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Introduction
David is emphasized in Scripture
Pop quiz: Besides Jesus, whose name do you think is mentioned most often in Scripture? If you had to guess which men were mentioned the most out of this list – who would come first - Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Elijah, and Paul. If we list them from the least often mentioned to the most, it would come out this way: Adam is mentioned 24 times in Scripture. Next come Isaiah and Noah – 53 times and 54 times. Then it doubles when you get to Elijah - 113 times, and doubles again with Paul at 210, and Abraham at 230. Then it really jumps up when you get to Moses – 847 times. But the most of all by far is David. His name appears 1089 times in Scripture. He’s mentioned twice in Scripture by name before he’s even born!
The story of David’s life begins about halfway through 1 Samuel (chapter 16) and dominates the next 49 chapters of God’s Word until he finally dies in 1 Kings 10. On top of that, 1 Chronicles 11-29 is all about the life of David. That is another 19 chapters. So that is a total of 68 chapters of God’s Word.
One thing is very, very clear – God wants us to know all about David. If God mentions someone over 1000 times – 400 more times than Adam, Isaiah, Noah, Elijah, Paul and Abraham all put together, it makes you think maybe God wants you to understand some things about David. And a big reason for that is that knowing about the life of David is important for understanding the Psalms. And understanding the Psalms is crucial for understanding what it means to know God, to love God, and to commune with God. God gave us a lot of details about the life of the man He chose to be our chief worship leader, because so much of what we learn about how to worship comes from the interactions between David and God that arose from the life situations of David. So it is essential that we know about his life. And beyond that, understanding David is crucial for understanding Jesus. Almost all messianic prophecy in is based on David and God’s promises to him.
And if all that is not enough, perhaps the biggest reason of all to study what the Bible says about David is in 1 Samuel 13:14 where God refers to David as a man after His own heart. Even after David committed adultery and murder, God selected Him as the main worship leader not only for Israel, but also for the Church - all of God’s people for the last 3000 years and from now until the Lord Jesus returns. David – even with all his sins and failure – is the one God chose to teach His people throughout the ages how to worship Him and how to walk with Him. Very few people, if any, (except for Jesus Himself), have ever loved God like David loved God.
During the years after David’s death – from the time of the divided kingdom until the exile - each king that came to the throne was assessed according to how well his character measured up to David’s. Following David’s example became the standard for whether or not God would bless a king and bless Israel during that king’s rule. Right at the very beginning God told Solomon:
1 Kings 9:4-5 if you walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did … 5 I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever
But at the end of his life the sad assessment of Solomon was that he did not measure up to David:
1 Kings 11:6 Solomon did evil in the eyes of Yahweh; he did not follow Yahweh completely, as David his father had done.
He followed the Lord, but not completely like David.
In ch.14 we get the final assessment of Jeroboam’s reign directly from the mouth of God.
1 Kings 14:8 …you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes.
The assessment of king Abijah’s life is in 1 Ki.15:3.
1 Ki.15:3 his heart was not fully devoted to Yahweh his God, as the heart of David his forefather had been.
1 Ki.15:11 Asa did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, as his father David had done.
2 Ki.14:3 [Amaziah] did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, but not as his father David had done.
He came close, but not quite as good as David.
2 Ki.16:2 Ahaz … reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of Yahweh his God.
2 Ki.18:3 [Hezekiah] did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, just as his father David had done.
2 Ki.22:2 [Josiah] did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh and walked in all the ways of his father David
David is the Old Testament standard for godliness, and not only for kings, but also for the people themselves. The reason the kingdom was divided in the first place was because God punished them for not following the example of David’s faithfulness.
1 Ki.11:33 I will do this because they have … not walked in my ways, nor done what is right in my eyes, nor kept my statutes and laws as David, Solomon's father, did. 34 "'But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomon's hand; I have made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of David my servant, whom I chose and who observed my commands and statutes.
God gave us 68 chapters on David because He wanted us to have a crystal clear idea of what faithfulness to God looks like.
Now, of course we have an infinitely greater example of how to live a godly life in the life of Jesus, who never sinned. And that is why we preach Christ far more than we preach about David. However, one thing you cannot learn from Jesus’ example is how your own sin fits into the equation of walking with the Lord. We do not learn from Jesus’ example how to repent of sin and recover from failure. And in addition to that, the life of David gives us insight into some of the kingly aspects of Christ that are not yet fully in place. The reign of David was designed by God to teach us how to have joyful hope in the coming reign of Christ. So we are going to begin a study of the second half of the books of Samuel.
Historical Context: After the period of the Judges, Israelite low point
The first mention of David by name in Samuel comes in chapter 16. But I do not want to just jump right into the middle of the book, because I doubt we will be able to understand the second half of the book if we have not taken at least a brief look at the first half. So first let me set up the context of the book so you know where we are in history.
After Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt they wandered in the desert for 40 years and then entered the Promised Land. The book of Joshua tells the story of their conquest of the Promised Land. Then comes the period of the Judges, which is the period from the conquest up to the time of Israel’s first king. That period went for about 300 years, starting in the 1300’s B.C. (By the way, if you want a quick and easy way to set some landmark dates to understand Jewish history – just think in terms of 500 year increments. The most important dates are around 500 BC, 1000, 1500, and 2000. 2000 BC is the time of Abraham, 1500 is Moses and the Exodus, 1000 is David, and 500 is the exile when Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were carried of to Babylon. Those are rough dates, but accurate within about 100 years.) So the few hundred years leading up to the time of David was the time of the Judges.
And that period was probably the low point of Jewish history. When they came to the Promised land the people living there were incredibly wicked, and God commanded Israel to exterminate them completely. But Israel disobeyed, let them live, and soon became just like them. The level of wickedness in Israel at that time was so extreme that the book of Judges is really an R-rated book. You have to have a strong stomach to even read it. There is violence and immorality and murder; you have women being raped to death, and then cut up into pieces and put in the mail causing civil war. It is a time of terrible rebellion against God.
Once in a while when God sent severe punishment they cry out to God for deliverance, and God would send a judge to deliver them. But then they would always go right back to their rebellion.
In-between the book of Judges and the books of Samuel there is a little book called Ruth. The purpose of Ruth is basically to say, “Even though things have sunk to an all time low, don’t despair – David’s coming.” Ruth is the delightful little story of how David’s great grandma and grandpa met and got married. If you look at the last chapter in the book of Ruth you will notice that the very last word in the book is “David.”
Samuel’s: Rescuer of an obscure woman and a whole nation
Zoom lens
This brings us to the books of Samuel. Samuel begins with the story of Samuel’s birth. Whoever wrote the book of Samuel was a master storyteller. It is like if you were watching a movie and it started out with the camera zoomed in on a woman who was drowning and crying out for help. And then God sends someone to pull her into a little eight-foot rescue boat. And a nice little smile comes across your face as you think, “That’s a nice little story.” And just then the camera pans back and you see, surrounding this little rescue boat, indescribably chaos. And huge cruise ship is sinking, and thousands of people are in the water drowning. And by the time the camera zooms far enough out to see all the carnage, that little rescue boat looks like a little dot on the ocean. And at the amazing, unexpected end of the story it turns out that the size of that rescue boat was deceiving at first, and it is plenty big enough to rescue all those thousands of people. This is the story of the first seven chapters of 1 Samuel.
The story begins with the camera zoomed all the way in to one obscure nobody woman who lived with her husband up in the hills of Ephraim. And this hillbilly lady had a little crisis going in her life. She cried out to God for help, and God answered her cries. And she responds with this wonderful psalm of praise for God’s deliverance in chapter two.
Then, midway through chapter two, the camera begins to pan back to show you the bigger picture. And a lovely little story of a woman with a personal crisis who gets her prayers answered turns into a much, much bigger story. As the camera zooms out and you start to get the bigger picture, it takes your breath away. The writer shows you the crisis that the entire nation was in. And that was a crisis of mammoth proportions.
The rescue boat is the birth of Samuel, which is described in chapter one. Any time the Bible gives you the story of someone’s birth you know God is getting ready to do a great work of deliverance. God wants us to understand that He does not find great deliverers for His people by reviewing thousands of resumes. The great deliverers in Scripture are great deliverers because God picked them out before they were born and planned for them to be great deliverers. And that was the case with Samuel.
Answer to prayer
Samuel comes into existence as a result of passionate, fervent, intense, heartfelt, persistent prayer. Hannah is barren, which was about the worst fate a Hebrew woman could suffer at that time. It was the way to participate in God’s promise to bless the whole world through the offspring of Abraham. It should be a painful fate for any woman of any time, because children are a gift from God. People who are married but who do not want children do not have the same priorities as God. But Hannah did, and so she desperately wanted to conceive a child. Her husband had another wife who was able to have children, and that woman saw Hannah in her brokenness and tears, and did everything she could to rub it in and to make Hannah feel even worse. 1 Samuel 1:6 And because Yahweh had closed [Hannah’s] womb, her rival (the other wife) kept provoking her in order to irritate her.
This other woman’s name was Pinninah. She was ruthless. She assaulted Hannah right at her most tender, most sensitive, most vulnerable place. Hannah would weep so bitterly that she could not even eat. (verse seven) Most of us get upset and eat twice as much as normal. Imagine how grieved you have to be to not be able to eat. The home should be a refuge from suffering, but for Hannah it was the place of daily torment.
So Hannah goes with her family to worship at the Tabernacle like they did every year, and Hannah starts pouring her heart out to God in anguish, asking for relief from her plight. She gets so lost in prayer that her lips are moving even though she is praying silently. And the High Priest, Eli (who has all the spiritual sensitivity of a doorknob), concludes that she must be drunk and he rebukes her. But then when he finds out her situation he says
1 Sam.1:17 Eli answered, "Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him."
18 … Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.
God’s Comfort
What a sweet and beautiful picture of how God comforts the afflicted. Then she came and “poured out her heart” to God, and went away happy and no longer downcast and with a restored appetite and ability to enjoy food. And the amazing thing is nothing in her circumstances had changed! She still did not have any children, she was not pregnant, and that other wife was still there. Nothing had changed except for the fact that she had been in the presence of God and received grace from Him. The joy that seemed like it could only come if circumstances changed, came without circumstances changing. God is capable of giving joy and satisfaction of soul apart from circumstances.
That is so basic – you have heard it all your life. And we all think we believe it. And yet, very few really believe it when this magnitude of pain hits. When you are in a situation that is so excruciating that you can’t even eat, and the pain is so intense that tears are streaming down your face uncontrollably, it is next to impossible to believe that you could have fullness of joy and deep, sweet, profound peace, even if that pain continues indefinitely.
But I can tell you with absolute certainty that God has promised that it is true! Hannah did not walk out of there painting on a happy face and pretending to be joyful. She walked out actually happy! And it was a happiness that affected her body – her appetite came back. No circumstances can give you the happiness you are craving. But God can, and He can do it with or without changing circumstances. In Hannah’s case He did it first without changing circumstances, and then, after she had the joy, He went ahead and changed her circumstances and piled on even more joy. Hannah became pregnant with Samuel. So that is the drowning woman that gets pulled into the little rescue boat. Now let’s back up and see the Titanic sinking.
The sinking Titanic
The Corrupt Priesthood
In chapter two we find that the priesthood was incredibly corrupt. Eli’s sons were stealing sacrifices from people by force. On top of that they were committing sexual immorality right in the Temple.
Eli rebuked them, but did not do anything to restrain them. In fact, he got so fat eating that meat they stole that his obesity eventually led to his death. And so God pronounced a judgment on them.
2:29 …Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel?'
(Interesting – when you fail to discipline your children, or when you discipline only with words and not actions, you are honoring your children more than God.) God tells him that all his descendents will die in the prime of life, including his sons Hophni and Phinehas. (2:31-34)
Samuel the true prophet of God
35 I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. I will firmly establish his house, and he will minister before my anointed one always.
Who is this priest going to be?
3:1 The boy Samuel ministered before Yahweh under Eli. In those days the word of Yahweh was rare; there were not many visions. 2 One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place…
And it goes on to immediately tell the story of when God spoke to the boy Samuel at night and he kept thinking it was Eli calling him. If you grew up going to Sunday School I am sure you will remember this story. It is a famous story, but most of the time it is taken out of context. When we tell our kids this story about Samuel hearing the voice of God, what is the lesson we want them to learn? Does this story teach us that we should listen for God’s audible voice as God’s normal way of speaking? No. The point of the story in context is exactly the opposite. The point is not that everybody can hear an audible voice from God. The point is that in a time when the voice of God was very rare, and there were few prophets, and even they rarely heard from God, and when the high priest himself was not hearing God’s voice, God did speak to Samuel.
The point of chapter three is to show that Samuel is a prophet. Samuel did not hear God’s voice because he had any special spiritual sensitivities. He was not listening for God’s voice - he didn’t even know it was God. Eli had to tell him that. Samuel heard God’s voice because God had chosen Samuel to be a prophet. The lesson of chapter three is not that we should be like Samuel. The lesson of chapter three is that we should listen to Samuel. Eli and his house are rejected by God and Samuel is now chosen to be God’s prophet and priest and king-maker. God takes a whole chapter to make it very emphatic that Samuel is His chosen prophet.
Military disaster
Apostasy – 4000 dead
In chapter four the camera pans back even further and you see the rest of the Titanic going down. It is hard to imagine a moment in Israel’s history that is more horrible and desperate than what we read in chapter four. Israel goes to war against the Philistines and gets creamed. According to verse two 4000 Israelite soldiers died on the battlefield. Let that sink in for a moment – that is a staggering number. It is a lot more than were killed on 9/11. And Israel was a lot smaller nation than the United States is, so the proportional loss was really a lot more.
And the worst part is the Israelites have no idea why it happened. God had promised to take care of them and give them military victory in the Promised Land. They did not have a king, they did not have military leaders – they really did not even have a military. God had not set them up that way, because He wanted it to be clear that He was their deliverer. But He was not going to deliver them while they were rebelling against Him and worshipping idols. And so they lost, and did not know why.
Attempted manipulation of God – 30,000 dead
3 When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, "Why did Yahweh bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of Yahweh's covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies."
They know they need God’s help to win, so they turn to religion. They do not repent of their sins, they do not get rid of their idols, they do not seek God Himself, they do not even look to God to deliver them. They do not say, “Let’s get the ark so God will be with us and save us,” they say, “Let’s get the ark so it will be with us and save us.” Their religion had become so externalized and ritualized, that they did not concern themselves with what was in their hearts. Their religion was all about actions. In some ways they were like the modern Roman Catholics. That is not to say Catholics do not care about the heart – many Catholics do. But they also believe that there are religious rituals and actions that have their effect regardless of what is in your heart. Participation in the sacraments gives you grace from God just by doing them, regardless of what is in your heart. The Israelites thought just having that box would give them victory in battle. They did not care about God – they only cared about getting the military deliverance, and they were trying to use God to get what they wanted. That is very common. People use religion to try to manipulate God to do what they want instead of seeking what God wants.
But God will never, ever be manipulated. And if you try to manipulate Him you are not going to like the results.
4 So the people sent men to Shiloh, and they brought back the ark of the covenant of Yahweh Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim. And Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. 5 When the ark of Yahweh's covenant came into the camp, all Israel raised such a great shout that the ground shook.
10 So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers.
That is another 11 9/11’s. But that is not all.
11 The ark of God was captured, and Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.
The ark was where God had said He would reveal His presence to bless His people. So if the ark was gone, God was gone. And without Yahweh’s protection and blessing, Israel really, really did not have anything going for them. A messenger came from the battle and reported to Eli.
17 "Israel fled before the Philistines, and the army has suffered heavy losses. Also your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured." 18 When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had led Israel forty years.
Hearing that your two sons are dead is hard news. But hearing that the ark was captured – that is fatal news.
19 His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and near the time of delivery. When she heard the news that the ark of God had been captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she went into labor and gave birth, but was overcome by her labor pains. 20 As she was dying, the women attending her said, "Don't despair; you have given birth to a son."
That is how much the people back then appreciated children. If you just got news that your husband and father both died and you were dying in childbirth, as long as the child was okay the normal thing would be for you to be happy.
20 …But she did not respond or pay any attention. 21 She named the boy Ichabod, saying, "The glory has departed from Israel"-- … 22 She said, "The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured."
By getting the ark they thought they were turning to God for help. And 30,000 died and the ark was captured. And what they have now is hopelessness with a capital H. Nothing like this had ever happened to Israel. That woman was right – God’s glory had departed. He had abandoned them and they were utterly helpless. Hannah’s little crisis in chapter one was nothing. The whole Titanic just went under.
Ups and Downs of Dagaon
Once the Philistines got the ark they thought they could use it for their advantage just like Israel tried to do. They captured the ark and so they thought they captured Israel’s God. So they put it in the temple with one of their gods, thinking, “Good, now we have that much more power.” What happens next is hilarious – to us; but terrifying to the Philistines. Spurgeon has a sermon on this chapter titled “The ups and downs of Dagon.” Yahweh keeps slamming him down on his face, and the Philistines keep propping him back up, until Yahweh decapitates him. They come in and find Dagon with his head and hands cut off. On top of that the people all get tumors, and a lot of them die. So they keep passing the ark from town to town until finally they realize they need to send it back to Israel.
70 more dead in Beth Shemesh
So they put it on a cart pulled by some cows that just leave their calves, and miraculously bring the ark back to Israel - mooing the whole time like they are being driven against their will. When the ark arrives back in Israel, at Beth Shemesh, there is a huge celebration. But that celebration is severely dampened when Yahweh kills 70 men for looking inside the ark.
The Ark of the Covenant is not just a box that you can do with as you please. Yahweh is a God of great mercy and great compassion and great tenderness and forgiveness and patience, but He will not be trifled with. The God if Israel will be taken seriously. So they send the ark off to another town where it stays for the next 20 years.
The rescue of the Titanic
In chapter seven that little rescue boat that pulled that one woman out of her little crisis now ends up saving the whole cruse ship. In chapter seven the people’s sorrow finally starts to bring them to actual repentance before God. We will return to chapter seven in detail later because repentance is a very important issue in Samuel. And it is crucial in the Christian life. We must understand how to respond to our own sin. Some of the commentators really scratch their heads over Saul and David, because from their point of view it seems like David’s sin was worse than Saul’s. And it seems like both men had the same kind of repentance. We see three big repentances in Samuel. First there is this national repentance in chapter seven; Then Saul’s inadequate repentance, and then David’s repentance. So we will look at those in detail. For now just understand that God responds with amazing deliverance and blessing in response to this repentance in chapter seven. The Philistines attack, the Israelites turn to God and rely completely on Him this time (instead of trying to use the ark)…
10 …that day Yahweh thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites. 11 The men of Israel rushed out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, slaughtering them along the way to a point below Beth Car.
13 So the Philistines were subdued and did not invade Israelite territory again. Throughout Samuel's lifetime, the hand of Yahweh was against the Philistines. 14 The towns from Ekron to Gath that the Philistines had captured from Israel were restored to her, and Israel delivered the neighboring territory from the power of the Philistines. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.
Israel was in the most desperate straits imaginable. The Titanic was sinking fast, and the crew did not even know it – so there was no one to cry out to God for help. So how did God bring about their rescue? - By closing the womb of an obscure, hillbilly woman living with a cruel rival. God was willing to rescue them, but only in response to someone crying out to Him with fervent, persistent, earnest prayer - But not just any prayer. It had to be prayer that was a true seeking after God and not a using of God to get some gift that was seen as the ultimate source of joy. (And we know that is what Hannah was doing because she was fully satisfied prior to receiving the gift she was asking for.)
Application
You may be thinking, “Wow, I cannot believe Darrell just covered seven chapters in one lesson!” I didn’t cover seven chapters. I skipped seven chapters. My purpose is to begin a series on the life of David, and that starts in chapter 16. But my introduction to the first sermon is going to take a few weeks, because we have to understand the context. There are some very important spiritual lessons we can take from his section of Scripture.
1) Seek God; do not use God
The most important one is this: Seek God, do not use God. Seek Him as your highest treasure. Do not use Him to get some other treasure. There will be times when it seems like you absolutely have to have this certain earthly thing or person in order to have joy. You absolutely have to have this circumstance in order to have peace. And in times like that you will be driven to try to use God. Remember that God can give you all that your soul wants to get from that earthly treasure, and He can give it to you with or without using that earthly treasure. Do not be like the people in James four who did not get their prayers answered because they were asking for things for their own pleasures and not for the glory of God.
And be careful to never turn your walk with the Lord into a mechanized process in which you can control the results you get by what religious things you do. Sometimes we fall into this without even realizing it. We think reading our Bible every day is like doing pushups every day. If you do pushups every day you will get stronger – not matter how you feel about the pushups. Doing your devotions every day is not like that. Personal relationships do not have automatic outcomes just because you put in your time. You can faithfully take your wife out on a date night every week, but if you do not do things on those dates to cultivate intimacy, those very dates can drive you apart as a couple. God is a person, not a machine. And we must deal with Him in ways that fan the flames of love.
2) Remember the big picture
Keep in mind that the camera is always zoomed in tight from your perspective. Our human eyes are locked on macro. Hannah did not have any idea that her prayer in response to her little crisis was going to be what God used to do a national work, evem a global work. The answer that God sent to her prayer set in motion a rescue of all of humanity that will end in the glorious, eternal reign of the Son of David forever. When Joseph was sold into slavery and then delivered, God was accomplishing something much, much bigger than rescuing an individual man. When Job was afflicted something much, much bigger than Job’s little life was going on in heaven. When that Jewish mother packed her little boy’s lunch with some loaves and fishes, something much greater than a lunch was in the works. Be careful about calling anything in your life small. Without the wide angle, how could you possibly know if something is small or big?
When you feel overwhelmed by forces much bigger and much more powerful and out of your control, and you feel like a little mouse caught inside a huge machine, realize that you are in a huge machine, but you are not a mouse – you are a cog. You are a little gear, and the huge, massive, scary gears around you that are exerting force on you and turning you this way and that way, are under the direct control of the Designer of this machine and the whole machine is accomplishing His perfect work. Blessed be the God of the zoomed-in close-up and the wide angle, universal plan, and who accomplishes the one by means of the other. And that is not sometimes true. According to Romans 8:28, for the believer it is always true.
Sometimes we are tempted to question whether our suffering is out of proportion to the benefit. I have heard people say, “I know this is teaching me perseverance, but this is just too much.” If you are ever tempted to think that, think of it this way: What would it take for you to put your child through what God is putting you through? How wonderful an outcome would there have to be before you would be willing to take your precious little child whom you love, and put him through the suffering that God is putting you through for years at a time - with no explanation for why? Would you put him through all that pain so that when he turned 16 he could have a $100 savings bond? No way. Remember that God is all powerful – all it would take for Him to completely erase every trace of your pain right now would be a single thought. He could do that at any moment. And He loves you more than you love your own children. So how huge and awesome a benefit must there be that would cause God to be willing to just watch you suffer so profoundly for so long? Even for a relatively minor amount of pain there is no way God would be willing to go through watching you suffer unless there was absolutely, positively no other way, and the benefit was something absolutely indescribably delightful.
God gives us suffering because it is important. Had Pinninah been kind to Hannah, Samuel may never have been born. It was her vicious, merciless attack that drove Hannah to the throne of grace. The suffering had to be intense enough to drive her to God. Had it been suffering of a bearable magnitude, she probably would have just born it. If she had had an understanding, compassionate husband, she may have run to him instead of to God. Sometimes God has to cut off our access to every broken cistern before we will find our way to the Spring of living water.
3) Make God’s glory the purpose of your request
When you pray for relief, make God’s glory, not yourself the ultimate purpose of your request. Hannah wanted a son, but she did not make herself the purpose for Samuel’s existence. The main purpose for her son would be the glory of God. And so it was no problem for her to make the vow she made that Samuel would be devoted to God and grow up in the Temple. If an answer came, that answer would be for God’s glory. The child would belong to God, not to her. Never make your personal gratification the dead end of what you are praying for. Not only will that kill your joy, but it will give God no reason to answer your prayers.
Benediction: Ro 11:33-36 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! 34"Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" 35 "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?" 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
