Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. You will never have faith by somebody telling you you want to have more faith. And you'll never have faith by somebody simply telling you that you'll have approval and they'll like you more if you have more faith. You'll never have faith even simply by the reward that is promised before you. Faith is a gift. It comes from somewhere.
Where does it come from? That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series that we've called The Top Ten from Pastor Alan, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina in the first 10 years of Pastor Alan's radio broadcast ministry. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now, a digital copy of The Top Ten from Pastor Alan Wright. This digital download can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries, or if you prefer, we do have a CD album available. Your choice as you listen to today's message go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org, that's PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. We'll tell you more about it later in the program, but right now let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. 1 Samuel 17, the story of David and Goliath. I have been Goliath a thousand times, and my boy Bennett has been David a thousand times. There was no story that we play-acted more than the story of David and Goliath when he was a little boy. He loved that story, and so we would play-act it over and over. We'd do it 20 times in one session, and the story always wound up the same. The little boy David finds a smooth stone, usually a wadded up Kleenex, and puts it into a blankie, swings it around, and hurls it at the big mean Goliath who comes tumbling down. Little David runs over and puts his foot on the chest of the defeated foe and stands there proudly with his plastic sword in hand. We even had a birthday party.
Was it a two or three-year-old birthday party? We made a plywood Goliath, and I painted a picture of the ugly fiend on there so that all the little two and three-year-old boys could come and hurl things at Goliath. I've been Goliath a thousand times. Bennett's been David a thousand times, but nobody's been the cowardly soldiers in the army. They are kind of left out of the story. I want to read the story differently today, because really in the end I can't identify with Goliath. I'm not that bad, and I can't really quite identify with David. I never killed a nine-foot-nine giant on behalf of a nation, nor was made king of Israel, and I can't play the harp.
But these soldiers who for 40 days studied the armor of their enemy and worried about it, that I can identify with. And the other thing about this story I notice is that I usually didn't read the ending to it. It didn't appear in most of the children's Bibles that you'd read to tell the story to your children. They leave out the end where David takes the sword of Goliath, cuts off the giant's head, and basically returns the bloody head to the, sorry, but see this is the actual story. And see you don't read that part because that's not appropriate to a two-year-old or three-year-old.
And so you don't get often to the end of the story, but what I want to show you today, the end of the story is the best part of the story. I want to show you today how Psalm 17 15 is true, that when I awake I'll be satisfied, beholding your likeness, that in seeing Jesus, faith is born. First Samuel chapter 17. The scene was a familiar one to ancient times. Two armies are opposing each other on adjacent hills with a valley in between. And these armies have positioned themselves there ready to fight one another and yet a call for a battle of champions has been made where one champion, the most valiant and best warrior from each army comes into the valley, fights, and whoever wins, wins on behalf of the army and indeed on behalf of the whole nation.
But the scene here has the Israeli army paralyzed with fear. Verse four, a champion named Goliath from Gath came out of the Philistine camp. By the way, they have found, archaeologists have found in the dig at Gath a pottery shard that is etched with the name Goliath and is dated to about the 10th century before Christ. He was over nine feet tall. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing 5,000 shekels, 125 pounds. On his legs he wore bronze greaves and bronze javelin was slung on his back.
His spear shaft was like a weaver's rod and its iron point weighed 600 shekels, 15 pounds just in the point of his spear and his shield bearer went ahead of him. If you're wondering how it is that we have so much information about Goliath's armor, it'll soon be revealed to you that, well, there was plenty of time to study up on it because he came out and taunted Israel for 40 days while they had nothing else to do except study up on how heavy and big his armor was. Goliath stood, verse 8, and shouted to the ranks of Israel, why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine and are you not the servants of Saul?
Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he's able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects, but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us. The Philistines said, this day I'd defy the ranks of Israel. Give me a man and let us fight each other. And on hearing this, the Philistine, hearing the Philistine's words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.
Here's the picture. The army of Israel is all dressed for battle but never fighting. The people of God have a destiny and a land to take and occupy but do not because of fear. And their own leader, Saul, who they asked God to give them, a king like the other nations had, to have someone who had the appearance of being a noble leader, and they had such a man in Saul, except inwardly he was morally bankrupt, he was mentally ill, and he was afraid. There was no one who was willing to fight the giant. In other words, there was no one to represent them on the battlefield. On the battlefield. Their predicament was that no one in that entire army was righteous or courageous or faith-filled enough or anointed enough to represent that army in the real battle. No one.
Their king was no king at all. That's their predicament. To understand the gospel, you must begin with this. Sin, when it entered the world, touched everybody. So while it may seem that there's a scale from the unrighteous to the righteous, not really because all things, if they were to be measured, would be measured against the glory and righteousness of God. And so the Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There's not one righteous, no one.
The problem is that there was a great taunt against all of humanity from the enemy of God and not one person amongst all of humanity righteous enough to represent humanity in the battle. We needed a representative. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. The life-changing message of good news has been taught over radio from Alan Wright Ministries for quite some time now, and God has used every one of those messages. But some broadcasts have really hit home in special ways. In gratitude of more than a decade of radio, we have assembled the most powerful best-loved messages from each year of the first 10 and put them together in one special album. When you make a gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we want to give you Alan Wright's top 10 CD album or digital download.
Are you ready for some good news? Make your gift today and discover God's grace afresh with Alan Wright's top 10 of the first decade. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.
When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.
Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. There was nothing that would instill courage in these soldiers. Think about it. You might think that the sheer shame of it all, the embarrassment, would just make somebody go fight Goliath. Just the thought that you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I mean, how cowardly can you be? You'd think that if somebody would just come and point out to them what cowards they really were that somebody would feel so ashamed that they would go and fight the giant, but it doesn't work that way, does it? Shame might move you for a while, but if you've got a real Goliath, I mean a real Goliath, shame will never motivate you.
And instead, every day that they were taunted and were cowards, they only became more ashamed and more anxious. You might think that the allure of applause and honor might make somebody fight the giant. Just the approval of others by going out and fighting the giant.
And as much as we might thirst for approval from others when you have a real Goliath in front of you, your faith will melt because the allure, the draw of the approval of man is really, in the end, only a snare. And you might think, as we read later in the story, that someone would go for the reward because a reward has been offered, but the reward that is offered is offered to the victor, to the man who kills the Goliath. It's not offered to the man who would fight, but the one who kills him. Because if you go to fight and you are killed, then you do not have the reward. And so no one would fight because no one believed that he would win.
In other words, it is only the man who believes that he can kill Goliath that would fight Goliath. No other incentive could cause faith. Faith had to come from somewhere else. You will never have faith by somebody telling you, you want to have more faith. And you'll never have faith by somebody simply telling you that you'll have approval and they'll like you more if you have more faith. You'll never have faith even simply by the reward that is promised before you. Faith is a gift. It comes from somewhere.
Where does it come from? How will these people have faith? Enter David. David.
Young David. Verse 16, for 40 days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand. Now Jesse said to his son David, take this ephah of roasted grain and these 10 loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. Take along these 10 cheeses to the commander of their unit.
See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them. They are with Saul and all the men of Israel and the valley of Elah. So David, here he is.
He's one of them and yet he was not with them. He was back in Bethlehem. He's a shepherd from Bethlehem. He was in chapter 16 anointed with oil from the prophet Samuel's horn of oil. And the Bible said that when that anointing oil came upon him, the spirit of the Lord came in power upon David from that day forward. He's a picture of a man upon whom God's spirit rests and upon whom God will never remove his favor.
He is raised in obscurity. No one is thinking about David. In fact, when Samuel came to anoint the new king, they paraded all of Jesse's sons and the Lord said, it's none of them. Samuel said, is there none other?
And they said, well there's David, little David out in the field with the sheep. He was the one. No one would have figured him to be the new king. No one thought he would ever be the likely champion for Israel. He wasn't even in the army.
And yet he was one of them. He was sent by his father to take bread. He carried bread from Bethlehem. You know what Bethlehem means? Bethlehem, house of bread. And he carries to them their daily bread.
You sound familiar? Shepherd boy from Bethlehem carrying daily bread to the people who were afraid of the enemy. He was carrying out his job as a shepherd in obscurity.
Later in the text we'll see where David talks about fighting off lions and bears. Nobody saw that. Nobody applauded that. When David is suddenly promoted after his defeat of Goliath, you would say, look at what a sudden success.
No, it wasn't. It was something God had been cultivating in him because there's something about a man who risks his life for sheep. How much more would he be willing to risk his life for people? He learned the gentleness a shepherd must have with anxious sheep to calm them and lead them, but he also learned that he had to fight for the sheep or else the enemy would destroy them. He was a worshiper and he was a warrior long before he appeared at the valley of Elah amongst his brothers.
You know the first 30 years of Jesus's life we know almost nothing about it. He was working as a carpenter and he was the king and no one knew it. So here he comes sent by his father.
The Israelites, verse 25, had been saying, do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his father's family from taxes in Israel.
Now that ought to get you moving right there. Tax-free living for the man that kills him. David asked the men standing near in verse 26, what will be done for the man who kills his Philistine and who removes this disgrace from Israel? And this is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?
I want to tell you a couple things I love about this. In the first place, he identifies the whole issue. He calls him uncircumcised Philistine because circumcision was the sign of the covenant. The people that were in the covenant with God were known as the circumcised people and Goliath is out of covenant with God. He's in no covenant with God. What David is saying is, who is this guy? He's not even in a relationship with God. And we're in a covenant with God. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine?
But I love the second part of it. David, who has come into this cowardly, cowardly, motley army of men who will mock him in return, instead of saying to them, you bunch of cowards, you yellow-bellied, sorry, no good for nothing wimps. This ragtag army of duds. Instead, he says, this is the army of the living God. You know what we do church that's so countercultural? Every time we get together as a church, this is what we do.
I don't care how bad a week you've had, how bad you look today, or how afraid you are, or whatever you're facing, and how weak you feel. We come in and we look at each other and we remind each other, you're the army of the living God. Jesus came not to condemn, but to save.
He doesn't see you for how you are now acting. He sees you for who you are in covenant with the living God. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he would defy the armies of the living God? And they repeated to him what they'd been saying and told him, this is all verse 27, this is what will be done for the man who kills him. Then verse 28, Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, and he burned with anger at him and asked, why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert?
I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is, and you came down only to watch the battle. He came into that which was his own and his own received him not. He came to his own brothers. The one who would save them, they mocked and belittled. When David goes at verse 32 to Saul and says, let no one lose heart on the count of the Philistine, your servant will go and fight them. The king of Israel, listen to his reply, at verse 33, he just simply announced the ultimate curse. You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him.
You're only a boy. He was mocked and he was told he couldn't do it. Alan Wright. David and Goliath, how seeing Jesus builds faith, part one, the conclusion coming in our next edition. Of course, our teacher, Alan Wright, back here in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word. The life changing message of good news has been taught over radio from Alan Wright Ministries for quite some time now. And God has used every one of those messages. But some broadcasts have really hit home in special ways. In gratitude of more than a decade of radio, we have assembled the most powerful best love messages from each year of the first 10 and put them together in one special album. When you make a gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we want to give you Alan Wright's top 10 CD album or digital download.
Are you ready for some good news? Make your gift today and discover God's grace afresh with Alan Wright's top 10 of the first decade. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, here in this series, and we're going to hear the conclusion on our next edition, David and Goliath, I do see that this is a pivotal point here for the life of the believer to understand keeping your focus on Jesus changes everything.
Well, and just a little preview of where we'll wind up tomorrow. Just this army, Daniel, the Israeli forces here, they are the most cowardly army on the face of the earth. They come out dressed up for battle and they just listen to the taunts of the Philistine giant and then they do nothing. Nobody's willing to fight him.
Not one single person, even King Saul's not. Until David comes, they're champions. So he goes out and is going to be a battle of champions. Goliath against the, he's the champion of the Philistines, David, the champion of the, of the Israeli forces. And, and, and when they see David, their champion, what he does to defeat Goliath and decapitates the headship of, of their enemy. Then they let out this big war cry.
We'll see it tomorrow. And, and the text, as best I can tell, they route the Philistines for about 10 miles. Woo. They're just like all of a sudden. So they go from the most cowardly to the most courageous people on the face of the earth.
Why? They saw what their champion David did. That's what we're learning about. When you see what your champion Jesus has done, you will have faith.
It's an exciting thought. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
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