Word of Salvation – Vol.32 No.19 – May 1987
Prayer, Promise, Praise, Pain
Sermon by Rev. K. Moerman on 1Samuel 1:10,11,27,28.
Reading: Romans 8:26-27; 1Sam.1:1-18; 27; 28
Singing: Ps.H.299:1,2,3,8; 389:3; BoW.H.806:1,4,5; 482:1,2,5
Theme: “Prayer, Promise, Praise and Pain…”
Boys and girls, young people, congregation of Jesus,
PRAYERS COME IN MANY SIZES, and in many models.
Some are short, others long.
Many are boring, yet others are like a song.
The prayer of a child before it goes to bed, unintelligent and a habit, and yet sincere. The scream for help of the woman entering the doctor’s surgery and fearing the worst, and the formal prayer of a clergyman going on and on and on. All these are prayers. Are they…?
What is prayer? Someone has said, “I throw myself down in my room, and I call and invite God to join me. And when God has arrived, I neglect him for the buzzing of a fly and the noise of a passing car, or the sound of a creaking door. Or, perhaps, we ask God to listen and we fall asleep. The disciples complained of the same problem, so did John Calvin and so do I and I dare say so do you. And yet, the wonder of it all, God hears! The remarkable, the impossible comes true. God says ‘Yes!’ The unexpected happens.
My prayer did not get stuck between earth and heaven: between my room and the throne of God. I got through – but at a price; at a cost.
And we are going to have a look at this, using as a theme:
Prayer, Promise, Praise and Pain.
“A fortune for a child; a Kingdom for a baby”. Did you read about that childless couple, I think it was from Melbourne, who flew all the way to Brazil to try to adopt a child. They had tried everything, no cost spared, gone to all the doctors, been part of all the programs, IVF included, but no, no child for them!
The misery, the weeping, the desire, the longing for a child, one about whom you can say, “She is mine”. Motherhood… and praise the Lord, for that is still a blessing for millions and millions.
Many do not experience this gift of God. And many of them feel the night is closing in, their souls filled with bitterness. Oh, not so much the bitterness of rebellion, but the bitterness of tears… tried so long, and to no avail! When, Lord, will it be my turn?
Hannah belongs to that group of women. Married, and month after month disillusioned, disappointed. And yet her husband loved her dearly. No problems there. But, perhaps for that very reason, she wanted it even more. The crown, the fulfilment of marriage, completion, a child! In Israel, to have NO children, meant to have no descendants around when the Messiah would come. No people bearing your name to meet Jesus, the long expected one’. And that would be a shame!
O God, my bitter tears. Isn’t prayer often born out of sorrow? Therefore sorrow is not always bad – if it helps us to learn to pray. Doesn’t sorrow underline our dependence on God, on him who rules it all? On him who commands heaven and earth; who appoints the clouds their courses, whom winds and waves obey.
Deep sorrow often leads to Calvary, to Jesus, to prayer. And that’s what Hannah did. Teased by Peninnah, the other wife of Elkanah her husband, (and maybe he married Peninnah, that other woman, because they had found out that Hannah could not have any children) and now, teased and ridiculed because she could not bear any children, Hannah cries her eyes out. God please help! God, please hear!
It was a cry from the heart. True prayer always comes from the heart. We do not need to be impressed by the choice of flowery words, and nice-sounding slogans. True prayer comes from deep down within. Often it cannot even be put into words. Is that perhaps what the apostle Paul in the letter to the Romans calls: ‘Groans that words cannot express?’ We can be so overcome with grief or, for that matter, with joy and have a desire to be in contact with the Living God, and yet we do not know what to say, or how to say it. It doesn’t matter. True prayer comes from the heart and cannot always find expression in words. Hannah was just moving her lips. It was a silent prayer. It was a moaning and groaning of the spirit within her. But it was true prayer. It was a prayer without words, of a wife, who longed to be a mother, who poured out her heart’s desire and laid it all bare before the Lord. Her heart’s desire..! And that is precisely what prayer always ought to be. It must be our deepest and most intense wish. It must be sincere. It must be a deep longing.
So often we can pray without much conviction. We could not care less if our neighbour will never come to know God and burn forever in hell. We couldn’t care less if the war in Afghanistan or Iran and Iraq would never come to an end (after all it is far from my bed). Prayer must be genuine, expressing the heart’s desire. Oh yes, I realize when matters start to touch our own front door it all becomes so different and personal. But is it our most sincere desire that many may come to know Jesus through the witness of my church? Through my witness, lifestyle, spoken words? My actions, my prayers, my tears? My fervent desire and my deepest longing? Please God help! And so the gentle rain of tears fell in the temple of the Lord. And then she made a vow that the child would belong to the Lord. Her heart’s desire, the child she was seeking from the Lord should not be desired because she, Hannah, wanted it so very much for herself. Not for selfish reasons only, not for self-gratification. Not only to satisfy the fulfilment of a mother’s sacred love. But the child should wholly belong to God.
The secret of her prayer, though purely personal, yet carried within it the thrill of self-sacrifice. Lord, give me a son and he will belong to you! She made a vow. A vow of self-sacrifice. I will give him to You for all the days of his life. I will forgo the pleasures of the little boy sitting on my lap. I will forgo the laughter of his voice through the house. I will give him to You. I will not have the joy of seeing him playing with his friends in the marketplace. I will not have the pleasure of teaching him to read and to make sums. I will not have very long to teach him to say his evening prayers. I will give him to You as soon as he does not need the mother’s milk, as soon as he is toilet trained, as soon as he can do something for you in the house of the Lord, little as he may be. To You, all the days of his life.
What a promise. For a woman who most earnestly wants a child of her own. Her baby. “I will give him to You”. I wish that all mothers would promise that. And see that as the most important matter in the life of the child, that it comes to serve Jesus – every child is an ‘eternity being’, and therefore it is so very, very important that all mothers and fathers plead with God that their child, son, daughter may belong to Him (and that first of all).
Actually we must say that children are loaned to us, they are borrowed from the Lord, borrowed from God to you for a purpose (‘ever thought about that?).
Hannah was not only determined to ‘get’ something from God, but also to ‘give’ him to God. Not only to get, but willing to give. And so Hannah rises before us as a woman of faith. A woman who prayed with great expectation, wrestling with God in prayer for her heart’s desire, and yet willing to devote what she would receive to the glory of that God of whom she asked it.
Hannah was willing to give away her child even before she received it, willing to part before she even got the child.
And isn’t that the real secret of prayer? To obtain any answer, any response to our prayer, is to be willing to devote it to the honour of God to whom we pray.
And so our prayer is not for our sake but first of all for the glory of His holy name. Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord to thee!
Is it perhaps therefore that our prayers so often fail? Are we too selfish? Too much of ‘I’ in it? My heart’s desire? Born of sorrow. All true. Sincere no doubt, and it comes from the heart, and yet heaven seems to be closed and locked up. No answer! Yet Jesus said, ‘Ask and it shall be given you, knock and the door shall be opened.’
Why does it not happen? Have we perhaps overlooked the glory of God? Made it our own selfish little or big thing only? That get and give bit? And mainly the give bit. We only want to get (and please: our way, Lord)?
I surrender all. Hannah did; before she received she promised, she vowed to the Lord: he will belong to You. Long before she was pregnant with child she had determined that her child would belong to Jesus. What a wonderful thought.
All parents should remember that children are a gift from God, even in the age of contraceptives and birth-control.
A gift from God. Therefore parents should prepare their children for service and glory. Sure, it is important that children are trained to become worthy citizens of the community; trained to take their place in the society and in the workforce. But it is far more important that they be trained, fully trained, primarily trained to come to know Jesus and His love. And that may sometimes be at a price.
And then after prayer, we read: She went her way, and ate something. And the Bible says her face was no longer downcast. Prayer is the heart’s best medicine to obtain peace and gladness. A burden lifted from her soul. Praise him, Praise him…!
We know that Eli, the High priest, thought she had been drinking and how after her explanation, he said may the God of Israel grant your desire.”
She was transformed already. A different woman… glad, joyful. She began at once to rejoice, so sure that God would hear her prayer. Rejoicing in the blessing and trusting that the Lord of heaven and earth would answer her prayer.
Prayer changed into praise.
Weeping when she began to pray, rejoicing and praising when she finished. That’s the marvellous power of prayer! The power to change; the power to transform. The power of trust that God will hear. And he sure did!
Samuel was born. Samuel, which means: God answered or more literally: Heard of God,,,! A child of much prayer: God-Heard… Samuel. Finally Hannah got her child. Her only one. Her pride and Elkanah’s apple-of-the-eye. The blessing of motherhood at long last! What a joy. For how long? Could she stretch it a bit longer? Forget about her promise? Not for ever, but put it off for a year or so? Don’t we sometimes forget the promise we made? Conveniently?
After little-boy Samuel (heard-of-God) was weaned, off the bottle, (and that was supposed to have been at the age of three) Hannah must have made the most difficult trip of her life. For little-boy Samuel it was a one-way trip. Back to Shiloh, back to the house of God to fulfil her vow to keep her promise. Little boy Samuel living away from home, from mother, father and friends.
Pain, pain through Hannah’s soul. How easily promised: I give him to the Lord, all his life. How difficult the trip to Shiloh. Tears, pain, as so many years later Mary would give her son, Jesus to a lost world. A sword pierced her soul, the Bible says. Pain but also joy and thankfulness. Sir, here he is. I asked for this little boy, I wanted so much to have a baby. I promised to give him back. Now, with tears in my eyes here he is. Unto the Lord. All his life.
Oh, God hears prayer in the most wonderful way. Hannah gave up this one child (but she did not know that when she gave him up) the Lord would send her five others: 3 sons and 2 daughters. God is a wonderful hearer of prayer. And Samuel, did he not become, so to speak, the John the Baptist of the Old Testament? Preparing the way for first, King Saul and later on for King David. Samuel, one of the most important prophets of the O.T. and keeper of the house of the Lord. Samuel, preparing David, preparing for the Son of the great King David, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! Samuel, (God-Heard). Did He ever! Preparing the way. Samuel, a link in the chain leading up to Jesus Christ. To Jesus who is the high priest and the hearer of our prayers, if we pray and seek for his honour and His glory. What do you ask for your Child?
Hallelujah.
AMEN.