Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): We begin today's Abounding Grace with these words from Pastor Ed.

Pastor Ed Taylor: You and I cannot serve the Lord with someone else's giftings, someone else's personality, someone else's calling. We can't wear someone else's armor to go battle for the Lord.

We have to be ourselves because that's the best that we can be is how God created us. We can't wear someone else's armor.

Guest (Male): We take you to 1 Samuel chapter 17 today on Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. Good to be with you. Maybe you're facing a trial or difficulty that resembles the giant that David faced in this chapter of his life. Perhaps it's cancer, a child that is rebelling, or a marriage that's disintegrating. What do you do? Well, Pastor Ed will encourage us to look back at God's faithfulness, and it will bring courage and perspective when you need it most.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Open your Bibles, would you? 1 Samuel chapter 17 is where we are. Last time we were together, we weren't able to finish the chapter. It was so rich in the beginning. In the first part of our study, we learned that our perspective matters. Our perspective of things really matters, especially when it comes to the giants in our lives.

Giants aren't just trials. They're not just people. They're situations, they are circumstances. It's not just when we mention Goliath, we think automatically that the enemies in life are people. Well, it's not just people, and it's not just circumstances. It's both. And when you face a giant in your life, whatever it might be, the giant screams pretty loudly, doesn't it? It's a loud thing to deal with, just like Goliath.

He was a mocker. He mocked God and defied the God of Israel. Forty days—that number 40 speaks of testing. But can you imagine getting the same thing all day, every day, for 40 days? That's over a month—a month and a week and a few days. Every day. You go to bed at night with it on your mind, you have nightmares, you wake up, it's still there, over and over. And certainly, some listening to me have experienced far more than 40 days of taunting of the enemy, threats coming from the Goliaths in our lives.

According to the Bible in 1 Samuel 17, notice verse 24. Notice what happened. In verse 24, it says that all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were dreadfully afraid. Boy, can things be so hard and so difficult that they instill fear in us—reckless fear, terror even. The temptation to take things into our own hands, running away with our tail between our legs.

But not this David. Not David. He was confident, full of courage. Why? Because he had a different perspective. He saw things differently than all of the rest of the nation, including King Saul. He was able to see things with the eyes of eternity, from God's perspective. And that changed everything.

So I looked up the word perspective in the dictionary and it means this: a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something. A true understanding of the relative importance of things. Or, I like this one, perspective is a sense of proportion.

That's very relevant to this giant, this giant of a man. In order to understand the situation, David had a sense of proportion. And you know what his sense of proportion was? He didn't care how big this guy was, and he didn't care how loud he was because he knew the power of God.

Well, by way of review, come back with me to verse 31 in 1 Samuel 17. It says when the words which David spoke were heard, they reported them to Saul and he sent for him. Then David said to Saul, "Let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine."

And Saul said to David, "You're not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth." Now, you see the difference in perspective. You're a kid, he's an experienced warrior, you can see that everybody's heart is failing, you don't see things right, David. I'm the king, I'm the appointed one, you certainly don't have the right perspective.

What a difference! When King Saul sees this Goliath, he too, I think, is shaken. And he sees the size of David and the size... because think about this: the proportion of your trial is going to really affect how you see things. I mean, think about it. You are cutting your nails in the morning and you accidentally cut your skin and it bleeds. Boo hoo! I've got a trial, I'm bleeding! And I'm sure it hurts. If you cut it the wrong way, it brings some hurt, it brings some blood.

But then you're—I saw this recently—you're out using a chainsaw. You're out using a chainsaw, not the circular one, right? That's what they call it, the chainsaw, and the chain flicks out, it flips off the thing, and gets out of the guard and slashes up your arm. Now, who's going to boo hoo? I mean, that's like, cut your little thumb or have a chain slice your arm open?

And you look at it and you say, "Oh, I cut my thumb, I can stop the bleeding by just like this. I can handle this trial." A chainsaw flips off and rips off your arm, what are you going to do? I mean, you're going to cry out for help. Did you cry out for help when you clipped your nails? Probably not. Did you cry out for help when you saw that you could do nothing to help your arm? Probably.

The proportion of our trial, the size of our trial is going to change our perspective. And if we're not careful, we'll trust God for the little thumb prick and we may not trust God when the doctor says, "You know, I don't think we can do anything for your arm." And you're like, "What? No, you've got to save my arm!" And then you might have pricked your thumb and you go, "Hey, I need some help with my thumb." "Oh, I can take care of your thumb." "Oh, great! I need my thumb, I need my thumb." "Dude, it's just a little drop of blood." "I know, but you don't understand, it was so painful." You think of your life that way.

If it was David, kid against kid, what would King Saul say? "Go get them! I think you can take them! Go wrestle them, David, I think you can take them!" I mean, I've been wanting to flip them, but I'm an adult, so we need to send a kid after a kid. So go take them!

But it wasn't that way. The size of Goliath has shaken the king. The size of Goliath has shaken the nation, so much so that they run away and flee. Why? Because they don't have a sense of proportion. David does. He has the right perspective.

And Saul says to David in verse 33, "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight. You're just a kid." Verse 34: But David said, "Your servant used to keep his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it and delivered the lamb from its mouth. And when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard and struck and killed it."

Verse 36: "Your servant has killed both lion and bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing that he has defied the armies of the living God." Moreover, David said, "The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." And Saul said to David, "Go, and the Lord be with you."

You're in a trial right now, Goliath-sized? You look back at God's faithfulness; it'll give you courage for today. You look back, you go, "You know what? I've taken on lions before. I didn't think I was going to be victorious over the lion, and I took on that bear. I thought it was crazy too, but I had to do something to protect the sheep. And I took them on, I don't care if he's a bear, you're not getting my sheep."

"And now I look at this uncircumcised Philistine, and I think of God in this. And He gave me victory over the lion, and He gave me victory over the bear. Surely He'll give me victory over this uncircumcised heathen of a curser, blasphemer." And so, "Go," Saul says. I think King Saul here in verse 38 was a little maybe guilty sending a kid to do a man's job.

How do we know that? Well, so Saul clothed David with his armor, verse 38, and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with a coat of mail. And David fastened his sword to his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. And David said to Saul, "I can't walk with these, for I have not tested them." So David took them off.

Saul's like, "If I'm going to send a kid in there, I'd better protect him the best that I can. I won't go before him, I'll send him along, but he can take my armor because I'm not going to use it. I don't need it, I'm not going after Goliath." And he's faced with this, and he sends him out, and it didn't fit him because it wasn't David's armor. It was Saul's attempt in the human realm—we would call that the flesh.

It was Saul's attempt in the human realm to equip a kid that didn't need any equipping at all. He just needed the faith that he already had. And it could be that Saul's a little embarrassed or even feeling guilty about sending a kid into the battle. But as the armor was put on him, David quickly knew that it didn't fit him—much too large for him, limited his mobility, really weakened his resolve, perhaps. So he set it aside.

And what do we learn here? We learn a powerful picture in ministry, as we saw briefly last time. And that is: you and I cannot serve the Lord with someone else's giftings, someone else's personality, someone else's calling. We can't wear someone else's armor to go battle for the Lord. We have to be ourselves because that's the best that we can be is how God created us. We can't wear someone else's armor.

I've seen this happen often as a pastor as I watch men and women serve in the ministry trying to be someone else. They'll see someone on TV or hear someone on the radio that connects with them, and they want to emulate him or her. The only problem is they're not him or her, so they only become a very weak imitation of that person.

Now, that's not to say that there aren't people in your life, a mentor or someone that you have learned ministry from, where you learn principles. You learn and understand how to do things, but then you appropriate that in your own life. You say, "You know, there's a principle of being a servant, just like Jesus taught us that we're to be a servant of all." And as we're a servant, then we serve in our own giftings.

Like, for example, if you're gifted with the gift of mercy, you're going to serve very differently than someone that's gifted with the gift of leadership or administration. While you can be a merciful administrator, you can also administer mercifully, but you and I have to work in our own giftings and not try to be someone else.

And you'll recall last time I shared how easy it is, especially when you're younger or newer serving God, and you really want to do a good job and you really want to be the best that you can be, and you don't really have too many models, and so you hear somebody and you try to be like them. Or you hear somebody teach, you want to teach like them. Or you see someone do something, you want to do it like them. And while you can pick up principles, you are you, uniquely created and gifted by God.

Remember what God told Jeremiah in chapter one? God told Jeremiah, "The word of the Lord came to me saying: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you and I ordained you a prophet to the nations." If Jeremiah tried to be anything other than a prophet ordained to the nations, he would have failed miserably. Why? Because that was the calling upon his life before he even knew what calling meant.

While he was still nursing on his mom, God was fashioning him as a prophet—as His own special prophet with a very unique ministry. Jeremiah's ministry was very hard. He served faithfully, and all he received was hatred and backlash, and people wanted to kill him and destroy him.

Do you know in the entirety, if we were examining the life of Jeremiah today by some of the worldly standards, some of the standards that might be taught in seminary, you look at Jeremiah and you think, "What a failure, there was not one convert in his entire ministry." And if you only measure success by converts, then I guess that's how you're going to measure him—a failure.

But that's not how God measures success. You know how God measures success? Faithfulness. And with the measurement of faithfulness, every single one of us are on an even playing field. So maybe some are better at speaking in a public setting, and some are more suited to prayer warriors. And so you've got somebody in the prayer closet praying their heart out, and you've got somebody standing before people and teaching.

And you know, they're both 100% faithful, and they both are answering to the Lord for the same thing. One seen, one's not seen. Isn't that what Paul said about the actions of the body? You know, some of the most important parts of your body are unseen—the internal organs. So you measure by faithfulness.

Well, now notice after this encouragement, verse 40. Then he took his staff in his hand, and he chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook and put them in a shepherd's bag, in a pouch which he had, and his sling was in his hand. And he drew near to the Philistine.

One of the things, by the way, when you go on the tour with us in Israel is we'll take you into the Elah Valley there, and we'll go off on the side of the road and we'll walk a ways and we'll go off into right with the hillside in the background. And one of the things we'll encourage you to do is to pick up five smooth stones.

I'll actually share a little Bible study from this section of the scripture, and then we will ask you to take a stone and throw it. Go off and get some prayer time alone. It's just an open, barren land where they're actually growing vegetables on one side and a hill on the other side. This last time they weren't growing anything; they're letting the ground rest, I guess.

And we would just have you walk and go spend some time alone and throw a few stones and then bring some home by remembrance so that you have this visual right here in the Elah Valley. Of course, where we pull off, we don't know exactly where this all took place, but in that general area there, we have you pull stones. And you might be the one to find the one stone that David dropped. He had six, but he dropped one. You guys are so caught up in the story, I just want to make sure we're here!

And you think so many people getting stones, what do they do? Well, every time right before we get there, a truck comes and dumps a brand new load of smooth stones there and you just keep taking them. And you have them in, you know, guys that teach Sunday school, we have you, "Hey, bring a bag back so you can use it." I mean, this is a stone from the valley of Elah.

I have them, I write little numbers, I write the date on them for something that's going on in my life. I get it, I put them in a little special box in my office that's for later use by faith. And then I also keep one for me personally with the date on there, reminding me of the faith that was exhibited.

Because you know when you get to those times of faithlessness? Remember we had that Bible study not too long ago on setting up Ebenezer stones in your life? Stones of remembrance, so that if you ever want to retreat or you ever want to go backwards, you have something set up. You go, "No, no, no, I exercised faith on that day."

And of like David, "Hey man, I took on the lion, I took on the bear, I exercised faith. If I can exercise faith then, I need to exercise faith right now." And so I have these little stones there with the date on them and the year and the date and what happened and what it was. I really don't need to write that because I already know what the stones are for, but I know the Lord is going to answer that.

So there he is. He's got five smooth stones and he's heading right after the Philistine. Verse 41: So the Philistine came and began drawing near to David, and the man who bore the shield went before him. And when the Philistine looked about and saw David, he disdained him.

Well, that's nothing new because this is what David's had to face since he was a kid. Even his own dad looked down on him, didn't even call him in when he said, "Call your kids here." He didn't even call him in until after Samuel looks at all the kids. "Do you have any more? Because I don't think any of these..." "Well, you know, we have one more, he's just out, he's a kid."

Yeah, it's the kid that's taking care of your sheep. The kid that's knocking down bears for you, Dad. It's the kid that's taking out lions for you, Dad, to protect your flock. Yeah, that one. Well, this isn't anything new. Maybe that's how your life has been, just everyone looking down on you, nobody really seeing anything good in you.

Let me tell you something: people don't define you. God defines you. God defines you. This kid that's been disdained his whole life is going to take on Goliath. So it doesn't surprise me he looks down on him; he's a youth, ruddy and good-looking.

And so the Philistine said to David, "Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine said to David, "Come to me, and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field."

And David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I'll strike you and take your head from you. And this day I'll give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, and all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. Then all the assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword or spear, for the battle is the Lord's and He will give you into our hand."

You see how it changes? David comes to him, but he acknowledges that he is coming on behalf of God and on behalf of the unbelieving nation. He becomes a very beautiful type of Jesus standing in the gap for an unbelieving people. And he says, "I'm going to be used by God to take you out. I'm going to cut your head off." That's the only way he's going to be able to take his head. "And I'm going to show you that we're here on behalf of God."

Well, I'm sure his heart was racing. Don't you think your heart would be racing? I'm sure there was a lot of adrenaline going and his mind just all over the place. He wasn't coming in the strength of man. He didn't need the adrenaline. He didn't need the heart-pumping blood because he was coming to Goliath, he was coming to the Philistine by faith.

He didn't need any of the physical things. I'm sure it was happening, like the bears and the lions before them, he knew firsthand the power of God. And according to verse 41, Goliath doesn't come in the confidence of God but with his own ability, his perceived advantage due to size and strength and watching everyone in fear.

And he disdains him and says, "Am I a dog? You come to me with sticks and stones?" Have you ever heard that phrase: "Sticks and stones will break your bones"? Say the rest of it... it's not true, is it? Words do hurt. I just want to let you know that. Words do hurt. We were taught a lot of junk as kids; that's one of them.

It's not true. Sticks and stones, yeah, they break bones, and words crush souls. They break spirits. So just in case you're teaching that to your kids, stop it. It's not true. Words do hurt. We have to be really careful with our mouths, what we say and how we treat others.

So he comes with these sticks and stones and he comes with five. He doesn't come with one. You say, "Well, if he has such great faith, why didn't he just pick up one stone?" Well, you Bible students know a careful study of the scriptures suggests that Goliath had brothers.

And it could be the word around was that if Goliath goes down, there's one right behind him. And we know, you can look it up in 2 Samuel chapter 21. It could be that that was five smooth stones wasn't a lack of faith, it was actually tremendous faith because he says, "Man, if I'm going to take Goliath down, I should probably take his brothers with him." Powerful, looking ahead. It's always wise to look ahead, not presumptuously, but by faith.

So David says something really encouraging here in verse 45: "You come to me with a sword and a spear and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you defied."

The phrase here "the name" speaks of a totality of a person when it's used in the scriptures. It's not just a name, but it's the totality of the person with the name—the character, the nature, the depth of who God is. He doesn't just come in the name; he comes with the authority and the power and the approval of God.

Remember in Proverbs chapter 18, verse 10, it says, "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe." So when you run to the name of the Lord, you're actually running to Him Himself. He's a strong tower for you.

Guest (Male): Well, today on Abounding Grace, we brought you a portion of our study in 1st and 2nd Samuel. Pastor Ed Taylor is our Bible teacher. Would you like to hear this again? If so, just visit us online at aboundinggraceradio.com or 1place.com. You can also download the Calvary Church app as well.

And today, we'd like to tell you about a book from Ron Rhodes titled The End Times in Chronological Order. Think of it as a complete overview to understanding Bible prophecy. You've probably heard about the Rapture, the Great Tribulation, Second Coming, Mark of the Beast, but how do they all fit together?

This chronological tour through the Bible's most important predictions will help you connect the dots. We'll gladly send you a copy for a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Call toll-free at 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-30-GRACE or order it online at calvaryco.store.

Please remember this ministry is made possible through the support of our listeners, and we are grateful for whatever the Lord leads you to do. It would be great to hear from you. Call toll-free at 877-30-GRACE. Donations can also be made online at aboundinggraceradio.com. Glad you taken time out for our study in 1 Samuel. This has been Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed. We'll look for you next time as we open the word together in search of God's abounding grace.