Well, I sure do like that last
hymn that we sang. I think we're going to have to
put that one in heavy rotation. Exodus 15 verse 3, The Lord is a man of
war. I've titled this message, God
our Savior, a man of war. The Lord as a man of war is not
a description that we might first think about our God and our Savior.
But it's a very good description of Him because there's a mighty
war going on all around us and within us. Satan is battling
against Christ and there's a war between Satan's seed and Christ's
seed. God said in Genesis 3.15, I will
put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and
her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. So there's enmity. And then there's
a war between flesh and spirit. Every believer has two natures,
and the spirit is the new holy nature, and it wars against the
fleshly nature. The flesh lusteth against the
spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary
the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that
you would. But rejoice, brethren. We have reason to rejoice, because
the captain of our warfare is God our Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And Scripture says, John said
in Revelation 19.11, 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. That's Christ,
our Captain. I want to look at the enemy a
little while, and then what kind of man of war our Lord is, what
He does for His people, and what He does for those who surrender.
Now first of all, the Lord is engaged in a spiritual warfare
against every ungodly enemy who rebels against Him. Now did you
hear me? He's in a warfare against every
rebel who rebels against Him. Satan was an angel created by
God. But when God declared Christ
was coming, His Son, and He was going to get all the glory for
salvation, He rebelled against that and said, I will exalt myself
and my throne. And that's the nature that's
in every unregenerate sinner. I will, I will, I will. And God has to bring us to see,
no, this is not about our will, it's about God's will. He judges the righteous and is
angry with the wicked every day. If He turned not, He'll wet His
sword. He's bent His bow and made it
ready. He's also prepared for Him the instruments of death.
He ordaineth His arrows against the persecutors. This is speaking
to unbelievers. He said, ìIf I wet my glittering
sword and my hand takes hold on judgment, I will render vengeance
to mine enemies and will reward them that hate me. I will make
mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh
and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives from
the beginning of revenge is upon the enemy.î And he says, ìAnd
I will scatter them among the heathen.î whom neither they nor
their fathers have known, and I'll send a sword after them
till I have consumed them. That's speaking of our Lord,
brethren. He said, I'll send the pestilence among you, and
you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy, and I'll draw
out a sword after you. That's a fearful place to be, to be the enemy of God. to be
rebelling against the truth of God and His Son. That's a terrible
place to be. So that's who the enemy is. Anybody
who's rebelling against God is his enemy. We were, you and I
who are called, we were enemies in our minds. Remember? God was
our enemy. But He came and showed Himself
a friend and brought us into reconciliation. That's what I
pray does for you who are sitting here right now who are His enemy.
Now, secondly, what kind of man of war is God our Savior? Well,
He's a righteous and just warrior. He's righteous and just man of
war. There's proud, haughty sinners in this earth and they're taking
up their arms against God and they're doing it unjustly. It's
pride. It's arrogance. to try to deny
any aspect of God's salvation. That's pride and arrogance. And
that's what men are doing. It's like men are trying to wield
their sword against God and His sword. Against God who Scripture
says He holds the waters. All the waters in the world. Think of how heavy that would
be. Scripture says He holds the waters
in the palm of His hand. What kind of sword do you reckon
he's using? You think our little petty will and our little petty
works and our little petty desires are going to out-overcome God?
Absolutely not. But he never proclaims war and
he never draws out this spiritual sword against any sinner unless
it's just. It's always going to be just.
Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? He's so just,
brethren, that he declares his reason for war against his enemies.
He tells us why he's against his enemies. In Deuteronomy 32,
21, he says, They've moved me to jealousy with that which is
not God. They've provoked me to anger
with their vanities. and I will move them to jealousy
with those which are not a people. I will provoke them to anger
with a foolish nation." He said, I'm going to allow them to be
swallowed up in the world. Do you remember when those men,
I forget their names now, Korah and his fellows. Remember when
they all, they looked at Moses, and Moses, he did have a lot
on him. He was leading millions of people.
This one man was doing that. But the Lord put him there. And
they didn't like it. And they said, you're taking
too much on yourself. We're all holy. Let us all take a part of this. And so Moses said, alright, everybody
that's on God's side, stand over here with me. And everybody that's
with Korah, stand over there. You know what happened? The Lord
opened up the earth and Korah and all his men went to hell
with their shoes on. That's what happened. We don't
want to fight against God. He's a mighty man of war. Not
only is He a just man of war, He's a mighty man of war. Who
is this King of Glory, the Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty
in battle? With Him is all majesty, all
power. He is the Lord mighty in battle.
He makes the earth to fear and the inhabitants to melt. Our Lord is the one who sends
the tornadoes and the hurricanes and the tsunamis earthquakes. This is just the handiwork of
this mighty man of war. He's triumphed over the greatest
and proudest monarchs in history. I was talking to a man one day
and I was talking to him about, this was right about the time
that everything crashed, you know, in 08. And I was talking
to him and I said, you know, it's very possible that we're,
as a nation, on our way to the end, to not be in a nation anymore. He said, oh, that won't ever
happen. We're the United States of America. I said, where's Babylon? That was the mightiest nation
in the world. Where are they? Where's Rome? They were mighty,
mighty, mighty. Now look at them. The king's heart's in the hand
of the Lord. As the rivers of water, he turns
it whithersoever he will. He brought a man to a fork in
the road and made the king take the wrong path or the path that
would end in his destruction. God did that to fulfill His purpose. You know, when a man is a great
man of war, when he's a central leader, he's given a name that
magnifies his office and tells you something about what he is.
through His name. Our captain is the Lord of hosts. That's His name. The Lord of
hosts. Do you know what that means?
It means everything He's ever created are His hosts. It's at His disposal to use it
however He's pleased to use it against His enemy. Everything
is at His beck and call. Scripture says, Our Redeemer,
the Lord of hosts is His name. He's the Holy One of Israel. That's who He is. And listen
to this. It shall come to pass in that
day. This is when our Lord is risen
and He's taken the throne and He's all power in heaven and
earth is His. And it says, the Lord shall hiss
for the fly that's in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt and
for the bee that's in Assyria and they'll come and they'll
work whatever He's pleased to work. We saw that with Pharaoh,
didn't we? The Lord sent locusts and He
sent all those different frogs and flies and all those different
things. The Lord summons them and they came. All the inhabitants of the earth
are reputed as nothing. That's Daniel 4.35. All the inhabitants
of the earth are reputed as nothing and He doeth according to His
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth and none can stop His hand or say unto Him, What are you
doing? Nobody. Men want to go around bragging
about their will. Your will is is going to be determined
by God's will. I guarantee you. Men somehow
think that when we preach the sovereign grace of God, they
always want to say, well, what about man's responsibility? And
what they mean by that is what about man's ability? Well, responsibility
doesn't mean a man has ability. Yeah, we're responsible to believe
on the Lord. but we don't have the ability
to believe on the Lord. We're responsible to fulfill
the whole law of God, but we don't have the ability to fulfill
the whole law of God. You take a man who's bought a
home and he goes into debt and he can't pay his mortgage. Well,
he's responsible to pay it, but he don't have the ability to
pay it. That's us by nature. The Lord is also a victorious
man of war. A victorious man of war. We see
there in our text in verse 4, He threw Pharaoh's chariots and
his host into the sea. All his chosen captains, He drowned
them. He covered them in the depths
of the sea. They sank to the bottom like a stone. The Lord
shall go forth as a mighty man. He shall stir up jealousy like
a man of war. He shall cry, yea, roar. He shall
prevail against his enemies. He is a victorious man of war.
So here this sinner, nobody that ever rebels against the Lord
is going to be victorious. Now, he delays judgment. Judgment
has not come yet. Christ has not returned. And
because of that, Scripture says, men won't repent. Do you think
you've got a lot of time? It might be the day that He comes
back. Repent and believe on Him today.
Today is the day of salvation. Kiss the Son lest He be angry
and you perish from the way when His wrath is kindled just a little.
Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. Now thirdly,
because our Redeemer is a man of war, if He has just one elect
child that's been redeemed by Christ our Lord, chosen by God
our Father, one elect child who is held and imprisoned by His
enemies, He will do whatever necessary to destroy those enemies
and save that one elect child. He'll do it. He did it at Jericho
to save Rahab the harlot. That's what he did. Joshua was
standing there and he was looking at that big city at Jericho and
it walled up to heaven. And he's thinking there's no
way we're going to be able to go into Jericho and overcome
them. We can't even get in there. Well, brethren, that's us. We're
looking at men whose hearts are so hard and they're like walls
that go up to heaven. You can't penetrate it. How are
we going to be able to conquer the hard hearts of men that's
like these mighty walls? Well, he was sitting there looking
and he looks and the Scripture says, and he beheld there was
a man over there that had a sword in his hand. And Joshua went
to him and he said, Are you for us or are you for our adversaries?
And he said, No, I'm the captain of the host of the Lord. That
was Christ he saw. I'm the captain of the host of
the Lord and I'm now come. And Joshua fell on his face on
the earth and worshipped him and said, What saith my Lord
unto his servant? That's what man will do when
he meets Christ. He falls on his face and says,
now what will you have me to do? And so the Lord, He said
to him, I have given into thy hand Jericho, and the king thereof,
and the mighty men of valor. I have given them all into your
hand. Now, when the Lord is going to send up his people, his army
against his enemy to save one of his elect. First thing he's
going to do is he's going to assemble his people to be his
soldiers for this battle. He said in Isaiah 13, 3, I've
commanded my sanctified ones, I've called my mighty ones, them
that rejoice in my highness. The Lord of hosts mustereth the
host of the battle. He musters us together to be
the host that He's going to use to overcome the enemies to save
His child. I just got back from Springfield,
Missouri. And right there, the Lord has
assembled His army. He's assembled His army. The
world looks at them and the world wouldn't think it's much of an
army. The world would look at them and think, well, how are
they going to overcome anybody? There's a few in number and that's
what they thought of us. But you know what? Our victory
is coming by our mighty man of war. He trains us up, he disciplines
his army to obey him. He teaches us how to fight and
he teaches us to use only the armor that he's provided. He teaches my hands to war, the
psalmist said. A bow of steel is broken by my
arms. Thou hast given me the shield
of Thy salvation, and Thy right hand has held me up, and Thy
gentleness has made me great. Look at Ephesians chapter 6. Verse 10. Finally, my brethren,
be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Now watch
this. Put on the whole armor of God. You see where our armor comes
from for this war? It's of God. That you may be
able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto
you the whole armor of God. you may be able to withstand
in the evil day and having done all to stand. Stand therefore,
here's our armor, having your loins girt about with the truth. The loins in Scripture is what
controls you and determines the way you're going to go. He says,
have your loins girt with truth, with the truth of God. And have
on the breastplate of righteousness This is where our heart is, and
this is covering our heart, Christ Jesus our righteousness. And
your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Remember
he said, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach glad
tidings? Why? Because our feet are shod
with the gospel that we preach. Above all, taking the shield
of faith, wherewith you'll be able to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked. Remember how Peter said that
we're going to overcome the devil? Casting all your care on Christ,
believing on Him through faith. Verse 17, And take the helmet
of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God, and pray always for one another. Why do we pray always
for one another? Because the one we are praying
to is the one who gave us this armor and is the one who is going
to fight this battle for us. So we are clothed in Christ's
righteousness. He says to his army what he said
to Joshua. When he brings you there, listen
to what he said to Joshua. There shall not any man be able
to stand before thee all the days of thy life. As I was with
Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee nor forsake
thee. Be strong and of a good courage,
for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the
land which I swear unto their fathers to give them. Only be
thou strong and be very courageous that you may observe to do according
to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee. Turn
not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest
prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not
depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day
and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is
written therein. For then thou shalt make thy
way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. This
book right here, this is the law he is talking about. This
whole word of God is what makes us prosperous. And he said, just
like I've been with Moses, I'm going to be with you, his child. And no man will be able to stand
against you. I'll never leave you, I'll never
forsake you, he said. Well, what's the weapon that
we're going to use for this warfare? What's our weapon? Going to battle,
you've got to have a weapon. What's our weapon? Go to 2 Corinthians
10. Remember He said, Comfort ye,
comfort ye My people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to
Jerusalem. Our weapon is a weapon that we
speak. We speak our weapon. What is
it? Declare unto My people that our
warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. For
she is received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
That's what we preach. Now look here, 2 Corinthians
10, 3. Though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war after the flesh. Now religion wars after the flesh.
They're constantly changing their religion and their practices
to appeal to the world. Let me tell you, especially you
young people, something. What religion calls contemporary
worship, is nothing but changing worship. And in Scripture it's
called, they change into suitable suits of apparel. Constantly
changing to appeal to the next generation that comes along.
Well, God doesn't change. And His message does not change.
And the way we conduct our services does not change. Because we're
not warring after the flesh. That's what religion is doing.
They're trying to use fleshly means to get people to come in
and get them to stay and get them to give their money. That's
what they're doing. You'd be amazed. When we were
buying this building, I was looking at a lot of different lenders.
And a lot of lenders that just help churches. and they will
have listed who they've loaned money to. And you would be amazed
at how much in debt these megachurches are. It's staggering to see how
much debt they owe. And you know why they're in debt
like that? They're in debt trying to build buildings and have programs
and all these different things to appeal to people to get them
in and get them to stay. But a man can't do that. You
can't get them to stay. They'll come in and put their
name on a church roll and say, once saved, always saved, and
go back out into the world. That's why those churches stay
in debt. They don't have any people to
pay it off. Though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal. but mighty through God to the
pulling down of strongholds. That's what Jericho was. It was
a stronghold. God said this weapon is going
to pull them all down by the power of God's might. It's going
to cast down imaginations. It's going to cast down every
high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God.
And it's going to bring its hearer into captivity and bring every
thought to the obedience of Christ. He's going to bring His child
through this message to submit and trust only the obedience
of Christ for His righteousness. That's what obedience is, is
to trust Christ's obedience. That's where He brings us, through
this weapon. You know, the way that they conquered
Jericho, you should go read that again and refresh yourself with
it. You know, the way they conquered
Jericho is they marched around it. This was at God's order.
They marched around Jericho holding up an ark, the Ark of the Testimony,
which is a picture of preaching Christ, our Mercy Seat, and they
were blowing a trumpet the whole time. Brethren, we're holding
up Christ, the Ark, the One in whose heart the Law is, just
like that Ark, the Mercy Seat, Christ who made propitiation
for His people. We're holding Him up. And while
we're doing that, by preaching Him, we're blowing the gospel
trumpet. That's what we're doing. And
that's how those mighty walls of Jericho fell. And God went
in there and He saved Rahab the harlot, one person. One person. And she was a harlot. But you
know what? She was the great, great, great,
great, some number, great grandmother of Christ our Lord. He saved
her. The Lord is going to lift up
His voice together with the voice of His servant. You can read
that in Isaiah 52 where He says, How beautiful are the feet of
them that preach glad tidings. He says, He will lift up His
voice together with their voice. They will lift up the voice together
with the voice where they speak. They will lift up their voice
together with the voice. If you go back and read the very
first of that where it starts, He says, My people are being
held captive These false men, my enemies, are making them to
howl. And He says, and in the day that I send my gospel to
them, they're going to know it's me that's speaking. It's not just my voice that does
this work. It is Him lifting up His voice
together with the voice of His servant. He gives this treasure
in just clay pots. That's what I am. I'm just a
clay pot. And He does it so that the power
may be of God, not of us. And it's of Him. It's all of
Him. He brings every thought to the
captivity to rest in Christ's obedience alone for salvation.
He reveals that Christ fulfilled the law. for His people. He reveals
that Christ is Himself the righteousness we need. He reveals that He sanctified
us by His blood. This is what the Lord reveals
through the gospel. It's a revelation. We can't have
it except He reveals it to us. He reveals to us Christ is head
over His church and He's ruling everything. to bring His people
to Him. Just get the gospel to Him and
bring them into this unity with Him. And He won't lose any for
whom Christ died. He won't lose a one. We just
preach Christ and Him crucified. That's all we're sent to do.
It makes churches look foolish, doesn't it? When they're doing
all these other things trying to get people to come in. All we're supposed to do is preach
Christ and Him crucified. That's it. That's it. People will come and they'll
say, well, what do you have to offer? What kind of programs
do you have? You got a softball team or a
basketball team? Nope. We just got Christ and
Him crucified. If He's enough for you, you'll
be happy. If not, you won't stay anyway. The Lord your God which goeth
before you, He shall fight for you according to all that He
did for you in Egypt before your eyes. You shall not fear them
for the Lord your God, He shall fight for you. The fear of God
was on all the kingdoms of those countries when they had heard
that the Lord fought against the enemies of Israel. With Him
is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help
us and to fight our battles. See the difference? Men are fighting
with an arm of flesh. We're fighting by the Lord fighting
for us. We can't fail. We cannot fail. Now lastly, look here. God is such a just man of war. He's so just, and I want you
to hear this, especially right now, If you're an enemy of God
and you deny His truth and you deny His Son, I want you to hear
this. God is such a just man of war
that before He goes into war and destroys His enemy, He gives
His enemy fair warning that He's coming. He lets them know He's
coming. Gives them space to repent. We
saw it with Pharaoh. He kept sending Moses to Pharaoh
and declaring, let my people go that they may serve me. If
you don't, you're going to perish and all your people are going
to perish. And Pharaoh wouldn't listen. But God sent him ample
warning. He kept telling him and kept
telling him and kept telling him. He gave the scribes and
Pharisees warning. Christ spoke to them and told
them, this temple is going to fall. They wouldn't stand with
Him. But in 70 A.D. He sent Rome against
them and it fell. The whole place fell. He warned
and warned Jerusalem by the prophets before He ever brought the Babylonians
on them in the Old Testament. He warned Jerusalem and said,
I'm sending the Babylonians against you. Repent. Believe on Me. They wouldn't do it. Right now,
every time you hear this message preached, He's giving you warning. He's telling you. Repent and
believe on Him. He's giving you fair warning.
If you don't, He's coming. And He's going to destroy every
enemy in that day. And every need, whether we believe
Him or we don't, Every knee is going to bow and confess that
He is indeed everything we declared Him to be. He's the Lord of lords
and King of kings. You're going to bow and declare
it. Wouldn't it be much better to bow the knee now by His grace
and declare Him Lord than to wait till that day and bow in
judgment and declare it? Because after they declare it
in that day, then they're going to be cast out into outer darkness. I don't even know what that is,
but it don't sound good, does it? Outer darkness, where there'll
be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Preacher, why didn't you tell
me the truth? Why didn't you tell me the truth?
I'm here because you lied to me. Mother, Father, why didn't you
preach the gospel to me? Why didn't you make me go to
service and hear the gospel? Gnashing of teeth. Now, with these earthly armies,
if the enemy surrenders, when we look at armies in the world,
you know, if the enemy surrenders, often times, An earthly army
treats those folks that surrender, they treat them terrible. You
know, they take them prisoners of war and they just treat them
awful. You see how some of our soldiers were treated in Vietnam
and different places, World War I and World War II, it's awful
the way they treat them. What will our Lord do if you
surrender to Him? Go with me to Isaiah 55. What
will our Lord do when the enemy surrenders to Him? He says in verse 7, let the wicked
forsake His way. See brethren, that's what we
all were and that's what you are who are holding on to a way
that you think you're going to come to God that's not God's
way. You're the wicked. And He says, let the wicked forsake
his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him
return unto the Lord. And here's what he'll do when
you surrender. He will have mercy upon him. And to our God, for He will abundantly
pardon. He's not like us, is He? He's
not like we are. Look, for my thoughts, are not
your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts. He's not like us. He'll have
mercy. You surrender to Him and He'll have mercy. This is what I'm saying. Listen.
Lay down all your weapons. Stack all your arms and surrender. We come to Christ and believe
on Christ. And we never stop trusting Him. We are constantly coming to Him.
All our days. And He says here, if you do this,
He says He will abundantly show you mercy. This mighty man of war that we've
been talking about that's so good to us and fights all our
battles for us and this is what He'll do for you. He will do
this in mercy for you. And He says your sins and your
iniquities He will remember no more. Isn't that amazing? Just think about that. No more
sin before God. He'll even promote you into His
army. And He'll put you amongst His children as His sons and
His heirs. And when it's all said and done,
you know what He'll do? He's going to reward you with
a crown of righteousness. Now anybody that does it, anybody
that surrenders to Him, as we see often through the Scriptures,
it's going to be because He made you do it. He's going to get
the glory. He's going to make you willing
in the day of His power. But I pray through this message
that He will make you willing. Surrender. Believe on Christ. And all these things are yours. Is it that simple, preacher?
It's that simple and it's that profoundly difficult. The one thing a sinner can't
do of himself, the one thing, is stop working to try to find
acceptance with God and simply believe on Christ. That's the
one thing you can't do. I pray God will give you faith
to do it. Amen.