So I have a few introductory comments. There are three things that I want to draw to your attention before we examine more closely this text. And once again, I'll remind you that the bulk of the sermon is focused on Chapter 1. So the first thing I want to say is that I am going to speak mainly from Chapter 1. I know that there's that wonderful prayer in Chapter 2, but I added that in because of verse 11. I wanted to get to the place where you could see that Samuel, a three or four year old child, was serving God in the temple under Eli. And that's an amazing thing. But we have enough to do to just look at chapter one. The second thing I want to say is that when we study different books in the Bible, we need to bring to them the right tools of understanding or interpretation. To the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, they're what we call historical narrative. That is to say, they tell us about the historical events. that came to pass as God brings about his redemptive purposes. It's not poetry, it's not prophecy. Although there is some overlap, the books of 1 and 2 Samuel are historical narrative. And that's important because too often we hear in our pulpits today when people try to take timeless truths out of the events of 3,000 years ago when that's not the intent of the author. An example might help. Some say that we should imitate Hannah in how she lived her life, and there are many promising aspects of her behaviour that we do well to copy, and we'll discuss a couple of those shortly. But if we over-spiritualize the historical narrative of 1 Samuel, particularly around this story of Henry, if we over-spiritualize it, and if we seek timeless truth in everything, then we're going to end up taking our three-year-olds and dropping them at the front of the church so that Peter can look after them from there on. So we do need to approach our text with the right understanding. And the third thing, and most importantly, is that we need a context. We need to understand what's going on around 1 Samuel. See, we all know about sin happening in the Garden of Eden, and how even amid the curses that God pronounced, he promised a redeemer. and then all through the first five books of the Old Testament with the great patriarchs and slavery in Egypt and 400 years later and the Exodus and then Mount Sinai with the law and we see God's heart exposed even more and His great jealousy for His people. All of these things are together working out God's redemptive plan. He is bringing to pass events in our world and it's described in this historical narrative, to the end of a saviour. So in every respect, the Old Testament constantly points forward to Christ. Israel repeatedly, of course, rebels against God, but God responds with compassion. We read that so many times, the people turned away from God. God was angry, but God. And then he turns in compassion, his fixed love for his people. is shown time and time again as they wandered in the wilderness and finally Moses dies and Joshua is God's appointed man to lead them into Canaan, that land that was promised to Abraham back in Genesis 12. But Israel never tamed its rebellious heart. And we need to keep that at the back of all of our Old Testament reading. There were times when Israel, we think, ah, they've finally seen the truth. But Israel never tamed its rebellious heart. And that's done to show us that we ourselves, we also cannot tame our rebellious heart. That's a work of God. And their hearts continued to turn away from God. And they would turn away, they'd be oppressed by their neighbouring countries, the Philistines and the Amorites, all those, the people that came in and oppressed them, and their lives became a misery. But then God, each time he came in, and now he's raising up judges to rescue them. With various degrees of success, the judges would turn them back to God, but only momentarily. Away they'd go again in Ruby. Over and over and over, each man did what was right in his own eyes. And that book of Judges, with the exception of Ruth, is the book immediately preceding, historically, the events in 1 Samuel. And that's what I wanted to get to. The period of the Judges is almost over. And Judges ends on that note. After 140 odd years, their hearts were no closer to God than when they were enslaved back in Egypt. And God is still working away at this promise that he made in Eden. He's raising up an earthly King David. And that's what 1 and 2 Samuel is about. It's looking forward to this earthly King David. And first comes Samuel, and he designates Saul as the king. And then Saul fails, and David is anointed as king. And those are the stories, the wonderful stories that we read in 1 and 2 Samuel. He's revealing to us, God is revealing to us how he is establishing the line through to Christ the Messiah. So 1 Samuel tells us about pivotal events in Israel's history. They're about to openly reject God as their leader. And God is about to turn once again in compassion and grant them what they want. We want an earthly king. And God grants them their desires. And Hannah is unknowingly involved in this great divine working in human history. In Chapter 1 we find her and she's at her wits end, year after year, that spiteful treatment from Pedernar, the one that's got kids. But this year, Hannah seems to be even more broken than ever. Even the festivities of this season fail to lift her spirits and instead they seem to even depress her even more. But suddenly she vanishes. Where's she gone? She's quietly ducked out under a cloud of who can guess what despairing emotions and we find her at the entrance to the tabernacle at Shiloh. Let's not forget at this early stage in Israel's history, Shiloh is the Jerusalem. There is no Jerusalem temple yet. This is where the tabernacle resides. And as we read that text, we see the deep distress that she's in, something most of us are familiar with, by the way. Most of us have experienced something of that deep distress. And when we come to that, We tend to read more quietly or to proceed a little bit more cautiously and respectfully. We're loathe to intrude on this woman's brokenness. Clearly, she's come to pray to the Lord Jehovah. But even this is made the more arduous as she fights off the sobs. So we do well at the beginning to inquire, who is this Hannah? Well, the Bible's got much to offer us. She's probably what we would call a middle-class type person. She was reasonably well off for an 1100 BC woman. She's got a husband with a pedigree. Indeed, he's a Levite. He has moderate wealth, able to support two wives. Now, let's not get carried away with he was a polygamist, and this was in defiance of God's order back in Genesis. But he was behaving according to the culture of his time. But no excuses made. He was a polygamist, and he was disobeying God's law. So he had two wives, and he also demonstrated a reasonable level of piety, because he goes off to celebrate the festivities and the feasts and the celebrations of Israel. So he was a pious man. But Hannah had only a part of Elkanah. She shares him with his other wife, Penanah, and Penanah has children. That's reinforced to us. This made a greater grief for Hannah because the Lord had closed her womb. She knows that. She's acknowledged that. And since every woman of those times held out an expectation that they might be the one to give birth to this coming promised Messiah, to be left barren was indeed a torturous way to live. and the sting of Pananar's accusations and their irritations. It must have been like salt in an open wound, year after year after year. It went on and on and on, and it seems to come to a head at this festival time in Shiloh. But then, in God's economy, it seems that barren women were central to his activities in raising up this promised Messiah. Remember Sarah and the pain and division in that family, even enduring after she finally gave birth to Isaac. And then remember Rebecca, Isaac's wife. She was barren for the first 20 years. And then remember Rachel and the seesawing between barrenness and childbearing. It was almost a melodrama, a soap opera. Remember Samson sprang from Manoah's wife, who was barren as well, and then even old childless Elizabeth. She was God's vessel to bring John the Baptist into the world. Many characters, many of the big names of the scriptures came from barren women. Those in whose wombs the Lord had closed, but then, in his own providence and timing, opened their wombs. So there is little doubt that God has taken the barrenness of women to demonstrate his rule over all of nature and to demonstrate his commitment to his plan for redemption. And I would ask you, I would beg you to keep the plan of redemption always in your mind as you're reading the scriptures. Historical narrative and poetry and all of it. All that we see God doing is always orchestrated down to the smallest detail. For what purpose? To bring about a Messiah who would come and save his people from their sins. But God is known even in our times to take our weaknesses and our failures and our inadequacies as his starting points. for activity, divine activity in our lives. This principle is borne out thoroughly in our age. I speak of the New Testament, the church age, whatever you want to refer to that as. God promises his comfort and his aid in our weakness and hardship. It began in the Old Testament. He is the strength of our heart, Psalm 73. God the Son even intervenes and intercedes when we know not for what to pray, Romans 8. And he gives us rest when we are weak and weary, Matthew 11. But Paul, of course, he gives us a greater, he gives us much greater detail in 2 Corinthians, in chapter 12. He writes in verse eight, three times, I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. He has some physical malady. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ might rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, God is strong. So God continues to use our weakness, and that's when he comes and visits us to make us strong. Isn't this... I couldn't help it, but I actually wrote down, isn't this God of ours? full of such profound and wonderful mysteries. A human can't think of these things, strength and weakness. That's the antithesis of how the world thinks and works. But here's a God who actually does strengthen in weakness and uses our failures to His glorious ends. See, we each one have our personal battles, our trials, and our struggles. I'm not talking about those day-to-day things. No, I'm talking about the big threatening things in life. Those times when we're tempted to say, God, what on earth are you doing here? Why is this being visited on me? There are times in our lives when we're sorely tempted and may actually fall prostrate on the floor saying those words. Habakkuk did that. I mean, the Old Testament prophet, everywhere he saw ruin, injustice, bloodshed, and he just did not understand it. And in the first chapter, he inquires of God, what are you doing? What's going on here? And God said, I'm not gonna tell you, because if I did, you wouldn't believe me. And there's a sense in which that's true for us today. If we knew the end of our sufferings and our hardships, we wouldn't believe it. We'd fall on the floor. If God told us what he was doing in the world today, see, are you enduring things that are really testing your mettle? isolation and separation and families and you know what life is like. Are you looking about your own circumstances or are you looking about a world which seems to be so off the rails, full of deception and violence and bloodshed and are you asking in your mind, what on earth is God doing in this time? Be glad that he doesn't tell you because you wouldn't believe him. but thanks be to him that he's not a God who absconds from his throne. He's not a God, he doesn't step back from his creation to let it run its own course. We've seen this in the scriptures. He is in and active in our world all throughout history. Indeed, even if God were to tell us what he is doing in the world today, it would destroy us and we wouldn't believe it. But what does he tell us then? See, I can't leave you there thinking, well, what's the point? If God's not gonna tell me because I won't believe him, we must come back with something that has grace. What, therefore, does he tell us? What he does is he says to us, come to me, you who are weak and heavy laden. He says, trust in me. Because all things, everything, the whole collection of the evil and the unrest and the wickedness and the pain and suffering and joys and delights, all of those things, everything works together for two things, for your good and for His glory. And they're probably spoken in the wrong order. His glory comes first. But as it's for his glory, so too it is for our good. That's what the child of God can rest in. That's what the believer knows deep within their heart. For Hannah, we see all that pain and that irritation and the ignominy of being childless in that society and all that baiting, it's finally come to a head. And what does she do? She goes to the house of the Lord. Isn't that amazing? She goes to the house of the Lord. She's on her knees before that glorious, majestic, almighty God, and she's been brought so low and so much bitterness in her soul that she has to battle the tears and the sobs. She even mouths the words so that she keeps her focus on God. As an aside, her behaviour and demeanour were such that poor old half-blind Eli, the priest, he mistook her prayer for drunkenness. Remember that Eli's capacity for understanding these things, it was greatly diminished for reasons other than age. There is a lesson here for us older folk. His capacity to understand spiritual things, and people and their behavior before God, it was greatly diminished. Whatever his pastoral heart may have once been, it's been long ago hollowed out by his letting his sons behave wickedly. Whatever pastoral desires he may once have held, he's indulged their evil. He's nodded and winked at their evil for so long that it's corroded his ability to even think and see clearly. Of course, his sharp rebuke, it was met with Hannah's confession. No, sir, I'm a woman of a heavy spirit. I've neither drunk wine nor strong drink. I've been pouring out my soul to God. Now, two quick points before we move on. First, as we've discovered, we have a relatively obscure woman living in a hilly part of Ephraim, and she has a broken heart and suffers greatly within, and yet, as I said before, she comes to God on bended knee. She takes her calamity and her strife to God. And she, in doing so, she rightly assumes that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob actually does care about her. And that's phenomenal, isn't it? She rightly presents the picture to us that God does care about individuals, men and women and children. And what a joy and encouragement. That should be to each one of us here today, particularly those who know something about the depths of despair to which we can be brought. If you're a child of God, you can be utterly confident that he does care for you. Go to him, take your pains and your joys, take your rejoicings and your trials and hardships. Take them to him, for he watches over you, and since you are his child, he loves you and he does care. And a second quick note is that there's a misapprehension in much of the modern church, for want of a better term, concerning the Old Testament saints. Many think that Israel's religion was a sort of a dry, spiritless, formal sort of a thing, with all the sacrifices and blood and temples and whatever. And there's a belief that they probably couldn't approach God in the same way that we do today. And they probably, they didn't have that capacity to pour out their hearts to him who he is. Well, Hannah says, rubbish. Hannah says that's a fiction. Hannah is a living testimony in this book of 1 Samuel to the complete falsehood of that claim. How can we doubt her entrance into the very throne room of God as she tearfully brings her petitions in meekness and humility and brokenness? So now I have one more quick closing point, and it relates to this prayer. The prayer I'm talking about is not the one in chapter 2. It's her initial prayer. That vow that she made, recall in verses 10 and 11, she was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly and she vowed a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head." Now, we think, wow. Well, there are many lessons that we can ... We spend a great deal of time opening those two verses up. But we do tend to think, wow, she's asking God for a son, but then as soon as she gets it, she's going to give him away to the temple for all of his life. She is a Levite wife. And so, Levites do have a prerogative to give a certain fixed amount of their lives to temple service. So this is not the giving away of a whole life. This is the addition of the youth of this boy that she's going to have. So we don't want to overextend what her vow means. Now, Elkanah and Hannah and the boy Samuel As I indicated before, they stand in a special place in God's redemptive plan. Samuel is going to become the prophet who guides God's people in their choice of a king during this most critical transitional era in their history. There are many elements that separate their lives from ours, from our day-to-day lives. There were different requirements of them. And they had a different purpose in God's redemptive plan. So in many ways, they stand at a different level to what we do in our times. But in many other ways, there is much common ground. I refer to Hannah's desire to give the boy over to the service of God. Now that, to me, is the thing that I want to focus on just for another two or three minutes. The Bible teaches us that a family which stands in a redeeming covenant relationship with the Lord should have as one of their highest aims in this life, that of the souls of our children. And for you amongst us who are a little bit more mature, that of our grandchildren. Those should be at the center of our prayers, that God would redeem them. that they would not walk through this life without being one of God's children. Let me speak from personal experience in this matter of prayer. Some would say that I had a rocking start to life. But along the way, in my early teens, I began to be cherished by the mother of another family. I was fostered and moved around a bit. And I know that I've occupied a place in her heart to this day. She still lives. The family still lives. Another thing I know with great certainty is that she's prayed for me every day, all down through the ages, all down through the years. And there's been a few of them now, if you can't tell. And for a long while her prayers were that I would know the Lord. But then they changed into prayers that I would grow in the Lord. Now that's a mother's prerogative. I'm not saying mothers only. I'm saying that mothers occupy a special place in the lives of their children. And grandmothers even with their grandchildren. See, dad's often out working long hours, and even the most faithful struggles to get that quality time with their children. But mums, they're there all day, every day. They run them around, do their homework with them, and teach them, and nourish them in God's Word, and help them with their homework. They're all things that mothers do with far more proliferation in the child's life. And a mother who has her heart set on the things of heaven, a mother who knows God's goodness, will be found regularly praying that her boys and her girls will be given over to the service of God. And you young children listening at this time, be assured that your parents, your believing parents, are praying for you each day in this way as well. It's at the heart of the Christian life. There is nothing that will elevate the spirits of mum and dad like a child professing a faith in Christ. And yes, we do dare to think that as we follow Hannah in her lead by praying for the spiritual life of her child, then those prayers are often bathed in tears, particularly for those older children yet to walk in the ways of God. See, these are the cries to which God inclines His ear. Fathers and mothers and grandies, Hannah is provoking you today. She says, there's nothing more important in your child-raising days than to lay out the beauty of Christ as Messiah and Saviour. There is nothing more important than to explain God's faithfulness from generation to generation as our shield and defender. All of this is based in a prayerful desire for our offspring to know and to love God. Our narrative ends with little Samuel. Weaning was not a six to 12 month process, it was a three, maybe five year process back in those times. So at three or four years of age, the Bible says he began to serve the Lord in the temple. And look at verse 28 again, he's speaking of Samuel, and he worshipped the Lord there. A three or four year old child is worshipping the Lord in the temple. Imagine this. A young child openly seeking to do God's will, and mothers and fathers and grannies and uncles and aunts, I think you will be found to be faithful in prayer for those young ones over whom you have so much influence. Amen.