ANSWER HIS CALL!
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This Week’s Theme: God Knows Your Name
Word for the Week is Calling: It is God’s summoning of individuals and people to himself, so that they will belong to him and serve him in his world. The calling of a believer may involve a specific place, task or vocation in life.
Memory Verse: Jeremiah 33:3 Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.
Sermon Text: 1 Sam 3.1-14
1 Now the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.
2 And it came to pass at that time, while Eli was lying down in his place, and when his eyes had begun to grow so dim that he could not see,
3 and before the lamp of God went out in the tabernacle of the Lord where the ark of God was, and while Samuel was lying down,
4 that the Lord called Samuel. And he answered, “Here I am!”
5 So he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” And he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” And he went and lay down.
6 Then the Lord called yet again, “Samuel!” So Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” He answered, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.”
7 (Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, nor was the word of the Lord yet revealed to him.)
8 And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. So he arose and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you did call me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord had called the boy.
9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and it shall be, if He calls you, that you must say, ‘Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
10 Now the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant hears.”
11 Then the Lord said to Samuel: “Behold, I will do something in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.
12 In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end.
13 For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them.
14 And therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”
INTRODUCTION: Let me introduce myself. My name is Samuel which means “heard of God.” I received my name because my mother Hanna was barren and she desperately wanted to have a male child. She wept bitterly for a son and around the time to my father Elkanah, my mother, and my father’s other wife went to Shiloh to present the yearly sacrifices to the LORD. Remembering that the “righteous cry out and the LORD hears and delivers them out of all of their troubles” (Ps. 34:17) She made a vow to Yahweh saying, “if the LORD would look on her affliction and remember her and grant a male child, then she promised to never cut his head and to give him to the LORD all the days of my life (1 Sam 1:11). I can testify that Yahweh heard my mother’s cry and some months later. I was born and after I was weaned from breast milk, my parents dropped me off at the temple to live with Eli. Now, Eli was the high priest at the time with two sons Hophni and Phinehas.
Every year my parents would come to Shiloh to visit me. They offered sacrifice to Yahweh and my mother handcrafted me a new robe. During those visits, she would see me and recall God’s blessings on her life and testify with her head upright and with a strong voice. She would say Samuel I cried to the LORD with my voice and He heard me from His holy hill” (Ps. 3:4). Maybe somebody else here knows that God will step in right when you need Him the most.
Like some of you as you may have surmised, I grew up in and around the tabernacle or temple. Even at a young age, I served the LORD before Eli. I had to help Eli out a lot as a servant because Eli’s steps were getting shorter and his energy level was not what it use to be. He ate more than he could work off. He become large in size and his eyesight was slowly leaving him. It was a perfect fit, my mother brought me at the right time. So, to hear my name being called was a normal occurence, BUT THIS CALL WAS NOT A REGULAR CALL!
THE MISUNDERSTANDING
THE MISUNDERSTANDING
Let me not get ahead of myself. It was evening when the sun started setting in the west, Eli as part of his job as the high priest was to keep the lamp burning continuously. So as his normal routine, Eli would burn incense on the lamp which was situated outside the holies of holy. A little later were made our way to was sleeping in the room next to Eli and I heard my name called. It was close to morning but not quite I know this because it was close to the time when Eli would get up to burn incense on the lampstand.
So, Eli and I were sleep and I heard my name being called so I assumed it was Eli calling me. Now remember I was his servant. So I went to misunderstood (Samuel did not recognize the calling as from the LORD God.)
Samuel approached Eli twice thinking that he called him. HERE I AM FOR YOU CALLED ME
THIRD TIME ELI PERCEIVED THAT IT WAS THE LORD
SPEAK , LORD FOR YOUR SERVANT HEARS
There was a rarity of the Word of God. God was not raising up prophets to proclaim His Word.
Are people asking other people instead of asking God? night it was almost So on this particular morning, it was almost time to u pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to burn continually.” (Exodus 27:20)
I believe that God is continually seeking to get our attention. The same God that called Adam saying, Where are you? (Genesis 3:9). God called Abraham from heaven (Genesis 22:11). Yahweh called Moses from a burning bush and He is calling you right now!
ARE YOU LISTENING OR IGNORING HIS CALL?
PEOPLE
Instructions provided in answering God’s call (Eli instructed Samuel on what to say when he hears the call again )
Are saints guiding others in answering God’s call?
How do we answer the call of God?
THE MESSAGE
THE MESSAGE
The work of God is seen in Him engaging with His people. He communicated with them through prophets calling them to repent and warning them of the consequences of not repenting.
1 Sam 2:
Mismanagement
THE MAN OF GOD
1 Samuel 2:29 “Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?’”
But Eli honored with his lips but not with his actions
He did not trust, prayer, obedience, fidelity, living to his glory.
But rather Despised;
by forgetfulnesss, unbelief, self-will, pride, selfishness, disobedience, sin of every kind. 3. There is no other alternative. “For me or against me” (Exod. 32:26; Jer. 8:1; Matt. 6:24; 7:13, 14; 12:30).
The legal due of the priest was the right shoulder and the wave breast; but before he took them they were to be consecrated to God by the burning of the fat upon the altar (Lev. 3:5; 7:31, 34).
It is worth observing that the people seem well acquainted with the words of the Law, and are indignant because the priests, its proper guardians, do not abide literally by them. This contempt of the Law distressed their religious susceptibilites, while the cupidity of Eli’s sons offended their moral nature. And so men abhorred the offering of Jehovah. Lit. it is the minchah, the unbloody sacrifice, or meat offering, but it is put here for every kind of sacrificial offering.
THOSE WHO HONOR ME, I WILL HONOR
GOD WILL CUT OFF YOUR ARM
1 Samuel 2:35 “Then I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in My heart and in My mind. I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before My anointed forever.”
THE MANDATE
THE MANDATE
Priest and
Eli’s SONS WERE WICKED
THEY DID NOT KNOW THEY LORD.
I WOULD SUGGEST TO YOU BECAUSE WHEN HE CALLED THEY DID NOT ANSWER
THEY HARDENED THEIR NECK AND WERE DESTROYED
THE LORD CALLED AND THEY REFUSED HE STRETCHED OUT HIS HAND AND THEY DID NOT REGARD IT. PROV 1.24
THEY WOULD NOT RECEIVE
COUNSEL AND CORRECTION
THEY DESPISED HIS
REPRIMAND AND REBUKE
THEY DIED IN THEIR SINS NOT TRUSTING
BUT AS I GREW THE LORD WAS WITH ME
1 Samuel 3:19 “19 So Samuel grew, and the Lord was with ME and I DID NOT let none of HIS words fall to the ground.”
1 Samuel 3:21 “21 Then the Lord appeared again in Shiloh. For the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord.”
RAHAB WAS A POSTITUTE
PETER WAS A CURSER
PAUL WAS AN ABUSER
BUT THEY ANSWERED HIS CALL
MOSES WAS A MURDERER
DAVID WAS AN ADULTERER
WOMAN AT THE WELL WAS A FORNICATOR
BUT THEY ANSWERED HIS CALL
BRIAN WAS A LIAR
BUT I ANSWERED HIS CALL
MAYBE YOU’RE A PUSHER OR A PIMP
MAYBE YOU’RE A HATER OR A HOMOSEXUAL
MAYBE YOU’RE AN ADDICT OR AN ADULTERER
TODAY IF YOU WOULD HEAR HIS VOICE DON’T HARDEN YOUR HEARTS
ANSWER THE TEXT - GOD SAID MY WORD HAS GONE OUT . . .
ANSWER THE DOOR - BEHOLD I STAND AT THE DOOR AND KNOCK