The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-06-14
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Lesson OF the Staying Of the Phil
istines by Shamgar.
In the War for God Against sin Men
should Use the Best weapOns-Great
Things Accomplished by the
Humblest InstrumentaIltIes.

Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage took for the
subject of a recent sermon in the Acad-
envy Of Music, New York city, "Sham-
Ear's ox-goad," basing it upon the
texti
After him was Shamgar, which slew Of tina
Philistines six hundred mea With an ox-goad.
Judges III. 81.
One day while Shamgar, the farmer
was blowing with yoke of oxen, his
command Of whoa-haw-gee was
changed to the shout of battle. Phil
istines, always ready to make trouble,
march mp with sword and spear.
Shamgar, the rlowman, had no sword,
and would not probably have known
how to WELD it il he had possessed
one. But fight he must, or go down
under the stroke of the PhilistInes. He
had an ox-goad-a weapon used to
urge on the lazy teamg z weapon about
eight feet long, with a sharp iron at
one end to puncture the beast, and a
wide iron chisel or shovel at the other
end with which to scrape the clumps of
soil from the pillow share Yet, with
the iron prong at one end of the OK
goad, and the iron scraper at the
other, it was not such q weapon
as one would desire to use in bat
tie with armed Philistines. But God
helped the farmer, and leaving the
oxen to look after themselves, he
charged upon the invaders of his home
stead. Some of the commentaries, to
make 1t easier for Shamgar, suggest
that perhaps he led a regiment Of
farmers into the combat, his ox-goad
only one of many ox-goads. But the
Lord does not need any of you TO help
in making the Scriptures, and Sham
gar, with the Lord on his side, was
mightier than six hundred Philistines
with the Lord against them. The
battle opened. Shamgar, with mus
Gle strengthened by open air, and plow-
mans, and reaper's, and thresher's
toll, uses the only weapon at hand,
and he swings the ox-goad up and
down. and this way and that; now
stabbing with the iron prong at one
end of it, and now thrusting with the
iron scraper at the other, and now
bringing down the whole weight of
the instrument upon the heads of
the enemy. The Phnistines are in a
panic, and the supernatural forces
come in, and blow that would not
under other circumstances have pros
trated or slain, left its victim lifeless;
until when Shamgar walked over the
field, he counted one hundred dead,
two hundred deAa, three hundred
dead, four hundred dead, five hundred
dead, six hundred dead-all the work
done by an ox-goad with iron prong at
one end and an iron shovel at the
other. The fame of this achievement
by this farmer with an awkward
weapon of war, spread abroad, and IL
onized him, until he was hoisted into
the highest place of power, and be-
came the third of the mighty judges
of Israel. So you see that Cincinnatus
was not the only man lifted from pillow
to throne.
For what reason was this unprece-
denied and unparalleled victory of
farmers ox-goad put into this Bible,
where there was no spare room for the
and the trivial?
1t was, first of all, to teach You, and
to teach me, and to teach all past ages
since then, and to teach all ages to
come, that in the war for God, and
against sin, we ought to put to the
best use the weapon we happen to have
on hand. Why did not Shamgar wait
until he could get a war charger, with
neck arched and back caparisoned, and
nostrils shifting the battle afar off, or
antil he could get war equipment, or
could drill a regiment, and wheeling
them into line. command them forward
10 the charge? To wait for that would
have been defeat and humiliation. So
he takes the best weapon he could lay
hold of, and that is an ox-goad. |
We are called into the battle for
the right, and against wrong, and |
many of us have not just the kind os
weapon we would prefer. 1t may not |
be a sword of argument. 1t may not |
be the spear of sharp, thrusting wit. |
1t may not be the battering ram of de-
But there is something |
we can do, and some forces we can
WELD. Do not wait for what you
have not, but use what you have. |
Perhaps you have not eloquence, but |
you have a smile. Wells smile of en-
has changed the behavior |
IF tens of thousands of wanderers, and |
brought them back to God, and en-
throned them in Heaven. You can set |
IN EXAMPLE, and a good example has |
saved more souls than you could count |
in a year, if you counted all the time. |
Y on can no. give ten thousand dollars, |
but you can give as much as the |
widow of the Gospel, whose two |
mites, the smallest coins of the He |
brews, were bestowed in such a spirit |
as to make her more famous than all |
the contributions that ever endowed |
all the hospitals and universities of all |
of all time. You have a |
very limited vocabulary, but you can |
say yes" or no." and firm yes" or |
an emphatic mo" has traversed the |
and will traverse all eter- |
nifty, with good influence. You may |
not have the courage to confront |
large assemblage. but you can tell |
Sunday-school class If two-a boy and |
a girl-how to find Christ, and one of /
them may become a William Carey, to |
start influences that will redeem India,
and the other Florence Nightingale,
who will illumine battle-fields covered |
with the dying and the dead.
That was tough case in town in |
where young lady, apply
ing for Sabbath-school class, was
told by the superintendent that she |
would have to pick up one out of the |
street The worst of the class brought |
from the street was one Bob. He was
fitted out with respectable clothing by |
the superintendent But after two or