Heartfelt Prayer
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Notes
Transcript
A. Rapport for the time
1 Samuel: Looking on the Heart The View of God’s Kingdom (2:1–10)
“May the Lord Jesus … support me … under this heavy affliction, which would certainly have overcome me, had not He, who raises up the prostrate, strengthens the weak, and refreshes the weary, stretched forth His hand from heaven to me.”
Quote is from John Calvin to Friend William Fare after the loss of his wife Idelette.
B. Reading of the text
C. Review of the text
Not sure when Hannah makes this prayer. All things in Samuel are not in perfect order. We must understand that this prayer does come at some point after the promise has been fulfilled. The moment that the Lord allows us to look back on our situation with His wisdom and see he was working all along.
D. Relevance of the text
1 Samuel—Looking for a Leader Chapter 3: The God of Knowledge (1 Samuel 2:1–10)
The person who believes (who actually does believe, not who just says he believes) in God (the God who is there, not just some idea of God) will not only understand things differently—such a person will live differently. Values will be different, as will ambitions, joys, sorrows, loves, hates, motivations, confidence, fears.
Hannah show us the way in which we are to live as believers before the Lord. We should stay in a position of thankfulness before our Creator and Lord in whom we find our Redemption.
T.S. Hannah begins her prayer by praising the Giver
I. Praising the Giver
I. Praising the Giver
1 And Hannah prayed and said, “My heart exults in the Lord; my horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation.
2 “There is none holy like the Lord: for there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God.
3 Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.
There are some items in verse 1 & 2 that we have to notice right off the bat. Notice that the prayer begins with Hannah…My heart, My mouth, I rejoice and goes directly to who God is in verse 2. Hannah desire to exult in the the Lord.
To Exult is to show or feel triumphant elation. Rejoicing at it greatest height. Hannah is not rejoicing in Samuel the child but in the Lord who has seen fit to see Hannah in her affliction. We do not serve a God who works like a vending machine. You do something for him and He will do something for you.
My horn—(IVP) Horn is at time used in relation to posterity. It is also used to represent visible strength as a weapon capable of goring the enemy.
My horn exulted in the Lord is a way saying her power in success has it explanation in the covenant Lord. Hannah’s power did not come from herself. She was not able to have a child apart from the hand of God on her and he alone is responsible for all that she is before him now. Please don’t forget that not that very long ago Hannah’s heart prayed with “great anxiety and vexation.” This is the same women but she is no leaning upon the Lord. Her faith walk with God has brought her to this moment before him.
My mouth derides my enemies but ultimately she find Joy in her salvation…what God had done and was doing in her life brought her an abundance of Joy in her creator.
1 Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.
2 The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
Verse 2 is how holy, set apart, the one true God is from all others. NO ONE IS like GOD.
11 “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him.
39 “ ‘See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
God is her Rock..Hannah see’s God as her source of protection and refuge. Able to handle anything in this life because of God not because of her own personal knowledge or wisdom.
1 To you, O Lord, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.
3 The God of Israel has spoken; the Rock of Israel has said to me: When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God,
“Her praise is stimulated not merely by gratitude for his gift of a son but also by the deeper understanding of God and his ways that she has gained” (Expository Commentary)
3 Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.
13 The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man;
2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit.
12 If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?
15 And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.
Are you proud do you rely upon your own knowledge? Do you think you know more than God. Do you live that way? Are you the Rock you stand on? Do you only trust yourself? As a Christian redeemed by the blood of Christ you trust not in yourself.
15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them
16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
T.S. Hannah goes from Praising the Giver to Praising his ways. Which makes sense because God’s ways don’t look like our ways very often.
II. Praising His way
II. Praising His way
4 The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength.
5 Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.
6 The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.
7 The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts.
8 He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world.
Hannah shows us in these verses exactly how different the way of God is in the world.
Each verse one at a time draws pictures of who God is and how Hannah knows Him.
vs. 5—Psalm 107:9
9 For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.
vs. 5
From Barren to seven-complete
15 He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.”
9 She who bore seven has grown feeble; she has fainted away; her sun went down while it was yet day; she has been shamed and disgraced. And the rest of them I will give to the sword before their enemies, declares the Lord.”
Hannah would go on to have other children after Samuel
21 Indeed the Lord visited Hannah, and she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew in the presence of the Lord.
vs 6 The Lord can reverse bad circumstances
20 You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again.
13 For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
vs. 7 God is in charge
7 but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.
11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
vs. 8
1 Samuel—Looking for a Leader Power that Turns the World Upside down (vv. 4–8c)
The book of 1 Samuel is going to tell of a remarkable sequence of events in which these possibilities were realized. It is an important part of the whole Bible that tells the full story of the God who really does make this difference to everything.
Do we fail to realize that the entire world belongs to the creator. God’s independence from us makes everything different and very often not in the way you think. God is working by his standard not by mankind. Man changes like the wind but the Rock of all creation has no such problem.
III. Praising His hands
III. Praising His hands
9 “He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness, for not by might shall a man prevail.
10 The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.”
11 Then Elkanah went home to Ramah. And the boy was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli the priest.
The one with the most toys does not win in the end. The one who is faithful and walks with the Lord wins in every way in the end.
verse 10 taught me something...
6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you.
16 I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”
11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body.
6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”
7 Water shall flow from his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters; his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted.
14 “When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’
15 you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.
16 Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’
17 And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.
18 “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests.
19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them,
20 that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
We started in vs 1 with the Knowledge of God and how his ways are different from our ways. Hannah gave us examples of how God’s economy works. Ultimately, leading to this ending in which Hannah tells of what is to come and how God’s plan will unfold in the days ahead.
1 Samuel—Looking for a Leader Power that Turns the World Upside down (vv. 4–8c)
What is your attitude to the various forms of human power? Do you see wealth as a means of security? Do you fear being weak or poor? Do you mind being unimportant? What do you think about life and death? Do you think that you have the power to hold on to life and avoid death? Most people seem to live as though they do.