Prevailing Prayer, The Example of Hannah — Dan Biser

My name's Dan Beiser. I've set this call for Solemn Assembly up. I pastor two churches, one here in West Virginia, one at Fox's Hall of Baptist Church over in Romney, West Virginia. And then here at Kaiser, we have a house church.

We just call it Kaiser Church. And so, Lord has laid on me for these years, prayer conferences and to prevail in prayer. A number of years ago, we did Broken Before the Throne. Many of the speakers this weekend was a part of that first one and those experiences that we did, Brother Sammy Tippett and Brother John McGregor.

And so, we're glad to have them to be back a part of this time. So, welcome to those. Continue to pray. And as the word's brought, again, we want to bring the word and proclamation. And then we want to give you prayer points that you can write down and continue to pray so that we might prevail.

Hannah’s Example of Prevailing Prayer

Satisfied with nothing less than to prevail in prayer. All right? So, 1 Samuel chapter 1. Now, there was a certain man of remote Zophon of Mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zub and Ephrathiah.

And he had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah. The name of the other was Peniah. And Peniah had children, but Hannah had no children. And this man went up out of the city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of Hosts in Shiloh.

And the two sons of Elihu, Hothnah, Phinehas, the priest of the Lord, they were there. And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peniah, his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions.

But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion, for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had shut up her womb. And her adversary also provoked her sword, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb.

As he did so year by year when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her. Therefore she wept, and she did not eat. Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? Why do you not eat?

Why is your heart grieved? Am not I better to you than ten sons? So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh. And after they had drunk, now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the Lord.

She was in bitterness of soul. She prayed unto the Lord and wept sore. She vowed a vow and said, O Lord of Hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thy handmaid, and remember me. Not forget thy handmaid, but will give unto thy handmaid a man child, that I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life.

And there shall no razor come upon his head. And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, she spake in her heart, only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard.

Therefore, Eli thought that she had been drunken. Eli said unto her, how long wilt thou be drunken? Put away thy wine from you. Hannah answered and said, no, my Lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit.

I've drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not thy handmaid for a daughter of Balaam, for out of the abundance of my complaint and the grief have I spoken hitherto.

Then Eli answered and said, go in peace, and the God of Israel grant to you thy petition that you have asked of him. And she said, let thy handmaid find grace in thy sight. And the woman went her way and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.

And so they rose up in the morning early, worshiped before the Lord, and they returned. And they came to the house to Elkanah knew Hannah, his wife, and the Lord remembered her. I want to begin this introductory session for our weekend with this example of the scripture of prevailing.

This is the emphasis. What did they do? How did they come before the Lord and make their request that God not just hear their request because God listens to us. Many of you have been praying for a long time for revival.

They're praying a long time for the lost souls of your family and your friends. You've been praying for the nation that would be a turnaround. And literally, quite literally, what we have seen is none of those things happen.

Our nation has gotten worse. The church has become less holy and more with lacking of power of the Holy Spirit. And there is evidence today in the stats that there are a few that are coming to Christ in the United States.

And we rejoice in other countries, but what we're hearing about in that 1040 window in places of China where the church is growing by leaps and bounds, it's like the book of Acts, that there was daily added to the church such as should be saved.

And we rejoice with that. But in our place, in our position here in the United States, we've got to ask ourselves what's going on. I mean, as I was preparing for this weekend, trying to get the scriptures laid out, one of the things that we shared of prevailing again is the most obvious, which is over in the book of Genesis, where Jacob wrestled with the angel and he prevailed with God.

And he had that statement said about him. He not only prevailed with God, he prevailed with men. What a great statement. So we took that verse and we used it as our theme for this weekend. But again, it is a call for a solemn assembly.

A solemn assembly is to deal with what's wrong, to fix it, and to plead with God to make the wrongs right. So again, we're rejoicing for what's coming next month. But before we ever get there, if we get there, because things are happening so fast right now, is that we wanted this weekend to saturate the very atmosphere of the things of church gatherings, of you as brothers and sisters in Christ, what's happening on the streets of our cities, what's going on in the homes, and what's happening in the minds and the hearts of men and women.

There's great eve that is happening. We have a victory. We have a power in the name of Christ that can overcome all that. But again, it is that our iniquities and sins have pushed him that again, he has withdrawn himself in the fullness that we so desperately need.

And we want to get back to that. So when I read this account, the Lord led me back here. I love this account, but the Lord led me back here to go back over this and I read back down through it several times.

And every time I read it, there was another phrase saying, oh, that's what we need. Oh, that's what we got to have. That's what must be in my life. And the scrutiny begins with me as an individual. And so again, I'm presenting to you what the Lord has said to me for this time.

And so I'm going to bring a word here for the next 45 minutes or so, a sermon. And then I have these prayer points that I want to give to you to ask of you that you would pray in agreement with me for these things.

Joel’s Call to a Solemn Assembly

So let's begin here as we see. Now, again, as I just got done saying here is that the reason of a call for a solemn assembly is defined over in the book of Joel, chapter one and chapter two, something's wrong.

And there is descriptive things that happened there in the book of Joel that he says, there is a calamity upon the land that again, God has sent a family. The drought has come and the crops have been burned up.

The enemy has come. There's an army that has come in and has ravaged the cities. And the young men that were soldiers have been killed and young women have been brutalized and prisoners and the young sons and daughters have been taken as captives.

The cities are no more. And the way of life that they used to know with peace and happiness is all gone. And there's a hesitancy of life. They don't know where they're going to eat, where they're going to get their food.

They don't know where to get water. The freedoms that they were enjoying and the prosperity that they had has all been taken away. Safety is no more. And when we look at the news in this hour, we know this, that we're not too far from that.

Is that again, just by watching what's happened in the last week, our land is being ravaged by natural disasters. The homes and the streets are in chaos. And the church really has not had a voice that they have spoken during these days to say, let's save the Lord.

And it is time for us is that we would get before the Lord, come boldly before his throne and obtain the mercy and the grace to help us in this time of need. And so Hannah gives us a picture of that. And so we see the problem here.

So let's walk down through these verses and let's imitate what Hannah did in our minds, in our hearts, in our souls, in our lives, that we may obtain the same thing. Because I've read all these verses that when we get to verse 19, the burden was lifted off of her.

She got up, they worshiped the Lord, they packed their bags, they went back home. Elkanah knew Hannah and she conceived and God remembered her. Remember, that's exactly what she had asked. Lord, that you would remember me and the request that I'm making.

And she obtained what she asked for. And so that's the very desire that we have for this time, this weekend, is that God would not just hear us, but that God would answer us and say, I remember what you prayed.

I have seen your tears. I've seen your fast. I've seen your brokenness. I know what's on your heart and your mind, and I am going to give you what you desire. And the blessing of that will be a revival to the church.

It'll be a spiritual awakening to the United States, and it will be the fulfillment of his kingdom to the four corners of the earth, that the gospel will go out and his glory will be demonstrated to the nations.

That's my prayer, if it was answered. And I'm praying that many of you that I see signing on here are like-minded in that same way. So let's walk down through these verses. So we begin here with this in verse 5 and verse 6.

We begin with the problem. Now in verse 5 at the very last phrase there it says, but the Lord had shut up her womb. Now let's mention back to back, verse 5, verse 6. Her womb is shut. Now this is not the first time that we see this in scripture, is it?

We go back to the book of Genesis, and we go back and we see where Sarah, who is the wife of Abraham, is that God shut her womb. She was not allowed to have a child while she was in the age of normal childbearing.

As a matter of fact, way past those years of childbearing before God finally opened her womb to allow for her to conceive, which would be a part of the covenant, and Isaac was born. And again, what a miracle that was.

Then you, not two generations later, you have Isaac and Rebecca. She has the twins within her, Esau and Jacob, and they wrestle. And Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. And here comes Jacob, and he has 12 sons and a daughter.

And you get to his four wives with Leah and the two servants, and then Rebecca or Rachel. And Rachel can't conceive, and she comes to Jacob and she says, give me children, because Leah is having children left and right.

She's had numerous boys before Rachel hasn't even conceived one. And she comes to Jacob and says, give me children. Hannah here can't have children, and no doubt they've been trying. And we know people, and some of you might be in this condition, that again, where you get married and you want to start a family, and you say, well, we can't, we've been trying, but we can't, and something's wrong.

And in this day and age, with the advancement of our medicine, we run to the doctors, and we say, something's wrong, tell us what's wrong. And they have means and remedies now to fertilization and all those things of science and medicine that's going on.

But in this, where it says is that her womb was shut, and God would not allow for her to have a child. And on top of that problem, in verse six, the other one comes and is just downright mean, and causes her with slang sayings.

And you just know the venom that was pouring out of her towards Hannah. And, well, look at all my kids, and you don't have kids, and I'm not going to spend time, but you can imagine what she was saying, so much so that Hannah was crutched.

And so then in verse seven, that as they went up to the house of the Lord, and the husband now, Elkanah, says, you know, in verse eight, he tries to appease to Hannah, and to comfort her, and to give her a word of encouragement, saying, you know, am I not enough for you?

Am I not worth 10 sons? And the answer of that is, no, you're not. It's one thing to have a husband and a wife, but again, when a woman wants to have children, there is a great frustration in the midst of this.

And that's the word that was spoken there. The adversary provoked her, and to make her to fret, in verse six, provoked her and caused her to fret, and the womb was closed. Is that not where we're at? The ability of the church to reproduce, to be fruitful, is gone.

God has stopped in the United States. Now again, every outpouring, and the baptism, or salvation, and answer to prayer, as the angels rejoice over one soul that is brought into the kingdom, so we rejoice.

I'm not discrediting that in any way, shape, or form, but let's just be honest, that again, I can remember decades ago, is that people were coming to Christ on a weekly basis. I can remember is that the stats and the numerics of the church and Christianity in North America was flourishing, and there were great meetings, and there were great revival services, and evangelism services, and there was missionaries going, and there was decency in the land, and a moral compass that was there, and all these things that we're talking about this night was not even mentioned or thought of at that time.

But all of a sudden, there's a problem, and the fruit that the church was bearing, of holiness, and righteousness, and faithfulness, is now eroding away, and it's a hard thing to find among Christians.

We see in the example of Liberty, and just all the conflict that they're going through, and praise God tonight, they're having an all-night prayer meeting. We join with them to pray for their future, and the things going, but again, the way the world is watching the church, of saying, you all talk about you serve the true God, that there's victory in Christ, and that there's deliverance, and there's power.

Where is it? Give us evidence. Where's the fruit? See, you can talk all the talk you want, but where's the fruit? This is where it is, is that God has removed the power of the church right now, and it is for us during a weekend like this to get back, and to say, God, pour out your spirit on us, that we might be light and salt in this day and age, because of what we're facing.

And the provoking, and the fretting, is it not on the side of God that he has been provoked by our nation? He has been, again, of all the blessings, and all the mercies, and all the things that he has done for the United States, and for the North American church, again, that we would act as we are acting, so carnal, so temple, so selfish, that he would say, could I not have done anything more?

Remember that when he said about Israel in the Old Testament? What more could I have done than what I did for them? I gave them a land, I made them a nation, I entered into a covenant with them, I established prophets, and I gave them David, and God did everything that was needful, and so can the church say that today.

God has done everything needful. We don't lack anything, but when we despair, provoke, and fret the cause of God, it has a direct relationship to the fruitfulness of the church, and to the individual saint.

The testimony of answered prayer, the testimony of bearing souls, winning people to Christ, of seeing miracles and mercies of God, of his mercies being poured out, that's a testimony of fruitfulness. Is there evidence of this, or does he cause the womb to close?

Bitterness of Soul and the Altar of Prayer

Now, that's the problem. Then, down when this woman has caused her to be at a disparate place of despondency, she does the right thing, and let's enter into this, because this is the crux of this. In verse 9, and she arose, and she went to the temple of the Lord.

She got up, she went to where the altar was. Oh, you remember the old altar? You know, again, that old favorite hymn of mine, as you're all on the altar, sacrifice laid, to bow the knee, to bow the face, to grab hold of the horns of the altar, and to cry out to God.

I remember the old testimony of the old Pentecostals, and the charismatic, is that they prayed at the altar an hour before the church service, and they prayed at the altar an hour after the church service.

And now it is, is that for most, the cobwebs grow over, and the altar is never, never used. And she got up, and she went there, arose and went, and again, brother and sister, that's why we're doing this this weekend.

It is time for us to arise and go to the throne of grace. It's time for us to arise and to go before him, because of this problem of fruitfulness, that we have provoked the Lord, and fretted the cause of his good name across this land, and in the church house, and to get back to where God wants us to be.

So she arose, and she went, and it is, is that verse 10, and she was in bitterness of soul, and she prayed unto the Lord, and she wept sore. Three things there. She was in bitterness of soul. The despair of what we're seeing happening today, in the headlines, in the nation, causes that bitterness of soul.

The lack of souls coming to Christ, knowing that they are in their last breath. They are walking on, as Jonathan Edwards preached at, sinners in the hands of an angry God. They're walking on a pie crust, and at any moment, they could drop down through, and fall into hell, if it was not by the grace of God, who holds them up.

Well, this is where we're at. So it is, is that crying out to God for this hour, and this need, that again, God would meet us in this bitterness of soul, for what we're seeing, and on our watch, as the church, on our watch, these things have happened, and mushroomed, and multiplied, and it is again, that as it has been on our watch, so again, that we might be provoked, that we might be at this fretful point, and say, I'm going to go before God, and I'm not getting up, till you meet us.

Protracted Prayer and Weeping for Revival

Now again, why would I do a full weekend? Why would we do during broken before the throne? Why would we do a full week? Well, because one of the things that I believe about the need for the solemn assembly, is that there needs to be protracted meetings.

There needs to be a protracted long time period, and you can't do these things in an hour. You can't deal with all the things that need to be dealt with in just a couple hours, and so time needs to be given to this.

So again, for the full weekend, is that God's Holy Spirit might speak to us, that he might cause that bitterness of soul within us, is that we would be content with nothing else, than to gain the heart of God, so as to prevail, for his kingdom and his name's sake, in this hour.

She wept sore tears. Have you been weeping? Have you been tears flowing, when you enter into the prayer closet, every time that you see the headline, every time that you read about another drug overdose death, every time that you see another murder suicide, the happenings in our nation, the devastation, destruction, which you saw down in Louisiana, after the hurricane rolled through?

Did you weep? Jesus beheld the city, and he wept over it. What causes you to weep, when you enter into your prayer closet? What causes that bitterness of soul? Frustration of saying, God, I know that you're the answer.

We don't have any answers, and we don't have any remedies, and we don't have any solutions, and all of our humanism, and all of our problem solving, amounts to zero. With you, God, all things are possible.

With you, we desperately need you, oh God. Here's the desperation where it mounts, and it bubbles up inside the soul, and it comes out in the prayer meeting, when people wail, and howl, and scream, and lament, and sorrow, because again, their eyes and their minds have seen and heard what's going on out there this night, and they know that they know that St. Tim is having his will in his way with people's lives, and homes, and on the streets.

His activity is greatly multiplied and increased in the United States, and it seems like there's no barriers. It seems like there's no restriction, but there is. And you and I, as the church, have the power and the ability, in the name of Jesus, to stop it and to put it down.

Here's the remedy. In the bitterness of her soul, she goes to the altar, weeping, saturated in tears, and she makes this, in this statement that's here, and she says, and she prayed to the Lord. That phrase, prayed to the Lord, is about a dozen times in the Bible, in the scriptures.

And I want to go through a couple of those, just so that you get it, because it is, it is the primary point of this prevailing prayer, that we not just pray, but again, add it with bitterness of soul, add it with the provoking, and the fretting, add it with the weeping, and the wailing, and the lamenting, and the howling, and the mourning of Joel 1 and 2, to come before God, and not be satisfied till God speaks the words from heaven, I have heard you, and I will grant you the desires of your heart.

Biblical Examples of Praying to the Lord

Now, the first one of these that we come to, and again, besides in Genesis, where Jacob wrestled, and he prayed, and received blessing from the Lord, he prevailed. We go over to the book of Numbers, and for those who've been following, for us over these months of Bible study, we've come through the book of Exodus, and we see the children of Israel.

Well, we're in the book of Numbers, twice it's mentioned there, and the first time is that it says, and the children of Israel, they murmured, and they complained against the Lord, and against Moses. You know that they bowed down, and they worshiped false gods, and it says is that God sent fiery darts among them, he poured out fire on them, and they came to Moses, and they said, Moses, we've sinned against you, we've sinned against God, and God's destroying us.

Again, when you see these things happening, call for a solemn assembly. When you see the problem, the womb is shut up, there's a provoking, there's a fretting, call for a solemn assembly. Gather the people, pray to the Lord in bitterness of soul, with weeping, lamenting, confessing, repenting, and waiting upon God till he bestows and gives us what he wanted to give us all along.

And they come to Moses, and he did, and Moses always did this, he was the great intercessor for the children of Israel, and it says is that he prayed to the Lord, and God repented, and he stopped the fire, and he stopped consuming the people, and he gave them a period that they would get back to doing what they were supposed to do.

This is the evidence of remedial judgments. God sends judgments upon a land, upon a people, upon the church, upon individuals, and then he gives them time to repent. If they don't repent in the next round of judgments, as Leviticus 26 tells us, it's seven times worse.

How did we get here in this plight of 2020? Well, we never repented. We never got right on all them other times over the last 40 years that God's been sending remedial judgments to us, and we weren't in bitterness of soul.

We were content. Content. Are you content tonight with the way things are? You've preached funeral services, and I just was reminiscing about this not too long ago, and not too far from here in a graveyard, I was standing there doing a graveside service, and I had heard this poem recited for years by other pastors and whatnot.

The poem goes like this, and it says, as you are now, so once was I, as I am now, so you will be, so prepare to follow me. Somebody answered that little poem, and it said, prepare to follow you. I am not content till I know which way you went.

I was standing there in the cemetery when the families were coming out of their cars, and pallbearers carried the casket up, and I'm standing there waiting for them, and the funeral director to nod and tell me to go ahead, and as I look down there, right down from me, I'm looking at the back of a tombstone, and there's that poem on the back of that.

I couldn't believe it. I sat there marveling at that, pointed it out to all them that was gathered around family and friends there at the gravesite. I am not content till I know which way you went. Are you content?

I am not content with the status of the church today. I'm not content with what I see happening in our nation today, and I know, I know that God's the only answer for our problems. I know that he's able to open the womb.

I know that he's able to remember us and to give us the desires of his heart. I know that he's able to pour out his spirit in revival, and that we can experience that which you have been birthed within you to pray, so many of you to pray for revival, to pray for his manifest presence.

God can do that. This is the hour for that. That's why he said, when you see these things, call for a solemn assembly. Gather the people together. Gather the bride together. Gather the church together.

Call upon the Lord. Pray unto the Lord. Let's go through a couple more of these where we see these. Let's go over to the book of Daniel, chapter 9. There's Daniel the prophet. He has been reading the book of Jeremiah.

Doesn't say that he read Lamentations. Just says he read the book of Jeremiah, and it says that he understood that there were 70 weeks determined against Israel and Judah before they would be delivered from their captivity, and it says, and Daniel prayed unto the Lord and made confession for his people.

When he knew why they had been put into captivity for 70 years. Remember, Daniel was one of the first. Him, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were one of the first young men that was taken to Babylon as young wise men, scholars there to be before the king.

He'd been there a long time, and when he saw this, he prayed unto the Lord. A couple chapters over from this in 1 Samuel, chapter 8. Samuel is now the prophet, and he's the ruling voice of the Lord in the land, and the people come to him, and they say, we want a king.

The thing displeased Samuel, and he went before the Lord. There's the problem. When you see these things, the problem, he went to the Lord and prayed. Well, you can go through all these, and Hezekiah, when Isaiah comes to him and says, get your house in order, you're going to die.

There's a problem. I'm going to die. I only have a few hours left, a few days left, and it says, and he turned his face to the wall and wept, and he prayed to the Lord. When I ask you where your prayer life is, when I ask you where your heart, your mind, and your soul is when you see these things happening.

Because you see, these things have been happening for a long time, and there has been a sound of alarm going out to many churches and to pastors across this land of all denominations. For a long time, they've been content.

Almost like Laodicea, is that we have need of nothing, not even God. You see, now things are crumbling. The fabric of society is crumbling. Homes are decimated. Marriages are dissolving. Young generation coming up with no knowledge of God whatsoever.

No fear of the Lord. Churches are at their all-time lowest. Baptisms are at their all-time lowest. And the prayer meeting, which should be the highest attended thing in this day and age, but what we see happening is the least attended thing in the church.

When you see these things happening, we are in a desperate point, brother, sister, you know that. You wouldn't be a part of this if you didn't know that. You have the same urgency in your spirit as I do in mine.

You know the remedy. I know the remedy. But there may be someone sitting, listening tonight, and that they have not resolved within their mind content. I am not content. You've been saying prayers. You've been going to church.

You've been reading your Bible, but you haven't fasted. You haven't wept. You don't have that bitterness of soul. You see, when I teach on prayer, I teach the power, the difference of apathy versus empathy.

Apathy. What's going on in Portland? What's going on? What happened in DC last night to all those that were coming out of the Trump meeting, the Republican National Convention meeting there, and they were harassed and thrown?

What's happening in Wisconsin? Oh, I don't care. That's not happening in my city. That's not happening on my streets. That's apathy. Every time children are disappeared and taken and, well, that's not my child.

I'm not worried about that. Drugs and alcohol. Well, I don't have any issue with that in my home. You know, we're all clean. We might drink a little bit or this and that, but we're not addicts. I'm not worried.

That's apathy. The church. Apathy. Empathy. It's just like a gerund. That bitterness of soul and that desperation wells up within you comes from that, that again, like Hannah. She had been provoked by the other wife.

Every time she saw her children, every time she saw her children playing, every time she heard those children say, mama, it touched a chord inside of her. And she was at that point of desperation to say, I can't go on like this.

God, if you don't do something, I can't go on like this. I have used over the years, and I share it with you here tonight, that point of desperation. There was a man that come up out of Africa and he was addressing church and prayer leaders here in the United States decades ago.

I think it was back in the nineties. And they was down in Florida and they was interviewing this guy. And they said, tell us about what you experienced. And he had been part of these villages. I think it was Rwanda when they was doing the genocide down there.

The army come in and the soldiers come in and they were just killing anything that lived. Those people didn't have any, they didn't have any ability to fight back. They didn't have any power to fight back.

They had been living, worshiping God, living in safety, living in casualness. They were content. They got too content and they didn't see the clouds rising out of the sky of warning. And he said, we didn't serve God with fear.

We didn't serve God in urgency or desperation because we just thought everything was always going to go on like that. Well, what happened was, was that the soldiers come in and it drove them out and they ran for their lives.

And they ran out to the swamps, down into the water, didn't worry about crocodiles, didn't worry about whatever else might be in there. And there they, in the reeds, in the marsh, they hid. Had to stay there all night because this army soldiers would sit on the banks and wait for anybody to come back up out of the water and kill them.

But they wouldn't go into the water after them. They just said, let them stay out there. And that man said, during the stars out over the top of them, he said, you could hear the wails and screams and shrieks, not knowing what happened to their family members, in the darkness, crying out of desperation.

He says, that famous statement, he said, if you will not learn to pray out of desperation now, you will pray in desolation. Brother, sister, the fabric of our society coming apart and the bitterness of our soul is out of an empathy.

And it's happening to one, it's happening to all. What's going on in one church is happening to all the churches. What's happening to one family is happening to all of us. And that urgency wells up within us.

And it is that bitterness of soul that comes before God saying, God, this is just awful. This is not what you intended. This is not where we're supposed to be. And oh God, we've caused this and we've allowed this.

We have provoked you in front of the cause of your great name. And God, we come before you again. You've closed the womb, open it that we may bear sons and daughters to the kingdom, children to be saved, adults to be saved, give grant to us the power again of the fullness of the Holy Spirit, to preach the word of faith.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And they prayed unto the Lord. Every great revival has come in those moments of desperation. Every great revival has come. Someone prevailed in prayer.

And you and I are at this day and age is to say, why not us? Why not? Why not this weekend? Why not now? Some of you have been laboring longer than I have for the cause of revival and spiritual awakening.

You've been praying in the midnight hours longer than what I have, but it is birthed within you and content we are not till we see God answer. God to move us to that place that we're supposed to be. So it goes on with these.

And again, I could go Jonah chapter two. Jonah disobeys. He runs the opposite way. Fish swallows him when you throw him over the boat and he's out in the sea. And it says, out of the belly of hell, cry it out.

Pray to the Lord. Just walk right through the scriptures and you can see that little phrase and they pray to the Lord. Brother and sister, you and I are here to pray before the Lord for these causes. I want to go on with this because again, there are these moments here in scripture that just kind of gives to us these things of these moments.

Vows, Consecration, and Giving God the Answer to Prayer

She makes a vow in verse 11, right after this sorrow of heart, right after this weeping, she makes the vow. It almost is a parallel. What we see with Sam. I won't cut his hair. I'll give him unto the Lord that Nazarite vow.

Again, he's yours. If you just open my womb and give me, I'll give that child back to you. Here again is that throughout scripture, Abraham and Isaac. Abraham, you're a hundred years old and I'm going to give you a son in your old age.