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The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
Please turn to Second Samuel chapter #8 this evening as we
return to our series in Second Samuel chapter #8 as we see that
David was a man after God's own heart, and we'll be looking at
that this evening from the text in Second Samuel.
Chapter #8 I'm going. To repeat some lyrics to a song,
and I'm going to ask you to finish it.
I have a feeling I'm looking at this crowd.
I think that you're going to be able to know exactly what I'm
talking about. Are you ready?
A horse is a horse, of course, of course.
And no one can talk to a horse of course.
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.
All right, that's good. So a lot of you knew that.
Michelle, did you know that? All right.
You had no idea what we were talking about.
All right, I knew what that was. You know, a horse is a horse.
I mean, talking horse. Mr. Ed.
You know, what did Mr. Ed say? Mostly was?
Oh, Wilbur, you know, was mostly.
I don't think I've ever done that from a pulp, and I hope I
never do it again, to be honest with you.
Yeah, that's good. Thank you for finally amening.
That's a blessing. You know, I mean, who wouldn't
want a talking horse? I mean, really, who wouldn't
want a horse in general? You think about it, No, I
understand there's a lot of expenses that go into having a
horse. In fact, it can be very
expensive to be able to care for it and to feed it and to stable
it. My understanding is that can be
a very very pricey venture to be able to actually take care of a
horse to. Own one on your own, but.
Of course we're talking about David this evening.
And if the issue of David having a horse or multiple horses,
well, David I wouldn't say had unlimited resources, but David
had quite a bit as far as resources didn't he didn't have
unlimited amounts of money, but I would say he was very, very
wealthy. Well, David had the opportunity
to amass to himself a large amount of horses, a large amount
of horses to be able to bring these into, not just into his
Kingdom, but really to bring them and fold them into his own
defenses and his own military for Israel.
And really, in many ways, it would seem like a no brainer for
David. He had the resources, he had the
abilities, and he has these horses that could be added to
him, which would be very, very helpful militarily speaking for
the people of Israel. But David not only passed on
having those horses, he passed on them in a very graphic way.
And we're going to look at what that is here in just a moment.
Well, the issue that David dealt with with these horses was very
much of the time we'll see that the issue that David's talking
about here rather the David is dealing with is not something
that we deal with here in 2025. Sure, we still have horses
around. We're familiar with what horses
are, but horses being used in the military is certainly not
something that is pertinent today other than maybe more of a
decorative nature or maybe just for some very specialized uses.
But in general, you know, tanks have taken the place of the
horse, the iron horse, if you will, in almost every situation.
But while it might seem that the situation is irrelevant by, you
know, several 100 years, and of course, looking at around 3000
years from our text, that really what the horses represent,
really what we see that David is dealing with goes far beyond
horses. It goes far beyond any type of
animal. And it is very, very relevant to
where we are today. So I'm looking forward to
getting this text. So why don't we go ahead and do
that? Let's all stand together for
Second Samuel chapter 8. Second Samuel chapter 8.
We'll begin reading in verse #1 it says.
And after this it came to pass that David smote the Philistines
and subdued them. And David took meth gamma 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 put to death and with one line
to full, one full line rather to keep alive.
And so the Moabites became David's servants and brought
gifts. David Smote also had a Deezer,
the son of Rehab the king of Zoba, as he went to recover his
border at the river Euphrates. Now note this.
And David took from him 1000 Chariots and 700 horsemen and
20,000 footmen. And David hawked all the chariot
horses, but reserved of them for 100 Chariots.
And when the Syrians of Damascus came to sucker Hadadeezer, king
of Zoba, David slew the Syrians 2 and 20,000.
Men. Then David put garrisons in
Syria of Damascus, and the Syrians became servants to David
and brought gifts, and the Lord preserved David whithersoever he
went. What we saw in the previous
chapter, when I preached a few weeks ago, we saw that David had
a time of rest. Well, that time of rest is over
and he's back to war and we're going to look at some of these
conquests, but particularly this issue of having horses and
Hawking horses. What's Hawking a horse?
Why is it important? Why?
What does it have to do with us? And I hope and pray we can
answer those questions as we go along.
So why don't you be seated and let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, do thank you for this night.
And I do pray that you would just help me to be able to
convey what's in this text to. Be able to explain what is the
happenstance here with these animals.
And Lord, at the same time, help us all to understand that the
issue here, although it's not something that would be dealt
with today, couldn't be any more relevant to our own lives.
It's something that we deal with very, very often.
So I pray that you would just help us as we look at this
passage and look at it in some ways in its obscurity, but at
the same time, know that it will help us right here, right now
where we are. And we do ask this in Jesus
name, Amen. Like I mentioned in Second
Samuel chapter #7 a few weeks ago, we were last in our series,
we saw that David had the Davidic covenant given to him.
Of course, it wasn't called the Davidic covenant that time, but
it was a covenant that God made with David.
That was the fact that he was going to be able to have a
lineage and he was going to have land.
Do you remember that that the land was that reconfirming that
the promised land belonged to the people of Israel?
Remember, that is a promise that has not expired.
And we talked about why is relevant in world events even
today, but then also the day would have a lineage, meaning
this, that there was going to be a line of kings that would come
from his family. And that the ultimate of that is
maybe he did not understand at that time, but we understand by
looking at Bible prophecy, we understand the fulfillment of
that is Jesus Christ. And someday Jesus Christ will
set up his Kingdom here on this earth for 1000 years.
And so we looked at that a couple weeks ago, and that was
given to David during a time of rest.
But yet as it is often times in life that, well, there's seems
to be times of rest, but then, well, kind of life starts
happening again, doesn't it? That's just often times the way
that it is. And that was the way for David.
Because here in chapter #8 it says that after this came to
pass, meaning after that Davidic covenant was given, there were
some more battles that took place.
And verse #1 is mentioned almost just really as an aside.
It's not even mentioned as a very big deal, but it's actually
a very big deal because it mentions in chapter one that
David smote the Philistines and subdued them.
Now remember, it wasn't that long ago that the Israelites
were in hiding from the Philistines, that the
Philistines had made that major incursion into Israel, that they
had come into Israel at the death of Saul, and that now
David has overthrown the yoke of Israel, or rather overthrown the
the yoke of the Philistines on Israel.
But he's gone beyond that. Now it's not just that the
Israelites are free, but he's now, you know, taking the fight
to the Philistines. It's not just they're defending
themselves and trying to restore their own land.
He's pushing into the Philistines territory and
mentions here meth gamma. But we if you were to go to and
you don't have to turn their first Chronicles 18 one, you'll
find that David pushed all the way and took Gath.
Now Gath was the capital of the people of the Philistines.
And so for this time, David has completely subdued the
Philistines. Now this, this isn't my message,
but let's dwell on this for a moment.
What a different from Saul's reign.
What a difference that just a few years makes Saul, who left
the Philistines alone. Because instead of chasing the
actual enemy, the Philistines, he was chasing David around the
wilderness for years, wasn't he? And he left the Philistines
alone. They grew in power.
And it ended up causing great havoc and great harm to the
people of Israel, including at the expense of Saul's life and
all of his sons. Now David realizes who the real
enemy is, and they real enemy were the Philistines.
And So what does he do? He not only protects the people
of Israel, kicks them out of Israel, he continues the fight
and brings it all the way right into the heart of the land of
the Philistines, brings it right to Gath and the Israelites win
the day. It's an absolutely incredible
thing. Verse #2 mentions that then he
moves on to the people of Moab and that he takes Moab and
actually mentions here that they he deals very harshly with them.
It says that he smote them. He measured them with a line,
casting them down to the ground. Even 2 lines he measured he put
to the death and with one full line to keep alive.
And it seems that after he captured the land of Moab, but
he took the the military that he had captured and some lived and
some died. And it seems very harsh because
in many ways, remember that David is a great grandchild of a
woman who came from Moab. Do you remember that?
We're talking about Ruth? And so it seems like, wow,
David, why would you treat them so harshly?
And, and we don't know all that goes into this verse, but even
just doing some study and even looking at Jewish history, and
of course, Jewish history is not the Bible.
We know that the Bible is true from cover to cover.
But when we look at history, it can give us some light and some
understanding. But we don't always know that
it's exactly true. But there are some maybe
historical indications that when David was on the run, his
parents went to Moab. Now that is in the Bible that he
had his parents go to Moab, Jesse would have been.
The grandson of Ruth. And so they hid there.
For a while, and it could have been that and history suggests
that perhaps they were mistreated or perhaps maybe even
died at the hands of the Moabites as their way of trying
to Curry favor with Saul. So it very well could be that
David goes to Moab. And again, this is not vengeance
that he's taking out on them. Remember that these are people
that are not supposed to be in the promised land.
These are people that were supposed to be have cleared out
of the promised land far before the Moabites.
But the Israelites did not obey God's command here.
David is just obeying the commands, the Lord, and very
likely that he is also executing justice for some things that
have been done to the people of Israel and perhaps even his own
family. Basically, he's taking care of
business again that Saul did not take care of previously.
So what happens verse #1 the Philistines, verse #2 Moab.
But then in verse #3 it says that David Smote had it easier,
the son of Rehab, the son of the king of Zoba, as he went to
recover the border at the river Euphrates.
Now, if you're thinking in your mind of a map and you consider
where Israel is on that map, and you look to the West, what do
you see? To the West?
You would see the Mediterranean Sea, the great sea, they would
have called it. We call it the Mediterranean Sea
today. Now, if you were to look to the
east, you would see the Jordan River, and then if you were to
continue to go to the east, you'd go all the way to the
river Euphrates. And in that void, in that space
between the Jordan River and the river Euphrates would have been
the land of Gilead, where the 2 1/2 tribes of the people of
Israel would have lived. But then you'd also find that
there would be the the country of Syria, there would be also
other nations air W effects Syrians and Damascus is
mentioned in verse #5 but in that same area of Zoba is
mentioned. Had it easier.
Now remember, if we were to go back and look not just at the
Davidic Covenant, but we're to go all the way, way back to the
Abrahamic covenant that God promised Abraham not just the
land, but he, he gave the deed to the land in the sense that he
said what that land would be. And when you look at the
different covenants and you put it all together, really you see
that. Remember we talked about this a
couple weeks ago, that really in many ways it's from the river to
the sea. That's why it's such a affront
when those who use that term, that phrase, those Palestinians
who say from the river to the sea and use it as a phrase of
genocide, which again, that's the way they use it today.
It was really a promise of God to the Israelites because you go
all the way to the river Euphrates.
It belonged to the people of God all the way to the sea, all the
way to the border of Egypt. It all belonged to the people of
God. The deed was given to them by
God. And so now here in chapter after
three and beyond, we see that David says this.
I'm just going to trust God that he's going to give us the land
that we don't possess yet. But he's already promised to us.
And so he goes on this military campaign and he doesn't just go,
he wins. And then the Syrians get
involved. There's some men from Damascus
and some other areas and they try to help and they lose as
well. David wins the day because he
trusts in the Lord, as it says in verse number six, that God
preserved him wherever he went. David's just taking the word of
God for what it is. And he says, Lord, you said this
land belongs to us. I trust you that it belongs to
us. And he goes and he fights and he
wins. So it's from this campaign, this
campaign to the River Euphrates, which comes the issue of the
horses. And what's the deal with these
Hawking of horses? Well, again you see it just
mentioned briefly in verse #4 look at it again with me.
It says, and David took from him 1000 Chariots and 700 horsemen
and 20,000 footmen. And David hawked, I know that
word. The word looks like hauged, if
you will, but it's hawked. He hawked all the chariot horses
but reserved of them 400 Chariots.
So we see in this verse Davidde plunder.
David took 1000 Chariots, he took 700 horsemen, he 20,000
footmen and this isn't David Hawk chariot horses.
So David in capturing what he does, he captures Chariots and
he captures our horses out. Interestingly enough, we don't
have a number of the horses that are given.
We see the number of the horses that were preserved, which were
very few, but we don't know how many horses.
I would suggest to you it was a very large number.
Now again to you and I, we think of horses, we mostly think of
maybe agriculture or racing. I mean, that's most of the
applications that we have for horses here in our day, or just
recreation, if you will, if you were to go to a farm or
something like that. But horses in those days had one
primary use. Not that it was the only use,
but one primary use in those days and those times.
And they were animals of war because, as I just mentioned a
few moments ago, they could make a great difference on a
battlefield where there were no tanks.
Horses and Chariots were the tanks of the day.
Why? Well, because they were fast.
Imagine on a battlefield, having a sword, being on a battlefield
and having a bow and an arrow. Imagine coming against a horse
and a chariot. It would be.
It would be a very bad thing for the one who was on foot.
It would be very bad. Why?
Because they're so fast, they're so maneuverable.
They were armored. I mean, you could hit that arrow
and it wasn't that the fact that or you could rather shoot that
arrow. You wouldn't hit the arrow, but
you could shoot that arrow and what would happen?
It will be very unlikely to be able to harm the rider of the
chariot. He's protected by the chariot.
He probably also has armor on himself.
So the fact is, if you could even hit the man on the chariot,
you'd have to hit him at the speed that he's going, at the
direction he's going, the armor he's going.
They were almost invulnerable. Not completely, but they were
almost invulnerable. And maybe most importantly, when
you look at these horses and look at these Chariots, maybe
more importantly than all of these things, they were in short
supply. Because if one nation has tanks
and another nation has tanks, you can kind of be the stand
off, can't you? But if one nation has horses and
Chariots and the other have none or very few, it's very, very
likely that the nation with horses and Chariots will be the
one that will put the other nation to the worst.
Oh yeah, If you had horses, you're in good shape.
You had Chariots. You weren't invincible, but you
were pretty near invincible. Here's David.
He goes on a campaign, first to the Philistines.
He wins, Then he goes to Moab and he wins.
And now he's understanding that God is blessing.
He understands that God is doing things that only God can do.
And he says, you know what, I'm going to continue to trust God
in a major way, and I'm going to apply the promises that were
given to our people in the past. So we're going to go all the way
to the River Euphrates and we're going to continue the military
campaign. They win again.
Syria gets involved, they win again.
Over and over they win. And in the plunder, in
everything that happens, they end up inheriting, if you will,
through the spoils of war, horses and Chariots.
Listen, Israel will never lose again.
They will never lose on a battlefield again, because not
only have they won victory after victory, but now they've got
these horses and Chariots that almost nobody else has, and they
have them in abundance. And so David does the opposite
thing of what we would think. And he Hawks.
The horses. He basically makes the horses
unusable for war. Now, maybe you've heard that
term of a Hawking of a horse before.
Sometimes it's called hamstringing.
Of a horse. The idea of it is that the
hamstring of a horse is cut. In fact, doing some research
I'll just read this. Hamstringing involves cutting
the large sinew or tendon in a horse's hind leg, which impairs
its ability to run or pull heavy loads like Chariots, effectively
ruining it as a War Horse. Importantly though, this did not
render the horses completely unable to stand, graze, or move
slowly. They could still function for
basic purposes, but we're no longer viable for military
purposes. You know, he didn't kill the
horses. What did he do?
He made sure they would never be able to use a military campaign
again. Now, listen, if you were Hawking
the enemy's horses, that made sense because you don't want the
enemy to be able to use the horses again in battle.
But if you have received the horses as spoils of war and you
could incorporate them into your military, why on earth would you
take this seemingly amount of invincibility?
And throw. It away a horse that couldn't
even handle a chariot. Maybe you've seen someone in
sports or maybe it's happened to you yourself here or there where
you pull the hamstring. And I'll tell you this, it's
painful. It hurts.
And on top of that, if you're running and pulling a hamstring,
you're not going to run anymore, not until it's healed.
And the difference between pulling a hamstring and having
the hamstring cut is quite different.
The hamstringing of a horse, the Hawking of a horse means it will
never participate in a military campaign again.
So why on earth? Would a king who just received
the gift of near invincibility in battle throw it away?
Listen, on its face, it makes zero sense unless you understand
that to David, the horse wasn't just a horse.
Of course, trying to work that in somehow, all right?
The issue was the horse really wasn't about the horse.
There was an issue that was far greater at play that David had
in mind. See, David wanted David had the
ability by incorporating these horses and Chariots within his
military of near invincibility. But I would submit to you.
That he already had that. Why?
Because he had something greater than a horse and a chariot.
He had God Almighty. He didn't need the horses.
He didn't need the Chariots. Why he had got, listen, he'd
been doing fine before the horses and the Chariots.
It's not like he was struggling before.
Why? Because he was aligned with the
God of the universe that the God of the universe said, you go and
you honor me and you follow me and you will win over and over
again. He didn't need the horses, and
he was afraid that if he kept the horses, his trust would be
in the horses and not in the God who created the horses.
That's not just conjecture on my part.
That's not just me reading into the text.
There are several mentions in the Old Testament where it was
important for a king to understand who he was, trusting
it. And literally the comparison was
made between trusting in God and trusting in horses.
Again, I know for us you don't even think about that today,
boy. I trust God or I trust a horse.
You probably don't think about that very much, but to them it
was a very real thing. Follow me for just a second.
Deuteronomy 17, verses 14 through 16.
You don't have to turn there, but just follow me as I read.
When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt
say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are
about me. Thou shalt in any wise set him
king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose one from
among thy brethren. Shalt thou set the king over
thee. Thou mayest not set a stranger
over thee which is not thy my brother.
Now listen. But he shall not multiply horses
to himself, because the people to return to Egypt to the end
that he should multiply horses. For as much as the Lord has said
unto you, you shall no more or you shall henceforth return no
more that what that day as Moses is preparing the people to go in
the promised land, God has told them, someday you're going to
ask for a king. I know because you're
disobedient. Someday you're going to ask for
a king. And when that king comes, I'm
going to give you some guardrails to help that king to
understand how he should lead. And one of them was this, don't
multiply horses to yourself, meaning this, don't breed them.
And then he mentions Egypt. Did you hear those mentions of
Egypt? And that text said, what does
that have to do with Egypt? Well, Egypt would oftentimes be
breeders of horses themselves. And so basically the Lord is
telling the King. Listen, you don't need to breed
the horses. You don't need to buy the
horses. Trust me.
You don't need to breed the horses yourself.
You don't need to go to Egypt and buy the horses.
Just trust in me because I will protect you.
Psalm chapter 20, verse #7 which, by the way, was penned by
David some. Trust in Chariots, some in
horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
That's powerful, isn't it? Psalm 33, verses 16 and 17.
There is no king saved by the multitude of an host.
A mighty man is not delivered by much strength, and horse is a
vain thing for safety, neither shall he deliver any by his
great strength. David had read, David had heard,
and then David wrote about the fact that trust must come in the
Lord, not from any other entity, that no other entity can give
safety. No other entity can give
strength. It is only God who gives safety
and strength. And listen, there are things in
this life that do give safety and strength, but it's only
because God has granted it to them, because those things can
give safety and strength until they don't.
That's why you don't put your confidence in man.
That's why you don't put your confidence in things.
That's why you don't put your confidence in items.
That's why you don't put your confidence in horses.
You put your confidence. In God, and there's nowhere else
that it belongs. And that's why verse 6, the
final phrase is so important. Look at it again I just
mentioned a few moments ago. And the Lord preserved David
whither so ever he went. It wasn't the horses that
preserved him. It wasn't the Chariots that
preserved him. It was the God of the horses.
It was the God of the Chariots. It was the God of Israel.
No, David understood, I don't need these horses, I need God.
I don't need these Chariots. I need God.
So when is a horse not a horse? When it represents something
that becomes your trust. More than God.
A horse is no match for having God's protection, and there's
nothing else that's any match for God's protection either in
your life. A horse is no match for God's
protection, and there's nothing else in your life that's any
match for God's protection as well.
Now I'm going to answer a question that might be rolling
around in your mind right now. Well.
OK, I see what you're saying. What you're saying, you know,
you're saying I should throw away my gun.
I mean, I'm sure nobody in here carries.
But anyway, are you saying I should throw away my gun, get
rid of my Ring doorbell, cancel my security system subscription?
Is that what you're saying the Bible says?
And my answer is absolutely not. Did David disband his military?
Did David say I trust the Lord so much that I don't even need a
standing army? Not only did he not do that, God
never commanded him to do that. No, no, we don't.
We're not talking the absurdity of saying that we were becoming
pacifists and, well, we'll just let God do everything and that
that's what we're looking to do here.
No, the Bible doesn't teach that.
The Bible doesn't say that, do we?
No, no. Where do we find that in the
Scripture or anywhere else in the 66 books of the Word of God.
Remember, it says in Psalm 2027, some trusted Chariots and some
in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
You know, this is not an issue of having them.
This is an issue of trusting in them.
No, this is not the issue of having them.
This is the issue of trusting in them.
Listen, there's nothing wrong with being able to protect
yourself with a firearm. Amen.
There's nothing wrong with being able to protect yourself by
having a home security system. There's nothing wrong with being
able to protect yourself by knowing who's at the door when
they knock on the door. There's nothing wrong with that.
But listen, when you trust in those things more than you trust
in God, then you have gotten the emphasis in the wrong place.
You put the order wrong. David, who was so concerned that
the people of God would end up giving the glory to the horses
instead of God, said we don't need those horses.
So we're going to do what we need to do to be able to let
them graze in the field or do some agricultural purposes, but
we won't use them with Chariots. We won't use them.
Because we're afraid our trust will be in the horses and
instead of God, it's possible to have firearms security and
defense measures and that be your trust.
It's also possible to have the exact same things and God to be
your trust. So the issue is not a having
them issue, it's a heart issue. Let me say that again.
It's not a having them issue to have things.
It's an issue of a heart issue. Am I trusting in them more than
I'm trusting in God? So when you think about it, 3000
year old issue is as relevant today as it was back then.
Do you have issues with trusting in horses?
I don't. I've ridden a horse a few times.
I don't know that I trusted it, to be honest with you.
But that's not what we're talking about.
We're not talking about trusting a horse with our safety or our
life or the life of our nation. But I will say there are plenty
of things I deal with and that you deal with that.
We acquire that. We have that.
If we're not careful, we will trust them more than we trust
God. Can I give you some examples?
Finances. Isn't it good to have finances?
I think it's important, isn't it?
I mean, I like going to the grocery store and, you know,
having money, to be honest with you, because you can only eat so
many free samples and go home before they want you tell you,
you got to go. All right.
Even at Costco, there's a limit. You know, finances are, are, are
good. God has given you finances to be
able to do some of the things you need to do and meet some of
the needs of life. But I will say this, when you
get to the place where you believe money will insulate you
from life's problems, or you get to the place where you believe
finances are the more important thing of your life, and
decisions are being made not by what God wants to do in your
life, but by finances. You're spending what you spend
on or what you don't spend on. Listen, you have ended up
trusting in finances like David was afraid he would trust in
horses. First Timothy 617 says charge
them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded nor
trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who giveth us
richly all things to enjoy. I love the I love the
juxtaposition. I love the contrast of those
two. He says don't trust in uncertain
riches, but he says this, but trust in the living God who
gives us all things richly. Meaning this, you want to be
rich in this life, it's not going to come from what's in
your pocketbook or your wallet, It's going to be from God
almighty material possessions. We often think that owning more
houses, cars, gadgets, secures our future, but these things
rust, they decay, and trusting them over God leaves us empty.
It's amazing to me, the push and pull, and I think I've mentioned
this before, people who own their own home and who rent A
home. Many times when people own a
home, they say, you know, I own a home, I have equity.
You own a home, you have equity that you're able to own
something yourself and it means something.
And I look at people who own and that's what I think of.
I'm spending rent money every month and it's just like you're
lighting money on fire, you know, You're not building
equity. You're not.
But there's an amazing amount of people, believe it or not, when
they retire in our apartment complex that move to our
apartment complex. You know what they say, I don't
have to worry about property taxes.
I mean, you still do, but it's baked into the rent.
I don't have to worry about repairs.
You know, I've never paid for a roof that hit close to home for
some of you. You know what?
I've never had to pay for home repairs.
Since we've moved in our apartment.
I've had a, we, we've had a, a refrigerator go down, a
dishwasher go down, a washer and a dryer.
The only thing we've got left is the oven and we'll have a whole
new set. And you know, we've never paid
for one of them out of our own pocket.
Oh, sure, we paid for it through our rent, but never through our
own pocket. So it wasn't a time where, oh
boy. Well, what?
What, you know what, I don't have time for this bill.
I wasn't expecting to pay this $1000 bill right now, or maybe I
should put it on credit. All those things.
It's just it's baked into the cake of my rent.
And there's sometimes people who own, look at people who rent and
say, wait, you don't do landscaping, You don't mow your
own yard. You could.
You can put in a a maintenance request and go out for two or
three hours and come home and it's fixed.
And they look at the people who rent and say, wow, look at you.
And the people who rent, look at the people who own and say, hey,
look at you. Listen, you know what the bottom
line is? Material possessions are just
possessions and they rust and they decay.
Don't put your trust in those things.
Matthew 619. Lay not out for yourselves
treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt.
We can trust in our own health food, exercise.
It's good. It's good to take care of
ourselves. It really is.
I know we joke around about it sometimes, but it's good to take
care of ourselves. But listen, there are some who
trust so much in their healthcare regimen.
There's some who trust so much in their their exercise
routines. There's some who trust so much
in those things that listen they have made it into a God and
first Timothy first four verse 8 says for bodily exercise
profiteth little. One of my favorite verses of the
Bible. Doesn't say it doesn't profit,
it just says a little OK. But godliness is profitable unto
all things, having promise of the life that now is and that
which is to come. Listen, we better be careful
putting our trust in people. People, people let us down
sometimes. We want people to protect us.
We want people to help us. We want people to give us all
the answers. And again, I'm not saying that
we shouldn't have some level of that within our own lives, but
listen, when it gets to the place where we don't go to God,
but we go to the trusted confidant, you need to hawk that
horse. You need to be careful what
you're doing when we go to that trusted confidant looking for
counsel more than trusting that we can hear from the Holy Spirit
in our own life. Now again, God has given us
counselors to blessing. Book of Proverbs says in the
multitude of counselors, there's safety.
I thank the Lord for that. But if you have taken your
multitude of counselors and have elevated them to the place of
receiving answers and not God, then you're putting your trust
in the wrong place. Listen, we can turn our spouses
into those as well. Those of us who are married, we
can look at our spouse and and we can look at them to answers
that we can look for them for comfort.
We can look for them. For our.
Own identity, we can look for
them for all of those things and realize, listen, my identity
comes from God alone first. We can even look to our spouse
for our spiritual walk with God. And while I would say this, once
you're married, your spiritual walks are linked together.
We're all individually accountable before God.
Look up here, please. Hey, pay attention, guys.
What do we need to do? We need to know that, well, I
can't put more faith in my spouse than I do.
And my God, I know that may not be an issue for everybody, but I
do know this. It can be a problem.
Listen, you shouldn't put that much faith in your pastor.
See, Who are you talking about? Oh, I see a shadow back.
They actually see a couple of them back there because the way
those lights are. Listen, I'm thankful that that
you, you look up to me. Many of you do I'm, I'm thankful
for that, but I'm just a person. I deal with sin just like you
do. Now I do take, I do take it
seriously and I want to, I want to follow the Lord in a way that
to be like Paul who said follow me as I follow Christ.
It's important to me that I have a right relationship with the
Lord. So I can model that for you.
But again, I can fail you. I can disappoint you now on the
other side of that you can so trust in me that that that you
asked me pastor, what should I do?
And there are many times that people ask me about what they
should do. And my first question would be
this. Have you prayed about this yet?
What has the Lord told you that you need to do?
Can I pray with you about this? Why?
Because you can't allow your trust to be placed in me to the
place that as your spiritual leader here in this church, that
did you hear from me before you hear from God.
You know, hawk that horse. People will let you down.
We can trust our knowledge and our intellect.
Our mind is a gift, but leaning solely on our own understanding
is a fool's errand. We can chase answers and books
or logic, yet miss the truth that surpasses understanding.
Proverbs 3 five and six. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart. Lean not in that own
understanding. In all that ways, acknowledge
Him and he shall direct that path.
But we get so caught up in the things that we've learned, the
things that we've known. Listen, even when we get older,
we can almost trust our life experience.
Why? I've lived this, I've seen this,
I've done this, and we almost have this, no pun intended,
horse sense within us that we feel like we know what's going
to happen before it happens because we've lived life a
little bit. And listen, we can elevate that
intuition above even our walk with God if hand in hand with
that self-reliance. We, you know, it's, it's amazing
to me, the younger generation today that they can't do
anything without help. It's amazing that that's that's
not always the case, but it often times is the case that if
you were to ask them to do something, they have no idea
what they're do what they don't even know they can't even
fathom. There were there were 18 year
old men going to war in World War 2 and an 18 year old man
today, 18 year old boy basically knows how to start up his PS4
and how to play Call of Duty. That's not all of them.
Again, I want to be careful that I don't own over generalize, but
you understand there's been a generational shift in our
culture. There's no doubt that we can say
that. And so I say those of us again
who are. Older, and maybe even those who
are younger that don't fit into that mold.
We can get into this place where we get a little bit smug in our
self-reliance. Look at what I can do.
Look at what I can handle. But I will tell you this, we can
end up relying so much on our own strength that we isolate
ourselves from God's strength. Well, what do we need to do?
It's a horse. You got a hawk?
Got a hamstring? It.
Our trust is in God and God alone.
I've heard it said before, and I've repeated it here before
many times, that an idol is anything you have to check with
before you do God's will. An idol is anything that you
check with before you do God's will.
Meaning this that we think idols are silver and gold that we bow
down to, but really, we can create a God out of anything,
including ourselves. So what do we need to do?
Do whatever we need to do to make sure our trust is in God.
1st. Before anything else, by the
way, trust means this. You put your whole support, you
put your whole weight, you put your whole being on something.
That's what trust is. I've told you before, I'm afraid
of heights, and I'll tell you if I've gone on a ladder.
We have a couple different ladders we've had here over the
years. We have one that's metal.
I don't like going on it, but I'll tell you this, I'm pretty
sure it'll hold together. Now, I may not hold together on
the ladder going up 10 feet, but the ladder will hold.
I trust it. It's firm, It's steady.
We had a wooden ladder here for some years that we eventually
got rid of. But every rung that you went up,
it felt like you were going through an earthquake on San
Andreas Fault. It was shaking everywhere.
You know what? I didn't want to be on it.
Why I didn't trust it. I didn't want to put my weight
on it. And often times the way we can
tell whether we trust God or not is, are you willing to fully put
your weight, if you will, on him?
Well, I trust in the Lord, but I'm also going to try to do
things my own way too. One of the ways we'll end up
working out. Well, that shows you really
don't trust the Lord. You're trusting your own way of
doing things. Well, I, I trust what God's
going to do, but I'm going to, I'm going to have a couple
different exit strategies just in case.
Listen, Just trust. In the Lord, I'm not talking
about being foolish. I'm not talking about being
unwise. Even the things that I mentioned
are all good things in themselves.
Do you think self, do you think self-reliance is good?
To a point? Absolutely.
Do you think knowledge and intellect is good?
The Bible tells us we're to be knowledgeable.
We talked. About it this morning.
To be knowledgeable in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you think it's good to have friends and people in your life,
a pastor, a spouse? If that's what God has done for
you in your life, do you think those are good things?
Yes, to be healthy, yes. To have material possessions,
Yes. To have finance, Yes, these are
not. Sinful things, what is sinful is
when they come to a level above God in your life and you trust
in them before you trust in God. Those are things that you have
to hamstring and say, you know, if I trust in my finances more
than God, how do I remedy that? If I trust in other people more
than hearing from the Lord in my own life that the Holy Spirit
can teach me through His word and through prayer, prayer, how
do I remedy that? Maybe there's someone that you
need to remind yourself, you know, when I'm in trouble.
Maybe I shouldn't call them, at least not right away, or text
them. You know, when I panic.
Maybe I shouldn't just spend money like a drunken sailor.
And maybe I should just get on my knees and ask the Lord what I
should do before I do anything else.
You know, when I have a situation when I don't know what
to do, maybe I shouldn't just Stew on it for hours and hours
just trying to work out all the possibilities and trying to
figure out the best way to handle things.
Get on the phone, call this person, call that person, and
try to set up all the different contingency plans to try to
figure it out and just stop and get on your knees.
Say, Lord, I trust you. That trust doesn't mean I'm not
willing to work. That trust doesn't mean that I'm
not willing to. Talk to other people for
counsel. But that trust means this.
I'm fully leaning on you first and foremost, and I will only
lean on someone else or something else once you direct
me that way. Maybe mentally you need to go
through all of God's provisions in your life, everything that's
God's given you, and say this. Do I trust this more than I
trust you? Do I trust this friend more than
I trust you? Do I trust my money more than I
trust you? Do I trust my possessions more
than I trust you? Do I trust my job more than I
trust you? Do I trust my own abilities
before I trust you? And whatever the answer is.
Make whatever remedy you need to, to make sure, whether it's
hamstringing it or whether it's making sure that you have some,
some guard rails in place to make sure you don't go to those
things and run to those things before you go to the Lord first.
But listen, if you're going to run, run to the Lord in my mind.
As I finish up, I think a Gideon, Gideon had 32,000
people. Now against the Midianites, they
had about 150,000. Gideon was down 4 to 1.
Now again, not knowing much about the military, those are
bad odds, but God whittled down 32,000 to 300.
You know, about 150 to one, actually, more than that.
Why would God do something like that?
Well, because it really didn't matter if it was 32,000 or
10,000 or 300, God could bring the victory.
Whether it was 30, 2010, 1300 or three.
God could have brought the victory.
But God brought it down to a place where it was ensured that
the people of Israel could make no mistake, that God was the one
who did it. So I'll tell you this.
This is my admonition to you, and I'll be done.
It's best for us to go through our own mental inventory of what
we're trusting in and make corrections now before the Lord,
like Gideon, has to take things away from us.
Oh, you have a lot of money, and you trust in that more than me?
Well, maybe you won't have that much money.
Uncertain riches, trust in people more.
Or maybe that person will move away.
Maybe it'll be a rift in a friendship.
You trust, you trust in in some other entity.
Maybe that entity will no longer exist.
But what do we need to do? Well, trust him more than
anything else. So when's a horse not a horse?
Well, when a wallet's not just a wallet or a house isn't just a
house or any other entity is not just that, when anything takes
the place of our trust in God, listen, it's out of order and
we've got to get it right. Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.