Let us pray. Lord, we have heard your word. Now open our ears and our hearts and our understanding that we might give you the glory, that we might learn from you the things that are certain and true, that we might believe. In Christ we pray. Amen. Please be seated. Originally, it was my intention to do the whole of chapter 2 this Lord's Day, because there is a great and wonderful parallel between the sons of Eli and Samuel, but we will save that for next week, Lord willing. I wanted to go back and cover Hannah's song a little bit because of, while we covered it last week, we covered it rather quickly, and I wanted to come back and look at it. There is, interestingly, in 1 and 2 Samuel, there are more songs than in almost any other historic narrative portion. And the songs are not there to set up the history. The history sets up the songs. The songs of praise are windows into God. As I tried to explain last week, I found a quote that I think may say it better. When we come to these historical books, we need to understand that there are two things being revealed simultaneously. God is revealing to us infallibly a history, in this case of a young woman, Anna, and the birth, the supernatural birth of a son, Samuel, but, and we want to see this, we want to know the history of Israel. But he's also revealing himself. One writer put it this way, the Old Testament history in its two factors, on the one hand, the revelation of the living God to his chosen people, and on the other hand, the thereby conditioned demeanor of the people towards its God in its general religious ethical life. In this case, considered in light of the coming kingdom of God. And so often in the Old Testament, we only focus on the one side. You grew up going to church and you dealt with the Old Testament stories. Often the characters of the Old Testament were held up as moral models of what you want to do and to be. Dare to be a Daniel. It's a song that many of us learned as youngsters. Or, you know, dare to be a David and to stand against Goliath. I'm in the Lord's army. I may not ride on the Calvary, I may not I'll fly over the enemy, but I am in the Lord's army, and we're going to fight those pesky Philistines, especially the giants called Goliath. And while we don't want to totally lose that, we need to understand that these historic narratives are not primarily about us. They're about God and His Son. The Bible is a revelation of God and His Son and the Kingdom of Christ. Remember, Jesus says in Luke 24, both to the men on the road to Emmaus and then to the eleven privately, that Moses and the prophets and the Psalms wrote about Me. And so we want to see both what would we learn from Hannah, and from Eli, and from Eli's sons, and from Samuel, and Saul, and David, but also what do we learn, and maybe more importantly, what do we learn of God as God and these people interact in these real historic events. So I'd like to focus on that somewhat this morning through Hannah's song. And so as I told you last week, her song can be divided up into three sections. We're going to treat them as the three points, verses 1 through 3, pretty much about her and her salvation experience. Verses 4 through 8 about the way that God ordinarily saves, and verses 9 and 10 about what is coming. And so what do we learn? What do we learn about God and how he deals with his people? That's the goal this morning through Hannah's song. The first thing I want to focus as we look at verses one through three is a word that we kind of skip right over, Hannah prayed and said. And now this is not a real big issue, but I think it's an important issue because sometimes I think we kind of miss the Psalms and the Psalter. The book of Psalms are songs that we sing, we're comfortable with that. And here, Hannah says she prayed, and yet my Bible, this is the editor's, this is not inscripturated, calls this chapter Hannah's Song of Thanksgiving. Well, why would they call it a song when it says she prayed? Well, in the modern mind, we often bifurcate between praying and singing. But the same word for prayer here, and Hannah prayed, is found in, you don't need to turn there, but you can if you want just to check me out, Psalm 72 20, which is kind of the end of the first book of Psalms. Remember the book of Psalms is divided into five books. And Psalm 72 ends, and the prayers of David and the sons of Jesse are ended. The first 72 Psalms, it's not that there aren't other David Psalms in the rest of the book of Psalms, but many of his Psalms are located in the first 72 books or Psalms, and that first book of the Psalms ends with these words. These words are not the editor. These words are the Holy Spirit and the prayers of David. The Son of Jesse are ended. The Psalms are prayers as much as they are songs. Many of them are the very prayers of Jesus as He is speaking to His Heavenly Father. Remember in the Gospel accounts how often Christ goes away and prays all night. What did He pray? Based on what the book of Psalms tells us, there's no doubt that much of that time alone with the Father was taken up in prayer, in the singing of the Psalms. And that's why so often you have, as we've mentioned and highlighted other times, the Psalms record for us in a Trinitarian conversations what the father has to say to and about the son, and what the son has to say and pray as he calls upon his father in the midst of success and trials, victory and defeat. Righteousness and sin. Life and in death. And for us to learn not just to sing the Psalter, but to see the Psalter as an example of how we pray. What does a godly man or woman Speak to God in prayer. You'll find no finer example than the book of Psalms and other canonical passages like Hannah right here. I believe this is a song that would be totally legitimate for the church to sing. in part of its worship service, and we learn a lot about how Christians pray and praise. And so there is no disconnect between calling this Hannah's song and she prayed. Well, having said that, let me just quickly sum up verses 1 through 3, as this tells us something about Hannah's sense of salvation. She says, notice in the first verse, my heart exalts, my horn is exalted, my mouth speaks boldly, because I rejoice in your salvation. In these first three verses, you have a very personal testimony of the nature of a Christian's response to the deliverance that God has provided. Now, we learn several things about Hannah in the previous chapter. We highlighted last week that not only is she married to the same man as Peninnah, but Peninnah, in verse 6, is her rival. It's bad enough just to think about in terms of two women being married to the same man and the natural conflict that may come from that, but here the Holy Spirit describes the relationship between these two women in the term rival. How would you like to have a rival to your husband's affections? And this rivalry went on for years. Verse 6, her rivalry, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her because the Lord had closed her womb. It happened year after year as often as she went up to the house of the Lord. She would provoke her, so she wept and would not eat. Twice we are told, once at the end of verse 5, then again in verse 6, that the circumstance that God had brought into Hannah's life was by His own providence. He closed her womb. It's not that she's got a problem physically, God has supernaturally closed her womb, and her rival makes the most of it year after year after year. And so right there we learn something, and we've highlighted this on other occasions, and something that we all need, I know I need it, but I think as Americans we need it, how often God allows His saints to labor for years before He delivers them. She labors so long in verse 9, excuse me, verse 10, it says, and she, she greatly distressed, prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly, greatly distressed. If you've got a study Bible, you might see it means she bitter of soul, she bitter of soul, wept bitterly. In fact, the Hebrew piles up the words bitter. Bitter of soul. She weeped weepingly. Just bringing home this bitterness and the crying and the emotional fatigue of this great tears. It's like, you know, we cry and then we can cry. We weep and then we can weep deeply. And this has gone on for year after year, and she goes to the throne of grace, and she lays her burden there. In America, we want instant relief, don't we? We want... I love that commercial. I used this a year or so ago. There was a great commercial. I don't remember what was being advertised, which I always figure is a sign of a bad commercial. They're advertising something. You remember the commercial, but not the product. It's probably done too well. But the whole point of the commercial was people in the office cafeteria couldn't wait for the last three seconds of the microwave to be finished so they could get their snacks. Ever been there? You put the microwave on for one minute and you can't wait for that last tick of the, you push the button and open it, at 57 seconds you just got, there's a sense of urgency. Americans don't like to wait for anything. Proof of that is the fact that the personal debt in America is greater than the national debt. We cannot wait to have whatever we want to have. But in the Kingdom of God, often the saints are made by God to wait. And the very waiting is part of how He delivers. I told you a couple times recently, remember when Martin Luther begins to feel the weight of his guiltiness to the time that the Gospel is finally revealed to him is about 10 years. And he has tremendous physical and psychological things that damage him for the rest of his life. Ten years he labored under the grief. But we have four spiritual laws and you can have immediate sense that God loves you. Just say yes to these laws and pray this prayer and it's all good. Just walk this aisle right now. Not so in the Kingdom of God. Yes, God does intervene miraculously and quickly and instantaneously when He so desires, but the norm is like Hannah. And one reason why she can sing the song that she sings in chapter 2 is because of the bitterness of her soul and her antagonistic, uncaring, ungrateful, unbelieving rival who torments her soul year after year. If you're like me, you pray once, you pray twice, and then maybe three times, But pretty much, you kind of figure, well, God's answered. If Hannah had done that, there never would have been a chapter 2. Secondly, we see something of the why she can say, my heart exalts, my horn exalts, my mouth speaks, because as we pointed out last week, when she prayed, she went to the throne of grace, and her prayers were deep, and long, and heartfelt. Remember, Eli comes and thinks she's drunk because all he sees is her mouth moving. But she says in verse 15, Hannah replied, No, my Lord, I am a woman oppressed in spirit. A woman oppressed, severe in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink. I have poured out my soul before the Lord. I have poured out my soul before the Lord. Question. Have you ever prayed that way? And if you have, how descriptive of that is of your regular prayer life? I think for most of us, myself included, it's not all that descriptive. Because we're not all that grieved. We're really not all that burdened. And we've never really gotten to the place where we've all been that much broken by the circumstances of our lives. We're persuaded that we can make it work. One of the evidences is not just the shallowness of our prayer, but the absence of our prayers. And so when she prays and she pours out her heart, and she pours it out completely and exhaustively, I think it's interesting, in verse 18 it says, and she said, let your maid servant find favor or grace in your sight. So the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. Isn't this amazing? There at chapter 1, verse 18, her circumstances had not changed, one scintilla. Her rival continues to harass her, her womb is still closed, nothing has changed, and yet in the depth of pouring out her heart before the Lord and her bitter spirit she could then go to the festival meal. Remember, they've gone to the temple, or to the tabernacle, rather, to worship God. They brought their offerings, which included the killing of an animal, and some of that was burned on the altar, some of that was given to the priest. We're going to find out more about that in the balance of chapter two. and the rest of it was given back to the worshipper and a great meal, a great meal was had, a festival. Just like you think of the Passover meal, a great time of celebrating the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt. And she couldn't go to the meal. She was so emotionally distraught. But having been to the throne of grace, she's able to get up. Even though her circumstances have changed, not a whit, she's able to enjoy the meal. And her face is no longer long and sad. And she can go and be in the midst of the festival. Then God, in the course of days, answers her prayer. And as you know, Samuel comes. And so when she brings Samuel, after about three years, to the temple, to the tabernacle to be given, she comes with a heart that exalts the Lord. The only way her heart can exalt the Lord is that at first had tasted the bitter herbs of her circumstances. There's a connection. It's out of the depths, Psalm 40, Psalm 130, that God hears our prayers. and the deeper we have fallen into the miry clay of the circumstances of the struggle of life in this present evil age is directly proportional to the level of joy that you will have when God delivers. My horn is exalted in the Lord." The word horn means exactly what it says. It's a horn. It's just a metaphor. What is the strength of an animal that have horns is, in fact, their horns. And you don't want to mess with an animal who's got some good horns on it. So the horn is simply a metaphor for her strength. Not only does her heart exalt the Lord, her horn exalts the Lord. Her strength has been renewed. Her strength is no longer herself, but as it will be said elsewhere in the Old Testament, the joy of the Lord is my strength. How many of us can say that? We say it religiously. But if I come to you or you come to me and say, how's it going? Oh, you know, we then become Eeyore. Oh, if you only knew. Oh, if you only knew. You know, poor me. I mean, I'm ready to die and go be with Jesus just because I've got some sinus issues because of whatever's blooming, right? Oh, I just feel so bad. Really? Or, how's it going? Oh, it's great. You know, I showed up to work. I found out I'm the employee of the month. I got a really fat bonus. And you know, they gave me a new office. Oh, life is good, and we're so excited. And how often our joy is not tied, our strength is not tied to the deliverance of the Lord, but to our circumstances. Not so with Hannah. Her circumstances had not changed, and she's no longer sad. Her circumstances change and now she's not excited because necessarily that she has Samuel. Her joy is not in Samuel. Her joy and her praise and her fullness of spirit is in the Lord. My heart exalts in Samuel? My heart exalts in that I'm a mother? My heart exalts in Pinnana, no longer being able to harass me? No. My heart exalts in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies because I rejoice in your salvation. And then a beautiful statement in verse 2, which is lost. I mean, it's true the way the New American Standard puts it. It's just so much more beautiful in the Hebrew. There's three negations. There's no one holy like the Lord, there's no one like you, no one like you, and there's no rock like God. No, no, no. Each phrase starts with the same word. No one holy like the Lord. No one besides you. There is no rock like God. And she comes to understand that salvation comes from a God who is wholly other. Salvation is not coming from Eli. Salvation is not coming from my husband. Salvation is not coming from my womb. Salvation comes from the Lord and there is none like Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation. Boast no more very proudly and do not let arrogance come out of your mouth. And now the verbs change from singular to plural. She's not saying this about herself. She's not saying this only about Peninnah. This is instruction for all. In America, what do we boast? We're always boastful. I'm best at this. I did better than that. I beat you here. This, that, the other. We're all so very much consumed with being number one. Boast no more. For the Lord is a God of knowledge and He Himself and with Him actions are weighed. The commentators are divided over the phrase, with him actions are weighed. Some of them think that the actions weighed are God's own actions. In His holiness, in His otherness, in His rockness, God always does exactly that which needs to be done at exactly the time. In His infinite wisdom, His infinite knowledge, His infinite goodness, His infinite power, He never strikes more or less than what is needed. My family growing up, we played a lot of Pinochle. And during the Pinochle hands, there would be someone would lay down a card thinking they just took the trick. And then somebody else would lay a little bigger, more powerful card. And my dad would always say when that happened, you sent a boy to do a man's job. You sent a boy to do a man's job. Not so with God. God never plays the card that is not going to accomplish all His holy will. Psalm 115 verses 1 through 3. God accomplishes His will. He's never thwarted. And every action is weighed so that He does that which is needed for the moment. And exactly what is needed for the moment. No wasted materials. A friend of mine's father used to live out in Hemet, California, where the army at least used to do their desert drills. And my friend's relatives would go out into the desert after the army and go home and collect up all the supplies that the army just left behind. And sometimes I'll tell you a story about a smoke bomb I set off in college. It's kind of a fun story, not appropriate for here. But the point is, our military probably left as much army surplus stuff in the desert as they actually used. In other words, they took a whole lot more than they needed and they left it. Not so with God. The commentators are divided over whether that measure is God or that measure is man. The Bible is full of statements about God knows your heart, God weighs your motives. Proverbs talks about that the decision the man makes is always right in his own eyes, but God weighs the thoughts. We tend to, and even as we had read to us this morning from Matthew chapter 6, about the hypocrites who spend their time doing their religion to have a positive impression laid upon other people. And Jesus warns that as hypocrisy. See, hypocrisy can be, I try to persuade you that I'm really a good guy when I'm not. That is a form of hypocrisy. But another form of hypocrisy is simply, I'm trying to show you how much I love God so that you will be impressed with me. You'll think I'm godly. You'll think I'm righteous. You'll think more highly of me. That can also be hypocrisy according to Christ. And God knows your thoughts. God knows your hearts. And every once in a while, people say, well, you know, God knows my heart. And I always want to respond, and sometimes I do, because sometimes I'm just snarky enough to do so. Oh, God knows my heart. And I'll say, and you think that's a good thing? I might be able to hide from you. I cannot hide from God. You might think you can hide from us, and you might get away with it, and you might get away with it for quite some time, but you cannot hide from God. He knows, and He weighs. In verses 4 through 8, Hannah begins to move from her own salvation to how God ordinarily moves. The bows of the mighty are shattered, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who are full hire themselves out for bread, and those who are hungry cease to hunger. Even the barren gives birth to seven. And she who has many children languishes. The Lord kills and makes alive. He brings down to Sheol. He raises up. He makes the poor and the rich. He brings low when He exalts. He raises the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with nobles and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's and He sets the world on them. The world belongs to God. And the world is the theater in which He reveals Himself. It's not going anywhere. It's only the arrogant who think that somehow we can thwart the purposes of God. But notice in these verses how absolutely other It is. Think of the history of Israel. Remember Gideon, as he's going on to take on the enemies of Israel, and God keeps saying, a smaller army, a smaller army, a smaller army. Now you got your small army. I want you to fight with torches and jugs. Right. But he was victorious. The times when they're going into the promised land, God says, send the choir. Right. Maybe the choir was so bad that when they started to sing, the enemy fled and died because the singing was so bad. But I don't think that was the case. As I pointed out last week, Hannah is not the first person, the first woman, Already, in the brevity of the Revelation, already we have found that she's not the first woman who will play a significant role in redemptive history who was barren. Sarah, and Rebecca, and Rachel. But remember, I told you last week, in the way the Jews organized the books of the Bible, Judges ends and 1 Samuel begins. Ruth was a Gentile change. Somebody said, well, let's put Ruth in between the two because somehow that flows chronologically. Well, it does flow chronologically, but the way that it was originally put together, you end up having an interesting, interesting juxtaposition, which I think placing Ruth ruins, placing Ruth where it is ruins. Who's the last of the judges? Samson. Samson were told mother couldn't have children. And she doesn't seem all that bothered by that. She's not praying for a kid. She's not concerned about a kid. An angel shows up and says, you shall bear a son. Hmm. Interesting language, isn't it? Hannah has no son, and she pleads with God for years. Samson comes. He's the last of the judges of Israel. Actually, Samuel will be the last of the judges, but in the book of Judges, Samson's last. And as Israel descends in the book of Judges, the judges come. more frequently and more weakly, more flawed. And when Samson shows up, Israel had gotten so perverted that it says in chapter 13, Verse 1, now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistine for forty years. Forty years. Interesting number, isn't it? Where did Israel just spend forty years? In the wilderness. And now, if you will, they're in the wilderness in their own land. And God does not provide a deliverer for 40 years. And Samson's raised up a flawed, imperfect character. Think about it. If you were picking a judge for Israel to deliver, knowing what you know about Samson, would you pick him? I wouldn't. But God did. And so what Hannah helps us understand is that God, when He saves, He saves in ways that man can't take any claim. As I pointed out last week with Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel and Samson's mother and now Hannah, why the barren women? Why marry a virgin? Because God, in key moments of redemptive history, wants to communicate to us that you, we, humans, have nothing to contribute. What's coming is so supernatural and so of God that we can't make it happen. All we can do is call upon Him and wait. Very un-American. Give me a plan. Give me some action items. Here's the action item. Pour your heart out at the throne of grace and wait. How long? Until God responds. Remember, Jesus teaches on prayer in the Gospels. He says when you pray, keep on knocking, keep on asking, and keep on seeking. And God grants the Holy Spirit in that context in Luke to those who keep on knocking, and keep on asking, and keep on seeking. And just in closing, verses 9 and 10, prophetic statements. He keeps the feet of his godly ones, but the wicked ones are silenced in darkness. For not by might shall a man prevail. Those who contend with the Lord will be shattered. I don't want to give away next week's sermon, but just jump over to later in chapter 2. Eli is confronting his sons for the terrible immorality they're involved in. And he says in verse 25, if one man sins against another, God will mediate for him. But if a man sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him? But then watch these words. The sermon's going to be built probably around this text. But they, that's Eli's sons, would not listen to the voice of their father. They wouldn't listen. They're the first boys ever in the history of the world, and the last boys in the history of the world, not to listen to their parents. No. But that's not the point. The point is the three-letter word that comes next. Why would they not listen? For the Lord desired to put them to death. Why could they not hear their son and their father? Because God had already desired their death. Those who contend against the Lord will be shattered. Do you have secret sins that you will not give up? That you will not take to the throne of grace? That you will not confess to God? That you will not repent of? God will shatter those who contend with Him. I don't like that kind of theology. I don't want to preach that. I start doing, oh, this is not good. But that's what the Word of God says. And this is exactly why we need a Savior. and why the first words that Jesus says in His ministry is, repent! For the Kingdom of God is at hand. And praise God that those who will confess their sins unto the Lord, and they will open their hearts before the Lord, There is a Savior greater than all of our sin. Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. And the beauty of it, as we already saw, God weighs the hearts, God knows the mind. The best thing about going to the throne of grace is that God's never going to go, I have an easier time confessing to God than I do to you because, you know, I say something to you and you go, oh, God's never going to say, oh, He already knew it. Go to Him. Don't contend with Him. You will lose. But the same God who will contend, He goes on to say, Lord will judge the ends of the earth and He will give strength to what? His King. And that King is going to be typified by Saul, going to be typified by David, going to be typified by Solomon, but all of those three and everyone that will come after will let us know they ain't it. We need a better King. And that King, He will exalt His horn, His strength of His anointed. The King will be the anointed one who comes to take away our sin. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Jesus, who is the King of kings and Lord of lords, not only took upon Himself all of our sins, to those who will confess them. He is faithful and righteous to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And He will come again according to Hebrews chapter 9 without any reference to sin. How good is that? to know that when we see the Lord, the first thing that He does will not be to pull out a piece of paper and say, here's some things I need to discuss with you. For those who put their hope and faith in Christ, God will shatter those who oppose Him. God will judge the nations He will condemn those who will not repent and believe. But He also provides a King and anoints Him with strength to take upon Himself all of God's just judgment, and He is shattered for us. Oh, this prayer, this song prayer of Hannah, What a glorious picture. What does it look like when someone has genuinely experienced the grace of God deeply and richly and profoundly? They cannot help but pray and sing. And their mouths show forth. Psalm 51, where David says, that wash me and make me clean and restore the joy of my salvation that I might tell to others of your great salvation and they'll get saved. God always saves by doing the exact opposite of what we would normally think in our humanness. He does not save with the strength and the power and the wisdom of men, but that which is contrary to it. My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. And he comes promising a king and an anointed one to deliver his people once and for all. But we have many lessons to learn about God before that one will arrive. And we'll find more of them in the book of 1 Samuel. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come and acknowledge that we are sinful men and women. But we also come believing that you are a God who not only kills, but makes alive. Not only takes down to shield, but raises up. You are the one who not only contends with the wicked, but you're the one who keeps the feet of the godly. and that you have provided for us a salvation in Christ that is greater than all of our sin. Grant us ears to hear and hearts to believe. In Christ we pray, amen.