Saturday, May 19, 2012

Samuel

And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. (Hebrews 11:32-34, NKJV).
Prior to his birth, Samuel's mother, Hannah, was rebuked by Eli, the obese High Priest of Israel, for being drunk. He mistook fervent Spirit-led prayer for intoxication. His first of many recorded errors.
Years later, Eli fell off his stool and died from a stopped heart when he was told that the Ark of the Covenant had been lost to the Philistines in battle. Eli also raised corrupt and contemptible sons, who used their hereditary spiritual authority to extort from the people and besmirch the name of God.

Eli was not a good judge of character. 

But God is, and he rewarded faithful Hannah's prayer for a son with the birth of Samuel, whose name means God hears. She devoted her son from the womb to priestly service. At the age of three, she bundled him off to become, in essence, Eli's apprentice. 

Samuel grew into the man that Eli's own sons failed miserably to become, and became the single most powerful and righteous Judge of Israel.

He would also be the last Judge before the inauguration of the kingship through the humble-man-turned-megalomaniac, Saul.

We might picture Jewish Priests in many ways, but Samuel defies most all the stereotypes. He was a warrior who hacked to death a pagan king. He was a revolutionary who worked against the crazed and disobedient Saul. He was fiercely compassionate.

He was a devout man of prayer who felt compelled to intercede always for this fledgling Jewish realm, and at least one of the kingdoms he worked to subdue was his own under the unstable Benjamite, Saul.

But foremost among his many excellent qualities, Samuel was an obedient man of God. He listened to the One Who Hears, and such was his heart toward the Eternal One, that he grieved mightily when God relented to the people's base desire for a "king like the other nations." 

Samuel was unswerving in his conviction that the Sovereign of the Universe was also Sovereign of Israel, and he knew that anything other than this would be his people's eventual undoing. He was right.

What Samuel exampled through his many years of judgeship was an uncompromising steadfastness towards the things of God. He brooked no whining or moaning or excuses from anyone about anything. 

He understood what his LORD required and did it, even returning from Sheol (the place of the dead) to famously rebuke the apostate Saul.

Among other things, Samuel was also the product of faithful and loving parents. Hannah, we know, was a devoted believer, but so too was her husband, Elkanah ("possessed by God"), who tried to comfort his wife in her barrenness.

But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, although the LORD had closed her womb… [and] her husband said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:5, 8, NKJV).
As an example of faith among many such examples in this chapter, Samuel shines with blazing intensity - a true hero of belief. From this perspective, his biography is perhaps best encapsulated by this verse:
Then Samuel said: “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice... (1 Samuel 15:22, NKJV).