Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina. First Samuel chapter 17, and I'm just going to read verse 51 to you here, kind of give you some information.
We're going to pray and just ask the Lord to work through this. But let me read this verse to you. And I know this passage is familiar.
So anything I'm giving you here tonight, I'm sure you already, your mind kind of settles into a groove and goes, I know where this is going. I know what happens here. And you know what's the good thing is fight that.
Would you? No. All right. You were so vocal earlier.
Now you're quiet. It's good to fight that in your mind to say, Lord, just speak to my heart, illuminate my mind and just ask the Lord to help us here tonight. The Bible says this in First Samuel 17 verse 51. Therefore, David ran and stood upon the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of the sheet thereof and slew him and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled. What a powerful verse, because this is the end of something that seemed to be so drawn out and his end came suddenly.
It was just quick. At the beginning of First Samuel 17 to this verse right here, Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, dead in his head, held in the hand of a shepherd king. All made possible by our victorious God.
Let's not forget that. All made possible by our victorious God. I want to preach to you by God's grace here tonight, living in victory, living in victory. Our victorious God is calling you, his followers, his children to live in victory.
Not in defeat, but in victory. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you'd help us now. I pray that you just loosen my tongue and help my mind to be clear here tonight. I thank you, dear God, for your word.
It's powerful. The singing's been good. The special music, thank you for the congregation, just seeing them, just kind of singing along with the choir and singing along with the specials. Lord, a joyful people, a singing people, a victorious people, a people that want to live in victory. I pray, God, that you be our helper tonight. I pray some of us are dealing with struggling with defeat. We seem to go from crisis to crisis. I pray that we, knowing Jesus Christ is our Savior, we're already victorious because of our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that you just bless this time now in Jesus' name.
Amen. It does seem like we go from crisis to crisis in this world. We go from one thing to the next.
If it's not stuff taking place in the White House, it's hanging chads in Florida to 9-11 to controversies in elections. And then a couple of years ago, something major happened in the world in which it seemed to halt everything, and it seems that the world constantly lives for crisis to crisis. And it seems that we have to constantly prepare for the end, and we prepare for these things. But for a believer, it's important.
Don't get me wrong. I trust the Lord, and I lock my front door at night, okay? But at the end of the day, my job is to prepare and occupy till Jesus comes.
That's my job. In other words, that we have the victory in Jesus Christ. I don't have to live from defeat to defeat.
I get out of one thing and go, well, here comes another defeat, I'm sure. And there's no doubt. You've heard it said before, and there's a lot of truth to it.
Sometimes you're either going into a trial, you're going through a trial, or you're just coming out of a trial. There's a lot of truth to that. Adrian Rogers used to say that there's some certainties in this life, and that's sin, sorrow, and death.
You just never get away from it. It's all around us. So if that's the case, based upon the world's philosophy, we would probably just walk around all day, down in the dumps, and just defeat it.
And I just submit to you tonight that there's a lot of believers out there that probably need a good, swift kick. Because we're victorious in the Lord Jesus Christ. We live in victory, not just on Sunday morning and Sunday night, but Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday, and it just continues on. Now it doesn't mean that we don't go through hardships. It doesn't mean that we don't face trials. It doesn't mean that things don't hurt.
We go through those things. But nonetheless, there's a victory that is ours, and it's in Jesus Christ. Even in the song tonight, the hymn to heaven, that we see in the lyrics there, that we'll see that it will be worth it all.
You know it's worth it all right now? I look forward to heaven. I look forward to seeing your parents. I look forward to seeing my dad, my grandfather. I'm looking forward to seeing them. I can't wait for the joys of heaven.
I am excited about that. But man, I'm going to live victorious now. I'm going to enjoy this life in Jesus Christ and do the work that God calls me.
Certainly sin and everything else that surrounds us, besetting sins, but I'm just telling you that I'm going to live in victory. It's a choice to make, and we want to see this from this passage here tonight of David, an example of one that was living in victory. And he's going around to mighty men and the armies of the living God who seem to be hiding from an enemy that is defeated. He said, I will go before you.
The God who does not change promised Israel that he would do that. And yet here we have a king who is head and shoulders above everyone. We have some strapping young men and the brothers of David.
We have some mighty men throughout the armies of Israel hiding. And if we're honest here tonight, we've all been there or we're there right now. There's no doubt. But I'll tell you this much. No matter what goes on, we need to fight the good fight. We fight a good fight. So I want you to see here tonight some truths that we can learn from David and apply to our hearts and lives today. If you go to back to the beginning of Chapter 17 and go to verse four, I just want to read these verses to you. But I'll tell you this much. Number one, that enemies abound, enemies abound.
There will always be a new enemy of some sort. Verse four says this, and there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. And he had a helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail.
And the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass. If you go to verse eight, he says, and he stood and he cried unto the armies of Israel and said unto them, Why are you come out to set your battle in array? Am not I a Philistine and ye servants to Saul?
Choose you a man for you and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me and to kill me, then will we be your servants? That was a lie, isn't it? If October 6 didn't wake you up to that being a lie.
It's a lie. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then shall ye be our servants and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may fight together. And when Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.
Verse 16 says, and the Philistine drew near morning and evening and presented himself forty days. Can I tell you the enemies will always abound. There's always going to be some new enemy. You may face some temptation that is not a temptation to somebody else in this room. And we lack the understanding and the spirit of meekness and grace sometimes to realize that people are going through some serious struggles. And just because we don't struggle with it, we don't understand it. And so we just kind of write it off and we just put them off.
We go, well, there's something wrong with them. But we have our own lures and our own temptation. And right when we start to get some victory over that and God gives us the strength and the ability to fight that day in and day out by the grace of God. And sometimes for the rest of your life. I said sometimes for the rest of your life you'll face that addiction.
You'll face that problem. And it could be nine years sober and for some reason one day the craving is so great and you have to fight and you have to put up a good fight. And you have to be yielded to the Spirit of Christ and say, Lord, help me. I don't know why after nine years I'm struggling so hard and it may be year after year that you go through it. And I'm just telling you, it's always going to be some enemy standing up saying, you are defeated.
And the reality is, no, you're not. The enemy may want to come out and fight and it comes up strong to you and you may see some things and you're sitting there going, man, I can't believe this is happening. Here it comes again. And things, the devil, I hate him. And I'm just telling you, he repackages stuff and discourage our hearts.
And when it gets to a point he knows exactly what to do to get us set aright. And I'm just telling you, the first thing we do often is we get away from the Lord. We get away from his bride. Just for free. Jesus loves his bride.
He gave himself for his church. Much so that if you invited me to dinner and you told me I couldn't bring my wife, we're not friends. I'm just being honest with you. Well, you can come and your children, but not your wife.
Pound rocks. I'm not going. Hope you choke.
No, I'm just kidding. I'm just telling you that Jesus loves his bride. Oftentimes the first thing we do is leave her in the dust. God help us. God help us. And you say, well, we're here tonight. Hey, I'm just telling you, look back from a year from now or a year later and you'll see where you'll be.
Love Jesus and his bride. But there's some new enemy that's always looking to destroy and take away life. Listen, it's a formidable enemy.
Don't get me wrong. But sometimes it gives us so much pause that we are we are stricken with fear. And can I tell you in verse 16, according to the authority of word of God, as as this enemy abound, as Goliath was there, he showed up morning and evening. Can I tell you, sometimes it just feels like every day the enemy is just attacking, attacking, attacking. And it doesn't seem like there's a reprieve. And you think that, man, I'll never get victory in this.
I might as well give in. And that's not the case. As mentioned earlier, and this is point number two, we not only do enemies abound, but we struggle with fear.
We struggle with fear. Look at verse 11. When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistines, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. We're talking about the same Israel that marched into the promised land, who crossed on dry land. A river was taken up.
They walked on dry land. Not only that, but once they got into enemy territory, if you will, or into the promised land, God, Joshua didn't know what to do. And so he's looking for some understanding of what to do. He has no clue, except he sees a guy out there with his sword drawn, and he doesn't know who he is. And I love how J. Vernon McGee would put it.
You guys ever listen to J. Vernon McGee, the Bible bus? He'd say, he'd get out there, and Joshua came up like John Wayne and said, Well, pilgrim, you're either for us or you're against us. And he told him, take off your shoes. The place where you stand is holy ground. And from that point, God gave him instruction. This same Israel that heard the instruction of the angel of the Lord. This is the same Israel that was given instruction to observe the Passover. Not only observe the Passover, but before that, they were told to circumcise all the men. Are you listening? I'm not trying to be crass with you, but I'm just telling you, if an army, if a people that are already looking in enemy territory, and you tell all the men to go get circumcised, you might be out of commission a couple of days with mighty men.
Now, I'm not trying to be gross with you, I'm just telling you, that's just a fact. It's going to take them a moment to recover. But you know what? God was going to take care of them. This is the same Israel. This is the same Israel that then God told them, I want you to go around and march around the walls of Jericho. What a great military strategy that was given. No one's in the war room going, okay, now listen, I got an idea.
If we just start walking around, but you know who does that? God. This is the same Israel. And here they are, greatly afraid. The Bible tells us in verse 24, and all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were sore afraid. I'm telling you, probably the worst thing is that when we find something that's fearful to us that we just flee, there's a response to it. We're not only stricken in fear, we're greatly afraid. And now there's a physical following to it. There's a mental and emotional aspect to it. But then that all follows with a physical in which they fled from a place in which they were supposed to conquer.
I said they fled from a place in which they were supposed to conquer. It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate that we allow the things that we don't know about to just strike us in fear and we just flee away from it. You know, I'm thankful that many times people will say, Pastor, please pray for me that God give us wisdom on how to handle this situation. I said, okay, I want to pray with you about that. Two weeks go by, Pastor, just pray that we have wisdom about this situation. Say, okay, I want to pray with you right now about that.
And I want to ask you this question. God's given you some gray matter between your head, between your ears. And in his infinite wisdom, he's given you the ability to think logically and to think by faith.
You think you can figure this out with the Lord? Sometimes we're just so afraid to do something because we're afraid of the result. And yet God is telling us to do it. And we keep on being afraid and we're so fearful that in being fearful of it, we're taking steps back because we are not making a decision on it.
Come on now. When Stephen stood before those people, when they were gnawing on him and they stoned him, I'm just telling you, he stood there. A man full of faith, the Bible says. He was not a man full of fear. He was a man full of faith, the Bible says.
He was a faithful man. That's what God's looking for. Not fearful people of God.
And we get there. Man, we struggle with it. I hate making decisions in fear.
In fact, I see it more. Sometimes you don't see it as much in yourself. But as I pastor longer and as I deal with people more, I see it more in myself of the decisions I've made in my past, the decisions that press us forward as a church, a Liberty Baptist church, and then as an individual, as a husband, as a father, that I hate the fact that I've made decisions by fear and I refuse to make them by fear. We're going to do it by faith.
You know what? Sometimes you have to own up and do it and then realize if you failed, then you failed forward. You've got to get up and you've got to keep moving. But we're not fleeing away from things.
So many times in this day and age, it seems like these crises come up and we get so fearful of what's going on. And it's a natural reaction. And I'm telling you, the natural man will crave that. The flesh will hold on to that. But I'm just telling you, you've got to deny the flesh. You've got to crucify this flesh, Galatians 2.20, and give it over to the Lord Jesus Christ and move by faith. We need to ask for some understanding.
Sometimes the answer to what you need to do is just no. My secretary the other day, she was, her daughter was, her husband was graduating from a school for being an electrician. So my wife and I were all there watching his graduation. And her daughter came over and she had her hair all nice, they're going to take pictures.
Moms, are you with me? And her daughter is like my daughter where she's kind of a tomboy. So she's like, I hate pigtails. So she started pulling her pigtails out. And her mom goes, oh, honey, can you just wait until we take pictures?
And she looks at her and she goes, okay. I looked at my secretary and said, that's a whole new way of parenting to me. I said, I just tell my children, I do not negotiate with terrorists. That's usually what I said.
I don't negotiate with terrorists. Some people say, you know, you don't want to say no to your children. I didn't read that book. I'm not father of the year or anything else like that. I'm just telling you, there's a whole lot of mistakes I made.
But one I didn't with was no. Don't do that. Stand still. Quit moving. I may sound mean, but sometimes I just call my children over and I make them stand next to me. Hey, come here. Stand right here. And I'm talking to somebody. And they'd stand there.
And I just wanted to see how long they could stand there sometimes. I'm a mean guy. Here's my wife.
Release them, you know. I just want to see. My son Nick, he's my anxious guy, man.
He comes up when he was little. He'd start yanking on my suit coat while I'm talking to people. And they knew better not to interrupt. And I'd get to a point and I'd say, excuse me one second.
If you want to live. It'd be good if you stopped doing that. He looked at me.
I said, now stand there and I'll be with you in a moment. Sometimes we struggle with just saying no. There are things in our life that we just need to say no to. But we're so afraid of what it's going to cost us. Hold on.
Whether it's financially or whether it's pleasure, it costs us a little bit. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. Say no, say no, say no. But don't live in fear.
Don't live in fear. Just the other day, one of our folks came to us. They're getting ready to get married. I've been doing premarital counseling with them. Sweet couple.
Just need how God's brought them together. She just got out of debt. She got into COVID debt. She has her own business. She got to know what's called COVID debt. She had her own business, but they shut it down in Santa Clara County.
One of the hardest hit counties with COVID and everything else like that. They shut down her shop, but she still had to make her payments at her lease. She had to use credit cards all the time.
She had no income coming in. She got into so much debt. And her goal was, I'm not getting married until I get out of debt.
But as an engaged couple goes, no, you need to get married soon. So it's time to get aggressive with that debt. So we're not eating out. We're not doing anything.
We need to get aggressive with that. She comes to me the other day. She got out of debt by the grace of God. She comes to me the other day and her fiancé and she says, I just did my taxes and I owe tens of thousands of dollars in taxes.
I made more last year than I anticipated. And she said, now I owe the IRS so much tax money. And she's kind of like, I said, whoa, whoa, hold on. Did God get you through that other thing?
She said, well, it's easy for you to say, hold on, I've been there. I said, no, God has this and let me say this. Aren't you glad you're out of debt that you're not facing that right now? And your debt and the IRS? And she goes, yeah, actually, no, that's great.
I said, wouldn't your debt a whole lot more than what you owe the IRS? Yes. I said, yeah, God's got this. No need to go by fear. Well, I was wondering about, nope, June 8th, getting married.
It's going to be good. Get to work. Looked at her fiancé and said, get to work. Help that woman out, man.
Get going. Not by fear. God hasn't given us the spirit of fear. We need to ask for understanding.
We need to know. We need to lead our families by faith. We need good young men and women that want to stand up and be involved in the Lord's work and be involved in helping others. I'm not saying everyone's called to vocational ministry.
Not everyone's called to that. Praise the Lord that there are, but I'm just telling you, I thank the Lord that there's electricians out there that are still sold out for Jesus Christ. I'm thankful that there's police officers and firefighters still sold out for Jesus Christ. And I'm thankful that today in the NICU at Kaiser in Santa Clara and Kaiser in San Jose, there are two of our sweetest ladies, Filipino ladies that work the NICU that help moms and dads all the time with babies that are in the NICU.
And they're sold out. They sit there. If they let them, they pray with them.
And they spend… Come on, you tell me some of the hardest times watching your child in something like that. And here's these godly nurses that are going, can I just pray with you? Come on, you don't have to be in vocational ministry to be sold out for Christ. Don't live in fear. Let's move by faith. We need some folks to move by faith and be excited about it. So God is calling for people to move by faith, number three.
He's calling us to do that. Verse 26 says this, And David spake to the men that stood by him, saying, What shall be done to the men 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?
Verse 29, And David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause? And there's so much preaching you've heard all your life on that phrase right there. Is there not a cause? And I'm just telling you, the answer to that is yes, there is still a cause. Yes, God is still looking for the Davids. He's looking for some folks to stand up and see what's going on in their lives, in their churches and others' lives and say, No, God has this, we're moving by faith. Remember that these things are happening in our lives, but God is bigger and He is mightier than those things. What we need then is to get a proper lens of how God views the problem. God is not surprised by the tactics of the enemy.
Neither is David at this situation. He said, This guy's an uncircumcised Philistine. In other words, he's not with us.
In other words, he's defeated. Why are we letting this guy keep doing this? So here's all these mighty men. I guess just to be self-indicting to a degree, here's all these pastors throughout America. Not all of them, but I'm just saying there's some pastors that have gotten so fearful from preaching on sin and so fearful about telling people and preaching the whole counsel of God. There's people raising up all over the place going, Is there not a cause?
What's going on here? God is calling for people of faith to stand up. Here's these mighty men, these warriors, and yet here comes the little shepherd boy. He's about to teach them a lesson.
Let me just say this with David. He was not only, he was a good young man. He was a little bit older sometimes. You know, your flannel graph put him at 12.
I don't think he was 12. He was the youngest brother. I am the youngest brother. Brother knows my brothers, Lance and Jared. I get myself in trouble every time I say this, but I'm just telling you, I am the runt of two ogres. They are big old dudes. They're over six feet both ways. Let me say this tonight.
I am in North. The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know him personally. Would you take a moment to hear this today? Every man is born with a sin nature. Romans 3 23 says for all of sin and come short of the glory of God. No matter how hard we try, we're not good enough to obtain God's glory or to get to heaven because of that sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6 23 says for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin or the payment of our sin only equals death and separation from God, but it's only through God's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept him as our savior.
Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5 8 but God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. All you have to do is receive Christ by faith as your savior. Romans 10 9 says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved. Verse 13 continues for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner believing that Jesus is the only way and calling upon his name. Bible says whosoever that's anyone can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal savior? There is no greater day than today to take care of this. Would you accept Christ as your savior? If you have any questions please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at carwinbaptistchurch.com or visit us at person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day. God bless you.
