And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli.
The child prophet
This white flower blossomed on a dunghill. The continuous growth of a character, from a child serving God, and to old age walking in the same path, is the great lesson which the story of Samuel teaches us. “The child is father of the man,” and all his long days are “bound each to each by” true religion. There are two types of experience among God’s greatest servants. Paul, made an apostle from a persecutor, heads the one class. Timothy in the New Testament and Samuel in the Old represent the other. An Augustine or a Bunyan is made the more earnest, humble, and whole-hearted by the remembrance of a wasted youth and of God’s arresting mercy. But there are a serenity and continuity about a life which has grown up in the fear of God that have their own charm and blessing. It is well to have “much transgression” forgiven, but it may be better to have always been “innocent” and ignorant of it. Samuel’s peaceful service is contrasted, in the second half of the first verse, with the sad cessation of Divine revelation in that dreary time of national laxity. A demoralised priesthood, an alienated people, a silent God,--these are the outstanding features of the period, when this fair life of continuous worship unfolded itself. This flower grew in a desert.
What Samuel’s call resembles in modern times
The call of Samuel was not a call to become a servant of God,--that call Samuel had received when he was first brought to the tabernacle, and there solemnly dedicated to God’s service,--but to be a prophet of God, and a great reformer of the Church and nation. Moreover, in bad times of the Church, and in evil days, whatever shape the evil takes, whether it shows itself in the form of profligacy and a relaxation of wholesome discipline, or in wide-spread superstition, or in doubt and unbelief, Almighty God even now-a-days raises up men who are fitted to grapple with the evil, and to set right (with His gracious assistance) the things that are wrong This is the way in which all great changes for good have been made in the world--they have been all brought about by one or two strong characters, suited by God’s Providence to the times in which they lived, who have been vividly impressed with the sad state of things around them, and have resolved, it may be very early in life, to devote their whole time and energy to mending it. But now observe what are the conditions of such a thing happening. Little Samuel, when the call of God reached him at the age of twelve was found not doing anything remarkable or extraordinary, but engaged in the ordinary commonplace duties of his station. It is wonderful how many cases there are in the Bible of persons called to be or to do something great, when they were engaged in doing the common everyday duties of their station. Gideon, Moses, David, Elisha. What do these and several other instances of the same sort teach, but that in order to be called by God to something good and great, people need not travel out of the high-road of their commonplace everyday occupations, but rather should be found busied in these occupations? (Dean Goulburn.)
A reformation beginning in the soul of a child
In the days when the High Priest Eli was judge of Israel, there appeared in the sanctuary of Shiloh a wonderful child: his name was Samuel. It was a dark and stormy time; there were fears within and fightings without. Israel was climbing a steep hill--arduously, painfully. Her progress was slow; she was alternately worsted and victorious. And the struggle was more arduous from the fact that there was no prophecy. It was an age of materialism. The hands of Moses were no longer uplifted on the mountain; the eyes of Moses no longer gazed on a promised glory. Religion had become a form; its spirit had fled. There were few remains left of that heroic time when Joshua had fought for God, and Deborah had sung for God. The nation had lost its poetry, and had lost its faith, these had to be rekindled anew at the lamp of heaven. Where was the new kindling to begin? Where was the Divine spirit to touch the world once more? In the heart of the sage? No. In the breast of the old man? No. In the leaders of the Jewish armies? No. It was to begin in the soul of a little child. Out of the mouth of a babe in knowledge, God was to ordain strength. (George Matheson, D. D.)
The child prophet no miracle
Was he a miracle--this little Samuel? No--in the view characteristic of the Bible he is the real and normal aspect of humanity. So normal is he that Christ says we must all return to his state before we can become seers. What, think you, does Jesus mean when He declares that we can only realise the beauty of the Kingdom through the eyes of a little child? Is it not simply this, that to see the beauty of anything we require a first eye? Take the Bible itself. To see the beauties of the Bible, one would require to say to us what the prophet said to Hezekiah, “Let the shadow go back ten degrees.” We should need to be transported back into life’s morning, to divest ourselves of all preconceived opinions, to imagine that we were reading the record for the first time. That is precisely the standpoint which Christianity promises to create. It professes to make old things new, in other words, to let us see the old things as they looked when they were new, and so to give us a true sense of their power and beauty. What is this but to recreate in us the life of Samuel l What is this but to say that the true seer must ever be a child, that, however grownup he be, it is by the survival of his childhood that he sees the Kingdom of God. Little Samuel is no miracle. He reveals the normal law of faith. (George Matheson, D. D.)
And the Word of the Lord was precious in those days.
The Word of the Lord precious
From Moses to Samuel, a period of several hundred years, there was no prophet regularly appointed; particular revelations were made to individuals; but there was no acknowledged prophet. The natural consequence was, that such intimations of the Divine will, as were then given, made a deeper impression: they were more highly valued and more eagerly sought for, than when the gift of prophecy, in after ages, became more common. Such is the perverseness of man; blessings of every description are estimated, not according to their excellence, but their rarity; not according to the ease, but the difficulty, with which they are to be obtained. And further, when in possession of a blessing, we are often utterly insensible of its value; we abuse it in thoughtless excess, and are ready to squander it away; but the moment it is departed, we discover our blindness and folly. Meat and drink and raiment, the air we breathe, the sun and the shower, excite no spirit of gratitude, and by many are scarcely received and remembered as blessings; but in the days of famine and pestilence, amidst the warfare and desolation of raging element, these benefits and mercies are painfully acknowledged, and ardently desired. And thus it is of domestic happiness and comfort: the value of home is frequently not appreciated until it is forsaken and lost; the worth of a friend is sometimes but lightly considered, till he “goes hence and is no more sees.” These observations are also illustrative of the feeling and conduct of men, in regard to their spiritual privileges and blessings. We are apt to express a wonder at the obstinate indifference of the people of Israel to their religious advantages and instructions; we are astonished, that they could forget their miraculous deliverances by the hand of Moses, and the manifold revelations vouchsafed through him for their knowledge and guidance: yet in truth, the history of Israel is but too faithful a picture of the people of God in other times and other countries; by no means excluding our own. Before the age of printing, when the copies of the sacred word were comparatively few, the Christian, who was so happy as to possess one, commonly regarded it as a treasure. The value set upon the word of God, its preciousness in the heart of man, is not proportioned to the frequency and the fulness of its communication. It is in almost every dwelling, but not in every dwelling esteemed and loved. The Bible is grievously neglected both by rich and poor. From this lamentable neglect of the word of God, we may readily account for the want of religious principle, for the decay of religious character, for the overspreading of corruption and vice, so notorious in the Christian world. Let us suppose that it should please God, for the heedlessness of this nation, to deprive us of the privilege and blessing of the Bible; and to declare, that the neglected ministry of His word should be continued no longer: we should undoubtedly regard this as the direst calamity which could possibly befall us. Then let us be consistent; and whilst we do enjoy this invaluable favour of heaven, let it be cherished and improved. Let the Gospel, instead of being less precious to us, on account of its universal publication, and its facility of attainment, be therefore prized the more. (J. Slade, M. A.)
The preciousness of the word of the Lord in the day of evil
I. The Word of the Lord--To this high honour the Bible professes to aspire: it claims to be nothing less than the word of the Lord What does the Christian believe, compared with the man who believes that the Scriptures are a cunningly-devised fable? It is to him we plainly apply the exclamation, “O man, great is thy faith.” We indeed believe difficulties; but he believes absurdities: we believe mysteries; but he swallows absolute impossibilities. O Christian, your faith does not stand in the wisdom of man but in the word of God: yet the wisdom of man has always been on your side. Take up your Bible now, and examine it internally--is it not worthy of God? Upon the same principle that when I survey the works of creation I exclaim, “This is the finger of God;” so when I peruse the Scriptures, I feel the impress of the Divine agency: I am perfectly sure, that whoever was the author of the Book, he was a holy being, he was a wise being he was a benevolent being; I am sure he knew me perfectly, and was concerned for my welfare
II. Its preciousness.--“Precious” means valuable; something of great worth and importance. You will observe the preciousness of a thing is very distinguishable from the truth of it, in the former argument. Nothing can indeed be valuable and important that is not true; but a thing may be true without being valuable and important. But here both these are conjoined--the veracity and the excellency. This may be inferred, not only from the Author, but the design. What is the design now of the word of God, but the restoration of man from all the effects of moral evil, and placing him in a condition superior to that in which he was originally created? The most precious book in the world to me ought to be that which contains “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord:” and this volume does contain it. How precious is it to have a standard of doctrine with regard to our belief; so that if we feel perplexities we may call in the judgment of God the Father Himself. How satisfactory is it to have a rule of duty with regard to conduct. How wretched we must feel if we had been left to conjecture what God would have us to do, and how he would have us to walk. As to matters of moment, here everything is so legibly inscribed, that he may run that reads it. We must not, before we dismiss this part of our subject, overlook its influence and efficacy. We do not mean now with regard to the illumination of the mind, or the relief of the pardoned conscience, or the setting of the man’s poor heart at rest, so that he shall no longer run up and down this wide world, crying, “Who will shew us any good?” but we refer now to his moral transformation. “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature.” And we must also observe the value of the Scriptures, as it appears not only when personally, but relatively considered. You will observe that where it is not available to renew, it restrains: where it does not sanctify it civilises. The Jews had the Oracles of God committed to them; this it was which humanised them. How precious should the Scriptures be that have closed so many avenues of wretchedness, and opened so many scenes of comfort.
III. The season of its preciousness. It would be precious in itself, if no one ever regarded it: just as the jewel is equally valuable though the swine trample it under its hoofs But it is with the word as it is with the Author of it; “to them that believe He is precious,” and to them that believe it is precious. “The word of the Lord was particularly precious in those days.”
1. The days of destitution. Such were the days of Samuel: this Was the case also in after times with the church, when they said, “We see not any signs; there is no more any prophet; neither is there among us, any that knoweth how long.” How precious were the Scriptures before their translation; how many were there to whom the sacred treasure was inaccessible. Suppose now the word of God was remaining in the original Hebrew and Greek, what would it then be to you? Why, it would be like a spring shut up, a fountain sealed; like so many fine paintings hung up in a dark room. In the days of Queen Mary the use of it was absolutely prohibited; we read of one farmer who gave a whole load of hay for a single leaf of one of the epistles. “The word of the Lord was precious in those days.” There may be something like these days of destitution existing in some instances now: they may be produced by accidents, by diseases, by deafnesses, and so on. One is deaf, so that he cannot hear the word; another is blind, so that he cannot see. I remember, some years ago, a farmer in the country, a very pious man, he was advancing in years, and his eyes were growing dim: I often saw him reading the Scriptures at his window, and he seemed to be musing as well as reading; he seemed to be committing it to memory: and when I asked him, I found this was the case: “O,” said he, “I am making provision for a dark day, that when I can no longer read, in the multitude of my thoughts I shall have comfort left to my soul.” We all know best the value of a thing by the want of it. “The word of the Lord was precious in those days.”
2. The days of conviction.
3. The days of affliction. Said Bolingbroke under his affliction, “my philosophy forsakes me in my affliction.” But did Sir Philip Sidney’s philosophy forsake him, when, after a battle, he having to undergo a dreadful operation, said to the surgeon, “Sir, you are come to a poor timid creature in himself; but to one who, by the grace of God, is raised above his own weakness: and therefore, do not dishonour your art in sparing the patient.” “The word of the Lord was precious in those days.” What days?
4. Dying days. I was one day called in to see a poor man on his dying bed; and he began, the moment I entered the room, to address me in these words: “Sir,” said he, “I have a long journey before me, and I don’t know one step of the way.” Hobbes of Malmesbury, when he was dying, said, “I leave my body to the grave, and my soul to the great Perhaps. I am taking,” says he, “a step in the dark.” This was not the worst of it; he was not only taking a step in the dark, but a step into the dark. (W. Jay.)
The precious word
Precious or rare--for the word may be translated so--precious because it was translated so--precious because it was rare. Like the long dry season, the heavens seemed to be sealed; and the coming of Samuel was the beginning of a new era. The Word of the Lord was rare! We have got to speak of the Bible as being the Word of the Lord, and, speaking broadly, the Bible is a store of messages from God. I question sometimes whether the Bible has gained anything by being no cheap. It was rare once, and it is sure that it was precious when it was rare. When the City of London had but one Bible chained to the reading desk of St. Paul’s Cathedral the citizens of London crowded to hear it read. The Word of the Lord was precious in those days. Now this implies several things.
1. First of all, that God does speak to men. Deism, the coldest thing, perhaps, in the shape of a religion that man has ever believed--Deism says it is beneath God to have any longing to come into personal intercourse with men. A man may write a book and inspire you with his ideas, yet he may resent it very much if you propose to bring yourself into personal intercourse with him. Mr. Haweis speaks of the astonishment with which Mr. Tennyson received him when, as a young fellow something like eighteen years of age, he ventured to call upon the poet to thank him for what the poetry had been to him as a young man; and perhaps, who knows! to ask the poet’s exposition of one or two particular passages; but the poet seemed to think the youth was very eccentric, if not very impudent. So the Deist might study the laws and phenomena of Nature--the great book which carries upon it the signature of the Author, the signature of God; but, he says, it would be irreverence for him to presume for a moment that he could be of concern to the great Author, that the Almighty should send special messages to him. God was to him what the Sphinx was to the Egyptian worshipper--there was a light in its face which suggested that it could tell the worshipper wonderful things if it cared to tell, but that it would keep it all to itself. So to Deism God was a sphinx; He never spoke.
2. Finding by seeking. It is a matter of greatest importance that we should believe that. Many men never see God, never hear His voice, because they de not expect to do so. They never look for Him, they never hush themselves to listen for Him. Darwin was always discovering some fresh fact in Nature, but then he was always looking for them; he was always making experiments, always giving Nature an opportunity to show how she did her work. He knew that Nature was always speaking if he only gave her a chance. But he never expected God to speak to him. He gave up praying because he had persuaded himself that God never spoke to man.
3. The many voices of God. Let me add be that, God speaks in many ways. The voices of God are many--the voice of reason, the voice of conscience, the voice of material nature. Why, science is getting to protest that as emphatically as anybody ever did. We often sing, “So God is here, let us adore,” and “How awful is this place.” If there is any place where that might be sung with propriety, it is the laboratory where the chemist and the physicist are at work. This gives an entirely new meaning to nature. A barrel organ may give correct music: the barrel organ does not make a mistake. The violin gives you the same music, yet not the same. There is a man’s soul in the violin. Nature, as the materialist talks about it, is a mere barrel organ. Nature is a violin to the man who knows that every note of it is produced by the finger touch of God, the mind of God, the heart of God, the delight of God in the world that He has made, is in it. I heard a phonograph the other day sing a song of Adelina Patti. It was not absolutely Adelina Patti, but it was correct. There was not one missing note in it, every word, every intonation, the liquid clearness of the beautiful voice; why it was absolutely human. I have heard of a General taking a leaf out of his pocketbook on the field of battle, handing it over to a messenger, and sending the message to someone somewhere in the rough battle. It was a rough missive; the man to whom it was sent kept it, though, as a memorial of the battle. It conveyed the commander’s message as effectively as if it had been written an embossed paper. So people nowadays make a great to-do about the numerical or the technical mistakes which are said to be found in the Old Book. Do not be foolish; it is a message written on poor paper if you like, here and there, but the message is none the worse for that. Do not demean yourself to talk of the paper--what of the Message? Robert Browning speaks of a musician who had music in him that no instrument that he had ever tried had been able to reveal. It haunted him, it pained him, it was a burden to him; and he must tell the music out. So he built his own instrument, and had the supreme joy of uttering the music that was in him. God had told Himself in the words of seer, and prophet, and psalmist, but He had never told Himself thoroughly yet. But He will find a voice for Himself; the love of God, the law of righteousness, which must not be insulted, even though the world be wrecked. He told it by the cross. Glorious is the cross; God’s last voice, the Word of the Lord.
4. Deaf to the Word. Now let me add to that. The direst misfortune, the direst calamity that can happen to man is that God’s Word should cease to come to him. It is not that the Word ever ceases for the matter of that. Science has been making the most wonderful progress during our day. Nature seems to have taken the veil from off her face; but Nature has always been doing this, Nature has always been willing to tell her secrets. But in these days our ears are opened, and we are ready to hear. The misery of the world has always been making an appeal; but philanthropy, in the sense in which we understand philanthropy today, has only just been born. The world is only just beginning to understand that it owes pity end help to the poor, to the criminal, to the wicked one. We may bury our souls in frivolity and never take the trouble to think: but literature is here, art and science are here, and the bread which maketh the soul of man hale and strong--this is here. The Word of the Lord is always here; it is only that we drown it in the din of frivolities and material ambitions. Never read and never think, and no new ideas will ever come to you. The spirit of truth and understanding never thrusts itself upon those who never seek it.
5. Seasons of awakening. And lastly, there are seasons when the Church awakes to a vivid sense of that. These seasons of awakening come to every high region and touch into life every high matter you can think of. We talk about the Dark Ages in England; for centuries the world was asleep; the Word of God was rare in those days. The men to whom it came were few, a rare soul now and then; a Wyckliffe heard the voice of God, but as a whole that period was a long sleep. At last England awoke. There was the richness literature; there came intellectual awakening. In the age of Shakespeare England was born again. There was a spiritual awakening. Luther shook Europe. The Reformers lit a fire which has never been put out. (J. Morlais Jones.)
Wanted: A prophet
“There was no open vision.” It was a time of stagnation and stupor. It was a time in which all men had sunk into a dead level of dulness and formality and mere routine. There was no enthusiasm, no earnestness. Men went through their work and lived their lives in a humdrum languishing sort of way, without heart and without spirit. There was a complete absence of that intensity of feeling which is ever the evidence of a strenuous life. “There was no open vision.” It was a time of deep religious depression. It was a “gelid, torpid, tortoise-like existence” that man led. New, there are people who say that we are passing through a similar period of spiritual depression now, and have been passing through it for some long time, in the different countries of Europe, and especially in our own country. Why had God ceased to speak to, and commune with, His people as of yore?
1. Well, in the first place, there was no prophet; there was no man to act as a go-between. There was no prophet who could communicate God’s message to His people. It was a lack of men with the prophetic gift. God always speaks to His people through chosen witnesses, and when these chosen witnesses are not forthcoming, God’s voice is silent. Old Eli was, indeed, a man of God, but his utter failure to rule his own house discredited him. The channel of communication was choked up in that quarter, simply owing to the weakness and imbecility of the man of God. Before God can communicate with the world there must be a chosen vessel. The vessel itself must be filled first before the world can receive the messages of God. What we need just now is a man who is intellectually head and shoulders above his fellows, and who would act as a great leader of men. We are in a kind of backwater as regards the possession of men of commanding intellect and personality just now; but I cannot help thinking, nevertheless, that our greatest need of all is a mighty prophet of God, a man with a message from the Lord, a man able to stir up the nation to its very depth in spiritual things. Musical services are all very well, and I enjoy them; but they are not our chief need. It is not a great singer that we want, but it is a great prophet, a man full of the Holy Ghost and of power, who will rouse the indifferent and the careless, and stir up the lukewarm and the half-hearted, and make the religion of Christ a power in the land once again.
2. Again, there was no open vision because the people were not in a proper mood to receive the vision. The soil was not congenial, so to speak, for the growth of prophets. It was a time of deep spiritual dearth, a time in which men and women were almost wholly engrossed in the material and the present. The supply of prophets was just exactly equal to the demand, and that was--nil! Prophesying in the sense of forth-telling--preaching--is not much in favour just now. There is this incessant clamour for extremely short sermons, which is not at all a healthy sign. “Why do not men go to church?” Why, because your immature, unsubstantial, perfunctory ten minutes’ discourse, which you falsely call a sermon, has driven them out, for, wherever the sermon is a real thing, manfully grappling with great life problems, there the men do congregate, and there they will continue to congregate, for there they receive a message from God. “And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision.”
3. But, again, I am glad to be able to observe that this time of depression and lassitude and spiritual famine was not continuous and permanent. God never wholly deserts His people. Again He sends His prophets to speck to them and to reveal precious truths to them. Ah, and it is ever so. It is always when the fortune of the church is at its lowest that God sends His servants, the prophets, to rouse it and to cleanse it. It was in the darkest days of the Papacy, when Alexander Borgia sat on the throne of St. Peter, that Savonarola made his appearance. It was when the sale of indulgences had become a scandal and a menace to the very existence of religion and of the church that Luther came, and with his mighty voice initiated the Reformation. And it was in the dark and materialistic days of the eighteenth century, when our own beloved church was dying of apathy and “respectability” that Wesley and Whitefield and the leaders of the evangelical revival came, and set in motion that mighty wave of spiritual fervour and enthusiasm which has not wholly spent its force yet. And mark you! All these mighty revolutions, and revivals, and reformations have been brought about by the power of prophesying--by the foolishness of preaching. It is to preaching that even the Oxford Movement owes its origin and vitality. It was Keble’s sermon on “National Apostasy,” according to all reliable testimony, that gave that movement its birth. And it is by preaching that the next great spiritual awakening is to be brought about. Meantime, our duty is plain. We must pray God to speed the time of this awakening, to speed the time when this terrible spiritual stagnation is at an end. (R. Jones.)
There was no open vision.--
Times without vision
I. There are times of open vision. This phrase has been a difficulty to interpreters, It has been explained as referring to the times in earlier Jewish history when God appeared in the pillars of cloud and fire, and by angelic ministry. It has also been explained as referring to the opera and authoritative promulgation of Divine truth. It has been noticed as a feature of human history that it divides into alternate periods marked by the possession and the lack of spiritual insight. There are times of open vision. Heaven, then, is near to men. They are sensitive to spiritual impressions. They are inclined to attach spiritual meanings to material things. The gift of vision is diffused. The things that are unseen and eternal appear. These are periods of religious activity and progress. The happy age following the conquest under Joshua was a time of open vision. The nation had enjoyed the heavenly gift. The present century, in contrast with the past, is a period of vision. It is a characteristic of this age that the supernatural is looked for and readily believed. With all our vast material progress, we have made a spiritual advance vet greater. It has been a period of delusions, so ready have men been to listen to all voices. But it has also been an age of faith. Would that we might be spared its dreary contrast.
II. There are times without open vision--when heaven is far away, when men have faith only in what they see and handle. The eighteenth was such a century. Science and philosophy made marvellous advances; but they were atheistic. The light of the Puritan century had faded out of the sky; or the eye of the new generation could not receive its illumination. Men questioned, derided, triumphed over religion Then was the deification of the worldly spirit. The church was invaded. The clergy became unspiritual. With the loss of vision, truth is lost. This is especially true of the stern truths--our accountability to God, the guilt and doom of sin, the fixed and narrow limits of probation, the final judgment, and the eternity of its awards. In such an age there is no fear of God before men’s eyes. The picture of the times of Samuel, in the account of the wickedness of Eli’s sons, is appalling.
III. There is no time without the Word of the Lord. Though the vision is at times withholden, God is always with us in his word. Why the vision is withdrawn we may not be able to explain. God has a purpose, It is sufficient that he still speaks. Samuel represented a renewed and more extensive dispensation of the word. The spoken word, like the written, has never been lost. Visions might be interrupted, but not the continuity of revelation. It has never ceased.
IV. The word requires a human ear. Eli’s sons wanted the ear that hears God’s voice. The hearing of Eli, like his sight, was dim; Samuel had a sensitive ear. “The Lord revealed himself to Samuel.” “‘Literally,’ says Stanley, ‘the Lord uncovered the ear’--a touching and significant figure taken from the manner in which the possessor of a secret moves back the long hair of his friend and whispers into the ear thus laid bare the word that no one else may hear.”
V. The Word of God requires human lips to speak it. Samuel has received the message. He must deliver it to Eli. (Monday Club Sermons.)