Hope in the midst of hopelessness 1 Sam 1:-28, 2:12-21.

Introduction:

Have you felt a strong feeling of hopelessness?

A feeling that no matter what nothing can change that one particular situation.

Maybe you look at the society and see how far morality is going and it seems there is no hope for the advance of the gospel

Or you look at you friends and family and see think that there is no hope of them coming to know the Lord.

We have all faced times of seeming hopelessness but what this passage this morning reminds us is that with God there is always hope.

Israel were in the time period of the judges where every man did what was right in his own eyes, they had been brought out of Egypt and they had settled in to the land of Canaan.

and through out the book of Judges we see that God raised up judges to deliver His people and bring them back to Him.

And we see that at time our passage, Israel needed another judge. They needed God to raise someone up because Israel’s spiritual leaders were a mess.

The Book of Samuel is also set in the period when there was a major shift in the leadership of Israel from judges to kingship beginning with Saul and then David and Solomon and so on.

but prior to this transition, what we see are scenes of hopelessness.

We are told about the sons of Eli who were the spiritual leaders of Israel and therefore from a human point of view the future of Israels spiritual life depended on them.

and yet what were are told about them cannot but breed a sense of hopelessness.

How can Israel survive and keep following the true God when they had spiritual leaders like the sons of Eli the future of Israels spiritual well-being.

We see in verse 12 that are called worthless men who did not know the LORD which in the Hebrew is literally sons of belial, sons of wickedness.

they were wicked apostates who did not know the LORD.

what a worry that is when those who are supposed to be leading Israel to God, the priests, didn't even know God for Himself.

If that isn’t a sign of hopelessness for Israels spiritual well-being I dont know what is.

and the name of Eli’s grandson sums up Israels spiritual life at this time, Ichabod.

The glory has departed.

and strangely in the midst of all this hopelessness comes Hannah,

in the Midst of this chaos, God is still at work and He is at work in the life of a barren woman called Hannah.

So there are three things I want to bring out of this passage and they are, Hannah's pain, Hannah’s prayer and finally, Hannah’s God.

Hannah’s prayer