Our text is 1 Samuel 7, verse
12. How delightful are the words
of the prophet Samuel here in our text. It says, then Samuel
took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shin, and called the
name of it Ebenezer, saying, hitherto hath the Lord helped
us. Help. That's a delightful word
for one that needs it. For one that needs help, help
is a delightful word. And what delightful words we
find these to be when it's revealed to us who Ebenezer is and what
Ebenezer means. You know, I can't tell you for
years I sung Hymn number 17, Come Thou Fountain, where it
said, here I raise mine Ebenezer. And I thought to myself, what's
Ebenezer? What is that? Well, we're going
to see tonight the Lord willing, if we haven't already. Ebenezer
means a stone of help. Well, we know who that is. We
know who that is. That stone is Christ. Just as
that rock that followed Israel in the wilderness That rock which
pictured and typified the Lord Jesus is Christ. This stone is
Christ. That's what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
10, verse four. He said, and did all drink the
same spiritual drink for they drank that spiritual rock that
followed them and that rock was Christ. Often thought about that. those words and followed them,
a rock following us. But doesn't the shepherd follow
his sheep? He keeps them out of harm. He
makes sure that they're safe. That's what Christ our shepherd
does. And then again, in 1 Samuel chapter seven, we see that that
stone that Samuel set in that field and called Ebenezer was
a stone of hell. Jesus Christ is a stone of help,
is he not? So at the end of verse 12, Samuel
adds, hitherto means now and forever, hath, past tense, the
Lord helped us. Oh, we can testify to that, can't
we? We can attest to that, the Lord
has helped us. And Christ being the Lord, the
change is not, friends, he'll continue to help us. He'll continue
to help those who put their trust in Him. Now, He doesn't help
the whole world. I mean, in a sense He does in
the fact that He provides the sunshine and the rain for food
and drink, but not like He helps His own. So the Lord's help was
and still is His promise that stands forever. We're the ones
who change like the weather. Oh, we're so fickle, but not
God. He can swear by no higher than Himself. And He swears according
to His own name and promise. Hath God said and shall He not
do it? I love to read those kind of
verses. Hadn't God said and shall He
not do it? He's not a man that He should
lie. He's spoken, shall He make it good? Yes. Yes, he will. The Lord said of
Malachi chapter three, verses six and seven, for I am the Lord,
the self-existent one, the capital L-O-R-D, who says, I change not. Therefore, this is why you sons
of Jacob, you and me, all of us, are not consumed. Why? Because he changes not and
can swear by no higher than his own self. He's not a man that
he should lie. That should tell us right there
that men are nothing but. We lie. We convince ourselves
of lies. We're a son of man that he should
repent or change. We change. We change day by day,
minute by minute. Now in the very next verse of
Malachi 3, verse 7, the Lord adds, even from the days of your
fathers, ye are gone away from my ordinances and have not kept
them. That speaks of the Lord who changes
not. And that is the Lord speaking
about us. The same Lord who's the same
yesterday, today, and forever. The same Lord that has promised
His people He'll always help them. is faithful at promise. He's never going to lie. He's
never going to tell you anything from His Word that is not true.
I love what David wrote in Psalm 121. Let me read the Psalm to
you. Only eight verses. And this Psalm
is for every believer. Listen to the words of it. You
don't have to turn there. I've grown to love the Psalm
more and more each day because every single verse in it reminds
me of who saves me and who keeps me by his grace. There's only
one that can. The only one that can, and that's
the Lord Jesus. Verse one, Psalm 121. I will
lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. That
tells us right there that we need help. My help cometh from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth." This is not just anybody. This
is not one that's a little younger, maybe a little stronger than
me that's helping me. This is the Lord who made heaven
and earth. My help cometh from the Lord.
Same capital L-O-R-D, the self-existent one. He will not suffer thy foot. to be moved. He that keepeth
thee will not slumber. God never is asleep. God's always
attentive to our needs. He'll not suffer thy foot to
be moved. He will keepeth thee, will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. Who keeps
you? The Lord does. How are we kept
by the power of God? 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. 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. This, his love, his protection
is not fickle. It didn't change like the weather. Christ is my evanescer. It's he that has helped his people.
Now there are many today that believe it's they themselves
who pull themselves up by their bootstrap. You ever seen that
little thing on the back of a boot? That's what a bootstrap is. And
the man somehow believes that he can reach down and pull himself
up by that little piece of leather on the back of his shoe or boot. Can one really improve their
position by their own efforts? Seriously. What's been your experience? Can one physically lift themselves
higher by reaching down and lifting or pulling up their own feet?
It's an impossible accomplishment. We live on a planet that operates
under God's rule of gravity. How much more so does that apply
in the spiritual and eternal realm of things? Dead men and
women, first of all, can't do anything. You'll never be convinced
that you cannot pull yourself up by your own bootstraps until
you first of all say that you're dead. You're dead in trespasses
and sin. Men have trouble with that because
we live and move and have our being in this life. But spiritually
speaking, we're dead. We died the day that Adam disobeyed
God. Dead men and women can't do anything.
And they will not do anything that they might have liked. Recently,
the subject of luck came up again in a conversation that I was
having, and I told the person that I didn't believe in luck.
And you know what? No true believer does. Now you
may say, well, I think you're taking that luck thing a little
too far. No, not in the least. Things don't happen by luck.
They don't happen by chance. They don't happen by misfortune.
They happen because God causes them to happen. He's the first
cause of everything. And everything that God does,
He does for a reason, He does for a purpose. And for the child
of God, it's good, it's a good thing, because He's gonna work
it all together for our good, to them that love the Lord, who
are be called according to His purpose. Well, this man said,
well, I don't believe in luck either. And I was a bit shocked.
And then he said, I believe in determination. And, I would near come believing in
luck before I would believe that by my own determination could
or would change or do anything, because I'm dead. How can the
determination, a determined effort of a lost and dead man change
anything? The Psalmist said, I'll lift
up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. Then he
added, my help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
That's where our help comes from. He came from heaven, he's coming
down again from heaven, and he has to pass below the highest
mountain to do so. I look to the hills, because
he's coming higher from a higher place than that, from the mountaintops. The lifting up of our eyes is
what's a gesture of prayer. I've said this before and I'll
say it again. Prayer doesn't change things.
It's the one that we pray to that changes stuff. We would
begin to trust in our prayers as a means of salvation if prayer
was in and of itself what changed things. True prayer is an expression
of boldness and confidence in Christ. That's why the Lord said,
come boldly into the throne of grace that you may find help.
That's what we're praying for. We need help. Not just help with
finances, not just help with things that we want. We need
spiritual help. We need life. We need righteousness. We need mercy and grace. We need
help. I know that if I'm saved, that
I know I am kept by the power of God through the God-given
faith of salvation in, by, and through the work of Christ alone.
You know, as I look back on my life, I see very clearly that
it was nothing but God's help, by His mercy, grace, and divine
intervention that brought me to right now, right now. And you, it's the same with you,
same for you. I know that if the Lord would
move His hand from me this instant, even now, I would be prone to
wander and prone to leave the God that I profess to love. Oh,
how I love Jesus. If He took my hand, I wouldn't
love Him much. If He took His hand from me, I wouldn't. And
it's good for us to know that's how we are by nature. And my
greatest confidence in this life is that if I did nothing to save
myself, then I cannot do anything to be lost. If my redemption
is based solely on Christ's work and righteousness for me, the
matter's settled. I'm saved and I'm kept because
it's by God's choice and by His power alone. My confidence is
that the Lord has helped me, not simply assisted me, not simply
lended me a hand, not that he just made it easier, not that he pushed me over to
the side of saved. You know, I was just standing
there on the line of being saved and the Lord just pushed me on
over. No, that's not what that's talking about. That's talking
about the Lord helping us as the only one that can. No one
else can help us. No one. Listen to this verse
in Isaiah chapter 50, verse nine. Behold, the Lord God will help
me. Who is he that shall condemn
me? If God be for me, who can be against me? Who shall condemn
me? It's Christ that died. but to aid as in giving life
and breath and all things is what that's talking about. That
word help there in Isaiah 50 verse nine means to surround,
protect. You know, we talk about the Lord
being a hedge about it. Well, he like under the wings
of a chick, you know, just he's my hedge, he's got me surrounded,
can't nobody hurt me. In Adam, we didn't just stump
our toe. In Adam, we died under the wages
of sin. That took the life-giving means
of the great physician to save us, to give us life. That's the
kind of specialist that our disease calls for. And all the storms
and all the winds and all the raging waves that you and I have
passed through in our life, and have reached the other side without
harm because of his presence and because of his protection
and surrounding me and keeping me. That's the testimony of every
child of God. That word help in the English
dictionary means a lot of things. It means providing a service
and resource to someone. And I think how precious is that
help that did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. We
could never do. Secondly, help is a situation
that is improved through the benefit of another. Oh, how much
do we benefit through what Christ has done for us? Again, only
Christ, the great physician, can cure our deadly disease of
sin by putting it away. How? By the sacrifice of Himself. We didn't choose him, he chose
us. Wish folks would get a hold of that. We didn't assist him
in our salvation. Have you ever had a serious surgery
where you assisted the surgeon on the operating table? I know
that's all comical, but that's what people today are saying.
I gave my heart to Jesus. Can you imagine the Lord doing
heart surgery on me and I'm like, You may want to do this, or you
may want to do that, or, you know, here's the scalpel, or
whatever. It's just ridiculous. Help means to serve someone in
trouble. My, my. He's our stone of help. Help means to give assistance
and aid. Help means to give service to
someone, to support and contribute, to relieve and soothe, to alleviate
and eliminate. That's what Christ did for our
sin. All of them put away. Help means to provide a remedy
and a cure. We could not come to Him for
help. We would not come to Him for help. We would not have this
man, the God-man, to rule over us. And God could not and would
not help those but those who He gave to Christ from the foundation
of the world. And Christ must come and must
help them. He must. All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven not
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And
this is the will of him which sent me, that of all which he
hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again
at the last day." You know what that means? All God's people,
all that God gave to Christ before the world ever was, he's gonna
help. If you're trusting in Him, God will help you. He gonna help
you through whatever trial, tribulation, trouble you're in. It doesn't
matter. Nothing's too big for Him. And this is the will of
Him that sent me, that everyone would see it the Son and believeth
on Him. That's the qualification. Not
everyone in the world, but those who love Christ and trust Christ
and believe on Christ and rest in Christ, find comfort in Christ,
assurance in Christ, may have everlasting life. And God promised
his help. And he said, I'll raise them
up at the last day. I'm poor and needy, yet the Lord
thinketh upon me. Thou art my help and my deliverer. Make no tearing. Oh my God, I
need help and I need it now. Psalm 40, 17. Because thou hast
been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. You imagine when that storm comes
and that hen wraps those little chicks in her You think they're
comforting? I'm next to mama. Mama's gonna
take care of me. Oh my, how much more so, our
Heavenly Father. Oh God, be not far from me. Oh
my God, make haste for my help. Psalm 94, 17. And every true
believer says, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper,
I will not fear what man shall do unto man. Again, if God be
for us, who can be against us? What man can be successful against
us? No child of God can refute that
our help cometh from the Lord. And no true follower of Christ,
our Ebenezer, can resist saying, hitherto hath the Lord helped
us. That's our testimony, that's
our confession. What makes you a saved man? What
makes you think you're so special? Hitherto hath the Lord helped
me. The Lord helped me. The Lord
did for me what I couldn't do for myself. Has not the God who
called Abraham out of the land of idolatry done the same for
you? Has not the same angel that wrestled with Jacob at Penteel
called the face of God, not wrestled with you and caused you to walk
differently than you did before? Has not he who stood in the furnace
with those three Hebrews also trodden the coals of life's furnace
with you? They said, I see four men in
that furnace, walking in the midst of the fire,
and they don't have any hurt. They don't seem to be hurt. They're
talking. And the fourth is the form of
likening to the Son of God. Has not the God who gave Solomon
the desires of his heart listened to you, giving you your request?
And every time that he doesn't, it's because we ask of him to
consume our request upon our own lust. But when we ask for
the things that God, that we need, truly need, spiritually
need, he always grants our requests. Has not the same sovereign of
whom David sang that satisfied our mouth with good things, satisfied
your mouth with good things? Of course he has. Of course he
has. Have you ever been made to lie
down in green pastures? Have you ever been led beside
still waters? Has your soul ever been satisfied? Have you ever been restored? Have you ever walked through
the valley of the shadow of death? Let me tell you something, you're
walking through it right now. Have you been comforted by the staff
of the Great Shepherd? Has the Shepherd's rod comforted
you? Has your head been anointed with
oil? Has your cup run over? If the Lord is your Shepherd,
they all have. Has His goodness and mercy followed
you all the days of your life? Then you've been helped. You've
been helped by the only one who could help. May we seek to be
found in the same spot where the stone of Ebenezer is found.
You know, we mentioned it last study, 20 years earlier on the
same field, is there on now called Ebenezer, Israel was sorely defeated. Same field. 20 years previous,
Hophni and Phinehas died on that ground. 20 years earlier, the
Ark of God, the Ark of the Covenant was taken from that field. 20 years earlier, the Philistines
were victorious right there in the same spot. Israel tucked
their tails and went a running and they were captured, became
prisoners. 20 years had gone by and This
is mentioned in these verses in this chapter, remind us to
always remember our defeats. Now, I know that we're not to
look back, that we're to forget those things behind us, but it
is also good at times to remember our defeats. Like Israel, we
once went out in our own strength, did we not? Didn't work out too well for
us as it did for, Didn't for Israel. Like Israel, we discovered
that we are weak and helpless. I can look back and see all my
failures. There are a great many of them
to see, I'll tell you that. And all the times that I didn't
wait on the Lord's strength, I'll take care of this, I'll
handle this, to only wind up tucking my tail and running. All the times that I just plunged
forward in my own strength. But today, as I look across Ebenezer's
Field, as I look upon all those graves
of self-confidence, as I look upon all those graves of creature
strength, all those graves of fleshly boasting, I see a stone. One who causes many to stumble.
I see a rock, solid and unwavering. I see a rock set between Mizpah,
a watchtower, and Shin, which is a place of judgment. And that stone, that rock, is
Christ. And He's my only help. That rock is Christ. He's my
evanescer. When I look to Him and Him alone,
my Lord, my Redeemer, I can say with confidence, I can say with
assurance, it's on Christ, the solid rock that I stand. God has helped me by Him. I'm again made aware of who it
is that helps me, who it is that delivers me, who it is that completes
me. who it is that encourages me.
He's a stone of help and a sure foundation, the solid rock, that
place beside God. God said, I'll set you in a place
beside me. That rock on which I stand, that
cliff in the rock, he's the rock of ages, the rock of refuge,
salvation, strength, safety, solidity, security, my rock. for eternity, he's the
only one that can help me. He is out of Zion, the perfection
of beauty where God hath shined, Psalm 52, Psalm 50 verse two. And friends, it's here that I
raise my Ebenezer. It's by his help that I come,
and I hope by his good pleasure to what? Safely arrive at home.
I believe that Psalm may mean more to us next time we sing
it. Jesus sought me, I didn't seek
him. I was a stranger, prone to wonder,
prone to leave the God I love. He, to rescue me from danger. What did he do? He interposed
his precious blood. This field called the Ebenezer
would remind Israel, and it reminds us of their and our sin, which
had in the past many times conquered them. You know, when they looked
out on that field, that they remembered the ark being taken
from them. They remembered many, many thousands
of their own dying. They were reminded of how they
turned their backs on God. They were reminded how their
souls played the harlots. At their best, they were nothing
more than lukewarm, deserving to be spewed from the mouth of
Christ. And naturally speaking, it's
the same for us. We see at the stone at Ebenezer
that God had delivered them and done everything for them. Ebenezer would remind them
of all their sorrows. And it was up on. Israel's defeat,
that Eli died, he heard the news of the ark of God, remember that?
And he fell backwards, breaking his neck. It was at the news
of the capturing of the ark that Eli's daughter-in-law died and
giving birth to a son whom she named Ichabod, which meant that
glory has departed from Israel. Israel's harvest had been snatched
away by their robbers. Now they only ate what they were
pleased to give, what the Philistines were pleased to give them. Their
vineyards had been consumed by their captors. For 20 years,
bitter sorrow had consumed them. But then comes Samuel, God's
prophet, God's preacher. And in verse eight, we're told
that in chapter seven, and the children of Israel said to Samuel,
oh, help us, cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us,
that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines. Cease not, don't stop praying.
Don't stop praying for us, we need help. What did Samuel do? He offered the only thing that
God would accept, verse nine, and Samuel took a suckling lamb
and offered it for a burnt offering, wholly unto the Lord, completely
to the Lord. And Samuel cried unto the Lord
for Israel, and the Lord heard him. The Lord Jesus, our prophet,
our priest, our king, did the same for us. But here's the difference,
and it's a great difference. He was the perfect lamb of God
that was offered. He provided for himself the lamb
and he provided himself as the lamb offered. And Samuel told
Israel to return unto the Lord with all their hearts. That's
what we do in preaching. Look to Christ, return to the
Lord if you've fallen away. He told them to put away the
strange gods of the Philistines in verse three. And they did,
and they served the Lord only, verse four. And Samuel saw their
repentance as their mediator, and he sought to pray for them,
verse five. And they gathered water, and
they poured it out, stating that they were undeserving of the
Lord's bountiful mercies and provisions for them. And they
professed their sin in doing so. We don't deserve this water.
In verse eight, the children of Israel sought Samuel to cease
not to cry unto the Lord for him, that he would save them.
And in verse nine, Samuel took that lamb and he offered it unto
the Lord. Samuel, God's preacher, called
for their repentance, and the prophet of God told Israel to
put away their idols, and they did, and they served the Lord
only. The Philistines rose up against
them. God destroyed them. It was after these things that
they saw the Lord's hands move for them. God move on their behalf. And it was then, and it was only
then, friends, that Samuel took a stone and he placed it in that
same field of all their failures and said, hitherto hath the Lord
helped us. The Lord did this. We didn't
do it, the Lord did. And friends, if you and I were
diligent about seeking that our sin be removed, we'd never get
off our knees. And if you and I were diligent
in seeking God to enable us and strengthen us to remove our manmade
idols, God would never cease to be valiant in conquering all
our foes for us. The more we seek God's divine
intervention in our lives, the more we'll see how faithful he
is that promised. And he promised that he would
deliver us. Okay, in closing, turn with me
to Philippians chapter two. Philippians chapter two. In verse 12, give me a moment
to get there. In verse 12, Paul told the church
of Philippi, to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.
You know, I've read that before and people immediately think,
well, see, there you go. That's something we got to do
something there. We got to work out our own salvation with fear
and trembling. Well, can you do that? How do we work out our own salvation
by our own work and doing? Well, the answer is simple. We don't. We can never work out
what God hasn't worked in. Salvation is God working in us,
it says here, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Paul added in verse 14, he said,
do all these things without murmurings and disputings. You know, by
nature, now let's, it's just us talking. By nature, we murmur
and complain about everything. Do we dare murmur against the
God who's done everything for us? Israel serves as an example
and a warning to us here. They murmur time after time after
time against the Lord. You brought us out here in the
wilderness just to let us die here. We may have been in slavery in Egypt,
but at least we had some good food. This loathsome bread that's fallen
from heaven, man, it's getting old. Those who do such things proved
to be what Paul said in verse 15. We proved that we can never
be blameless and harmless. We can never be the sons of God
without rebuke. But we are to be in this crooked
at what we are to be in this perverse nation. God's people
that shine as lights in this world. If you murmur and dispute
and accuse God, you'll never be one of his. According to verse
18, we do joy and rejoice with Paul and all believers. Now I
know that none of us will ever arrive. Paul said, I hadn't arrived. I hadn't obtained. But I keep pressing on, I keep
trying. Every day I say, Lord, I'm gonna
try to serve you and love you more today. We've done nothing for ourselves.
We join and rejoice in the stone of help, our Ebenezer, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now let me just throw one more
thing out and I'll quit. That word hitherto, back in our
text, is like having God's hand pointing back for us. 20 years, 30 years, 40, 50,
60, some to some 70, others 80, some even 90. I think about Doris
Mayhan, how that for over 100 years now, having Christ as her help, even
when she didn't know it. You know, there was a time we
didn't know it, but that we were no less His. He chose us from
the foundation of the world. We were His then, before the
children, before you and I had done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God, according to election, might stay. It's God
that helps, it's God that saves. Before Miss Doris even knew it.
Christ helped her, protected her, and kept her, and still
is, still is. I don't know how long I'll live
on this earth, nothing like some have, but if I leave tomorrow,
I know that Christ is my Ebenezer, and he's my stone of help. He's
the only one that has helped me and will help me. And each
of us who believe, no matter how short or how long, hitherto
has had Christ to be our help. If you're a believer, he saw
to it from before the day you were born. I think about that
often being adopted. I didn't know until I got conscious
at a later age who my parents were and that they were my adopted
parents, but God did. God did. He saw before we were
born through poverty, wealth, sickness, health, home, abroad,
land or sea, honor or dishonor, joy, trial, triumph, all of it
put together. Christ has been his people's
help all the way. You know that. You know that.
More deep waters, more high mountains to come. We don't tiptoe through the tulips. Then comes sickness, old age,
disease, and death. And in the end, the child of
God will shout aloud, Ebenezer, hitherto the Lord hath helped
us. He'll never leave us nor forsake
us. He promised he'll be with us all the way. He said he would
be. Our dying breath will proclaim hitherto hath the Lord helped
us. I've heard not many, but a few on their
deathbed pray things like, Lord, thank
you for what you've done for me. They sure weren't talking
about what they did for the Lord. They were talking about what
he did for them. What did he do for me? He helped them with
everything. He's a tomb that the Lord helped
us. Yes, dear friends, to you who
believe, I remind you of that again. The Lord has done great
things for you, for us, since the foundation of the world.
And we're up, we're glad. I'm so glad the Lord helped me.
Did I deserve his help? No, that's what makes it grace.
Undeserved, unmerited. That's why we call it good news. That's why we call it the gospel.
Because that's exactly what it is. It's good news. So raise your Ebenezer and look
at that stone of hell and just keep on trusting. That's the
only good advice I can give you. Amen.