The Lord’s Day
Evening
April 17, 2009
I Samuel 7:3-17
“Here I Raise My Ebenezer”
Dr. Derek W. H.
Thomas
Now turn with me once again to I Samuel. Tonight, in the
seventh chapter we’ll be reading from the third verse — actually we’ll begin to
read at the second verse of chapter seven and through to the end of the chapter.
You’ll remember that the ark of the covenant has finally made its way back to
Israel once again, carried on a cart with two milk cows who have just given
birth to two calves. They’ve made it to Beth-Shemesh; the folks at Beth-Shemesh
didn’t want the ark there because God came down and once again struck…. In verse
19 of the previous chapter, He struck “seventy men of them, and the people
mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great blow.” They had put
not only the ark of the covenant but also these five golden mice and five golden
tumors and apparently set it on a stone slab somewhere in the middle of a field,
and it had become something of a tourist attraction, and God once again….
They’ve learned little from their previous experiences of the ark of the
covenant, and finally it is taken to Kiriath-jearim where it will remain for
twenty years. The last line that we read in our text last week at the end of
verse 2, was that “all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.” They
mourned after the Lord.
Well, we need to ask tonight, what does that
lamenting or mourning amount to? And we’re also going to ask another question
tonight, because we sang it at the opening of our service this evening: “Here I
raise my Ebenezer.” I wonder if you’ve ever sung a line of a hymn for many, many
years and not quite sure what it means. What does “here I raise my Ebenezer”
mean?
Well, it comes of course from the passage that’s before us
tonight. A memorial stone, a stone of help. But it means more than that. It
actually has a sting in its tail. Well, we’ll pause and find out the answer to
that sting in the tail a little later. But now before we read God’s word
together, let’s look to God in prayer.
Lord our God, we come to You. You are our
everything, and without You we are nothing; we are bereft; life isn’t worth
living without You. Lord Jesus Christ, You are our great high priest; You are
our prophet; You are our king; You are our friend; You make life worth living.
You fill it with joy unspeakable and full of glory. You have turned our lives
around from serving idols to serving the living God.
We thank You for the gift of Scripture. We thank
You for the Bible. We thank You for all of its parts. Thank You for books of
history and books of poetry, and books called Gospel; and every part of it,
every word of it, every jot and tittle of it to the least stroke of a pen is the
product of Your out-breathing, and is therefore infallible, inerrant. Father, we
pray tonight for the help of Your Spirit, the illumination of Your Spirit. This
is all to no effect, no ultimate effect, no life-transforming effect, unless by
Your Spirit You come and pour Your light into our darkened minds and hearts.
Help us, O Lord, tonight to truly fall in love
with the word of God, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Now verse 2 of I Samuel 7:
“From the day that the ark was lodged at Kiriath-jearim, a long time
passed, some twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.
“And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, ‘If you are returning to the Lord
with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among
you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve Him only, and He will deliver
you out of the hand of the Philistines.’ So the people of Israel put away the
Baal’s and the Ashtaroth, and they served the Lord only.
“Then Samuel said, ‘Gather all Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray to
the Lord for you.’ So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out
before the Lord and fasted on that day and said there, ‘We have sinned against
the Lord.’ And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah. Now when the
Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of
the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of
it, they were afraid of the Philistines. And the people of Israel said to
Samuel, ‘Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us
from the hand of the Philistines.’ So Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it
as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. And Samuel cried out to the Lord for
Israel, and the Lord answered him. As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering,
the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the Lord thundered with a mighty
sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they
were routed before Israel. And the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and
pursued the Philistines and struck them, as far as below Beth-car.
“Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and
called its name Ebenezer, for he said, ‘Till now the Lord has helped us.’ So the
Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel. And
the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The
cities that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from
Ekron to Gath, and Israel delivered their territory from the hand of the
Philistines. There was peace also between Israel and the Amorites.
“Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went on a
circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah. And he judged Israel in all
these places. Then he would return to Ramah, for his home was there, and there
also he judged Israel. And he built there an altar to the Lord.”
And thus far, God’s holy and inerrant word. May He add His
blessing to the reading of it.
I Samuel 7 is in fact an important chapter in the
books of I and II Samuel, just as II Samuel 7 is an important chapter. You
understand all the chapters are important, but there’s something especially
significant about II Samuel 7. It’s where you find the covenant that God makes
with King David, but in I Samuel 7, you see peace restored to Israel. You see
Samuel ruling not just as a prophet, but as judge. For twenty years Israel had
been under the domination of the Philistines. Israel has been virtually in some
kind of serfdom to the Philistines. You read later in chapter 13 and, I think,
in chapter 10 of I Samuel, that the Philistines still retained some garrisoned
cities in Israel. That would only last in the time of Samuel, but this is really
the end of the Philistines. God brought a famous victory here. It was a victory
of His own doing. It was a victory of His own sovereign intervention.
But for twenty years the ark of the covenant has
remained in Kiriath-jearim, and we read at the end of verse 2, “…all of the
house of Israel lamented after the Lord.” They were sorrowful. They had every
reason to be sorrowful. They had just suffered one of the worst defeats
imaginable. Their most precious prize object, the ark of the covenant,
representing as it did the very presence of God, containing the Ten
Commandments…the Decalogue, Aaron’s rod that budded. Later the Urim and Thummin
would also be contained within this ark of the covenant. It was the symbol of
God’s presence. In an act of unmitigated folly they had taken it into battle and
lost it. They have lost 34,000 men in battle because of this incident. They had
every reason to lament. There were homes and towns and villages in Jerusalem and
the surrounding district where grief and sorrow and pain still resided, you
understand. There’s going to be a general assembly called at a place called
Mizpah. Samuel will call all of Israel to Mizpah, and there at Mizpah they will
confess, “We have sinned against the Lord.” But it’s taken twenty years to make
that confession.
Confessing one’s sin, you understand, is not an easy
thing. It doesn’t come naturally to us to bow the knee, to bow our hearts, to
acknowledge to our sovereign God that we are sinners deserving of wrath and
condemnation; that all we can plead for is mercy. Twenty years. It will be
through an act of God’s great intervention that the Philistines will be finally
routed.
I want us to see tonight three things.
I. The need for God’s mercy.
I want us to see first of all in verses 2-6, the
need for mercy…the need for mercy. “We have sinned,” they said. You see it
there in verse 6, when they gather to Mizpah for this general assembly. “We have
sinned.” But the question I want us to think about tonight is what has brought
about that confession. You remember Paul, in
II Corinthians 7, talks about two kinds of sorrow. He says
in II Corinthians 7:10, there is such a thing as godly sorrow, but there’s also
such a thing as worldly sorrow. There’s a godly sorrow and it leads to
repentance, but there’s a worldly sorrow. For twenty years they have been
lamenting. For twenty years they have been sorrowful, but it was not a sorrow of
repentance.
You notice the three things that Samuel says to
them when he calls them to this general assembly at Mizpah. He says to them
in verse 3, “If you are returning to the Lord…” and the word returning
there in the Hebrew is one of these crucially important Hebrew words for
repentance. “If you are returning…If you are repenting…If you are turning
away from your sins and turning towards the Lord, then put away the foreign gods
and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve Him
only. Rid yourselves of your idols. Turn to the Lord and serve Him, and Him
alone.
You remember from The Westminster Confession
and the Catechisms, repentance always has that two-fold element to
it, a turning away from sin and a turning towards the Lord.
There’s a negative and a positive. You must first of all turn away from your
idols. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? In spite of all that had happened in
Israel, despite all the things that had happened with the ark, that for twenty
years they still have their idols. They still have their representations of
Ashtaroth and Baal. Now, Baal and Ashtaroth were Canaanite deities, you
understand. They were “husband and wife” in the pantheon of Canaanite deities,
and they were the gods of fertility. They were the gods of the weather, they
were the gods of storm, and therefore the gods of fertile crops. Oh, isn’t it
interesting that when God teaches the Philistines a lesson, how does He do it
but by sending a storm? Baal cannot so much as raise a rumble, and God thunders!
Doesn’t it remind you of Elijah on Mount Carmel, by the way? The Baal, who
cannot so much as light a fire, and God comes down in fire and consumes that
offering? So much for the power of these heathen deities! They still have their
Baal’s and Ashtaroth.
You understand, too, that Baal and Ashtaroth were
associated with all kinds of sexual innuendo in Canaanite religion. The brothel
and the temple in Canaanite religion were one and the same. Perhaps it isn’t
that difficult to understand then, why for twenty years they still retained
their Baal’s and Ashtaroth. And if you are serious, Samuel says, if you are
serious about repentance, if you are serious about seeking divine blessing and
favor, you must get rid of your idols. You must turn away from your idols and
serve the living God, as Paul says about the Thessalonian Christians, you
remember.
“Oh, for a closer walk with God.” Do you remember
that verse in that hymn?
“The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from my breast
and worship only Thee.”
My friends, we have to ask ourselves the question
tonight, What is our idol? Do we have an idol? Is that the reason why
God’s blessing doesn’t reside, perhaps, upon us? We need to ask that
individually and we need to ask that corporately as a church. What are our
idols? You see, we can’t leave here tonight without facing that question. “Rid
yourselves of your idols and turn to the Lord, and serve Him only.”
I was telling the ministers on Friday morning — as
part of what Ligon asks me to do on a Friday morning, I often remind them of an
anniversary that falls on that day. And on Friday it was the anniversary of
Henry Martyn, the great missionary to India and then to Persia. And it was the
200th anniversary on Friday of the day that he arrived in India. And Henry
Martyn, as some of you will well remember, had fallen in love with a beautiful
young woman, Lydia Grenfell. The letters he wrote to her are among the sweetest,
tenderest letters of love of a young man to a young woman that you could ever
read. But he realized — and whether you agree with him or not is of no
importance whatsoever — he felt (and “God alone is Lord of the conscience and
hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men”) — he felt that if
he was going to be a missionary in India with the prospect (and as it turned
out, the reality) that he would never be back in England again, that he could
not get married. And I read to the ministers on Friday morning just a section of
his diary where he records his final meeting with Lydia on the coastline,
looking at the south England shoreline, and the heartbreak that when he said
goodbye to her it would probably be for the last time in this world. They never
married. They continued to write to each other for the rest of their lives, he
in India and then in Persia, and she in England. But in that section that I read
to the ministers on Friday morning, he refers to Lydia–the love of his life!–but
he referred to her as his idol. She was his idol. And he felt he needed to “tear
this idol from his breast and worship only Thee.”
Now, my dear friends, what’s your idol tonight? You
see, you cannot leave here tonight saying, “Well, that was nice. You know, I
love a bit of history. You know, Derek, that was a pretty good sermon.” [You may
say that was a poor sermon!] This text must rock your world, as young people
say. It must challenge you to the very core of your being tonight. You see, you
can listen to this and you can do what the Israelites did for twenty years.
You can lament and you can be sorry, and you can be
sorry because of the mess. Lots of people are sorry about the mess of their
lives. There’s a worldly sorrow. There’s a sorrow that comes because what you’ve
done has backfired. We’ve all seen this, haven’t we? Folk who have been caught,
and the media have shown it on TV, and there’s a sorrow — a terrible sorrow, an
embarrassing sorrow. But it’s not necessarily godly sorrow. It’s a sorrow
they’ve been caught. Their lives are in a mess, but it’s not necessarily a
turning to the Lord and serving Him only.
I’m asking you tonight,
what is your idol? Can you identify
your idol tonight? It’s that to which you give more of your affections than you
do to God. It’s that which is more important to you than God and His word and
His church. And, my friends, it could be your family. And it could be your
status and position within the society. And it may be a hundred, a thousand
other things tonight. But do you hear what Samuel is saying? If you are genuine
about biblical repentance, you must rid yourselves of your idols and turn to the
Lord and serve Him only. And there’s a magnificent, overwhelming incentive to do
that because every single person who does that God will never shun.
I remember one time…and let me put this as
generically as I can. It wasn’t in this country. I remember in my youthful
ministry I did something or said something that was wholly inappropriate to an
individual…an office bearer, as it turned out. I knew it immediately as it came
out of my mouth, and it was too late. And you know the experience? It’s tumbled
out of your mouth and you’re trying to get it back in, and it just won’t go back
in. There was nothing for it, and I had to get into the car, drive to this
person’s home, sit there shaking because I must now eat humble pie. I must
apologize. I must say, “I am sorry. I’m sorry because I’ve offended you, but I’m
sorry because I’ve offended God.” I knocked on the door, and the door was
promptly slammed in my face. They did not want to see me.
Sometimes we are fearful of saying to God, “I’m
sorry. I am wholly, abjectly sorry for what I’ve done to You.” And sometimes
we’re afraid to say that because we think that what we’ll get is a slap in the
face.
“Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.” If you come to God with a genuine heart, He will
never ever give you that cold shoulder.
II. The experience of God’s
mercy.
Well, the second thing I want us to see here in
verses 7-10, is the experience of God’s mercy. Because as soon as the
Philistines hear that Samuel has gathered this general assembly at Mizpah, the
Philistines think the worst, of course, and they come. [The Philistines are
always coming!] They read it of course as revolution. They come with weapons,
and the response of Israel…well, on one level it’s pathetic, isn’t it? When they
hear that the Philistines are coming, they’re afraid. Take heart, dear
Christian, if you’re easily afraid. You’re not alone. Israel has been there
many, many times. When Israel is threatened by her enemies, she is afraid. And
what does she do? She calls for Samuel.
Doesn’t this remind you, by the way, of the reading
this morning in Isaiah 37, when on another occasion Hezekiah is locked up like a
bird in a cage in Jerusalem, and Sennacherib is threatening him and all the
population of Jerusalem. And what do they do? They call for Isaiah the prophet
to do what? To pray.
Do you remember when Christian and Hopeful, after
they’ve left Vanity Fair and Faithful has been martyred, and they come to a
little section in the road, and the road is rough, and over to the left there’s
just a pleasant little meadow, and there’s a stile — By-pass Meadow it’s called.
And they go over. And soon they find themselves in Doubting Castle where the
owner is Giant Despair and his more malevolent wife. And they’re locked up there
and tortured there, and even to the point where they are contemplating taking
their own lives. And then Christian remembers a key that he has in his pocket,
and it’s the key called All-Prayer that unlocks the gate of Doubting Castle.
Why is it, dear friends, that we so often think of
prayer as the last resort? You know — “we’ve tried everything else, so let’s try
prayer.” God brings Israel to her knees. That’s a wonderful thing. That’s a
great place to be, my friends. Maybe that’s where you are tonight. God has
brought you to a rough place. You’re surrounded by your enemies. You don’t know
which way to turn. It may even be partly your own fault. You are beside
yourself. You’ve come here to worship tonight and you’re down and dejected and
despondent, and you do not know which way to turn. And I’m telling you tonight
the answer lies in this text!
“Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
You should never be discouraged;
Take it to the Lord in prayer.”
I love — I absolutely love the end of verse 9: “And Samuel
cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him.” Isn’t that a
beautiful thing? The Philistines are coming with their weapons, and Samuel cries
out to the Lord, and the Lord answers him! It’s a decisive moment in Israel’s
history.
It’s saying to us…the Bible is saying to us again and
again and again, and never seems to tire of saying it, the importance of prayer.
Paul, in Ephesians 6, when he’s describing the weapons of our warfare, tells us
about the weapon of all prayer.
Let me remind you again of the absolute crucial
importance of the church’s prayer meeting. It’s where the business of the church
is done. It’s where battles are fought and won at the throne of grace. I had a
sweet, sweet letter in the mail in my box this afternoon from the Women In the
Church. You are worth your weight in gold, or platinum, or whatever! Because
this was just a little note to say you prayed for my mother, who’d been in
hospital. I cannot tell you what that means to me, because there’s power in
prayer. There are some faithful praying warriors here in the church. Every time
I hear the office bearers, the elders, at the end of every single session
meeting praying for you — some of you by name, some of you individually…. You
may never know it. The experience of God’s mercy…and it comes through prayer.
III. The remembrance of God’s
mercy.
Well, there’s a third thing I want us to see, and
it’s the remembrance of God’s mercy. Not only the need for God’s mercy, not
only the experience of God’s mercy, but the remembrance of God’s mercy. Because
Samuel did something because he was a pastor. He knew the hearts of men and
women. He knew what we are like. And do you know what we are like? We are
forgetful. We are a forgetful people. We forget the Lord’s mercies. And don’t
tell me that you don’t, because every time you grumble and every time you
complain you are forgetting the Lord’s mercies here. So he set up this stone,
Even Haazer,
“the stone of help.” So that every time they saw it, they would be reminded of
God’s remembrance, just like at baptism this morning. Every time you see a
baptism, whether it’s the baptism of a child or the baptism of a professing
adult, it’s a reminder that Jesus loves us. He loves us so much He’s prepared to
die for us! Every time we come to the Lord’s Supper, we repeat those words:
“This do in remembrance of Me.” Every time we come to the Lord’s Supper we
remember what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
I have — and I meant to bring it, but it’s in my
office. I have a leather-bound King James Version Bible that was given to me in
1974 on my birthday from my bride-to-be. [She’s not here, so she won’t be
embarrassed. She’s in Scotland, in case you think she was mincing church!] We
had just decided that we would get married, and she gave me this leather-bound
King James Bible, and it’s inscribed. And it’s a remembrance of God’s provision
for me. She is the only girl I’ve ever dated and the only girl I’ve ever kissed,
and God willing, that will remain so!
You know, one of the commentators on Ebenezer calls
it “the gospel rock.” I love that. The gospel rock, because when you look at
this stone you are reminded of good news: that God delivers His people. And my
dear friends, God has delivered you and me from worse than the Philistines. He
has delivered you and me from the fires of hell.
But it’s a twin-edged sword. I told you there
was a sting in the tail. Why did Samuel call it Ebenezer? Because it was at
Ebenezer that the Israelites were camped when the ark of the Lord was taken.
When they look to this rock, yes, they remembered the mercy of God, but
they also remember the absolute, sheer, unmitigated folly that had got them to
this situation in the first place. It was a reminder of their sin as well as a
reminder of grace. Just as the cross is a reminder of our sin, our wretched
God-defying sin, and the beauty…the wondrous beauty of His grace and mercy to us
in the gospel.
“Here I raise my Ebenezer.” What a great God we have.
What a wonderful God we have. Let’s pray together.
Let’s pray.
______________________________________________________________________________
© First Presbyterian
Church, 1390 North State St, Jackson, MS (601) 924-0575
www.fpcjackson.org
This transcribed message has been
lightly edited and formatted for the web page. No attempt has been made,
however, to alter the basic extemporaneous delivery style, or to produce a
grammatically accurate, publication-ready manuscript conforming to an
established style template.
Should there be questions regarding grammar or theological content, the
reader should presume any website error to be with the
webmaster/transcriber/editor rather than with the original speaker. For full
copyright, reproduction and permissions information, please visit the FPC
Copyright, Reproduction & Permission statement
FIRST
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
● 1390 North State Street Jackson,
Mississippi 39202 ● (601) 924-0575