We often sing an old hymn that has a reference to Ebenezer: this far by the LORD we have come. The idea of this, a sign, a stone, showing where we have got to comes from the battle of Mirzpah.
The circumstances of the battle are important. The people of Israel wanted to see the ark again at Shiloh. So they went to Samuel, the prophet and Judge. He said to them: put away your Gods. Repent. Seek the LORD.
As they were seeking the LORD, their Philistine overlords sent their army to destroy them. For the repentant people cause the great of this world to fear. But they were routed.
The Ebenezer was a stone set to mark this: a memorial. The Romans would have put up a victory arch, but Samuel would no graven image make, for God commanded that this did not happen.
2From the day that the ark was lodged at Kiriath-jearim, a long time passed, some twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD.
3Then Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the LORD with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Astartes from among you. Direct your heart to the LORD, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” 4So Israel put away the Baals and the Astartes, and they served the LORD only.
5Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray to the LORD for you.” 6So they gathered at Mizpah, and drew water and poured it out before the LORD. They fasted that day, and said, “We have sinned against the LORD.” And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah.
7When the Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it they were afraid of the Philistines. 8The people of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry out to the LORD our God for us, and pray that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.” 9So Samuel took a sucking lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the LORD; Samuel cried out to the LORD for Israel, and the LORD answered him. 10As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel; but the LORD thundered with a mighty voice that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion; and they were routed before Israel. 11And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, and struck them down as far as beyond Beth-car.
12Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, and named it Ebenezer; for he said, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.” 13So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel; the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. 14The towns that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron to Gath; and Israel recovered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. There was peace also between Israel and the Amorites.
15 Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. 16He went on a circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah; and he judged Israel in all these places. 17Then he would come back to Ramah, for his home was there; he administered justice there to Israel, and built there an altar to the LORD.
Do we have enemies? Are the Philistines coming over the hill? Yes and No.
We have enemies, and as Clive James notes, they are ridiculous.
Compulsorily retired now from the climate scene, Dr Rajendra Pachauri was a zany straight from Swift, by way of a Bollywood remake of The Party starring the local imitator of Peter Sellers: if Dr Johnson could have thought of Pachauri, Rasselas would be much more entertaining than it is. Finally and supremely, Tim Flannery could have been invented by Swift after ten cups of coffee too many with Stella. He wanted to keep her laughing. Swift projected the projectors who now surround us.
They came out of the grant-hungry fringe of semi-science to infect the heart of the mass media, where a whole generation of commentators taught each to other to speak and write a hyperbolic doom-language (“unprecedented”, “irreversible”, etc) which you might have thought was sure to doom them in their turn. After all, nobody with an intact pair of ears really listens for long to anyone who talks about “the planet” or “carbon” or “climate denial” or “the science”. But for now — and it could be a long now — the advocates of drastic action are still armed with a theory that no fact doesn’t fit. The theory has always been manifestly unfalsifiable, but there are few science pundits in the mass media who could tell Karl Popper from Mary Poppins. More startling than their ignorance, however, is their defiance of logic. You can just about see how a bunch of grant-dependent climate scientists might go on saying that there was never a Medieval Warm Period even after it has been pointed out to them that any old corpse dug up from the permafrost could never have been buried in it. But how can a bunch of supposedly enlightened writers go on saying that? Their answer, if pressed, is usually to say that the question is too elementary to be considered.
Is the enemy coming over the hill? No. The enemy is already among us and hates the west, and wants to silence anyone who tells the people to take away their idols to the dungheap and to turn again to the LORD. The narrative must be as preserved as it mutates, from global cooling to global warming to climate change.
You can tell how far the enemy has come by the burned buildings and cars. And you can tell how far the restoration has occurred if you can safely and hygienically use a public toilet.
But know this: it is God who gives the victory. Our nature is to burn and destroy and steal. It is only through the grace of God that our conscience is quickened and we return to God, grieving for our own acts. Choosing life over this narrative, this guarnateed anomie, and the death of civilization.