1 Samuel 3

The Right Kind Of Ears

Speak; for thy servant heareth. 1 Samuel 3:10.

The other day I read a story which came all the way from Japan. A missionary was walking along the streets of a Japanese town, and at one corner he came upon a man who had a group of children gathered round him. He was telling them a story. This was the story he told.

“Once upon a time a little boy went to heaven and when he got there he saw some very odd things lying on a shelf. ‘What are these for?' he asked. ‘Are they to make soup of?' ‘Oh no,' was the reply, ‘these are the ears of the little boys and girls who never paid any attention to what they heard. The good things never got past their ears, and so when they died their ears got to heaven but the rest of their bodies did not.» A little farther on he saw another shelf with more odd things laid on it. Again he asked, ‘ Are these for soup?' ‘Oh no,' was the reply, ‘these are the tongues of the little boys and girls who were always telling other people how to be good but were never good themselves, and so when they died their tongues came to heaven but the rest of their bodies did not.'”

Now of course this is just a fairy story, but like many a fairy story it has a meaning. God has given us hands and feet and ears and eyes and tongues and hearts and minds; and He means us to use them in the right way. Some people don't use them at all, and some people use them in a wrong way. And so for a few Sundays I want to talk to you about the right way of using those gifts which God has given to us.

Today I am going to speak about the right kind of ears. Ears are very important things, are they not? We could not get along very well without them. You will find your text in the First Book of Samuel, the third chapter and the tenth verse “Speak; for thy servant heareth.”

You all know the story of Samuel. You remember how his mother prayed that if God would send her a son she would lend him to the Lord all the days of his life. You recall how she brought him to Eli the priest when he was a little boy of about three years, so that he might serve God in the tabernacle. You remember how Samuel was busy in the tabernacle doing the little odd jobs running messages for Eli, drawing the curtains which formed the doors, trimming and lighting the lamps until one night when he was asleep in one of the rooms beside the tabernacle court something great happened God spoke to him.

Samuel had the right kind of ears. But what are the right kind of ears? I suppose we have all got ears, and yet they are not always the right kind of ears, because we don't use them in the right way. It was a frequent saying of Christ's “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” A great many of the people to whom He spoke did not understand Him. It is said of His own parents who had brought Him up “They understood not the saying which he spake unto them,” and sometimes even His disciples, who were so much in His company, did not understand His word. They were not listening in the right way.

Well, there are four things that the right kind of ears must be.

1. They must be open ears. Your ears would be no use to you at all if they were deaf, and they would be of very little use if you stuffed them with cotton.

What is it that deafens people's ears to God's voice? Very often it is the din of the world. It is so loud in their ears that they don't hear the still, small voice. And sometimes it is cares and worries that shut their ears, and sometimes it is indulgence in sin. I think the ears of children are often more open to God's call than the ears of grown-up people, because they are not deafened by the noise of the world by its pleasures, and cares, and sins.

2. The right kind of ears must be understanding ears. Your hearing may be perfect, and yet you may not know what a person is saying, because he is talking in a foreign language.

We must have ears that understand God's language. And yet it is no foreign tongue in which God speaks to us, but the language of our everyday life. Only we mistake His voice for the voice of other people.

Even Samuel made this mistake at first. God called to him and he thought the voice was Eli's. And God speaks to us often in the voice of our minister, or our teacher, or our mother. We think it is they who are speaking and it is really God.

Why, if we only understood, we could hear God speaking to us constantly, for He speaks in so many different ways. When you see any beautiful sight, or hear any beautiful sound that makes you wish to be good, that is God speaking. God made all things beautiful and He speaks to us through them. When you hear or read about brave and noble men and women and feel you would like to resemble them, that is God speaking again.

3. The right kind of ears must be attentive ears. Your hearing may be perfect and people may be talking in your own language, and yet you may not hear because you are not listening. Mother asks you three or four times to run on an errand for her, but you are so engrossed in your book or your game that you don't hear her. And sometimes we don't hear God's voice, because we don't atop to listen for it.

4. The right kind of ears must be obedient ears. You may have perfect hearing, you may understand, you may be quite aware of what is going on around you, and yet you may not hear because you do not wish to listen. Samuel learned obedience by doing the unimportant, uninteresting, drudging work in the tabernacle, and when God's call came he was ready for it.

Let no boy or girl be ashamed to obey. It is only those who have learned to obey who know how to command. Baden-Powell tells a story of a man in the Boer war who spoilt a very promising ambuscade by disobeying an order. The men had been forbidden to fire, but one man fired a shot and made the enemy aware of the force which was lying in wait for them. “It would have been different,” said Baden-Powell, “if he had learned to obey when he was a boy.”

So the right kind of ears are those that hear God's call and obey it. And I want you to notice in the last place that God calls boys and girls. He called Samuel in the tabernacle, He called David, the shepherd lad, He made use of a little maid in His healing of Naaman, the Syrian. Jesus called the little children to Him when He was here below, and the disciple who lay upon His bosom was the youngest of the twelve. God calls boys and girls. Let us ask Him to give us the right kind of ears so that we may all hear and obey His call. (The texts of the other sermons in the series are Exodus 23:9; Psalms 24:4 (2), Psalms 34:13; Proverbs 6:13; Malachi 1:13; Luke 6:41 1 Peter 3:4, 1 Peter 5:5.)