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Episode 498: In this episode, we delve into the story of Samuel, a young boy serving in the tabernacle under the guidance of Eli, the high priest. The narrative unfolds as Samuel hears the voice of God calling him in the night, mistaking it for Eli initially. Through this encounter, Samuel learns to listen and respond to God's call, even when the message is difficult to deliver. The hosts draw parallels between the characters in the story - from Samuel's willingness to heed God's call to Eli's complacency and disregard for God's warnings. They emphasize the importance of being attuned to God's voice, whether through direct communication or the teachings found in the Bible.
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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hello. Hello, well, it's so proper. We are welcoming you to the Bible Guys. I'm Chris, this is Jeff, and we are glad to be here. I wish we had like a tea set here and we were speaking tea and eating scones, little scones. Hello. I ordered. There's a one of the oldest and most prestigious tea companies in London is Fortenham and Mason, and they had this incredible store near Piccadilly Square, And so when I was there, I had a friend with me. He goes, dude, you gotta have some of these cookies. They have these cookies. They're like they're the inside is like scones, but they completely cover them in thick chocolate, which you know I love chocolate so much. Right. They were so incredible and I bought two different kinds. They were so incredible, And this store is huge, it's like five stores, worries, it's all snacks and tea. It's incredible, right, and very expensive. I loved them so much. I called my wife I was going to try to bring them home and I couldn't help myself ate them all right, So on this trip I was on, so I told my wife. I was like, oh, Bonnie, these are incredible. They're just they're amazing. I've never had a cookie better than this cookie. And you know, the tea was good everything else. And so I got home and I ordered two boxes of cookies. They have ten cookies in each one, and I didn't even look at the price. And then my wife was like, hey, how come we had a fifty six dollars order from from a tea company in London on the thing. So I paid fifty six dollars for twenty cookies cookies. That's great, it's pretty expensive. They were so good though, so good, and I'm not gonna lie they're gone, yeah of course, yeah, yeah, Well, I mean that's what you do. So your your little royal uh introduction there. I was just thinking. I was just thinking if we had your little pinkies were up and we were eating a little chocolate cookie. You immediately started tasting cookies. Absolutely absolutely, that's right. Just from my greeting. Hey, we're gonna do a segment that Desiree has put together. This is something I've never seen before, and I got to be honest, I just glanced they had a few seconds ago. I questions, and I'm not certain we're going to repeat this. I tried. I tried not to think too hard about this one. So okay, okay, ready, I'll let you go first. Okay, take turn sharing what you would do in these scenarios. I'll read the first one. You're ready, Okay, What would you do? This is what the segment is called, what would you do? What would you do if you found out that you'd been living in a reality TV show for years and we're only now told what What would I do? Yeah? What would you do? Uh? Hire a lawyer and get royalties if that was the star of a TV show. I just found out about it because I haven't been getting paid. That's actually a decent answer. Okay, that's interesting enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that's what I would do? All right? What would you do? Well? My first instinct was to say, because the Truman Show, this is the plot of the Truman Show. Oh, that's right, who was it? Jim Carry? Yeah, he found out he was living in it. He found out he was living in a reality show, and he did his best to get out of that reality show to live his life. Look at you equating everything to a movie. Well, you went to cookies. Yeah, that's true priorities. Yeah, you think about movies all the time. I think about chocolate cookies all the time. That makes sense that. Yeah, so super sophisticated people here on this show. That's only the most sophisticated. Yeah, I just I don't have a great answer for that, other than you get out of the situation. All right, Well, then let me try number two. Number two says what would you do if you were suddenly followed everywhere by a troop of professional mimes who copied your every move, professional mimes, your every movie. This is why I can't figure out this segment. Okay, ready, here's what I would do. I would do my best to get away from such said mimes. Yeah, I would have sworn. You're gonna say you jump off a bridge? Yeah? No, So everything. If you don't know Chris, well, Chris lives his life in hyperbole. Everything is the best, the biggest, the most amazing, or it's the single worst thing I've ever seen in my life, and it makes me want to jump off a bridge. I mean I've heard that phrase ten times. Oh wait, more than ten times. I was gonna say I've used that phrase one hundred times. I'm telling you it's the single worst thing I've ever seen in my life. It just makes me want to go jump off a bridge. So I would think then, having ten or having a bunch of mimes following you around, that you would just jump off a bridge. Yeah, but the game is called beause that would make them all jump off the bridge. Game is called what would you do? And I'm a real follower on games, so I'm literally trying to answer because I would not jump off a bridge, right, I would like I would do my best to figure out why the mimes are there and. How cool they would have to jump off the bridge too? Oh look at you see? So if you had a parachute and they didn't. But then they would all get parachutes. Yeah, okay, Well if you could swim and they couldn't, how would I know that? I don't know, but you might get rid of some of us them. Yeah yeah, you'd be like, you know, signing for that movie, like can you swim? No? I don't know. All right, that's a crazy one. Okay, okay in the last one, Thank goodness. What would you do if every time you entered a room you had to perform a thirty second dance routine before you can start your day? Well, I think probably what I would do is. Perform the thirty second dance routine because it says you had. To you have to. Yeah, but I mean, you want to be creative and super impressive, and so I'd probably go back and review the footage from the break dancing lady from Australia oh wow, from the Olympics Wow, and maybe work work on some cool. Movies that the Olympics are done. I got to tell you this, The only two people I'm gonna remember is number one, that lady and then the second best shooter from Turkey that's. The silver medal guy hand in his podcast. Yes, those are the only two people remember, you know what? And Simon that's it. I think three. I think this is the first time I didn't watch a single event, not a single event. So I saw the you know, my kids were watching a video of that funny that lady dancing. Yeah, and then I saw the picture of the guy that shooting. I don't know, I just didn't get into it this year. Oh yeah, it's weird. Wow. I've been really busy though too, so that was part of it. Is. Yeah, you know, I'm driving down the road listening to sports radio and they're telling you who won medals, and so at that point I need to go watch the replay of the metals. Right. We live in a world of highlights. Yeah, so you get the highlights. Already, So that's pretty much it. It's like the old Cliffs Notes, what would you do? What would you do if you had to do a thirty second dance before you walked into the room every night before you start? It says had to So, uh, what would I do? I'd I guess I'd have to do the thirty second. Dance for. The end? Are you a good dancer? This is why I don't like this segment, Like, I don't understand the questions what would I do? I guess I'd do the dance. Chris isn't feeling very fun today, In case you're wondering. No, I actually I'm just trying to figure out how to make this game work. Okay, this segment, well, we took seven minutes to get to that point, so we should probably move on. Okay, Okay, well that's that is our time for games. For need to move on. Okay, how about the Bible? There you go. So we are in First Samuel. So this is the second day of First Samuel. We're going to jump to chapter three. Did you say the second day? Second day in First Samuel? Oh, the second podcast day? Yes. I was like, there's been more than two days. Saman was born already, he's a young lad. So he is born. His mom takes him to the tabernacle when he's five years old. Yeah, and then and he begins to work for Eli, the high priest. Yes. And so in chapter three it says, meanwhile, the boy Samuel served the Lord by assisting Eli. Now, in those day, messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon. One night, Eli, who was almost blind by now, had gone to bed. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was sleeping in the tabernacle near the ark of God. Suddenly the Lord called out Samuel. Yes, Samuel replied, what is it? He got up and ran to Eli. Here, I am, did you call me? I didn't call you, Eli replied, go back to bed. So he did. Then the Lord called it out again Samuel. Then Samuel got up again and went to Eli. Here, I am, did you call me? I didn't call you, my son, Eli said, go back to bed. Samuel did not yet know the Lord because he had never had a message from the Lord before. So the Lord called a third time, and once more Samuel got up and went to Eli, here, I am, did you call me? Then Eli realized it was the Lord who was calling the boy, so he said to Samuel, go and lie down again, and if someone calls again, say speak Lord, your servant is listening. So Samuel went back to bed, and the Lord came and called us before Samuel Samuel and Samuel replied, speak, your servant is listening. Then the Lord said to Samuel, I'm about to do a shocking thing in Israel. I'm going to carry out all my threats against Eli and his family from beginning to end. And I have warned him that judgment is coming upon his family forever because his sons are blaspheming God and he hasn't disciplined them. So I vowed that the sins of Eli and his sons will never be forgiven by his sacrifices or offerings. So Samuel stayed in bed until morning, then got up and opened the doors of the tabernacle as usual. He was afraid to tell Eli what the Lord had said to him, but Eli called out to him, Samuel, my son, here I am. Samuel replied, what did the Lord say to you? Tell me everything? And may God strike you and even kill you if you hide anything from me. So Samuel told Eli everything everything. He didn't hold back anything. It is the Lord's will. Eli replied, Let him do what he thinks best. Yeah, wow, Eli, Samuel had a rough go there. Yeah, he did. A young man who's put in a really precarious situation here. Yes, right, so he's we're talking about the high priest here, I'm talking about the the soule authority in the temple, and and Samuel's like, what like a look an intern, right. And yeah, well probably more like a like a butler, right. Yeah. Well, it just goes to show you that God's God's favored doesn't go by title or authority. It goes by your faith and your heart, doesn't it. It goes by you know, Samuel loved the Lord. He had a pure heart. Eli had been warned by God. And by the way, those are the chapters that we skipped over, chapter number two. If you go back there and you go back and read all of chapter two, you'll find out that his son's how do you say it? I say Hoffney in Phineas? Is it Hafnai or. Hafney either way? Either way? So I used to say Hoftney in Phineas. But but you know, it actually listed and told us what they were doing. They were blaspheming God. They were eating the meat that was being sacrificed at the temple. So people would come, just so you'll know, and they bring their sacrifices to God to be you know, given to God as a sacrifice, and you know, these would be animals and instead of you know, preparing the bull or the sacrifice and burning it and giving it to God, they would eat it. Can you imagine that's like stealing out of the offering right right? I mean it's like it's like we don't have another we don't have anything equivalent today to compare it to as pastors. But that's really what they're doing. And this was something given to God right there, and they're eating it. And then it says that they were having sex with women at the temple gates. So they were using their influence or their position and using it for that reason. And so God warned Eli. He warned Eli, hey, take care of your family. Eli didn't do it. So we get a sense, don't we that Eli looks over at Samuel and says, don't hold anything back. May God kill you if you're holding the back for me, because Eland knows what it's He knows that Samuel is going to be afraid to tell him what the deal is, right, Like, he's thinking, I know it's coming. Don't you dare hold anything back from me? Because because Eli knows that God warned him already, and so Samuel doesn't hold anything back, and he goes, well, it is what Liz. He knows is coming, and he knows he deserves it because he didn't obey anything that God had asked him to do. Yeah, but poor Samuel, first time he hears from God, he's like, hey, I need to tell you something about your boss. Right, that's a rough one. But you know, God knows what you can handle. And God also knows what he's developing and planning you, you know, planning for you in the future. And so you have the promise from God to Samuel is that God was going to remove Eli and would make then Samuel be a leader to the kings. There were no kings yet, right, and so God was bringing Samuel into this place where he was going to have to do a lot of hard things. So you know, God was stretching him. God was challenging him. God was giving him an opportunity to do a really hard thing today because he has a whole series of difficult things he's going to do standing against other blasphemers, confronting kings, right, really really hard things that he winds up doing. And so God's prepping him even as a young man here. So I would say one big lesson to learn here is don't shy away from hard things. Do hard things. Yeah, I read a book one time when I was I I did one time. One time. I read about when I was in college, I had a professor that I really looked up to, and I had gone you know, in high school, in middle school, high school, I read all the time. We didn't have a television. Then I went to college and I didn't read for pleasure at all. I just worked, right, So I was working a lot of hours. I was tired all the time. I was sleeping about four and a half or five hours a night max. And so I was tired. And so if I'd open a book, I just fall asleep, right, So what would happen? So other than studying, I wasn't reading. And then I had this professor who talked about the wisest people he knew the most some of the most successful people he knew didn't just read for you know, to pass a test, but would read for personal improvement. And I thought, I haven't read any book for personal improvement forever, right, you know? Now, in reality, I think when you're in college, you are improving, you're trying to. I just didn't equate the two. So I went to him and I asked him this. I said, hey, what would you read? And he gave me this little book. It wasn't very big, It's maybe like one hundred pages, and I think it's out of print now. But it just it said do hard Things. That was the title, Do Hard Things. The whole premise was it was this guy from he seems to be like a World War two generation guy, you know, and they were just tough, sure, and he might have been older than the World War two generation, but it seemed like it was a book that was written four young men during that time, his successful business guy. And the whole thing was, whatever hard thing you haven't done yet, if you're physically capable, go do it. Go do the hard things. Do the hard things. The hard things make you harder, they make you stronger. And it's hard men who sees the world, not soft men. Right, And so that was the idea, and there is something to that that God made us a part of even before the curse. God made us to work. Work is not a curse. Work was a gift from God. It gives purpose, and so he put them in a garden. It's going to be physical work. It's the sweat of your brow. It's the struggle of work. It's the I put in all this work and hardly get any harvest from it. Kind of thing is the curse, but the work itself. God wanted humanity to be strong, to work hard, to produce things. And then we tend to the more successful we get, the less work we try to do. We try to do softer work, softer and softer and softer, and so you know, we as a culture, we try to make things easier, and we try not to have to say the hard thing. We try to learn not how not even to we try not even to learn how to say the hard thing. We try to avoid the hard things, and instead I think that maybe, you know, in this situation with Samuel, Samuel says, or God says to Samuel, I'm going to tell you something that's going to be hard. But God trusted him with it, and then all he had to do is be faithful to do that hard thing, and then God set him up for an incredibly successful ministry for a very long period of time in his life. You know. One of the things I love about this story, it's one of my favorites in the Old Testament actually, because there's a lot of application to this. So you think about Samuel, or think about Eli. Eli is a person who should have known better. Here's Samuel. He's just he's literally just one. You know, I want to say, it's really a wall. It's a wall of some kind. It's probably not a it's a it's a curtain, but it's a very thick curtain, right, Yeah, But he's one curtain away from the Holy of Holies. So the Ark of the Covenant is right there, you know, Here's here's you know, Samuel sleeping in a chamber. That's that's just outside of there. And all of a sudden he hears Samuel Samuel and Eli now did say that God hadn't spoken in a long time, visions were rare. But at the same time, Eli is an old man. He's so old that his eyes could barely work. He's almost blind by now. So Eli was old, he was wise, He had all the wisdom and experience that a high preesch should have. Eli should have known better. So if somebody calls the first instinct that Eli should have had is well, that must be God because it wasn't me, right, But he doesn't. He says, no, we're the only two in here. It wasn't me. You're hearing things go lay back down, And then he doesn't even recognize it the second time. You know what that means to me. It means that Eli is so far removed from the ways and the works of God he hasn't even recognized God's works anymore. Right, we already know he's callous. We already know he's you know, ignored God's warnings about disciplining his sons. He's allowing his sons to run all over them to develop a bad reputation, which reflects bad on him. So here's Eli. He's not heard God's call in a very, very long time. And so maybe that's you. Maybe you're listening to the podcast and you're at home and you're like, man, it's been a long time since I've really heard from God. I'm around the things of God, I go to church, but my personal relationship with God is not very strong. I would just say, you know, you know, just be like Hannah, right, fall to your knees, pray, pray earnestly. And then then you have Samuel. Samuel is a guy who's hearing God's call for the very first time, right, you know, he's never heard God's call before. In fact, it even says in verse number nine Samuel did not yet know the Lord. So he's hearing God's call for the very first time. So I would say, you know, you may be they're listening, and that may be you, you know, to to hear God's call, you know, for salvation, for a lationship with him. And then you have Hopnei and Phineus in the story who are turning a deaf ear to God's call. It it's a it's the worst place to be. It's the blaspheming. You know, you're so callous, you're so unbelievably hardened in your heart that you turn a deaf ear to God's call. And even even if it's painstakingly obvious that God is trying to get your attention, you you're you're in a blaspheming state where you do not care where You're like, I'll just mock God, make fun of God, blasphem God and not think twice about it. And that's the worst place to be. That's the scary place to be. Right, all of us should fear being at that place in our lives. Had I've had people say, Man, if God would just say it to me, if you would just speak to me right. A while ago, I had an optuny. I spoke at an event, and a person that I look up to from a distance, we haven't met at but a pretty well known pastor communicator those things tuned in and listened to He heard that I was speaking and tuned in and then sent me a text. Wow. And the text was like, Hey, I saw your message today. I thought it was really good and thank you or whatever. So I texted back and then we exchanged a couple of texts back and forth, and I'm gonna next time I'm in town, I'll probably connect with them. He didn't call me. I didn't hear his audible voice, but getting that text was like, Oh my gosh. One, he knows my name. Two he reached out to me. How did he find my phone number? That means he chased down some the people who put together the event that I spoke at, and he reached out to me that way. But he wanted to assert himself into my life in that moment because I had no idea he was even watching. How would I have known he was watching. I didn't. He wanted to inject himself into my life, and he did it through a text. And so that's exactly what God did for us. God doesn't I've never heard God speak out loud, but I've got thirty thirty sei thousand verses where he spoke to me. Right, we have the text, knowing right we do. We have the text, and so we have to just be honored by the fact that He gave us his word. If God is being signed, what Samuel or what Eli did not have was all of this book, right. He probably had the books of Moses, and that would have been it, right. But God gave us this word to speak to us. As a matter of fact, in both Peter and Paul have told us that God gave us these words for our own example. He tells us these stories about you know, half nin in Phineas, about Eli, about Samuel, about Hannah for our example. Literally, the idea of an example is you're supposed to learn from that example, right, benefit from it. You learn what to do or learn what not to do. And so God did speak to us. He spoke to us by text, and someday we're going to go see him. But between here and there, applying what is said and engaging with what God did say instead of being frustrated that he didn't say something out loud to you, right, I've never been frustrated that I've never heard God's voice out loud. I've always been content with the fact that He's been really clear with what and I'm not totally fulfilling everything I know in this book yet, So I don't need any more words to who much is given much as required. Jesus said, I don't want more stuff. I'm going to be held accountable for till I master this one. So this is a lifetime of work to be able to master. And I don't think you ever will till you get to heaven, but master this book. And so rather being frustrated than you're not hearing God's words out loud, spend more time in the words God did give you in time. The text, well, that is a great place to end in a good word. So a great story, and so we'll continue on. Hopefully we'll see you then next time. I'm the Babba. Guys,