THE GRIEVING HEART
1 Samuel 1:1-8 (KJV)
Now there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite:
And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.
And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the LORD of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the LORD, were there.
And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions:
But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the LORD had shut up her womb.
And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD had shut up her womb.
And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the LORD, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat.
Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?
I want to say that I wrestled a great deal about preaching this passage.
This passage seems unhappy. Hannah was grieved in her heart. Her husband was upset at her because of it. The priest mistook her unhappy spirit for being drunk.
It really isn’t that I am unwilling to preach an unhappy topic, but there was something wrong in my spirit as I thought of it.
It seems like Hannah was wrong for being unhappy.
But the outcome is Samuel, and that is good.
So I wrestled with it.
But as I meditated and prayed it came to me. This is not an unhappy story. Hannah was not wrong. Not at all.
I understand that most people would rather not have a reason to grieve, to weep.
But if we believe we live in a fallen world, we must believe that we ought to be burdened about it.
The story of Hannah reminds us that everything is not all right in this world.
I want to work through this account by first remarking that this is
I. A REMINDER OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN
1 Samuel 1:1-2 (KJV)
Now there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite:
And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.
There are definitely some troubling things going on here.
For one thing, Elkanah had two wives
Just to settle the issue off the top, this was never God’s plan. Just because they did it in the Old Testament. Just because some people we think of as Bible heroes did it, that does not mean that it was God’s will or approved by God.
Aren’t you glad God still uses you even though you don’t do everything the way you should do it?
Listen, if I lived in those days,
· I would have been obligated to preach against Jacob’s four wives.
· I would have had to preach against David’s multiple wives
· I would have had to preach against Solomon’s 1000 wives.
And I am going to preach against the sins of people today, even if they are people God is using.
Elkanah had two wives and he was wrong for having them both.
For another thing, the two women were jealous of each other because of it
You’d have thought they all would have known better. These were Bible believing people. They knew all about Jacob, his wives and all the jealousy they had because of it.
Jacob had more than he could handle with all of those women and so did Elkanah.
But the real heart of this passage was that Hannah had no children.
This takes us all the way back to the original sin and the curse of Eve in the garden.
Having no children was not a particular judgment against Hannah. Some of the most important people in the Bible had trouble having children.
· Abraham and Sarah
· Isaac and Rebekah
· Rachel had trouble conceiving children
· Elizabeth was in her old age when she and Zacharias finally had John the Baptist
Being childless reminded them that their bodies bore the curse of sin. and
Being childless reminded them that they were hopeless for salvation without the blessing of God.
Let us never forget that, no matter how well off we might think we have it, no matter how happy we are.
All is not right in this world and
We are all in desperate need of the promised Saviour.
There ought to be something that reminds every one of us every day that we are broken.
There are plenty of reasons to rejoice.
The Bible teaches us to rejoice.
But the Bible teaches us to weep as well.
Further
II. AN ENEMY ACCUSED HER CONSTANTLY
1 Samuel 1:3-7 (KJV)
And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the LORD of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the LORD, were there.
And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions:
But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the LORD had shut up her womb.
And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD had shut up her womb.
And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the LORD, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat.
This is a spiritual family (at least in the outward show)
· They were faithful to worship the Lord
· They were faithful to assemble at the house of God (at that time in Shiloh)
· They were generous toward God and others.
But Penninah would not give Hannah a break.
The Bible calls her an adversary.
I am reminded of another adversary in the Bible.
1 Peter 5:8 (KJV)
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
He’s got another name in the Bible.
Revelation 12:10 (KJV)
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
With this adversary the devil out there, the Bible tells us to be sober and vigilant.
Neither of those terms conjure up ideas of revelry and play, do they.
Sober may not be weeping.
You might even be able to be sober without grieving.
But an adversary as a roaring lion is no reason to be happy.
The constant provoking of the adversary left Hannah weeping and fasting.
Furthermore,
III. NO HUMAN COULD HELP HER
1 Samuel 1:8 (KJV)
Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?
· Her husband couldn’t help her.
· The priest couldn’t help her
· Penninah wouldn’t help her
The fact is, it was the Lord who had shut up her womb. Only the Lord could help her.
I’m just going to say something here, I pray it is taken well.
Part of the reason we can be so happy in our day is because we have so many sources of help.
Maybe this China Virus is going to drive us to the place where we find out we have no help but God.
And here is the thing.
· If God becomes our only help, we have reason to fear, because we are not all we ought to be before Him.
· If God is our only help, we have reason to grieve because we have offended His holiness
· If God is our only help, we have reason to be burdened, because His only agenda is His will, not ours
I want to tell you; we need to be burdened.
· We need to be grieved over sin
· We need to be desperate for answers to prayers that matter
· We have got to have a reason to fast, to forgo our food our sleep, our happiness until we have answers to prayers that matter
I see also that,
IV. SHE WAS MISUNDERSTOOD
1 Samuel 1:9-14 (KJV)
So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD.
And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.
And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.
And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth.
Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.
And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.
Only the Lord could help her so she went directly to the Lord.
I want you to remember the pattern for worship in those days.
The priest’s job was to go between the people and God.
A person would bring a sacrifice to the Tabernacle, which at that time was in Shiloh, they would slay the sacrifice before the priest outside the courtyard of the tabernacle, and then the priest would take over. He did everything else for you.
It’s not that individuals would not or could not pray – we see many examples of believers praying in the Old Testament – but it was the priest’s job to take your burdens to the Lord.
When Eli saw this individual, a woman no less
· Grieved
· Weeping
· Pouring out her heart
· Moving her mouth but not speaking an audible word
He immediately mistook her to be drunk.
Religion almost always gets it wrong.
I am not sure I want to encourage you to observe all the various things that pass for church today, but if you were to do it, you would observe how much of it is about making people feel good.
· The music is meant to make people feel good
· The mood is meant to make people feel good
· The message is meant to make people feel good
They use special lights and special colors designed to give the so-called church the same atmosphere as a dance hall or a music concert.
Men like Joel Osteen avoid topics that might make people uncomfortable like
· Hell
· Homosexuality
· Sin
He reminds people they can have their best life right now.
Others promise people health and wealth.
Still other just make the services into a carnival act.
Our kind of churches probably won’t do any of that, but we might get uncomfortable if too much emphasis was placed on:
· How evil the world is
· How little Christians are doing about it and
· How helpless we are to turn it around
Evil is going to grow worse and worse until Jesus finally rescues the believers out of this evil.
So I see that,
V. SHE PRAYED
1 Samuel 1:12-15 (KJV)
And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth.
Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.
And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.
And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD.
How we need to massive movement of prayer today.
Some are attempting to build such movements.
I have been praying morning noon and night for the blessings of God.
· Morning – blessing upon my family
· Noon-blessing upon our church (I have come to call it God’s church on Canyon Rd)
· Evening – blessing upon our nation
I’ve told you about the initiative in some Independent Baptist Churches to pray through the elections for,
· Personal revival
· National revival and
· Outcome of the elections
When this COVID-19 thing first hit a preacher friend of mine began an international online prayer meeting. He kept it up for around two months.
I try to use things like:
· Corporate days of prayer and fasting
· The 24 hour prayer day
· The private Facebook prayer group and
· Now, the prayer path and gardens
as ways to encourage and remind us all to pray.
Here’s the thing; only when we have reason to be grieved in our hearts will we really “pour out our souls before the Lord.”
And that is the prayer that God answered.
Finally
VI. SHE GAVE HER ANSWER TO THE LORD
1 Samuel 1:11 (KJV)
And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.
This brings us all the way back to the theme I set for this year,
Matthew 6:20-21 (KJV)
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Lay up your treasures in heaven.
If you keep them here, they will be a disappointment.
Matthew 6:19 (KJV)
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
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