1 Samuel 1:10-12; 18-28
Now just a word here, perhaps there are some parents present. This mother says in the 22nd verse:
“Then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide forever.”
The burden of this mother was that her son might appear before the Lord. Sometimes we read of some people making their appearance; perhaps it is some great singer making his or her first appearance at such and such an opera, or in other lines of achievement. What is meant is public display before the world. Little Samuel made his appearance here, but it was based upon the faith of a godly mother, and she was satisfied that Samuel should make his appearance before the Lord.
Those of us who are parents, may we search our hearts with that Scripture! Are we satisfied to have our children make their appearance before the Lord, or do we lust for something of the world for them place or position? How many a parent seems to have learned as to his own life the lesson of death with Christ as to this world, but O how the flame of ambition flares up when it is a question of his children. It wasn’t so with Hannah. She says,
“I want him to make his appearance before the Lord forever.” It is beautiful, isn’t it?
The nice part about it is, that as we read on in the life of Samuel, we find he quite fell in accord with his mother’s wishes, and when he arrived at the years of responsibility, or at that time in his life when he could take a stand for the Lord, he was satisfied just to go on in a quiet way as a servant and prophet of the Lord. He was satisfied with his parent’s desire for him.
Dear young people (I am addressing those who are believers), I suppose you have godly parents who have consecrated you to the Lord. They have done for you what Elkanah and Hannah did for Samuel when they brought him to Shiloh. They slew a bullock and brought the child to the priest. They recognized in that typical act of slaying the bullock, that there was no standing for that boy before God, save on the ground of the death of Christ.
You have been brought to God by your parents. They may not have necessarily used any symbolical act to express their consecration of you to the Lord, one way or another; be that as it may, the fact is, every Christian parent going on in communion with the Lord, has consecrated his children to the Lord. Now what is going to be the response in your life and walk, to that parental consecration? Will you rebel against, or gladly submit to it, and go on in that happy pathway of having been lent to the Lord forever? It was so with Samuel; he was lent to the Lord forever. What a beautiful history is that of young Samuel.
I believe I am talking to many Samuels here this afternoon. What does “Samuel” mean? “Asked of the Lord.” When I say I am speaking to many Samuels, ‘I do not mean in your case there was the burden of heart for a man child, as was the case of Samuel, but what I mean is, if you are the Lord’s, and children of godly parents, every one of you is a Samuel, because long before you knew the Lord – long before you ever formed the name of Jesus on your own lips your parents were crying to the Lord for your precious soul, you were asked of the Lord; your parents were pleading with the Lord that you might be a child of God, and that you would early yield your life and heart to Christ.
How little you realize how many times father and mother have been on their knees for you, praying, perhaps weeping over you, when they saw the possibilities that were ahead of you in a world they have found to be evil, and they consecrated you to the Lord; so you are a “Samuel.” You have been asked of the Lord.
(To be continued)