Children Can Learn from Bible Examples (Cont'd.)

Samuel (1 Samuel, all 28 chapters)

1. Samuel's name means "asked of God" because his mother, having no child, asked God to give her a son. She promised to give him back to God all the days of his life if He would give her a son. She fulfilled her vow to God (1 Samuel 1).
2. "Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child..." (1 Samuel 2:18). There are ways children, too, can serve the Lord.
3. God spoke to Samuel as a child and gave him an important message for Eli, the priest, and his family. God can and does speak to children and young people who serve Him today. "And the Lord called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I. And the Lord called yet again, Samuel...But Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him...And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. The Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth. And the Lord said to Samuel." Read chapters 3-5.
4. Samuel became a great prophet and judge in Israel all his life. God has a wonderful plan for each child's life. They need to know God personally in childhood or youth -- as early as possible. It is important to know God before their lives are scarred by sin. It is important that they turn from sin before they "sow their wild oats" and then try to pray for a crop failure!

Moses (Exodus, all the chapters)

1. Moses was raised in a foster home (Pharaoh's daughter's).
2. He was brought up in a pagan home but did not forsake God.
3. Moses got a good education in Egypt, a pagan culture, but that did not destroy his faith.
4. When Moses came to age, he chose affliction with God's people rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
5. Moses lived as a refugee for 40 years in a desert country, tending his father-in-law's sheep, but God did not forsake Him. God appeared to him and used him to deliver his people from Egypt to lead them through the wilderness for 40 years on the way to the promised land. God did many miracles through Him; spoke to him face to face on Mt. Sinai, and gave him the Ten Commandments written by the finger of God on tablets of stone. God showed him the plan for the organization of Israel as a nation under God, and the plan for their worship and for building the tabernacle for the presence of God among them.
6. More is remembered about Moses that any of the great Pharaoh's of Egypt.
7. I heard someone say:

   Moses spent 40 years becoming somebody.
   He spent the next 40 years becoming a nobody,
   and He spent the last 40 years
   learning what God can do with a nobody.

Jephthah (Judges 11-12).

1. Jephthah was the son of a harlot.
2. His half brothers threw him out of their home because he had a different father.
3. The refused him any inheritance among them.
4. He fled to another land.
5. War and trouble came to his part of Israel; his people came to beg his help then. The people promised to make him their head if he would defeat their enemy.
6. Jephthah prayed and made a vow unto God. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah and enabled him to overcome all his enemies and win a great victory for his people
7. In spite of background and treatment by their own families, God can enable young people to really become someone and accomplish great things for God if they will turn their lives over to Him.