Many of you are probably familiar with this Latin phrase, insofar as any of you are familiar with Latin phrases, post tenebris lux. Post tenebris lux. Those of you who have studied the Reformation likely know this phrase. It means after darkness Light. After darkness, light. This was one of the mottos of the Reformation because the Reformers very self-consciously, and self-consciously in a good way, saw themselves as bringing light where darkness had ruled before. Now, what was this great darkness that was now being overcome in the 16th century? Well, it was a famine, to use the words of Amos, a famine of hearing the words the Lord." Listen to this curse that Amos declares to Israel. Because of their rebellion against God, Amos brings this curse to the people of Israel, and he says, with the words of God, the days are coming, declares the sovereign Lord, when I will send a famine through the land. Not a famine of food or thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Wordlessness That is, to live in a society, even to be in a church where the Word of God is not proclaimed, the Word of God is not held up, the Word of God is not treasured and taught and learned, to live in that kind of society is to live in a society that Amos describes as cursed. Now, this word from the Lord might fall quite heavily on some of your hearts because you know, and again, this is the good kind of self-consciousness, you know that you do not value the Word of God as you ought. Perhaps this has been a pattern throughout your life as a Christian. Perhaps you're in a dry spell where you simply can't bring yourself to open the Word of God on a regular basis, but you are experiencing a famine of the Word of God. And famines always have knock-on effects. Right? If no crops are grown, there's no food in the grocery store, there's no food in your stomach, you starve, you become sick, you become very unhealthy. The same is true if you are kept from the Word of God, either by those who should be preaching it to you, or if you are kept from it by your own stubbornness and sinfulness. And yet we often take this wordlessness rather lightly. But we shouldn't. Wordlessness is a curse. If you have no word, you have no life. The psalmist says the unfolding of your word brings light. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. If you do not have the word of God, if you do not know the word of God, if you do not read the word of God, study the word of God, learn the word of God, submit yourself to the word of God, you will be someone that psalmists describe as walking in darkness. Furthermore, if you do not study the Word of God, if you do not know the Word of God, own the Word of God, meditate on the Word of God, if you are not taught the Word of God, you will not be holy. It is the Word of God that makes the Christian holy. Well, in the Middle Ages, they had such a famine of the Word of God. The Word was not preached. Yes, some popular stories from the Word of God were often dramatized. That was a popular way of teaching the Word of God. These stories from the prophets, from the Old Testament, from the New Testament, were often displayed through these plays. But the Word of God itself was not entrusted to those who should have been the people of God. No, the church at the time kept the Word of God at arm's length. They knew the Word of God. They had access to the Word of God, but they would not give the Word of God to the people. And when this became known by the Reformers, and when the true curse of this wordlessness became known to them, they did everything they could to overcome it. Calvin called the men who restored the Word of God to the church, latter-day apostles. They were men raised up by God for this great work of bringing God's Word back to God's people. And in Calvin's own city of Geneva, they would preach not once per week, not twice per week, not even three or four or five times, but six times a week. The people of the city would be gathered together Having lived in darkness for so long without the Word of God, their hunger for the Word of God was so sharp that they gathered together every opportunity they had to hear that Word because they understood its worth. Having hungered for it, they were now filled by it. And that's the sort of situation we find ourselves in when we open the Bible to 1 Samuel chapter 3. The Word of the Lord was rare in those days, and we know why it was rare, don't we? We know why it was rare. Not simply because there was no frequent vision, that is, not simply because there was no prophet raised up to speak words newly inspired by God, but because the priests of God were wicked men. priests of God who should have been teaching the people of God the law of God they were wicked men they kept the law of God to themselves and didn't keep the word of God a law of God for themselves and so the people of God lived in darkness but the Lord does not leave his people in darkness the Lord does not leave his people in darkness he is too kind to do that. And so, in 1 Samuel chapter 3, we see how the Lord raises up for Himself a prophet to speak the words of God again to the people of God. First, we'll see the Lord's patience with his prophet, verses one through 10, then the Lord's burden for his prophet, 11 through 18, and then finally, briefly, the Lord's power with his prophet, verse 19 through four, verse one. Beginning with the Lord's patience with his prophet, but let's start first with the setting again. Israel is a dim place, a dark place. The word of God is rare. Fathers are not teaching their children, Priests are not teaching the people. The elders of Israel are not the guardians of the law that they are supposed to be. And the people of Israel, who were expected to be people who knew the word and displayed the word and passed the word down to their children, were not doing so. The Word of God was rare in those days, and to compound that, there was no frequent vision. The book of 1 Samuel was likely written at a time when the prophets of God were more in number. But during the early books of the Bible, we hear very little about the prophets of God. Samuel was not yet a prophet. We've heard about one man of God so far in this book, a man who came to bring God's judgment to Eli's house, but besides him, there's only one prophet between that man, that man of God, and Moses, a man mentioned in the book of Judges. So, two prophets Over 400 years, the word of God was rare and there was no frequent vision. And then to compound this, and this is really an illustration of the fact, Eli's eyesight had begun to grow dim. Israel was in darkness, and quite fittingly, their priest had begun to descend into darkness as well. And our story picks up, again, playing with this theme of darkness and light, when the lamp of God had not yet gone out, likely indicating that it was late evening or very early morning. The priests each morning were supposed to fill the lamp of God with more oil so that it would never go out. But the lamp of God was not yet out. It was likely around twilight. The sun was about to rise, but it was dim. It was dim. It was still darkness. The sun had not yet risen. Eli's lying down in his place. Samuel is lying down in his place. Samuel, you'll remember, was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli. The time is twilight. The place is the temple of the Lord, where the ark was. And the characters we'll see in this first part of the story are Samuel, the boy, and Eli, the priest. And the silence of night is broken. When sleeping Samuel is woken by a voice calling him Samuel Samuel and he cries out here I am he knows that Eli's blind Eli can't see well at least it's it's it's dim So so if Eli needs to do anything during the night He'll need help. He'll need someone to show him where to go. And so Samuel is eager to help. Here I am. He runs to Eli. Here I am. You called me. But Eli says, no, I didn't call you. I didn't call you. Samuel, you've had a dream, perhaps. You've imagined it. I didn't call you. Lie down again. The Lord calls. Samuel rises. Eli responds. And Samuel lies down in repose once more. And the Lord calls again. Samuel. And Samuel responds to this call as he had responded to the first call. He rises, goes to Eli, says, here I am, for you called me, you must have called me, Eli. But Eli responds, as he did before, I did not call, my son. Lie down again. And we get this report from the author of the book, telling us Samuel did not yet know the Lord. And the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. It gives us an insight into what's going on in Samuel's mind. He doesn't yet recognize the voice of the Lord. He can't distinguish it from the voice of Eli. Not to say that he wasn't a worshiper of the Lord. We read earlier that he was growing in the temple in favor with both God and man. It's hard to do that when you don't know anything about the Lord, but he wasn't a prophet yet. He hadn't spoken to God face to face like Moses had quite yet. The author of the book assumes that we already know something about Samuel, that he's going to be a prophet, that he's going to be a mouthpiece of God, and he's telling us, no, Samuel's not that mouthpiece quite yet. But he could also be hinting that any properly trained priest or servant of the priests should have been able to recognize, to divine the voice of God. Samuel, perhaps, if he had had proper training, might have been able to figure out on his own that the Lord was speaking to him, as we see from Eli, when the Lord calls a third time. And the Lord called Samuel again a third time, Samuel. And he arose and went to Eli and said a third time, here I am, for you called me. You must have called me, Eli. Is this some kind of joke, some kind of prank? Eli perceived now, he's blind, but he's sharp. He perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore, Eli said to Samuel, go, lie down, and if he calls you again, You shall say, speak, Lord, for your servant hears. So Samuel went and again lay down in his place. But now, now Samuel is ready to hear the voice of God. Now there's a crack in the curtain, so to speak. Samuel is prepared to see the light despite the darkness all around him. And so the Lord calls once more, Samuel, Samuel, and Samuel responds properly this time, "'Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.'" Or rather, "'Speak for your servant hears.'" You see, don't you, this incredible patience that God has with Samuel, He knows who Samuel is. He was the one who formed Samuel in the womb. He was the one who gave Samuel to that womb, as we'll sing in Psalm 139 at the end of this service. It is a Lord who forms His servants. It is a Lord who knows His servants, who knows their weaknesses, who knows their strengths, who knows what they need, who knows when they need special patience. And so, the Lord shows a patience with Samuel that He did not show with Eli. For Samuel is ignorant, But Eli was a high-handed sinner. And so, do not take this patience, please, with passivity or a license to do whatever you want, thinking that you can just go to God again at a later time after having your fun, after doing your thing. Rather, as Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3 15, count the patience of the Lord as salvation. Yes, the Lord is patient. The Lord is very patient. The Lord's patience out-patiences any of our patiences. The Lord is more patient than we deserve, more patient than we expect, more patient than we ourselves are. But the Lord is patient. But do not confuse his patience with passivity. The Lord will act, though the wheels of his justice do turn slowly. But the Lord has a task for Samuel. And he's going to call Samuel as many times as it takes to get him to do that task. The Lord has a prophet that he wishes to raise up for his people, and so for his people's sake, he is patient with Samuel. But now Samuel's ears are open, and so the Lord speaks. And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I'm about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. Samuel, I'm giving you a message. I'm giving you a message. I will speak it to you, but you, Samuel, must speak it to all of Israel. They all need to hear it, but when they hear it, it will not be a message that they want to hear. It'll be a message that shocks them. It'll be a message that hurts their ears. It'll be a message that will make them want to find some comfort for their ears. He's giving his prophet a particularly powerful message. And what is that message? Well, it is this. On that day, I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. And I will declare to him, and I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew because his sons were blaspheming God and he did not restrain them. Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever. The Lord does not always give His prophet the message He wants to preach. The Lord gives Samuel a burden, a heavy message. And it's made all the heavier by the fact that, well, Eli and Hophni and Phinehas, Eli's like a father to him. and Hophni and Phinehas are like much older brothers. Yes, they're wicked men, but they're wicked brothers. These are men that Samuel knows well. Could God not have used a nameless prophet like the man of God in chapter 2 to speak to these priests once again? Why would the Lord burden this young man with this heavy message? And so we come in verses 15 through 18 from the heavy message to the weighed-down messenger. Samuel lay until morning. You can feel this sense of the prophet waiting with the message from God on his heart. He lay until morning. He didn't sleep until morning. You can't sleep with a message like this. He lay until morning. And then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. The sun floods in. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. The message is a heavy one. And he's got this sense of great affection for the one to whom the message is going. Eli may have been a poor father, and he was, he may have been a poor priest, and he was, but Samuel has this manifest affection for the old priest. He doesn't want to bring this message of judgment to him. And yet, Eli knows that he must. Samuel, perhaps, was avoiding Eli, staying on the other side of the room. But Eli hears him rustling around over there, and Eli calls to him and says, Samuel, my son. And he can't hide from Eli. And he said, here I am. And Eli, it seems that Eli has some sense of either Samuel's reticence to preach this message or else he has some sense of the weightiness of this message because he says to Samuel, Samuel, my son, may God do so to you and more also. He invokes a curse on Samuel. May God curse you if you hide anything from me of all that he has told you. There's this great tension in the heart of Samuel. You can feel it as Samuel lies there all morning until he has to open the gates of the temple. You can feel it as he avoids Eli and Eli has to call him over. You can feel the tension. But Eli cuts through that tension and he reminds Samuel of his ministry. The Lord has called you to be His spokesman. He has called you to be His message. Now, be His messenger. Bring the message. And this is a little out of character for Eli, coming from a priest who refused to speak the words of God to his sons. But if you've been around for a while, you'll know that encouragement often comes from the least likely places in the providence of God. Eli was unwilling to call the priests to task, but here he is willing enough in the providence of God to call Samuel to his task. Who knows, perhaps without this encouragement, Samuel would have left the message of God to rot Without this encouragement, perhaps, he would not have brought this message of judgment to Eli. Well, he's heard it once already. I need not preach it again. Eli already knows about the judgment. Why do I have to preach this judgment to him? Well, if you want the reason for this, you can turn with me for a moment to Ezekiel, the prophecy of Ezekiel chapter 33. which outlines for us what the ministry of any prophet is. Ezekiel, you'll remember, brings God's message of judgment to a whole nation that has earned God's judgment. Eli is given a heavy message, just like Samuel is given a heavy message. And Eli, likely a priest, someone who served in the temple of God, brings the heaviest and the most consequential messages of judgment to the other priests in the house of God. A ministry very similar to Samuel's. God reminds Israel, he told Ezekiel this earlier on in his book, but he reminds Ezekiel of this in Ezekiel 33, and he says, the word of the Lord came to me, son of man, speak to your people, and say to them, if I bring the sword upon a land and the people of the land take a man from among them and make him their watchman, and if he sees the sword, so it's this picture of invasion. If the people make a man their watchman and he sees the sword coming upon the land, he sees the invading armies and he blows the trumpet and he warns the people, then if anyone hears the sound of the trumpet and doesn't take warning, And the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning, his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, And the sword comes, this invading army comes and takes away any of them. That person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand. So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. Don't dilute it, don't alter it, preach it and apply it. You shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, oh, wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hands. And so Eli, out of what seems a lot like a concern for Samuel's soul and Samuel's well-being and Samuel's guiltlessness before God, he encourages Samuel, I know the message is heavy, I know that you are just a young man, but you must preach what God has told you to preach. We see this theme of the blood of the victims being visited upon the messenger if he refuses to preach his message. Again, in the New Testament, Acts 18 verse 6, when the Jews opposed and reviled Paul, he shook out his garments and said to them, your blood, it's not on my head. Your blood be on your own heads. I am innocent. I saw the judgment coming. I blew the trumpet. I am innocent. Your blood is on your own heads. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles." And in Acts 20 verse 26, Paul says, therefore I testify to you, the Ephesian elders this day, that I am innocent of the blood of all. I preached the Word of God. without reservation. This is the ministry of any man called by God to be his spokesman. This is my call as a minister of the Word. When I come to any passage of Scripture and know that the Word in that passage of Scripture will not be taken well by some people in this congregation, and if I then shy away and refuse to preach what I ought to preach, then your blood is on my head. Listen, this is not just a message from Eli, from the Lord, from Ezekiel, to preachers, but also to all of those who are in any spiritual position of authority, to elders, to deacons, but also to mothers and fathers. You have a responsibility to God to guide your children as they ought to be guided, to warn them when they sin, to bring them from their iniquity. If you do not, their blood is on your hands. So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Eli, you know the weight of this message, that you have urged me to bring it, and I know my responsibility before God. Eli, I need to tell you, the Lord is going to fulfill against you all that God has spoken concerning your house from beginning to end. He's not going to leave anything out, Eli. He's going to punish your house forever. It won't just be you. It won't just be your sons. He's going to punish your house forever for the iniquity that you knew because your sons were blaspheming God and you did nothing to restrain them. God swears to you, Eli, that the iniquity of your house will not be atoned for by sacrifice or by offering forever. Samuel is faithful to tell Eli everything, to hide nothing from him. And now Eli's blood is not upon Samuel's head, but is upon his own head. But look at how he responds. Eli's been faithful to tell Samuel, give me the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or may God judge you. Now in response to this declaration of judgment, in response to the judgment of God, Eli says, it is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him. And quite honestly, I don't know how to take this. There are two ways that people respond to the judgment of God. Ordinarily, When God proclaims judgment against people, think of David. God tells David through Nathan the prophet, your son will die because of your sin, your son will die. But what does David do? Because he is a godly man. Yes, a deeply flawed man, but a godly man. What does David do? He fasts and he prays and he afflicts himself. He will not eat, he will not wash. He devotes himself to prayer and prayer and prayer and prayer and prayer. The threats of God prompt David to pray. Think of the people of Nineveh. What message did Jonah preach to Nineveh? Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed. The judgment of God, it is settled. The gavel has fallen. You are all going to die because you have sinned against God. And what does the king of Nineveh say? He sends out a decree throughout his city and he says, everyone put on sackcloth. The cows too? Yes, the cows too. Everyone put on sackcloth. Make yourselves uncomfortable, fast, pray to God. Who knows? Maybe God will spare us. And then conversely, we have a rather careless statement by Hezekiah, ordinarily a good king, but when God When God tells Hezekiah, I am going to judge your sons. I'm not gonna judge you personally, but I'm gonna judge your sons for the wickedness of Israel. Hezekiah says, well, let the Lord do what he thinks is good because he thinks, well, at least there's gonna be peace in my days. He doesn't fast. He doesn't throw himself on the mercy of God. Is that what Eli is doing? Is he unfaithful here or is he humble? Is this Eli's faithfulness at last? You can think of what Job said, after his children had been taken away, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That's good submission. You can think of what the psalmist says in Psalm 39. Yes, God has done these things that were hard, but I am mute. I put my hands over my mouth, for it is you who have done it. What's Eli saying here? I will submit myself to the judgment of God, or I did nothing for my sons before, or for my house, I will do nothing once more. I don't know the answer. There is not enough information here for me to tell you the answer, but, but, I can tell those who have experienced something of the judgment and the discipline of God already what your response should be. Eli receives judgment from God, and then he has that judgment underlined, and he's got all these exclamation marks put after that declaration of judgment. God says, I will judge your house, and then Samuel says, once again, just to settle it, yes, God is going to judge your house. And so Eli might be right in saying here, it is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him. I will throw myself in the sovereignty of God. But unless you have received some kind of special revelation from God saying, I have judged this person, say for example, say for example, a child of yours has gone astray, has left the Lord, is unfaithful to Him. Should you do what Eli does here? Say, it is the Lord, it's in the Lord's hands, let Him do what seems good to Him. No, you should not do that. You should not do that. You should follow the course of David. You should follow the course of the people of Nineveh. Yes, judgment has been declared, judgment has been offered, discipline has been put forth, but pray. Perhaps, perhaps, you do not know, perhaps the Lord will change his mind. To you parents with wayward children, do not be like Eli. For you, that would not be piety, whether it is or isn't for Eli. For you, that would be a lack of confidence in the goodness of God. But Eli resigns himself to the faith that God has given him. It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him. And the prophecy that the Lord gave to Samuel is brought not only to Eli, but also to all of Israel. And so you see in verses 19 through 21, the Lord's power with his prophet, Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. Samuel was faithful in this little thing. He brought this short message to this one priest. Yes, despite the pressure, he preached. But he wasn't saying anything that the man of God in chapter 2 hadn't said already. He was faithful in a relatively small thing. And now God entrusts to him great things. And the Lord let none of his words fall to the ground. Not charisma, not speaking ability, not energy, not persuasiveness, not an ability to captive an audience or reason faultlessly. This is what sets apart an effective Word ministry from an ineffective Word ministry. It is the Lord who gives the Word, it is the Lord who gives the ministry, but even then it is the Lord who upholds both His messenger and His message. Samuel was an effective prophet in Israel because the Lord let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord. All the people of Israel recognized from the farthest north tip of Israel, Dan, to the farthest south tip of Israel, Beersheba, all of Israel knew that Samuel was the Lord's man, that the Lord had anointed Samuel, appointed Samuel, given him this ministry. And there's a theological component to this as well. God's sheep, they know the voice of their shepherd. They shy away from false teachers who speak with oily voices, harsh voices, deceptive voices. But when a man speaks with the voice of God, God's people hear, and God's people listen, and they know that a prophet from God is among them, and they hear the words of that prophet as though the Lord Himself was speaking to them. And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord." It's not about Samuel first and foremost, it's about the Lord. The Lord is bringing his word back to his people. And so the crisis in verse 1 is turned around. The word that had been rare is now flowing forth from the mouth of Samuel. And you shouldn't think of this as just Samuel speaking newly inspired words. Prophets in the Old Testament were sometimes receivers of new revelation concerning future events, but that was not the norm. Ordinarily, prophets were men who took the Word of God already revealed and applied that to the people. They were more foretellers than foretellers. The role of the prophet was for the most part simply to repeat what former prophets had already said, to remind the people of the judgment that was to come because of their sins and the righteousness of God and the kindness of God in forgiving their sins. You will actually find very little in the prophets, major and minor, that doesn't have its roots in the law of Moses. That's why in Deuteronomy 18, Moses, speaking for the Lord, tells the Israelites in the wilderness before his death, that I, that is the Lord, I will raise up for them a prophet like you, like Moses, from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he speaks in my name, I myself will require it of him. That is to say, his blood will be on his own head. Moses prophesied that after his death and throughout the history of Israel, God was going to raise up men who would speak the word of God to the people of God. So you've got this long line of prophets, yes, Samuel, and then Nathan and Gad during the time of David, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Joel, Amos, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and all the rest, all the way down to John the Baptist. They stood in the tradition of Moses, repeating Moses' words for every new generation. And all of them came with different messages, very different messages, but they all carried with them one theme. God was the creator of all things and the covenant God of Israel. All of creation, and Israel in particular, was in rebellion against him, though he was persistent in showing grace and mercy. But a day was going to come, the prophet said, when God's patience was going to reach its end and God's judgment was going to come. The message that Samuel preached to Eli and his sons, it was repeated to different audiences again and again and again. But as the message was repeated again and again, it became clear that this judgment of God was actually going to come in two stages. There was a universal judgment that was going to fall on every single disobedient priest, prophet, prince, and person. But another judgment was proclaimed as well. A servant of God, Not a rebel against God, but a servant of God was also going to bear punishment. A man who was a priest like Eli and his sons, but also a prophet like Samuel and a king like Saul and David. But unlike Eli, that unfaithful minister in God's courts, this servant would be faithful in all God's house, listening to all God's words and to all of God's commands, and then preaching them to God's people without reservation. He would be a faithful preacher without peer. The Lord would not allow any of his words to fall to the ground. He'd be upheld by the Spirit of God. And all Israel would know that he was the prophet of the Lord. But though they knew him to be a faithful prophet, accompanied by the signs and the wonders of a prophet, he would be killed. At the instigation of faithless priests following the tradition of their fathers, priests who refused to repent and be saved. this great heinous act at the hands of men would prove to be the most gracious act the hands of God ever wrought. And in his execution this prophet would be shown to be a priest as well, and upon his resurrection a king to boot. And so this man, and of course you all know I'm talking about the Lord Jesus, This man would be both a faithful priest and a pure sacrifice, both faithful prophet and unfailing word, both king of Israel and the seed from which that kingdom came. And as the word of Samuel went throughout all Israel, so the word of Christ goes throughout the world today. And Christ calls the world to repentance and faith in his name, and so he comes to you as well. And if you do not know Christ, This is a call for you to come to know Him, to stop hardening your heart against Him, to believe in His name, to call on Him for salvation. But if you do know Christ, this is a call for you as well. Because you understand that everyone who belongs to Christ, the ultimate prophet, has become a prophet as well. No, you almost certainly won't receive visions, you almost certainly will not be granted authority to work miracles on a regular basis, but you are called to take up the Word of God. That sharp sword by which you vanquish the enemies of God. in your heart, in your home, in the world. You're called to know the words of God, to speak the words of God when you're at home, to your family, to your children, to your spouse, to your friends, when you're traveling, when you rise, when you lie down, to meditate on His word day and night, to have your eyes fixed on Jesus, the Son of God that all scripture points to, and to train others to do the same. That is the ministry to which you have been called. If you are a Christian, you are a prophet. And it may be that you yourself have been called to this work many times before, as Samuel was called multiple times by the Lord, but you've chosen to put it on the back burner, to let it wait, to let the calling sit for a while. And if that is your case, if you have been content with darkness instead of living in the light of God's word, put it off no more. it off no more. Repent of your reticence, open your Bible, become a person of the Word, become a prophet of God, taught and teaching. Christ calls you today, dear Christians, to do nothing less than that. As the VBS children sang again and again and again this past summer, take up the Word of God, take up your sword, Bury the Word of God deep in your heart. The Word of God is powerful. Trust in the Lord and take up your sword. Your Lord gives you this responsibility, He gives you this obligation, but He promises that you will not do this alone, you will not do this unequipped. Let's pray.