SPEAKER_00: We focus today on two major battles where heroes step forward to fight.
SPEAKER_00: This is Michael who fought against the seven-headed dragon, and this is David who defeated Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: Our theme is on courageously living our faith or putting our beliefs into action.
SPEAKER_00: Hear the word of the Lord first from the twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: And war broke out in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.
SPEAKER_00: So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the devil, and Satan who deceives the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: He was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
SPEAKER_00: Then I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Now salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God day and night has been cast down.
SPEAKER_00: Reading further from the first book of Samuel, Now when the words which David spoke were heard, they were reported to Saul, and he sent for him.
SPEAKER_00: Then David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him, your servant will go and fight against this Philistine.
SPEAKER_00: And Saul said to David, You are not able to go up against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.
SPEAKER_00: But David said to Saul, Your servant used to keep his father's sheep, and when a lion or a bear came to and took the lamb out of the flock, I went after it and struck it and delivered the lamb from its mouth, and when it arose against me I caught it by the beard and struck and killed it.
SPEAKER_00: Your servant has killed both lion and bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, David said, The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, he will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.
SPEAKER_00: And Saul said to David, Go and the Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Reading further from portions of the heavenly doctrines, first concerning charity in the common soldier.
SPEAKER_00: If he looks to the Lord and shuns evils and sins, and sincerely, justly, and faithfully does his duty, he becomes charity in form.
SPEAKER_00: Before the battle, he raises his mind to the Lord and commits his life into his hand.
SPEAKER_00: And after he has done this, he lets his mind down from its elevation into the body and becomes brave.
SPEAKER_00: The thought of the Lord, which he is then unconscious of, remaining still in his mind above his bravery.
SPEAKER_00: Then if he dies, he dies in the Lord, and if he lives, he lives in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought with his angels.
SPEAKER_00: These words mean the combat between those who are for the life of love and charity, and for the divine of the Lord in his human, against those who are for faith alone, and faith separates, and are against the divine of the Lord in his human.
SPEAKER_00: Charity, moreover, is the affection for doing those things that pertain to faith.
SPEAKER_00: In faith alone there is no action or work, and yet religion consists in living.
SPEAKER_00: Here end our readings from the Lord's Word.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of New Church Day, when we celebrate the launching of the New Church faith, we take up two related stories about courage.
SPEAKER_00: Courage specifically to step forward and take on a spiritual challenge that needs our very best.
SPEAKER_00: This is Michael fighting against a seven-headed dragon, and this is David stepping forward to take on that giant Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: Within these stories is inspiration, hope of victory together with the Lord, and the promise of everything good in life that we long for.
SPEAKER_00: It all can come to us when we courageously live our faith, trusting always in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I love the way the Against All Odds Courage is brought to life in the 12th chapter of the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Characteristic of that book, we're introduced to a world of mythical figures and captures our imagination with all kinds of symbolism.
SPEAKER_00: There's a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a garland of twelve stars on her head.
SPEAKER_00: And later she's given two wings of an eagle to flee away from her persecutor, who in this case is a seven-headed red dragon, having ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.
SPEAKER_00: And to underscore the massive proportions of this battle, that dragon drew a third of the stars from the sky with its tail and threw them to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: It stood with all that fury and power ready to devour the child that the woman was about to deliver.
SPEAKER_00: But along comes Michael and a troop of angels to vanquish that dragon, causing the whole of heaven to rejoice, saying, Now, salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come.
SPEAKER_00: For the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God day and night has been cast down.
SPEAKER_00: In the parallel story of David against Goliath, there's also a great deal to capture our imaginations.
SPEAKER_00: And this story of David and Goliath has become synonymous with an against all odd kind of challenge in our life, a David versus Goliath moment.
SPEAKER_00: I bring forward that particular story because of two pivotal sayings that come to us that are central to our focus for today.
SPEAKER_00: The first comes from the mouth of David himself as he comes to the battle and hears Goliath's challenge and raises his hand and says to Saul, who is the king at that time, let no man's heart fail because of him.
SPEAKER_00: Your servant will go and fight against this Philistine.
SPEAKER_00: Before getting to the second saying, we remind ourselves that Saul initially tried to dissuade David, saying, You are but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.
SPEAKER_00: But we hear David offering profound trust in the Lord, who had been with him and would be with him in this particular instance.
SPEAKER_00: And so we hear the next pivotal saying, which is chosen as the title for this particular talk, from an unlikely messenger, which is Saul, go and the Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_00: In what ways can we be like these people, like David, who says, Your servant will go?
SPEAKER_00: And how can we hear and absorb that encouragement?
SPEAKER_00: Go and the Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_00: It's useful to note that both of these stories happen in wartime.
SPEAKER_00: We read in Revelation, and war broke out in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought.
SPEAKER_00: We heard earlier in the readings concerning these words that they mean combat between those who are for the life of love and charity, and for the divine of the Lord in his human, against those who are in faith alone or faith separate, and are against the divine of the Lord in his human.
SPEAKER_00: There's another teaching that comes to mind in this regard.
SPEAKER_00: It says the only way to heaven is for people from the Word to abstain from evils because they are sins.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is that there are things worth fighting for in our lives and worth digging deep to do what we know is the right thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: What could that look like in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: It could be an evil that we discover through self-examination that needs to be vanquished and repented of.
SPEAKER_00: Another way this battle could show up is in a concerted effort to reprioritize the things and the people that matter most in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We no longer wish to give ourselves permission to coast or to take people for granted or to procrastinate on the things that we know we should be after.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, it could be a use that has our name on it, our profession, a sizable project, or a leadership position that calls for us to say to the Lord, your servant will go.
SPEAKER_00: I'll do that.
SPEAKER_00: I see that that has my name on it, and that's central to my core values and is worth spiritual battle.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it helps in all of these pivotal life situations to know what we're fighting against or who our enemy is.
SPEAKER_00: In a very general way, we know it's hell and those who from there plague us and tempts the worst reflexes within us.
SPEAKER_00: In the stories that we are focusing on, the hells are pictured by the dragon and by Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: Not surprisingly, they both have the same symbolism, and it's one that's constantly given to us in the heavenly doctrines, which is that of faith alone.
SPEAKER_00: It's stated in this way in the story of the war between Michael and the dragon.
SPEAKER_00: It says this means dissent and battling by those who are in faith separated from charity or faith alone, against those who are in the doctrine of the church respecting the Lord and the life of charity.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's this regarding the Philistines, very similar in its framing.
SPEAKER_00: They represent those who champion separated faith, that is, people for whom the knowledge of faith is all important, but not a life led in accordance with that knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Consequently, who people people who teach and believe that a person is saved by faith alone.
SPEAKER_00: This is what that dragon represents.
SPEAKER_00: And more specifically, it represents reasonings that spring from self-love and love of the world, thus from the desires for what is evil, which feed that faith alone.
SPEAKER_00: So I picture that seven-headed dragon weaving around a person such as us with constant whispers from all those heads into our ears.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: The situation calls for you to knowingly bend the rules this time.
SPEAKER_00: It feels good, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing more important than you indulging, and really, you can't do otherwise.
SPEAKER_00: You're not good enough or strong enough.
SPEAKER_00: Besides, you deserve better.
SPEAKER_00: Even you believe in a God of love, he'll forgive you no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: So what's the harm?
SPEAKER_00: And on and on those reasonings go.
SPEAKER_00: We could bring forward the taunts of Goliath, which are the same things.
SPEAKER_00: Am I a dog that came you come before me with sticks?
SPEAKER_00: And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
SPEAKER_00: And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.
SPEAKER_00: The messages of faith alone or the hells into our consciousness by means of that construct are multitudinous.
SPEAKER_00: They combine together to form one giant foe, pictured for us today by that dragon or by Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: And they seduce us into thinking it's okay, or we're too weak, or our spiritual follow-through is not strong enough to do what we know, to be right, and to justify instead what comes naturally.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we go to battle against such a powerful enemy?
SPEAKER_00: We do so armed with even more powerful truths from the Lord, key among them that we must live our faith.
SPEAKER_00: We already heard that this means striving to be for the life of love and charity and for the divine of the Lord in his human.
SPEAKER_00: And that's explained succinctly, powerfully in two other teachings we heard earlier in the service.
SPEAKER_00: Charity, moreover, is the affection for doing those things that pertain to faith.
SPEAKER_00: In faith alone there is no action or work, and yet religion consists in living.
SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_00: It means being useful when the opportunity is there, paying attention to and emulating examples of faithful spiritual living, showing up for the people that we love, repenting, repairing relationships that are broken or making amends, investing in spiritual practices, volunteering, embracing a heavenly quality that the Lord reveals to us, talking about meaningful truths that have had an impact on your life and may help somebody else in engaging further in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful in this story from Revelation are the helps that the Lord provides.
SPEAKER_00: There's that woman clothed with the sun, her child, and those wings of an eagle.
SPEAKER_00: They represent the new church in the form of that woman, its principles and doctrines in the form of that child, and the spiritual perspective that can help us rise beyond the things that plague us to have us see things the way the Lord would have us view them.
SPEAKER_00: Then there's Michael, together with his angels, the host of heavenly guardians that the Lord sends to surround us when we need them most, two in particular watching over us and protecting us at all times.
SPEAKER_00: These angels are said to fight for us against the influences of false reasonings that flow into us.
SPEAKER_00: And we experience that as one passage says in the form of perception, dictate, and conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Another passage says of our angels that they breathe into us every kind of good and truth, as well as a horror and dread of evil and falsities.
SPEAKER_00: So that, together with the direct promptings from the Lord, gives us every tool we need to resist and to conquer the right truth in our mind, the holy fear lest we do someone harm that we love, the power from above to do the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: These are evidence of the spiritual internal conflict where we use our God-given abilities and put our faith into practice when it matters most.
SPEAKER_00: Often, very often, that takes courage.
SPEAKER_00: We've been focusing on Michael and his angels and David fighting against Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: We remind ourselves of David's stated courage, even as a young man, raising his hand and saying, Your servant will go and fight against this Philistine.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the words that David said to Saul when he was challenged.
SPEAKER_00: Think that that's so reminiscent of that passage we heard earlier about charity in the common soldier.
SPEAKER_00: Before the battle, he raises his minds to the Lord and commits his life into his hand.
SPEAKER_00: And after he has done this, he lets his mind down from its elevation into the body and becomes brave.
SPEAKER_00: The thought of the Lord, which he is then unconscious of, remaining still in his mind above his bravery.
SPEAKER_00: And then if he dies, he dies in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: If he lives, he lives in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: How can we capture that spirit of bravery, that conscious turning to the Lord, that deep trust?
SPEAKER_00: We're wise to pray and to be vigilant and to do the spiritual practice of turning to the Lord, believing that He is the one who fights and conquers?
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who overcomes the dragon and Goliath, helping us not to fall into the traps of faith alone, but instead leading us evermore to be like one of his angels.
SPEAKER_00: Can we, like soldiers, like Michael, like David, develop a habit of raising our minds to the Lord and committing our life into his hands?
SPEAKER_00: Well, these two battles are really the same, as is the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Both get us to the faith of the new church at its core that we have to step forward in our lives to live our faith.
SPEAKER_00: We have to trust in the Lord who calls us to put our beliefs into practice courageously and consistently.
SPEAKER_00: This is the way to heaven, and this is the path of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: This is the battle of our lives to determine if we are people who can be created into angels by the Lord who can be blessed by him forever.
SPEAKER_00: Let's remind ourselves of five truths, like the five stones that David used to conquer Goliath, but which come to us in the form of our readings and can be sources of strength to us.
SPEAKER_00: Let no man's heart fail because of him.
SPEAKER_00: Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.
SPEAKER_00: If I die, I die in the Lord, but if I live, I live in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In faith alone there is no action or work, and yet religion consists in living.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, he will deliver me from this Philistine.
SPEAKER_00: Go, and the Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.