SPEAKER_01
0:20 June 7, 1780, Connecticut Farms, New Jersey. 0:24 A woman is in a back room of a parsonage with a three-year-old and an eight-month-old baby. 0:29 British and Hessian troops are moving through the area. 0:32 The woman, named Hannah Caldwell, was told by her husband that she needed to flee with the children, but she refused. 0:39 She said that no one would dare harm a woman with a baby in her arms. 0:43 But on this day, two musket balls rip through the window of the parsonage. 0:47 Hannah Caldwell is struck and is dead before she even hits the floor. 0:51 Then soldiers go in and strip her of her clothes, they take them off of her dead body, they loot the house, and then they burn it to the ground. 0:58 Her husband, James Caldwell, is a Presbyterian pastor in Elizabethtown. 1:03 He's not at home on this day because he's out doing what he had done for the previous five years. 1:07 He is writing and supplying and chaplaining for the Continental Army. 1:11 And during this process, he became one of the British's most hated clergymen in New Jersey. 1:17 The British actually put a price on his head and gave him the nickname the Black Rebel. 1:22 So five months earlier, the British burned his church to the ground, which is why his family had to relocate to Connecticut Farms to begin with. 1:28 He moved them there, and then thinking, you know, hey, this is going to be safer for them, but after the bloodshed of this day, he now has nine children and no wife. 1:38 Sixteen days later, on June the 23rd, 1780, in Springfield, New Jersey, the British come back to town. 1:45 So, you know, this time, I mean, there's thousands of them, and they're pushing hard for George Washington's camp in Morristown. 1:52 And the Americans are there to dig in and hold the bridge. 1:56 They cannot let the British advance to Morristown. 1:59 And in the middle of this battle, the American militia starts running low on wadding paper. 2:04 So a revolutionary area musket needed paper to pack the powder and the ball down into the barrel of the musket. 2:09 I mean, so no paper, no shot, right? 2:11 And no shot. 2:11 And then the road to Morristown would basically be wide open. 2:14 So enter James Caldwell. 2:16 He goes into the Presbyterian Church and comes out with armfuls of hymnals. 2:22 These are Isaac Watts' hymnals, to be exact. 2:26 And as the story goes, he threw the hymnals at the soldiers and yelled, Give them Watts, boys. 2:33 So the soldiers start tearing out pages and began to ram them down their barrels so that they could keep their muskets firing and keep holding the line. 2:40 And the British were unable to overcome the militia. 2:42 They never got to Morristown. 2:44 And in many historic historians, they they look at this battle on this day and they see it as a turning point in the Northern War. 2:51 Now turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter 30. 2:54 So in this chapter, we see King David and 600 of his men returning to Ziklag after a three-day march, only to find that the city is burned to the ground. 3:02 And so it became clear quite quickly that the Amalekites hit the town while David and his men were away. 3:06 They did it on purpose. 3:07 They kidnapped all the women and children, including David's own family. 3:11 So let's go to verse four now. 3:14 Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. 3:20 So I want to park here just for a second, and we don't want to fly right past it. 3:24 You know, these are some of the hardest, most battle-tested dudes in all of ancient history, right? 3:28 And they're weeping so much that they can barely function. 3:32 Don't miss that. 3:34 Alright, now verse six. 3:35 And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. 3:43 But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. 3:47 So no hyperbole here, but that is one of the great verses in the entirety of the biblical canon. 3:54 So we see David on the worst day of his life up to that point, and then we see him cling to whom? 4:00 To Yahweh. 4:01 And then if we keep reading 1 Samuel, we see that David pursues his enemies and eventually recovers all that was taken from him. 4:07 And this is where we see the dichotomy between James Caldwell and King David. 4:11 So David got his wives and children back. 4:13 But Caldwell lost his wife. 4:16 Like David recovered all. 4:18 But Caldwell returned to the fight just 16 days after burying his wife. 4:23 And even though he, you know, helped hold an important bridge, there was nothing that he could do to bring his wife back. 4:30 And that's really the world we live in, right? 4:32 Like some men seem to have a knack for getting it all, and some men just get a grave. 4:37 But what does 1 Samuel 36 actually tell us? 4:41 It tells us that there's not a guaranteed outcome depending on our actions, but there is a source that we can rely on. 4:47 King David didn't strengthen himself in his prospects or in his men. 4:51 He didn't do things based on his track record, his battle plans, you know, the feelings he had at the moment. 4:56 He strengthened himself in the Lord his God. 4:59 I see the same kind of focus from Caldwell. 5:01 I mean, there's no way he could have fully mourned the loss of his wife in just 16 days, right? 5:06 That's not really something you just get over super quick. 5:09 But even though he was a wreck and that he, you know, he had nine kids to take care of that didn't have a mom anymore, you know, in a church that was burned to the ground and a price on his head, all this going on at once, Caldwell got up on his horse and rode towards the sound of gunfire. 5:24 And when things got tough, he still had his wits about him and was able to supply the men with what they needed to defend the bridge. 5:31 So Caldwell buried his wife and then got right back to work in 16 days. 5:36 Now, I'm not telling you all this to tell you that you should, you know, use this as an excuse to stuff your grief down. 5:41 Again, remember that David and his men wept until they had nothing left. 5:45 As well-adjusted, manly Christian men, we should be able to weep when the situation calls for it, but eventually we have to get back up. 5:53 And this is why I talk about resilience so much and not strength, because resilience is not the absence of a wound. 5:59 Resilience is the source that you go to while the wound is still open. 6:03 You can't rely on your strength in these moments, only your resilience. 6:07 And look, if your only source for your own resolve, or really, if it is only your resolve and your inner constitution, then you're probably going to run out of steam at some point during the fight, right? 6:17 I mean, it's it's essentially a guarantee. 6:20 But you, just like David, can rely on the Lord your God and then by all means get in the fight. 6:28 Go into the church and get the hymnals and shove the pages down the barrel and hold the bridge.