August 13, 2025 • 29 mins
Ever felt like you're praying without results while others mock your struggles? Hannah's story from 1 Samuel reveals profound truth about those seasons when nothing seems to happen despite our deepest prayers.
The journey begins with Hannah, a woman desperately longing for a child while enduring cruel taunts from her husband's other wife who had many children. Year after year, Hannah's prayers seemed to go unanswered, leading to such deep grief she couldn't eat. Yet this apparent divine silence wasn't rejection—it was preparation for something extraordinary.
What makes this narrative particularly significant is that Hannah's husband Elkanah came from a priestly lineage responsible for physically carrying the Ark of the Covenant—a 400-pound gold-covered chest representing God's glory. This teaches us something profound: there are no shortcuts to carrying spiritual weight. When Hannah finally poured out her soul at the temple, her prayers were so intense that Eli the priest mistook her for being drunk. Our deepest intercessions often appear strange to others because they transcend conventional expression.
Hannah's breakthrough wasn't just about having a child—it was about birthing Samuel, the prophet who would transform Israel during a critical transition period. The timing had to be perfect, and the depth of her intercession matched the significance of what God would accomplish through her son. Your current barren season may feel endless, but it might be preparing you to birth something of remarkable significance. The question isn't whether God hears you, but whether you can trust His perfect timing while carrying the weight of His glory through the waiting.
Looking for more spiritual insights? Visit lifeonthefire.com or email your thoughts to lifeonthefire@gmail.com. We'd love to hear how Hannah's story connects with your journey.
Loving Yeshua/Jesus, Loving people... Come as you are and you will be loved!
Feel free to check out our website by typing in lifearoundthefire.com or Life Around The Fire ... We think you'll find some beneficial stuff to look at and apply to your life.
Shalom to you and your home.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Before we get going on our ongoing study in the
writings of Samuel, specificallyin the book of 1 Samuel, I need
to give some clarificationconcerning some dates and times
that we've referenced leading upto this particular podcast
episode, and that is this thatour focus is on 1 Samuel, the
(00:26):
book of 1 Samuel.
There's two books that we havein the Bible.
One is 1 Samuel and the secondis 2 Samuel.
However, the original writingsdid not have these books
separated.
It was all one letter, one book, and it wasn't until the
(00:51):
writing of the Septuagint thatthese books were divided,
because of the length of thewritings that the writers of the
Septuagint found it moreconvenient to put the writings
in two scrolls.
(01:11):
So they had one scroll that wasrelegated to 1 Samuel and the
second one to 2 Samuel, and sowe have 1 and 2 Samuel, and so
we have 1 and 2 Samuel.
And in referencing the timelineconcerning the events that have
taken place or had taken placeduring that time period, I
(01:36):
referenced the fact that it wasroughly 150 years, and that is
accurate, except that's not thelength of time that the book of
1 Samuel encompassed.
The book of 1 Samuelencompassed about 100 years, and
then 2 Samuel occupies aboutanother 50 years and so,
(01:59):
combined together, they're 150years, and so I just want to
clarify that so that you know wewant to be accurate in these
things, because there are somepeople that are really they're
taking notes and they're takingtime to really dive in deep on
this and we want to be, you know, clear in what we're saying.
(02:21):
And so the book of 1 Samuel isgoing to be our primary focus,
and that occupies about 100years.
However, the writings of 1 and2 Samuel were originally written
as one book that occupied about150 years.
All right, so, regardingchapter 1 in 1 Samuel, regarding
(02:52):
chapter one in 1 Samuel, wehave a series of events that
unfold concerning the birth ofSamuel or what leads up to the
birth of the prophet Samuel, andthere's some really interesting
points to look at and touncover in this first chapter.
And so I'd like to startreading from verse 1 in chapter
(03:15):
1.
And we're going to go through,let's see, we're going to go
through verse 20.
Through verse 20, and I'm goingto read straight through and
then make some comments after.
(03:40):
And there's something powerfulwhen we read the scriptures out
loud.
There's something powerful thattakes place when you do it on
your own, and I encourage you todo it on your own, to read it
quietly, silently, but also toread it out loud and to try to
read it with some feeling,because it brings things alive.
And also, uniquely enough,there's something that takes
place in our lives when weexpose ourselves to the written
(04:04):
word of God, and that is thisChanges take place within us,
literally, changes take placewithin our mind, within our
spirit, within our bodies.
There's actually arearrangement excuse me, a
rearrangement or rearranging ofthings that takes place as a
(04:27):
result of how we interact withand expose ourselves to the
scriptures and the presence ofGod.
We change, we're transformed,we are transformed into the
image of Jesus.
It's a powerful thing, and sowe want to utilize that in our
(04:53):
lives.
But also in this particularpodcast series, periodically
we're going to read portions ofthe scripture out loud, because
there's power in that.
And so in 1 Samuel, beginning atverse 1, the writer says there
was a certain man from Ramathiam, a Zophite, from the hill
(05:18):
country of Ephraim, whose namewas Elkanah, son of Jerohom, son
of Elihu, the son of Tohu, theson of Zuth, an Ephraimite.
Now, that's important.
Just hold on to that.
(05:38):
That lineage, those names areunfamiliar to many of us, but
they are Middle Eastern names.
They're ancient but they carrya lot of meaning.
So, just pulling out of thatthought, he had two wives.
One was called Hannah and theother Penina.
(06:00):
Penina had children, but Hannahhad none.
Year after year, this man wentup from his hometown to worship
and sacrifice to the LordAlmighty at Shiloh, where Hophni
and Phinehas, the two sons ofEli, were priests of the Lord.
(06:23):
The two sons of Eli werepriests of the Lord.
Whenever the day came forElkanah to sacrifice, he would
give portions of meat to hiswife Panina, and to all her sons
and daughters.
But to Hannah he gave a doubleportion, because he loved her
and the Lord had closed her womb.
And because the Lord had closedher womb and because the Lord
(06:45):
had closed her womb, her rivalkept provoking her in order to
irritate her.
This went on year after year.
Whenever Hannah went up to thehouse of the Lord, her rival
provoked her till she wept andwould not eat.
(07:05):
Elkanah, her husband would sayto her Hannah, why are you
weeping?
Why don't you eat?
Why are you so disheartened anddownhearted?
Don't I mean more to you thanten sons Once, when they had
(07:25):
finished eating and drinking inShiloh, hannah stood up.
Now Eli, the high priest, wassitting on a chair by the
doorpost of the Lord's temple.
In bitterness of soul, hannahwept much and prayed to the Lord
, and she made a vow saying OLord Almighty, if you only look
(07:51):
upon your servant's misery andremember me and not forget your
servant, but give her a son,then I will give him to the Lord
for all the days of his lifeand no razor will ever be used
on his head.
And she kept on praying to theLord.
Eli observed her mouth.
(08:11):
Hannah was praying in her heartand her lips were moving, but
her voice was not heard.
Eli thought she was drunk andsaid to her how long will you
keep on getting drunk?
Get rid of your wine.
No, not.
(08:33):
Still, my lord.
Hannah replied I am a woman whois deeply troubled.
I have been not drinking wineor beer.
I was pouring out my soul tothe Lord.
Do not take your servant for awicked woman.
I have been praying here andout of my great anguish and
(08:55):
grief I'm here.
Eli answered Go in peace, andmay the God of Israel grant you
what you have asked of him.
She said May your servant findfavor in your eyes.
Then she went her way and atesomething and her face was no
(09:17):
longer downcast.
Early the next morning theyarose and worshipped before the
Lord and they went back to theirhome.
At Ramah, elkanah lay withHannah, his wife, and the Lord
remembered her.
So in the course of time,hannah conceived and gave birth
(09:39):
to a son.
She named him Samuel, sayingBecause I asked the Lord for him
, there was a certain man fromRamoth, a Zophite from the hill
country of Ephraim.
Now that's important.
(10:04):
Now that's important becauseElkanah came from the tribe of
Levi, and the tribe of Levi wasthe tribe that were set apart to
be priests unto the Lord, andhis lineage was the group from
(10:32):
the tribe of Levi, theKohathites, that were used to
carry the Ark of God's presence,the Ark of the Lord of God's
presence, the Ark of the Lordthat's so powerful.
Because Elkanah came from along line of people that knew
(10:58):
what it meant to carry theweight of God's glory.
The Ark of the Covenant weigheda lot, probably close to 400
pounds, because it was made, onits outer coating, of pure gold.
(11:20):
Inside it was wooden, but theoutside was pure gold.
Inside it was wooden, but theoutside was pure gold and the
weight of it was approximately400 pounds and four priests
would carry it on theirshoulders for a given period of
(11:41):
time and then another fourpriests would take over and
carry it, but it was carried ontheir shoulders.
They could feel the weight ofGod's glory.
There's something significantabout that, folks.
It's important for us to knowwhat it means to carry the
(12:02):
weight of God's glory, becausethe glory of the Lord, when the
glory of the Lord comes upon us,there's a weight to it.
Literally, the presence of Godintensified, carries a weight.
(12:28):
And when we don't try to usegimmicks or shortcuts to see the
glory of the Lord manifest,when we actually carry in prayer
the Lord's glory, when we'reprepared to carry that upon our
(12:55):
shoulders, he manifests hisglory.
There's a story about Israeltaking the ark and trying to
move it from one place toanother other than with the
priests carrying it.
(13:16):
They put it on an ox cart and,as the story goes, the ox cart
hit a divot in the road and itlooked like the Ark was going to
fall off the ox cart and a manput up his hand against the ark
and he died.
Well, the reality was that arkwas never intended to be put on
(13:47):
an ox cart.
It was intended to be carriedand because it wasn't done
according to the way that Godhad prescribed, something tragic
took place.
And when we try to do thingsour own way, we try to fabricate
(14:11):
God's presence, we try to makeit happen through our own ways,
and means Negative thingsultimately take place.
Our churches divide and split.
There's just a variety ofthings that take place when we
(14:31):
do things out of order or we tryto do things in a way that are
done by the world, try toimitate what the world is doing
so that we can appear to be likethem, what the world is doing
(14:51):
so that we can appear to be likethem.
And we're going to find that tobe the case in Israel again in
this particular book.
But the fact that Elkanah wasfrom the lineage of a group of
people that knew what it meantto carry the glory of the Lord I
(15:12):
just think it's significant,because it was from his loins
that Samuel, the prophet thatwas going to be the prophet of
transition, was born, was born.
And so you know, folks, there'ssomething to be said about the
(15:39):
way we go about living our livesand what we pass on to our
children.
What you do now affects thelives of your children.
Literally, what's typed intoyour DNA gets passed on to your
children.
Your mannerisms, your behaviors, those things get patterned
(16:02):
into your life and passed on.
So for those of you who areexperiencing your encounters out
of your relationship with Godand you know what it means to
experience God's glory, that'ssuch a beautiful thing for you
(16:27):
personally.
But it's also significant thefact that your children will
have a sensitivity toward that.
Even if they rebel, they willhave a sensitivity toward that,
because there's something aboutthings being passed on
generationally.
It could be negative orpositive.
(16:47):
It could be negative orpositive.
So Samuel was a benefactor ofthe lineage of his father and
(17:09):
his father's wife, hannah, oneof Elkanah's wives, and in that
day polygamy was a very commonthing.
It still is in some of thetribes in the Middle East, but
in that particular day and age,polygamy was a very common thing
.
So to have two wives was notuncommon.
And Elkanah had two wives andone of them, peninnah, was able
(17:36):
to give birth and she was proudof it.
And Hannah, on the other hand,was not able to give birth.
She was barren and again, inthat culture, to be barren was a
very difficult thing for awoman to carry, because to have
children was an honor and to bebarren well, oftentimes it was
(18:02):
looked upon as there being aproblem, there being a problem,
and Penina used that to heradvantage to gloat over Hannah.
Isn't that?
Sometimes, folks the way it is?
(18:25):
There's people that seem tohave things that you don't have
and they look at you and make ajudgment upon you because you
don't have what they have infact, none of.
They make a judgment, theygloat over it and they make fun
of you as a result of you beingdifferent from them.
(18:45):
You look different, you talkdifferent, you have different
ways of saying things.
Like I said, you just don'tthink like they do.
You don't have the samematerial thing that they have
(19:06):
and, as a result, they gloatover that and they mock you and
that can be something thatreally weighs in on a person.
If you've ever had that happenand I have in on a person, If
(19:35):
you've ever had that happen andI have it can be very, very
disturbing.
And if it goes on year afteryear, as we see in verse 3, that
year after year, elkanah wentup to provide his offering to
the Lord and year after year.
Peninnah would mock Hannahduring that time because she
(19:55):
didn't have children andPeninnah did.
And it reached a point whereHannah was just absolutely
grief-stricken man.
And sometimes in life we canget there because it seems like
the promises just never happen.
It's like what's wrong with me?
(20:17):
This is happening in their lifeand they don't even act decent
about it and yet they seem tohave everything going their way.
And here I am, supposedly thelove of my husband's life or the
(20:37):
one who has things that they'redoing right, and I'm kind of
dried up, I'm barren, what, what, what's wrong with me?
And Hannah had the grief in herlife so deep she lost her
(21:05):
appetite.
And I know some of youlistening you can relate, man,
you've been there.
Maybe you're there right nowwhere things just aren't going
on like you thought they would.
It's kind of barren, say God,what am I doing wrong?
(21:27):
I thought you said this andhere this is what's going on.
And maybe there are people thatare mocking you out loud or
maybe you could feel themmocking you behind your back, or
(21:49):
maybe it's just extremelydifficult.
Anyway, hannah was at a pointwhere she just didn't really
even want to talk about itanymore to anybody.
She, in her deep, deep, deepplace of sorrow and longing to
(22:15):
be useful, just said God, please.
And her intercession was sodeep.
Sometimes we're allowed to gothrough things so we get to a
place where the depth of whatwe're interceding for reaches
(22:36):
that place.
That matches the significanceof what God is going to provide.
That matches the significanceof what God is going to provide.
It's not as though he's toyingwith us.
It's the fact that what we'reabout to birth is so significant
that he has to arrange thingsin a way so that the timing of
(23:01):
it is perfect.
You see, samuel was born righton time because he was going to
be used by God to do things inthe nation of Israel that were
(23:22):
going to change the course ofthat nation and the course of
our lives today.
And Hannah was the one who wasgoing to give birth to him.
But it wasn't going to be untilthe right time, even though she
(23:43):
wanted it earlier.
It wasn't until the right time.
And sometimes that's the way theintercession works we pray and
we pray and we pray, and then wepray, we travail in prayer, so
much so that it looks odd, wegroan.
(24:05):
It says in the scriptures thatthe Spirit actually does that
within us.
At times, the Holy Spiritactually provides groans that
are there's no English, there'sno human language, regardless of
what language you speak, itgoes beyond that, that groaning,
(24:27):
that deep travail, unutterable.
Well, that was Hannah.
She was mouthing things out,but no words were coming out and
sometimes intercession is sodeep other people don't
understand it.
In fact, eli didn't understandit.
He thought she was drunk and heaccused her of being drunk
(24:51):
because it just didn't fit inhis framework of thinking what
that was all about, becausethat's what it looked like to
him.
But it wasn't that she wasdrunk.
There was a transition sosignificant that was taking
(25:13):
place and Hannah was going to bepart of it and at the depth of
prayer that it was aligned with.
That prayer was aligned withwas so significant that it was
at that depth in which somethingwas released and when she was
(25:38):
with her husband the next timeshe conceived, the promise was
made, kept and delivered.
God is faithful.
(25:58):
God is faithful.
There are transitions that aretaking place in our lives and I
want to underscore the fact thatGod is faithful.
Sometimes things get to a placewhere they require us to
(26:19):
experience the depth of them thesignificance of it, because the
release is going to be thatsignificant.
The answer is going to be thatsignificant.
It matches the depth of yourprayer.
So please don't lose heart.
(26:41):
If you're going through a timethat seems barren, the timing of
God is perfect.
Let's pray.
Father, I thank you that really, your timing is perfect.
(27:05):
Your ways are not necessarilyour ways In fact they're not and
your thoughts are higher thanour thoughts.
But you clue us in and youinvolve us, and I thank you.
I thank you that you're usingour lives.
(27:26):
You could do these thingswithout us, but you've chosen to
use us, and sometimes it'scomfortable and sometimes it's
just hard, but the result isgood.
Help us see that Father and notlose heart.
Help us see that Father and notlose heart.
(27:47):
Holy Spirit, use these times inour lives to transform us into
the very likeness and image ofJesus.
We want that more than anythingand we stand here in his name
and we say amen, amen, amen,amen.
All right, folks, we love youand if you have any thoughts,
(28:10):
questions, concerns, please feelfree to drop us a line at
liferonthefire at gmailcom.
That's our email address, andif you want to look us up on the
web.
Just type in liferonthefire andcheck out what we've got going
on.
We'd love to hear from you inthe meantime.
God bless you.
(28:30):
Adios Amigos.
Before we get going on our ongoing study in the
writings of Samuel, specificallyin the book of 1 Samuel, I need
to give some clarificationconcerning some dates and times
that we've referenced leading upto this particular podcast
episode, and that is this thatour focus is on 1 Samuel, the
(00:26):
book of 1 Samuel.
There's two books that we havein the Bible.
One is 1 Samuel and the secondis 2 Samuel.
However, the original writingsdid not have these books
separated.
It was all one letter, one book, and it wasn't until the
(00:51):
writing of the Septuagint thatthese books were divided,
because of the length of thewritings that the writers of the
Septuagint found it moreconvenient to put the writings
in two scrolls.
(01:11):
So they had one scroll that wasrelegated to 1 Samuel and the
second one to 2 Samuel, and sowe have 1 and 2 Samuel, and so
we have 1 and 2 Samuel.
And in referencing the timelineconcerning the events that have
taken place or had taken placeduring that time period, I
(01:36):
referenced the fact that it wasroughly 150 years, and that is
accurate, except that's not thelength of time that the book of
1 Samuel encompassed.
The book of 1 Samuelencompassed about 100 years, and
then 2 Samuel occupies aboutanother 50 years and so,
(01:59):
combined together, they're 150years, and so I just want to
clarify that so that you know wewant to be accurate in these
things, because there are somepeople that are really they're
taking notes and they're takingtime to really dive in deep on
this and we want to be, you know, clear in what we're saying.
(02:21):
And so the book of 1 Samuel isgoing to be our primary focus,
and that occupies about 100years.
However, the writings of 1 and2 Samuel were originally written
as one book that occupied about150 years.
All right, so, regardingchapter 1 in 1 Samuel, regarding
(02:52):
chapter one in 1 Samuel, wehave a series of events that
unfold concerning the birth ofSamuel or what leads up to the
birth of the prophet Samuel, andthere's some really interesting
points to look at and touncover in this first chapter.
And so I'd like to startreading from verse 1 in chapter
(03:15):
1.
And we're going to go through,let's see, we're going to go
through verse 20.
Through verse 20, and I'm goingto read straight through and
then make some comments after.
(03:40):
And there's something powerfulwhen we read the scriptures out
loud.
There's something powerful thattakes place when you do it on
your own, and I encourage you todo it on your own, to read it
quietly, silently, but also toread it out loud and to try to
read it with some feeling,because it brings things alive.
And also, uniquely enough,there's something that takes
place in our lives when weexpose ourselves to the written
(04:04):
word of God, and that is thisChanges take place within us,
literally, changes take placewithin our mind, within our
spirit, within our bodies.
There's actually arearrangement excuse me, a
rearrangement or rearranging ofthings that takes place as a
(04:27):
result of how we interact withand expose ourselves to the
scriptures and the presence ofGod.
We change, we're transformed,we are transformed into the
image of Jesus.
It's a powerful thing, and sowe want to utilize that in our
(04:53):
lives.
But also in this particularpodcast series, periodically
we're going to read portions ofthe scripture out loud, because
there's power in that.
And so in 1 Samuel, beginning atverse 1, the writer says there
was a certain man from Ramathiam, a Zophite, from the hill
(05:18):
country of Ephraim, whose namewas Elkanah, son of Jerohom, son
of Elihu, the son of Tohu, theson of Zuth, an Ephraimite.
Now, that's important.
Just hold on to that.
(05:38):
That lineage, those names areunfamiliar to many of us, but
they are Middle Eastern names.
They're ancient but they carrya lot of meaning.
So, just pulling out of thatthought, he had two wives.
One was called Hannah and theother Penina.
(06:00):
Penina had children, but Hannahhad none.
Year after year, this man wentup from his hometown to worship
and sacrifice to the LordAlmighty at Shiloh, where Hophni
and Phinehas, the two sons ofEli, were priests of the Lord.
(06:23):
The two sons of Eli werepriests of the Lord.
Whenever the day came forElkanah to sacrifice, he would
give portions of meat to hiswife Panina, and to all her sons
and daughters.
But to Hannah he gave a doubleportion, because he loved her
and the Lord had closed her womb.
And because the Lord had closedher womb and because the Lord
(06:45):
had closed her womb, her rivalkept provoking her in order to
irritate her.
This went on year after year.
Whenever Hannah went up to thehouse of the Lord, her rival
provoked her till she wept andwould not eat.
(07:05):
Elkanah, her husband would sayto her Hannah, why are you
weeping?
Why don't you eat?
Why are you so disheartened anddownhearted?
Don't I mean more to you thanten sons Once, when they had
(07:25):
finished eating and drinking inShiloh, hannah stood up.
Now Eli, the high priest, wassitting on a chair by the
doorpost of the Lord's temple.
In bitterness of soul, hannahwept much and prayed to the Lord
, and she made a vow saying OLord Almighty, if you only look
(07:51):
upon your servant's misery andremember me and not forget your
servant, but give her a son,then I will give him to the Lord
for all the days of his lifeand no razor will ever be used
on his head.
And she kept on praying to theLord.
Eli observed her mouth.
(08:11):
Hannah was praying in her heartand her lips were moving, but
her voice was not heard.
Eli thought she was drunk andsaid to her how long will you
keep on getting drunk?
Get rid of your wine.
No, not.
(08:33):
Still, my lord.
Hannah replied I am a woman whois deeply troubled.
I have been not drinking wineor beer.
I was pouring out my soul tothe Lord.
Do not take your servant for awicked woman.
I have been praying here andout of my great anguish and
(08:55):
grief I'm here.
Eli answered Go in peace, andmay the God of Israel grant you
what you have asked of him.
She said May your servant findfavor in your eyes.
Then she went her way and atesomething and her face was no
(09:17):
longer downcast.
Early the next morning theyarose and worshipped before the
Lord and they went back to theirhome.
At Ramah, elkanah lay withHannah, his wife, and the Lord
remembered her.
So in the course of time,hannah conceived and gave birth
(09:39):
to a son.
She named him Samuel, sayingBecause I asked the Lord for him
, there was a certain man fromRamoth, a Zophite from the hill
country of Ephraim.
Now that's important.
(10:04):
Now that's important becauseElkanah came from the tribe of
Levi, and the tribe of Levi wasthe tribe that were set apart to
be priests unto the Lord, andhis lineage was the group from
(10:32):
the tribe of Levi, theKohathites, that were used to
carry the Ark of God's presence,the Ark of the Lord of God's
presence, the Ark of the Lordthat's so powerful.
Because Elkanah came from along line of people that knew
(10:58):
what it meant to carry theweight of God's glory.
The Ark of the Covenant weigheda lot, probably close to 400
pounds, because it was made, onits outer coating, of pure gold.
(11:20):
Inside it was wooden, but theoutside was pure gold.
Inside it was wooden, but theoutside was pure gold and the
weight of it was approximately400 pounds and four priests
would carry it on theirshoulders for a given period of
(11:41):
time and then another fourpriests would take over and
carry it, but it was carried ontheir shoulders.
They could feel the weight ofGod's glory.
There's something significantabout that, folks.
It's important for us to knowwhat it means to carry the
(12:02):
weight of God's glory, becausethe glory of the Lord, when the
glory of the Lord comes upon us,there's a weight to it.
Literally, the presence of Godintensified, carries a weight.
(12:28):
And when we don't try to usegimmicks or shortcuts to see the
glory of the Lord manifest,when we actually carry in prayer
the Lord's glory, when we'reprepared to carry that upon our
(12:55):
shoulders, he manifests hisglory.
There's a story about Israeltaking the ark and trying to
move it from one place toanother other than with the
priests carrying it.
(13:16):
They put it on an ox cart and,as the story goes, the ox cart
hit a divot in the road and itlooked like the Ark was going to
fall off the ox cart and a manput up his hand against the ark
and he died.
Well, the reality was that arkwas never intended to be put on
(13:47):
an ox cart.
It was intended to be carriedand because it wasn't done
according to the way that Godhad prescribed, something tragic
took place.
And when we try to do thingsour own way, we try to fabricate
(14:11):
God's presence, we try to makeit happen through our own ways,
and means Negative thingsultimately take place.
Our churches divide and split.
There's just a variety ofthings that take place when we
(14:31):
do things out of order or we tryto do things in a way that are
done by the world, try toimitate what the world is doing
so that we can appear to be likethem, what the world is doing
(14:51):
so that we can appear to be likethem.
And we're going to find that tobe the case in Israel again in
this particular book.
But the fact that Elkanah wasfrom the lineage of a group of
people that knew what it meantto carry the glory of the Lord I
(15:12):
just think it's significant,because it was from his loins
that Samuel, the prophet thatwas going to be the prophet of
transition, was born, was born.
And so you know, folks, there'ssomething to be said about the
(15:39):
way we go about living our livesand what we pass on to our
children.
What you do now affects thelives of your children.
Literally, what's typed intoyour DNA gets passed on to your
children.
Your mannerisms, your behaviors, those things get patterned
(16:02):
into your life and passed on.
So for those of you who areexperiencing your encounters out
of your relationship with Godand you know what it means to
experience God's glory, that'ssuch a beautiful thing for you
(16:27):
personally.
But it's also significant thefact that your children will
have a sensitivity toward that.
Even if they rebel, they willhave a sensitivity toward that,
because there's something aboutthings being passed on
generationally.
It could be negative orpositive.
(16:47):
It could be negative orpositive.
So Samuel was a benefactor ofthe lineage of his father and
(17:09):
his father's wife, hannah, oneof Elkanah's wives, and in that
day polygamy was a very commonthing.
It still is in some of thetribes in the Middle East, but
in that particular day and age,polygamy was a very common thing
.
So to have two wives was notuncommon.
And Elkanah had two wives andone of them, peninnah, was able
(17:36):
to give birth and she was proudof it.
And Hannah, on the other hand,was not able to give birth.
She was barren and again, inthat culture, to be barren was a
very difficult thing for awoman to carry, because to have
children was an honor and to bebarren well, oftentimes it was
(18:02):
looked upon as there being aproblem, there being a problem,
and Penina used that to heradvantage to gloat over Hannah.
Isn't that?
Sometimes, folks the way it is?
(18:25):
There's people that seem tohave things that you don't have
and they look at you and make ajudgment upon you because you
don't have what they have infact, none of.
They make a judgment, theygloat over it and they make fun
of you as a result of you beingdifferent from them.
(18:45):
You look different, you talkdifferent, you have different
ways of saying things.
Like I said, you just don'tthink like they do.
You don't have the samematerial thing that they have
(19:06):
and, as a result, they gloatover that and they mock you and
that can be something thatreally weighs in on a person.
If you've ever had that happenand I have in on a person, If
(19:35):
you've ever had that happen andI have it can be very, very
disturbing.
And if it goes on year afteryear, as we see in verse 3, that
year after year, elkanah wentup to provide his offering to
the Lord and year after year.
Peninnah would mock Hannahduring that time because she
(19:55):
didn't have children andPeninnah did.
And it reached a point whereHannah was just absolutely
grief-stricken man.
And sometimes in life we canget there because it seems like
the promises just never happen.
It's like what's wrong with me?
(20:17):
This is happening in their lifeand they don't even act decent
about it and yet they seem tohave everything going their way.
And here I am, supposedly thelove of my husband's life or the
(20:37):
one who has things that they'redoing right, and I'm kind of
dried up, I'm barren, what, what, what's wrong with me?
And Hannah had the grief in herlife so deep she lost her
(21:05):
appetite.
And I know some of youlistening you can relate, man,
you've been there.
Maybe you're there right nowwhere things just aren't going
on like you thought they would.
It's kind of barren, say God,what am I doing wrong?
(21:27):
I thought you said this andhere this is what's going on.
And maybe there are people thatare mocking you out loud or
maybe you could feel themmocking you behind your back, or
(21:49):
maybe it's just extremelydifficult.
Anyway, hannah was at a pointwhere she just didn't really
even want to talk about itanymore to anybody.
She, in her deep, deep, deepplace of sorrow and longing to
(22:15):
be useful, just said God, please.
And her intercession was sodeep.
Sometimes we're allowed to gothrough things so we get to a
place where the depth of whatwe're interceding for reaches
(22:36):
that place.
That matches the significanceof what God is going to provide.
That matches the significanceof what God is going to provide.
It's not as though he's toyingwith us.
It's the fact that what we'reabout to birth is so significant
that he has to arrange thingsin a way so that the timing of
(23:01):
it is perfect.
You see, samuel was born righton time because he was going to
be used by God to do things inthe nation of Israel that were
(23:22):
going to change the course ofthat nation and the course of
our lives today.
And Hannah was the one who wasgoing to give birth to him.
But it wasn't going to be untilthe right time, even though she
(23:43):
wanted it earlier.
It wasn't until the right time.
And sometimes that's the way theintercession works we pray and
we pray and we pray, and then wepray, we travail in prayer, so
much so that it looks odd, wegroan.
(24:05):
It says in the scriptures thatthe Spirit actually does that
within us.
At times, the Holy Spiritactually provides groans that
are there's no English, there'sno human language, regardless of
what language you speak, itgoes beyond that, that groaning,
(24:27):
that deep travail, unutterable.
Well, that was Hannah.
She was mouthing things out,but no words were coming out and
sometimes intercession is sodeep other people don't
understand it.
In fact, eli didn't understandit.
He thought she was drunk and heaccused her of being drunk
(24:51):
because it just didn't fit inhis framework of thinking what
that was all about, becausethat's what it looked like to
him.
But it wasn't that she wasdrunk.
There was a transition sosignificant that was taking
(25:13):
place and Hannah was going to bepart of it and at the depth of
prayer that it was aligned with.
That prayer was aligned withwas so significant that it was
at that depth in which somethingwas released and when she was
(25:38):
with her husband the next timeshe conceived, the promise was
made, kept and delivered.
God is faithful.
(25:58):
God is faithful.
There are transitions that aretaking place in our lives and I
want to underscore the fact thatGod is faithful.
Sometimes things get to a placewhere they require us to
(26:19):
experience the depth of them thesignificance of it, because the
release is going to be thatsignificant.
The answer is going to be thatsignificant.
It matches the depth of yourprayer.
So please don't lose heart.
(26:41):
If you're going through a timethat seems barren, the timing of
God is perfect.
Let's pray.
Father, I thank you that really, your timing is perfect.
(27:05):
Your ways are not necessarilyour ways In fact they're not and
your thoughts are higher thanour thoughts.
But you clue us in and youinvolve us, and I thank you.
I thank you that you're usingour lives.
(27:26):
You could do these thingswithout us, but you've chosen to
use us, and sometimes it'scomfortable and sometimes it's
just hard, but the result isgood.
Help us see that Father and notlose heart.
Help us see that Father and notlose heart.
(27:47):
Holy Spirit, use these times inour lives to transform us into
the very likeness and image ofJesus.
We want that more than anythingand we stand here in his name
and we say amen, amen, amen,amen.
All right, folks, we love youand if you have any thoughts,
(28:10):
questions, concerns, please feelfree to drop us a line at
liferonthefire at gmailcom.
That's our email address, andif you want to look us up on the
web.
Just type in liferonthefire andcheck out what we've got going
on.
We'd love to hear from you inthe meantime.
God bless you.
(28:30):
Adios Amigos.
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