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[0:00] territory. For the first time in the nation of Israel, they're on the offensive rather than defensive. That is, they're moving outside and kind of gaining more land of what God had called them to do. But David's the right man for the right time. But one of the things that we looked at is David is not the man for all time. That is, he is the man for that time, but he's not the one we're looking for, right? He is the type of the one to come, the fulfillment, the greater fulfillment who is Jesus Christ. Now, there's one translator note I want you to see here where it speaks of Elhanan killing Goliath. And the question is, well, who killed Goliath? Was it David or was it Elhanan?

[0:42] And we got this question, right? Because it's in the text and Bible translators and Bible scholars answer it in different ways. Some people say, well, Elhanan is just another name for David as a lot of people had two names. I don't think that's correct. Some say that there were two giants named Goliath, and that's a possibility. It could absolutely happen that way. But when you open up 1 Chronicles chapter 20, you read of Elhanan also killing this giant, and his name there is a little bit different because we find out from there that this is the brother of Goliath, right? So more than likely, the accurate translation. Now, you say, well, does this cast doubt upon scripture? No. There's some things we lose when we go from the original language into the English language, okay? It doesn't cast doubt. It's just that we are reliant going from Hebrew to English and all the things that it takes to get there. We're relying upon translators. More than likely, the most accurate translation is the Elhanan, the Bethlehemite, killed the brother of Goliath. And we know his name that is recorded for us in 1 Chronicles 20. So don't get hung up on that, okay? When we're just looking at it. But we see these matters that are going on. We see four giants being killed in this passage. And it would be really cool to look over there and go, wow, David and his mighty men, they killed all the giants. And that's pretty astounding. But the reason I have to approach these passages, and the reason it keeps going in my mind is, I know it's kind of hard. You don't want to say it. You don't want to go to it.

[2:10] So what? You know? Why is it there? Why do we need to know these things? Why are these matters important to us? This evening, and I'll try to make my way through it very quickly, is these are momentary victories of a temporary king. These are momentary victories of a temporary king. What we see is this reminder that David's not the one we're looking for, right? He's not the be-all, end-all.

[2:41] He prospers. He's a man after God's own heart. But don't forget that word. Man after God's own heart. Right? He is still limited in his scope. He's still limited in his stance. Now, we know that on our end of things because we've read the accounts of Bathsheba.

[3:01] We've read the accounts of the troubles within his household. We've read all the accounts. We'll get to the 24th chapter, and we'll read again of the sin of David that leads to the death of thousands of the people of Israel. We understand these things. But we give him credit where credit is due. And this is one of the things that I'm so astounded and amazed with in Scripture is that Scripture consistently uses flawed individuals to fulfill the purposes and plans of God. And it gives us hope, and it gives us purpose. But it also is very transparent and shows us these people in their true light. Because lest we put this individual on a pedestal, we are reminded that's not the one we're looking for. That's not the hope of all mankind. He was the right king at the right time, but he's not the king we're looking for for all times. And we consistently meet that. When we meet these, what we call heroes of the faith, right? Every one of them are flawed. Every one of them have shortcomings. I mean, an anger problem.

[4:06] He admits later on, right? He gets really upset. And John Mark, he's so upset to the point he doesn't want anything to do with him. And he said, oh, don't say it's blasphemy for me to say that Paul had anger problems. He did. He was flawed, right? This is why the longer he walks with Christ, we'll see this week, this Sunday, we'll go back to the book of Ephesians, and we'll be in Ephesians chapter 3, and Paul refers to himself as the least of all the saints, right? Why? Because he knew who he was.

[4:35] But yet what we see is we are amazed at what these people accomplished, but we're reminded that these are just temporary victories. These are, you know, wondrous victories, but they're just for a moment, and they belong to a temporary king, because we're looking for something more. The first thing we notice, we'll make our way through them really quick, and that way we have time to do everything else we need to see here, but the first thing that we notice is there's this lingering influence of the enemy, right? There's this lingering influence, and it's consistent. It keeps going on and on and on.

[5:13] In the passage, we read, and then the Philistines were there, right? We see it in 15th verse. When the Philistines were at war again with Israel, and then we read it again a little bit later, and now it came about after this, that there was a war again with the Philistines, and then there was war with the Philistines, and then there was war with the Philistines, right? The Philistines are representative of the enemies of the people of God. It was the Philistines in which Samson was to begin to deliver his people from the hand of the Philistines. He would never finally and fully deliver them. It was the Philistines in which Samson's birth was announced that God said through his angel that he would begin to deliver. It was the Philistines that David fought against so often. It was the Philistines in which Goliath was from. It was the Philistines that were representative of always being what we would call a thorn in the flesh of the people of Israel because they always seem to show up, and they're constantly there. And one thing we notice is the first battle that David wins is against the Philistines. Goliath, right? It's 1 Samuel 17. Nobody else would fight him, but here he's the champion of the Philistine army. And David goes out and he fights him, and he wins the battle, and that's the first one. And from that point on, David is constantly fighting these people. But one thing that we notice is that they just don't go away, right? Every time we turn around, the enemy's there. And every time we turn around, it seems as if the enemy is kind of coming at you because even in this passage, we don't know where Goliath is. Nobody can find it. Nobody's located it. Nobody knows. But it appears from the passage that three of the four encounters of the Philistines in this passage happened on Israelite soil. That is, the enemy kept invading their land.

[6:59] And the enemy would invade them. They would defeat them. The enemy would invade them. They would defeat them. The enemy would invade them. They would defeat them. Now, the last one is in Gath. That's Philistine territory. So now the nation of Israel is pushing back there. But we're just reminded here that as good as David was militaristically, as good of a leader as he was and a king as he was in expanding the kingdom, no one encompassed more land than David other than his son Solomon. And Solomon's reign in the land began to dwindle very quickly. He began to be taken captive by other peoples, right? But as good as David was, as valiant as he was, as strong as the military was under his rule, even he couldn't finally and fully deliver them from the enemy. The enemy just kept lingering.

[7:54] It was there. Because the longing of all mankind, now we know our enemy is not the Philistines, right? We have an enemy of our soul who prowls around roaring like a lion seeking whom he may devour and destroy. But the longing of mankind is for a king that would deliver full and free from the enemy. A king that can defeat the enemy and the enemy no longer have power and no longer be present, no longer be able to attack. David's not that king. He's a temporary king of a temporary time who wins some great victories. But we don't just laud him and praise him because his victories were not lasting. We know that. We have a king, however, that when he said it is finished really meant it's finished. We have a king, the king of kings and lord of lords, that when he came out of the tomb, it says he took the keys of death, hell, and the grave with him. We have a king who is fully and finally defeated his enemy. We are reminded in the book of Revelations that when the abyss is unlocked and the demons come out of the abyss and they wreak havoc upon the earth, the author of the book of

[9:10] Revelations, who is John, says this, that the reason they wreak such havoc is because they know their time is limited, right? They know they are defeated. And that's amazing because Jesus is not a king who delivers and then has to go back and fight the battle again and then go back and fight the battle again and go back and fight the battle again. He is not a king who has to continuously defeat these giants. He's the king who in one stroke completely defeated the enemy. But with David, that's not the case.

[9:44] There's just this lingering influence that's there. And we understand that with Christ, he is the full fulfillment of that king who has set us free. The second thing we notice is not only the lingering influence of the enemy, we see the limitations of all mankind or all men. It tells us very early in this passage that there was a time when the Philistines came to war with the nation of Israel and David is there. Now, you know David, right? David made a name for himself first and foremost in the military campaign. We continuously reference 1 Samuel 17 because prior to that time, David was a ruddy young man who was a shepherd out in the field killing a bear and a lion. Sure, he's done all those things and Bible translators have tried their best to figure out what ruddy means. Some think it means good looking. Some think it means handsome. Some think it means strong. We really, really don't know. But he's a ruddy young man who's a shepherd out in the field. Up to that point, he's just a young guy that nobody thinks about until he shows up on the battle scene that nobody will face this giant named Goliath.

[10:48] By the way, hold on to that theme. We'll get to that later. Nobody will face him. And then David says, well, I'll take him on because he knew God's character. He trusted in God. He said, this man has nothing to do with me. He's defying God. And you know the count, right? He picks up five smooth stones, puts them in his pouch. We can't miss the parallels there because Goliath is one and these other ones are the rest of those, right? We'll get to that in just a minute. Here's the five in full. So he picks up five smooth stones and he goes and he fights this battle. David makes a name for himself on the battlefield because Saul says, who is that? And whose son is that? And he wants to know who that is. And it's not long after that, they sing songs about Saul. I mean, about Saul and about David. Saul has slain his thousands. David is slain his tens of thousands. I mean, David is a warrior of all warriors, right? He excels. You remember Saul gets jealous of him. So Saul makes him, Saul demotes him, right?

[11:38] He made him head of his army. He, and then he puts him on the front lines of his army. And when he puts him on the front lines of his army, David goes out and wins more battles. He brings in more foreskins of the Philistines than Saul and anticipated. I mean, David is a warrior. Don't, don't miss that, right? He is strong. He has mighty men around him that are probably not the men most people want to hang around, but he has been with him, right? They hang out with him in the caves and the strongholds and all this other, what's so cool, by the way, the next passage, uh, second Samuel 22, as David hung out in the strongholds, he says, the Lord, his God is a stronghold. It wasn't the caves that were the stronghold. It wasn't the hills. It wasn't the cliffs of the rock. The Lord, his God was his rock.

[12:22] But anyway, we see David, this mighty warrior, the king. And then we encounter this passage that hears David, took the head off Goliath with a sling and a stone and used Goliath's own sword, took Goliath's sword, right? Did all these cool things. But it says, then there's a day where he gets in battle and David gets tired. I mean, he wears out and he's fighting against the Philistines.

[12:47] And one of the Philistine giants, they don't care about anybody else because David's the king. He was going to kill David. He had a spear, weighed seven and a half pounds. That's the equivalent. He saw him and was going to kill David. But then Abishiae, David's nephew, who later on lets David down a lot, killed the giant to spare his life. And in that moment, we're reminded of the humanity of David. Because he doesn't lose. And all of a sudden, he's tired and he can't fight anymore. And it takes somebody else delivering him from the hand of this giant. Why? Because all mankind has limitations. Right? He's not a king that's eternal. He's not a king who's omnipotent.

[13:47] He's not a king who's all-powerful, who does not get tired or grow weary. We learn some things from this. First one's very clear application is all men need other men around them and women too.

[14:02] You know, everybody needs somebody else around them because there'll always be a day where we get tired. It's something, this is theme we see consistent in scriptures. You can't do it alone.

[14:13] You can't walk alone. Faith is a community exercise. It's a corporate event. It's always seen that. We see the reality of this, right? If David had not had anybody with him when he was fighting a battle, then life would have been ended right there. We also see that evidently age and time catches up with everybody because they tell David, hey, you can't go out to battle with us anymore.

[14:40] I mean, you can't fight. We can't bring you to the battlefield because you're going to die in the battlefield and you will put out the light of Israel. That is, you know, our hope is in the king and they're going to die in battle. So from that moment on, David couldn't go out to fight. So now all of a king, a warrior king who's no longer fit to fight. Why? Because all men are limited. David dies. David hands the kingdom over to Solomon. Solomon dies and hands the kingdom over to his son. Boom, ba, boom, ba, boom, ba, boom, ba, boom, right? We keep going on the limitations of all men. But the anticipation, the hope that we have is we want a king that will not fail us. We want a king that will not grow weary or grow tired. And we see that in Christ, right? It creates this long.

[15:30] We see that. It creates this long. And as we want a king who doesn't get weary on the battlefield, I want to follow one who, who I know won't wear out. And there will not be a day where I have to look at him and say, you know what, king, it's probably better. You stay home. We have this longing.

[15:50] We want an eternal king. We want an everlasting king, an all-powerful king, one who does not falter, one who does not fail, one who does not slumber, one who does not sleep, one who does not grow weary, one who does not worn out. And we have that in Christ. See, David's the type, but he's not the fulfillment. We're reminded in this passage, he needed others. When we read the rest of scripture, we see that all others forsook Christ and he did it all, right? And he did it for those who forsook him and neglected him. And he went to the battlefield and won it all. See, when we see some really cool victories, we are reminded that they didn't last. But when we look at Christ, he's the king, his victories endure and he, he always lasts. Third and finally, we'll get to the good news of the passage, which is challenging to each and every one of us. It is the legacy of victory carried forward.

[16:52] There's this lingering impact of the enemy. There's the limitations of all men. And there's this legacy of victory that seems to be carried forward. We read this passage. I don't know about you, but it amazes me that before David, not a man Israel would fight a giant. Remember, Saul was head and shoulders above everyone else. Saul had the army of the host of heaven. He had Israel with him. When David showed up on the battlefield, every one of them were coward and fearful. Goliath would taunt them and they would all go back. Nobody, I mean, nobody would fight Goliath. Not Saul, not David's brothers, nobody.

[17:46] In the entire nation of Israel, there was not a man willing to go face and fight a giant. David did it in a moment. Moved by the spirit, led by the Lord, sure, he did it in a moment.

[18:00] But by the time we get to the end of David's life, we see at least four other men killing giants. Same nation, same people group, same God, right? Same commitment. What's the difference?

[18:19] Is that the certainty that David had in the battle evidently was passed on to his people around him. The confidence that he had when facing a giant was passed down to the ones who fought alongside of him.

[18:36] He had an impact and an influence over their lives. His mighty men did some astounding things. We've looked at how awesome it was that they would take their stand in a barley field and swing their sword until their hand got tired. How they would go into a pit on a snowy day and kill a lion.

[18:50] How they would kill other men with a, they killed the Egyptian with his own spear. How they would do that. And then we see here, all of a sudden, now we've got four of them killing giants. And every one of the descendants of the giants are taken off. And they're all by David and his men.

[19:03] Why? Because of the impact of one individual. A.W. Tozer used to say, water never rises above its source. The reason nobody in Saul's army would go fight the giant is because Saul wouldn't go fight the giant.

[19:22] You're only going to be as good as those that are leading you. And you're only going to be as good as those that you pet around you. Water never rises above its source. And when we look at it that way, the reality is that each and every one of us are the source for someone.

[19:37] So when we take inventory and we see those around us, and we see what they will and they will not do, the steps they are and they are not taken, then we realize it's because we've kept the water table way down low.

[19:54] Right? David expected to win the battle when he went out to fight Goliath. And then he bred into his people in expectation that God would deliver them from the giants. It's one thing to kill the giants in your own life.

[20:06] It's a whole other thing to lead other people to kill the giants in their lives. Right? It's astounding. You win some victories in your life, that's amazing. But when you walk in such a way that other people are influenced and led to win victories in their life, that's a legacy.

[20:25] And it's that legacy of impact. Right? Of moving other people to do what they once thought was impossible.

[20:37] Why? Because of the faith that David possessed in the Lord his God. He passed it on. David led his men to the point that they would kill giants.

[20:52] Let's continue our parallel. Christ led his people to the point that they would evangelize the world. Right?

[21:06] The works that I do, you will do. He left a legacy that continues today. It hasn't changed. Right? He challenged them. He showed them to minister and to missions.

[21:19] That they would press forward doing the same things he had done. The legacy of the church throughout the ages, though darkened in spots where it got really off course, always called back because God always had his people that would call it back to faith.

[21:34] But the legacy is the continuation of what Christ was doing and is doing through his people. The ministering and the missions and the witnessing of Christ and the glories of heaven.

[21:46] It is continuing the same thing. We see David's men doing what David was doing. Throughout history, we see Christ's people doing what Christ is doing. Because water never rises above its source.

[21:58] But when your source is the wellspring of water of life, how much further we have to go. Right? And we see this. With David, there are momentary victories of a temporary king.

[22:11] But with Christ, there is the eternal purpose of an eternal king. And he calls us to walk in that, not just to celebrate these momentary victories.

[22:22] And we see it recorded for us in 2 Samuel 21, verses 15 through 22. We're not going to pray right now. We'll take some time to pray here in just a moment.

[22:32] I'm going to let Hunter come up and share with you guys. He's going to share with you what his prior time has been. And then what his expectation is.

[22:43] It's going back tomorrow up to Nashville. And then about Saturday. But I'll let him share that with you. And then when he gets done, we're going to take some time to pray together.

[22:54] We'll pray over our prayer list. But we'll also pray over Hunter and the matters that are going on there. So, I really want you to come. Thank you.

[23:48] Thank you.