One of my favorite passages of
Scripture is this one in 1 Samuel. It's just remarkable. Let's read it. 1 Samuel 1. I'm going to look
at Hannah's prayer tonight, but it's really good to set it into
a context. It's beautiful. Now, there was
a certain man of Ramathim Zophim of the mountains of Ephraim and
his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroboam, the son of Elihu,
the son of Tohu, the son of Zuth and Ephraimite. And he had two
wives. The name of one was Hannah, the
name of the other Penaniah. And Penaniah had children, but
Hannah had no children. This man went up from his city
yearly to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts in Shiloh. Also, the two sons of Eli, Hophni
and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there. And whenever
the time came for Elkanah to make an offering, he would give
portions to Peninnah, his wife, and to all her sons and daughters.
But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah,
although the Lord had closed her womb. And her rival also
provoked her severely to make her miserable, because the Lord
had closed her womb. So it was, year by year, when
she went up to the house of the Lord that she provoked her. Therefore
she wept and did not eat. Then Elkanah, her husband, said
to her, Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? And why is
your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten
sons? So Hannah arose after they had
finished eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest
was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the tabernacle of
the Lord. And she was in bitterness of
soul and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish. Then she made
a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the
affliction of your maidservant and remember me, and not forget
your maidservant, But will give your maidservant a male child,
then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life. And
no razor shall come upon his head. And it happened as she
continued praying before the Lord that Eli watched her mouth. Now Hannah spoke in her heart.
Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore
Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, How long
will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you.
But Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of
sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor
intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the
Lord. Do not consider your maidservant
a wicked woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and
grief I have spoken until now.' Then Eli answered and said, Go
in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition which you
have asked of him. And she said, Let your maidservant
find favour in your sight. So the woman went her way and
ate, and her face was no longer sad. Then they rose early in
the morning and worshipped before the Lord, and returned and came
to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife,
and the Lord remembered her. So it came to pass in the process
of time that Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called his
name Samuel, because I have asked for him from the Lord. Now the
man Elkanah And all his house went up to offer to the Lord
the yearly sacrifice and his vow. But Hannah did not go up
for she said to her husband, not until the child is weaned,
then I will take him that he may appear before the Lord and
remain there forever. So Elkanah, her husband, said
to her, do what seems best to you. Wait until you have weaned
him. Only let the Lord establish his
word. Then the woman stayed and nursed
her son until she had weaned him. Now when she had weaned
him, she took him up with her with three bulls, one ether of
flour, a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord
in Shiloh. And the child was young. Then
they slaughtered a bull, and brought the child to Eli. And
she said, O my Lord, as your soul lives, my Lord, I am the
woman who stood by you here, praying to the Lord. For this
child I pray, and the Lord has granted me my petition which
I asked of him. Therefore also I have lent him
to the Lord. As long as he lives, he shall
be lent to the Lord. So they worshipped the Lord there.
And this is the passage that we just will look at briefly
this evening. This prayer of Hannah. She prayed and said, My heart
rejoices in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord
because I smile at my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation. No one is holy like the Lord,
for there is none besides you, nor is there any rock like our
God. Talk no more so very proudly. Let no arrogance come from your
mouth, for the Lord is the God of knowledge, and by Him actions
are weighed. The bows of the mighty men are
broken, and those who stumble are girded with strength. Those
who are full have hired themselves out for bread, and the hungry
have ceased to hunger. Even the baron has borne seven.
and she who has many children has become feeble. The Lord kills
and makes alive. He brings down to the grave and
He brings up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich. He brings
low and lifts up. He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the beggar from the ash heap to set them among princes,
to make them inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of
the earth are the Lord's, and He has set the world upon them.
He will guard the feet of His saints, but the wicked shall
be silent in darkness. For by strength no man shall
prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall
be broken in pieces. From heaven He will thunder against
them. The Lord will judge the ends
of the earth. He will give strength to His King and exalt the horn
of His anointed. Our sister Hannah has been rejoicing
for 3,200 years in heaven. It's my prayer tonight that the
things that Hannah rejoiced in, the God that Hannah rejoiced
in, the salvation of the God that Hannah rejoiced in might
be our rejoicing this evening. It's remarkable. We have here
Two amazing things, I think. We have a remarkable description
of who God is and how God works and what He does. And I think
also in Hannah's experience and in the things that Hannah rejoiced,
we have an experience of grace that every
child of God has in his salvation, in meeting with God. Our friend
Hannah is a special lady. She was loved, but she was barren,
as many of the women in scripture were loved and they were barren. It's a sign for those who mocked
them, a sign of their cursedness, just as the fruitfulness of a
womb was a blessing from God. So in that time and in that day,
as in ours, it was something which was a burden beyond normal
burdens that people had. But she was loved, and she was
patient. In verse 7, she'd actually suffered
this provoking from her rival. She suffered it for years and
years, verse 7, so it was year by year she went up to the house
of the Lord. And it was in the house of the
Lord, at Shiloh, at that place of worship that she was provoked
most severely. She was made miserable. But Hannah continued in prayer. In fact, her prayer after the
birth of Samuel is a wonderful, wonderful description of who
her God is and how her heart, she says, leapt within me. My heart leaps in me for joy,
is what rejoices means. It's remarkable, isn't it, how
the children of God have times where their hearts just leap
for joy within them. Sometimes our little dog, Ali,
just gets so excited by life that she just goes off running
around the garden. Just running around in this just
ridiculous fashion because she's just so excited. When my daughter
Kate was, I think she was on her second birthday, her Uncle
Simon gave her some pearls. And this little girl was like
a wind-up doll. She'd been given these pearls
and she just ran off leaping and bounding and rejoicing. It's
all very well to talk about the God, the dogs and other things.
But Hannah had that experience of God. And what she does is
she then describes her God. She rejoices in her God. She rejoices in the Lord. My horn has been exalted. She rejoices in the fact that
God is sovereign, that God is exalted in her sight. I smile
at my enemies. It might be a reference to the
lady who provoked her and caused her to be most miserable. Because,
she smiles at her enemies because She rejoices in God's salvation. She rejoices in Christ Jesus. People of God, like Hannah, wait
for the salvation of the Lord. But like all of the God's saints
in the scriptures, When they come to talk about God, they
describe our God in ways which are particular and peculiar to
Him. No one is wholly like the Lord. No one is like Him. He is altogether
different. There is no God like Him. There is no one who is holy like
Him. To be holy is to be separate. It's to be other than the things
of this world. There is none besides you. There is none to compare to God. In fact, he says in Isaiah, there
is none beside me, there is none. He looks around at the throne
of heaven and there are no other gods. If you read the story of
the other gods, the gods of India, the gods of Babylon, you find
that there is this fighting amongst all of these gods for supremacy.
Our God sits alone on the throne of this universe. And He is like
a rock. No doubt, Hannah, led by the
Spirit, remembered that rock, is that Christ Jesus, that rock
out of whom the water came, that rock that followed them on their
path just hundreds of years beforehand into the promised land. There's no one like our God.
He's unchanging. He's unchangeable. He's the solid
foundation of all things. And so, to men, when Hannah turns
to men, she says, talk no more so very proudly. God deals with the proud. so very clearly in scripture. The proud like Nebuchadnezzar. Those who are arrogant from their
youth. Paul, or Saul as he was, needed
to be removed from a place of pride and arrogance. For our
Lord, for the Lord is the God of knowledge. And by Him actions
are weighed. Our God is infinite in His holiness. He's amazing in His power. His
wisdom is remarkable. His knowledge is infinite. He knows absolutely everything,
absolutely everything, all of the time, in all of history. And by Him, actions are weighed. He's a God of holiness, a God
of power, a God of wisdom, and He's the God of justice. His measuring, His weighing,
that is the standard. God's standards are like His
character, aren't they? God's standards. are holy. The only thing that God accepts
is absolute perfect holiness. The bows of mighty men are broken. The things that powerful men
trust in are broken. And those who stumble are girded
with strength. The mighty men are broken down. Those who stagger and stumble
under a weight, the weight of sin, the weight of frustration
in this world, are girded with strength by God. Those who have hired themselves
out for bread, those who were full have hired themselves out
for bread. Those who believe that they have
everything they need in themselves will hire themselves out for
just a morsel of bread. And the hungry have ceased to
hunger. All these things have spiritual
meanings, don't they? that God, in his spiritual activities
with mankind, inverts the things of men always. Men trust in their
bearers. They mock those who stumble. They think that they are full. And they mock the hungry. Even the barren has borne seven. She who is barren has borne a
perfect, complete number. She who has many children has
become feeble, has become weak. Verse 6 is a great description
of our God, isn't it? The Lord kills and makes alive. He brings down to the grave and
brings up. You've got to remember that this
is Hannah rejoicing. She rejoiced in a God who is
absolutely sovereign. The Lord kills and makes alive. He brings down to the grave,
and He brings up. The Lord makes poor, and the
Lord makes rich. He brings low, and He lifts up. See, Hannah saw God's hand in
all of what happened to her. In her loneliness, in her barrenness,
in her hunger, It was the Lord she looked to all the time. He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the beggar from the ash heap to set them among princes. and to make them inherit the
throne of glory." What a description of what God does. What a description
of this absolute sovereign, powerful, wise, and just God. For the pillars of the earth
are the Lord's, and He has set the world upon them. He is absolutely
sovereign. This earth is His. Everything
that happens in it is His. For Hannah, her pain and now
her rejoicing are part of His perfect plan. And then she looks
to what He will do. He will guard the feet of His
saints. He will guard the feet of His
holy ones. But the wicked shall be silent
in darkness. For by strength no man shall
prevail. That word strength means ability. By man's ability no one will
prevail. And the wicked, the unbelieving
wicked, will sit silent in darkness. When God judges them, they won't
have a word to answer to our God. Verse 10, the adversaries
of the Lord shall be broken in pieces. All who stand opposed
to our God and all of his people, they will be broken into pieces. From heaven he will thunder against
them. That's what he'll do to the wicked
who trust in the strength of man. He'll thunder against them. The next part of verse 10 is
a glorious passage, a glorious verse to take home and rejoice
in. The Lord will judge. The word
also means to justify the ends of the earth. In fact, what it
means, what it says, is the Lord will justify the nothings of
the earth. I am a poor sinner and nothing
at all, and Jesus Christ is my all in all. If you turn in your
Bibles to 1 Corinthians, we'll see how the Lord picks up the
weak. 1 Corinthians 1.26. For you see your calling, brethren. This is a reference to all those
who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called, verse two, to
be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus
Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. For you see your calling,
brethren, not many wise according to the flesh, Not many mighty,
not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen
the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which
are mighty. And the base things of the world
and the things which are despised, God has chosen. And the things
which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. That's a
great description of us, isn't it? We weren't wise, we weren't
noble, we were considered foolish and weak and base, and we are
considered even to this day to be things which are not. The nothings of verse 10. The Lord will justify the nothings
of this earth. Not the high and mighty, but
the nothings. And the end result of it is in
verse 29 of 1 Corinthians, that no flesh should glory in his
presence. But of him you are in Christ
Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God. our righteousness, our sanctification,
our redemption, that as it is written, he who glories, let
him glory in the Lord. And then we have a great description
of how God does this in Christ Jesus. He will give strength
to His King and exalt the horn of His Anointed. He will exalt
the power of His Christ, His Messiah. is about God getting glory. Hannah rejoices as we ascribe
greatness to our God. She describes God in her rejoicing
as one who is absolutely sovereign, in perfect, complete control
of everything. He could give her a baby if he
chose. He could give Sarah a baby when
she has no human ability to have one. Absolute, complete sovereignty. He rules, he reigns. As Nebuchadnezzar said, the most
high rules in the kingdom of men. It's fascinating, the prayer
doesn't mention Samuel, this long-awaited promised child. It's all about God and His anointed
Christ. It's about God's being, about
God's nature. It's about God's acts. But as I said earlier, not only
is this a beautiful description of our God and His ways with
His people. It's a wonderful description
of the experience of grace in the lives of God's people, every
one of God's children. We are not saved by our experiences
and we place no trust in our experiences, but the grace of
God comes to people and Paul talks about a common salvation. As Peter reminded us, there is
a common set of doctrines and a common salvation. So let's
just briefly look back through this prayer of Hannah's in light
of salvation. See her heart leaps for joy in
the Lord. She smiles at her enemies. God's
children rejoice in the things that God rejoices in. God's children
rejoice in the person that God rejoices in. Our rejoicing and
his rejoicing are the same. Our hearts, as Christians, leap
for joy. Does your heart leap for joy
when you think that when God looks upon us, He sees us as
perfect right now? He sees us as holy right now? What does heaven change? Heaven
is a removal of impediments. Is God going to love you any
more in heaven than He does now? Are you going to be any more
holy in God's sight than you are now? Heaven and death is
a removal of things that cause us not to see God's reality. For God, it is true, isn't it? See, when God sees me, He can't
see any sin. He cannot see any sin in me.
I see it far too much. God sees it as put away in His
Son. Not just hidden a little bit,
but put away and perfectly, completely, absolutely removed altogether. You know those verses in 1 John
3. There is no sin. in God's people. For those in
Christ Jesus, it's been put away just a little while before it's
revealed. God is as pleased with us. He
smiles upon His people exactly as He smiles upon His Son. Does that cause your heart, in
the midst of the struggles, struggles like Hannah had, to rejoice in
our God? Oh, says Paul, that I might win
Christ and be found in Him. What a wonderful prayer to keep
praying. All that God requires of me,
He looks to and He sees perfectly completed in His Son. Hannah, like us, had an enemy
who provoked her and caused her to be miserable. Our enemies
are Satan and sin, and they can continually provoke us and cause
us to be miserable, but God has put them all away. That's why
our Gospel is not like the Gospels of the rest of the world. Our
Gospel is a declaration of a victory. a declaration of something perfectly
complete. God is holy and God delights
in holy things and he delights in holy people because they are
holy in the Lord. That's why God calls on his people
to talk no more so very proudly. Let no arrogance come out of
our mouths. Who made us to differ? Who caused
this difference? Who brought Hannah, who was barren
and could produce nothing? just nothing of life caused her
to rejoice. God makes the difference. Our
only boast, as 1 Corinthians shows us, is in the Lord. So we talk no more proudly, and
we don't let arrogance come out of our mouths, because God has
stopped them, and we no longer as God's children, trust in the
bows of mighty men, we find that the things that we did once put
our trust in are just broken reeds that can't sustain us at
all. We did, at one stage, think that
we had strength. Now we see that all that we thought
was strong is actually just weakness. Now, by God's work, in verse
5, those who stumbled, verse 4, are girded with strength,
whose strength surrounds us and sustains us and looks after us. There was a time when all of
God's children, in verse 5, were full. Prior to our conversion,
we aren't empty, are we? We aren't seeking after God. I was perfectly happy with my
life. I thought I had things perfectly
under control, and I thought I had God put in a place where
He was perfectly under my control. See, we were full, weren't we?
And we were satisfied. People aren't searching out after
God. They're satisfied, aren't they?
They are satisfied with what they have and what they've achieved. But when God delivers His people
from that, they find that they, who thought they were full, have
hired themselves out for bread. You see, God's work of grace
in the lives of His people is to take us from a fullness in
ourselves to an emptiness and a hunger which only Christ Himself
will fill. And then He fills them. God's children are barren. They can't produce life. But when God gives them life,
they have a perfect completeness of life. Sum number seven is
completeness and perfection in the scriptures. She who has many,
those who think they have much in the way of power and strength
and free will, God makes them to be barren. Verse six, the
Lord kills. and makes alive. The Lord wounds
before He heals. The Lord brings a disease before
He brings a healing balm. He brings down to the grave and He brings up. What a wonderful
description of God's saving activities in Christ Jesus for us. When
Jesus hung on that cross Where were we? We were with Him. We were in Him. Did we go into
a grave with Him? We went into that grave. We went
into that place of darkness with our Lord Jesus. And when He rose,
when He was brought up, we were brought up with Him. That's what
baptism pictures, isn't it? We go down into the grave with
Christ. And when we come out, we rise
with Him. Where is He now? He's in heaven. Where are we now? We're in heaven
with Him. The Lord makes us poor. The Lord
makes His people spiritually poor and impoverished. You know
those words from the Sermon on the Mount. And then, out of that
poverty, He satisfies that, doesn't He? And He makes us rich. See, the Lord brings His people
low in the experience of grace, and then He lifts them up. What
a description of God's people. They are poor that need rising
from the dust. They are beggars. In India, there
were two things that were consistent about beggars. One was that they
were extraordinarily persistent. They'd never give up. And the
other remarkable thing about them is that they had no shame. God lifts up beggars from the
axe sheath, and he sets them among princes. And then what
does he do? He makes them inherit the throne
of glory. He makes them inherit the spiritually
poor bankrupt beggars, sets them among princes, and makes them
inherit the throne of glory. Because this is God's universe
and God's earth. And then verse 9 has a wonderful
description of preserving grace. He will guard the feet of His
saints. How much do your feet need to
be guarded? How prone we are to wander like
lost sheep. I have gone astray, says the
psalmist, like a lost sheep. Seek your servant. God will justify, verse 10, the
nothings of the earth. And all of this will be that
Christ Jesus will be our strength. And He will be seen to reign
with power. Messiah will be exalted. His power will be exalted. And
God's children shelter underneath those arms and those hands that
rule this universe, poor beggars with nothing, exalted to a throne
of glory, that we might glory in Him who sits on that throne
right now. Let's pray.