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Raising Men - Part 2 of 2

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• All right, you need to open your Bibles, if you would please, to 1 Chronicles chapter 27, and we're going to take a few minutes and review because, Joshua, this is part number two of "Raising Men." So those boys need to listen very carefully. All right. All right. So notice, if you would, 1 Chronicles chapter 27, verse 1. If you remember last week, we were in 1 Chronicles chapter 26, and now we're in 1 Chronicles 27. So I want you to look, if you would please, first of all, at verse 1, which we will come back to. And then we're going to skip down to verses 5 and 6. So look in 1 Chronicles 27, verse 1: "Now the children of Israel after their number, to wit, the chief fathers and captains of thousands and hundreds, and their officers that served the king in any matter of the courses, which came in and went out month by month throughout all the months of the year, of every course were twenty and four thousand." Now, if you'll skip down to verse 5: "And the third captain of the host for the third month was Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, a chief priest, and in his course were twenty-four thousand."

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• "This is that Benaiah, who was mighty among the thirty, and above the thirty, and in his course was Amazabed, his son." Now, last week I began this series, just a two-part message on raising men. And I pointed out mainly our failure in this country in actually teaching and training our young boys and bringing them into real biblical manhood. One of the leading failures, I think, that we have experienced in this country is that we actually fail to communicate and teach our young boys what it takes to become a man. We failed to inculcate biblical principles of manhood, of courage, of valor, of wisdom as well. And the point that I made last week in 1 Chronicles 26, if you would take the time to reread that, is all of these men who were mighty men of valor and strong and courageous, when you look at that, they all turned out to be Levites.

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• And they were all teachers and all storekeepers or accountants, as we would say. And it's very surprising how all of these were men of courage and men of strength and men of might. And these guys were men who just kept the gates. They were protectors of the tabernacle, later the temple. They were protectors also of the priests. And of course, this is where in the New Testament, the captains of the temple came as well.

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• So I gave a quote last week from Lenin, and here's that quote again. He said, "Give me four years to teach your children. The seed I've sown will never ever be uprooted." And when you stop and think, we actually give the enemies of Jesus Christ and the enemies of Christianity not just four years, but 12 years in government school, and that does not count the four years many of them spend in college, and sometimes five, six, and seven. And somehow, after giving the government 12 years to train our children, and maybe four years in college, we expect them to turn out to be moral, principled, and courageous individuals.

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• And that is certainly not going to happen. In fact, we're so deceived that we think that somehow if we were faithful to each service of our local church, if we were there Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night, you're talking about three hours of teaching, basically, compared to 40 hours of teaching during the week. And somehow we think that these three hours are going to overcome the 40 hours. No. Someone is going to object and say, "Well, now you're calling these governmental schools. They're actually public schools."

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• If you really think that, I challenge you just to try to walk in one anytime you please, just to visit your child and see how far you get. And moreover, if you really think they're public schools, you try standing up at your local school board meeting and crying out for biblical principles and that which is honest and right and just, and again, see how far you get. And the truth of the matter is, usually, once they have your child, you have about zero chance of getting that child back. So I want you to look in your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Deuteronomy. Hold 1 Chronicles chapter 27, but look in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Deuteronomy chapter 6, and look if you would please beginning there with verse 4. When you get to Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 4, particularly this is

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• known as the Shema Israel. And the reason it's known as the Shema Israel is because in the Hebrew, the scholars would say, "Shema Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad." "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD." Look at verse 5: "And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day"—look now—"shall be in thine heart." Now, if they're in your heart, here's what you're going to do: "And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. And thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house"—when you have leisure time—"and when thou walkest by the way"—when you're taking them with you—"and when thou liest down"—that is, before you go to bed or as you go to bed—"and when thou risest up"—first thing in the morning. "And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes." You're to keep the principles of the Lord's Word

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• always before you. "And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware to thy fathers, Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not," and he goes on. And then in verse 12 he says, "Then beware lest thou forget the LORD." So God is telling us that we are to be teaching and training our children basically 24 hours a day. And the truth of the matter is, we really are. We're just not training them the way they should be trained. And I must remind you then in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 4, God says particularly, "And you fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord."

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• So it's the father's responsibility to teach and to communicate biblical principles. It is a father's responsibility to lead in the education of the children. Yes, mother may help, but father must direct. And yet when you look around today, you will find that most modern-day fathers and mothers have zero influence upon their children, and most never ever lift a finger to make sure that their children are educated in the faith. Now, to me it seems absolutely foolish to think that somehow we can turn our children over to others who do not have our biblical convictions and do not understand our biblical doctrine, but we can turn our children over to others to be educated by them when we do not lift our fingers to teach them, and then hope somehow that our children are going to turn out to be principled, moral, honest, hardworking, Bible-believing, and godly Christians. The truth of the matter is, it's absolutely foolish to assume that, because we are violating the Scripture ourselves.

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• So let me hasten to tell you this. You can educate your child in the truth 24 hours a day, but education by itself is worthless. God must make the blessing of that education real to that child. It was old Dr. Bob Jones Sr. used to say, "Education is worthless unless the man is converted, because you can take an uneducated man and teach him to write, and all you've got now is a criminal who will forge checks and forge signatures." And so an uneducated fool can become an educated fool, but without biblical principles, he's absolutely nothing more still than an educated fool. So there's a unique man in 1 Chronicles chapter 27. This unique man is not just mentioned in this passage, but he's mentioned in plenty of other passages and books of the Bible as well.

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• And if you will notice, his name is Benaiah. He says in verse 5, "The third captain of the host for the third month was Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, a chief priest. In his course were twenty and four thousand." Now look at verse 6: "This is that Benaiah, who was mighty among the thirty, and above the thirty, and in his course was Amazabed his son." Now Benaiah was one of the military officers that had charge over a course in taking care of the king's needs for one month, and in his course he had 24,000. Moreover, Benaiah was from Kabziel, a city of the tribe of Judah, which of course was not a Levitical city. So Benaiah did things that the average man could only dream of doing. He was the third captain. In other words, there were only two before him. But Benaiah is here called, notice if you would please in verse 5, he's called "the son of Jehoiada, a chief priest."

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• Now, let me mention something. The word "priest" has different meanings. There was indeed a priest in the Bible by the name of Jehoiada. You'll find him in 2 Kings chapter 11 as well as in the book of Chronicles as well. But at this time the priests were Zadok and Abiathar. And before them the priest was Abimelech. So how in the world do we explain the fact that the Bible tells us that Benaiah was the son of Jehoiada, a chief priest? Well, the word for "chief" in the Hebrew is the word "rosh," which literally means a head, a top, a summit, an upper part, a chief, a height, or a front, or a beginning.

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• So let me put it like this. His father was a leading man, or as we would say colloquially, he was a top dog. He was ahead of a lot.

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• Now, notice if you would, the Bible also said he was "the son of Jehoiada, a chief priest." Now the word "priest" in the Hebrew is the word "kohen," or "kohen," and it literally means a priest, principal officer, or a chief ruler. So it does not have to mean that he was a Levitical priest. So if you would note back in verse 1 of 1 Chronicles 27, "Now the children of Israel after their number, to wit, the chief fathers and captains of thousands and hundreds, and their officers that serve the king in any matter of the courses." So these are military men. So a chief priest would be here, in the context, a chief prince, someone who had lots of authority as well.

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• So Benaiah was his son, and moreover, as I already said, Benaiah was from the city of Kabziel, which was in southern Judah, which was not a Levitical city. So in 2 Samuel 23 and verse 10, the Bible says, "Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabziel." So now the chief priest is called a valiant man. So Benaiah now is not only listed as David's mighty men or one of those mighty men, but he is now listed in the top three. So if you look in your Bibles, hold 1 Chronicles, but go back in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 23. And let me just show you where—I'm not going to read all of that right now. We're going to come to that, that is for sure—but look in 2 Samuel chapter 23 and verse 22. You can hold that passage if you want to. 2 Samuel 23, verse 22. Notice what the Scripture says: "These things did Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he had the name among three mighty men." So here was a man who was very, very mighty. Now if you look in verse

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• 20—let's see, 2 Samuel chapter 8 and verse 18. 2 Samuel 8 and verse 18. You're going to read this also about Benaiah. 2 Samuel 8 and verse 18. The Bible says that "Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites, and David's sons were chief rulers." Now the Bible says he was over the Cherethites and Pelethites. So the question has to be asked, who were the Cherethites and who were the Pelethites?

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• What does it mean that he was over them? I'm going to show you something later that may surprise you as well. So I'm going to give you two quotes. One is by the first one is by Matthew Poole, and the second one is by Adam Clarke. They're going to answer the question, "Who were the Cherethites and Pelethites?" Okay. So here we go. Matthew Poole: "The Cherethites and the Pelethites were undoubtedly soldiers, and as such were eminent for their valor and fidelity to the king, as is evident from 2 Samuel 15, 2 Samuel 20, 1 Kings 1, and 1 Kings—yeah, 1:38 and verse 44—and most probably they were the king's guards, which consisted

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• of these two bands, who might be distinguished either by their several weapons and or by differing time or manner of their service. They're supposed to be thus called either first from their office, which was upon the king's command—listen carefully—to cut off or to punish offenders and preserve the king's person, as their names in the Hebrew tongue may seem to imply, or secondly, from some country or place to which they had relation. As for the Cherethites, it is certain that they were a branch of the Philistines, or a people neighboring to them, and confederate with them, as is manifest from 1 Samuel 30, Ezekiel 25, and Zephaniah 2. And so might the Pelethites be too, though they may not be related in Scripture. And these Israelites and soldiers of David might be so called either because they went and lived with David when he dwelt in those parts, or from some notable exploit against them or victory over these people, as among the Romans, the name of Asiaticus and Africanus were given for the same reason."

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• "One of the exploits against the Cherethites is in part related in 1 Samuel chapter 30. It is likely that they did many others against them and against other people, among which the Pelethites might be one."

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• Now, I want you to listen to what Adam Clarke said, then you can put these two together. "The Cherethites and the Pelethites: the former supposed to be those who accompanied David when he fled from Saul, that would be the Cherethites; the latter, the Pelethites, those who came to him at Ziklag. But the Targum translates these two names as 'the archers' and 'the slingers,' and this is by far the most likely. It is not at all probable that David was without a company of archers and slingers. The bow is celebrated in the funeral lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, and the sling was renowned as the weapon of the Israelites. And how expert David was in the use of it, we learn in the death of Goliath."

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• "I take for granted that the Chaldean paraphrase is correct. No weapons then known were equally powerful with these. The spears, swords, and javelins of other nations were as stubble before them. The bow was the grand weapon of our English ancestors, and even after the invention of firearms, they were with difficulty persuaded to prefer them and to leave their archery." So they're saying that these men were not only just the king's bodyguards, but they had special duty of executing criminals, and also preserving the king's life, and they could be known as the archers and the slingers as well. Now the interesting thing is, when you talk about archery, and he mentioned the fact that our English ancestors—if you've never seen an English longbow, and the strength and the power it takes to shoot it and what it will do is absolutely astounding and amazing. So let me just mention this to you. When I used to hunt with a bow, I had a compound bow that was a 90-pound pull.

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• That bow, although now it's many, many years old, that bow would shoot an arrow the length of a football field in one second. And it was just a 90-pound pull. So you could be at the end of a football field, and if my aim was correct and I let that arrow go, by the time you said "one thousand one," it hit you. That's how fast that 90-pound bow was. I was in Washington State, and I took my bow into a bow shop to have something done, I forget, and the man asked me what pound pull. I said, "It's a 90-pound pull." And he said, "Pick up that bow right there and pull it back."

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• You're not supposed to dry fire a bow. I said, "Sure." And I picked up that little bow—it was about like this. So I picked up the bow and I went to pull, and I got it about six or eight inches and I couldn't go any further. I said, "My goodness, what is the weight? What is the pull weight of this bow?" He said, "150 pounds." I said, "My goodness, who can pull back a 150-pound bow?"

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• He said, "The arm wrestling champion in the state of Washington." Well, he could. But when you talk about an English longbow, it was a 200-pound pull. If you want to know how strong these bows were, especially the English longbow, you go study the Battle of Agincourt in France under Henry V. The French came with mail armor on, and all their horses; the English were totally outnumbered. And when the English archers began to shoot, the arrows penetrated through that chain mail, went out. They were absolutely devastated. So the bow, as they said, was a very, very hardy weapon and a weapon that was very fearful. And if you look—if you go back and watch some of these mighty archers in some of these English films, like Mel Gibson in—what's it?—Braveheart, you notice how all those arrows go; they were shooting for a long way as well. So I'm just saying that these men were very capable. Now, let me show you something. I want you to look in your Bible to 2 Samuel chapter 8, and I also want you to look in 1 Kings chapter 4.

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• Okay, and look if you would in 2 Samuel chapter 8 at verse 16, and here's the question I'm going to ask you. Look at this. 2 Samuel chapter 8, notice if you would please verse 16. Look what the Bible says here. 2 Samuel 8, verse 16: "And Joab the son of Zeruiah was over the host; Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder." Now, who is over the host? Who is over the army? Who is the general of the army? Well, it's Joab. Okay, now turn right over, if you would, to 1 Kings chapter 4 and look at verse 4. 1 Kings chapter 4 and verse 4. Look at this. The Bible says, "And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the host, and Zadok and Abiathar were the priests." Ah! Now, Joab was the general of the army. But now, Joab is no more the general of the army. Now, Benaiah is the general of the army. So you're going to have to answer this question: How did Benaiah get to be the general of the army, and Joab cease to be the general of the army?

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• Well, I'm going to give you three points today. Here's the first one. I'm showing and demonstrating what biblical manhood is right here. First of all, Benaiah was a man of conviction. So we found that Joab was a general over the entire host. Now Benaiah is the general over the entire host. Well, what happened to Joab? Well, you must remember that Joab, first of all, was a murderer. He murdered Abner the son of Ner, and he also murdered Amasa. But yet he was still captain of the host for a while, or general, so to speak. So also Joab participated in the conspiracy of Adonijah when he tried to steal the throne from David as David was dying.

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• Now he did not participate with Absalom. In fact, he's a man who fought against Absalom and killed Absalom, but he was with Adonijah. So I want you to look in your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 2, and let me try to answer this question for you, show you also once again the Cherethites and the Pelethites, because we read where they said that yes, these men were executioners and yes, they did do the work of the king. And so in 1 Kings chapter 2, beginning there in verse 23: "Then King Solomon sware by the LORD, saying, God do so to me, and more also, if Adonijah have not spoken this word against his own life." Now Adonijah was a half-brother of Solomon. Solomon's on the throne, and after he gets on the throne, he's asking for Abishag to be his wife, which was an underhanded way to try to get to Solomon. And Solomon said, "He's spoken this word against his own life. Now therefore, as the LORD liveth, which hath established me, and set me on the throne of David my father, and who hath made

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• me an house, as he had promised, Adonijah shall be put to death this day." Now watch: "And King Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he fell upon him, and he died. And unto Abiathar the priest, said the king, Get thee to Anathoth into thine own fields, for thou art worthy of death. But I will not at this time put thee to death, because thou barest the ark of the Lord GOD before David my father, and because thou hast been afflicted in all wherein my father was afflicted. So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the LORD, that he might fulfill the word of the LORD, which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh." That's a different message, but watch verse 28: "Then tidings came to Joab, for Joab had turned after Adonijah, though he had not turned after Absalom. And Joab fled into the tabernacle of the LORD, and caught hold of the horns of the altar. And it was told King Solomon that Joab was fled into the tabernacle of the LORD, and behold, he is by the altar."

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• "Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and said, Go fall upon him"—that is, execute him. "And Benaiah came to the tabernacle of the LORD, and said unto him, Thus saith the king, Come forth. And he said, Nay, but I will die here. And Benaiah brought the king word again, saying, Thus said Joab, and thus he answered me. And the king said unto him, Do as he said, and fall upon him, and bury him, that thou mayest take away the innocent blood which Joab shed from me, and from the house of my father. And the LORD shall return his blood upon his own head, who fell upon two men more righteous and better than he, and slew them with the sword, my father David not knowing thereof, to wit, Abner the son of Ner, captain of the host of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the host of Judah. Their blood shall therefore return upon the head of Joab, and upon the head of his seed for ever. But upon David, and upon his seed, and upon his house, and upon his throne, shall there be peace for ever from the LORD."

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• "So Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and fell upon him and slew him, and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness. And the king put Benaiah the son of Jehoiada in his room over the host, and Zadok the priest did the king put in the room of Abiathar." So now we see here Benaiah is a man who, of course, is the one who executed not only the king's half-brother but also Joab as well. Now when you read this, now you understand 1 Kings 4 in verse 4 when the Bible said, "And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the host, and Zadok and Abiathar were the priests." So after Joab was killed, after he was executed for his wickedness and for his sins and for his crime, then the king made Benaiah over the host. Now I can hear an "Oh!" from some people as I read this and as I'm teaching on

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• this. They're saying, "But listen, when you are promoting Benaiah, when you're saying this is an excellent example of a man full of conviction, you are promoting a man who's a killer, a man who's a murderer." No. Not by any stretch of the imagination. There is a vast difference between a killer or murderer and someone who has been ordained of God and ordained by the lawful government to execute wicked doers. And that's exactly what Benaiah was doing.

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• He was executing those who deserved death. What does the Bible say? "Whosoever killeth man, by man shall he be killed." In other words, it is biblical justice. It is not murder. It is not killing. It is justice. So you would have to ask this question: What about the executioners of today? When someone has been convicted of a crime that merits a death penalty, and he's been incarcerated until the time that his execution is to be made, what about the man who pulls the switch and sends electricity in that electric chair? Or what about the man who pushes the needle into the arm full of that deadly cocktail? Are they murderers? Are they killers? Of course not. They're men who are executing justice. So the point I'm trying to make right now is this: Benaiah was a man who believed in justice, and he did not hesitate to apply biblical justice. Now, one of our greatest problems today is most people have no idea what biblical justice even is. They're not even really interested in justice, and certainly not interested in executing justice.

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• Let me give you some scriptures. I want you to think about these. The first one happens to be Psalm 89 in verse 14, where the Bible says, "Judgment and justice are the habitation of thy throne." So God in His habitation, in His holy throne, is surrounded by judgment and justice. When you get to Proverbs 21 in verse 3, the Bible says, "To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice." And listen to that. God had rather have judgment, God had rather have justice, than sacrifice. And then when you get to Isaiah 59 in verse 4, God complains and He says this: "None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity, and they speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity." And then when you get to Isaiah 59 in verse 14, He says, "And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off, and truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter."

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• Now, it is true that we cannot be just mere executioners on our own. I understand that, and you should understand that as well. But if we're really genuinely interested in justice, we can cry out to God for justice. We can do everything we can to expose wickedness and demand biblical justice in any and every situation and circumstance. And in order to do that, we must know the essence of justice.

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• So let me give you a little challenge. You can go into your Strong's Concordance or any concordance and look up the Hebrew word for "justice." Then look up the Hebrew word for "righteousness." And I will save you just a little time and little work, because the Hebrew word for "justice" and the Hebrew word for "righteousness" is one and the same word. Why? Because if something is just, then it is right. If something is right, then it is just. So righteousness and justice are actually synonyms. They go together. You cannot have one without the other. So what is injustice? It is unrighteousness. What is righteousness? It's justice. So when we cry to the Lord for justice, we're not crying for what the world calls today "social justice." We're not crying out for humanistic justice. We're crying out for biblical justice. And the only justice that exists, the only justice in reality, is God's justice. And God is the one who defines justice.

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• So we find that Benaiah then was a man of conviction because he understood justice and he knew exactly what justice was. And when it became necessary, he knew exactly what to do.

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• Now, here's the second thing. I want you to note that Benaiah was not only a man of conviction, but he was also a man of courage. So let me tell you something about courage. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the ability to do what is right in the presence of fear. It's the ability to do what needs to be done regardless of what you think or what you feel. And then when you talk about courage, let me give you one definition. Listen to this: Courage is also called bravery or valor, and is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Valor is courage or bravery, especially in battle. Physical courage is bravery in the face of physical pain, hardship, even death, or threat of death. While moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, discouragement, and personal loss. So we're going to find that Benaiah was exceedingly courageous and brave. He did some of the most brave acts when they were absolutely what you and I would call harrowing.

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• So I want you to look in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 23. 2 Samuel chapter 23. And look if you would, beginning there with verse 20. I told you we would come back there. 2 Samuel chapter 23 and verse 20. Watch this. "And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabziel, who had done many acts." Look what Benaiah did. "He slew two lion-like men of Moab. He went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in the 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. These things did Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and had the name among three mighty men." Now, first of all, the Bible says he slew two lion-like men of Moab. They were called lion-like men because they were comparable to lions in their strength, in their courage, in their ferocity.

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• They were very ferocious men. They were very dangerous men. And so Benaiah goes and they're threatening him, and he ends up killing both of them. But no doubt what else he did: He went down into a pit and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in the time of snow. So he was in a pit, which is a most uncomfortable and inconvenient place to have a fight. Moreover, it was in a time of snow, which obviously was not the best time to fight, not only because of the cold, but because of ice and slickness. Moreover, this had to be in the winter, and during the wintertime, all the homestead animals are shut up, and lions are much more ferocious because they don't have much to eat. And so he's in this pit and he can't get out. So he either has to kill the lion or the lion's going to kill him, and he ends up killing the lion. And then notice what else he did: He also faced a giant Egyptian that was well armed and dangerous, and he did not even have a weapon. He just had a staff, and he took that staff and went and snatched the spear out of the

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• Egyptian's hand and then slew him with his own spear. Now if you look in your Bibles there to 1 Chronicles chapter 11, we're going to get an additional insight here. 1 Chronicles chapter 11. Look what else the Bible adds to this. 1 Chronicles chapter 11, and let's begin reading there with verse 22. 1 Chronicles 11, verse 22. We're still reading about Benaiah. "Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabziel, who had done many acts, he slew two lion-like men of Moab. Also he went down and slew a lion in a pit in a snowy day. And he slew an Egyptian, a man of great stature, five cubits high, and in the Egyptian's hand was a spear like a weaver's beam. And he went down to him with a staff, and he plucked the spear out of the Egyptian's hand and slew him with his own spear. These things did Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and had the name among three mighties." Now once again, the Bible tells us that this Egyptian had a spear like a weaver's beam. Do you realize the term "a weaver's beam" occurs four times in the Scripture? Each time it occurs, it is a weapon

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• in the hand of an enemy combatant. The first time you read about it is 1 Samuel chapter 17 in verse 7, where David went to confront Goliath, and the Bible says, "And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam"—now hang on to this—"and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron, and one bearing a shield went before him." The second time you read about a weaver's beam is in regard to Goliath's brother. 2 Samuel 21, verse 19: "And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan, the son of Jaare-oregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam." Then in 1 Chronicles 11, verse 23, which we just read, is where Benaiah slew this Egyptian. And the last time you read about it is 1 Chronicles 20 in verse 5: "And there was war again with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam." Now, let me tell you what I did, and I want you to listen to this.

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• I did some research on the weaver's beam and on the staff, and they took Goliath's spear, but I want you to listen to what they came up with. These were some folks who actually tried to figure everything out to the nth degree in relationship to this staff like the weaver's beam. So here's the quote: "Based off the looms used in that time, it would be common for a weaver's beam to be two or two and a half inches thick and more than five feet long. The biblical reference of a weaver's beam is most likely in respect to the unusual thickness and strength of the

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• shaft rather than the length. The weaver's beam referenced contrasts the normal smaller, thinner spear that would be handled by an average-sized man." Then they say, "There are four verses in the Scripture that mention a weaver's beam like a spear," and then he gives them. Now, the fourth verse refers to a giant-sized Egyptian in that day who would measure over seven feet six inches tall. Now, let me just tell you something before I go a little bit further. I'm not very adept with a broom in one sense of the word, Tina.

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• Alice smiles, but that's okay. But when I was a teenager in high school, I was, of course, in the FFA, Future Farmers of America, and we had to clean up our ag building. And I was sweeping with a broom, and it wasn't one of those little thin-handle brooms. It was one of those brooms that had the handle about an inch, inch and a half thick. And I had a fella who was a little bit older than I am, a little bit bigger than I am.

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• His name was Cary McClellan. He ended up being a postman working for the post office. And Cary would always come up behind me and thump my ear, you know, anything to aggravate me. So I was sweeping, and I told Cary—he came up, slipped up on me, thumped my ear. And I turned around to Cary, "Leave me alone." I said, "I'm tired of this. I said, just leave me alone." And I said, "Don't do this anymore." And so I turned around, went back to sweeping. But I was kind of watching out of the corner of my eye, and sure enough, I saw the shadow of him coming up. I knew he was right there, and he came up by me to thump my ear, and when he did, I pushed that broom handle all the way up and caught it down by the bristles, and I turned around, and when he saw me draw that broom back, he turned around to run, and I hit him right across the shoulder and right across the back so hard it not only knocked him to the floor, but it broke the broom handle. You won't believe what happened. He jumped up.

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• He said, "Ha ha, that didn't hurt." Well, he never thumped my ear again. So I can assure you it did hurt, because that was a very thick broom handle. But now hang on. You're talking about a weaver's beam. You're talking about something two and a half inches thick, not something this narrow. Okay, listen to this: "For the physics of Goliath's spear to work properly with a 16-pound, 11-ounce spearhead—that's just the head of the spear—at the height of Goliath, we chose a 10-foot length, 2-inch diameter pole, including a 6-pound, 1.5-ounce counterweight, giving our spear a total length of 12 feet and 7 inches. This is not to say the spear could not have been even longer."

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• "The Bible does not give us the exact width. However, the width we calculated for our replica would allow Goliath to have a center of balance to hold the spear easily with one hand about 62 inches from the tip." Can you imagine? You're talking about a 16-pound, 11-ounce spearhead and then another 6-pound, 1.5-ounce counter? You're talking about 22 pounds not counting the staff of the spear. Wow!

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• And most of us, when we saw a weapon like that, would lose our courage very quickly, especially if a man is seven feet six inches tall. And so here, I'm just simply trying to say, Benaiah never backed down from any of these. You know why? Because Benaiah was trained and Benaiah was disciplined. He was able to control himself. He was able to control his emotions. He was able to control his fear. I'm sure it went through his mind, "Look how big this man is. Look how strong this man is." I'm just simply pointing out the fact these men in 1 Chronicles 26 and 27 were trained, and their reliance was upon God. By the way, the name Benaiah simply means in the Hebrew "Jehovah has built" or "Yahweh has built up" or "established." In other words, Benaiah realized that God had placed him where he was, and he was there for a purpose, and that purpose was to honor God and obey God and do his duty as God had laid it upon him. So Benaiah was a man of conviction.

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• Benaiah was a man of courage. And thirdly, I'm going to show you, Benaiah also was a man of character. Benaiah stood with King David when all of Israel seemed to be against him. Do you remember when Absalom tried to kill David, his own father, ran him off the throne? All Israel, basically speaking, was with Absalom. That's what the Bible says. David had to get out of Jerusalem. Now Benaiah was still with David. And you know how Joab was the man who ended up killing Absalom, and David is back on the throne. Now David is sickly and dying, and now Adonijah betrays his own father, tries to assert himself and make himself king without the blessing of his father. So I want you to turn in your Bibles, if you would, to 1 Kings chapter 1. 1 Kings chapter 1, and let's begin reading there with verse 5. 1 Kings chapter 1, and look if you would please at verse 5. Watch carefully now. 1 Kings 1, verse 5: "Then Adonijah, the son of Haggith, exalted himself, saying, I will be king."

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• "And he prepared him chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run before him. And his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so? And he also was a very goodly man, and his mother bare him after Absalom." So he's Absalom's brother. "And he conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah, and with Abiathar the priest, and they following Adonijah helped him. But Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and Nathan the prophet, and Shimei, and Rei, and the mighty men which belonged to David, were not with Adonijah. And Adonijah slew sheep, and oxen, and fat cattle by the stone of Zoheleth, which is by En-rogel, and called all his brethren the king's sons, and all the men of Judah the king's servants. But Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, and the mighty men, and Solomon his brother he called not. Wherefore Nathan spake unto Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, saying, Hast thou not heard that Adonijah the son of Haggith doth reign, and David our lord knoweth it not?"

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• "Now therefore come, let me, I pray thee, give thee counsel, that thou mayest save thine own life, and the life of thy son Solomon. Go, and get thee in unto the king David, and say unto him, Didst not thou, my lord, O king, swear unto thy handmaid, saying, Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne? Why then doth Adonijah reign? Behold, while thou yet talkest there with the king, I will also come in after thee, and confirm thy words." And Bathsheba went in unto the king into the chamber, and the king was very old, and Abishag the Shunammite ministered unto him. Now skip down, if you would, to verse 28. Look in verse 28: "Then King David answered and said, Call me Bathsheba"—you can read in between—"And she came into the king's presence and stood before the king. And the king sware and said, As the LORD liveth, that hath redeemed my soul out of all distress, even I sware to thee by the LORD God of Israel, saying, Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne in my stead, even so will I certainly do

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• this day. Then Bathsheba bowed with her face to the earth and did reverence to the king and said, Let my lord King David live for ever. And King David said, Call me Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada. And they came before the king. The king also said unto them, Take with you the servants of your lord, and cause Solomon my son to ride upon mine own mule, and bring him down to Gihon. And let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there king over Israel, and blow ye with the trumpet, and say, God save King Solomon. Then ye shall come up after him, that he may come and sit upon my throne, for he shall be king in my stead, for I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and over Judah. And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king and said, Amen. The LORD God of my lord the king say so too. As the LORD hath been with my lord the king, even so be he with Solomon, to make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David."

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• "So Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites went down and caused Solomon to ride upon King David's mule and brought him to Gihon." Do you realize here's a man of character? I mean, I'm talking about Benaiah. He was not going to be swayed by popular opinion. He was not going to be swayed by anything or anyone. He knew that David was God's man. He knew that God had anointed David. He knew that God had promised David that Solomon would be king after him. Didn't matter what the people said, didn't matter what the people wanted. "I'm sticking with what I know is right."

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• I want to ask you a question. Where is that attitude today among our modern-day politicians? No, no. Today, people go with the flow. They go with popular opinion. They go with what everybody wants. No. Here was a man of absolute character because he realized that compromise and political correctness was nothing but death and destruction. And he was going to stay with the king and stay with the one that God had ordained. We have lost so much in this country. I may preach it next week, I'm not

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• sure, but I finished a message actually just yesterday. Just to give you a little hint, the title of the message is "Make America Great Again." Oh, yeah, everybody knows that term. Everybody knows what MAGA means. But have you ever asked this question: When was America great? What made America great? And why is it not great now? Very interesting. And the Bible tells you exactly how to make a nation great. Wow.

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• Well, interestingly, Benaiah was a real man. Let me try to make some applications. The first one would be this: We need men. We need men like Benaiah, who happened to be a man of conviction, a man of courage, and a man of character. We have to discipline and train our children while they are young. I told you last week the foundation of all a child ever learns is laid from the age of 3 to 11. That's astounding. That is astounding. We need to inculcate biblical principles and truth in our young boys. Now, let me ask a question: If you as fathers, if you as Christian fathers, do not inculcate biblical principles in your son, if you do not teach and train your son, who will?

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• I can assure you it would be the state. And the state will make sure that they turn out good little statists with no discipline, no understanding, no character, and you will sire a generation of lazy, indolent, sullen welfare recipients. Because that's what we have today. We need a generation of godly men. Disciplined men, honest men, just men, men who have character and courage and conviction, men who are brave and full of valor, men who will not compromise, men who will not give one inch against that which is right.

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• So we have to educate and we have to train our own. The world is not going to do it. The state is not going to do it. And our enemies certainly are not going to do it. We have to train our own. Here's the second thing. We also must admit—by the way, before I go any further, let me say this about education. Education in and of itself, as I mentioned earlier, will not work just by itself.

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• We need the blessing of God. It's just like the promise when God said in Proverbs 23, "Beat thy child" or "Beat thy son with a rod; if thou beatest him with a rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt save his soul from hell." Well, if you took that verse literally, one of the best means of evangelism would be to take a rod and go around beat everybody. But obviously that's not what it means. It means with the blessing of God upon that discipline, that child will be converted to learn what is right. And so with the blessing of God upon his education, when he's trained right and disciplined right, he will act right as well. So here's the second one.

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• We have to admit and we have to confess that our strength is not in ourselves. And John 15, verse 5, our Lord said it very plainly: "Without me, you can do nothing." So the point I'm trying to make is this is actually a negative truth. "Without me, you can do nothing." You have to realize, "I cannot train my child. I cannot discipline my child the way it should be in and of myself. I need wisdom. I need God's wisdom. I need God's help." The negative is "without me you can do nothing." But the positive is found in Philippians 4 and verse 13.

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• "Through Christ I can do everything"—through Christ who strengthens me. What's he say? "I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me." So through Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we may do whatever God commands us to do. Let me just mention something to you. Benaiah had as his source of power God Himself. Remember I told you his name meant "Yahweh has established" or "Jehovah has built." You know what the Bible says in Psalm 62, verse 11: "God hath spoken once; yea, twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto the LORD." And Psalm 68, verse 28: "Thy God hath commanded thy strength. Strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us." "Thy God hath commanded thy strength. Strengthen, O God, for us that which we have wrought, and thou hast wrought in us and through us." And then Psalm 16, verse 35: "O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy place. The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power to his people. Blessed be God." Then of course in Psalm 18, verse 29,

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• he said, "For by thee I've run through a troop, and by thee I've leapt over a wall." David is saying all of my greatness was only because of the blessing and the power of God. So we've got to come to this conclusion: If we're going to have men in this country, we must raise them. We must teach them. We must train them. We must discipline them. We must give our children conviction and courage and character by the grace of God, inculcating in them biblical principles and standing for that which is right.

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• Tell young people—and I get to preach to a lot of young people, but I tell young people this on a regular basis. Listen carefully: God will use you on credit the first few years of your life. After that, He'll use you on character. And if you don't have any character, you might as well forget it. God's not gonna use you. Having taught history for so many years and still teaching history, especially Southern history, I sometimes get to smiling and thinking about things.

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• I wondered what would happen if we had a thousand men like Stonewall Jackson in Washington, D.C., or a thousand men like General Nathan Bedford Forrest in each of the state capitals, or a thousand men like Jeb Stuart or Robert E. Lee or General Ewell or General Polk. We have lost so much. If we want a generation of godly young men and women, we must teach them and train them and discipline them and raise them the way God said to and seek His blessing upon them. May God give us men. Let's pray. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ,

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• we ask for Your grace. We ask for Your mercy, Your goodness and kindness, Lord, for all these families that have young boys and young girls. Lord, I pray that You'd bless them and help them to teach them and raise them, Lord, with discipline and strength and courage and valor, and Lord, that You would bless their efforts, and not only, Lord, save them, bring them to Thyself, but Lord, make them real men and women of conviction and courage and character. Give us, Lord, a desire to raise our children for Thee.

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• And may, Father, Your hand be upon us. In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray. Amen.

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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-06T01:59:37Z