Discipline in the School of God: Chapter 15
By J.B. Stoney
If we comprehend the condition of God's people at any one period, we shall then be able to understand why the one who is most used to serve them should be fitted, in his own life and circumstances, for the service. An unsuitable servant, however willing, must render inadequate service. His discipline and education, we shall find in Scripture, are always with reference to the place that he is appointed to hold. Israel, up to Samuel's time, had no king: " every one did that which was right in his own eyes," and, consequently, must have learned by experience that " he that trusteth his own heart is a fool," and that only through God's intervention were they ever delivered from those who ruled over them. And not only this, but they themselves as a people were in every way gradually departing more and more from all acknowledgment of God.
It is-in the progress of this state of things that Samuel is born ; but he does not take his place as God's servant until Eli (the martyr of a condition of things which he deprecated, but had not power to reform) is dead.
Samuel's mother is a type of the godly remnant in Israel at that time, and Samuel himself of the blessing vouchsafed to that remnant. Hannah, because of her distress and the reproach of the adversary, prayed to the Lord in the bitterness of her soul. Forms and demonstrations were dispensed with. In the unexpressed breathing of her soul she pleaded with the Lord, so that the holy priest under the law did not understand.
The sorrowing one of Israel is wiser than the high priest, because she felt her condition and her sorrow: her reply to his rebuke corrects him, and he has grace to accept it.
Hannah's prayer was for Samuel. What will suit a true, holy, sorrowing individual, will suit the whole family of God's people. The answer to Hannah's prayer was the answer to every sorrowing cry in Israel. Samuel will suit each and all : he is the answer to the prayer of sorrow, and as such he is dedicated to the Lord and abides with Him.
Now let us look at Samuel himself. The more his understanding opens, the more he is aware that he is called, as the answer to prayer; and that on that account he has been dedicated to the Lord, to be ever before Him, so that very early he must have had an idea of his mission: at all events, it is evident that he had the best education for it. If the sorrowing, oppressed Hannah has received him in answer to prayer, and has returned him to the Lord as the Lord's gift, must not Samuel be continually reminded of the efficacy of prayer-himself the living witness of it?
In Samson, the last of the judges, we saw power committed to man; and though he performed great exploits now and again, more was accomplished in the death of the witness than in his life. In Samuel a new state of things is introduced. The afflicted one, calling on God, is heard, and the answer, even Samuel, becomes the channel of deliverance through prayer. The very power which brought himself into existence he is now to exercise on behalf of his suffering people; not as the man of physical strength, as was Samson, but as the man of prayer. Moreover, a true principle is enunciated in the case of Hannah even that the blessing which God sends us for ourselves is large enough for all His people.
In prayer there is not only a sense of dependence, but the truly praying soul expects an answer or communication from God. But often, before we have learned the deep reality of what prayer is, we may be in the place of the praying one, like Samuel, and yet not able to understand the Lord's voice. Thus we find in the first recorded account of Samuel's practical life (chap. 3) these words, Samuel was ministering before the Lord, and he had laid himself down to sleep ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord. The whole scene declares the moral condition of the nation at the time. " The word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision ... .. Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see." Samuel had lain down " ere the lamp went out." This implies that it was allowed to go out habitually, which was contrary to the commandment. Everything indicated feebleness. Samuel is given in answer to Hannah's prayer-Hannah the type of the sorrowing remnant. Therefore Samuel enters the temple as the exponent-the living witness of the power and value of prayer-as we read of him in Psalm 99, " Samuel among them that call upon his name."
