So please turn with me to the
book of 1st Samuel, the first book of Samuel, chapter one,
and we'll read from verse one. 1st Samuel, chapter one, and
verse one. Now there was a certain man of
Ramathaim Zophim of Mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the
son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuth,
and Ephrathite. And he had two wives. The name
of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Penina. And
Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. And this man
went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto
the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni
and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there. And when
the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah, his wife,
and to all her sons and her daughters, portions. But unto Hannah he
gave a worthy portion, for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had
shut up her womb. And her adversary also provoked
her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up
her womb. And as he did so year by year,
when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked
her. Therefore she wept and did not
eat. And then said Elkanah her husband
to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? And why eatest thou not? And
why is thy heart grieved? Am not I better to thee than
ten sons? So Hannah rose up after they
had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest
sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the Lord. And she
was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept
sore. And she vowed a vow, and said,
O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction
of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid,
but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give
him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall
no razor come upon his head.' And it came to pass, as she continued
praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah,
she spake in her heart, only her lips moved, but her voice
was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she had
been drunken. And Eli said unto her, How long
wilt thou be drunken? Put away thy wine from thee. And Hannah answered and said,
No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have drunk
neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before
the Lord. Count not thine handmaid for
a daughter of Belial, for out of the abundance of my complaint
and grief have I spoken hitherto. Then Eli answered and said, Go
in peace, and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that
thou hast asked of him. And she said, Let thine handmaid
find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and
did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. And they rose
up in the morning early, and worshipped before the Lord, and
returned and came to their house to Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah
his wife, and the Lord remembered her. Wherefore it came to pass,
when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that
she bare a son and called his name Samuel, saying, Because
I have asked him of the Lord. and the man Elkanah and all his
house went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice and
his vow. But Hannah went not up, for she
said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be
weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before
the Lord and there abide for ever. And Elkanah her husband
said unto her, Do what seemeth thee good, tarry until thou have
weaned him, only the Lord establish his word. So the woman abode,
and gave her son suck until she weaned him. And when she had
weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks and
one effa of flour and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto
the house of the Lord in Shiloh. And the child was young. And
they slew a bullock and brought the child to Eli. And she said,
O my Lord, as thy soul liveth, my Lord, I am the woman that
stood by thee here, praying unto the Lord. For this child I prayed,
and the Lord hath given me my petition, which I asked of him. Therefore also I have lent him
to the Lord. As long as he liveth, he shall
be lent to the Lord, and he worshipped the Lord there. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
reading from his word. I would like to spend, God willing,
some weeks thinking about Samuel. Samuel was a prophet of God and
Samuel's life spanned the end of the period of the judges,
men and women like Ehud and Deborah and Gideon and Samson that we've
been thinking about a few weeks ago before the account that we
had together of Ruth and Boaz. And this was a period between
the judges and the coming of the times of the kings of Israel. And it was in this period that
Samuel was a prophet before the Lord. Actually... Some people
include Samuel in the list of judges and Eli too, although
Eli is called a high priest and they're not called judges as
such. But Samuel was a man who was
mightily used by God in the affairs of his country and he ruled in
civil law matters and he also spoke for God amongst the people. Now, I don't quite know how long
we'll spend on Samuel, we'll work that out as we go along. But today I want to think about
Samuel's birth and his family because it's clear that the hand
of the Lord was upon this child from the very beginning of his
life. And we see here too, a lovely
example of the Lord's kindness to Hannah, his mother. Hannah
was a woman of faith. despite her inability to have
children and the sadness that that caused her. She still trusted
in the Lord, though she understood that the Lord had not permitted
her to have children. And we discover as well in the
course of this account today, something of Hannah's gratitude
to God. in dedicating her son to the
service of the Lord. And we will, perhaps next week,
discover her beautiful prayer that she prayed. So actually,
the next few weeks, we'll be thinking more about Hannah than
Samuel, and she will be uppermost in our thoughts. Samuel was born
to a man called Elkanah and as we've said his mother was Hannah
and the circumstances of his birth are interesting. You might
recall we said, well it's a long time ago now I'm sure, but we
said that Isaac was known as a child of promise. and Samson was a child of promise
as well, one of the judges. Samuel, on the other hand, was
a child of prayer because Hannah prayed to the Lord for Samuel. Alcannah, we learned, had two
wives, Hannah and Peninnah, and it was I think something that
we could say that wherever in scripture we find a man having
more than one wife, there is trouble in that family. It seems
to be a consistent principle in the Bible that nothing good
comes from having more than one wife. And Peninnah had children,
but Hannah had no children. and though Hannah longed for
a son, it seemed that the Lord would not give her the child
that she desired. Penina, on the other hand, was
cruel and she provoked and she mocked Hannah because Hannah
could not bear any children and this caused Hannah to fret. I like that word. I like that
word fret. It describes a lot. Hannah was
sad. She was anxious. She was depressed. Her feelings filled her life,
caused her not to eat, caused her to feel unwell, and made
her miserable. And let us remember that Hannah
was a woman of faith, the Lord's people. Hannah was a woman of
faith whom the Lord loved, but the Lord's people in every age
know what trouble and anxiety is. And many of us know what
it is to fret and to worry about the problems that we face. And
that's not just older people, that's young people. Young people
have problems, young people worry about things. And Hannah teaches,
because Hannah was not an old person, she was quite young,
she wasn't a child, but she was still quite young. Hannah teaches
us all a good lesson. She took her troubles to the
Lord in prayer. And that's something that we'll
come back to in a moment or two. We also learn from this passage
that Elkanah every year went to Shiloh. And Shiloh was the
place where the tabernacle that Moses had built in the wilderness
was located from the time of Joshua. So this was the place
where the people went to worship the Lord, to make sacrifice and
to pray. And Hannah went with her husband
Elkanah to the sacrifices. And on this occasion, troubled
by Penina, she went off, we're told, alone to pray to the Lord
in the sanctuary. And kneeling before the Lord,
she prayed silently. But she also wept sorely. Here was a real earnestness,
here was a real... effusion, explosion of emotion
from this dear woman's heart. In her earnestness, she prayed
to the Lord, but she prayed silently. Her lips moved, but she prayed
in her heart. And she made a vow to the Lord.
If God would grant her a child, she would dedicate that child
back to Him. It was a tense and pitiful scene
as Hannah poured out her heart to the Lord. But she wasn't the
only one in the sanctuary that day. Eli the high priest was
there as well and we're going to come back to Eli on another
occasion because he's got some interesting lessons to teach
us as well. But Eli sat in the entrance to
the holy place and he watched Hannah. and he completely misunderstood
her character and her actions in her silent prayer and in her
emotions. And not only did he misunderstand,
but he rebuked her harshly, wrongly thinking that she had been drinking
wine and was drunk. I don't really think that Eli
comes out of this little passage very well. But respectfully,
Hannah explained her situation and Eli's mistake, saying in
verse 15, know my Lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor
strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. How easy it is to be misunderstood
by people who ought to know better. And how often many of us, and
I speak for myself, jump to unwarranted conclusions by making wrong assumptions. May God forgive our insensitivity. Hannah was a tender flower and
Eli almost crushed her. To his credit, after hearing
Hannah's explanation, Eli retracted his hurtful charge and instead
blessed her, saying, go in peace and the God of Israel grant thee
thy petition. And the Lord did grant Hannah's
request. And one year from making her
vow, before another Passover had come, Hannah gave birth to
a healthy son. She called him Samuel, in grateful
memory of the Lord's goodness, she called him Samuel, because
that name means heard of God, because her prayer and her request
had been heard by the Lord and the Lord had answered it. Hannah
didn't go to Shiloh that year. She told Elkanah that she would
not go up again until the child was weaned and stopped feeding
on his mother's milk. And then she would take Samuel
up to Shiloh and there leave him to grow up in the service
of the Lord as she had promised God in her prayer. Here's a couple
of lessons that I want to leave with you from this first chapter
of 1 Samuel. I want us to notice Hannah's
faith. We're going to learn later in
the book of Samuel, not very far into it, but in a chapter
or two, we're going to learn that there was very little spiritual
activity in Israel at this time. Despite the fact that the Lord
had given spiritual men and spiritual leaders to the children of Israel,
religion had largely descended into superstition. However, Hannah
trusted the Lord, even when those around her, including the religious
leaders, were largely insensitive to spiritual things. Faith is personal and in the
trouble and anxiety that Hannah felt, all she could do was go
off alone and pour out her heart to the Lord. And that's what I want to encourage
you to do too. I want you, I want to encourage
you to pray to the Lord. When the world seems uncaring
and hard, don't bottle it all up inside. Do as Hannah did,
take your troubles to the Lord in prayer. And even if Eli didn't
understand, the Lord understood. God heard Hannah, and he loved
her and he helped her, and he will hear you too when you take
your burdens to the Lord in prayer. Peter says in 1 Peter chapter
5 and verse 7, casting all your care upon him, for he careth
for you. And I want you to remember that. And let me say something else
too. I hope that none of you young people are ever married
to more than one person at a time. Because it won't work out very
well. Marriage is a precious gift from
God. and it is more important than
most people realise, which is why we are to treat it honourably
and prepare for it carefully. Marriage is a picture of Christ's
love for his church. We've been thinking about that
with Boaz and Ruth, It's what we sometimes call the mystical
union between Christ and his church. Christ's union with us
as believers is a union built on love and purity and faithfulness
and honour and kindness and care. and marriage is given to us as
an example that we might share those qualities as husband and
wife, even if poorly at times, that Christ has for us in perfection. Someday the Lord may give you
a husband or a wife, with whom to share your life. I hope he
does. But keep yourself pure and keep
yourself set apart until that time and let the Lord Jesus be
your example as you prepare for the blessings that he has in
store for you. one more thought and then I'm
done today. Hannah prayed to the Lord at
Shiloh and she was heard but it was not because of the place
where she prayed but because of the sacrifice that she made
that she was heard. She had been there with her husband
Elkanah to make a sacrifice to the Lord. That was their annual
practice. And she had gone and they had
made that sacrifice. And it was because of that sacrifice
that her prayer was heard and answered. It's not where we pray,
but to whom we pray and by whom we pray that matters. Our prayers
and our whole spiritual relationship with God must be founded upon
the Lord Jesus Christ and the death of Christ, which is what
the sacrifice at Shiloh pointed to, prefigured. God does not
hear our prayers and answer because we're good. He does not hear
our prayers and answer because we are dramatic in the way in
which we offer them. It's not even because we're earnest
and sincere, though we ought to be. He hears and answers our
prayers for the sake of Christ and for his sacrifice on the
cross. So that when we pray, let us
do it with an eye to the Lord. Let our asking be according to
his will, knowing that, as the Saviour says in John chapter
14 and verse 13, whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, in my name,
that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. May the Lord bless these opening
remarks to the life of Samuel, and in particular, our thoughts
on Hannah at this time. Amen.