The message from which this article has been adapted was originally preached at the Keswick Convention in England many years ago. The exposition of the scriptures contained in the article are as relevant today as they were when the message was first preached. The truths of the Word of God are timeless and changeless.
Ebenezer
Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far has the Lord helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12).
In this article we will be looking at the entire passage that leads up to the tremendous climax, this victory of Israel over the enemy, the Philistines. The victory was so decisive that Samuel took a stone to mark the place so that they would never forget, and that they would live in the victory that God had given to them. They were not to forget, either, what brought about the defeat in the first place.
The word ‘Ebenezer’ has come to us in our Christian vocabulary as a precious word; some chapels have been called Ebenezer. Sometimes people even call their house Ebenezer! It is a precious word in the Christian vocabulary because it means ‘The Stone of Help.’
“Thus far has the Lord helped us,” said Samuel. They were never to forget it.
Many of us have a place that is precious to us. A place, perhaps, where we would raise our Ebenezer, a place where we have learned or experienced some special blessing from God.
So, what can we learn from this passage today?
In the first place we must notice that this Ebenezer was:
The place of former defeat
“It was a long time, twenty years in all, that the ark remained in Kiriath Jearim, and all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the Lord” (1 Samuel 7:2).
To what does that refer? It refers to an event twenty years before when they had suffered in this very same place a terrible defeat at the hands of the Philistines. The event is recounted in 1 Samuel, chapters 4 and 5. In those chapters it describes how the Philistines came up to attack Israel. The Israelites were very confident that, with the Lord on their side – as they felt sure He would be – they would win.
But they lost, and they lost four thousand men. So the elders of Israel said, “Why did the Lord bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go well with us and save us from the hand of our enemies” (1 Samuel 4:3). So Hophni and Phineas, the priests, brought the covenant box up to Ebenezer, the place of battle. When the Israelites saw the Ark come into the camp “all Israel raised such a great shout that the ground shook” (1 Sam 4:5).
So loud was the shout that when the Philistines learned that the Ark of the Lord was in the Israelite camp they were afraid. They had heard what had happened in Egypt and how the Israelite God had protected his people in desert.
But – for all that the Ark was in the camp – Israel lost the battle and thirty thousand men were killed. Hophni and Phinehas, the priests, were also killed and the Ark was captured by the Philistines.
When the old priest, Eli, heard the news in Shiloh he collapsed and died of a heart attack; and his pregnant daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, went into labour. She gave birth to a son, and died in child-birth, but not before she had given the name by which he should be called. “She named the boy Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory has departed from Israel'” (1 Samuel 4:21).
“The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured” (1 Samuel 4:22). It departed for a long time. Twenty years! Twenty years of defeat. For twenty years ‘Ichab
od’ could be written over Israel. They were subdued; they were oppressed by the Philistines all that time.
Now, you could write ‘Ichabod’ over a nation. You could write ‘Ichabod’ over a church. You may have to write ‘Ichabod’ over a ministry. But you can also write ‘Ichabod’ over a life.
The glory can depart from a hitherto victorious Christian life that becomes a defeated Christian life. Do you not think that this is a picture of a defeated Christian as well as a defeated nation?
A defeated Christian is a Christian who is in covenant relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ and yet he or she has no power, no joy, except perhaps a fleeting joy when gathered for worship with others which dissipates as soon as the service is over.
A defeated Christian is a Christian with no fruit in their life, no spirit of thankfulness come what may, no prayer, no praise, no victory. They may go to church, they may sing the songs with great gusto, but really it is a cover-up for a defeated life. In church they are one thing, but at work they are another and at home perhaps, even worse. I read of some Christians that they are saints at church, they are fine examples at work, but devils at home. That is a very sad thing if it is true of you or me, is it not?
And it may be that it was not always like that for the Christian I am describing. Once it was very different. Once the Bible was so meaningful it was eagerly read, and listened to, and pondered over and digested, and prayerfully put into action; but not anymore. Prayer, though hard work as prayer so often is, was once a work of faith, yet it was engaged in persistently and believed in and frequently answered – but not anymore.
Worship used to be the highlight of the week, but not anymore. Now it is a rather dreary routine, a dutiful thing. Fellowship was the sweetest pleasure, but not anymore. Service was a delight – there were not enough evenings in the week for the service of so great a Saviour, but not anymore. It used to be said of this person, “For me to live is Christ.” But it could not be said anymore. Oh! Some signs are there, the tumult is there, the singing is there, but really it is a cover-up.
Am I describing somebody who is reading this article today possibly? Somebody who is in a place of defeat, and maybe has been for a long time.
William Cowper was a melancholy man and an introvert, yet he penned lines sometimes from the depths of his sickness that have a true echo in some of our lives.
Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?
What peaceful hours I once enjoyed,
How sweet their memory still,
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.
I am not talking of someone who is finding the road steep. We often find that, all of us, but this is someone who stopped climbing long ago. I am not speaking of someone who is growing into maturity. We are all intended to do that. This is somebody who stopped growing long ago; who is a spiritual infant and behaves in an infantile way.
I am not talking about someone who is finding the battle fierce. We all find the battle fierce sometimes if we are serving the Lord. I am talking about someone who was defeated and subdued a long time ago, and has stopped fighting.
That is what happened to Israel. It may be the experience of someone who is reading this article. Does it have to be like this? Do you have to be defeated by sin and by Satan and be depressed and ineffective?
Well, let me turn the question round. Do you think it was God’s real desire for His people to be oppressed and defeated by the Philistines? No, of course it was not! And God does not want Satan and sin to defeat you and me. So – what is to be done?
Let us move on in the story then in 1 Samuel 7 and see what took place that brought them to such a great victory. And here we see in the second place, that this Ebenezer was:
The place of true repentance
It was a wonderful thing when at long last the Israelites came to their senses, found out what was wrong, and wanted to put things right. And so it is with the defeated Christian.
Look at verse 2, “It was a long time, twenty years in all, that the ark remained at Kiriath Jearim, and all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the Lord.”
I can only list this formula toward victory and go over it briefly. It says that all the people mourned, and lamented.
It is certainly something to lament about when one is a defeated Christian. It is a lamentable thing to be a defeated Christian. It is a miserable condition; none so miserable as the person who is in it.
The Israelites were a miserable people for those twenty years. The Philistines were happier. And we will find that the people of the world are happier than we Christians if we are defeated Christians. The unbelievers in their pubs and at their parties will be having a better time than we shall ever have if we belong to the Lord and are backslidden, and are defeated in the walk.
But the Israelites realised that and we read that they mourned and sought after the Lord. That was the trouble. They were out of fellowship with God. They were not right with God. They were seriously seeking. They were not seeking just an experience or a thrill or even a victory as an end in itself.
They sought after the Lord. And that is what we all need to do. Samuel said they were to do it with all their hearts, verse 3, because that it is the kind of seeking that God likes, “You shall seek for me and find me when you seek for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
They listened to the message. “And Samuel said to the whole house of Israel…” (v3). Oh, he had been preaching for twenty years the same message. It was not anything new he was going to say, but they had not been listening.
Some defeated Christians think that victory is going to come because they will hear some message that they have never heard before, something new, something original. No, it will not come that way. It will come when you start listening to the old, old story from God’s book.
Then they put away their idols. “If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then,” said Samuel, “rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. So the Israelites put away their Baals and Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only” (vs 3-4).
Ah! That was the trouble. That was why God was not with them giving them victories, because they were a compromising people. They had been worshipping other gods. That was usually the reason for Israel’s defeats. It was not that they stopped worshipping Jehovah. It was not that they denied the faith or the doctrines of the covenant, they just did not live by them. God is a jealous God, and He will be served and He will be worshipped ONLY; but they had begun also to take on board some of the gods of the Canaanites – the foreign gods, the Ashtoreths, and so on. And that is so often our problem, is it not?
You see, this is the message. This is why it is an old, old message. But, defeated Christian, are you listening? You cannot serve God and mammon. Jesus said it. The Bible says it. We have to say it – and we have to listen to it, and take heed.
What are the mammon gods of today? What are the foreign gods? What are the gods of the unbelievers today? Money, affluence, material prosperity, pleasure, self-indulgence, sex, ambition. We need to be very careful that these things are kept in their proper place and we do not make idols of any of them.
At one time we used to hear more than we do sometimes today about separation, and about holiness, and about sanctification, and about consecration. How often do we hear messages about these subjects? I think we should. I think we need to.
I know that some in the past have been accused of turning these things into legalism, from which, perhaps, we have been thankfully delivered. However, in our day and generation we must be careful that we do not turn liberty into license and allow the world “to squeeze you into its own mould,” as JB Phillips paraphrases Romans 12:2. We are meant to be a different people. We worship another God. We do not serve the gods of the Canaanites.
God saved us from those gods when he brought us to the cross and to the Saviour, and we said, “I will follow Jesus!” It used to be like that. We were out-and-out for Him in those days. But something happened and now we go defeated. Maybe it was because we compromised and allowed the gods of the world to come in and stand alongside the Lord. But He will not share His glory with another. He is a jealous God. He will be first and ONLY.
Reader, is there something in your life that ought not to be? Is it dishonesty? Is it infidelity? Is it bitterness of spirit? Is it jealousy of another? Is there something, even now as you are reading this, in your pocket that ought not to be? Is there something in your purse that ought not to be? Would you be carrying, for example, a photograph of somebody who does not belong to you? And if not a photograph in your purse or your pocket, certainly in your heart?
Oh, my friend, you will never have victory if you are doing wrong. I know from experience that it may seem to be only a trivial thing, but if it is robbing you of victory and glory and joy and fruitful service, it is not worth it, is it?
I think it was Brother Andrew who told how they used to catch monkeys alive in one of the Far Eastern countries. They would put a little silver coin in an empty coconut and tie the coconut fast somewhere. The monkey would put its hand through the hole, but couldn’t get it out while its fist was closed around the coin.
The monkey would struggle and wrestle to get its liberty, but it could only get free if it was prepared to let go of the little coin. But it would not, it would not, and so the trappers came and it was caught. How foolish! What folly! What a shame! How lamentable to lose one’s freedom over a trinket!
But that is the experience of many of us. Oh, brother, sister, let it go. It is not worth it. The most valuable thing in the world is to know that God is with you, and that you are walking in fellowship with Him.
“So the Israelites put away their Baals and Ashtoreths and served the Lord only.” Then Samuel said, ‘Assemble all Israel at Mizpah and I will intercede with the Lord for you.’ When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the Lord…” symbolising, I don’t doubt, tears of repentance; they really did sorrow for their sins – “On that day they fasted…” Fasting is giving notice to heaven that we really mean it. Fasting is not an end in itself; it goes with prayer and repentance and seeking the face of the Lord – “…and there they confessed, ‘We have sinned against the Lord” (1 Samuel 7:5-8).
Ah yes, that is what we have to say. Not to make our excuses as we so often do. ”It was my parents you see, it was the way I was brought up…;” “Well, the trouble is…;” “It’s the circumstances in which I find myself…;” “It’s my wife…it’s my husband…it’s my children… it’s my neighbour…it’s my friend.” It is anything but me.
Sometimes we can even say, “Well, the trouble is, you see, it is me. It is the way I was made!” Do you realise that if we make that last excuse, we are blaming God.
No, that excuse will not wash any more with our God because, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come…” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Provision for victory has been given. We need to come as David had to do and say, “I have sinned…” (2 Samuel 12:13). We must call it what it is. We must come as the Prodigal did and say, “Father, I have sinned…” (Luke 15:21).
So, it was a place of a former defeat, and it was a place of true repentance, but in the third place it was:
The Place of an Effectual Sacrifice
What was Samuel going to do? He was going to intercede for them. He said, verse 5, that he was going to offer sacrifice; the sucking lamb, verse 9, the whole burnt offering to the Lord, because that was God’s way for a sinner to approach Him in repentance and faith, for cleansing.
Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. There is a crimson line that leads from our first parents in the Garden of Eden, who fell into sin and who were away from the Lord and defeated, right to the Cross through the sacrificed Lamb, and we have to come to the Cross. If you know you are away from the Lord and a defeated Christian, and if you know there has been something wrong in your life that ought not to be, and you are prepared to put it away and serve the Lord only, and say to Him, “Father, I have sinned” – then come to the Cross. Come to the place of forgiveness.
For the Bible says, “If we confess our sins”- and it was written to Christians – “He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us…” and go on cleansing us “…from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
You may say to me, “What can wash away my sin?” I say, “Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
“Ichabod?” What can make me whole again? Nothing, but the blood of Jesus. “Oh, precious is the flow that makes you (and me) as white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing, but the blood of Jesus.” Come to the Cross. Pour your heart out to your Friend, your Lover, your Saviour, your Brother, your Lord. He died for you that you might be forgiven.
And does this passage not point to Samuel interceding? And is not that what our Lord Jesus is doing?
Verse 8, “They said to Samuel, ‘Do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us’” – we are helpless, we are hopeless without God. Please cry to the Lord to help us. The Philistines are coming again. Do not stop.
Reader, when you go away from your time of reading and quiet, you will very likely go into the place of battle, and the devil with all his forces that are worse than the Philistines will come at you. And what do you say? You say to the Saviour who is the Lamb on the throne, “Do not stop praying for me that I might receive help. Because I am so weak – I will fall if you stop interceding for me.”
What does the Bible say? “He ever lives to intercede for them” (Hebrews 7:25). He will not stop. So long as He is there at the right hand of the Father on high interceding for you, you can know daily victory. I believe it with all my heart.
Jesus said, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:31).
Oh, you may say, if only the Saviour would pray for me!
He does. He does. Turn your eyes on Jesus, the place of an effectual sacrifice.
Finally:
The place of a decisive victory
“While Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering the Philistines drew near to engage Israel in battle” (verses 10 and 11)
Was it going to be another year of defeat? NO. “But that day the Lord thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites” (v 10). The Israelites were now right; the idols had been put away. They cast themselves entirely on God and He came and gave them power to defeat their enemies and frighten the Philistines. They won a great victory by faith in God and trust in God. Not in the ark, not in their shouts, not even in their name as the covenant people of God, but in God and in Him alone they won a great victory that day. And Samuel put up the stone, “He named it Ebenezer saying, ‘Thus far has the Lord helped us'” (v12). And I believe that is the pattern for us too.
The message, as I understand it, is not that there are no enemies to face. There are some very real enemies to face. It is not that there is no warfare in which we are engaged. It is a very fierce battle.
The message is that God wants us to win – to be victorious. Sin need not have dominion over us, and if we will come in all our weakness and our sin and our defeat and cast ourselves upon the Lord, He will hear our cry.
Reader: He will hear your cry, and you will resist the devil on that day and defeat him. Maybe it will be one of those decisive things that will turn your life around for the rest of your days,
Would it not be wonderful if right now, reading this article, this is to be someone’s “Ebenezer.” if the idol is cast away, the sin repented of, and you come to the Cross anew and plead afresh the efficacious blood of Jesus. Trust yourself to Him who can defeat all these spiritual forces – all the pulls of the world and the old nature which we all know about – and give you victory. Victory in Christ’s Name.
May God grant that someone reading this message will do just that, and to Him will be all the glory.