We're in 1 Samuel chapter 2,
and we're going to read from verse 1. And Hannah prayed and said, My
heart rejoiceth in the Lord, mine horn is exalted in the Lord,
my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies, because I rejoice in
thy salvation. There is none holy as the Lord,
for there is none beside thee, neither is there any rock like
our God. Talk no more exceeding proudly,
let not arrogance come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a
God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows
of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumble are girded
with strength. They that were full have hired
out themselves for bread, and they that were hungry ceased,
so that the baron hath borne seven, and she that hath many
children is waxed feeble. The Lord killeth and maketh alive,
he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up. 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, and to make them inherit
the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth
are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them. He will
keep the feet of his 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 unto his king and exalt
the horn of his anointed. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Now I must confess that I was
a little torn about whether to pass on from Hannah or to spend
another week thinking about the testimony of this heaven-blessed
woman. Hannah has left another prayer
to the church and these Two opening chapters of 1st Samuel are the
only mention that we have of Hannah and yet she is such a
significant woman in the history of the church. So I decided that
we should hear from her again before we moved on. Last week we thought about Hannah's
prayer for a son and her promise to return that son back to the
Lord to serve him all his life, which Samuel, her child, did
in a very significant way. This week, we're going to think
about another prayer that Hannah made. Because after Samuel was
born, Hannah prayed again. And this was a prayer giving
thanks to God. And that's a good principle that
Hannah teaches us right there. We ask a lot from the Lord. Every time we pray, we're asking
the Lord for something. And it is appropriate to remember
that we should go back to the Lord and thank him for his kindnesses. And that's what Hannah teaches
us here. She thanked the Lord, both for
Samuel and for lifting her from her depression. And although
it is called a prayer here in scripture, so we're not going
to contradict that, a prayer it is, there is something also
of a song about this testimony. And people have noted that there
are parallels between Mary's song of praise for the birth
of Christ or the announcement that Christ was going to be born,
and Hannah's words here. And actually, that ought not
to surprise us. Hannah is regarded by the Jews
as a prophetess because of this prayer, or because of this song.
and in it we see clear reference not only to her own circumstances
and her own son, her own child, but also of a child yet to come,
the Messiah that we know as the Lord Jesus Christ. So Hannah
had a glimpse, Hannah had an understanding that the Lord God,
Jehovah, would send the Lord Jesus Christ into this world. Hannah's name, I may have mentioned
this last week, Hannah's name means gracious and she was clearly
blessed with grace from God. By the birth of Samuel, that
was a gift from God, it was a blessing from the Lord. And yet she also
showed the effect of that grace in her own life by returning
the child to the Lord as she had vowed and as she had promised. And there's also evidence of
grace in this, her song as well. by guidance of God's Spirit. She spoke of things yet unseen. She spoke by faith of things
that were not yet revealed. and she helped, this woman, this
Hannah, she helped to inform and prepare the Lord's remnant
people amongst the Jews in those Old Testament ages for the coming
of their anointed king. And the first thing we notice
regarding Hannah's prayer, her song, is that she is worshipping
the Lord in it. And she is giving her personal
experience. She says, my heart rejoiceth
in the Lord. And that is what our relationship
with the Lord is about. It is about personal experience. And even although we are young,
we still are able to have a personal experience with the Lord by faith,
by trusting in him. And we can hear the Lord speaking
to us through his word and we can speak to the Lord in our
prayers. We don't have to pray especially
long prayers or especially clever prayers or especially knowledgeable
prayers. We just have to simply go before
the Lord and pray to him and that is how our personal experience
of the Lord is formed. She says, my heart rejoiceth
in the Lord and it was the Lord that she rejoiced in. It wasn't
that she was rejoicing in the birth of her son, though I'm
sure she was, but rather she was honouring the giver of the
gift and not the gift itself. And there's a big difference.
She loved her son, of course she did, but she loved the Lord
more. She loved the Lord who gave her
her son, and she understood the Lord was her salvation. Beside
whom there was none so holy, none so faithful, and none so
true. So Hannah is worshipping the
Lord as she brings her gratitude and her thanks to the Lord. The
Lord had blessed and defended Hannah against the provocations
of Peninnah, but while this gracious woman had received these blessings,
she was ready to acknowledge the hand of the Lord in the birth
of Samuel. and she had a view of her Lord
and King in this praise. So that here she was thanking
the Lord for Samuel, but also her mind was going beyond this
child and she was honouring the Lord and she was speaking things
about what was yet to come. Hannah understood the character
and purpose of God in a way that suggests it was the Holy Spirit
himself that was teaching her. For example, she knew the Lord
to be all wise and almighty with power over life and death because
she says that in her prayer. She knew that the Lord killeth
and maketh alive. She knew that the Lord bringeth
down to the grave and that he bringeth up from the grave. She knew that the circumstances
of our lives are in God's hands to lift up or to bring down according
to his will and purpose. Hannah understood all these things
because she spoke of them in her prayer. She understood God's
sovereignty over nature, and the affairs of the world and
of the lives of men and women and boys and girls. These things
Hannah understood. And as we read the scriptures
and we see the testimony that these people of faith and grace
have left to us from hundreds, thousands of years ago, then
by faith we believe these things as well. and our relationship
with the Lord deepens and grows and develops. But I want to think
about two statements that I'll just leave with you today. Two
comments especially from Hannah's prayer and they're in verses
9 and 10 and they're these. The first one is this, he will
keep the feet of his saints. The second one is, he shall give
strength unto his king and exalt the horn of his anointed. Now, that word horn there, it
means strength and power. So that's what we're going to
be thinking about in a moment. But let me just say this, these
are gospel texts. They are in the Old Testament,
but they refer to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as he
is most fully revealed in the New Testament. But here we see
that the Lord's people understood, even in the Old Testament, something
of the Lord Jesus Christ and they believed in him and had
faith in him. We're told here that the Lord
will keep his feet, will keep the feet of his saints. Now, That is telling us that
the Lord will secure and preserve the lives of those whom he has
set apart as his own people. God has set apart a people and
he calls them his saints, his set apart ones. God's saints
are not some super holy people, but those whom he has set apart
in his covenant purpose to worship and serve him in this world. And what we learn from the Bible
is that we all deserve judgment. We all deserve death because
of our sin. But the Lord has chosen and set
apart a people to love and to bless. And we're told here by
Hannah that the Lord will keep the feet of his saints. Paul tells us, He hath chosen
us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be
holy and without blame before Him in love. That is, He has
set us apart. And God promises to keep these
people safe and deliver them from judgment, from sin, and
out of the hands of their enemies. The other verse that I wanted
to mention particularly is where Hannah says, he shall give strength
to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed. Hmm, I wonder
who it is that Hannah is speaking about here. Who might God's king
be? This king of whom Hannah was
speaking, it wasn't Saul, it wasn't David or one of Israel's
future kings, but she's speaking about the King of Glory. She's speaking about Christ the
King. And furthermore, Hannah teaches
the church something about this king which we never knew before. This is the first time that it
is mentioned. This king is the Lord's anointed
one. He shall give strength unto his
king and exalt the horn of the strength and the power of his
anointed. Many years later, when Zacharias
was being told about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, he
said this, He was almost taking Hannah's words. straight from the lips of this
lady of so many years ago and pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ
that she was pointing to as well. Old and New Testament, looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Hannah knew the Lord was her
salvation and she knew the Lord's King was anointed by Jehovah
God, which just means that he was specially chosen and equipped
for the task that he would be given. And the very word that
is used here is Messiah or Christ. And this is the first time that
this name, this title of anointed is given to the Lord Jesus Christ. All these years ago, and it was
Hannah, a woman, who thus prayed of Christ to come. Right, just
a couple of little things I want to mention by way of application,
and then we're done today. Here's the first one. Hannah
knew great disappointment and hardship in her life but she
also knew great blessing. This woman was blessed with a
child by the Lord for which she was very grateful. However, her
real blessing and her real joy was to know God as her saviour
and Christ as the one appointed and anointed to save her and
to keep her safe. Her song is a song of praise
and worship. It's a prayer of gratitude to
God and a prayer to honour him. And it shows us that Jesus Christ
is his anointed one to save and to keep our souls, not just Hannah's,
but our souls as well. And that the joy and happiness
that Hannah knew can be ours as well. And that will be more
than the ups and downs that we meet within this world. So whatever your challenge is
right now, whether you're feeling happy or whether you're feeling
sad, whether you're feeling anxious or whether you're concerned about
what's happening in your life, the Lord will keep your feet
as you place your trust in Him. Whatever your challenge is right
now, take it to the Lord, as Hannah did. He will hear and
He will answer. and then remember to thank him
when he does. And lastly, here's my final point. Hannah was a good mother. I suspect that she visited Samuel
at Shiloh as often as she could while he was growing up. Shiloh
was only 10 miles or so from where Hannah lived with her husband,
Elkanah. So it wasn't so very far to go. But certainly every year, Hannah
went up to Shiloh to worship. And when she did, she took Samuel
a coat. Now maybe it was a special coat
to wear on special occasions such as feasts or maybe it was
just an annual coat that she made for him to keep him warm. Hannah had other children as
well after Samuel. She had three more sons and two
daughters. So she was blessed of the Lord.
There was a time when not having a child was the biggest, most
important thing in Hannah's life. In the end, the Lord gave her
six children and blessed her with spiritual joy and contentment. As you grow up, you will have
problems and disappointments in your life. You'll feel they
are the biggest, most important things in your life and you'll
wonder, how am I going to be able to go on when these things
happen? The thing is that none of us
know what the future holds except the Lord. and he came to save
his people and to keep us through all our problems. Not to keep
us from problems, but to keep us through our problems. The
Lord does not save his people to afterwards lose us. He saves and he keeps, and we
can trust him when everything else seems dark and uncertain. May the Lord give us grace to
do so. Amen.