Let me start that again. I want
you to turn this week to 1 Samuel chapter 2. 1 Samuel chapter 2. The scripture, as I've said before,
and I'll say again, I'll repeat, is God's declaration to his elect
people of effectual salvation accomplished in Christ. It's
so important that you see that. If you have that in view when
you come to the scriptures, It totally changes your approach
to the Scriptures. This book, its purpose is to
declare to his people how he saves them from their sins. It's
the book of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it's in Christ that his
people are saved. And who are His elect people
that He saves? There's only one evidence that
we have in this life. They're known to God from before
the beginning of time. The grace of Christ was given
to His people before time began, before the world began. We were
chosen in Him. But how do we know now who they
are? It's those who hear and, inexplicably
to human reasoning, Because you can't explain it, you can't even
explain it in yourself. Inexplicably, to human reasoning,
hearing the gospel, you believe the gospel. You trust Christ. You lean on him, entirely, for
eternity, for salvation. for peace with God, to know that
it is well with your soul. You rest in His finished redemption. You don't strive to do something
yourself to redeem yourself. You rest in His finished redemption,
believing the gospel of His grace, trusting the God who is the sovereign
God of salvation. Now last week we saw in 2 Timothy
chapter 1, the promise of life, the promise of life. This week
I've called it, it's maybe not a very good title, but the journey
of life, the journey of life, because it's a transformation
from where we are in our sins to that state of eternal bliss.
You know, we don't know what we shall be. It doesn't yet appear
what we shall be, but we know this. When we shall see him,
we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And that
is a tremendous transformation, this journey to eternal life,
this journey of eternal life. It's a transformation. You know,
sometimes you go through extreme transformations. We went through
one about four weeks ago now, less than that, when we arrived
at Luton Airport at five o'clock in the morning, on a grey July
morning, and the rain started coming down. As soon as we parked
the car and went to wait for the bus, with 50 other people
next to a bus shelter that had room for 10 other people, the
rain started to come down and there was a grey sky and it really
was an unpleasant experience and we got absolutely soaked
along with everybody else that was waiting there. And you get
on the aeroplane and two and a half hours later you walk out
into lovely warm summer sunshine. It's a transformation. It's just
a simple little illustration of how different things can be. But God takes his people as we'll
see in this passage from the most appalling state of sin to
the most glorious state of salvation. The text is in 1 Samuel chapter
2, and let me just read verses 6 to 9. The Lord killeth. This
is the prayer of Hannah, the mother of Samuel. The Lord killeth
and maketh alive. Notice her knowledge of, her acknowledgement
of, her bowing before the sovereignty of God. 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 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." Hannah's prayer of thanksgiving. A bit, first of all, about the
background to the story. The books of Samuel, 1 and 2
Samuel, begin with the account of the birth of Samuel. There
was a certain man named Elkanah, a certain man named Elkanah,
who was clearly a devout man. If you look in verse 23 of chapter
1, When Samuel had been born to Hannah, and she said she was
going to wait there and not go up to Shiloh to the feast, he
said, do what seemeth thee good. Tarry until thou have weaned
him. Only the Lord establish his word. This was the spirit
and demeanor of the man Elkanah. Only the Lord establish his word. May God do his will. May God,
who is sovereign over everything, do his will. This was a man of
God, but verse 2 of chapter 1, he had two wives. Why did he
have two wives? Was it intended that he should
have two wives? No, of course not. The pattern that God gave
was one man and one woman. That was it, that was the pattern
of marriage. Not one man and two wives or multiple wives,
but he had two wives. Why did he have two wives? He
probably, this is according to John Gill and it seems perfectly
reasonable to me, he probably married Hannah who was probably
the love of his life and she turned out to be barren. And
in those days, it was such a mark of, well, not just a mark, but
a factor in prosperity was having children. And she had none. And so it looks like he married
this other one, Panina, in order to get children. And he got other
children. But still, really, he loved Hannah. Hannah was the one that he loved. Peninnah had children, many children. She was fruitful. She was known
as the wife of Elkanah, but she had children, but Hannah had
none. Now, why is this story in the
Scripture? Why are all accounts in the Scripture? They're there to teach God's
people about God's salvation. Can't be there for any other
reason. That's what they're there for. They're not just incidental
things. They're not to teach us morals.
They're not to teach us right and wrong as such. They're to
teach God's people about His salvation. And I believe that
in this, there is a picture of salvation. There is a picture
of Christ and His church. Not all the pictures are perfectly
clear, because the figures and the types always break down at
some point. It's only completely fulfilled
in the Lord Jesus Christ. But Elkanah, in a way, is a type
of Christ. He says in verse eight of chapter
one, he says, because he sees that Hannah is sorrowful and
weeping and that she's not eating, and he says, why is your heart
grieved? Am I not better to you than 10
sons? And is that not what Christ says
to his people? Am I not better to you than a
husband, a wife, many sons, much riches? Am I not better to you
than all of these things? And then these two wives, you
know Christ has a bride which is called his church. The church
of Christ is the bride of Christ. And in that which calls itself
the church, here we see a picture of two. In Paninna, we see the
professing church. That which professes to be the
church of God. It has the name of Elkanah's
wife. It seems to be fruitful in that
when you look from the outside and you measure, you know, everybody's
so keen on measuring things, aren't they? One thing slightly
that gets me about the Olympics at the moment is the all-important
thing seems to be the medal table, almost more important than the
actual feats of athleticism and stamina that we see. It's the
counting that seems to matter. But Peninnah had seeming fruitfulness. She looked like she was fruitful. There were many children. Hannah,
on the other hand, Hannah was truly loved by Elkanah. She was
the possessing picture of the church. She was the picture of
the church which possessed the truth. She was truly loved by
Elkanah. And she was in agony every day
because of her unfruitfulness as others measured it. She suffered
the scorn of the other one, Paninna. Do you see something of a picture
of Christ and his church in this? That which calls itself the church
but isn't really, it professes, and that which possesses the
truth. That which truly possesses the
love of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, in that which merely
professes, there is that which sounds so much like the true
people of God. They have the name of the true
people of God. They use the language of the
true people of God. They appear to the outside to
bear the fruit of the true people of God. It looks so fruitful.
But do you know, Paninna's children were all born of the natural
process, just the natural process of biology. this fruit that is
produced in the professing church is of so much of just a natural
process. They always seem to be doing
something. I'm not talking about that which
is blatantly erroneous, I'm talking about that which prides itself
that it knows the gospel, that it has the truth, and it pours
scorn on those who are the true people of God. They're always
doing something, aren't they? They have programs for all situations,
they have programs for all sectors of society. in their churches.
What do you do for your young people? What do you do for your
wives with young children? What do you do for your older
people? And so on. They have programs for all. They
have ecumenical associations, by which I mean, oh, you've got
to have associations with anything that sounds like it might call
itself an evangelical church. They have para-church associations. You know, these organizations
that are not churches, like publishing organizations and so on and so
forth. They make such a big thing of them. They hold open-air services. They distribute literature. They
have lunch clubs for the homeless. They support missionary societies.
I could go on and on and on. They can pray just as easily
as you might change your jacket. You know, oh, I'm going to put
my praying jacket on now. And they just put it on and they
can pray so easily. And it all, so easily, can just
be the mere product of fleshly, natural process. And they pour
scorn, and disrespect, and contemptuous dismissal on those who know that
they can do nothing without the Spirit's empowering. The true
people of God know we can do nothing without the Spirit's
empowering. Who know that we are nothing,
and that we have nothing. We've got nothing to give to
the Lord unless he works in us. You see, the former professes
great things outwardly. The latter, Hannah, the true
church, possesses the reality inwardly, but knows that it all
depends on God to work out his purposes. Where are you in your
own reckoning, in that picture of the church? Are you contented
as Pernina with your own natural fruitfulness? Or like Hannah,
are you pleading with the Lord to work in you? that which is
of his good pleasure. He says, Paul writes to the Philippians,
and he says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
for it is God who works in you by his Spirit, both to will and
to do of his good pleasure. Some would say, ah, you're talking
about passive complacency. You'll never do anything if you
have that attitude. You're just going to sit back
and wait for God to work. No, it's not passive complacency.
Hannah was in anguish at her fruitlessness, but knowing utter
dependency on the Lord. Utter dependency on the Lord.
Not trying to work things out for herself, but knowing her
utter dependency on the Lord. It reminds me of when Moses,
taking the children of Israel out of Egypt, and he got to that
point where there was just utter desperation. They were about
to be swallowed up. And he didn't say strive for
this and strive for that, he told them to stand still. Just
stand still. And see the salvation of the
Lord. You see, this journey of life,
this journey to eternal life, is a lonely journey. It's a narrow
path uphill way journey. And Jesus said, few there be
that find it. Think of that. You know, oh,
you're not in a mega church, how many people do you get? Oh,
the Lord can't be working there. Do you know, somebody once said
to me about our situation, we'll know if the Lord's in it if you
get lots of people come from the local community. Don't think
so. Don't think so. You'll know the
Lord's in it if the truth of the gospel's preached there and
believed there. That's how you know that the
Lord's in it. It's a narrow, lonely, uphill journey, is this
journey to life. And few there be that find it. But what a journey of transformation
it is. In this prayer of thanksgiving
of Hannah, when the child is born and she goes up to the temple,
and she goes to lend Samuel to the Lord for the rest of his
life, and she knew that she would have many more children herself,
But she's said, Lord, give me this child. And she goes to lend
him to the Lord for the service of God for the rest of his life.
And she comes and prays this prayer of thankfulness. And it's
full of acknowledgement. of God being the one who turns
things upside down for his people. This is the whole prayer. Look
at it in the first five verses. Hannah prayed and said, my heart
rejoices in the Lord. Notice it's in the Lord where
her rejoicing is. What is it that makes her glad?
It's God and what he has done. My heart rejoices in the Lord.
My horn, my power is exalted in the Lord. My power, the power
of God unto salvation. is the gospel. It's exalted in
the Lord. My mouth is enlarged over mine
enemies. Those like Peninnah who poured
scorn before, it's enlarged over my enemies because I rejoice
in thy salvation. She knows his salvation. The
people of God know his salvation. They know what he has done. There
is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside thee. He
alone is holy and pure. Neither is there any rock like
our God. No rock like our God. All sorts
of other people have that which they set up as their rock on
which they build their lives, but there is no other rock like
our God. Talk no more so exceedingly proudly
Get down where you really are. Let not arrogance come out of
your mouth. For the Lord is a God of knowledge,
and by Him actions are weighed. He knows all things. He knows
our hearts. He sees inside us. The bows,
the weapons of war of the mighty men, the things that they use
are broken. And they that stumbled are girded
with strength. Who stumbled? His people stumbled
in knowing their own weakness, but they're girded with strength.
God turns everything upside down. They that were full, they had
more than enough to eat, have hired out themselves for bread.
They're having to work and scratch and scrape. And they that were
hungry ceased. They're no longer hungry. They
that were hungry are his people who were hungering and thirsting
for righteousness. Blessed are they, said Jesus,
who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. He
fills them. He fills them. As they hunger,
he fills them. As they find no source of goodness
or nourishment in themselves, He fills His people. They that
were hungry ceased, so that the baron hath borne seven, and she
that hath many children is waxed feeble. The Lord killeth in His
hands our matters of life and death, in His hands the issues
of death, 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. You see, God is sovereign. This is the journey of life,
the journey to eternal life, is a journey of learning more
and more that God is sovereign over everything. Absolutely sovereign
over everything. completely sovereign over salvation. He rules in the affairs of man,
in everything. God orders all things for his
eternal purposes. And Hannah, Newit, and all the
true people of God, they bow in the dust before the knowledge
of God's sovereignty. The Lord killeth and maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave
and bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor and maketh
rich. He makes poor. What does he say
again in the Sermon on the Mount? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed, truly blessed, truly
favoured with God's goodness are the poor in spirit. Those
who appear to be so poverty-stricken in themselves, poverty of own
worth, knowing that you have no worth of your own, you have
no righteousness which has any currency in eternal terms. Nothing in my hand I bring, is
that line in the hymn, nothing in my hand I bring simply to
thy cross, not as an object of idolatry, but where Christ accomplished
salvation for his people. He makes poor. The Lord makes
poor. And he raises the poor out of
the dust. He raises the poor. He lifts
them up out of the dust. This is the start. Nothing in
my hand I bring. This is the start of the journey,
stripped naked, knowing that I have nothing, that I have no
worth. You know, I remember people telling
me years ago that you can't love somebody else until you learn
to love yourself. Where's that in the scriptures?
Where is it? You know? Do you remember that? You do, don't you? You can't
love anybody else until you've learned to love yourself. Come
off it. It doesn't say that in the Word of God. The true child
of God knows that you are poverty stricken. Poverty stricken. in and of yourself, in your flesh.
In my flesh, said Paul, there dwells no good thing. He is the one who brings low,
verse 7, and lifts up. Psalm 116 says exactly the same. Psalm 116, verse 6, I was brought
low and he helped me. High was brought low. The journey
to life, the journey of life, involves God stripping you of
any self-reliance. If He's going to lift you up
high, He will first bring you down low and show you what you
really are by nature. Verse 8. Where are the poor?
In the dust. He raiseth up the poor out of
the dust. Where are they? They're in the
dust. They're not in polished palaces. They're not walking
the red carpet. You know how when it's the showing of a premiere
of a film in Leicester Square and it tends to usually rain
and be winter and they roll out the red carpet so that the stars
don't have to walk on the dusty pavements. They walk down the
red carpet into the cinema. No, the poor don't do that. The
poor are in the dust. In terms of the currency of eternity,
God shows you that you're poverty-stricken. And who are the poorest of all?
Look at verse 8. He lifteth up the beggar from
the dunghill. That's where the poorest are. When you've given up all hope
of any salvation in yourself, in any ability to feed yourself,
you can resort only to begging. I know our streets are absolutely
littered with fraudsters who are pretending to be poor when
they're not really. Absolutely full of it. I know
from first-hand experience that that's the case. I was once suckered,
you might say, at King's Cross Station early one morning and
gave some money to a guy who put on such a good act. And when
I came through King's Cross Station that evening, several hours later,
ten hours later, there was the same man conning other people.
And I suppose at the risk of my own safety, I went up to them
and told them not to give anything to him. But there are genuine
beggars around the world. Genuine beggars have no other
recourse. That's all they can do. They've
got nothing that they can spend. They can only resort to begging.
And all God's people can plead is not look at what I've done,
it's mercy. Have mercy on me, O God. Have
mercy on me. There is nothing I can bring
that would persuade you to look on me more favorably than anybody
else. I am worthy of condemnation.
but you're a God of mercy. Your word says you delight in
mercy, have mercy on me. But he, God, raises, lifts up
his beggars from the dunghill. Where are these beggars? They're
not sitting on a paved city street, they're on the dunghill. The
professors of Christian faith, the professors of being the true
church. They don't like to talk in delicate
terms like this, but the Word of God doesn't hold back. It
says we're sitting as beggars in our natural state, beggars
on a dunghill. Do you know what a dunghill is? It's not a pleasant place. When
I was a kid growing up in the north of England, in the 1950s
and early 1960s, whether we were actually working or whether we
were just being a nuisance, I don't know, but we used to love going
on the local farms. And every farm had a thing which,
I don't know if this is just a northern term for it, that
was called the midden. The midden was where, now I'll
tell you what went on there, okay? Now, I hope you forget
this before it gets to lunchtime. But what went on there, every
time the cows were milked, the shippen had to be mucked out,
and that's one job that we used to do. Delightful. Great big
shovel, great big brush, hose pipes, great big barrow into
which all of the muck had to be chucked. Yeah? Really? Seriously? And then it came to
lambing time. Now, you may say, oh, I can put
up with that. What about this? This is the
dunghill. This is the midden. You know, some of the lambs used
to die. They used to be born dead. Guess where we used to
put the lambs, the little dead bodies of the lambs? And, you
know, this is me, you're looking at me now. Oh, go and put that
lamb on the midden. So I'd pick up this dead lamb
and go and throw the dead lamb on the midden. And we'd trap
rats in the barn and the dead bodies of the rats would go,
where? On the midden. And what happened to the midden?
It would rot down and it would get spread on the fields and
it would be that which fertilised the fields. Now I'm laboring
the point because I want to show you, you see, they don't like
talking in indelicate, delicate terms, but this is how God's
word portrays us as we are. Beggars on the dunghill, beggars
sitting in the middle of the midi, with all the death and
stink and revolting. That's how we are by nature,
but look what he does. He lifts up the beggar from the
dunghill. And where does he put the beggar that he's lifted up
from the dunghill? He sets them among princes, to
make them inherit the throne of glory. He lifts them up, like
he lifted up Jacob, who was the sinner, and made him Israel,
a prince with God. And why are they princes? Why
does he set them among princes? Because his people are the sons
of the king. The children of the king. Princes
sets them among princes And he makes them inherit the throne
of glory. Inherit the throne of glory.
We're heirs of God, says the scripture. We're joint heirs
with Christ, says Romans 8, 17. We sit down at the same table
of communion with Christ. He says, come to my table and
sit down at this table and remember these things. He causes us to
sit in palaces, having lifted us as beggars from the dunghill.
He makes us princes. and sits us in palaces, sitting
at the communion table with Christ. In Revelation 3.21, he says this
to the churches, he says, to him that overcometh, will I grant
to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and
I'm set down with my Father in his throne. This promise of life
involves a journey to eternal life, a journey of complete transformation,
and this is God's redemptive work. This is why he's written
this to us, to tell us what he does for his people, lifting
us from that dunghill, beggars on a dunghill, to princes in
the palace. And in this world you would say,
How insignificant these Hannahs are. How insignificant. These
truly loved of Christ, yet apparently barren and fruitless. How insignificant. Yet, this word tells us how indispensable
this people, His people, are. Look at the second half of verse
8 and the start of verse 9. He says, for the pillars of the
earth are the Lord's, and he has set the world upon them.
He will keep the feet of his saints. The whole context is
talking about the Lord's people. So the pillars of the earth are
the Lord's people. They're his people. He has set
the world upon them. He will keep the feet of his
saints. On this journey, the Lord keeps
the feet of his saints. He says, he will not suffer thy
foot to be moved. It speaks of Christ, but he also
speaks of his people. Now this is what this is saying.
His people are insignificant. yet indispensable in his eternal
purposes. You look at this world around
you today And as a little company of believing people, the people
of God, you would think that the people of God have never
seemed less significant than we are in these times. How insignificant,
how few there seem to be who truly believe the truth, who
truly wait on the Lord, who truly look to Him for everything. And
yet, God says of His people that they're the pillars of the earth.
he set the world upon them. God keeps this world going with
all of its great political razzmatazz, I mean we're in the midst of
Olympics at the moment and the great euphoria and justifiably
that there is about great sporting events and it's like such an
important significant thing, how insignificant are the people
of God. and their trust and faith in
the Lord. How insignificant! But this word
tells us that God keeps this world going, I'll put it this
way, as mere scaffolding until the temple made of living stones
is complete. God is building his temple, it's
his church. It's a temple of living stones,
like the temple that Solomon built was of stones cut from
the quarry, so the temple of the living God, Ephesians chapter
2 tells us, is made out of living stones, people that he makes,
people that he brings from the quarry of humanity. He brings
these people and builds them into the temple of the living
God. And the world around is like scaffolding around the temple. And when that temple is complete,
God says he'll just take the scaffolding down. You see, it's
the existence of God's true Church that upholds the continuance
of this world. And it's the continued building
of that spiritual temple that upholds the continuance of this
world. How seemingly insignificant it
is, yet how fundamentally essential it is. God who is sovereign over
everything says this, the pillars of the earth are the Lord's people,
and he has set the world upon them, until he's finished building
his temple. You look at a bridge, You look
at the Queen Elizabeth Bridge over the River Thames at Dartford
and it's a magnificent structure and you look at it and you see
the vehicles as it were flying over that river in a very short
period of time so long as there's no traffic jam there. And you
look at how it is that they're seemingly, I'll tell you there's
an even better one over the River Seine at Le Havre, there's a
massive bridge there, it dwarfs the Queen Elizabeth Bridge. But
you look and you see the great trucks flying through the air
as it were but they're supported. There's these huge supports,
and it's that idea. The Church of God, the true Church
of God, the true people of God, are the supports of the world
and all that's around it. You see, the created and the
sustained world that we see and inhabit, it's just God's canvas. This world around, it's God's
canvas on which he paints the artwork of gracious salvation. Can you see it? The world is
the canvas on which he paints the artwork of gracious salvation. And when he's completed his picture,
when every element of it is in place, the background will just
be rolled up. The scaffolding will be taken
down. Only the temple will remain.
And the Bible, the Word of God, is God's declaration to his redeemed
people of the effectual salvation he has accomplished. in his son. That's what he's saying. The
church isn't just on the periphery of this great buzzing world in
which we live, it's the center of it. It's absolutely fundamental
to it. It only exists because God hasn't
yet completed the building of his spiritual temple. The pillars
of the earth are the Lord's, and he has set the world upon
them. So it's not peripheral, it's central. It's the focus. It's the reason for the world
being there. And what's at the center of this creation? Of this
world? What's at the center of it? And
if you look, not just now, but throughout history, it's the
cross of Calvary. Because at the cross of Calvary
is the center of God's redeeming, saving purposes accomplished
and fulfilled and finished. And that's why, that's why We
regularly partake of bread and wine because they're the symbols
that remind us, the symbols that our Lord gave us to remind us.
This creation is here for the saving of God's people, and at
the center of it is the means by which he does and has saved
his people. The cross of Calvary, the shed
blood of Christ, the broken body, and that's what we remember as
we take wine and bread together. So think of these things, the
journey to life, the journey to life, the journey of life,
the transformation in the face of persecution and opposition
and sidelining and being ignored,
how crucial, that which seems so insignificant to the world,
how crucial it actually is. In the revelation of God to his
people, he raises up the poor out of the dust and lifts the
beggar from the dunghill to set them among princes, to make them
inherit the throne of glory. We're privileged indeed.