Psalms Lesson 26

Hannah’s Song - 1 Samuel 2:1-10

We are continuing the series of descriptive praise Psalms and we’ve done Psalm 33 as the first one and 1 Samuel 2:1-10 is the second one, just to show you that there are songs outside of the book of Psalms, because the word “Psalm” means “song” and there are songs in many portions of Scripture. Next week we’ll be doing Psalm 135 so if you want to look ahead and it will be easier to do that 1 Samuel 2. This is a hard one because it’s an adaptation of the general form.

Let me review again the parts of the descriptive praise Psalm; we have the call, we have the cause and we have the conclusion. The conclusion in a descriptive praise Psalm can be just about anything; the call is a general… it would be an imperative for people to join with the person who is praising, and the cause will be the justification of why people should praise God; it will usually consist of a summary statement plus amplification. That is the outline of a descriptive praise Psalm. Descriptive praise follows declarative praise. First you have the lament which corresponds to somebody in positive volition. Then you have the act of historic deliverance which corresponds to the enlightening ministry of the Holy Spirit today. Then you have the declarative praise which is the person’s response to that which would be analogous to the erection of the divine viewpoint framework in the soul today. Then you have the formulation of wisdom which would correspond to the experiential encounter with God’s love, that please notice, occurs after one erects a divine viewpoint framework. Then we have a descriptive praise which corresponds to the state of maximum maturity. So where you have the descriptive praise Psalm you are seeing very mature praise.

And we’d like to go to 1 Samuel 2. We’ve already gone through 1 Samuel 2 Sunday evening, you recall the historical context and that should be sufficient to give you background in this song. But tonight we’re not interested so much in the historic context as we’re interested in the psalm itself, so whereas once I worked through this from the standpoint of Hannah and the context of chapter 1, tonight we’re not so much interested in chapter 1 as we’re interested in this woman’s song.

The first thing to do with this song is to look at it and see if we can find the parts of a descriptive praise song; see if we can locate these parts in it. Does anyone have any suggestion on the boundaries of the parts. I might add that this psalm is a modification of descriptive praise for a reason we’ll discuss in a moment, but can you, by looking at the first ten verses, see where there are breaks or if there are. [someone says something] 1, 2 and 3, okay, a break after 3. Why do you say a break after 3? Anyone. A shift in the type of praise; can we be a little more specific, particularly to help people who might be having trouble with this. What is it that you’re looking at here when you come up and you say there’s a break at the end of the first three verses. Can you make it so it’s not quite so subjective sounding. What is it that you notice there that there’s a break after these first three verses?

All right, everyone notice these two points, here are two things to look for to pin this thing down so it doesn’t elude you. Notice verse 3, it’s talking to someone to do something, it’s very imperatival. Verse 4 is descriptive and it’s talking about God, it’s an indicative mood. So you have a shift between verses 3 and 4; Hannah has designed her song to shift here, there’s a definite shift. And further, there’s a shift in the content, not just in the grammar but there’s a shift in the content because in verse 4 you have the first in the series of a descriptions about God. And notice beginning in verse 4 why is verses 4 and following descriptive praise and not declarative praise? What is true of verses 4 and following that disqualify these verses from begin considered as declarative praise. They are descriptive praise. [someone says something] All right, Hannah is not recounting a specific incident; she is recounting generalized principles based on many, many, many instances. So here we have a second difference between… well, we have the differences as far as marking it off, it’s not declarative praise, it’s descriptive praise.

Verses 1-3, we have a break, then verse 4, starting verse 4, where does this second section end? [someone says something] All right, there’s a shift from verse 8 to 9; for your information, verses 6-7 and 8, most of those verbs are all participles. And then beginning in verse 9 you have a shift into the future. [someone says something] Heightens it as she moves from verse 5 to 6; okay now let’s concentrate a little bit on verses 8-9. When Hannah moves from verses 8 to 9 and she set up those last two verses on her song, what do you think she had on her mind. Remember the conclusion, is this cause still? We have to ask ourselves, beginning in verse 9, verses 9 and 10, do they fall in the place of cause or are they just something else? Cause to praise, do verses 9 and 10 give one reason to praise Jehovah. Be careful, this is just a hard section of the song, there’s no black and white solution to this kind of problem, you’re just going to have to kind of get an idea of how you respond to verses 9 and 10; when she concludes her song this way…

[someone says something] All right, verses 9 and 10, because they are future… because they are future there’s a problem here, because up to this point all praise has been based on what God has done in the past, not what He hasn’t done yet. Now you can get around it by saying well, His future act is seen as already having been accomplished and therefore I give praise in advance, like I give thanksgiving in advance. This is one way of dealing with this. This, frankly, the last part of these 10 verses it’s just up for grabs as to what’s happening here as far as the form goes because you can put it in the cause section or you can put it in the conclusion section and you can argue both ways. But let me show you why, in spite of the fact this may be discouraging, that you can’t tighten this down by form. Let me show you it doesn’t make any difference when you go to outline it. If you’ve been careful to try to pick the form, pick the pieces of this thing out, after you’ve picked the pieces out, regardless of how they fit in here, you’ve already done a mental exercise which now allows you to sit down and outline the thing.

Now how would you outline the Psalm, Hannah’s song here? What would be the natural… in other words, can you isolate blocks of thought that she wishes to communicate here? Keep in mind the best place to start outlining anything is to build on the work that you’ve already done in trying to form analyze it. So since you’ve broke it down by form, that’s the best place to start in your outlining. Your outlining is the second step after you’ve worked with the form for a while; and you always aren’t successful, as we haven’t been here, in packing this thing into a nice tight form. But we don’t sweat that because we’ve done enough on it to allow us to outline it with reasonable certainty. What would be the first section you would outline, the first block of thought? This is the way I’ve done it, I’ve just blocked it out basically the way you have indicated, verses 1-3; verses 4-8, verses 9-10. And the first three verses, Hannah announces her praise and warns the self-confident. Then in verses 4-8 Hannah gives reasons why men should praise and not be self-confident. Then in verses 9-10 Hannah concludes with encouragement to trust what Jehovah is going to do.

Now, when we look at this can anyone summarize the historical context; we’ve got the historical context of this pretty well determined, it’s not like we’re working in the book of Psalms, we come to Psalm X, Y and Z and it says “A Psalm of David,” nothing else, we don’t know where it fits in David’s life, and there we are, we’re stuck with the Psalm. Now that’s not bad, we can read through the Psalm but it sure would help if you could get some historic background. Can anyone give some details as to what’s going on here? What’s the deal? This woman is an amazing woman because when she begins to set up her song in verse 1, remember for three years she’s thought about this, for three years at least. How do we know three? That’s a guess based on ancient near eastern practice with regard to nursing children. And they weaned them after three or four years. That, by the way, is one reason that suppressed the birth rate in the ancient world, but they had a long nursing period. They didn’t have formula and so on, so they used God’s own provision.

Beginning in verse 1 we have the song that she wrote after considerable, we must say this song demonstrates tremendous insight; this woman for three years at least thought and thought and thought about things. Can you remember a significant thing that occurs in this psalm for the very first time in the history of Scripture. There’s something that happens in this song that has never happened up to this point. This psalm introduces something; what is it? This Psalm is where the Messiah is first mentioned in the Bible, as Messiah. Now Christ is mentioned earlier in the Old Testament, in fact the first reference to Jesus Christ is in Genesis 3, and it’s a promise given after the fall. So Jesus Christ actually in prophecy occurs before this point but this is the first time He occurs, you might say, with His title.

With that as a background we want to go to the psalm and look at it on a verse by verse basis. Let’s look at the first three verses; we’ll go through this rather quickly and then we’ll spend the rest of the time trying to derive some doctrinal principles out of it. Verse 1, “And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoices in the LORD, mine horn is exalted in the LORD; my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies, because I rejoice in Thy salvation. [2] There is none holy like the LORD; for there is none beside Thee, neither is there any rock like our God. [3] Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed.”

Now at this point what do you notice about this call to praise that we didn’t find in Psalm 33. Now Psalm 33 was just a general call to praise, come on and join my praise. There is an additional element that is playing a role in Hannah’s song here. What is that additional element? If normally a descriptive praise psalm simply has somebody saying come on, God is such and such kind of God, I am praising Him, come join me. If that’s the normal picture, what is abnormal about these first three verses that immediately should strike you? [someone says something] warning against the self-confident, the people in verse 3. There’s a hostility in this prayer, there’s a hostility, Hannah has her eye on somebody, and the hostility that is present in this thing goes throughout the entire song, there’s a hostile element, she’s saying ha-ha to somebody.

Now in her own personal experience she had a family feud with her husband’s other wife and this other woman gave her a lot of static and now she’s giving the other woman a lot of static but she’s matured to the point where out of her personal experience… here’s Hannah’s personal experience; we’ll just label that circle the circle of that woman’s personal experience. Now she’s had three years to reflect on her personal experience. And in those three years what has happened as the Holy Spirit has illuminated this lady’s mind is that she has enlarged her personal experience and the elements in it to apply to the nation. This may seem foreign to you but believe me, this is, in the warf and woof of Scripture, is that people view their lives as a microcosm of the life of the nation, so that what happens in my life and the principles there in are principles that apply on a large scale. And so after three years of studying of her life she began to apply this to the nation. Who, then, would be the enemies? Our of her own personal experience it’s the other woman. But when she goes to enlarge the principle, who are the enemies? The Philistines are the key ones at this point in history; the Philistines are the ones that are the most critical enemies of Israel. But as a general category who are the enemies of Israel in the Old Testament? The uncircumcised or the Gentiles, the Goiim. And they just are seeing themselves as a culture imbedded in a world that is hostile to them at all points.

The enemy in the Christian dispensations are no longer the Gentiles; the enemies in the Christian dispensation are the principalities and powers. So obviously verses 1-3 tell you immediately this woman is aware of what? She’s aware of spiritual warfare. And this is something, a theme that you want to notice, because this theme reappears, if you turn to Luke, there was another woman who made a song after the birth of her child. Luke 1:46, here’s the magnificat. Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, does the same thing with her baby that Hannah does with hers. There’s something about both of these women and how they respond to God’s blessing in their life that contains something that is normally associated with the masculine side of the fence. And that is the intensity of the militancy and the concept of warfare that these women have. You would think if there would be one… it always struck me as kind of odd here, that the woman, after she has her child, you usually think of it as a time when that thought would be the furthest from her mind, vengeance. But isn’t it strange that in the prayers of the women in the Bible, that these women make after the birth of their children, the prayers are filled with hostility and militancy. And it’s very interesting that there’s this attitude; it’s striking, it always struck me, Mary here, for example, just look what she says.

[46] “And Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord, [47] And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” Verse 48, “He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden; for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. [49] For He that is mighty has done to me great things; and holy is His name.” Verse 51, “He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.” Is that usually what you would expect coming from the lips of a woman giving praise for the birth of her child. And yet notice this element of militancy as these women, as it were, take their baby and they defy the forces of Israel with the baby. It’s as though both Hannah and Mary hold up their child and they say, see, you lost Satan, the child has come.

Now that role of the woman is referred to, turn to 1 Timothy 2, the female down through history has had a cosmic function, that the female would be the one who would ultimately smash Satan. This is why in mythology the fertility goddesses, it’s always the fertility goddesses, very rarely do you have fertility gods, male, it is usually the fertility goddesses, female, and the goddesses are the ones who provide. And my own belief is that this is just a mythological survival of the belief in the promise to Eve, that Eve was the mother of all living and that image of the mother of all living survived for century upon century upon century, and then it became distorted in the world of mythology.

In 1 Timothy 2:15 is an odd phrase that talks about the salvation of the woman, “Nevertheless she shall be saved in childbearing,” and we can forget what comes after the comma because of various grammatical problems with that verse. But that “she shall be saved in childbearing,” ties the female function of childbearing into a cosmic function. And the woman is always looked upon as that which brings the light into the world; the men are powerless, the man cannot bring the light into the world, it takes the woman to do that. And thus it seems that there’s a constant recurring theme, though Hannah’s son is not Messiah, Mary’s son is, nevertheless, Hannah has that same philosophy, ha-ha, the baby has come, now you enemies, you are defiled. Now that’s mentality that accompanied a woman who had given birth to a child. It’s the mentality that if we had time I could trace it from Genesis to Revelation.

In Revelation the same imagery occurs, Revelation 12 for example. Again we have the motif of the woman who gives birth to a child, here it’s a symbol of Israel, verse 1 of Revelation 12, “There appeared a great wonder in heaven—a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. [2] And she, being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. [3] And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. [4] And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth; and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered, to devour her child as soon as it was born. [5] And she brought forth a male child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne. [6] And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed here there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.”

Now without going into this prophetic fulfillment of this particular picture, basically we know that this is the birth of Messiah. Notice the antagonism; the antagonism between Satan and the woman, the antagonism because Satan knows it’s through the woman that he will be defeated. Therefore all through history, all through the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, Satan has a particular hatred for woman. And wherever you have a satanically inspired culture you always find Satan makes his assaults on the women, either by distorting their female role or by actually physically destroying them and persecuting them. The attack on womanhood throughout Scripture is generally an outflow of Satan’s hostility toward the female, just because she’s female. You have the hostility expressed in Genesis 6 where the demon forces come and they have intercourse with women, Genesis 6:1-5. Why the women, why don’t they impersonate females as in many of the mythologies, and seduce the men. But why is this only mentioned in Genesis 6? Because it carries forward the same theme, that Satan hates the women and he will destroy the by any means he can.

This places the song in its overall Biblical theme. Now let’s turn back to 1 Samuel 2, functioning as she does, and apparently well instructed, to know that as a woman who has given birth to a son that she stands in the middle of the cosmic controversy, that the birth of this son is going to have some fantastic repercussions. And that’s why in verse 1 she says, “My horn is exalted in the LORD,” “horn” is a symbol of power and it means that my power has increased, “my power has been increased because of Jehovah.” And so you see we have the emphasis over and over again upon the hostility, the exaltation, the power. Notice, “my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies,” do you know what she means by that? She means as I sing this song “my mouth is enlarged over my enemies,” it means my mouth triumphs over my enemies. In other words, she’s saying to her enemies, listen to my song because my song itself triumphs over you, it announces my victory over you, she’s saying, “because I rejoice in Thy salvation.” Here she turns to the Lord at the end of verse 1.

Then verse 2, “There is none holy as the LORD,” notice the emphasis on the uniqueness. The word “rock” in verse 2, “neither is there any rock like our God,” is a symbol used over and over again in the Psalms for security. It was used for those high cliffs on the north end of the Dead Sea, the caves and people would hide in the caves during times of military invasion. And these high caves, way up on these cliffs, almost unreachable, that whole area was known as “cliff,” there’s a Hebrew word for it. That’s the word that’s used here, our God is like that, when the enemies come we flee to the caves and then we drop rocks on them, we laugh at them. And historically nobody has ever conquered anyone in the caves, all you can do is starve them out but there’s no way an invading force can assault those caves… no way, that’s why the Dead Sea Scrolls were put there and lasted there for century upon century upon century upon century. The only people that want to go up there are goats and the poor guys that have to go chase the goats. And that was how they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, some goat drifted in and somebody threw a rock at the goat and instead of hitting the goat it hit one of these urns and it broke open and there was a scroll. And that’s how in 1947 they were discovered. But apart from the goats nobody goes up in those caves, it’s too hard to get there.

Verse 3, “Talk no more so exceeding proudly,” here she faces her enemies, so the theme of the enemy comes out, the “arrogancy of their mouth,” you can’t help, if you’re at all spiritually sensitive, to feel that behind this woman’s song she’s saying ha-ha, we beat you Satan, we beat you this time. “For the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed.”

Now beginning in verse 4 she makes a number of statements about God. And I want you to again keep in mind the situation. This woman has just given up nursing her baby son. She turns him over to the priest, and you would think of all the emotions of kind of losing her son, giving her child up, turning him over to this strange priest, knowing that from that time forward she’s not going to have a mother/son relationship, it’s been severed. In spite of all the emotions that would normally accompany a mother in this kind of situation, what does she find time to do but say the kind of things she says in verses 4-6. “The bows of mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength.” See the contrast, this up/down is a contrast that we’re going to emphasize more and more as we finish with these descriptive praise Psalms. On the one hand we have the smashing of the proud; on the other hand we have the elevation of the humble. God judges and God exalts. This down/up theme occurs over and over again and you see it in verse 4. The sword and “the bows of the mighty men are broken,” there’s the down, “and they that stumbled are girded with strength,” there’s the up.

Verse 5, “They that were full have hired themselves out for bread,” there’s the down, “and they that were hungry have ceased to hunger,” there’s the up; “so that the barren has borne seven,” there’s the up, “and she who has many children is waxed feeble,” there’s the down. See the theme, up/down, up/down, up/down that she’s running through her song.

Verse 6, “The LORD kills,” down, “and the LORD makes alive,” up. “The LORD brings down to sheol, and He brings up. [7] The LORD makes poor,” down, “and He makes rich,” up; “he brings low,” down, “and He lifts up.” [8] He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the beggar from the garbage heap, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory,” see the down/up theme again. You cannot have in the Bible salvation without having judgment. I insist upon that; every time you speak of salvation there should be a little mental [can’t understand word] that goes on in your mind saying yes, I am saved, but somebody had to be condemned, and you can’t separate the two themes. That’s nonsense today that’s going around, oh, God is love. Well that’s half the fact; God is just and He’s wrathful. And that has to be kept there. Down and up, you can’t have up without the down; God has to condemn in order to save. And that’s the way it always is, always has been, always will be.

Romans 6, what is condemned there? The flesh, in order that what might happen? The Holy Spirit may work in our lives. In order for God even to deliver us in phase two he has to judge us in phase two. He has to judge something in order to free, He has to smash something in order to liberate. This always is the process and this is why the Christian life is so painful and this is why you’re going to be seriously misled, and I know many believers who have been misled, and are very upset believers tonight because somebody told them the Christian life was going to be all this stuff, you’d float on a cloud, etc. and have this peace, peace, peace and all they’ve got is pieces. And so they’re wondering what went wrong. Nothing went wrong, it’s just the fact that if God is going to do His promised work in your life by liberating you, along the line of predestination, then He must also smash that which prevents you from being liberated, including your own habits. And He’s in the judging business and that’s why it’s painful. He must smash in order to free, that always is the case. So here’s this down/up thing.

What do you suppose served as the historical background for verses 4-5? Remember we said that all praise comes out of some real work of history. Now it’s true, verses 4-5 don’t refer to a specific event but think of where Hannah was in history; what did she have to look back on that would give her justification for saying verses 4-5? She lived about 1100 BC, that places her in time, in the historic stream of time. What happened before 1100 BC. The Exodus, the beginning of a nation, wasn’t something smashed in order for Israel to be free? Wait until we get to the praise Psalms for the nation. You’re going to really see this thing break wide open, this exultation and the spilling of blood, etc. I always like to put that in there because people have this queer idea that God is a sentimental old fogy somewhere, and in the Old Testament it’s blood and guts, in order to get saved. He saves, but there’s quite a battle before the salvation. So there’s the Exodus.

What else happened after the Exodus that would give historic events to underlie this woman’s words here. The whole conquest of the land, and then the period of the Judges. So you’ve got three things, the Exodus, the conquest in the book of Joshua, and then the book of Judges with all the ups and downs there. So Hannah, don’t get the impression in these descriptive praise Psalms that history is not on the people’s mind. Yes it is, history is on their mind but they’re abstracting themselves away from it so they get far enough away from history so they see many, many different events and they summarize it all together. That’s descriptive praise. But just because descriptive praise is summary type thing and generalizing, it is never disconnected and yanked away from history, it’s always there. You won’t find this in other kinds of civilizations. Other kinds of civilizations people just think this kind of a God would be good, the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, all they do is oh, God is like the sun, God does this, God does that, it’s all speculative thought. This is not speculative thought. I challenge anyone to show me where from verse 4 to 8 there’s any hint that Hannah sat down and speculated on the nature of God. All that vocabulary, from verses 4-8 is not speculative thinking; that’s just reflection upon historical experience. And if the history isn’t right, then Hannah’s conclusions aren’t right. Now that’s what’s so foolish about people who say, well I don’t believe that in the Bible; if you don’t believe that in the Bible that tubes you right there as far as any spiritual truth; you’re not getting any spiritual truth out of the Bible unless it’s literally true.

Now verses 6-8, it’s all participles, all describe God’s character. Verse 8 is a very picturesque thing, “He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the beggar from the dunghill,” “the dunghill” is the manure pile; what it means is the manure heap. That’s a very vivid expression of a person who’s under the pile. This is where it originated, so if you feel you’re under the pile, well now you can say it and have Biblical justification. I know you people that have trouble memorizing verses just love to memorize this with suitable English colloquialism added at various points. But that’s the picture and the translators have done their best to ease you over it with a minimum of pain. But when you hit the Hebrew that’s exactly what it means, the manure pile, and we could amplify that if you’d like.

All right, He “lifts up the beggar from the manure pile,” now imagine, this is the context of this woman who has just given her baby. Do you see what I mean, this just is not what you’d expect from some very sweet lady giving her child to the priest in all this religious service and then she comes out here, I’m glad for God, He pulled the beggar out of the manure pile. And it just strikes you as so incongruous until you realize that this is real life; this is not religious sentimentalism. This is painting life as it is. And life is full of manure at times, and that’s exactly the way it is, and this is a realistic picture. And I hope you see from this that the Bible doesn’t gloss over with some kind of a fruity, stupid, inane concept of life, it hits it right as it really is, and that has always argued to me of the truthfulness of God’s Word. It never sentimentalizes around problems. And there are going to be times when you’re going to feel like you’re under the dunghill and that’s exactly what she’s talking about here.

“…to set them among princes,” look at the [can’t understand word/s] you couldn’t ask for more vivid sharp contrast, think of this guy rolling in the manure with all the attendant smell and everything else, and then the very next words, “among the princes” which is the royalty, the most wealthy, the most pure as far as aesthetics go of the ancient world. Look at that, tremendous contrast. You see, there’s the down/up thing, “to set them among princes and to make them inherit the throne of glory;” and that is the highest attainment that would be possible, not just any throne, but the throne of glory. So you see the extremeness, and this is another theme that runs through these Psalms over and over and over. As I’ve said again and again in the Proverbs series, is that the Jew thought in terms of contrast; everything was from this extreme to that extreme. The reason they taught that way is because if you dealt with the extremes you dealt with everything in between. It was a magnificent way of teaching because as you move from one extreme to the other, you obviously encompass all the variables in between. “… for the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and He has set the world upon them.” Notice the theme of creation, that Jehovah can do this because the Jehovah who is the national God of Israel happens also to be the cosmic deity, the One who created the universe.

Now in verses 9-10 she shifts into the future; I think the suggestion earlier that verses 4-5 is past, verses 6-8 is present, God’s character, and then verses 9-10 are future; there’s a movement through time, from past, to present to future. “He will keep the feet of His saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness;” see the up/down. Instead of down/up here it’s up/down, the theme will vary but nevertheless it’s the same thing. “…for by strength shall no man prevail.” See the hostility. How would you characterize theologically a person who is doing what she condemns in the last part of verse 9? What is that person trying to do? Works. Do you notice, then, that the hostility of this song and the hostility must strike you as awfully unexpected, at least it does me when I read this, I wouldn’t expect this of this woman, and her hostility, which reflects the Holy Spirit’s hostility, because after all who is superintending the writing of the song? It’s the Holy Spirit working through this woman’s life.

Now if her hostility reflects the Holy Spirit’s hostility, what then is the Holy Spirit’s hostility directed toward? To just the morally wicked? No! The Holy Spirit’s hostility is directed to those who reject grace. And that’s the way it is throughout Scripture. The maximum hostility of God is not upon those that need salvation the most; the maximum hostility of God is directed to those who won’t take the salvation God offers. That’s the maximum hostility, and nothing hacks God off more than for us to reject His promises, to reject the grace; He becomes far more incensed about our rejection of His grace than He becomes incensed over our digging our little holes deeper; that’s just stupidity, but there’s more than stupidity to turn around and reject the hand that reaches down into the pit that wants to pull you up. That’s no longer just being stupid, it’s being asinine. And so God reacts to that kind of thing.

Now verse 10, notice again the hostility, “The adversaries of the LORD,” in direct, following the previous phrase, “by strength shall no man prevail,” so that defines who the adversaries are, people who reject grace. “The adversaries of the LORD shall be smashed to pieces;” look at that, doesn’t that really sound like a woman just giving her baby up? “The adversaries of the LORD will be smashed to pieces, out of heaven shall He thunder upon them.” And this is a prophecy and it was fulfilled two times in the book of Samuel, in 7:10 and 2 Samuel 22:14. So the thundering there is a supernatural thundering, it’s not thunderstorms, they knew what thunderstorms were like; this is not just a thunderstorm, this is a supernatural type thing. “The LORD shall judge the ends of the earth; and He shall give strength unto His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed.” The “anointed” is the word “Christ,” Meshiach. So there’s the occurrence of Christ.

Now having gone through that I’d like to go through and see if we can pull out some themes that have been mentioned. Remember here’s a woman in her descriptive praise. She’s given three years of thought to her song; she and in the human sense, for the Holy Spirit designed the thing sort of along with Hannah, but in Hannah’s own human consciousness, when she sat down to write this, this was a song of thanksgiving. Now you wouldn’t think that to look at it but she meant this to be thanksgiving, she meant this to be praise to her God, to what kind of a God it was that had given her a son. And when she made her song up it was directed to her personal God, her personal Savior, and yet she expresses her love for the Savior in these vicious, hostile ways. Now let’s see if we can go through this thing and get some doctrinal principles out of it. We’ve mentioned some of them as we’ve gone along. What are some that have struck some of you; I mentioned some, you might repeat those but there are others in here that we can pull out. Are there any truths here that ring a bell with things that you see in the New Testament, for example.

[someone says something] All right, the picture of grace, the vivid language of verse 8, the vivid language of verse 8. This is one of the things that’s very frustrating, frankly, in reading the Bible is that the translators messed up the best parts and by that I don’t mean to major on all the gross passages in Scripture, but the point remains, the Holy Spirit made those gross statements in Scripture. Why do you suppose the Holy Spirit is talking this way? Because He wants to communicate. This is the language of the streets, pardon the expression and the Holy Spirit is using the language of the street to communicate to people who are on the street. If you want to communicate to people you talk to them in their language. You don’t come to them with some pious lingo. Are you buried under a pile of manure, friend, our God helps people like that. All right, that communicates. And so here in verse 8, that’s one thing, that you see the vividness of grace in language you can’t fail to understand. You may not like it but you can’t fail to misunderstand it. When you read through verse 8 you know what’s been happening.

Anything else by way of general themes. [someone says something] All right, verse 9, eternal security, “He will keep the feet of His saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness,” notice verse 9, if it teaches eternal security what other reasons in the immediate context fit with saying and justifying eternal security. What has she just said about God that would lead you to believe that verse 9 falls right in line with what’s gone before. Verse 9 is not introducing some radically new truth; verse 9 just follows quite logically from what preceded. This up/down theme, God’s salvation when He lifts you up it’s all the way… all the way. So there’s an eternal… there’s grace in verse 8, there’s eternal security and those two themes always go together. By the way, people who aren’t sure of eternal security are people who never have gotten a clear concept of grace, because a person who denies eternal security still wants room for works. Basically that’s the problem, they still want some where that they can claim credit for the whole finished package. And people who deny eternal security are people who are anti-grace. And not only this, but you will find that the way they conduct their lives as Christians is very much anti-grace. The biggest worry warts in Christianity are people who are worried about whether they’re saved tomorrow. And a lot of them are in the funny farm, and I’d be in the funny farm if I had to wake up every morning holding on by my fingernails and worrying about whether I was going to be saved by nightfall. That’s ridiculous; that’s calculated to drive you crazy faster than any other thing. So if you have doubts about eternal security, may I suggest that you have some very severe theological problems.

Anything else in this; what about verse 2, does verse 2 remind you of anything about the New Testament claims. [someone says something] Verse 2, the absolute sustaining power of God over the whole creation. That’s true, I had something else on my mind though. Verse 2 seems to teach the exclusivism that you find in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes unto the Father but by Me,” tremendously exclusivistic verse. Excludes everybody else, everybody else is wrong, and that’s one of the offenses of the gospel, is that the gospel alone is correct and all other views are wrong. Tremendous thing, if you want to create an argument quick in a context just plop out with one of these exclusivist statements, it’s guaranteed to trigger off all sorts of things. But it’s all through the Bible, see right here, Hannah is saying this, “There is none holy… there is none beside Thee,” period. She’s saying it a world that believed in Dagon, just down the road 20-30 miles they have a big temple to Dagon. And here she is up in the hills saying there’s no God like You Jehovah, in fact there’s none beside you period. So this is that exclusivism coming out.

Anything else you’d like to point out. [someone says something] Eternality, I’m trying to think of how that Hebrew idiom is usually expressed, eternality is hard to look for in the Bible, it’s usually tied in in the Hebrew minds with creation. [something else said] All right, the last part of verse 8 probably would be their rendition of it. The reason I say the eternality of God is linked with creation is because the other gods of the other religions were always part of the creation that was already there. This is why you had one god giving birth to another god, the idea that you meet in mythology of somebody giving birth to somebody else is just cause and effect, that’s the ancient way of making cause and effect. So what they’re saying is that one deity came from another deity that came from another deity that came from another deity that came from another deity. See, it’s just a chain, whereas the Jew says no, the whole thing came from God, no chain at all.

And why is it that you would expect that all of God’s attributes are in this kind of a song? What kind of a song is it? Descriptive praise, it’s the highest form of praise and so what is the essence of praise? Rejoicing in the character of God. Now the thing you want to… I mention this in conclusion, the thing you want to notice about the psalm by way of a practical illustration is that we learn the attributes academically. I have to teach you the attributes academically because that’s the fastest way of doing it, etc. and you remember better that way. But do you notice that each believer has a freedom; once you master the concepts of what God is like you have a freedom to express those things in your own vocabulary, out of your own experience and I encourage you to do that. Make up your own words, or make up your own pictures from the attributes of God that fit your very own vocabulary, with your understanding at your level of spiritual growth. This is what this woman did; you don’t see omniscience, omnipresence, she’d draw a little square and put it all it in there and say here priest, this is my God. She expressed it poetically, artistically, in her own way, just as effectively I might add, probably more effectively.

So this is a mandate that you can be creative in your own spiritual life, something that I think if you’re a new believer you’ll find hard because those of you who are new believers or haven’t go hold of this concept, you’re tending to mimic the people who led you to Christ; and I know this is a tendency, you tend to mimic the people who have led you along in the Christian life and that’s all right as far as it goes but don’t forever mimic the people that led you to Christ and the people that are helping you in the Christian life because God expects you to use your personality your own way. You’re an absolutely unique individual and God has His way of working in your life and that’s where your personal creativity should come in, in how you daily express these truths about God, the things you do, how you conduct yourself, the way you talk, etc. your vocabulary, that’s all yours. And you have a whole range for your own personal creativity to do this. We’re talking just about the things that are common to us all but here you have a woman who creates and it’s very, very creative in the Christian life.