Hannah’s Mature Prayer
You must worship in spirit and truth. Spirit and truth, put another way, are “the Holy Spirit and the truth,” and to worship in the Holy Spirit and in truth, you need a faith that treasures the unseen kingdom of God above the visible world. God wants you to overcome sin with this faith. When he commanded Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the command came from a Father’s heart that hoped they would boldly overcome Satan’s temptation with the Word. You must overcome by faith, because the world is a place where sin runs rampant. Like a salmon that swims against the flowing river and heads upstream toward the home where it was born, only the one who swims against the world, that sea of sin, and runs toward the eternal resting place can receive salvation.
Though the people of Israel and the priests had fallen into corruption, Hannah laid down all her greed, focused on God alone, and began to repent with all her heart. She looked back on the times she had not prayed, using Peninnah’s persecution as an excuse, and on how she had failed to be thankful to the husband who loved her, and she prayed with a sorry heart. Once Hannah realized how overflowing the love was that she received from God, she was no longer ashamed of having no son, and she no longer hated Peninnah, who persecuted her. Hannah had met God, who worked in her life directly. That is why neither people nor circumstances were any hindrance at all to her worship of God.
Church members often say they cannot focus on worship because of people or circumstances. But saying so is already much like confessing that they have drifted far from God. A believer who has truly met God does not even see the interference of people and circumstances, however heavy it is. Those who blame their surroundings are not, in fact, kept from worship by their circumstances; they fail to offer whole worship because they are not focusing on God.
Isaiah 1:11-12
11“What are the multitude of your sacrifices to me?”, says Yahweh. “I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed animals. I don’t delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of male goats. 12When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to trample my courts?
The people brought the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed animals as offerings to have their own sins forgiven. That is why God said he took no delight at all in them. That the people brought many offerings meant they had committed many sins. So God told them to bring no more vain offerings with no true faith in them. Even the offerings they gave to God were really for the purpose of having their own sins forgiven, and so, before any formal sacrifice, God wanted them to live holy lives as his people. In the same way, you must not bring gifts for your own sake. God will gladly receive an offering given simply out of thanks for the grace he has given, and he will give a greater reward.
Hannah could be humble because she had no fruit in the world. She realized that she could do nothing herself, and so, confessing that God alone is the Savior, she could worship in the Holy Spirit and in truth. Suffering and blessing are both things God allows. So if we let the knife of suffering cut away the rough edges of our lives, we will be able to live as mature believers. And God will bless such mature believers.
1 Samuel 1:20
20When the time had come, Hannah conceived, and bore a son; and she named him Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked him of Yahweh.”
The name “Samuel” means “I have asked him of Yahweh,” that is, she asked God earnestly and received an answer. Persecuted and mocked by Peninnah, Hannah prayed with every ounce of strength she had. Look at her vow to give him as a Nazirite if God would give her a son. Then you can see with what heart Hannah must have cried out to God. The sincere prayer of a believer who tears the heart like this will surely be accepted.
A Nazirite has no life of their own, because a Nazirite must live as God commands. No razor may come on a Nazirite’s head, they must not drink wine, and they must not go near a dead body. To live like this, one must live a life thoroughly set apart from the world. Keeping the razor off the head shows God a resolve: God is my king, and I will live as a servant who does not damage the promise he has given. A Nazirite does not drink wine because a Nazirite must preserve a holy body and mind that bear the likeness of God’s image. Drinking the world’s liquor turns both mind and body worldly. That is why a Nazirite must not drink wine. When people drink, they become self-centered. Shut up inside the liquor, they judge and act within their own thoughts, so they disobey God’s command without even knowing that it is sin. In the end they become people who cannot read God’s thoughts.
A disciple wanted to go and bury his father, who had died, and Jesus told him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead.” Believers are the living, who have received new life. So Jesus had the dead who had returned to dust buried by the dead who had not received eternal life. For this reason a Nazirite must not touch the dead, who have no life. Hannah vowed to raise Samuel as a Nazirite, who had to walk a path cut off this thoroughly from the world.
What faith have you offered to God? Do you have fruit of the Spirit that God would accept? Hannah prayed to be given Samuel, and she gladly offered the fruit of that prayer, by faith, for the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
Look closely at Hannah’s prayer. Then you see that her worldly desire, passing through the tunnel of suffering, was born again as spiritual faith. Only after she was born again did she know that the fruit she was to bear was not a jewel the world wants, as Peninnah’s was, but fruit of the Spirit, like Samuel.
1 Samuel 2:1
1Hannah prayed, and said: “My heart exults in Yahweh! My horn is exalted in Yahweh. My mouth is enlarged over my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation.
Hannah praised God, who had given her a son. As she gave to God the son more precious to her than her own life, she made a prophetic, redemptive-historical confession that praised the victory of Christ. God’s grace would be less a miracle from heaven, or the miracle of the dead coming back to life, than the gratitude believers feel through small answers in their own lives. Hannah’s receiving a son through prayer was an entirely personal matter. But when she received Samuel, realized that he was grace given by God, and gave thanks, God became the one who is alive and at work. If believers cannot discern grace spiritually, there is no grace of God for them either. Hannah had grown mature enough to give Samuel to God, for she confessed that her horn was exalted in Yahweh. Now that Peninnah had driven her to rely on God all the more, Hannah regretted the time she had spent resenting God, saying that having no children meant God had not blessed her. She felt guilty about that time, when she had not understood God’s deep love, had resented him, and had failed to live by faith for him. Once she understood with what heart Yahweh had trained her, she came to regret her own failure to exalt God fully.
Believers, too, feel ashamed when they own little, and they cannot exalt God freely. But when spiritual faith matures, as Hannah’s did, they will come to see how shameful it is to judge their lives by how much or how little they own. That is why meeting God fully, the God who is greater than the world, matters more than anything.
1 Samuel 3:19-20
19Samuel grew, and Yahweh was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground. 20All Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of Yahweh.
Samuel delivered the words God gave him honestly, and God helped him so that not one of his prophecies failed to come true. Because Samuel’s words always came to pass, the people of Israel recognized that Samuel was the prophet God had chosen. The born-again faith of one person, Hannah, brought forth Samuel, a man of faith, and set all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba in the ranks of salvation.
1 Samuel 2:2
2There is no one as holy as Yahweh, For there is no one besides you, nor is there any rock like our God.
Only someone who has lived through things by faith can make such a confession, for it is an astonishing confession that the history of salvation runs, through Christ, all the way to the salvation of all humankind. Hannah is confessing with her lips a prayer that only one who has met the eternal Christ, beyond all human knowledge, understanding, and common sense, can pray. The pain of the humiliation she suffered because she could not bear a child of the flesh helped Hannah look to God alone, and the countless tears she shed under mockery made her cast off the heart that had relied on people. Suffering made Hannah a firmer child of God. Suffering is like a passing typhoon, but its fierce winds have the power to change both people and circumstances. A believer who has come through suffering like a strong typhoon will, when Satan tempts with wealth, let go of desire for the world instead, and when Satan persecutes with power, will pray in faith.
The God Hannah looked to was her eternal resting place and her refuge. She now has a son, Samuel, but even if she had had no child, because she had met God, who is the rock, she could have sung praises of thanks for that alone. I hope you, too, will have a faith that can praise and thank him greatly for salvation alone.
1 Samuel 2:3
3“Don’t keep talking so exceedingly proudly. Don’t let arrogance come out of your mouth, For Yahweh is a God of knowledge. By him actions are weighed.
People speak proud and arrogant words when they do not admit that they are sinners. Someone who knows they are living before God, who knows all and can do all, never has the pride and arrogance to judge or condemn others. That is why Jesus, too, said that if we do not want to be judged we must not judge, and that whoever measures others will be measured.
Seeing Hannah suffer because she had no children, people probably thought her trouble came because she had sinned against God. There were probably some who went a step further and advised her to think hard about whether she had sinned against God, and to repent. People can act this way because they will not let go of the thought that they are more righteous and honest than the other person. Looking at someone who suffers, they think they are better than that person, so they look for their own strengths, and before they know it they try to criticize and rebuke them. People who readily judge and condemn others, when they themselves suffer, try to shrink their own sin and settle it with God, rather than repent to him sincerely. They think that once they find the sin and settle it with God, that is the end of it.
But the suffering God gives is complex and subtle. For he put Hannah through the fire to give her Samuel, and he put Job through the fire because he wanted to reveal Job’s whole faith to the world. So if we cannot discern spiritually, we end up in the seat of those who sin by speaking proud and arrogant words against God. Therefore, when you look at the problems and events you meet in life, do not look only at what the eye can see; I hope you will have the wisdom to judge them spiritually.
Matthew 12:37
37For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
God knew with what heart Peninnah criticized and judged Hannah. And the suffering Hannah went through was needed for the kingdom of God. So when Peninnah judged and criticized recklessly, not knowing God’s will, she was sinning against God. Trusting only in her sons, the pride of the world, Peninnah poured out arrogant words and mockery on Hannah, but when God approved of Hannah, it was Peninnah who came under God’s rebuke instead. Because Hannah bore Samuel amid God’s wonderful blessing, Peninnah was no longer any match for her. Peninnah poured out every evil word because she had decided Hannah could never bear a son, but now those words will put her to shame. Words reveal the person, so by the words that come out of someone’s mouth we can tell whether they are righteous, or cowardly and wicked. That is why we must always be careful with our words and actions, and think deeply before we act.
Verse 4 of the passage says, “The bows of the mighty men are broken. Those who stumbled are armed with strength.” The bow of the mighty, which they used to persecute the poor and to raise up their own righteousness like the tower of Babel, will be snapped and broken like Peninnah’s bow. But those who trust God, like Hannah, may seem to stumble for a while, yet once the wind of suffering has passed, they will rise again, girded with truth. The world, like a house built on sand, cannot keep its balance and sways from side to side, but believers who put God’s word at the center will not be shaken, as if a belt were girded around their waist.
1 Samuel 2:5
5Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread. Those who were hungry are satisfied. Yes, the barren has borne seven. She who has many children languishes.
God stepped in, and the situation was completely reversed. Those who were satisfied with the fruit of the world will in the end perish, and believers who fasted from the world and kept their faith will live in plenty in the kingdom of God, never hungry again. “Seven” means the perfect number. That is, it means the whole blessing received by children of faith who, like Hannah, did not conceive greed and lust. But God will make those who have lived for human righteousness, pride, and lust languish forever.
To understand this word easily, let us look at the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man received what was God’s, yet every day he held a king’s feast for himself and lived in luxury, and after death he suffered in hell, where he could not have even a single drop of water. He ended up begging a drop of water from Lazarus, the beggar who had once begged from him. However much we enjoy in the world, if it is not the fruit of the Spirit, it is in the end nothing more than grounds for falling into hell and suffering there. If we live thinking about what comes after death, rather than looking at what is right before our eyes, we will be able to weigh our present lives more carefully.
When one has a faith that rises above the world, as Hannah did, giving up to God a son like Samuel, won with such difficulty amid pain and mockery, is no loss. For, like Job, Hannah had come to the high faith that sees God with her own eyes, and she realized that Samuel was God’s son. She knew that in a world of darkness God’s embrace is the safest place. Having received the eternal covenant, Hannah came to believe that Yahweh is the one who kills and makes alive, who brings down to Sheol and brings up. She came to a complete faith that she could not keep her son by her own effort, that all of it depended on God. Realizing that her own life and her son’s life depended on God, she now had nothing to fear and no greed for the world. After she gave Samuel to God and was given more children, she even came to feel pity for Peninnah, who did not rely on God.
1 Samuel 2:8
8He raises up the poor out of the dust. He lifts up the needy from the dunghill, To make them sit with princes, and inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are Yahweh’s. He has set the world on them.
God, who raised the poor in spirit out of the dust, made those who had been needy sit with blessed princes and inherit the throne of glory. Being poor in spirit does not mean being poor for lack of worldly goods; it means the vessel of the heart is empty because one has laid down the greed of the world. Only when the heart is poor can that empty space be filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and God blesses the children who are filled with the Holy Spirit. Children whose hearts are wholly filled with God’s grace now break free from the body made of dust, which is what human beings are, and live freely as God’s people.
Saved believers are those who have not defiled themselves along with the world, who are poor in spirit, and who are children who obey the Lamb wherever he leads. Those who belong to God and to the Lamb have no lie in their mouths and are blameless, so God will keep the feet of these holy ones.
Until now the world has tormented these children of God in the darkness with its worldly power, but on the day he works by the fire of the Holy Spirit, the darkness will retreat, and the mouths of those who spoke arrogant words to believers will be put to silence. Until the Lord took up the cross to fulfill God’s covenant, darkness seemed to prevail, but when he conquered death and rose again, no one could open their mouth and no one dared to oppose him. In the same way, on the day the Lord returns, the power of the world will be broken to pieces.
1 Samuel 2:10
10Those who strive with Yahweh shall be broken to pieces. He will thunder against them in the sky. “Yahweh will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.”
Those who opposed the power of Christ will be broken to pieces. On the day he returns, the Lord will lift his horn high and stand exalted as Judge, so that the world under judgment can see. On this last day, the world that rejected the gospel Jesus preached will be judged. On that day the world will be judged, but the children who exalted the authority and glory of Christ will be saved and will sing praises of glory. Hannah realized all of this, praised the Lord with all her heart, and gave thanks to the God of salvation. Only when we are born again by faith can we give God a son like Samuel. The prayer of a mother who prays and praises is great. The prayer his mother prayed for Samuel will be a great strength to him as he carries out his mission, and God, who received Hannah’s prayer, will help Samuel’s life through people and through the Spirit.
It is God who specially protects believers who worship him in spirit and truth, and who hears whatever they pray. Believe this, and even if the world despises and mocks your faith, look to God alone. Even if you have nothing and no worldly power, rejoice in God alone. Then he will raise you up out of the dust, make you sit with princes who have received God’s grace, and let you inherit the throne of glory.
The world firmly believes that the whole earth is its own, but the pillars of the earth are Yahweh’s, and he has set this world on them. The world is God’s, and God is the owner of the whole universe and all things. I hope you will not doubt this, but live by faith. May you always enjoy peace within the blessing of God, the owner of eternal life and of all things. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.
1 Samuel 2:27-36
27A man of God came to Eli, and said to him, “Yahweh says, ‘Did I reveal myself to the house of your father, when they were in Egypt in bondage to Pharaoh’s house? 28Didn’t I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? Didn’t I give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? 29Why do you kick at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded in my habitation, and honor your sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people?’ 30“Therefore Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘I said indeed that your house, and the house of your father, should walk before me forever.’ But now Yahweh says, ‘Far be it from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me will be cursed. 31Behold, the days come, that I will cut off your arm, and the arm of your father’s house, that there will not be an old man in your house. 32You will see the affliction of my habitation, in all the wealth which I will give Israel; and there shall not be an old man in your house forever. 33The man of yours, whom I don’t cut off from my altar, will consume your eyes and grieve your heart; and all the increase of your house will die in the flower of their age. 34“‘This will be the sign to you, that will come on your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they will both die. 35I will raise me up a faithful priest, that will do according to that which is in my heart and in my mind. I will build him a sure house; and he will walk before my anointed forever. 36It will happen, that everyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and will say, “Please put me into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a morsel of bread.”’”