The Beggar on the Ash Heap • 1 Samuel 2

38:00 Teaching begins

Notes

A woman is helpless in her situation in life. She is lacking, despised, degraded, she has an enemy she can’t escape. Her lot in life is hopeless.

She sinks to the lowest point and prays to God in her suffering.

God helps her and turns her situation around.

You prevail with God when you humble yourself greatly before Him and ask for Him to do all His will.

You overcome in life when you prevail with God.

I’m reading in 1 Samuel chapter 2.

1. Hannah has directly experienced God’s salvation, therefore she is extremely happy.

A. Remember she was brokenhearted before the Lord. She was beat down, she was greatly distressed, she was degraded, she was sad. She had an enemy, a rival wife named Peninnah, who delighted in tormenting Hannah because it was safe for her. Hannah would never have children, therefore Peninnah could delight herself by insulting Hannah outrageously, exalting herself by stepping on Hannah. And it would never come back on her because the situation would never change, so Peninnah felt she could do anything and Hannah could do nothing.

B. But Hannah experienced God’s salvation directly. He heard her prayer Himself. He answered Himself. As a result she is full, satisfied, and happy in the Lord. Her horn is a metaphor for strength and dignity. God has made her happy, with ability and with value that comes from Him. Because He is God this is permanent. From here on in Hannah is blessed of the Lord.

C. She has something to say to her enemies, not just Peninnah but to everyone who opposes her and in so doing opposes God. She was filled with the Holy Spirit as she prayed this, and she spoke the word of God. Therefore it’s written here, kept for thousands of years because it was recognised, this is not just Hannah, the Lord is speaking through her.

2. By experience Hannah learned who God is: He alone is holy.

A. Holiness belongs naturally to God alone. There are holy angels, there are saints, holy people. God’s word is holy. But He Himself is holy.

B. Holy refers to God being other than everything else there is. Only God is eternal, with no beginning and no end. He is sovereign, independent, has all power, all knowledge. He is the truth. All reality was made by Him and He defines all things.

C. Beyond this, holy means good, to the highest degree. Holiness is expressed with love. You remember that God is love. He is compassionate. He carefully considers beings far, far below Him, and He feels their sorrows and pains. He relieves their suffering and blesses them far beyond what they deserve. He is gracious to the same degree that He is love. There’s a lot going on in the world. Why should the holy and glorious God over all the universe consider a barren woman being tormented by an arrogant bully? Who cares? But He did care!

D. God alone is holy, He alone is God. He is set apart from every angel, every person, anyone wanting to be known as God. Everything else is created, had a beginning, and therefore is temporary. But God has no beginning and no end. This is His universe, His reality, He defines what is what. He judges what is right and wrong. He alone is the Most High.

E. You can read about the attributes of God and not be moved like Hannah. But Hannah experienced God personally. Her testimony is like the Queen of Sheba, who heard reports about Solomon and thought they were legends exaggerated in the telling. But when she actually saw Solomon and heard his wisdom it took her breath away. She said, the half had not been told to me. The reality was far greater. This is Hannah’s experience of the goodness of God.

3. Hannah speaks boldly to her enemies, who are also God’s enemies.

A. Penninah is Hannah’s enemy, and she is God’s enemy.

1. Hannah wasn’t anyone’s enemy. She wasn’t looking to be against anyone.

2. But Peninnah decided she would be Hannah’s enemy. Who told Peninnah to become Hannah’s enemy? No one. She appointed herself as a judge over Hannah to point out her flaws and failures. She decided, I’m going degrade Hannah because I’m better than you so I’m going to grind you and make you feel awful and you can’t stop me. In reality she’s not judge, jury, executioner. She exalted herself over another person.

3. When she made herself an enemy of Hannah, Peninnah made herself an enemy of God. She is in effect saying, You’re not God, I am! When Peninnah boasts about herself and her attributes she is praising herself and worshipping herself. To vote yourself into God’s position and act like God is offensive to God.

B. Hannah says, stop praising yourself, stop exalting yourself.

C. Because God knows everything. He alone is God the judge. When He measuring of a person is accurate. His judgment is exact. He weighs action. He knows if that action was significant or trivial. He knows if it was lawless or legitimate. He is the judge of actions. He determines what is right and wrong. He judges between people.

D. Here God judged Hannah right and Peninnah wrong. Peninnah has nothing more to say. She can’t because God took away her grounds to speak. Before God acted it looked like Peninnah was right, but now God has exposed her as arrogant, making herself out to be more than she was, an enemy of God.

E. You bet it’s glorious to be vindicated by God and saved from your enemy who hates you without cause.

4. In vv. 4-8 we see natural occurrences and supernatural events. What Hannah came to know is, God is behind everything we see in life.

A. It’s natural for mighty men’s bows to be broken. That will happen eventually. You get strong and mighty, and then your bow breaks, your power is gone, and someone else is king of the hill. It is natural and requires no supernatural intervention. You’re rich for a while, then you run out of money and have to get a job. That’s the way things work naturally. She who has many children naturally runs out of energy. No miracles here, folks.

B. And then Hannah lists real miracles, God’s power coming into human experience: those who stumble are girded with strength. How did that happen? God did it through this weak person so people could see that it’s God. The hungry has no food, but there he is, full. God did it. The barren has borne seven. Impossible, but that’s clearly God and His divine power working through a helpless woman. These are not natural, water doesn’t run uphill, and yet, there they are. God is doing something counter to nature.

C. But God is the God of the natural as well as the supernatural events. He is the God over all.

1. When someone dies, it’s the Lord saying, your time is up. He also says, it’s not your time yet, and He heals. He also raises the dead. He alone is the God of death and life.

2. When someone becomes rich, that’s the Lord. When someone is poor, it’s the Lord. We say, no, that rich guy is a genius, or he’s a bandit, but he did it on his own. And that poor guy, it’s all his fault. He doesn’t work hard enough. Or society is wrong to not give him an opportunity. But Hannah says God is the one who makes rich and poor. I am what I am by the grace of God.

3. And especially God exalts and He puts down. He can lift up a beggar from the ash heap, who is nearly dust himself, and make him sit with princes. He did that literally to Joseph. He began one day as he had for years, forgotten in a prison, as good as dead. By the end of the day he had become the most powerful man of the most powerful country in the world.

D. Because this world is God’s world, and it runs according to His ways. Those are His pillars holding up the world. He supports and sustains everything. It’s His reality.

5. The main point in all this: a person prevails in life when he prevails with God.

A. He keeps the feet of his godly ones.

1. Godly is the Hebrew word chasid. You become a chasid by receiving chesed, God’s covenant love. You say, “I know that I can’t save myself. I’ve sinned, I’ve exalted myself against You. Please save me.” You trust in His lovingkindness and His faithfulness to save you through Jesus Christ.

2. And then Psalm 25:10 All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth, to such as keep His covenant and His testimonies. That word “mercy” is chesed.

B. The wicked ones are silent in darkness. John 3:19-20 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. They will be exposed as loving darkness, their deeds will be exposed as evil, like Peninnah. She says, Hannah is cursed by God and she’s fair game for anyone to tread down because she can’t fight back. No, says God, your deeds are evil and you practice lawlessness.

C. The prime example of this is the Messiah Himself. This is at least 1000 years before the Messiah comes. But this is who the Messiah is: He is the one who completely pleases God by depending completely upon God for everything.

1. John 5:19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.

2. John 5:30 I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.

3. The result is that Jesus does miracles, and yet the people don’t praise Jesus, they praise God. Notice this as you read through the gospels: God always gets the glory for what Jesus does.

4. The Messiah is humble, God gives grace to the humble, who glorify God and not themselves.

6. So what? A person prevails in life when he prevails with God.

A. It wasn’t just Peninnah who was wrong here, it was also Hannah. She dealt with her enemy and God on her own. Her enemy was winning, and God wasn’t helping.

B. The main principle here: For by strength shall no man shall prevail. That is, nothing we bring to our situation is sufficient. Our intelligence, our ability, our goodness, our effort. God says that is not sufficient. It will never solve our problems.

C. That deals directly with my pride. I would like all men to acknowledge my goodness and my superiority. I would like to overcome so that I get all men’s good opinion. But God says that is worthless. It’s nothing to strive for. If you created the most valuable company in the history of the world and became the richest person it wouldn’t help.

D. The only way to prevail, to overcome, is to first prevail with God.

1. Like Jacob prevailed. In Genesis 32 he wrestled with God and he was refusing God’s will, and he was winning. So God weakened Jacob, He hurt him, so that he used his little remaining strength to hang on to the angel and say I won’t let You go unless You bless me. The angel said you have struggled with men and God and have prevailed.

2. Like Hannah prevailed with God, saying, whatever You want, that’s what I want. When she lost to God, that’s when she prevailed with God. Whatever You want. Your will be done in me.

3. Just like Jesus the Messiah prevailed when He prayed three hours in the garden of Gethsemane, not My will be done, but Yours. That’s how the victory was won.

E. How do you think you’re going to succeed and make it? Do you naturally turn to prayer? No! You won’t make it if you keep slugging it out. We prevail with God through prayer. That’s weakness. It’s helpless. It’s humbling. You do have to do something, but that’s after prayer.

F. That barren woman, that beggar on the ash heap, that’s you and me. Why should God listen to us? Why should He do anything for us? Because this is the only way God’s world works. Humble yourself before Him and say, “You are good. This is Your world. I want to humble myself before You and say, not my will but Yours be done.” God is going to answer that prayer.

G. Then you will know that joy of knowing Christ. The joy of God answering prayer. His will is accomplished. The enemy is left with nothing to say.

Let’s pray.