Welcome And The Daily Blade

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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the Sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Hugh Glass Meets A Grizzly

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It's August 1823, and Hugh Glass is working as part of a fur trapping operation and trading company that is doing work deep in a territory that is now South Dakota. So this is hostile ground for a lot of reasons. There is almost unbearable terrain. There are warring Native American tribes all around them. There are deadly predators like grizzly bears. But Hugh Glass is one of the most experienced frontiersmen in the country at the time. But even he could not have predicted what would happen next. So he's operating in this area and he pushes through a thicket of brush and walks directly into an area where a mama grizzly bear is with her cubs. Before Glass even has a chance to raise his rifle, the grizzly bear is right on top of him. She immediately pins him to the ground and begins to maul him. With her teeth and her claws, she tears the flesh from his back. His companions hear the commotion and they come running. It took several men and multiple rifle shots, but they do eventually kill the bear. By the time they get this enormous animal off of glass, they think he's dead. They soon realize that he's not, but he probably should be. His scalp is partially torn off of his skull. His back is so shredded that you could see his ribcage and his internal organs. He has lacerations on his throat, one of his legs is broken, and he's unconscious. And soon thereafter his wounds became infected. So this is obviously a list of circumstances that is not very consistent with life. So the leader of the expedition was forced to make a very difficult and pragmatic decision. The group could not stay in this area. It just wasn't possible. They would be risking their own lives if they tried to stay there. I mean, they're right in the middle of territory with all these very hostile tribes. It's not great circumstances. And so setting up camp was just not a viable option either. They have to move out. But the expedition leader asks for two volunteers

Betrayed And Left For Dead

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to stay with glass until he dies so that they can provide him with a proper burial. Two men volunteer for this action. They stay behind, but somehow Hugh Glass clings to life. And after several days waiting for Glass to die, the two volunteers decide to take matters into their own hands. They decide to take Glass's rifle, knife, and kit and leave him for dead. Now, Glass, in his completely busted up state, is alone but alive. And at the same time, he has nothing. He's in the middle of one of the most unforgivable wilderness areas in the world, and he's got nothing. And Glass eventually regains consciousness and realizes his predicament that he is alone, that he has no assistance, has no weapons, has no tools, he only has one functioning leg, and he is hundreds of miles away from the nearest outpost. And given the circumstances, it is obvious at this point that he wasn't going to be able to walk his way to safety and freedom, right? He only had one option. If he wanted to have a chance at life, he would have to crawl. So he set his broken leg, he placed his major wounds next to a rotting log that was covered with maggots so that the maggots could eat his infected flesh, which would prevent the gangrene from spreading. And then he starts crawling. And as he crawls, he sustains himself by eating wild berries and roots, even eating meat from rotting buffalo carcasses. And for six weeks, Glass crawled almost 200 miles across the Dakota wilderness before he arrived at the nearest outpost in Fort Kiowa by the Missouri River. When asked how he managed to keep going, he said that he wanted to find the two men that left him for dead and make them answer for what they did to him. So that might be a bit of a macabre reason, but this was Glass's reason to live. It kept him moving, inch by inch, mile by mile, day after day, when every physical reality said that he was already

Joshua 1:9 And Real Courage

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dead. So this reminds me of the book of Joshua, which really opens with an impossible set of circumstances. So Moses has died. So to date, he's the greatest leader in the history of Israel. This is a man that spoke to God. He performed all these miracles. He, you know, parted the Red Sea, you know, or he was part of it, you know, God did it right. But he, you know, carried down the law from Mount Sinai, but he's gone now. He's out. And his successor, Joshua, is standing at the edge of the Jordan River looking at Canaan, and it's a land that's full of giants, large armies, and fortified cities. Okay? And in this moment, God gives Joshua a word. Not a military strategy, not a troop movement plan, but a word. And we see this recorded in Joshua 1 9. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Wherever you go. Not wherever it's safe, not wherever it's super comfortable, not where it makes sense at the time, not where all the odds are ever in your favor. Wherever you go. So Hugh Glass was forced to go to a place mentally and physically that no sane man should ever have to go, but he kept enduring and moving forward because he had something that was pulling him forward. Now, you might quibble with his overwhelming desire for vengeance, and I get it, but it is what caused him to refuse to give up. You know, more resources and better odds would not have changed the calculus that he had already done in his own brain, and he had already found his reason to keep moving forward. Now, notice what God does not say to Joshua. He does not say, Hey Joshua, don't worry about it. You're not going to be scared. This is going to be easy. Just don't worry, I got this. No, no big deal. He says, Do not be dismayed. God is essentially telling Joshua, don't let the terror that may come break you down. Don't catastrophize about the future when I'm trying to guide you in your next step. I'm with you wherever you go. Which means you have to actually go somewhere, right? Again, you've likely heard this before, but courage is not the absence of fear, it is the forward movement in the presence of fear. So we can only speculate here, but we have to assume that Glass was terrified. Like we have to assume that he thought he was going to die at some point in his journey, but what did he do? He just kept crawling in the direction of rescue.

Find Your Reason To Keep Going

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So here's what I want to challenge you with today. Even in your dark night of the soul, have you found that one reason that is going to keep you moving forward? I mean, as a follower of Christ, which I'm assuming most of you listening to this are, you have the Holy Spirit. You have the Word of God, and you should have a foxhole of brothers around you that are willing to take you to the feet of Jesus. And some of you, even with most of those boxes checked, have stopped moving because something along the way got difficult. Look, given your circumstances, you may not be able to run in the direction that God has for you, and you may only be able to crawl. But that's exactly what you should do. God will be with you along the way, but you still have to go.

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Stay sharp.