Old-time preachers sometimes sounded like a fire alarm—because they believed there was a fire!
“Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision” (3:15). Who wouldn’t be? It was a message of judgment. This cuts close to home, doesn’t it! The message we have is tempered with God’s marvelous mercy, but it includes the message of judgment, too. When we are called on to represent God’s message, we must not fail “to declare…the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Is this not the whole gospel from the loving Savior’s lips: “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God…He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” ( Jn 3:18, 36)? But Eli’s warning to Samuel the next morning could be the Lord’s warning to us: “What is the word that the Lord spoke to you? Please do not hide it from me. God do so to you, and more also, if you hide anything from me of all the things that He said to you” (1 Sam 3:17). Are we like Jonah, who doesn’t mind dying himself, since he is secure—as long as he doesn’t have to take God’s message to the nations! But Samuel, child though he was, faithfully discharged his duty. “Then Samuel told him everything, and hid nothing from him” (v 18). May the Lord help us to be more honest, more courageous, more robust, in our gospel presentation. Will people flee to Christ for safety if we do not warn them, as Jesus did, “to flee from the wrath to come” (Mt 3:7)? In proclaiming the love of God, we must include His wrath. It was His love that caused His wrath to fall on the Substitute at the Cross, making it possible for us to be saved! Let’s not use so much tact with those who are lost that we never make contact!