Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 17, 2022 | RETOLD - David and Goliath

Transcript

July 17, 2022 | RETOLD - David and Goliath · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Before I got up here, Sam was uh yet again teasing me about my height and that he had to nice and that he had to lower the TV for me compared to Jim and Connor.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: And I thought to myself, well, if there's ever uh a time to not want to be tall and to make a uh a hype joke, it's during David and Goliath story.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: So today I'll relish in the fact that I'm shorter than all of these guys.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Um this is a bittersweet day for me and and my family.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Um as many of you know, we're making a big move back to Texas, and uh so this is my last day as an official staff member at TBC.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: And so um I just want to take a minute to tell you all how much we've appreciated you all and how much we've loved you guys, and we do love you.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Um you've welcomed us here so warmly two years ago, and and you encouraged us uh through difficult times in our lives uh with the birth of our second son.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Many of you know that was very difficult for us, and you've encouraged me through a number of sermons and teachings and and accepted them with open arms.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: And um you've really given given us a warm and a safe place to uh to develop my passion for teaching the Bible.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: And we're just so thankful for all you've done and all that you mean to our family, and and uh it's not an easy um move for us by any means.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Um but oh thanks.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Um but though um though we're incredibly sad to be leaving this family, um we're excited for what's ahead.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: And that's partly because of your encouragement.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: I've I've come to develop a very strong passion uh for teaching the Bible, and so I'll be going back to seminary to work on a PhD in Bible exposition for the purpose of teaching the Bible more effectively, partly because of your warm reception of my teaching, and so thank you for that.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Um but part of my passion in teaching the Bible is making sure that we understand it correctly, uh, which means it is often necessary to correct some misinterpretations of it, and uh our young adults here at TBC know that I very much enjoy doing that.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Um so when Connor told me that uh this was the summer series, I got really excited, and I jumped on this story immediately because it's one of my favorites to correct.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: And so um we're in a series called Retold, in which we're retelling uh comment or uh popular Bible stories, and uh where we're either retelling them in a more interesting way or a more accurate way, and today we'll be concerning ourselves mostly with the latter, um, though I certainly hope a more accurate understanding of the story makes it more exciting for you.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: I know it does for me.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so today we're gonna look at the story of David and Goliath, which is arguably one of the most famous um stories in the Old Testament, and it's sort of taken on a life of its own.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know the story a young redhead boy comes up against a giant, uh battle-hardened warrior, uh, and uh summoning the faith in God, he is somehow able to overcome against all odds this great giant with just a sling and a stone.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I took a one-sentence summary of the story from uh from somewhere online.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: It said the story is an inspiring example of how the plucky underdog could defeat someone much bigger than him against the odds.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then I remembered uh something.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you're familiar with Veggie Tales, uh my son is very familiar with it these days.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: I love Veggie Tales very much.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and in the words of Veggie Tales, the story is about with God's help, little guys can do big things too.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Right?
4:05
SPEAKER_00: And so uh the common application of this story is that we are David, and this enables us to face our giants, right?
4:13
SPEAKER_00: This is an underdog story, right?
4:15
SPEAKER_00: And everybody loves an underdog story because they make the biggest challenges ahead of us seem like they're possible to conquer.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Right?
4:23
SPEAKER_00: That is if David, a short young boy, can defeat a seasoned warrior who towers over not only him, but the entire army present.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And if he could do it with a stone and a sling against all odds, then maybe we too, if we have enough faith, like David, can surely take on what is ahead of us, whether it be addiction or health challenges or naysayers trying to hold us back from our full potential in life, you know, fill in the blank.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Right, but uh, I want to offer a critique to Veggie Tales.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: I love Veggie Tales, so no offense to them.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but this interpretation, I want to argue, completely misses the point.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And when we take a story like this out of its context and we make it its own isolated story, and then apply it to our lives to make it all about us, uh we miss the fact that it's a crucial part of God's big story, and that it's really not about us at all.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's about something far greater.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: And so, while I sympathize and empathize even with those of you who clung to a bad understanding of this story as encouragement to face your giants with confidence, uh, I also believe the stakes are just too great to not correct it.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I'll seek to do.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: What is at stake when we uh make this all about us is missing the fact that it's all about Jesus.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: And if all we see is ourselves in the story, we will miss seeing him in the story.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: And so we will miss God's revelation of himself and of his Christ.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: And we make it, if we make it all about self-help and bettering our lives, which are quite frankly just headed towards the grave, then we will miss the proclamation of one of the greatest victories of our faith in our world's history.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: A victory that is crucial for our future hope, even today.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: So I hope you'll commit your time and focus in with me because we're going to attempt to put this story back in its context, and I hope that it's encouraging to you once we do.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: So we're all going to begin by turning our Bibles to 1 Samuel.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: If you have them, they'll come in handy.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: We'll mostly be in chapter 17 today, but uh here's the thing: the story doesn't start in chapter 17, it starts in chapter 16.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: And I happen to know uh that chapter 16 starts in chapter 15.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: See, this is the kind of stuff you have to know to get into a PhD program, right?
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you this.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh and 1 Samuel starts in Judges.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: And Judges starts in Joshua, and Joshua starts in Numbers and in Deuteronomy, and those start in Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: And so if we want to understand David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17, way down the road, we need to understand what's come before it.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And that is, we need to know Genesis 1.1 through 1 Samuel 16.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: So that's our text today.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh strap in, next 24 hours, we're gonna cover a lot of ground.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: But I am gonna do my best to summarize this section, and I have more notes than I've ever had up here before, so strap in, it's gonna be good.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Um but uh I'm gonna do my best to summarize, and then we'll pick up in 1 Samuel 16 together in just a little bit.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: And I know it's gonna seem a little tedious, but this is how story works.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Right?
7:46
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't pick up the second Lord of the Rings book, open, I'm gonna pretend like I know something about Lord of the Rings, I'm sorry I don't.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: But you wouldn't open up to Frodo and Shelob, I think is the giant spider's name, uh, read it and expect to know what's going on.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Right?
8:01
SPEAKER_00: What would you even do with that?
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Who is Frodo?
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Frodo's his name, right?
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Just realized.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: Who's Frodo?
8:10
SPEAKER_00: And and and why is he in a cave with a giant spider?
8:13
SPEAKER_00: And what does it matter if he gets stung by the thing or not and falls unconscious?
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Why do I care about it?
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Right?
8:19
SPEAKER_00: So when we don't have a context, we tend to make stuff up.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: And we begin to import our own ideas into the text when we don't know what to do with it.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna give it a shot, right?
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, the spider sounds scary, and scary things are evil, and uh I know that sin is evil, therefore Shelob represents sin, and I'm Frodo, and so the application is if you get too close to sin, it'll sting you every time.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Right?
8:50
SPEAKER_00: That'll preach, right?
8:52
SPEAKER_00: But now you close the book and say, that's what this story's about, and done.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Right?
8:56
SPEAKER_00: No, who reads like that?
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Some of you guys who are Lord of the Rings fans are cringing at this right now.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Nobody reads like this.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: We need to know a lot more information if we want to understand that story in the book.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: We need to know the significance of Frodo and the task he has to destroy this ring.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: We need to understand the fight he had with Sam right before going into this cave.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: We need to understand that he was deceived into going there.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: And we need to understand what is at stake if Frodo loses.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: Only then can we accurately interpret that story.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: And so, if we wouldn't subject the Lord of the Rings to such a bad interpretation, then why do we do this to the Bible?
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Right?
9:36
SPEAKER_00: The Bible's a story, it's a continuous narrative, and it demands to be read and interpreted as such.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And so it may feel tedious, but I promise when we see how it fits into the story, it's gonna make perfect sense.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: And there'll be no need to import your own ideas and to make guesses.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna jump in and try to wrap our minds around the story that comes before David and Goliath.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: So I'll do my best to summarize it.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, God created, I told you I was starting in Genesis 1-1.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: He created the heavens and the earth, and he filled them with every living thing.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Right?
10:10
SPEAKER_00: And then he created man and woman to rule over all the living things, that is, to represent his character, to be his representatives, who will rule according to his revelation.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he created a man and woman who will love to do what is good in God's eyes, and despise what is evil in God's eyes.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: But a bad guy enters the story, as all good stories have, and he creates a problem for God.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: See, God told Adam and Eve to multiply his image, that is, to multiply his character and fill the earth with it.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: And he told them not to eat of one tree, or they would die.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: And so a serpent arose, that is Satan, who would challenge all of that.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Right?
10:53
SPEAKER_00: So he convinces the man and woman that what God says is bad is actually good.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: And so they eat of the tree God told them not to eat from.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: And thus God's representatives are no longer ruling according to his word, but they're doing what's good and right in their own eyes.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, instead of multiplying and filling the earth with God's character, they're multiplying and filling the earth with their own rebellious character.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's a problem for God, because it contradicts his entire desired order and his desire to fill the earth with his own image.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: So God responds as he said he would.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: And he tells them that they would die if they eat from the tree.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: So he puts them outside of the garden, that is outside of his ruling headquarters, so that they would no longer have access to the tree of life, and they would therefore surely return to the dust from which they came.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: In other words, God gave them a death sentence.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: So this still doesn't fix the problem, though.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: God still has a problem.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: He's a just God, so he must administer justice, but he still needs a man to rule.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: He still needs to somehow fill the earth with those who represent his character and his image.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: And now his man, Adam and Eve, are going to die.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: And they're rebellious, not good.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Right?
12:12
SPEAKER_00: So in the midst of this judgment on Adam and Eve, he offers hope and he offers mercy.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: And he tells them his plan to fix it all.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: And this begins in Genesis, oh, I had a picture, darn it.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh well.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: This begins in Genesis 3.15, called the Proto-Evangelium, the first gospel.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: We start talking, this is where God starts prophesying about how he's gonna fix this problem.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Right?
12:36
SPEAKER_00: And he says this to the serpent.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Says to the serpent, but I will put enmity, that is, I will make enemies out of you, between you, that is the serpent, and the woman.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna hate each other, and between your seed, that is the seed, the descendants of the serpent, and her seed, the descendants of uh the woman, and he, that is masculine, singular, seed of the woman, shall crush, strike, bruise, however you want to translate it, you on the head, and you shall, same word, strike, crush, bruise him on the heel.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: And so we get this prophecy that one is gonna come forth from the woman and is going to take out uh the serpent.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is the serpent's gonna take him out too.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And then if we keep reading, we have a commercial break to deal with marital strife.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: Right?
13:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, as as it's commonly interpreted, anyway.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: So here's the a common translation.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: In pain you will bring forth children, yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: And so we just have this announcement of a son who's going to come and kill the serpent, but the serpent's gonna kill him too.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: And then it just leaves you hanging.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: So the question is, what is going on here?
13:51
SPEAKER_00: If you look at this verse, Genesis 3.16, throughout all of church history, it's a train wreck.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: No, nobody knows what to do with this verse.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows what pain and childbirth is supposed to mean.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows uh what it means that the wife's desire will be for the husband.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and nobody agrees throughout church history of what's going on here.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so I'm gonna give it my best shot.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna offer uh my best shot at this.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: And part of this is we don't translate it very consistently with the Hebrew.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I've taken the liberty of translating it as best I could, word for word, without doing any interpreting.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Right?
14:28
SPEAKER_00: These are what the Hebrew words mean.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so uh it says, he turns to the woman after he just said that this man is gonna come from the woman and crush the serpent.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: He turns to the woman and he says, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and conception.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Right?
14:45
SPEAKER_00: It said the previous translation said pain in childbirth.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: What it actually says is sorrow and conception.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: The word sor the word we translate pain is never in the Hebrew Bible used to refer to physical pain.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: It's always an emotional toil.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: It's a grief, it's a sorrow.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: I'll increase your sorrow.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh and conception kind of speaks for itself.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh, ladies, I don't want to get too awkward here, but there's a difference between conception and childbirth.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: And they feel probably pretty different.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: I think.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: I know it's awkward, but uh in sorrow, here we go, it keeps going, you will bring forth sons.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Right?
15:24
SPEAKER_00: It said in f before it said, in pain you'll bring forth children.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: Right?
15:28
SPEAKER_00: But again, it's the same word sorrow, you will bring forth in its masculine plural, banim, sons.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Not yeledim, not children, sons.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: And your desire will be for your the word here for man is each.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: So up to this point in Genesis, Adam, her husband, has been referred to as ha'adam.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: You kind of hear it in the name, ha-adam, Adam.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly it switches to Esh, and your desire will be for your Ish, and he will rule, and the preposition here is in with or by.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: Not over, but in with or by.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: He will rule in you, with you, by you, something like that.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: And so the way I'm taking this, and I'll let you be the judge for yourself, um, is that God has just prophesied this man is gonna come and crush the serpent.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're the woman, you're like, all right, let's get this thing on the road.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: And so I will increase your conception.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: You're you're gonna bring forth sons.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Why sons?
16:26
SPEAKER_00: Because of the masculine singular seed that's gonna come forth and crush the serpent.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna bring forth sons, and you will desire for your Ish, your man, that is the seed of the woman, to come and crush the serpent.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: And he will rule with you.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: And so this is how I'm gonna take it for now.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Just kind of, just I don't know, follow me for a little bit.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: You can reject it after we're done.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, but God promises to send a new man who would be born of the woman, who would rise up and take the place of Adam and rule accordingly, uh or according to God's desires.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: But that's not all.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: He would destroy the bad guy, the serpent who deceived them, and he would restore them uh to their lives and to the garden through the miracle of resurrection from the dead.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Right, so from this point on, with this understanding, the story is concerned with one thing: bringing about the eesh, that is the man, the seed of the woman, uh, who will fix everything.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: But there's gonna be enmity between him and the serpent and those who align with each of them.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: And so they're gonna try to destroy one another.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And eventually God's man uh will win.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: He will rule as we read.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he will be the new Adam, as the New Testament describes Jesus.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: And we see this first with Cain and Abel.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: They're the first sons on the scene, and so Eve has Cain, and she proves, uh, well, I think she proves my theory here, um, that her desire is for her Ish, that is her seed, to come, because she has Cain and she says, Esh.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: I've gotten an eesh.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: And translators don't know what to do with this, so they interpret and they say, I've gotten a man-child.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what that is, for one.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but nowhere in the Hebrew Bible is Esh translated man child except for right here.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: I think she's referring back to Genesis 3.16.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Your desire will be for your Ish.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: She says, Esh, and she names him Yahweh.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: I have gotten an Ish, Yahweh.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: So she thinks this is the ruler.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: And she should.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: And so the story is underway, and and the problem is we can't forget about the I will also increase your sorrow part.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Because Cain joins Team Serpent, and his brother Abel trusts in God's promises, and because of the enmity between the two, Cain strikes and kills Abel.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: And so the story is underway.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: And as we look for the promised one, we see the two sides fighting.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: And then something shifts.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 12, the promise of the coming seed is passed from Eve to Abraham.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And God is going to make Abraham into this great nation who has one job, and that is to safely deliver the promised one, the Ish, into his kingdom in the land that is in the garden, the new Jerusalem, so he can reverse the curses and bless the whole world.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: That's where we're headed.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: And so, since this one would come through this nation, the story shifts to the building of the nation.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Right?
19:30
SPEAKER_00: And this is the building of Israel and the taking of their land and the future location of the garden.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: They're going to the new Jerusalem, but there's one problem.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: It's occupied by Team Serpent.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: And so Israel is supposed to be Team God.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: And they're supposed to trust in his promises and do what is right in his eyes.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: And the story develops the Gentile nations as Team Serpent.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: And so all along the plot line, we see Satan leading the nations against Israel to try and destroy them or lead them into rejecting God.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're the serpent, your one chance of survival is to kill the nation that will birth the one who will kill you.
20:13
unknown: Right?
20:13
SPEAKER_00: So God, knowing that Satan will try to lead his nation to fall, just as he did Adam and Eve, tells God to wipe out all of Team Satan in the land and warns Israel not to intermix with Team Satan, with the Gentile nations, that is.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: And so God tells Abraham that he will be his shield, that God will protect his nation and fight their battles if they are faithful.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Right?
20:36
SPEAKER_00: And this is in order to ensure safe passage to the land to establish the kingdom of the coming promised ruler who will bless the whole world and fix all the curses.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: And so we see verses like this as the story develops, where God says to Israel, The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: See, God has great interest in getting delivering Israel to the garden so that his ruler comes about, so he can get his plan back on track.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: And then he says again in Deuteronomy 1, 30 through 31, The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight on your behalf, just as he did for you in Egypt, before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, and all the way which you have walked until you came to this place.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: God says, I'll fight for you, I'll be your shield.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: This is in my best interest.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: And so therefore, he says, See the Lord your God has placed the land before you, Deuteronomy 1.21.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you, and do not fear and be dismayed or be dismayed.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: God will fight for you.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: Don't fear the seeds of the serpents.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Right?
21:50
SPEAKER_00: And hang on to that language.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna show up.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be really important for us.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 31:8, the Lord is the one who goes ahead of you, he will be with you, he will not.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Fail you or forsake you.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Do not fear or be dismayed.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: God will fight for you, Israel.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: And again, Joshua 1 9.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Have I not commanded you?
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Be strong and courageous.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Do not tremble.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Do not be fearful or dismayed.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go, Israel.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to get you to the land.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: It's in his best interest.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Right?
22:22
SPEAKER_00: And so the problem is, Israel didn't listen.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: At Kadesh Barnea, they go up to the land, and instead of taking it and trusting in God, they feared and they trembled, and they were greatly dismayed.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And they said something like this.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: I'll read it to you.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: It's very small.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, Let's go take possession of the land.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: And God told us to, let's go.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: Right?
22:49
SPEAKER_00: And the men who had gone up said, No, no, no, we're not able to go against the people.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: They're too strong.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh-oh.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land, saying, The land through which we have gone in spite it out is a land that devours its inhabitants.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: And all the people whom we saw are men of great size.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: They're huge.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: So we were in their sight.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: And so they come up to the land and they start trembling at the size of these men, saying, We can't defeat them.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, yes, you can, because God fights for you.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: You only need to trust him.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Right?
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And so this doesn't go well for Israel.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Right?
23:30
SPEAKER_00: All of those who feared that the Gentiles would kill them in the desert, they should have feared God because it's God who ultimately kills them in the desert as a result of this.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: And a new generation is raised up for Yahweh to fear the Lord.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: And so we see that God will fight for Israel against the seeds of the serpents in order to ensure his plan of redemption is carried out.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: And as such, they only need to trust him.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: They need not fear the Gentiles, but they need to fear and trust God.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: God will wipe out their enemies before their eyes, just as he did in Egypt.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: And so he gives instruction to the king of Israel.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: And along this line, he says, When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, I will set a king over me like all the other nations who are around me.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: You shall surely set a king over you, whom the Lord your God chooses.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: One from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: You may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countrymen.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor how shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since he said, You shall never again return that way.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know the story of the kings of Israel, and you're like, Yeah, they didn't do so hot.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Right, and you're right.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: They didn't.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: And but my question here is why was the king to not multiply horses?
24:57
SPEAKER_00: Promise there's a point to this.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: It's because horses and chariots were for war.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Right?
25:02
SPEAKER_00: A faithful Israel who trusted in God to fight for them has no need to build up an arsenal.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Right?
25:07
SPEAKER_00: They own the only reason for the king to multiply horses and chariots is if he feared his enemies and didn't trust God to fight for him.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: And so this is where we fast forward to 1 Samuel.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: See, God has finally delivered the people into the land and given them rest.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: He's finally fought for them against the Gentiles.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: He did all that he promised to do, and now it's time for the king to come.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: It's time for the ruler to come.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: It's time for God to bring about the promised one who's gonna fix it all.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: The king of Israel who will bless the nations.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: But instead of trusting God to do this, they demand a king like all the other nations.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: See, they want a king who will fight their battles for them.
25:50
unknown: Right?
25:50
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they somehow still don't trust God to fight for them.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: They want a champion.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: They want a king to fight for them, not God, like all the other nations.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: And so God grants their request and he gives them a king to fight their battles for them.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Enter Saul.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Saul's a champion.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: He's a king, like all those of the nations, and he starts out strong, and he receives the anointing of God.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: And that word anointing in Hebrew is uh mashach, mashiach, which in the New Testament translates to Christos, you know, Christ or uh anointed one.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Right?
26:26
SPEAKER_00: And so we get the word Messiah or Christ from this word mashach.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: And so um so Saul receives this anointing and begins to defeat his enemies.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: But he's unfaithful.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: He begins to do what's good and right in his own eyes, and as we know, that's what Team Serpent does.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: That's a trait of Team Serpent.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: So Saul begins to fear his enemies.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: And so he fails to be the ruler who will crush the serpent's head.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so God is going to remove the anointing from Saul and give it to a man of his own choice, a man after his own heart.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: And so, if you're following the story at this point and you don't know what's coming next, and we're gonna all pretend that we don't know what's coming next, um you should be thinking, oh boy, this is it.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: God's gonna do it.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna bring the promised one, and so he's gonna deliver uh the world, everything's gonna be great.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: All right?
27:27
SPEAKER_00: And so we pick up in 1 Samuel 16.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna read this together.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I hope you don't mind that this will pretty much be the rest of the sermon.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't really have any fancy points uh for the rest of the sermon.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and sometimes I think to myself that we don't often just read scripture enough in our sermons.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: And so uh I want to pick up our Bibles and uh just read together a big chunk of scripture here in it in the context that we're bringing into it that we've just talked about.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh and all along the way, I'm just gonna be making a few comments that may help us tie this story together.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh so a Bible will come in handy here, but if you don't have one, don't worry.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh just close your eyes and listen along.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: That's what the earliest church did.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh they didn't have Bibles.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: They would sit and listen to the elder read large chunks of scripture, and so if they can do it, we can do it.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh okay, so let's go to 1 Samuel chapter 16, verse 12.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Starts and he says, This.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be on the screen.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: So he sent and brought him in.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: That is, he sent for David, and David came in.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Now he was reddish with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: This sort of calls back memories of Joseph.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is this is the one.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed David in the midst of his brothers, and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: And Samuel arose and went to Ramah.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: Now the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord terrorized him.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: And so what is happening here is the anointing is being removed from Saul and placed upon David.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And so for the rest of chapter 16, this evil spirit is tormenting Saul, and David, the new anointed king, uh, is the only one who is able to soothe this spirit.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so the anointing is being placed upon David, and that's the context we need to go into chapter 17.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Because the next story is David and Goliath, and it has to do with the anointing being removed from Saul and placed on David.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: So pick up a chapter 17, verse 1 with me.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle, and they were gathered at Soko, which belongs to Judah, and they camped between Soko and Azekah in Ephes Demim.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: And so, uh, if you're unfamiliar, this is uh basically Israel, and uh these are the Philistines.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: They were sort of the sea people, uh sort of on the uh west side of Judah here, and these guys were a problem for Israel throughout their history.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: And the only reason they were a problem for Israel is because uh they failed to drive them out of the land because they feared them.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Israel was unfaithful, and so in the judges, they didn't fully drive them out of the land.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: They didn't listen to God to totally wipe them out.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: And so the Philistines are here and continue to plague them because the Israelites continue to fear them.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Should they trust God, God would wipe them out, right?
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And so, but these are the Philistines, and these guys are sort of like the epitome at this point in the story of the seeds of the serpents.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: They are just a thorn in the side of Israel, just enmity upon enmity.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Right?
30:52
SPEAKER_00: And so we keep reading.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: Saul and the men, verse 2, of Israel were gathered and camped in the valley of Elah and drew up in battle array to encounter the Philistines.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Philistines stood on the mountain on one side while Israel stood on the other side, uh, with the valley between them.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: And then a champion, and the actual word in Hebrew is interestingly, an Ish.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: An Ish came out from the armies of the Philistines.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about that in a minute.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh, his name was Goliath from Geth, whose height was six cubits in a span.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, the dude was like eight foot tall, if not like nine.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this guy's a giant.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: So why would the narrator tell you this information?
31:34
SPEAKER_00: Why does he care?
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, if we're reading the story, this should bring back memories.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time Israel encountered large people in the land?
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, we just talked about it.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Kadesh Barnea.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: What was their response to the giants then?
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Didn't go so well.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, what will their response be this time?
31:55
SPEAKER_00: Right?
31:55
SPEAKER_00: That's the question.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh we should be importing all of the previous imagery we have read in the story, just as we would any other story, uh, as we go along.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: And so the next few verses are very interesting to me.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: So he's a big dude, he's a giant, so that tells you something.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but he has a bronze helmet on his head.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: He was clothed with clothed with scale armor, which weighed 5,000 shekels of bronze.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: He also had bronze shin guards on his legs and a bronze javelin slung between his shoulders.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: So this dude's big.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: He's got bronze all over the place.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Um it's really interesting the terminology that's used here.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: And why I mean, why is he sitting here?
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Why why does it matter to the story what his armor's made out of?
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Why do we care about that information?
32:41
SPEAKER_00: There's a narrative.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: We don't need to know this.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, I think, I think that the narrator is doing something clever.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he's using uh the story to paint a picture for you.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: And so uh the word we get for serpent all the way down through uh the story of the Bible is a Hebrew word nachash.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Nachash.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: If you're not spitting on somebody, you're not saying it right.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Um and the Hebrew word for bronze comes from this word.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: It looks very similar, just a little T at the end.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Nachashet.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so it comes from serpent, probably because the color of the snake or whatever.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: Um but what I think is happening is this guy's tall, he's big, he's in the land, and this dude's got serpent written all over him.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's got bronze helmet, he's got a nachashet helmet, he's got scale armor, you know, like serpent scales made of nachashet.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: He's got nachashet shin guards and so on and so forth.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: And so narrators like, look, you couldn't get more serpent-e than this guy.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's just out there.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: And he continues to prove his point.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh, verse 8, he stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel and said to them, Why do you come up to draw uh, why do you come up in battle array?
34:01
SPEAKER_00: Am I not the Philistine and you are servants of Saul?
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: And so he starts mocking Israel, and he points, but he pushes on a pain point of theirs, because when they asked for a uh uh king like all the other nations, Samuel warns them.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Look, all the kings of the nations, they subject their people to taxes and to service.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: You'll be his servants.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: If I choose a king for you, he'll serve you.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: But, uh, so so this is a pain point for them, and and uh, you know, you want a guy to fight your battles, and the narrator might as well be saying, Saul, you're up.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: Israel, why are you up here against me?
34:42
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you servants of Saul?
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Isn't Saul chosen to fight your battles?
34:46
SPEAKER_00: Come on, Saul, let's go, come fight me.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: Come fight the seed of the serpent, right?
34:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so we continue to read.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will become your servants.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: And if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall become our servants and serve us.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: And so this is the importance of the Ish language.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: Right?
35:07
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to usurp the role of the Ish.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: This seed of the serpent is trying to usurp the role of the seed of the woman.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: And so if he wins, right, Israel will serve him rather than the coming Messiah.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Right?
35:19
SPEAKER_00: And so again, the Philistine said, I defy the ranks of Israel.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Give me a man that we may fight together.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: When Saul and all Israel heard these words, the Philistines, what does it say?
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Y'all remember that language?
35:37
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it interesting that he uses the same language from the law to describe what's going on here?
35:43
SPEAKER_00: How do we interpret this?
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Right?
35:45
SPEAKER_00: They were greatly afraid.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: You should be thinking, uh-oh.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Not good.
35:51
unknown: Right?
35:52
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Saul and Israel aren't trusting in the Lord.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: But here, Saul actually kind of has a point.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God has left him.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: He's no longer, the anointing is removed.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: And so he's like, Y'all, I'm not stupid.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: This is how I die.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: If I go out there, he's gonna kill me.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: And he's right, because it's too late for Saul.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so we keep reading.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: David was the youngest of his brothers, right?
36:19
SPEAKER_00: And uh his dad is gonna tell him to go back and forth to the battlefield and give refreshments to his brother.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's pick up in verse 20.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: David arose early in the morning, left the flock with a keeper, and took supplies, went to Jesse, uh, went as Jesse commanded him, and he came to the circle of the camp while the army was going out in battle array, shouting the war cry.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Israel and the Philistines drew up in battle array against the army, and David left his baggage and ran to the front line and entered in order to greet his brothers.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: And he was talking with them, behold, uh the Esh, the champion, right, the Philistine from Gath, named Goliath, was coming up from the army of the Philistines, and he spoke the same words.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: And David heard them.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: When all the men of Israel saw the man, they fled from him, and they were greatly afraid.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh-oh.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Ah good.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: Then the men of Israel said, Have you seen this man who is coming up?
37:18
SPEAKER_00: Surely he's coming to defy Israel, and it'll be that 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.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: David said, Well, what will be done for the man who kills the Philistine and takes away the curse from Israel?
37:32
SPEAKER_00: For who is this?
37:33
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: Who is this uncircumcised Philistine?
37:37
SPEAKER_00: That he should taunt the armies of the living God.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I love the word taunt too.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: It's annoy.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: He should annoy the armies of the living God.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Um in other words, who is this uncircumcised Philistine?
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Who is this seed of the serpent?
37:54
SPEAKER_00: Why are we letting him say these things?
37:56
SPEAKER_00: This is ridiculous.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Why do we fear him?
37:58
SPEAKER_00: Didn't God say, I will fight for you, don't have fear.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: So the interesting thing is this is no underdog story.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: Right?
38:06
SPEAKER_00: David is the only one who understands that.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: Goliath is the underdog here.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: Right?
38:12
SPEAKER_00: So now it's getting good, I think.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: Right?
38:15
SPEAKER_00: The man after God's own heart, he gets anointed.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: He's the only one in Israel who doesn't fear the seed of the serpent.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: And we ought to be thinking, as readers, oh man, this is it.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't fear.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Everyone else is fearing this guy.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: This guy doesn't fear him, and he's got the anointing of God.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna get good.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: Right, so we continue to read, and his brother gets mad at him, which is interesting.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we'll pick up in uh 31.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: When the words which David spoke were heard, they told them to Saul, and he sent for him.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail on account of Goliath.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: In other words, don't do what your fathers did at Kadesh Barneah.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Don't run away in fear.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: You'll regret that.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Don't let any man's heart fail.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Saul said, You're not able to do that.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: You're a lad, you're a young guy.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: He's been a warrior from his youth.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: But David said to Saul, Your servant was tending his father's sheep.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: A lion and a bear came, I took the lamb from the flock.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: He took the lamb from the flock, and I went after him and attacked him and rescued it from his mouth.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: And when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck him and killed him.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted and annoyed the armies of the living God.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: Um it's interesting here.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: I've heard this preached a number of times, and it's like, well, see, God was preparing David with the skills he needed to kill Goliath, so that he could come and do it.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, nothing can prepare you to kill a giant with a stone.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh-uh.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh what David is doing is really interesting.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: He's he's he's appealing to the law.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 26 says, I shall also grant peace in the land, so that you, Israel, may lie with no one making you tremble.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, in this story, it's the Philistines making them tremble.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: And I shall also eliminate harmful beasts from the land, and no sword will pass through your land.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: But you will chase your enemies, and they will fall before the sword.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh, in other words, David understands that this isn't just God preparing his skills, rather, this is God demonstrating his anointing to him.
40:39
unknown: Right?
40:40
SPEAKER_00: That David's like, oh, I remember the law.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: Once I start making the harmful beasts flee from the land, and I have the anointing, what follows?
40:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, now we're gonna drive the uncircumcised Philistines out of the land.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna chase them.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see what happens, see if this actually does take place.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: And David said, uh, sorry, Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: And David said, I don't want that.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: Um so he took his stick, verse 40, in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag, in his pouch, and his sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: The Philistine approached David with a shield bearer in front of them.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: And the Philistine looked and saw David.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: He despised him.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: Remember the enmity.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: For he was a youth and reddish, with a handsome appearance.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: The Philistine said to David, Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks?
41:41
SPEAKER_00: And the Philistine cursed David by his he cursed God's anointed by false gods.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: Bad move, Goliath.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: You don't do that.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: You don't curse God's anointed.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: The Philistine also said to David, Come to me, I'll give your flesh to the birds of the sky, the beasts of the field, Genesis imagery.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: Then David said to the Philistines, You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of armies, the God of the army of Israel, whom you have annoyed, you have taunted.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: This day Yahweh will deliver you into my hands, and I will strike you.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: Remember that language, striking, the seed of the serpent.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh I will strike you down and remove your head.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: Remember, he will crush his head, Genesis 3.15.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: And I will give you the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky, the wild beasts, uh, that the whole earth may know there is a God in Israel, and that this assembly, that is Israel, may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear, for the battle is Yahweh's, and he will give you into our hands.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: Then it happened when the Philistine rose, came, drew near to David.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: David ran quickly towards the battle line to meet the Philistine, and David put his hand in his bag, he took from it a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his head.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: And the stone sank into his head, so that he fell on his face to the ground.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss that head imagery from 315.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: That the seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: Thus David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and he struck the Philistine and killed him.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: There was no sword in David's hand.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 26.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: Then David ran and stood over the Philistines and took his sword, drew it out of the sheath, killed him, cut off his head with it.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: When the Philistines saw their I wish more kids' stories told that part.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't see that one a lot.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: The men of Israel and Judah arose and they shouted and they pursued the Philistines as far as the valley of uh into the gates of Ekron.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: And so so they're gonna chase off the Philistines, just as we read in Leviticus.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: Right?
43:49
SPEAKER_00: And so uh we'll we'll kind of end there in the in the text because I'm running out of time.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: Um but I want to emphasize this that the story isn't about you facing your job.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: And I hope you've seen this.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm really quite sorry to tell you that, but it's also not an underdog story.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: Actually, if understood properly, as we said, Goliath is the underdog, and David is the anointed of God.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: He has God fighting for him.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: So in this story, the underdog loses.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: No, the story's about the seed of the woman coming to defeat the seed of the serpent.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: At least that's what I'm suggesting.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: And it's pointing forward to that time when the serpent, the ultimate giant, will finally be defeated once for all by the one faithful ruler, Jesus.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: To put it simply, as far as we know at this point in the story, we're witnessing the battle between the Messiah and the serpent.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: This is all in the storyline of watching God confirm David as his anointed one.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: And if he is to faithfully continue on, he might be the one.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: But as we know, unfortunately, David sins with Bathsheba, and he multiplies wives for himself, as we saw in Deuteronomy, kings ought not do.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: And so we keep looking for a son of David who won't fail as David did, one who will sit on his throne for eternity, 2 Samuel 7.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: And that one won't just defeat the seed of the serpent.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: He will defeat the serpent himself and restore what was lost at the curse.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: And so while we can't claim this story as a promise that God will help us conquer whatever ails us, I think we can claim this story as an assurance that the ultimate giant, Satan, who ails us today, will be defeated once and for all at the return of the King, Jesus Christ.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: Because the giant represents the ultimate giant, the serpent of old, who will be defeated by the one faithful ruler, Jesus.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: So in other words, this story isn't about you defeating anything.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: You aren't David.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's David.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is David, the greater David.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: And so I always tell our young adults, if you still feel the need after all of this to read yourself into the story, and I really wish we would stop doing that.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: I think the closest thing to us in this story is all the Israelites hiding in their tents, shaking in their boots.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: That's where we would be if we were there.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: Right?
46:30
SPEAKER_00: Because you aren't God's anointed.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: Anybody else walks out on that battlefield other than David, you're dead.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: Right on the spot.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: So rather, this story is about God defeating the devil.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: And with him, sin and death once and for all for your benefit.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: So you only need to trust in him to deliver you safely, right, through the work of his son, the ultimate ruler, into the new garden through the promise of resurrection.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: Period.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're looking for.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: And this is how we this is how God will fight for you.
47:05
unknown: Right?
47:06
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, it's how God is going to complete his work of filling the earth with his image bearers.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: And so I really just have one application today.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: And that's very simply trust him.
47:21
SPEAKER_00: Trust him.
47:22
SPEAKER_00: Trust his story.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: The king is coming, and the serpent is doomed.
47:31
SPEAKER_00: Don't lose heart because the world seems like it's deteriorating under Satan's rule.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: And it is.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is coming.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: And if David, God's per imperfect ruler, can defeat the seed of the serpent Goliath with a stone and a sling, how much more can Jesus, God's perfect ruler, defeat the serpent of old?
47:58
SPEAKER_00: And so my encouragement is to have confidence in that.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: And set your eyes on that coming day.
48:07
SPEAKER_00: And let's all say together, come Lord Jesus.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, guys.