1 Samuel 3: God's Voice for Your Future

Introduction

In Greek mythology, Cassandra, princess of Troy, receives the gift of prophecy from the god Apollo. Because she scorns that gift, it becomes a curse: she keeps seeing the future, but no one believes her, and even her own family takes her for a madwoman. When she warns the Trojans not to bring the wooden horse left by the Greeks into the city, they refuse to listen. That night, Troy burns.

Pastor Rusu, pastor of the mother church in Brașov, Romania, and overseer of twenty to twenty-five churches, closed a series of revival meetings at CF-Bern with this story. His starting point: "Our God is a God who speaks to us about the future." His voice tells us what we could not know otherwise, shows us the right path and keeps us from dangers and traps. But if we hear it without believing it, or if we do not hear it at all, it can become a curse for us. Hence the warning of Hebrews 3:15: "Today if you will hear his voice, don't harden your hearts."

His message is titled "God's Voice for Our Future." Starting from the call of young Samuel in 1 Samuel 3:1-10, he shows why God wants to speak, how to position ourselves to hear him and how to seek his voice.

Outline of the Message

1. A Time When God's Word Was Rare

The text describes a time of spiritual darkness: "The child Samuel ministered to Yahweh before Eli. Yahweh's word was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision" (1 Samuel 3:1).
For Pastor Rusu, when God does not speak to his people, it is never because he does not want to speak. We are the ones who make his voice hard to hear, sometimes through our own way of life and our choices.
Eli's sons served at the temple, but they were immoral, impure and selfish: "Now the sons of Eli were wicked men. They didn't know Yahweh" (1 Samuel 2:12).
Eli, the high priest, was a weak and indifferent man. He avoided hard, radical decisions. As a man of God, his reaction to sin should have been clear, but it remained weak, often merely symbolic.
When those who belong to God live this way, it does not only keep God's voice from speaking. It also damages the lives of many others: those who seek God look at his people and do not receive the revelation that God has solutions for their lives. They end up concluding that everyone compromises, even God's people.

2. God Looks for People Who Live for Others

God cannot use people who live only for themselves. Paul, worried about the Christians in Philippi, finds only one person to send to them: "For I have no one likeminded, who will truly care about you. For they all seek their own, not the things of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:20-21).
On one side, Timothy, who cares for others just like Paul himself. On the other, those who live for themselves: through them, no one is helped and no one is transformed.
Where do those who live for others come from? They are people who begin to hear God's voice personally, for themselves and for others.
The disciples on the road to Emmaus say to each other: "Weren't our hearts burning within us, while he spoke to us along the way?" And they get up that very hour to go back to Jerusalem (Luke 24:32-33). The voice they heard changed everything: the way they spoke, the state of their hearts, the direction of their lives.
Many Christians have this testimony: "One day, God spoke to me, and it changed everything in my life."
God also wants to speak to us because he cares about the problems of others. To Moses, he says: "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt," then: "Come now therefore, and I will send you" (Exodus 3:7-10).
Even today, there are people without hope, bound in situations that seem to have no way out, couples on the brink of breaking up, people who have suicidal thoughts and hate the day they were born. God can be their answer, and he wants to speak to us so that we can reach them.

3. Positioning Ourselves to Hear: the Heart

There are attitudes that decide whether or not we will hear God's voice. The first concerns the heart: being close to God.
This closeness is not a geographical place. It is the orientation of your heart. "The child Samuel ministered to Yahweh before Eli" (1 Samuel 3:1): his heart was turned toward God.
God does not speak to those who are far away, but to those who are near: "Come near to me, hear this" (Isaiah 48:16).
The pastor tells a scene from his own home. He is sitting with a book, his wife is in the same house and talking to him. He hears nothing. "I was there, but at the same time I was far away." Then he asks, "What?" And she answers, "I am talking to you, didn't you hear me?"
You can be at church and say, "I'm here." But if your heart is busy elsewhere, you are far away all the same, you do not hear God's voice, and you are actually living far from him.

4. Positioning Ourselves to Hear: the Ears

The second position concerns the ears. Some Christians, out of selfishness or fear, do not want God to speak to them.
A pastor from their fellowship of churches, later sent with his family to plant a church in Boston, ran from this calling for a long time. He confided to his pastor: "For years, I didn't want to pray, because I knew that if I started to pray, God would speak to me. He would call me, and I didn't want to hear it."
During revival meetings like this one, some pray: "God, give the pastor a word for me." Others do not come, or sit at the very back, hidden behind everyone else, hoping the pastor will not address them.
Jonah did not like what God was telling him: "Yahweh's word came to Jonah [...] But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh" (Jonah 1:1-3).
If you want to hear God's voice, you must make your ears "a funnel."

5. Positioning Ourselves to Hear: the Will

The third position is that of the will. If you want to hear God, you must also be willing to do what he will tell you: "If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God, or if I am speaking from myself" (John 7:17).
A Christian's default attitude when hearing God's voice should be a "yes."
A young couple from a church in Prescott, parents of four children, was approached by their pastor to take over a church in Kathmandu, Nepal, to be its pastor, make disciples and send out new churches. They prayed, God spoke to their hearts, and the whole family said yes.
Before they left, the church held a farewell party with a big cake that read: "They said yes."
When you direct your will toward whatever God will tell you, you position yourself to hear him, and God will speak to you.

6. Seeking God's Voice

Wait. Eli gives young Samuel good advice: "Go, lie down. It shall be, if he calls you, that you shall say, 'Speak, Yahweh; for your servant hears'" (1 Samuel 3:9). In other words: stay in your place, you are already where you need to be, and wait for God to speak to you again.
Come to the service with this expectation. Every service, every prayer, every reading of the Bible and every meditation in his presence is an opportunity for God to speak to you. "How many times, before a service, have you prayed: God, speak to me personally?"
Respond. "Samuel said, 'Speak; for your servant hears'" (1 Samuel 3:10). The way we react when God speaks decides whether he will keep speaking to us: "Take heed what you hear. With whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you; and more will be given to you who hear" (Mark 4:24). Respond with all your heart.
Surrender. When God speaks, he always speaks about his plans for our lives, not ours. To Jeremiah, he says: "Before I formed you in the belly I knew you [...] I have appointed you a prophet to the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5).
Elisha was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen. He heard the call through Elijah, slaughtered his oxen, burned the yoke and followed him (1 Kings 19:19-21). James and John left their father and their work to follow Jesus (Matthew 4:21-22). Matthew, sitting at the tax collector's booth, got up immediately (Matthew 9:9).

7. A Voice to Get All the Way Home

Our journey with God is long, full of dangers, crossroads and traps that the devil sets. But we must go all the way to the end of the Christian life.
God guides by his voice those who have surrendered to his plans: "Your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, 'This is the way. Walk in it'" (Isaiah 30:21). His voice will lead us on the right path, all the way home.
Sometimes you have to fight to hear God's voice, sometimes to seek it, because your future and that of others depend on it.
Some Christians think that only the pastor needs to hear God. "That is not true." It is the responsibility of every Christian, to get home yourself and to help others get there.
Cassandra did not value the gift she had received. We must make listening to God's voice something precious.
The pastor ends with an appeal: if you are not sure you have eternal life, Jesus, who died and rose again, offers it to you. He is the way, he opens the door. "Do not leave this place exactly as you came."

Key Takeaways

When God's word is rare, it is not God who is silent: it is our choices and our way of life that smother his voice.
God speaks to transform your life, but also to help other people through you.
To hear God, you need a heart turned toward him, ears that want to hear and a will ready to say yes.
The way you respond when God speaks decides whether he will keep speaking to you.
Hearing God's voice is not the pastor's job alone: it is the responsibility of every Christian.

Personal Application

When you are at church or in your prayer, is your heart really turned toward God, or busy elsewhere?
Is there an area where you avoid hearing God, for fear of what he might ask of you?
Is your "yes" to God your default answer, or do you wait to know what he wants before committing?
Before your next service, will you take the time to pray: "God, speak to me personally"?
Who around you needs you to hear God's voice for them?

Verses Quoted

Frequently Asked Questions

Why was the word of Yahweh rare in Samuel's time?

According to Pastor Rusu, when God does not speak to his people, it is never because he does not want to: it is people who make his voice hard to hear. In Samuel's time, Eli's sons served at the temple while living an immoral and selfish life, and Eli himself reacted only weakly to their sin.

How can you position yourself to hear God's voice?

Pastor Rusu describes three positions. The heart: being close to God means having a heart turned toward him, not just being present at church. The ears: truly wanting to hear instead of running away like Jonah. The will: being ready to do what God will say, according to John 7:17, with a "yes" as the default answer.

What should you do when God speaks?

Drawing on 1 Samuel 3:9-10, the preacher invites us to wait for God with an attitude of expectation, to respond to him with all our heart as Samuel did ("Speak; for your servant hears"), and then to surrender to his plans. God always speaks about his plans for our lives, as he did for Jeremiah, Elisha or Matthew.