Mark spoke this morning from 1 Samuel 7:1-17, highlighting 7 points from this narrative about how the Israelites responded to Philistine threats. This passage also goes some way to explaining the hymn ‘Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing’ with its line ‘here I raise my Ebenezer’, for this is the passage where Samuel builds a stone of remembrance to all that God has done (the meaning behind the word ‘Ebenezer’.)
1. Repentance is key to our restored relationship with God. The Israelites had abandoned true worship and followed false gods, hence the loss of the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines and the fact that even when it was returned to their land, they were not ready to receive it fully. Only when they truly repented and turned back to God could they be restored to God.
2. Prayer and fasting was the response of the Israelites to the work God was doing in their lives. It has to be our response too. There has to be a spiritual, practical response to demonstrate the reality of our repentance.
3. Samuel led the way to restored relationships through prayer and sacrifice. God saw the people’s sincerity and responded.
4. 1 Sam 7:9 reminds us that God hears and answers prayer.
5. ‘The Lord thundered’. God’s response to our heartfelt repentance and prayer, fasting and sacrifice is to speak into our situation and to work in ways which are truly awesome. God can thunder on our behalf, changing situations around. The Israelites did not even have to fight against the Philistines. No plan of the enemy can stand against us (Is 54:17); we are more than conquerors through Christ. (Rom 8:37)
6. When God steps into our situations and changes things around, we need to remember and declare what God has done. Samuel took a stone and set it up as a memorial (1 Sam 7:12) as a visual reminder of God’s help. God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. (Ps 46:1) He is able to work in awesome ways on our behalf and we need to remind ourselves of how God intervenes for us out of His grace and favour.
7. God brings restoration and peace to the land and to our situations.
We were encouraged to take small stones from the box Mark provided so that we could hold on in faith to the promise that God is going to work in our situations and to remind ourselves that He is our ‘stone of help’ at all times.
