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Scripture Reading: I Sam 3:1; Psalms 44:23
Many places in the Bible describe God as forgetful, ignorant, remote, deaf, and even asleep. Elijah in Mount Carmel made fun of the prophet of Baals when they couldn’t get their gods to bring down fire from heaven.
He mocked them and said,‘Cry aloud: for he (your gods) is talking (to someone else and not paying attention to you); or he is pursuing (busy with other things) or he is in a journey (he has gone somewhere), or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.’
Do you feel that God has become that way towards you? Psalm 44:23 says
Awake! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Arise! Do not cast us off forever. Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?’ Here is a cry for God to wake up.
During the time of the Maccabees, between the Old Testament and New Testaments, the enemies of Israel came to the forefront. They were giving a lot of troubles to Israel. Life was difficult. Times were bad. It was known as the 400 years of Dark Ages. As far as the past is concerned, it was the time that Israel suffered more than at any other time in their history. It was a period where they needed God the most but God seemed deaf and silent. It was during the Maccabean period that there was a group of priests called the ‘Wakers’. They were the ones who cried out to God saying, ‘Awake, why sleepest thou O Lord?’ During this time people felt like God was asleep. Maybe you were, at some point of your life, feeling like you had suffered more than any other time in your life. Maybe it was the time you needed God the most. And like the Maccabean, God seemed silent.
Again in the time of Judges, God seemed silent. Judges 17:6 says
In those days, there was no King in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
The same verse in Judges 17:6 was repeated in the last very of the book of Judges. It means that in the entire 300 years of the book of Judges, the true condition of the people during the time of the Judges was ‘In those days there was no King in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes’. This situation continued until the time of Samuel. In I Samuel 3:1 God is portrayed as speechless. It’s as if He’s unable or unwilling to talk: “in those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions”. There was no open vision. It means no one had a vision of God. The heaven was like brass. Their prayer would go up and bound back to them. Some writer described God during this period as “anthropomorphisms”. It expresses the experience of a person who feels the loneliness of abandonment in a silent world. They feel alone, abandoned with a quiet God.
What can we learn from this portion of scripture?
1 Everyone did what was right in his own eyes
After the Asian tsunami killed 225,000 people in 11 countries (December 26, 2004; a day after Christmas; just imagine a day after Christmas), a little Indonesian boy remarked on television,
We have left our traditional ways, and so God was angry with us. He abandoned us. I think I am alive today to tell our people this.
That little boy has given great spiritual insight. That’s was exactly the state of affairs in Israel. Things actually were getting worse and worse. As you progressed from the beginning of Judges to the last chapter, things turned from bad to worse. Some terrible crimes and disasters had occurred in the last book of Judges. And God was silent and there was the absence of Visions.
Judges 17:6 says
In those days, there was no King in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
This was written because there was a man by the name of Micah who had a house of gods; meaning there were many idols and images in the house. Micah introduced small household images or gods. It reminded me of my days before I became a Christian – outside my house, my dad once in a while would set up an altar for the gods; in the living hall there were many idols and in the kitchen there was also a kitchen gods. And I remember that I always found those gods looking fierce and angry. {sharethis}
Back to the story of Micah. Micah’s mother provided the silver, the material, the finance for the idols. Then Micah set aside a place in the house and provided a shrine for the image. He also made an ephod and teraphim to complete the furnishing of the shrine. He provided clothing for the statue. I believe he had a garden. At the garden there was a groove; a shrine with another image inside. To top it all, one of the household members became a priest of those gods in the house. That was the religion of the people of that day. That was what everybody was doing.
It sounds so familiar because I have seen this house repeated in many houses in Iloilo City. I have frequented many a Filipino house and whether it is a rich family or a poor family, it is the same. I see a house of gods; lot of idols and images. Then in one special corner, I see a shrine, well decorated and covered with glasses and this shrine is for an image, sometimes bigger than a human being. A member of that family will proudly tell me that one of his or her children is in the seminary. They pray, worship, and trust more in these gods than the true living Christ. In the Ten Commandment, God expressly prohibits the worship of idols, making of idols or images. We have all these and sometimes we wonder why God is silent? Well you trusted those gods more than the true and living God.
How about their lifestyles or principle in life? How about their moral and social life? Well, there was nobody to restrain them, or to punish them, therefore it accounts for the many evil things related to their lives; there was idolatry, there was concubines, or today, extramarital affairs, there was the extreme rigor and severity of the poor suffering under very rich people. There was great social disparity. The rich were very rich and the poor were very poor. Times magazine in one of the latest editions gave a very shocking revelation of the rich in the Philippines. They are called the “uncaring wealthy”. They don’t care about the poor in the Philippines. They try to make the poor happy now with the coming election. Give them a little bit of money. And when the election is over and they win, they’ll forget about the poor again.
When the Bible says ‘There was no king in those days’ it gives the idea of no leadership and thus disorders everywhere. The government is to administer rights and justice but because there was no such person, the welfare of the people suffered terribly. There was even no leadership in the family. The father has not been an example. Mum was forced to take over the family. There was no teaching or instruction on how to live life properly. I want you to picture the living conditions the people are in and the political social environment they come from which is so much similar to our days; political anarchy, houses with so many gods and shrine; extra-marital affairs, kerida, kerido, the poor suffering terribly.
They don’t know their God and they don’t even know how to turn to their God. There is no God in their lives at all. It was said that when things were bad during the Great Depression of 1929, when it first began, a brief editorial appeared in the Wall Street Journal which went something like this: What America needs today is not Government controls, industrial expansion, or a bumper corn crop; America needs to return to the day when grandpa took the team out of the field in the early afternoon on Wednesday in order to hitch them to the old spring wagon into which grandma put all of the children after she washed their faces shining clean; and they drove off to prayer meeting in the little white church at the crossroads underneath the oak trees, where everyone believed the Bible, trusted Christ and loved one another.
The Filipinos are not doing that today. We have no understanding. We don’t know the voice of God. We don’t even know how to return to God. We wait for the next President. Kalafi Moala said something very powerful. He said that the next President will not solve the problems of today. The next President is not the answer to your problem. The next President will most likely disappoint you again.
2 There was no word of God from the temple
How about the people that supposedly should have the Word of God? How about the Priest? I Samuel 2:12 says
Well, the two sons of the priest Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were “wicked men; they had no regard for the Lord.
They are so different from the people outside the temple or the church. They also did what was right in their own eyes. What did they do? They were greedy and they had sex with the women inside the temple. This is frightening for those of us who are parents and those who assume leadership in the church. The Priest should be the prophet. The Priest should have the Word of God. The Priest should have the open vision. The Priest should hear the voice of God and give the Word to the people. This pulpit should always bring forth the voice of God to the people. Instead, Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas ‘did not know God’. It more likely means they did not have regard for Him or that they never gave God a thought.
They were called sons of Belial. Belial means “people of mischief and wickedness”. Belial is the name of an idol and is the personification of “evil”. They lived life like the devil’s children. So God called them devil’s children. I don’t think I ever want my children to be called devil’s children.
Is your children devil’s children? Are they in church on Sunday? Are they in church today? Are they uncontrollable, full of vices and wild? They do not have regard for God and never give God a thought. They are wicked, immoral and do not know God. You may be a good person but if you do not discipline your children and allow them to have all manners of wickedness, then God is angry with you.
Is your children such that they have no knowledge of God; they deny him in their jobs and works; they have no love for God and have no fear of God? They brush off the yoke of the laws of God and are in all manners of wickedness.
So I want you to see the whole picture. Families’ houses are filled with many household gods; shrine that elevates an image, extra-marital affairs, children are devil’s children, having all manner of wickedness, the poor suffering terribly, great social disparity, political corruption and now the church, apostate.
3 People were not listening
People were not listening. Therefore God was not speaking. He was silent. Visions were rare. There is such a thing that the more you listen to God and obey God, the clearer and the faster you hear from God again. The lesser you listen to God and obey God, the farther and the more silent God becomes to you. Having left their traditional ways (the biblical ways), as the Indonesian boy put it, God was angry. It’s a chilling thought to imagine that God would leave us on our own. Perhaps His last, terrifying word to us might be,
I have answered your prayers and now I grant you the horrible freedom you have craved. Since you are so disinterested as not to listen, I will no longer speak. From now on, the only voices you will hear will be your own.
How do we know that the only voices we hear is our own and not God’s? If a pastor who wants to be a President and says that God told him to be President and did not come in, then I would say that he has all the while been listening to his own voice and it was never the voice of God who told him to run for the Presidency. If a Pastor says that He is the Son of God, equivalent to Jesus and the New Heaven and the New Earth are in Davao today, he is listening to his own voices and not the voice of God in the first place. Kalafi Moala said that if he is really the Son of God, then he should die and be resurrected because only the Son of God can die and be resurrected.
I Sam 3:1 says
And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision.’ This verse tells us that ‘the word of the Lord was precious.
That means it was scarce. God was not revealing already at this particular time. God had not spoken directly and audibly to anybody since the time of Moses and Joshua, his words became rare for 3 centuries of rule by the Judges. It is a very sad thing. But what the people of the World really need today is the voice of God. The world needs a word from the Lord in a dream or vision, directing, informing, instructing, or reproving. And this has been rare of late. There was terrible low religious ebb in those days. The scripture did not say that there was no religious activity in those days because the people went on with the business of their religion. Look at Sunday.
Literally millions of Filipino goes to church. Look at the Holy Week that just passed. I heard someone told me that in the past, the Holy Week procession was only carried out by the big Catholic Church in the Town but today, every barangay church wants to have their own procession. So it only means that people have become more religious. But they were not spiritual. We can be religious but not spiritual. A city can be very religious and yet has some of the worst moral and ethical problems at the same time. A spiritual person on the other hand, loves God and yet is very conscious of his weakness and sin and is willing to be guided and corrected by God. If there comes a day when you cannot be corrected anymore, then you are just religious but no more spiritual. The absence of the word of God is a sign of God’s judgment.
There is a story in Egypt about the early deserts fathers (the holy man) that emphasized the decisive link between voice of God and human attention, between God’s call and our response, between the Word of God and obedience. “Some brothers who had some secular friends with them went to see Abba Felix (the holy spiritual father) and they begged him to say a word to them. But the old man kept silence. After they had asked for a long time, the holy man said to them, ‘You wish to hear a word?’ They said, ‘Yes, abba.’ Then the old man said to them, ‘There are no more words nowadays. In the past, the brothers who used to consult the old men, did what was said to them and God showed the holy father what to speak to them. But now, since they want to hear without obeying, God has withdrawn the grace of the word from the holy father and they do not find anything for the holy father to say, because the brothers are no longer carrying God’s words out.’ Hearing this, the brothers groaned, saying, ‘Pray for us, abba.'”
4 God is looking for a man who will listen
Even though God seemed silent and everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes, there was no word from the temple, there was no open vision and the word of God was rare, God was actually preparing a man. A single person can make a difference. Samuel proved to be the exception in this story. Dedicated to the Lord by his mother Hannah at an early age, he “continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men” (1 Samuel 2:26).
Today God is looking for a man who is willing to link up with Him, so that God will pour out his favor, anointing him and putting unction upon this man. In the days of anarchy, idolatry, sins among the Priests and in the church, no open vision, no prophetic messages, God needs a man who is willing. Behind the scene before being thrown into prominence, the young child was growing in stature and in favor God and man. Samuel continued to minister at the tabernacle of the Lord Almighty.
The call of Samuel was personal and could happen in any ordinary day. It was face- to-face and private when no one else was around. Of course the reference that Samuel was lying in the temple near the ark of God is important. Samuel was of all the Israelites the closest to the Lord’s throne. In contrast to the silence that had fallen upon the land, God spoke to him three times as a little boy (Jewish tradition says he was 12 at the time), and he responded with his famous words, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” The historian Josephus says he was twelve years old. He was probably a teenager. Nobody was listening and God was silent to all. But God is just beginning to move again. In the Book of Number a man was not able to go to war until he was twenty. The Levites did not begin their service until they were twenty five years old and the priests began to serve at the age of thirty. When Israel turned back to wander in the wilderness because of unbelief, only those who were under twenty of age were allowed to live and go into the Promised Land.
I believe that God will bypass adults, leaders, pastors and go directly to youth who would hear His voice. Until today I believe God calls. And He by-passes age, culture, position to look for that man. It always begins with the feeling that God has initiated the call and that somehow it relates to God’s larger purpose for our lives. One would naturally expect an audible message from God to be given to the priest Eli and not to the teenager Samuel. Eli was old and more experienced and he held the proper position. But God’s chain of command is based on faith and obedience. His view of authority is not based on age or position in finding faithful followers. God may use unexpected channels, unexpected people. Therefore be prepared for the Lord to work at any place, at any time, and through anyone he chooses.
God wants us to be his mouthpiece to bring back the voice of God through a dream, a vision, to direct, inform, instruct, reprove and lead people back to Him. God can make a man a gospel-minister more precious than fine gold. God can raise up a man to be a prophet, where people can come for counsel, instruction, and direction in divine things. Today we have so many false prophets, who proclaim themselves prophets but we don’t have real prophets, In contrast to the priest Eli and his two degenerate sons who flaunted their sex exploitations in the place of worship (1 Samuel 2:22). By himself, Samuel ended the drought of divine silence in Israel, for “Samuel’s words came to all Israel” (1 Samuel 3:19, 21). The call of God is powerful. The power of God’s call on Samuel’s life is shown in the faithfulness of God’s presence with his ministry.
God did not leave Samuel alone to fulfill his calling by himself. Samuel did not need to get by on his wits or good looks or intelligence. As Samuel grew, God was with him. It also states that God let none of his words fall to the ground. What exactly does this mean? Obviously it refers to Samuel’s prophetic ministry. Whatever Samuel proclaimed as a word from the Lord, it came to pass. The sentence really means that Samuel listened and spoke as God spoke to him. He had the courage to be faithful to the message of God, no matter what. And because he did, God blessed his ministry and confirmed his prophecies. Samuel’s words were trustworthy because they were the Lord’s words. The famine of hearing the word of the Lord was over. No longer was the word rare or uncommon. The Lord continued to reveal himself to Samuel.
Years ago, the brokerage firm of E.F Hutton developed a series of successful television ads. The circumstances were always different, but the message was the same. In a crowded room, restaurant, or other location, a small group of people were busy talking about some financial investment. Generally one individual was not saying much, but in the course of the conversation that person was finally asked what he thought. The person always responded in every ad by saying the same thing, ‘Well, my broker is E.F Hutton, and E.E Hutton says’ Immediately the person stopped speaking and realized that all activity around them had stopped, everything had become silent, and all ears were stretched to catch the next words out of his mouth. In fact, everyone surrounding the speaker was straining to hear the latest financial tip or advice.
At this point, an announcer broke in and said, ‘When EF Hutton speaks, people listen. Of course the implication was clear. E.F button was so successful in the investment business that people would stop everything they were doing just to listen to what the broker had to say. I believe a truly anointed person like Samuel has the attention of the whole population of Israel. When Samuel says something, everybody stops because it is the voice of God that is speaking. Because God is the sustainer of life. He gave his only Son to die on the cross in order that we might have life. He gave us the Bible. He desires to guide us through this life. But God’s needs a mouth. And He wants you to be that mouthpiece of His.
If we want to stop God’s silence, let us stop doing things according to our own ways; let us clean up our lives; let us not hide behind the façade of our age and seniority and presume that God is still with us; let us start listening to God and be like Samuel- living close to the presence of God and being sensitive to the voice of God. Let us crave for the unction of the Holy Spirit and to grow in the favor with God and with men and allow not a single word of God to fall to the ground. When we have the posture of Samuel, God will speak again and the people and the nation around us will hear the voice of God. Isn’t this the will of God for all the born-again Christians – that we deliver the word of God with authority to the world that is dying and going astray?
End of sermon
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