Samuel at a Temple

Hundreds of years before the Lord Jesus came to Earth, there lived a man called Samuel. His story is in the Bible, in a book called 1 Samuel, especially in chapter 3.

From birth Samuel was looked after by Eli the priest and that is why he grew up in a temple. The temple was a beautiful building where Jews gathered to worship God and where the priests worked. Samuel worked there too. He probably did the cleaning, filled the lamps with oil, welcomed people and made sure that the special robes that the priests wore were clean and in the right place.

Eli’s Sons

It sounds as if it was a wonderful and clean place to live and to work, doesn’t it? But Eli had two sons and they were wicked and corrupt. They took things that did not belong to them. They threatened everybody who wanted to stop them. They laughed at those who did right things. They also took young girls to bed and got them pregnant. They thought they could do whatever they liked. God was very displeased with the way they lived.

Maybe you know somebody who behaves in a similar way. Maybe you behaved like that at some point too. But a person doesn’t have to be completely wicked. Only a small piece of dirt separates us from God. God is clean, without a single sin. He wants us to be clean too. But for people it is hard to stay clean. Especially when they see the bad examples of others.

For Samuel, it was hard too. He might sometimes have been tempted to try the bad things too. It might have seemed that these two older friends were having a lot of fun. Or Samuel got dirty and immoral ideas because he had to listen to them every day.

But Samuel did not follow their example. His life was like that white flower in the middle of the rubbish dump. He stayed clean.

How did Samuel do it?

One night, when Samuel was still quite young, an exciting and wonderful thing happened to him. God called him, “Samuel!” He woke up immediately. Someone was calling his name!

Samuel did not realise who was calling. He thought it was Eli and so he ran to the priest and asked him, “What do you need?”

“I did not call,” answered Eli, “go back and lie down.” Then it happened for the second time. Samuel ran to Eli who sent him to sleep again. When it repeated for the third time, Eli realised it was God who was calling Samuel and so he told him what to do.

When God called once more, “Samuel!”, Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant is listening.”

God spoke to Samuel and he listened to God and obeyed His commandments. God made Samuel clean and helped him to stay that way. That is the secret of how his life was like a white flower compared to the dirty rubbish in the lives of Eli’s two sons.