Although God does not call all women to be married, according to 1 Corinthians 7, He gives some the gift of singleness. And although there are times when, for God's own purposes, He makes a woman barren or a husband so that no child can be born, it is still the norm, it is still the gift of God, His best gift to women to give them a child. Children are, after all, an inheritance from the Lord. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Hannah was barren, but faithful to God. And ultimately, God blessed her faith with a son, and that son, whom she named Samuel, would grow up to be one of the great heroes of the faith. And yet, even more amazing is the fact that Hannah gave up the day-to-day responsibilities of raising Samuel. How, then, is she considered one of the great biblical examples of motherhood? As Mother's Day approaches, dig into Hannah's story here on Grace to You. John MacArthur is going to show you why her life reflects God's plan for every woman, God's design for a successful woman. That's the title of John's current study. Now, yesterday John examined the first of three factors that made Hannah a godly mother.
He's going to review point one to start, and here's John. It is fitting that we take another look at what God intends motherhood to be, the highest calling a woman will ever know. But when the Bible details the honor due to a mother, no more detail is given to anyone beyond Hannah. We meet her in 1 Samuel 1.
Hannah, her name speaks of her beauty. It means grace, and indeed she is the emblem of the grace of womanhood. She became a mother by faith. She first appears as 1 Samuel opens as a childless woman. Then she becomes a mother, the mother of one of the greatest men who ever walked the earth, Samuel. And as you see the account of the birth of Samuel, you note the profile of a godly mother. As we are introduced to this story, I want us to note three things that profile a godly mother. She had a right husband relationship, she had a right heavenly relationship, and she had a right home relationship.
Those three things stand out and profile her for us. First of all, let's consider her right husband relationship, and may I say that this is at the very outset essential for you to understand. The most important relationship in a family in raising godly children is not the relationship between the parents and the children, it's the relationship between the mother and the father. What you communicate to your children by your relationship dominates their thinking. They are learning about human relationships from the two of you. They are learning about virtue, they are learning about sin, they are learning about love, they are learning about forgiveness, they are learning about sympathy, they are learning about understanding, they are learning about compassion, they are learning about virtue, they are learning about honesty and integrity.
They're watching and far more important than your relationship to your child in the long run is the relationship you have to your spouse that is projected to your child. Secondly, as you profile a godly mother, she had a right heavenly relationship. Not only were things right between she and her husband – and by the way, there is no statement of any conflict in their union at all, no hint of any conflict – and a godly mother grows best in the soil of a godly, loving, supportive, sympathetic husband. But then she had a right heavenly relationship.
She knew where to go with her problem – right to the Lord. And there are several virtues that come out of this aspect. First of all, she had a passion for the Lord's best. Just use the word passion. She had a passion for the Lord's best.
What do we mean by that? She wanted a child. She desperately wanted a child.
She wanted a child so much that she wept and fasted. Her heart was broken over the fact that she could not have a child, but she didn't have a selfish motive. She didn't want a child to live out her unfulfilled fantasies.
She didn't want a child to dress like little Lord Fauntleroy and show off. She didn't want a child to fulfill her own need for love. She wanted a child to give to God. She wanted a child because she knew that was God's best for a woman.
And although God does not call all women to be married, according to 1 Corinthians 7, He gives some the gift of singleness. And although there are times when for God's own purposes He makes a woman barren or a husband so that no child can be born, it is still the norm. It is still the gift of God, His best gift to women to give them a child.
Children are, after all, an inheritance from the Lord. And it is God who opens the womb of a mother and makes her heart rejoice. She desired a child because she wanted God's best. She wanted to honor and glorify God, and she knew the best gift of God's love ever given to a woman as a child. And what I'm saying to you is that a truly godly mother is not a reluctant mother, not a mother who finds a child an intrusion, not a mother who will postpone the birth of a child as long as possible so that child doesn't crowd her schedule and become upset when finding out that some contraception was ineffective. A truly godly mother, a woman with the heart of a mother as God would give a mother a heart is one who longs to have a child, a passion for children, seeing a child as a gift from God, a special blessing of His love, a fulfillment of the divine intention for women, and certainly a hope for the next generation to raise a godly seed. A godly mother longs to have a child, and has she no child, she weeps.
It is not a whim. It is not an act of self-indulgence to prove her womanhood. It is that she knows this is God's best for women and that her heart is unfulfilled. So she was characterized by passion for God's best. Secondly, she was characterized by prayer.
She knew where to go. Look at verse 9. Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh. Obviously she had perhaps eaten a little bit under the encouraging sympathy of her husband in verse 8. She now has completed that in Shiloh. Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord.
The high priest is in the temple. She goes there. She came into the temple greatly distressed. Her soul was bitter, it literally says. And she prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.
She is just crushed, crushed. And she made a promise, a vow, O Lord, and she goes on to make her vow. But notice this about this godly woman. She was a woman of prayer.
It's a beautiful characteristic. She understood that God was the source of children. She understood that God alone could alter her sterility. Her distinctive virtue was her faith, constant faith. Verse 12, it came about as she continued praying before the Lord, constant. She remained there.
She stayed there. Her heart was broken. She was pouring out her prayers.
This is the spirit of true prayer. She slipped into the sanctuary of God and she began to pour out her heart in honest, clean faith, totally dependent on God and given to prayer. She knew it was God alone who would weave life in the womb, as Psalm 139 says. So her passion turned to prayer. This speaks of her right heavenly relationship.
She knew where to go with her problems. Thirdly, she was a woman of promise, not only of passion and prayer, but would you look at verse 11? She made a vow, a promise that, O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction – she saw childlessness as an affliction – of Thy maidservant and remember me – doesn't mean he didn't know who she was, but remember me in the sense of my longing for a child – and not forget Thy maidservant, but will give Thy maidservant a son – here's the promise – then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head. That last little part was a Nazarite vow described in Numbers 6, 3 to 6. If a Jew wanted to take a vow of total consecration to God, he would not cut his hair, no concern for physical appearance, not drink the wine and the strong drink, abstaining from the banquetings and the celebrations and all of that, living an austere, consecrated, God-centered life. Many Jews took a Nazarite vow for a short period of time. Three of them in the Scripture were lifelong Nazarites – Samson, John the Baptist, and this child, Samuel – all there lifelong, totally devoted and consecrated to God.
No personal indulgence at all, no preoccupation with form and looks and fashion at all. So she promised God, I'll give you this child. I just want to be fulfilled as a mother. I just want to raise a godly son to give back to your glory, and if you give him to me, I'll give him back. This is her promise, to present her child to God. That's the essence of a godly mother. While praying for a child, she prays for that child, not for a wrong reason, but a right reason, to turn that child back to God from where the child came. So Hannah made her promise. The next thing we see about Hannah was her purity. Eli was the high priest, but I've got to tell you, he was really a lousy high priest.
And nothing could be said about his discernment either. Came about when she was praying continually before the Lord. Eli was watching her mouth, sitting off on a – he was a big fat man.
In fact, when his sons died, he was so shook, he fell over and landed on his neck and broke it and killed himself. So Eli was sitting there watching her, and she was in there pouring out her heart and weeping and crying, and she was speaking in her heart. She wasn't speaking out loud, it says in verse 13, only her lips were moving.
Have you ever had that experience where you're really talking in your heart, but your lips are moving, though not a sound was heard? So Eli thought she was drunk. Isn't he discerning? Now, I don't know anything about my discernment as relative to other people or to Eli's, but I'll tell you, I think I know the difference between a drunk and a woman broken in prayer.
So Eli decided to play the spiritual role. How long will you make yourself drunk? Put away your wine from you, he says to her. Hannah's so gracious and answered and said, no, my Lord, I'm a woman oppressed in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the Lord.
You misjudged me. Do not consider your maidservant as a worthless woman. That tells us a little bit about drinking wine or strong drink and its relationship to worthlessness regarding women. That's an Old Testament attitude. Don't consider me like that. I have spoken until now out of my great concern and my provocation.
Then Eli, hearing such a lucid answer, answered and said, go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you've asked of him. It's sort of a mild apology, but he mistook her for being drunk. Don't think your maidservant a worthless woman, literally a son of Belial, profitless. A common term, by the way, in the Old Testament associated with idolatry, Deuteronomy 13, rebellion, 1 Samuel 2, lewd, sensuous acts in Judges 19 and 20, a term used to speak of arrogance and stupidity in 1 Samuel 25 and even murder in 1 Kings 21. Don't think that I'm in that group.
I'm not that kind of person. She was a virtuous woman. Like the woman of Proverbs 12, 4, and 31, 10, she was a woman of virtue.
The next one we see in terms of characteristics comes in verse 18. I love this. And she said, responding to Eli, let your maidservant find favor in your sight. So the woman went away and ate, and her face was no longer sad. She could eat now, and she wasn't sad. You say, why?
I'll tell you why. Because she had patient faith. She had patient faith. She gave it to God. What else could she do?
She wasn't about to remain frustrated. This is true faith. True faith doesn't pray, oh God, here's my problem, here's my problem.
Walk away in utter frustration. That's really doubt. Faith says, here it is, God, and walks away and is no longer sad. That's trust.
I trust you. Very much the mark of a godly mother. Someone who totally trusts God. She casts her burden on God, and that's the end of it. She walks away.
She eats. She is no longer sad. There's another thing about this woman that I have to talk to you for a moment about, chapter 2, verses 1 to 10. She is not only a woman of passion and prayer and promise and purity and a woman of patient faith, she is also a woman, I love this, of praise.
When God gave her the child, what was her response? Hannah prayed and said, verse 1, my heart exalts in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies because I rejoice in Thy salvation. There's no one holy like the Lord indeed.
There's no one besides Thee, nor is there any rock like our God. And she goes on like that, clear down through verse 10, praise, thanks, exaltation, oh, this is a woman of praise. This is a woman with a thankful heart. When God did give her that child, she expressed that pure, unbroken praise that streams out of a thankful soul. In fact, you should read those 10 verses carefully because they are a masterpiece of praise with all kinds of elements. Much like Mary's Magnificat, recorded in Luke 146 to 55, where she says, my soul doth magnify the Lord, and then goes down through those wonderful elements of praise at the prospect of the birth of her own child, a godly mother is known by her praise.
That's the pattern. She has a right relationship with her husband. They share worship. They share love.
They share deep feeling. She has a right relationship with heaven. Her passions are God's passions. She is a woman of prayer. She is a woman of faith. She is a woman of purity. She is a woman of promise. She is a woman of praise.
And finally, she had a right home relationship. Go back to verse 21 of chapter 1. She had a right home relationship, and this is with reference to the child in verse 21. Then the man, Elkanah, went up with all his household to offer to the Lord the early sacrifice and pay his vow.
He went into his routine, and he's a faithful guy, and he gathers the whole household, and up they go. Verse 22, here we come to it, Hannah did not go up. She didn't go. For she said to her husband, I will not go up until the child is weaned.
Now, wait a minute. That's a couple of years, Hannah, three years. I don't know exactly how long Hannah nursed little Samuel, but several years, surely. I won't go. It was only about a two- or three-week trip at the longest to go up there and be there for a week, traveling there, traveling back.
It's less than 200 miles from one end of Palestine to the other. She wouldn't go. She wouldn't go at all.
Why? She was dedicated to the child. When God gave the child, she was dedicated to the child. Back up to verse 19, and let's see how it all started. They arose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord.
Husband and wife worshiping in the morning, isn't that beautiful, together, worshiping the Lord? They returned to their house in Ramah, Elkanah had relations with Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her. And it came about in due time after Hannah had conceived. She gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord.
Samuel means heard by God. And boy, once that child came, Hannah said, This is the child of my passion. This is the child of my vow. I will not forsake my time with this child. I won't leave this child for several weeks. I won't take this little child along and make it uncomfortable because they wouldn't necessarily walk. The child needs sleep, and the child needs the gentleness of home, the quietness of a nursing environment. Boy, it's a long way from what we see today, isn't it? And having babies and a couple of months later slamming the baby in some care center and taking off for the job.
Not Hannah. Totally committed to stay in the home until that little life was trained, until that little life was nursed and loved and cherished, wanting to speak to that little one of the truth of God, preparing for the time when the little one would be deposited in the temple itself. The child must have been at least three years old. Those were such important times, such important times, the little one learning from his mother and loved by his mother. No doubt she took the injunction of Deuteronomy and taught that little one all the time the things of the Lord.
So necessary. Give yourself to the child. Such a child was a man named John Stiles, the product of a godly mother.
Listen to his sentiments. I have worshiped in churches and chapels. I have prayed in the busy street. I have sought my God and have found Him where the waves of His ocean beat. I have knelt in the silent forest in the shade of some ancient tree, but the dearest of all my altars was at my mother's knee. I have listened to God in His temple.
I have caught His voice in the crowd. I have heard Him speak where the breakers were booming long and loud, where the winds play soft in the treetops. My God has talked to me, but I have never heard Him clearer than I did at my mother's knee. The things in my life that are worthy were born in my mother's breast and breathed into mine by the wonder of the love her life expressed. The years that have brought me to manhood have taken her far from me, but memory keeps me from straying too far from my mother's knee. God make me the man of her vision and purge me of selfishness. God keep me true to her standards and help me to live to bless.
God hallow the holy impress of the days that used to be and keep me a pilgrim forever to the shrine at my mother's knee. Much was the testimony of Samuel in the years that Hannah dedicated herself to him. No higher calling on the face of the earth in human life than that kind of devotion from a mother to a child. She not only dedicated herself to the child, but secondly, she dedicated her child to the Lord. Verse 24, when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull and one ephah of flour and a jug of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord in Shiloh, although the child was young.
They slaughtered the bull and brought the boy to Eli, and she said, O my lord, as your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. For this boy I prayed, and the Lord has given me my petition, which I asked of him. So I have also dedicated him to the Lord as long as he lives. He is dedicated to the Lord. And he worshipped the Lord there.
What a scene. She sought nothing from him. She sought not that he have some great career in some big field and be famous or make a lot of money so that she could brag about him. She sought not that he should be put in a situation where he could make sure he had enough to care for her in her old age. No, she gave that child away to God.
Never, though, did she drop her responsibility for him. Look at chapter 2, verse 18, now Samuel was ministering before the Lord as a boy wearing a linen ephod. In other words, he was girded like a priest would be dressed. As a little boy, his whole life was ministering before the Lord. And his mother would make him a little robe, verse 19, and bring it to him from year to year when she would come up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.
Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, May the Lord give you children from this woman in place of the one she dedicated to the Lord. And they went to their own home, and the Lord visited Hannah, and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew before the Lord. She never really let go of her responsibility. Every time she came, she came with a new little robe for her growing Samuel. That's the result of godly mothering, and that's the insight that you never stop being mother, no matter how old they become.
God blessed her. I wish we had the time to contrast the rest of the narrative, because the rest of chapter 2 into chapter 3 into chapter 4 is the sad, pathetic tragedy of the family of Eli. His sons were fornicators. They died, and he himself fell over, as I said, and died. It was a tragic, ugly scene, and the commentary of Scripture on Eli was that he could not restrain his sons from doing evil.
And his wife is never mentioned. I don't know what part or finish he had, but she was a long way from what Hannah was in producing godly Samuel. To be a godly mother involves a right husband relationship, a right heavenly relationship, and a right home relationship.
Hannah had all of that. God honored it, and she gives us a model to follow. In closing, let me ask a couple of questions.
What does this say, and how do we apply this? First of all, ask yourself, are you a godly mother? Are you a godly mother? Are you preparing to be a godly mother? Are you, if you are already older, preparing younger women to be godly mothers?
And to men, I say, are you creating the environment in which your wife's godliness can have its best effect? And are you raising sons who will lead their wives to be godly mothers? And to you young people, I say, are you honoring your mother? Are you obeying your mother? If God has given you a godly mother, God has given you the best of gifts.
None of them are perfect, but when they love the Lord Jesus Christ and have passed that on to you, they have given you the greatest thing they could give. Are you thankful? And there are some who say, my mother was not godly. Are you praying for her? Are you praying for her and asking God's Spirit somehow to bring you under the influence of a godly woman who can show you the things your mother never showed you? The hope for our society really rests in what happens in the next generation, and that is so much in the hands of godly women.
That's John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His current study here on Grace to You is titled, God's Design for a Successful Woman. Now it may be that you never realized how much you could learn from a woman who shows up only in a few Bible verses, but Hannah is not the only woman in Scripture who appears briefly and yet leaves a lasting influence. And so with that in mind, let me remind you about a book John has written called 12 Extraordinary Women. God's Word acknowledges the priceless value of a virtuous woman. This book, 12 Extraordinary Women, looks at women you'd probably expect to find, like Sarah and Mary, the mother of Jesus, but some others in this book might surprise you.
For example, Rahab and the mother of Samson. Each of these 12 is someone that God redeemed and refined and equipped for lives of great faithfulness, and there's much we can learn from them. Not just a book for the ladies, it's a book that men will benefit from as well. Now this is a great time to place an order. We have discounted prices on nearly all of our items through Friday, May 9th, so order your copy of 12 Extraordinary Women when you contact us today. You can call us at 800-55-GRACE and our normal business hours are Monday through Friday, 730 a.m. to 4 o'clock p.m. Pacific Time, or you can go to our website anytime. That address is GTY.org.
During the sale, 12 Extraordinary Women costs $7.50 and shipping is free. Again, to order, call 800-55-GRACE or visit GTY.org. Some other books that you might want to order by May 9th, there's the MacArthur New Testament commentary, the MacArthur Study Bible, The Gospel According to Jesus, Anxious for Nothing and The Glory of Heaven. To place your order, call 800-55-GRACE or shop online at GTY.org. And thanks for praying that God would use these study tools to strengthen God's people and do His work. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for making this broadcast part of your day and be back tomorrow as John MacArthur looks at the Bible's most well-known passage on what it means to be a godly woman, Proverbs 31. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace To You.
