HEROES OF THE FAITH
SAMUEL
DR. JIM DIXON
MARCH 4, 1984
1 SAMUEL 3:1-10
In 1890 Lord Kelvin, the British physicist, scientist, and mathematician, said that heavier-than-air flying machines were impossible. They violated laws of physics. Airplanes would never come to be on this Earth. In 1900 Lord Kelvin said that the x-ray machine was a hoax. It did not exist and it never would. In the year 1904, Lord Kelvin said that the radio was destined to fade from the Earth. It had no future. Unfortunately, it was Lord Kelvin’s reputation which had no future, as all of his predictions proved false.
In the year 1898, George Black, a medical doctor, said that the future would prove that tobacco was the key to nutrition and the source of vitality. He said that it increased the wind and the capacity of the lungs and that it would one day replace common food. Obviously, it is not easy to predict the future. In the year 1959, Newsweek magazine predicted that the sixties and the seventies would find Vietnam as a major tourist attraction. Life magazine once predicted that by the year 1980 the family helicopter would be just as common as the family automobile. How many of you came in helicopters this morning? When was the last time your son said, “Dad, can I borrow the chopper tonight?”
We laugh at silly predictions that never come true, and yet predictions were taken very seriously in biblical times. Prophets claimed to speak from God, and if their predictions did not come true, some prophets were stoned to death. Samuel was a prophet. He was many other things—a priest, a judge, an anointer of kings. But most of all, he was a prophet. He predicted the fall of Eli’s house and the death of Eli’s sons. He returned from the dead and predicted the demise of King Saul. All of his prophecies came true, for he was a prophet of God.
A prophet did many things. A prophet predicted the future. A prophet proclaimed God’s message to the present. A prophet pronounced God’s judgment upon the past. But most of all, the most important ministry and function of a prophet was simply listening to God. In fact, if a prophet didn’t hear the voice of God, then a prophet had absolutely nothing to say to this world. The most important point, therefore, in Samuel’s life was when he was in the temple at Shiloh 3,000 years ago, ministering to the Lord under Eli the priest, and he heard for the first time in his life the voice of God. And he began to listen to God and he came to that point in his life when he was able to say, “Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears.” In this respect, the Lord wants every one of us to be like Samuel. In this respect, He wants every one of us to be like the prophets—that we would hear God’s voice, that we would listen to His words, and that we would be able to say, “Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears.”
This morning, I’d like to share with you three very basic teachings relating to the subject of listening to God. My first teaching is this: if we would truly listen to God, then we must spend time in prayer. We must spend time every day in prayer. Thomas Alva Edison is regarded by many scientists as the greatest inventor of all history. He only had three months of formal education, but he changed the lives of millions of people through inventions such as the electric light and the phonograph. But what many people do not know concerning him is that he once tried to invent an apparatus that would enable people in this world to listen to Heaven. In an interview with Scientific American magazine in 1920, Edison said that spiritual things should be explored through scientific methods and through the use of a scientific apparatus.
He said that he could create an apparatus, a machine based on the principle of the valve, that would augment or amplify messages from the other world so that we could listen to them and hear them. Whatever Edison had in mind, it died with him in 1931. But we need not fret, for God has already established an apparatus through which we can listen to Heaven and to the King of Heaven. That apparatus is simply called prayer.
I sometimes wish that God would call me on the telephone when I needed advice and say, “Jim, here’s what I want you to do.” Or maybe send me a letter through the mail when I’m feeling down or appear on my television set. But God’s not chosen to communicate with us like that. He has chosen to communicate through prayer.
The Greek word for prayer is the word proseuchomai. The Greeks used this word to describe conversations with God, and conversations are bidirectional. We talk with God and God talks with us. Unfortunately, most Christians find that their prayer lives are monodirectional. We talk with God and we hope that He hears us, but we spend very little time letting God talk to us. We spend very little time listening, very little time getting away from the world and alone with God and simply being silent before Him that His Spirit might commune with our spirit.
John Joseph is an elder at a Christian Reformed church in California. He has one daughter and her name is Kyle. One day, John’s wife and daughter went on vacation to New York state and John couldn’t go because he had so much business. But he called his wife every night, and one night on the telephone John’s wife said, “Shall I put Kyle on the phone?” John said sure. So Kyle came to the phone. She said, “Daddy, we’re having such fun here in New York.” John said, “Kyle, I miss you and I love you,” but Kyle didn’t respond. She just kept right on talking. She says, “Daddy, we went to the fair today. We had the greatest time. I won two prizes.” John said, “Kyle, I love you,” but she didn’t respond. She just kept right on talking. When she was done, she handed the phone back to her mother. All of John Joseph’s conversations on the telephone with his daughter, Kyle, are like that because Kyle is deaf. She cannot hear. She can speak, but she cannot hear. Of course, John Joseph knows that, but he still likes to tell his daughter on the telephone that he loves her simply because he does.
There is a sense in which every person in this world is like Kyle. We have ears to hear and cannot hear. We are spiritually deaf. But the Bible says that when we become Christians, when we receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of life, God actually sends His Holy Spirit within us and the Spirit of God is able to commune with our spirit and we begin to hear the voice of God. Our hearing is restored. It is not restored completely as it was for Adam and Eve before sin entered the world or as it will be in the world to come, but in part God offers to restore our spiritual hearing. If every day we would find a place away from this busy world where we can go and be alone with God and talk not only to God but be silent before Him and let Him commune with our spirit, in those moments of silence God is able to tip the scales of our opinions for the purpose of making decisions. He is able to implant a thought, an idea, even a vision in our minds. He’s able in those moments of silence to change our attitudes so that we might become more and more like our Lord Jesus Christ. He’s able in those moments of stillness to convey a message of peace. He can convey comfort when we are feeling anxious. That is communication from Heaven, and is received only through prayer.
Secondly, if we would listen to God, we must spend time in the Word. We must spend time in the holy Scriptures. In1964, 20 years ago, I was a senior in high school and I went with my parents on a trip to Alaska. I took a high school friend of mine with me. His name was Dave Houk. We went up to Vancouver, British Columbia, and there we got aboard a freighter, a big ship that took us up the Canadian and Alaskan coast. My mom and dad, by their own choice, got a room at the other end of the ship from Dave and I. Dave and I were pretty much on our own and we could do whatever we wanted. That ship came to many ports along the coast—Prince Rupert, little villages, Bella Bella, Bella Coola, and Stewart. Most of those places the ship came to in the middle of the night, so Dave and I were sometimes up all night because we wanted to see those places.
Some afternoons, we were trying to catch up on our sleep. One afternoon at two o’clock, we were asleep in our cabin. Suddenly the ship’s siren just went off. We woke up and we were kind of startled. An announcement from the captain came over the loudspeaker that all passengers were to proceed to the deck area. We were panicked and kind of a little confused. We reached under our bunks and we grabbed our life preservers. We put them on and opened the door. We saw people filing down the hallway. We got in line with them and we followed them out onto the deck area where they were lining up in rows. We got in the front row. Suddenly, Dave and I realized that everyone there was looking at us. We couldn’t figure that out until we looked down and saw that we were both in our boxer shorts.
A member of the crew came up to us and said, “Gentlemen, what are you doing?” We explained to him that we heard the siren and we heard the announcement over the speaker and we were just in a hurry and we rushed out. He said, “Haven’t you read your passenger’s manual?” Of course we hadn’t. He said, “In the front page it says that there would be a practice drill at two o’clock this afternoon. Why didn’t you read that? You could have taken time to have dressed.” It was a very embarrassing moment.
But you know, the Bible tells us that, as Christians, we are on a great ship called the church of Jesus Christ, and as we move through this sea called life we have been given a passenger’s manual and that passenger’s manual is called the Bible, the Word of God. If we don’t spend time in it, if we don’t read it, if we don’t listen to it, then we’re going to find ourselves in a lot of embarrassing situations. They will be not so much embarrassing with respect to other people, but embarrassing with respect to God. He has given us the Bible and He expects us as Christians to listen to it. The Bible says, “All scripture is inspired of God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man or woman of God might be perfect and complete, equipped for every good work.
The sacred scriptures of the Buddhist is called the Tripitaka. It’s a word which means “three baskets.” The Tripitaka consists of the basket of discourses, the basket of discipline, and the basket of higher dharma. More than a hundred years ago, King Mindon of Burma decided to create the largest copy of the Tripitaka in the world today. So he took 50 expert masons and he had them engrave the entire Tripitaka on tablets of stone. It took them seven and a half years, and when they were done the book covered an area 13 acres in size. They engraved the Tripitaka on 279 tablets of stone and it became the largest book in the world. When they were done in 1868, King Mindon of Burma said that he had made the Tripitaka an eternal book, one that would exist as long as the world endures. Many Buddhist today say that that massive copy of the Tripitaka makes that book the greatest book in the world today.
But of course, we know that greatness is not determined by size. If it were, all any of us would have to do is gain weight. But the tragic truth is that God is silent on those 279 tablets of stone because God has chosen to reveal Himself uniquely through a book called the Bible, the Word of God. We are told that all scripture is theopneustos—God-breathed. When we come to the Bible, God breathes on us anew as Christians, and we hear His voice and He speaks to us if we would listen to it regularly. That is why David says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. For his delight is in the law the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by rivers of living water that brings forth its fruit in its season. Its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” If you would prosper, if you would be like a tree planted by rivers of living water, then you must spend time listening to the Word of God each day.
Well, thirdly and finally, if we would listen to God we must spend time in the classroom. I am sure that most of you in this room speak English. You probably began to speak English when you were around two years old. You learned it from your parents and from your siblings and from your peers, and in those early years you were able to understand something of the English language. You were able to receive communication from others to understand their voice. Nevertheless, when you became about five years of age, most of you went to public schools and you began to study English in the classroom. You did this so that you might understand it more fully, that you might use it more properly, that you might be able to hear it more clearly, and that you wouldn’t make mistakes in your use of it or your hearing of it.
Now, a similar truth relates to the Christian life. When we first accept Christ and we are born into His kingdom, in those early years we have some understanding of God’s language. We can understand something of His voice as we come to Him in prayer and as we study His Word, but if we would understand His communications more effectively we must begin to spend time studying in the classroom. That is why we have men’s and women’s Bible studies every Wednesday morning here at the church. That is why Bob teaches an adult education class every Sunday morning that we encourage everyone to go to. That is why we have a sermon in the midst of our worship service every Sunday morning, so that you might spend time in the classroom and learn to speak God’s language and understand God’s language more effectively. We do it so that you wouldn’t distort what He has communicated in the scriptures or what you receive in prayer.
It is a dangerous thing to distort the words of God. A few years ago in the city of Boulder, a man woke up one morning and he was late. He was in a hurry and late for work. He took a quick shower, went down, grabbed some cold cereal, went out to the garage, got in his Porsche, and decided to go to work. He turned on the ignition and the car wouldn’t start. He found out he’d left the lights on all night. The battery was dead. So he ran back in the house and he got his wife. He asked her to come downstairs and give him a push. He had pushed his Porsche out into the street so that she could come on up behind it with her car. His wife had never done this before and she said, “Well, what do I do?” He says, “Well, just bring the car up behind me and give me a push. Get it up to 30 and let me go.” Well, he got in his car and she got in her car, and as he sat in his car, suddenly he looked in his rear view mirror and he was panicked as he saw his wife’s car accelerating towards the rear of his car. She got it up to 30 and she let him go.
They both were injured with minor injuries. It was obviously a failure to communicate. She had not understood the meaning of his words. It is tragic but true, and it is equally tragic and equally true that millions of people in the world today do the same thing. Millions of Christians misunderstand the words of God. They distort them or give them a false meaning. It always results in disaster. The Bible says that when we twist the scriptures we do so to our own destruction. There are many Christians in the world today who believe that they can “name it and claim it” in prayer, that they can just tell God whatever they want Him to do and if they have enough fleshly confidence He has to do it. They become sovereign and God becomes their puppet, and they believe that because they’ve misunderstood God’s communication in the scriptures. They’ve not listened clearly.
There are Christians in the world today who believe all kinds of bizarre things, and most every one of these things comes from having gone to the Word of God and misunderstanding the meaning of some passage in the scriptures. That is why God asked us to spend time in the classroom. That is why the early church, as recorded in the Book of Acts, gathered regularly for the apostles’ teaching sessions. That is why the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus and he said, “He who descended is He who also ascended far above the heavens, that He might fill all things. His gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers, for the work of the ministry and for the equipping of the saints.” The Bible tells us to study to “show ourselves approved as workman who need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
So, God invites us, if we would hear Him clearly, if we would truly listen, to spend time in the classroom. A little over a month ago (and with this we’ll close) I received a strange phone call from a man who said he was the original owner of our dog, Beethoven, who is a little Dachshund. I’d never met this man and never talked to him. Barbara bought the little dog without me knowing it, and that’s the first time I talked to him. I thought it was strange that he would call, but he said he just wanted to know how the dog was doing. I thought that was strange because I barely cared myself. But he said he wanted to know if the dog was eating well and if the dog was making friends and influencing people. He told me, even as he had told Barbara when we first got the dog, “I just want you to know, it makes me feel awfully good to know that little Beethoven is in a Christian home.” And he said, “Jim, tell me, are there any problems?” And I said, “Frankly, there are.” I told him, “Beethoven doesn’t have a clue as to where he is supposed to go to the bathroom. We try to get him to go outside the house, but he goes whenever and wherever he wants. He climbs up on the furniture. We tell him to get down, but he goes up there anyway. We tell him to get down or to do something else. He doesn’t. He just looks at us. We tell him to come. He doesn’t come.”
This man says, “Well, Jim, here’s what you should do. Take some newspaper, put it by Beethoven where he sleeps at night, and get him to go on that. Every day or every few days, just move that newspaper a little closer to the door and eventually Beethoven will go outside.” I explained to him that we had tried that and our dog doesn’t like newspaper, and if I could get him to go on the newspaper I could get him to go outside. This man said, “Well, Jim, it really is frustrating when you can’t communicate with your dog.” Well, it is, and I’m sure that God sometimes feels like that when He thinks of us. It’s a frustration because He can’t communicate.
We are not dogs. We are infinitely more precious. God loves us infinitely more than any person in this world could ever love a dog. We are created in the image and the likeness of the living God. We are special, and yet God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. “As the heavens are higher than the Earth, so His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways than our ways.” And surely He must be frustrated when He tries to communicate the simplest things to us and it appears as though we do not hear Him and we do not listen.
He assures us as Christians that if we will do these three basic things—if we will spend time in prayer, get away from the world, find a place apart where we can be alone with God, and we will spend time in prayer so that we not only talk to God, but we let Him talk to us, and we are still before Him; if we will spend time in His Word and listen to it and obey it; and if we will spend time in the classroom so that we might hear His Word clearly and properly—He assures us that we will hear His voice.
I know that you have all heard these things before because they are very basic, but the Apostle Peter said, “I intend always to remind you of these things, though you know them and are firmly established in the truth which you have. But I think it right as long as I’m in this body to rouse you by way of reminder.” That has been the function of ministers in every generation: to rouse us by way of reminder. Time in prayer, time in the Word, and time in the classroom are crucial to help us hear God. Shall we pray?
Dear Father, it’s an incomprehensible privilege to be able to communicate with You, to pray and know that You hear us, that You hear our voices even now. Lord, thank You for the gift of eternal life, the privilege of entering Your family, of becoming Your children through faith in Your Son Jesus Christ. Lord, we confess that we are sinful. We sometimes ignore Your voice. Sometimes even when we hear it, we don’t obey it. And Lord, we know that sometimes You are surely frustrated with us. We pray that You would help us to be more faithful, that we would truly listen, and we would spend time in prayer and find a place apart from this world. I pray that we would spend time in Your Word and we would spend time in the classroom that You might teach us. We pray this, Lord Jesus, in Your great name. Amen.