The Glory of Israel Fades Away

When the children of Israel had finally come into possession of Canaan, and subdued the land before them, they set up the Tabernacle of the congregation at Shiloh. Here it remained until the time of the prophet Samuel, a period of approximately 300 years. This was the period of the judges. Not for long did Israel enjoy the liberty, and the freedom, and the fruitfulness of the Land of Promise. God had warned them repeatedly that if they did not utterly destroy the heathen nations of the land and annihilate their idolatrous altars, they would be as pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides, and their gods would become a snare to them. This actually happened.

For although the land was subdued before them; God deliberately left pockets of resistance here and there to "prove" Israel, whether or not they would hearken unto His voice and obey Him fully. (See Judg. 3:1.) They tried coexistence where God commanded utter destruction of their enemies. Consequently their enemies, subdued but not destroyed, became their masters. There is no neutral ground in this spiritual warfare against the world, the flesh, and the Devil. We may argue that we cannot be completely victorious as long as we are living in this flesh, and consider that the subjugation of the old nature and the old life is all that God requires. But this kind of coexistence gradually gives way to defeat; and the subdued becomes the subduer.

In allowing this struggle to continue within our nature God is not seeking to deny us our heritage, but rather to bring forth a more earnest longing for that abundant life in the Spirit that He longs to bring us into.

We do not know how long the cloud of glory rested on the Tabernacle. But we have good reason to believe that it gradually faded away, like the glory that faded away from the countenance of Moses. The nation that God had called forth to be unto Himself "a peculiar people" soon lost their "peculiarity," and became very much like the nations which they had displaced. The people and the priesthood alike had become defiled. Eli was concerned; but he did not know what to do about it.

At least in his concern for God's house he did not seem to be prepared to take any drastic action that might have improved the situation. God had to reprove him for his negligence: "Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honourest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people?" (1 Sam. 2:29). This fear of division, of disruption in the status quo, of losing favor with the "sons" in the ministry, is something very real in the Church today; and unless the situation is remedied, there will be eventual disaster. But there is a "Samuel" people being prepared of the Lord in this hour.

And they know that when an old religious order is in the process of decay and dissolution God always has a new order in the making... one that will arise out of the dust and ashes of the old, but fresh and new from the hand of God.