Discover The Word

Friday, January 25, 2008

“What more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets” (Hebrews 11:32).

IDEA: Ultimately people have to have a faith in God rather than in God’s people.

PURPOSE: To help listeners realize that their faith has to be founded in the trustworthiness of God himself.

Do you think it is possible for Christians to build their faith on the faith of other people? [Yes]

Is it dangerous to build your faith on other people’s faith?

I. As a child, Samuel had people around him who could have caused him to lose whatever faith he had.

He had been mentored by Eli who was the high priest and a judge (4:17) and who himself seems to be a man of faith. We need people like that around us.

Eli’s sons were also priests, but they were “worthless men who did not know the Lord.”

While Samuel was still a boy under Eli’s direction, he saw Eli’s sons doing despicable things (1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22-25, 27-36).

They were using religion as extortion by taking more of the sacrificial animals than they were entitled to (Samuel 2:12-17).

They used their position for immoral purposes, sleeping with women who assembled at the tabernacle door (Samuel 2:22).

He also saw that Eli, a man whom he admired, could not discipline his sons who disregarded his admonitions.

II. As a man, Samuel saw the leaders of the people trusting in a magic charm rather than in God.

People were defeated by the Philistines and they assumed that they could recover from the defeat by using the Ark of God.

What is the Ark of God?

What did it symbolize?

They had turned the Ark into a magic charm and did not consider the fact that it was their disobedience that cost them God’s presence.

Samuel could have given the whole thing up because he saw the faithlessness of the religious and political leaders of Israel.

III. What kept Samuel in the faith?

His call from God, chapter 3, and the personal relationship with God that he maintained.