Modern heating systems are wonderful, aren’t they? At Bible study we were too cold, and every part of the meeting we were too warm. Now it’s time to get too cold here. I think that’s not so bad, though. That will help me to stay awake.
Turn to Matthew 22, verse 34.
But the Pharisees, when they heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together.
And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, tempting Him:
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Now, I know I would have flunked this test and described one, but not the Lord Jesus.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the great and first commandment.
And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
On these two commandments hangeth the whole law, and the prophets.
What was the answer of the scribe? Everybody remembers, in another rendering, or the other Gospel: “Who is my neighbor?” That is right. Try to leave a lot of them out.
Turn to Luke 13, verse 34.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her!
How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her own brood under her wings, and ye would not!
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate:
and I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me, until ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Well, what was this desolate house? Got to have an answer; I am waiting.
Herod’s temple, with its great Holy of Holies—which was empty. Where was the glory, the testimony, the ark, the real ark of God? It was not there in the Holy of Holies. Where was it?
It was in the Man who was uttering these words, with all of that in literal embodiment: Jesus Christ. And they were rejecting Him.
Turn to 2 Corinthians 3. Their house was left desolate; the glory had departed. They were waiting for something, they knew not what. That something had come. But let us see: what was the trouble?
Let us start and read from verse 6.
Who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
But if the ministration of death, written, and engraven on stones, came with glory, so that the children of Israel could not look steadfastly upon the face of Moses for the glory of his face; which glory was passing away:
how shall not rather the ministration of the spirit be with glory?
For if the ministration of condemnation hath glory, much rather doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
For verily that which hath been made glorious hath not been made glorious in this respect, by reason of the glory that surpasseth.
Now, there was a Shekinah glory in the Holy of Holies. Paul is saying there is a greater glory to be seen, known, and experienced by Christians. Is that what he is saying?
Seeing then that we have such a hope, we use great boldness of speech,
and are not as Moses, who put a veil upon his face, that the children of Israel should not look steadfastly on the end of that which was passing away:
but their minds were hardened: for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remaineth, it not being revealed to them that it is done away in Christ.
But unto this day, whensoever Moses is read, a veil lieth upon their heart.
But whensoever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Now, I had read this many, many times, and I did not know what it was. One day it dawned on me. What is the “it” that means to turn to the Lord, in order that this veil should be taken away and the glory, in its full effulgence, should be known? Their hearts.
Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.
Now back to the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 2.
God is busy in this dispensation doing exactly what He was doing in these days of Samuel. He is getting His ark—the true testimony of Jesus, the light, the impact, the glory, the power of the Person of the Son of God, Who is not just way off up there in heaven, but is doing something here in the earth by the Holy Spirit.
He is getting that testimony into a permanent resting place in His temple, which is His body, the church.
We are trying to look at the history of the ark of God from the time it was first created until it came to rest in Solomon’s temple and the staves were taken out.
God signified it by the glory of His presence and the cloud of His glory—so much glory that the priests could not stand to minister.
Dear friends, there is a day of glory coming. God is hard at work at it now. But there are some things that He is doing in preparation for that day of the full manifestation of His glory.
It is not automatically happening. That is a big mistake made in fundamental doctrine today, as if we can live how we will, do what we will, help the Lord a little bit along the way, and then a day is coming when the clock is going to strike and all these things will be manifested to the earth, regardless of the history going on at present.
That is simply not true.
We have seen how the ark became separated, and we are going to see today the actual incident from the tented Shiloh. The people went on to Shiloh, and later on to Gibeon, with their offerings, but it was empty. The glory was gone.
We are seeing the steps that God undertook, bit by bit, in order to get that ark into a temple as a permanent resting place. We are likening these steps to what is going on in this dispensation, when the Lord is doing the reality of which all of that was merely the type.
We saw how, after three hundred years of shame and failure—the time of the judges—the Lord reacted, and He had, first of all, a Hannah: an instrument of prayer and travail.
Her life was not worth living unless she could have a child—not only a child, but a man-child—to grow up before the Lord.
As a result of her travail, her coming to God about it, and her continuance—she would not let go and accept the position that she had—the Lord had shut up her womb, which made that travail a necessity. She got that man-child.
When he was weaned, she took him to the Lord at Shiloh. She turned him over to Eli to be a servant, a priest there in the temple. He was probably a Levite; they are not one hundred percent sure. But he was not of the priestly line of Aaron. God was doing a new thing.
Samuel really did represent a new thing. Samuel was never anointed. He was never prepared as the Aaronic priest. Go back and read Exodus and Leviticus. See what those people had to do as a way of preparation.
God was dismissing and bypassing the externalities to get something more inward and real.
That was the hallmark of this boy Samuel’s life and ministry: the externalities really do not matter that much when the heart of the thing is there.
Here was something new, something so simple and humble. When he heard the word of God and brought that word to Eli, the very next morning we find him opening the doors of the tabernacle as usual—not launching out into some large-scale, grandiose kind of ministry.
It took a long time—twenty years at least—to emerge as God’s prophet and His voice in Israel.
God must have a man-child. He must have those—and please keep in mind, this man-child is nothing other than Christians who grow normally up into Christ.
There is a lot of growing to do. There is a tremendous goal. How high is it?
Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a fullgrown man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
Now, if I said that, you could say, “Brother, it is impossible. Forget it. Let us accept the fact that God’s people are just going to have a little measure of Christianity as a kind of hobby, an avocation, pushed into the corner of their lives—nice to get you to heaven when this life is over.” That is mostly what we see.
God’s Word calls us to so much more: the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we be no more children, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.
In 1 Samuel 2:21, we find, “And the child Samuel grew before the Lord.” Verse 26 says, “And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with the Lord, and also with men.”
In 1 Samuel 3:19, “And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.”
And all Israel from Dan even to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord.
And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh; for the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord.
Then, in 1 Samuel 4:1, “And the word of Samuel came to all Israel.”
Something was going on—something tremendously significant and telling in the spiritual kingdom behind the people of God. God had a spokesman. He had someone who could hear what He had to say and say what He had to say. The people had to acknowledge that what he spoke was indeed the word of God.
Dear friends, that is the testimony. Nothing less is the testimony: the speaking of God. “I will speak with thee from between the cherubim.” That is the ark.
Oh, how God’s people today need those instruments. Not a great individual, a great swelled-up, loud-voiced personage, but someone who can bring the vitality, power, and impact of God’s true Word.
It must be an instrument. It must consist of many people, because God’s people are not getting what He has to say.
The people who know the most about the Bible, have had the greatest training, and make the loudest profession are simply not able to hear the word of God—not able to hear. “Oh, that is just some more Bible teaching, just some more preaching, just good gospel, and it is sound doctrine.”
My friends, what God wants is an instrument that has the impact and the life. Whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, they shall know that He has been speaking to them.
Dear friends, let me tell you something. When God speaks, we either hearken, listen, and respond; or get under conviction and go through the necessary exercise to respond; or we get mad—awfully mad.
One of the things the speaking of God will do, at this time of the church’s history, is demonstrate how foolish, thin, and superficial so much of the fundamentalist doctrine is that is being preached as one hundred percent of the truth today.
Modern dispensational teaching vitiates the impact, the life, the vitality, and the glory that there is in the Word of God. That is quite a statement, too, that I will hear about, because this is going on tape.
Do you not think the Philistines knew that someone had arrived and grown up in Israel who might become a deliverer? But this man is quite a different kind of deliverer.
There were judges—Barak, Samson, Gideon, Jephthah, and others. The left-handed man, Ehud, was his name, I suppose. They all were deliverers. But when they were gone from the scene, things immediately went back to the way they were before.
Samuel is a different kind of instrument. The changes that he will bring about are permanent and real.
They had indeed cleared the northern borders of the Philistines. But guess where the biggest camp of the Philistines was to be found? Guess where their headquarters were? Right down there in Benjamin.
Benjamin was supposed to be the strongest tribe of all—the greatest fighters, the most powerful warriors. But what had happened to poor old Benjamin? Remember? They had almost been wiped out in a civil war.
God’s people were not really fighting their enemy. They were spending a lot more of their time and energy fighting one another.
We find Benjamin, just a few dozen years before, with only six hundred men left, and they did not all have wives. So the Philistines had their headquarters right down there, where there should have been a strong and powerful warrior tribe fighting for God’s people.
Now that there is about to be a new step taken, they all rise up. The word of Samuel came to Israel, but the Philistines are challenging what God is about to do.
If you know the enemy—and Paul says, “We are not ignorant of his devices”—you know there is one part of the Word of God I simply do not believe. Beg your pardon. You did not know I was such an unbeliever. I believe all the rest of it, but that one little verse, I do not believe. Sorry about that. There, you can accuse me of heresy.
I think we are very ignorant of his devices. We should not be ignorant of his devices, but we are.
I have seen many a brother or sister get a tremendous blessing from the Lord, and it is his undoing. What do you think of that?
God will give us just as much blessing as He can trust us with. The problem is that not many of us can be trusted with that blessing. We do not know how to demean ourselves, to walk carefully and circumspectly. It goes to our heads, and the enemy trips us up and we fall.
So when you are the most blessed, be the most cautious and careful.
Here come the Philistines, putting themselves in array against Israel. We are in 1 Samuel 4 now. Israel goes out against them, loses about four thousand men, and says, “Well, this is terrible. Tell you what we are going to do: we are going to take the ark of God down into battle with us, and the ark of God will save us.”
So, in verse 5, the ark of God comes into the camp, and Israel shouts with a great shout. The Philistines hear it and say, “We are going to have to fight, because the ark of the Lord has come into the camp.”
They understood, in verse 6, that the ark of the Lord had come into the camp. How did they understand? How in the world did they understand?
Do you know, the enemy—and this is one of the devices of which we are very ignorant—knows even before you get a special blessing and revelation from the Lord. He is busy even before it gets to you. It is one of the things you will learn as you go on with God. Somehow he knows. He has that kind of knowledge. I do not know why the Lord lets him have it, but He does.
We read many times in Scripture of a peculiar kind of intelligence. But we have our intelligence system too. If we are in touch with God’s throne, there are a lot of things we will be aware of, and we will be able to pray for others to offset and stand against the onslaughts of the enemy.
The Philistines were afraid. They said, “Let us go out and quit ourselves like men. Let us fight extra hard.” And they prevail. Strangely enough, they prevail.
Here is the ark of God among God’s people, and the Philistines—the ungodly Philistines—prevail over the ark of God and His people. What is going on here? What is wrong? Is the testimony powerless?
No. As we shall see in a minute, it was not. It was tremendously powerful. What was wrong? There was a moral unsuitability in the people who were bearing that ark, so that God could not countenance it. So He let it fall into the hands of the enemy.
Oh, this is nothing strange. This is nothing strange. As a matter of fact, if you examine the whole history of God’s dealings, particularly that one great event in the earth—the cross—you will see that when we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly.
The only answer God could give to the situation in the earth at the time of Christ was to send His Son and let His Son be delivered into the hands of wicked and evil men, and be crucified.
I was going to read you something in John 11. I advise you to go home and read it. The Jews knew what was happening. Caiaphas the high priest, before whom the Lord Jesus later stood, and who rent his robes at some of the words of Christ, had prophesied that it was expedient that one man should die for the people, lest the Romans take away their temple and destroy their nation.
They had been told by their very own high priest that such a thing was necessary.
When the ark was taken, something happened in Shiloh. In 1 Samuel 4:22:
The glory is departed from Israel; for the ark of God is taken.
“The glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken.” Now I want to ask you one all-significant question.
On the basis of the Scripture which we read at the beginning of this ministry this morning, how—and what is the only way—to see the glory and experience the glory when once it has departed?
To see this one thing will be worth all the morning’s words and ministry. What is the only way?
But whensoever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
What is the first and greatest commandment?
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Only one way. Believe me, brothers and sisters, this is a hard matter: God getting our hearts turned back to Him.
This is the cause of all our problems and our trouble. We try to reduce Christianity to a number of do’s and don’ts, observances and maxims, and all the rest—obeying Scripture without really having our hearts in it—and it simply does not work.
So Samuel had a problem. He had to get the hearts of the people turned back to God.
When we first started talking about Samuel, I stated the fact that he did a number of things. Moses established the theocracy. Samuel brought the people back to the principles of the theocracy. He subdued the Philistines. He anointed God’s king. He started the schools of the prophets.
But if he had done all of that and not done this other thing, it would not have amounted to anything for God. The other thing that he did—and it takes a particular and peculiar kind of instrument or person to bring this about—was that he brought the people’s hearts, in a real measure, back to God.
Friends, when your heart is in touch with the Lord, and He is the object of your affection—when the Lord Jesus Christ and freshness of affection for Him become the first goal of your life—you have found the secret.
You have found the great secret of the Christian life: having fresh affection for God’s Son in your heart every day that you live.
You have found the secret of the universe. You have found the underlying secret of everything. You have found life’s greatest secret, the world’s greatest secret, the universe’s greatest secret.
The Philistines dragged the ark in and put it in the house of their god alongside Dagon. They said, “This is a powerful God. Set Him alongside our god. We have two gods now, and why will we not just wipe out the Israelites?”
The next morning they came in and Dagon was on his face—a big, heavy stone idol. They set him back up and gave him another try. “It must have been an earthquake, some natural phenomenon that caused this to happen.”
They came out the next morning, and there was Dagon on his face again. His head and his arms were broken off. They got the message.
You see, you put the testimony right into the place of death, when everything is against it, and then its power really begins to be demonstrated.
The Lord Jesus went into the grave, and through death He destroyed him that had the power of death. David became God’s great king, and Jerusalem became his city when he invaded the stronghold of the Jebusites that had withstood all the forays against it for over three hundred years.
Dear friends, the Lord is out to teach us the tremendous meaning of His cross.
As an answer to the problem of His creation—we may be able to touch this again later—the people were morally unsuited to win God’s battle.
The testimony, the ark, goes into the hands of the enemy. It is moved about through at least three, probably five, cities among the Philistines. In all, it is down there seven months. Wherever it goes, it demonstrates its superiority over the gods of the Philistines.
After seven months it comes back. You remember how they put it on a cart and hooked up a couple of cows with new calves. They kept the calves and said, “If these cows leave their calves and go to the land of Israel, we will know that this is really the hand of God.” That is what they did.
Lowing as they went, they towed the ark on this cart right out of the land of the Philistines and back into Israel. I am sorry—I am a little confused here among the people.
That confusion is understandable, because no sooner does the ark get over into Beth-shemesh than it is taken down off the cart by Levites. What happens? God has to smite His own people with a more severe judgment than He did the Philistines.
Mark that well, because Samuel is going to tell them later that if they will learn to fear the Lord and serve Him with all their hearts, then He is going to teach them the meaning of fearing Him.
You know, it is a lot more difficult for the Lord to put up with the unhealthy curiosity of God’s own people than it is for Him to put up with unbelievers.
There are men with a great deal of education and natural understanding who are trying to tell God’s people this morning what the secrets of the Word of God are.
Dear friends, if our hearts are turned to the Lord, God will take us through a succession of revelation, a growth in understanding, an increasing knowledge of His Word, His Person, and His purpose.
That takes years of going on with God in a heart relationship. There is no substitute. You can go to Bible colleges, read all the books by Brother Nee and Brother Sparks, and every other Greek author that you know of, and you will still find yourself peering into the ark when you come to some parts of the Word of God.
It is a heart relationship. There is a veil.
A lot of the teaching, particularly about end times, that goes on in the church today—propagated by men with small spiritual understanding and large intellectual stature—comes out of this kind of activity: peering into the ark.
There is a tremendously unhealthy curiosity today being generated by things like The Exorcist. You knew I would mention that sooner or later. Every preacher has to mention it sooner or later to show he is in the know as to what is going on.
A brother at school the other day—a good brother—said, “Well, I want people to know what is going on now that they are seeing the movie The Exorcist. So,” he said, “I am passing around this book by Hal Lindsey.”
I said, “You mean The Late Great Planet Earth?” He said, “No, you know, that other book, the one that says Satan is alive and well on planet Earth.”
I said, “I am sorry, I just cannot agree with that.” He said, “I thought you did, because your theology must be a lot different than mine.”
I said, “Well, I know Satan is on planet Earth. I know he is doing a lot of things, and I know he is alive, but he is not well.”
“What do you mean by that? How is he sick?” You know, it is a big deal. Worse than that, he is smitten with a death blow.
I said, “Would you like me to show you in Revelation about Satan and this death blow, and the fact that he is smitten?” He said, “No, I think I know what you mean.” I said, “You said it; I think you are right.” He said, “I am going to have to look at that book again.”
Satan has a lot of power among men. But, dear friends, where the blood of the cross is known in its efficacy to cover sin; where the name of Christ is known in its authority over all the power of the enemy; where the cross of Christ is known in its power to deal with the old creation and liberate real resurrection life—you do not have to drum it up.
Folks come here from some fellowships, and they do not understand why there is an atmosphere of life. Some of them do not sense it because they are more used to a psychic kind of atmosphere.
There is an atmosphere of life and joy and praise, as there was here this morning. Yet a lot of people are not giving us their all, you know—letting Christ come through you by releasing the soul. That is not the Spirit.
Where the cross is dealing, even a little bit, with the old creation life, the glory of God will manifest itself. You do not have to pump it up. You do not have to groan it out and grind it out.
It will simply be there as we function in a related way, in our place, in the house of God.
Dear friend, you may think you are not really experiencing much of the glory, but you are going to get spoiled if you stick around.
You are going to go a lot of places, and you are going to find that the noise is there—the strident, stentorian, supposedly liberated human voices are there, and all the other things are there.
But it is a quiet settling in of the glory, the preciousness, the food, and the life which is Christ in resurrection. I am sorry, you just do not find it in very many places.
The ark comes back. The men of Beth-shemesh look into the ark. These were Levites, probably, and they are smitten by God.
It says in 1 Samuel 6:19 that fifty thousand and threescore and ten men were smitten. This is obviously some kind of error in the text. There were not that many men in Beth-shemesh. It probably means fifty out of each thousand, or something of that kind.
You might look that up, and if I am wrong, let me know, because there is a lot of good, genuine textual criticism. There is nothing wrong with textual criticism—not criticism of the Word, but criticism of the various texts we have in order to determine which are reliable versions of the Bible.
The ark is brought on down to Kirjath-jearim and put in a tent. There it remains until David brings it down into Jerusalem, and then Solomon brings it into his temple.
Now, very quickly, let us finish with 1 Samuel 7, the revival that takes place, and get some misconceptions cleared up.
And the men of Kiriath-jearim came, and fetched up the ark of the Lord, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord.
And it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kiriath-jearim, that the time was long; for it was twenty years: and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.
Now what is happening? They lamented after the Lord. They sought God for years.
And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve Him only; and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.
Then the children of Israel did put away the Baalim and the Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only.
This was amazing—the most amazing thing. You see, these were religious people. They did not ignore God.
They were just like the average churchgoer in America today. They went to worship Him at the appointed times—most of them. But the strange thing is, they also had the Ashtaroth and the Baalim.
Who were these two gods? They had their significance, but their significance was lost in the common kind of worship that attended both of them: licentiousness, evil that catered to the common appetites of vulgar people.
Baal was one who has dominion, one who has power. Ashtaroth was she who enriches.
I wonder if we might not, just for a moment, search our own hearts. It would not do well to let everything I am saying here this morning go over our heads and think of those nasty people out there somewhere to whom it all applies.
What is it? I think we really need to search our hearts and see, first of all, if there is some fresh affection and appreciation for the Lord Jesus.
See also if perhaps we do not give, in our practical everyday living, more credence to another kind of god—more service to one who has dominion and power, and to the enriching of our lives with things which are not Christ.
Dear friends, I am afraid most of us, if we are really honest people—and I think we are pretty honest people—will acknowledge that our spiritual lives are crowded, and our work for God and fellowship with Him are practically devoured by the abundance of things that we have and the kind of people that we are.
I am afraid that we have in our midst a great deal more of the worship of Baal and Ashtaroth than we would like to admit. I am really, sincerely, honestly afraid of that.
Our hearts need to return. A great many of us really need to find that heart relationship with God which is one of love and appreciation for what He is and what He has done, and not what He is doing for us at present.
And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray for you unto the Lord.
And they gathered together to Mizpah, and drew water, and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah.
Now wait a minute. Where was the tabernacle? Shiloh. Where was the ark? Kirjath-jearim. Hey, Samuel, what are you doing in Mizpah?
Yes, we will find it from here on: Samuel abandons the accepted places of worship. We find him making offerings in Ramah, in Bethel, and in Gilgal, but we do not find him going near Kirjath-jearim. We do not find him going near Shiloh.
Is he doing something wrong? By whose instigation is this going on? That is the question I am asking. Is Samuel making mistakes, or is this something else?
No mistake, brothers and sisters. There are times when God is not to be found in the places you think He might be found. God’s peculiar instrument can only carry out His ministry by doing things in a very, very different way, in a very, very different locale.
Believe me, that is the only safety—the only safety.
Some of us here are eating our hearts out because we cannot have a nice church, a nice setup, something so we can go to the people of the world and say, “Hey, you come on down here. Look what we have got.”
“Look at these statistics: so many people saved and so much money given. Here we have a new building. Look here, we have a program. We have a program for singles under twelve, singles over twelve, marrieds under twenty, marrieds over twenty. We have a program for divorcees. We have a program for senior citizens—the golden years. Hey!”
We are eating our hearts out because we cannot draw people to all that which the flesh responds to. Friends, it would be the end of it. It would be the end of the testimony.
I will say again what I said last Sunday: if we ever become a successful church, with all the various ministries and all the setup, so that we do not have to come here and be just what we are in reality—deep-down reality before God—it will be dangerous.
You can hide behind an evangelistic committee. You can hide behind being a somebody, recognized by other somebodies in a religious setup. It is a splendid place to conceal your true state before God.
But, friends, when you come here and there is nothing but you and the living God, when you open your mouth to praise Him, when you speak, when you pray—everything you do is measured by the life and the blessing that it brings.
When you stand up here and folks give you the old look—you know you are not in the Spirit even the least little bit—and you cannot fall back on the fact that you are a high muck-a-muck of some sort, that is your only safety.
Friends, it is your only safety. With Samuel, things had to be real between him, the people, and the living God. He was going to set aside that whole system for a while.
Dear friends, when you walk into this fellowship, you are measured: one ounce, half-pint, pint, quart, gallon, fifty thousand gallons. It is limitless. What is your measure?
Wherever God is dealing in reality among His people, there is no place to hide.
The reason we would like all of that is that we would like to say, “Well, I am a gifted evangelist, and I want to evangelize, and you folks will not let me evangelize.”
Friends, we are not stopping you from evangelizing. I will help you. As a matter of fact, I will go out on the corner and preach the gospel on the streets with you.
I have done more evangelization than any ten people here put together.
Some of us want a place to hide. We are eating our hearts out because we cannot get that gratification we once had by being a something among God’s people.
Here we gravitate to our true measure. It sometimes proves to be awfully small, even though there may be a gift accompanying it.
Samuel and the Samuel instruments will never be found in the precincts of a standard religious system. Things are different. You have got to be real.
In 1 Samuel 7:7:
And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines.
And the children of Israel said to Samuel, Cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us, that He will save us out of the hand of the Philistines.
And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a whole burnt-offering wholly unto the Lord: and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel; and the Lord answered him.
All he had was that mean and miserable little offering, so it seemed. Samuel knew his ground.
And as Samuel was offering up the burnt-offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel: but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten down before Israel.
And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them, until they came under Beth-car.
Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.
That is the stone of help. Now read verse 13.
So the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more within the border of Israel: and the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.
So, listen: the Philistines were subdued. They were subdued by whom? Dear friends, they were subdued by whom? The Lord—the hand of the Lord.
And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron even unto Gath; and the border thereof did Israel deliver out of the hand of the Philistines. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.
All the cities they had taken were restored to Israel. All the coast, because of the fishing and accessibility to the sea—a very desired land—was restored to Israel. There was peace between Israel and the Amorites.
Do you think the Lord was going to be happy with that? No. He had something else in view: to get at the root cause of their falling in the first place.
And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.
And he went from year to year in circuit to Beth-el, and Gilgal, and Mizpah; and he judged Israel in all those places.
And his return was to Ramah; for there was his house, and there he judged Israel: and there he built an altar unto the Lord.
Samuel did not go to Kirjath-jearim, and he did not go to Shiloh. But in these places he made offerings and judged Israel.
The important thing for us to see is that Israel was completely delivered from the Philistines—not by their own might, power, or armies, but by the hand of the Lord. The Lord was with Samuel.
God was not satisfied with that. When we look at Saul next time, in his relationship to Samuel, we will see some of the need that there was yet in Israel.
When we look at David, we will see how the root cause of the people’s falling away is dealt with.
Turn to 1 Samuel 12, verse 20.
And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not: ye have done all this evil; yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.
That was Samuel’s theme, his watchword, his message, his song: serve the Lord with all your heart.
Next time we shall see Samuel’s relationship with Saul, the bringing in of the king, and why this was necessary—not a rejection of the theocracy, as some of your Bibles say, but a new kind of theocracy, a militant theocracy. Very necessary and current.
Dear friends, please, if you have gotten nothing else out of what we have said this morning, it is vital—the most vital thing—for the bringing of that ark into its place of rest in God’s great temple, as we see in Revelation 11. Go and look at it.
For the beginning of things, God is not going to go back. The ark never goes back to Shiloh. You can go where the people are, but the ark is never going to go back there.
There is an understanding needed of how God is going to bring that testimony into His great temple.
It will be, at first, in a comparative few.
By means of that few, who become His instrument of travail, of prophetic ministry, of kingly priesthood, and finally of building, under the hand of God and the headship of Christ, He will accomplish His purpose.
The most necessary thing for all of that is that your heart and my heart should really experience the wonder, glory, and grace which are in the Person of Jesus Christ.
There should be some genuine outflowing, expressed in word and in service: love for Him.
Keep that ever in mind. Sing 206, please.