This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Samuel 1-7” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, April 27, 1997.

This morning we are reading from 1 Samuel 2, beginning at verse 1, reading through verse 10. This is the Word of God. And Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth is enlarged over my enemies, because I rejoice in thy salvation. There is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside thee, neither is there any rock like our God. Talk no more so exceedingly proudly. Let not arrogance come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge. and by him actions are waived.

The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength. They that were full have tired out themselves for bread, and they that were hungry cease. So that the barren have born seven, and she that hath many children is waxed feeble.

The Lord killeth and maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich. He bringeth low and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill to set them among princes and to make them inherit the throne of glory.

For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s. and he that hath set, and he hath set the world upon them. He will keep the feet of the saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces, out of heaven shall he thunder upon them. The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth, and he shall give strength unto his King.” and exalt the horn of his anointing.

Then, turning over to Luke’s Gospel, chapter 1, verse 46, And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded below a state of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is his name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. He hath showed strength with his arm. He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent away empty. He hath helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.

You are gracious, O Lord, to us and merciful. You have been kind to this congregation. Lord, you have built up love here that we as your saints might demonstrate that love one to another. You have encouraged us with your word. You have blessed us with that word, and we thank you.

But as we have been bound together, O Lord, we pray now that you will encourage us in our prayers one for another. Father, we ask that you will be gracious to Irma Mance, that you will kindly strengthen her. We ask, Lord, that she may be helped at this time, that she may know of our prayers and our concerns. And Father, we also pray that you would be gracious to the students that have been with us through the year, who have visited us from time to time. Lord, we ask that they may do well in their examinations. We also pray, Father, that they might have a very profitable summer and that you will lead them, O God, in paths of righteousness. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen. For some, poetry is their cup of tea. They enjoy it thoroughly, and time spent with poetry is never time wasted.

For others, poetry is more like unpleasant medication. which they are forced to take from time to time. Now, the Church is hardly a poetry forum. It is hardly a poetry society. However, it is impossible for the Church to avoid poetry. given the language of the Scriptures and the language of worship. In fact, we could say that some of the Church’s problems presently, when it comes to the matter of understanding either the Scriptures or the Church’s worship, lies from the Church’s inability to deal with the rich, profound poetry that belongs to her identity as the people of God.

My encouragement to you, against the background of Hannah’s wonderful poetry, employed by her here in her prayer, is that poetry demands patience. Now, I’ve preached a number of sermons already in the interests of just such patience. Maybe too many for you, because your patience is running out. Enough poetry. Let’s move along. But my hope has been for abundant rewards from this time spent on Hannah’s poem. This morning, we come to the conclusion of Hannah’s psalm-like prayer, her poem prayer. We come to verse 10.

In the New American Standard, that verse reads this way. Those who contend with the Lord will be shattered. Against them he will thunder in the heavens. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth, and he will give strength to his king. and will exalt the horn of his anointed.

I want to remind you of a few things as we take up this tenth verse. First of all, a word, once again, about the structure of the poem prayer. Verses one through three of this poem prayer form the first unit. Then we have verses four through nine, leading us with verse ten as the finale. We have already noticed a complication with this tenth verse when it comes to this matter of structure, and we will be speaking about that complication a little later on. But for now, the second thing of which I want to remind you, as we take up this poem prayer fresh, is the theme that is laid within it. In the interests of the theme, we have brought together that opening section, verses one through three, the final verse, verse ten, and the middle portion, verses four through poetically framed around the theme of exaltation. Hannah speaks of this exaltation right away as she opens up her poem prayer.

Her strength, she says in the second line, her strength, or as she calls it there, her horn, is exalted in the Lord. But then you will note how the prayer concludes the very last line in the tenth verse. The Lord will exalt the strength or horn of His anointing.

But as well, as we have noted before, verse 7, in the heart of that little portion of says, the Lord himself exalts. That’s how you should read the last line of that seventh verse. And then going on into the eighth verse, extending the thought further, the Lord exalts the poor from the dust. Indeed, as the close of that ninth verse tells us, man shall not prevail by his own strength. Underscore that.

Truly, therefore, exaltation, or, tightening the word a bit, salvation itself belongs completely and wholly to the Lord. The theme of the poem, the theme of this song, uttered by Hannah, is that exaltation is given by God and by Him alone, no one else. Very well then, Hannah strikes the note in the second verse of her psalm. There is no one holy like the Lord. Indeed, there is no one besides you, nor is there any rock like our God. Indeed.

Now, when we come to verse 10, in my judgment, it is difficult to imagine a more powerful, more fitting conclusion to what Hannah has been saying. First of all, I want you to notice the way verse 10, the first line, powerfully, fittingly completes the middle portion. of her song. We have already said on another occasion that verses four through nine are a self-contained unit, ending on that quite final and satisfying declaration that we find at the end of verse nine. For not by might shall a man prevail. This then leaves verse 10 standing by itself, the concluding statement from Hannah. However, there is nothing forced or isolated about verse 10 in its relationship to verses 4 through 9.

As if it were an afterthought, as if it were an appendage, as if it were stuck on or tacked even later on. If we are to be aware of anything in our appreciation of biblical poetry, we must be aware of biblical poetry’s flow, its movement, its fluidity. Do you appreciate the flow of Hannah’s words as you move from that ninth verse into the tenth?

Now, I fully realize But when we come to that concluding line in verse 9, the one about man not prevailing by his own might, it seems that we have come to a breaking point, to an end point, so emphatic, so universal in its strength, that nothing more can be or ought to be said. That’s it. We’re done. But Hannah keeps going, as if to upstage herself, as if to outdistance herself in what she has already stated.

But how in the world, how in the world is she going to exceed the strength of that last line in verse 9? If that last line in verse 9 is so emphatic, as we have stated, so universal, so conclusive, how is she going to say anything that would not seem to be anticlimactic, and thus distract from the overall impact of what she has stated thus far? In other words, as far as the flow of the poem is concerned, how is she going to keep us from coming to a complete stop with the end of that ninth verse?

Well, she does two things. One thing she does is to repeat a word that appeared at the beginning of verse four. She repeats the word, shattered. That’s how it’s translated in the New American Standard. In verse 4, she says, but those of the mighty are shattered. And now in verse 10, the opening line, she says, those who contend with the Lord will be shattered.

She repeats the word. Hannah carries us past verse 9 then into verse 10. Her repetition of the word shattered, giving the impression that the middle portion of the poem prayer, verses 4 through 9, is not completed until we reach that tenth verse. In this way, she moves us past the powerful breakpoint and the dead stop at the end of verse 9. But she also does one other thing.

She picks up a thought from verse 9, specifically in the second line of that verse, and its statement about the wicked silenced in darkness, and reintroduces this thought, this concept, at the beginning of verse 10. She does this subtly. You see, she focuses upon the speech. She focuses upon that which comes out of the mouths of the wicked. Both in verse nine, and again in verse ten.

In verse nine, the speech of the wicked is silenced. In verse ten, The wicked are now defined as those who contend with the Lord. They are defined as those who are contentious. That is, the wicked are those who argue and quarrel with and against God.

The Hebrew word used here is close to the word Meribah. Meribah. You remember Meribah. Both before and after Sinai, the children of Israel quarreled with God because they had no water in the wilderness. God provides them water from a rock. In both instances, isn’t it interesting that Hannah, in verse 2, calls God a rock? But God, in the context of the wilderness wanderings, provides his people water from a rock, and in two instances In the first, Exodus 17, the place itself being called Meribah, and then in the second instance, Numbers 20, the waters that were provided called Meribah. The place and the waters of contention, that’s what Meribah means. of argumentation, of quarreling with and against the Lord Himself.

In view clearly, then, as we have already indicated, is the speech, is that which comes out of the mouth of the wicked, the speech of the wicked. The movement and flow of Hannah’s poem prayer is thus maintained as she pushes us on to the elevated thoughts in her final words. And as we shall see, these words are anything but anticlimactic. We can therefore say that verse ten, More in one, not only powerfully and fittingly completes the middle portion of Hannah’s prayer, it also powerfully and fittingly moves us into the conclusion of that prayer. This it does by focusing on the issue of speech. Therefore, when Hannah talks in verse 10, line 2, about the thundering of the Lord, His thundering against His enemies. She continues on the line of the same subject.

The voice of the Lord, His speech, dwarfs now the contentious noise and rumbling from those who call within. They are indeed silenced, if for no other reason than His thundering has driven them into silence. The wicked will be silenced indeed by the overwhelming voice from the Lord, His thunder. They will be terrified into silence by His voice. Their speech stopped. by his devastating speech. If there is reference here in Hannah’s song to Meribah, might there then also be reference in the song to Sinai itself, and the thundering that caused the people of God there at the foot of the mountain to become silent indeed? Such was their fear.

The Lord has come to his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. What silence? Even the noise of your grumbling, of your murmuring, of your complaining. You are standing in the presence of the God of all the earth. be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.”

We have cross-reference, don’t we? Running to Habakkuk 2.20, running to Psalm 46 verse 10. that now we are prepared, I believe, to understand and appreciate how not just verse 10, the opening line is a fitting conclusion to the prayer’s middle section, or verse 10 as a whole continues the flow and movement from that middle section on to the conclusion of Hannah’s prayer, but how verse 10 now, as such, provides a fitting, powerful conclusion to all that Hannah has to say. Now I say this because Hannah’s words in verse 10 do, in fact, take us back to the beginning of her song. They take us back to verses one through three. For you will remember just how important the whole matter of speech was in those opening verses. You might consider the importance of your own speech on the background of what Hannah has to say about speech.

Can you be saved without confession? Can you be saved without uttering your confession? Can you be saved without your speech? We are to confess Jesus as Lord. to believe in our heart that God has raised him from the dead, to the sure and certain promise that we will be saved.

So then, as you have the psalm, the prayer, Hannah’s poem, concluding on the matter of She is returning to the issue with which she began, a concentration upon words, upon speech. Verse 3, Hannah speaks out boldly against her enemy’s speech. Burst no more so very proudly, she says. Do not be arrogant. Let arrogance never again come out of your mouth. She even makes mention of her bold speech in the opening verse, verse one, speaking about that very picturesquely. My mouth, she says, is enlarged. That’s the King James and the literal. My mouth is enlarged against my enemies. I now have a very, very big mouth. the right kind, of course.

And this one ends with Hannah speaking very positively about the content of her words, the content of her voice. I rejoice, she says—it does take a voice—I rejoice in thy salvation. The poetic force of this connection—hang with her through her poem, hang with me now through this explanation—the poetic force of this connection between the speaking and the speakers in verses one through three, and the speaking and the speakers at the conclusion of the song is genuinely startling. For just as Hannah’s voice quells the voice of the wicked in verses 1 through 3, so the voice of the Lord quells the voice of the wicked at the conclusion of the poem. If you take in what is being said, you are left breathless by the comparison. For now, the true nature of that exaltation of which we have been speaking presents itself and is brought into view.

The Lord, in granting Hannah salvation, has exalted her as she anticipates and also participates in the Lord’s triumph by which he silences his foes. She is exalted by him to the level of God. I am not going to back off from that. I am not saying to you that Hannah becomes God, that there is a destruction here of the distinction between the Creator and the creature. Not at all.

But what God does in saving His own is to exalt them to His level. He takes them up unto Himself. Do you see where you stand, and why this is no meaningless or empty consideration for you that are here? Are you taking in all that it means to be exalted or to be saved by the Lord? You are exalted. He lifts you up to His level. The actions that you have expected from God in His speech are now echoed in and reflected in front of ourselves. I want to talk to you a little bit about the exaltation that is yours.

When you sing the doxology, do you know that you are actually elevated to the point of commanding angels? You are compelling the heavenly hosts in their praise. And you know why? Because you’re more important than angels. God did not send his son to die for angels. He sent his son to die for the likes of you and me. I hope poetry is gaining a few points with you here. As well as the magnificent theology that is laid within this poetry.

Indeed, are we not left breathless at the wonder of it, and this all of grace? And if this weren’t enough to leave each one of us dumbstruck. We add to it. We add to it the fact. That. Is a woman. This isn’t David. This is one of the prophets. This is Hannah, a woman. Now I want you to think about the whole matter of exaltation.

Truly those whom the Lord loves are exalted even as Hannah testifies, to inherit the position of the son of the father, or as the King James put it in the fourth line of the eighth verse, the very seat of glory. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free man, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Hannah, too, is a son and an heir in the Father’s kingdom.

Hannah’s prayer, her poem anticipates, as you very well know, a greater day than her own, a day longed for by her and by all of God’s children, male and female alike, a day in which even, yes, this woman will participate fully in the inheritance. In that day, God’s voice with thunder, his judgment would appear, his king, his messiah would be empowered through God’s own exaltation, an exaltation that is work for his son. A Galilean maiden visiting the hill country of Judea over a thousand years after Hannah lifted up her voice, would lift up her own in acknowledgement that the day anticipated by Hannah had now commenced. The expectation of the future events in Hannah’s poem, in her words, gives way to the accomplishment of those past events that underscore the words of Mary.

Mary says, the Lord has exalted those who are humbled. She says, he has given help to Israel, his servant. Mary’s child is Hannah’s King. Mary’s baby is the Lord’s anointed, who out of his weakness will come to incomparable strength who out of the most uncommon humiliation will come to the superlative exaltation.

By his death and resurrection, the Lord himself will come to know the depths and ascend to the heights, thus providing the substance for the salvation of all who trust in him. As Hannah herself said, my heart rejoices in the Lord. My strength is exalted in the Lord. In the exaltation which is God’s, he himself undergone it. Here is more than poetry, nevertheless, here truly is that which the sublime poetry of the Word of God captures and invites you to enjoy.

Amen. Let’s pray. Our God, there be many who would put before us a false exaltation one far removed from you, even denying you, we would have the exaltation and the salvation which belongs to you as our God and our Father, that one that is observed in Jesus Christ, your Son. And Lord, may we now, in the blessings of that which is communicated to us by your Spirit, even the Spirit that informed Hannah as she sang, We pray, Father, that we would then participate wonderfully in this exaltation.

Yes, indeed, we have died even to this world, and we are raised up with Christ. We are exalted in Him to sit in the heavenly places, and this because of your great grace and love, that which you have set upon us from before the foundation of the world.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.