God’s Design for Humanity: Men Who Go Toward the Fire - Session 6

David as the Strong Man Whose Strength Is in God

We have been talking about up and down men, and in this final session, our last session together, we're gonna talk about my favorite biblical character outside of Christ, and that is David, King David.

So this is our fifth type of manhood. We just did four. This is the fifth type, the strong man, the strong man. And in saying even that term, strong man, let me just reiterate, I don't mean David is strong in himself, I mean that David is a man who God made strong, okay?

So we lock that in. Doesn't mean that a man like David wasn't called to show actual strength, because he was. We're gonna talk about that. And it's a story, of course, you know. But it does mean that we need to locate the source of our strength as Christian men very carefully, and it is not in us, it is in God.

If you had seen Goliath back in the day, you would have thought him unbeatable. 1 Samuel 17, which is the text we are in in this final session, Goliath was nine feet tall, maybe nine feet six. His coat of armor alone weighed about 125 pounds.

His spear was made of pure iron. And itself weighed about 15 pounds. It would have made a sickening, and I do mean sickening thud when it went through a man, which no doubt it did often. Goliath represented the strength of the Philistine army.

Throughout the narrative of David in 1 Samuel, the greatest foe that Israel faces are the Philistines. The Philistines have a number of giants among them, and they truly were giants. They were double the size of normal men of the day.

That's the rank Goliath belonged to. That is his bloodline. The two armies, Israel and Philistia, drew up together for battle as recorded in 1 Samuel 17, and Goliath went out, and in verse eight said this, shouted to the ranks of Israel, "'Why have you come out to draw up for battle?

"'Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? "'Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. "'If he's 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.'.

And the Philistine said, "'I defy the ranks of Israel this day. "'Give me a man that we may fight together.'".

Let's pray.

Father, in this final session, give us eyes to see the power of courage that you give. Let us not gaze back on David as a museum piece gathering dust in our Bibles. Fire us up to be a force for good in our day, man and women alike.

But Father, help the men to lead in this respect. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Goliath is offended by the Israelites. Goliath recognizes that the Israelites are soft. That's why he said the last part of what he roared.

He defied the ranks of Israel. He wants someone to fight. He openly dishonors and shames Israel, the people of God. This is one of those rare moments in the biblical narrative where there is a direct confrontation between the seed of the serpent of Satan and the seed of the woman, Israel.

In epical form, they're arrayed against one another, seed of serpent, seed of woman. They're facing off. This is the way biblical history and extra biblical history goes. All of history in Genesis 3 .15, we quoted it earlier today, is framed according to that great conflict.

Everything that is happening around us is the result of the serpent opposing the seed of the woman who ultimately is King Jesus. This is one of those moments when, as I say, the two sides take physical shape.

Another instance of this kind of conflict is Moses before Pharaoh. Moses represents the seed of the woman, the good line, and Pharaoh represents the seed of the devil, the evil line. And that conflict is still playing out.

From King Saul all the way down to his men in this scene, 1 Samuel 17 .11 tells us that the Israelites, quote, were dismayed and greatly afraid when they heard Goliath roar. In natural terms, we would have been too.

If Goliath split that door right there, somehow got past the elite security team out here that I'm looking at before me, the gentleman who asked me to sign, I told you I would sign anything you put in front of me, and he put in front of me the catalogs and devotional works and Jim's books, and anyway, it was a debacle out there.

The signing table got overrun. But if Goliath walked in and his head split that opening right there, and he started roaring at us, it would be terror unlike we've ever felt. So Goliath wasn't a fake foe.

He was real.

He was actually terrifying. All of Israel was terrified as a result. They were dismayed. What a word, what a word to use, they're dismayed. It means they saw no prospect of hope. They were not just afraid.

There's no hope. They don't have any solution to the problem known as Goliath, a nine foot, six inches tall problem right before them. There was only one person in the entirety of both sides of these warrior groups who was not afraid.

It was a young man who was only at the battlefield because his father, Jesse, asked young David to come and bring supplies to his brothers who were fighting for Israel. We read this in 1 Samuel 17, verse 12.

Now David was the son of an Ephrathite of Bethlehem and Judah, named Jesse who had eight sons. In the days of Saul, the man was already old, Jesse, and advanced in years. The three oldest sons of Jesse had followed Saul, the king, to the battle.

And the names of his three sons who went to the battle were Eliab, the firstborn, and next to him, Abinadab, and the third, Shammah. David was the youngest. The three eldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem.

For 40 days, the Philistine came forward and took his stand, morning and evening. At this point, in verse 17, Jesse tells David to take a bunch of food to David's brothers. In verse 21, we pick back up again.

Israel and the 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. As he talked with them, behold, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines and spoke the same words as before.

And David heard him. And the men of Israel, all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were much afraid. The only figure in this scene who was not afraid was basically a diminutive shepherd boy.

He was not a member of the ranks of Israel. He was not the one who was trained in warfare in technical terms. He was bringing cheese to his brothers. God wants you to understand something from this scene as a man and as a Christian.

It is a repeated theme in the Bible. The ones God so often chooses to use are not the ones that man expects him to use. God does not work in the way the natural mind.

Would think he would work.

God is not bound to the natural man's workings. God is not subject to our preconceived expectations. God isn't bound by anything. God does whatever he wills. And frequently throughout biblical history, the ones God chooses to use are those no one would appoint for the tasks he uses them for.

In actuality, David's brothers get mad at him. In verse 28, I won't read it, but in verse 28, Eliab gets mad at David because David starts showing courage in this fearful scene. The narrator of 1 Samuel is only highlighting the unlikeliness of David for this role.

And Christian, Christian, Christian.

That is so important that you understand because it's not the ones the natural man would expect that God uses to do his greatest works. It's those no one would tap he so often uses. David hates that Goliath is defying Israel, but not just Israel.

In verse 26, David says this, what shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?

That is David's focus. David is a God-centered young man. David is akin to a teenager. We tend to have such low expectations for the group of humanity we call teenagers, and they are working things out and forming and growing.

And so it's good to let them develop in a lot of senses. And yet David is a young man. Nobody's expecting to do anything. And David is the one who cares not merely about the honor of Israel. David, as my friend Grant Castleberry has said, cares about the honor of God.

And David doesn't even care so much about the rewards that will come to the warrior who faces off against Goliath. He's asking the men about those rewards. The men care about what they will get if they fight Goliath.

Verse 25, 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. The men, the soldiers around David, they care about material rewards.

What does David care about? He cares most about God. And that is true of the Christian. You may not ever find yourself on some wild battlefield somewhere in the Middle East. You may not be called to testify before the US Supreme Court.

You may be, I don't know.

But even if you aren't, if you are simply, I repeat myself throughout this event, a man or a woman who stands on the truth of God and cares about God more than about what anyone thinks of you or anyone else, there is no telling what God will do with you and through you, man or woman, boy or girl alike.

Stop telling yourself what God can do through you. Stop putting yourself in a box of how small your influence can be. Little old me doing my little old thing in life. You have no idea what God can do through you.

If David thought that way, we wouldn't be talking about him right now. David asks the men not about material rewards. David cares about the fact that Israel's God is being insulted. That's why, brothers and sisters, we stand up in the public square and we oppose men going into girls' bathrooms.

That's why we run for school board. That's why we run for public office. That's why we serve in local law enforcement. That's why we run for state representative or whatever it may be. On and on it goes.

That's why we work in a community.

That's why we try to have real influence where we are. Don't just hide out and wait for Jesus to come back. Have influence where you are. Be a Christian, man or woman like David. Fight against the forces of evil and don't do it out of hatred of flesh and blood.

Do it out of concern for the glory and honor of God and the good, secondarily, of your fellow image bearer around you. David cares about God, but those around him don't encourage him. When he goes before King Saul, he hears this in verse 33.

He hears only discouragement throughout this narrative. It's amazing. You're not able to go against this Philistine, Saul says, to fight with him,.

For you are but a youth.

And he has been a man of war from his youth. You can't do this.

You're no good here. You're not gonna kill this man. You're a fool. Why are you here?

Go take the cheese.

Go take the cheese to your brothers.

Get the cheese slices to them from the Velveeta.

Give them the Velveeta.

That's what the people around David say to him. You can't, they literally say, you can't do this. Relentless discouragement. The man or the woman of God who is going to get anything done for God in this world is going to have to face relentless discouragement.

Are you ready for that right now? Are you ready to face a lot of discouragement? Are you gonna melt when circumstances go against you, when people discourage you?

I'm not mocking you.

I'm saying this is the way it goes. Sadly, people around you, when they hear about you wanting to do good things,.

Will discourage you.

Will say, don't do that.

You can't do that.

And especially men who we need to step up.

And especially young men.

Who we need to hear the call of God to become strong in God and attempt great things for God, expecting great things of God. You need to know that if you're gonna make any difference.

For God in this world at all,.

You've gotta face fierce opposition. Christian, stop being a wet tissue and start being a honey badger. Do you know the honey badger? You know the honey badger? Have you seen the videos of the honey badgers on YouTube?

You have fun for you tonight, okay? I'm not commending a lot of things on YouTube for you, but look up honey badger Africa compound. Repeat that, honey badger Africa compound. There is a true story of a honey badger in Africa who is placed in a walled compound and stone walls and honey badgers are amazing animals.

If you don't know this,.

Some of you chuckled a few minutes ago. So I think you know a little bit about honey badgers, but for those of you not indoctrinated in the wonders of honey badgers, let me digress for just a second. This honey badger couldn't climb the walls, didn't have the mobile ability to do that, but this honey badger was so cunning that it found a way to prop up a board against the wall, the stone wall, climb up the wall and get out of this compound that was basically created to hold the honey badger.

And then the honey badger went into the surrounding town and opened a refrigerator and ate all the food in the refrigerator. Honey badger, okay? And it didn't harm anybody. It's not a terrible ending or something like this.

But when you study honey badgers, they are creatures who have, they don't have a lot of natural advantages. You don't look at them and go, what a beautiful animal. But yet they are absolutely ferocious.

There's other videos, honey badger lions, honey badger lions. We're gonna add honey badgers to Laura Ingalls Wilder for the takeaways from the comments. There's other videos, stay with me for just one second.

There's other videos of honey badgers with like five lions around them.

Has anyone seen this?

And the honey badgers get wounded, the lions rake, this one honey badger, I just pluralized it. This one honey badger gets slashed by a lion. It's not a pretty picture. And you think, oh, poor, poor honey badger, tiny, you know, lion, honey badger.

And the honey badger somehow not only manages to survive, but with multiple lions after it, like bears its teeth and bites back at the lions.

And the lions are so taken aback.

That they actually draw back from this tiny little creature, one of them, and eventually the honey badger escapes. You need to not be a wet tissue. You need to be, as a Christian, a honey badger. And that's the spirit that we see in David.

He's nothing, he's not tall, he's not strong. He's a young man, he's not a warrior. He rejects the armor of Saul. King Saul says, here's my armor, take my armor, amazing armor, the best armor that hands could form.

And David initially puts it on himself. Okay, maybe now he's finally able to go out against Goliath.

No, he's not.

He takes all the armor off. It doesn't fit him, it's clunky, it doesn't work.

It's a symbolic picture.

He doesn't need the equipment of man.

He doesn't need what man gives.

So as you know, you know the story of David. He says this to Saul just before he goes out to battle. Your servant, verse 36, has struck down both lions, sorry lions, both lions and bears. And this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them for he has defied the armies of the living God.

His concern again, it's not himself, it's not the warriors.

It's ultimately God.

This is what it means to live in worship of a great and awesome God in all of life. That's what he's talking about. That's what he cares about. That's what flows out of him. A worshipful Christian is just, you can't stop them from talking about the things of God, man or woman, boy or girl.

It just comes out of them.

That's who David is. He cares about God's glory more than his own safety, more than his own wellbeing. This is the epitome of a bad life decision in natural terms for a four foot eight kid to go out against a nine foot six tall giant.

This is not a good strategic assessment of the situation. McKinsey and Company and consultants would not recommend this in the corporate business plan for the year, but David doubles down. Verse 37, he's iron confident in God.

The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. He doesn't say, I really think God will. He doesn't say, I really hope God will.

He doesn't say there's a high probability of my deliverance. He says, the Lord will deliver me. When believers arm up in God, there is no telling what damage Satan is going to suffer. This is true strength.

This is strength that is not found in sinful flesh. This is strength that is found in God. David is not strong because he has prowess with a sling. He has a lot of military skill. David is already strong when he goes out to battle.

You see that?

He's way stronger than Goliath. It's not a fair fight. Not because of shoulder strength, because David is strong in God and Goliath is as weak as you can be.

God is teaching us.

Man looks on the outward appearance,.

But God looks on the heart.

Believe that.

Not just when we read an Old Testament story,.

But believe that now. Believe that now.

Stop letting Satan tell you that we walk in natural terms and we think in natural categories. We think in supernatural categories. There's levels to the game. We believe in supernatural power because that is the unified witness of this book.

David was a man of God. He feared the Lord. He did not tremble before Goliath. He trembled before the great and awesome God of Israel. When David goes out to battle, the Philistine discourages David. Everyone discourages David.

His brothers discourage David. The men around David discourage David. The king, Saul, who should be an encourager to David, who should himself be going out to war against Goliath, has instead a cheese-delivering shepherd boy fight his battle for him.

That's a picture of what happens in the church even now. There are men who, they have all the background, all the credentials, all the training. They've spoken at all the conferences,.

They've written all the books.

They've got all the following and all the followers on social media, and you can't find them when there's a battle. And instead, it's cheese bearers who go out on the field to fight for the people of God, outmatched and outgunned in natural terms.

This is still happening. This will continue happening until the end of the age, that the supposedly courage, courageous, excuse me, won't go out, they won't go fight the battle. But the youth, the one who has come to deliver food to the scene, he'll go out to fight the battle.

David is discouraged by Goliath, as I say. Am I a dog, Goliath roars, that you come to me with sticks, verse 43. And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. David is not only demeaned, Goliath curses David in spiritual terms.

This is Satan talking. It's like in those Lord of the Rings movies when a character is being overcome by a stronger force and is speaking not of themselves, but of a much darker force. That is what is happening here.

Goliath is the instrument of the devil and Goliath is doing battle in a visceral way with David and seeking to draw David off and say, David, you cannot fight this battle, I curse you. So to be a follower of God in a fallen world is a serious thing indeed.

It's to face spiritual warfare in the strongest form. David shrugs it all off once again. Verse 45, 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 Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

David is clothed in the strength of God and there is no strength like it. And then David gives Goliath a promise. He swears to him an oath. This day, the 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 host of the 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 God in Israel and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear for the battle is the Lord's and He will give you into our hand.

Verses 46 and 47. This is how you talk when you have a great God, not when you're a great person, not when you're a great man,.

But when you serve an awesome God.

You can say these kinds of things. Brothers and sisters, you can be in corrupt departments, corrupt corporations, compromised schools, difficult communities, fallen neighborhoods, surrounded by unbelievers, facing opposition from all sides.

And if God calls you into a situation where you stand against evil, you can know that you are clothed just like David in the strength of God. This day, the Lord will deliver you into my hand. That's what the shepherd boy says to the warrior.

And then David, as one does when one is confident in God,.

Ran quickly.

Verse 48. He ran quickly to meet his foe. He slung a single stone, one small stone,.

This big maybe,.

And he hit the Philistine dead on the forehead and killed him instantly. But that's not all. Then he took the giant sword, administered a death blow in front of everybody.

And cut off his head.

Verse 51.

You and I may not be called to cut off Middle Eastern pagan giant's head in our life, but you and I should be tremendously encouraged by this scene. And I want to call men to take stock of this display of God-centered trust and humility and strength.

We've talked in our sessions together today and last night, and we'll a little bit more tomorrow about what we're up against. And the odds are real and the wind is in our face, but men of God are not those who run when there is a fire away from the fire.

Men of God are those who run toward the fire. That is what it means to be a man of God. That is what it means to put others before yourself. We've seen even in America, numerous examples of this in recent years, the days are evil in the society.

But in Michigan, just a few years ago, a public shooter went onto a school campus and opened fire as has happened many times in the last 20 years in this country and cut many people down around him. And everybody fled the scene, but there was this young football player looking like he was going to play D1 football in that region named Tate Meyer.

And Tate Meyer, numerous classmates later said, many eyewitnesses, while everybody's running this way, there was this one football player who ran that way. He ran toward the shooter and he helped take the shooter down and he was killed in the process of doing so.

There's little pictures in God's common grace, even today in 2024, when men are struggling.

Seriously, there's all these little pictures.

Of God's common grace of men like this, men like David in Uvalde, Texas, a few years ago. Again, when a wicked individual entered a school, think about the demonic element of this. Satan targets children, doesn't he, friends?

He targets children over and over again. Jesus calls the little children to himself in Matthew 18 and Matthew 19. Jesus loves the children. He warmly welcomes them.

His disciples say, no, no, no,.

Get the children out of here. In that culture, the children weren't supposed to be amidst the grownups. Jesus overcomes those social categories, those boundaries. And Jesus, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Let the little children come to me.

Jesus showed love toward the children. Satan hates children. MacArthur just wrote a book, The War on Children, get it, read it. It's real, The War on Children. It's out there, it's operative, it's active today.

It's because, it's because Satan hates children.

Children are the next generation of disciples. Small wonder that Satan keeps targeting them in our midst. This man named Jacob Alvarado is getting a haircut in Uvalde and his wife works at the school and texts him that there's an active shooter on premises.

And Jacob Alvarado dashes out of the barbershop, grabs a pump shotgun on his way out, goes to the school, gets to the school in Uvalde, finds an entire force of soldiers and policemen standing outside the school because they have orders not to go in.

And there's a lot that's even right now being sorted out. There's been multiple lawsuits in Uvalde and one could argue rightly so along those lines. But Alvarado doesn't stand down. He goes into the school against orders and he leads many teachers and many children to safety.

The days are evil, but strong men are not gone.

They're still here.

May it be that in our midst, we would be those kind of men. And may it be that we wouldn't just be those kind of men in physically compromised situations. But as I've tried to say throughout this event, may we be these kind of men spiritually.

May we find our strength in God and may we find our courage in God. And may we draw near to God and be loved by God.

And love God and worship God.

And yes, even worship God by going into a scene.

Where death is unfolding.

And may we be the type of man.

Who puts ourself between death and the innocent.

Because the Bible gives us one example after another of men just like that. And as I talked about in my previous session, I'm gonna end early in this one, the very end. The greatest example of this, of course, is not anybody in their last few years showing tremendous bravery under fire.

The greatest example of this courageous manhood we've talked about with David is not D-Day 80 years ago. Amazing as D-Day was, much as we will honor those men until we ourselves die. The greatest example of this is King Jesus.

Do you know how Jesus is identified? In Matthew's gospel, for example. Matthew introduces his gospel with a genealogy, of course. As you know, in chapter one, Andrew Peterson has a great song about the genealogy that I would commend to you, family and I, listen to it at Christmas time.

Do you know the very first name.

Identified with the Son of God in Matthew chapter one?

The book of the genealogy, Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. In other words, the fulfillment of all that David was. The fulfillment of all the promises to Abraham and the patriarchs.

Jesus is the one who faces down the greater Goliath. Jesus is the one who fulfills the Genesis 3 .15 promise, what's called the Proto-Evangelium, the first gospel. Jesus is the one who goes to the cross in order, 1 John 3 .8, to destroy the works of the devil.

To destroy the works of the devil, that is, by making atonement for our sins and the sins of all God's elect across all the ages. And Jesus in dying is the one who destroys the devil, who crushes the devil's head, who slings the shot that sinks directly into the forehead of Satan.

It's not that the reign of Satan is ended with all finality at the cross. It is that the victory of God over the devil is secure. It's D-Day, it's the theological D-Day. It is that all the sins of God's people are atoned for at that cross.

And then Jesus, of course, does not stay dead, but three days later rises from the grave. And that is not simply Jesus returning to life. That is Jesus leading a new exodus into eternity toward the new Jerusalem and the new Eden, the new heaven and new earth.

And that is where all God's people are going. We are passing through the valley of the shadow of death. There's death all around us. There's a culture of death in this country that wants nothing more than to see one baby after another aborted in the womb.

But Jesus is leading us in the midst of all this blood and all this death and all this carnage that Satan is creating. And Jesus is leading us to our true home. So I close my sessions with you. A final Q &A to come in just a few minutes by trying to take you there.

Don't just look around you. Don't just try to be salt and light in this day and this age. But Christian, remember where we're headed.

We're headed home. Soon we'll be there.

And soon all the sad things will be undone. And all the sad stories will be untrue. And we will be forever. We will be forever with the greater David. We will be with the warrior savior. And we will join the warrior savior and all the angels and all the host of heaven will come with Jesus when he finally, once and for all time, ends the reign of Satan on the earth and throws the devil into the lake of fire for all eternity to come.

And then there will be no marriages that struggle. And then there will be no unloved children. And then there will be no orphans. And then there will be no injustices. And there will be no oppression.

And there will be no prejudice. And there will be no need of forgiveness. And there will be no family members who suffer. And there will be no children who die. And then there will be no pain in churches.

And then it will all be made right. Until that day, in the power of God,.

Light the darkness.

And remember as well, the words of Jeremiah 29. Until that day, do the most counter-cultural thing.

You can do, plant. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the story of David and Goliath. Thank you for the encouragement we derive from it. I pray that you would especially call to men to be like David. We're in the age of low expectations for our sons, Father.

Please do a counter-work, do a counter-revolution among us and help us to invest in our boys and disciple our boys and love our boys and put an arm around their shoulder and normally, in general terms, to train them and teach them in love and warmth and kindness, the ways your word lays out for us.