** The Culture War (David Visits His Brothers - Part 2) 1 Samuel 17 / David & Goliath

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. It's just become normal in our society to hear people diss the Bible and diss the Christian faith and to blaspheme and use God's name in vain.

It's become normal for all of us. Every day, no matter where we are, we hear it all the time. It's on TV. It's just everywhere. And it's just become normal, right? When it becomes normal and we don't have that reaction that this isn't right, we become like the Israelite army.

We need more David. So, he has this passion for God. David, number one, he's ready to confront Goliath, but he's going to have to do it alone. And number two, he doesn't even get support from his own brethren.

And then there's this whole story about King Saul. Somebody tells Saul, hey, there's a young guy in the camp who's ready to, and Saul asks about him and David claims that he's been, he's killed a lion and he's killed a bear.

And Saul is probably thinking, yeah, right. I doubt he believes that. But the point is, nobody believes in David. And the same type of thing happens today where if a Christian wants to step out in faith, wants to do something great for God, that's kind of the reaction.

Well, who do you think you are? You know, you can't do anything for God. Especially if you know the person. Familiarity breeds contempt. Isn't that what people say? Well, you can't do anything for God.

I mean, who are you? Well, I mean, who is David at this point? Honestly, who was David? He was a nobody. He was a teenager who tended to sheep. That's who he was. He was a nobody, but God was with him.

So, Matthew Henry, commentator Matthew Henry writes this about the passage, Those who undertake great and public services must not think it strange if they are spoken ill of and opposed by those from whom they expect support and assistance.

They must humbly go on with their work in the face of not only the enemy's threats, but of friends, slights, and suspicions. It's kind of a sad thing, but it's true. So, David's older brothers seem to look down on him.

Maybe it's because of his age, his occupation, combination of the two, they're feeling guilty, they're not doing anything, whatever is driving all of this. What do they accuse David of? They accuse him of pride.

I know the insolence of your heart. You have evil motives. That's what they thought. This would be like looking at another believer who desires to serve God and thinking, well, they just want to make a name for themselves.

Maybe some people do get into it for the wrong reason. We shouldn't assume the worst. You know that if somebody professes Christ and they have a testimony, they're a member of the church, they're a brother or sister, we should not assume the worst of them.

Amen? I mean, that's a pretty low standard, I think, but people do it. If somebody wants to accomplish something for the kingdom of God, don't look at them and say, well, who are they? I don't know. Who are you?

Who are you to say who are they? Well, they're just prideful. Well, how do you know that? Are you Jesus? You can read hearts now? How did Eliab know this? This is one, so he accuses David of pride. And this is one thing I have noticed because David has zeal for God, right?

This is so true. If anybody speaks with any kind of conviction about the things of God, if anybody speaks with any kind of passion about the things of God, they will be accused of pride. So David has a zeal for the Lord.

His love for the Lord motivated him. It is not his pride motivating him. And yet that's what he's accused of. You know, it shouldn't be that way. What's this message about? Backing people up, supporting one another.

Don't think the worst. If somebody is stepping out in a new area and they want to serve God, well, I bet they're going to fail. Who are they? These are the wrong things to say, the wrong way to think, and yet it's very common.

God's people need to support one another. You know, you're not going to get support from the world, are you? You're not going to get support from unbelievers. If we don't support each other, a Christian is not going to get any support.

I think one thing that his brothers were still upset about in the previous chapter, we don't have time to turn there, but in the previous chapter, the prophet Samuel comes to Bethlehem and he anoints David as king in front of all his brothers.

So I think that is why they're upset. They're still jealous that David was anointed and they weren't. David is going to be used by God and they're not. David is willing to step out in faith and they're not willing because they're discouraged and afraid.

Now, why am I preaching this message? I think we get the point now of what's happening here with David. Nobody believes in him. Nobody supports him. He feels alone. Of course, it doesn't really matter.

He goes forward anyways, which is the thing to do. But why am I preaching this message? Well, a couple of things have happened recently that have kind of stirred me up a little bit. Two things in particular that have happened recently to where I thought, ok, it's time to do a sermon on this subject.

The first thing, there's a pastor a month or two ago who got national attention. His church is just growing, growing, growing. And he has been kind of pegged by the secular news media as being the leader or a leader of this movement called Christian Nationalism.

If any one of you have heard about this movement, Christian Nationalism, and it's so scary and it's so terrible, I think it's being exaggerated. A lot of falsehoods are being thrown around. But first, anyways, this pastor has kind of got pegged as one of the leaders of the Christian Nationalist movement.

The thing to know is whenever the mainstream media, CNN, NBC, whenever they run a special and they're talking about evangelical Christians, it's going to be a hit piece. Christians are not going to be treated fair.

They're going to try to slant it in such a way to demonize Christians. And that's what they did with this pastor. He has biblical views on marriage and how society should be and all that. He just has standard Christian views for the most part, and that makes them so angry they have to make him look bad.

They basically made him look like the Christian version of the Taliban. Who remembers the Taliban, right? He's the Christian version of it. And they're also trying to, by association, any Christian who's patriotic, any Christian who thinks that this is a nation under God and our laws should be aligned with biblical values, they're trying to paint all Christians like that as sort of a threat to democracy, and he's one of the ringleaders.

That's simply not accurate. It's simply not true. There's not a single Christian leader of any significance that I know of that's calling. They're saying these Christians want a theocracy. They want to basically overthrow the government.

They want to usher in a theocracy. There's not a single Christian leader of any significance who is calling for a theocracy. So their whole premise is false. What's the point? Okay, so the secular progressives are just attacking this Christian pastor.

Is anyone surprised by that? No. Of course that's going to happen. We understand that. Here's what bothered me. Christians started piling on. Christians are starting to side with the enemies of God, and now they're ridiculing him.

They're siding with the Philistines. This is treasonous. I don't care if this, maybe it's a strong word, but when you side with the atheists, and you side with those who reject the scripture over God's people, that's treasonous.

That's what Judas Iscariot did. He sided with the soldiers over Christ. He sided with the soldiers and led them to Christ. So it's not a big deal, I guess, that those who hate God's word are attacking this pastor, but now you had evangelicals piling on, ridiculing him.

And don't get me wrong, just because he calls himself a Christian doesn't mean he gets a blank check. There's actually a lot of things I would disagree with this pastor, but I'm not going to side with the secular progressives over another believer.

So that really got me, that you had Christians piling on, attacking this pastor. Is there not a cause? Is there a reason for a Christian, because people are upset that he speaks too bluntly, that he speaks too strongly.

So I would ask you, is there not a cause? Are we aware of what's happening in the world today? Is there not a good reason for straight talk? Is there not a reason for somebody to speak with boldness? Is there not a cause?

Of course there is a cause. And when people join God's enemies against Christians, with friends like that, who needs enemies? A few years ago, I ran into a little trouble, you could say, because I spoke out against a movement that was going on in the culture back in 2020.

And, you know, the people of this church supported me, and I'm thankful. I'm thankful for that. But, you know, there was somebody who wanted to know, why would you say that? Why would you say that? And they got upset, and they left.

They left the church because they sided with the culture. They sided with people who openly hate God. They sided with them over their own pastor. That goes with the territory. And if you want to serve God, you're going to be criticized.

If you go into your workplace, talk with family members, neighbors, and you share Christ in the gospel, you're going to be criticized. Now, what do you do? Do you get discouraged about it?

No.

You're like David, and you just keep doing it. If you have to go it alone, are you going to keep doing it?

I hope so.

So that was one thing with this pastor who got this national attention. And then there was another thing locally. A local evangelical pastor wrote an article to the newspaper, and they censored his article.

He spoke. He basically said some of the same things this other pastor said. And his article was censored. And it was censored because he said something that was not right against this protected group.

But a few weeks earlier, there was another guy who wrote in, and he just ripped evangelical Christians. And he got this big article just ripping Christians. And he gets all sorts of space. This other article gets censored.

This pastor gets censored. And again, of course, the secular newspaper is going to do that. We come to expect that. Here's what kind of bothers me, though. Any time a pastor, or it could be an average Christian who just writes into the...

Nobody backs them up.

Right?

You have the people who hate God. They write in. And you know what happens. Other people write in to support them. They write in to back them up. They reinforce their ideas. And then when a Christian writes in, it's crickets.

My friends, we don't support one another well enough. We don't support each other. The enemies of God are increasing. The Philistines are lined up. Goliath is in the valley blaspheming God. And it's just become normal for us.

And it's like we don't care. We don't really do anything about it. And then when a David rises up to say something, he gets criticized. Not by the Philistines. He gets criticized by his fellow Israelites.

That's happening. And it shouldn't happen. One of the results of that... Remember Elijah? Remember that time when Elijah thought he was the only one left? That's how it makes Christians feel. Christians are that less likely to step out in their faith because they feel like they're going to be alone.

That happened with Elijah. And Elijah said, I alone am left as a prophet in Israel. And you remember what God had to remind him of? That no, Elijah, there are still 7 ,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

Well, that's great. But where are they all? They're off hiding in a cave. And because they were hiding in a cave, it made Elijah go and hide in a cave. When we get discouraged, it makes other people get discouraged.

When we start moaning, it causes other people to moan. When we get afraid, it causes other people to get afraid. It shouldn't be this way. So all that to say this. We really need to back one another up.

We need to support one another as the pastor of this church. I want to support you. If there's something I can do to support you, if I'm not doing it, let me know. Because I want to have your back. And I want to thank you for those times in the past when you've had my back.

And I appreciate that. And just going forward, you know what you're going to get by the world. The world, if you believe the Bible and you're vocal about it and you tell people about Jesus and what the scripture teaches, you're going to get labeled sexist, homophobic, Christian nationalist, whatever, blah, blah, blah.

It doesn't make a difference. But we need to back each other up. All right, let's just finish the story just because it's such a great story in 1 Samuel 17. Make a long story short, David and Goliath, they face off.

David trusts in the Lord and he ignores the naysayers. They say, well, people aren't really backing me up. Okay, well, you're going to have to ignore that and you're going to have to move forward anyways.

But we can do better. Look at verse 49. Then David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone. And he slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead. So that the stone sank into his forehead and he fell on the face to the earth.

So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone and struck the Philistine and killed him. But there was no sword in the hand of David. Therefore, David ran and stood over the Philistine, took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it.

And when the Philistine saw that their champion was dead, now they fled. It just took a David to stand up and to trust in God. He won the victory. And now the tables were totally turned. I'm telling you, if Christians would just get motivated and fired up and back each other up, we'd have the enemies of God on the run.

So let's do that.

Amen.

All right, let's close. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this story and your word. And I thank you that we do have a church that loves one another. And Father, maybe we could all this week just look for ways to support each other, to back each other up.

We're not always going to agree about everything. And Lord, help us not to assume the worst or to ridicule another believer in Christ. And Father, if we don't have anything good to say, I guess we should say nothing.

But help us to look for reasons to encourage one another. When we see somebody serving God, wanting to do something for the kingdom of God, help us to be there, to have their back, to give them an encouraging word.

And Father, your church, if we would mobilize, we're few in number, maybe, in light of 300 million people in this country. But Lord, with you on our side or with us on your side, there's no stopping us.

And we know that when Jesus returns, he will usher in his kingdom of righteousness. Help us to be looking forward to that day and be busy building the church here on earth until he returns. We pray it all in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, MorrisCornickChurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.