Last Sunday I called on you to draw near to God, and He will draw near to you, and I spoke of how Enoch walked with God. Enoch became intimate and personal with God and for 300 years had a relationship with God. If you have ever noticed, that in those times that you find yourself pushing in to God; find yourself pressing in to the things of God, it is then that you find God revealing things to you that you have never understood before. In fact last Sunday, someone told me after Church that during the sermon God revealed to them something about the Scripture verse (Matthew 19:24) “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
And as I talked about feeding our appetites with the things other than God, she said this verse was finally revealed to her that it is harder for the rich man because they are so “fat” from feeding their appetites on everything else but God. And that is what happens, when you draw near to God, and get intimate with God, the things of God will become much clearer to you.
In our text today, (a) Theologian Polzin notes some things are happening that appear to be quite the opposite: Eli has grown old, and his eyesight is dim. Rather than seeing clearly, his eyesight is diminishing. It tells us up-front that “messages from the Lord were very rare and visions were uncommon”. In other words, not much was happening. Eli’s two sons, described in the previous Chapter (2) were both priests, and they were scoundrels who literally ignored the sacrificial laws in order to feed their own hunger. (2:17) told us that “The sin of these young men was very serious in the Lord’s sight, for they treated the Lord’s offerings with contempt.”. We are also told that the “lamp of God had not gone out”. Many different interpretations can be read into this, but what I believe it suggests for us this morning is that the “lamp of God”, “the presence of God” had not yet gone out, but it was “diminishing”. God was present, his lamp was lit in the Temple, but the closes-ness to God was so rare, that the Priest slept in another room, his eyesight dim, and visions and words from the Lord were rare, if not at all. And beyond that even two of the priests were desecrating the offerings made to the Lord.
1. Now Samuel, still a young boy, we learn in Chapter 2, that he “was the Lord’s helper” and “he was growing up in the presence of the Lord”. In Chapter 3, we find him sleeping near the Ark of the Covenant and near the Lamp of God’s presence. Samuel was perhaps so hungry for God’s presence that he was sleeping as near as he could. He was sleeping in the Temple. He was a boy who was dedicated to the Lord and was sleeping “near” the Lord. Something then disturbs his sleep, The Lord calling out “Samuel, Samuel!”. And Samuel jumps up and runs to Eli and says “Here I am, what do you need?”. (3:4-5)
Now get this, this is the first point I want to make, Samuel is “near” to God. He was sleeping in the Temple. Can you be any nearer than that? And yet, when God speaks to him; when a word from the Lord comes, Samuel did not recognize God’s voice. (b) “Samuel was experiencing the word of the Lord, but he did not know it.” He was “near” but perhaps he was not near enough! And it raises the question “How near is near enough?” or “How near is near”. Maybe you have pushed in and you have come to Church, and I say “thanks be to God”, but have you pushed in to an intimate relationship in which you not only hear and recognize the voice of God, but you also heed it? Maybe, just maybe you know you want to be close to God, but haven’t pushed past just sitting in the Church to actually having a real relationship with God.
2. Samuel goes back to bed when he realizes that Eli didn’t call him. A second time the Lord calls out to Samuel (3:6), and again Samuel runs to Eli, and says “Here I am, what do you need?” That brings me to the second point I want to make about our nearness with God: Sometimes we think we are near to God, even counting ourselves present in His Temple, but we put other relationships before our relationship with God. We run to find answers from other people. We run to fill ourselves up with other things. Maybe its that we are not paying attention to God’s voice, but we will follow the voice of a friend, or our own desires.
3. Samuel, goes back to bed, and a third time the Lord calls out to him “Samuel, Samuel!”. (3:7-8). This time something is added to the story, that “Samuel did not know the Lord, because he had never had a message from the Lord.”, so even this third time, he did not recognize the Lord’s voice. Here he was in the Temple, had basically grown up in Church since the time he was weaned from his mother, and yet Samuel did not know the Lord. I think that is the third point of this story, and about our drawing near to God in the Temple. Many people “know of” the Lord, but they do not “know” the Lord! And so they come in to the Temple, knowing of the Lord, but if God spoke to them they wouldn’t even recognize His voice, because they have not drawn near in a personal intimate relationship.
Maybe its like this. We like to sing in worship, but worship; true worship perhaps isn’t really about singing. There is a song, some of you are familiar with “I’m Coming Back to the Heart of Worship” by _________ . In his Church the Pastor did away with the singing of songs for a period of time in order for them to find the real meaning of worship. The song came out of that experience. I kind of thought that ironic, they did away with singing for a certain period of time, and one of the results was the writing of a song. But in the words he writes “I’ll give you more than a song, for a song in itself is not what you have required…” And what I think he means there, is it is not about the song, but it is about being in relationship with God. You can sing all you want in the Temple, but if you do not know first hand the Living God, then the song in itself means nothing.
Pastor John Bevere (c) tells of by invitation visiting with Jim Baker in prison. You remember Jim and Tammy Faye. The bilked followers and spent it on lavish things, and Jim engaged in an affair with his Secretary. When John visited him in prison he tells of asking Jim, “When did he fell out of love with the Lord?” “When did you grow cold in your relationship with the Lord?” Jim said “I didn’t”. “What do you mean that you didn’t
, with all that stuff you did?” And Jim said “But John, I loved him all the way through. But what I didn’t do was fear him.”
To understand worship we go back to its early beginnings. Abraham took Isaac to Mt. Moriah and he told his men (Gen 22:4) “We are going up, and we are going up to Worship, and then we will come right back”. He wasn’t going up to sing songs; or follow the bulletin; or great each other at the appropriate time; or sing praise music; or sing from the hymnal; or form a choir; but rather Abraham was going up to offer his son as a sacrifice to God. An Angel of the Lord appeared and stopped him, and the angel said “Do not hurt the boy in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God.” It was out of this “fear” that Abraham truly worshipped God. “In the fear of the Lord, that one departs from sin.” (c) Sin is lawlessness, and not being submitted to the Lord’s authority. Fear submits you to authority.
When Moses came down from the Mountain and the people were sinning (Exodus 20) the people begged “Don’t let God speak directly to us. If he does, we will die.” And Moses said “Don’t be afraid,” “for God has come in this way to show you his awesome power. From now on, let your fear keep you from sinning.” And what Moses was saying, to let your fear keep you from having a relationship with God, but let your fear keep you from sinning. Let your reverence, your Godly fear draw you near to God. “It is the fear of God that keeps us from sin, not the love of God”. “We have worked out our salvation with fear and trembling, not with love and kindness.” True worship is drawing near to God in reverence. (Ex 20:19-20).
We love God, but we must also fear God. Out of our reverence for God he will drawn near to us and our relationship will grow, and our love for God will grow more and more. Fear then is the doorway to an intense relationship with God. Solomon got it right in Proverbs 1:7 when he said “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”
4. In the fourth part of this story Eli, a old nearly retired priest was someone who did know the voice of the Lord, and he realizes that it is the Lord who was calling to Samuel. So he tells Samuel, go back to bed and if the Lord calls again, answer him and say “Yes Lord, your servant is listening”. So Samuel goes back to bed and this time the story is different. It reads “And the Lord came and called as before Samuel, Samuel”. The Lord actually came and spoke to Samuel. Draw near to God; listen to God; press in to God, and God will draw near to you. This time Samuel answered and said “Yes Lord, your servant is listening.” And he hears the Lord and he goes and does the Lord’s work. That is the fourth point of the story this morning: Being willing to hear and obey.
5. Lastly, I want to say, if you want to draw near to the Lord, we have to draw near to him in the temple. In the New Testament we have a different understanding of “temple”. (1 Cor 3:16) Paul wrote “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you. And he comes back to the sin and lawlessness problem in 1 Cor 6:19 “…Or don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God. You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.”
If you want to draw near to God in the temple, then we must seek to put off sin. We must “be holy, as He is Holy” and make a place for him to dwell. Want to suppress the spirit of God in the temple, then sin, and sin some more, and you will not only feel distant, but separated from God. Want to draw near to Him, then make the temple Holy, and make room for His lamp of the Presence to shine in your life.
You remember how Eli’s priestly sons were not regarding the holiness of the sacrifice. A similar thing happened in Levitcus 10, when Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu were not using the incense and the fire in the manner that had been prescribed. One translation indicates that the “profaned” the Lord. Profaning the Lord is “treating what is reverent as common”. In fact even Webster’s defines the word “profane” as “An irreverent act towards God or Sacred things”. Nadab and Abihu profane the Lord’s altar, and so God consumed them with fire. Moses though responded and said to Aaron “I will show myself holy among those who are near me.” (10:3).
If you are near to God, He will show himself holy. And to draw near to God, you must regard him as holy, and seek to be holy yourself. It does not mean that you are perfect. It does not mean that we are without sin. It does not mean that we don’t make mistakes. But there is a difference between wallowing in the pit of sin, than just stubbing your toe in it once in a while. But your primary goal is not the sin, but living and drawing near to God.
(a) NIB, Vol. II, p. 992 (b) p. 991
(c) Pastor John Bevere, “Drawing Near to God”, “Hungry for Him” series
