We have all lived long enough to see church leaders rise and fall because of a nasty pride, a temptation to think they are above all simply because of their current called position. This pride grows to overwhelm leaders’ hearts, opening the door to the same  sins that got a fallen angel kicked out of heaven.  This temptation presents itself when those they serve place them on pedestals of perfection.  The people “below” them love and honor them as a person of God they can trust.  But when they become God to them, troubles arise.  When the leaders use their position assigned to them by God to gain notoriety and power, they slowly lose their identity and relationship with the God. Then the pedestal begins to crumble and a fall is on the horizon. When acts “In Jesus Name” for His glory are replaced with doing all in their name, declaring self-glorification; it is a sign that God is forgotten and pushed aside.  Leaders make up new rules to manipulate God and others while promoting their own desires.

Leaders who begin to believe they do all the work of healing, helping and saving are setting themselves up for a big fall.  Fallen, uncommitted leaders take over the role of God in people’s lives—and many who are blind to truth allow them to do it. After all, look how successful he/she has been on their own who get others to do what they say while manipulating others to do what makes them look good.  God called them so they must be good and right.  Wrong.

How refreshing then is Hannah’s prayer that gives all glorify to God! Hannah’s knows God well. We see her love for God in her prayer to Him!  God has been and is now Hannah’s Deliverer, Provider, and Protector.  God is declared her Rock, holy and righteous.  She prays a warning to the arrogant and prideful for there is NO ONE like God.  And now she gives her precious, God given son, Samuel to Eli the priest to raise as a servant of God in the Temple.  Hannah promised God, who fulfills His promises to her, the gift of her one and only son.  As a mom, I’m weeping at the thought of imagining this “letting go” scene at the Temple. This is how much Hannah trusts God…and Eli. Eli has been given a huge responsibility. Did it humble Eli, the father of sons who use the priesthood position for their own gain?  I wonder his thoughts.

1 Samuel 2

Hannah’s Prayer

Then Hannah prayed and said:

“My heart rejoices in the Lord;
    in the Lord my horn is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
    for I delight in your deliverance.

² “There is no one holy like the Lord;
    there is no one besides you;
    there is no Rock like our God.

³ “Do not keep talking so proudly
    or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the Lord is a God who knows,
    and by him deeds are weighed.

⁴ “The bows of the warriors are broken,
    but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
⁵ Those who were full hire themselves out for food,
    but those who were hungry are hungry no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children,
    but she who has had many sons pines away.

⁶ “The Lord brings death and makes alive;
    he brings down to the grave and raises up.
⁷ The Lord sends poverty and wealth;
    he humbles and he exalts.
⁸ He raises the poor from the dust
    and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
    and has them inherit a throne of honor.

“For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s;
    on them he has set the world.
⁹ He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,
    but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.

“It is not by strength that one prevails;
¹⁰     those who oppose the Lord will be broken.
The Most High will thunder from heaven;
    the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.

“He will give strength to his king
    and exalt the horn of his anointed.”

¹¹ Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, but the boy ministered before the Lord under Eli the priest.

Eli’s Wicked Sons

¹² Eli’s sons were scoundrels; they had no regard for the Lord. ¹³ Now it was the practice of the priests that, whenever any of the people offered a sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come with a three-pronged fork in his hand while the meat was being boiled ¹⁴ and would plunge the fork into the pan or kettle or caldron or pot. Whatever the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh. ¹⁵ But even before the fat was burned, the priest’s servant would come and say to the person who was sacrificing, “Give the priest some meat to roast; he won’t accept boiled meat from you, but only raw.”

¹⁶ If the person said to him, “Let the fat be burned first, and then take whatever you want,” the servant would answer, “No, hand it over now; if you don’t, I’ll take it by force.”

¹⁷ This sin of the young men was very great in the Lord’s sight, for they were treating the Lord’s offering with contempt.

¹⁸ But Samuel was ministering before the Lord—a boy wearing a linen ephod. ¹⁹ Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when she went up with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice. ²⁰ Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, saying, “May the Lord give you children by this woman to take the place of the one she prayed for and gave to the Lord.” Then they would go home. ²¹ And the Lord was gracious to Hannah; she gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.

²² Now Eli, who was very old, heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they slept with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting. ²³ So he said to them, “Why do you do such things? I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours. ²⁴ No, my sons; the report I hear spreading among the Lord’s people is not good. ²⁵ If one person sins against another, God may mediate for the offender; but if anyone sins against the Lord, who will intercede for them?” His sons, however, did not listen to their father’s rebuke, for it was the Lord’s will to put them to death.

²⁶ And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with people.

Prophecy Against the House of Eli

²⁷ Now a man of God came to Eli and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Did I not clearly reveal myself to your ancestor’s family when they were in Egypt under Pharaoh? ²⁸ I chose your ancestor out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod in my presence. I also gave your ancestor’s family all the food offerings presented by the Israelites. ²⁹ Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel?’

³⁰ “Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that members of your family would minister before me forever.’ But now the Lord declares: ‘Far be it from me! Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained. ³¹ The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your priestly house, so that no one in it will reach old age, ³² and you will see distress in my dwelling. Although good will be done to Israel, no one in your family line will ever reach old age. ³³ Every one of you that I do not cut off from serving at my altar I will spare only to destroy your sight and sap your strength, and all your descendants will die in the prime of life.

³⁴ “‘And what happens to your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, will be a sign to you—they will both die on the same day. ³⁵ I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. I will firmly establish his priestly house, and they will minister before my anointed one always. ³⁶ Then everyone left in your family line will come and bow down before him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread and plead, “Appoint me to some priestly office so I can have food to eat.”’”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Leaders rise and fall because they are human. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” preaches Paul, but God made a way for all to be redeemed and perfectly forgiven by His One and Only Son who He sent to save us!  (Romans 3:23; John 3:16-17)  However, falling from the grace that God so richly has given is not an excuse to keeping sinning! “Accept me for who I am because you and I profited from it and that’s just the way I am” or “God will overlook this because He loves me and so should you” are dangerous words that come from arrogant, dead lives who still cling to old dead thinking of self. 

Jesus is the Christ, our Lord, who died and rose again to give us Life—new Life that demands we leave behind our old dead life! Paul explains this “dead to sin, alive in Christ new way of thinking and living;

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.” Romans 6:1-7

^“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.” Romans 6:8  Paul is not saying that it is impossible for believers to sin; he’s saying it is stupid for believers to return to sin’s hold on us, making us zombies who walk dead lives in darkness. It’s not an impossibility, but a moral absurdity of the saved to return to what we have been set free from—a dead life!

Eli’s sons are evil, dead men walking.  His sons do not follow God’s commands but use their position as called men with position and power who are not committed to God—only to self. God sees and knows hearts. Nothing is hidden from God. God will rectify this fallen leadership situation to protect His people.  He always has and always will provide His best for His People.

Then, there’s Samuel—

Samuel means “heard of God,” a name given to him by Hannah, his devoted mother who loves God and is committed to God.  Hannah’s prayer is also a time of rejoicing and praising God who heard her in her darkest moment of barrenness!  As we read more closely, Hannah was also thinking of God’s blessing to the nation of Israel as well as to herself and her home. When our prayers are all about self, they aren’t very spiritual and do not honor the Lord.  Hannah gave all glory to God! Do we?

“I rejoice in your salvation” suggests more than Hannah’s being delivered from barrenness. Hannah sees the miracle of her pregnancy as the beginning of new victory for Israel, who time after time had been invaded, defeated, and abused by their enemies as we read through the book of Judges!

“The word “saved” is based on yeshua—Joshua—the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek name Jesus (both mean “the Lord is salvation”). King David, in fact, would be God’s yeshua to deliver Israel from her enemies, and Jesus, the Son of David, would be God’s yeshua to deliver all people from the bondage of sin and death.”—Warren Wiersbe, Wiersbe Study Bible (Can I get an amen?!)

Hannah’s prayer of rejoicing is a great example to follow in our response to God! What if we began with praise?  When we come to God in praise and thanksgiving; we find it helps to focus on the glory of the Lord and not on the greatness of our needs. When we see the greatness of God, we start to see life with the right perspective—the way God sees life!

God knows everything about us and others. He is able to weigh us and our actions accurately. The Lord knows our motives (Proverbs 16:2) and our hearts (Proverbs 24:11, 12).  God’s is perfect and His scales are accurate. Like Hannah, we may be misunderstood and maligned by people, but the Lord will always act justly (1 Samuel 16:7).  That includes Eli’s sons!

God is sovereign. God knows what is best for each one He has created in His own image. All that happens on our planet is under God’s watchful care. God has not and will not abandon us.  We may think at times that God has abandoned the earth to Satan and his demonic powers; but think again—This is still our Father’s world (Psalm 24:1, 2), and He has set His King, Jesus on heaven’s throne (Psalm 2:7–9).

“The world doesn’t understand the relationship between sacrifice and song, how God’s people can sing their way into sacrifice and sacrifice their way into singing. Hannah’s song near the beginning of 1 Samuel should be compared with David’s song found in chapter 22, as well as with Mary’s song in Luke 1:46–55. All three songs tell of God’s grace to undeserving people, God’s victory over the enemy, and the wonderful way God turns events upside down in order to accomplish His purposes. What Mary expressed in her song is especially close to what Hannah sang in her hymn of praise.”—Wiersbe Study Bible

God is God. We are not God.  So, what is our response to God today?  Prayerfully take all the time necessary to focus on the glory of the Lord and not on the greatness of our needs.

Lord,

You are the God of my salvation and my rock, too! Thank you for Hannah’s life example of devoted commitment to you that encourages us!  May my life reflect Your glory while telling Your story of Life eternal.  You are God and there is no one like You!

In Jesus Name, Amen