This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Samuel 1-7” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 15, 1998.
About this sermon
Israel’s double repentance directly answers its earlier double defeat, restoring what sin had cost. The victory and peace that follow are already real and not yet complete, the same tension Paul describes in Philippians 3. Samuel’s stone, Ebenezer, ‘hitherto hath the LORD helped us,’ names both what has happened and what is still to come.
Sermon transcript
We begin our scripture reading this morning in 1 Samuel 7, verse 3. Give your attention to the reading of God’s word. And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and the Ashtoreth that are among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.’ Then the children of Israel did put away Balaam and Ashtoreth and served the Lord only.
And Samuel said, and I will pray for you unto the Lord.’ And they gathered together to Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the Lord.’ And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah. Then the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpah, The lords of the Philistines went up against Israel, and when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. 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 took a sucking lamb and offered it for a burnt offering wholly unto the Lord. And Samuel cried unto the Lord God for Israel. and the Lord heard him. And as Samuel was offering up the bread 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.
And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and smote them until they came under Beth-kar. Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mishpah and Shem, and called the name of it Ebenezer, 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. And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron even unto Gath. And the coasts thereof did Israel deliver out of the hands of the Philistines, and there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.” And then turning over in the New Testament to the book of Philippians chapter 3. This is Philippians chapter 3, we begin reading at verse 7.
Paul says, But what things were given to me, those I counted lost for Christ? Yea, doubtless, and I have counted all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but done, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through faith, through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, for giving those things which are behind unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.” Brethren, be followers together with me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us. For an example, for many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.
For our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
Pray with me. Bless us, O God, as we would give our attention to you. We pray, Father, that you would have our undivided attention, that we would not be distracted by the things of the world, the thoughts that intrude into our minds, even those things in our hearts that would draw us aside, right in themselves, but not right presently. Father, we ask that we then, profiting from your word, would live obediently to you. For we ask these things, O God, as we come to your word through Christ, the living word. Amen.
When Samuel is reintroduced to us in 1 Samuel 7, verse 3, after not having been mentioned since chapter 4, verse 1, his reintroduction is meant to move the story along into the accounts about Saul and then, of course, about David. These figures still to appear in the book of 1 Samuel. Samuel, therefore, is a prophet, a priest, and a judge, whose ministry prepares us for the coming kingdom, the kingdom that will be manifest in David, and even beyond that, he is preparing us for the appearance of that kingdom of which the Old Testament kingdom is but a shadow. when Samuel is reintroduced to us here in 1 Samuel 7 verse 3.
He is meant to bring to a conclusion the story the Holy Spirit has been telling. He is meant to move us along, but also he is meant to bring us to a conclusion. A conclusion in this particular story which the Holy Spirit has been telling. Now, there are many indications of this in the text itself. Many indications that a conclusion of sorts is in the purview of the Spirit. Just to name a few.
With the reappearance of Samuel here in 1 Samuel 7, there is also the reappearance of the phrase, All Israel, or as it is expanded in 1 Samuel 7, All the house of Israel. If you look for instance to chapter 4 verse 1, you find these words, The word of Samuel came to all Israel. This is the last, either all Samuel or all Israel or Samuel are mentioned until we arrive at the seventh chapter. But in the seventh chapter, both are reintroduced and both together, Samuel and all Israel. In verse 2, as praying to Samuel’s reappearance, the Holy Spirit tells us, “‘All the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.’” Again, in verse 3, “‘Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel,’ and moving down to verse 4, “‘Then Samuel said, Gather all Israel to myself.’” The reintroduction of the phrase, All Israel, together with the reappearance of Samuel, is intended to form a literary wrap, a literary wrap and closure on these chapters. As we come to what is given to us in the seventh chapter, then, we are taken back to the point where we last saw Samuel and all Israel.
Another indication that Samuel’s reappearance is meant to conclude the story that the Holy Spirit has been telling. is the repetition in this story that we find in 1 Samuel 7 of the place named Ebenezer, mentioned for you in verse 12. When Samuel took a stone and set it between Mishpah and Shem, and named it Ebenezer, that you will remember. that this is the name of Israel’s camp, mentioned previously once more in verse 1 of chapter 4, the place at which Israel’s army had gathered before its devastating double defeat at the hands of the Philistines. This man, Ebenezer, is resurrected to memorialize Israel’s victory in God the Savior.
We can judge, therefore, with the double mention of Ebenezer, with the complete inversion of the other. We mingle from the defeat in chapter 4 and the mention of Ebenezer there, to the victories of chapter 7 and the mention of Ebenezer there, that the Ebenezer of chapter 7 is the answer to the resolution of the Ebenezer of chapter 4. Ebenezer in chapter 7, then, is the closing of the tale, the concluding of the story, the reversal, the inversion of what had been described, what had been told earlier. But this story that we have here is also completed in keeping with the intention of the Holy Spirit, not simply by the inversion of the two Ebenezers, but also by the reversal in Israel’s spiritual condition and in the outcome of her circumstance as we move through the account that is given to us here.
You might have noticed, for instance, As we were reading the text this morning, the double repentance from Israel in those early verses of chapter 7, the double repentance that is recorded there. Verse 4, and then again repeated verse 6, a double repentance. Might it be that this double repentance answers and resolves the double defeat spoken of concerning the Israelites at the hands of the Philistines in chapter 4 when the story began? The double repentance, the doubling of it, answering the double defeat at the beginning, the reversal, the turning inside out of Israel’s condition spiritually.
Beyond this, as we look at it closely, there is the wonderful abject contrition now observed in Israel. the ever-prosperation of spirit, and this most definitely answering and resolving the arrogant ignorance we witnessed earlier in the story when Israel under Hophni and Phinehas, those wicked priests, brought the Ark of the Covenant into the camp, thinking that they might then guarantee for themselves their army’s victory.
The sheer weight of these clear and close correspondences is, in my judgment then, conclusive. When Samuel is reintroduced to us in 1 Samuel 7, verse 3, and that in company of all Israel, he is meant to bring to conclusion the story the Holy Spirit has been telling us, especially since chapter 4, verse 1. You have a wrap, a closure. But just how great a closure and a conclusion to which the Holy Spirit is bringing us may in fact surprise us. Possibly you sensed some of the magnitude of it. of this conclusion and closure when we were reading verses 13 and 14 this morning in that seventh chapter.
The way in which these verses read makes it sound as if Israel has been brought into something of a perfect state of peace. as if Israel has been brought into the full possession of her territorial inheritance. So full is this possession, and so perfect this peace, that from the plain reading of the text, one would think that nothing less than the coming glory of David’s kingdom had arrived. had already been reached. But you will note further that as you read these verses, and especially as you read the thirteenth verse, there is something of an absolute quality given to the words. So the Philistines were conquered and did not come any more.
Now, you may have some real difficulty here. You may have some real trouble, because you know the story of Israel in 1 Samuel. You are aware of what is coming. You may in fact have difficulty understanding this statement in verse 13 of chapter 7, because you know what’s coming in 1 Samuel 13 and 16, and the accounts that are given there are for this keen invasion into the territory of Israel and back even while Samuel is still living.
Is 1 Samuel 7.13 wrong? Has an historical inaccuracy intruded upon the text? Are those who have given up on the inerrancy of Scripture and its infallibility correct? Why the incongruity? Why the discrepancy?
There’s no error here. There is no inaccuracy here. This message is what the Holy Spirit has given, the Holy Spirit and what he inspires in verses 13 and 14 of chapter 7 wants you to see in God’s victory over the Philistines the impression of the coming triumph of David’s kingdom, that even more than that, The Holy Spirit wants you to see, in God’s victory over the Philistines, the conclusive, the final triumph of God, when he, in awesome finality, will deliver his people into the ultimate peace in which they will lay hold of the true inheritance in full. That is what is intruding upon the test. It is as if the present victory of God over the Philistines partakes of the yet future day when all God’s enemies will be vanquished and his people will live forever in perfect security and serenity.
You are being given a picture of it. Now, your response to this spiritual reading of verses 13 and 14 in 1 Samuel 7 may well be, I still sense the incongruity, I still feel the tension as I move from this verse, these verses into what comes later. But don’t you see? That’s specifically what the Holy Spirit wants you to feel. He wants you to feel that tension. He wants that tension to register upon you.
He has this in the text so that you will stop in your tracks and you will begin to consider why it’s there. that your response to this spiritual reading of the text may also be, but doesn’t this leave then the Israelites, as they are described here, just a little bit detached from reality?
Obviously the great kingdom of God, be it David’s or the final kingdom, has not arrived yet. And still these Israelites have themselves described in certain ways here as if it had arrived. But once more you have to realize that the Holy Spirit himself is not unaware of the tension that he has placed deliberately within the text. It’s his way of forcing you to consider the issue. of glory when they aren’t in glory yet? How does this make any sense?
To be sure, the victory of the Lord has cast upon Israel the radiant light of David’s coming kingdom, but even beyond that, the radiant light of the consummate salvation of God’s people. as if that glory had already arrived for his people. But at the same time, Samuel, the Lord’s servant, the emissary of the Holy Spirit who is responsible for what you find here in this text, that servant of the Lord is inspired of the Spirit to set up a memorial, a reminder, that the world’s people, although in some sense partaking already of glory, have not yet reached the final expression and the full enjoyment of those blessings to which verses 13 and 14 point. Thus you have, verse 12, we’ve backed up through the text, Samuel takes the stone, he sets it between Mishpah and Shem. He calls the memorial rock Ebenezer, which means stone of hope, and then he declares, thus saw, to this point, or as the King James has it, hitherto, the Lord hath helped us. In powerful images with staggering vocabulary, in wonderful heightened blessings magnificently described in verses 13 and 14, the already of the kingdom overlays Israel’s life as if the kingdom’s consummate glory had arrived. But memorialized for Israel as she enters upon those blessings, mediating her appreciation and appropriation of those blessings is this rock. This memorial rock, Ebenezer, a witness to the not-yet of Israel’s attainment. The already-not-yet is in the Old Testament.
Now, I will be bold in my speculations. and some of you have judged me to be so. But I am bold in these speculations again at this point. I take my cue from Samuel’s naming of that memorial stone in verse 12, to conclude that the name that he assigns points us in the direction of the significance of the other names given. The naming of the stone points us in the direction of the significance of the other names and sites mentioned, between which then that stone of memorial is placed. Watchtower. That’s what the name means. Watchtower. Shen. Tooth. Tooth.
Or Fang. do I venture too far to suggest to you that God has brought Israel thus far by his mighty work as she stands in her present life short of glory between the call to stand guard on her watchtower, Mizpah, and the threat of death by the teeth of enemies more heinous and even more subtle and more persistent than the Philistines’ shed.
I wouldn’t be so blind to suggest these things to you. if there were such powerful parallels found for us in our situation, in our circumstance. We, the leaders here, the Church of Jesus Christ, have been blessed by the arrival of the Eternal Kingdom through our Savior Jesus Christ in a way the Old Testament Israel of 1 Samuel 7 could only faintly anticipate.
In Christ we have been blessed already with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, so says Paul, Ephesians 1.3. But such blessing, real and true, in all of its heavenly magnificence, does not mitigate for us the all-too-clear character of the not-yet nature of our lives. We therefore, after the pattern of what we have found here in 1 Samuel 7, see ourselves between truth and sour, between sin and mischief, on the alert and also subject to attack. on the alert in our watchtower and subject to attack from those who would devour us. While we at the same time declare, taking our stand upon our memorial rock, Jesus Christ himself. Thus far, liturgy hath the Lord helped us.
Peter reminds you where you stand with his own tooth and tower statement. Be silver, he writes, be on the earth. There’s the tower. Your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. You stand in your life presently short of glory between tooth and tower. That it is called to in the spirit provides you with the quintessential tooth and tower statement. I have in mind Philippians 3.
Blessed already with kingdom glory, marrying Jesus Christ, having Jesus Christ, gaining Christ as Lord, Paul knows he must as yet attain unto the resurrection, verse 11, the not yet of his experience. He fully realizes his not yet situation, and from his evanescer, that is, from Jesus Christ, that one who has laid hold on him, verse 12, he presses on toward the goal for the prize of the upward path of God in Christ, verse 14. to the enemies of the cross, who prefer the earth, who prefer to feed their own stomachs and gullies their own lusts, who prefer this world even over against heaven and its glory. directly to some of you today, some deeply beloved by many who have lost their way. Can you not see yourselves afresh with the rest of us here in the Church of Christ? in vital connection to a text like 1 Samuel 7, even as this chapter prepares you for the conclusion of all things summed up in Jesus Christ your Savior.
Will you not recognize yourselves in the Israel brought to Ebenezer? and brought there by way of repentance, brought there by way of the triumph of God over your enemies. Will you not recognize yourself in the Israel brought to Ebenezer? And will you not acknowledge afresh, Jesus Christ is death and resurrection as your stone of help, even while you stand between tooth and tower. And will you not, as you find yourself presently between tooth and tower, the wonderful glories of heaven even presently being mediated unto you, will you not content yourself to wait faithfully, faithfully and patiently for the appearance of your Savior from heaven, whose appearance will mean that your vile’s body will be transformed into the likeness of his glorious body.
Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mithra and Shem, and named it Ebenezer, saying Hitherto has the Lord helped us. Let us pray. O our Lord, we pray that we might Realize where we stand, where you have positioned us, that in keeping with your sovereignty, your almighty power and purpose, and that though we find ourselves called upon to always be on the alert, and though we are perpetually warned against the danger of those that would seek to devour us, In our present condition, let us delight in the glories of Christ’s accomplished redemption for us. But at the same time, Father, be thoroughly and completely serious about our position and the jeopardy in which we still stand. Help us all, we the new Israel, to always be on the alert, and to reside in you our protection against the teeth of every enemy, even unto the day of Christ. May it so be.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.