In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the power of the word of God in overcoming enemies, fears, doubts, weaknesses, and sins. The story of David and Goliath is used as an example of how the word of God can bring victory. David's choice of five smooth stones is explained as a symbol of his determination to defeat all the giants in Goliath's family. The sermon also mentions the exciting growth of Christianity in China, where the word of God is spreading rapidly and changing lives.

Then Philistine cursed David by his gods. He cast a spell on David by his evil gods. It has no effect on David because David is already anointed. Chapter 16 verse 12. The prophet Samuel has already poured out the oil of anointing on David. So no evil spell can have an effect on the life of David. And then David says to the Philistine, you, now here is the conflict. You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a 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. David calls in the name of the Lord. He says, I come in the name of the Lord and by invoking the name of the Lord upon his efforts, he makes it God's responsibility to get the victory. If that is our sole aim and expressed as such, God becomes responsible for the success of our outreach. But let it be clearly seen that here is something that is irreconcilable. You come to me with a sword and spear and javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord. And all David had, you know, is a sling and five smooth stones which is picked up from the river, the brook there in the valley. Five stones, that's not a weapon, is it? No, it is not. But note that both men, both Goliath and David never use any weapons. Because the battle is spiritual. It is fought with words, words, words. Eighty times the giant tells him that they cannot do it. And he defies the armies of the living God and instills fear in them. And David comes with the word. I come to you in the name of the Lord whom you have defied. It's the word, it's the word that's going to win it. It's the message we preach. I'm all for mercy ministries and what the Red Cross does and World Vision and all the other aid that we give as open doors to the church, all that is good, all of it is necessary. But the total, the final victory will be won by the word, the proclamation that Jesus Christ is Lord, that he died on the cross to take away sin from the world. And he rose again, that he's coming again, that his kingdom is breaking forth and people are entering by the millions. The word will do it, the word. That's why I love this story and we've seen it in our own ministry. It's the word of God that does it. I promised this morning that I would say a little about, about China. It's so exciting the things that happen right now in China. Because the word of God gets in millions of copies. Quite a change from 1965 when I started my work in Red China, when I was the only tourist and therefore the only missionary. And I did not have a very warm welcome, but I got eventually written my Bibles, but then something happened. When the word of God became available, something happened in China that even today people will not believe if they hear the two figures. I have a pile of letters here based on our big Project Pearl effort, in case you haven't heard of it. But when we began to take Bibles into China, they asked for more and more every time. And then they asked for 3,000 Bibles and gave them 3,000. Then they asked for 30,000 Bibles. And in one week, our teams together with 17 other missions took in 30,000 Bibles in suitcases. We called it Operation Hernia. It's quite a load when you hand carry 30,000 Bibles into China and you have to walk across the bridge in Luwu and then you have to walk quite many more miles once you get wherever the Lord sends you. But eventually all the Bibles got in, none got lost and only three weeks later all the Bibles had been successfully distributed. And then the Chinese brethren came and said, open doors, would you consider giving us more Bibles? We said yes, how many? We want one million. I'm sure they didn't know how many one million was, else they would never have asked. And open doors didn't know how many one million was, else we would never have said yes. But we said yes and once you say yes, you can't make yourself a liar. So we said, well, how? How can we do it? And the Lord revealed every step to the Chinese believers. How we had to do it? By ship. When we had to do it, exactly the night, exactly the place on the beach and they promised they would be there to receive our Bibles. And it was this week, exactly two years ago that our ships sailed to the Chinese beach and to our great surprise we found 20,000 Chinese believers on the beach to accept our Bibles. It was a tremendous joy to meet them and within a few hours the Bibles were on shore and a few more hours and almost all the Bibles had gone into the country. But every transport possible including rented trucks, buses, bicycles, cars and a lot of them carrying them on poles. Then the soldiers came because 20,000 people together that of course does arouse a little more attention than they cared for and they tried to throw some Bibles back into the sea. They managed actually, they burned some. But we had taken in a good number more than one million. So it wasn't all that bad. But some people complained that some of the Bibles were thrown back into the sea. And two weeks later I was there and I met the Chinese pastor. He said, something wonderful. I was in the town and so strange on all those flat roofs there were drying books. In all the houses there were drying books. So of course those fishermen had all fished them up and they were drying them so that eventually they got into the right sense anyway. And then they began to write letters and I just have a few with me but in my office I have piles of testimonies from China and also the euthanasia teams that went into China afterwards they said that in every house church they visited they saw people with the open doors Bible. It was a tremendous victory. But then listen to what what they have to write about it. About their their need. They said that in this particular place is written in October 82. When we wanted to read the Bible we had to walk 33 miles. And after reading we had to walk back to our home. But now we have one copy and we can read the Bible when we want to. And after we received the Project Pearl Bible thousands of deacons expressed their hunger for their own copy of the Word of God. We have touched the Bible with joy. Even that one copy how thankful we are for your help. Now we don't have to borrow the copy anymore from our friends 33 miles away. And now this is the exciting thing. One day with this one copy of the Bible I have told about the love of Jesus to a group of people and 700 believed in God. And now every one of the 700 want their own copy of the Bible. Now you see we have problems. Because when you deliver Bibles the result is that they want more Bibles. Here is a letter from September 25th. In one area there are 200,000 believers and they have no Bible. But because of Project Pearl we have contacted our brothers and sisters and we now got one copy to be shared by 200,000 believers. Inside China persecution is very great. But we have a strong faith in Jesus and our church is growing very fast every day. Another letter from November. Our meetings are 4, 7 or 5,000 people. Small meetings only have a few hundreds of people. But at the farmers meetings we have 10,000 people. This is really a miracle of the Lord. In this area of Anmei there are 8,000 meeting places. Listen to this. Day and night we have been praying for 10 years for a Bible. Only one copy and now the Lord has given us one. His precious word. We will treasure it as our greatest treasure. We do not have any more Bibles but we can share this one copy with tens of people taking turns. Others write again about big meetings and here is one letter about student work that I saw and I thought that was very interesting how they reach so many students. Although they say that it is not allowed. Here the three self movement says that we cannot preach the gospel to the students but we go out to the colleges anyway and we preach the gospel. Every time we do it 100 to 200 college students believe in God. Some students are dismissed from school because they continue to believe in God. But God's love cannot separate us. And then again in every letter please give us more Bibles. Please send us Bibles. And then and that is the most exciting. There are two of those letters here that say that the number of believers inside China according to their estimates is 100 million. Now this is absolutely unbelievable as far as the western people are concerned. How can any nation that has been closed for so long have 10 percent of the nation following Jesus Christ? The most conservative estimates we get from the independent research institute in Hong Kong by Jonathan Chow are 50 million. But even 50 million really truly born again Christians in China probably makes it the biggest church in the world. That happens because God can do it. Let's not believe the enemy however intimidating, however big, however cruel because he tells lies that he says that the church is going under and that persecution will kill off all the Christians. It is not true friends. The church is growing. There have never been so many Christians in Russia as today. There is a revival in Czechoslovakia in the Catholic church. There's revival in the Catholic church in Poland. They have asked us for 1 million Bibles in Poland alone, the Catholic church. The Russian Orthodox church in the Soviet Union has asked us for 10 million New Testaments. This has never happened in the history of that church. They've never had a Bible. Things are going to change and God is getting people in line for that new wave as Don Stevens calls it. That new wave of mission enterprise and God is now preparing that those little Davids in secret, in private to experience the power of God in their lives. And when the day comes you will know it because all of those nominal believers will be scared stiff by the threatening words of the so big an enemy and that one little David will stand out and say wait a minute. When I was in charge of my father's sheep and a bear or lion came, as he unfolds the story, it was bears and lions. It happens so many times it becomes a way of life to conquer and therefore he loves the battle. He even runs, it says, he runs toward Goliath. He cannot even walk. You really love it. You will love it and you'll be prepared to get rid of all your enemies, all your fears, all your doubts, all your weaknesses, all your sins. What did David do when he stooped down to the bottom of the brook? He picked up five small stones. Why? Irrealistic. If he now runs towards a giant, they're approaching him with his shield bearer and his big sword. If he puts that stone in a sling and it goes round and round and if he would miss, would David have a second chance? No, he wouldn't. Then why did he have five stones? I've studied the scriptures on that. Goliath had four brothers. There were five giants in his family and David was determined now that God gave him a chance, I might as well take them all in. Get ready, get ready. There is no limit as to what you can do when God speaks to you and tonight I'm not going to invite you for full-time service. You probably have had that invitation many times anyway but I'm going to have a more important invitation tonight for you. I'm going to tell you something in closing about getting ready in private where nobody knows about the battles you go through but with God you conquer. You don't tell anybody about it until that moment comes when you are recruited and you are suddenly faced with a unique opportunity such as you've never dreamt of and it's just presented to you like that and then you are ready. It happened in a church in one of the countries occupied by the Russian army just shortly after the war and it was a time of great persecution and they carried off the young people to Siberia and they confiscated many bibles and they chased out all the missionaries and killed lots of pastors, families were broken up, liberties taken away. It was a hard time and in one particular place where the church was still open in a small town some brave believers defied the enemy and they got together one evening to pray because really basically the bottom line is that only God can give an answer to the perplexing lies in your heart at night and they gathered that evening together for prayer and as they were seeking God suddenly the door opened and a Russian soldier marched in, in uniform carrying machine gun and fear gripped that congregation as they stopped praying and watched with big frightened eyes as the Israelites must have looked at Goliath and this Russian soldier marched to the front turned around pointed his gun at the people and looking at them very fiercely he said everyone here who is not ready to die for his God get out quick. I wasn't there and honestly I want to be very honest with you I don't know what I would have done because there are moments in my life when I am not ready to die and there's certain little things maybe that I still have to do ask somebody forgiveness maybe just my wife or have to write a letter or make some restitution or confess some sin something something wrong that if it were your choice then no you would not not step into eternity right now as you are let's face it I want to be frank with you I don't know what I would have done so I don't blame anybody in that congregation because there were several that stood up they were not ready sure they were believers that's why they were there they were praying sure but they were not ready to die not at that moment not through a Russian bullet not voluntarily so they stood up and quietly left the church while others stayed and when the door closed behind the last man to leave the Russian soldier still looking at the people and suddenly the expression on his face changed he dropped his gun raised his hands he said but I am your brother in Christ but I could not tell that in the presence of those who are not willing to die for him lest they betray me this is a quality of Christianity in countries where they do not have what we have and take for granted where only those who are willing to die without thinking about it like David when he faced the bear or the lion not thinking about death only thinking about the injustice why should any intruder steal I'm here to prevent it my life don't talk about it this is the spiritual battle and the spiritual battle is always bigger than your own life because David said so that the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel the purpose for which God has brought you here tonight is far bigger than the extent of your own influence back at home in your business or in your school God's purpose is worldwide one life can touch the world but life could be yours if you qualify in the secret place with the almighty God and my question to you is very simply this one are you willing to be trained by God himself in that school of secrecy of quietness where you in your daily walk experience the marvelous victory of Jesus Christ in your life in your relations in your body soul and spirit in your possessions your plans and your career your hopes and your dreams do you want that type of victory that David spoke of that nobody knew until he voiced it but that made him ready for the day of battle then God called and I do not want to do that calling I'm not a Russian soldier standing here in front of you with a gun after all I cannot ask you to die for Christ if you don't first live for Christ and that I will ask you your decision to live so totally sold out for Christ in your daily normal secular occupation experiencing all the miracles of God there and then the opportunity comes you don't even need a prayer meeting for that you just do it like David just did it he was prepared and qualified are you willing to be prepared by God for that day for a day of spiritual conflict after you you have recognized the situation that we live in today exactly the same as in 1 Samuel 17 all the intimidation from the atheistic enemy all the fear of the people of God and who is fighting who is standing up to be counted with God do you want to be that person do you want to say yes Lord prepare me where I am I'm not going to make any specific decision for outreach or mission field or smuggling nothing just where I am I want to experience that marvelous victory of Jesus in my everyday life you say yes Lord that's what I want then I want you to stand up I want to pray with you stand up if you want to make that decision the Lord as we stand up at this moment with so many many many of us we want to identify with little David there in the fields when nobody was watching him so there was no temptation there to play the hero all he could do was lay down his life and he would do it willingly because he faced the enemy he had no right to be there cursed be the enemy that uncircumcised philistine the intruder the lion the bear the snake the Lord make us young and old but especially young people make us such that you can work through us on your principles where we are utterly fearless in the face of personal danger where we will not count the cost God help us please help us to stop counting the cost and making comparisons about the value of our life or other things God make us willing to throw away our lives for Jesus help us to apply that truth and that decision that we are now taking before the almighty God to put it into effect tomorrow in our relationships and our friendships in our decisions in our choices in our appetites and our desire to have a bigger car or to outdo others Lord make us those that walk with you just Jesus and me with no one watching us and then come out victoriously so that in the day of battle you find a person who's ready totally ready totally committed totally trained and prepared by God himself Lord I pray that for all my dear friends and for myself and I bless all of you in Jesus name amen we really hope that this teaching has ministered to you and in some