[Psa 132:17 KJV] 17 There will I make the horn of David to bud: I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed.

For many days, the verse of 1 Samuel 3:3 has been ringing in my ears. The lamp was the seven bowled lamp stand of one work. It was fueled by olive oil, and was ordered to be kept burning perpetually by decree. The priests were charged with this task, and were thus the weak link in the arrangement.

Samuel was born in Grace (Hannah means “grace”). She was one of two wives of a man named Elkanah (“God has created”). Elkanah’s other wife had born him children, while Hannah had long time been barren. Hannah, in blessing the Lord for Samuel, uttered a beautiful prophetic song. In the song she said:

“[1Sa 2:5 KJV] 5 [They that were] full have hired out themselves for bread; and [they that were] hungry ceased: so that the barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble”.

In the book of Acts, the Lord came. The Spirit of God, IS God. And the words of the Lord spoken by the prophet were fulfilled that day:

[Mal 3:1 KJV] 1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

This was fulfilled with a visible sign, as those who received the Lord appeared to have flames sitting upon each of them. Thus the Lord had spoken, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst giving glory to my Father”.

The book of Revelation begins in the same manner, as the Lord walks in the midst of the candlesticks….the assemblies. The candlestick Moses had them make was the light of the Holy place. It was placed in the South side against the camp of the South, the camp of Gad, “assembly”. The candlestick revealed what was in the holy place…and what was not in it. The light of the Holiest place is the Lord Himself. Inner light, from which perspective, all other lights, even candlestick, are outer darkness.

In Samuel’s day the word of the Lord departed from the priesthood, and the lamp went out in the house called by the Lord’s name. The word of the Lord came to be established in Samuel. The people further debased themselves in asking a king, rejecting the Lord.

The book of revelation also deals with the lamp going out in the assemblies, and being established in the individual who has an ear to hear, who overcomes, who follows the Lord. The Lord says to the assembly, to repent, before it’s lamp is removed from “his place”. An assembly with no lamp is a city in which the sound of the millstone is no longer heard. The churches are told to repent and “they repented not”. The “place” of the lamp is signified as the Holy place. At no time ever did the lampstand enter the Holiest. Only They who it signified entered. The Lord and them who are risen with Him. Paul spoke of this “way”, as being signified in Hebrews 9. The scriptures speak of it in Numbers 17

[Num 17:8 KJV] 8 And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.

Aaron’s rod was raised with a generation, and in that state, entered the Holiest. In doing this, it passed by the man made effigy of a fruiting Almond (the candlestick), fulfilling the meaning of the candlestick, and pointing not to a people of perpetual assembly looking to things to come, but a people of the Resurrection in whom are fulfilled the meaning of these things. We, by faith, are crucified, raised and seated together with Christ , in His great finished work.

It says “when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part, is done away”. When you arrive at the substance, the symbol is dissolved to you. It still looms as a guidepost for them who seek, but we are not called to be perpetuals seekers. The one who told us to seek, said you will find. If you have found, you walk in Him who you have found. The “assembly”, the candlestick, has no place in this. If you will walk, then walk. No seed not yet a completed work, is ready for the harvest. The body of Christ is is a company of complete individuals. The lamp of the house called by many , “the Lord’s house”, has no place in the fulfillment. As a dear brother has pointed out, though we preach the process, we are not in a process, we are in a completed work. Though the book of Revelation begins with the lighted candlestick, it concludes with a people who have no need of it.

Samuel’s life told of these things before. It is worth studying.It says to forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is. There is the assembly of them who perpetually seek. There is the assembly of those who have found, and walk in what they found. An assembly of complete individuals:

[Heb 12:22-29 KJV] 22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than [that of] Abel. 25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more [shall not] we [escape], if we turn away from him that [speaketh] from heaven: 26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. 27 And this [word], Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 29 For our God [is] a consuming fire.