Does Having Faith in God Matter? 1 Samuel 1:1-20

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible Guys. We

have a great episode in store for you.

Great, maybe one of the best ever. Yes, actually, I

don't know.

Let's shoot for.

It, okay, all right, we're gonna give it our best,

as opposed to just mailing it in like we've been doing lately. Yea,

all right, we're gonna do our best.

Have somebody come up to you right before you preach

and they go, hey, listen, my neighbor's here today, so

you know, just you know, be good.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, do your best today,

do your best? Oh good idea?

Yeah, good idea. I always say, I always say, oh

my gosh, I'm so glad you said that. You know what,

I was actually going to shoot for mediocrity, and now

that you said that, I'm going to go ahead and

actually try really hard.

I'll tell people sometimes they'll say, hey, I've got a

guest here, so do you know, do your very best

or whatever, and be like, oh, I should go look

over the message. You see what it is I'm talking

about today. Oh, I'll go I should have prepared, man,

I should have prepared this week. I knew, I knew

I should have been ready.

Okay, Well, anyways, you should always assume that anybody on

a public stage, in any setting is trying their best.

Yes, well, so in this situation, if you are, if

you're new to our podcast politics, yes, that's exactly if

you're new to our podcast. Chris and I are we

both pastor at the same church, Yes, and in outside

of Detroit, Michigan, Sterling Heights, and we just are a

couple of guys who like to talk about the Bible

in fun a practical ways. That's what it's said literally

in the role in that. But what we don't do.

We always know what the passage is, but what we

don't do is come in with a whole bunch of

study notes and work it out. We're just literally talking

about the words that are on the page, right, and

so the whole thing really we're ad libbing. And yeah,

so if you listen very long, you'll figure that out.

Yeah, it's it's not hard to figure out. It's not hard. Hey,

So we're going to start out with a segment that

desiree is calling dad joke competition, which is one of

my favorites.

Yes, the last last time was rough. It was really

those those dad jokes were It's probably.

The worst batch.

Yes, we've ever had. This might be better.

Yeah, I like the first one already. Okay for the

first one. Yes, scientists get bored after watching the Earth

turn after twenty four hours, so they called it a day.

Okay, I like that one.

Oh no, God called it day okay.

Yeah, So I'm struggling with this one.

Yep.

My daughter was doing history homework and asked if I

knew about Galileo.

Yeah.

I said he was a poor boy from a poor family.

Oh that's great, So I can't poor boy from a

poor family.

There you go Bohemian rhapsody. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, okay,

So I was okay, I was, I was roughing. I

was rough on that one. I jah though, very nice.

All right. Number two, did you know that milk is

the fastest liquid in the universe. No, before you see it,

it's already pasteurized.

Oh no, nope, it's not even getting a smile. Come on,

I'm not even I'm not come on, Okay. As an American,

it's sad to see that nothing is made in the

USA anymore. I just bought a new TV and it

says built in antenna. I don't even know where that is.

Built in antenna. That's funny.

I don't even know.

Where that is.

I like that one. It's a funny one.

All right, Here we go. I bought a new iPad

and named it the Titanic. Now, when I plug into

my laptop, it says the Titanic is sinking, sinking, sinking.

Two rough ones in a row, there, Chris, Yeah, that

was pretty rough. I visited my friend at his new house.

He told me to make myself at home, so I

throw him out. I hate visitors.

That's I love that one.

Let's make yourself at home. Okay, get out. I hate company.

That's great, that's great.

There you go, all right.

Number four, I was kicked out because of my Arnold

Schwarzenegger imperson Oh sorry, I was going to try to

say impersonations, but it says impression. Sorry, let me start over.

I was kicked out because of my Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions.

But don't worry, I'll be back.

Okay, that wasn't worth. They got a giggle, all right,

there are two words that will open a lot of

doors for you. Push and pull.

There you go.

Okay, that's kind of a grinner. Yeah that's not a Yeah. Yeah.

If I had twin daughters, I would name the first

one Kate and the second one duplicate, duplicate.

Okay. I got fired from my job as a taxi driver.

Turns out customers don't appreciate when you go the extra mile.

But I'm from I like that.

Yeah, that was a good one.

Yeah, go in the extra mile?

Okay?

Was that it's a biblical principle.

It is a biblical principle, but it shouldn't be applied

if you're a taxi driver.

Right, correct? Yes, correct. The guys told me. Guy told

me the other day he went to Vegas and uh,

oh was the guy I had breakfast with? Oh, he

went to Vegas and he said, yeah in the cab

and they said, oh no, the traffic on the strip

is just really, really bad. So he goes out of

his way and he goes all the way around and

he said it was like he looked it up later,

it was like three times the distance and he's like,

that'll be X amount of dollars and he goes, well,

never again in Vegas.

Yeah, there you go. Well, very exciting. And I would

say three out of five of mine were good ones.

And yeah, I would say I would say two or

three out of five were good.

Okay.

I actually likes get better.

It's getting better because we were afraid they were gonna

we were gonna have to dock, you know, yeah or something.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, doctor pay.

Yeah. We can't be happy.

And from from all the dollars that we give, dozens

of dollars.

Dozens of dollars, that's great, it's terrible. No, thank you,

des that was great. All right.

Well, today we're launching into a brand new book, Jeff,

a brand new book. It's called First Samuel.

First Samuel, the first of two. I wonder who wrote it.

Let me think Samuel Samuel.

Do you think? Yeah, Yes, it's all about Samuel, the

whole book Samuel. If you were curious, so is Second Samuel. Yes,

it's about Samuel.

Israel has been ruled by judges at this time for

about three hundred years, and Samuel is Israel's final judge.

He's the last one of those judges.

Yes.

He grew up in the tabernacle as we're about to

read as a priest in training under thee the priest Eli,

and so, yeah, jump right into it.

So the beginning of Samuel's life is really great and

I think many people, many of our listeners probably will

resonate with this story just a little bit. So says

there was a man named Elkenah who lived in Rama,

in the region of zeph in the hill country of Ephraim.

That's a mouthful.

He was the son of Jerehomes, son of Elihu, son

of Tohu, son of Zeph of Ephraim. Al Canah had

two wives, Hannah and Panina. Panina had children, but Hannah

did not. Boy. There are a lot of words in

that one.

Yeah, that was a Hakaba intro.

Each year, al Canah would travel to Shiloh to worship

and sacrifice to the Lord of Heaven's armies at the Tabernacle.

The priests of the Lord at that time were the

two sons of Eli, Hafnai and Phineas. On the days

of al Cana presented his sacrifice, he would give portions

of the meat to Panina and each of her children,

And though he loved Hannah, he would give her only

one choice portion because the Lord had not given her

any children. So Panina would taunt Hannah and make fun

of her because the Lord had kept her from having children.

Year after year it was the same. Panina would taunt

Hannah as they went to the tabernacle. Each time Hannah

would be reduced to tears. It would not even eat.

Why are you crying, Hannah? Alkena would add, why aren't

you eating? Why be downhearted? Just because you have no children?

You have me. Isn't that better than having ten sons?

I would not advise that.

No, that is not a good approach.

Right anyway, we'll continue on. Once after a sacrificial meal

at Shiloh, Hannah got up and went to pray. Eli,

the priest, was sitting at his customary place beside the

entrance of the tabernacle. Hannah was in deep anguish, crying

bitterly as she prayed to the Lord, and she made

this vow, O, Lord of Heaven's armies, if you will

look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give

me a son, then I will give him back to you.

He will be yours for his entire lifetime, and as

a sign that he has been dedicated to the Lord,

his hair will never be cut. As she was praying

to the Lord, Eli watched her and, seeing her lips

moving but hearing no sound, he thought she'd been drinking.

Must you come here drunk? He demanded, throw away your wine.

Oh no, sir, she replied, I haven't been drinking wine

or anything stronger. But I am very discouraged, and I

was pouring out my heart to the Lord. Don't think

I'm a wicked woman, for I've been praying out of

great anguish and sorrow. In that case, Eli said, go

in peace. May the God of Israel grant the request

you have asked of him. Oh thank you, sir, she exclaimed,

and then she went back and began to eat again,

and she was no longer sad. The entire family got

early up early the next morning and went to worship

the Lord once more. Then they returned home to Rama.

When Alcanas slept with hand, the Lord remembered her plea,

and in due time she gave birth to a son.

She named him Samuel, for she said, I asked the

Lord for him.

So there it is so. Samuel, from the very beginning

was birthed. Even his conception happened because of a plea

of God hearing, you know, meeting somebody in their anguish.

So Samuel starts the right way from the Lord. Yeah,

I mean, I mean all children are from the Lord.

I was gonna say, yeah.

But yeah, but a very cool story.

Nonetheless, Yeah, the struggle, right, So I think there's many

people who struggle with, you know, not being able to

have children or whatever. But even before we get into

that part, the weird part about this story for us

and the West is that it's these two wives that are,

you know, struggling, and the closest thing we have is

the current wife and the ex wife. Right, But well

there's that. I don't think that's legal, but they do it, so,

you know, because we don't live in a polygamist society

per se. It's kind of an odd thing, but you know,

and God is not endorsing polygamy as in fact, God

God was against it, but it was a cultural thing.

People did it, and it was wrong. It was sinful.

And anytime you break God's laws, there's always problems. It's

always harder. It's a harder life. Remember that, That's what

Moses had said. You choose life or death. It's going

to be better or worse based on whether or not

you choose to obey God's laws.

A lot of people are, oh, my goodness, gracious, A

lot of people are confused about that because like great

men of God, like Solomon, right, the wisest man who

ever lives lived, didn't he have like nine hundred wives?

Yeah, thousand wives, yeah.

A thousand wives, nine hundred concubines or something like this.

So he So it's not that it's not that God

ever said that that was okay. It's just that he

did what culture dictated, right, and it was outside of

God allowed.

There's a note in a Life Application study Bible that

says husbands, this is about el Cana and Panina. Yeah,

it says husbands can be insensitive for many reasons, no doubt,

but often they simply suffer from ignorance, no doubt, no doubt.

This is el Cana had two wives, which doubled his

opportunities to be insensitive.

That's hilarious. That's that's really good. Yeah.

So you know this, this this marriage relationship causes so

many problems because he clearly he loves Hannah. Panina had

more children she was able to, and Hannah was not,

and so she took that as her badge of honor,

and she just put down another And you know, I

think sometimes even you know, Paniina is insensitivity. Sometimes we

say things we just don't realize how bad it hurts.

Oh, it could have been sativity. She mocked her.

Yeah, yeah, but it was cruel. But the mocking thing,

you know, could have been she's a funny person. She

could have had a good sense of humor and she's

just talking fun talk about no, no, no no. What

I'm saying is there's lots of ways to hurt people

with our words. It could have been she was just

being silly, but it hurt Hannah deeply. It could have

been that she was being mean and it hurt Hannah deeply.

And I think that we can do the same thing.

I tend to not be a mean person, but I

tend to be a silly person who hurts people a

lot with my words. So that that's where I was

going with that, is it could have been we can

hurt people without trying to hurt people. So whether whether

Panina was trying to hurt her or whether just the mocking,

the teasing, it could have been. Man, you know, it

was really easy for you to go to the tabernacle today.

You didn't have to get up and pack four diaper bags. Right.

It could have been just a jab. It could have

been a goofy thing. And then when you go, oh,

that was really me saying, Oh, I didn't mean for

it to be mean. But a lot of times you

just don't realize how bad it hurts other people.

I do understand what you're saying, right, and the application

certainly is there. Yeah, but I'm gonna go on record

and say the Bible says she would taunt hand and

make fun of her because.

She had no children, because the Lord had kept her

from having children. Yeah, So I'm not saying that that's

what she was doing. I'm saying you can hurt people

with your words even when you don't intend to.

Yeah. And I'll tell you what. That's the the whole

adage that the word sarcasm. Remember what it means, the

word sarcasm, what it means. The word literally means to

tear the flesh.

That's what it means, which is the humor. By the way, right,

this is tearing flesh.

So to rip the flesh is to is to hurt

somebody or to wound somebody, and uh, And sarcasm is

something that you know, we like to say, oh, just kidding, Okay,

it's it's not funny unless it's.

True, right, So it's it's funny.

I like.

I like sarcasm. You do too. Sarcasm is fun, but

sometimes we go too far with it. I don't think

that was the situation here, But what I am saying

is the sensitivities of other people. She may have been

digging a little and not realizing how deep the wound was. Right,

It's possible even then when you're being mean. You just

sometimes we just don't realize. And so even in today's

society now, I mean, we see children taking their own

lives over things that people said online. Right, It's just

it's a shocking world that we live in now, where

words are so can be deadly. And so in this situation,

and here she is, she's just broken hearted. She has

nowhere to go, she's fasting, she won't eat, and so

she's praying, and el Cana goes, honey, you know, sure,

Panana has lots of children, but you've got me.

Right, right, And of course he doesn't care because he

has much children. Yeah, right, So what a what a

pig headed gun.

Aren't I all that you need?

Are I better than ten sons? That's terrible. Let me

let me say this to uh, to the to the

people listening who struggle with infertility. UH, it is a

just a you know. I remember when I became a

singles director and I got hired at a church and

I was with single adults who have never been married,

and I was talking about the pain that they were feeling.

And as I was trying to relate to them, one

of them, I remember, looked at me and said, hey,

let me ask you a question. And I said, and

I said yeah, And she goes, have you ever broken

your arm? And I said no, And she goes, then,

don't even pretend to know what it feels like to

break your arm to somebody else who has a broken arm.

She goes, just admit that you have no idea. And

I was like, oh, and and then I realized right

then and there, I was like, because I was pretty young,

I was in my young thirties, I remember thinking to myself,

that's a that's a really good lesson, right to not

even pretend to understand what those kinds, you know, the

pain of somebody who wants to be married. You know,

in this case, she was like a four year old

woman who her whole life were only desired to be married,

and she's not married, right. So that kind of pain,

the kind of pain that a that a that a

couple may feel when they're trying to have children to

somebody who has children, right. So I just think there's

wisdom in saying if if you're that person, then find

somebody around you who has gone through the same struggle.

I would say all humans have experienced pain that others

can't comprehend.

I agree with that.

So a mature way to respond might be to say,

I don't entirely understand your pain, but I do no pain.

I've had pain I maybe can't talk about, yeah, right.

And and I think that if you are feeling, if

you're like that woman who says, don't even pretend like

you understand my pain, you understand pain, right right, So

maybe for her, like, if you are going through pain,

don't be resentful for somebody who's trying to connect with you.

Right right.

So that's a bitter bit.

I was a fault, yeah, probably so, but I was

at fault.

But we can give permission to people to say to

try to make a connection. Go If they're being dismissive,

that's one thing, right, But yeah, if they're trying to say,

if you're trying to say, hey, I get it pain,

you know I I've had a lot of pain in

my life, a lot of pain in my life, and

so I every once in a while you'll be dismissed

because what you're trying to do is empathize and somebody

else goes you have no idea what you're talking about.

And in my mind, there's a touch of narcissism in

that moment when when the other person refuses to allow

you to empathize right at all? That there's right, So

there's there's brokenness on both sides. That pain causes us

to do really weird things, and we're not always at

our best when we're in the middle of pain, right Well,

Hurt people hurt people, that's right. Hurt people hurt people,

and so so we just have to understand that that.

I think one of the best notes I've ever read

in the Life Application Study Bible is right here in

this story. What I'm not joking, Listen to this, It

said in the one for verse ten says hand, and

I had good reason to feel discouraged and bitter. She

was unable to bear children, she shared her husband with

a woman who ridiculed her, Her loving husband could not

solve her problem, and even the High priest misunderstood her motives.

But instead of retaliating or giving up hope, Hannah prayed.

She brought a problem honestly before the Lord. Each of

us may face times of barrenness without when nothing comes

to birth in our work, our service, or our relationships.

It's difficult to pray in faith when we feel so ineffective.

But as Hannah discovered, prayer opens the way for God

to work. What a great note. She had every reason

in the world to be bitter, every reason in the

world to be angry, every reason in the world to

just give up and quit. And instead of those things,

she could have been resentful towards her religion. She could

have been resentful towards her spouse, she'd be resentful towards

other family members, she could be resentful against God himself,

against religious leaders. And instead she just went to her

knees to God because only God could answer her prayers. Right. Yeah,

and I love her response because most of us don't

respond like Hannah response, right, And maybe that's why most

of us don't get the miracles Hannah got.

Well, it's faithfulness that endures, all right. So here she

is just you know, believing that you know, prayer is

the best thing, and prayer matters. And so you know, Eli,

as we all know, well, for those of us who

know the Bible, he wasn't in a good spot, no, right,

the high priest, he wasn't the best on his best behavior.

Why would he ever walk up and just assume that

she's drunk? Right, What a goofball? And we find out

that he's just really not in a good spot later on.

But but yeah, you're right. The faithfulness of Hannah, you know,

looking to God and believing in God and that never

wavering is pretty admirable.

And then her willingness to say, God, more than anything,

I want a baby, and then to say, and I'll

give the baby back to you is what a commitment, right,

because a lot of times I want more than anything,

I want a baby. When God finally gives a baby,

then we hang on so tightly and it's like this,

you know tiger mom kind of mentality. Just fight everybody

fight everything, hang on tightly. This is mine now, and

we almost get to the point where the gift becomes

the God instead of the gift giver. Right, And so

even in her prayer, she was saying, I will not

make this child more important than you. And there is

something to that that when we're going to God and

we so desperately want to think. We want to be married,

we want a child, we want this job, we want

this college opportunity, we want Oh God, you know, I'll

do anything to get it. And really we're almost worshiping

the thing that we want rather than worshiping the God

who gives. And so from the very beginning she's saying,

I will not allow this. I'm praying for you to

give me the my heart's desire. There's nothing my life

I want more. But I want you to know this,

It's not going to be more important than you. And

I think that you know, when we have that brokenness,

that disappointment, that sadness, that hole in our life, we

also have to be I think, cognizant of the fact

that we're tempted to make what we think would fill

that hole in our life more important than God. And

she doesn't and I think on every level. You know,

we talk about this sometimes, we've talked about different people

in the Bible that seem to have almost a perfect

reputation and no real negative things. And here's another one. Hannah.

There's nothing negative about her right in the Bible. She

responds the right way every single time in this and

it's just it's really a beautiful thing. So I think

she's a woman that we should all look up to

and aspire to be a little bit more. Like now

her story really becomes amazing. You know, God does show

up and she does have the baby. I hate to

spoil it tomorrow, but that's what happens.

Yeah. Well, you know the book's written by Samuel, so

I think we figured that part out all right. Well,

that's our time, so we will see you, hopefully next

time on the bubble guys.

H