All the Days of His Life

Today we get a vision of unshakeable worship in the face of, first hardship, then blessing.

[00:00:00] Well, you’ll have to bear with me this morning. I have been sick all week, so most of the sermon was written under medication. See how that goes. In the 19th and 20th centuries, there was a movement among some biblical historians to question the historical reliability of almost everything that we find in the Bible. It started with Genesis 1 to 11, near the end of the 1800s. Then it slowly chipped away through the 1900s. The patriarchs, Israel and Egypt. The Exodus, the conquest of Canaan. Uh, slowly but surely, the historicity of ancient Israel was being questioned and doubted, and it really picked up in the in the 80s and 90s. I don’t know if you know this, but it really picked up in the 80s and 90s. There was this school of thought called biblical minimalism. That said, since we don’t have any proof of the existence of King David and the Kingdom of Israel outside the Bible, that he must be a mythical figure akin to King Arthur. Basically, biblical minimalists argue that if we don’t have rock solid evidence outside of the Bible of something that happens in the Bible, then we should be skeptical of the historical reliability of that part of the Bible. So, minimalists make full careers – these scholars make full careers out of denying the history of the Bible. One of the most famous historical underminers of the Hebrew Bible and the origins of ancient Israel is an archaeologist, ironically named Doctor Israel Finkelstein.

[00:01:51] He wrote in 2005; these are his words. The historical saga contained in the Bible from Abraham’s encounter with God and his journey to Canaan, to Moses’ deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage to the rise and fall of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of human imagination. But in 1993, at a controlled site monitored archaeological dig in the ancient city of the Israelite city of Dan, a chunk of basalt rock was found that used to be part of a monument. It was found actually being reused in a wall that had been built. The monument had been smashed up and the rock had been used, but it used to be part of a monument, and this chunk of rock is known as the Tel Dan Stela. The writing on the monument celebrated the victory of Hazael, the king of Aram Damascus when he conquered both the north and the southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah. And this corroborates the account that we have in Second Kings chapter 12. But as amazing as it is to have a foreign document, a foreign king corroborating something we have in the Bible, that’s not what makes this hunk of rock famous. What set the archaeological world on fire in 1993 was the Southern King in this rock was referred to as Beit David. Of the House of David.

[00:03:30] This was the first confirmed undeniable reference to King David outside of Scripture, and even more amazingly, it established David not as just a king, but as a dynasty. The House of David. So, the minimalists scrambled. They didn’t know what to do. They tried to translate it differently. Others begrudgingly acknowledged the existence of David, but then they downplayed his importance. Finkelstein famously called him a hillbilly king. That’s his phrase for him. But the vast majority of biblical scholars knew what we were looking at, that the Kingdom of Israel was founded on the man that the Lord himself had anointed. King David, the man after God’s own heart. Now, God’s Word does not need archaeology to prove its historicity. The scriptures that we have themselves are reliable historical documents on their own. But when we follow Scripture’s leading to the locations into the world where these things took place, it sure is nice to find exactly what we would expect. Beginning this week and through this summer, yes, the summer series begins today. So, beginning this week and through the summer, we are going to take a break from the Gospel of Luke. We’re going to do something a little bit exciting and a little bit different, and we’re going to journey back to ancient Israel, to the founding of the kingdom that would eventually produce King Jesus. But to look at something’s beginning. You have to look before it.

[00:05:07] So, we’re not going to start with King David. In fact, we’re going to end with him. We’re going to end with his anointing. We’re not going to look at his reign at all. We’re going to end with him. And we’re not going to even start with Saul, who reigned before David very badly in that it resulted in David’s kingship. We’re going to look at the man that God used to crown both of them. We’re going to look at Samuel, the king maker. Now, Samuel is a transitional figure in the history of Israel. He’s the last judge of the period of judges. And I’ll explain more of that when we get to those passages. He’s the final leader in the establishment of the human king to reign over Israel. In fact, he’ll be the one who’s going to anoint both of the kings that we’ll look at. And he’s the first of what we might call a national prophet, someone who speaks to the King and to the nation on behalf of the Lord. So, the king was charged to lead God’s people faithfully, turning away from sin and toward righteousness. The prophet would speak for the Lord, interpreting and explaining the Mosaic law to the King. And the priest, who will also appear in our story, intercedes for the people when they sin, offering up sacrifices. So, we’re going to begin to see the prophet, priest, and king offices operating among God’s people, to guide them, to fight for them, to ultimately save them.

[00:06:42] And this brings me to the most important aspect of our study of Samuel’s ministry. Everything that the Lord did throughout the history of his people paved the way for the coming of Jesus. The Old Testament is what we call redemptive history. It’s the history of redemption. It’s the literary documentation of how the Lord worked through the nation of Israel to bring about the redemption from sin that we all desperately need. All the promises of the Old Testament have their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus. So, all the imagery, all of the worship practices, sacrifices, the events themselves. They are all pictures of some aspect of the gospel. These three offices of prophet, priest and king all come together in Jesus Christ, who serves every one of those roles for us. For those of us who trust in him. So, as we study the ministry of Samuel and we’re unpacking everything that he said and everything that he did, we are not just studying the actions of a good man so that we can be more like him. We are watching for the gospel of Christ to become clearer to us. And Jesus himself told us to do this in John 5:39-40. Jesus said, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. When he says, search the scriptures, he’s talking about the Old Testament.

[00:08:09] Those are the scriptures they had. He says, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is they that bear witness about me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. You hear the warning? We can read this Old Testament narrative and we can follow the story, but we could miss the most important aspect of it, the life-giving truth of it, that these scriptures point us to Jesus and to new life in him. Today we meet Hannah and Elkanah, Samuel’s parents. Hannah is the focal point of the birth narrative of Samuel. Hannah is going to show us what it means to faithfully give back to the Lord everything that he’s given to us. This passage this morning is about what it looks like to be a faithful worshiper of the Lord all the days of your life. She did that in the face of ridicule, disappointments that for her went on for years. And in doing so, she is going to be blessed with a son who will serve the Lord faithfully his entire life. A pre-figurement of the ultimate son who will never fail to serve the Lord. So, today we get a vision of unshakable worship in the face of first hardship and then blessing. So, let’s get into it. You’ve already heard it read. You’re going to want to have your Bible open to First Samuel chapter one today.

[00:09:44] Uh, it’s a long passage, so it won’t be on the screen. And let me just tell you in advance. That’s true of probably most of this series we’re going to be looking at very long passages, narrative tends to be much longer. So, it won’t be on the screen all the time. You’ll want to keep your Bibles open to it. This passage is Hannah’s story. So we’re going to look at at her predicament, her prayer and then her blessing. Let’s start with her predicament. As the story begins, we meet three people. Elkanah, who has two wives, Hannah, the wife of that he loves, and Peninnah, who has Elkanah’s children. So, we meet these three people. We actually meet more than just three people here at the beginning of the stories. Apologies to the readers today who have to navigate 14 proper Hebrew nouns in the first three verses. Uh, that can’t be easy to do. Uh, but the main three here are Elkanah and his wives. Now let’s just get this out of the way. Wives plural? Is the Bible advocating multiple wives? Is the Bible advocating polygamy? No, it is not. It is not advocating this. Biblical marriage, the kind that God designed is one man and one woman for life, nobody else involved. And that was established at the beginning of Genesis. That’s how that works. So that’s what the Bible prescribes.

[00:11:14] But what the Bible describes, without prescribing it, what the Bible describes is all sorts of sinful situations, and this is one of them. Probably what happened is Elkanah first married Hannah, but she was barren. And in those days having an heir was very important for passing down inheritance. So even people who knew the Lord in that time, who had his law, who had his design for marriage, would make sinful choices. Scripture doesn’t always outright condemn all the sins that it describes. It assumes that we know how it’s supposed to be because we’re familiar with God’s law, right? So we’re making determinations as we go. And in the case of polygamy, it always goes badly. There is some of that in the Old Testament, but it always goes badly. I mean, how could it not? Right, married couples? That’s not going to work. That’s not going to work. And it doesn’t work. And it never works. And it doesn’t work here. Hannah ends up in a situation where she has no children, and she’s being ridiculed by the other wife, who sounds like a real catch. It says Peninnah would provoke her grievously to irritate her. And it says this went on year after year after year. Can you imagine living this way? Elkanah did what he could try to show his love for Hannah, to make her feel better. He would give her double portions of sacrifice when they would go to Shiloh to sacrifice.

[00:12:54] The way this reads, it sounds as if he did truly, really feel very badly for her, though I do question his appeal in verse eight. Uh, Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not worth more to you than ten sons? Uh, sounds like he just didn’t get it. He does not understand the pain that’s going on here. But he’s doing his best. And this does bring a little comfort, because it says in verse nine that they ate. It says they did have something to eat and drink. She felt too terrible before to eat, but now she’s able to. Now, those of you who know your Bible well, you might be thinking, where have I heard this story before? Where is this? This sounds very familiar to me. And the truth is, you’ve heard parts of this story lived out in different ways, in different places, among different people. Abraham had a very similar situation with his wife, Sarah, who couldn’t have children. So, Hagar was brought in to have children for Sarah. Again, it didn’t turn out well. Read about it. It doesn’t go well at all. It’s always a bad idea. Jacob loved Rachel, but he was tricked into marrying her sister Leah first. Jacob didn’t love Leah, but Leah was the one who could have children. Jumping forward in time,

[00:14:20] in Luke chapter one, we read about Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. They had no children because Elizabeth was barren and both of them were advanced in years Luke tells us. Now you say, why does this keep happening? Why does this happen over and over in Scripture? Well, Sarah was far too old to give birth, but miraculously, she gave birth to Isaac. When God allowed her to have a child at 90 years old, and Isaac was the continuation of the line that led eventually to Jesus. God remembered Rachel, according to Genesis chapter 30, and she bore Joseph, who would go on to save all of God’s people in Egypt. In fact, you can argue and Genesis does argue, that if it were not for Joseph, there would be no Israel and God’s promises would have collapsed. They would have failed. And in Luke chapter one, God promised Zechariah that his wife Elizabeth would have a son who would be an Elijah-like prophet who would pave the way for Jesus, a very important minister in the history of redemption. In every case, God chose to wait until it seemed to require a miracle, when all hope of pregnancy was lost, to raise up a leader who would eventually fulfill his plans to save the world, and he does this so that it would be unmistakable to us that God is in control.

[00:15:49] God is the one who saves. That’s why he works through this miracle. That salvation is entirely his miraculous work. That’s what we’re being told. And never is this more clear than when he chose a young girl named Mary, for whom not only was it very unlikely that she would have a child, but it was impossible because she was a virgin. So, God has allowed Hannah to suffer ridicule and pain because he is about to once again further his plan of salvation through a very unlikely child. Hannah goes into the temple and she prays in the temple in Shiloh. It says she weeps bitterly while she’s praying. And Eli, the priest is sitting at the entrance and he’s watching this now. Now he’s going to be a major figure in the chapters to come. He plays a small part today, but he’s going to be a major figure. And here’s what she prays. This is what Hannah prays. She says, 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 your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life. No razor shall touch his head. The mention there of not getting a haircut is the Nazarite vow. It’s a way of vowing in that culture that you are completely given over to the Lord’s service.

[00:17:22] Notice three times that Hannah says that she is the Lord’s servant. She is unwavering in her commitment to the Lord, and this is despite the fact that she knows full well that God is the one who’s in control of pregnancy. She knows that the God she’s talking to is the one who controls this, that he’s the creator of people. So, all of the affliction and all of the ridicule that she has received from Peninnah, and the pain in her heart that comes directly from God’s decision. And she knows that. And yet here she is reaffirming not only her worship of the Lord, but the dedication she has to being his servant. Hannah is showing us something here that is pretty extraordinary. She’s showing us what true worship of the Lord is, it’s not like we often treat it. A lot of people have an approach to God that is transactional. God, I will serve you if. If you will give me the thing that I want, if my life goes better, if you get me out of this mess that I’ve made. It’s a transaction. You give me, I give you. Others have a conditional faith. Lord, I will continue to serve you as long as the blessings continue. As long as they flow and there’s benefit to my faith. But if the day comes that faithfulness and service steer me in a direction that I don’t want to go, well, then I’m going to reevaluate.

[00:19:02] It’s conditional. Neither of these are actual faith, and they cannot lead to actual worship of the Lord. They can’t. It’s impossible. Why? Well, it’s very simple. It’s because in both cases, the other thing that you want is more important to you than God himself. It’s that simple. If you are trying to use God to get something else, and you will not be faithful until he gives it, or you will not remain faithful if he takes it away. You’re worshiping that thing and not God. This is what the Bible calls idolatry or false worship. It’s completely the opposite of true worship. That’s why you can’t worship the Lord this way. Psalm 37 four says, delight yourself in the law of the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. So, there’s nothing wrong with having desires in your heart. There’s nothing wrong with that. But they are not meant to take the place of delighting yourself in the Lord and walking in obedience. Jesus put it like this. He said, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these things will be added to you. And all these things are the things that we need for life. He says, don’t worry about those things. Seek the Lord. The stuff we want, the way we want life to go. Even the things that we need.

[00:20:26] None of that can be conditional for real faith and true worship of the Lord. And if it is, that’s the thing you’re worshiping. But there’s even more here. There’s even more here. Notice what Hannah says about this child that she wants more than anything, the greatest desire of her heart. Three times, she declares herself to be the Lord’s servant. No conditions, no transactions on that. But then she says, and if you give me this child that I want so desperately, I will give him back to you. If you give to me, I’m going to give back to you. I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life. And she means it too. These are not just empty promises. We’ll see in the weeks to come that her son will move at a very young age, out of her house and into another house, to be trained as a leader. Just for a moment this morning, church, just for a moment, imagine that you have longed for years for God to give you something. Some of you have. But imagine you have longed for years for God to give you something, to take away the pain you feel, or to give you a blessing that you’re longing for. For some of you, it’s the same as Hannah. You long for children and are struggling to have them, but there are lots of things that you could long for: a house to call a home, a job when you’re struggling to find work.

[00:22:00] Maybe you’re longing for a spouse that you can’t seem to find in this world anywhere. Whatever it is, picture it. Can you now imagine saying to the Lord, if you give this to me, I will give it right back to you. God, I will make sure that the blessing that you give me serves you, even if it means I don’t have it anymore. That’s how much I’m willing to give it back to you. This is an aspect of true worship that we often forget. We might get the first part down where we say that we won’t desire things more than we desire God. But there’s a second part. Every blessing God gives is intended to be given back to him in worship. Nothing that God gives to us is ultimately for us. It is ultimately to be used in worship of the Lord. Now that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy it. Of course we do. Certainly we do. The Bible tells us to enjoy these blessings. But as the Apostle Paul tells us in first Corinthians ten, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. In other words, give everything to God back in worship. If he gives you anything it’s a gift that you’re to give back to him in worship.

[00:23:30] So Hannah is praying silently for this and her lips are moving, but she’s not speaking out loud. And Eli sees this and assumes that Hannah must be drunk, which feels to me like a pretty big jump to conclusions, doesn’t it? Doesn’t that seem like a big jump? Maybe. I mean, I don’t know, maybe drunk people are showing up to worship at Shiloh all the time. I don’t know. I can assure you, church, I can assure you, if you come to Calvary and I see you and you’re praying and your lips are moving, but I can’t hear what you’re saying, you are going to get the benefit of the doubt. Okay? Hannah says, no, I’m not drunk. I’m not drunk. I am a woman troubled in spirit, she says. I think the reason that God had Eli notice Hannah and say something is that so he would learn what was really happening and give her a blessing. He wouldn’t have said anything to her otherwise if he hadn’t seen her lips moving. It’s one of those moments of God choreographing his will through small, simple observances and actions. And God uses Eli, the priest who is not a great priest, by the way. We’re going to learn that here pretty soon, but he uses him in this moment to bless Hannah. Go in peace and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.

[00:24:55] This is the Lord giving Hannah a strong sense of hope that she has been praying about this all of her life, and now she’s going to be given a really strong sense of hope. And what does Hannah say? She quadruples down on her service. Do you see that? Let your servant find favor in your eyes. Now, technically, she’s speaking to Eli here, but because Eli is a priest and an intermediary between God and his people, she takes his words to her to mean this is God in some sense blessing her. And now her words are also to the Lord. Basically, she’s taking Eli’s words as God’s words and speaking back to the Lord, confirming that she is a servant and nothing is going to change that. And then she feels better. It says she eats. Her face is no longer sad. Listen, church. Listen. She doesn’t have the son yet. She doesn’t have a child in that moment. She doesn’t have the blessing that she longs for. And frankly, this blessing is not a promise. There’s no promise that she will have this child. So, what changed? Why is she suddenly not sad anymore? Why is she able to go on? It’s because she gave the whole situation over to the Lord. She’s done all that she can do. She has prayed fervently. She has heard from the priest. She has done everything that she can do in her power.

[00:26:36] The only thing left to do is to trust that God is in control. Hannah has the exact same approach to her anguish that Jesus had in the garden the night before he died. Jesus went to the garden to pray. He’s sweating profusely. His anxiety is through the roof and he prays to the Father, if there is any other way to accomplish what needs to be accomplished in order for salvation to take place without going to the cross, let’s do that, Jesus says. But he ends with, not my will, but yours be done. Okay? I have a will. I have a desire. But I bend to God’s will and God’s desire. Friends, that’s where confidence comes from in the face of pain and trials. We cry out to God to hear us. We rest in the confidence of knowing that because we belong to him, because we are servants of Christ, everything is going to turn out exactly as God intends it to. It says, Hannah, Elkanah and the rest rose early and worshiped the Lord. Do you see that? She’s not done worshiping. She’s going to continue. And just like with Jacob and Rachel, it says that when they got home, the Lord remembered Hannah. And she has a son, and she names him Samuel. The exact meaning of Samuel is a little bit debated. It seems that Hannah is making a pun on the word, the Hebrew word for ask, which has the same letters in it, but in my opinion the name refers to the response to her asking, which means that God hears.

[00:28:24] Many scholars take it that way, which also has the same letters in it. Regardless, clearly, Samuel is named in honor of God fulfilling her request. She knows that this boy is the answer to her vow. She’s going to give him back in worship as a servant of the Lord all the days of his life, which is what we’re going to read about in the coming weeks. Now, if you’re like me, you’re looking at Hannah this morning and you’re thinking, wow, I feel like I don’t measure up to that. I don’t feel like I worship like Hannah worships. So often I do approach the Lord in prayer transactionally. I feel like I do approach him transactionally like I’m going to make a withdrawal from the Lord’s spiritual bank account, as if somehow I could do that. Now I personally don’t usually struggle with saying to God, God, I’ll serve you if…. I don’t find myself putting conditions out there on my faith. But maybe you do. Maybe that’s your struggle. And what are we to do then? What do we do? Do we just despair that our worship will never match the faithfulness of Hannah? Do we just go to the Bible and go, well, I’m not as good as that

[00:29:43] woman. I’m not as good as that guy. Do we just feel bad about ourselves because we don’t worship the Lord by giving back to him every blessing that he has given to us? That we are often selfish with God’s blessings? Well, there certainly is room for repentance and improvement. We should always be thinking about the quality of our worship, the strength of our confidence in the Lord. But if all God gave us this morning was, be more like Hannah, we’d be in real trouble, wouldn’t we? If our acceptance before the Lord was based on the perfection of our worship, we are all in desperate trouble, but thankfully it isn’t. It never has been and it never will be. Our acceptance is not based on our ability to worship God perfectly, but on the perfect worship performed by our Savior. See, Jesus served God perfectly all the days of his life. He never failed. He never floundered. It’s his faithfulness that saves you, not your faithfulness. Jesus’ faithfulness on your behalf. Trust in Christ. Find your perfection only in him. And what happens is then you’re set free. You’re set free to be able to worship the Lord boldly. You can work to put all your confidence in his goodness. You can give every blessing back to him and worship because you are resting on his grace, not your performance. Just like Hannah. Let’s pray.

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