Sometimes, the old hymns inspire deep thought! Have you ever asked yourself, “what IS an ebenezer and just what IS a speriwinkle?”
Because inquiring minds just GOTTA know, I’ve been looking through all the research and study STUFF so I can learn.
Ebenezer, (here I lift my ebenezer) in the popular old hymn, “Come Thou Font of Every Blessing,” I finally found in I Samuel 7:12-14. It translates as, “rock of help,” and is self explanatory as a memorial of victory for the Israelites over the Philistines.
But, speriwinkles? Ohhhhh, the hours I’ve spent searching! Again, a word from one of those precious old hymns; but, unlike ebenezer, a speriwinkle is not so easy to find. No such word is found in the Greek language or in doctrine; at least as far as I can tell, with my limited theological education.
After having exhausted my futile search, I began to look up the words surrounding the elusive “speriwinkle.” With renewed fervor for research I grabbed my trusty concordance and looked up “glorious.” At last, I found it! It’s a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle, not speriwinkles!
The old hymn, like so many others, is actually backed by scripture, (Ephesians 5:27) “-that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”
The church, us, you and me, washed in the blood of the lamb, without spot or wrinkle. It’s so easy to see other peoples’ ‘speriwinkles.’ But, I find that when I ask the Spirit to show me my own sins every day, the sins of others don’t bother me nearly as much. Jesus died on the cross so that MY sins could be washed away. All I have to do is, well, accept it! Do you have speriwinkles? God has a fix for that, just ask..
Romans 10: 8-9 But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.