Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, Go therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to Go Teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through Australian and international speakers. And here is today's presenter, Dr John Hammond.
What I'm talking on this morning, it's a sermon of affirmation.
You know, the greatest sermon in the Bible is the Sermon on the Mount,
where Jesus spoke to the poor spirit, the humble, the persecuted.
There was no exhortations to behave or reform.
There were no warnings, there were no admonitions.
He was simply strengthening people.
You know, we sing the song, only a boy named David,
only a little sling, and we're going to revisit the story this morning.
We do have problems with Bible stories,
because we have heard them since we were about four,
and that age you got a mental picture in your mind,
and you know what? It probably has never moved.
You can see where Goliath is, you can see where David is,
and we're going to revisit the story,
but I'm going to tell it from two perspectives that belong to me.
One is by academic training, I'm an historical geographer.
So it's not just what happened, it's why did it happen there,
and for what reason, and from an education perspective,
because my career, I worked for the church for 41 years,
was an education, and the last 30 years were administration,
which was a mistake, because I'm a better teacher than an administrator.
So let's begin.
Underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling our chance,
and I do, I've got to acknowledge the work of a Canadian man
called Malcolm Gladwell, who has done a fair deal of research in this area.
He's a very, very intelligent man.
Not necessarily a Christian, but he's smart.
Let's start at the Shafala, which is the foothills,
and they are mentioned a number of times.
It is a luscious part of the Holy Land, rolling hills,
and occupied by the Philistines, who were sea people, originally from Crete.
And they moved out of Crete, and they settled on the coast,
and they made life very interesting for the poor Israelites.
And they wanted to invade.
Now, this is where it all happens, it's not a very big place.
It's only about 20 kilometers from Bethlehem to the Valley of Ela,
where the story takes place.
And what they wanted to do, they were about four valleys.
The Valley of Ela was one, and they wanted to come in and get between Bethlehem and Hebron,
because if they did that, they have divided the country,
it's what they call divide and conquer in warfare.
And if they occupied that land, they would keep North and South separated,
and that would be a good way of taking over the country.
Well, Saul didn't have a standing army, the Philistines did,
and he did not want a battle near Bethlehem or Hebron.
Because if they lost, the Philistines would come in,
and it would be rape and pillage, I suppose, as a kind of way of putting it.
They would kill the inhabitants, destroy the cities.
And so Saul was smart enough to move his army, if you could call an army,
down to the Battle of Ela.
And there is the Battle of Ela.
And the Israelites sat on the slopes on the North side,
and the Philistines on the South.
And as you can see, it is a rather pretty land
that did not want to pitch battle at all, and it's 24 kilometers from Bethlehem,
which was important for David, because he had to go between.
Now, the ancient way of doing battles was quite simple.
You could meet, and you could have thousands of die on either side,
which would be a bit unfortunate for Bursa, what they did.
And I think we should approve of it.
One army would park themselves there, another army would sit there,
and they would yell at each other for a while,
call each other rude names, insult each other,
and then when they were really cranky with each other,
they would send forward their champion.
And he would challenge the other side, come and fight me,
and if I win, we win the battle.
You can clear off, and if you win, if your champion wins,
then we'll all run away and be your slaves or whatever.
And this was the way they did it.
There are a number of occasions in history where they did this.
Well, this is where it gets interesting.
It's either two valleys, for a start at the Philistines,
they knew how to work iron.
The Israelites were still basically Stone Age people.
And they had chariots with iron wheels,
this is the Philistines, they had 800 chariots.
And these were face and machines driven by horses,
or pulled by horses,
and in battle, absolutely terrifying.
But the Israelites were smart,
so they chose land that was sloping
where the chariots couldn't be used.
And the river at the Brook, Ela, was mostly dry and very rocky,
and they knew that the chariots couldn't be used.
And that was a bit of a disadvantage,
because with the chariots, by the way,
they were so deprived of iron in Israel.
If I was to ask you how many swords existed in the whole of Israel,
I wonder what sort of figure you'd come up with?
A hundred thousand, perhaps?
A hundred?
Twenty?
Ten?
There were only two swords in Israel,
belonged to David and Jonathan.
So, or Saul at that stage.
And because the Philistines had forbidden them
to make anything from iron.
If you wanted something from iron,
for a plough shear, you had to buy it from us.
And so they really did have an advantage.
The other thing was their armor.
They wore huge amounts of armor,
and these men were the heavy artillery.
They were always at the front.
They were slow and deadly.
They were the shock troops,
and so they would move in front.
And then the chariots were normally at the front,
but this time it was going to have to be the heavy artillery.
Now, the Israelite soldiers,
you wouldn't know what their army looked like.
They didn't have an army.
The king would just call any young man
over the age of 19 and 30 to come and be one of his soldiers.
And they were simply slingers.
But they were very mobile and absolutely deadly.
I've got a picture coming up.
And I want you to use your imagination this morning.
You've got your army of soldiers wearing armor,
and spears, and shields, and swords, and daggers.
And they were coming along at a slow pace.
And all of a sudden, this is what you've got.
A bunch of undisciplined slingers.
The problem is they were absolutely deadly.
And because they had no training,
they would be zipping this way and this way,
and hopping around and flinging these things
more about that in a minute.
You know, they're still using them in the Middle East.
And the two enemies are still fighting today.
I think it sounds 83 that identifies
the armies that were in opposition to Israel,
and it has their modern names.
It's still going on as we speak this morning.
And they are frightened of a sling.
They are such deadly weapons.
Who's a picture of a Jewish sling headed
in the Manchester Museum?
And let me tell you something about a sling shot.
I made one when I was teaching at my first school,
which was the Central Coast School.
And we lined up all the kids,
and I said, you stand behind.
I'm going to fire over there towards the far end of the playground.
And I made this thing.
It went fast all right.
It was supposed to go that way, but it went that way.
And in the hands of an expert,
a sling stone can be coming at you at 300 kilometers an hour.
Well, even if it hits your little finger,
it's going to have to kill you, isn't it?
They were so accurate.
They have ancient drawings
of a slingshot expert hitting a bird in the air.
A Jewish boy, every Jewish boy had a sling.
And they would be put out in the paddock,
and their lunch would be put on a post,
and they would be put back 50 paces.
And they would not be able to eat their lunch
until they knocked it off the post with a sling stone.
Now, slings were very favored by the Romans.
That is the Roman sling shot.
Our sling stone is made of lead, and there is a message on it.
You can't read it either.
But it says, cop this.
They were also designed so they were made of whistling noise
as they flew through the air at 300 kilometers,
and now they were so deadly.
The Roman army had special tools
for removing sling stones from the bodies
of the soldiers who were hit by a sling stone.
And so, with that in mind,
I'd like you to turn on your Bibles,
which I know you have.
And let's come to 1st Samuel chapter 17
and we'll pick up the story.
Now, the Philistines gathered their forces of war
and assembled at Sokov and Judah.
They pitched camp at Effies Damim between Sokov and Ezakar,
and saw on these his rights assembled and camped
in the Valley of Ela and drew up their battle line
to meet the Philistines.
And then they started the War of Words,
come down to verse 3,
a four, a champion named Goliath,
who was from gas, came up in the Philistines camp.
He was over nine feet tall,
he had a bronze helmet on his head,
he wore a coat of scale, a armor of bronze,
wearing five, all together he was carrying about
100 kilograms of armor.
That's a huge amount of weight.
And he would come down and he would offer profanities.
He, in verse 8,
stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel,
why do you come out and line up for battle?
I'm not a Philistine and you are not the servants of Saul.
Choose a man that's coming down to me.
He was able to fight and kill me,
we will become your subjects.
But if I overcome him and kill him,
you will become our subjects.
He said, this day I defy the ranks of Israel,
give me a man and let us fight each other.
I'm hearing the Philistines words for Saul and all the Israelites
were just made and terrified.
Put yourselves in that situation.
Now David was the son of Jesse,
and they were tied from Bethlehem,
and three of his sons had gone to the battle.
And David was at home,
he was the youngest of eight sons.
And they believed that he was about 16 years of age,
which was pretty young to go out and start a fight.
And he was curious,
he went back and forth a few times,
carrying supplies and food to his brother.
They were so disorganized, you had to get your own food.
And so his father said,
take this Epho of roasted grain,
and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers,
and hurry to their camp,
take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit,
see how they're going,
and bring back some reassurance from them.
They were in the valley of Villa,
so early in the morning he took off.
David loved the idea and down he went.
And he was shocked.
He arrived as Goliath was stepping out of his lines
and shouting his usual defiance,
and David heard it.
And we read in verse 24 of these right,
saw the man that all ran from him in great fear.
And he said, what's this guy up to?
Who does he think he is?
His blasphemies are awful.
Can't anyone do anything?
And he kept on saying this to anyone who would listen.
He said, what's going to be done to the man who kills him?
Well, they told him he would be able to marry the king's daughter.
And even more importantly,
his father's family would be absorbed from paying taxes.
That's got you interested.
And then a lie,
of David's oldest brother heard him speaking with a man
and he was burned with anger,
the Bible says.
We would say he was absolutely mad as a rattlesnake with him.
And he said, what did he come down here for?
Why did you leave the few sheep and come down here?
I don't know how I can see that you're just a little squirt.
That's my transliteration, by the way.
You came around and you watched the battle.
Now what have I done?
Squeak David?
Can I even speak?
He turned away to somebody else,
brought up the same matter and came and came finally.
He got to Saul.
And Saul called him.
He already knew him, by the way,
because he played the harp for him.
And he said, look.
David said to Saul, let no one lose heart on the car of this Philistine.
I'll go and fight him.
Saul says, you've got to be joking.
You're only a boy.
You're not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him.
You're only a boy and he's been a fighting man from his youth.
And he said, King Saul, I know how to defend myself.
I've killed a bear and a lion who tried to attack my sheep.
And finally he said, well, go and the Lord be with you.
He said, I better get you ready.
And so he got the armor and he put it on him.
David was not used to wearing armor of any description.
He was a shepherd boy.
And by the time they'd put a helmet on him and a breastplate and all the armor
and the grieves and everything that was fighting soldier,
because this is what everybody expected.
That he would go out dressed the same as his opponent.
Oh, I'd love to have seen the scene.
David's got this stuff on and he's clanking around in circles.
He can hardly see.
He can hardly move.
And finally he says to Saul, sorry, this is no good.
He drops it all off bit by bit and probably Saul and everybody thought,
boy, you're going to get death.
They were expecting hand-to-hand combat.
Well, he went down.
And he gathered five smooth stones from the brook.
Now, I want to tell you something about these sling stones.
There are a few places in the world where this type of sling stone is found as a stone,
not a substance that's called barium sulfate.
If any of you in the old days have had a barium mill at the hospital,
you know how heavy it is, it's twice the weight of ordinary rock.
And it was David's secret weapon because they are found in the valley of Ila.
Now, being an ex-primary teacher, I'm the greatest show-and-tell expert you've ever seen.
But I found one of these stones and I'll show you where I found it.
I found it there at the Colosso Menon and there was an error at the spot where I found it,
how I was just digging with a stick and I was with Pastor David down
and I uncovered this thing and he confirmed that it was a real
sling stone. I'll just come back to the previous picture. I've got it here.
It is heavy.
I'll let you hold it on the way out as long as you don't have a sling with you
and it's twice the weight of any ordinary stone.
And one of those coming at you at 300 kilometres an hour is going to do a lot of damage.
Now, I've got a number of pictures of David and Goliath here.
Most of them, actually I said, probably a bit inaccurate as far as the distance between the two.
They were close enough to communicate and the soldiers on the slopes on both sides
were close enough to hear the conversation. And so there's a little bit of too inferring
as far as the actual distances are concerned and they got cranky with each other.
He was about nine foot tall. The tallest person who has actually been physically
measured with modern techniques was a man called Robert Wardler and he was eight foot eleven
and he was standing here with his family and he died at the age of twenty-four because they
put braces on his shoes and he got an infection but he was very, very tall, a very gentle man.
And Malcolm Gladwell puts forward the theory that Goliath might have suffered from the same
maturity gland issues that Robert Wardler had and it's called Acromegaly. I won't say it twice
because it'll sound different the second time. It is called Gigantism and they are heavy and slow
and short-sighted. And one of the proofs is that Goliath yelled at him, how come you're coming
with sticks because people suffering from Acromegaly often see things in double vision.
And so as they went forward everybody watching was a possible exception of King Saul,
you what the result was going to be. So I'll put a question to you. Who was the underdog now?
Every time we hear the story of David and Goliath we assume that David
was the underdog but all the Jewish soldiers with their slings when they saw David going forward
and they saw Goliath with a hundred kilos of armor on him. A staff like a weaver's beam
and the Bible describes it, they knew that Goliath had now become the underdog.
Well he flung that stone so hard whether he pushed his helmet back or whether there was a gap
above his eyes didn't matter but he hit him and he hit him hard and down he went and David didn't
stop to set himself. Is he dead or is he simply stunned? He acted with great speed,
no doubt as he acted with the bear and the lion but he raced forward and he pulled out
Goliath's sword and hacked off his head. The sword later by the way it was interesting because
the first thing he did was to cut off his head. He was so proud of that head he carried it around
for about three days until they told him to park it somewhere else. The sword was hidden in the
temple as a trophy. Well before all this had happened Samuel had gone to choose a new king and he
arrived at the gates of Bethlehem and the elders are very nervous when a man of such power and
influence like Samuel who was the ruler apart from Saul arrived at the city gates and they said
have we done something wrong? He said no just relax they've come to offer a sacrifice. He brought a
heffer with him who wasn't ready to enjoy the experience because it was to be the sacrifice.
He didn't reveal that he was choosing a king but he asked Jesse
put your sons before me and the first one came through it was alive and Samuel took one look at
him and said this is going to be the man who'll be the new king. Look at him strong commanding
in appearance the oldest used to be in the boss that'll be the man but God said just a minute
no it's not him I haven't chosen him you're looking on the outward appearance and so he went through
bit by bit and finally he went through seven sons. Samuel said is there another one? Oh yeah the kid
he's out there looking after the sheep go and get him. I won't even sit down I can sure they're
all brought out of chairs and stools. I'm not even going to sit down until you get him so they scorched
up the hillside quickly come to everybody you want come come come quick quick quick
there was not used to leaving his sheep he came down it was obviously something big was happening
and there he saw the prophet and God said to him that's him
and he got it already told him fill your home with oil and he said annoyed him now he is the new king
suddenly just a teenager no artists can really get it but this isn't too bad
you can see the brothers looking at him and saying I don't believe this not him
we're better qualified the next picture is even better they were not impressed
you know why they were not impressed they had given David a horrible time while he was growing up
apparently he has a different mother to the rest and Psalms 69 puts it rather well
in the message Bible my brother shunned me like a bum off the street my family treats me like an
unwanted guest the NIV says I'm a stranger or mamza is the word which means busted to my brothers
and so David came from a difficult background and now I switch from the
historical geographer to the educator what is your story hope you can read that have you suffered from
abuse the answer will be yes in a congregation this size there are people who have suffered
physical abuse mental abuse sexual abuse it is far more common than what we realize
and some of you have had to grow up with it every one of us I believe I suffered abuse unless
you've been totally spoiled you've been some have been neglected some of you have been bullied
some of you turn around to read it I had to deal with a broken home
or physical disabilities or you've been unwanted maybe as David felt
these are our giants and I don't want you to shrink from reflecting on these giants that every one
of us has had to face and now I put on my educational hat
you all know by the IQ test they were first developed in 1904 by a man called Alfred Binet
who was asked to identify students in France who needed help at school but within a matter of months
employers were no interested not interested at all in the people who weren't doing well
they wanted to find the people who were excellent and smart so they could become the ones to be trained
and so immediately a pyramid develops that is still retained in our school
at this moment our HSC students are all slaving away at exams in a few weeks
the Sydney Morning Herald and the channel line and everyone will trumpet here is the top student
don't worry about the rest and I'll tell you what folks you and I have suffered under this
for years and years it's a secret number you're not supposed to find your IQ test
well the IQ test looks at three things the way that Alfred Binet did
and it was culturally insensitive and I've seen give an IQ test to students in Fiji
who didn't have the Western mindset and they wonder why they didn't do well
they're test mathematical skills logical skills and linguistic skills that's the three
and for over 100 years that has been the way that schools have run you are either in the top
echelon or in the bottom echelon and millions and millions of people struggle and 20 percent of
you one and five suffer in some form or other with dyslexia which is inability to read we'll come
back to that another one is dyscalculia which has only been described in the last half-dozen years
and that is mathematical dyslexia but it's quite different just numbers mean nothing
it wasn't until 1982 that a educator called Howard Gardner came up with a concept that there are
many types of intelligences and we all have some and so we look at the list visual spatial picture
smart music smart body smart they can catch cricket balls people smart understand people
word smart logic smart nature smart and you turn the IQ system on its head because every one of you here
has one of these or two of these multiple intelligences which were not recognized
but we've gone one step further we now have emotional IQ people who can
have social skills self-awareness self-regulation empathy decision making
the curse of dyslexia has crippled so many people at school we were never designed to sit in schools
six hours a day 200 days a year for 12 years that's not the way God built us we were to learn on the
job be trained by a father or a mother instead we've all been shattered off the school and we've all
paid for it I'm going to make a confession here I suffer from dyscalculia I've never passed a
math test of my life and people say oh this did you get a PhD well that's all went this way
through the university and there are a lot of people in this world these are the cheapest
who either couldn't read or write or couldn't do maths and we start from Winston Churchill to
Steve Jobs but a little girl down the left bottom corner let's just look at her for a minute and
there was Jessica not many people I saw the sun in the sky over Sydney is there anyone here who knows
what happened on this day
a lot of mumbling mumbling going on yep well he she was at school she was hopeless
suffered from dyslexia came out of school very depressed but she went over
and she sailed a boat single-handed non-stop right around the world there was such an achievement
that when she arrived back in Sydney everybody with a boat went out to meet her absolutely amazing
I'm conscious of my time now Christ loved children he told his disciples let them come
because they are important the way we treat children
will be part of how we are judged before the Lord and many people have failed to recognize it
Christ had the ability to look for the misfits and their parent under achievers
he spotted Zacchaeus in a tree and Zacchaeus was the worst of the worst he was the tax collector
a little shorty people hated him but Christ saw it promised in him and called him down
and he became a faithful disciple Christ wandered around and found the people who were sick
and crippled filthy dirty despised he gave them healing
and then he chose the most unlikely bunch of disciples I think I skipped one here
the most unlikely bunch of disciples you could ever imagine I've interviewed hundreds
perhaps thousands of students looking for a job
and you look for people who are smart and who have ability
if we were the employment panel that Christ engaged to interview the disciples
we would only have given one of them a job and you know what his name was
yeah stood out from all the rest
but Christ looked at people like Peter Landmath classic ADHD you know ADHD stands
they're hyperactive and disorderly I put attention deficit and he was a real problem
but look what Peter became what was David's secret well I'm going to have to turn around to read this
David said to the Philistine you come against me with sword and spear and javelin he's a 16 year
old boy just keep that in your mind but I come against you in the name of the lord of house the
god of the armies of Israel whom you have defied this day the lord will deliver you into my hands
and I'll strike you down and cut off your head this very day I will give the carcasses of the
philistine army to the birds and the wild animals and the whole world will know that there is a god
in Israel all those gathered here will know that it is not my sword or spear that the lord says
for the battle is the lord and he will give all of you into our hands boy what a speech
and he flung the stone interesting if you read jesar of ages page chapter 63 an angel appeared
to David just before he said those words
and the angel gave him the assurance that the day would be his and the philistine army would be
destroyed have you been the underdog yes have you survived yes can I ask you a question
who was the underdog Christ or Satan
I'm not going to give you the answer you work it out but
the story of david and goliath has a messianic quality about it he took on all our infirmities
and he fought the greatest single combat moment in history
when he took on satan
it was the greatest moment combat moment in the universe of the history of the universe
he fought it in the valley of the shadow of death and he won
and you know what we are his trophies in saber school class this morning i thought i'd sit quietly
up the back so i could look at my notes but i made the mistake of sitting in past the baron's class
and you said a few things that intrigue me as you always do baron
and the mystery of god's love will take us an eternity to begin to comprehend
and then we'll only have a portion of it will go on forever
now i remember the poem that i have used before but i didn't have it with me so i had to
quickly try and remember it which is mostly in my head but i scratched it out in a piece of paper
in case you thought i wasn't paying attention baron it goes like this
it's a very strange poem but to me it gives an indication of the strange
mysterious love of god a poor lad once and a lad so trim
a poor lad once and a lad so trim gave his love to her who loved not him
and say she fetched me tonight you rogue
and say she fetched me tonight you rogue your mother's heart to feed my dog
to his mother's house with that young man to his mother's house with that young man
killed her and took the heart and ran and as he was running look you he fell
and as he was running look you he fell and the heart rolled on the ground as well
and the lad as the heart was a rolling herd and the lad as the heart was a rolling herd
that the heart was speaking, and this was the word. The heart was weeping and crying so small.
The heart was weeping and crying so small. Are you hurt my child? Are you hurt at all?
Let's pray. The father we just cannot begin to understand the wondrous love that you have for us.
The origins of the plan of salvation.
Are you prepared to come die if there was only one person who had ever sinned?
And try and let that sink in.
And the father we rejoiced in your love. The story of David and Goliath, a story of courage and action
and truly messianic in its origins. We thank you for your love. We thank you that you have chosen us
to represent your face at this time in world's history. And we ask your blessing
that we will be faithful followers and not our dogs. Be with us for praying. We say,
Jesus, we love you. Amen.
This message was made available by the Waitara Seventh-day Adventist Church.
For more resources like this, visit waitarahchurch.org.au
This program has been brought to you by Three ABN Australia Radio.
