And that one was what? Zinzendorf was the founder of the group known as the Moravians. And they had some good things, and then they had some things which they got a little sidewards, but they were very evangelical folks. They founded missions. Okay, 1 Samuel 1 and 2. I preached this book many years ago, or I did a topical through it. Let me let me read. I'm gonna read one through 18. And then I am going to jump over to one through 11. First Samuel, chapter one, verse one, and I'll butcher the names, I'm sure, hear the perfect word of our perfect God. There was a certain man from Ramatheme, Zophim, from the hill country of Ephraim. His name was Elkanah, the son of Jerome, the son of Elihu, the son of Toku, the son of Zoph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives. The name of one was Hannah, the name of the other, Peninana. and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. Now this man would go up from his city yearly to worship in the sacrifice of the Lord of Hosts at Shiloh. The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were Priest to the Lord there, when the day came and Elkanah sacrificed, he gave portions to Peninnah, his wife, and to all her sons or daughters. And to Hannah, he gave a double portion, for he loved Hannah. But the Lord had closed her womb. Her arrival, 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 would weep and not eat. Elkanah, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons? Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli, the priest, was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. She, greatly distressed, prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. She made a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look upon the affliction of your maidservant and remember me and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a son, then I shall give him to the Lord all the days of his life and a razor shall never come on his head. Now it came about as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli was watching her mouth. And as for Hannah, she was speaking in her heart, only her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard. So Eli thought she was drunk. Eli said to her, how long will you make yourself drunk? Put away your wine from you. But Hannah replied, no, my lord, I'm a woman oppressed in spirit. I've drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I've poured out my soul before the Lord. Do not consider your maidservant as a worthless woman, for I have spoken until now out of my great concern and provocation. Then Eli answered and said, go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of him. And so she said, let your maidservant find favor in your sight. So the woman went her way and ate. Her face was no longer sad. And we'll jump down to Hannah's psalm. Chapter 2, verse 1. Hannah prayed and said, 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. There is no one holy like the Lord. Indeed, there is no one beside you, nor is there any rock like our God. Boast no more so very proudly. Do not let arrogance come out of your mouth. For the Lord is a God of knowledge, and with him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are shattered, the feeble gird on strength. Those who are full hire themselves out for bread. Those who are hungry cease to hunger. Even the barren gives birth to seven. She who has many children languishes. The Lord kills and makes alive. The Lord brings down to shield and raises up. The Lord makes poor and rich. He brings low, he exalts, he raises the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ash heap. He makes them sit with nobles, inherit a seat of honor. The pillars of the earth are their lords. He sets the world on them. 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. Against them he will thunder in the heavens. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to his king. He will exalt the horn of his anointed, which is Messiah." Then Elkanah went to his home at Ramah about the boy ministered to the Lord before the priest. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we stand amazed at the prayer of this woman. Inspired by you, Lord, how are we to account such a thing? What an amazing thing. And we pray, Almighty God, that you would find us daily, regularly throughout the day, praying on our knees, standing up, sitting down, walking, coming in, going out, that we would be in conversation with you, our Lord and our God. Through you, Lord Jesus Christ, our great mediator and savior. And might, Lord God, we have even a measure of this kind of a response to you and to the answer of your prayers, whatever they may be, might we exalt in the Savior. We pray this in Jesus's name. Amen. I know everyone probably pronounces Hanna, Hanna, and I pronounce it Hanna, and I might switch to Hanna. And the reason I'm pronouncing it Hanna, it's not like I know the Greek and the Hebrew, and that's why they pronounce it in the Hebrew. I don't know how they pronounce it in Hebrew. My niece's name is Hanna, and her father is German, and my sister speaks German. they call her Hannah. So when I see Hannah, I say Hannah. So if you're thinking, is there some special meaning to this? Nope, there's no special meaning. It's just what my niece is called. So that's what I'm used to saying. So that's why. So we're looking at the prayers of this woman. Remember, for our purposes, what we're doing in the evening service, we took a break from Deuteronomy, and we're looking at certain prayers of Old Testament saints. And my goal is to get 10 to 15. That's my goal. Somewhere thereabouts, if I can make it, great. But we're looking at certain prayers of Old Testament saints. And I wish I could tell you that I had this perfect plan. I have a couple of picked out. But there's no planned theme. We're not going from one. I'm just looking at Old Testament saints, and if it resonates with me for that week, and I've got a couple picked out, then I'm choosing it. Now, you may say, well, pastor, there seems to be a common theme. This poor woman's an affliction, poor Jonah was an affliction. Well, again, I didn't write the Bible. And we'll see, and if you're keen to read the book of Psalms, even Psalms is fairly redundant in their themes. It seems that God does use fairly regularly affliction and suffering to make his people pray. So it's not something unique from Jonah to Hannah to me to you. So I'm not trying on purpose to be redundant. Now, I will try purposely to find prayers that are not from the theme of suffering, but this one a little bit is. But our desire is to look at the larger subject of prayer. That's why we're coming to these texts. We want to see what prayer is, and in this case it's a particular kind of prayer. Most of us have heard that, what is it, an acronym? Acts, Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. It's just an easy way to remember certain kinds of prayers. And I think kind of along the lines of Isaac Watts. Isaac Watts further subdivides the adoration. Isaac Watts puts in there the invocation and then adoration. An invocation is just, these are fancy classifications of how we speak to God when we speak. Prayer is speaking to God. Acceptable prayer, the kind that God receives, is made through a mediator. And the only mediator between God and man is the God-man Christ Jesus. So the only prayer that God hears in an acceptable way, meaning he accepts us, is the believer's prayer, the born again believer who is coming to the Father through the Son and being joined to the Son and the Father by God the Holy Spirit. So the creation is Trinitarian, salvation is Trinitarian. We worship a triune God, one God, but triune. We pray to the Father. What is it? Excuse me, it's either Matthew 13 or Matthew 11. I thank you, Father, that you hid these things from the wise and revealed them to the babes. And then he says, no one knows the Father, or comes to the Father, but the Son wishes to reveal. So we know the Father through the Son as the Holy Spirit gives us faith in Jesus. Does that make sense? So prayer is any kind of speech, whether it's adoration, how much we love God, whether we're invoking his name or his titles or his works or his worship, and we can, and they're listed variously, that you are the God that is and was, you're a mighty God, you're a strong God, you're a holy God, and we're gonna use names and titles of gods that are situationally appropriate. In the way that we pray will be situationally appropriate. I watched a man one time preach on the love and the mercy of God in Christ and the joy that we have in him. And he preached with an angry face. And this was at a seminary for a preaching class. And the minister said to the prospective minister, well, it was a great sermon on the love and the mercy of God in Christ, and you told us to be joyful in Christ. You should have told it to your face. He had an angry face. Well, the way that we pray, our countenance, our demeanor before God, the words that we use, those will be situationally specific. If we're brokenhearted, we'll speak accordingly. If we're happy, we'll speak accordingly. And God gives us just a plethora of names and titles and attributes that are, again, they can be situationally appropriate. Does that make sense? So here we are, we're looking at what prayer is. It's a believer praying through their mediator, Jesus, to the Father in reliance upon the Holy Spirit. And I'm not saying that we have to be that specific. I sometimes address the Father directly. I sometimes address the Son directly. Sometimes, though less frequently, I address the Holy Spirit directly. All are appropriate. I just commit how we summarize that in religious worship in our confession. So what prayer is? Who prays? In this case, acceptable prayer is by a believer, and we have a believing woman. She's in the Old Testament, and she's actually, I think, the first wife, and then she has a rival second sister-wife there, and she is praying. We looked last week at a man praying. He was a prophet praying. Actually, this woman is inspired to pray. speak the words of scripture. I will see why they are praying. Last week we saw Jonah praying. He's in the belly of a fish and he's really just thanking God and telling God he knows that he will get out. But he certainly is praying for life out of death. She is praying for a little baby. She wants specifically a male child. She wants a baby boy. And that's what she is praying for. And then we'll see that she prays for a whole host of other things in the second prayer, because we're looking at two prayers of Hannah, both her petition for the child, and then in chapter two, one through 10, she's thanking God. for the child, but the Thanksgiving is incredibly unique because she doesn't even mention the child. She's thanking God for the anointed one, which is the Messiah. It's very much like Mary's Magnificat, Mary's prophetic praise of God for the little baby that will be in her womb. It's very Mary-like. It's almost like the Magnificat of the Old Testament. So what she's praying for, the circumstances of this particular woman's prayer, she doesn't have a baby, God has closed her womb, and remember we're looking at it trying to learn lessons about prayer. There are a great many things in chapter one and chapter two that are there. I mean, real truths that are there that I'm going to pass over because they're not my, our primary purpose is to look at things which are related to prayer. If I was going to take this just and walk through it in a chronological fashion, there's a lot more there. So I will by necessity pass over a great many other truths, or I want to look at them primarily to see how are they related to us speaking to God, to God hearing us, God answering our prayers, and then how we respond back to God. So that's what we're doing looking at this particular woman. And then I talked about kind of how they pray. And this woman is praying with tears. She actually has a little bit of anger there. She's been provoked by her rival, the second wife. She is very, very intense in her prayer. You can see it. She's emotional in her prayer. It's okay to cry in prayer. And I think she's crying out of frustration. She's crying out of a broken heart. We see that Jonah was very intense in his prayer. I know a minister that used to pray for his flock on Saturday night before preaching, and the sermon that he was gonna preach, I know him personally, and he said he wouldn't stop praying until he started crying for his people. And when I first heard that, I thought, goofy, goofy, why would you do that? And he was much more godly than I am, which is not hard to do, and he was wiser. than I am and a better minister, also not hard to do, but he was correct. The point is, until his heart was moved, he didn't consider himself to be praying. And the Puritans would say, we often stop our prayers before we really even have begun them. And that's one of the lessons that we're going to see with the intensity of the fervency of the kind of people that we're looking at. They're praying from the heart, and if we don't pray from the heart, and I'm not picking on anybody here, I have done this thousands of times, I'm sure. If we are not praying from the heart, we're not really praying. If our heart is not, imagine giving God a sacrifice in the Old Testament, and it was heartless, you took the heart out of it. Or even God said in the book of Malachi, you're giving me defective sacrifices. Did God accept a defective sacrifice? No. Does God want and accept our prayers if our heart is not in them? No. They're not prayers. We may do it for whatever reason until our heart is moved towards God and we stop. We have done what the Puritans have said that we're doing. We're stopping before we've actually really begun. And that's one of the reasons, and I suffer from this a lot, you get off your knees or you finish your prayer time and you think, I didn't feel like I met God. And again, I'm not saying we base everything on feelings, but if we're coming into the presence of the triune God of heaven and earth, don't you think There would be something there. And so we find that these people are very intense in their prayers. And you may say, well, Pastor, isn't that a reflection of what they want? Yes, it is. It certainly is. She really wants this baby. And she really is brokenhearted. Jonah really wanted life out of death. He really wanted restoration for his sins. He really did. And that does teach us the fundamental lesson. If we say to God, God, will you forgive me? I won't let you go, God, until you bless me. Those are the kind of prayers that God hears. Amen? So we see how they pray, and then we see what the outcome of their prayers. And I don't mean to leave anybody here saying, if you come and you cry, if you come and you have fervent feelings, and you have laid before God some prayer, that God always will, nine months later, give you a baby. always, shortly after, relieve you from your affliction or supply you with prosperity or whatever. God is always free, according to his own sovereignty and wisdom, to give or not give as we see fit. But God does, I think more often than we recognize, he does answer our prayers. When I say more often than we recognize, this woman's prayers are more easily recognized for two reasons. One, they're not us. Sometimes it's harder for us to recognize that God has answered our prayer. I can look at you all and say, God is growing you in Jesus. I've seen it over 15 years. And sometimes you all have a harder time looking at you all thinking, really? Has God done that? Yes, because I'm looking outside at you. I'm the objective. Viewer, you're not. It's hard to be the objective viewer of yourself. So it's easier for me to see that. And then also, sometimes his prayers are not, he doesn't answer them so obviously. And the other answer of sometimes why we don't recognize that he answers prayers is we pray things, and I'll bring this out as we go along. We pray for things and petition for things, and we say, oh God, do this, please. And then it's not as if to say we forgot that entirely, but we've moved on to a whole other list of things that we're in the process of asking for. So in a way we have forgotten that, wait a minute, I did ask for this way over yonder, and he did answer it here, but I'm so busy asking for other things, I missed the answer. And by doing so, we kind of miss the benefit. But we'll look at that. Now let's look at the person. And the way that we're going to approach it is very similar. We're going to look at the person. We're going to look at the time frame, and then some of the circumstances, and then the content. Again, big picture idea of praying. Last week, I just loved Jonah's name. His name means dove. And Hannah's name means grace. Kharis is grace in Hebrew, excuse me, in Greek is Kharis, and in Hebrew it's Hana, and so her name means grace. Even the dove, the dove is a token of God's saving grace. I brought you, read 1 Peter, the ark, I brought you through the waters, I brought you through the judgment, a picture of being safe in Christ, Peter says, and now you have a token of God's life after death. Here is the olive branch in the beak of the dove. And so even the dove is a picture of saving grace. And I want to put aside, sometimes we use the phrase saving grace and common grace. When I use grace for my purposes here, I only mean saving. bringing us into a reconciled and restored relationship in Jesus Christ. So when I talk about Hannah with the name of Grace and a picture of a graced person, I mean a person that has found favor with God. Noah found grace, a Hannah root word, before God, meaning that he or she was an object of God's saving favor. that when God elected you, grace. When God determined to send the Son to die for you, grace, gift. When God and the Father and the Son determined to send the Holy Spirit to you and apply the work of Jesus to you and save you, grace. That's what I mean. And so here we have a person, grace, who is praying. And I will say, just to take that kind of a theme, it is only graced people that pray. And you say, well, I have Hindu family and they pray. Remember we're talking acceptable prayer. Yes, I've watched my Hindu family pray. I've watched them pray. When I was not a Christian, I prayed all the time. I prayed regularly to the Virgin Mary. I prayed regularly to St. Patrick. St. Patrick was my patron saint. I prayed to him all the time. I had a medal around my neck and I would hold the medal on my neck and pray to St. Patrick to get me out of a jam. I didn't know Jesus. My prayers were not acceptable, but I prayed all the time. And so what we're looking at is, here is a woman, Grace, a picture of a graced person founding favor in Christ. She's singing of the Savior, the anointed Messiah in chapter 2. It is graced people that pray and they pray with a desire, with will, and with safety, and with acceptance by God. That's a basic lesson that we are learning. And for those people that have not received the saving grace of God in Christ Jesus, they're not born again, they don't pray acceptable prayers. They don't pray that I will be done. They don't pray for the Messiah to be exalted the way that she does. And this woman teaches us that graced people pray. And I will say this, and I'm going to ask you this question. You already know what I'm going to ask you. I've met a lot of Christians. It's what I do. But even before I did what I did, I was a laborer. I was a carpet cleaner and a bunch of other things, a truck driver. And I would listen to Christians. I was learning from Christians. I love Christians, Christians of all stripes. Do you pray? And it was an old Pentecostal minister that really called me on the carpet and he said, do you pray? And he called me on the carpet because I didn't pray the way he prayed. And I've met Christians that will confess to me, I don't pray. Grace people pray. And you could read Spurgeon, you could read Martin Luther. Martin Luther would say you can't have a Christian that doesn't pray. If you were born again, it's like pulling a baby out of his mother. What's the baby do when he comes out of mama? He cries or she cries. People that have received the grace of God in Christ pray. All pray. Now I'm not saying we all pray fervently all the time and we don't ever wax and wane, but I do want to ask you, do you pray? And if you do, it is a testimony to you that you have received the saving grace of God in Christ. It's very encouraging. So you say, well, I don't really pray the way I want to. Well, me too. But I do pray and I do come to God and I do bring him my desires and I do bring him when I'm broken hearted. Well, amen. That should testify to you that you are in a state of grace and in a state of salvation. It's very encouraging. So we should be encouraged by Hannah. We should be encouraged when we pray. Now, some other obvious lessons regarding her in prayer. She is a woman. And you may say, wow, shocking, Pastor. They sent you to seminary for this. Yeah, she's a woman, and she prays. Men pray, women pray, little boys pray, little girls pray. And I know you're going to say, well, that's just silly, Pastor. It's so self-evident. It really isn't. In this room, we all, I would say, basically agree with what the Bible teaches, more or less. There are a great many people in the world, when they think about our God, who alone is God, and the book of our God, which is the Bible, they think that the God of the Bible does not love women. What's the word for it? Misogynist? I think is that the word for hating women? There are people, I have people in my family, that think the God of the Bible is a misogynist, that he is only for men and he is against women. That's not true. That's not true. Jonah's a man, he prayed. Jonah's a man, he prayed, and he's accepted, because he's a graced man. Hannah's a woman, she's not a man, and she prays. She's accepted. She is a daughter of Abraham, even as Jonah was a son of Abraham. The Bible says in Jesus Christ, in the Savior, there's no male, there's no female, there's no free, there's no slave, black, white, that we are equally beloved, equally accepted, equally welcomed in to the throne of grace. We have equal access. The wife and the husband, do we have different economic roles? And I don't mean money roles. I mean, do we have various roles to play with one another? The man has one role and the wife has another role. Yes, of course. Was Hannah a submissive wife to her husband? Yes. Did she submit even to the leadership of old Eli? Yes. So we're not saying that grace destroys the economic roles that God has called us to. If you were a master, you were a master. If you were a slave, you were a slave. But if you're in Jesus Christ, Do you have the same forgiveness? Same forgiveness. Is the believing master and the believing slave as equally loved by God and Christ? Now, I want to ask you something. A believing slave and an unbelieving master, they are unequal insofar as one has power and authority in this life and the other one doesn't. Which one has access to the throne? The believer. Here we have a little woman who's begging for a child And it's very instructive. Externally, does this woman have a lot of power in the world in this time? No. And even in my wife's culture of her youth, do the women of the culture, when she was a young woman especially, did the women in the Hindu culture have a lot of power externally? No, they didn't. Did this woman? No, she didn't, externally. She was under everybody. But did she have a lot of power at her disposal? Yes. It's so encouraging. And the reason it's so encouraging is most men are not high and mighty. So women sometimes think, well, what are you saying, I'm a doormat? No, you're not a doormat. That's ridiculous. But then conversely, I want to say to women, do you think guys are all walking around kings of the world with cash hanging out of their pockets? Most guys are lowly. Most guys don't have any power. I don't, I mean, besides what I have ecclesiastically, Most guys are just lunch bucket guys and they have a million people over them. But the believer has access to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And we have access to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And all of the power people in the world who do not believe, they have a flaming sword. They have no access. We can do what they cannot do. This woman is a great encouragement to us. Graced women pray, graced people pray, and lowly people pray. and lowly people pray to a mighty God. And she takes her petition to Him. She has a husband, she's in submission to the husband, but the husband is not the one who closed her womb, and the husband is not the one who can open her womb. I've probably said this before, but I have, no, I won't use that as an example. Sometimes, we attribute more to human beings than should be attributed. Sometimes we give human beings almost attributes of deity, or we give to human beings almost devotion, which is only due to deity. And what I mean by that is you can be submissive to your husband. You can love your children, but you can't deify them. The husband, yes, he is the head of the wife in a certain fashion economically, The believing husband over the believing wife is not her God, is not her savior. You could be the best Christian husband in the best Christian marriage, you could have the best Christian wife, and the husband is not the Messiah. The husband couldn't give this poor woman what she wanted. He couldn't. There are many believing women that get very, very frustrated with their believing husbands. Give me, give me, give me, give me, give me. And I think at least one man in the Bible has rebuked their wife and said, am I God? Am I God? If I could give it to you, I would give it to you. So leaving husbands, we're not gods to our wives, we already know that, but believing wives, don't ask from your husband what he cannot give you. It's very frustrating. And she takes it right to God. And she knows God has closed her womb, and only God can give her a baby. And so we learn that lessons. And kiddos sometimes get frustrated. We ask our parents something that the parents can't give. We just don't have the ability. Or not just women that do that. We all do that. Now the time frame in which she prays, I have a big long section, but I'm gonna pass over it. I'm just gonna tell you this. She prays circa, around about 1200s, and Jonah exists around 750 to 800, and she is praying in the promised land. And it's also great lessons for us. She's making petitions, and I would argue this. Petitions, oh God help me, oh God take away but the thorn, oh take away the thistles, oh God relieve some affliction. And that's what petitions really are. We experience some kind of lack, whether it's a want or a desire, and we ask God for it. I would argue that petitions only began after Genesis 3, 1 through 8, and they only, only began after Genesis 3, 15. And what do I mean by that? Before the entrance of sin into the world, we were just thanking God. Oh God, thank you. What an awesome God you are. We were just praising God. We had no lack. There was no sin. There was no pain. There was no affliction. There was nothing to petition God for. Just praise. That's what heaven's going to be like. And so what we learn is we see, well, people are petitioning God in the 700s, people petitioning God, and actually we're going backwards. So it's the 1200s here, and then forward, the 800s and the 700s with Jonah. The people of God petitioned God from the moment Adam fell, and we are gonna be petitioning God all the way. When will our petition stop? When someone said, I listen to eclectic Christian music. And I listen to just eclectic music. But there is an old-timey country, and George Jones sings it, I'll fly away. I'll fly away. When they say, when I'm singing I'll fly away, sweet Jesus, that's when our petitions will stop. And not just for me, for you as well. When we are flying away, no more petitions. But that doesn't mean we'll stop conversing with God, which is what prayer is. Our conversation will change. We'll go from saying, oh please, oh please, oh please, help me, oh please, oh please, and what will we be doing then? God, you're so glorious. You're so wonderful, you're so mighty, you're so majestic. but we'll always be talking to him, but just the speech will change. And what we find her doing is she is dwelling, the people of God have been free for about 600 years by now. And so she's not a slave, she's not in slavery. She's actually in the land of Canaan and she's in Ephraim. And so she's in the promised land. And the promised land is a land flowing with milk and honey. And even in this place flowing with milk and honey, what do we find? She can't have a baby. Sometimes we think this, and people post things all the time. I'm on vacation, and they cut and paste a gorgeous picture. Some super photographer took it. And you think, oh man, I wish I could live there. I mean, I love the ocean, I love the mountains. And you think, well, if I could go to, I don't know, pick something. I don't think this, but let's just say, if I could go to see, I don't know, the mountains in Colorado, and I could show you a beautiful picture, And you go, boy, it's probably heaven on earth there. If I could be there, it's heaven on earth. She's in the promised land. God says it's a land flowing with milk and honey. If you go to the Rocky Mountains, or you go to the sea, or you go to the land flowing with milk and honey, what will you find pretty quick? You're gonna find sin there, and the effects of sin, and you're gonna find misery everywhere you go. And because I'm Irish, and because of who I am, and because of what God does in my life, I go to places and see, I'll be landing in the beautiful, wherever it is, and I'll see some poor guy walking over with a walker. Well, he's petitioning. So until we go home, even in the most beautiful place, even in the land flowing with milk and honey, We need, we need, we need, we need, we want, we need, we want, we need, we want. The Lord Jesus Christ teaches us to pray every single day, essentially, and I'm going to summarize it, Oh God, help me. Oh God, provide for me. God, provide for my needs. God, provide for my body. God, provide for my soul. God, provide. We have to pray that every day. Every day until we go home. Every day until we go home to the true promised land. I've used up most of my time on kind of what's surrounding this. Let's talk about a little bit the circumstances as I mentioned at the outright. She's praying for a baby. She wants a baby boy. She can't have a baby. She's a believer. She's a real believer. I actually think of all the folks that we're looking at, she's the best out of the bunch, I think. I'm not too high on her husband. I'm definitely not too high on his second wife. I'm not even too high on old Eli. And I'm for sure not too high on Hophni and Phinehas. They're scoundrels par excellence. And God actually has something in store for them. But she's a believer. And she really is a religious woman and she loves God. And I do want to show you this. She loves God and God loves her. And God shuts her womb. Remember I said sometimes we reason pain bad, pleasure good. And then sometimes we take it a step further, and we attach a little theology to it, which I don't think we should, but we do. Pain bad means God doesn't love me. Pleasure good means God loves me. Don't think like that. Don't think like that. Read Psalm 73. Sometimes in God's alchemy, it's the exact opposite. God says to the heathen, here, read Luke 12. The rich man, you get all the riches you want. That's the best heaven you're ever gonna get. and the guy getting licked by dogs, that's the worst hell you're ever gonna get. And sometimes we think, well, if God really loved me, why would he close my womb? Well, I think the answer is because he really loves you. What do you mean by that, pastor? She prays for a little boy, but what does she get, really? She prays for a little boy, but what does she get? She gets more of God. She gets more of God. She talks to God, she pleads to God, she vows to God. And then look at her at Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving has nothing to do with a boy. What does the Thanksgiving have to do with? God. We pray for stuff all the time. I pray for stuff all the time. And it's legitimate. Is her prayer a need or a want? Does she need or she will die a baby? No. And sometimes Christians think, why would you pray? That's not a total need. You just want it. You just want that, that you shouldn't. No, no, don't waste God's time with that. Don't think like that, beloved. He's your father in heaven. He loves you and you love him. If you desire something and it's lawful and good and you want it, then ask him for it. And if someone tells you to stop, don't listen to them. Come talk to me. Ask him for it. He's your father in heaven. He wants you to talk to him. And so she's praying, give me a boy, give me a boy, give me, and you see, not only is she barren, he's the one that closed the womb, and he closed the womb to get her to open her mouth, to teach us to get us to open our mouth. And so he could fill her mouth and her heart and her life with him. I'm gonna give you the boy, but I'm gonna give you more than the boy. I'm gonna give you me. You're going to know me. Your communion with me is going to grow deeper. That's the benefit. You think, what benefit could there be of weeping and having your husband? Look at Elkanah. Did Elkanah sin by marrying a second wife? Yes. Sometimes Christian people say, and if this is what you say, I'm sorry to correct you, but not really. They'll say things like this. Polygamy was not sin. It just wasn't God's best. What? What does that mean, not God's best? What does that mean? Where's that in the Bible? Not God's best? Jesus says in Matthew chapter 19, from the beginning it was this. This was it. One woman, one husband, this was it. And then beyond that, it's sin. Now God permitted for a time the sin in the Old Testament Epoch. I don't think he does anymore in the New Testament Epoch, Matthew 19, but that's another discussion. Imagine being the woman. I think Han is the first wife, and I think Penina is the second wife. And he has the first wife, and why does he marry the second wife? Because the wife of his youth can't have a baby. You can't give me a baby. I want a boy. I want a boy. You can't give me a boy. You can't give me heirs. And yeah, you're the wife of my youth, and yeah, I swore to God to leave in Cleveland. Yeah, I swore till death do us part, only you. But I need a boy. I need inheritance. Imagine being the woman. Now you're in the house. He brings the old Sally, the cute second model in, and she's having babies under your nose. What would you be like? You'd be like her? So she's provoked beyond measure. She prays and prays and prays. And on top of that, the priest thinks she's drunk. And she's the most godly one of the whole bunch. And God grants her prayer. I'm going to give you the boy. Now you think that the barrenness is a trial, but I'm going to go with you one better. She makes this Nazarite vow. Lord, if you give me a boy, I'm going to give him back to you. I'm going to devote, whatever you give me, I'm going to devote to you. That's a good principle. When we pray for things, are you ready, or people, or situations, or anything? When we pray for things, are we praying and saying, oh God, whatever you, if you answer this, I want it to be used for your glory. So I pray to be healthy and go trail running and all these fun things. Can I honestly say, oh God, if you give it to me, I'll devote it to your glory. She prays. If you give me what I'm praying for, I'll devote them to you for your glory. Now, I'm gonna say this. She went through a trial with her barrenness. I think she went even through a greater trial when God gave her the boy. It's an easy thing, it's easier to promise to give God something that you're praying for when you don't have it than when you have it. You see what I mean? I can tithe, I can promise to tithe off of the winnings when I win the Powerball. Oh God, I promise if you allow me to win the $57 million Powerball, I will give you a full 10% gross. I promise. Now here's the test. Can you tithe off your $20,000 paycheck? Well, no, no. What I don't have, if you gave it to me, I for sure could do it. No, no. Can you do what you already have in your hand? Well, I don't know about that. She is a large trial. She has a little bitty baby. She has him now. Will she really devote him to the Lord? She does. She's a godly woman. This woman is a godly woman. She keeps her word. I think the vow is an Old Testament way of Matthew chapter seven. Jesus is ask, seek, and knock. And then he uses the old persistent woman in Luke 17, who you ask, seek, and knock. Oh give me, oh give me, oh give me. Here, Hannah is teaching us all of these kinds of prayers. She teaches us the nearness of God, the goodness of God, the power of God. And then as I say, very briefly, her response is so unique because the hymn of response, you'll see it in your, the editors will say, her hymn of thanksgiving. She's thanking God for little Samuel and she never mentions little Samuel. She mentions at the very end, Messiah, Mashiach, the anointed. This is a messianic thanksgiving. And that shows me what I said earlier. She prayed for the boy, God gave her the boy, and God filled her with a holy adoration of him. And Beloved, I think that's the greatest message. when we are in affliction, when we want anything, whether it's a need or whether it's a desire, but we have an intensity about it. And particularly if it's something that's very painful to us, emotionally painful, physically painful, and you go to God and go to God and go to God and go to God and go to God, even if God does not say, here is the baby, the relief is, you've gone to God, God to God, gone to God, God, you've met with him, you've met with him, you've met with him, you've met with him, and all the while, He's building your faith, building your faith, building your faith, building your faith, and you leave from his presence glowing because you've been in his presence. That's the Thanksgiving. May God be pleased with the preaching of his word.