SPEAKER_00: It is so good to be here with you all again.
SPEAKER_00: As always, it is um just lovely to be worshiping with you this morning and to yeah uh to be done with school and to to just I I just want to thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00: I I'm not your pastor, I haven't been ordained yet, so please don't call me Pastor Daniel, but I do now have a master's degree, so if you want to call me Master Daniel, that is on you.
SPEAKER_00: It's Master of Divinity, Divine Master Daniel, if that's your preference.
SPEAKER_00: Um, in all seriousness, thank you all so much.
SPEAKER_00: I have been unbelievably blessed by this church, and uh I I could not have gotten through the past four years of school without you, without your presence here, without your prayers, without your financial support, without your um personal encouragement and support that you've offered me in a million ways that most of you probably do not even realize.
SPEAKER_00: So I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: You have been um the family that I needed in this season, and I'm I'm so thankful and I praise God for all of you.
SPEAKER_00: It has been a great season.
SPEAKER_00: I've learned a lot.
SPEAKER_00: It's also been a really challenging season, and I think if I have learned anything about myself these past four years, it's been that I am weak.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so I'm so weak.
SPEAKER_00: I I thought I was like mentally strong and realized I know close to nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought I was emotionally strong and then went through seasons of pain and hurt that I didn't know how to handle.
SPEAKER_00: I thought I was spiritually strong, but I went through times of doubt and sin and backsliding.
SPEAKER_00: Especially, I thought physically I could do anything.
SPEAKER_00: And experienced so many sleepless nights that I couldn't help but face the reality time and time again that I am weak.
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many times I've thought, like, man, if I just didn't need to sleep, I'd be so productive.
SPEAKER_00: Has anyone ever thought that?
SPEAKER_00: Like I could get so much done if I just didn't have this like big thing called sleep in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And yet every night, whether I liked it or not, God reminded me that I am not nearly as strong as I think I am.
SPEAKER_00: I am so weak, I'm so dependent.
SPEAKER_00: That's not just my experience, that's all of us.
SPEAKER_00: We every single night are forced to face, every human being on the earth has to admit something that we all spend basically every day trying to deny, that we're weak.
SPEAKER_00: And no matter how intelligent we are, no matter how wealthy or productive or influential or successful we are, eventually, our bodies and our minds just stop working.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to collapse and lay down and power off for like eight hours, like a third of our lives we spend unconscious, just recharging, completely dependent on God to keep our hearts beating and keep our lungs breathing and protect us as we are helpless.
SPEAKER_00: And then we wake up every morning and go right back to pretending like we're strong, trying to be strong, seeking to be strong.
SPEAKER_00: Because who doesn't want to be strong, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's what we are after as human beings.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's natural.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not all in the same way, but all of us want strength.
SPEAKER_00: We want financial strength, we want enough money to be able to not have to worry.
SPEAKER_00: Enough knowledge that we don't feel ignorant, enough influence that people will listen to us or approve of us, or enough success that we feel significant, enough health that we can feel secure.
SPEAKER_00: We want our lives to seem strong and stable and predictable and under control by our own strength.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason we pursue those things so relentlessly is because deep down we know what the alternative is: it's dependence and vulnerability and weakness.
SPEAKER_00: And while the entire world around us pushes us to pursue personal strength more, the gospel of Jesus shows us something really radical and counterintuitive, namely that weakness isn't just something to overcome or push past.
SPEAKER_00: Weakness is actually one of God's favorite instruments.
SPEAKER_00: It's his gifts, it's his tool.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a barrier to glorifying God with our lives, it's a means.
SPEAKER_00: God's kingdom has always advanced through weakness.
SPEAKER_00: He delights to use what the world dismisses, what the world overlooks, what the world calls foolish, in order to display his own power and his own glory.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we'll see in 1 Samuel 17 today.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have your Bibles, you can turn your way to 1 Samuel 17, and we will hear now from God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: Please stand if you're able to honor the reading of God's word from 1 Samuel 17, beginning in verse 38.
SPEAKER_00: Then Saul clothed David with his armor.
SPEAKER_00: He put a helmet of bronze on his head, and clothed him with a coat of mail.
SPEAKER_00: And David strapped his sword over his armor, and he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them.
SPEAKER_00: Then David said to Saul, I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.
SPEAKER_00: So David put them off.
SPEAKER_00: Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in his shepherd's pouch.
SPEAKER_00: His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.
SPEAKER_00: And the Philistine moved forward and came near David with his shield bearer in front of him.
SPEAKER_00: And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance.
SPEAKER_00: And the Philistine said to David, Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks?
SPEAKER_00: And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
SPEAKER_00: The Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.
SPEAKER_00: Then David said to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
SPEAKER_00: This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head, and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day, to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all the assembly may know that the Lord saves, not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into my hand.
SPEAKER_00: When the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine, and David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead.
SPEAKER_00: The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him.
SPEAKER_00: There was no sword in the hand of David.
SPEAKER_00: Then David ran and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath, and killed him, and cut off his head with it.
SPEAKER_00: When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.
SPEAKER_00: And the men of Israel and Judah rose with a shout and pursued the Philistines as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron, so that the wounded Philistines fell on the way from Sha'marim, as far as Gath and Ekon, Ekron.
SPEAKER_00: And the people of Israel came back from chasing the Philistines, and they plundered their camp.
SPEAKER_00: And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, and he put his armor in his tent.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as Saul saw David go out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, Abner, whose son is this youth?
SPEAKER_00: And Abner said, As your soul lives, O king, I do not know.
SPEAKER_00: And the king said, Inquire whose son the boy is.
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as David returned from the striking down of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand.
SPEAKER_00: Saul said to him, Whose son are you, young man?
SPEAKER_00: And David answered, I am the son of your servant, Jesse the Bethlehemite.
SPEAKER_00: This is God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Creator of all things, who has spoken the galaxies into existence.
SPEAKER_00: Would you now draw near to speak to each of us today?
SPEAKER_00: Open our eyes to see you and be glorified.
SPEAKER_00: Be glorified, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, our passage today picks up right where we left off in the story last week, as Jared was preaching and laying this uh the groundwork, setting the stage for this great David and Goliath story.
SPEAKER_00: This giant warrior named Goliath of the Philistine army, opposing God's people.
SPEAKER_00: He's been standing in the valley day after day after day for 40 days now, mocking Israel, blaspheming God, and demanding that someone come and fight him in sort of like a representative combat.
SPEAKER_00: A winner takes all battle on behalf of their respective nations.
SPEAKER_00: And Saul and the entire army have been trembling in fear, paralyzed by their anxiety for forty days until David, this unlikely shepherd boy, shows up to deliver some food to his brothers.
SPEAKER_00: He steps forward and declares that this giant can and will be defeated.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we pick up today.
SPEAKER_00: As we walk through this passage together, we're going to look at this theme of weakness and of strength.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see four different kinds of weakness through four different characters at play in our story.
SPEAKER_00: Saul, Goliath, David, and as we'll see, Adam.
SPEAKER_00: So this is our outline for the day.
SPEAKER_00: The weakness of Saul, the weakness of Goliath, the weakness of David, and the weakness of Adam.
SPEAKER_00: First, the weakness of Saul.
SPEAKER_00: Saul's weakness is the first that we encounter in the passage, which might not have been evident to the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Saul doesn't look weak, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's the tallest man in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He's the king.
SPEAKER_00: He has armor, the sword, the army, the authority, the resources.
SPEAKER_00: He's got it all.
SPEAKER_00: But he opposes David.
SPEAKER_00: He tells him, first of all, not to go in verse 33.
SPEAKER_00: And then here, notice what he's doing in verse 38.
SPEAKER_00: He gives David a helmet of bronze, a coat of mail, and a sword.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know who else in our story has a helmet of bronze, a coat of mail, and a sword?
SPEAKER_00: It's Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: He's dressing David up like a little Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: He's using the same method as the nations around him to try to equip David to be like the nations.
SPEAKER_00: He wants David to fight Goliath in the same way that Goliath fights.
SPEAKER_00: He wants David to put on the armor, take up the sword, and meet worldly strength with worldly strength.
SPEAKER_00: His armor is more than armor, it's revealing to us Saul's entire way of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Saul is the king that was given when the people asked for a king like all the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Saul's name literally in Hebrew means asked for.
SPEAKER_00: They ask for a king like the nations, they get a king like the nations.
SPEAKER_00: He embodies Israel's desire to find security through visible strength and worldly means rather than through Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Saul believes that David needs something more than the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He needs better equipment, better resources, better weapons, better worldly means.
SPEAKER_00: The weakness of Saul here is not ultimately his physical weakness, he's physically strong, it's his theological weakness, it's his spiritual weakness.
SPEAKER_00: It's a weakness of unbelief and a misunderstanding of who God is and how God works.
SPEAKER_00: And how often are we the same way?
SPEAKER_00: How often do we think that God's work would really advance if only we had more power like the nations?
SPEAKER_00: More money, more influence, more talented people, better programs, more cultural power, more political power, greater public approval.
SPEAKER_00: How often do we trust in the same things that the world trusts in?
SPEAKER_00: Success, credentials, wealth, popularity, political influence.
SPEAKER_00: None of these things are necessarily evil, right?
SPEAKER_00: Goliath's armor isn't evil.
SPEAKER_00: It's simply the wrong thing to trust in.
SPEAKER_00: How often are we just like him?
SPEAKER_00: How often do we, like Saul back in verse 33, become obstacles to the faithfulness of God's people because we're convinced that we're being realistic, that we're being wise when actually we're being worldly.
SPEAKER_00: There's a pastor named John G.
SPEAKER_00: Patton back in the 1800s, who had a very successful, thriving urban ministry in Scotland, who one day decided to leave this greatness to become weak, to leave it all behind, sensing that God was calling him to take the gospel to the islands of Vanuatu, where Christ was not yet known among the violent cannibalistic tribes there.
SPEAKER_00: Talk about being mission-minded.
SPEAKER_00: Grab some MMs on your way out.
SPEAKER_00: And he writes in his autobiography how the biggest initial challenge, the biggest obstacles when he began this mission, was Christians who criticized him, who told him that he was naive, who told him that he was foolish, that he was going to endanger himself and his family, who explained that there were plenty of unbelievers in Scotland that needed the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of work to be done here.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go in the mission field.
SPEAKER_00: They faithlessly encouraged him to be more realistic.
SPEAKER_00: And he writes this.
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Amongst many who sought to deter me was one dear old Christian gentleman whose crowning argument was always, The cannibals, you will be eaten by cannibals.
SPEAKER_00: At last I replied, Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Dickinson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms.
SPEAKER_00: I confess to you that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms.
SPEAKER_00: And in the great day, my resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: That's a David kind of faith in the face of a Saul kind of faithlessness.
SPEAKER_00: The church and individual believers like ourselves have always been tempted to play Saul, to put on worldly armor, to fight spiritual battles with worldly weapons, or to avoid spiritual battles for worldly reasons.
SPEAKER_00: The weakness of Saul here is the weakness of believing that God's work needs something more than God himself.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, David knowing and believing, as he repeats throughout the Psalms, that Yahweh is his shield, that Yahweh is his stronghold and refuge and defender, Yahweh equips David with the faith to march armorless into the battlefield and to face the Philistine giant.
SPEAKER_00: This brings us to our second point, the weakness of Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: Goliath comes to David, mocking David for his weakness, boasting in his own strength, cursing him by his Philistine gods, chief of which was Dagon.
SPEAKER_00: And this cursing is not just like hurling insults.
SPEAKER_00: Like he's calling down curses from, in his eyes, divine beings, probably demonic beings that he thinks will curse David and give him the victory.
SPEAKER_00: He's cursing him by his Philistine gods.
SPEAKER_00: So he has this sort of strength.
SPEAKER_00: He's ten feet tall, he's a very experienced warrior.
SPEAKER_00: He has a shield bearer, a sword, a spear, a javelin.
SPEAKER_00: He's decked out in bronze armor and chainmail from head to toe.
SPEAKER_00: Humanly speaking, he's everything that Saul wishes he was, and everything that the world sees as strength.
SPEAKER_00: He's the most powerful person there is.
SPEAKER_00: But David notices something.
SPEAKER_00: He says, look at look at verse 45 if you have your Bibles open.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Look, you got a lot of nice weapons there, Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: But I come to you armed with a weapon that is not from this world.
SPEAKER_00: We're coming to a battle armed with weapons from totally different realms.
SPEAKER_00: You got a nice shield there.
SPEAKER_00: I stand here shielded by the creator of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: You're big and you're strong, and so are the demonic gods that you worship and serve.
SPEAKER_00: But my God, the true God, is bigger and stronger than you or they can fathom.
SPEAKER_00: Goliath has every appearance of strength in the eyes of the world.
SPEAKER_00: But in reality, he is nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And he will become just like the gods that he worships.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember back in chapter 5, the Philistines, they come and they capture the Ark of Yahweh, where God's holy presence dwells, and they put it in their temple to Dagon, next to the statue, the idol, and when they enter then the next day, Dagon has fallen flat on his face before the ark, as though bowing before Yahweh, with his head cut off.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what happens.
SPEAKER_00: Despite all of his human strength, Goliath is shown to be as weak as the fake God that he worships, falling face downward toward David as though bowing to him and his God with his head cut off.
SPEAKER_00: And that's an important reminder for us today.
SPEAKER_00: Because there are still Goliaths in our world.
SPEAKER_00: Not just our own personal battles that we perceive as great, but there are powers human and spiritual powers that are enormous and seem unstoppable.
SPEAKER_00: There are wicked governments that are slaughtering Christians.
SPEAKER_00: There are terrorist organizations.
SPEAKER_00: There are human trafficking networks.
SPEAKER_00: There are false religions with billions of followers, following satanic lies.
SPEAKER_00: There are demonic powers that seek to destroy and deceive.
SPEAKER_00: There is Satan and there is death itself.
SPEAKER_00: There are real gigantic enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're not careful, we can begin to think the way that Israel is thinking here.
SPEAKER_00: We can look at those giants and conclude that God's kingdom is losing, that evil is too strong, that darkness is advancing unchecked.
SPEAKER_00: David reminds us that all of those powers, every one of them, as strong and as terrifying as they may appear, each one stands in exactly the same position as Goliath stood that day, right before the Almighty Lord of hosts, the God of armies, and not standing for much longer.
SPEAKER_00: The strongest empire is weak before him.
SPEAKER_00: The rapidly growing Islam is weak before him.
SPEAKER_00: The human trafficking networks are weak before him.
SPEAKER_00: The most deeply entrenched, vile, wickedness, and evil of our earth is weak and as nothing before him.
SPEAKER_00: Satan himself is weak before him.
SPEAKER_00: They may look invincible to us, they may look strong to us, but they can and they will be utterly annihilated by the Lord of hosts through his appointed and anointed king, before whom they will fall on their faces.
SPEAKER_00: All wickedness will be conquered, cut down, and expelled from this earth when Christ, the true anointed one, returns.
SPEAKER_00: Now, unlike Saul, and unlike Goliath, David actually does look weak.
SPEAKER_00: Which is what everyone keeps telling him throughout the whole chapter.
SPEAKER_00: His brother thinks he's foolish, Saul thinks he's inexperienced, Goliath thinks he's laughable.
SPEAKER_00: He looks at him and just mocks him.
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, they're not entirely wrong.
SPEAKER_00: David is young.
SPEAKER_00: He's a boy, he's like a teenager at most.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's short.
SPEAKER_00: Um He's not a soldier, he has no experience, he has no armor, no sword, no spear, no military expertise.
SPEAKER_00: Humanly speaking, he is weak and absolutely outmatched.
SPEAKER_00: But that is not a hindrance to David here.
SPEAKER_00: David doesn't think like Saul.
SPEAKER_00: Like the nations.
SPEAKER_00: He's not concerned about his weakness.
SPEAKER_00: He knows he's weak.
SPEAKER_00: He's just not concerned about it.
SPEAKER_00: You know what he's concerned about?
SPEAKER_00: The glory of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: That's what drives him.
SPEAKER_00: That's where his mind is.
SPEAKER_00: God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: He voices his rebuke to Goliath in verse 45.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You have defied, you've mocked the name of Yahweh of hosts.
SPEAKER_00: You've mocked the name, the reputation, the honor, the glory of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: That word for defying or mocking appears at least six times in this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: And only David shows any concern for it.
SPEAKER_00: And so he tells us in verse 46 why all of this is happening.
SPEAKER_00: That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: That's the driving concern of David and of this whole story.
SPEAKER_00: It's the name, the The reputation, the glory of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: So, in some sense, it doesn't matter to David if he lives or dies, if he's eaten by birds today or worms tomorrow, so long as he can magnify the glory of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: His concern is the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So his weakness, his ability or inability, his very life is not his chief concern.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is.
SPEAKER_00: So he simply goes to war for Yahweh, knowing and trusting that when he's fighting for God's glory, he cannot fail because that's what God's fighting for.
SPEAKER_00: And so he knows in faith.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh will deliver you into my hand, verse 46.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 47, Yahweh saves, not with sword and spear.
SPEAKER_00: And again, next, verse 47, the battle is Yahweh's.
SPEAKER_00: The emphasis here in David's mind is on the power and the glory of God, which is not hindered by David's weakness, but is magnified by it.
SPEAKER_00: Not only is it not hindered, it's magnified.
SPEAKER_00: David is weak, but his weakness exists to put the power and the glory of God on display, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves.
SPEAKER_00: So David's weakness is irrelevant in terms of the battle, but it is not irrelevant in terms of God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: Counterintuitively, his weakness becomes not a hindrance to magnifying the glory of God, but a means.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what you see when you go into a jewelry store is that all of the jewelry cases typically have this dark, like super dark black felt cloth laid down as the base with all of the jewelry on top of it.
SPEAKER_00: You know why they do this?
SPEAKER_00: So that the silver and the gold and the diamonds will shine more brightly and beautifully against that dark back black backdrop.
SPEAKER_00: Black, you know what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: Um the the darkness behind it is meant to magnify the beauty of the jewelry.
SPEAKER_00: And in many ways, our weakness is similar.
SPEAKER_00: Our weaknesses, our dependence, our brokenness, they feel dark to us and unglamorous and unglorious and painful.
SPEAKER_00: But they are laid in our lives intentionally by our Creator to magnify the brilliance and beauty of God.
SPEAKER_00: They are given as a backdrop to put God's glory on display in us, and that is not insignificant.
SPEAKER_00: So many of us, myself included, live our Christian lives thinking like God could use me if I were just smarter, if I were more gifted, if I were more confident, if I was better with people, if I knew more theology, if I were healthier, if I had more money, if I had fewer struggles, if I didn't battle so much anxiety, if I didn't have this weakness or that weakness.
SPEAKER_00: Christian, your weakness is not an obstacle to glorifying God.
SPEAKER_00: It is a gift from him by which he means to magnify his beauty in your life and through your life.
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel weak this morning?
SPEAKER_00: God loves weak people, and he chooses and uses weak people, and he is glorified especially in weak people like us.
SPEAKER_00: The only prerequisite, the only qualification for God's glory being magnified in your life is that you come weak.
SPEAKER_00: So every time you lay down to sleep at night, helplessly giving yourself over to the sustaining power of God, you are magnifying the one whom you depend on in every passing moment to sustain you.
SPEAKER_00: Every bit of hunger magnifies the one from whom every meal comes.
SPEAKER_00: Every financial struggle magnifies the one who owns the universe and gives good gifts to his children.
SPEAKER_00: Every chronic illness magnifies the sustaining grace of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Every death magnifies his resurrection power that will come from it.
SPEAKER_00: Every bodily ache of old age, every parenting struggle, every period of loneliness, every season of waiting, or of spiritual dryness, or of doubt, may look to you and the world to be weakness.
SPEAKER_00: But to God it is, though dark, only a platform to put on display the bright and brilliant glory of his life at work in you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not meaningless.
SPEAKER_00: I know you don't see it, but you will.
SPEAKER_00: That's our third point, the weakness of David.
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to our last point, the weakness of Adam.
SPEAKER_00: And I might need you to put your thinking caps on for a minute here and zoom out.
SPEAKER_00: The story is about so much more than David and Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: David is stepping into a role here that Adam, in his weakness, failed to fulfill.
SPEAKER_00: When God created Adam, he placed him in his holy kingdom in Eden, and he commissioned him to rule the earth under him, exercising dominion over the beasts of the earth, and guarding God's dwelling place from anything evil that sought to enter it.
SPEAKER_00: But when the serpent, Satan, entered the garden and opposed God and his word, Adam in his weakness, failed.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of imaging God by crushing the serpent, Adam listened to him.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of conquering evil and driving it out, he surrendered it to it.
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, Adam himself was driven from God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, even then, God made a promise to his people.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 3.15.
SPEAKER_00: God said to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers, he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of the story of the Bible is like a footnote to this one verse.
SPEAKER_00: It is unfolding for us, unpacking for us the promises nested in this prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: This is like the large Russian nesting doll of God's promises, inside of which all the other promises of the gospel sit.
SPEAKER_00: And the promise is this that one day, a chosen son, the offspring of the woman.
SPEAKER_00: Notice not the offspring of a man.
SPEAKER_00: The offspring of a woman would come as a suffering but triumphant warrior to be a new Adam, a new representative of a new humanity, to do what Adam was too weak to do, to crush the serpent's head.
SPEAKER_00: And since that moment, the story of the Bible has been unfolding this story of two humanities at war, the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman.
SPEAKER_00: And we get glimpses throughout God's word of God's chosen sons coming as representatives to do battle against the serpent, against Satan.
SPEAKER_00: For example, Pharaoh is described as a serpent who has his head crushed by Yahweh in the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: Read Psalm 74 and Ezekiel 29.
SPEAKER_00: These are passages like Ezekiel 29 that describe him as a serpent, as a dragon, as being clothed in scales, as having his head crushed, and as having him and his armies scattered and left as food for the birds.
SPEAKER_00: Back in chapter 11 in 1 Samuel, Saul mightily defeated Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, whose name, Nahash in Hebrew, literally means snake.
SPEAKER_00: Our youth group kids know this.
SPEAKER_00: I talk about this all the time.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Snake.
SPEAKER_00: He's a snake king that's coming, opposing God's people, and Saul, the mighty king, crushes him.
SPEAKER_00: And then we get to chapter 17.
SPEAKER_00: We see something really interesting.
SPEAKER_00: In verses 5 and 6, the storyteller explains to us that Goliath, it says Goliath had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail weighing 5,000 shekels of bronze, and he had bronze armor on his legs, and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders.
SPEAKER_00: It goes on and on.
SPEAKER_00: Do you notice any repeated words there?
SPEAKER_00: Bronze, bronze, bronze, bronze, bronze.
SPEAKER_00: And the word bronze in Hebrew is nahashed, which sounds very much like the Hebrew word for snake, nahash.
SPEAKER_00: So when the original listeners of this story hear Goliath as Nahashit, Nahash, Nahash, Nahash, Nahashit, what they're hearing is Nahash, Nahash, Nahash, Nahash, Nahash, embedded within that.
SPEAKER_00: Snake, snake, snake, snake, snake is the imagery that's being called to mind.
SPEAKER_00: It'd kind of be like, you know, if a movie were made about him today, Goliath would step onto the scene and say, Stand up and fight, so I can devour you, servant of Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And we'd be like, oh, he's being presented as like a snake type figure.
SPEAKER_00: He's a serpent.
SPEAKER_00: And then the storyteller does more.
SPEAKER_00: Our English translations say he wore a coat of mail, which is what it means.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good translation.
SPEAKER_00: You know what the Hebrew says?
SPEAKER_00: He was clothed in scales.
SPEAKER_00: He's clothed in scales.
SPEAKER_00: And more than this, he's compared to a bear and a lion and a dog, the beasts of the earth, that Adam, as king in God's kingdom, was given dominion over and called to rule over the beasts.
SPEAKER_00: And though Adam was weak and failed to expel wickedness, failed to conquer the evil beast from God's holy land, what this story is showing us is that God will choose a new Adam, a new son, a new seed of the woman, a new representative, a new anointed warrior king to crush the serpent's head.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of the story.
SPEAKER_00: The serpent's head is crushed.
SPEAKER_00: Goliath's head is mentioned no less than six times, as the storyteller repeats again and again that David strikes his head and cuts off his head and carries his head to Jerusalem, which at this point is a Jebusite territory, not Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He kind of walks in, throws the head into the Jebusite kingdom as if to say, You're next.
SPEAKER_00: Satan's been conquered.
SPEAKER_00: We're conquering the globe with the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: The anointed one has come to crush the head of the satanic enemy and leave his army's corpses as food for the birds.
SPEAKER_00: This is meant to point our eyes to Jesus Christ, the true anointed one.
SPEAKER_00: The last Adam, the son and seed of the woman, the shepherd king, the representative of God's people, prophesied in Genesis chapter 3, prefigured in 1 Samuel 17, who has come to conquer Satan and his armies forever.
SPEAKER_00: And church like David.
SPEAKER_00: He does this through what looks like weakness, through poverty, and through suffering, through rejection and humiliation and abandonment and loneliness, through pain, and ultimately through a horrific and shameful death.
SPEAKER_00: But like Goliath's sword, the cross was Satan's violent, powerful weapon against the anointed king, and yet was also the weapon used to defeat him and crush his head and leave him lying face down at the shepherd king's feet.
SPEAKER_00: God's kingdom has always advanced through weakness.
SPEAKER_00: And the cross was the greatest display of divine power through human weakness that the world has ever seen.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest victory in human history came through what appeared to be the greatest weakness.
SPEAKER_00: The suffering and death of a slave.
SPEAKER_00: And by it, we who are united to Jesus by faith, who have him as our representative warrior, our champion, we share in his victory.
SPEAKER_00: His victory is ours.
SPEAKER_00: And like the Israelites, we follow now our victorious King into battle to finish what he started, spreading the gospel to the nations and taking over the world with the kingdom of Jesus through our weakness, through our suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Soon Jesus will return, followed by his saints and angels, to make war and to finish the battle against Satan and all who serve him forever.
SPEAKER_00: John tells us of this vision of this moment in Revelation 19, and we'll close just by reading this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Listen carefully to the prophetic word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse.
SPEAKER_00: The one sitting on it is called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.
SPEAKER_00: His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.
SPEAKER_00: From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them.
SPEAKER_00: With a rod of iron, he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: Then I saw an angel standing in the sun.
SPEAKER_00: And with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.
SPEAKER_00: And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth, with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse, and against his army.
SPEAKER_00: And the beast and the false prophet were captured, thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur, and the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.
SPEAKER_00: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: Repent and believe the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, Almighty King of the universe, who has slain Goliath, who has conquered Satan, who has vanquished the devil and has spoiled his foes to give us the gifts of the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Would you reign in our hearts and in our lives now?
SPEAKER_00: Would you grant that every ounce of unbelief would be scattered and expelled from this place, that we would trust in you as our mighty representative, who has conquered sin, death, and Satan on our behalf, that we might join in your victory and reign with you forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: It is in your name, Lord Jesus, and for your glory we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.