Breaking the Routine • 1 Samuel 3

33:14 Teaching begins

Notes

When life gets into a routine it becomes a long rut. A long rut is really a very long grave.

A whole nation is in a rut, and it is a grave. Leaders are corrupt. Religion is corrupt. God is far off, He doesn’t get into the nitty gritty of life. He’s not close, He’s not speaking. He’s not doing anything.

Today God does something. He breaks the routine, the ordinary, the normal. He reveals Himself in a roundabout, awkward way. He messes up some lives. But there’s a purpose behind what He does.

He reveals Himself as the God who is going to judge this present routine of ignoring Him when He speaks and rejecting Him.

He’s going to establish a new normal that is full of His life, His light, His blessing.

He does that by revealing His word to a boy.

I’m reading in 1 Samuel chapter 3.

1. First we see the ordinary, the normal, the status quo, the routine in Israel, in which God is far away and the country is in a mess.

A. One of the ordinary routines is that Samuel ministers to the Lord under Eli’s supervision.

1. He’s learning how to do the sacrifices, how to do the ceremonies, how to officiate at the altar. He’s learning the mechanics of the worship, the forms, the outward aspects.

2. Eli is in charge. That means that his sons Hophni and Phineas are doing their routine. They are also offering sacrifices and doing priestly duties, but in a way offensive to man and God. Their routine and ordinary day to day life is breaking all of God’s commandments. Day in, day out, year after year.

B. Another ordinary is that men despise the offering of the Lord. Don’t go up to Shiloh, they’re a bunch of crooks. Better stay home. That demoralises the life of the nation.

C. You see that word from the Lord was rare in those days, there was no widespread revelation. The norm is that you don’t hear from God. He’s not present. He’s not speaking. He might fill heaven and earth and the heavens of the heavens can’t contain Him, but you wouldn’t know it to live in Israel. God-forsaken is what people call it.

D. This is the big problem right here—no word from God.

1. Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keeps the law.

2. This is the time of the Judges in Israel. That means people barely know God and mostly worship idols. They do whatever they want, they are not restrained by the law, but whatever they do, they are not satisfied or happy. They are not blessed. Yes, there are no restraints. No, there is no happiness. There is chaos and misery in the darkness.

3. This is the routine in Israel that cranks along year after year. The ordinary, the normal, is that God is just a religious routine, He’s not close, giving light and life. It’s dark, it’s miserable and unsatisfying.

2. We are directed to what time it is when God breaks into the routine.

A. While Eli was lying down in his place. This is also routine. You go to bed just like any other night.

B. Also it was when Eli’s eyes had begun to grow dim. He’s going blind. That’s been a routine for a long time.

C. Samuel is lying down. That’s routine, too. It’s a night like every other night.

D. Before the lamp of God in the Tabernacle went out. This is routine. They’d let the lamp burn out and then start up fresh in the morning.

E. God breaks into the status quo before that light goes out. He is going to keep it burning Himself.

1. Exodus 27:20-21 “You shall charge the sons of Israel, that they bring you clear oil of beaten olives for the light, to make a lamp burn continually. In the tent of meeting, outside the veil which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in order from evening to morning before the LORD; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout their generations for the sons of Israel.

2. The priests who are rejecting the word of the Lord, who are not listening to Him, had become darkened themselves to the point where that lamp had no meaning. It’s just a lamp. When it goes out in the night, aww, we’ll just light it again when we get up in the morning. No big deal.

3. But it’s a big deal for God. He is the light of His nation Israel. He will act for Himself and not allow the light to go out. Men aren’t keeping the light going. God is going to keep the lights on in Israel.

4. God calls Samuel in a roundabout way, vv. 4-9. 

A. He calls Samuel and Samuel says, “Here I am!”

B. The voice of the Lord sounds normal.

1. It didn’t sound like three different voices modified with studio effects to sound like a waterfall or a hundred voices all at once, weird and spoopy.

2. Samuel doesn’t think, oh, that’s got to be God! He just responds like it’s a recognisable voice, and he thinks Eli is calling him.

C. Samuel did not know the Lord yet. The word of the Lord had not been revealed to him. God was still external, not yet in Samuel’s life.

D. It gets weird and frustrating when Eli says, “I didn’t call you, go back to bed.” Samuel goes back to bed. Huh. Whatever THAT was...

E. But then it happens again, and again.

1. Each time Samuel says, here I am, you did call me. Eli says, no I didn’t.

2. The both of them are probably saying to themselves, “What is he thinking? It’s late! Why is he doing this to me?”

E. Finally Eli reasons, “Samuel isn’t the kind of boy to do this. He really thinks someone is calling him. Wow—is it the Lord?”

F. He helps Samuel: the next time He calls you, say this. “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.”

G. Don’t you think it’s interesting that Eli can figure out that it must be the Lord, and he knows what to tell Samuel to say the next time it happens? He’s not listening, but he tells Samuel to listen.

5. God has serious business for Samuel, vv. 10-14.

A. This is going to shock everyone who hears it. They are going to fear for their lives.

B. I’m going to do every single thing I’ve spoken to Eli about from beginning to end.

1. This might be news to Samuel. Eli might not have spoken about what the man of God told him. Would you speak about God condemning you forever?

2. So right now God is telling Samuel directly what He is going to do about Hophni, Phineas, and Eli, because Eli knew what his sons were doing to bring God’s judgment on themselves and he never stopped them.

C. There is no sacrifice or offering that will change My mind. This is unforgivable. I have spoken, and they have ignored Me. There is nothing left except judgment.

D. This is a fearsome message. Can you imagine Samuel’s reaction?

1. He is afraid. What is he going to say to Eli, who is almost like a father to him? What would Hophni or Phineas say? Probably laugh it off. The routine rolls on. Nothing ever happens, nothing is going to happen.

2. What do I do now? Samuel goes back to bed. It doesn’t say he sleeps. And in the morning he gets busy and probably avoids Eli.

6. Eli helps Samuel again, vv. 16-18.

A. That is, Eli puts the fear of God in Samuel: Don’t you hide a single word from me. God do it to you and more also if you hide one word from me.

B. That’s the right attitude, right from the very beginning of Samuel’s serving God and doing His will. You can’t change God’s message or decide not to deliver it. You have to fear God above all others and be faithful to Him and deliver every single word of what God says.

C. How would you react to the message if you were Eli? This twelve year old boy has just repeated a message that he didn’t hear before from anyone else. But it matches up exactly with what the man of God said to him. Eli could have said, “Well, there’s a bunch of weirdos out there. Anyone can call themselves a man of God and tell me anything in the name of God. Who says that it’s really God?” But here’s the same message coming from a boy. Samuel couldn’t have gotten that message from anyone except the Lord.

D. I think that God called Samuel in the way He did in order to testify to Eli. I’m real. I know. I’m at work. I can judge. I will judge. This is your last chance.

E. If Eli had received that word and feared and repented, God would have relented. Psalm 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise.

F. But Eli says, “It’s the Lord. Let Him do what seems good to Him.” He doesn’t break his routine of not listening to God, not receiving His word. God speaks but I’m still doing my own thing. I’m not changing. I’m staying normal. Status quo. Routine. Ordinary.

7. Now we have the beginning of a new normal in Israel, vv. 19-4:1.

A. Samuel keeps growing in knowing the Lord. Whenever he speaks what the Lord says, it always happens just as Samuel says.

1. That’s the test of a prophet. Deuteronomy 18:18-22 I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. A real prophet has to get it right every single time or he isn’t from God.

2. Today people prophesy in the name of the Lord all sorts of things, very exciting, but the prophecies don’t happen. No one checks up to see if what they say in the name of the Lord actually happened. It’s a hit-and-miss game. These so-called prophets never say, hmmm, I must not be from God. They just keep prophesying. In the old days, you could take him out and stone him. Samuel is the real thing. You can trust that he’s telling the truth.

B. The whole nation hears about Samuel. They kept hearing about it. Word had to spread, but it did spread. “If you want to hear from the Lord, Shiloh is where you have got to go!” “Shiloh? That stinkhole?” “Yes! It’s all different now!”

C. God is close, God is speaking, God is fulfilling His word. This is the new normal, the new ordinary, the new routine. Light instead of darkness. Order instead of chaos. Giving to the people, not stealing from them.

8. So what?

A. The difference between Samuel and Eli is that Samuel received the word of the Lord, and Eli refused to listen. He allowed nothing to break into his routine, his normal, his ordinary.

B. The word of God is more than letters on a page or spoken words. It is the revelation of God which is God Himself and is a person and is alive.

1. The word of the Lord is the person that John spoke about in His gospel. John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

2. John is talking about Jesus Christ. God offers to us His Son to come into our lives. We are literally receiving the living word of God.

3. Those who receive Jesus are given the right to become children of God. John 1:12-13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

C. When you don’t receive the word of the Lord you don’t have the presence of God, you don’t have His light, or His life. All you have is the outward mechanics of life. It’s just going through the motions. That’s a crummy routine. It’s totally dead. That’s because we are dead in our sins against God. We need forgiveness. Jesus died for our sins so we could be forgiven and be born again, from above. If we reject Him and ignore Him, there is nothing else for us but judgment.

D. God doesn’t like religion because it’s just the outward mechanics. Jesus told a very religious man, “Unless you are born from above you cannot see the kingdom of God.” God is into relationship. That means knowing and loving one another. Receiving the word of God, Jesus, means you get to know God for yourself. You experience like Samuel that God is close, He is speaking, He fulfills His word. If you don’t experience that, I’m sorry for your poor normal, your poor routine, your day in, day out ordinary bleah. You are dead in your sins.

E. Here’s God’s call to you. He’s calling you to turn from going your own way. Open up and receive Jesus, the Word of God. Receive new life from God. Be filled with His Holy Spirit. Are you willing? Some people aren’t willing because they don’t want God messing up their lives.

F. The word of the Lord will indeed break up your routine. It is the word of the Lord.

1. If Jesus is your saviour He must be your Lord. You can’t pick which bits of the word of God you will obey. Why do you call Me Lord, Lord and not do what I say?

2. It is not convenient to obey, as Samuel and Eli found out. Our lives have to conform to His will. You submit yourself completely. 

3. He does not need us. But we need God to break up our ordinary, normal, status quo, death. 

G. Say to Jesus, “Speak, Lord, Your servant is listening.” Receive the word of God.

Let’s pray.