A CONCLUDING WORD
TO THE LIFE-STUDY OF 1 AND 2 SAMUEL
First and 2 Samuel unveil to us, from the beginning, that God’s accomplishment of His economy needs man’s coordination and cooperation. The first illustration is Hannah, the mother of Samuel. She was seeking God and spontaneously coordinated and cooperated with God. This afforded God the way to replace the waning priesthood under Eli with a new priesthood raised up by God through her son Samuel.
Samuel, the issue of his mother Hannah’s coordination and cooperation with God, became a faithful Nazarite according to his mother’s desire for God and rendered to God the way to end the corrupted age of the judges and to bring in (1) the age of kingship to replace the governing ministry of the old priesthood and (2) the prophethood to replace the God-speaking ministry of the old priesthood.
David, being a man according to God’s heart, afforded God the way to begin the age of kingship for the establishment of His kingdom on the earth for His coming Christ. But how regrettable it was that David, at a crucial time of the evil one’s temptation, did not exercise strong control over his lust but indulged in it and committed a gross sin which offended God to the uttermost. This became the factor of the loss of eleven-twelfths of his God-given kingdom, which sowed the seed of Solomon’s corruption, issuing in the loss of the God-given kingdom, and the seed of the corruption of his descendants in the kingship, issuing in the loss of the holy land and the captivity of the holy people in their dispersion to the whole world up to the present age.
(Life-Study of 1 & 2 Samuel, Chapter 38, by Witness Lee)
