Seeing our Giant God

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Don Filcek; 1 Samuel 17 Seeing our Giant God

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listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series in 1
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Samuel, Timely Prophet, Tragic King. Let's listen in. Well, good morning, everybody.
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Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, as Dave said. And I'm glad that you have taken time out of a beautiful Sunday morning to gather together as God's people.
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I'm going to take a few minutes here to introduce the message from God's Word, and then we're going to read what amounts to a super long text this morning.
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And then we're going to sing some songs of praise to our great God this morning as well. And so our text is one of the most familiar texts in all of Scripture.
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It's actually the longest full story in the book of 1
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Samuel. So again, it's going to be a little bit of a longer text reading. But David and Goliath is still a story that's become proverbial in our culture.
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I think you'd be hard -pressed to find somebody who can't draw some analogy, some understanding of David and Goliath out in our culture.
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Most people are familiar with this story. It appeals to an ideal, I would say, that our nation has adopted.
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It's kind of a core, it really strikes at a core value of America in the way that we think of it, the idea that even the little guy can succeed.
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Is that a story in our culture? You hear that regularly? Even the little guy can succeed. So we could potentially be moved to close our
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Bibles and say, I already had that done when I walked in. So we could just skip that, sing more songs, and be done.
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Because I think if we're honest, when we approach a piece of Scripture like this, like David and Goliath, we have some assumptions that we have already got it.
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Even when you're reading through the Bible in a year, you're going through it, and you get to this passage, 1 Samuel 17, you can read a little faster on this one.
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Because you know David and Goliath, right? That's what we can often think in our minds.
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But is that what the message of David and Goliath really is? Little guys, even little guys can be victorious, or as Veggie Tales had it, little guys can do big things, too.
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God forbid that we would take such a frivolous, weak, and petty application from His demonstration, from God's demonstration of His power on behalf of His people for salvation.
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That we would think that it's just about us. About our ability to overcome our personal giants.
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That is not at all what's going on here. God bends over backwards to make sure that David doesn't get credit for this victory.
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David bends over backwards to make sure that David doesn't get credit for this victory. You see, in our text, it's very important that we recognize that we like to make metaphors out of what is concrete.
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And so, we have our Goliaths, our giants in our lives, and we want to jump to the metaphorical application of this text, but let's deal with what the text is telling us first before we jump to application this morning.
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The enemy in our text is real. The enemy in our text is strong. The enemy is described in terms of awesome strength and power.
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We will certainly know, of course, spoiler alert, the giant is going to fall by the end of the text, but why?
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Why this account? Why this recorded for us in Scripture? Is it because David was good at slinging stones?
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Is that why the giant's going to fall? Is it because David was brave? Or is it because of the general notion from the book of Proverbs that arrogance and pride goes before the fall, and of course this giant was arrogant and proud, and therefore he falls?
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Or was it because God gives grace to those who are undeserving?
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Is that why the giant's going to fall? Or maybe even better stated, is it maybe because he is the savior and protector of his own glory and of his own great name?
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You see, in our text, we're going to see, indeed, David was brave. David is even going to show himself, in contrast, to be stronger and more brave than the mighty
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King Saul, the one who was head and shoulders above anybody in the nation of Israel. You see,
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David was smaller, he was younger, he was less trained in military strategy, but God was with him.
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But God was with him. David is clear that his trust was placed squarely on the shoulders of the almighty
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God. You see, if God doesn't bring victory in our text, then David knew that he would fail.
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He didn't rush out to battle with a plan B. Either God worked faithfully as he had in David's past, or David knew that he was toast.
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If God doesn't do something here, if God doesn't deliver him, then he's in trouble.
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You see, God forbid that we leave this morning encouraged that we can conquer our personal giants. But may
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God press deeply into our hearts a firm faith and trust in the only one who is bigger than your giants.
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If our trust is not in him for victory, then our trust is deeply, deeply, deeply misplaced.
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So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to 1 Samuel 17. You can find that on page 137 if you take the
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Bible under the seat in front of you. Otherwise, I don't mind if you're navigating in your app on a device to get there.
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But I would encourage you this morning, particularly as it is a longer passage, to please be patient with this reading.
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Follow along. Listen with your ears, with your eyes. But most importantly, I would encourage you to listen with your heart.
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Even as I read this this week and studied it and studied it, new things came to life to me as I was reading it.
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So work to listen with eyes of faith this morning as we read the entirety of 1
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Samuel 17 together. Follow along in whatever version God has in front of you.
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Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle, and they were gathered at Soco, which belongs to Judah and encamped between Soco and Ezekiel and Ephestim.
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And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered and encamped in the valley of Elah and drew up in line of battle against the
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Philistines. And the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side with a valley between them.
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And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits in his span.
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He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was 5 ,000 shekels of bronze.
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And he had bronze armor on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam.
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And his spear's head weighed 600 shekels of iron. And a shield bearer went before him.
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He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, why have you come out to draw up for battle?
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Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me.
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If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.
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And the Philistine said, I defy the ranks of Israel this day.
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Give me a man that we may fight together. When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the
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Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Now, David was the son of an
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Ephrathite of Bethlehem and Judah, named Jesse, who had eight sons. In the days of Saul, the man was already old and advanced in years.
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The three oldest sons of Jesse had followed Saul to the battle, and the names of his three sons who went to the battle were
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Eliab, the firstborn, and next to him Abinadab and the third Shammah. David was the youngest.
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The three eldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem.
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For forty days the Philistine came forward and stood and took his stand morning and evening.
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And Jesse said to David, his son, take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp of your brothers.
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Also take these ten cheeses to the commander of their thousand. See if your brothers are well, and bring some token from them.
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Now Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah fighting with the Philistines.
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And David rose early in the morning and left the sheep with the keeper and took the provisions and went, as Jesse had commanded him.
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And he came to the encampment as the host was going out to the battle and shouting the war cry. And Israel and the
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Philistines drew up for battle, army against army, and David left the things in charge of the keeper of the baggage and ran to the ranks and went and greeted his brothers.
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As he talked with them, behold, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistine and spoke the same words as before.
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And David heard him. All the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were much afraid.
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And the men of Israel said, have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel and the king will enrich the man who kills him with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel.
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And David said to the men who stood by him, what shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away this reproach from Israel?
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For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living
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God? And the people answered him the same way. So shall it be done to the man who kills him. Now Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spoke to the men and Eliab's anger was kindled against David and he said, why have you come down?
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And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption and evil of your heart where you've come down to see the battle.
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And David said, what have I done now? Was it but a word? And he turned away from him toward another and spoke in the same way.
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And the people answered him again as before. When the words that David spoke were heard, they repeated them before Saul and he sent for him.
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And David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.
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And Saul said to David, you are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him for you're but a youth.
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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.
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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.
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And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears and this uncircumcised
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Philistine shall be like one of them for he has defied the armies of the living God.
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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
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Philistine. And Saul said to David, go and the Lord be with you. Then Saul clothed
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David with his armor. He put a helmet of bronze on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail and David strapped his sword over his armor and he tried in vain to go for he had not tested them.
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Then David said to Saul, I cannot go with these for I have not tested them. So David put them off and he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd's pouch.
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The sling was in his hand and he approached the Philistine and the Philistine moved forward and came near David with a shield bearer in front of him.
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When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. And the
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Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed
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David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.
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Then David said to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the
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Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied. This day the
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Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you down and cut off your head and I will give the dead bodies of the hosts of the
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Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth that all the earth may know that there is a
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God in Israel and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear for the battle is the
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Lord's and he will give you into our hand. When the Philistines arose and came and drew near to meet
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David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine and David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the
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Philistine on the forehead and the stone sank into his forehead and he fell on his face to the ground.
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So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone and struck the Philistine and killed him.
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There was no sword in the hand of David. Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of his sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it.
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When the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled and the men of Israel and Judah rose with a shout and pursued the
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Philistines as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron so that the wounded Philistines fell on the way from Shurim and as far as Gath and Ekron and the people of Israel came back from chasing the
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Philistines and they plundered their camp and David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem but he put his armor in his tent.
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As soon as Saul saw David go out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of his army,
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Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, as your soul lives, O king, I do not know.
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And the king said, inquire whose son the boy is. And as soon as David returned from striking down the
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Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, whose son are you, young man?
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And David answered, I am the son of your servant, Jesse, the Bethlehemite. Let's pray.
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Father, we've just read an account that's very familiar to most of us. Father, I pray that you would help us to even just see this morning with fresh eyes of faith and trust,
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Father, to see that you are the great victor. You are the one who is providing salvation from our deepest and most grave enemies.
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The things that we can't overcome, our own sin and our own mortality, Father, the two things that loom the greatest in every human's life.
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Every person here, I know this to be true, that death is a reality and that sin is even more so a daily reality.
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And so, Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to see what this victory spells out for us, what is being modeled, what the example is here in this somewhat confusing text, a text that's been used by so many for so many various reasons that it can become watered down.
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Father, I pray that you would help us with a laser -like focus this morning to see your glory, your majesty in saving your people, in delivering us, in sending a greater
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David to us. And so, Father, I pray that as we have an opportunity to lift up our voices before you in song,
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Lord, that you would be moving in our hearts with gratitude and thankfulness that the battle is not ours, that though the giants around us do rage and though there is indeed a sense of sin within us and a brokenness within us, that there is hope because you are the deliverer, you are the protector of your people, and you are the one who, in the end, will bring us to better places of victory.
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So, Father, I pray that we would exalt in you, rejoice in your majestic deliverance and your grace toward us, in Jesus' name, amen.
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You can go ahead and find your seats, but if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts, feel free to take advantage of that.
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And then I would ask also that you please just open your Bibles or keep them open to 1 Samuel 17 as we walk through this text this morning, kind of taking it in chunks and looking through it.
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That will hopefully help you to be able to see that the things that I'm saying, I'm not making up. This is coming out of the
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Bible. So, the outline this morning is going to be a bit uneven. Sometimes texts require that a little bit, so verses 1 through 40 are going to show us the preparation for the battle, and that's where we're going to spend the lion's share of our time this morning.
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The majority of our time is going to be on those first 40 verses talking about the way that God prepares this battle. Then verses 41 through 51 show us the purpose of the battle, a little bit shorter there and then really short on the product of the battle, verses 52 through 58.
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So that's the outline, that's the breakdown, you can see that up there. But let's start with the preparation for the battle, the way that God prepares this.
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The first thing that we see in verses 1 through 11, we see the challenge of the enemy. God is going to open our eyes to the reality that there is indeed an enemy, there is one in this context for Israel, and he's going to describe that enemy.
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Now, people will tell you you need to know your enemy in order to defeat him, but in sometimes getting to know your enemy, you fear him, like that's the product, and that's what we're going to see here in this text.
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The Philistines and the nation of Israel tells us in the first couple of verses they drew up lines for battle across a valley from one another.
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Both of them held the high ground. Now, that was significant in ancient battle, having the high ground, and so they're on opposite sides of the valley, and to cross over, go down, to be exposed down in the valley, to allow the other side to ultimately see that you're coming across to attack, and then to attack them going uphill would be just like suicide.
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This is a basic stalemate is what we're looking at here in the way that ancient battle would work.
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By the way, when you think about this, them encamped on one side and them encamped on the other, don't think in terms of a real rocky, craggy kind of, it's a flowing valley that is there in Elah, and this is an actual picture of it here, so you can kind of see a hill on one side, and this is taken from the vantage point of another hill.
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You can see all the way across and down and through, so that's what we're looking at. The Philistines decided to use an ancient understood means of deciding and determining a battle called single battle or representative battle.
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Different historians will call it different things, but a champion from each side would fight to the death, and the losing side would be subject to the winning side.
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It was a representative kind of battle, the one warrior would stand for the army, the other would stand for the other army, and that would prevent the all out messiness and risk of all out war.
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If both sides agreed, this would happen occasionally, and even in Greek areas, this was a common application of battle.
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The Philistines thought that this was a great idea, the Philistines thought it was a great idea for obvious reasons.
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They had a troll of a man, they had a champion. The description we have of Goliath is one of the most detailed physical descriptions we have of anyone in scripture.
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We don't have a detailed physical description of Jesus Christ our Lord, we don't have a detailed physical description of many people in scripture, but we have an extremely detailed accounting of the way that Goliath looked, about his physical stature and his appearance.
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He was nine and a half feet tall, and just in case you're kind of going, okay, Don, deal with the credibility of that, the tallest man in modern history recorded was eight foot eleven, when he died he was still growing, so he could have very well hit nine feet if he had survived, he died in 1940, the tallest man alive today, as we speak, is eight foot three, so we're not outside the bounds of the proportions of potential for human height, and so nine and a half feet tall, his armor weighed a measly one hundred and twenty -five pounds.
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Now how many of you could, how many of you are pretty sure you could deadlift a hundred and twenty -five pounds right now? Go ahead and raise your hand, just show off for a second, you could lift a hundred and twenty -five pounds, really only, come on guys, show off a little bit, put your hand up.
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I think you could lift a hundred and twenty -five pounds pretty easily, how many of you want to carry that around with you all day? Like there's a difference, right, like I mean, this is the weight on his shoulders of the force of his armor, he had bronze plate mail according to the description, with bronze greaves over his legs, he had a ranged weapon, you need to understand the armaments that he has in his disposal on his personage, he's carrying a javelin slung at his back that was used for distance warfare, this is a, it didn't have a head on it, it was just a spear of sorts that was used to throw at an enemy for ranged attacks so he could attack somebody from a distance, he had a spear that was about twenty feet long that he, the difference between a javelin and a spear, the spear is not for throwing, the spear is for thrusting, he would keep that in his hands at all times during battle unless the person got closer into him and then he would dispose of the spear, drop that and grab his sword out of his scabbard.
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Now the head of his spear, it's declared, is fifteen pounds and the length of his spear was the length of a weaver's beam, a weaver's beam was about twenty feet long, so this guy has a pretty good range of a mid -range attack, he's pretty well within his grasp, can you imagine holding fifteen pounds out, twenty feet away from your body, just that alone?
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Most of us in the room couldn't pick up that much weight that far out and so just to leverage it we wouldn't be able to do that.
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So this guy is extremely powerful and above and beyond all this he has an armor bearer who was marching out in front of him carrying a shield so that if somebody got too close he could drop the spear, pull out a sword and the armor bearer would hand him his shield and now he's all still protected but can dispatch enemies at a close range.
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So he's got the distance attack, he's got the mid -range attack and he's got the close -up warfare all sealed up.
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And above and beyond this it's just this mere size that we're talking about here. He was a
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Goliath of a man, proverbially speaking. Everything about his description by the way, there is one primary reason that the text goes into such detail to describe him, intimidation.
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He is not a minor inconvenience to Israel. It's annoying sometimes to hear applications on this passage that amount to slaying your poor self -image or slaying those nagging negative thoughts that you have from time to time.
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This giant is a real flesh and blood opposition to God's people. He is formidable.
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He represents an impossible barrier to the ongoing existence of God's people. His spear draws real blood.
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His armor seems impenetrable and his curses cause genuine trembling and fear among the people of God.
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And twice a day, for 40 days, the battle lines would come to attention, they would draw up across the valley.
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Goliath would walk out to the base of the valley floor and shout his challenge to the people. And if you look at verse 8 with me, you'll see what he's basically getting at in his challenge.
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"'Didn't you come here to fight?' says Goliath, mockingly. "'Why are you even lined up here?
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Didn't you come to fight? Then let's fight. Aren't you servants of Saul? Am I not a Philistine?
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I thought you wanted to be done with us. Come on.'" He's taunting them. He defies, the text says, the ranks of Israel.
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He mocks them. Doesn't seem to have any fear. And King Saul and company in verse 11 have the exact opposite.
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They were dismayed, it says, and terrified, greatly afraid, the ESV says. Now the nation of Israel, I want to point out, had judged to determine to find for themselves a king based on stature.
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Do you remember that? For those of you that have been here part of this series, you would hopefully remember as they were selecting
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King Saul, they selected a man who was head and shoulders taller than anybody else in Israel.
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They chose what they perceived to be the most mighty and powerful among them to be their king.
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They wanted a king just like the nations. So he's a full head and shoulders taller than anyone else.
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He, King Saul, should be the one to go and face this giant, right?
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You guys see that? I hope you understand that from the history, from the culture, even from the descriptions of the text, but he is there cowering.
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You see, according to the text, Saul is one of the only ones in all of Israel who has armor.
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He's one of the only ones in all of Israel that even has a sword. All the rest of the military are armed with farming implements that they've tried to make into weapons and things like that, and so he's the one with a sword.
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He's the one with the call to defend the nation. He's the one who should be marching out to the valley floor to meet this challenge, but he is dismayed, and he's cowering.
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And once again, we can stand in judgment over Saul, except ask yourself who best reflects you in this text?
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You see, what we're going to want to do in just a moment is we're going to want to identify ourselves as David. We're going to want to talk about our personal giants and how with the right training and the right strength and the right trust even, we can slay our giants.
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We'll take them all out one by one. Just for a moment in honesty, identify yourself with Saul here.
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Have you been raised like I have been to look with my eyes? To assess according to the external things
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I can see? Are you like me? Do you like to weigh your options carefully?
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To cautiously run with the safest of bets? You see, if we're taking in this battle scene as it's described for us here in this text at the start of chapter 17, our money to a person in this room is on Goliath.
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To a person. We would put our bets on Goliath, and if we were the one going out to battle against him, we wouldn't want to suit up either.
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We'd be back hiding with Saul. I believe that that's true. You know, you go, aren't there
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Davids in the world? I think there probably are, and I think there are few and far between. I really do.
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I think the vast majority of the human race identifies here with King Saul, and the fact of the matter is, if you're in this room and you identify with David rightly, you wouldn't tell a soul.
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None of us would even know it. We don't even know the Davids that are in our midst, although we can see as judged by the external, and I can tell you that most of us run in fear in this situation.
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The Spirit of God, by the way, had left Saul. We already know that before we've encountered this text. And so Saul only has the ability to assess the situation with his eyes, with his flesh, with his self, just what he has here.
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He doesn't have the Spirit in him to assess, so it's no wonder he's dismayed and terrified. You see, when
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Saul looks out at his army and he looks at the challenge in front of him, Saul sees this one thing to be true.
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There is no giant in our midst. There is nobody of the stature and power and might and authority of Goliath that I've got on my team.
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There's nobody here who can stand up to a giant like that. That's Saul's assessment. And then verse 12.
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I love how often God, in the midst of painting a dark and dire picture for His people, then seems to interrupt
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Himself, and it just seems like it comes out of nowhere. Now David, now
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David, and all of a sudden we're talking about David. I thought there was this battle going on. And He suddenly inserts a conversation about this young man,
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David. But David, and verse 12 breaks in like the refreshing grace of God that we need when we recognize how beset we are by the enemy.
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We need a break if we're taking this scene on correctly. God's people are set against by an impossible challenge, and even the strongest among them are trembling.
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But now we enter the second part of the preparation of battle. We have seen the challenge, but now we see
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God set up His plan to meet the challenge in verses 12 through 40. A man named
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Jesse, who's getting on in years, had eight sons, the youngest named David. And David served
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Saul as his music therapist, but it says in the text, he went back and forth in the service of Saul and in the service of Jesse, taking care of the sheep.
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His three eldest brothers served in the army of Saul, and so Jesse sent David to check up on things and probably to just make sure everything was fine with Saul.
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Remember, he was his music therapist and would play for him from time to time, and so he has responsibility to both the king and to his father.
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So Jesse sends little David with some provisions for his sons. By the way, we're going to see here in just a moment that David might not have been as little as you want to picture in your mind, because he's going to try on the armor of King Saul, and it's not because of like the veggie tales where it didn't fit.
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There's no indication that the armor of King Saul didn't fit David, it's just that he hadn't tested it, he hadn't tried it out yet.
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He was like, I don't fight with armor on, I'm more of a slinger kind of guy, I'm not an armor fighter like that.
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But so David is on his way, and he took the 13 -mile journey, and he providentially arrived right at the time when the armies were lining up for the evening challenge.
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Twice a day, Goliath would come out, they'd line up, and he shows up just at that time. And he's bringing cheese for the commander of his brother's squad, and he's bringing them food and stuff.
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And so as a young man, I'm sure that as he arrives there, probably loaded up a donkey or something, he arrives, the commotion drew his attention.
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I think that probably as a young man, Eliab doesn't get it all wrong, I think he wanted to see some battle, he was like, oh, this is where Israel's going to take you to the
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Philistines, I want to be there, I want to see this. So he parked a pickup in the unloading zone, and ran to the front lines to see the action, and that moment would change this young man forever.
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Look at verse 23, Goliath stepped forward and spouted his challenge.
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And I think the three most beautiful words that are going to have dramatic impact on Goliath and David, David heard him.
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That's where it all goes wrong for Goliath, David heard him.
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Have you ever considered this day, this day that we're talking about here,
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David and Goliath, that day from David's perspective. Now he woke up at home,
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I doubt that he was out with the sheep on that morning, because his dad, Jesse, had already told him probably the night before, hey, you're going to take a trip,
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I need you to go up to Ella, support the troops, see how your brothers are doing, and I want you to bring me back word about it.
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And so he woke up at home, and it's a rare day, it's not the most common of days for David, he didn't wake up out in the pasture, but he still is
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David. He woke up that morning in his father's house, takes this trip. This was a day that God was going to use him for glory.
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Now we don't know, we don't know what each day will hold, but let this account remind you what each day might hold for you, what today might be for you.
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This very day, this very Sunday, today could be a day that God lets you hear the giant.
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You may be called on this day to take bold action in faith. Or this, on the reverse side, this could be a day where temptation assails you that would destroy your life were you to give in to it.
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I see in this text a call to draw close to God in prayer and in His word at the start of each day.
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Not so that you get to check a box and say you had a quote -unquote quiet time, but so that you're prepared to stand strong in faith for whatever this day might hold.
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David heard this challenge from the giant, and I think that hearing the challenge obviously had an impact and a stirring in his soul, but I have a hunch that what stirred him the most was the troop's response to this challenge given by this giant.
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He watched the men of Israel flee from the line of battle in fright. So someone in the army took it upon themselves to say,
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David, did you see this guy? This guy is raised up to challenge us, and then proceeds to tell
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David the rewards that King Saul will offer to the one who would kill
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Goliath. He says, this unnamed person in the army says to David, great riches,
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Saul's daughter's hand in marriage and tax exemption for his entire family. This is what
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Saul will do for the one who kills this giant. And I have to confess that for many years
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I thought that that motivated David to some degree because he goes and he turns and he asks two other people about this very thing.
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He's going to ask for confirmation about the rewards that are offered to the person. But there is so much more going on in David's line of questioning here that begins to tease out the fact that the rewards are not it at all.
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He's using that as a speaking point to get to the soldiers and figure out what their motivation is.
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In verse 26, we're going to see the theological core of this text, what this is telling us about David and ultimately about God himself.
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Because Saul has offered a reward for the one who kills Goliath. Do you see that in the text?
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That's the way it reads. And David doesn't turn around and say, tell me again what I get for killing
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Goliath. But he changes Saul's offer. He changes the words to tweak it to what he hears this giant doing.
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David doesn't turn around and ask for confirmation about killing Goliath. Instead, he asks, tell me again what will be done for the one who takes away this reproach from Israel?
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For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living
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God? That's the line of questioning that David is asking to the soldiers.
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He's seeing if there's a spark of life in any of these soldiers. Is there a spark of faith in anyone here?
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That's why he's asking the question. Not, hey, who's motivated by Saul's daughter?
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Who's motivated by the riches? Who's motivated by tax exemption? That's not it at all.
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You see, what we're getting here is we're getting a contrast in the way that Saul saw things and the way that David saw things.
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In the way that the soldiers throughout Israel saw things and the way that David saw things. You see,
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Saul's mindset sees a giant to be killed. Whoever kills him is going to get something for it.
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But David sees an honor to be restored. And further and more centrally, Saul sees the confrontation in military terms.
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There's a giant standing in the way. But David sees this in theological terms.
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There's a pagan who serves dead and lifeless idols, challenging our living and active
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God. Do you hear the difference? A significant difference in the way that they're viewing the very same events.
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You ever encounter that in your life? You see things one way because you're a person of faith and others are looking at it totally different.
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I think that's a routine thing for us. The rich depth of this, by the way, the rich depth of this faith in David doesn't make it into the children's books at all.
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Because it's hard to draw a picture of the eyes of faith that David has in pictures and drawings.
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You can't really get down to the heart of what's going on in David very well in a picture book. David isn't asking out of selfish motives so that he can get the wealth or the woman or the tax exemption.
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He's testing the waters of the warriors around him for who will stand up by faith and trust in the living and active
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God to deliver. But here in our text, David is the only one who seems to see the situation for what it is.
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Let me say this. Our first and most central application that I want us to camp out in,
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I hope that all of us can grasp this and take it on, it's the first application but maybe the one that I want most to get through to all of us and has nothing to do with giants, has nothing to do with stones or slings or even battles.
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And it's simply this, to ask yourself this question this morning, do you see things correctly?
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Do you really take in and see what is going on around you? Do you have spiritual eyes to see?
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You see, David saw in theological terms what Saul and the rest of the army only could take in in material and earthly terms.
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And in our flesh, we will only ever see the surface of things. But in faith and the pursuit of God, our eyes can be open to what's really going on around us.
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Without Christ, we don't have, even have eyes to see the reality of the evil intentions in the world around us.
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We will of course will be taken hook, line, and sinker in every form of entertainment and everything that the world throws at us and we will be tossed to and fro by everything because we won't have eyes to see the reality of what is going on.
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But with the eyes of faith, we see the battle that is really going on around us between God and evil.
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Here in these first words of David, these are the first words of David in scripture recorded for us. And David demonstrates the right perspective in verse 26.
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Goliath is not opposing Israel. Goliath is not opposing merely King Saul, but he is defying the armies of the one true active and living creator,
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God. And David identifies that correctly. Saul's eyes beheld a giant and he had nobody in his army to oppose a giant like Goliath.
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But David's eyes beheld a giant and he thought him to be no challenge at all for the giant
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God that David served. Saul had no giant to fight on his team, but David knows the giant that is bigger than Goliath.
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And therefore, he operates according to a whole different set of rules than the rest of the army and Saul.
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Are you alive to the spiritual implications of the things that are going on around you? Eyes of faith see the spiritual realities behind everyday things and spiritual eyes help us to turn routine daily activities into worship because we see that God is on the move all around us and we know how powerful and awesome our
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God truly is. David was prepared to meet this challenge because he had grown in his faith and trust in the living
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God who is bigger than this little giant with the cursing and the armor and the cute little sharp weapons.
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Just like real life, just like so often when we begin to take our faith seriously, David immediately faces two challenges before he can enter into this battle.
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His older brother Eliab overhears David challenging people toward faith and he gets bothered and all salty about it.
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Sometimes criticism for serious faith comes from those closest to us. Have you seen that? Have you experienced that in your own life?
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I can hear people say to a new believer, oh, now look who's got religion. Look who thinks they're too good for the rest of us.
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Whether it's from relatives or friends, when we take our faith seriously, there's always someone all too eager to point out that we're taking
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God too seriously. It's okay to have faith, just don't take it too seriously.
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And Eliab is brutal to his brother here. Aren't you supposed to be taking care of that little flock of sheep, little boy?
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Why don't you scurry along and head back home to daddy? You came down here to see the battle and now you're stirring just trying to cause one.
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David appears to be used to the criticism from his older brother, just the way that he says, what did I do? What did I say? And then he just turns around and does it again.
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This is awesome. This little brother, anybody that's ever had a little brother knows exactly how that works.
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So he turns and he asks again and word spread that David was challenging the army to think about this in terms of faith in God and so he was brought before King Saul.
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Hey, here's somebody who's trying to stir up the army. Here's somebody who's trying to take leadership. Here's somebody who's trying to figure out, is there an element of faith in this army at all?
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And of course, right away, Saul takes in the shepherd and doubts him too.
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From verses 32 to 37, he doesn't even cast aspersions on David's size, which again is a lot of times in our mind, little, little, tiny shepherd boy, who's going to try on the king's armor.
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Were they doofuses? Were they ignorant? Did they think a little boy was going to wear this guy's armor?
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No. I mean, David is strapping. He's not a tiny little guy. Get that image out of your mind.
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But Saul is going to say, you're inexperienced. That's going to be the criticism. So from 32 to 37,
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David makes a case for Saul to let him go fight. And despite what many have taught, David's reasoning is not that he's been brave and courageous in the face of wild beasts attacking his sheep.
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That's not the argument. I've done this before. I can do it again. We skip to verse 37 to get to the bottom of David's reasons for going out to fight
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Goliath. And this is where the significance of David's understanding comes in. The Lord, the
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Lord, the Lord, he says, has delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear.
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More than once, according to verse 36, lions, bears, plural, not just once or twice, he has experience with the deliverance of God.
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And David's trust is in the Lord and that the Lord who has been faithful in the past will be faithful in the present to deliver him again this day against the giant.
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In verse 37, David adamantly poses the idea that he will be the deliverer.
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David would not take that title for himself. He's not the deliverer. He openly and clearly declares, look at the text, look at verse 37, he declares himself to be in need of deliverance that God alone can provide.
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In other words, as David takes these stones, the sling, the staff, his shepherd's bag, by the way, he didn't just take the sling and stones, he takes his staff, he takes his shepherd's bag with him, the things that he was familiar with, and he takes those things and he goes out to face
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Goliath. He has zero trust in his strength, zero trust in his accuracy to sling stones, zero trust in his training.
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He doesn't believe that he will save the day. He believes rather that the living
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God will be faithful to deliver him on this day. Do you hear the difference?
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Not I'm going to deliver all of you, but I'm going to be the one that's going to be used by faith to show that God will deliver me today.
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That's the kind of boldness that he had going out into this. I would suggest to you that the most defining thing about you, the thing that determines your benefit to those around you is the degree to which you trust the living
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God. That's the best thing about you. That's the best thing that you have to offer to the world around you.
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That's what makes you of benefit and good to those around you is the degree to which you trust the living
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God. Do you believe that he is good? Do you believe he saves his people? Well, it's interesting because rather than suiting up himself as Saul should have already done,
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Saul puts his armor on David. I would suggest to you that this amounts in some sense to the temptation for David to give in to the worldly means of protection against this giant, to do something that's contrary and counter to what
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God has called him to. In a more contemporary way, consider what the
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Christian carries into the spiritual battle. What do we have to bring to the spiritual battle that's going on around us?
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There are only two weapons that the New Testament declares for the follower of Christ. Only two things that we have as we engage in the spiritual battle and the enemies of darkness around us.
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It's just the word of God, it's this, and prayer. These weapons,
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I believe, look very foolish to the world around us. Would you agree with me on that? The word of God, what's that going to do?
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Isn't that just an ancient, dusty book? And prayer, talking to someone you can't see?
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It looks foolish. And so I would suggest to you that many churches add smoke machines and laser light shows and high -caliber programming and trendy coffee and donut holes from sweetwaters.
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How did that get in the notes? No. But honestly, I believe a church is only victorious in as much as it is trusting the word and prayer to beat back the darkness.
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The world will tell us we need to add worldly methods to the church to push back the darkness.
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And what we need most is we need prayer and the word. Simple, simple, but profound weapons given to us by Christ.
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So much attention has been given to the five smooth stones. It's really funny. Some of the commentaries that I read this week and some of the stuff that I did in my research said that you're basically committing pastoral, what's the right word, you know, you're just being unfaithful if you don't have five points to this sermon.
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You've got to have a point for every stone, right? The five smooth stones and you've got to have one, you know, number one, work hard at it.
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Number two, you know, practice and lean on the trust, lean on the practice that you put out in the field and, you know, whatever.
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And I only want to mention the number five and that I see it as significant. David didn't know how this was going to go down.
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Do you realize that that's the significance of the number five here? The number five reminds me that God doesn't give us all the details when we step out in faith.
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You see, David is stepping forward in confidence in God, but he still has butterflies in his stomach.
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I believe at least as much as when you go out to play a basketball game or you're getting ramped up for something. I mean,
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I think David is like, I don't know how this is going to go down. David only needed one stone, but he thought he might need five and he brought his staff thinking maybe that'll be helpful.
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I don't know how this is going to fit in here, but I'm going to have the staff too. I've spent the lion's share of the sermon on the preparation for battle because that's where the theological force really is found.
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But as we wrap up quickly in these last two points, we're going to see the purpose of the battle and the product of the battle.
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But both of those flow significantly from this first section, the preparation for the battle.
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David was prepared to trust in God by a whole life of faith.
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A lot of history that had gone, that's unrecorded for us except in his Psalms where we see this young shepherd crying out to his
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God in dependence and trust on him. And we see this vibrant relationship of this boy developed over the younger years of his life that led him to be used in this way, that prepared him to trust in the faithfulness that introduced him to the living
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God. So the purpose of the battle is found, the second point, the purpose of the battle, and it's found in this pre -battle trash talk between Goliath and David.
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That's where we get the revelation of the purpose of this whole thing. Goliath, by the way, immediately in this trash talk, he's offended by his opponent.
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Couldn't you have come up with something better than this? At least give me someone who can shave. He brought a little staff, so do you think
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I'm a dog that needs a stick of correction? Oh puppy, get out of the way. I'm not a dog, says
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Goliath. And Goliath then proceeds to say something like, by the power of Dagon, you're crushed today.
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I'm going to break you by the power of my gods, says
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Goliath. And it says he trash talked David by his gods in verse 43.
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But the purpose of this battle is revealed in verse 46, in David's speech back to him. You see,
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David understood that he was caught up in something bigger than himself, and so in confidence in the faithfulness of his
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God, he tells the giant that no, you can talk to me about all of your little G gods, but Yahweh, and he uses
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God's personal name here, Yahweh, the Lord, will give you to me today for his purposes.
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And here is the reason why, Goliath, you want to know why you're going to die today? That all the earth may know that there is a
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God in Israel. That all the earth might know that there is a true and living
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God. And that's why David understood, the deck is stacked against me so that God gets the glory for this.
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This is a theological confrontation that has global implications that we would be sitting here in Matawan, Michigan, delighting in the fact that God delivers his people.
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This is the almighty God defending his glory against all other little G gods.
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This is not David defending his God. This isn't David slaying his giants.
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This is God saving his people so that the world will know the faithful protection of God toward his people.
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And further in verse 47, the benefit to his people will be that you and I, as those under his covenant, will realize that we need not spend so much time assessing our enemies.
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The Lord is not impressed by swords, by spears, by height, by human strength.
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Our God is a giant above all giants, a God above all little
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G gods. The battle is always, always, only ever his.
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The battle always belongs to the living God. The battle is quick.
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You know how it goes. Goliath says, come at me, bro. They run towards one another. I watched something this morning that somebody had passed along to me.
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I just want to point this out. Somebody actually would say in a TED talk, and just in case anybody here has seen this, I'm going to go out into this for a second.
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They've indicated in a TED talk, Malcolm Gladwell thinks that Goliath was blind, gives all kinds of false evidences for that.
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You can read the text and tell me if you think Goliath was blind or not. I don't believe it for a second. And even his, all of his arguments are completely faulty.
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They rush toward one another. One of his arguments is that Goliath stands still and says, come to me.
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Well, he certainly says that, but then they actually go to battle towards one another. And we see that David slings a stone, and the stone flies, hear me carefully, miraculously true.
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Miraculously true. Not true based on training, true based on skillfully true.
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Miraculously true. And the giant falls down, mostly dead. David finishes the job with Goliath's own sword.
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By the way, people get all hung up on the cause of death. In the ancient world, they weren't so concerned about cause of death.
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There wasn't any medical staff on site to determine whether or not he died by the rock or whether he died by the sword, but the whole complex kind of had its way with Goliath.
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And at the end of the day, Goliath is dead, and David takes Goliath's own sword and cuts off his head.
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And the product of the battle can be summarized, this third point, by the victory of God and the rise of his servant,
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David. Saul becomes very interested in David and asks about his family because he has some riches and some tax exemption to dole out.
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He also will need to make arrangements with David's father for a wedding. Now some of you are going, wait, last week's text,
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Saul knew David's father, Jesse. It actually says that. And then he went into service of Saul.
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So how in the world could Saul not know who David is? Well, I think that as many attendants as Saul had over the course of his life, some years have passed, and he needs to be for sure who
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David's father is in order to make these arrangements. So David put the city of Jerusalem, by the way,
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Jerusalem is not an Israelite territory yet. It's not in Israelite control. A group of people called the
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Jebusites currently hold it. It's a stronghold, hard to conquer. It's going to eventually be known as the city of David because David will conquer it.
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And it says that he posted the head of Goliath in Jerusalem. Why? He puts them on notice.
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He says, we've conquered here and this is coming next. But the man -centered view of this text is the one we have most likely been taught.
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The story stokes an independent optimism of the American spirit that says even a little guy can do great things with enough training and determination.
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Stick to it and you can get a spot in the NBA. Stick to it and you're going to be a major league baseball player.
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Stick to it and you're eventually going to get your big break and overcome your Goliaths. And instead, instead as David stands there holding the grotesque head of the giant, he would declare to you that only
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God can deliver you. Only God. In a sense,
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David serves as a type of Christ, by the way. He is the conduit through which salvation flowed. Through David, the salvation was a military salvation that came to them by faith.
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But through Christ, what we receive, he is a conduit of a more holistic salvation by faith.
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Victory over our gravest of enemies, sin and death.
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As we come to communion this morning, consider the darkness and the hopelessness that was once yours in Christ as the giant came out each morning and evening to challenge you.
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Sin, death, sin, death, no way to overcome.
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And for everyone in this room, the abyss of eternal punishment was once over our lives.
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But God sent his son to break into our history and pay the penalty we all owed for our sins.
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So if you believe that, if you're here this morning and you've asked Jesus to save you from the enemy of your soul, then come to communion and thank him for his victory this morning.
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But if you've not asked him to save you, then I'd encourage you to skip communion and just consider for a moment, does the giant come out every day to shout challenges at you?
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If that's you this morning, then please, maybe today is a day of salvation for you. Maybe today is a day of victory for you.
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But come and talk with me and come and talk to Dave or a friend that you have here or something and ask them, how can
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I receive this victory? Today might be a day where you realize that a greater
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David has stepped up and fought for your victory. Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you so much for the victory that we have in Christ, our greater David, the one who is the conduit through which salvation has come to your people.
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And Father, I pray that you would protect us all from the notions that we are Davids, that we can pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and slay our own giants.
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That's absolutely the opposite point of this text. Father, that you worked mightily on behalf of your people to provide salvation for them.