Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Bible preaching from the pulpit of Choice Hills Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina
All right, let's get our Bible and go to the book of 1 Samuel tonight.
1 Samuel.
Chapter 1.
I was going through in my mind just trying to do a survey, a mental survey through the scripture
because we are talking about the family this month.
And I was going through in my mind and doing a search of the
various families in Scripture, because they're, of course, families are throughout Scripture,
but the ones that kind of are, that stand out in the Bible, and I kind of settled down
here in 1 Samuel chapter 1, now talking about Elkanah and Hannah and this family in the days of the days prior at
the end of the judges really and I actually when I got to looking at my notes I realized that in
back last Mother's Day I preached from 1st Samuel chapter 1 and so I looked at my notes because I
wanted to make sure I wasn't going to just repeat myself. Some preachers have
a bad habit of looking at a passage of Scripture and be like, man, that's a neat point, that's a neat
point, and forgetting all about it and going back and thinking the very same thing and forgetting
they've already said all the points that they looked at before. But I did look at my notes this
time, and I want to point out a few things in particular. One, really this is kind of a devotional message. One core truth I
want to bring out toward the end about, specifically about Hannah. So what we'll do is we'll pray first
because I want to just start reading through the chapter of chapter one and then we'll just make a
few points as we get to the verses. Let's pray together. Our Lord in heaven, we thank you for the
opportunity to meet together. I pray for your people. Lord, you know the various needs that
are present among us. Lord, there's many among us that are suffering physical ailments, sicknesses,
and waiting for test results. There's some that have been mentioned that have cancer.
And I think of J.D. Crowley and Becky Ruppel and just others, the little baby, Daisy May,
who has some bad diagnosis and parents are suffering. And Lord, we don't even know how to pray for all these things.
We just beg you for your mercy, that you would show your mercy to these people who are in just terrible straits in various ways. But Lord, we also acknowledge
that each day, this day, we, even though we perhaps are well in body, we desperately need
your grace and your help in our life just to walk with you, just to stand, just to be faithful.
We also, Lord, want to ask you for those among us
or those loved ones that we know
that do not know the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have no idea, Lord, how to get through to them,
how to make them see the gospel,
how to see their condition before you.
But Lord, we just ask you to make it evident to them.
Open the eyes of these people.
Lord, take away the blinders of
these names that were mentioned. Make
them to see how much they need you and that
Christ is the answer.
And Lord, I pray that you would allow us in our church
here to rejoice
in seeing these people come to Christ
and be
saved. So Lord, please bless our time tonight as we look into the word.
Truly, Lord, meet with us.
Help the truths of scripture to come out to us.
Guide me and help me to know what to say to help your people.
In Jesus' name, amen.
1 Samuel chapter 1 and verse number 1.
The Bible says this.
Now, there was a certain man of Ramatham, Zophim of Mount Ephraim,
and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu,
the son of Tohu, the son of Zuth, an Ephrathite.
And he had two wives.
The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Penanah.
Penanah, Penanah. Some of these words are kind of hard to follow. the name of the one was Hannah and the name of the other Penina. Penina.
Some of these words are kind of hard to follow.
And Penina had children, but Hannah had no children.
And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship,
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 unto
Penina 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. I don't know if you've noticed this in scripture as you've read through your Bible, but there's
probably six definite people whose, well, almost all of whom whose names we know, there's six people in Scripture
in particular that are mentioned as being barren, that cannot have, six women that could
not have children. There's, of course, what's interesting is the first three that are mentioned
are Abraham's wife, Isaac's wife, and Jacob's wife. I thought that was an interesting fact
that in the patriarchs, the first three
lady patriarchs, matriarchs, I guess is the right word to put it. The first three matriarchs
were introduced to us as women who could not have children. And so you have Sarah, Rebecca,
Rachel, and then you have Manoah's wife, who's the mother of Samson, and then you have Hannah,
and then you have Elizabeth in the New Testament. And what's interesting about all six of these
women, they're all six, obviously, Barron couldn't have children, but they were all six women of
faith. If you follow each one of them, every single one of these women was a woman of faith.
And she exercised her faith in various
ways in each story, and I'm sure you're familiar with most of those stories. But what's also
interesting is all six of those women, even though they're mentioned and described as being barren
and childless, all six of them ended up with children. All six of them ended up with children.
And we know if you've read your Bible,
you've read your Bible through
and you've tried to pay attention as you've been reading,
you've noticed not just in the literal sense of barrenness,
a lady cannot have children,
but also barrenness is used in a way figuratively
to refer, obviously referring to land that can't bear fruit
and other things like that.
But even spiritually, God's people,
when they're away from God, are described as being barren.
So barrenness in Scripture is from cover to cover is universally viewed in the negative, right?
In other words, what I mean by that is I don't mean any negativity toward the lady who is in that condition,
but it's not a condition that the
Lord describes in good terms. He describes it as unfortunate terms, unhappy terms. It is a
difficult burden to bear. It is a difficult burden to bear. But what you also see, not just here,
but you also see it in other places in Scripture, specifically in Rebekah's case,
because the Bible says Rebekah was barren, and does anybody remember? Somebody prayed for Rebekah.
Does anybody remember who that was? It was Isaac, her husband. And the Bible says that Isaac
specifically asked God to give his wife a baby, and then God gave his wife a baby. But in this case, you have Hannah doing that same
thing. The interesting connection is that though these ladies in scripture and though in the idea
of barrenness, a lady who can't have children, is a great burden to bear, it is also seen in the Bible as the source and the cause and the catalyst for great prayers that were prayed.
It is the reason that some of these ladies in Scripture prayed to God.
And you know what we see in the Bible is their prayers are answered.
And so even though this is know, even though this is a
great burden to bear on a lady, and in scripture that's certainly the case, without that burden,
without that hardship in that trial, there would not be a cause for prayer. And without that burden
and that trial which led to the prayer, there would be no answer to the prayer.
And so it reminds me of a quote that is attributed to Charles Spurgeon.
Nobody really knows if Charles Spurgeon said it, but he says,
I kiss the waves that throw me against the rock of ages. In other words, the idea being, yes, in Scripture there's without question
barrenness is not a condition that is looked upon favorably and fortunately.
It's not considered to be a blessed condition in Scripture.
However, there are many conditions in life that are like that,
that the Lord will use for good, to bring about good.
If for no other reason, He allows those conditions to come into our lives because those conditions drive us to Him.
oftentimes in a way that other people who do not bear those burdens do not understand and do not enjoy the benefit of that burden and of that difficulty.
So although none of us would say we wish those kinds of difficult circumstances in our life,
yet God works them for good.
I got a text today from my daughter while she was at work, supposed to be working.
Her and Louis, her fiancé,
is that how you say it for the man? You say it the same way for the man.
Okay. She took French so she knows. It's just one has
two E's and one doesn't or something. I'm not French. I don't care.
But she wrote me a text and
she was having a discussion about the verse that says, giving thanks unto God for all things.
And so the question was, so does that mean we're supposed to give thanks for truly evil things that happen to us, right?
And so we kind of had a discussion.
Well, I had a discussion with her.
She just wrote back and said, okay, thanks.
But it's the same thing.
None of us desire these kinds of circumstances
that are unfortunate and difficult to bear,
but yet God uses those to drive us to him.
And that's what you see in this case with Hannah.
Now look at what the Bible says here.
One more thing before we go any further is this.
As regarding barrenness and Hannah's case in particular,
there's something about not having children,
or rather there's something about having children, or rather, there's something about having children that no other
relationship that we have can satisfy. That only children, and a mother in particular, a woman,
is someone who understands that better than anyone else. I've never understood, you know,
my wife, she definitely doesn't mind me saying this, but my wife had several miscarriages, right?
And so, but I was just, okay, you're expecting,
and then we begin the waiting game, saving game, preparing game,
and then there was a miscarriage, and then there would be no baby.
But I didn't feel it like she felt it.
I mean, for sure.
And that's because the baby's obviously in her, not her body, but in her body, right?
Everybody get that right? But I didn't feel it like she
did. And I think that, to some degree, that's the way it is with ladies with children.
But having a child
is unique. And if you look at verse 8, you see it here that
Elkanah just doesn't get it.
Because he says, he said, then said Elkanah, her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou?
Why eatest thou not? And why is thy heart grieved? Am not I better to thee than ten sons?
It's just, he don't get it. Because the only thing that would fulfill that desire was a baby.
Right? For Hannah. That's it. Her husband could not fill that desire was a baby, right, for Hannah.
That's it.
Her husband could not fill that desire.
You know, the Bible says in Proverbs 30, verse 16,
the Bible says,
the grave and the barren womb,
the earth that is not filled with water and the fire,
all these things that saith not, it is enough.
In other words, they're never fully satisfied, right?
That there's something God is hardwired into ladies
that they want children.
And so we'll read from verse four.
It says this,
And when the time was that Elkanah offered
and gave to Penanah his wife and to all her sons and her daughters portions, but unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion, Isn't it sad? Isn't it disgusting and wicked that they're
trying to go up to worship God? And Peninnah is using this and trying to drive a wedge
and really interfering with Hannah's ability to worship God. That is wicked. That is wicked.
But that's what she's doing.
And on Mother's Day, we looked at what Peninnah does with her children.
Peninnah did not value her children like Hannah did.
And we saw that.
But I want you to note that Hannah, how does Hannah respond to this constant provocation?
Now, on Sunday, we talked about bitterness, long-term anger,
long-term wrath. And that would be the effect of this, this constant prodding and provoking and
insulting and those constant little slights toward Hannah over something she had literally no control
over. That will produce bitterness in a person. But what did it produce in Hannah? Verse 9. 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. How did she respond
to this provocation?
Not anger.
She sought God.
God is always the answer.
God is always the answer.
He might use means to give us the thing that we need,
but He wants us first and foremost to go to Him.
When we're provoked, when we're tempted, go to God.
When bitterness is so, go to God.
He is always the answer.
And that's exactly where Hannah turned.
She turned to the Lord.
She didn't get angry or bitter.
She turned to the Lord.
But notice she's in bitterness of soul.
So the fact that Hannah can't have a baby is a huge burden to her.
Now when you look at the whole of Scripture, what do you see?
You see that from start to finish, children are considered, universally considered, to be blessings.
Right?
Universally considered to be blessings and to be something that is to be desired.
That's why Hannah is so broken.
Because to her, a child is a blessing.
It's not a curse, not a burden, but a blessing.
And we know that children bring with them burdens.
We know that.
There's work. You know, there's a lot of expense. There's a lot of, can be a lot of difficulty,
a lot of heartache, a lot of stress and that kind of thing. But all in all, children are
something to be desired. They're a blessing. And having children is something that no other
relationship can replace. And that's the whole point of going on, that's
going on with Hannah. And so having children is something that should be
sought after and desired. But what do we see? And so in the Christian
worldview, that's how we ought to view our children.
But there's obviously been a breakdown, even in churches, has there not?
Isn't it disgusting?
Isn't it ungodly?
In churches where ladies aren't interested in having kids,
girls aren't interested in that.
They just want to have a good time in the Christian version, right?
They're not interested in the thing, the superpower that they have as a lady, which is to bear children, right? They're not interested in the thing, the superpower that they have as a lady,
which is to bear children, right?
They're not interested in that.
They don't view children as a blessing.
At best, they view them as kind of a neutral.
And the reason is, I'm going to just be direct.
The reason is, is because they have been infected
with a worldly mental virus that is affected the way they think and their worldview.
Because this world has a dim view of children.
Not neutral, dim.
You want to talk about the abortion industry?
To have 20-something-year-old women stand and proudly say that they're going to,
you've seen the videos, they don't just say fetus or clump of cells. They know what they're doing
and how they proudly describe the slaughter of their own children in the womb.
As if that's a, that's like a rite of passage
for a woman in her 20s.
But that's part of this worldview
that views children as a burden,
as a hindrance to their pleasure seeking,
as an obstacle to their career,
as a barrier to making money and fulfilling their dreams.
And then you add on top of this
the evolutionary and secular religious belief
that the world's going to come to an end
because of overpopulation of the human race,
and so population needs to be controlled,
it's no wonder people don't want kids.
And then the ones that do have children,
they have a kid,
they don't apply any scriptural principles to raising them,
and their kid chases them around with knives.
I'm not making this up, that's a real thing.
Yeah, I wouldn't want to have kids either
if my kids were absolute,
are filled with the devil in such a way.
That'll discourage a body.
Wouldn't you agree?
All that together has made the world
not want children.
Children are viewed as a curse.
Again, abortion has to do with abortion,
has to do with euthanasia, has to do with narcissism, self-centeredness,
hedonism, which is pleasure-seeking.
And this is not a small segment of society. I want to tell you something.
I'm talking a good bit this evening about women, about ladies.
Because Hannah is the focal point of this story, right?
She is the star of this narrative.
But I am really worried about the girls that are going to college
and what in the world they're being taught.
Did you know the movement, the ideological movement to the left
is mostly happening not among men in their 20s, but women?
You know that?
In other words, they're being indoctrinated way more than men in college.
They're being taken advantage of in college.
I'll leave it at that.
They're being indoctrinated in college, and they're destroying their morality,
obliterating their morality in college.
And what's happening is a whole generation of ladies who should desire children hate them.
They don't play with kids.
They don't want kids.
They don't like kids.
Kids are the problem.
I want to tell you something.
That is just absolutely antithetical to the scripture.
It is absolutely, totally contrary.
Totally contrary.
Now, go back to verse number 10 if you would.
And she was in bitterness of soul
and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore.
Notice the connection between the bitterness of the soul
and prayer.
You know, it's often the bitterness of soul that prompts the powerful prayer. You know, it's often the bitterness of soul
that prompts the powerful prayer.
The deeper, right?
The deeper the bitterness,
the deeper the despondency,
the deeper the prayer.
And they go together.
Again, we don't like that,
but that's the truth of it, right?
The effectual, the Bible says,
the effectual fervent prayer.
How do you get fervency?
When you're deep in bitterness of soul.
How do you get effectual?
Because you are serious about it, right?
That's what leads.
So although we wanna have,
you don't wanna sail the easy seas, right?
But to get the powerful and effectual prayer, often it is the rough seas that cause the sailors to cry out to God.
And so it is in our life.
And that's exactly what happened with Hannah.
Maybe Hannah prayed for a child before that.
I imagine she did.
Maybe she didn't.
Maybe it wasn't on her mind,
but maybe she did pray.
We do know she was distressed about it,
but whether she prayed or not,
we don't know until we see it here.
We do know that now, though,
she is praying
because she is exceedingly burdened.
And in this way,
the burden and the bitterness
is actually a blessing.
Now, verse number 11, and she vowed a vow.
I want to tell you something.
When you get down to a low point, when you get down to a,
you get serious, when you get serious about a matter,
you're willing to do whatever to get that thing.
When you get serious about something,
you know, so much of our Christianity is casual,
is it not?
It's just casual.
It's easy come, easy go.
But when you get burdened about something,
I mean, you get serious.
You're in bitterness of soul.
You are intent.
You are in earnest, as they used to say
in the old timers.
I love that word.
When you're in earnest about a matter,
you'll start making vows
and intending to keep them. You'll start making vows.
And intending to keep them.
You'll start making promises.
If I was in combat and mortars are falling on my head,
ain't no telling what I might promise the Lord.
I'm not joking.
See, she vowed a vow.
Why was she willing to take it to that point?
I mean, this is a big vow.
She is giving away her child for his whole life.
She's going to have just a couple years with him,
and she's giving him away.
She's not going to see him but once a year, pretty much.
I would say she's serious, wouldn't you?
She's very serious.
But what has brought her to that point?
The very thing we don't want, I don't want.
The bitterness of soul.
Verse 11, she vowed a vow and said,
O Lord of hosts, if thou will indeed look on the affliction
of thine handmaid and remember me
and not forget thine handmaid,
but will give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord You know, that should be a prayer of every parent.
But what was Hannah's reason for wanting a child?
Now, you can't exactly know because Hannah doesn't articulate it clearly.
You can't exactly know because Hannah doesn't articulate it clearly.
But what is clear about Hannah's understanding of Samuel's purpose is she states that Samuel's purpose before he was even conceived.
She knew why he would be here.
She understood why her child would come into the world. She was giving her child to God, right? So Samuel's purpose was exclusively and only for the
Lord God. So really, if you think about it, and this is a truth that applies to all parents,
is that she understood that Samuel was not given to her for her, but for God.
And when she made that vow, when she made that vow that that child would be for God,
that's when God responded.
The whole point is that our children are not so much for us.
God did not give them for us.
He gave us our children for him, right?
He didn't give us our children for us, for our pleasure,
although we derive so much pleasure from our kids.
My kids don't have any, we try to tell them, but it don't matter.
It just goes in one ear and out the other.
They just don't get it.
They'll have kids and then they'll be like, okay, I get it.
The amount of joy and pleasure you get from having children.
But that's not the main reason that God gave us children.
He gave us children for himself.
For himself.
So that's supposed to be the overarching theme of my family and of having children is my children are not mine.
They're the Lord's.
And they're to be given to Him
His whole life,
their whole life.
Our kids exist for the Lord.
They are His.
Just as I,
just as you exist to glorify God
and to exalt God,
so our kids exist for the same reason. We know this, right? Right? We know this. It's just that Hannah in this moment says it. Right? She just, she says it. Now the last thing I want you to see, which is the main point, but it won't take me long to say it. We're going to keep reading.
We're going to keep reading.
Verse 12.
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'm a woman of a sorrowful spirit.
I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord.
Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial,
for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto. And Eli answered and said, Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition, thou hast asked of him.
And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight.
So the woman went her way and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.
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.
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,
saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord.
And the man Elkanah and all his house went up to offer
unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice and his vow. But Hannah went not up,
for she said to her husband,
I will not go up until the child be weaned,
and then will I bring him that he may appear before the Lord
and there abide forever.
And Elkanah, her husband, said unto her,
Do what seemeth thee good.
In other words, do what you want.
Let me ask you a question.
That's basically all we see about Elkanah in this chapter.
Would you say that Elkanah was an engaged husband in the matter of Samuel?
No.
Now, I don't, but be careful, because I don't want to blame him too much.
It could be that the Lord just wanted to concentrate on what Hannah's doing,
because what you do see, if you read between the lines, you do see Elkanah is up to date. He's aware of why Hannah's upset. He's aware of Hannah's vow.
He's aware of Hannah's intention to give Samuel back to the Lord, right? You see that. So,
I wouldn't say he was just like, you know, he was just, you know, on his own. He didn't know
what was going on. He knew what was going on, right?
I think the emphasis is on Hannah, though.
But what you don't see is, you don't see Elkanah providing an active hand in this matter.
You don't hear him praying.
You don't hear him vowing, trying to get an answer like Isaac did with Rebekah.
You don't see that.
He's just, he's kind of off to the side, kind of passive.
He says in verse 23, do it seemethly good.
Tarry until I have weaned him, only the Lord established his word.
So the woman abode and gave her son suck until she weaned him.
And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, the three bullocks and one ephah of flour and a bottle of wine and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh.
And the child was young.
And they slew a bullock and brought the child to Eli.
And she said, O my Lord, as thy soul liveth, my Lord,
I am the woman that stood by thee here praying unto the Lord.
For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him.
Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he liveth, he shall be lent to the Lord. Just a beautiful passage of scripture about children.
So we see that Elkanah is mostly absent in the story.
He's barely mentioned.
He's there, verse 8, but he's not really mentioned a whole lot.
And as I said, he's kind of passive.
He says, do whatever you want.
But he was leading his family every year to go worship to God.
That's notable.
In other words, he was leading his family to do what was right.
And in fact, that's at the place where they worshiped God is where Hannah prayed to God.
And it is where Hannah vowed the vow to the Lord and it's also where Hannah got the assurance via God's prophet, Eli,
that God was going to answer.
Why did that happen?
Because Elkanah had taken his family to worship God, right?
He put them in a place where they were in touch with the things of the Lord.
And that's good.
And that's good. And that's good.
But in the matter of Samuel, he's mostly absent.
Elkanah.
So this whole thing with Samuel was really a matter between Hannah.
Please get this.
Between Hannah and her God.
Think about it.
The whole thing with Samuel.
and her God.
Think about it.
The whole thing with Samuel.
It seems that the whole matter is a thing between Hannah and her God
independent of her husband.
She was alone in verse 11.
She was alone when she made the vow to God.
She was alone when she was praying to God.
She was alone in the temple when she wept
and she spoke to Eli in verse number 15.
She received Eli's blessing,
apparently when she was by herself in verse 17.
She named, look at verse 20 again.
Hannah, wherefore it came to pass
when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived that she bear a son and called,
that she called his name Samuel, saying, because I have asked him of the Lord.
That's all singular.
She named Samuel.
And Samuel's name originated out of Hannah's prayer.
She says, I have asked him of the Lord,
which means Samuel, the name means asked of God.
It was Hannah that fulfilled her vow in verse 22
and gave Samuel to the Lord.
Where's Elkanah?
He's not in view at all.
So it's not a stretch for us to say
that the whole matter of Samuel and his life and how God used him
came to pass as a result of the hardship, the faith, the prayer, and the vow
of a wife's private and individual devotion to her God.
Think about that.
She's married to a God-fearing man, we assume,
but that's not where this thing with Samuel comes out of.
It doesn't come out of her relationship with her husband,
although that's good and fine.
It comes out of her private, personal,
if you will, independent relationship to God.
I want to tell you something.
In our churches, we don't make any bones about it.
Our church, we understand there's a biblical order in the family.
The husband is the head of the wife.
He's the head of the home.
The wife is to submit to her husband and obey her husband.
That's what the Bible says.
That's what they're going to vow in about nine days, right?
Ten days, whatever it is.
That's what the Bible teaches, okay?
We're not sorry about that.
We don't regret that.
The wife is to submit herself to her husband.
But sometimes there's a thing that happens in churches
that teach that and believe that
where the wife lives in the shadow of her husband.
And she scarcely develops her own independent,
thriving relationship to God separate from her husband.
But you've got to remember,
although in this life my wife is my wife,
even before I knew her, but that's really irrelevant,
she is herself a child of God.
She herself is a priest of God.
She herself has direct access to God.
And that's what you see in this story, right?
It's not Ocana's faith, it's Hannah's faith.
It's not Ocana's vow, it's Hannah's vow.
It's not Ocana's prayer, it's Hannah's prayer.
She is having this, all of this matter with Samuel and her answer to prayer is coming out of her own private relationship to God. So ladies, let me tell you something. You
might be married and we know there's an order in the family and all of that, but you should
have your own independent, private walk with God and devotion with God and connection with
the Lord. You ought to have something between you and your God that's not
wholly dependent upon your husband, because you are a child of God also.
So let me add this a step, you know, and again, I'm afraid that sometimes in our churches,
wives kind of live in the shadow of their husband. And not that that's always bad,
but the danger is that she starts to lean upon his walk with God
rather than having her own walk with God.
Right?
The Lord wants each one of us,
each one of us, ladies and men,
to be in touch with the Lord
and to have an independent relationship to the Lord
such that we see the Lord work in our lives.
Ladies, moms, wives,
you should have the Lord answering your prayer
that you're praying that you don't tell anybody else.
You should have the Lord working your life in ways that nobody else knows about because you are a child of God too.
And we can't ride the coattails,
the spiritual coattails of anyone else in our life. Not the
pastor for sure. Not that mine are long enough for anybody to ride anyway.
But you can't ride my coattails, my wife can't ride my coattails,
and my children can't ride my spiritual coattails.
You have to walk with God on your own.
What happens if your husband passes away?
What happens if you don't have a husband?
Right?
Again, now, for those of you that want to get married,
those of you that are intending to get married,
fellas, you should seek after a wife, a lady,
that has her own independent walk with God.
You need that.
You know what?
Elkanah had a son because of the faith of his wife, right?
What's interesting is this whole story,
all the focus is on Hannah.
The Lord wants us to see how he worked
in a nice, humble, godly, submissive wife, right, of Elkanah.
All the focus is on her.
I just think that's a beautiful truth.
That's a beautiful truth.
You know, history was made, Samuel's history was made,
Samuel's history was known,
really not by what his dad did, but by what his mom did. And you know why that was
the case? Because his mom exercised a great deal of faith in God that
grew out of bitterness of soul. Right? That was
all a byproduct of her personal
devotion to God
that she had maybe before she knew Elkanah, maybe after,
but not necessarily as a result of him,
but as a result of her own walk with the Lord.
Let's pray together.