Unto Us (Prince of Peace)

Main Text: Isaiah 9:6
Hosea 10:12

In Sept when the Hebrew calendar transitioned to 5784 it began a year of open doors.

Doors often times represent transition.

I don’t know art what, but it seems that the Lord has closed doors on the church.

Maybe to prepare.

Maybe to clean up.

Maybe to show us we need Him, after all the church has done our own thing without reverence
for God for a while.

I seldom dream dreams that I remember or that seem to have spiritual significant to me.

Christmas Eve night I had a dream…..DREAM

“Sow for yourselves righteousness.
Reap in mercy.
Break up your fallow ground.
Seek the Lord.
Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.” - Hosea 10:12

Sow - to plant seed in the ground.

Sow for your self righteous acts. The Lord leaves part of this to us.

Israel was once productive, but now only produced fruit for itself.

They had turned what the Lord blessed them with in to gifts for the the calf idols of Baal.

Instead of producing fruit for harvest, they wasted exploited the blessings of God for their
own gain.

Reap in mercy - Cut down in kindness.

Fallow - uncultivated. Plowed, but left unseeded. Like a field rotation.

Seek - pursue.

“Tears, tongues, and travail are coming to the Church.”

Two times in the story, we read that “the Lord closed her womb” (1 Sam. 1:5–6).

What do you do when God puts you in scenarios that He won’t bail you out of until
something breaks on the inside of you?

God will allow external pressures to bring forth internal prayers.

God was creating peace in Hannah before He did anything else.

He is the Prince of Peace. We can’t find peace anywhere else.

Every year, the family would go to Shiloh to worship and to offer sacrifices.

On this specific visit, something broke inside Hannah when the other wife started her
provoking, and Hannah entered into a place of intercession that few in history have ever
touched. Her deep cries, tears, and travail will literally alter history.

So it was, year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, that she provoked her;
therefore she wept [tears] and did not eat [fasting]. . . .

And she was in bitterness of soul and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish.
1 Samuel 1:7, 10
Finally, the Lord turned it around for this woman after all of the years of her not having
children while the other wife had babies.

And then what happened?

What did she do?

She wept and didn’t eat, and she was in bitterness of soul.

Hannah moved into one of the greatest prayers ever recorded. We see three important
things in these two verses:
Bitterness of soul
Prayer
Anguish

For years, Hannah had run from the embarrassment, humiliation, and pain connected to
barrenness, but in this prayer, she stopped running from everything and opened herself
fully for God to see.

And in such a condition, all she could do was pour out her heart before the Lord in
anguish and bitterness of soul (see Ps. 62:8).

Her vulnerability and humility penetrated the heavens and shifted history.

Then she made a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction
of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give
Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life,
and no razor shall come upon his head.” 1 Samuel 1:11

One of the amazing things found in this prayer is that control was broken off Hannah. She
didn’t want a son so that she could showcase him to the other wife. She didn’t want a son
to shut everyone’s mouth up. She didn’t want a son to please her husband. Something had
changed in her heart.
Hannah told God, “If You give me a son, I’ll give him back to You.”

Control was shattered, and Hannah declared that she would give her firstborn back to the
Lord.

No razor would touch his head, she vowed, which meant her son would be a Nazarite all
the days of his life. He would fully belong to the Lord.

We don’t want to overlook an important part of her story as it testifies to both Hannah’s
manner of prayer and how a witness to her prayer reacted to it.

We’re told in verse 9 that Eli the priest “was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the
tabernacle of the Lord.” And then we’re told Eli watched Hannah as she prayed:
1 Samuel 1:12-13
Psalm 126:5-6

She found peace. She found joy.