Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
1 Samuel 3:17

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 1 Samuel 3:17. God do so to thee, and more also — This was a very solemn adjuration: he suspected that God had threatened severe judgments, for he knew that his house was very criminal; and he wished to know what God had spoken. The words imply thus much: If thou do not tell me fully what God has threatened, may the same and greater curses fall on thyself.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Judgment on the family of Eli (2:12-3:18)

Eli the priest had become the judge, or chief administrator, in Israel. He sat at the door of the house of God where people could freely meet him to seek his advice or ask for directions in disputes (see 1:9; 4:18). His sons, it seems, carried out the routine work in connection with the sacrifices and ceremonies.

According to the Levitical law, the portion of the sacrifice that was for God had to be burnt on the altar first, after which the priest and the offerer took their portions. Eli’s sons were not satisfied with this. First, they took more of the boiled meat than they should have, thus robbing the offerer of what rightly belonged to his own sacrificial meal. Second, and much worse, they took the best part of the meat before it was boiled, so that they could roast and eat it at their leisure. This showed their disrespect for God, because it meant that they took their portions before God received his (12-17; cf. Leviticus 3:1-5; Leviticus 7:15; Leviticus 7:29-33).

While Samuel’s parents experienced increasing divine blessing because of their unselfish devotion to God (18-21), Eli’s sons were warned of the coming punishment because of their greed and immorality (22-25). The corruption of Eli’s sons contrasted sharply with the godly development in the life of the young Samuel. God was preparing Samuel to be Eli’s successor (26).

God then sent a prophet to Eli to announce a divine judgment upon the ungodly family (27-29). Eli’s descendants, instead of enjoying lasting service in the priesthood, would be punished with shame, poverty and early death. Even though God might allow a descendant of Eli to continue functioning for a time as a priest, he would eventually remove the person from office. He would take the priesthood away from the family of Eli, and give it to a man more worthy of it (30-36; cf. 4:11; 14:3; 22:11-20; 1 Kings 2:26-27).

Some time later, when Samuel was probably twelve or thirteen years of age, God revealed to Samuel what previously he had made known to Eli through the prophet (3:1-14). In spite of his many weaknesses, Eli was humble enough to accept God’s announced judgment as a just punishment (15-18).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

SAMUEL REVEALS THE BAD NEWS TO ELI

“Samuel lay until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, `Samuel, my son.’ And he said, `Here I am.’ And Eli said, `What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything, and hid nothing from him. And he said, `It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.’“

In this passage, we learn that Samuel passed the severest test that any proclaimer of God’s Word must confront, that is, the necessity to convey unwelcome words of the Lord to those who need to hear them, and the task is especially difficult if the words must be spoken to those whom we love, respect and honor, as was the case in this instance with Samuel.

“He opened the doors of the house of the Lord” The mention of doors here is not, “Another evidence that the House of Yahweh was not a tent.”International Critical Commentary, p. 29. It only means that, “Solid buildings had been constructed around the tabernacle for purposes of defense.”The Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., p. 67. The fact of Samuel’s opening these doors gives us a glimpse of the nature of services the young man was providing.

“God do so to you and more” “This type of imprecation is found in the Books of Samuel, Kings and Ruth, but nowhere else in the Bible.”The New Layman’s Bible Commentary, p. 385. It is of interest that almost the exact words of this oath are found in the threat of Jezebel against Elijah (1 Kings 19:2). How strange it is that Jezebel and Eli should both have been familiar with this type of threat.

Regarding the guilt of Eli, it was very extensive, despite the fact that his evil sons took the lead in their offensive and immoral conduct. The indulgent Eli allowed all of the abuses and even profited by them, but did absolutely nothing to correct them.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 3

Chapter three,

The child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious [or scarce] in those days; there was no open vision. [God just wasn't speaking to man.] And it came to pass, when Eli would lie down in bed at night,... Samuel went into his bedroom; And Samuel heard a voice calling him, and he said, Here am I. And he ran into Eli, and he said, Did you call me? And Eli said, No, I didn't call you; go back to bed. Samuel went back to bed again. And he heard the voice, Samuel, Samuel. And he went running in, he said, Here I am what do you want? He said, I didn't call you go back to bed, kid. Samuel went back to bed again and again he heard the voice saying, Samuel, Samuel, he went running in and said, Surely you called me what do you want? [The old man began to get the picture at this point and he figured that, "Hey maybe God is speaking to t

his boy."] So he said, Go back to bed, if you hear your name being called again, say, Speak, my Lord; for your servant heareth. So Samuel went back to bed. And he heard the voice, Samuel, Samuel. And he said, Speak my Lord; for thy servant heareth. And the Lord said to Samuel, I'm gonna do a work in Israel, [that when the people see it,] or hear it their ears are going to tingle. In that day I'm gonna perform against Eli all of the things which I have spoken concerning his house: and when I begin, I'm gonna finish. For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knows; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not ( 1 Samuel 2:1-13 ).

Here is something to me that is very interesting, something that we had better take note of. It was his refusal to discipline his sons that brought the judgment of God upon his house. His refusal to discipline them in their actions. Fathers, you have a responsibility in the disciplining of your children. Don't shirk that responsibility. Eli did not discipline his sons. He allowed them to go on with these actions, and thus God promised that He was gonna judge the house.

And therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifices nor offerings for ever. [They can't offer any sacrifice to cleanse them.] Samuel lay until the morning, and he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. But he was afraid to tell Eli the vision. And Eli called Samuel, and he said, Samuel, my son. And he answered, Here am I. And he said, What is the thing that the Lord said unto you? I pray that you will not hide it from me: for God do so to thee, and more also, if you hide any thing from all of the things which God said. [Boy, that isn't fair, you know lay something like that on you, "Tell me and God do the same to you and more also if you don't tell me every thing that God said."] So Samuel told him every thing, did not hide any thing from him. And he said, It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good ( 1 Samuel 2:14-18 ).

Now this is quite an attitude for the old man, a submission unto the judgment of God. "It is the Lord: let Him do what seems right." A commitment of himself to that judgment, that promised judgment of God.

So Samuel grew, the Lord was with him. And all of Israel from Dan to Beersheba realized that Samuel was established to be the prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh: and the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord ( 1 Samuel 2:19-21 ). "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

1. Samuel’s call 3:1-18

The Hebrew word used to describe Samuel in 1 Samuel 3:1 (naar) elsewhere refers to a young teenager (cf. 1 Samuel 17:33). Consequently we should probably think of Samuel as a boy in his early teens as we read this section. Josephus wrote that Samuel was 12 years old. [Note: Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 5:10:4.] At this time in Israel’s history (i.e., the late Judges Period), special revelations from God were rare. These normally came to prophets in visions or dreams (cf. Numbers 12:6; 1 Samuel 28:6). Samuel, who saw clearly, both physically and spiritually, contrasts with Eli, who could not see well either way (1 Samuel 3:2, cf. 1 Samuel 3:5-6; 1 Samuel 4:15).

The lamp of God (1 Samuel 3:3) is an expression that refers to the lamps on the sanctuary lampstand that continued to give light through the night (cf. Exodus 27:20-21; Exodus 30:8; Leviticus 24:2-4; 2 Chronicles 13:11). Samuel was probably sleeping in the courtyard of the sanctuary. [Note: See Leon J. Wood, The Prophets of Israel, p. 157, n. 9.] Eli evidently slept nearby (1 Samuel 3:5). Samuel’s self-discipline in getting up three times in response to what he thought was Eli’s call was commendable. His selfless, willing obedience qualified him to receive the ministry that God entrusted to him (cf. Genesis 22:1; Genesis 22:11; Exodus 3:4; Isaiah 6:8; 1 Timothy 1:12).

1 Samuel 3:7 does not necessarily mean that Samuel did not then know the Lord at all personally, that he was an unbeliever. One writer took terms such as "knew the Lord" and "did not know the Lord" as evidence of salvation or lack of it (cf. Jeremiah 31:34; John 17:3). [Note: Zane C. Hodges, "The Salvation of Samuel," Grace Evangelical Society News 9:3 (May-June 1994):1, 3-4.] However this may be reading too much into the text. Rather, it means that the boy had not yet come to know Yahweh as he was about to know Him, having heard His voice speaking directly to him. Even though Samuel knew God and His will, God had not previously communicated with him directly. Finally, God not only called to Samuel but also stood by him (1 Samuel 3:10, cf. Genesis 18:22) suggesting the possibility that Samuel could see Him (i.e., a theophany). The Lord’s repetition of Samuel’s name added a note of urgency (cf. Genesis 22:11; Exodus 3:4; Acts 9:4).

In 1 Samuel 3:11-14, God restated for Samuel what the prophet had told Eli concerning the fate of Eli’s house in the near and far future (1 Samuel 2:27-36). The reference to people’s ears tingling occurs only here at the beginning of the monarchy and at its end in the Old Testament (2 Kings 21:12; Jeremiah 19:3). Under the Mosaic Law the penalty for showing contempt for the priesthood, for disobeying parents, and for blasphemy, was death (Deuteronomy 17:12; Deuteronomy 21:18-21; Leviticus 24:11-16; Leviticus 24:23). This was what Hophni and Phinehas would experience (cf. 1 Samuel 4:11). The cutting off of Eli’s line happened about 130 years later (cf. 1 Kings 2:27; 1 Kings 2:35).

The writer may have intended to mark the beginning of Samuel’s ministry with his statement that the lad opened the doors (i.e., the curtained openings into the courtyard) of the Lord’s house (1 Samuel 3:15; cf. 1 Samuel 1:28 b). [Note: See J. Gerald Janzen, "’Samuel Opened the Doors of the House of Yahweh’ (1 Samuel 3:15)," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 26 (June 1983):89-96.] Evidently the curtained openings were closed at night.

Eli realized that God’s words to Samuel would have been very significant. He therefore insisted that the lad tell him what God had said. Samuel faithfully reported to Eli all that God had revealed to him (1 Samuel 3:18). He was a faithful prophet from the start. This was the second time Eli had received a prophecy of his family’s future (cf. 1 Samuel 2:27-36). Thus he knew that the prediction would surely come to pass (cf. Genesis 41:32). He accepted God’s will submissively (1 Samuel 3:18).

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And he said, what is the thing that the [Lord] hath said unto thee?.... The word "Lord" is not in the text, but it is "that it hath said"; the voice that had so often called him in the night, and which yet Eli knew was the voice of the Lord; and as it was, he was sensible there was something of importance said, and he had great reason to believe it respected him and his family; and the rather he might conclude this, by what the man of God had lately said to him, whose words perhaps he had too much slighted, questioning his authority; and therefore the Lord took this way and method to assure him that what was said came from him; for hereby Eli was fully convinced that this voice Samuel heard was of the Lord, and so what was said must be from him, and this he was impatient to know:

I pray thee, hide it not from me; and he not only beseeched and entreated him, but adjured him, as in the next clause:

God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide anything from me of all the things that said unto thee; it is the form of an oath or curse, wishing that God would do some great evil to him, and more than he chose to express, if he concealed anything from him that had been told him. So Kimchi and Abarbinel take it to be an oath; and Josephus, u and Procopius Gazaeus on the place say, that Eli obliged Samuel by oaths and curses to declare what had been said to him.

u Antiqu. l. 5. c. 10. sect. 4.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      11 And the LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.   12 In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end.   13 For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.   14 And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever.   15 And Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the house of the LORD. And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision.   16 Then Eli called Samuel, and said, Samuel, my son. And he answered, Here am I.   17 And he said, What is the thing that the LORD hath said unto thee? I pray thee hide it not from me: God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide any thing from me of all the things that he said unto thee.   18 And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the LORD: let him do what seemeth him good.

      Here is, I. The message which, after all this introduction, God delivered to Samuel concerning Eli's house. God did not come to him now to tell him how great a man he should be in his day, what a figure he should make, and what a blessing he should be in Israel. Young people have commonly a great curiosity to be told their fortune, but God came to Samuel, not to gratify his curiosity, but to employ him in his service and send him on an errand to another person, which was much better; and yet the matter of this first message, which no doubt made a very great impression upon him, might be of good use to him afterwards, when his own sons proved, though not so bad as Eli's, yet not so good as they should have been, 1 Samuel 8:3; 1 Samuel 8:3. The message is short, not nearly so long as that which the man of God brought, 1 Samuel 2:27; 1 Samuel 2:27. For, Samuel being a child, it could not be expected that he should remember a long message, and God considered his frame. The memories of children must not be overcharged, no, not with divine things. But it is a sad message, a message of wrath, to ratify the message in the former chapter, and to bind on the sentence there pronounced, because perhaps Eli did not give so much regard to that as he ought to have done. Divine threatenings, the less they are heeded, the surer they will come and the heavier they will fall. Reference is here had to what was there said concerning both the sin and the punishment.

      1. Concerning the sin: it is the iniquity that he knoweth,1 Samuel 3:13; 1 Samuel 3:13. The man of God told him of it, and many a time his own conscience had told him of it. O what a great deal of guilt and corruption is there in us concerning which we may say, "It is the iniquity which our own heart knoweth, we are conscious to ourselves of it!" In short, the iniquity was this: His sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. Or, as it is in the Hebrew, he frowned not upon them. If he did show his dislike of their wicked courses, yet not to that degree that he ought to have done: he did reprove them, but he did not punish them, for the mischief they did, nor deprive them of their power to do mischief, which as a father, high priest, and judge, he might have done. Note, (1.) Sinners do by their own wickedness make themselves vile. They debauch themselves (for every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lusts,James 1:14) and thereby they debase themselves, and make themselves not only mean, but odious to the holy God and holy men and angels. Sin is a vile thing, and degrades men more than any thing, Psalms 15:4. Eli's sons made light of God, and made his offerings vile in the people's eyes; but the shame returned into their own bosom: they made themselves vile. (2.) Those that do not restrain the sins of others, when it is in the power of their hand to do it, make themselves partakers of the guilt, and will be charged as accessaries: Those in authority will have a great deal to answer for if they make not the sword they bear a terror to evil workers.

      2. Concerning the punishment: it is that which I have spoken concerning his house,1 Samuel 3:12; 1 Samuel 3:13. I have told him that I will judge his house for ever, that is, that a curse should be entailed upon his family from generation to generation. The particulars of this curse we had before; they are not here repeated, but it is added, (1.) That when that sentence began to be executed it would be very dreadful and amazing to all Israel (1 Samuel 3:11; 1 Samuel 3:11): Both the ears of every one that hears it shall tingle. Every Israelite would be struck with terror and astonishment to hear of the slaying of Eli's sons, the breaking of Eli's neck, and the dispersion of Eli's family. Lord, how terrible art thou in thy judgments! If this be done in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? Note, God's judgments upon others should affect us with a holy fear, Psalms 119:120. (2.) That these direful first-fruits of the execution would be certain earnests of the progress and full accomplishment of it: When I begin I will proceed and make an end of all that I have threatened, 1 Samuel 3:12; 1 Samuel 3:12. It is intimated that it might possibly be some time before he would begin, but let them not call that forbearance an acquittance, nor that reprieve a pardon; for when at length he does begin he will make thorough work of it, and, though he stay long, he will strike home. (3.) That no room should be left for hope that this sentence might be reversed and the execution stayed or mitigated, 1 Samuel 3:14; 1 Samuel 3:14. [1.] God would not revoke the sentence, for he backed it with an oath: I have sworn to the house of Eli; and God will not go back from what he has sworn either in mercy or judgment. [2.] He would never come to a composition for the forfeiture: "The iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever. No atonement shall be made for the sin, nor any abatement of the punishment." This was the imperfection of the legal sacrifices, that there were iniquities which they did not reach, which they would not purge; but the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin, and secures all those that by faith are interested in it from that eternal death which is the wages of sin.

      II. The delivery of this message to Eli. Observe,

      1. Samuel's modest concealment of it, 1 Samuel 3:15; 1 Samuel 3:15. (1.) He lay till the morning, and we may well suppose he lay awake pondering on what he had heard, repeating it to himself, and considering what use he must make of it. After we have received the spiritual food of God's word, it is good to compose ourselves, and give it time to digest. (2.) He opened the doors of the house of the Lord, in the morning, as he used to do, being up first in the tabernacle. That he should do so at other times was an instance of extraordinary towardliness in a child, but that he should do so this morning was an instance of great humility. God had highly honoured him above all the children of his people, yet he was not proud of the honour, nor puffed up with it, did not think himself too great and too good to be employed in these mean and servile offices, but, as cheerfully as ever, went and opened the doors of the tabernacle. Note, Those to whom God manifests himself he makes and keeps low in their own eyes, and willing to stoop to any thing by which they may be serviceable to his glory, though but as door-keepers in his house. One would have expected that Samuel would be so full of his vision as to forget his ordinary service, that he would go among his companions, as one in an ecstasy, to tell them what converse he had had with God this night; but he modestly keeps it to himself, tells the vision to no man, but silently goes on in his business. Our secret communion with God is not to be proclaimed upon the house-tops. (3.) He feared to show Eli the vision. If he was afraid Eli would be angry with him and chide him, then we have cause to suspect that Eli used to be as severe with this towardly child as he was indulgent to his own wicked sons, and this will bear hard upon him. But we will suppose it was rather because he was afraid to grieve and trouble the good old man that he was so shy. If he had run immediately with the tidings to Eli, this would have looked as if he desired the woeful day and hoped to build his own family upon the ruin of Eli's; therefore it became him not to be forward to declare the vision. No good man can take pleasure in bringing evil tidings, especially not Samuel to Eli, the pupil to the tutor whom he loves and honours.

      2. Eli's careful enquiry into it, 1 Samuel 3:16; 1 Samuel 3:17. As soon as ever he heard Samuel stirring he called for him, probably to his bed-side; and, having before perceived that God had spoken to him, he obliged him, not only by importunity (I pray thee, hide it not from me), but, finding him timorous and backward, by an adjuration likewise--God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide any thing from me! He had reason enough to fear that the message prophesied no good concerning him, but evil; and yet, because it was a message from God, he could not contentedly be ignorant of it. A good man desires to be acquainted with all the will of God, whether it make for him or against him. His adjuration--God do so to thee, if thou hide any thing from me--may intimate the fearful doom of unfaithful watchmen; if they warn not sinners, they bring upon themselves that wrath and curse which they should have denounced, in God's name, against those that go on still in their trespasses.

      3. Samuel's faithful delivery of his message at last (1 Samuel 3:18; 1 Samuel 3:18): He told him every whit. When he saw that he must tell him he never minced the matter, nor offered to make it better than it was, to blunt that which was sharp, or to gild the bitter pill, but delivered the message as plainly and fully as he received it, not shunning to declare the whole counsel of God. Christ's ministers must deal thus faithfully.

      4. Eli's pious acquiescence in it. He did not question Samuel's integrity, was not cross with him, nor had he any thing to object against the equity of the sentence. He did not complain of the punishment, as Cain did, that it was greater than he either deserved or could bear, but patiently submitted, and accepted the punishment of his iniquity. It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good. He understood the sentence to intend only a temporal punishment, and the entail of disgrace and poverty upon his posterity, and not a final separation of them from the favour of God, and therefore he cheerfully submitted, did not repine, because he knew the demerits of his family; nor did he now intercede for the reversing of the sentence, because God had ratified it with a solemn oath, of which he would not repent. He therefore composes himself into a humble resignation to God's will, as Aaron, in a case not much unlike. Leviticus 10:3, He held his peace. In a few words, (1.) He lays down this satisfying truth, "It is the Lord; it is he that pronounces the judgment, from whose bar there lies no appeal and against whose sentence there lies no exception. It is he that will execute the judgment, whose power cannot be resisted, his justice arraigned, nor his sovereignty contested. It is the Lord, who will thus sanctify and glorify himself, and it is highly fit he should. It is the Lord, with whom there is no unrighteousness, who never did nor ever will do any wrong to any of his creatures, nor exact more than their iniquity deserves." (2.) He infers from it this satisfying conclusion: "Let him do what seemeth him good. I have nothing to say against his proceedings. He is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works, and therefore his will be done. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him." Thus we ought to quiet ourselves under God's rebuke, and never to strive with our Maker.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

A Private Enquiry

October 9th, 1890 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"What is the thing that the Lord hath said unto thee?" 1 Samuel 3:17 .

The Lord would not speak directly to Eli, although he was the High Priest. In ordinary circumstances it would have been so; but Eli had grieved the Lord, and thus had lost his honorable standing. God had not cast him off; but he viewed him with such displeasure that he would only speak to him through another person: even as great kings, if they are offended with their courtiers, send them messages by other hands. The Lord sent, first, a man of God to warn Eli of what would be the sure result of his want of firmness with his sons; and when he gave him a second warning, it was sent through one who was a little underling in his family. O ye saints, who live upon familiar terms with the Lord, take heed of sin, lest you lose your close communion, your favored fellowship, and stand in a second place! God will speak to you; but it will be in warning, and in a roundabout way, and not face to face, with his lip to your ear, as he has been wont to do while you have pleased him. God will not cast you off; but he may set you aside for a time. You may still hear his message through others; but he will be silent to you personally. You may have to live in the frigid zone of doubt and anxiety, instead of sunning yourselves in the full blaze of divine love. It was so with Eli: he had forborne to rebuke sin in his own house, and had brought the anger of God upon himself; and therefore he had no comfortable intercourse, and no honor with Jehovah, but must be schooled by a child. Further, when God had sent a man of God to Eli, and the message did not arouse him to a sense of his sin in over-indulgence of his sons, and toleration of evil in those under him, the Lord sends him a word of threatening by a child; for God has many messengers. The sending of the child Samuel to bear the terrible tidings to the aged priest, was a sweet but stern rebuke of Eli. The child is awake, while the old man is locked in the slumber which comes of a seared conscience. Experience must now be admonished by childhood, and wisdom by simplicity. Grey hairs, in this case, yield not a crown of glory to the erring ruler; but he must bow his head in sorrow at a rebuke brought to him by a lowly boy. The child is evidently more trusted of God than the venerable priest. It was the beginning of the divine chastisement that his honor should pass away, and an aged priest should stand reproved by a youthful prophet. There was much mercy in it; yet we clearly see the Lord stripping his servant of his decorations, and setting him in a lower place making the Urim and the Thummim which he wore upon his breast to be of secondary power for showing the future, while the Spirit rested more fully on a holy boy. He, whose talk was still that of childhood, becomes a mouth for God, while the venerable ruler of his people has nothing to say but to submit to his inevitable punishment. Eli was a man of God, and, notwithstanding his great chastisement and his mournful death, I doubt not that he died in the Lord; but he brought dishonor on his own name, and he was condemned to know that his holy office would not be continued in his line, and that none of his descendants should live to old age. He had not duly honored the Lord, and therefore he heard the sentence pronounced on him and on his race. "Them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." He had spared the rod of rebuke, and therefore the axe of judgment fell on his house, "because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." O brethren, let us beware of sin, of allowing sin in those under our charge, lest the Lord lay us low, and send an affliction upon us, which shall cleave to our race for ever. We will now use his question, by which he extracted from Samuel the message of God, and we will view it in three lights; first, as put to Samuel; secondly, as coming from Eli; and, thirdly, as capable of being turned upon ourselves. We will ask it of ourselves, as another might ask it; and we will answer it to our own hearts, that so we may by a rehearsal become ready to give an answer to him that shall ask us in days to come. Come, my heart, answer to thyself, "What is the thing that the Lord hath said unto thee?" May the Holy Spirit help thee, by bringing all things to thy remembrance, whatsoever he hath said unto thee! I. First, let us view this question as addressed TO SAMUEL. The first remark which we shall make upon it is that God does speak to men. Otherwise this would be a senseless question: "What is the thing that the Lord hath said unto thee?" God does communicate with mortals. He is not shut up all alone by himself in sublime solitude. He has not placed his creatures at an immeasurable distance, with an impassable abyss between their littleness and his own grandeur. It is not true that he cannot hear their cries, nor respond to them in tones of love. In ways suitable to their feeble nature the Lord has spoken to men. He has done so in the inspired volume of his sacred Word. Every line in this priceless volume was dictated by the Spirit, and is a message from God to men. This book is to be read as the record of Jehovah's voice. It is the phonograph of our Father's speech in days gone by. What he has spoken aforetime by his voice, he continues to speak to us by his written Word. He spake through prophets and seers, evangelists and apostles; and here we have it even all that is of abiding significance to us upon whom the ends of the world are come. God, in a renewed manner, speaks to us by his Word when his Spirit applies it to us individually. We never truly hear the voice of God in Scripture until the truth is spoken home to each heart and conscience by the Holy Ghost. Revelation must be revealed to each one; other wise it soon comes to be a veiling of truth, rather than a discovering of the Lord's mind. The revelation is clear enough in itself; but we have not the opened eye till grace bestows it. If we have not the Spirit of God, the letter may actually become a veil to hide the spirit of truth; this, indeed, it should not be, neither is it according to its natural intent and tendency; but our depravity makes it so, turning even light itself into a thing which blinds. Do you know what it is to have a text leap out of the Scriptures upon you, and carry you away? This special energy and flash of truth is always memorable. How often have the waves of this sea of truth been phosphorescent before my eyes a sea of glass mingled with fire, of which the spray has dashed over me and set my soul on flame! As surely as the Lord spake these words to Moses, or to David, or to Isaiah, or to John, or to Paul, so surely does he speak them to our souls by his Spirit. Understand you what I say? Moreover, our God has ways of communicating his mind to his children by those of his servants who speak in his name. He directs the thoughts of his ministers, and suggests their words, so that they speak to the cases of those who are led to hear the Word of God. By our own thoughts, also, the Lord communes with us. If we will be still before him, he will prepare our hearts, and in silence we shall hear his voice. It would be a strange thing if God could not, and did not, communicate with his own children; and it is still more strange and sad that, though he does speak, his people are slow of heart and dull of hearing. Our God speaks to us also in providence. In choice favors we hear his soft and tender tones; in chastisement and rebukes we hear the sterner notes; but every sound is full of love. The Lord has ways of taking his children apart and speaking to them upon their beds. In the wilderness he speaks to the heart. He can talk with us in nature; have you not heard him in the thunder? in the roaring of the sea? Yes, we hear him, not only in the dash of Niagara, but in the ripple of the brook, and the smiling of a primrose on its bank; the Lord is never voiceless except to the earless soul. He speaks: let us hear. Here we make a further remark: God regards not age in his speaking, but he condescends to speak with young children. Samuel was the Lord's in his long-clothes, and served the Lord while a boy; and the Lord did not disdain to come to his little cot at night and call him by his name. We often talk as if it could not be possible that the Lord should speak with boys and girls; and yet, my brethren, there is not much more of a stoop in God's talking with a child than in his speaking to a man. Indeed, the man has more of sin, and thus he is often farther off from God than the child. If the children here present are, by God's grace, made willing to hear God's voice if they are obedient to the Lord, and have open hearts and attentive minds towards his Word the great God will not pass them by. The Lord stoops to the lowliness of a child, and smiles at its simplicity. If young people are prayerful, thoughtful, reverent, believing, and obedient, the fact that, like Samuel, they are small in stature and young in years, shall be no detriment to them. The Lord will speak, and call them by their names. My observation leads me to believe that many children have heard more of God than persons who are grown up. They may not find willing ears to hear what the Lord has said to them; but if they did, they could tell us marvellous things. Some of us remember how in our own childhood the Lord dealt wonderfully with us; and there were "prophecies which went before" concerning us, whose meaning we can now read, though at the time we did not understand them. I think that young Samuel was one of the fittest persons in the world for the Lord to choose as his messenger; and so far from its being unusual for young ears to hear the voice from heaven, I think they are the best prepared to do so. Four times the Lord said, "Samuel, Samuel"; and the child responded and said at last, when he knew who it was that called him, "Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth." Anyone here who can say from his heart, "Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth," will not be long without a word from the Invisible. Oh, that our ears may be opened to heavenly tidings may be wakened, morning by morning, by the voice of the Lord! May we often hear it as the morning song and the evening hymn! May the Lord also hear our voices in prayer and praise and meditation, till our lives shall be a holy dialogue between our souls and our God, never dying down into silence, but lasting on until we behold him face to face! Our next observation is, that when we do hear the voice of God we should be deeply impressed by it. Young Samuel gave evidence that he deeply felt the responsibility of having heard the voice of God. We read that "Samuel lay till morning": he did not go to sleep, but he did not leave his bed. He laid still, and thought. After hearing that terrible word which made his heart heavy, and caused his ears to tingle, like a wise child, he lay still, and pondered it in his soul. He did not rush in upon Eli, for the news was hard to tell; neither did he seek out another confidant. He had been called to be the Lord's prophet, he was conscious of his commission, and he became sober beyond his years. "He lay till morning." What thoughts passed through his mind on his lone bed! He had been a child when he went to rest last night, and now he had suddenly become a man, with a dread secret entrusted to him. A pressing anxiety was on him as to how he should speak to Eli, and a battle raged within his heart between a fear of grieving the good old man by the message, and the greater fear of grieving God by keeping any of it back. He remained still upon his bed, quietly meditating and turning over what he had heard, and thinking of what he should do. I would to God that, after every sermon, all my hearers, young and old, had a quarter of an hour alone! A night of wakeful thought over it would be better still. I am sure that what is wanted with our religious reading is time for private thought. We put into the mill more than it grinds. Some people imagine that, if they read so many chapters of the Bible every day, it will be much to their profit; but it is not so if the reading is a mere mechanical exercise. It will be far better to read a tenth as much, and weigh it, and let it take possession of brain and heart. A little food cooked is better for dinner than a great joint raw. A man who wants to see a country must not hurry through it by express train, but he must stop in the towns and villages, and see what is to be seen. He will know more about the land and its people if he walks the highways, climbs the mountains, stays in the homes, and visits the workshops, than if he does so many miles in the day, and hurries through picture-galleries as if death were pursuing him. Don't hurry through Scripture, but pause for the Lord to speak to you. Oh, for more meditation! Samuel "lay till morning." Wise child that! With such work before him for his head and his heart, he did well to lie quiet, take breath, and collect his strength. Next, the heavenly voice made such an impression on his mind that he feared to tell it to Eli. The message was so dreadful to him that he dreaded to repeat it to him whom it most concerned. When you and I know God's word, and hear God's voice in it, it will often strike us with a solemn awe which will quite overpower us. Jacob, when he saw the ladder and the angels, did not say in the morning, "How delightful was the vision! How happy was my dream!" That would have been like the language of shallow, superficial minds. But he said, "How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." I know that God's revelation of himself to us is calculated to fill us with intense joy; but it is even more likely to cast us down upon our faces, prostrate before his divine majesty, in solemn awe of the Lord of hosts. Remember how John puts it. "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead." He was the best beloved of the Lord; and yet, at the sight of our glorious Well-beloved, he had no life left in him, but he swooned at his feet. Marvel not that "the child Samuel feared"; and especially feared to show Eli the vision. I say that, when you and I hear the voice of the Lord our God, it will create in us deep emotions of fear, of joy, and of holy reverence, and we shall know of a surety that it is no little thing to hear the word of the Most High. We shall tremble at his word, yet we shall rejoice to hear it. I would say, next, that we should store up in our memories whatever God says to us. These are not things which we can safely allow to slip. What is written in this book should be transferred to our memories. It is a good thing to learn passages of Scripture by heart, even as classical scholars treasure up the words of their favourite authors. It is a good thing to have texts of Scripture used from day to day to sweeten the breath, and then laid by in the heart to perfume the character. A mind well stored with Biblical lore will be a great cheer to us, should we live, like Eli, till our eyes are dim, and we cannot see to read. The Bible in the memory is better than the Bible in the bookcase. All that this child heard from the Lord he kept in his recollection, so that, when the time came, he could produce it "every whit"; and in after days could write it down in this his history. Oh, that you and I were able to produce "every whit" of what God has spoken to us! Alas! too often the Word has come, and it has gone, and it has left small trace behind. We have heard, and we have forgotten. God grant that, after this, whenever we hear what God the Lord shall speak, we may mark, learn, and inwardly digest the same! and then it will not depart from us, but will remain for our growth, strength, and upbuilding. One more remark. Looking at the text in its light toward Samuel, we learn that we should be able to tell what we hear from God. We find Eli saying to Samuel, "What is the thing that the Lord hath said unto thee?" If God has spoken to us, somebody or other will need to know, and will have a right to be informed. It may be that many whom we esteem will wish to know what God has spoken to us; and we must be prepared, even though it be with a measure of fear and trembling, to tell them the solemn tidings. What is whispered in our ear in the closet we may have to speak on the housetops. Samuel did this very solemnly, with a deep sense of its weight. Children are generally eager to tell a story: they do not always consider what effect its repetition may produce. They are not able to keep a secret, but feel a pleasure in communicating what they know; but this child was now upraised by the spirit of prophecy, and became tender and thoughtful; and as it would cause Eli great anguish, he was very slow to speak. He did not open his mouth on the matter till he was adjured by Eli, and then he did it as a sacred duty. Young Christians should speak much of their Lord and his gospel. God forbid that I should hinder them! but it will be well for them to speak, not because it is pleasant, but because they must. We must tell out the divine Word because there is a woe upon us if we withhold it. We must not be flippant; but solemnly under constraint. Much zeal is very natural, but very worthless, because its source is not divine. That zeal which is kindled and sustained by a heavenly power, which makes us feel that we must speak or the very stones would cry out against us this zeal, I say, is of an effectual kind, and the more of it the better. If I only feel that I may, or may not, tell what I think I have heard from the Lord, the probability is that I had better be silent. The true prophetic word is as fire in the bones, and it must come out; and yet when it is spoken it is with lips which a live altar-coal has blistered. Samuel did his work very carefully and completely. We read, "and Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him." He said nothing more and nothing less than God had spoken. You know how difficult it is to repeat a story correctly. You may try it at your own table, with all the good people around it. Whisper a story into the ear of the next person to you, and let it be repeated in the same fashion from one to another, and by the time it comes round the small circle it will be quite a fresh affair. Additions and subtractions are weeds which it is hard to keep out of the garden of conversation. Alas! this holds good even of the Word of the Lord: how many add to it or take from it! But the child Samuel repeated his story correctly, because the fear of the Lord was upon him. When you do tell the gospel, tell it correctly; for it is wonderfully easy to make another gospel of it; and the tendency to do so is very powerful in these days. How many are proclaiming a mutilated gospel, and are not telling "every whit!" Some part of revelation they think too high, or too dry or too orthodox, or too something or other; and so their overweening conceit induces them to leave it out. Oh, do not so, I pray you! Samuel is to be commended that, when he had to tell Eli what God had spoken, he bated nothing. Tell out the gospel, ye ministers of Christ! Give Christ his due. Give fair proportion to each truth. Do not magnify one doctrine to the exclusion of another; but endeavor to paint the portrait of revelation with every feature in its place, and in due proportion to the rest. It is great wisdom to be able to repeat fully and faithfully what God has spoken to us. May the Holy Spirit aid us herein! It was a very painful duty, which the holy child was called upon to perform. Samuel loved his foster father, and for him to mention the tremendous doom pronounced upon Eli's house must have caused him great grief of spirit. But he bravely repeated the dread words of the Most High. There are certain truths in God's word which we tremble to think upon. Do you dream that we have any pleasure in the doctrine of eternal punishment? We speak of the wrath to come, and the everlasting punishment which God apportions to the impenitent, with fear and trembling; but we speak of it because we cannot escape from the conviction that it is taught in the word of God. As Samuel was compelled to tell Eli of the unalterable curse that God had pronounced upon his household, so must God's faithful servants, in the discharge of their duty, speak of the doom of the wicked, and never flinch from warning them. O my hearers, He that believeth not shall be damned," is as true as that He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." We must speak all the gospel, or else the blood of souls will stain our skirts at the last great day. However painful a duty it may be, it is none the less binding upon us. But then, in Samuel's case, it was an obvious duty. It must have been clear to the young prophet that he must tell Eli what so much concerned him. This conclusion would be reached without much reasoning. If God had spoken to Samuel, it could only be that he might tell Eli. My hearer, if the Lord has told you anything about eternal things, he has revealed it that you may hand it on. The truth is no man's private property, to be kept under lock and key, as a secret hoard for personal enrichment. Whatever thou knowest about Christ, tell it. Whatever thou knowest about salvation and sovereign grace, tell it. It is revealed to thee that thou mayest bear it aloft like a flaming torch, for the enlightening of others. God will not speak again to the man who does not spread the truth. Samuel perceived his duty clearly. And, dear friends, to communicate the message of God was a very weighty duty to the child Samuel. Read what Eli said to him. "I pray thee hide it not from me: God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide anything from me of all the things that he said unto thee." My brother in the gospel, what if you and I should keep back some painful part of God's message, and God should do so to us, and more also? I cannot bear to be lost; and yet I shall be lost if I decline to warn others of their danger, and of the doom of unbelief. I cannot bear to be cast away for ever from the presence of God; yet this woe will be unto me if I preach not the gospel, and do not declare the whole counsel of God. The result of unbelief and sin in others will fall on us if we do not warn them. O sirs, if we are unfaithful, God will deal with us at the day of judgment, as he will deal with the wicked; this is an awful outlook for us. May we never dare to tone down the more severe parts of the story, and flatter men in their sins; for if we do this, God will mete out to us a portion with the condemned! If we have sown pillows for their armholes, and rocked their cradles by our smooth speech, their eternal ruin shall lie at our door. How shall we bear it when God shall "do so to us, and more also," because we kept back his message from the sons of men who so much needed it? Let us resolve, that come what will, we will keep back nothing of the truth which the Lord has entrusted to us. A false witness for God, a liar to men's souls, what sentence can be greater than his deserts? Is it possible for us to be too earnest here? I have said enough upon the text in its first light, and I pray for practical result from it. The Lord does speak to men; and it behoves them to hear with reverence, and make known his word with solemn fidelity and earnestness. II. Let us now view the question as it comes FROM ELI. I understand from Eli's question, first, that we should willingly learn, even from a child. "What! shall I, a man of seventy or eighty, learn from a child?" says one. Yes, unless you are more foolish than Eli, you may do so. Eli, with all his faults, was willing to hear what God might speak, even if he heard it from the lips of the child Samuel. How unwise people are when they will not hear a man, but make up their mind that he knows nothing! Some would not hear the most precious truth from the lips of a man whom they despise. Certain of the friars in Luther's day confessed that much of what Luther said was very true, and a reformation was certainly very much needed; but then, they would not have it from such a fellow as Luther a renegade monk, too, who spoke so rudely! Erasmus could be endured, but Luther made such a noise about it. Teaching is often judged, not by its own value, but by the prejudices which people may happen to have concerning the source from which it comes. "I do not like him," says one. Well, what does it matter whether you like him or not? What does he say? If a thing is true, never mind who says it. Believe it. If a babe could be put into the pulpit, and it lisped out the precious gospel of Christ, its lispings would be more worth hearing than all the eloquence of men of years and name, whose object might be to overthrow men's faith. Let truth come from where it may, welcome it. If God has spoken, though it be but to a boy in knickerbockers, be ready to ask him, "What is the thing that the Lord hath said to thee?" Next, learn from Eli that we should be willing to know the very worst of our case. Let me repeat that word: we should be willing to know the very worst of our case. I have used this expression in my own prayers many a time: "Lord, let me know the worst of my case." I suggest it as a very excellent petition. Surely, we do not wish to be left in a fool's paradise, pleased with the idea that we are rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing, when all the while we are naked, and poor, and miserable. We desire to be informed as to our own condition. We would know even the frightful truth, the humbling truth, what some would even call the degrading truth if indeed it be truth. We wish to be degraded, if to know the truth would make us feel degraded. Better in the abyss of a truth than on the summit of a falsehood. We wish to be in our own sight what we are in the sight of God. We would not be shams, hypocrites, veneered pretenders; but we would be good men and true. Dear friend, for this reason do not be angry with the minister if, when you go to hear him on the Lord's-day, his text is not a promise, or a sweet bit of doctrine, but a warning, and an exhortation, or a condemnation. Bare your back to the whip, and take your share of the lashes. If the Lord's servant has nothing to give but what comes from the bitter box, do not make wry faces over it. If he be the Lord's steward, and deals out God's truth, quarrel not with him, lest you be found contending with your Maker. Take the portion, or I might say the potion: it may be the very thing you need. If God has sent you a bitter potion, it will be better for you than the sweetest dainties the smooth-tongued flatterer could prepare. Cry to God to search you, and to make you to know your true condition as before his face. Next, we should desire to hear the whole of God's word. We should say to our minister, "I pray thee hide it not from me. What is the thing that the Lord hath said unto thee?" Oh, that our hearers would desire this at our hands! Ask us, yea, plead with us, to tell you all that we know of the truth; and when you have heard all that we know of the truth, search the Scriptures and find out somewhat more, that you may be well instructed in the things which make for your peace. Be like Eli, afraid to have anything kept from you, and anxious to have full information. Like Eli, we should demand faithfulness. We should say to the teacher, to the friend who is dealing with our soul, I pray thee hide it not from me; but be faithful to me." You do not go to a surgeon that he may falsely assure you that you have no wound; and I hope you do not come here that I may give you unsafe comfort, and make you feel content in sin. No, beloved, if you come aright, you say, "I go to hear the word as I go to a physician, that I may have my case truthfully described and honestly treated, by one who takes his Master's medicines out of his Master's treasures." Hear not that which makes you contented with self, but that which leads you to seek higher and better things. Let those who are foolish desire to be lulled into the deadly slumber of delusion, but for yourselves seek after the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and love that which humbles you, and draws you nearer to your Lord. Dear hearers, pray for us who are preachers of the gospel, that we maybe made faithful, and kept so. You know the prevailing currents of these times are toward flesh-pleasing teachings. Men aspire to be clever, and to that end they must appear to be bold thinkers, highly cultured, and far removed from the old worn-out notions of orthodoxy. Many are the floral displays in sermons! Sheaves of corn are too plain and rustic. This is the age of bouquets and wreaths of rare flowers. Paul must give way to Browning, and David to Tennyson. Brethren, there are enough in the novelty business without us; and we have something better to do. We have to give an account unto our God of what we do and say; and if we have been murderers of souls, it will be no excuse that we flourished the dagger well, or that, when we gave them poison, we mixed the draught cleverly, and presented it with poetical phrases. Pray for us that we may be clear of the blood of all men. Keep us right by saying to us, What is the thing the Lord hath said to thee? I pray thee, hide it not from me!" III. And now, we conclude by considering the question, TO AND FROM OURSELVES. I want to put a series of questions very briefly, and with great solemnity. Have we ever asked the Lord to speak to us? Yes, yes, my sister, I know you have; and you, my brother, you have done still more, for God has already spoken to you. But here, on Thursday evenings, are many unconverted people, and I am much rejoiced that you care to come on a week-night to such a place as this. I do not attribute your presence in every case to the highest motive, for you come to hear a preacher, of whom you have heard much talk; and at another time you will go to hear some noted orator in another place. Did you ever say to yourself, "I will hear what God the Lord will speak"? This would be a far better object than listening to human rhetoric. Have you shut yourself up in your room, or have you gone into a wood, or climbed a hill-top, or sat down by the sea, and said, "Speak to me, Lord! If there be voices out of the eternal and the unseen, here am I to hear them. In mercy speak to me"? My dear hearer, are you God's creature, and have you never heard the voice of your Creator? Do you think yourself God's child, and do you live by the month together and never hear your Father's voice? This is pitiable alas! it is blameworthy. I press the question home. Have you ever asked the Lord to speak to you? Next, have we all regard what God has spoken? When we were young, on a Sabbath-day, we heard a word from the pulpit which seemed to go right through us; and there and then we wished that we could go home to our chamber to pray; and when we got home we shut our room door, and we cried out in our anxiety, because all was not right between God and our souls. But what came of it? The tears we shed, were they the tokens of coming conversion? Is it not sadly true that Monday found us at our old tricks? We had forgotten what manner of men we were. Was it not so? Is it so still with some of you? Has God spoken, and spoken, and spoken, and spoken again, and do you still act like the adder, that will not hear, though the charmer charm most wisely? Are you as the ass and as the mule which have no understanding, and need bit and bridle before you will obey your Master? The Lord have mercy upon you if it be so! If you have been brutish and obstinate, may grace subdue you. A further question is this: Have we shaped our lives by what God has said? I know many people who read their Bibles and know what the Scripture means, but they never practice what God says to them. Among the rest they neglect that great gospel promise "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." They have neither believed nor been baptized. They are bidden to do this and that as believers; and, avowing themselves to be believers, they yet refuse to their Lord the obedience which he claims. O my hearers, to know the word of God and not to put it in practice, is to make rods for your own backs; for he that knew his Master's will and did it not, was beaten with many stripes. The more you know the more stripes will come upon you, if you have knowledge only, and not obedience. Does not this truthful word come home to some who are sitting here at this time? It ought to do so. God grant that it may lead the "hearers only" to become "doers of the word"! Next, brethren, have we told what we know? That is a practical point. I speak to quite a number of Christian men and women who would have to confess, "No; I am like Samuel, so far that I fear to tell Eli the vision." You were going to speak to the person who sat in the pew with you the other Sunday, and you almost got a word out, but it died on your lips. For idle words you will have to give an account. You did mean to pray with your child, mother, but you have not done it yet. What if she dies before you have done so? Good friend, you meant to speak to the man at the next bench in your workshop. Ah, you have meant to do it so many times! I had a friend, a dear friend, who is now I trust in heaven, and there was a man who used to take orders from him for goods, and bring them to him when finished. He was a good and punctual workman, but not a Christian man. Well, my friend intended ah! he intended for years to have a quiet conversation with that workman about his soul One day the goods came in, but a woman brought them. She said, "I am So-and-so's wife. He finished these goods; but he is dead." My friend said that the words were like a bullet to his heart; for he had so often thought of the man, and often said to himself, "I must and will speak to him the next time he calls;" but somehow, when he came into the shop, business was brisk, and he looked over the goods and paid for them as quickly as he could, and never began a conversation. Now the man was beyond the reach of warning or instruction. Do not let it be so with any person with whom you come in contact. Do as Samuel did: tell the whole of it if they ask you to tell them, or if they do not ask you to tell them. Those who do not ask you are probably those who have the most need of your efforts. There is an art in private conversation, I believe. Certain of our dear friends are always telling out the gospel on all sides, and they seem to do it with much ease. I speak of my Lord also to individuals, but I must confess that it does not come so easy to me to speak to an individual as to preach to thousands. We must school ourselves to it. That art of buttonholing, and coming into close contact with individuals, is one that we must cultivate, and we must not be satisfied until we become expert in it; for it is one of the chief ways in which men are saved. Lastly, there is one question which I would like to ask, and I have done. Do our children ever rebuke us? Perhaps we have no children now: they are all grown up; but possibly we have grandchildren. This Samuel was to Eli like a grandchild. His sons were grown up, and had left him; but here was this little one brought into the temple to minister there, and the old man came to be rebuked by this little child. I have known some perhaps they are even now present who are godless fathers, drunken fathers; and their grandchildren are members of the church, and good, gracious, amiable, lovely, useful children, too. Grandfathers, are you going down to hell while your grandchildren are going to heaven? I charge you by the living God, before whose bar you must surely stand, look at your little ones, and hear their prayers, and hear their hymns; could you bear to be everlastingly separated from them? And, fathers, this should come home closely to you. You know that girl of yours; how you love her! and well you may. Your heart is bound up in your little daughter. She is everything a child can be to a father; but she often weeps because she tries to get you to hear the gospel, and you will not come. Sunday to you is not what it is to her; and that grieves her. You were making a rabbit-hutch last Sunday, were you not? And your child said, "Father, do come to the house of God"; but you would not come; and you pained your child. Will you bear in mind a solemn truth? If your daughter goes to the right, and you go to the left, you are probably parting for ever. It is not possible that the way of sin should end where the way of righteousness will end. Do not choose eternal separation from your dear ones who love the Lord. Do think these things over; because, on a Sabbath-day, when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, some of you have to go away, and leave a wife or a dear child behind to commune at the sacred feast. Many thoughts are stirred at that dividing time. I wish that such searching of heart might arise to-night in downright earnest. There will be weeping there will be weeping, at the judgment-seat of Christ; and if children now rebuke their Christless friends, what will be the thunder of that rebuke when they shall be caught up to the throne of the highest, and their ungodly relatives are cast out for ever into the pit prepared for the wicked? God bless you all richly, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The first Book of Samuel (or of Kings as with some) brings before us that great change for which the Book of Ruth was a preparation, and in order to which the Spirit of God closed it with the generations until they come down to David. It is sufficiently plain to the simplest reader that Saul only came in by the way; for, in fact, the people's wish for such an one was a dishonour to God, although he might be used providentially, as God is wont to do for His own glory. But we find here, as everywhere else, that God, whilst He knows the end from the beginning, goes onward with astonishing patience and consideration of all things and persons; for He who is mighty despises not any, but acts according to His holy nature, and yet is slow to wrath. Nevertheless, as being the only wise God who has His own purposes of glory before Him, He brings in on every great occasion a distinct promotion of it, negatively or positively; but this too by slow degrees, marking the immensity of the change that we may take heed to what He is doing. This seems to be a principle throughout scripture. We must remember that it is not only what God does but the display of Himself, which always contributes yea, insures blessing to the soul. There is the fruit not merely of His power, but of His will, and His will is ever good and holy and acceptable. And if we only heed what He marks for our instruction what our attention is drawn to, not only in the result, but on the road that leads to that result we shall not find ourselves without the blessing of the Lord.

There was a distinct and great change then in progress, and, as we have seen, a suitable and great preparation for it, the Book of Ruth as a whole being the preface to those of Samuel; but the first Book of Samuel itself only slowly opens to us that which was in the mind of God to introduce. Hitherto the people, as such, were the object of divine dealings. Nor is it that His people ever ceased to be an object to Him; but in the unfolding of His ways He was now about to establish a principle which should in due time prove the turning-point of stable blessing. And what is particularly to be remarked is this: it is the turning-point of your blessing just as much as of that which awaits the Jewish people, of all nations, and of the universe. Although it be a principle quite new in its present application, it is really the oldest of all. At first sight it might seem difficult to bring all these truths into a small compass or focus of light, if I may say so; but this is what God does. Need I say where that concentrating point of all blessing is to be found? Is it not in one single name the name of Jesus? And who can adequately count up what varied blessings God has stored up in that one person what infinite fulness of wisdom and of goodness? I shall endeavour to show how this applies to the present subject.

In the past we have seen the people of Israel, and in the midst of them one person more particularly who was the sign of the blessing for the people, and the means of maintaining their relationship with God. This was the priest. We are familiar with the shadow of the great high priest. But the time was now come for God to bring in another and a yet grander principle; but this, as is always the case in this world, is invariably brought in by the failure of man, every successive step of it only manifesting God the more. The Book of Ruth prepared the way for this. The genealogy there had nothing to do with the priest; yet it was not by any man known distinctly (though it might have perhaps been gathered by an eye exercised in the things of God and versed in the prophetic word) that something greater than the priest was at hand. But I doubt much whether this had been actually understood by any until it became a fact. Nevertheless God had it from the very beginning before Him, as He later made it known in His word; and it is important for us to take notice of this. For we must remember that what happened to them is written for us not written for them merely, but for us specially; and we can see from the very beginning that God had something more than priesthood in view for His people. Why otherwise did He particularly mention the tribe of Judah, of which nothing was spoken concerning priesthood? None the less was Judah to have a place of honour, but a singular one. So, if Christ takes up the function of heavenly priest, He for other reasons did not belong to the house of Aaron nor to the tribe of Levi. It pleased God that He should be born of Judah, and of the family of David, as all know, the true Son of David in Solomon's line. Therefore was the genealogy given at the close of the preceding book; but in the beginning of Samuel we have not the direct preparation for the Christ, nor the family noticed of which He was to be born in due time, but rather indirect and moral circumstances that would make it necessary if God was to bring in glory and man to be truly blest.

Thus 1 Samuel presents a scene of transition. Here we have not a man of Judah, but first of all one who clearly belonged to a Levitical family. The interest however is on one of his two wives, childless to her great sorrow. What she was made to taste was that which the people of God should have known; if they felt not, she enters into the distressful condition in which they lay. The wife who had children knew little what it was to have sorrow. But Hannah whose heart was towards the Lord was the especial object not merely of deep affection, but of one too in which there was a divine element; and without this be assured that, as far as concerns the people of God, all else will be found to fail sooner or later. Is it meant that there should not be a genuine affection? God forbid! But there was more here than any bond of natural feeling. It is plain that Hannah looked to the Lord. And her faith was put to the test; and during the trial her way and spirit could not but win respect, as well as sympathy, on her husband's part. But the best of all was that she knew the secret of the Lord before the answer appeared.

Now Jehovah will yet bring down His people to this very state. For the question here is of His ancient people Israel. And we must remember that, although we may apply every principle of truth, and thus as Christians gather profit from this book as from all others in scripture, the great subject of the kingdom as a fact awaits them under the Messiah. This is no reason why we should not understand and enjoy this part of the Bible, using its light for our path. For assuredly it is a truth we can not too much ponder, that, no matter who the subject may be, the church or the Christian is entitled to draw near in communion with Christ, and enter into the depths of God's wisdom as it were more deeply than the very persons who are destined to be the object of these counsels of God. The reason is certain, and simple enough. Christ treats us as friends, and makes us share His plans and mind. It is not the fact of being ourselves those who receive a particular blessing that ensures the deepest understanding. The true means of entering into the revealed counsels of God is, first of all, that Christ fills the heart. Where He is the object, the eye is single, and the whole body full of light. The Holy Ghost takes of His things, and shows them to us. This ought to be the place of the members of His body. To this end among others was the Spirit given.

Hence therefore we ought to know what is reserved for the people of God by and by in the millennium, even better in very important respects than the people themselves. They will behold and enjoy the fruits of that glory which will shine on Zion; they will be in the actual possession of its privileges. But the heavenly sources of it ought to be plain and clear to our souls as between the Lord and us now. It would be better understood if we valued more our relation to Him as the Bride of the Lamb, the confidant of His secrets, no longer hidden but revealed, if I may use such an expression; and indeed we have the mind of Christ, so that it is only unbelief that robs us of its joy and brightness. But if so, the Lord keeps back nothing from us. It is a part of His great love towards us, that He tells us what concerns all the earth as the sphere of His kingdom, and especially Israel, His earthly centre, and not ourselves only. For this is not the best proof of love. It may be and is necessary in the first instance; but it is not so much the communication of what we want that bespeaks intimacy, as the opening of the heart to another about that which does not concern himself. You tell a servant (perhaps a stranger, if you are kind) what concerns his own duty or advantage; but to tell cut to another everything which is nearest to your own heart supposes the utmost possible confidence in and intimacy with that other.

Now this is the place that grace has put the Christian in; and therefore we can readily understand, as it appears to me, why all this becomes of real profit to our souls, though not by what people call spiritualizing, which is often really to lose the definiteness of the truth by the vain and selfish desire of appropriating everything to ourselves. Be assured that this is not the way to receive the best blessing from scripture, but by seeing its connection with Christ. It is only so that we can be sure of the truth, and apart from the truth there can be no real grasp of divine grace. Nor does it really take away anything, but gives everything solidly, though not all about us. At the same time we see that what is special favour to the people, the earthly people, is surely also intended to bring before our souls His grace generally, as well as that which the Lord has specially for us. If I know, for instance, the faithfulness of the Lord's love to Israel, am I not entitled to be very sure of His love to me and you? Does the revelation to us of His name as Father take anything from the grace He is showing to ourselves?

Hannah then, conscious of her desolation as a wife without a child (which we know to a Jewess was an immense loss, and by her justly felt as such), was led by grace to cast her care on the Lord without judging Him hard towards her, and spreads her soul's desire and grief before Him. And so it was that this came out in the presence of God where the high priest saw her. Others went to worship there with their thank-offerings; she drew near with her tears, and there too she felt none the less the provocation of her adversary. But the remarkable feature of the tale is, that God calls our attention to the fact that the high priest himself had not the communion of His mind. He that ought most of all to have entered into the greatest difficulties of the people of God was certainly in this case among the last to appreciate the case. I have no doubt that Peninnah, bad as she was, knew more of the secret of Hannah's grief than Eli; certainly even she did not think her a drunken woman as the high priest did. It was clear therefore that what God lets us see at the starting-point is the failure of him who up to this moment was outwardly the appointed means of communication both from God to the people, and from the people to God. At least such the priest was meant to be, and such he was officially. Here was the fact. Nor was this the only feature to be deplored in the priesthood then, as we shall find afterwards. But here it suffices to draw attention to the first patent fact the sorrow of a righteous one in Israel the absence of that which she might normally have looked for from the Lord, the lack of which He caused her to feel in order to spread it before Himself at the very moment when she was misjudged by him who above all in Israel ought to have pleaded for her, bearing up her cry as her intercessor before Jehovah. At length, convinced by her meek endurance of his reproach, Eli bids her go in peace, with the prayer that the God of Israel might grant her the petition she had asked of Him. In due time the answer came from Jehovah, who remembered her. "And it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel."

It will soon be apparent that great importance attaches to the birth of Samuel, and to the function he was called to fulfil in Israel as contributing to the great object of the Spirit of God in this book. And Hannah goes up in due time when the child was weaned not till then and told her husband, "I will not go up until the child be weaned; then I will leave him that he may appear before Jehovah, and there abide for ever." Here was a true heart. To such an one blessing from God was only the occasion, as it was the means, of returning that blessing to Him. Jehovah was the object of her soul. Who can suppose that there was any lack of affection for Samuel? Samuel to her was clothed not merely with all the affection her heart could give a child, and a child so born, but with a special sense of what the Lord had proved Himself to her in respect of him. Well she could gather (and she was right; for the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him) that such a child was not born for nothing that hers was a son given for the purposes of God in Israel. Faith sees clear, and always in the measure of its simplicity; and the only thing that secures this is Christ before us as we rest on His work. Then the power of the Spirit of God delivers us by grace, but in self-judgment. Thus do we see clearly.

"When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him into the house of Jehovah in Shiloh: and the child was young. And they slew a bullock." There was openness of heart: did anything seem too good for the Lord? "They slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli. And she said, Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto Jehovah. For this child I prayed; and Jehovah hath given me my petition which I asked of him Therefore also I have lent him to Jehovah; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to Jehovah. And he worshipped Jehovah there." His faithful goodness draws out praise.

Next comes a fresh outpouring of her heart, but indeed in that prayer a wonderful stream of confidence and exultation in Jehovah (1 Samuel 2:1-36). And this, I think, we shall find has the closest connection with the great object of the Holy Ghost in the book. "My heart rejoiceth in Jehovah, mine horn is exalted in Jehovah: my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in thy salvation. There is none holy as Jehovah: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God. Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for Jehovah is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength." No doubt this flowed out of her own experience. She knew what it was out of weakness to be made strong. What the intervention of divine power was she knew in her own soul; but the Spirit of God never stops at experience. It is as truly an error on the one side to suppose that He does not produce experience, as on the other that his own experience can be the just measure for the saint. He who does not know what experience is can scarcely be conceived to have a real knowledge of God; but he that stops short of God's object is in danger of being either clouded or self-satisfied. The fruit of faith becomes, precious as it may be in itself, where it is rested in, a snare to the believer. Yet offered up to God, how sweet in every little service and suffering for Christ's name sake, though one would refuse absolutely any resting-place before God, or any object but Christ! What is it then which keeps the soul firm, and fast, and free? Nothing but Christ, who is also the proper object of the Holy Ghost, and not that measure of reproduction of Him in the soul which we call experience. This principle you will find throughout scripture. There cannot but be a connection with the circumstances and the necessities of our souls, for God takes care that we shall be blessed; but He never stops short there, or with any short of Christ Himself.

Hence the Spirit of God is clearly launching out here into a much greater than Samuel, and into consequences far deeper than the blessing of Hannah's soul, though it need scarcely be said that for this very reason what was immediate was so much the better secured. The bright vision of a Christ and of His kingdom as superseding the failure of man had thus a vital link with what she then had passed through. Hannah was much more rightly guided than Eli. The Holy Spirit deigns, in the wondrous love of God, to incorporate a poor simple woman's experience in Israel about a child that was born to her with His own glorious counsels in Christ as to Israel and all the earth. And does it not give dignity to the believer to know that a little cup of trial we have here may be thus filled with the grace of Christ Himself? "They that were full have hired out themselves for bread; and they that were hungry ceased: so that the barren hath born seven: and she that hath many children is waxed feeble." "The barren hath borne." Hannah has her own circumstances before her; but the language even here goes out beyond her experience. Literally indeed she did not bear seven; but we see how far the Spirit of God can linger over the actual one whose birth awakens all the rest to faith. The "seven" means clearly divine completeness, which we never can have on this side of Christ. "Jehovah killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. Jehovah maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are Jehovah's, and he hath set the world upon them. He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. The adversaries of Jehovah shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: Jehovah shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed."

It is clear to the spiritual mind that the Spirit of God is going a long way beyond the child of Hannah here. Samuel was to be among priests; he was not destined for the throne. But had he been, there is a strength and height of purpose here which far transcends an ordinary sovereign. In fact nothing but Christ can meet what is here in the mind of the Spirit of God. "He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail." Hannah had learnt her lesson from God; but the lesson was yet to be taught in a still more impressive and ample manner, never to be forgotten. "The adversaries of Jehovah shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them." It is clear that this looks onward to a greater day, even to the day of Jehovah Himself. "Jehovah shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed." Only Christ can meet what is required by all the words.

Further, we have here the key to the books we are entering on: they are the introduction of the king. It is not the priest now, but the king according to the counsels of God. Just as heretofore the high priest was the great centre of the whole Levitical system, so henceforth must be the king. But we shall find why morally it was that the Holy Spirit brings in the king here. We have only a little preparation for it; but there is much more to be brought out yet. It is comparatively late in the book that we find the true king even in type; but here the Spirit of God shows us that such a personage was before the mind of God, whatever might be the guilt of the people about one after their own eyes and in their self will.

After this another scene opens to view. It is not now Eli in his feebleness; but his sons in their ungodly course and dissolute profanation of Jehovah's name. Eli feared the Lord; but he certainly knew not that calm sense of the presence of God which enables one to judge accordingly. This has been plainly be-fore us in the first chapter. What about his sons? They were sons of Belial; they knew not Jehovah. So was it now in Israel, the chosen people of God. And those who had been set for the very purpose of presenting God to the people, and the people to God, were now the sons of Belial.

I will not dwell on the melancholy picture which the Spirit of God here appends in proof of it; on the intense selfishness of these men, who made the offering of Jehovah to be despised; on their still worse iniquity before Jehovah, which led the people not only to despise but to abhor His offering. But the Holy Ghost, along with this appalling picture of the wickedness of the priesthood in Israel, now shows us Samuel ministering before Jehovah, a child girded with a linen ephod, and the parents blessed too. So Hannah, if she had not what she spoke of prophetically seven sons at any rate has three sons, and two daughters besides. Fulness, perfection, will never be short of Christ.

But "Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel" in their iniquity with but feeble remonstrance, which was in vain. "But the child Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with Jehovah, and also with men." And now comes a testimony; for God never judges without a warning. "And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said unto him, Thus saith Jehovah, Did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? and did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel?" It was so. Eli was the representative as the high priest in Israel. "Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honourest thy sons above me?" Can it be Eli? It was really so. For God does not judge by appearance. Why was his effort so feeble to maintain the honour of God in his children? Why did his remonstrance fail so decidedly? The occasion was serious, the sin flagrant, and Eli knew it well. Alas I he humoured his sons.

A solemn thing to say this of a saint, as Eli was: "Thou honourest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people. Wherefore the Lord Jehovah of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now Jehovah saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house, that there shall not be an old man in thine house. And thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation, in all the wealth which God shall give Israel: and there shall not be an old man in thine house for ever. And the man of thine, whom I shall not cut off from mine altar, shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine heart: and all the increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their age. And this shall be a sign unto thee, that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas; in one day they shall die both of them."

Now mark the words which let us into the plan of God. "And I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind;" for Eli did not belong to the branch of the priesthood with which the Lord had made an everlasting covenant. It may be remembered that, of the two surviving sons of Aaron, one of them was singled out for an everlasting priesthood; but, as usual in the ways of God, flesh seemed to prevail against spirit, and the one that had not the promise of the everlasting covenant takes advantage of the other that had it. The line of Phinehas sank into abeyance for a season. His brother came forward with various successors. Now that Eli and his sons made the offering of Jehovah to be offensive, the sentence of Jehovah comes into effect: the branch of Phinehas returns to the place that God had determined and given him hundreds of years before.

There are few things more instructive in scripture, and peculiar to it, than the way in which, on the one hand, moral evil is allowed to work out its way, and on the other a promise is given, as here, because of zeal for His name, before the moral iniquity came in which brings down God's judgment on the guilty. Then He accomplishes His promise at the same time that He judges the iniquity of those that had taken the place of a blessing which did not belong to them. This will be found to be the case often in the revealed dealings of God. If His own word cannot but be verified by His grace, at the same time Satan is not inactive till Christ reigns and judges his efforts and those of every instrument which may arise to oppose His will. Thus the two things are accomplished by the Lord in His own perfect wisdom and goodness.

But there is much more than this which we would do well to note here. "I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind." We know that God had counselled it entirely apart from all this sad and humiliating history long before: "I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever." Now this is exceedingly striking. We have seen (verse 10) the anointed brought in for the first time, who was clearly the king. Now we have the further intimation that the faithful priest is to walk before God's anointed. In the early books of the law such language as this would have been perfectly unintelligible. The reason is plain. In the law " the anointed one" always means the high priest. Now, for the first time in God's dealing with Israel, "his anointed," or " the anointed," is not the high priest, but a greater personage before whom the high priest is to walk.

In short the high priest is no longer the immediate link of connection with God, but falls into a secondary place there being another "Anointed" greater than he. Who can that be? It is the King, in full purpose the Messiah the Lord Jesus in relation to Israel. This Anointed One therefore comes more and more into prominence as not only the people but the priesthood sink into the sad but just place of moral censure and of divine judgment, not yet executed but pronounced. And thus, beloved friends it always is, and we must never be satisfied with finding simply judgments in scripture. I believe this is the reason why the study of prophecy is frequently so unprofitable. Surely no believer would say that prophecy in itself, if taken up and pursued in the Holy Ghost, ought to be or could be aught but edifying. Why is it then that the study of prophecy is so often a thing which rather dries up the springs of Christian affection, while it gives scope for mind, intellect, fancy, and imagination? The reason is simple. First it is severed from its moral roots, and scripture on the contrary never gives prophecy except as God's dealing with the ways of man morally. But the greatest of all reasons why it ceases to be profitable is this, that it is severed not only from what is moral but from the grand divine object, Christ Himself.

On the other hand, when taken as God gives it, prophecy has a blessed place, though not the highest one in scripture. Take the very case before us. The New Testament, as we know, particularly speaks of prophecy as beginning with Samuel. It is not meant that no prophecy had been given before Samuel, for clearly there was; nor yet either that the fullest outburst of the Spirit of prophecy was in Samuel's days, for it was considerably later. Still scripture does particularly signalize Samuel in this respect. Acts 3:1-26 is a proof of this, where the apostle Peter introduces his name in this very connection. He says there that all the prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken have likewise foretold of these days. Why "from Samuel "? What was the great propriety, and wherein lay, as already hinted, the moral reason why the Spirit of God connects it with this place of Samuel? The people had failed completely long before. The priests were now just as manifest a failure. What was to be done then, if the people of Israel and if the priests had alike failed? and what failure could he more complete than that which this chapter has just now shown and pronounced on? What remained to be done? There is none holy as Jehovah; He is One who never fails. But how does He act? Samuel and the prophets that follow after are just the very epoch when the announcement of His Anointed as king is first caused to dawn upon Israel. It is here that the king is spoken of, not now indistinctly, not merely under the name of Shiloh, nor under the figure of a lion, and so on. Now comes forward the purpose of the anointed King, with a faithful priest walking before Him for ever.

As we proceed in the book, the immense importance of this very truth will be shown; but it is enough to remark in the first instance its connection with Samuel, and the reason why the Spirit makes him to be a commencing epoch of prophecy. He was really a Levite, as such having to do with the service of God in the temple; still that he was called to a higher task is plain from "Samuel and the prophets that follow after him." Here was the great crisis, when the priesthood was manifestly the means of increasing the iniquity of the people, instead of being a stay in the downward progress of Israel. Thereupon God brings in something different and better, pointing to the anointed King the Anointed in another and a higher sense, before whom the priest must take a subordinate place. This is the remarkable introduction to the book.

In the next chapter (1 Samuel 3:1-21), on which we must not think of saying many words now, Samuel is put forward and shown to be marked out for a most serious place as the herald of the change in progress. He was to be the intermediate link in preparing the way. If the king was coming, there is a forerunner. Before the advent of Messiah, John the Baptist prepared the way. So in this book Samuel stands in a similar relation to the king. In these days "the word of Jehovah was precious." There was no open vision. "Eli's eyes were waxed dim, and he could not see" in more senses than one how true! "Ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of Jehovah where the ark of God was, Samuel was laid down to sleep. And Jehovah called Samuel." He called him again and again, so that Eli instructs the youth whose voice it was, perceiving that it was Jehovah. And then comes the appalling sentence which that child was caused to hear, and which as surely was executed at no distant date.

The chapter next following (1 Samuel 4:1-22) lets us see how God brought forward His servant as the vessel of His mind. "And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to do battle, and pitched beside Eben-ezer: and the Philistines pitched in Aphek." Thus was the battle arranged when the people, finding that they were smitten before the Philistines, think of the ark of Jehovah's covenant and throne, not as the emblem of His presence, but as a charm to rescue them in the face of their enemies. There was thus a superstitious hope in the ark of Jehovah, but no faith in Israel It was no better than an amulet; and they were no better than heathens in their employment of it. Where was the reverence for God that became His people? Where was the sense of the blessedness of His presence? They thought of themselves; they dreaded the Philistines. The ark would surely prove a defence for Israel. This is what they had now sunk down so low as to make their one and only thought. And, my brethren, have we not to beware of the same thing? The less we suspect ourselves, the greater our danger. There are few things more natural to the heart when in danger than making use of the Lord, not believingly, but selfishly. This in the worst form the children of Israel were now blinded by the enemy to do.

On the other hand, faith, where real, ever thinks of the glory of God morally, whatever may be its own appropriation of blessing in the hour of need. But it would not dream of sacrificing the honour of God. Here Israel, in the hope of shielding themselves, exposed to the enemy the most intimate and holy and glorious sign of the presence of God in the sanctuary. They never contemplated that the God of Israel might give over His ark to the Philistines, judging their selfish unbelief, and would there singlehanded undertake for His own name and praise. What the godly soul does, just because he has faith, is to spread the difficulty before God, and, in the certainty that He will hear and appear on his behalf, waits that he may learn the needed lesson of God's end in the trial, as well as to be shown His way how each danger and difficulty is to be met, and every foe overcome. This did not enter into the minds of the elders of Israel. They thought of the ark simply according to their own wishes and a thoroughly carnal judgment, Their sole anxiety was to deliver themselves from the Philistine, the then imminent danger. It does not seem to have entered their thought to consult His will; still less was there the smallest trace of humiliation. They did not even ask God why He had allowed the Philistines to threaten or attack them. Their first thought was self; their last resource, when pressed at this time, was the ark of the covenant of Jehovah but this only valued as a means of security against the Philistines. What plainer proof of their utter degeneracy from God!

"So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of Jehovah of hosts, which dwelleth between the cherubims: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God." They received it with insensate shouts of triumph. "And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of Jehovah was come into the camp. And the Philistines were afraid." It was precisely the same superstitious fear, the opposite of faith, that produced panic in the Philistines, and short-lived confidence in the Israelites. In both it was total ignorance and unbelief. (CompareRomans 1:18; Romans 1:18)

Accordingly God acts in a way altogether unexpected by either. The reasoning of the Israelites assumed that God would never permit any harm to happen to that ark before which Jordan had fled away, least of all for uncircumcised hands to capture it. Why not then get behind the ark, and thus be safe? God will surely interfere for those who have His ark. How little they knew His mind! for what they counted an impossibility was precisely what He intended. The throne of His presence in Israel was to go into captivity. Why keep up the sign of His glory in the midst of those who could stake it against the Philistines? What were Hophni and Phinehas, who accompanied it, but the gravest misrepresenters of the true God in Israel? And what the state of the people? Like priest, like people. The time was fast approaching when God must put humiliation on Israel. How could He chasten them more effectually than by depriving them of that sign of His presence, in which they had trusted, without a thought of His will or of His glory? Instead of walking in faith, which purifies the heart and works by love; instead of the conscience justifying God, it was a purely selfish superstition; the more guilty because found in the people expressly separated to the true God from such vanities. It was inevitable therefore that their open sin should bring as open a rebuke from Jehovah.

"And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain." Thus the word of Jehovah was accomplished; and poor Eli sits on the wayside watching, and his heart trembled for the ark of God. One cannot estimate very highly the spiritual apprehension of the high priest; yet was it enough for him to know that God would be no party to His own dishonour, and least of all at the hands of His own people. The Philistines might be wrong in fearing that the mere bringing down the ark into the field would settle the fight; but the Israelites were a hundredfold more guilty who flattered themselves that the ark so brought must prove their deliverance. "And when Eli heard the noise of the crying," and was hastily told, not only of the fleeing of the people and of the death of his sons, but of the ark, "it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years."

The heart of Eli, after all, beat rightly towards God. There was truth in the inward parts, though during his life it had been sadly overlaid by not a little that was of nature. But his death lays bare the real feeling of his soul Godward. And so too his daughter-in-law, when she heard that the ark of God was taken, and that her father and husband were dead, came prematurely into travail. "And about the time of her death the women that stood by her said unto her, Fear not; for thou hast borne a son. But she answered not, neither did she regard it. And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel: because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, The glory is departed from Israel: for the ark of God is taken." How precious to find, even in that dark and feeble day, that grace did not cease to produce a witness for God, though sorrow might fittingly accompany it!

All this prepares the way for the King. It is now, one may observe, not only the sentence executed on the priesthood after proof of their guilt, but the compromise of that central seat of Jehovah which the priesthood surrounded; for what could priesthood do without the ark? What was the high priest to minister before the sign of God's presence, if it had somehow vanished from Israel?

But next we have another great truth dawning through the clouds. It will show how little reason there is to fear for the honour of God: He will not fail to take care of it, and so much the more where He only remains. Supposing it be the fact that the faults of His people have let slip His honour in any way, it is no longer a question of their fidelity. What then? Are we to doubt the resources of God? We may count with assurance on His faithfulness, assured that He will appear when there is no one else to appear for Him. This He did now with the enemy. He had permitted that the Philistines then should overcome the Israelites, whose state and ways were wholly evil.

And now another side of the question begins to open. The Philistines having taken the ark were no longer troubled with fears, but self-confident and boastful. (1 Samuel 5:1-12)

"And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Eben-ezer unto Ashdod. When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of Jehovah." But they would try another time. It might have been an accident. "And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of Jehovah." Now the blow was far more complete. "And the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him." God is always sufficient for His own honour. "Therefore neither the priests of Dagon," as we are told, "nor any that come into Dagon's house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day." Thus it became a standing mark of the victory of the God of Israel over Dagon.

Nor was this all that was wrought. "But the hand of Jehovah was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof. And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god." And so they carry about the ark from one place to another. And then the hand of Jehovah is stretched out in every place among the enemies of Jehovah, and we are told, "he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts. Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron And it came to pass, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of the God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people." What could be a more illustrious testimony to the living power as well as to the truth of the God of Israel than this very fact? Granted that Israel ought to be in the dust; granted that they were incapable of striking a blow; granted that they were smitten most heavily when they most dishonoured the ark of Jehovah. But God watched over His own ark, which Israel's sin had so wantonly betrayed and lost; and the fact was that so marked a destruction went forth that all the lords of the Philistines could not but feel their utter weakness in the presence of the God of Israel. "And the cry of the city," we are told, "went up to heaven."

Thus the captured ark of Jehovah was there long enough to bring judgment upon the various lands and cities of the enemy. (1 Samuel 6:1-21) "And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the ark of Jehovah? tell us wherewith we shall send it to his place;" and so they devised according to their own thoughts. It is a very notable and instructive fact, that God meets men in their state, though He refuses to meet His own people, save according to His word. How good, yet how holy, is He! This I consider an important truth in having to do with the men of the world. Had the Israelites devised for the ark of Jehovah a plan after their own thoughts which slighted the word of God, He would have surely judged it instead of healing; but when these poor heathen, who had not the lively oracles, merely did according to that which they had, He showed his pitiful mercy. Jehovah is not indifferent to the needy and distressed among men; He despises not any. Doubtless those that have the, word of God among them, as men have all around us here, stand in a different position. Still the principle is true, as a general one, that where souls are outside the positive knowledge of the truth of God, the tender mercy of God meets them in conscience with astonishing compassion. But conscience will not do where there is the knowledge of the word of God, however important it may be in its own sphere where there is nothing else.

These Philistines then propose a new cart and "kine, on which there hath come no yoke," as a test of the Lord. "Take the ark of Jehovah," say their advisers, "and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return Him for a trespass-offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go. And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Beth-shemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us." And the Lord deigned to meet them on their own test. Surely this was very gracious; and shows what a God we have to do with, not only for ourselves, but even for those that know Him less. "And the men did so: and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home:" that is, that the cry of the calves and the natural instincts of the dam might lead it to go forth towards its young. Instead of that, the kine leave their young, go in a totally opposite direction, and take a course that they had never taken before, contrary to all the instincts of their nature in the brute creation. "And they laid the ark of Jehovah upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods. And the kine took the straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh."

Thus God met the thought of the heart where there was but the working of conscience, without the light of revealed truth, not the knowledge of God, but the instinctive feeling of His hand, in order that there might be a voice in their conscience. If they hardened themselves against it, or forgot it, so much the worse would it be for them. "And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they crave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt-offering unto Jehovah. And the Levites took down the ark of Jehovah, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone: and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day unto Jehovah And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day."

But this is not all. It appears further that "he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of Jehovah." Why this? There was no smiting the Philistines because they had looked in. They had meddled with the ark, and they had given their offerings according to their own mind, and not according to His word; but because the men of Beth-shemesh looked, "he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because Jehovah had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter." These are the ways of God with His own people. Oh, let us never forget it, beloved brethren! There was no such slaughter even for the Philistines. "Jehovah shall judge his people," and the fact that He judges is a proof, not that they are not His people, nor that He does not love them, but that He resents irreverence. Let us not read it unimproved. The grace of God always produces one of two effects a spirit of worship where the heart bows, or a habit of irreverence where grace is trifled with. The familiarity of His love either makes us nothing before Him, and Himself everything, or it emboldens the natural heart to a kind of levity and self-confidence, which I think of all things to be among the greatest hindrances to the truth of God, and this sometimes as far as it can work in those that know Him. We have to be jealous of ourselves as to this. Even real Christians may not be unconscious of it; but you may depend upon it that, instead of our being those that least of all need to watch against it, it is the very knowledge of His grace, the very familiarity with His truth, unless there be the real and sustained enjoyment of His presence, that will always expose us to this; for there can be no real sense of His presence unless there be along with it self-judgment and watchfulness. Failure in this is no proof at all that a soul wants the knowledge of His grace and truth, but it betrays our low state. Rather it is the effect of grace known when our nature has been feebly judged. On the other hand, never can we be kept in constant judgment of self, but in communion with Him and His grace.

The men of Beth-shemesh furnish no doubt a very extreme case. There was a certain sort of joy of heart when they saw the returning ark of God. Was not this right? It was assuredly not wrong; but then there ought to have been another and a humbling feeling when they saw it come from the Philistines. If God's part was full of mercy, what had theirs been toward Him and even it? And ought there not to have been lowly prostration before the God of Israel? This would have cut off all thought of prying into it. Was the ark desecrated because Israel had been faithless? Justly did that one look into the ark of God cost Israel more than all the swords of the Philistines. "And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before this holy Jehovah God? and to whom shall he go up from us?" But if this panic was but natural, it was not the cry of faith. They ought to have judged themselves instead of thus giving way to a feeling of alarm before the solemn judgment of God. Nor is it thus that evil is really corrected. Where there has been levity and disrespect to God, not a reactionary distance can be the true remedy (if possible worse than the disease), but a better knowledge of the grace and truth of God. This, if received by faith, will correct it, not by courting a spirit of bondage, but by employing the certainty of grace to apply the truth to ourselves. Distance and uncertainty are man's way; but God brings home His word in the Spirit to judge nature so much the more because of the fulness of His grace and the clearness of the truth. Thus judging self goes along with grace.

The next chapter (1 Samuel 7:1-17) tells us of the men of Kirjath-jearim who fetch up the ark. Then Samuel reappears. "And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto Jehovah with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you." There is the secret. They were in a condition that made them light, because along with a certain natural joy at the return of the Lord, there was that which always interferes with His own honour. So says he, "Prepare ye hearts unto Jehovah, and serve him only." And Samuel gathers them together and says, "And I will pray for you unto Jehovah. And they gathered together to Mizpeh, and drew water, and poured it out before Jehovah." This is very instructive. It is not, I suppose, that one can find a prescription of God for this solemn act in all the five books of Moses if any of us were asked why it was that the people of God gathered together and poured out water before Jehovah, one might hesitate to say. Are we, therefore, to judge that the act was wrong? Not so. In a broken state of things, whilst holding fast the grand central truths and duties attaching to our relationships, the mere return to that which was originally formed is by no means the truest way of meeting the difficulties which sin brings in.

On the other hand, we are never free (need one say so?) to take up human inventions; and certainly the act in question was not such an invention. But I repeat that the remedy for a ruined state of things in the church of God, just as here in Israel, does not consist in going back to each form which existed at the beginning. One looks first and foremost for brokenness of spirit for the sense of where we have all got to in the dishonour done to God; then we begin to see more clearly our place of obedience in all that remains. But without the judgment of self and of the church's state in the presence of God nothing can be right; whereas, if this be wrought in us, His grace will surely show us from His word what suits such a state of confusion and weakness. Yet it affords a door to dark and self-willed souls, who adhere to words and appearances, actually flattering themselves as if they alone are right, and censuring most these who are most truly obedient.

Supposing for instance, at the present time, the church of God awakened to feel its long-continued departure from God, what would be the first and natural resource? Why to set up twelve apostles, and to yearn after tongues and miracles, if not to imitate the circumstances of the Pentecostal Church in the community afterwards. But what would be the spiritual judgment suited to the present state of the church? Setting up apostles? No such presumptuous dream, but to sit down ourselves in dust and ashes before God, taking on us the shame and sorrow of the church reduced to ruin by the sin of those whom God had so deeply favoured.

Such a taking the sense of ruin upon his soul before him seems to have been expressed in what Samuel did. The pouring out of water before Jehovah was an act, in my judgment, most suitable and appropriate. It was not an effort to patch up appearances, but rather the confession of utter weakness before God. Such at any rate we all know is the force of the figure applied in the very next Book of Samuel: "As water spilt on the ground." It was appropriating the truth of their own condition before God. But was there any lack of confidence in His grace? The very contrary. "And they gathered together to Mizpeh, and drew water, and poured it out before Jehovah, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against Jehovah. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpeh." At once Satan bestirs himself and rouses the Philistines; he if not they could not bear to hear of any souls, least of all of the people, gathering thus before Jehovah in confession of their sins. It is possible that the Philistines might think Israel's object in gathering was political a mere mustering for battle, and an effort for independence. But Satan knew better its import, and could not rest; and of this I am sure, that had they, his Philistine instruments, known the meaning of such an act as that which broke Israel down before God, this would have been something far more terrible for the enemy of Israel than any gathering for martial purposes. There is nothing so alarming to Satan as the people of God humbling themselves in real prayer and confession, where there is also a believing use of His word. Whatever the difficulty or the distress, there never can be a reason for distrusting God. It is the point of honour that we owe the Lord that, whatever we have to own about ourselves, we should never doubt Him; whatever failure we may confess, at any rate let our first confession and our constant confidence be Jesus our Lord, "God over all, blessed for ever."

"And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpeh, 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 Jehovah our God for us." This, to my mind, is beautiful. They had begun neither with sin-offering nor with burnt-offering. They had already taken the place of penitence before God as to their sin; they had solemnly owned their ruin in the water poured out; and Samuel prayed as they confessed. They were entitled to look to the Lord with assurance that He would appear on their behalf. There is the sign of acceptance now, as we read that "Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt-offering wholly unto Jehovah: and Samuel cried unto Jehovah for Israel; and Jehovah heard him. And as Samuel was offering up the burnt-offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel." Ah, how little the foe knew what was preparing for them! Did they dare to interrupt Israel when that sweet savour was rising up to God for them? It was no longer a question between Israel and the Philistines, but between Jehovah and the Philistines. "And Jehovah thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten before Israel." And the men of Israel had the easy task of pursuing. "The children of Israel went out of Mizpeh, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them, until they came under Beth-car. Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath Jehovah helped us. So the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel: and the hand of Jehovah was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron even unto Gath." And it is repeated, "Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life."

But the next chapter (1 Samuel 8:1-22) brings out the failure, not of Eli's sons, but of Samuel's. The intermediate person, however blessed, fails to meet the depth of need. The seer is not Christ; the herald is not His master. The sons of Samuel then perverted judgment, and took bribes; and the children of Israel say, "Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations." Thus, you see, two currents are flowing on. But let us mark that God divulges His plan before man as the enemy seems to bring it in. So in the Book of Job, it is not Satan that begins the action, but God. It is He that has Himself a purpose of good for Job. Satan no doubt tries to spite Him, as he has plan after plan of mischief; but God is before Satan in good a very comforting thought for our souls. As God is before Satan, He will certainly be after him. The good that God has then is the first thought, and the good that He at the beginning has at heart will be accomplished, even though it may be late, if not last. Thus good is before evil, and abides when the evil is gone. We may see similarly here. Who was it that raised the hope of a king? Who was it that saw fit, if not to pronounce death on the priests, as on the people before, at any rate to set them aside from the place they once had to make room for a better thing, the true secret of Israel's blessing, as will be shown another day? It was God. But here may be found the under-current; not a blow from the Philistines, but an effort to undermine Israel by Satan's craft.

Thus the thought of a king was not from man, but from God; yet the desire for one like the nations was rebellion against God on man's part. The purposed king would be a rich blessing from God, and it was His purpose to give them a king before their wicked heart desired it to get rid of Himself. It was an evil in man to be judged; it was grace in God to purpose as He surely will also accomplish it. Both are true; but man's mind often sets one against the other, instead of believing both. Here we have man's heart. They desire a king. Samuel feels it deeply, not because it was against himself so much as it was against God, and so he tells them the thing displeased him. "And Samuel prayed." Oh that we might in this take pattern by so true a servant of the Lord! that when things displease us, we might pray, and not fret or fume or scold! It is not that Samuel did not feel Israel's state; but he prayed to Jehovah. "And Jehovah said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee " (what a God of patience so to speak and act!), "but they have rejected me." Yet was he to hearken. How God moves in love above all man's evil, and accomplishes His own blessed plans! "They have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly."

There was no doubt about the evil involved. Still, if their lie would only bring out the faithfulness of God, what can do but love? "And Samuel told all the words of Jehovah unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king" (they are warned): "He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectioneries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards." This is man's king, and such an one can scarcely be any more. It is impossible in the nature of things that it could be materially different. We shall find on another occasion the perfect contrast of God's king in every particular. But now it is simply a question of their responsibilities, though Samuel warns them fully.

It was in vain. "Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations." Their heart was getting farther and farther away from God. Every word they uttered, though they little suspected it, condemned themselves the more. It was self-will active against God, and more, in deliberate renunciation of their own highest privilege. "And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of Jehovah. And Jehovah said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, Go ye every man unto his city."