Year 2 Day 177

Year 2 Day 177

Pray (ACts)

Read - 1 Samuel 2:1-2

Message - Alan Burke

This prayer of Hannah shows the transformational grace of God in her life. She had prayed after years of bitterness, being constantly provoked but now as he prays things have come full circle for her. At the same time you could say that nothing as changed, for as Hannah was there in Shiloh praying it was to leave the son that she had so longed for behind, as she gave him to the Lord. But the reason how she is able to rejoice is because of what the Lord has done, how he acted on her behalf, how he had remembered her even though she would leave Samuel behind. 

Look at the language she uses here, sayinghow her horn is lifted high, her mouth boast over her enemies because of the Lord’s deliverance (2:1). The imagery before us here is that of an animal that raises its horns after the fight, it’s mouth opened to devour its pray. We may think this is a strange image to use but it portrays the removal of her disgrace, she is no longer on the other side, defeated and cowering, instead she can hold her head high at what the Lord has done. That the Lord has moved her from one extreme to the other, from brokenness to victory. 

There is a sense in which we have all experienced this to a greater or lesser degree. We have faced times of brokenness and other times of joy, times of lament to times of praise. Where trouble has turned to triumph, struggle has turned to joy as time goes on and the Lord intervenes. The times of suffering, times of hardship that we all have faced, whether we have seen it this way or not God was at work and have been used by God. For God is sovereignly at work in this world, it should give us comfort in what we face. 

For Hannah here as she rejoices in the reality of how here is no-one like the Lord God, no-one holy like him, no-one beside him, no rock like our God. Notice the change between verse one and two. In verse one she had spoke of what the Lord had done for her, she spoke of ‘I’ now she speaks of ‘our’ God. For she comes before the Lord God, not some unknown God but one who has revealed himself to his people. And he is holy, in his purity, majesty, and glory. Not only does she pray that he is holy but that there is no one beside him, he is so incomparable that no one else is even in his class. There is none like him she confesses, there is none like the Lord our God, there are many false imitations but none like the Lord, all others gods are but the imagination of man. 

This God, our God, is the Rock. We all know the metaphor that this coveys, God's strength and sovereignty, and the security of those who trust in Him, the one that we can rely on, the one that will not let his people down, he is our only and ultimate source of security. That is what Hannah experienced, in her lowest point she was able and went before the Lord God lamenting knowing that still he was her rock, and in the joys of that moment she knew it all the more. This is the God Hannah came before, this is the God we come before through the Lord Jesus Christ, we can call him our God though our adoption as fellow heirs with our elder brother Jesus Christ. 

That means we who are sinners can come before this our Holy God, who there is no one beside for all other Gods are false gods knowing that he is our ultimate source of security in this life, he will not let us down and bring us into glory. For us we can face much but when we know that the Lord is holy, incomparable, that he is our rock then we can face many things knowing that our Lord and God is there, in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Pray (acTS)

Sing

WSC
Q61 What is forbidden in the fourth commandment?
The fourth commandment forbiddeth the omission or careless performance of the duties required, (Amos 8:5, Mal. 1:13) and the profaning the day by idleness, (Acts 20:7,9) or doing that which is in itself sinful, (Ezek. 23:38) or by unnecessary thoughts, words, or works, about our worldly employments or recreations. (Jer. 17:24–26, Isa. 58:13)