Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth.
— Jeremiah 15:1
Now, here the Lord is doing something in this word that we ought to take note of: He is bringing together the names of Moses and Samuel.
Samuel does not get the credit that he should get as an Old Testament figure—prophet, priest, seer—because most of God’s people do not really understand the part that he plays. In our next two or three discussions, we shall try to look into this quite deeply and see just what that part was.
God had used Moses to bring in the theocracy: people governed by the living God Himself.
In our discussion of the ark, we are about to see the part that Samuel played in bringing the people back to the principles of that theocracy. Believe me, brothers and sisters, one of the things we shall learn—and most of us here have already learned—is that recovery, a bringing back to a position that has been departed from, almost an apostasy—it is not really an apostasy—is much, much more difficult than establishing it in the first place.
It requires a deeper concern. It requires travail, as we saw last time. It requires a willingness to suffer, and a complete disinterest. Believe me, you are not going to get much out of it yourself but stones from God’s people when you tell them they have departed from the place God would have them be in, and they must take certain very definite, costly, and humiliating steps in order to get back.
You are in for cover.
Samuel reestablished the theocracy under a king, but still a theocracy. He brought the people to a place of victory over the Philistines. He established the schools of the prophets. He anointed God’s king, David.
He did something more important than all of that. If he had done only that without this, he would have failed—and this is where we fail so often. He brought the people’s hearts back to God.
The whole business, brothers and sisters, is a heart matter. We can make people ever so religious. You can get a beautiful setup, and that is what the whole system of sacraments and various systems in modern Christianity produce: a great appearance of godliness and service to God without the hearts of God’s people being brought back to Him.
I tell you, friends, no matter what you do on this earth, you are never going to be happy. You are never going to be satisfied. You are never going to meet the need of God until your heart has been brought back to discover the wonder, the glory, the preciousness, and the pricelessness of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
I am not one bit interested in getting people to do certain things, and look religious, and sound religious, and dress religious, and do all of the other things. I am interested in seeing their hearts discover what my heart has discovered. Ninety percent of the other things just automatically follow.
So, the thing that Samuel did—and we will see that it takes a peculiar kind of person to do that—in real measure, he brought their hearts back to the living God.
You see God giving him a place equal to that of Moses. He said, “Even if Moses and Samuel were among you, still I would not change My mind.” This is three hundred years—half the time we are going to be talking about this morning. Still, I would not change My mind about sending you the captivity.
So, it is no wonder that Samuel has two books in the Old Testament named after him, right? Who else has two books in the Old Testament named after him? This is a curve I am pulling on you.
Well, almost. How about this guy, Chronicle—First and Second? He is the only one. I warned you it was a curve.
Would you look in Judges 20?
I am going to tell you your dating in your Bibles is wrong here, but we will not go into that. Simply because there was another priest named Phinehas, who was like the priest at the beginning of Judges when the people came into the land, and his name was Phinehas too. This has caused some people to give wrong dates to some of these things that took place.
This is after the time of Samson and Jephthah and all the rest of the judges who had done so much for God’s people, and had recovered at least the land along their northern borders, and were keeping the hordes of barbarians from coming down into the land.
This is the end of the time of the judges. This time of the judges was three hundred years of shame, suffering, division, civil war, and strife among God’s people. How many times they were killing one another—it is just amazing.
We cannot understand Samuel unless we understand that here were three hundred years in which every man did what was right in his own eyes, and the theocracy as it was set up at that time simply was not working.
Why it was not working, and what there was there that was the root cause, we are going to look at when we look at David. Samuel brought the hearts of the people back, but David had to deal with a root cause. We shall spend at least one Sunday morning on David and his relationship to the ark and the purpose of God.
But the ark was there, and it was still united with the tabernacle. When the tabernacle came into the land, they first settled at Gilgal, and then it was moved around a number of places until, at the time of our history, it sat at Shiloh.
Something else was happening. Remember, when the people came into the land, the two tribes did not enter. What did these tribes do that caused great consternation among the rest of the ten and a half tribes? It was Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh that did not come in.
They set up a memorial altar. They built an altar, and the armed men of Israel all got together. They were going to wipe out these two tribes because they built that altar, because Jehovah had specifically forbidden the building of an altar except at the place that He would appoint. Is that not so?
So they were very cautious about this at first. But when they explained that they had built that altar so they could teach their children to look at that altar and remember that they were to go into the land and worship, the people understood. It was an altar of remembrance, and they were not going to offer offerings on the altar.
When they explained all of this very carefully, the people were satisfied and went about their business. But, you see, they knew at that time the peril of another altar, did they not?
Later on, we find such worthies as Gideon setting up another altar. We find a fellow named Micah getting himself a Levite and his own altar, establishing his own private religious system. We find altars being built throughout the land.
We find something worse than this: in the high places, the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth.
Dear friends, believe me: when the hearts of God’s people in general begin to turn from Him, one of the many things that happens is that the stronger ones become Pharisees.
The weaker ones go into sin and licentiousness of an awful kind. What happened here? Very few—very, very few—are able to stand and go along with the Lord normally, as they should, in the proper understanding of God and His ways, love, and service toward Him.
Now, what have I really described to you? Have I merely described this time of the three hundred years of the judges, or have I inadvertently—but not so inadvertently—done something else? I have described what?
I am going to let you tell me.
Right. I have described the present state. Now remember, Barney said it.
I have described the present state among God’s people. I am sorry if you think everything is hunky-dory because there are so many millions in America—sixty-some million Protestants and fifty-some million Catholics—and so many churches, and so much money spent, and all of the externalities that you can write down and look at. If you are happy with that, go right ahead and be happy. I am not.
I am only here this morning, and I think you are only here this morning, because you realize that what I have said is true. If you do not, you had better not listen too much longer, because I am going to get perhaps a good deal more specific.
I have to draw some comparisons, and you may accuse them of being invidious comparisons. Uh-oh, there goes a word: invidious. Well, an invidious comparison is merely one—it is a good word, apparently—the kind of comparison usually made in the newspaper, in which you compare two things, praise the characteristics of one, and only deplore the poor characteristics of the other: an unfair comparison, really.
The comparisons we have to make are not unfair. We have to deal with reality. You go out among God’s people in general and see what is going on, and your heart will be broken if you have a real heart for the Lord.
You will go through a regular gamut of reactions, one thing after another, trying to change the situation, to help, to be a blessing. You will always end up, if you are faithful to God—mark, I just said something—you will always end up in some small tent, in some small place, with a small group of people where the ark is: the testimony, the speaking, the glory, and the life.
That depicts the fact that the testimony of Jesus is there in expression. If you can be satisfied with anything less, no matter how good it looks—there is a lot of the lesser, and it looks good—you can stop there. If you can be happy there, go ahead and be happy. I cannot. I do not believe you can.
This was a time of loss, shame, and civil strife. There is an incident here. It is not that the people did not resort to God.
In Judges 20, a Levite stopped among the people of Benjamin. They took his concubine and ill-used her, and in the morning he found her dead. He cut her up in small pieces and sent her throughout the land to the children of Israel. He said, “Come and see what Benjamin has done.”
All of the Israelites—you know, they were all divided up to this time—and all of a sudden they had a cause. This cause was one that would permit them to go against their own brethren, Benjamin. They all gathered together.
First, verse 18 of Judges 20:
And the children of Israel arose, and went up to Beth-el, and asked counsel of God; and they said, Who shall go up for us first to battle against the children of Benjamin? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up first.
— Judges 20:18
Was this a proper question to ask? What should they have asked? “Should we go up?” So they went up, and the children of Judah went first. Benjamin destroyed of the Israelites that day twenty-two thousand men.
So they came back then, and they went up and wept before the Lord. They said, “Shall we go up?” They asked the right question this time, and their attitude was a little different. They said, in verse 23, “against the children of Benjamin my brother.” The Lord said, “Go up against him.” This time, the Benjamites slew only eighteen thousand.
Verse 27:
And the children of Israel inquired of the Lord (for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days), saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother, or shall I cease? And the Lord said, Go up; for tomorrow I will deliver him into thy hand.
— Judges 20:27-28
They went up, and the children of Benjamin were delivered into the hands of the children of Israel. They slew all but six hundred of them, and they quit because they said, “It is not good that one of the tribes should vanish out of Israel.” They had made a vow that none of them would ever give these six hundred wives, like they had slain all the rest of the children.
Here were six hundred men without wives, and then they kind of did some more murders in order to rectify that situation.
Not a very savory history to go into, is it? Why are we going into it? So you will properly understand the background of things. Yes, there were judges. Yes, there were times when Israel seemed to win some victories. There was a Samson who did wondrous things. There were heroes of the faith mentioned in Hebrews who took part in that time.
But, in general, dear friends, in times of contention, hostility, oppression, and division, it was a sad kind of history.
So the Lord is reacting. Even though these people had gone up to inquire of God, they had to learn that although He would use Israel to chastise Benjamin, Israel itself had committed sins of every kind and also must be chastised. At the same time, He would use Benjamin to chastise Israel.
Never forget this: when God’s people are out of His place and they go to inquire of Him, they will get an answer all right. But the answer will be double-edged. It may solve the problem at hand, but it will also demonstrate the Lord’s mind.
The Lord’s people will go to inquire of Him while they do not live for Him and while their hearts are not right with Him.
There is a kind of Christianity being preached today in which people are given elaborate techniques of guidance—elaborate techniques. The whole thing betrays the fact that the people who set forth the techniques and the people who are asking do not have hearts that are in touch with and enamored of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We get some strange answers, and we end up saying, “Well, I do not believe the whole thing works anyway.” Friends, I know a lot of people—sorry to have to say this—but I know a lot of people who are most disappointed with Christianity, who feel that they have given it a real adequate chance, and they are disappointed.
What is the reason for that? Maybe there are some sitting right here today who are in that state.
But I tell you, friends, know the Lord. Know Him aright. Be in the way of His going, be joined to His testimony, follow and serve Him. There is nothing else on earth that can satisfy the human heart, because that is why we were made. Every other purpose and goal in life is aborted and will eventually land you somewhere in disillusionment and disappointment.
Hand on hand.
Is that clear enough?
Okay, let us come to Samuel now. The first thing we must learn about Samuel is that he is the result, the fruit, of someone’s travail.
This recovery that we are talking about, dear friends, requires a burdened heart that must have something from God or life is meaningless. Hannah was that instrument. The one thing that would make her life worthwhile, she did not have. She went into travail, real travail, about it.
Then she found the key. She said, “Lord, if You give me this thing, I will give it back to You for Yours.”
She went away no more sad. Later on, she had this child, and sure enough, when he was weaned, she took him up to Eli at Shiloh, where the tabernacle and the ark were. She left him there, and each year she came back and brought him a little coat.
Oh, was that the end of Hannah’s fruitfulness? Verse 21 of 1 Samuel 2:
And the Lord visited Hannah, and she conceived, and bare three sons and two daughters. And the child Samuel grew before the Lord.
— 1 Samuel 2:21
Now, what is God really doing? What is His goal? What is He after?
If you consider all the Scriptures, you will find that He was after a temple in which He could place the ark, where it would be at rest. We shall spend, at the end of this series, one Sunday morning seeing what this means: the ark at rest in the temple.
Why is this so important to Him? Well, it was a type—a type of what God is doing right now. He is building a temple.
What a wonderful day for our eyes when we see that God really has His heart set on this. This temple is also a city, yes, and we know it as the church.
We find in Revelation 11, there in that great parenthesis between Revelation 10 and Revelation 12, that heaven is opened and the ark of God is found to be in God’s temple at rest.
Immediately, when this is shown to John, he sees a woman in travail, travailing in birth; a man-child delivered in birth, caught up to His throne; and the end of things begins here in the earth.
I know that prophetically this is a little bit different from what we are caught in Christian thought today. We are talking as though, at a certain hour, the prophetic clock is going to strike and something is going to happen automatically, regardless of the state of God’s people, regardless of the history of God’s people. It is just a matter of a certain time, a number of weeks, you know.
But even the people who teach that say, “Yes, but we are in an interregnum between the sixty-ninth and the seventieth week, and we do not know how long that interregnum is. It may be a week, it may be a month, it may be a thousand years, maybe a million years. We do not know.”
You see, they confess that this time-clock theory does not really work after all—and it does not.
God is after a certain spiritual state on the part of His people, to which alone He will respond.
That spiritual state is analogous to—listen carefully—the ark being at rest in the temple: that He Himself has been testament, full blossom, and expression in His church; the testimony of Jesus, God’s living Son.
Well, we are looking at Samuel, fruit of travail. God is about to do a new thing.
For some hundreds of years, God has been doing a new thing in this dispensation, and He has been raising up prophetic instruments that we, as God’s people, are to listen to. We could go into the history of that, but we are going to run out of time here, and we want to take a good look at Samuel this morning.
So, we are in 1 Samuel 2 now, verse 12:
Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the Lord.
— 1 Samuel 2:12
We just read that the child Samuel grew before the Lord. There is a comparison for you.
Verse 17:
Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord; for men abhorred the offering of the Lord.
— 1 Samuel 2:17
I tell you, friends, a lot of God’s people rolled out of bed this morning and said, “Oh boy, have I got to go to church? I know what it is going to be: the doxology and the organ music, and the prayer, and the singing, and the giving, and the ministry. I have been to it a thousand times. It has not done much of anything for me.”
They abhor the offering of the Lord. The vitality, the light, the reality, the joy that some of us had here this morning in praising God and responding to His Spirit is missing.
If I went ahead and said this was due to some sons of Belial, maybe I would really get into trouble, and I had better be quiet.
Dear friends, a young Christian who goes to a large and successful church came to me at school this last week. He said, “You know, we have got everything we need. We have got membership. We have got money running out of our ears. We built a new section of the church. We have programs galore.”
He said, “But we cannot figure out what is wrong. We just are not prospering. We said at our men’s meeting the other night, we were discussing whether we should blame it on the people or the leadership. Which do you think we should blame it on?”
I said, “Well, do you want my answer? Do you want the scriptural answer? How shall we approach it?”
He said, “Well, the scriptural answer.”
I said, “Well, the scriptural answer makes the leaders answerable to God regardless of what the people do.”
He said, “Well, you are saying, in effect, that we should blame it on the leaders.”
I said, “Well, I do not want you to go blame it on anybody. But I am telling you, do you have leaders who are filled with the Spirit, who minister the Word in life, who condemn the sin among the people, who bring them spiritual food? Do you have men?”
“Well,” he said, “we have got eight pastors.”
I do not know how in the world he is going to do all of that. That is right here. But then you are up against not just a matter of leaders; you are up against the whole system. That is what Samuel is up against. The whole system is sick.
Eli was a good man. Do not you ever think he was not. Eli was a very good man. But in the priestly succession, his sons did not walk in his steps. They knew not the Lord.
Chapter 3 of 1 Samuel:
And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no frequent vision.
— 1 Samuel 3:1
What God was about to do.
And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place (now his eyes had begun to wax dim, that he could not see), and ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep; that the Lord called Samuel: and he said, Here am I.
— 1 Samuel 3:2-4
He ran unto Eli and said, “Here am I; for thou calledst me.” Eli said, “I called not; lie down again.” He went and lay down.
The Lord called yet again, “Samuel.” Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, “Here am I; for thou calledst me.” Eli answered, “I called not, my son; lie down again.”
Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him.
— 1 Samuel 3:7
The Lord called Samuel again the third time. He arose and went to Eli and said, “Here am I; for thou calledst me.” Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child.
Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, “Go, lie down: and it shall be, if He call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth.” Samuel went and lay down in his place.
And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel said, Speak; for Thy servant heareth.
— 1 Samuel 3:10
Now, was this just a disembodied voice from between the two cherubim? What does it say? The Lord came and stood and called.
And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.
In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house; when I begin, I will also make an end.
For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever, for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse upon themselves, and he restrained them not.
Therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated with sacrifice nor offering for ever.
— 1 Samuel 3:11-14
Samuel—well then, here you had better take note of this. There is a wickedness that is not purged by sacrifice or offering forever. Note this very carefully.
Now, I do not want anybody to go out of here and say, “I have committed the unpardonable sin,” because you have not. You do not have the potential to be that wicked. I am sorry; you are just being egotistic.
This is a wickedness for which there is no sacrifice or offering. What kind of wickedness is it? It is a spiritual kind of wickedness. Mark that well, because we will be coming up against it later.
And Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel feared to show Eli the vision.
— 1 Samuel 3:15
Notice this: Samuel lay until the morning. He did not go to Eli this time. When the morning came, just as usual, he opened the doors of the house.
Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He answered, “Here am I.” Eli said, “What is the thing that the Lord hath said unto thee? I pray thee, hide it not from me. God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide anything from me of all the things that He said unto thee.”
Samuel told him every whit and hid nothing from him. Eli said, “It is the Lord: let Him do what seemeth Him good.”
And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.
And all Israel from Dan even to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord.
And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh; for the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord.
— 1 Samuel 3:19-21
Now, friends, I hope your heart is with my heart in saying, “Oh, that the Lord will reveal Himself and speak His Word to His people in this hour of great need in the earth.”
I wonder how in the world we can play some small part—our part, our appointed and predestined part—in being the Lord’s instrument for this kind of thing.
Last time we talked about the travail necessary. Tom came to me and said, “Well, now I understand why we do not easily slip into the place we want; why I have such a hard burden about things here; and why, once it is lifted, I get another burden. I understand.”
Good. If you are in that travail, then the Lord is doing the work.
Now, what is the thing that God needs to do, translated into up-to-date terms for us? You might say, “Well, He needs to raise up a Samuel.” I am sorry, it is not just a Samuel that He needs. He needs Samuel instruments, many prophetic instruments.
Do not look for a man to appear on the Christian scene who is going to have the answers to all the questions, because I tell you who he is. Who is he? The antichrist.
Great, preeminent, swelled-up, egotistical souls who cavort among God’s people are nearer that than they are to service of God. That is not what we want, nor are we looking for.
But, you see, friends, you and I can be part of that new thing God is doing.
God’s greatest problem is that Christianity has become a crystallized system that you can enter into, be a part of, and become famous in, with hardly a bit of fresh, new revelation from God.
The Lord’s big problem is that in so many of our lives there is so much of what we call Christianity that did not come to us firsthand. We may even have learned it from the Bible, and that is not good enough. What do you think of that? That is real heresy in some places, because whatever you learn from the Bible is supposedly going to do the job.
But it is not doing the job, and it will not. It will not do the job.
So, friends, you and I have got to get before God and say, “Lord, I want everything I think I know to be taken from me, and I will be convinced that I do not know anything except what You give me—through the Bible, yes, but from heaven. Fresh, real revelation that comes down into my spirit and upon my heart and soul as though it never existed before.”
God had to do a completely new thing here in raising up a Samuel. He has got to do it now. Let me tell you, when it starts to happen, things are shattered. You can no longer stay in the shell of a crystallized Christian system. Things begin to break out.
It is all too premature. Nonetheless, we break out.
So, the first thing we need to see about Samuel is that he heard from God. You have got to be somebody Christ can trust.
Well, the minute you heard from God, did you rush right over and say, “Hey, Eli, I got it! Look, I know what is wrong with you, Eli. I know what is wrong with this whole system”?
You know, when we think we have got something from God, right away we rush out and want to straighten everybody out. This is the surest sign that we did not get anything from God.
Some of us right here, the Lord cannot trust with very much. I mean, we get a teeny speck, we think it is the club, and we go around hitting everybody over the head with it.
If God has to drag it out of Samuel, He will have to drag it out of us. We will not be rushing forward for a minute. We will not be trying to take a preeminent place and straighten everyone out.
The things we have to say are so vital, so real, and when we do say them, we want it to be God’s time to say them. What people are hearing is so important—the most important thing in their lives—that they hear what God really has.
To miss the speaking of God is tragic—nothing right. If I deal with you in such a way that, when I open my mouth to speak, you will not listen, I am doing the worst kind of harm, not good. Samuel only wanted to do good.
If the minute I get a revelation of the Lord as to what is wrong with your life, I rush over to your house and say, “Look, this is over. I have got to be faithful about this, and I have got this right away from the Lord, and we are going to straighten things out right here, now. Somebody in the church has got to have authority, you know. You have not got it, so I guess I have.”
You think these are far-fetched? I have been among people where this kind of thing went on all the time. They always wondered why their sacrifice, effort, giving, and suffering did not bring life and blessing and joy.
No, Samuel was—as a matter of fact, the next morning you find Samuel opening the doors. A very simple and seemingly mundane thing. He did not go off saying, “I have got the Word now, and I am going to blow down all of God’s enemies.”
As a matter of fact, it was almost twenty years. The period between 1 Samuel 3 and 1 Samuel 4 takes about twenty years for Samuel slowly to emerge into his ministry. He had heard from God, and now he could speak for God.
But he went the next morning and simply opened the door. He was great.
Dear friends, God cannot trust us very much at all—and He has a lot He wants to trust us with—until we have learned how to be subject to one another, even the people we think are all wrong.
Scripture not only preaches an order, and that order is needed among us, and the lack of it does cost us something. It also preaches, “Be subject to one another.”
Now, you see, Samuel had to live right alongside them. He had to help in some of the offerings with the same men whose offerings were not acceptable to the Lord. For at least twenty years after God spoke to him, he had these boys’ number.
But you do not read either of two things: that he came into conflict with them, or that he became corrupted by their sin. What is this? How did he manage to walk that tightrope for twenty years?
There is only one answer, dear friend: you know the ways and the Word of God. That is, you must have had a deep personal experience of walking with the Lord. I am sorry, nothing will substitute for that.
The only way you can tell when people’s hearts are being won to God is not when they are able to give a voluminous and powerful testimony in the fellowship. It is when their personal lives in the background, hidden where they think no one can see them, begin to change and measure up.
Friend, the only thing you are before God and before His people in the Spirit is what you are in private when you are alone. Okay? No more.
One of the things we have to learn—one of the reasons the house of God becomes a dreadful place—is because we have to find out, when we try to kid other people, that we do not really know the Lord. We are an open book. We are very much an open book.
Samuel had a deep, real personal walk of love. He had a humility. He had the open heaven, the speaking of God to him, so he could bring the Word of God’s peace. What God told him, he spoke.
That is the reason for this little word in verse 19:
And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.
— 1 Samuel 3:19
Not a loud, fanatical man with all of the answers, but a quiet, real, devastating servant of God. As you will read later on, Samuel came to be greatly feared and respected among the people of God.
He came to be known as the seer—not primarily as the prophet or the priest, but as the seer who could search out the hearts of men. When he came, they did him honors, and they were afraid. We shall read of innocent people among whom he came, and they were afraid, because he represented the reality of God in their midst.
Are you getting the picture? Here was something new on the scene.
Not something with all the externalities, words, shibboleths, and everything that so many of us think makes a man of God. We need to be reeducated—not just to recognize a man of God, but to recognize what God is doing in the corporate man, as represented here and in many other places among His people, and what the nature and character of that thing must be.
Then we will quit trying to make it into another successful church. The biggest peril we have—the marks as well, brothers and sisters—is that we should be successful. Our biggest peril.
What do you think of that? A lot of people come in. A lot of things go on. We turn into just another successful church.
God has done a lot of those, and friends, I am telling you, He is not happy with them. He is just not happy with it, because they are filled with people whose hearts are far from Him while they go through all the motions of Christianity.
It is possible to go through all of them and still not have a heart that has in it the true appreciation, worship, and service of God. Would you believe that is what He answers?
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” Regardless of what you have been told by some pretty important people, God is seeking worshipers. He is seeking worship.
Well, here is something new: something humble, something that does not look like much, something that has come right up against the established priesthood—Hophni and Phinehas and Eli.
Something that remains apart from that in purity and service to God. Something that hears from God and speaks His Word—begrudgingly, perhaps, but speaks it faithfully nonetheless. Eventually, it is known as God’s prophetic instrument. None of its words fall to the ground.
I am sure our hearts say, “Lord, make us that kind of an instrument.”
Believe it or not, brothers and sisters, do not get your heads going up, because next time I will cut you down to size. We are there. May the Lord increase it, I guess.
Probably sing number fifteen.