Intro: This narrative is one of those that we all know; in fact it is so well known it is has become identified with the theme of prayer and baby dedication. Elkanah and Hannah’s story carry a very familiar situation similar to the Patriarch Abraham and Sarah. Both were married to their true loves but they were not able to produce any heirs.
Socially these women were considered failures, it’s not like it is today where we measure success by material things. These women had “stuff” they had the wealth and prominence that most people today would covet to have. Their barrenness was a social embarrassment for their husband’s. Children were a true measure of a man’s wealth and were important to society’s economic structure; David would say in Ps 127, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They were a source of labor for the family, and it was their duty to care for their parents in their old age. According to tradition if a couple had been married for ten years without producing an heir the husband could take an additional wife to fulfill the commandment to be fruitful and multiply; such as Sarah offering her handmaid Hagar to Abraham Ge 16:3 And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.
Both these wives would soon fall victim to the other spouse when they produced heirs and they could not. This rivalry as it was could now been seen between Sarah and Hagar, Hannah and Peninnah. Hagar and Peninnah belonged to the second wives club. You could add Leah to that club as well even though she was Jacobs’s first wife she was second place to Rachel his true love. These three women would be the third wheel; threes company this was not.
If you read any commentaries or listen to any sermons on these three women they are never talked about in a positive light. They are given the title of bullies or by today’s standards they are “mean girls”. They are accused of being jealous, manipulative, and mean spirited. Today I have come to defend one of these “mean girls” and show that her actions were meant for good and not evil.
I. I’m sure you are asking yourself why I would defend someone that is clearly an aggressor and adversary to one that is Godly.
A. When Elkanah gave out portions he gave to Peninnah (Jewel, ruby, precious, valuable) his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions: But unto Hannah (Grace-favor) he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: some may say it was a Double portion. Elkanah had come to the conclusion that it didn’t matter if Hannah ever bore him any children because Peninnah was very fruitful.
1. So Elkanah was adjusted to the situation and so was Hannah, Hannah was satisfied with the circumstances because she knew she was the favored wife, she had Elkanah’s attention, and affection.
2. Everything was fine: they had an arrangement; they had it all figured out (anybody ever been there?) You thought you had everything figured out, you had all your ducks in a row, it wasn’t perfect but you knew you could make it serve your purposes. Then out of nowhere something happened that messed everything up.
B. Peninnah starts to provoke Hannah over her barrenness; her words are harsh and are like arrows that stick in Hannah’s heart. At first they just seem to bounce off and have no effect, but Peninnah does not let up, and eventually it becomes clear the arrows have hit their mark. Now we see that Hannah is now disturbed over the fact that she is barren and has not borne any children to Elkanah.
1. Elkanah tries to pull her back, and get her to settle back down and just enjoy what they have. He would say Am I not better to thee than 10 sons? But Hannah has been awakened no longer looking through a glass, darkly she has become uncomfortable and dissatisfied and discontent with things as they are. Now discontent and discomfort and frustration change into a desire and a craving and expectation and a need for more.
2. Hannah begins to realize: there’s more than this, I was created for more than this. Now she looks past Elkanah, all the love, all the favor, all the material blessings cannot satisfy her, they cannot open her womb, they cannot meet her need. She has set her affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
C. I come to tell you there is a cry from the spirit of every true believer for a life that is higher than money or popularity or worldly success, higher than religion. Inside the womb of every true child of God is a cry for the miraculous, for signs and wonders and miracles, a cry from their spiritual womb for the manifestation of the power of God, to be fruitful, to birth souls into the kingdom. A cry to be more than conquerors …a cry that says the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force … to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils: to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy:
1. I believe somebody is looking past Elkanah, he represents the love the blessings the favor, and they’re going to cry out to God and contend with God for the glory and for the power. In other words: somebody maybe not everybody, but somebody wants more out of life than to just go along and get along.
2. This is the aim and goal of the Holy Spirit, the church and all of her ministry’s: To bring every child of God to the place where not only do they make it to heaven but where they are living their lives to God’s fullness. Jesus said I come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
3. Living the Christian life at the highest degree attainable means experiencing and manifesting and affecting and influencing others with the power and anointing of the HG. The Bible says that God has given us the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, but most of us either are too afraid to use it or have been satisfied with a counterfeit form of it.
D. I have discovered that a lot of people in the church are very comfortable and satisfied right where they are and don’t like to be pushed and have become like the rich man that said, soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. We have become a prodigal generation in the church. We have cashed out the Presence and Power of God for cheap thrills and chills and think there is nothing more to gain. I love you enough to push you today, even if you think I’m a pain in the neck, because I want you to experience a life of maximum impact.
1. In fact you might even say the same thing about me that Hannah said about Peninnah, she is my adversary, a thorn in my side, she makes me uncomfortable, she irritates me, and in fact I can’t stand her. Peninnah provoked Hannah over her barrenness. The point is Hannah had more in her but she was satisfied to have the love of her husband and be blessed and favored and never reached for more or believed for more or expected more, until She was pushed, until she was Provoked.
a. I didn’t come here to make friends I came here to push somebody and to provoke somebody. I’m here as an adversary to provoke you to produce;*I’m an adversary to status quo religion *I’m an adversary to Luke warmness and indifference *I’m an adversary to settling for crumbs when you can have the whole loaf *I’m an adversary to sitting in the church and never reaching for more, never contending for the baptism of the Holy ghost, or never reaching for the gifts of the Spirit, never casting out a devil or laying hands on the sick and seeing them recover. *I’m an adversary to a form of godliness that denies the power thereof. *I’m an adversary to a religion that can be satisfied just knowing you’re saved while the rest of the world goes to hell. *I’m an adversary to self-righteous snooty nosed Christians who want to sit in the church and pass judgment on everybody that don’t meet their standards. I hope before I’m finished I make everyone of you mad M (Motivated) A (Against) D (the devil) Motivated against the devil.
2. I don’t know if Hannah and Peninnah ever became friends, but I know this: if it weren’t for Peninnah; Hannah would have lived her entire life with a barren womb. Blessed but barren; Favored but barren; Comfortable but barren; Graced but fruitless. Peninnah provoked Hannah: to believe for more to reach for more to expect more and to produce more. And the Bible record testifies that Samuel; one of the greatest prophets that ever lived came out of Hannah’s womb because somebody provoked her.
3. Remember what I told you Peninnah means? (It means jewel, precious, valuable). In other words what I’m saying is; the most valuable thing in Hannah’s life was the thing that provoked her to cry out to God for more.
a. Elkanah loved her but he wouldn’t push her, he wouldn’t provoke her, he didn’t want to upset her. It’s nice to be loved and appreciated and pampered, but sometimes you need to be provoked. The jewels in your life are the things, situations, and people that push you and provoke you to become the best that you can be. Don’t curse your crisis it is the very thing that is trying to push and provoke you to produce. 1Co 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God [is] faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear [it]. 1Co 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Peninnah may have been a third wheel but she was the front wheel of the tricycle that was steering Hannah to her destiny.
II. The people who get up early to go to work appreciate the rooster who crows at daybreak. The people who are lazy and have no ambition and no goals and no dreams and no expectations, they hate the rooster and they want to kill him.
A. Heb 10:24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: I have decided whether you love me or hate me I’m going to keep on crowing and with the help and grace of God I believe I’m going to provoke somebody to get up and get moving and start walking in their destiny.
1. Somebody is here today listening to my voice you’ve been like Hannah, you’re saved you know God loves you, you’re favored you have the grace of God on your life. And you’ve become comfortable, satisfied, adjusted, and settled with what is familiar.
2. I believe God has sent this word to stir you up, to wake you up, and to provoke you to get up and get moving, to get in the press and contend for his presence and his power and his glory. Many of you don’t like to get this kind of wake-up call, because you have come to what we have mis-labeled as a “comfort zone”. That’s a pretty term that really does not mean a thing, if truth be told there is nothing comfortable about that “zone”. Most of us, not all of us, but most live in a place of two points; the fear of failure and the fear of success, whenever we are too close to either one we don’t know how to manage so we pull back into the middle and call it our comfort zone.
3. We live in the middle of failure and success and claim it is comfortable when all it really is, is just familiar. In other words we understand it, we know how to control it, and we are used to it, and feel safe. Don’t let the familiarity you're so comfortable with keep you away from something better; something that you would already be familiar with if you had heeded your wake-up calls.
4. God is not leading you to a place that He is inventing as He goes along. No, He’s taking you somewhere that He has already declared and is ordering your foot steps toward your destiny. It already exists. It was in the mind of God before He formed thee in the belly He knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb He sanctified thee, He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last the Bible says Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: you may have not started out the way you wanted but if you will push yourself into the fullness of God your end will be greater. We’ve got to get to the place where your “comfort zone" is the will of God, no matter how uncertain and "on the edge" that place may be.
B. We are a people of passion; we are moved by our emotions and senses. We are provoked by what we feel. Anger, frustration, joy, sadness, all of these are part of a complex category of over 100 emotions that we have. Emotion is associated with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation. Motivations will direct and energize behavior, while emotions provide the affective component to motivation, positive or negative.
1. By nature I am a relaxed care free person, I can handle intense situations with a cool calm demeanor. But don’t let appearances fool you, the moment you provoke me you will see another side. You mess with my family you going to see the HULK come out in me, and you want like me when I get angry.
2. We are provoked by how we feel. Just look at any cause or charity they will use imagery to provoke you to give. They will show starving children with their ribs protruding through their skin, as sad music plays and the announces says, “As you are throwing out your leftovers there are children in this village that will eat in one month what you just threw out from one meal”; next thing you know you are dialing that number with credit card in hand.
3. It is our nature to be passive; it is not until we are provoked that we change. Now what provokes us is a vast field that can range from a cause, individuals, our surroundings, the atmosphere or climate of certain places, are just some examples of things that can change us. We are all products of provoke. You were not born the way you are now; you were molded by places, people, and events from your past.
4. We are all born into sin the Bible says, Job 14:1 ¶ Man [that is] born of a woman [is] of few days, and full of trouble. Jer 17:9 The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it? Ps 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. It is my nature to sin but it is influences that provoked the flesh. If you were exposed to alcohol, drugs and abuse as a child your chances of them having an influence in your life are greater.
C. Just as much as our emotions and flesh are provoked so is our spirit. Ac 17:16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred (or provoked) in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
1. Abraham was provoked to leave his family and dwell in a land he knew not, It was an Egyptian soldier that provoked Moses to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; it was a kings decree that provoked Daniel to go home and open his windows and pray, it was an angel that provoked the disciples to stop gazing up and return to the upper room where the HS would fall on them, it was Jesus that provoked Peter out of the boat, it was the doctors reports that provoked the women with the issue of blood to push through the crowd.
2. It was Elijah that provoked Elisha that there was life beyond the plow, Esther was provoked to go before the King at risk of losing her life, Goliath and the philistine army would have never been brought down had David never been provoked, Joshua and Caleb were provoked to take the promise land.
3. Over 2000 years ago Heaven kissed earth and Jesus came to upset and provoke the religious system of the day. Joh 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. He stood up against the religious elite, He challenged the system, He dined with sinners, performed miracles on holy days, and He challenged fishermen to become fishers of men. Jesus said he came to heal the broken hearted, to give liberty, to open blinded eyes, by his strips we are healed, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. His name is above all names His name alone provokes change, with His name there is salvation, healing, power, devils tremble, sickness flees, etc…No other name I Know That can calm your fears and dry your tears and wipe away your pain When you don't know what else to pray When you can't find the words to say; Say the name of Jesus.
4. The great revivals of the past were fueled by men and women that were provoked to seek God for more. It was people like DL Moody, The Wesley brothers John and Charles, Charles Parham, William Seymour, Jonathan Edwards, A.A. Allen, Katherine Kulman, Jack Coe, Lester Sumrall, & Smith Wigglesworth that were provoked by sin, provoked by religion, provoked by the state of man, provoked by what they read in scripture. Just as much as our emotions and flesh are provoked by this world so is our Spirit. It’s what causes our Spirit to groan the Bible says; even we ourselves groan within ourselves, the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
III. The Bible says: 1 Samuel 1:19 And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the LORD, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the LORD remembered her. (20) Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel.
A. God sent me here to push you and provoke you because there’s more in you. Shut up in your spiritual womb are resources that have never been touched. We want to sit down now and give up. Inside you are miracles but it’s going to take some provoking to get you to produce, shut up within you are things but you got to get real in order to release.
1. There are ministries, songs, books, gifts, and talents. There are anointing, dreams, and visions that are locked up in your belly.
B. I’m talking to somebody today who up until now you’ve been satisfied just to splash around in the fountain of blood knowing that your sins are washed away and that you’re going to go to heaven when you die, and that was enough.
1. But I believe something has started stirring in you and you are feeling something moving in your belly. *There’s a Samuel in there trying to get out (there is a prophetic anointing trying to be birthed) There’s an anointing stretching on the inside of you that’s why you’ve been uncomfortable that’s why things that used to satisfy you don’t satisfy you anymore, that’s why you’ve been irritated and agitated.
2. There are evangelists and teachers, and deacons, and missionaries and authors, musicians and singers, and youth leaders in your womb trying to get out. *the greatest sermons have yet to be preached *the greatest books have yet to be written *the greatest songs have yet to be sung *the greatest musicians have yet to play *the greatest works have yet to be done *the greatest churches have yet to be built why? Because they haven’t been born yet they are still locked up in your spiritual womb, you’ve felt it stirring you know you were created for more. There’s more in you; I wish somebody would push your neighbor and tell them: there’s more in you, you were created for more, and you were created to make a maximum impact.
3. The Spirit of God is being like Peninnah today and is provoking you to produce… If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. It’s time for the church to birth some babies of (ex…) new levels of anointing need to be birthed, a new passion for souls, and a burden for the lost need to be birthed; your spiritual womb becomes a door on this earth through which heaven is manifested. (Did not Jesus say: out of your belly, out of your innermost being, out of your spiritual womb) would flow rivers of living water. It’s time for this nation to be consumed by a flood; not of water but of Power of the Holy Ghost!!! It’s time to stop looking at the former as if our best days are behind us, stop asking why the lame don’t walk, the blind don’t see, the deaf don’t hear, and the bound being freed and know that our latter is greater, Jesus said, Greater works shall you do, within you is the power for the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and the bound to be freed.
