Turning your Bibles with me to
the book of 1st Samuel, the Old Testament. We're going to be
looking at 1st Samuel, chapter 2. And the title of the message
is, A Prayer of Thanksgiving. The first 10 verses of this chapter. And you probably know it as Hannah's
Prayer, a woman named Hannah. You may know the story, I'm sure
if you've read First Samuel 1 and 2, you know the story of this
woman named Hannah. Hannah was one of two wives of
a man named Elkanah. His one wife was named Peninnah,
and then Hannah. And Peninnah had many children,
but Hannah was barren. She had no children at all. And
of course, that was a great source of sorrow for her. She was probably,
the way you read it here, is Elkanah, her husband, loved her
more than he did the other woman, Peninnah. Now that doesn't make
her right. And of course, you know, people
have asked me about this. What about polygamy in the Old
Testament? Did God condone polygamy? And the answer's no. It's no. But given the fact that we live
in a sinful world, There were certain things that were tolerated
in the Old Testament under the Old Covenant that we don't recognize
today because of the need of it. We don't need it today. But
marriage has always been between one woman, one man, coming together,
leaving father and mother, cleaving together, and there is no other
biblical marriage. Now mark it down. All right. any other kind of marriage there's
no marriage between two men or two women or whatever they call
themselves these days but it's always one man one woman and
it was an institution provided by God and commanded by God of
the human race mainly to picture the relationship between Christ
and his church Christ being the bridegroom and the church being
his bride so you know you can read about that in Ephesians
5 but Back then, because of the situation, because of the sinfulness
of men and women, because of all this, there were certain
things that were allowed to perpetuate the human race, and especially
in Israel, the tribes, especially Judah. It was through the tribe
of Judah that Christ would come. And it was tolerated. I said
that one time to a guy, and he said, God doesn't tolerate sin.
I said, well, he puts up with you, doesn't he? Yeah, yeah. He tolerates a lot. That's called
his long-suffering. God's long-suffering. And we
better thank God for his long-suffering. Why didn't God immediately destroy
the human race when Adam fell? Because he had a purpose in mind
to glorify himself in the salvation of his people through the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he's still calling out his
people, even though very few. calling them out of the world
into the fold of the church through the preaching of the true gospel,
not a false gospel. And as long as there's any of
God's children out there who have yet to be called into the
fold, you know what's going to happen? This world is going to
continue no matter what shape it's in. It's a cursed world.
It's a sinful world. But when that last one is called
into the fold, I believe that's when Christ is coming again and
this world will be destroyed and created anew, new heavens
and the new earth. So anyway, that's just a little
side note for you today. But anyway, here's Elkanah and
his wife, Phanenah, who had many children. Here's his wife, Hannah,
who didn't have any children. And that was a great, great,
source of sorrow for her. And then as is human nature,
Peninnah, the woman who had many children, recognizing that her
husband loved the other woman more than her, she began to persecute
and to ridicule Hannah. And then that made it even worse. So Hannah prayed. The first prayer
is in chapter one where she prayed silently. She got down and prayed
silently to the Lord. her lips were moving and the
high priest at that time was a man named Eli and Eli looked
at Hannah and saw her praying and he didn't think she was praying,
he thought she was drunk and he just made that mistake and
he said, look at verse 14 of chapter one says, and Eli said
in there, how long wilt thou be drunken? Put away thy wine
from thee. Stop drinking. And Hannah in
verse 15 answered and said, no, my Lord, I'm a woman of a sorrowful
spirit. I've drunk neither wine nor strong
drink, but I poured out my soul before the Lord. That's what
she's doing. She's praying to the Lord. And what does she want?
She wants a child. Simple request. Well, as time
went on, the Lord gave her a child, a man child, a boy. And you know
what she named her child? Samuel. Samuel, probably the
progenitor of all the school of the prophets. We're reading
1 and 2 Samuel here. And of course, you know how Samuel,
he was the prophet during the days of King Saul and during
some of the days of King David too. But he was a prophet of
God. And Hannah, what she did, she
told the Lord in her prayer, If you give me a son, I'll dedicate
him unto you. And the Lord gave her a son.
Now that's not bargaining with God. You and I know, if we believe
the Bible, that this was God's purpose all along. Now you know
that. I mean, God didn't come down
to Hannah and say, now Hannah, if you'll really pray hard, I'll
give it to you. And if you don't, I won't. No,
no, this was God's purpose. But Hannah was a child of God. And she prayed. Look at the last
two verses of 1 Samuel 2. She said, oh, my Lord, as thy
soul liveth, my Lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here
praying unto the Lord. For this child, Samuel now, I
prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition, which I ask of
him. Therefore also I have lent him
to the Lord. Now that word lent, if you look
in your concordance, it means returning to the Lord. It means,
it's not like giving him a loan. It's like she got the child from
God and said, I'm just dedicating him to the Lord. That's what
that means. And as long as he liveth, he shall be lent to the
Lord and he worshiped the Lord there. There he is. And then
we come to chapter two, a prayer of thanksgiving, Hannah's prayer.
And let me just read through the prayer. And I'll just make
a few comments on each side. But think about this prayer.
We're talking about Thanksgiving. Everybody's coming together for
Thanksgiving this week. And I mentioned in the Sunday
school lesson in the Bible study that for a believer, a true believer,
every day is Thanksgiving, isn't it? Now we don't all sit down
and eat turkey and ham and pumpkin pie every day, but I don't know,
maybe some of you do. But either way, every day is
a day of thanksgiving. And I want you to read that article
that I wrote on that. I mentioned this too. I'm not
trying to just promote my own writing. I'm just, I believe
the Lord gave me a word here on how do we give thanks. And
we do have to be taught that in the ways of the Lord. Oh,
I know how, when somebody does something for me, good, I know
how to thank them. I say thank you. And I try to,
you know, if I can, you know, do something good for them. I
know it's not a bartering system or anything like that. But how
do we thank the Lord? And the main way we thank the
Lord is to believe him. Do you know that? If you don't
believe God, oh, that is the height, not only of disobedience
and sin and ingratitude, it's the height of ingratitude. to
not believe God. And that's why I had that song
that we just sang. Great is thy faithful. God is
faithful to his word. Read his word. What does God
say about himself in this word from Genesis to Revelation? If
I don't believe that, that's ingratitude. I'm serious now
because that glorifies God and God has given you and me everything
we have. The Bible says every good and
perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights. with whom
there's no shadow of turning, no change. And how many times
have I asked y'all, take your next breath. That's a gift from
God. Do you know that? Did you have
a good thought in your life? Think about this. Did you ever
have any good ideas and it developed into a success for you? You ever
have any of those? I know some of you have, but
not all of you. That's a gift from God. You wouldn't have even
had that thought. You wouldn't have even had the
brain power to come up with that if God hadn't given it to you.
Isn't that right? And so we thank Him for everything,
but especially, especially the salvation of our souls. Isn't
that right? Oh my goodness, if God never
gave me anything but His salvation, I owe Him infinite gratitude. Thank you, Lord. We're gonna
sing at the end of the service. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me thy great salvation, so rich and so free. And you say, well,
I've got arthritis. I don't thank him for that. Well,
I'm gonna tell you something I do thank him for. I thank him that
this arthritis that I have does not reflect my spiritual health
before Him in Christ. Maybe today He'll heal me of
it, maybe He won't, but I know it's going to be for His glory
and my good some way. So whatever comes our way, well
look at Hannah's prayer, look at verse one. It says, and Hannah
prayed, and here's what she said, my heart rejoiceth in the Lord. There's the first point of thanksgiving,
rejoicing. Now that's happiness. Sometimes
you'll see the word rejoice, especially in the New Testament,
and it means to have confidence in. Where the Apostle Paul said,
we're the circumcision, we worship God and spirit and rejoice in
Christ. and have no confidence in the
faith. What he means by that is my confidence of salvation
is in Christ. But here it's talking about joy
and peace that comes from looking to the Lord, the God who saves
sinners by His grace through Jesus Christ. She says my horn,
now the horn there would be power. My power is exalted in the Lord. I don't have any power. I don't
have any power to save myself. You know, the Bible talks a lot
about people who are powerful, and Jeremiah 9 says, for example,
let not those who are strong or mighty glory in their might.
In other words, if you are a strong person, if you have a lot of
power, whether it's authority over people in government or
whatever, or strong enough to lift so much weight or whatever,
healthy, don't glory in that. That's a gift from God, and you
know as well as I do, it can be taken away just like that.
one day healthy, next day on your dying bed. But she says,
my heart rejoiceth in the Lord, my horn is exalted in the Lord.
See, it's all of God. And she says, my mouth is enlarged
over mine enemies. Maybe she had in mind Peninnah
who was ridiculing her as an enemy. My mouth is enlarged. In other words, I'm happy, I
can smile big. this that the Lord has blessed
me because I rejoice," Look at it. "...I rejoice in thy salvation."
This is God's salvation and He gives it freely to His people.
Salvation is not of you or of me, it's of the Lord. And you
know that word salvation? In the Old Testament it would
be pronounced this way, Yeshua. Now you know what Yeshua is,
that's the Old Testament like Joshua, that's Jesus. His name
shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their
sins. His name is Yeshua, the Lord,
Jehovah, you might, that's a kind of like a compound name, but
He is the Lord, our righteousness. We preach the righteousness of
God, that's God's salvation. I stand before God in Christ's
righteousness imputed. it's given to me as a free gift,
the gift of righteousness and here's the something that we
rejoice over, I didn't have anything to contribute to it, it was all
Him. That's what Hannah's praying
here, I rejoice in thy salvation in your Yeshua, the promised
Messiah is what she's saying. His name shall be called Emmanuel,
God with us. Verse two, there's none holy
as the Lord, nobody like our God. There's nothing to compare
him with. Don't paint a picture of him.
No. You don't know what God looks like. To portray him just as
a mere human being, you know? No, I know Christ had a humanity.
Nobody knows what he looks like. I was telling Randy and Jim this
past week, years ago, I don't know what got into my head, but
I was sitting having my hair cut by a lady who used to come
to church here. And there was a, you know, you
go into these shops and there's several chairs and there was
a lady beside her who was cutting hair. And apparently she deemed
herself an artist. And she wanted to show me this
picture. And I wouldn't even, I wouldn't
listen. I promise you, I wasn't thinking about anything religious.
But she knew I was a preacher. She wanted to show me this painting
and she showed me the painting. She said, who is that? And you
know, the first name that popped in my head was Charles Manson. It looked like Charlie Manson.
And I'd seen Charles Manson. I hear all that and wowed. She
thought it was going to be Jesus. And she got really upset when
I said Charles Manson. And I told her, I wasn't going
to let her cut my hair. But I told her, I said, nobody
knows what Jesus looked like. These pictures and these icons
and idols that people, nobody knows it. And that's the way
God deemed it because we want to get our view of Him from the
doctrine of Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? He's God
manifest in the flesh. Don't paint a picture of Him.
You don't know what He looked like. But there's none like Him. There's none holy as the Lord,
he's separate. For there's none beside thee, neither is there
any rock like our God." There's no foundation. There's no solid
rock. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. Christ, the solid rock. None
like our God. Mohammed is not the rock. Mary
is not the rock. No, sir. Confucius, certainly,
and the Buddha, they're not the rock. Christ is the rock of our
salvation. Verse three, talk no more exceeding
proudly, let not arrogancy come out of your mouth. For the Lord
is a God of knowledge, that means he knows everything, and by him
actions are way. God knows you, he knows me. What's
the use of talking arrogantly? Now who's he talking about? He's
talking about self-righteousness. People who claim salvation on
a wrong ground, by their works or their wills or their efforts.
That's talking arrogantly. When you claim salvation, when
you claim you've got a right relationship with God based upon
what you've done or trying to do, that's arrogance. But God
knows, and by Him actions are weighed. And what is the standard
of measurement there? How many times you heard me quote
Acts 17 31? God has appointed a day in the
which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained, in that he hath given assurance unto
all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead. That's Christ. Actions are weighed by Christ. And Christ, the righteousness
of God in Christ, is the perfection of righteousness that can only
be found in him. It cannot be found in you. These
people talk about a perfect righteousness within them. They don't know
what they're talking about. They're talking arrogantly, proudly,
but God knows the truth. He knows your heart. He knows
my thoughts. Think about that. You mean God
knows my thoughts and he still saves and accepts a sinner like
me? Yes, but oh, up on one ground, the imputed righteousness of
Christ, the merits of his blood, By Him actions are way. Look
at verse four, the bows of the mighty men are broken and they
that stumbled are girded with strength. The bows of the mighty
men, that would be those who are arrogant, who are strong
in themselves, who claim a salvation or a right relationship with
God by their strength, their works, their efforts, their decisions. And it says their bows are broken.
It won't do. that's the battle you're fighting,
you're fighting with broken equipment. And he says, they that stumbled
just like Hannah stumbled, she was barren, she didn't have any
children but she was girded with strength, God gave her a child.
Those who are stumbled are like us who fell in Adam into a state
of sin and death and depravity Yet we've been given the strength
of the Lord in Christ. He is the power of God under
salvation. That's our strength. That's what
Paul meant when he said, when I'm weak, I'm strong. When I
recognize that I have no power, but all power to save is in Christ,
all hail the power of Jesus' name. Let angels prostrate fall. See, that's the issue. My power
is Christ, and he's all power. He's omnipotent. If He's your
power, you've got all power, but it didn't come from you,
it didn't come from me. She says in verse five, that
they that were full have hired out themselves for bread. What
she's talking about there is they see themselves as full because
they think they've bought what they've needed. They've hired
themselves out for bread, a hireling. You see, salvation is a matter
of grace, not what you earn. for hiring yourself. A lot of
people have hired themselves out to a false God, to false
religion. And they're doing their best
to earn God's favor, to establish their own righteousness before
God. And he says, they've hired themselves out for bread, but
look at this, verse five, and they that were hungry ceased.
Stand still. I wrote an article about this
last couple of weeks. Stand still, stop, and see the
salvation of the Lord. That's what the people of God
do. Stop trying to work your way into God's favor. Stop trying
to establish your own righteousness and rest in Christ. Now there's
nothing wrong, and it's only right, for a believer like Hannah,
like me or you, who know the Lord, to work hard to glorify
God in our lives, but not to be saved. Not to earn God's favor
and blessings, not to earn our way into righteousness. Cease. Cease what? Stop trying to save
yourself. That's what she's saying here.
And it says, so that the barren hath born seven. Now she only
had one child, but she says the barren have born seven. Seven
is the number of perfection and completeness in the Bible. And
that salvation that God has given his people who were spiritually
barren, that right? It's a perfect salvation. It's
a complete salvation. I think of Colossians 2, 9 and
10 which says, for in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily and you are complete in him. And it says
that, and she that hath many children is waxed or grown feeble. There's Peninnah with all of
her children, but her attitude toward Hannah and her attitude
toward the Lord were even worse. It was nothing but weakness.
People would look at her and say, oh, how strong, but she's
weak. And look at verse six, the Lord
killeth and maketh alive. Oh, I thought the devil killed.
No, the Lord killeth and maketh alive. Remember when Job said
that, talking about his children when they died? He said, I don't
believe he was saying it stoically. I believe he had a tear in his
heart. But Job recognized one thing, the Lord killeth, the
Lord maketh alive. Remember what he said after that?
Blessed be the name of the Lord. God doesn't do anything wrong.
The Bible says it's appointed unto men once to die and after
that to judgment. The day of your death, the day
of my death is already appointed by God. I hope it's a long life,
especially you young people. I hope you live a long, productive,
happy life. I do. I pray that for you. But I hope you live it under
God, giving thanks unto the Lord, looking to Christ, looking to
Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. The Lord killeth
and maketh alive, look at verse six, he bringeth down to the
grave, he bringeth up. God's in control of this. He
gives life, He takes it away. We know that physical death is
the result of sin, the consequence, but I want to be in a position
where death does not condemn me forever, and the only way
I can be in that position is to be found in Christ. Not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith or the faithfulness of Christ. The Lord maketh poor
and maketh rich. Think about that. Why would the
Lord make any of us rich? Why would he make any of us poor?
I don't know, it's up to him. I talked to you earlier about
that good idea that you had that maybe grew into productivity
and riches or whatever. You worked hard, and I'm glad
you did, and you're not gonna get it if you don't work hard,
huh? We say that, but it's all still a gift from God. Even your
determination to work hard is a gift from God. He makes poor,
He makes alive, He gives, He takes away, He brings us down
to the grave. He makes rich, He bringeth low and lifteth up. And look at verse eight. He said,
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. And I love that passage. Lifts
the beggar from the dunghill. Now that's not a pretty sight,
is it? To be living on a dunghill. That's a picture of our depravity.
I remember I heard a preacher say one time, he said, you know,
the Lord seeks his sheep and he finds them, and he finds them,
here's their address. Dungheap Drive. That dungheap is all that's in
us as far as spiritual death and depravity, false religion,
You remember when Paul the Apostle talked about his own conversion?
And he said this, he said, in the light of the glory of God
in Christ, I count all things but loss that I may win Christ. All the things that he was so
proud of in his religion and in his so-called obedience, he
said, I count it loss that I may win Christ and be found in him.
He went on to say this, he said, not only do I count them but
lost, but I count them but dung that I may win Christ. You know
what dung is. That's not where you want to
live. And what does he give? The works
of your hands? No. They inherit the throne of
glory. It's an inheritance. Somebody
else worked for it and bequeathed it to us, his people. And who
did the work? Christ did. Christ did the work. That's the righteousness of God.
That's his obedience unto death, the shedding of his blood to
put away our sins, the accomplishment of righteousness by which God
imputes to us and accepts us, declares us righteous in his
sight. That's the work of Christ. Jesus Christ crucified and risen
from the dead. And we inherit it. Peter called
it an inheritance that's incorruptible and reserved in heaven for us.
If you know Christ, if you're in him, washed in his blood,
clothed in his righteousness, you have a reservation that cannot
be taken away. And so she goes on to say, for
the pillars of the earth are the Lord's. You ever read that
book, Pillars of the Earth? Some of you may have. That's
where she got the title. They got the title. The pillars
of the earth are the Lord's. What holds this world up and
holds it together? God does. God does. And of course, what that book
was talking about was cathedrals, but that don't hold this world
up. That's a monument to depravity. Where the gospel's not preached.
Let's put it to you that way. If there's no gospel there, it's
a monument to depravity. But the pillars of the earth
are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them. That's his
glory in Christ. Verse nine, he will keep the
feet of his saints. They're not gonna be lost. And
listen, every believer is a saint. Remember that, don't get confused
on that. They might be making this little
boy a saint somewhere I heard on the news. No, every sinner
saved by grace is sanctified by the grace of God. Before the
foundation of the world, at the cross, In the new birth, we're
set apart by God and made saints in him. Sometimes we may not
act saintly. Now understand what I mean. I'm
a saint, but I don't always act like one. Sometimes my thoughts
and my selfishness and my sin gets hold of me. That's why we're
commanded to battle it, fight it, war against the flesh. but
he will keep the feet of his saints. Paul said, I know whom
I have believed and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which
I've committed unto him against that day. Christ is our surety. Our sins laid upon him, imputed
to him, and he died for them. He's our substitute. He's our
surety, our substitute, our redeemer. He's our life giver. He's our
protector and our preserver unto glory. All that we need. And it says here, he will keep
the feet of his saints and the wicked shall be silent in darkness.
They don't have any defense. If you don't know Christ, there's
no defense. For by strength shall no man prevail. Human strength
will not overcome it. Verse 10, the adversaries of
the Lord shall be broken to pieces. Out of heaven shall he thunder
upon them. The Lord shall judge the ends
of the earth and he shall give strength unto his king. and exalt
the horn of His anointed, that's Christ. No wonder the Apostle
Paul, when he spoke of his own conversion, the end goal of the
conversion of a sinner, being born again by the Spirit and
brought to faith in Christ, the end goal is the way Paul stated
it in that Philippians 3 passage. Oh, that I may know Him, and
be found in Him, washed in His blood, clothed in His righteousness,
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith or the faithfulness of Christ, the
faith of God, the faith that God gives me to believe in Him
and to rest in Him. Thank you, Lord. Let's sing that
hymn.