Friday, March 23, 2012

Tenacity

1 Samuel 7:2 KJV
And it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kirjathjearim, that the time was long; for it was twenty years: and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD.

There are a number of questions that a person might ask concerning this moment in the history of Israel;
Where was Samuel for those twenty years?
I am imagining that Samuel may not have been ten years old when Eli died. If that is so, he would have had little influence in Israel until he was thirty years old. Perhaps that is why twenty years is mentioned. Who raised him, how he was nurtured in the things of the Lord is a mystery. However, having now a relationship with God it is not difficult to see the Lord raising him up Himself.

What happened to the priesthood after the death of Eliezer, Hophni and Phinehas?
There is no mention of the priesthood that I can recall until David re-establishes it in his reign it could be that nearly a whole generation of priests wasted their lives in worldly living.

Why didn't Israel return the ark to Shiloh when they got the ark back from the Philistines?
I can only assume that Shiloh had been abandoned if not destroyed.
It is amazing how easily men may be removed from the things of the Lord. As traumatic event as the taking of the ark was, still it was no cause for an abandonment of God. And yet even in this abandonment Israel had a clan of people who kept their eyes upon the Lord. It does not appear that the men of Kirjathjearim or Abinadab normal his son Eliazar were of the tribe of Levi, only that they cared for the ark and cared that it be cared for properly.

For me, one of the greatest testaments of the veracity of the Christian faith is that, as easily as men are removed from believing, after more than two thousand years there are still those who tenaciously hold to faith and there are still new souls latching on to this faith daily. Satan has attacked with vigor but still believers raise up.

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