1 Samuel 17:36-37 Your servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them… We shall see what made David so calm and self-possessed as to venture where nobody else would venture, and take up the gauntlet and dare to be the champion of the living God. I. THE CONFIDENCE OF DAVID. 1. The confidence of David was grounded upon his own personal experience. 2. You will notice that in his confidence there is a blending of the human with the Divine. Observe: "Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them": — That is the human. "David said moreover, The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out, of the paw of the hear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine": — That is the Divine side of it. Work for God with all your might, as if you did it all; but then always remember that "it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." How is that Philistine to be killed? "By God," says one. True; but not without David. "By David," says another. Yes, but not without God. Put the Lord on the march with David, and you put the Philistines into untimely graves. 3. I want you to notice in David's confidence that he had go practically observed the service of the human side that he speaks of it first. If you did work valiantly by the help of the Spirit of God, you did do it, and should not refuse to say so. How are you to glorify God by denying the fruit of His Spirit? It is the glory of God that He led you to holy labour, and helped you in it. 4. Although David thus speaks of the human first, yet be speaks of the Divine most. 5. Now I want to go a little further, and show that David's confidence rested mainly in the immutability of God, the Divine Worker. 6. This leads me to observe that David's confidence also proceeded upon his firm conviction that, the immutable God being with him, he himself would be sufficient for the present emergency. II. DAVID IS A VERY FIT AND WONDERFUL TYPE OF THE GREAT SON OF DAVID, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God. |
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