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Pastor Ed Taylor: Dedication comes through desperation. That's next on Abounding Grace.

Larry: Hi there. Thank you for being with us today on Abounding Grace. Pastor Ed Taylor will join us in a moment and continue his new study of 1 Samuel.

You know, there were many wonderful people to learn about in God's word. Great men of faith and action that God used, like David and the Apostle Paul. Men who gave their lives for the gospel, like Stephen. Today, we'll again look at the life and times of a woman of God named Hannah. She had some serious trials in her life, not the least of which was her inability to have a child. Here is Pastor Ed with her story in 1 Samuel chapter 1.

Pastor Ed Taylor: We meet Samuel by the end of our chapter today. A man that God used to build a bridge in a critical time in Israel's history. He was the last of the judges and the first of a new line of prophets after Moses. Samuel was such a powerful prophet that he actually establishes a school to train prophets. And he's used by God to anoint two kings at a time in Israel's history of great uncertainty and sinful instability.

Listen, just as a side note, I want you to know that sin will always bring instability in your life. There isn't a stability that comes by choosing compromise. And there's not a stability that comes by choosing a shortcut. And there's not a stability, obviously, that comes through disobedience. And the nation of Israel, coming through the time and the years of the judges, instability and insincerity and uncertainty, God will use Samuel during that time in a nation to give strong spiritual leadership, to give direction and help and stability in a very unstable time.

So by way of review, let's go back to chapter 1, verse 1 that we looked at in depth in our introduction last time. "Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim Zophim, of the mountains of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, and the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. And he had two wives."

And we addressed that for those of you that are new. We addressed that last time in our study. We just started the book of 1 Samuel, so you can catch up with us because this is our second study in the book. The man had two wives. The name of one was Hannah, the name of the other was Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. This man went up from the city yearly to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts in Shiloh. Also the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there.

And whenever the time came for Elkanah to make an offering, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he'd give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, although the Lord had closed her womb. We also looked at that in depth last time, and I encourage you to pick up the study. And her rival also provoked her severely, to make her miserable, because the Lord had closed her womb. So it was, year by year, that she went up to the house of the Lord, that she provoked her; therefore she wept and did not eat.

We saw five people introduced and only three we spent some time on. We're going to spend more time on two of them: Eli, or actually six if you count Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas. We'll look at them as they come up later in the book of 1 Samuel. But our focus last time was on these three people that God's going to use providentially in his plan. He'll use these three people to bring Samuel into the world.

First, there's Elkanah. He's a man who loves God, worships him regularly, and made the sinful mistake of marrying two wives. Next, Peninnah, his wife, the one at this point that has been blessed according to the scriptures, at the end of verse four, she had sons and daughters, multiple kids, and even uses the word "all her sons and daughters." Then we meet Hannah, his second wife, who's full of sorrow and sadness, unable to conceive a child.

And yet, more importantly in this, we also were introduced in verse three to the Lord of Hosts in Shiloh. Yahweh, Jehovah Sabaoth. This is the first time this is used to describe, in over 300 times in the Bible, the powerful sovereignty of God, this Lord of Hosts. If we just focus, and this is a principle for us in our own lives, if we just focus on the people and we just focus on the problems and we just focus on the brokenness of situations, I guarantee that we will leave and stay in a state of discouragement. We will stay in a state of uncertainty.

You know, as we looked, we looked at a couple hard things last time. We had to pause. We had to look at this whole matter of bigamy or polygamy. And we asked the question, some people will come to this and go, "Why does God approve of bigamy?" He doesn't. The Bible just describes it for what it is. This is strictly, clearly condemned not only in teaching, but it's also condemned in the order of creation. It's condemned in the Old Testament and condemned in the New Testament.

However, there's brokenness. And we could spend, and I think many people do, their whole life arguing something like this and crafting an argument and seeking to convince people that God shouldn't approve of polygamy. Even though he doesn't, it's easy to get sidetracked on it when you just focus on the problem. It is a problem. It's clearly a problem. And poor Hannah and Peninnah and Elkanah are paying the price for it. He's created a rivalry in his house. He has created a difficulty for his own life. He's created tension among the children.

And each time you read of any type of bigamy or polygamy in the scriptures, problems always come. Why? Because it's not God's heart. And it's important for us to recognize that if our focus is only on the circumstances and the difficulties, not only will we leave discouraged and stay in a state of discouragement, but we'll be led most likely to make wrong decisions. And it is a wrong decision to exclude the Lord of Hosts. Because he changes everything. Elkanah, Peninnah, Hannah are all a part of the true story of bringing this miracle kid Samuel into the world, a miracle child that God's going to use in incredible ways.

But the real focus, the real star, if you will, of the book of 1 Samuel is the same focus in every book of the Bible: the Lord of Hosts. The one that's in sovereign control. And even though we are learning from the lives of ordinary men and women, it'll encourage us because if the Lord of Hosts, if Yahweh will use them, then he'll use us. Because we can look at our own lives and I mean we don't have polygamy or bigamy in our lives. I better not. Just in case you're like, "Whoa, you know, I was watching this show on cable and it was alright for him." No, it's not alright. It's not alright. Biblically, it's not alright. Practically, it's not alright.

God's order and rule for marriage, we remember, is very simple, right? This is the highest call, the best goal that we can possibly hit: one man, one woman, one lifetime. That's marriage. There is no other variation of marriage, even though our culture may try to introduce other definitions. There's only one definition. God created it. God maintains it. God blesses marriage. One man, one woman, one life.

So even though we're learning from lives of ordinary men, the focus is not on them. The focus is on God. We don't want to lose that. The people and the events recorded for us in the Bible are part of God's salvation history, or sometimes people refer to history as His Story. I mean, that's what salvation history really is. It's the story of God bringing Messiah into the world so that he might die for your sins and you and I might turn away from our sins and embrace him.

And so studying Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles reveals many sins and failures on the part of God's people, but they truly teach us that God is on the throne. What the books really teach us is that when God isn't allowed to rule, there will be seasons and times when he will overrule those that will not allow him to rule, to accomplish his plan and his purpose. That God will accomplish his will. That that is a fact. With or without us. And the Lord of Hosts will accomplish his purposes. And his will for us will be accomplished.

You have to agree by the time we end these first seven verses, we have to all conclude, I hope, that Hannah is in bad shape. This is not a good place for her to be in. She's in bad shape. Not only was she barren, which was tragedy for a woman in that time period, but Peninnah made a point to provoke and taunt her and pick on her and hurt her purposely year after year. A human taking advantage of another human's weakness and then using that repetitively within a familial relationship. It's unfortunate. It's sad. It still goes on today.

And Hannah's in bad shape, but that's from the human perspective. Our hearts go out to Hannah. How can your heart not go out in verse seven? "So it was, year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, that she provoked her; and she wept and did not eat." How can your heart not break for a woman in this condition? How can it not just say, "Whoa, whoa." Not only does she have the burden of being childless and having to face that, she also has the burden of sharing her husband with another woman. She also has the burden of being picked on and made fun of. She also has the burden of being provoked.

She's hungry, she refuses to eat, she's bitterly weeping. This word in the Hebrew speaks of deep, deep crying, not just a tearing up of the eyes. I mean, this is a crushed woman. Then verse 8, "Elkanah her husband said to her, 'Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?'" If you like to write notes in your Bible, next to verse 8, you can write this: Knucklehead. Elkanah, a man of worship, a man that seeks to please and worship God, was not a man of understanding with his wife Hannah.

He didn't get it. What she needed was sympathetic understanding and empathy, but what she got instead was a remark that I think was given sincerely. We joke at it and it's like, "Are you kidding me?" We can see sin in someone else's life much easier than the own remarks that we would make sometimes. So we hear that, we read into it, we kind of joke and we kind of laugh, but I believe he loved her. I believe he loved her and tried to say something that just, you don't want to say. Not wise. Didn't help.

Husbands, can I just speak to you for a second? Husbands, no elbows required. I will take care of it all. How careful we must be in being sensitive to the Holy Spirit and to our wives in serving them. You've been wondering what to pray for in your life, you've been wondering how to bring peace into your home, you've been wondering how to love your wife as Christ loved the church, you can start with just this one thing. Pray and ask God to help you to be careful in being more sensitive to the Holy Spirit and to your wife. That's what Peter said.

Let me give you a verse and you can maybe even memorize this verse. Turn all the way over to 1 Peter chapter 3. To a woman that's barren, to a woman that's hurting, to a woman that's being provoked, to a woman that is simply not eating because she's tired and she just has no appetite because she's weeping so much, and her eyes are all messed up and she doesn't look like she normally would and all of the things, the last thing she needs to be told is, "I know you're in bad shape but am I not better to you than ten sons?" You almost wish verse 9 said Hannah yelled at him, "No! You don't get it."

Husbands, 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 7. I believe that what Elkanah needed is the instruction of the Holy Spirit to us right now to be reminded of this important truth, husbands and you future single guys, I'm preparing you for the future. Don't just check out. The Lord has marriage for you in the future. You need to learn this. It's better to learn it now and to pray for it now. He tells us, Peter does, "Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered."

Dwell with them in understanding. Understand your wives. You know, I know it's a big joke that it's hard to understand my wife. No, no. The Holy Spirit will give you insight on your wife. The idea behind dwelling in understanding has the idea that you are spending a lot of time studying your wife. That's really the picture here. That you are at home with your wife physically and emotionally and spiritually. I know there were seasons where, and probably still in my life, in my marriage, where I could be there physically but I'd be checked out mentally. I might be somewhere else. And Marie and I would have to talk about that and she'd have to show me and she'd have to tell me.

I remember even a time just a few years ago where I really thought that I could do two things at once. I really did. Totally sincere. And the two things that I felt that I could do was talk to Marie and read my email at the same time. Or anything in front of me because I have a home office. I spend a majority of my study time at home because when I'm here, I want to be with people. I don't want to be locked in my office. So if I'm here, my office is really just to meet people. I don't do a lot of studying or reading because I'm always ministering to people and I love that. So I have an office at home and that way Marie has more access to me at home.

So she would come in, my laptop would be open, and she'd tell me something and I'd say something like, "Huh? What'd you say? Can you say that again?" And for many years, she'd be very gracious with me and she'd repeat it all over again and we'd finally connect. And one day, I don't know what possessed her. One day we're having that same kind of dialogue where we weren't connecting because I wasn't really paying attention because I was paying attention to the email or whatever was in front of me on my laptop there. She just walked over and just closed my laptop in the middle of what I was doing.

I said, "What are you doing? You can't just close my laptop." I was probably doing something and I was like, "What do you mean you can't close my laptop?" And she goes, "You're not paying attention." "Of course I'm paying attention." "You're not paying attention." And so I slowed down enough to listen to her and she explained to me what she meant by that. And from this day on, I close my laptop when anybody comes in my office. Because I can't do both.

You probably can't do both either, but I know I can't do both. I know that either I'm going to read my email or I'm going to pay attention to the person. And I learned, and Marie helped me with that. She helped me to understand. I guess my studying of Marie wasn't good up to that point. But she helped me by saying, "You need to pay attention to me." And fortunately it was just something simple like that where you need to pay attention to me.

And so now that's a habit with everyone. To the best of my ability now, if somebody comes in my office and I'm working on something, I'll do one of two things: I'll say, "Can you wait a minute, let me finish this," and then give them my full attention because I'm in the middle of something. You walked in on the middle because I have an open-door policy, you can walk right in my office. So I'm in the middle of something. Or if I'm not in the middle of something, I will purposely close my laptop, get a piece of paper out usually to take notes, and give my full attention.

And so it goes both ways, ladies. Don't sit there and go, "He just needs to understand me." You can help us. In a very kind way. Don't get all, you know, don't use me as an example and go slamming computers and... but that was very... it was something that interrupted me enough to pay attention and reminded me that I do have an obligation to really pay attention to my wife, period. She needs to get my full attention when she wants to come and talk to me, same with my kids, same with the people that I serve with.

People are more important than my computer or now, you know, that was before the iPad or the iPhone. People are more important. I'm always reminding the pastors to keep their phones in their pockets because it's very hard to minister to someone when you're Facebooking and they're talking to you. I'm serious. I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of it. I read recently an article, and I'm tired of it reading because 81% of people, they did a survey recently, 81% of people think it's okay to interrupt a conversation with your phone. What that means is it's okay to interrupt with a phone call, with a text message, with a beep of Twitter, a beep of Instagram. I mean, if you set all your alerts, you're going to be beeping all day. Your battery's going to go dead by noon because it's just going to be going, going, going.

And it can't be that important. And to give attention to people, to look them in the eye, to focus. And within the marriage, somehow Elkanah just didn't have the connection of understanding. See, men, when our wives are enduring emotional pain, when our wives are going under personal strain, you might want to jot this down. Men, do you have your notes out? Do you have a pen out? Write it on your hand if you have to. Ladies, if you're with them, write it on their hand. Say, "Get this, honey. Listen, this is powerful stuff." When our wives are enduring emotional pain, personal strain, they don't need reasons, they need understanding.

I mean, come on, how can you be so bad? "Am I not better than ten sons?" No, man. You're great. But I want a son. I already got a husband. I want a son. I want a son. And while we personally as men cannot experience that feeling like a mom can, we certainly can ask God for wisdom in understanding the pain that our wives are enduring and not try to replace it with some platitude. Because I'm certain that they love you, they just want a son. Or they just are enduring this pain. Or their mom just died. And you want to live and dwell, men, with your wives with understanding.

Something like, "I don't fully understand but I'll just sit here and cry with you. Or I'll just sit here and hold you while you're crying. Or if you don't want me to be near you, I'm going to be right over here, just a few feet from you while you're weeping and fasting. And you know what? I'm just going to sit over there and pray for you. I respect you, I won't touch you right now, I know you don't want me near you, I'm just going to be right over there. I'll be right near you, I'll stay close enough to you and I'll respect you when you're going through all the stuff that you're going through and I'll just pray God will give me understanding." Something's disconnected too with Elkanah because this has been happening year after year. She's been going through this year after year. So there is some disconnect in him too. While I think he cares for her, something's going on and you just don't want it to happen with you men.

Larry: Thanks for listening to Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. Pastor Ed, we noticed today that Hannah was misunderstood by her husband and he wasn't there for her like he could be. So a question comes to mind: how can and should we love and support our spouse or loved one that's in a similar place as Hannah?

Pastor Ed Taylor: Well, for us as men, Larry, the Bible tells us as husbands. This is a very direct instruction that we're to... Peter writes it and he says that we're to dwell with our wives with understanding. There is an element of instruction there that we are to seek to understand our wives, to step into their life, to help them to express their hurt, their pain, how they see the... I was just meeting with someone recently and we were talking about that very thing. He's been married for 20-plus years, I've been married for 30-plus years, and over the years God has enabled us to get to know our wives better.

And I can say that for me personally. I have learned more and more about my wife through the years because of the Holy Spirit living in me. Because I listen or I ask questions or I pay attention and I dwell. That means to stay put. The idea of that word dwell is that I don't move, that I live with my wife. That she not only has my physical presence, but also all of me, my conscious presence. And I'm not saying I hit the mark 100% of the time, that's not what I mean. But what I do mean is that I can continue to grow and even there's a part of that word that you could say to study your wives.

And when you dwell with your wife and you study your wife, you can then step into their lives in their hurt, in their pain. You're not easily offended. You know, if you ask your wife a question and she doesn't want to... "I don't want to tell you." Okay, well now you know that's just a part of her life that's hard for her to express and you don't take it personal. There's so many wonderful attributes that the Spirit of God will give us as we dwell with our wives, seeking to understand them, not to correct them, not to change them, but to understand them so we can meet them where they are, enjoy fellowship in that area, and go to the Lord together.

You know, this is just a quick answer at the end of a radio program, but like this is a huge one. This is so good. I'm so glad you asked it because if I can just spark in some of you men that are listening to me right now to memorize that passage and to live it out, I know that God will honor it. He will honor it. He will honor your desire to get to know your wife. And it's 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 7: "Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel."

That's not a joke to be made, "Oh, you know, you're weaker than me," but acknowledging they're in a different place than you are. They're a different gender, a different body makeup, a different emotional state. Everything about our wives is different. And instead of joking about it or dismissing it, we're to step into their world and honor them. I mean, there's so much in that verse. You're heirs together in the grace of God, so your prayers won't be hindered. Memorize that verse, 1 Peter 3:7. God will bless it in your life.

Larry: Thanks for sharing that, Pastor Ed. Today's message, "Dedication Comes Through Desperation," can be heard again at aboundinggraceradio.com. Abounding Grace is supported by listeners just like you and we're grateful for those that come alongside us with either a one-time gift or ongoing support. We'd like to say thanks today for a gift of $25 or more by sending you "The Jesus Person Promise Book" by David Wilkerson.

When you're dealing with a personal or spiritual problem, where do you turn? If you're wise, you'll open the word. And "The Jesus Person Promise Book" highlights over 800 promises in the word arranged topically. That makes it super easy to find the specific promise that relates to the problem you're experiencing. It's available to our Abounding Grace listeners when you support the ministry with a gift of $25 or more. So call us at 877-30-GRACE or visit our e-store at calvaryco.store. Amen. Come back next time when we'll continue our study of God's word with Pastor Ed. That's right here on Abounding Grace.