The Lamp of the Lord: WBS Chapel Aug. 14, 2024 with Dr. Andy Miller III

In his first chapel service as President, Dr. Andy Miller III kicks off the Fall 2024 semester at Wesley Biblical Seminary with a message from 1 Samuel 3.

What is The Biblical Wesleyan?

Wesley Biblical Seminary chapel services and special messages.

Host: 00:14

Welcome to the Biblical Wesleyan, a podcast featuring messages from weekly chapel and other special services at Wesley Biblical Seminary in Ridgeland, Mississippi. Our mission is to develop trusted leaders for faithful churches anchored in a commitment to the inerrant authority of the word of God and aspiring to the life changing hope of holiness affirmed in classic Wesleyan Theology. Today's chapel service was recorded on August 14, 2024 at the start of our fall semester, featuring doctor Andy Miller the 3rd in his 1st chapel since becoming the 9th president of Wesley Biblical Seminary. Previously, doctor Miller served as dean of the seminary and vice president of academic affairs, having joined the team at WBS after an extensive ministry with The Salvation Army. Let's join doctor Miller now as we begin this journey to discover and live out what it means to be a biblical Wesleyan.

Andy Miller: 01:24

Well, I greet you in the beautiful name of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. It's great to be with each of you today and, to greet our students online or anybody else checking in to this podcast or I said podcast. Oh, man. It's such a habit at times. But, because I'm thinking about the fact that we are gonna be posting this as a podcast, you might see, our marketing team has labeled that the biblical Westland.

Andy Miller: 01:50

So check it out. It'll be a a new podcast of all of our messages going forward. But it greets you in this chapel, not not just this podcast, and all of you here here today. It's interesting being described as the new president and the old colleague. I'm no longer a colleague, I suppose.

Andy Miller: 02:09

Now I'm in the this role as president, and I'm so thankful that God has, first of all, asked me to apply. And then that the board and the committee decided in their time that this was where God is leading our institution. And I'm thankful and honored, truly honored to serve in this role. And I I do mean that. I hope you'll sense that I feel called to serve to serve.

Andy Miller: 02:32

Now the people in this room generally are faculty and staff, but just to you keep in mind, we have over 600 students who are starting classes with us this week. Yes. I said 600. And as Chris indicated earlier, by the time we add Wesley Institute, I think we're gonna be over 700 individual students. I get my guess is that we are in at least that many churches.

Andy Miller: 03:01

Yesterday, in my when I started my preaching class, we had 75 people on live with us. There's 95 in that class, and I made the mistake of asking people to give a 3 to 5 seconds of their name and where they're from. A half an hour later, we made it through. I so some people didn't observe the 3 to 5 seconds. But I just I realized really quickly, oh, man.

Andy Miller: 03:26

We're gonna have people from all kinds of states, so I started doing a tally. We have just in that class students living in 22 different states and 2 countries. Isn't that wild? It's a it's an amazing thing that God's given us this opportunity to serve so many students who are serving many of them. I had 2 or 3 students who are serving 3 churches.

Andy Miller: 03:49

Three churches in there. So if you put all this together, people who are serving associate ministers, people who are active in their church, I think the current WBS student body probably will compromise, comprise, more than 700 churches. Wow. I don't think I'm gonna call them WBS churches. How about that?

Andy Miller: 04:09

So it's a real privilege for us in this moment. I'm gonna invite you to turn your bibles to first Samuel. I'm just gonna read the first part of chapter 3 for us. And I we haven't stood stood at this moment, so I'm gonna go and invite you to stand as I read verses 1 through 10. And this is first Samuel chapter 3.

Andy Miller: 04:33

The boy, Samuel, ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days, the word of the Lord was rare. There were not many visions. One night, Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord where the ark of God was.

Andy Miller: 04:59

Then the Lord called Samuel. Samuel answered, here I am. And he ran to Eli and said, here I am. You called me. But Eli said, I did not call.

Andy Miller: 05:10

Go back and lie down. So he went and lay down. Again, the Lord called Samuel. And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, here I am. You called me.

Andy Miller: 05:20

My son, Eli said. I did not call you. Go back and lie down. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord. The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

Andy Miller: 05:33

A third time, the Lord called called Samuel. And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, here I am. You called me. Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, go and lie down.

Andy Miller: 05:49

And if he calls you, say, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The Lord came and stood there calling as as at other times. Samuel. Samuel.

Andy Miller: 06:06

Then Samuel said, speak, for your servant is listening. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Not long ago, I was thinking of the moment when Abby and I left our seminary experience.

Andy Miller: 06:24

We both graduated at the same time, and we were asked to serve an appointment in the Salvation Army in Western Kentucky. So it was, I think about 3 or 4 hours away from where we were at that point, and so we went to Madisonville, Kentucky. Now we had been in living in an apartment, an attic apartment because the seminary did not have housing, for us at that point. There's mainly focus on international students. And so we had to find our own apartment, and we found an apartment that I think could fit into this room 4 times.

Andy Miller: 06:58

I I I believe it was less than 500 square feet. Like, we could pretty much roll over and go, in one hand, grab our toothbrush. And if there wasn't a little wall in the way, we could have rolled over on the other side of the bed and, cooked our breakfast at the same time. And so it was very small. The the the ceiling was 6 foot 4.

Andy Miller: 07:17

I had a friend who was 6 foot 5 who came over and had to duck the entire time he was in the house. It was $300 a month, and, that was utilities included. So it was a great deal for us because we were living on $1,000 a month at that point. So, nevertheless, one of the challenges of a small apartment that's less than 500 square feet, I imagine, is that we did not have laundry facilities. So we had to walk 2 and a half blocks to the Wilmore Laundromat.

Andy Miller: 07:47

Now, this is a little disappointing. And we had a couple of friends who were in much more, you know, luxurious apartments. They had 750 or a 1000 square feet, and they had laundry facilities or a washer and dryer, and they'd let us use it occasionally. But most of the time, we found our way to that laundromat. And I was I was getting a little tired of this.

Andy Miller: 08:09

This was a couple years in the marriage, a little disappointed that we had to live this way. And so when we got the opportunity to go serve in Western Kentucky, this meant that we would have what was identified in The Salvation Army as a quarters or a parsonage. And all of a sudden, we went from a 500 square foot house to a 25 100 square foot house. And not only that, I checked with the person who told us about our house and they said, you are gonna have your very own laundry room. Wow.

Andy Miller: 08:34

I'm a king. Here I am. We have a a master of VINI. Abby had our master of arts in Christian education, and here we go. I have my very own laundry room.

Andy Miller: 08:41

No longer do I have to walk a couple of blocks to do my laundry. Well, I was disappointed when we arrived because when I went down to the laundry room to do my lawn my very my my laundry in my laundry room, I turned the light switch on, and the lights did not come on. So then I realized that I I was gonna have to do my own lawn my laundry in the dark. And so for a couple of months, I took a, flashlight and put it on my neck, and I used that to do the laundry. And so it was getting a little frustrating.

Andy Miller: 09:12

We were just there in an interim role, in an interim person, you know, trying to get things cleaned up for the next person. So I, decided to try and fix this situation. So I looked at the Salvation Army's policies, and that required me to get a couple of bids. I had I could only find 2 companies to come out who are willing to do this work. And so these kind of sophisticated companies came out with, like, little they they weren't iPads at the time, but kind of like a a pre iPad that was able to, like, show me how to make things work.

Andy Miller: 09:42

And they came in, and they spent a couple of hours analyzing the problems in our laundry room. And they came and they gave me a bid, 1 for $37100, 1 for $35100. So I took these 2 bids and sent them to our headquarters. And so I still remember the the person who called me back, the administrator, Abby will remember this. She's in the room, major Betty Jo McDonald.

Andy Miller: 10:04

And she said to me, Andy, you need 3 bids. I said, major McDonald, here's the problem. I I can't this is a small town. I can't find anybody else. I still remember saying it really clearly.

Andy Miller: 10:14

Andy, 3 bids. Get 3 bids. So I I checked with people on our board to find and finally, I found somebody else who's willing to come out and give me a bid, but it was just a a local company. A guy pulled up in a pickup truck. He came in with overalls and a clipboard, and I was judging him.

Andy Miller: 10:31

I was judging him in that moment. I thought, what is this guy what could he possibly do? I mean, I already had these cool companies come in with their slick presentations, And so I let him down to just get the 3rd bid taken care of. I let him to the laundry room. And when he went in, I just kinda pointed it.

Andy Miller: 10:45

I said, this is where things are. There's the electric box. And as I started to walk up the stairs, I heard him say, I found the problem. Well, what do you mean you found the problem? The other guys took a couple hours.

Andy Miller: 10:57

And he and so I came into the room, and I can remember it very clearly because he had a flashlight, and he was shining the flashlight at the electric box. I'm like, yeah. Exactly. That's the problem. Fix the electric box.

Andy Miller: 11:08

The other companies had told me they need to take out the whole wall and rewire it so that we can have lights in that bathroom. And so as I'm sitting in there looking at the electric box, he takes a flashlight and it moves from the electric box up to the ceiling. And he says, that's not your problem, pointing to the electric box. And then he pointed to a light, and he said, that's your problem. And then he stood on a little stool, 2 steps, and he got up and he found this little metal cord and he pulled the cord and the lights came on.

Andy Miller: 11:42

All of a sudden, it was very clear. Now now to my credit, I know you I know you're already judging me. Like, how can this guy be our president if he doesn't know how to turn the lights on? So that's a very good question you can bring to the board chair. But I realized that the problem was that actually the light switch, okay, it didn't work until you actually pulled the cord.

Andy Miller: 12:00

I just didn't know there was a cord there. And that made me wonder, you know, what were these guys doing? Charging me $35100 to do that work. And, of course, I said to the guys who was walking out, you know, it will I still thank you for coming out. What do I owe you?

Andy Miller: 12:15

And, of course, you can just imagine. This made me trust anybody in overalls and a pickup truck going forward. No charge, he said. No charge. Yeah.

Andy Miller: 12:22

I was living in the dark when I had all of the power of the lights available to me. It was there. And I think that that's the situation that we see in this text. It's just chilling words that come in chapter 3. Notice what it says just in in verse 1.

Andy Miller: 12:40

And the word of the lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision. Now if we just look briefly at the context of what's happening here, even the the canonical context, what comes ahead of Samuel, we think about the end of Judges and the way that all of the stories of Judges get worse and worse as people do what's right in their own eyes. And you and you know, like, if if you're reading through the bible in a year and you get to Judges and you get to end of Judges, you just feel like, why is this in the bible? It's so terrible.

Andy Miller: 13:14

People are cut up. There's all sorts of sexual immorality. There's wars that seem like they don't need to happen at all. Well, it's and it's just showing us what happens when people do what's right in their own eyes. And we then see this beginning to happen even with Eli and his family.

Andy Miller: 13:28

But then we have this bright spot that comes with Hannah as Hannah goes to the tabernacle in Shiloh, and then she then submits herself to God's will, and then all of a sudden, we have Samuel that comes along. And that's what brings us to this moment when all of a sudden, we are somewhat surprised. See, as Samuel's ministering before the Lord, in those days, the word of the Lord was rare. Just imagine what that might have felt like in that period, that there is a lack of God's activity in their world. There's a a nation that's trying to exist in a kind of a tribal union at this point that's trying to find its legs, but yet the very essence of who they are as a people is absent.

Andy Miller: 14:18

And that is basically they are arranged themselves around the person of Yahweh, of the lord. And in this point, I think there's a way we can see maybe churches in our time might be in a similar place. The word of the lord might seem rare. Abby and I spent, some time this summer in England, and the same things are coming our way too if our culture keeps moving in this direction. But so many of these beautiful cathedrals are hotels and coffee shops or even mosque.

Andy Miller: 14:49

And we might even think, like, as we're going by all those type of things and seeing these, events in our culture, seeing a culture where, seemingly not just abortion, but even the news this past weekend, even infanticide is celebrated. Not only that, just celebrated by the culture, but even, church leaders taking and lifting up people who kill children. Well, it seems like there's a good reason, maybe. The word of the Lord is rare in our time, and it might even make us think, are our best days behind us? Like, is God still at work?

Andy Miller: 15:31

It seems like, churches have a reason to maybe see and feel a lack of God's word. I think I think our churches and what I see in our classes and what I see as our students begin to develop, biblical study skills, a theological kind of, language that they can use in their pulpits, I think people are hungry. People are hungry just like we see in this passage. They're looking for something. They're not looking for social theories, not pop psychology, not looking to prop up a pastor's career.

Andy Miller: 16:05

They're looking for clarity. They're looking for god's word to be proclaimed. And I think one of the reasons that we see this happening is if you were to go back to chapter 2, there's a causal relationship with the reality that god's word isn't being declared or isn't being heard. Notice what it says. If you just look in chapter 2 verse 12 about Eli and his sons, says now the sons of Eli were worthless men.

Andy Miller: 16:33

Other another place it says, they were scoundrels. They did not know the Lord, yet they were serving as priest. Verse 22. Now Eli was very old, and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing to all Israel and how they lay with women the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting. Then in verse 27, and there came a man of god to Eli, another prophet.

Andy Miller: 17:01

God had to call somebody else. Notice what he says. And he said to him, thus says says the lord, did I not clearly reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt subject to the house of pharaoh? I mean, what is it that we see happening here? These men these men of God are taking what is meant to be holy, and then if you were to read a little bit more, you'd see they did this with the actual sacrifices that were at play.

Andy Miller: 17:28

But not only that, they take what was intended to be holy, and we're talking about the gift of human sexuality, and they thwart it for their own purposes. This might be why the word of God was rare in those days. Then it also goes on to say, look, did you see verse 27 again? Did I not clearly reveal myself? And I think one of the things that sets us apart at WBS, and I hope all of the seminaries in the evangelical tradition is we wanna suggest that God has indeed clearly revealed himself.

Andy Miller: 18:00

It won't even go as far as say he has done that without air. He's done that perfectly, that God has revealed how we should live, how we should function. And then on top of this, it's not just, Eli's son's problem. This is Eli's problem too. Eli's passivity is his own sin that has led to this moment.

Andy Miller: 18:21

And what has this done? It's hurt his people. It's hurt the people of Israel as they're trying to find their identity. And it's because of his son's sins, because of his sin of passivity, that the word of the Lord is rare in those days. And we can see the exact same thing happening in the life of the church now.

Andy Miller: 18:39

So that when we give up when we give up the authority of God's word, the clarity of God's word in proclaiming it, this then leads to a place where people might be wondering, is God still speaking in our time? But let's not just pick on the liberal churches, Eli and his sons, it could also be our sin, it could be my sin, and the darkness that it can exist in my own heart can cloud his face. And we come to a place where we realize the darkness is real. Yet there is something that happens so wonderfully in this passage. Notice the initiative that comes.

Andy Miller: 19:22

It's not, let's put a committee together and figure out how we can summon God to come and do His work again. Instead, in an unexpected time, in an unexpected place, speaks to a boy in the middle of the night. Yesterday in my preaching class, as I told you already, we were taking 30 minutes to just introduce ourselves with 3 to 5 seconds. A young woman, from Georgia named Tiffany, when it came her to her, she used her 3 to 5 seconds. Maybe it went to 7 or 8 seconds, and she said, I'm from Milledgeville, Florida.

Andy Miller: 19:54

My name's Tiffany, and God's called me to ministry. I've never preached, and I feel very overwhelmed by this moment. It it was just interesting now. In in the class, there are a lot of people who've been preaching for years. They've been in churches, but yet she stepped up and she said, god has called me.

Andy Miller: 20:12

It it seemed like somewhat unsuspected as well. And she said, I've never preached a sermon. I'm scared. And then a couple other people said, well, I've only preached 3 or 4 times. And we tried to assure her she's gonna be okay.

Andy Miller: 20:23

And, actually, she took IBS this summer, and so she's in great shape. I'm really excited for her. But it kinda might even see unexpected, but what is it? God calls. God calls in the middle of the night.

Andy Miller: 20:34

And what we've seen with so many of our students, I think of Erin Wetzel, who is, in my class last fall. She was a part of a church that, where they lost a disaffiliation vote, in the United Methodist Church, so the church didn't leave. But they had a a group of people, I think 40 or 50 people, who went and formed their own church. They didn't have a pastor, but they came to Erin and tapped her on the shoulder and said, we think you can be our pastor, And everybody affirmed it. And then as I heard her preach, I affirmed it.

Andy Miller: 21:06

Right? See and and you might have seen we there was a story on Erin in the compass. She's a middle school counselor, with one job, and another job, she and her husband are beekeepers. And now she has another job as she's, in the ordination process with the Global Methodist Church as her church join the Global Methodist Church. This is this is a wild moment.

Andy Miller: 21:30

It seems somewhat unexpected, but that's exactly what we see here in this passage. A boy in the middle of the night hears God's voice. Notice, this is God's work. This is God's initiate initiative. Through God's provenient grace, he's going ahead of the needs of his people.

Andy Miller: 21:51

My boys and I, just before we moved here, we did a campout, on the in Tampa Bay, like, right on the bay. And they were they're they they have, like, a a wildernessy type of explorer sort of side to them. And, we we wanted to cook all of our own food over a fire that we made. My Andy even bought his own cast iron skillet. He he has it in his closet.

Andy Miller: 22:15

Okay? This is that just give you an idea for who Andy is, my oldest, who's, at the time, I think he was 13. Now he's 17. So we made our fire. We we cooked our dinner, and then we went to bed in our tent.

Andy Miller: 22:27

We woke up the next morning. We had some bacon and eggs that we were gonna make over the same fire, and we realized that the the fire had gone completely out. And so I was trying to get people get get the boys together to get some 10 lanes so that we could get the fire going again. And then I saw Titus laying on the ground. Titus is my, second son, our middle child, and he's he's looking at the fire.

Andy Miller: 22:48

He said, I think there's still I think there's still a coal. And I went over and put my hand on it. I didn't feel any heat. And so Titus's face is on the ground, and I see him start to blow. And he's just blowing.

Andy Miller: 23:03

And all I see is gray dust flying up. And so he keeps blowing. I kind of turn around and go to you know? I'm obviously the one who knows what's going on, how this is gonna work. We're gonna get this we'll just start a fire.

Andy Miller: 23:16

We'll light another match. Well, you can guess what happened in a couple of minutes. Titus had that probably one little coal ready to go. And all of a sudden, we had a fire that came from the fire of the previous night. See, we we didn't realize that that fire from the previous night had more potential than I realized.

Andy Miller: 23:39

And even though in this passage we see the word of God is rare, Sin has clouded it out. There's this beautiful passage. Now I might be taking this in my own literary direction. It might just purely be describing the fact of a physical phenomenon in the tabernacle, but I think the author of Samuel might have had something else in mind with verse 3. The lamp of God had not yet gone out.

Andy Miller: 24:08

Okay. Maybe it's just the fact that there's some lights on in the in in the room, But maybe it also is acknowledging that God's work is not done, that it's symbolic of the fact that God had more work he wanted to do, that even when darkness seems to hide his face, we rest on his unchanging grace. That there's an opportunity for his people to access his power in that time, and the same thing is available for us today. And we've been at that point in the life of the seminary, and many of you in the room were right there. We wondered, and many people have told me that, you know, 10 years ago or more.

Andy Miller: 24:47

It's like, I'm not sure the seminary has a future. And if John Nighoff were to come and think about all the work that he did with Chris, and I think of Rob Poci and the like, and people through the years and board members who stuck with us, You might have might have thought, will there ever be a day where we're gonna be approaching 700 students? And not just that. Not just that. It's it's not even just about us achieving a numerical success.

Andy Miller: 25:10

It's an opportunity for us to access God's power because we believe the lamp of the Lord has not gone out. Amen? Right. That he has something for us, and he is calling our name. He's calling your name.

Andy Miller: 25:24

Samuel. Samuel. WBS. WBS. Will you respond?

Andy Miller: 25:30

And what is it that Samuel says? And I think that this kind of frames I hope this will frame this semester for us. As we're going in the semester, I just wanna address our students particularly. For us to get in the right mindset for what theological education is, I hope we'll take the good advice that came from a seminary professor who's having some rough days, Eli. And what did he say?

Andy Miller: 25:52

What did he say to Samuel? Here's what you say. Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I hope that this is a posture, students, that you take this semester, that God has called you here. He's called you to serve his church, and I hope that as we enter into this academic year where you're looking at your syllabi and your reading list and your assignments and you're wondering if you're gonna make it, I hope you'll say, speak, Lord.

Andy Miller: 26:24

I think you're gonna use doctor Blake more in my life. Actually and I'm telling you, he will. And all of our faculty. So I want you to keep these things in mind. Students, first, theological education does not happen to you.

Andy Miller: 26:38

I've said this before. This is not the matrix seminary. You don't download Thomas Oden's classic Christianity. You don't just get it in your brain. You to read it.

Andy Miller: 26:49

You have to process it. You have to do all that doctor is gonna ask you to do in systematic theology 1. Those of you who are on the take Greek with doctor Vassar, you don't just press the Greek button and get it. You are gonna sweat. You're gonna work hard.

Andy Miller: 27:02

We want you to work through this difficult process so that you can become the minister God's called you to. Theological education is a process, and it might be a painful process. But at the same time, we want you to go through that process so that you can become the minister God's called you to be. And this might mean that you have to reject no. No.

Andy Miller: 27:25

This does mean you have to reject some shortcuts that exist out there. I know. I know that, there are ways that you could ask Grammarly or any AI tool to allow you to that it to summarize ideas for you or to bring AI into your your process. You know, that is jumping past the work God wants to do in your heart and in your mind. And I wanna challenge you.

Andy Miller: 27:52

Yeah. We'll do all that we can to hold you accountable. We have software to track all that as best we can, but I imagine you could get around it. I imagine you could cheat your way through a certain class, and maybe we won't catch you. But just remember, you're called here by God, and you'll stand before that God.

Andy Miller: 28:12

Please forgive me. I know this, like, oh, what a what a motivating message. But I I I do this because I what we want you to experience. It's like, we believe God's called you to serve his church, and he wants the he wants the best from you. And I hope you're willing to submit yourself to some difficult days.

Andy Miller: 28:32

I did not expect that point to make me cry talking about plagiarism. Altogether, like, it's because what it's what we want for you and what we that's the academic dean coming out of me, I guess. I'm no longer the dean. Right? You are here.

Andy Miller: 28:46

Secondly, you're here as learners. Students, you need your professors. And I'm gonna suggest, professors, you need your students. There might be some questions they have that cause you to think or maybe restructure your class to a certain degree. But, no, students, professors are called by God to serve you.

Andy Miller: 29:08

So when they ask you to do something hard, when they ask you, to read what seems like an impossible amount of pages, I hope I hope that you'll take them up on that challenge, and I hope you'll even take these words from verse 10. Say, speak Lord, your servant is listening. That somehow God has put this in the heart of, the faculty to ask you to do certain things so that you can become the type of minister that our world needs. 3, if faculty are called to this moment, this moment in the life of our seminary, I would suggest that they do not work for you. They do not work for me.

Andy Miller: 29:48

They are not just contracted employees. Our faculty are called. They're selected and elected by the board of trustees, and they are here because of a deep sense of what God's called them to do. 4th, I want you to know our curriculum, our syllabi are forged in the fires of 50 years of faculty assembly meetings. Now that's that sounds very romantic.

Andy Miller: 30:19

It's not. But I want you for 50 years, we have taken this curriculum and we've refined it. We have and I'm just gonna say, we've fought fought over it. We have taken out classes. We've added classes.

Andy Miller: 30:32

We've changed course descriptions, and this is all done in service of you. We think at this moment, given the context of our world, given the context of higher education, the cost, what the church needs, that if you're in a MDiv, those 79 hours are exactly what you need. If you're taking a master's arts in Christian education or if you're in a course of study program, this is exactly what you need. This has been forged in the fires of faculty who love the church and are ready to serve you. And and finally, the 5th point, you are not here simply to get a credential.

Andy Miller: 31:07

Now we will give you some credentials. I'm looking forward to that. I look forward to presenting you with a diploma. I look forward to the moment where some of you will be ordained by your denomination, and a bishop will or a a denominational leader will lay their hands on you and say that you are now reverend so and so, whatever whatever that is. You'll be appointed to serve a church.

Andy Miller: 31:30

That's that certainly is a goal. But you're not just here to get a credential. You're not here to get a master's degree, a doctoral degree, a bachelor's degree. You're here because you're a part of something bigger. You you sense God leading you to be a part of the transformation of the world, to spread scriptural holiness across the lands.

Andy Miller: 31:52

That's what we're a part of. That's why you've submitted to the process of seminary. Because in this, the word seminary literally means seed bed. It's this place where we come together in in light of God's revelation in scripture that he's clearly revealed himself, that you become a formed pastor, a formed leader ready to serve his church. So don't just be in it for credential.

Andy Miller: 32:18

No. No. That as you're working through this process, don't wish these times away. Don't wish these days away. I'm sure all of us who've been through this process ahead of you, there are certain times where we know that those were great days.

Andy Miller: 32:30

Those were great days when we were working our way through Odin, when we were learning the IBS method. I hope you'll take that task on as well. Well, couple other things from this passage. I think it's interesting that there is a lack of a priest. The the even though there are priests who are functioning, they're not adequate for the task.

Andy Miller: 32:50

And notice what it says in verse 35 of chapter 2. Says this, that god says through this prophet, I will raise up for myself a faithful priest who would do who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. Now I think this is speaking about Samuel, but it also, I think, points to Jesus. If we look to the author of Hebrews, seeing Jesus as the faithful priest according to the line of Melchizedek, a faithful priest who will do this work. We look to the work of Jesus as the one that's paved the way for us.

Andy Miller: 33:31

He is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. So as we're training for ministry, we're people who are thinking about the reality that Jesus is the one who's exalted at the right hand of the father because of his life, death, resurrection, descent, ascension, that he is available for us, and he is the faithful priest to help us. And because of him, there's always hope. There's always hope in dark times. And also, I think it's interesting close in verses 1920, and 21 of chapter 3.

Andy Miller: 34:02

After, Samuel is given these hard words about Eli's sons, I love the humility that comes in verse 18 as we see Samuel, being told by Eli that Eli is willing to say, he he is the Lord. Let him do what is good in his own eyes, probably having in mind some of the language from judges there as well. Then in verse 19, it says the lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel's words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord. The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.

Andy Miller: 34:47

It's through God's word that he reveals himself to us, and he wants to keep doing that. And I pray that for for us as faculty, staff, and all the students and alumni, that your words spoken from God's word will not fall to the ground, that he wants to do a continual work in your life of sanctifying you through and through, that this is the work that he wants to do, that his spirit will continue to let his fire burn in our experience because the word of the lord, the the the light what does it say? The lamp of God has not yet gone out, that he wants to keep doing this work in our experience. I went real quickly and grabbed, from our library one of my favorite books, The Last Battle. Now this is a older copy, and you can't help but see it because it's, 95¢, the upper right hand corner.

Andy Miller: 35:47

And you those of you who know my own academic interest, I love, thinking about eschatology, and I think this is a great great primer on it. And and you might know the story of CS Lewis, and this is the the kind of culminating moment. They come to the very end, and the last pages, I think, are incredibly powerful. I wanna read that to you. They they realize basically, Lucy says something, the youngest, child says.

Andy Miller: 36:12

They she realizes they died. So so she asked Aslan, the Christ figure, about this, and, she says, Lucy said, we are so afraid of being sent away, Aslan, and you have sent us back into our own world so often. Right? This has happened, like, so often they come to Narnia and then they get sent back. They grow up and then they they keep coming back, but here they come back again.

Andy Miller: 36:38

And Aslan says, no fear of that. Have you not guessed? Their hearts eloped, and a wild hope rose within them. She says, there was a railway, a real railway accident, said Aslan softly. Your father and mother and all you are, as you used to call it in the shadow lands, dead.

Andy Miller: 37:00

The term is over. The holidays have begun. The dream is ended. This is the morning. And as he spoke, he no longer looked to them like a lion, but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.

Andy Miller: 37:21

And for us, and this is the end of all the stories, and we can more most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them, it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had been the cover and the title page. Now at last, they were beginning chapter 1 of the great story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before. The lamp of the Lord has not gone out.

Andy Miller: 38:11

Each chapter is better. And when we connect ourselves to the reality of his word, when she says to challenge the experiences that God has clearly revealed himself, and when Samuel connected himself to that, his words didn't fall to the ground. And that's my prayer for us as a seminary that our teaching and our words and the words of our students in pulpits that will go on for decades will just be the start, the greatest book, the greatest story ever told. Thanks be to God.

Host: 38:59

You have been listening to the Biblical Wesleyan, the podcast of chapel services and other special messages from Wesley Biblical Seminary. WBS offers biblical and theological education in bachelor's, master's, and doctoral level degree programs, as well as our Wesley Institute courses for laypeople. To learn more, visit our website at wbs.edu. May God bless you.