Regis could have used this brainteaser on his quiz show. "What is the significance of "Ebenezer" to the Bible student? Is that your final answer? Do you want to use a lifeline?"

A most enduring hymn, O Thou Fount of Every Blessing, begins its second verse with a confident claim: "Here I raise my Ebenezer; Hither by Thy help I've come." But what in the world is an Ebenezer; is it some obscure Dickensian reference?

Because we sing that hymn so often, it is important that each of us understand the reference. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:15, "I will sing with the spirit and I will also sing with the understanding." As singing hymns in a foreign language you do not comprehend is dangerous, so is singing them in English if certain words are not understood.

To sing with the spirit and understanding is closely related to Christ's admonition that his disciples worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24). That required combination of emotion and authority does not end when the piano is rolled out of the auditorium; it continues as the song books are opened and the song leader raises his hand.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my English teacher, Mrs. Jackson, graded a speech I had given and wrote on the report, "You have a mellifluous voice." I went around all day showing that to people and then went home and told my parents what she had written, all the while swelling with pride. Of course, I had no idea what mellifluous meant. Luckily, it turned out to be good. Yet there was every chance it was not and I was making a fool out of myself. Suppose mellifluous actually means, "your voice is like the braying of a donkey."

When we lift our voices to heaven, it is important that we understand the words we are pronouncing, for the words are everything in musical worship. So long as you are doing your best, a missed note will not cause the Lord any displeasure. A false message, however, will.

Robert Robinson wrote O Thou Fount of Every Blessing in about 1758. Robinson was a Methodist and Baptist preacher throughout much of his confused life and penned the words of this great hymn at the age of 23. His earlier years were far from pious, however.

When Robinson was 14, his mother sent him to London to learn barbering. While there, he became associated with a notorious gang and assumed a life of debauchery. Three years later, his life changed, temporarily, when he attended a Methodist meeting and was persuaded to join them.

Although he was only 23, this great hymn's second verse surely fit his experience. "Here I raise my Ebenezer; Hither by they help I've come." Robinson was comparing his own difficult life to the travels and travails of ancient Israel. Following an unlikely victory over the Philistines, made possible only by a confusing thunderclap from Jehovah upon the heathen, "Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, 'Thus far the Lord has helped us'" (1 Samuel 7:12).

That sentiment and its symbolic imitation committed in every singing of the hymn can probably find a warm place in all our hearts. Who among us cannot reflect upon times of our lives or dire occasions when the Almighty took us by the hand and led us through dark valleys? If you understand the lyrics, every time you sing verse 2 of O Thou Fount of Every Blessing, you are standing beside Solomon and erecting your own "Stone of Help" to recall the providential blessing of God.

The original lyrics of the third verse were strangely prophetic of the writer's later life. He wrote, "Prone to wander-Lord, I feel it; Prone to leave the God I love." Robinson fell away from his convictions, as he grew older, returning to sin and the doctrines of Unitarianism.

"The story is told that Robinson was one day riding a stagecoach when he noticed a woman deeply engrossed with a hymnbook. During an ensuing conversation the lady turned to Robinson and asked what he thought of the hymn she was humming. Robinson burst into tears and said, 'Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then" (101 Hymn Stories, Kenneth Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982).

Robinson had accidentally stumbled back upon that Ebenezer of his. Sitting there beside it, he realized how far he had wandered and how awful was his journey and destination.

Spend a few moments today thinking about the reasons for raising your own Ebenezer and the next time you sing Robinson's hymn, the second verse will have much more meaning to you.