“JEHOVAH IS A MAN OF WAR”

J. T. Brown

Exodus 15: 3–6; 1 Chronicles 11: 12–19; 12: 23, 38

The Lord Jesus as a Man of war is a wonderful contemplation as suggested in this scripture in Exodus—“Jehovah is a man of war; Jehovah, his name”. His every battle was for you and for me. God Himself, in the Person of Christ, invaded the territory of the enemy and crushed and annihilated the foe. Pharaoh’s chosen captains, Egypt’s finest, men of renown, men selected personally by Pharaoh, all met their match at the Red Sea. His chariots, too, designed to facilitate his military exploits and to extend his influence, were destroyed and not one remained—“The depths covered them; they sank to the bottom as a stone”. Not only were they broken, but they were put out of sight. The enemy has been crushed by the death of Jesus and Egypt is ruined. Pharaoh’s bondmen said to him, “Dost thou not yet know that Egypt is ruined?”, Exodus 10: 7. The evidence all around us is that Egypt is ruined.

Ecological disasters and human tragedies, men bewildered and distraught by the awfulness of sin’s consequences, are eloquent testimony to the fact that Egypt is ruined. But, blessed fact, the way out of Egypt has been opened up for us by the Victor of Calvary.

The Red Sea has been smitten and the waters divided and a way through it is opened up for us, not to judgment but to life. At the Red Sea it is the Mediator entering the domain of death and making a way through it for us. Death is annulled—“that through death he might annul him who has the might of death and might set free all those who through fear of death through the whole of their

life were subject to bondage”, Hebrews 2: 14, 15. “The sea”, it says, “saw it and fled”, Psalm 114: 3. It was the power of God in a blessed Man and took to flight, a vanquished foe. The typical scriptures so gloriously depict the Lord Jesus as Man of war. How thrilling to see Him as the Ark of the covenant, moving irresistibly, powerfully towards and into the waters of the Jordan. Down from the mount of transfiguration, His majesty and glory as Son of man there attested. He moved undeviatingly to the solemn conflict of Gethsemane. Never was there a conflict such as was waged at Gethsemane. Satan and all his forces surrounded the precious Saviour there. The power of darkness was there. The conflict was with the enemy directly and He endured it totally. The Lord Jesus tasted death there anticipatively. He felt in an anticipative way, as no ordinary man could, the awfulness of the judgment which was about to come upon Him.

The causes of judgment had accumulated. Besides the wrath of God on account of sin, there was also before His soul the special wrath on Israel on account of a broken law, which the Lord Jesus, the precious Saviour, was about to bear. With all this, Satan sought to overwhelm His spirit, but not one whit did He surrender. “And being in conflict he prayed more intently.

And his sweat became as great drops of blood, falling down upon the earth”, Luke 22: 44. He went through it all, that peerless Man of war, anticipatively, with His Father, in perfect obedience taking the cup from His Father’s hand. Then on to the cross the Ark was moving, forward gloriously. Oh how the waters of Jordan rolled at Calvary! But before that the malice of man was exposed in its inveterate character. Roman soldiers beating the Lord of glory about the face, the chief priests, consumed with envy, demanding His crucifixion. But through every humiliation His moral superiority shone. He

completed everything in triumph. “It is finished”, He said—what a triumphant cry!—“and having bowed his head, he delivered up his spirit”, John 19: 30. He bowed it Himself. No force in the universe could have done it. Luke tells us that, “having cried with a loud voice”, He committed His spirit into His Father’s hands. There was witness in that cry to the all-triumphant power of the Son of God. He died, and how real was His death, but He did not experience the ordinary process of dying. The hymn says—

‘When finished all in meekness

Thou to Thy Father’s hand,

Perfect Thy strength in weakness,

Thy Spirit doth commend’

He entered the domain of death, breached the stronghold of the enemy and emerged triumphant. The Red Sea fled, but the Jordan turned back. It was a gesture of defeat, the acknowledgment of a superior, all-transcending power; “What ailed thee, thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou turnedst back?” The Lord Jesus actually went into death. He tasted death; He touched the article of death and vanquished the foe and He has “brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings”, 2 Timothy 1: 10. And He rose again, wonderful fact! Death could not hold Him. It was not possible that He should be held by its power. So the glorious matter is that Jesus is risen, and we can ‘Bless, bless the Conqueror slain’, as we have sung. Can you do it? Can you bless the Conqueror slain? Have you a link with that blessed One, the Man of renown, yet still a precious Saviour? How our hearts revere Him; how gladly our hearts go out to Him adoringly, worshipfully, as conscious of the fact that He fights for us still, leading the saints in triumph into their heavenly inheritance. Joshua, I suppose, experienced that when he saw the man with

the drawn sword; “Art thou for us, or for our enemies?” he asked in weakness. But the man answered, “No; for as captain of the army of Jehovah am I now come”, Joshua 5: 13, 14.

What assurance there is in that!

How easily, like Joshua, we slip from the standard, how easily we fall, but how precious to glimpse and experience the power of the Man who is exalted in glory above, the Captain of Jehovah’s army. No power can stand against Him, no power can impede His progress. “Be strong in the Lord, and in the might of his strength”, Paul writes to the Ephesian saints (Ephesians 6: 10). We need that power to be rightly for Christ here, to live in the light of our heavenly inheritance. That power is toward us. How fine to let the Captain of Jehovah’s hosts take charge, to let Him have full sway in our hearts, in our affections and in our souls. There can be no failure with Him. He will guide us home at last and bring us into the fruits of final victory. What a day that will be!

I suppose the rapture will in one sense be a wonderful military triumph. Corinthians says (in military language), “But each in his own rank—the first-fruits, Christ; then those that are the Christ’s at his coming”, 1 Corinthians 15: 23. ‘ The Christ’s’—nothing can take them out of His keeping. One shout will bring out the dead from their tombs; one shout from the Victor of Calvary and the dead in Christ shall rise! “All who are in the tombs shall hear his Voice, and shall go forth”, John 5: 28. Nothing can stop them; irresistibly, triumphantly they will go forth to meet the blessed Saviour. Some from the graveyards, some from the depths of the sea, some from burial places unknown, yet marked by heaven, they will all go forth, thrilling to the Victor’s cry. Death will not hold them. Satan will be powerless to restrain them for

the enemy is defeated by resurrection. “Then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air”. Our bodies shall be changed.

These bodies of humiliation will be transformed “into conformity to his body of glory, according to the working of the power which he has even to subdue all things to himself”, Philippians 3: 21. Wonderful Saviour! Oh, how our hearts go out to Him with all the affection we can muster, the Lord of glory.

After the rapture, this world will be given up to unmitigated violence and wickedness. Every restraint will be gone. The lawless one, according to Thessalonians, will be revealed, and what then? This very same Jesus, this Man of war, will intervene in terrible judgment. Daniel tells us about the great image of gold, and silver, and brass, and iron and clay, referring to the four Gentile monarchies, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. All will have had their day, all will have failed, though used by God in some way for the progress of His testimony—and the image will be smitten by the stone cut out without hands and utterly destroyed. What a symbol of majestic power the stone is! It refers to Christ, this Man of war, and it is cut out without hands. Oh, how the glory of His deity shines. Then the stone that smote the image became a great mountain that filled the whole earth. Christ will establish a kingdom which is according to Himself. What a wonderful Person Jesus is! The prophet goes on to say that a wicked deceiver will arise and by prosperity will corrupt many, “and he will stand up against the Prince of princes—but he shall be broken without hand”, Daniel 8: 25. Nothing can stand against the power of Christ.

Revelation 19 refers to heaven opening, not then as in the gospels for the Father to acclaim His well-beloved Son, but to reveal the Lord Jesus,

to make war on the nations as King of kings and Lord of lords in all His majestic power.

“And he is clothed with a garment dipped in blood ... And out of his mouth goes a sharp two-edged sword, that with it he might smite the nations”. How awful, how solemn the scene! The beast and the kings of the earth and their armies are gathered together, every world power combined to fight against Christ and His saints. So estranged will men be from God, so developed in their effrontery, that, not even the sight of Christ in His military splendour will deter them. But they will meet their end. The power of Christ must prevail. John tells us almost derisively (Revelation 19: 20), that the beast was simply taken, and the false prophet that was with him. Resistance was impossible. These two terrible elements that had held the world in their sway of delusion and wickedness could, not but succumb to the power of the King of kings. Alive both are cast into the lake of fire and the rest were slain with the sword.

Events in this world at the present time, especially in relation to Eastern Europe, are very interesting—perestroika, freedom of conscience, the loosening of the shackles that have hitherto bound these Eastern European nations, attempts at disarmament; and no doubt God is using these things for the furtherance of His testimony and for the easing of the circumstances of His people there. But, in one sense, it is a temporary phenomenon. The awful military might of Russia will assert itself by and by. Daniel tells us that the king of the north shall arise and overflow the land of beauty with horses and chariots like a whirlwind.

Jehovah says, “I am against thee, O Gog, prince of Rosh” (Ezekiel 39: 1); and he will be destroyed. The armies of Gog, will be slain on the mountains of Israel, and Israel will be seven months burying the dead. What a devastation that

will be, and Christ will do it. Russia, as we have been taught, represents a class of humanity that is openly against the rights of God. But Christ will deal with that as surely as He will deal with Babylon and all the religious corruption and deceit which are there.

Then in the last great conflict, when Satan is loosed after a thousand years in subjugation, he will go out and deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth. Gog and Magog, and they will surround the beloved city and the camp of the saints. But fire will come down from heaven and devour them, and the devil will be cast into the lake of fire as will death and hades. The last enemy that is annulled is death. That will be the last great military act. No more will the Lord Jesus need to act as a Man of war, for there will be ushered in an eternity of peace. Wars and strife will be no more; all these things that have so beset this poor world’s history will never recur. God Himself will wipe away every tear. What a day that will be! We can anticipate it now as Psalm 24 relates—“Lift up your heads, ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? Jehovah strong and mighty, Jehovah mighty in battle”.

What a day for heaven when Christ went in! How the hosts of heaven acclaimed Him as He entered there, the mighty Victor! Israel shall exult in Him by and by, but in the assembly now we have this wonderful privilege of owning His renown and supremacy. Every knee eventually is going to bow to Christ, every knee “of heavenly and earthly and infernal beings”, Philippians 2: 10. An awesome thought, infernal beings; then the universal lords of darkness are going to have to bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Jude speaks about the angels who had fallen from their original state, kept “in

eternal chains under gloomy darkness, to the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6). Such will have to acknowledge the supremacy of Christ. What a day that will be when His triumph is complete!

These scriptures in Chronicles refer to the times of David. How beautifully David typifies the Lord Jesus in so many ways. David was a man of war, valiant, skilful in speech and of good presence. He slew Goliath and “killed him completely”. The Lord Jesus has led captivity captive. He has taken death out of the hands of the enemy as surely as David took the sword out of the hands of Goliath and cut off his head. Then later, the women acclaimed David,

“Saul hath smitten his thousands, and David his ten thousands”, 1 Samuel 18: 7. The Lord Jesus has excelled in everything. How attractive David was to his people and how attractive is Christ to His own. Even as he went out to meet Goliath, his personal glories shone. Goliath disdained him because he was but “a youth ... and besides of a beautiful countenance”, Samuel 17: 42. The Lord Jesus is despised in the world, but among His own His personal beauties shine and He is acquiring a greater place in our affections. That would be the object of our time together that Christ would be supremely enthroned in our hearts.

Earlier in the chapter David took the stronghold of Zion and Joab went up and slew the Jebusites. In Samuel’s account it was David himself who took the stronghold and called it the city of David and he dwelt there and “built round about from the Millo and inward”, 2 Samuel 5: 9. How suggestive that is! It is really Christ acquiring a place in our affections, bit by bit, brick by brick, garrisoning and fortifying our hearts with His love. Zion is one of the finest themes in Scripture. It really is the hearts of God’s people as secured by Christ.

And He is securing that place by His own exploits and power so that He dwells in our hearts by faith.

These mighty men, I suppose, would have experienced the inward building of David. Their affections were so centred on David that they were prepared to risk their lives for him. Their selfless pursuit of his interests was the product of hearts taken possession of by his love. So Eleazar was one of the mighty men and he was prepared to stand for the rights of David, to be publicly identified with David in the conflict. It says, “he was with David at Pasdammim”.

What memories that territory would evoke, for that is an area of Ephes-dammim in the valley of Elah where David smote Goliath. Eleazar would say, ‘there king David smote the Philistine, and I will not relinquish one bit of this territory’. There was here a plot of ground full of barley. Just a plot, not even a field; you might say that, outwardly, it was scarcely worth protecting.

As you look round the localities, some very small, and the largest not very large, you are challenged as to whether you are prepared to stand. But Eleazar stood. It says, “And they stood in the midst of the plot”. The suggestion is that Eleazar stood with David in defence of this divine territory. They stood in the middle. Every bit was worth protecting, from the centre out to the perimeter. Think of all that has come down to us in the recovery, the precious truths of Christianity which we can enjoy and appreciate. How rich our inheritance is! This plot was full of barley. Someone had planted it. Consider what it meant to the Lord Jesus, the great Sower, to plant the seed. Think of the operations of the Spirit of God in nurturing and watering the ground, bringing the seed on to healthy growth. Then there are the labours of the apostles, and the tireless service of the

ministers of the recovery, and then those who have gone before us in our localities, all operating so that the plot should be preserved to us, full of barley. The barley is Christ, I suppose, Christ in resurrection. How the truth of the resurrection of Christ is being attacked in these days—every feature of the truth of Christ’s Person is being assailed. It says here that the people had fled from the Philistines, and people are being influenced at the present time to defect from what is right and to accept these erroneous teachings.

But Eleazar stood. Why? So that there should be a harvest for David. The next chapter shows what a crop there was. There we read of men converging from every point to make David king in Hebron. So the challenge rings out as to whether we are prepared to stand and defend the plot. There is much pretension and defection around but there is a plot here and it is full of barley. The crop by and by will be glorious; but the need is to be faithful to the rights of Christ now. Jude tells us “to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Every facet of the truth, every sheaf, every blade of the doctrine, every grain, has to be protected so that it is retained perfect for God’s pleasure and the satisfaction of the heart of Christ. It is something like Philadelphia, “hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy

.crown”, Revelation 3: 11. The plot full of barley, I suppose, might be like the crown and we have to hold fast in its defence. So it says that “Jehovah wrought a great deliverance”. God will honour faithfulness and, as standing true to Christ, nothing will be lost.

In the, next section “three of the thirty chiefs went down to the rock to David, to the cave of Adullam”. What a sorrowful occasion this, that saw the Philistines’ garrison at Bethlehem.

What a choice place Bethlehem has in the history of the testimony, the place where Ruth and Boaz were, the place where David was anointed by Samuel, the place of Christ’s birth, “And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall he come forth unto me who is to be, Ruler in Israel—whose goings forth are from of old, from the days of eternity”, Micah 5: 2. Luke refers to it as a city of David, “David’s city” (Luke 2: 4 and note). Here it was surrounded by the Philistines and David was denied. How the enemy will seek to attack what is choicest to try and stifle and cut off the refreshment for which Christ longs. Who can measure the longings of Christ? At Calvary he said, “I thirst”, and they gave Him vinegar, but now He seeks the unreserved response of hearts who in sacrificial love are desirous of satisfying His affections. So these three mighty men broke through, and they broke through together. Their one objective was that David’s affections should be satisfied.

Paul says, “Joined in soul, thinking one thing”, Philippians 2: 2. These three men, I think, represent that kind of attitude. “For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”.

They were not thinking of themselves but in self-denial and unselfish love they were prepared to jeopardise their own lives that David’s longings might be met. There would be something distinctive in the water of the well of Bethlehem. In the cave of Adullam, they would, I suppose, have their own water supply, for you could hardly conceive of so skilful a commander as David leaving his troops without water. But what David sought was refreshment from hearts which valued his interests more highly than anything else, something which this well alone could provide. The uninitiated might say, ‘Are you not being a little selfish, David, putting these men’s lives at risk?’ And as you look around on all the sorrows

of the testimony you might be tempted to say that everything is failing and out of control. But the secret is in understanding David’s longings, in appreciating that no other well but this well of Bethlehem could fully satisfy the heart of Christ. These three mighty men understood the longings of David so perfectly and they broke through.

What a sight they would be, breaching the Philistine ranks, no doubt with their water carriers and vessels to the fore. How the Philistines would seek to deride them. It would be, I suppose, the finest of the Philistine troops, the elite corps, but, typically, the strength of the three mighty men’s love for Christ was irresistible and they would not be stopped in their determination to secure this water for David’s refreshment. 1 Corinthians 10 speaks about the weapons of our warfare not being fleshly, but “powerful according to God to the overthrow of strongholds”. How these men exemplified that feature. So they drew out the water and brought it back to David. The verse says simply that they “brought it to David”. There is no indication, you see, that the Philistines had regrouped to prevent their return; no suggestion that they sought to hinder their return to David. It seems to suggest that the power of love and affection for Christ in any exercise will put the enemy to flight in such a way that he cannot recover from it. So they brought the water back to David, and David poured it out as a drink-offering to Jehovah. How precious that is! These men provided David, you might say, with the wherewithal for the service of God. How fine to think of the Lord Jesus presenting us to the Father as those in whom He has been glorified, as those who have sought to minister to His heart’s affections.

Well, in the final scripture men are coming from every point to make David king, to transfer the kingdom of Saul to David. They were equipped for military service; they were fitted to carry out this great culminating activity to make David king and they would brook no obstacle to do so. How many had been their conflicts, but this was the glorious result, the fruit of all their former bitter experiences. Paul in his second epistle to Timothy speaks about the man of God being “fully fitted to every good work”. What a good work this was, the exaltation of David at Hebron! Hebron really takes us back to the counsels of God, and the certainty is that every thought of God for Christ is going to be brought to glorious fruition by and by. But the object of the Spirit of God is that He might be enthroned and installed as King in our affections now. So they came, all these men of war with perfect heart, keeping in rank in battle array. No one was out of step, everyone was determined that David should be made king, and nothing was going to deter them from that objective. So they moved forward unanimously and coherently, their affections pure and unadulterated for David. Well, surely that would be our objective, that out of all the conflict Christ should be crowned amongst us and have the supreme place. How worthy He is of it, that incomparable Man of war who has triumphed over every foe to open up the way of blessing for us!

Address at Kirkcaldy
6 May 1989