Ebenezer What?

1 Samuel 7:3-17                

EbenezerScrooge or “Here I raise mine Ebenezer”. This was about the extent of my knowledge of the word “ebenezer” growing up. One I know was a name of a person, the other I had no idea, other than it was in a song we sang at church. I was pretty sure, but not positive, it wasn’t referring to the old guy in A Christmas Carol. Today we see in chapter 7 that the word Ebenezer means “stone of help”.

                If you’ve been following along then you know that things have not been going well for the Israelites. The Philistines have been whooping up on them and they are preparing to do so again. Enter, Samuel the grown man prophet of God. We haven’t seen him for a few chapters but now he returns a grown man and ready to lead. We need to remember when we are reading a narrative like 1^st Samuel that large amounts of time can take place between verses and chapters even when it seems like they happened one right after the other. The author tells give us information for a reason, but we don’t get everything. Samuel has obviously been living among the people and serving God but we don’t know what or how that has been happening. The last thing we knew about him was back in chapter 3 where there was a summarizing statement about him “And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel…knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord.”

                Now in Chapter 7, with the Philistines preparing for war, the people cry out for help. Samuel provides leadership, but not just any leadership. He points the people back to God before he helps them with their physical deliverance. The people promise to serve God whole-heartedly (haven’t we heard this before?) and then Samuel, and then the Lord helped the people rout the Philistines. 

                Have you been wondering when the Ebenezer was coming in? Samuel had the people set up a stone near where God had helped them in battle. It was supposed to be a permanent reminder to them that God had saved them even when they were greatly outnumbered. In the years to come, even if things were bad, or if they were tempted not to trust God, they could look at the stone and remember that their God was faithful and powerful. Their God was their stone of help. 

Lesson: Remember those times in your life where you have seen God work in amazing ways. Perhaps He helped you through a difficult struggle. Maybe He helped you lead someone to Christ. There could be any number of things. I would encourage you to intentionally remember those times, perhaps journal about them so that when times are tough you can look back and be encouraged that your God is faithful, He is powerful, He does care.