Skillful but trusting in the Lord
Key Passage: 1 Chronicles 5:18
Date: June 7, 2024
Turn your Bibles, if you would, to First Chronicles, chapter five. First Chronicles chapter number five, God’s Word. I am thrilled you are here on the Sunday night. First Chronicles chapter number five of God’s word. And we are going to start in verse number 18, First Chronicles 5, verse number 18. The title for tonight would be skillful but trusting in the Lord, skillful but trusting in the Lord. And we are going to start over here in First Chronicles, chapter 5, verse number 18.
Everybody is looking down at the Bible. That is a good thing. That is a better thing to look at to me for sure. Verse number 18. The sons of Reuben and the Gadites and half the tribe of Manasseh of valiant men, men able to bear buckler and sword and to shoot with bow. Skillful in war were forty-four thousand, seven hundred and three score that went out to the war. A score in the Bible is always 20, so three score, that would be 60. And they made war with the Hagarites, with Jetur and Naphish and Nodab. They were helped against them.
And the Hagarites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them, for they cried to God in the battle, and he was entreated of them because they put their trust in him. They took away their cattle: of their camels, 50,000; and of sheep 250,000; and of asses 2,000 of men, 100,000. For there fell down many slain because the war was of God. And they dwelt in their steads until the captivity.
These two-and-a-half tribes, Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, they were the two-and-a-half tribes that had decided when they were coming into the promised land, they were not going to cross over the Jordan River. They were going to stay on the eastern side of the Jordan River. They had the blessings of Moses, there would be Joshua and the leaders there, and they believed God. But it did leave them kind of on the outskirts, really on the edge of the nation, and they were vulnerable to attack. It did sometimes lead to wars and battles, such as the case right here that is going on. These men, God bless them, played a great role at this time. I want you to see the formula that was going on that led to the victory.
So let us look at the first part of the formula. Go back to verse number 18, please. Verse number 18: the sons of Reuben and the Gadites and half the tribe of Manasseh, valiant men.
They were trained. They were prepared. They had a mind to fight. They did not run from the battle. They were preparing for it. They were willing to get involved in the fight. They had a military, if you will. Valiant men. Men able to bear buckler. Now, a buckler was a special shield. Almost like a man can hide behind the buckler. It is just a massive shield, and they were able to bear or carry that. They were very trained. They were not half-hearted after this battle. They were prepared, and they were ready, and they were working at this thing. Men able to bear buckler and sword. Oh, they could; they had been sword-fighting, practicing, if you will. They were ready to go. They were trained. They had to have gotten themselves skillful in these things: to bear the buckler and sword and to shoot with bow.
Remember Saul and his son Jonathan when they died on Mount Gilboa over there? I believe it was Mount Gilboa. David heard about it and David cried, “Oh, how the mighty are fallen!” And one of the things he whispered, he said, “Boy, I wish they would teach the children of Judah how to use the bow.” I mean, we have lost it in battle, just as a military mind. He said, “Boy, they do not know how to use the bow, and they need to be ready. They need to be trained in this thing.” Look here, he says, these men, and to shoot with bow—they were prepared for it. They were good at it. They had worked at it. And then this phrase: “skillful in war.”
They were ready for the battle. Now let me just apply it a little bit to my life, your life for just a minute. How skillful are you in the warfare? How skillful are you with the sword? How much have you been in the sword lately? You know the Bible does say, “Study to show thyself approved unto God.” I have that verse on the back wall of my office over there, and it was a good day for me one day when I walked in there, I would see that, I would memorize it forever. But I walked in there and I noticed that: “Study to show thyself approved unto God.” Who cares what anybody else thinks about your Bible knowledge, how much you do or do not know? That really does not matter. Are you approved unto God? Are you studying the Word? Is God happy with how much you have been in the Word here lately? When is the last time you memorized a verse? Is the Bible living inside of you? Are you saturated with the Bible? If we are going to win in this battle, we must be skillful with the sword. I am not talking about comparing. “Well, I cannot memorize Bible verses like so-and-so.” Who cares about all that? Are you approved by God in your use of the Bible? It does not matter if you have a third-grade education. Are you in the book? Are you in the morning, sometimes saying, “Lord, I need some strength from your Word. I have got to get something out of your Bible.” That is going to make you ready for the battle. By the way, whether you like it or not, we are right in the middle of a war, and we must be skillful. We must do the best we can with the resources God has given us and get in the book, friend.
John Rice, he was a student of the book. I will be honest with you. I am going to confess here a little bit about some of his books. If John Rice and Curtis Sutton have written about the same subject, I am going to read Curtis Sutton because John Rice will have 300 pages on that. Curtis Sutton will condense it to 30 pages. I am going to read the 30. I am just confessing here, all right. I am being honest with you here for a second. Maybe Curtis Sutton can kind of nudge John Rice over there. But John Rice, I say that to say, man, he was a student of the book. Praise the Lord for it. Someone came along one time to John Rice and said, “Well, God does not need your intelligence.” To which John Rice replied, “God does not need your ignorance either.” Amen. I am not saying you are trying to impress anybody with your Bible knowledge. I am just saying, are you in the book?
There is a battle going on: battle for the souls of Americans. There is a battle for our country. There is a battle for our youth. Somebody must be vigilant in this battle and skillful. If you are going to be skillful in the battle for the Lord, you must have the sword of God. The book is so vital. They were just skillful in war.
You do not have to present it like me or anybody else. I do not think I am a great soul winner at all. But have you worked at how to win a soul to the Lord? Have you prepared for that? Praise the Lord God to speak with our brother who has been visiting here lately. I have been a blessing. I was praying for him to be here, and they are here. I told him that is a blessing to me. But he said, “I have got a coworker that is a Muslim. I want to witness to him.” I love it. He is thinking it through.
Have you thought about how you could win a soul to the Lord Jesus Christ? What would you say? I am not saying compare. The Bible says of how comparing themselves among themselves are not wise. But have you worked at it?
If your neighbor came to you and said, “Hey, I would like to go to heaven. I know you go to church all the time. What really do I need to do?” Would you be able to tell them what to do? Just skillful—skillful in war. I mean, prepared, and you are planning, and you are working, you are exercising if you are trying to be ready for the battle. Are you ready to win a soul to the Lord Jesus Christ?
You may want to come a time or two this Saturday thing, not even to talk, but just to hear someone else so you learn how to do it. I always teach you up people: you are going to adapt it to fit your person, that is fine, but sometimes you learn something from somebody else. But are you skillful in the warfare? That is what I am trying to say tonight.
Are you skillful in your marriage? Have you read a book about marriage? Have you said, “Well, I would like to be a better husband. I would like to be a better wife”? And have you, as you read the Bible, said, “Lord, teach me about this. We are not as joyful and as happy and as sweet in our marriage. Teach me something from your Word about my marriage. How can I be a better spouse to my mate?”
It is a shame we put so much emphasis on everything else, and sometimes we leave out one of the most important things: our marriage. There are some great Bible colleges out there, and I am not against them, but sometimes they teach everything in the world. And I think, man, at least try to help them have a good marriage, because if they go out in the ministry and they do not have a good marriage, your ministry is not going to be worth that much. But our marriage—have you worked at it? Are you skillful in that?
The devil will do his best to attack your marriage. If you are going to be in the warfare, you are going to have to work at having a good marriage. These people, these two and a half tribes, they were skillful in war. They had prepared for it.
Are you skillful at being a parent? You said, “Well, my kids are grown.” I understand. Things change, but there are stages in life. Maybe, “Okay, how can I be the best parent or grandparent at this stage?” But are you skillful at it? Are you praying about it? Are you seeking the Lord?
Are you skillful in your ministry, whatever ministry you may have? Sunday school teachers and children’s church workers and nurse workers—are you there early? Do you run in right at the last second of class? “Oh, my goodness, well, I got something ready.” Are you there early and prepared and studied, and everybody knows you are ready to love them? Are you skillful at what you do for the Lord?
It is vital, friend. This business of God’s business is more important than any other business in the world. It is a shame if IBM or some other company works harder at that and is more prepared than we are. We are not talking about temporal things. We are talking about eternal things. Whatever the ministry is, be skillful at it.
I love it when our facilities look good—Brother Anthony and Brother Bill and Brother Frank and Brother Steve and all the others getting all the facilities looking good around here. Man, praise the Lord! People ought to come and say, “These people believe what they are doing is important.” Praise the Lord! All that is vital, but are we skillful? Are we doing the best we can with what we have?
Ushers here early, showing up in the place. Choirs practice up, and specials are practiced, and everybody is ready to go, doing the best they can in their spot, and there is nothing like that. Everybody is doing their part to make it happen for the Lord Jesus Christ. Wonderful, exciting.
You call that skillful? Now, I do not think necessarily God is concerned about how talented or how able we are and all this. No, no, no. But God is concerned about us doing the best we can with what we have. You got two talents; be the best you can with the two talents, and God will love to give you more talents. Amen. That is God’s economy. That is so vital.
I think about it sometime: What are we going to say to Paul? “Well, Paul, you do not know how rough I had it.” Paul got his head cut off. Peter had it pretty rough. You say, “It is rough in 2023. You do not know how wicked it was out there.” Peter was crucified upside down for the Lord.
No, let us give it the best we have right now. Let us be skillful in this warfare for the Lord. Jim Elliot was a missionary to Ecuador, I believe it was, to the Auca Indians, trying to reach them for the Lord Jesus Christ. You know the story. He was martyred for the Lord Jesus Christ. He wrote in his diary: “God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life, that I may burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.” Oh, man, let us be skillful. Let us do the best we can with what we have.
Skillful in war—they were prepared. Let us find this formula out: how these two-and-a-half tribes got a great victory for God. First thing: they were skillful in war. Now look at verse number 19, please. Verse number 19, we are in First Chronicles 5. Look at verse number 19.
I like the next three words. Read them out loud with me. Here we go: “They made war.” I like that. I like it. “They made war with the Hagarites, with Jetur and Naphish and Nodab.” Hey, we have an enemy to make war with. Not an enemy in here. The old devil, he is our adversary. He is trying every way he can to attack us, and praise the Lord, we ought to make war with the devil. Somebody in our day and time says we have to say we are tired of always being on the defense. Let us go on the offense. Let us attack the devil. “They made war.” I like that. I like it when Christians just say, “We are going to make war against the devil.” We are not just going to get shot at; we are going to take some shots ourselves. Make war against the devil. He is our adversary.
I thought it was interesting over there in Acts. Paul was casting those demons out. The seven sons of Sceva, the chief priest, they said, “Well, Paul did it; he can do it.” So they went in there, tried to cast the demons out like exorcists. They said, “In the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches,” and you know what the demon said? They said, “Paul, we know, and in Jesus, we know, but who are you?”
Would the devil say, “I have never heard of so-and-so; they have never fought a battle against me”? Or would the devil say, “Man, I know them. They are over in that neighborhood, and they are spreading their light all through that neighborhood”? Would the devil know you? Would the demon say, “Boy, I know them. They are at the workplace, and they are shining their light everywhere they go at the workplace”? Are we making war against the devil?
Do you stick out in this sinful world? Are you a little odd to the world? Is your music different than the world’s? When you pull up at a red light, if your windows are down, is your car going to sound like everybody else’s car? Would it be pretty obvious?
How about your dress? Would your dress look different? By the way, the Bible still talks about modesty in women. It talks about men lifting up hands, praying everywhere. Will they know there is something different about your dress? Would they say, “Hey, that is a lady professing godliness right there; I can tell by the way she dresses”? Or do you have tight, form-fitting clothes on? Would they know the quarter in your pocket is heads or tails without you even taking it out of the pocket? I do not mean to be rude, but could somebody look at you in your eyes, or maybe a guy that is prone to sinful things, go to certain spots where they just say, “Hey, that is a godly lady there”?
Do we stand down? Are we making war? Or do we just fit in and get comfortable with the darkness? Are we making a difference in our day and time? Is our language different? If we slip, mess up a little bit, but the same old words come out of our mouth that comes out of their mouth? Are we standing out? Are we fighting against this system? Are we swimming upstream? Or are we just going downstream like the rest of the world is? Somebody has got to make war against the devil and this world system.
I like it when our people sometimes—I remember a time—years ago in our church, it seemed like it was the fad for people to put gospel tracks in the beer cases at Walmart. I have told this story before. Someone said, “I was doing that.” And someone else said, “I was doing that.” I do not know who it was. If I had praised it, we would have had a lot of people putting tracks in beer cases at Walmart.
We had a guy call this years ago, and he was irate. He said, “I went and got me a case of beer, and inside that case, I took it home, and inside that was one of your tracks, and it just set me off.” He said, “It bothered me so bad it made me sick.” This was the next day. He said, “This morning, I woke up, I felt so bad.” I wanted to say, “Buddy, it was not the track; it is called a hangover.” He said he was going to sue us. He was going to sue the track printer. He was going to sue Walmart, the beer—he was going to sue everybody. Praise the Lord, that is all foolishness. He did not do anything about it, but praise the Lord, somebody was making war against the devil. I like it: making war.
When we teach children’s church or Sunday school or wherever, are we seeking to really make an impact in their life? I love to have numbers because numbers mean more people getting influenced by the Lord, but are we just trying to get another number, or are we trying to influence them? Are we making war wherever we go for the Lord Jesus Christ? Is that the purpose in our life? Do we pray with passion in the prayer calls? One thing I like about March 19th, we are trying to make war. Man, trying to get out there. It is going to be the Lord at the end of the day, but we are doing our best. We are swinging our sword. We are passing out the tracks. We are inviting. We are doing all we can, trying to make war against the devil. He is attacking back, sure, that is what the devil always does, but he is a loser. Amen.
I like what old Billy Sunday said, talking about fighting the devil. He said, “I’ll kick him as long as I have a foot. I’ll fight him as long as I have a fist. I’ll bite him as long as I have a tooth. And when I am old and fistless and footless and toothless, I will gum until I have no life left.” I like it: making war against the devil.
Skillful, skillful in war—verse number 18—and making war in verse number 19. Let us look at verse number 20. First Chronicles, chapter five. I am going to get me a drink of water real quickly here. Verse number 20. Are you there tonight? Good deal. Verse number 20. This is it. I love this verse here. “They were helped against them. And the Hagarites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them, for they cried to God in the battle, and he was entreated of them because they put their trust in him.” Skillful, but trusting in the Lord. Skillful, but trusting in the Lord.
I love to read and study—so many are so much better than I about telling the stories—about the Revolutionary War. Thirteen ragamuffin colonies. We did not have the money. We did not have the talent, really. We did not have the machinery. But God stepped in and took down the most powerful nation on the face of the earth at the time. All the stories you will hear about George Washington and so many others and how God intervened—just amazing. Benjamin Franklin even speaks about how God intervened so many, many times. I love that. That is really the start of America. We were so reliant on the Lord at that time. We knew we had to have victory through God. Our leaders knew that. They would call for days of fasting and prayer often during that time. On the first day of the blockade, the next day they called for just a day of fasting and prayer. Our country was very much like that at that time.
But look at us now. Superpower! Well, I think we still are. But we say we do not need God in the Ten Commandments in our courthouse. We do not need prayer in the schools. We do not need teaching the Bible there. We do not need all that. Our military—our great military—we have bombers that can take off in California, fly all the way to the other side of the world, bomb, and fly back without landing. Our military—the best trained, the best technology—we think we have to go it alone. What about our Constitution? A country without God is going to fall flat on its face. Even if we had a little bit less of all these things, if we just got back to relying on God, we would be better off.
Skillful, but trusting the Lord. Sometimes that is a hard combination. Some people really cannot have both. God has to keep them very unskilled so they trust in the Lord. For some, the more skillful they become—the more able they are to bear the buckler and the sword and the bow, the more they have all that—the less they depend on God. That is a sad thing.
I remember we were in Alabama. A youth director down there, one of the men in the church, Brother Donnie, a good man. Brother Donnie said, “I remember back in the day there were a lot of peanut farms around there. If the crops failed, they did not have the government to bail them out. Boy, I remember how the farmers used to pray,” he said, “when they needed rain.”
I am just saying if we are not careful—“Well, I know how to be a good spouse. I know how to raise children. I know how to have a Sunday school class and all that”—we will fall flat on our face. I hope we are a church that is skillful but trusting the Lord.
It is easy to trust in the Lord when you are in a storefront. We have been there. You ain’t got no programs. You ain’t got no teachers. You do not have all that; you have got to trust in the Lord. If we are not careful, well, praise the Lord, we have 12 acres and this all paid for, and all the facilities and all this. And we have new property over there. If we are not careful, we might just fall into depending on all that. We have the friendliest people—praise the Lord for that, and I believe that. We put it on our tracks. But all of that is not going to get the real job done, friend.
By the way, I do not want us to get to where we are depending on that new building one day. God can use that new building, but it is going to be the Lord that blesses over there. Skillful but trusting in the Lord. If we do not trust in the Lord because we get all this, we would be better off to go back to the storefront. Because at the end of the day, it is not about buildings and land and buses and all those facility things I am talking about. It is about souls for the Savior. Skillful but trusting the Lord.
Are you truly trusting the Lord? When you get sick, who do you call first: the doctor or the Lord? Are you depending on that job, that career, your experience, or are you depending on the Lord? Are you depending on all that you know and all that you have been trained on to raise those kids, or are you depending on the Lord for those kids to turn around? Or are you depending on what all you do—“I know how to be a good husband, a good wife, and I have this list”—or are you saying, “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it”?
Skillful, but trusting in the Lord. It is so important. I commend these two and a half tribes; they had worked hard, they were prepared, but they were trusting the Lord. I love it.
If I am truly trusting in the Lord, I will be willing to follow his instructions. If I go to the doctor and I believe that doctor is telling me the truth and he says, “Do this, do this,” I am going to follow what he says. Are we following what our doctor told us to do? If I am truly trusting in him, I am going to be willing to follow his plan over my plan. I am going to be all about, “Lord, what exactly did you tell me to do?”
Look at another thing in verse number 20. We kind of skipped over one thing here: skillful but trusting the Lord. I love that. But then we missed a part of verse number 20: “And they were helped against them. And the Hagarites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them, for they cried to God in the battle, and he was entreated of them.”
It is a sad day when everything of the church house is the first priority besides prayer. Yeah, we will get a little prayer in there. Friend, prayer ought to be our lifeline. It ought to be like breathing. We are depending; we are asking God, “We have got to have your blessing.” I want to do all this work for March 19th, but we ought to have some people just pouring their hearts out. God wants to see you work on March 19th. We need to see your mind focused on Him. It is time for the Lord to work. By the way, it is a wonderful feeling when you say, “I did all I can do. Lord, now I am just resting in you.”
Anybody can pray. “Well, I cannot get out. I cannot invite. I cannot do this.” Friend, you can be sitting in a nursing home and pray. That might be the greatest thing you can do: prayer. They were begging God. America, what America is in need of is an old-fashioned prayer meeting for our nation.
In the middle of the battle, they were begging God, “Oh God, you have got to do something! God, we have got to see your hand move in this battle. We have prepared, we have planned, but it is not going to be us. The victory is not of us. God, please, would you do something?” God said, “I am entreated by him.” God brought them great victory that day. It is wonderful.
But he makes this statement—look in verse number 22, please. Verse number 22. I love this statement. Verse number 22, First Chronicles 5, verse number 22: “For there fell down many slain because the war was of God.” God always brings the increase. The battle is the Lord’s. The last part: “They dwelt in their steads until the captivity.”
It is going to be the Lord that brings the victory. If it is true victory, it will be God. Jesus even said, “Father, I do nothing without you.” If Jesus said that, we sure cannot rise above that. Jesus told us, “Without me, you can do nothing.” God brings the victory, the true victories. Promotion does not come from the east or the south or the west. Sometimes we have so many mechanisms and so many methods in our day and time and so many different things. At the end of the day, promotion does not come from all the earth; it comes from above. Oh, it is so important.
So, Lord, we have got to have you. You are the one that brings victory. Let me say this: God is very, very capable of bringing great victories in 2023. It is a sad day—now, listen, help me out on this—it is a sad day when God’s people are defeated in America and say, “God cannot do much in our day and time.” What a shame on us! God is able today, just like he was 50 years ago. The devil is not more powerful than God. You say it is so powerful in the end time; he has always been powerful. But God can just wipe the bravest sweat and hit the devil and knock the devil out, friend. People still will be saved in our day and time. Lives can still be changed. Families can still be godly families raising their children for the Lord in 2023. What a shame if we lose our faith in God. He is still bringing victory today. He is still working through churches today. Lives are still being changed today. Alcoholics are still getting sober today. He is still changing lives. Do not let the devil convince you, “Well, it is just too bad.” Friend, it was pretty bad during Nero’s time, and God still worked. The victories of the Lord!
They had a great formula: skillful, but trusting the Lord. They showed it; they showed it by their praying. And the victory was God’s. He still wants to bring victory today. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Original File: Pastor Paul Chisgar - Skillful but trusting in the Lord - Sunday PM 2262023