Our Enemy’s True Nature

Our scripture this morning will be found in 1 Samuel 17, verses 31 -37.

We're going to see, as we follow this narrative, how Saul's leadership is exposed as the hollow clanging gong that it really was.

And how his failings are exposed by David, who exhibits here the qualities of true leadership.

He has a trait that real leaders have, and that's his ability, which he shows here, or will show here, to put his finger on the true nature of a matter.

And here is going to be the true nature, the real issue of the enemy that Israel there faced, which was the

Philistines. Where Saul trembled at the sight of the giant and all Israel after him,

David saw Goliath for what he really was, and that's a beast. And so with that, please stand for the reading of God's word, 1

Samuel 17, verses 31 -37, in the Pew Bible on page 240, if you're following with that.

When the words that David spoke were heard, they repeated them before Saul, and he sent for him.

And David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go out and fight this

Philistine. And Saul said to David, you are not able to go against this

Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth. But David said to Saul, your servant used to keep sheep for his father, and when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock,

I went after him and struck him and delivered it from his mouth. And if he rose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him.

Your servant has struck down lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living

God. And David said, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this

Philistine. And Saul said to David, go, and the Lord be with you.

Please be seated. Well, let us ask

God's blessing once again, our Heavenly Father. We come now to the word of God that you have given us.

We pray, Father, for preacher and for hearer, that the words of my mouth will be pleasing in your sight,

Father, and that the hearts that are about to hear would be fertile ground that you by your

Spirit have prepared, that in all things Jesus Christ would be glorified and honored in this place, and that we,

Father, would be lifted up closer to his image as we strive for that. And Father, bless us now, be with us as we continue in this worship through the preaching of your word, in Christ's name, amen.

So what we have here is David's qualities as a leader beginning to shine forth.

In other words, a justification, if you will, of God's choice of him from amongst all the other sons of Jesse, David.

And why David? Well, this is going to develop through many chapters and many years of David's life, but here it begins as David's leadership, as David's quality begins to show forth as opposed to whose?

Saul's, the current king's. Here's David, this man after God's own heart, going to succeed

Saul as Israel's king. And David shows that he has something here more than just an abundance of courage, which certainly he had, much courage, much personal bravery, but he was able to see the battle for what it really was.

He was able to engage it on proper terms because he saw things in a mode of reality.

It was a spiritual battle at its core. It was a spiritual battle that was necessary to engage that way.

And in this, seeing things for what they really were and leading in accordance with that, he saw

Goliath for what he was. And he knew how to deal with such as he.

He had met Goliath, in fact, many times. He had met his cousin and his kinsmen several times, and so he knew how to deal with him.

Where did he meet Goliath's cousins and kinsmen? In the lions and the bears that he faced in the wilderness.

Those beasts that came after his father's greatest asset, the sheep, and David slew them.

David killed them. David rescued the sheep. This great precursor of our Lord Jesus Christ who rescued his sheep from sin and death.

He knew this Goliath, and Goliath would be dealt with as one of his kinsmen.

He would be engaged on terms that met his true nature. He was a beast.

He was a beast. You see, you cannot win any battle if you don't understand the nature of the battle and the enemy you face.

You can't play chess by the rules of checkers or poker by the rules of old maid.

You need to understand the nature of the contest, the nature of the battle, the nature here of the enemy.

This is what Saul had missed completely, and that's why he trembled, and that's why he feared, and that's why he quaked at Goliath.

But this is what David saw clearly, that Goliath was a beast.

So I'd ask you something as we begin this message of seeing things clearly and engaging the struggles on the terms that are proper to the struggle and the goal to which we wish to attain.

Have you found yourself stalled in your progress towards the image of Jesus, or your progress towards Jesus' image?

Have you been frustrated that the old sins keep raising their ugly head and entice you away from sanctifying grace, and we take those two steps forward and three steps back, and so on?

Are you frustrated, discouraged? Are you ready to quit?

Well it could very well be that like Saul, as the leader of Israel against the Philistines when he saw

Goliath, was ready to engage the battle on the wrong terms, which is why he didn't engage the battle at all.

We all know David is going to go forth and kill Goliath, and he's going to do it with that stone, and someday soon maybe we'll get to that.

But the core of his true leadership was that he saw the battle for what it was.

It was a spiritual engagement, and he saw Goliath for what he was, which is a beast.

And if we're frustrated in our growth into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, in our constantly falling back into the old, old sins, maybe the reason is because you've engaged fleshly means, discipline, and determination, and sheer willpower when success in the battle depends on faith and prayer and the means of grace that God has given and provided to you.

We need to engage the battle on the right terms. We need to understand the battle, the struggle for what it is, the enemy for what that is.

So may this message from God's Word help you today to realign your efforts, to recoup past gains, to enter the fray with renewed hope of success, as did

David here in our passage. May I reveal for you the true nature of the struggle, and may we be warned of what sin really does do to us.

So what is this chapter meant for? The inspired author, what is this flow of redemptive history that we have?

As I said before, it's the ascending quality of David's leadership compared to Saul's.

Saul needed someone to meet Goliath. His leadership was really not to lead.

And what was he doing about Goliath when he looked down and saw this mass of flesh and bone and muscle?

Well, he saw a mass of flesh and bone and muscle, and he needed someone to go out there.

Someone. Now notice, not himself. He needed someone to go out there. But his leadership was not to lead, but to bribe.

You recall from last week, when David comes to the lines, to the battle lines, and he's with his older brothers.

And he asks the men, and he asks his brothers, what will be done for whoever goes out and kills this giant? And they repeat to him what he already knew, as I said last week, that while Saul will give his daughter in marriage, he'll be able to marry into the royal family.

Isn't that great? More than that, he's going to give you riches. Isn't that even greater? And more than even that, your whole family is now exempt from taxation.

It's a bribe. Saul's not leading. Saul's not going to go out and fight this giant.

He's bribing his men. He's enticing his men. But I think it's really a bribe to go out. David, on the other hand, here in what

I read, what does he do? Well, he steps forward himself. He had tried earlier in vain to motivate someone, anyone to go.

But now here we see in this leadership that he doesn't ask anyone to do something he's not willing himself to do.

And that's one mark of a true leader. The other, as I've said, is to see things as they really are, which is how he saw

Goliath, not the flesh and bones giant that Saul saw or that the army of Israel saw.

So they feared and they trembled and all that had to happen was this one man comes out and the whole army retreats and goes back to their defensive positions.

No, David saw Goliath for what he was, not a flesh and bones giant, but a beast.

Sin, you see. Sin makes man into beasts. And that's how David saw Goliath.

You know, the resume he presented to King Saul, did you notice, had nothing to do with weapons of war.

You know, David didn't explain how he toppled men larger or more experienced than himself. He didn't say, you know,

Saul, I've got a triple degree black belt in one of the martial arts. I took fencing in college.

Hey, Saul, I might not look real big, but I'm a golden gloved boxer. And also

I'm really quick on my feet. So I can get behind the giant. I can knock his knees out from under him. I know how to fight like that.

You see, there's none of that on this resume that he gives. What's his resume?

Can we read this again in verse 34? Now, if we think what's leading up to this verse, there's only a few verses

I read before that. But it's sort of like, well, what qualifies you to do this?

What's on your resume? You're coming to me telling me you're going to fight as a champion of Israel? What experience do you have?

Just as when we fill out resumes for jobs today. I'm going to be a computer engineer. What experience do you have?

Well, I danced ballet in high school or something. I mean, no. What's on the resume?

What does David say is his qualification to go out and fight Goliath? This lad who's in his mid -teens.

But David said to Saul, Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock,

I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he rose against me, emphasis mine, if he rose against me,

I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Let's stop for a moment. I don't think as I picture them that bears have the beard.

I think the beard is the lion. So picture this for a moment and I'll read the other two verses in just a second.

David goes up to this bear or the lion, let's call it the lion for now, and rescues the sheep. And puts the sheep behind and says,

Now you get back to the fold. You get back with the rest of the sheep. He turns to the lion and says something like,

Okay, this is enough. I've got my father's sheep back. You can go in peace. I'm going to let you live.

You just have to turn around and go. You understand, Mr. Lion? It's something like that. It sounds a little silly, yes, but it's sort of like that.

But the lion then says, Well, I'll go after this guy. If I don't get the sheep, I'll go after him. Then he catches the lion by the beard. I don't think it's a metaphor.

I think this young warrior, Israel's greatest warrior, and later Israel's poet, he means what he said.

I grabbed him by his beard and struck him. This is not a far -off sniper shot where the lamb or the sheep might have gotten hurt.

He's up close. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised

Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God. And David said,

The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion, from the paw of the bear, will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. He doesn't boast skill in sword and spear or martial arts.

His qualification was his success fighting beasts by hand.

Now, we all know how he's going to kill Goliath. I'm talking about his resume before he steps out into the field against Goliath.

David could kill Goliath because David, alone amongst Israel's host, understood

Goliath's true nature. He knew how to deal with a beast. Now, where did he learn this?

Well, he learned this in the fields. No one expected this young lad to be this great warrior.

In fact, when Samuel, in 1 Samuel 16, comes to Jesse's house under the instruction of the

Lord, and he says, Line up your sons, because one of them is going to be anointed the next king of Israel.

So he lines up his seven sons, but he has eight sons. The eighth, the youngest, is David. He's out washing the sheep, and they don't even think to go get him.

How could this lad be the king? He's nothing. He's just a kid. And yet, all seven are rejected by God, and it's

David who is brought forth as king. And what had he been doing?

Washing the sheep, following his father's direction, protecting the family's assets. This is where he was learning to recognize and to have contest against the beast,

Goliath. You see, your experiences in life are a very valuable asset.

And it's not just things that have happened to you, be they good or bad, be they hard or easy. It's not just stuff that happens in life.

It's an asset. It's a valuable asset, and it's also a divine means of grace. It's God in His sovereignty, who's ordained all things whatsoever shall come to pass, who gave you the experiences

He gave you, just as He gave David experience against beasts, to prepare him for this very contest, which maybe in a few weeks we will get to.

Your experiences in life are not just stuff. They train you for something.

They prepared you for something. 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, they prepared you to be a member of a body, of a church, and to contribute to the church with quite possibly and quite probably, we could even say, the value that you've learned, the things that you've learned, and the experiences that God in His sovereignty has given you.

Your life may seem on the surface a little different from anyone else's, just like David. Out there like many shepherd boys must have been for their fathers.

But in Christ, your experiences are sanctified. In Christ, they mean something more than just stuff that happens.

Your cancer prepared you to show compassion to others and taught you how to point suffering saints to Christ.

Your failures taught you how to avoid unwarranted risks of the price we pay when we stray from Christ's cheap fold.

You learn to see things as they really are to help a brother who's straddling between worldly wisdom and God's ways and help him move himself fully on the side of Scripture.

Your traumas, your hard times, are sanctified when you weep with a sister who's gone through the same things and you lead her to renewed hope in Christ.

Even you, whose life has been blessedly free of such hardships, the Lord has prepared you, just as he does us all, just as he did

David, to help the rest of us in some way. This is one of the lessons we learn very quickly from what we have here in 1

Samuel 17. That David's experience with the sheep in guarding them and learning that responsibility, and then especially his experience against the beasts that would come against the sheep.

He learned how to fight. And not just fight men. He'd become a great warrior, we know that.

But here, what he'd learn to fight. Wild, frothing at the mouth animals.

Beasts. David met his opponent many times before when he struck and killed

Goliath's cousin, the lion, or his kinsman, the bear. He said, he shall be like one of them in his demise.

I will kill him. He was like one of them in his life. He was a beast. And David's experience against lions and bears taught him more than just how to grapple with wild animals.

He learned what a wild beast looks like. He could recognize them. And he learned that his success of protecting his father's sheep was not his fighting skill or his clever tactics.

Because he gives all the glory to God. He said, the Lord delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear.

And oh, by the way, delivered also the sheep. Well, the nature of sin,

I think, is unmasked here in David's application to fight Goliath. Not, I know how to fight big guys.

I know how to fight beasts. He's going to be like one of those who came after my father's flock.

Excuse me. Now, mankind, all mankind, in rebellion against God is actually called beasts.

The Scripture uses no moderating terms like as or like.

My mother used to go from, you're acting like hooligans to you are hooligans.

Oh, come on, Mom, don't you mean I'm as if? No, you were as if before, but as you continued, you became.

The Scripture is kind of like that. It's warning us that when we sin, what are we sliding to?

This beastly kind of nature. Acting like a Goliath, if you will. The Apostle Paul has some dealings with beasts.

And beasts in just the way I'm speaking of them here. In 1

Corinthians chapter 15, he writes, what do

I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus?

Let me stop for just a moment. I'll read the next couple of sentences in a second. But this is speaking of his experiences that we have recorded in Acts chapter 19.

When he went to Ephesus and proclaimed the gospel there in that town, that idolatrous town, that town whose whole industry and whole economy is based upon the worship of the goddess

Dinah. And they had one of the wonders of the ancient world in the temple there that was dedicated to her.

That's where he was. And he says, he fought with beasts. What do I gain if, humanly speaking,

I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, let's eat and drink. For tomorrow we die.

Do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. So in that desultory and that idolatrous town, when did he fight with beasts?

Well, it couldn't be an actual beast as the spectator sport of the Romans used to have where Christians would be put in the

Colosseum or some place where the spectators could see them and watch them get mauled and torn apart by wild beasts because Paul is a

Roman citizen. They wouldn't be able to do that to him. But how is he speaking of beasts?

We're speaking, Acts chapter 19, verse 9, of Jews who spoke evil of the way, meaning the

Christian way, the way of the gospel. Jews who spoke evil of the way. He fought with those beasts.

The silversmith Demetrius, the one who started the riot because he saw that their living was going to be taken away.

They were making the idols and the shrines for the Jews who came to worship Dinah. And in verses 23 to 27,

Acts chapter 19, he starts that riot against them. These are the beasts that he fought at Ephesus.

He didn't say people who acted beastly or anything like that. No modifying, no softening of the blow.

We could trace this idea back to all the opponents of the gospel in Paul's missionary journeys. If we go back to Philippi, if we go back to Thessalonica, Corinth, and Athens, he was always fighting against these beasts, these people who opposed the gospel, these people who brought up the riots, who gave him the 39 or the 40 blows less one, and the stonings, and so forth.

We could trace it to Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Irah, and Athens. We could trace it to Washington, D .C.,

and Sacramento, to Sunnyvale, to San Jose, to Santa Clara, to our loved ones and our own families who, by not believing the gospel, are enemies of the gospel.

By enemies of the gospel, are acting in this beastly kind of way. You see, the beasts that Paul fought were flesh -and -blood men.

He doesn't say they acted like, but without any word to soften this, he says, I fought with beasts at Ephesus, opponents of God.

From Genesis chapter 3, and the first sin, and the seed of the serpent, and the seed of the woman, always going to be at enmity with each other.

From there through Psalm 2, where men raise their fists against God, and call out to him, who do you think you are to tell us what to do?

Of course, paraphrasing, that's not exactly what the Psalm says. We could trace this all the way through, through the end of our

Bibles, where in the book of Revelation, men have those horrible, painful boils, and they acknowledge that they're from God.

And what do they do? They gnash their teeth like beasts, and they curse God. Well, this is how

Jesus speaks of people, of human beings, who will not accept the good wounds of a friend, wounds from a

Christian who has confessed their own log, so that they might remove your speck. This is very familiar ground for us, but that's in Matthew chapter 7.

Very well -known passage, judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's or sister's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, when there's a log in your own eye? You hypocrite.

First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Stop for a moment. Now, we all know what that's about. You see a fault in your brother or your sister. In accordance with Christ's word, and your love for that brother or sister, you're going to show them their fault.

It doesn't even, in this sense, have to be a fault against you personally. Just something you saw that would help them.

The wound of a friend, as I said. And first, you follow what Jesus says, and you get that log out of your eye.

You go in prayer, and you say, Lord, there's a speck, and the speck is of this type, but I see something of the same type, and it's huge.

I can't see clearly. I can't clear my conscience. I can't know,

Lord, that I've become pure before you, and that my motives are right. And so we work, and we take that log out, and we finally go to that brother or sister.

And we say something like, you know, brother, sister, I've worked so long to take this log out of my eye, and I praise

God that it's out. I do believe my conscience is clear to show you this fault.

You've got this teeny little speck, and I think that you can grow faster into the image of Christ by removing it.

Well, that person then says something like, mind your own business. Who are you to judge?

Listen, you don't know me that well. You've only been my brother or sister in this church for 37 years.

What do you know about me? Go take care of your own affairs. Follow what the apostle says, and don't be a busybody, and so forth.

Have we been there? How rare it is when we go to a brother or sister, show them their fault, and they say, thank you, praise

God, because I trust that you did get that log out. Well, I have to be careful here because I could preach the rest of my time on Matthew chapter seven, and that's not my intent.

My intent is to remind you what Matthew seven is about, and the log, and the speck, and all that. And what does

Jesus say about those who say, mind your own business? Here's a wall between you and me, and you don't come to me and convict me of anything.

What does Jesus say about that one? That's where I wanted to go. That's verse six in chapter seven of Matthew. Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

Not lest they become like, but he actually calls them dogs and pigs, beasts.

You see, we need to understand the nature of this thing we struggle against. Sin. The confessions properly say, excuse me, the catechisms properly say, what is sin?

Sin is any want of conformity to the law of God. My paraphrase is, sin is any besmirchment of God's holiness in anything we do, say, or think.

It means roughly the same thing. And that's proper, and that's correct. We still need to understand the battle for what it is.

The battle is against the beastly nature. The battle is against sin that turns us into animals, as it were.

David prophesied of Jesus Christ when he wrote Psalm 22, verses 12 and 13. Listen to this.

Many bulls encompass me. Strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like a ravening and roaring lion.

Well, this is Jesus Christ on the cross being prophesied by David the king, the same David who's about to go out and meet

Goliath. But notice that he calls them bulls. He calls them beasts.

That they are like a ravening or roaring lion. Now, is that a softening word? This person is like?

No. Understand the flow of what he said. Beasts that are like lions.

Not people that are like beasts. Beasts that are like lions. Roaring, ravening, slaughtering at the mouth.

Vicious animals with claws and fangs. Not people acting like bulls.

They're bulls acting like lions. Like beasts. Like Goliaths. I mean, how much more like beasts could there be than to perfect the cruelty of crucifixion?

As the Romans picked that up from the Persians and found ways to make the pain and the agony last longer and longer until they got bored with it and broke the legs of the sufferer just to put an end to it.

How much more beastly can man be than to spend his time and his ingenuity and his

God -given intellect for that? To prefer to crucify an innocent man over a convicted murderer.

Shall I give you Barabbas? No. Excuse me. Yes, give us

Barabbas and crucify this other one. How much more like beasts could men be than to mock a man with thorns driven into his temples or to wag their tongues at him as he hung on the tree?

And there's the strong bulls of Bashan surrounding Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now we need to understand the battle for what it is.

We need to understand the risks that we take when we fall back into the old ways. Not just, oh,

I stumbled, I fumbled. Oh, here I went again. I wish

I'd been more consistent. Man against God is a beast. Sometimes an outright, snarling, foul -mouthed, violent beast.

Sometimes disguised as an angel of light. It's a small wonder, though, that Satan is pictured as a beast rising from the sea spouting off blasphemies against God.

Well, if that's the case, what's the first thing we need to think about that? I think the first thing we need to think about that if that's what sin does to man and if that's the risk we take and that's the nature that we sort of step back into when we sin, especially when we sin knowingly, especially when we say, yes,

I know what the Bible says, but I just have to do this one more time. Or let me see if I can resist it this time because I know

I'm strong. We need to understand the risk that we're taking, the nature that we're peeling ourselves back towards.

And we need to see how vast is the sum of our redemption in Christ Jesus, in Him, in Christ, humanity is restored.

In Christ, by faith, is the image of God burnished. It's made new. What does the Apostle Paul say in 2

Corinthians 5 .17? If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. He says, the old has passed away.

Behold, the new has come. So we need to look at that old experience as being beast -like and strengthen ourselves in our struggles against sin because to sin is to regress away from the true humanity that God has given us.

Psalm 73 is a confession of a man named Asaph. And as he looked at the ease and the comfort of the ungodly, he found himself envious of them.

He found himself sinning with covetousness of them. He wanted their comforts. He wanted their wealth. He wanted their unencumbered conscience.

And in verse 22, he reveals the ramification of that mode of thinking, that sinful way of thinking.

What does covetousness do? Verse 22. I was like a brute beast before you.

There's our metaphor. There's our simile. I was like. There's that softening of the blow.

We understand that no one in Christ will ever be lost, yet they might stray ever so far from our good shepherd, and yet he will draw you back.

So he can say, I was like a brute beast before you. And that's the 10th command. Thou shalt not covet.

I remember when Conley was last teaching in the catechism, and he came to that one. And he taught that that's the one that comes from the heart.

That's the one that you can have, and you can hide within. And you don't have to exhibit it in order to sin just as much with it.

And this is what Psalm 73 is about. Asaph coveting those who had that ease of comfort. The rich, the wealthy, the ungodly.

And he says, what did that all mean? I was like a brute beast before you. To sin, he confirms that to sin, even in passive notes of envy, is a return to behavior more appropriate to brute beasts.

Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest king of his day and the greatest nation, most powerful nation of his day. He looked down and he claimed to himself the glory that God reserves for himself.

And what did God do to him? While the boastful words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven.

O king Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken. The kingdom has departed from you and you shall be driven from among men and your dwelling place shall be with the beasts of the field.

And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox and seven periods of time shall pass over you until you know that the most high rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.

That's Daniel chapter four, verses 31 to 33. When Nebuchadnezzar sinned by taking the glory of God to himself, by looking and saying, what a wonderful thing

I am and look what I've done. And so forth, you can read that yourself in Daniel four later. What did

God make him? Just like what he was acting. A beast, and out in the field he went, lowing and mowing with the cattle and eating grass where the cattle had just walked by.

Think of that for a moment. Think of what sin actually does. So what about you and me?

So there's Asaph, all those centuries ago, envious of the ungodly. And there's

Paul, fighting the beasts at Ephesus. Demetrius, the silversmith, and those who spoke evil of the way.

What about you and me? We more common Christians. Galatians 5 .15

is for you and me. The apostle

Paul writes in Galatians 5 .15, but if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

Turn there for a second. This follows right after.

The whole law, that's in Galatians rather than Ephesians, excuse me.

But if you bite and devour, excuse me, verse 14, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

So bite. If you bite and devour one another, bite is literally of animals and reptiles.

Figuratively, it's attacked spitefully and injuriously towards others to cause them harm.

This word is used 13 times in the Old Testament, almost always of serpents, only twice not of animals.

If you bite, act like an animal. If you devour, which is to eat up and consume, usually in a figurative and a violent manner.

If you bite and devour, take care lest you be consumed, lest you be destroyed. It's behavior more of a beast cannibalizing its own.

One of the worst things about pigs is that they eat their own young. It's a regression.

You know, in Star Trek, The Next Generation, they had an episode called The Genesis. And in that episode, something happened to the

Jews' genetic code. It's corrupted and it caused their evolution. If we want to go there, we don't.

But it caused their evolution to reverse, and they reverted back to being beasts, especially Lieutenant Worf.

And it's like dogs returning to their vomit, Proverbs 26 .11. Like Israel yearning for Egypt, Numbers 11 .5.

And that's a Christian cloaking himself or herself in beastly behavior, like that episode where the genetic code turns back, and they go back further and further to the savagery of old days.

Well, the world might agree with this idea that man is really a beast.

I want to read to you from a July 22, 2004 National Geographic article.

I quote, Zoologists are discovering that homosexual and bisexual activity is not unknown within the animal kingdom.

Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo, have been inseparable for six years now.

They display classic pair -bonding behavior, entwining of necks, mutual preening, flipper -flapping, and the rest.

They also have sex while ignoring potential female mates. End quote. So we think about this for a moment, this idea of the

Christian having been redeemed from this kind of behavior, sin that makes us like beasts.

I want to think about this article from this worldly source. Two penguins, think about them, two chinstrap penguins, ripped from their

God -given arctic environment, housed in the Central Park Zoo in New York. You have the picture?

Penguins live where it's cold. God made them to live where it's cold. They're designed for that.

That's their place, their natural environment. And here they are at New York's Central Park Zoo.

Housed in a cage there of some kind. Now let's figure, they go and behave differently than they would in the

Antarctic wilds. Now I'm not a zoologist, I'm not a biologist, but I mean, really? Are we serious?

I hear desperation, I hear special pleading. And why National Geographic is so concerned over this, because it says an awful lot about where we're going as a society.

You see, sin is beastly. It's a retreat from the restored image of God that we have in Christ.

But understand that man, despite what they say here, man is not an animal. As much as evolutionary biologists might scramble to prove us just more advanced, and some would say somewhat more advanced, than other creatures, their proofs are unconvincing, and the failure of our entire planet to cough up that incontrovertible proof to prove the theory once and for all, leaves them shrill, it leaves them chagrined, it leaves them full of special pleading.

Let's understand that all of life, from the tiny mosquito to the mighty blue whale, it exists because God brought it into existence.

Every creature that lives, man included, lives because God breathed into it the breath of life. That's Genesis 1 .30.

And man is set apart because he, and he alone in all creation, is made in the image of God.

Genesis 1 .26 and 27. So mankind are not animals. No matter what the world says, the zoologists and the biologists and so forth, we're not animals.

We're people. We're humans. We're men. We're women. We're men. But sin can make us like we're regressing to that old nature.

The battle against sin is very real. It's a struggle to maintain our true nature, the nature that God gave us, the nature that Christ in his redemption gave us.

So think about this with me. Sex without restraint or without holy purpose is just animalistic gratification.

Abortion is a devaluation of life that's really beneath the animals. I noticed in that National Geographic article when

I looked it over, they don't show how animals don't abort their offspring. But on this other thing it says, see, animals do this, therefore it's okay for us.

Penguins. Homosexual lifestyle justified by showing us how animals engage the practice and setting aside for a moment how the exception proves the rule, and that's much of the book of Proverbs, they are animals.

And it's consistent with what I've been saying here. The sin makes us like that, beastly. To justify my practice, though, to justify that practice by pointing to beasts, by pointing to penguins, well, they have the breath of life, but they're not created in God's image.

And if the penguins and others did engage in it, if they did, if, in fact, it can be proven faultlessly that what was observed was, in fact, what was reported, what they concluded it to be, if all that is true, think of what that implies.

That men's behavior is justified by some parallel seen in penguins.

My point has been not to have a diatribe against wrongful lifestyles or sins in general like that.

It's to warn us, to warn us of what we've been redeemed from, to warn us of what sin makes us like.

Now, for the Christian, I have to use that softening word, makes us like, because Christ will not lose any of us.

But here's what we do when we return to those old ways. Here's what we do when knowing the holiness of Christ as much as we can and knowing the law of God, knowing the rules of the church.

Here is what we do when we step back into that quagmire.

This is what we make ourselves like. And sometimes we do it because we're not seeing the battle for what it is.

We're not seeing what is really at risk. We're not like David looking upon Goliath and saying, it's a beast and needs to be dealt with on that basis.

This is the risk that we take. This is the battle that we need to engage. This is the way things really are.

The Monsignor Bienvenue, and if you don't recognize that name,

I commend you to read lots and lots more. He said, what matters is what threatens our head or our purse.

Let us think only of what threatens our soul. What a threat to our soul we take on.

What risks we take when we return to Goliath kind of nature, like a beast standing with our fist raised up against God.

In 1 Corinthians 6, 9 -10, after a long list of beast -making sins, Paul writes, and such were some of you.

Are you in Christ Jesus our Lord? Then you can put that in the past tense. Such were some of you.

Such was I once. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?

Have you repented of your sin, your beast -making sin, and in faith gone to him for forgiveness?

If not, you can't use the past tense. You must say, and such am

I. A Goliath, a ravening lion, a bull of Bashan, spouting off blasphemies against the

Lord Jesus Christ and his cross. But by the grace of God, if you repent of your sin, put your faith and your trust and your hope and your whole life in Christ Jesus, who died for your sins, you'll be made truly human.

You'll restore humanity in him. By God's grace and by seeing the battle for what it is, a war against beasts, may we draw ever closer to the image of Christ our