8. Hannahs Second Prayer

Hannah’s Second Prayer

"And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, mine horn is exalted in the Lord: my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in thy salvation. There is none holy as the Lord: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God. Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed......" (1 Samuel 2:1-3) I want to divide this prayer up very simply:

• Verses 1 to 3 refer specifically to the greatness of God;

• verses 4 to 8 indicate the God who can change things; and then from

• verses 9 to 10 we find a prophetic reference to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

But first of all these opening verses 1 to 3, "My heart rejoiceth in the Lord... I rejoice in thy salvation". It was indeed salvation; a very practical result of prayer, very definite evidence that God would save this woman from bitterness and from the reproach of her enemy and He changed things in such a remarkable way that she prayed and praised, as I believe we could rightly connect with this prayer. This prayer was all about the Lord - her strength was in the Lord, her exaltation was in the Lord, He was the One who had brought about salvation. There is no mention of what she had done in prayer, it is rather what God had done as a result of her prayer. She gave God the glory. Is not this true of the prayer the Lord taught the disciples to pray - God first; this is always right in prayer, God’s interests first and then the interests of others, and then our own personal interests, and so here Hannah, intuitively knowing what was right, glorified the God who had done so much for her. We find this in the Old Testament, we find it in the New Testament, praise God, we find it in our own experience.

It is one of the ways to warm our hearts when we bend our knees in prayer, not immediately to embark upon our requests for help or support or guidance, but just for a few moments to be engaged with the greatness of God Himself, just to let something enter into our souls of the greatness of the One to whom we are speaking, whether it is the Lord personally, or whether it is to God our Father, and doing these things in the power of the Spirit. We are exhorted to pray in the Spirit and I believe this is the way we pray in the Spirit, by addressing God the Father, by addressing God the Son, by His power and service, so that we say the things that are consistent with Their glory and greatness. This warms our hearts when first of all we recognise Their greatness and glory and supremacy, so small and puny as we are, and yet privileged to speak to Them in freedom and in liberty, with some intelligence in our souls as to Their greatness and yet who are we that can speak to them? And yet this is the wonder of the salvation that God has secured for us, that we can speak as if there was someone in our presence, some friend of ours, speaking to them face to face. This is the wonder of the communion today, God is not a God who is far off, He is a God who is near, hears our petitions, is glad to have us in His presence, glad to listen to what we have to say, and I believe pre-eminently, to hear us say how great He is, how wonderful He is, possessed of illimitable power, and our desires are so small in one sense compared to the greatness of the operations that He has in hand, and so very often the things that loom so great in our vision are so small when we bring them to God. You remember when David went into the presence of God, "Who am I" he said, "that should be in the presence of this great God? What is my house that I should ask for it in the way I am asking?" But he said, "Thy condescending gentleness hath made me great" (2 Samuel 22:36). What a wonderful statement to make in the presence of God. So Hannah went on to say, "there is none holy as the Lord for there is none beside thee, neither is there any rock like our God". If I have iniquity in my heart Scripture says, God will not hear me. Read through the book of Proverbs and you will find again and again statements to that effect that the prayers of the unrighteous are an abomination to God. Moral condition is a tremendous necessity in this matter of prayer.

God is holy and He would have His servants holy. We are told to lift up clean hands in the sanctuary. We are told to come before God in purity, with a contrite heart. We cannot go into God’s presence and pray for His interests with thoughts of revenge or anger against our fellow believers, all these things must be eliminated from our minds and consciences. God is holy and He would have us to be holy when we approach Him in prayer or in worship. That subdues us when we go into the presence of God, when we remember that He is holy. There cannot be any levity in His presence, there cannot be anything that speaks of man and his glory in His presence. "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:31), and so Hannah recognised the holiness of God and what was necessary for His company.

Then she said, "neither is there any rock like our God". I commend for your interest Deuteronomy 32:1-52 and see how often God is spoken of in that chapter as a Rock, and think of the other rocks, the rocks of the heathens, their idols, their support and think of the tremendous contrast between God and them, and this was what Hannah was saying, ’Oh’, she said, ’there is no rock like our God.’ ’Our God’ she said. This indicated some sense of relationship in her soul. She thought of the stability of God, the permanency of God, nobody could overthrow God, nothing could overthrow God, He is able in His power to bring into effect what He desires. And then, "Talk no more so exceeding proudly, let not arrogancy come out of thy mouth for the Lord is a God of knowledge and by him actions are weighed". There are many portions in the word of God that tell us that God is a heart-knowing God. We might be before Him with very correct expressions, but it may not be true of our hearts. God knows the heart and by Him actions are weighed. The parable, or rather, the story that the Lord told in Luke 18:1-43 speaks of the two men who went up to the temple to pray. One said, "God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are" (v.11) and went on to say he was a very good man, and by our standards he was a very good man, albeit, a proud and arrogant one. But the other man could not lift up his face to heaven but smote upon his breast and declared what he was in reality in the presence of God, and God heard him and answered his prayer because He is a heart-knowing God.

You remember that one man was to be chosen of the two candidates to fill up the place of Judas. The disciples felt that they could not make the decision, and so they prayed to the Lord and said, "Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men" (Acts 1:24). Outwardly those two men were just the same, they had been with the Lord, they knew all that He did from the baptism of John right up to the time He ascended to glory. They were conversant about the Lord and the things of the Lord. Now, said the disciples, ’Thou art the heart knowing God, tell us which of the two is to take the place of Judas?’ And the lot fell on Matthias, and he was chosen to fill up the place. Here we find this in Hannah’s prayer, God is a God of knowledge, by Him actions are weighed. You remember what is said of Belshazzar, "thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting". God, who knows our motives, our desires and everything about us, who can look right into our hearts and judge accurately why we say or do things and why we pray about things, weighs our actions. And there was not any question about Hannah, that her heart was as transparent as possible, there was not a single thought about self, it was all about God and about His interests, and she was so real and genuine about it that God answered her prayer. The supremacy of God was very much in Hannah’s heart.

"The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength. They that were full have hired out themselves for bread; and they that were hungry ceased: so that the barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble. The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and he hath set the world upon them." (1 Samuel 2:4-8)

God reverses situations. The adversary had been very prominent prior to Hannah praying and poor Hannah had a very difficult time indeed, but now we see in all the things that she said the position was reversed, instead of being persecuted she was in a place of peace, of blessing, instead of being barren she had a son whom she could give to the Lord, instead of being the enemy she was now in a place of nearness to God under His favour and kindness. We could go over all these sentences and we would find that this is the God who changes things. Oh, my, I need to get that into my soul and I am sure you do too. There is no need to acquiesce in a situation personally, or in our homes, or in our meetings, it is not right to acquiesce and say, ’There is nothing I can do about it, I must accept it’. We can do something, we can pray to God to change things. This has been done again and again and again in lives, in homes, in meetings, in the Christian testimony. There is a God who hears prayers, good prayers, genuine prayers coming from the heart and conscience and God can change things. If you forget all else, oh please remember this, and myself too, that we have a God who can change things! He is so powerful, He is so great that He can deal with any situation, whatever it might be, and can bring in blessing into seemingly impossible situations.

Now if we have not this faith in God it seems to me we will not make very much progress. Paul roars it triumphantly from Romans 8:1-39, "If God be for us who can be against us?" There is a note of triumph, and we can all take that home to our souls this evening - a God who changes things.

"He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth: and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed." (1 Samuel 2:9-10)

We have all experienced this, I am sure, that He keeps our feet in a straight path when it might be so easy to turn aside and wander. As we look back over our lives, we say, ’However did we get through? How was it that we kept going?’ We can remember times when it would have been so easy to slip away. We can only say, ’Well, God kept our feet in the pathway for His glory because He had something for us to do and He wanted some response from or hearts’. We praise God in the uncertain days that lie ahead, days that we do not know, days of darkness perhaps, days of difficulty, we can have this confidence, He will keep the feet of His saints.

There is one verse that is often a particular joy to my spirit, and this is in 2 Timothy 4:1-22. Paul, the servant of the Lord, was in prison and facing great difficulty, it was not a pleasant experience for him, but he uttered the words so triumphantly to Timothy when he said, "The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom" (2 Timothy 4:18). There was a man with the faith in his soul that God would keep his feet; and we need to remember this, in days of great opposition and difficulty, we have a God who keeps us. The Lord Jesus said to His Father in John 17:1-26, ’None of them is lost, I have guarded them, I have kept them’. Oh, how wonderful it is today that the Lord keeps us and as we just quietly give our lives into His keeping, how able He is to do it and to lead us along step by step for His pleasure and glory. Hannah knew this, she had experienced this, she knew the joy of victory through prayer and she was able to respond to the God who had done it all.

Verse 10 could only be said through divine inspiration. At that time there was no king in Israel, there was no suggestion of a king, and yet here was Hannah speaking about a king, speaking about the Lord’s anointed. Again I say, this could only be through divine inspiration; and though it was fulfilled partially in David, the son of Jesse, it will be finally and completely fulfilled in Jesus, the Son of God, God’s king, God’s anointed, when every adversary will be overthrown and destroyed, and a permanent change for the better will be brought in for a thousand years when God’s king will reign, and all the adversaries will be put down for ever. Hannah was a living example of this, she had overcome, her adversaries had been defeated and she was in the joy of victory. So it will be with the Lord’s anointed, He will overcome, He will bring in different conditions and He will create praise and worship to God for that wonderful period when He shall be supreme.