(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen, 1 Samuel chapter number 3, I'm gonna be preaching this morning about the young Samuel here. Samuel is a young child here. It says in verse number 1, the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli, and the word of the Lord was precious in those days, there was no open vision. Now the first thing I wanna point out here is that at this time, there was very little of the written word of God. Today we have the entire Bible, 66 books, and not only has the whole thing been written, but it's readily available to us in our own language. We could easily go to virtually any store, grocery store, Walmart, Dollar Tree, and just pick up the whole thing. What an amazing privilege it is to have this book in total, the whole thing, the word of God right here. But at this time, the word of the Lord was precious in those days, the Bible says, because there was no open vision, meaning that a lot of prophets were not preaching the word of God at that time, there weren't a lot of men who were receiving divine inspiration or divine revelations, because the Bible says that God spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, and that now in these last days, he's spoken unto us by his son. And so the primary way that people got the word of God back then was not through the written word, because there's very little of it at that time, it was through a spoken word where prophets would speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and preach the word of God. And this was a time when there wasn't a lot of that going on. And so that made the word of the Lord precious. Now stop and think about the word precious, okay? The first three letters there are because it's related to our word price. Precious means something that's very valuable. And because it was in scarce supply, it was precious unto them. It was valuable because it was rare. So we need to be careful that today in 2022, when we have the word of God so readily available, that we don't just start taking it for granted. The fact that we can go to church three times a week and hear the word of God preach, and then we can just go home and every single morning, open our Bible and read God's word. These people at that time didn't have those opportunities. And so the bad thing is that they didn't have as much information as we have. They didn't have as much opportunities with the word of God that we have. But the good thing is that they actually appreciated it when they got it, because there was so little of it to go around. So we wanna make sure that we don't ever take for granted the fact that we have God's word at our fingertips. We should be thankful for that and take advantage of that every day. And it should be precious unto us, even if it is readily available. And so because of the fact that the word of the Lord was precious in those days, there was no open vision, this is why it kind of catches Samuel off guard a little bit and even catches Eli a little bit off guard when Samuel starts to get these revelations from God. And when God is speaking to Samuel in this passage, we just read the chapter here where he hears somebody calling him and he thinks it's Eli and he keeps running and checking. And of course it's the Lord speaking to him. But let's jump down to what God actually says to the young Samuel in this chapter. It says in verse number 10, And the Lord came and stood and called us at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, for thy servant heareth. And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel at which both the ears of everyone that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house. When I begin, I will also make an end. For I've told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knoweth because his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not. Now, Samuel receives this revelation from God and unfortunately it's something negative about the man for whom he works. I mean, he works for Eli. He is ministering unto the Lord according to verse one before Eli. So this is his boss, this is his supervisor, and really this is even his guardian because his parents have dropped him off with Eli. He's being raised by Eli. He's growing up in the house of God. And so he's getting this message that is against Eli. And so this puts him in kind of a difficult position a little bit later when Eli is saying like, so what did God tell you? And then he has to tell him that. We'll get to that in a little bit. But what is the problem with Eli? Well, the Bible says here that God's gonna punish him, he's gonna judge him and his household because his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not. Now, what's going on in the story? Well, a little bit earlier in chapter two, we met the sons of Eli. And basically, what are these guys doing? First of all, they were gluttonous. And so because they were gluttonous, they stole in order to get the food to satisfy their appetite, okay? So they are actually in positions of authority at the house of God. So they are working for Eli at the house of God. And when people go to bring animal sacrifices to the Lord, there's a certain part of that sacrifice that is supposed to be eaten by the priest. And then there is a part of it that's supposed to be burned on the altar and to go up as a sweet saver unto the Lord. Well, these guys, they just wanted all of it. And they wanted things that were not supposed to be for them like all the fat on the meat and everything. They wanted the meat to be raw so that they could cook it the way that they wanted to instead of following God's protocols for how to cook the meat and what part they were supposed to eat. They just wanna take all of it. Well, here's the thing. When people would come to offer their sacrifice unto the Lord, when they would demand parts of the animal that did not belong to them, people were calling them out on it and saying, well, wait a minute. No, we need to burn this part unto the Lord first and then you're gonna take this other part. And they just said, no, just give me the raw meat. And if you don't, then I'm gonna take it by force. And the Bible says that this caused men to abhor the offering of the Lord. So people are coming to the house of God and they're trying to do something good, you know, giving a sacrifice unto the Lord. They're trying to follow God's commandments. And then these guys are turning it into something of just greed and lust and gluttony. And so it started giving people a bad attitude about even coming to church, about even going to the house of God. And of course the same thing is going on today where when we have wickedness going on in churches and we have people stealing money and we have people abusing positions in church, then obviously it's gonna give people a bad attitude and people are gonna be disgruntled. You know, at the end of the day, we're serving the Lord, we're serving Jesus Christ. And at the end of the day, if we show up and give our offering to the Lord and someone abuses it, you know, we still gave it to the Lord at the end of the day and obviously in a perfect world, that's how we would all look at it. But as a human being, it's pretty discouraging to give financially or participate in something and then find out that someone has abused their position or abused their power, abused the finances. You know, humanly speaking, it makes you pretty mad. You know, let's say you've been donating to a missionary or something and then you find out that he's just kind of doing nothing over there and he's just not getting anything done. You know, I had some experiences like that and it was a little bit depressing when you sacrificially give and then you find out that they're not doing any of the work, okay? Or just if people are stealing or other things are going on. You know, I mean, and frankly, these type of things happen in our day where people give to the house of the Lord and someone could steal it. You know, there was just a case recently with one of our pastor friends where some malicious people stole money from the church's bank account. There was a guy who used his position as working for the bank to get into their accounts and steal their money and, you know, he's threatening to sue people who talk about it. So go ahead and sue me because I don't own anything. So have fun suing me. But anyway, you know, this guy steals from the church, Seth Bookout and his buddies, stealing from the church, okay, and moving money around at bank accounts, using his position at the bank, his insider information to steal from God. Obviously that could be depressing, you know, as a church member to give money and then to see it be stolen like that, right? It's discouraging, but here's the thing. You gave the money to the Lord. That's how you have to look at it. And God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. God owns the wealth in every mine and God's gonna make everything right in the end. And you know, they did get the money back, but of course a lot of the money just goes to lawyers trying to get, you know, getting the money back and everything like that. The lawyers end up with a lot of money. But the point is, these guys by stealing and being immoral and being wicked, they ended up causing people to abhor the offering of the Lord. But not only are the sons of Eli stealing from the offering plate, but worse, they were actually committing fornication with the women who would come to the house of God. So they're basically using the house of God when these women would come from all over the place and come to Jerusalem. They're using that just to look for women that they could sleep with, these wicked sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas. So just a combination of stealing and fornication and all of these horrible things. And so God said, these guys have made themselves vile. I mean, God's looking down at these guys and thinking, these guys are nasty guys. These guys are just rotten, they're wicked. And then he says, you know, Eli, you knew about what they did. Because it says in verse 13, I told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knoweth because his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not. So it's like, Eli knew about it and he's not restraining them. He's not putting a stop to it. He's looking the other way. So even though Eli's not doing it himself, he's allowing this to happen. And of course, this is very wicked because not only is it a sin against God, but also disillusions and discourages people about church that these employees of the church would be committing fornication. That employees of the church would be stealing money and doing all these things. It's super wicked, okay. Now, obviously, Eli should have kicked these guys out of that position. He should have restrained them by exposing them, throwing them out and saying, you guys can't be a priest anymore. You guys can't work here. And this is why, by the way, I don't like this thing of where every pastor, his kid just kind of like automatically kind of gets on staff and becomes a pastor and like it's this hereditary dynasty or something. And look, I'm sure there are some good examples of it out there that we could point to. And we could point to some situations where it works out well. So I'm not criticizing or attacking anyone because the exception proves the rule. But I've seen it a lot growing up where when the pastor's kids are just put in these positions of authority, it's a recipe for disaster, okay. And so it's better to just not do that. If one of my sons ever wants to go into the ministry or work on staff at a church or be a pastor, it's gonna be a different church. It's not gonna be here. He's gonna have to go prove himself somewhere else to someone who's a little more unbiased than me, dad. Because just the daddy ordination doesn't seem legitimate to me. And again, I'm not criticizing because I'm sure there are some out there that have been good men of God that have been ordained by their dad. But you know what? There have also been a lot of bozos who they're the face only a mother could love and the doctrine that only a dad could ordain, okay. And they get ordained by dad because dad's the only one who would ordain them because they're a rotten person. I mean, think about it. If you had an objective guy looking at Hoffnoy and Phineas, these rotten sons who are fornicators and gluttons and thieves, nobody else is gonna ordain these guys except Eli. And Eli looks the other way and he allows this to go on in the church. You know, obviously people have free will. He can't necessarily control the fact that they're committing these wicked sins as adults. But you know what? He is the boss. And so he had the power to restrain them, to put a stop to it or to take them out of this position. And if he took them out of that position, they wouldn't even have the opportunity to be stealing from the offering because they wouldn't be anywhere near the offering. And they wouldn't be able to troll God's house for the ladies because they wouldn't be there in a position of authority to abuse in the first place. And so they made themselves vile and he restrained them not. Verse 14, therefore, I've sworn unto the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever. So he's saying, it's over for these guys. You know, there's no way, they can't just say they're sorry at this point and do some sacrifices and get right with God. He's basically saying these guys are over the line where the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever. That's a scary place to be when God's just like, I'm done. I'm not even giving you a chance to fix this or make it right. And by the way, that's why God calls Eli's son, sons of Belial too, because they were actually literally reprobates. They were sons of Belial. And not only that, but when Eli does try to talk to them, because he didn't actually put a stop to the problem, he didn't actually restrain them. But at one point, Eli does try to talk to them and say, oh, nay my sons, do not so wickedly or whatever. But they didn't listen to him. And the Bible says they didn't listen to him because God wanted to destroy them. So God was so fed up with these guys, God didn't even want them to listen at this point because God just wanted to punish them because the iniquity is not gonna be purged at this point. It was just too late for these guys. So in verse 15, it says, and Samuel lay until the morning. So I guess Samuel can't sleep after this, right? Because when you get this vision from God right before bed, and it's about Eli, the guy that you live with, your hero, your mentor, your pastor, the guy who has trained you, your guardian, it's like a parent almost unto him. And so he's just laying there all night. And it says, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and Samuel feared to show Eli the vision. And you can see why he's scared to tell him this stuff because it's so negative. Then Eli called Samuel and said, Samuel my son, and he answered, here am I. And he said, what is the thing that the Lord has said of thee? I pray thee, hide it not from me. God do so to thee and more also if thou hide anything from me of all the things that he said unto thee. You better tell me everything, buddy. And what does the Bible say in verse 18? And Samuel told him every wit and hid nothing from him. Now, let me tell you something. This is why Samuel is a great man of God. This is why Samuel became a great prophet and preacher and man of God. And this is why there's a book called First Eli. No, it's called First Samuel. First and Second Samuel because of the fact that even though Samuel was afraid to preach the word of God, he still preached the word of God. And so what we need to learn from this is that today, preachers, maybe they're afraid to preach certain things. Or maybe they just want to preach 90% of the message, but they want to leave out that 10% that could offend someone. And okay, maybe that's just a human reaction if you're in a place where certain things could be illegal to preach or if you're in a place where a lot of the church members, you know they're gonna leave or quit the church if you preach what needs to be preached. Or maybe you're gonna receive persecution or be attacked in the media or be thrown out of this association or thrown out of this club that you're a part of or whatever. But you know what, okay, fear could be a human reaction for us to have when we need to do something that's right. But the difference is that Samuel, in spite of his fear, gave the message that God told him to give. And he preached the entire word of God, whether he was afraid to or not, he got up and preached the whole word of God, even to an audience that was affected directly by what he was saying. So he's getting up and preaching on sins that he knows that people are guilty of. And people might get offended, they might quit the church, they might get upset, but the word of God needs to be preached. And so that's what made Samuel a great man of God, is that he hid nothing from him. He told him every whit. And this is exactly what the Apostle Paul talked about in Acts chapter 20, when he talked about how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have taught you publicly and from house to house. He said, I didn't hold back anything that was helpful to you, I preached everything to you. And that's what we need preachers to do today. We need preachers to just get up and preach everything, every chapter, every verse, and just not worry about what people are gonna think about it. And if they do worry about it, preach it anyway, and just put that fear in the back of your mind somewhere and just preach it anyway. That's what Samuel did. I mean, same as a kid. Samuel as a child had more guts than a lot of adults to actually proclaim God's word faithfully in spite of the consequences. And look what Eli says when Samuel tells him everything. And Samuel said, it is the Lord, let him do, this is what Eli said, sorry. It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good. So Samuel tells him the message. And what does he say? He says, you know what? Oh, he's God, he's the Lord. Who am I to judge what God is saying? I can't sit here and say, oh, it's good what he said, it's bad, I don't think he should do that, I don't think it's fair. You know, what is his reaction when he hears it? He says, well, it's the Lord. You know, let him do what seemeth him good. He's the boss, you know, it is what it is. It's negative toward me, it hits me where I live, but guess what? It's the Lord. That is the attitude that we need to have as Christians when we hear God's word preached. We need to have an attitude that says, what's the word of God? And stop deciding whether or not we agree with it, stop deciding whether or not we're gonna do this or that or the other. If God says to do it, it shouldn't even be a question like are we gonna do it, it's just, we're doing it. That should be the attitude, right? It's God's word. Let him do what seemeth him good. Now, another thing that I like about this verse where Samuel tells him everything in verse 18 and then Eli says, it's the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good, is the fact that Samuel dreaded a bad reaction from Eli, didn't he? Because if he's afraid to tell Eli, he must have thought that Eli's reaction would be different than this. Because if he would have known that Eli was gonna have such a cool reaction, then, you know, he probably wouldn't have been so worried to tell him. And what I'm constantly trying to get other preachers to understand and talk to other people about is that, you know, the people in the church can handle more than you think they can handle. So you get a lot of preachers that are afraid to preach and they don't wanna preach hard and they're afraid of what people's reaction is going to be but the true story is that if they actually got up and preached the word of God, everything would probably be fine anyway. It would be no big deal. Because sometimes we underestimate what people can handle. You know, I know I've preached sermons where I thought, oh man, this is gonna make people mad. I might lose some people over this. This is gonna make somebody upset. And it turned out that person loved the sermon. Turned out everything was fine. Sometimes you might be scared to bring a visitor to Faithful Word and think like, I don't know if I wanna bring a visitor. I don't know if they're ready for Pastor Anderson's preaching or something like that. But you know, people can handle a lot more than you think. Go ahead and bring your visitor. I'm not gonna say anything weird, okay? Now look, some of the things I say are gonna be weird in this world's eyes perhaps. But you know, I don't just get up here and say crazy things, do I? The stuff that I say, I back it up with the word of God. The stuff I say has its basis in concrete scripture. I'm not just getting up here and just going crazy and coming up with all kinds of wild-eyed theories and just shooting from the hip up here, okay? I'm preaching biblical truths. And so therefore, you know, give some people some credit that they can handle biblical preaching. And don't think to yourself like, well, I know I can handle this, but I don't know if they can handle. You know, it kinda reminds me of when I was, when I just turned 17 years old and we found an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church. We'd been in liberal churches for like five years. And I'm not gonna tell the story for sake of time, but it's a cool story. But I had been invited to this Independent Fundamental Baptist Church and I brought home the invitation to my parents and they said that they would try it. But what happened was I got sick the Sunday that we were going to try the church that I was so excited about. I was the one who even, you know, brought this home and told my parents, hey, I think we should try this. I ended up being sick so I didn't get to go with them the first time. So they went without me. And so I used to get sick all the time back then. But my parents came home and I asked my parents, like, how was it? And my dad was just like, phew. He's like, well, we love it. He said, we love it, but he's like, he says, Steve, I don't think you can handle it. He said, this, you know, he said, this is some hard preaching and I don't know if you can handle it. And I'm like, dad, I can handle it, okay. He's like, I don't know, cause he's like, I don't think you've ever heard preaching like this before. I'm like, dad, I went to a summer camp one time and the pastor screamed until he lost his voice. I'm like, you know, I've heard it, you know, I can do it, I can handle it. He's like, okay, I mean, yeah. Cause he's like, we love it. This is like what we grew up on. You know, this is the old stuff. And so I, you know, I ended up coming the next Sunday and I was able to handle it, okay. But you know, but think about my dad, he's sitting there thinking, you know, Steve can't handle this. And then I ended up handling it, of course, because why? Cause I can handle more than he thought apparently. You know, now it's like, can you handle me, dad? No, I'm just kidding. And by the way, my dad can't handle me because my dad is a faithful member of Verity Baptist Church. And he listens to pastor, he may not has preached three times a week. And so he handles it too. But here's what's funny about that. So my dad was wondering if I could handle it. Well later, as we'd been at the church for a while and made a lot of friends and everything, I was talking to this other guy, brother Nunez. And he told me, he's like, man, I remember the first time your parents showed up when you weren't there. He's like, I remember when the pastor, and he brought up some really radical point that the pastor had made. And he said, I remember that when the pastor got up and preached that, I thought about your parents, they're never coming back. And he said that his literal thought was, well, there goes another visitor with that one. So here, brother Nunez is thinking my dad can't handle it. My dad's thinking that I can't handle it. You know, everybody's thinking, oh man, you know, I mean, I don't know if he can handle it. Folks, they can handle it. It's the word of God. Just preach it to them. And you know what, so what if they can't handle it? Give it to them anyway. Then let them just not handle it. Let them just show up and just let their system overload. Right? Let it come up tilt or whatever. Who cares? But honestly, people can handle more than you think. Quit wondering if people can handle it and just preach it to them. And so he said, it's the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. And Samuel grew and the Lord was with them and did let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan, even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel and Shiloh by the word of the Lord. So here's what I want to point out now, is that Samuel is associated in chapter three with the word of the Lord. Because in verse number one, it talks about the word of the Lord was precious in those days. And then the word of the Lord comes to Samuel in this vision of the night. And then he delivers the word of the Lord unto Eli. And then at the end, it says, the Lord revealed himself to Samuel and Shiloh by the word of the Lord. So in this chapter, you start with the word of God, it's about the word of God, it ends with the word of God, right? Now notice in chapter four, we have the contrast because that's Samuel. In chapter four, we have the contrast with Hophni and Phinehas, the two wicked sons of Eli that we talked about a little bit earlier. Now these are really the guys that should be picking up the spiritual torch and carrying it for Eli. These guys should be serving the Lord and prophets of the Lord like Eli, but they're not. So the rotten example is found in Hophni and in Phinehas. And then, you know, Samuel is the good example. So Samuel is associated with the word of the Lord. And then again, in verse one of chapter four, and the word of Samuel. So it's just like, it's always the word with Samuel, isn't it? He gets the word of God, God lets none of his words fall to the ground. I mean, how many times does this come up? The word, the word, the words, the word, the word, right? Samuel is a man of God because he listens to the word of God and then speaks the word of God. That's what makes him a prophet of God, okay? But let's look at chapter four here and get the contrast with Hophni and Phinehas. It says, and the word of the Lord came to all Israel, oh, sorry, and the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle and pitched beside Ebenezer, and the Philistines pitched in Aphek. And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines and they slew of the army in the field about 4,000 men. When the people would come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, wherefore hath the Lord smitten us today before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us that when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. It's kind of funny how they say, we're gonna bring the ark of the Lord so that it can save us. Instead of saying like, so that the Lord can save us, we're gonna bring the ark and then the Lord, it's like, well, it's gonna save us. So they're more interested in like the object itself, almost like a superstitious thing that somehow the physical object has power. When in reality, it only has that power because it's been given that power by the Lord because the Lord is the real source of the power. When it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. So the people went to Shiloh that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, which dwell between the cherubims and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas were there with the ark of the covenant of God. So on the one side, we have Samuel, he's got the word of the Lord, he's listening to the word of God, he's speaking the word of God, he's a prophet of God. Then on the other side, you've got Hophni and Phinehas who are rotten people, but they are with the ark of the covenant of God. And notice what the Bible says, when the ark of the covenant of the Lord, verse five, came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout so that the earth rang again. So notice that Hophni and Phinehas, they have the position. You know, Samuel doesn't necessarily even have a position, I mean, he's just a guy, but everybody kinda knows he's gonna be a prophet of God. This guy's gonna grow up and be a prophet of the Lord, based on his relationship with the word of God. But then Hophni and Phinehas, they have the position. They have the positions of authority in God's house, and they have the accoutrements, they have the bells and whistles, they have the ark, and they've got the title, and they've got the gear. And notice that there's a lot of excitement around them. So Hophni and Phinehas, when they show up at the ark of God, everybody's shouting, everybody's exciting, everybody's cheering, the earth is ringing with it. Now look what the Bible says in verse six, when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, what meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the Lord was coming to the camp, and the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is coming to the camp. And they said, woe unto us, for there had not been such a thing heretofore. And the thing I want to point out is that the Philistines represent the unsaved, the world, out there, people who don't get it, all right? They look at all the shouting and the excitement, and they say, oh, that's the presence of God. That's the power of God. And isn't that today what people think? When they see some kind of a TV preacher preaching to huge crowds, oh, that's the power of God right there, that's the blessing of God. Look at these crowds of people shouting and cheering, or the charismatic church where they're getting real wild in their worship, and they're dancing around, and clapping, and jamming, and jiving, and rolling in the aisles, okay? Oh, that is the power of God right there. I mean, that right there, that's the presence, God is there. And a lot of independent fundamental Baptists even get influenced by this. They go to these hootin' and hollerin' kind of preaching services with all the wild hootin' and hollerin' and shoutin' and people runnin' around, and woo! And then they just talk about how, man, it was just the Spirit of God was really there. But that's an ignorant view, that's what the world would look at, and maybe look at that and say, oh, that's a happenin' church, that's exciting. You know, God actually speaks in a still small voice, did you know that? God speaks in the still small voice, it's not necessarily the thunder, it's not necessarily the forest fire, it's not necessarily the earthquake, God speaks in a still small voice. And I'll tell you where the power of God is, is where you've got Samuel listening to that still small voice that he can barely hear, he thinks it's Eli speaking to him from the other room, he listens to the voice of God, he listens to the Word of God, he tells the Word of God to one person, one on one, what that person needs to hear from the Word of God, you know, that's where God is really at work. God is at work in chapter three. In chapter four, God is not at work in chapter four. In chapter four, the Spirit of God has departed, the glory has departed. Okay, that's the theme of chapter four, look at the last verse. And she said, the glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken. This is a chapter about God not helping Israel, not being among them, not blessing them, but yet the world looks at it as, oh, God's in the camp. Well, what makes you think that God is with Israel? What makes you think that God is supporting Israel? Well, look at all the shouting, look at the excitement, look at the cheering, and look at that beautiful box. You know, they've got this beautiful box, the Ark of the Covenant, and it's covered in gold, and it has the cherubims, and it has these poles coming out of it that are also overlaid with gold, so they've got the gear, and it's fancy, and we've got excitement, and everybody's cheering, and everybody's going wild, and so, wow, God is really in that service. Look at the fancy building. Of course, God's blessing this church. Look at the fancy building. Look at the gear, look at the crowds, look at the accoutrements, look at the cheering, look at the excitement. You see, the world looks at a lot of noise and just assumes that that's where God's action is happening, but in reality, God's real action is happening in quiet, in our hearts, and you know, the real Christians that actually do great things for God in a lifetime, you know what, it's day in and day out for them. It's every morning getting up by themselves and just reading the Bible in silence. That's what it really is. I mean, what has changed my life more, unexciting service or reading my Bible every day quietly by myself? Which one do you think has done more for me? The time I spent by myself, the time I spent praying, the time I spent reading my Bible on my own, the time I spent, like Samuel, listening to the voice of God. And you know what, some of the greatest sermons that I preached have been preached to one person, right? Just like Jesus when he preached to Nicodemus or Jesus when he preached to the woman at the well, right? Some of the greatest sermons are just you talking to somebody, knocking on somebody's door and giving somebody the gospel and speaking to someone one on one. You see, God's work is done many times in quiet and I'm sorry, but the church that's the best church isn't just the most exciting, wildest church. You know, I mean, at the end of the day, I would much rather go to a church where the music is really mellow and where even the preaching is really mellow and maybe the pastor isn't really a leather lung kind of preacher and maybe he doesn't preach super loud or really animated or whatever. But you know what, if that church is a place where the word of God's being faithfully preached and we're reading our Bibles and we're going out and giving people the gospel, we're getting people saved, you know, that's the blessing of God. And I can't even count how many times I had Pentecostals tell me when I was a kid, like, oh, you're Baptist, Baptists are so dead. Well, Pentecostals are spiritually dead because they think you can lose your salvation. They're not even saved. They think that they're going to heaven because of their works. We go out and knock the doors of all these Pentecostals and they believe that if they don't live right, they're not going to go to heaven. If, you know, well, you can't just live however you want and you know, you gotta keep the commandments, you gotta, you know, all this junk. When the Bible says salvation is by grace through faith, not of works, let's say any man should boast. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone to God alone be the glory and they don't have that, then they got nothing. If they have a wrong gospel, if they think that they're going to be saved by their works, which is what they believe, like, well, it's not by works, it's just that you have to just follow the commandments and do what God told you to do. It's not works though. It's like, what if I told you that's what works means? Doing what God told you, obeying the Bible, keeping the commandments, that's called the works of the law, obeying God's laws. But no, my friends, salvation is by faith, it's by grace through faith. And yet you got some pretty wild Pentecostal churches out there where, oh man, the spirit is there because look at all the crying. Look at all the laughter. Look at the shouting. Look at the excitement. But folks, they would look at the Baptist church and say that the Baptist church is dead because our music is more subdued or maybe the sermon is even more subdued. And they think that that is a lack of the spirit of God. But let me tell you something, that is not the evidence of the spirit of God. You know, the evidence of the spirit of God is when they spake the word of God with boldness. But it doesn't necessarily mean that it was spoken in a flamboyant manner all the time. It was just spoken with boldness, just like Samuel had boldness. I don't think Samuel got flamboyant with Eli. I don't think he's like, God's gonna judge you, Eli. Eli's ears weren't gonna be tingling because Samuel was so loud. He's not just like, ah. Eli'd be like, dude, we're at the breakfast table. I'm right here. Relax. Quiet that down. You really think Eli, you think Samuel was swinging from the chandeliers when he gave Eli that message? No, but I think we can all agree that Samuel spoke the word of God boldly in that story. What was the boldness? The boldness was preaching the truth no matter who it was going to offend. That was the boldness. Speaking God's word without censoring it, even if somebody gets offended. It's not necessarily a style of delivery that made it bold, okay? I guarantee you that he gave him the message in a normal conversational manner, but it was still bold preaching. You know, when we go out soul winning, we give the gospel with boldness, but we don't yell at people's doors. We don't start jumping around and stuff. When we're talking to people out soul winning at the door, we're talking in just a normal conversational manner, that conversational manner, but it's bold because we make no bones about the message and we make the message clear and we don't sugar coat the message or trim the message, but we just, we give them the gospel, boldly. And you know, maybe we walk up to somebody who looks like they don't want to hear it, but we walk up and we approach them with it anyway. That's boldness, right? No, maybe an intimidating person and we just march right up and start giving them the gospel. It doesn't have anything to do with the style. It just has to do with overcoming fear and doing the work of God in spite of any kind of timidness or fear on our part. And so we ought not look at the style to determine whether it's spirit filled or whether there's boldness there because a church that is preaching hard truths from God's word and staying faithful to the Bible and winning souls to Christ, that's a spirit filled church. And I remember one time we had some bozo evangelists come through when I was at Regency, the church I mentioned earlier that my dad thought I couldn't handle. After going there for a few years, we had some bozo evangelists come through from the South and he's like, y'all are dead. And I'm just like, who invited this jerk? I remember just sitting in my seat thinking, who invited this jerk to come tell us we're a dead church? I'm like, this is the greatest church I've ever been to. I'm like, people are getting saved every week. There's 50 people out soul winning last Saturday and this idiot comes in, y'all are dead. Because, and then he just starts telling us about these revivals where people are grabbing the American flag and grabbing the Christian flag and running laps around and getting all crazy. Folks, that's just juvenile. That's just stupid. That's just not knowing how to behave yourself in the house of God is what that is. But he's like, y'all are dead. That's why you invited me for a revival because I gotta bring you back to life. It's like, dude, if you know what, if you're, I'll put it this way. If 50 people out soul winning is dead, then I don't want to be alive. You know what I mean? Like if that's wrong, I don't want to be right because guess what, if we're following the Bible and having 50 people out soul winning and people are getting saved, people are getting baptized and Pastor Nichols is just preaching the paint off the walls three times a week, how can you say it's a dead church? But it's because he was looking at the wrong thing. He's looking at the gold on the ark and he is looking at the shouting and he's looking at the outward appearance and that's what the Philistines look at. The Philistines look at that and they say, yeah, that's a power of God right there. That's because they don't know who God even is. Look what the Bible says, I'll close on this, but look at the Bible says in verse eight, woe unto us, who shall deliver us out of the hands of these mighty gods? I think these people have a fundamental misunderstanding about the religion of the Israelites. What's wrong with that sentence? The Israelites only believe in one God. And they're like, well, these are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. Folks, these people know nothing. They look at it and they say, oh, look at the hootin' and hollerin', listen to how loud the amens are, look at all the wild music, it's the spirit of God. Whereas the real spirit of God's in chapter three quietly with Samuel and his Bible. Samuel and the word of God, that's the real power of God. So don't get sucked into this thing of judging the book by its cover and judging churches based on a level of excitement that you see. And look, I'm glad our church does have excitement and people here are fired up and motivated and excited and we go on soul winning trips and missions trips and there's a lot of excitement and we try to make the music and the preaching exciting as well, but you know what, none of that is really the backbone of what we do here. Okay, the backbone is the actual word that we stand on, the actual word that's being preached and the actual work that we're doing. The actual soul winning that's happening, okay. The sermons that are preached at the door this afternoon that nobody hears because they're not on YouTube, right. They're not on some social media site, but yet that's where the work of God is happening this afternoon is gonna be people knocking doors and it's gonna be happening on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. You know, just quietly in the background all week long and then we're all gonna be reading our Bibles tomorrow morning and we're gonna be praying quietly by ourselves, that's where the power of God's spirit comes from and so exciting church services are great, but that's just an icing on the cake and a lot of these churches is nothing but icing. It's just a lot of icing and if you cut into that cake and you opened it, it would just be icing upon icing upon icing and there's no cake. And look, I like having frosting on a cake, but if somebody just gave me just and just said, well hey Pastor Anderson, I know you like frosting, so we're just gonna give you all frosting. Here's a bowl of frosting. That'd be nasty. The first bite would probably taste kind of good if it was good frosting, but then the second bite, it would, you know, and you get the third, it'd start getting nasty and it's so sweet it makes you want to throw up. And some of these churches are so sweet I want to puke. Because here's the thing, I want some meat on the bone. I want some cake, right? Let them eat cake. Don't just give them the frosting, all right? And so we need to make sure that we're a Samuel kind of a Christian and not a Hophni and Phineas kind of a guy. And by the way, a lot of these TV preachers, I guarantee you that they're a Hophni and Phineas in their personal life. That's why they're living in a multi-million dollar mansion. Right? Because they're like Hophni and Phineas. They're stealing from the Lord's money, that's why they're a multi-millionaire. Now again, for those listening to this sermon in the future, this is back when a million dollars wasn't a lot of money in 2022. So the point is, you know, somebody's gonna listen to this and they're gonna be like, man, my apartment's like a million dollars a month, you know? What's he talking about? But anyway, you know, these multi-million dollar mansions, because they're stealing the money. And I guarantee you that these guys are out committing fornication and committing adultery, a lot of these false prophets, because the Bible says that's what false prophets do. It's not just Hophni and Phineas. Folks, we need a Samuel kind of Christianity. Let's pray, let's have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word. And Lord, help the word of God to be precious unto us. And Lord, I'm so thankful that we have church three times a week, and I'm so thankful for the excitement around our church, Lord. But help us always to have that meat on the bone and that solid foundation in your word every day, quietly by ourselves, Lord. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.