Tonight we'd like to get to know a little about the work of the church here, where the church came from, what it wants, what's going on, how it came to be, and so on. And as our Bible text we are going to take 1 Samuel, chapter 3. Who's got his Bible along tonight? Okay, great! You don't go into war without your sword! 1 Samuel chapter 3, verses 1 through 11:

Now we would like to take a look at some things in the Bible and use them as a basis for what we're going to cover later on. First of all, we read here that there was a time in Israel where there weren't very many people who had any notion about God. There was religion, as always. The temple was there, as always. The people prayed as always, but there wasn't much devotion to God. There weren't very many people God could really use and speak to. And that's just like the present day. There's a lot of fuss, a lot of religion, apart from the Christian religion, up to the "Exorcist". There's a lot of religiosity going around. The Bible says that it's going to be like that in the last days. Many people will have religion, but they won't know the power of God. They don't have a personal relationship with the living God. For them God is just an idea, the driving force of all existence, or some other philosophical concept that you can debate. But they don't have any concept of a personal God who personally takes part in their lives and deals and speaks with them. That's just how it was in Samuel's day. The Bible says that God's word was rare, or "precious", Luther says of the same period. That is to say, it was hardly to be found. There were many opinions about God, but you couldn't find much of God's word, and there was almost no prophesying or revelation from God.

And in this time period – we see that God is always speaking. God always has people in all stages of history who he can talk with personally. And one of these people was for example Noah. Noah's whole generation was completely corrupt, living away frivolously in their own lusts and looking to satisfy their own selfishness and not caring anything about God. But Noah heard God's voice. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Enoch. The Bible says that Enoch was the only one. God spoke, but nobody listened to him. Only one person had a personal relationship with God, and that was Enoch. And that's the way it was here, too. They were priests in the Lord's house – Eli. Eli had once had contact with God, but he lost it. His own sons made sport of the Holy of Holies. And so God couldn't speak to them any more, although he had at one time spoken to them.

And in this time period something happens. A son, a child is born of a woman who had been barren. But she had kept coming to God and had prayed that God would give her a child, and then one day God answered her prayer and gave her a son, Samuel, and out of gratitude that God had done this miracle in her life she brought Samuel to the temple and dedicated him to God.

And this little boy who had been dedicated to God was sleeping one night. And all of a sudden he hears, "Samuel, Samuel!" And the boy jumps up and runs to Eli and says, "Eli, here I am!" A wonderful illustration. You can look everywhere in the Bible – God always used people who first submit themselves. You can name man of God after man of God from the Bible: Joshua first submitted himself to Moses. Take Elisha – he was first Elijah's servant. Take the disciples – they first submitted themselves to Jesus. Take Timothy – he first submitted himself to Paul. And Samuel lived in this faithfulness and submission. He could have said, "But I won't submit myself to Eli. God doesn't speak to Eli any more. Submission is in principle out of date." But no, he submits himself to Eli. And God saw his sincere heart. No matter how messed up a situation can be, no matter how messed up the people can be that you submit yourself to, it's a principle of God's that he doesn't deviate from. He submitted himself and he sought God from his heart. No matter how corrupt his environment was, he wanted to live right with God out of his child-like heart. He ran to Eli, "Here I am!" Eli says, "Go back to bed. You've had a bad dream." So the boy goes back and goes back to sleep. But his heart is awake. His heart is sensitive, his spirit is sensitive to God's working. And after a little while he hears it again, "Samuel, Samuel!" He jumps up, runs to Eli. "Eli, you did call me. I heard you again." "Boy, go back to bed. You're not sleeping very well tonight." You see, when a person is sincere, when a person is really sincere and wants to do God's will, he can even be sleeping and God can speak to him. Your heart, your attitude is what counts, whether God can speak to you or not. Not the situation that you're in. Your attitude determines whether God speaks to you or not, not the circumstances. He goes back, lies down again, and the Bible says, "for the third time the Lord spoke, ‘Samuel, Samuel!'" And the boy runs to Eli again. "Eli, you called me!" Eli says, "Oh, go… No, wait a minute. There must be something more to this." And gradually it dawns on the old man that it could be God. Then he says, "If you hear this voice again, if you hear your name again, then say, ‘Lord, here I am. Your servant is listening!'" And the boy goes back to bed and falls asleep again. After a little while: "Samuel, Samuel!" He says, "Lord, here I am. Your servant is listening!" He is speaking into the dark of the night, contrary to any kind of logic. He is talking with the wind. But he is obedient. He says what the old priest had taught him, "Lord, speak. Your servant is listening." And suddenly God actually does talk to him and says, "Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel,…" And God tells this boy things, truths, that he could no longer tell Eli the High Priest.

God can give experiences to children that can make grownups envious. It depends on the attitude of your heart. I heard the voice of God when I was twelve years old. I came into a church service and a Lutheran minister spoke. I can still remember his name. Normally I don't remember names at all. I've already asked many of you here five times what your names are. But his name I can still remember, Pastor Carqueville. And he spoke, and the very moment that the man spoke I heard God's voice, "Volkhard, Volkhard!" And he's never left me since. And so my prayer this evening is that through what we're going to be talking about tonight and through the story of Brother Herman and of Nollendorfplatz, that we ourselves will be given an inner need and a yearning to come again into contact with the living God. Religion doesn't satisfy. You need an experience with the living God. So God spoke to Samuel and the Bible says that he hadn't heard anything from God up to that point. He hadn't yet understood the word of the Lord. And then God spoke to him. How many people have come to this place and found Jesus and haven't really at all grasped what it's all about. God in his grace worked in advance in their lives without them even recognizing him. Just think of Gerhard Faust Joachimstal who was always searching for peace and for God. He came walking by here downstairs, read the sign, that little sign that's hanging down there in the showcase, and in that very moment he knew – "You've got to go up there." And on that very day the sermon spoke right to his situation, and he gave his life to Jesus. And there are so many others where God's grace was working in advance, where God's patience had been working in advance. So many of us had been prepared for a particular situation, and then God takes out his hammer and hits us.