David and Goliath

[AI translation] The last time we talked about King Saul, we talked about the tragic fate of this first king of Israel. The second king was David. Now let us take a scene from his life, which is described in 1 Samuel 17. The famous scene where the powerful and formidable Goliath is challenged by the young, small David. But I want to talk not only about that, but first of all about King David himself. We met King Saul the first time, we saw his tragic end. Now, after the era of Saul, reading about the era of David, one has the feeling of stepping out of a very dark room with a very oppressive air into the sunlight. David was as much a king politically and religiously as the people of Israel could wish for. David's reign was truly a golden age for the people. His reign was marked by purposeful, strong government and great political acumen, during which the people lived in unprecedented happiness. David was a king who was adored by his people, who miraculously found a way out of all kinds of difficult situations, whether in his personal life or in the problems that affected his country, with God's help. Not only was he a great statesman, but he was also a man of artistic talent. The psalms we still sing today are largely his, and in some places the inscriptions indicate the occasion on which David composed the psalm. We also know that he himself was a music-literate, lute-playing, musically trained man, and of a high order in his day. There is power, enchantment and joy in the person of this man. And if he had his faults - for he could not be free from human weaknesses - he was nevertheless the most remarkable king in Israel, whose great personality made Israel great and powerful. David was a light. It is no coincidence that his name has survived to this day in popular tradition, in the religious epics of Israel's heroes. In a way, his people could be with David as our people were with King Matthias, whose legendary figure is still preserved in oral tradition and history, and who made our country a real great power. David did the same for Israel.The first book of Samuel deals with David's reign. The second book of Samuel is still in the beginning. His rise, his kingdom, his glory is described in about three phases. First, as a young shepherd boy he enters Saul's court. Here in particular is a very moving description of a beautiful friendship. Perhaps the first in world literature. It is the friendship of David and Jonathan. I am just pointing out that in 1 Samuel 18 the Bible deals in detail with this ideal, touching feeling that bound David and Jonathan together. David's first marriage to the daughter of Saul belongs to this first period. The second phase of David's ascent is not so much an ascent as a slight descent. In Saul, the king, jealousy of David's growing popularity is rekindled. He secretly and insidiously seeks to destroy his rival. He sees him as his successor. The jealousy that has been stirred up in Saul with elemental force forces forces David to flee. This period is also full of great scenes, very instructive stories. The third phase in David's life is the period when he becomes king after Saul's death. At first he only rules over the tribe of Judah, but soon the northern part of the country also submits willingly and asks for David's power to be extended to the whole of Israel. When we read through these beautiful and very instructive stories, perhaps the most useful, the most significant moment, the most important for a coherent explanation, is David's decision to build a temple to the Lord (2 Sam 7). It is interesting that the prophet Nathan encourages him first: "And Nathan said to the king, 'Go, and do what is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.'" (verse 3) And the next day he receives a vision and afterwards he puts it down, so that he will not make a house for the Lord. David took this message and has already turned his mind around. In the original text, this word "ataim" means not only a house, but a family. So this divine message also means that God will give David's family eternal survival, eternal validity. So the promise is for an everlasting kingdom for the house of David, for his family. It is also interesting to note in this passage how the kings and the prophets are connected. Here David and Nathan.
Here the person of David is very strongly linked to the whole of salvation history, its lineage. There, again, the promise of the Messiah, which runs through the whole Old Testament, is concretized one step further. For the first time we knew that from the people of Israel would come the particular Saviour whom the Lord had promised. Secondly, we also knew that it was from the tribe of Judah. Now we also know that it is from the family of David. God is almost indicating with this message that the true king will be the one who will be born from the house of David, from the family of David, into this land. So the Old Testament promise is narrowed down even more. The promise becomes clearer and clearer, more and more concrete as it approaches its fulfilment. At first we read only that from the seed of the woman, which means that from humanity there will be born a Someone. Later, when the whole of humanity is split into two branches, it is given that the promise is further concretised in the branch of Shem. By the third step, it will be made clear that from the one people of this Semitic branch, the people of Abraham, the Messiah will be born. Later we learn that it will be from the family of Jacob, and now we know that it will be from the tribe of Judah, the family of David. In the last pages of the Old Testament we even read from which member of that family: a virgin. We already know who it is: the Virgin Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph. From her came the one in whom the promise was fulfilled, our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the fulfillment of the promise of redemption is made more and more clearly and concretely concrete throughout the Old Testament.
The person of David will be dealt with in more detail. I would now like to return to the scene already touched on in 1 Samuel 17, one of the most familiar stories we have known since childhood. It is almost the best known story in the Bible, the story of David and Goliath. The modern person's idea of Goliath the giant is that giants and dwarfs are more like fairy tales. I don't want to argue about the extent to which the Philistine was a giant. He must obviously have been a very powerful man. Even if there were such excessively strong and powerful men of that time (the Bible mentions such men), that is not the important thing! It is a detail of the history of Israel. In the same way that there are well-known epic figures in Hungarian history. For example, Miklós Toldi. The stories related to him are certainly historical. Here, too, it is certainly a revival of some ancient memory. Historical authenticity is not the important thing here. No way! It is not important to try to analyse anthropologically what kind of man Goliath must have been. What is more interesting is what we, the people of the mid-20th century, have to do with the struggle between David and Goliath. Well, I would like to say at the outset that a lot! We have an infinite amount to do with it! I don't want to speculate about what this Goliath looked like, what his characteristics were, that's not interesting for us. But that there are still Goliaths today, Goliaths that we little Davids have to contend with, that is beyond doubt! Indeed, it could almost be said that there are such formidable enemies today, against whom we are as small and as nothing, as that small, insignificant, unarmed, almost childlike David was against that Goliath. Our Goliath does not always threaten us, our lives, in a huge human body. For example, such a powerful enemy is the zeitgeist. It is this mighty Goliath that threatens us day by day. Let us not think that it is only here, in our own country, that this formidable enemy is present. It is everywhere, all over the globe, east and west, north and south.
I read a great piece of writing about this the other day, the text of a lecture by Professor Ferenc Kiss. He has just returned from a long trip abroad. He gave a lecture on his experiences abroad. One of his most striking statements is that we are witnessing a huge, great process of moral decomposition that is taking place all over the world. From family life to the whole of cultural, religious and moral life and thought. Ferenc Kiss sees a great decline into chaos throughout the world. In other words, secularisation, i.e. a secularisation, a growing separation from God. The very willingness to think has become and will become less in people. It's about the darkening of the soul. It is not atheism, but a much more pernicious symptom, a total disconnection in human thinking. This zeitgeist is being experienced today in the same way all over the globe. The believer in God, living in such an age, feels as if he must swim incessantly against the current. And the reality is that today, the believer is actually and unceasingly swimming against the current. The general thinking is contrary to our spirit. If anyone has ever tried to swim against the tide in the Danube, he will have experienced how difficult and strenuous it is. Even with great effort, you can barely make any progress, you have to keep fighting to keep from being swept away. In a way, we are caught up in the current of the modern spirit. Nothing helps us in our life of faith, only hinders us. Those of us who want to live a consistent Christian life are constantly caught up in the spirit of the age, often within the more closed circle of family and friends. Who has not felt this? And, of course, in such a case it is very difficult to confront the fearsome Goliath, the zeitgeist. Anyone who has children knows very well how difficult it is today to lead young people to follow Christ and to help them stay there. It is a great struggle on the part of parents, and in this struggle, unfortunately, we always achieve fewer results. Then there is also the question that often arises in people today (I have often encountered this): is there any point in preaching? What an insignificant little thing it is to preach the Word in a world where a football match is attended by hundreds of thousands, and a preaching of the Word by hundreds is a cause for rejoicing. A movie or other cultural event moves millions, and how few people are reached by the preaching of the word! And when we add up the forces, the possible ratio is indeed like that of the little, defenceless but pure-hearted child David standing there, armed to the teeth with Goliath. What will come of this struggle? Is there a point to this struggle? Is there a point in preaching the word? Is there a meaning to Christian witness, is there even a place for Christian witness, either with our words or with our lives? Is not a word of witness in the world like a drop of water on a hot stove? The drop of water evaporates in moments on the hot stove, becoming nothing. Are not all our efforts to spread and live the teachings of Christ like this? All our thoughts and actions in this direction meet with the resistance of a tiny little mosquito hitting a huge locomotive. Yes! Such a giant, immovable, formidable, threatening Goliath, which is always looming over us in our life of faith and threatening to destroy us: the zeitgeist!
Then there is another very general and therefore unjustifiably underestimated Goliath: our own sins. They never let us go, they are a constant threat to our life of faith. Because of them, we cannot rest easy. I don't know about you, dear Brothers and Sisters, but the more I advance in faith, the older I get, the more I see the power of sin. How many times does one experience, both in oneself and in others, that old sins, which one thought had been dealt with, and thought were already vanquished giants in one's life, suddenly revive, rise again, perhaps with greater force and power than ever before! One is never finished with this struggle, one can never say, "I have done it, it is finished, it is no longer a problem. Wherever I look, I see, both in myself and in my brothers and sisters in the faith, that the question arises in everyone's mind: is there any point in fighting sin? After all, it is useless anyway... We are helpless against our evil nature, against our passions, we are helpless against them, they stand before us like Goliath before David. We feel we are being crushed by this giant. What can I, the nobody, the defenceless, the wretched, the wretched man, do against my own sins?! It is another of these great, great Goliaths, staring menacingly at me.
And here is life itself with its thousand troubles, troubles, sorrows and problems. I am often amazed at what a burden a man has to carry. One has to deal with seemingly insurmountable problems in family, finances and housing. People do not usually bring me their joys, but their problems, their troubles, their sorrows. So everyone individually has his own Goliath, who is confronted by the mere life itself, which threatens his life incessantly, just as Goliath threatened David's life. In words like this: well, you famous man of faith, what is your faith in God worth? You may have heard these words of scorn and scolding from your own Goliath somewhere inside. These words are truly testing and we often feel that the enemy force against us is beyond our spiritual and physical, material and spiritual strength, and we are very afraid that it will break all our resistance. We feel small, weak and vulnerable, defenceless against our present Goliath. The list of today's Goliaths could go on, but that is enough to show that the balance of power today is still apparently very unequal, very unfavourable, precisely because today's Goliaths are much more powerful than the Davids.
We have also heard in the biblical passage we have read how the Philistine is an unrivalled, invincible hero, how many battles he has won, how he himself boasts of his glory and his battle honours, and how he is armed to the teeth, a huge, powerful giant, a man of formidable proportions. And David is a child who has just come from the flock, for he was a shepherd boy, who knows nothing about weapons, but can only sing and play the lute. He is completely unarmed. For his slingshot, with which he had hitherto been rather playfully amused, cannot be called a weapon. He is wholly uneducated in battle, untrained in combat. So he's at a real disadvantage in terms of the balance of power. But it is only apparent! If we look at this power relationship with the eyes of faith, we see it the other way round, that Goliath is standing there alone. He is a lonely man who can trust and hope in nothing but his own strength and skill. And on the other side there is someone, whoever it may be, the important thing is that he is not there alone! He is there with the Lord! He is there with the Lord! So on one side there is a man in his own strength, which may be a very exceptional strength, and on the other side there is someone in the name of the Lord. The same thing that the Apostle Paul said, "If God is with us, who is against us?" If God is with me, behind me, if He has my back, if God sends me, then I am most certainly the greater! Greater than any Goliath, a fearsome foe. Goliath in himself is just a man, a zero. David is only a man in himself, the other is a zero. One is a big zero, the other a small one. But if this little zero is behind a one, he is ten! That's how the balance of power works here. If we, the little zeros, with our faith, get behind Jesus, behind God, the balance of power changes immediately, many times, not just ten times in our favour. We must never forget this! In the words of the Apostle Paul quoted earlier, if we are with God, there is no Goliath, no age, no problem, no sickness, no disease, no problem, no sin, no temptation that we cannot overcome and conquer.
It is interesting that no promise in the Bible occurs so often as, "God will help us." There are all sorts of words for it: God is a bulwark, a fortress, a tower, a shield, a rock, a stone, and I could go on, but I don't need to. All of them, all of them, mean protection, help. Of course, that's what we like to hear. This emphasized help, protection of God, is what most people want to avail themselves of, to help one out of a pothole, to help one solve problems, to heal one from sickness, to lift one from a state of despondency, to carry the wretched man to victory in his weakness and struggle. It is very natural for man to seek help from God. But we tend to forget that there is a very serious precondition for this. The fundamental fact that David was the Lord's! His heart was filled with love for the Lord. If you look through David's psalms, even in the fall, in the suffering, in the persecution, there is always this basic tone: 'My heart is ready. And with the apostle Paul, we see that he too was completely of the Lord. So there is no (pardon the expression) freeloading! The Lord was above all things for David, and for Paul! So it's not that in my heart, in my life, many, many things are more important to me than the Lord, I don't need His name, His command, but I need His help! So that's how it goes, Brothers and Sisters! We love to quote this saying of the Apostle Paul: "I have all power in Christ!" In this statement the emphasis is on this word, "all things". What is "all"? It is that even in suffering, hunger, persecution, there is power in Christ. And when he says, "If God be with us, who can be against us?", the emphasis is on "if". Because for God to be with us, it is necessary that we also be with God, in our hearts, in our whole life. If this is so, then the other half of the sentence is also true: "Who against us?"
What we need to understand very seriously from this Word is that the Lord does not put His power into the vessel of life that He has not first cleansed for Himself! He claims our hearts first, He wants to take lodgings in them, He wants to take us into His own. So the most important thing is a living relationship, an uninterrupted, personal relationship with the Lord Himself. Let us try to strive for this, because then the rest will be given. As Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God, and the rest will be given to you." Who has not experienced that when he really had the Lord at heart, his problems were miraculously solved time after time. One by one our difficulties are solved, everything is almost smoothed out, cleared up. In our individual lives, in our families, in our office. Then the Goliaths bow down, then there is victory. The Apostle Paul has a very triumphant cry, "Your labor is not in vain in the Lord!" But in the Lord! Then the word of testimony is not in vain, and certainly not in vain is the preaching of the word and every action and movement that we do in His name. Seeds sown in the name of the Lord will necessarily sprout and bear fruit.
We may no longer be able to mature, but it is certain that one day, at some point, it will be seen that our work has not been in vain. Neither is the struggle against our sins in vain, just turn to Him boldly in the struggle! And may this most important verse in the whole story give you strength: "David said to the Philistine, 'You will come against me with sword, spear, and sword, with fearful weapons, but I will come against you in the name and name of the God of Israel.'"
Amen.
Date: Thursday, October 7, 1965, Thursday evening, Bible class.