Good morning. Let's find our
seats, it's time to begin. Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number four, number four from your Spiral Gospel
Hymns hymnal, number four. The tune we'll use this morning
is Sweet Hour of Prayer. Hail, sovereign love that first
began the scheme to rescue fallen men. Hail, matchless, free, eternal
grace that gave my soul a hiding place. Against the God who rules
the sky, I fought with hand uplifted high. Despise the mention of
His grace, too proud to seek a hiding place. And wrapped in thick Egyptian
night, And found of darkness more than light, Madly I ran
the sinful race, Secure without a hiding place. But thus the
eternal counsel ran, Almighty love, arrest that man. I felt the arrows of distress
and found I had no hiding place. Indignant justice stood in view,
To Sinai's fiery mount I flew. But justice cried with frowning
face, This mountain is no hiding place. Ere long a heavenly voice
I heard, and mercy's angel form appeared, who led me on with
gentle pace to Jesus Christ, my hiding place. On him almighty vengeance fell,
That must have sunk a world to hell. He bore it for a chosen
race, And thus became their hiding place. A few more rolling suns
at most shall land me safe on heaven's coast. There I shall
sing the song of grace to Jesus Christ, my hiding place. Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to be back in First
Samuel chapter 17 this morning. Hard to sing that hymn without
thinking about Moose Parks, isn't it? I got an email from him last
night. He saw in our bulletin that we
were observing our 27th anniversary and just wanted to rejoice with
us and express his love to you all. of our friends have done that.
Angus from Australia and Gilbert from India have expressed to
me their love for you and their thankfulness to the Lord for
keeping us these many years. Let's ask the Lord's blessings
before we begin. our merciful Heavenly Father.
We find our boldness and our hope and our confidence in coming
into thy presence in the person and work of thy dear son, our
Lord and Savior. We thank you for the precious
promises that you've given us to meet with us when we gather
together in his name. We thank you that you have told
us that when he is lifted up, that you will draw us into thy
presence. Lord, we begin this morning with
a keen awareness of how dependent we are upon thee to enable us
to lift up Christ. Lord, we We pray that you would
not leave us to ourselves. Lord, if you don't go with us
and if you don't speak to us and if you don't meet with us,
all that we do here in this place is worse than vanity. Lord, it is a religious mockery
that has no hope of salvation. Lord, speak to our hearts Enable
us to hear, enable us to speak the truth in Christ and cause
your word to be effectual and alive and sharper than any two-edged
sword. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. You all are familiar with the
story that we read in Luke chapter 24 when after the resurrection
the Lord meets up with a couple of his disciples on the road
to Emmaus. Now we don't know exactly at
what point in that road our Lord met with those disciples but
we know that it's a seven mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. And he walked with them and he
expounded unto them those things concerning himself. He said to them, was it not necessary
that these things be, and beginning with Moses and the Psalms and
the prophets, he exposed the real meaning of the Old Testament
as it related to him. And their eyes were opened in
the breaking of bread, the scripture says. That's our hope always
when we come together, that the Lord will open our eyes in the
breaking of bread. And they said, one to the other,
they said, did not our hearts burn within us as he spake with
us along the way? And that's also our hope. that
the Lord would speak to our hearts and that he would open the scriptures
to our minds and to our hearts, our understanding, and that he
would reveal himself and his glory to us and that our hearts
would burn within us. I wondered every time we We study
one of these Old Testament types. If perhaps this is one of those
stories that the Lord expounded unto them. If the Lord did not
go back to 1 Samuel chapter 17 and say to them, you remember
David and Goliath? Oh yes, Lord, we remember. Well,
you realize that Goliath never had a chance, right? He never
had a chance. The story of David and Goliath
is not a story about a bold young man who is courageous enough
to go up against the giants, inspiring us to do the same.
It's a very simple story. Goliath, for 40 days, threw down
the gauntlet. And he said to Saul and to the
army of Israel, send out one man and I will fight against
your representative. And whoever wins, wins for the
entire army. So that if your man beats my
champion, that's what Goliath is called, he's called a champion.
Depending on what your understanding of a cubit is, he's somewhere
between nine and a half and ten feet tall. He's a giant of a
man. His name Goliath means splendor
and in the flesh he was, he was, he was splendorous. I mean he
was, he was a foe to be reckoned with and Saul and all of his
army were scared to death. There's no way they're going
to go out there and fight this man. And David shows up. David said, who is this uncircumcised
Philistine? He comes against me with sword
and spirit but I go against him in the name of the God of Israel. And David went out into that
valley and took his sling and slew that giant and took the
sword of the giant and decapitated Goliath And because David got
the victory, all Israel won the battle against the Philistines. You see the picture, don't you?
David's Christ. The son of David, the Lord Jesus
Christ, went to the cross and he He took the very words of
Satan, he took the very words of death and hell, and he decapitated
the giant that would otherwise slay us. And he got the victory
for his whole church. And there's a verse I want you
to see here in verse 25 of chapter 17. You know, the scripture says
in the volume of the book, it is spoken of me. All of these
Old Testament types are gospel stories, giving glory not to
a man, not to little David, not to you or to me, but giving glory
to the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I have some giants in
our lives that we cannot defeat. And here's the promise of God,
the battle is not yours, it's the Lord's. The last enemy that you and I
will face is death. And he conquered that. He conquered
the grave. He conquered death. He cut off
the head of that giant. he established eternal life for
himself and for his church, for all of his people. Romans chapter
11 says, and all Israel shall be saved. If I could interrupt this message
for just one moment. I've had several people ask me
over the last couple of months what's going on in Israel and
in the Middle East. The promises that God made to
Israel in the Old Testament are fulfilled in spiritual Israel. And so, this is not Bible prophecy
being fulfilled. And I find nothing in scripture
that promises a revival among national Israel to where they're
going to come to Christ and then the end's gonna come. I don't
know how the details are gonna work out in the end, but my point
is that national Israel's not Israel. He is not Israel. He's not a child of Abraham who
is circumcised in the flesh by the hands of men, but one who
is circumcised in the heart by the Spirit of God. All the promises
of God are yea and amen in Christ, and they are for his church and
for his people, for those for whom he died. We have the promises
of God. Now, before David goes up against
Goliath, they tell David the promises that Saul, who is the
king of Israel, made to whoever slays Goliath. Whoever kills
Goliath, this is what Saul is going to give him. And in this
story, Saul is a picture of God the Father. And we know that
all the promises that God made to his son before time ever was
in the covenant of grace are pictured here in the promises
that Saul makes to whoever it is that slays Goliath. And we also know that by virtue
of our marriage to Christ, the church is the bride of Christ.
And in the Old Testament, the men received the inheritance
and the only hope that a woman had to have any wealth was to
be united to a man who received all the inheritance. Well, that's
a gospel picture too. The Lord Jesus Christ gets all
the promises. He received all the inheritance. He got all the blessings. And the only hope that you and
I have to enjoy these blessings of God is to be married to Christ. And in that union, all the blessings
of God and all the things that God promised to the Lord Jesus
Christ are for his bride. And so David got these things
because he slew Goliath. Christ got these things because
he conquered death and sin and hell and the grave. And his church
gets these things by union with him. Verse 25, 1 Samuel chapter 17. And the men of Israel said, have
you seen this man that has come up? Have you seen this giant? Now David wasn't even of age
to be able to fight in the army. So David's a young boy, young
man, young teenager probably at home and taking care of the
sheep. And he's been sent of his father with food to sustain
the health of his brothers who were on the battlefield. And
there again, we see a picture of Christ, don't we? The Lord
Jesus Christ was sent into this world as the bread of life. to feed his people who are engaged
in this spiritual battle. He said, have you seen this man? Surely to defy Israel he has
come up. And it shall be that the man
who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches
and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free
in Israel." Those are my three points. Going to give him great
riches. He's going to give him the king's
daughter. And he's going to make his whole
household free. Debt free. No taxes. Free. This one victory will get
for you all of these rewards. Isaiah chapter 62, verse 11 says,
hear God speaking, say ye to the daughters of Zion, and I'm
trying to speak now, God's word, I'm saying to the daughters of
Zion, behold, by salvation cometh, His reward is with him and his
work goes before him. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
the only one that could send his work ahead of him to recommend
him to God. You and I can't send our works
to God in hopes of having favor with God based on our works.
Only the Lord Jesus could do that. He sent his work, Perfect
righteousness, his perfect obedience to the law, his perfect obedience
to the father in laying down his life for sheep, he sent that
work ahead of him. And his work recommended him
to God. And we are to say because of
that, to the daughters of Zion, behold, thy salvation cometh
and his reward is with him. So This promise that Saul is
making to anyone who defeats Goliath is the promise that God
the Father made to his son to reward him, to reward him with
these three things and to reward his wife by virtue of her union
with him with these blessings of God. And what a reward it
is. You see, he got the victory and
he gets the reward and he gets all the glory and we enjoy it
because of our union with him. Let's take
them one at a time, all three. Great riches, great riches. Oh, this world is full of a lot of
riches, isn't it? And the scripture calls the riches
of this world, the deceitfulness of riches. What is it to be deceived? When something promises to you
something that it cannot deliver, you've been deceived. You've
been lied to. And the scripture says that the
root of all evil is the love of money. Nothing wrong with
wealth or money or the things that God provides, enjoy them.
Be generous with them and be grateful for them. But if we
think that those riches are gonna provide for us the things that
they cannot provide, then we've been deceived. For each one of
us is gonna leave this world the same way we came into it,
naked and penniless. What does it profit a man if
he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? What would
a man give in exchange for his soul? Well, men give, you know,
they sell their souls to the devil every day. What for? For the deceitfulness
of riches. That's what they sell their souls
for. And here's the promise of God.
I'm going to give to the one who slays Goliath, great riches. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain
to receive power and riches and glory and honor. Oh, God Almighty poured out true
riches, spiritual riches, the riches that the world promises
but can't deliver. What do the riches of this world
promise? Oh, they promise happiness. They promise peace. They promise
comfort. They promise joy. They promise,
and more times than not, they bring just the opposite, don't
they? The riches of this world, scripture
says in James chapter five, verse one, are corrupted and they will
cry out as a testimony against those who trust in them. Men trust in their bank accounts,
they trust in their possessions, they trust in their worldly wealth
to get them by. And the Lord said, it's more
difficult for a rich man, a man who's depending upon his riches,
he's not just talking about material wealth, he's talking about the
riches of his own self-righteousness, The thought that maybe he's done
something that he can send ahead of him to recommend him to God,
that's his riches. And it's more difficult for a
rich man to enter into the kingdom of God than it is for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle. And the disciples said, well,
Lord, if that's true, who then can be saved? And what'd the
Lord say? With man, it is impossible. It is impossible. You're not
gonna get a camel through the eye of a needle. And I've heard
that verse taken, and Jay said, well, you know, by a camel wasn't
really a camel, the eye of a needle wasn't really an eye, it was
this and that, and they explained it well. No, it was a camel,
it was an eye of a needle. That's the whole point of the
story. You can't push a camel through the eye of a needle,
and you can't get a rich man into the kingdom of God. With
man, it is impossible. But with God, all things are
possible. Now what does God do in order
to make it possible for a rich man to enter into the kingdom
of heaven? He makes him poor. He makes him poor. He causes
him to see that he has no righteousness. He has nothing that he can offer
to God to recommend him to God. And he becomes poverty stricken.
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. And then he takes whatever material
wealth that God has given to him and he causes that man to
see it for what it is. He sees it for what it is. It's just vanity. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 26,
Moses is being held up as one who believed God and he says,
and the scripture says, Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ
greater than all the riches of Egypt. Turn with me to First Chronicles
chapter 29, First Chronicles 29. Samuel, Kings, 1 Chronicles. David is praying in 1 Chronicles
29, verse 10. Verse 10, wherefore David blessed
the Lord before all the congregation, and David said, blessed be thou,
Lord God of Israel, our father forever and ever. Thine, O Lord,
is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory
and the majesty for all that is in the heaven and in the earth
is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord,
and thou are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor
come of thee, and thou reignest over all, and in thine hand is
power and might, and in thy hand It is to make great and to give
strength unto all." All these things belong to him.
Oh, on the relative scale of wealth,
worldly speaking, we're all well off. We're all very well off. And
what do you have? that you've not received. Who made thee to differ? All
these things come from him. They belong to him. And a man who's poor in spirit will
acknowledge that. These riches came to Christ and
they're spiritual riches. They're the riches of wisdom
and righteousness and justification and salvation and peace and hope,
true happiness. All these riches are given to
Christ. And the only way that we can
enjoy the riches that the world promises but cannot deliver is
to be found in him. Saul said, I'll give to him great
riches. God the Father gave to his son
great riches. Oh, my brethren and my friends,
don't settle for the false riches of this world. Don't settle for
them. They're not durable riches. As the scripture says, I will
give unto them durable riches. Riches that will not fade away. You remember in 1 Kings chapter
10 when the Queen of Sheba came all the way from southern Sinai
and came all the way to Israel because she had heard about the
fame of Solomon. And she came all the way to meet
him. And after she was with him and
she saw his wisdom and his riches and his wealth and this all spiritual
picture. She said, I did not believe the
stories that I was told. And I had to see it for myself
to know that it was true. But now I know that half the
story was not told me. The stories about Solomon were
so great down in Sheba. She thought, surely there's nobody
that lives like that. And now that I've met him, oh,
they weren't telling half the truth. His riches and his glory
and his beauty and his power are so great. Riches and honor are with me,
the Lord said in Proverbs chapter eight, yea, durable riches and
righteousness. These are riches that money can't
buy. And we know money can't buy things,
it can't buy love, it can't buy peace. You have a serious enough illness, it can't
buy physical health. and it certainly can't buy spiritual
life. Proverbs chapter 39, verse six
says, surely every man walketh in a vain show. Oh, you see that
in your own heart, don't you? Get a little something you're
proud of. You see it in the world. But I'm a lot more concerned
about the vanity of my own heart, my own life, than I am the obvious
vanities of this world. Let's not elevate ourselves above
the things that riches do to us. Every man, every man walketh
in a vain show. Surely he is disquieted in vain. He gets worried and concerned
about things in vain. He heapeth up riches and he knoweth
not who shall gather them. Oh, Saul gave to David great
riches. The Lord Jesus Christ got as
his reward, true riches, durable riches. The things that we're
all looking for but can't deliver. The world can't deliver these
kind of riches. Only Christ can. All the blessings and promises
of God are yea and amen in Christ. And they're all in heavenly places
in Christ. Second, reward that Saul promised
to whoever killed this giant was to give that man his daughter. Jeremiah chapter 8 verse 21 says,
for the hurt of the daughter of my people I was hurt. Now that's the Lord Jesus speaking.
For the hurt of my daughter, I was hurt. The Lord Jesus Christ took in
his body upon that tree all the things that hurt you and me,
and he was hurt for us in order that he might win to himself. You see, the church, the body
of Christ, is God the Father's daughter. It's God the Son's
wife. But it's God, the father's daughter.
He elected her in the covenant of grace before time ever was.
And the Lord Jesus entered into that covenant, that promised
relationship with his father, where the father said to his
son, I'm going to give you my daughter. I'm going to give you
as your wife, as your bride, my daughter. And we read the
Song of Solomon. We see the affection that the
Lord Jesus Christ has for his bride. Oh, no man ever loved
his wife like the Lord Jesus Christ loves his wife. In the
Song of Solomon, he says, the Lord Jesus speaking, he said,
one look from you ravishes my heart. Child of God, when God gives
you the grace to bow your head in prayer. And I know that it
doesn't last long. It's hard to pray. To stay focused
in prayer, your mind wanders and you're in and out. But there's where the Lord Jesus
says, one look from you ravishes my heart. And he speaks of her
beauty. You know, people read the Song
of Solomon and they think, oh, that's a licentious. No, it's
God's word. And God is speaking of, Christ
is speaking about the beauty and the glory of his bride. And she's talking about the beauty
and the glory of her husband. Everything in this world is about
a marriage. People think, well, what's the
purpose of life? I'm gonna tell you what the purpose of life
is. And this is what this is about. God the Father chose a
wife, his daughter, for his bride before time ever was. God the
Son entered into that covenant relationship and promised to
redeem her. And in the fullness of time,
the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and he accomplished,
he cut off the head of that giant, he accomplished the work in order
to receive his reward. And now God the Holy Spirit is
bringing those whom God chose and for whom Christ died into
a loving relationship with their husband. One by one, God's elect
are hearing from God and they're believing and they're being brought
into a loving fellowship with their husband. And when the last
one, that God chose the last one for who Christ died. And
we don't know when that's gonna be. Might be before we finish
this message. It's over. There's no rapture
and then tribulation and then all this other kind of dispensational
stuff. You study that kind of stuff,
the stuff that's popular in religion today. You know that stuff didn't
start until the 1800s and wasn't really popularized until the
1900s? The church never believed that stuff before. A young girl, actually, a teenage
girl in Glasgow at a revival in 1820 had a vision. of the rapture of the church.
And she told a preacher about it, and he bought into it, and
he started promoting it. And then it came to America,
and D.L. Moody started promoting it, and
then the Baptists started promoting it, and this whole elaborate
dispensational view of the rapture of the church and the tribulation,
all these things that men have come up with, and they use scripture
to support it. It's all just a made-up thing
to scare people into coming to church and being saved. There's
no truth to it. When the last of God's elect
is brought to Christ, it's over. That's the purpose of life. That's
the purpose of this world. That's the only reason this world
exists. That's what it's all about. That's
the origin, that's the course, and that's the end of life as
we know it in this world. It's all about a marriage. That's just the glorious truth,
brother. And God the Father promised his
daughter to Christ. Thirdly, the Father not only
promised his son, Great Riches, and the
king's daughter. But he promised his father's
house would be free in Israel. You see, they go back with me
to our text. There are three points right here in the last
part of this verse. Great Riches, 1 Samuel 17.25, his daughter
and Make his father's house free
in Israel. Every culture and every government
and every generation of man has paid taxes. Support the government. What Saul's saying here is, you,
nor your father, nor any of your brethren, We'll have to pay a
penny tax again. You're not gonna be enlisted
in the army. You're gonna be free. The government
is going to completely support you and you'll be free from all
government requirements from here on out for your whole family. Oh, stand fast. in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made you free. And be not entangled again with
the yoke of bondage. Don't go back to Egypt. There's
no freedom in religion. Religion is bondage. Religion
is legalism. Religion is if you do this, then
you can obligate God to save you. And so men are trying harder
and harder and harder and harder. Well, if I just pay a little
bit more taxes, if I do a little bit more work, if I can restrain
myself from a little bit more of the worldly pleasures of this
life, somehow, somehow I can pay enough taxes to God to earn
my favor with him. And that denies Christ His glory
because that's exactly what He did. He paid a debt that you
cannot pay. And He paid it in full. He paid
it in full. There's nothing more to be paid. If you owed a great debt to a
bank and I went down to the bank and paid that debt off for you
and then you went back to try to make payments on it, if it's
a legitimate bank, they can't take your payments. They can't
take them. Why? Because it's paid for. It's
right here, paid in full. It is finished. It's finished. You heard about a man who was
saving money all of his life and sending it to the bank. Year after year, paycheck after
paycheck, he sent money to the bank. Finally, one day, retired. And he goes down to the bank
to get his money out. And he identifies himself. And
the teller says, could I see some ID? And he shows the ID.
And the teller calls the bank president over. And the bank
president says, sir, is this you? Say, yes, this is me. Come to withdraw my money." And
the bank president looks at the guard at the door of the bank
and says, lock the door and call the FBI. This is the man that
for the last 40 years has been sending counterfeit money to
our bank. Put the cuffs on him and throw
him in prison. Now that's exactly what's going
to happen. To anyone who thinks, you know, I've been making my
investments into God and God's going to reward me. And one day
I'm going to go and withdraw my funds. And God's going to
say to the prison keepers, cast him into other darkness where
there's weeping and wailing in the nation of Pete. This is the
man that's been sending counterfeit money in The Lord Jesus Christ, he's the only one that can make
you free. And if you're free in him, you're free indeed. If
the Spirit of God make you, give you liberty, you have liberty.
Oh, what liberty we have. Liberty to love God, liberty
to worship him, liberty to to follow after him, debt free, great riches, my daughter, and freedom for you, and for
your whole family. And that's what the Father gave
to Christ as a result of him defeating our enemy. All right,
let's take a break.