There is a very deep need in the history of the church today for a vision of its purpose upon the earth.

The necessity, the requirement, the urgency is to view its purpose from God’s viewpoint, from His mind as He moves on to His ultimate design.

This brings us to the obligation as His people to determine what His mind is and then, to seek out how this is to be brought about upon the earth.

From its beginning, God had purposed in His heart and mind, to establish His kingdom upon the earth through Israel.

It was to have become a kingdom whose citizens were priests and kings unto God.

This was announced to the sons of Israel before the covenant was concluded at Sinai as the ultimate object of their adoption as the people of His possession.

Exodus 19:5-6: “Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession (or special treasure) among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation...”

This promise reached far beyond the Old Covenant times into the time it would be perfectly fulfilled in the completion of the Kingdom of God under the New Covenant.

Revelation 5:8-10: “And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
- v 9: And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
- v 10: And Thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”

Israel was not only to become a priestly nation but also a royal one.

Not only was it to be sanctified as a congregation of the Lord, but it was to be exalted into God’s peculiar kingdom, having been divinely called to that position in which the Lord would establish the throne of His kingdom forever.

Its kings and priests were to be royalty all the way through to their very innermost beings in order to rightly represent and execute the divine measures that were in Jehovah.

Their failures in this regard are well documented in the Old Testament Scriptures but, equally documented there is the divine intention that would not be interrupted, obstructed, nor encumbered.

That intention was repeated to David in 2.Sam.7:12-16.

I shall read just two verses from this context; verses 12-13.

“When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant (lit. seed) after you, who will come forth from you (lit. your bowels), and I will establish his kingdom. 
He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”

This was a pledge of the ultimate completion of the Kingdom of God under the scepter of the Son of David, the promised Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

This was God’s intention all through His history of the plan of salvation, a plan that included the display of the utter impossibility of the human spirit to accomplish this but the sure possibility of the divine power to carry it through from start to the very finish of it.

With this intention of God in mind for His people, one of the first sureties to be shown was the fact of His Sovereignty in and through His people, His people who in this New Covenant is called the Church.

And how was this to be carried on?

For this, the Book of Samuel will help to give us the answer.

We want to notice that at the time of Samuel, divine revelations were extremely rare.

The priesthood had fallen into deep corruption and the Word of the Lord was seldom heard; a message from the Lord was a rare treasure in Israel; the prophecy, word and teaching that was spiritually divinely anointed was uncommon, for the Lord would not openly reveal Himself.

And so, 1.Samuel 3:1 starts with: “Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord before Eli. And word from the Lord was rare in those days, visions were infrequent, (lit. no vision spread abroad).

There was ‘no open vision’, no prophetic word, the Word spoken or in vision revealed from the Lord Jehovah Himself.

Just think about it, ‘there was no open vision’, no illumination coming from the divine countenance.

And where there is no revelation, teaching, nor illumination coming from the divine throne of God concerning Him and His ways, the people are ‘as dead’ before Him.

Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision (or revelation) the people perish,...”; other translations have it, ’the people cast off restraint,...’; or ‘the people run wild,...’.

Let me explain: this word vision (hazon) has often been used and misinterpreted as to ‘visualizing a personal goal’ and then pursuing it. 

But this Scripture here in Proverbs 29:18 has absolutely nothing to do with any human goal or enterprise.  

It refers to divine communiction to prophets as here in 1.Sam.3:1.

Where there is no understanding of the Lord’s ways, no revelation of God’s plan and purpose, the people perish.

It was a dreadful situation - His people, His Church, going on and not knowing that they were lacking the illumination needed to carry on His divine work.

They were out having their good times, socializing with each other, playing the ‘Church game’ and yet without that obligatory, indispensible, absolutely needful divine guidance to do His divine work!

How sad such a condition is for those called ‘His people’, called by His Name!

One of the saddest statements the Bible has to make is found in Judges 16:20, [on Samson].

Judges 16:20: “And she [Delilah] said, ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson!’ And he awoke from his sleep and said, ‘I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.’
But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him”.

How terrible! - The Lord had left him; the Lord had turned away from him; but Samson did not know it!

Yet, there it was and, as the opposite of Proverbs 3:10 suggests, their spiritual barns were not ‘filled with plenty’ nor were their ‘presses bursting forth with new wine’.

There had been absolutely no vision, revelation, or teaching from the Lord.

It was about that time that “the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, ‘Samuel, Samuel!’” (1.Sam.3:10)

Fortunately, Samuel had been trained to listen.

At first it was strange to him, thinking it was another voice, that of Eli, the priest, a voice and a directive that Eli should have been receiving from the Lord since he, and not Samuel, was in the position of the priest at that time.

But, it was Samuel who had been prepared to receive this vision, this revelation from the Lord.

How great was His mercy, to raise up this instrument to carry forward His work when others proved to be so unfaithful, so lacking in courage, so corrupt as these priests had become.

1.Samuel 3:10-14: “Then the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, ‘Samuel, Samuel!’ And Samuel answered, ‘Speak, for Thy servant is listening’.
- v 11: And the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.
- v 12: In that day I will carry out against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end.
- v 13: For I have told him that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves and he did not rebuke them.
- v 14: And therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”

And how merciful was the Lord to render the call to Samuel effectual.

It was with humble modesty and exact fidelity that Samuel reported the revelation to Eli.

God had promised to carry out His judgments against Eli and his house, the judgment that He had spoken earlier through another vehicle to Eli in 1.Samuel 2:30.

And, Samuel, through his unreserved and candid communication of this terrible and solemn Word of God to Eli, must have felt a compassion and a regret in having to report this to one whom he certainly esteemed with a filial affection, not only as high priest, but also, as his own parental guardian. (1.Samuel 3:15-18)

Yet, he did what was required of him and proved himself to be a man of courage and of power to proclaim the word of the Lord to the people of the Lord, the Lord’s Church.

1.Samuel 3:19-21: “Thus Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fail (lit. fall to the ground). And all Israel...knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, because the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.”

When the Word of the Lord was once again received by a vessel He had chosen to send it forth, the Lord appeared at Shiloh, His dwelling place.

From this point onward, Samuel became a man who would be made into a ‘fit’ vessel of God, a vessel who would do no less nor anything more than what the Lord commanded him to say and do.

There could be nothing coming out from his own ambitions and motives.

Eli, nor any of the priests or workers at the temple, could do anything to make him this kind of instrument in the hands of God, no matter how concerned they may have been of this young man.

The Lord chose this person to open up the windows of heaven for ‘His Church’, to let the revelation of His plan pour forth once more to the people of Israel.

And, the work in Samuel would be strictly God’s work alone Who would exhibit His work in this instrument of His in due time.

It was God’s determination that His work and His cause would never fall to the ground in abject, debasing, humiliating uselessness for lack of vessels to carry it ever onward to His ultimate intention.

Even though there may be many who take on the ministry of the revelation of God’s mind under their own power and schemes, the ministry God has in mind will always continue onward in His way, in His time, by the servants of His choosing alone.

He has founded this Church on the Rock, His own Priest and His own Child, and the gates of hell will never prevail against Him.

His ministry will move forward in spite of the forces pitted against it.

We go over to the disciples after His ascension in the Book of Acts.

There we see those men having been called to this same ministry of revealing God’s ultimate intention to His people.

The words did not fall to the ground.

Isaiah 55:10-11: ‘His Word would give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater. So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.’

When God calls such a sower to spread the seed of His word that comes from God’s heart and mouth, it becomes an awesome matter.

For God is giving an unveiling concerning His purpose in Christ which is of such vital importance that it called for a special history and preparation.

The disciples had that special history and that special preparation in their lives, for it was no small thing to have been so hand-picked by the Lord Himself to execute His work upon the earth.

And it was, likewise, no small thing for Samuel to have been chosen for this special revelatory mission of God.

He had been called and chosen by the Lord Himself to turn this idolatrous nation to the Lord its God, to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

He had been called to establish them in the knowledge and fear of the Lord, a job the priests failed to do.

He had been chosen to bring forth a permanent dwelling place so that the Lord could inhabit the congregation of His people. (1.Samuel 2:27-36)

- v 35: ‘...I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who will do according to what is in My heart and in My soul;...and he will walk before My anointed always.’
         
What an awesome ministry that was placed in his hands when God gave him this revelation of the Divine heart!

Without spiritual preaching, proceeding from a history of spiritual experience, a people is in a depraved, corrupt, incorrigible condition.

As the voice of God’s revelation, speaking from divine revelation, Samuel needed to constantly bend the knees of his heart to the Lord.

He could not afford to deliver the message from an uncertain, fanciful, arbitrary heart and mind.

Nor could he dare to interject his own mind, follow his own ways, or yield, submit, conform to the world’s ways, fads and fancies.

It had to be THE Word of God - period!

And that word had to be in complete alignment to the heart and mind of God.

We have come to a time in Christian history in which the vision of God’s mind and purpose is confused and muddled, as it was in Samuel’s day.

The day is upon us when God is desiring to clear away from blind eyes and hearts all that hinders from seeing 
His great purpose He has planned from before the foundation of the world was laid.

As it was needed in Samuel’s day, so the need today is the same vision, the same revelation by the Holy Spirit of His divine purpose and emphasis.

There is a need among the Church at large to be visited, directed, and managed under an open Heaven, the heavenly opening with a divine anointing to an unveiling that comes right from the very heart of God.

This will call for a higher spiritual level of ministry, in general.

It will call for the hearts of the vessels He has chosen to be ready for His school of preparation that goes with the calling.

Lord willing, in the continuing studies, we will examine the ‘ministry of this divine calling’ and see the mind of God concerning it.