The title of my message tonight
is Conquering. Conquering. We're going to look
at the entire chapter tonight. And after this, it came to pass
that David smoked the Philistines and subdued them, and David took
Methagaman out of the hand of the Philistines. And he smote
Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to
the ground. Even with two lines measured
he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive.
And so the Moabites became David's servants and brought gifts. David
smote also Hadeser, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went
to recover his border at the river Euphrates. And David took
from him a thousand chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and
twenty thousand footmen. And David hocked all the chariot
horses, but reserved of them for an hundred chariots. And
when the Syrians of Damascus came to Sucr-Hadazir the king
of Zobah, David slew of the Syrian two and twenty thousand men. Then David put garrisons in Syria
of Damascus, and the Syrians became servants of David and
brought gifts. And the Lord preserved David,
whithersoever he went. And David took the shields of
gold that were on the servants of Hadesar and brought them to
Jerusalem. And from Bitha and from Barothia,
cities of Hadesar, King David took exceeding much brass. When
Toai, king of Hamath, heard that David had smitten all the hosts
of Hadeser, then Toai sent Joram, his son, unto King David to salute
him and to bless him, because he had fought with Hadeser and
smitten him. For Hadeser had wars with Toai,
and Joram brought with him vessels of silver and vessels of gold
and vessels of brass, which also King David did dedicate unto
the Lord with the silver and gold that he had dedicated of
all nations which he subdued. of Syria, and of Moab, and of
the children of Ammon, and of the Philistines, and of Amalek,
and of the spoil of Hadesar, and Rehob, king of Zobah. And
David gave him a name when he returned from smiting of the
Syrians in the Valley of Salt, being eighteen thousand men.
And he put garrisons in Edom, throughout all Edom put he garrisons,
and all they of Edom became David's servants. And the Lord preserved
David, whithersoever he went. And David reigned over all Israel,
and David executed judgment and justice unto all his people.
And Joab the son of Zeruiah was over the host of Jehoshaphat
the son of Ahelub, who was a recorder or a secretary. And Zadok the
son of Ahitub, and Ahimelech the son of Abathar were the priests,
and Zeruiah was a scribe. And Benaiah, the son of Jodiah,
was over both the Cherithites and the Pelethites, and David's
sons were chief rulers. Let us pray. Our Father, we bless
You and thank You that we can come into Your presence to seek
Your help for this time of need. We know that Thou art God and
there is none beside Thee. We bow to Your majesty and Your
greatness and Your sovereignty We know that you are all-powerful
and all-wise, and you are everywhere. And Father, we ask tonight as
we consider your greatness, as we look at this passage of Scripture,
we'll rejoice in your great providence for your people. We thank you
for the anointed King, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Christ of God,
who came into this world and did what no man was able to do,
died in the room instead of people and so valuable was his death
that everyone for whom he died was eternally redeemed. We pray
for those of our company who are sick and going through trials.
Remember Ralph as he's getting ready for this operation to come
next week. Remember also Wayne as he's waiting for the results
of this biopsy today. Continue to pray for Jenny and
for Wayne, Laverne, Henry, and Mickey. You need to pray for
Stephen, Father, that You would uphold him and strengthen him.
And give those doctors, as they take tests to find out what's
in his system, that You, Father, would give them great skill.
For we know that men are fearfully and wonderfully made. We know
that the tiniest thing going wrong in our body, something
unseen that needs a microscope to even see it, can go send us
off in a whirlwind. and a tailspin. Father, we ask,
Lord, that You would be with him and be with those doctors.
Father, we pray for those who have lost loved ones. We pray
for this young girl, Madison, that she surely will soon leave
this world and go into Your presence. And we pray, Lord, that You would
ease her suffering and those who must suffer with her. And
Father, we ask tonight that You might be pleased to open our
hearts to receive the Gospel. calls us in our hearts to see
Christ in these things. Bow us down before Him. He's worthy of all praise and
honor, and it's in His name we pray. Amen. This chapter is the record of
David having had his enemies put down by the Lord. He is now
pursuing the promise given to Abraham to possess the land of
Canaan, even over to the Euphrates in Egypt. And David is not operating
against an attacking army. All his enemies have been put
down. Nobody is coming against David. They know better. every
battle he's fought, because of the help of the Lord he has conquered. Nor is he conquering for the
purpose of war. He is taking care of unfinished business. That's what He's doing in these
different campaigns that He holds against these different men.
And the business He's taking care of is the realizing of promise
and the fulfilling of prophecy, promises that God has made, prophecy
that the prophets have prophesied concerning the remainder of Canaan. Figuratively and typically, this
is a double picture here of Christ conquering and still to conquer,
and also a picture of the Church going into the world with the
Gospel, having had every enemy destroyed by the work of Christ,
everything that would oppose them. The Church goes under divine
authority undergirded with the power of God and the authority
of Christ to lay claim to what was lost in Adam. Humanity. Humanity. This is the church militant,
armed not with carnal weapons of warfare, but with the sword
of the Lord, the Word of God, piercing the hearts of men with
the truth, and laying down the line of gospel execution, killing
and executing power of God unto salvation and condemnation, killing
and also revealing mercy in Jesus Christ. The gospel, though in
this day and age it's put aside as something used to get people
to come down front, it's a one, two, three plan of salvation,
or what men call the simple plan of salvation. The gospel is not
a religious play pretty. It's not a religious property. It is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believes. It's also the power of God unto
condemnation. That same gospel, like the sun
that melts the wax, also hardens the clay. And the gospel does
that. In the Gospel, the righteousness
of God is revealed from faith to faith, and the judgment against
God who holds back the truth in unrighteousness is also revealed. The historical aspects of these
victories here in this chapter, they pale in comparison to the
spiritual victories they portray. I've got seven things tonight.
I promise not to keep you too long. I'm really going to promise
that. The first thing is this. This
chapter begins with David going for the head of the snake. What's
left of the Philistine powers resides on the hill Amma. There
a fortress has been built and there Amma is called the bridle.
The bridle of the Philistines. That means something. He takes
a town called Methagama, a major city whose name means the bridle
of Ammah, or that which controls Ammah, or that which controls
the Philistines, and turns them hither and there, here and there. Now with this city sacked, The
Philistines had no central authority. They had no central authority,
no prince of power to govern their ways. And this is a picture
of what our Lord Jesus Christ did. It says in verse 1, After
this it came to pass. Now, after this means after God
had made David in promises to build him a house, to build him
a great name, to subdue all of his enemies before him. to gather
what was necessary of gold and silver and brass to build Solomon's
temple after Solomon was born, who was not yet born. Who was
not yet born at the time he gave it. Now after this, it came to
pass that David smoked the Philistines and subdued them. And David took
Methagama out of the hands of the Philistines. So suddenly
David strikes at the head of the ruling power over the Philistines. This is where all the central
government was. This is where it was all at. This city sacked,
everything is cast down. This is a picture. of our Lord's
bruising the serpent's head and casting Satan down by the power
of His substitutionary sacrifice. When Satan, the serpent, destroyed
humanity, or so he thought, or so he thought, our Lord looked
at the serpent and told him, the seed of that woman whom you've
deceived, the seed of that woman is going to come and He's going
to bruise your head and you're going to bruise His heel. That
was what's called the proto-evangely of the first gospel message in
actual words from God himself. God preached the gospel for anybody
else did. For anybody else. Now he had
shown the gospel. He had shown the gospel. in the
killing of the beasts. But that was in picture and type.
Here, these are the words of God. That woman's seed, who's
not going to proceed from your seed, but from my seed, that
woman's seed is going to bruise your head. And that's what took
place on Calvary's tree. Satan was cast down. If you want
to understand what Isaiah 14 really means, you look at the
cross. You want to see Satan cast down to the earth or cast
down to hell? You look at what happened on the cross. Because
there's where it took place. It was during the time of Christ.
I saw the star of heaven cast down to the earth. And that star
of heaven we know was Satan. The Proto-Evangelium promised
that your enemy and my enemy, if we are God's elect, would
be destroyed and subdued and held down. This is what David
is doing. He goes right for the head. right for the bridle of
Ammah, that which controls Ammah and puts Him down. Our situation, we are born into
the world, and though we may by God's grace come to know Christ,
and we will if we are God's elect, we operate under that Prince
of the Power who still retains a derived influence over humanity. And until God jerks us from that
one who holds us in His sovereign power, and He is a sovereign,
He is a dignity, and so He's not to be evil spoken of. He's
to be declared He is in Scripture, not trying to be figured out
because you'll waste your time trying to figure out Satan. He's
too smart for us. He handled the very best of us
early on in the career of humanity. And He won't have any problem
with us who have just diminished and degraded for thousands and
thousands and thousands of years. Here's what Paul said to the
Ephesian church concerning that very thing, You hath equickened
who were dead in trespasses and sin, Ephesians 2, 1 through 4,
wherein times past you walked according to the course of this
world. This is how you operated, the
way the world thought. And according to the prince of
the power of the air, The Spirit that now worketh in the children
who despise and dishonor God. That same Spirit is working today.
Satan is a spiritual power, spiritual darkness, but he is a spiritual
power. Among whom also we all had our walk, or our conversation
in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature, and those
two words are extremely important, by nature the children of wrath
even as others. We were never, the elect were
never the children of wrath, but we had the same nature. There
was no difference between us and the children of wrath except
that God had from the beginning chosen us in salvation through
Jesus Christ. We were the same, exactly the same. So this David
cutting off the head here pictures Satan being cast down. Likewise,
It's a picture of the church going into the world with the
gospel, as Christ said to Peter, assaulting the very gates of
hell, which would not prevail against it. That means the church
is on the attack. It doesn't mean we're militant.
We go out and put on swords and try to convert people at the
end of the sword. That's what Constantine did when
he got his side in the cloud. He converted people to Christianity
at the end of the sword. Be a Christian, you cut your
hand off. Okay, I'll be a Christian. That sounds good to me. That
was a bunch of baloney. That whole idea of in this sign
we conquer was hocus-pocus. It was all a political move by
a man who wanted power over the Byzantine Empire. That's all
he wanted. But we do go into the world with the gospel. And
we go with the armor that God has given us, the breastplate
of righteousness, our feet shod with the gospel and so forth,
the helmet of salvation, all these things spoken of in Ephesians
chapter 6. We go in and God has guaranteed us because He runs
the whole thing. He controls Satan. Satan is His
ape. Satan is His pawn. Satan does
what God tells him to do. And he's on a chain like old
Bunyan said. He's on it and goes so far. Now,
he might jump out at you and scare the Lord out of you, but
he can't get to your throat because that chain is just too short
to get to you. Satan himself said of Job, I can't touch him,
you've got him hedged about. My daughter is a garden enclosed. A garden enclosed. But we go
into his domain where this world, bent on fulfilling the lust of
the mind and the lust of the flesh and the desires of the
heart, controlled as it were to a degree by this prince of
power of the air, We go into His world with this. That's what we got. What's our weapon? It's this.
Well, we can come up with some plans and schemes how we can
work in the neighborhoods and get people to do things. No,
it's how we go in. This right here. This Word. The Gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And our Lord told Peter upon
this rock what Peter had said. Now, Peter wasn't the rock. He
wasn't the rock. He wasn't the first pope. The
word Peter means petrous, stone, pebble. The word rock there is
rock. Upon this rock I will build my
church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
So hell ain't coming after you. You're going after it. Because
in that realm, God's people are there. And we're looking for
them. And we've got the weapon that will free them up. The weapon
that will set them free. So the first thing David does,
pictures Jesus Christ going after our enemy. First thing, cutting
off the head of the snake. The second thing is this, the
destruction of Israel's old enemy, the Moabites, is significant
on several levels. First, it is the fulfillment
of the prophecy of a wicked man named Balaam who told the truth
but was a sneaky snake. In our study in Numbers, we found
out about Balaam, what he was like. He was a man who wanted
lucre. He wanted power. And though he
told the truth because he said, I can't lie. If God puts it in
my mouth, I've got to tell you what it is. And the prophecy
gave a wonderful prophecy of Christ and His church. But in
the end, he figured out a way to ruin it all by telling the
king that if he'd go in and marry these Jewish girls and have babies
by them, they'd make a mixture there and it wouldn't be no problem.
But Balaam told the truth in his prophecies. Now the whole
hero of the whole thing was Balaam's ass. He was the one who was the
best servant of God altogether. But nonetheless, Balaam said
this over in Numbers chapter 24 concerning the Moabites in
a prophecy. And so David's destruction of
the Moabites is a prophecy of the Lord. In Numbers chapter
24 and verse 17, it says, I shall see him, but not now, I shall
behold him, but not nigh. There shall come a star out of
Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite
the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth." That's
the prophecy. David fulfills that prophecy. God uses David to fulfill that
prophecy here in verse 2 of our text when it says these words
concerning David, "...and he smote Moab, and measured them
with a line, casting them down to the ground. Even with two
lines measured he to put to death, and one full line to keep alive.
And so the Moabites, those that remained alive, became David's
servants. and brought gifts. That's a prophecy. Yet it's a greater prophecy of
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and His victory over everyone
that opposes God. Secondly, this lining up of the
enemy in two lines, one for death and one for life, is an example
of a couple things. This is the way things were done
back then. It kind of makes you wish on
some occasions that's the way they're done today. You know,
just line them up in two lines and I'm going to kill you and
you're going to live. I remember talking to a friend of mine who
was in one of the first battles in Vietnam, and we almost lost
because we were really surprised those guys could hide in caves.
We had had experience of that in Guam and Guadalcanal, but
we had forgotten somehow from World War II to Vietnam. But
they almost whooped us. We did win that battle. But the
way we won the battle was not with our troops. We called in
the ROKS, the Royal Army of Korea. These guys are tough. And their
view of military battle is, take no enemies. That simple. Don't leave your enemy alive.
Don't let him live so he can shoot at you. No, just kill him.
And so they sent the rocks up into the hills where these guys,
we dropped 50-gallon drums of gasoline on them. We shot them
with bombs. We shot mortars. And they'd just
hide in their cave until we was finished. And at night, they'd
come down and beat us up. But them rocks told the generals
in America, look, we'll go up there and we'll plant the American
flag on that hill in about three days. They said, no. He said, oh yeah, but we're not
taking any enemies. And they did. Three days later that American
flag went up on that hill. That's the way the rocks were
tough. Another thing the rocks did was if they were to interrogate
somebody, they'd take four prisoners and go up in a helicopter over
a concrete tarmac. and say, you going to talk? And
they'd say no, and he'd just throw them out the helicopter.
Five, six hundred feet, smack, take the next guy. You going
to talk? No, he'd throw him out. The third guy's talking. He's
telling everything he knows. Everything he knows. This is
what this type of thing was. I'll kill all in this line, and
I know what you in this line are going to do. You're going
to become my servant for the rest of my life. And that's what he did. He set
these up in two lines. There's a couple of things here.
First, it is a bold statement. First of all, that the authority
over life and death belongs to the king. The authority over
life and death belongs to the king. Conceptually, The idea
of such authority being invested in one man is difficult for Americans.
It's difficult for Americans to understand, though of late
the political leaders of this nation seem more amenable to
that idea. The fact is that David put these
conquered soldiers in two lines. He lined them up on one side,
lined them up on the other side. One line, he killed them all.
He killed them all. and the other he allowed to live
and made him his servant." That sounds at all familiar to anything
that you know about the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
authority here typically put in the hands of fallible men
is fully and righteously realized in one place, and that is in
the King of kings and the Lord of lords. For he said, I was
alive, I was dead, am I alive, and I live forevermore, and I
hold the keys to hell and death. I hold the keys. I hold the keys. Derivatively, the authority is
also in this gospel we preach. The Lord told Paul, when he converted
on the road to Damascus, in Paul's report of it over in Acts, I
think it is chapter 22, not in chapter 9, but in chapter 22,
Paul said, he told me he's going to send me out to raise the dead
and open the house to the blind. He's going to give me this thing
I'm going to be preaching. I'm going to be able to do something
every time it's preached. It's not just going to be flapping
gums in the wind here. This, what we have in our hands,
this gospel that God has put in our hearts and in our minds,
that we're able to speak through our mouths, this gospel is a
killer as well as a reviver. It's both. And it happens every
time it's preached. I have confidence in it and so
does every minister of the gospel and everybody who knows the gospel.
We know. We tell somebody about the gospel and they laugh at
us and give us a cross eye look and walk away and think we're
stupid. That's all right. We know. Because the gospel has
done something. It always does, and not just
a bunch of words. These are words from heaven.
These are words from God Almighty. These are the words of the One
who spoke the world into existence. The One who hung the stars in
space. The One who put the planets in their sockets. The One who
runs everything right now. The One who controls a dust beam,
a speck of dust, as it flies across a sunbeam and puts it
to its appointed destination. The One who directs the steps
of the righteous and also of the unrighteous. That one, when
he spoke, he put power and authority in those words. I don't have
power. I don't have authority. I'm not the king, but the king
of whom these words speak, he'll kill you or he'll make you alive
with these words. Of His own will begat He us with
the Word of truth. We are not born of corruptible
seed, but incorruptible even by the Word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. And this is the Word of God,
which by the gospel is preached unto you. Look at 2 Corinthians
chapter 2. I've read this a hundred times
here, I suppose, and preached from it a number of times, but
it still to me is one of the most astounding passages of Scripture
in all of Scripture. Because it makes me feel what?
Paul feels in writing this when he finishes saying, he says,
who's sufficient for this? What man on earth is sufficient
to handle what this Gospel always does? It'll do it tonight. You'll say, well, it ain't going
to do nothing to me. It's done something to you. Well, I'm indifferent. It's done
something to you. I love Christ more. That's what
it's done to you. Here he says in verse 14 of 2 Corinthians
chapter 2, Now thanks be unto God. Now he's thanking God. He's
not saying, Boy, I wish this wasn't so. He's not standing
up and apologizing for election predestination, wishing he didn't
have to preach it, blah, blah, blah, blah. He said, I thank
God for this. What's he thanking God for? Well,
read on. Which always causes us to triumph in Christ. and
make manifest the savor of His knowledge by us in every place. He is talking about preaching
the gospel, the savor of God's knowledge, the savor of the knowledge
of Christ. For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ. Wait
a minute, He is thanking God for this too. We are a sweet
savor of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish. Same smell to God. Same thing
pleasing to God. Same thing doing exactly what
God pleases because His Word will not return unto Him, but
will do what is pleased. To the one we are a savor of
death unto death. To some, when we preach the gospel
and tell the gospel and they roll their eyes and walk away,
it is death to them. It's death
to everything they hold dear. It's death to self, death to
their flesh, death to their ideas of how they're saved. It kills
them and they won't have anything to do with it. They walk away
from it. But that's not always the case. And to the other, we're
a saver of life unto life. And who's sufficient for this?
Aren't you glad God doesn't leave it up to you to decide that?
He's already decided that. This is the instrument He uses.
And Paul said, I'm not sufficient for this. That's why Paul talked
about preaching the gospel trembling and afraid. Because he knew that
when he went out there, he was going to do something that might
even kill his best friend and raise up his enemy. He's not
sufficient for these things. But we are not as many which
corrupt or deal deceitfully the Word of God, but as of sincerity,
but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we of Christ." Speak
we of Christ. That's exactly what David did
to the Moabites, wasn't he? He lined them up. Two lines. Killed one, let the
other live. That's what you do when you preach
the Gospel. You see, the world is completely ignorant of the
fact that those whom they mock and abuse hold in their hands
and heart that which determines their eternal destiny. You tell
somebody the gospel, that's what you're doing. You're not controlling
it, but you're telling them, and what you're telling them
does. It's going to be a day of reckoning for the infidel.
when they are caused to remember their best friend whom they called
an enemy and mocked, one day told them the truth about Christ.
But also in this incident there is another picture. Every enemy
of God deserves to die. You and I deserve to die. Our crimes are capital crimes
in nature. Yet in wrath, mercy was remembered. Every life spared and saved by
grace and mercy is a life spent in rebellion and enmity against
God. If you're saved, you didn't have
anything to do with it. Had your way, you'd have killed
God and put Him out of business. Your life and my life is worthy
of extinction. Paul says it this way in Romans
chapter 5. Who was I when God saved me?
Well, I straightened out my life, preacher. Started going to church. Stopped drinking, stopped smoking,
stopped chewing. I became a better person. Well, that just fits
you for hell. Everything you did is worthy
of death. So, well, it's good in a human way, sure, I'm glad
when people straighten out their lives, but don't ever think that
you can straighten out your life enough for God to save you. In
fact, the cleaner you get, the less likely you are to be saved.
God didn't come to this world to save nice people, He came
to this world to save sinners. Paul said this in Romans chapter 5
and verse 10, he says, for if when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God, by the death of his son, much
more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. We were
reconciled. You think about that. I was reconciled to God. I didn't
know this. I was walking my path of unrighteousness
and not caring a thing for the things of God. Two thousand years
ago, two thousand years before I even drew my first breath and
walked upon this earth and was born as an enmity with God because
the carnal mind is enmity against God, is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be. Born an enemy 2,000 years ago. What happened when Christ Jesus
died? I was reconciled to God. God wasn't mad at me. By His
death, I was reconciled to God. You say, well, that happened
when you believed. No, it didn't. It happened when He died. I found
out about it later when somebody came and preached the gospel
to me. But when He died, in the future I would be born an enemy
of his. Wanting him out of my life and
not nobody mention his name, thank you, and leave me alone.
Let me do my own thing. I was his enemy. What I didn't
know, as much as I hated him, I had been reconciled to him. I was in his bosom. Oh, how sad
I am. How sad we are as enemies. We
walked in rebellion against a God who was holding us close to His
bosom. Reconcile. When? While we were yet enemies. While you were yet enemies. Every
life spared and saved by mercy and grace is a life spent in
rebellion. And yet again we see that mercy
and greater sovereign attributes of God. How did David choose
between the two? There is no indication that there
was any difference between one line of Moabites and another
line. They were all enemies. He had captured them all. What
did he do? Out of the same lump of clay,
out of the same lump of Moabitish clay, God took a chop right down
the middle of it, and pulled some over here to this one side
and pulled some over here to this other side and said, this
side, I'm going to make these as temporary things to be destroyed
and used for a while and then be destroyed and thrown away.
And these here are going to be trophies of my grace. I'm going
to make them look like my son. I'm going to sign my name to
my artwork. I'm going to call them sons of
the living God. What about these? They'll serve their purpose,
they'll be done with, and like the potsherds of the earth, they'll
be cast out into a pile. I don't like God to be that way.
It doesn't matter what you like. No matter what I like, God is
God. David has absolute authority
over those whom he rules. And he takes those whom he rules
and he splits them right down the middle, one line here and
one line here, and this is what he said, kill every one of them
and let every one of them live. How can he do that? He's the
king. It's nice to be the king. It's
what Mel Brooks said in that movie, it's nice to be the king.
When you're the king, Your word is law. How do I know that? Belshazzar found that out. His
cronies came to him and said, if anybody don't bow to the gods
they're supposed to bow to, if anybody don't bow to you after
you've made this law, then they've got to be put in a lion's den.
He said, it sounds good to me. Whoops, well, he forgot Daniel
was his friend. And Daniel refused to do what
Belshazzar had said, to worship idols. And so he had to cast
Daniel in a lion's den. Because it's the law. The King's
Word is the law. It's the law. Romans chapter
9. Concerning the fact that God
hated Esau and loved Jacob, people have difficulty. And so they
ask the question in verse 14, what shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he said to Moses,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy. For
the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have
I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that
my name might be declared throughout the earth. Therefore hath he
mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth."
That's God. That's God. That's David. Isn't it? Thirdly, we find in
verse 4 of our text that David, when he captured those of Hadesar,
when he chased them all the way to the border of the Euphrates,
which was the promise that God gave to Abraham, David took from
him 1,000 chariots and 700 horsemen and 20,000 footmen, and David
hocked all the chariot horses, but reserved them for 100 chariots. So he kept enough horses for
100 chariots, but the rest of all those horses he hocked. Now
what that means, he hamstrung them. That means they could never
run again. They could sort of stumble around
and eat hay and may be used for breeding purposes and things
like that, but they could never be used as a warring creature
again. You say, well, that's cruel.
Well, that might be cruel, but these are creatures that God
made and God gave instructions. David actually, when he was doing
this, was doing this according to what God had commanded. so
that all Israel would not trust in the power of men and their
chariots and their horses, but in the power of God. Those horses
had to be honed, because they God had commanded. Look back
over a few passages of Scripture, beginning with Joshua. Joshua. I know this wouldn't sit well
with the people in Petah. I know they'd just go nuts about
this, but it doesn't matter. People say, well, God loves animals.
Yeah, He does. And he says, if we don't take care of our animals,
we're worse than an infidel. Do you know that? We're supposed
to take care of the beasts we've taken as our beasts. We're supposed
to take care of them. If we don't take care of them, we're bad.
God says not to do so. But God has always used animals
as blood sacrifices to represent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And when His Son died on Calvary Street, what was He called? The
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Sin of
the world. In Joshua chapter 11 and verse 6, it says, ìAnd the
Lord said to Joshua, ìBe not afraid because of them, for tomorrow
about this time will I deliver them up, all slain before Israel,
and thou shalt hock their horses and burn their chariots with
fire.î Burn their chariots with fire. You see, men, when they
see things like this, theyíre liable to start thinking, You
know, we could use these. This could be used in our army,
a hundred chariots, two thousand foot men, all these horses. We
could probably use these. Turn over to Deuteronomy chapter
17. Verse 16 says, But ye shall not multiply horses. But he shall
not multiply horses. Now what he's talking about is
King David. How do I know that? He said, Thou shalt in any wise
set him a king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose.
Now he chose David. One from among thy brethren shalt
thou set king over thee. Thou mayest not set a stranger
over thee which is not thy brother. Now they chose Saul, he chose
David. So he is talking about David
here, and he says, �But he shall not multiply horses to himself,
nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he
should multiply horses. For as much as the Lord has said
unto you, ye shall henceforth return no more this way.� He shall not multiply horses. David
was simply obeying God. Look at Isaiah chapter 31. In Isaiah chapter 31 and verse
1, it says, ìWoe unto them that go down to Egypt for help, and
stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many,
and in horsemen, because they are very strong. But they look
not to the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord.î So he
hocked these horses because it was all part of Godís plan for
them to be relied upon Him and not upon others. Then in verse
13, we see the fulfillment of a promise. of our text in verse
13, it says, "...and David gave him a name." He gave him a name
over in chapter 7 in verse 9, it says, "...I was with thee
with us wherever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies
out of thy sight, and have made thee a great name, likened to
the name of the great men of the earth." God gave him a name.
We know that that points to the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no
doubt about that. When Peter, James, and John brought
that man whom God had healed into the temple, And they all began to wonder
how this man who had laid some thirty years at the temple gate
was now hopping and jumping around in the temple. He said, how did
this take place? He says, in the name and by the
name of Jesus Christ, this man stands before you whole. When
Peter preached, he said this, there is none other name under
heaven whereby you might be saved. Then the sixth thing is this,
Edom literally means red or red dirt. It comes from the name
Adam, which means red dirt man or man of the earth. Look at verse 14, And he put
Gareth's son in Edom, Throughout all Edom put he garrisons, and
all they of Edom became David's servants, and the Lord preserved
David, whithersoever he went. There is the first man, God said
in I Corinthians chapter 15 verse 47, of the earth, and he is earthy. That's what we are. You know,
if we break down the elements, there's a reason why they say
ashes to ashes and dust to dust at funerals, because we're dust
to start with. We got all the elements in us
and a little water added and it makes flesh, but as soon as
we start corrupting, we go right back to what we was before. We
were dust. What were we? We were dirt. That's what we
were. Scott Richard said, my great-great-grandfather
was Adam, my great-great-great-grandfather was dirt, and my great-great-great-great-grandfather
was nothing. And that's what we are. Red dirt
men. Red dirt men. And here it says
David puts garrisons in Edom. What is a garrison? A garrison
is a post or a deputy or a prefect. It is a high official put in
place to subdue insurrection and sedition. That's what the
purpose of a garrison is. And this is a beautiful picture
of the indwelling Spirit of Jesus Christ. Our red dirt man, our
Adamic nature, our carnal nature is subdued by the Spirit of God. The divine sovereign deputy and
perfect prefect who by Him we mortify the deeds of the flesh,
who through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh. The Edom,
the red dirt man in all of us. God has set up His Spirit, the
Spirit of God, as the garrison, the deputy. Now your flesh will
raise its ugly head, but I'm telling you this, your flesh,
the one you were born with, your old nature will never overcome
you. Not fully. It might cast you
down, but it'll cast you down into the hands of Christ. He
will lift you up. He will subdue that fleshly spirit. Also in this verse we see the
prevailing power that assured the victories of David. It says
in the last phrase, And the Lord preserved David whithersoever
he went. Whithersoever he went. One of
the doctrines that compose what we call the doctrine of grace
is the preservation of the saints. He was preserved, it says. An old preacher I heard one time
say, God preserves His people, and everybody that's put up preserves
knows that they don't spoil, they just turn to sugar. and
get sweeter as the days go by. You're preserved. You ain't going
to spoil. You're preserved. And I pray
you'll just turn to sugar the older you get. And finally, in
verse 15, David has a wonderful accolade put upon him. And David
reigned over all Israel, and David executed judgment and justice
unto all the people. Boy, those are two powerful words
that point to a one singular character throughout Scripture.
Let's turn to Isaiah chapter 9, judgment and justice. Isaiah
chapter 9. The promise of the coming Lord.
Verse 6 says, For unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is
given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his
name shall be called Wonderful Counselor of the Mighty God,
the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And of the increase
of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne
of David and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish
it with judgment and with justice." There you go, there's judgment
and justice. Look at chapter 11 and verse
5 of Isaiah. And righteousness shall be the
girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. Turn
over to Isaiah chapter 42. Isaiah chapter 42. Behold, My servant, whom I uphold,
Mine elect, and whom My soul delighteth, I have put My Spirit
upon him, and he shall bring forth judgment unto the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift, nor
cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall
he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench. He shall
bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail, nor be discouraged,
till he hath set judgment in the earth, and the owl shall
wait for his law." That is His Word. Jeremiah chapter 23. Who is this talking about? Jeremiah
chapter 23, verse 5. Behold, the days come, saith
the Lord, that I raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king
shall reign and prosper. and he shall execute judgment
and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved,
and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is the name whereby
he shall be called Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our righteousness, the
Lord our righteousness. And God hath made him to be unto
us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. This chapter
8 of 2 Samuel is the story of the conquering Lord. Conquering
now and still to conquer. Father, bless us in our understanding.
We pray in Christ's name. Amen.