1 Samuel 7:12
Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Where that gray stone stands no man knows today, but its name lives for ever. This trophy bore no vaunts of leader’s skill or soldier’s bravery. One name only is associated with it. It is ‘the stone of help,’ and its message to succeeding generations is: “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.”
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): The “hitherto” included all through which they had passed, not the victories only, but the discipline and the suffering also.
J. R. MILLER (1840-1912): Just now we are looking back over the story of a closing year. What have we given the days to keep for us? What lessons of wisdom have we learned from them, as one by one they have passed. There is little good in worrying over the failures of the year, but we ought to learn from our past―there is a proper use of past experiences.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: The best use of memory is to mark more plainly than it could be seen at the moment, the divine help which has filled our lives. Like some track on a mountain side, it is less discernible to us, when treading it, than when we look at it from the other side of the glen. Many parts of our lives, that seemed unmarked by any consciousness of God’s help while they were present, flash up into clearness when seen through the revealing light of memory, and gleam purple in it, while they looked but bare rocks as long as we were stumbling among them. It is blessed to remember, and to see everywhere God’s help. We do not remember aright unless we do. The stone that commemorates our lives should bear no name but one, and this should be all that is read upon it: “Now unto Him that kept us from falling, unto Him be glory!”
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Perhaps you are like the Welsh woman who said that the Ebenezers which she had set up at the places where God had helped her were so thick that they made a wall from the very spot she began with Christ to that she had then reached! Is it so with you? Then talk—talk you of all His wondrous works! I am sure you would find such talk most interesting, most impressive, and most instructive, for the things we have seen and experienced, ourselves, generally wear a novelty and abound in interest beyond any narrative we get from books, or any unauthenticated story we pick up secondhand. Tell them how God has led you, fed you, and brought you to this day—and would not let you go!
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Reader! how many Ebenezers have you and I erected of deliverances and mercies? Alas! if we cannot point to very, very many, it is not because our gracious God hath afforded no remarkable occasions for them; but because they have passed by unnoticed and disregarded from our ungrateful and unworthy minds. How much owest thou unto my Lord? is a question, I would pray for grace to put to my soul in the close of every day and night.
C. H. SPURGEON: Is not this a very common fault with us? Do we not too often forget what the Lord has done for us in times past? Do we not forget those Ebenezers?
J. R. MILLER: We should remember past mercies and blessings. If we do, our past will shine down upon us like a sky full of stars. Such remembering of the past will keep the gratitude ever fresh in our heart, and the incense of praise ever burning on the altar. Such a house of memory becomes a refuge to which we may flee in trouble. When sorrows gather thickly; when trials come on like the waves of the sea; when the sun goes down and every star is quenched, and there seems nothing bright in all the present, then the memory of a past full of goodness, a past in which God never once failed us, becomes a holy refuge for us, a refuge gemmed and lighted by the lamps of other and brighter days.
C. H. SPURGEON: The word “hitherto” seems like a hand pointing in the direction of the past. Twenty years or seventy, and yet, “hitherto the Lord hath helped!” Through poverty, through wealth, through sickness, through health, at home, abroad, on the land, on the sea, in honour, in dishonour, in perplexity, in joy, in trial, in triumph, in prayer, in temptation, “hitherto hath the Lord helped us!” We delight to look down a long avenue of trees. It is delightful to gaze from end to end of the long vista, a sort of verdant temple, with its branching pillars and its arches of leaves; even so look down the long aisles of your years, at the green boughs of mercy overhead, and the strong pillars of lovingkindness and faithfulness which bear up your joys. Are there no birds in yonder branches singing? Surely there must be many, and they all sing of mercy received “hitherto.” But the word also points forward. For when a man gets up to a certain mark and writes “hitherto,” he is not yet at the end, there is still a distance to be traversed.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: “Hitherto” means more than it says. It looks forward as well as backward, and sees the future in the past. Memory passes into hope, and the radiance in the sky behind throws light on to our forward path. God’s “hitherto” carries ‘henceforward’ wrapped up in it. His past reveals the eternal principles which will mould His future acts. He has helped, therefore He will help, is no good argument concerning men; but it is valid concerning God.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. And we trust He will do so still; for every former mercy is a pledge of a future mercy.
J. R. MILLER: We are leaving the old year behind, but we are not leaving Christ in the dead year. We need not be afraid, therefore, to go forward, if we go with Him.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): How many Ebenezers have we been called upon to rear to His praise! And He has said, He will never leave us nor forsake us. And, oh, what a prospect lies before us! When by His counsel He has guided us through life, He will receive us to His kingdom, give us a crown of glory, and place us near Himself, to see Him as He is, and to be satisfied with His love for ever.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: That “hitherto” is the word of a mighty faith.
C. H. SPURGEON: Let not the new year’s midnight peals sound upon a joyless spirit!
JOHN NEWTON: He who hath helped thee hitherto,
Will help thee all thy journey through;
And give thee daily cause to raise
New Ebenezers to His praise.
