Mike Bickle discusses leadership lessons from 1 Chronicles 11-12, emphasizing the importance of recognizing the value of others and the need for unity in vision during transitional times. He highlights David's leadership qualities that inspired loyalty and courage among his followers, particularly during periods of great change and challenge. Bickle draws parallels between David's time and the current church landscape, urging leaders to embody characteristics such as mercy, generosity, and the ability to see the nobility in others. He encourages the congregation to respond to God's call with courage and commitment, just as David's mighty men did in their time of transition.

In the name of Jesus, amen. That's because it's when we see what who others are to the Lord, then we have so much more graciousness towards them. We think of them as just people with a problem or somebody troubling us that we can get troubled. But when we see the big picture, that's what we looked at last session. I won't go through that again. But I hear 1st Chronicles chapter 11 and 12. What's happening? It's taking the 2nd Samuel 5 setting we looked at in the last session. It's adding much more detail to it. We see how many men came to David. First when he went to Hebron at age 30, and then at Hebron when all the elders of Israel came when he was 37. We see both different time frames highlighted here in 1st Chronicles 11 and 12. But the important thing is that this was a time of great transition going on in Israel. In a popular way of saying it, God was doing a new thing. There was a new thing that God was preparing and he was allowing, he gave a period of time, that seven-year period particularly. Well, really there's two seven-year periods. When David was first anointed and Saul turned on him, that was period number one, where all of Israel got to choose were they going to stand with David or Saul? Then when Saul died and David became king at Hebron, then there was another seven-year period of civil war between the north and the south. Then yet again all of Israel had to choose who were they going to go with. The house of Saul, although he died, but Abner and Ish-bosheth, his house, his dynasty, or would they go with the young new thing David, this man that was anointed out in the wilderness. When a generation is in a prophetic time frame, which I believe we are in right now in church history, it's a very similar kind of thing that's taking place. Again, our last session that we looked at, David being enthroned in Jerusalem and driving out all the enemies of God from Jerusalem, was a snapshot, a picture of when the greater David is enthroned in Jerusalem and where he drives out all the enemies of the Lord from Jerusalem. Of course, that's at the second coming. But the Lord, we're in this transitional generation right now, where it's really important that we respond in the way that the men in 1st Chronicles 11 and 12 responded, because they were in that transitional period before David was crowned king at age 30 at Hebron, and then they were in the transitional period when he was aged 37, when, you know, all the elders were coming. These two different time frames. They had two different intensities to them. But I know one thing, the Lord is changing the understanding and expression of Christianity in the whole earth in a generation. I believe these next 10, 20, 30 years, and not that that's an exact number, I believe we're going to see more and more radical changes of the dark becoming darker and the light becoming lighter, and the people who profess allegiance to Christ are going to be in two different camps, and they're going to be polarizing in two different directions. And the Bible calls the negative direction the great falling away, and I believe we're in the time frame of the beginning of a massive global falling away of people who are professing their allegiance to the Lord, are going to denounce Him and denounce His Word. But at the very same time of transition, there's going to be a great harvest and people becoming radically on fire for the Lord, flowing in the prophetic, now purpose of the Holy Spirit, the first commandment restored to first place, the heart of David kind of men and women, and right here in 1 Chronicles 11 and 12, they give us the insight on how the different responses were happening in this great hour of transition because people were deciding and making really important decisions along the way here. Okay, paragraph B. Paragraph B. We know more about David's leadership by the people who are responding to it, meaning when we look at the list of men and their characteristics and what they did, what these men did, the characteristics of these guys, it gives us insight into what David was like. Paragraph C. I have just a whole list of six or seven different characteristics of David that I believe these were the way that he was acting in leadership that was causing the response of these kind of men. So this is how the Lord is treating us. We could have confidence, but it's how we want to respond to people in our leadership role. So there's a dual message going on. The Lord wants us to know this is how He's treating us, and He says this is how I want you to respond to people in the sphere of leadership that I gave you. But paragraph C. David's leadership won the confidence of the most influential people in the nation of Israel, and it won the confidence of the strongest, most radical warriors, because the most influential leaders and the most radical strong warriors are not always the same personalities and the same groups of people. And so what kind of leadership did David have? Again, he's in his 30s, that had such an impact that the most powerful governmental leaders and the most powerful business leaders were responding to his leadership. But at the same time, the most powerful warriors were responding to his leadership. And at the same time, the greatest singers and musicians of the nation responded to his leadership. And I look at this whole gift mix, and I think, Lord, what are some things we can learn? And we can learn them somewhat by the way that these men are responding in chapter 11 and 12. Well, just a real kind of a run through it real quick, because you can take two or three of each one of these characteristics and apply them to the different examples, the stories that are told, because chapter 11 and 12 are stories of what exploits of how different men responded in different situations, how they responded to David's leadership. Well, number one, a thing that I've touched by is all this greatness happening in David's life that you got to remember the failures he had from chapter 19 all the way to chapter 31 of 1 Samuel. He had a couple of major failures, and I'm looking at him now bold and confident, and I think, Lord, this is a glorious quality, his confidence in God to let it go and to move on with God with confidence. And that's one of the things the enemy doesn't want you to do. He doesn't want you to let it go. He wants you to remember the thing two years ago or the thing six months ago. But David had this confidence just to move on boldly, but in the same way, he treated people who failed the same way. He was the leader of the second chance, the second chance, the second chance. Now, you can take that and apply that in a wrong way, but he was not one to write somebody off because of a failure, because God didn't write him off. These men loved him because he gave them mercy. I mean, one of the premier examples is Joab, his, what is he, his nephew, Joab, and I mean, Joab caused so many troubles for him, but David kept giving him another chance at a mercy, and again, there's a way to misapply that principle. Another thing that strikes me about David is he never gave up on these men, and they're in difficult situations, meaning when you're in difficult situations, one of the last things you want to do is be investing in other people in difficult situations. What we want to do in our flesh when things are tough, we want to retreat, we want to draw back, we want to lick our wounds, get some comfort. David is in as much discomfort as everybody, but he's jumping in to these men who are in discomfort, and he's optimizing the situation for their training, and the reason they became his mighty men is because they had so much practice in their youth at war because of being with David, but in that, I mean, that's a great story. They had a lot of practice, and they became good, but you look at it. They were in incredibly uncomfortable situations, and many of leaders would have just quit and said, hey, you're on your own. You know, when I sort it out, and when I land, and when my, you know, when my great moment comes, I'll give you a call, and I'll rally you back, but David, in discomfort, under pressure, was investing in these men that were on the verge of quitting. Remember, they were in debt, discontented, distressed. David is in the same boat, but investing in them, and I've looked at my life over the years, and this has inspired me a couple times, where it was, I just felt discouraged. I didn't have the same motivation, and I look at David, what he did with these guys, and I go, Lord, if he can, I can, in the grace of God, and if he can, you can, in the grace of God, but it's this temptation to want to just bail out when it gets tough, and not invest in others who, if you invest in them, they'll actually become mighty men and mighty women of God, some of them in the years to come, but in, when they're in a project in the making, it doesn't look that way, and the last thing you want to do is bother with them, when you've got so many hassles in your own life, and the Lord says, be like David, go the other direction. There was a reason these guys were responding, and achieving what they achieved, and having the heart they had, because they were interacting with a man that was investing in them, while he himself was under great stress. Another thing that I've mentioned over and over was his generosity towards his former enemies, and not just an enemy that he never interfaces with again, I'm talking about, which I've said over and over, the enemies, the leaders of Israel, that the Lord says, I do want you to serve together, and so David, you can't write them off. I need you, I need them working together with you, all of you, and it's going to be your generosity that's going to lead the way. They're not going to be generous to you. You're going to triumph, James chapter 2 verse 13, mercy triumphs over judgment, you're going to triumph over their failure in judgment by your mercy, and his generosity, if he wouldn't have had the generosity, he wouldn't have had the thousands of men responding to him in the way that they did. They would have stayed in the Civil War for another seven years. Another thing that I want to highlight when we get to it, is how David insisted on the people that joined him, they could fail, they could have weakness, but he insisted that they were equally yoked in the vision with him. Meaning, we'll look at this in a few minutes in chapter 12, where he insisted that you have to be joining the vision that God has mandated me, if you want to stand with me, and David insisted on that, because the definition of division is two visions, and David didn't draw back on this. He goes, I have a vision, it's from the Lord, if you're to be a part of it, we got to have one vision, we can't be in this together debating all the time, we need to be equally yoked in our values, in our vision, going in the same direction, and that, you know, again, when I look over leadership, that's a rough, that's a challenging thing to do, it's easier to let go of the vision and just let come what comes, but I found that David insisted on people, not necessarily equally yoked in strength or in ability, but equally yoked, they were buying into the vision, and they were going in one direction together. Again, the definition of division is two visions, and that's all you need to break a marriage up, to break a family up, to break a church up, to break a business up, to break up any kind of alliances, have two visions that are contradictory to one another, and that unit, that relational unit will break, and another thing that David did, you'll see several times, is that he valued the nobility of their sacrificial risk-taking. He saw it, he didn't overlook it, he actually saw what they were bearing, and he made it known to them, and that touched them, it created a loyalty in them, because David wasn't so captured in his own plight that he couldn't see their plight, he actually could, he saw their sacrifice and the nobility of what they were deciding, and that impacted the way they served in the army with him. Now again, many of these traits is how the Lord relates to us, and these, this is not a comprehensive list, but these are ways the Lord wants us to relate to the people that we have leadership over, again, whether it's over ten people, or a hundred, or a thousand, it doesn't matter the number. Now in chapter 11 and 12 of Chronicles, it's a whole list of men and stories, and each one of these stories are examples of different men, somewhere along the way, responding to David's leadership in one or more of these ways that I've just described. And so there is a cause-effect, not that David's leadership is the whole answer to why they did it, but it's part of the answer to why they did it, and it's a larger storyline that, as you see the whole picture together, it, you know, gives me a resolve to want to lead in these ways that I described on this paper. I see the fruit of it in David's life. It's in the Word of God, and I say, Lord, I want to do this. I want to be like this more and more. Okay, let's go to Roman numeral two. It just sets the context for you. It's the same passage that came right out of 2 Samuel 5 we looked at in the last session. So I'm not going to go through it, but I just wanted in the notes for you to see that the chronicler, the person writing this story, who's chronicling these ideas, he starts with David's coronation as king over all Israel. So 2 Chronicles 11 starts when David's 37 years old. It's interesting. Second, I mean, 1 Chronicles 11, David's 37 years old. He's at Hebron. He's being coronated as king over all of Israel. It's interesting. The next chapter, 1 Chronicles 12, he goes back to when he's 30 years old and 28 years old, right? Ziklag. So it goes back and, and says, if you think the guys in chapter 11 are amazing, look at the guys at chapter 12 that were with him even in the wilderness years when Saul was chasing him. These are the long-term guys in chapter 12. The more short-term guys, but still they were responding in a transitional hour. That's chapter 11. The long-term ones are more chapter 12 that were with him in both different seasons of transition. When he was running from Saul, that season of transition, and then after, then when he was becoming king over all of, all of Israel, when they were coronating him at age 37, there was another great transition at that time as well. Okay, so what's going on? I mean, you, you, you know it, but I'll just kind of briefly read it. All of Israel, paragraph 8, comes together. They're at Hebron. He's 37 years old. All the ten tribes from the north. We're your bone and flesh. We remember when King Saul, we went through all that in the last session. You're the one the Lord prophesied about. You're the main leader. You're the guy. We all have known it for years. Therefore all the elders came to David and made him king. Okay, so we have that context. Paragraph C. I want to go back to a prophecy in Genesis 49. Genesis 49. This is Jacob. Now Jacob, you know, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. The three guys in a row. Abraham's the father. His son is Isaac. His son is Jacob. Jacob has 12 sons. Most of you know all of this. That's pretty simple, but just in case you're brand new at this. So Jacob, right before he dies in Genesis 49, he prophesies over all 12 of his sons, and he tells them what's going to happen in their distant future. Well, some in the near future, but most in the distant future. And look what he says to Judah. Again, this is a, this is about 800 years before David. About 800 years before David's born. And Jacob, and he says to one of his 12 sons, one of his sons was Judah. Because remember the 12 tribes of Israel are the 12 sons of Jacob. Each tribe is the name of one of those sons. So the son Judah, the tribe of Judah. So verse 8, Jacob says, Judah. He goes, I got a word for you. One of these days, years from now, it was 800 years later, approximately, I haven't done the math exactly, but about, your brothers will praise you. The men from the other tribes will praise you. That's what's happening with David right here at the coronation. I mean, all of Israel is praising him. He says, your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. In other words, you're going to have military victory. Having your hand on the neck of your enemies means military victory and conquest. You're going to be, one of your sons is going to be an anointed, a military leader, and an anointed in battle in a remarkable way, that it will stand out above all the others in history as one of the great warriors. He says, and your father's children will bow down to you. Well here, David, he's age 37. All the elders of Israel are bowing down, crowning him as king. And then he goes on to describe, verse 9, comparing Judah to a lion. And of course, the phrase we get from the book of Revelation, Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah, because there was a lion heart dimension to one of Judah's sons. And this lion heart son is King David. This whole thing is fulfilled in King David. But it's only an initial fulfillment. It's only an initial fulfillment, because the greater fulfillment is King Jesus. Because all of these happen in King Jesus. All of the brethren praise that one elder brother. All of the brethren bow down and worship him. And he has his hand on the neck of his enemies. He has utterly triumphed over all the powers of darkness. And so, Genesis 49 is being fulfilled right here in 2nd Samuel 5, or in this case, it's 1st Chronicles 11. It's the same event being described here. And so, David's a type of Jesus, and you can see the fulfillment there. Let's go to the top of page 2. Now the chronicler skips a lot of things that are highlighted in 2nd Samuel 5 and forward. But he takes up this one more issue, and he adds a detail we didn't get in 2nd Samuel 5, because that's the original account. The 2nd Samuel 5 is the main story. The chronicler is borrowing that detail and adding a few more details to it. He's zealous to make everybody, let everybody know David's the one who took the initiative to take Jerusalem. Jerusalem has been occupied by the enemy for 500 years since Israel's been in the land. Nobody's taken it in any effective way. There was moments where they were getting close to it, but they never could get rid of the Jebusites. But David did what Joshua started to do, but didn't complete. He drove all the enemies out of the land. David completed what Joshua, 500 years earlier, started. And David took the stronghold of Zion. We looked at that in the last session. But here's the new piece of information. David gives this seemingly risky promise, an offer. I mean, it's a little reckless of an offer. He says, whoever attacks the Jebusites, whoever crawls up that water shaft, again, you know that 50 to 100 yards, little narrow, muddy, slimy thing, whoever climbs up that and takes the city is the commander of my army. I mean, the rest of your life is the idea. David, you better hope a you know, a warrior climbs up there, not just a gymnast, you know. Maybe he's a real good guy, a good gymnast, you know, but he didn't know anything about war. But Joab, his nephew, we don't hear that it's Joab in 2 Samuel 5. Here comes a line, he was the first one up. And so Joab, of course, what I think is happening is that David, this is another incident where David uses this, wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove, because, I mean, it was honest and the motives were right here. Now remember that Israel, the ten tribes, and Judah, the one tribe in the south, that's ten plus one, that's eleven, and then the twelfth tribe, remember, is Levi, the tribe of the Levites. That's the priests, the singers, musicians, and the priests, they're on both teams. You know, that's just a good way to remember that. So the eleventh, I mean, that final tribe is kind of scattered throughout the whole land. And so that's why sometimes they don't get counted. You talk about the one tribe in the south and the ten tribes in the north. Well, the commander-in-chief of the north for decades was Abner. And he was a very seasoned, skilled leader. And remember, back in 2 Samuel 3, Abner, I mean, an older man with all this history, comes down to the south to meet David and Hebron. And he says, hey, I'm gonna bring all of Israel down. And Joab, this young, you know, young, I mean, David's main leader out in the wilderness, but he's still a young man, and the army's real small. I mean, it's a quite small little army, 600 people. Abner's got thousands and thousands, and he's done it for decades. And so, as you remember the story in 2 Samuel 3, two sessions ago, Joab, the young guy, David's nephew, kills Abner. Like, ah! Kill Abner. I mean, he's the great military genius. I mean, all this experience. So now the north doesn't have a commander-in-chief. But the north doesn't like Joab at all. I mean, they are angry at Joab. But remember, David cried and wept at the funeral, sincerely, and was very angry at Joab for it. So all of Israel saw that, and they say, okay, okay, David's on our side. He's for the north. But David says, I got to have a commander. But he can't stand before all the north and say, Joab, my leader is now your leader. They go, we hate Joab. That ain't gonna happen. So David says, okay, here's how we'll do it. We're gonna take the city of Jerusalem. Whoever has the leadership, the initiative, the courage, and the risk-taking to climb up that water shaft, again, one guy looking down the shaft, and you're dead. I mean, he could just drop anything, a big stone, and you're finished. Whoever does it is the commander. So he goes over, and this is my theory, and he says, Joab, I know you're, that's the kind of guy you are, man. That's the sort of guy you are. You drive me crazy sometimes, but you're the type that could do this. He goes, are you kidding? I could shimmy up that water shaft. I don't care how tall it is. I'll take a couple swords with me, and I mean, he was a mighty warrior. I mean, so he went up there and did it, and so now the rest of Israel is looking, and David said, it was anybody could do it. They go, yeah, but Joab. David said, no, it was an open deal for anybody, open contest, and so that's my theory of how that happened. Okay. You don't have to accept that theory, but that's my theory. Okay, Roman numeral four. Roman numeral four. Now, we're going to describe the guys. Again, these are the guys that are joining David in 2 Samuel 5, when he's 37, becoming king over all of Israel. Now, it gives a description. These are the heads of the mighty men. Here they are. Because there was this group called the 30 mighty men, but the problem is the group was about 50. It really was 30 for a while, and then it kind of grew to 32, but the number 30 became a designation for the group, so it became known as the 30 mighty men. Well, a couple more guys were mighty. Well, we don't want to change the name. You know, we've got a good name out there. You know, it's got a good brand out there. It's the 30 mighty men, but it happened to be 32. Then it grew to 34. It ended up growing back to 47. I think that was the highest number, but they always called it the 30, so when you're racking your brain, adding them up, and you end up with, you know, one list says like 38, one list adds another 16. You go like, what? That's over 30. 30 was the designated name, and it just kind of morphed over the years and grew a little bit bigger than that, but it's a we're going to see the kind of exploits these men did. Now, what we're going to find, I mean, what we're going to learn from it is, number one, what kind of leader was David? I went through those characteristics a few minutes ago, that inspired these kind of exploits. That's one angle, but what kind of response is the Lord looking for, that that he's raising up to the greater David, Jesus, because it's the the kind of warriors, that's male-female, we're in the body of Christ. It's the kind of warriors that are responding to King Jesus in the transitional generation before he captures Jerusalem and is enthroned as king over the whole earth. I mean, the parallel is very, very clear that it's the same kind of people will be in that final generation, of which it's my strong opinion, it's not a prophecy, but it's an opinion, that we're in the early days of that generation. And so, this 1 Chronicles 11 and 12, this is, I think, very, very relevant to you and your life, that you are saying, I want to be a man or a woman of God that responds like this, and I want to be a leader that inspires this kind of response like David did. Okay, let's look at a paragraph B. Eleazar, here's the first guy. It says in verse 13, this is, so we get a couple examples, a couple snapshots of what these 30 guys are like. We don't get a story on all 30, but there's a handful of stories in 2 Samuel 23, and here in 1 Chronicles 11 and 12, you put those two passages together, that's where all the mighty men stories are clustered, 2 Samuel 23. So, we're not going to do that later on in the session, we're just going to kind of include it here in this one. Well, Eleazar, here's the key phrase, with David, that's, I love that part, with David, the Philistines were gathering for battle. In other words, the Philistines were on the attack, they were taking the initiative, they were attacking Israel. There was a piece of ground, and it was noteworthy, it was remembered, because it was a ground full of barley, and so therefore it was well known. They all knew, oh, yeah, that one story where all the barley was, oh, that was an intense day. Now, we read it, you know, 3,000 years later and go, where's that land with the barley? But it was a well-known story in that day. What had happened, the Philistines were advancing, and it was a very important time, important enough for David to be at the very front of the battle. I mean, when you're at the front of the battle in those ancient days, I mean, that was, well, in any battle, but I mean, it's really, really dangerous. I mean, all kinds of weapons are flying, and all the people are fleeing. They're terrified. So whatever the Philistines are doing, it's terrifying, and everybody's running the other direction. I mean, the people of Israel are. But, verse 14, but these two men, Eleazar, but he's with David. The two together, they stationed themselves in the middle of the field. It was a significant battle. We don't know all the importance of the battle, but it wouldn't be in the account of the, you know, the Hall of Fame, so to speak, if it wasn't a very, very significant event, because only a few stories make the Hall of Fame account here. They, David and Eleazar, they stationed themselves in the middle of the field. The Philistines are coming. Everyone's running. David says, I'm not moving, because we need this ground. Undoubtedly, it had implications of safety for others, and, you know, a breakthrough in the battle, and they held the ground against all odds, and the Lord broke through, and a great victory came. But it was David and Eleazar. Now, Eleazar is the one that's being highlighted here, but the part I like, I mean, so we know it's courageous people, people that are willing to be risk-taking, and they're courageous, and so it's not about being a violent military guy. In our context, it's about being a risk-taker and being courageous, not foolish, but, you know, but obeying the Holy Spirit, but the part I like is that David, Eleazar did it with David. David didn't say, hey, you take that, and I'll be on the other side. Give me the report, and tell me how it goes, and David fled with everybody else fleeing. So we see the remarkable courage of David and Eleazar, and we know that courage, I think courage is probably one of the number one virtues that's being tested in leadership today. It's not, I mean, there's, I would put four or five off the top of that list, virtues, but I think courage is one of the main ones, that particularly in this hour where there's so much stigma, that is filling the culture for anybody that will stand true to the true Biblical testimony of the Christian way of life. There's so much stigma in the church that so many, I mean, even men and women with powerful big ministries, and they've been faithful for years. They're curiously silent on very important issues. They won't touch them, or they're going the popular way of the culture, and there's a crisis, I talked earlier, of burnout, but there's a crisis of courage in the, in the camp right now, and this is a statement, it's a military example, but in the New Testament context, we apply it in a spiritual, it's standing true, holding the ground, everyone's fleeing, but you're not going to flee. You're going to be a faithful witness. You're going to say what God says. You're going to say with tenderness and humility. You're not backing away from it at all, and many will flee and enter because the enemy is pursuing, but you won't give ground. You're going to hold your position, and that's certainly a place I've, I've committed in my heart to do by the grace of God, and I know that many of you in the room are committed to do that by the grace of God, but there is a tremendous pressure to reduce the reality of what the Word of God says and make it acceptable and pleasing to the culture, and I just want to urge you, be an Eleazar, or be a David that stands with an Eleazar and show the way forward. Paragraph C. Here's a very different episode, a very different facet of David's life. This is a, this is a fantastic, this is one of my, probably my favorite of all the examples of the mighty man, that says, then, I mean, David was then in the stronghold. At this time, David is in, you know, he's in the stronghold, like in one of the caves in the hideout places type thing, and the garrison, which means the military unit of the Philistines, they were in Bethlehem. So David's hiding out in the wilderness, and the Philistines are in his hometown, Bethlehem, which is a quite small little village, actually, and David is, is back there, you know, and they're planning how to attack the Philistines, because David wants to liberate his, his own family and, and, and town from the Philistines. Again, David's just in his 20s. He's not king yet. It's before he was even king at age 30, still in his 20s, at this, in this example, and David was longing, and he just said it out loud, and he didn't know anybody was gonna move on it, and he said, oh, he goes, I wish somebody would give me a drink of water from that well in Bethlehem. He goes, I grew up there as a kid. I would come up in the hot summer with the sheep, and I might, I would be parched, and that water, it was cool, and it had such a taste, and he goes, oh, I could just taste it right now, and he's just kind of going on and on, just thinking out loud. He's in a military situation. I'm sure it's not very comfortable, and he's reminiscing of, you know, the water from the well of Bethlehem, and you might, you know, one day be talking about the pizza from our pizza shop over here, or something like that, but anyway, you know, they were, he was just reminiscing many years later type thing. Verse 18, look what happens. Three of the men, they got together. There's, David, David had 600 soldiers at this time. Three of them go. They became the mighty, they got on the mighty man list, you know, David's 30 mighty men. They got on that list later, but they said, let's go get him some water, and these three go, let's do it. David didn't know anything about it, and so they break through the camp. I mean, the, you know, the Philistines are around the whole town of Bethlehem. They fight these guys, and they don't exactly know where the well is exactly. They didn't grow up there, but they find it, and Philistines undoubtedly are shooting arrows, and coming at him with swords, or fighting. Hurry up, get the water, quick, hurry. No, you do it, hurry up. You know, I can just picture this whole drama of these young guys trying to get this water, fighting guys, Philistines, so they get the water. They run back, and they bring it to David. David says, well, what? They said, well, you said you wanted the water. He goes, no, no, no, not, not that. I didn't mean risk your life to give me the water I liked. He goes, are you, you've got to be kidding, and the loyalty they had for David, and David says, here, he says, he wouldn't drink it. He said, no, this is, this is way too, I mean, the sacrifice, the nobility of what you did. He poured it out as an offering to the Lord. He said, only the Lord is worthy of this kind of devotion. I am not worthy of this kind of devotion. So, he worshipped. He said, Lord, my greatest gift is this water, and he poured it out, and he looked at the men. He goes, it's too noble for me to consume, and, and, and this is a, actually a snapshot of what, how we will respond to the Lord on the last day, because we, we have a hint of this in Revelation 4, 4. The elders take their crowns that they receive from a lifelong, a long life of obedience to the Lord. I mean, these are elders with crowns at the throne of God. These are, I believe, redeemed people from the redemptive history. These are their crowns, statements of their obedience, and they cast them down before the Lord, and they say, it's yours. We don't even want to wear them. They're yours, and, of course, the Lord puts the crowns back on them, and they cast them down again. I mean, they do it over and over, and I don't know how long this goes on, but, but the Lord says, no, no, I want it. These crowns are an expression of how I feel about the way you loved me. I want you to have them. I want you to wear your love, the way you love me. I want you to wear it. No, we want to give it back to you, and so it's this amazing, the opposite of entitlement, the total opposite of entitlement. It's like, I did all this for you, Lord, and that's all you're doing for me. You got to be kidding. No, it's the other way around. It's like, Lord, it is whatever I do, I just want to do it for you, and so David's gratitude, but his ability to see their, his ability to see their nobility, even when he's in a time of battle, discomfort, and conflict, he still is in touch with their nobility, and this creates an ever-increasing loyalty. So this was a, I mean, these were courageous men, but these were men that had been treated kindly, and that had been valued by David, and it has this kind of extreme response, and again, it's a picture of the Lord on the last day, and how we will respond. You know, it's interesting, another one of my favorite verses is in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 28. It's at the end of the Millennial Kingdom, after Jesus has ruled the earth for a thousand years, 1 Corinthians 15, 28, I don't have it on the notes, all the kingdoms of the world, all the realms of society, are fully Christianized, every realm of society in the Millennium is obedient to Jesus, and everything is brought in full submission to him, and it says in 1 Corinthians 15, 28, Jesus takes the kingdom, and this fully matured kingdom after a thousand years of Millennium, and then it says he cast it down at the Father, and he says, I only did it for you. I don't even want it, it was all for you, and Jesus cast his crown before the Father, and that's why the elders are doing it before them, and that's the same spirit of what's going on in this passage, which is very, very remarkable. Get out of page 3. No, no, no, no, no, the bottom, I'm sorry, bottom, you got to see this one, bottom of page 2, almost missed it. Benaniah, he's a, he's a, he's a good guy. There's another story, again, it gives us insight in the kind of, the caliber of courage, and risk-taking, and commitment to the cause. Oh, they have two stories here, Benaniah verse 22, one of the stories that he went down and killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day, and of course the, the, it's not, it's not recreation, he's not out lying hunting, that's not what he's doing. The, the context is clear, he's on a rescue mission, and somebody is endangered, and this lion has got them trapped in a pit, and again, this is not about recreation, this is about rescue, this is about heroics, it makes the, one of the few examples that makes the Hall of Fame, the Israel Hall of Fame of heroic deeds, and this guy, at the risk of his own life, jumps down to rescue somebody, and we don't have all the details, it's in a pit, so he's one-on-one with a lion in a pit, it's not good, right? You're going to be one-on-one with a lion, I don't know where you want to be, but you don't want to be in a pit, and you don't want to be on a snowy day, where it's slippery, and the lion, and he went down there to rescue this person, and the Lord helped him, and he killed the lion, and so it's an incredible feat, but it was the heart behind the feat that I'm pointing out. Then, verse 23, this same guy, Ben-Ananiah, he faced this Egyptian, and this was a guy kind of like Goliath. He was five cubits tall, that's over seven feet, he was a very tall man, and he had a big spear, like a weaver's beam, and that's just a big, you know, a weaver's beam is a big piece of wood, you know, that's a big one, and so, and so, that's a big spear, and this is very much like Goliath, because Goliath was like that, and he had a spear like a weaver's beam as well, and here's what I love about this story, that Ben-Ananiah went down to him with a staff. I mean, he's got a cane, that guy's got a spear as big as one of those poles, not quite, but this guy, Ben-Ananiah has a cane, you know, a little staff, you know, a little shepherd's staff, a wooden-like stick, like, okay, come on, this guy's seven foot tall with a giant sword, come on, and he takes it, he wrestles the spear out of the guy's hand, and then he kills him with his own spear. Now, this is very similar to David and Goliath, because the David and Goliath story, the parallel is unmistakable, David and Goliath, David first rescues his lambs from a lion and a bear, and then the next thing, he beats the giant in a, you know, in a surprising turn of events. So, it's a very similar parallel of what David did, but here's what I like about this, I love the courage of verse 22, he goes on the rescue mission with the lion, and because he's courageous, and he's, it's costly, but here's how the enemy does it, I love, this is the redemptive grace of God, the enemy comes at you like this Egyptian with a spear, and here's what God wants to do, God's going to give you the grace of God for the very area that you're struggling in, God's going to help you get victory, then he's going to anoint you in that area to help other people get victory in it, and so, I mean, I've seen this over the years, I've seen the person struggling with immorality, struggling with alcohol, struggling with things, I mean, in an addiction level type things, and and through a process, they get free, but now they're free, they have the tenderness, plus they have the very in-depth insight on how to get free, because they walked it out, step by step, pain by pain, and now the very sword the enemy used against them, immorality, is the sword he's using back against the devil, liberating other people, and so this is such a picture of the grace of God, whatever the enemy is striking you with, the Lord says, there's a way, a spear against a little wooden staff, in the grace of God, I can turn this thing around against all odds, there's no chance it's going to happen, I'm actually going to make you a vessel that liberates other people from that very same spirit of depression, or that spirit of fear, or that immorality, or whatever that negative is, I'm going to free others through using you. You'll have the compassion, and you'll have the detailed knowledge of the pain, and how that bondage works, and how to get out of it, and so this is a picture of the grace of God in a quite remarkable way. Okay, top of page three. We just have one more verse to look at. No, no, I don't, I messed up here. But we won't cover it all, I can see. I won't even try to. But 1 Chronicles is telling the paragraph A, is the story of the time between the reign of Saul and the reign of David. It's this transitional time, right? Now Saul was chosen and anointed, so Saul had developed a whole culture throughout all of Israel. It was his ways, it was his culture, his leadership style. I mean, he was a king for 40 years. I mean, he, the whole culture of his leadership was, was, was expressed throughout many, many facets of the society of Israel. Many leaders were imitating, imitating his style, his values. They thought, hey, if he does it this way, let's us do it this way. There's no real penalty to it. I mean, we're not gonna get in trouble. Let's go do it. Well, they did get in trouble with God. But anyway, God then anoints this young guy, this young teenager out in the hills of Bethlehem, and then he's chasing around this young man, Saul is, in the caves. But this young man, David, has this anointing, but he has a totally different culture than Saul does, completely different value system, different way to approach conflict, a different way to, to even interpret and perceive situations. And so what happens, though Saul is dead, Saul's value system and culture are still alive and well. That's why the leaders of Israel for seven more years are resisting David. They're like Saul. I mean, they have the same kind of culture he has. So the glory of God is lifted off of Saul long ago, but the system of Saul is still in place. And there's a, this is a very, very clear, I think, picture of what's happening in the church today. There is a Saul leadership culture of compromise, my way, I want what I want, please myself, but you know, I've got to do it my way. I'm gonna set the Word of God aside when I need to, even though Saul used biblical language all the time and quoted the Lord says this and the Lord bless you and had all the spiritual language, but he had his own culture, his own way that was contrary to God. And then David rises up and even his own man, kill Saul. We gotta, David says, I'm not gonna kill Saul. You know, I got the edge of his robe. No, I've got a whole different culture, a whole different value system. I don't do Saul on Saul's terms. I don't, I don't treat Saul the way Saul treats Saul. I don't do that. I'm listening to another king. I'm following his leadership. So paragraph C, all throughout the land the people had to decide if they were going to go with the old order of Saul because Saul had all the power, the money, and the crowds, or the new order of David. Well, he's a fugitive running in the desert and weren't running in the wilderness. He has no money. He has stigma. He has reproach. Nothing is going his way for quite a while. I mean, for, again, two, for five to seven years in the wilderness under Saul, then another seven years, the ten tribes were against him. I mean, at least Judas for him. Paragraph D, so God is raising up this new order in his kingdom, and that order doesn't look very strong at first, but it's faithful to the Word of God. It's, it's willing to bear stigma and to have smallness as long as they know they're faithful and pleasing to the Lord. And so, 1 Chronicles 12 begins to talk about the men who joined David, those 600 men in the wilderness, but there was only a few of them that are the mighty ones that, I mean, the real highlights, and that's what 1 Chronicles 12 is about. These guys that, they left Saul's system, and they bore the stigma of David, and they said, I'm going to be faithful to the Lord in the wilderness, rather than be popular in the status quo of what Saul's about. And so, paragraph F, these men, they come to David, and here's verse 17. Here's the point I was making about 15 minutes ago, this point about having the same vision. Verse 17, all these men come to David. Now, again, this is before he's king at age 30 at Hebron. He's still out in the wilderness. Saul's still alive, and David's still a fugitive. He's still running cave-to-cave, so to speak, or he's in zig-lag. And these men come out to meet him, and they said, he said to them, Have you come peaceably? Have you come to help me? Are you coming to join what God has commissioned me to do? That's what he's asking them there. If you are, I'm going to open my heart, and I'm going to let you be a part of what we're doing. We're pretty ragged, and we don't have much, but we're following a mandate. We got a mandate to see God's purpose in Israel fully restored, and we want to see it God's way. That's what he's talking about. David's not saying join my denomination. That's not what he's saying. He's saying join my way, the way of approaching the kingdom. He goes, but if you're here with another agenda, and you want to betray me to Saul, or you want to take part of the army and do something else, you don't really want to do this? He goes, I want you to tell me straight forward right now. Because if you commit to me that you're going to go after this vision we have of a restored Israel, which in our language is the body of Christ walking in Sermon on the Mount Christianity, the first commandment, full obedience to the Lord and the Holy Spirit. He says, David says, I need to know if you'll line up with that vision. I love this willingness of David to go on the line on this issue, and not to draw back on this at all. I've seen a lot of leaders, I've done it a few times in my days over the years. The guy's got a lot to offer, and he's got a lot going on, and so we kind of are not really straight forward about what the real vision we're committed to, and you just end up with all kinds of division and confusion. And that is one thing David held the line to. That was one of his great leadership qualities, and I'm blessed that it shows up here in the mighty, in the chapters of the Hall of Fame chapters here. Verse 18, so the guy answers back by the Holy Spirit. He goes, we're yours. And this isn't about men belonging to men. That's not what he's saying. We are buying into this vision of God's will done in Israel, the restored purpose of God, where people are obedient and humble and doing things with all their heart. And we're on your side. We're going for this all the way. And they're speaking by the Holy Spirit, so because there's this bearing witness of the Holy Spirit, David, though they're new in his camp, he says, okay, because I can tell by the Holy Spirit this is genuine and real, so you're welcome. Come and fully be a part, but it's important that you know that there is a vision, and we're going in this direction together. Top of page four, this is so important, but I'm just going to give you the hint version, and then we're going to pray over you for a moment, just a little hint at it, a little snapshot. You can read a little bit on your own, and then we'll take a break for a few minutes and have a Q&A time, whoever wants to ask questions for a few minutes here. But you're free to take off if you want to as well. But here's this one noble crowd called the Sons of Issachar. And the Sons of Issachar, there's three descriptions of them. They had understanding of the times. They had a prophetic understanding of what hour they were living in. They knew they were in a generation of great change, of significant change that was costly. They understood this. Number two, they knew what to do. They were men of action. They were not just men of vision. I had a dream. They actually did something about it. Because, you know, a lot of folks have a vision, they have a dream, they know, they have an idea of what should happen, but they don't actually do anything. These guys, they did it. They actually were workers. They took it on, and they put feet to what was in their vision. And here's the part that I'll leave you with, and you can just read the notes on your own. Their family, there was 200 leaders, but all the rest of the family, so the very large family, the Sons of Issachar, because Issachar is one of the 12 tribes, is one of the sons of Jacob, and so he's got a whole tribe. So there's thousands and thousands. So there's 200 leaders. Here's the most remarkable thing. These 200 leaders, they led in such a way, there was such a relational dynamic going on, that the rest of the tribe actually followed their leadership. I mean, this talks about family, relationship, spiritual authority, long-term relationship. So these Sons of Issachar, they had prophetic understanding. They were hard workers. They actually did something about what they saw, and they did it in context of long-term relationships, where they stuck together and did it together. Even whole families going after this. And there's no greater expression of the glory of God in my book than families pursuing it together, or not to minimize that, or people long-term sticking with it together. That doesn't mean they stay in the same church or the same denomination. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the same vision, the same value, moving forward to see a shift in the nation or to see a shift in the earth in a generation. And so these Sons of Issachar, God is raising up men and women that have this same characteristic. And of course, there's a whole lot more to this story than just a little snapshot there. But I just wanted to give that to you. And since we're out of time, I'll just leave you. These are the kinds of men and women that God is raising up. And this is the kind of leadership that David had that actually facilitated some of this kind of response. Amen and amen. Lord, we say yes to you. Lord, we want to be mighty men and women of David. We want to be of the mighty man caliber in our courage, in our tenderness. Lord, in our bearing the stigma, our doing the work, our being faithful to your heart. And Lord, we say yes to you. I want to be among a people like this. I want to raise up leaders that have this value. And different ones of you are just saying in your heart, Lord, this is the kind of values that I want to lead with. This is the kind of way I want to respond to leadership. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Good. Okay. We're going to take about a five minute break.