YEar 2 Day 172

Year 2 Day 172

Pray (ACts)

Read - 1 Samuel 1:24-28

Message - Alan Burke 

I imagine as Hannah brought the young Samuel to Shiloh and gave him into the care of Eli he would have been perplexed to say the least. Think about it, four years ago you had a brief conversion with someone, somewhere, maybe it was in your line of work, or you were in the shop somewhere. Something about the conversation maybe struck you at the time but after all it’s been four years and the next thing is they arrive on your door and say “remember that conversation we had?". You would be thinking that they are chancing their arm, they are a fraudster, you’d maybe slam the door in the face. Here Hannah returns after four years and she brings with her an offering that was to say the least exceedingly generous and added to that her son which was more costly than anything else she could have brought. 

The likely hood is that Eli wouldn’t even have remembered her, the drunk woman he saw who was actually praying. But in what Hannah says it is clear that Samuel is the answer to the prayer she prayed. She had asked, and the Lord answered. It’s lost in translation in English but a more literal reading of verse twenty seven and twenty eight would be “For this child I prayed, and the Lord gave me my asking, which I asked from him, and I also have given back what was asked to the Lord, all the days he lives he is one that is asked for the Lord”. Hannah makes it clear, that this is the child she asked the Lord for, and at three years old, Samuel was given to the Lord, and as young as he was we are told he worshiped the Lord there, spending his youth and his life in the service of the Lord at Shiloh. 

Hannah had kept her vow, she had been given a son, and God had brought forth a new leader for his people in redemptive history. This initial chapter of the book introduces us to Samuel, we learn of who he is, we are reminded that God is at work in the midst of the spiritual barrenness of Shiloh among his people, he was at work even though it seemed to all that things were going from bad to worse for every man did what was right in his own eyes. This leader Samuel would help institute the monarchy that would ultimately as redemptive history continued give us Jesus, the true Saviour and Preserver of Israel (Acts 13:23). Hannah gave her son to the Lord but the Lord gave us his only begotten son Jesus Christ for us, to die in our place so that we might know the salvation from our sins in Christ alone. This is where we need to look in all that we face, in the highs and lows of our lives, and as this world of darkness seems to move further from the Lord, knowing that he is at work as he was in the days of the Judges. 

I want to leave you with this. This family here in 1 Samuel, while the world around them seemed to be moving further and further away from God, came to worship the Lord God as he had prescribed, regardless of the difficulties, the distance they had to travel, the expense it may have been, they took worship seriously. And in this the Lord used them for he uses those who fear and honour him. Though the world we live in becomes darker and darker the Lord God is still at working in and through his people, those who fear and honour him in Christ Jesus. 

Pray (acTS)

Sing

WSC 
Q 56 What is the reason annexed to the third commandment?
The reason annexed to the third commandment is, That however the breakers of this commandment may escape punishment from men, yet the Lord our God will not suffer them to escape his righteous judgment. (1 Sam. 2:12,17,22,29, 1 Sam. 3:13, Deut. 28:58–59)