Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2526
“Then Samuel answered, Speak; for Your servant hears.” 1 Samuel 3:10.
The child Samuel was favored above all the family in which he dwelt. The Lord did not speak by night to Eli, or to any of Eli’s sons. In all that house, in all the rows of rooms that were round about the Tabernacle where the Ark of the Lord was kept, there was not one except Samuel to whom Jehovah spoke! The fact that the Lord should choose a child out of all that household and that He should speak to him, ought to be very encouraging to you who think yourself to be the least likely to be recognized by God. Are you so young? Yet, probably, you are not younger than Samuel was at this time. Do you seem to be very insignificant? Yet you can hardly be more so than was this child of Hannah’s love! Have you many troubles? Yet you have not more, I daresay, than rested on young Samuel, for it must have been very hard for him, while so young a child, to part from his dear mother, to be so soon sent away from his father’s house and so early made to do a servant’s work, even though it was in the House of the Lord!
I have noticed how often God looks with eyes of special love upon those in a family who seem least likely to be so regarded. It was on Joseph, whom his brothers hated—it was upon the crown of the head of him who was separated from his brothers—that God’s electing love descended! Why should it not come upon you? Perhaps, in the house where you live, you seem to be a stranger. Your foes are they of your own household! You have many sorrows and you think that waters of a full cup are wrung out to you, yet the Lord may have a very special regard for you. I invite you to hope that it is so, yes, and to come to Christ and put your soul’s trust in Him—and then I am persuaded that you will find that it is so and you will have to say—“He drew me to Him with cords of a man, with bands of love. Because He loved me with everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness has He drawn me.”
Notice, also, that while God had a very special regard for young Samuel, He had, in that regard, designs concerning the rest of the family. God’s elect are chosen not merely for their own sake—they are chosen for God’s name’s sake—and they are also chosen for the sake of mankind in general. The Jews were chosen that they might preserve the oracles of God for all the ages and that they might keep alight the spark of Divine Truth that we Gentiles might afterwards see its brightness. And when God’s special love is fixed upon one member of a family, I take it that that one ought to say to himself or herself, “Am I not called that I may be a blessing in this family?” Young Samuel was to be God’s voice to Eli. He was chosen to that end and in a much more pleasant way than Samuel was, I trust that you, dear Friend, favored of God, are intended to be a messenger of better tidings than Samuel had to carry—perhaps to an aged father whose eyes are growing dim. Perhaps to some wayward brother wandering in the world. Perhaps to some sister whose heart is careless about Divine things. I think the first instinct of one who has been, himself, called by Grace, is to go and call others.
When Christ appears to Mary, Mary runs to the disciples to tell them that the Lord has spoken to her. Samuel is chosen that he may carry the message to Eli—and let each Believer feel that he is favored of God that he may take a blessing to others—“for none of us lives to himself and no man dies to himself.” I trust that we are not like the Dead Sea which perpetually drinks in Jordan’s streams, but never gives the waters out and, therefore, it becomes saltier and yet more salt-ier—the lake of death. We are not to be receivers only, taking in the good that God sends by this means or by that, but we are to pour out as fast as He pours in, working out that which God works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
Our subject is to be, God speaking with us. And I trust that everyone here who has any fear of God at all will take the prayer of Samuel and make it his or her own—“Speak; for Your servant hears.”
I. And, first, I will speak to you upon the soul desiring—desiring to be spoken to by God. “Speak, Lord.”
Oh, how often has our heart felt this desire in the form of a groaning that cannot be uttered! “Lord, I want to know You! You are behind a veil and I cannot come to You. I know that You are, for I see Your works, but, oh, that I could get some token from Yourself, if not for my eyesight, yet at least for my heart!” We cannot endure a dumb God. It is a very dreadful thing to have a dumb friend—a very painful thing to have a wife who never spoke with you or a husband who could never exchange a word with you, or a father or mother from whom you could never hear a single word of love—and the heart cannot bear to have a dumb God, it needs Him to speak!
For what reason does the soul desire God to speak to it? Well, first, it desires thus to be recognized by God. It seems to say, “Speak, Lord, just to give me a token of recognition, that I may know that I am not overlooked, that I am not flung away like a useless thing upon the world’s dust heap, that I am not left to wander like a waif and stray, derelict, upon the ocean. Oh, that I may be sure that You see me, that You have some thoughts of love concerning me! How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God! If I do not know that You think of me, I pine, I die! Speak, Lord, just to show that You notice me. I am not worthy that You should regard me, but still speak to me, Lord, that I may know that You do observe me.”