Now, this story that we have
here in our text is a common story that we teach to our children. And we talked about it a little
bit back in the study. This chapter, it is a story we
teach our children, but now this chapter has the gospel in it. This is such a clear picture
of the gospel and salvation that we have in our Lord Jesus Christ. But, you know, it is a common
story that we teach to our children. And as I've studied this week,
you children, I've thought about you. You wouldn't believe how
much I've thought about you. And I want you to listen now,
because I've got something to tell you. My opening comments
I've got here in my notes are to you. I'm going to warn you
that as you grow, as you grow up, you're going to face some
problems that are too big for you. Now, I don't want to scare
you, but that's the fact. You're going to have problems
that are too big for you that you won't be able to solve all
by yourself. And, I mean, they're big. I'm not telling you that
they're not important. They're big problems. Maybe somebody
at school tries to get you to help them cheat on a test. Or
they try to get you to go with them and take something that
doesn't belong to you. Or they try to get you to take drugs
or drink alcohol or these different things that you know are wrong.
And it's your friends at school, people that you know, are putting
pressure on you to do them. And that's a big problem. Now,
I remember being your age. And when your friends put pressure
on you, now that is a big problem. It's a hard problem to handle.
And when that happens to you, I'm going to tell you what to
do. You pray. You pray and ask the Lord to
deliver you just like the Lord delivered David from Goliath. You all know the story of David
and Goliath. You pray, first of all, and second
of all, I want you to do this for me. Talk to your parents.
Don't keep these things a secret from you. Talk to them and they'll
tell you the same thing I'm telling you. You pray, you seek the Lord
because you can solve any problem you ever have. I don't care how
big it is, you can solve any problem that you ever have if
the Lord is with you. So you seek him and you pray
to him, okay? That's what I want. Would you
do that for me? Now that's a life lesson for young and old alike,
all right? But now what I really want us
to take home with us this evening is a picture here of Christ Our
Champion. That's the title of the message,
Christ Our Champion. Now we read here in the first
eleven verses that there is a battle getting ready to take place.
The armies are arrayed against one another and they're ready
to fight a bloody battle. A lot of men are going to die.
But this story is the gospel in a picture. We have here a
clear picture of federal headship. There is a battle to be fought.
There's a battle that's being fought right now, and the battle
that's being fought right now is the battle of our sin against
God. All mankind has declared a war
on God, and God's bringing judgment down in war against our sin and
our rebellion. And brothers, this is a war we
can't win. I mean, you know, a war against
God. is a whole lot more of a lost cause than a war against an army
of giants. And the story that we have here
is the champion of the Philistines comes out and defies the armies
of Israel. In doing so, he defies God, and
he's their champion. The man's name is Goliath. Now,
Goliath is 11 feet 4 inches tall. Now, it's hard to understand
how tall that is. If Goliath were here, he couldn't stand
where I'm standing. You couldn't see his face, it'd be hid behind
this overhang here. Matter of fact, he couldn't stay
in here at all because he'd need more than another foot from this
ceiling. This ceiling's about ten feet
tall, so he'd need more than that. If Goliath was walking
out here, he'd hit his face on these two middle ceiling fans. That's how tall the man was.
He is an absolute monster. Yeah, we think Dan Morgan is
tall, and I play basketball with Dan, and when you play basketball
with Dan, he's tall, I'm telling you. If one of our children is
still on Dan Morgan's shoulders, you still would not be as tall
as Goliath. I mean, this guy is enormous,
and he's got strength. The helmet that he wore weighed
30 pounds. I mean, try putting that thing
on. I mean, you know, men have neck problems from wearing a
hard hat during their career. This guy's helmet weighed 30
pounds. The armor, his body armor, weighed
180 pounds. His spear is 26 feet long and
the head of the spear alone weighs 20 pounds. I mean, you think
the strength that it would take to throw that thing. Altogether,
Goliath's armor and his spear weighed 273 pounds. Now you imagine just carrying
that, much less wearing it, that much weight and fighting in it.
That's how strong of a man he was. And he is the champion of
the Philistines. And he's so confident in his
strength and ability, he comes out and he challenges someone,
anyone, to be the champion of Israel and come fight with him. According to Goliath, there's
no need for the armies to fight. You all just stay put on the
sidelines and watch. And whoever wins the fight between
these two champions is going to win the whole war. Now, the
question is, Is there anyone who's strong enough and brave
enough to come out and fight Goliath? Much less kill him.
Is there anybody brave enough to come out and fight him? Well,
there's one. There's a song we used to sing,
Mike. Yes, there's one. Only one. The
precious, precious Jesus. He's the one. This is the one,
this picture. Our champion is pictured in this
chapter. This is such a clear picture
of the gospel. The whole issue. is going to
be decided by two representative men. That's one of the great
pillars of the gospel, representation, federal headship. God sees the
whole human race in two men, in two representatives, two federal
heads. He either sees us in the first
man, Adam, or he sees us in the second man, the second Adam,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And whoever your federal head
is, you are. Whatever your federal head did,
you did. Adam is a representative of all
mankind, and Adam sinned against God. So that means that everyone
who's in Adam, who's represented by Adam, is lost in sin. They are a sinner because that's
what their federal head is. And all those who are in Christ,
they did what he did. Christ produced a perfect righteousness. So everyone who's in Christ,
everyone who's represented by the Lord Jesus Christ is perfectly
righteous. And it really is as simple as
that. There's no need to try to complicate it. It's as simple
as that. Whoever your federal head is, you are. This word champion,
I did not know this until I began studying this this week. This
word champion actually means mediator. one who is between. And that's what this champion
is. He's the representative. He stands between God and the
mass of people that he represents. God only sees two men. He doesn't
see everybody individually. He sees everyone in one of two
men. And in our story, if Goliath
wins the battle, Israel will be the servants of the Philistines.
Now the Israelites, when they stand back and look at Goliath,
They pretty well figure they're already the servants of the Philistines
because nobody can beat that man. He's too big. He's too strong. They don't have a chance. And
it's funny that the first time that they meet up with a champion
like this, they are just totally dismayed. Isn't this the very
reason that they want Saul to be their king? They said, we
want a big man. We want somebody to go out and
fight our battles for us. And Saul was the biggest, he
was the strongest, he was the best that Israel had to offer.
He's supposed to be their champion, but where is he? He's off in
a tent somewhere, cowering in fear. In the past, he had acted
like their champion, didn't he? He'd gone out and fought and
led the armies and done things. He acted like their champion
until a bigger bully come on the block. Now he's afraid. And
Saul is afraid. He's not bold and valiant like
he used to be. Because remember, we read this
last week. The Spirit of the Lord left him. And now he's a
coward. Now, just like his father Adam,
he's a coward. And way back there in the garden,
Adam was our champion. He was our representative. And
he lost the battle. He sinned against God, he lost
the battle, and he plunged the whole human race into bondage
to sin and death. And every one of us, because
of Adam's transgression, was born a servant of sin. And we will forever remain the
servants of sin unless another champion comes and sets us free. And that's what the rest of the
chapter tells us, gives us a picture of. Now in verse 12, now David
was the son of that Ephratite 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 in Bethlehem." Now you remember,
we read this last week, that David came to Saul's court and
he played his harp and he sang psalms And that made that evil
spirit that troubled Saul leave him. Well, for some reason, David
didn't stay at court. He was going back and forth,
it looks like, between home and Saul's court. Maybe he only came
when he was called. You know, when the evil spirit
was troubling Saul, David came and played his harp and sang
and so forth. But the rest of the time, David
spent feeding his father's sheep. Now, I think it's very interesting
that David still kept his father's sheep. Even though he was anointed
king, even though he was a very important figure in Saul's court,
David still fed the sheep. He cared about his father's sheep,
and that's such a clear picture of Christ. Even though our Savior
is the King of glory, he laid aside his glory for a time and
became a man. He came to this earth and humbled
himself And everything he did as a man, as he walked this earth,
he did because he loved his sheep. That's exactly why he did it.
Just like David, he'd go back and forth and feed his father's
sheep. Well, verse 16, the Philistine drew near morning and evening
and presented himself forty days. Twice a day for forty days, Goliath
came out and defied the God of Israel. And not one of those
men found the courage to go fighting. So verse 17, and while this is
going on, Jesse said unto 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 thousand, and look how thy brethren fare,
and take their pledge. Now at this time the government
didn't feed the army, the family of the soldiers did. So Jesse's
sending provisions to his sons, and he tells David, take their
pledge. And what that means is, is if
Jesse's sons had to, you know, they were there and they were
in need of something, so they had to pawn their clothes or
something that they had so that they could get food or supplies
that they needed while they were there. David was sent with the
money to redeem what they pawned, to buy it back. And you know
the picture there. By nature, we have lost everything
in Adam. We're left naked. destitute,
starving for lack of food. And it's not just that we're
sick. Brethren, we're dead, dead, spiritually dead. And it's not
like, you know, well, we're naked and destitute, but at least we
don't owe anybody anything. We're naked and destitute and
dead. And there's still a price left upon our head, an infinite
price left upon our head because of our sin. And the Lord Jesus
Christ was sent by his father to take the pledge of his brethren. He redeemed his people from the
curse of the law being made a curse for us. And he came and restored
everything that we lost in Adam, everything and more. And you'll
notice David came to redeem his brothers. He came bearing gifts
for his brothers. He didn't come to redeem that
whole enormous army that was there. He didn't come bringing
gifts to everybody in the whole army. And somebody said, well,
you know, that's not fair. He brought gifts to these, but not to these.
These are his brothers. That's who his father gave him
gifts to bring to his brethren. Well, that's who Christ came
for. And nobody would fault Jesse for that, would they? Would anybody
fault Jesse for not sending gifts to Saul or somebody else's name
we don't know, you know, in the army? No, that's his right. Well,
God has the same right. He sent his son to this earth
bringing gifts to his brethren. He came to redeem his brethren. He is the firstborn among many
brethren. He lived, he died, he rose again
for his brethren, to redeem his brethren. Well, as David's coming
there to see his brothers, Saul and David and all the men of
Israel were in the Valley of Elah fighting with the Philistines.
Now, they actually hadn't begun full-scale war yet. They were
arrayed, ready to fight. And there may have been some
skirmishes here and there, but war hadn't completely broken out
yet. In verse 20, David rose up early in the morning and left
the sheep with the keeper and took and went as Jesse had commanded
him. And he came to the trench as
the host was going forth to fight and shouted for the battle. Now,
David is a shepherd. He loves the sheep. Now, his
father sent him on a mission for his brethren. And you know,
I mean, We've got two dogs. I mean, it's ridiculous how these
dogs are treated. But now, no matter how much we
love them, now they're still dogs. They don't compare to my
daughters. They don't compare to my brother.
I mean, so I know the sheep, you know, the animals don't exactly
compare to David's brothers, but he loves the sheep. And even
though he's sent by his father on a mission for his brothers,
David never one time left those sheep. to their own devices.
He left them with the keeper. And that is a picture of our
Lord. I'm so thankful our Lord is faithful. Not one person here
has ever had the bodily presence of Christ to keep us and protect
us as we go through our day. But not one child of God has
ever been left to his own devices. We've been left with the keeper.
Every child of God, every one of them without exception, has
the Holy Spirit dwelling in them as our keeper, the earnest of
our inheritance. He's our keeper. We've been given
to pastors who are under shepherds, keepers of the sheep. David left
the sheep with the keeper because sheep need one. He gave them
a keeper. So David leaves the sheep with
the keeper and as he arrives, the armies are getting ready
for battle in 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 of the carriage,
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 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 as 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." Now David hears this man Goliath blaspheming the name
of God. And he hears from the men around
there, you know, whoever kills this Philistine champion is going
to have all the glory in Israel. He's going to have the king's
daughter to be his wife. And I thought, you know, he may
as well, because if he kills Goliath, he saved Saul's daughter's
life. He may as well have her to be
his wife. Well, God has an elect people. Those people are the
bride of Christ. He gave them to his son in a
covenant of grace. And that bride belongs to Christ
because he came and saved her life. He died to give her life. She belongs to him and she would
have no other. I mean, I don't know how Saul's
daughter exactly felt about, you know, being given to whoever
kills this giant. I don't know how she felt about
that, but I know how God's people feel about Christ our husband.
We'd have no other. Next, David hears the champion
who kills Goliath is going to be made rich. Wasn't that Christ
our champion? The Father's given him everything.
Everything. The Son created everything. Then He came to earth and bought
everything. It's twice His. The cattle on
a thousand hills are His. It all belongs to Him. Oh, He's
rich. And thank God we read in Scripture,
He's rich in mercy. Rich people. Don't tend to be
too kind and generous, mostly. Our Lord, who's rich beyond compare,
is rich in mercy to all that call upon him. And last, David,
here's the champion's house. His family is going to be made
free. Now, this interests me. There'll be free men. They'll
never have to pay taxes again. That'd be enough for me to take
the risk to go fight Goliaths and not have to pay taxes anymore.
Well, everyone for whom Christ died is God's free man. They've
been made free. We don't owe a debt to the law
anymore. We're free because of the doing and the dying of our
Lord Jesus Christ. If the Son shall make you free,
you're free indeed. We're God's free men. Well, David
hears that, so verse 26, 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? Now, David just can't believe.
No one for 40 days has gone down there to shut the mouth of this
blasphemer. He's just down there defying
God. David is the only man in Israel who fears God more than
he fears Goliath. He's the only one. And David's
concern is not how much reward he's going to get. His concern
is somebody needs to go down there and take away the reproach
from Israel. That's David's concern. And that
is exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ, our champion, has done
for Israel. Our Savior came and took away
the reproach of His people. And that word reproach means
shame. And I looked and looked and looked
at that and tried to imagine the shame of my sin. Just the utter, absolute shame
of my sin. And Christ our Savior took that
shame upon himself and bore that reproach away. And he did it
by taking that reproach into himself. Look at Psalm 22. I'll show you that this is the
psalm of the cross. They say that this psalm is the
psalm that our Lord quoted verbatim as he hung upon the cross. And in verse 6 of Psalm 22, our
champion says, but I am a worm and no man. a reproach of men
and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me
to scorn. They shoot out the lip. They
shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver
him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighteth in him. He was
a reproach of men. Now look over a few pages of
Psalm 31. Here's how our Lord bore our
reproach away. He said, I was a reproach. He
became our reproach. He bore our reproach among all
mine enemies, but especially among my neighbors. And a fear
to mine acquaintance. They that did see me without
fled from me. I am forgotten as a dead man,
out of mind. I am like a broken vessel. For
I have heard the slander of many. Fear was on every side, while
they took counsel together against me. They devised to take away
my life. They devised to take away his
life as he was a reproach among his enemies and his friends. He became our reproach and bore
it away. Thank God. Well, verse 27, back
in our text. Find my place here. And the people
answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to
the man that killeth him. And Eliab, his eldest 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? Now maybe Eliab is a little bit
jealous here. I don't know. The writers say
he was jealous. I kind of wonder if Eliab wasn't
embarrassed because he realized he should have been acting with
this kind of valor for the past 39 days and didn't. And now his
little brother's come on the scene and he's showing him up.
He's kind of embarrassing him for this is how I should have
acted. Who have you left those few sheep
with? I know what you've come down
here for. And first, David speaks like a little brother. What I
do? You know what I do? It's just like your big brother
comes and smacks you on the side of the head. You know what I do?
What I do? But second, David speaks as the champion of Israel. And he says, is there not a cause?
Is there a cause? There is a cause. There is a
cause and it's God's glory. The cause is the truth of God. And the cause is the name of
God. That's the way David saw this
situation. He saw it very simply. It was
black and white to him. The cause is the glory of the
name of God. Well, Christ, our Savior, our
champion, came to this earth with a cause. Now, he was determined
to accomplish the mission that his father sent him to do. It
was his cause. He came to honor his father.
He came to set his people free from bondage to sin. from bondage
to Satan, and he came to set us free from the fear of death.
He came to bring peace with God for his people. There's a cause. But now, today, in 2011, there is a cause for us. Our
cause is to preach Christ so that sinners know the Savior. That's our cause. Our cause is
to preach Christ So the sheep will be fed. Wayne and I were
talking about Wednesday nights. You rush home from work, try
to get some food and you rush to get here. It's our cause to
make that effort worthwhile that the sheep be fed, that they be
nourished, that they be comforted and strengthened in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Brethren, we have a cause. And our cause is the same cause
that David had all those years ago. Our cause is the glory of
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we don't have a cause,
then shut the doors and go home. And just go anywhere. I mean,
if we don't have a cause, there's a thousand churches within ten
miles of here. Go to any of them, so-called
churches. Go to any of them. Unless we have a cause. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you know him, you love
him, you've got a cause. David says, we have a cause. Now it's time to get to work. David's not a man to dilly-dally
around. We have a cause. I'm going to
do something about it. That's his attitude. He says
in verse 30, He talked to these fellas and they weren't getting
any closer to fighting Goliath, so he turns to somebody else.
In verse 30, 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
as David spake, they rehearsed them before Saul, and he sent
for him. And David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail because
of him. Thy servant will go and fight
this Philistine. Now you look at that giant down
there in that valley. I mean, this man is enormous.
He's strong. He is a trained killer. That's all he does is kill things,
kill people. But you know what? That giant
is against God. So he's nothing. He's absolutely
nothing. David says, don't let your heart
fail because of that nothing. That's all he is. He's just a
stack of dust. If God be for us, Who then can
be against us? Now, this is true, too. If you
be against God, who can be for you? No one. So he's nothing
because he's against God. Now, our problem that we face
is sin, isn't it? Well, don't let your heart fail
because of your sin and your inability to please God. I know
it's a problem that we can't do anything about, but God has
not left his people without a champion. Our champion is none other than
God's Son. Now, how much you fear or how
confident you are completely depends upon your champion. If
you're your own champion, let your heart fail. But if Christ
is your champion, don't let your heart fail. Don't be dismayed. This matter is going to be taken
care of. I don't care how big it looks to us. Well, in verse
33, 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's a man of war from his youth. He's a grown man from the time
he was a boy. He's been trained to fight, to
kill people. That's true. But Saul forgot
what David just said. God's not on his side. And if
you want qualifications of a champion, you want qualifications of somebody
to go in there and fight Goliath, here's David's qualifications
in verse 34. And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's
sheep, and there came a lion and a bear, and took a lamb out
of the flock. And I went after him, and smote
him, and delivered it out of his mouth. And when he rose 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 not going down there
in his own confidence. He says, I'm confident that I'll kill
him because he's defied the armies of the living God. 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. Now, the Jews say that this happened
multiple times. Bears and lions came different
times. And David took his shepherd's
rod, his bare hands, and killed him. Multiple times, they say.
You know, a bear or a lion comes and takes a lamb out of the flock.
And if I'm the shepherd, I'm watching that and I'm saying,
you know, this is a lost cause. That's just the cost of doing
business and I'm going to let that go. Not David. He went and he took that lamb
from the mouth of that lion or that bear. He must have smote
it, you know, with his shepherd's rod. The bear opened his mouth
and the lamb fell out and David took it. Well, now all David's
done is make him mad. He's just made him mad. What
are you going to do now? What are you going to do now? All you've done is make him mad.
And can you imagine the terror of a lion lunging at you? I mean, can you imagine? Can
you imagine a bear Standing up on his hind legs, roaring at
you, ready to just wipe you out with the swat of his paw. You
reckon your heart would fail? I know mine would. David's heart
didn't fail. He's like Samson. He grabbed
that thing by the scruff of its neck and ripped its throat out
with his bare hands. And Saul hears that and he said,
that's good enough for me. Have at it, son. Go get it. Well,
that's David's qualifications. Well, you want to hear the qualifications
of our champion? Our champion met Satan head on. And he didn't do it in his physically
strongest moment. He did it in his physically weakest
moment to show how powerful he is. Our Lord hadn't eaten in
40 days. Now, I'm hungry and I'm weak
if I go more than four hours without eating. Our Lord went
40 days without eating. Then Satan came and tempted Him. And our Lord defeated Him with
the Word of God. Didn't even work up a sweat.
When our Lord was nailed to the cross, suffering unspeakable
agony, and then dying, He crushed Satan's head. Now the moment
we die, that's the loss of this life of this flesh, isn't it?
At the moment our Lord died, he won the victory and crushed
the head of Satan. Our Lord, our champion, paid
an infinite sin debt with his blood. He suffered an eternity
of hell for a multitude of people in just a few hours. He faced
another enemy of ours, death. He died and rose again. Conquered death so his people
would never die again. Now let me ask you. What problem
do you have that our champion can't conquer? Not one. He's already taken care of all
the big ones, he can handle the little ones too. Well, verse
38, Saul tells David, now you go at it, but he's going to help
matters out a bit. And Saul armed David with his armor, and he
put a helmet of brass upon his head and he armed him with a
coat of mail. And David girded his sword upon his armor and
he is saved to go, for he had not proved And David said unto
Saul, I cannot go with these, for I have not proved them. And
David put them off of him. Now, this was not Saul's personal
armor he put on David. It wasn't a fitting. But it was
the best he had from his armor he bought in. And he put all
this stuff on David. And David tried it on. And he
says, I can't go to battle with this. I've never proved it. I
haven't worn it. I haven't tried it in battle.
And that armor represents human strength and human ability. It
is of no help at all. That armor would not have been
of any help at all to David. Matter of fact, it would have
been a hindrance. And that's what this flesh is to salvation. All the strength and gifts and
beauty of the flesh is only a hindrance to anything good spiritually. The flesh has never been proved
successful. But I'll tell you what has been
proved. The Lord Jesus Christ. He is the proved, tried cornerstone
that never fails. The whole church is built upon
him. Well, verse 40, David took that
armor off and he just took a 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 a sling was in his hand and
he drew near to the flisting. Now, David came dressed as a
shepherd to meet the enemy. He didn't come dressed as a soldier.
He took the soldier's clothes off. He came dressed as a shepherd.
Our Lord Jesus, our champion, He didn't come dressed in the
glory of the Son of God, did He? He came clothed in human
flesh to meet the enemy. And the only weapon David had
was a shepherd's rod, a sling, and five smooth stones. Not even,
you know, big rocks, rough stones. They were five smooth stones.
And you look at David and you think, He's unarmed. No, he's
not. He's armed with the name of the
Lord of hosts. Look at verse 41. And the Philistine
came on and drew near unto David, and that man that beared 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 a 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. 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. Will the Lord deliver thee into
mine hand, and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee,
and will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this
day, not just you, but the whole host of them this day, to 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." Now Goliath
asked David, he said, am I a dog that you come here and think
you can just beat me with a stick like you do a dog? That's exactly
what David says. When earlier he called Goliath
an uncircumcised Philistine, he's calling Goliath a Gentile
dog. He said, that's exactly what
you are, dog and beaten with a stick. And that's all you are.
And David was confident of the victory. You remember, he took
the sword off. He didn't bring a sword with
him. He's standing there with his sling and his shepherd's
rod. He said, I'm going to cut your
head off. He didn't even have a sword. That's how confident
he was that the buzzards are going to feed on you and your
buddies. And David's not seeking his own personal glory. He says
while he's doing this, that all the earth may know that there
is a God in Israel. That's our cause. That all the
earth may know there's a God in Israel. It's the same cause
that Elijah had on Mount Carmel. He prayed that the Lord would
let that fire fall on that sacrifice, that the people would know there
is a God in Israel. And David is confident because
this is not his battle. The battle is not yours, but
the Lord's. See verse 47, And all the assembly
shall know that the Lord saith not with sword and spear, for
the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hands.
David can be confident because it is not his battle. It is the
Lord's. And he's going to win. If he
undertakes the battle, you can rest assured he's going to win.
Well, verse 48, it came to pass when the Philistine arose and
came and drew nigh to meet David, that David hastened and ran toward
the enemy to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in his
bag and took thence a stone and slain it, and smote the Philistine
in his forehead. And the stone sunk into his forehead,
and he fell upon his face to the earth. So David prevailed
over the Philistine with the sling and with the stone. and
smote the Philistine and slew him, but there was no sword in
the hand of David." Now, this stone, I don't know how it happened. Some of the writers say that
it went through an eye hole in Goliath's helmet. Some people
say when David said, I'm going to cut your head off and the
buzzards are going to feed on you, that Goliath threw his head
back and laughed and his helmet came up a little bit. Some people
think the stone went right through the brass and killed him in his
forehead. I don't know. That stone went through all of
Goliath's defenses and killed him because God directed the
path of that stone. Whatever happened is because
God did it. One little stone, directed by
God, killed that giant. He fell face down, dead. And
I did a lot of reading in the past few days about these five
stones. You know, there's a lot of theories
about what this represents, that David picked up these five stones
and put them in his bag. I don't know about any of them,
really. I'm sure it means something.
I don't know what it means. But if you look over at Matthew
21, I'm pretty sure I know what that one stone is. Pretty sure. Matthew 21, verse 42. I'm pretty sure that one stone
that killed Goliath represents our Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew
21, verse 42. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye
never read in the scriptures the stone which the builders
rejected? The same is become the head of the corner. This
is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore
say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you,
and given to a nation, bringing forth the fruits thereof. And
whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on
whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder." This is
the very stone that Goliath was in that valley defying, and it
fell on him and ground him to powder. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He fell on our every enemy and
ground them all to powder. Well, verse 51, therefore David
ran and stood upon the Philistine. He's so big, David just stood
on him and took his sword and drew it out of the sheep thereof.
David killed him before he even could draw his sword out. and
slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines
saw their champion was dead, they fled." Now you can just
imagine David drawing that sword out. I mean, he had to use two
hands to pick that thing up. But he cut his head off just
like he said he would. Just as surely as Christ our
champion crushed Satan's head at Calvary. Well, verse 52, here's
where we finally come in. The children of Israel, verse
52, and the men of Israel and Judah arose and shouted, they're
ready to go into battle now that it's all over. And they pursued
the Philistines until they had come to the valley, to the gates
of Ekron. And the wounded of the Philistines
fell down by the way to Sharamon, even unto Gath and unto Ekron.
And the children of Israel returned from chasing after the Philistines
and they spoiled their tents. They didn't do anything to contribute
to this victory. Mostly what they did, they watched
in fear and just doubted the victory, you know, would ever
happen in the first place. But at the end of the day, they got
all the spoil. And that's what spiritual is
real. That's our experience. We enjoy all the victories of
the spoils of Christ's victory, even though we never fired a
single shot. We have justification with God. I mean, that's a spoil
of the victory. Sinners, like us, all we can
do is sin, have the forgiveness of sins, been made white as snow.
Sinners, who by nature, by birth, by practice, have declared war
on God, whose carnal mind is enmity with God, have fellowship
with God. We can come before the throne
of God Almighty and call Him our Father. Now if that's not
a spoil of the victory, I don't know what is. Dead sinners, dead,
stinking, rotting, decaying sinners have been given eternal life. Life with the Lord Jesus Christ. All because Christ our champion
won the victory and we're more than conquerors in him. In verse
54, David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to
Jerusalem and put his armor in his tent. Just imagine David
carrying that head around like a trophy. That's what he did.
It's his trophy. An open show of victory. And that's exactly what Christ
our champion did in Colossians chapter 2. I'll read it to you.
Verse 15. And having spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them in That's what Christ our champion did, just like David
did when he became the champion of Israel, carrying that head
around as his trophy. Don't know how long he'd keep
it around before it started singing. He kept it for a while, apparently.
Well, verse 53, and when Saul saw David go forth against the
Philistine, he said unto Abner, the captain of the host, Abner,
whose son is this youth? And Abner said, as thy soul liveth,
O king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Inquire thou
whose son this strifling 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. That's
some sight, isn't it? And Saul said unto him, Whose
son art thou, thou young man? And David answered, I am the
son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite. Now I thought that
was odd. That was an odd thing for Saul
to ask. How could he forget David? who
played for him. I mean, David came, he played,
he sang, and the evil spirit left him, and he felt so much
better. He had to be awful happy. I mean, how could you forget
that? But he did. That evil spirit
took away not only Saul's courage, it took away his memory, too.
It made his mind just dull. And you know, as we go through
our daily walk, our daily life, you know, the child of God doesn't
ever forget Christ, do we? But we're carrying around that
evil spirit with us. And we need to be reminded. We
have to be reminded. That's what makes it such a blessing
to be reminded here again of Christ our champion. And I hope
that Lord will bless that to you. To go home rejoicing in
Christ our champion. And Mike's going to sing maybe
my favorite song ever. It is finished. That's the cry
of our champion. It is finished. There's a line that's been drawn
through the ages On that line spans an old rugged cross On
that cross a battle is raging As the Savior he hung on the
cross. On one side marched the forces
of evil. All the demons and the devils
of hell. On the other the angels of glory
and they meet on Golgotha's hill. The earth shakes with the force
of the conflict And the sun refuses to shine
For there hangs God's Son in the darkness And into the darkness
He crawls The battle is over, it is finished. There'll be no more war It is
finished, the end of all conflict It is finished, and Jesus is
Lord Yet in my heart The battle was raging. Not all prisoners of war had
come home. They were battlefields of my
own making. I didn't know that the war had
been won. Then I heard that the king of
all ages had fought all my battles for me. And that victory Was mine for
the claiming And now, O praise His name, I am free It is finished, the battle is
over It is finished, there'll be no more war It is finished,
the end of all conflict It is finished, and He's alive!