The title looks forward to the Millennium, but God has spoken by children through the ages.
What an honor to be God’s voicepiece to the nation! When Samuel responded to the voice of the Lord in the night hours at Shiloh, “Speak, for Your servant hears” (1 Sam 3:10), did he grasp that he would speak for the Lord to the nation, “something in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle” (v 11)? And you, believer, isn’t this also the case for you? Except with us, the message is from the Lord through us to the whole world! “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20). And herein lies the challenge. Why did God bypass Eli and use the child Samuel? If we are going to represent the Lord to those around us, as Isaac Watts expressed it, “So let our lips and lives express The holy gospel we profess; So let our walk and virtues shine, To prove the doctrine all divine.” The house of Eli were no longer fit vessels to carry His message. In fact, the solemn communiqué Samuel was to share was TO the house of Eli because they had not been listening. They had gone past the point of no return: “For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them. And therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever” (1 Sam 3:13-14). The sons had made a mockery of the sacrifices (see 2:12-17); now there would be no sacrifice for them. This is the case in our day. The unpardonable sin is the rejection of the pardon paid for so dearly at Calvary. With this somber message on his soul, “Samuel lay down until morning…And Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision” (3:15).