The last bit is about the passage which we most forget, which is 1st Fabula and Chapter 2. We've been looking at 1st Fabula for many mornings, but last time we completed the 1st Chapter, which we thought about the circumstances leading up to Hannah's birth. But, Fabio III, if our Hannah was really fervent about the fact that she was unable to have a child because the Lord had chucked up her womb. So she prayed earnestly to God about her situation, and she promised the Lord that if he should be gracious to provide her with the blessing of having a little baby boy, that she would most certainly dedicate this child to the work and to the service of God. This would be a tremendous sacrifice for Hannah to make. She wanted a child more than anything else. And to be able to give up that child so that she might work from an early age serving God in the temple was a marvellous sacrifice which she was willing to make for the Lord. But you know, Hannah was a woman who loved God and lived and walked by faith. She wasn't praised with any selfish motive. All she wanted was for God to be glorified in her circumstances. And in promising to give that fabulous act to the Lord, she made a tremendous sacrifice. Hannah realised that, and then she got the elephant done, that all that we have received comes from God in the first place. We only give to the Lord what God has first given unto us. After initially accusing Hannah of being drinking, Eli the priest wished her well, and he said, don't you see that the Lord Christ is efficient with Sarah's eyes on him. But after she began to eat the day, because she had gone off her tooth, and her abstinence was no more sad, she reached that very confident, submissive position where she wanted God's will to be done more than anything else in the world. Well, last night we saw that the normal event that Hannah had in her situation, he opened up her womb and she conceived and she gave birth to a son. She was absolutely delighted. But once she had this little message in her hand, she didn't decide to boot the Gold Pope, or to lap up another prophet, to devote this child to the service of God. She decided, even though I've lost what I've been praying for, I'm still going to remember the promise I made, and this little child is going to be God's servant in the temple from now on. But her husband, Abraham, was then God's answer, and he was most supportive of the decision which she had made. After the child was weaned, she went up to worship the Lord where the tabernacles were situated in Shiloh, and she offered sacrifices unto the Lord. But by heart the greatest sacrifice was the gift of her own dear son, whom she dearly loved, and she had to wait patiently for, for so many years. She became a person who knew what it was to put God first, even before her nearest and dearest. She was a person who knew what it was to make big sacrifices in her life for God's glory. Little did she know that this young child would grow up to be a mighty prophet of the north, and he would be one of Israel's greatest leaders. In fact, two Old Testament books in the Bible would be named after Samuel. Well, we never do that by putting God first in our lives, but the way we do do that is when we put ourselves first and think before the Lord. Jesus said, give ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you. And after all, the sacrifices which we make for God are absolutely tiny compared to the enormous sacrifices which God has made for us. And the cheapest and choicest of all the sacrifices, the gift of God's dear Son, who left the glories of heaven above to come down to this poor and sinful world, where he would be despised, rejected, and fed, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and eventually led on to a cross of woe, to die in our place, so atone for our sins. I believe it was St. Peter's staff, the tributary, who announced a fortune in the late 1880s in order to turn God as a missionary amongst the China settlers. He said that if Jesus Christ the God would die for me, then no sacrifice that I can make can be too great for me to make for him. He was willing to lay his life, his health, his wealth, everything upon the altar to God. And at the end of his life, he said looking back, I've got no regret. I've sought to do God's will. I've sought to put God first. And I'm pleased that God has blessed me and provided for all of my needs. Well, haven't we spoken to the Lord? Most certainly, it's a shame that any meagre sacrifice that is made to a peasant Christian are making today, just after 5pm, a very small portion of their time for the work in the service of God. Well, Catherine told Eli that she was the woman who had prayed the Gospel of the Lord for her child, and she testified how God had heard and answered her prayer. If God had heard and answered our prayer, we must always be willing to give God thanks for his mercy, particularly telling others to be lamentary enough to be called upon to pray. The child would now be devoted to the Lord's royal service from that point on. But Hannah wasn't angry or resentful about what she was doing. She didn't berate herself for making such a rash vow when she was in difficult circumstances. No, she believed that what she had promised to God was most certainly God's will, and therefore she happily and willingly and cheerfully presented this little boy to the world and to the service of God. Now the Lord would most certainly take care of young Samuel. He wouldn't do that in any way, and he'd not be hyper that things of God of an early age would be extra preparation for what God had in store for him in the future. Now you can almost imagine Hannah making the journey back to her home in Redlark. She may have been a little lonely, there may have been a little bit of a void within her heart. Parting with young Stasiel must have been an unbeatable wrench for her. But you know the end of chapter 2 shows us that rather than being disgruntled about the situation, Hannah was in fact full of praise, full of thanksgiving to the Lord. And we have to learn from this passage the importance of not only asking for things, but also coming back to God and expressing our praise and thanksgiving to Him when we receive so many blessings in answer to our prayers. You see, how special a child was summed up in just one verse in the opening chapter. And yet 10 verses at the beginning of chapter 2 are devoted to her prayer of her thanksgiving and praise to the Lord for sending such a wonderful answer. It was almost as if she spent 10 times as much time praising God for the answer than she did actually presenting her petition before the Lord. Now what we have learned is that sometimes when it comes to our own prayer-type of devotions, we can have many petitions to present, but we should never ever neglect praise and thanksgiving, which are even more important than prophecy, which we might want for ourselves. Now, there are people today who find it helpful in their personal devotions to have a structure to their prayers. They may start off with praise, and praise God, praise the Lord in fact with you. Then they might move on to thanksgiving, and they think about all the things, virtues, which save the people, the Lord, and they give God thanks for each and every one, starting with their own salvation, their good health, then their homes, and their jobs, and their families, and so forth. Then afterwards they may contend their sins to the Lord and pray for forgiveness for anything they have done wrong. Then they might pray for the needs of others, the sick, the dead and the believers. And afterwards at the end of their devotions they might make a prayer for their own needs. Other people tell me that they use the word act as a guide for their prayer. A is for adoration, C is for confession, T is for captivity, and F is for supplication. So by the way, however you choose to pray indoors, what we learn from Hannah's example is the importance of being more occupied with the giver than with the gift. You know sometimes we pray for something and when the prayer is answered we're so occupied with the gift that we forget to come back to give God thanks and praise for all his many mercies towards us. Now Harriet was most definitely very happy and appeased. She said in verse 1, my heart rejoiced in the Lord, my heart is exhausted in the Lord, my mouth is enlarged over my lilies because I rejoiced in thy salvation. Now some people would say, but how can this girl in that lady's hand be rejoicing when she's just been parted from her beloved son? But how is that her happiness? Not in circumstances, but in the Lord. That's what it says in the New Testament, rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. You know, sometimes we find it hard to rejoice in our circumstances when we're going through a very difficult time. But we can always find our happiness in God. And if we keep looking to Him in faith, instead of looking around at the weeds and waste of the earth, fixed upon things of art, looking at achievement, the author and the finisher of our faith, then we'll find that God is the source of all of our joy, and we can even rejoice in adversity. She says my soul is exhausted in the Lord's wishes, referring to her sin. She once felt so damn shodden, so despondent, her adversary was provoking her soul. She had reached rock bottom by that stage, but the Lord had intervened and the Lord had raised her up. Her man was now enlarged over her enemy. She's not silent and subdued anymore. She's got a soothed, popular heart, even praised unto her God. She's full of praise, full of thanks, and rejoices in God's grace and salvation. Well, the Lord has answered her prayer, the Lord has removed her reproach, the Lord has given her that which she wanted more danger than anything else in the world, the joy of having a little child of her own. And we rejoice in the blessings which God has provided for us and when we count our blessings and let them one by one we realise that God has been so good, so gracious and so bountiful to each one of us. But you know the greatest blessing of all is the salvation of our souls. That's what Hannah says, I rejoice in thy salvation. No matter what our earthly circumstances are, no matter how difficult and how trying we might find them to be, If we are being Christ Jesus here this morning, if we are trusting in Him as our Saviour and Sin-bearer, then we can greatly rejoice, for we are accepting the Almighty Jesus for time and for eternity. It won't take very long for a few short years in this life to quickly pass, and then we will be forever with the laws, which is far, far better. Now, we often steal our money today, and people can break into our homes and rob us of our possessions, but our company has robbed us of our sole foundation, which is by far the most precious and precious gift which we possess. And therefore if we are to be preachers in Christ, if the Lord Jesus Christ is our Lord and our Saviour, we are amongst the most richest and the most blessed people upon the face of this earth. What's important though, too, is that there is none holier than the Lord. There is none, in fact, neither is there any rock like unto our God. Yes, God is pure and God is holy, but there is no holy like God. completely without sin and cure. And yet the Lord has provided a way for sinners like ourselves to be reconciled unto Him. By nature we are unclean and unholy, all our righteous methods are a filthy rat, but through the blessed potion of work of God's tongue, all of our sins have been pardoned and buried in the deepest sea. There's no God like unto the Lord. He is completely unique. His workings become an honour that's worshipped and adored. She describes him here as being like a rock, a solid foundation upon which we can build our lives and our home. For we fear that it is quite possible that if our kings, rock and ages, cleverly let me hide myself indeed, oh, save for the rock that is higher than I, for we have an anchor both shore and steadfast love-soul, so he hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. And isn't it good to know that our hopes for eternal salvation are not built upon the sinking sands of our own merits and righteousness, but on the solid rocks of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will never forsake us and never fail us. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' love and righteousness. On Christ's solid rock I stand, all other hope is a sinking sand. Well, she recruits them in first seed who speak with pride and arrogance. Those who exhort themselves against Him. God is a God of knowledge, she said, and by His actions of ways. Yes, God knows everything about us. He knows our thoughts, He knows our secret lines, He knows our hearts, He knows our faces. God is fully acquainted with every aspect of our lives. Now we can't hide anything away from God, that's why he helps us to take a very lonely and humble position before him. Now sometimes you hear people speaking with pride and with arrogance today. Sometimes people say, what has God ever done for me? All that I have I've worked for. I've got no time to give God thanks and praise or anything. Why should I take any notice of the Bible they say? I just live as I please. I don't have to get up to anybody at all. I don't have to take any notice of God's law. And yet the reality is, the reality is that all of every breath is on loan to us from God. By Him we live and move and have our being. If it wasn't for the grace of God, we wouldn't be able to exist at all. And with this Christ, there's arrogance everywhere today, a lack of humility and a lack of respect. where people only think of themselves. Now people drive their cars today and lay their coffins in front of others, and wouldn't dream that they'd infatuate somebody who was polite or courteous today. People fart on the bus today, and they don't care about who they held around them the way. In the process, people enter their windows today and play their music as loud as they can. They don't care about support and feelings of others. and the occasional person we meet when we're out with the thing, and they'll pay the tax for it, and they've been reasonably delighted about it, but then they tear it up in front of our very eyes, and we go over to the dustbin, and they think it's marvellous to be able to tear up God's Word and to throw it in the dustbin before us. After all, nothing is hidden from the Lord. God knows where everything goes which is taking place today. But one thing you do notice is that being proud and arrogant and stubborn and aggressive doesn't make a person happy. Many of these people have so much anger and so much hate within their heart. You can never know joy or peace or love with that type of attitude. I've met many people today who are very proud and very arrogant, denying the existence of God, but I've never ever met an atheist who said that things I've had to believe in God are so much more happier and so much more content now. In fact, the opposite is often true. Many are miserable and their lives, most personally, lack healing. How foolish it is for a person to be proud and arrogant in the sight of the Holy Ghost. The Lord is all powerful and all mighty and he can cut a person down at any moment. That's when the Bible says that mankind is just like a piece of glass, it grows up in the morning and then withers in the evening. And it goes on in 1 Corinthians saying that Moses was a mighty man of broken, and they that are stumbled are girded with sin. And that shows that the Lord is able to humble those who exalt themselves, and He is able to exalt the humble. He can break their bones, and He is able to lift up those who are lowly. Those who are weak and those who stumble, He is able to make them strong. was a person born today, they will most certainly lead tomorrow. Now Christians may be defied by the people of the world. They may think it's foolish to live your life to the Lord's and try to be obedient to God's Word. Why can't we just be like us, they say? Living for sin, living for the world, so we have an easy life. We don't have to make any sacrifices. We don't have to deny ourselves. But when the day of judgment comes, which it most certainly will, it will be the unbeliever who dies in their sins without Christ Jesus being their Saviour, who had no covering for their sins, who would be expunged and be the foolish one. But in verse 5 she said, those that were full had hired themselves out for bread, and those that were hungry feasted. God can turn the tables of a person's life today. A person's circumstances today may not necessarily be their circumstances tomorrow. People who seem to have everything in this world can be cut down in an instant and knocked off their head of thought. And those who seem to have nothing can be greatly absorbed because the logic of God is completely solid over the affairs of this whole universe. We think of something like Genesis, for instance, in the Old Testament. One knows that he was a prisoner with an indefinite sentence, living in a terrible dungeon. There seems to be no doubt in this dilemma, given all the fables of arranged service, that it is for his servant to be delivered from that place, and to be placed as gardener over the land of Egypt, and to be in a top important position. in the name of Esther, a payment, was a very proud and a very arrogant man. Here the Bible says that he was cut down and hanged upon the gallows, which he had made for another. And Mordecai was exalted to a top position. So the Bible, she says, has all seven. And she that has any children, for she is now that feeble, because it is shown Her accident had provoked her soul. What kind of being wants to be a child of her own? Her accident was provoking her, trying to make her fit. Almost rubbing salt into her wounds. K. R. L. Hannah's other wife had very little sympathy for Hannah. She wanted pride and faith in her husband's affections, and she thought to herself, well I'm able to provide many children for my husband, surely I'll be the most important wife in his life. Certainly things will swing in my favour. What is so fair to me, this is all for Hannah at the time, that she trusted in the Lord, and now life is aimed to come. And it is believed that after Samuel was born, that Hannah did indeed go on to have many children of her own. Seven in fact, whereas Hannah who before was able to have many sons and many daughters, she suddenly waxed feeble and could dare no more. With what God has got, we're able to change people's circumstances. With the Lord, there is always hope. You know, we might be praying for somebody, maybe a family member, we would like to see them saved, we would like to see them converted. And you know, they're very hard, and they're expecting their ways, and we can scarcely imagine them repenting of their sins and taking Jesus to be their Lord and Saviour. But you know what? We didn't feel too hard for God. God is able to bring that person down into the dust, lead that person to repentance, and lead that person to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But when she wanted it, her speech tells us that Hannah dared leave her with her two daughters. For the Lord's sake, she left her with a family of her own. Even though she gave Samuel up to the work and the service of the Lord in the tabernacle, she wasn't to be left with any children. The Lord gave her many more children to love and to care for and to look after, so her maternal instincts and needs could be most certainly accounted for. Her adversary swore silence, saying that I could no longer abuse her, nor could I love her any more. God was completely sobbing in terms of people around. And nobody can fight against God today. No matter what problems we have in life, we can always bring our needs to the Lord in prayer, and He is easily able to resolve them for us. You see, Hannah's prayer was just those who tasted one's own. But look at the wonderful way that the Lord responds to this. All the joy and all the blessing which she received from that point on. The Lord came and made it alight, she says. He bringeth down to the grave, as He bringeth up again. Yes, God is in complete control of life and death today. He's able to open up wounds and he's able to close wounds as he sees fit. Yet it's God who decides how long a person's going to live for in this world. And when the time comes when you must go, there's absolutely nothing that you can do in order to prevent it. And the person who says it first says, what is your life if you'd like to make up that you're killing for a little time and then vanishing away? And our life is very brief and very unexpected. It doesn't take very long for a few short years to pass, and sometimes we've all been shocked when we've heard that such and such a person's been taken, and we think what else was such and such a person wasn't even old! And they weren't even sick! And what a terrible surprise it is that they've suddenly been asked to go to equality, and it leaves a very sobering pressure upon the hearts of many who hear such shocking news. But there's a lot of enthusiasm that says No man has power over the spirit to retain the spirit, neither has he power in the day of his death. You see, every day that God has spent within this world is a gift from God. So therefore, it's a religion anyway, it's a proposal, it's a prophecy, about what they're going to be doing and achieving in the future, when they may not have a future. It's only by the grace of God that they are still, from day to day, it's only God who sends them the breath which they need to breathe. The Lord who does that, the Lord who keeps us alive, the Lord who wakes us up every morning, No part of God's flesh is lost except that, for that is the way that it is. God's people take control of this world, and absolutely everything is dependent upon Him. Now, a couple of weeks ago, we heard a sad account near Tower Bridge of a 23-year-old young woman who was on her way to work. She was just walking down the pavement for maybe the journey which she makes every morning. But suddenly, a bus came along and it crashed into a tree, and a branch of the tree fell down the top of this woman's head, and she died from massive head injuries. This was a tremendous shock particularly to her family and friends but all those who witnessed such a very bad spectacle. And yet this woman was only a young woman, she was only 23. And you don't expect anything like that to happen, don't you? She was just going about her business, sort of an ordinary day. You know, if you were trying to get some odds today, you know, what were the chances of walking down the pavement, a buck going into a tree, a branch falling off the tree, just about falling on top of your head and ushering you into eternity? People would think, well, that could scarcely happen. But that's what happened. And isn't it true what it says in the Bible that none of us know what the day might be for? And that's why the message of the Gospel is so urgent. And we tell people today, please, Lord of Lot, to come, come to Jesus as a lost sinner today. Don't leave it until it's too late. You know, I've met people who say, well maybe when I get a bit older, I might start thinking about Christianity. Maybe, you know, I'm out of this difficult situation. perhaps I'm going through, I might start having time to read the Bible, and I might start thinking about my relationship with God. I've even met some people who say, well I'm young at the moment, you know, I've got too many things to enjoy and experience in life. Maybe when I get old, when eternity is nearing, Maybe then I might start thinking about my relationship with the Lord. But how foolish and presumptuous is that? God hasn't guaranteed anybody to live to the right old age. Yes, life in this world is brief and uncertain. It's like a bakery that's here for a while and then vanishes away. And that's why it's so important to be at peace with God. And I hope everybody in this church here this morning knows what it is to be at peace with God. Because you know Jesus Christ is your Lord and Saviour. And if anything should befall you, you know that you will be ushered into the presence of God. That will do well with your soul. And you are safe in the arms of Jesus for time and for eternity. Well, I hope that we might all have a love of souls and a desire to reach others with the blessed tidings of the Gospel. Hannah also believed in the resurrection according to her prayer. She said that God has the power to make alive. Yes, the Lord Christopher has the power to make alive. He's able to bring people up out of the grave again. There's absolutely nothing for God to be able to do that. Older people today might humble themselves in the sight of such a homely and such an awesome dance. Praise God, Hannah was a woman of faith. And I hope that you too this morning are trusting in Hannah's dance. Next time, God willing, we'll finish Hannah's prayer for Thanksgiving, but today let us see what a great and glorious God we have, and how high and holy He is, almighty and all powerful. May we spend time every day praising Him and thanking Him for all the many mercies which He shall upon us. And may we be pleased to take our rightful position in the dust before him, and to crown him Lord of all. May God richly bless this work to our hearts. Amen.