Two part seminar exploring the balance between faith and works in the book of first Samuel. 

Hartland Summer Campmeeting 2017: Abiding in Christ

<p>Two part seminar exploring the balance between faith and works in the book of first Samuel. </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Giancarlo De Miranda

Righteousness by Faith in the Book of First Samuel- Part 2

So are you ready to study the Word of God?

So we are going to continue our study on the book of 1 Samuel, and we are studying the theme of righteousness by faith.

Yesterday, we studied the life of King Saul, and we drew lessons of righteousness by faith for our lives, and this morning, we are going to study the life of Prophet Samuel, okay?

And I would like to let you know the type of our message this morning.

You can see in the slide, mistreated and with the power to revenge.

Have you ever been severely mistreated by someone?

You don't need to raise your hand, I'm pretty sure if you lived long enough that the answer is yes.

It is 1 thing to be mistreated and you cannot do anything about it.

Maybe you're not in the position to do anything, so you have to accept it.

But what if you were mistreated and you had the power to do something about it and to revenge yourself?

So that's what we are going to study today and I believe this is connected with the theme of righteousness by faith.

We will study the life of prophet Samuel and see and learn from him how he responded to the people that severely mistreated him.

So I would like to begin, let's open up our Bibles to 1 Samuel, okay?

If you have your Bibles, please open with me to the book of 1 Samuel.

And you can mark your Bible there because we are going to explore a little bit some of the chapters of 1 Samuel.

So 1 Samuel chapter 2, you can turn over there.

So I'm sure you remember the story of Samuel, okay?

His mother could not have a baby and she prayed to the Lord in faith and the Lord blessed her, opened her womb and she was able to have this prayer for a baby, okay?

And she made a vow to the Lord that she would bring the child to the temple to serve the Lord once the child was grown enough and she nursed and raised that child during the first 3 years of his life.

And then she gave him to the temple, to the prophet Eli, to continue to raise him and for his child to serve in the temple.

So that is the purpose to have children, to make sure they are trained to serve the Lord, Okay?

So I want to pick up the story of Samuel in chapter 2 and verse 18.

So after he was delivered in the temple, given to the prophet Eli, I want you to see what the Bible says in verse 18, 1 Samuel chapter 2, in verse 18, the Bible reads, but Samuel ministered before the Lord, being how young?

So you can see from the Bible that since he was a child, probably 3 or 4 years old, he was already in the work of God.

So there is a lesson right here, just like a side lesson.

We can train our children to serve the Lord even when they are 3, 4 years old in the church and motivate them to participate in church service.

Samuel was since the age of 3 or 4 years old serving the Lord in the temple.

What you have in 1 Samuel chapter 3, the Lord revealed himself to Samuel, okay?

If you read verse 1, notice what the Bible says in verse 1, and the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli, and the word of the Lord was, what is the next word there?

In other words, Israel at that point in time, they didn't have a prophet.

So in that very same chapter, the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel and spoke to him in a vision again.

So once again the Israelites they had a prophet among them and it was a child.

So he had a very difficult vision, a very difficult message.

He received the message that the Lord would strike judgment upon Eli and his children because they were defiling the temple of the Lord, not Eli but his children.

Now notice what it says in verse, I want you to read in chapter 3, verse 19 and verse 20, chapter 3 of 1 Samuel verse 19, the Bible says there, and Samuel grew and the Lord was with him.

Notice this phrase now, I want you to catch this phrase.

And did let none of his words, what happened with the words of God?

He did not allow any of God's words to fall to the ground.

Even though the message was hard to be delivered, he was still faithfully giving the message of God.

And chapter 3 tells us that he was a child and he was afraid to give the message to priest Eli.

He thought, how can I give this message to this priest?

He's a lot older than myself, has more experience in the work of God, then he was afraid, but yet he was strengthened in faith, he trusted the Lord, and then he delivered the word of God as a prophet.

I believe there is difference of authority in the work of God, okay?

Samuel received the authority of a prophet.

Can anyone claim the same level of authority that a prophet has?

I can give another example just to illustrate and then I'll go back to the case of Prophet Samuel.

For instance, I am a parent, I have a daughter, and I have authority over her spiritually.

Does any of you have the same level of authority over my daughter than myself?

And it's the same of myself to your children.

I don't have the same level of authority that you have over your children because God built that authority.

He gave that authority to you And it is in the same in the church.

Some people they are over the Sabbath school class, they are Sabbath school teacher, God built the authority of that person and he has influence over that sub-school class, that his level of authority.

But that doesn't mean he has the same level of authority of perhaps an elder or perhaps a pastor of the church, or perhaps a conference president.

God builds the authority and the influence we have over people.

In the case of Samuel, even though he was a child, the Lord made him a prophet.

You see the reason he was actually delivering that rebuking message to the priest Eli was not because he was anyone, but because he received the authority from God to be a prophet and Eli knew that because Eli was the 1 that told Samuel because when Samuel heard the voice of the Lord 3 times he thought Eli was calling him and then Eli perceived the Bible says that God was calling him to be a prophet.

I say this to you because sometimes when we read texts like this in the Bible and we see the authority of John the Baptist, we build in the Pharisees, we see Jeremiah, we build in the leadership of the Israelites, and then we claim to ourselves the authority of a prophet, but we don't have the same level of authority.

And then we may make damage in the church.

Sometimes we see people preaching the Word of God with such a power and then we think that we have the same level of authority.

The Lord is going to build our level of influence as we are faithful in the little things.

Yes, he was a child, he was afraid, but yet the Bible says that none of God's word fell to the ground.

White in 1 point of time she was afraid to deliver her messages?

And then she started softening the message?

And then she saw a vision of Jesus with his back to her.

But then she was assured that if she delivered the message faithfully, that she would be accepted.

And she, from that point on, she faithfully delivered God's message.

So let's read verse 20, chapter 3 and verse 20.

The Bible says there, 1 Samuel chapter 3 and verse 20, and all Israel, how much of Israel?

And remember, in those days we didn't have internet, social media, none of these things but yet the Bible says that all Israel from then even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord.

So you can see here that he is growing in his ministry.

His level of influence is growing over the people of God.

Everyone knew that he was a prophet, yet he was very young in age.

Now what we find in chapter, We're not going to read, but I want to let you know because it is important for our message this morning.

In chapter 4, chapter 5, and chapter 6, these 3 chapters, what chapter did I say?

4, 5, and 6, what we have there is the Israelites going to battle against the Philistines and they lost that battle and then they tried to bring the Ark of the Covenant into the camp to battle again against the Philistines.

The Philistines overcame them and took the Ark of God and then they became slaves for the Philistines for 20 years, for 20 years.

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Righteousness by Faith in the Book of First Samuel- Part 2

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