17 Jan 1/19/20 1 Samuel 3:1-10 “The Soft, Gentle Voice”
1/19/20 1 Samuel 3:1-10 “The Soft, Gentle Voice”
Today’s Scripture is very well known and you have probably read it and heard it many times. I have a special Bible that I read every year. I have read this book for many years. The passages become very familiar. But I still read it. One of the reasons for this is that many times I have been reading through very familiar verses, like the one today, and suddenly something jumps out at me that I have never seen before. This is the beauty of reading the Scriptures. I am sure that God will continue to open new things to me each time I read the Bible. God will do the same thing for you also as you read His word daily. As we take a look at this passage today, let’s see if we can dig out something new.
Nate Barbour tells the story from long, long ago. It was before cell phones if you can imagine that. It was back in the days when telegraph was the fastest method of communication. A man went and applied for the job of Morse Code operator. Morse Code was the method that was used to communicate on the telegraph. It was a series of dots and dashes, with each series representing a letter. The letter A would be .- the letter b -… the letter c -.-. and so on. In an old time telegraph office, these dots and dashes could be heard. Anyway, this man went to this office to apply for the job and he had to register with the receptionist. Then he was instructed to sit down and wait until he was summoned.
So the young man did this. He went and sat down with seven other applicants. After a few minutes he got up and entered the inner office. The other applicants were wondering what was going on here. They were kind of upset. After a few minutes the employer came out with the young man and said to the other applicants, “Gentlemen, thank you for coming but the job has just been filled.”
The group couldn’t understand what had happened. After all they never even got a chance for an interview. They started to tell the employer that this just wasn’t fair. The employer replied, “I’m sorry, but all the time you have been sitting here, the telegraph has been ticking out the following message in Morse Code; ‘If you understand this message, then come right in. The job is yours.’ None of you heard it or understood it. This young man did and the job is his.”
Wow! What a way to screen applicants. Today we are looking at how Samuel heard and listened to God. We are also going to look at our own world where we have so much clutter and clatter that it is hard for us to listen and hear when God speaks to us.
As we begin in the 1st verse, we find “In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.” Evidently, God wasn’t saying too much in those days or was He? If we look a little at Eli, we may see the problem. Eli was the high priest. He probably had been pretty good at this for a long time. That is, until his sons grew up and became wicked priests. They were evil and their father, Eli, turned and looked the other way and allowed them to get away with doing evil things. This brought the wrath of God down upon Eli and his family. They would be destroyed. I would like to set the story straight here. They would be destroyed unless they changed their ways. This is the way that God works, even in the Old Testament.
So it probably wasn’t that God wasn’t talking to them. It was more like they were being so evil that they couldn’t hear God’s voice. And it wasn’t just Eli who couldn’t hear the voice of God anymore. It was the whole nation. Eli was the spiritual leader of the Jews. When he failed to believe and follow God, then the whole country did the same. It was part of the cycle we have seen them go through.
And it is the same way with us today. If we are going to listen to God when he speaks, then we have to learn to tune in. What I mean by this is that we are constantly being distracted. I don’t know how many times I have heard people say that I don’t have time to pray daily. People have children to run from here to there. People have businesses to run. People have meetings to attend. People have vacations that have to take priority. You have heard me say this before. It is not that you don’t have time to talk to God. It is more and more evident that you cannot afford not to talk to God.
The next thing we have to do as we try to listen to God is to be ready to listen. I have often wished that I could still play basketball. But in order to do so, I would have to do some serious training. It has been almost 50 years since I last played the game. I would have to learn how to dribble again. I would have to learn how to shoot again. I would have to learn how to pass again. And if I did all of these things I would still have to learn how to run again if that is indeed possible. And still, if I did all of these things, I would have to find 4 other people that would want to play with me and practice with them. It would be a long process to get ready to play basketball, especially at my age.
The same thing is true of getting ready to listen to God. We already talked about getting rid of our distractions. We also need to train ourselves to listen. We do this by reading the Bible. We read and reread so that we can get a feel for who God is. God isn’t just someone who does miracles. God is first and foremost love. With this love comes the forgiveness. We need to know these basics so that we know enough to ask for the right things.
We also need the fellowship of others. I would guess that you all know someone who tells you that they can only get in touch with God when they are out in nature. Or they might say that they only get in touch with God at home. Well, these people are only partially right. We also need each other. We need to be reinforced by coming to worship regularly. We often times do this so that we can help each other. We may not always need someone, but I would guess that there is someone listening today that really needs your help or fellowship. This help could be in the form of being nice to someone who has had a bad week. It may be a hug or a hand shake. It may be a smile. You never know who needs you.
You need to be active in some sort of Bible study. You need to be reading His Word and trying to understand it. You need to be applying it in every, every situation of your life. You need to be talking Scripture to each other. By doing these things, you will soon have familiar passages jumping out at you with new meanings. These new meanings are when God talking to you.
As I just mentioned, you need to be coming to church on a weekly basis. This might be a new concept to some people, but it is necessary. You need to take time out every week to worship with others. And if you can’t do that then you need something like this broadcast. As I said, we need you. If you are too busy, then I suggest you reevaluate your time. This is the same as with daily devotions. I try to bring Scripture to you every week. I try to unfold it so that it may have a new meaning to someone listening. I know that some of you have told me what a good preacher I have become. But I don’t think that is true. I would rather think that you have just become good listeners. I thank you for the compliments but most of it has to come back to you.
So far we have decided to get rid of our distractions and we have prepared our hearts to listen. Now all we have left is the actual listening. How do we listen to God? One of the problems that we have today and they had in the day of Samuel is that we/they don’t know what the voice of God sounds like anymore. Eli had found out the hard way that the farther you went from God, the harder it was to hear God’s voice. His sons were also priests and they did terrible things because of the power they had. And Eli had let them do this. He had gotten himself so out of tune with God that he couldn’t bring himself to come back. He knew that he and his family were doomed but still did nothing. We might try to make excuses for this by saying that he was too old or that maybe he couldn’t control his sons. But these were just excuses.
We have this problem today. Our country is so far away from Jesus that we cannot hear him tell us to love our neighbor. We think we can only love our neighbor if we can make a few dollars from whatever we do. We can only love our neighbors if it is fair. We can only love our neighbors if they love us first. It is easy to love someone who loves you first. It is hard to love an enemy and that is what we are supposed to be doing. Jesus loves all the people of the world not just some of them. He loves our enemies as well as our friends. This is a difficult concept for us but hopefully you have learned to do hard things.
We also have this problem as individuals. We are unable to hear Jesus because we feel that He would never speak to a lowly person like me. I would like to say that with Jesus there are no lowly people. Also we can’t hear Him because of all the bad things that we are doing. Jesus wants to talk to you no matter what you are doing. He loves the sinners and we are all sinners. We often disguise our not wanting to hear God by being as busy as possible. You young people especially, get in the habit of daily talking and walking with Jesus. It will be the best thing that you ever do. It will give you great personal and professional growth.
And finally, we have the people who just plain don’t want to talk to or hear from Jesus. There are millions of people in this country who have hard hearts. For some reason they turn their backs to God. Maybe they have had a tough life. Maybe they think that they are too smart for religion. Maybe they have been seduced by the religion of science. No matter what their reason, no matter how mean they are to us and others, we are to present Jesus to them as their Savior also. We have to keep planting the seed of salvation and hopefully they will see this before it is too late. And there will be a time when it is too late.
So how do we hear Jesus talking to us? Well, He may talk to us in a storm. He may be talking to us in the wind. But most of the time He will be talking to us in the calm. It is in this calm that Jesus presents that small voice. This is why we have to calm our busy lives. This is why we need to slow down a little bit. This is why we need to be in daily devotions and daily prayers.
These are the times when you hear that quiet little voice in the back of your minds telling you something. These are the times when you suddenly get an idea to do something. These are the little ways that God is telling you to go and serve the poor or start tithing or love someone who is unlovable. God loves to talk to you and you just need to learn how to listen. And of course you also have to act on what He is saying.
Nate Barbour tells another wonderful story to illustrate this. He was walking with a Native American friend in New York City during the noon rush near Times Square. There were all kinds of noises around like the sound of cars, horns, and the general din of people. Suddenly his friend stopped and said, “I hear a cricket.” Nate said that he was crazy to think that he could hear a cricket in all this noise. The Native American said he was sure and he listened carefully for a moment. Then he walked over to a big cement planter with a shrub in it and looked beneath the branches. Sure enough, there was a cricket.
Nate thought that this was incredible and that his friend had super hearing. The Native American said no, he didn’t. He said that his ears were no different than anyone else’s. He just listened for different things. Nate didn’t think that this was possible. So his friend pulled out a few coins from his pocket and dropped them on the sidewalk. Almost instantly a midst all that noise, people stopped to see if it was their coins on the ground. “See,” said his friend. “It all depends on what you are listening for.”
Today we have taken a look at several factors that come into play for listening. I would like each person listening today to check themselves to see if you are listening to the sound of the coins hitting the street or the sound of Jesus calling your name. Try to learn and train yourself to hear this wonderful, soft voice. Jesus loves you so much that he calls out your name. That’s right, your name. He would like to give you all that He has. All we have to do is answer. Answer Him and let the love flow. Thank you Jesus for first loving us. Let’s pray.
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