It is only as we enter into the future that we have power to walk firmly in the right path in the present. It is what is beyond the present scene that must take possession of the heart and must form the basis of our spiritual power here in this present world. But it is wonderful what power that gives, if the heart is in it!
There are almost similar words used in Hannah’s song as in Mary’s in Luke 1. There is the greatest possible human weakness in both these cases, but we also have what gives mighty power, and that is faith. We must look on to what is before us, if we are to walk rightly in the present. Those who shone in this way were generally those who had a large grasp of God’s purposes with His people. Hannah’s is a remarkable utterance—such a burst of praise and intelligence. It brings out the full force of that word, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant” (Psa. 25:1414The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant. (Psalm 25:14)). The glory was about to depart from Israel, but in the midst of it all we have a woman of faith, and it was her own faith, for neither Elkanah nor Eli entered into it. Hannah’s faith went far beyond all the ruin. It was not merely the birth of a little child, but it was that God was about to bring in a deliverance for Israel, and ultimately the whole creation of God. When she says, “My heart rejoiceth in the Lord,” she is outside her immediate circumstances. The last notes of her psalm go on to the extremity of time and God’s purposes regarding creation.
The Confirmation of the Promise
It is important for us not to border our thoughts by the little circumstances by which we are surrounded; God has counsels concerning the church, the world and creation, and we can take up these things in spirit. There is not a single promise that God has made in His Word that is not ours in Jesus Christ. Every promise of God is ours in Him. What enables us to keep the word of His patience is the certainty that all these things are ours already. We are not merely like those who are hoping for an uncertain thing; we have the confirmation of the promise in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
At least six times over Samuel is spoken of as the one who was in the house of the Lord, ministering there and growing there. How few in Israel thought anything about Samuel then or connected him with the overthrow of the Philistines and with the establishment of God’s counsel! And when Simeon took the Lord Jesus up in his arms, who connected the coming day of glory with that little child? Faith only. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and a wonderful secret it is. We might be disheartened if we look at things around us, but observe Hannah’s and Mary’s faith — hearts bursting forth in praise and looking on to the end of time. Let the circumstances be what they may, we have Christ at the right hand of God — the anchor of the soul — and we have the secret of the Lord, His thoughts and counsels. Let us not get narrowed into our little circumstances, but remember that we are bound up with all the interests of the Lord Jesus Christ.
C. McAdam, Christian Truth, Vol. 11