This
is Today’s Lesson for my 10 years and up…I pray it blesses you.
Before
we dive in I want to give you a little background on the Book of 1 Samuel
since we won’t be able to cover it all.
1
Samuel tells the story of Samuel, a priest of Israel, (the last judge) and
Saul, Israel’s first king. It introduces
us to David and gives us extensive background on the man who would later
succeed Saul as the ruler of God’s people.
Among other things and in the midst of some dramatic stories and
adventure, this book reveals the importance of the heart.
In
the beginning of 1 Samuel, we see a
barren woman with a desperate but pure heart, who prays passionately to
God. God answers with a miracle and
gives her Samuel as her son.
Samuel,
in turn, served God with a faithful heart as a prophet and a priest of
Israel. He anointed Saul to rule, we see
that Saul’s heart was evil, jealous, fearful, and angry. Against the backdrop of Saul’s wickedness, we
see God raising up the future king, David, who is called “a man after God’s own
heart!” (1 Samuel 13:14) So we know his heart was pure and honorable
before the Lord.
1
Samuel 16:7 tells us that “man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord
looks on the heart.” Determine today - that
whatever the Lord see when He looks into your heart - will be pleasing to Him.
Let’s
go to the word – 1 Samuel Chapter 1:1-11
We
are introduced to Elkanah (el kayn a whose
name means God has purchased) and his two wives Peninnah (pee nin a whose name means Precious Stone) and
Hannah (Whose name means Favor of God). Elkanah and Peninnah had children. Poor Hannah was barren and couldn’t have any
children. As you can imagine this tore
at Hannah’s heart. One of the greatest
desires of a woman is to give her husband children. Her being childless didn’t get in the way of
Elkanah loving her very much.
Each
year Elkanah went year by year to The City of Shiloh to worship and give
sacrifice to the Lord. (What is the significance of Shiloh? After
Joshua conquered the Land of Israel, the Ark of the Covenant was placed in the
village of Shiloh. Located in the area
settled by the tribes of Benjamin and Ephraim – Shiloh became known as the
“place of the Lord’s Tabernacle.” It was
to Shiloh that the Israelites brought their sacrifices.)
When
the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give to Peninnah (his wife) and
all her children portions of the sacrificial meal. To his wife Hannah, he gave a double portion
as he loved her very much even though she had provided him with no children.
Hannah
was very embarrassed by her situation.
Back in these times, women were judged by how many children they
provided to their husbands. Peninnah
held this over Hannah’s head and would provoke her. This happened year after year.
Can you imagine how awful Hannah must
have felt? First she can’t have children
for her husband and his other wife torments her of this. Every year the same thing go up to the Lord’s
house and you are made to feel unworthy.
How awful, right?
Poor Hannah sat down and cried and wouldn’t eat. Even her husband was unable to console her.
Hannah
ends up praying to God and weeping bitterly.
She makes a vow to God that if He would provide her a son, she would
give the child to Him. In this prayer
she sets the future child apart for God promising Him that the child would be a
Nazarite.
There are two words Nazarite and Nazirite
– Combined, these two Hebrew words speak of “being set apart, purified, being
made to reflect the glory of God, raised above the norm and given authority
over the nation.”
Three categories of Nazirites:
1.
The first comprised people
who out of their own free will set themselves apart for “a season”. These were temporary Nazirites.
2.
The second category
includes those who were made Nazirites by other people like Samuel. Samuel was made a Nazirite by his mother
Hannah. (1 Samuel 1:29 – She vowed,
saying, O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of Your handmaid
and earnestly remember, and not forget Your handmaid but will give me a son, I
will give him to the Lord all his life: no razor shall touch his head.) This was a vow of Nazarite.
3.
The last category were
Nazarites who were chosen by God, not self-chosen or chosen by parents,
but chosen by God Himself. They were born Nazirites and had to live as
such all their lives. Examples of this type of Nazarite are John
the Baptist and Samson, whom God set apart- from before they were born. Much higher discipline was required of such
people, and they usually had great impact.
Being set apart for God takes hard work
and preparation but I ask you, “What great things in life come easy?” If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
Back
to the word….1 Samuel 1:12-28 (remainder of chapter 1)
Hannah
is sitting there praying. Praying to
herself however her lips are moving. Eli
the priest saw her, thought she was drunk and said as much to her. Hannah responded that she had not drank any
wine or strong drink, I was pouring out my soul before the Lord. Hannah told Eli not think wicked of her that
she was just speaking to God about her complaints and her anger.
Eli
tells her to go in peace and may the God of Israel grant your petition which
you have asked of Him. Hannah thanks him
by saying let your handmaiden find grace in your sight. She left Eli to go eat and she was sad no
more.
(She left her burden with God, she left
comforted by the blessing from Eli)
Before
leaving Shiloh the family gets up early to worship the Lord. The returned home. God remembered Hannah and her prayer. She had a son and named him Samuel (meaning God has heard)
Shortly
after the birth of Samuel it is time for the yearly trek to Shiloh for the
worship and sacrifice to the Lord.
Hannah tells Elkahah that she is not going to travel until the baby is
old enough. Once he is old enough, she
would take Samuel and he will remain with the priests as she vowed to God. Elkahah says, do what you got to do.
Once
Samuel was old enough Hannah gathered
(not the husband Elkahah, but Hannah) the items for the sacrificial burnt offering
and took Samuel to the Lord’s house in Shiloh.
After the burnt offering they took Samuel to Eli telling him, that she
was that woman that stood by him praying to the Lord. She told Eli that this is the child I prayed
for. God granted my request. I promised God that as long as Samuel lives
he would be given to the Lord. Eli and Hannah
worshipped the Lord there.
I don’t know about you but, I am blown
away by Hannah. She is barren and has been praying, asking God for a
child for YEARS. Husband doesn't understand her distress. Husband's
other wife who has many children torments her, not caring about Hannah's
feelings. Eli the Priest thinks she is drunk as she cries softly to God.
Yet something about going before God and telling
her troubles reminded Hannah about who GOD was. She EXPECTED Him to look
at her, remember her and to give her a son. She went away contented (1
Sam 1:18).
Hannah's prayers were answered; she
conceived and gave birth to a son. She made a promise to God, dedicating
that son to HIM. When he was about 3 years old she took him to the House
of the Lord and gave her son back to Him.
Hannah's 2nd prayer is far different from
the pain of her previous prayers. It is an amazing song of praise for the
God whom she views as her Lord over her life. She doesn't mention the
answered prayer. The entire subject of this prayer is GOD.
Could it be that Hannah learnt what we
need to learn? That it is our God - who makes life complete. Oh, we
yearn for this and ache for that. We concentrate on our need instead of
on God. It is God who is enough.
"The Lord" said Hannah,
"is a God who knows" (1 Sam 2:3). No wonder the Bible says over
and over (and over again) "WAIT FOR THE LORD! NOT FOR THE THING YOU
WANT, BUT FOR THE LORD!"
Sorry
about that I am getting ahead of the story.
1
Sam chapter 2
Verses
1-10 is Hannah praying her prayer of praise to God.
Verse
11 – Elkanah and Hannah go home and Samuel stays with the priest Eli to
minister to the Lord.
Hannah
visits Samuel each year and brings him a new robe. Eli blesses Elkanan and Hannah – prophesying
that because Hannah had her prayer for Samuel answered and she kept her vow to
give him to the Lord, that the Lord will bless them with more children. They ended up having 3 more sons and 2
daughters.
The
rest of Chapter 2 speaks of Eli’s sons, Hophni (hof-nee meaning Swordsman)
and Phinehas (fin ee es meaning
Serpents Mouth) and how they were wicked, sinful men. They dishonored God and the house of the
Lord. There is a prophesy against the
family (sons) of Eli (meaning defender
of men) – how God will strike them down for their disobedience and
dishonor of God. Eli didn’t keep his
boys in line, let them do as they pleased, when he did chastise them it was
wishy washy…no back bone. Always
defending them…
(A quick side note regarding Eli and his lack
of disciplining his sons – he let them get away with (not only) things that
were sinful & wrong, but also blasphemous of God. Not only was Eli their father but he was also
their boss as the priest in the House of the Lord. By not keeping his boys in check, he not only
did a disservice to them as their father but also to the Lord as His priest!
I want you to remember next time your
parents discipline you when you do something bad, that I want you to be
grateful that they love you so much that they are taking responsibility of
being YOUR parent seriously.
Same goes for your teachers, it is there
responsibility to teach you – it is your responsibility to learn what you are
being taught. Don’t let your being a kid
– be your excuse of why you don’t behave or hold up your end of the parent/child
and teacher/student end of the relationship.)
You get the point, now back to Samuel…
Samuel
grew up in the house of the Lord. He was
in favor with God and with Men….
(This tells me that Samuel was a holy and
righteous child that not only served God with his works but had God in his
heart. Even though Samuel was in a God
Building doesn’t mean that he was surrounded by Godly people giving him proper
examples of how to act and behave.
Eli’s sons were priests by title but they
were not godly men at all. Please
remember that is true in the world we live in today. Just because you go to a Christian School and
go to Church doesn’t mean that you are surrounded by people of God….(in
our church you are but you understand what I am getting, right?)
As the sons of Eli “portrayed themselves
as holy and righteous priests of the Lord” they were not. I don’t know about you but I would rather
deal with a person who is honest about their not being right with God, than
someone pretending to be a Christian. Being
fake about God to me is Blasphemous and A
fake Christian is a Hypocrite.
Hypocrite…A person who masks his/her real
self while they play a part for an audience.
The encyclopedia of Bible Words has the following definitions for
Hypocrite.
1.
A hypocrite does not act
spontaneously from the heart but with calculation, to impress others (Matt
6:1-3)
2.
A hypocrite thinks only of
the external trappings of religion, ignoring the central heart issues of love
for God and others (Matt 15:1-21)
3.
A hypocrite uses spiritual
talk to hide base motives (Matt 22:18-22)
Jesus gives this warning to the
hypocrites of every age/era, “Woe to you”
(Matt 23:13, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 29)
Even though Samuel grew up surrounded by
the likes of Eli’s sons and Eli who condoned his children’s wrong behavior
(like a parent not disciplining their children properly – hoping that they
would change on their own) – Samuel was a child that devoted his life to
God. (He was filled with God and it
overflowed through his life)
I admired Samuel that even though it was
his mother who made the Nazirite vow “FOR” him – to dedicate his life to God,
he didn’t have an attitude or a rebellious spirit. Samuel himself obeyed the wishes of his mother
and dedicated his life to serving God. He
had a pure heart and “chose” to serve God with his ALL. That right there just speaks volumes to me!
Let’s
get back to the word as this is one of my favorite parts! 1 Sam Chapter 3
This
get’s pretty awesome here. Samuel is
still a boy…a kid, no older than you guys.
He is sleeping and God wakes him up by calling his name. Poor kid thinks it is Eli calling him. The scene happens three times where God calls
out to the boy, “Samuel!” and Samuel gets up and goes to Eli saying, “Here I
am, you did call me.” After the 3rd
time Eli realizes that it is actually God calling out to Samuel, so he sends
Samuel back to bed and tells the child that if “HE” calls you, you shall say,
“Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening.”
I wonder what ran through little Samuel’s
mind at this time or was he so tired that he just went back to bed? Was he excited? Was he scared? Could he even go back to sleep?
If it were me, I would be like, “Whoa!!”,
“What do you mean HE?”, “Do you mean God?”, “Is He mad at me?”, “Why would God
want to talk to me?” Or even, “Is Eli
messin’ with me?” I don’t know about you
but I would be wide awake until it happened again…or it was time to get up
which ever came first.
After
Samuel went to bed (again) God showed
back up (or still yet…) and called
out, “Samuel, Samuel” and the boy did as Eli the priest had instructed him,
“Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening.”
God
told Samuel what He planned to do with Eli’s house (meaning his family). This is the first time that Samuel received a
prophetic word from God. HOW COOL IS
THAT?!?! He was a child hearing the
audible voice of GOD. This is Awesome
stuff guys!!!!
Now
the next morning Eli was full of curiosity of what the Lord had to say to
Samuel. Now picture this, the priest who
is an old man is going to go to the child to find out
what God had told him. Poor little
Samuel has this old man asking him to tell him what all God said. And here is
Samuel not wanting to tell Eli the bad news that the Lord told him He was going
to do with Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas.
Then Eli kind of threatens Samuel to tell him what God said. So Samuel tells Eli everything that God had
told him. Eli accepted the news and the
fate of his family by saying, “God will be God and if that is what God has to
do, so be it.”
Samuel
grows up and it is known everywhere that Samuel was established to be a prophet
of the Lord. That is the end of Chapter
3 of 1 Samuel.
Chapter
4 starts off with the Philistines attacking Israel. The Israelites are scared, thinking
God has forgotten them. Here is where someone
came up with the not-so-bright idea of, “Let’s take the Ark of the Covenant
into the camp.” (I want you to stop and picture this…God gave specific instructions on
how and where to set up the Ark of the Covenant…this is not some little wrong
doing here, this is HUGE!!!)
The
sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas carry the Ark of the Covenant out of its
dwelling place of the House of the Lord and head to the camp of the
Israelites. At first the Philistines
were scared saying “Woe to Us, who shall deliver us from their mighty gods.”
I need to stop here and point out that
the Philistines may have known that the Lord brought the Israelites out of
Egypt giving them the land of Caanan, but this whole picture that I see is a
pagan people still not realizing the true and awesome power of our Lord. When I read that sentence, they may be scared
but they are bringing GOD down to an idol stature. NOT COOL!
I am also picturing disobedient Israelites
and so-called priests bringing a most sacred shrine from its Holy place to the
war zone. Again, NOT COOL.
Makes one ask who was more of a disgrace
in this scene…the heathens that don’t know our God, that weren’t brought up
with God, who are ignorant the awesome power and majesty of the One and Only
True Living God - OR – God’s chosen
people who know better?!?!?!
Eli’s
sons (as prophesied) were slain. Eli
(who is 98 and blind at this point) is sitting by the road trembling for the
fate of the Ark of God. As a man of
Benjamin was leaving the battle, he tells the people of the city what was going
on. They all cry out, Eli hears and asks
what all the commotion is about. The man
proceeds to tell Eli that the Israelites have major casualties (30,000
people!), Eli’s sons are dead and that the Ark of the Covenant has been
captured. Hearing about the Ark of the
Covenant he passes out, falling off his seat backwards breaking his neck and
died.
With
that Chapter 4 ends with the death of 30,000 Israelites, death of Eli, his sons
and daughter-in-law and the Ark of the Covenant in the hands of the
Philistines. This is where our DVD ends
and I just want to go a little further if you don’t mind.
1
Samuel chapter 5 tells about the Ark of God being in the temple of dagon (the
fish god) of the Philistines. As you can
imagine, this did not please the Living God!!
Every morning the false god dagon would be knocked over on its face and
every morning the priest of dagon would pick it up. That is until the morning that they saw that
the head and palms were broken off leaving just the trunk of this statue. This scares the Philistines, so they gather
the higher ups and decide that the God of Israel is doing this. Their people are afflicted with terrible
boils… “Ok we got to get rid of this Ark
of the God of Israel as He has a heavy hand down upon our people!” The leaders all agree and send it off to the
next Philistine city…(we don’t want this curse you take it)…same scenario takes
place, so they move it again….and again.
Bringing chapter 5 of 1 Samuel to a close with God inflicting
pain and suffering upon those that had what belonged to HIM and His people the
Israelites.
1
Samuel chapter 6 tells about how the Philistines returned the Arc of the
Covenant to the Israelites after it has had a 7 month tour of the Philistine
country. It is rather interesting tale please
check it out along with chapter 7 as I need to skip to chapter 8 for the sake
of time.
At
this time our beloved Samuel is old. He
made his sons judges over Israel, who were corrupt and wicked just like Eli’s
sons. The people don’t want to deal with
the crooked judges and would prefer a kind to rule over them, so they go to
Samuel and tell him as much. As you can
imagine it deeply displeased Samuel to hear the people want a “human” king to
rule over them instead of God.
What
a burden on the heart of Samuel and he takes it to God. (As we
all should when something is troubling us – take the burden to God and leave it
with Him)
God
tells Samuel that the people have not rejected Samuel but of God Himself as
their King. After everything that God
has done for them – all the miracles to bring them out of Egypt and into the
Promised Land, forsaking Him and serving other (fake) gods, His chosen people turning away from Him again! God tells Samuel to warn the people what will
happen to them if they choose a king to rule over their lives. (Basically a king will be taking away
everything that they cherish.) Samuel
tells them that when this happens and you cry out to God, He will not hear
you! Never the less, they chose having a
king over God.
We
have to stop here, but basically I want you to know that Samuel had a heart for
God. I believe before he was born, with
the prayer of the pure heart of his mother Hannah that when she gave birth to
him, he was born with a pure heart for God.
Then as a boy he was taught by his mother and the priest Eli, to love
and serve the Lord with all of your heart, soul and being. He did just that. He talked to God daily. He loved God with every fiber of his
being. He was a prophet of the Lord and
he ends up anointing 2 kings in his lifetime.
Those kings will be Saul (meaning
asked for or prayed for) and David (meaning
beloved) which we will get into more next time.
Everyday
principals that you can implement into your daily lives:
1. Have a pure heart (Like
Hannah and Samuel)
2. Keeping your word (not
only to God) but to everyone
3. Cheaters and thieves
don’t get far with God
4. Never be Blasphemous to
our Lord, EVER!
5. Never worship
anyone/anything but OUR LORD!
6. Living for God may be
hard work but the blessings are huge
7. Discipline is for our
own good, love and appreciate parents when they do discipline you
8. Don’t take things for
granted
To
God Be ALL the Glory, AMEN AMEN AMEN!
Until
Next Time, God Bless!
