And the passage we're going to look at from 2 Samuel chapter 21 is more reason to praise and glorify our great and awesome God. 2 Samuel 21, we're up to verse 15. This is the inerrant word of God written for our edification. When the Philistines were at war again with Israel, David and his servants with him went down and fought against the Philistines and David grew faint. Then Ishbi Benab, who was one of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose bronze spear was 300 shekels, who was bearing a new sword, thought he could kill David. But Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, came to his aid and struck the Philistine and killed him. Then the men of David swore to him, saying, You shall go out no more with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel. Now it happened afterward that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibachai the Hushethite killed Sath, who was one of the sons of the giant. Again there was war at Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jair Oragim the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. Yet again there was war at Gath where there was a man of great stature who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, 24 in number, and he also was born to the giant. So when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimeah, David's brother, killed him. These four were born to the giant in Gath and fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. It is our glory to study it. It is our glory to seek by the power of your Holy Spirit to conform our lives to the implications of your word. And so we pray that you would guide our hearts, direct our steps, and that you would help us to continue to glorify your name through the responses that we give to the scriptures. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. A reporter was interviewing a 100-year-old man on his birthday, and at one point he asked him what he was the most proud of. And the old man said, I don't have any enemies." And the guy said, well, that's wonderful. Yep, said the old man, I've outlived every last one of them. And David has outlived quite a few enemies to this point in his life. And he almost gets done in by one of the enemies, but it's clear that he did not outlive his enemies by being naive. He trained himself for battle and he prepared his men for battle as well. He surrounded himself with a group of mighty men who delighted in battle, actually, and who constantly were outdoing each other in their valiant deeds. Chapter 23 will outline quite a few more valiant men that were a part of his army. We'll get to that in a few weeks, Lord willing. But this section highlights the killing of the last of the four giants. And it's my prayer that each one of us will grow in the Lord as a result of looking at this scripture. But we're going to start by looking at a theology of the enemy. Verse 15. When the Philistines were at war again with Israel, David and his servants with him went down and fought against the Philistines, and David grew faint. Now, there are four things that this verse reminds us of with regard to our enemy, and the first is that the enemy never gives up. Back in 2 Samuel 8, David won a resounding victory against the enemy. And you might have thought that that was the last that we would hear of it. You may remember in that chapter that the Philistines had gathered a huge coalition of all of the nations, even way north of Israel. And their intent was to wipe Israel off the face of the map. And it looked like they would succeed. But miraculously, God gave David a resounding victory, and chapter 8 verse 1 says that David subdued them. He subdued them so thoroughly that we don't hear another word about these Philistines until this chapter, other than one reference in chapter 19, which is just a memory of the fact that David had delivered them from the Philistines. And so you would think, after they had gotten whooped so resoundingly, that the Philistines would leave the Israelites alone. But they did not. Verse 15 says, when the Israelites were at war again with Israel. We are in a cosmic battle for keeps. And either Christ will win or Satan will win. Of course, we know from the book of Revelation that Christ is going to win the war. But that does not necessarily mean that we are going to win every battle that we're in. In fact, there's a lot of battles that Christians have lost because we have not pursued the Lord in faith or pursued His blueprints. And it's clear from history that Satan doesn't give up. It doesn't matter how many times that we have conquered Satan in some battle, he's going to constantly come back looking for a way in which he can do us in. He even did this with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted over and over again by the devil. And in Luke 4, verse 13, despite the fact that every single time Jesus resisted him so that the devil had to flee, it says, now, when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. Satan is always looking for that opportune time to try to destroy us. In the culture wars of America today, we can count on constant attacks from Satan. Yes, we have won some marvelous liberties for the homeschool movement, but you can bet your bottom dollar that Satan is going to do everything he can to try to get his warriors out there taking away those liberties from us. Yes, we have won some concessions from the GLBTQ crowd in this city, so that churches don't have to do some of the same things that businesses might have to do. But they'll go on the attack again once they've consolidated their power, just like they did last week in Denmark. Denmark passed a law last week, or was it the week before, but very, very recently, mandating that all churches have to perform homosexual marriages, and it's a crime, it's a punishable crime if pastors do not, when somebody asks them, will you perform a wedding, if they say no. Even if they say no, we don't perform any weddings. It's a crime in Denmark. It's some scary times for pastors there. And whether you think of that battle or a hundred other battles that are seeking to destroy every vestige of Christianity in our nation, We must not be naive and think that it's not going to impact us. It will. The second phrase of verse 15 shows that our enemy must not be ignored. When the Philistines were at war again with Israel, David and his servants with him went down and fought against the Philistines. When the Philistines attacked, the Christians counterattacked. That only makes sense, right? It makes no lick of sense that over the past 50 years, despite attack after attack by the Philistines of our country, Christians have done nothing. We have been passive. We have not involved ourselves in the culture wars of our day. As one theologian said, the church unfortunately in America has become a bunch of mild-mannered people teaching other mild-mannered people how to become more mild-mannered. He said we're a bunch of wimps. The moment we get any resistance from the devil, the moment we get any resistance from man, we tend to cave in. And so my question is, where are the Davids and where are the warriors who will come around the Davids of our country and who will engage in the culture wars of our day. They're hard to find, but our spiritual enemy must not be ignored. And to the Christians who keep telling us, oh, don't even speak about culture wars. We need to be nice in our culture. I tell them that they are fools if they think that that's going to stop Satan. Satan is going to do everything he can to undo the church. And whether we fight or we don't fight, the culture wars are going to be there. And I love the quote attributed to the famous 19th century missionary David Livingston. He did everything in his power to stop the horrible, horrible slave trade in Africa. If you've read much about the kind of things that the Arab slave traders did, it was just nasty business. And so he did everything he could to make it illegal. And of course, most of the countries he went through were way outside any influence of British law. But he freed many, many slaves as a result of his influence, and the slave traders hated him. And they sought to kill him a number of times. Now, he didn't believe in being a martyr. So when they would shoot at him, he would shoot back. And they didn't like that. That just doesn't seem very fair. But Christians themselves criticized him and saying, why are you shooting? You should go without a gun and we should be peaceable. And his response is classic. He said, I love peace as much as any mortal man. In fact, I go quite beyond you, for I love it so much I would fight for it. And I thought, yeah, that's exactly, exactly right. Lying down, letting the enemy walk all over you is not peace. It is abdication to Satan and just saying, go ahead, take, take this culture. It's yours. It is a sure recipe for slavery. And yet that is exactly what Christians are doing in almost every issue. They are abdicating. Now I'm not talking about shooting people. Okay. Unless they shoot at me. They shoot at me. I believe in self-defense. Okay. I think that's an inalienable right, but I'm not talking about shooting. I'm talking about a battle of worldviews, a battle for the heart of this nation, spiritual warfare, being willing to compete in the marketplace of ideas. So I do not believe in rolling over in any of those areas. And certainly this passage could be applied to the military. We do have some military people here, but I'm not going to primarily do that this morning. I'm primarily going to be dealing with the implications of spiritual warfare and worldview. The Philistines come in with their agendas of dismantling the American Christian Republic. And what do Christians do? Nothing. They do not even write a letter of protest. The Philistines in America have won battle after battle, not because the church can't win, but because the church refuses to fight. This past Monday, after the Denmark law was passed that made it a crime for a pastor to refuse to perform a homosexual marriage, Theodore Schubert wrote a great wake-up call out of the church. By the way, if you don't know who Theodore Schubert is, he's the son of Walid Schubert, who used to be a PLO a terrorist, became a Christian, and abandoned his terroristic ways. But both of these guys, they know the enemy. They know what these culture wars are about, and that it's a war for keeps. Anyway, after describing the Danish law that basically criminalizes Christian morality, he said this, Christians must become militant against the sodomites in America because this is exactly what the degenerates want in the United States, to force churches to conduct homosexual weddings. Look at the decree that was just passed in San Antonio, Texas, which now prohibits all those in political office from being biased toward homosexuals. Absolute equality is absolute despotism. Christians must fight to have Christianity supreme and not an equal among slaves. The ancient kings of Israel understood this, and this is why they suppressed the Sodomites and extinguished them from the land. Why can't the governments of today's dead Christendom do what King Asa did? And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father, And he took away the sodomites out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. First Kings 15, 11 through 12. Today's Christians have no problem with praising David's killing of Goliath. But why don't we ever praise the actions of King Josiah when he destroyed the pagan brothels of the sodomites? And he break down the houses of the sodomites that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings from the grove. Second Kings 23 7. And that's the end of the quote from Theodore Schubart. Now, Schubart is not talking about private citizens taking down sodomite brothels. okay, whorehouses and banishing them. He's talking about a worldview that allows the civil magistrates to do so just like Asa and like Josiah did. That's not our role to be involved in that as private citizens. Romans 12 calls us to love the homosexuals, to preach the gospel to them, to call them to repentance, to hope they will repent. So Romans 13 is the civil government's responsibility and Romans 12 is ours. But if the civil magistrates do not protect us from the Philistines, America will be completely subjugated. And we need to realize we are experiencing the complete dismantling of constitutional America, which was founded on common law, which has always made sodomy a serious crime. Now just reading that article has maybe made some of you guys squeamish. Really, Phil, are you asking us to suppress a sodomy? And I say, yes, absolutely. It needs to be recriminalized. Not suppressed by us, but it does need to be recriminalized. And we need to encourage our civil magistrates to do so while we ourselves lovingly preach the gospel and hope that they converge. But let me tell you something, this culture war is a culture war for keeps. And if we do not see the real agenda of the Sodomites, we're going to end up becoming a persecuted minority. It's one of the reasons why sodomy was always listed as a crime in the Bible, and why every state of the union made sodomy a crime up until recent years. It is a moral issue that completely disintegrates a society And by the way, if people argue with you on this, that it's been changed, it hasn't been changed. Article 7 of the Bill of Rights of our Constitution, if you read that, it makes the common law the law of every court of our nation. And you read the common law, sodomy is a crime all throughout the common law. That's never been changed. They have just ignored the common law. Anyway, Romans 1-2 indicates that sodomy is a tool that Satan always uses to make a culture his or keeps. And we've just got to realize that Satan is behind all of the culture wars, and I can assure you that Satan does not want peaceful coexistence. He's not even interested in toleration, which is what the Bible mandates. The Bible has toleration, okay? But Satan is interested in obliterating every vestige of Christianity from our culture. And I think it's high time that Christians stop ignoring the culture battles and they start fighting, first of all, on our knees in spiritual warfare prayer and then fighting to promote the biblical worldview, which alone can bring true peace and liberty to all men. And I'm saying all men, including to pagans who are out there. But one cultural viewpoint must win. And if humanism wins, it's going to be slavery for all. See, what David was doing is he was protecting his nation from a foreign paganism taking over. And what's happened is a foreign worldview that is unconstitutional has been taking over our nation. And by the way, it's not as if Israel discriminated against pagans who resided in Israel. It was the same law for the pagan and for the Israelites. They had same liberties, the same protections. It was just they could not get away with crimes any more than Israelites could get away with crime. And so you've got to allow the Bible to define what is and is not a crime. But Christianity is the only religion that has given maximum liberty to all, to Christian and to unbeliever. And I believe that's why we must fight to keep the Christian worldview in this nation. Humanism will bring bondage. The third feature of a theology of the enemy is to recognize that our enemy is always going to try to take advantage of our weaknesses. Beginning with the last phrase in verse 15, David grew faint. There is his weakness. David grew faint, then Ishbi Benad, who was one of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose bronze spear was 300 shekels, who was bearing a new sword, thought he could kill David. When he saw David growing weak through fighting, this giant saw his opportunity and he came after David. Now, some people see this as taking place just before the Bathsheba event. which would make David 48 years old, and they say that's why he did not go out to war in that chapter. Now while that does explain certain things, it actually makes many more problems, and I think violates the text of this. So other people, like Floyd Nolan Jones, see this as taking place right after the three-year famine, which would make David 64 years old. And because of the wow consecutive and the Hebrew grammar and some of the words that you'll see in the text that we read, I take it. This is all sequential. This is happening after the three-year famine. But either way, the enemy saw weakness and he began to exploit it. And there are many weaknesses that the enemy is exploiting today. I think one of the most significant weaknesses is theological weakness. The church of today has theological anemia. They don't have the robust theology of past centuries that enabled them to advance the liberty of Christianity. And so, when that happens, it demotivates you. Why get involved if you are convinced theologically that it is hopeless? Or as Salem Kerbin worded it, what future do any of us have? Why get involved if, as one famous theologian worded it, quote, God has not given the church a proper dose of grace to Christianize the world, unquote? Why get involved, if Wolvert is right, when he said Christians have no immediate solutions to the problems of our day? Now, I love Wolvert. He's a brother in the Lord, but he thinks that Christianity is no match for the giants in the land, and so he's discouraged. He says we don't have solutions to the problems that we are facing. Much of the modern church has become passive because they are convinced that Satan is ordained to win. Their eschatology robs them of hope. Their rejection of the biblical blueprints robs them of anything. And like Gary North says, you can't beat something with nothing. And if you don't have any answer, why criticize the problem, right? Because they have no faith, they pull back. And when Christians have pulled back out of culture, what's immediately happened is the humanists have come in and they've come into the vacuum. They've taken over. It just should be fairly obvious. And actually, when you look at some of the losers that have gotten into the Congress and into the various state legislatures, you wonder, how in the world did these guys get elected? I think people must have been holding their nose to vote for them. But I'm convinced many times these guys get elected because there's no one good running against them. There's no one good to take their place. Christians no longer have a theology that enables them to compete. And so I say we have to get back to the old doctrines and the old paths that were successful. The second weakness of the church is its prayerlessness. When you see a prayerless church, look for its defeat. It's as simple as that. Think of the image of Moses when he was, he and Israel were battling against the Amalekites. In Exodus chapter 17, it shows Moses with his hands raised up, praying on behalf of Israel. As long as his hands were raised, Israel was winning. As soon as his hands got tired and they came down, Israel immediately began to lose. He would raise his hands again, they would start to win. And so Aaron and Hur, his brothers, They sat him down on a rock, and they held up his hands, and he had a resounding victory. But that's such a powerful image, and I think that image needs to be drilled into our consciousness, that when we grow weary in our prayer life, expect defeat. This is one of the things that Gary keeps harping on. We've got to be more of a praying church. It's got to pervade our lives. We need to be in prayer continually. When we are driven to prayer, God gives us success. Now this church, this local church, has been seeing some pretty significant battles, and we've been losing these battles. And I think in part it's because of either prayerlessness or a failure to pray in faith. And Satan will take advantage of that. The third weakness in the American church is loss of power through sin. Makes sense. Pretty hard to fight against lawlessness in culture if we've embraced lawlessness within the church of Jesus Christ itself. And you can think a few years earlier, when David had covered over his sin with Bathsheba, he was powerless. Well, in much the same way, the church has become powerless because we have become a carnal church. It's eviscerated our will to fight. Now, there are other strategic weaknesses in the American church. And I should add that these three weaknesses were not David's weakness here. He was right with the Lord. He just was tired, right? And some of you are tired and worn out with the opposition that you have been getting. And it's one of the reasons why we need to stand together on behalf of the church, pray for it, seek to bring reformation to it and resource it. OK, the fourth point under a theology of the enemy is that our enemy can be intimidating. In fact, when you look at the last 2000 years of Christian history and the battles that we have won, most of those battles, if you had asked people ahead of time if they were winnable, people would probably say, no, there's no way that you could win that battle. And yet we won that battle. They were intimidating. But people were not driven by what is intimidating, what is not intimidating. They saw a far greater, bigger person than the giants. They saw the Lord God who was behind them. I mean, who would have thought that Armenia, the country of Armenia, that persecuted, killed, tortured so many Christians, would be the first nation to become a Christian nation? Who would have thunk that Rome, with all of their Colosseans and things like that, would become converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And yet the church fathers of the first three centuries, despite Torture, despite martyrdom, despite slander, they had an absolute confidence that Rome would fall to the gospel. You read through the church fathers, which I've been doing for the last 25 years, and you will see that they had an absolute confidence in the victory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that it would take them forward. They were sold out to Jesus. In fact, they had the attitudes of the hymn we're going to be singing afterwards, where it didn't bother them if they were going to be martyred. In fact, many of them said, bring it on. Yes, it would be such an honor to be martyred for the Lord Jesus Christ. But it was not discomfort that drove them. It was the honor, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. But Satan certainly wants the church to be intimidated. So let's take a look at verse 16. Then Ishbi Benab, who was one of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose bronze sphere was 300 shekels, who was bearing a new sword, thought he could kill David. Now I've listed in your outlines four things that could have been very intimidating. First, he was a giant, or as some translate it, one of the sons of the Rafa. And when we're talking giants, we're not talking about these people in modern times who, it's a very rare condition, but they've got gigantism, that's a pituitary gland malfunction that makes them spurt up tall and skinny, and they got health problems, they're weak, they can hardly walk, some of them. We're not talking about that. The giants that have been documented over the last 2000 years, and we're talking earlier than this, obviously, but these were huge. They were well proportioned. They were fast. They were incredibly strong, strong giants. Now, we've talked about these giants in the past, so I won't get into it too much today. But the giants that the Bible has given measurements for have ranged depending on which cubit you're using, from 9 feet tall for the smallest of them to 18 foot 6 inches tall. And some of the Anakim seemed even taller than that. Let me read you a scripture. Amos 2.9, God said, Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of cedars. Wow, how tall are cedars? I don't know. I guess they're all over the place. But whose height was like the height of cedars. And he was as strong as the oaks, yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. No wonder the spies, when they went into the land of Canaan, were utterly intimidated. Ten of those spies said, we're like grasshoppers in their sight. We're nothing. There's no way we could take on these giants. And there have actually been taller giants that have been found, skeletons that have been found, taller than that. Now there is a lot of rubbish on the web, a lot of, what do they call it, scams that purport to be these giants. And it kind of discredits the true discoveries, and it's hard to figure out what's true and what is not true. But you go on some of the really honorable historians and scientists of the past, and we see there were some huge, huge giants out there. Now in your outlines, I have included the picture of Charles Byrne, the Irish giant. He was puny. in comparison to the other giants. Now, he's a pretty big dude there, right? He's eight foot, two inches tall. He was puny compared to the giants that we know about. Now, there was another one, not quite as tall, a little taller than this guy. He was 11 foot, six inches tall. And everybody knows about him. He served the King of Scotland. He was one of the armed guards. And there was a guy who served an elector in Germany. It was a giant about the same size. But if these giants that David and his men fought were in the range of 12 to 18 feet, or maybe even more. You can see why it would be scary to have one of them bearing down on David, beaten on his shield, you know, beating him into the ground. It would be incredibly intimidating. The second intimidating feature about this giant was his spear, or as some translate it, his spearhead was seven and a half pounds. The largest spearhead that's been discovered in archeology to this point in the land of Canaan is pictured in your outline there. It was 4 1⁄2 pounds and 26 inches long. So this 7 1⁄2 pound spearhead was a pretty massive weapon. Big weapons for big boys. When it speaks of bearing a new sword, you'll notice that the word sword is in italics. Well, that's because the word sword is not in the Hebrew. He was bearing something new. And most commentators believe, because it doesn't mention what the new thing is, that nobody had seen this before. They were not familiar with this weapon. So, more literally, he was bearing a new thing. You know, some kind of a new weapon. Now that's intimidating too. If you've never practiced against weapons that are coming at you, you're wondering, you know, how do I deal with this? And the last intimidating feature was that this giant was very confident. He thought he could kill David. Now, with those four intimidating features, it would have been very easy for David to back down. You already know from David's life, he's not the kind of guy that ever backs down from a fight. Maybe sometimes he should have. 64 years old or not, and that's how old he is in this passage, if you follow a sequential chronology, 64 years old or not, he was up for the fight. And I wish, I wish, I wish that there were more Christians who would be less intimidated by the giants of our own day. While I agree that the Philistines of abortion and homosexuality and socialism and the United Nations and our own Philistine agencies in D.C. are powerful, And even though I agree they are incredibly intimidating, I simply cannot agree with Salem Kurban when he says, we have reached the point of no return. We are on an irreversible course for world disaster. By the way, he said that about 30 years ago. And I just say, well, who made you a prophet to say that it is absolutely irreversible? It may be, but is it really irreversible? I cannot agree with Herman Hancock from our circles who says the world is filled with sin and getting worse, a hopeless situation beyond repair and impossible to salvage. Well, I don't think anything God has commanded us to do. Is impossible for God to achieve. And you read the Great Commission, what does it command us to do? It's to make disciples of nations, Christian nations, right? So I don't think it's impossible. So I appreciate the attitudes of Charles Spurgeon, who said, I myself believe that King Jesus will reign and the idols be utterly abolished, for I expect that the same power which turned the world upside down once will still continue to do it. The Holy Ghost would never suffer the imputation to rest upon his holy name that he was not able to convert the world. And so that's a theology of the enemy that should spur us to action. Well, Abishai is hero number one, and he was a can-do guy. And despite the fact that he saw King David being beaten to the ground, he came to the rescue. Verse 17. But Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, came to his aid and struck the Philistine and killed him. Now there are three quick lessons that I see in that first clause that I just read, and the first one is that God can use ornery cusses. Joab and Abishai, his brother, are displayed as being ornery people to hang around with. Now it's true, Joab had committed a crime and he should have been punished, but not Abishai. The only fault that he has is he's a little rough around the edges. But I want to emphasize we need to value even the ornery cusses who are out there who are rough around the edges. I could tell you the names, and I won't in my sermon, of people that I value out there on the web And people just write them off because they're so harsh. You remember David said, these brothers of Zeruiah, they're too harsh for me. Well, there's some guys out there that are pretty harsh, but boy, are they saying some wise things. And I think we need to value them. God can use even ornery cusses. And I think it's being shortsighted to wipe them off. And Abishai himself must have had a degree of loyalty to David because Over and over, David had said, what have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? Well, now he knows. He knows why. He needed Abishai, right? It was obvious that previously David was somewhat frustrated with Abishai, yet when the need came, Abishai was there to help and he did not fight for his own fame. The text says he came to David's aid. That was his goal. He came to David's aid. So it shows a degree of loyalty. And of course, Abishai succeeded in killing this massive giant. He took on an impossible task because he was needed and God gave him success. And we need heroes who will take on the impossible challenges of our own day. Now, the last part of verse 17 gives a side note. David's mighty men no doubt appreciated the fact that David was quite willing to mix it up on the front lines of the battlefield, but they realized that maybe the time has come for him to quit fighting. And this highlights the fact that there is a legitimate division of labor, different callings, and even seasons of life that we need to be sensitive to. Verse 17 ends by saying, Then the men of David swore to him, saying, You shall go out no more with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel. Sometimes followers have to disagree with their leaders and encourage the leaders to do something different. Now, generally speaking, these 600 warriors of David, they would do anything for David. Anything he told them to do, they'd go out and they would try to do. But on this one, this issue, they put their foot down. Because it was important to the survival of David and Israel and their own future jobs, they did not want David on the front lines anymore. If he wanted to manage from a distance, he was welcome to do so. But at age 64, it was time to retire from fighting. Well, I hope I listen to my kids when they tell me, you know, Dad, we think it's time to take the keys away from you. No more driving. Hopefully, I'll be another 50 years, right? But hopefully, I'll listen. Anyway, the text indicates that they did this out of concern for David as well as out of concern for Israel. When they said, lest you quench the lamp of Israel, all of the commentators say they're calling David the lamp of Israel. And they're saying that David was as critical to the survival and the health of that nation as a lamp is critical to have on a pitch dark night. So he said, we need you, David. It wouldn't do the nation any good to be foolishly heroic. But David's age was showing as well. Verse 15 had said that David grew faint. And at 64 years old, I can understand, especially when you're up, if it's an 18 foot giant beating on you, you're going to be tired no matter what. And so this speaks to different things we do at different seasons of our life. When I preach about the responsibilities of the church, sometimes moms with little kids feel guilty and they feel like they need to be involved in all the culture wars that are out there. And what I tell them is, you know, when your kids grow older, you may have more discretionary time, but don't feel guilty that you cannot be doing everything that you feel passionate about right now. There are seasons of life, and you need to put first things first. And taking care of your family is a very legitimate concern. I have to keep reminding myself of this. You know, when I go to the church workdays, sometimes my back is set back for a couple of weeks, and it's really tough. And so I have to realize there's only so much my back can do. But it's hard on my pride, just like I'm sure it was hard on David's pride to be told that you're becoming more of a liability on the field than you are an asset, okay? They wanted him to focus on leadership. So the issue of being sensitive to seasons of life is important as well. Let's take a peek at the second hero, Sibachai, verse 18. Now, it happened afterward, and I've not gone through all of the different sequences, but all of the different verses have these kinds of phrases, afterward. It's not beforeward. A lot of people put this 46 years earlier, right? But that's another hint that Nolan Lloyd-Jones is correct, that there was sequence throughout. Now, it happened afterward that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibachai, the Hushethite, killed Saph, who was one of the sons of the giant. The first lesson we see here is that just because you have won a battle, which they previously had done, does not mean you have won the war. Throughout our whole lives, we must persevere in fighting against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Charles Spurgeon said, it strikes me that conflict is the principal feature of the Christian life this side of heaven. Those of you who are conflict-aversive, you need to listen to Charles Spurgeon. Well, I'm conflict-aversive. I hate conflict, but I know it's necessary. Anyway, he said, it strikes me that conflict is the principal feature of the Christian life this side of heaven. The hymn writer has called us to warfare when he said, onward Christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before. In other words, grace, the cross of Jesus Christ is calling us to battle, not to flee from the battle. Too many people think grace means we're just nice, we leave everything alone out there in the culture. No, He's called us, and what should be the response of God's people? Another hymn says, Lead on, O King Eternal! The day of march has come. Henceforth, in fields of conquest, thy tents shall be our home. Through days of preparation, thy grace has made us strong. And now, O King Eternal, we lift our battle song. But the second thing that we see in verse 18 is that God used this triumph to catapult a courageous man into prominence. Now we aren't told what he was before this, but this courageous act with this giant made David value him and honor him so much he put him in charge of 24,000 troops. And we read about that in 1 Chronicles 27 verse 11. So you never know what opportunities God will set before you that have the potential of expanding your borders. So the question is, are you going to be intimidated and retreat from that opportunity, or are you going to seize it by faith? God gives us these opportunities to expand our borders. Okay, hero number three, Elhanan. And his killing of the giant has raised Criticism and critiques by liberals and atheists all over the place. Verse 19 says, Again there was war at Gob with the Philistines, where Ahanan the son of Jaar Urugim, the Bethlehemite, killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. Now liberals are all over this verse. First of all, I want you to notice that the words, the brother of, are not in the Hebrew. You'll see them in the New King James anyway in italics, so they're not in the Hebrews. The text literally says that he killed Goliath the Gittite. And liberals say, wow, that's just such a blatant contradiction, because in 1 Samuel 17, it says David killed Goliath the Gittite. Here it says El Hanan killed Goliath the Gittite. So they claim that it's a contradiction. But actually, if you just follow through on the chronology, that doesn't really make a lot of sense, because the first Goliath was killed 46 years earlier. by David when he was 18 years old, far before he had even become a king. This passage shows David to be 64 years old or older. The first Goliath was killed in Elah. This one was killed in Gob. So it's obviously a different Goliath. Other liberals realize that that's the case. They realize that Anybody who has put this book together is not going to be so stupid as to write an entire chapter about David killing Goliath and then refer to that killing of Goliath all the way through 1st and 2nd Samuel and then all of a sudden forget that it was David and write that Elhanan has killed Goliath. Doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Even I'm not that stupid. OK, so these other liberals, they try to find other contradictions. But because liberals themselves are Philistines in Israelite clothing, They're always looking for contradictions. It's one of Satan's strategies to undermine the church from within. But when you're reading commentaries online or wherever, look at how they treat the text. Do they take every syllable, every letter of the Hebrew seriously? And if they don't, be suspicious. Now, if you turn with me to 1 Chronicles 20, so some liberals say, eh, that's not the real contradiction. Here's the real contradiction of the passage. I'll turn to 1 Chronicles. chapter 20 and verse 5. It says again, There was war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jeor killed Lami the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. In 1st Chronicles, he clearly kills Lami, the brother of Goliath, whereas 2nd Samuel 21 says that he kills Goliath himself. And this has given some real heartburn to some conservatives. And they immediately suppose that the Hebrew for the brother of was lost in 2nd Samuel. So the new King James version in our text in 2nd Samuel 21 inserts the brother of, even though it's not in the Hebrew. Now even though those words, the brother of, are true, at least in my interpretation, even though they are true, I don't think it's a good way of handling the Hebrew text. When Jesus infallibly promised that not one word of the Hebrew text would ever be lost. And until heaven and earth passes away, not one jot or one tittle of the Hebrew text would be lost. I don't think we can play loose and fast with the Hebrew like that. God has indeed preserved his word. And by the way, 1 Chronicles, the writer of that had 1 Samuel. There's clear evidence he had 1 Samuel in front of him when he's writing. So anytime you see a difference or a change, it's actually many times a clue to something very significant. And we've already seen some of those supposed contradictions. When you see the explanation, oh, wow, it opens up a whole mystery that people have not solved before when you take the Hebrew text seriously. So we need to make sure we need to make sure that we do that. I think 1 Chronicles is clear that Elhanan killed the brother of Goliath, and our text is just as clear that he killed an individual called Goliath the Gittite. So what is the explanation? Well, there have been three possibilities that have been offered without resorting to changing the text, and the first is that he killed two giants. The first giant would have been the son of the original Goliath. You know, dads often name their kids by their own name, so there'd be a dad Goliath, there'd be a son Goliath. And that the second person that he killed was his uncle, the younger Goliath's uncle, or the first Goliath's brother. Now I don't favor that theory because the reference to the weaver's bean makes me think it was probably the same giant, but it's a possible theory. Maybe he inherited that spear from Goliath, who knows? So it is one possibility. A second conservative theory also says that Goliath was likely the son of David's Goliath, took on his dad's name, but that the second Goliath was born from relations between the first Goliath and the first Goliath's mother. In other words, it was incest between mother and son. And so he would indeed be Goliath's brother by his mother, but also Goliath's son. Technically possible. And if that theory is true, it'd be highlighting the perversity of these giants. Actually, things like that had happened in history. We know about them. The third theory is the one I favor. It is that the term Goliath is actually a title rather than a name. And that Goliath's brother took the title of Goliath once his brother died. And thus, even though Elhanan did indeed kill the first Goliath's brother, That brother inherited the first giant's title of Goliath. And I prefer that just because of its simplicity. But the fact that there are three quite credible explanations shows there is no contradiction that is proved. But I've included my explanation in the outline. I'll just read that there. Lami was the first Goliath's brother. But because of the fearsomeness of this second giant, he took on his brother's title, and he likely took it on because he was just as fearsome as the first Goliath. Even his spear was a massive size. It was two inches, many people believe, two inches in diameter, the size of a weaver's beam. So this was a dude. This was quite a guy. And yet we see that even Goliaths can fall to men of faith. And that's a good point at which to get more theology of the enemy, verse 20. Yet again there was war at Gath. Men of faith do not stop having faith simply because evil seems endless, and the attacks seem endless, and the newspaper is so discouraging. They do not stop having faith because they are confronted with impossibility. They get their cues for faith from God, and God has already forewarned us, hey, you're going to receive opposition, just don't get tired. Galatians 6.9, let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Now, some of you have been facing a lot of difficulty and stress and opposition, and it's easy to give up when that happens. But don't give up when Satan keeps after you. In fact, I would say there must be something special about you that Satan wants to go after you all the time. OK, there might be other reasons, too. You're not engaging in spiritual warfare. You don't cover yourself in the blood of Christ, but it could be that God is intending to do something through you and Satan is going to do everything he can to short-circuit that. So cheer up. Second, huge stature does not equal invincibility. Verse 20 continues, where there was a man of great stature or huge stature. Now we aren't told how big he was, obviously big enough for him to make a note of it. And we too have enemies of huge stature. When you fight against federal agencies, you are up against unlimited attorneys at their disposal, unlimited money to harass you, unlimited access to information, unlimited time to wear you down, lack of accountability, and it is downright scary to have them start coming after you. I had a pastor friend quite a number of years ago that had the IRS just harassing him continually and saying that he owed them $65,000. And he said, it's impossible. There's just no way I could owe this. It's just harassment. But they took him to court, and he had to hire a high-priced D.C. attorney to defend him. And he won. He won every court case that they came after him on. It would have been easy for somebody like him to back down because the odds of winning seemed so hopeless, so impossible. By the way, it ended up the IRS owed him, not that he owed 65,000. It was just sheer harassment. But he's like these men of old. He fought and he won. And many people will say to you that the IRS seems to have power to ruin your life in the process. And many times without due process, OSHA seems to have the power to close down your business. You're guilty until you prove your innocence. You read the Declaration of Independence sometime and tell me that things are not worse today. I really think that they are worse. Declaration complains about King George saying, he has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out our substance. And I often wonder what they would say about our current agencies who have far more swarms of officers than they had back then. Back then they complained, he has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. I wonder what they would say about FEMA, NSA, the ATFE, INS, DEA and other organizations that have run roughshod over state legislatures and monitor every facet of American life. We have giants of the land that are so huge that many Christians say that resistance is futile. But even the metaphorical Borg could be resisted. We don't know if we'll be successful, but we must resist. We must resist the Borg. Now, this giant also had a strange makeup that might have been thought to be equally scary. It says, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. 24 in number. Now, just in case you think that's not possible, I've put pictures in your outlines there that show some modern examples of six-fingered people. That genetic mutation, you know, is not really common, but you can find it out there. But it's another indication that something was not normal. Do we have weird DNA in our American agencies and the various lobbies in our nation? And I would say yes, the DNA of those agencies, it does not resemble at all the DNA in the Constitution. No connection whatsoever. And certainly the lobbying organizations range from the normal to the extremely bizarre. What are congressmen to do when they are bombarded with transgender lobbyists? The lobbyists in D.C. are way stranger than 24-digit giants. The fourth thing. was that this huge enemy was also born to the giant, or as some translate it, to the Rapha. Now whether this is a reference to the giant in verse 22, that his name was Rapha, or whether all of them were simply descendants of the scary Rephaim, slightly different spelling in Genesis, we do not know for sure. But because of the article in the Hebrew before Rapha, it's the Rapha, most commentators think this can't be a name. Okay, this has to be either translated the giant or the Rapha, which would be a reference of all of the Rephaim, that these are just four remaining descendants of the Rephaim in Genesis. I take it the way the New King James does, that they're all brothers and sisters. and sons of one giant. Now the last thing that's noteworthy about this giant is given in the first part of verse 21. So when he defied Israel, and this is exactly what Goliath did with David, wasn't it? He defied Israel, he defied God. And we have numerous giants in the land who are defying Christianity today. And let me list some of the organizations that have bullied pastors, taken churches to court, tried to destroy Christian businesses. And this is a very incomplete list. First of all, there is the ACLU, which has brought numerous lawsuits against churches and businesses simply for their Christian beliefs. I believe it is a giant that needs to be taken down. And we can start by praying that Jesus would wield that rod of iron that he talks about in Psalm 2. and there are other imprecatory psalms that could be prayed. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has been incredibly aggressive in suing pastors who preach anything like what I'm preaching today, who in any way address the social issues of our culture. They are a giant that has tried to destroy the lives of many. The organization, American Atheists, is constantly bringing lawsuits designed to systematically take away every vestige of Christianity in our culture. They're the ones who filed a suit against the government to take away tax-exempt status from all churches. And the irony is, they've got tax-exempt status, and they're begging you for money to defend not to defend, to go on their warfare against Christianity using the American court system. They are Philistine giants that simply will not leave Christians alone. They're constantly declaring war. Then there is the American Humanist Association, Council for Secular Humanism, Committee for Scientific Examination of Religion, Fellowship of Humanity. And I have 16 pages of similar organizations and individuals that are Philistine in character and are doing everything they can to take down the church. And I think it is high time that the church wakes up and starts to fight back. Now, thankfully, there are organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, The Rutherford Institute, American Vision, Answers in Genesis, and others that are trying to resource the church and resource Christians to get back into the battle and to fight. They're the heroes of today and we need to pray for them. We need to resource them. For example, Alliance Defending Freedom has a matching grant right now that for every dollar that you give, there's somebody who will double that dollar. That's between now and June 30. So if you've been thinking about supporting Alliance Defending Freedom, this is the month to do so. Anyway, I consider them to be a hero organization worth contributing to because they have taken on huge battles and won spectacular victories. The hero who took on this giant was Jonathan, verses 21 through 22. So when he defied Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shimea, David's brother, killed him. These four were born to the giant in Gath and fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants. So here was a guy whose father was intimidated by Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. Remember that story? Shimea, David's brother, is really God on his case. He got kind of angry with David. when David suggested that, you know, somebody needs to take on this giant. And he basically called David a smarty pants and said, you need to know your place. But Shimea's son was inspired by David. When this giant started defying Israel, just like Goliath had done 46 years before, his spirit was stirred up to do something and God gave him success. And to me, this indicates that even if our generation has dropped the ball and refused to fight does not mean that the next generation has to do so. And to the next generation I say, yes, go ahead and put us to shame. Please do. Do something to take on the giants of our land. Imitate these heroes. We need more heroes who are willing to take on the giants of our own day and who are willing to suffer and die if need be. And I'm glad that God has started to raise up organizations with a passion to advance the cause of Christ. And I think we need to lift them up before the throne of grace, because really there's hundreds of Mon Power organizations that are underfunded, have hardly any resources, but they've got this passion. We can pray, Lord, resource them. Resource these organizations all over the states. Fill their coffers with money. But one Jonathan by himself will not win. We need an army of supporters. to get behind these Jonathans, and we must be watchful. The Puritan George Dunham said, the Christian soldier must avoid two evils. He must not faint or yield in the time of fight, and after a victory, he must not wax insolent and secure. When he is overcome, he is so to behave himself as though he were presently again to be assaulted. For Satan's temptations, like the waves of the sea, do follow one in the neck of the other. And so my final admonition to you this morning is to not be disheartened by the giants in the land. They are no match for God, and they are no match for the Christian who has faith in God. Though they may try to wear you down, keep at it, and by God's grace, we may see the Philistines of our own generation subdued. And ultimately, though it's appropriate to celebrate heroes, it will be God who gets the glory. Amen. Father, we thank You that You are sufficient and more than sufficient for all the things that You set before us. You have given us one impossible command after another. You've given us the command to not just love those who love us, but to love our enemies. And Father, we know that by your grace we can do that. You've commanded us to forgive those who have done evil against us and to even be joyful in the midst of persecution. And we know by your grace we can do this impossible thing. You have commanded us in the Great Commission to disciple all nations, teaching them to observe all things that you have commanded us. And we know, Father, in Matthew chapter 5, you have commanded us to be observant of even the least of the commandments in the Old Testament. Father, this seems like such an overwhelming task. We're not even remotely close to seeing nations observing all of your commandments. But we long to see that. We long to see your law reestablished in this nation and more consistently applied than even it was applied under the Puritans, because it wasn't totally consistent then. But Father, we believe, since you have commanded us to do this, that it is possible by your grace. And so give us faith, Father, to lay hold of every commandment that you give to us, no matter how impossible it may seem to be, and by faith to see it accomplished, to bring it from heaven into earth in space-time history. May your kingdom come, may your will be done more and more on earth as it is in heaven. By faith we lay claim to the blessings that you have blessed us with in Christ Jesus and we pray them into the earth. We pray against the giants of our land. We pray, Lord Jesus, that you would take that iron rod and that you would smash them, break up their organization, defund them. I cause them to no longer have the ability to continue to harass and to attack Christians. But we thank you for your promise to overcomers in Revelation chapter 2, that you give to us the amazing, amazing right to hold that iron rod in our own hands and to smash the nations. And so, Father, we do, by faith, as those who are seated with Christ in the heavenlies, we smash the Muslim nations that are doing their utmost to destroy Christianity within their borders. We smash this new Hindu government in India that has been so aggressive in killing, murdering Christians in that nation. We smash it and tear it apart in the strong name of Jesus Christ. And we give that country to the Lord Jesus. You have said, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance. We ask for India, Father. We ask for China. We ask for these Muslim nations. We ask for the Buddhist nations. We ask for the communist and the secularist nations. For the sake of your dear Son, give Him the nations as an inheritance. And Father, help us to be fearless warriors of the Lord Jesus Christ and to rejoice in the privilege that we have of living for Him, of fighting for Him, serving Him, and dying for Him. And we pray all of this in the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.