Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on July 27, 2008
By Captain Michael Ramsay
(Note: below is just the written text. The actual spoken sermon turned out to be very different - the Lord is good. The Lord is faithful.)
Friday Susan, the girls and I headed out to the Silver Stream fair – the Connaught fair. That is near where my grandma grew up. We even saw the old school and the old bell from those days. Afterwards we headed out to the Silver Stream cemetery and saw where some of our relatives’ were laid to rest.
This area of Saskatchewan has real significance for me and it always has even before we ever lived here. It is part of our history. It is a part of our family. It is a part of our life. Last week too, my mom’s cousin who owns a farm in the New Osgood area came to our church in Tisdale with a nephew who is helping him out for the summer. They invited us back to the farm afterwards. This was neat. The girls loved seeing the cows up so close. I enjoyed talking to my mom’s cousin and seeing where our family’s first quarter of land was in the area, where the old homestead was; I saw where my grandfather went to school and the old cemetery there where the remains of some of my relatives were laid to rest. North East Saskatchewan, New Osgood, Silver Stream, this whole area from Tisdale to Nipawin is my family’s old stomping ground and the kids and I are really enjoying getting to know it and a bit more about our roots.
For all of us, our history and the things we learn from our Christian family traditions are very important roots from which to draw for generations to come. Likewise, upbringings in anti-Christian households are many times a struggle to get over that can be every bit as brutal as any addiction. Traditions, roots, history, good and bad, generational curses and generational blessing have bearings on us all and they had a bearing on the patriarchs, on Moses, on David and on Solomon. David did not want Solomon to forget his roots.
David inherited a significant covenant blessing (2 Samuel 7) and in the first few chapters of 1 Kings here we see that Solomon receives for himself a part of that blessing – albeit conditionally. Now David, as sure as he was a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14), was still just a man and he was not necessarily the best father in the world but he is still the vehicle for the blessing of Israel and indeed the world.
David was to have a descendant sit on the throne forever and now he does in the person of Jesus, the Christ. David himself was one of the most powerful kings that Israel would ever have and the founder of a dynasty that would last without a break for the millennium and now with the advent of Christ, the re-established kingdom will ultimately last forever. King David was a man after God’s own heart. God loved him and in his early days he followed the Lord religiously sought the Lord’s council in everything he did, and was walking in a strong relationship with YHWH. These are the roots that David wants to pass to Solomon, to the people of Israel.
Remember that Solomon wasn’t even born though before much of David’s heroic deeds had been accomplished already. He wasn’t born until long after David was made King of both Judah and Israel; until after a civil war or two; and until after the relocation of the capital city to Jerusalem but still Solomon must have heard the stories about his father, his history, and his roots when he was growing up.
He must have heard the stories about how his father and his cousins (Aunt Zeruiah’s kids – Joab, Abishai and Asahel) how they lived their life on the edge for a long time fighting as mercenaries and committing all sorts of heroic acts. He must have heard about how David was anointed as a young shepherd boy and then rose to be King of this Kingdom. He must have heard the stories about how his dad had slain the giant Goliath and about how he was victorious in the civil war. He must have heard how his dad loved and served YHWH.[1] These are part of his roots. These are a part of our roots as believers. These are his (our) good roots.
But there are other roots that Solomon has as well. When the princes were growing up, the King, David, was not around, which may explain some of their rebellion against him. There were some problems too when Dad, David was around. You remember how David met Solomon’s mom right? – Bathsheeba? She was bathing on a rooftop, he saw her, he wanted her, she slept with her and then he murdered her husband.
David had his warts (and some pretty serious ones at that) but they key is that he repented as repentance is needed and he indeed is remembered as a man after God’s own heart. This repentance is an important part of David and his life and his heritage for his descendents (It is one of the major differenced between he and King Saul.).
In our story today, the king is now long past his effectiveness however. He is impotent politically and in other ways as well (1 Kings 1:2-4). He is dying. He has been persuaded by the prophet Nathan and by Solomon’s mother to make Solomon king (1 Kings 1:11ff) and as he does so he gives an important charge to his son, his successor, as he tells him not to forget his roots, he says:
1Ki 2:2ff “I am about to go the way of all the earth,” he said. “So be strong, show yourself a man, 1Ki 2:3 and observe what the LORD your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go, 1Ki 2:4 and that the LORD may keep his promise to me: ‘If your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’
These are important words of advice that David passes on to his successor, to his son, as he is leaving office for the final time. These are words that should stick with Solomon his whole life because look – this is important - 1Ki 2:4: the promise - that is part of his roots – the promise that Solomon is inheriting with his Kingship – the promise which relates through 2 Samuel 7:16 all the way back to Genesis Chapter 11 (verses 3) where it says that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through Abraham – this promise here is conditional. David tells Solomon that ‘IF your descendants watch how they live, and IF they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’ This is important and it is meant to frame his entire kingship.
I don’t know if you have ever had moments like that that stick with you forever. When I was a teenager I had a very close group of friends. We were a diverse group of teenagers. We – not unlike David and his men at times, I’m sure - were both rebellious and ‘good kids’ all at the same time. Sure we may have skipped class once to often, and done some other bad things in those days but many of us did pray, read the Bible, talk to and about God a lot and / or go to church. I came to know the Lord as a young child and that has always been the important part of my roots.
When we were teenagers, we were still used by God to good effect, when we remembered to put Him first of course. This is the time in my life where I can actually relate to David quite well. I was certainly a part of the late night partying crowd, whose members got in trouble but – and I praise the Lord for it – as I was there, I was able to spend many teenage nights staying up all night talking to my friends who had lost family members, who had been arrested, who found out they were pregnant, who were in trouble. I was able to stay up all night leading my friends to the cross of Jesus Christ.
The Lord put me where He would use me and just as He used others to minister to me,when I was in crisis, He used me to help out my friends. Through a series of crises we had become very close to each other and I had become even closer to my Lord. I remember when I was coming to the end of those days of strong fellowship and beginning new days of post-secondary education.
God speaks to me though a friend and I will never forget it. I can remember just before I went of to College where – separated from my intimate friends - my struggles and my whole life would be very different. I remember walking along the street talking with Trevor – an old friend – we were talking about the things that 18 year-olds talked about cars, girls, politics, God, when all of a sudden Trevor –out of nowhere - tells me not to forget my roots. “Don’t forget your roots,” he says, as I go off to school.
This was to be very important for me to hear. As I went off to Teacher training, then into the business world, as I started to build a career in the business, education and publishing magazines, as I was establishing businesses and running colleges, Trevor’s words came back to me, “don’t forget your roots.”
Don’t forget your roots. For me this meant a lot. For me my roots and helping friends in crisis and telling them about Jesus. And indeed for all of us who share a Christian heritage these are our roots as well. We mustn’t forget our roots. We mustn’t forget what God has done through our ancestors in the Bilbe, Moses, Abraham, David. We mustn’t forget what the Lord has done through us and we musn’t forget our roots which are indeed Jesus Christ and the Gospel of Salvation. We mustn’t forget these roots.
It is important too for Solomon to remember his family’s, his ancestors roots of serving God - particualrly if the promise that Solomon inherits is conditional – while how does Solomon do at observing what the LORD our God requires: Walking in his ways, and keeping his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses. How does he do at remembering these roots of the Law of Moses?
As a young ruler Solomon genuinely asks YHWH for wisdom. When he is still a young ruler, Solomon begins work on the temple in Jerusalem so that people can come from all over Israel to worship God in this magnificent structure. That’s good. It is gigantic building - but interestingly – Solomon makes his own house even bigger (1 Ki 5-8).
But as Solomon gets older, instead of looking to his roots and looking out for the poor, the needy, and the oppressed, he divides the historical tribes of Israel and makes slaves of his own people so that he can do all this building.[2]
He promotes the worship of other gods and Solomon even disobeys the command from God not to intermarry and not to get horses from Egypt (Cf. Deut 7:1-6; 17; 20:16-18; Joshua 9; Judges 2:1-5) and in all likelihood Solomon uses these and his chariots as weapons of war against his own people. Solomon, 1 Kings 11:6 says, Solomon, “he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done.” He seems to have forgotten his roots.
1 Kings 11:9 says, “The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD… So the LORD said to Solomon, "Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees… I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you.” King Solomon did not ‘defend the cause of the poor of the people, deliver the needy, and crush the oppressor’. He did not remember his roots and the united Kingdom of Israel died with him.[3]
Solomon was promised so much if he would just follow the Lord but instead he was led astray by his wives and his disobedience and indeed he lost his complete inheritance – it was torn from him.[4] Solomon – as we will see as we read through 1 Kings fails and war and division come to his country again as Solomon forgets his roots.
But God saves us all – He saves whosever will be saved - in spite of the fact that Solomon did not live up to his potential, of course. Even though Solomon falls, the Lord still blesses the world through Abraham (cf. Genesis 12-17) and God still has David’s descendent, Jesus, sitting on His throne forever. The Lord is faithful; like the good news of Romans 3:3,4 says, “what if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means!” By no means! The Lord is still faithful.
The atonement offered through Jesus’ death and resurrection was a general atonement for ‘whosoever may be saved.’ God is faithful in this and if we are unfaithful like Solomon, it cannot change that faithfulness of God but it may effect our reaping of the benefits.
Solomon lost the Kingdom for his son because he forgot his roots of David, Moses, Abraham, the Word of God and YHWH. Well, how can we avoid that same trap? How can we avoid that separation from God?
We can do this by remembering our roots. We can remember our roots by sharing testimonies with each other, by telling what the Lord has done in our lives. We can remember our roots by reading our Bibles and seeing what the Lord has done for and through Abraham, Moses, Israel, and throughout history. We can remember our roots by coming to the Lord and praying, talking to him. We can remember our roots; we can turn to the Lord and live.
- shorter version ends here-
-longer ending continued below-
This is like we learned in studying King Saul recently (1 Samuel 28 & 29). People fail. When we try to do things on our own we fail. We know this from Solomon and we know this in our own lives. We know that some people choose the devastating consequences that come from serving themselves and making their decisions by doing what they see as right in their own eyes instead (Judges 21:25) and thus separating themselves from God, instead of seeking the Lord through prayer and study. We know that some people, like the Israelites in the desert (Number 13), die outside of the promised inheritance that is there just waiting for us (repeat). We know that we, like Solomon, if we fail to serve the Lord, we can fail to possess this inheritance.
But we know also from the stories of Abraham (Gen 12-17), Samson (Judges 13-16), and David (1&2 Samuel) – of whom we have read lately - that no matter what happens, the Lord is always faithful. He never gives we don’t have to die outside of the promise, we don’t have to because He NEVER gives up on us. He NEVER gives up on us.
This is an important thing to remember. So let’s remember our roots as people of God. Let us remember as Abraham, Samson, David, and other heroes of the faith did (Hebrews 11) – who even though they all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) – as they repented, as they turned to God they were saved. So then as Jesus proved himself faithful by dying on the cross because of our unfaithfulness, let us turn to him in faithful obedience, remember our roots, call upon the Lord, and be saved.
May all that come behind us find us faithful.
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[1] Captain Michael Ramsay. 2 Samuel 13-18: Taking Matters in His Own Hands: the Story of Prince Absalom. Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps November 18, 2007. Available on-line at: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/11/2-samuel-13-18-taking-matters-in-his.html
[2] He makes slaves of everyone in the country EXCEPT the ones from his home province. He doesn’t make the people from Judah, his own tribe, do any of the work. Right, that would be like Harper saying everyone starting tomorrow must spend two years doing hard labour – except Toronto, Ontario, where he was born – and we in Saskatchewan or wherever, you must make up the difference.
[3] Captain Michael Ramsay. Psalm 72: The Credit Card of Justice and Righteousness. Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps July 01, 2007. Available on-line at: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/08/psalm-72-credit-card-of-justice-and.html
[4] This has consequences because remember too that this covenant that Solomon has transgressed relates to the covenant that a descendant of David will never fail to sit on the throne (2 Samuel 7) and that all the nations of the earth will be blessed though Abraham (Genesis 11:3). The promised salvation from God was intermingled into this commission to Solomon and Solomon has let down his father, Solomon has let down his sons, Solomon is a disappointment to his roots, and Solomon has let down even all the inheritors of this promise including you and me.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
I Samuel 31 2-4: the Arrows of the Enemy
Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on July 13, 2008
By Captain Michael Ramsay
Did you ever have one of those days when nothing seems to go right? I remember my first day of University. It was big deal. I attended community college before but heading off to University is still quite intimidating. Moving from a small campus, which the college I went to was, (it had only three buildings on its campus and just a few people in those days) to the big University was quite significant.
UVic was a lot different from Camosun. It is much bigger: UVic has a population of about 20 000 people!1 If UVic was here, it would be the one of the larger cities in the whole province! It is a little intimidating. There are so many buildings, so many people, so much to know.
I try to be prepared though. I go to the campus the day before. I have people show me the building that my classes would be in. I have people show me how read the boards in order to find my classes. I even print out my class lists a whole month before so that I will know when and where my classes are. I have all my books. I put gas in car the night before. I am ready. I am already.
The next day – my alarm doesn’t go off! When I wake up and look at my clock it is five minutes before class is supposed to start; so, I run out the front door as fast as I can and I jump in my car, I turn the ignition and…nothing. I turn it again and…nothing. I turn it again…nothing. Nothing. At this point I am quite upset and am actually practising my creative English skills quite a bit – if you know what I mean.
I run back into my house and call everyone I can think of who has a car. I finally get a hold of Dan who comes and drives me to the school. I run across the campus to the education building. I frantically try to find the class that I am in and try to sneak in the back door without being found out. No luck, I am caught. I am half an hour late for an hour-long class on my first day of school at the big university. I try to elude capture but I am caught. I am caught and the teacher draws attention to me. All I want to do is hide and the teacher is having fun drawing attention to me. I just want to sit down. I just want to hide in the back but my teacher has caught me trying to hide and is targeting me to make a point about punctuality and I am caught. I am vulnerable and in front of the whole class, she is exploiting my tardiness.
I am quite embarrassed by the time she is done shooting me with these arrows of humiliation. When I am finally released from the front of the class to go to sit down as the teacher asks for my name to check it off the list.
“Michael Ramsay,” I say.
“Michael Ramsay?”
“Yes, Michael Ramsay”
“…There is no Michael Ramsay on the list.” I look around again…the students all have musical instruments. This is a music class. Not only am I half an hour late for class – I am half an hour late for the WRONG class. I am embarrassed. I am really embarrassed and I just want to hide.
In our story today we read about Saul when he is caught and he is unable to hide. The archers have found him and they are exploiting his weakness; he was in the wrong class at the wrong time and the teacher, the archers have found him.
1 Samuel 31: 1-6: Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.
Saul said to his armour-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me."
But his armour-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it. When the armour-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. So Saul and his three sons and his armour-bearer and all his men died together that same day.
Saul was a man who took so much of his decisions… he took so much of his life in his own hands. Remember when he was about to be made King; what does he do? He, taking matters into his own hands, hides among the baggage (1 Samuel 10:22).
Remember when Samuel was apparently late for offering the sacrifice, what does he do (1 Samuel 13:8-13)? He takes matters into his own hands and offers the sacrifice himself.
Remember when David, the son of Jesse, is anointed and makes friends of King Saul’s children (1 Samuel 16:1-13, 18:28-29), what does he do (1 Samuel 19-30)? He takes matters –and a spear - into his own hand and tries to kill both David (1 Samuel 18:10) and his son with the spear (1 Samuel 20:33).
Remember - just before the battle of today’s passage - when he wouldn’t wait any longer for an answer from the Lord, what does he do? Saul takes matters into his own hands, and consults the witch at Endor (1 Samuel 28). Now Saul is pressed from all sides. It looks like there is no hope for escape and what does Saul do? He takes matters in his own hands; he takes his life by his own hand (but cf. 1 Samuel 16:14). Saul dies.2
So what do we do when life is pressing us from all sides? What do we do when various arrows come flying at us?
What about the arrows of embarrassment and fear of failure? I was humiliated in that music class and honestly, it was difficult for me. You see I can be quite competitive and in post-secondary (when I was in my early 20s). I had developed almost a fear of failure and so whenever I ran into a situation in where I might not be able succeed at the level I had set for myself, I would pour more and more time into it. I would pour more and more of my own effort into it. Don’t mistake what I am saying here about that: work ethic is important and good things come out of hard work. 3
There is a problem with this though and the problem with this is the one we learned from Ecclesiastes and 1 Samuel 17: the battle is not to the strong and the race is not to the swift (Eccl. 9:11); the battle belongs to the Lord (1 Sam 17:47). When we forget this and when we try to do things just on our own strength, when we try to do everything on our own and when we fail, we are often destroyed.
I had a friends of mine who responded to University just like I did by pouring her whole being into her courses. When she did fail – whatever she considered failure – she felt utterly destroyed. She tries to drown herself when she doesn’t do as well as she had hoped. She recovers and is doing really well these many years later but at this time, she was as utterly destroyed as Saul and his sons on Mt Gilboa, when the arrows found them.
What about other arrows that the Enemy fires at us? What about the arrows of death and loneliness? These are arrows that strike many of us when we try to defend against them on our own. I have heard many stories of husbands who die shortly after their wives pass away for just that reason. The one they love is gone and when they try to deal with that on their own, they can’t. I know of people, who have never drank before, who become alcoholics on the passing of a spouse. These arrows of death and lonliness are powerful arrows that can cut any of us down and when we are found fighting on our own strength, we will fall.
What about the arrows of wealth and success?4 Isn’t true that even many of us here today can get so caught up in the business or the trappings of the wealth and success (and I don’t care who we are in this country – even the poorest person in this country lives in the wealthiest per cent of the world) of our society that we can forget God; we can forget about prayer and we can forget about the Bible? Isn’t it true that instead of building a solid relationship with our Lord and Saviour that we can be distracted by things that it seems our wealth provides, like work, gardening, hobbies, TV, family, or even boredom? Isn’t it true that we can be so distracted by the affluence of North American society that sometime we can forget about the shelter our Messiah offers and sometimes we can walk straight out into the arrows of the Enemy; sometimes we can be separated from our Lord and sometimes – maybe - some even die.
I am reminded of a storybook that my daughters have about two real life women pirates. They love the fact that the heroes are girls! (As I’m sure some of the people here do as well!) The heroes are strong women. They are pirates and they are on a very successful pirate ship. They, as well as the male captain and all the male crew, are getting quite wealthy and quite proud and quite content.
One day the two lady pirates are on duty on deck while all the men are drinking, gambling and indulging themselves below - they’re slacking off. They’re slacking off and a ship from the British Royal Navy (the superpower of their day) shows up. The women man the battle stations. The women call the men. The men don’t come up. The women call the men again. The men still won’t come up. (There must be a game on!) The men are too busy drinking, gambling – slacking off. The Navy vessel is getting closer and closer. The women call and the women call but the men, the men remain beneath the deck eating, drinking, gambling – they are just slacking off. They never come up. The soldiers board the ship and take almost everyone captive. The women fight to save the lives of their comrades and themselves but they are captured and – had they not been spared because tehy were pregnant – they would have died on the gallows with all their men folk because the men preferred to indulge themselves rather than to keep a lookout.
This is like Saul. He had many chances to return to the Lord. In many of the episodes that we read, he could have repented; he could have turned to the Lord. When he was about to be made King, he could have repented from hiding among the baggage (1 Samuel 10:22). When he took matters into his own hands and made the sacrifice for himself, he could have repented and cried out before the Lord (1 Samuel 13). When he wouldn’t wait any longer for an answer from the Lord, instead of taking matters into his own hands and consulting the witch at Endor (1 Samuel 28), he could have repented; he could have turned; he could have called upon the Lord tirelessly, without ceasing (Cf. Luke 18:1-8). And Saul now as he is pressed from all sides and it looks like there is no hope for escape. Even in this last moment he could call upon the name of the Lord and be saved (cf. Acts 2:21) but instead he takes his life in his own hands. He took his life by his own hand.
This is what we must remember. We must remember what was spoken to us through David in 1 Samuel 17: the battle belongs to the Lord. We have to follow him. We can’t like those men on the pirate ship who give up keeping watch. No man (or woman) knows the time or hour of our Lord’s return. No one knows the time or hour when our name will individually be called. Some of us will live one hundred years. Some of us will live forty. Some of us will live more and some of us may live less.
Jesus, the scripture says, will return like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2). When he does the question to us will be: have we truly been serving Him or have we - by making our own decisions without consulting the Lord about our work, our family, or our health - have we been serving ourselves? When the Lord comes back, those of us who serve Him; when the Lord comes back, those of us who turn to Him; when the Lord comes back, those of us who realise like David did that the battle does belong to the Lord, we will be raised to eternal life in His Kingdom.
Those of us who continue to do things on our own though – like King Saul – those of us who continue to make up our own minds and continue to serve our own whims – those of us who serve ourselves instead of the Lord will not be in His kingdom but there is still good news: no matter how long we have been serving someone other than the Lord, it is not too late as long as we are still alive. It never too late to turn (repent); it is never too late to turn or return to the Lord. As long as we have a breath in us we can still be saved…and maybe Saul was. Samson in his dying moments, even though he took his life by his own hands, repented and earned his spot as a hero of the faith (Hebrews 11) and Saul may very well have done the same but we don't know that (his name is absent from the walk of fame) and I would encourage us not to leave it to the last moment at any regard. Why die in uncertainty? Why live in uncertainty? Instead, as His yoke is easy (Matthew 11:29), Let us all turn to the Lord today and be saved.
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1 http://www.canadian-universities.net/Universities/University-of-Victoria.html
2 Now to be fair, there is inter-play here between Saul not relying upon the Lord and the fact that the Lord sent an evil spirit to torment Saul. Saul rejected the Lord and the Lord rejected Saul. This interplay is somewhat reminiscent of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart at the time of the mass Israelite exodus from Egypt.
4 The depression that we just mentioned around the king, Saul, certainly is prevalent in our wealthy societies whereas it is almost non-existent in poorer nations. What about the Enemy’s arrows of wealth and success? I read a very good journal article recently that compared the actions of King Saul to a person diagnosed with depression and then they created interesting clinical test to see if the results could be duplicated and they could. It was very interesting. Is it just a coincidence that depression is most common in the post-Christian western world where whole societies almost seem to want to only rely on ourselves?
By Captain Michael Ramsay
Did you ever have one of those days when nothing seems to go right? I remember my first day of University. It was big deal. I attended community college before but heading off to University is still quite intimidating. Moving from a small campus, which the college I went to was, (it had only three buildings on its campus and just a few people in those days) to the big University was quite significant.
UVic was a lot different from Camosun. It is much bigger: UVic has a population of about 20 000 people!1 If UVic was here, it would be the one of the larger cities in the whole province! It is a little intimidating. There are so many buildings, so many people, so much to know.
I try to be prepared though. I go to the campus the day before. I have people show me the building that my classes would be in. I have people show me how read the boards in order to find my classes. I even print out my class lists a whole month before so that I will know when and where my classes are. I have all my books. I put gas in car the night before. I am ready. I am already.
The next day – my alarm doesn’t go off! When I wake up and look at my clock it is five minutes before class is supposed to start; so, I run out the front door as fast as I can and I jump in my car, I turn the ignition and…nothing. I turn it again and…nothing. I turn it again…nothing. Nothing. At this point I am quite upset and am actually practising my creative English skills quite a bit – if you know what I mean.
I run back into my house and call everyone I can think of who has a car. I finally get a hold of Dan who comes and drives me to the school. I run across the campus to the education building. I frantically try to find the class that I am in and try to sneak in the back door without being found out. No luck, I am caught. I am half an hour late for an hour-long class on my first day of school at the big university. I try to elude capture but I am caught. I am caught and the teacher draws attention to me. All I want to do is hide and the teacher is having fun drawing attention to me. I just want to sit down. I just want to hide in the back but my teacher has caught me trying to hide and is targeting me to make a point about punctuality and I am caught. I am vulnerable and in front of the whole class, she is exploiting my tardiness.
I am quite embarrassed by the time she is done shooting me with these arrows of humiliation. When I am finally released from the front of the class to go to sit down as the teacher asks for my name to check it off the list.
“Michael Ramsay,” I say.
“Michael Ramsay?”
“Yes, Michael Ramsay”
“…There is no Michael Ramsay on the list.” I look around again…the students all have musical instruments. This is a music class. Not only am I half an hour late for class – I am half an hour late for the WRONG class. I am embarrassed. I am really embarrassed and I just want to hide.
In our story today we read about Saul when he is caught and he is unable to hide. The archers have found him and they are exploiting his weakness; he was in the wrong class at the wrong time and the teacher, the archers have found him.
1 Samuel 31: 1-6: Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.
Saul said to his armour-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me."
But his armour-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it. When the armour-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. So Saul and his three sons and his armour-bearer and all his men died together that same day.
Saul was a man who took so much of his decisions… he took so much of his life in his own hands. Remember when he was about to be made King; what does he do? He, taking matters into his own hands, hides among the baggage (1 Samuel 10:22).
Remember when Samuel was apparently late for offering the sacrifice, what does he do (1 Samuel 13:8-13)? He takes matters into his own hands and offers the sacrifice himself.
Remember when David, the son of Jesse, is anointed and makes friends of King Saul’s children (1 Samuel 16:1-13, 18:28-29), what does he do (1 Samuel 19-30)? He takes matters –and a spear - into his own hand and tries to kill both David (1 Samuel 18:10) and his son with the spear (1 Samuel 20:33).
Remember - just before the battle of today’s passage - when he wouldn’t wait any longer for an answer from the Lord, what does he do? Saul takes matters into his own hands, and consults the witch at Endor (1 Samuel 28). Now Saul is pressed from all sides. It looks like there is no hope for escape and what does Saul do? He takes matters in his own hands; he takes his life by his own hand (but cf. 1 Samuel 16:14). Saul dies.2
So what do we do when life is pressing us from all sides? What do we do when various arrows come flying at us?
What about the arrows of embarrassment and fear of failure? I was humiliated in that music class and honestly, it was difficult for me. You see I can be quite competitive and in post-secondary (when I was in my early 20s). I had developed almost a fear of failure and so whenever I ran into a situation in where I might not be able succeed at the level I had set for myself, I would pour more and more time into it. I would pour more and more of my own effort into it. Don’t mistake what I am saying here about that: work ethic is important and good things come out of hard work. 3
There is a problem with this though and the problem with this is the one we learned from Ecclesiastes and 1 Samuel 17: the battle is not to the strong and the race is not to the swift (Eccl. 9:11); the battle belongs to the Lord (1 Sam 17:47). When we forget this and when we try to do things just on our own strength, when we try to do everything on our own and when we fail, we are often destroyed.
I had a friends of mine who responded to University just like I did by pouring her whole being into her courses. When she did fail – whatever she considered failure – she felt utterly destroyed. She tries to drown herself when she doesn’t do as well as she had hoped. She recovers and is doing really well these many years later but at this time, she was as utterly destroyed as Saul and his sons on Mt Gilboa, when the arrows found them.
What about other arrows that the Enemy fires at us? What about the arrows of death and loneliness? These are arrows that strike many of us when we try to defend against them on our own. I have heard many stories of husbands who die shortly after their wives pass away for just that reason. The one they love is gone and when they try to deal with that on their own, they can’t. I know of people, who have never drank before, who become alcoholics on the passing of a spouse. These arrows of death and lonliness are powerful arrows that can cut any of us down and when we are found fighting on our own strength, we will fall.
What about the arrows of wealth and success?4 Isn’t true that even many of us here today can get so caught up in the business or the trappings of the wealth and success (and I don’t care who we are in this country – even the poorest person in this country lives in the wealthiest per cent of the world) of our society that we can forget God; we can forget about prayer and we can forget about the Bible? Isn’t it true that instead of building a solid relationship with our Lord and Saviour that we can be distracted by things that it seems our wealth provides, like work, gardening, hobbies, TV, family, or even boredom? Isn’t it true that we can be so distracted by the affluence of North American society that sometime we can forget about the shelter our Messiah offers and sometimes we can walk straight out into the arrows of the Enemy; sometimes we can be separated from our Lord and sometimes – maybe - some even die.
I am reminded of a storybook that my daughters have about two real life women pirates. They love the fact that the heroes are girls! (As I’m sure some of the people here do as well!) The heroes are strong women. They are pirates and they are on a very successful pirate ship. They, as well as the male captain and all the male crew, are getting quite wealthy and quite proud and quite content.
One day the two lady pirates are on duty on deck while all the men are drinking, gambling and indulging themselves below - they’re slacking off. They’re slacking off and a ship from the British Royal Navy (the superpower of their day) shows up. The women man the battle stations. The women call the men. The men don’t come up. The women call the men again. The men still won’t come up. (There must be a game on!) The men are too busy drinking, gambling – slacking off. The Navy vessel is getting closer and closer. The women call and the women call but the men, the men remain beneath the deck eating, drinking, gambling – they are just slacking off. They never come up. The soldiers board the ship and take almost everyone captive. The women fight to save the lives of their comrades and themselves but they are captured and – had they not been spared because tehy were pregnant – they would have died on the gallows with all their men folk because the men preferred to indulge themselves rather than to keep a lookout.
This is like Saul. He had many chances to return to the Lord. In many of the episodes that we read, he could have repented; he could have turned to the Lord. When he was about to be made King, he could have repented from hiding among the baggage (1 Samuel 10:22). When he took matters into his own hands and made the sacrifice for himself, he could have repented and cried out before the Lord (1 Samuel 13). When he wouldn’t wait any longer for an answer from the Lord, instead of taking matters into his own hands and consulting the witch at Endor (1 Samuel 28), he could have repented; he could have turned; he could have called upon the Lord tirelessly, without ceasing (Cf. Luke 18:1-8). And Saul now as he is pressed from all sides and it looks like there is no hope for escape. Even in this last moment he could call upon the name of the Lord and be saved (cf. Acts 2:21) but instead he takes his life in his own hands. He took his life by his own hand.
This is what we must remember. We must remember what was spoken to us through David in 1 Samuel 17: the battle belongs to the Lord. We have to follow him. We can’t like those men on the pirate ship who give up keeping watch. No man (or woman) knows the time or hour of our Lord’s return. No one knows the time or hour when our name will individually be called. Some of us will live one hundred years. Some of us will live forty. Some of us will live more and some of us may live less.
Jesus, the scripture says, will return like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2). When he does the question to us will be: have we truly been serving Him or have we - by making our own decisions without consulting the Lord about our work, our family, or our health - have we been serving ourselves? When the Lord comes back, those of us who serve Him; when the Lord comes back, those of us who turn to Him; when the Lord comes back, those of us who realise like David did that the battle does belong to the Lord, we will be raised to eternal life in His Kingdom.
Those of us who continue to do things on our own though – like King Saul – those of us who continue to make up our own minds and continue to serve our own whims – those of us who serve ourselves instead of the Lord will not be in His kingdom but there is still good news: no matter how long we have been serving someone other than the Lord, it is not too late as long as we are still alive. It never too late to turn (repent); it is never too late to turn or return to the Lord. As long as we have a breath in us we can still be saved…and maybe Saul was. Samson in his dying moments, even though he took his life by his own hands, repented and earned his spot as a hero of the faith (Hebrews 11) and Saul may very well have done the same but we don't know that (his name is absent from the walk of fame) and I would encourage us not to leave it to the last moment at any regard. Why die in uncertainty? Why live in uncertainty? Instead, as His yoke is easy (Matthew 11:29), Let us all turn to the Lord today and be saved.
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1 http://www.canadian-universities.net/Universities/University-of-Victoria.html
2 Now to be fair, there is inter-play here between Saul not relying upon the Lord and the fact that the Lord sent an evil spirit to torment Saul. Saul rejected the Lord and the Lord rejected Saul. This interplay is somewhat reminiscent of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart at the time of the mass Israelite exodus from Egypt.
4 The depression that we just mentioned around the king, Saul, certainly is prevalent in our wealthy societies whereas it is almost non-existent in poorer nations. What about the Enemy’s arrows of wealth and success? I read a very good journal article recently that compared the actions of King Saul to a person diagnosed with depression and then they created interesting clinical test to see if the results could be duplicated and they could. It was very interesting. Is it just a coincidence that depression is most common in the post-Christian western world where whole societies almost seem to want to only rely on ourselves?
Sunday, July 6, 2008
1 Samuel 17:46 – 47: The Battle belongs to the Lord
Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on July 6, 2008
Presented to Swift Current Corps on May 2, 2010
Presented to Warehouse Mission Corps, Toronto on July 17, 2016
Presented to 614 Warehouse Regent Park, Toronto, June 11, 2017
By Captain Michael Ramsay
I played a bit of sports growing up. I won a few soccer trophies. I tried baseball – my team won a trophy in that once for winning the season. I tried curling – my family won some competitions in curling: I never played on any of their teams. I tried basketball too. Now given my great height and size in general (5’7”), one would think that by rights I really shouldn’t be any good at basketball. But you know what? … I’m not. I tried out however for the grade six team…and I was one of ONLY two kids in my whole class - NOT to make the team (and that was my best ever year at basketball). Not only can I not block shots with my height, I also have difficulties making them. My basketball skills never improved.
One day when I was in university, we went down to the park to play some basketball. Now my friends – they were really good at basketball. Some of them actually made the teams growing up. Now because they were all good sports and had a certain degree of patience, they would actually take the time to explain to me that hip checks, slide checks and nose tweaking were not acceptable defensive manoeuvres. Who knew?
After most of guys had gone home, I was left with a few of the more serious players and they decided to have a bit of a competition to see who was the best shot. So how this would work was that one player would try to pick a tricky shot and if he could make it, all the rest of us would have to make it too – or we would be knocked out of the competition. So they would be doing these reverse lay-ups, shots from the three-point line and the like and due to the grace of God, I was actually able to keep up but then came my turn…
So for my turn - I clarified that I could do any shot that I wanted – I clarified that if I made the shot that they would have to do exactly the same thing – so I would make up the most elaborate shooting routine that I could think of: I would do things like roll on the ground eight times, while singing a children’s song and then throw the ball with my back to the net. Or at one point I think I bounced the ball in off another player after tripping and falling over myself. And – guess what - by the grace of God, the ball actually found the net; so here were all these too serious, too skilled players trying to concentrate on these shots while laughing and not being able to concentrate at all and - at the end of the competition - I was indeed the last man standing. It was weird but in life there are times when we can’t really rely on our own skills and abilities to carry us through. After all is said and done we must confess that the battle is not to the strong and the race is not to the swift (Eccl. 9:11). The battle -as 17:47 says- the battle belongs to the Lord.
Now we all know the story of David and Goliath[1] that we read about today (1 Samuel 17), about how a young inexperienced soldier toppled a professional fighter and we know that the battle belongs to the Lord but instead of this – the fact that the battle belongs to the Lord - we often concentrate, when retelling this story, on how a person with just a sling can topple a well-armed soldier.
While it is true that Goliath is painted as a giant of a man, somewhere between 6’9” and 9’9” tall (depending on your translation: MT or LXX, 1 Samuel 17:4)[2] and it is true that he is portrayed as having the most advanced weaponry of his day and age. Remember that the Israelites did not have any iron technology at all (1 Samuel 13:19). Remember that the Philistines forbade them from defending themselves– and remember that after they disarmed them then they attacked them - much like the USA before the second Iraq war or today with some countries and nuclear technology (or even some conventional weaponry) where they are doing their best to make sure that they are the only ones who will use these weapons for war. Here in our text today, Goliath has his century’s version of the depleted uranium bombs NATO dropped on Yugoslavia: Goliath has an iron spearhead that ways about 600 sheckles of iron (17:7). He is a formidable foe, with superior technology but…nonetheless the battle belongs to the Lord.
Now, that being said, sometimes in playing up Goliath we play down David a little too much – remember that David is already referred to as a warrior in 1 Samuel 16:18[3] and, as a shepherd, he has a lot of experience with his weapon of choice – the sling. And you’ll note also that his weapon of choice is a real weapon that real soldiers really did use in battle. They could fire a rock from a sling at over 100 miles an hour and an expert could be deadly accurate (2 Ki 3:25, 1 Chr 12:2, 2 Chr 26:14)[3.5]: Judges 20:16 says that some men who were left-handed could even sling a stone at a hair at a distance and not miss. This is not a child’s toy; it is a pretty powerful weapon that David chooses to bring into the battle.
David is not just a child; he is a pretty powerful tool that the Lord chooses to bring into battle. So then part of the miracle of the Lord’s victory in this battle here is NOT the fact that David is good with a sling but part of the miracle could be that the Lord apparently conceals this sling from Goliath’s sight until the contest begins (notice that in his taunts of 16:43 there is no mention of the sling – only of the David’s rod)[4] so it appears then that Goliath and his shield-bearer – even with their superior superpower class technology - are ill-prepared to face their opponent and why? … Why? Because the battle belongs to the Lord. Goliath and David’s speeches make that quite clear (17:43-47). This isn’t a contest of two men who serve different gods; this is a contest of two gods (one real and one imagined), who have chosen as their weapons/armour different men. This is a significant difference (repeat). The battle belongs to the Lord.
In our own lives, this is true too and I think that we too often forget that indeed the battles we have before us actually do belong to the Lord as well. I have been involved with a couple of different AA (alcoholics anonymous) / NA (narcotics anonymous) groups here in town. We have even been blessed with the opportunity to begin a group for youth here so as to be used as a tool for their deliverance.
You should hear some of the testimonies in these different AA / NA groups. I cannot share any specifics with you in this context given the anonymous nature of the groups but I can tell you that steps 1-3 of AA’s 12 step programme confess that we are powerless over our foe, that only a power greater then ourselves can restore us, and that we need to turn our will and our lives over to God.[5] This is true. When they forget that in group it is not pleasant. When we forget that in our life it is not pleasant but when we remember it…when we remember it, all of a sudden the seemingly insurmountable can be surmounted because really life’s battles do belong to the Lord. They are not ours to fight.
Myself, I remember reflecting on Bonhoeffer…Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a great man: he was head and shoulders above the rest (cf. 1 Samuel 9:2). He was a Lutheran pastor, a theologian, and a person of great fame whose writings are well known - some of this is due to political and religious propaganda of the time but some of it is due to the fact that he truly was and is still used -albeit post-mortem- as an instrument of God. Susan and I, we even have a couple of books that he wrote on our shelves at home.
Bonhoeffer was a man who worked for the Lord and the Church in Europe before and during the conflict known now as WWII. His writings are still being used to affect much good in the world. His last grandiose act, as far as we know, was to be complicit in the cold-blooded murder of three or four men and an attempt to assassinate his Head of State during a time of national crisis. We know that hundreds of more people died very much because of the plot in which he was directly involved.
So what about Bonhoeffer's last act: an act of hate? Bonhoeffer was rightly executed for treason and conspiracy to commit murder. Did he decide not to remain in the vine (cf. John 15)? Did Bonhoeffer, as educated as he was and as influential as he still is in Christianity, did Bonhoeffer forget that the battle belongs to the Lord? We, of course, do not –any of us – we do not know the answer to this question [6] but that does not mean that we should not ask it and that does not mean that we should not ask that same question of ourselves.
We do know from looking at Chapter 15 of 1 Samuel last week, that there was another hero who was head and shoulders above the rest (1 Samuel 9:2), Israel’s first messiah, (Messiah means anointed ones and Saul was the first one anointed king over Israel), Israel’s first king whom God chose and commanded be anointed. God’s handpicked leader for his people, Saul rejected the LORD (1 Samuel 15) and indeed the new king forgot that the battle belongs to the Lord. Remember that instead of following YHWH’s orders, he instead did what he thought was best in his own eyes (cf. Judges 21:25). Remember that set up a monument to himself (1 Samuel 15:12) after the battle. Remember that Saul forgets that this battle belongs to the Lord; and remember that as Saul rejects God, God, it says in 15:26, God too rejects Saul.
What about us here? What do we do when we are faced with life’s conflicts? Are we any better than Saul? Do we set up monuments for ourselves by taking credit for what God does through us? Do we set up monuments to ourselves in our minds by thinking that we are the reason we have a good job and good home and a family? Do we think that we have anything to do with the price of grain or the price of gas or do we remember that the battle belongs to the Lord?
When we are faced with life’s battles, do we just strap on the amour that society offers us - our education and experience - like the amour that Saul offered David in 17:38,39 and try to fight on our own strength? When we are faced with life’s battles, when we are deciding what to tell a friend, what classes to take, what crops to plant, what jobs to take; when we are faced with the battle of deciding what to do with the time and money we have been entrusted with– do we ask God? (really) Do we pray? Do we read the Bible when we are faced with challenges (like this one from Goliath)? Do we, like David, realise that the battle belongs to the Lord. Or, instead, like Saul, do we try to face life’s challenges purely on our own strength (cf. 1 Samuel 15)? God has given us our experiences, and our education and they are indeed as formidable as a stone in David’s sling but only if we remember that it is the Lord’s battle. We need to seek Him because, indeed, life’s battles do belong to the Lord.
In our text today that is made very clear in verses 46 and 47. David says to his foe, “This day the LORD will hand you over to me…and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD'S, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
It is not by the sword or the spear that the Lord saves. So this is the same in our world. We can have an education that is the equivalent of the king’s armour. If we don’t use it for God it really is useless. We can have as much money as a superpower spends on weapons. It means nothing if we don’t submit to the Lord.
So I know that life sends us many struggles. Everyday, some are facing a new Goliath. I know many people who are struggling with addiction in these parts. I know many friends who are struggling with serious health and family concerns. I know that there are those here that have real decisions to make about their children and real decisions to make about their life.
As this is true, as this is all true, I invite you. I implore you to remember that the battle belongs to the Lord. So then let us load up our slings with the stones of our crops, education, wealth of experience but let’s do so in faith. Remember, no matter how difficult life’s challenges are; no matter how big are the Goliaths in front of us; no matter what seemingly insurmountable difficulty we are facing today – as we turn to Him, as we turn to our Lord, through prayer and Bible study – as we turn to Him and He will be successful for indeed the battle belongs to the Lord.
www.sheepspeak.com
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[1] Ronald F. Youngblood. The Expositor's Bible Commentary. Pradis CD-ROM:1 and 2 Samuel. The death of Goliath (17:1-58), Book Version: 4.0.2: The purpose of such contests was "to obviate the necessity of a general engagement of troops which would spill more blood than necessary to resolve the dispute" (Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., "A Hittite Analogue to the David and Goliath Contest of Champions?" CBQ 30 [1968]: 220). Whether this kind of radical limitation on warfare is ever sincerely accepted by either side remains in itself a matter of dispute (for a nuanced treatment of the issue, cf. George I. Mavrodes, "David, Goliath, and Limited War," Reformed Journal 33, 8 [1983]: 6-8). It is clear, however, that contests of champions (to be carefully distinguished from duels, which are individual combats not representing larger groups) such as that between David and Goliath or between Menelaus and Paris (Homer Iliad bk. 3) were not uncommon in ancient times (for additional examples, see Hoffner, "A Hittite Analogue," pp. 220-25).
[2] Ibid.: By any standard of measure, the Philistine champion was a giant of a man (v.4). Some LXX MSS give his height as "four cubits and a span" (so also 1QSama; Jos. Antiq. VI, 171 [ix. 1]), others "five cubits and a span." The MT reads "six cubits and a span" (thus NIV mg.), making him "over nine feet tall." Other comparable heights in the OT are those of "an Egyptian who was seven and a half feet tall" (1 Chronicles 11:23) and Og king of Bashan, whose size is not specified but whose bed/sarcophagus was "more than thirteen feet long" (Deut 3:11). The MT account of Goliath's height is paralleled in modern times by reports concerning Robert Pershing Wadlow, who was eight feet eleven inches tall at the time of his death on July 15, 1940, at the age of twenty-two (Insight [18, 1985]: 51).
[3] There is much debate as to whether chapters 16 and 17 are placed chronologically in order or even if they both originate from the same source or were both originally about the same people for that matter.David was the light infantry as it were.
[3.5] John J. Davis and Herbert Wolf, note in Judges 20:16 in NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA: Zondervan: 2002), p. 361. When I preach from the same text more than once I usually post only the original text. I added this one sentence because I think it is important.
[4] This may have contributed as well to David’s great speed in battle as he was not as encumbered with defensive amour as was Goliath.
[5] AA 12 Steps: http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org/
[6] http://renewnetwork.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html
Presented to Swift Current Corps on May 2, 2010
Presented to Warehouse Mission Corps, Toronto on July 17, 2016
Presented to 614 Warehouse Regent Park, Toronto, June 11, 2017
By Captain Michael Ramsay
I played a bit of sports growing up. I won a few soccer trophies. I tried baseball – my team won a trophy in that once for winning the season. I tried curling – my family won some competitions in curling: I never played on any of their teams. I tried basketball too. Now given my great height and size in general (5’7”), one would think that by rights I really shouldn’t be any good at basketball. But you know what? … I’m not. I tried out however for the grade six team…and I was one of ONLY two kids in my whole class - NOT to make the team (and that was my best ever year at basketball). Not only can I not block shots with my height, I also have difficulties making them. My basketball skills never improved.
One day when I was in university, we went down to the park to play some basketball. Now my friends – they were really good at basketball. Some of them actually made the teams growing up. Now because they were all good sports and had a certain degree of patience, they would actually take the time to explain to me that hip checks, slide checks and nose tweaking were not acceptable defensive manoeuvres. Who knew?
After most of guys had gone home, I was left with a few of the more serious players and they decided to have a bit of a competition to see who was the best shot. So how this would work was that one player would try to pick a tricky shot and if he could make it, all the rest of us would have to make it too – or we would be knocked out of the competition. So they would be doing these reverse lay-ups, shots from the three-point line and the like and due to the grace of God, I was actually able to keep up but then came my turn…
So for my turn - I clarified that I could do any shot that I wanted – I clarified that if I made the shot that they would have to do exactly the same thing – so I would make up the most elaborate shooting routine that I could think of: I would do things like roll on the ground eight times, while singing a children’s song and then throw the ball with my back to the net. Or at one point I think I bounced the ball in off another player after tripping and falling over myself. And – guess what - by the grace of God, the ball actually found the net; so here were all these too serious, too skilled players trying to concentrate on these shots while laughing and not being able to concentrate at all and - at the end of the competition - I was indeed the last man standing. It was weird but in life there are times when we can’t really rely on our own skills and abilities to carry us through. After all is said and done we must confess that the battle is not to the strong and the race is not to the swift (Eccl. 9:11). The battle -as 17:47 says- the battle belongs to the Lord.
Now we all know the story of David and Goliath[1] that we read about today (1 Samuel 17), about how a young inexperienced soldier toppled a professional fighter and we know that the battle belongs to the Lord but instead of this – the fact that the battle belongs to the Lord - we often concentrate, when retelling this story, on how a person with just a sling can topple a well-armed soldier.
While it is true that Goliath is painted as a giant of a man, somewhere between 6’9” and 9’9” tall (depending on your translation: MT or LXX, 1 Samuel 17:4)[2] and it is true that he is portrayed as having the most advanced weaponry of his day and age. Remember that the Israelites did not have any iron technology at all (1 Samuel 13:19). Remember that the Philistines forbade them from defending themselves– and remember that after they disarmed them then they attacked them - much like the USA before the second Iraq war or today with some countries and nuclear technology (or even some conventional weaponry) where they are doing their best to make sure that they are the only ones who will use these weapons for war. Here in our text today, Goliath has his century’s version of the depleted uranium bombs NATO dropped on Yugoslavia: Goliath has an iron spearhead that ways about 600 sheckles of iron (17:7). He is a formidable foe, with superior technology but…nonetheless the battle belongs to the Lord.
Now, that being said, sometimes in playing up Goliath we play down David a little too much – remember that David is already referred to as a warrior in 1 Samuel 16:18[3] and, as a shepherd, he has a lot of experience with his weapon of choice – the sling. And you’ll note also that his weapon of choice is a real weapon that real soldiers really did use in battle. They could fire a rock from a sling at over 100 miles an hour and an expert could be deadly accurate (2 Ki 3:25, 1 Chr 12:2, 2 Chr 26:14)[3.5]: Judges 20:16 says that some men who were left-handed could even sling a stone at a hair at a distance and not miss. This is not a child’s toy; it is a pretty powerful weapon that David chooses to bring into the battle.
David is not just a child; he is a pretty powerful tool that the Lord chooses to bring into battle. So then part of the miracle of the Lord’s victory in this battle here is NOT the fact that David is good with a sling but part of the miracle could be that the Lord apparently conceals this sling from Goliath’s sight until the contest begins (notice that in his taunts of 16:43 there is no mention of the sling – only of the David’s rod)[4] so it appears then that Goliath and his shield-bearer – even with their superior superpower class technology - are ill-prepared to face their opponent and why? … Why? Because the battle belongs to the Lord. Goliath and David’s speeches make that quite clear (17:43-47). This isn’t a contest of two men who serve different gods; this is a contest of two gods (one real and one imagined), who have chosen as their weapons/armour different men. This is a significant difference (repeat). The battle belongs to the Lord.
In our own lives, this is true too and I think that we too often forget that indeed the battles we have before us actually do belong to the Lord as well. I have been involved with a couple of different AA (alcoholics anonymous) / NA (narcotics anonymous) groups here in town. We have even been blessed with the opportunity to begin a group for youth here so as to be used as a tool for their deliverance.
You should hear some of the testimonies in these different AA / NA groups. I cannot share any specifics with you in this context given the anonymous nature of the groups but I can tell you that steps 1-3 of AA’s 12 step programme confess that we are powerless over our foe, that only a power greater then ourselves can restore us, and that we need to turn our will and our lives over to God.[5] This is true. When they forget that in group it is not pleasant. When we forget that in our life it is not pleasant but when we remember it…when we remember it, all of a sudden the seemingly insurmountable can be surmounted because really life’s battles do belong to the Lord. They are not ours to fight.
Myself, I remember reflecting on Bonhoeffer…Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a great man: he was head and shoulders above the rest (cf. 1 Samuel 9:2). He was a Lutheran pastor, a theologian, and a person of great fame whose writings are well known - some of this is due to political and religious propaganda of the time but some of it is due to the fact that he truly was and is still used -albeit post-mortem- as an instrument of God. Susan and I, we even have a couple of books that he wrote on our shelves at home.
Bonhoeffer was a man who worked for the Lord and the Church in Europe before and during the conflict known now as WWII. His writings are still being used to affect much good in the world. His last grandiose act, as far as we know, was to be complicit in the cold-blooded murder of three or four men and an attempt to assassinate his Head of State during a time of national crisis. We know that hundreds of more people died very much because of the plot in which he was directly involved.
So what about Bonhoeffer's last act: an act of hate? Bonhoeffer was rightly executed for treason and conspiracy to commit murder. Did he decide not to remain in the vine (cf. John 15)? Did Bonhoeffer, as educated as he was and as influential as he still is in Christianity, did Bonhoeffer forget that the battle belongs to the Lord? We, of course, do not –any of us – we do not know the answer to this question [6] but that does not mean that we should not ask it and that does not mean that we should not ask that same question of ourselves.
We do know from looking at Chapter 15 of 1 Samuel last week, that there was another hero who was head and shoulders above the rest (1 Samuel 9:2), Israel’s first messiah, (Messiah means anointed ones and Saul was the first one anointed king over Israel), Israel’s first king whom God chose and commanded be anointed. God’s handpicked leader for his people, Saul rejected the LORD (1 Samuel 15) and indeed the new king forgot that the battle belongs to the Lord. Remember that instead of following YHWH’s orders, he instead did what he thought was best in his own eyes (cf. Judges 21:25). Remember that set up a monument to himself (1 Samuel 15:12) after the battle. Remember that Saul forgets that this battle belongs to the Lord; and remember that as Saul rejects God, God, it says in 15:26, God too rejects Saul.
What about us here? What do we do when we are faced with life’s conflicts? Are we any better than Saul? Do we set up monuments for ourselves by taking credit for what God does through us? Do we set up monuments to ourselves in our minds by thinking that we are the reason we have a good job and good home and a family? Do we think that we have anything to do with the price of grain or the price of gas or do we remember that the battle belongs to the Lord?
When we are faced with life’s battles, do we just strap on the amour that society offers us - our education and experience - like the amour that Saul offered David in 17:38,39 and try to fight on our own strength? When we are faced with life’s battles, when we are deciding what to tell a friend, what classes to take, what crops to plant, what jobs to take; when we are faced with the battle of deciding what to do with the time and money we have been entrusted with– do we ask God? (really) Do we pray? Do we read the Bible when we are faced with challenges (like this one from Goliath)? Do we, like David, realise that the battle belongs to the Lord. Or, instead, like Saul, do we try to face life’s challenges purely on our own strength (cf. 1 Samuel 15)? God has given us our experiences, and our education and they are indeed as formidable as a stone in David’s sling but only if we remember that it is the Lord’s battle. We need to seek Him because, indeed, life’s battles do belong to the Lord.
In our text today that is made very clear in verses 46 and 47. David says to his foe, “This day the LORD will hand you over to me…and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD'S, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
It is not by the sword or the spear that the Lord saves. So this is the same in our world. We can have an education that is the equivalent of the king’s armour. If we don’t use it for God it really is useless. We can have as much money as a superpower spends on weapons. It means nothing if we don’t submit to the Lord.
So I know that life sends us many struggles. Everyday, some are facing a new Goliath. I know many people who are struggling with addiction in these parts. I know many friends who are struggling with serious health and family concerns. I know that there are those here that have real decisions to make about their children and real decisions to make about their life.
As this is true, as this is all true, I invite you. I implore you to remember that the battle belongs to the Lord. So then let us load up our slings with the stones of our crops, education, wealth of experience but let’s do so in faith. Remember, no matter how difficult life’s challenges are; no matter how big are the Goliaths in front of us; no matter what seemingly insurmountable difficulty we are facing today – as we turn to Him, as we turn to our Lord, through prayer and Bible study – as we turn to Him and He will be successful for indeed the battle belongs to the Lord.
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[1] Ronald F. Youngblood. The Expositor's Bible Commentary. Pradis CD-ROM:1 and 2 Samuel. The death of Goliath (17:1-58), Book Version: 4.0.2: The purpose of such contests was "to obviate the necessity of a general engagement of troops which would spill more blood than necessary to resolve the dispute" (Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., "A Hittite Analogue to the David and Goliath Contest of Champions?" CBQ 30 [1968]: 220). Whether this kind of radical limitation on warfare is ever sincerely accepted by either side remains in itself a matter of dispute (for a nuanced treatment of the issue, cf. George I. Mavrodes, "David, Goliath, and Limited War," Reformed Journal 33, 8 [1983]: 6-8). It is clear, however, that contests of champions (to be carefully distinguished from duels, which are individual combats not representing larger groups) such as that between David and Goliath or between Menelaus and Paris (Homer Iliad bk. 3) were not uncommon in ancient times (for additional examples, see Hoffner, "A Hittite Analogue," pp. 220-25).
[2] Ibid.: By any standard of measure, the Philistine champion was a giant of a man (v.4). Some LXX MSS give his height as "four cubits and a span" (so also 1QSama; Jos. Antiq. VI, 171 [ix. 1]), others "five cubits and a span." The MT reads "six cubits and a span" (thus NIV mg.), making him "over nine feet tall." Other comparable heights in the OT are those of "an Egyptian who was seven and a half feet tall" (1 Chronicles 11:23) and Og king of Bashan, whose size is not specified but whose bed/sarcophagus was "more than thirteen feet long" (Deut 3:11). The MT account of Goliath's height is paralleled in modern times by reports concerning Robert Pershing Wadlow, who was eight feet eleven inches tall at the time of his death on July 15, 1940, at the age of twenty-two (Insight [18, 1985]: 51).
[3] There is much debate as to whether chapters 16 and 17 are placed chronologically in order or even if they both originate from the same source or were both originally about the same people for that matter.David was the light infantry as it were.
[3.5] John J. Davis and Herbert Wolf, note in Judges 20:16 in NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA: Zondervan: 2002), p. 361. When I preach from the same text more than once I usually post only the original text. I added this one sentence because I think it is important.
[4] This may have contributed as well to David’s great speed in battle as he was not as encumbered with defensive amour as was Goliath.
[5] AA 12 Steps: http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org/
[6] http://renewnetwork.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html
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