Word of Salvation – April 2025
God’s ‘Prophetable’ Call
Sermon by Rev. John Zuidema on 1Samuel 3:1-21
Scripture readings: 1Samuel 3
Congregation, one of the concerns I have for our society and for the church is people’s lack of love for God’s word which generally results in lack of love for God and particularly what he has accomplished for us in Christ. We are more likely to develop a deeper knowledge and love for the Triune God when we love reading and hearing his Word.
That’s not to say we don’t have some knowledge of God apart from his word. God’s general revelation gives us the knowledge that He exists. Romans 1:20, makes it clear that, “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
However, God’s general revelation doesn’t tell us about the extent of God’s love and how he met our greatest need in Christ. For that we need his special revelation, namely his holy word! It’s God’s word that helps us to make sense of this world. Not only that he is the holy Creator and sustainer of all things, but his word tells us of his love for sinners who repent and believe in his Son (HC LD6, Q&A 19).
So, it is vital we develop a love for God’s inspired and infallible word. When Christians no longer read or delight to hear God’s word, then their understanding of God’s love to us in Christ will diminish with the result that the church will inevitably decline.
Scripture records, that every time God’s people forgot the Lord and rejected the word of the prophets who brought his word, things went pear shape for them. Alternatively, every time they recommitted themselves to God and his word, they again experienced the Lord’s blessing.
So, what a blessing it is to have a new Pastor installed this morning, who is particularly set aside to preach and teach us God’s word on a daily and weekly basis. It’s a blessing for there is a direct connection to experiencing the Lord’s blessing of joy and peace to the amount of time you spend hearing and reading God’s word.
Show me someone who has joy, rest and peace in the Lord, that person loves God’s word. Show me a person who has little peace, rest and joy, that person has little love for God or his word. Before the reformation in the 1500’s, many people were left in the dark about God’s word for only the priests had access to the word and then only in Latin.
In Calvin’s day, when Geneva came under the influence of the reformation, the motto of the church was, “After darkness, light.” When the reformation took hold and the printing press was invented, the Bible was translated into many languages and the word was read and preached in a way that people could understand. People came out of darkness into the marvellous light of God’s Son!
Congregation, it is a great privilege and blessing to have the word of God proclaimed regular in your midst and to witness the installation of a new preacher! We see the same blessing for God’s people in 1 Samuel 3. In the days of temple worship at Shiloh, God’s word was not often heard. Except for the man of God appearing in Ch 2v27ff, God had been quite for some time.
The reason was because the priesthood was morally and ethically bankrupt and Israel as a result were experiencing a measure of God’s wrath (1 Sam 2). When those responsible for bringing God’s word, deliberately reject the light of God’s word and presence, then God withdraws his blessing, and his people will inevitably experience walking in the darkness for a time.
In Amos 8:11-12, when Amos was speaking God’s word to the northern tribes, they rejected his message! And it is recorded that the people stagger from sea to sea, from north to east, searching for the word of God, but they couldn’t find it. It was part of God’s judgement for rejecting His word.
The good news of 1 Samuel 3 is that God is again breaking the silence and from verses 19 to the end, God was again speaking to Israel through the prophet Samuel. In the early verses of 1 Samuel 3, God calls Samuel to the work of bringing his word. The word ‘call’ in Hebrew occurs 11 times, from vs 4-10, so it is a key theme here.
And even in this calling process, God is gracious. Young Samuel is willing enough but seems a little slow to catch on. He keeps thinking it is Eli that is calling him. Three times he gets up and races over to him, and it was only when Eli said to him that the Lord was calling that Samuel understood. Samuel didn’t know the Lord was calling (v7), for the Lord had not revealed himself in this way to him before. This was breaking new ground for Samuel and God shows patience with Samuel.
Now we may wander, how does this section apply to us? We are not being called to receive direct revelation. True! Nor are we called to be prophets as Samuel was called to be a prophet. True. We don’t foretell, but forthtell. We have what God has said clearly revealed in his word and hence we go forth and tell people.
So, the best way to avoid making Samuel the hero of this story is to ask, “What is God doing here and how is he doing it and then why is he doing it?” 1 Samuel 3 is God’s story. God is gently and lovingly calling a young man into his special service so that the Lord’s people may profit from hearing the Word.
Similarly, through prayerful, consideration, using this fellowship of believers, God has also called a new pastor here so that we can profit from hearing God’s word from him! Of course, it is one thing being called, it is quite another to bring the message. Poor Samuel receives and accepts the call, and he is thrown in the deep end.
The Lord God is about to activate the threatened judgement against Eli’s house because he had not restrained the immoral and terrible behaviour of his two sons Hophni and Phinehas. Samuel is asked to bring a message of irreversible judgement! Fancy being a young man having to bear that message to a loved one.
Samuel dreaded to convey that message as v15 records, for he loved Eli as a father and Eli loved him as a son. Thankfully, Eli saved Samuel a great deal of trouble and threatened to place a curse on Samuel if he did not tell him exactly what he heard from the Lord. And so, Samuel holds nothing back, he tells him everything. No sooner called to be a prophet, Samuel finds out how heart-rending it can be.
That’s the problem with being a Pastor sometimes. We have been entrusted with God’s word, yet compassion moves us to recoil from speaking judgement until it is unavoidable, and truth is at stake. If a preacher only makes you feel good and never challenges you to change your life of sin, he’s probably a phony or at best, needs some correction.
Equally, if he never comforts you with the good news of forgiveness in Jesus Christ and only ever lays a guilt trip on you for all the terrible things you are not doing as a Christian, he’s probably a phony and doesn’t care for God’s people or at best has a very poor understanding of the gospel. For God’s word to be profitable, one needs a high regard for the truth of God’s word, for only then will he be able to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
Of course, it is not just the prophet Samuel who is in the spotlight here. God’s people also have a responsibility to respond. All of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, from the top of the country to the bottom, recognised that Samuel was a prophet of Yahweh, and they need to respond.
Well, when you read the rest of 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 &2 Kings, the Chronicles, the major and minor prophets, Scripture records that there were times when God’s people listened to the prophets and there were many times they didn’t. And when they didn’t the result was correction in the form of discipline, for God is jealous of his people’s love and that they obey and worship no other, nor rob him of his glory.
The Lord raised up the Assyrians who invaded and took over the northern tribes and 145 years later the Lord raised up the Babylonians who carried the southern tribes into exile. Eventually after seventy years they repented and God brought them back to the Promised Land and for a little while things went ok but then the rot set in again, they forgot the Lord.
And after 450 odd years of quiet, the Lord raised another prophet, his very own Son. But many in the leadership had no time for the prophet like Moses. In fact, Jesus told them that they had killed the prophets that the Lord God in his love had sent to them over the centuries! Jesus even taught them in the Parable of the Tenants in Mat 21, they killed the Son!
Jesus, on his way to the cross in Mat 23:37, cries out, “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how I have longed to gather you under my wings, but you were not willing!” Well, that was then, what about today? Heb 1:1-4 reminds us that today the last word has been spoken by his Son.
And this last word is all about the Father’s beloved Son and the way of salvation and that is what preachers must preach! That is your Pastor’s primary calling, amongst the many other things he needs to do. And as it was in 1 Samuel 3, and is today, it is a sign of God’s grace that we have His word available to us. Don’t treat that great blessing with contempt.
There is a danger that hearing the word of God is no longer taking priority in so many families. Try and arrange a mid-week or even Saturday thanksgiving service for God’s amazing provision and see how hard that is to arrange! There are so many pressures for families to be active with social activities, sporting schedules and other nifty programs, that to come to hear God’s word is seen as an imposition, leave alone once or twice on a normal Sunday. Thankfully, where God’s word takes priority in families and remains the heartbeat of their lives and activities, there is a rich blessing of the Lord and may it long continue, also here in this church where God’s people are gathered.
Now you might be thinking, what’s the problem? We have had the word of God faithfully proclaimed here and we regularly come to hear it. Praise God. But it is one thing hearing it, it’s quite another living it and applying it to one’s life. Isaiah 6:9 records that God’s people were ever hearing but never understanding. Jeremiah 7 records that people came proclaiming ‘this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’ thinking they were safe even though they were burning incense to the Baal and other gods!
Even hearing and understanding God’s word is a gift. The word written, proclaimed, and welcomed is a real blessing of God’s grace to his people. And so today we rejoice and give thanks with the installation of a new pastor. Hopefully he won’t be preaching in Latin, but in a way that will be engaging and can be readily understood and be a great encouragement as we seek to worship and walk in the Lord’s ways! So, may we be in prayer for our pastor and for each other and that we may have open ears and hearts for the good news of God’s word.
I come back to where I started. How is your love for God and his word proclaimed? Do you love hearing it and applying it to your life? Of course, you do and why wouldn’t you! In this word, God’s love is revealed in the giving of His Son as the Saviour of sinners. As the great high priest, he laid down his life for us at Calvary. We know He rose victoriously from the dead and now is King forever more! And we know his message is, “Believe in me and you will be saved and if you don’t believe you will not be saved but stand condemned already!”
And surprise, surprise, we need to keep hearing it for we are so prone to forget this good news. The world, our flesh, our sin is so good at gently squeezing God’s word out of our lives. May it not happen. Rather, let us as forth-tellers, winsomely speak to each other about the ultimate prophet, priest and King, so that people may be drawn to Jesus for forgiveness and eternal life, to the glory of God.
Fellow believers, pray for your pastor and his wife. Pray that the Lord will bless them and give you a deep desire to love God’s word as it comes from his lips to the glory praise of our Father in heaven. Amen.