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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Flickinger

Traitor

Delighted to be with you this evening and to share this message with you about traitors and how we can avoid being a traitor.

So if you have a Bible, please do bring it out, crack it open.

If you have a digital device that works as a Bible, that will work for us tonight as well.

And we'll begin with, again, another short prayer, and then dive into tonight's message.

Father, thank you so much for drawing us together here, here at Advent Hope, and giving us an opportunity to study your Word, to spend time with you, to learn more about you, and to find what your will is for our lives.

We ask that you will bless us abundantly, give us encouragement, hope, and challenge us this evening in our walk and our relationship with you.

I'd like to begin by sharing a story with you.

And if you've ever heard me speak before, you know that I have a particular type of story that I like more than any other type of story.

I think true stories are by far the very best stories.

And this true story I heard from a fellow by the name of Mike Rowe.

I don't know how many of you have heard of Mike Rowe before.

He does, or has done, a television show called Dirty Jobs.

He also does a podcast called The Way I Heard It.

And so I'll share a story that I heard from Mike Rowe that meant something to me and I think it will provide a beautiful springboard into where we're going tonight.

It is the story of a valiant young officer in the Continental Army.

About 240 years ago, the Continental Army was up against a much superior force that was the British.

And in Saratoga, New York, a pivotal battle was about to take place.

The Continental soldiers were far outmatched, and yet they fought their hardest.

The tide was turning in the battle, and at a pivotal moment, 1 of the generals on the continental side couldn't make a decision of what to do.

And in his indecisive state, this young officer decided he was going to take charge.

He hopped upon his steed, he rode out in front of the Continental soldiers, And as 1 soldier would tell it later, the words that he spoke inspired us, and he willed us to go forward.

He drew his saber from his scabbard, he looked out at the superior enemy force, And he called to the boys behind him and said, let's go take them.

He led that small force up into the flank of the enemy and pushed them back.

And it would have turned the tide of the entire war as the British forces were being pushed back if the general, in seeing him make this move, had decided to move the rest of the Continental Force after him.

When this brave American young officer so valiantly, so gallantly charged into the enemy force and turned them back, why didn't the general follow with the rest of the troops?

Because the general didn't want the young officer to get the credit for winning the battle.

And so he held the rest of the force back and the battle ended in a draw.

Well, about 3 weeks later, the same 2 forces found themselves on the very same battlefield.

And at another moment that would have turned the tide of the battle, the same general was once again indecisive.

And so the young officer jumped upon his steed once again, rode in front of his troops, and turned around and said to them, Well, boys, here we are again.

What do you say we finish the job this time?

Let's send these redcoats back across the sea where they came from.

And again he turned, looked into the eyes of the enemy and rode his horse into their ranks.

Now, if this were a Hollywood movie, this is where everything would go into slow motion.

And you would watch the musket balls fly by our hero's head, and the great shot explode around him.

A junior officer would be cut down by his side, and yet he would ride into the francs of the enemy.

The camera would pan to his left thigh, and you would see a musket ball from a British musket embed itself in his thigh.

The white hot pain you could see searing on his face, and yet he rides forward.

Then you would see another musket ball hit the neck of his horse and the blood would spurt out and the horse would begin to fall.

It would fall crushing his leg already wounded by the musket ball which had been twice wounded in battles before today.

And as the horse falls, it would crush the life out of our gallant young officer.

That battle was a significant battle Because the Continental Army won the battle that day.

They say that there are moments that turn the tide of every battle.

And battles that turn the tide of every war, and wars that turn the tide of human history.

This was 1 of those moments in 1 of those battles in 1 of those wars, because the Battle of Saratoga turned the course of US history.

It was because the Continental Army won that battle that France decided to join the side of what would become the United States against the British.

This battle turned those 13 colonies into the 13 United States from which we grew.

And if you go to Saratoga today, you will find that there is a monument there to this gallant young officer.

Now, if you were to imagine what that monument might look like, What would you imagine the monument to this officer would look like?

He would be looking forward into the force of that enemy over the Hudson Valley.

But you'd find something very interesting if you look at that monument today.

That gallant officer's eyes are not looking across the Hudson Valley where the enemy once stood because his monument has no head.

And you expect to see in his right arm the saber.

And in his left arm he would hold the reins of his horse.

It also has no shoulders, no chest, no torso, and no legs.

You will also find significantly missing from that monument the horse that he rode upon.

A left boot, a single left boot, draped unceremoniously over the muzzle of a cannon pointed straight up.

I'll read to you the inscription on the back of this monument.

In memory of the most brilliant soldier in the Continental Army who was desperately wounded on this spot, winning for his countrymen the decisive battle of the American Revolution.

Now, today, you would expect to see this man's name on schools across the country.

You would expect to see it on monuments everywhere.

You would expect to see this man's name every place you look because he was the 1 who led the charge that turned the tide in the American Revolution that gave us the United States.

But he forgot to do something on that very significant day.

As he lay there on the ground under his horse, what he forgot to do was die.

And because he was, well, let me put it this way, because of his pride he refused to allow the surgeon to amputate his left leg and so it never really healed.

For the rest of his life, his left leg was 3 inches shorter than his right leg.

And he was in severe pain for the remainder of his days.

And because that indecisive general never gave him any credit for what he had done, he became very, very bitter.

Bitter to the point that he chose to switch sides in the war.

This man's name is known by probably just about all of us.

If I were to ask you the name or to tell you even the name of the general, the indecisive general, You'd probably never remember him.

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Traitor

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