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Good Monday morning dear “Walking with Jesus” friends,
This past weekend we began a new book of the Bible together, 1 Samuel. If you didn’t happen to read or listen to yesterday’s “Walking with Jesus” I urge you to do so, since it will be very helpful to you in understanding this remarkable and very important time in Bible history.
In our journey together in the Bible, we have come to the hill country of Israel northwest of modern day Jerusalem, but we are there 3000 years ago!
We are at a place called “Shiloh”. If you missed our time together yesterday, I urge you to open that link and you’ll see a map there and some helpful information about this remarkable place.
The Tabernacle of God is here at Shiloh, and a Mr. Elkanah has come for his annual pilgrimage to worship here, and of course he has come with his family. They have come by foot from a town called Ramah, a few miles to the south.
May I invite you to open your copy of the Bible to 1 Samuel 1 and look at verse 3: “Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the LORD Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas the two sons of Eli, were priests of the LORD.”
Have you noticed NAMES are important in the Bible?
God has many names in Scripture. Some He pronounced Himself, to help people understand His attributes, and some are names people gave to God, in specific, unusual experiences. This name “The LORD Almighty” is a specific name. It is “El Shaddai” and God used it first with Abraham in Genesis 17:1 when God wanted Abraham to understand that He is the All Sufficient God, able to do anything He needs to do, to accomplish His purposes, especially to keep His promises!
God had promised Abraham and Sarah,a son in their old age. As the years had passed they had become impatient. So in Genesis 17, God re-affirmed His all-sufficiency. He was more than able to fulfill His promise and within a year their miracle son Isaac was born!
So Elkanah and his family came to Shiloh to worship God and it appears they were worshiping Him in this same attitude of trusting Him to be “All Sufficient” to their need. Yesterday we looked at the reality that this family was in great distress because of the ongoing infertility of Hannah and the tension between she and Peninnah, Elkanah’s other wife.
Notice please that when Hannah prays & weeps before God, she uses this same name for God “O LORD Almighty if only You will look upon Your servant’s misery and remember me. . .” (1 Samuel 1:11)
So, my friends, when you come to God in prayer and worship, may I ask what great attributes of God are in your heart and mind? Do you come into worship of Almighty God with expectations? Do you expect God has FULL understanding of all things? That’s what the Omniscience of God means. Do you expect God has ALL power and can do anything He might want to do, any time, in a situation, anywhere in the world? That’s what God’s Omnipotence means. So, my friends, when you enter into your worship of the Almighty, what are you hoping will happen in your worship & prayer encounter with the unlimited God?
Do you notice three other names appear in verse 3… Hophni, Phinehas and their father Eli? These are three men who play a very significant role in the story of Samuel, as we will see. They are the spiritual leaders of the people of Israel at this time in history. They live at Shiloh, and every day, their role is to welcome and help the Hebrew people who come to Shiloh to worship at the Tabernacle. Everyone expected that these are holy men, that they spend extended time in God’s presence and they seek to live holy, pure, God honoring lives in every way, for it is to these men the people come seeking spiritual guidance and help.
But Eli and his sons were not who they were expected to be. It appears they had grown bored with the remarkable privilege of being the spiritual men of Israel. It had become to them meaningless that they were entrusted with high and holy privilege of leading and serving the people in worship of Holy God. Hophni and Phinehas apparently had little regard or respect for the fact that their father Eli was the High Priest of Israel, and they had been born into the priestly line of Aaron, the brother of Moses.
Notice in verse 12, Eli the High Priest, observes Hannah weeping and praying to God, pouring out her heart in the agony of infertility, and Eli assumes she is drunk!! How could that be? What does that tell us about Eli’s heart, about his awareness of the pain of people who had come to Shiloh seeking God’s help?
Listen to 1 Samuel 1:12 “As she kept on praying to the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk, and said to her, ‘how long will you keep on getting drunk…”
Doesn’t that just pierce your heart my friends? Such insensitivity, such rude harshness… oh how it must have poured salt into the wounded heart of dear Hannah!? If you are a spiritual leader in any capacity, please take careful note of this moment in God’s Word.
Harsh words spoken, even the body language or look of one who is expected to be a spiritual leader, can be so hurtful to a person who is in a vulnerable place. The devil will take advantage of every such situation and sometimes people can be so wounded, especially by those they expect will be spiritually sensitive and helpful, that they may leave the church, they walk away from association with God’s people.
We, God’s people, followers of Jesus are invited by Jesus to be His ambassadors, His representatives in our world, remember 2 Corinthians 5:20? We are called by Jesus to be HEALERS never wounders. HELPERS never inhibitors of help. As a people of God’s grace, we are called to be problem solvers, not problem generators. I cannot imagine how deeply Eli’s accusatory comment wounded the already bleeding heart of infertile Hannah.
In the verses which follow you’ll see Hannah giving a pain-filled, brief, explanation of her tears, and Eli backtracks, reversing course and extends a blessing to wounded Hannah. “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked for.” (1 Samuel 1:17)
I suspect the Holy Spirit of God had pierced Eli’s heart with conviction. Likely he paused to reflect back… how long had it been that he, the High Priest, had shed tears as he prayed? How long since he had come before Holy God with such tenderness and such hunger to see God do a miracle in his life or family? As we will soon see in this story, Eli’s and his sons desperately needed a touch of God… but I see no evidence Eli was praying about his family like Hannah was praying about hers.
Somehow a fresh wind of hope washed over Hannah, do you see her response in verse 18? “She said, ‘May your servant find favor in your eyes.’ Then she went her way and ate something and her face was no longer downcast.” May I ask an important question? How do you feel when you LEAVE a gathering of God’s people? It could be a worship service, a Bible study, a prayer gathering, or even just a group of Christian friends who gather together for any reason.
Do you normally leave those gatherings encouraged, hopeful, refreshed? That is God’s intent my friends! People did not walk away from their times with Jesus without being uplifted, encouraged, feeling the touch of God! What if that’s what EVERY person had, every time they came in contact with you or me, or anyone who claims to have an authentic relationship with Jesus as our Savior, Lord, Good Shepherd, and King?
Now look at what happened next at Shiloh! “Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the LORD and then went back to their home at Ramah.” The time had come to get back to normal life at home in Ramah. For Hannah, that was a painful thought, as we saw in verse 6 & 7. But I believe Hannah’s heart was in a different place.
She had worshiped, she had poured out her pain to God, and even though the conversation did not start well with Eli, it ended with hope! I believe Hannah’s walk back to Ramah was filled with expectation that God was at work, doing something special to heal her pain. But, of course, that would require a miracle from heaven, wouldn’t it!?
Verse 20 says: “Elkanah lay with Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave she birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, ‘Because I asked the LORD for him.” We simply have to spend the rest of today pondering this exciting miracle!! My dear female friends who have experienced pregnancy, something we men will never experience, can you feel her joy, her excitement? Can you feel the tears of gratitude running down her face, when she has just felt a flutter inside her belly!? Let’s just sit with Hannah for a while and watch her. . .
Can you see Elkanah coming home in the late afternoon, from a long day in the fields, and after quickly washing up, he comes FIRST to Hannah asking “how are you today, what have you felt, how is our baby, what is God doing inside of you, my dear wife whom God is blessing?”
May I tell you honestly, as I write this, my eyes are wet with wonderful memories. My wife Dawn and I only had this experience once, and that was 41 years ago, but from the moment we knew Dawn was pregnant we were in awe with what God was doing. From about her 7th month, I could hear April’s little heart fluttering if I put my ear on my wife Dawn’s bloated tummy… bloated of course with a miracle child. Oh those were wonderful days of adventure, and of course anticipation grew every day! Maybe that’s why it is so horrific to me that some in America have worked so passionately to have laws passed legalizing the slaughter of unborn but very much living children! It’s simply beyond my ability to comprehend.
Oh LORD God Almighty, we thank and praise You for Your majesty and Your tenderness in this story of Hannah! We thank You that you hear our cries, Your heart is tender toward our needs and our pain. We praise You for the miracle of pregnancy and I lift before You today every woman who pregnant. Oh may they sense the wonder, the miracle of life within them and may they worship You in these months as You, hour by hour, develop the child within them.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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