Abounding Grace

Announcer: Why? That's often the first question that runs through our minds when we're suffering. Here is Pastor Ed Taylor.

Pastor Ed Taylor: The question in difficulties is always why, and it's a hard question to answer. Almost all the time, you're not going to get an answer until you get to heaven. The question really isn't why, but who. Who's your God? Who do you trust? Who's on the throne?

But for Hannah, because we have part of the story with her, we get a little bit of insight into why God delayed the prayer and why she was barren for so long. She was barren for so long to bring her to this place of desperation. Out of this desperation came dedication. God was going to use Hannah all along, in His timing and His purposes, to bear a child whose name would be Samuel and be used to bring great stability and strength to the nation of Israel.

Announcer: Or maybe today you find yourself in a desperate place in your life. Things have turned south in a hurry. That's the place we find Hannah as we open 1 Samuel 1 on Abounding Grace. She was barren and wanting a child. It was a tragedy for a woman in that day and even can be for some still today.

She was in a miserable place of desperation. We'll see that this desperation in her life led to dedication. It's a great example for us to consider whenever we or some we know is in deep difficulty. Here is Pastor Ed Taylor with more.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Verse nine: "So Hannah arose after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the tabernacle of the Lord. And she was in bitterness of soul and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish." So this is hard, horrible stuff.

I really hope people listening in on the radio never have to see your wife like this. I really hope you never have to deal with this kind of issue in your marriage, where your wife is in bitterness of soul and weeping in anguish. But that's where she's at. She made a vow in verse 11: "O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head."

So although Elkanah knew what the issue was, he couldn't solve it. Only God could solve the heart and the womb problem in Hannah. This reminds me again that married couples so often look to our spouses as the solution to our problems, to our depression, and to our anguish of soul and our discouragement. But really, all they can do is listen. Only God can help with the heart issue in your life. Our spouses are not made to be God replacements in our lives.

Our spouses are given to us as helpmates as we become one, but they can't give us and fulfill 100% of our needs. Only God can do that. We do a disservice to our spouse when we expect them to do something that they're incapable of doing. It's just a side note here where you see this. Elkanah understands something's wrong, but he doesn't know really what to say and what to do.

The Bible says to cast all our cares upon the Lord, to give all our worries and cares to God. There's a great intimacy in a marriage where we can share what's going on in our lives. But when there's a great difficulty that only God can solve, then we need to trust God together. Then our marriage becomes one of faith together, trusting the Lord, recognizing only He can help.

That's what's described in verse 10. Notice she is not looking to Elkanah to solve her problem. She's not looking to her husband to fulfill this emptiness. She's not looking at her husband as the solution. This discouragement, this difficulty in her life caused great desperation that will now lead to a dedication.

She's so desperate that she's just seeking the Lord. That's how desperate she is. With her prayers now came a vow. Hannah is barren and she wants a child. But the desperation of the situation—this is a miracle here—she says, "If You give me a child, I will give him back." That's not just some kind of dedication where I dedicate his life to the Lord and I'll raise him.

In her mind, she literally means, "I will give him back to You." We're going to find out that she's going to drop him off at the temple. He belongs to God. She's going to be satisfied with the time that she can spend with him because if God does give her a kid, the kid belongs to Him, and that's what she's committing to. That's heavy.

I pray God gives me the heart of Hannah. I want to be in that place where desperation now will lead to deeper dedication. Now we understand a little bit, because the question in difficulties is always why, and it's a hard question to answer. Almost all the time, you're not going to get an answer until you get to heaven. The question really isn't why, but who. Who's your God? Who do you trust? Who's on the throne?

For Hannah, because we have part of the story with her, we get a little bit of insight into why God delayed the prayer and why she was barren for so long. She was barren for so long to bring her to this place of desperation. Out of this desperation came dedication. God was going to use Hannah all along, in His timing and His purposes, to bear a child whose name would be Samuel and be used to bring great stability and strength to the nation of Israel.

If you told Hannah that, she probably wouldn't have believed it. So just hang tight, because in a few years, this is how it's all going to go down. Hannah probably would have said, "No, I want him now. If You're going to give me a kid in years, why can't You give me a kid in months? And if You can give me a kid in months, why can't You just conceive right now? Because Peninnah is just dogging me, and I'm tired of it. This is wrong. I want a kid, and I want to raise that kid and put her in Peninnah's face and say, 'Leave me alone!'"

Now, that's probably our flesh, but we don't know what Hannah would do. We do see now in the delay, the delay led to desperation, the desperation led to dedication. Through that dedication, God uses that for the purposes that we're studying about Hannah and Elkanah and Peninnah even to this day. Right now, their lives are encouraging us.

By the time she really gets to this place of desperation, her prayer is not just that she wants a child. Now her prayer is something like, "I want a child not for myself, Lord, but for You." That's huge. Pick up with me now in verse 12: "And it happened, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli watched her mouth. Now Hannah spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she was drunk."

That answers a quick question that comes into Calvary Live every once in a while: "Can you pray without speaking out loud?" The answer is yes. Of course you can pray in your heart. God hears you; He knows the words that you're going to speak before they even leave your mouth. Because her lips moved but her voice wasn't heard, Eli thought she was drunk. Eli said to her, "How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you."

So poor sweet Hannah: barren, taunted, provoked, weeping, hungry, sad, sorrowful, desperate, lonely, insensitive husband. She comes to a place of worship and who does she meet? Eli, an insensitive, prayerless priest. It just seems to not get much better for her. She doesn't know yet that she's not going to be barren. This is all happening real-time for her.

We're already thinking about Samuel. We already read ahead; we know what God's going to do. This is happening real-time. This is happening one after another after another. Now the place where you would think she'd get some sensitivity, the place where you'd think she'd get some ministry, the place where you would expect the pastor to really have a spiritual heart and mind and not be goofing off and really be focused on serving and ministry, he totally misses it.

This is a few things we learn here that we don't want to miss. Number one, the spiritual climate of the day is not a good one. We already know that from Judges, but it carries over into 1 Samuel. The spiritual leaders were very poor because poor leadership leads to poor leadership. That's the only thing you can reproduce is yourself.

We learn through Eli here that the times were tough. Not only that, because we know from Hophni and Phinehas that Eli was a horrible priest, a horrible pastor, and a horrible dad. He didn't take care of business. He didn't take care of business spiritually or practically.

Eli also becomes a warning to us. Can I give you a passage on what the warning is? Would you turn over to Proverbs chapter three? If you haven't already memorized this, it's one of the first verses I ever memorized. It's my life verse. If I sign something or I write something, I usually put this verse next to my signature, next to my note.

Proverbs chapter three, verses five and six. Eli is a warning to us, especially as we're counseling and ministering to people. We see somebody and outward appearances lead us to one conclusion like this. She kind of looked desperate. People when they pray don't fold their hands and close their eyes and just sit there. This is a desperate woman. She's no doubt just moving and her lips are moving, and she's probably just in agony.

It probably looks like some behavior of drunkenness, or Eli's just reading into it. But it says because of her mannerisms, he concluded that. This is what Proverbs chapter three verse five says, and this is very important to keep in mind in every area of your life, but it's especially important when you're serving other people.

Any time you give someone advice, any time you give someone a scripture, any time someone asks you for help, believer or unbeliever, this verse applies. It says: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Don't lean on your own understanding, especially when you're serving others in the depth of their pain, in the depth of their sorrow.

When you have outward appearances, Eli here does more harm than good in God's name on top of it. You and I can do the same, and sometimes we do. We need to be very, very careful here. I'm reminded of another example you'd relate very quickly. Job's friends did the same thing. Job's friends were very, very effective those first seven days because in those first seven days, they just sat there and said nothing.

Then they decided, "Enough sitting. This brother needs some advice." All they did was rail on him. I remember reading Job as a new believer. I was trying to read through the Bible and I remember reading Job and I was reading his friends and I was highlighting everything. "This is good. This is good. Everything about what they're saying: be righteous, be holy."

Then when I finally was taught Job and I found out how wrong I was... you can't un-highlight your Bible, did you know that? Somebody needs to go to the Shark Tank and invent something that un-highlights. It just doesn't happen. But the good news is that you can change the way you behave. God can do that in your life. You can un-highlight things in your life.

Maybe not in your Bible; it'll be always a reminder. But in your life, if you've done something and you get another chance to do it, you can do it differently. That's good news. If you've given bad counsel or you've leaned on your own understanding before, the next time, you can fix it. You can really trust the Lord. And it's okay if somebody comes to you for counsel and they lay it before you and they go, "Well, what do you think I should do?" It's okay to say, "I have no idea. I don't know. Let's pray together. I really don't know."

Instead of, "Well, I experienced this in my life so you should do this," or, "Yeah, I was dealing with this guy over here..." No. I don't know, and neither do you. You need to hear from the Lord. Praying and seeking the Lord, seeking wise counsel, and really grasping because the real issue that's before us is that it's never happened before, we've never experienced it before, so we just really have to seek the Lord.

Now, the other good part of this, the good news now is Eli's a warning. Eli shows us here first of all that the condition of the nation is really bad. Secondly, it's a warning to us not to lean on our own understanding because you're dealing with people and you can hurt people more than they're already hurt when they don't want to be hurt anymore. They want to have healing. They want help understanding.

Just take them to Jesus. Take them to the throne room. Sometimes the only way we can do that is just pray with them. "I don't have advice. I don't know." I'm personally not offended if you say, "You're not a good pastor." I'm probably not a good pastor. I'm just telling you I don't know. But I'll tell you what, I know One that does know.

It's kind of like Daniel when he was interpreting the dreams. "You're a dream interpreter." No, I don't interpret dreams, but I know Who does. I know Who can give the interpretation. Just have that confidence that even if I don't know right now, I think if God wants me to be a part of it, He'll show me. And if He never shows me, I can still demonstrate love to someone without ever trying to fix their problems. You're not dealing with a problem, folks; you're dealing with a person. Don't forget that.

Eli comes up: "You're drunk, you're drunk." She was a passionate, prayerful, hurting woman. That's her problem. She was the opposite of what he concluded. He doesn't even come up to ask her, "Are you okay?" Just, "You're drunk, woman!" The third thing though that we learn is very encouraging, and that is: the Holy Spirit will help us. The Holy Spirit will help us when serving others.

We don't have to fear serving others and opening up the Bible with people with deep difficulties because God helps us. We don't have to have experienced everything that anyone has ever experienced in order to be an effective vessel in the hand of God because God knows all. The Bible says that we don't have a high priest that hasn't felt and lived like us. Jesus went through life just like you and I but without sin.

The Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses, the Bible says. So we have the Spirit of God. We don't have to feel intimidated in giving counsel. We know that the Lord... this accusation of her being drunk was completely and spiritually insensitive to the fact that this woman was in deep agony, bitterness of soul, pouring out her heart to the Lord. He was so far opposite because she was exactly what she needed to be: crying out to God.

She was 100% in the right place. How quickly we can jump to wrong conclusions. It's hard to jump back, so be careful, church. Verse 15, back in 1 Samuel now. I just want you to know we will not finish the chapter, but let's finish this section here, at least from the paragraph.

Verse 14: "So Eli said to her, 'How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you.'" Now Hannah has to defend herself again, just like she did with her husband. Hannah answered and said, "No, my lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now."

Then Eli answered and said, "Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of Him." And she said, "Let your maidservant find favor in your sight." So the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. Remember Hannah's name means gracious. What a picture of grace here: mishandled, misunderstood, hurt upon hurt, and she still expresses respect to Eli and receives the word of the Lord from him.

What a gracious answer she gives to an insensitive spiritual leader: "No, my lord, I've just poured out my soul before my God." It's probably a description of prayer at our deepest. In Romans chapter eight, verse 26, it says the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress, for we don't even know what we should pray for nor how we should pray, but the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.

The Father, who knows all hearts, knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will. So with Hannah, there was no sound, no utterance, just the groaning of her spirit praying desperately to her faithful God and very graciously answering. Then she just says, "Hey, I receive that word. Let your maidservant find favor."

She leaves. That word, even though it came through an insensitive person, she was able to hear through, she was able to receive through. That word took away her sadness. Just the word of the Lord ministering to the deepest needs of our hearts. Too often our prayers—and I just lay this out before you perhaps as a challenge, perhaps just to stir you—too often our prayers are merely from our heads and not from our hearts.

God wants to deepen our prayer life. You know how He does that? Through painful trials. That's one of the tools. It's not the only tool, but it's one of the tools. I think God sometimes brings us to a place of utter desperation and despair that will bring us to an utter depth of prayer that we normally don't enter into. When we finally get desperate before God, we take our prayer life to a new level.

I can tell you this, from the moment that I received the phone call that my son Eddie had collapsed and was on the front lawn and we were up in Breckenridge... we came home to the hospital probably a little faster than normal, and we rushed over there. I can say since that phone call and that desperate call from his wife on the other side that moved us into action immediately, our life has become one of desperate prayer, and it hasn't changed.

Some days are better than others, but there has been a depth of prayer that I can say I haven't had before. I can say that with absolute certainty. The prayer actually has become something along the lines of, "Don't give me something, Lord, give me You. Don't give me something. I'm not asking for something."

I've learned over the years even when I don't pray for things, God still supplies all my needs according to riches in Christ Jesus. If I forget about something or I'm not trusting in Him, God is so faithful. But I'll tell you, when you're desperate, when there's a depth of desperation and anguish and bitterness of soul and all kind of emotion that comes with that, your life will change.

Hannah is in desperate need. She hasn't lost someone; in her desperation, she just doesn't have someone. She wants to have a baby. That's how desperate she is. A huge, huge desperation. She says, "I'm not drunk, I'm just a desperate woman praying and expecting God to answer my request." I like that. Drunk people normally don't seek the Lord. It's usually the other way around; the Lord sobers them up in an instant with some tragedy that comes because you're under the influence of something.

It's just a joyful thing where we end up... that led to a lack of sadness. It led to happiness and joy. The presence of the Lord, the answer of the Lord. This is another way of seeing, as she leaves at the end of verse 18, another way of looking at an example in the Old Testament of what it looks like to have a peace that passes all understanding.

She was desperate—husband, priest, pastor—has a little conversation, the word of the Lord spoken to her. She's good. That's pretty powerful. If we had more time, we will next time, but verse 19: God answers. God's answer comes. Let's just read a little bit so you can leave here understanding.

Her face was no longer sad. "Then they rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord, and returned and came to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew his wife, and the Lord remembered her. So it came to pass in the process of time that Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, 'Because I have asked for him from the Lord.'"

It can happen that fast. Everything's against this gal—boom, boom, boom, boom! She's all messed up personally and physically and emotionally. She's got family issues, all of it. And then, boom! They rose early in the morning, they worshiped the Lord, they went home, Hannah and Elkanah, Elkanah knew his wife, it came to pass in the process of time she conceived, bore a son. That's at least nine months. Boom! Called his name Samuel and everything kicks into high gear now.

Are you desperate for something like that in your life right now? We'll leave you to think that over. You're listening to Pastor Ed Taylor on Abounding Grace and his message, "Dedication Comes Through Desperation." You can hear it again at aboundinggraceradio.com. You can also download the Calvary Church app as well.

Announcer: Today we'd like to tell you about the Jesus Person Promise Book, authored by David Wilkerson. With well over a million copies in print, this book is a wonderful tool for everyday use. It brings the truth of God's word into virtually every spiritual and personal problem encountered today. You'll read over 800 promises from the Bible arranged topically, making it easy to use when you're in need of encouragement.

We'll gladly send you a copy for a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Call toll-free at 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-30-GRACE, or order it online at calvaryco.store. Please remember this ministry is made possible through the support of our listeners, and we're grateful for whatever the Lord leads you to do. It would be great to hear from you during these summer months. Call toll-free 877-30-GRACE. Donations can also be made online at aboundinggraceradio.com. This has been Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed, and we'll look for you tomorrow as we open the Word together in search of God's abounding grace.

Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado here in Aurora.