Planning on David killing Goliath seemed as impossible as a gutter ball getting a strike in bowling. Yet Mary Higgins had such an experience in Gander, Newfoundland, when bowling in a warped bowling alley. Clark, Kitchen Privileges, 69. The warped alley explained Mary's strike. Nothing but God's intrusion in the confrontation between David and Goliath explained that outcome. A miracle, remember, isn't an answer to prayer, though they're often specifically remarkable enough to elicit "it's a miracle." But it isn't. It's simply God answering the prayers of his people, as Jesus assured he would Matthew 7:7-12.
How, then, does a stripling fell an oak, minus tunic, helmet, armor and sword? For when David left Saul's tent stripped to his "work clothes," out walked a shepherd boy, unarmed but for an empty sling. To the edge of the hill he strode, accompanied by shouts of approval from Israel's army. Over its side he went, scrambling, feet first, arms held behind breaking his fall, till he reached the dry stream bed below. There he bent, chose five smooth stones from the scores lying around, armed his sling and stuffed the reserve into his shepherd's pouch. Then off to meet the foe...KNOWING that GOD ALONE could use his youth to kill a warrior from his youth. Understand the initiative that precipitated the conflict. For 40 days only braggadocio from Goliath split the morning and evening quiet. Now, on day 41, ACTION occured when the lad presented himself to the HULK! David went forward to engage the enemy; as God ordered ancient Israel forward to escape the Egyptian horde behind, with only the deep and dark Sea of Reeds ahead! Jesus saw Satan hiding behind his fortress walls, fearing the attack of God's people, knowing he couldn't withstand the power unleashed against him Matthew 16:18. Instead, God often sees his people withdrawn into their sanctuaries and Bible studies to save themselves, complaining of being besieged by wicked forces condemning us for Christ-like righteousness. Action BY God's people against every satanic stronghold in society must characterize the church in every age, including ours, including now. Question: when have we last used what we learned from messages and Bible studies to evangelize people lost in the multiple deceptions Satan uses to keep them chained inside their fears? David's forward motion to the contest is the past event that best teaches us what direction we should go as Christians. Get involved with "down and out" people, where they hurt, where they struggle to find reality, where they merely exist awaiting their end and need to KNOW where they can LIVE delighting in their end. With "up and out" people, trusting their education, career, social position or fame to save them in the END, when only Christ's Grace suffices! Then we can verify in our lives what Paul wanted Philemon to demonstrate in his, "I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ" Philemon 6. End Part V
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This part studies the second reason young David knew he couldn't fail to kill Goliath: he would engage the enemy using the giftedness God provided.
Using Judges 3:10, 11:29 and 13:25 as references to the Spirit's anointing of three Hebrew men, "the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power" implies extraordinary giftedness in courage, faith and physical strength. It certainly involved a warrior's belligerence uncommon in a boy. Wouldn't we expect that since David's prowess in war became legendary in his time? But he had to fight God's physical battles within the parameters God provided. That's why, when Saul prepared David for war as he prepared himself—tunic, armor, helmet, sword—David couldn't function. Saul's good intentions shackled the lad. He suffered a symbolic failure. He wasn't "used to them" physically as he was even more a stranger to such weapons spiritually. He would succeed Saul as king, but in defense of God's Kingdom, not as a secular royal defending himself. Indeed, David proved a naturally brave man, and a model of courage for his men, as II Samuel 21:15-22 makes clear. They fought in apparently hopeless situations, but with COURAGE by seeing it in David. But other brave adult warriors in David's youth existed, Jonathan included, but none chose to test Goliath. David did precisely because he felt chosen by God, not merely brave. Thus, putting aside all that a physical warrior would need to wage war, David exited Saul's tent as a shepherd, in peasant's clothing, unarmed except for an empty sling. To summarize, in God's mind, Saul had ceased being king, David succeeding. In God's mind, and also in God's historical time. David didn't spend the years between the Holy Spirit's anointing and Saul's death intriguing against the king, actively recruiting rebels to share his insurrection. The opposite is true, as even a cursory reading of I Samuel 17-23 proves. Question: have we tried to serve God in a way, or in a ministry, in which we found ourselves out of our depth, or out of our interest level? Could it be that we're using only gifts we WANT to use while leaving UNUSED God's gifts he wants activated? And believe this writer, one can use God-given gifts without visible success. We serve God best, and longest, and most willingly, doing what HE has gifted us to do. Naturally, it isn't even thinkable that Christians WOULDN'T serve God. The saved must be witnesses to the unsaved—and to the hurting, the troubled, the sick, etc. But it's necessary for leaders to help Christians discover their spiritual gifts AND ways they can profitably use them for Jesus. End Part IV Born in 1933 with cerebral palsy, Christy Brown faced a bleak future. Knowing the difficulty of rearing such a child at the time, medical practitioners urged the parents to institutionalize him. They instead took him home and loved him. In time Christy Brown became a world-renowned artist and the object of an Academy Award winning film My Left Foot. The impossible happening.
In the late 1870's, a practical nurse diagnosed herself as a breast-cancer patient. Consulting a surgeon didn't help; she couldn't afford his $25 fee. She rented a room in her hometown and, without anesthetics, cut off her own breast. By God's grace she endured the shock and pain to live many years. The impossible happening. All aerodynamic evidence suggests that the bumblebee's body weight, compared with its wing spread, makes it impossible to fly. Unaware of its misfortune, the bumblebee flies anyway and manages to make a little honey in the process. The impossible happening. The vow of a volunteer to fight Goliath soon reached Saul. Excited to find someone to substitute for him as the tallest man in Israel, the king's heart sank when seeing a boy walk into the tent. A YOUTH vowing to kill a "fighting MAN" from his youth? IMPOSSIBLE. The lad stiffened his back, snapped his shoulders square to make him LOOK tall as he FELT, crooked his arm in a salute and, in a voice suddenly like a man's solemnly explained in two reasons why he couldn't fail. The first—and the one in this blog--his confidence from previous experience with God in impossible situations, represented by the lion and bear. One of the predators would occasionally snatch a lamb and hurry it away. To be instantly pursued by David with his shepherd's crook, shouting his defiance. Seeing him, the animals assumed predator status of bigger game. Only to find themselves prey to God-given strength they couldn't contest. THEY, the killers, became the KILLED. Who but Samson in Hebrew history had single-handedly torn a lion open at the mouth? That model established God's willingness to use any servant trusting him to overcome impossible challenges. Which David in his role as shepherd had embodied. To him the Giant proved simply another predator God would tear apart. Question: do we have any past experience where we saw God WORK on our behalf, helping through difficulties greater than our capacity or experience? Can't we let those memories empower us in present situations that seem too tough to confront, to contest, to conquer? God will never let us face alone to defeat what he THROUGH us successfully accomplishes. End Part III Sunday, April 25, 2021, East Village, San Diego, 7:25 pm. A couple walked innocently past a parking structure...when a man hurled himself from the structure, perhaps screaming in his death plunge. The man below jumped aside, either from a premonition, hearing a sound or seeing a form in his peripheral vision. He had no time to pull his 30-year-old wife with him. The suicide smashed into her, driving her under him onto the concrete. Both died. San Diego UT, 4/27/21
Sorry to start the blog with this sad story. But like it, we can never know when we start a walk, a work or a week, that we'll live to finish it. Goliath had that experience in the valley of Elah. Forty days straight, morning and evening, no time off despite his bad behavior, he provoked Israel to tears and terror by brandishing his javelin in their faces from across the valley. On the 41st day, he renewed his taunt. By the time the sun burned hot in the sky, a boy shepherd had hurled a stone that, like the man hurtling into the woman, buried itself in Goliath's skull.... But I'm anticipating.... Sent by his father as errand boy to carry provisions for his brothers and their commander, God summoned David to the site just in time to drop the food, hurry to greet his brothers AND see and hear the Philistine's usual bluster. Surprised to watch otherwise valorous men vanish from the battle line like fog before a rising sun, the boy wondered why. Particularly when overhearing the men plaintively talk to each other about rewards coming from the king to anyone killing the enemy champion:
As older brothers have always done when younger siblings have forgotten their public manners, oldest brother Eliab branded David a smart-aleck, ordered him silenced and sent home to his few sheep, the only role in which he considered him competent. Undaunted by Eliab's anger by a greater awareness of God's call, David simply turned to other voices, who repeated the story of REWARD. It excited the shepherd boy who would never again be unknown anywhere in history. End Part II I Samuel 17 is a whopping 58 verse chapter. Its subject matter excels its verse content. For it answers the problem we all face when confronting problems beyond our capacity or experience. With background material far exceeding human invention, the Holy Spirit prepares us to see God's Glory by introducing the hero of an unremarkable family as God's champion of Israel.
All nine feet, and all 500 pounds of flesh, of the Philistine warrior marinated in self-importance due to his size as representative of a race hard to envision, harder still to oppose and impossible to imagine overcoming. A walking armored weapon, he had for more than a month rose in sections from his King-Sized pallet, in his King-Sized Tent, clanked his way to a King-sized breakfast, then to the battle line. There he strutted in giant strides across the Philistine infantry line, every step showered with hand-claps and vocal adoration. He looked across the Valley of Elah at the ranks of Israel, swaggering his mass at them, waving his spear like a rotating arrow in defiance of the puny Hebrews. As bullies are accustomed to doing, he shouted a challenge: one of you stand for Israel while I stand for Philistia. Whoever STANDS after one-on-one-combat—you choose the weapon—and your man dies, is the same as each man's army winning. That all sounded reasonable to Goliath; after all, Israel had no one comparable. It all sounded terrifying to King Saul; after all, he stood head and shoulders above his warriors as the likeliest in Israel to contest the bully. That's the way it went day after day, week after week. After shouting his curses at Israel until his voice grew so hoarse he feared it turning into a little colt, he retired to his tent to eat, drink, sleep and dream pleasant dreams. End, Part I Racoon John Smith, one of the Restoration Movement's colorful characters, once said that a full glass of liquid of one kind had to be emptied before it could be filled with liquid of another. Just so the human mind can only be filled with the Holy Spirit when repentance of sin, coupled with immersion in water for the forgiveness of sin, renders the spirit empty, but pure, ready for the Spirit's occupancy.
As emphasized in Finale, Part B, it's a pleasure to be an oppositionist in an accommodationist culture. But Christians are also re-constructionists. Jesus had only scathing words for the person who swept his life clean, then left it a vacuum Luke 11:24-26. The bread in Communion also symbolizes our post-conversion state as servants of Christ's mission and witnesses of his Lordship in evangelism Matthew 28:18-20. Joseph in Egypt proved a reconstructionist. Giving Pharaoh the good news—seven years of plenty, followed by the bad—seven years of scarcity, he suggested a solution to balance the difference: a man to be in charge, with associates supervising the storing of excess of plentiful years as reserves for years of inevitable depletion Genesis 41:33-40. Being a citizen of heaven means we judge all teaching, belief, practice and behavior by what would make us WELCOME in Heaven, not what will make us COMFORTABLE on earth. If we know from God's word that something happening here and now, will never happen there and then, it has to change, however tolerant society may be of it, however many declare for it, however few stand with us opposing it. In these few words a brief idea exists of "our Citizenship is in Heaven." In summary, that citizenship presently embodies Christ's:
The unfaithfulness of some believers to these strict Bible standards won't weaken, eliminate or eradicate them from Powerful, Active Bible-disciples Galatians 2:20-21. Indeed, we will not be deterred from possessing and proclaiming them. We will not be spiritually neutered by having these bedrock convictions removed from our life! We will engage in preserving the truth of spiritual ideas, because God authors, protects and preserves them. Get up, Christians, don't sit. Buck up, Christians, don't shrink. Pull back your shoulders, Christians, don't slump. RISE to the WORTH of our spiritual enfranchisement, Christians, a relationship with God that never fails though we often do. Remember,"The body they may kill; God's truth abideth still; His kingdom is forever." Luther, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. Finale/Fini Lessons learned.
Second, the pleasure of being oppositionists in an accommodationist culture. Joe Biden will have no Federal employee labelling as "aliens" those illegally in America. Though pot shops operating without a license are illegal pot shops. Since a vast difference exists between being a citizen of any country and being an alien in any country, why would our government grant illegal aliens rights belonging only to citizens? Try being an alien in Mexico while claiming the rights of citizens! We have served for so long as an economic safety-valve for Mexico that we think it our obligation to continue. The Roman Catholic Church certainly welcomes that conviction. It's the wealthiest organization in the world, with an estimated worth of $30 billion, from ownership of churches, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, offices, tennis courts and telephone towers. Internet. But while we presently spend $60 million a week housing and feeding migrant MINORS, when has that absolutist ecclesiastical body EVER spent $60 million to create jobs in nations where it rules, so their people stay home, not migrate here? This is the first reason we're oppositionists to our accommodationist culture. The apostle Paul's declaration that we're citizens of heaven, Philippians 3:20, agrees with the apostle Peter's declaration that we're aliens in this world, I Peter 2:11. Christians can't be both aliens here AND citizens here—that is...holding as the basic values of life what any nation tolerates. By being aliens here, we avoid the world and its sinful desires that war against our soul I Peter 2:11. But by being citizens of heaven, we inherit the transforming of our "lowly bodies" into Christ's "glorious body" Philippians 3:21. Why would we forfeit Christ's glory to our nation's depravity? The saying that "Christians are so heavenly-minded they're no earthly good" is a satanic lie. Robert E. Lee had a struggle between patriotism and citizenship which made him a traitor to the Union. He disliked secession and slavery but loved his native soil. God frees Christians from any such struggle by establishing our citizenship in heaven with Jesus, not in an earthly commonwealth. Citizenship with Jesus determines the basic, permanent, changeless ideals by which we identify ourselves, by which we say, "This is what we are and will always be. And by this naturally, by our relationship with Jesus, we introduce his virtues into everyday life!" Therefore, as many Christians have yet to learn, we automatically exist as spiritual aliens in America because our citizenship is in heaven. For the best in any human society doesn't even barely approximate God's world and can never equal or surpass it. To the Pentecostal crowd the apostles preached, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation" Acts 2:40. And that a society of Temple and Law, God welcomed, his word obeyed, his Person Revered. What would the apostles say to our depraved culture, indeed to every generation bequeathing an "empty way of life"? I Peter 1:18. We're oppositionists therefore to an accommodationist culture. We're also Christian-counter-culture advocates. That's the "rest of the story." Finale, Part B Lessons the series teaches.
First, The Difference in God's Beneficence and Covenant.
Meaning: while God provides daily needs for all people, he restricts his Spiritual Grace to those in covenant with him through Christ, as he taught in Matthew 5:1-12 and Paul in I Corinthians 2:1-16. The spiritual rebel can serve God's Sovereignty, as God told Pharaoh in Exodus 9:13-16. The spiritual servant alone serves God's Purpose on earth, and only biblical Judaism and Christianity have accomplished that. And Christianity finalized what Moses initiated. The revulsion of world religionists against this truth doesn't change the FACT. Their rejection of it doesn't alter God's TRUTH. Nor does it prevent Christianity alone being God's sole revelation of himself offering completed forgiveness of sin. While the very best Biblical Judaism offered was yearly abeyance of sin Leviticus 16:1-34, with the understanding that annual repetition rendered the forgiveness incomplete Hebrews 10:1-4. Matthew 27:51 explained that Christ's death symbolized the abolition of incomplete forgiveness by slicing the curtain between the Holy Place and Holy of Holies. Sinners could enter God's Presence by the Savior's sacrifice. Which his bodily resurrection verified and his ascension into heaven forever PRESERVED as an ETERNAL reminder that he, chosen to die before the world began, I Peter 1:18-21, occupies his Throne next to the Father's as our Eternal High Priest, Hebrews 4:14-16. Christians, never discount, and always accentuate, the delight we alone enjoy: the complete forgiveness of sin verified by Christ's bodily resurrection from the grave. Because he Lives, we are not only perfectly forgiven, but guaranteed a body like his Glorified Body of Revelation 1:12-18. That's the jubilation of all believers in Christ and the despair of all heathen religions, and even of biblical Judaism. The heathen had no historically verifiable person RISING from the dead and Judaism had only the inkling of it in the Passover Lamb I Corinthians 5:7. While renewed yearly by generations of Hebrews, never understood insightfully as a symbol of Someone better. And never fully appreciated by Christians until we see WHY Jesus added the BREAD to the CUP. The bread represents the post-forgiveness purpose of God's people. He has a use in ministry now and eternal joy in our new bodies. No wonder Christians that the apostle Paul could glory in II Corinthians 4:16-5:10. No wonder that, despite our humanity that weakens us as we waste away, we can exalt with Paul II Corinthians 4:8-9: We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. Finale, Part A In God's Holy Scripture humanity has a book that teaches, not measurable TRUTH, but TRUTH without measure. Truth upon truth in every fact it surfaces. Through every perspective it views us. In every principle it establishes. Through every discovery it provides us. Absolute truth as pure in origin as useful in everyday life. It opens spiritual wonders to which only the human spirit forgiven by Christ's grace, and maturing in Christ-likeness, can aspire to study in depth, without hope of mastering. But in which every effort to learn MORE catapults our spirits!
Which is why Christians never bother to challenge the skeptics, secularists and other assorted godless to express in their lives better examples of Christ than believers often demonstrate. Ponder I Corinthians 2:14: "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." Indeed, the fullest understanding of the spiritual life comes only to those experiencing burial in water that washes our sins away and quickens us mentally and spiritually. This suggests that faith-only people rob themselves of tremendous spiritual benefits by dismissing the cleansing nature of immersion. This writer invites anyone with questions about it to correspond with him. The lack of Spirit-provided enlightenment explains why unbelievers cheer the mission of Christians—compassion, benevolence, hospitals, children's homes, et al—but jeer the message of Christians—Jesus Christ as God-Incarnate reconciling sinners to God through his sacrifice. Though...THOUGH...the mission of Christians originates in Christ's message. Conversion to Christ unleashes the Christ-centered spiritual power that makes Biblical—make that Protestant—Christianity SO people-friendly wherever it has gone. Philanthropists fund buildings that meet physical, mental and emotional needs. Only Christians, inspired by the Holy Spirit, teach Christ's sacrifice for sin as the starting point in human renewal; it alone brings all manner of benefits the secularized mind considers the sine qua non of human existence. End Part V Next, in the finale, lessons Christians must learn and defend. To continue a balance between unthinking praise of fallen mortals who fail their own standards while condemning mortals who fail God's infinitely greater standards.
First, while those failing to achieve self-appointed goals may find themselves improved humans, believers discover success in being MORE like JESUS! Indeed, as we try, and fail, to emulate his life, the less we succeed the greater our understanding of Jesus becomes. And the behinder we get, despite our effort, the more like him we become. Second, because skeptics deny the believer's spiritual dominance shouldn't lead us to question it. Because they deny God's existence doesn't alter his ETERNAL BEING. Because they deny Christ's sacrifice for all humanity in every age doesn't keep the Holy Spirit from successfully evangelizing the unforgiven from LOST to SAVED. Because a majority of Americans want unlimited abortion on demand doesn't eliminate God's declaration that human life begins at conception Luke 1:39-45. Indeed, Christians RISE to OUR spiritual enfranchisement. It comes as God's gift of GRACE that no doubter can ever decrease. For while their doubt issues from an ignorance of God's word that often refuses education, our privilege rests in a knowledge of God that continually fuels our spiritual energy, whatever life-circumstances we experience. Third, unbelievers seek pleasure; Christians testing. They want ease in life; we spiritual strength for the stresses of life. They understand life as a marathon to be endured to the end; we as a steeplechase whose obstacles can and are to be overcome on the way to the end. They want a human maturity to fit in as a fellow-mortal; we a spiritual maturity that qualifies us to join the godly host of saints before us and those still with us in our shared ascent to Heaven. They can ignore God, and do; Christians can't, and won't. They live only to die; we die only to live again, forever. They live in history until they or it ends. We live in history until IT ENDS and God's Eternity Begins to never end. End Part IV |
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