Twice in Scripture, we see him run. And in neither one is he running away. is the picture of David, the son of Jesse, running to kill the giant, the enemy. of God's people. And then there is the parable of the prodigal son and the father running to receive the child.
How many. Heartbroken prayers did that Father utter. and have to wait for the day. when the smelly sun comes home. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston.
Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Samuel. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick in 1 Samuel 17 with this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. It is a wonderful story.
It's brutal, it's savage, but it's a matter of survival. And what's David supposed to do? Take daisies out to him, a bouquet of daisies here, Diane. You're just having a bad day. That of course would have failed.
Saul Saul thought the giant was too big to fight. David thought he was too big to miss. What a different perspective in life. I mean, how do you view it? You know, how do you view coming to church?
How do you view serving the Lord? How, you know, the glass full, half empty, whatever you want to use. This is a good contrast for all of us. It's A lot different though when you're facing the giant, but David had no time. It no time to sort it out.
He's just focussed on what he was supposed to do. And it was a raw focus that none of the others had that day, not even our beloved hero Jonathan. But God will help David. Verse forty five Then David said to the Philistine You come to me with a sword, with a spear, with a javelin? But I come to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, The God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defiled.
You crossed the line, and now you're gonna pay. David did not let the giant have the last word. He did not remain silent. As our Lord, when tempted in the wilderness, he did not let the giant get the last word in. He said it is written again.
In case you haven't read all the Bible. And of course it was very effective. Where David says, You come to me with sword and spear and javelin.
Well, he came prepared for a long fight. I wonder if he had a lunch box, too. But he came for a fight, and as you know, as we face giants, we don't think that, oh, this is going to be a walk in the park. Isaiah fifty-four, verse seventeen. Is a very beautiful verse.
But when you're struggling, so if you'll read the verse first: no weapon formed against you shall prosper. And every tongue which rises against you in judgment shall you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servant of Yahweh. And their righteousness is from me, says Yahweh.
Well, no weapon formed against you is going to prosper. That's true on this day for David. But what about when Saul?
Now, Isaiah wrote this almost a Um I don't know. doing my math in my head. Five hundred years after these events, Uh don't hold me to that. A long time after, Isaiah writes these words. About 700 years.
And So they weren't here yet. But Abigail will say something similar to David. The point I'm making is if you're in David's position, Facing the giant, Uh You have the surge of the Lord, and you're ready for him. But there are times in life when you face these giants and you read a verse like this from Isaiah, and you just don't feel it. You don't believe it's going to apply.
You believe the weapons formed against you will prosper? And so, having a verse like this in times of trouble, what's it going to do for you when you're failing? David's going to find out, he's going to show us. Because he reaches a point in his life later because of Saul. But he said Saul's gonna kill me one day.
There's just no way to get away from him. And, of course, shortly after, God dispatched Saul. Continues in verse 45, but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defiled. He's zealous for God in the face of death. He knew of Saul's promised rewards, no taxes for his father, and to take Saul's.
eldest daughter Mirab as his bride. That's not the motivation of David. He asked about that. What again is going to be given to the guy that drops this guy? David's single ambition was God, the God of Israel.
Those other things were bonus. He wasn't going to say no to them. He should have. He got Michelle. That proved to be a disaster, but who knew?
John's Gospel 2, verse 17. Then his disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for your house has eaten me up. That zeal Should be found in believers from time to time. We should have zeal from time to time for the things of God. And here David has it: I will come into you.
He says, I come to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts. There's he's zealous. For the Lord, whom Goliath has defiled. And then we see it in Jesus Christ, the zeal for your house, of course, being applied to him. It should be applied to us too.
I was glad when they said, let us go into the house of the Lord. Better is one day in your court than thousands anywhere else. May we not lose these things because we run into resistance. And it's so easy to lose. It's so easy to get bitter.
What do you do if you've been hanging around Christianity for a long time and working and serving and you find your zeal low, your joy absent? And you're just not as. ready to believe and trust God as you used to, what do you do? You fight! You force yourself to sing.
You force yourself to pray. You force yourself to praise God, not because these things aren't true, because they are true. And just because they are evasive, To you your feelings doesn't mean they're not there. And verse 46: This day Yahweh will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. That's prophetic.
And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth. That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, not gods, but single, a single God, the only one, of course. This is how you talk back to the devil. God's going to deliver me from your hand. I don't know how David knew how, but the application in life, we don't always know how.
He says, I'm going to strike and take your head from you. And he expands this, and not only you, but all those guys in back of you. It's quite bodacious. And all he has so far, he's killed a bear and a lion. That's pretty impressive.
I don't think there's anybody here that succeeded in doing that without at least what David did with a sling and a. And probably a Knife.
So After David does, of course, win, he's going to take time to have a photo op. and cut that head of Goliath around from various places. We're not told it was for three days, but it calculates that way. It was at least a a day and a half. At this moment, David had no sword in his hand to cut the giant's head off.
How is he going to do this? He wasn't speaking figuratively. He meant business. When the time comes, he's going to use Goliath's sword, and he's not going to hesitate. There will be zero hesitation in all of this.
It's just one fluid, rhythmatic move of this shepherd.
So in contrast to Saul. Who was always so clumsy, so ready to not believe because he had other interests, and those interests dominated his life, and he really liked it. He said, I like not liking the Bible. That Saul David, on the other hand, had no time for such things. He says, In this day, in verse 46, I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth.
Extending the judgment. It is a detailed and graphic statement. That he's gonna make good on. That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. This is going to be done on what was then national television, right before their eyes.
God had two armies assembled there to see this. Deuteronomy 31: Be strong and of good courage. Remember, when God says that, because He knows that you're afraid. And he knows that you're feeling weak. In most cases, and there is no courage.
So he's telling you to be strong and of good courage, and if it were otherwise, it would be almost insulting. Do you like it when someone asks you, Are you afraid? And you know you're not afraid? You get a little irritated at the person.
Well, yeah, I'm not afraid. Then they really believe you're afraid. Be strong and have good courage, do not fear, nor be afraid of them. For Yahweh, your God. He is the one who goes with you.
He will not leave you nor forsake you. But. You will come that close that close to being forsaken sometimes. This guy's got this thing for buzzer shots, you know, at the lab, the buzzer goes off, he fires a winning shot. I want to win the game by a thousand points.
I just want an easy life. I really just want to be in heaven eating grapes. Yeah. That they The day will come. Because of Saul, that David will have to cling to these types of verses.
Deuteronomy was already in existence, and David knew the word. He would no doubt turn to verses like that. First Timothy chapter six Paul We're talking about that they may know that there's a God in Israel. Fight the good fight, lay hold on eternal life to which. You were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
He's saying, Timothy, there's people watching you, they're looking at you. Hold up the line. In front of them. And he says, I urge you in the sight of God. who gives life to all things.
And before Christ Jesus, who witnessed the good Confession before Pontius Pilate. This is 1 Timothy. Uh Second Timothy gets a little bit stronger. Paul said, You know, our Lord stood before Pilate and he upheld his witness, and David on this battlefield is going to uphold the witness too. Everything he's saying to this giant, he means it.
Verse forty seven. Then all this assembly shall know that Yahweh does not save with sword and spear. For the battle is Yahweh's, and he will give it into our hands. Doesn't say with sword or spear, but he will on this day with sling and stone. Uh this was true of Gideon.
Yeah. Gideon, uh didn't have many troops and God of course brought the victory about, Samson with his jawbone. Here's another verse that is so central to the Calvary Chapel movement. And uh sometimes in life just seems so evasive. This is the word of Yahweh to Zerubbabel: Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says Yahweh of hosts.
The Lord of armies He says It's going to be by his spirit. That's how the victory is won. Every single victory for God is won that way.
Now, there are human victories. And they may even be Oh, they truly are all governed by God, but some in in more detail than others. But all the spiritual victories. or by the Spirit of God. Is very upfront in our thinking as believers.
We want it that way. We want no victory that God has not brought about. Abraham tried to do that, he and Sarah. Sarah was the mastermind of the plan. Abraham happily went along with it.
But it caused years of grief when Ishmael came into the picture. Abraham had to send him out. And of course, Ishmael did not turn into some great Figure to model your life after. I mean, you couldn't picture Isaac saying, be like Uncle Ishmael to his son Jacob.
Well, Jacob had enough power, enough time being like anybody. And then Esau, who identified with Ishmael. They were both manly men, but who would want to say his hand was against every man and every man's hand was against him? That was Ismael. I don't want to be that abrasive individual that's just cantankerous.
I do anyway, verse 18.
So it was when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, that David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.
Well the next person That the Philistine will meet, it will be his maker. David's running to meet Goliath. Goliath doesn't know that he's on course to meet his maker in just a few seconds now.
So David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. I covered this before, but there are two instances that we see in the scripture that depict God running. Does God ever run? Twice in Scripture we see him run, but and in neither one is he running away. is the picture of David the son of Jesse running to kill the giant.
The enemy God's people. And then there is the parable of the prodigal son and the father running to receive the child. How many. Heartbroken prayers did that Father utter. And have to wait for the day.
when his smelly son comes home. At the end of himself, in rags, but humble, genuinely humble. He genuinely saw himself. That's what humility is. Humility is not.
you know, self-hatred. Self-hatred is such a waste of time, such a tool of the devil. Yeah, we get frustrated by what we're not. That's not grounds enough to halt. You have to find out what you are and develop that.
And so if um You know, if you can throw a fastball 105 miles an hour, you pretty much have a lead on what direction you should go in in life. And it's not throwing peanuts at the stadium. Uh you know this baseball Examples, they're not working on this generation well. And we've got to figure out a way to do that, Lord. We know God is a baseball fan.
The Bible starts out in the big inning. Yeah. There we go. All right. David is the aggressor here.
He's running toward the giant. He's eager for the fight. It has to happen. There's no half-heartedness. It's like, well, maybe I'll try to do this to him.
He's just running straight at him. He's got the energy. He's got the momentum. Goliath doesn't know what's happening. He thinks he does.
He's got his armor on. He's got his shield on. He's got his little helmet on, his big helmet on his big head. David would later write, For by you, I can run against a troop. By my God, I can leap over a wall.
There's that surge. And Maybe that's how he delivered the lambs from the lion and the bear. How different? was David from all the army in Saul. Again, chapter seventeen, verse twenty four.
And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were dreadfully afraid. And David is, everybody's running from the giant. David's running to the giant. And Again 1 Samuel 17, 35. Talking about the bear and the lion, and I went after it and struck it.
You see the aggression? And I delivered the lamb from its mouth. and when it arose against me I caught it by its beard and I struck and killed it. But again, his coming struggle with Saul will be nothing like this, and it will be from one of his. Own Kin From the line of Jacob This giant will be nothing compared to what he's going to face in Saul.
Vicious Evil Stupid person. can hound a life senselessly Verse forty-nine. And David put his hand in his bag, and took out a stone, And he slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead and he fell on his face to the earth. The pinging noise of that rock hitting the head was so loud it knocked over half the front line. No, it did not.
That would be goofy. It's cartoonish. But apparently he's still running and he's reaching in his bag. And he's loading up his sling as he's running. I mean, that's how the story reads.
And he slung it and sluck struck the Philistine on his forehead. There you have it. You've heard of Achilles' heel?
Well, there's Goliath's head. The weak spot. And the helmet of salvation. is not for the unsaved.
So the stone sank into his forehead, And he fell on his face to the earth. It was embedded. What's happening on both sides? Shock and awe. Shock and awe on both sides in front of all those witnesses.
I mean, I would love to have had just a camera shot of the faces of the people on both sides. The sock! I mean, you couldn't fake that kind of a look. Just silence. There's thousands of people here watching this on live, you know, live Ela Valley.
Verse fifty. David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him, but there was no sword in the hand of David.
So he's got to fulfill this prophecy from verse 46. I'm going to chop your head off. Temporary minor setback. Whenever a sword is in David's hand, there's trouble over the enemy. Verse 51 Therefore David ran and stood over the Philistine.
took his sword, and drew it out of its sheath and killed him. and cut off his head with it. And when the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, They fled. I bet they did. as fast as their little sandals could carry them.
Again, don't again, these are mean people. Don't feel sorry for them. These are vicious people. Ready to enslave the Jews. And the treatment of the women and the children in the Philistine camp was not something that you'd want to model.
But again Therefore David ran and stood over the Philistine. Here he's running again. He's on the move. He drops him from a distance with the sling. He closes the gap.
He gets up on him. He's in haste. He wastes no time to finish the job. What lessons? He's just flying off the page.
While the onlookers are soaking it all in with their eyes, some historian, somebody who wrote it down, was an eyewitness and they saw it and it stood out. It kept replaying in their head. I mean, he just flung that stone, he was on him. And he just got right to work, took the sword out of his head, giant sword, lifted that thing, stabbed him, chopped his head off.
Well, Goliath might recover and David knew it. Or his his buddies might recover their you know, his comrades might overcome their stupefied amazement. and come after him. And so without hesitation and with a stroke, He removed the head of the giant, As promised, a promise is a promise. Contrast to Saul.
David had no intention of taking Goliath alive. like Saul did with Hagag. Another contrast. I mean, we just learned these lessons. We said, okay, don't be like Saul.
Try to be more like David. Certainly, not in the sinful areas, but in the courageous areas of the scripture. You're absolutely. His sole objective was to destroy the enemy. It was a matter of survival.
Objective has been satisfied. In verse 52, now we start getting to the aftermath. What happened? Then what happened, Grandpa? As he's telling the story, you know.
Now the men of Israel and Judah arose and shouted and pursued the Philistines as far as the entrance of the valley of the gates of Ekron. And the wounded of the Philistines fell along the road, Of Shea Raum even as far as Gath and Ekron. This is sort of like, you know, the The the highway of death in the Gulf War when uh Iraqi army was leaving Kuwait. With loot Having pillaged and molested and mutilated, these men were savages. They were not an a decent army in retreat.
They were monsters. And Of course the Militaries saw to it that they would not live to fight another day. And that is what is going on here. Had Israel not won these battles like this, the Philistines were in enough trouble. Had they not won these battles, it would have all been worse.
This will not decimate the Philistine army because they're going to live to destroy. Uh Saul and his family. His sons But David will ultimately subdue him. But here, the operative thought from verse 52 is finish the job. They were up and they were out.
The troops, not a time for mercy. This was time for action. Psalm 18, verse 40, David would write, You have also given me the necks of my enemies, so that I destroyed those who hated me. course the Christian And Christian response is not one of hatred towards people, But it is hatred towards those things that damn a soul. When When Elimus stood in the way of Paul trying to undo the gospel, Paul struck him blind for a little while.
Um The Lord doesn't seem to Be very liberal with that gift. It would be one I would be asking for. Uh but anyway, the army of God here is at work behind a God-given champion. That's something for the church to remember, for Christians to remember. We have our champions, and what is our role and what do we do with that?
Do we just applaud their victory? Or do we get involved in the fight ourselves? And that's what's happening. It's not enough to attend church. You must apply yourself.
You have to yourself personally get involved. There's a story when Elijah the prophet was on his deathbed, and King Joash comes to him. He's very moved by Elijah the prophet, not moved enough apparently, but he was moved by him. And he comes to see the prophet, and the prophet, even on his deathbed, is giving his ministry out.
So we pick it up in 2 Kings 13. And Elijah is speaking to the king. He says, Open the east window. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot.
These are the arrows. He told him to get his arrow in both. And he's shot. And he said the arrow. of Yahweh's deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria.
for you must strike the Syrians at Aphhex till you have destroyed them. Yeah. Thanks for joining us for today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Rick is in the book of 1 Samuel.
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