The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-06-07
THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER
DR.. Talmage Discourses OIL His
Weapons of Victory.
Lessons Taught by the Battle of shaingar
with the PhilIs:ines-God's Means OF
Overthrowing the Enemies OF
His Cause.

In late sermon in New York Rev.
7. Dewitt Talmage discoursed on one
of the most heroic and picturesque
characters in ancient Jewish history,
a man who, like many others who
achieved high distinction, came from
the sturdy rural class-the agricultur-
lists. The subject of the sermon was:
"Shamgar's Ox-goad," the text being
from Judges iii3 81: after him was
Shamgar which slew of the Philistines
six hundred men with an ox-goad." {"
DR.. Talmage said:
One day while Shamgar, the farmer,
was plowing with yoke of oxen, his
command of whoa-haw-gee was
changed to the shout of battle. Philis-
tines, always ready to make trouble,
march up with sword and spear.
Shamgar, the plowman, had no sword
and would not probably have known
how to WELD it if 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 team; weapon about eight
feet long, with sharp iron at the 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 plowshare. Yet, with the
iron prong at one end of the ox-goad,
and the iron scraper at the other. it
was not such "a weapon as one would
desire to use in battle with armed
| Philistines. But God helped the farm
er, and leaving the oxen to look after
themselves, he charged upon the in
vaders of his homestead. Some of the
commentaries. to make it easier for 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 Scrip
lures. and Shamgar, with the Lord on
his side. was mightier than six hundred
Philistines with the Lord against them.
The battle opened. Shamgar, with
muscle strengthened by open air, and
plowman's, 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,end 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 Philistines are in
panic, and the supernatural forces
come in, and blow that would not
under other circumstances have pros
trated or slain, left it's victim lifeless;
until when Shamgar walked over the
| field. he counted one hundred dead,
! two hundred dead, 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 lionized him,
until he was hoisted into the highest
place of power, and became the third
of the mighty judges of Israel So you
see that Cincinnatus was not the only
man lifted from plow to throne.
For what reason was this unpreee-
dented and unparalleled victory of a
farmers ox-goad put into this Bible,
L
unimportant and the trivial?
II 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 until he could get a war equip
ment, or could drill a regiment, and
wheeling them into line, command
them forward to the charge? To wait
for that would have been defeat
and annihilation. 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 of weapon we would prefer.
1t may not be sword of argument. 1t
may not be the spear of sharp, thrust
ing wit. 1t may not be the battering
ram of denunciation. 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. Well, smile of en-
couragement has changed the behavior
Of tens of thousands of wanderers and
brought them back to God, and en-
throned them in Heaven. You cannot
make persuasive appeal, but you can
set an example, and good example
has saved more souls than you could
count in year, if you counted all the
time. You cannot give $4,000, but
| you can give as much as the widow of
the gospel, whose two mites, the
smallest coins of the Hebrews, were
bestowed in such a spirit as to make
her more famous than all the contri-
buttons that ever endowed all the
hospitals and universities of all
Christendom, of all time. You have
very limited vocabulary, but you can
say yes" or no" and firm yes" or
an emphatic mo- has traversed the
centuries, and will traverse all eter-
nifty, with good influence. You may
not have the courage to confront a
large assemblage, but you can tell a
Sunday school class of two-a boy and
girl-how to find Christ, and one of
them may become William Carey, to
start influences that will redeem India,
and the other Florence Nightingale,
who will illuminate battlefields COW
cred with the dying and dead.
That was tough case in town of
England. where a young lady, apply
ing for a Sabbath school class, was
told hv the sunerintendent she vvouId