the call to worship this morning
and he was not able to make it here
so he and Jennifer are leaving this evening to go back to Lexington
for a treatment this coming week so you all remember Bert and
also Deanna called this morning and said
that her blood pressure was high or low? High. High. And that
they were hoping to get here the second hour, but just found
out that they're not able to be here either. So I had asked
Bert if he would to read Psalm 121 in preparation for the message
that I was going to try to preach. So let's read this Psalm together. Notice that it's called A Song
of Degrees. This was a processional song
that the Jews would sing as they approached Jerusalem, the holy
city, and we know that That Jerusalem is where the Lord was pleased
to manifest his grace and his glory, particularly with the
tabernacle and with the Ark of the Covenant. So in this song
of degrees, I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence
cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to
be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord
is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee
by day. nor the moon by night." Now that
is a physical picture of the spiritual trials. Paul put it
like this, he said, I have persecutions from without and trials from
within. When the Lord says the sun will
not smite thee by night nor the moon by night, it's a reference
to the trials and troubles that you experience against you from
outside will not overcome you with the Lord as your help and
the fears and doubts and troubles that you experience from within
will not overcome thee with the Lord as thy help. The sun shall not smite thee
by day nor the moon by night The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The
Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this
time forth and even forevermore. What a precious promise. The
Lord is my help. Let's pray together. Our heaven
and father, we're so very thankful for the
hope of salvation that we have in the revelation that you've
given us of the Lord Jesus Christ, his glorious person, and his
accomplished work of redemption. We thank you for this, Jerusalem,
city of peace, where we can come and look unto thee for our help.
Lord, we ask that your Holy Spirit would make us helpless, cause
us to see that we have no man that can help us. We are dependent upon thee. Lord,
we pray that you would give us the faith to come unto thee to
find our help in time of need. We pray that for Bert and ask
Lord that you would comfort and strengthen him and pray for the
positions that will minister to him this week and ask Lord
that you give them wisdom and pray for Dan and Robert. Thank you for them. Thank you
for the brethren, for the fellowship of the saints, for the encouragement
that you give us one to the other. Lord, we pray that you would
Knit us together in the love of Christ and strengthen us.
For it's in his name we pray, amen. Let's all stand together once
again. We'll sing hymn number 17 from the hardback temple 17. To my heart to sing thy praise. Streams of mercy never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise. Praise the mountain fixed upon
it. and I hope by thy good pleasure
safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger
wandering from the He to rescue me from danger Interposed
His precious blood Oh to grace how great a debtor Daily I'm
constrained to be ? Guide my wandering heart to Thee
? Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it ? Prone to plead the God I
love ? Here's Thy heart, Lord, take and seal it ? Seal it for
Thy courts above Please be seated. Prone to wander, Lord I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love. He to rescue me from danger. How prone we are. The old man
is always standing in opposition. to grace and faith and salvation
and hope. Yet we have the precious promises
of our Lord to never leave us nor forsake us. Always in need
of help. Always in need of help. I want
to try to bring a message. I've titled this message Ebenezer
three times. In the book of 1 Samuel, the
word Ebenezer is mentioned once in chapter 4, once in chapter
5, and then in chapter 7. The word Ebenezer translated
means stone of help. It is clearly a picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the rock of ages, the rock which followed
the children of Israel through the wilderness. That's where
you and I live. We live in a wilderness, a dry and thirsty land where
we can find no help. Moses smote that rock with the
rod of the law. The Lord Jesus Christ was smitten
on Calvary's cross with the rod of God's law and out of his side
flowed water and blood. Blood for the covering of our
sins and water to quench our thirst and to help us, to sanctify
us, to wash us. And how needful we are in this
wilderness. What seems to us to be wandering,
but just like, you know, we often refer to the children of Israel
wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. They weren't wandering.
They were being led every step of the way. A pillar of fire
by night and a pillar of cloud by day, God was leading them
every step of the way. And though often we feel like
we're wandering around in the wilderness, we have the promise
of God that he's leading us every step of the way. He's accomplishing
his purpose in saving us. And as we mentioned the first
hour, he's working all things together for good for them that
love him. and those that are the called
out ones according to his purpose. Ebenezer, the stone of help. The stone which the builders
rejected. The natural man will not have
Christ. He threatens the structure of
their manmade works religion. But God says, I have made that
stone which the builders have rejected, I have made him to
be the head of the corner. The entire weight of the gospel,
the entire weight of the church rests on him, all the lives of
his people. Upon this rock, he said, upon
this rock, what rock? Thou art the Christ, the son
of the living God. Upon this rock, I will build
my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. There's our hope, brethren. God
is building his church upon Christ and we find him to be our Ebenezer,
the stone of help in our time of need. And we just read from
Psalm 121, I will lift up mine eyes into the hills. From whence
cometh my help, my help. My help cometh from the Lord,
for he is the one who made heaven and earth. The omnipotent, sovereign, self-existent
God is able to keep me and to help me in my continual time
of need. Will you open your Bibles with
me to 1 Samuel chapter 4? 1 Samuel chapter 4. We just sang. in the hymn, Come Thou Fount,
not only that we are prone to wander and prone to leave the
God I love, but we also sang, Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither
by thy help I've come, and I hope by thy good pleasure safely to
arrive at home. Jesus sought me when I was a
stranger, wandering from the fold of God, and he will rescue
me from danger by interposing his precious, precious blood. That's how he helps his children.
He keeps bringing them back to his accomplished work of redemption
on Calvary's cross. He continues to remind them what
God said when God said, when I see the blood, I will pass
by you. The death angel will have no
power over you. The precious blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ is the covering of our sin. God told Aaron, when
you go into the holies of holies, you take the blood of that sacrificial
lamb, the lamb that was without spot and without blemish, and
you put it on the mercy seat. And God said, here, I will meet
with you. We have no hope of the forgiveness
of sin. We have no hope of the salvation
of our souls apart from the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But in him, in him, we have all hope and all comfort and all
help. He is our Ebenezer. Here I raise mine Ebenezer. Think about that Syrophoenician
woman in Matthew chapter 15 who brought her daughter who was tormented, the scripture says,
with an evil spirit. And she asked the Lord for help. And the Lord responded to her
by saying, I am sent but for the lost sheep of Israel. She was a Gentile. And the Lord
looked at her and said, I was sent for the lost sheep of Israel.
And the scripture says that when she heard that, she worshiped
him, proving that she was one of the lost sheep of Israel,
not physical Israel, but spiritual Israel. And then she cried as
she worshipped him, Lord, help me, help me. No one has ever come before the
Lord Jesus Christ and worshipped him, bowed before him, and cried
like this woman, Lord, help me, and not found him to be their
Ebenezer. Oh, he is an ever-present help. in our time of need. Our cry
for help is of the Lord, and the answer to that cry is of
the Lord. In Psalm 72, verse 12, David
said, he shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also,
and him that hath no helper. That's who he came to save. He
came to save those who have no place else to go for help. They can't find help within themselves. They can't find help in man. They can't find help in the world. They're like that woman with
the issue of blood who had spent all that she had on physicians
and now she was worse off than she was before. That's what we
do. We spend all of our time and
effort and energy trying to find help in worldly means and we've
got an issue of blood. That issue of blood is our sin
nature. It's our sin nature. It's in
our blood. The scripture likens us to lepers
and leprosy is a disease of the blood. And leprosy, from what
I understand, will live in the blood for a long time before
it manifests itself in the flesh. It doesn't take long for the
sin in our blood to manifest itself in our flesh, even as
children. They come from the womb speaking
lies. But the point is that we commit
acts of sin because we have a nature of sin. The outbreaking of sin
in the flesh is the consequence of the nature of sin in our blood. We don't become sinners because
we sin, we sin because we are sinners. And that's where we
need help. where like that woman with the
issue of blood, she came crawling through the crowd and she touched
him. She touched him. And the Lord
said, who touched me? And the disciple said, Lord,
what do you mean who touched you? Everybody's touching you. And she said, oh no. He said,
oh no. Virtue has gone out from me.
Strength has gone out from me. Power has gone out from me. Now
the Lord wasn't asking who touched me because He didn't know who
it was that touched Him. He knew exactly who it was that
touched Him. But He was asking that question to expose her.
Now she was unclean. She was supposed to keep her
distance from people. She was supposed to announce
if anybody got close to her that she was unclean. And contrary
to that, she crawled on her hands and knees through a crowd of
people and she touched the hem of his garment and virtue went
out from him. And when he said, who touched
you? Who touched me? The scripture says she came and
told him all the truth, all the truth. Oh, what a day of help that was
for her. Hosea chapter 13 verse nine says, O Israel, thou hast
destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help. The only way that you and I are
gonna come to Christ as our Ebenezer, as our stone of help, is when
God makes us to be a sinner. And when God makes us to be a
sinner, we will come to that conclusion that we have destroyed
ourselves. All of our problems are on us. We will find ourselves taking
sides with God against ourselves. We will not go back to the blame
game. And remember when the first evidence
of that we see in the garden when the Lord said, Adam, where
art thou? God wasn't looking for Adam.
He was exposing Adam. And Adam, Blamed God. He said, the woman that thou
gavest me, she gave to me the fruit and I did eat. He wasn't
blaming her, he's blaming God. If you hadn't given me this woman,
I wouldn't have had this problem. You know, the truth is that every
time we blame circumstances or people for our sin, we are pointing
our finger at God and blaming God. What a shameful thing it
is. Yet it's in our DNA, isn't it?
It's in our nature to play the blame game until God, by his
spirit, slays us. Oh, it's expedient for you that
I go away, for if I go not away, the comforter will not come.
But when he comes, when the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict
you of your sin because you believe not on me. Lord, it's my unbelief. We have another story of a man
who came before the Lord with a son who was afflicted with
an evil spirit. And he brought his son to the
disciples and asked the disciples for help. And the disciples weren't
able to do anything about this evil spirit. And so he brought
his son before the Lord. The disciples brought him before
the Lord. And the father cried to the Lord and said, he said,
Lord, If thou can help me or no, he said, if thou can do anything,
help us. And the Lord said, if thou can
believe all things are possible to them who believe. And what
did the man cry? He cried with a loud voice, Lord,
I believe help. Help my unbelief. Lord, I've
got an unbelieving nature that that is that is strapped to my
back, a dead corpse, a fleshly man. Lord, I need the stone of
Ebenezer. I need the stone of help. I need
Christ to help me. When we talk about the Lord being
our helper, we're not talking about him coming along and assisting
us in something that we're, you know, that we've had some success
in, we just need a little extra hand. You know, you ask your
wife or your husband or your children to help you do something,
you know, most of the time when I ask my wife to help me do something,
it's something I could have done by myself, but it, you know,
it just makes it a little easier if I have her, you know, to help
me. And that's the way men come to God. Lord, I could do this,
but if you'd help me out a little bit, it'd make it a lot easier.
Now, we're not talking about that kind of help. We're talking about the kind
of help that Peter had when he was drowning and he cried, Lord,
save me. Lord, help me. Lord, deliver
me. Before we look at this text,
it's important for us to be reminded of what the Ark of the Covenant
was. It was a box about three feet
by three feet by one half feet in size. And it was made of Shittum
wood. And from what I understand, Shittum
wood was a wood that resists decay. Bugs don't get in it,
doesn't rot. It's a very stable, hard wood. And then that box was to be overlaid
with gold. And on top of the box they were
to put a mercy seat of pure gold, a flat area of gold, and over
the mercy seat with cherubim. These angelic hosts whose wings
touched and protected the glory of the mercy seat, just like
those cherubim that we read about in Isaiah chapter six, who hovered
over the throne of God and cried, holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God of hosts, heaven and earth is filled with his glory. And
then inside the box, inside the box was a jar full of manna. And Aaron's rod that budded and
the tablets of stone, the Ten Commandments, were inside this
box. And the box on the sides had
rings and poles were to be put through the rings so that the
box was never touched with human hands. They were to put the pole
through and carry, if they had to move it, they were to carry
it but never touch it. You remember the time that Uzzah
put his hand to the ark? They were disobeying God, they
put the ark on a cart and the oxen stumbled and the cart teetered
and Uzzah was standing there and he put his hand on the ark
to keep it from falling off the cart and God killed him on the
spot. You know what that's a picture
of. If you or I put our hand to the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ thinking that somehow we can improve it or stabilize
it or help him to save us. We have robbed him of his glory
and that hope of salvation will end us in an eternal separation
from God. Uzzah died as soon as he put
his hand to the ark. Now those items that were in
the ark, the rod, The ofar of manna, the tablets of stone,
are a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as our prophet, the bread
that came down from heaven, our priest, our high priest who went
into the holies of holies and put his blood on the mercy seat
before God, and our king who not only gave us the law, but
fulfilled the law. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. The Shittam
wood is a picture of his humanity. He could not be left to decay
in the grave. I cannot allow my holy one to
see corruption. The gold that overlaid that box
was his deity. The glory of his godhood, his
isness, the glorious eternal self-existent I am. That's what
that arc was. and it was never to be touched
by the hands of men. And on the mercy seat once a
year, the high priest, one priest, was to go into the Holy of Holies
and was to put blood on the Day of Atonement on that mercy seat. And year by year, that blood
was a symbol, it was a passing over until the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ was shed on Calvary's cross, at which time that blood,
the Bible says, was not placed on the mercy seat in the earth. No, to the contrary, the veil
that separated the holies of holies, where that Ark of the
Covenant was, When the Lord Jesus Christ cried on Calvary's cross
and said, it is finished, the scripture says that that veil
was rent miraculously from top to bottom. God tore that veil. And prior to that day, the priests
were stationed outside of the Holies of Holies and warning
the people not to come near. Don't come near, this is a holy
place. And after that day, When the
veil was rent, which the Bible says was his flesh when he died
on Calvary's cross, now the spirit and the bride, the church, say
what? Come. Come. No longer do we warn
men to stay away. Now we call on men to come. Come. The Lord Jesus Christ has
taken his blood and he's put it on the mercy seat and he's
covered all the sins of all of God's people, of all generations,
once and for all, by the sacrifice of himself. Oh, what hope we
have. That's the gospel, brethren. So this ark that we read about
in the Old Testament was given by God to Moses and Aaron. It
was built and it was used for over 1500 years. Until the Romans came in in 70
AD and the whole temple was destroyed and men like to talk about finding
the Ark now and that Ark's gone. It's gone. No. No, we have a Savior who's seated
in the heavenlies at the right hand of the majesty on high and
he's put away our sins. These things are a picture. The ark is a physical representation
of the presence of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when we read this story, it's
important for us to remember that. Notice in chapter four of First
Samuel, verse one. And the word of Samuel, you remember what the name Samuel
translated means? His name is God. His name is God. Samuel was the
prophet. He was the priest. He was the,
he was the, the judge of Israel, and he's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, whose name is God. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The enemies of the Lord said
to him, They wanted to stone him and he asked them, he said,
for what cause do you stone me? For the good works that I've
done? And they said, oh no, not for your good works, but because
you, being a man, make yourself to be God. He is God. He did not consider it blasphemy
to be equal with God. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. His name is God. Oh, if the Lord,
you know, just believing that Jesus Christ is God, that's the
gospel. Bowing before him and trusting him. The word of Samuel came to all Israel. All those who are of spiritual
Israel, God has given the ears to hear the word of God. They've given, that's what the
Lord said to Pilate when he said, for this cause came unto this
world to bear witness unto the truth. They that are of the truth
hear my voice and they follow me. So all of Israel heard the
word of God, the word of Samuel. What is more important than hearing
from God? What does God say? That's all
I need to know. That's the final word. That is
the word. There is no other word outside
of God's word. This world is full of voices.
God's word is what we need to hear. Now Israel went out against the
Philistines to battle and pitched beside Ebenezer. They pitched their camp near
Ebenezer. We have a Philistine nature in
us. A daily struggle, spirit against
the flesh, flesh against the spirit, cannot be what we ought. To will, to will is present with
us, but how to perform that which is good we find not. A wretched,
sinful nature. Just like these Israelites, sometimes
we comfort ourselves in thinking that we're near Ebenezer. And
the difference between being near him and being in him, might
God spare us from finding hope in the things that we know about
God rather than knowing him. In the religious experiences
that we have, they're going to take the ark They're going to
lose in battle. Let me just tell you the story.
They're going to lose in a battle, and they're going to say, well,
let's take the ark into battle with us, and it will save us.
They were using the ark as a good luck charm. They lost sight of all the glory
that that ark was to represent about the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and they thought, well, the ark will save us. We'll
take it to battle with us. And in taking the Ark into battle
with them, 30,000 Israelites were slaughtered. And the Ark
was stolen, and Hophni and Phinehas were killed, and Eli died, and
Ichabod was born, and the glory of the Lord had departed, all
because they took comfort in their superstition of religion. They thought, you know, you remember
when the Lord told the children of Israel to make a brazen serpent
and put it up on a pole, told Moses, that serpent is a picture
of Christ being made sin on Calvary's cross. And the children of Israel
were in the wilderness and they were being bitten by snakes and
they were dying. And those snakes represent our
sin. And we've been stung by venomous snakes. And the Lord became sin for us
and bore our sins in his body upon that tree. And that brazen
serpent is a picture of Christ. And God said, you look to him.
You know how much time we spend trying to beat off the snakes
and trying to control the snakes and try to kill the snakes? You
know what we do? We get near Ebenezer and we think,
well, the problem is the snakes. No, the problem's not snakes,
the problem's my faith. The problem's I'm not looking
to Christ. The problem is I'm tempted to use what I know about
God as a trinket of hope that I can defeat the enemy of the
snakes and the Philistines. They camped near Ebenezer, the
stone of hell. Oh, child of God. Ask the Lord
with me or don't let us find comfort in being near Ebenezer. Oh, we must be found in him,
in him. How many people in that crowd
that I've already mentioned the story of with the woman with
the issue of blood who was dying and had spent all that she had
on physicians and was worse off now than ever before. How many
people were thronging in the Lord? When the Lord said, who
touched me, the disciples were confused. Lord, everybody's touching
you. Look at all these people, they're
all near you. No, virtue has gone out from me. One has touched
me in faith. One has touched me, not because
she was hoping to get near Ebenezer, not because she was jumping on
the bandwagon of enthusiasm, The same crowd that cried Hosanna
within a week was crying, crucify him, crucify him. One of the
things, look at, look at, look at verse five in
this story. Chapter four, verse five in first
Samuel. And when the Ark of the Covenant
of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great
shout, so that the earth rang again. And when the Philistines
heard the noise of the shout, they said, what meaneth the noise
of the shout among the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood
that the Ark of the Lord was come into the camp, and the Philistines
were afraid." Oh, children of Israel were Excited,
they were enthusiastic. They were trusting in the fact
that they were having a good feeling about things. And you
read the rest of the story and the Philistines defeated them
and ended up slaying 30,000 of them. Oh, but they were so enthusiastic
and they were near Ebenezer. They had the ark with them. Are we not tempted to do the
same thing? Confuse faith with feelings? Child of God, you think oftentimes,
well, I don't always feel saved. Let me remind you that you didn't
feel lost before you were saved. Feelings come and feelings go.
Feelings are deceiving. My only warrant is the Word of
God, all else, all else is deceiving, not worth believing. Oh but we do. Elijah the prophet
did it after that amazing experience that he had on Mount Carmel when
the fire of God fell on the altar and consumed the sacrifice and
the rain came and And Jezebel got after the prophet Elijah.
And what did Elijah do? The scripture says he ran from
Mount Carmel all the way back down to Horeb. Now Horeb is another
name for a mountain of the law. And so he went back to the same
place where Moses was given the law. And the scripture says that God
sent an earthquake But the voice of God was not there. And a mighty
rushing wind so that the rocks were rent and the voice of God
was not there. And a fire fell from heaven and
the voice of God was not there. Moses was on the mountain of
the law. And he was having these amazing
experiences and the voice of God wasn't in any of it. And
then God spoke. And he spoke in a still, small
voice. And he said, Moses, what are
you doing here? Why have you come back to the
law to find the hope of your salvation? Why are you looking
to outward evidences for the hope of salvation? Why are you
doing that? That's what we do, isn't it?
We get near to Ebenezer. We run to the law, and we think,
well, you know, I'm not doing what I used to do, and I'm doing
some things I didn't used to do, so God's blessings must be
on me. But we look to some experience
or some evidence of, you know, answered prayer in our lives,
and we try to find comfort in that. We camp near Ebenezer. A lot of people get near God. Unlike the woman with the issue
of blood, they don't touch Him in faith. We must not be content with the pictures of Christ or
the knowledge of Christ. We must ask God to reveal Christ
in our hearts. Lord, give me saving faith. And
when he does, it'll be a still small voice. It won't be a mountaintop
experience. It won't be an earth shaking
fire from heaven. It'll be a convincing voice of
God in your heart. And you'll know that Christ is
all and that he's in all. and you'll find your rest and
hope and trust in him alone. And you'll no longer be happy
being near Ebenezer. You'll have to be found in him. Child of God, we are justified
by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. There is now therefore
no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. We are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus. But of him, the Father, are you
in Christ Jesus, whom God has made unto us to be our wisdom
and our righteousness and our sanctification and our redemption,
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, we look at this ark, we try
to take the ark, it's just, it's just, it's idolatry. It's, it's, it's
superstitious religion. He's thinking, well, if I can
get near God, that'll be good enough. Oh, have you spent all
that you have on physicians? Have you got no place else to
go? No place else. And we're not
talking about medical physicians, you understand that. It's a picture
of what men do to try to save themselves in religion. and in looking here and looking
there to try to find rest and hope. God brings us to the end of ourselves.
We've got no place else to go but to Christ. That's why coming
to Christ is not a choice. Making a choice means that you
have two or more options. When God shuts you up to Christ,
you've got no place else to go. The Lord asked the disciples,
will you lead me also? And the disciples said, Lord,
to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal
life. And we know and are sure that
thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. We've got
no place else to go. You've shut us up to yourself. We can't be satisfied in being
near Ebenezer. We've got to be found in Ebenezer,
the rock of our help. Now, the painful truth, the painful
truth is that affliction is often the means by which the Lord brings
us to the end of ourselves. Affliction. D. Parks is on his deathbed.
Literally, I expect to get a call any day, any hour. And I was
talking with his father-in-law, Bob Murrell, the other night. And we were both lamenting about
how we wish that we had the visions of glory like Dehas. in the last hours of his life,
as he gets closer and closer to heaven, the more of heaven
he brings to the earth. And how we wish that we could
be like that all the time. We ought to be, but we're not. We're prone to wander. We're
prone to take our eyes off of Christ. We're sinful and fleshly. It's not until the Lord strips
us of everything in this world that we find Christ to be. I remember Marvin Stoniker, when
his wife Linda passed away, the last thing he said to him was,
honey, I've come to see now more than ever before that Christ
is all I have. He's all I have. All I have. And he's all I need. Oh, that's why the Lord has to
kill us every day. We have to be brought to the
end of ourselves over and over again and we bring these afflictions
oftentimes to ourselves in our wandering and then yet the Lord,
the Lord mercifully and graciously ordains afflictions for his children. You say, well, somebody might
be thinking right now, well, I don't know if I have dying
grace. And my response to you would be, are you dying? And
if you said no, I would just say, well, you don't need it.
But if you're a child of God, and you come to the end of this
life, the Lord will give you dying grace. And you'll be just like Dee, saying to his family and to me,
pray the Lord to take me home soon. I wanna go be with Him. I wanna see Him. I wanna be made like Him. It's all I want. He's all I've
got. Oh, we so oftentimes are content with being near Ebenezer
until, like the children of Israel, we lose the battle. and 30,000
men are slayed, and blood is shed, and we're brought to the
end of ourselves, and we cry out, Lord, help us. Help us. Well, the Philistines steal the
Ark. They put it in the Temple of Dagon, and God afflicts the
Philistines with a horrible affliction. And they send the Ark back. They
said, we don't want anything to do with this. They send it
back 20 years later. 20 years later, the Ark is now
back in Israel. It's been in Israel now for 20
years. Philistines didn't keep it that long. And in chapter
7 of our text, I want you to go with me there. And look at me at verse seven.
And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were
gathered together to Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines
went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel
heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. You see the
contrast? The first time they brought the
ark into the camp and they all screamed and shout, and they
thought, oh, this is wonderful. We've got this. We've got this
now. We're near Ebenezer. We've got
the ark with us. And the Philistines were afraid.
But contrary to who had fear, the Philistines won the battle.
Now the Israelites are afraid and the Philistines are emboldened. The beginning of wisdom is the
fear of God. And the children of Israel said
to Samuel, his name is God, Cease not to cry unto the Lord our
God for us that we that he will save us out of the hand of the
Philistines. What a difference. What a difference. Now they're
not trusting in being near Ebenezer. Now they're not trusting in the
trinket of the ark as a as a as a as a symbol. By the way, I
never did finish the story of the brazen serpent. After the
children of Israel got into the Promised Land, they worshipped
that, they made that an idol. And Hezekiah, years later, called
it a piece of worthless brass. He called that serpent on a pole
because the children of Israel had made it into an idol. Hezekiah
called it a piece of worthless brass and he broke it up and
threw it away. And that's what God did to that
covenant, to that box. It's a piece of worthless shit
of wood and gold because the Lord Jesus Christ in the fullness
of his glory has accomplished all that that meant to picture. Now they're crying to the Lord.
They're not looking to an idol. They're not looking to an experience,
they're not looking to a feeling, they're asking the Lord, oh Lord
pray for us, pray for us, help us. And Samuel took a suckling lamb
and offered it for a burnt offering, verse nine, holy unto the Lord
and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel and the Lord heard
him. A sacrifice had to be made, blood
had to be shed, there was no evidence of a sacrifice being
made in the first story, in chapter 4. They were hoping, they were
trusting, they were near Ebenezer, they had the ark, they had the
enthusiasm, they weren't afraid, they had the fear of the enemy,
yet the enemy won. Samuel's now praying for them,
and as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, verse 10,
the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, but the
Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines
and discomforted them, and they were smitten before Israel. And
the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines
and smote them until they came under Bithgar. And Samuel took
a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shem and he called the name
of the stone Ebenezer. The rock of my help. Now the
rock's got a name. When God speaks, what's the appropriate
response? Yes, Lord. Truth, Lord. Lord, help me. Lord, save me. Lord, have mercy upon me. Lord, forgive me. Lord, remember
me when you come into your kingdom. Lord, If you will, you can make
me whole. Let us, therefore, come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we might obtain mercy and find help in our time of
need. Tom, you come, please. 340? 340 or 240? I'll let you announce
it. I'm sorry. 340. ? Call me, my Savior, so precious
Thou art ? ? Hold me, O hold me close to Thy breast ? ? Shelter
me, save me from Thy wrath ? ? Shelter me safe in that haven
of rest ? ? Nearer, still nearer, the thing I pray ? ? Not as an
offering to Jesus I pray ? ? And with its jollies I gladly
resign ? All of its pleasures, love and its pride ? Give me
but Jesus Christ Give me not to Jesus, my Lord,
who's so kind. Dearer, still dearer, my life
shall last, ever to be.