1 Samuel 3-4; Psalm 92: Romans 2:1-16

 May 18: The conscience is a way that men even without the revelation of God are judged. It is therefore a way that God speaks to man, and is refined by exposure to God’s revelation. It’s a serious matter to allow this avenue for His influence on one’s life to become seared. (1 Timothy 4:2) Instead, I should pray for a renewed, circumcised heart, a tender conscience before God. (Hebrews 9:14; 1 Timothy 1:5)

1 Samuel 3-4: I always maintain that God is able to make His will known to us. He can and does speak differently to different people, in ways that they are able and willing to hear. Why, then, is God being ambiguous to Samuel in 1 Samuel 3:4, 6 and 8? First of all, Samuel didn’t yet know the Lord. (1 Samuel 3:7) The whole incident must be the means by which Samuel came to know Him. But more to the point, the audible voice forced Samuel to involve Eli, and it was Eli who needed the prophecy. Another principle I have always held to be true is that God won’t reveal His will for my life to someone else in the way that some put it, “I have a word from the Lord for you.” Especially if He hasn’t revealed it to me. In Eli’s case, He has revealed essentially this same judgment to Eli through another prophet, before revealing it through Samuel. (1 Samuel 2:27-36) What does it signify that both of these revelations are through someone else to Eli? Had Eli shut up his ears to what God wanted to say to him?

Psalm 92: If this Psalm is a song of praise for Sabbath worship attendance, what are the references in v.9 and v.12? It seems the scattering of the Lord’s enemies is meant to call the worshiper’s mind to Numbers 10:35. When the Ark of the Covenant was taken up after the cloud moved off the Tabernacle in the wilderness, indicating it was time for Israel to break camp and march again, Moses would say,

“Rise up, LORD, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee.” 

and when it returned, he would say, “Return, O LORD, unto the many thousands of Israel.” (Numbers 10:36)

These were statements of worship, but also important reminders that they were not wandering in the wilderness without purpose. They were a military excursion into enemy territory. When we go to worship the Lord, we should likewise be reminded that we aren’t aimlessly wandering, or taking up space in the world awaiting redemption but aggressively occupying enemy territory and being the basis by which the world is judged.

Verses 12-15 would call the worshiper to remember Psalm 1. Another aspect of life in this world is to bear the fruit of the Spirit. We are to not only edify the saints and convert the sinners, but to bless and give no offense to the Jews, the Gentiles or the Church of God, (1 Corinthians 10:32); to do good to all men, especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:10)

Romans 2:1-16: The point of this chapter, coming as it does after the previous one, is the guilt of the whole world before God. If that’s the case, what about this parenthetical phrase?

“(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)"

Does this mean that there are gentiles who never had the law and never had the gospel who are justified in the ultimate sense? It can’t mean that, because the next chapter tells us that there is none righteous, no, not one (Romans 3:10), all the world is guilty before God, (Romans 3:19), all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). It’s speaking in terms of what people will be judged by. Although the gentiles do not have the law, there are thoughts, attitudes and actions that they maintain and do that are just and their consciences affirm the rightness of these. Those things stand, then, as accusations against the dispositions of others who violate their consciences.