I would like to turn you to two Scriptures from the same book: the first book of Samuel. First Samuel, Chapter 1. I am going to read from verse 9.
So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk.
Now Eli the priest was sitting upon his seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord.
And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore.
And she vowed a vow, and said, “O Lord of hosts, if Thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of Thy handmaid, and remember me, and not forget Thy handmaid, but wilt give unto Thy handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.”
And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth.
Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.
And Eli said unto her, “How long wilt thou be drunken? Put away thy wine from thee.”
And Hannah answered and said, “No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not thy handmaid for a wicked woman; for out of the abundance of my complaint and my provocation have I spoken hitherto.”
Then Eli answered and said, “Go in peace; and the God of Israel grant thy petition that thou hast asked of Him.”
And she said, “Let thy handmaid find favor in thy sight.”
So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.
And Chapter 3, the same book, from verse 1.
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.
And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place—now his eyes began to wax dim, so that he could not see—and the lamp of God was not yet gone out, and Samuel was laid down to sleep in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, that the Lord called Samuel; and he said, “Here am I.”
And he ran unto Eli, and said, “Here am I, for thou calledst me.” And he said, “I called not; lie down again.” And he went and lay down.
And the Lord called yet again, “Samuel.” And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, “Here am I, for thou calledst me.” And he 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.
And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, “Here am I, for thou calledst me.” And 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 bondservant heareth.’” So 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 bondservant heareth.”
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, from the beginning even unto the end. For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever, for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons did bring 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.”
And Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel feared to show Eli the vision.
Then Eli called Samuel, and said, “Samuel, my son.” And he said, “Here am I.” And he said, “What is the thing that the Lord hath spoken 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 spake unto thee.”
And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he 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 Beersheba, 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. And the word of Samuel came to all Israel.
We have already prayed, but let us recognize our need of the anointing.
Dear Lord, we want to thank You this evening. We have committed this time to You, and this time of the ministry of Your word. All we want to do now, Lord, is to recognize that without You we can do nothing.
Lord, let that anointing, power, and grace be upon the speaking of Your word and also, Lord, upon our hearing. Let Your purpose in this time and in these days be fulfilled in full measure. We ask it in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
As you all know, we have been talking about links. I am not sure that is the best term; it reminds me of golf courses. But what we mean is something that somehow links us to the Lord in a day of great distress and darkness.
It is one of the most wonderful things in the word of God that, at every single point of confusion, darkness, or distress, the Lord has had that servant of His—or servants of His—who have provided that link with Him and have been a turning point in the purpose of God.
The greatest turning point was Abraham. Up to that point, the Lord had dealt only with people as individuals or as families. But from that point, He began to deal with a people. It was a people that was then in view.
One of my friends once said something which I believe he said in a moment of inspiration, and I believe it was truly from the Lord: when the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, He placed within him the whole genetic history of redemption.
From that point onward, we hear of the Lord’s redeeming plan for mankind. We who are the Lord’s—whether Jews or Gentiles—have Abraham as our father, because God has saved us by the same living gift of faith that Abraham had.
Moses was another great turning point. He saw Him who is invisible, and he turned away from the riches and sophistication of Egypt. It cost him everything. He was Pharaoh’s grandson—adopted, it is true, but nevertheless the grandson. He was educated in the highest learning of Egypt and, according to our Jewish sources, in military tactics.
But the most amazing thing is that Moses stood at a turning point in the history of God’s dealings with mankind. A people was about to be born, and Moses was the key person in that. Of course, there were others with him: Aaron, Miriam, and Joshua.
I have in my home a little silver plaque from hundreds of years ago. It depicts the whole Red Sea, the Jews passing through it, and Pharaoh’s whole army being drowned in the sea. One of the things that intrigued me about that engraving was a little figure by Moses. It was Joshua.
He was but a boy, just like Samuel. He stayed in Moses’ tent, and he learned how to serve in Moses’ tent. These are all turning points.
In our Jewish tradition, Samuel is one of the greatest—far greater than David, Solomon, or Daniel. They were all turning points in the economy of God, but Samuel has always been understood by the rabbis to be one of the most remarkable turning points in the history of God’s dealings with mankind.
It was, of course, the producing of the king. Samuel actually anointed the wrong king and the right king. He anointed Saul—we sometimes forget that—and blessed him. But Saul was a man of the flesh. David was a man after God’s own heart.
We could speak of a whole number of these turning points, but I am here to speak about Samuel, and what Samuel means to us and should mean to us.
Another one of the greats was Daniel. The children of God would never have returned to the land, rebuilt the city of God, rebuilt the temple of God, rebuilt Nazareth and Bethlehem, and rebuilt other places throughout the land—places already prophesied as having to do with the coming of the Messiah—if it had not been for Daniel and his incredible intercessory ministry.
So important was Daniel’s intercessory ministry that the archangel Gabriel was sent to him with the message, “O man greatly beloved, from the moment you began to pray, your prayer was heard.”
Daniel’s ministry was so important that we understand the prince of Persia and the prince of Greece opposed Michael, the prince of Israel. They were having a conflict. It sounds like a fairy tale or a legend, does it not? But it was not. It was very real, because all human history is the expression of spiritual beings.
Gabriel said, in effect, “I am sorry I am late. I was caught up with this conflict that the prince of Persia and the prince of Greece were having with Michael, the prince of Israel. I felt I had to help him, and so I stayed with him for three weeks. Now I have come.”
The most amazing thing is that God gave Daniel a mathematical prophecy. That prophecy led directly to the coming of the Lord Jesus. It does not matter how you understand that mathematical prophecy; it all ends in His birth, His ministry, His life, His crucifixion, His death, His resurrection, and His coming again.
Now, that reveals to us just how important these servants of God are to the Lord. It may also make us ask, why does the Lord not do it Himself? Why does He have to have Abraham and Moses and, on a lesser scale, Joshua, Samuel, David, Daniel, and John the Baptist to usher in the King?
It is a good question, because, as some of you have heard me say before, the Lord could do it much more easily without us than with us. You and me—myself—we are the problems to the Lord. Generally speaking, we cause a great deal of confusion, distress, and delay.
So why in the world does the Lord not do it Himself? He is sovereign. He is self-sufficient. He does not need us. Why, then, does He wait at every turning point in divine history for the right person to be there with Him?
I have only one answer: fellowship.
In some extraordinary way, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit believe in fellowship. They will not act without the redeemed. They will not fulfil Their purpose without those who belong to the Lord. There is really no other explanation.
Stephen spoke to us this morning about the overcomers. Really, that is what the Lord is waiting for. Why? Because He is training us. He called Abraham, “My friend.” He spoke of Moses as one He spoke to face to face.
When Moses died, there is a very strange Hebrew construction. The English translation says that he died by the word of the Lord, but the Hebrew says that he died on the lips of the Lord.
The rabbis tell us that God Almighty loved Moses so much that, when he came to the end, He kissed him, and Moses went to be with the Lord.
We shall never really understand why the Lord waits for us, why He does not simply get on with it and do it Himself. But the fact is, wherever you turn, you find intercession at every single turning point.
In my estimation—and this is an aside—the Apostle Paul was another turning point. In some incredible way, he became an apostle to the Gentiles.
So tremendous was the ministry that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit gave to him that, in the greatest exposition of the gospel in the sixty-six books of the Bible, he took three whole chapters to deal with the Jewish people.
He was so afraid that his apostleship to the Gentiles would be misunderstood, as though God had finished with Israel and with the Jewish people. It is incredible. Here you have eight whole chapters covering the gospel, and three whole chapters dealing with the problem of the Jewish people.
Can God unelect what He has elected? Can God unchoose what He has chosen?
Does this not bring home to us how important intercession is? The Apostle Paul opened Romans 9, 10, and 11 with these extraordinary words:
“I could wish that I myself were anathema, cursed, for my brethren’s sake, who are Israelites.”
That is intercession. It is not merely in the head; it is in the heart. It is that passion and burden in the heart that brings us, who are the redeemed of the Lord, into the closest communion we can have with the intercession of the Lord Jesus.
This whole question of links is, for me, a tremendous subject. You cannot deal with it without understanding intercession. Abraham, Moses, and Samuel are called the three greatest intercessors up to that point in the word.
Would you not think this extraordinary? Are you aware of just how remarkable it is? Do you realize that the Lord wants you to be an intercessor, and that you cannot, in one sense, be an overcomer without being an intercessor?
Now, this word intercessor has been bandied around, like being born again, and has lost its meaning. Many people say they are intercessors, but they are not intercessors. They may be prayer warriors, but they are not intercessors.
Intercession begins with a knowledge of the will of God. Once you know what God is planning to do, then intercession begins by the power and ability of the Holy Spirit.
Why the Lord wants intercessors, I shall never understand until I am in His presence. But all I know is this: the Lord says, “I will not do it if there is not an intercessor.”
Indeed, He said to Ezekiel on one occasion:
“I sought for a man to stand in the gap, and build up the wall, but I found none; therefore have I poured out My indignation upon the land.”
Well, why?
If you have followed me so far, we can come to Samuel. One of the most incredible things about Samuel is that he stood between a murmuring, gainsaying, stiff-necked people and the Lord.
In one sense, he had made a mistake. Of course, from another point of view, it was not a mistake, because he had told the people, “Do not have a king. You are making a big mistake.”
Saul was a magnificent man, head and shoulders above all the rest. There were many things about Saul that made him seem to be a man among men, an apparently divine choice to be king. It took Samuel in.
Until he discovered that Saul was a man of the flesh and could not obey the Lord. He obeyed partly, but only partly. He undid the work of the kingdom and brought tragedy to the people of God.
But Samuel again and again interceded, calling upon the Lord to have mercy upon Israel. The Lord had mercy, and, in the end, we all know the story.
Samuel discovered this shepherd boy. As he looked at him, he was nothing like Saul: not Saul’s height, breadth of shoulders, muscle, or appearance. This was just a shepherd boy.
And the Lord said to him, “This is the man. Anoint him. He is a man after My own heart.”
Samuel was the turning point in the divine dealings with the people and in the fulfilment of the divine purpose. We can learn a great deal from Samuel.
I want to speak of three things this evening. I will speak of others at other times, but tonight I want to speak only of three things. I have been a good preacher, because each of them begins with the letter T:
It is no wonder that Samuel stands so high in the Jewish view of the history of Israel.
Dear Hannah found it unbearable that Peninnah, the other wife, had so many children, while she did not have a single child. The affliction in the home only caused her more agony and anguish.
She went to the Lord in travailing prayer. She poured out her heart. The word says that she wept sore. In her anguish, she did not make a great noise. It was a silent prayer, but her lips moved.
Eli thought she was drunk. But Eli was not exactly perceptive or discerning. He said, “You are drunk, woman. Stop drinking wine and strong drink.”
She said, “I am not drunk. I have drunk no wine or strong drink. But I have such anguish in my heart, and I have sought the Lord that He should give me a man child.”
Then she made this vow—she had already made it silently to the Lord—that if the Lord granted the request of His handmaid, she would commit and dedicate the child to the Lord for the rest of his life.
That is something to say for someone who wanted a child above everything else. If she had this one child, she was going to give him totally to the Lord. That is total commitment.
Let me just say something, though I am straying again from what I should be holding to. You mothers, you have no idea of the influence you will have upon your children.
Hannah is one of the great figures in Israel’s history, because it was her total and unconditional commitment to the Lord that led to the gift of a son. He was set apart for the rest of his life.
In the first chapters of 1 Samuel, you have Hannah’s great psalm. Read it. It is extraordinary. It reveals the fact that a mother can have enormous influence upon the course of a son’s life.
You might have thought that, when Samuel was born, he would have been upset that his mother was going to leave him in the tabernacle. But it never happened that way.
So great was her love for Samuel, and so great was her own personal commitment to the Lord, that it affected Samuel.
She called him in Hebrew, Shemu’el: the name of the Lord.
I find it difficult to use the unmentionable name of the Lord. I know that in some Messianic circles it is bandied around very much, but I personally have a real problem with it. I always say “the Lord,” Adonai, or HaShem, “the Name.”
That unmentionable name was only spoken three times on one day in the whole year: the Day of Atonement. In the public courtyard, the high priest lifted up his hands, and three times he blessed the people in the unmentionable name of the Lord.
That is why we do not really know how the name was pronounced. We know the vowel sounds, but that is all. Some people say “Yahweh,” some say something else. Personally, I think it is better simply to say, “the Lord,” or, “the Name.”
But is it not amazing that she called Samuel the name of the Lord?
It is interesting because, in 1 Peter 3, there is this word:
“But sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord.”
The fact that she called Samuel the name of the Lord seems to me to indicate what her longing for Samuel was: that there should be a sanctifying of the Lord in his heart—set apart.
We are taught in the pattern prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” Hallowed is a very old English way of saying, “Sanctified be Thy name.”
Is that not interesting? I think so.
Let me say one last thing to you, dear mothers. You will have a lasting impact upon your children if, with love and grace, you teach them concerning the Lord and rear them in the fear of the Lord—not in some slavish fear, which many have done, unfortunately, with dire consequences, but with love and with grace.
That brings me to the second thing: Samuel had to make his own commitment.
I find it amazing that Samuel did not argue. He was not embittered. He had no quarrel with the Lord or with his mother. When she left him after he was weaned, she left him in the tabernacle with Eli. She would only have seen him on certain occasions when she made a journey to the tabernacle.
Samuel had to make a total commitment to the Lord that was unconditional. There were no ifs and buts. It was total committal.
No one will ever be an overcomer without a total and unconditional commitment to the Lord Jesus. Without that personal commitment, you will never be an overcomer. It is the very root of overcoming.
We must be wholeheartedly for the Lord: wholeheartedly for His lordship, wholeheartedly for the truth that He is, wholeheartedly for the church that He has brought to birth, and wholeheartedly for the gospel.
It requires a total and unconditional commitment. Do not think that you can get away with half measures.
The greatest problem we are facing today—not only in the United States but in all Western countries—is the half-committedness of Christian people. They are not committed. They are half committed, perhaps a third committed.
It means that you go to at least one meeting a week, somehow coast along, and remain complacent. As long as you are happy and have what you want, that is all that matters.
This Laodicean condition is the greatest problem we face. Why do you think the Lord has allowed this to happen to the United States? Because the church itself is basically uncommitted.
It has not spoken up against things it should have spoken up against. It has not been light in darkness, salt in corruption, or held the testimony of Jesus in purity and obedience.
Therefore, the Lord has allowed these things to come to pass in the Western nations. Where do you find the church of God today? You find it in Asia, Africa, and South America. There you find a living expression of the church—perhaps with its faults and failings, as in the New Testament—but nevertheless a living expression of the church.
But in the West, we have this half-and-half kind of manner. As I said a few days ago—wherever I was speaking, perhaps in Franklin or perhaps here in Virginia—you want the kind of thing where someone preaches on Sunday, everyone goes home for a meal, and discusses the message comfortably.
You discuss whether the pastor was right or wrong, what he said, or what he did not say. There is no such thing as a revolutionary message. That would be too much.
If there were a revolutionary message that turned the church upside down and inside out, we would be upset. For the first time, we would be challenged to really pray. For the first time, we would be challenged to be totally committed to the Lord. For the first time, we would make a personal commitment to the Lord.
I find it very sad to have to say such a thing. But those of you who know me know that I have said for years that the United States is like the Titanic: it is sailing into an iceberg and has no idea that it will sink when it hits it.
This kind of commitment that Samuel had is an absolute necessity. It is not optional. It is not something you can either accept or reject.
There is no way that you and I can be overcomers without such a commitment—total and unconditional. Let me take it one step further: there is no alternative to such total commitment. There is no substitute for it.
That is the gift that Samuel is to us. He was but a little boy. The Scripture says that at that point he did not even know the Lord, but he was committed to the Lord. Then he himself ratified Hannah’s commitment of him.
If there is any young person here, perhaps your parents committed you to the Lord when you were born. Perhaps they consecrated you to the Lord. But perhaps you have never ratified their commitment. You have never confirmed it by your own personal commitment to the Lord.
This is something tremendous. I cannot exaggerate the importance of this matter. It is total.
I think of what it says also in this same book:
“Them that honor Me I will honor.”
To honor the Lord does not merely mean that you take His name on your lips in prayer or sing about Him. It means that you are totally committed to Him. Away with any other kind of Christianity. As far as the Lord is concerned, there is no other.
Then, of course, there is this other thing: total surrender of my will.
Most of us have a very great problem here. Generally speaking, we are people of strong will. We have problems when the Lord wants that will of yours and mine surrendered. We are not happy with that.
That is not the gospel we want. The gospel we want is that the Lord will save us, clean up our messes, make us happy, help us get to middle age, and then let us be complacent and not too active for the rest of our years until we are partly deaf and partly blind. Then the Lord will take us.
Is this the gospel? Is that what the Lord came into this world to die for?
The surrender of our will is the greatest battle in any Christian life, whether young or old. Do not think it is only a question for those in their teens with their lives before them. It can also be the issue for those who are older.
How many times, as we get older, does the whole question of the will come to the fore?
Forgive me. I do not want to bash you this evening, but I cannot help it. The point of the matter is that we are responsible for this mess.
Do you think the Lord is simply happy with that and says, “Well, they do not really want to surrender their will to Me, so I will just play ball with them. I will go along with them”? No. That is not what the Lord will do.
It means that you will not reign with Him in the eternity to come. As Campbell Morgan said many years ago, the kingdom of God is bigger than the city of Jerusalem.
In other words, you can be born again and see the kingdom, but not necessarily be part of the bride.
It is obvious, is it not? Do you think the Lord is interested only in some kind of Marilyn Monroe figure—beautiful figure, beautiful eyes, beautiful eyelashes, beautiful hair, beautiful everything, but nothing between the ears?
Perhaps that is unkind to Marilyn Monroe, but you know what I mean. Do you really believe the Lord wants to marry a bride like that? Of course not.
He wants a bride that has learned how to overcome in small personal situations, family situations, relationships, business, church life, and national life.
He wants people who have learned, by His indwelling power and grace, to overcome. It is so simple, this matter.
Some years ago, I was asked to preach in Melbourne Hall, in the Midlands of Britain. The pastor had been pastor there for thirty-four years, and he asked whether I would speak on Romans 9, 10, and 11.
I went with great trepidation. But the brother who took me had been the man whom that pastor had led to the Lord and had personally helped in discipleship in his early years.
I stood in the pulpit, remembering that Dr. F. B. Meyer had founded that assembly. I preached on Romans 9, 10, and 11, and in the course of it I happened to say, as an aside, that I was saved by the grace of God through the life story of C. T. Studd.
I said that he upset everybody by writing parodies on Christian hymns:
“Backward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as from war,
With the candy-floss going on before.”
That upset the Christians, especially the wooden, half-hearted, uncommitted Christians. They believed he was a drug addict, a kind of alcoholic, or something.
Then he wrote another little parody:
“Some want to live within the sound
Of chapel chime and bell;
I’d rather run a rescue shop
Within a yard of hell.”
When I read the book of C. T. Studd’s life story, it was the first Christian book I had ever held in my hand. I partly read it because the Sunday school teacher had handed it out to all the other boys and had not given me one. So I had to ask him for it, and I almost felt I had to read it.
The cover described him as a missionary statesman and famous cricketer, and that caught me. I thought, “How can a Christian be an athlete? That is impossible.” I thought all Christians were hypocrites or diseased.
So I read the book in one week. At the end of it, I remember that I stood, then thought perhaps they knelt, so I knelt. Then I felt uncomfortable kneeling, so I got up. I put my hands up and said, “Oh God, will You please do in me what You did in C. T. Studd, and make me what You made him?”
I do not think I realized what I was asking. I had very little idea of the total commitment that C. T. had made.
When he needed a doctor’s letter to say he was fit to go as a missionary, the doctor would not give him the letter. He said, “You are a museum of illnesses. You cannot make it, neither in China nor anywhere else.”
He went with the Cambridge Seven to China. Then he went to India. Then he went to the Congo, and he spent the rest of his years in Central Africa. When he died, thirty thousand former cannibals came to his funeral.
He never went back to England on furlough. He was not a chocolate soldier.
I told them that little story. After the service, I went into the vestry with this dear man who had been there for thirty-four years. As I sat down, he said to me, “Lance, did you know that you stood tonight in the pulpit where C. T. preached the last message he ever gave in Britain?”
He never came back. He went to China, India, and the Congo.
I said, “No.” He said, “Do you know Dr. F. B. Meyer was so impressed with C. T. that, when he got him into the vestry, he said to him, ‘Tell me, what is the secret of your life and ministry?’”
C. T. thought for a while, and then he said, “I have surrendered my will, in its entirety, to the Lord Jesus.”
There is no alternative to a total surrender of the will. All your arguments with God are because of your will. All your arguments with one another are because of your will.
Our church catfights and dogfights are nearly all to do with somebody’s “I” and somebody else’s “I.” When you have, “I think, I know, I feel, I want,” and someone else says, “I feel, I think, I know, I want,” you have a dogfight.
Generally speaking, the Lord retires. He leaves you to the fight: “Fight it out among yourselves.” If you are not prepared totally to surrender your will, this is what you will get.
It is amazing to me that when we follow our own will, we are not happy. We get what we want. We will into being what we want. But we are not happy.
Samuel surrendered his will to the Lord.
I find it amazing that the Lord stood in that tabernacle and called him by name. He had been named with the name of the Lord, and it was the Lord who said, “Shemu’el, Shemu’el.”
Samuel ran to Eli and said, “You are calling me. I am here.” Eli said, “I did not call you. Go and lie down.” He went three times.
Eli, who was not very good at perceiving what was happening, finally said after three times, “It is the Lord. When He says your name again, go and say to Him, ‘Here I am. Your bondslave heareth.’”
He used the Hebrew word not for a hired servant, but for a bondslave: “Your bondslave heareth.”
There is so much in the word of God about this matter of hearing. I do not want to belabor the matter, but total surrender of our will is the key to overcoming.
Those who are going to be these links with the Lord in the last stage of world history need not only to be totally and unconditionally committed to the Lord; we need to have surrendered our will to Him.
Then it is His will, not mine. It is the fulfilment of those wonderful words in the Roman letter:
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure.”
There is no conflict there between your will and His will. He will work out His plan for you. He will will and work. Is that not amazing? I find it so, anyway.
Lastly, there is this question of total obedience. This question of hearing the Lord is so important.
Many Christians, especially men, have a problem about hearing the Lord. I do not know why, but they do. Normally ladies do not seem to have that problem, but men often do.
Someone said to me a few years ago, “I have never heard the Lord. I do not expect Him to speak to me.” I said, “Well, if you do not expect Him to speak to you, you will not hear Him.”
When the Lord Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice,” He meant it. We should expect the Lord to speak to us.
Now, I know there are people who hear strange things, and not necessarily the Lord at all. But I mean truly hearing the Lord. Do you think the Lord can protect you from other voices? Of course He can.
This is an important matter, this question of hearing. Did you realize that when the Lord gave the Ten Commandments—or, as we call them, the Ten Words—He followed them with the story of the Jubilee year?
He said that if you have a bondslave in your home, and he says, “I love my master. I do not want to be free,” then the master shall take him to the doorpost.
This is in Exodus 21. The master shall take him to the doorpost and, with an awl, put a hole in his ear. What the word of God does not tell us, but what the Talmud tells us, is that a ring was put into it so that everybody could see that person was his master’s bondslave forever.
Why do you think the Lord talked about the ear? Is not the bondslave, or servant, all to do with hands? Would it not have been better to put a ring on his finger so that everyone could see that ring?
Or better still, should he not have had an ankle chain around his ankle? After all, it is his feet. You cannot do the will of God or the work of God without feet. They carry you into doing it.
You can argue forever about what is more important, hands or feet. If your feet are crippled, what can your hands do?
But the Lord Himself gave the order: “I do not want any ankle chain, even if it is gold, on My bondslave’s ankle. I do not want a ring on his finger. I want his ear.”
If he cannot hear what I am saying, his service is of no use.
How can we be a link in a turning point of history if we have ears that do not hear the voice of the Master?
Then again, we have the incredible Old Testament story of the cleansing of a leper. He is to go to the temple or tabernacle and see the priest. The priest takes the blood and puts it on his ear. Then he takes the oil and puts it on his ear. His leprosy is cleansed.
Why the ear? Why not the big toe? Why not one of the fingers of the hand?
It is almost as though the Lord is saying, “Yes, I need redeemed feet, and I need redeemed hands. But if I do not have redeemed ears, it is all useless.”
There can be no service without an ear to hear.
You know as well as I do—we are well taught—that when the Lord spoke to the seven churches, every single message ended with the same refrain:
“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.”
This ear of ours is the most important thing in overcoming. It is to hear the Lord and to obey the Lord.
Samuel really was a great servant of the Lord. In one place, when he rebuked Saul, he said:
“Obedience is far more important than sacrifice.”
Remember that. If you do not hear the Lord, you may feel that you do not need to obey Him.
But total obedience is the only way that you and I will come through the days that lie ahead. But we will come through if we hear Him. If we hear Him and trust Him, we will come through, and we shall see the purpose of God finally fulfilled.
Samuel stands like a great monolith to warn us that if we do not have total, unconditional commitment to the Lord, we will fail. If we do not have total surrender of our will to His will, we will fail. If we do not have an ear to hear and obey what we hear Him say, we will fail.
May the Lord reach our hearts this evening and touch us, because we are now at one of these great turning points in history.
We need the Lord more than we have ever needed Him before.