That revealed truth is primarily for the conscience is perhaps nowhere more clearly seen than in the inspired history of Israel after their entrance into the land of Canaan. A consecutive history of the eventful period of the Judges would interest a student; but the Bible must in everything be worthy of its Author and consistent with its design as addressed to men after the fall. Even more than creation, it declares the glory of God. His ways are made known by it, and the results to His praise, if to the shame of men, are clearly set forth; but a consecutive history is not given. For the end in view all is perfect, though chronological and similar difficulties may detain the critic. The danger to such is, that a brief life may be wasted in barren discussions and the soul perish.
But besides this, there is another danger from the tendency to ignore the testimony these histories give to our own true state and condition in the sight of God, and thus the conscience, though addressed, is not reached. While written for our admonition (1 Cor. 10:1111Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. (1 Corinthians 10:11)), there are those who refuse to be admonished, and who limit their sense of sin to their own personal consciousness and observation of it. This must be imperfect. “Who can understand his errors?” Who can discern in every failure, great or small, the outcome of the one terrible corrupt nature common to the whole race since Adam's transgression? A drop is not the ocean; but analysis shows that the same elements are in the drop that are found in the ocean. So in every sin are the elements of all sin. But so serious a view of the matter is rarely taken. There are very many who agree with the Duchess of Buckingham, when in writing to the Countess of Huntingdon, she said, “It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth. This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that your ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with rank and good breeding.” This confidence in the flesh is invariably associated with ignorance of the true grace of God as revealed in His word (1 Peter 5:1212By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand. (1 Peter 5:12)), and often, as in this case, with opposition to it. The Christian should have no such confidence (Phil. 3:33For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. (Philippians 3:3); Rom. 7:18; 8:1818For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. (Romans 7:18)
18For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)).
We need not question the sincerity of the people of Israel when they promised again and again amid the solemn scenes at Sinai, “All that the Lord hath said we will do and be obedient.” Or again, when notwithstanding the most solemn warnings, they renewed the covenant of works in the plains of Moab. Or yet again, when put in possession of the promised inheritance, they protested to Joshua, “Nay, but we will serve the Lord.” And when he added, “Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the Lord to serve Him,” they said, “We are witnesses” (Ex. 19; 24; Deut. 29; Josh. 24). But if we may hesitate to question their sincerity at the time, we cannot be ignorant that, with every help and incentive to obedience, they were invariably unfaithful; and this unfaithfulness to their covenanted engagements was visited, in the righteous government of God, with sore judgments, as Moses and Joshua warned them. How serious a matter it is then to make solemn promises and vows to the Lord and not fulfill them! “When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for He hath no pleasure in fools” (Ecc. 5:5).
It was asked in this magazine some years ago, “Does man make a covenant in the sacraments?” The answer (decidedly in the negative) ended thus, “The whole Christian position is thereby lost, and we are put simply where a Jew under the law was—and worse, because he was placed there that we might learn that we could not possibly stand there.” But who will learn? What is more common in Christendom than making a covenant in the sacraments, and, notwithstanding all the advantages of “rank and good breeding,” with no better results than were found in. Israel? Soon after they had bound themselves by the most solemn compact, and for the third time, to serve the Lord, we are told that “every man did that which was right in his own eyes;” which surely means that he did wrong, and how wrong we may learn from the last five chapters of Judges, which in historic order precede the earlier chapters, and describe events that happened while Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, was high priest. Chastisements followed, as Joshua foretold. Their enemies brought them into captivity, but the long-suffering mercy of God raised up deliverers from time to time. Samuel, the last of these, was called when their state was most deplorable. When weakened by civil war, broken down by seven captivities, deprived of every provision for approaching the Lord in His appointed way, the ark removed, the tabernacle an abandoned tent, the priests fallen by the sword, and Ichabod pronounced on the people, he entered upon his service under every discouragement. In other respects also his case was exceptional. The judges before him, for the most part, had been raised up by the Lord in answer to the repentant cry of the people, Samuel was not. His mother alone prayed for him. They were distinguished by deeds of prowess. He was not. They in some cases drew thousands at once to their standard. He for twenty years saw no fruit to his testimony. Though “all Israel knew from Daniel to Beersheba that he was established to be a prophet of the Lord,” the word by him was unheeded. The people, indifferent to all, acquiesced in their bondage. Still Samuel's spirit was submissive; he had faith in God, and His word. He did not exalt himself or make haste, He had time for God, and God in His. grace would give a time for him. Dr. J. Lightfoot said of the result, when “all Israel lamented [or was drawn together] after the Lord,” that “the great conversion in Acts 2:44And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:4) is the only parallel to it.” And here we may observe that it is probable that remarkable spiritual movements in the church of God may have been foreshadowed in the history of the deliverances of Israel at this time. From the fact that there were just twelve Judges and seven captivities a typical meaning may be intended; but without further light than appears to be given to any yet, we must wait to understand this.
Idolatry was the besetting sin of Israel, as in a more subtle form it has been, and is, the sin of the church (1 John 5:2121Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. (1 John 5:21)), and it was with this that Samuel had to contend. The Lord had put a, check on the Philistines by Shamgar and Samson, but the people themselves must deal with their idols, “If ye do return unto the Lord with all your heart, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you.” At such a crisis this was the first and deepest need, and must precede a true gathering to the Lord. It is idolatry in the church that hinders this now. “And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpeh” (Watch-tower), the place of expectation. This the enemy at once resisted; the lords of the Philistines immediately went up against them, and they were afraid. But false confidence was gone. They said not again, “Let us fetch the ark that it may save us,” but they entreated Samuel, “Cease not to cry to the Lord our God for us, that He will save us out of the hand of the Philistines.” They were learning Hannah's lessons and taking a true measure of everything. They were finding out, as an old Puritan minister said, that “nothing is secure that hangs at the girdle of the creature.” Even the priestly family had failed them, and they asked not for one of them; but “they drew water and poured it out before the Lord” (comp. 2 Sam. 14:1414For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him. (2 Samuel 14:14)), and confessed their sins. They took the true place of being without strength and ungodly.
What a moment for Samuel! His twenty years of labor were now bearing fruit, and his faith (taught by the Spirit, for he was a prophet) at once reached forward to the sufferings of Christ in the deepest character in which they are set forth in the typical sacrifices. What a testimony was this! There were no preparations for war; nothing that marked him as a champion. He took no weapon. He summoned none to join him. The people at first had been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, and Samuel saw clearly that what was true then must be true now and at all times. The infinite value of that blood was their only confidence in Egypt, and it should be so now in the presence of the Philistines. He therefore at once and without hesitation, though not a priest, “took a sucking lamb and offered it for a burnt offering wholly to the Lord, and cried to the Lord and the Lord heard him.” Observe, it was a burnt offering. The work of grace was seen in the people. Samuel would declare the perfect work of grace for them. They had taken true ground as to themselves. He took the true ground that the perfect work of Christ put them on. In themselves they confessed they were hopelessly bad; but the burnt offering was expressive of the sinless one Who, when made sin, gave Himself up an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor; and in this savor, this infinite delight of God in His Lamb, they must now stand. There was and could be no intermediate ground. It must be wholly themselves, and then they would be lost; or wholly the Lamb and—then they must be saved. Their feelings and their fears were not the Lamb. Granted that to them this was, and could be, set forth only in figure: grace had taught them much about themselves and their enemies which had awakened their fears; why not of the burnt offering that alone could dispel them? “As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel; but the Lord thundered a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines and discomfited them, and they were smitten before Israel.”
Such then was the faith and such the significant action of the last Judge. Where Shamgar with the ox-goad and Samson by marvelous strength gained only partial and transient successes, Samuel (the man of prayer, but above all the man whose intelligent faith, by the Spirit, rested on the sacrifice of Christ) was blessed with a lasting victory. “The hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.” Is not this a needed lesson as to prayer? There is a voice also in the simple memorial which Samuel set up to perpetuate the remembrance of the sacrifice, and the deliverance of that day, that has carried hope and consolation to the hearts of millions when surrounding circumstances have filled them with fears. “Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” In this we may perhaps rightly see a type of the Great Deliverer, Who has also left a simple memorial of His infinitely precious sacrifice and the everlasting salvation it secures. In one thing there is a difference, and a difference that awakens very sad and painful feelings. We read of no profane hand meddling with Samuel's “stone of help” —the “Ebenezer.” Has it been so with the Lord's supper?