I heard the Lord call my name

I Samuel 3

When I was in high school, Bill Cosby was a highly popular comedian. I bought all of his records and memorized many of his routines. What is amazing about Bill Cosby is that he was creative enough to be funny without resorting to sex or swearing. This is part of one of his routines about Noah.

There’s fella by the name of Noah
Built an ark
Everybody knows he built an ark.
You see
What Noah do? Well he built an ark
But very few people know about
The conversation that went on between the Lord and Noah
You see Noah was in his rec. room
Sawing away, he was making a few things for the home there.
He was a good carpenter

Whoompa, whoompa, whoompa, whoompa
Noah!
Somebody call?
Whoompa, whoompa, whoompa
Noah!
Who is that?
It’s the Lord, Noah
Right!

Where are ya?
What you want? I’ve been good.
I want you to build an Ark
Right!
What’s an Ark?
Get some wood build it
300 cubits by 80 cubits by 40 cubits
Right!
What’s a cubit?
Lets see a cubit…I used to know what a cubit was
Well don’t worry about that Noah
When you get that done
Go out into the world and
Collect all of the animals in the world by twos
Male and female, and put them into the ark
Right!
Who is this really?

When you stop to think about it, this is a pretty strange story. If God spoke to you and told you to build a large boat where there was not enough water to float it and then told you to go our collecting animals, two by two, wouldn’t you go to a doctor to see what was wrong with you? This is a story from Genesis, in the very beginning of the Bible, and although this story is a strange one, this was not the last time God called someone and gave them a task that was strange or difficult.

Samuel was a young boy, perhaps ten to twelve years old, when God called him. The account in I Samuel begins with this:
The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions.

There were long periods in the history of Israel when people did not hear the voice of God. It has not yet been four hundred years since Moulay Ismail built Meknes. Four hundred years is a long time and yet there were four hundred years in Egypt when Israel pleaded for help and did not hear God’s response. There were four hundred years without a prophet for Israel between Malachi, the last Old Testament prophet and John the Baptist.

Later on in I Samuel we will read of the spirit coming on Israel’s first king, Saul. This was an unusual event. It marked something very special because it was not normal for God to speak to people in this way. The Holy Spirit spoke to people and through people in specific circumstances for specific purposes. The presence of the Holy Spirit was an unusual, not a usual experience.

All this changed with Pentecost. At Pentecost, as recorded in the opening chapters of Acts, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the believers and we entered into what is called in the Bible, the Last Days. This was prophesied by Joel
(Joel 2 quoted in Acts 2:17)
In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.

What was a rare event in the days of Samuel is not rare today. What was not the normal experience of followers of God in the days of the Old Testament is now the normative experience of Christians.

The prophets longed to see the fulfillment of the word God gave to them but we are the ones privileged to be living in this time. We are no longer kept at a distance from God, waiting for someone to receive a word from him. The writer of Hebrews wrote that we do not come to the unapproachable God of  Mt. Sinai where Moses received the law with all its smoke and fire and lightening and thunder. We come to Mt. Zion
Hebrews 12
to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God.
We come to God who has made himself accessible through his son, Jesus. We come with confidence that we will be accepted, as the writer of Hebrews wrote in Hebrews 4:16
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

God made himself approachable with the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. And with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we are now able to hear from God directly. God speaks to us. God is continually speaking to us.

So when is the last time you heard from the Lord? If this is to be our normative experience, why is it that you and I have difficulty hearing him speak to us? We live in the last days when sons and daughters will prophesy, when young men will see visions and old men will dream dreams. The Holy Spirit is continually speaking to us so why do we have so much difficulty hearing God speak?

Let me present some lessons from the experience Samuel had with God in the temple.

Where do you have to be to hear the word of the Lord?
One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place.  3 The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was.

This is a very strange place to be sleeping. Samuel was sleeping in the Holy of Holies. In the Law of Moses only the priest could enter the Holy of Holies and that only once per year. The temple at Shiloh deviated quite a bit from what they were supposed to do. At any rate, Samuel was sleeping next to the ark of the covenant, what was understood to be the dwelling place of God on earth.

Unless Samuel had opened the ark and climbed inside, it would have been impossible for him to be any closer to God than he was.

So are we to learn from this that in order to hear the voice of God in our lives we need to find the most holy place and spend time there so we can hear God speak to us?

If you look to the call of Isaiah, it would seem to confirm this to be true. Isaiah was in the temple when he received a vision from God who then sent him out as his prophet.
Isaiah 6
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, was also in the temple when God spoke to him about his son who would be born.

All these seem to validate the point that we need to be close to God in the church or some other holy place in order to hear him speak to us. But God is not so limited.

Moses was out in the wilderness tending sheep when God called him and sent him to rescue Israel from their captivity in Egypt.

Saul was hiding among the baggage when he was called to be Israel’s king. David, Israel’s second king, was out watching the sheep when he was called down to meet Samuel and discover that he was to be Israel’s king.

Gideon was hiding in the winepress trying to thresh wheat when God spoke to him and called him to lead Israel. Peter was fishing when Jesus called him to come and follow him. Matthew was collecting taxes. Paul was en route to Damascus to persecute the followers of Jesus when Jesus appeared to him and gave him a new heart and a new mission, to take the gospel to the Gentiles.

It does not matter where you are, God will find you and he will speak to you and he will call you. You can be in church or out of church. You can be at work or resting on vacation. You can be sleeping at night or watching TV. God will speak to you and he will call you to do what he wants to be done. God wants us to work with him for his kingdom and he calls each of us to come help.

This brings me to the second lesson from Samuel which is that we must learn to hear the voice of God.
Then the LORD called Samuel.
Samuel answered, “Here I am.”  5 And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
Three times Samuel heard his name called and three times he ran to Eli to see what he wanted and then finally Eli realized what was happening and told Samuel
“Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
10 The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”
Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Three times God called Samuel and three times Samuel thought it must be Eli who was calling him. This is because, as the writer of this history explained,
Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD: The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.

Hearing the voice of God is like learning a new language. What appears to be gibberish is actually intelligent conversation. What appears to be mere background noise is actually communication.

God speaks to us. God speaks to us through his creation. God speaks to us most clearly through his son, Jesus. God speaks to us through the Scriptures. God speaks to us through our thoughts. God speaks to us through our experiences. God speaks to us through other people. In the same way that God is not limited by where we are, he is not limited by how he speaks to us.

Some people say that the only valid way to hear God is to let him speak from the Scriptures. I have heard God speak to me many times through the Scriptures but also through movies, non-religious books, walks in the forest, sitting by the sea, working on sermons. I have heard God speak in many different ways.

I have wanted to hear God speak to me directly, outside of Scripture. When Annie and I were first married, she still had one year of university left and I sometimes ate at the school cafeteria with some of her friends. One supper I ate with five or six of her classmates and the next day I heard that one of the women at the table had committed suicide that night. I carried in my wallet her obituary for many years and I prayed that God would speak to me about who needed to hear a word of life and encouragement. I have so much wanted to be God’s voice, God’s arms and legs to others.

But it has been very difficult for me to hear God’s voice directly, outside of Scripture.

Three years ago we were on vacation in Portugal and I was reading a book by Jack Deere entitled, Surprised by the Voice of God. It is a wonderful book, very stimulating, and in it he talks about learning to listen to God as learning a new language. It doesn’t happen all at once. It takes time. One has to practice to hear the voice of God.

My biggest problem in hearing the voice of God is that I have an active imagination. When a thought comes to my mind, I’m not sure whether is it my own thought or a thought God has placed in my mind. It makes a big difference.

While we were in Portugal, I was sitting in a beach chair by the sea with Annie. To protect us from the sun, we had our beach umbrella. This is not one of the new beach umbrellas you see that are made of plastic and collapse very easily. This is a beach umbrella we bought twenty years ago with a wooden staff with a point at the end and a strong canvass top. It is a very sturdy beach umbrella.

I had been praying for a couple weeks that I would hear the voice of God speaking to me and as I sat there reading a book (a history of the third crusade with Richard the Lionhearted and Saladin), a picture came to my mind of the umbrella being lifted up by the wind, sailing up in the air, turning over and then driving down on the beach, impaling someone with the wooden stake. I accepted this thought and considered taking down the umbrella but then dismissed the thought and continued reading. Within fifteen minutes, a gust of wind came along lifting up the umbrella. It sailed up in the air, did a couple flips and then came down on a German family, two parents and four kids from the age of 2 to 8. The wind picked it up again and it sailed out, landing in the ocean.

It all happened so fast that the umbrella was already in the ocean when I got up and ran to the family. The two year old had been bumped on the head and was fine, but the father had been cut on the eyelid and had to go to get stitches.

How was I to know this was God speaking to me and not just my imagination? If I had taken down the umbrella when the thought came to me, I would never have known that it was going to lift up and sail away, striking this family. And I would probably have thought I had unnecessarily taken down the umbrella.

I have tried since then to pay attention to thoughts that come to my mind and if it does not seem too bizarre, I pay attention to them. I am not yet at the place where I can hear God tell me to build an ark and be willing to do that.

But perhaps I am getting better. In the spring I was praying with Uchenna at the AMEP office where we meet Friday mornings to pray for the churches of Morocco and while we were praying, I looked out at the lawn and saw that there was space to build an addition to the building that would hold a couple hundred people.

For a while I have been frustrated by being sandwiched between the Korean and French congregations. We are so limited by time that if I feel led to have a time for prayer for people who want to respond to the sermon, I cannot do it because we have to be out of the church by 10:15. Our sense of community is hurt by the fact that we cannot gather very well after church and have to drive fifteen minutes across town to go to Sunday School. We have no place that we can call ours, where we can gather during the week for prayer or Bible study. I believe our current location is a hindrance to our spiritual development as a community of faith. The Korean church is frustrated that they have to begin church so early in the morning. Three services in one location on Sunday morning is too many.

So I am holding on to that picture I saw when we were praying. Is this from God? Is it right for us to move to another facility where we can have more freedom to worship and fellowship? I wait to see how things develop and will see if this thought is from God as events unfold.

Part of learning to hear God speak to us is to take time to listen. This past week I was sitting in the car, listening to Handel’s Messiah, the part that goes “And unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given”. My eyes were closed and then I was interrupted by a man and a woman carrying a young boy asking for money to help with his dialysis.

I have seen so many people, including the women who stand at our gate at the church Sunday mornings, who cheat and lie to get money. Children are rented for this reason since more people will give if a child is involved. I have seen the pitiful look turned on and off like a light switch. So I have a policy of not giving to beggars. There are enough needs that I know are genuine that I do not need to give to someone who may be cheating.

But this sermon was in my mind and after I said no to this couple, I wondered if I needed to begin to pray before saying no. What if God wants me to help someone and I do not take time to listen before saying no? I think it is appropriate to create strategies for giving but we need to be open for exceptions to our strategies.

We need to develop our ability to hear God. As we practice we will make mistakes, but I believe that as we persevere, we will get better at hearing his voice and maybe get good enough one day that we will hear God tell us to build an ark and we will know this is from him and we will have the faith to obey.

This takes time and lots of effort and lots of practice.

Just one more thought about this: One of the problems with Christians is that they experience God in a certain way and then write a book and preach sermons and go to conferences telling everyone how to hear the voice of God. But all they are doing is recounting how they heard God speak to them. Don’t be limited by how other people hear God speak to them. Learn the language God uses to speak to you. The goal is to hear God speak to you, not to hear like someone else hears.

I’m running out of time, but let me point out just a couple more lessons from this chapter. Notice that when God called Samuel, he called him by name. God knew Samuel by name. God who created the universe and all that is within and outside of the universe knows us by name.

When the disciples returned from their first mission trip, they were excited about all they had experienced, but Jesus told them (Luke 10:20)
“However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Jesus died for you and me by name and when we accept his gift of salvation, our name is written in the book of life.

We are not anonymous creatures in a sea of humanity.

Jesus taught in John 10
The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep.  3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
He calls his own sheep by name. Not, “Come sheep,” but individually by name.

When Moses asked God for a sign, God responded:
“I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

Jesus called to a tax collector up in a tree trying to catch a glimpse of him,
“Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”

Jesus called to a Pharisee on a trip to Damascus with the mission of persecuting Christians,
“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

God knows your name. He does not call out, “Any volunteers? Take one step forward. Yes, you. What’s your name?”

He calls out and says, “Jack, I want you to go to Morocco.”

God knows your name and he knows everything about you. He knows what you are capable of doing and he knows why you might be fearful of doing something. God knows you through and through and when he calls you he calls you to do something he knows you will be capable of doing well and something that he knows will be good for you to do.

When you hear God speak to you about what he wants you to do, have confidence that because he knows you and loves you, your obedience to his direction or call will be good for you.

Take warning from the example of Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli. God called them. God had something for them to do but they chose to do evil. They chose not to be the blessing to others God wanted them to be and they chose not to be blessed by God by being obedient to him.

And so God made other arrangements. He answered the prayer of Hannah to have a son. In God’s incredibly complex and creative orchestration, she prayed a prayer for a son with a vow that she would give the son back to God. She prayed year by year but God waited until she made her vow and at the right time Samuel was born and came to the temple to be nurtured by Eli and some unknown others who encouraged him to follow God.

Hophni and Phinehas said no to the call of God and so Samuel was the one who was blessed by his obedience to God.

If you reject the call of God, if you do not take the time to listen and hear the call of God, you will be the loser. God will still accomplish his purposes but you will be left on the sidelines. You will not gain the privilege of working alongside God in his work for the kingdom and the day will come when you will deeply regret that you did not obey God and do what he asked you to do.

God is not limited by where we are to speak to us. We need to learn the particular language God uses to speak to us. We need to take time to listen to God and allow him to speak to us. Finally, hear this word:
The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground.

This is a wonderful conclusion to this chapter. It is not Samuel who made sure his words did not fall to the ground. It is the Lord who worked to make sure none of Samuel’s words fell to the ground. Samuel was obedient to God’s call and had the privilege of working with God who made sure Samuel’s obedience bore fruit.

God is speaking to you. God is calling to you, wanting you to help him in building his kingdom. Are you hearing him speak to you?

Take time to listen. Make an effort to learn the language God speaks to you. Don’t be dismayed if you make mistakes. Keep on practicing. There is a way God created you to hear him. Learn what that is. Don’t be disturbed that you don’t hear God the way others do. Learn how it is God wants to speak to you.

When God speaks to you, be obedient. Don’t turn away from God’s direction in your life and God will work to make sure none of your words fall to the ground.

Listen to God. Learn to listen to God. Be obedient when he speaks to you, when he gives you instructions. Learn, listen and obey or you will be the loser.