You remember the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and the stanza that says, "Here I raise mine Ebenezer; Hither by Thy help I'm come." I have been asked many times over the years what that word, "Ebenezer" means. Some hymnals have actually dropped that particular stanza because of that word. I don't know why in our day and time we want to dumb everything down, or label things "old fashioned" when the word "Ebenezer" is a Biblical word with important meaning. I have even heard people make fun of the word. Isn't it interesting that people make fun of the things they are ignorant of. Why can we not just simply teach?
I ran across the word, "Ebenezer" again this morning when I was reading out of I Samuel 7. Israel is coming up against the Philistines in battle and they start begging Samuel to pray with all His might that they will be saved from the boot of the Philistines. So Samuel prays and offers a burnt-offering to God. God intervenes with huge thunder above the Philistines, causing panic and mass confusion and they run from Israel giving chase out of Mizpah.
Then Samuel takes a single rock and sets it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He names it "Ebenezer," which has the meaning of (Rock of Help). He sets it for them to remember this marks the place "where God helped us". All through the Old Testament we see the importance of markers in the lives of God's people.
What is your "Ebenezer", the place where God helped in your walk with Him (your Rock of Help)? It would enhance the worship of each of us to remember God's faithfulness, our Ebenezers if you please. It would also enhance the worship of local bodies of believers, the local church, to remember the "Ebenezers" of the church collectively. We need to "raise our Ebenezer" in worship knowing that God is our help. He is truly worthy of our worship and we are blessed! mjm
