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Battle him of the Republic. Hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on. I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps. They have built in him an altar in the evening do's and amps. I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. His day is marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His day is marching on. He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat. He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat. Oh, be swift my soul to answer him. Be jubilant my feet. Our God is marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea with the glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me. As he died to make men holy let us die to make men free while God is marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! While God is marching on. Good seeing this evening, let's open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father thank you for this day and thank you so much for our church, that we are in a church that's in the spiritual battle. I pray that you'd help us to continue to be faithful in the fight and just give us strength. Lord bless the service. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, for our second song, we'll go to 150 My faith has found a resting place. 150 My faith has found a resting place. Song 150 My faith has found a resting place. My faith has found a resting place. Song 150 My faith has found a resting place. Not in device nor creed. I trust the ever living one. His wounds for me shall plead. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. Enough for me that Jesus saves. This ends my fear and doubt. So thy come to him. He'll never cast me out. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. My heart is leaning on the word, the written word of God. Salvation by my Savior's name. Salvation through his blood. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. My great physician heals the sick. The lost he came to save. For me his precious blood he shed. For me his life he gave. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. I need no other argument. 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So God always wants to recompense people according to what they deserve. Now the only exception to that would be when you get the grace of God. So the grace of God goes beyond justice. And you know what? Praise God that we don't all get what we deserve. I mean, if I got what I deserved, I would go to hell. Because the Bible says for the wages of sin is death. But I don't have to go to hell because I get God's grace. But here's the thing. In order to even have grace, you have to have justice too. Because without justice, then grace is meaningless. If I don't deserve hell, then why do I need God's grace? I don't. I need God's grace because I do deserve hell. If I owe ten dollars and someone says, you know what? You only have to give me nine. Now that's gracious. Whereas if someone just says give me nine dollars and I don't owe them anything, that's not gracious. Because it's like, what do you mean? I don't owe you any money. So the only way for something to even be gracious is for there to be a just recompense, for there to be an equitable recompense onto your transgression. That's why God gives us the law. He helps us understand why these things exist. In a society, you must have equitable recompenses for the crimes of your area. Otherwise, you're going to have evil taking over your society and taking over your nation. In our nation, we don't have equitable punishments for crimes. So therefore, you have a lot of evil going unpunished and a lot of bad things happening. When you let murder get off the hook, you don't punish murder with the death penalty, then you end up having more murder than you should in a society. When you don't punish rape with the death penalty, you have more rape in a society than you should. And so of course, in a human society, you have to have equitable laws. It's frustrating to me how many Christians I talk to and they get all squeamish about the laws in the Old Testament. They're like, well I just think that we would all deserve death, so we can't have the death penalty for anybody. And I'm thinking like, well first of all, Romans 6.23 is not talking about civil punishment. It is not saying having a bad thought, you're worthy of dying. Physically. It's talking about how we all deserve hell for our punishment. That's why it's important to understand the word death there really means hell. It's not talking about capital punishment. Whereas in the Old Testament, yeah, having a bad thought was still a sin, but you know what? There was no physical punishment. There was no thought police. There was no censorship, okay, in the Old Testament. You know, you could have bad thoughts all day long and, you know, you'd suffer consequences of that, but it wouldn't be from a human government perspective. And if you really took this ideology to its fullest extent, you're basically just believing in anarchy. Why would anybody want anarchy? And then they're like, well I don't believe in anarchy. And then it's like, okay, well then what laws are we gonna pick for our society? And it's like, well, I don't know. It's like, how about the ones that God gave us? You know, how is this not common sense? It was like, hey, God already gave us human laws of how society should govern itself. Why don't we just go based on his laws? And I mean, that's what America did do. At the beginning of its foundation, it basically said, hey, we can't write better laws than God did. Let's just take his laws and put them in our laws. And you know what? Our society was the best when we were doing that. And as we continually get our own laws and deviate from God's word, the more and more corrupt our society becomes and the more evil that we see rampant in our society. And so we have to have leaders that are just. Why is it also that we have a lot of problems in our society? It's because the district attorney, it's because the governor, it's because our state legislatures, it's because the federal attorneys, the attorney general of the United States, it's because all these individuals are not delivering just rulings. They're not giving equitable recompenses to the criminals in our society. And so therefore, evil is just permeating our society. And you know what? The reason why our society is so broken is because we don't elect people or put people in positions of authority based on these factors that the Bible laid out. What was the thing that said in 2 Samuel? Trust and ruling in the fear of God. Look at Exodus 18 verse 19. And place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And let them judge the people at all seasons. So we see a justice system in which there's a multiplicity of judges. Now this is very similar to how God wanted them to civilly rule over themselves in the land where they had a lot of judges. You had the whole book of judges and then even in America, society today, our system is based on these principles. What is the problem? And this is what frustrates me. A lot of people get mad at our system. Our system is not the problem. What's the problem is the men in that system. Because we don't have men that what? Fear God. We don't have men of truth. And we don't have men that hate covetousness. And all of those things is what ruins our entire system. Because the judges and the justices of our land take bribes and they run for office and they take all this money in and all this, you know, bribery comes through their channels and that basically influences their decisions. They're not making good decisions based on who's right and who's wrong. They're not making decisions on hating, coveting. You know, when someone offers them a bribe, instead of arresting them and throwing them in jail for committing a crime of offering a bribe to a judge, they take the bribe. They take the money. And you say, no, they're not taking bribes. Yes, they are. Because they'll walk up and they'll say, hey, you know, our company did some weird things this year but we're going to make a big donation to your campaign. So, look the other way. They're just like, okay, no problem. And then what happens? They get a big donation. Whereas, you know, people are willing to pay to not have a penalty given to them. I think I saw someone, someone shared this on Facebook. It was something about like a, I think it was a French company or something like that. They were giving, they were giving money to like terrorists, ISIS terrorists. And they got caught. And I think when I read the article, they had given ten million dollars to like fund ISIS terrorist groups or something like that through a front of their business that they had in one of the Middle Eastern countries. Well, they end up getting caught and they got litigated and this was their punishment. They have to pay seven hundred million dollars. And I was thinking like, you know, the penalty was they were funding murder and extortion and rape and then their punishment is just to give money. Is to just pay money. And I'm like, how is that an equitable judgment? It's like they're basically like, you know, and then of course, you know, the American government's never been involved in hurting, torturing or killing anybody. So I'm like, it's just, they were like, hey, we don't like you giving money to this bully. We're a bigger bully. Give us more money. And it's like they just took a bigger price. I mean, what kind of judge says, hey, you're involved in rape, murder and espionage. How much money are you willing to pay for me to not judge you? Oh, seven hundred million? Sure. I guess you won't have to go to jail if you give me seven hundred million dollars. And that's exactly how our system works today. You know, you pay money, you know, you get a DUI. If you just pay ten thousand dollars, it goes away. Whereas a poor person that commits a DUI, they have to go to jail. They have to get a criminal record. How is that just an equitable system where the poor person actually gets punished, but then the person that has money, they can essentially buy their way out of it. And look, that's the that's how it is on almost every criminal offense. If you get it, if you get charged or something and you can just pay your way out of it, they'll just let you pay your way out of it. And you just keep paying and paying and paying. And basically when you look at people that finally go to jail, it's they they ran out of money because they kept bailing, they kept getting people to bail them out or give them money or do whatever. And then finally they've sucked all the money out of these people and then they just throw them in jail. But you know what, they still make money on those people because in the prison industrial complex, you know what, someone built that prison. Someone is providing the meals for that institution. Someone is providing for all the services, for the beds, for the sheets, you know. I mean Jeffrey Epstein didn't hang himself, okay. Those sheets had to get in there somewhere, right? I mean the cameras, I mean these prisons have a lot of technology. They have someone selling them these products. So you don't think anybody's making money on that? You don't think anybody has any kind of desire for there to be more criminals in the justice system? I mean think about it. What if you specialize, your company makes prison food. How is your bottom line going to look next year if you say, you know what, we're going to put less people in prison. You're going to go out of business. So you say, you know, we need some more people to go to prison. You know, I'm going to keep making this crappy food for them. You know, I'm going to keep making these, you know. And then of course, not only is the prison system got all of that shenanigans going on, you can literally invest in the prison system. They literally have ways where you can buy money. You can like invest into the prison industrial complex. And I'll kid you not, many judges and justices in our country invest in prisons. They're putting money into companies that are basically funded by prisons. Talk about the wolf guarding the hen house here. I mean how does that, I mean he sends someone to prison and his bank account just went up a few bucks. So either you paid him and his bank account went up or he sends you to prison and his bank account goes up. But let me tell you something, the house always wins. And you know what, that is a crooked, that is a crooked situation. But it's not so much that the system is broken of having a judge and having him rule. It's the fact that this guy doesn't hate covetousness. It's that this guy's on the take. It's that this guy's not a man of truth. It's that this guy doesn't fear God at all. I mean to just take bribe after bribe after bribe and make incorrect judgment after incorrect judgment means you just don't fear God. And you know what is a problem in America is people just don't fear God at all. There is a zero fear of God it seems like in our country. Oh I don't go to church. Why? Because I don't fear God. You know why I lie? Because I don't fear God. You know why I don't do anything for God? It's because you just don't fear God. But you know what that is a foolish attitude because God is one to fear. And God will punish you and God will destroy your life. I mean show me all these people that are super happy not serving God. Why do they all look so miserable? You know and of course the leftist seems like the most miserable of all the people on the planet. Isn't it funny they seem to get all the things that they want and say they're still so miserable. You know it's like you know Trump gets off Twitter and it's like they're madder. They're more upset. You know and then they block 10 more people and then they're still upset. And they're like well now they have their own platform I'm still upset. You know they're still breathing air. They're just even more upset every single day. Nothing can appease these people. Why? Because there's no true satisfaction outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God's word. Go back to 2 Samuel chapter 23. We need leaders that are just and they're going to fear God and you know what we need that in every area. You know our soul winning leaders need to be men that hate covetousness and fear God. Evangelists and deacons of our church need to be people that hate covetousness and they're men of truth and they love God. And you know what I've seen some bad evangelists out there and you know what they always have a love of money. There's always something shady about the money. You know there's something weird about the money. And you know what it's not even coincidence that the shadiest guy of the Bible Judas Iscariot also was a thief and took the money out of the bag. So you know what how people treat money is a real good indication of what kind of a person they are. Why the love of money is the root of all evil. You know and people that love money are just going to be super wicked people. I mean who is the most wicked people on the planet. Jacob Jews. Right. Why because they love money so much. You know and of course that is that is the where you trace all evil. It just all comes from this just innate desire to just have so much money. But you know what God is not a god of money. We worship God. We don't worship money here. Oh well where's your fancy building. We don't worship money here. Oh well you know where's all your fancy car. You know I got I got made fun of by the protesters one day. They were like oh how come every other preacher drives a really nice car Pastor Shelley. I'm like because they love money. I don't know. What do you want me to say. I was like thinking like all the things to criticize me like why is that the one you pick. You know like I would think like you wouldn't be mad. I was like I know that if I had a nice car though they would be mad at me for that too. It's like you can't win with these people can you. It's like John the Baptist. This guy is beside himself and Jesus. You know he came eating and drinking. It's like you can't please these people. I could have the nicest car in the parking lot and they'd be mad at me. I could have the worst car in the parking lot and these people would matter because they're just mad at everything. But you know what a good leader is one who he's not going to let money influences decisions. You know if he had to exercise church discipline he's not going to wonder how much they tithe. He's just going to do it. You know when he when he decides how he's going to treat a person in church he doesn't worry about how much money they have or not. He's just going to do what's right. And so I always sometimes when I'm thinking about how I'm going to handle a person or a situation I try to envision them as the richest person in my church and the poorest person in my church. And sometimes I think like there's been times where I've thought like man I just really don't like this person or I need to be really I need to be really stern with this person. And I'm like I'm not being mad at them because they're poor are they. And I'm like no they're rich I'd want them out too. I was like okay you know that's that's my test of like okay am I going to treat this person properly. Because you know I wouldn't want to sit here and think like you know what I would be mean to this person if they are poor but if they are rich I'd be nice to them. You know that makes you a hypocrite that makes you a respecter of persons. Now you've got to think about how would I treat this person regardless of what money they have. Would I make the same kind of decision about them. And you know that's the best way to make judgments. Look at verse number four. And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun rises even a morning without clouds as the tender grass springeth out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Although my house be not so with God yet he hath made me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure for this is all my salvation and all my desire although he make it not to grow. I think what David is trying to say in verses four and five is that he's realizing it's not really about him. Because ultimately if we're going to have a just ruler fearing God and the world who's going to be the real fulfillment of that. It's the Lord Jesus Christ not David. Because look what he said in verse five. Although my house be not so with God. So he's basically saying like yeah I understand that's who you want to be the leader. I'm not really that guy though. Okay yet he hath made me an everlasting covenant. So he's like even though I'm not perfect somehow he made me an everlasting covenant. You know it kind of makes me think of salvation. Even though I'm not perfect God gave me an everlasting covenant when I believed in Jesus Christ I was saved forever. Now the covenant for David is a little bit different in the sense that the covenant specifically that his seed is going to always rule Israel. And that fulfillment is going to come with the Lord Jesus Christ and how the Lord Jesus Christ is going to rule forever. And he's saying this is going to happen. He said an everlasting covenant, order all things and sure meaning it's definitely going to happen. This is all my salvation and all my desire. Although he make it not to grow. And I think he's just kind of referencing how in his it's not really a physical fulfillment here that we're talking about so much. It's a spiritual fulfillment coming with Christ. Verse 6, but the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away because they cannot be taken with hands. So he's contrasting his seed with the seed of the devil and saying like we're going to have this everlasting covenant and we're going to last forever but the sons of Belial they're going to be destroyed in everlasting fire. Now thorns is always a picture of something that's just rejected. It's worthless. There's nothing of value. Thorns can represent a lot of different things in the Bible. In the very beginning of the Bible we have Adam and Eve and they sin and then God curses the ground and he talks about how the ground is going to bring forth a curse. There's a curse in the ground and it's going to bring forth thorns and thistles and things like that. He's going to actually have to till the ground and actually have to work. And that's kind of just a picture of the consequence of your sin. And there's nothing redeemable about sin itself. Sin itself is just a rejected thing. There's nothing beneficial about that. You know the Bible talks about in Luke chapter number 8 how the sower sows the word and he's really sowing it into the hearts of men but inside the hearts of some men are thorns and those thorns choke the word lest they become fruitful. And of course that thorn is not beneficial and he's talking about the cares of this life. So thorns can be a lot of different things. The Bible even likens the word of God unto a thorn. Some people will take this passage and they'll say thorns always are reprobates. That is a bad doctrine. Why? Well I can tell you that a thorn is the Bible because the Bible talks about in the book of Proverbs how as a thorn goes in the hand of a drunkard so is a parable in the mouth of fools. Meaning that the word of God in a parable form was like a thorn to a drunkard. But that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the Bible. So you can't run with analogies and just act like every single symbol is always universal throughout the Bible. Sometimes goats in the Bible is a really bad thing. But also sometimes goats picture the Lord Jesus Christ. So you know a goat is not a symbol that always means one thing. A thorn is not always a symbol that means one thing. What is the context of this passage though? The thorn is representative of a reprobate. And of course that's a really good analogy because you don't want to even touch a thorn. Look what it says in verse number 7 But the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place. You don't want to get AIDS or monkey pox from this thing. You want to be fenced with iron. You want to have some careful special gloves on or you want to make sure you're handling this with a lot of care because you don't want to get pricked. And look that's the only thing that can happen from reprobates is you get pricked. There's no redeeming them. That's why you want to leave them alone or gather them very carefully and destroy them. They're made to be taken and destroyed as the Bible says in 2nd Peter. You know some people are just not redeemable anymore. You know a serial rapist is not like let's give them a third chance. You know it's like what kind of insanity do these people have that live in our society that will literally let someone rape and then they'll get caught and go to jail and they'll come out and they'll rape again and they'll get caught and go to jail and it's like maybe the third time's the charm. It's like no you're just refusing to see the truth for what it is. You know we should never have a single person rape more than once after getting caught. They should get caught and destroyed and then they never repeat offend. Murderers should never repeat offend. Child molesters should never repeat offend. And we should have less child molesters because we destroy people before they even get to that point anyways. But of course the society we live in today exonerates child molesters and allows them to run rampant in California and run rampant in other parts of the world and often it's because the judge is that himself. We have in verse number 8 the Bible is now going to kind of make a little bit of a change here. It talks about the importance of a just ruler and leader and talks about the sure house. But then it brings up these mighty men. It says in verse 8, these be the names of the mighty men whom David had, the Tacmonite that sat in the seat chief among the captains. The same was a dino, the Esnite. He lifted up his spear against 800 whom he slew at one time. Now if you compare that with 1 Chronicles there's a parallel list in the Bible. Technically his name's like Jashobeam and in another place he's described as being Jashobeam and he says that he killed 300. So it's a different number. I don't know why it's a different number but I believe both are true. So either A, the 300 is encapsulated in this 800 so like maybe he killed 300 in one hour and then the whole day's total was 800. Or it was just two different events that are being brought up as just a memorial to how awesome this guy was. How many battles did David have? I mean if you really think about it, they were battling for years and years and years and years and battles if it's taken about one day, I mean they could have potentially had a couple hundred battles a year. So there could have been two to three thousand battles. If this is the greatest warrior to ever live, don't you think there was multiple days where he had a total? I mean it's pretty reasonable to think that this guy might have had a couple pretty special battles. And so it's just in one place it's bringing up the 300 and another place it's bringing up the 800. But you know, it's not even that different than if you think like what if we went to a soul winning marathon and you just went to the most receptive place and you had the greatest soul winner and you had the best day he's ever had. You know someone could be like man at one door he got five people saved. And then another person's like he had ten people saved for the day. Well both are true. It's just you're kind of highlighting different events even though it was even on the same day. So you know we don't know exactly what's being mentioned. It's not an error though. You know I'm not going to get sit up here and say like oh this is an error. You know some Bibles will try to fix all of these different things in the scripture. They'll change all the numbers and say they match and they try to fix things. But you know by fixing things you know what you're saying the Hebrew's wrong. And when you say the Hebrew's wrong then what you're saying is that God didn't preserve his word. And when you say God didn't preserve his word then you just open the door to just say we can just write whatever we want for the Bible. You know and it's like where does the insanity stop? It doesn't. I mean I talked to a modern Bible translator. Someone who worked on one of the modern Bibles the Holman Christian Standard Bible. I talked to him about Hebrew and he spoke Hebrew very well. But I said hey we dug up some manuscript and it was older than all the other Hebrew and it just took huge sections of the Bible out. Would you be willing to change the Bible? And he said yes. And I was just like at what point does that insanity stop? I mean that's a pretty dangerous slippery slope to sit here and then he like brought up a passage to me that he was already skeptical of. Like it sounded like if someone just manufactured some crappy piece of paper and just said this needs to be changed he'd be like oh yeah I was thinking that anyways. You know I never read the Bible and I'm like you know I don't think that part should be there. That's a weird thought. And that's not a thought coming from the Lord Jesus Christ or from the Holy Spirit. But you know I don't have a problem with this passage. Obviously this guy was amazing. Here's the thing also though that I want to say is I personally believe when you study these physical battles that these guys were incapable of completing these feats physically. That these were supernatural spiritually guided events. And why I say that is for a few reasons. Number one the feats that they accomplished are not humanly possible in my estimation. But secondly because the whole book is supposed to be spiritual anyways. Because here's the thing that you don't understand. To take a spear and go like this as hard as you possibly can enough to literally pierce a human body. I mean we're not just talking about any body. We're talking about the strongest men on the planet. Possibly even through armor. Let's assume you never even missed a single time. This guy had to do it 800 times in one day. It's like you watch boxers and they're tired after 30 seconds of fighting. And they're like professionally trained boxers. And they're just hitting. They're not taking a spear and ending another grown man's life with a single jab or whatever. And of course some people don't realize this because they only watch movies. You could hit a guy and he doesn't just instantly die or something. In reality sometimes people get hit and they're still fighting. You know you got to hit them again. You got to hit them again. You miss. I find that sometimes battle scenes are too quick it seems like in movies and sometimes they're too slow. Sometimes you have the weird movie where they get shot 15 times in the head and they're still running around and you're like okay that one's a little unrealistic. But then there's other times they get shot in the pinky toe and they're dead. And you're like well there's probably a happy medium somewhere. But to be able to take a spear and just jab guys 800 times. Here's my challenge. Just take a 25 pound weight and do 800 reps for me. Good luck. I don't care how strong you are. You know even the strongest guys in our church, Nick Conley or Brother West, I'm sure they could do a lot. They couldn't do 800. I don't believe it. There's no way. 25 pounds. I mean they could probably I mean for a while it would feel like nothing probably. I mean they'd sit here and they'd do it. But then eventually even then they'd get to a point where they couldn't do it. It's just not humanly possible. So obviously the spirit of God is probably coming upon these men when they're in these battle scenes and they're winning the fight. You know a lot of us are thinking like man I wish I could go back then. But here's the thing. You wouldn't be able to win that battle unless the spirit of God came upon you. And even today in the spiritual fight we live in today you cannot win the battle unless the spirit of God is coming upon you. We're not physically strong enough to win these battles. But you know what I like about a dino and I think all these men illustrate some different points. He illustrates that in order to do a big work for God you also have to do the work. And what I mean by that is no one does a big work for God by just sitting and waiting around for God to do something with him. You know if you want to do a big work for God you have to do two things. Number one you have to have faith because the Bible says without faith it's impossible to please him. And all these men were men of faith. But secondly you have to have a big vision. You know in order to kill 800 people you have to try to kill 800 people. You know after like 50 you could have just thought like you know what I feel done for a day. I feel like I've got enough. Like you know. But to just keep going. That means this guy was willing you know hey one down, two down, three down. I just wonder who was counting. I don't even know. To me the count was probably even had to be inspired by God because he was able to even count all those. How did you even know that a dino did it? You know that's kind of amazing that he was able to kill 800 men. It's it's an astounding number but you know in order to have a big victory it's just one person at a time. And yet you still have to have a big vision. And I believe that God wants us today in 2022 to have a big vision for God. To not just say you know what let's just let's just see if we can reach one person. You know let's see if we get one person saved this year. Like there's some churches out there. That's their vision. Like let's get a couple people saved this year. Or you know they'll sing the song just for that one soul. And I'm thinking like how many people are you sending to hell by not having a bigger vision? You know we shouldn't you know when we go to Matamoros our vision is not to get one person saved. I would be disappointed if we go to Matamoros and one person got saved. You know why? Because I know that we didn't do the work that we are capable of doing. Now of course I can't on my own save anybody but we understand through the Lord Jesus Christ we can accomplish a big work. And so we should have a big vision when we want to serve God. If you want to slay 800 giants spiritually you have to be willing to put yourself out there and try. You say well I don't I don't think I can slay 800. Well by never going out soul winning you never will. What if you said I want to get 800 people saved in one year. Well you know you're not going to do it by never going soul winning. I knew somebody at Favourite Ward though he went soul winning every day of the of the week. Like for a whole year and he got like 700-800 people saved in one year. So you know that's an amazing number. I can't remember the exact total he got to. I think but here's the thing you know how he got there he said I want to get 365 people saved. That's what he thought. But then he ended up getting like 700 or 900 people saved because he got that number like halfway through the year. You know what the only way he got there is he said I'm going to drag myself out soul winning. And he said the only reason I even made this goal is because I knew it would force me to go soul winning more than I would normally. Because he would say like I would be unknown with work and I don't want to go soul winning but it's like I have to otherwise I'm going to get behind on my numbers. So then he'd say just drag himself out there but then when he's out there he's just like one, two, three. He's just like hey I got the spear in my hand might as well slay some enemies. And you know I'll be honest there's lots of times I drag myself out soul winning. Not every time but sometimes you just kind of drag yourself out there. But you know when somebody's actually interested it's just like all of a sudden just all the juices start flowing and it's like you want to be there now and you're ready to use that spear. And you know what if you want to have a big you want to slay a lot of people you got to get a big vision. Verse 9 and after him was Eliezer the son of Dodo the Hohite one of the three mighty men with David when they defied the Philistines that were there together or there gathered together to battle and the men of Israel were gone away. He arose and smote the Philistines until his hand was weary and his hand clave under the sword and the Lord brought a great victory that day. And the people returned after him only to spoil. So notice again this guy wins but he was tired. But then it says he claved to the sword but I like how it works it says but then the Lord brought a great victory. You know what that makes me think? It makes me think this guy couldn't really do it but somehow God just helped him. You know he's just like I'm just going to barely hang on to this sword and then the sword is going to just do all the work for me. And you know what? That's to me a picture of the Christian life. You're going to get faint in the Christian life. But as long as you just cling to this God can can wrought a great victory through you. You know like that motivates me. You know why it motivates me? Because there are days where I feel really tired. And I'm like I can't do anything. But you know what I think this is what God's telling us is he's saying you don't have to be strong but just hang on. Just hang on. Just hang on to the Bible. Just read the Bible again today. Just pray again today. Just show up at church again. And you know what? Eventually God will just wrought a great victory. And you know what's so amazing about this victory is that when you look at the end of it and here in verse number what verse are we in? Eleven, yeah. Sorry ten, yes. And the people returned after him only to spoil. Meaning that he won the whole battle. No one else even had to fight. All of them got to reap all of his benefits. You know I think that our church could be in a season where we just kind of have to hang on but once we hang on God will wrought us such a great victory that there's going to be a ton of people that are going to just get to reap all the spoil of our fight. You know, wouldn't that be cool to just see, and again you say well that's not fair. Why do they have to fight? Well who cares, you know? But I think it's cool that you win a battle so much by yourself that just then all these other people just get to ride on your coat and they're just like sweet, we're just here because of the party. We're just here to pick up all the spoil. But you know what? That's like the great harvest that comes from all this work. You know when you cling to the Bible and you cling to the sword and then God just gives you a great victory and just destroys all your enemies, well now all of a sudden lots of people are interested in fellowshipping with you. You know and I think this ends with our church. I personally believe that our enemies are holding back a flood harvest for our church. And if God ever decided, and I don't know if he will or not, but if God ever decided to just destroy our enemies and just give us some peace our church would just be flooded with people to the spoil. Where they would be like, wow I love this church. You know I was standing there with you from home in my closet you know watching with one eye you know like this. But now that it's safe I'm here. You know and of course when the next battle comes they'll run away again. But you know it's just like there's all these other people that could potentially still serve God a little bit better in their lives or could reap from the spoils of our labor and that's okay with me. I'm fine with that. You know what of all the people in this story I would rather be the guy that was tired and has hand-cleaved the sword and the people that came after and just got the spoil. But you know what no one would have gotten the spoil if he had let go. They only got the spoil because someone was brave enough to just hang on and just say I'm going to trust the Lord and of course that is the sword which is the sword of the spirit. You know which is the word of God according to the Bible. So we have to cling to the scripture. You know that's what's told to Timothy is to constantly cling to the Bible and study the Bible. If we keep going it says in verse 11 And after him was shame of the son of Aggie the Harareit and the Philistines were gathered together into a troop where was a piece of ground full of lentils and the people fled from the Philistines. But he stood in the midst of the ground and defended it and slew the Philistines and the Lord wrought a great victory. And you know of course lentils in the Bible is picturing that which is the least that which is the most insignificant, the most worthless. Why would you ever put this in a bean in Chile? Why would you put beans in Chile? Those worthless it's kind of like how it says a dead dog or I'm sorry a live dog is better or living dog is better than a dead lion. It's like why does he use a dead or a living dog because the dogs are the worst and the lion is the best. So it's like lentils is like the worst and even of beans you know I like pinto beans you know I like a lot of different beans lentils is probably got to be like one of the worst beans. Now I think it takes like an excellent chef to even make lentils palatable. This is my personal opinion. If you like lentils you know there's probably something wrong with you but maybe you do. Me and my wife bought some lentils like I don't remember now like seven years ago. We still have them. So this is my like tribulation food. I'm like okay you know we'll always have the lentils you know but since we've always been in you know our seven years of plenty you know we haven't had to go to the lentils. You know the lentils is when it's just like man bark outside grasshoppers you know the garbage kitty the possum or lentils and you're like I don't know but you know we got the lentils. But why is this in there you know why is he defending a hill of beans okay. Well he's defending the hill of beans to show that it's kind of like in Matthew 5 19 where it's it's the guy who teaches the least of the commandments. Where it's like hey even the smallest things are actually still so important and they're willing to die for. Oh why do you preach Leviticus 2013 past the Shelley it's not edifying. No no I'll die on that hill. Hey which Bible verse will you say you won't preach anymore. None. I will defend those lentils. I will defend those Leviticus chapters all of them. You say hey but you know you could have all of your Christianity but you just can't preach this one verse. No I'll preach it. You don't. And you know what this guy is a great guy. It doesn't say like oh this guy defending hill of beans was dumb or foolish or or he was over the top that's a little bombastic defend some lentils huh. I mean I understand defending the cows I understand defending Bessie you know and the ribeye but lentils you know it's like this guy cares about I mean this guy must live in Oklahoma or something you know defending those lentils to the death there's nothing wrong with lentils just don't put them in my chili okay that's why it's also Jacob he sold his birthright for a for a pottage of lentils and you know the Bible says he despised his birthright he didn't say he entered into a competition you know to illustrate how much someone hated their birthright he said here's soup with beans in it here's a pot a chili with beans it wasn't even chili didn't have the meat it was just the beans it's like what kind of torture is this he was saying I would rather have that than my birthright and God's like man did this guy despise his birthright you know now if it was like really good Texas chili it wouldn't be as much despite it would have been like he didn't like it you know but to despise it it's like lentils okay but we can get a good picture here that if someone's willing to defend lentils you know they're willing to defend anything is the point and you know we should be willing to defend even the smallest matters you know the smallest scriptures the least commandments we should teach and do them doing nothing by partiality verse 13 and the three of the 30 chief went down and came to David in the harvest time in the cave of Adullam and the troop of the Philistines pitched in the valley of Rephaim and David was then in a hole in the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem and David long said oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate and the three mighty men break through the host of the Philistines and drew out water drew out of the well of Bethlehem I'm sorry drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate and took it and brought it to David nevertheless he would not drink thereof but poured it out unto the Lord and he said be it far from me oh Lord that I should do this is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives therefore he would not drink it these things did these three mighty men so David kind of has a different unique system where he kind of has like groups of three that are kind of like his chiefs and it's talking about three of his chiefs they just hear him talking and David's just talking just kind of just expressing his desires he's not he's not ordering them he's just saying man I wish I could just have a drink from that well and they're like your wish is our command you know that phrase has got to come from this passage because you know what that actually means is it means that when your boss just wants something to happen to you it's like something that has to happen that's what that even means your wish is my command not your command is my command even your wishes are my command you know that's the kind of attitude that would be nice if Christians had about Christianity that they you know some people they always want to come to me like where's the line where's the commandment line and it's like where's God's wish instead of wondering where God's command is where's God's wish for your life not God's just must do it's like I must not lie how about preach the gospel isn't that pretty far away from lying I mean it's like what's God's wish for my life it's not just not to lie it's to make myself a ambassador of Christ it's for me to open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel that's his wish and now therefore that's my command you know to preach the gospel every creature that's my command for me to live godly in Christ Jesus that's you know of course obviously God commands us to do a lot of these things but God's not going to force you to do anything he gives you that free will but we should look at our lives as an opportunity to make God's wishes our commands in our lives I think there's also another picture that's different and it's kind of interesting but why did David not drink this now number one I believe he didn't drink this for a carnal reason the carnal reason is he doesn't want people to start making really dumb rash decisions just based on his wishes and wins okay because he these men could have literally died just to have a drink from a well I mean that's kind of an extreme thought like you don't lose your best men just to get a drink of water but if David had drank the water what would he have done he would have basically said you know what that was a good idea do that again next time but David's realizing like this is not a good idea like you should that was foolish that was over the top guys okay so that's a carnal reason I think there's another spiritual picture here think about John chapter four and Jesus is at the well and there's the woman at the well and she wants to she wants you know they're talking about taking a drink from this well and he was telling her like if you know who I am you would ask of me and I would give thee that living water now when David is given a drink think about this he was thirsty and we kind of think about the picture of salvation all men are thirsty in the context of salvation in the sense that we all are in desire in need of something we're all in need of salvation that's what it means to be thirsty symbolically in the scripture now there's two ways that people solve this number one would be through human effort which would be a works based salvation what is it that these men offer to David? it's a works based drink because think about the effort and the energy and it's their blood I mean it's just everything that they could possibly do they offer him this and he pours it out and refuses to drink their works based drink and the drink offering is refused you know and the poor offering in the Bible was often to signify Jesus Christ's blood being poured out and shed for us and how what he did is a picture of sacrifice and giving us salvation so I believe that him refusing their drink and pouring it out is a picture of him rejecting works salvation and picturing the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ so that's kind of how I view this story it says in verse number 18 the Abishai the brother of Joab the son of Ziraiya was chief among three and he lifted up his spear against three hundred and slew them and had the name among three was he not most honorable of three therefore he was their captain how be it he attained not under the first three verse 19 is good was he not most honorable of the three so it's also saying like you know David did not put people in positions of authority based on anything other than who deserved it we shouldn't use favorites we shouldn't pick people based on who we like or they're related to us or some nepotistic type viewpoint it should be strictly based on merit and you know that is the best way to have a system verse 20 and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada the son of a valiant man of Kabziel had done many acts he slew two lion like men of Moab he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow and he slew in a giant a goodly man and the Egyptian had a spear in his hand but he went down to him with a staff and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian's hand and slew him with his own spear these things that Benaiah the son of Jehoiada and had the name among three mighty men he was more honorable than the 30 but he attained not to the first three and David set him over his guard so Benaiah is kind of like David's personal security guard and he's really good at just destroying people I like how he takes the spear out of one guy and uses it to kill him this to me is like when you take one of these fake preachers they're preaching and use it against them to show them how they're a loser it's like I can take the Calvinist verses and prove how Calvin is wrong you know it's like that's how awesome this guy is you know a man of faith and you know what these men are great men of faith and the works that they're doing are are great works humanly speaking and I think it's also illustrated that God wants us to do great human exploits but through the faith of Jesus you know God doesn't want us to do something small God wants us to do something big and I believe it's even quantifiable in the sense that you can see it in the world you know getting a bunch of people saved like a big number of people saved that's something that we can see and tangibly measure you know God wants things like that God wants us to get a lot of people saved God wants us to build a church God wants us to go out and destroy false doctrine you know I think there's all kinds of cool things God wants more King James Bibles to be published God wants more Spanish New Testaments to be published and to be read God wants more baptisms to be done God wants more chapters of the Bible to be read and more verses to be memorized and for mere people to get saved and you know what I'm all four numbers you know we have a baptism competition but you know what it's for a reason we're trying to inspire people to do more to have a big vision and to be excited to serve God with their lives and you know another thing that's interesting about this list I'm not going to read all the names but look at the very end verse 37 Zelik the Ammonite now I read that name for this reason there's a lot of names in here we don't know exactly who they all are but it almost seems like almost every single one of these guys is like a Gentile have you ever kind of noticed that? even of the children of Israel it's not like so-and-so the Benjamite so-and-so the Issacharite or so-and-so the Levite it's like all these random people that you've never even heard of you know the Herodite and the Tekoaite and the Anathothite I mean even the main guys a dino, the Esnite Esnite's only found in the scripture one time who is that? I don't know but you know what it makes me think of all of David's mighty men in this time we're like all basically ex-Philistines and ex-Cananites it kind of shows that God was going to use those that had faith more than those that were born into the family and you know what? God can use a lot of first generation Christians and God's going to use the New Testament church to do great works and they were the greatest the greatest were not all these Levites and the Ezekielites and Benjamites they were a bunch of randos why? because you know what? God has always been a God of faith and those who have great faith in his name are really the ones that he uses the greatest not just I wasn't born in the right family what family was a dino born into? you know that's kind of a silly idea that you're limited based on who your parents are no, no, you're limited by the faith you have in your heart God wants us to do a big work for him if we can get a big faith I believe that steadfast Baptist church might be filled with a bunch of Ezerites and Tikoites and whatever, you know what? they could be David's mighty men and that David is the Lord Jesus Christ Jesus Christ's mighty men but I hope that you get a big vision and realize that there is a battle that's raging why don't we be you know the men that clave to the sword and allow everybody else to reap the spoil let's close in prayer thank you Heavenly Father for giving us this chapter and giving us the victory I realize that we can't do anything on our own and I pray that we would have a big faith and a big trust in your might and your power but we would come alongside your might and your power and have a big vision and that we realize that we have to also go out there and we have to do the physical work and we have to do the physical labor and come alongside the word of God I pray that we would not grow weary and lose grip of the sword but rather we would stay strong through your power, your might and we would cleave to the word of God and we would allow you to write a great victory in Jesus' name we pray, Amen for our final song this evening we'll go to 114 the great physician 114 the great physician song 114 the great physician the great physician now is near the sympathizing Jesus he speaks the drooping heart to cheer oh hear the voice of Jesus sweetest note in seraph song sweetest name on mortal tongue sweetest carol ever sung Jesus blessed Jesus your many sins are all forgiven oh hear the voice of Jesus go on your way in peace to heaven and wear a crown with Jesus sweetest note in seraph song sweetest name on mortal tongue sweetest carol ever sung Jesus blessed Jesus all glory to the dying lamb I now believe in Jesus I love the blessed Savior's name I love the name of Jesus sweetest note in seraph song sweetest name on mortal tongue sweetest carol ever