Good morning. If you would open
your Bibles to the book of 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 17. 1 Samuel chapter 17. This morning we are going to
look at a story from the Old Testament, a very familiar story
that everyone in here has heard before. But in listening to this
I want you to do something you may have never done before. This
is the story of David and Goliath. What I want all of us to do in
here, and this sounds like it's going to be a request for some
of the little kids, but I want everybody to try to do this.
While I'm going through this, I want you to imagine, as I'm
going to try to do with you, that we are soldiers in the army
of Israel here, okay? So when we listen to this, I
want us to take it to heart. I want us to put ourselves in
this situation because the surroundings of this are important. I want
us to try to get a little feel for where we are, okay? So we
all imagine we're really big, strong soldiers here. We've got
our sword and our shield and we're ready for the fight against
the Philistines, okay? So look here in chapter 17, verse
1. Now the Philistines gathered
together their armies to battle, and were gathered together at
Shocho, which belongeth to Judah, and pitched between Shocho and
Azekah in Ephesdamum. And Saul, who was the king of
the Israelites, and the men of Israel were gathered together
and pitched by the valley of Elah, and set the battle in array
against the Philistines. And the Philistines stood on
a mountain on one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other
side, and there was a valley between them. So, we're all standing
on one side of a mountain, we're all on top of a mountain, and
the Philistines who are on the other side of the mountain are
who we're going to fight. Now the first question we need
to ask is, why are we fighting the Philistines? Well, back in
Judges, I'll read this to you, in Judges chapter 10 it tells
us, It says, And the children of Israel did evil, that's us,
we did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Balaam and the
gods of the Philistines. And the anger of the Lord was
hot against Israel, and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines
and into the hands of the children of Ammon. And the Lord said unto
the children of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians,
and from the Amorites, and from the children of Ammon, and from
the Philistines? Yet ye have forsaken me and served
their gods. Wherefore, I will deliver you
no more. You go and cry unto the gods
which you have chosen. Let them deliver you. Why are
we fighting the Philistines? Because our parents' parents,
they all made some mistakes. They worshiped other gods and
didn't worship the true and living God. And another reason that
we're fighting the Philistines is because we just can't beat
them. We fight them all the time and
every time we get a big victory we beat them. Well they didn't
go away and they're there and they come back and get us again.
So let's look at verse 4. And there went out a champion
out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath of Gath, whose
height was six cubits and a span. Our enemy, Goliath, was huge. There are differing opinions
on how big he was. Some people say he was nine feet
tall. Some people say he was over 11
feet tall, which means that if he were standing on the floor,
he could touch the ceiling. But he was definitely bigger,
stronger, and tougher than any of us. All us big strong soldiers
here, he's tougher than all of us. And he's described as a champion. Do you know the only way you
get the title champion back then? It's because you're undefeated
and no one has ever beat you. So, look at verse 5 and 6. And
he had a helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with
a coat of mail. And the weight of the coat was
5,000 shekels of brass. And he had greaves of brass upon
his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders." This
is talking about his armor he's wearing. So Goliath, this huge
soldier, his defenses appear impenetrable. There's no way
through. We cannot find a weakness. And our weapons that we have
here, our sword and spear, they're not strong enough to beat him.
So look at verse 7. And the staff of his spear was
like a weaver's beam, and his spear's head weighed 600 shekels
of iron, and one bearing a shield went before him. His weapons
were something greater than we can even imagine. We see him
down there and these weapons are amazing. There's no way that
we can protect ourselves from these weapons. Look at verse
8. And Goliath stood and cried unto
the armies of Israel and said unto them, Why are ye come out
to set your battle in array? Am not I a Philistine, and you
servants of Saul? Choose you a man for you, and
let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me
and to kill me, then will we be your servants. But if I prevail
against him and kill him, then shall ye be our servants and
serve us. Goliath has challenged all of
us, every one of us in here. And he said, choose a man we
can pick. We get to look around here and
pick anybody we want to go down there and fight Goliath. And
if that person can beat Goliath, we don't have to ever fight the
Philistines again. They will then be our slaves.
But if we lose, we will be slaves and we'll be in bondage forever.
We'll belong to them. So verse 10, and the Philistines
said, I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that
we may fight together. Goliath defies all of us, or
he's mocking us. He's saying, if you won't fight
me, then you're scared. You're a coward, you won't come
fight me. So verse 11, when Saul and all
Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they heard what Goliath
said, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Now think about
our reaction in this. When we heard all that Goliath
proclaimed out loud in front of everyone, we were scared,
we were afraid, and we don't have such a champion in our army.
Anybody in here feel like they wanna go fight this 10 foot tall
guy? Okay, look at verse 12. Now David
was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehem Judah, whose name
was Jesse. And he had eight sons, and the
man went among men for an old man in the days of Saul. And
the three eldest sons of Jesse went and followed Saul to the
battle. And the names of his three sons that went to the battle
were Eliab the firstborn, and next unto him Abinadab, and the
third Shammah. And David was the youngest, and
the three eldest followed Saul. But David went and returned from
Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem." All right, David
had been with Saul the king before the battle. Why was he there? Because King Saul was troubled
by an evil spirit. And this is in the chapter before.
And he could not find any relief from this spirit, except David
came and played a harp. And when David played that harp,
it soothed the king and he was free of the evil spirit. But
David left before the fight because David had to go feed his father's
sheep. All right, look at verse 16. And the Philistine drew near
morning and evening and presented himself 40 days. Goliath the
giant came out every morning and every evening for 40 days,
daring someone to stand up and fight him. After this long, it
was obvious. All of us in here, we aren't
willing to go fight him. We're all scared of him. Look
at verse 17. And Jesse said to David his son,
Take now for thy brethren an ephah of this parched corn and
these ten loaves, and run to the camp to thy brethren. and
carry these ten cheeses unto the captain of their thousands
and look how thy brethren fare and take their pledge. Now Saul
and they and all the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah fighting
the Philistines. So David's father sent him to
provide for his children. As these children were gathered
and they were fighting with the Philistines. Look at verse 20,
ìAnd David rose up early in the morning and left the sheep with
a keeper, and took and went as Jesse had commanded him. And
he came to the trench as the host was going forth to the fight
and shouted for the battle. David rose up early and did as
his father had commanded him to do. He left his sheep with
a keeper and went to the battle.î Verse 21, For Israel and the
Philistines had put the battle in array, army against army.
And David left his carriage in the hand of the keeper and ran
into the army and came and saluted his brethren. And as he talked
with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine
of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the armies of the Philistines,
and spake according to the same words. And David heard them. And all the men of Israel, when
they heard the man, they saw the man, fled from him and were
sore afraid. And the men of Israel said, Have
you seen this man that has come up? Surely to defy Israel is
he 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." The armies are in formation, so we're all standing
on one side and the Philistines are on the other and we're ready
to fight. Out comes Goliath for the 41st day. We've been standing
here 41 days and he keeps saying the same thing. And the men around
tell David that whomever defeats Goliath, the king will give him
riches, he will give him a royal bride, and he will make his father's
house free. Okay, look at verse 26. And David
spake to the man that stood by him, saying, What shall be done
to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away the
reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised
Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?
And the people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall
it be done to the man that killeth him." David's reaction to Goliath
is very different than anyone else's. He doesn't care about
Goliath's stature, about his armor, about his weapons. He
just cares that what he says, who is this that should defy
the armies of the living God? Why does David say this? He says
it because he wasn't looking at Goliath. He's looking to his
God. Now look at verse 28 and 29. And Eliab, David's eldest brother,
his oldest brother, heard when he spake unto the men, and Eliab's
anger was kindled against David. And he said, Why camest thou
down hither? And with whom hast thou left
those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride and the naughtiness
of thine heart, for thou art come down that thou mightest
see the battle. And David said, What have I now
done? Is there not a cause? We, the army here together, we've
been looking for a champion for 41 days. Someone, David, has
finally spoken up. David is the first man who seems
willing to face Goliath. And his own brother, his kin,
his family, speak against him and they're angry at him. And
David responds to his brother by saying, what sin have I committed? And he says, is there not a cause? David is saying here, I was sent
by our father, by my father, and your anger should be toward
this Philistine who defies God and not me. Now, We've gone through
the buildup of this story, and we're getting ready to get to
the part that everyone knows and the part that everyone tells.
These stories in the Old Testament are wonderful stories, but if
we read these stories, they're simply stories unless we know
the application or an application for them. So what I want to do
before we keep going is I want us to focus on this and make
a couple simple changes to what I've said. I'm going to re-read
my notes for what I described in the first 29 verses. But I am going to keep us the
same, okay? We're all still this army. We're
all a group together. But Goliath and the other Philistines
are going to be sin. And David is going to be the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now listen as I'm just going
to read this of what's actually happened in the first 29 verses,
just changing those. Why are we fighting sin? We're fighting it because our
ancestors sinned against God. And we're fighting against sin
because we can't beat sin, though we try and oftentimes think we
can. Our enemy, sin, is huge. There are differing opinions
on how big sin is. Some say Sin is nine feet, others
say 11 feet tall. But what we do know is that Sin
is definitely bigger, stronger, and tougher than any of us. Sin
is described as a champion because Sin is undefeated. Sin has never
been beaten before. Sin's defenses appear to be impenetrable. We can't get through them. We
can't find a weakness. Our weapons aren't strong enough
to beat sin. Sin's weapons were something
greater than we could ever imagine. There is no way that we can protect
ourselves from the attack of sin. Sin has challenged all of
us. Sin has said, choose you a man
and go fight against me. If that man can beat sin, We
will never have to fight sin again. But if sin wins, then
we will be slaves and in bondage forever. Sin has defied all of
us. Sin has mocked us, saying, if
you will not fight, then you're a coward. When we heard all that
sin has proclaimed against us, we are scared, we're afraid.
We do not have such a champion in our army that can defeat sin.
The Lord Jesus Christ had been with Saul before the battle.
Saul had been troubled by an evil spirit and he found no peace
except when the Lord Jesus Christ played the harp and soothed his
soul. But the Lord Jesus Christ left
before the fight because he had to feed his father's sheep. Sin came out every morning and
every evening for 40 days, daring someone, one of us, to fight
him. After this long, it's very obvious, none of us are willing
or able to fight sin. The Lord Jesus Christ's Father
sent him to provide for his children as his children were gathered
and fighting with sin. The Lord Jesus Christ rose up
early, dead as His Father had commanded of Him. He left His
sheep with a keeper. The armies were in formation.
The Lord Jesus Christ arrived as sin came out and mocked us
for the 41st day. And the men around tell that
whomever defeats sin, the king will give him riches, will give
him a royal bride, and will make his father's house free. The
Lord Jesus Christ's reaction to sin is very different than
everyone else. He doesn't care about his stature,
about the armor, or the weapons of sin, just what the Lord Jesus
Christ believes, and his response is, who is this that he should
defy the armies of the living God? The Lord Jesus Christ can
say this because he's not looking at Goliath, but he's looking
at God. We all have been looking for
a champion for 41 days. has finally spoken up. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the first man who seems willing to face our
sin. And his own brothers, his kin,
speak against him and they're angry with him. And the Lord
Jesus Christ responds and says, what sin have I committed? Is
there not a cause? I was sent by my father and your
anger should be towards this sin as you defy God. Now, we
can pick up here, and I could do this through the whole thing,
but I wanted to let you in on this secret with me. It's a whole
lot more fun to read this when you're looking at it from this
angle. So as we go through the rest of this story, we will be
talking about David and Goliath and the fight they have, but
really what we're talking about here is the Lord Jesus Christ's
victory over our sin. So look at verse 30 with me here. And he turned from him toward
another, and spake after the same manner, and the people answered
him again after the former manner. And when the words were heard
which David spoke, they rehearsed them before Saul, and he sent
for him." David kept telling everyone. He kept asking questions
and showing his willingness to fight. And the entire Old Testament
tells us of one that will come, one that will fight for his children.
Look at verse 32. And David said to Saul, let no
man's heart fail because of this Goliath. Thy servant will go
and fight with this Philistine. The Lord tells us, let not your
heart fail because of sin. I will take your place. I will
fight on your behalf. I'll go to battle for all of
you. Look at verse 33, And Saul said to David, Thou art not able
to go against this Philistine, to fight with him, for you are
but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. Saul, in
a description of him that's given previously, he was chosen king
of the people. And part of the way they chose
kings back then is the Lord pushed him there and chose him, but
the people loved him because of a couple reasons. He was very
pretty, he was huge, and he was a great man of war. Saul is actually
said to be a shoulder higher than any other Israelite. So
Saul had to have been a huge man to say this. He was great
in battle and brave, yet the biggest and strongest of all
the Israelites, he was not about to go fight, and he was even
the king. But the true king here was David. A couple chapters before this,
unbeknownst to Saul, David had been anointed as the Lord's king. David was the one who had come
to save his people. Okay, look at verse 34. And David said unto Saul, Thy
servant kept his father's sheep. David's giving a reason why he
can go fight. And there came a lion and a bear,
and took a lamb out of the flock. And I went out after him, and
smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth. And when he arose
against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew
him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised
Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the
armies of the living God." David's occupation, his job, was a shepherd. To Saul the king, that is the
last occupation he wanted to hear for the man who's going
to fight for the army. He could have listed anything
he wanted to do. He probably would have chosen
a baker before he would have chosen a shepherd, a man who
sits in a field and watches sheep. But David, what Saul didn't know
is that David would do anything for his sheep. David would fight
a lion and a bear for his sheep. and he would go fight because
the Philistines defied God. David's reasoning to Saul here,
saying that I've defeated a bear, I defeated a lion to protect
my sheep, is not as much to tell Saul that I'm able to do this,
but that I'm willing to do this. When that lion took one of his
sheep, he had a lot of sheep, He easily could have just, yeah,
I tried, and the lion got away, and the sheep was already gone,
and he could have said anything he wanted, but that's not how
David was, and that's not how our Lord is. He goes after each
one of his sheep, and nothing will ever happen to them. But
the end of verse 36 is what David gives as a start to his reason. seeing he hath defied the armies
of the living God. David doesn't want to go out
there for glory. David doesn't want to go out
there to be the most famous. David wants to go out there because
this man defied God, and that's not going to be allowed to stand.
Look in verse 37. David said, moreover, the Lord
that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the
paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.
And Saul said unto David, Go, and the Lord be with thee. David
emphasized that the only reason he could have defeated the lion,
he could have defeated the bear, and the only qualification he
has to go out and fight Goliath was that the Lord has always
delivered him and the Lord was going to deliver him. In verse
38, well, at the end of 37, Saul says unto him, David, go, and
the Lord be with thee. Saul knows David can't beat Goliath. He doesn't tell David, well,
go beat him. No, he says, David, go, and the Lord be with thee. He knows that David can't beat
him. Saul doesn't have any thought that he can beat him. And he's
huge compared to David. David's not a warrior, none of
that. But he says, the Lord be with thee. He's thinking, the
Lord better be with you. Look at verse 38, And Saul armed
David with his armor, and he put on helmet of brass upon his
head. Also he armed him with a coat of mail. And David girded
his sword upon his armor, and he assayed to go, for he had
not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot
go with these, for I have not proven them. And David put them
off him. Saul was trying to help David
any way he could. We know that Saul's not giving
David his own armor because David's way too small for that, but he's
just giving him armor. He's desperate to give him something
to go fight Goliath, possibly because Saul wants to be able
to later and say, well, he beat him because he had my shield
or he beat him because he had my helmet. We want so desperately to play
our part in the victory over our sin. We, like Saul, are too
scared and unable to go fight, and we won't do it. Yet, we think
that our good deeds, our righteousness, can help the Lord save us. And
even if we don't actually think we can help the Lord save us,
if we can just let him wear something of ours, or have something in
his pocket, then we can say we were there, or we played a role
in it. But the Lord, like David here,
will have nothing to do with our self-righteousness. David
didn't need any of this stuff. David was going to fight for
the Lord, and the Lord was going to fight for him. Look at verse
40. And David took his staff in his
hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and
put them in a shepherd's bag, which he had, even in a script,
and his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.
And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David, and the
man that bare the shield went before him. And when the Philistine
looked about and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but
a youth, and ruddy, and of fair countenance. And the Philistine
said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves?
And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine
said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the
fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field." Goliath
is saying the same message. When David showed up, Goliath
was actually disrespected. Goliath not only thought David
wasn't a worthy adversary, he thought to himself, are these
people, these people of God so weak that they send this boy
out here to fight me? He is totally offended. And as
the Lord so often does, He uses a method that makes sure everyone
knows that God gave the victory. All of us are still soldiers
standing on one side of a mountain. All of their army is standing
on their side of the mountain. There are thousands and thousands
and thousands of us. David, this young boy, walks
out there with a staff, a walking stick. No armor, no shield, no
nothing. Goliath is on the other side
of him with all his armor and his spear that they say is as
tall as a building, and he's saying that someone's carrying
his shield for him. He doesn't even have enough, he's got so much
disrespect for David that someone else is gonna carry his shield.
I don't even wanna have to carry some of my stuff. I promise there
were plenty of people on our side that were looking down thinking,
I'm better off going down there fighting than David. He's got
no shot. I might be able to beat the guy.
There are people on the other side and the Philistine army
are standing up there. They're celebrating. They are high-fiving
over there. They are going to win. Their 9, 10, 11 foot champion
who's never been beaten is standing out there and they got a little
boy coming out who's never fought before. It's the most uneven
match that's ever been had in history. What they don't realize
is that it is the most uneven match in history, but it's the
other way around. As the Lord Jesus Christ was
being led to the cross to bear the sins of his people, so many
people were standing around high-fiving, thinking, we've got him. There's
nothing he can do about this. We are going to have the victory.
We are going to kill him. all the while it was the most
uneven match in history. The Lord was there willing and
able. He had chosen to walk out on
that battlefield. He had chosen to take nothing
with Him so that it would be obvious who was getting all the
glory. Now look at verse 45. Then said David to the Philistine,
Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield,
but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God
of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. Goliath, you
have your weapons, you have your armor, you have everything you
can get. No man on earth is more appropriately arrayed for the
battle. No one else on earth is better
choice to fight. But David says, I have nothing.
I have absolutely nothing apart from I come in the name of the
Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, who thou hast
defied, who thou hast offended. Verse 46, This day will the Lord
deliver thee into mine hand, and I will smite thee, and take
thine head from thee, and I will give the carcasses of the host
of Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air and to the
wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there
is a God in Israel. David has such great confidence
in his God that he knows that the battle is the Lord's. I love
that phrase because it doesn't say the victory is the Lord's,
though we know it is. The battle is the Lord's. The
Lord has brought both armies to this place. The Lord has given
Goliath his size, his strength, his armor, his sword, his shield.
Everything he has is from the Lord. The Lord brought all the
army of Israel out. The Lord made all of them too
scared to fight. The Lord brought a young shepherd
boy to come and be his champion, because the Lord is the one who
will get the victory. But the battle is the Lord's."
All right? Look at verse 48. And it came
to pass, when the Philistine arose and came and drew nigh
to meet David, that David hasted. So Goliath stood up and went
to attack David. And David hasted and ran toward
the army to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in his
bag and took fence a stone and slung it and smote the Philistine
in his forehead. And the stone sunk into his forehead
and he fell upon his face to the earth." I love that when
Goliath went to attack, David did the last reasonable thing. Goliath has a sword, a spear,
and armor. David has a sling with small
stones. What David should do is keep
the distance. David is throwing something at
him while Goliath has a sword in his hand. It says here, David
hasted and ran towards the army to meet the Philistine. David
ran at Goliath. And then it says, how David pulled
out the stone, slung it, and it sunk into his forehead. Do
you all remember standing on that hill seeing Goliath for
the first time and him haunting us for 40 some days? What all
I could see was an impenetrable armor. I saw no way that we could
ever defeat him. The Lord took a small stone and
sunk it in his head. You remember the undefensible
weapons he had? That sword, that spear, all those
things that there was no way we could avoid. The Lord made
them useless. For the Lord, everything we have
and everything we bring to him is as dust and filthy rags. to judgment. If we come to a
place to give account for ourselves, we must come empty-handed, open-armed,
bowing down, and praying to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse
50. So David prevailed over the Philistine
with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine and
slew him. But there was no sword in the hand of David. Therefore
David ran and stood upon the Philistine and took his sword
and drew it out of the sheath and slew him and cut off his
head. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead,
they fled. After David had slung the stone and Goliath fell, We're
all a long way away. We're watching this happen and
we see David do something and Goliath falls down, okay? And he falls forward. We're not
sure what's actually happened. What we know is that David did
something and Goliath fell. But what it says is everyone
was still standing there. They weren't sure the battle
was over. David had to go take Goliath's
sword and he cut his head off. The moment he cut his head off,
you know what everyone knew? It's over. David won. And what happened at that very
moment? No one ran until David did that. And it says in verse
51 at the end, And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead,
they fled. The Lord Jesus Christ bore the
sins of his children on the cross. In his death, there were plenty
of people around who thought they had won, and they probably
celebrated for three days. But when the Lord Jesus Christ
arose from the grave and ascended on high, everyone knew. He was the victor. He had won
the battle. He had conquered over the sins
of His people, and He was back on high. And when that happened,
all of those people who were celebrating, I promise their
tune changed a bunch. They had that feeling inside
you get when you've been bragging about something, and you know
you're right, and then all of a sudden you realize you're wrong,
and you don't know how to act with it. All right, look at verse
52. And the men of Israel and of Judah arose and shouted and
pursued the Philistines." You remember, this is us. This is
the scared people, the cowards. We wouldn't fight. We were all
standing there when they said, anyone want to come fight? We
were all like, we were just looking around like, I can't hear him
very well. Is he saying something? Like we're trying to act like
we're not as weak as we are. The moment that David slew Goliath,
what did we do? And the men of Israel and Judah
stood up, shouted, and ran right after our enemy. Any confidence
we have, any confidence that we can have comes from our Lord.
We were smart standing on the side of that hill, not going
down to fight Goliath. We knew we were overmatched.
We knew we had no chance. So why would we go take that
risk? But what we do know, is when the Lord comes to battle
and the Lord is on our side, we can stand tall, we can be
confident, we can shout, and we can pursue our enemies because
the Lord is fighting our battles. We continue, they fought them
and pursued them until they came to the valley and to the gates
of Ekron, and the wounded of the Philistines fell down by
the way of Sharam, even unto Gath and unto Ekron, Verse 53,
And the children of Israel returned from chasing after the Philistines,
and they spoiled their tents. Verse 52 tells us that the Lord
gives us our confidence. Verse 53 right there, it tells
us that the Lord gives us the spoil. The Lord did the fighting. The Lord is the one who died
on the cross. We are the ones who got the spoil.
We got the victory. And then verse 54 says, And David
took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem.
but he put his armor in his tent. Verse 54 tells us that the Lord
gives us the victory. When all of us went back home
to our families after the battle, you know what we said? We all
came back in and said, we won. That's what we said. Did we play
any role in it? Absolutely not. But because the
Lord has the victory, we don't have to fight, but we still get
the victory. We didn't have anything to do
with our salvation. We didn't have anything to do
with the Lord dying on the cross. None of our deeds, none of our
actions have any part to play. Yet, thankfully, the Lord's children
all can say so happily and have all their hope in the fact, we
won the battle. Okay, look at verse 55. And we've
got our last points here. And when Saul saw David go forth
against the Philistine, he said unto Abner, the captain of his
host, his general, Abner, whose son is this? And Abner said,
As thou so liveth, O king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Inquire
thou whose son the stripling is. And as David returned from
the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him
before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. This is a very interesting ending
to this story and I want to include it because this tells us a lot
about ourselves and it's a warning to us. You remember me telling
you in the chapter before this that Saul was grievously disturbed
by an evil spirit and he had no way of feeling any better
or getting relief except for David played a harp for him. Now I don't know how a harp works,
other than you have to be somewhat close to a harp to hear it. So
David was in the presence of Saul. And here the king is trying
to say, who is the father of this boy? Who is this? And he calls him a stripling.
Saul has just been delivered by someone that was in his house
all along. Saul has known this person, but
he didn't really ever give a thought to care. The one who brought
him his greatest relief, he didn't have enough respect for him to
know his name or who he was. And in this time period, not
knowing who someone's family was was very disrespectful. Until
the Lord does something for us, we just don't really care who
he is. The Lord has to put it in someone's
heart. to have any interest in the gospel. He has to show us who we are.
The Lord showed Saul that he was a coward. He was the biggest
of all the men. He was the king and he still
wouldn't even fight. The Lord showed him that his
armor and what he tried to give David wasn't good enough to even
go to the battle. And finally, Saul, at this moment,
wants to know who it is who saved him. Look at verse 58. And Saul
said to him, Whose son art thou, thou young man? And David answered,
I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite. Saul found
out who David was. And we can say in this verse
58, And Saul said unto the Lord Jesus Christ, Whose son art thou,
thou young man? And the Lord Jesus Christ answered
and said, I am the son of the living God. And he found out
who he was. May the Lord teach us and show
us and put it in our heart to know who we are and how much
we need him. That's the only way that we will
ever find out who the Lord Jesus Christ is and how dependent we
are upon him. Okay.