Signs of Pride – Pt. 3

Wayne Matthews

November 2, 2013

Welcome, brethren, to the Sabbath. The title of this sermon is Signs of Pride – Part 3.

In Part 1 and 2 we looked at God's word about pride. God's word describes pride as an attitude, which is a thinking and a spirit within a person's thinking, so it boils down to the way we think and the attitudes that we have towards matters or towards people. Pride is when we lift ourselves up in our thinking, when we set our thinking against God's way of being, His way of life.

If we look at that statement, "Pride is when we lift ourselves up in our thinking," now, this is something that is natural to us because we're born with this mind that lifts itself up. In other words, it takes credit to itself, and that's about building an image, how we establish the way we want people to think of us or the way we want to think about ourselves, and therefore, we live our life projecting out to others the way we want to be seen.

We established that without God's spirit we can't come to see spiritually. We can't see the evil of the sin of pride, of being proud. God has revealed in His word that by nature every human that has ever been born, other than Jesus Christ, every human that has been created, has this natural carnal mind, and it is motivated by pride.

So, let's look at that statement in Romans 8:5-7, and it's cutting into a sentence here, For they that are after the flesh, now, those that have this thinking, do mind the things of the flesh. Well, that's the natural carnal mind. So without God's spirit we have what is called the natural carnal mind and it is after the flesh. We would think then about the things of the flesh. Now, the things of the flesh are about self. We set out to satisfy the self, to please the self, and to re-establish or establish the image that we have or that we are creating. But they that are after the spirit, those that have God's spirit living and dwelling in them, the things of the spirit. So now the mind thinks differently. The mind would now think about the intent, why we're doing what we're doing. So there are two clear states here. We either have God's spirit or we don't. One thinks about the self, satisfying the self, maintaining the image (which is driven by pride), and the other is concerned about the things of God. It strives to obey God. Through the power of God's spirit it enables us to live love towards others.

Verse 6 – For to be carnally minded, so this flesh natural mind, is death… that's the outcome because it is driven by pride. It is motivated by pride, and it will lead to death unless it is transformed… but to be spiritually minded, to have God's spirit living and dwelling in us, is life, true life because it gives a spirit life in us and enables a spirit life, eternal life in the future, and peace, because there is a peace of mind when we understand the way God thinks and if we understand the truth. Now, understanding the truth brings a peace of mind because we cannot get upset about certain things and we don't live a particular way of life, because we have God's spirit, and therefore, we now seek to obey God and live love to others – and that generates a way of peace, having this knowledge, the knowledge of God.

Verse 7 – Because the carnal mind is enmity against God… this natural mind filled with pride, motivated by pride, is enmity. It's an enemy. It is against God. It is against God's way of thinking… for it is not subject to the law of God. So it can't, the natural mind, can't be subject to the law of God, in other words, be in submission to, submit to God's law because God's law is a way of selflessness. It is a way of love, outgoing concern for the welfare of others, and therefore, neither indeed can it be. Now, that is because that's the way we were born. We were born with a natural carnal mind for a purpose. So from that we can see that this natural mind is motivated by pride. It has pride as its base nature.

We also saw in James 4 that we have a mind that desires or craves for the praises of men. Now, this is within our thinking. We actually desire others to think good of us or to lift us up, and we actually live our lives trying to lift ourselves up in the eyes of others, to seek these praises of men. Now, this is a spiritual matter that mankind can't see because it's only by the power of God's spirit that we can actually see pride within ourselves. We desire by nature to be in control. We desire to have authority over others because we have pride, and that's what pride does. Pride seeks to control a matter because it's right in its own eyes. It sees itself differently than others see it. But because of that we then desire this authority over others; in other words, we are right and they are wrong.

If you look at what prejudice really is, it's driven by pride. So if we stand back using God's spirit and analyze the subject there with regards to being prejudice – but if you just stand back with God's spirit and look at it, because what it really is saying is that a person, a mind, has taken credit to itself that it is better than somebody else or something else (the area of 'race,' for example). Now, we have no choice with regards to our genetic disposition. We came from our mother and father; therefore, we are genetically made up a particular way. Therefore, our height or many other things about us are pre-determined; they are set because of a genetic code that exists in us. Now, why would a mind take this genetic code that was automatic and take credit to itself that it is taller or it is better or it is faster or whatever it is, or it is a particular color, and then look out at others and say, "I'm better than you because I am this color," or "I am better than you because I am taller," or whatever it is? Now, we can see that this goes back to the natural carnal mind taking credit to itself for something it shouldn't because it was automatic. It was a genetic code and it had no choice in it. The mind will take it to itself and lift itself up and look out to others to think, "Well, I am better than you because I am this particular color." Well, when you think about it, it is absolutely insane thinking. So to be prejudice is driven by pride. Pride, it's the natural carnal mind thinking it's better because it's taking credit to itself for something that it shouldn't. It had no choice in the matter! What race we are, there was no choice. What height we are, there is no choice! The color of our eyes, there is no choice! So brethren, we need to be very careful that we don't let pride dominate our thinking, to ever think that we are ever better than or prejudice towards any other person, because that is pride. That is a sign of pride.

So anytime we have a disposition towards thinking prejudice towards another individual because of height or whatever it may be, race, etcetera, that is a sure sign of pride. Pride has taken hold in our thinking. We are now taking credit to ourselves for something that we had no control over, but that's the natural carnal mind. That's what it does.

If we say we do not have pride, if we say we don't have any pride, if we say we don't have any real prejudices either, because it's more than prejudice, just about race, it's prejudice about lots of things. If we say we have no pride, we deceive ourselves, and in actual fact, God says we are calling Him a liar, and the reason is because God clearly outlines in His word that we all have pride. That is the base nature of mankind, we just read that in Romans 8, that the natural mind is against God; it lifts itself up. Now, God is not prejudice. God is not pride. God is love. So we have to be very careful that we don't say to ourselves that we can't see pride or we don't have pride. Well, if we can't see it, it means that God's spirit isn't revealing it to us. But God's spirit does reveal pride, and that's what this sermon series is about really, because we all have pride and God is revealing we all have pride, and now it's about going to God and asking God to reveal the areas of pride that dwell within us by nature that we need to transform by the power of God's spirit. It can change. We can change, brethren, by the power of God's spirit.

We established that knowledge puffs up by nature. Now, I remember often walking along and one of my grandchildren would say a particular thing and I would ask the direct question, "Well, how do you know that?" And they would often answer, "I just do." And I knew that that is just simply pride. It's the beginning of pride because we're taking credit for something. Well, the natural mind doesn't know anything unless it's taught something, unless it's seen something. Well, of course it can lie and make up that it knows things, but the reality is, when we get knowledge coming in, it's actually just building that image. It's changing that image, the way we want to be seen. And that's what we do our whole life.

Now, we are going to have pride for the whole period of our life. Now, when we are younger, now this is both physically, when we're physically younger, mainly in our teenage area and early twenties, we don't really see pride or understand pride to the degree we should. We all have it and we are actually demonstrating pride in our life only we just don't know it. People that are older in age, mature in age on a physical level, they actually have seen pride to a degree in others and they often look out and see it in others, but often don't see it in themselves. Sometimes they'll see aspects of pride in themselves but they'll often look down and think, "Wow! These young people, they're out of control," because they're not living the way that they thought that they lived their life. Well, the same principle applies on a spiritual level – irrelevant of our age – as you get older in life, as you grow older in life with God's spirit, the longer you are with God's spirit in the Body of Christ, the more ability God gives to see pride and to understand pride and where it actually generates from. It comes from self; it's all about how we think of ourselves. What we are as an individual and our genetic disposition and our race or color is all irrelevant because it all goes back to this way of thinking, this natural carnal mind as outlined in Romans 8.

Now, the purpose of the calling that God has given us is for the purpose of transforming our thinking, so we've been called into the Body of Christ. So when we are first called into the Church, we actually don't understand that we are riddled with pride. We don't understand that we have a natural carnal mind that is hostile against God – we don't see those things. We start in the very basic things of what God has put into the Church with regards to the truth. One of the first things, of course, is Sabbath keeping. That, as Mr. Harrell went through, is about holy time. We begin to understand that and setting that time aside as holy, as separate for the purpose of worshiping God. Then we may come to understand aspects of tithing, that God has set up a system of tithing and His money is His money. Now, we either rob God or we don't, and that's a pretty black and white choice, really. We're either tithing faithfully or we're not are tithing faithfully; it's black and white. And the other thing, of course, is about the name of the Church of God, God's Church. This is God's Church, and therefore, what God sets up as far as administration and what God has set up in the way of structure, it is His choice to do that, and it is God's Church.

Now, there are things that we begin to see and we grow in, but of course the main areas of pride have not really been revealed to us yet. And I know in my calling that over the years, when I was first called, I was so riddled with pride it's hard to talk about when I look back now and see how arrogant I really was, how proud-filled I really was, but that's what God's calling is about. We are called to change the way we think. So we have this natural carnal mind then God calls us to be transformed by the power of His holy spirit, and the main thing we are transforming is this way of thinking – the way of pride to the way of humility.

So we understand that knowledge puffs up, puffs up our mind because we take credit to ourselves for the knowledge. We, by nature, take credit to ourselves for everything so that we can build our own image to build ourselves up. By nature we are concerned about what others think of us because that's just only natural. It's natural to be concerned about what people think or say about us, but God has called us out of that way of thinking. He has called us to be transformed from pride to humility and that is why we are in the Body of Christ. That's why we are in the Church.

So we've been called to be removed from pride, and the way that God does it is that He puts in our thinking, through the power of His spirit, that we begin to see ourselves the way we really are, the way we think, the way we think towards others. And of course, the purpose of life is to transform that into a way of thinking like God, thinking humility. So, we're called to a way of serving others, which is humility. We lower ourselves and serve others rather than the way of serving self, pride.

If you'd like to turn to 2 Corinthians 3:14-18 – But their minds, their thinking, were 'blinded' and that word can be also, 'hardened.' For until this day the same veil remains unlifted… it hasn't been drawn back… in the reading of the Old Testament – why? – because the veil is taken away in Christ. Now, mankind, unless they are called, cannot accept Christ, and here it is saying they did not believe in Christ as our Passover; therefore, they cannot see spiritual matters, because the veil that is taken away, when it is taken away, is because of a calling, and it's taken away by the power of God's spirit. It's God's spirit that removes the veil because we can only see spiritually if God's spirit lives and dwells in us.

Verse 15 – But even to this day… so even to this day mankind is still in the bondage of human reasoning, pride driven motives. So mankind is in this bondage to this day ...when Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart. So this inner thinking cannot understand because they have not been called to see spiritually, hence, there is no need, brethren, for us to go out and proselyte, and we talked about that before. When we proselyte, which means we go out and start to try to convert others – which is just insane thinking, really – we are lifting ourselves up in pride if we go out and proselyte. If we say too much to people, what's really the demonstration there? What is that a sign of? So if we meet somebody and someone asks us a basic question and we should give a basic answer because we know that God may be drawing the person, for example, but we can't give them the whole story at one hit. Well, if we do... now I've done that when I was first called. Someone would ask a simply basic question. Well, let me tell you, you can talk for two hours about God's way, giving them the whole story. Well, that was actually sin on my behalf because that was driven by pride. So it’s a sign of pride in us – when somebody asks a basic question about, "What’s the name of your Church?" and then we go on and start to spout a whole lot of stuff about the spirit in man and virtually take on the role of God – which is trying to convert somebody, which we can't, which is impossible, because it's only God through His power that can transform, convert somebody, transform the thinking. We can't – it's a sign of pride. So we need to be very careful that we don't start to preach to others or proselyte to others.

Continuing on in that verse there ...but even to this day, when Moses is read a veil lays over their heart, because God allows it. Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, when God is calling the person from pride into humility, and that is done through the gift of repentance. So it requires God's spirit. It requires God to be involved in it. We're not involved in it. It's God's spirit. God will lead the person into the truth.

...the veil is taken away. Now, the veil is taken away because now they can begin to see spiritually, and the only way they can see spiritually is by the power of God's spirit. Their mind is opened so that the power of God's spirit can dwell in them and now they can begin to see spiritual matters in a limited way. It's not something that you can see— the whole plan of God in one hit. It takes time. It's a transformation of the mind. It's a process which takes years, and even to the end of our life we are only really part way down seeing and understanding the mind of God, because we will never come to fully comprehend the greatness and the glory of God. So when this person is called, the veil is taken away. They begin to see God's thinking in a matter, and now over the rest of their lifetime, no matter how long that takes, that's what God does. He reveals Himself to us and we begin to see Him. We begin to see the way He thinks about matters then we begin to deny the self and get rid of our own natural thinking, the way we see it.

Verse 17 – Now the Lord God is the spirit; and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. So there is freedom from the bondage of our own way of thinking and there is also freedom from the way that Satan thinks because we have this natural carnal mind and Satan's way is totally opposite to God. He is in rebellion to God. He despises what God is and he, of course, tries to influence us to begin to come back into this bondage of our natural carnal mind, and because of the calling we are now fleeing that. We're leaving it behind and we're coming into a liberty, a freedom, to think like God thinks. But Satan is out there to bring us back into the captivity, the bondage of our thinking, and that's what his broadcasting is about. It's about trying to tempt us to sin – to lift ourselves up against God's way – which is driven by pride. Now, Satan is the pinnacle of pride. He is the one that first lived pride. He was the first to lift himself up in his thinking against God.

Verse 18 – But we all, with unveiled faces, and that is, of course, anybody that has God's spirit living and dwelling in them, beholding as a mirror the glory of the Lord, which is the image we reflect. So now we are going to reflect what God is by the way that we are actually living our life. In the same image, likeness, the same mind, the same thinking of God, from glory into glory, just as by, from, the spirit of the God. Now, we will reflect God's thinking by the way we live. His way of life will be reflected out to the benefit of others. In other words, God's spirit will enable it, will empower it.

The point of this is that God does it all. He is the one that is transforming our thinking from selfish pride to His way of love. And that is the key to understanding what we really are. It's about we are driven by pride. Our motivations are driven by pride. Well, we have to crush those and the only way we can do it is to turn to God and admit that we have wrong motives, we have wrong thinking towards others. It's just part of the way we are. And every time we see it, we should recognize it's a sign of pride. We're lifting ourselves up again against God or against God's people. We now have to turn to God and ask God to forgive us of that sin and to change the way we think; we want to live love to others.

If you'd like to turn to 2 Corinthians 4:1 – Therefore, and this statement really is, 'Because of this transformation that God is going to achieve in humans' – since we have this ministry, and what that ministry was, Paul was referring to there, was the work of service to the gentiles, as we have received mercy… they received mercy from God because of a calling… we do not lose heart. We don't give up. We don't faint because of this. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame… now, what it's really saying there, "We speak against those things of dishonour and confusion," not walking in craftiness, or handling the word of God deceitfully. So they weren't using the word of God for selfish reasons. They didn't want to try to control others. They weren't using God's word to control or have authority over them by their own natural carnal mind, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. What they were saying there is they were sincere and not out to control people, but to serve them by speaking God's word in truth. So they're not going to use God's word to gain authority or to gain credit to self. They were speaking God's word as it was motivated by the power of God's spirit.

Verse 3 – But even if our gospel has failed, if it was hidden, it is failed to those who are perishing, and it's to those who aren't called because they are perishing in the sense of without a calling what is it leading to? More pride, sin, and death. So it requires a calling to be not perishing.

Verse 4 – In whose mind's, thinking, the god of this age, Satan, has blinded… they cannot see spiritual matters… who do not believe… they don't believe because they haven't been called to believe. They haven't been called to see… lest the light of the gospel, the good news, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. Jesus Christ was the Word made flesh. He had the mind, the thinking of God. Jesus Christ was 'God with us,' as it says, 'Emmanuel,' because He was the very mind of God but in a human form. You had Jesus Christ as a man, but He had the very mind of God, so He had to go through many sufferings and trials in the human flesh, but He did have God's thinking.

Verse 5 – For we do not preach ourselves. They're saying there that they didn't have pride. They weren't doing a work of pride; it's not about ourselves. It's not about us or anything we do on the human level under human effort, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your bondservants, your minister, for Christ's sake. They were saying there, there is no human pride in this matter as it is all about what God is doing through Jesus Christ. And what was God doing through Jesus Christ? Transforming the human mind, which has the spirit of man in it, from thinking pride to thinking humility, to the Word of God, the mind of God, by the power of God's spirit. And that's what actually is happening!

Verse 6 – For God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, truth revealed to the mind, who has shone in our hearts, in our inner thinking – why? – to give light, to give the truth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So it was through Jesus Christ that we can see the very glory of God.

Verse 7 – But we have this treasure… what is that treasure that we have, brethren?  We have God's mind! We have the holy spirit dwelling in us! ...in earthen vessels… in this physical body, we carry it, but we carry it in our mind – why? – that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. So all the credit, all the glory goes to God!

There is no place for pride – none! We are born with it. It's natural, but that's what it is. It's natural. It's carnal, but the reality is we can take no credit to self for anything, and we have covered that in Part 1 and 2. The reality is that this is the way we are, but the reality really is that on a spiritual level we can take credit for nothing! It's God that does it all! It's God that does the work!

Now, we understand that this mind that we have, we can see an outline of it in 1 John 2:15-17 – Do not love or desire the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him. So if we do love things of the world, if we desire the way the world thinks, we actually don't have God's spirit. We don't have the thinking of God. And why? Verse 16 – For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, this desire to please the self, the lust of the eyes, the desire of the eyes, what the eyes see to take into the mind to seek pleasure from sin, and the pride of life, this pride that we have in ourselves that is the natural carnal mind, that we lift ourselves up and take credit to ourselves for matters, for things, for who we are, for what happens to us, the prejudices we have, they're all part of the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. It's natural! And Satan, of course, broadcasts to trigger the thinking within the desires of our flesh. When we have these yearnings, these desires we have, we yearn jealously for praise. So 'lust of the flesh' is we desire praise. We really do. We seek it. We desire to have people think good of us, to lift us up in their eyes. That's what we desire by nature – not to have people speak ill of us or ill will of us because it would affect our pride, our thinking. The 'lust of the eyes' – well this is a difficult one for mankind because Satan has built a system that is designed about the desires of the eyes, what comes in, what we see. Now, if you look at what it is between all the marketing, the advertizing, and all the things of billboards, and the way of life, the cars that they promote with half-naked girls on them – all these things are about desires of the eyes, what we desire to have – the beautiful homes, the castles. All these things are all penetrating through the senses of the eyes and from that we then have desires, that we're not happy with what we have in life, and we desire more for a wrong reason. We want to take it to ourselves, to take credit to ourselves, to lift ourselves up in the eyes of others. And the 'pride of life,' which is natural. By nature we have pride.

Verse 17 – And the world is passing away, and the lust of it, so all these desires on the physical things that we've just gone through, but he who does the will of God abides forever. He who has God's spirit and is striving to overcome himself or herself, trying to fight pride, admitting pride, it says 'will abide forever,' because we are transforming the thinking by the power of God's spirit.

So why do we have to fight pride in our thinking? 1 John 3:24 – Now he who keeps His Commandments, God's Commandments, abides in Him, so we'll have this same thinking, and He/God in him. So it's God living in our thinking. And by this we know that He abides in us. How do we know that God dwells in us? ...by the spirit which He has given us. So we keep the Commandments, we become Sabbath-keepers, we obey God in tithes and offerings, we do not hate, we learn to love others, we fight our own pride, and this is the sign that God says that He is dwelling in us, because we keep His Commandments. We desire to think like God toward others.

We can learn much about pride and what is the opposite to pride, humility, by looking at the life of David. Now, Godly confidence is humility. It is not pride. Godly confidence is humility because when we start to trust in ourselves we are demonstrating pride, but when we trust in God we are living humility.

1 Samuel 17:1 – This is the story of the battle of the Philistines and Israel, and in the main part about David and Goliath, because there are lessons here about how we can see ourselves and when we can trust in God and how we are to do it. And if we look at this, that Goliath is symbolic of pride and David is symbolic of humility... Now the Philistines gathered their armies together to battle and were gathered together at Socoh, which belongs to Judah; they camped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephesdammin. I don't know whether I got half of them right. Now, that place is about 16 miles or 25km southeast of Jerusalem.

Verse 2 – And Saul, who was king of Israel at that time, and the men of Israel were gathered together and they encamped in the Valley of Elah, and drew near in battle array against the Philistines.

Verse 3 – The Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side, with the valley between them. And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, and that word is 'splendour.' He was a very tall man, of course as we know, from Gath, which is a city of the Philistines, whose height was six cubits and a span. Now, if you looked at that it is believed that a cubit was about 18-20 inches in length, so Goliath was 6 cubits plus a span, and a span is basically the span of a man's hand, and that's how they called a span, and it was about 6-7 inches – which made him about 3 meters tall. So six cubits plus a span was most likely around 10 ft tall. Not exact science there but roughly, so he was pretty tall in comparison to most people. He was a giant.

Verse 5 – He had a bronze, copper, helmet on his head and he was armed with a coat of mail. That is of course a body armour that was woven closely together so that a spear would hit it and wouldn't penetrate it, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. That roughly translates into approximately 55-60kg in weight. Now he was a pretty big man to be able to carry that type of weight, because the average person of putting 60kg of weight on a person, it’s just too heavy, or you might be able to walk, but it would be a great burden. You wouldn't be able to walk too far with it, let alone the other things he carried; this is just his coat of mail.

Verse 6 – And he had bronze armor on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders.

Verse 7 – Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam and his iron spearhead weighed six hundred shekels, was about 6kg in weight, and a shield-bearer went before him. So here he was, he had all this armour on and he also had somebody that walked before him that carried the very shield that he had because that was heavy as well. When it came to the time of battle the shield bearer would pass the shield on to Goliath and he would proceed from that point.

Verse 8 – Then he stood and cried out to the armies of Israel and said to them, Why have you come out to line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and you the servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. So Goliath is now challenging one man out of tribes of Israel to come down to battle against him. And the point was, that they were going to fight and the winner was going to say, "The winner takes all," basically.

Verse 9 – If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve. Well, there is a great principle there in the sense of this mind that we have, brethren. We are servants to whom we obey. The point being there that on a spiritual level if we then submit our wills, our minds, our thinking towards something we actually become servants to it because it occupies our minds and we obey it. So it's like sin. Are we servants to sin? Are we servants to pride? Because if we submit to pride, we're a servant to it. It controls us and vise versa. If we fight against it and battle against it, we are not servants to it. We're going to win the victory by the power of God's spirit.

Verse 10 – And the Philistine said, I defy, and this is a taunt, really, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man that we may fight together. Now, this is actually pride at work. Now, he is actually saying, "Well, you send out one person, let's have this fight, and let's resolve this battle, and we don't have to go into a massive battle and kill each other. Let's just have one person die – it's either me or the other person – and from that the armies will surrender and there won't be need for all this death. But here he is, it's a work of pride. This is total self-reliance. Now Goliath is a human, and he was just like any other human in his thinking, and over time would have built up this pride in his mind, just like we have. He had an image. And of course, being as tall as he was and as big as he was and obviously he was a good fighter and obviously he had won a lot of battles, he probably never lost one, and therefore, he had built up this pride that he didn't believe in his mind that anyone would beat him. Now, he would have known also that Israel didn't have a giant as big as him and Israel would have been struck with this fear, because when you look out on a physical level, as we talked about rugby teams lining up and you measure people in stature, the first thing you think is, "Boy, this boy is a big boy! How am I going to battle him?" Well, Israel would have been the same. They were standing up on the other side of the hill and looking down at this giant and saying, "Wow, this is a problem! This boy is a big boy!" But we can learn from this that self-reliance has kicked in here. Goliath is not relying on anybody but himself. That's what he's doing, and he wanted to battle because he believed in his mind that he would win.

Verse 11 – When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Now, it says here they were 'shattered,' 'broken in spirit,' 'fearful in mind,' 'feeling despair, no hope.' "What are we going to do? There is no one here that is going to go down and fight this person because they're going to get killed!"

Verse 12 – Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehem Judah, whose name was Jesse, and who had eight sons. And the man was old, advanced in years, in the days of Saul. The three oldest sons of Jesse, which are David's brothers, had gone to follow Saul to the battle, and the names of the three sons who went to the battle were Eliab the firstborn, next to him Abinadab, and the third Shammah.

Verse 14 – David was the youngest. And the three oldest followed Saul.

Verse 15 – But David occasionally went and returned from Saul. Remember when he used to play the harp when Saul would have a bad attitude or it was noted down as 'a wrong spirit,' and the way that he was soothed was that David had gone up occasionally there and would play the harp for Saul and he would change his spirit. And there are previous chapters that covered that. But David occasionally went and returned from Saul to feed his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.

Verse 16 – And the Philistine, Goliath, drew near and presented himself forty days, so this is that period we understand as a number of testing, a time of testing. So here he was, for forty days he's come out morning and evening and he has challenged the Israelites. Now, that's a long period of time to be encamped and that every day that Goliath would come out and speak the same words, and really was defying the people of Israel and the armies of Israel, and they of course were in fear, and obviously, almost like being paralyzed in fear because they're not doing anything at this point.

Verse 17 – Then Jesse said to his son David, Take now for your brothers an ephah of this dried grain and these ten loaves, and run to your brothers at the camp.

Verse 18 – And carry these ten cheeses to the captain of their thousand, and see how your brothers fare, and bring back news of them. Here it is, of course, is that Jesse is worried about his own sons. He's saying, "Well, go out and check them out. Go and see whether they're doing well and see how they're going." Because as a father he would be really concerned, the fact that he had three sons that were in the army. Of course like any father he would be concerned about his own sons.

Verse 19 – Now Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the Valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines.

Verse 20 – So David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with a keeper, so he didn't neglect the flock that he had, and took the things and went as Jesse had commanded him. So he obeyed his father. And he came to the camp as the army was going out to fight and shouting for the battle. So Israel is all stirred up and Goliath has been up there for forty days doing that and here is Israel rallying themselves.

Verse 21 – For Israel and the Philistines had drawn up in battle array, army against army. So they're lined up really to go to fight.

Verse 22 – And David left his supplies in the hand of the supply keeper, ran to the army and came and greeted his brothers. Then as he talked with them, there was the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, coming up from the armies of the Philistines; and he spoke according to the same words. "I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may fight together." So David heard them. And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were dreadfully afraid. So here was Goliath, he's presented himself, and of course the fear has struck into the men of Israel and they've ran back out of their position where they were lined up to fight.

Verse 25 – So the men of Israel said, "Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel; and it shall be that the man who kills him the king will enrich with great riches, will give him his daughter, and give his father’s house exemption from taxes in Israel.” Well, today that would be a great blessing, to be exempt from the taxes of the nations if you were to win a battle. And to be exempt from taxation I think a lot of men, whether you were tall or short or no matter what you were, would probably take up the battle just so that they could get exempt from the control of government taxes.

Then David spoke to the men who stood by him, saying, “What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach of Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” So David has asked a good question here! So David speaks of knowledge with humility. Because we'd only make a statement like that, which is, "Who is this that defies the armies of the living God?!" Because God is going to fight all the battles for Israel! It's God that's in charge of life and death! So David has some level of understanding here with regards to believing that it is God that wins battles, that fights battles on behalf of Israel, on behalf of the individual as well.

So David states the facts of the matter. This is actually the truth: "Who does Goliath think that he is in lifting himself up in pride against God, against God's people?!"  Now we, brethren, also need to be very careful that we don't do the same, because we do this when we speak against a brother. We do this when we speak against a brother, when we lift ourselves up and speak against a brother, a member of the Body of Christ, someone that God has set aside for holy use and purpose. What are we doing? We are lifting ourselves up in pride against God and against God's people! A big lesson to be learned there. And it is difficult for us as humans to come to fully grasp the spiritual hate that is involved, the murder that is involved when we do this, when we stand up and defy God's army, God's people, the Church of God, brethren, because they have been set aside, called, sanctified to be holy. They're set aside for holy use and purpose. God is using the individual in the Body of Christ for His benefit, for His purpose. It may not be the way we want it done but that's the point! The point is we can't do a Goliath and lift ourselves up in pride and speak evil of the armies of Israel. How can we stand up against the armies of God? God's people?

Verse 27 – And the people answered him in this manner, saying, So shall it be done for the man who kills him.

Verse 28 – Now Eliab his oldest brother heard when he spoke to the men, he heard David speaking, and Eliab’s anger was aroused against David… because now he is angry against David because he is now speaking against David, really, because he's lifting himself up in pride, because anger is selfishness. Anger is pride. It's the way we want it. So he's raising himself up now against David because of what David has said and he accuses him of something. So now he's imputing a motive on David. Now, when we impute a motive we're actually suggesting the reason somebody did something. So we impute a motive by saying, "Well, I know why that person did it," and we accuse them of something and yet we haven't got a clue. We're just making an assumption. Well, that is what is imputing a motive, when we accuse somebody of something and believing we know why they did it. In other words, we're accusing them of sin, really, because the only reason that we would do that is because of our pride. It's a sign of pride, accusing somebody of something without knowing the full facts, without knowing the truth. By imputing a motive on anybody, what are we doing? It's a sign of pride. We're lifting ourselves up against somebody.

Continuing on in that verse... and he said, Why did you come down here? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? So here he is saying – see, without facts, without truth, because remember we read earlier that David left the sheep with a keeper, with somebody else, but here Eliab is actually now imputing a motive and accusing David of something which is not true. I know your pride and the insolence of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle. So here is this imputing a motive, accusing him of something that is not true. Another way of putting that is, "I know what you're up to! You've come down here to see the sites hoping for a ring-side seat at the bloody battle!" He's accusing and imputing a motive on David. The truth was that it was Eliab's pride that was on display here. His anger is a demonstration of selfishness, a demonstration of pride. Anger reveals an attitude which states, "Things are not going the way I want them!" Now, does that ring a bell for us, brethren? Isn't that the same that we can learn from the lessons of Lucifer? The "I will..." and "I have decided to..."? So here it is, it's a going against God. So this anger that is being revealed by Eliab really is stating, "I want it my way. I know you. I'm imputing a motive," but there was no truth involved in it. And we know that Satan lifted himself up against God because it wasn't going the way he wanted it. He could not see the benefit of what God was really doing; he could see it from his perspective and he didn't want it that way.

Verse 29 – And David said, What have I done now? So David is sort of defending himself, saying, "What have I done now?!!" So this is obviously something that's happened obviously many times to him, being the youngest of the boys, that he's been accused on a regular basis and now he's saying, "What have I done now?” Is there not a cause? He's saying, "All I did is ask a question!" and now he's in big trouble just for simply asking a question. He's being accused of something for asking a question. Then he turned from him toward another and said the same thing; and these people answered him as the first ones did. Now 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. David is now saying, "Don't let anyone be afraid of Goliath! I'll go down and fight this Philistine; I'll go and do it!" Because he has confidence in God. He's saying, "Well, don't give up hope! I'm ready to go down and fight this Philistine."

Verse 33 – And Saul said to David, You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are a youth and he is a man of war from his youth. Goliath has been trained his whole life, that's all he's ever done, is gone out and fought. He knows how to battle. He knows what he's doing. You've never gone out in a battle! What's the point? You're just going to get killed, really, you've got no understanding about how to fight this man. You've had no sword training! You've had nothing!"

Verse 34 - But David said to Saul, Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took one 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 it and killed it.

Verse 26 – Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God. Isn't that a beautiful statement! Here is the confidence that David has in God, because he says, "Well, I'll go out and do this! I'll go out and strike Goliath because who is this person who has nothing to do with Israel. He has nothing to do with God." Because what he's saying by saying, 'uncircumcised Philistine,' is because David understood the covenant of Israel that God had made with Abraham which was to circumcise to bring into the promises of Abraham. Well, here he's saying, "He's an uncircumcised Philistine – he has no knowledge of God! God is not for the Philistines because they don't have this relationship with God, the promise of God by circumcision."

Verse 37 – 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 the Philistines. And Saul said to David, Go, and the LORD be with you! Well, brethren, this is about confidence, this is about faith. Faith is living what we believe. We believe God. We believe the truth. We believe this is God's true Church. So we have faith, so we live what we believe. David believed God was in control of all things, and that's something that we, brethren, should also believe. We believe that God the Father is in control of all His creation. He has called us. We believe that all things work to the good, the spiritual good, of those who are called and who love God. That's us brethren! All things will work to our good. No matter what trial or what test we are facing, all things are about a spiritual outcome, and that's often where we get confused in life because we tend to dwell on the physical and all the physical aspects of life rather than the spiritual outcome, what God is trying to teach us through the physical. Because it's by experiencing the physical that we can learn spiritually by the power of God's spirit.

So every time we get into various situations, every day we should examine ourselves to see what spiritual growth that we need to work on. Of course the greatest thing is pride. We need to continually be fighting our pride, our opinions of others, our views of others, the way we think. We need to be disciplining and fighting it all the time.

Humility is when we trust in God for all things – all things physical and all things spiritual. Because we've also seen in the previous two sermons that God is the one who provides all things by the power of His spirit. Anything spiritual has to come from God. He is the author of all knowledge physical and spiritual. Now, we understand, brethren, that we're born with pride and we have to fight against it by the power of God's spirit. We take nothing to ourselves. We don't give any credit to the self – because we shouldn't. We just simply shouldn't because if we take any credit to self for achieving anything, whether it's race, whether it's knowledge, no matter what it is, it is pride, it is a sign of pride. We believe that God does the works and that is a demonstration of humility. When we fully come to see that it is God that does the works in us, the spiritual works in us, that is humility. We come to see it and understand it, that of and by ourselves we can do nothing.

Pride is when we think we can achieve something based on our own ability or take credit for anything and leave God out of the situation. Well, here we have David. He is not going to leave God out of the situation.

Verse 38 – So Saul clothed David with armour, and put a bronze helmet on his head; he also clothed him with this coat of mail. As we know, it's a heavy jacket. Saul would have had one because he was a man of war, and David, of course, probably had never ever worn one. So David fastened his sword to his armour and he tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So he hadn't had it. It was not...it wouldn't fit him and he never actually uses it. And of course, we know about this testing, about trying it out, about proving it. It's the same type of word; he's going to prove it to see whether it works or not. So he hasn't tested them, he hasn't proved them, he'd never worn it before, so he doesn't know how he's going to be able to operate in them. And David said to Saul, I cannot walk in these, for I have not tested them/I haven't proved them. So David took it off. So this is about thinking, "Well, this doesn't work for me on a physical level and I can't walk in this. I can't fight in this. This is not going to protect me at all." This is not relying on something physical to protect us. We should rely on God to protect us.

So there is a great lesson here – that we can't rely on physical things for spiritual protection. I'm going to repeat that because there is a lot in that statement. We should not rely on anything physical for spiritual protection – because it's impossible, because God is the one who is our provider. He is the one who protects us. So we should learn to rely on God both physically and spiritually. So David put on the armour of God. What was the armour of God? It was faith. He put on faith. Because we, brethren, have been told in scripture also that we are to put on the armour of God...so let's look at that.

If you'd like to hold your place there and turn to Ephesians 6:10. The spiritual principle here is that we cannot walk spiritually without the armour of God. And the example is David putting on a physical armour and then taking off that physical armour because it wasn't going to protect him. What was going to protect him was the armour of God because it's a spiritual battle that we've entered. Well, he's going into a battle relying on God. And that is what our armour is! Our armour is we're going to rely on God!

Ephesians 6:10 – Finally, my brethren, be strong, be strong spiritually, in the Lord and in the power of His might. What's the power of His might? God's spirit, the power of God's spirit living and dwelling in us, the thinking of God. That's what makes us strong! We don't walk spiritually using our own physical strength. So we don't walk this physical life relying on physical things. We don't walk spiritually thinking that we're doing it on our own effort, because it's not our own effort, it's God in us that fights our battles. It's God in us that gives us the strength. God in us and we in Him is the answer to life. It's a beautiful thing if we understand it on a spiritual level. It's about unity. It's about God living and dwelling in us.

Verse 11 – Put on the whole armour of God – that's where it comes from. It comes from God; it's the armour of God. The armour of Saul is useless. Physical armour is useless. It won't protect us because our battles are spiritual; they're not physical. They're all spiritual. If we ever engage in a physical battle of some type, whether it's words, actions, or whatever we're doing in the way of thinking we're fighting on a physical level, even in our minds when we are maybe discussing something and we're really warring, the reality is, it's a spiritual battle, because it's driven by a motive. It's driven by an intent, and that's the important thing to do. So Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. So these strategies, these schemes, the deceit of Satan, which is he who is the Slanderer, he will put thoughts into our mind. And of course, the battle for us is we have to work out, "Is this thinking from ourselves?" "Is it influenced by Satan?" "Where is it coming from?" And we don't always get it right – we just simply don't always get it right. We often are deceived and believe that it is something that is coming from God, and of course, it may not be. We have to be very cautious in that thinking.

So when you look at that, brethren, if you look at the area of David and Saul and you look at our battle against ourselves and against Satan's influence, or the demonic influence, if we are to fight against anyone, we would look for the weakest link in the armour. And that's exactly what Satan does! He looks for the weakest link in our armour, and the weakest link in our armour is pride, our own pride, our own self-reliance. That is our weakest link. So Satan will attack us using our vanity because we all have it. We all have pride. We always think we are something that we are not. We think we are better than we are. We've taken credit to ourselves for something. Well, that's what Satan will use and that's why we have to be on guard. We're not to rely on ourselves or our own reasoning's, we are to rely on God and what God says about a matter. Which comes back to a principle of government within God's Church, which this sermon won't cover, but maybe in the future we'll go into more detail in that if God allows it.

Verse 12 – For we do not wrestle, we don't struggle, against flesh and blood, we don't fight against other humans, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly. So 'to wrestle,' which is 'to fight or contend against,' it is between two, and the intent is to overthrow the other – and that is what is happening to us. Satan is wrestling against us. We're wrestling against Satan. We're wrestling against pride – Satan is the pinnacle of pride – we've got our own pride – well, we have to wrestle against it. When you look at a wrestling match, what's it about? Two individuals, one endeavouring to overthrow the other, to pin the other down to claim victory, to hold his opponent down. Now, that's exactly what Satan is trying to do with us, brethren, he is wrestling against us and we are wrestling against him, 'principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this wicked world,' the evil spirit world broadcasting into the mind, and now we have to fight pride. We have to fight pride within ourselves. And that's what we're wrestling against. So it's not a physical battle. If it's a physical battle we could put on physical armour, we could carry a shield, put on the helmet, put on the breastplate, all those things. We could do them on a physical level to go out to prepare for battle. Well, this is talking about a spiritual battle. This is what we are in.

Therefore, take up, that word is really 'receive,' the whole armour of God… it's not physical. It's all spiritual… that you may be able to withstand, resist, in the evil day, because the evil day is that battle, that temptation that we get every day ...and having done all to stand… we are to endure to the end. We are to stand against these temptations. We are to stand by fighting in the mind ...stand, therefore, having girded your waist with truth. So we can begin this battle by having the Truth, having the 57 Truths in our thinking.

Now, when you go through the truths, brethren, we can understand it separates us so much from the world, but also separates us from all the other churches in the world... but also the scattered Churches because we have truth. We have understanding. And all of this truth, what does it bring? It brings us strength, it brings us confidence, it brings us peace of mind because we know the truth. Isn't it incredible how exciting that really is? That we have 'girded our waist with truth,' and if we do, brethren, we can now begin to stand.

...having put on the breastplate of righteousness... What is that breastplate of righteousness? Well, it's the law! It's obedience to God's law! That's what we've chosen. We seek, we desire to obey God, we desire to keep the Sabbath. We desire to obey God by attending His Holy Days. We intend to and set our minds to tithe and give offerings. So this is the righteousness. This is the breastplate. So if we are doing those things, if we are keeping the Sabbath and High Days, if we are tithing, if we are fighting the fight every day in our mind, if we are doing our prayer, if we are doing our study, if we are putting God first in all our decisions, and putting humans and human decisions second, we are putting on the breastplate of righteousness, because righteousness comes from God and it is about obedience to the 10 Commandments.

So now we're starting to put on spiritual garments for a spiritual warfare. Now, if we don't have the truth, we can't win the battle. It's impossible! If we don't obey God in Sabbath keeping, in tithes and offerings and other things with regards to His law, if we hate our brother and we don't love our brother, we have not put on the breastplate of righteousness. If we are still justifying ourselves, if we're still living pride, we have not put on the breastplate of righteousness. And guess what? We will lose the battle against Satan. He is more powerful! He is more powerful against humans and he has control over them in the sense of being able to broadcast to them; but to us, brethren, it's different. He does not have control of us because God is greater in us than he that is in the world. So it's God in us that is our strength. So we are to put on Truth, we're to believe the Truth, we're to put on righteousness, live the way God tells us to live.

Verse 15 – And having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. We're to believe the good news of the future government of God. What a wonderful message! What peace that brings! That we look forward to the return of Jesus Christ and 144,000 to this earth to bring in a new way of government. The removal of Satan is the beginning of that. It is so incredible! That's what we do! We have 'shod our feet.' In other words, we're protecting our feet, the way we walk, because we believe the gospel of peace, because it's only through the Government of God that peace can come on the earth, because once Jesus Christ returns God will pour out His spirit and His spirit is peace. God's thinking is peace. We're only able to have peace if God lives and dwells in us because it is God that creates a way of thinking, a way of peace. Living love out to others will create peace.

So here we have, we're believing the Truth, we’re living the Truth, we are living the 10 Commandments, and now we believe the gospel, the good news of the Kingdom of God, the good news of the return of Jesus Christ to get rid of Satan and his demons to create a new environment by pouring out the spirit of God into the thinking of mankind who have the veil across their eyes. And when that veil is removed, they will enter the same battle we have entered now.

Verse 16 – Above all taking the shield of faith which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. So if we take on this shield of faith – we have to believe God – we will be able then to quench the attitudes, the broadcasts that come into our minds from Satan. But it's only through faith, it's only believing in God. Faith is when we believe God and implement His ways in to our thinking then we have to live it! We have to walk in the Truth!

Verse 17 – And take the helmet of salvation... What's the helmet of salvation? Well, it's the plan of God. We understand the plan of salvation that God has for all mankind. So we take that helmet, we believe it, and we understand it to a degree, and we take that on, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. We use God's word to govern our thinking. It cuts into the inner being, into the motive and intent of our thinking.

So now we've taken on the whole armour of God. We have taken on all the armour like David had put on, but he couldn't walk on it because it was physical. Well, brethren, if we take on the spiritual armour of God as outlined here, which is all available through God's true Church, the one true Church, the Church of God – PKG and no other, that's where truth comes from. It comes through God's Church. You can't find it anywhere else. There is no use even looking anywhere else because it doesn't exist out there. It's here. This is where God's Truth is, and we take the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God. We live by every word of God. We follow the instructions as given by God through the Church, and therefore, if we have that we can now fight the battles. We can win spiritual battles because it's God living and dwelling in us.

So if you look at all that was outlined there, all of those things came from the power of God's spirit. None of it is physical. It is all spiritual and it's all done by God's great power. It's not something that we do. It's something that God does in and through us.

Verse 18 – Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, in the thinking, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. So we desire spiritual good for others. Now, we can do that if we have God's spirit because we understand the purpose of life, we understand why God created humans, we understand why God calls anybody into the Church, we understand why God called us into the Church. The reason we were called into the Church was to take on the whole armour of God, because if we take on the whole armour of God, God will then live and dwell in us and we can fight spiritual battles because that's what we are in the Church for. We are to be transformed from one way of thinking, the natural carnal mind as we went through in Romans 8, to a new way of thinking, the very thinking of God.

We are to remain spiritually awake and in prayer. We are to rely on God, just like David is. He's relying on God. He's not relying on something physical. So David, if you look at it in the level of humility, he's taking off that protection of that armour because he can't walk in that physical way of life. He's now going to trust God, which is the true armour of God. God is going to fight our battles because it's God that does the works in us.

If you'd like to go back to 1 Samuel 17 and we'll pick it up in verse 40. 1 Samuel 17:40 – Then he, David, took the staff in his hand; and he chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and he put them into a shepherd’s bag, in a pouch which he had, so he had this small pouch on the side and he put those five small stones in it, and his sling was in his hand. So he's used to carrying this sling around with him because as a shepherd he would take the rocks and he would use his sling and throw them, I'm sure, at wild animals to drive them away. And he drew near to the Philistine.

Verse 41 – So the Philistine came, which is Goliath, 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. Now, this word really is 'he scorned' or 'counted him as worthless.' Now, this is an example of pride at work. When we look out at anybody and see them or count them as worthless... now, to count somebody as worthless is to see them as less than ourselves. We look down on somebody else. Now, we know human nature, how it works. It looks down on others because of race, and yet we have no choice about what race we are, but that's the way the natural mind is, it seeks to build itself up as better. It looks down on others. It takes credit to itself for its nationality. Now, that is what you call insane thinking, but that's the natural carnal mind, and what's it driven by? Pride. So the moment we look down on others, the moment we look out as others or count them as worthless within the Body of Christ or out of the Body of Christ (it's irrelevant), it is a prejudice. We're lifting ourselves up thinking we are better, and that is actually sin. That is pride at work.

So here we have Goliath now looking down on David. He distained him, he counted him as worthless, he looked down on him, he thought, "He's just a kid..." for he was only a youth, ruddy and good-looking. So David is now out there with his small bag with five stones in it, with his sling, and here is Goliath with all his armour on, his physical protection, with his shield bearer ahead of him and they are now approaching each other. Here is Goliath looking out and saying, "They've sent out a kid to me!"

Verse 43 – 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. So here we have Goliath now looking down and saying, "What! Do you think I'm just like a dog? ...an animal? ...that you can come out and send a kid out to me with just a stick, that you're going to just chase me away?" And of course then he starts to curse David which is now to deride David by his gods, by Goliath's gods, because they worshipped all false gods. So he would be now just cursing him, "And may the god of 'this' do 'this and that'..." to David.

Verse 44 – And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field! In other words, "I'm just going to kill you!"

Verse 45 – Then David said to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. "You've come to me with all this self-protection, you're trusting in all those weapons that you have," but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the army of Israel, whom you have defied! So David now is the sign of true humility. David is not relying on himself in any way. He's actually giving all the credit, all the glory to God, but he's saying to Goliath, "You put on all this physical protection, you've got all this self-reliance, you've got all this pride..." That's not openly stated, but the inference is, "You've got all this pride! Well, I'm going to trust in God! You can't go on defying God!" Now, we can learn a lot from this, brethren. We should never, ever take God's name in vain, because it is God's Church, and when we take God's name in vain we can do it through words, yes, but we can do it through actions. We are members of the Body of Christ, so how we behave, how we conduct ourselves, how we live is actually a demonstration of whether we are defying or defiling God's name, the Church of God, God's name. David is saying here, "God is for me, who can be against me?! I come with God as my protection! You've got all these physical things. I've got God! I've got the Creator of the universe as my protector!"

Verse 46 – This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, so he's saying all credit will be given to God. This is a true sign of humility. "It's God that's going to win this! God's going to do it all and God is going to deliver you into my hand! God is going to fight my battles for me!" Just the way that we should think on a spiritual level! God is going to fight all our battles for us if God is with us, God living and dwelling in us, if we have God's spirit ...and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give your carcasses, to the camp of the Philistines, to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth – why? – that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. Brethren, we can learn from this. There is a God in the Church of God. God is in His people, and with that we should now learn to respect God's people. We should never speak ill will of any of God's people because it's a dangerous, dangerous thing to do, and we know that the moment we speak ill will of anybody in the Church we should now understand from this sermon series it is a sign of pride within us.

So David was giving all the credit and praises to God, where it belongs, because God is the author of all things. He created all things. He is in control of all things, and therefore, we can't take any credit to ourselves. And David is not taking any credit to himself here, he is actually demonstrating humility. David was not taking any credit to self for the victory. It is not a 'look at me' attitude, so "Look at me. I'm going to be somebody!" but to look to God and to His great power.

Verse 47 – Then all this assembly shall know that the LORD does not save with sword or spear… it's not physical… for the battle is the LORD’s, and He will give you into our hand. So this is something that we can see on a spiritual level, that it's not through a physical means, the battle is the Lord's. It's God that fights the battle. It's God that fights a battle in us and God's will will be achieved within His Church, within His people, and we're not to fight against it.

I know one example, which can be a little bit of a complex area sometimes, but when people will say they ask for prayers. Well, it is a difficult area that we have to be very careful of because we don't know that we're not fighting against God's will. Because God's will may be to allow a trial to continue in a person's life – it may be financial, for example – but a person says, "Well, will you pray for me that 'such and such' will happen?" Well, the reality is that we need to be very, very careful about what we pray about for others because God could be using that trial that the person has probably got themselves into, that God isn't involved in that trial in the sense of 'causing it,' the person has caused it. But if God allowed that trial for the person to learn a spiritual lesson, and then comes along somebody and says, "God, will you take that trial from them," well, it's like we saw before when Peter turned around and said to Christ, "Well, no! You're not going to go through that!" And then Christ turned around and said, "Get behind Me, Satan!" Because it's a wrong way of thinking. We're fighting against God's will. So we have to be very careful that we don't fight against God's will.

So when we pray about situations, we always should say, as we have gone through in Matthew, "Your will be done." God willing! "Your will be done, God," because we don't want to fight against God. We don't want to resist God because God could be allowing a situation in a person's life for a great spiritual purpose, a great spiritual outcome, and therefore, we've got to be very careful that we don't pray against God's will. And therefore, all our prayers should be around the intent and the purpose and the understanding of, "God, Your will be done."

Now, David was referring here, back with this battle, that the battle is God's and it has already been won because God had established it. Nothing can go against God's will and purpose. Nothing! So if you'd just like just to hold your place there we'll go to Ecclesiastes 3.

Ecclesiastes 3:14 – Now, this is a principle, something that is of great spiritual understanding to have, is that if something has already been established, God's will will be done. David was always going to beat Goliath because God was going to do it. It is something that is determined for our benefit. Brethren, we can learn from this. This is an example of pride and humility. This is an example of God fighting our battles. And the determination of the outcome has been determined in this example...has been determined; it is set, and therefore, we can't fight against it. And that's what the warning is, not to fight against God's will, to trust in God, take on the whole armour of God, and God will do the works in and through us. It's a guarantee IF we are to submit ourselves to God's will.

Ecclesiastes 3:14 – I know that whatever God does, whatever God decides, it shall be forever. It's set. It's done. This is what God has set. It's done. Nothing can be added to it, because God has determined it, He has already decided this is the outcome, nothing taken from it. God does it – why? – that men should fear before Him. Now, that's something that we can learn from this lesson between David and Goliath. We can learn to fear before God. So the determination of the battle was pre-determined by God. God already knew what He was going to do with David and make David king of Israel and replace Saul...and God had that in His plan. And we can learn from all of that. We can learn that God is all powerful, God fights the battles on a physical and spiritual level; therefore, we should learn to fear before God because it's God that does the works.

Verse 15 – That which is has already been, has already been planned, and what is to be has already been… it's been planned out and determined… and God requires an account what is past, what is to follow. God has pre-determined, has set and established, has decided the outcome in the creation of Elohim. The point is that God is all mighty and nothing can resist His will and purpose. Nothing can resist God's will and purpose. Satan might resist God and fight against Him, and we in our pride can fight and resist against God because of our natural carnal mind, but the outcome of the creation of Elohim has been determined. God will achieve His plan. It's God's plan and He is all powerful, all mighty, and it will be achieved, just like this battle with Goliath.

What is our Goliath, brethren? What is that we are to face? What is it we face that we must conquer? What is it that we must fight against? Well, we know that our greatest enemy, the greatest enemy of any human that has ever been born other than Jesus Christ, is pride. Pride is our greatest enemy, even if we do not see it on a spiritual level. It's just something that we will grow in time to learn, we all know, "I've got the same problem! I've got pride. I've got to grow in this." And pride can be revealed in many ways. We might think we have a grasp on what our pride is, but pride is anything that goes against God. Now, the natural carnal mind goes against God, so we have a natural carnal mind and we go against God. Now, we don't always see how we do it and how we resist it, but one of the main areas that we do it is government. It's about whether or not we allow God to govern our lives. Now, we go against God and God's Government when we go against any decision that comes out of the authority ordained within the Church. We go against God. That's actually pride. When we fight against or resist a decision that God has given through the Church, and if we resist it, it's pride at work. Now, to the degree we see these things it all depends on what God is doing with us individually in our life and our purpose of why God has called us into the Church at this time, for whatever purpose it is, whether we understand it all – of course we don't – when that spiritual outcome will be fulfilled. Because everything that God has set out will be achieved, just simply will, and therefore, we must learn in our life not to resist or fight against God or God's will.

If you'd like to turn back to 1 Samuel 17:48 – So it was, when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, that David hastened and ran towards the army to meet the Philistine. Now, we can visualize that in our minds where you see Israel on one side of the hill, the Philistines on the other, and here is Goliath with his armour bearer, the shield bearer down the front, and David running down. Of course, he's not wearing armour – he's got a stick and he's got a sling-shot and he's got these small pebbles with him.

Verse 49 – Then David put his hand into his bag and took out a stone; and he slung it and struck the Philistine in the forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead, in other words, hit him fair between the eyes and it sunk into his temple, and he fell on his face to the earth. So Goliath now has fallen down dead, face forward. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him. But there was no sword in the hand of David. So there was no reliance on the physical things that Saul had asked him to wear. This is about God delivering the battle. It's God that did the work here. It's God that achieved the victory. It wasn't David. And David was representing God and humility fighting against Goliath, which was symbolic of pride. Therefore David ran and stood over the Philistine, took his sword, the Philistine's sword, Goliath's sword, and drew it out of its sheath and killed him, and he cut off his head with it. And the Philistines saw that their champion was dead and they fled. So the main spiritual point is we must learn to believe that God is for us. God is for us, brethren. God will do the works. God will win the victory for us because 'greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.' And that's the truth, brethren. God has said it; God does not lie. God is all powerful. God is mighty. So, we need God's spirit. We need to put on the very armour of God. We need to believe God. We need to live the truth.

We can also see that growth, spiritual growth, comes from fighting. Now, this is an interesting principle, really, because when you look at a weight lifter and they go into the gymnasium and they start to lift weights. Now, they can only lift a certain amount of weight at the beginning. If it's too heavy they drop it. Well, once they start with a certain amount of weights and through this exercise the muscle is exercised, it then grows, and as it grows it lifts a greater weight. So it's about this lifting of the weights; it's about the fighting. Well, the same with us, brethren. It's about lifting the weights. It's about taking on the fight. We are strengthened by fighting! If there is no fight, we can't be strengthened, we can't change the mind, the way we think. It's through the battle in our minds, this battle that wages within our inner mind, our inner thinking, the recognition of pride, the recognition of sin, that we resist it, that we desire not to want it, we call out to God to help us in this battle and God will win the fight. But we, our part, is that we take up the battle, we take on the whole armour of God, and we want and desire to win the battle.

So we can be strengthened by the fight. So weight lifters gain strength by exercise – we gain spiritual strength by spiritual battles. We must enter these spiritual battles. So when we get those thoughts, when we see the pride, when we see the signs of pride, let's fight. Let's fight against those principalities, against the powers in high places, and let's do it by taking on the whole armour of God. Let's call out to God to strengthen us because He can win the fight because that's His desire, that's His purpose. He desires us to win the fight by relying on Him to fight for us by the power of His holy spirit.

So brethren, we can have the confidence that God is for us and He is not against us. God is for us. Confidence in God is humility. Confidence in God and not in self-reliance is humility.

The main point of this sermon, brethren, is that we can recognize signs of pride within us. Many of those signs of pride should be obvious to us. If we've been in the Church for some period of time, they should be more obvious. But those signs of pride can be justification. Any time we want to argue or go against God in our thinking, the image that we try to set out and protect the image by justification – they're all signs of pride. So through this sermon series, these three parts, hopefully we've begun to see that we all have pride, we admit we have pride, and that we're going to set out to fight it, to recognize it, to see it and know that all signs of pride are signs of sin, because pride is sin.

Psalm 10:1 – Why do You, God, stand afar off, O LORD? Why do you hide in times of trouble? Well, the answer on a spiritual level is that God has not hidden Himself from us. God has not hidden Himself from us on a spiritual level. On a physical level it might appear to us that He is not close because of the things we are doing or things that we just don't see on a spiritual level. God is always close to us, but He allows us to learn spiritual lesson from physical situations. When God does this, allows us to learn spiritual lessons from physical situations, it appears He is standing back or hiding from us, which is not the case.

So, God is near to us, brethren. Even though we get ourselves caught up in physical things, God is there. God's desire ii for us. He desires to create Elohim in and through us! That's what He's trying to achieve in us. Now it's our choice. So there comes times in our life when we get into different physical situations in life where we don't always see God, but God has not hidden in this time of trouble that we are in, whether it's physical, it's financial, no matter what it is God is near us.

Verse 2 – The wicked in his pride persecutes the poor, well, he's got this confidence. Someone of a selfish nature, he's got this self-confidence and he will persecute the poor and he can persecute the poor through words and actions and he does it because he doesn't know that God is actually there, that all things are brought to account.

Let them be caught in the plots which they have devised, in other words, what they've planned in their thinking. What David's asking here, "Why do the proud persecute the lowly, the humble? Why do people lift themselves up?" Because they don't think that they will ever have to pay the price for their actions; that's why they do it. Because they don't see it because they're not being called to see it. But the truth is they will be placed into a period of judgment and they will have to repent of their pride, their sin, or pay the penalty for the unrepented sin. And if during that period of the hundred years, if they refuse to repent of the pride, they will have to pay the penalty and that, of course, we understand is the second death. So nobody gets away with pride – nobody. Lucifer will not get away with pride and mankind will not get away with pride.

Verse 3 – For the wicked boasts of his heart's desire, He blesses, praises, the greedy and renounces, despises, the LORD. God's ways are rejected in mankind's thinking because of the natural carnal mind. He does not want God's ways. 'He boasts in himself,' what he has acquired, and he actually talks against God's way of life because he sees God's way of life as oppressive and controlling, but in actual fact it is actually freedom.

Verse 4 – The wicked in his proud countenance, in that look, does not seek God, because he's self-reliant, because of the natural carnal mind. God is in none of his thoughts. And that's exactly right because he hasn't been called to have the very mind of God. In other words, another version says, "The wicked snub God, their noses stuck up high in the air; their attitude is, 'Catch us if you can. God is dead.'" In other words, they don't have God in their life at all, where we, brethren, have God in our life, we rely on God, we trust in God to work out His purpose in our life. But it is going to take God's intervention into the lives of mankind to fix society, to fix mankind's thinking.

So, brethren, from this sermon series I hope that we can all see that we all have pride. I have pride. I'm still working on my pride. As God reveals it to me I strive not to have pride. And why we have been called into the Church at this time is for the removal of pride so that God can live in us, so that we can live humility.

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