The Attitude Required to Hear God's Truth

“Speak, Lord, for your servant hears” – young Samuel (likely 10-12 years old), 1 Samuel 3:10

I gave a talk on this text the other day at our local Christian school’s chapel, telling the kids, aged K-8^th, that we can learn to hear God’s voice as we submit ourselves to the Scriptures like Samuel submitted himself to God’s audible voice. I told the kids that God doesn’t usually speak audibly today, but He speaks in the Bible, and as we behold Jesus’ glory as our Redeemer and High Priest, He gives us His Spirit who guides us into truth (Jn. 16:13), as He Himself leads us by His perfect providence (Phil. 2:14).  Just like Samuel had to learn to listen to God, we learn today to listen to God through repentance, humbling ourselves, and saturating ourselves with God’s truth in the Bible.  “Oh how I love your law!  It is my meditation all day” (Ps. 119:97).

But there’s something to be further gleaned from Samuel’s prayer here.  To say, “Speak Lord, for your servant hears,” is to, in essence, pray, “Lord, say whatever you want to say; I’m all ears.”  It is an attitude where the one speaking is putting himself under God’s authority to say whatever He wants to say, regardless of how well it fits with the pray-ers own personal assumptions or the cultural assumptions that surround him. Samuel’s ultimate goal is to have God speak, and to receive whatever He says.

A New Testament example of this attitude is Nicodemus.  He’d been living his life trying to climb the ladder to heaven, only for Jesus to come and tell him that even with how good a guy he (thinks he) is, he can’t even reach the first rung because of Adam's sin in him.  Thus He needs God to do a work in him which he can’t do for himself (John 3:1-8).  Nicodemus then responds, “How can these things be?”  (3:9)  I’ve always thought that this was him stubbornly refusing to accept what he’s hearing.  When preparing to preach this passage last week I came to the conviction for the first time that Nicodemus was actually hearing what Jesus was saying, and asking for help to understand how this works.  In saying, “How can these things be?” he isn’t saying, “It can’t be,” but rather, “How does this happen, then, Lord?”  He’s doing the same thing that Samuel did earlier: sitting within earshot of the very voice of God, and putting himself under God’s authority to reveal reality, however uncomfortable and paradigm-shattering it may be.**

I pray for and long for this attitude of submission to God’s Word in the church again.  The promise from Scripture for this attitude is this: Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will exalt you (James 4:10).  Required is an attitude that, like Samuel and Nicodemus, a) doesn’t assume one is correct in what or how they think (for, “whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool,” Prov. 28:26), and b) doesn't assume the current cultural sensibilities are correct (for we are to not be conformed to the world around us, Rom. 12:2).  Instead what is required is a hunger for God’s righteousness, and a belief that what He has spoken is clear, true, and coherent.  This is exactly the attitude which Jesus described when He repeatedly said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" (Mark 4:9). 

How are your ears? 

**I realize many commentators disagree with this view of Nicodemus’ question, choosing instead to view it as a rebuke from a hardened skeptic.  But it seems to me to be the case, in light of the fact that his attitude has shifted from cutesy rebuke in verse 4 to a simple question in verse 9.  In any event, Nicodemus is wrestling.  I think he’s hearing and praying, like Samuel did.