1 Samuel 7

1 Samuel 7:12

OF GOD’S MERCYA Thanksgiving Sermon1 Samuel 7:12I WANT to speak, this morning, on “Memorials of God’s mercy”. The Old Testament history from which I bring our text presents to us Samuel, who was priest and practically king; and who had just called back the people of Israel from their wicked ways; had harmonized their dissenting spirits, and around the recovered Ark, had established afresh the worship of the Father Jehovah.This revival of the national spirit in-Israel, and of Israel’s worship of Jehovah, so angered the neighboring Philistines that the text tells us “they drew near to battle against Israel”.The devout priest knew the source of infinite assistance; and seeing the enemy made his appeal to God, and the further record is,“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 Mispeh, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them, until they came under Bethcar.“Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mispeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us” (1 Samuel 7:10-12).That stone, like the twelve stones brought up from the bed of the Jordan, and builded into a monument on its bank, was a memorial, and was set to speak to all passers-by of God’s deliverance; to mark the place where Israel had known Divine favor. It was an emphatic recognition of the intervention of Providence on behalf of this people. It was an example worthy the imitation of favored men in all generations.We build monuments to the memory of great events. They more often commemorate Samuel than Samuel’s God; more often bring renown to Bethcar, the battlefield, than to the Holy One who gave the victory.It is my purpose this morning to plead for memorials of Divine mercy; for the proper recognition of that Providence which points out the way and administers to each advantage.No other day in the year is more suitable to such thought than this Thanksgiving morning, and I ask you to join with me in building out of our thoughts memorials to the intervention of that God whose mercies have characterized another twelve month.First of all inPERSONAL Life has not been a dead level these twelve long months. Since last Thanksgiving variations in trial, temptation, fear and suffering; in victory, steadfastness, courage and conquest, have characterized the life of each; and those victories and conquests have come from God.No greater thing can happen to men than to have a visit from the Holy One, and the event is worthy of memorial.

Shall we not think back this morning to see what has happened, and wherein He has helped? Can any one of us recall the multitude of His mercies?Mark Guy Pierce was walking home from church one night.

His little daughter, holding his hand, trudged at his side and tried desperately to keep up. Looking up into his face she said, “Papa, I want to count the stars.” “All right, darling,” replied Mr. Pierce; so she began. “One, two, three, four, five”, and after a while the father heard her say, “213, 214, 215”, and then she let out a great sigh, “Oh, papa, they are too many. I can’t count ‘em.”Is it not so of the mercies of my God in the past twelve months? But some of them are stars of such magnitude that we can plainly see them.The spared life! Surely we will not forget this mercy.

The dread archer—Death, has drawn his bow on a multitude, but every arrow has missed you and me.He has even singled out some from our social circles and struck down some from the sweet family and church circles, and yet we have stood unharmed, save for our sorrow. The arrow in this incident, or that, has passed very near to us and put us in jeopardy for a moment, but we escaped unscathed; or, if it has wounded us and left us on beds of suffering for weeks, yet by God’s grace we have been restored and stand up to-day in a new lease of life.

Is there not occasion here for a memorial of Divine mercy?Doubtless some in this house have fared better than did the servant of Job, and need not to say, “I only am escaped alone”, but have brought through this past year person, family and friends, without the loss of one, and hence are saying, “God has been good.” It is well-nigh a pity that we can’t appreciate our own preservation until somebody else is stricken at our very side.Many seasons ago, an aunt came from Cincinnati to visit at our Kentucky home. The train she left at the little station was wrecked ten minutes later and there was a great loss of life. When she heard of the sad circumstance, she poured out her very soul in expression of gratitude to the God who had taken her from the train before it plunged to destruction; and yet, the preservation of that day was no greater than she enjoyed every time she ever travelled on a railroad train. Every day you spend, every hour I spend in health and prosperity, as the special object of God’s favor, is occasion for this morning’s text, and with the down-going of the sun, we are ingrates indeed, if we say not from a heart full to over-flowing, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us”. Personal preservation! That is the occasion for a memorial of Divine mercy.THE FAMILY CIRCLEWhat is its message this morning?

If there is anything in this world that is more precious to a man than personal existence, it is the house to which he belongs—the blood of his blood—the bone of his bone—the kinships into which God has bound him. That is especially true of the husband and father; and in most instances, still more true of the wife and mother.

Everything that affects that strange, sweet, little circle for weal or woe, stirs him or stirs her to song or sob. What has come to it in the past year? With some of you an increase has come. A little one has been added to the house, and some of us have seen our children saved this year. God never gives better occasion for gratitude, for memorials of Divine mercy, than when that same immortal is born again, born from above, “not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”.In Israel of old, when a child was given, they brought it unto the Lord and offered it in dedication, and the parents laid on the altar of God some gift by which to express their gratitude. When Hannah found her little Samuel come as God’s message of mercy, she offered three bullocks, an ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, as a memorial of the same.

There was occasion for even greater gift— occasion for such gratitude as that mother in Israel knew. It is a great thing when an immortal life is launched on the sea of time, and started toward the haven of eternity.

It is a great day when life is enriched by the new relation of father or mother, or brother or sister.You know the Cunarders are perhaps the most noted line of steamers that sail the high seas. Some reckon their success to business skill and sagacity, but I will opine a truer secret is in the circumstances that Mrs. Cunard used to spend a day in prayer for God’s blessing upon every new vessel that went off the ways to the ocean wave, and christened it with her tears.Oh, young mothers and fathers, have you done less for the immortal crafts who have started this year on the long voyage? And when you have seen them set out in health and happiness, have you not hastened back to the beginning—to the birthday— and set up there a memorial of God’s mercy?Then this year, how has the family fared? Have they had food, and clothing, and comfortable home? Has health inhabited the house and touched one little blossom into richer beauty, and matured another into the fragrance of fuller life, flowering him or her into youth?

Or, if sickness has visited the home, has the Son of God come to rebuke the same and raise up those Satan thought to destroy; or, if death itself has been there to do his destructive work, has his visit caused you to call for Christ, as did Mary and Martha, and have Him come to say, “I am the Resurrection, and the Life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die”, and with His word of promise sweep out the sorrow, and start in your bosom a song of hope and joy by showing you that the loved one was not dead, but evermore alive?A friend of mine attended a funeral some time ago, and at its close he said to the father, “You have just three children left, have you?” To which the man of faith replied, “Oh, no, I still have four. We have not lost our child.

He is even more our own in the arms of Christ than if he were here in his cradle”. “Nearer, my God, to thee,Nearer to Thee!E’en though it be a cross That raiseth me;Still all my song shall be,Nearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer to Thee!“There let the way appear,Steps unto heaven;All that Thou sendest me,In mercy given;Angels to beckon me,Nearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer to Thee!“Then, with my waking thoughts Bright with Thy praise,Out of my stony griefs Bethel I’ll raise;So by my woes to be Nearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer to Thee!”THE SPHERE OF !What can be said of that, in the light of the times and from the lesson of the text? It is said that the times upon which we have fallen are hard and full of trial, and there are few who care to question the statement. Yet I do declare that a man reviewing his experience in the marts of trade for the past twelve months, ought to find here and there a place and an experience calling for memorials of God’s mercy. For some, that is not difficult.The man whose business has been prosperous, or who in professional attainments has made progress, or before whom higher position has opened, readily consents to the erection of memorials of mercy. He sees that all about him are his fellows in lesser favor—men who have known hard knocks, who have cut in twain their personal privileges, who have curtailed all possible expenses, who have put living at lower points and strained credit almost to a crash, and many of them altogether to bankruptcy. It ought not be difficult, then, for the man who has prospered, when prosperity was the exception, to remember God and* say, “Hitherto hath He led me”; to be moved to the erection of monuments in memory of His mercies; to be willing to lay in them his silver and his gold that God thereby might be honored.I have noticed, in my own denomination, that the richer have borne a larger share in all the missionary and benevolent enterprises of the church these last few years, than ever before since I can remember.

That means that they have some sense of God’s great mercy to them, and are willing to lay down their silver and gold in evidence of their gratitude. The Lord pity him who does otherwise.

The Lord spare the successful man, whose soul is being reduced and whose spirit is subsidized by his very success, until he shall see his mistake and be saved through sacrifice.The man who has been able to hold his own in the business world this year has occasion for memorials of mercy when such a multitude are sliding backward in business interests and prospects. The man who cannot go forward, but is holding his ground, ought to be grateful. I appreciate the difficulty, in this money-mad Western world, of our accepting such a statement, but really it has excellent occasion. There are 200,000 people today in this city who would be rendered happy indeed if they could be assured that twelve months hence they would still be in possession of what they now have. All men having that confidence should fall upon the philosophy of the old colored man, who managed to keep himself happy in every time of trouble by saying, “Bless de Lawd, it am no wus”.A favorite story of my teacher, Dr. John A.

Broadus, related to President Madison, who, it seems, was subject to many diseases in his later years, and suffered many things from many physicians, but was nothing bettered. Among these physicians was an old friend of the Ex-President, who sent Mr.

Madison some vegetable pills, and begged that he try them and let him know the result. In due time the Doctor received a most carefully written and felicitous note, in which Mr. Madison said, “My dear friend, I thank you very much for that box of pills. I have taken them every one, and while I cannot say that I am any better since taking them, it is quite possible I might have been worse if I had not; and so I beg you to accept my gratitude.” “Really”, argued Dr. Broadus, “that is not a mere pleasantry. There is always something known or unknown but for which our condition would have been worse, and that something constitutes an occasion for gratitude”.

Look back over the year! Recall the trials of this time and tell me, would not your affairs and mine have fallen lower, but for one fact, namely, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us”.

Then a stone in memory of His mercy!But there are those who have gone into bankruptcy this year. Is there any comfort for them, or occasion for making, this day, memorials of mercy? Certainly, there may be!In a multitude of instances, there is the greatest occasion. The men who have failed in business are by no means the worst off among us. “A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth”. The loss of earthly gains often means the gain of Heavenly graces. I have known men in whom bankruptcy wrought humility; for whom business failure produced a greater sweetness of spirit, a broader sympathy with the poor and suffering, a truer sense of Providence in all our affairs.In Louisville, Ky., in New Albany, Ind., in Lafayette, Ind., in Bloomington, Ill., in Chicago and in Minneapolis, wherever God has set me down to speak the Gospel, I have come to know men who discovered their purest riches in consequence of having lost something of the wealth of this world.

Some of the best men in my church today are men on whose character business misfortunes have wrought with beauty. Financial reverses quite often produce spiritual recoveries for which we ought to thank God.A man who takes inventory at the end of a year and finds his bank account in the First National of his city flat, but his credit with God fuller than ever before, is the most prosperous man to be found.

Ah, it is better to be a good man than a millionaire; better to grow in grace, than to accumulate gold; better to know and yield to a Divine guidance, than discover acres of diamonds; better to feel the Father’s love, than to fill the coffers with earthly treasure.It is said that Cyrus gave to one of his generals a cup of gold, and to another a kiss. The former complained that he had received the lesser favor, and indeed he was right. And if, this past year, your gold has gone and your silver has been swept away, but you have felt the kiss of the everlasting God upon your brow, stand up today with the Samuels of the land and set up the stone to mark the spot of the Father’s visit and sing in joyful note, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us”.What matters it how much we lose of earth’s treasures, if only we know the favor of the Father whose wealth is the world’s?Sometime since, when a certain business man was in hard straits and some acquaintances were expressing their sympathy for him, and fear regarding his future, one who knew him and his, answered, “Oh, he’s in no danger, for he has a rich father and that father will come to his relief whenever he is called”. But, beloved, those words were not half so true as he employed them, as they are when we who are God’s children use them. “My Father is rich in houses and lands.He holdeth the wealth of the world, in His hands!Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold,His coffers are full, He has riches untold.”It is said that during the famine in Canaan, Joseph ordered his officers to throw wheat and chaff on the waters of the Nile that the people below might see that there was plenty above.What if your finances are short, Eternity will not exhaust the riches of your Father’s grace. “A tent or a cottage, why should I care?They’re building a palace for me over there!Though exiled from home, yet still I may sing:All glory to God, I’m a child of the King.” What of that, in the light of this text? Are we any stronger in Christ than twelve months since? Is the Holy Spirit any more to us today than then? Are the fruits of the Spirit more apparent in our lives, or more abundant? If not, weeping becomes us; but if so, stones of memorial and songs of joy! Many here have been saved since last Thanksgiving. Surely you have occasion of gratitude to God. This past year you will never forget in time or in eternity.

So long as I am sane, I shall remember the day my father set down in the Family Bible, to mark my first birth; and so long as eternity runs, I shall rejoice in the hour recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life to mark the second birth.In the city of Chicago, I baptized into my church one winter three men who came out of the deepest darkness and the most damnable lives. But their regeneration was truly the work of the Holy Ghost, and after it, they were as godly as before it they had been godless. Sometimes I introduced them about to this Christian and that as new converts, and had occasion to say, “Kenna or Sullivan, how long have you been a Christian now?” and invariably they answered by telling me the number of months, days and hours since they were born of the Spirit; and if you could have seen the shining of their faces when they referred to that wonderful work, you could have understood something of their joy.Oh, beloved, born of God this year, yours is occasion of gratitude, indeed, and whatever others do, you can set up today a stone in memory of His mercy, saying, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us”.Then some have grown in grace, in the knowledge of the Word. This year you have offered yourself in consecration; your progress is perceptible. The Holy Ghost has called you to higher ground and you have answered. He has taken the things of Christ and showed them unto you as you never saw them before.

He has revealed unto you the affection of the Father and you have felt it in all its sweetness. The very mountains that seemed obstacles a year since He has helped you to scale, and they have been turned into points of elevation on which you stand to survey a larger horizon of the Christ-life.

He has led you out into personal work. He has taught you the great truth that God loveth a cheerful giver. He has given you the joy of seeing souls surrender to your appeal.And for some He has said, “Come into the Gospel ministry and dispense blessing to others while I put threefold mercies upon you”. Shall ye not then erect memorials to our God?As teachers in our Sunday School classes; as many whose testimony is needed in prayer-meeting; as the saved who watch for the souls of others; as children of the Father, privileged to put up our petitions to Him; as agents of redemption called to preach the Gospel at home or abroad; as members of the church of the redeemed led into experiences richer and sweeter than ever known to any save the saints of God—shall we not remember mercy and establish our memorials by offering labor, love and life?Henry Ward Beecher tells of visiting the church of the Succoring Virgin, in one of the cities of France. He found the whole church filled with tablets. Here was one erected by an officer who had been in the battle of Inkerman and came out of those three terrible days unscathed.

He hastened to erect this tablet “To the memory of the Virgin’s mercy in preserving my life”. Here is another which reads, “My child was sick.

I called to Mary, the Mother of God. She helped me, and my child is alive”. Everywhere he found tablets telling what Mary had done. It was a beautiful thing, and Beecher says, “As I read those inscriptions, tears came from my eyes like drops from a spice-bush when shaken on a dewy morning.” But, beloved, shall the children of superstition set up to the saints more memorials of mercy than we raise to the everlasting God, who is our Father, and the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and who has proven Himself precious to us in our person, in our homes, in the marts of trade and in our spiritual experiences? Shall we not recall today what He hath wrought and make this Thanksgiving time tell of His mercies; and shall we not say that having received, we will give, and will offer ourselves, and every possession put into our power, to the end of annihilating earth’s sorrows, staunching her wounds, destroying her sins and bringing her to the salvation of the everlasting God?In memory of the unspeakable mercies of the past, is it not in our hearts to sing, “Come, thou fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise;Teach me some melodious sonnet, Sung by flaming tongues above;Praise the mount,—I’m fixed upon it!Mount of God’s unchanging love.“Here I raise my Ebenezer, Hither by Thy help I’ve come;And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home.Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God;He to rescue me from danger, Interposed His precious blood.“O, to grace how great a debtor Daily I’m constrained to be!Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee.Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; Prone to leave the God I love;Here’s my heart; oh, take and seal it; Seal it for Thy courts above.”