THE LORD CALLS SAMUEL
LESSON FOR THE JUNIOR CLASSES
STUDY SCRIPTURE:
1 SAMUEL 3:8-20
Key Verse
“And Eli said to Samuel, “Go lie down, and it shall be if He calls you, that you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening”. So Samuel went and lay down in his place”.
1 Samuel 3:9
INTRODUCTION.
God has a very involved and complicated job to do in managing the affairs of the world given the amount of people that God has compassion and mercy on because of their sins. God does all of these marvellous jobs while Satan employs every trick he knows to lead the people away from God and into destruction. God could have solved everything that sin caused but He wants to give every human being the choice and the opportunity to hear His instructions and to decide for themselves whether or not they want to go along with the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Men are in sin but God is speaking to all of them and He enables them to come to Him.
When human beings sinned and did everything that was wrong even after the Great Flood, God called Abraham and established his descendants to be the people that would carry the message of God’s character and mercy and His salvation to the rest of the world. But they failed in this task. The Book of Judges gives us an insight into what happened to them when they went into the land of Canaan and the mistakes they made in getting into close relationships with the other pagans in the land and following their way of idolatry. They disobeyed God over and over again. They did what was right in their own eyes and that was a disaster.
So God in His wisdom decided to deal with the corruption in the religious institution of the priesthood, and the corruption in the Tabernacle at Shiloh, the place of worship where the Ark of the covenant was, by opening the womb of a godly woman named Hannah who was childless. When God heard her prayers and did that she promised God that if God gave her a son she would dedicate the son to the work of God. She did have the son named Sam Samuel and she did take him to live with the High Priest Eli in the Tabernacle at Shiloh.
But Eli was a very weak and indecisive High Priest who did not fully appreciate the ways of God. He allowed his sons who were priests to steal from the sacrifices and engage in forbidden relationships with the women who came to The tabernacle to worship God. That was a big scandal. All the people knew of these sins and lost respect for Eli and his sons and his family.
God therefore decided to bring judgment on Eli and his evil sons who blaspheme God by their actions.
God solved the problem of the growing and serious level of iniquity among the people and the religious leadership by calling on Samuel one night to introduce Himself to Samuel even when he was very young and still very inexperienced. Remember that Samuel’s mom had given him to God and dedicated him to the service of God as she had promised when she prayed to God for a son. Samuel’s job while he lived at the tabernacle with Eli seemed to have been to look after the lamps in the Tabernacle. This was a very important job for the lights of the Tabernacle should never be allowed to go out according to the commandment of God.
But when Samuel heard the voice of God calling him he thought that it was Eli the High Priest that was calling him and he went to Eli in response. Eli told him that he did not call him and he should go back to bed. This happened two more times and then Eli realized that it was God that was calling to Samuel and he told Samuel that when he heard the voice on the third time he should simply say, “Speak Lord for your servant is listening’.
Samuel was obedient to Eli’s instructions and when the voice of God called to him he said in response exactly the way that Eli told him to answer and God began to tell him that he Eli and his sons were misbehaving terribly, dishonouring God, and doing what God had instructedthem not to do despite His previous warnings.
The next morning Eli demanded that Samuel tell him what God had said to him for Eli knew that God was now speaking directly to Samuel and God did not waste any more time warnings Eli to behave himself properly and to discipline his sons who were doing wicked things in the Tabernacle. Samuel told Eli everything that God had told him about what He intended to do with Eli,, his son and his family. He made Eli understand that God intended to destroy Eli, his son, and his entire family in punishment for what they had done. But sadly Eli and his sons did not change their behaviour.
Samuel therefore was now established as a prophet of God. The people in the nation knew that and everything Samuel told them they accepted as true. They all knew that God intended to get rid of Eli and his family from their position, and they accepted that Samuel would now be the true Judge and leader in the nation of Israel for it was he that would bring about the changes necessary to stop the corruption in the nation.
The call of Samuel is therefore a very important event in the history of the people of Israel. God had opened the womb of his mother Hannah so that she would bear children after a long time of her pain and suffering at being childless. She had cried out to God and told God that she had nothing to offer Him except the child that God could give her if He so wished.
This is a great example for us for we must go to God when we have difficulty understanding that whatever we have to offer God is not sufficient to get Him to be merciful and kind to us. God will be merciful and kind if we come to Him honestly and humbly and ask Him for help. God who is loving and kind and righteous in everything that He does will always do what is best for us for He knows what is best for us.
It was Samuel that led the nation into the way of God, and then anointed the two kings that would be raised up by God. The first king was Saul and when he did not do a good job God had Samuel anoint David as king. David was the one who wrote most of the Psalms and David was regarded as the greatest king and leader in the nation of Israel.
So we know that God rules the world and everything that happens in it and we know that no matter what difficulties we face we have to go to God humbly and ask Him to correct the situation in our lives and in the lives of our nation. Will always listen to us and do what is absolutely the best.
Remember therefore that God takes the initiative and does what has to be done to correct a bad situation and whatever difficulties are in our lives and in our nation. God does not wait on us and or prayers will be heard if these prayers are in the will of God. We therefore can count on God to always do what is best and so we should trust Him.