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Sermon by Josh Rice from 1 Samuel 17.
Turn your Bibles to the lengthy chapter of 1st Samuel 17. This is one that even if you haven't been in scripture much you've heard this one. I'm gonna read a section. I'm gonna start in verse 4. Then a champion came out from the camps of the Philistines named Goliath from Gath whose height was six cubits and a span and He had a bronze helmet on his head and he was clothed with scale armor and the weight of that scale armor was 325 ,000 shekels of bronze.
He also had bronze greaves on his legs and a bronze javelin slung between his shoulders and the shaft of his spear was like a Weaver's beam and the head of his spear weighed 600 shekels of iron. His shield carrier also walked before him and he stood and called out to the battle lines of Israel and said to them Why do you come out to arrange yourselves for battle?
Am I not the Philistine and you slaves of Saul choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. The the question that plagued me a Couple weeks ago and even through this week is how do you introduce the most famous story in the Old Testament?
The story that and and I know because I'm a public school teacher the Knowledge of scripture is non-existent in the world today. No, no one know what we as Christians think. Oh the story of the Red Sea parting or Abraham and and Isaac and all these stories.
People know nothing of them. They're they're they're gone. They're out of the cultural psyche, but this story this one right here. Everybody's heard of David versus Goliath and everybody has an idea of what it means.
We use these terms all the time in culture. The worst football team like at the end of the game if you're the underdog and you got one play to score you do what's called David strategies like crazy plays because you have nothing to lose.
Right any mismatch that we have politically in sports anywhere else is labeled a David versus Goliath matchup. And so even in a post-christian America, this story is in the cultural mix. It's in the psyche of our culture and so I think the question that we have to come to with this text first of all is like why.
Why. Because I don't think many people when surveyed would say many of us who have been in church for a long time. You've said what's the most important story of the Old Testament? I don't know that many would say this.
But I think I think that it is. I think that it is for many reasons. And so that's one of the things I'm going to try to prove to you this morning. Because I think this is in many ways the story of the Old Testament.
Because it is powerful. It's very powerful. Think and consider that it's the undoubted climax to first Samuel. Which I think is one of the greatest stories in the Bible and is undoubtedly a part of the greatest story ever told.
Which is the redemptive history as laid out in Scripture. So today what I want you to think of is that the first part here. We're gonna go into the text and we're gonna walk around in it. Like we're observing something and we're gonna we're gonna look around at what's in there.
And then we'll try to try to grab that and bring it all together at the end. So without any more introduction. Here's David and Goliath. It's a long Important story a couple of things that we need to look around at first is you'll notice that this chapter has 58 verses.
This is the longest narrative in Scripture about David. It has 22 quotations and the longest quotation is from Goliath himself. We're given a lot of details. We're given a lot of details. The the idea is if you if you watch movies and you've kind of been around good storytelling.
The climax is usually Punctuated with a lot of details. Maybe you see what time it is on someone's wristwatch and a couple of tumbleweeds blow through town and you see like Writing on the signposts and the doorways and there's a dust and we know what the temperature is and we know everything that's going on.
That's kind of what chapter 17 is. It stands apart outside of time. This this chapter has curiosities and questions about it. But as far as the details go we get a lot of details. We know everything about what Goliath is wearing, right?
He is he is. Probably ten feet tall. Okay more on that later. The Septuagint translators were a little bit embarrassed like by that and they tried to make him six and a half feet. That's not a very good reading that all the ancient tests agree that he was this six cubits in a span.
Which is somewhere between nine and a half feet to ten and a half feet depending on what you call a cubit. Why does six and a half feet not work? Well his mail and his armor weighed 125 pounds, so he was carrying basically a full woman on his.
On his torso walking around in the battle his spear the spearhead weighed 15 pounds. If you've ever thrown a 15 pound bowling ball. You can imagine what kind of strength it would take to lift that above your shoulder and heave it at an enemy.
I don't think I could hit Abby from here with a 15 pound bowling ball. He has a huge bronze javelin, which is another word for a scimitar. That's sheathed behind his back between his shoulder blades and he has a huge helmet.
We even know in this chapter all the details, right? We know how many cheeses that Jesse tells David to go bring to the army and the types of grains in the lobes. We know which brothers of David are at the battle.
We know what Saul's doing. We understand in great detail. Which stone David picks up how he goes and fights the battle what Goliath is saying? We get all of this detail and then in the midst of that we get these questions that make people want to just have Theological nerd bro time sitting around the campfire arguing with each other.
Great authors do this if you're a super nerd and you've ever listened to Jake and I's podcast endeavor. You would know that we have spent about 75 hours talking about the Lord of the Rings. This story is approximately 10 million times better than the Lord of the Rings and the reason why is because it looks backward it looks Forward and the story in the present is compelling extremely compelling.
But I said that it adds frustrating details. There's two really frustrating details that make theology guys just sit here and argue with each other endlessly. One of them is this we just did chapter 16 last week.
There's a question. Why is David back in the fields of Bethlehem taking taking care of his father's sheep after he's been made Saul's permanent? Cordier and armor-bearer in chapter 16 and the answers very widely.
Some people say well. Maybe this happened before chapter 16. Some people say well. Maybe Saul just had a you know. He was deranged and sent him out because he got mad one day. And then we have even a more perplexing question in this text if you look in verse 55.
It seems that Saul doesn't even recognize who David is. David goes out to battle and Saul's like who is that guy? Who's his dad? I? Think I do have a fairly good explanation for that later. But suffice it to say if you read a commentary of 1st Samuel 17.
They will endlessly be arguing about these two questions and that is a mark of great literature. The author doesn't give you everything the author wants you to talk about it. The author wants to you to argue about it.
The author wants you to make up some some ideas of what this could possibly mean and So for us that the question for us, I think it goes back to the beginning. Why is this story so important? Why why does the author put it here set it out in time?
We don't know when it happened. There's there's mystery about it. And then we get all these details and we have to ask why why did God intend for this to stand out? Why is this such an important story for us?
So let's start to try to unravel that and I think I think the first thing that we should see in this story is An unmistakable truth of life that we often mistake and that is that there are two distinct and unmistakable sides.
There are sides. Verse 3 tells us if you look at it says now the Philistines stood on the mountain on one side while Israel stood on the mountain on the other side with a valley between them figuratively speaking and Literally speaking you are either on the mountain with God's people or you're on the other side on the mountain with people who hate God's People and who hate God and don't think he's real.
And so what we have is human beings. We like to look at that unmistakable truth and we like to say nah I'd rather sit in the squishy middle and that's where we like to sit. We like to say, you know that being on the Lord's side and singing songs.
Like who's on the Lord's side and having sermon titles like who's gonna stand for the Lord? That doesn't make some people feel good and that's not very winsome. Because it seems like I got a lot of nice neighbors and friends and stuff and they don't know anything about Jesus.
They're nice. Like they're they don't hate God. But the scripture doesn't give us that. You're on the Lord's side and you trust him and you trust his promises or you hate God. How you package your God hatred just shows the level of your depravity.
All right. So those of us who think that we are going to bend God to our will and buy heaven and eternal life for ourselves. What we do is we try to act moral and act nice while inside of our hearts there's a desperate plea and an understanding that I just don't know if I'm good enough and I really know that I'm not because I know all the evil horrible things if you think that you are a moral nice person Outside of Christ then I invite you to just write down every thought you have during the course of the day.
And then let's just put it on the internet. Now some people do that already and it's called social media. And if you've ever been there, you would realize that we are not a good moral people. We hate each other.
We are full of malice and we don't care anything about what God says. So the first thing we can see is which side are you on and even if you're on the right side. That doesn't mean you're gonna act like the good guy because we start to see that really quickly.
But let's look at the bad side first. The side of the Philistines. What are the Philistines. The Philistines are people who trust explicitly in their metallurgy and their weaponry and Here they trust explicitly in what you see which is a huge hulking champion that no one in their right mind is going to face.
Anybody want to go out and fight the 10-foot tall giant with 125 pound armor? For the for the fate of your family because that's what's on display here. And what Goliath does is he does what many God haters do and he looks at his personal strength.
He looks at his material possessions. He looks at the power of the armies behind him and he stands and he confidently threatens and taunts God. Do we not taunt God when we say things like, you know, I'm just not sure if he exists or not.
I Don't know you'll have to convince me that God created everything. You'll have to convince me that Jesus died on the cross and people search for these answers when we know it is an apparent fact. That this world was created.
All the other ideas about our absolute stupidity. Because all you have to do is go one step further back at time and there's no explanation for the scientist. Just go one step further back from where they start and they have no answer.
Big bang. Well, what was there to bang? Hmm. So what we do is we make up our lies to try to spiral and to deny that God exists. Goliath does the same thing. He sits and he yells at the people of Israel and he says blasphemies and he even he even hones his lies.
He's very effective. Goliath is not a stupid giant. Right. What Goliath does is he hits on the fears of Israel? Notice what he said. What I read at the beginning is he talks about them being slaves to Saul.
Is that not from the warning this Samuel gave the people that if you ask for this King among yourselves. Then he's going to enslave you. He's going to oppress you. Saul hits. Saul has done that. They've brought them out to our to battle here and Goliath hits on their weak spot.
Goliath makes fun of their military prowess. Why do you? Arrange yourselves as for battle. Do you even have any swords really? Do you have anything that you can threaten us with? Why don't you save your blood.
It's really like Nahash back a few chapters ago. What Goliath says is save all your blood and just be enslaved to us and sacrifice one man for your country. Who will be sacrificed for your country? So that you can enter into Philistine slavery because this is another lie that human beings tell themselves.
We tell ourselves that we are autonomously free. I can do whatever I want. There's no claims on me whatsoever and in doing that you prove over and over again that you are a slave to sin and a slave to your passions.
Because if I can do whatever I want, I'm going to be a slave to whatever I want. And whatever I want is going to bring destruction. Many of you have gone down that path and you've lived that life and you're here today because that path does not work.
You're gonna be a slave to Christ or you're gonna be a slave to your own desires in the world. Basically if you want to sum it up what Goliath says to the people he says you are puny slaves of Saul and your God.
Will not deliver you from me and my Philistine gods who are much stronger than your God. What does Saul do? When faced with this relentless taunting what Saul says in verse 11. It says Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine and they were dismayed and greatly afraid.
And you know what Saul did? He took up the same posture of fear and trembling before the enemies of God and he did it for 40 days. And he listened to this man this enemy of God come out and taunt them for 40 days day and night.
Have you heard 40 days before? Yeah, 40 days of judgment. So standing afraid. Trembling and all the people trembling with you because as you know, so goes the King so goes the kingdom this 40 days. Should echo the flood it should remind you that what happens is the judgment of God is coming and for the Israelites the judgment of God is here but praise be to Christ that what God always does is he delivers his people and he raises up a man to deliver them and In this story, he raises up the most unlikely person imaginable.
Everyone in this story is looking at appearances everyone except for one person. One person sees things the way they really are. Let's look deeper at Goliath. I want to I want to look at him as we're watching around in verse 4 and verse 23.
If you'll look at that, he's called a champion. This word is very strange in the Hebrew. This word is only used this phrase is only used in these two verses in all the Bible. All right, and so when that happens, it's difficult to interpret it.
We don't have a lot of literature to interpret based on but what it means literally is man in between man in between so the armies of the Philistines they send out their man in between Goliath and what he's doing is he is Interceding for the Philistines you have to see we know from the New Testament.
There is one mediator between God and man. Jesus Christ what what Satan and the enemy constantly does is try to make a mockery of the things that God is called good and what he does is he makes counterfeits of Religion and the system that God has put into place and so in a way when we see Goliath.
What we should see is some kind of perverted mediator here. He's standing in between the Philistines and what he offers is slavery to the Philistines. He appears invincible. Does he not? Would you go fight him?
Because we sit here and we think oh Yeah, God would give me the courage and I would go and not one of us would. We would not. Okay, there's there's one man who's gonna do that and everyone around him thinks he's crazy.
Okay Goliath. He is in many ways. He's an archetypal enemy. I want to I want to prove that to you when I say archetype. He's kind of like Sauron, right? He's like this Embodiment of all evil Goliath here.
There's several things that we can look at first of all, he's huge, right? So he's an archetype of military power and military prowess but he also we get this 40 days language and He is huge and that should make us think back to the Rafaam which are in early Deuteronomy.
These are people who were always the men of valor who were enemies of God from the beginning so he's an old enemy and then he's wearing Egyptian style armor and Egypt is a byword in the scripture right.
Egypt is the bad guys. Israel is always tempted to go back to Egypt to eat their cucumbers. Which really means they want to go back to hell for the juicy cucumbers. Okay, Goliath represents God's old enemies.
He is he is the strong man in Old Testament sense and He is taunting the people of God and they look weak next to the strong man and that recapitulates itself over and over through Scripture. See Goliath looks backwards and forwards in many ways.
He's the archetype of a type of beast that we would see in Daniel when Daniel has the vision. Well Nebuchadnezzar has the vision and Daniel interprets it of this great kingdom in this idol that has all of these these mixed metals and you know gold and bronze and silver and all that and he sees A rock that is going to destroy it.
It's a small rock not crafted by hands that shatters the idol. There's all this imagery going backwards and forwards and what Goliath does here and we know that he's twisting. He also with his scaled armor resembles a snake.
Right, he kind of looks like a golden snake out there a huge one. Okay, and then he even utters a land curse that we would find the Deuteronomy 28. That's intended for covenant breakers where he says that it's going to be the birds that feast on them out in the field.
Goliath is twisting Scripture. I Don't know how he knows Scripture. But I got a pretty good guess and I think that is that just like the Lord Appointed an evil spirit in chapter 16 the Lord has appointed an archetypal enemy to his people in the form of Goliath here who even has the Word of God in his mouth and He uses it as a blasphemy.
That's Goliath anymore we need to say about him. I don't think so. He's huge. He's scary. He's kind of serpent-like. He's Egypt. He's all that stuff. Let's look. Let's look at a couple of bit characters here.
And first of all, this is a shame because it is a bit character. Let's look at Saul. At Saul in this character in this in this story Saul should be the one putting on the armor to go fight Goliath. This is his battle.
Remember how we were introduced to Saul, right? He's a head taller than anybody else. He's the king because of how he looks and because of his prowess. Isn't this what the people wanted? They wanted a king to look like the other nations so that he could go out and defeat their enemies and so Saul is the one that should be going out and Interceding and being the man in between for Israel because he should have been the Nagi right the prince.
Who is in between God and the subjects but that's not what Saul's doing. What does Saul does and what we've seen typified by him is Saul trust in his armor. He trusts in appearances but in this case Saul doesn't trust in anything.
Saul trust in cowering in the back and terrifying his people and. So what Saul is going to do is he is going to take a not godly gamble. He's gonna gamble everything on this boy because the boy tells him a couple of stories about a bear and a lion.
Now I'll be it these stories are fantastic. But Saul is going to risk the whole kingdom. By sending a teenage boy to go out and do the job that he should be doing himself. That's Saul and then if it doesn't get worse, let's just make it a little worse for Saul.
You know what Saul also does. Saul also makes these big promises. He says if anyone who goes out and fights this Goliath and takes him down and saves his people. He's gonna his father is gonna be tax-free forever.
Tax-free forever. I'll pay you and he'll get to marry my daughter. So he's gonna be royalty. And what's the first thing Saul does we'll see it he double crosses he does not give his oldest daughter to marry because Saul is a liar and Saul will is like the guy who's bargaining with God who says if you'll just God if you'll just take this one thing away I'll serve you forever.
See Saul is delusional and blinded and it astounds me how we can't figure this out in commentaries. And I think it is because Saul is a man of our time. Saul is a man who says some Christian like things and just confuses people to death, right?
That's all. He's not doing what he's supposed to do and I can't help but say We are all wash with leaders like Saul. They're everywhere. We've even seen the dust up this week as there was a book that came out it's called shepherds for sale and what it did was it talked about the the black money the dirty money that went in and bought off a bunch of religious leaders and Made and basically subjected them to the cause and their response was it repentance?
No. No, their response is to slime the messenger, right? Attack bleep for all your worth just like Saul because what happens is we have to understand that. Good leaders are easy to follow but in the absence of good leaders.
We'll just follow any leader and that's what we do. We will follow any leader anybody who can sound charismatic. Anybody who can say some true things. We'll just follow him. He's better than most and in God's timing it the the irony of it is so huge in this story is that Saul.
Saul is the king that the people asked for and we've gotten chapters and we're gonna get chapters more to see what he's like and Then David is the king that God chose and the contrast could not be more astounding.
David. David is the kind of leader That anyone would follow. David is the kind of leader that we should try to find that we should pray for. Because David doesn't fear. David sees the situation as it is.
Saul acts just like the Philistines. His trust is in chariots. But even he doesn't trust that enough now he's carnal. He's in it for himself. He's always in it for himself. And we're gonna see the reason he double-crosses David is because David's not quite high enough for him.
He wants better political arrangements. Let's look a little bit at Jesse though. So there's Saul Jesse. Jesse comes in to this story. He is telling David to go bring supplies bring cheeses and bread. To his brothers that are in the battle the three oldest brothers and to their commanders.
Jesse we get a weird word for him too, and it gives people's fits. But this word is something like old coming among men. Okay, this is the word we could translate it venerable. Jesse is Older for sure, but he's also he's he's kind of a man who his mother was important.
And so he's kind of a pillar of Bethlehem. But we know that Bethlehem is kind of backwater. Right and this story is shifted into Judah and we've got this whole thing going on because the kingdoms being taken away from Benjamin.
And being put into Judah and Jesse here is a man who sends his son out from the field to go supply the armies. Now Jesse is looking at the way things appear, but he's also kind of acting like a deacon in the story.
Is he not he is meeting the mercy ministry. He's taking care of those who are in the battle and David we see he's going to raise up Jesse. Everyone knows who Jesse is who's been in church. It's not because of anything Jesse did it's because of what David is.
Right, and so everyone knows that David's the son of Jesse and so Jesse became great through his son and That's what's going on here is that we see David. David is out doing the will of his father. Right, and that's what Jesse is.
Jesse's important. Okay. So here we go. Let's get to the meat. David himself. Man there's a lot to say about David when when we're introduced to him I want to it's a neat little sidebar to put into action.
Jesse comes to David early in the morning and he says he says go take all this food to your brothers. His brothers are about 10 miles away and so David Not only gets someone to take care of the sheep, right?
So David gets someone to take his place out in the field and David runs with all the supplies and he makes it out to The front lines before Goliath has even started yelling. Okay, so he is not dawdling.
David is a man of action. David does what his father says and he does it quickly and he does it obediently and David we get this little nod about the baggage, right? So David goes and he has all these supplies and he comes to the baggage and he leaves the baggage with someone there and Then where does he go?
He runs to the front lines. Now when we saw when we saw Saul dealing with baggage. It was when the people were looking for a king and it says that Saul was hiding behind the baggage. But David leaves his baggage down and runs to the front lines and what he sees there Is something that changes everything.
Verse 23 through 26 pick up the story the Philistine from Gath named Goliath was coming up from the battle Lines of the Philistines and he spoke these same words and David heard them. Now all the men of Israel saw the man and they fled from him and were greatly afraid and The men of Israel said have you seen this man who is coming up?
Surely he is coming up to reproach or disdain or shame Israel. And it will be that the king will enrich the man who strikes him down with great riches. And will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel.
Then David spoke to the man who were to the men who were standing by him saying What will be done for the man who strikes down this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel. For who is this?
Uncircumcised Philistine that he should reproach the battle lines of the living God. What's David's motivation. David's motivated by one thing the fear of the Lord. David is the the breath of fresh air in this scene and notice these men that come out.
Goliath screams at them again and All the men are running away. They can't even stand to look at him. They're terrified and then they have this hope because they're saying anyone who can take this man down.
He's gonna be fabulously wealthy. They're just hoping someone Can end this situation? That's the desperation. But David goes right to the heart of the matter. Because notice the word it's very important.
Very important. He says who is this? Uncircumcised Philistine. That's not a taunt per se. What David is saying is who is this? Outside of the Covenant pagan. Who is this person who's cut off from God that he should shame the armies of the living God?
This passage the author I know Intends to recall the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 5 after the restatement of the Ten Commandments. He says this in verse 23. Now it happened that when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness while the mountain was burning with fire.
That's Sinai you came near to me all the heads of your tribes and your elders and you said Behold Yahweh our God has shown us his glory and his greatness and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire.
We have seen today that God speaks with man yet. He lives. So now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us if we hear the voice of Yahweh our God any longer than we will die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the Living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we have and lived as.
For you go near and hear all that Yahweh our God says then speak to us all that Yahweh our God speaks to you and we Will hear and do it. You understand this champion? Moses was the champion of the Israelites and it wasn't because he fought a great battle.
It was because he was the man in between right. Moses was the mediator. He mediated for the Israelites in front of Pharaoh. He mediated at the Red Sea and he mediated at Sinai and the people said you have Seen the Lord speaking to you out of fire and you're here if we hear that we'll die.
So go and speak to him again for us so that we would not die. Do you see what David is doing? David sees and he recognizes who this reproach is against and David sees things as they are because the only pathway to life in this world is and always has been Being in covenant with God.
There is no other way. Here's why God created it all. God sustained it all. God made man in his own image male and female he created them and So we have an allegiance that we owe to our Creator. There is no escaping this no amount of suppressing the truth.
No amount of lying no amount of coming up with other hypothesis can divorce us. From our allegiance to a creator and I'm going to tell you there is no hope for mankind Outside of being in covenant with God.
God offers this covenant to all men in these days. Did you know the mystery to the Gentile is unveiled that that David had the Oracle of God? David had the words of Moses and he understood and he had been taught them.
Do you understand what Jesse's been doing? Jesse's taught his son. Right and his son comes out and he speaks the words of God. Because what he sees is as long as this Goliath is uncircumcised if he's outside of the covenant of God he has no chance whatsoever.
The only people who have any chance to live here are the people who are in covenant with God. Why do you guys not see this? That's what David's saying. What are we doing guys? What's happening here? What's going on?
And so David asked again. Hey, what'll happen? What's gonna happen if someone strikes him down and then his brother his oldest brother remember who God passed over in The last chapter Elieb. He says in verse 28.
His oldest brother heard when he spoke to the men and Elieb's anger burned against David and he said why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I myself know your arrogance in the wickedness of your heart for you have come down in order to see the battle.
There's so many things here and First of all, we get the obvious call back to Joseph, right? Joseph gets a vision and the vision is one that I don't know if he was wise to tell it but he told it and that was gonna be that Joseph was going to save his brothers and they were gonna bow down to him and They did but his brothers murdered him tried to murder him in exchange for that and they sold him into slavery.
Jesus himself. John 7 verse 5 says that even Jesus brothers did not believe in him. Eliab sees things for the way they apparently are and he says you stupid little kid. You have delusions of grandeur my young brother.
Why are you not out with the few sheep that our father has knows the disdain for his father in that statement, right? Why are you not out taking care of the puny little things that our dad had you taken care of?
Right. What are you doing here? You just want to see the men at work and what David is saying? What are the men been doing? That's what David's response is. Was I not just talking was I not just asking a question?
What what is going on here? What battle Eliab what battle? Because the battle that I see is this enemy of God coming out and scream at you and you guys cowering in fear every day. We have much of this today much of this we despise the strength of young men in our culture.
We despise it. Proverbs 2029 says the honor of young men is their strength and the majesty of old men is their gray hair and we ask often and I've often said Whining is not a solution. Okay, whining is not a solution, but we have to look at the grassroots of why were you here?
We know The American Church we we appear to be ineffective right? We have not captured the hearts of young men. Go to a church and see who's in there. It's gonna be older men and a lot of women. Right, we have lost the hearts of young men.
Okay, why. Because we despise their strength and I see this time and time again our response to young men. Who want to go do something is to say? Whoa, whoa, whoa there tiger. Hold the phone. You don't know what you're doing.
Somebody's gonna get hurt. Just like Elliot. All right, forget it. Don't do anything. You better listen. Let the older guys take care of this. Meanwhile us older men. I'm including myself in that. I don't know where the line is we.
I Mean I'm a high school teacher. So I'm older than most of them. Here's the deal. We have no succession plan because what we do is We do exactly what Saul's gonna do for the remainder of this book as older men what we do is we grasp our power and we hold on to it until we die and We've trained no one and we've risked it with no one.
And so we have no one there to succeed us when it's time for them. We're told in Titus 2 the old men are to be venerable and self-controlled and I think Implicit in that is what we're supposed to do is we're supposed to take young men under our wing and we're to disciple them.
But we're not to quench their flame. We're to inspire them to work hard. Young men can do things that I can't do anymore. They're stronger and they recover faster than I do. I Feel horrible when I get out of bed after a hard day of manual labor.
All right, I Can still do it, but those best days are behind me now. But old men you have the majesty of gray hair. That means that you did the hard work and you've seen some things. So don't fend off the younger people because they are our strength and if the church is going to accomplish anything We have to start appealing to the young men because their glory is their strength.
God has given him that we should not be afraid of it. But the enemy is afraid of it. I Promise you the enemy is afraid of it. The worst thing that can happen to him is for young men. To have this fire in their heart and for it to be tempered with the wisdom of elder men.
So that they would go out and they would do great battle. That's my passion as a high school teacher. That's what I want to do. It's not to stomp down young men. It's to channel them and wisdom so that they would accomplish much with their zeal and their power and their energy.
Enough that let's look at the fight. David is a young man. He's definitely not 20. He's definitely not 20. I think he's much younger than that. So he goes out into the field. Saul won't send him, right?
David goes and he's brought before Saul. They tell him hey this guy. He's like asking what you're gonna do for somebody if they do this and so David is brought before Saul. This is how desperate the situation is, right?
We're gonna bring this kid in front of the king and Saul's like now you can't go out there. That's ridiculous and David says this. David says Yahweh who delivered me from the hand of the lion and from the hand of the bear.
He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine and Saul said to David go and may Yahweh be with you. With Saul once again, it's always it's somebody else's deal. Saul tries to arm him up in his armor, which would have looked ridiculous.
David's probably like five feet tall here. Okay, if that I doubt he looks like Woodrow. Okay. He's a little guy and Saul puts this big armor on him big sword and David goes that doesn't fit. I haven't tested that.
I've not. I've not worked in that yet. But David he's been experienced and this is another thing that we think we can do in the church is we think we can go Straight into the hottest fire, right? I'll do it God.
I'll stand firm for you. And we don't stand firm in the smallest little things. Here's what's small for David. Killing a lion and a bear with a stick. We are not David, okay a Guy was right when he said that David is a pointer to someone else but what David does is he tells Saul when I was tending to my father's flock a lion came and I grabbed him by the whiskers and I smote him in the head and Killed him and a bear came and I grabbed him by the face and I smote him in the head.
But David understands what's really going on here. What happened? The Lord delivered the lion and the bear to him just like he's going to deliver this wild beast of a huge man. Who's blaspheming the Living God?
So David goes out and he neglects all of the weapons of The military and he has a shepherd's robe and a shepherd's sling and he has a little satchel and he goes down and he picks up five rocks. There's been books written about that.
I'm not going down that path. Okay, and When David stands out in front of Goliath Goliath starts mocking him because that's what they what that's what Goliath has and what Goliath does is he actually Makes himself into the lion and the bear that David has already had delivered to him.
Notice that Goliath mocks and says am I a dog that you would come after me with a stick? Because that's what it looks like. And he mocks and he mocks and in that Goliath becomes that wild beast. Goliath invokes a curse upon David.
Right, and it goes directly against Genesis 12 3. God will curse those who curse the seed of Abraham David. David is the most. He's the most topological person we have in the Old Testament with Christ.
Because Jesus is the Lion of Judah David is the king that God raises up all this typology starts to come into place and it's interesting that Goliath's cursing Gets a penalty. Let's look. Leviticus 24 16 says this.
Moreover the one who blasphemes the name of Yahweh shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him the sojourner as well as the native when he blasphemes the name shall be put to death.
Did you know that God's law applies to everyone? It does it applies to us who love it and it equally applies to those who rebel against it and suppress it. You will be judged by God's law. It's it's only a question of whether Christ has made you righteous before it or if you stand on your own merits.
And if you stand on your own merits You will be judged and condemned for your broken rebel transgressions against God's law. So what does David do? He's a Torah man. He's the man after God's own heart.
He's the man who brings the law to bear. He brings God's message to bear and He sees the odds as greatly in his favor and this encapsulates the whole mission of God in verse 47. Let's read 46 and 47 this day Yahweh will deliver you up into my hands and I will strike you down and remove your head from you and I will give the Dead bodies of the camp of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the beast of the earth here it is that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel and That all this assembly may know that Yahweh does not save by sword or by spear.
For the battle is Yahweh's and he will give you into our hands so so David. He understands the mission of God and The mission of God never changed. The mission of God would be to inspire faith in the hearts of man so that they might know that God is God exists and That he rewards all of those who seek him.
David doesn't come out with a sword because he's a type of Christ. David doesn't come out with a sword because he doesn't trust what his eyes can see. He trusts what the Lord has declared to be true. David comes out and he stones his enemy as the king who's been anointed.
He brings the punishment of God's law because the king administers the law and David is a true Nagi. He is a prince who administers not his own law. Like Saul did when he predicted when he put the death penalty on anyone who ate right?
David enforces God's law that the blasphemer will be stoned and the stone whizzes out of the sling and it sinks in Goliath's forehead and For in and Goliath falls to the ground and David takes Goliath sword not a sword that he's carrying.
He takes Goliath sword and he cuts his head off and he carries it around as a trophy and he puts it in the city Of Jerusalem, which is not his yet the Jebusites own it so that it would be a marker that says guess who's coming.
That's what a king does. Does the king only work by action as we've been told. No the king speaks. But the king also acts and the king declares his rule and his jurisdiction. Goliath is standing there.
He doesn't even know what hit him. It's got to be an amazing thing that wants the once the battle speech has been said. David takes off running at Goliath. Did Jesus set his face and walk headlong Into the battle with sin Satan and death and did he take a sword?
No, he died with his own blood. The great Shepherd David who took care of his father's flock who stood as the man in between with Israel and he died. He he was the meteor for them. He didn't have to die because David did not defeat sin.
But there there are pictures in here because Goliath. I found it curious. Goliath is never mentioned in the New Testament. Not a single time this remember this story. It's set out. You all know it and Goliath is this archetypal bad guy.
He's the strong man. Why is he never mentioned in the New Testament? I think the reason is this is because I think David is a picture of Binding and utterly destroying the strong man. But there will be strong men that arise after Goliath until Christ dies on the cross and the New Testament does tell us That the strong man has been bound and he has been subjected to open mockery and shame so Goliath mocks God's people when Jesus died on the cross, he laid bare all the plans of the enemy and They're open for ridicule.
When we look at our political landscape and we see that good is evil and evil is good. The people of God should not with swagger but with confidence just stand and mock the stupidity of our enemies they are quite stupid and Their judgment is secure but our mission is not to take up the sword our mission is to die to ourselves and To give them the words of life that Christ has given us because the only hope for all men is to be in covenant With the Lord God and Hebrews tells us that if we deny the salvation of Christ What hope is there for us?
And so the covenant that we must keep is we must understand that Jesus He set his face toward Jerusalem because he knew that his father has sent him. He was going to do the will of his father and he went up that hill and he was sentenced to death by evil men Who did not know him who blasphemed God and they said his blood be on our heads and he went up that hill and he carried that cross and he was nailed to it and he bled the ground red.
The Man who committed no sin the man who knew no sin became righteousness. For all who believe the only hope today is to be in covenant with that God. And we set up our schemes and we think you know what?
I'd rather sit in the middle. I would rather sit this one out and have it proven to me if it's true. Here's what's true. Christ came. He died. He rose again and he ascended and he sits at the right hand of the father the ancient of days today.
And he rules amidst his enemies and he is making them a footstool under his feet. And if you do not align with that God with that man He is a consuming fire and he will destroy you at the end of the ages.
Because there is only one hope for mankind and that is to enter into covenant with God and to not be a covenant breaker. So let me ask you this morning Do we have the same vigor and faith and zeal against the enemies of God?
Or are we afraid for our own standing in the approval of men. I Think the answer to Saul is that curious passage starting in verse 55 where he says who is that guy? I? Think the answer is this. Saul is blind.
Saul is blind. Whether he's deranged with the evil spirit. I don't think that gets him off the hook here. I think what's going on is that Saul is conniving and calculating and he sees this boy go out and he thinks Who's his dad?
Who's his dad? What can I get from this guy? And his answer is not much. And so what Saul's reaction is going to be the rest of this book is to try to kill David. Because Saul sees him is not very beneficial to his ongoing plans and many today.
See the son of the Living God is not beneficial to their plans in fact he's quite a bit of a problem for many of us because we want to do what we want to do and Jesus says if you love me, you will obey my commands.
So to enter into covenant with God is to love his law and it's to give your life for him. To where we give up our schemes and our plans and we follow this Son of God. He's worth it. He's absolutely worth it and I have to note here.
I have to note in closing once again The actions of one man here are used by the Lord to save a nation. What are we afraid of? I see it. I see it on social media. I see it in conversations. We are so afraid.
Has God not purposed to will and work through us? Do we know what to do? Do we know? Are we selling our lives for what is valuable or are we wasting our time? Doing that which fades away. Isaiah 40 verse 8 says the grass withers the flower fades, but the Word of God stands forever.
So it is that we read a text that's thousands of years old This morning and it stands just as poignant just as important today as it was when it was written. Because the characters change but the battle stays the same and Christian the good news for us is the battle is won.
That is the gospel of Christ. He is the king. He has won. He has delivered victory to all those who have fealty and faith in him the battle is won already and he has Saved you and your body groans for that final consummation where you will be made new until then.
We work in faith and we step out in faith. We're not David, but may this church have the same mentality and attitude that David showed. To where we don't fear but we trust You.