I & II Samuel Intro

[00:00:00] Now, this evening we come to the books of Samuel. [00:00:08] And the first problem that we have straight away to face is simply that in the Hebrew one, the first and the second book of Samuel are one book. They are not looked upon as two books at all. It was only later, I think quite late in this age, that the division was made and Samuel was divided into two books. But in actual fact, as I think all of you will have noticed, if you look at the last chapter of the first book of Samuel on the first of the second, you will notice that there is no distinctive break at all in the narrative. These two books are one work. [00:01:10] Moreover, it's not only that, but in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, you will find that not only are one and two Samuel linked together, but one and two kings, and they are all looked upon in the Septuagint version as one book in four sections. So it is called the four books of the Kingdom. If any of you have Knox's version, you all know straight away that it is called the four books of the kingdom. Or if any of you, when you're upstairs in the library sometime take down the Septuagint version, you will see straight away that these are the four books of the kingdom in your authorized version. Some of you, if you've got an authorized version, it's been left out in the levies. But in the authorized version, you will see a little subtitle to the title which says, or the first book of kings, one Samuel, or the first book of kings, two Samuel, or the second book of kings. And then similarly, one kings, or the third book of kings. This straight away gives us an understanding of these books that we've now come to. [00:02:29] The two books of Samuel and the two books of kings are, in actual fact, a complete history of the kingdom. [00:02:40] We have now come to a great point in jewish history, and indeed, we've come to a very great point in the history of God's dealings with his own people, with his own children. For the first time, as we shall see in a moment, we are going to see a kingdom introduced. [00:03:05] And one and two Samuel, and one and two kings are the complete history of that kingdom from its very inception in Samuel's day, right through to the exile. [00:03:25] The last chapters of two kings bring us right up to the carrying away into exile. [00:03:35] That was the end of the kingdom. After the exile, there was no kingdom. [00:03:40] The kingdom ended when Judah was finally taken into exile. So we really have got a complete history. And if we look at these four books as a complete history of the kingdom, then I think we shall have a real understanding of really what exactly the aim of the law is in giving them. There's going to come a point a bit later when we come to one or two chronicles, when we're going to have to ask ourselves a very sensible question as to why on earth we should find another record going over exactly the same ground, and indeed including much of the same material, but that we shall wait till we come to it. These four are quite distinct to the first and second books of chronicles. These four are a complete history, and they are written from a different standpoint to the two books of chronicles. That is the first thing that we want to say this evening. We have here a complete history of the kingdom. We have dealt with the history of the people settling in the land and inheriting it, what they really processed of the land. We have dealt with judges and the three appendices, including Ruth, dealing with the period of how what they left unprocessed became the ground for the enemy, to bring the people into captivity and to worry the people all the time. [00:05:26] Now we have come to the introduction of the kingdom. [00:05:35] We have really come to a completely new phase in God's dealings with his people. [00:05:43] Now, we all know that the Bible is taken up completely with a progressive revelation which involves different phases. [00:05:59] And we have seen one great phase begin with Adam and end with Noah. And we saw another phase which opened with Noah and ended with Abraham. Abraham was perhaps the greatest figure that we have come yet, as it were, to study at that point in scripture. God's whole method with Abraham was entirely different with the others. He took Abraham in an entirely new way. You remember, he appeared to Abraham. He sovereignly extricated Abraham from a very, very cultured, heathen background and then took him out from it and did in him a very deep work which was to make him a father of a nation. [00:06:57] Then we saw a new phase begin with Moses. [00:07:03] And then we see now a new phase begin. Here. [00:07:09] We are at the beginning of the first book of samueL. We are at the beginning of an entirely new phase in the history of the people of God. And we find that God has taken a great step forward. [00:07:28] When the lord took HoLD of AbrahAM, he took a great step forward, didn't he? The history of humanity up to Abraham was general. The history from AbrahAm has been particular. [00:07:42] We can even SAy that ToDaY. [00:07:45] History, as far as God is concerned, is particular. It's bound up with a people. Before abraham, it was just humanity. When he took AbraHAM, he was out for a people. God took HoLD of AbrAhAM with a people in view. And all God's dealings with Abraham were of necessity, because out from Abraham was going to be produced a people. [00:08:12] So we find that AbrAhAM touches off the first great phase of the people of God. Up to then, history was general history. It was just to do with the nations. It was to do with the progress of the nations, the division of the nations, the allotment of the nations and so on. But when God took hold of Abraham, he took hold of one single man out of a certain family in a certain people, in a certain nation. And he took him right out of it all into the desert, made him walk up and down in a land which he never owned, except for one little burial plot where he buried his Own wife. And later he himself was buried. That was all he ever owned in the land that God was to give him. [00:09:07] So that phase from AbrAhAM to joseph was a very necessary prenatal history of the people of God. It was a long, drawn out, wearing, laborious history of in wrought principle. [00:09:28] God was out in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to so work out principle in those three lives that forever after those three would be the embodiment of all that God desired in a people. [00:09:45] And that is why God's dealings with Abraham were different to his dealings with Isaac, and his dealings with Jacob were different to Abraham and Isaac. Each one of those three reveals to us something, some different aspect of what the Lord is out for and after in a people. [00:10:03] That was the phase of prenatal history. Corporately, God was dealing with men, with a people in view. He took hold of one man. Then he took hold of a family that came out of that one man. And he dealt with Them with a people in view. The people never came in their lifetime. Abraham never saw the people. And yet God was dealing with him in a long but sure and certain way to in the end, produce a people. When Joseph goes into Egypt, here, another, as it were, last developments of that phase are in the making. [00:10:52] The Lord takes Joseph into Egypt to prepare the way for Jacob and his brothers to come into Egypt. [00:11:01] Then that phase ends in silence. [00:11:07] A great period of history is passed over almost in silence. We don't know what's happened. The prenatal history of the people of God is Over. [00:11:21] And the next great phase begins with moses and with moses. [00:11:29] God Has a people. [00:11:33] Moses doesn't have to look around for a people. [00:11:36] Moses is already part of a nation and the nation is in bondage. [00:11:44] The nation's got to be redeemed. The nation's got to be delivered. A natioN's got to be brought up. And so the NExt great phase begins in the history of the people of God, and that is the birth of a nation. And the birth of a nation was, as you, I think all know, begins with the Passover and the Red Sea. That is the birth of a nation. [00:12:11] God in that day sovereignly put a sea Between EGypT and his PeoPlE. [00:12:20] He delivered Them in a MiRACuLouS WAy. And in one single day, a nation was born. When the people landed on the other side of the red sea, they were an emancipated nAtion. [00:12:36] In a DaY or two, they had left BoNdage behind. They'd left the House of BonDAge behind, and they had become a nation. And then the great phase that is covered by Moses and Joshua and the Book of judges, and we could include many under the word Moses, couldn't we? EXodus, LeviTicus, numbers, DeuTEROnOmy, and so on. All that phase is a phase in which the nation is being BROught into an understanding of its vocation as the dwelling place of God, as God's habitation and much else. That's a phase, as you know, of, much ReveLATIoN in every way, tremendous amount of ReVELATIoN. HERe was a nation. [00:13:33] The nation comes out of Egypt in a very dispersed, scattered, rebellious mood. The nation passes over under Joshua as one man into the land. SomEThInG has happened again. God's methods are long, they are laborious, but they are CErtain a whole generation dies in the wilderness. BUt God takes up a new generation from out of a dying generation. And that new generation are the generation that go over into the land to possess it. [00:14:11] Then you know that the book of judges start, as always, to prepare us for a new phase. It begins to show us all the weaknesses of the old phase and then begins to point us to the need of something which HithErto has not yet appeared on the scene. [00:14:33] Now we've come to it. [00:14:36] One, two. Samuels is the beginning of a new phase that is very, very, very important that we should understand. [00:14:49] Samuel introduces a completely new phase or a new economy. [00:15:00] He introduces a new phase of God's deepness. [00:15:08] What is this new phase? [00:15:12] The nation is going to be a kingdom. [00:15:17] So God unfolds to us something more in his thought. [00:15:24] The people are not just to be so many people. They are to be welded and used together into a kingdom. [00:15:37] And one and two, SAMuel are, as I've already said, the beginning of that phase. Two new things come in with SAmuEl which were never there before. The first is the prophetic order, and the second is the monarchy. Let me put it this Way. MaNY of you will say straight away, oh, but there were prophets before SAmuEl. But SAMUEL is called in scripture the first of the prophets. [00:16:04] The others that went before him, whilst they certainly did have a prophetic ministry, some of them, they were not prophets in the sense that those that succeeded Samuel were. Samuel was the first of the lines of prophets. He was the last of the judges and the first of the prophets. [00:16:32] You see, up till then, prophecy had been a very spontaneous, and I was going to say small ministry. [00:16:44] It had not got the place that it was now going to take. [00:16:51] If we look at scripture from the book of Samuel onwards, we shall find that the prophet was all powerful. [00:17:04] The prophet was so powerful that in many ways, in the people's minds, he ranked above the king. [00:17:13] This is an altogether new movement of God. And Samuel was the first of that line of prophets who introduced the kings, who anointed the kings, who, as it were, appointed the kings. The prophets were kingmakers and king breakers. [00:17:33] They now became in the hands of God an instrument for correcting the king the kingdom, preserving the kingdom, warning the kingdom, caring for it. This was something altogether new. We've had prophecy before now, and as I've already said in a very spontaneous way, that we've never had a prophetic ministry of a type and an order which, as it were, is almost superior to the king himself. Samuel was the beginning of this order in the way that, first of all, he introduces Saul into the seal, the way that he instructs Saul, the way that he anoints Saul, the way that he introduces Saul to the people, and then later on, the way that he contacts David, the way that he anoints David, the way that he instructs David. Here for the first time, we've got a new order altogether that we call the prophetic order. And that is why there are two little terms in the Book of acts. One in chapter 13 and one in chapter three. One says, until Samuel, and the other says, from Samuel. Thus we learn that Samuel is, as it were, a great turning point in the history of God's people. [00:19:04] Thus we find two entirely new things come now into being which were never there before. The first of a long line of prophets that began with Samuel and ended with John the Baptist, and then also a long line of kings which began with David and ended in the Messiah. Samuel now was the one to introduce these two tremendous things into God's economy, kingship and the prophetic order. [00:19:44] And I think also we have got to learn from the rather remarkable fact that from the earliest days, these two books were called the Book of Samuel. [00:19:57] And now, more recently, the books of Samuel. [00:20:01] I don't know whether any of you have got encrypting minds like mine. [00:20:06] Have you never asked yourself why they're called the Book of Samuel? [00:20:10] I've often asked myself when I was a little younger in the Lord. Why on earth they were called the Book of Samuel. I was quite sure it's been a terrible mistake somewhere. I would have called them the book of David. [00:20:23] Why do you call them the book of Samuel? There are only, at the very most 15 chapters to do with Samuel. [00:20:34] At the very most. [00:20:36] And even that is not altogether to do with Samuel. Why then have these from the earliest days. Been called the Book of Samuel? Or recently the books of Samuel? [00:20:49] That is why it is so instructive. [00:20:54] God tells us that he always begins a new phase with a man. [00:21:05] And we have always to understand it in the economy or the economies of God. That he always begins with a man. [00:21:16] The first started with Adam, of course. [00:21:20] And then every new phase has been touched off by a man. Now in, shall we say, the people of God. There are three outstanding men. [00:21:35] They are Abraham, Moses and Samuel. [00:21:41] Today the Jews can tell you. If you went to a modern orthodox Jew. He could tell you that the three greatest men in his history. Are Abraham, Moses and Samuel. He won't tell you anything else. He will say three greatest men are Abraham, Moses and Samuel. [00:22:04] Because these three men are men that introduce new phases in God's dealings with his people. That is why we don't find David, of all people, mentioned in the title. No, not in any shape or form or suggestion. Is David mentioned here. [00:22:29] If any name is given. And that from the earliest days it is the name of SAmuel. And that is why SAmuEl is revered amongst the jews. [00:22:43] Then again, we have to recognize that all these three men are pioneers. [00:22:50] They are pioneers in a unique way. A way in which a man, for instance, even like Joshua, was not. These men are absolutely pioneers. God did with each one a remarkable thing. Each of these three men is a new beginning. And each begins in the sovereignty of God. We know nothing of Joshua's beginnings. But each of the three men. [00:23:18] That touch off a new phase in God's dealings with men. Begin with God's sovereignty and grace. Abraham. Why did God choose Abraham? Yet God appeared unto Abraham. Abraham didn't do a thing. Abraham. Where? It is not recorded that Abraham sought the Lord. It is not recorded that AbrAham called upon the Lord. It is not recorded that Abraham followed after the Lord. It does say the Lord appeared. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham. He laid hold of Abraham. MOSES was exactly the same God from the very beginning, in a sovereign way, preserved moses. [00:24:01] And in the same way from before his birth, SAmuel had all the marks of the sovereignty of God. Here we learn once more one of the great principles of God in any new phase, whether it be in our days or whether it be right back in old TEStaMent Days. And that is that whenever God is going to do a new thing, it always begins with his sovereignty. Always. It always begins in the sovereignty of God. This is one of the most remarkable things you will find in scripture. But it is all the way through that when it's touching off a completely new phase in God's economy, it always begins with his own initiatioN, his own sovereignty. [00:24:55] We have already mentioned that SAmuEl is the last, the judges and the first of the prophets. SAmuEl combines in himself all the old testament offices. He is a priest, he is a prophet and he is a judge. He combines priesthood, prophecy and rulership in himself or kingship. These three officers he combines in one person. [00:25:20] ANOTher thing about SAmuEL, he is a levite and he is an azerite. [00:25:26] All these different things are Woven together in one man. [00:25:32] He combines everything. [00:25:35] And he becomes the great turning point in jewish history when the nation, as it were, moved from one phase of more democratic government right over into a monarchy. [00:25:55] There Samuel stands at the heart of it all as God's instRument. And another interesting thing is that Samuel had influenced, and I trust I'm not boring you, but I want to underline the fact, because I think Samuel is forgotten by Christians today. He's a name that's not mentioned such a lot, whereas in actual fact, if you look through scripture, you'll find it gives Samuel tremendous place. [00:26:25] Samuel influenced the nation for generations to come, as I suppose no other man has influenced them, except, of course, Abraham and Moses. His influence outlived his death by generations. [00:26:44] For instance, samuel was the man who instituted the school to the prophets. Now let us get this ABSolutelY clear. The schools of the prophets were not Bible colleges as so many people seem to think. They always seem to refer to these schools of the prophets as if they were Bible colleges. These schools of the prophets were more akin to our universities. [00:27:06] They were centered where the young men of the land were taught to read and to write, and then they were taught the law of God. [00:27:19] And AS it were out from that everything developed. [00:27:24] These were the schools of the prophets which Samuel instituted, which were to become one of the greatest institutions of Israel. [00:27:33] Do you know this is all an aside, but do you know that we, probably, speaking from a human standpoint, would never had the scriptures that we had if it hadn't been to the schools of the prophets? The schools of the prophets were those who took these scriptures and carefully scribed them and copied them and made many different manuscripts of the one and stored them in the different centers of the land. And the centers of the prophets became, as it were, centers of education and culture. So that Samuel, if you read a Jewish history, you will find that Samuel is looked upon as one of the greatest statesmen of Jewish history, because he paved the way for the kingdom, not only spiritually, but culturally and educationally. He paved the way for the kingdom. [00:28:40] He was the one who was to lay a foundation which still existed in the days of our lord. [00:28:48] He was the one who was to put the jew on an entirely new footing with the nations roundabout educationally, so that to this day, the jew is known as a bookworm. [00:29:03] We very rarely find that Jews will excel in sport or in other things like that. They excel in literature and art in that realm. Samuel was the one that converted the nation into a nation of bookworms, so that in the Lord's day, to uncover one's body was considered to be sinful, and still is amongst orthodox Jews. But to study any form of writing is considered to be almost sacred. [00:29:40] This all began in a simple way with Samuel and his institution of the school of the Prophets. So let's forget the business about Bible colleges and so on for a while, and remember that they were more centers of learning, where the young of the nation were brought in and were taught to read and taught to write, and then taught to understand something of the history and the heritage of their people. We have to confess that schools of the prophets didn't do much else educationally and culturally. They did a lot. But whenever God wanted someone to do something, he never looked for them in the schools of the prophets. He always took them, as it were, from Noah. You think of a man like Elijah. He never gave them schools to the prophets, although much of his life later on was spent in helping the prophets and so on. Yet he himself was a very rough, shepherd like character that was brought from out of Gilead. So we could go on mentioning other character. And the Lord bypassed the school for the prophets in that way, as I'm afraid often he does today. In that way, he still always maintains his sovereignty in the way in which he raises up men and women to be those that are instruments in his hand. So we want to at least recognize together that Samuel was a most remarkable man. We have seen already in Ruth that the Lord. We have seen the Lord working sovereignly to provide a king right in the midst of all that darkness and carnage and evil, the days of the book of judges. The Lord is working in the midst of it all to provide a king. He doesn't work apart from it. He works with him. Is this not always like the Lord? He always takes failure where we fail. That is the point. He starts to recover. So he takes a moabite. He takes people who failed because they've got off God's ground and gone into backsliding and gone into a foreign country, all those things which were just evidence of failure and compromise and breakdown. God takes that, and from that point he provides a king. [00:32:00] Now the book of Ruth ends where the king. Now we have to go back a little. [00:32:09] We have already had the veil drawn aside and we've seen that a king has been provided. Now we find the instrument of God is raising up to introduce this kingship here. Then we begin with the book of Samuel. We're not going to do a lot. You can see this reading. We're only going to go up more or less to the first 16 chapters. And then next week I think we shall go back again over the last from about chapter ten, because they overlap and it's very difficult to define exactly the different sections of this book. [00:32:53] Now, a word on the authorship and the date of this book of families. [00:33:02] The author is not clearly indicated at all. [00:33:07] It is obviously a compilation. It has been compiled from various documents, and that is quite clear if we look together at the book. If you turn with me to one Samuel ten, verse 25. [00:33:30] So we do understand that here we've got reference to a certain document written by Samuel himself. Now, if you will turn with me to one. Chronicles 29, verse 29. [00:33:53] So evidently we have three more documents, or possibly the one concerning Samuel is the same that we have already seen mentioned. [00:34:03] We have a history of Samuel, a history written by Nathan and a history written by Gab. Then we will also find, if we look at two Samuel, two Samuel, chapter one, verse 18. [00:34:24] So we have there another document. So it is quite obvious that the Book of Samuel, one and two Samuel is a compilation made from various documents. [00:34:43] There are one or two theories that have been put forward, but I think that it would be quite true and accurate to say that the Book of Samuel is probably very largely the work of Samuel, Nathan and Gad. [00:35:04] Probably the first 24 chapters, at any rate, are by the hand of Samuel and the west by Nathan and Gad. [00:35:13] I think you will probably all know that Nathan and Gad were intimately associated with David. You remember it was Nathan the prophet who went in and rebuked David for his sin over Uriah the Hittite. And also you will remember that it was Gad the prophet, who interpreted to David the plague because he numbered the people. You remember. So these prophets were intimately associated with David in the kingdom. [00:35:45] So it would seem that this would explain how the Book of Samuel could be written, obviously from an eyewitness account, and yet at the same time have the marks of being written a good deal later than the events recorded. That is why these books particularly have become the center of so much controversy in this question of liberalism in the word of God. It's simply that it's probable that the three documents, or more documents used were written by eyewitnesses of the events and have been compiled together by a scribe at a later date. [00:36:28] Another thing that we might say is that this book of Samuel, one, two Samuel, cover a period of approximately 100 years from Eli, the death of Samson, really the beginning of Eli, more or less right over to the accession of Solomon to the throne. That is quite a big period of a hundred years, approximately a century. They were probably written. It was probably written in its present form or compiled in its present form, the form that we now have it in the reign of Rehoboam, first king of Judah. You remember that at Solomon's death, Israel was split into two, into Israel and Judah. And it was probably written one or two Samuel compiled in this form. We have it now in that way. The reason being, if you want to have any evidence for it, first of all, it speaks of David's death. [00:37:33] And secondly, in at least one place, it speaks of the kings of Judah, a thing that would be unheard of before the division of Israel into Israel and Judah. So we would say that it was written not before the death of David and not before the division of Israel into two. [00:37:56] That means it would probably have been written then in the reign of Rehoboam. And it is possible that Nathan and Gad, who certainly outlived David, may have well have lived on into the reign of Rehoboam. There's a possibility of that if you look into the history itself. [00:38:18] Now, what is the key to the Book of Samuel? Well, I don't think we need to spend very long on what is the key. I expect most of you already know it. The key is quite obvious, much more obvious than in some of the books it is kingship twofold. It is the king, kingship and the kingdom that is the key to this book. We find everything is explained by kingship in the Book of Samuel. [00:38:53] It is revealed negatively in Saul and then positively in David. That is why you'll find that Saul is included in the account, although he was not really God's king at all. He is included in the account because it reveals to us what is not kingship according to God and what can never attain to real kingship under the hand of God. Whereas David is the exact opposite. It reveals to us, in spite of the obvious, quite obvious failings and waywardness of the man, it reveals to us what can be brought under the hand of God to the throne. [00:39:42] It is interesting to note that in these four books, one or or two kings, we're not given a strictly chronological order of events. [00:39:52] This again is a thing that puzzles many people. But as always in the Bible, the aim governs the scope. We've said that to you so many times, and yet it is so important to an understanding of the word of God. The aim governs the scope. It is not a strictly chronological order of events. That is why you will find first of all, we deal with Samuel when he's a boy, little boy, and then suddenly his whole life has almost passed over until we find him, an old grey headed man at the end of his life. And then we dwell for some time upon his end. In the same way, Saul is introduced as a young man, unmarried young man, in his father's house. [00:40:45] Then suddenly there's a whole portion of his life missed out, and we suddenly find that he's faulty or thereabouts, when next we find Saul. Then again, you can't even say that the book of Samuel is pure biography. It is not pure biography. [00:41:05] There's much that we would include in biography that is not included here, and that is why people who've written biographies of Samuel and David and so on have found themselves hard put to find quite a lot of large gaps in their lives. This isn't pure biography in the same way that it is not pure chronological history. [00:41:29] The aim of these books is to introduce the kingdom of God under the guidance of the word of God. And that is why the last four chapters of the second book of Samuel are not history at all. Like the last few chapters of judges and rules, they go back over what has been narrated and insert one or two incidents as a kind of appendix which reveals two or three things. And the idea of the last four chapters of the second book of Samuel is to show to us finally that the kingdom has been truly established. And it tells us the mighty men that have come who took part in its establishment. And then it shows to us how the kingdom of God for the first time was absolutely under the guidance of the word of God through the prophet. The word of God did not come through the king. The word of God came through the prophet. [00:42:36] And this was a new thought altogether, that there should be leadership on one side, wedded with prophecy, the word of God on the other. [00:42:50] That, I say, is the aim of these four books that comprise this history of the kingdom, to show to us the kingdom of God under the word of God in the same way that we today as exactly the same position we are in the kingdom of God, and we are under the guidance of the word of God. So we can learn a tremendous amount from these chapters. We have got to hear the word of God as something that can correct us and must correct us, rebuke us because we must be rebuked, encourage us because we must be encouraged, comfort us because we must be comforted. [00:43:31] That is the whole function of the word of God, to build us up and to keep us in the way and to, by God's grace, bring us to full attainment of all that God has given to us in Christ. [00:43:47] We can see, therefore, that if the key to this book is kingship and the kingdom, we can see, we can look upon David. First of all, we can look at the book of Samuel in one or two ways. First of all, we can look upon it as David's prefiguring of God's king. And I think you all know just the remarkable way in which David does foreshadow the coming of the Lord himself. As it were, he did not know it fully. And yet, you see from his psalms, think of psalm 22 and other psalms like that. We find that he words are put into his mouth, rung out, rung out of bitter, agonizing experience, which were later to be taken up by the Lord himself in the most somber and solemn part of his death. My God, my God, why is thou to say to me? Yet you see here the Lord took hold of a man a thousand years before the Lord Jesus should appear and put him into such a way, led him into such circumstances, brought him into such situation, that he was able to wring out of him, as it were, that which absolutely prefigured the Lord in his deepest and most terrible agony. [00:45:26] We can look at many of David's psalms. When you think of David's word, my own familiar friend has lifted up his heel against me. Many other psalms like that, which were not written cheaply, they were not written superficially. They did not just come out of a kind of poetic, artistic type of mind or attitude. They were wrung out of heart experience of life and of humanity and of God. [00:45:59] And because of that, you find that without hardly knowing it, David prefigures and foreshadows the Lord himself in his own way of life. So we can take the key to this book, which is kingship, and we can look at David as a type of the Lord Jesus, and a very, very wonderful type indeed, and learn from that. I think, although one has to be awkwardly careful about this sometimes, I think, in the way that some saints foreshadowed the Lord, we in this age can express the Lord. [00:46:38] We have to be very careful about saying that. But I've often thought of it, and it's often encompassed me, to think that as saints hundreds of years before the Lord were put into circumstances in which they prefigured their law. So we are put into circumstances and situations in the same way. We are writing history, of course. So it's not very easy for you to think, or I to think in our insignificant surroundings and so on. But nevertheless, it's true that we're writing history. I have no doubt about all myself that the book of acts will be a continued story. When we get to glory. We shall probably find that the whole thing has been written, so there'll be a counterpart of this New Testament age to all that we have in the word of God. For, after all, the word of the Lord abideth forever. [00:47:31] And I don't believe that the New Testament age is going to be passed over in silence at all. I believe that we're going to find that many incidents and so on. The through faith chapter is going to be expanded, I'm quite sure, to include quite a few other events and incidents. And in the same way we shall find in the glory one day that many of us, in the simplest, most humble surrounds, like Hannah, like Ruth, like Mary, like Elizabeth, have become by God's grace and in his sovereignty, as it were, subjects in which somehow or other, we, without hardly knowing it, became the ground for instruction, for principalities and powers, were those things that watch, those things that look on without our hardly knowing it, only dimly seeing it, we have become, as it were, a veritable instruction to those principalities and powers. [00:48:40] Well, there's something very, very wonderful about looking at it from that point. Of view. And then I think also we can look at it from another point of view as well. We can look upon it as the kingdom of God. [00:48:54] We mean by that not just simply God's king, but God's kingdom with its government, its administration, its center, its home, it's everything, its life. [00:49:13] And, you know, God's kingdom is just like that. It all is involved in the person, God's king. But out from God's king there is a government, there is a cabinet, there is a government, there is an administration, then there is a life. [00:49:37] It is all there in God's kingdom. And we can view these chapters in the same way. God's king is not just a detached, ethereal, sentimental figurehead. You don't believe that, do you? Lord Jesus is going to be like, I'm afraid to say, very much like royalty today. [00:50:00] A sentimental figurehead, a heart which, as it were, sentimentally draws people together. Do you believe that? [00:50:09] No, I believe that Lord Jesus is not just a figurehead, sentimentally draws his people together. He is himself head over all things. And he has a government and an administration. [00:50:25] His is a kingdom in which his word is absolutely all powerful and authoritative. [00:50:33] That is the kingdom. And when you and I are brought into relationship with the Lord Jesus, we enter the kingdom of God by birth. [00:50:45] That's something which is very, very wonderful. In the days to come, of course, when God has got his government, his administration perfected, then we're going to see it's out working in the universe. Then there will be territories to be governed, and there will be vast domains and realms brought under the government of a people who had been perfected into the likeness of their king. [00:51:14] So we can look at the book, this book of Samuel, in that light, we can look upon it as the light of the establishment of a kingdom. And then I think also we can look upon it, and this is very important as revealing to us principles of kingship. For God has made us all royal sons and daughters. And the whole point of his house and of his schooling is to train us in the principle of kingship. Adam was told to have dominion. And all down through the different ages, God has been seeking to instruct us in the principles of dominion. [00:52:04] And in the same way, we make a big mistake if we think that this life is everything. This life is like the cave of a dull one day we're coming out to take the kingdom. [00:52:17] There's coming a day where we're going to come out as a people wedded together, built together, fused together into a solid home, one solid unit ahead and a body. In that day, the kingdom will be taken and the king of kings will be crowned. That's what this life is. That's why sometimes it's so very dark and so very gloomy. Why it's so very shut in. Why it's so very restricted. Why we're put with people, sons we can't get on with. And why we have to get on with them. And how we've got to be built in with them. That's the whole history of the kingdom of God. What is it? It is kingship being learned. [00:53:01] It is the principles of kingship being, as it were, in ward. [00:53:10] That's how we can look upon this book. [00:53:14] We are going to be made. Kings have been made. Kings and priests unto God. [00:53:20] It is not enough for us to be ruled over. God, by developing a christlike moral stature and character, will make us king. [00:53:34] He's not content to have, as it were, just slaves that bow to him. He would so develop us, so train us that we become kings because of something inside as not as so many people think. That one day we're all going to have golden crowns placed upon our heads. And then there's going to cry, long live the king. Or something like that. Or everyone's going to say, now, look. Here is King Lance. And here is king somebody else. And here is king somebody else. That's not the thought of scripture, although many of our hymns suggest it. That we're going to be crowned like that. Well, no doubt there's coming something along that line of a public recognition. But how will it come? [00:54:24] No man and no woman in the kingdom of God. Will ever be given kingship. Who has not got kingship inside the old word? In the book of proverbs we often quote, a man's gift makes room for him. Is as true in heaven as it is down here. [00:54:44] If in heaven there is something of moral stature, moral character. Let me put it this way. Christ himself reproduced in character and moral quality and backbone. That man, that woman of necessity, will be in God's administration. [00:55:06] That's how it works out. And that's how we can look at the book of Samuel. We can look upon it as a book of the principles of kingship. Kingship. Principles. [00:55:19] How did David come to the throne? Why did Saul fall from the throne? Why was Saul cut off from the throne? And why was David kept on the throne? Can you tell me anywhere where David murdered the man and took his wife? [00:55:34] Can you? [00:55:38] You will not find anywhere. Where did I say David? I mean, Saul can you find anywhere in the book of Samuel where Saul murdered a man and took his wife? [00:55:51] You can't find it. Now tell me, can you find anywhere in the book of Samuel where Saul numbered the people in disobedience to God? In that way, the terrible plague hit the people of God. Can you find it? [00:56:09] Can you find anywhere in the scripture other things like qualities such as humility in Saul? Now, you say to me, no, I can't find any humility about Saul. But I can, and I can prove to you from scripture that, naturally speaking, Saul was quite humble when they tried to crown him. He'd hid in the baggage and he'd be dragged out. He wouldn't be crowned. [00:56:37] When first he was told that he was to be king, he said that he was the least, and his father's house was the least, and his tribe was the least. Why choose him? [00:56:50] You know, another time, there were some other nasty people who didn't like Saul's being king and refused to give a gift and refused to acknowledge it. When Saul led the people into victory against the Philistines, then they came and they said, now, please. [00:57:08] The people came, said, we want to put to death the people that would not let us. Now. [00:57:13] But Saul said, no, this is the day of victory. No man shall die. He saved the lives. He seemed to be a very generous man. I could tell you all kinds of things about Saul which were exceedingly generous. Now tell me, why did Saul not come to the throne of God? And why is it that David did? [00:57:36] In the answer to those questions, you will find the principles of kingship, why it is that so many good, natural qualities do not qualify us, and why it is that a man with so many very real sins could be qualified. [00:57:58] In that you find the principles of kingship. In Saul, it is negative. [00:58:08] All that is good about him and all that is bad. And yet a veto, a divine veto. But in David, all that is good about him and all that is bad about him but divine acceptance. Now, why? [00:58:27] Well, that's going to be left tonight till next week, the Lord willing, we shall find something of the principles of kingship there. But you see, we can look at this book. The key to it is the kingdom or kingship. We can look at this book as revealing to us principles of kingship the way we come to the service. [00:58:56] And in so doing, we shall find the answer to much else. [00:59:03] And I want just to mention two things, and then we're going to finish. [00:59:08] I want you also to note that the house of God is hidden in the first chapters, mind you, a tremendous amount happens around the house of God. The very opening chapters of Samuel are found within the tabernacle Achala. And from then on we find back to the tabernacle. But the thing I want you to notice is this, that although kingship and the kingdom are the key to the book of Samuel, you will find at the very end that it has all got a greater purpose than even that. [00:59:51] It has a greater purpose than even that. [00:59:54] You find the last chapter, the second book of Daniel, ends with the purchase, very insignificant. The purchase of a threshing floor and the raising of an altar. [01:00:08] Why mention that? Because that threshing floor is to become the site of the house of God. [01:00:20] I never find anywhere any concern or yearning whatsoever in Saul for the house of God. [01:00:33] But I find in David, from his earliest days, before ever kingship entered his mind, a passionate love for the house of God. [01:00:46] Passionate. [01:00:48] If, as we believe, psalm 23 was written in the very earliest days of David's life, when he was still a shepherd lad, and as much as then, it may well be that on those earliest days, the passion of his heart and life was the house of God, we can certainly know it was later by his sardines and by the record of this book, we are shown, as time goes on, something hidden at the beginning begins to be unfolded at the end. We suddenly discover that this man's heart is not on the throne at all. It's upon God's habitation. [01:01:27] And that is why the closing years of his life were spent in gathering together material for the building and the construction of the house of God, and why David's whole concern at the end was to instruct Solomon, his son, in how to build the house. It was his concern. It was his passion. It was the one object of his heart. And I think the thing that perhaps broke his heart was the fact that he was not able to build it himself. [01:01:55] He was rejected from doing that by the Lord in God's sovereignty. But nevertheless, that was the passion. We don't find it in Saul. We do find it in David. [01:02:06] Saul is different. There is something there which is a key, I think, to much more. David, from the beginning, had his heart set on the house of God. So it is interesting that the book of Samuel should end on a very sad and yet very wonderful note. As always, failure. Failure. David numbered the people and a plague in which thousands of God's children died. [01:02:35] Then the prophets came and told David what to do. David purchased the flesh for so many shekels of silver and built an altar there out of failure. God was going to provide the ground for the temple. [01:02:53] Once again, failure is linked with God's victory. And so we find that here through this book of Samuel. Whilst the key to it is kingship and the kingdom, we are going to find that it leads to God's habitation. And we're going to find that the climax of it all is found, SOlOMon, and the house of God is finally built and dedicated, and the glory of God filleth it. That, then, I say, is something we want to take note of. That I believe that though it's not there and prominent, it's there nevertheless, in a very real way. And I'm sure that somehow or another, David owed much to Samuel. Some of us wonder who it was that David first learned about the house of God. [01:03:44] TRaditIon tells us, the rabbis tell us, that David's father, Jesse, was by profession the veil weaver of the temple. [01:03:56] And it may have been from Jesse or his mother that David learnt his first lessons in the house of God. But then others of us think that it might have been SamuEl who taught David first the great need of God's habitation. Well, we lead that. And I would like just to end by saying, and this I lead to you to study because I want you to read, if you can, this book of Samuel, one and two, if you can. It's rather than a lot, but we want you to read through it and get it as were. Get some understanding of the context of it all. I want you to notice a rather remarkable thing you won't find. You will not have found in any of the books up to this one. And that is made the holy spirit contrast in this book. People all the time with people you get Panina and Hannah. They are quite definitely contrasted. You may know that panina means pearl, Hannah means gray.