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0:20 July 5th, 1779. 0:23 Just after midnight, 48 ships carrying 5,000 British troops under the control of General William Tryon appeared off the coast of New Haven. 0:32 At dawn, the president of Yale climbs the steeple of the campus chapel with a telescope and watches them land. 0:40 Everyone in town begins to run away. 0:42 Well, almost everyone. 0:44 A few dozen men, maybe a hundred at most, almost all of them Yale students, decide to stand in the way of the British advance with whatever weapons they could find. 0:54 And here's the thing they are under no illusions that they can win this fight. 0:58 Like they know that they cannot win this fight, but that's not their aim. 1:02 Their aim is to slow the British down long enough for the women and the children of the town to escape. 1:08 And as they ready themselves for that mission, they see a single man riding past them and towards the British. 1:15 This man is 51-year-old Neftali Daggett, Yale's first professor of theology and its president for 11 years. 1:22 And all he has in his hands is a bird gun. 1:27 Daggett actually engaged an army that outnumbered him and his men about 50 to 1 because the students eventually, you know, they joined Daggett in this fight and sworn affidavits of what went down on this day. 1:37 Said that even when some of his own men retreated, he just kept loading and firing. 1:42 Now, the British soldiers eventually did overtake him. 1:45 They beat him, they stabbed him with their bayonets repeatedly, they took his shoes, and then they, you know, marched him and his bloody and barefooted self into New Haven and forced him to kind of guide them around town. 1:56 But the townspeople did eventually win back him and they were able to get his release. 2:01 But Daggett was never the same after that experience, as you can imagine. 2:05 He was able to go back to the pulpit, but he died just 16 months later from complications of the wounds that he sustained on that day. 2:11 So we have a university president and a professor of divinity killed, covering the retreat of a town. 2:17 So when you strip all the other details and tall tales away from the story, you just see an old theologian that refused to fall back when some of the younger men around him did. 2:28 Now turn with me to 2 Samuel chapter 23. 2:31 We're going to be looking at verses 9 and 10. 2:34 And next to him among the three mighty men was Eliezer, the son of Dodo, son of Ahohi. 2:40 He said he was with David when they defied the Philistines, who were gathered there for battle, and the men of Israel withdrew. 2:48 He rose and struck down the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clung to the sword. 2:54 And the Lord brought about a great victory that day, and the men returned after him only to strip the slain. 3:01 So, guys, every detail here matters. 3:04 Like really every single clause is important. 3:06 So the men of Israel withdrew. 3:08 Okay? 3:09 They broke their defensive line and everyone else left. 3:12 Like this isn't, you know, an insult to these men. 3:14 It's just kind of, you know, it's more of a description of what happened. 3:17 But Eliezer rose. 3:19 Like when everyone went backward, he went the other direction, towards the danger. 3:23 He did his duty until his hand was weary. 3:26 Not until they won, not until reinforcements came, but past the point where his body wanted to give out. 3:32 And guys, really don't miss this. 3:33 When it says that his hand clung to his sword, it's describing that he fought so long and was so exhausted that he could no longer open his fingers. 3:41 Right? 3:42 Maybe some of you have been there. 3:43 The muscles in his hands and wrists and forearms had locked up. 3:47 Like it's almost as if his arm and his sword became a single weapon. 3:52 And also, notice who gets the credit for victory. 3:55 It's not Eliezer, it's not David, it's God. 3:57 I mean, of course, God gets the credit. 3:59 Eleazar just did his part of refusing to retreat. 4:03 And then there's another detail, you know, kind of brutal detail. 4:07 The men who cowered and ran away got to walk the field and pick up the spoil that was earned by one man's exhaustion, not their own. 4:17 That's how it seems to work, right? 4:19 One man's endurance covers people who will likely never know his name and never realize how much he gave in order for them to get what they are now getting. 4:28 So here's a question I want to ask you as we wrap up the series this week. 4:32 When the line breaks, what are you prepared to do? 4:36 Because it will break, guys. 4:37 Like there will be times where it seems like you're the only man in your family that wants to pray and serve the Lord. 4:43 There will be plenty of times when you look around at the men in your church and you're just disgusted at how weak and soft they are. 4:50 And there may be a moment where telling the truth and standing up for real justice might actually cost you something. 4:56 And look, there's no shame in noticing that you're tired. 4:58 I mean, Eliezer's hand was weary, and then if we go back to Daggett, this was, you know, a bookish academic guy that was fighting in a field against trained professional soldiers that were well equipped to fight, right? 5:11 I mean, we're not talking about superheroes here. 5:14 We're just talking about men that refused to leave the line. 5:18 Eleazar didn't hold the field because he was strong. 5:22 He held it because he refused to let go of his sword. 5:25 Daggett didn't, you know, ride towards the British lines because he knew he would win. 5:29 He did so because he knew that if he did, he would likely thwart their advance just long enough to preserve the lives of the women and the children of his town. 5:38 I mean, their dedication to the cause outlasted their strength. 5:43 And again, the name of this show is the Daily Blade, right? 5:45 So we got that from the full armor of God that's described in Ephesians 6. 5:49 The sword of the Spirit is the word of God. 5:51 It's the only offensive weapon that's described in that passage. 5:53 Hebrews 4 says the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. 5:58 The only question is, is your hand on the sword? 6:03 Like, I don't mean a verse of the day text. 6:06 I don't mean studying once a week. 6:08 I don't mean studying when it's convenient or when you have a project that you need to complete because you got to, you know, teach Sunday school this Sunday or something. 6:14 I mean daily. 6:16 Are you consuming the word of God daily? 6:20 Are you consuming it in a way where it becomes one with you? 6:23 Are you consuming it in a way where your weariness does not take you away from it, but it actually clamps your hand around the grip. 6:32 And guys, let's remember the Black Row Regiment from this week. 6:36 Daggett covered a retreat and eventually died because of the wounds he sustained. 6:39 Caldwell held a bridge and got a grave. 6:43 Clark buried eight of his own congregants in one morning. 6:47 Witherspoon lost his son. 6:49 Molenberg came home a general to a country that mostly had forgotten about him. 6:53 Not one of them was able to save themselves. 6:57 But guys, even the best of us, you know, the most resilient amongst us will eventually withdraw, no matter how hard we prepared for that moment. 7:06 But there's one man that stood when every one of us retreated. 7:10 He wasn't merely, you know, covering a retreat. 7:13 He took on the entirety of the enemy. 7:16 His friends ran when he was in the garden. 7:19 His closest man denied him three times publicly. 7:22 He was abandoned at the cross by everyone who purported to love him. 7:26 And in a way that I can't, you know, fully explain, he was forsaken by his own father. 7:32 But what did he do? 7:34 He rose. 7:36 He struck. 7:38 He crushed the head of the dragon. 7:41 His hands didn't cling to a sword, they were nailed open to a beam, and he was held there until the job was done. 7:49 But on the third day, God realized his victory. 7:54 Let's go back to what we read in 2 Samuel earlier. 7:56 The men who ran away, they returned afterwards only to strip the slain. 8:02 And we, as followers of Christ, do the same thing. 8:07 We get to gather the spoil that we did not earn. 8:11 We are forgiven, we are adopted, we are imputed with the righteousness of Christ, and we are given eternal life. 8:18 And all that plunder is plunder that we did not earn, and really could not earn. 8:24 And it all came from a field one man held while the rest of us ran. 8:28 And that's grace, men. 8:30 Like when it comes to your righteousness, you can't hold the line. 8:34 All we can do is place our faith into the finished work of Christ at the cross at Golgotha. 8:40 If you've never placed your faith in Christ, I compel you to do that right now. 8:45 There's not a magical prayer that you pray or some aisle you walk down. 8:48 You just place your faith in him and you do it right now. 8:51 And if you are a Christian man listening to this, I urge you to rise up today. 8:57 And not to earn something because you can't earn it, but because the victory has already been won. 9:03 The only reasonable response to a savior that provided that for you is to be the man that won't let go of the sword. 9:10 Thank you all for your attention this week. 9:12 Stay sharp.