(Read 1 Samuel 4 and 7.)The two chapters given above furnish a most impressive illustration of a principle which runs all through the inspired volume, namely, that the moment man takes his right place, God can meet him in perfect grace-free, sovereign, unqualified grace: the fulness of God waits on an empty vessel. This great principle shines everywhere from Genesis to Revelation. The word "principle" hardly expresses what is meant; it is too cold. We would speak of it as a grand, living, divine fact, which shines with heavenly lustre in the gospel of the grace of God and in the history of God's people collectively and individually, both in the Old and New Testament times.But man must be in his right place. This is absolutely essential. It is only there he can get a right view of God. When man as he is, meets God as He is, there is a perfect answer to every question, a divine solution of every difficulty. It is from the standpoint of utter and hopeless ruin that man gets a full, clear, delivering view and sense of God's salvation. It is when man gets to the end of himself in every shape and form-his bad self and his good self, his guilty self and his righteous self-that he begins with a Saviour-God. This is true at the starting-post, and true all along the way. The fulness of God ever waits on an empty vessel. The great difficulty is to get the vessel empty: when that is done, the whole matter is settled, because the fulness of God can then flow in.This surely is a grand, fundamental truth; and in the chapters which stand at the head of this paper we see it in its application to the Lord's earthly people of old. Let us turn to them for a moment.