well you probably noticed one
phrase that was repeated in this passage that is the title of the message tonight
the lord wrote a great victory in the remaining verses of chapter
twenty three we have the names and some of the deeds these ones called David's Mighty
Men those who fought with David, fought for David and for their
country and this key phrase taken from
verses 10 and 12 are not just the title of the
message but there's a lot of teaching in that phrase on the
very surface of it I suppose the first thing that comes to
mind is that whatever we accomplish of good in this life is attributable
unto the Lord. That's the teaching of all of
the Word of God. Think about all that's included
in this passage that I'm gonna have you turn to with me. Philippians
chapter two, if you'd turn there with me. Think about everything
that's included now in the context of the verse you'll, it'll be
obvious which verse we're referring to from our text. but look at
the context of it too and see who gets the glory in all of
it Philippians 2.12 Philippians 2.12 wherefore my
beloved as you have always obeyed not as in my presence only but
now much more in my absence work out your own salvation with fear
and trembling Now he's talked already about obedience, you've
obeyed in my absence, but now in my presence, but now much
more in my absence, but work out your own salvation, work
it out, live it. Salvation is an eternal work
of God, but it's a work that's accomplished in his people. For
it is God, verse 13, which worketh in you both to will and to do
of his good pleasure. That's clearly the reference
from our text. It's the Lord wrought a great
victory. But look at all that that includes.
Obedience, working out your salvation. Look at this, do all things without
murmurings and disputings. Get along with one another. Can
God do that in us? He'll have to, won't he? We're
in big trouble. We do everything we can to mess
that up, don't we? God has to work that in us. The
Lord, it's a great victory, isn't it? Because you see the devastation
elsewhere where there's division and pride and self-righteousness
and people hating everybody else. that you may be blameless and
harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, no need for rebuke because
you just submit to the truth of God and humbly worship Him,
support His ministry in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. It's not just the people of God
that need constantly His working in us just so we can even stand
to be in the same room with one another, but look at this world
we live in. Among whom, is this God? This is His victory, and among
whom you shine as lights in the world. Boy, I don't see myself that
way, but I see you that way. Holding forth the word of life.
That's God's doing. But I may rejoice, Paul said
in the day of Christ, that I've not run in vain, neither labored
in vain. Everything we do is vain unless
the Lord works in us. And it always impresses me the
part of this that the Lord sort of just seems
to impress upon my heart every time I see this is not only to
do anything worth doing, God's got to work it in us, but to
even want to, to will and to do. We wouldn't even want to
be here tonight. We wouldn't even want to honor
him. We wouldn't even want things
to be right. It'd be just all about me all
the time. All of the labor of the gospel.
Think about what happens in order for this to happen. All of the blessings of the church
upon the church, which one another is a large part of that. But
just to come here as a sort of spiritual refuge from the storm,
to think on things above where Christ sits at the right hand
of God. Think about who's in control
of all of this and to be comforted and to hear again about his precious
blood and how he has washed our sins away. All of the relationships,
as we've said, all of the joy that's ours as members of his
church, this is where we eat spiritually. I don't know about
you, but eating is an important part of my life, both physically
and spiritually. Much more so spiritually. But it is all his workings. It's
his workings. We're working it out. It's through
us. It's in us. Much of it happens
in us. It's all for us. Just like it
was Adino, the Esknight, who slew those 800 men. That's almost
unbelievable, isn't it? You say, how in the world can
one man slay a hundred men? How can one man come out of the
grave after four days dead? I reckon God had something to
do with it, you think? But all the glory, all the glory
belongs unto him, even though it's us that do it. Paul said,
I've fought a good fight, I've kept the faith. But he didn't
have any illusions about why and how and the reason. But remember all the exploits
in Hebrews 11, by faith, Enoch, by faith, Moses, by faith, Abraham,
by faith, they did what they did. That's
faith that God gives and he gets the glory and we want it that
way. Those whom he's chosen to be
a soldier, They want it that way. He said,
without me, you can do nothing. And we say, amen. We know that's
right, don't we? We know by experience that that's
right. But also, as important as that lesson is, there's one
in this phrase here more important. The exploits of these men, just
like those of David himself, picture for us the captain of
our salvation. and the victory that he won for
us without us. By himself, it says, listen to
this, Hebrews 1.3, Christ being the brightness of the Father's
glory, of God's glory, and the express image of his person,
and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had
purged our sins, I skipped part of it, didn't I? I did that to
show you how, that would have read great without these two
words. But there they are, by himself. When he had purged our sin, but
he did it by himself, that's important now, that's important.
And then he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. Old, this old fella here, what's
his name again, Adon? Adino? I imagine when he got
through killing 800 people, he probably sat down. But he didn't
sit down until he was done. Neither did the Lord. He didn't
sit down until the work was accomplished. Fully accomplished. You might
read this first verse of our text tonight and think, you know,
how in the world does one man kill 800 men in battle? And the answer is obvious, isn't
it? By the power of God. by the power of God. And furthermore,
God enables him to do that so that we would wonder at and rejoice
in and glorify our Savior, who by himself purged our sins and
saved us from ourselves, from our sin, our sin nature and our
sin that we committed and all of our enemies. And we didn't
stand a chance against our enemies. You might think here, as I certainly
do, if I had to go up against 800 people, we'd all be in trouble
if it was on me. I'm a goner. Well, yeah, if you
had to pay for your sin, you'd be a goner too. If you had to please God with
what you do, if you had to keep the law, you'd be a goner. That's
the picture here. If you had to face Satan by yourself,
he'd crush you as wheat, like he did Judas. He would me too. But that is again, once again,
the lesson of God's book. Here and everywhere we look,
we need Christ. Got to have him. And notice in
our verse that Adeno was called the chief of the captains. that's
a title that's that only the lord jesus is worthy of and we
understand here in the context of this story that's being told
about what he accomplished by god's power in his in his flesh
you know that that's that that's i'm sure it was appropriate he
was the chief of the captains but the real chief of all the
captains is the captain of our salvation listen to hebrews chapter
two where I get that phrase from thou has put all things in subjection
under his feet the father has made Christ Lord over all for in that he put all in subjection
under him he left nothing that is not put under him but now
we see not yet all things put under him we look at this world
and we go where is You know, where's Christ, where's any acknowledgement
of his authority in this world? Everybody despises all authority,
which ultimately is his, in all of the different manifestations
of it. But we don't see it yet, do we? We don't see that all
of this is under him. It doesn't look that way to us.
But we see Jesus. Think about that. Who was made
a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death and
crowned with glory and honor. That he by the grace of God should
taste death for every man for it became him for whom are all
things and by whom are all things. You think of the magnitude of
that. For him and by him are all things. And bringing many
sons unto glory. What a victory. To make the captain
of their salvation perfect their sufferings. For both he that
sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one, for
which cause he's not ashamed to call them brethren. You're
talking about brothers in arms. Except he won the victory and
just gave it to us. That's what Adino pictures here. He killed 800 men by himself,
and that benefited everybody. He did all of it. He did all
of it. Now, we don't yet see all things
put under him, but we see him, and so we know everything is
under him. If you see him, of course everything is in subjection
to him. He's God's son. He's on the throne
of the universe. If you see him, then you may
not see the reality with these eyes. But you know it's true
and you know that it will be experienced before too long. It's clear simply because of
who he is that all things shall be in subjection unto him. Every
knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of God the Father. It's just a matter of
time. It's all under him already. We're
just waiting for the manifestation of it. A number which no man can number. 800 seems like a fantastic number,
just almost incredible. It's unbelievable, isn't it,
that one man? But think about the multitude that the Lord Jesus
Christ has saved. John said there were 10,000 times
10,000 and thousands of thousands. A multitude which no man can
number. God knows exactly the number,
but we can't, we can't know. And no doubt the people of Israel,
you know, they saw what old Adino did and they said, boy, thank
God for him. He's fighting for us. He was
fighting for the glory of God, but he was fighting for us and
we're benefited by the way God used him. We're all, we're all
winners because of what he did. And they rightly so gave it were
to give honor to whom honor is due in this world, aren't we?
But how much more thankful must we be unto God for the Savior
of our souls? I'm reminded of this beautiful
song that I heard many, many years ago, and Vicki and I have
sung it a few times. I don't think there, there aren't
very many songs that express this the magnitude of the victory
that the Lord Jesus Christ brought for us. Listen to the words of
this song. This is just a couple of the
verses. He was wounded for our transgressions. He bore our sins
in his body on the tree. For our guilt, he gave us peace. From our bondage, he gave release.
and with his stripes and with his stripes. Can you hear the
melody of it? I probably should sing it. It doesn't sound as
good when you just read it, but I'm not going to do it. And with
his stripes, our souls are healed. And listen to this verse. Who
can number his generation? Who shall declare all the triumphs
of his cross? Millions dead. Now live again. Myriads follow
in his train. Victorious Lord. Victorious Lord. Victorious Lord and coming King.
I was one of those millions. And though there are millions,
he left the ninety and nine and went after that one little sheep.
And that was me. And it was you too if you're
his. Each of these verses or passages,
these different exploits of these mighty men highlights a particular
aspect of our Savior's victory on Calvary. This one, by telling
the number of the enemy, shows what we've been talking about.
What a marvel that Christ himself, by himself, defeated such an
overwhelming opposition. wrath of God he faced and bore
in our place and every enemy spiritual wickedness in high
places and the last enemy that he'll destroy is death he was
able to drink that cup dry that we've been looking at in the
book of Luke and even the words there at the end of that verse
that first verse we read there where it says he killed him at
one time At one time, this is not over his lifetime. This is
one battle, one victory that was won. But even those words
exalt the Son of God, don't they? They exalt the Savior. Listen
to Hebrews 10, nine. Then said he, lo, I come, the
Savior said this, I come to do thy will, O God, to do what nobody
else has ever done. Nobody else, even in heaven,
earth, or hell, not even the angels are pure in his sight. And he said, I'm going to do
your will. And that's what I come to do. And he takes away the
first covenant that he may establish the second by the which will
we are sanctified. We're made holy. We're set apart
unto God through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. There's our text. Once for all. At one time. And every priest
standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same
sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after
he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down. He rested. He won the victory
and he sat down. One sacrifice. From henceforth expecting till
his enemies be made his footstool for, and it says it a third time
in what, four verses? For by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. So you see that at the very end
of that, at one time, he killed them all at one time. The Lord
Jesus Christ with one offering of himself for our sins. accomplished
salvation Completely and fully verse 9 back in our text Here's
another example of why these men are called mighty men and
After him was Eliezer the son of Dodo the Aohite one of the
three mighty men with David when they defied the Philistines that
were there gathered together to battle and the men of Israel
were gone away and He arose and smote the Philistines until his
hand was weary, and his hand clave unto the sword, and the
Lord wrought a great victory that day. And the people returned
after him only to spoil. You know where that one's going,
don't you? Only to benefit from what he accomplished. Now, one of the things featured
in this example is how that the rest of the Israelites were going
away. They had fled. They had retreated.
They were not to be found. And Eleazar, when everybody else
had fled, he fought. And this is our Lord, of course,
being forsaken of all. It was prophesied in the Old
Testament, I'll smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.
And in fulfillment of that, they all forsook the Lord Jesus Christ.
We already spoke of how he won by himself, but think of this.
Do you think Eliezer here, this mighty man that we just read
about, do you think he would be discouraged a little bit by
everybody else being AWOL? You know, he could have thought,
this might go through my mind if I was in that situation. Why should I fight for these
cowards? Why would I risk my life For somebody that's not
even willing to fight for themselves. I'm glad our Savior didn't think
that way. Maybe you might think this, well, if they're not willing,
why should I be willing? If they're not. Listen to this, Matthew 26, 55.
In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, are you come
out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I
sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and you laid no hold
on me. But all this was done that the
scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples
forsook him and fled." All of these descriptions of
what these mighty men did, they highlight key aspects of what
the Savior accomplished. It's such a beautiful picture. And then, where are we there
in that text? That was real clear, wasn't it?
On the very surface of it. Eleazar, he defied the Philistines
and he arose and smote them until his, he couldn't hardly, his
hand was weary. Where are we there? Well, we're
right at the end and the people returned after him. That's where we are. We received
all of the benefit of what he did without us lifting a finger. And of course, as we've seen
again in our study in Luke, it's not just that we didn't lift
a finger, we deliberately Failed I mean we just It wasn't boy,
you know We did our bed now we didn't
do anything That's the gospel Christ Accomplished
the victory for us without us And we win Another thing that stands out
is how that his hand claved to the sword. That's something that
you wouldn't forget, would you, about that? I remember when I
read this, I probably had not looked at this particular passage
in I don't know how many years, but I remembered that from reading
it years ago. His hand, when he was done and
We've probably never experienced this, but I've had the feeling,
you know, if your hand is a certain way for a certain amount of time,
it's hard to even open it anymore. They couldn't even pry his fingers
off of his sword at the end of the day, because he had fought
so hard and so long, and his hand was just melded to his sword. And how often in the scripture
do we hear of a sword? The sword in the scriptures is
almost always one thing. Do you remember what it is? The
sword that went out of the mouth of that in the book of Revelation
and the sword of the spirit. We're going to read about that.
It's God's word in our savior's hand as he was accomplishing
salvation for us, his hand clave to the sword. Everything he did,
he said, thus, it must be that the scriptures might be fulfilled.
And he quoted scripture. Listen to the verse that I referred
to, Ephesians 6, 14. Stand therefore, having your
loins girt about with the truth. This is describing somebody going
into battle, and that's what we're talking about. This man
Eleazar. And of course, how he pictures
our savior. And having on the breastplate
of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of
the gospel of peace, and above all, taking the shield of faith. wherewith you shall be able to
quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet
of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God." We're not left in doubt as to what that is. Our Savior's
hand clave to that sword, didn't it? When our Savior did spiritual
battle with Satan himself in Luke 4, 3, do you think that's
key maybe to our salvation? That the Lord Jesus Christ went
toe to toe with our great adversary, the devil, and vanquished him
how? Listen, Luke 4, 3, and the devil
said unto him, if thou be the son of God, command that this
stone be made bread. And Jesus answered him saying,
it is written, it is written, his hand clave to the sword,
that thou shalt not live by bread alone, but by every word of God,
by the word of God. Not only did he quote the word
of God, but he quoted the word of God concerning the word of
God. And in that passage there, the
Lord Jesus answered every confrontation of the devil. You think we had
a stake in that? In what took place there that
day? The spoils of that are ours,
aren't they? In every confrontation, the devil
came back. It is written, the Lord said.
It is written. It is said. And then he quoted
the Bible. His hand claimed that sword,
and that's how he saved me. That's how he accomplished victory
for me, by not only declaring the word of life, but by fulfilling
all of the word of life. He is the incarnate word. If
he saves you tonight or somebody that you love, he will do it
by the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And so we
see even that. in our text verse 11 now in our
text and after him was shema the son of eggy the herorite
and the philistines were gathered together into a troop where was
a piece of ground full of lentils and the people fled from the
philistines here come the philistines and what and the reason that
there's battle taking place on this ground is it was a ground
full of food full of lentils it was a key it was the provisions
But he stood in the midst of the ground and defended it and
slew the Philistines and the Lord wrought a great victory. There's a couple of things different
about this, the description of this victory
here. And one thing, of course, is
that it was a ground full of lentils. It was their food supply. It was important. They fought.
It was important to fight. That man stood there and did
that because it was important. It was vital. They had to have
something to eat. And the reason the Philistines
attacked there, apparently, was to take their food. Here Christ
is set forth as the one by whom we are provided for. And there's another word in this
part that's not in the other ones, it's the word defended. So in the other ones, he saved
us. First of all, he did it alone.
Secondly, he did it and we just came along and picked up the
victory off the ground. And then after that, he made
sure nobody could touch us after that. You see the progression
here? Defended, he defends us to this very hour. Both spiritually and physically,
we're provided for. We have everything we need because
he stood on that ground. His flesh and blood are our meat
and drink indeed. He is our supply. He is our sustenance. And he's also the reason we're
able to eat and drink. Represents our spiritual life,
our sustenance. Christ in him crucified, his
person. and his work and of course we
live by him in every way we got spiritual beans to eat
and we got physical beans to eat we just had beans the other
night there ain't nothing better is there than beans and cornbread
not when you fix them right there just isn't any whole lot better
than that but we live by him in every way and not only Did
he give us, again, spiritual life at Calvary? He won the victory
for us. He defeated all of our enemies there. But it's by him
and what he did that we live every day, that we're defended
even now. He said, you're in my hand and
nobody can pluck you out. And they would. We'd pluck ourselves
out if we could, wouldn't we? We'd have jumped out and run
a long time ago if we could do it. Satan can't get to us. I've prayed for you, Simon. It's going to be fine. And he defends us. The Lord's
our shepherd. We shall not want in there, though
we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear
no evil. For one simple reason, he's with me. And then let's just think in
closing about these words and the Lord wrought a great These men picture our Lord Jesus Christ
in so many beautiful, clear ways, and there's more of it. We'll
look at more next time. I could have looked at all of
those examples tonight, but it would have been a while, so I
thought it would be better for us to to look at it in two messages
and maybe be able to take it in a little bit better. This
is so beautiful. The Lord wrought a great victory,
and because he did, now the spools of victory are mine. Think about
the victory that he won. What is ours because of what
Christ accomplished on Calvary? Well, righteousness. He was obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. It behooved him so that he might be a merciful
and faithful high priest. It behooved him to suffer in
our place, to take on him our nature, not having taken the
nature of angels, but he took on the nature of Abraham, my
nature. and lived and pleased God for
me. The Lord Jesus Christ is my substitute
in every way. He stood in for me in eternity
when the covenant of grace was made. He took my part then, didn't
he? That's my surety. Before there
ever was a me, before I'd ever sinned. He agreed to be my substitute then. And then
he was born into this world and he had to take on our nature
and live for us, become what we are in that sense, bone of
our bone and flesh of our flesh in order for us to be righteous in him for what
he did for us as in Adam all die so in Christ all whom he
represented are made alive because he didn't fall because he didn't
sin because he always did those things that please his father
that's what he was saying, Lord I come and in the whole book
it's written of me I'm coming to do thy will oh God I'm coming
to do everything that God requires To be glorified forever and to
save his sheep And that's what he did righteousness forgiveness
of sin I Like that part there in in
Ephesians 1 I believe it is in Whom we have redemption through
his blood even the forgiveness of sins His blood redeeming me
is the same thing as That's what the forgiveness of sins is God
doesn't just forgive us, you know Arbitrarily and just say
just sweep it under the rug. It's paid for we're redeemed By his precious blood peace Isn't
it wonderful to have peace with God? That's what those labor under
who labor and go about to establish their own righteous. They can
never have peace with God. It's never enough. But we come boldly before the
throne of grace to find the help and grace that we need in time
of trouble by his blood, by his precious blood. And we come without
fear. Peace which passeth all understanding. Not only can we not understand
his peace, because it just, how do you explain that to somebody?
I'm not afraid of God anymore. How do you explain that? What
do you mean by that, Crew? Well, the Lord's just gonna have
to give you some of that. I can't explain that. But also,
peace that passeth understanding in this sense. I have peace even
when I don't have any idea what's going on. I look at this world,
I don't know what's happening to you. It don't look good, but
I'm at peace with it, I'm at peace. Because his peace is better
than understanding things. I don't know, there's a lot of
questions I can't answer. People ask questions, I can't
answer that. I don't know why the Lord did things exactly the
way he did or why. or often even what he did. But I know this, I have peace
about it, because I know who did it. I know who accomplished
it. I know that whatever he does,
he does well, and he does for the right reason. Some peace that passeth understanding. And then I thought about this,
we talked about this already tonight, security. That's a spoil
of his victory and his security. That goes along with peace, doesn't
it? We have peace because we're secure.
Under the blood of Jesus, safe though the worlds may crumble,
safe though the stars grow dim. Under his precious sin-cleansing
blood, we're secure. Eternal life. I try to think
about eternal life sometimes. You know, the scripture I know
that the first thing that comes to mind is we're going to live
forever. And that's true. That's true. There's no death.
The last enemy he destroys is death. And death has no dominion
over us. No claim upon us. You see, the
death is the wages of sin. And he put away our sin by the
sacrifice of himself. So we are going to live forever.
But we have eternal life right now. It's not just about quantity
of life, is it? It's about quality of life. It's
the life of God in a sinner. It's the most amazing thing,
the most remarkable thing to think about, eternal life. You know, the scriptures describe
those without Christ as being dead while they live. But a believer, we live while
we're dead. Paul said this is death here.
This is this is who shall save me from the body of this death But we're alive in Christ, huh
we have eternal life In him And we enjoy that eternal life
right now the very life of God who can declare all the triumphs And because of him, by himself, that's clearly set
forth in that, isn't it? And he claimed to the sword with
the word of God, with the very word of his mouth. He saved us
that way too, in our experience, didn't he? He spoke. Just like he said, Lazarus, come
forth. And he did. He spoke through his gospel to
my soul and said, let there be light. And there was light. And he won the victory in so
much that the spoils of it are all ours. But we're still fighting,
aren't we, Chris? Yeah. You know, we're supposed
to Take up that sword ourselves and put on the armor of salvation
and the breastplate of his righteousness and go to battle. We're still
fighting. But even though in our experience, there's still
a battle going on, he defends us. We can't mess it up. We can't lose. The victory is
already ours. You say, well, what's the use
fighting if you've already won? Ask David that, when he asked
the Lord, shall I go up, Lord, and shall you give them into
our hand? And the Lord said, yep, the victory
is yours, before he ever went. Why didn't David just say, well,
I'll just go home then? No, he strapped his sword on
and he went and won, didn't he? That's what we're doing. He's
already told us we win. Isn't it good to know that? Does
that make you want to fight less or more? Thanks be unto God, which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And we have something
to eat tonight because he defends us. We're down at his table. Well, thank the Lord.