1 Samuel 7:12
“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.”
There is in the generality of men a very culpable inattention to the ways of Providence. A variety of dispensations succeed each other without ever attracting their notice. Hence they are unconscious of any kindness exercised towards them; and are ready to ascribe their success to themselves, or even to chance, rather than to God. But, if they would observe the many strange and unforeseen events which arise, and notice how they concur to promote their welfare, they would “understand the loving-kindness of the Lord,” and be constrained to acknowledge his wise and gracious agency.
The veil with which modern occurrences are covered, is, in the Scriptures, removed; and we see “the holy arm of the Lord made bare.” We at this day should regard a storm as a mere accidental thing, common perhaps at the time of year; and think little of God, “who makes the clouds his chariots, and his ministers a flame of fire.”
But, in the passage before us, the victory gained by means of a storm is ascribed to the merciful interposition of Jehovah. By means of thunder which terrified the Philistine army, the unprepared Israelites were enabled to destroy them, and to break the power of those who for twenty years had grievously oppressed them; nor was it a little remarkable, that this victory was gained upon the very spot where, twenty years before, God had delivered both them and the ark in which they vainly trusted, into the hands of the Philistines. To commemorate the goodness of the Lord, “Samuel set up a stone, which he called Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto has the Lord helped us!”
From these words we shall take occasion to show,
I. What reason we have to erect similar memorials.
Whether the agency of God is more or less visible, it is certain that not so much as a sparrow falls to the ground without his special direction. Let us then take a view of the mercies he has given to us. These have been,
1. Public mercies.
These have been exceeding great. Those specified at the close of the year 1804, were, our long-continued preservation from foreign invasion, or domestic tumults, or even the sound of war; as also our freedom from pestilences, earthquakes, and hurricanes, which had recently committed dreadful ravages in Spain, America, and the West Indies.
2. Private mercies.
We shall find abundant cause of thankfulness, if we survey our temporal mercies. How are we indebted to God for life, when multitudes have been taken into the eternal world; and for health, when many have been pining away with sickness; or racked with acute disorders! What an unspeakable mercy is it that our reason is continued to us, when many are bereft of this noble faculty, and thereby reduced, like Nebuchadnezzar, to a level with the beasts! What do we owe to God, if we have found comfort in our relatives and connections, (for “it is God who makes men to be of one mind in a house,”) and if death has not been permitted to rob us of those in whose welfare we are deeply interested! Perhaps during the preceding year we have entered into new connections, or had our families enlarged. Perhaps our business has prospered; or the difficulties with which we have contended, have been overcome. In all these things we ought to acknowledge the hand of God, and to think how highly favored we have been above myriads of our fellow-creatures.
2. Spiritual mercies.
But if we turn our thoughts to the contemplation of our spiritual mercies, what ground shall we find for the liveliest gratitude, and the profoundest adoration! That the ordinances of the Gospel are continued to us, when, for our misimprovement of them “our lampstand might so justly have been removed;” what a blessing is this! If we only consider that the preached Gospel is, though not the only—yet the principal means which God makes use of for the salvation of men, we never can be sufficiently thankful that its sound has reached our ears, and its light been exhibited before our eyes, “for many prophets and kings have in vain desired to see and hear these things,” which we so richly enjoy.
We have all, more or less, been made the subjects of restraining grace; and O, what a tribute of praise does that demand! How many of our fellow-creatures have brought themselves to an untimely end, either by their excesses, or by the hands of the public executioner! How many forlorn females protract a miserable existence by the wages of prostitution! How many, either to conceal their shame, or to avenge a quarrel, have committed murder! How many, to rid themselves of their present troubles, have madly rushed on suicide! Whence is it, I would ask, that we have not fallen into one or other of these evils? Are we made of better materials than they? “Have we not all one father?” Did they, previous to the commission of their evil deeds, imagine themselves more likely to fall than we?
Let us acknowledge “the good hand of God upon us;” it is God alone who has made us to differ; and if he had not preserved us by his restraining grace, we would at this moment have been numbered with the most miserable and abandoned of the human race!
Some among us, we trust, have been made to experience converting grace. And what cause for thankfulness have they! Look around, and see how few even of those who statedly hear the Gospel are savingly converted by it! What then do they owe to God, who have been quickened from the dead; who have had their sins blotted out by the blood of Jesus; who have been made partakers of a divine nature, and heirs of the kingdom of Heaven! Should not they raise an Ebenezer to the Lord?
Nor have they less cause for thankfulness who have received preserving grace. Consider how many have “begun to run well, and afterwards been hindered;” some waxing cold in their regard to true religion; others “turning aside to vain jangling;” some drawn into infidelity; and others making true religion itself hateful and abominable, by their hypocrisy or open impiety. Never does a year pass, but some instances of grievous backsliding occur, to the great dishonor of God, and the grief of all his people.
And why are not we the people that have been left to fall?
Have we felt no secret inclination to sin?
Have we on no occasion yielded to the suggestions of our great adversary, so that nothing but Omnipotence, snatching us like brands out of the burning, could have preserved us?
Have we never inwardly backslidden, so that if God had not for his own mercy’s sake restored us, we must have been lost forever?
Let us only examine the records of our own hearts, and call our own ways to remembrance; and there is not one of us who will not be ready to look upon himself as the greatest monument of saving mercy that can be found on earth!
Whether then we consider our temporal or our spiritual mercies, we cannot but find unbounded occasion to raise grateful memorials to the Lord our God.
But it will be proper to show,
II. In what manner we should erect our memorials.
External and visible monuments are very proper expressions of national gratitude; but, as individuals, we must erect very different memorials.
1. We must get a sense of God’s goodness engraved on our hearts.
We need not to form inscriptions on stone or brass; we are concerned rather to have the mercies of our God written upon our hearts. But here is our great fault; we do not “keep his great goodness in remembrance;” we “forget him at the sea, even at the Red Sea.”
One single calamity will call forth abundant complaints against God; but ten thousand mercies are scarcely sufficient to raise the soul to God, or to excite one desire to requite his love! Sensible of this, David stirred up his soul to the performance of its duty, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me bless his holy name; bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits!” It is in this way that we must raise memorials to God; and such memorials he will not despise. One grateful and devout acknowledgment of God’s mercies, is a more pleasing sacrifice to him than the cattle upon a thousand hills, “Whoever offers him praise, glorifies him.”
2. We must endeavor to impress others also with a sense of it.
This is a method of perpetuating the remembrance of his goodness, which the Lord himself has prescribed. Psalm 78:5-7. And the more sensible we ourselves are of his kindness to us, the more shall we exert ourselves to preserve the knowledge of it in this way.
How admirable is the example of David in this particular! He seems to have labored with all his might, not merely to praise God with his own lips, but to interest all, whether of his own or future generations, in the same blessed employment, Psalm 145:1-7.
On the contrary, how severely was Hezekiah rebuked for ostentatiously displaying his own riches, when he should have been magnifying to the Babylonish ambassadors the Lord’s goodness, and commending to them the knowledge of the God of Israel, 2 Kings 20:12-18 with 2 Chronicles 32:24-25; 2 Chronicles 32:31. It is possible enough that he might pretend to give God the glory; but God, who knew his heart, saw that he was lifted up with pride.
Just so, we are in danger of erecting memorials rather for our own honor, than for God’s; but we must be exceeding jealous upon this head, lest, instead of pleasing, we offend the Majesty of Heaven; and lest, instead of bringing a blessing upon ourselves, we entail a curse! We may boast; but our boast must be of God, and not of ourselves; we may raise monuments; but they must be truly “Ebenezers,” ascribing everything to “the Lord’s help,” and not to an arm of flesh.
3. We must testify our sense of it by an increased devotion to his service.
If we are sincere in our acknowledgments, we shall be inquiring, “What shall I render to the Lord, for all the benefits that he has done unto me?” The end for which our God grants his mercies to us, is, that we may bring forth fruit to his glory; and, if he finds that all his pains and sustenance are without effect, he will cut us down as “cumberers of the ground! Isaiah 5:3-6; Hebrews 6:7-8.” Whatever
be our character then, we must make this improvement of the Lord’s goodness to us. If we are impenitent, it must lead us to repentance. If we are already his servants, it must constrain us to increased diligence in his service, and cause us to abound more and more in every good word and work. We must not satisfy ourselves with empty commendations, crying, “Lord, Lord;” but must do with cheerfulness and delight whatever he commands us.
4. We must trust him in all future difficulties and dangers.
This is a very principal end of raising memorials of any kind; it is, not merely to remind us of what God has done, but of what he is ever ready to do, if we call upon him.
Here again we are called to admire the conduct of David, who regarded the deliverances which he had experienced from the paws of the lion and of the bear, as arguments for trusting in God, and for expecting a similar deliverance from the sword of Goliath, 1 Samuel 17:37.
Paul also made a similar improvement of the mercies given to him; saying, “God has delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver; in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us, 2 Corinthians 1:10.”
Trials will succeed each other, as “clouds coming after rain;” we are not to expect a termination of them, until we are called to our eternal rest above. Yet while on this account we can only say, “Hitherto has the Lord helped us,” we may safely commit ourselves into his hands, knowing, that “whoever trusts in the Lord, shall be even as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but stands fast forever! Psalm 125:1.”
Charles Simeon (1759-1836)