Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. The one man that no one thought could beat Goliath was the only man in Israel that could defeat Goliath.
He looked like he was absolutely the underdog, and he wasn't. That's Jesus. That's Jesus.
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 Son of David, as presented at Rinaldin Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. 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. Now, more on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.
Here is Alan Wright. Well, the setting is one that would have been familiar in ancient warfare. It was a battle scene where there were two opposing hillsides and a valley in between. It was the Valley of Elah. There may have been more regularly used battlefields between the eastern Judean mountains and the western side where the Mediterranean, but there was no more storied valley than that of the Valley of Elah. This is a place that many battles had taken place over the years. The Maccabean battles with Syria. The knights of the crusade fought in that same valley in the 12th century.
Our battle takes place much earlier, a thousand years before Jesus. And the Philistines, a seafaring people, had come with their eyes on the kingdom that was being led by Israel's first king, Saul. And they wanted to fracture that kingdom with an eye on taking it over. Saul, recognizing the threat, had positioned his army on a northern ridge. And the Philistines were flanked along the ridge to the south. So imagine two hillsides with a valley in between.
The northern slopes, the Israelites, the southern slopes, the Philistines. And they were stuck there because nobody really wanted to attack. In order to attack the other, you would have to move down into the valley, taking the subordinate position, losing all strategic advantage, and then you would have to climb up the other hillside in order to try to attack the opponent. To move off of your strategic ridge seemed to be suicide to either army. And so nobody wanted to attack. Instead, they were stalemated there, a scene not uncommon in ancient warfare.
So what emerged from the Philistines was a strategic tactic. They sent their huge skilled warrior Goliath down into the valley to call out and challenge Israel with what was known in ancient warfare as single combat. It would be a battle of champions. One representative from Israel and one representative from the Philistine army would fight each other.
Whoever won would win it for their army and thus for the whole nation. To understand the magnificent picture of the gospel and the story of David and Goliath, it must begin with this. There was going to be a battle of representatives.
The whole question is could Israel find someone to represent them? Did the people of God have somebody who could go out and do battle on their behalf in their name such that if they were represented in Him, it would be as though they were fighting? The idea of representation is absolutely essential to understand if you're ever going to know what it means to be in the covenant with Jesus Christ through the gospel. That there is a new covenant that has been established in Christ Jesus wherein He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He lived a life of perfection that we could not live and He took upon Himself a penalty of infinite payment that we would have never been able to pay but He was fully representing us in doing so.
You must understand Jesus became human for this reason. Humanity needed someone to represent us and we had no one. That's the predicament of Israel.
No one to represent them. Goliath is huge, huge, different estimates, everywhere from seven feet to nine feet or blots. He is a giant of a man and he is adorned with huge armor and his fear tactics work. In reflection on the story and I've often thought why didn't Israel, why didn't they King Saul or somebody have the courage to go fight him? But the more you read this story the more you realize it would have been sheer folly for them to try to fight him because nobody had the faith for it and nobody had the skill for it and nobody equaled Goliath.
If someone went out and fought on behalf of Israel and lost then all of Israel lost. There was good reason for their stagnation because their fear was grounded in a sense of reality but they didn't know about God. They didn't see the possibilities because their eyes were fixed upon Goliath. They're paralyzed.
They are dressed up for battle but never fighting. They are standing there day after day but doing nothing. This is the predicament of humanity without Jesus Christ. Living but not really alive. Existing but never moving forth. This is the predicament of every person that does not have a hero. Don't know what to do about your own impending death and don't know what to do about your own sins.
And so people do everything in the world to try to not think about it but inwardly they are held captive by their own fear. They are paralyzed on that ridge and Goliath's taunts are working. Enter David. It doesn't take a Hebrew scholar or a Greek scholar to discover the similarities between this boy David and Jesus. In the first place he comes from Bethlehem. He comes as a shepherd who had been raised up in obscurity but anointed with the Holy Spirit upon him. And no one asked for David to come.
His brothers weren't saying, oh I hope David will show up. He could save us. Instead the story makes it plain the Father sent him. And the Father sent him to take nourishment to his cowardly brothers and their fellow comrades. He was on an errand of mercy in the first place.
And he came. Malcolm Gladwell, a New York Times bestselling author of books like The Tipping Point has written a recent book that is called David and Goliath. Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. A very interesting book in which each chapter tells the story of a real life person who had to face a big opponent who had outsized him or her. But in all of those stories in these lopsided conflicts the giants tend to in the end not be as fearsome as they appeared to be. That often the qualities that make a giant look so giant are also the very weaknesses of that giant. And that often the misfit or the unlikely one or the underdog has qualities and strengths that only emerge because they have to face this giant. It's an absolutely true idea. This idea is that sometimes in your life you come up against obstacles so great it draws out of you qualities you didn't even know you had.
This is the story of David and Goliath. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. In a world that often feels overwhelming we all seek moments of encouragement and hope as a heartfelt thank you for your partnership with Alan Wright Ministries. When you give today we're excited to send you our blessing box featuring 24 beautifully crafted cards filled with encouraging blessings from Pastor Alan. Each card offers daily inspiration and scripture on themes such as hope, strength, your identity in Christ, thanksgiving, and much more. This unique resource can be yours. Make your gift to the ministry today and get your blessing box.
These blessings are designed to uplift your spirit providing encouragement whenever you need a boost. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Today is the final day we're offering this special product. 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. It's a fascinating thing to think that maybe we read this story a little bit wrong. Like David is just this weak underdog that nobody figured could win and he just sort of lucked out by the power of God or something. And instead what Gladwell argues is that no, Goliath was huge but in the eyes of David, David was absolutely certain he was going to beat him in a different way. This whole battle, the single combat was common in ancient warfare and historians have written about incidences. There's one epic story that's recorded by a Roman historian Quadrigerius and he writes about this battle in which a Gaul warrior began mocking the Roman soldiers.
And I read directly from this history. This immediately aroused the great indignation of one Titus Manlius, a youth of the highest birth. Titus challenged the Gaul to a duel. He stepped forward and would not suffer Roman valor to be shamefully tarnished by a Gaul. Armed with a legionary's shield and a Spanish sword, he confronted the Gaul. Their fight took place on the very bridge in the presence of both armies amid great apprehension.
Thus they confronted each other. The Gaul, according to his method of fighting, with shield advanced in awaiting an attack. Manlius, relying on courage rather than skill, struck shield against shield and threw the Gaul off balance. While the Gaul was trying to regain the same position, Manlius again struck shield against shield and again forced the man to change his ground.
In this fashion, he slipped under the Gaul's sword and stabbed him in the chest with a Spanish blade and after he had slain him, Manlius cut off the Gaul's head. Now this is a great Roman story of a kind of epic battle of single combat or a battle of champions and read this because this battle, this sort of fight is exactly what Goliath was expecting. He's expecting a battle like that, hand-to-hand laden with huge amounts of armor that weighed probably more than a hundred pounds. He's got a javelin, he's got a sword, and he's got a short-range spear and these weapons most scholars say would have been strong enough with a really strong man to penetrate Israeli army and all of their armor and so it's into this context that David, our superhero, comes and volunteers to fight. Notice why David wants to fight. He is motivated and says what will be done for the man and he realized that you can have tax-free living and you can marry the king's daughter and these things are pretty sweet. But there's a deeper motivation than that if you'll see it appears at least twice in the story because you can hear it in the tone of David's voice. He says who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he would mock the armies of the living God?
Who is this man? You see what happened in his heart is that David was outraged that an enemy would taunt the people of God and he looked on those people the way he had looked on his sheep when they'd been attacked by a wolf. He'd look on those sheep and he said these sheep belong to my master. They don't belong to a wolf.
They must be protected. He looked on them because they were harassed and helpless and it bothered him down to the core of his being that this giant, this uncircumcised Philistine who's not even in covenant with God that he would hold sway over the army of the living God. It was something that just rose up within him and everything within David's being said it must not be.
It can't be. God is being mocked. His people are being mocked.
They are not designed to live under this oppression. He wanted to deliver the people from their oppressor because it was so deep in his heart that it must come to pass. God's people must be free. If you want to understand why it is that Jesus kept his face resolutely toward the cross, if you want to understand why it is that Jesus died for you, why Jesus faced the devil in the wilderness, why it is that he advocates for you, intercedes for you, laid down his life for you, it's because Jesus saw that the people were harassed and helpless like a sheep without a shepherd, that they were being oppressed by a fallen angel named Satan. And Jesus said it must not be, it cannot be, it will not be. God in Jesus Christ is your shepherd and he is your warrior. He came to fight for you and he fights for you still because he loves you. And he can't stand the notion and refuse to leave this world under the prince of darkness' control. No, this is my Father's world.
It must all be restored to him. David couldn't stand by and do nothing. So he appears on the scene and Saul looks at him and goes, you are a kid. You've never even been in a battle like this. You can't go fight him.
You could understand their concern. They send David out. If David loses, they all lose. And so David has to convince him. David has to say, I have fought off lions and bears and God has been with me and God is going to deliver me from this uncircumcised Philistine. And there was an anointing on David. And sometimes you just end up saying yes to somebody, not because you believe in them, not because you trust in them, but because they have so much belief themselves.
And so it's like Saul put his faith in David's faith and he said, all right, go ahead. Gladwell points out that there were three kinds of warfare that happened in the ancient world. And they all would be familiar to us, but just different expressions in the ancient world. You had in the first place the Calvary, those that would be riding on horseback or those that were on camelback. And then you had the infantrymen, the foot soldiers. And that's what Goliath was with heavy armor, javelins, swords, shields, spears, who would fight in hand to hand combat and very up close combat. But they also had the projectile warriors. This is what we think of the artillery. And in ancient warfare, it took two forms. The archers with their arrows and the slingers with their stones. David wasn't Calvary.
He wasn't an infantryman. He was a slinger. And it's an amazing amount of research that's been done on this ancient art of slinging.
People become incredibly skilled with a sling, a leather pouch with rope to each end. And it would be swung about in circles that grew wider and wider and therefore faster and faster so that it could be delivered at a velocity strong enough to kill a person just over 200 yards away. It's like an ancient form of a gun. In some studies that they've shown that from 35 meters, a stone slung could travel at about 35 meters per second. That in a second it could hit. This, not to be too graphic about it, but to make the point, the Romans actually had an ancient implement that they carried with them to battle that was kind of a pair of tongs and it was designed for a specific purpose of removing embedded stones from soldiers who had been victims of a slinger.
This was very common. And Gladwell makes this incredible point that while the cavalry wasn't susceptible to the slinger, because they're on the move, hard to hit a moving target, that the infantry was extremely susceptible to the slinger. Especially a big lumbering soldier with 100 pounds of armor who couldn't move quickly at all. In other words, Goliath could have crushed anybody in Israel in hand-to-hand combat, but he was a sitting duck for a highly skilled slinger. They have some ancient Roman art that depicts somebody slinging a stone and knocking birds out of the air.
They have even pictures of coins being knocked out of the air. This became a precision skill and David had been slinging every day of his life. He had nothing else to do. So the issue was this. David never once thought he was going to lose.
He was positive that he was going to win. Interestingly, scholars have noted two little details in this story of curiosity about Goliath, because the story mentions that Goliath had a shield bearer with him. Why does a giant of a man with 100 pounds of his own armor need a little squirt to walk along with him carrying a shield? That's a question. Alan Wright. And the answer may be tomorrow in our conclusion. It's part of our teaching, Son of David.
Specifically, the bigger they are, the harder they fall, how David became a hero. And Alan is back with us in the studio as he shares his parting good news thought for the day here in just a moment. Stick with us. In a world that often feels overwhelming, we all seek moments of encouragement and hope as a heartfelt thank you for your partnership with Alan Wright Ministries. When you give today, we're excited to send you our blessing box featuring 24 beautifully crafted cards filled with encouraging blessings from Pastor Alan. Each card offers daily inspiration and scripture on themes such as hope, strength, your identity in Christ, thanksgiving, and much more. This unique resource can be yours. Make your gift to the ministry today and get your blessing box.
These blessings are designed to uplift your spirit, providing encouragement whenever you need a boost. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. Today is the final day we're offering this special product. Call us at 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Back here in the studio to share Alan's parting good news thought for the day. Are we really saying here, no matter how unqualified I feel, there's good news. God goes with me. No matter what, God can take what seems to be a weakness of yours, i.e. David was no match for Goliath, and actually use it for a great strength. So David was an obscure shepherd, but because he was, he learned to sling a rock. So David was, he wasn't an infantry man. He was like Goliath.
He wasn't going to fight that kind of battle. He was always a slinger, and he sends the artillery, and so David never thought he was going to lose. And this great insight from Malcolm Gladwell is that there's some scholarly thought that maybe there was a real vision problem with Goliath.
It may be that he was a giant because of an abnormality that often would leave him with a potentially blurry vision. And Goliath might have needed a shield bearer, so there's a little insight in coming tomorrow. But Jesus is our champion, and David went out and fought for the people, and Jesus has fought for us. And with that, we find remarkable courage for life. Your contribution helps sustain the broadcast of Alan Wright Ministries in your city.
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