Introduction to 1 Samuel

 

Introduction to 1 Samuel

 

The book of 1 Samuel began during the time of the Judges, a period of several hundred years beginning after the conquering of the land of Canaan and the reign of King Saul.  The Lord’s intent for them was to be a theocracy, a nation ruled or governed by Him.  He wanted them to be a people who would choose to love and serve Him, and who would obey His words that He gave through Moses.  Another way we might put this is they were to be self-governed.  However, after the death of Joshua and all the elders who had served with Joshua, the nation of Israel forsook the Lord and turned to idol worship.  This began a down-ward spiral into moral degradation and despotism as idolatry and sin always do.  The Lord would allow them to be conquered and oppressed by their enemies to humble them to a place of repentance.  They repeatedly would cry unto the Lord in their distress, and He would raise up a judge to free them.  They would serve the Lord during the life of the judge, but after the death of the judge, they would return to their old ways, further corrupting themselves more than their fathers.  Nearing the end of the time of the judges, the nation of Israel found themselves in a complete state of spiritual and moral decay that reached from the common person all the way up to the priesthood.  The book of Judges repeats the phrase that there was no king in Israel, and that everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.  It was during this time that Samuel was born, who would be the last judge in Israel.  During his rule as judge over the nation, the people would end up demanding a king, but it would turn out to be a disaster.  The king would be rebellious against the Lord, self-serving, and would turn to murder his own citizens out of fear of losing his power.

In order to provide a back-drop to the book of 1 Samuel, I want to examine a couple of events that took place during the time of the Judges that demonstrate how bad things really were.  As we look at the last few chapters of Judges and the book of 1 Samuel, I believe there are some important applications the Lord would have us make for ourselves.  Our founding fathers understood the principle of self-government in connection with Christianity and the Bible:

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion...Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -John Adams "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever." -Thomas Jefferson Lastly, "Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." -William Penn

Much like ancient Israel, we too have rejected God as a society, and have turned to idolatry.  We have become lovers and worshipers of self, every man doing what is right in his own eyes.  We too, have descended into spiritual and moral depravity, and this corruption extends from the common person to Church leadership.  As a result, we are now being ruled by despots who are only being restrained by what moral fiber, courage and love of freedom that Americans have left.  Truthfully, it is by the merciful hand of God we are not in worse shape than we are.  One would have never thought that those with Socialist and Marxist leanings would have gained so much ground in the United States, but here we are two years into COVID, with an attack on our constitutional rights like we have never seen.  For all intents and purposes, we have been stripped of our First Amendment rights, and the progressives are nipping at the heels of several others.  In his famous address at Templeton, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn explained why Russia fell to Communism by stating, “But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.’”  Without a return to Christianity and the principles taught in the word of God, this downward spiral is certain to get worse, and we may find ourselves being ruled with someone far more tyrannical than a man with what appears to be the onset of dementia.  The answer to our society’s problems has been and will always be the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings found in the word of God.

Lord willing in the next post, I will start in Judges 17, and we will take a look at a man named Micah and a Levite he hires to be his priest.