The Voice of God-Part 3
Posted By on Sunday, March 06, 2016
In the Hebrew language, the word in the Hebrew here can be translated either word or voice. In fact, in the Hebrew Bible, it reads voice, and that would be better. “Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the voice of the Lord yet revealed to him.”
Here we have our first consideration, namely that in the final analysis, the recognition of the voice of the Lord is a matter of revelation, something which God Himself will disclose to us in a diversity of ways. I’ll come back to this a little later. We will read on.
“And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for you did call me. And Eli perceived (at long last) that the Lord had called the child. (God still calls children, as well as adults) Therefore Eli said to Samuel, Go, lie down; and it shall be, if He call you, that you shall say, Speak, Lord; for your servant hears. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. (Here is a very, very remarkable verse. After that we’ll come back to the other) And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for your servant hears.” I Samuel 3:8-10
And in verse 11, the Lord spoke to Samuel. While we are on this verse, I would like to share with you an experience that I have had some years ago that has been very, very real to me ever since. You know that I have been teaching in Bible school for many years, and in 1951 or thereabouts, I was going through a very great personal crisis. I can tell you briefly what it was.
I was directly involved in our Bible school in a great visitation of the Lord, a tremendous revival in 1951. That same year, I was teaching in a camp meeting, also in the States, and the Lord gave us a tremendous move by His Spirit of such a character that people came as far as Chicago to the East coast (1,000 miles) to get in on the camp meeting.
Then in the fall of the same year, I was teaching in a night school in Philadelphia. We had a visitation of the Lord for 5 consecutive Monday nights. The school met only Monday evenings. Well somehow, some criticism arose and I was challenged by two of our leading brethren. They were telling me that this revival in the night school ought not to continue.
They said, “We would like you to tell the students that you believe God is finished working.” What was behind that was a pastor. The pastor of the largest church became critical, and I think jealous. He was behind it because his people would testify in the meeting and say, “All of you ought to come to night school. God is moving in the night school.” And he did not like that.
Here we have our first consideration, namely that in the final analysis, the recognition of the voice of the Lord is a matter of revelation, something which God Himself will disclose to us in a diversity of ways. I’ll come back to this a little later. We will read on.
“And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for you did call me. And Eli perceived (at long last) that the Lord had called the child. (God still calls children, as well as adults) Therefore Eli said to Samuel, Go, lie down; and it shall be, if He call you, that you shall say, Speak, Lord; for your servant hears. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. (Here is a very, very remarkable verse. After that we’ll come back to the other) And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for your servant hears.” I Samuel 3:8-10
And in verse 11, the Lord spoke to Samuel. While we are on this verse, I would like to share with you an experience that I have had some years ago that has been very, very real to me ever since. You know that I have been teaching in Bible school for many years, and in 1951 or thereabouts, I was going through a very great personal crisis. I can tell you briefly what it was.
I was directly involved in our Bible school in a great visitation of the Lord, a tremendous revival in 1951. That same year, I was teaching in a camp meeting, also in the States, and the Lord gave us a tremendous move by His Spirit of such a character that people came as far as Chicago to the East coast (1,000 miles) to get in on the camp meeting.
Then in the fall of the same year, I was teaching in a night school in Philadelphia. We had a visitation of the Lord for 5 consecutive Monday nights. The school met only Monday evenings. Well somehow, some criticism arose and I was challenged by two of our leading brethren. They were telling me that this revival in the night school ought not to continue.
They said, “We would like you to tell the students that you believe God is finished working.” What was behind that was a pastor. The pastor of the largest church became critical, and I think jealous. He was behind it because his people would testify in the meeting and say, “All of you ought to come to night school. God is moving in the night school.” And he did not like that.
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