VN520359 2015-02-15 David And Goliath

1 Samuel 17. We’re going to read 1 through 7, and the details is where we’re going with this. “Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle; and they were gathered at Socoh which belongs to Judah, and they camped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim.” It sounds like I’m cussing doesn’t it? “Saul and the men of Israel were gathered and camped in the valley of Elah, and drew up in battle array to encounter the Philistines. The Philistines stood on the mountain on one side while Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, with the valley between them. Then a champion came out from the armies of the Philistines named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.” That means he was over 9 feet tall. “He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was clothed with scale-armor which weighed five thousand shekels of bronze. He also had bronze greaves on his legs and a bronze javelin slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and the head of his spear weighed six hundred shekels of iron; his shield-carrier also walked before him.”
We’ll just quit there. This is Jerusalem. Jerusalem was a Jebusite city. Nobody would take this city until King David did. Bethleham is down here about 8 or 10 miles away, depending on whether you drive or you take a “crow” to Bethleham. So, you’ve got 8 to 10 miles. Over here is Gath, but between these we’re talking about 15 miles away from Bethleham and Jerusalem area there is a valley that runs like this, and that is the valley of Elah. Now, the Philistines evidently were on this side and the Israelis were on this other side, and they were standing there shouting at each other. Why did they not just go attack each other and win? Because to get to the other side to fight a battle you had to go down across the valley and then you had to go up a hill and fight, and we all know it’s easier to defend the high position, that’s why they always say I took the high ground, you defend from the high position, it’s easier to win a battle from the high position. That’s why people say I had an uphill battle all the way. It’s harder to fight a battle going up, especially in that time before we had bazookas and things like that.
So, neither side wanted to charge the other side because they knew they would have an uphill battle going into it. The advantage they had was Goliath. 9-1/2 feet tall, brass helmet, brass scales, brass shin guards, weaver’s beam, steel, and a shield-bearer, and he would come out as we know and talk to people going na na na na na na. We’re better than you and you think you’ve got a great big God. Now, nobody wanted to go fight him including Saul, and remember Saul was a big guy. He was head and shoulders above the rest of the people of Israel which would put him probably about 6 feet tall. So, there he is. They considered him a big guy because he was 6 feet tall and he was going to look up another 3 feet just to see Goliath’s face. So, he wasn’t wanting to go fight this guy so you know these other guys were running about this tall so he would have probably been 4 feet taller than the average Jewish guy.
The details are that this guy was all clad in bronze, and then we go down to verse 38 and we’re going to pick up the story again. Verses 38 and 39. “Then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with armor. David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, ‘I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.’ And David took them off.” I like the King James Version that says, “I’m not supposed to be wearing these.” So he took them off so we know that David is not going in with any kind of armor.
Verse 45 then through 49. David said to the Philistine because he went out. “‘You come to me with a sword, a spear, and 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 taunted. This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands.’ Then it happened when the Philistine rose and came and drew near to meet David, that David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone and slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead. And the stone sank into his forehead, so that he fell on his face to the ground,” and I guess that’s where we are.
So, David did this. He charged, he took the sling after the monologue, he took the sling. He whirls it, he pops it in the guys head. The guy has a hole in his head. He falls face forward down, and then in verse 51 we read, “Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword,” the Philistine’s sword “and drew it out of its sheath and killed him, and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.” Now, this is what happens to his head. “Then David took the Philistine’s head and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his weapons,” he put his weapons, that’s the Philistine’s weapons, “in his tent.” Now, we’ve got all this stuff going on. We’ve got Goliath big and tall, mean, clothed in bronze, coming down and taunting them about God and he’s going to whip the nation and his people. Come on fight me. I’ll take you. I don’t need anybody else. David says I don’t need your armor. It doesn’t work for me. I’m going to come at him with what God has given me. He goes out. He tells Goliath what he thinks. He tells Goliath what he is going to do. Oh, David is a prophet. I’m going to cut your head off. I’m going to bang you in the head, I’m going to cut your head off and then we’re going to kill all the Philistines and the birds and the wild critters are going to eat them.
Then when they started marching down the hill David up there takes off running toward the line and knocks the guy in the head. The guy falls over. He grabs his sword and chops his head off. Then he takes the guys, we know the order is he actually would take the weapons first to his tent because they have to chase the Philistines for a while, but he takes the weapons to David’s tent and he takes that head and he goes back to the city of Jerusalem and sets it outside the gates of Jerusalem. He sets it outside of Jerusalem, and it is a Jebusite city at that time. This guy carried that slobbering head for 15 miles or so through mountainous regions to get to Jerusalem just to set that head down in front of that city and walk away from it. That is what happened to the head of David. Isn’t that interesting?
The head of Goliath.
Well, David took his head and sat it there. Now, it belonged to David. He cut it off, it was his head. Was that a good save or what? It was a good save. Okay, now he cut Goliath’s head off and that’s the head he left. Now, that is what happened to Goliath’s head. Is that not interesting? How many of you knew that Goliath’s head ended up in Jerusalem? Even Wilma didn’t know that.
Where did we get that information?
In verse 54. “David took the Philistine’s head and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his weapons in his tent.” So, there’s the story of what happened to his head. Now, if you look at it this way. I don’t know if I’m going to need this board or not, but if you look at it this way remember the details. David, the name means beloved so we’ve got beloved. David equals Christ here. David equals Christ, so the beloved of God is going against the enemy. Goliath is the bully on the block and Goliath equals satan. He’s out taunting the people, the chosen people of God, saying come on, I’m going to whip you. You’ll notice that Goliath was clothed from his head to his feet in bronze. Does anybody remember what bronze symbolizes? Judgment. So, this is a prophet thing. We now have satan wearing this bronze armor and bronze is judgment. Satan is always wanting to bring judgment against man, against us. He is always accusing the Father and if we read, let’s go on with this a little bit more. He always is accusing us and asking God to bring judgment against us so he is the one coming saying I’m bringing judgment against you.
David, the beloved, the Christ figure, refuses to wear the bronze. Remember the king says here, put my helmet on and it was a bronze helmet and gave him armor and David says I’m not going to wear that. John 3:17, and then we’re going to flip over a little farther into John. John 3:17. We all know John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” So, the chosen, the beloved, didn’t come to judge but He came to save. If we go over to John 12:47-48, John 12:47-48, “If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.”
So, we know when Christ came He did not come brass-headed bringing judgment. He came to deliver His people. So, Jesus did not come to bring judgment. David did not wear judgment on his head. I did not come to judge. He came to save. David came down from the city of bread, Bethlehem, and He went down to where this valley was and he fights Goliath. Jesus came down. He is the heavenly bread. He comes down. He goes out and He fights satan, but He didn’t come to judge us. He came to save us. Now, Ephesians 6:17. Some of this you’re just going to have to go with me on this. It’s over in the New Testament by the way, I’ll get there. If somebody is there read 6:17.
Ephesians?
Sure.
“And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
The sword of the Spirit is the word of God. In Hebrews 4:12 it says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of the soul and spirit.” So, we know that the word of God is the sword. How do I explain this? David comes in reaches in the sack and pulls out a stone. The laws of God are written on stone. I have to look up this other verse and maybe I can do it better. David comes in and he reaches down and he grabs out a stone. The law of God was written on a stone. David put the stone in, he hits the guy in the head, the stone represents the law hitting Satan in the head, knocking him down, then he grabs Satan’s sword and he chops the guys head off. Satan has always used the Word of God against us. It’s in the scripture. Somebody is going to have to help me, but it says, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.”
You see, it’s the law that gives satan the right to ask God. Satan is an accuser. He is like a lawyer. He is using the law against us saying You need to judge these people, You need to condemn these people. They are failures. So, his strength is to use the law against us. His power over us is to use the law against us calling on God to use His laws and execute judgment against us. Now, what Jesus did is He comes along and He uses the law to get satan. First He starts off and uses the law of sacrifice. We know that an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, if you sin you must die, you’re going to die and pay for your sins. There is a law of substitute. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and if somebody steps up and is willing to pay your debt, it can be cancelled out. We have Jesus Christ, the perfect man who has no sin in His life, and He is God. Therefore, He has all this tremendous value. He comes down and says okay, the law says, that’s the stone, the law says that if I lay my life down and I pay, then these people can walk away free because the law of sacrifice has been fulfilled.
He takes that law, knocks satan in the head, knocks him down, and then He comes out with the rest of the law and says oh by the way, the words I am speaking will be what is used against you in that day. Satan is knocked down and then He pulls out the Word of God and finishes satan off using the word of God, the very same thing that satan has been using against us. He comes in bronze, he comes in judgment and he says I’ve got the right to demand judgment, and I’m here to execute judgment, and I’ve got the sword to bring that judgment and the sword is the Word of God. The word says you’ve got to pay for your sins, and I’m going to execute judgment against the chosen people of God, and the verse was?
1 Corinthians 15:56.
“The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.”
“The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.” So, he uses the law to attack satan who is also a failure and he attacks him and he cuts his head off. First he knocks him in the head and then he cuts his head off. Now, Genesis 3:15. This is the protoevangelium, the first time the Gospel is taught. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” I like the King James where it says he will crush you on the head. We now have the picture of this being fulfilled. He picks up the law of sacrifice, whirls it around, smacks the guy in the head. The guy falls over. He is the one who has been trying to bring judgment and the word of God against us using the law as the power against our sins to overcome us and bring judgment. Instead, Jesus comes not to judge us, but to save us, just like David the beloved came not to judge the Israelites because they didn’t go down the hill and fight these guys, but he came and he saved these guys. He pulls out the law and says the law of sacrifice, bang, knocks the guy in the head. Satan is knocked down and then he says ah, here’s the Word of God that you’ve been using against my people and lobs his head off. Then David the beloved took this head and he puts it outside the city of Jerusalem, right outside the city of Jerusalem. Now, I want to read to you Mark chapter 15. Mark, John, and Matthew all say the same thing, but Mark says it the best. Mark 15:22. They’re talking about Jesus. “Then they brought him,” Jesus, “to a place called Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull.” Place of a Skull.
Most people read that and they make this assumption, that the hill they took him to must have been a hill that looked like a skull, but it didn’t say they took him to skull hill, they didn’t say they took him to the hill that looks like a skull. They took him to the Place of a Skull. Whose skull are they talking about? You say well, that was probably 400 years before Jesus ever shows up. You’ve got King David, the man, taking a skull of the giant which everybody feared in the whole area, goes to the Jebusite city, sets it out there and basically says I’m coming for you. He puts that skull out there so everybody in Jerusalem can see that skull. Now, in fulfillment of Genesis where he crushes the guy’s head, they take Him out and he is crucified outside the city at a Place of a Skull, the Place of a Skull. Not just any skull, of a skull.
Here He is the man, and they’ve been passing this story down for hundreds of years. This is the place where King David killed Goliath and drug his head and put it right there on that hill. That’s the Place of a Skull. Oh, you say, I doubt that. Well, most people don’t remember this. I do because I’m old. You tell anybody in this area, you go down route 50, you to go the big 4 and you turn south. Now, you go to the big 4 and you turn south. Do you guys all know where the big 4 is? Do you know why it’s the big 4? There are two of us who remember it. When I was a wee wee tot and she was a teenager if you drove through there, especially of a night, there was an oil company called the Big 4 oil company and it had a humungous number 4 and it was outlined in blue neon. So, when you were giving people directions… it wasn’t blue? Oh. Okay, we have one person that paid attention, and one person doesn’t remember it. There was a big sign there and it was a number 4. Do you remember that?
Yes.
And it was blue neon when I was a kid, and you would go to that blue neon sign and you would turn south or you would turn north and that’s how it got the name big 4. You go to the big 4 and you turn. What’s your story?
They told [indecipherable – you get there and there would be four hills and that’s why it was called the big 4?]
That’s what I thought until I remembered when I was a kid and there was a big 4 sticking up there. Do you remember the big 4?
Yes, I remember that.
You remember the sign?
Yes.
Yeah, and that’s why they call it the big 4 gas company now, Jeremy, but there was a big blue 4 that sat right on that corner on the northeast corner so you would go to the big 4 and you would turn. They would have said go to that hill, the Place of the Skull, called Golgotha. The word in Hebrew by the way does not say skull. It does not even really translate out that well. They believe that over time Golgotha was actually Goliath of Gath and as they said the name it got shortened down. Did you know that Geff even though it’s spelled with a G used to be Jefferson City and they just kept shortening it down until finally now we just call it Geff? So, when they were trying to say Golgotha they were actually Goliath of Gath and it just got shortened down, and they said that’s the best explanation of how that word Golgotha came along and why it’s translated the Place of the Skull is because they knew what that place was.
So, Jesus lives out the prophecy. There is a place where satan’s head has symbolically been placed outside the city of peace, outside the gate. Jesus is carried out to that same hill probably crucified and His blood drained on that hill that was the Place of the Skull which was symbolic of Genesis 3:15, “you will bruise his heel.” The body of Jesus Christ if He was as tall as I am would just be a small portion of God Almighty so that’s why he could say you will bruise His heel. He’ll be on the earth, you will bruise His heel, but his human body in comparison to all of His Godness is just a small portion, but when He comes and dies and uses the law against you He is going to crush your head. He is going to crush your power. He is going to put the weapons away. There is a place in the word where it says and He, let’s see if this is it, and it’s talking about Christ. If this isn’t it I’ll not say it because I can’t get it right. Okay, Colossians 2:15, “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.”
So just like David, the beloved crushed this guy’s skull and disarmed him and put the weapons in his tent, then he took the head and placed it over there prophetically that he was going to take that city and then in the future Christ would die at the Place of a Skull, that symbolically Jesus shed His blood showing that He was going to triumph over the skull that was the head that was laying there buried as dust in that earth. They might have buried it on that hill, I don’t know, but after they disarmed, they disarmed in Colossians 15, when He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them having triumphed over them. So, He disarmed them, made a public display of them triumphing over them. Now you say, “But he puts the weapons in his tent.” Remember Jesus said when I read that quote, “I didn’t come to judge. I’m telling you these words but I didn’t come to judge. You have another who will judge you, but in the future”, this is Doyle’s paraphrase, “In the future My words will be what judges you.”
The instruments, the Word of God is the instrument that whenever the big white throne is set up and the lake of fire and satan and his cohorts and all the people that did not accept Christ are judged they will be using the Word of God, the instrument, the sword of God which is stored away. Now the word is in heaven. It’s in the tent of heaven so Jesus is up there, the sword of God, and His sayings will be what is used on the day of judgment. So, once again, Goliath is playing the role of satan. He is dressed in judgment using the Word of God, the strength, the power of sin is the Word of God, it is the law, and he is using that against us and he is talking to them saying, “I’ve got power and I’m going to whip you people over there.” The chosen people of God are going, “Oh my goodness, we don’t want to go up against this guy. He’s got too much strength” Along comes beloved, drops onto the scene. He brought bread and I think cheese, and he says, “I’ll take him on” and he goes after him not with judgment, but he goes after him with a stone, which represents the law.
He picks it up, knocks the guy in the head, knocks satan in the head. The guy falls down, and then he takes the sword, which is the Word of God, which we use, that saying the Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, it can cut both ways. Satan has been using it to try to attack us. Jesus disarms him, lobs his head off and goes to the city of peace where eventually He will die and make peace between us and God, and we are the chosen ones just like the Israelites were the chosen ones. We are going to be the chosen ones and our sins are forgiven, and then off in the future His words will be what is used to judge Satan, his cohorts and all the people that did not accept Christ as their personal savior.
His head becomes a prophecy that, just like Goliath, is wiped out Jesus is going to crush that guy’s head, and I believe it’s on the same hill that David set that skull and those people knew about it and they put Him on the Place of a Skull. Not a hill that looked like a skull, but a Place of a Skull, and I believe it’s Goliath’s skull.
If you guys don’t have any questions, we can close and go home 10 minutes early. Chuck, would you close for us?