2Samuel 8:1-15
Defeating Your Enemies
I have never been a soldier.
I have never used any type of weapon against another human being.
I have never had any type of weapon used against me.
Even as a child, I only got into a couple of fights.
Yet, I am going to preach a message of war.
You ask, "Why?" Because portions of tonight’s text looks very brutal. It is a
chapter of David killing, maiming, and conquering.
A question that people ask when they read the Old Testament is, "Why was God, and
His people, so brutal?" I believe the answer to that question is, "Because there
is no nice way to kill an enemy."
When there is an enemy that tires to kill you, you must deal with it swiftly
and severely. That is what King David did from the very beginning of his reign
and as a result, before long, he enjoyed a prolonged time of peace.
Somewhere along the way, Americans have so taken our peace and victory for
granted, that many have forgotten how we got it. It was through harsh, cruel,
brutal war. Some have imagined the war to be like to brothers who are told to go
outside and play nicely. You cannot war nicely. When an enemy rises up against
this country, in my opinion, it should be dealt with in a harsh, brutal, deadly
fashion.
David’s battles were mostly physical. He fought for his nation’s peace and
prosperity. You and I are also warriors, but we fight for our spiritual peace and
prosperity.
I. Notice the allusions in the Bible to spiritual warfare.
A. We are told to endure the pains of life like a soldier.
2 Timothy 2:3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
B. In the next verse, we are told to remain untangled from the carnal life
like a soldier is to remain untangled from civilian life.
2Timothy 2:4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life;
that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.
C. \\#Eph 6:10-18\\ We are told to arm ourselves with spiritual weapons
like a soldier arms himself with military weapons.
D. We are repeatedly told to fight the good, hard fight for our Lord. (I
take it that that means to defeat sin and Satan like Jesus did, with
faith and godliness.)
1 Timothy 1:18 This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the
prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good
warfare;
1 Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life,
whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many
witnesses.
2 Timothy 4:7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept
the faith:
II. Like it or not, we are in a warfare.
A. That means we have enemies.
1. The world
2. The flesh
3. Satan
B. These enemies have weapons they are using against us.
1. Their intent in using their weapons is to destroy us.
2. Their weapons just like we have weapons.
a. One of our weapons is prayer. One of theirs is pornography.
b. We have faith in Christ. They have faith in evolution and
humanism.
c. We have love. They have selfishness.
d. We lay ourselves on the altar of sacrifice. They lay the
unborn on the altar of sacrifice.
3. And on the list of weapons goes.
4. For every weapon God has given to us, they have a weapon which can
maim or kill, either in the physical world, the spiritually world,
or both worlds.
5. So we are not just fighting the three great enemies, we are also
fighting their weapons.
C. There is little we can do to inflict damage upon our three great
enemies….
1. We simply aren’t powerful enough to pull Satan down.
If you are very strong spiritually, you may be a flea of
annoyance to him but that is about it.
2. Destroying either your flesh or the world automatically brings
bad repercussions to you.
a. While I have never heard of any "Christian" movements to
punish the world, I have heard of some who thought they needed
to punish their own flesh.
b. Some believe that by punishing their flesh, it will bring them
closer to God.
3. However, we can do battle against the weapons these enemies use
against us.
D. Even though we are in a war, we have rules that we must go by to fight
the "good fight."
1. We can only use spiritual weapons.
2Cor 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the
pulling down of strong holds;)
5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against
the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ;
6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is
fulfilled.
a. Our weapons will never be fists, bullets, or bombs.
b. Any carnal weapon used against these enemies (although it
may make us feel better) will not harm them.
c. Although our weapons are not listed here…
(1) \\#4\\ They are spiritual weapons.
(2) \\#5\\ They are effective weapons.
(3) \\#6\\ They are brutal weapons.
2. Our objective is not to win or even to survive. Our objective is
to bring glory to God.
Romans 16:27 To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.
1 Corinthians 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your
body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
1 Corinthians 10:31 Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do
all to the glory of God.
Acts 20:24 But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto
myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have
received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
3. If we understand our duty to bring glory to God, we understand
that we cannot compromise while we fight.
E. However, as long as we stay within those three rules, we are to be
fight as hard as we can.
1. We are to fight like David fought against the enemies which have
aligned themselves against us.
2. That is, we give them no quarter and we take no prisoners.
3. Anything that would deter us or detract from God’s glory is a
an enemy that must be mercilessly destroyed.
III. Some weapons that we must fight and destroy.
A. Our culture has declared war on us.
1. The schools tell our children that there is no God, that the
Bible is a lie, and that they are glorified animals.
a. We smile timidly and let them!
b. Why?
c. What proof to they have of any of the things they say? NONE.
d. It is time we make them put up or shut up.
e. We need to understand it is they who have declared war on us
and not we on them, but that being done, we must fight and
fight to win!
f. We are fighting for the souls of our children.
2. Children are encouraged to participate in pre-martial sex and
even homosexuality.
a. Condemns and sex education classes are taught in the public
schools.
b. We smile timidly and let them!
c. In some situations, they will even take our teenage daughters
and let them get an abortion without ever notifying the
parents!
d. If that is not war being declared on you, I don’t know what
is!
3. Alcohol is sold and promoted in every story you walk into.
a. They say you must be 21 but you and I know kids are getting
it.
b. Children get drunk, drive into a tree, and are killed every
day—yet they have to have the income from liquor sales or
go bankrupt!
c. How many of our kids have to die before we start fighting to
win this battle?
d. Alcohol is still the devil’s brew and tobacco is still the
devil’s pastime.
B. Look at how the devil has forced his weapons into the very fabric of
our culture.
1. Divorce
a. "The Evolution of Divorce," by W. BRADFORD WILCOX
b. Ronald Reagan was the governor of California in 1969 and was
the first state to sign no-fault divorce into law.
c. He later admitted it was the biggest mistake of his political
life. (He did so in part because some who wanted a divorce
would make up charges against their mates to get one. He
asserted that is what his former wife, Jane Wyman, had done
in accusing him of "mental cruelty" in 1948.)
d. However, the article went on to state that no-fault divorce
essentially gutted marriage’s legal power to bind a husband
and a wife.
(1) In the decade and a half that followed, virtually every
state in the Union followed California’s lead and enacted
a no-fault divorce law of its own.
(2) The divorce rate more than doubled from 1960 to 1980,
going from 9.2 divorces per 1,000 married women to 22.6
divorces per 1,000 married women.
(3) This meant that while less than 20% of couples who
married in 1950 ended up divorced, about 50% of couples
who married in 1970 did.
(4) The end result was that approximately half of the
children born to married parents in the 1970s saw their
parents part, compared to only about 11% of those born
in the 1950s.
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-evolution-of-divorce
e. Divorce is an evil weapon used by the devil to inflict pain
and suffering on the everyone involved, not just the kids.
(1) Select carefully.
(2) Unless you are married to "Jack-the-ripper," do not even
use the word DIVORCE in conversations!
2. Pornography
a. The Washington Times ran an article on Sunday talking about
the increased addition of pornography among women.
b. We have long known that access to pornography creates addicts.
(1) That is why Christians and many moral people have fought
to keep it out of their communities.
(2) With the advent of the internet, we have found that
pornography’s tentacles are not only reaching the men
who would have never trafficked in an porn store, but
women also.
(3) A 2003 survey of Today’s Christian Woman found that one
in six women, including Christians, were struggling with
pornography addiction.
(4) A 2006 survey released by Internet Filter Review reported
that 17% of women said they struggled with porn and that
one in three women visiting porn sites were women.
(5) What does that do to a woman?
(a) It decreases their purity and morals.
(b) A proven fact that women who view porn dress and act
more provocatively.
(c) Research shows that the more a woman views
pornography, the more likely they are to be raped.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/11/more-women-lured-to-pornography-
addiction/
c. Whether you have ever deliberately viewed pornography or not,
Christians must fight against this evil as if your next-door
neighbor where the next Hugh Hefner and Jeffery Dahmer—
BECAUSE THEY JUST MIGHT BE!
3. Child abuse, drugs, violence are all ills in our society which
must be brutally attacked and destroyed!
a. I have and am working on Sunday school lessons designed to
attack the views of Bible doubters concerning creation,
because I am sick-and-tired of those people always attacking
us and all we ever seem to do is just respond to their
attacks.
b. When you allow that kind of unanswered attack against truth,
so that truth is always on the defensive and never on the
offensive, you weaken truth and allow error and wickedness
to spread.
(1) That is what is happening right now with the gambling
issue.
(2) Truth is being attacked by those who say closing corrupt
gambling is taking our jobs.
(3) The truth is that corrupt gambling is increasing our
welfare lines, breaking up our homes, increasing crimes
such as burglary, prostitution, and thief, and allowing
organized crime to bring in more drugs, more pornography,
and more sex trafficking to what once were decent
communities.
(4) But either no one is telling the truth or the liberal
media has the news outlets so controlled, the truth is
just not getting out!
c. So Christians must take the battle to every church, to every
store front, to every police department, to every political
candidate, to every government official, and to every
individual!
4. We, like King David, are engaged in a great war where we must be
brutal and defeat those vices which would destroy us.
5. However, it is not just a battle with the enemies from without.
We must also be brutal with the enemies from within.
C. Personal enemies - There are enemies from within us, from our own
flesh.
1. Selfishness
a. I quote my wife, "The root of all sin is selfishness."
b. I read a sermon by Dr. T.L. Cooner entitled "How to Build A
Godly Marriage."
c. In the sermon, Dr. Cooner was speaking of how important it to
seek out and to destroy selfishness in the marriage.
d. He gave the following account:
Mike and Gloria scheduled an appointment to come to my office to talk about their
marriage. They were people who both went in their own direction. Mike spent every
extra hour at the golf course and went on many golf trips. He was never home and
when he was home all he did was bark orders. The issues of their marriage were
huge with each one going their own way. When they walked in, before we could pray
or say anything, Mike angrily says, "you are to tell her she is suppose to obey
me!" Unfortunately, he had already been arrested for hitting his wife and spent
time in jail for it. She was never home and the house looked like it. All they
ever did was yell and scream at each other. They both had been involved in lying,
deception, and immorality. His and her selfishness led to the end of their
marriage.
e. What marriage could survive such selfishness?
f. We think, "But I am not THAT bad."
g. Such a self-righteous, proud attitude is deadly.
1 Corinthians 5:6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump?
h. No, all selfishness is wrong. It must be brutally attacked
and totally destroyed.
2. Greed, a short-temper, jealousy, a lavish lifestyle, laziness…
a. The list of human vices are the very weapons our enemies use
to delay us, to derail us, and to detour us.
b. We must seek them out and slay them.
c. No quarter given. No prisoners taken.
King David understood this principal. While it may seem to us a cruel, unjust,
harsh, or evil way to treat a fellow human being, David was just doing what God
had commanded Israel to do when they took the Promised Land. Instead of
following God’s instructions, they showed mercy and spared tens of thousands of
human lives. As a result, literally millions have been killed by the continued
war between Israel and those Israel spared.
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