Great Prayers No.1 Hannah's Prayer - poured out grief

We're going to hear a song, which is basically an old-fashioned hymn being sung in a moment or two, but let's turn to the passage which actually inspires the hymn, at least leads up to the inspiration of the hymn. It's in 1 Samuel, and you remember in the third chapter, reference is made to the call of God on the life of this young fellow, and the first two chapters, anticipate this because we get some insight into the family situation. A man who has some difficulty, self-caused in some respect, he married two wives, and one of the wives was unable to bear a child, and the other had a number of children.

That set up tension in families, which is reproduced today, so many tensions within families, husband and wife, wife and children, and of course the tragedy is, as Paul's intimated, not only out in Eastern Europe or out in East Asia, as I could vouch, but also here, we're producing more and more children who don't know the benefits of a nuclear family, of mum and dad, and we just wonder what's going to happen in terms of the future generation. Well, God is still in control. He's in control of this family situation.

So, a fairly lengthy reading, but it's an exciting one. Let's take it together. We'll skip the long names in the first verse.

This man Elkanah, 1 Samuel 1, had two wives. One was called Hannah, and the other Penina. Penina had children, but Hannah had none.

Years, year after year, this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the Lord Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phineas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord. Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Penina and to all her sons and daughters, but to Hannah, he gave a double portion because he loved her and the Lord had closed her womb. Because the Lord had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her.

This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. Elkanah, her husband, would say to her, Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons? Once, when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up.

Now, Eli the priest was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the Lord's temple. In bitterness of soul, Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord, and she made a vow saying, O Lord Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head. As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth.

Hannah was praying in her heart and her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, how long will you keep on getting drunk? Get rid of your wine. Not so, my Lord, Hannah replied.

I'm a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer. I was pouring out my soul to the Lord.

Do not take your servant for a wicked woman. I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief. Eli answered, go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.

She said, may your servant find favor in your eyes. Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast. Early the next morning they arose and worshipped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah.

Elkanah lay with Hannah, his wife, and the Lord remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, because I asked the Lord for him.

When the man Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, after the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord, and he will live there always. Do what seems best to you, Elkanah, her husband told her.

Stay here until you have weaned him. Only may the Lord make good his word. So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.

After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull and ephor of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. When they had slaughtered the bull, they brought the boy to Eli, and she said to him, as surely as you live, my Lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.

So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life, he shall be given over to the Lord. And he, or the Hebrew would allow they, and they worshipped the Lord there.

And in the third chapter, you hear of God speaking to Samuel. Let's listen to the hymn composed on that incident. The hymn is number 253 in Mission Praise.

We'll sing the first three verses to you if you could join in on verse four and five. When suddenly a voice divine rang through the silence of the shrine, the old man meek and mild, the priest of Israel's left, his watch, the temple child, the little Samuel kept. And what from Eli's sense was sealed, the Lord to Hannah's son revealed.

O give me Samuel's ear, the open ear, O Lord, alive and quick to hear each whisper of your word, like him to answer at your call and to obey you first of all. Please stand. O give me Samuel's heart, my only comfort.

Do sit down, and let's turn to one Samuel in chapter one, we're talking during these next few Sundays ministering the whole area of prayer and if you want to know what our preaching schedule is or schedule as they'll say in the States then And if you go to the welcome desk, then please take a copy because they'll be glad to give you our program for this next few weeks. Also, if you're intending to attend a baptismal class this afternoon, will you give your name in at the welcome desk, please? Don't forget that, it's quite important. Thank you.

Father, we pray for your help as we come around your holy word to speak to all our hearts right now and convince us of the reality of prayer and its powerfulness and the way in which this is one of your gracious provisions made available to us today. In the name of our savior, amen. So we put the spotlight on 1 Samuel and this first chapter.

And here is a lady who is in agony. In fact, a great man called James Parker, who was a preacher in the early part of the century in London, says that this prayer which he offers is a prayer of agony. There are times in prayer when you become so straightened, so stretched, that you're almost like the string of the bridge of a violin.

Amen. Here's our beloved Lord in the garden of Gethsemane and things are coming to a climax and our savior is in need and he prays. And in the account that describes it in Luke's gospel, there is not an equivalent word in the English to translate the Greek.

I can make one up, I can coin one. Our Lord prayed stretched outwardly as though the whole of his body, the whole of his nervous system is taught. One further bit of pressure and he'll snap.

That is the context, that's the implication. Well, here in this particular chapter, you've got a lady who also chose something of the agony of heart as she comes before the Lord. Her family, well, it's a strange and complex family scene.

Two husbands, two wives as I've reminded you of. So this woman, Hannah, she shares a house and she shares a husband and there's a problem. And the problem is well summed up in the eighth verse.

When her loving husband says, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than 10 sons? And you have to congratulate Elkanah that at least he recognizes something that maybe some of you have forgotten, that the bond between a husband and a wife takes priority over the bond between a mother and her child or her father and his children. There is a bond between parents. There is a bond between the family and parents.

But the oneness which God gives is for the husband and the wife always to be sharing it. And in this instance, Hannah is reminded that the love of Elkanah should be equivalent to the love of even unborn children. I say that in passing.

Here is a woman who is maligned by the mistress with whom she shares her house. Here is a woman who's going to be misjudged by the minister whose help she seeks. Her household is a religious one for Elkanah was a religious leader.

And they go up to a place called Shiloh where the ark is and that purports to be the same as the temple, at least to have that function in this particular part of the history of the Israelites. Once a year they go, it's a family occasion. And because it's a family occasion, Hannah is even more marginalized.

You can be marginalized in family services if you don't feel that you're part of a family yourself. Therefore we have to handle the concept of family biblically and realistically so that when we come together as a church family, we come together not in word only, but indeed showing the love that we have one for another. So here is Padina who goads Hannah and particularly takes the most, the time when she's the most vulnerable to criticize her.

He, our husband may prefer you, but look what I have delivered him. Now, Hannah, her name means grace. And it may well be that some of you identify with her circumstance at this moment.

You too feel that you have been misjudged and maligned. There is a verse in the New Testament that talks about finding grace upon grace, the overwhelming grace of God directed towards seeking people as Hannah in the old and as you in the New Testament era. So I bring this address to a thousand Hannahs and I use the word Hannah in a generic sense, including men who are also in great difficulty.

She has a problem. What is the problem? Well, it's obvious. Her problem is one of barrenness, no child in an age when priests and people attributed this to being a mark of divine disfavor.

And in one sense, they had biblical justification for so doing because if you read Deuteronomy chapter seven and verse 14 and parallel scriptures, you'll discover that God promises the Israelites that when they return to the promised land and indeed when they go through the wilderness, one of the marks of his blessings will be that the women folk will not be barren. So here is a woman and she is barren and gossip has it that she is bearing somehow the criticism of God upon her. Now it's interesting that despite these broad statements and promises in the Old Testament, as you find in the New, there are always exceptions and a general statement always has to be contextualized, especially when you're dealing with this sort of thing and with the whole phenomenon of healing.

All right, God does promise the fruitfulness of womb, but line them up in the Old Testament, those who were barren. And you've got a lot of women who've got the same sort of problem as Anna has. What about Sarah? Who couldn't have a child? And the problems that got her into and her bad advice, the difficulties that that got Abraham into, the overspill of which are still with us today, historically, incidentally.

What about Rachel who said, give me children or I die? What about Manoah's wife? The one who will one day be the mother of Samson? What about Elizabeth in the New Testament? An old lady and has no child. You see, you can line them up, can't you? One after the other. These folk who feel that their barrenness somehow is indicative of divine disfavor and they're not to draw such a conclusion.

They do desire, however, and honorably so within the marital state to be mothers. But let me tell you something else that it's not just the physical child that you should yearn after. And this applies to everyone, whether you're married or unmarried.

There is a desire that you should have for spiritual children, not so? The Apostle Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians, says that you have many fathers, you do not have many fathers in God. I gave birth to you. My preaching was the result of, at the human level, your conversion.

This lady to whom I made reference in Calcutta, Esther. She's an ex-nun, unmarried and probably will remain in that state. But go down the streets of Calcutta.

There are many kids who rise up, they don't use this language, but in effect, it means the same, and call her blessed. I think of a man called Vijayan who's taken 400 children from off the streets of Calcutta and aims to have 6,000 people or 6,000 boys and girls come under the benefits of his ministry, Emmanuel Ministries. You see, there is a sense in which, even though physically you cannot perhaps have children, you nonetheless ought to have the same concern for spiritual children as Hannah had to be a natural mother, a natural bearer of Elkanah's child or children.

So this was her problem. And her problem drives her to a very understandable, expedient, and that is she engages in barter with the Lord and she makes a promise. She finds herself in the sanctuary in Shiloh and in bitterness of soul, verse 10, she weeps much and prays to the Lord.

And she makes this promise. Oh Lord Almighty, if you will look upon your servant's misery and remember me and not forget your servant, but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life. And some of us more insensitive moderns say, you shouldn't do that before God, you shouldn't barter.

Are you sure? You give me this and I will do that for you. 23 years or so ago from this pulpit, I preached a sermon which was actually turned into print and we reproduced it on several occasions. It was entitled, The Problem of Answered Prayer.

My conviction then as it is now is this, that prayer becomes a problem when it's answered, not when it is unanswered. Prayer becomes a problem when it is answered and not when it is unanswered. You say, expand on your premise.

Okay, I'll do this. What is the legitimacy of prayer? I mean, how do you know that the prayer that you bring to the Lord is a valid prayer? And the answer is this test. What will you do with the answer when it comes? Now the only legitimate prayer that you can bring to the Lord is something which when it is answered in some fashion enhances his kingdom.

It may not be spot on, but indirectly, secondary, thirdly, it will in some fashion benefit the kingdom of God. So you see, it's not unreasonable for a young married couple who are having problems with their mortgage to come before the Lord and pray that the husband may get some promotion. If, as a result of getting that promotion, salary is increased and a house that's more appropriate is available, which will then be used for the honor and the glory of God.

See, it's not what you pray, it's how you will use the answer to the prayer when your intercession has been accepted and fulfilled. So here is Hannah and she comes before the Lord and she makes this promise. I believe that it is right for me to have a child.

After all, Lord, I am a woman and I am married. You give me that child and Lord, I will have him so educated, so influenced by me that at least there will be one godly man in Israel. And Israel was denuded of godly men.

You take the sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas. If that aged priest had been more concerned about keeping the alcohol from their lips some 20 years ago, then one of their children, in other words, Eli's grandchild, would not have had to have been called Ichabod. The glory has departed.

If you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life and no razor will ever be used on his head. Lord, if you give him for my maturing, I will give him for your ministering. It's an incredible piece of bartering, if that's the right word.

But you see, Hannah is a very incredible lady. I sometimes feel that we take too far some of the statements in scripture which seem to put a brake on women's ministry. I recognize that there is a primary headship in the male sex, but it is interesting that in the Old Testament, in the book that prefaces Samuel, you have got Ruth.

And in the book that prefaces Ruth, you have got judges. And in judges, you've got a woman who becomes a mother in Israel when there are no male leaders. I spent some three hours at the Africa Inland Mission once again last Thursday.

And as we reviewed the compliment of British missionaries, the cry was, where is the man or where are the men? It's a strange exception that in operation mobilization and youth with a mission, there doesn't seem to be the same imbalance. Here is Hannah, and I put it to you, she's not just an ordinary woman. She cannot be that because look at the way that she refers to God, oh Lord Almighty.

This theological understanding of the sovereignty of God as far as I gather is unique as far as when you read it on the page of scripture because it commences from the understanding of a woman as she thinks in terms of the power and the endless possibilities that prayer has before this almighty God, oh Lord of hosts. If you will look upon me, if you will commit to me the charge of bringing up a young child, then I will ensure that he has such a godly influence that in the days when he is given back to you by your grace, he will have an ability to be a reformer and a restorer of Israel. I put it to you women folk that those of you who are mothers do not know the privilege that is yours.

It is greater than that of some of the biblical expositors that the church has been given by God down the years. Here is King Lemuel, not Samuel, King Lemuel in Proverbs chapter 31 and the opening verse and he says the sayings of King Lemuel, an oracle his mother taught him. An oracle his mother taught him.

By sheer coincidence, in the 30th chapter of the book of Proverbs, there is reference made to family influence which is not very helpful. Verse 11, there are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers. Samuel was never to be one of them.

Lord, if you will give me the answer to my prayer, then I tell you Lord, when prayer is answered, I will not forget who was the one who caused the realization of my heart's desire. And so Eli comes along and he makes that astonishing error of imputing to this woman that she is drunk whereas actually she is praying. Incidentally, when did someone tell you that prayer was a matter of words? Words are the easiest things to spill out.

Prayer is more than words. And thank God in one sense because there are times when, although I've said that words are easy to spill out, there are times when words don't come so freely and God doesn't just read the word in any case or hear the word, he reads the heart, not so. Groanings that cannot be uttered.

Prayer can be, how did Montgomery put it, the upward glancing of the eye when none but God is near. Prayer can be the bejeweling of the eye with tears and God collects them and puts them in his bottle. He reads the heartache in Hannah.

He reads your own heartache too. This is a woman in an agony of prayer and this insensitive priest, almost a disgrace to his office, says how long will you keep getting drunk? Get rid of your wine. Oh God, grant those of us who are pastors a greater degree of sensitivity.

Help us not to make misjudgments as to people's spiritual status and attribute wrong to them when you who see all the context recognize a different picture. No, my Lord, Hannah replies, I'm a woman who's deeply troubled and so on and so forth. Don't take me as a wicked woman.

And Eli then, finding compassion and spiritual wisdom once more says go in peace and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him. And she returns. She goes back home and as a result of the natural coming together of husband and wife, she finds that she is with child and that child within her shall be for her a most precious and a holy infant.

And when the next family service occurs, as this annual occasion in Shiloh, she says to Elkanah, not this time, darling. That's my paraphrase. Let's leave it.

Let's leave it until this child is mature and then we'll go, you, me, and the boy that Elkanah were calling Samuel because Samuel means given of God or something like that. So you see what you find following is that not only has Hannah's problem being identified and her promise has been acknowledged, but later on in the chapter, you realize that the provisions she has said she will furnish the Lord with are fulfilled in as much as when the child becomes mature, she keeps her vow. Now here's a staggering thing.

It is possible for you to rob God. How do you rob God? Well, let's come back to this philosophy of prayer. You rob God when the answer to your prayer is granted and you do not keep your promise.

So down the centuries and including Old Testament times, there are the echoes of many people who have defrauded God. Malachi will tell you that. You robbed me.

I gave you, the context is material provision, but it doesn't just apply to that. I gave you this with the proviso that you would handle it responsibly instead of which you kept the whole thing to yourself. You robbed me.

So you prayed for your larger house. You prayed for an improvement in your circumstances and it came. But then what happened? You prayed for a husband.

You prayed for a wife. You prayed for a family and you had a basic responsibility towards them. That is true.

Now in Yorkshire, we talk about we four, dad, mom and kids, no more. You draw up the bridge and you become an entity on your own. There's a comic little verse which I can't just get off the tip of my tongue, but it doesn't really matter, which is a sort of cartoon presentation of all that is unbiblical.

I'm all right, Jack, I'm in a dingy. That's a more colloquial expression. No, God gives you your husband.

God gives you your wife. God gives you children. God gives you a home.

For what? To use. Obviously, primarily you have responsibility to them, but not exclusively so. And when you use it exclusively so, you're robbing him.

So he gave you a car. How do you use your car? So he gives you your health. How do you use your health? You see, we are answerable to God, not just the tense.

That's an easy thing to deal with mathematically, whether or not we're obedient, but we can understand the biblical teaching on this. But it transcends that. The answers to our prayers, God comes to us and says, all right.

Now, where is your faithfulness? Is it equivalent to that of Hannah? The greatest temptation that Hannah has and the greatest difficulty through which she goes was not the temptation and the difficulty when Penina was goading her, but when she's got her precious Samuel. Will you bring him back to the Lord? And she does. She brings him.

And she has to remind the aged Eli who she is. As surely as you live, my Lord, verse 26, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.

So now I give him to the Lord for his whole life he will be given over to the Lord. And he, they worship the Lord there, mom and child and Elkanah the father. And dear old Alexander White reckons that Hannah used to go back to Shiloh every year and bring the son of hers a coat that she had made.

And true enough, when Samuel becomes a prophet, a fully fledged clergyman, so to speak, stomping up and down the lanes of Israel, he's known as the one with the mantle. And White may or may not be right, I'm not sure, but it's a wonderful concept that as he wears the mantle, it's in one sense symbolic of the influence of his mother. Certainly White is right in pointing out that the very integrity that Hannah has is reproduced by her son.

So at the end of his life, he says to the Israelites, any one of you who can tell me that I have robbed you, that I haven't kept my word, that I have not dealt honorably with you, that I have not prayed for you when I should have been praying for you. Something of Hannah lives on in her boy, and she makes in the return of her vow to the Lord a provision for Israel who desperately need a leader, and Samuel becomes that leader. And I conclude, God also makes provision.

For God pays good interest for children that you invest in his service, for children with whom you spend time and endeavor to instruct in the purposes of God. So Samuel is taken into the service of the Lord, and Hannah's womb is again quickened. Verse five, second chapter, she who was barren has born seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away.

I conclude, here is a lady who is in agony, and she brings her agony before the Lord, and God in his grace responds to what she has to say. Now, God doesn't always grant us our requests in the way that he granted Hannah, but if he does, let me remind you once more, you have an even greater responsibility when prayer is answered. And if God does not answer your request, that's not because he's cavalier towards you, callous towards you, not a bit, but because he knows what is best for you and for your life.

Elkanah and Hannah and Penina and all the children, they should have been, but they weren't quiet, an example of what a church should be. We are a family. God is our father.

He puts us in smaller family units. He redeems us by his grace. He saves us by the blood of Jesus.

He bonds us together to live as a family, to love as a family. And to the degree that we do that, we produce our Samuels and send them out to serve the Lord, a new generation taught by us. May God give to us all an ability to engage in intercessory prayer and always when prayer is answered, to reinvest the answer in the service of God.

Amen. Amen. Let's turn to hymn number 645, which speaks of the God of Abraham, who's our God and was Hannah's God.

And of the way that through Abraham's loins came into the world, our Lord Jesus. 645. 645.

♪ Sing all the way of praise to Angel Noah ♪ ♪ Angel Noah, sing angel Noah ♪ ♪ Let the world sing of his wisdom, greatness, and glory ♪ ♪ O shall hear our children's song ♪ ♪ And worship his holy name forevermore ♪ Do be seated. Just two things, I won't detain you long. First of all, if you happen to play an instrument grade four and above, your church needs you.

Will you contact a welcome desk? I was gonna say contact Jenny Anderson, but my spies tell me she's in America, so that would be rather difficult. But let us know from the welcome desk, please, if we can use you in the Tabernacle Philharmonic Orchestra. Also, men, next Saturday, tickets available from the foyer.

Men's breakfast, please have a word with Jerry and his colleagues. I was not joking when I said, well, obviously I wasn't joking, but what I said is accurate, that if you give monies today for our Harvest Thanksgiving offering, I can ensure that those monies go directly to people living in the most squalid of circumstances in Calcutta. We have boxes around the church, and they're there for that period, for that purpose.

If you haven't come prepared for this, we'll take IOUs, or you can drop it into the Tab, into the Thrift Cabin with an indication on your envelope how it is to be used. Hope we'll see you this evening. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you that you took an ordinary woman, and from her you birthed a child who eventually would found a school, the School of the Prophets, and from that school, Israel would hear for centuries to come the full message of God, his holiness, and his grace. We thank you that you gave a woman, a son who would become an outstanding person, a Nazirite, all his days. We thank you for the faithfulness of one woman who so influenced the history of Israel.

Now bless women folk here, whether mothers or not. Bless men folk here, whether fathers or not. Bless this church, and give us sons, spiritually or physically, and daughters who may eventually serve you in a generation yet to come.

And now may the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rest and remain with each one of us always. Amen. Good morning, God bless.

Thanks for coming.