First Samuel chapter 17 records
the children of Israel's encounter with the Philistine Goliath.
And of course, David's slaying of Goliath. Prior to this chapter,
in chapter 16, David is anointed by the prophet at the Lord's
command. as that one whose pleasure the
Lord was set upon, that David should ultimately rule over the
people of Israel in place of Saul who would rebel. And Saul having had a bad spirit
come upon him, an evil spirit sought for one to play upon a
harp to calm him. And David was chosen as the one
for this role and David was sent to Saul. And in chapter 16, verse
21, we read that Saul, when he saw David, loved him greatly
and made David his armor bearer. And then in chapter 17, the Philistines
are gathered to battle against the children of Israel. And this giant, this great man
Goliath, stands up before the people and challenges them. And
the people quake before him. When Saul and all Israel heard
the words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly
afraid. Now three of David's brothers
were amongst the army that fought for Saul. and remained at the
battlefield, but David being the youngest, went back to his
father and to his father's sheep. And the verse I'd draw your attention
to this morning, one of the verses is 1 Samuel 17 and verse 15,
where we read, but David went and returned from
Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem. David went and
returned from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem. Now, of course, Goliath continues
to appear before the armies of Israel for another 40 days, continues
to challenge them. One is not found who is ready
to fight him alone. And after a time David's father
Jesse sends David back to his brethren in the army to send
them food and to find out how they fared. David returns. David sees what's going on. He hears the cries of Goliath,
the challenge. He asks, The others there, what's
going on? They say that if one should defeat
Goliath, that Saul will reward him greatly. And David, so upset
that Goliath should defy not only Saul and the Israelites,
but defy the living God, defy the armies of the living God,
is ready to fight him. But of course Saul and the Israelites
look upon David as a youth and ridicule his desire to fight.
But David has this to say also in chapter 17 and verse 44. In reply to Saul and his ridicule,
and as an example of how he keeps his father's sheep, he says under
Saul, verse 44, 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 out after him and smote him and delivered him 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 have 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. David initially returned from
Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem. Now of course David
in the scriptures It's one of the most wonderful, probably
the greatest types and figures of our Lord Jesus Christ that
is recorded in the Old Testament Scriptures. There are many records
of various characters in the Old Testament. Joseph is especially
another figure, a type of Christ. There are different ones who
in the account of their lives and their conduct and the circumstances
they're brought into, They're given to us, as it were in prophecy,
as a picture, as a figure of Christ to come. They stand up
as those that present a picture of who He is, what He will do.
And David especially, and so much about the life of David
and the experience of David, which is as unto Christ to come.
We of course noted that in chapter 16 here, that David has the prophet
come unto him and anoint him. pours oil upon his head. And
this is of course a picture of the anointing of Christ to come.
Christ the Son of God is God's chosen. He's the one that God
the Father chose to send as the Messiah, as the savior of his
people. His love is set upon his Son. He is the one who would come. He is the one in whom the fullness
of God dwells. He is the one whom the father
loves with an eternal love. He is the one in whom the father
rejoices. And he is the one, the powerful,
the mighty, the almighty savior. The one who would come to save
his people. Here David in figure is set forth
to represent him. David is of course the one who
would become king as the Lord Jesus is the king of kings. David is a priest. David's experience was of one
who knew life in all its extremes. He knew both how to be abased
and how to abound, like Paul, like Saul to come. The Apostle
Paul, he knew what it was to have riches and he knew what
it was to have poverty. He knew what it was to have men
praise him and he knew what it was to have all men reject him.
He knew what it was to be loved and he knew what it was to be
hated and to be hounded and to have those seeking after his
death. King Saul here jealous of the
response of the people to David's victory over Goliath in this
chapter. And of other things that happen
to David, Saul turns against this one whom initially he loved. He turns against him in jealousy
and seeks for his life and David is hounded from place to place.
David's great experience from the heights and from the depths
His experience of the keeping hand of his God. His experience
of the blessing of his God and of how his God never left him
whatever the circumstance, however low, however desperate the state
was. His great experience of his God
and his keeping hand. He set forth, of course in the
Psalms. He's the great Psalmist. So many
of the Psalms are written from his experience. So many of the
Psalms tell out the cry of his soul. A cry that the children
of God feel likened unto because it tells out the experiences
of all God's people in lesser or greater measure. We know what
it is from time to time to cry out from the depths as David
did. We know what it is to have others come before us and to
mock and to scoff at us being so few and to say in ridicule,
where is thy God? You speak of a God but where
is he? You're on your own, you're so
few. Where's this mighty salvation
you talk about? You're nothing. Things go on
the same and you remain the same. Where's thy God? David knew this
ridicule and he recorded it in the Psalms. But David most of
all knew the salvation of God. He knew what it was to be blessed
with blessings and riches which none can know, except they know
what it is to be washed by the blood of Christ. He knew what
it was as a king to have the riches of this world given unto
him. And he knew like his son Solomon would. He had that wisdom
to know that these things are passing. These are not true riches. They're in your hands one moment
and they're taken away the next. What shall it profit a man if
he gain the whole world but lose his own soul? These are empty
things. But David knew what true riches
are. David knew that riches are to be found in Christ, in his
blood and in his salvation. So we turn here this morning
to look a little bit at this person, David, this great type
and figure of Christ, the king, the priest, the anointed, the
outcast, and of course, the shepherd, the shepherd. David went and
returned from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem. to feed his father's sheep at
Bethlehem. What a picture there is in this. The sheep, his father's sheep,
the feeding of the sheep, where they're fed, who fed them. What pictures, the sheep, There's
a picture of course of God's people who throughout the scriptures
are spoken of as being sheep. Christ is the good shepherd,
the great shepherd of the sheep of whom David is but a picture. Sheep. David went to feed his
father's sheep. What do you know of being a sheep? Isaiah, in his prophecy of course,
speaks of sheep. We read of the Lord's people
described as sheep throughout the scriptures of Christ in John's
gospel chapter three, speaks of the sheep, his people the
sheep, of laying down his life for the sheep, of his sheep hearing
his voice, of following him their shepherd, of not following the
voice of any other. But Isaiah in the 53rd chapter
has this to say of sheep. All we, all we, all of us, all
we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. Everyone. All we like sheep have
gone astray. Sheep are not the wisest of creatures. They're not the strongest of
creatures, the greatest of creatures. In fact, in their appearance,
in the way they act, in the way they conduct themselves, we could
rightly say that they are very foolish, weak, stupid creatures. I might not be entirely fair
to all of them, but that, as a generalization, is pretty much
what they're like. They wander about in the flock.
They wander off. They get lost, they fall in a
ditch. They're easy prey. They're easy
prey for, in David's day, lions and bears, dogs. They have no great means of defending
themselves. They're foolish. No wonder then that God describes
mankind and particularly his people in a particular sense
as sheep. For we've all gone astray, we've
all wandered We're all foolish, we're all stubborn, we're all
taken up by our own will and our own ways. We'd rather go
this way than listen to God's way. We'd rather seek after our
own things, we'd rather follow our own noses. We see something
that seems appealing and we go after it or what trouble it brings
us into. We don't listen, we don't care. Our understanding is darkened. We're foolish. Indeed, rebels before God, we
not only foolishly go our own way, but we stubbornly go our
own way. We've chosen to go our own way.
We've chosen to turn from Him. We've chosen to turn from His
voice and His leading. We've chosen to turn from His
revelation in the scriptures. We've chosen to turn from those
who would come and declare the truth of God in the scriptures.
We've said that's for a former day. It's come, it's gone. It's
irrelevant. It has nothing for me. We seek
the here and the now. We seek our own pleasure. Some
grass over there seems a bit greener and we go off after it. We're sheep. And all we like
sheep have gone astray. And yet, here in verse 15 of
1 Samuel 17, the sheep that David went to feed have a particular
description. They're not anyone's sheep. They're
not just wild sheep. But there's one that owns them.
There's one to whom they belong, whether they know it or know
it not. David went to feed his father's
sheep. Whatever these sheep may know,
there is one who knew them. There is one who knows them.
Whether they know him or not, they are David's father's sheep.
He owned them, they were his. And he gave them into the care
of David to feed them, to guide them, to watch over them, to
protect them. They're his. And there is a people in this
world taken from the offspring of Adam, there are a people in
this world who though they like all men go astray, who though
in appearance they are no different from any other, there are a people
who are said to be the Father's sheep, the Father of the Lord
Jesus, God's sheep. chosen, owned, elect. He knows them, he knows them
before they've ever heard of him, he knows them as they wandered,
he knows them in their rebellion, he knows them in their darkness,
he knows them in the depravity of their souls, he knows them
in their lost estate, their sin, wherever they are, wherever they've
gone, however lost they may be, lost sheep in deed, lost in sin,
with the rumbles of judgment over their heads, with the judgment
of hell beckoning should they wander off and remain in such
a state, wherever they are, however blind and foolish they may be,
the father knows them. He knows them intimately. He
knows them by name. He knows each one. He knows its
bleat. He knows its skin. He knows its
face. He knows them. And he sent his
son to watch over them, to feed them, to guide them. None will
be lost. They are his father's sheep. his fathers, they are his. Of course, in the picture here,
they're Jesse's, the father of David's. But that's the picture. The reality
is that they are God's, the Lord Jesus Christ's. They are the
fathers chosen by him, given to his son. watched over, loved
and cared for by his son. Yes, David was one of the sons
of Jesse, but he was the son who was always with the sheep.
Chapter 16, verse 19. Wherefore Saul sent messages
unto Jesse and said, send me David thy son, which is with
the sheep. which is with the sheep. This son cared for the sheep. When he was sent by Jesse here
to the battle to find out how his brethren fared, he did not
leave the sheep alone. He found a keeper to watch over
them in his absence till he returned. He would not leave them without
protection. He was always there, he was at
the battle when Goliath first appeared. Saul's armor bearer,
but his thought was on the sheep. Chapter 17, verse 15, but David
went and returned from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem. He was always mindful of them,
whether he was there in their midst, or wherever they were,
parted from Him for a season. He was mindful of them. And Christ,
the Son of God, the shepherd of the sheep, is always mindful
of His sheep wherever they are, whatever their circumstance.
His thoughts are with them. He knows them, He loves them,
He cares for them. and he longs to be with them
and to feed them at Bethlehem. To feed them. Where are they
fed? At Bethlehem. David's city, of
course, that city in which the Lord Jesus Christ would once
be born, the Son of God, the seed of David, David's Lord,
David's son. That city of David in which the
Lord would come. Yes, but that city which gets
its name from the fact that it is the house of bread. Beth house,
lehem, the house of bread. The sheep are fed in the house
of bread. Where else would they go? Where
else would you go for bread? Where else would you go for food?
They're in the best place, aren't they? The right place. Where else will
you find food? From whom else will you find
food? The sheep were at Bethlehem,
where David fed them. Child of God. One of God's sheep. Where are you? Where do you find
food? There's only one that provides
it. And that's Christ, the shepherd. And he does it in that place
which is called the house of bread. Where the sheep gather. and where they're fed in such
a way that they don't go away hungry. David knew how to keep them strong.
He knew how to feed them. He knew how to watch over them.
He didn't give them the scraps. He looked after them. And the
Lord Jesus never gives his people scraps. He knows how to feed
his sheep. He knows how to feed them on
the finest. His gospel is His. He speaks. He preaches. He takes the bread
of heaven and breaks it from heaven above. On breaking it,
He sends it down by His Spirit through the preachers whom He
sends to preach it. And He gives unto His children
plenty. We read of Christ, of course,
feeding the 5,000 and feeding the 4,000. It didn't take much
for him to feed them. It took a few loaves and none
went away hungry. You eat of this bread and drink
of his water and you'll never hunger and you'll never thirst. Yes, David went and fed his father's
sheep at Bethlehem. But look at what has come to
pass in chapter 17. David does not remain in a quiet
backwater as it were. Left alone, quiet with the sheep,
there's great trouble has come upon Israel. A great battle is
in progress. This mighty nation of the Philistines
has come raging against this people, the people of God, the
armies of the living God. And their great warrior Goliath
comes in great pride and opposition and mocks them and scoffs at
them. A great enemy, a mighty foe,
and there's none amongst the camp, none amongst all the armies
of Israel. who has the strength, who has
the will, who has the boldness and character to come and to
stand before Him. They're all dismayed, they're
all greatly afraid. Surely amongst such a company
there'd be one or two, the strongest of them, who might have the courage
to stand before Goliath, but none is found. none is found
and he mocks them for 40 days he comes and he goes morning
and evening and the people quake and this youth David the one
who's just farmed off to go and look after the sheep the one
whom the brothers look upon as the youngest the weakest is sent by his father
to see how the armies do. And he comes unto them and he
hears the cries of Goliath. And he hears what the people
say of them. And he comes to see how they
fare. He's left his flock in good care in the hands of a keeper
to go to help others who are in need. We read of course in the New
Testament of the parable of the lost sheep and how the shepherd
leaves the 99 to go in search of the one who is lost. Well
as it were here David leaves the flock in care and he goes
to a situation which has arisen and he inquires when he sees
this foe and when he hears his opposition, when he hears the
way that this man, this evil man, this heathen man, this godless
man, mocks and rages at this people and in so doing mocks
and rages at their God, scoffs at their God, As we've hinted at in the Psalms,
which David later wrote, he, as it were, comes unto them and
says, where is thy God? Look at you, come and fight me.
I'm mightier than you. And he's not with you. And I'm
gonna crush you. And they're shaken at his cry.
They're taken in by it. Their faith fails. Despite all
the battles which the Lord God has brought Israel through in
the past, their memory is short, as ours can be often. Trials
come our way. And no matter that the Lord has
brought us through this trial and that trial, as soon as another
trial comes our way, our knees quake and we crumble. And we
say, it's too much for me. I cannot go. Yet David comes
alongside. And David says, I'll fight this
man. I'll go. But what's the reaction to David? What's the reaction to the Lord
Jesus Christ when he came into such a situation in this world?
When a great enemy had risen up. When a great enemy threatened
to destroy all God's sheep, to crush them underfoot. When one
came and mocked at the Lord's people, when one came and mocked
God, when the enemy of our soul came and ridiculed God and his
gospel and his people, when Christ came into this world, what reaction
was he met with? When David came to this army,
to this scene, what reaction was he met with? He was met with
derision, utter derision. Eliab, his own brother, 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? We don't need you. Get back home. With whom hast thou left those
few sheep in the wilderness? Shouldn't you be off elsewhere
doing something better? We don't need you. I know your
pride and the haughtiness of thy heart, though you'll just
come down to see the battle." David says, what have I now done?
Isn't there a cause? Isn't this Goliath raging against
the living God, the armies of the living God and you're quaking? Shouldn't I be here? So David turned from him towards
others and he's met with the same reaction, go home boy, we
don't need you. And at last he comes unto Saul
and he says boldly to Saul, let no man's heart fail because of
him, thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine. And
Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine
to fight with him. Thou art a youth. He's a man of war from his youth. Who are you? You're too weak. We need an army to defeat this
foe. We need a mighty man. Look at
you. What are you? How weak he appeared
before others, how young he appeared. He wasn't a mighty warrior, he
didn't come with a great sword or great weapons. He was nothing
in their sight. And so is Christ in our sight
by nature. When we hear of the Lord Jesus
Christ, when we hear of his gospel, When he came into this world,
literally, the reaction of men then is the same reaction as
men have today. Whatever he may say, they look
on him and despise him and ridicule him. He's weak in our sight. He's useless, he's nothing. As Isaiah says, He is despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,
and we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and
we esteemed him not. Nothing, nothing to man by nature. We don't need him, we can stand,
we can fight our own battles. Oh what fools we are. For the one that stood before
this people in this battle had every means of destroying them.
And that great adversary that stands before mankind has every
means of destroying them. They were seduced by him at the
beginning. They serve him with their sin. They're in rebellion against
the only one that can deliver them. And when that one comes
and says, I will deliver you from this great enemy of your
soul, they say, go away, we don't need you. And lemming like, they
follow multitudes before them over a cliff to their destruction.
Is that you? Have you been there, have you
said that? Christ is despised and rejected
of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. Have you hid your faith from
him? Did you despise and esteem him not? Well we have haven't
we? Every one of us. Just as David
was despised, so too we despise Christ. David's own brother,
his own brother despised him. This isn't just the reaction
of the army to David, but his own brethren scoffed at him and
said, go home. And this rejection isn't just
the reaction of Christ's enemies to his coming, but it's the reaction
of his own brethren, his own people, his sheep, his flock. before they know and see His
salvation, before they see His deliverance, before they're awakened
out of their stupidity and hardness of heart, before we have our
eyes opened by the Gospel, before our ears are opened, and we fall
down in humility broken, and we come to know that we have
no strength, we were lost, and He's our only hope. Until then,
we His brethren, If we are, react like a liab to David. Why camest
thou down hither? Go home. What do we hear from David in
response? What does he say? What do we
hear about his father's sheep and his care of them? What an account 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 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 have 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. Yes, here's one who not only
cared for the flock with a care beyond that of others, but he
was willing to lay down his life for this flock. And he had the
strength to deliver them from their greatest of enemies. We
read how he delivered these helpless, weak, foolish sheep out of the
lion's mouth. helpless, how perilous, how sure
of destruction they were and yet they were delivered from
a lion's mouth. By whom? This David, this youth,
this despised one. What care for the sheep, He fought
the greatest of enemies to protect them. He risked his own life.
He'd have died to save them. And here he comes to another
situation, a greater situation. And again, he's prepared to die,
to risk his life, to risk his all, to give all, to save not
just the sheep, the natural sheep here, but to save his brethren. Here Christ, as it were in picture,
comes before the greatest of enemies. And he says, the Lord
that delivered me out of the hand of mine enemies will deliver
me out of the hand of this enemy. When Christ died, he knew what
it would cost him. He knew it would cost him his
life. to deliver his sheep from their
own sin, from death, from their own rebellion, from the judgment
and curse of the law against them, from the wrath to come.
He knew what it would cost, and yet he knew that his Lord God
would deliver him. David knew the cost he could
take here. for what faith he had in his
father, what faith he had in his God to bring him through. He knew that God would watch
over him. What a picture. What a picture
of that shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. The one
who went to meet our enemy, our Goliath, our adversary. the one whose faith in his father
bore him up not just with the prospect of death, not only at
the prospect of the sin that he would have to bear, those
sins in his own body on the tree, not just at the prospect of the
wrath of God poured out in fiery vengeance, but that faith bore
him up at that hour. when he went to the cross, when
he was nailed to the cross, when the great enemy of our souls
came. Quoting the law of God, saying
the soul that sinneth it must die. When God took our sins and
laid it upon the substitute upon the tree and he raised at his
sight as it were the prosecutor in court and said look he's guilty
now, he must die, slay him. When death came upon his head,
when the fires of God's anger and vengeance rained down from
heaven above and destroyed His only begotten Son. All through
that death, all through the hours of that darkness, all through
the suffering, all through the loneliness upon the cross, Christ's
faith never failed. He knew what lay before Him.
He knew that hope that lay before Him. He knew that through death,
through this victory, that people, that flock, those sheep would
be delivered. They would be saved. His Lord
would deliver him. He would rise again, a mighty,
a mighty conqueror. And through his death, his own
death, he conquered and he delivered that people, his sheep. And he did so in fulfillment
of an everlasting covenant the everlasting covenant. An everlasting
covenant of which David speaks in 2 Samuel and chapter 23 and
verse 5. Near the end of his life David
says, having been through many trials, having had a household,
a family which rebelled against him, just as we, just as God's
people continually rebel against him, Nevertheless, David could
say, in great hope and great rejoicing, although my house
be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and sure, for this is all my salvation
and all my desire, although we make it not to grow. He hath
made with me an everlasting covenant. And when Christ His greatest
Son, His Lord and His Saviour, came as that mighty shepherd
of the sheep, came to die in their place to conquer their
Goliath, their adversary. He came in fulfilment of that
everlasting covenant which His Father had made with Him before
the foundations of this earth. that covenant in which the promises
were made that when he died that people whom the father gave him
chosen from all eternity every last one would be saved none
of that sheep none of his should perish none should be plucked
from his hand all will be washed clean by his blood because that
everlasting covenant was ordered in all things and was sure, it
was certain. And when Christ died and when
he cried out, it is finished, everything was done. that people
were saved, there wasn't a sin left to pay the price off, nothing
was left undone, all was complete, it was ordered in all things
and sure, for this is all my salvation, David says, and all
my desire, all my salvation, what is it yours? Do you know
what David did? Do you have that faith to look
in the face of such circumstances and to know that He who has delivered
you in the past will deliver you again? Have you that faith
to look and to look to David's greater Son and to know that
Goliath was slain by the seed of David, the son of God, to
know that the great enemy of your soul slew him. Did he slay him for you? Are
you one of the sheep of his pasture? Chosen in that covenant, does
he gather you at Bethlehem and feed you on his gospel as he
led you forth? Are you one of his sheep? Then
if you are, You are His through an everlasting covenant, ordered
in all things and sure. Praise God. Amen.