I would like to read from Proverbs 16:32.
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty;
And he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city.
I am really excited this morning to be talking again about David’s mighty men. The last two times we talked about mighty men, I borrowed probably a combined thirty or forty minutes, and I should probably pay it back. So I will try to go shorter this time, and I apologize for taking so long.
I thought I would share my message backwards today. The last two times, the main burden I had, I got to at the very end. Then it was time for lunch, and a lot of angry, hungry people were looking at me. So this time we are going to go backwards as we share on David’s mighty men.
There are a lot of details, a lot of things we could teach and discover, and it is really neat. If you look in the archives of the CTM website, Mac Graham shared about four messages just on the mighty men. I have shared twice leading us up to the mighty man concept, not specifically David’s mighty men.
We are going to begin by focusing on the top three mighty men and go from there. Those are really the ones I feel are big-time on the Lord’s heart to get into.
A mighty man here is the word gibbor. So, someone who is slow to anger is better than a mighty person. I think Proverbs is speaking here about a natural mighty man. Someone who can rule his own spirit is better than someone who could capture a city.
One more verse: Psalm 18:29. This is actually my favorite verse concerning the mighty men. If you can memorize a verse or write down a verse, this is it right here.
For by Thee I have run through a troop;
And by my God have I leaped over a wall.
The last little phrase is in 1 Chronicles 11:13. We are going to be in 2 Samuel 23, but this phrase has really stuck out to me:
He was with David.
This is one of the mighty men, but I want to borrow this phrase. There are a number of verses throughout the stories of David’s mighty men showing that they were with David through thick and thin.
Lord, we come this morning and want to shout the victory of the Lord in our hearts with a deep amen: Jesus is Lord, and all power and authority has been given to Him. The victory at the cross is our victory today.
Lord, we worship You. We thank You for this time to meditate on Your Word and to be together in fellowship. We pray You bless this time, especially with Your presence. May these words come alive in our hearts and be applied in our daily lives. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Psalm 18 says, “By Thee I have run through a troop; by my God have I leaped over a wall.” I believe David actually did these things physically. There is a deeper meaning behind them, and we want to apply them spiritually, but with David’s battles and his history as a supernatural mighty man, he was probably talking about a physical experience. By the Lord, he ran through a troop—a large number of warriors—and by the Lord, he leaped over a wall.
This would be an impossible wall to just skip over. It is not like running hurdles, but a wall so tall that you simply cannot do it naturally. With mighty men in the Bible, the mighty men of the Lord, their specialty is the impossible. Their way is by the Lord’s grace. The way they do all these things is always by the Lord.
We spent a whole time together discovering that the mighty man of all time, the final mighty man, the final warrior who finishes all fights, is the Lord Jesus. The way the mighty men of the Lord fight is always by God’s power and might. It is unique the way they fight, because they fight battles beyond what natural mighty men can do.
There are natural mighty men and supernatural mighty men. We have some natural mighty men in this room, and hopefully we have some supernatural ones as well. Saul was a tall man, but Goliath was even bigger. Just thinking of that blows my mind. We all look up to Saul, but then Goliath is even bigger.
Last time we considered the battle of David and Goliath. These were two supernatural mighty men. David was supernaturally mighty because of the Lord. He fought Goliath by God’s grace and won, and it was not in a natural way. Goliath was supernatural in his might, calling on his gods. He was a giant.
The more you read about David’s mighty men, the more you see that they are different from what you might expect. These men may not have had twenty-inch muscles, because the way they fought was by God’s might.
David ran through a troop by the Lord. A troop and a wall are both huge, impossible obstacles. A wall, spiritually speaking, is often a great obstacle that you encounter while walking with the Lord. It may be some sin and repeated failure. It may be something you cannot bring yourself to lay down, give up, or follow the Lord in.
You come to a place in life where you feel, “This is impossible. If I try, I fail. If I try, I fail. I am hitting a wall.” You bash your head against it. You try to climb it, and your fingernails hurt from scratching at the wall. You just cannot do it.
Very often, we get depressed and down about these walls. It is like a mountain to us. David just jumped over it. Many times in our lives, that is what we have to do. There is no amazing way of rock climbing these walls. You just jump over them.
How do you jump over a wall? When you look away to Jesus—when you look up to Him, the Leader and Completer of your faith, and fix your eyes on Him—you are suddenly brought into the heavenly realm. You are brought to where you are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. You are brought above the circumstances, trials, hardships, and even the impossible thing.
You may not know the details of how to do it. You may not know what it will be like. You may not have the feeling or motivation to do it. But by gazing at Him face to face and being in His presence, suddenly you look down and you are over the wall.
We jump by looking to the Lord Jesus, Who is far above the wall. He lifts you up to Himself, and in His presence you have jumped over the wall. Many victories happen just by jumping. You run into something and get stuck; then you spend time in His presence, and suddenly the wall is on the other side of you.
So, when you run into a wall, remember: “By my God have I leaped over a wall.” That is the only way to leap over a wall. I cannot give you any techniques except this: set your face to look to Jesus. Not in a striving way, but sit there, enjoy His presence, worship Him, and suddenly you have jumped over the wall.
Many people have gotten caught in the traps of the world, the cares of life, and things that have stopped them from their first love. The Lord simply asks them, “Remember Me. Remember from where you fell. Just come.” They gaze at Him, experience Christ again, and jump over the wall.
Sometimes it happens through fellowship. You talk to another believer, and your feet are washed. What happened is that you got into the presence of the Lord, and you jumped over the wall.
A troop is slightly different, because a troop is stabbing you. A wall is an obstacle, but if you try to run through a troop naturally, you will get sliced up. Whatever armor you have, there is always a way through it. A troop has multiple layers of fighters, and if enough swords are sticking out, you will get hurt.
These are things in life that really hurt you. Mainly, I am thinking of the things people say—persecution that comes. You may lose something, lose a privilege, lose possessions, or lose money. But many times, the troops that come at us are the words people will say.
The troop may be the world: unbelievers who, because of righteousness’ sake, because you follow the Lord, and because you name the name of Jesus, say all these things against you. Their words begin to slice you up, and you become afraid.
Students in college or high school may be afraid to say something because of the words that will come from classmates or professors. Sometimes family members say things, and you become timid. You stand back and do not join in the battle. But the Lord wants you to run right through, be faithful, and keep on your race. Keep running.
There is a running way to fight. In battles, you see men charging. David ran up to Goliath. Everyone else, Saul included, might have walked up, trying to hide their fear. But the boldness of the Holy Spirit was upon David, and he ran up. When he got there, he fought immediately.
There is a kind of boldness in battle. David probably literally ran through a troop in some battle, perhaps getting ahead of his whole army. That is amazing. Yet in our experience, when we see persecutions coming, we remember the words of the Lord:
Blessed are ye, when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake.
When these things come, there is the sweetness of battle. Even though slices may come, the next thing you know, you are beyond the troop. By the Lord’s grace, you made it through. The secret is, “By Thee I have run through a troop.” It is by Him.
The secret way of running through a troop is to do it together with the Lord. In all these battles, you should never be alone. Do not bite your tongue, grit your teeth, take one step after another, and merely endure the slices. Run right through the troop with the Lord. His presence is with you.
If someone says something against you while you are following the Lord, but you are in His presence, it is sweet. It may cut through your flesh or your natural self, but inside, joy rises because you are in the presence of the Lord. What would be slices are no longer slices; they increase your joy.
Whether you are made fun of at school or work, lose a promotion because you are a Christian, lose money, or lose something else because you follow the Lord, there is a kind of joy that happens because you are with Him.
The mighty men actually did run through troops and leap over walls. They fought physical battles, but the heart of the mighty men is beyond that. The way they entered miraculous experiences of battle was because they learned the presence of the Lord. They followed David, but they discovered his secret: the presence of the Lord.
Let us turn to 2 Samuel 23. The same account is also found in 1 Chronicles 11. We are going backwards because, really, we should begin with Goliath’s battle and see the foundation of how these men became mighty. But I want to look at them at their height and learn from them.
There were more than thirty mighty men mentioned, though David had many more in his army. These thirty-plus men were special. They had discovered David’s secret: the presence of the Lord in their fights. They were David’s closest men, like a personal guard. They were captains over others, but they were the ultimate fighters in his military.
In 2 Samuel 23:13-17, we read the story of the three:
And three of the thirty chief men went down, and came to David in the harvest time unto the cave of Adullam, when the troop of the Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim.
And David was then in the stronghold, and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem.
And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!
And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David.
Nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord.
And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: shall I drink of the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it. These things did the three mighty men.
The Valley of Rephaim is the valley of the giants. Goliath was a Rephaim. David was in the stronghold, while the Philistine garrison was at Bethlehem—David’s hometown, the place where he grew up and knew the water.
David longed for a drink from the well at Bethlehem. His hometown was occupied by the Philistines, by the enemy, and he was longing for a taste of that water. He was not commanding the army to go get water. This was not selfishness. He was simply expressing the sorrow of his heart.
The three mighty men heard him because they were close to David. They broke through the camp of the Philistines, drew water from the well, and brought it back. “By Thee I have run through a troop.” They had absolute abandonment for the heart of David.
Yet it was not ultimately for David himself. David recognized what was happening. He poured the water out to the Lord. He said, in effect, “This is not for me. This is for the Lord.” It was not wasted water. It was a drink offering unto the Lord.
It is like the apostle Paul said: if I am poured out as a drink offering on your behalf, may it be. There is a sacrifice of complete abandonment to the Lord. To logical thinking, it may seem unnecessary or crazy. It is like the woman who broke the costly bottle of perfume and used it on the Lord. Others saw waste; the Lord saw love.
This is the way of the mighty man: an absolute, crazy heart for the Lord. Their heart was for David physically, but it went beyond that, and David knew it. It was actually for the Lord.
Behind all the fights of David’s mighty men was this kind of heart. They heard a whisper from David: “I long for this water in Bethlehem.” When they heard the heart of the Lord, they did not sit down to calculate whether it was possible. They did not count the cost because they had already given their whole might to the Lord.
Three men went through the whole army of the Philistines. It does not even say whom they killed or what they fought. They grabbed water and ran back. It is hard to run with water, but they brought it back to David because they heard his heart.
When a Christian is near enough to the Lord to hear His heart, there can be a reaction like these three men had. You absolutely give yourself to go His way. There may be a troop in front of you. Things may cut you up. It may seem impossible. But you do not calculate the impossibility; you know the King wants water from that well, and you run for it.
I feel the Lord has secrets He wants to share with those who love Him. He wants us to be close enough to hear His call. “I want this water from Bethlehem.” The Lord has desires that we miss all the time because we are not right next to Him.
Whatever their fighting abilities were, it was the mighty men’s nearness to David that made them the top three. It was their closeness to him that gave them the secret of what to do. Their fighting and racing were all out of passion for Christ. They loved their King David, and they loved their God.
There is a call from the Lord for us to come closer to Him, hear His secrets, spend time in the secret place with Him, and gain a sense of what He wants. His desires pull us out of our own life circumstances.
So many of our battles are only about our own troubles. But the Lord wants us to fight battles beyond ourselves—battles that have to do with His heart. He is alive, praying for many things. How many of us are joining Him in His praying, hearing what He is praying about, and saying, “I want to pray for that also. I want to be about what He is doing”?
As we pray about our own troubles—work, family, children, church concerns—the Lord wants to lift us into something higher. Sometimes you begin praying about your own need, and suddenly you are brought into another realm. You hear the Lord say, “I want some water from Bethlehem. I care about this.”
Then you realize that you are beyond the troop. Your own problems are small, and when you walk back to them, they are already overcome. The main issue was that you were so occupied with yourself rather than with the Lord’s presence.
Let us look at Shammah, the son of Agee, in 2 Samuel 23:11-12:
And after him was Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite. And the Philistines were gathered together into a troop, where was a plot of ground full of lentils: and the people fled from the Philistines.
But he stood in the midst of the plot, and defended it, and slew the Philistines: and the Lord wrought a great victory.
The Philistines were gathered into a troop, and there was a plot of ground full of lentils. This was food. The people had fled before the Philistines. But Shammah stood in the midst of the plot, defended it, smote the Philistines, and the Lord worked a great deliverance.
In 1 Chronicles, we learn that he was with David in the plot of food, and they fought together. Why would you fight for a plot of land with a garden? There is something of David’s heart here. He took his stand and said, “No more.”
For the sake of Israel, their produce, their fruitfulness, their livelihood, and their food, there was a larger heart at stake than simply, “I am fighting for groceries.” This was not a fight for himself. Shammah was not merely fighting because the Philistines surrounded him and he needed to survive. This was a selfless fight.
David stood there. The king stood on that plot of lentils while the people fled. They might have been looking for a better fortress or a safer place. But David said, “No more. This belongs to the Lord’s people. This is His.” Shammah knew David’s heart and stood there with him.
These two stood on a plot of lentils and fought off a troop of Philistines. They fought for Israel’s sake. They fought for the heart of God, saying, “This is the land I promised My people, flowing with milk and honey. They are to be here, free from bondage.”
Shammah did not try to reason with David and say, “David, let us go somewhere safer.” He said, “I know your heart. I get it.” He stood with him, and they fought.
In 2 Samuel 23:9-10, we read of Eleazar:
And after him was Eleazar the son of Dodo the son of an Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David, when they defied the Philistines that were there gathered together to battle, and the men of Israel were gone away:
He arose, and smote the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clave unto the sword: and the Lord wrought a great victory that day; and the people returned after him only to spoil.
Eleazar was abandoned by everybody, but not by his God. He fought and fought until his hand clave to the sword. Imagine fighting an army one after another, every stroke using your muscles, every blow wearing your arm out. Yet his strength was the Lord’s strength.
Stab after stab, slice after slice, he fought up close with his sword. At the end of the battle, he could not let go of it. There is spiritual meaning behind this: the sword became an extension of his hand.
What does this bring to mind? The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. When you fight with the Word of God, it must become part of you. It must be part of your body, part of your life. It cannot merely be something you can pick up or lay down. It must cleave to you.
Colossians 3:16 says:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
The Word must not only be memorized or read. It must become part of you. You own it. Revelation comes to you through it, but you also obey it.
When you hear something from the Word of God, you step into it and walk in it. It becomes part of you. As you read Scripture, you want to be able to say, “Jesus is my Lord.” You may read a verse and find that it is different from how you have been living, but if Jesus is Lord, then you obey that verse.
We should search the Scriptures looking for how we can obey the Lord and have a deeper experience of Jesus being our Lord. Revelation 12:11 says:
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death.
The word of testimony means that there is a backing in your life for what you are speaking. The testimony is that Jesus really is Lord. When believers quote Scripture, there is real power because the Scriptures have been worked into their lives.
This battle especially concerns the world and its temptations. The temptations of the world are described in 1 John 2:16:
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
When these temptations come, we overcome through the Scriptures—not merely by pulling out a card and saying, “The Bible says this,” but because the Scripture is inside of us. We have obeyed it. The sword is cleaved to our hand.
Jesus answered Satan in the wilderness with Scripture. He said:
It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
He meant it. He lived it. He overcame Satan’s temptations with the reality of the Word in His own life.
The issue with worldly temptation is not simply quoting a verse. The Word must be inside of you. You have obeyed it, and when you wield it, there is reality behind it. It is helpful to speak Scriptures out loud, but behind that speaking must be a life that owns and obeys the Word.
For training purposes, we have to be in the Word of God. Go without reading the Bible for a week, and the temptations of the world become larger. Things that once seemed like nothing suddenly become greatly tempting.
But immerse yourself in enjoying the Lord speaking to you from the Scriptures, and when temptation comes, the response is quick. The sword is part of you. By the Lord’s grace, you can stand in an impossible situation and fight the battle.
The first mighty man mentioned is Adino the Eznite. Second Samuel 23:8 says that he slew eight hundred men at one time. Whatever weapon he used, he killed eight hundred men himself in one battle. This is impossible. Your arms would fall off with all that fighting.
This was by his God, by the strength of the Lord. The mighty men’s might is the Lord’s might. It is supernatural. Behind all of it is the presence of the Lord. When he fought, he was not fighting alone.
I want to use Adino’s battle as a picture of the foundational weapon in spiritual warfare—the weapon that fights off multitudes of enemies at once. It is the blood.
The biggest way of fighting multitudes of attacks is by the blood. Revelation 12:11 says that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb. This is for mature believers and brand-new Christians alike. We overcome by the blood.
The blood means that Jesus died for your sins. His blood was shed on the cross, and your sins were paid for by His blood. Satan is called the accuser of the brethren. When accusations come—when you feel condemned, when thoughts come concerning past sins—you overcome that huge crowd of attacks by the blood of the Lamb.
You plead the blood. The blood stands between you and Satan’s accusations. It satisfies God so that He can look at you and say, “Here is My righteous one. Here is My just one, who has no sin.” It is because the blood washes us clean from all sin.
When you fail, you can be knocked out for weeks, months, or even years. Many Christians are knocked out because they fail and become so down. Their own thoughts come against them, and the enemy’s thoughts condemn them.
But the only way through is the precious blood of Jesus. We are honest before the Lord. We stand in His light. We confess our sins, and we are washed clean by the blood.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If you are honest before the Lord, He can cleanse you. If you repent, He is not condemning you. He is out to save you and deliver you. He is out to fight off the eight hundred all at once.
You may feel, “How am I ever going to climb out of this? I failed again and again.” But when you plead the blood, confess your sins, and come to the Lord, suddenly eight hundred men are slain in one day.
The greatest and most frequent weapon we use is the precious blood of Jesus. If you have gotten away from using the blood of Jesus in daily life—both for overcoming your sins and answering the enemy’s accusations—you are in a bad spot.
You are not going to overcome the temptations of the world while sin remains on your conscience. Sin on your conscience cuts you off from fellowship with the Lord. The only way mighty men overcome is through fellowship with the Lord. Their might comes from His presence.
When you sin, disobey the Lord, or hold something back, the way to get right with Him is to confess, repent, and return. When you do that, you gain His presence. It is a fellowship issue.
Accusations may ask, “Are you even saved? Are you still a Christian? Did you lose your salvation?” But the deepest feeling is often, “I am so distant. I cannot come back.” What has been lost is the sense of the Lord’s presence.
Come into the light, even though it burns. His eyes expose what is wrong, and it may hurt, but then you gain His presence. He washes you clean. We have fellowship with the Lord and with one another, and the accusations are gone.
Maintain a clean conscience by the precious blood. Every time we confess and repent, we gain fellowship and begin to hate sin more. The Lord works within us so that sins that once tempted us become things we no longer want anything to do with.
With Satan’s accusations and the matter of sins, the weapon is the blood. With the temptations of the world, the weapon is the Word of God, with a testimony behind it. The next matter is Shammah and his selfless fight.
Shammah was fighting for others’ sake. He was laying down his life, not merely trying to save his own life. His heart was for God’s heart. The Lord cared about food for His people and did not want to see it wasted. Shammah abandoned his own life and laid it down for the Lord’s sake.
This is another way of overcoming: the way of the cross to ourselves. Revelation 12:11 says that they “loved not their life even unto death.” If you love yourself, you will fight only the battles that concern yourself. But this is the kind of fighting that is for God’s people.
It comes down to denying ourselves. Will I spend time in prayer for other people, or will my prayer time be only about my own things? We must pray for our own needs, but the Lord leads us into a selfless battle where we have touched His heart and begin to pray for what concerns Him.
This is overcoming the self-life, and it includes the flesh. In the battle of David and Goliath, Goliath represents the old man, Adam. Romans 6:6 says:
Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin.
The Philistines represent the flesh—our particular experience of the old nature. Saul represents the self-life or soul-life: living by our own strength rather than by the strength of the Holy Spirit.
Saul was a natural mighty man. He was tall, strong, and equipped with impressive armor. David was not as tall as Saul, but he was supernaturally mighty. He leaned on the Lord and had the Lord’s presence. The source of David’s strength was the Lord’s strength.
The self-life can never overcome the old man. Saul could never defeat Goliath because Goliath was a supernatural mighty man and Saul was only natural. But David slew Goliath. Christ has defeated the old man at the cross.
The question in each of us is, “Who will be king?” Will I live for myself, by the strength of myself? Or will I call upon the Lord and say, “You must be my King, and You must be my strength. I cannot even do the basic things without You”?
The mighty men were those who stayed close to David during the difficult time when Saul was trying to preserve his own kingship and kill David. David went through trouble, hiding, and exile. Those who went to him were often outcasts, nobodies, and troubled people. Yet they were trained by David and became mighty men.
There is a choice before us: “I will go with the Lord, even though it hurts my self-life,” or, “I will remain where it is comfortable.” The way to overcome the self-life is to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow the Lord.
Revelation 12:11 says they did not love their souls even unto death. This is the third major weapon of warfare: the choice of the cross, your specific cross. Will you be one of the Lord’s mighty men, or remain with the general crowd that runs away in battle times because it is more comfortable?
Galatians says that those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh. The old man has already been crucified with Christ, but our specific flesh must be dealt with daily.
When carnality rises up—when you want to say something rude, stand up for yourself, or do something merely for yourself—you can say, “No. I do not know you. I am crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Then you overcome the flesh and overcome yourself.
There are two more men mentioned with stories besides the three. One is Abishai. In 2 Samuel 23:18-19, we read:
And Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief of the three. And he lifted up his spear against three hundred and slew them, and had a name among the three.
Was he not most honorable of the three? therefore he was made their captain: howbeit he attained not unto the first three.
Abishai fought with a spear. I want to use this as a picture of distance. When you fight with a sword, it is close-up fighting. But there is a warfare in which we keep things away from us.
Second Corinthians 10 speaks of warfare that is not physical but spiritual and mighty before God. It speaks of casting down imaginations and every high thing that rises against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
I call this spear fighting. When you fight with a spear, you keep the enemy at a distance. In the same way, there is a battle in the mind where you keep away thoughts that should not be there.
Thoughts can come from nowhere. They may be old memories, terrible thoughts, or fiery darts from the enemy. The way to overcome is to bring the thought to Christ. Capture the thought and bring it to Christ.
Remember that the mighty man’s way is always by the Lord: “By Thee I have run through a troop; by my God have I leaped over a wall.” The way we fight is by His presence. When a thought comes, bring it to Christ. In His presence, you will know whether it is from Him or not.
Do not try to fight the thought merely by yourself. Bring it to Christ, and He answers it. There are also parts of the world from which we simply need to stay distant. There are things that will cause us to sin, and we must cut them off. This is the distant way of fighting.
The last one is Benaiah. I really like Benaiah’s story. He became a leader among David’s men and later served Solomon. He was a real mighty man who loved David.
Second Samuel 23:20-21 says:
And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabzeel, who had done mighty deeds, he smote the two sons of Ariel of Moab: he went down also and smote a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow.
And he slew an Egyptian, a goodly man: and the Egyptian had a spear in his hand; but he went down to him with a staff, and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand, and slew him with his own spear.
Benaiah fought a lion in a pit on a snowy day. He learned to fight like David, his king. David had killed the lion and the bear while keeping sheep, and Benaiah walked in the same kind of faith.
Then Benaiah met an imposing Egyptian with a spear. Benaiah had only a staff. The Egyptian had a weapon designed to keep someone at a distance, but Benaiah ran toward him, took the spear from him, and killed him with his own weapon.
This is a bold way of fighting. Sometimes you find yourself weaponless in spiritual warfare. Yet there is an amazing weapon: the shout of victory.
At Jericho, the people marched, the trumpets sounded, and the people shouted. The walls came down. With Gideon’s army, they broke the pitchers, held up the torches, blew the trumpets, and cried, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.”
There was also a battle where the worshipers went before the army. Imagine sending the people with instruments to the front line, where they would be the first to face danger. Yet the Lord told them to fight that way. They praised the Lord and shouted His victory.
The shout of victory is a way of overcoming when you feel like nothing is working. It is especially a way of overcoming when you feel pressed down by the depression and oppression of Satan.
You may feel as though something is sitting on you spiritually. You try to quote Scripture, but you can barely move your mouth. You do not feel that there is some sin you need to confess; you simply feel crushed. At that time, you need the shout of victory.
Begin to praise the Lord. As you praise and praise Him, suddenly the enemy’s spear is in your hand. The victory belongs to the Lord.
Sometimes you gather with the saints and sing a song, and suddenly you realize, “Christ is the Victor. Hallelujah! Christ is the Victor. I am not the victor. Yes, I may have failed, but Christ is the Victor.” Suddenly you have overcome, because everyone who overcomes through the Lord overcomes because the Lord overcame.
I want to encourage us to go in the way of the three mighty men, with a heart and passion to abandon ourselves completely for the seemingly foolish things of God—the things that do not seem worth spending time on.
If you hear something in the Lord’s whispers, spend time on it. If the Lord is whispering, “I wish I had a drink from Bethlehem,” and you discover something in your time with Him to pray about, then pray about it.
If you are wasting your life for the things the Lord cares about, that is the way of the real mighty man. That is the way of those who love their King and have passion for the Lord’s heart.
The Lord is for us. He has equipped us with these weapons and ways of fighting spiritually. He wants to encourage us not to join Saul’s army, but David’s army. The battle with Goliath was won, and our King has been revealed.
Christ is our King. He crucified the old man at the cross. We are no longer bound by our flesh. We are no longer trapped in the cycle of saying, “I cannot overcome.” It is more like, “I dare not be defeated, because Calvary’s Christ won.”
Lord, we stand here today by the precious blood, in Your light, confessing Your victory and knowing that You are King and You are our God. Thank You for all the precious saints who have this deep desire within them to know You and pursue after You.
I know that in each one of us, You have placed a care for the things of God. With all the wrong ideas we have gathered in our minds, all the things keeping us trapped, running away from battle, or held in depression, Lord, we bring them to You in the light right now. Expose them for what they really are.
We know that Christ is the Victor. We do not want to bring shame to Your name by claiming another king, claiming ourselves as king, or looking to something else. We claim the Lord Jesus as our King, and the victory is Yours.
We worship You together, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.