Samuel next summoned the nation to Mizpeh, “and I will pray for you unto the Lord.” Here is one who kept right with God during the years of Israel's deplorable declension. He did not allow himself to be carried along by the prevailing current. Thus he was ready for service to the people of God when the time became ripe for it. Beloved Christian reader, if the whole church of God wax cold and turn aside from the right ways of the Lord, why should you not personally be right with God, and so “be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work”? (2 Tim 2:21).
The procedure at Mizpeh was remarkable. “They gathered together at Mizpeh, and drew water, and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the Lord.” We know of no precedent for this, but we are persuaded that the out-poured water gave pleasure to the heart of God. If there is one thing more dear than another in the book of the Acts, it is that the Spirit of God is absolutely sovereign in His actings. What He is graciously pleased to do at one time furnishes no clue as to what He may do at another. He may use Peter awhile and then turn abruptly to Stephen. He may commission Philip and quickly send forth Peter again. Then He calls out a new laborer in the person of Paul and acts through him more extensively than through any other. The gift of the Spirit to Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles also differs widely in its manner (Acts 2; 8:8). With regard to the deliverance of imprisoned witnesses, on one occasion the doors were opened the same night (Acts 5:1919But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, (Acts 5:19)), on another not until the night before the promised execution (Acts 12), and on yet another, no angels were employed but an earthquake (Acts 16). Truly, “the wind bloweth where it listeth” (John 3:88The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)), but the church has never learned the simple lesson, or she would never have clogged herself with routine and officialism.