When Gabe was getting ready to
play, I thought about a little story. You may have heard it. It said
there was an old man years ago who played the guitar. And when
he played, he never moved these fingers and just kept hitting
the same note. And then other people who thought
they could play, he said, man, what are you doing? You're supposed
to move your fingers and not hit the same one. He said, listen,
y'all were looking for the note. He said, I found it. And that's it. Oh, it is so good
to be here. We've been looking forward to
this for a long time. I mean a long time. I've had
you all on my mind. You try to picture things in
your mind, what it was like in New Jersey, and it's not anything
like I pictured it. But as Clay said, I'm so glad
that Sandy could come with me. I always like to tell a little
something on her. She's my GPS. Go places with
Sandy. And I mean it, I couldn't find
anywhere without her. But, oh, it's just so good to be here.
Thank you for the accommodations and it's just nice to meet God's
people. I pray God help me to remember
your names. I thought when we had a conference I might make
name tags. But it is good to be here. I just rejoiced in last
night's messages. We were blessed that our Lord
would speak to our hearts. And I pray He'll do that today.
If you would turn with me and your Bible to 2 Timothy, chapter 4. Here we have the Apostle Paul
writing to a young preacher named Timothy. What I think I can understand,
and I could be wrong, but I think this is probably the last letter
that the Apostle Paul would write. Sitting there in a Roman cell,
waiting to be executed. Can you imagine the things that
would be going through a man's mind as he sat there? He's not thinking about himself
and his surroundings. And Timothy comes to his mind.
And he writes this letter to encourage him. Now it's not just
written to Timothy. It's just not written to preachers.
It's written to all of God's children. All of God's people. And I pray that God may enable
us today through this passage to see our Lord and to rest in
Him. 2 Timothy 2 verse 1. Excuse me. Thou therefore, my
son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things
that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit
thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. You think this morning where
we would be if God had not raised up faithful men to preach his
gospel? He said, thou therefore endure
hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that woreth
entangleth himself with the affairs of this life that he may please
him. who had chosen him to be a soldier. Over in chapter 4, listen to
what he said. Paul said, I'm ready to be offered. Verse 6, the time of my departure
is at hand. And the first thing he says,
I've fought a good fight. He's not being proud. He's just
being honest. I fought a good fight. I finished
my course. I've kept the faith. Henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me
only, but to all them that love his appearing." What I want us
to think about and look at this morning is this thought of a
believer and a soldier being a soldier in his relationship
to his captain, the captain of our salvation. Why are they soldiers? Because
there's a war going on. And the reason that you have
a war is because you have two opposing sides. They can never
come together. They are totally opposites. And
there's a war. There's a battle. There's a struggle. First thing I see is soldiers
must have a leader. Christ our Lord won the victory.
We are more than conquerors through him that loved us. And he is
the captain of our salvation. And he came into the world to
give his life a ransom for many. As I think, there's so many pictures
in the Old Testament of our Lord as being our general and our
captain. We always probably go back to
David, the first one. David comes up, and everybody's
scared to death. You've got an old giant down
here, and he's just mocking everybody. And you know what he says? Send
me a man. Send me a representative, and
we'll fight. If I beat him, then you will
be our servants. But if he beats me, then we'll
be your servants. And everybody's just terrified.
And just so happened that day, here comes David, after the check
on his brothers. And he said, what's all this
trouble about? And he hears this Philistine mocking God. He said, where's your God at?
And David said, is there not a cause? Is there not a cause? And you know what he did? He
went down with a sling and a stone and he hit him in the head and
knocked him down. Then he took his own sword and
he cut his head off. What a picture of what our Lord
did. You know what he did when he cut his head off? He shut
his mouth up. And you know what he's doing? When he come back
up, he said he had his head in his hand. You imagine him swinging
the head of that giant. And the Philistines is running.
Israelites are not afraid anymore. This is going to be their king.
He's already anointed this king. God set him apart. What a picture
of Christ. Later on in 2 Samuel 23, this
is when it says the last words of David, but I think it's ironic
that he lists David's mighty men. These are men who came and
looked at David and they rested in him for everything and they
followed him, followed him. And listen, 2 Samuel 23 verse
9, and it lists a man's name, Eliezer, the son of Dodo, the
Ahowat, one of the three mighty men with David. When they defiled
the Philistines, they were gathered together to battle. And the men
of Israel were gone away. Why did they leave? They're terrified.
He's standing there alone. He's standing there. And you
know what he did? He arose. And he smoked the Philistines.
And his hand was weary, and his hand clave to the sword. And the Lord wrought a great
victory that day. And you know, when the people
returned, they returned after him only to get this full. Isn't
that a beautiful picture of our Lord? They all left him. They
all forsook him and fled. And his hand grew weary, but
his hand clave to the sword. That means it was welded. There
was so much blood on his hand, and on that sword, it was like
it was congealed together. And he won, thank God, a great
victory. He won it alone. Alone. Our Lord, he tread the winepress
alone. He is our captain. And everyone
in this army, every soldier, is chosen. Chosen. And like Don said last
night, we enlist willingly. You know, I saw something on
the History Channel a while back, and it was on the World Wars.
It said, and when the Second World War broke loose, you know,
that was such a mess, such a mess. And John McCain was talking,
and he said that when they bombed Pearl Harbor and we declared
war, he said, my daddy went to his best friend's house, and
he said, we're going. And all they got was a little
bag and they threw it on their back and they said, where are
you going? We're going. We're going. And they did. God makes
his people willing in the day of his power. He makes them willing.
You know what he said about the apostle Paul in Acts chapter
9, the one who's writing this to Timothy and writing this to
us? Said Ananias answered, Lord, he said, I've heard many things
of this man, how much evil he's done to the saints at Jerusalem. And here he hath authority from
the chief priest to bind all that call upon his name. But
the Lord said unto him, you go your way. You know why? He's
a chosen vessel unto me. Now the disciples picked them
out one in the first part of Acts, but that ain't the one
God chose. God chose this man. God chose him. And God crossed
his path on the road to Damascus. He crossed his path. He said,
he's a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles
and kings and the children of Israel. And he says, I will show
him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. Paul,
he was once an enemy, once an enemy. You think about those people
sitting in Damascus when they hear him coming. Man, you'd have
been terrified. He comes with letters to kill anyone he finds. But the next time he comes to
Damascus, I think it's the first place he came. Do you know what
he's doing? He's preaching the gospel. Why? He's a chosen vessel. He's been
conquered. And he's been sent. It's not easy. being a soldier. We've been so exempt from this,
we don't have any clue. Now when we think about war,
we think about somebody sitting over in front of a desk somewhere
running a drone. That's what we think about. But
that's not how war is. It's never pretty. It's ugly. And it's serious. Well notice there in verse 1,
he said be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. I want
to read you something from Mr. Halpern. This helped me. Be strong in the grace that is
in Christ Jesus. He said what grace? Not the grace
which we received in regeneration, but the grace that is in Christ
Jesus. The grace that is in us given
by the Lord and depends both for its continuance and to be
kept alive holy at rest, holy upon the unceasing supply from
Jesus Christ. It's like a stream of water that
keeps running as long as the fountain keeps running. If the
fountain dries up, the spring dries up. There's no living upon
past attainment. I can tell you, I would have
loved after you got through preaching to got up and preach last night. My heart was just filled. But
you know, we come here this morning, I'm scared, I was scared to death.
I can't depend upon grace from yesterday. Why did the children
of Israel have to go get fresh manna every morning? They had
to go gather it. I couldn't gather for anybody
else. I just gathered for me and you have to gather for yourself.
He's teaching us to depend upon him, not yourself. He said, this life is kept up.
in the constant receiving of fresh communications from Him
and living to Him and living upon Him. This is to be strong
in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Though there is no other
strength, no inherent, no progressive holiness. I talked to someone
just a little bit ago and I said, you know it's like the old nature
just seems like it gets worse, don't it? It's not improving. It's worse. And you know our
worst enemy? You're looking at him. You're
looking at him. And it's a constant battle. And
can I give you a little encouragement? There's no furloughs. There's no time off. The battle's
always raging. It's always going on. As Paul said in Ephesians chapter
6, you read that book and he talks about the grace of God
and the sovereignty of God and salvation. By grace are you saved
through faith and not of yourself, it's a gift of God. But have
you noticed how he ends that book? Finally, my brethren, be
strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the
whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand against
the wiles of the devil. And that's it. Be strong how? In the Lord. In the Lord. In Deuteronomy chapter 33, listen
to this. It says, thy shoes, verse 25,
shall be iron and brass, and as thy days, so shall thy strength
be. You may not have a too bad a
day today, But it may be real bad tomorrow, what we call bad. But according to your day, so
shall your strength be. There is none like unto the God
of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heavens in thy help and in
thy excellency of the sky. The eternal God is thy refuge,
and underneath are the everlasting arms. And he shall thrust out
the enemy from before thee. And he'll say, destroy them.
Who does? He does. You know what? This is Deuteronomy. He's preparing that generation
to go into Canaan. Moses can't go in. Moses can
only bring them to the shore. And Joshua takes them in. But
everything in Canaan, they had to take it. You remember he lists seven tribes.
He said, more stronger than you. How are we going to take it?
Here's what we're going to do. He said, you take the ark, and
you put it out front. And you march around the walls
of Jericho one time a day for six days. And on the seventh
day, you go seven times around. And then you just shout. And
that's all you do. And the wall come down. You know why? Because one of God's sheep was
in that city. Here he says, endure, endure
hardness. Endure. Those that endure until
the end shall be saved. When we think about enduring,
I thought about Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1. In Hebrews 11, it
lists all those by faith, who lived by faith and they died
by faith. He said, wherefore seeing we also are encompassed
about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every
weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us
run with patience the race that is set before us. Now listen,
verse two. Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of
our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured. He did what? He endured it. Despising the shame and he sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God. But then verse
3, for consider him. You take just a moment to consider
him. That endured such a contradiction
of sinners against himself. lest you be wearied and faint
in your mind. You've not yet resisted unto
blood, striving against sin. You say, well, I'm having such
a hard life. Well, consider him. He was a
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. No one suffered like
he did. No one endured like he did. We
can't even begin to imagine the soul suffering that he endured. And what he's doing, he's in
a battle. He's in a battle. some of the hardness that must
be endured. I had this scripture on my mind
for a couple of weeks and I'd read it and I'd go back to it,
but me and Sandy had a little bit of time. We'd come up a day
early and we were going to go to Hershey and I'm glad now we
didn't. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with going to
Hershey, but she said, let's go to Gettysburg. I'm so glad we
did. We went and you can rent these
tapes and you can drive through the park and it explains all
this thing, but you know this was a three-day battle. A bloody,
gory battle. And you know they said after
Pickett's Charge and the South, they're retreating, they march
in the rain on July the 4th all the way back to Virginia. Can
you imagine the hardness of that? It's not only the physical anguish,
it's the mental And they're not riding horses,
not most of them. They're marching. You know, they
said the battle, and they called it the Valley of the Battle of
the Wheatfield, they said it was so bloody that you couldn't
walk without stepping on a corpse. They said one man was wounded
and laid there on the battlefield for three days before somebody
ever came to him. And he said the most terrifying
thing was when they were in their fight and they tore down the
fences and the hogs come in there. And he hears the hogs of grunt
coming and eating on the flesh. That's enduring hardness. Enduring
hardness. I can imagine as they're walking
back, I said, boy, I'd like to be back home in a warm bed. I'd
like to be back there with my family. And I thought about Bunyan
sitting there in the prison cell, writing Pilgrims for Progress.
You know, he wanted to go home. I think I read somewhere that
I think there was one of the guards in the prison would let
him go home at night. He said, I'll let you go home
at night. If you promise me, you'll be back here in the morning.
Can you imagine getting home and seeing your family and your
children? And you know, you've got to leave
in the morning. And they said, well, if you'll just quit preaching,
we'll let you out. No, I can't do that. No, I can't
do that. That's hardness. That's hardness. That's mental, that's physical
hardness. He missed his family, but something's
more important. I'll read you this song by Isaac
Watts. Am I a soldier of the cross? Am I a soldier of the cross,
a follower of the lamb? And shall I fear to own his cause
or blush to speak his name? Must I be carried to the skies
on flowery beds of ease, while others fought to win the prize
and sailed through bloody seas? Should we just have it so easy? Read Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
Read Hebrews chapter 11. Must I be carried to the skies
on flowery beds of ease while others fought to win the prize
and sailed through bloody seas? Are there no foes for me to face?
Must I not stem the flood? Is this vile world a friend to
grace to help me on to God? Sure I must fight if I would
reign, increase my courage, Lord. I'll bear the toil, endure the
pain, supported by thy word. Thy saints in all this glorious
war shall conquer though they die. They see the triumph from
afar by faith discerning eye." You said, how do we honor God?
By faith. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. You want to keep buying,
they see. It's the victory. We've read
the last of the book. When that illustrious day shall
rise, and all thine army shine, in robes of victory through the
skies, the glory shall be thine. Endure hardness. You remember
David, he was a mighty man. He was a man of war. He gathered
all the material for the tabernacle. and Solomon built it in a time
of peace. But you remember one day when David should have been
out fighting? He's back home. He's taking his
ease. It says in 2 Samuel 11, and it
came to pass after the year was expired, at the time when kings
go forth to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with
him in all Israel. And they destroyed the children
of Amnon. But David stayed up on his rooftop. I think they
would fix the rooftops and they would go up there maybe to find
rest and maybe to get to a quiet place where they could meditate
with God in here. And you listen to me, you're
not safe anywhere. You're not safe anywhere from
your flesh. And he looks out over the courtyard
and we know the rest of the story. He says, surely a man like David
fought? Oh yeah. Paul writing to the Philippians,
in Philippians 2, now listen to this, he's speaking about
a man named Ephroditus. He said, he was my brother and
my companion in labor and fellow soldier. but your messenger and
he that ministered to my wants. For he longed after you and was
full of heaviness, because you had heard that he had been sick. For indeed he was sick, nigh
unto death." Almost died, but God had mercy on him. He said,
and not on him only, but on me also. lest I should have sorrow
upon sorrow. It would have broke my heart
if that man had died. He was so dear to me. He's a fellow
soldier. He said, I send him, therefore, to more carefully,
that when you see him again, you may rejoice that I may be
the less sorrowful. Receive him, therefore, in the
Lord with all gladness and hold such in reputation. Well, why
was he sick? I'm going to tell you. Because
for the work of Christ, he was nigh unto death. not regarding
his own life, to supply your lack of service toward me." Man,
that's a soldier, enduring hardness, not regarding his own life, his
own life. They talked about when those
men were walking across that battlefield in The pickets charged. They said they looked and it
was like a mile of just men. And this rose back. And they
just began to shoot and they just kept coming. Kept coming. And they kept coming. Come on. They endured the hardness. You know, Paul, when he's getting
ready to leave the church at Ephesus and the men, he tells
them this will probably be the last time I see you. You imagine
how they thought, Gabe. You imagine, Clay, you stand
up and you say, I'm going somewhere else and I don't know what's
going to happen. And this will be the last time
I see you. And it broke their hearts. And
he said, no, you think about this. You know, that broke his
heart, the looks on their faces. But he said, none of these things
move me. Neither count I my life dear
unto myself. that I may finish my course with
joy in the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus Christ
to testify the gospel of the grace of God. I don't count my
life dear unto myself. Then he says here, no man that
woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life. Now you think about a soldier.
He may come home for a little while, just for maybe a little
leave, and he comes to see his family and his children. But when the call comes, he has
to go back. He cannot be entangled with the things of this world. And this world is filled with
thorns and thistles, and you know what they want to do? They
want to choke the very life out of you. In Matthew 8, verse 18 says,
when Jesus saw the multitudes about him, he gave commandments
to depart to the other side and a certain scribe came to him
and said, Master, I'll follow you wheresoever you go. Wherever
you go, I'll follow you. He said, the foxes have holes
and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath
nowhere to lay his head. Will you follow me all the way
to Gethsemane? Will you follow me all the way
to the cross? And another of his disciples
said, Lord, suffer me first to go bury my father. Now this is
important, isn't it, Lord? This is my father. He said, but
what did Jesus say to him? He said, follow me. And you let
the dead bury the dead. You let the spiritually dead
bury the physically dead. You follow me. That's nothing that big, that's
entangled with the things. There's something more important. Everything, listen to me children,
everything in this world wants to entangle you. And there's
none of us exempt. That's part of the battle. That's
part of the, that's not clinging to me. Remember a man named Demas? I
read of him many times on missionary trips with Paul, and even in
this book, 2 Timothy 4, verse 10, you know what he said? Demas
hath forsaken me. Demas has forsaken me? Can you
imagine when they got that news? Demas, such and such, has departed? Why did he depart? He loved this
present world. He said, surely how did it entangle
him? He's still a man. He that thinks
he stand, take ye lest he fall. Paul was admonishing him, said,
don't be entangled with it. I know what some of that, what
that's like. I tried for 18 long years to
run a business and try to pastor a church. I know from experience. And when I got about 50 years
old, I said, I'm getting rid of this. I'm getting rid of it. I'm telling you, we made some
good money. You talk about being entangled, everything that goes
along with it was buying rental houses left and right, making
money hand over fist, but it ain't nothing. And I got rid
of every bit of it. And when I sold it, somebody
said, and I financed it for the guy for five years, they said,
what are you going to do in five years? You ain't going to be
old enough to get Social Security. I said, I don't know what I'm
going to be doing in five years, but I ain't going to be doing
this. And that's not me. God makes
you willing. And you leave it, and you turn,
and you never look back. Never look back. There's nothing.
There's nothing there, Gabe, Martha. Nothing. Nothing. Something else. You know, for a soldier, you
don't just send him out on the battlefield with nothing to shoot
with. He has to have a weapon. And he has to be taught to use
that weapon. It says in 2 Corinthians 10 verse
4, for the weapons of our warfare, they're not carnal, but they
are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.
Well, what's Timothy's weapon? Well, Paul tells him. He don't
leave him to think and come up with it on his own. In chapter
4, this book, listen, he said, I charge you, therefore, before
God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and
the dead, at his appearing in his kingdom, and here it is,
he said, preach the word. That's the weapon. That's the
weapon. Preach. It's pleased God through
the foolishness of preaching to save them which believe. Not
the preaching of foolishness, but the foolishness of preaching.
Be instant in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort
with all long-suffering and doctrine, for the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine. But after their own lusts shall
they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they
shall turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned unto
fables." You know what is a fable? It's a fictitious story. They'd
rather hear the fable than hear the truth. He said, you preach
the word whether they want to hear it or don't. You just preach
the word. That's the weapon. Take the sword
of the spirit, that two-edged sword. But you know as I thought about
this, I thought about the weapon. You know, we need to know how
to use what God's given us. He told Timothy also, just in
second, in this chapter two, look over in verse 15. Study to show thyself approved
under God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth. No waste teaching. Study the
word. Study the weapon. You know, they said, and I thought
this was ironic, and Mark, he'll appreciate this. He's one of
those that like shooting 600 and 700 yards off. You know,
that's a pretty good shot, isn't it, Mark? They said those sharpshooters,
now this is in the Civil War. Now, you need to see those guns.
They said those men could hit a man at 1,000 yards. That's
unreal, isn't it, Mark? With those guns, they can hit...
And it's not just the gun, it's that man that's shooting that
gun has to be able to shoot that in such a way, to hit a man at
a thousand yards, to me that's amazing. And God enables us as
we preach his gospel. You know what we aim for? We
aim for a man's heart. Not your head, but your heart. And only God can hit that heart.
That's the bullseye. But you know there's something
else I thought about. You just imagine right now everything
that God's given us. He's given us the scriptures.
He sure has. That's the sword of the spirit.
But right now we can live stream. We can send the gospel now all
over the world. When Jeff Vandal, when he did
our website just before I ever came to be the pastor at Millside,
he set this thing up. on a thing called SoundCloud.
Some of you may know what that is. I just know it by name. And
I think that's a place where people go to download music.
They're not going there to look for sermons. They're not going
there. That's not why they're going there. But he keeps up
with those things, and he reminds me every now and then. Countries
you would not even think about where people have downloaded
messages. Isn't that amazing? You know
why we have all that? I'll tell you exactly why. That's
for God's elect. Everybody else might just benefit
from it, but that's why we have it. Other generations didn't
have it, but God gave it to our generation, and God gave it to
us, and we'll use it. Now, there's some things I can't
use. Mr. Fortner's been trying to get
me for a long time to use that electronic book, and it was kindly
funny. I'm going to tell a little one
on him. The time before last when he'd come to our church,
he got up there, and he went blank. That wasn't funny, was it, Don? I can't use that. I just can't. That's not me.
It's like David out there in the South says, come here, David.
I'm going to put something on you. I'm going to put my armor
on you. I'm going to put my helmet on
you. And he came out. I can probably see a little more.
And he just all covered up in this mess. He said, I ain't proved
that. because the sling that he has
is the very sling that he used to kill the lion and the bear. And he said, the same Lord that
delivered that lion and that bear into my hands, he's gonna
deliver you in my hands. I'm familiar with it. We have
to be taught how to use what God's given us. Here's what he
also told Timothy. It's amazing how much he gave
him and gave us just in this book 2 Timothy. Verse 24 of this
same chapter. The servant of the Lord must
not strive, but be gentle unto all men. That's how we use the
sword. I've seen times in my stupidity
and in my foolishness, I wanted to take it just like Peter did
in the garden and cut a man's head off with it. That's right. You know, it's hard when somebody's
standing there in your face and you know what they're saying
is a bald-faced lie and take it. When he was reviled, he reviled
not again, but we all say, buddy, I'll straighten him out. Yeah,
you may straighten him out, but what have you done? God give me wisdom to deal with
all men with patience. You was that way one time before.
In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves peradventure,
God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
That they may recover themselves as the snare of the devil who
are taken captive by him at his will. So have you endure hardness as
a good soldier. And he has his weapons. He has
his orders. He has his general. He follows
him wherever he goes. But something else they have.
They have a flag. They have a banner. It's called
the standard banner. And you know what his job is?
It's to carry the flag. And you know which one they're
going to shoot at first on that battlefield? That man carrying
that flag. They said one time, I can't remember
if it was the southern or the north, The guy was carrying the
flag, he got shot and died and the flag's laying there. They
even shot the staff in two. He finds him a stick and he ties
him a string around it and he picks it up and he starts running
with it. I want to be one that carries
and waves that flag for our Lord and for his glory. That banners
him. Let me give you some scripture.
Psalm 60 verse 4, thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee,
that it may be displayed. It's not given for me to take
it over and hide it in some closet somewhere. Raise it as high as
you can raise it. Now listen, when it's not even,
when it's just draped on the pole, it's still a flag. It's still in all of its glory,
but you wait for the wind to blow. Then you see it. When we preach, we want God's
Holy Spirit to blow and it just spreads that Jesus Christ is
Lord. Our God reigneth. It's like you
go overseas, foreign territory. You know what you're going to
look for? You want to look for the American Embassy. And they've
got a flag. That's how you know it's different.
That's American soul. We own it. We bought it. And
you can find safety. You know what a safe place is?
It's where the gospel is preached. You know what there is? There's
a man waving the banner. The banner, here's a banner over
us, there's love. Lift up a banner upon the high
mountain. As I thought about this, there
was a man in our church, he's gone on to be with the Lord now,
I think he died back in 2015. But he was actually on the island
of Iwo Jima. that little bitty island. And
you know, some of you may not know this, but Henry was there
too. He was out on a naval ship out in the water when all this
was going on. A bloody mess. Most of you all
have seen the picture of those five men raising that flag. You imagine what they suffered
to get that flag to the top of that hill. Why did they want
to put it on the top of that hill? I can tell you exactly why. They
wanted everybody to see it. What's our mission, Clay? We're going
to get that flag. on top of that hill. I said, well I'm so tired. We made it yet? No, come on we
need to go. We're going to get that flag
up there. Because you know what that said to everybody else? We own this place. You imagine them men down there
in the valley, man they just, bullets are flying everywhere
and they say, there it is. But it's not victory to everybody.
It's not victory to the Japans. Listen. The one we are the saver
of death unto death and the other the saver of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these
things? What that is a picture of, when the king would go to
an enemy into their country and he would invade it, when he would
conquer it, he would conquer it. You know what he would do?
He would tie the enemies to the back of his chariot. And he comes
right in. Victorious. And all His people
are rejoicing, they're praising the King for what He's done.
Ah, it's the smell of victory, the smell of life. But not to
those tied to that chariot. It's a saver of death. He says, Thou therefore endure
hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warth
entangleth themselves with the affairs of this life, but that
he may please him who have chosen him to be a soldier. We know
the only reason that we are accepted in his sight is because of what
he did. But I can tell you this, every child of God wants to please
him, to please him. As I thought about this, I thought
about that again where David's mighty men Now get the picture. David's not sitting on the throne.
David's in a cave called the Cave of Dolom. In Jerusalem is
King Saul, that heathen, that reprobate, that sitting on, whereas
David, he said despised David in a cave. But them men are there
with him. You know why? Because they love him. They love
him. And David was in a hold. And
the garrison of the Philistines was in his hometown of Bethlehem.
And David longed and said, and he may not have said this openly,
he may have, I don't know, oh, that one would give me a drink
of the water of the well of Bethlehem. Boy, I wished I had me a cold
drink of that water. You know what, I used to drink
from that well when I was a little boy, when I lived there in Bethlehem. But
listen, and the three mighty men break through the host of
the Philistines, and they drew water out of the well. that was by the gate and they
took it and they brought it to David. Imagine what they did
to him to risk their life just so David could have a drink of
water. Nevertheless, David wouldn't
drink it. But he poured it out unto the Lord as a offering unto
the Lord and he said, be it far from me, O Lord, that I should
do this. Is not this the blood of the
man that went in jeopardy for their lives? Therefore, he wouldn't
drink it. I can see they may not have been
enough for all of them. He said, I ain't going to drink it if
they can't have some. Look what they did just so I could have
a drink of water. And why did they do that? I'll tell you exactly
why they did it. He loved them and they loved him. You said,
well, he's in a cave. That don't matter. Our Lord is
despised by this world. Everybody loves and follows Saul,
except for a few. except for a few. Oh, how I want to bring honor
to his name, to carry the banner for all to see, the safest place
upon this earth is where that gospel is preached. I am glad
you're here. I'm glad God raised up this place.
I remember when you didn't hear about New Jersey, I think I met
Clay, I think this is right, I don't remember the year. I
think he came down when they first started having a conference
at Kingsport. That's been years ago. And then I saw him again,
I think it was in 2008, when he preached in your conference.
And then God brought him up here. And God established this work.
And I can remember when there wasn't even a work in Kingsport.
You know what he did? You know what he's saying? I'm
coming to take over. I'm coming to take what's rightfully
mine. And that's why we fight. He's our king. He's our king. Let me read to you another portion
of a psalm by Mr. Isaac Watts. He said, when I
surveyed the wondrous cross, were the whole realm of nature
mine, that were present far too small. So amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.