Let's turn this evening to the
book of 1 Samuel, 1 Samuel chapter 17. Now this is a very familiar,
and I'm reluctant to use the word story because that implies
it's made up or make-believe, and in fact this is a very familiar
account of something that happened many, many years ago in Israel. Most of us heard about it from
the time we were old enough to know anything about the Bible,
what have you. We've heard about David and Goliath.
But let's read this account tonight and let me make a few comments
about it. In 1 Samuel chapter 17, look at verse 1. It says,
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 Ephesdamim. You say, what a name. Well, I
suspect if they had heard Kingsport, Tennessee, they'd have thought
that was quite a name. So it's just a place, all right? It's just a place. But we need
to understand that it's a place that belonged to Israel, to the
tribe of Judah, as a part of the 12 tribes in Israel. And
the Philistines came up and attacked it. So that's the scene here. And you see in verse 2, and Saul
and the men of Israel were gathered together and pitched, that means
they had their tents and all their battle stuff, by the valley
of Elah and set the battle in array against the Philistines.
When they came up, they met them to do battle. And the Philistines
stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain
on the other side, and there was a valley between them. And
this makes me think of the portion of scripture that Gabe read.
Here we've got the Philistines all up here on this mountain,
and we've got Israel all up here on this mountain, and there's
this great valley between. You remember Gabe read when the
rich man said, oh, have Lazarus just dip his finger in the water
and touch my lips. And what Abraham said to him,
he said, between we and thee, there is a great gulf fixed,
which no man can cross. And the whole picture here is
that When Adam fell in a garden, he lived in this beautiful garden.
But when he fell, what happened was it's as if the Lord opened
up a chasm, a great gulf. And the Lord was now here and
Adam was now here. And all of us are born into this
world over here. And there's no way, there's no
way this makes Mount Everest look like just a little bump
in the road. the gulf that's fixed between
us and God, and we're separated from Him because of our sin.
So that's the whole setting here. And the Philistines represent
sin, and of course David represents the Lord Jesus Christ. And what's
happened is that sin is coming to attack God's people. It's
always been that way and always will be. Satan came after Adam
and Eve, and sin's always after us. Do you ever get up in the
morning and go, today I won't sin. Today I won't have any bad
thoughts. Today I'm not going to, I always
do that and I don't want to do it again. You start out that
way, right? And then the attack comes. And what happens? Pretty
soon, we're just right back where we were. Or worse. Or worse. So, 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. And he had a helmet of brass
upon his head. 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. He had all his armor
on between his shoulders. And the staff of his spear was
like a weaver's beam and was His spearhead weighed 600 shekels
of iron and one bearing a shield. His shield was so big, another
guy had to, a regular man had to walk in front of him and carry
it so it didn't cumber him about. And then it says, and he, verse
eight, and he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel. He
said unto them. Why are you come out to set your
battle in array? Am not I just a Philistine, and
you're the servants of Saul? Choose you a man for you, and
let him come down to me. Now let me stop there a minute.
It's really important for us to understand a principle that's
in verse four. Do you see what it says there
about his height, this Goliath of Gath? And that might as well
have been, I mean the name, Doesn't really mean anything. It could
have been William of the little town where you live is, it's
left me. Irwin. Could have well been William
of Irwin. It could have been, you know,
it could have been any of us from anywhere. Could be you from
Virginia. It doesn't matter. It's all of
us. We all think we're this invincible
giant. And oh, we really are just a
big mass of sin. And he comes out there and it
says his height was six cubits and a span. Now, I wonder if
anybody here knows who Robert Pershing Wadlow was. Anybody ever heard that name?
Well, I hadn't either until I got on the internet and looked up
the tallest man who ever lived. And it said that his name was
Robert Pershing Wadlow And it said that he was the tallest
man who ever lived for whom there is irrefutable evidence of his
height. Said he was 8 feet and 11 inches tall. Now, if we, you know how tall,
you know how tall this 6 cubit tennis man is? That's 11 feet
4 inches tall. I brought a tape measure in tonight.
See that round light right up there? Goliath without his helmet would
have bumped his head on that light there, okay? He's a big
guy, isn't he? He's a serious, serious enemy. So his sin, folks, is bigger
than we can even imagine and it's just all over us. So the
point I want to make here though is You know, the Guinness Book
of World Records says that this Mr. Wadlow was the tallest man
that ever lived. Now listen, the Word of God is
either true or it's not. Goliath was either as tall as
he said he was or he's not. And you can go for the Guinness
Book of World Records of the Internet if you want, any search
engine you want. But anything that disagrees with
this is just wrong, is just not true. And we need to understand,
there's no exaggeration here, that Goliath was the biggest
man that ever lived. And he came down into that valley,
you know, and cried out to David, to the Philistines rather, he
said, send out a man. You send out, I'm just a man.
He wasn't just a man, was he? No, he was the biggest man that
ever lived. And if we ever had reason to bring our children
and to bring ourselves to sit under the word of God, it's so
that we're not misled by what we're bombarded with every day,
which is lies and untruths about us and about the Lord Jesus Christ. So look here in verse nine. or verse eight, and he stood
and cried unto the armies of Israel and said to them, why
are you come out to set your battle in array? He said, why
we got all these armies here? He said, we don't need them.
He said, am I not I just a Philistine and you're the servants of Saul?
Choose you a man for you and let him come down to me. And
if he's 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. And
the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give
me a man that we may fight together. When Saul and all Israel heard
these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly
afraid. Who's Goliath? He's a picture
of sin. And sin is well-armed. This guy
had all the weapons he could ever use and all the arms. I
tell you something, you and I can't kill it. Not only that, we can't
even deal with it on a daily basis. And the Philistines, I
understand. I mean, is there anybody here
who is looking out there going, all right, I'm the guy. I'll
go take this on. Let me tell you something, though. In regard to the spiritual picture
here, There is one who looked down at sin and said, I'll go
down and do battle with it. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that's what picture is made here with David. Look down at verse
17. It says, and Jesse said unto
David his son, take now for thy brethren an ephaph of this parched
corn and these 10 loaves and run to the camp to thy brethren.
Jesse is the father of David and of these other brethren of
David who had gone down to fight the war. And back then, you know,
they didn't have a quartermaster who supplied everything. The
family sent food and what they needed down there to supply them.
And it was just simple. Jesse was saying, I'm sure the
other boys are hungry. You take this stuff down there
to them, David. carry these 10 cheeses to the captain of their
thousand and look how thy brethren fare and take their pledge. And
Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the valley
of Elah fighting with the Philistines. David was sent by his father
Jesse to provide for his brothers. Jesus Christ was sent by his
father to provide for us, to do for us what we could not do
for ourselves. He sent down all their earthly
needs, and the Lord Jesus Christ meets all our spiritual needs.
That's what it's a picture of. Jesus Christ is made to me. What's
the chorus say? All I need. All I need. If we have Him, we really don't
need this other stuff. And we think we do, and I know
He'll provide enough. Because Jesus Christ is enough.
He'll provide enough. But look at verse 20. It says,
And David rose up early in the morning, and he 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. Now, we need to understand the
way this worked. Here's the two armies on the
mountain, and all they really were doing, was they'd get up
in the morning and get all their armor and stuff on, and they'd
take about five steps forth and start yelling at each other. And the Israelites are looking
over there at the Philistines saying, man, that's a real army.
And the Philistines were going, that's a real army. It doesn't
seem like we can take them, but we got Goliath. And so they sent
him down there. And every morning they did that.
And they called it going to battle. But there was no fight. There
was no fuss going on at all. All that happened was every day,
Goliath walked partway down there and said, send out a representative. I'm the representative of sin. And you know, he's a picture
of Satan. And you know what? By nature, Israel had no representative. Adam had no representative. until
the Lord Jesus Christ, until his father sent him down to do
for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. We didn't have a representative
either. But once we had him, now we've
got a champion. Now we have someone who can do
for us. And you notice that when he left,
he left the sheep with a keeper. David didn't just go, well, I
hope the sheep are okay while I'm gone. No, no. And we need
to understand that when our pastor goes to a conference somewhere
or something, he's leaving us with, he'll have Eric come down
and preach us. He's the under shepherd, and
the Lord doesn't leave his sheep alone. He sends a shepherd, and
as the sheep aren't we glad, we have a faithful, loving shepherd.
Oh, what a blessing, although, you know, the Lord has returned
to his father. He's left us in the hands of
a keeper, our pastor, the faithful keeper. Now skip down to verse
25 and look and it says, the men of Israel said, have you
seen this man that has come up? They said this to David, surely
to defy Israel as he come up and it shall be that the man
who kills him, whoever can kill Goliath, the king will enrich
him with great riches and will give him his daughter for his
bride and will make his father's house free in Israel." Now, did
you notice that there's a promise of the king that whoever can
kill Goliath gets three things. He gets not just riches, he gets
great riches. And he gets a bride. He marries
into royalty. He gets to marry David's daughter.
He's a prince now. And then he also gets freedom. If you're not free, From sin,
you're not free. If you're not free from the law,
you're not free. And that was the three things.
And that's a picture of us, too, in Christ. Oh, we get wealth
that can never be told. Oh, we get such riches. And we
become the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. You talk about
marrying into royalty. Marrying into Saul's house, that
wasn't any big deal. Listen, that poor, girl Diana,
Princess Diana married in that family and what she'd get misery
and it was awful. It was just awful. But we're
married to the King of Kings. We become married to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And you talk about free, boy,
somebody set us free. I mean, whoever killed that giant
was setting him free of Goliath in the Philistines. Somebody
can kill sin, we're free from it. And that's what the Lord
Jesus Christ came down to do, to set us free from sin. He conquered
it, he killed it. All right, now, look at verse
26. And David spake to the men that
stood by him, saying, What shall be done to the man that killed
this Philistine? And take of the way the reproach
from Israel. For who is this uncircumcised
Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? David is essentially saying here,
he said, I heard all that you said the person gets who kills
him. He said, all I got to do is go
kill that guy. And you get all that. Listen,
do we understand? All we have to do is believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and we get untold riches. We're married
to his son and we're set free from sin. This is too good to
be true. And look at verse 27. And the people answered him after
this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that killeth
him. Is it really this simple? Now
listen, is it really this simple? All we have to do is believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's what we get. That's what
the book says. That's what the book says. Do that, and we're free. I understand
David here. He's going, all I got to do is
go kill that giant. I understand it on the one hand,
and then the other, I'm looking at this. David is 14 years old
and maybe my height or something. I mean, I'd be, I understand
why they were afraid the rest of them, aren't you? I mean,
that guy, we're talking about a serious enemy here. Look at verse 28. And Eliab, his eldest brother,
this is David's older brother, heard when David spake unto the
men, and Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, why
did you come down here? And with whom has you left those
few sheep in the wilderness? He said, I know your pride and
the naughtiness of your heart, for you've come down that you
might see the battle. His brother said, he said to
him, What are you doing here? And you know that's what the
world says about the Lord Jesus Christ. They have no idea what
he was doing here. They don't know why he came down
here. Bless their heart. And his brethren didn't see.
And listen, we didn't see either, did we? Till God sent somebody
and revealed to us by his Spirit who this was that came down.
These folks didn't know who David was. And his own brethren His
brother said, what are you doing here? You naughty teenager, you
punk. He said, you get back to your
sheep. You probably left them alone
up there. And he ridiculed them, just like they still ridicule
us to this day. But I'll tell you, there is a
cause. Do you see in verse 29, it says, and David said, What
have I done to make you think this? What have I done? Is there
not a cause? I'll tell you what, there is
a cause. Why did all this happen the way it did? Why did the Lord
permit Adam to fall? I'll tell you why. He was going
to send his son down there to redeem the fallen man from sin. What he was going to do, the
cause of Christ is the glory of the Father and the freedom
of God's people. Now look at verse 32. And David
said to Saul, let no man's heart fail because of him. My servant
will go and fight with this Philistine. Word got out apparently that
there was somebody willing to go fight this giant. Because
nobody else had yet. Everybody got armored up and
ran up there a little bit. And then they all shrunk back.
And somebody came to the king and said, there's a man who's
willing to go down there and fight. Lord Jesus Christ. Went to his father and said,
I'll go get him. I'll go slay that giant sin and I'll bring
your children back. It's a good picture, isn't it? Look at verse 33. And Saul said
to David, thou art not able to go against this Philistine to
fight with him for thou art, but a youth. And he is a man
of war from his youth. Now Saul badly erred in thinking
David was not able to defeat Goliath. Men badly err when they
think that the Lord Jesus Christ is not able to overcome sin.
He is. I tell you, when David killed Goliath, he
didn't leave anything left for the rest of them to do. They
still had to deal with the rest of the Philistines, but that
was easy. They were on the run then. But I tell you what, most
folks do not understand when Christ slew sin, there's nothing
else left for us to do. We try to deal with the stuff,
with our daily sin and the problems we've got, we're still trying
to deal with it. But the victory's already won. When the giant is
slain, the battle's over. It's over. But now, look at verse
36. And we see that David tells the
king, he said, thy servant slew both the lion and the bear. Y'all
remember the account of that? David was guarding the sheep
one day and a lion came along and he caught David kind of unaware. You know what David did? David
grabbed that lion and tore his jaws out and killed him. You say, how could a little boy
do that? I don't know, but he did. He was standing there as
living evidence that he did. How could Christ put away sin?
I don't understand it all. But I know he did. He got the
job done. And then there was a bear king.
David dealt with him. Killed him too. Killed him too. And, you know, here's this boy
telling the king, I'll go do it. I'll go do it. Verse 37 and
David said, moreover, well, first in 36, he said, the sir, he said,
that servant, he said, I slew both the lion and the bear and
this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing
it defied the armies of the living God. And David said, moreover,
the Lord that delivereth 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 to him, David go. and the Lord be with thee. Now,
on the surface, how much sense does that make? That a king is
gonna take a little boy and say, you know, I guess we got nothing
to lose. You know, get on down there. And he expected him to
be killed. And folks err not understanding
who Christ is. They've got him sort of like
a good luck charm in their pocket or, you know, a last ditch hope
just in case they're wrong about this and stuff and don't know
who he is. No, David came to kill Goliath
and the Lord Jesus Christ came down there to kill sin and he
did. He got the job done. Now, notice
in verse 40, so David went out to fight Goliath in verse 40
and he took his staff in his hand his shepherd's crook, and
he chose him five smooth stones out of the brook and put them
in the shepherd's bag, which he had, even in a script, and
his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.
There's a, if you have time sometime, look up five smooth stones. Great
message, Brother Henry. Lots of men have preached it,
but I like this. One of the old writers said,
David didn't go down there with a sword, but according to his
word, which is sharper than any two-edged sword, and he took
five stones, the great weapons of the Godhead. He took truth,
grace, mercy, faith, and righteousness. That's all a boy needed. And
that's what the Lord Jesus Christ brought, truth, grace, mercy,
faith, and righteousness. And here he goes down to the
battle, walks down in that valley. In verse 41, read with me. Boy,
the world disdains our Lord, don't they? They just think he's
a man born in a cow stall and he's just an ordinary man. Well,
Goliath made that mistake. He said, he disdained him for
he was but a youth and ruddy and of fair countenance. That
sounds like a description of the Lord Jesus Christ, doesn't
it? He was ruddy and of a fair countenance. And the Philistine
said unto David, am I a dog that you come to me with a stave,
with a stick? And the Philistine cursed David
by his gods, little G. And the Philistine said to David,
Come to me, and I'll give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air
and to the beasts of the field. 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 you have defied. The Son came
down here in the name of God the Father. He has every weapon
He needs. He's got truth, grace, mercy,
faith, and righteousness. That's all He needs. In verse
46, David says, This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine
hand, and I'll smite thee and take thine head from thee. and
I'll give the carcasses of the host of the 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. And all this assembly shall know
that the Lord saveth not with a sword and spear, for the battle
is the Lord's, and he'll give you into our hands. And it came
to pass when the Philistine arose and came and drew nigh to meet
David, that David hasted and ran toward the army to meet the
Philistine. And David put his hand in his
bag and took thence a stone and slang it and smote the Philistine
in his forehead that the stone sunk into his forehead and he
fell upon his face to the earth. Have we got the picture here?
Here's this young boy, okay? He's got a shepherd's crook and
a leather sling And he reaches in his pocket and in that bag
and takes out one of those stones and here comes this guy. The guy, he's got a guy with
his shield in front of him that's protecting him. He can't be,
how's a stone going to get through all this? He's got a helmet on.
There's one place that's unprotected right there. One place and David
comes running and he puts that stone in that sling and he does
this just like he went after the bear and he slung that thing
and imagine what? That stone hit just where it
was thrown to. And that giant staggered and
he hits the ground. The Lord Jesus Christ came down
here armed with all he needed. He brought his holiness, his
righteousness, his goodness. He brought peace. He brought
everything he needed and accomplished his purpose. He killed sin. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
came out of that grave, it's just like when Goliath hit the
ground. Sin is dead to us. To God's people, sin is dead. God will never see it on us,
in us, about us. It's dead. That's pretty good
news. Our big enemy has been vanquished.
Do we see that? Then look at... At verse 50,
we read, 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 drew out his sword, drew it out of
the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistine saw that
their champion was dead, they fled." They ran. They ran. Now, David didn't wound Goliath. He slew him. The Lord Jesus Christ
didn't make it possible for us to be saved. He slew our sin. the slain of all his people,
and he saved us. David did for all Israel what
they could not and would not do. None of them were going out
there to fight Goliath, were they? Not a one of them. They
knew better. They knew better. And as their
representative, David went out there and took care of business.
He did for them what they needed. And the Lord Jesus Christ, as
our representative, he gained the victory. He set them free,
set us free. Christ is our substitute, our
representative. He gained the victory over sin
and sets us free. David became king in due time.
Lord Jesus Christ, he didn't appear to folks when he came
down here to be king of anything. He said, hail the king of the
Jews. Well, he's riding on a donkey now, really. He is in a robe. Just, you know, had sandals on
his feet, walking through the dirt. He doesn't much look like
a king, does he? No. But I'll tell you what, when
he arose, when we see him next, we'll know he's the king. He'll
be coming in his glory. And we'll know he's the king
then. Yes, sirree. We'll know he's had the victory.
And David became king in due time. Christ came down, accomplished
the purpose God sent him for. And then he arose and now he
reigns in heaven as king of kings. Now let me give you just, this
is gonna take about a few minutes. Human logic, human wisdom says
there is no way that this 14 year old boy could have defeated,
overcome and killed an 11 foot tall giant. Doesn't human logic
say I'm putting my money on the giant? No way he could do that, yet
he did. He did. Human logic and human
wisdom says there is no way one man could bear the sin of millions
of sinners for all of God's people, yet he did because he's the God
man. Human logic says a boy couldn't
hit a moving target with a rock with enough force to kill a man,
yet he did. Our experience says it's impossible
for any one man to face all the situations we do and never sin. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
did in his life. He never sinned. He was without
sin. You know, it's hard to believe, I understand. It's hard to believe
that all this really happened. But the course of Hebrew history
changed at the hands of a 14-year-old boy. It did. This actually happened. This
isn't a make-believe. This happened. It's impossible for us by nature
to believe that one man, the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ,
could totally change the course of my life. Do we realize He
can totally change the course of your life? He can do that
for us. You say, that is hard to believe. Well, it's impossible unless
the Spirit of God descends on us opens up our mind and reveals
who this is and opens up our heart and causes us to fall in
love. We know a little about that,
don't we? I mean, I remember the first time you showed up
here and watching you, watching you, watching you. One day I
thought, he's in love with Karen. Yes, she loves him. She really does. That's what the Spirit of God
is able to do. He's able to come into us and
show us who this is that the world thinks, well, he was a
man, he came down here and lived 33 years, and they killed him,
the Romans killed him. That's all the world thinks.
But we know better, don't we? Because it's been revealed to
us. It's been shown to us. And it can happen as certain
as David slew Goliath. We can see Christ and who He
is and believe on Him. Look at verse 57. And as David
returned from the slaughter of the Philistines, Abner, this
captain, took him and brought him before Saul with the head
of a Philistine in his hand. That's a sight I can hardly take
in. Here's Saul, by the way, sitting
back in his safe place on his throne, you know, on top of the
mountain watching all this. And this boy goes down there
and kills a giant. And when Goliath hit the ground
and his head came off, boy, the whole host of Israel, now they
got after him. And they chased him and killed
every one of them. And here comes back from the battle this boy
carrying this head of a giant by the hair into the king's presence. What a sight this is. Let me
tell you, one day, one day it'll be revealed to us that the Lord
Jesus Christ came down here and killed the biggest giant in history.
And he cut his head off and he went back to glory and he's sitting
on his throne now waiting, waiting. till his enemies be gathered
together and packed into a stool. I don't know how that works.
But God's taken every one of his enemies and brought them
together and packed them in a footstool. It's not very big. He's got them
all jammed in there and the Lord Jesus Christ is going to prop
his feet up on them. And the rest of us are going
to be before him, bowed down, worshiping our Savior. David
was the Savior of Israel this day. Lord Jesus Christ is our
Savior. Oh, if we can just see Him for
who He is. And he comes into Saul's presence, and look what
Saul said to him in verse 58. Saul said unto him, Whose son
art thou, thou young man? Now, I've got to make this point. Do we realize that the King of
Israel, Saul, he sent a boy? out to fight a giant thinking,
that boy's going to get killed. He tried to armor him up and
David said, I don't want your armor. This doesn't work. This
doesn't fit. I don't want it. I don't need
it. I'm going down to fight him as I am. The Lord Jesus Christ
didn't bring any tricks or anything like that. He came down here
in the flesh and did the battle. But do you know, Saul sent that
boy out there and he didn't even know his name. Can you imagine? How cold hearted
is that? He sent somebody to die for him
and didn't even know his name. Do you know that's the religious
world? Jesus Christ, Adam, and Calvary,
they don't even know who he is. They don't really know His name.
His name is not Jesus. His name is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Lord of all. He's the
Jesus. He's the Savior. He's the representative
of His people. And He's the Christ. He's the
Christ. And Saul sent that boy down there
not even knowing his name, thinking he's going to get killed. And
then look what it says. And David answered and said,
I am the son of thy servant, Jesse the Bethlehemite. Oh, who
else was from Bethlehem? Any doubt who this is a picture
of? I mean, we know where Jesus Christ was born, don't we? In
Bethlehem. And David here is a picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a shame that lots of folks
don't know who Christ is. He's the son of God. And blessed
are our eyes if we see Christ, our eyes if we hear Christ. Do
we see him? Do we hear him in this story?
I pray so. And let me make this real quick
observation. I had Gabe read that account. This was our Lord teaching and
he said, there was a rich man that had everything he ever wanted.
Boy, he was filthy rich. He had it all. And then there
was poor old Lazarus sitting at his gate just begging for
some crumbs. He was sick and eaten up with
disease. The dogs licked him. And that's
a picture of us, Lazarus, sitting there. That's us. If we know
our sin, know who and what we are. And you notice that the rich man died and so did
Lazarus. And Lazarus was received of Abraham
into his bosom and to glory. And the rich man was sent to
a bad place, bad, bad place. It was hot there. And notice
what he asked for. Have Lazarus just dip his finger.
I'm hot. He said, I'm in torment. Have
him dip his finger in the water and touch my lips. Now let me
ask you something. Is that what you'd ask for? You'd think, what's the one thing
you'd think he would have asked for? I don't know how it all works
in that regard. But wouldn't you think now that
he knows He knows what he knows that he doesn't know in this
life, what men don't seem to know in this life. Don't you
think he'd said, oh, can I have a do-over? Or can I show me the
Lord Jesus Christ? I want him. You know what that
proves? Men are so deep in sin, Goliath
is such an enemy that we cannot overcome him. If we get sent
to that place, it'll be because we don't know him, don't want
him, have no desire for him. Does that break your heart? I
tell you what, it ought to give us motive to do everything we can to support
those who preach the gospel. This is not just a place to come
socialize or what have you. Life and death are here. Oh,
I mean, we need to ask folks to come. Come! Come! They need
to know who he is. Need to know who he is. The other thing you need to notice,
you know what the rich man's name was? No. It's not there, is it? Because
in eternity, his name doesn't matter. It's not mentioned in
the Word of God, but Lazarus is. And Lazarus was a nobody. The rich man was somebody. I
tell you, let's give up chasing all that stuff and trying to
be anything else. Boy, let's try to be Lazarus.
Let's sit at the gate and wait for the crumbs from the master's
table. There was a woman who did that. She came to our Lord
and said, I know I'm a dog, but can I just have some crumbs?
And the Lord said, be it as you wish. Oh, great faith. Well,
I pray that the Lord will enable us, not from these stories, but
from these accounts in the Old Testament of the Lord Jesus Christ
as he's pictured to see Christ and be blessed in him. All right,
Brother Gabe.