Putting yourself in a position to hear from God – 1 Samuel 2:12-4:1a, Part 3

There was evil in the tabernacle. All the people knew it. God was also taking notice.  Read 1 Samuel 2:27-36 here, and then return to the post.

Those verses are brutal, right? God sends an unnamed prophet to give a dark, dark message for Eli. He is saying, “Eli, what your sons are doing is detestable, and they will die.  But you, Eli, could have done more about this, so your family will no longer be priests.  There will be another one I will raise up.”  In other words, Eli, in not taking action to stop his sons’ wickedness, was just as culpable in God’s view. 

This is the principle “Silence is complicity.”  When we know that evil and injustice are occurring around us, but we don’t speak up or take any action, we are also guilty.  We are passive partners with the wrong. 

So God will take action where Eli does not.  Read how God takes action here: 1st Samuel chapter 3, verses 1-10.

1 Samuel 3:1-10 shows us that Samuel placed himself in a position to hear God and act on what he heard.  This passage is about God speaking to Samuel that evening.  But we should not read this passage as separate from what we already heard twice in chapter 2, verses 12-26, here and here.

Samuel, all through his childhood, and likely now into his teenage years, had established himself in a very particular way.  The years have passed, we know, from chapter 2 verses 21 and 26.  Enough time has gone by for his mom to have five more children.  Enough time for him to grow up with the Lord.  Enough time for grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men.  As the years of his childhood and teens went by, Samuel behaved in keeping with the heart and way of the Lord.   He put himself in a position to hear the Lord.  

So it is not as if God speaking to Samuel has nothing to do with Samuel.  God speaking to Samuel has everything to do with Samuel’s choices and lifestyle up to that point.  Hannah, his mom, set him on a trajectory of serving the Lord, and Samuel kept at it.  This is all the more amazing given that the two main priests in close proximity to him were so corrupt.  Samuel, as a young impressionable child and teen, kept himself from being corrupted by them.  That reality is vital as we think about God speaking so clearly to Samuel. 

God isn’t speaking directly to Hophni and Phineas.  God isn’t even speaking directly to Eli.  God will speak to Eli through a prophet, to tell Eli how he messed up. And God will speak to Hophni and Phineas through Eli.  But God speaks directly to Samuel.

In the next post, we’ll hear what God says to Samuel, and then in the final post this week, we’ll learn how you and I, like Samuel, can place ourselves in a position to hear God.

Photo by Franco Antonio Giovanella on Unsplash