One Man Between: David, Goliath, and the Gospel

[0:00] Good morning and welcome once again to our little church in Dubuque, Iowa. It's a nice place, isn't it? We have a beautiful facility here.

[0:13] ! We have some great people taking care of it. I forgot to mention about announcements. We didn't have very many. Refer to the bulletin for announcements.

[0:26] And I'm Pastor Tim. And I'm looking forward to this message today. I'm excited. I hope you're excited to hear the Word of God today. It's always awesome. Even though we don't feel like it, it's still awesome.

[0:46] I must be a, I think I'm a poison ivy magnet. I'm not kidding you. I get poison ivy almost every summer.

[1:03] I'm just getting over some on my neck. I don't know how I get it, but it just, I think the leaves, let's get Tim today, you know, I mean, I don't know. So how many have got poison ivy before?

[1:16] Okay, good. I'm glad that someone else got it. Because that's evil. Okay.

[1:30] Let's go ahead and have a word of prayer. Thank you, Father, for another beautiful day here in Dubuque, Iowa. Thank you for our beating hearts today, a chance to be here today, to hear the Word, to be in fellowship, to love one another, to love God and worship.

[1:52] So freely here, Lord, continue to show us this truth. We know we need to keep washing ourself with the Word every day, every Sunday, every day with each other.

[2:04] Lord, it's such an critical, important part of our lives. If we're to walk close to you and learn your ways, continue to show us this truth today, Lord.

[2:16] And we just praise you again for this opportunity. Amen. Well, we're going to look at the Old Testament story today of David and Goliath.

[2:27] So the famous story that most of us are familiar with. And I'm just excited to read it once again with you guys.

[2:40] And I hope you get encouragement from it like I do. And before we start with that, hopefully, there we go, I just wanted to share briefly a few things of why I like the Old Testament.

[2:54] I read the New Testament a lot. I'm trying to read the New Testament twice this year and the Old Testament once, approximately. There is some very amazing, just to give you some more information, what I'm learning from Old Testament here.

[3:12] There's so many references to Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It's really amazing. The gospel message, we hear it, we read it in New Testament, and you should do that and learn it and understand it.

[3:29] But what I'm finding is some of these Old Testament stories are giving me a much greater depth of understanding of the gospel. And today is no exception.

[3:41] In fact, I am elated to learn more. There's some things I just glossed over in David and Goliath I didn't realize about the gospel message. And I hope you'll learn that with me as well as we go through that.

[3:55] But there's so many other things in the Old Testament. Adam. Jesus was the second Adam. The sacrificial son about Isaac. That's about Jesus. Joseph was the Savior.

[4:07] Read about Joseph. Moses was the liberator. Joshua was the conqueror. Boaz was the redeemer. These are all about the gospel. You can learn more in depth about the gospel, what it means to be redeemed by reading these stories.

[4:22] The King David. There's another one I've been thinking about. You can comment later if you like. That I've just learned recently. We know Moses.

[4:33] I'll just share it to you briefly. Moses. When we think about Moses, we think about the law. God gave the law through Moses. When Moses was liberating, which is another one of the stories, when he was liberating the Israelites, they're in the wilderness, and they needed water.

[4:48] And God said, strike the rock, and I'll give you water. Well, that's a little gospel message. Jesus was struck. He was killed. Brought forth new life, water.

[5:00] That was the first encounter. The second encounter, they needed water again. God said, talk to the rock. And what did Moses do? He got angry at the Israelites.

[5:10] He struck the rock. Well, Jesus didn't need to be crucified twice. He was crucified the first time when he struck the rock. Second time, he was supposed to talk to the rock. So finally, when they get, and so Moses gets reprimanded for that.

[5:26] He said, you can't go into the promised land. Well, remember, Moses is representing the law. Well, the law doesn't get you into heaven. Jesus does. Moses didn't get to go to the promised land.

[5:39] Who brought him into the promised land? Joshua did, representing Jesus. You can read about Joshua. I thought that was a very interesting story as we go through the Old Testament.

[5:50] The gospel is all over in the Old Testament. The depth to help us understand the tremendous love and grace Jesus has. I read these stories, and it helps me.

[6:02] So I hope that inspires you a little bit to reading the Old Testament. Don't neglect the new. I'm trying to read it maybe two or three times. I know John always says, read it three times.

[6:13] Read the Old Testament once or something like that, right? We want to have a balance of where we're at with the scriptures. So there we go. Okay, so first of all, I want to talk about some background information before we get into the story of David and Goliath.

[6:31] So we know that there was the first king in Israel, and he was King Saul. They wanted a king. In chapter 16 of 1 Samuel, we're going to be in 1 Samuel 17 today, but in chapter 16 of 1 Samuel, we'll get a little quick background going into the story.

[6:50] We know that King Saul has been rejected from being king. He blew it. He just, wait, you have to read about it. He just made a lot of big mistakes and didn't follow God the way God wanted.

[7:03] And we see in chapter 16 that David was going to be anointed to be the next king. David was from a family of eight boys. He was the youngest. We know that Saul was having these evil spirits, and King David, well, as a boy, before he was king, he was summoned to help soothe King Saul.

[7:26] And it says in verse 21 of chapter 16 that Saul loved David greatly. That's interesting how that story lays out later. You'll see what Saul thinks of David later, but that's another story.

[7:38] So that's some of the background going into the story. The people wanted a king. God gave them a king. A tall, strong, handsome man to be their king. So I'm going to read, I don't have a slide of this, but let's read the first 11 verses of chapter 17 from 1 Samuel.

[7:58] I'm going to read that. Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle, and they were gathered at Soca, which belongs to Judah, and they camped between Soca and Ezekiah in Ephes-domim.

[8:14] Saul and the men of Israel were gathered and camped in the valley of Eli and drew up in battle array to encounter the Philistines. The Philistines stood on the mountain on one side, while Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, with the valley between them.

[8:29] Then a champion came out from the armies of the Philistines named Goliath from Gath, whose height was six cubics and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was clothed with scale armor which weighed 5,000 shekels of bronze.

[8:44] He also had bronze greaves on his legs, and a bronze javelin slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and the head of his spear weighed 600 shekels of iron.

[8:57] His shield carrier also walked before him. He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel and said to them, Why do you come out to draw up in battle array?

[9:08] Am I not the Philistine and you servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will become your servants.

[9:20] But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall become our servants and serve us. Again, the Philistines said, I defy the ranks of Israel this day.

[9:31] Give me a man that we may fight together. When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Again, this is probably one of the most known stories of the Old Testament.

[9:46] We tell it to our kids. We've learned about this story. Even non-Christians know about this story. Some do. So I just want to encourage you again to open your hearts to something new that God might show you in the truth of the Scripture.

[10:02] There's always something to learn. And just humble yourself to see what God has for you today. One thing that this story is really not about, it's not about us slaying giants.

[10:20] It's not about that. I'll share why I think that. Some, I've read some stories about the stones have meaning. One's faith, one's this.

[10:31] I don't know. I don't think it says that anywhere in there. We'll read about the five stones. If you don't know about the five stones, we'll talk about that in a little bit later. But one thing I think it is about, a theme, one of the themes, it's not that we're called to be like David, a hero, but we are called to be someone willing to let God reign in his or her life.

[10:59] That's a big part of the story. David, we're going to see him letting God reign in his life. That's huge. And then the next thing I want to just briefly share before we get more into the story is it seems like there's layers of depth to the story.

[11:19] The first layer, it's just a true story. It's an amazing story. It's got great detail. You don't get that in every story. Reading a great book, all that get to see all the detail of the story, what's going on.

[11:35] This story really happened. There really was, you can actually go there and see the valley where the battle took place, the two sides of the mountain, the dried brook, where David probably got the five stones that we're going to read about.

[11:49] They've done some excavation in the area. They found these spearheads, 26-inch spearhead. That's a big spearhead. A giant would have likely, and it had wear on it, which means it was used for that, not decoration.

[12:04] Would have cost money and effort to build that. A giant could have easily had that. They found a clay pot, part of a clay pot. It's in the museums over there in Israel. It has Goliath written on it.

[12:16] Interesting. From Gath. Gath is the city where he came from. They've excavated these things. They've found armor, looks like scales, excavated from these areas.

[12:27] It just verifies the truth that this was a real story. So that's one layer. It really happened. This story really happened. Another layer is we see God moving in the Israelites' life, helping them.

[12:39] He always wants to help them. He's always bailing them out. When they repent and come to him, they bail them out. Many times one person intervenes, a prophet. Someone comes in and says, hey, you've got to get your act together, and they change, and God's there working.

[12:55] That's another layer. And the third layer is one I mentioned before. We're going to see, and I'm not kidding you, this is amazing. I think we're going to see a fork, a shadow of, I can't remember the word, the right word to use here, of a picture of what Jesus did for us.

[13:17] And it's amazing. Metaphor. That's the word I was looking for. And we're going to talk about that. So I'm telling you ahead of time, so as we read it, we can think about that, because I know many of us know the story really well.

[13:29] So I want to screw tight into that part of the story, because it's so incredibly important that we see those things. I hope you'll see that today.

[13:40] So, a little more context of the story. We know the Philistines was an arch enemy of the Israelites, probably since they went into the promised land, and they conquered different nations.

[13:57] The Philistines, they've been a sore on their side forever. And Goliath is coming out from the Philistines. We know that King Saul was appointed to help defeat, be the king of Israel, to defeat these people.

[14:15] And he was a big failure. And in fact, it says, where do I have that written in there? Somewhere in there, back in chapter 16, that the spirit left him, left Saul.

[14:28] We talk he's a failure. The Lord rejected Saul for being king, and he anointed David to be in his place. You know, they wanted this strong man to deliver for them, and then Saul just failed.

[14:43] Failed that. All right, so let's go back to the first three verses here. And let's read them again here. Chapter 17. Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle, and they were gathered at Soca, which belongs to Judah, and they camped between Soca and Ezekiah, and the Ephes, Damin, Saul, and the men of Israel were gathered and camped in the valley Eli, and drew up in battle array to encounter the Philistines.

[15:11] The Philistines stood on the mountain on one side, while Israel stood on the mountain on the other side and the valley between them. So the battle lines have been drawn. I think I got a map of this.

[15:23] I like maps. So this here is Israel. The red line is, here's Philista, the Philistines live here, and the Philistines are already encroaching on the land of Israel.

[15:43] They're already in the land. And the Philistines are on the south side, Israelites on the north side, and the battle's gonna take place in between. Okay?

[15:53] This gives you a little idea how the battle takes place between David and Goliath. Armies on one side, the other armies on the other side, and to have the height advantage was an advantage.

[16:06] So if one army went into the valley, they'd be at a disadvantage. And so this Goliath came down to the valley, and he taunted the army of Israel. All right?

[16:22] So let's keep reading. So here he is. Then the champion came out from the armies of the Philistines named Goliath from Gath. We saw Gath on the map. It was in the Philistine area there.

[16:34] He had, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span, he had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was clothed with scale armor which weighed 5,000 shekels of bronze.

[16:46] He also had bronze greaves on his legs, and a bronze javelin slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and the head of the spear weighed 600 shekels of iron.

[16:57] His shield carrier also walked with him. So scholars did all the math of what the meaning of all that is. He's over nine feet tall.

[17:08] Now his armor, such great detail. This is a great read. You get to see all this detail. If you read some good authors, put detail in about the characters.

[17:19] We're getting to see all that here. God's so good. Now let me get this great theology and the understanding for our spirits. We get to enjoy the story. That's awesome.

[17:33] He built this just for us. So this giant man was built like a fortress. The armor weighed about 125 pounds, nine feet.

[17:46] This is unbelievable. I can't imagine what someone nine foot looked like. I mean, that wall's about 12 foot. Nine foot would be probably the top of that window.

[17:58] That window. Can you imagine that? Maybe taller. That's big. That's big. A giant fortress on two legs.

[18:14] We have to get the picture of this. Scale armor. Remember they found the scale-like armors? When you think of scales, what do you think of? A fish? A fish?

[18:27] What else? On land? How about a snake? I never thought about this before. The scale armor is like a snake. Egyptians had snakes.

[18:39] Remember Moses when he first went to Egypt? Their staffs became snakes and Moses' staff became a snake and ate them up. You remember Apostle Paul?

[18:50] He was being transported for trial and they got shipwrecked. They're building the fire. What comes out of the fire? A viper. Bites them in the hand. What does he do with that viper?

[19:03] Shakes it where? Into a fire. Interesting. I just find that interesting. Here's this snake-like creature, Goliath.

[19:15] Kind of reminds me of Satan. Very interesting. Looked hopeless. This huge man.

[19:26] Bring someone down. The Israelites will look at themselves. Nobody here is going to fight Goliath. That's for sure. Looked hopeless. You know, when Jesus was at the cross, it looked really hopeless.

[19:42] We know the end of the story, but just think when he was at the cross. Walking down there at the cross and thorn on his head and all this, but it looked completely hopeless.

[19:56] How can there be a victory there? He's dying. You're supposed to beat the Romans and win the battle. Nope. That's not how it went.

[20:07] It looked hopeless. It looked hopeless. He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel and said to them, Why do you come out to drop and battle, Ray?

[20:18] Am I not the Philistine and your servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourself and let him come to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will become your servants.

[20:29] But if I prevail again against him and kill him, then you shall become our servants and serve us. Again, the Philistine said, I defy the ranks of Israel this day.

[20:41] Give me a man that we may fight together. Then Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine. They were dismayed and greatly afraid. I am the Philistine, he said.

[20:55] He pretty much representing that nation that's been against Israel for so many years. You're just servants of Saul? That's all you are.

[21:06] So let's read 9. And if he is able... So Goliath is coming out. Just bring one man for the battle.

[21:19] One against one. One man. That's all it's going to take. One man Jesus. That's all it took to fight the battle.

[21:30] That's interesting. And then if Goliath says, if I win, you're going to serve us. If you win, we'll serve you.

[21:42] What do we read in the scriptures? We serve heaven. We can serve God in heaven. Or we can serve hell. Satan.

[21:53] That's exactly how it is. If we have not accepted Christ as our savior, we're serving one or the other. There's no in between. Very interesting story. Now that you see it, and maybe you saw it already, you can't unsee it.

[22:07] This is awesome. Choose one person to fight. Someone in between. Someone in between.

[22:19] You come down, we'll settle the matter. Remember now, they chose King Saul. Saul. This tall, big man to be their king. Where is he?

[22:31] I'm not reading about Saul. I don't even know where he's at. He's not there. And it was verse 14 of the last chapter where the spirit departed from him. I mentioned it earlier.

[22:43] This is not a story of might against might. It's actually a story about weakness. About God using weakness against might. It's about God coming in to fight our battles for us.

[22:59] I defied the ranks of Israel, and they were afraid. This giant Goliath is representing the prince of darkness. He's represented that.

[23:10] That's what he represents in this metaphorically here. Scale-like looks, huge, looks impossible to defeat. Sin is impossible to defeat.

[23:23] We can't do it. The arch enemy of God's people. And I'm going to jump ahead a little bit. We know he's going to be defeated by David, a Judean shepherd.

[23:38] And what does Jesus do when he comes in between? He defeats Satan too at the cross. He's known as a shepherd from Judea, from the line of David. It's the same lineage. Surely they would have thought they needed someone bigger and stronger than Goliath to beat them.

[23:58] But who? They felt defeated. They wanted someone mighty. We know from Scripture, in the New Testament, God uses weakness.

[24:12] 2 Corinthians 12.9, I don't have a slide of that. You can note that if you want. 2 Corinthians 12.9, I'll read it to you. This is about Apostle Paul.

[24:23] And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

[24:43] That's what God wants, is to recognize that we're weak. We need him for everything we do. That's where the power comes from. So I'm not narrowing down in every verse.

[25:10] I'm trying to highlight the important pieces here today. So let's enjoy the story as we read it too, okay? Now David was the son of an Ephrathite, of Bethlehem and Judah, whose name was Jesse, and he had eight sons.

[25:23] And Jesse was old in the days of Saul, advancing years among men. The three older sons of Jesse had gone after Saul to the battle, and the names of the three sons who went to the battle were Eliab the firstborn, the second to him was Abinadab, and the third Shammah.

[25:40] David was the youngest. Now the three oldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father's flock at Bethlehem. The Philistine came forward morning and evening for 40 days and took his stand.

[25:57] Forty days Goliath came out and taunted the armies of the living God. Taunted Israel. Remember Jesus? Was he in the wilderness for 40 days fasting, and then was he not tempted?

[26:13] Interesting. I'm a numbers guy here. 40 and 40. Very interesting to me. Then Jesse said to David, his son, take now for your brothers and Ephath of this roasted grain and these ten loaves and run to the camp of your brothers.

[26:35] Can you see him running? A young man, very young man, probably in his late teens, somewhere in there, we don't know his age. I can just see him cruising. Oh, I want to go see this battle.

[26:47] Right? Full steam running over there. Check this out. Obeying his dad, bringing food. 18.

[26:58] Bring also these ten cuts of cheese to the commander of their thousand and look into the welfare of your brothers and bring back news of them. For Saul and they and all the men of Israel are in the valley of Eli fighting with the Philistines.

[27:11] This story starts with food. Oh, I like food. We all like food, don't we? It starts with bringing food. You can't think this stuff up.

[27:22] This is God's amazing story. He can bring food. That's how he's going to enter this battle. An unlikely source is coming to help.

[27:34] David. Again, we see Goliath as the embodiment of sin and darkness and everything that wants to destroy them. And we know sin destroys, doesn't it?

[27:46] Boy, does it destroy when we get off track. Say the wrong thing. Do the wrong thing. Forget to do things. All kinds of things. Sin is...

[27:58] Boy. I'm sure glad we have the Savior, don't we? We see this insignificant shepherd boy coming to help compared to this giant fortress on two legs.

[28:14] Just doesn't seem possible. I think about our little church here in Dubuque sometimes. I think, what can a little church in Dubuque, Iowa do? We know we're doing a lot.

[28:28] When we have the Holy Spirit empowering us, like we're going to see David here, God moves. God's done some amazing things in this church.

[28:38] He's doing amazing things in this church and He's going to continue to do great things here as we come to Him and worship Him, honor Him, obey Him, get out of our comfort zone sometimes and do some things maybe we shouldn't do that we're afraid to do.

[28:56] By the way, we really need some help in Sunday school. Maybe you can jump out of your comfort zone and help us. It's good. It's good. Our kids need some help down there.

[29:15] And a strength that I think we have is just we do love God. We do love each other. Keep doing that. It's awesome. The darkness around us is insurmountable.

[29:26] You see it. Things are getting worse and worse. The news, gosh, I've got to stop looking at the news. It's so dark. Doesn't matter where you look.

[29:37] Little governments, big governments, countries, it's everywhere. The darkness is prevailing. It's a Goliath. So, kind of like. You just don't have to look far.

[29:49] The Israelites were afraid of this beast of a man. Very afraid. And I'm afraid to do things at times too.

[30:04] I bet you are too. We all get afraid of certain things. Afraid to talk to someone. I don't know if I should talk to that person. We're afraid. We offend someone. We're afraid.

[30:17] How can I possibly see good in all these hard circumstances out there? God's calling us. shepherd boy out of nowhere coming into this story. It's going to save the day.

[30:30] The next few verses, 24 to 30, I'm just going to summarize them. Once again, it says they were afraid of the giant. Saul says, whoever kills the giant, I'll give him great riches and you'll have my daughter in marriage.

[30:46] And David's brothers were upset with David. They called him evil. I don't know why.

[30:58] You know brothers, but David was something good. He was delivering food and they called him evil. How often does that happen? Calling something that's evil.

[31:10] I mean, something that's good, calling it evil. Right? Right? When the words which David spoke were heard, they told him to Saul and he went to him.

[31:27] David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail on account of him. Your servant will go and fight this Philistine. Then Saul said to David, you are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him.

[31:41] for you are but a youth. Scholars think somewhere maybe between 13 and 19. Well, he has been a warrior from his youth.

[31:52] But David said to Saul, your servant was tending his father's sheep when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock.

[32:04] I went after him and attacked him and rescued it from his mouth and when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck and killed him.

[32:17] That's an awesome story. Great story for kids. It's a great story for me. Kills a lion and a bear. Now we get to the really good part.

[32:31] Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them. since he has taunted the armies of the living God and David said, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, he will deliver me from the hand of the Philistine and Saul said to David, go and may the Lord be with you.

[33:03] David at a young age recognized the most important thing in his life. God does the work. I didn't kill a lion and a bear, God did it.

[33:16] And I'm going to do that to the Philistine. He had no hesitation. Saw the guy taunt him, he said, no, that can't be. That's not how I see things. When you talk to your children about this story, please, please emphasize this part.

[33:34] That it was God that delivered the bear and the lion that killed them, protect his sheep. He's doing his job. David had an incredible walk with God at a young age.

[33:48] He must have spent lots of time with God, talking with God. Had to have. No hesitation. He understands the work of God.

[34:00] One thing we should never underestimate is the work of the Holy Spirit in our life. How incredibly important it is when God puts the Holy Spirit in us. The Word of God and the Holy Spirit.

[34:13] Man, we got everything we need. All the power we need. No, you're not going to go out and fight some giant. But there's all kinds of battles we fight.

[34:24] There's decisions we make. You want God in that. Everything. Pray about it. I'm trying to pray about every little thing. Find a parking spot. Pray, ask God.

[34:37] Bring him in on everything. He's prepared David for the battle. He's been through a lion and a bear. It's preparation. David didn't know that.

[34:49] He saw a lion coming. Okay, God, let's go take care of him. There's a bear. Knock him out while we're doing the lion. Whatever. He's preparing him for this important battle.

[35:02] And the things you do today is preparation for the things that are going to happen tomorrow. So every little thing you do matters because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. So make sure you teach your kids it was God.

[35:17] God delivered the bear and the lion and we're going to see Goliath as well. We can do mighty things. God wants to do mighty things.

[35:34] Then, verse 41 here, then the Philistine came on and approached David and the shield bearer in front of him. When the Philistine, oh, hold on.

[35:47] I forgot about verse 38 and 40. So David was offered some armor and all this stuff but he decides, no, that doesn't work for me. That's not how I killed a lion and a bear evidently.

[35:58] I got my own way of fighting. Okay? So now we start reading verse 41. Then the Philistine came on and approached David with the shield bearer in front of him.

[36:09] When the Philistine took, looked, and saw David, he disdained him for he was but a youth and ruddy and handsome appearance. The Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks?

[36:25] And the Philistine cursed David his gods. The Philistine also said to David, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and beasts of the field. Doesn't Satan want to pound us down?

[36:37] Tell us that we're worthless? That's exactly what Satan does. Makes us feel we're unworthy. We're all incredibly worthy. And special.

[36:48] Every one of you. Every one of you. I appreciate all you people. I'm getting to know all of you. I love all you guys. It's awesome. I know you love me.

[37:00] You love each other. You're so special. Don't ever forget that. For the Lord takes delight in his people. The Lord takes delight in his people.

[37:11] He crowns the humble with salvation. salvation. Some psalm. The enemy says stuff like that. Always attacking. Always making us doubt.

[37:23] Making us feel unworthy. I know I've talked to many of you. Some people feel many of us at times feel unworthy. I'm not that good. that's the enemy.

[37:39] He really is symbolizing Satan doesn't he? It's a metaphor God's showing us. Some more depth of the gospel message here. Then David said to the Philistine you come to me with a sword a spear and 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 taunted this day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands and I will strike you down and remove your head from you.

[38:17] That's gosh this young young man saying that that is astounding and I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistine this day to the birds of the sky and 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 does not deliver by sword or by spear for the battle is the Lord's.

[38:44] Remember Peter taking the sword cutting off an ear? That's not how God's battle is. And he will give you into your hands.

[38:56] I just think that's awesome. every time I read it. Now I'm reading it even feels even greater now that I'm starting to see this story of this parallel to Christ.

[39:10] Understanding God's direction and power in David's life. The great faith David had. No hesitation. Engaging. He had to have been engaging God regularly.

[39:21] There's no other way. He's walking with God. What is it? We exist to glorify God walking with him. Walking with him.

[39:33] David's doing those two things. Striving together to be more like Jesus every day. That's our mission statement, right? The beginning part, David's got down. Now striving together, I don't know that much about David, but read the story.

[39:48] There's more to David. He's going to learn how to strive together as well. He's a great king. Yep, he blows it. He's a great king. He understands.

[39:59] So important for our lives. Walking with God. Anything and everything we do, walking with God helps all of it. Raising kids, helping parents, relationships, spouse and husband, getting along.

[40:16] Seeking God's faith is the way to help that be strong and great. Daily choices we make. Anything good we do, coming from getting to know God better.

[40:33] Oh, hold on a second here. You know what, I think maybe I forgot a slide. Verse 48 and 49. So if you've got your Bibles handy, I'm just going to read it.

[40:46] Verse 48 and 49. Then it happened, when the Philistine rose and came and drew near to meet David, that David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.

[40:57] And David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead. And the stone sank into his forehead so that he fell on his face to the ground.

[41:11] I find it interesting. He's got these five stones and he doesn't even have the stone in the sling yet. as he's running he grabs the stone out or he does it.

[41:24] Just takes him down. Just amazing. Amazing. So much trust in God.

[41:36] So sometimes we overthink it. Don't overthink it. God says do stuff, go do it. the same power David has.

[41:48] We have access to. We have access to the same power. Not to become a hero. But to do God's work. And it feels great. It feels great doing God's work.

[42:00] So rewarding. We get blessed by it. Verse 54. I'm not reading that one.

[42:10] I don't have one up. So then after he kills him, hits him in the head, falls to the ground, he cuts his head off. What a gruesome thing. Cuts his head off.

[42:21] Do you know where he brings the head? Jerusalem, it says. At this date and time, they don't have Jerusalem. It hasn't been conquered yet.

[42:34] David, as his king, eight years later, conquers Jerusalem. But what happens in Jerusalem? Jesus. That's where Jesus dies.

[42:46] And he defeats Satan there. I just find that interesting. Why does he bring the head to Jerusalem? It's a foreshadow, I think, of what's going to happen there. Perhaps. Perhaps.

[43:01] Here's another prophecy, one of the first prophecies in the Old Testament, Genesis 3, 15. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.

[43:12] He shall bruise you on the head. What did David do to Goliath? Wax him right in the head. Jesus is going to do that.

[43:24] Did that. Jesus did that. It's another prophecy you can study. So, who came forward to be the man in between?

[43:37] God brought David to bring the man in between. One man to settle this battle. God brought Jesus to be the one man to finish the battle for us.

[43:52] Does this give you maybe another perspective on the gospel message? We forget Satan was over there. He's between protecting us from Satan himself.

[44:06] Battled him. He died. It had to be a sacrifice. He rose again. That was the victory over Goliath, the Satan of the time. This is an amazing picture of Jesus redeeming us.

[44:20] Read the story of Boaz about redemption. You get another perspective of it. If you're here today you don't know Jesus, I don't know everyone's heart that well, you can do it right now.

[44:34] He stood there for you in between. Without Jesus, you're going to be a servant of Goliath, the arch enemy of sin and death. You don't want that.

[44:47] You accept Jesus by faith and you can be on the good side, a child of God. It's an amazing story. It's an amazing story.

[44:59] If you've accepted Christ, Christ, let's understand this better. Impact us. Let's see how powerful the Holy Spirit can work in our life like David.

[45:11] Boy, he's so clear on it. No wonder why he was such a good king. Led men and women for years. He was such a good king. Let's have a word of prayer.

[45:28] Thank you Father for this amazing story. It's exciting to read these stories of Old Testament. Help us understand the gospel message more. Thank you Lord for your greatness and glory.

[45:41] You stood in between. You're protecting us from Satan. You defeated him. That's amazing.

[45:54] I praise you for that. Thank you.