Pursuing A Heart like David’s, Pt. 1

Ronald Weinland

October 24, 2020

The last series was entitled Called Into God’s Government, which is a result of being called by God, invited by God to enter His Kingdom, His family, Elohim.

In that last series we focused on lessons that can be learned from the story of Samuel and the first king over Israel, Saul. I’ve often mentioned that so much of my being molded by God by my training has been to experience and learn what has not been right and true about how God’s government is to be administered. So, we go through different examples of life, different experiences, maybe is a better way of saying it, in life, and God uses those things to mold and fashion us for things that are yet ahead of us.

I think of that process, of molding and fashioning and the things we learn through that process, the experiences that make us what we are, and this series here, again, that’s been about Saul, is one of wrong examples, bad examples of how people are not to respond toward God, how they’re to live properly and fail to do so.

But there’s a new series that is now needed, and that is the follow-up to this, and it’s about the right example, one that king David set in his life and the process of God calling him, and we’re going to begin that particular series today entitled Pursuing A Heart Like David’s. Now, we’ve talked about this, I think it was back in February in another series, and talking about the uniqueness of king David. We’re going to take a look at that again today here but build upon that a lot more. Again, a follow-up to a wrong example, lessons that we’ve learned of things we shouldn’t do, and now the examples of things that are right, that are good, that are proper.

We’re going to pick that story up in 1 Samuel 15. We’re going to pick up were we left off in that last series in the very last verse that we read.

1 Samuel 15:35—Then Samuel did not go to see Saul anymore until the day of his death. So, I mentioned that, the very last thing we looked at, and because of the choices Saul had made there was this battle that Samuel had because of the fondness that he had developed towards Saul, understandably so. But Saul making the bad decisions and bad choices he had, God dealing with him accordingly, it was a difficult thing for Samuel. And so, when finally, Samuel, as we read about last week, gave in somewhat and went ahead and went with Saul back to deal with king Agag, he did so. After that he didn’t have anything more to do with Saul. Again, a difficult thing to go through that Samuel had to experience.

This story picks that up and says, he didn’t see Samuel anymore until the day of his death. That was in a battle that had been fought, and Jonathan, and I believe one other brother was killed at the same time, two sons of Saul in that particular battle.

It goes on to say here, Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul. So, he still felt badly. He was still mourning for what had taken place, what had to take place as a result of separating himself. That’s a difficult thing even with God’s people, even in God’s Church, when things have happened in people’s lives. You can go back in scriptures and see things that Paul had to deal with, some in the ministry he had to deal with, and those who were not living according to God’s way of life had to be addressed accordingly. That’s always a difficult thing to do, and separating, and fellowship and so forth, the things that people want to experience, desire to have toward each other. But if they can’t then these kinds of steps have to be taken in people’s lives oftentimes. They’re very uncomfortable, very difficult, and people do mourn for those who have chosen to leave.

That’s why I marvel at the scriptures that talk about since the time of Christ and the Church that began in 31 A.D. and speaking of “Many are called, but few are chosen.” We understand the reasons of that and the things that are written in scripture about what the Church has had to experience. We understand the history of our church and what’s taken place in modern times and what took place during the time of Herbert Armstrong, that of so many who have been called, there are far greater numbers within that amount of those who choose to leave a relationship with God than those who fight to stay.

Because it is a fight. It’s a fight against our own human nature. That’s something that’s very difficult for people to do. It’s hard to address our nature and what it’s really like, to understand that it’s based on selfishness, it’s based on self.

Again, I love that example that he gave, Herbert Armstrong gave, that there were really people who never understood that, even within God’s ministry, when he tried to explain the difference between God’s love and the kind of love that we can have, begin to have access to in our lives, that’s different from philia, that’s different from human love; the best of human love being that of a mother toward her own child. Yet that mother doesn’t have the same feelings toward other children.

It shows a difference there, one that’s very difficult for people to come to understand. Because that’s a beautiful kind of love, as he expressed, but that doesn’t exist for other children. That’s the way we are as human beings, we have a selfishness about us that’s very difficult to understand, very difficult to see sometimes. But when we begin to understand that and begin to fight against that then God will give us more of a different kind of love, His kind of love that comes from Him and Him alone.

Again here, things that we learn, things that we go through in time, and so many then who have not chosen this way of life, who after experiencing it have various pulls in the world and they give into those pulls and separate themselves then from this process of the mind being able to be transformed because of what God has given to us in being able to conquer sin, being able to be forgiven of sin through Christ, our Passover. Again here, things we live through that aren’t meant to be easy. They’re difficult. They’re difficult battles.

It says here, again, Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul. And the Eternal, it says… It’s not the word “regretted” as it’s translated. Some translations are so poor because they don’t grasp God’s plan. They don’t grasp and understand God’s purpose for the creation of mankind, why we were created and what we have to go through in this process of change that takes place. So often in scripture because so many who have translated haven’t had God’s spirit to do the translating, they don’t understand. They haven’t been given the ability to comprehend God’s purpose and so they translate more by words and expressions rather than understanding what is said and you really can’t do that. You can’t do that right. You can’t do that well. The reason being is because you have to know God’s purpose in your mind to know what to translate. To accurately translate from one language to another, you have to understand the context, you have to understand what is really being written. If you don’t understand that and you try to do it by words alone, you’re going to miss the mark. Yet that’s what many have done through time.

So, they try to equate oftentimes here qualities of God with human characteristics, and that’s wrong. You can’t do that. We are not like God. God is not like us. He created us this way for a purpose, with a selfish nature for a purpose, and we understand what that is. God has given that to us, and we’ve had a lot of sermons about that.

But again here, it says here, the way they’ve translated it, The Eternal regretted/ repented. God doesn’t repent about anything. God has nothing to repent of. And so, we try to equate certain characteristics with God that are not His at all because humans can’t understand God, as a whole. That’s been the whole history of mankind, trying to make gods into something that they can look at on a physical plane, to the point where they make gods being some fat man sitting on his side, laying on his side or something he’s so fat and people worship him. You think, “That’s insanity!” And yet religions have done this in so many different religions in the world. The whole history of Israel is about different kinds of gods and God warning them, “Don’t go that way.” Ishtar, Astarte, all the different gods, Ba-al and so forth, throughout the history of Old Testament Israel. They can’t understand without God’s spirit.

As God led the children of Israel out of Egypt, He had a difficult time with them. What was one of the first things they wanted to do when Moses was up receiving a codified law from God to bring down to them on stone? They’re down there making something that they can relate to physically, a calf of gold, that they can look up to and say, “This is the God who led us out of Egypt.” Insanity!

So, it isn’t a matter that the Eternal regretted. It isn’t a matter that the Eternal had to repent about something or repented of something. Some say, try to translate it, tried to translate that in times past “changed His mind.” It’s not about that either in this case.

And the Eternal was sorrowful, as we talked about last week, from His making of Saul king over Israel. Sorrowful, because it hurts when people make the wrong choices when you place so much before them. God gives us so much, just like within the Church, and yet the vast majority who have ever been called into God’s Church have left God’s Church. Through time, over 2,000 years now, many have been called but few are chosen. Reason being, because people have not continued to choose to follow God, to love God, to love God’s way of life.

And so, the Eternal was sorrowful. Just like we are when someone leaves, when someone chooses something different in life rather than following what God has revealed to them, and sometimes we fail to recognize how precious the truth is that God has given, and if we don’t value that and we value something else and we lose that or leave that, then it’s sorrowful to see people leave that we have gone to, as the scriptures talk about, the song, “we went to God’s house side by side and counsel blended sweet.” You get to know people, you’re close to them.

Saul was loved by Samuel, Samuel the prophet, and it hurt him when he saw the decisions that he did. God was sorrowful for the choices that Saul had made because He gave him every opportunity, to have something incredible. To even have, as He said, a lineage that the Messiah could be born from. But instead, it was passed on to another individual. The lineage. To be known for that, to be able to have that kind of a relationship with God? Awesome! The protection, the blessings God would give to his family line if he had continued to obey, had continued to follow Him. But he chose not to.

1 Samuel 16:1—Then the Eternal said to Samuel, How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him. He rejected him because Saul had rejected God. So, He couldn’t continue to work with him. Saul was lifted up with pride and God cannot work with pride. If someone makes choices and decisions from their own reasoning instead of looking to God for guidance and direction, the choices that are made in life, then God has no option but to reject them and this is the case here.

…seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? He couldn’t use him. He couldn’t give those blessings, continue to give those. It wasn’t owed to Saul. Nothing is owed to any of us. God doesn’t owe us anything but He loves us and wants to give us so much if we choose to follow Him as our God, to serve Him as our God, to recognize Him as our God, and to realize that when God makes us and creates us, if we want a relationship with Him we must do things His way, not our way. He is the only one who knows how to live life right, properly.

Fill your horn with oil, and go to whom I will now send you, to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided Myself a king among his sons. Now, this is awesome, beautiful!

Now, sometimes it’s difficult to recognize, to realize how almighty God truly is. He has a purpose in everything that He’s given through time in the overall scheme of things, in the sense of molding and fashioning mankind. He had a purpose in having a Son. We know that. We know it was before anything was ever created that was created. God’s made that very clear, that He had the purpose of a Son determined whereby mankind, when mankind would be created, that mankind could be saved and transformed into the kind of being that’s necessary, with the kind of mind that’s necessary so God can give them eternal life when the time comes, everlasting life.

And so, that purpose that is a cornerstone of everything with the one whom God, His own Son, would become the head cornerstone of all of His creation and all of His purpose, God had determined then that in time He would reveal His Son, He would have a Son born. But it had to be of a kingly line. God had purposed all along that when Israel was brought out of Egypt, that in time they would be given a king, they would be given a government like the other nations. But it wasn’t in a manner that Israel desired to have it.

It wasn’t for the same purpose what Israel desired to have it. But God allowed them to do that with their own carnal reasoning. I hope we understand that, the power of Almighty God. He also provided the first king because He knew what Saul would do.

It’s just like what happened with the Apostasy. God allowed an individual to be the head of a government on a physical plane (because it wasn’t spiritual, we understand that). He was not an apostle but he still had a responsibility of an administration of the Church for a period of time. God knew what he would do. It was all for a purpose. Otherwise, the Apostasy couldn’t take place.

God has allowed different ones through time to have certain things, and by their nature they will make certain choices. Because it’s their choices. It’s not God. God doesn’t force us. God doesn’t force people to do these things. And yet as human beings, without God’s help, there is an absolute certainty of what’s going to happen. Without God’s holy spirit, without God’s help in our life we can’t make it, we can’t change, we can’t hold on to God’s truth.

God in His mercy gives us grace. He gives us forgiveness of sins. He shows us how to receive these things in order to have a relationship with Him, which is a marvel to understand. But He doesn’t make us, force us into the choices we make. That’s why He has allowed through time, so many to make the choices of leaving and we learn lesson from that. We learn lessons that you have to really fight against your own nature to hold on to what God offers you. You have to be able to value it and recognize its value to hold on to it, so that something else doesn’t come along that we consider to be of greater value and be pulled away by it.

Lessons. Trying and testing that we have to go through, fighting for God’s way of life so that when the time comes God can say as He did to Abraham, “Now I know you,” and to know that with His help you will consistently make the same choices in life. He can give us then that everlasting life. It’s an awesome thing to understand.

God allowed them to have a king who was of great stature, that we read about, taller than others. People looked up to him (no pun intended). That’s his presence. That’s the way he appeared. And so, when God made him king, sadly, he went from a matter of humility to pride and he began to take things to himself. Lessons to be learned as we went through that particular series.

God knew these things of what he would do. But He also had a young man that He’d been working with for a long time. He wasn’t very old, but from a very young age God was working with him to be king over Israel. When God has a purpose in people’s lives to fulfill certain phases of His plan and purpose there are those things that God can do in their life as they’re growing to fashion, to mold, to prepare them for things in their future.

We understand that the phase of the first 4,000 years, and even the first 6,000 years, is drastically different than the next 1,100 years in God’s plan, and because of that God has been very involved then, obviously, in molding and preparing the basis of that government, of His Kingdom, of all that should follow then afterward to be built upon it. Awesome, the power and might of God Almighty, truly, to plan, to prepare, to do all these things in human life over such a period of time. It’s beyond our comprehension it really is. But He teaches us, and we learn of it. We stand in awe of the Great God our Creator, our Sustainer.

So, He had this young man He’d been working with. It’s just like different ones who are called. We don’t know why different ones are called at this age of life. A lot of people think that God’s madly trying to save the world. He’s not! They don’t understand God’s purpose in the first 6,000 years, that He’s not out here madly trying to save mankind. Because if He was, He’s a pretty weak God. He really is, if you look at the evidence. That’s not God’s purpose.

God’s purpose in salvation is the next 1,100 years. What an awesome thing to know, to understand! That all those who have had opportunity in times past are going to have time for another resurrection. Second life! Incredible, to understand those things.

I provided Myself a king among his sons. So, David had already been prepared, molded and fashioned for certain things to receive later on.

I was starting to say a moment ago, it’s like the word “being called.” There is one, that one word that we talk about, “being dragged.” Sometimes it’s like being dragged a little bit as God begins to call us because we have to be humbled and we have to go through a process. It’s not something we automatically choose. God’s way of life is not received by human beings naturally. You have to go through a lot sometimes. You have to be humbled a lot. You have to go through some hard trials sometimes to get to the point where you’ll even listen to God.

Verse 2—Samuel said, How can I go? If Saul hears, he’ll kill me. “If I go to someone that’s to be made king and it’s known what I’m doing and Saul hears about this,” he knew well enough to know that Saul was going to kill him, absolutely.

Then the Eternal said, Take a heifer with you, and say, I am going to sacrifice to the Eternal. So, “Now this is what you can do. This is a matter of going and making an offering to God (to Me), and this is what you can tell others. In this manner than you don’t have to worry about what Saul might do.” Then invite Jesse to the sacrifice. Others were going to be invited too where he was going, but this is a matter of inviting Jesse as well. …and I will show you what you shall do. You shall anoint for Me the one I say to you.

Now, when you read through this story and some of the translations it’s almost like God is speaking out loud to him and he’s answering and they’re having this conversation. It doesn’t work that way. It’s in the mind, in the spirit. That’s how God communicates with His servants – has through time. There are occasions where He has manifested Himself, as we know through Melchizedek and others, other forms where He’s communicated, like with Abraham and others in times past, as a physical human being, manifested Himself in that way. But again, unique, in that respect. As a whole, God hasn’t worked with mankind or His prophets that way.

So, Samuel did what the Eternal said and went to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town were afraid because of his coming. Why are you afraid because a prophet, Samuel, is coming? Well, they don’t know what his reason might be. Because sometimes when they have visited it hasn’t always been for what is good. Sometimes it’s been for correction or other things that take place.

And so, they were afraid because of his coming and said, Do you come for our peace? …for our welfare? It’s like, “We want know right up front here, why are you here? Have we done something wrong?” And he said, For your peace. I have come to sacrifice to the Eternal, which he had. Sanctify yourself and come with me to the sacrifice. Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

So again here, the process of the consecration and so forth, of setting things aside for holy purpose and the offering of an offering like Samuel was going to do. We remember the story of Saul, how he offered, made sacrifice and it wasn’t his place to do so. It wasn’t for the king to take on that prerogative himself, it was to be done by Samuel. Saul sinned a great sin at that particular moment in time.

So again here, then he’s going through this process here and inviting Jesse and others in that town, that area as well to be with them in this particular moment in time. Because people were able to partake of, then, the sacrifice. That was like on a feast day. It’s referred to as a feast because there’s a lot of sacrifices and a lot of food.

Chapter 16:6—So it came, when he came, that he looked at Eliab, and it says here, “said,” but it wasn’t done like that. It wasn’t something that was said out loud. That he looked at Eliab and, this is what Samuel is going through, and what the word means is, “he thought to himself” or “within himself.” He didn’t say this out loud to everyone that was there. And he thought to himself, The Eternal’s anointed is before me.

Because the first one that came through was, by stature, the one that would be recognized or seen, or thought to be seen as this is one of the sons of Jesse and this is the first one he’s brought through and his stature, the way he looks, his maturity, this must be him. That’s what went through Samuel’s mind. That’s what he’s thinking within himself. That’s what it’s saying here.

He didn’t blurt this outside so that everyone could hear. Because they didn’t know why he was there. They didn’t know his purpose for being there went beyond inviting different ones to partake of this offering and so forth at this time. This was something private within himself as his purpose for going there in the first place, that God had sent him there concerning David that was going to be revealed later on here, who was going to be the king to replace Saul.

…he thought within himself, The Eternal’s anointed is before me, the one that’s to be king. That’s what it means “to be the anointed.” That’s why I love the word “Messiah,” “the anointed one.” Because he’s anointed to be king. “The Christ,” same exact word except in the Greek language, “the one anointed to be king,” the King of kings, when his time is here. It’s not here yet.

But the Eternal said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance, or at the height of his stature. So, how do you explain this? In the world when they communicate it’s open, people can hear it. If they’re close by they can hear it. This isn’t an open communication. It’s happening in the mind, in the thinking. Samuel has this thought within himself, “This must be him.” Yet God’s telling him right then and there. He’s able to hear. He’s able to know.

It’s like anyone in God’s Church when you begin to see and you know the Sabbath, the Holy Days, and you have told to you or you read it somewhere about the purpose and the meaning of Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread. You’ve never heard those expressions before. When people hear something like that? “The Days of Unleavened Bread. What on earth is that?” “The Feast of Tabernacles. You people must be crazy!” Anyway, they don’t know that these are all out of the Old Testament. They don’t know what they are. We have never heard them, so often, when we come along, when we come to a point in time when God begins to open our mind.

But the day that He opens your mind to see some of these things, you see the Sabbath, you understand the seven-day process that’s been going on since the beginning of time. You understand, you’re given understanding that this is about, the seven days is about 7,000 years of God’s plan for mankind. Then a short span of time after that, the Last Great Day, the hundred years. Then you realize, you come to learn, then there is no more mankind, God’s purpose is fulfilled, and all who will become a part of His family is within that period of 7,100 years. No more time. No more human beings.

That’s difficult for people in the world to think of, to grasp. But in God’s Church, when you know it, you know it. And how do you explain that to someone? How do you tell that? You can’t give that to anyone.

The thing about the seventh day, the seven annual Holy Days, the 7,000-year plan, when it’s there, it’s there. That’s why I’ve given that example so many times, the first time when I heard of the Sabbath, that night when I went home, 10:00 at night, and all of a sudden was being told by someone who, if he used God’s name, it was always in vain, telling me these things he had been reading about and learning about the Sabbath and the Holy Days.

I didn’t have to go to any scriptures. I didn’t have to go to study my Bible to see if these things were true. I knew it! How do you explain that to someone? It’s how God works with the human mind. We have this spirit essence in us that Herbert Armstrong came to understand, of why we’re different from the animal kingdom. They have a spirit essence in them, too, that gives them the ability to do the things they do. They’re created creatures.

That’s why I think about geese that we’re starting to see more of right now. They know it’s time. How do they know? Different things that know, it’s just in their being. Well, God put it there, and it’s of a spirit essence. Again, how do you explain these things?

And for us as human beings, because of that spirit essence that gives us the ability to think and reason and plan and remember things, all the things that we do, creativity that we have as human beings, is different than the animal kingdom. What an incredible thing that we have! The ability to reason and think. But it’s the spirit that God communicates with His holy spirit. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.

When there is this communication, just like it is taking place here, the thoughts, the thinking comes into the mind with Samuel. All of a sudden there was this communication given to him, just like we would be able to do concerning the Sabbath and we see something we’ve never understood before.

So, again here, He said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance. So, this wasn’t communicated out loud that everybody can hear it. It was in his mind from God. He’d had enough experience as a prophet to know how God was working with him, when God was speaking to him up here in the mind. God was telling him, in essence, don’t judge like human beings judge. He was correcting him here. He says, “Don’t judge by appearance or the height of his stature.” Because that’s what happened to Saul! People looked at his stature, and it’s not about one’s stature; it’s not how someone appears. He’s showing a flaw here in human reasoning and thinking.

…because I have not chosen him. In other words, “refused again,” is another wrong translation of a word here. It’s not something that was a matter of being refused, it just has to do with a choosing, being chosen in this particular case. “Because I have not chosen him.” So, in other words, He’s letting Samuel know, “I didn’t choose the first one that’s come before you. I haven’t chosen Eliab.” It’s not a matter of refusing him, it’s just “I didn’t choose him. He’s not the one.”

Sometimes these words just are so frustrating, how they’re translated, because it takes away then from the meaning and the ability to grasp and understand things that are being said.

Don’t look at his appearance or at his height or his stature, because I have not chosen him.

Another awkward one here and even these words are in italic. Words in italic are interjected thought of translators. They’re not the words that are translated from. “For the Eternal does see” – all those words are not in the original text of Hebrew. It’s just saying, Because I have not chosen him as man sees. That’s what He’s saying. All those other words were interjected by translators. They’re not even in Hebrew.

And so, if you read it through as it’s written there, that’s what it’s saying, Because I have not chosen him as man sees. God doesn’t look at the outward appearance. Other scriptures ought to be popping into your minds then. I love what Christ had to say. He doesn’t judge. One scripture talks about that. Then this becomes confusing because you read in another area where it says where he does judge. “If I judge, my judgment is just, because…” and he explains why his judgment is different then.

Anyway, it’s in the manner that God does, the manner that God judges, not as man judges, not as man sees, by appearance and so forth. But that’s the way we are because we’re physical. We’re not of spirit until we receive of God’s spirit. Then we begin to see different things because God gives us the ability.

Because I have not chosen him as man sees, for man sees by appearance. In other words, man judges by what he sees. That’s all we can do! What else can you do? You can’t know what’s in the mind of an individual. It can take years sometimes to begin to know somebody really well. Sometimes we can think we really know people really well and we find out, that’s not them at all! That’s happened to me a lot. It happens in God’s Church because, well, we know the story.

So, again, I have not chosen him as man sees, for man sees by the appearance. But the Eternal sees the heart. The expression for “the mind.” It reminds me of a sermon one time when someone after the Apostasy began to say that we really have the ability to think within our heart because scripture shows that. It’s not about the mind. There is actually thinking that takes place in the heart. I thought, “Oh boy!” Anyway, that’s how far people can go when they go away from God. Sad.

But the expression is used concerning the mind and how we think. And so, it says here, “The Eternal sees inside of us.” He knows what we think. He knows what we’re like. He knew what Saul was like. He knew what Saul would do under certain circumstances of coming from nothing, in that respect, and because of his stature and because of being the first king and how people were going to treat him, by his nature, by what he had been like, what he would do. He knew what his choices would be in those conditions.

He didn’t make him make those choices. Saul made them himself and he rejected God. God knew that in his heart. He also saw someone else here, a young man that He’d been working with. He worked with him by different experiences. Awesome!

The Eternal sees (knows) the heart. So, Jesse called Abinadab and had him pass before Samuel. So, it was a matter of meeting the different sons, and as they would pass by, introduction and so forth, then Samuel in his mind was wondering “Is this the one?” That would be a natural thing to do.

But he said, again, the translation is awkward, but the meaning, again, “to reveal and show that,” that was what was given to Samuel, Neither has the Eternal chosen this one. God let him know that, again, it’s not him.

Then Jesse had Shammah pass through. And he said, Neither has the Eternal chosen this. So, each son as he was coming by. Thus, Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel. Yet Samuel said to Jesse, The Eternal has not chosen these. Again, a rather awkward translation because that’s not the full context of what’s being said here. And basically, he’s letting him know here that he is sent there. He’s starting to let him know a few things about what the Eternal is doing, but this is communication, again, that’s strictly for Samuel.

Samuel, as God’s prophet, is passing on something else here and he’s letting him know that all these sons that have come before me, I’m looking for one. He didn’t tell him why and what was going on here, but he’s letting him know here that this isn’t the one that I’m looking for. But he didn’t know the reason, what it was all about.

So, Samuel said to Jesse… Because he let him know in the beginning here, going back in the story here which I didn’t tell, that he wanted to see all the sons or he wanted to see the sons. He started going through them and meeting them and letting him know only a portion here of what was to come.

So, Samuel said to Jesse, Are these all the young men? In other words, “Are these all your sons? Because I’m looking for one and it’s none of them.” Samuel was kind of baffled by all this because no one else was coming by, Jesse wasn’t introducing any more, and it’s like, “There’s more. There has to be more.”

So again here, this is very awkward because of what’s being translated here, and puts the thought into the mind that he’s telling Jesse more than what he is, and he’s not. Then he said, There yet remains the youngest, and he is shepherding the sheep. Then Samuel said to Jesse, Send to bring him. “I want to meet all of them. I want to meet him as well.” For we will not, again, the word is “return” here, or “leave to return.” In other words, he’s letting him know that this is not over. We can’t return until this is taken care of, until he comes here. So, showing here to Jesse there is great importance here in my meeting of your sons and my being able to see all of them, to know all of them. That’s what’s taking place.

So, he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, just meaning “a healthy red or flushed appearance in the face,” healthy, and bright eyes, and good looking. The Eternal said, Arise, anoint him. For this is the one. Now more begins to be revealed here and begins to be shown. “This, he is the one.”

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. Now, this is quite an event because now all of a sudden Samuel is revealing some things here. They don’t have any idea what’s taking place. They really don’t understand why he’s paying this kind of attention to this little whippersnapper, as they looked at him, their youngest brother. Because they had certain attitudes toward him, as time goes on here and is shown. Because he’s just out herding sheep and the others older, more mature, men of war, three of them especially well known as men of war.

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the spirit of the Eternal came upon David. Beautiful expression here, in that sense. David means, “the one beloved.” So, he even had a name, was bearing a name that reflected something that God had toward him. These things so often don’t just happen by accident. There is a reason so often in names that God has given different people.

It says, the spirit of the Eternal came upon David from that day forward. So, Samuel arose and went to Ramah.

Now, again here, very unique. David was unique and thought toward God in a unique way, but it was on a very physical plane by choices he was making. God was working with him in that process but now much like what happens to us when we go through a different process of being called and all of a sudden we begin to see things and understand things because of God’s spirit.

Because God is actually giving His spirit to us. He’s communicating things in the mind. Like I mentioned about knowing about the Sabbath, the Holy Days, and when you see those things and know those things, they’re just there. How do you explain that? The knowing is just there. That’s the only way to describe it. The knowing is there.

So, certain things of knowing God would give to David from that point forward through the power of His spirit because He’s going to communicate now and work with him far more directly than He ever had to this point in time where it will begin to become a relationship.

But the spirit of the Eternal departed from Saul. So, he’s showing here God’s spirit began to work with David, but God had already taken from Saul His spirit, because of choices that He’d made. He already made it clear that he was rejected from being king. God was making it clear to Samuel here, “This is the one,” and he has of His spirit, God’s spirit, and it records here then something that began to happen to Saul. …and a distressing spirit from the Eternal troubled him, Saul, from that time forward.

Now, it’s hard to know all of what’s involved in things like this, but this is something that does happen, where those who reject God, who have access to His holy spirit, that when He has rejected that God allows because of that rejection, because of those beings, that’s who they want most. They try to influence so many people in the world. God makes it very clear that these beings from the beginning of Adam and Eve, Satan and the demonic world, they seek to deceive mankind, they seek to hurt mankind. Again, we know that history of things that have happened through time.

God allows at times different ones to have an influence, to harass, to hurt. Especially those beings, because they desire, thinking that they are doing more to hurt God’s plan and God’s purpose by coming at individuals like this who had had access to His spirit.

It’s a horrible thing. Look at the Apostasy, what took place because it talks about it in Thessalonians. I’ll just read it, of what was going to be allowed at the end in His own Church. Now, that’s incredible to understand, but it’s because of choices that people were making and because of that Laodicean spirit, and because of an era of time in that 2,000 years, of a Church at the end, the last era of the Church, would become lethargic in spirit, lukewarm in spirit. God made it clear He wasn’t going to allow that to exist in His Church. Again, these things that led up to the Apostasy.

Let me find it right quick, because this isn’t my normal Bible here.

Okay, it’s 2 Thessalonians, then, again, we’re very familiar with these because it talks about Paul sending out warning about the timing of Christ’s coming and not to be distressed by things they might hear from others, that that day would not come until there came a falling away, or the Apostasy, as we understand it, a rebellion in His own Church. That would reveal then the timing that Christ is now on a countdown to return, in essence.

It says here, 2 Thessalonians 2:7—For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Again here, those words that are used shows that there is that which God is going to reveal, that Christ, that his time for returning, that this is the end of the end-time, if you will, and talking about how this mystery of lawlessness that would happen in His own Church, in God’s own Church and what would take place in time.

And so, that’s what’s being explained here, that it’s already at work and whatever is holding back—what?—well, the context of the first few verses, Christ’s coming. Until he’s revealed, until this lawlessness is revealed, until this man of sin, the son of perdition is revealed that these verses talk about, until that happens the return isn’t going to take place. And so, what holds that coming back, if you will, restrains it from happening?

Then, verse 8—And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. So again, we understand what these things are about. We’ve had sermons on this and literature written.

The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan. So again here, the one that would lead the Apostasy, the one referred to as the man of sin, the son of perdition, there was only one before that who somewhat fit into that, and that was Judas Iscariot who betrayed Christ. Then it referred to one at the end who would carry an even worse title, if you will, “the son of perdition,” and “the man of sin,” and that he would rise up, as it says here, “according to the working of Satan.”

It means that Satan was involved in that because of what he was doing, where his heart was, what he began to do in turning individuals and began to mess around with the truth of God, had it in his heart to begin to change that. Then God allowed it to go it’s full course. He didn’t make him. He allowed him to make his own choices. God doesn’t force us with His holy spirit.

The demonic world strives to force people to do things. Satan works to try to force people to do things. God doesn’t work that way. He lets us make free choices. It’s our choice. We are then held responsible for our own choices. Something that people find it very difficult to do in society, in the world, is to accept responsibility for their own choices in life. And yet, we’re all responsible. People go through this thing sometimes of blaming their mother, blaming their father, their grandfather, their child, their whatever it might be, someone else for why they do the things they do.

No, no, no. You have your own mind that God has given you and you’re responsible for your own choices. Don’t try to palm it off on somebody else as though you can’t help it, as though you have some excuse for doing wrong, for doing bad toward others. But people can’t help that. That’s just the way the physical carnal world is. Without God’s help people really can’t see some of these things deep down inside of them and how they’re affected by them.

We’re all responsible. That’s, basically, how God deals with us as human beings. He doesn’t force us. He lets us make choices.

The coming of the lawless one, in other words, the man of sin, the son of perdition, the one who would be responsible for the Apostasy in His own Church, is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders. It’s awesome what’s being said here.

So again, a demonic world, a spirit world, they have tremendous power, they truly do, to deceive, to turn people away from what is true. And so, what Saul was experiencing, began to experience, is something that sometimes, oftentimes, happens with people who have had God’s spirit, who have had the truth and have made wrong choices. And because of that, just like the Apostasy and people’s lives being so screwed up after certain choices that they make, because once you turn away from God, Christ talked about how the latter end is far worse than what it was when you didn’t know. Because you are responsible.

Saul was responsible. Had incredible responsibility upon him to be the leader of Israel, and he didn’t follow God, he didn’t obey God, he didn’t look to God to lead and guide, to have that kind of responsibility now that wasn’t just over his own life but now over a nation of people. And to not administer God’s government in the right way? Sometimes in life there are greater prices for different things that take place just by nature itself, just by not having God, and because of that, then, God allows those things to take place.

So again here, going back to the story flow, if I can get back to it. I wasn’t planning to put Thessalonians in there.

He talks about, again (2 Samuel 16:14), But the spirit of the Eternal departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Eternal troubled him, meaning it was a spirit being, a demon. It doesn’t say whether it was Satan or demons, but the demonic world began to trouble him.

Then Saul’s servants said to him, Surely, a distressing spirit from God is troubling you. So, this is something that others around him began to realize something had happened in his life, and whatever it was it was tormenting Saul, his thinking, his mind, his peace of mind, if you will.

Verse 16—Let our master now command his servants, who are before you, to seek out a man who is a skillful player of the harp so that he may play it by his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well. So, it was evidently grasped and understood that if certain music was to be played, skillfully so by someone that they could entrust, that somehow, whatever it was, that this was soothing to Saul.

Now, there’s more to the story that’s not included in here that we don’t understand, we could only speculate about. But there is that kind of music that can be played, especially, well, we’ve talked about that as well, those things that are dedicated to God especially, that for whatever reason a demonic world can’t stand it. They don’t like to be around it.

Anyway, whether that was something that was bothering Saul and how they suggested that maybe this would be soothing to him, we don’t know for sure. Because it’s not recorded here we don’t know. Sometimes speculation isn’t worth anything.

So, Saul said to his servants… He wanted help, in other words, because he wasn’t the same person from that moment on. Because when he was experiencing something before, he wanted to experience that always.

I think of the Apostasy. Something that people had experienced in times past, they wanted back. But God wasn’t going to give it back, not in the same way. It’s like when it’s taken away and you don’t have that, you don’t have that help, that peace of mind, that confidence, that knowing that you had before in the same manner, and now that’s taken from you… Because only God can give that to us and continue to give it to us. If we don’t have it, what happens? Well, it’s not a good thing and it affects people differently and people begin to respond differently to that.

So, this is a part of what was taking place here. We’ve seen it happen over and over again in God’s Church. And what happens in people’s lives oftentimes, they don’t have the same thing anymore. They can go to some other relationship with someone else without the truth, and that’s what a lot of people do, they try to go somewhere else and they just don’t get the same thing anymore because God’s not there. They don’t understand that and so there is a torment in those kinds of things. There is more to the story that we’re not going to go into that today.

Saul wanted someone who, as he said here in verse 17—Provide me now with a man who can play well and bring him to me. So, he was willing to try this. “Whatever can help, I need it, I want it.” Because he was tormented, whatever it was that was taking place.

Then one of the servants answered, and said, Look, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite who is skillful in playing, a mighty valiant man, a man of war, prudent speech, a handsome person, and the Eternal is with him. Incredible here, what’s being said.

We don’t know the timing of these things sometimes, of what’s taking place. When you go through scriptures like this in a story flow that’s written here, whether it be in the Kings or in the books of Samuel and so forth, and there is a lot of questions left in the air sometimes about that, the timing and the sequence of things. But that’s not given. But this took place.

It says, Therefore, Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, Send me your son, David, who shepherds the sheep. So, Jesse took a donkey bearing bread, a skin of wine, a kid, and sent them by his son, David, to Saul. So, David went to Saul and stood before him, and he loved him greatly; and he became his armor bearer.

Here is a young man, David, and he’s able to play skillfully on the harp, and does so, and Saul has a fondness to him because of that which he receives through David, a soothing peace of mind, if you will, because of that. And whatever was bothering him, the spirit that was bothering him at that time would leave. He would call upon him at those times that these things were bothering him. Again here, a unique thing that’s being said here. There’s more to this story, by far, as far as what was taking place, but anyway.

Verse 22—Then Saul said to Jesse, saying, Please let David stand before me; for he has found favor in my sight. So it was, whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, speaking of this spirit that was allowed to come upon him, possibly even sent from God – that’s kind of what it seems to indicate – for a purpose that God was working out here of things to be written, that David would take a harp and play it by his hand. Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him. So, this went on for a long period of time.

Then we come to 1 Samuel 17. That’s why some of the story is a little awkward, because of what takes place now. You’ll see as we go through this entire story it’s an incredible story that we can begin to learn lessons from about the kind of heart, the kind of mind that David had, because it was incredibly unique.

We all have that feeling, I think, where God expresses that David was a man after His own heart. I mean, what an incredible thing to say about someone, that David was of a mindset of the way he lived toward God, that God said this of him, “He’s a man after My own heart.” Awesome! I think everyone who desires to have a relationship with God would have that kind of thinking in their heart and mind to want to have that kind of relationship with the great God of the universe, to please Him, to be pleasing to Him, to serve Him.

1 Samuel 17:1. So, it goes on in the story. Again, some of these things are spread out in time. Now the Philistines gathered their armies together to battle and had gathered together in Shochoh. Now, it doesn’t give a timing here, it doesn’t give an age of what he was like at that time and when people go through different periods of time in their life, a young teenager, if you will, to the time he’s an older teenager, appearance can change a lot. So, you may not recognize someone at a later time. So, maybe some of that was involved here. Don’t know. You’ll see that and understand what I’m saying, why I’m saying that as we go on.

So again, this is in Judah. They encamped between Shochoh and Azekah, oh, some of these names here, in Ephes-dammim, which is literally how it’s pronounced. And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together and camped in the valley of Elah, and drew up to battle array against the Philistines. So, here now they’re coming together in a great battle, huge as far as the Philistines were concerned, their army.

The Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side with the valley in between them. And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits, which is right at 3m or 9’8”. So, tall guy. Big. He had a a bronze helmet on his head, and he was armed here with a coat of mail, in other words, a jacket covered with, or a compound of metal rings and plates serving as a metal armor mesh. …he had this coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze, which is 125 lb or 57kg. Awesome! Can you imagine carrying something like that around? Just the weight of that, 125 lbs?

And he had bronze armor on his legs, and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. In other words, behind the back where they could reach it and bring it up. That’s what it’s talking about. That’s where they kept it when they marched.

Verse 7—Now, the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam; and the iron spearhead weighed six hundred shekels, or 15 lbs. So, just the end of it weighed 15 lbs. So again, not some small thing. If you know what 15 lbs feels like, of metal, it’s a good size. 15 lbs or 6.8kg. …and an armor bearer went before him. 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 to Saul? Choose you a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. So again, sending him forward here, and what he has to say, we’ll just settle this out here one on one. The winner takes all without all the massive killing that’s going to have to take place if you don’t.

It goes on to say here, verse 9—If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then will we be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then shall you be our servants and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day! Give me a man, that we may fight each other.

Now, it’s hard for us to grasp someone that big. But they weren’t rushing out there to say, “Let me go!” There was no one that really wanted to go out there and enter into this battle. Again, it’s a well-known Bible story through time here. But again, it’s quite incredible here. It reveals things about David and his heart and his mind, of what God had prepared in him by this time that’s quite unique. Because it relates to us on a spiritual plane, things that we need to grasp and understand of a relationship with God, of how we need to strive to be.

It says, When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were shattered and very afraid. Because they just weren’t anxious to go out there. Who? Who would be? I’ve seen some tall people in time, but if you see a warrior like this who was built like he was standing there and hollering and shouting all the things he was, who is going to be able to stand against that on a physical plane if you’re just looking at it physically?

Now, David was the son of a man of Bethlehem in the land of Judah, whose name was Jesse; who had eight sons: and the man was old in the days of Saul. And the three oldest sons of Jesse had gone to follow Saul to the battle. And the names of these three sons who went to battle were Eliab the firstborn, next, Abinadab, and the third, Shammah. Now, these were the three that came before Samuel in the very beginning there. Then it says how many sons he had total. Then Samuel wanting to know, God let him know it’s none of them, so do you have any more sons?

Verse 14—David was the youngest, and the three oldest followed Saul. They were in his army. But David occasionally went and returned from Saul to feed his brother’s sheep at Bethlehem. So, again here, it’s hard to piece some of this together of why he wasn’t seen for who he was. Because it’s making it very clear here, he left from him and went to take care of the sheep at times. So, the period of time here, it’s a bit of a mystery.

And the Philistine (Goliath) went forward and took his stand for forty days morning and evening. Isn’t that incredible? Forty days should ring clear to us, how God uses that particular number. And I think of forty days and forty nights and the flood, and this forty days, and we know the forty times seven and Joseph Tkach and what took place there. A matter of God’s judgment. A matter of time when God judges, uses it for judgment, to execute judgment, if you will.

So, here it is, Goliath is allowed for forty days to continue doing this and nothing is done. Israel doesn’t send anyone out against him. Can you imagine? I mean, that long. That’s a long time to be out there to be afraid and Israel was afraid. The army was afraid. If they weren’t going to go out there and fight with him, then they didn’t know when the battle might come, what was going to take place. Because this wasn’t going to go on forever.

Verse 17—Then Jesse said to David his son, Go take your brothers an ephah of the dried grain, and these ten loaves, and run it to your brothers at the camp. And take these ten cheeses to the captain of their thousand. So again here, that’s how they were organized, captains of thousands, and so he knew who he would have to go to, to get this accomplished. He says, See how your brothers are faring, and bring back news to me of them.

As a father he was wondering how they’re doing, how they’re faring. They’ve been out there for a long time now arrayed in this battle, going up against the Philistines, getting ready to go up against the Philistines, and it says he was older. He was getting quite old at this point in time, had a natural desire to know the welfare of his sons so he sent his youngest, David, out there to find out.

Verse 19—These were with Saul, along with all the army of Israel in the valley of Elah to fight against the Philistines. So, David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with a keeper, and took the things and went as Jesse had instructed him; he came to the camp as the army was going out to the fight and shouting for the battle. For Israel and the Philistines had drawn up in battle array, army against army.

So again here, this timing of what was taking place. Now it was, more or less if you will, coming to a head and they were preparing then for battle, because if the Philistines are doing something, they’re not going to keep sending him out there every day. Eventually, they’re going to take charge, if you will, or attack. And so, this is what’s beginning to take place.

So, David left his supplies in the hand of the supply keeper, ran to the army, and went to greet his brothers. Then, as he talked with them, there was the champion, the Philistine of Gath, whose name was Goliath, coming up from the armies of the Philistines, and he spoke, as always, his same words, so David heard him.

This is David’s first encounter to see what’s really going on. So, for forty days this has been going on, where Goliath was continually going out there, as it talks about, standing up against the Israelites and shouting the kinds of things that he was, mocking them and taunting them.

Then, verse 24—When any of the men of Israel saw the man, they would turn away from him, for they were very afraid. So, men in the army of Israel asked, Have you seen this man who has come up? So, it’s like, “Have you seen him? Have you seen him yet? This has been going on for forty days,” type of thing, conversation you might have, someone might have in this particular case.

So, men in the army of Israel asked, Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely, he is come up to defy Israel. And whoever kills him, the king will enrich with great wealth, will give him his daughter, and will give his father’s house exemption from taxes in Israel. So, it’s almost like a carnal physical thing that people would do to talk this up to a point that maybe someone will go out there. If you’re going to get all this, let’s talk this up. I’m not going, but maybe someone else will go, type of thing. That’s basically what’s taking place.

Then David spoke to the men of the army who stood by him, saying, What should be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? Now, this is a poor, poor, poor translation because that isn’t what is being said at all. The context is really very clear about what he’s saying as time goes on here and you read what’s being recorded here. Even the translation in Hebrew for words, it’s what is being spoken, how he’s saying it because of what is being spoken by Goliath. That’s what it’s making a contrast to, the words that are coming from each. There are words that are coming from Goliath that David’s responding to, and then there are words that are going to be coming out of, as we’ll read here, from David that finally catches Saul’s attention. It’s a contrast between the two. That’s what’s being made here.

David was clearly asking, What can happen to the man who kills the Philistine and takes away this reproach from Israel? It’s like, “What can happen to anyone? God, God will take care of us!” That’s basically his attitude. “God will fight this for us! Who can stand up against the army of God?” That’s what his attitude was. That’s what was in his heart. Who is able to stand against the army of God, Israel? This man out here saying these things, “Who is he?” What an incredible mind. What an incredible attitude. I mean, it’s really awesome in every way.

He had a relationship, a mind, a thinking toward God that was unique. He believed who Israel was, that Israel was God’s. He believed the history of what it was when God took them out of Egypt and God worked through Moses. He believed the things that he had seen and heard through time, short time that he was alive. He believed about God.

Those stories were rampant in Israel that were passed down. Anyone that wanted to know them could find them out, could have them, could hear them if they were so inclined. Their knowledge of their history was well known, of coming into the land there, having judges, and then their first king. They knew that. They knew what was taking place. This was an awesome thing for the times of Israel. David was responding to that.

So, basically, he clearly goes on to express why he believes nothing can happen to anyone who stands against Goliath.

Now, I hope we can glean some of this out of this story, because these aren’t just stories, everything that is written, as we have learned through time, in the Old Testament and New Testament. But stories that are very physical in nature in the Old Testament are written for God’s Church. They have been through time for God’s people when they’re called, whether it be over the past 2,000 years, those who have been called into the Church, or those who are going to have that opportunity, everyone in the world, during the next thousand years, and in the Great White Throne during that hundred years. So, people are going to have that opportunity to have this kind of thing take place in their life.

So, if you look at what was happening here it’s a matter of understanding who you are and the confidence you have in that. We know who the Israel of God is. We understand what that means on a spiritual plane. God makes it very clear that all those names that He has given through time have incredible meaning. And Israel, He’s made very clear through writings in the New Testament, it’s not about a physical people. It’s not about just the physical tribes that made up Israel, Judah, Benjamin, Levi, on and on it goes, all the different twelve tribes that were there. It’s not about them. It’s about what they picture, of how God is building something great and mighty in His family in time.

We know that Israel is spoken of in the future, but it’s the Israel of God, it’s the Family of God, it’s Elohim, it’s what He’s constructing. Even those in the Church are a part of, when God has called them through time here, the Israel of God. It’s spiritual because it’s a spiritual relationship with God. The temple of God, all the different expressions that God uses to describe His people.

David had a confidence, a boldness, if you will, about himself toward God Almighty, “Who can stand up against God?!” That’s what he was saying. “Who is it that can stand against the God of Israel?” And yet sometimes in our battles we lack mightily in that kind of confidence on a spiritual plane, even, in our own lives in different battles we might go through, different things we might experience.

But if you understand your calling – the reason why we’ve had sermons about calling before we ever got to this point that God is showing and revealing even more deeply to us –that when we’re called and have that opportunity to have a relationship with God Almighty, and if we know who we are, to know the power and the presence of God Almighty and what we must go through in life. Yeah, it’s difficult because the world doesn’t receive this yet. And so, it wasn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard. It’s been difficult.

The things that God’s Church has gone through over the past 2,000 years, what has taken place in history, it’s been difficult. But that’s been necessary to be able to be molded and fashioned by God. That’s how God works. We go through these things.

But again, it’s about developing a relationship with the Great God of the universe and to understand who you are. The more you understand who you are, how is it explained in scripture? What have we been called to? A royal priesthood, a holy nation. That’s how God sees His people. Far more so for the Church in the past 2,000 years than ever for a physical carnal people. Because He wasn’t working with them on a spiritual plane. Only a few of them, like David, as an example, and a few others, Samuel, as an example. But there weren’t very many people in the first 4,000 years with whom God worked and called to a special calling in a relationship with Him for a purpose in what’s referred to as the first resurrection.

Then the Church began to grow and the things that God began to do, his Son being the head of the Church, the head of the Body, and the growth then that’s been given in the last 2,000 years and how God has been preparing and working with people. It’s incredible!

But a lot of our life in trials and hardships and difficulties begins to be reflected as what the relationship is really like with God as to our confidence, as to who we are. Do we really believe what God has called us to? And if we understand that and know that, then there is a greater boldness that people can have in a right sort of way, not an obnoxious way, but a confidence and a knowing. Which is what faith is largely about, the ability to believe and know the things that God has given and to stand for them.

David was willing to stand. What an incredible thing! Against all odds, against what might look impossible to do. On a physical carnal plane, as a whole, it would be. But David understood there was a lot more at work here – the Great God of the universe. He believed that.

In this Part 1 the most valuable thing we can take with us is to understand this, who we are, the Israel of God (in embryo). We understand that we’re not yet born into that family. But as Mr. Armstrong explained, it’s that begettal of the holy spirit that we receive, that we begin to grow in through time. It’s like being in embryo until we are born again as spirit. Something that Nicodemus had a conversation with Christ and couldn’t understand, we’re blessed to see and to know.

So, the more we know about that relationship and understand who we are, the stronger we can be in the battles we have. God will take care of it. No matter how impossible some things might seem, and we’re going to go into some periods of time here that are going to seem impossible, but they’re not at all because of God, because of the power of Almighty God, because if, as we did at baptism, we recognize, “My life is God’s; it was given to Him at baptism.” Awesome!

Again here, this is what David is going through as he sees this individual standing there. He clearly goes on to express then why he believes nothing can happen to anyone who stands up against Goliath because of God. What a beautiful picture to have in your mind always, a relationship with God, thinking toward God. Not how we’re going to work something out and leaving God out of the picture. Not trying to think of our own ways of doing certain things but looking to God for help, looking to God for guidance and direction.

Anyway, the next part of this verse here, For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy, or rebuke, as the word also means, or bring shame, because that’s what happens as a result of defying or taunting or rebuking Israel in front of them as he was doing and bringing shame then upon Israel. Because that’s what the Hebrew word has to do then, it’s the result then as well of shame that it brings because no one would stand and they’re allowing him to continue to do this. So, he’s standing up there taunting them every day for forty days. Incredible!

For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? What an awesome spirit! What an incredible mind! He didn’t see him as an obstacle and fear him. And yet sometimes out of fear people can make really bad decisions and choices. Why is there fear if your life is in the hands of the Great God of the universe? There is a confidence and a peace that should be there instead.

Verse 27—So, they answered him in this manner, saying that this is what shall be done to the man who kills him. So, they would continue to go back to the same story. This is what Saul will do. This is how Saul will reward someone because they were dealing with it on a physical plane and they couldn’t hear David at all, what he was saying.

So, Eliab, his oldest brother heard him speaking to the men; and Eliab’s anger was stirred up against David. Oldest brother there looking down at his brother that he thought should be out there taking care of the sheep, herding the sheep. Basically, that’s what he goes on to ask him here in a minute. Finding fault with, upset with him, mightily upset with him. It says he was angry. He was angry at him alright for having this kind of conversation with the others, by suggesting such a thing. Because it’s like coming right back at them and saying, “Why aren’t we doing something? Why isn’t someone standing up? Who can stand against God, the army of God?” That’s what he was saying.

So, it upset Eliab, his oldest brother. It says, Eliab, his oldest brother, heard him speaking to the men and Eliab’s anger was stirred up against David and he said, Why did you come down here? Why are you here? Where have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? Don’t you know where you’re supposed to be? You’re not supposed to be out here. We’re men of war and here, you’re just a young kind. Basically, that’s his attitude. That’s what he believed. That’s what he thought.

I know because of your pride, and insolence of your heart… So, now he’s imputing motive here of why he’s down there and doing this. It’s all about him. Here is a young guy, young whippersnapper coming down here and so, it’s because of this pride and the insolence of your heart that you have come to see the battle. “That’s all you want to see. You want to be out here to see this take place. This isn’t where you should be.” That’s basically the chastening he was giving his youngest brother.

Verse 29—So, David said, What have I done now? Is there not a cause? Again, awkward, awkward, awkward translations. They’re really bad! I mean, some places in the Bible are decent, but some of these are really, really bad, and this is one, again, another one of those, some of the story of what’s taking place here.

It goes back to the Hebrew that I mentioned here, about the words and it has to do with different words that he’s addressing what Goliath is saying and then the words that David is saying. That’s the contrast that’s being made here. It very clearly implies by context that David was questioning the words of Goliath, of what he was saying. That’s what this is all about. He was questioning here before the army, “Who is he to stand before and bring reproach to the army of Israel?” That was his attitude.

Verse 30—Then he turned from him, in other words, from his brother, toward another and said the same thing. So, he just turned his back on his brother and started talking again to the others, insistent about what he was saying. And so, to hear that, his older brother hearing that, if you can imagine on a physical plane how someone would take that, it’s like, “You think one of us should be out there doing this! You’re looking down upon us, and who are you to look down upon us,” in essence, “that we’re not out there? He's big!” And the men of the army answered him again as they had before. So, they just keep going back repeating the same old thing, what Saul is going to do if someone will go out there and take care of this, do this.

Now, when the words, here it goes again. Now it gets more specific because this is what it’s all about and this is what should have been. It should have been quoted that way from the Hebrew before about Goliath. It’s about the words of Goliath.

Now, when the words which David spoke were heard they were reported to Saul, and he sent for him. Then David said to Saul, Let no man’s heart fail because of him. So, David is standing before Saul telling him, “Don’t let anyone’s heart fail because of this man, Goliath.” Basically, talking pretty boldly to the king about his feelings. So, now he wasn’t just able to express it to the army, the different ones he was visiting around his brothers, but now before Saul.

Your servant will go out and fight with this Philistine. So, Saul said to David, You are not capable of going out against this Philistine, to fight with him, because you’re a young man and he is a man of war from his youth. So, “Who are you, David, that you’re going to go out and strive to do this, try to do this?”

Yet David said to Saul, When your servant has kept his father’s sheep, and a lion or a bear took a lamb out of the flock, I would go out after it and strike it down and deliver the lamb from it’s mouth. If it would rise up against me, I would catch it by the beard. In other words, right under the chin, that’s what he’s talking about here, of a lion or even of a bear. So, he's talking about hand to hand combat here. …and strike it down and kill it.

Can you imagine? I mean, a bear is one thing, but a lion? Here it is standing right out in front of you, has a lamb, it wants it, and you know what it’s going to do if you try to take it away. You’ve got a battle on your hands. And not to fear? I mean, what a unique character, kind of character that he had, I should say, in other words, to think in the ways that he did. Because he thought about God in all of these things. It was about God. He knew where his strength came from if he went to do something like this.

This is how God had worked with him, molded and fashioned him, revealed to him the things of His power. He had this kind of confidence, this kind of boldness. Again, so much of that on a physical plane, but yet to understand here that God was working with him to mold and fashion this within him through these experiences that he had. That gave him a kind of confidence and a boldness that was really incredibly unique to prepare him to be a king.

I have seen it over and over and over and over again in God’s Church, where so often we don’t realize what God is doing in people’s lives to prepare them for things that are ahead. Because who are we? We see ourselves. There’s nothing special. Like I wrote in that one book there talking about some of these, what’s our life? We don’t see it.

I think of that first speech, as I mentioned in Spokesman’s Club and I had to give an icebreaker, and my tongue stuck to the top of my mouth in front of thirty men I never knew, and scared to death, you know, being a young person like that and before all these different people out there.

So again, that experience, different things we go through, and these things mold and fashion us. And we all have these things, and we think, like in that icebreaker, I didn’t know what to tell about myself, nothing interesting about my life, and yet the most interesting thing of all is that God reached down and opened our mind. We are so blessed on this earth. Because God’s purpose through time has not been to do that with mankind. Only a few.

This is what upsets so many people sometimes when they hear things like this and they think, “Well, who do you think you are?” Well, it’s not a matter of who we are. We know. It’s just a matter of a relationship with God that He’s given us the truth. It’s what God has done. There’s nothing great and special about us.

That’s why I love what Paul said in Corinthians there, “Not many wise, not many great, not many mighty are called.” That’s not what God is doing. He calls us because He’s going to change us and change things about us to where it’s going to dumbfound others who, in the world, would judge and look down upon us. Because it’s what God does. It’s not what we do. It’s by God’s power that things change, our thinking changes, how we respond and think about, especially God. Then God will use that in the future.

That’s difficult sometimes for people to put into their thinking, to realize that this is a part of what God does when He molds and fashions. Because God’s the one who designs. God’s the one who creates. He’s the one. Just like the 144,000. Everyone in the temple has a specific place like any building construction. There is something you have to do that’s unique so it fits into place.

I’m thinking about the remodeling I’m doing right now in a certain area of the house and you cut it to fit and it has to be a certain thing and everything isn’t the same. I mean, what a horrible thing if we were all cut out to be the same thing. It’d just be a pile of mess, you know. God isn’t like that. We’re all unique. And so, God isn’t building and constructing the same thing in all of us. Yet sometimes we can tend to think that way, that we’re all to be the same. No, we’re not. We’re all unique and different, and God is molding and fashioning something unique within every one of us that we don’t know and we don’t understand.

Sometimes even within the history of the Church there are things that happen that you can never know where things are going to lead and what God is going to do. Hence, my standing up here. When I gave that first speech, you think, “It’s incredible, what God does.”

I think of people who used to go through Spokesman’s Club. You could see someone when they started and someone when they finished, and because it wasn’t just something done on a physical plane, like some Toastmaster clubs and stuff in the world, businesses and businessmen, this was unique because God was involved in it. The different types of speeches that were given and I saw people who grew in incredible confidence and boldness through that process. They became different than what they were when they came in.

If we could expand that then and understand that about our lives within the Church, that’s exciting. That’s awesome. It really is awesome to understand, to comprehend.

David was unique in that regard in how God was working with him. He couldn’t know what was being planned for his life, but God was involved in molding him. This was just the beginning and this is another big step in that process. But now he’s able to have of God’s spirit as well and there are things he’s going to know and learn on a spiritual plane like we do within the Church. But he didn’t have what we have. He didn’t have all the truths.

It’s hard for us to place ourselves in those periods of time. Just like with Abraham, he didn’t know about sacrifices at that point in time, that it was totally against the mind of God that a person would offer up his own son in a sacrifice. Because that progressive truth and revelation of time about God hadn’t been given. He didn’t know these things. But he learned.

And so it has been through time. Moses came along and finally a codified law. It hadn’t been codified. It hadn’t been given before that time. Passover had never been observed. When you follow the times of what was given later on in Leviticus 23, when God gave even the Holy Days then, those things hadn’t been observed. They never kept a Passover. “What’s a Passover?” So, when they observed their first physical one it had everything in it that had meaning about a spiritual one that was going to happen later on, the lamb, the blood on the door posts, passing over the children of Israel where they wouldn’t die, God passing over us because of our sins through our Passover, Christ. Awesome!

We learn these things, and it’s inspiring and it’s exciting. But to know sometimes where it’s all headed, we don’t know. But I think about what we have now that David didn’t have in his time, Samuel didn’t have in his time. They didn’t have 57 Truths to live by. They didn’t have things of a history of the Church and what the Church has gone through in the past 2,000 years. But what they knew, God worked with them and judged them according to what they had and what they were given.

So, he’s telling him this story about how these would come along, a lion or a bear, and how he then responded to them and he would go after them. And if they would rise up against me, I would catch it by the beard and strike it down and kill it. Can you imagine Saul hearing that? A young man out there? Young, teenager and he goes out there and he’ll fight a bear, he’ll go out there and fight a lion?

Your servant has killed both lion and bear. And this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them. You can’t get any bolder, stronger for what you see, for what you believe, for what you think. And it was about God. That’s what the whole thing was about here. …seeing he has expressed reproach to the armies of the living God. That’s what he was basing it on. That was his word. He heard Goliath’s word and his reproach to Israel, and his response was, “Who is he? He can’t stand against God; I don’t care how tall he is!” Now, that’s a whole different kettle of fish, whole different way of thinking, isn’t it? A unique heart and mind that had been molded and fashioned in David by this point in time to where he was willing to do something like this.

Verse 37—Furthermore, David said, The Eternal… He knew. Look what he says. This is what he saw. This is what he believed. This is what he lived by. I think sometimes by everything we’re given, how strong are we and what do we live by and how strong are we in living by that? Because we should be exceedingly strong, truly. We truly should be. Exceedingly strong! We can grow in that, to have that kind of strength, to have that kind of courage as we pray to God. Because it comes from God and we pray to God for that, to have that kind of mind, to have that kind of thinking, to have that kind of spirit, a person after God’s own heart. Because that’s what this is about.

Furthermore, David said, The Eternal who delivered me from the paw of the lion, and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out from the hand of this Philistine. So, Saul said to David, Go. Saul had never experienced anything like this being said by anyone. “You’ve killed lion. You’ve killed bear. Okay, go. You’re determined.” He could see that conviction, that determination, that boldness that was in David. He believed it with all of his being and Saul felt that from him.

So, Saul said to David, Go, and the Eternal be with you. So, Saul clothed David with his armor, and he put a bronze helmet on his head. He also clothed him with a coat of mail. So, David fastened his sword to his armor and tried to walk. For he had never tried this before. He had never tried this on before, in other words, is what it’s saying here. So, didn’t go so well, couldn’t carry it.

Then David said to Saul, I cannot walk with these; for I have never tried them on before. So, David took them off. So, 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 that he had, and his sling was in his hand. And he drew near the Philistine.

Now, this is incredible, it really is. Read a story like this and it’s not just a story. To realize all that’s involved here, that kind of boldness? He was not a tall man. He was shorter in stature. He is going out there with a boldness and confidence that he’s going to kill this man. That was his mind. Just like he killed the lion, just like he killed the bear.

So, the Philistine came and began drawing near to David; and the man who bore the shield went before him. So, Goliath had this armor bearer going before him. As the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him. He had distain towards him and his reproach toward him and what he was saying about Israel and so forth. …for he was only a young man. So, he saw him for what he was and it’s hard to imagine. You see, where are the soldiers, the older ones? You expect someone who’s older at least and someone who looks like he has strength and strong. “Who am I?” That’s what Goliath’s response was. “Why are you treating me like this? What are you doing out here?”

So, he was only a young man, ruddy, and good looking. So, the Philistine said to David, Am I a dog? This was his attitude, Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

I’m going to stop there. I haven’t gone a little longer anyway. But again here, just to place ourselves here. We can read physical stories like this and think about what he did physically, but to know why he did it, to know what was in his heart and his mind was something that God through time had molded and fashioned into him for when it came to this point.

That wasn’t by accident either. Sometimes we just don’t grasp or give credit to the power of Almighty God to mold and fashion even stories and experiences. Because God does this and there are things that have been planned out through time that God has done so that we can have those things and so the Church could have it in the past 2,000 years, so that all that history of all those things from the time of Adam and Eve, all the way through the 6,000 years can begin to have great benefit and help to those who live on into the Millennium and for the next thousand years. Then for those who are resurrected who lived in that time period, to a second life during that Great White Throne period, that 100-year period, awesome that they’re going to have all the history of those things that they’re going to be able to address and to know, and to know that they have life because God has given it to them a second time.

Incredible, the stories that God has given and provided so that we can learn spiritual lessons from them. Because, what’s to be learned from this story about David here is spiritual in every way. It’s about how we look toward God.

Because you have to grasp again here, please, he didn’t have a whole lot. He didn’t have a whole lot as far as what we would have truth. Because it’s truth that gives us strength, that God gives through the power of His spirit, that gives us boldness. All that’s been given to us since the time even of Herbert Armstrong and on has been something that’s given us courage, encouragement, strength, and those are the kinds of things that, again, we learn to respond to in a relationship with God on a spiritual plane. We have so much more than what David had.