Rev. Eric Landry - October 22, 2023
1 Samuel 7:3-17
One of my favorite hymns is “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” The modern Christian hymn writer, Fernando Ortega, has a beautiful rendition of it that I enjoy listening to and I always appreciate when we sing it at Redeemer. But there’s a line in the hymn that causes some folks to stumble: “Here I raise my Ebenezer; hither by thy help I’m come; and I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.” For English-speakers, especially, the mention of “Ebenezer” makes us think of Charles Dickens’s classic character in “A Christmas Carol.” The term, however, isn’t about a person. It’s about a thing—a monument that helps Israel to remember God’s faithfulness to them. This week we turn to the passage of Scripture that speaks of the Ebenezer memorial stone and we’ll consider why it’s always a good time to remember God’s faithfulness to us.
From Series: "The Gospel According to Samuel"
This week, we begin a new sermon series in the Old Testament book of First Samuel. Eventually, we will hear the stories of King David and Solomon, the building of the Temple, and the glory of Israel under God’s blessing in the land of promise. But we begin during the time of the Judges when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
