Join me, if you would, here in the book of 1 Samuel chapter two. Now, Hannah has been blessed. I don't think that she, when she said what she said here in the original language, she thought for a second that that was going to be recorded and put into the word of God. She just prayed a prayer that she believed with every fiber of her being. This prayer that is here, she was led by God, the Holy Spirit, to declare the scriptural stand of God about God. This is the scripture that she brings out here with regard to her God, the God of the church, the God of salvation, the God of creation. This is that God.

And I've had people tell me, my God wouldn't do that. Well, you know, that's just true. The religious world's God will not do the things that this God does because they have a human invention about what their God will do and won't do. And there's some things he just won't do because we don't want him to do that. But this God that she brings out here in this 1 Samuel chapter two is a God that is so completely in control of all things. And that is a thought that is not common to natural man, that there's a God that is in control of all things.

And I just firmly believe that when God gives us the new birth, in that relationship of giving us the new birth, he also gives us the desire and the realization that what God has to say about God is the truth. that we don't have to worry about it. And someone said, the church, we hope we're doing this, the church doesn't walk by sight, but by faith. We walk by faith and not by sight. And so, you know, and what does that mean?

That comes right down to, is the Bible right about the weather that's gonna be always seed time and harvest, or is it gonna fall apart? We heard all over Europe, you know, we've got all this stuff going on here. Well, God is not going to let this world fall apart over weather. He has that in absolute control.

So we walk by faith, what Bible says about God and about God's purpose, we walk by faith and not by sight. We may get all jumbled up if we're looking at things from a physical standpoint. But if we walk by faith, the word of God declares, this is what God's going to do. So she brings this out here in this prayer. Let's read this as we have here. I'm gonna start, we've looked at down through verse five, but I'm gonna start with verse six, because here in this verse of scripture, we find that she is led by God, the Holy Spirit. to declare the scriptural stand of God about himself. He's going to describe, and she's been given the privilege of saying this in a prayer, and we have the privilege of having it in our Bible.

Now, we were in a place, and I can't tell you right now, I'd have to look at my pictures, but I got to see a copy of the Bible that was written in 1100. Now that Bible was about this wide and about this tall and it's all handwritten and it is calligraphy. It is just absolutely gorgeous. And it was in Greek in 1100.

And if I had been able to read it, and look at the book of 1st Samuel, it had probably been almost what we have here in this, because the sense has not changed over the centuries. So it says, the Lord, and you notice that that's capital, that's that Jehovah that we run into throughout the Old Testament. And we find that that Jehovah is Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

The Lord killeth. And oh my goodness, almost immediately we have people going, we're getting nervous about this God. Well, the Lord killeth and maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave. He bringeth up. Now she is sharing with us what God had given her. It's been written down so that we can have the same comfort that she has. in this God that is declared in the word of God. This is God. You know, Mr. Arthur W. Pink, and I had, I read that book on sovereignty of God while I was gone again. And he's not the one that has the handle on the sovereignty of God. No, the Bible has a handle on the sovereignty of God.

And Hannah is bringing that out very clearly here, that everything that's going on with her, she didn't have children for a long time. The Lord gave her a son. She's given that son to the Lord. And then she's going to bear some more children. And this is just God almighty in his great activity of work for his people. It says, the Lord maketh poor. and maketh rich, he bringeth low and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, to make them inherit the throne of glory.

Can you imagine? This is her prayer. And as I've said a number of times with regard to this, this prayer was not for shouting out loud and letting people hear it. And that's what true prayer is. It's in the closet. And she's in the tabernacle or close to the tabernacle there when she prays this, but God, by His grace and mercy, allows us to listen in to what she had to say because she is sharing exactly what God had shared with her about God.

For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and He hath set the world upon them. He will keep the feet of the saints. My goodness, what security she is declaring here in this prayer, and this is just the word of God about his saints. He is the one that keeps the feet of the saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail. 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.

Now notice this, unto his king and exalt the horn of his anointed. And she just takes us right over to the New Testament and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with that statement. She believed in the Messiah coming and she declares it here in her prayer. This is not a lot of just jumbled up words. She has been given this by the Holy Spirit. So she's led to do this.

And when God gave Hannah the new heart, her new heart, the new birth. The Holy Spirit did exactly the same thing for those that God had chosen before the foundation of the world under the Old Testament era. He did the same thing for them in salvation. Somehow she had to hear the gospel and somehow God in his mercy and grace gave her the new birth. She was born again. That's the only way God ever acts.

And when he gave her the new birth, he gave her a heart that could comprehend some of what the Bible has to say about God and not argue about it. not be testy about it, not saying, well, my God wouldn't do that. So she was given the heart to believe. And that heart was the heart that God gives today. And that heart that God gives today is the heart to believe God.

We walk by faith and not by sight. It's not something, sometimes that just scares us to death. But here we are given the privilege of reading God's word and having him fulfill it in our presence, just as he did with her. The new heart is something God promised there in the Old Testament. and he continues to promise it in our era.

Let's just go over there to the book of Ezekiel chapter 36 and read one verse of scripture, Ezekiel chapter 36. And in this chapter 36 of the book of Ezekiel, we have these words recorded, just like we do with Hannah's prayer, great powerful prayer. that was meant between her and God, and yet the Holy Spirit brought that, intended that to be in our Bible so that we can read it and rejoice in the God that she is declaring here in his great sovereign activity over all things about his elect and about the non-elect. Here in the book of Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 36, we read these words, Oh, a new heart, oh, how did I? Oh, 26, verse 26, excuse me, if I can read my own writing.

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. So we're gonna get a new heart and a new spirit, and that new spirit is the Holy Spirit within us, and that Holy Spirit is not going to go contrary to the word of God that the Holy Spirit gave. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So we are given this, it's a gift. And that's one reason that God's people don't argue with God about God's word.

We may say, and we do all the time, I don't understand this. I just don't. And yet, as we hear someone speaking, and I heard this in Mike just this last Sunday, he saw things there in the book of Philemon that hadn't been noticeable to him before. And so we rejoice that that revelation came, and that's the way it is everywhere we go in our studies.

We just don't do that to turn over the soil. We are looking for a blessing from the Lord. It goes, I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and will give you a heart of flesh. So he's going to remove something, but he's going to give us something back that is much better. Now the flesh, he never changes. I'm thankful he restrains the flesh, but don't think for a minute that we can't do what anybody else can do with our flesh.

And that is sin. We are sinners, we are sinners, and we'll die sinners. But that part that God gives us, the new birth, the Holy Spirit within us, and a love for Him will not be taken away, and it will not be altered, and it will not change. And as we find there in the book of 1 John, the person that is saved will not and cannot sin, and that's the part. What's that mean? Cannot apostatize. Just cannot, it's an impossibility. If people apostatize and leave the gospel, they were never ever born again. That's just the way it is.

All right, so we have here the new heart that God gives us, that when God saves a person, he does not tell that person to go to the church or synagogue of your choice. Now a preacher may say that, and preachers have said that. But they don't know the first thing about what God intends for the people that he gives the new birth to. And you know, it wasn't a suggestion when God the Father spoke about his son on the Mount of Transfiguration and said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased, hear ye him. That's not a suggestion.

That's a command. And to the saint, that is a rejoicing command. By the grace of God, I get to what? Hear Him. I get to see Him. And that's the wonderful thing about the Holy Spirit. Given to a person that is born again, they're going to be able to see Christ in the scriptures, all over the place. That's the thing that was so radically different for me when the Lord saved me, is I got to see Christ all over the scripture.

I didn't have one or two little places here that we could go to, but it's just all over, just as we read here with regard to Hannah's prayer. So this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him. And that's what she's heard. She has heard him. And that's the only thing that the Holy Spirit speaks about. He doesn't brag about himself. When he comes, he will testify of me.

So when someone is using the Holy Spirit, to do things that the Bible doesn't say the Holy Spirit's gonna do, I can just mark them and say, I've tried your spirit. And it's not according to the scriptures. the spirit that God gives is according to the scriptures. It will not be contrary to the scriptures. It will not be contrary to God's purpose of grace. It will not be contrary to salvation is of the Lord. It will not be contrary to the blood atonement, the blood to propitiation in Christ Jesus, the election by the Father, or new birth by the Holy Spirit. It will not be contrary to any of that.

Going back over there to the book of, The book of 1st Corinthians, excuse me, 1st Corinthians, 1st Samuel, would you go back there with me to the book of 1st Samuel? 1st Samuel there in chapter two, it tells us there in verse six, and this is so contrary to what we grew up with about God. What does it say there?

The Lord killeth. and the Lord and make us alive. The Lord kill us and make us alive. Now, we find out that that happens not only physically, but spiritually. There are times that God actually commanded. There are times that God actually commanded that people be killed.

And we say, oh, turn with me, if you would, to the book of Joshua chapter 11. Joshua chapter 11. Now, the secret things belong to God. I'm thankful I have the word of God that I can read. And I may not, and I probably will not, ever understand all that went on here, but God did. God knew what he was doing. He understood what he was doing. He purposed what he was doing.

And here in the book of Joshua, the book of Joshua, chapter... 11, Joshua chapter 11. Here in the book of Joshua chapter 11, verse 18, we read these words. Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. Joshua, why didn't you have a peace treaty or agreement or do something? There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeah. And you know what we read about them? They were hewers of wood and drawers of water for Israel. They were the servants to Israel.

And you know, I still get on an airplane and I still believe that about the pilot. Now I don't know his heart, but he is God's servant. And it goes on, it's here, for it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them as the Lord commanded Moses. No, I ran into that verse of scripture and I had to scratch the back of my head. Really? Yes.

Not one of these kings made peace with Israel because God hardened their heart. You know, we can, Sunday, Lord willing, we're going to go over and look a little more about Pharaoh and then compare him with Saul of Tarsus. But the Lord hardened his heart at least four times. The Lord hardened a man's heart four times so that he would do exactly contrary to what was the right thing to do.

Now, why did he do that? Why did God do that? It's God's business. The Bible recorded it, and I'm just going to have to say amen. And I'll preach it just like it's there. I'm not gonna skip around it and say, I had someone tell me one time that God, what is that?

Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated? Well, that word hated there means he loved him less. No, no, no. If you look that up in Strong's Concordance, you'll find out that word means what we always know what hate means. And that's what God said about it. There was no propitiation at all for Esau, and he was a sinner and God hates sin. All right, as we look at this, we find that the Lord's instructions to Joshua, God fulfills this phrase literally in his great purpose. He fulfilled it.

Only faith in God will cause us to read and to understand that It's not gonna be but a chapter or two that we're gonna read about Israel doing one of the stupidest things they could possibly do. But you know what? They didn't know God. And they are in a battle against the Philistines. And they say, you know what we need out here on this battlefield?

We need the Ark of the Covenant. And if we have the Ark of the Covenant, God will have to bless us. So they went in and got the Ark of the Covenant and brought it out on the battlefield and they lost terribly. Now there's something interesting about those guys that went to get that Ark of the Covenant.

Nobody but a Levite was supposed to touch that Ark of the Covenant. They brought it out on the battlefield and there's not one record of anybody dying for touching the Ark of the Covenant. The Philistines took it. Not a Philistine died, but they wondered after a while, what are we going to do about this?

Because it's not a good thing for us to have this thing here. So one of the guys said, well, we'll just get a brand new milk cow that has a calf, or two of them, and we'll harness them up and we'll put it on a cart. And if those cows take that home, then we know that God's in this. And if he doesn't, we don't know what to do. Well, they get the two milk cows, they have calves, they take the calves off. And if you've ever been around milk cows and calves, you know that this is totally unnatural. And those cows took that ark home. And you know what?

One man touched that ark. One man. And God killed him instantly. And all these other ragged nitwits and do-nothings touched it and touched it and touched it and nothing happened. It's amazing. The Lord killeth and the Lord maketh alive. Eli's response to both his sons dying, it's in the Lord's hands and we'll get to that. You know, it tells us in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 22, in Adam all die. I was thinking of that as I was studying on the 10 hour trip home from Amsterdam. There's lots of time, not much space to move and not much else.

But I just got to thinking, who killed Adam when he ate that fruit? Did Adam kill Adam? Or was God's word fulfilled by God when he killed Adam? Now he didn't literally, he didn't die physically at that moment, but he did die spiritually at that moment. And who caused that spiritual death to take place in Adam?

God Almighty. He is and has the keys of death and hell. He has the keys of life and death, and he disposes as he pleases with everyone this very subject. Now, when it comes to spiritual blessings, spiritual life, we find the Lord killeth. We just watched that happen in Saul of Tarsus. He is so powerful, so important, so religious, able to do anything he wants. It appears with any of the saints of God, and he proves it by having Stephen slain. God was in that purpose that Stephen would be slain that day. It wasn't a bad thing. He's entered glory instantly.

Not a good way to go, we may say, but God chose that way to go. There's many ways that God shares with us in the scriptures that are not easy ways to die. But when that happens, we find out that when it comes to spiritual things, it's God that kills and it's God that gives life. It's God that gives life. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace are ye saved. When we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us. So we're dead and made alive. Does God do this killing? Is he the one that killeth? We just have to say yes. I can hear some say, that's not my God. And I've had people tell me that. And you know what? I don't even argue about it. You're right. Your God wouldn't do that.

But the God of the Bible, the God of the church, the God of salvation, the God of heaven, the sovereign God of all does that. And he does that as he pleases, where he pleases, when he pleases. He has as much right to kill as he does to raise from the dead. He's God. For in the day you eat, you shall surely die. And I just have to say, who was it that did that? God did that. Adam ate that fruit, instantly there was darkness. Who turned out the lights? God. Who give him spiritual darkness? God.

He's just fulfilling his word in that day. You know, when we think about he maketh rich, the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, all we have to do is go over and watch Job for about five minutes. Very wealthy individual and had everything taken away. You know, it's just amazing how gracious God was to let one person out of every time something happened, get back to Job and only I was able to escape. It wasn't his able, it was God's giving him to get back there. The Lord, verse seven, it says, the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, he bringeth low and he lifteth up.

Job shares that so eloquently. We find that beautiful book of Job, the gospel according to Job, and, It's just how God raises us from the spiritual dead. It's an act of God, it's his way with us, that he would raise us from the dead. It tells us over here in verse eight, let's look at verse eight, going back there to the book of First Samuel, chapter two, verse eight. It says, he raitheth up the poor out of the dust, He raiseth up the poor out of the dust and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill. Now, we don't have to have much explanation to know what that is. And it's a natural phenomena.

It was shocking to me. when I'd clean out barns to find out how much heat there was in cow droppings, if it was able to sit there for just a little bit. And it appears, history will bear this out, that there wasn't all of the fine places for the beggars to stay. They would lay a blanket down or something over a dung heap, and it put off enough warmth that saved their lives during the night. In the cold, in winter times. Now, I just thought about that, you know, in our false religion days, we were so settled in laying down on a dung heap.

There was nothing good about what we were hearing. There was nothing good about what we were doing. There was nothing good about what the preacher was saying. There was nothing good about it at all. I listened to those guys in that religion about a priest getting some wine and some bread and doing hocus pocus over it. And before you know it, we have the blood of Jesus and the body of Jesus. through some hocus pocus that they did.

And I thought, you know what? I grew up in a false religion that was almost as bad. Because when I was baptized, before I was baptized, I was not in the bride. And as soon as I came up out of the baptismal font, I'm in the bride. Now, is that hocus pocus? Isn't there something special put into the water there that I would be not in the bride and as soon as I came out of the water, I'm in the bride?

I thought, oh my goodness, it's practiced all over the world. Hocus pocus. Well, here we have that God said in this place that the natural phenomena is that natural man will go and lay down in the worst religious possible thing and think that heat, they're getting the heat from this. And it's nothing more than killing.

He raises the poor from the dust and the lifted the beggar from the dunghill. And what does he do with those that he raises from the dust and from the dunghill? He doesn't leave them there. He didn't say go back there. He doesn't tell them go to the church or synagogue of your choice. What does he say there? He raises 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. Now that's what he does when he saves his people. He lifts them from the worst possible place they could ever be in. And that is in the fall, in false religion.

And he lifts them out of that and causes them to inherit the throne of glory for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's and he set the world upon them. And then he says in verse nine, he will keep the feet of his saints. He will keep them. He will watch over them, He will keep them, He will be their blessing. And that's just what He does all the time. And wicked shall be silent in the darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail.

I've had faith and I know I'm saved. Well, when someone tells me I have faith, It's just a sign they don't know the first thing about the gospel. It's not my faith, it's His faith given to me. That's the only faith we have. God demands perfect faith. He demands it. He doesn't suggest it, he demands perfect faith and we cannot come up with that perfect faith. He demands perfect repentance and we cannot come up with perfect repentance. That's why it is the fact that God gives us faith and he gives us repentance. It has to be. It's His perfect repentance to us.

He raises the poor. He lifts the beggar. He gives them every glorious, special blessing that ever could be. And He takes us out of, you know, He noticed that. He took them off the dung heap. He took them out of the dust. and puts them, and that's what we read over in the book of Revelation chapter five and verse nine, where it says, thou shalt redeem us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, nation, people, and tongue, out of. He'll not leave us in that. The world is so full of false religion, and I'm thankful he doesn't leave us there. He takes us out when he saves us by his grace.

And we just get to the point we can't, we just don't want it. We just, I'd much rather have a pork chop than pork or pig slop. It's just unpalatable. He talks, he takes his elect from the conditions and dresses them up. in his grace. A corpse that's dressed up is still a corpse, but a saint that's been given life and caused to be in a robe of righteousness is in good favor with God In religion, what we do is an abomination to God. It's a stinking place, and we stink. But by the grace of God, He settles us down in the church. I'm not talking about a formal church. I'm talking about all the saints of God. He sits among princes, he makes them to inherit the throne of glory because God is God and he does exactly what he purposed to do.

Turn with me, if you would, to the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 1, verse 11. Then we want to read a verse in Isaiah, and we'll be through for the evening. In the book of Ephesians chapter 1, it's such a blessed verse of scripture that it is just part of the whole. in chapter one, verse 11, it says, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him, now notice this last part, who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Does God save people on purpose or by mistake? It's according to the work of all things after the counsel of his own will.

And then if you'll travel with me back to the book of Isaiah chapter 46. In the book of Isaiah chapter 46, we have this glorious passage of scripture, and Isaiah, well, the rest of the Bible too, is just full of these encouraging words, just like we read with regard to Hannah's prayer. Oh my goodness, to have that knowledge given to us in Christ Jesus the Lord. Isaiah 46 and verse 11, the Bible says, calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country. Yea, I have spoken it. I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it. I will also do it.

So we don't have to worry about God taking care of his business. He's going to save his people from their sins in a glorious, glorious way. And he gives them the protection that they need, as we read there in the book of 1 Samuel chapter two, God's eternal protection. You know, keep the feet of his saints. It's something he takes care of for us. He gives us an interest in doing, thanking him for it, but he takes care of that business.

And then he'll give strength unto his king and exalt the horn of his anointed, the promise of the Messiah coming. It was started there in the book of Genesis. It continues on through all the Old Testament books. And then we come to a head in the birth of the Lord Jesus.

Luke and Matthew tells us about that. You know, if men, if man had been Or let me put it this way, if man was like most men think, then Jesus would never had need to come. There was no need for it. But since man was, as God declared, an absolute mess that couldn't get out of the mess they were in, it was necessary that he come.

And that's what we have promised here in this, the word Jehovah and in the three pronouns that are used with it, he, his and him are used 14 times in those few verses of scripture about Jehovah. This is what Jehovah does. A clear statement about the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in quite a short time, Hannah declared the Bible truth about God. We'll stop there for tonight and we'll pick this up, Lord willing, the next time.