Please be seated. I like that hymn. Hallelujah, what a savior. Let's open our Bibles together
for scripture reading in Hebrews chapter four, Hebrews chapter
four. I've read that that word hallelujah
is pronounced the same way in every language in the world.
I don't know if that's true, but it's a wonderful thought
that we'll be singing hallelujah to Him in glory with believers
from every nation and tongue and tribe. We'll begin reading in verse
9, Hebrews chapter 4. There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. And that word rest, in the margin
of my Bible, it says the keeping of the Sabbath. That's what the
keeping of the Sabbath is. It's resting in Christ. For he that has entered into
his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works as God did
from his. Let us labor, therefore, to enter
into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of
unbelief. Oh, we war against the flesh
and against our unbelief in order to enter into His rest. That's
the labor. It's the labor of faith. For
the Word of God, verse 12, is quick. That word means alive. It is powerful. It is sharper
than any two-edged sword. piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and
as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature
that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and
open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Seeing then,
that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens,
Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our profession. Our profession is that Jesus
Christ is the son of God and that he has finished the work. Oh, the work was finished. This
chapter tells us in verse three, before the foundation of the
world and the covenant of grace and the Lord Jesus Christ in
time finished it on Calvary's cross. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one that felt the full weight of sin. You and I experienced
the conviction of the Holy Spirit. We experienced the sorrow and
sadness of our own sin. consequences of it, but he felt
the full weight of it. And in that regard, he knows
sin so much better than we do. Let us, therefore. You know,
isn't it, when you have someone that's gone through a similar
experience as you, You're drawn to that person.
And if their experience is much more severe than yours was, you
know that they're able to sympathize with you. And that's what our
Lord's saying here. Let us therefore come with confidence
to the throne of grace. Oh, our high priest knows the
feelings of our infirmities. That we may obtain mercy. and
find grace to help in our time of need. We have a dear brother that's
in a special time of need right now. Tony, Galusha's father and
mother, Larry and Lou, moved here. And right after they got here,
Larry was diagnosed with leukemia and a reoccurring cancer that
he had battled some years ago. Larry is in hospice. He's been
here and heard the gospel, and I've had the opportunity to talk
to him the past couple of days, and seems like he has a sincere
interest in the gospel, and I'm very thankful for that, that
the Lord would bring him here to hear before he took him home. What a merciful God we have.
Merciful God. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, we thank you that once again, you have graced us and
blessed us with the opportunity to be here, to have your word
read and declared and expounded on, to have your Holy Spirit,
the promise of your presence, to open our hearts as you did
for Lydia, to open the eyes of our understanding, Lord, that
you would enable us to set our affections from here to heaven
on things above where Christ is seated at thy right hand.
Lord, that we would find our comfort and our hope in his glorious
accomplished work of redemption. Father, we pray for Tony and
for Lou and ask, Lord, that you would help them in this, their
time of need. And we pray especially for Larry
and ask, Lord, that you would give him hope and comfort in
Christ. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. number 256 from your hardback
timbrel. Let's stand together once again. When peace like a river attendeth
my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot,
thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. Though Satan should buffet, though
trials should come, let this blessed assurance control. that Christ hath regarded my
helpless estate, and hath shed his own blood for my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul, with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. My sin, O the bliss of this glorious
thought, my sin not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the
cross, and I bear it no more. ? Praise the Lord, praise the
Lord, O my soul ? It is well, it is well with my soul, with
my soul ? It is well, it is well with my soul ? And Lord haste
the day when my faith shall be sight ? ? The clouds be rolled
back as a scroll ? ? The trump shall resound and the Lord shall
descend ? Even so, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul, with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. Please be seated. That's another example of what
we were just talking about, isn't it? The Lord gave Horatio Spafford
the grace to write those words after having lost all of his
children in a tragic shipwreck. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Judges chapter 3? Judges chapter 3. We looked Sunday at Ehud and
how he reminds us of our Judge. the Lord Jesus Christ who has
delivered Israel. And as with most of the judges,
a good portion of scripture was given to Ehud. Chapter four,
we'll begin looking at Deborah, and we'll see some events in
her life that will, I hope, encourage us in the gospel. But here between
Ehud and Deborah, we have one single verse given to us by the
Holy Spirit to tell us about the judge that ruled between
these two judges. His name is Shamgar. It's the
last verse of this chapter. And we can come to one of two
conclusions. And I'm afraid that most people
have come to the first conclusion. Either this man's life is insignificant
or the Holy Spirit summarized in the very few words of this
one verse the whole gospel. And I believe the latter. But I've not been able to find
anybody that has preached a message from this one verse. I'm sure
it's been preached. I just can't find anybody that
gives any attention to it. So tonight we're going to look
at Shamgar and ask the Lord to show us what is the significance
of this man and what he did in slaying 600 Philistines with
an ox goad. There's only one other verse
that references him and that's in That's in chapter five, verse
six. If you'll turn over there, we'll
look at that very quickly. In the days of Shamgar, the son
of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied
and the travelers walked through byways. And here in verse 31
of chapter three, we read these words. And after him, Ehud, was
Shamgar, the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines 600 men
with an ox goad. And he also delivered Israel."
That word delivered is saved. He saved Israel. Now, one thing
I'm certain of is this Shemgar, just like all the other judges,
points us to the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Deliverer. I've titled this message, the
death of man, the death of man. There is no life apart from death. Scripture tells us that the seed
has to die and then fall into the ground before it can bring
forth life. And we know that that's a reference
to the seed of life, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who died
on Calvary's cross that we might have eternal life. His death,
the full consumption and quenching of the fiery wrath of God's justice
was necessary. He made himself a sacrifice to
the Father. He bore the sins of his people
in his body. He satisfied divine justice.
He fulfilled the law. He died. He came into this world
in order to die. The sword of God's justice put
him to death. And through his death, we have
the resurrection. And by his death, we have life. There is no life without death. That's true in our own personal
salvation. We cannot have life until we
experience spiritual death. Now, all men are dead by nature. The scripture makes that clear,
that we are Ephesians chapter two, verse one, you have he quickened
who were dead in your trespasses and sins. We come into this world
spiritually dead, but spiritually dead men don't know they're dead
until God strikes them dead. Paul said, I was alive. without
the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died."
And that's the work of grace. That's the, you know, we can
preach to dead men all we want. They're not going to hear a thing.
They're going to be deaf to the gospel unless the Spirit of God
gives them life. You can shame men with a law,
but they won't be made a shame. unless the Lord makes them alive. You can give them hope in a savior,
but they will have no hope unless the Lord makes them alive. And
so he has to kill us before, before we can be made alive.
I like what one preacher said. He said, he said, I'm going to
tell you about my God, but before I do, I'm going to have to kill
your God. That's a good way to put it.
You know, that the God that we trusted in for the hope of our
salvation, the God of our own righteousness and our own dead
works have to be put to death. And so before life can come,
death has to be experienced. Thirdly, We must. I'm titled this the death of
man. And that's what this one verse tells us about the death
of man. In order for us to experience
and enjoy the fullness of eternal life, these bodies are going
to have to die. Is that not true? We're going
to have to die to experience life. I just spent. several hours the last couple
days, the man that's dying. And I told him, I said, you know,
I've said this before from the pulpit, Larry. I said, I'm a
dying man preaching to dying men. We're just not as keenly
aware of it maybe as you are, but it's true. It is true. And we're going to have to die
physically in order for us to experience and enjoy the fullness
of our salvation in Christ. Turn to me to first Corinthians
chapter 15. We'll just read a few verses
here. Very familiar passage of scripture,
but so clear and so simple that man, Christ had to be put to
death on Calvary's cross for us to have eternal life. We have
to be put to death by the Spirit of God. Paul said, I die daily. And that's a work of grace that
continues in the life of the believer, where we look away
from Christ, we think that we might have life somewhere else,
and might have some hope somewhere else, and the Lord has to kill
us again. And that's what the gospel does. It just keeps killing
us, doesn't it? Tell them they're grass. Tell
them they don't have anything. Tell them they don't know anything.
Tell them they can't do anything. And then they'll find their hope
in me. And we're going to have to die physically. order for
us to experience the fullness of our salvation. Look at verse
50 of 1st Corinthians chapter 15. Now this I say, brethren,
that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Neither doth
corruption inherit incorruption. These corruptible bodies of flesh
cannot go to heaven. They have to be They have to
be translated. They have to be changed. In a
moment, behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump, for the trump of God shall sound
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and shall be changed. For this corruptible must put
on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when
this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass
the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Life
cannot come without death. Spiritual life could not come
without the death of Christ. Our regeneration cannot come
without God killing us first, and we cannot enter into glory
until we shed the bodies of this death. But in shedding the body
of this death, we have victory. Oh, look. Oh, death, where is
thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory? And that word grave is actually
the word hell. That's the word there. It's the
word hell. Oh hell, where's your victory?
You ought to fear that. The sting of death is sin. All
have sinned and come short of the glory of God and the wages
of sin is death. God makes us to be sinners. He
causes us to see that we're dead. Everything we've done is just
a, it's just a dead work. There's no spiritual life in
it. The sting of death is sin and
the strength of sin is the law. That's why Paul said in Romans
chapter seven, he said, he said, I was alive without the law once,
but when the commandment came, when the gospel came, when Christ
came, when I understood the law for what it was, not a moral
code to live by, but a perfect picture of the holiness of God. When the commandment came, sin
revived and I died. The strength of sin is the law. You know, the truth of that is,
You put men under the law and all it does is it aggravates
sin, make them worse. It's not gonna make them better. But thanks be to God, which giveth
us the victory, giveth us life, eternal life. Through the Lord
Jesus Christ, therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast. Unmovable. Stand. Stand on Christ. Keep your feet on that rock.
Don't move away from Christ. He's your only hope of life.
Everything else is death and hell and judgment. And in Christ,
we have life. Light and life. Always abounding in the work
of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in
vain in the Lord. Anything we do in faith, looking
to Christ, that's the believer's life. This is the workmanship
that God has created in Christ Jesus and ordained that we should
walk in them. Believers do good works. Their
works are not dead works, but they're good works because they're
not looking to their works as the hope of their righteousness.
They're looking to Christ and doing them out of love and gratitude
for him. The death of man. There is no
life without death. Isn't that so clear? Let's go to our text now. Judges. Chapter 3, verse 31. Shamgar. Shamgar. His name translated means sword. How oftentimes we see the sword
of God representing not just the written word, but the living
word. We know that the sword of the
spirit, the only offensive weapon that we have, everything else,
remember the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness,
and the belt of truth, and the feet shabbat, the preparation
of the gospel, and the shield of faith. Those are all defensive
things, aren't they? But we have an offensive weapon,
the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And then
we see the Lord Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation. Turn
to me to that passage, Revelation chapter 19. Shamgar, what I'm saying is that
Shamgar represents the Lord Jesus Christ as the sword of the spirit,
as the sword of God. Revelation chapter 19 verse 11. And I saw heaven open and behold
a white horse. And he that sat upon him was
called faithful and true. And in righteousness, he doth
judge and make war. Here's what the Lord Jesus did
when he went to Calvary's cross. He went to war against sin and
against death and against hell, against Satan himself. And he
got the victory by his word. Look at verse 12. His eyes were
as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns, and he
had a name that no man knew but he himself. Oh, we declare his
name. We call his name I Am, the glorious,
self-existent, self-dependent, independent, immutable Son of
God. We call his name Jesus because
we know that he accomplished the salvation of his people.
When we speak his name, we're just, the understanding that
we have is so limited, isn't it? As is the case with everything
that we believe. We believe things that we cannot
possibly understand, but we do believe them. And so here he
says, No man knew his name, but he himself, he's the only one
that fully comprehends the depth of who he is. And he was clothed
with a vesture dipped in blood and his name, his name, his name
is called the word of God. Here he is. John chapter one,
verse one, in the beginning was the word and the word was with
God and the word was God. And the word was made flesh and
he dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory as the
only begotten of the father, the son of God, the one who's
full of grace and full of truth. His name, his name is the word
of God. Shamgar, sword. And look at, look at, uh, Look
at verse 14. And the armies which were in
heaven followed him upon the white horse, clothed in fine
linen, white and clean, and out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword. We saw Ehud Sunday. He took that cubit long dagger
and plunged it into the fat belly of that man of sin and put him
to death. And here's the same picture.
This is Christ, who is the sword of God. Out of his mouth goes
a sharp sword. And with it, he shall smite the
nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he treadeth
the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God Almighty.
And he treaded that winepress alone. He went into the winepress
and he pressed out by his own blood, the wrath, the grapes
of wrath, if you will, the wrath of God. And he at the vesture
and on his thigh, Remember, Ehud had that sword on his right thigh
and he was left-handed and he reached across and pulled out
that sword from his right thigh. And on his thigh was his name
written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So here's his name,
the Word of God. Here's his name, King of Kings
and Lord of Lords. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he's going to kill man. He's going to kill man in his
own death. He's going to kill man in his In the regenerating
of his people, he's gonna put us to death. And one day, one
day, each and every one of us, he's gonna call home. He's going to bring that appointed
day to fulfillment. And for the believer, who died
in Christ on Calvary's cross, who died in the new birth. He
needs not fear physical death. No, it'll be the greatest day
of his life. He slips out of this world, out
of time, into eternity. Oh, what a glorious hope we have.
Here's the death of man, and God's gonna do it with a sword.
He's gonna rule the nations with a sword, with his word. And every
word he speaks is gonna be pure and perfect. I remember in 1 Samuel chapter
21, when David was fleeing from Saul, and he didn't have any
weapons. And he had a small band of men,
and they went to the priest house. Ahithophel, I think was his name,
And he said, do you have any swords? And he said, I only got
one. Only got one sword. He said,
it's Goliath's sword. The one that you slew Goliath
with. And I've got it wrapped up here in a blanket and it's
hid behind the altar. And David said, there's none
like that. Give it to me. And that's what
the believer says. There's none like that. Give
it to me. Lord, open my heart and reveal
to me the truth of who you are by your word. And if we're gonna
have faith, God's gonna give it to us by his word. Faith comes
by hearing and hearing comes by the word of God. That's why
we're here. That's why we come to hear. We're like Cornelius, aren't
we? We're all here to hear the words that God has given to you
to tell us. We just wanna hear what God says.
Because God's Word is pure and perfect, and it's a sword, and
it's two-edged, and it's able to divide us under and reveal
the thoughts and intents of my heart. And it reveals to me who
Christ is, my deliverer, my shamgar. And I've got some Philistines
that need to be put to death. We read this verse, turn back
with me to our text and then over to Judges chapter five. This is the only other place
where Shamgar is mentioned in the Bible. And I'm convinced that the Lord
didn't just put him in here as a filler. He's not just, you
know, connecting the dots historically. He's summarized in this man's
life, in so very few words, the significance of the gospel. And
we can just rejoice that the Lord has given him to us and
shown us Christ in it. Look at verse Look at verse six. In the days of Shamgar, the son
of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied. Now, what is the highway? Well,
Isaiah chapter 40, speaking of John's ministry, says, make straight
in the desert the highway for our God. And then in Isaiah chapter
11 verse 16, there shall be a highway for the remnant of my people.
This is the road to glory. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
62. Let's look at one other verse
that describes this highway so clearly. And what are we reading
in Judges chapter 5? In the days of Shamgar, there
was no highway. The people weren't traveling
on the highways. They were fearful of the Philistines. They could not travel openly
and directly to where they wanted to go. That verse says in Judges
chapter five, if you still have your finger there, let's finish
the rest of that verse before we go to the Isaiah passage.
The highways were unoccupied and the travelers walked through
byways. Now those are crooked paths.
That's what the byways were. They were the little pig trails
that went through the woods that you had to go on in order to
get from one place to the other and hope you didn't get lost
in the woods. The highways were empty. Because the people were
afraid, they were under the domination of the Philistines. So they had
to hide and sneak around to get to where they wanted to go. Now
these Philistines, well, you know what they represent. Scripture
tells us that the Philistines were the descendants of Ham.
And Ham is most closely associated with the Egyptians. And so the
Philistines, time and time again, were the enemies of God. And
we know that our greatest enemy is the bondage of the law and
sin. That's the taskmasters of the
law that would put us under bondage. It's the accuser of the brethren.
It's our own sin that we need. And here we have men. They're
sneaking around through the woods because they can't get on the
highway because the Philistines are intimidating them, threatening
to kill them. They can't travel openly and
freely. What a picture. And Shamgar is
going to deliver them from that. That's what we are. We're dead
in our trespasses and sins without Christ. We're sneaking around
trying to find our way to heaven without without the open highway. Turn with me to Isaiah 62. You have your Bibles open there.
Look at verse 10. Go through, go through the gates. Prepare ye the way of the people.
Cast up, cast up the highway. gather out the stones lift up
a standard for the people behold the lord hath proclaimed unto
the end of the world say ye to the daughters of zion behold
thy salvation cometh behold his reward is with him and his work
went before him he's the only one that could send his work
ahead of him and that's what he did He sent his work to his
father for the father's approval and acceptance. And the father
looked and saw the travail of his soul and the father said,
I'm satisfied. And so what do we say to the
people of God now? Your shamgar, your sword has
come to deliver you from the Philistines so that you no longer
have to sneak around in the woods in order to try to get to heaven.
You can come out openly. The Lord has defeated Satan.
He's defeated sin. He's defeated hell and death. We need not fear these things.
We can walk in faith openly declaring Our salvation has come and his
reward is with him. Oh, isn't this glorious? Don't
you love to see the gospel in God's word? You know, the, the
pseudo intellectual theologian would accuse us of spiritualizing
the scriptures. And, uh, my response would be,
yep. The only way to understand the
word of God is the spiritual meaning of it. It's of no use
to us if we read it just for historical significance or theological
significance or whatever other reason men might study the Bible.
We're looking for Christ. We're looking for the hope of
our salvation. We're looking for an open highway to heaven. We're tired of hiding out in
the woods. We're tired of being like our
father, Adam, trying to cover ourselves with fig leaves. Oh,
we need to be brought out into the light. And this is what our
Shamgar has done. The byways, the crooked paths. And who was the father of Shamgar? This one verse tells us his name
is Anath. And Anath means answer. Answer. You remember when Philip
said to the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, Lord, just show us the
Father and it'll satisfy us. That'll suffice us if we could
just see God. Oh, Philip, have I been with
you so long that you don't know? That if you've seen me, you've
seen the Father. I am the Father of one, the Son
of God. All that you're gonna know about
God Almighty, all the answers, are going to be given to you
from my father by me. His name is answer. Oh, the world
is full of questions, isn't it? World's full of questions. You
know, one of the questions I hear people say all the time, well,
you know, it's just not fair. What, why, why is there so much
evil in the world? Why do good, why do bad things
happen to good people? That's never happened by the
way. Not one single time in the history of mankind has a bad
thing happened to a good person. Not once. The only people that
are good are those that are found in Christ, not having their own
righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is by the
faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why calleth thou me good? There's
none good but God. Now, I'm gonna cause the goodness
of God to pass before you. Isn't that what the Lord told
Moses on the Mount when he put him in the rock? And he puts
us in Christ. And it's good. And we're good. Holy, acceptable, perfect, sinless,
in the sight of God, in the person of our Savior. Now, what bad
has ever happened to one of them? Nothing. Nothing. Everything that happens to them
is good. It may be hard, but it's not bad. It's good. So when the world says, you know,
why, why do bad things happen to good people? That's never
ever happened. Not one single time. And there's your answer
from God's word. There's our answer. Oh, I can
rest there. Can't you? Isn't that hope? And the other thing about it,
you know, the people that they, we could approach this question
from another angle and say, there are no good people. And so, you know, how could anything
bad, I mean, well, you see where that's going. People ask, what is God like? Here it is. Here it is. He's the answer. He's told us
about himself. He's given us 66 books to define
himself and describe himself and reveal himself in all of
his glory. Men aren't interested. They're
just not interested. Shamgar was the son of Anath. Shamgar's name means sword and
Anath means answer. And the sword of the spirit gives
to us all the answers to all the questions that men struggle
with. Why is this happening? Why is that happening? And we
know that God's working All things in the light. We saw that Sunday
from Ecclesiastes chapter three. He makes everything beautiful
in his time. And in fact, everything that he's doing is all about
the cross of Christ, isn't it? All points back to him. We know
the answer. The Lord has given us the answers
to these questions. The question that men have all
over the world, how can a man be right with God? How can I
stand in the presence of a holy God and be accepted? And so they've
devised all sorts of religious opinions of man in order to try
to work their way through those pig trails in the woods in order
to get to heaven. And our Shamgar has given us
the answer to that question. I've taken my sword, my word,
and I've slayed the enemy. And through my death, I give
eternal life to my people whom I have to kill first in order
to make them alive so that they need not fear the physical death
that all men will face. Where do these things, where
do these answers, where are these answers found? They're found
in the Word of God. They're found in the Word of
God. Men are woefully ignorant of
God's word. You know that. You just talk
to people. They don't have any idea what the Bible has to say
about anything. Oh, they might have heard something
here or there, and they can quote a part of a verse, and it'll
always be out of context. They'll use it to justify themselves
or whatever. They're ignorant of God's Word.
And worse than being ignorant of God's Word, they have no interest
in God's Word. And our Anath, our Heavenly Father,
has given us all the answers, all the answers to life by the
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Now, back to
our text. This is the death of man. What's
the significance of 600? Well, that's the number for man,
isn't it? Man was created on the sixth day. In the book of
Revelation, 666 is the number of the beast, isn't it? That's
the number of man. And it's the closest number to
seven, but it doesn't make it to seven. So man is always trying
to get to seven, but he ends up at six. Six. So here's, here's our Shamnar,
the sword of God, who is the son of all the answers of life
and death. Taking an ox goad and killing
600 Philistines. We hear about Samson taking the
jaw of an ass and slaying a thousand Philistines. When have you ever
heard of Shamgar killing 600 Philistines with an ox goad? Here he does. Here he does. This is the death of man. Now why an ox goad? Why an ox goat? Well, in 1 Samuel
chapter 13, which was some years later, the scripture says that
the Philistines would not allow the Israelites to have weapons
of war. Turn with me to that passage,
1 Samuel, 1 Samuel chapter 13. They're under the, under the
oppression, under the control and the rule of the Philistines.
And Philistines are not going to let them have weapons of war.
They're not going to let them amass an army and come against
them. So look what the scripture says
in 1 Samuel chapter 13 at verse At verse 19, now there was no
Smith found throughout all the land of Israel for the Philistines
said, lest the Hebrews make them swords and spears. So the Philistines
would not allow any blacksmiths to operate in Israel in fear
that they would make weapons of war and come against their
rule. So if the Israelites wanted to
sharpen one of their tools of agriculture, look at the next
verse. But all the Israelites went down
to the Philistines to sharpen every man his share, and his
colter, and his ax, and his mattocks. Yet, verse 21, they had a file.
And I thought that word, I thought it was like a file that you sharpen
something with, because that's what we're talking about here,
sharpening a tool. This word is the word fi. So the Philistines
were charging the Israelites to bring their farming tools
down to the Philistines to have them sharpened. And they would
charge them for it because there were no smiths in the land of
Israel. Now, who are the Smiths? This
is the preacher of the gospel. That's who they are. They wouldn't
allow any Smiths in the land. And so the people of Israel had
to go down to the Philistines to get their tools sharpened.
Do you see the likeliness of that today? Oh, there is a famine
in the land. God said in Amos, Amos chapter
eight, verse 11, he said, I will send a famine in the land, not
a famine of bread and water, but a famine of hearing the word
of God. There's no Smiths in the land.
Look at us little band of people. We've. how few and far between
are the smiths of God who are sharpening the sword of the spirit
and using it to to slay God's people and aren't you thankful
to have the sword of the spirit slay you in order to make you
alive you see man death has to come in order to be made alive
and the philistines are afraid of that so all the people have
to go down to the philistines to get whatever they're going
to get sharpened And that's what we see happening today. Men are
going to false prophets and false religion in order to try to get
their tools of agriculture sharpened and they have no sword, no sword,
no smiths in the land. So that's the reason why Shamgar
only had a goad. He had an ox goad because there
were no swords in the land. The Philistines wouldn't allow
it. So he took this ox goat and he used it. There's no sword in the land. Men are more interested in the
opinions of dead theologians than they are in hearing the
word of God. The Pope can make a decree and
a billion Catholics will believe what he says, but they have no
interest in the word of God. I remember I was talking to Wayne
Neal one time. Wayne had been in the hospital
and ran into a Catholic priest and he got into conversation
with him and Wayne was trying to tell him what the Bible said
about something. And the Catholic priest scoffed at him. and rolled
his eyes and he said, I haven't read the Bible in years. You
believe that book? You know, there are, there are
men in this world that can, that can make a public statement and
change the stock market by billions of dollars, just like that. And everybody's listening, what
are they gonna say? What are they gonna say? And
nobody cares about what God says. There's no Smiths in the land,
but we have an ox goad. We have an ox goad. Turn to me
to Ecclesiastes chapter 12. Ecclesiastes chapter 12. Look with me at verse 9. Well,
verse 8 says, vanity of vanity sayeth the preacher, all is vanity.
It's all empty. Oh, there's just emptiness in
this world, isn't there? And moreover, because the preacher
was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yea, he gave
good heed and sought out and set in order many Proverbs. The
preacher set to find out acceptable words, and that which was written
was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as
goads and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies. which are given from one shepherd. So he shares that. See, the ox
goad is the preaching of the gospel. If Shamgar is the gospel
and is the word of God, then the ox goad is the means by which
God preaches the gospel. It's like a goad. Isn't that
what the Lord said to Saul of Tarsus in Acts chapter nine,
when he arrested him on the road to Damascus? And he said, Saul,
it's hard for you to kick against the pricks. That word is goad. It's a picture of a man behind
an ox with a sharp pointed pole and he's goading the ox to move
forward, to plow the land and the ox in obstinance kicks against
it. And the harder he kicks against
it, the sharper it becomes and the more it's pokes him. And what was the Lord talking
about when he said, it's hard for you to kick against the pricks?
Well, in Acts 8, verse 1, the scripture says that Saul gave
consent to Stephen's death. So the pricks, the ox goad that
Saul of Tarsus could not get away from was the preaching of
Stephen at his stoning. Stephen preached the gospel.
And Stephen's last words were, Lord, do not hold this sin against
them. He prayed for them and Saul heard
that prayer. And that message that Stephen
preached was like a goad to him. And ultimately it slew him. He
couldn't get away from it. The death of man. The death of man. That's what
Shamnar did, the son of Anath. In the days when the people were
afraid to travel on highways, they took the crooked paths and
they had to go down to the Philistines to get their plow shares sharpened
and God raised up Shamnar. the sword of the spirit to answer
all the questions that God's people would have in taking this
ox goad and killing 600 Philistines. And how does the story end? In
that one glorious verse, and he also saved Israel. He delivered Israel. Our heavenly father, Bless your
word to the salvation of our souls, we ask it in Christ's
name, amen. 509, let's stand together, number
509.