Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Here's what's ahead of us today on Hope From the Word. People who were chronically having problems. And this is who David turned into a fighting force that was second to none and without compare. Certainly, God's hand was upon him, no doubt about that whatsoever. But you gotta give David credit for leadership here and how they had a team and they had a purpose and they had a vision.

And somehow, this guy got all these people together working on the same team. The Lord promised it, and this is how the Lord did it. He provided David with a bunch of people who were not happy. Life just wasn't treating them well. And David, through his leadership, turned them into a team that went out and conquered the entire land that the Lord had promised.

Give me one pure and holy passion.

Give me one magnificent obsession.

Give me one glorious ambition for my life:

To know and follow hard after you.

To know and follow hard after you.

To grow as your disciple in your truth.

This world is empty, pale, and poor compared to knowing you, my Lord.

Lead me on, and I will run after you.

Lead me on, and I will run after you.

Someone said wonder is a liberating experience that breaks the shackles of our preconceptions, allowing us once again to believe. King David had that sense of wonder in the greatness of his God. The wonder that freed him to take on giants and be open to whatever the Lord might bring.

David, along with his mighty men, are an inspiration, and we'll take a look at their lives today on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. Where did David get his sense of wonder? Let's turn to 1 Chronicles chapter 11 and discover the answer together.

Bill Luebkemann: David was a great king, but it wasn't because he just was anointed and became king immediately. He spent a long time living in caves, fleeing from Saul. He was through a lot of trials and tribulations.

As you read about great people in the Bible, it's often the case that they went through a lot of trials and tribulations to get to the point where God could really use them. It had been promised by Samuel. Samuel had anointed David king long before this, but he didn't actually become the king in reality until this point.

Chapter 11 verse 1: All Israel came together to David at Hebron and said, "We are your own flesh and blood. In the past, even while Saul was king, you were the one who led Israel on their military campaigns. And the Lord your God said to you, 'You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler.'"

When all the elders of Israel had come to King David at Hebron, he made a compact with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel, as the Lord had promised through Samuel. You'll find that back in 1 Samuel chapter 13 if you care to check that out.

The chronicler here shortened a few things because we know that initially, when Saul died and his three sons who died with him in battle, he had at least one other son who was still alive whose name was Ish-Bosheth. And that guy, Ish-Bosheth, became king of 11 tribes, and David became the king of Judah only.

That lasted for about seven and a half years. And then when Ish-Bosheth was assassinated, the rest of Israel came over to David's side. So the chronicler here skipped over those details because he seems to want to get into reading about David's kingdom. And now we come up to the point where all of Israel gathered together.

In 1 Samuel chapter 16, you'll see that's where Samuel anointed David the king, but Saul was still the king. And then if you look in 2 Samuel chapter 2 verse 4, then the men of Judah came to Hebron, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah.

So first anointed by Samuel, now anointed by the men of Judah, and now here where we're reading about in 1 Chronicles 11 verse 1, all Israel came together to David at Hebron and said, "We are your own flesh and blood." We're all descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And you were the guy who was really fighting the battles when Saul was the king.

You were the one that led Israel on their campaigns. And the Lord promised you that you're going to be the king and that you're going to shepherd my people. And so they wanted him to now take over as king, and they made a compact with him and anointed him king over the entire nation of Israel.

So many years after David was anointed by Samuel, and seven and a half years after the leaders of the tribe of Judah anointed him, he finally at this point becomes king over the whole nation, which he reigned over the whole nation for something like 33 years or so.

David and all the Israelites marched to Jerusalem, that is Jebus. The Jebusites who lived there said to David, "You will not get in here." Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion, the city of David. David had said, "Whoever leads the attack on the Jebusites will become commander-in-chief."

Joab, son of Zeruiah, went up first, and so he received the command. David then took up residence in the fortress, and so it was called the city of David. He built up the city around it from the supporting terraces to the surrounding wall, while Joab restored the rest of the city.

And David became more and more powerful because the Lord Almighty was with him. Look, here's an important point: Jerusalem was a city before the Israelites got in there. And you'll remember when they went into the promised land, the Lord told them, "Conquer the whole land and kick out all the Canaanites."

But here was Jerusalem 400 years later, when David becomes king, 400 years from when they crossed the Jordan. Some four centuries later here, the Canaanites are still living in Jerusalem. The Jews never successfully kicked everybody out of the promised land that didn't belong there.

So David here was in effect continuing the conquest of the promised land. And he says, "Well, let's go up to Jerusalem." It's a high place. When people say, "We're going up to Jerusalem," it doesn't mean they're going north; it means they're going up in elevation. And it was easy to defend because when you're higher than everybody else, you can see them coming.

You can shoot them with arrows and stuff. And the people who lived in there said, "You're not going to get in here," but he captured it. And this guy Joab became his commander-in-chief because David said, "Whoever leads the attack, whoever takes off and makes this thing happen, they're going to be my commander-in-chief."

And this guy got the job done. So David took up residence there. This is when he began to live and rule and reign from Jerusalem at this very spot here. Saul did not live and rule and reign from Jerusalem. And during the time of the judges, Jerusalem was occupied by non-Jews.

He built up the city around it from the supporting terraces to the surrounding wall, and Joab restored the rest of the city. So they restored and built and improved and expanded and made it better and bigger. And David became more and more powerful.

Why? Because he knew how to work a bow and arrow? Because he knew how to fire a gun? Because he went to the war college and got all A's? Because he was ROTC and he learned how to do it right? No, he became more and more powerful because the Lord Almighty was with him.

You can go to all the colleges in the world, learn everything you need to know, and if the Lord is not with you, it's not going to happen. And on the other hand, you might say David was a high school dropout. You might say that if he even went to school.

But he learned through the school of hard knocks, the school of living in caves and defending himself and being honorable to those around him and righteous and treating others well. These were the chiefs of David's mighty men. They, together with all Israel, gave his kingship strong support to extend it over the whole land as the Lord had promised.

This is the list of David's mighty men. David needed a strong bunch of guys to help him achieve his purposes, and he had them. And without these strong bunch of guys who God obviously provided, he may not have been able to do what he did. But without David, these guys would have been a bunch of losers.

We're going to see that here somewhere else. Well, let's look at it now. If you look in 1 Samuel chapter 22 verse 1: David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father's household heard about it, they went down to him there.

All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About 400 men were with him. So this is who was in David's army. They were people who fell into three categories: they were in distress, or they were in debt, or they were discontented.

Today, we would say they were losers. They weren't being successful. Now, of course, you can be in debt and not be a loser with the way the economy is going, but these were people who were chronically having problems. And this is who David turned into a fighting force that was second to none and without compare.

Certainly, God's hand was upon him, no doubt about that whatsoever. But whatever, you gotta give David credit for leadership here and how they had a team and they had a purpose and they had a vision. And somehow this guy got all these people together working on the same team.

They gave his kingship strong support to extend it over the whole land as the Lord had promised. The Lord promised it, and this is how the Lord did it. He provided David with a bunch of losers, a bunch of people who were not happy, just life wasn't treating them well.

And David through his leadership turned them into a team that went out and conquered the entire land that the Lord had promised. This is the list of David's mighty men: Jashobeam, a Hakmonite, was chief of the officers. He raised his spear against 300 men, whom he killed in one encounter.

These guys were fearless and they were strong and they were willing to trust in God. Because if you're going to fight 300 guys, one on 300, then if you're not trusting God, you're just insane. And it doesn't say they were insane.

Next to him was Eleazar, son of Dodai the Ahohite, one of the three mighty men. He was with David at Pas Dammim when the Philistines gathered there for battle. At a place where there was a field full of barley, the troops fled from the Philistines.

But they took their stand in the middle of the field, they defended it and struck the Philistines down, and the Lord brought about a great victory. Look, here's what happened here: this guy Eleazar was with David at this place and the Philistines were gathered there.

What happened was all the other troops fled. David was there, Eleazar was there, a whole bunch of other troops were there. They saw the Philistines and the troops said, "Oh my gosh, it's the Philistines, we're all going to die, let's get out of here."

And they took off, leaving David with this guy Eleazar there to fight the Philistines themselves. And they defended that field, struck them down, and the Lord brought about a great victory again. We see the credit here: the Lord brought the victory.

We see that over and over again: the Lord did the work, the Lord brought the victory, just as the Lord had promised. What a contrast to Saul at the end of chapter 10, who did not inquire of the Lord. He was unfaithful to the Lord. He did not keep the word of the Lord. He even consulted a medium.

And so the Lord put him to death. Now here we see a guy who's following the Lord, who's trusting in the Lord, and the Lord's delivering on his promises. Three of the 30 chiefs came down to David to the rock at the cave of Adullam, while a band of Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim.

At that time David was in the stronghold, and the Philistine garrison was at Bethlehem. Now look, Bethlehem's not that far from Jerusalem; it's only a few miles. So here you got the Philistines have a whole garrison over at Bethlehem.

David's there in the stronghold. Three of the 30 chiefs come down to him, and David longed for water. He was thirsty. I'm thirsty for some of that Simply Lemonade. Ever have that? That is good. My wife brought a bottle home last night, man, it was gone before we went to bed.

Well, between all five of us. David longed for water and said, "Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem." I just love that water that comes from that well. When we were in Moab, Utah, a few years ago—it's a great place to go, by the way, for vacation; we highly recommend Moab, Utah.

On the outskirts of town, there is a spring where water comes out of a rock. I mean literally, it's just along the side of a road, there's just this big rock that just goes up almost like a mountain. They had somehow put a tap in it or something, but it just runs out continuously.

I was like, "Where does this come from?" It's a spring in a rock. Well, the river's nearby, but the river's lower than where I'm talking. The river's down there. I mean, I know enough about how gravity works to figure out it wasn't coming from the river.

My family was drinking it while I was walking around trying to figure out how they do this. It's a spring. There was a spring outside of Bethlehem, and David just kept thinking about that cool water and that fresh water that I used to drink when I was near Bethlehem.

Oh man, that would just taste so good right now. I am so thirsty, and I'm sure they had other water, but he wanted to have this water. Now, he didn't ask these guys to go get it, by the way. He just was longing for it. He didn't say, "Will you please go get it? Do you mind?"

It's insane. It's behind enemy lines. There's a whole garrison of Philistines there. He just was saying, "Oh boy, I would just love to have a drink of that cool refreshing water over by the gate of Bethlehem." So the three broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem, and carried it back to David.

But he refused to drink it. Instead, he poured it out before the Lord. "God forbid that I should do this," he said. "Should I drink the blood of these men who went at the risk of their lives?" Because they risked their lives to bring it back, David would not drink it.

Such were the exploits of the three mighty men. These guys weren't afraid of anything. And they were almost to the point of being foolish. "You want some of that water? No problem." And they busted through the enemy lines.

Who knows if they had to kill a few Philistines on the way, or maybe they snuck in at nighttime or whatever. They got some jugs and they filled them up and brought them back. And he wouldn't drink it. "You guys risked your lives for this. It wouldn't be right for me to drink it."

He gave it as an offering to the Lord. This wasn't exactly something rude. This was something that he offered to God. It was at the risk of their own blood that they had done this. So the only thing suitable to do with it would be to make an offering to the Lord with it.

"God forbid that I should drink the blood of these men who risked their lives." We're told this story so that we can understand what these guys were like. They were fearless, maybe a little crazy even, and they were willing to trust God and go out there and fight the battles. And they wanted to do what was right.

Abishai, the brother of Joab, was chief of the three. He raised his spear against 300 men, whom he killed, and so he became as famous as the three. He was doubly honored above the three and became their commander, even though he was not included among them.

So this guy Abishai, he's a fourth one. He's not one of the three mighty men. He's a fourth one, but he is chief over them. And he was doubly honored above them and became their commander. Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, was a valiant fighter from Kabzeel, who performed great exploits.

He struck down two of Moab's best men. He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion. This guy also was fearless. And he struck down an Egyptian who was seven and a half feet tall. Although the Egyptian had a spear like a weaver's rod in his hand, Benaiah went against him with a club.

He snatched the spear from the Egyptian's hand and killed him with his own spear. He's clubbing this guy who's seven and a half feet tall who's got a spear. He's clubbing the guy and somehow gets the spear away from him and pokes him with it. It's great.

It's like with David and Goliath where David shot the sling into Goliath's head, which knocked him over. But what killed Goliath was that David took his own sword and cut his head off with it. And here we see kind of the same thing.

This guy took the spear from the Egyptian. He's clubbing the guy. "Give me that spear, I'm going to kill you with it." And he did. Such were the exploits of Benaiah son of Jehoiada. He too was as famous as the three mighty men.

He was held in greater honor than any of the 30, but he was not included among the three. And David put him in charge of his bodyguard. So they had the three, they had the guy in charge of them, they had this guy who was held in higher honor than any of the 30.

And then we go on to see the name of the 30 mighty men, which I think if you count them is actually a few more than 30. And I think if you look back at the other list in Samuel, I think this list is a little more complete, and maybe it's because it was written later so they could add more to it.

The mighty men were Asahel the brother of Joab—and we read a lot about Asahel, Joab, and their other brother being on David's side through many battles. We're not going to read the entire list here. You can for your homework assignment go and read all these people here.

I wanted to point out one thing here on verse 41: Uriah the Hittite. There was the husband of Bathsheba, actually one of David's mighty men. You remember when David slept with Bathsheba, got her pregnant, and then tried to get Uriah to sleep with his own wife so he would think it was his kid?

Uriah was too honorable to do that. And then David arranged to have Uriah killed in battle by putting him out in the front and then pulling back. Uriah just wasn't some guy fighting in the army. He was actually one of the 30 mighty men, one of the 30 best men that David had.

He was one of his top guys. And you think, why is the guy messing around with this guy's wife when this guy is one of his valiant fighters? And what a shame that is. Anyway, you can read the rest of this list yourself.

I think the thing I want to remember here is a bunch of guys who were in debt, who were unhappy, who were despondent, who weren't going anywhere, they didn't quite fit in. And they came to David, and they were made into a fighting force by David, who pulled them all together and trained them.

I guess they practiced together. The Lord sent them things to do. They were honorable in the things that they did, fighting for what was right. And the Lord knit them together and made them into a group of people that were able to take the land and expand the territory.

And during David's career as king, he took back much of the land that the Philistines had conquered and expanded the kingdom in many ways and really built it out so that when Solomon became king, he was able to reign over this huge kingdom with no wars to fight and no battles.

David fought all the battles, beat everybody up around him, and had a vast reign that was peaceful so that his son could take over and ruin it. Well, we'll get to that later. But we'll see what happens with David as we pick up in chapter 12 next time.

But we see what God can do with people who are committed to him. And I think the one thread that we should go home with out of this is Saul was unfaithful to the Lord. Saul did not keep the word of the Lord. Saul consulted a medium for guidance. Saul did not inquire of the Lord.

Saul was put to death by the Lord. And then we have David, and we have David serving the Lord and David being righteous. David had numerous opportunities; he could have attacked Saul, killed Saul, shot him full of arrows on many occasions, but he didn't do it.

If the situation was reversed, you can bet Saul would have killed David in a heartbeat, in a moment. But David was a guy that was honorable and that was committed to the Lord. And even though he slipped up a few times, the scripture describes him as a man after God's own heart.

And I think that is something that we should be wanting to emulate and be a people after God's own heart, a chosen people, a people that are set aside to serve him and to follow him.

Guest (Male): And no doubt that's your desire. To that end, Pastor Bill will be right back to lead us in a word of prayer that we indeed would be people after God's own heart. You've been listening to Hope From the Word and a small portion of our study in 1 Chronicles.

You can hear this message or more Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet.

If you prefer to listen via podcast, you can find Hope From the Word wherever you find your podcasts. We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 AM, and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7:00.

To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org. And if you'd take a moment to write Pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us.

We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives, and we want to pray for you, too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. To conclude our time together in prayer, here's Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: Lord, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for how encouraging it is to see how you used David in such a mighty way, Lord, and how you were able to take this haphazard band of ragamuffins and turn them into a force to be reckoned with.

It was due to David's leadership, but your spirit, Lord, and your guidance and your blessing upon them, Lord. And oh, that we could have the same kind of success today. Make us into a fighting force to be reckoned with, Lord, not to go out and shoot spears and arrows and win battles by physical force.

But make us into a force to be reckoned with in the spirit, Lord, that we would pray, that we would seek your face, Lord, that we would ask you to work in our lives, Lord, and in the lives of those around us. That we would be praying for our friends to come to know you, Lord.

They're not going to come to know you just because we harangued them to death. Because if we could talk them into accepting Christ, then the next person along could talk them out of it.

But we want to be a people that is praying, Lord, on our knees, that is advancing little by little, Lord, as we wait on you and trust in you to do whatever it is that you want to do, Lord. I just pray that your hand would be upon us and that you would work through us, Lord, as you would see fit.

Use us for your purposes, and we thank you for all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): And amen. Tomorrow, we'll be in 1 Chronicles 12 on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. See you then.