first time, they just, they rearranged themselves. They regrouped. They set themselves in array, and they were willing to fight.

But now, now there's total dispersion. They've gone back to their homes. It's done.

But not only that, now it says, and there was a very great slaughter, for there fell of Israel 30,000 footmen. So they go from 4,000, which is roughly the population, if you can imagine it, of what is it, Richland Center. Imagine the whole 4,000 men dying.

And now they go again, and now there's 30,000 men that die. I hate to tell you this, but when you go a little further in the future, and the ark now we're going to read is taken, they still don't learn. And when the ark is brought back, 50,000 men die.

The numbers were horrendous. The slaughter was terrible. Verse 11, this is the result.

For there fell of Israel 30,000 men, and the ark of God was taken, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. And then we have this messenger coming back to give Eli, verse 15, the message and the city. Now Eli was 98 years old, and his eyes were dim, that he could not see.

And the man said unto Eli, and he gives him the message. Eli hearing it, you're familiar with the story, likely he falls backward off his seat, a priest that was seated, shouldn't have been doing that. And so he falls back and breaks his neck.

And I don't know how, it must have been very, very heavy to fall back and break your neck just from sitting on a chair. But then it goes on to say, let's go down to verse 19, more damage. And his daughter-in-law Phinehas' wife was with child, near to be delivered.

And when she heard the tidings that the ark of God was taken, and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, and she bowed herself and travailed, for her pains came upon her. And about the time of her death, the women that stood by her said unto her, fear not, for thou hast born a son. But she answered not, neither did she regard it.

She doesn't care about that. She's not listening to that. She named the child Ichabod, saying the glory is departed from Israel, because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband.

Notice the ark is placed first, and she said the glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken. I want you to notice in these two chapters, and there's a little bit of reading, but I want to set the context. What we have here is basically, we were told earlier in this conference to look for contrasts.

I'm always looking for contrasts. You'll find tremendous amount of contrasts in the Word of God, and that's exactly what you have in these two chapters. They are two chapters of contrasts.

What you have here is the contrast between two individuals, Samuel and Eli. You have the contrast between two nations, Israel and the Philistines, and you have the contrast of the one who stands alone, one great God. The God who, while his people may bow down, and they may succumb, and they may be defeated, when he himself is even, as it were, taken alone by the Philistines, he bows down to no one, and their idols fall, and they send back the ark.

But at the core of all of this is what my exercise is, I want to speak on, and it is really the subject of what we are in danger of all falling into the trap of formalism. Formalism. Ritual without reality.

Ascribing to objects, ascribing to form the very reality of God, and missing the point that it is ultimately and singularly really the presence of God that is going to give us, enable us, empower us. And we miss that. And they did.

And if Israel did, we can do it. You'll notice that there are several things, and I just want to take the time to go up a little bit into the context, the historical background, because it really tells a tremendous story, because when we have the arrival, the birth of Samuel, Samuel is a child, Samuel is someone, a son that is born out of godly exercise and prayer. And there will be Samuels, because his name means hearkened.

God hears. God hears the godly exercise and prayers of men and women who pray to him, seeking, even in times like this, an answer. And another thing I learned about this, and I want to pass this on, one thing this passage teaches us clearly is this, that usefulness for God is not age-limited.

But you can be an old man and not be used by God. You could be a man with a lot of experience and not be used by God. But Samuel is a young boy, and he's used by God.

So young men here, you can be used by God. In fact, let me emphasize that further. God wants to use you.

He wants to take you up. He wants to have young men and women to stand for him in his place and to be used by him, especially in times like this. I think it was W. W. Faraday that called Samuel God's emergency man.

And so he's born out of exercise and prayer. In fact, the exercise and prayer, let me give you the historical context going back to the days of judges, because what we have here is just coming out of the end of that. Now, when you get to the end of the book of judges, that really happened at the beginning of the book of judges, but historically.

But when you come to Samson and Jephthah, those men there, those last judges there, they are just overlapping time-wise, pretty close chronology to what's happening. So let me give you a little lesson on the deepening of exercise in the nation. Jephthah, the man who makes a rash vow, he is going to say, whatever comes out of my house first, I'm going to give that to the Lord as a guaranteeing someone else, something else, someone else to God.

He is putting that on the line, not him, that. And whether she died or whether she, I take it personally that she did not die, but that year after year, her companions would come and they would bewail her virginity as she dedicated her life, fulfilling her father's rash vow. But whatever the case is, he vowed for her.

He vowed and she was the result of it. Move a little further. Then you have Samson's parents.

Now you have Manoah and his wife. She's barren. And the angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ, appears to her, makes himself known to her, tells her she's going to have a child.

He gives her the instructions telling her about this child and that the child will be raised a Nazarite and that no razor will come upon his head and so on. And he will begin to deliver the people from Israel. Didn't say fully, he will begin.

And then you move on to Elkanah and his wife. And she too is barren. But I want you to notice the deepening of the exercise that's going to produce a Samuel.

Jephthah vows she, his daughter, she had nothing to do with it. Manoah and his wife, the angel appears to them, he instructs them, he tells them, and they do it. Elkanah and his wife, now there's opposition, there's persecution in the house.

And you remember that the others persecuted her and mocked her because she was childless, she was barren. Now it's not the Lord coming to her, she's coming to God. And even in the midst of all this misunderstanding, Eli doesn't understand.

He sees her praying and she's moving her lips but there's no sound coming out. And he marks her mouth and he thinks she's drunken. Even the priest of the land, he's mocking her.

And her husband, he doesn't understand. And Elkanah comes to her and he says, you can't have a child but I'm better to you than, am I not better to you than ten sons? No Elkanah, you're not. You're not.

You're not for two reasons. Because you don't know the longing of a woman in the Hebrew culture who so desperately was scourged because she did not have a child. And that meant blessing from God and the yearning that God puts in a woman's heart.

And no man can have that. So there was misunderstanding all around. But God heard.

God hearkened. And that's the background. And Samuel was born.

I want you to notice, I'm going to use, look at these characters. I want you to notice Eli first. I want to work backwards.

Eli is a man, he is torn. He does nothing about his own sons and yet he criticizes Hannah for her praying for a son that is needed. His sons aren't needed.

His sons are despicable characters. Nobody really wants his sons. His sons, you remember, they took the flesh hooks and the sacrifices and they took for themselves.

Talk about boasting and gratifying self. That's what they were doing. And they were the ones that they went with the women of the tavern when it came and so on.

And I think of that when I thought about Phineas' wife at the end here and what she must have felt. No, Eli was a man torn. He knew what was right.

But he didn't practice it. His eyes were dim. Quite a statement for a priest, isn't it? I mean, anybody else, it's not good.

But for a priest, you had to have good eyesight. How would you be able to look at the sacrifices and notice if they were without blemish and without and so on? How would you be able to do that if your eyes are dim? Yeah, it's fine. Go.

How would you be able when a man came and had leprosy? How would you be able to do the examination if your eyes were dim? No, for a priest to have dim eyes, terrible. So it says his eyes are dim. His hearing wasn't that great either, turns out.

God is speaking to Samuel, Eli. I wonder if Eli thought, we were talking about this at the table a little bit, and I wonder if Eli thought, when was the last time God spoke to me? Speak to this young boy. When was the last time God spoke to me? It's been a long time.

Let me ask you something. When's the last time God spoke to you? When's the last time you heard God? That you felt the tug of your heart. You felt the opening of your understanding.

You felt the conviction deep that God was speaking to you. Terrible thing for Eli to live that way, especially as a priest, the priest. Terrible thing for believers to live that way, going from week to week without the touch of God, without the voice of God.

But I dare say there's likely somebody in this audience that probably has had that happen. Maybe you're in that right now. It's been a long time.

Hearing, hearing can be selective too. You know, I can understand Samuel not knowing when God called him. I can understand that because God had never spoken to Samuel before.

But Eli, it's sad when older men have no excuse for not hearing the Word of God. And you know what else is sad? The fact is that when Eli does get the fact that God is speaking to Samuel, he's telling Samuel what to do when all along he should have been doing something. You ever tell others what to do when you yourself should be doing something? I've been there, done that.

And so Eli, he's now in this position, dim eyes, ears, children. The one good thing I see about Eli here is this. With Eli's sons and how despicable characters they were, he could have seen Samuel, especially when Samuel told him of the vision of the Word that he had got.

And it would confirm what God had already said to Eli himself. He could have thought to himself, I want this boy out of the way. And he could have said to him, Samuel, don't listen.

Let me just say something. You be careful what advice you give believers. Make sure that your advice squares with what the Word of God says.

Because there are people that will give advice to other believers on the basis of what they want to hear, on the basis of friendliness, they want to remain friends, they don't want to rock the boat, they don't want to cause issues, and sometimes even for personal gain. Eli did not do that, and I give him credit for that. Even though his own sons were so... It just comes into my mind, I remember years ago I was out in Prince Edward Island.

I was having meetings with Peter Orszag, and I think of Peter often. And I remember we were going out one day, and we got back at the end of the day, we were out the whole day, and Maxine, Peter's wife, says to me, Frank, Norma's been calling you all day. She's been calling here trying to get a hold of you.

Now, this was before we didn't have the... I think the cell phones back at that time were bags or so, and I didn't have one. I said, well, is everything all right? She goes, she wants you to call her. So I call home.

Peter went downstairs. He's sleeping on... He went to rest on a bed downstairs in the basement. And I called home, and Norma says, I have two children who want to talk to you.

And first my daughter, then my son. And they both had told me that God had saved them that day. I could hardly believe it.

Two in one day. And I went back, and I'll never forget this. Peter was laying there, and he had his hands behind his head like this, and he said, well, boy, he said, what was it? What happened? Everything okay? I said, oh, yeah.

I said, everything's really okay. I said, my wife... Well, they just told me. My two kids just told me that God saved them.

You know what he did? Now, for those of you who knew Peter, his three children weren't saved at all. Peter said, hey, let's get down on our knees. He said, let's thank God for saving your children.

I thought to myself, as I got down there, he's giving thanks for my own children, and his kids aren't saved. I never forgot that. Let me just say something about prayer.

Many a conference prayer meeting is a preacher's prayer meeting, and it's always the preachers that are praying, and it's always the preachers that are preaching. I see a lot of men here in this audience, but how many are praying? How many are rising to lead the people of God as these prayer meetings? We've had three so far. As far as I know, as far as I can tell, almost everyone except with a few, just one or two, have been preachers that have been praying.

What a thing to see the exercise of the people of God when a conference comes, to bring us into the presence of God and cry out with a burden, Lord, speak to us. That's what you have in the background of these pages, but if you want the events of chapter four in formalism to unfold and embrace us, then just keep having preachers prayer meetings, and just keep counting on form rather than reality. Enough about Eli.

Let me go to Israel. Israel here, they have no word from God. Now, leadership is important.

Obviously, we know that leadership is extremely important, but leadership must be taken, take its direction from the Lord and from his word. The question I have asked in looking at this chapter is, where is Samuel? I don't know. We're not told.

Maybe he had even given advice and it wasn't followed, because he doesn't appear, in fact, in chapter four, in chapter five, in chapter six, and finally in chapter seven he does, and he's calling the nation back, and he's telling them to repent, because he recognizes the direction that they have taken. He sees it, and they did repent, and the Lord came among them. You know, that's one thing that is tremendous about our God.

He's merciful. He seeks our restoration. So, you have the nation here, and they pitch in Ebenezer, stone of help.

They're assuming that God is going to help them, and so there's no prayer, no direction, and as a result, what happens? Four thousand people die. So, there's defeat, there's death, there's loss. One thing that is interesting, as you trace through the battles, some of us like to look at the battles of Israel, and when you trace through those battles, you will see this, that defeat of the nation is never due to external foes, but it's due to internal failure.

That's why Israel was defeated. They knew it. They said, why has the Lord smitten us? They recognized that.

They didn't say the Philistines beat us. How come those Philistines? How did they do it? Why has the Lord smitten us? But the question, the problem is that they asked themselves this question they didn't ask God, and so what do they do? As we've been hearing, the dangerous ground of man's thinking, and they say, let's call for the ark. Let's get the ark, and when it shall come, it will deliver us.

I like what one commentator has called this rabbit foot theology. He's called it rabbit foot theology. This is the good luck charm.

This is the talisman we'll need, and so we get that ark, and it will deliver us. So what they have done is they have basically made an idol of the ark, and they have made the ark equal God. They have divorced the reality of his presence.

Did they not even ask themselves, where's the cloud? Where's the reality of his presence? Because even they knew that from the tabernacle days, that while all the furniture was in the cloud that designated his presence among them, the Shekinah, but they lacked that. So what made them do this? Maybe it was that they decided to return to the old ways. We were hearing about the old paths, Jeremiah 6.16. Maybe that was it.

We're going to go back to the old ways when the ark led us, and the ark did this, and the ark, again, divorcing it from God. The problem is this. Without God, it's mere formalism, empty powerlessness.

So let me make the application. What is it that gives character, that gives power to God's assemblies? It is the presence of the personal presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of his people. Now, I understand, brethren, that we do carry out, we try to carry out, in keeping with the Word of God and obedience, and keeping the pattern, but we can emphasize the pattern more than the person.

We can dwell upon the form of things, and so as a result, the breaking of bread, the truth of the head covering, the truth of things that we do can be divorced from God, that the matter of exercise among us, burden in our hearts, conviction upon us, that when we come together, that God is in the midst of his people. That's the reality. That's what they missed, and as a result, 4,000 people died.

The ark was taken. 30,000 people died. If we meet without exercise, without Holy Spirit power, you know, we don't often speak about that.

I don't know what it is. We don't want to sound charismatic or something, but that's the truth of the matter. The Holy Spirit is the one who empowers his people.

If we do not have Spirit power, we have no power. We are powerless, and as a result of that, we open ourselves up to the enemy, to the flesh, to attacks, to pride. They, you know, we need to learn from history.

We always say that, right? If we fail to learn from history, we make huge blunders, but remember this. When it comes to assembly testimony, it might…the word history certainly has his story in it, but it doesn't guarantee him for the present. History does not guarantee God's presence for the present, and that's what we need.

So, when it comes to the gospel, when it comes to worship, when it comes to our Bible readings, when it comes to teaching meetings like this, it must be by the Spirit of God. Now, it says something else about the people. Do you notice that when the ark came in, I'm just going to give you a few little points, and then I'm going to go to really where I want to end with Samuel.

It says that when the ark came in, it says, the people shouted, and the earth rang again. I wondered, I thought, the earth rang again. What does that mean? When did it ring the first time? Well, the idea, of course, the meaning is an echo, a bounce, that when they yelled, but if they did that, I thought to myself, it's interesting how the Spirit of God puts it here in this passage, that the earth rang again.

It didn't say the heavens rang. It said the earth rang. God isn't influenced or adds His power to what is earthly and worldly.

It's when we look above. It's when we cry out above. When we focus on the earth, oh, the earth may ring back.

But is that what you want? Do you want the echo of the earth, or do you want the voice of heaven? And that's all they had here. They had a ringing earth because of their shout, and God was silent. The second defeat is worse than the first.

The ark is taken. You'll notice if you go again, not only are there more defeated, 4,000, 30,000, 50,000 in the chronicle as you read the account, but you will notice as well even the conditions for the ark. The ark is taken in one day.

We read the next chapter after chapter 5 or 6, it says seven months, and then we come to chapter, that's chapter 6, and we come to chapter 7, 20 years. One day, seven months, 20 years. Long time.

Long time to be ark-less. I have wondered, brethren, if how long it would take some assemblies that carry on with formalism and ritualism only, how long it would take to find out the presence of the Lord is gone, power is gone. And you'll notice Phineas' wife, she dies.

You know what amazes me? Both Eli and Phineas' wife, they weren't even at the battle. They weren't even there, and they die. You know what that tells me? When these things happen, when we do not give God first place, there will be, I don't want to use the word collateral damage, but I will say there will be damage that will reverberate beyond the periphery of the center.

Families will be affected. Testimonies will be affected. And you have that here.

Phineas' wife dies. It's interesting that they give her the message, and they try to comfort her, and they say, there's a child. A son is going to be born.

I look at the interesting contrast between chapter 3 and chapter 4 is this. The contrast is in chapter 3, you have Samuel is born, and you have that chapter 2, and so you have Hannah, she rejoices. The voice of God is heard.

The presence of God is enjoyed among His people. But the birth of Ichabod, the glory has departed. What made the difference in just a few short chapters of one son coming in and another son coming in? What made the difference of this vacuum, this void? The presence of the Lord is removed.

Formalism is dependent on it. God is gone. The interesting thing to me is that she didn't even take any comfort from this.

Well, how could she? I mean, think of it as a mother. The thought of bringing a child into the world, into her world, where the glory of God was lost among His people, was nothing to be comforted about, was it? So let me ask this. I'm not really qualified to do this, so I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I'm going to ask mothers a question.

Phineas, his wife, rather, took no comfort in a child coming into the world where the glory of God was departed. Mothers, what are you raising your children for? The glory of this world, or the glory of God? Teach your children, especially young girls, because we're growing up in a day and age, modesty, how to dress, how to be godly young women, how to carry themselves. That's important, just how to carry themselves.

The truth of submission, do they see in your home a disregard of the husband for the wife? How are they going to teach that to their daughters? What type of men will your daughter want to marry? That frightens me. My daughter is getting married soon, and someone like me, got a lot of failures. That was Phineas' wife.

Samuel, let me end with Samuel. I want you to think, it says he was called, called. You know, there are 11 times in chapter 3, 11 times from verses 4 through 10, you have the word in some form or another of calling, being called.

It's God's desire to move among His people. It's God's longing that there would be ears that would be opened. You know, it's interesting that when God speaks of judgment just before this, and then He speaks through the mouth of Samuel, He says, I'm going to do something that is going to make the ears of Israel tingle.

He said, but you, Samuel, you have your ears open. What a contrast. That's what I want.

I want that from you, Samuel. I've got it. I've got it from you.

How many today here, is He going to have that from us? An open ear, an open heart to hear so that God can pour in. He who waits on God will hear God's call. Samuel responded, and he obeyed consistently.

And this is the amazing thing to me as I went through this passage. He obeyed consistently every time, getting up. Did you call? Did you call? I know that Job tells us the Lord speaks once, yea, twice, man perceives it not.

Well, he spoke four times here, and Samuel did perceive it. He was doubly gracious. And when Samuel came, he did not know what it was for.

He just came. He obeyed consistently when no end was in view, and when he did not know what the request was for. And he even assumed it was by Eli, but when he knew it was from God.

What we get in His Word is not from men. First Corinthians, that passage where Paul writes to the assembly as we were hearing about all of these things, how does he sum up that section of practical implications of doctrine that has been laid down? If any man seemed to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandment of the Lord, singular. This is one body of truth that is given to us, and with open ears and open heart, here I am.

Samuel said that. I want you to, I'm going to end with this. The entire narrative, you want contrast? The summed up and contrasted by three verses.

Chapter 3, verse 19. Let's read it. And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him.

But not with the priests and not with the nation, but the Lord was with him. Contrast number one. It says, and the Lord did let none of his words fall to the ground.

They shouted, and all their words went to the ground. It says, and all Israel knew, and yet in chapter 4, sadly, all Israel did not know, did they? They did not know what to do. They did the wrong thing.

They never sought counsel of God, whereas Samuel, whose ear was open, hearkened. And lastly, as it closes this section, something almost, the greatest contrast, and the Lord appeared again. The end of chapter 4. The glory is departed.

Tremendous contrasts. But what I want you to think about is this, as I end. If God can and will ultimately bring glory to an entire world, He's going to do that in the millennial kingdom.

Here we have a little area of geography. Israel. Just a little sliver of land.

And within that little sliver of land, there is a little place. And in that little place, it says that the glory of God departed. Just from that little place.

But there's coming a day where the word of God tells us that the earth, the world, shall be full of His glory. Now, if He's going to do that then, in a future day, can He not do that here now, locally, in Blue River, in B-Town, in Mount Sterling, in Stout, in assemblies around? Can He not fill with His glory, if only we would hear?