Then the LORD called to Samuel, and he answered, "Here I am." Sermons
I. THE CHARACTER OF ELI ILLUSTRATED. 1. His good points. The Lord had ceased to speak to or by Eli; but when the old priest perceived that the Lord had spoken to the child, he showed no personal or official jealousy. On the contrary, he kindly encouraged Samuel, and directed him how to receive the heavenly message. He did not attempt to interpose on the ground that he, as the chief priest, was the official organ of Divine communications, but bade the child lie still and hearken to the voice. Nor did he claim any preference on the ground of his venerable age. It is not easy to look with complacency on one much younger than ourselves who is evidently on the way to excel us in our own special province. But Eli did so, and threw no hindrance whatever in the way of the young child. Let God use as his seer or prophet whom he would. Eli was anxious to know the truth, and the whole truth, from the mouth of the child. He had been previously warned by a man of God of the disaster which his own weakness and his sons' wickedness would bring on the priestly line (1 Samuel 2:27-36). But the evil of the time was too strong for him; and having effected no reform in consequence of that previous warning, the old man must have foreboded some message of reproof and judgment when the voice in the night came not to himself, but to the child. Yet he was not false to God, and would not shrink from hearing truth, however painful. "I pray thee hide it not from me." He meekly acquiesced in the condemnation of his house. Eli had no sufficient force of character or vigour of purpose to put away the evil which had grown to such enormity under his indulgent rule, but he was ready with a sort of plaintive surrender to Divine justice. It was not a high style of character, but at all events it was vastly better than a self-justifying, God-resisting mood of mind. 2. His faults. No meek language, no pious acquiescence in his sentence, can extenuate the grievous injury which, through indecision and infirmity, Eli had brought on Israel at large, and on the priestly order in particular. His virtues may almost be said to have sprung out of his faults. He was benevolent, submissive, and free from jealousy because he had no force, no intensity. He could lament and suffer well because he had no energy. So he commanded little respect because, instead of checking evil, he had connived at it for a quiet life. "There are persons who go through life sinning and sorrowing, sorrowing and sinning. No experience teaches them. Torrents of tears flow from their eyes. They are full of eloquent regrets. But all in vain. When they have done wrong once they do wrong again. What are such persons to be in the next life? Where will the Elis of this world be? God only knows "(Robertson). II. THE CHILD CALLED TO BE A PROPHET. We may discern even in "little Samuel" the beginnings of a great character, prognostics of an illustrious career. The child was courageous, not afraid to sleep in one of the priest's chambers alone, no father or mother near. And he was dutiful to the aged Eli, hastening to him when he thought that he had called in the night; and considerate to his feelings, reluctant to tell him in the morning the heavy judgments of which God had spoken. From that night he began to be a prophet. Very soon were the hopes of Hannah for her son fulfilled, nay, surpassed. "Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground." The nature of the first communication made through Samuel gave some indication of the future strain of his prophetic life and testimony. He was not to be one of those, like Isaiah, Daniel, and Zechariah, whose prophecies and visions reached far forward into future times. His function was more like that of Moses, Elijah, or Jeremiah, as a teacher of private and public righteousness. He was destined to maintain the law and authority of God, to rebuke iniquity, to check and even sentence transgressors in high places, to withstand the current of national degeneracy, and insist on the separation of Israel from the heathen nations and their customs. The pith of his life ministry lay in his urgency for moral obedience. III. LIGHT THROWN ON THE EARLY TRAINING OF GOD'S PUBLIC SERVANTS. It is acknowledged that some who have been eminently useful in Christian times have been converted in manhood, and their earlier life may seem to have been lost. Paul was so converted. So was Augustine. But these really form no exception to the rule that God directs the training of his servants from childhood. Paul had a good Jewish Rabbinical education, and, besides this, an acquaintance with Greek literature and forms of thought. Having been brought up a Pharisee, he was the more fitted after his conversion to estimate at its full force that Jewish resistance to Christianity on the ground of law righteousness which he above all men combatted. At the same time, knowing the world, and being from his youth up cultivated and intelligent according to the Greek standard, he was prepared to be, after his conversion, a most suitable apostle of Christ to the Gentiles. A similar process of preparation may be traced in Augustine. His early studies in logic and rhetoric prepared him, though he knew it not, to become a great Christian dialectician; and even the years in which he served his own youthful passions were not without yielding some profit, inasmuch as they intensified his knowledge of the power of sin, and ultimately of the sin vanquishing power of grace. By far the greater number of those who have served the Lord as prophets, preachers, or pastors of his flock, have been nourished up for such service from early years, though they knew it not. Some of them went first to other callings. John Chrysostom was at the bar; Ambrose in the civil service, rising to be prefect of Liguria; Cyprian was a teacher of rhetoric; Melancthon, a professor of Greek. Moses himself grew up a scholar and a soldier, and no one who saw him in the court of Egypt could have guessed his future career. But in such cases God guided his servants in youth through paths of knowledge and experience which were of utmost value to them when they found at last their real life work for his name. There is danger, however, in sudden transitions from one walk of life to another, and from one mould of character to another. It is the danger of extravagance. There is a proverb about the excessive zeal of sudden converts; and there is this measure of truth in it, that persons who rapidly change their views or their position need some lapse of time, and some inward discipline, before they learn calmness, religious self-possession, and meekness of wisdom. It is therefore worthy of our notice that God gave Moses a long pause in the land of Midian, and Paul also in Arabia. We return to the fact that the great majority of God's servants in the gospel have grown up with religious sentiments and desires from their very childhood. So it was with John the Baptist, with Timothy, with Basil, with Jerome, with Bernard of Clairvaux, with Columba, with Usher, with Zinzendorf, with Bengel, and many more. So it was with Samuel. His first lessons were from the devout and gifted Hannah in the quiet home at Ramah. From his earliest consciousness he knew that he was to be the Lord's, and a specially consecrated servant or Nazarite. Then he was taken to Shiloh, and his special training for a grand and difficult career began. Early in his life he had to see evil among those who ought to have shown the best example. He had to see what mischief is wrought by relaxation of morals among the rulers of what we should call Church and State, so that an abhorrence of such misconduct might be deeply engraved on his untainted soul. But at the same time Samuel grew up in daily contact with holy things. The sacred ritual, which was no more than a form to the wicked priests, had an elevating and purifying influence on the serious spirit of this child. And so it was that Samuel, conversant day by day with holy names and symbols, took a mould of character in harmony with these - took it gradually, firmly, unalterably. It gave steadiness to his future ministry; for he was to retrieve losses, assuage excitements, re-establish justice, reprove, rebuke, and exhort the people and their first king. Such a ministry needed a character of steady growth, and the personal influence which attends a consistent life. So the Lord called Samuel when a child, and he answered, "Speak; for thy servant heareth." May God raise up young children among us to quit themselves hereafter as men - to redress wrongs, establish truth and right, heal divisions, reform the Church, and pave the way for the coming King and the kingdom! - F.
Then the Lord called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I. "Child" is not a precise equivalent for the Hebrew word so rendered, which is considerably wider in meaning, and includes adolescence. Samuel was probably a youth when called. He had been growing quietly in ago and goodness, while Eli's sons were growing in licentiousness. The two growths are strikingly contrasted in the previous chapter, where, after each statement as to their wickedness, a clause comes in telling how Samuel advanced in his ministry before the Lord. His word was "precious," which does not mean highly valued, but seldom heard, because ears were too much clogged with earth, and there was no prophetic "vision" open — that is, widely spread — because there were few eyes purged to see it. A prophet was needed to arrest the growing evil, and the needed prophet was in training. The best place for a young life to dwell is the temple of God. "They that are planted in the house of the Lord" will grow fair and straight, and be sheltered from distorting influences, and from many a gnawing enemy that works havoc among the young shoots. A youth that keeps austerely remote from the vileness of Eli's sons will be saved from their fate, and will receive messages from the ark as authentic as that which woke Samuel. "The Lord called Samuel." No magnificent apocalypse of divine glory shone on the youth's opening eyes. Simply his name was spoken in the tone of one bespeaking his attention and about to give him commands. Whoever spoke knew him, claimed authority over him, and had something for him to do. In a word, the speaker was his master, and needed him. God often assimilates His call to the voices with which we are familiar. A stage comes in every young life when the sense of responsibility is wakened, when the thought of a vocation to battle for the truth starts up. Samuel's mistake tells a great deal, both as to the nature of the voice he heard and as to his relations to Eli. Evidently he had been accustomed to be roused from sleep, to attend to the old man whose blindness would make him need kindly ministrations. As evidently, he had been accustomed cheerfully to answer the call. His loving readiness to spring from sleep and do whatever was needed, are seen in his running to Eli. No holier office can be entrusted to youth than to care for helpless age; and even if the dependent old man or woman has failings, as Eli had, which the younger hates, the duty of service is still plain, and its blessedness will be the greater, But Samuel's mistake has another lesson; for we, too, may think that it is only Eli speaking, when it is really God. There is something very pathetic and beautiful in Eli's quick and ungrudging recognition of God's call to his young attendant. He had had no such communications himself, but he knew them when they came to others. Poor Eli had a bitter pill to swallow when he knew that the boy whom he had trained as his attendant was elevated to the position of a prophet; but he was not offended nor jealous. There is dignity and peace for the old when they heartily acquiesce in the Divine choice of the young to carry his work a stage farther. Samuel had no thought of anything extraordinary, and the explanation of his slowness of apprehension is given in the statement that he "did not yet know the Lord," which can only mean that he had not received any Divine communications; for absolute ignorance cannot be supposed in one who had ministered to the Lord all his life. Youth should be slow to believe that its impressions are divine messages. They must be tested well before they are trusted as such. One test, though an imperfect one, is their persistency. When some conviction of duty keeps returning again and again, and forcing us to hear it, we should at least not dismiss it without careful consideration; for it may be the voice of the patient God, who does not let our carelessness silence him. "Thy servant heareth" — an open ear for God's commands and revelations will never be left empty. "Speak, Lord," is a prayer; and it is never offered in vain when it is accompanied, as Samuel's was, by "For thy servant hears." Such a disposition is a prevailing reason with God. If we are ready to listen and obey, He is more than ready to speak.(A. Maclaren, D. D.) 1. When the state of the Church was in a very low ebb: The word of prophecy was very precious at that time (ver. 1), a prophet was very rare then, and few or none appeared with open vision by name, though mention be made in general of a prophet (Judges 6:8). And of a man of God before (1 Samuel 2:27). 2. At that time (ver. 2) when the Lord had sent the day before that Man of God mentioned (1 Samuel 2:27), with heavy tidings to Eli, then the very next day God calls and sends Samuel with the same sad message. 3. In that time of the natural day (ver. 3), when the lamps of the golden candlestick were not yet extinguished, which had been lighted the evening before (Exodus 27:21; Leviticus 24:8, 2 Chronicles 13:11). So that this was betimes in the morning, and before day that God called Samuel. The place where, in the temple or tabernacle. II. THE SUBSTANCE OF THIS WORD OF PROPHECY REVEALED TO SAMUEL. III. THE GRACIOUS CARRIAGE OF THIS YOUNG PROPHET, when so high and honourable a preferment is put upon him by the Lord. 1. His humility. 2. His modesty, His modesty most appeared, both in his doing the former office of a doorkeeper (opening the doors in the morning), though he were now called of God to be a prophet. And likewise he was not forward, but fearful to reveal the Divine oracle to Eli, which yet he might not conceal (ver. 15). 3. His faithfulness also here is manifest in not hiding anything (of that which God had spoke to him) from his master Eli: He told him every whirl (ver. 18). Though there was not one drachm of comfort in the whole oracle. IV. ELI'S RECEPTION OF THIS RIGID REVELATION FROM GOD BY SAMUEL. Eli was conscious to himself of great guilt, both in his villainous sons, and in himself for indulging their villany, his conscience was a sore conscience, but theirs were seared consciences, and therefore could he presage no good from God; hereupon he advises his pupil to hide nothing from him, but to tell his tutor all that God had told him (1 Samuel 1:16, 17). When Eli had heard God's severe sentence he calmly crieth, "It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good" (ver. 18), as if he had said the Lord Jehovah hath a sovereign absolute power over all the sons and daughters of men, and may dispose of me and mine, and of all created beings according to his good pleasure, unto which I freely submit, well knowing there be better things in God's will than in my own. (C. Ness.) People Dan, Eli, SamuelPlaces Beersheba, Dan, ShilohTopics Calleth, Samuel, Samuel's, VoiceOutline 1. How the word of the Lord was first revealed to Samuel11. God tells Samuel the destruction of Eli's house 15. Samuel, though loath, tells Eli the vision 19. Samuel grows in credit Dictionary of Bible Themes 1 Samuel 3:4 5887 inexperience Library Divine Calls. "And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel; Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for Thy servant heareth."--1 Samuel iii. 10. In the narrative of which these words form part, we have a remarkable instance of a Divine call, and the manner in which it is our duty to meet it. Samuel was from a child brought to the house of the Lord; and in due time he was called to a sacred office, and made a prophet. He was called, and he forthwith answered the call. God said, "Samuel, … John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII A Private Enquiry What the Truth Saith Inwardly Without Noise of Words Samuel, the Little Server By Collating Similar Passages with 1 Sam. ... Letter Xlvi (Circa A. D. 1125) to Guigues, the Prior, and to the Other Monks of the Grand Chartreuse Being Made Archbishop of Armagh, He Suffers Many Troubles. Peace Being Made, from Being Archbishop of Armagh He Becomes Bishop of Down. Faithlessness and Defeat Christian Meekness Our Attitude Toward his Sovereignty The Acceptable Sacrifice; Effectual Calling Thoughts Upon Self-Denyal. Exposition of Chap. Iii. 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