Scripture Reading: 1 Sam. 1:11, 20; 2:35; 8:1-22; 9:15-17
In this message I would like to give a further word on Samuel and his ministry.
At the end of his ministry, by the time that Saul was raised up to be the king in Israel (9:3—10:27), Samuel had reached the highest position. We may say that in the whole universe, there was only one who was above him, and that one was God. We may even say that, as God's representative, Samuel was the acting God. God intended to move, to act, yet He needed a representative. Samuel thus became a prophet, a priest, and a judge. He was God's oracle and God's administration. As such, he was the acting God on earth.
Although Samuel was God's representative, God did not have any intention to make him a kingdom. Rather, according to the Bible, God determined to raise up a man named David, through whom He intended to build up a kingdom. When God chose Abraham, it was not His intention to gain a single person or even a group of people who would seek after Him. God's intention has been to have a kingdom. The consummation of the revelation in the Bible is a kingdom. Revelation 11:15 says, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ." In the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem, there will be the eternal kingdom of God.
In Matthew 16 there is a word concerning both the kingdom and the church. When Peter received the revelation of Christ as the Son of the living God (vv. 16-17), Jesus said to him, "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church" (v. 18), and then He went on to speak of the kingdom of the heavens (v. 19). In these verses the phrase "the kingdom of the heavens" is used interchangeably with the word "church." This shows that God does not want just a church but a kingdom-church. In Romans 14:17 Paul also indicated that the practical church life is the kingdom: "The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."
Even though Samuel eventually attained the highest position, God still had not reached His goal. As a man who was according to God's heart, Samuel knew that within God's heart there was a desire for a kingdom. God wanted the kingdom to be brought in not through Samuel but through David.
When someone attains a high position, there is always a question as to whether he will allow someone else to come in to match him or to be above him. If you had been Samuel, would you have given any ground for someone to match you or be above you? Samuel was pure and single. He was a Nazarite according to his mother's vow and was altogether not self-seeking. He never sought to gain anything for himself. He had no heart for anything besides God and God's elect. God loved Israel, and His heart was duplicated in Samuel.
Because God's heart was duplicated in Samuel, Samuel did not care for his own interest or gain. At the end, Samuel gained nothing but a tomb to be buried in. Due to the situation at the time, Samuel appointed his sons to be judges, but, contrary to Saul, he had no intention to build up a kingdom for them. His sons did not follow in his ways but went after unjust gain, took bribes, and perverted justice (1 Sam. 8:1-3). When the people asked Samuel to appoint a king, he was not offended by anything related to his sons; on the contrary, he was offended by their desire to replace God (vv. 4-7). Because he had no intention to build up a kingdom for his descendants, Samuel's concern was not for his children but for God's people. In such a situation it was easy for God to bring in the kingdom.
Samuel would never have cooperated with God if he had been a self-seeking person. As we will see in the next message, the day before Saul came to Samuel, God revealed to Samuel what He wanted him to do. God said to him, "At about this time tomorrow I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him as the leader over My people Israel" (9:16). When Saul and his servant came to Samuel, Samuel did exactly as God had instructed. He did not care to gain anything for himself or for his children.
Now we can see why Samuel was so useful in the hand of God. He had no self-seeking nor any thought of self-gain. Instead, as a Nazarite, who allowed no razor to come upon his head and who did not drink any wine, he was absolutely for God. He was happy to go wherever God wanted him to go and to do whatever God wanted him to do. He was a man according to God, a man according to God's heart. Therefore, he was a man whom God could use to carry out His economy.
We should not think that Samuel did not have any kind of human concept. One day Jehovah said to him, "Fill your horn with oil, and go; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite; for I have selected for Myself a king among his sons" (16:1b). When Samuel heard this, he said, "How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me" (v. 2a). This indicates that Samuel was very human and had human concepts. Nevertheless, he was not a self-seeking person. All of his seeking was for God and for God's elect. He cared for God and for His interest and profit, and He prayed for God's people.
Some Bible students have pointed out that Samuel was a person of high character. The matter of character, however, is not the crucial point regarding Samuel. Many people have a high character, but they are just for themselves, their enterprise, and their kingdom. They are not for God's kingdom. Samuel was not only high in character; he was high in the Nazarite vow.
It is worthwhile to compare Samuel with another Nazarite — Samson. Samson also was a Nazarite by his mother's vow, but he was very different from Samuel. When the Bible speaks of Samson and the other judges, it often says that the Spirit of God rushed upon them (Judg. 14:6, 19). But there is no such word about Samuel. A Nazarite does not need rushing power; rather, a Nazarite needs a heart that is a reflection of God's heart. Unlike Samson, Samuel did not gain a mighty victory by slaughtering a great number of others. On the contrary, Samuel was a Nazarite for God's interest.
Although it was not easy for Samuel to stand for God in his particular environment, he cared for God's interest and he turned the age. According to the Old Testament, Samuel is ranked with Moses in being for God and for God's interest (Jer. 15:1).
The history in 1 Samuel was directed by God. God did not go directly to David because David was still young and because Israel, whom God loved to the uttermost, needed some training. They needed to be disciplined by God with a negative king so that they would realize that replacing God with a king was not a matter of blessing.
God is a God of patience. Even though Eli was not so positive, God allowed him to be the judge for forty years. It is difficult to determine the length of Samuel's judgeship, which must have lasted at least thirty years before Saul came in to reign over Israel negatively. Next, God tolerated the reign of Saul for forty years, and then He brought in David.
Without Samuel it would have been very hard for God to carry out His economy. God had the intention that Christ would be born in the lineage of David, and only Samuel could bring in David. Without a David there would not have been the lineage of Christ's genealogy. In order for God to reach the time of incarnation, there had to be some preparation, and Samuel was a part of that preparation. God raised up Samuel and prepared him for God's use to do whatever was necessary to gain, through David, the proper lineage of the genealogy of Christ.
God used Samuel to anoint first Saul and then David. As we will see when we consider the history concerning Saul, Saul only had a monarchy. The kingdom of God came first under David, when God's throne was established in Jerusalem. In Matthew 21:43 the Lord Jesus told the Jewish leaders that the kingdom of God would be taken from them. This indicates that the kingdom of God began in the Old Testament. It did not begin with Abraham or with Moses but with David. Therefore, what we see with David is not any kind of monarchy but the kingdom of God.
