Beyond the Mighty Men

[Music] in our culture is obsessed with a lot of different things one thing in particular that i'm a little bit sympathetic to right now is the current trend in a super hero related entertainment movies and such you have the marvel franchise you have dc trying to match the same sort of success and there's something exciting about that all the things that that most of us who were into comic books when we were young were made fun of are now making the world billions of dollars and it reminds me of the old song you know i was country you know country was uncool well you know i was i was marvel when marvel was uncool you know uh it's out there it's extremely popular and there's something about it that does have a broad sort of appeal the idea of people who have abilities that far surpass most normal people but if you're not sure i can certify for you that all of that is fiction it's all fantasy captain america may be a really fascinating character but he doesn't actually exist i know it's kind of sad because if any of them you think would be kind of cool perhaps captain america might be might be the one seems like a good guy seems to admit god exists that puts them above most all the others but regardless they're all fantasy but the bible actually does have a particular group of people that stand out in that way that seem to display abilities above and beyond the normal humans even though they were normal humans and they come up from time to time in sermons and examples and these are the mighty men of king david the mighty men just a name doesn't it sound like a comic book title the mighty men right the mighty men of king david and they were astonishing characters a very interesting lot some on one hand virtually idolize them and on the other hand some have no idea who they are and perhaps haven't actually read about them before but they are fascinating people and there's a great deal to learn both from their strengths and from their weaknesses and that's what i'd like to talk about today in the sermon i want to talk about the mighty men and what their lives can teach us and so the sermon today is titled beyond the mighty men beyond the mighty men now if you haven't heard of them before it's worth taking the time to read in some detail if you'll turn to second samuel chapter 23. and we're going to read a lot here at the beginning just to illustrate the sort of people that we're talking about we're going to read from 2nd samuel 23 there is a parallel passage in first chronicles chapter 11 and it's actually worth reading them both we won't take the time to do that but it relates a few different names in each place some of the tales it relates differ a bit not because it's a contradiction but you have two different storytellers explaining different facets of history if you read two different books about the american revolution you're going to read two different sets of details not that they didn't actually happen and that's one thing that's remarkable about these people they did exist you read about some of their exploits and you might wonder well maybe it's just mythological or something these are living breathing human beings and they did what they did with with with muscle and with intelligence and with skill it wasn't like in the comic books there was no super soldier serum there was no gamma radiation these were just individuals who were very good at what they did now what they did happened to be kill a lot of people but they were very good at doing just that so in second samuel chapter 23 we'll start in verse 8. and we read these are the names of the mighty men whom david had and again we're just going to read through but we'll come back and make some comments just a moment these the names the mighty men whom david had joseph bashabeth the tachmanite chief among the captains he was called adino the ez knight because he had killed 800 men at one time now that doesn't mean one swing if his sword and 800 men fell dead this would have been a long and protracted event this would have been very difficult battles we have to understand as we read all these i'll go ahead and say this at this point battles back then weren't like battles are now now we do have battles like that now from time to time today though we're warfare is a bit different right it's sort of video game warfare to a certain extent it was kind of stunning to a lot of us when the first iraq war took place the gulf war to be see some of the video footage of what these people doing various strikes with missiles they're just watching this sort of black and white screen sometimes using heat vision and different things and you're seeing a missile plow into a building and you see people run away from it and then you see other explosions and you're watching people die from thousands of miles away literally across the world there's this kind of cold distance but for the most of the history of mankind that's not what killing has been like it has been very face to face in fact one of the most passionate articles i ever read arguing against why women should not have equal status in the military as in doing all the things that men do in the military was argued by someone who had fought in one of the wars one of the wars in iraq and in that region and he talked about how it got to be hand to hand at a certain point and he was struggling with uh with a a taliban fighter and how there were there were no weapons at hand it was just brutal and it was hand literally hand to hand and it only won and i won't go into the details but as he had to grab a rock and just bash at the person and he describes in again detail i won't give what that was like and and what the look on the man's face was and in his eyes and and the consequences of that it was brutal and ugly and he said he did not want to live in a nation who thinks it is right to send our wives and our daughters into such circumstances and he is a hundred percent right we don't participate in the military at all in the church of god and we'll talk a little bit about that in this but that said for a nation that does that refuses to lean on the blood of jesus christ to protect itself and therefore has to rely on the blood of his sons and daughters it is a shame a satanic shame that the country somehow thinks that's a good idea in the name of social agendas instead of what's in the name of what's right it's just absolutely abominable so when we talk about these men and we talk about someone killing 800 men this would have not been hit a button and there's a nuclear bomb that goes off or something and 800 people dies this would have been sometimes one man at a time there would have been blood and viscera the people would have come out of such things sometimes absolutely soaked in in the blood of their enemies this was very gritty and very real and here you had someone that in one battle killed 800 people uh which was an astonishing feat at the time verse nine after him was eliezar the son of dodo you had to wonder if he was made fun of that there in young young ancient israel school uh eleazar the son of dodo the ahaite one of the three mighty men with david when they defied the philistines who were gathered there for battle and the men of israel had retreated he arose and attacked the philistines until his hand was weary and his hand stuck to the sword he couldn't even let go of his sword because he attacked everyone else had had run away and he stood his ground and just kept fighting and fighting uh to the point that when it was all over he couldn't let go like you imagine the people coming to him they had to pry you know his fingers you know off of his sword i was saying editorial we have had days like that when you've had to pry the red pen you know off of our i know it's not as dramatic but that said it's interesting it says the eternal verse 10 the eternal brought about a great victory that day and the people returned after him only to plunder that as he did the job and everybody else oh hey let's go get their stuff you know they were all busy running away and then he actually stood his ground verse 11 after him was shama the son of aggi the heroite the philistines had gathered together into a troop where there was a piece of ground full of lentils so the people fled from the philistines but he stationed himself in the middle of the field and defended it and killed the philistines so the eternal brought about a great victory i've all said you know this is the most famous lentils in the bible to me i think of these when you talk about lentils some you think of going back to egypt for all their leaks and all their ass and i think i don't know i think this guy i shall defend this field of lentils you know to my last breath you know and fighting off all these people and god achieved a victory through him verse 13 then three of the 30 chief men went down at harvest time and came to david at the cave of adullam we had the privilege during the living education israel trip to to be at the caves of it says in the troop of the philistines encamped in the valley of rephaim david was then in the stronghold and the garrison of the philistines was then in bethlehem and david said with longing here he is he's under you know difficulty he just happens to say oh that someone would give me a drink of the water from the well of bethlehem which is by the gate he wasn't literally commanding anyone to do so he was just expressing the longing of his heart there's times myself i've thought ah just to be under the stars of a texan sky you know one but no one clobbers me in the head and kidnaps me and i wake up they're like oh you know we did it to serve you well here some guys heard this and decided you know what we're going to do it so verse 17 he had no sorry i skipped verse 16. so the three mighty men broke through the camp of the philistines drew water from the well of bethlehem that was by the gate and took it and brought it to david nevertheless he would not drink it but poured it out to the eternal now here these guys they get this idea that man you know we're gonna do it and by the way it's easy to ascribe super pure motives to these guys it's very easy to do that let me highlight nowhere does it say that we're filled with god's spirit and we're converted christians and let me say i've known plenty of men to get a wild and crazy and stupid idea because they know it will cement their place in history for all time no one's ever jumped that many cars man i'm going to do it on my motorcycle and that's what's on his gravestone is this man attempted to jump all these cars you know the one car too many apparently so we don't really know their motivations other than at least there was some loyalty there they were moved by that you know here's david who said that and they go and they fight it's not just sneaking in they have to fight through all these people it's not just the getting there i just imagine that getting back don't spill the water i'm trying a guy's fighting you know and they've got a bucket and maybe they we need the backup bucket go get it anyway they get they get it to david but david refuses to drink it you know david recognizes this wasn't this was not something you're supposed to do they were definitely not reading the uh was the dr meredith soul book the seven laws of radiant health you know and pursuing this he'd much rather have living men to work with him than go to fetch him a drink of water and he says in verse 17 he said far be it from me o eternal that i should do this is this not the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives therefore he would not drink it and these things were done by the three mighty men you know there are those in this world that do inspire other people to line up behind them and david recognized that comes with a responsibility there's a difference there between him and his men and we'll get to some of those a little bit later and when people will do crazy things for you you have a responsibility to ensure they don't do those things what if he had what if he had said thank you man and he had chugged it down and and just really kind of cheered them for that how many other men would have been inspired to risk their lives to do something like this and david refused david wouldn't wouldn't participate in that but yet it is recorded because it was a stunning a stunning feat and definitely a certain measure of of human loyalty verse 18 now abhishe the brother of joab the son of zero i was chief of another three he lifted his spear against the 300 men killed them and won a name among these three was he not the most honored of the three sorry of three therefore he became their captain however he did not attain to the first three let me highlight right here at the beginning i'm not going to pretend to get all of this right and most people who say they get it right don't have it right it's very confusing here the count of people it keeps referring to three but there's one three then there's another three and is that three part of the other group or is it the initial three and then it talks about the 30 mighty men which is rough when it lists 37 names right so it's and then you got chronicles which has a different collection you start to get the sense that it was a group of men that eventually the number wasn't as important as who they were that it identified with these people and sometimes it was the 30 and maybe there were times as one died off here and there was the 25 and times it was the 36 but regardless it's talking about these particular groups of people and there definitely were a special three uh that stood out but then there was this other three and it's very confusing as to who they're a part of i just i would just say don't don't let that distract you too much verse 20 benaniah i'm sorry benaya was the son of jehoiada the son of a valiant man of kabzil who had done many deeds this verse 20. he had killed two lion-like heroes of moab now if that wasn't enough he also gone down and killed a real lion in the midst of a pit on a snowy day you know the details are important to who's writing this stuff it's not just he killed a lion oh no no the lion was in a pit and it was snowy man i'm not kidding it was slippery there was so much snow uh these were the tales that you would tell and the details are important you know if you play if you want a game in high school and it was it was a real close game just a really close game and you played a key role in that i guarantee you that if it was raining cats and dogs during that game you would not fail to mention that as you are telling the story right because it is part of the glory it's part of what you overcame it's part of what you achieved and and these tales pack in those kinds of details uh in fact we go on with the story here of banaya verse 21 he killed an egyptian a spectacular man spectacular he was a spectacular man i don't know why i like that so much anyway he killed an egyptian a spectacular man the egyptian had a spear in his hand so he went down to him with a staff it wasn't even a spear it was just a stick he went down to him with a staff wrestled the spear out of the egyptian's hand and killed him with his own spear boom there was no microphone to drop afterwards but regardless it was it was a big deal and it says actually and i think the record in chronicles this is a really tall guy he was just really really tall so verse 22 says these things binay the son of jehoia did and one a name among three mighty men verse 23 he was more honored than the thirty but he did not attain to the first three all these things because you keep track even if it's confusing now if time has made it hard to dis to exactly pick apart you know you keep track you know some of you reflecting back on glory days in high school or even college and the details are important right why do we keep stats of all of our sports stars like oh this guy's got better rbi or this or that why because the details matter when it comes to human glory right and you care about those kind of details moving on let's see verse 23 he was more honored than the thirty but he did not attain to a first three and david appointed him over his guard verse 24 assahel the brother of joab was one of the thirty elena the son of dodo of bethlehem he goes through a list of several it doesn't really give much more of their details anymore but it goes down through verse we'll see in 38 ira the ith right gareb the ithright and uriah the hittite 37 in all now depending on the resource you read one i thought was actually pretty good and it was serious it was trying to give a legitimate description and research into the mighty men and their character who they were and the rest and it actually straight up referred to them this is the international standard version actually the translation of the bible referred to them as david's special forces which is kind of what they were they were just sort of david's special forces they were the ones that he would send in to take care of things that other people couldn't but they weren't the idea of mighty man the hebrew word translated mighty men is gibberim uh g well i'll get it right i gotta write it down g-i-b-b-o-r-i-m gibarim and other nations had mighty men that word is actually used quite a bit other nations had gibberiem they had mighty men sometimes it's added of valor mighty men of valor but the word valor just like mighty men it's not meant to convey a moral value it's morally neutral it just means strong uh perhaps brave and there are brave villains sometimes right that are they're willing to try to take on difficult odds the idea of mighty men is morally neutral it does not indicate good guys or bad guys it just indicates guys of particular prowess and strength sometimes not even in strength of arms there's mighty men concerning a wealth for instance but it's morally neutral in that sense for instance just for one example turn to genesis chapter 10. genesis chapter 10. thank you for the water genesis 10 and we read here in verse 8 of ancient days cush began to nimrod he began to be a mighty one on the earth the words their mighty one are exactly the same as the word describing david's mighty it's the exact same hebrew word and nimrod was not a good guy if you look through what we understand of the history and some of it could be questionable but it does seem to all point in the same direction uh that he was a dictator-like person he actually said verse 9 he was a mighty hunter before the eternal the suggestion there is not just so much that he was mighty in god's eyes but he actually was in opposition to the eternal a lot of bad things in modern culture have their origins with nimrod calling him a mighty man wasn't meant to be praiseworthy in the sense of morality or in sense of god's goodness it was simply a neutral word in fact you can go through i'm not going to give you all the examples but as as israel went through the promised land conquering it talks about the mighty men of this pagan country and the mighty men of that pagan country the mighty men of valor of this country and that that phrase is it's referring to physical skill and prowess it's not evaluating their relationship to god in any way or morality in any way uh i'll list some examples if you'd like to look them up later joshua chapter six and verse two judges chapter five and verse 23. second chronicles chapter 32 and verse 21 but honestly if you just go to any concordance worth at salt you're going to see a lot of usages of that phrase and the use in genesis 10 is exactly the same as the use in as we just saw used in a second samuel because nimrod is also referred to in first chronicles chapter 1 and verse 10 and the exact same word is used in terms of him being a mighty man so it's important to keep that in mind when we're talking about this kind of skill and prowess we're not saying these are necessarily good people we're not necessarily saying that they're that god is pleased with every aspect of them we're talking about how great they are at what they do and they were frankly remarkable at killing people and we're very spurred by certain forms of loyalty one of the things i do like about the man and i from having growing boys it's important is examples of specific masculine traits and we do live in a world where young men need examples that stand out the willingness to stand your ground against terrible odds we need examples like that for young mate today we need examples of toughness being willing to continue at something when others would turn around being willing to continue like you know the fellow who couldn't get his hand off of his sword i i've done very little work like that i do remember once at texas a m uh before the big bonfire collapse that happened years later which was just devastating to the culture there i remember contributing to the bonfire when i was at college some of you may have heard of the old the texas aggie bonfire it was huge and we'd build it up before the big game against texas and they had this fella had a huge collection of trees this just kind of large forest somewhere and the aggies were free to go out there and cut down all the trees they needed so i did my part went down and cut down trees and you tape up your hand and you're doing it and oh your hands are getting blistery and nasty and it's painful and it hurts and while there's a little joy in that you know it's kind of like ah look at me i'm a real man and then afterwards like oh this hurts so bad you know it's just you the pain starts to drown out anything like that but at the same time you push through that because you want to contribute you want to do your part and then at the end of the day while you're just in agony and everything and you hurts and you're tired and you're glad you haven't chopped your own toes off you know during one of the strikes and you just lay back and you appreciate that right well you want to be able to encourage boys to learn to do that because we need people in society that are willing to go through the pain to continue to do the things that society and their families need them to do they need those examples then they need examples also of competence you know extreme competence in our society we admire extreme competence and that's not bad right that's a good thing in general to admire competence and it's beyond just the competence at killing people like we see here but even competence in the kitchen these days food network wouldn't exist if they didn't have people to show that somehow seemed to cook better than everyone else i'd love to trace that back to the origins i think julia child possibly you know you know julia child some of you know that some of you maybe a lot of you probably younger member emeril but i think just by throwing in a bam you know emeril just suddenly elevated it where it seemed more masculine you know because you're not just putting salt in it's bam you know you're putting oh that was a lot more manly you see how he said bam you know when he did that when really you look at many of the great chefs in history they often were men there are a lot of great men in terms of being great chefs and we admire that sort of skill uh woodworkers have you ever seen something crafted in wood that you just wonder how is that even possible this has to is this a digital duplication of something i'm actually seeing a real thing and you handle it in your hands and realize man a woodworker made that someone took a piece of a tree and was able to turn it into this marvelous design with intricate engravings and such these don't think is possible and we admire things like that but but prowess is value neutral let me give an example for instance that's that i'm almost sure many of you or most of you if you're aware of who this is will not mean much to you and that's eddie van halen the yeah okay uh the now dead guitarist for van halen who died just recently i i don't know many of you here that would really enjoy many of his classic solos that really established him as perhaps the greatest uh uh electric guitar guitarist of all time uh i i that's one of the few concerts i've actually been to as young person i went to a van halen concert back when their 1984 album came out my best friend was busy upset about van halen uh because they started using more electric keyboards oh they've gone soft you know they've gone soft these are these are my friends brothers who were growing marijuana in their garage i had a very exciting upbringing so anyway but i remember my mom and dad actually taking me and my friend and my sister to the concert and staying there because mom was the type who wanted to give us the experiences we asked for but she wasn't going nowhere she was going to be there so i can't believe my mom and dad's sitting this van halen concert right next to the speakers we couldn't hear anything afterwards it seemed like for days but yeah i would never do that again however it was young and dumb and was impressed and and when eddie van halen was on stage there were times he would turn his back to the audience as he played his solos because what they would do is people who want to duplicate try to do what he was doing they would sneak in there with at the time video cameras which was much harder to sneak in with back then and they would try to record what he was doing just to figure it out because he could make that guitar do sounds that nobody else was doing so he would turn his back so nobody could record him while he was while he was playing it and the things that he did absolutely changed how people play the electric guitar from that point on it really is remarkable that doesn't mean you have to like it to understand there's some skill there and it doesn't mean he was a good person i think we can share many aspects of his life and conclude don't let your kids grow up to be cowboys or eddie van halen you know it's not exactly what you would want for your children we're talking about skill not necessarily something that in isolation god points us to as a value in and of itself uh let me just point one more example of of incredible talent and skill uh that's very different and that's the texas a m marching band my old alma mater i'll throw a plug in there for that if you've never seen the texas a m marching band played during halftime in a college football game you have really missed out it is something astonishing of what these people can do and look like one organic entity on the field as they're marching in between each other and the rest and they're not falling down like dominoes but it's just just something beautiful to see that only comes through through precision and through skill and through constant absolute focus and practice and our world honors that kind of intense focus to establish true expertise and in and of itself it's not bad but in and of itself it isn't necessarily good either it has to be attached to other things in fact just for that perspective let's turn to proverbs chapter 22. proverbs 22 and this is a verse that at least since college i think has i've felt the pressure of you should have passages in the bible that that push you in certain ways and i know this is this is one that is pressed on me in an uncomfortable way but the right kind of discomfort proverbs 22 down at the bottom all the way at the end of the chapter verse 29 we're told do you see a man who excels in his work he will stand before kings he will not stand before unknown men there is something to being truly good at what you do that unlocks doors other things just don't but this also is a certain value-neutral statement actually mr robinson and i were discussing the proverbs this week and this is something we talked about that it's it's telling you how the world works and and what things happen in the world but for instance there are people who excel their work to stand before kings and don't stand before unknown men but they themselves are terrible people there are people that have performed for the president are performed at the kennedy center that are just atrocious people in real life their moral stands are the equivalent of hot garbage they're not people you would ever want your children to emulate and yet they do have remarkable skill that other people don't have and we live in a culture because we've gotten so far from morality we don't want to bring up morality that we tend to only focus on skill and proficiency and expertise to the point that it even rose to the presidency if you look in the the clinton years president clinton one of the at the time for those who don't know the details i'm not going to explain them it's we had a president whose life was not pg in many ways and it was understood and there was eventually an admission of a variety of things concerning adulterous acts you know in the white house and the rest and one of the defenses of mr clinton was what difference does that make in the the the budget is balanced uh he's been able to work with a republican congress all these other kind of things that they would create where it doesn't make a difference what difference does character make we actually had a magazine at the time where that was the cover if i recall it wasn't the cover it was inside the magazine i wish i had thought of it before now uh whereas it was a it was an image of multiple presidents they might have been there for the funeral of a past president i really can't recall but it was a great picture because they're all sitting there looking forward uh except for mr clinton who's kind of looking down and actually looking at the camera the only one and the title was does character matter if i recall and i thought well he posed for our picture that was that was very nice of him that was part of the argument for him is what difference does it make his morality and the rest as long as he's running the country right as long as the trains are on time right as long as there's bread in the stores and we've just gone further in that regard our culture honors this kind of expertise and disregards actual character uh one more element i'll talk about in terms of positive things these men the mighty men had to have some kind of courage i mean it takes some kind of courage to do the things that they did and courage is clearly something praiseworthy i know mr weston has talked about it in others if you seek to be a christian and don't have courage and are not asking god to help you grow in courage you will not have a successful christian life the bible talks about how the cowardly will not inherit the kingdom of god courage is a necessity to be a christian increasingly in this world where it seems like the entire world and the powers that be want to stand up against all the things that we believe and not just believe but seek to actively proclaim in the world and so examples like this they are good to talk to with our children and the rest in terms of some of these kinds of qualities but again we have to be careful you know i've known some in the church i don't know that i necessarily know any here and i'm certainly not picking on any indiv particular individual but part of why i can say i'm not picking on a particular individual is because i've known several like this that are young in the church who get caught up with a fascination with the military to the point they start to question well is it really wrong you know why can't i join the military why can't i why can't i volunteer and serve it seems like a noble thing to do you look in the old testament and they were fighting in defense of their country etc and this is things i've heard from both young men and young women because maybe unlike the sermonette we just heard we we need to remember to re-emphasize some of the basics right like again like i think the sermon that was a good example of emphasizing those basics that we do not serve in the military we do not take up weapons with the goal of killing another human being and yet i've seen that fascination why because i let me say as a man i kind of understand the appeal there's something about special forces and their ability to to go places other people can't and achieve objectives that other people can't and it's appealing and we should ask ourselves well what good am i doing by taking someone who's obsessed with the u.s special forces and just turning their attention to the ancient israeli special forces sometimes just making a substitution without addressing the issue isn't sufficient you have to actually get to the issue we in other words we have to be careful with these things just because these characters are biblical doesn't mean they're simply at the center of a bunch of good things there's other things to learn from the lesson as well it's easy to turn even biblical personalities like the mighty men of david into a strange sort of idol a lens that's so focused that it actually caused us to lose sight of other things of god because they don't show up in the picture most examples that are given to us in the bible jesus christ of course being an exception there tend to be pros and cons that we can learn what does it mean to idolize anything you know merriam-webster if you look into miriam webster it gives two definitions of idolizing one is to literally turn something into an object of worship i hope you know that's bad right my sister used to have a big poster of i think it was the guitar player from judas priest which alone ought to tell you there's nothing good about a band named judas priest right uh but anyway you know she had these certain posters in her room and and you could say as a teenager she idolized them my sister's not here today to hear all this autotail hey go listen to my sermon online and just advance it to this part uh but anyway she did and i've got pictures of her like oh look at these posters but she wasn't she wasn't literally worshiping them i didn't walk in her room when she's got a candle burning like you know she's just you know bowing before the pictures of the guitarist and the rest but then you get to the second definition of idolize to love or admire to excess that hits a little closer to home sometimes we get too invested in something that we've gone into excess and that excess isn't healthy and it's easy to say well yeah but you can't do that with biblical things you can't do that with things out of the bible you absolutely can do that with things out of the bible we literally have examples of people doing that with biblical things for example you might remember the the instance where there was a plague amongst israel and god told moses to fashion this uh this brass or a bronze serpent and to hold it up and the people that looked at it that god would use that as a vehicle to to healing them in many ways they had the potential of being a picture of what christ did there's all sorts of symbolism there but then you go read in second kings and find out they were worshiping it they had kept it all of those years and it turned it into an object of worship it says in second kings 18 and verse 4 they had to destroy it this was something that was made at god's own direction with god's own instructions given to god's own prophet and made by him for the people and yet because of corruption amongst the people even something designed at god's own instruction had been turned into something wicked and something terrible the idea that just because it comes out of the bible it can't be abused would be a terrible mistake it's not enough to substitute biblical things for worldly things the deeper things have to be addressed that's one thing i remember hearing way back at the camp in uh michigan that mr weston pointed out once if you're if you've been to camp michigan there was this place at least the place first place i heard it if i recall there was kind of this sort of loft at the common meeting area where you'd have breakfast and such and i just remember a bunch of folks up there and that's the first time i remember him saying that part of the goals of the camp program was not just to reproduce the past because it's there was this idea among some that if we just there are so many kids missing out say on sports because of the sabbath etc that let's just give them church sports let's just give them those things so that they don't miss out and yet how many of them it did not keep them in the idea was if we do that they won't be as tempted to leave and they will stay in the church and then when it all fell apart the vast majority of them did not stay in the church it was not enough to substitute something worldly with something sort of baptized if you will in the church and that was part of the goals of the camp program that were discussed is we want to do more than that we want to learn from the mistakes of the past and try to improve on that you know idolizing guys like the mighty man is not dissimilar to what the world does with its heroes and yet the outwardly impressive is not what god notices first turn to isaiah chapter 66 isaiah 66 the last chapter of the book and god addresses this kind of mentality verse 1 we read thus says the eternal heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool where is the house that you will build me and where is the place of my rest it says all those things my hand has made and all those things exist you know it says you want to impress me do you really think you can make a building that is so beautiful that is so large that is so ornate that me as god that i'm going to think i didn't even think this was possible that's amazing that's just astonishing he's saying look i actually you know the stone you just used to make that pillar i literally made the stone he said i wove together the quarks right to make the protons and the neutrons i define the laws of gravity and the laws of physics and the strong force and the weak force and i made all of that you think you're going to do something that's going to impress me that's going to say i just didn't think this was possible i totally owe you my undivided attention for the rest of your life he says that's not what gets it that's not what gets it you think slaying 800 men at one time is what earns my attention he says look at the record of what i did i have destroyed civilizations i wiped out the whole world but a few people on a boat he says what are you going to achieve in the world physically where you can suddenly say now i know i've got god's attention rather he says the latter part of verse 2 says the eternal but on this one will i look on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and who trembles at my word these are the qualities that help us get god's attention and that will help our children get god's attention in fact uh let's see turn to first samuel chapter 16. in first samuel 16 we have god directing samuel to anoint a new king of israel the old king of israel the current king of israel was very impressive saul was head and shoulders above everybody he looked like a king he looked like a mighty man but god was looking for something different and in first samuel 16 and he sends samuel to the house of jesse and son comes in and jesse says this is clearly it look at the guy look at his muscles it doesn't necessarily the samuel went whoa look at that flex for me boy uh maybe he did you know men or men still today's like oh show us the guns well he wouldn't have said guns right show us the spears i don't think he said that either but regardless you know he's just you know hey but this is clearly god's anointed this is the one he wants and god tells him something important in verse 7. verse 7 we read the eternal said to samuel do not look at his appearance or his physical stature because i've refused him for the eternal does not see as man sees for man looks at the outward appearance but the eternal looks at the heart we are impressed with the physical achievements of some individuals in the world but does that actually mean those individuals got god's attention in the way he wants his children getting his attention god focuses on other characteristics that sometimes are in contrast to what mighty men are able to provide turn to psalm 52 and i say characteristics that mighty men aren't able to provide that's not true any human being i didn't mean it quite so uh explicitly any human being can rise to these levels with god's help but being a mighty man isn't sufficient we want to be able to go beyond that in psalm 52 in verse 1 it says to the chief musician a contemplation of david when doug the edomite went and told saul and said to him david has gone to the house of ahimalak and he says in verse one why do you boast an evil o mighty man same word same hebrew word the goodness of god endures continually your tongue devises destruction like a sharp razor working deceitfully being a mighty man didn't elevate whether it was doag or saul into a position of honor in god's eyes because there was still deception there was a focus on destroying something that meant something to god going down to verse 7 david says here is the man who did not make god his strength but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself in his wickedness god wants us to make him our strength uh let's turn to we're in the psalms let's turn to psalm 33 a few earlier psalm 33 and we're reminded of a significant truth there are so many people worried about the state of the country because of the election and the rest was it stolen was it not stolen you know what's going to happen in court and all the rest all i know is a lot of people think they know and a good 99.7 percent don't really know i've heard people make the most adamant cases that this election was stolen and here's no one could question this evidence until you look at actual details and discover oh yeah actually there's a lot of good reason to question that evidence and then i've seen the other side people say it's ridiculous to think the election was stolen there's no way look at all these things look at all these reasons there's no way to think that and then you look at the details and discover i don't think you know what you're talking about there's a lot of question marks you know about all of this uh okay don't raise your hand it's a trap okay raise your hand if you think we're gonna sort all this out anybody here in the room anybody good you listen okay um we're not you know literally the only thing that could save this country is repentance and turning to god it is not putting mr trump in office instead of mr biden it's not ensuring a clean election and mr biden it gets to be president it's literally whether the country falls in line with what the living church of god is teaching about obeying him according to the prophecies of the bible this is not a time to get caught up and distracted in the things the world offers to catch us up and distract us because psalm 33 and verse 16 no king is saved by the multitude of an army a mighty man is not delivered by great strength a horse is a vain hope for safety neither it neither shall it deliver by its great strength all the kind of things that we'd want to focus on in a worldly way are not sufficient to save a country it is not the physically mighty men it's not the political mighty men it's not the the mighty men of academia they're going to save this country the only thing that can save this country are humble men who seek their god with their wives and their children then we need to make sure that's where we want to be and not on the others i guarantee you facebook and twitter and every other resource out there google google knows what you want to read and mr weston covered this just recently and it will feed you everything your jeremiah 17 9 heart wants to read and we've got to decide i need to look for other things how can we watch what's going on in the world and be aware and still focus on the right things you know when you mix up that drink i'll take a sip with you it's very difficult i'm not saying it's not difficult it's extremely difficult and yes the things we see around us are signs of the corruption that we see in the bible but it's so easy to focus on the symptoms we should watch for symptoms but we have to focus on the reason and not get caught up in what i've tended to call mighty man thinking mighty man thinking and that's mistaking some things for what god wants to focus on when he actually doesn't because we're thinking in a more worldly way even when we think we're thinking in god's way you know for example we we mentioned the loyalty of david's men they were remarkably loyal it's actually if anything characterizes them in fact it was just in the men's room a while ago and i was talking with uh someone who was passing out i would tell you not passing out that sounds awful uh someone who was walking on his way out of the men's room and i tell you who it is it's not shameful but i feel like it's the men's room it's not your business but anyway so as he was leaving oh he said what's the topic of your sermon today i said oh the mighty man i want to talk about the mighty minions oh you know they were really loyal and he remembered the characteristic which is important they were loyal for anyone to identify themselves with a mighty man and do something disloyal makes no sense whatsoever it's one of their hallmark characteristics including uriah as we read in verse 39. uriah wasn't just loyal to david he was loyal to his band of brothers if you will to the point that david tried to get him to call home to sleep with his wife to cover up david's adultery with his wife who was bathsheba and he just couldn't bring himself to do it i'm not going to relate the tale you can read it yourself in 2nd samuel in chapter 11. but it essentially says like how can i do this you know i've got i got brothers in arms in the field that are dying and i'm gonna go home and just refresh myself and pretend they're not out there suffering i just i just can't do that i can't do that he was extremely loyal in that way which in the end it was ended up costing him his life because david had him killed trying to cover up his adultery but loyalty to a man even a good man or one's band of brothers can be misplaced and can lead one astray if we tend to get caught up in mighty man thinking and think that that loyalty is the same as following god let me look at some examples let's look at first samuel chapter 26. first samuel chapter 26 here we have david is fleeing from saul and he's got his band about him his mighty man they're on the run with him and it's difficult you have to understand it's not like they could just stop off in a hotel here or there uh they're on the run we like i said we visited the caves of adulum and they were not luxurious right they didn't oh look there's a waterbed over there and there's a lava lamp and the rest no you know what a cave is it's a cave it's not some place you look forward to being in it was difficult being on the run and surely none of them longed to continue doing it they'd much rather be back in israel you know where really they knew they knew david was the anointed king be back where they're they're running the show they're in their rightful place uh what they you can only imagine that that's what they would have wanted and we have this circumstance in first samuel chapter 26 starting in verse 5. so david arose and came to the place where saul had encamped and david saw the place where saul lay he was asleep king saul the one who wants to murder david who's actually being messed with by demons as we find out in other places and knows david has been anointed by god to be king they come across them and he's asleep it says that david saw the place where saul and abner the son of nir the commander of his army now saul lay within the camp and the people encamped all around him and then david answered and said to elim himalaya the hittite and to abishai the son of zeroia the brother of joab saying who will go down with me to saul in the camp these the sons of zeraway and such where we're amongst his mighty men and he's saying hey they're all down there let's go out i mean you want to find out how how big is this group right what are they going to do how vulnerable are we how far do we need to go how much how many provisions do they have how long do they plan on being away from headquarters if you will you know as they're out there uh and so abishai says i will go down with you so david and abishai came to the people by night and there saul is sleeping within the camp with his spear stuck in the ground by his head and abner and the people lay all around him so it's like here's your enemy and he is completely asleep doesn't even know you're there and literally in our day it would be like there his gun is right by his head you could just pick it up and in the case of abishai this mighty man it was clear god had opened the door to make possible everything god wanted saul clearly had disqualified himself david was the anointed and abhishai engages in some mighty man thinking then abshad said to david god has delivered your enemy into your hand this day notice he invokes god i personally believe he was sincere it'd be hard to look at this scenario and not see that god hadn't engineered it now therefore please he says let me strike actually he was probably whispering right now please he says uh but if i whisper you won't hear me so he says please let me strike him at once with the spear right to the earth and i will not have to strike him a second time that is it's one and done he's right here he's immobile we can kill him right now your sworn enemy and verse 9 but david said to abasha do not destroy him for who can stretch out his hand against the eternals anointed and be guiltless david said furthermore as the eternal lives the eternal shall strike him or his day shall come to die or he shall go out to battle and perish but the eternal forbid that i should stretch out my hand against the eternals anointed but please take now the spear and the jug of water that are by his head and let us go so david took the spear in the jug of water by saul's head and they got away and no man saw or knew it or awoke for they were all asleep because a deep sleep from the eternal had fallen on them so in fact god had enabled all of this the mighty man sees it and it's clear to him god has made all of this happen and then he doesn't make the decision god would make he makes a mighty man decision it's time to strike and do what is obvious that god has set up but david had insight that the mighty man didn't it's nothing god never describes any of the mighty man as having as being a heart after his own sorry having a heart like his own but he does describe david as being a man after my own heart and in all of this that would seem so obvious to the mighty man david saw further and recognized on principle it might look to you like that's what we're supposed to do you you know you guys you can tell us we'll refer him dealing with some of these guys because they always thought this way but he said far be it from me to go against the principles that i know god would have me hold and there's no way god would have me do this god will do whatever he's going to do but he's not going to do this by my hand david had not only a humility but a deep insight into the mind of god how is that developed it's so easy to focus on again david's deeds you know grabbing you know a lion by the beard and killing it and the rest but you know mighty men had done deeds like that banaya had killed a lion in a pit but we also have descriptions of david spending time with god's word hiding god's word in his heart meditating on the law all the day and those things provided him insight into god's thinking and god's mind that abhishe wasn't trying to ignore he truly thought god had created this scenario and god did but he did not know what to do with it he needed the kind of insight that david had and david was able to go beyond mighty man thinking let's look at another example second first samuel in 24. first samuel 24. first samuel 24 and verse 1. again david's still on the run we read now it happened when saul had returned from following the philistines it was told him saying take note david is in the wilderness of engetti and it is a wilderness we had the privilege of going out there as well during the living education trip and other than one waterfall it was one waterfall and a bunch of yuck so it really was a wilderness and it says in verse 2 saul took 3 000 chosen men from all israel and went to seek david and his men on the rocks of the wild goats so he came to the sheepfolds by the road where there was a cave and saul went in to attend to his needs there's a wonderful euphemism in the bible uh it's we live in a very coarse world in which we just kind of say things sort of legrantly that that honestly polite culture would find other words for here we had saul had to attend to some needs he had to go to the bathroom we would say in our lingo in english and so he's going into this cave separately right not like an animal you know he's going in someplace else right he's going to do this and you know without getting you too much detail let's just be upfront you're pretty vulnerable in a situation like that you know saul was very vulnerable at this particular place he had to disrobe to a certain extent it's not the kind of time if you're a parent you've been caught in those times when suddenly there's an emergency noise outside of the bathroom the kids ah mommy you know the dog's on fire something like that you're like yeah really this is this is when you know this is going to happen so here's saul in an incredibly vulnerable moment recorded for us in the bible and what seems to the mighty man like another opportunity so verse 4 when then the men of david said to him this is the day of which the eternal said to you behold i will deliver your enemy into your hand that you may do to him as it seems good to you and david arose and secretly cut off a corner of saul's robe so notice what they described again this is the mighty man thinking this is it this is the day this is the day where god said he would deliver your enemy into your hand that you may do to him as it seems good to you in their mind what is that run him through kill him it's done then it's over no more hiding you're in charge everything is the way it's supposed to be and david refused to do that but he does go and cut part of saul's robe as if he wants to make a point but then verse 5 now it happened that david's heart troubled him because he had cut saul's robe that even doing that pricked his heart which the bible attest is like god's own heart and it bothered him because it seemed dishonorable in verse six he said to his men he said to the mighty men the eternal forbid that i should do this thing to my master the eternals anointed to stretch out my hand against him seeing he is the anointed of the eternal so david restrained his servants with these words and did not allow them to rise against saul and saul got up from the cave and went on his way god's thinking is not like human thinking god's thinking is not like mighty man thinking it is something beyond it is something above and that's what god calls us to god calls us to that kind of thinking and that kind of heart and it does not make sense humanly but it is still right it's interesting we won't turn to a lot of detail for this but i do find it fascinating personally that joab who was one of the mightiest of men in david's service is not actually listed there in the book of second samuel his brothers are listed his armor bearer is listed and joab's feats were astonishing he got to be captain because of such feats and yet he's not listed by name some have suggested that there's a nameless reference in one place where the mighty man is not named and that maybe that's joab i certainly can't tell i can't wait to talk to samuel and the scribes you know and get some details but that said he was in every aspect clearly a mighty man and some have wondered why he was not listed if that's the case well it might have been because he dishonored himself in certain ways you know joab's mighty man thinking benefited david sometimes and other times it didn't there were times when david needed to hear what he had to say and there's other times when joab's thinking was the exact opposite of god's what was consistent in all of those was that joab knew he was right it's like let's talk about venn diagrams for the next 30 minutes now some of you familiar with venn diagrams where you're talking about some things you put a circle around them to indicate those things you talk about other things and put a circle around those and you look at where the circles overlap and it's true of both and if you drew a circle representing david's interests and god's interests and you drew a circle about joab's interests and joab's judgments and they wouldn't be the same but they would overlap some and inside that overlap joab's advice and counsel was helpful to david but you go outside that intersection into joab's circle and it's not helpful and it's not godly the thing is joab thinks the same way about all of them because joab is certain he is right perhaps the classic mistake that joab makes among several is his support for adonijah david's son instead of solomon when david wanted solomon to be king because god had told him that solomon would be king as david is getting old joab throws in with adonijah and it's a big conspiracy to try to make him king instead of solomon and it is easy to dismiss joab's thinking in that and it's very easy to think man he was so helpful for so long and he just took a wrong turn there at the end and honestly it's not like that to me it's extremely consistent at least in my own judgment uh turn to second samuel chapter three for instance let's look at the house of david second samuel in chapter 3. starting at verse one we read here starting in verse one now there was a long war between the house of saul and the house of david but david grew stronger and stronger and the house of saul grew weaker and weaker and it says in verse 2 sons were born to david in hebron his firstborn was amnon by abinawam the jezreelitis his second chiliob by abigail the widow the widow of nabal the carmelite the third absalom the son of makkah the daughter of talmai king of gesher and then the fourth aden adenija the son of hageth the fifth shephethaya the son of abital the six ethereum there's several sons here and the bible refers elsewhere to the sons of david but notice adonijah is right there and he would be in line amnon his the bible tells us was killed we'll go on all the details i'm just noting that the first son abnon is killed chiliad is not described any place else that i can find but there's a general understanding that he must have died maybe he even died extremely young we i don't know the details absalom died and but you can understand start thinking of absalom why he might have thought hey you know i could be king that he was in line he was in line it would have been up then absalom died well if the first three are dead who is the next living son adenija not solomon it's easy to dismiss joab's thinking but there's a logic to it adonijah is legitimately in line for the throne in fact the sons of david were actually invited to the coronation of adonijah many people would have expected him to be king and if you're joab maybe that would have made sense to you in fact before solomon was born and you're joab you're expecting adenija to be king maybe you're interacting with him maybe you're teaching him a thing or two about working with the sword because you want a great king like david was king and then if there's buzz and talk of solomon the bible doesn't talk about god giving joab a great vision of solomon being king where are the tales of solomon's great battles where are the tales of solomon leading men in like david you know and being covered with gore and mire right like the rest how many presidents have we had it was a while before the first president who didn't actually have active military service in a war it bothered the country in the united states many people's like well do we want someone to be commander in chief who actually hasn't been commanded by the commander-in-chief it was awkward for the country we had enough wars going on we had a store and then suddenly it's like well you know what what do we do with this there's a lot of reason you'd question as joab do i really want solomon commanding the armies of the lord does that mean would the lord want solomon doing those things mighty man thinking would probably say no if anything solomon shows himself to be kind of a bookworm or a scroll worm i guess i'm not really sure you know what you would call such a person back then um there was a lot of logic to that solomon is tainted solomon is not the child of the adultery between david and bathsheba but was the next child of a union that was a stain on the throne and a stain in israel's history there are a lot of mighty man reasons to decide you know what if you're joab think about it david's made mistakes before he's been stirred by his heart and by his emotions to make choices that were wrong for israel when absalom died he grieved to the point that all of his other men were going to leave and it wasn't for me joab pointing that reality out to him he would have ruined all of israel god had used joab to make such things clear if you were joab how hard would it have been to resist your own temptations at this point to think this is just one more time when david's being led by his emotions and it's not good for israel and god's people need better and joab was wrong it wasn't that joab took a turn joab just continued in mighty man thinking all the way to his death because he confused his decisions with god's will and that is very very easy to do brethren there's times coming that need more than mighty man thinking and mighty man character uh we won't turn to these for the sake of time i want to focus on some others but for instance there's a verse in jeremiah 46 just write down jeremiah 46 where it talks about for the times to come actually this is actually specifically about egypt but it talks about the trouble that was coming on egypt it says your mighty men they're going to be bumping into each other they're going to be no help to you like the three stooges anybody remember the three stooges mighty men in their day the bible says of the day of the lord that's coming like in zephaniah chapter one in revelation chapter six it talks about the mighty men not being enough revelation 6 talks about the mighty men cowering and asking the stones to fall on them and crush them so they don't have to face jesus christ in his return and their terror for the times that they're in the future is not for those who settle for being mighty men it's for those who are willing to go beyond that god wants us to move beyond the mighty men he's not looking for mighty men he's looking for those who will exceed them and for those who will go further for example turn to jeremiah chapter 9. jeremiah chapter 9 and verse 23 for thus says the eternal let not the wise man glory in his wisdom let not the mighty man glory in his might nor let the rich man glory in his riches but let him who let him who glories glory in this that he understands and knows me that i am the eternal exercising loving kindness judgment and righteousness in the earth for in these i delight you know we're actually told by jesus christ that at his coming there will be those who boast about the miracles they did in faith and use that as some kind of excuse for the acts of iniquity that they have done and they'll say lord you taught in our streets you know we literally cast out demons in your name we healed people in your name and now you reject us that can be its own form of mighty man thinking looking on the outward and not recognizing what god does and jesus christ says that he will tell them depart from me you workers of iniquity god's looking for something else he's looking for humility let's turn back to second samuel in chapter 16. second samuel 16 this is actually one of my favorite stories i feel like god puts me in this spot way too often i wish i could say i always handled it as well as david second samuel chapter 16. so we have david on the run his son absalom has rebelled against him and so he and his mighty men are on the run so as he does so 2nd samuel 16 and verse 6. they come across this guy shemia the son of gira second samuel 16 and verse 6. and what does shemiah do shimmy i throw stones at david and all the servants of david these are the mighty men it says and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand in his left and here's this one dude i always imagine him as some kind of scrawny guy he doesn't have to be scrawny it's just in my head he looks really scrawny and he's just throwing rocks at the deadliest people on earth it seems you know there's these people with swords and the rest and he's just throwing dot rocks and throwing dirt in verse seven shimmy i said this when he cursed come out come out you bloodthirsty man you rogue the eternal has brought upon you all the blood of the house of saul in whose place you've reigned and the eternal has delivered the kingdom into the hand of absalom your son so now you're caught in your own evil because you're a bloodthirsty man now it was wrong for shimei to do this david was the eternals anointed and shimaya eventually pays the price under solomon so no doubt this is wrong this is a sin it was shameful behavior and it cost shimaya his life later but it could have cost him his life right then based on mighty man thinking and that's what you actually see a mighty man thinking here verse nine then abhishe the son of zero i a man those sons of zero while what is up with those guys anyway avishai the son of zeroway said to the king why should this dead dog curse my lord the king please let me go over and take off his head which is generally unhealthy uh to have that done so now on one hand i gotta think you know he's being hit by rocks too abasha is they're all getting hit by rocks but he was ready to go this is wrong this is a sin your god's anointed let me go take him out but how's david respond verse 10 the king said what have i to do with you you sons of zeroway that was not exactly a compliment so let him curse because the eternal has said to him curse david who then shall say why have you done so and david said to abishai and all his servants all the mighty men there see how my son who came from my own body seeks my life how much more may this benjamite let him alone and let him curse for so the eternal has ordered him it may be the eternal will look on my affliction that the eternal will repay me with good for his cursing this day so as david and his men went along the road i went alongside the hillside and opposite them and cursed as he went throwing stones at him and kicked up dust what remarkable humble restraint that exemplified not the mighty men but david that's what god is looking for humility for instance humility self-control uh the last few verses we'll look at look at matthew chapter 26 we'll see an example of self-control by the son of david jesus christ when he could have used mighty man thinking instead so we have the case where he is being arrested and you have a mighty man peter going to bring out a sword chop off an air it's time to go i was going to say to guns again it's not guns go to swords whatever it is he was about to go to town take care of business david i mean peter is ready to die he's ready to die and jesus chastises him for his actions and instead verse 52 it says jesus said to him this is matthew 26 52 put your sword in its place for all who take the sword will perish by the sword or do you think i cannot now pray to my father and he will provide me more than 12 legions of angels that is thousands and thousands of angels how then could the scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen thus do you know what kind of self-restraint it takes understanding that at any time jesus christ could have decided forget this humanity is not worth it and with a word to his father legions of angels come and wipe us out like some movie uh summertime blockbuster apocalypse and we're done and that's it he had that power in his fingertips at his mouth at any moment to end his suffering and chose to restrain himself and allow his accusers to have the day because there was a larger picture at purpose i mean it at work there it's not mighty men thinking but it is the thinking of the son of david jesus christ there's so many passages we could look at that do give us that sight proverbs 16 talks about how you have those who are wise are stronger than a mighty man they're able to take a building right that's proverbs 21 of being slow to anger those who are slow to anger are stronger than a mighty man if we'll look there are examples we need examples of what we're supposed to be not everything should be solved in a mighty man way what did the jesus christ do when the crowds were coming at him and they wanted to throw him off a cliff he didn't just suddenly invoke son of god power you know and suddenly it looks like some japanese cartoon and there's lightning coming out of the sky people are frying in front of him and all the rest no he actually hid himself and got through the crowd and went away in conclusion it's easy to idolize people of expertise and strength and power like the mighty men but the bible doesn't actually point to us point us to them as those kinds of examples it tends to point us to those who exceed the mighty men for instance it points us to david and it points us to jesus christ they were amazing and their examples should inspire us to to be able to seek to be strong to seek to become good at what we do but same time god is looking for more don't settle for being a mighty man aim higher and go beyond [Music] you

Channel: Living Church of God

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Length: 77min 43sec (4663 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 18 2021