1 SAMUEL 12 - REFLECTIONS OF A GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT
1 Samuel 12
This Chapter reads like a farewell address from Samuel, but he is certainly not retiring from serving God, because his ministry as a prophet will continue on through the reign of Saul as king and on to the anointing of David as Saul’s successor. Besides, the concept of retiring from serving the Lord is not found anywhere in Scripture. As long as we have breath, there is use for us here on earth in some capacity in advancing God’s purposes and Kingdom.
At this point in Samuel’s life, he has finished his work of finding a king for Israel, and it is a good stopping point for him to pause and reflect on what has happened and on what he has learned. Many times, people in the Old Testament would stop and build a monument as a way of preserving for the memory of posterity some great event or act of God. So, in a sense, this is a written monument to what God had done in and through Samuel up to this point in time. It is good for us to at times do something similar by taking a moment to pause and reflect on what God has been doing in, around, and through us, and to give Him the glory He deserves.
There are many parts to Samuel’s written monument in this Chapter, but the key parts of it seem to be as follows:
· A declaration that he has faithfully fulfilled the task of finding a king for Israel (Vs. 1-2).
· An affirmation that he has acted uprightly (Vs. 3-5).
· A review of God’s history of dealing with Israel (Vs. 6-12).
· An encouragement to the people to submit to God (Vs. 13-15).
· A rebuke for the sin of the people in insisting on having a king, when God did not want them to have one (Vs. 16-19).
· An encouragement to follow God and His ways (Vs. 20-21).
· A reminder of God’s faithfulness to His people despite their sin (Vs. 22-25).
Samuel has been a good and faithful servant to both God & the people of Israel, but they have wavered in their own faithfulness. So, in Vs. 20-21, he tells them to not turn aside from following the Lord, to serve Him with all their heart, and to not follow after empty things that will not satisfy or do any good. Nothing should ever take the rightful place of God as being first and foremost in our lives, and whenever we allow something else (even otherwise good things) to take His place or to crowd Him out of our lives, then we have created an idol, and idols will never satisfy us or bring good to us the way God can.
God’s heart breaks when we turn from His goodness and love, and look for those things in all the wrong places. Jeremiah 2:14 says
“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
Just as Samuel warned the people of Israel to be on guard against idols which would displace the preeminent role and place of God in their lives, so we too need to be on guard against the same thing. The allure of the things of the world may be strong, but the allure of living and walking in the love and ways of God is even stronger. May we give heed to the reflections of the good and faithful servant, Samuel, so that when we pause to reflect on what God has been doing in our lives, we can rest, like he did, in the knowledge that we have, by God’s grace, fulfilled the tasks that He has called us to do.
Finally, Samuel gives us the proper and powerful motive for continually seeking to be faithful to God and His ways, and we see that at the end of Vs. 24 where he calls the people to consider the great things God has done for them. Our lives should be lived in loving response to God’s grace. This is the message from Romans 12:1 as well, where we are called to present ourselves as living sacrifices for God in view of His great mercies. In loving response to God’s great work of salvation of our souls through Jesus Christ, we should desperately want to serve and obey Him.