Stones of Rememberance

So, what is the hymn “Come Thou Fount” referring to with this obscure and unfamiliar phrase about raising an Ebenezer?

When you hear the word Ebenezer, you probably think of Scrooge from Dicken’s Christmas Carol. Not too many people name their sons Ebenezer these days. But in Scripture we find this word in 1 Samuel 7:12:

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far has the Lord helped us.”

Literally the word Ebenezer means “Stone of Help.” Samuel set up—or raised—this stone as a memorial, a marker-stone, to commemorate the Israelite victory over the Philistines. This was not a stone to be worshiped; it was not to make a certain place holy, like a Mecca. But Samuel knew well that the Israelites were very prone to forget God’s goodness and blessings. So, he raised this stone as an everlasting reminder of how God had helped them win this victory.

I’d like to talk about Ebenezer stones—or stones of remembrances—for our own lives, by looking at the life of Moses. There were some definite Ebenezer stones in his life—stones of remembrance, stones when God helped him. And these turning points in his life relate to ours as well. As we look at Moses’ stones of remembrance, consider how your own life may have some similar ones.

The Stone of Salvation

You are no doubt familiar with the story of how Moses’s life was saved as a baby by a very creative mother and sister. When Pharaoh’s daughter saw baby Moses in the basket on the Nile, she took him into Pharaoh’s home and raised him as one of her own. He was physically saved, so there would be a Stone of Salvation for Moses.

Do you have a Stone of Salvation? I’m talking about salvation from the penalty of your sins. Can you tell of a time when you were made aware of your sins, where you were convicted of your sinful condition, and you knew you could not save yourself?

If you have not yet set up your stone of salvation, here’s all you have to do:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved (Romans 10:9-10).

The Stone of Shame

As Moses grew to manhood, he was educated as an Egyptian with all the privileges that came from being raised as Pharaoh’s daughter. But he never forgot that he was one of God’s chosen people, so he wanted to help his people. Pharaoh kept the Jewish people in bitter servitude, and they were sorely mistreated. One day when Moses saw an Egyptian beating one of his Hebrew brothers, he killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. He thought he was doing the right thing to defend his countryman, but the next day, when he saw two Hebrews fighting each other and tried to stop them, they turned on him and said, Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian? (Exodus 2:14).

Well, this just blew Moses away. He thought his murderous act was a secret, but now he realized it wasn’t, and when Pharaoh heard about it, he tried to kill Moses. So, Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he became a lowly, humble shepherd. For forty years Moses lived in exile in Midian.

Here Moses would need to raise a Stone of Shame.

Overnight Moses went from the prestigious position as Pharaoh’s grandson to that of a fugitive. He had disgraced himself by killing a man, and now he had lost his honor and position, and he was reduced to being a shepherd in a foreign land—for 40 long years.

Have you ever had a Stone of Shame in your life? I have. My period of shame lasted for about ten years. Ten years when I decided I could run my life better than God, and I walked away from my commitment to him and did my own thing. I told myself a lie and believed it—and the lie was that life would be intolerable as a single woman. There could be no happ