1 Samuel chapter 7. Again, if you're using a chapel Bible, that can be found on page 311. 1 Samuel chapter 7, and this morning especially, we will be considering verse 12. Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, hitherto have the Lord helped us. Today, I'm sure you will know, is Remembrance Sunday, when we especially remember those who have fallen in line of service in defence of this country. Irrespective of gender, ethnicity, background or class, we are all affected by this loss, and it's vital we remember, with gratitude, that they paid the ultimate sacrifice. That aspect I'd like to explore a bit more this evening in our gospel service, and I commend that to everyone. This morning we've only read 1 Samuel 7, but the full account of God's dealing with his people actually starts back in 1 Samuel 4. Israel is at a low point in its history in the time of the judges. The high priest and current judge was Eli, a faithful but weak man. His sons were corrupt, and although they served as priests, they did all manner of unholy things. They are recorded in the honesty of the Bible. God raised up a man, Samuel, to replace Eli and his family. At this time, politically, the Philistines have taken advantage of Israel's weakness. After a battle in the previous chapters, there was a defeat for Israel. They decided almost in superstition to bring the Ark of the Lord, that most precious representation of the Lord's presence, right up to the front lines to encourage the people in the next battle that would be had. They did this without command of the Lord and without His favour. The Philistines, we read, were terrified because they'd heard rumours about the God of the Israelites and what He was able to do. It seems they were the only ones who actually had some kind of a fear of the Lord. But God is a God of obedience and holiness, not superstition or bound by men's whims. He was not with them in that second battle, and an even more disastrous defeat was given to the Israelites. The sons of Eli were killed. The ark was captured. Eli, upon hearing the news as an old man, he fell off his chair. Not when he'd heard that his sons had been killed, but when he heard that the ark had been captured by the Philistines and taken away to a different country. That was where his heart really was. Sadly, he died and his role as high priest came to an end. Before you're tempted to ask, why did God abandon the people he had promised to protect? God didn't abandon his people because they had already abandoned him and stopped worshipping him as they should have. They had forgotten that God was everywhere. They didn't need the ark to be moved. They had forgotten all the times that the Lord had stepped in for them before. And when they were faithful, He had helped them in remarkable ways. Sadly, you see this pattern over and over and over again in the times of the judges, which ended with Samuel. God's people leave off his worship, they seek after other deities, they become immoral, and then God has to raise up a judgment, a time of difficulty on them. The people spend time under that judgment, then come to their senses. They remember what God has done for them, and they cry to God for help. And God, each time, delivers them. He raises up a judge who leads them to victory. And then, sadly, when the judge dies, the cycle begins again. And the cycle gets more and more extreme each time. Why does this happen? Because God's people forgot. It's the biblical principle of remembering I would like to speak on for a moment this morning. God raises up Samuel who reforms the people. We read about that in 1 Samuel 7. The people acknowledge their sin. They put their false gods to one side and return to worshipping God alone. There's a whole sermon in that itself. But we also read in 1 Samuel 5 and 6 that the Philistines don't fare any better because of the ark. Indeed, the longer they held on to it, the worse things got for them. God is not mocked and he is powerful to act on his own behalf. Again, another whole sermon in that. Eventually, the Philistines decide the ark has caused them too much trouble, so they send it back to the Israelites, and it returns to Kiryat Yerim, where it stays for 20 years. Back in Israel, back where it belongs, but not where it left, not the resting place it originally had. But Samuel does something in 1 Samuel 7, 12. He takes a stone and sets it up as a monument, as a physical reminder of this event, and he calls it Ebenezer. I'm sure most of us know the name Ebenezer and what it's synonymous with. But do we know the actual meaning? It's given to us in the text. Hitherto, up to now, the Lord has helped us. All the way up to now has the Lord God provided for us. And this was the idea. When you passed Mizpah, you saw this great stone and it triggered that memory. The stone is there because of these events. That's effectively what we do today with monument stones or remembrance monuments. Most settlements in the UK have a war memorial where it's set aside. It's usually caged around to protect it and sometimes it has a plaque on it with every name of every soldier who died from that village. But they are memorials, they are physical reminders. It reminds us because we so easily forget. There are some things it's right to forget. There are other things we have to remember. And as believers, I'd like to touch on a few things that it is right that we must remember. The most obvious one, the easiest one, the one that we're doing right now, remembering the Lord's day. Right in the middle of Exodus 20 and verse 8, remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. Right in the middle of the commandments, we are told to remember the day of the Lord. As God created the world in six days and then rested, we are to do all our work, our labor in six days. The Lord has given us six days to do everything we need, to work, to take our leisure, to raise our families, to look after ourselves, but to organize our days in such a way that we devote one day of the week to Him. In Old Testament times, it was our Saturday, but in the New Testament times, under the instruction of God via the apostles, we now remember it on Sunday, the day Christ rose from the dead. What better day to hold our services on the very day all those hundreds of years ago that our Lord and Savior rose from the dead and sealed that victory for us. But look at the language the command uses. Why does it say to remember the Sabbath day? Because again, God knows how easily we forget to do it. How easy we allow the busyness and the business of life to crowd in. And we are busy. Busy at work, busy with the family, busy with all the things that have to be done in modern life. And so often too busy to properly remember the Lord and His goodness towards us. But what also does the Lord command? To keep this day holy. Holy means set aside. If something was used in the temple to worship God, maybe it was a utensil, maybe it was something particular, it was set aside, it was used for that purpose only and for nothing else. That's what this command is telling us to do, to keep this day separate from the others, distinct, different. Think about it for a moment in Old Testament times, what you were actually saying. In a farming society where everything had to come to a complete stop for one day. No gathering sticks for fuel, no weeding, no planting, no harvesting, no building, no working. Animals could be fed and watered but nothing else done with them. Think of all the organization that was needed to make this come to pass. But think of the power of the witness to other countries round about. These people, these Israelites who worship their God, they keep one whole day a week especially for Him. How much they must love and respect him. How important he must be to them to donate so much time to his worship and praise. Even at the possible, the probable cost to themselves. Imagine the farmer who's been trying to harvest his crops. Now the fields are ready. Everything's done. But right in the middle of everything that he's rushing to harvest, to bring all the crops in, he has to stop for one whole day. And not just stop for one whole day, he has to put everything out of his mind. Not think about it at all, but focus his mind completely on something else. Think of the builder who has a narrow window in which he wants to work. while it's dry, while the materials are available. But again, for one whole day, everything has to come to a complete stop. And he's not allowed to think about it. He has to think about, rather, God and everything that goes with that, and put everything else completely out of his mind. Or the mother of the household, who had a thousand and one jobs to do, and yet for that one day, again, everything has to be stopped. to devote time to the Lord. Think about it in modern life, with how busy we are, with everything that goes on, with everything that happens, and yet we devote one day to the Lord. And never be mistaken in thinking that the pressure is only on for us today to compromise. Pressure to compromise this day is nothing new. You tell me a time of life and I will give you some pressures that follow on from it. When you're young and there's so many fun activities that happen on a Sunday and all our non-Christian friends are out and about enjoying themselves with everything that they want to do, and yet we have to go to church. When you have children and there is so much work to be done, there's never enough hours in the day, and I can attest to that. Or you hear the children wanting to go to this or that and to do this and that, but we can't because it detracts from the day. When we're busy at work or we have deadlines looming or there's school and on the Monday morning we have to go into tests straight away, there's always that tension, temptation. Maybe I'll take just an hour or two just to get a little bit ahead so that I'm ready for what comes next. Or maybe we have to be elsewhere on the Monday morning. So many of us have to go off to do training or meetings or other bits and pieces. Are we then tempted to miss a service so that we are where we need to be come the Monday morning? But the command is to keep the day, to fight to keep the day, and to remember how important it is. What is God's purpose in this day? He knows how easily we forget Him, how even in the right things we forget to tend our relationship with the Lord. You have a personal relationship with the Lord if you believe in Him and you love Him, and that takes work. your closest friends, your family, your loved ones. All these relationships take time and work and have to be worked at and have to be tended. Even more so, our relationship with God, because God is always willing to have a relationship with us. We are the ones so often who neglect this most vital of relationships. But by God ordaining one day a week that we set aside, we have the space, we have the time to tend our relationship with him. But it also gives us the space to do other things as well, the benefits of holding the Lord's day. We come together as we do now to worship the Lord. Churches that only have one service, because that's the fashionable thing to do these days, sadly, say, well, the early church only had one service. They often forget that that early church had a service that was three hours long. So if you want to have a three-hour service, by all means. They also point out the majority of believers in early church days were slaves, and they couldn't come to services. but they longed to come to services. They longed to have those freedoms to come to services. They would have been so happy and so overjoyed if they could go each week to a service. We have all the freedoms, we have so many freedoms today and yet we're so keen to push the boundaries almost to see what we can get away with. Now, there are valid reasons. Emergency services have to run, sickness in the family, difficulties and hardships. But the question always has to be asked, could we in some way make ourselves available that we can come to every service and reap the benefits of it? We also have a day set aside to serve the Lord. There is so much we can do as individuals, but there is so much more we can do as groups. I know this church has a large concern for children's work. You can't do that if you're in individuals. You have to come together as groups to do that. But then there's also the time we spend outside of services with the Lord, as individuals or as families or as small groups in worshipping the Lord, tending that relationship with him. We also remember Calvary. the importance, the significance of communion. It's a memorial to help us remember what was done for us, to remember that Christ died for us. The bread and the wine, symbols only of that once and for all sacrifice that was made on our behalf. The idea that they become somehow the very body and blood of Christ is not only unscriptural, it's heinous. because it says Christ's sacrifice wasn't enough and it has to be done again and again and again. That's why we reject this position. They are reminders only, and that's the key point. They are reminders. However often we observe communion, they are reminders of what was done there at Calvary. Let me go one step further on this point. Why does this church and other like-minded churches have one service a week dedicated to gospel preaching? You can almost imagine someone saying, wouldn't it be more profitable in these days of spiritual confusion to have two teaching services? That surely would be better. What does Paul say? Woe is unto me. Destruction, terrible things. Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. By gospel here, we do not mean the whole Bible. We mean specifically the soul-saving doctrines. How you are saved. Why do we do it regularly? Because it reminds us once again of what Christ has done for us. There in that place of judgment, he died in my place. We were the wretched sinners who needed saving. And when we are reminded so often about that, how can we be proud? How can we really think we are worthy of God's favour when we are reminded the price that was paid for us? The gospel service is for everyone, especially believers, because we of all forget so often what Christ had to do for us. I was that dead sinner. I was the guilty one. When I could not save myself, Christ died for me. And then you're reminded again exactly how that happened in your life. How so carefully, maybe so gently, the Lord showed you these things. Or how much of a shock you had when the Lord displayed everything that was happening and how our lives were so fallen and so broken. And the wonderful way in which he saved us. This is truly why I believe so many Christians today are sleepy and their love for Christ dies down because they aren't regularly reminded what Christ did for them. I can speak to that because I was in churches for many years where there was not a regular gospel preaching and it's so easy for the love of the Lord to die down. But also think about it like this. We remember today people who died to give us our freedoms. The Gospel service is when we give our highest moment of praise to God because we remember what Christ died for, what Christ did for us there. The agony he experienced so that we would never have to experience that judgment. And where we have that freedom that he has given, he died to save, to procure for us. I often think of it like this, and it's an apt illustration for today especially. The Christian life is often compared in the Bible to the soldier at war. Our war is against Satan. We fight for the Lord. The soldier on the front line, he has to learn how to keep himself safe. That's our doctrine and teaching sermons. But he also has to remember why he's there in the first place. Thinking of country, of family, of freedom, of those he loves who he's left behind. That's what holds him up when the fighting gets bad and morale gets hits and takes a knock. But for us, we have to be reminded why we love Christ so much. because of what he did for us. That's one of the purposes behind gospel preaching. As with all things in Christian living, there has to be the right balance. I can illustrate this again. If you recall in Revelation, when John is instructed to write in chapter 2 to the church of the Ephesians, the church was correct in many ways. They were sound in the doctrine, they held themselves apart from heresy, they worked without faltering, and yet, The Lord had something against them. They had left their first love. Doesn't this reflect on what we're saying? What is a believer's first love? Surely it's the love of Christ and without that we become cold, we become formal. Revelation 2.5 says, Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy candlestick out of his place except thou repent. A Christian who has forgotten the Lord and what He has done for us, how much we once loved Him, how much when we were first saved we wanted to tell everyone about this Christ that we had found. And yet you find yourself looking back at other times thinking, I once had so much zeal for the Lord, where did it all go? It's because we've forgotten the love of Christ who saved us in the first place. He was so willing to die for me at Calvary, and yet I've forgotten how much it cost to Him. And then we have Ebenezers themselves, as we have in our passage. And this is what the Puritans, the writers of old, used to actually say, that through life they'd raise their own Ebenezers, their monuments to God's dealing with them. When you're in some great trial or difficulty in your life and the Lord steps in for you in an amazing way, the Lord is doing more than just keeping his promise. He has promised never to leave us or to forsake us. But it's more than that what he's doing when he steps in for us. He's giving us a memory which is designed to be remembered. So the next time trouble comes, the Christian holds themselves and says, I remember how the Lord helped me in times past, how he helped me with this difficulty, with this difficulty, with this great thing that I was thinking, how is the Lord going to help me with this? And yet he saw me through. He helped me. Help arrived exactly when I needed it. So if he's demonstrated his love all these times, how can I now doubt him? How can I think this time he will not step in and help me through this present difficulty? In other words, the Christian life is full of proofs over and over again how the Lord comes in our time of need. He comes to help again and again and again. This is why some people keep diaries. I don't do it myself, I don't have the discipline. But they list the trial on one side, or the great need on one side, and the other side you have the entries of how it was completed, how the Lord did it, how the Lord gave help when it was needed. And when they're in difficulties or trials, what do they do? They open up their diaries. They flick back through all the pages and go, he helped me here with this great difficulty. I remember that time when I was so worried about that, and here's the help opposite. It helps them, and it is a great help to us. This is why it's so good to regularly review our lives, to remember where the Lord has blessed us, and as the old hymn goes, count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. The more you teach yourself to look for these times to recognise when the Lord has stepped in for us, the more of them you see. That's why it's so good to be thankful, because you train yourself to look for those times where the Lord has helped you and you see them all the way through your life. This is how the Lord actually builds us up for larger acts of service that require more faith. You read about the great missionaries of the past. How could they trust in the Lord in such great difficulties, in such hardships? Because the Lord had already proved himself time and time again. Every time the Lord proves himself, it's almost as though he builds your faith up just that little bit more each time. A little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. until suddenly you realise you can shoulder huge burdens and you can trust to the Lord. He doesn't give you a huge burden straight away to bear because He knows our frame. He knows how much we panic, how much we would tear ourselves to pieces. But rather, He does it slowly and gently, each time adding a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more to our faith. So then, in times of trouble, what is your first port of call after praying for help? It has to be your memories, as we've just sung. His love in time past forbids me to think. He'll leave me at last in trouble to sink. Each sweet Ebenezer I have to review confirms his good pleasure to help me quite through. We also have it in James. What does James say? That sentence that everyone stops and checks themselves with. Rejoice when trial comes knocking on your door. Why? I know I'm paraphrasing it, but stick with me for a moment. Because it means God is preparing to do something for you. God allows trials and difficulties in our lives so that he can then also prove his love when he steps in with the help. That's how God builds us up as believers. But also Ebenezer's are there for another purpose. I wonder if you've ever spoken to an older believer, someone who's been a Christian for many, many years, and you were encouraged because they go through their memory, as it were, and say, well, I had this great difficulty and the Lord helped me. I had this great difficulty and the Lord helped me. We had a Sunday school teacher who was many, many years as a believer, and all the stories that she came out with, and we knew they were all true because she was the sort of lady who did not exaggerate. But all the times when she needed help, and she showed how the Lord had helped her time and time again, it did wonders for our faith, let alone how rock solid hers was. But we also have to remember our calling in this world. So many people forget this one. Are we here only to enjoy this world? To provide for ourselves and our families? To seek pleasures and rewards here? Nothing wrong with these aims when they're held in the correct place. But what is our primary calling as believers? First and foremost, to be ambassadors for God. We are representatives of God and we, on his behalf, we plead with unbelievers. What a task! We who are sinners saved by grace alone, we with all our imperfections, our cracks, our problems, our difficulties, our inconsistencies, are God's chosen method to save souls. That and the foolishness of preaching. God is willing to save souls. Because there is nothing in preaching that can save a soul. There is nothing in our lives that people are so awed about that they become believers because of that. It has to be the power of God alone. We're also to be holy, to be set aside from this world. More so, Peter tells us we are to be holy because God is holy. He is apart from this world. So we are to be set aside from this world. We are to be in this world, but not of this world. We aren't to isolate ourselves away as a monk would, or something like that, or some strange religious order. We are to be witnesses in this world, but we are so different than so many people in this world. Hebrews 11 says about the believers in Genesis that they were pilgrims. They didn't look for an earthly home here, but they were minded for a heavenly one. They looked up and higher than this world. And that was always their goal. That was always what they were striving to look for and to talk about and to think about. We're also to be a kingdom of priests. What is the duty of a priest? It ties in with what we've said before, to represent God to men and women in terms of teaching God's Word, of being examples of faith. But we are also to represent man to God in our roles in prayer, in pleading with those, in pleading with God for those who cannot plead for themselves. but we're also to be like Noah. I've been preaching about Noah recently in our home church. He wasn't called to save this world. We aren't to save this world by redeeming the world, the culture or the society. What are we called? Exactly the same as Noah, to sound the warning and flee away. The same way that if there was a flood warning or something like that, you wouldn't cling on to your precious possessions, maybe your children, maybe your wife, I'll grant you that one, but everything else is not worth your life. You run away to the shelter, the alarms are going, everything, even your own instincts are telling you, we need to run away, we need to get away from this place. Exactly the same way we treat this world. We sound the warning to those around us. Friend, this world is dying, it's doomed. Look how shallow everything is. Look how it's all ripping itself to pieces. There has to be more than this world tapping into those instincts that is inside every single human being. The instinct that there is something there. We don't know what kind of a God it is, but there is something there. That instinct that there is more to this life. And we show people the reality of these things. Just before I draw to a conclusion, I want to tell you something remarkable that is tied in with this remembering. God, who cannot forget the least thing, He is not like us with how faulty our memory is. We forget things all the time. Even well-intentioned promises, so easily we forget. And as you get older, the forgetfulness gets worse. I can't claim that one. My remembering is bad as it is. This is why so many of us grow easy with our sins, because we forget just how offensive they are. But God cannot forget a single sin. No one will escape that punishment for any one of our sins. But then wonder of all wonders, when we repent and we turn away from our sin and we turn towards God, he takes those sins and he places them as far as the east is from the west from us. God who cannot forget. where it is impossible for him to forget. He casts all our sins into the sea of his forgetfulness, if you can say it like that. If you don't believe me, or you think this cannot be true, go have a look at Hebrews 8.12 or Hebrews 11, talking about conversion. God declares that sins paid for at Calvary, he will not think on them. He will not remember about them anymore. They are dealt with once and for all gone, never to be brought up with Him again. Shouldn't that be an encouragement to anyone here this morning who says, my sins are so terrible, now I've angered God once too often. If you are willing to repent and turn from your sins, the Lord will cast them away from you and they never be brought up again. But the Christian life is full of memories and Ebenezers. Maybe it's time to revisit some of them in your own lives to see how good the Lord has been to you. Maybe we do need to be jolted by them or encouraged by them, but Ebenezers and remembrings are a vital part of the Christian walk. As we close, let's sing our final hymn this morning, which is hymn 659.