The last days of Samuel were days of disappointment. The man whom he had anointed king over Israel had proved himself unworthy even before he had well taken up the duties of kingship. When the Ammonites threatened the land of Israel (1 Sam.11.) Saul Sent To All the tribes calling upon their warriors to rally to his standard and resist the invader. Three hundred thousand men of Israel and thirty thousand men of Judah were at his side almost immediately. It is evident from the story that Saul had not yet fully assumed the reins of power; Samuel was still looked upon as the head of the State, and Saul in his call to arms joined his own name with that of the old judge. "Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel…". And Samuel, in his wisdom, called the people, not into immediate conflict with the? enemy, but to Gilgal, one of Israel's sacred sites, that he might reason with them concerning their calling and their covenant, pleading with them and beseeching them that despite their great fault in asking God for an earthly king, they might still walk before God in his ways and reap the blessings of obedience promised in the covenant. There is something grandly pathetic in this glimpse of the saintly old man, conscious perhaps that this was the last opportunity he would ever have to witness to his God before the people on a national scale, conscious certainly that his own days were numbered and his influence fading fast, pleading with the people that they might remain faithful. "God forbid" he exhorted earnestly "God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you; but I will teach you the good and right way". And then his mood changed—or was it that he realised a demonstration of the Divine disapproval of the nation's attitude was long overdue—and with vehemence he cried "Now therefore stand and see this great thing, which the LORD will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call unto the LORD, and he shall send thunder and rain; that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the LORD, in asking you a king". (1 Sam.12.16-17). So Samuel called upon God, and there came thunder and rain, sweeping down upon the standing crops, crushing them to the earth, so that the people were affrighted and stricken with remorse. Here was an enemy their king could not overcome; foreign invaders he would oppose and perhaps overthrow by his own prowess and that of his followers, but the powers of Nature only God could control. When they asked Samuel for a king like those of the other nations they had forgotten that. And now they came before him with some tardy acknowledgment of their sin. Too late, they relented of their purpose and came to their father in God for help in their dilemma.

It is to Samuel's credit that he did not take advantage of the situation to force a return to the old order. The people had asked for a king and had chosen a king, and now they should have their king. Samuel must have realised that all of this was in higher hands than his own, and that God had a purpose in permitting the institution of the monarchy. Moreover, Saul was now the Lord's anointed; he had been anointed by Samuel at the express command of God. Neither he nor the nation could go back on that now. So Samuel exhorted them to frame their national life within the limits of the new order but always in conformity with the laws of God, "for" said he, "the Lord will not forsake his people for his great Name's sake; because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people". A wonderful phrase, that, and one that stands as a beacon light through all Israel's history. No matter to what depths of unbelief and apostasy they have fallen, it is still and will always be true that they are the people of the Lord, that mainly from them is to come at last the nation which will shine forth from Jerusalem and turn the peoples of the earth to righteousness. There will be a remnant fitted for the purpose of the Lord.

Now that is true of spiritual Israel also on the higher plane. The Christian Church has been guilty of many failures, many denials of its Lord. Institutional Christianity has become a byword, and the lives of individual believers often a cause for reproach. But despite all this the purpose of God stands firm, and in his own due time He will have gathered a people, a remnant, from the work of those two thousand years, which will be amply qualified for the spiritual rule of the world, in association with the Lord Jesus Christ in the heavens, throughout the Millennial Age. The Lord will not forsake his people...because it hath pleased the Lord to make them his people. Despite all the failures, all the shortcomings, all the hardness of heart, there will stand revealed at the end of this Age two companies of "holy ones", one earthly, in the Promised Land, one heavenly, with Christ, in the glory beyond, each ready to take up its own part in the final work of world reconciliation. Samuel must have had faith in some such eventual outcome of God's work when he bade Israel on that day to walk before God in sincerity and truth.
There was not much more for Samuel to do in this life. Saul was beginning to take things into his own hands and at eighty years of age Samuel would not be able to do much to stop him. That faith in the hearts of the people that had kept the Philistine hosts at arm's length during Samuel's judgeship was ebbing away fast now. Saul was engaged in war with the ancient enemy during the greater part of his reign, and although he nominally acknowledged God and rendered due homage to Samuel there was little true religious feeling or piety in his make-up. Eventually the day came when, flushed with his victory over the Amalekites, he ignored the command of Samuel that all their flocks and herds and possessions were to be utterly destroyed, and retained the best of them as spoil. Samuel, learning of all this before he set out to meet Saul after the battle, knew that Divine judgement could not be much longer delayed. In that same night Samuel had heard the voice of the Lord saying to him "It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night." (1 Sam.15.11).

Did the old man's mind go back seventy years to that night when first he had heard the voice of the Lord, and upon his youthful ears had fallen the dread news of the doom of the house of Eli? What were the thoughts that possessed his mind as now he heard the sentence pronounced again? First it was his teacher who had been dispossessed, and Samuel kept in the favour of God; now it was his pupil who was cast off, and he himself remained. The wheel had turned full circle, the cycle of history had come back to its starting point, and again was Israel without a leader. Once more the full care of the nation before God must fall upon his shoulders. But there was a difference! In that long-since-gone day when Eli had been deposed, he himself had been in the first flush and bloom of youth, with all the zeal and enthusiasm that is characteristic of youth. He had thrown himself into the work of God with all the zest and ardour of his young heart, and had worked—only his God knew how hard he had worked—to restore Israel to God and keep them there. But now he was old; physical and mental powers were failing. The will to serve was still there; but how could he take up the work of the reformer and the national leader again as he had done those many years ago, and discharge it with the effect that had changed the life of the nation in that day? How could God expect him to bear this new and crushing burden in the evening of his days? Wearily he got up and set out to make his way to where Saul awaited him.
"Blessed be thou of the Lord" was the bland greeting with which he was hailed as he came within sight of the jubilant king "I have performed the commandment of the Lord". Samuel had loved Saul, even as had all Israel, and he had spent a grief-stricken night with the Lord on the other man's account. But there was no softening nor any indication of his inner feelings in the curt, uncompromising reply that quickly swept the complacent smile from the king's face. "What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" The old man was not going to be trifled with; he had in his younger days seen the dire result of Eli's own easy-going toleration of disregard for Divine laws and he was not going to condone or pass this by even though Saul were to him as a son. Saul immediately realised that the old prophet was in no mood for honeyed words and fair speeches, and hurriedly began to make excuses. He tried to explain that it was the fault of the people, that they had insisted upon keeping the best of the spoil alive "to sacrifice" he said hopefully "unto the Lord thy God", as though to soften Samuel's stern demeanour by a compliment. He might have spared himself the trouble, for the old man brusquely interrupted his labouring words. "Stay" said Samuel "and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night." And Saul had sullenly to listen to the sentence of excommunication which blasted all his hopes and schemes for a dynasty that should sit on the throne of Israel and bear his name through all succeeding generations. It was this happening that gave occasion for words that have been the inspiration for countless disciples throughout all ages since. "Hath the Lord as great delight" queried Samuel scornfully, "in sacrifice and offering as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams!"

That was the end. Samuel never came to see King Saul again. He retired to his home at Ramah and there he remained, whilst Saul went on hopelessly fighting the Philistines and never getting really free from their yoke. The king who was to have led the forces of Israel out to battle like the kings of other nations never succeeded in making Israel a truly independent kingdom. He never achieved the resounding victories for which his ardent followers hoped and for which purpose they had clamoured for his appointment. It was Samuel who had given the nation freedom—Samuel, who trusted not in carnal weapons but in the power of the living God, who had pinned his faith not to the prowess of men but to the Covenant of Moses. In rejecting the way of Samuel Israel had rejected the way of peace.

Israel went on fighting, and Samuel mourned for Saul, and for the blighting of a life that had opened with such promise, and for the disasters that must inevitably fall upon Israel. Until, in the fullness of time, there came to his inner consciousness, as it had done so many times in past years, that familiar Voice.

"How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Beth-lehemite; for I have provided me a king among his sons".

The aged prophet might have been excused for demurring. His first venture at anointing a king had turned out an arrant failure. Israel was in worse condition than before. What guarantee could there be that this fresh attempt would turn out any better. If Saul got to know about it, he would certainly wreak his vengeance on Samuel. He could expect nothing less than death for treason of that nature. It is clear that Saul was by now king in every sense of the word and Samuel's influence in national affairs was nil. But that was only as man seeth; God had work for him to do yet, work that would bear much fruit in days to come. Samuel demurred no longer but took up his staff and made his way to Bethlehem.

The story of David's anointing is well known. It was the last service that Samuel performed. He handed the torch, all but dropping from his failing fingers, to the fifteen-year-old lad who stood before him, so fresh and lovable in his innocent and vigorous youth. The friendship that sprang up on that memorable day between these two, between whom three generations arched their years, was never broken. In after days, David, fleeing from Saul, came to Samuel at Ramah for protection. He found the old man presiding over a school of the prophets, a national leader no longer, but still in the intensity of his zeal using what remained to him of physical and mental strength in the giving of instruction in the things of God to a few young men who looked up to him as pastor and father.

Could there have been a more fitting close to such a life? From being pre-eminent in affairs of state, one to whom the whole nation looked for guidance and judgment; from being the defender of his people against their inveterate enemies the Philistines and the means of freedom from those enemies over a lifetime of years; from making and unmaking kings; from all this he had retired into the seclusion of his native village, content to spend his last days in the day-by-day teaching of a handful of young lads.

How many who in these later days have exercised great privilege of service and held prominent position before the Lord's people have found themselves able so gracefully to give place and serve at the end in such unnoticed and humble position, if so be that they might thus still glorify the God in Whose Name they have done all things? The humility of Samuel, as revealed by this final phase of his recorded history, throws a flood of light upon his character, a character that in this respect is worthy of all our emulation.

The King of Israel came on one more occasion, when the madness that was to darken the last years of his life was already gaining its hold upon him. It is a strange account, this story of the three bands of soldiers who went, each in turn, to arrest David at Samuel's Ramah retreat, and how they were overawed and subdued by the environment in which they found themselves, falling down and prophesying with the prophets they found there; and how Saul, impatient at the non-return of his messengers, went himself to Ramah and was himself overtaken by the same prophetic fervour. He fell down and prophesied before Samuel, we are told, and lay until the morning; and then got up and went away. (1 Sam.19.13-24). To understand this strange passage we must realise that the term "prophesying" included many kinds of emotional orations and it was more than likely that Saul's outburst on this occasion was a more or less incoherent frenzy born partly of baffled rage at his inability to win back Samuel's support and those blessing of God which he had lost by his own self-will and pride, and partly of his fearful dread, both of David, whom he now knew to be the Lord's anointed, and the ever-present Philistine menace. It is hardly likely that the Holy Spirit spoke in any way through this man whom God had rejected. The momentary excitement over, Saul arose, and for the last time passed out of sight and ken (knowledge) of the one who had placed him upon the throne and established the kingdom under him.

So Samuel breathed his last, an old man and full of days. He died as he had lived, in the company of the Lord's people and in the exercise of devoted ministry. The last sight of which he was conscious, as the failing eye-lids flickered down over the serene eyes, was that of the young men, the sons of the prophets, gathered around his couch, mute promise of the continuation of his life's work. He rested from his labours, but his works continued. Israel was to pass through strange and troublous times, but the light would break through again and the standard which Samuel had held aloft for nearly a century would be honoured once more. Many a generation yet to be born was to rise up and bless the name of Samuel, his sterling faithfulness to God and to his fellows echoing down the corridors of time for ever.

THE END
AOH