The Faithful but Flawed Family

Well if you would, take your Bible and turn back to 1 Samuel chapter 1. I don't know if you realize that, but every time I step up to preaching to teach, whether it's on a Wednesday night or a Sunday morning, or even if it's some type of service in our fellowship hall, I always say turn back in your Bible. Because everything we ever look at comes out of the scripture. And I said this in our scripture reading, we're not going to go back into the scripture, it's just too much. And what I mean by that is this, I'm going to reference this chapter all throughout the message, but everything comes out of this chapter.

And I want to challenge you to go back and read this chapter, study this chapter, take this message and study it because this is rich. But I think most of you know that we should be in our study through the book of Hebrews, but I am deviating from our study in Hebrews, not just for mothers, not just for fathers, but this is for mothers, fathers, and the family. Now I don't know if you know this, but Mother's Day is a secular holiday. You might not have ever thought about that. It is secular in its origin, even though it's a good thing, I believe.

Mother's Day is not a Christian holiday like Easter or Christmas, and there are some that believe we shouldn't recognize secular holidays like this at all in the life of the church. Well, in my opinion, the church should take advantage of days like this. I believe we should redeem things like Mother's Day. We should take advantage of this special day and look to see what God says about mothers and fathers and the family. Now let me explain why I take this position. It was God who created the family, so the family belongs to God.

It was God who formed, performed the first marriage ceremony there with Adam and Eve in the garden, and it was God who commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and to multiply. So we can say that Father's Day and Mother's Day belong to God because God created the family back in Genesis 2, and nothing has changed since then. Simply the family was created by God in the first place. It belongs to God, and all men, all men will be held accountable to God for what they do with that which belongs to God. And I think about all of this hellish garbage of these same-sex couples supposedly getting married and supposedly adopting children.

Well, they are, and supposedly becoming a family. Look, church, this is all a bucket full of lies that came from Satan. And Satan's purpose here is to steal, kill, and destroy that which belongs to God. The family belongs to God, and man has no right to define it or recreate it. And all those who are doing these things that I'm mentioning, they're going to stand before God, and they're going to give an account for those things. So as a church and God's people, we have a responsibility to God to see what God says about fathers and mothers and the entire family.

I think that if there is any fault, it is that the average church does not teach on the family enough. If we are out of balance here or in error here, it is because we do not teach as often as we should or as intentionally as we should about what God says in regards to the family. Now, last year this time, we were going verse by verse through the book of Ephesians, and we were in Ephesians chapter 5, which is all about the family. That was convenient. And then shortly thereafter, we went through a small group Bible study through Ephesians. So I think that we are doing a pretty good job of studying the family from God's Word.

Now, this morning, I want us to examine one of my favorite families from the Scripture. And this family is worth studying because of their great and wonderful faithfulness and their obvious flaws. The title of the message is rather simple. It comes out of what I've just said, the faithful but flawed family. The faithful but flawed family. And as we will see, we certainly have a godly family here in 1 Samuel chapter 1, but we have a few flaws as well, and I believe there is a lot that relates to us here. Now, we have studied this before. If you keep up with our series like this, it's been several years.

But I think this is a chapter we need to revisit every now and then because we have many new families in the life of our church who have never heard this, and many of us need a reminding here. Now, as we look back at these passages and study what we've read, we're going to look at what we see here in chapter 1 in three ways. First, we will look at this family. We're going to examine the family. We're going to spend most of our time here in this first major point of the message. Second, we'll look at their trial, and this could be the most important part of the message.

And then third, we will look at God's purpose and purposes in their circumstances. And this is big picture. This is the main point of the message. So number one, this family. And this comes out of verses 1 and 2, this family. Now, right away, most of us realize that this is not the type of family we are accustomed to. I am not talking about the names now. I'm not talking about the names. I'm talking about the fact that we have two wives in this family. This reminds me the story of a little boy. It comes from a family that used to attend here. I got a text message from the father, and he explained to me that he had a dilemma in his family.

He said that his little 10-year-old boy had been in a Bible study with his mother while he was at work. And he said a part of that Bible study was from the Old Testament. And they came across passages like this that dealt with the fact that some of these men of God in the Scripture had more than one wife. So what happened? When Dad got home from work, the little boy came up to him and said, "Dad, is it true that some of these men that loved God had two wives?" He said, "Pastor, I froze because I thought, 'Oh, here come a lot of questions.

I can't answer.' He said, "Yes, son, it's true." He said his little boy looked away and thought for a minute. He looked back and he said, "Daddy, I don't think I want two wives. I don't want that many women telling me what to do." Well, I'll get to the two wives here in just a minute. Hold on to that. But what we have here should be easy to see. We have Elkanah who was a husband and he had two wives, Hannah and Penaniah. Penaniah's children are not named here, but later we do see that they had sons and daughters. We read that earlier. And later on we do see that Hannah ultimately does have a son and his name was Samuel.

So let's look at the family. I want to start off with the man of the home. So first, Elkanah. If we study his family tree, we see that he was a Levite. He was a descendant of Coath. We see that in 1 Chronicles 6. That might not mean anything to us, but it means a lot and it meant a lot to them. Because that tells us that he was of the family line of Moses and Aaron. Now what is the point here? For the Jews in their day, their family line was extremely important. And for us, it shows us that he came from a godly family of a godly family line. Simply, he had a respected family heritage.

His forefathers had served God in a very faithful and unique way. So this man came from a godly line of Jewish people. But there are a few more things, more specifically, that I want us to see about this man. First, he was a tender and loving man to his wife. We see that in verses 4 to 8. Simply, he loved his wife Hannah, but a question. Did he love his other wife? The text says he loved Hannah. Did he love his other wife? I would have to assume so. But we can see from the story here that he had this unique love for Hannah. Now Bible scholars speculate that Hannah was his first wife, but it was more than that. She was childless.

So it seems that Elkanah loved Hannah in a great way because of her difficulty. Verse 4 says he would give Hannah double portions for worship when they would go up to the tabernacle there in Shiloh. And he would lovingly encourage her in her brokenness and in her great sorrow. So we have this man who was a loving and tender husband. Now I want to pause here and I want to ask you, if you're a husband and if you're a husband and if you're a father, are you loving and are you tender? Are you compassionate?

You might say, "Pastor, that kind of cuts against the grain of what I think a man should be." Listen, men, we cannot be John Wayne in our homes. There's a time for a little bit of John Wayne, but what I'm trying to show you is this. If you're a husband and if you're a father, you must be loving and tender in your home. And we see that this man was a great example of what it meant to be a loving and tender husband. Then second, he was faithful in his worship to God. Verse 3 tells us that Elkanah went up to Shiloh to worship year after year. Did you notice that in our scripture reading? This was not the temple, it was the tabernacle.

It housed the Ark of the Covenant there in Shiloh and that was the appropriate place of worship. Verse 21 mentions the yearly sacrifices there and this refers to the fact that there were three annual feasts to the Lord that the Jews were required to attend. And scholars speculate that this was the feast of the tabernacles that they were attending. But no matter what annual festival it was, we see that this man was very faithful to worship there at the tabernacle in Shiloh. Now, there's a lesson here as well. Fathers, men, husbands, are you faithful in worship? Are you faithful? Or do you just kind of relegate the faithfulness to the wife?

Look, as men and as husbands and as fathers, we're leading the home and we're to lead out by worshiping. By worshiping in our private life and in our public life and being faithful to worship as we worship as New Testament saints. That means being faithful on Sunday morning. That means being faithful to small groups. That means being faithful on Wednesday nights. That means being faithful to use your spiritual gifts in the life of the church. This man was faithful in his worship and we should lead the way in our faithfulness as men, as husbands and fathers. But then third, he was a flawed man of God in his walk with God.

Verse 2 tells us he had two wives and they're both named and described here, but a question. What is the story of these two wives? How can this be if he is a man of God? We need an explanation here. Simply multiple wives or polygamy was never the plan of God for men and men. Never. We see God's plan for marriage simply expressed in Genesis chapter 2, which was that he is one man for one woman. And if we study polygamy in the entirety of the Old Testament, we see that God never commanded or condoned polygamy ever. He simply tolerated it in God's people. God simply tolerated it with his people just like he tolerated divorce.

But notice where this came from. Polygamy was a very common practice among the pagan people of the day. And sometimes it was adopted by God's people. But in polygamy, the people of God adopted the ways of the world here. But polygamy always brought with it consequences because sin always brings consequences. Again, God never commended polygamy nor condoned it. Polygamy was in his contradictory to God's original plan for marriage. But more specifically, what is the story here with Hannah and Pena-Naya? Scholars speculate that Hannah was Elkanah's first wife, but she was barren.

And they speculate that Elkanah took a second wife to have children, which was very, very common in their day. We should know this. We saw this in our small group study in Genesis here recently. Abraham made the very, very same mistake for the same reasons when he took Hagar as his second wife. And the important thing to see here is this. Polygamy was never God's plan. So this faithful man of God was flawed even though his desires for children were honorable, good, and godly. Now, notice what we can say about this man. He was a godly man who came from a godly line of people.

He was a compassionate and loving man, a compassionate, loving husband. He was definitely a man of God who wanted a family for the Lord. Spiritually, he was faithful to worship, and he led his family in worship. But he was flawed. When he struggled for children, it appears that he resorted to the ways of the world by taking a second wife. So we have this godly, faithful man and a faithful, godly family, but a faithful husband, a flawed man, therefore a flawed family. Now, in application, there is a lot here that we men and fathers need to see here. First, we cannot deal with difficulties and trials in our families the world's way.

Isn't that what he simply did? He tried to fix a problem within his family with the way of the world. And look, men, we can't do that. Maybe he did not reject the trial here. Maybe he embraced the trial. We're going to talk about that here in a minute. But he failed to deal with these circumstances in faith. He went to the world for his solution. And then second, his husbands. We need to see that we must love our families. We must love our wives. We must love our children. We must meet the needs of our families. Spiritual needs, physical needs, emotional needs. Isn't that what Elkanah was trying to do here? Yes.

That's what we should do as well. Third is Christian husbands. We must lead our families spiritually. Elkanah took his whole family to Shiloh year after year after year after year. And I want to ask you men, how are you doing there? Are you leading your family to worship as you should at Grace Life Church Brookhaven? That means making sure you're ready on a Saturday night. And they are too. That means organizing your family life as you should. Therefore, everybody's ready for worship. This reminds me of a man that we had in our church years ago. He was faithful now. His career sometimes took him away legitimately, but he was faithful.

He came up to me one time and he was mad. And he said, "Pastor, I've had this work trip and this work trip, and my wife scheduled a vacation right in the middle of all that, and we're going to be out too much. We're going to be out too much. This is not good." And I looked at him and I just nodded my head because he was right. So my question for you is this. Are we faithful in leading our families all throughout the week to be ready to attend churches we should, small group as we should, and to serve in the life of the churches we should?

So me and fathers, we must lead our families, and we lead by being faithful to worship in our private lives and in the church. And we must not lead by using the world's methods or the world's means, which can be a very big temptation in many ways. We must love our families and we must lead them according to God's word, God's ways, which we discover from God's word. Now in examining the family, we can't just look at the man. We must look at his wives as well. Now since there's not much here about Penania, I will describe her as we examine Hannah. We will see who she was and what she was all throughout these verses as we examine Hannah.

So second Hannah. Now I've already said that it seems that Hannah was Equinii's first wife. And like I said, it was a common practice for pagan men to take a second wife for children. But in these verses we see that Hannah was the complete opposite of Penania. In these verses we see that Hannah was a godly woman, much like her husband. Now to me, Hannah is definitely the main character of chapter 1, but of course we can't overlook God. Actually God is the main character of every page of the Bible. Isn't that right? But besides God, I see Hannah here is the main character.

And in a way Samuel is the main character, but also Elkanah is the main character. So you might kind of look at it a different way. But really Hannah is at the center of all of these things. Let's look at a few details with Hannah. First, she was the source of this family trial. When I say source, I say earthly speaking. Simply she was the problem in the family. She was the one in question. The text says she was barren and we must see this in light of their culture. In their day and in their culture, barrenness was extremely shameful. Children were very important to the Jewish people and sons were even more important.

And that meant that Hannah's barrenness brought shame to her husband and shame to her entire family. And Hannah's shame was exasperated by the second wife and her children. So earthly speaking, Hannah was the source of this family trial. Second, she was provoked in this trial. Now we do not see much about Pena and I except that she was Hannah's rival. The King James calls her Hannah's adversary in verse 6. And we see that she was a continuous and bitter adversary for Hannah. So much so that Hannah was provoked year after year into continual sorrow, into great brokenness and great distress year after year.

Nowhere in the text do we see Hannah fighting back. She was not that kind of woman who retaliated and fought back. But year after year she was provoked. Year after year. And think about it. Every time Hannah saw a child from her rival, she was provoked. Each time Elkanah spoke to Penania and went in to be worth her, she was provoked. Every aspect of family life provoked Hannah in her great difficulty. And to me, I do not think we could begin to understand the ridicule, the shame, and the constant provoking that she felt from this situation and from this woman. Unless you've been a woman who struggled with bareness.

And it is safe to say that Hannah was provoked in every way. Then third, she was broken in this trial and in these circumstances. Verses 7 and 8 show us that Hannah was reduced to what we would call a broken heart. She was so broken and burdened with sorrow that the text says that she could not eat. So much so that her loving husband could not console her. And to me, unless we have dealt with bareness and the burden of being childless, I do not think we can begin to understand the brokenness and the sorrow that gripped her. This had developed for her day after day, year after year.

So she was truly a broken woman and her sorrow and shame and everything she was going through kept her raw. And she was kept raw by her rival. It was an open wound. Now question, how does she react? And how was Hannah's reaction different than her husband's? It seems that years earlier when Elkanah was at this crossroads, he reached for a worldly solution. We have looked at that sin. But here we see Hannah reacts much different than her husband. She reaches out to God for a solution from God. Do we not see that?

And look, fathers, look, mothers, the answers and the solutions for all of life's sorrow, all of life's shame, all of the trials and tribulations that we face, the answers for all of those questions are found from God, in God, in God's Word, and in God's ways. Elkanah was in crisis. He reached out to the world. Hannah was in crisis. She reached up to God. Do you see the difference? And there is a big lesson here. Husbands and wives, when you are facing, when we are facing decisions and difficulties, and when we do not agree, it may be best to step back and ask whose solution is more godly. Do you see that?

Husbands and fathers, some of you would not make certain sinful decisions if you would mutually submit to your wife in certain things. Some of you are sitting here thinking, "Pastor, I've never heard of mutual submission." You might need to go back and listen to those messages that we covered in Ephesians chapter 5. We spent quite a bit of time there. There is such a thing as mutual submission in a relationship. And what you need to see is, husbands, fathers, some of you would not make certain sinful decisions if you would mutually submit to your wife in certain things.

And let me turn it back around, wives and mothers, some of you would not make certain sinful decisions if you would submit as you should to your husband in his spiritual leadership as you should. Now at this point, I want to show you what Hannah did in this circumstance. There are several key details that we need to see here. First, she worshiped in her brokenness. Verses 9-10 says that after the feast there at Shiloh, Hannah continued at the tabernacle, rather than leave the feast and wallow in her sorrow. She takes her sorrow and her distress to God.

It seems that in verse 9 we have Hannah walking past Eli the priest through the door of the temple there at Shiloh to worship. So Hannah goes to the house of God to worship in her despair. Now there is a lesson here. When you go through despair, when you go through trial, and when you go through difficulty, your sinful flesh will try to tell you to retreat when actually you should not. What did she do? She went to the house of God with her despair. She went to the house of God with her difficulty.

And if you're going through difficulty and trial and despair, the best place for you to be is right here in the church, right here with brothers and sisters under the Word of God. And she prayed in her brokenness. Verses 10 says in her deep distress, she prayed. She prayed and she went bitterly before the Lord. She cried out in her affliction as a humble servant before God. We even have her prayer listed out in verse 11. So Hannah prays in her brokenness. And the lesson for us here is this. Few times when we go through trial and difficulty and distress, we feel like we need to talk to everybody. We need to call Mom. We need to call Dad.

We need the proverbial whipping horse, isn't that right? We need to beat that dead horse to death. We may even feel like all we need to do is call Christian friends. Now getting Christian counsel is good, but what did Hannah do? She took her brokenness first and foremost to God. So in your distress, in your difficulty, no matter what it may be, the best place for you to be, besides in worship, is to be in your prayer closet. Third, she vowed in her brokenness. In verse 11 we see Hannah making a pledge, but this was more than a pledge. It was a vow. And we see that she vowed to give her son to the Lord. Did you see that?

According to Old Testament law, a married woman's vow could be confirmed or nullified by her husband, according to Numbers chapter 30. Later on in verses 21 to 23 we see that Elkanah fulfilled his vow in affirming Hannah in her vow. So we see both Hannah and Elkanah giving their son to the service of the Lord. Maybe this vow originated with Hannah, but Elkanah, the husband, he was involved too. Do you see that? So Hannah pledges her only son to the Lord. Both Hannah and Elkanah do this. Now notice what we see here in Hannah. Really it's quite a lot. Hannah was the source of this family shame. She was the reason for this family trial.

And notice, this trial and burden became hers to bear day after day, year after year. She carried this great burden. But remember, in her trial, in her brokenness, she looks up to God. She looks up to God. And in the beginning, Elkanah, he didn't look up to God. He looked to the world. But ultimately, he did look up to God. Because she prays, she vows, he vows, and they keep their vow. And the rest of the story goes like this. She conceives, and after her son was weaned, she took him to Eli the priest of the Lord, and she gave him to the Lord.

She even fulfilled her vow by bringing the commanded offerings and sacrifices required by the Old Testament law as seen in Numbers 15. So she brought her one and only son to the house of the Lord, and she went home, satisfied. In application, there is a lot that we need to see here, especially mothers and fathers. First, when trial and difficulties come, they must be taken to God. And there are two traps that we can fall into right here. Yes, we can go to the world for answers, and many times you do. Many times we all do. But the second trap is this, doing nothing. Just staying in the trial, wallowing in that distress. Many do that.

And in wallowing in trial, ruins you spiritually. Wallowing in trial ruins you emotionally and ultimately physically. But not Hannah. She went straight to the house of the Lord. She brought her trial to the Lord day after day, year after year, year after year, year after year. Second, when trial and difficulties come, not only must we pray, but we must pray all the way through. We must embrace the trial and pray all the way until God's work is done. And then third, we must give our children over to the Lord. Have you come to realize this yet, folks? They don't belong to us. They are alone to us.

If you've got a child, a baby, a seven-year-old, six-year-old, you know when they get older, we realize they're not ours because we have to send them out. But especially if you've got a baby or a small child, do you realize that little boy or girl does not belong to you? They're alone to you. So, fathers, mothers, we must bring our family distress to the Lord. We must not look for worldly answers and we must give our children over to the Lord. Do you pray for your son and daughter's future? Not that they'll be successful in the world, but they would be used by God in the world. Do you pray that? What did Hannah do? She gave hers to the Lord.

Now, a question here. Have you noticed that we do not do baby dedication at Grace Life Churchbrook Avenue? Have you ever wondered why? Let me tell you why. I spent ten years of watching most baby dedications be nothing but lies. I watched moms and dads stand in front of the church and take vows and promise to raise their children in the ways of the Lord and all that and go right out of the church and do the opposite. I got sick of lies. I got sick of lies. And I wasn't going to do that. If we start doing anything like that, we're not going to do baby dedication, we're going to do parent dedication.

You see, it's parent dedication, not baby dedication. Before Elkanah and Hannah could ever give their son over to the Lord, they had to dedicate themselves to God's will and God's purposes and God's plan here. So we as parents, we should dedicate ourselves to raising our children for God, in God's word, in God's ways, for God's purposes. Folks, isn't that just basic Bible Christianity? Should we have special days and a special emphasis for basic Bible Christianity? In many ways, no. Now finally, number two, the trial. This will be rather shorter, and truth number three will be even shorter. So take a deep breath.

We're not going to be here till 2 o'clock, I promise. Number two, the trial. Now the question, how should we describe this trial? Was this Hannah's trial? Was this Elkanah's trial? Was this the family's trial? Think about that for a minute. Actually, the answer is yes and no. Truthfully, this was God's trial. Verse 6 says that God closed her womb. Did you notice that? Look back at your Bible, folks. Verse 6 says that God closed her womb. Look, God brought all of this on this family. Do you realize that? Think about it.

On one side of this situation, you have a godly woman who cannot have children, but on the other side, you've got a selfish, mean woman who does have children. The godly woman, who would surely be a good parent, cannot have children, but the selfish, mean woman has children. But why? God? God planned all these things. God had a plan. God governed all these things. And before you say, "Pastor, this does not seem fair," don't deal with this by saying, "This isn't fair." God had a purpose and God had a plan. And look, there is a lesson here, folks. It is the lesson of this. There is no such thing as chance. God governs it all.

God governs it all. Even these things that we cannot understand. But back to Hannah and Elkanah, God's primary desire here was not to fulfill Hannah and Elkanah's personal needs. God was about fulfilling His purpose and purposes here. God's purpose was to mold this man and mold this woman and mold them into the people that He desired them to be. God's purpose was to train them for His purposes in the world. God's plan in all of these things was to raise them up as spiritual leaders so that they could give their son away, Samuel, to be a spiritual leader to fulfill God's purposes in the nation.

And ultimately, God's desire was to receive glory in all of these things. So this was God's trial, not theirs. Their trial, this trial was God's instrument. This trial was God's tool. This was God's purpose, to bring about His purposes in them and through them. And the application for us is this. We must see that as God's people, any and all trials that we face are God's trials for us. And those are for God's purpose and purposes in us and through us. And when we embrace and live that fact, we can work through any trial and tribulation in life for the purpose of Godliness in our life and for the purpose of God's glory in our lives.

And to me, if you don't ever get to that place, you'll never come through trial victoriously. And then number three, God's work. God's work was God's purpose and purposes in these things. It's simple. God was about working in this man and in this woman for the purpose of Godliness and getting glory out of their lives and circumstance. And God was about providing a prophet for Himself for the nation. Eli, the priest's sons were wicked. Chapter two, verse 12 says they were worthless. Did you notice that? God knew He was going to kill them for their grievous sins. And God was about raising up a prophet for Himself, not like Eli's sons.

So notice what we see here in this work. God's work. God used Elkanah, Elkanah's second wife, for His purpose and purposes. God even used Elkanah's sin of taking a second wife for His purpose and purposes. God caused Hannah's bareness for His purpose and purposes. God used Elkanah and Hannah's great sorrow and brokenness for His purpose and purposes, you see. Have you figured it out that it's all about God and not about us? And right here someone may say, "You mean to tell me that God caused many of these things?" Yes, but He did not cause the sin. But He ordained all these circumstances and used these things.

Someone might say, "You mean to tell me that God caused Hannah's bareness, which led to all this sorrow and brokenness?" Yes, He did, and He had a right to do so. And so, we go to church. God's word is true, or we throw it all out. Every page of it is true, or we throw it all out. We believe in the sufficiency and the authority of the Scripture, or we believe it's all true, or we throw it all out. And God's word is true. The verse that we know says, "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8, 28. And the lesson for us in this faithful but flawed family is this.

And we know with great confidence that God, who is deeply concerned about us, causes all things to work together as a plan for good for those who love God, those who are called according to His plan and purpose. And that's Romans 8, 28, in the Amplified. Now, in conclusion, I want to move away from the chapter and the verses, and I want to give us seven lessons from this story, from this message. These are short, and I think much needed, and I think a good way to wrap up the message. First lesson, recognize and embrace the providence of God in your life. Recognize and embrace the providence of God in your life. But, oh, be careful here.

Don't blame God for your sin and bad decisions. Many people will sin, make bad decisions, and say, "Well, God's sovereign, God's sovereign over all things." Don't do that. Second lesson, embrace the surety. Embrace the surety of trials and tribulations. Now, I'm no expert, but to me, there are three kinds of believers, true believers. Those who are going into a trial, those who are in a trial, and those who have come out of a trial. Have you figured it out yet, folks? Trials are a part of the Christian life.

Third lesson, run from the temptation to look for solutions in the world instead of God and God's Word, and none of us are immune from these things. The great man of the faith, Abraham, what did he do? He went to the world for the solution in his trial. The fourth lesson, understand that there must be an inner work of God in us. And in my experience, God's first desire is to work in us for godliness and holiness, not for our feelings. Understand that there must be an inner work of God in us. God is more concerned about your godliness and holiness. Fifth, we must see that our children are a gift from God. They are not ours.

They are loaned to us, and we will have to give an account for that loan. We understand giving an account for a loan. If we have a loan for an automobile or a house, we're giving an account for that loan. But we must see, folks, that we are giving an account for that gift of God that is our children. They are not ours. Sixth lesson, see our great responsibility to be godly parents. And look, our church should be comprised of nothing but godly parents. Seventh, the key to living all these things is found in living the Spirit-filled life.

If you've not listened to those messages from Ephesians about the Spirit-filled life, the Spirit-controlled life, you need those. "Oh, that's going to be one we'll come back to soon." And what I'm showing you is this, the key to all of these things is living the Spirit-filled life. Somehow, someway, there was a day when Elkanal was not Spirit-filled and he reached out for the world solution. Isn't that right? And we must be a Spirit-filled and controlled people. You might say, "Pastor, this is Mother's Day. This message sure went everywhere. I told you it was a load of buckshot." So what do we have here? The faithful but flawed family.

And I'm going to add to the title, "Used for the Glory of God." Look at that. You see that? Faithful but flawed and they were used for the glory of God. Let's pray and we're going to sing a closing song of worship and then we'll be dismissed.