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As we travel these six weeks serving classrooms virtually along the Pacific Rim–each week I’m also leading a small group of students that are studying all the way through the Bible in 2021. You are welcome to join us. This is TODAY’S study that Bonnie helped me to record when we finished in the classrooms. We have gotten to the sixth key chapter of the Bible. The 10 Commandments. Hope it blesses you as much as it has us to do the study!

Transcript

Welcome to the seventh week of our 52 greatest chapters in the Bible. An overview of all of God’s word, looking at the Bible through the lens of 52 of the key chapters. In other words, the chapters that if you study each of these once a week, all the way through for a year, you’ll actually grasp the whole message of the Bible. You’ll grasp the entire plan of God that He has revealed through His word. Now it takes work. You have to read the text. You can see where we’re going this week, we’re in 1 Samuel 17 and you have to take notes. This is my journal that I’ve added to and added to and added to, and you can see right where we are there in 1 Samuel 17.

Let me see the right direction right there. This is going to be our week of immersion into what I call one of the greatest chapters of all the great chapters. In fact, 1 Samuel 17 has impacted my life for all the years I’ve been reading the Bible. It took me nineteen years to read the whole Bible through one time.

Nineteen years, one time, then when I was nineteen years old, I had truly begun to prepare for the calling of God on my life. I had surrendered to the Lord when I was nine years old to do whatever He wanted. I went forward in church and knelt and just offered my life to the Lord as a living sacrifice. I’ve been saved since age six, I surrendered to His calling, and really believed that He had called and gifted me to serve Him my whole life, but I didn’t really get serious about preparing for that till I was nineteen years old. In my nineteenth year of life, after having read the Bible once from when I started reading till I was nineteen, during my nineteenth year I read this book twelve more times. I wanted to catch up with how old I was, to read the Bible through at least once for every year I was old.

When I turned twenty I had read this book through thirteen times, not this copy, this is duct tape. Can you see the duct tape on here? This is my Bible that I’ve used for the last six years now. I have a stack of them in my office back home thousands of miles from here that I’ve kept since I was nineteen years old, reading the Bible through repeatedly. When I turned twenty, I’d read the Bible through thirteen times. By the time I turned twenty one, I had read the Bible through twenty five times. Remember it only takes seventy two hours to read the whole Bible, so I cut everything out in my life. I did a time chart of all one hundred and sixty eight hours in the week and I put in my Bible school classes. I was working full-time, twenty hours a week, to pay my way through school. I had all of my requirements on there and with the time that was not committed, either going to class, going to work, doing my assignments. In other words, in my discretionary time, from that I found two hours and twenty two minutes a day to read the Bible. I broke it up early in the morning, at lunchtime, and at night. I have read Mark over one hundred times. I’ve read the whole Bible, Old and New Testament, on top of that, an extra 20 times through the New Testament. And so, one hundred and twenty plus New Testament readings, one hundred plus Old Testament readings.

Why do I even tell you that? Because I read the Bible so much, I can tell you from experience, what the greatest chapters in the Bible are. The ones that will change you from the inside out, the ones that will completely renew your mind. The ones that will help you see life God’s way. Are you interested?

If this is your first video, if this dropped into your feed on YouTube, God did that. He’s offering a challenge to you. Do you want to master the word of God? Do you want to understand the Bible? Would you like Him to reset your mind so that it works the way He designed it to work? As a portal of communication with the God of the universe, so that you can know what you’re supposed to do?

What are you here on Earth for, your origin? Where you came from, your purpose in life and your destiny. Would you like to know all that? That’s what the Bible’s about. Let’s pray and ask Him to help us. Father, I pray that you would open my mouth as I teach from Your word after all these scores and scores of times reading it. That your Spirit would empower me to teach 1 Samuel 17, but more than that, I affirmed that You’re great and You’re the God who transforms us from the inside out. I pray that message would be so clear as we go through this key chapter in your Word. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.

Let me start with the slides and as we start with the slides I want you to track with me. You might want to take screenshots if there’s a chart that you want to keep for your further study. Some of you are writing me notes and you say you take notes in your journal, whatever works for you. Let’s start with the slides. We’re in the study I call the 52 greatest chapters in the Bible.

We’re in week 7 and as we go through week 7 today’s date is February 9th. I’m just barely keeping up with you. Let me give you a quick note of why I’m barely keeping up with you. I have studied with you 1 Samuel 17 this week. My title for it is what does God think of your life? So here we are, actually we’re right over.

That’s the United States, right over there, somewhere on planet Earth. Here’s Europe, you can see in the rising sun, but we’re living on this little ball spinning out in space in the middle of the universe and yet the God of the universe is watching where we are right now. What does God think when He watches your life?

That’s what 1 Samuel 17 is about. Now, why am I barely keeping up with you? Right now it’s a long day. I’ve already taught one, two, three, four classes today. My wonderful wife, Bonnie, is the switcher, studio director. She’s the one that sits on the other side of the switcher studio and takes all the different camera angles and puts everything across.

She’s the one that can put up the reminder about DTBMs channel on YouTube. She’s the one that reminds you that you’re in the 52 greatest chapters of the Bible study. She’s the one that tells you about our Facebook page, where each of these classes are being posted.

If you’re trying to catch up and you just found seven and you want to know where one, two, three, four, five, six are, they’re on YouTube on our channel. In a playlist, but if you want to just find them easier, you just go right here to the 52 greatest chapters of the Bible on Facebook and you’ll always know they’re there.

Everything that we do is on our website, Discover the Book, but what exactly are Bonnie and I doing right now? We are full-time missionaries. By full-time, it’s all we do, in fact, for twelve hours a day. I come into the studio at 6:00 AM and I spend time preparing my heart, reading the word of God.

I actually work on my verses that I’m going to talk about in this class. I do all of those things before. This mission where we’re staying right now has, of all things, an exercise room attached to the mission and we move around. This is our fourth studio that we’re serving at in this mission trip.

I go and work out physically, I work out spiritually with my verses, my Bible reading, my prayer, but it’s just after 6:00 AM. I jumped here into the studio and I start making these slides. I just made this slide for you today. What does God think of your life? The 52 greatest chapters, week 7. Bonnie and I have committed this last lap of our lives to reaching the next generation, training them.

Before COVID we traveled ten thousand miles a month between training centers. In 2019 into the end of March 2020 we traveled one hundred and twenty five thousand miles. I taught in Canada. I taught in the United States. I taught down in the Caribbean area. I taught in Australia. I taught in Thailand. I taught in Korea. I taught all over Europe, the British Isles, Hungary, Israel. Let’s see Greece, Turkey. We just crisscross and fly between all of these different training centers, but now with COVID and with all the testing requirements and closed airports, what we do primarily is go to American mission organization studios. We sit, like I’m sitting here, this home provided by a mission.

It’s really nice, by the way. Someone donated it so we could stay here at their home, but we’ve traveled between these mission studios and all day long we prepare and teach the lessons. For all of these Bible institutes, seminaries, there are small groups, there are actually tiny groups in some of the limited access countries, small groups of people, tiny groups get together and actually are studying the Bible.

We hear from them as they send messages in different ways. Why do I say all that? Because if you’re watching this at least you’re interested. I would like you, number one, if you would think about it, pray for us. Pray for health, for my voice as I teach hour after hour, preparing slides like this. My students send me notes and say “little typo there”. I say “yeah, I’m doing this as fast as I can, send me all the notes”. I just had someone that told me a mistake I made. They actually told me exactly where it was in a video so I could go in and cut that part out in the studio and fix it so it wouldn’t distract anybody. But, number one pray for us. For spiritual well being, for physical health, for protection. Just about everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. In our travel as we go between these mission stations, as we navigate all the COVID rules even the demonic oppression that comes. There’s some days when I wake up at 4:00 AM or 5:00 AM, and I think, ah, I don’t even want to get out of bed. It’s just so hard to teach to an empty room, but by faith, I believe on the other side of those cameras that God has next generation students, that by His grace, through His power, we’re impacting. Number two, I’d like to thank all of you.

There are about two hundred of you that are possibly watching this that actually contribute, about two hundred individuals, that contribute every month or every quarter or some once a year to our ministry, Discover the Book, so that God can use us to touch lives all over the world. The most recent class I finished had three thousand students.

Now, there weren’t more than two hundred and fifty  in any one class, but there were over three thousand of them. Many of them were just small groups of two or three or four or five. They were in over thirty five countries. In my lifetime, I’m sixty five years old, I’ve ministered over forty years in local churches. I never have seen what God is doing today.

Those of you, those faithful rope holders and supporters. Thank you. I just wanted to stop and say, thank you. Thank you for your contribution. One of our supporters just sent a note and $10 from Singapore. Another one sent a note and about $14 from somewhere out in the Northwest province or territory of Australia.

Another one I had to go to Google maps to look for because they left their address. They’re way up in the top of the British Isles and I looked there and they’re so remote and so far from everything. And they said, “you’re training me, I’m in your class”. So I would like to thank all of you, but let’s go back to the sides.

Thanks for praying. That’s what we do. We train the next generation as well as frontline, current missionaries. And we hear from them all the time, they say, don’t stop. People are coming and going. We can’t even have church in some of these places we gather around a television or computer and we’re studying the Bible with you. Praise God. Next slide. What you’re looking at in 1 Samuel 17 is one of the great chapters, one of the greatest chapters. Why? There are one thousand one hundred and eighty nine chapters in the Bible. Who is mentioned most? Now, of course, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, thousands and thousands of times, God the Father, Son and Spirit are mentioned, but among humans, who did God pick to be the most detailed, described, talked about and taught about person in the Bible?

Number one with one hundred and forty one chapters of the Bible that contain biographical information is David. The most described, talked about, the most influential of all the people of the scriptures. David is the man we’re going to see in this study after God’s own heart. David is the most described person in the Bible.

David has one hundred and forty one chapters, more than any other person that’s described. That’s why the chapter we’re studying today among the great chapters is one of the greatest of the great. Where we are, we’re on week 7 right here. We’ve gotten the 1 Samuel 17. We’re looking at David and Goliath, and we’re going to study that together.

Again, if you want to catch up, you don’t have to. In fact, I would suggest you just start right here, learn the program and keep going. If you’re already with us, keep on, don’t quit. If you’re just starting, don’t try and go back. Unless you’re one of those people that have to do everything in order. If you are, go back to week one, now remember you can find all of them on Facebook on our 52 greatest chapters page.

You also can find the entire playlist on YouTube on our channel. What we’re looking at is what God said about David. This is why this chapter is so important. Acts 13, 22 and 36 says that God found David to be a man after His own heart. Then God says that he fulfilled My purpose in his generation.

So, look what I did. This is a military cemetery, see right here, and the grass, and here’s a headstone. I can’t quite read under there what soldier’s buried there, but I put this epitaph to remind you, David was a man after My own heart and served My purpose in his lifetime written by God.

David’s epitaph written by God was that he was God’s servant. I want to just stop and ask you a question. Would you say that you are God’s servant today? Do you know how you know you’re a servant? You don’t mind being told what to do. That’s the acid test. I am so proud. I was born wanting my own way until I was born again and got a new heart. Until then I didn’t like anybody telling me what to do. If you ever struggle with that, then you’re human. When you get born again, you get supernatural divine power to be transformed into God’s servant. I hope that you desire when God does your epitaph, when God does my epitaph at the end of my life, when he sums up my life, you know how God does that? In 1 and 2 Chronicles and 1 and 2 Kings through those historic books, do you know what God does?

He sums up an entire lifetime in just a phrase or a few words. They did right in the sight of God or they did evil in the sight of God. When God sums up your life, will He say the greatest thing He could say “you were a good and faithful servant”. Next slide. The whole Bible, by the way, is presented in three parts.

This is just how God wrote it. Part one is the Creator, that’s the first two chapters. Part two is the Redeemer. Now, the whole Bible is about Jesus Christ. So it’s Jesus Christ, the Creator. We meet Him in chapter 1 and 2 of Genesis, Jesus Christ. Some of you say what’s the X, Christos.

This is how you spell Christ in the New Testament. Chris, actually it’s Sigma, tos and ending segments like an S. So Christos, that’s what the X is, so Jesus Messiah is the Redeemer. That’s the majority of the Bible from Genesis 3 to Revelation 5. Everything you need to know about creation, God tells us. Everything you need to know about redemption. And what is redemption? Being bought out of the slave market of sin so that we who are bought at a price will glorify God with our body and our spirit, which are His, which by the way, is 1 Corinthians 6 ,19 and 20. Then, we see Jesus Christ as the Judge and that’s the book of Revelation. If you stick with us at the end of this year when we get to week fifty two, we’re going to be looking at summarizing and understanding the entire Bible as it’s explained so much by the book of revelation. Jesus is the Judge. He is the One that determines our ultimate destiny. Who’s going to be living with Him as His servant forever. That’s what Revelation is about. That’s what the Judge determines. That’s everything you need to know about the ending. And that’s what the Bible’s about.

Remember this book is so important and this study is so critical because I want you to understand what the Bible is about. The Bible begins being about creation. Then most of it is about redemption and the ending of it is about judgment and everything you need to know about those truths God has revealed.

The next slide, I provide for you on YouTube in that playlist of the 52 greatest chapters and note, I post them on Facebook. See, this is class number 7, but beyond this class, I have extra online resources if you want to deepen your study, whoop, sorry. You can tell that it’s late because I didn’t have time when I did this slide to change it this week in 1 Samuel 17.

This is from last week, Exodus 20, and I didn’t have time to change it. One of the resources is this, and you can see it by this cover photo. In 2 Samuel 11, which is going to be next week’s study, we look at David and Bathsheba. Why would we look at such a sad chapter of the Bible? Because, if David, the most written about man in the Bible, the man who wrote so many of those worship songs called the Psalms, David, who God said is after His own heart, a man who wrote scripture.

A man who said the Spirit of the Lord speaks by me. His word is on my tongue. David dropped his guard. You see this, see that pride of lions. It’s interesting to call them a pride, a group of lions, because the ultimate pride is Satan’s pride. And Satan is portrayed in the scripture as a prowling lion seeking whom he may devour.

If you drop your guard, Satan will devour you. That’s a whole 50 minute message about how David dropped his guard and how he fell into sin. Here’s another one, who is the richest man ever? Some of you will say Solomon. No one exceeded Solomon, but before Solomon was rich, where did he get his riches by the way?

He inherited most of them, He inherited the equivalent of billions and soon trillions of dollars from his dad, David. Who was the original richest man ever? David. One of the reasons why this study is so important on David and Goliath is that David is unique. Did you know David never lost a battle in his military exploits?

As far as we know, the Bible says that David was never even wounded. Arrows were flying by him, spears were being thrown at him, slingshots and swords were being constantly arrayed against him. David not only never lost a battle, other than with sin when he went into sin with Bathsheba. A military battle David never lost, only his moral failure, but he never lost any battle militarily. Why? Because God was with him. And because of that, he got so much loot. He became the richest man ever. Let’s get to where we are today. And by the way, there is a resource. There is an entire 50 minute class on David and Goliath standing for God all alone on 1 Samuel 17, which we will study.

Everything happens somewhere. See that note. I say that every week to you, that’s what I call sacred geography. I was talking with one of our children because we stay in touch with them. And one of my children is in the midst of eight years of grad school. They’re working on an MD and a PhD at the same time up at this medical school.

They are amazing. We were talking this week and they told me all about what they were studying, surgery, right now. And they’re just excited about it. And my son asked “so what excites you these days?” I said, “oh, the same thing always excites me. God’s word, the Bible.”

And he said, “what? In particular?” I said, “oh, I’m getting ready to do a virtual tour of the Land of the Book. Lord willing, it’s coming up in about 8 months. I’ll keep you posted. It’ll be online.” It’s going to be a tour that you can register for, study for every day, and actually make a journal. Bonnie and I have taken over two thousand five hundred people to the Lands of the Book over two thousand five hundred now.

It’s probably getting closer to three thousand, but I don’t count them anymore. We’ve taken so many through the Lands of the Bible, through Egypt, through the Holy Land, through the travels of Paul, the journeys of Paul, the missionary journeys and through even the British Isles and doing sacred history.

I’ve taken people all over the world to anything related to the Bible, but this virtual tour is going to be my favorite because it’s going to be 8 months of preparation. Everybody that comes is going to spend all the months marking in their Bibles, doing their journals and then I’m going to sit in the middle of the 40 key sites that frame the Word of God in the Holy Land and I’m going to just give the application for that site. Then I’m going to read the scripture and the film crew, if all this happens and they open Israel and we get to go, is actually going to film everything I’m talking about. So, sacred geography and I don’t want to get stuck on that, but look in your Bible now at 1 Samuel 17. It says the “Philistines gathered their armies together to battle, which were gathered at Socoh, which belongs to Judah and they camped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim.” Ephes-dammim means new blood. Basically there was a no man’s land. Look at this slide, see Bethlehem, Judah. That’s where David was and saw brought all of his troops down the road that comes down from Jerusalem down this way, here to Socoh.

Here is Gath and all the Philistines came up here to a Azekah and basically they arrayed themselves here, Israel here, and the land between them was called Ephes-dammim, no blood, so this was the no man’s land between the Philistine army and the Israelite army. That’s sacred geography. Usually, and I don’t know on the virtual tour if this area is open because it’s so close to the Gaza strip, but we actually are on top of this tel right there. The tel Azekah is looking down at this battlefield of where this panorama of God plus David is overwhelming Goliath and Satan on the battlefield. The average soldier is about 5 foot something in Israel. How do we know that? Because of the skeletal remains that are in all these different ossuaries and tombs. An ossuary is a bone box that Israelite people were buried in. The average Israelite was about 5 and a half feet tall.

The averages of life lived till to be fifty some years old. That was the life expectancy back then. So, when David lived to be seventy, he was really old and member Barzillai the Gilead was 80. So this was the average age, the average height. There’s Goliath, not quite twice as big. His spear was much longer than the Israelite soldiers were tall. Just a little bit to know of what’s going on here, sacred history, everything happened sometime. There’s a place chronologically where everything happened. In fact, Genesis, remember I showed you the division of the Bible. Genesis 1 and 2 ends with God saying everything was good. And God saw everything. Everything in the universe He created, it was good. In Genesis 3 we find Satan speaking through a serpent. When did Satan fall chronologically in history? Right here. Sacred history reveals that Satan fell into sin between Genesis 2 and 3. He had to because he wasn’t sinful.

You say, how do you know that? Because it says in Isaiah that Satan was the anointed cherub until iniquity was found in you. That’s what it says, iniquity was found in you. That’s not good. Everything was good. Iniquity was found in him here. Then his first attack was to destroy the pinnacle of God’s creation, mankind, by attacking Eve and Eve led Adam into sin. Satan, through Adam’s sin, corrupted the whole human race and the universe. Where we are right here.

We’ve gotten down to 1 Samuel. We’ve gone through the Pentateuch; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These five. And we’ve jumped over Joshua, Judges and Ruth. The book of Job we’re coming back to. That’s from way back in the patriarchal times. Right here in 1 and 2 Samuel is where we find ourselves, right there.

We’ll cover other sacred history in future classes. Again, we’re right here in David’s life. From 1010 to 970 would be the timestamp of his forty year reign. We’ve already covered so much from creation to David. Then through the rest of our 52 chapter study, we’re going to go all the way through the crucifixion of Christ, the Church Age, the prophecies of Israel to the consummation right here.

Next slide. I show you this every time, just to remind you of the huge time jumps that there are. From Adam to Noah is probably over one thousand seven hundred years. That’s how many years the Bible records, that’s from the fall of Adam into sin until the Ark, was about seventeen hundred years. Five hundred years, from here from Noah to Abraham, five hundred more to Moses, five hundred more to David, five hundred more going through the time of Isaiah to Ezra and then five hundred more to the time of Jesus and the crucifixion.

The first year of David’s life comes to us primarily by comparing 1 Samuel 16 and 17 with the Psalms. When you do the extra online material or the book that I wrote, an entire book on the life of David called David’s spiritual secret, which you’ll see at the end of this video. There are 4 key Psalms that are actually the Psalms that portray this time in David’s life.

What he thought about as a shepherd boy, the Heavens declare the glory of God, Psalm 19. Psalm 23, the shepherd boy meditations on the Lord as his shepherd. Psalm 132, David’s resolves as he was anointed to be king and what he started doing as it’s reflected by beautiful resolves. Then his pact of purity. Psalm 101 gives us David’s pact he made with God. A promise, a covenant, sacred vow he took that he was going to be pure for the Lord. In his eyes and his mind and his body. The only time we know that he broke that sacred vow is next week’s lesson, David and Bathsheba, which is a tragedy that David dropped his guard. What made him the man after God’s own heart we see in Psalm 19, 23, 132, and very powerfully.

What made him that man God could use, we see very clearly in Psalm 101, when David says “I’ll set nothing evil before my eyes“. Next slide. Psalm 101 is the pathway of David’s personal resolves of holiness. You notice seven times he says “I will” in 2a, 2b, that’s verse 2, the first part of it, the second part of it.

The first part of verse 3, second part of verse 4, second part of 5 and the very end of 5 and then 8 very clearly. “I will set nothing evil before my eyes. I will find a place for the LORD“. These are very powerful resolves. How do we do this study? Now? Some of you’re just dropping in.

I’ll describe it more, but we’re looking at the whole Bible through 52, 1 a week, passages that after reading the Bible a hundred times, I call the key chapters. It takes a year and we’re going to master the message, the content, the doctrines, the attributes of God, His plan, His covenants, the people He uses and the application to our life every day. By studying these key chapters, by using Grudem for some of the key doctrines and some of the attributes, plus memorizing verses, which I’m really going to hit at the end.

How do we do the study? This is what I travel with everywhere I go, my Bible and my notebook. I read the passage in my Bible, I check all of the background materials after I read the passage in the MacArthur study Bible and then I note in my notebook what I’m finding now. I’m going to go from sitting here looking at you to looking down at my Bible and I’m going to give you a kind of, and I’m not going to do a handheld because it’s too wobbly. I’m going to give you a bird’s eye view of my Bible and take you through everything as I’ve read, not only a hundred times, but this week, each day through. This passage, I’m going to show you my marked up Bible, where I start every day by reading and, look at this, noting everything that stands out as I go through the text.

So, get your Bible ready, and you might want to, if you haven’t found some of these things, get your highlighter, get your pen and note with me the powerful truths in 1 Samuel 17. God tells us where everything happened for a purpose. Even I had to look up this Ephes- dammim, no blood, to understand what it was. It’s a no man’s land between the different camps. The Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, Israel stood on a mountain, on the other side. There was a valley between and a champion went out from the camp and his name was Goliath. So those key words I circle and I highlight, any kinds of key verses.

Even in chapter 16, as I’m looking at David’s life, I noted that David ministered to others and that’s just another part of the character that God reveals about David. Looking at the whole chapter, the whole page, I wrote Valley of Elah and there’s so many parts of the chapter I just had to highlight.

I already showed you this in the notes, that David saw what Saul and the people were supposed to realize. That Saul represented God and Israel represented His people. This is the bio of David. He was one of eight sons and then I know different things that are standing out.

David went occasionally and returned to salt feed his father’s sheep. He was very humble. He didn’t think he was so important. He could still do a menial job. The forty days represents testing. All of this was God’s timing because David was sent by his father, Jesse, to the camp and he heard everything just at the right time. See how the forty days were going on and Jesse sent David so he could hear the Philistine mocking God. So everything is in God’s timing. Don’t ever worry about missing something as long as you’re walking in step with the Spirit. Then I wrote here that David cultivated responsibility.

What I mean by that is that David left the sheep of the keeper and left his supplies with the keeper. Then David heard, remember I told you these mockings of God and look at this. I wrote them in my Bible right down here. Let me get it so you can see it. David was offended for God’s sake and saw the bigger picture.

And I wrote that in the margin. Then, and this is a big spread of words so I moved the Bible a little bit. David was concerned for God. He saw the real issue. You’re defying the armies of the living God and so should we. He, David, said, “what have I done” when he was falsely accused. Is there not a cause, see he refocused on God’s purposes.

He encouraged others. Look how he says that you should be encouraged. I’ll go and fight. David’s purpose was to encourage the others around him. God was alive to David. He was the living God. He gave credit to God. Look at this. He talked about his exploits, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion, from the paw of the bear.

He will deliver me. He saw God as the source of his success. I’ll see if I can get that. He saw God as the source of any success. That’s the key to a life that counts for the Lord. Then I wrote in my Bible, I already mentioned this in the earlier section, why were there five stones?

Remember he chose five smooth stones. Because Goliath had four relatives that could have been brothers, could have been cousins. We don’t know, the Hebrew word is not distinct, but that says that in 2 Samuel 21 verse 22 and 1 Chronicles, 28: 5. He probably heard this, I wrote in there, and the Philistine cursed David by his gods and David’s invincible motivation.

He said to him, “you come to me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied“. And remember Psalm 8 I wrote in my Bible, that’s the setting for Psalm 8, the death of the giant and all that, that are in those key Psalms David gives the glory to the Lord.

He said, “then all this assembly“, verse 47, “will know the LORD doesn’t save with sword and spear, the battle is the LORD’s and He will give you into our hands“. Our hands. David didn’t see this as him alone. He was representing God’s people, working for God’s people, and there’s no limit to what God will do to someone with that attitude.

Then down here, I wrote David put the sword in the tabernacle. Oh, this is something I love. David gave his trophies to God. All of his treasures, all through David’s life, he’s always giving his treasures and trophies to God.

Then down here at the bottom I wrote David’s lifelong habit was to present his trophies to God. I wrote again, 1 Samuel 21 :9, 1 Chronicles 29 :2. If you want your life to last forever, give your treasures and trophies to God. Last thing, let me get up here at the end of the chapter. I had told you this before, I can’t stop just reading the key chapter. I go on, I spill over, I read all the adjoining passages. I’m sifting and looking for gold.

If you look down on the ground and there’s a $20 bill, you don’t just pick it up and walk on. You look around and see if there’s some more. That’s how I look at the Bible. And these are $20 bills, Here I wrote Psalm 8. Notice verse 1 and 9 is about His name. What I mean by that is if you look, and let me go with you to Psalm 8. Remember all these Psalms are from this time in David’s life as a young person. Let me get Psalm 8 in the camera there all the way. “To the chief musician on the instrument of Gath” and see the little a right there? It takes you down here.

Title, Hebrew algitith so it’s referring to a Gittite from Gath. A Psalm of David and then he says “O LORD, how excellent is your name?” Remember David was concerned for the name of God and 1 Samuel 17, “you have set your glory. And that you may silence the enemy and the avenger that was Goliath.

And then let me get over here. Remember verse 9? I wrote go to Psalm 8. Notice verse 1 and 9 about His name and see verse 9. “Oh LORD, our LORD, how excellent is Your name in all the earth?” David was concerned for the name of God. So this is how I mark my Bible and it becomes, for me, just a reminder of everything that I’ve learned.

Then when I open my Bible any time, everything I learned all through here comes back to my heart by the power of the Spirit of God. So that’s a quick journey through my marked up Bible. I hope you enjoyed the bird’s eye view of my Bible, but now let’s talk about the journaling that we do in this journal.

I record my devotional method findings. Remember the devotional method is that you pray yes Lord, to open your eyes. You read the passage. After you read it, you write down a title. You say this is my summary in a phrase or one sentence of what this chapter is about. I already told you, mine is David and Goliath and then my subset is David plus God versus Goliath plus Satan, and how God shows himself strong. This is the key to this study. There are many Bible studies you can follow and many reading charts. I’ve tried many of them, but the purpose of this study from my heart to your life is this, that I want you to note as many lessons, truths and doctrines as you can find from our passage.

And in your own words, you write down what you found. This is not, I’m not going to be looking over your shoulder, trying to read your work and saying, oh, mine’s better. No, this is you coming to the Lord and saying, I want to find your words. I want to eat your words. I want your words to be the joy and rejoicing in my heart.

I want to know more today what it means to be called by your name, oh Lord of hosts. So write those down and we use the MacArthur study Bible. You can use the blue letter Bible, an online resource. You can use the Logos Bible software. They even have a free version you can use on your phone and I take that everywhere with me, on airplanes and trains and buses and ferry boats.

We’ve been in a lot of places and I just find whatever tool I can use to stay in the Word. Then, how do you clinch the deal? How do you nail down the application? I tell you every time, this is my favorite part. Many of you watching this, I know you’re in my small group and you’re in the group.

For over five years I’ve always had a small group that I was taking through the Bible. For many of those sessions, I actually meet across the table with my small groups. Some of them are a group of us two, me and them, or two or three of us or a little bit larger group. The largest group was eight and we met for two years, but this is the key that I taught them.

Look at this, write a prayer. By the way, the truths you find are not primarily for your wife or for your husband or for your children or for your roommate that really needs to hear that. Or your parents need to learn that one, right? Now, where you ask the Lord to unleash one or many truths. I actually try and do as many as I can in my prayer, from what I found, the lessons you found in this passage into your life.

Here’s my journal. This David and Goliath page, you see here, I have typed and let me show it to you so you can read it because it’s hard to read my handwriting. At the top of the page I have 52 greatest chapters, week seven for Samuel 17, titled David and Goliath. This is my expanded title,  David plus God versus Goliath plus Satan equals no match. You and God make a majority.

I was just reading about a sweet couple. They’re in Ceylon, Sri Lanka, and they are serving the Lord in a very needy, dark place. You know what I taught them? You and God make a majority. You don’t need to worry. God is within you. If you’re born again, remember whoever calls in Him, Lord, some of you watching this aren’t even Christians, I know. You’re fascinated by Christianity. You like learning new stuff, but if you’ve never had the connection to God happen in your life, that only comes through what’s called being born again, being saved, God’s salvation. And how you’re saved is admitting that you are a lost sinner. The Bible says “for all, have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Just agree with God that you’re a sinner. I know I’m a sinner. In fact, I know I’m the worst sinner that I know up close and personal. I know many people that are wicked,  I know much about God and how bad I am. Therefore, I’m personally aware of my sinfulness, but I’m also one hundred percent aware that I’ve been forgiven forever.

I have a new heart, a new spirit. I’m so aware if one of these planes we ride on crashes or if we’re in an earthquake or a typhoon, or last year we were by a volcano. We went through a typhoon in a place that also had an active volcanic eruption, all going on. Wow. And you know what? God says to be absent from the body is present with the Lord.

How? Agree with God that you’re a sinner, believe Jesus Christ became your sin, that he actually died on the cross for your sins, for my sins. So I reached out to Jesus Christ by faith. I called the name of the Lord. I said, “forgive me. Thank you for dying in my place. I receive by faith, Your promise of a new heart, of a new spirit.

You’ve taken away the stony heart out of my flesh and given me a soft heart. So I can serve You today and forever.” A, agree with God your sinner, B, believe Jesus Christ is who the Bible says He is and C, call on the name of the Lord. Then you can understand the Bible. If you don’t, it won’t make sense. It won’t work.

You’re not connected to the power source. Next slide. In my journal are these lessons and you saw. All these things you already saw in a bird’s eye view of my Bible, but I wrote them down. In the first seven verses I noted there’s a perfect contrast between might versus weakness. The champion of the Philistines, Goliath, was intimidating all of Israel, that’s verse 4. Defying Israel meant that the God of Israel was being defied. Even in our current, what’s going on with all the controversies about church closures and all this the Christians have gone through about not gathering together. Did you know that when God is mocked, when God’s people are mocked, when God’s people are defied, like Israel was being defied, it’s God that’s being defied? God will not be mocked. And God is king over the universe and he is going to respond. But thankfully, as all of us who can attest that have experienced His mercy, which means God not giving us what we deserve.

He does not instantly respond. He is long suffering and patient. God is being very patient with what’s going on in the world right now because he’s fulfilling His plan. One of the things I think he’s doing is making people feel fragile, helpless. There’s a lot of fear and only God can dispel fear and only He can give hope.

Number four, in verse 11, Saul, God’s representative and the people of Israel, God’s people, had either small thoughts or no thoughts about the greatness of God. Now remember, what does God think of your life? That’s what this whole chapter is about. So God is watching them and He says, boy, they don’t think very much about me.

They’re more afraid of the giant they can see than the God that they should see. In verse 12, David is introduced. He’s the youngest of 8 children. He has the most menial job. You can notice in the text they were making fun of him. In verses 12 to 19 God is orchestrating His plan.

And it seems like the only two people that knew about the plan were Samuel and David. Isn’t that amazing? You remember what 2 Chronicles 16: 9 says? It says the eyes of the Lord are looking to and fro throughout the earth looking for one whose heart is completely focused on receiving what God wants. When I was in Bible school, remember when I got serious about God at age nineteen? I’d been saved at age six, called at age nine, got serious at age nineteen. Do you know what I did that first fall in Bible school? I began reading the Bible. That’s when I started reading it through once a month. I started memorizing verses, one a day for years, and I started aggressively praying for God’s will.

And I’ll never forget, this first I was memorizing and I would stop. I primarily did my prayer time walking outdoors for a half hour at night and I would jog and then I’d walk and I’d pray. That was when I was young and I could actually do all those things without choking and hardly being able to breathe. I remember stopping one time, looking up at the sky and saying, “for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth. I’m looking up and God, you see my heart and I’m completely, the receiving radio antenna, dish of my heart is focused on You. I want to do your will.” Have you ever come to that point of surrender? While you’re thinking about it you ought to right now. I renew that surrender every day. I go through the Lord’s prayer. You probably heard this message if you’ve listened to me long. I want to focus on God every day. I want to submit to His rule. I want to surrender to His will. Every day, I renew that. Also in verse 16, the 40 days at the time of testing, here’s that verse right there I’m talking about. In verses 20 to 22, David is disciplined. He’s responsible. He’s enthused. Look at God’s perfect timing. God brought David just when Goliath started cursing the God of Heaven. David heard and saw the real evil, God was being mocked. That’s what David saw. David was offended for God’s sake.

David saw the big picture. Did you know there’s no limit to what God will do with someone whose heart is completely toward him. Who wants God to be honored, who doesn’t want themselves honored, who doesn’t want to magnify them or their life or their popularity, notoriety, wants God to be known. Is that you? Are you interested in God being magnified?

I hope so. That’s why this is the greatest of the great, this is the most practical surrender and be used by God chapter I know of. David was misunderstood, falsely accused and mocked by his fearful and jealous brothers, but look at this in verses 28 to 30, he doesn’t give up. Don’t give up. A lot of you are lonely.

I just got a note from a dear friend in Northern England and they said all these regulations are putting them in another lockdown in Northern England. There’s so many rules, there’s so many limits on their freedoms. But you know what He said, this is the best and greatest time for the church. He spends his time texting his small group that he works with every day. They have zoom Bible studies.

England allows them to meet as long as they follow all the social distancing rules. They’ve got a table for every family in their church. They’ve spread them out with all the distance between them. They have room for the kids to color. In all of his teaching slides he puts a little heart by a word. And if the kids find that word in every slide, they get a prize.

Wow, what a creative pastor and teacher and missionary this guy is, but you know what he said? These are lonely times, many are giving up. David doesn’t give up. Why? David testified of God’s hand in his life, verses 30 to 37. Why did David take five stones? Because Goliath had four brothers and David said I’m going to get all of them.

If they’re all there, I’m not just getting one giant, I’ll get all five! I only need one stone. You see you and God are a majority. David wanted God to be magnified in all the earth. He says that there. David killed Goliath, kept his sword, gave that trophy a little bit later in 4 chapters. He gives it to the Lord, puts it in the tabernacle.

By the way, David’s divine biography is recorded and I already covered these with you. Psalm 8 is a Psalm about David and Goliath, so if you want to read something interesting, notice it says, Gitt im, that’s Gath. It’s about Muth, the death of the man from Gath. Wow, that’s Goliath. I already told you about 19, 23, 101 and 132.

This is the application prayer. And I’m just going to point it out to you and this is actually what I read aloud with my small group. I’m going to let all of you be the small group today. So let me read this to you because after studying chapter 17 all week long, I said,” Lord, I know I’m weak, but You’re mighty.” See, I like to extol the Lord and tell Him, I know I’m weak. You’re mighty. You’re my God. I also fear the devil’s champions at times, just like David did. You know David, he wasn’t fearless in a sense he didn’t know what fear was, but whenever he feared, he said “when I’m afraid, I will trust in You“. He actually said that. He said “unto thee O LORD, do I lift up my soul.

My emotions, my feelings, when I’m afraid, I will trust in you. Help me see life as a conflict between You, God, and Satan and to choose to stand up for You. Wow. That’s a choice and you make that choice each day and God will strengthen your life. You and God are a majority. Fear not. That’s the most repeated negative prohibition in the Bible.

Fear, not. God doesn’t want us, He doesn’t give, He told Timothy, a spirit of fear. But of power and of love and of a sound mind. You want your mind renewed by God? Get into the word, surrender to Him, ask Him to focus your heart. Tell Him you, you want to surrender to His control and do His will. I want to be disciplined and responsible for the little things.

That’s one of the clearest things about David’s life. He wanted to be responsible in the little things. Remember, he put his sheep in the care of a keeper. He didn’t just let them wander even though there were a few of them. He was into the little things. Help me resist being discouraged by criticisms. Remember the horrible things his brother said about him?

Discouragement, the onset of discouragement is an opportunity to say, Lord, help me resist. Lord Jesus, my soul cleaves to the dust, Psalm one 19 verse 25, but Quicken me according to Your Word. It’s an opportunity to magnify God. So it’s not that you’ll never be discouraged, but you never allow yourself to get into what John Bunyan called the Slough of Despond spont, the swamp of despair.

I want to see your hand in my life and tell others about You. I’m going to mention how you can do that in just a minute, so that You’ll be magnified in all the earth by my life and testimony. Part of that is by sharing what you’re finding with someone and I’m gonna talk about that in a minute.

You designed me and direct every step of my path. I want to live for You. I want to stand for You. I want to speak for You. I want to follow You today. Help me Lord, in Jesus name, amen. That’s my application prayer that I have bowed my head and prayed to the Lord. I write it down because I want to renew and remind myself and keep declaring this to the Lord, telling Him the truth.

Now, what we just did is a fulfillment of Jeremiah 15:16. In Bible study we find God’s word, that’s our devotional time. We eat them as we meditate and study and mark and write and put them in our journal and highlight and do all that stuff. As we do that, the Spirit of God transforms us and fills us with joy and rejoicing because we’re called by the name of the Lord.

I say this every week, I’ll say it quickly, find someone you can share your findings and application prayer with. In fact, for some of you, what you need to do today, decide you’re going to start a small group wherever you are. I have a group in New Zealand that their business owner allows them to use the conference room for lunch and they turn on these videos and watch them and study and pray together and learn during lunch.

You have to eat anyway, and they’re doing it as a small group and they’re slowly inviting others to come and join them. And they’re spending their entire lunch period sharing the application of God’s word and prayer and encouragement. Do something, but find someone you can tell specifically, say, I have this class and I need to share with someone what I’m learning.

Could I do it with you? You’ll see God start doing great things because the word of God is quick and powerful. All you need to do is share it and it will start impacting their life. Here’s another one, start memorizing and remember I tape versus the back of my phone so that when I pull it out of my pocket and check my step count for the day or whatever I’m checking, my email or a text, I’m reminded to seek first, the kingdom of God.

I look at that first and I work on a little bit and then I do whatever I’m supposed to do. Here’s the plan I recommend on Amazon, the MacArthur study Bible has the scripture memory. It’s a little box, it has a list of verses just like this. I work on these verses every day and they’re part of my spiritual pilgrimage.

Here’s one I always show in this slide. It’s from Psalm 19 from David’s life. I use the first letter of each word as a little pneumonic device, a little reminder. Then, this happens to be MacArthur’s week ten verse that they work on this, our prayer card.

I’ve invited those of you who are just meeting us to, if you know the Lord, I’d love for you to just ask him to bless the ministry of his word through us. And for some of you, I would encourage you if you’re even thinking about it, if you don’t have a missionary I’d like to be one of your missionaries. Bonnie and I travel, you wouldn’t believe how much it costs. Even though the missions provide this for us, we have to pay for all of the services we use.  For editing and processing the classroom videos, to upload them, we have to pay for them. You talk about wifi, what it costs when we travel to upload these gigabytes of classes. If the Lord ever lays it on your heart, you can go to our website. Let me see. Bonnie stepped away. I’ll hit it right there is our website, discover the book.org and on that website there’s a, it’s called resources or something, but you can find a way to invest in us on the road here and we’d love that. We’re kept traveling and teaching by those gifts. Like I told you, the $10 gift we just got from Singapore, praise God for touching hearts. That’s our prayer card. This is my wonderful wife, Bonnie who usually is on the other side of that camera.

We work in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the Middle East, central Europe and all around Asia and what a blessing it’s been to share this class with you. So that ends our look at David and Goliath. Let me just close in prayer. Father in Heaven, I thank you for letting me have this small group time. Thank you for how this small group and those that I hear from so regularly encourages our hearts to keep going, to keep slugging along, 6 to 6 every day. Teaching these classes, counseling and being spiritual mental health care workers with the frontline missionaries that are so faithfully serving You.

Thank You for all that You, God, are doing through us. Through Bonnie, through me, but through every one of Your servants today that say, Lord, focus me, control me, lead me. I want to be fulfilling Your purpose in my generation like David. That’s our heart’s desire. Thank You for the seventh week of the greatest chapters, David and Goliath, but thank You most of all for being the same God, You don’t change. We trust You today in Jesus’ name. Amen. God bless you.

Transcript

Welcome to the seventh week of our 52 greatest chapters in the Bible. An overview of all of God’s word, looking at the Bible through the lens of 52 of the key chapters. In other words, the chapters that if you study each of these once a week, all the way through for a year, you’ll actually grasp the whole message of the Bible. You’ll grasp the entire plan of God that He has revealed through His word. Now it takes work. You have to read the text. You can see where we’re going this week, we’re in 1 Samuel 17 and you have to take notes. This is my journal that I’ve added to and added to and added to, and you can see right where we are there in 1 Samuel 17.

Let me see the right direction right there. This is going to be our week of immersion into what I call one of the greatest chapters of all the great chapters. In fact, 1 Samuel 17 has impacted my life for all the years I’ve been reading the Bible. It took me 19 years to read the whole Bible through one time.

19 years, one time, then when I was 19 years old, I had truly begun to prepare for the calling of God on my life. I had surrendered to the Lord when I was nine years old to do whatever He wanted. I went forward in church and knelt and just offered my life to the Lord as a living sacrifice. I’ve been saved since age six, I surrendered to His calling, and really believed that He had called and gifted me to serve Him my whole life, but I didn’t really get serious about preparing for that till I was 19 years old. In my 19th year of life, after having read the Bible once from when I started reading till I was 19. During my 19th year I read this book 12 more times. I wanted to catch up with how old I was, to read the Bible through at least once for every year I was old.

When I turned 20, I had read this book through 13 times, not this copy, this is duct tape. Can you see the duct tape on here? This is my Bible that I’ve used for the last six years now. I have a stack of them in my office back home thousands of miles from here that I’ve kept since I was 19 years old, reading the Bible through repeatedly. When I turned twenty, I’d read the Bible through 13 times. By the time I turned 21, I had read the Bible through 25 times. Remember it only takes 72 hours to read the whole Bible, so I cut everything out in my life. I did a time chart of all 168 hours in the week, and I put in my Bible school classes. I was working full-time, 20 hours a week, to pay my way through school. I had all of my requirements on there and with the time that was not committed, either going to class, going to work, doing my assignments. In other words, in my discretionary time, from that I found 2 hours and 22 minutes a day to read the Bible. I broke it up early in the morning, at lunchtime, and at night. I have read Mark over 100 times. I’ve read the whole Bible, Old and New Testament, on top of that, an extra 20 times through the New Testament. 120+ New Testament readings, 100+ Old Testament readings.

Why do I even tell you that? Because I read the Bible so much, I can tell you from experience, what the greatest chapters in the Bible are. The ones that will change you from the inside out, the ones that will completely renew your mind. The ones that will help you see life God’s way. Are you interested?

If this is your first video, if this dropped into your feed on YouTube, God did that. He’s offering a challenge to you. Do you want to master the word of God? Do you want to understand the Bible? Would you like Him to reset your mind so that it works the way He designed it to work? As a portal of communication with the God of the universe, so that you can know what you’re supposed to do?

What are you here on Earth for, your origin? Where you came from, your purpose in life and your destiny. Would you like to know all that? That’s what the Bible’s about. Let’s pray and ask Him to help us. Father, I pray that you would open my mouth as I teach from Your word after all these scores and scores of times reading it. That your Spirit would empower me to teach 1 Samuel 17, but more than that, I affirmed that You’re great and You’re the God who transforms us from the inside out. I pray that message would be so clear as we go through this key chapter in your Word. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.

Let me start with the slides and as we start with the slides, I want you to track with me. You might want to take screenshots if there’s a chart that you want to keep for your further study. Some of you are writing me notes and you say you take notes in your journal, whatever works for you. Let’s start with the slides. We’re in the study I call the 52 greatest chapters in the Bible.

We’re in week 7 and as we go through week 7 today’s date is February 9th. I’m just barely keeping up with you. Let me give you a quick note of why I’m barely keeping up with you. I have studied with you 1 Samuel 17 this week. My title for it is what does God think of your life? Here we are, actually we’re right over.

That’s the United States, right over there, somewhere on planet Earth. Here’s Europe, you can see in the rising sun, but we’re living on this little ball spinning out in space in the middle of the universe and yet the God of the universe is watching where we are right now. What does God think when He watches your life?

That’s what 1 Samuel 17 is about. Now, why am I barely keeping up with you? Right now, it’s a long day. I’ve already taught one, two, three, four classes today. My wonderful wife, Bonnie, is the switcher, studio director. She’s the one that sits on the other side of the switcher studio and takes all the different camera angles and puts everything across.

She’s the one that can put up the reminder about DTBMs channel on YouTube. She’s the one that reminds you that you’re in the 52 greatest chapters of the Bible study. She’s the one that tells you about our Facebook page, where each of these classes are being posted.

If you’re trying to catch up and you just found seven and you want to know where one, two, three, four, five, six are, they’re on YouTube on our channel. In a playlist, but if you want to just find them easier, you just go right here to the 52 greatest chapters of the Bible on Facebook, and you’ll always know they’re there.

Everything that we do is on our website, Discover the Book, but what exactly are Bonnie and I doing right now? We are full-time missionaries. By full-time, it’s all we do, in fact, for 12 hours a day. I come into the studio at 6:00 AM and I spend time preparing my heart, reading the word of God.

I actually work on my verses that I’m going to talk about in this class. I do all of those things before. This mission where we’re staying right now has, of all things, an exercise room attached to the mission. We move around, this is our fourth studio that we’re serving at in this mission trip.

I go and work out physically, I work out spiritually with my verses, my Bible reading, my prayer, but it’s just after 6:00 AM. I jumped here into the studio, and I start making these slides. I just made this slide for you today. What does God think of your life? The 52 greatest chapters, week 7. Bonnie and I have committed this last lap of our lives to reaching the next generation, training them.

Before COVID we traveled 10,000 miles a month between training centers. In 2019 into the end of March 2020 we traveled 125,000 miles. I taught in Canada. I taught in the United States. I taught down in the Caribbean area. I taught in Australia. I taught in Thailand. I taught in Korea. I taught all over Europe, the British Isles, Hungary, Israel. Let’s see Greece, Turkey. We just crisscross and fly between all of these different training centers, but now with COVID and with all the testing requirements and closed airports, what we do primarily is go to American mission organization studios. We sit, like I’m sitting here, this home provided by a mission.

It’s really nice, by the way. Someone donated it so we could stay here at their home, but we’ve traveled between these mission studios and all day long we prepare and teach the lessons. For all of these Bible institutes, seminaries, there are small groups, there are actually tiny groups in some of the limited access countries, small groups of people, tiny groups get together and actually are studying the Bible.

We hear from them as they send messages in different ways. Why do I say all that? Because if you’re watching this at least you’re interested. I would like you, number one, if you would think about it, pray for us. Pray for health, for my voice as I teach hour after hour, preparing slides like this. My students send me notes and say, “little typo there”. I say “yeah, I’m doing this as fast as I can, send me all the notes”. I just had someone that told me a mistake I made. They actually told me exactly where it was in a video so I could go in and cut that part out in the studio and fix it so it wouldn’t distract anybody. But, number one pray for us. For spiritual wellbeing, for physical health, for protection. Just about everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. In our travel as we go between these mission stations, as we navigate all the COVID rules even the demonic oppression that comes. There are some days when I wake up at 4:00 AM or 5:00 AM, and I think, ah, I don’t even want to get out of bed. It’s just so hard to teach to an empty room, but by faith, I believe on the other side of those cameras that God has next generation students, that by His grace, through His power, we’re impacting. Number two, I’d like to thank all of you.

There are about 200 of you that are possibly watching this that actually contribute, about 200 individuals that contribute every month or every quarter or some once a year to our ministry, Discover the Book, so that God can use us to touch lives all over the world. The most recent class I finished had 3,000 students.

Now, there weren’t more than 250 in any one class, but there were over 3,000 of them. Many of them were just small groups of two or three or four or five. They were in over 35 countries. In my lifetime, I’m 65 years old, I’ve ministered over 40 years in local churches. I never have seen what God is doing today.

Those of you, those faithful rope holders and supporters. Thank you. I just wanted to stop and say, thank you. Thank you for your contribution. One of our supporters just sent a note and $10 from Singapore. Another one sent a note and about $14 from somewhere out in the Northwest province or territory of Australia.

Another one I had to go to Google maps to look for because they left their address. They’re way up in the top of the British Isles and I looked there and they’re so remote and so far from everything. They said, “you’re training me, I’m in your class”. I would like to thank all of you, but let’s go back to the sides.

Thanks for praying. That’s what we do. We train the next generation as well as frontline, current missionaries. We hear from them all the time, they say, don’t stop. People are coming and going. We can’t even have church in some of these places we gather around a television or computer and we’re studying the Bible with you. Praise God. Next slide. What you’re looking at in 1 Samuel 17 is one of the great chapters, one of the greatest chapters. Why? There are 1,189 chapters in the Bible. Who is mentioned most? Now, of course, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, thousands and thousands of times, God the Father, Son and Spirit are mentioned, but among humans, who did God pick to be the most detailed, described, talked about, and taught about person in the Bible?

Number one, with 141 chapters of the Bible that contain biographical information, is David. The most described, talked about, the most influential of all the people of the scriptures. David is the man we’re going to see in this study after God’s own heart. David is the most described person in the Bible.

David has 141 chapters, more than any other person that’s described. That’s why the chapter we’re studying today among the great chapters is one of the greatest of the great. Where we are, we’re on week 7 right here. We’ve gotten the 1 Samuel 17. We’re looking at David and Goliath, and we’re going to study that together.

Again, if you want to catch up, you don’t have to. In fact, I would suggest you just start right here, learn the program, and keep going. If you’re already with us, keep on, don’t quit. If you’re just starting, don’t try and go back. Unless you’re one of those people that have to do everything in order. If you are, go back to week one, now remember you can find all of them on Facebook on our 52 greatest chapters page.

You also can find the entire playlist on YouTube on our channel. What we’re looking at is what God said about David. This is why this chapter is so important. Acts 13, 22 and 36 says that God found David to be a man after His own heart. Then God says that he fulfilled My purpose in his generation.

Look what I did. This is a military cemetery, see right here, and the grass, and here’s a headstone. I can’t quite read under there what soldier is buried there, but I put this epitaph to remind you, David was a man after My own heart and served My purpose in his lifetime written by God.

David’s epitaph written by God was that he was God’s servant. I want to just stop and ask you a question. Would you say that you are God’s servant today? Do you know how you know you’re a servant? You don’t mind being told what to do. That’s the acid test. I am so proud. I was born wanting my own way until I was born again and got a new heart. Until then I didn’t like anybody telling me what to do. If you ever struggle with that, then you’re human. When you get born again, you get supernatural divine power to be transformed into God’s servant. I hope that you desire when God does your epitaph, when God does my epitaph at the end of my life, when he sums up my life, you know how God does that? In 1 and 2 Chronicles and 1 and 2 Kings through those historic books, do you know what God does?

He sums up an entire lifetime in just a phrase or a few words. They did right in the sight of God, or they did evil in the sight of God. When God sums up your life, will He say the greatest thing He could say “you were a good and faithful servant”. Next slide. The whole Bible, by the way, is presented in three parts.

This is just how God wrote it. Part one is the Creator, that’s the first two chapters. Part two is the Redeemer. Now, the whole Bible is about Jesus Christ. It’s Jesus Christ, the Creator. We meet Him in chapter 1 and 2 of Genesis, Jesus Christ. Some of you say what’s the X, Christos.

This is how you spell Christ in the New Testament. Chris, actually it’s Sigma, tos and ending segments like an S. Christos, that’s what the X is, so Jesus Messiah is the Redeemer. That’s the majority of the Bible from Genesis 3 to Revelation 5. Everything you need to know about creation, God tells us. Everything you need to know about redemption. What is redemption? Being bought out of the slave market of sin so that we who are bought at a price will glorify God with our body and our spirit, which are His, which by the way, is 1 Corinthians 6 ,19 and 20. Then, we see Jesus Christ as the Judge and that’s the book of Revelation. If you stick with us at the end of this year when we get to week 52, we’re going to be looking at summarizing and understanding the entire Bible as it’s explained so much by the book of Revelation. Jesus is the Judge. He is the One that determines our ultimate destiny. Who’s going to be living with Him as His servant forever. That’s what Revelation is about. That’s what the Judge determines. That’s everything you need to know about the ending. That’s what the Bible’s about.

Remember this book is so important and this study is so critical because I want you to understand what the Bible is about. The Bible begins being about creation. Then most of it is about redemption and the ending of it is about judgment and everything you need to know about those truths God has revealed.

The next slide, I provide for you on YouTube in that playlist of the 52 greatest chapters and note, I post them on Facebook. See, this is class number 7, but beyond this class, I have extra online resources if you want to deepen your study, whoop, sorry. You can tell that it’s late because I didn’t have time when I did this slide to change it this week in 1 Samuel 17. This is from last week, Exodus 20, and I didn’t have time to change it. One of the resources is this, and you can see it by this cover photo. In 2 Samuel 11, which is going to be next week’s study, we look at David and Bathsheba. Why would we look at such a sad chapter of the Bible? Because, if David, the most written about man in the Bible, the man who wrote so many of those worship songs called the Psalms, David, who God said is after His own heart, a man who wrote scripture.

A man who said the Spirit of the Lord speaks by me. His word is on my tongue. David dropped his guard. You see this, see that pride of lions. It’s interesting to call them a pride, a group of lions, because the ultimate pride is Satan’s pride. Satan is portrayed in the scripture as a prowling lion seeking whom he may devour.

If you drop your guard, Satan will devour you. That’s a whole 50 minute message about how David dropped his guard and how he fell into sin. Here’s another one, who is the richest man ever? Some of you will say Solomon. No one exceeded Solomon, but before Solomon was rich, where did he get his riches by the way?

He inherited most of them, He inherited the equivalent of billions and soon trillions of dollars from his dad, David. Who was the original richest man ever? David. One of the reasons why this study is so important on David and Goliath is that David is unique. Did you know David never lost a battle in his military exploits?

As far as we know, the Bible says that David was never even wounded. Arrows were flying by him, spears were being thrown at him, slingshots and swords were being constantly arrayed against him. David not only never lost a battle, other than with sin when he went into sin with Bathsheba. A military battle David never lost, only his moral failure, but he never lost any battle militarily. Why? Because God was with him. Because of that, he got so much loot. He became the richest man ever. Let’s get to where we are today. By the way, there is a resource. There is an entire 50 minute class on David and Goliath standing for God all alone on 1 Samuel 17, which we will study.

Everything happens somewhere. See that note. I say that every week to you, that’s what I call sacred geography. I was talking with one of our children because we stay in touch with them. One of my children is in the midst of eight years of grad school. They’re working on an MD and a PhD at the same time up at this medical school.

They are amazing. We were talking this week and they told me all about what they were studying, surgery, right now. They’re just excited about it. My son asked, “so what excites you these days?” I said, “oh, the same thing always excites me. God’s word, the Bible.”

And he said, “what? In particular?” I said, “oh, I’m getting ready to do a virtual tour of the Land of the Book. Lord willing, it’s coming up in about 8 months. I’ll keep you posted. It’ll be online.” It’s going to be a tour that you can register for, study for every day, and actually make a journal. Bonnie and I have taken over 2,500 people to the Lands of the Book, over 2,500 now.

It’s probably getting closer to 3,000, but I don’t count them anymore. We’ve taken so many through the Lands of the Bible, through Egypt, through the Holy Land, through the travels of Paul, the journeys of Paul, the missionary journeys and through even the British Isles and doing sacred history.

I’ve taken people all over the world to anything related to the Bible, but this virtual tour is going to be my favorite because it’s going to be 8 months of preparation. Everybody that comes is going to spend all the months marking in their Bibles, doing their journals and then I’m going to sit in the middle of the 40 key sites that frame the Word of God in the Holy Land and I’m going to just give the application for that site. Then I’m going to read the scripture and the film crew, if all this happens and they open Israel and we get to go, is actually going to film everything I’m talking about. Sacred geography and I don’t want to get stuck on that but look in your Bible now at 1 Samuel 17. It says the “Philistines gathered their armies together to battle, which were gathered at Socoh, which belongs to Judah and they camped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim.” Ephes-dammim means new blood. Basically, there was a no man’s land. Look at this slide, see Bethlehem, Judah. That’s where David was and saw brought all of his troops down the road that comes down from Jerusalem down this way, here to Socoh.

Here is Gath and all the Philistines came up here to a Azekah and basically, they arrayed themselves here, Israel here, and the land between them was called Ephes-dammim, no blood, this was the no man’s land between the Philistine army and the Israelite army. That’s sacred geography. Usually, and I don’t know on the virtual tour if this area is open because it’s so close to the Gaza strip, but we actually are on top of this tel right there. The tel Azekah is looking down at this battlefield of where this panorama of God plus David is overwhelming Goliath and Satan on the battlefield. The average soldier is about 5 foot something in Israel. How do we know that? Because of the skeletal remains that are in all these different ossuaries and tombs. An ossuary is a bone box that Israelite people were buried in. The average Israelite was about 5 and a half feet tall.

The averages of life lived till to be fifty some years old. That was the life expectancy back then. When David lived to be 70, he was really old and member Barzillai the Gilead was 80. This was the average age, the average height. There’s Goliath, not quite twice as big. His spear was much longer than the Israelite soldiers were tall. Just a little bit to know of what’s going on here, sacred history, everything happened sometime. There’s a place chronologically where everything happened. In fact, Genesis, remember I showed you the division of the Bible. Genesis 1 and 2 ends with God saying everything was good. God saw everything. Everything in the universe He created, it was good. In Genesis 3 we find Satan speaking through a serpent. When did Satan fall chronologically in history? Right here. Sacred history reveals that Satan fell into sin between Genesis 2 and 3. He had to because he wasn’t sinful.

You say, how do you know that? Because it says in Isaiah that Satan was the anointed cherub until iniquity was found in you. That’s what it says, iniquity was found in you. That’s not good. Everything was good. Iniquity was found in him here. Then his first attack was to destroy the pinnacle of God’s creation, mankind, by attacking Eve and Eve led Adam into sin. Satan, through Adam’s sin, corrupted the whole human race and the universe. Where we are right here.

We’ve gotten down to 1 Samuel. We’ve gone through the Pentateuch; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; These five. We’ve jumped over Joshua, Judges and Ruth. The book of Job we’re coming back to. That’s from way back in the patriarchal times. Right here in 1 and 2 Samuel is where we find ourselves, right there.

We’ll cover other sacred history in future classes. Again, we’re right here in David’s life. From 1010 to 970 would be the timestamp of his 40 year reign. We’ve already covered so much from creation to David. Then through the rest of our 52 chapter study, we’re going to go all the way through the crucifixion of Christ, the Church Age, the prophecies of Israel to the consummation right here.

Next slide. I show you this every time, just to remind you of the huge time jumps that there are. From Adam to Noah is probably over 1,700 years. That’s how many years the Bible records, that’s from the fall of Adam into sin until the Ark, was about 1,700 years. 500 years, from here from Noah to Abraham, 500 more to Moses, 500 more to David, 500 more going through the time of Isaiah to Ezra and then 500 more to the time of Jesus and the crucifixion.

The first year of David’s life comes to us primarily by comparing 1 Samuel 16 and 17 with the Psalms. When you do the extra online material or the book that I wrote, an entire book on the life of David called David’s spiritual secret, which you’ll see at the end of this video. There are 4 key Psalms that are actually the Psalms that portray this time in David’s life.

What he thought about as a shepherd boy, the Heavens declare the glory of God, Psalm 19. Psalm 23, the shepherd boy meditations on the Lord as his shepherd. Psalm 132, David’s resolves as he was anointed to be king and what he started doing as it’s reflected by beautiful resolves. Then his pact of purity. Psalm 101 gives us David’s pact he made with God. A promise, a covenant, sacred vow he took that he was going to be pure for the Lord. In his eyes and his mind and his body. The only time we know that he broke that sacred vow is next week’s lesson, David and Bathsheba, which is a tragedy that David dropped his guard. What made him the man after God’s own heart we see in Psalm 19, 23, 132, and very powerfully.

What made him that man God could use, we see very clearly in Psalm 101, when David says, “I’ll set nothing evil before my eyes“. Next slide. Psalm 101 is the pathway of David’s personal resolves of holiness. You notice seven times he says “I will” in 2a, 2b, that’s verse 2, the first part of it, the second part of it.

The first part of verse 3, second part of verse 4, second part of 5 and the very end of 5 and then 8 very clearly. “I will set nothing evil before my eyes. I will find a place for the LORD“. These are very powerful resolves. How do we do this study? Now? Some of you are just dropping in.

I’ll describe it more, but we’re looking at the whole Bible through 52, 1 a week, passages that after reading the Bible 100 times, I call the key chapters. It takes a year and we’re going to master the message, the content, the doctrines, the attributes of God, His plan, His covenants, the people He uses and the application to our life every day. By studying these key chapters, by using Grudem for some of the key doctrines and some of the attributes, plus memorizing verses, which I’m really going to hit at the end.

How do we do the study? This is what I travel with everywhere I go, my Bible and my notebook. I read the passage in my Bible, I check all of the background materials after I read the passage in the MacArthur study Bible and then I note in my notebook what I’m finding now. I’m going to go from sitting here looking at you to looking down at my Bible and I’m going to give you a kind of, and I’m not going to do a handheld because it’s too wobbly. I’m going to give you a bird’s eye view of my Bible and take you through everything as I’ve read, not only 100 times, but this week, each day through. This passage, I’m going to show you my marked up Bible, where I start every day by reading and, look at this, noting everything that stands out as I go through the text.

Get your Bible ready, and you might want to, if you haven’t found some of these things, get your highlighter, get your pen and note with me the powerful truths in 1 Samuel 17. God tells us where everything happened for a purpose. Even I had to look up this Ephes-dammim, no blood, to understand what it was. It’s a no man’s land between the different camps. The Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, Israel stood on a mountain, on the other side. There was a valley between, and a champion went out from the camp and his name was Goliath. Those key words I circle, and I highlight, any kinds of key verses.

Even in chapter 16, as I’m looking at David’s life, I noted that David ministered to others and that’s just another part of the character that God reveals about David. Looking at the whole chapter, the whole page, I wrote Valley of Elah and there’s so many parts of the chapter I just had to highlight.

I already showed you this in the notes, that David saw what Saul and the people were supposed to realize. That Saul represented God and Israel represented His people. This is the bio of David. He was one of eight sons and then I know different things that are standing out.

David went occasionally and returned to salt feed his father’s sheep. He was very humble. He didn’t think he was so important. He could still do a menial job. The forty days represents testing. All of this was God’s timing because David was sent by his father, Jesse, to the camp and he heard everything just at the right time. See how the forty days were going on and Jesse sent David so he could hear the Philistine mocking God. Everything is in God’s timing. Don’t ever worry about missing something as long as you’re walking in step with the Spirit. Then I wrote here that David cultivated responsibility.

What I mean by that is that David left the sheep of the keeper and left his supplies with the keeper. Then David heard, remember I told you these mocking’s of God and look at this. I wrote them in my Bible right down here. Let me get it so you can see it. David was offended for God’s sake and saw the bigger picture.

And I wrote that in the margin. Then, and this is a big spread of words so I moved the Bible a little bit, David was concerned for God. He saw the real issue. You’re defying the armies of the living God and so should we. He, David, said, “what have I done” when he was falsely accused. Is there not a cause, see he refocused on God’s purposes.

He encouraged others. Look how he says that you should be encouraged. I’ll go and fight. David’s purpose was to encourage the others around him. God was alive to David. He was the living God. He gave credit to God. Look at this. He talked about his exploits, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion, from the paw of the bear.

He will deliver me. He saw God as the source of his success. I’ll see if I can get that. He saw God as the source of any success. That’s the key to a life that counts for the Lord. Then I wrote in my Bible, I already mentioned this in the earlier section, why were there five stones?

Remember he chose five smooth stones. Because Goliath had four relatives that could have been brothers, could have been cousins. We don’t know, the Hebrew word is not distinct, but that says that in 2 Samuel 21 verse 22 and 1 Chronicles, 28: 5. He probably heard this, I wrote in there, and the Philistine cursed David by his gods and David’s invincible motivation.

He said to him, “you come to me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied“. Remember Psalm 8 I wrote in my Bible, that’s the setting for Psalm 8, the death of the giant and all that, that are in those key Psalms David gives the glory to the Lord.

He said, “then all this assembly“, verse 47, “will know the LORD doesn’t save with sword and spear, the battle is the LORD’s and He will give you into our hands“. Our hands. David didn’t see this as him alone. He was representing God’s people, working for God’s people, and there’s no limit to what God will do to someone with that attitude.

Then down here, I wrote David put the sword in the tabernacle. Oh, this is something I love. David gave his trophies to God. All of his treasures, all through David’s life, he’s always giving his treasures and trophies to God.

Then down here at the bottom I wrote David’s lifelong habit was to present his trophies to God. I wrote again, 1 Samuel 21 :9, 1 Chronicles 29 :2. If you want your life to last forever, give your treasures and trophies to God. Last thing, let me get up here at the end of the chapter. I had told you this before, I can’t stop just reading the key chapter. I go on, I spill over, I read all the adjoining passages. I’m sifting and looking for gold.

If you look down on the ground and there’s a $20 bill, you don’t just pick it up and walk on. You look around and see if there’s some more. That’s how I look at the Bible. These are $20 bills, Here I wrote Psalm 8. Notice verse 1 and 9 is about His name. What I mean by that is if you look, and let me go with you to Psalm 8. Remember all these Psalms are from this time in David’s life as a young person. Let me get Psalm 8 in the camera there all the way. “To the chief musician on the instrument of Gath” and see the little a right there? It takes you down here.

Title, Hebrew Al Gittith. It’s referring to a Gittite from Gath. A Psalm of David and then he says, “O LORD, how excellent is your name?” Remember David was concerned for the name of God and 1 Samuel 17, “you have set your glory. And that you may silence the enemy and the avenger that was Goliath.

And then let me get over here. Remember verse 9? I wrote go to Psalm 8. Notice verse 1 and 9 about His name and see verse 9. “Oh LORD, our LORD, how excellent is Your name in all the Earth?” David was concerned for the name of God. This is how I mark my Bible and it becomes, for me, just a reminder of everything that I’ve learned.

Then when I open my Bible any time, everything I learned all through here comes back to my heart by the power of the Spirit of God. That’s a quick journey through my marked up Bible. I hope you enjoyed the bird’s eye view of my Bible, but now let’s talk about the journaling that we do in this journal.

I record my devotional method findings. Remember the devotional method is that you pray yes Lord, to open your eyes. You read the passage. After you read it, you write down a title. You say this is my summary in a phrase or one sentence of what this chapter is about. I already told you, mine is David and Goliath and then my subset is David plus God versus Goliath plus Satan, and how God shows himself strong. This is the key to this study. There are many Bible studies you can follow and many reading charts. I’ve tried many of them, but the purpose of this study from my heart to your life is this, that I want you to note as many lessons, truths and doctrines as you can find from our passage.

And in your own words, you write down what you found. This is not, I’m not going to be looking over your shoulder, trying to read your work and saying, oh, mine’s better. No, this is you coming to the Lord and saying, I want to find your words. I want to eat your words. I want your words to be the joy and rejoicing in my heart.

I want to know more today what it means to be called by your name, oh Lord of hosts. Write those down and we use the MacArthur study Bible. You can use the blue letter Bible, an online resource. You can use the Logos Bible software. They even have a free version you can use on your phone, and I take that everywhere with me, on airplanes and trains and buses and ferry boats.

We’ve been in a lot of places, and I just find whatever tool I can use to stay in the Word. Then, how do you clinch the deal? How do you nail down the application? I tell you every time, this is my favorite part. Many of you watching this, I know you’re in my small group and you’re in the group.

For over five years I’ve always had a small group that I was taking through the Bible. For many of those sessions, I actually meet across the table with my small groups. Some of them are a group of us two, me and them, or two or three of us or a little bit larger group. The largest group was eight and we met for two years, but this is the key that I taught them.

Look at this, write a prayer. By the way, the truths you find are not primarily for your wife or for your husband or for your children or for your roommate that really needs to hear that. Or your parents need to learn that one, right? Now, where you ask the Lord to unleash one or many truths. I actually try and do as many as I can in my prayer, from what I found, the lessons you found in this passage into your life.

Here’s my journal. This David and Goliath page, you see here, I have typed and let me show it to you so you can read it because it’s hard to read my handwriting. At the top of the page, I have 52 greatest chapters, week seven for Samuel 17, titled David and Goliath. This is my expanded title; David plus God versus Goliath plus Satan equals no match. You and God make a majority.

I was just reading about a sweet couple. They’re in Ceylon, Sri Lanka, and they are serving the Lord in a very needy, dark place. You know what I taught them? You and God make a majority. You don’t need to worry. God is within you. If you’re born again, remember whoever calls in Him, Lord, some of you watching this aren’t even Christians, I know. You’re fascinated by Christianity. You like learning new stuff, but if you’ve never had the connection to God happen in your life, that only comes through what’s called being born again, being saved, God’s salvation. How you’re saved is admitting that you are a lost sinner. The Bible says, “for all, have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Just agree with God that you’re a sinner. I know I’m a sinner. In fact, I know I’m the worst sinner that I know up close and personal. I know many people that are wicked, I know much about God and how bad I am. Therefore, I’m personally aware of my sinfulness, but I’m also 100% aware that I’ve been forgiven forever.

I have a new heart, a new spirit. I’m so aware if one of these planes we ride on crashes or if we’re in an earthquake or a typhoon, or last year we were by a volcano. We went through a typhoon in a place that also had an active volcanic eruption, all going on. Wow. You know what? God says to be absent from the body is present with the Lord.

How? Agree with God that you’re a sinner, believe Jesus Christ became your sin, that he actually died on the cross for your sins, for my sins. I reached out to Jesus Christ by faith. I called the name of the Lord. I said, “forgive me. Thank you for dying in my place. I receive by faith, Your promise of a new heart, of a new spirit.

You’ve taken away the stony heart out of my flesh and given me a soft heart so I can serve You today and forever.” A, agree with God your sinner. B, believe Jesus Christ is who the Bible says He is. C, call on the name of the Lord. Then you can understand the Bible. If you don’t, it won’t make sense. It won’t work.

You’re not connected to the power source.

Next slide. In my journal are these lessons and you saw. All these things you already saw in a bird’s eye view of my Bible, but I wrote them down. In the first seven verses I noted there’s a perfect contrast between might versus weakness. The champion of the Philistines, Goliath, was intimidating all of Israel, that’s verse 4. Defying Israel meant that the God of Israel was being defied. Even in our current, what’s going on with all the controversies about church closures and all this the Christians have gone through about not gathering together. Did you know that when God is mocked, when God’s people are mocked, when God’s people are defied, like Israel was being defied, it’s God that’s being defied? God will not be mocked. God is king over the universe, and He is going to respond. Thankfully, as all of us who can attest that have experienced His mercy, which means God not giving us what we deserve.

He does not instantly respond. He is long suffering and patient. God is being very patient with what’s going on in the world right now because he’s fulfilling His plan. One of the things I think he’s doing is making people feel fragile, helpless. There’s a lot of fear and only God can dispel fear and only He can give hope.

Number four, in verse 11, Saul, God’s representative and the people of Israel, God’s people, had either small thoughts or no thoughts about the greatness of God. Now remember, what does God think of your life? That’s what this whole chapter is about. God is watching them and He says, boy, they don’t think very much about me.

They’re more afraid of the giant they can see than the God that they should see. In verse 12, David is introduced. He’s the youngest of 8 children. He has the most menial job. You can notice in the text they were making fun of him. In verses 12 to 19 God is orchestrating His plan.

And it seems like the only two people that knew about the plan were Samuel and David. Isn’t that amazing? You remember what 2 Chronicles 16: 9 says? It says the eyes of the Lord are looking to and fro throughout the Earth looking for one whose heart is completely focused on receiving what God wants. When I was in Bible school, remember when I got serious about God at age 19? I’d been saved at age six, called at age nine, got serious at age 19. Do you know what I did that first fall in Bible school? I began reading the Bible. That’s when I started reading it through once a month. I started memorizing verses, one a day for years, and I started aggressively praying for God’s will.

I’ll never forget this. First, I was memorizing and I would stop. I primarily did my prayer time walking outdoors for a half hour at night and I would jog and then I’d walk, and I’d pray. That was when I was young, and I could actually do all those things without choking and hardly being able to breathe. I remember stopping one time, looking up at the sky and saying, “for the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole Earth. I’m looking up and God, you see my heart and I’m completely, the receiving radio antenna, dish of my heart is focused on You. I want to do your will.” Have you ever come to that point of surrender? While you’re thinking about it you ought to right now. I renew that surrender every day. I go through the Lord’s prayer. You probably heard this message if you’ve listened to me long. I want to focus on God every day. I want to submit to His rule. I want to surrender to His will. Every day, I renew that. Also, in verse 16, the 40 days at the time of testing, here’s that verse right there I’m talking about. In verses 20 to 22, David is disciplined. He’s responsible. He’s enthused.

Look at God’s perfect timing. God brought David just when Goliath started cursing the God of Heaven. David heard and saw the real evil; God was being mocked. That’s what David saw. David was offended for God’s sake.

David saw the big picture. Did you know there’s no limit to what God will do with someone whose heart is completely toward him. Who wants God to be honored, who doesn’t want themselves honored, who doesn’t want to magnify them or their life or their popularity, notoriety, wants God to be known. Is that you? Are you interested in God being magnified?

I hope so. That’s why this is the greatest of the great, this is the most practical surrender and be used by God chapter I know of. David was misunderstood, falsely accused, and mocked by his fearful and jealous brothers, but look at this in verses 28 to 30, he doesn’t give up. Don’t give up. A lot of you are lonely.

I just got a note from a dear friend in Northern England, and they said all these regulations are putting them in another lockdown in Northern England. There are so many rules, there’s so many limits on their freedoms. You know what He said? This is the best and greatest time for the church. He spends his time texting his small group that he works with every day. They have zoom Bible studies.

England allows them to meet as long as they follow all the social distancing rules. They’ve got a table for every family in their church. They’ve spread them out with all the distance between them. They have room for the kids to color. In all of his teaching slides he puts a little heart by a word. If the kids find that word in every slide, they get a prize.

Wow, what a creative pastor and teacher and missionary this guy is, but you know what he said? These are lonely times; many are giving up. David doesn’t give up. Why? David testified of God’s hand in his life, verses 30 to 37. Why did David take five stones? Because Goliath had four brothers and David said I’m going to get all of them.

If they’re all there, I’m not just getting one giant, I’ll get all five! I only need one stone. You see you and God are a majority. David wanted God to be magnified in all the Earth. He says that there. David killed Goliath, kept his sword, gave that trophy a little bit later in 4 chapters. He gives it to the Lord, puts it in the tabernacle.

By the way, David’s divine biography is recorded, and I already covered these with you. Psalm 8 is a Psalm about David and Goliath, so if you want to read something interesting, notice it says, Gittim, that’s Gath. It’s about muth, the death of the man from Gath. Wow, that’s Goliath. I already told you about 19, 23, 101 and 132.

This is the application prayer. I’m just going to point it out to you, and this is actually what I read aloud with my small group. I’m going to let all of you be the small group today. Let me read this to you because after studying chapter 17 all week long, I said,” Lord, I know I’m weak, but You’re mighty.” See, I like to extol the Lord and tell Him, I know I’m weak. You’re mighty. You’re my God. I also fear the devil’s champions at times, just like David did. You know David, he wasn’t fearless in a sense he didn’t know what fear was, but whenever he feared, he said “when I’m afraid, I will trust in You“. He actually said that. He said, “unto thee O LORD, do I lift up my soul.

My emotions, my feelings, when I’m afraid, I will trust in you. Help me see life as a conflict between You, God, and Satan and to choose to stand up for You. Wow. That’s a choice and you make that choice each day and God will strengthen your life. You and God are a majority. Fear not. That’s the most repeated negative prohibition in the Bible.

Fear, not. God doesn’t want us, He doesn’t give, He told Timothy, a spirit of fear. But of power and of love and of a sound mind. You want your mind renewed by God? Get into the word, surrender to Him, ask Him to focus your heart. Tell Him you, you want to surrender to His control and do His will. I want to be disciplined and responsible for the little things.

That’s one of the clearest things about David’s life. He wanted to be responsible in the little things. Remember, he put his sheep in the care of a keeper. He didn’t just let them wander even though there were a few of them. He was into the little things. Help me resist being discouraged by criticisms. Remember the horrible things his brother said about him?

Discouragement, the onset of discouragement is an opportunity to say, Lord, help me resist. Lord Jesus, my soul cleaves to the dust, Psalm 119 verse 25, but quicken me according to Your Word. It’s an opportunity to magnify God. It’s not that you’ll never be discouraged, but you never allow yourself to get into what John Bunyan called the Slough of Despond, the swamp of despair.

I want to see your hand in my life and tell others about You. I’m going to mention how you can do that in just a minute, so that You’ll be magnified in all the Earth by my life and testimony. Part of that is by sharing what you’re finding with someone and I’m going to talk about that in a minute.

You designed me and direct every step of my path. I want to live for You. I want to stand for You. I want to speak for You. I want to follow You today. Help me Lord, in Jesus’ name, amen. That’s my application prayer that I have bowed my head and prayed to the Lord. I write it down because I want to renew and remind myself and keep declaring this to the Lord, telling Him the truth.

Now, what we just did is a fulfillment of Jeremiah 15:16. In Bible study we find God’s word, that’s our devotional time. We eat them as we meditate and study and mark and write and put them in our journal and highlight and do all that stuff. As we do that, the Spirit of God transforms us and fills us with joy and rejoicing because we’re called by the name of the Lord.

I say this every week, I’ll say it quickly, find someone you can share your findings and application prayer with. In fact, for some of you, what you need to do today, decide you’re going to start a small group wherever you are. I have a group in New Zealand that their business owner allows them to use the conference room for lunch and they turn on these videos and watch them and study and pray together and learn during lunch.

You have to eat anyway, and they’re doing it as a small group, and they’re slowly inviting others to come and join them. They’re spending their entire lunch period sharing the application of God’s word and prayer and encouragement. Do something, but find someone you can tell specifically, say, I have this class and I need to share with someone what I’m learning.

Could I do it with you? You’ll see God start doing great things because the word of God is quick and powerful. All you need to do is share it and it will start impacting their life. Here’s another one, start memorizing and remember I tape verses to the back of my phone so that when I pull it out of my pocket and check my step count for the day or whatever I’m checking, my email or a text, I’m reminded to seek first, the kingdom of God.

I look at that first and I work on a little bit and then I do whatever I’m supposed to do. Here’s the plan I recommend on Amazon, the MacArthur study Bible has the scripture memory. It’s a little box, it has a list of verses just like this. I work on these verses every day and they’re part of my spiritual pilgrimage.

Here’s one I always show in this slide. It’s from Psalm 19 from David’s life. I use the first letter of each word as a little pneumonic device, a little reminder. Then, this happens to be MacArthur’s week ten verse that they work on this, our prayer card.

I’ve invited those of you who are just meeting us to, if you know the Lord, I’d love for you to just ask him to bless the ministry of his word through us. For some of you, I would encourage you if you’re even thinking about it, if you don’t have a missionary, I’d like to be one of your missionaries. Bonnie and I travel, you wouldn’t believe how much it costs. Even though the missions provide this for us, we have to pay for all of the services we use.  For editing and processing the classroom videos, to upload them, we have to pay for them. You talk about Wi-Fi, what it costs when we travel to upload these gigabytes of classes. If the Lord ever lays it on your heart, you can go to our website. Let me see. Bonnie stepped away. I’ll hit it right there is our website, discover the book.org and on that website there’s a, it’s called resources or something, but you can find a way to invest in us on the road here and we’d love that. We’re kept traveling and teaching by those gifts. Like I told you, the $10 gift we just got from Singapore, praise God for touching hearts. That’s our prayer card. This is my wonderful wife, Bonnie who usually is on the other side of that camera.

We work in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the Middle East, central Europe and all around Asia and what a blessing it’s been to share this class with you. That ends our look at David and Goliath. Let me just close in prayer. Father in Heaven, I thank you for letting me have this small group time. Thank you for how this small group and those that I hear from so regularly encourages our hearts to keep going, to keep slugging along, 6 to 6 every day. Teaching these classes, counseling and being spiritual mental health care workers with the frontline missionaries that are so faithfully serving You.

Thank You for all that You, God, are doing through us. Through Bonnie, through me, but through every one of Your servants today that say, Lord, focus me, control me, lead me. I want to be fulfilling Your purpose in my generation like David. That’s our heart’s desire. Thank You for the seventh week of the greatest chapters, David and Goliath, but thank You most of all for being the same God, You don’t change. We trust You today in Jesus’ name. Amen. God bless you.

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