I Samuel 2:3 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
Today, if you are a little bit discouraged and don’t see the answer for your plight, remember that Bible characters should be an encouragement to you. So many times we look at how wonderfully God used Bible characters and we can overlook or forget what wretched conditions they had. I’m thinking of a lady I just read of this morning, Hannah. Hannah was the mother of Samuel. She was a godly mother, yet her circumstances were unbelievably pathetic. It is deserving of our sympathy, but should also raise our astonishment.
Hannah was living in a day when there was no king in Israel. The judges ruled, and there were all kinds of absurdity and obscenity going on in Israel. Hannah was married to a man who had two wives. Imagine a woman in your church married to a man she is sharing with another wife. On the face of it, it is probably illegal in America, but it is also just crazy. Yet, despite the difficult situation that she couldn’t control, God used her in wonderful way.
She could not have child. She prayed and God gave her a son Samuel whom she dedicated to God. God used Samuel in a wonderful way partly because of a mother who gave him the kind of example that would lead to such a thing. So, when we are discouraged, we should be encouraged by the stories of saints in the Bible. Hannah would certainly be one of those.
When we respond to our own plight in life, we can either be smug or discouraged. Both are often a function of ignorance. For example, I Samuel 1 says, “And her adversary [the other wife] also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD had shut up her womb.” Here is this wife of Elkanah who says, “Well, Hannah doesn’t have a child, but I do.” That is because God had withheld children from Hannah. God was the one who gave and was in control. God was at this point withholding a child from Hannah. So, this other wife was smug.
Hannah was discouraged, wondering why she couldn’t have a child. When we find ourselves in such a situation where we are smug or discouraged, we may be missing God. The less I know, the smarter I feel. When I have just a little knowledge and I think I know all that, then I think I am pretty smart, but the moment I realize there is something outside of that body of knowledge I have, I realize I know almost nothing. So, the less you know, the more you are inclined to feel like you know because you don’t know enough to know that you don’t know a lot.
There is a thing called “what you see is all there is.” Sometimes we look at some anomaly in life or an odd situation, and try to make a pattern out of it to find an answer to what is going on. Oftentimes we find a very plausible answer. I am a pattern seeker, and I see and hear things and think I know what is going on. My evidence is completely consistent with itself, but the problem is that what I see is not all there is. There may be a lot of stuff I don’t see that would totally upend my story.
So, in I Samuel 2 Hannah acknowledged this. In verse 1 Hannah prayed, “My heart rejoiceth in the LORD.” Her boast was in God, not herself. Her son was a gift of God, not simply something she had because of her greatness and virtue in some way. She prayed, and then she said, “Talk no more exceeding proudly.” Perhaps she is thinking about this other wife. I don’t know. It continues, “Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.” God knows the hearts and what we don’t know, and here we are reminded that arrogance is a form of ignorance. The less you know the smarter you feel. Here is the other wife of Elkanah who feels smug. Why? Because she didn’t know. She was ignorant. She ignored what was there, God in this situation. God is the one who gave children.
You think about discouraged and despondent Hannah. She was missing God. She acknowledged Him in her prayer in chapter 2. Arrogance feels superior. The other wife with whom she was competing provoked her and made her fret because God had shut up her womb. Did they know God was involved in all of this? There may be a husband and a wife, but there is a life-giving God. No one seemed to be thinking about that. Arrogance feels superior.
Arrogance feels entitled. At this same time, there was a priest named Eli who had two sons helping in the work of the tabernacle. They were committing all kinds of sins including selfishness, greed, and lust. The Bible says that their sin was “very great before the LORD: for the men abhorred the offering of the LORD.” People had a less exalted view of God because of these two who were pretending to serve Him. These sons felt entitled. They felt like they deserved to have things better than the people they were supposed to be serving. Arrogance feels superior and entitled because it does not recognize God in the events of life.
Humility gives everything to God. Confidence is a function of humility. I don’t mean humility as in, “I can’t do anything. I am nobody.” No, humility is realizing that you are not all there is. There is a God in heaven. When I am great and my greatness is based on how superior I am or how entitled I am, then everyone has to walk on eggshells around me because if there is the slightest insult to my greatness, then there is contention.
When I realize I am what God made, I have what God gives, I need to be a great steward, I need to serve God with what I am, and humility gives everything to God, then the pressure is on God. That is what Hannah did. She gave her adversary to God. She gave her son to God. She gave her future to God. God is at work in what you cannot see and is the one who will lift you up.
In verses 4-10 we have generic examples of how God exalts and gives grace to the humble and cuts the arrogant down a couple of notches. In verse 11 to the end you find a repeated contrast between Hannah and her son and Eli and his sons. Hannah gave her son to God, but Eli’s sons tried to get everything they could from God. You have a specific contrast between the proud and the humble. God is at work in what you can’t see and He is the one who will lift you up. In verse 7 of Hannah’s prayer it says that God “bringeth low, and lifteth up.” Sometimes we scratch our heads at what we see, but we just need to remember that God might exist in that part of knowledge you don’t have and work in ways you don’t see. That is a cure for arrogance and discouragement.
So, arrogance is a form of ignorance and God gives knowledge as we rely on Him to have the strength we don’t have, to know what we don’t know, and accomplish what we cannot accomplish.