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Good evening everyone and welcome to eBiblefellowship’s daily Bible study. We have taken a two week break and now we are going to pick up again in the Book of 1st Samuel. This is study number 30 in 1st Samuel and we are presently in chapter two. In 1 Samuel 2:8-11, we read:
He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are JEHOVAH’S, and he hath set the world upon them. He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. The adversaries of JEHOVAH shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: JEHOVAH shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed. And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the child did minister unto JEHOVAH before Eli the priest.
I will stop reading there. Now, we have been in 1st Samuel chapter two for a little while, going verse by verse, through Hannah’s prayer. Just to remind us, and it never hurts to be reminded, we constantly actually need to be reminded of the Bible’s teaching that “Hannah” is a type of the believers and her child: “Samuel”, that God has blessedher with, is a picture of Christ Himself. That is why Hannah’s prayer matches up so well with Mary’s words of praise in the Gospel of Luke. We have seen that, of course, God has loaded these words in 1st Samuel with the Gospel.
Each phrase, each word, is pointing to some element of God’s Gospel and we are not surprised by that. That is how God has always written the Bible and we find that everywhere in the Scripture. That is why, for instance, in the Book of Hebrews, in Hebrews 10:7, it is said of Christ:
… (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) …
Whereever we look within the Bible (the volume of the book), we will find Christ, we will find things that are concerning the Gospel of Christ and it is the same in 1st Samuel, as 1st Samuel is part of the Word of God and we previously had looked at the first part of verse 8, we saw how that relates to God exalting the children of God from our lowly and really awful, ugly condition as a sinner—trapped by our sins and the filth of this world; and so God says, “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar …”. That is all we are. We are nothing more than beggars.
When we read of “beggars” in the New Testament, like blind Bartimaeus; he was a blind man who sat by the road side and he heard that Jesus was passing by. He could not see Him, but he heard it from others. He had no ability in himself and he could not see Him. He did not know exactly where He was and all Bartimaeus could do was to cry out for mercy, “…, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.” He has had practice at that because that was how he had lived, as a beggar. He looked to the mercy of others, and God had provided for him. Up until that point he was able to live, to have his needs met, as God moved in other people to provide for him. Yet, no one could help Bartimaeus with blindness. No, but it took the Hand of God; and so, he cried out.
That is how every child of God is. The picture of a beggar is a very accurate description of each one of us as God has shown us our great spiritual poverty. He has shown us our tremendous need of a Savior; and so the child of God is moved to cry and beseech the LORD, that He might have mercy on us and that He might grant us the spiritual riches of the Kingdom of Heaven. That is what God has done for each of His elect as He has taken us from the dung hill and notice that it goes on to say, in 1 Samuel 2:8:
…, to set them among princes, …
We are lifted up out of the dung. “The dunghill” is about as ugly a picture as you can make, but also, about as accurate, as God could make our spiritual condition of being in our sin and God takes His people from there and He sets His people “among princes,” among the Lord Jesus Christ (that Great Prince that stands for His people), among the “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”.
His people are set amongst the Royalty of the Triune God and they are placed and given a seat in Christ, seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus, within the Kingdom of God. What a transformation that is! What a glorious change that is for God’s elect, who are rebellious, dead in sin and dead in their transgressions, but God has graciously, kindly and mercifully “translated” (the Bible uses the word, “translated”) His people “into the kingdom of his dear Son:” and they are amongst Princes.
Of course they do not know how to act. God has to teach them how to be of royal blood, how to conduct themselves and not as how they used to behave. They have to learn the language of the Kingdom of Heaven. They have to learn the behavior of the Kingdom of Heaven.
It is very similar to that story of “Rags to Riches” and yet, when the individual gets there, he or she has no manners. He or she is uncouth and certainly we are exactly that. We are uncouth. We are polluted and contaminated with the things of this world and God spends much time in this transformation of His people.
First, He gives His elect the new heart. But then He works on His people because they are still in the flesh and He teaches His people that it is so much better and so much more well pleasing to Him, to do things His way. It goes on to say, in 1 Samuel 2:8:
…, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: …
To “inherit”, you have to be written in the will in order to receive an inheritance. God has done that, he has written the names of each one of His people down in the Lambs Book of Life and the Lord Jesus died before the foundation of the world, to put the will into effect, in order that we might receive the inheritance. It is just an inheritance of untold, boundless, limitless, unfathomable riches that begin in this life as we experience tremendous blessings in our association with God, through His Word.
We have the great comfort of the Scriptures. We have the tremendous comfort of going to God in prayer. It is all part of this wonderful inheritance of the saints of the Kingdom of God (God’s Children).
Yet, here in 1 Samuel 2:8, it specifically mentions:
… to make them inherit the throne of glory: …
That phrase, “… the throne of glory: …” is found a couple of times at least, in the Bible. One place is in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 19. It says in Matthew 19:27-29:
Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
There is the true riches that each true believer possesses if they have salvation. God must give it to His elect. They can not take it, they can not force it. God has to be the one to grant them His salvation. If He has, then they will receive everlasting life.
Actually, His people have received a new heart and that is the down payment. It is a perfect heart and the Holy Spirit dwells within and it is a guarantee that the rest of God’s promises will come to completion. His people will also receive the new body (a spiritual body) which will then be perfect, without sin and eternal in nature. Yet, the believer’s everlasting life has begun because nothing and no one can kill their soul.
Their soul, right now for each one of them (each one that is truly a child of God), is indestructible. It is an eternal soul. There is no sin there, so therefore it will not die. They were dead in their soul existence, but God has made them born again. He has brought them to life. They have the first taste of the riches of their inheritance through this new birth in their hearts. This is just tremendous.
We do not deserve anything. We really do not. Nothing, not the slightest thing. As a matter of fact, if we want to go by “just desserts”, we deserve God’s wrath, His fury, His fire to be kindled against us and to burn us unto the lowest hell. We deserve to be completely destroyed because that is what our sins have brought upon us. We have offended. We are guilty. We do not deserve anything.
We cannot say for instance (and I hope no one ever thinks this), “Oh, we witnessed the Gospel, we carried God’s Word faithfully, we were diligent and we shared His Word with the world. We deserve now to go to Heaven. We deserve to be in Heaven. God’s wrong. He is not treating us fairly because He did not take us to heaven as we thought.”
I hope none of us thinks that way because it is not true. We would be thinking that God owes us something, that we are due something from God and that He has to pay us back in a sense because we did something in working for Him. That is not what ministering the Gospel is. It is not doing work and then expecting payback. No, “…: freely ye have received, freely give.”. That is the heart of the child of God. That comes from the nature that God has placed within His people. We never, never want to look for something back. This is service to God, this is ministry. Each one of us performs in obedience to the will of God.
Here in Matthew 19, aside from the reference, “shall inherit everlasting life.”, in Matthew 19:28, Jesus said:
…, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
This verse helps us to understand I think, a scripture in the Psalms. In Psalm 122:5, we read:
For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.
Notice it is plural; and so too, Matthew 19:28:
…, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, …
Christ is seated upon the throne of His glory, and they (here it is referenced to the disciples but I think it is referring to the children of God) “… sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
So that is one reference to the throne of glory. Another one is also in Matthew. In Matthew 25:31, it says:
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
So there again, Christ is going to take His seat upon the throne of His glory. The difference between this verse and the previous verse in Matthew 19, is this is referring to “holy angels”, where Matthew 19 was clearly speaking of those that follow Christ—the children of God.
Well, could it be that the reference to “holy angels” is also a reference to the true believers that follow God? And the answer is, yes because we learned a while ago that the word “angels” (might be angeloi), has to do with being a “messenger” of the Kingdom of God and all of the true believers are messengers. They carry God’s word and yet, this is referring to Judgment day in Matthew 25 because that is clear when we read the following verses. In Matthew 25:32-34, we read:
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
It goes on. We are familiar with the parable.
It is Judgment day and the time when Christ is making final separation between “the sheep”, who are truly saved, and “the goats”. There is a parallel between what we are reading here and today. Actually, this parable is instructing us, it is showing us what God is doing and has been doing, as we have entered into Judgment day.
He is judging the world and the holy messengers (the children of God) are judging the world with him. The elect person, you and me and anyone who is an elect, is presently judging the world. Well, how are we judging the world, with Christ? The answer is that God has saved all of those whose names were “written in the Lamb’s book of life.”. The great multitude filled up the total sum of the number that God intended to save.
The whole house of Israel has been gathered; and so we have all been redeemed. Every one that God wanted to save out of humanity (out of mankind) has been redeemed, has had the application of the Word of God applied to their heart.
God has used His Word to create a new heart within all of the elect at this point and of course, its different stages. You may be, are a child of God for decades and others for a few years and others may have been as recent as just prior to May 21 2011 and therefore, we do not know how God is going to work this out in the lives of people all over the earth.
After all, remember a great many people out there that heard the Gospel right before May 21 2011. They are in foreign lands and they do not have Bibles, they do not have churches, let us say in a Muslim country, or in Nepal, or in other places. So, they were saved and yet there is really no follow up to that salvation; and so it may take quite a while for God to work in this individual and that individual’s life, as we continue on during these days after the tribulation, known as “Judgment day” upon the world.
The world is presently experiencing the Judgment of God and since God saved all of the elect—that act of the hand of God, in accomplishing and completing His will, in His salvation plan is used as the instrument, like a “battle axe” (as Jeremiah called it) in which God is smashing the peoples of the earth, that never became saved. In other words, since God saved everyone that He intended to save (and that is why the big emphasis is on the door shutting on May 21 2011), therefore, there is no longer the possibility of salvation for anyone else.
That is the means of His Judgment upon the earth. That is the way He is judging the world. He closed the door, just as He did to the church. It was an awful judgment on the churches, during the great tribulation, when no one became saved in any congregation, for the 23 year period (a complete, exact, 23 years up until May 21 2011) and then was the transition. Jeremiah 25 lays out God’s plan very neatly and very carefully. God speaks of giving the cup to the city that is called by his name, that would refer to the churches and then, He makes the statement to the world, “For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished?” No, the teaching is there. “Ye shall not be unpunished:”. “if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Ye shall certainly drink.”
It is the same “cup”. There is no difference in “the cup”, in the word and in the language that it is used. It is identical. The Judgment on the churches was a spiritual Judgment which no one could see. The churches were completely ignorant of it till this day. They think that all is well and God is blessing them. Yet, it was a real judgment and likewise, Christ came as a thief in the night. He came as such a tremendous thief that the world does not even know that He came.
He came unexpectedly, He has caught the world off guard and He has brought a snare upon all the inhabitants of the earth at this point. This is all part of Christ taking His seat on the throne of His glory and God speaks of the children of God also being seated with Him as we are judging the world with Him. We do not make judgment upon people.
We share what the Bible says. If God says that the churches are under His wrath and there is no salvation there—we share that. But that means (I am speaking of during the church age) that all that were in the churches, we could know that they were being disobedient. We could know that, as long as they were there, they were giving no evidence of being children of God.
Well, we do not look at the individual. That is not our business. All we do is share, “God began Judgment on the House of God” and likewise now, “God has shut the door on the world”. We do not look at any individual. It is not our business to point the finger and say, “Oh, this one was in the church so there is no hope for him” or “this child is born so there is no hope for that”. That is not our business.
We just share what the Bible teaches and we will let everyone else make judgment of themselves, or we will allow the Word of God to make the Judgment. We just are witnesses for the truth of what it says.
Well, we have come to the end of our time tonight. I thank you for joining us. It is a pleasure being back and being able to share from the Bible. There is really nothing like this ability we have to openly and publicly share from the Scriptures and to think about the Word of God.
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