ELEVEN

In Search of Ordinary Heroes

THERE WILL COME A DAY when faith becomes sight, and then—only then—will our seeking of the Lord be finished at last. We will find ourselves in heaven, standing face-to-face with the One we have trusted and followed for so long. He himself will be what makes it truly heaven—not streets of gold or walls of jasper, but God alone in all his splendor. We will know him as he has known us from the beginning.

In addition, what a delight it will be to meet those heroes of the faith, both men and women, who fill the pages of the Bible. I can’t wait to greet Paul the apostle, who penned so much of the New Testament and whose life has inspired so many Christians. I long to talk with Moses, who led Israel out of Egypt and did great exploits for God. Then I will soon move along to Abraham, Deborah, Joshua, Ruth, David, Helez, Sibbecai, Ahiam, Hezro, Zabad … Who? Did I wander off track a bit? You say you don’t recognize those last few names?

They are all carefully listed in 1 Chronicles 11, an amazing group of warriors known as David’s “mighty men.” God the Holy Spirit thought they were impressive enough to have every last one written down, because “they, together with all Israel, gave [David’s] kingship strong support to extend it over the whole land, as the LORD had promised” (v. 10).

Such individuals are role models for us today—even if we can’t pronounce their names. Some names are a bit strange, I admit: “Elhanan son of Dodo” (v.26). I assume this father’s name didn’t mean the same thing in Hebrew as it does in English! While some young parents these days are enamored with choosing Old Testament names such as Seth or Caleb for their new baby boys, I doubt there will ever be a comeback for those in this list: Ithai, Hepher, Mibhar, Uzzia….

Nevertheless, these are people who applied their strength and courageous action toward what God had promised. It was not enough for them that the prophet Samuel had anointed David king-in-waiting back when he was a teenager. Much more recently the elders of Israel had gathered in Hebron to declare David the new monarch. But out in the villages, and especially on the borders of the land, not everyone was convinced. The picture was still unclear. The rule of God’s king was yet to be established. Foreign enemies were still living inside the land promised to God’s people.

These heroes did not just sit back, as many do today, saying, “Well, God promised, and I’m sure he’ll fulfill his word.” They stepped up and took action to make the promise become reality. They understood that God’s work in the world is usually a joint project; he works with us as we yield ourselves to work with him.

So these men risked their lives. They left their families and headed for dangerous territory. The Bible uses a special word three times to describe what they did: “exploits” (vv. 19, 22, 24).

Similarly, the gospel of Jesus Christ will be planted today in hostile cities and territories and nations only by mighty men and women who dare to take risks. Apathetic churches across the land will be revived only by people of deep spirituality who refuse to accept the status quo. Wayward children and broken marriages will be touched by the hand of God only as someone stands in the gap and fights valiantly in the power of the Spirit.

Among the mighty warriors I have had the privilege of knowing, I count Delores Bonner, an African-American woman who lives alone in Bedford-Stuyvesant, one of Brooklyn’s toughest neighborhoods. She has been a medical technician at Maimonides Hospital for more than thirty years. Carol and I met her one year at Christmastime while we were bringing gifts to some poor children in our congregation.

Delores had a full apartment that day—but these children were not hers. She had brought them from a nearby shelter to meet us. Their natural mother was too consumed with her own problems to be present even for an occasion such as this.

“How did you come to meet these children?” I asked.

She modestly mumbled something that didn’t really answer my question. Only from others did I learn that right after her conversion in a prayer meeting at the church in 1982, she became concerned for children in the streets and in the crack houses. God touched her heart, and she started bringing the children to Sunday school. At first she packed them into taxis; later on someone heard what she was doing and bought her a car. Today she has a van so she can transport more children and teenagers to hear the gospel.

This is only part of Delores’s story. On Sundays between services, she oversees the crew that cleans the sanctuary so it will be ready for the next crowd. On Saturdays she goes out with the evangelism teams, knocking on doors in the housing projects to share God’s love. On weekdays I find her on her knees upstairs with the Prayer Band, taking a shift to intercede for people’s needs. She did the same thing on a ministry trip to Peru, where she joined others in calling out to God on my behalf as I preached in an outdoor meeting.

When we honored Delores as the Brooklyn Tabernacle’s “Woman of the Year,” she was embarrassed and said little. But the whole church knows that living among us is a mighty woman of God whose fame transcends the world’s shallow value system.

Delores is a woman of quiet determination, the kind shown in 1 Chronicles 12:18, where it says, “The Spirit came upon Amasai, chief of the Thirty, and he said: ‘We are yours, O David! We are with you, O son of Jesse! Success, success [or “peace and prosperity”] to you, and success to those who help you, for your God will help you.” Once again, the merging of divine and human effort is clearly shown.

Oddly, two people on David’s list weren’t even Jewish. They would never have been allowed to worship at the holy tabernacle. Zelek the Ammonite (1 Chron. 11:39) and Ithmah the Moabite (v.46) were definitely from the “wrong” nationalities. Their countrymen harassed the Israelites continually and tempted them toward idolatry. Yet Zelek and Ithmah ended up being honored because they fought and risked their lives for God’s king.

All these were common people who did uncommon things for God. In that sense, they remind us of those “unschooled, ordinary” people of Acts 4:13, of whom we have already said much. David’s thirty mighty warriors were not royalty. They were not graduates of West Point or Annapolis. They were just regular people from small places—Anathoth, Tekoa, Gibeah—who set their hearts to do exploits for God’s anointed one.

What we desperately need in our own time are not Christians full of cant and posturing, railing at the world’s problems of secular humanism, New Age, or whatever. We need men and women who will step out to turn back today’s slide toward godlessness, prayerless churches, family breakup, and waning evangelistic fervor. They may not have been to seminary, but they have been schooled and trained by God for hand-to-hand warfare in the spiritual realm.

THE TELLING MOMENT

THE FIRST PERSON ON David’s list, Jashobeam, “raised his spear against three hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter” (1 Chron. 11:11). That sounds impossible. There is no way he could pile up that kind of body count without the overshadowing presence and power of God. Human bravery alone is not enough when the odds are 300 to 1.

When it comes to spiritual matters, you and I will never know our potential under God until we step out and take risks on the front line of battle. We will never see what power and anointing are possible until we bond with our King and go out in his name to establish his kingdom. Sitting safely in the shelter of Bible discussions among ourselves, or complaining to one another about the horrible state of today’s society, does nothing to unleash the power of God. He meets us in the moment of battle. He energizes us when there is an enemy to be pushed back.

In verses 12–14 we meet Eleazar, who accompanied David into a major battle with the Philistines. We get an idea of how formidable the enemy was when the Bible says, “At a place where there was a field full of barley, the troops fled from the Philistines.” This was no minor skirmish; this was all-out combat against a superior opponent. Many frightened Israelite soldiers saw the coming horde and ran for their lives.

But not Eleazar. He and David “took their stand in the middle of the field. They defended it and struck the Philistines down, and the LORD brought about a great victory.” Once again we see the combination of human and divine efforts. God did not act alone. He didn’t unleash a lightning strike from heaven to fry the Philistines. Instead, he was looking all across the horizon that day to see who would stay in the barley field and thus receive his supernatural aid. While others left in fear, these two—David and Eleazar—stood firm.

The account in 2 Samuel 23:10 adds even more detail about Eleazar. He “stood his ground and struck down the Philistines till his hand grew tired and froze to the sword.” He swung his weapon with such grit, such adrenaline, that his muscles locked up on him; he couldn’t let go. Talk about a mighty warrior for God!

What the world’s situation cries out for today is this kind of determined and desperate faith that grips the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and won’t let go until victory comes.

A man such as Eleazar brings to mind the little-known, seldom-seen partner of the great evangelist Charles Finney during the Second Great Awakening. His name was Daniel Nash, and he had had a lackluster record as a pastor in upstate New York. He finally decided, at the age of forty-eight, to give himself totally to prayer for Finney’s meetings.

“Father Nash,” as some called him, would quietly slip into a town three or four weeks before Finney’s arrival, rent a room, find two or three other like-minded Christians to join him, and start pleading with God. In one town the best he could find was a dark, damp cellar; it became his center for intercession.

In another place, Finney relates,

When I got to town to start a revival a lady contacted me who ran a boarding house. She said, “Brother Finney, do you know a Father Nash? He and two other men have been at my boarding house for the last three days, but they haven’t eaten a bite of food. I opened the door and peeped in at them because I could hear them groaning, and I saw them down on their faces. They have been this way for three days, lying prostrate on the floor and groaning. I thought something awful must have happened to them. I was afraid to go in and I didn’t know what to do. Would you please come see about them?”

“No, it isn’t necessary,” I replied. “They just have a spirit of travail in prayer.”¹

Once the public meetings began, Nash usually did not attend. He kept praying in his hideaway for the conviction of the Holy Spirit to melt the crowd. If opposition arose—as it often did in those rugged days of the 1820s—Finney would tell him about it, and Father Nash would bear down all the harder in prayer.

One time a group of young men openly announced that they were going to break up the meetings. Nash, after praying, came out of the shadows to confront them. “Now, mark me, young men! God will break your ranks in less than one week, either by converting some of you, or by sending some of you to hell. He will do this as certainly as the Lord is my God!”

Finney admits that at that point he thought his friend had gone over the edge. But the next Tuesday morning, the leader of the group suddenly showed up. He broke down before Finney, confessed his sinful attitude, and gave himself to Christ.

“What shall I do, Mr. Finney?” he asked then. The evangelist sent him back to tell his companions what had changed in his life. Before the week was out, “nearly if not all of that class [group] of young men were hoping in Christ,” Finney reported.²

In 1826 a mob in a certain town burned effigies of the two: Finney and Nash. These unbelievers recognized that one man was as big a threat to their wickedness as the other.

Shortly before Nash died in the winter of 1831, he wrote in a letter,

I am now convinced, it is my duty and privilege, and the duty of every other Christian, to pray for as much of the Holy Spirit as came down on the day of Pentecost, and a great deal more…. My body is in pain, but I am happy in my God…. I have only just begun to understand what Jesus meant when He said, “All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”³

Within four months of Nash’s death, Finney left the itinerant field to become the pastor of a church in New York City. His partner in cracking the gates of hell was gone. If you want to see Father Nash’s grave today, you will have to drive to northern New York, almost to the Canadian border. There, in a neglected cemetery along a dirt road, you will find a tombstone that says it all:

DANIEL NASH

LABORER WITH FINNEY
MIGHTY IN PRAYER

Nov. 17, 1775–Dec. 20, 1831

Daniel Nash was a nobody to the elite of his time. They would have found this humble man not worthy of comment because he lived on a totally different plane. But you can be sure that he was known all too well in both heaven and hell.

The Bible tells about another Daniel whose dedication made an impression in the courts of God. “A hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. He said, ‘Daniel, you who are highly esteemed …’” (Dan. 10:10, italics added). Imagine being acclaimed by heaven itself!

This is how it is with all God’s mighty men and women. They are famous in heaven; they win crowns that make all earth’s riches seem like cheap tinsel. They may witness, teach, lead, and pray in obscurity on earth, but they are the talk of heaven.

In every century, on every continent, warriors such as these are the ones who press forward the kingdom of God. They lay aside the distractions of life to do exploits in the spiritual realm. Whether or not they become famous on earth is beside the point. They are heroes and heroines nonetheless.

WHO, US?

THE LIST OF DAVID’S mighty warriors in 1 Chronicles 11:22 introduces us to Benaiah, whose exploits included overcoming two of Moab’s best men. He also killed a lion in a snowy, slippery pit. Perhaps most amazingly, he took on an Egyptian tall enough to be a starting center for the Chicago Bulls. This seven-and-a-half-foot giant wielded a spear with a shaft as sturdy as a lead pipe while Benaiah had only a wooden club.

Even so … Benaiah “snatched the spear from the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with his own spear. Such were the exploits of Benaiah son of Jehoiada…. He was held in greater honor than any of the Thirty” (vv. 23–25).

It was not a Ph.D. degree that brought honor to a person in those days. Honor did not necessarily flow to the person with money or leverage or media access. Honor came as a result of doing exploits for the king.

Who is doing exploits for God today? Where is the enemy being driven back? That is the great yearning of all spiritually minded people. They are not enchanted with polished sermons and slick organizational technique. Where are the mighty men and women anointed by God to truly make a difference?

I think I know at least one of God’s mighty people. Rina Gatdula, a Filipino lady, is like a sister to Carol and me. God sent her in the early days of the Brooklyn Tabernacle with a valiant spirit that proved to be a tremendous blessing. When our ushers were intimidated by the occasional drunk or hostile person who would wander in, Rina would confront him or her head-on with a fearlessness granted by the Holy Spirit.

Although not especially gifted as a public speaker, she had a ministry of prayer and intercession that helped to carry us through many battles. Whether it is the need for a larger building or the need for a backslider to return to the Lord, she has the spirit of Benaiah. She will not let go of God when needy people come to the altar seeking help. She knows the fine art of “praying through” with people; many have found deliverance in Christ because she has stood with them at the throne of grace.

Her tenacity is so unique that when she moved to another part of the country, churches there almost didn’t know what to make of her. They didn’t understand her gifts; they saw only that her English was limited and that she didn’t have certain clever skills. As a result, they didn’t open up to her ministry.

Today Rina travels among the churches the Brooklyn Tabernacle has begun, both in this country and overseas, reminding them of the exploits they can do through God. She always seems to spark a spirit of prayer. Whether in Harlem, San Francisco, or Lima, Peru, she is a living example of a heroine of faith.

Consider how many gospel-preaching churches there are in the fifty states of America—200,000, if not more. If each of these churches, on average, brought only two converts to Christ a week—not robbing people from First Baptist or First Nazarene down the road, but winning new people for the kingdom of God—that would mean 100 new baptized believers in each church in a year’s time, or 20,000,000 nationwide.

The population of the entire United States is about 270,000,000. By merely bringing eight or nine people a month to Christ in each church, America would be dramatically changed within two to three years. Can any serious Bible-preaching church not take on this modest goal in the name of its King?

God’s plan for the local church has always centered in evangelism. Those brought to Christ are thus born into the very place where they can be nurtured and discipled. This avoids the slippage we often see when parachurch ministries try to do the work mainly assigned to the local church.

An evangelistic focus, of course, would force us back to serious prayer and an emphasis on the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. God would prepare us as only he can for victorious spiritual warfare. Concerned believers wouldn’t have time to watch as much television as they do now. A lot of other activities would have to give way. Living in the Bible, calling upon the Lord, fasting, and then reaching out to the unsaved would consume us. We would require God’s anointing, whatever the cost.

Some churches in very small towns might have trouble reaching 100 people per year, but they would be offset by churches in urban areas, where the need and the opportunity are so great.

If the American church actually set out to do this “exploit” for God, bringing 20,000,000 to Christ this year, another 20,000,000 next year … in three or four years we wouldn’t recognize our culture. Broadway and Hollywood would have to acknowledge the shift in audience preferences. Abortion clinics would wonder where all their customers went. Drug abuse would plummet.

Some will accuse me of idealistic dreaming, but isn’t this plan the last thing Jesus told us to fulfill before his ascension? “Go and make disciples of all nations,” he said, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20). What will it take to shake denominational leaders, pastors, and laypeople, seeing that we all must answer to Christ at the Judgment Seat one day? Our sense of inadequacy is no excuse, given that he has promised to work with us as we set our hearts to the task of extending his kingdom.

BRAVE FOR GOD

THE MIGHTY WARRIORS OF 1 Chronicles 11 even helped David conquer a new capital for his kingdom, a story told in verses 4–9. The modern nation of Israel has made a big celebration of the 3,000th birthday of this city, Jerusalem, as the center of Jewish life.

It was not an easy prize. The Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem flatly told David, “No way. This is a tough, fortified city, and you won’t get inside.” In fact, 2 Samuel 5:6 records their insult: “Even the blind and the lame can ward you off.”

So it is with every attempt to do something significant for God. It is never simple. Whenever God stirs us to establish his kingdom in a new place, the enemy is sure to taunt us. The devil always tries to convince us that we’ve tackled too much this time and we’ll soon be humiliated.

But David and his warriors pressed on. They would not be turned back. In fact, David made an unusual offer: “Whoever leads the attack on the Jebusites will become commander-in-chief” (1 Chron. 11:6). This meant being the first to head uphill against well-armed soldiers perched atop thick walls, just waiting to rain down arrows and rocks. David’s young nephew Joab, however, seized the opportunity to perform this exploit. He broke into the city first, and thus he became David’s leading general for years to come.

That is not how we select leaders in the church today, is it? We go by resumes, seniority, image, education, and a half-dozen other human criteria. By contrast, David looked for bravery and boldness in the real world of battle.

If we are courageous enough to go on the spiritual attack, to be mighty men and women of prayer and faith, there is no limit to what God can accomplish through us. Some of us will turn out to be famous like King David and Catherine Booth and Charles Finney; the rest will remain obscure like Eleazar and Daniel Nash and Rina Gatdula. That doesn’t matter. What counts is bringing God’s power and light into a dark world, seeing local communities touched by God as churches turn back from perilous apathy to become Holy Spirit centers of divine activity.

The heroes of church history whom we now revere were not known for their cleverness; they were warriors for God. Moody was never ordained to the ministry. Finney never went to seminary. Yet whole cities were visited by God as a result of their anointed work.

THE TIME IS NOW

WHAT IS IT REALLY that stops us from becoming mighty warriors in the Lord? God has not changed. He is still superior to anything the enemy can throw against us.

No personal or church situation is too hopeless for the all-sufficient power of the Holy Spirit. God will be no more eager to act tomorrow than he is right now. He is waiting for us to take his promises seriously and go boldly to the throne of grace. He wants us to meet the enemy at the very point of attack, standing against him in the name of Christ. When we do so, God will back us up with all the resources of heaven.

Dear Father, thank you for your mercy and the salvation you have given us in Jesus Christ. Please forgive us for all our sins and shortcomings. Draw us to you, and begin a new work of grace in all of us.

Make us the people you want us to be. Fill our churches with your fresh wind and fresh fire. Break our pride, soften our hearts, and fill us to overflowing with your Holy Spirit.

O God, do all this so that the name of Jesus will be exalted throughout the earth.

Amen.