1 Samuel 3:19: Prophecy and the Backing of God
And Samuel grew, and Yahweh was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.
1 Samuel 3:19 tells us something more than that Samuel was a prophet. Samuel was backed up by God. This passage suggests that not only did God speak to Samuel, but when Samuel himself spoke, God came to his defense.
How glorious a thing would it be to know that God trusted you enough to back up your words, even if you were wrong? How comfortable a thing would it be to know that you did not have to depend on your sharpness of ear never to make a mistake in hearing God, but instead you could depend on your love of God and humility of heart to obtain the backing of God for what you spoke in sincere love for God and service to man?
I believe that God was saying this about Samuel.
Paul said things that seems to relate to Samuel's situation in 1 Corinthians 7
But I speak this by permission, not by commandment ... To the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord ... To the rest speak I, not the Lord ... I give my judgment, as one that has obtained mercy from the Lord to be faithful. (vv. 6, 10, 12, 25)
Paul in those verses was depending on the Lord to back him up, to prove his opinion to be worth something. At the very least, he was willing to speak as a trained man of God.
I must warn you that most Christians who will try to apply this teaching are going to be proud, self-willed, self-reliant men who will apply it to their own destruction and condemnation. This is a teaching for all, who should know the principle, but an applied principle only for the mature. Novices will embrace it, fall into pride, and incur the same condemnation as the devil (re: 1 Timothy 3:6).
There are some warnings in the following video which I prepared for a series of short teachings I am doing on YouTube called "The Leukemia Tapes."