Samuel the prophet shows us the way through perilous times
Samuel is my favorite example of a pray-er.
Why?
He not only prayed, but he also began a prayer movement that trained thousands in the generations that followed him.
Read that again!
He began a prayer movement that trained thousands in the generations that followed him.
How did that work?
Well, it began simply enough.
Samuel was the last judge in Israel’s history, and he was also the first full-time prophet. At the Lord’s direction, Samuel anointed Israel’s first two kings (the first was king Saul who was wicked, the second was David, ‘the man after God’s own heart.’ ) In fact, if you remember the story, the Lord sent Samuel to anoint David as king even while Saul was still serving as ‘the Lord’s anointed king’.
So there was Saul…
Saul’s wickedness was so intense that he tried killing David more than once, even after David had married Saul’s daughter. Even more insidious, Saul ordered his henchman Doeg to kill 85 priests of God in the town of Nob, after the chief priest Ahimelech simply gave David some food for his journey.
King Saul spent the last ten years or so of his tenure as king looking for and trying to kill David!
…and there was David
David stepped into the anointing of both the prophet (Samuel) and the king. Though David was pursued through his entire young adulthood, on the run from Saul with 600 men that David was responsible for, he became the king of Israel that every other Jewish king was measured against. It was trouble that prepared David for the throne.
King Saul was a type of the future antichrist, pursuing God’s chosen with fanaticism and rage.
David was a foreshadowing of the coming Messiah, one ‘after God’s own heart,’ whose throne would be eternal.
In these two men whom Samuel anointed, we can see the seeds of end-time conflict, as well as the key to end-time victory.
(This is the first in a series of articles discussing Samuel’s army (a group of prophets surrounding and learning from the prophet Samuel), and how that prophetic group influenced King David and his understanding of the heart of God.)
