Have you ever noticed that the moment you finally get serious about following God, when you truly repent and truly want to change, that seems to be when trouble shows up at your door? That is exactly what happened to Israel. They finally turned their hearts to the Lord, and immediately, within the same chapter, the enemy came charging. But what happened next? Since they had been in this state of revival, turning back to God, God thundered in, and Samuel raised a rock to help them remember that God is the Deliverer. God is our defense. So today we are going to talk about that rock he named Ebenezer (not Ebenezer Scrooge, but Ebenezer) and why that rock still matters for us today. Hi, I am Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California. Welcome back to our study through 1 Samuel, where we are bringing the Bible home. Those in our church know this as our series through 1 Samuel, continuing on YouTube with these follow-up videos. If you are new here, you can go back and watch the previous videos to catch up in the series. I preached this message from 1 Samuel chapter 7 at Easter 2025, so you will see some of the tie-ins as we go. I tie the stone that covered the tomb to the stone of Ebenezer. They both declare the same truth: when you get things right with God, He makes things right for you. We will have some checkpoints along the way: the reminder of love, the battle and the rock, and the redeemed Ebenezer moments. And we will talk through what the cross means and how it ties into this Old Testament passage in 1 Samuel chapter 7.
Monuments of Love
We want these old rocks to still speak to us, just like monuments. When my wife and I were engaged, I was in college, working nights at a hotel and saving money for tuition and a wedding. I would finish my audit early in the evening, and then I would have several hours to kill before breakfast setup in the morning. So I had these little Styrofoam cups, and I would finish the coffee and then doodle little sketches and notes on my coffee cups. The next day I would bring them to my fiancée at the time, my wife now. To me they were just throwaway cups. Sometimes they were a countdown, like “100 days till our marriage,” that kind of thing. Other times it was a stenciled J-A-M-I-E for my wife, set up in different ways, and she had them lined up on her shelf. To me it was just a simple little gesture, a little nothing. It did not even cost me any money. But to her it was a testament of love. She saved every one of them, and every time we have moved, those cups find a new little shelf, a new little monument of love beside our bed or on the wall in our bedroom. You probably have something like that too. I once read in a book about a lady who saved every piece of gum her boyfriend gave her, I mean the chewed pieces. She would press each one onto a board, labeled with the date she shared that stick of gum with him. It is a little strange, but that is a memorial. Why do we make memorials? Because a memorial is a reminder of the past. It helps us look at this thing and look back at what it represents, to be grateful for the past and hopeful for the future. We are looking forward to what the future can be based on what the past was. If that is how it was back then, that is how we presume it will be in the future. That is what Samuel did for Israel here in 1 Samuel chapter 7. He built a reminder of God’s faithfulness.
The Battle and the Rock
Let us catch up on where Israel is in the story. They had been in their promised land for centuries. There was no king yet; this is just before the time of the kings, and Samuel is in the transition between the judges and the kings. The local bullies, the neighborhood mafia, kind of like a drug cartel, so to speak, were the Philistines. They were bigger and tougher and armed to the teeth, and they had removed all the swords from Israel. Israel had lost a massive battle earlier, when they were under the judgment of God, by the way, but that was years before. So now they were just limping along. We saw in the last video that Samuel had been preaching for twenty years. They finally repented, revival came to the nation, and Samuel was leading this revival. People were repenting, and just when it looked like things were going really, really well, boom, here come the Philistines again. The Israelites gathered at Mizpeh, and the Philistines heard about it and assumed it was some kind of rebellion. Look at verse 7: “And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpeh, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines.” The Philistines heard about some kind of gathering. It was a revival meeting, but they assumed it was a military uprising: “Oh, we cannot have that.” So they marched to crush them. “And the children of Israel said to Samuel, Cease not to cry unto the LORD our God for us, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines.” And Samuel did: “And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt offering wholly unto the LORD: and Samuel cried unto the LORD for Israel; and the LORD heard him.” He offered this lamb as a visible reminder of the sin that had to be covered. Their repentance included the removal of sin from the land, so he offered this sacrifice as a sign of the revival of their hearts, which had turned to God. The Old Testament sacrifices were meant to point forward to Jesus Christ. Today we have access directly to God through Jesus Christ. Back then it was Samuel standing in the gap, praying on behalf of Israel. We can still pray for each other, but he was like the direct go-between, whereas now we have our go-between in Jesus Christ and can go directly to the Father. So Samuel was doing that. Verse 10 says, “And as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel: but the LORD thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten before Israel.” You say, “Well, I do not understand the King James. It is too hard to understand. What does discomfited mean?” Well, whatever it is, you can figure it out from the passage. It is not good. They were smitten before Israel. There was thunder, and God… I think you can fill in the blanks on what discomfited means. God fought for them. This battle was not won in Israel’s strength. It was God Himself who stepped in and thundered down on the Philistines. “And the men of Israel went out of Mizpeh, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them, until they came under Beth-car. Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us. So the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel: and the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.”
This directly follows the revival we talked about in the last video. The first six verses were about their turning their hearts to the Lord, putting away the Baalim and Ashtaroth, giving their hearts to the Lord, and serving Him with all their lives. When they were right with God, God made things right for them. They turned their hearts to God, and He followed through on His promises to deliver them and save them in battle. After the victory, Samuel did something fairly unusual. We read it there: he took a stone, set it up, and called it Ebenezer. The word Ebenezer means “stone of help,” and here is what he said about it: “Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.” I like that word hitherto. It means “up to this point.” It is not, “Well, God helped us, and now He is done.” He is saying, “No, God’s faithfulness up to now guarantees His faithfulness in the future. Up to this point, we have learned that when we turn to God, He fights our battles. So we need to look at this rock and remember, in the future when we are scared and fearful, this is the rock, the reminder, the monument to the day God saved us when we turned our hearts to Him.” Samuel raised that rock as a tangible reminder of this phrase: when your heart is right, God handles the fight. That even rhymes: when your heart’s right, God handles the fight.
The Redeemed Ebenezer
Now remember what was in their past. There were plenty of good things in Israel’s past, not just in the immediate past of the first six verses here; I am talking about the deliverance from Egypt, the manna in the wilderness, God’s provision for them through the wilderness journeys, and victories in battle. There were plenty of victories and good things in their past, but not all of Israel’s past was peachy. There is plenty of failure right here in this book. If you have been following along in this series, or you have read 1 Samuel up to this point, they have been full of failure. They lost the ark of the covenant of God. They were given to idolatry. There was mass death when they disobeyed and looked into the ark. How could Samuel say something like, “Hitherto hath the LORD helped us”? There was not a whole lot of help going on with all those bad things happening. Well, hang on a second. Before you judge God too harshly, remember that God redeems even the bad chapters of our lives. One of the greatest truths about our God is that He is the Redeemer. He is the One who restores what is broken, who brings beauty from ashes and life from death. It is not just the mythological phoenix rising from the fire; that is too weak an image for the Redeemer God. I am talking about a God who takes the darkest tragedy and writes resurrection through it. It is the worst thing, but He can turn it and bring life from it. How many times can you look back and see milestone moments like that in your own life? There are joyful times for sure, but very likely there are some painful things you have gone through, some life-changing things. Maybe you look back and realize, “I did not like what I went through, but I am positive God was with me all along the way.” You can look back on those moments with bitterness and say, “God, why did You allow this terrible thing to happen?” Or you can look back on them as Ebenezer moments and say, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped me. God was so good in helping me.”
Israel had this Ebenezer stone, and the word Ebenezer is even unique here. It is funny, because in chapter 4 the name Ebenezer was a place of defeat, a place of self-reliance and pride. So now they are turning the word Ebenezer on its head and saying, “This used to be bad, but God has made it good.” Chapter 7 is a 180 from where they were in chapter 4. This is a new definition of the word Ebenezer, a redeemed Ebenezer. They are not celebrating failure. They are celebrating and remembering the victory, remembering what God can do when His people turn back to Him with their whole hearts. That is what repentance does. It serves as a turning point. Repentance means a change of mind. When you put on God’s thoughts about your sin, or about your life, or your perspective, even when you do not fully understand it, if you try to see it from an eternal perspective, you know God wants to redeem it for good. Repentance is living one way, then something happens, and now you have turned. Those Ebenezer moments mean you were facing one direction, and since that turn nothing has ever been the same. Maybe this message today is a turning point for you.
Prone to Wander
There is an old hymn you might know that uses this word Ebenezer, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Its writer was saved under George Whitefield’s preaching, but he drifted off into sin years afterward. One day he was sitting on a train, and a woman nearby was singing the very hymn he wrote. She asked him, “What do you think of that hymn?” And he confessed, “Ma’am, I am the one who wrote that hymn.” The words came flooding back to his mind: “Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by Thy help I’m come; and I hope, by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.” The verse that always strikes me is the one that says, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” Every Christian knows that feeling: “Oh, I am prone to wander. I am always going away from God. Why is it like that, man?” Israel did that too, and God patiently and longsufferingly calls us to come home. Man, if you have wandered far away from the Lord, if you are prone to wander sometimes, if you are real far away, you need that landmark, that guiding rock you can look to from far away and say, “You know what? That is where God helped me. That is my Ebenezer.” I think of the time this year when my wife and I got to go up in a hot air balloon; we were given it as a gift. From way up above our town, you could see all the landmarks: here is the road where our street is, there is our church steeple, there is a hospital in south Temecula, there is a hospital in north Murrieta. All those landmarks help you know where you are and see where you are going. Spiritually, you need those landmarks too, those markers of God’s faithfulness, those little monuments to God’s faithfulness. Samuel’s stone, Ebenezer, said, “Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.” Up to this point, the Lord has helped us.
The Cross and the Empty Tomb
For us as Christians, our reminder is every time we see that cross, every time we see that empty tomb. The cross of Jesus Christ is what we constantly remember and go back to as a monument: the blood of Jesus Christ shed for us, His broken body and His shed blood. That is when God thundered against our enemy. He thundered against sin. That is the beauty of the cross. We are not celebrating the pain Jesus went through; we are celebrating the mercy that triumphed over sin. The tomb is where the stone was rolled away, not so that Jesus could get out, but so that we could look in and see that He is risen. That stone is like an Ebenezer for us, a monument declaring that God is a helper to His people and that repentance brings rescue. First, the rescue of your soul, which comes through repentance and faith in Christ; that is what the Scriptures teach. And then, as Christians living for the Lord, a life of repentance ought to keep us close to the Lord. That is what our life is about.
Your Ebenezers
Maybe you have already experienced that first rescue of the gospel. Well, what are your Ebenezers, the stones you go back to? A couple of videos ago I talked about this old Bible I got from my grandmother on my seventh birthday. I have monuments in here from seven years old on, and I mentioned the missions giving I wrote in the back. I have verses written down. My kids are thumbing through it now, looking at some of my old notes, and I am encouraging them: “Man, I love this Bible. You need to keep your Bible forever. You need to keep those notebooks of sermon outlines. That is going to be like a monument one day.” This is a Bible I got at my ordination, a beautiful leatherbound Bible our church gave me. I have not filled it up yet; I am slowly filling it. I love the Cambridge text setting, the wide margins, and the size of it. This is a great Bible. This one here is an old Scofield, and I love the notes in it. I got it as a college graduation present, and it is very, very special to me, because it brought me through grad school and my time in Stillwater, Oklahoma. I have all these notes from college and chapels in here. It is well worn, with Ebenezer stones all the way through it. I gave my nephew a Bible for his high school graduation when our families got together, and in the front of that Bible I wrote the story of when I surrendered to preach, my own call to ministry, which was twenty years ago now. Every time I think of that, I think, “Man, God did that.” God was the One who called me at summer camp when I was just about to go off to Bible college, through the story and the preaching about Peter making his break from the boat and stepping out in faith. That was when God called me to preach, to make my break, step out of the boat in faith, and trust the Lord. A friend of mine keeps keychains from church meetings, little tokens of God’s work in his life. Those are Ebenezers. All of those are Ebenezers. You might not stack a literal stone, but every time you look back and say, “That is when God helped me,” you have raised your own Ebenezer stone.
If you have drifted away from the Lord, I pray you can return to the moment you remember: “Man, God did that. He is the One I need to go back to.” “Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by Thy help I’m come.” Maybe you are only here, still breathing and still listening, because of God’s help. You need to recognize God in that. For Christians, this is a call to remember God: setting up some Ebenezers, marking God’s faithfulness, never forgetting the victories He has won in your own heart. And if you are not yet a believer, if it feels like the Bible is outside your grasp, as if this is for somebody else, you can raise your very first Ebenezer right now. The empty tomb can be your stone, your monument, your reminder, the time you realized that Jesus Christ died for your sins and received the grace of Jesus Christ by placing your faith in Him. The Bible says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” When you repent, He rescues. That is the gospel message. That was Samuel’s message, and that is the message of Easter. So, in a final summary: when you get things right with God, He makes things right for you. Repentance brings rescue. God bless you. We will see you in the next video.
