In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the story of David and Goliath from the Bible. He emphasizes four key points for winning battles in life. First, he highlights the importance of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Second, he emphasizes the need to live for God and not compromise with the enemy. Third, he encourages the willingness to lay down our lives for God. Lastly, he emphasizes the mindset of not intending to lose but having the confidence of victory in Christ. The preacher also mentions the importance of recognizing that the battle belongs to the Lord and that He is the one who ultimately gives strength and victory.

Okay, did Terry come out yet? Afraid to. Okay, you got it Terry? All right, turn in your Bibles. To 1st Samuel. Bring it on out. Bring it on out. 17. 1st Samuel 17. Okay, thank you. Good man. All right, let's see. I'm going to need a volunteer in a second, a couple. But 1st Samuel 17. You got it? Let's stand. This is the chapter about David and Goliath. You're beginning to get it here. Okay, we're not going to read everything, but I'm just going to point out some things to you that we're going to pray. In verse 8, the giant comes out. The Israelites are on one mountain and the Philistines on another and in the middle is a valley. And so here comes the giant. In verse 8, And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in a ray? Am not I a Philistine and ye servants to Saul? Choose you a man for you and let him come down to me. See that he'd come down in the valley and he says come on down to me. Verse 9. If you be able to fight with me and to kill me, then will we be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then shall ye be our servants in service. And the Philistines said, I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may fight together. And when Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistines, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Well, God's going to give him a man. You come on over in about chapter 17 and verse 23. This man shows up, looks like a little boy, at least compared to the giant. And so David comes on the scene in verse 22. He leaves his carriage with a keeper in 23. He goes, he runs into the army first of all, and then 23. As he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the armies of the Philistines and spake according to the same words. And David heard them. And you know the rest of the story. How David was really upset that this Philistine would be doing these type of things. And so Saul heard about it in verse 37. And David said, moreover, the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. He said he'd go get him. And everybody said, you can't do that. And so then 38, and Saul armed David with his armor. And you know how the story goes. And you come on over in about 45, 46, 47. Some tremendous warfare truths are shared, and we'll get into those. Let's pray. Father, we pray that the Spirit of God would open up our eyes to the truth that we have in Christ. That we are more than conquerors. And open up our eyes to the victory that we have in Christ. And open up our eyes to the fact that we reign with Christ. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, I need a couple volunteers. I need somebody, a little boy, probably about this high. I don't care who you are. Somebody want to volunteer? Are you about that height? Come on up here. Turn around now. Tell everybody your name. This is Carter. He's not afraid of a giant, are you? No, I ain't. Alright. Okay, you better be quiet. You might get in trouble. Let's find a giant. Anybody want to volunteer to be the giant? Samuel's volunteering. Isaiah. Come on up here, Isaiah. We like volunteers. Okay, so we got the valley here. And we got... You're going to be David, okay? You're not going to be the giant. How tall are you? About three foot? Alright, put on your armor, Saul. I mean, this is the giant. Perfect fit. A cup box. Okay, here's your spear. Alright. Now, Saul says you got to wear his armor to the battle. Put your dad's coat on. Put it on. And he gives you his spear. One thing I didn't get was a helmet. Hmm. Didn't get a helmet. Huh? Oh, yeah, I did get one. My memory's great. Okay. Now then. You're going to... And this is probably about the right proportion. This giant could have been about eleven feet, they said. And so if he's three foot and he's about six, I don't know what, four or so. About twice as tall. So, now. Are you pretty tough? You ready to have a fight with this giant? You going to beat him up? Yeah. You better run for it, Isaiah. But anyway, this is the idea. Saul thought the way to win a giant was to fight the giant's ways. And if we fight the devil with his techniques and his ways, guess what? He beats us every time. This giant's going to eat your lunch. That means he's going to whoop up on you. And he's going to feed you to the birds. But there's another way to fight giants. And that was, get rid of all of this paraphernalia. Get rid of this sword of Saul's. Get rid of this armor of Saul's. Now you need a sling. And a stone. Boy. We just don't have one. But you pretend you've got a sling. And you come out after, Carter. You come after this giant. He's going to come get you. What did David do with the sling? Do what David did. Yeah. Get him. Whoa. And you hit him right in the head. And what's the giant do? Oh, you got him. Way to go. Give me five. Do it again. All right. Give Carter a big hand. He's a sleuther giant. Yay. All right. Thank you. You can sit down. Is the giant okay? Wow. Okay. Thank you, Isaiah. You are very useful today. All right. What did you say? Oh, that's right. Come on back. That's the point. David went over there. Jumped up on top of the giant. And took his own sword. And cut off his head. We just skipped that part. Might got a little blurred. We didn't know what Carter might do to Isaiah. He has no fear. He might have took that sword and bumped him over the head. All right. Now we got a picture. A word picture. And now let's see what God can teach us from this. I've been going. I think this is my seventh one in the series of how Satan destroys the church. And I was praying the other day. I said, Lord, this could just go on forever. It really could. If we get to looking at it. What is something you would like us to have? And so I went to sleep. Took a nap. And just said, Lord, would you show me. And within the next couple of three hours. After I woke up. Things began to come together. Of something that's very important. On this one. The enemy beats us every time. If he can draw us to fight. The way he wants us to fight. He'll beat us. Goliath had no doubt in his mind. That if somebody would come down there and fight with him one-on-one. In the usual warfare techniques. That he'd beat him. But he wasn't expecting. A little old boy. So to say compared to him to come out there with a sling and a stone. And take him down. Why there was somebody even in front of him. That was his armor bearer. And he had all this stuff on. On him. But it didn't matter. It doesn't matter with giants. If God wants that giant to go down. He's going to go down. Now. Many of us know. Who Pastor Phils is. Up there in Indianapolis. That giant of a man. Godly man. And if you ever shook hands with him. You might have thought you were shaking hands with Goliath. His hand would just swallow you up. And he's gone with the Lord now. But wherever he went. It seemed like almost every time. He liked to share this story. And this story is just. He'd come out with. Who's the king of the jungle? Who's the king of the jungle? How many of you heard that story? Maybe heard it many times. And so then he'd tell this story. About how this lion was going through the jungle. He'd come up to a monkey. Who's the king of the jungle? And he roared. And he scared a monkey to death. You are. You are. You are. And he'd go to different animals around through the jungle. And he would just roar. And say who's the king of the jungle? Oh you are. You are. He was the king of the jungle. But one day he walked up to an elephant. And he roared out. And he said who's the king of the jungle? And the elephant just stood there and looked at him. And I'll tell you the rest of the story. When we get to the end of this. Because this is the way Satan is. He is a roaring lion. Going around through the jungle. Devouring who he can. Destroying who he can. Now I'm going to start off this series in sort of a strange way. But we're going to tie it back together at the end. And it's this. I was just reading in my Bible on the way to church this morning. In Revelation chapter 2. About the seven churches. And the first one was the church of Ephesus. And the Lord went down there through all the things that they did. That he liked and he was pleased with this and that. But then he comes down in verse 4. And he says nevertheless I have somewhat against thee. Because thou hast left thy first love. What does love have to do with warfare? Thou hast left thy first love. Well it has a lot to do with it. You remember the basis of a lifelong relationship is agreement. Do you know what the bond of agreement is? It's love. It's love. John 14, 15, and 21, 23, 24. All those verses through there. Jesus said if you love me you keep my commandments. If you love me you keep my commandments. And I'm going to give you this propositional statement. If Satan can draw us out of our position of power. He can destroy us. If he can lure us away to thinking. Well this is happening to me. God doesn't understand. There's something going on. Surely he must not love me to let this happen. When Eve was tempted by the enemy. He drew her out of her position. And then he captured her. We are placed in Christ when we become a Christian. By the way. If you have not given your life to Christ. You have not surrendered your heart to Him. You are vulnerable to everything the devil wants to do with you and to you. Under the permissive will of God. And he wants to destroy you and take you straight to hell. This is why as soon as you understand that you're a sinner. And that your sins is going to. You're going to have to pay for them and go to hell. Once you understand that. Then you understand that somebody's going to pay for your sin. And then if you understand that Jesus Christ stepped up when he died on the cross. And he paid for your sin for you. You make a decision. You make a choice. Are you going to surrender your life to him? Are you going to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Or are you just going to go on and somehow think you're going to get to heaven? Without that. The enemy will take you and destroy your life. But once you surrender your life to Christ. And if you haven't done that. Let me encourage you to do that right now. Do it today. Today is the day of salvation the Bible says. Then once you surrender your life to Christ. You are protected. You are in Christ. You are safe and secure. But in our walk with Christ. The enemy he's lost your soul. So what's he going to do? He's going to try to draw you out of Christ. Now, he can't really draw us out of Christ because we're sealed. The Bible says that we're sealed. But if he can draw you so to say in a practical way. We walk by faith. If he can draw you to not live by faith. He will destroy you. And this is what he did with Eve. Eve belonged to God. But her life was given over to Satan. And so she was drawn away. Taken a captive. And this is why Jesus Christ came. To pay the price for her sin and your sin. And to bring us back into God. Now all the enemy can do is mentally work on us. And suggest to us and get us drawn back out. Of a way to not to live by faith. You're saved by the blood of Christ. But if we won't live by faith. We'll live by flesh. We'll try to fight our Goliaths in the flesh. Now, so if he can draw us out of our position of power. He can destroy us. And this thing that makes it work is love. Love of Jesus. Our love of self. All of a sudden Satan talked Eve into caring about herself. And loving herself. More than loving God. Loving God has to do with keeping his commandments. This is exactly what Jesus said. And so the enemy, he comes along. And he tries to talk us out of our position. And if he can get us out there in that valley. To fight with him. The way he fights. He'll just whoop us. And he'll beat us up. And he'll do great damage in our lives. In John chapter 14. I'm just flipping over here to read you a few of these verses. In verse 15. If you love me, keep my commandments. In verse 21. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father. And I will love him. And will manifest myself to him. And then verse 23. Jesus answered and said unto him. If a man love me, he will keep my words. And my Father will love him. And we will come unto him and make our bode unto him. A tremendous thing that God invites us to come to him for salvation. To surrender our life. And then he brings us out of the realm of fear. Out of the realm of all the terrors of the world. And he puts us into the realm of love. And he says, live here, stay here. It doesn't matter what comes against you. Just stay in my realm of love. And the devil's always out there on that side. Come on out and play with me. I've got some goodies for you. I've got this. He's always throwing temptations to get us out of our realm of protection. Out of our position. And never is one's love more in a backslidden state. Than when it rebels against the one he loves. Now David had a good day with the giant. But later on he had a couple bad days. He's a type of us. One day we can be walking with God and the next day we can blow it. And just an amazing type. Now let's see if there's some lessons for us as we go into this. Agreement is a position of love. Bonded together. And it's also one of power. And strength. This is why the enemy, once you receive Christ, he hates you. Because now you are a threat to him. And one thing he doesn't want you to do is pray. Because that is communion with the one you love. That is communion with the one you love. And when you pray, there is more strength and power that comes out of your life that threatens him. And when you go touch other people's lives, you can do great damage to his kingdom. So what's he going to try to do? He's going to try to destroy you. He's going to try to knock you off the track. The love of Christ constrains. That means holds together. That's what Paul said. The love of Christ constrains me. It controls me. It holds me fast. Holds together. And so the commands of Christ are our weapons. These are our weapons to use against the enemy. Ephesians 6, verse 17. And the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Now, there's one passage in Ephesians I'm going to use this morning. And that's Ephesians 6, 10. I can't go through all of it. But, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Once you are placed into Christ, do not be drawn out to live by the flesh. To live in fear. Whatever. You're drawn out of your position. In every single battle, we are to remain in our position in Christ. And I'm going to say some things about that this morning. So, agreement is a position of love, being in Christ. And power and strength is there. You know, Jesus said, If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. There is one of those promises. There's one of those promises. Standing on the promises. Now, I'm going to do two things this morning. I'm going to give you some doctrinal teaching. And then we're going to slip over and get some practical teaching on what we're talking about. Ephesians 6, 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Now, in the doctrinal teaching, also let me share something with you. I've been memorizing these verses in Ephesians 3, 16. That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory. To what? Listen. That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might. Strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. And then it goes on, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye be enrooted and grounded in what? Love. And then what? And then what? May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height. And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto Him that's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. According to what? How we feel? No. Look at it. According to what? According to the power that worketh in us. Satan's only weapon he has is to talk us into coming into the valley to fight him with our own armor. But if he can't talk us out of Christ, and he can't position us, we're in Christ. But if he can't talk us to come down and fight in the flesh. And so, if he can't do it, he can't get us. And we're going to get him. This is how Satan destroys churches. He gets churches to live in the flesh and operate by the flesh and not by the Spirit. And to fight our weapons and make our decisions and make our progress that we go. And I want to share some stories with you about these things. So, Ephesians 6.10, God is saying, Live according to your position. And I wrote this for myself. Not your perception of your problems. But take all of my problems and put them in proportion to my position in Christ. I can do all things through Christ who has strengthened me. And some of these things, I guarantee you, tear our heart apart. They grieve us and they hurt us. And some of these things hurt us physically. Some of these things damage our families. Some of these things destroy our churches that we come against. And if you've got a lot of passion in you, like I do, it's really hard to stay in the Spirit sometimes and not jump back out into the flesh. Just every day. You know, I've asked God, like you, a thousand times to get rid of this. And he says, No, my grace is sufficient. Live by grace. Quit living by those passions. They get you in trouble every time you ask the Lord. How many times do you have to? Oh, Lord. But live by faith. The just shall live by faith and not his passions. The Goliaths, they get us. Now, Ephesians 6.10. Ephesians 6.10. Back over to that page. Finally, my brethren. He's concluding his teaching to the Ephesians. Okay, now I'm going to give you guys the best I've got. Finally, my brethren. Be strong in the Lord. Don't be strong in your education. Don't be strong in this or that. Just be strong in the Lord. That's what he's saying. In the Lord. In the power of his might. I was reading something the other day. And it was written by Roy Knutson. Knutson, I don't know how he said his name. But he wrote a book. Calling the Church to Discipline. And he showed in this book how far things can go. There were some pastors together. And the question was asked in the pastor's meeting. What do you do with a church member you know is committing adultery? And he said, the pastor asked a group of ministers. And there was silence. You'd better leave him alone. An experienced minister finally warned. If you make an issue of it, you'll split your church. Take my advice. Leave him alone. Alone. What do you think about that? Yeah. Right. Right. It stinks. It stinks. You've already got a church split. So you have to deal with it. You have almost got a checkmate. Where Satan has almost destroyed that church completely. Because when you split it, churches hardly ever get over a split. Hardly ever. This is why a little sin leavens a whole lot. And so when you do deal with it, you're going to have a big bang. And I don't believe in the big bang theory. But you're going to have an explosion. Because Satan has invested himself. And he does that in us. And so I wrote out, wrong. And what happens if you don't discipline the man? You're not going anywhere. You might as well stop and deal with it. And if I can look back over some of the things I've gone through in my life, I see it's far better to just go ahead and stop and deal with it right then. Go ahead and split the church while you've got maybe 500 in there. Because if you keep on going and get 5,000, it's going to make a whole lot bigger mess. Deal with it. Deal with it. And this is one of the ways that Satan destroys our churches. Because we don't deal with our stuff. We don't deal with our stuff. And if you don't bring the church under the Lordship of Christ and to the cross, you're going to have a whole bunch of wimps always complaining about this and that and criticizing and gossiping like we just learned in our family school time this morning. So we've just got to deal with it. I can do all things through Christ. Ephesians 6, 10. We're seated with Christ. It's the position of victory. So we have to just go in there and by faith. But before you do it, one time I was in a church and there was something wrong there with the pastor. I didn't know what it was, but I was there for a year before I finally figured out what it was. And it wasn't good at all. And so I had a man that came through and visited with us and we took him to church and I said, I want you to meet this pastor. And his family went to the church and they sang. Their family sang in the church. They were just passing through and visiting us for a few weeks. So we went to lunch. Breakfast actually. And we visited with him. And at that time we were on a sabbatical break. Just taking a break. Back in my early days we'd do that. And so as we walked away from the restaurant, my friend, he said, he looked at me and he said, leave him alone. He will destroy you. He was the pastor in the church. At that point, and at that time, and with that counsel, that's all I could do. But, he said, God has showed you that so you know how to pray. So there's situations where you're just going to have to do what God is showing you. There's some situations that there wasn't anything I could do in that. But he warned me that if I did try to do something, that man would destroy me. And so you have to be very careful in this area. There's some tough, tough calls. Really tough ones. The evidence of faith is action based on that faith. So, Goliath was just a typical representation of the problems that we have. We've got Goliaths all over. And so when David was challenged by the Goliath, he had faith, and his faith was evidenced by what he did. How he moved on it. Now, let's get into the practical application of this. 1 Samuel 17. And I've got four or five things, and they all start with an S. Let's see. Go back. D is the last one. A, B, C, D. Four things. They all start with an S. Our position of faith. Faith is with Christ. Remember, whenever I say faith, think of in Christ. With Christ. Ruling with Christ. Reigning with Christ. Our position of faith with Christ is one of separation from the ways of man. You see what God says, put on the whole armor. Put on the whole armor. In Ephesians, he's talking about 11. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. In verse 13. Wherefore, taken to you the whole armor of God. What? Get this. Saul's spear and Saul's armor. If David would have tried to fight the giant, he would have been in the armor of Saul. And the giant would have killed him. But God says don't fight giants with the armor of the world. And so our position of faith is one of separating from the ways of man. He had to put off the armor. Now let me tell you something. A lot of the churches. Who's the king of the jungle? A lot of the churches have been taken over by the enemy. How does Satan destroy the church? He gets control of them. I've been studying by Ian Bounds on this. He gets control of them. And you can't get them back. He's got them. And so you have to separate yourself from it. And if you do try and you go in. This is why revival teams if they really are going for God at a certain point, they will break the kingdom of Satan free. They will break in and they'll have revival. And God will get the glory. But many times they are run off. Or starved out. Or done something. Or gossiped out. They just go so far. They say, oh well, we've got to stop. We've got other meetings. We've got other plans. But if God has left free to go, it may take two weeks. It may take four weeks. It may take ten weeks. But they just go until they break it. And then once you break through then it just cleans. It cleanses. And those that get revived are free. And those that can't stand it, they leave. And so when you're done, you have those that are walking with God. And so it's a position of faith. And faith, by the way, does not work with the armor of man. It never does work. And why we keep trying some of those things in our churches, I don't know. The armor of light, Romans 13, 12. 1739 in this passage in David, put them off. There may be something. You see, if we had that armor that is a weak spot and the enemy is going to throw his spear right at those weak spots in our lives, in our families, in our churches. And so we've got to have the armor of God. So we put it off. Here's a second thing. Well, let me say some more things in that first one. See, Saul had weak faith. And weak faith puts its comments in man's methods and man's schemes. He had his armor. That's all he had. He didn't have God anymore. God had already left him. And so when we don't have God, what do we do? We use substitutes in our churches. We do all these things. I was in a church one time on a sabbatical break. I'm trying to think if that was... No, that was a different one. And they started a building program where I was. And I got in there and helped and was working. And this was a tremendous thing. They were building this church by faith. And they were running out of money. Well, I guess we're going to slow down. We're going to send the contractor back home until we get some money. Money came rolling in. And they kept going and going by faith. And they got right down to the end. And I forget how much they needed. Forty thousand more or something to finish. And boy, it was slowing down again. And the leadership of the church said, boy, we'd really like to get done. We've come this far. But money's not coming in. And so all the way up to that point, they would always say, well, we're just going to shut down and see what God would do. But at that point, they decided, let's just go to the bank and get the money so we can get this thing done. And they did. And when they did, the giving just stopped cold. And I don't know how long it took them to pay off that loan. Why do we do that? I don't know. We just do it. Here's the second one. Our position of faith is one of victorious stability. First of all, our position of faith is one of separation. Now it's victorious stability. Confidence. Let me share a story in this letter. This is about in a church. A man had a marriage problem. You've never heard of this. I'm not talking about the marriage problems, but what they did. You know, most of our places, we've got churches that people, they separate, they divorce on grounds of incompatibility or she burnt my pancakes and all kinds of junk. But if you get a church that's going to do things right, they're not going to stand for that in the church, right? Well, what do we do? We compromise and we give in and this and that and it's just a mess. And so here's what happens. In one church that speaks with authority, that lives with authority, a man was seated next to his wife. This is what I'm saying. You just don't see this. He arose and he stood up in the church and he said, I would like to have prayer for our marriage. What'd he do? He humbly acknowledged they had a need. What'd the church do? What do most of our churches do when somebody's got a need? We sit back there, oh, look at old needy so-and-so. I don't know why they came here. Most churches would take a needy person and just pick them to death. But we've got to bring them to the cross. We've got to bring them free and not everybody wants to get free. But this man did and he stood up right there, humbly acknowledged their need for help. What happened? What do you think? You think they grabbed a hold of that man and his wife and they said, you've got to get out of here. We just can't have that stuff in the church. No. That whole church just surrounded them in love. Jumped in to help them because they were a body. That whole church. And here's what this article said. He did not need to fear gossip. He counted on a loving church family living together under the authority of Christ to surround them with their prayers and faith. And they did. That's what I said. You just don't see this. What do we do? We come in, we've got our problems and we try to and if somebody comes to try to help us, oh no I'm okay. No, you're not okay. You'll continue to hurt yourself and hurt your family and hurt your children and you'll hurt us. We've got to deal with our stuff or Satan will destroy us. How is Satan destroying our churches? We're just not obeying the commands of Christ. We're just not doing it. 1 Samuel 17, 45-47 So here's how you handle your problems. What did David do? Why do we do things different? Look at how David handled his giants. 1 Samuel 14, look at 45. Okay, they're going to go out in their fight. Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts the God of the armies of Israel whom thou hast defied this day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand and I will smite thee and take thine head from thee and I will give the carcass of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth that all the earth may know that there is a God in heaven and all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear for the battle is the Lord's and He will give you into our hands. That's how he fought his battle. How do we face our battles? Oh, well, I don't know what's going to happen. I just don't know what's going to happen. We've got this terrible problem. Second church we went into we got there and they had problems. If you can imagine a church having problems. Two of them I knew about and the other two I didn't know about until after I got in there, but the first one is they'd had a charismatic split. The church had grown real fast. Souls were getting saved. They built a new church and then the enemy got in there and the charismatic slipped in and began to give their doctrine stuff and the pastor found out about it and that hit the fire and it had a big blow up and just a little small group of people were left with this new building. So they'd had a split and they were in debt and they couldn't handle it. So when we went in there and I surveyed the situation for many months before I went in there. I gave another pastor a chance if he wanted it and he didn't want it and God said, it's yours. I want you to go in there. Lord, it's got problems. They said, who else does? What does Jesus do with problems? He goes in and He ministers and He helps and He heals. They had $8,000 bill due at the bank. The bank was fixing to shut down the church. There's one nervous banker. This is a small town. And so they needed $8,000 and then after we got in there I found out about the serious problems. Those are not the serious ones. We found out two other problems that were really bad. But let's deal with this one. $8,000, what are you going to do? You're going to lose your beautiful new building. God, He said, you grab a hold of it by prayer. I got the people together and we prayed the night before. I think we were supposed to... the bank's going to clean up on us. The night before we had a prayer meeting. The next morning I got up and God said, make a phone call. I made a phone call to a group of men in that particular denomination I was in at that time. And you could make an application for grants. And I sent in a grant. Actually, I didn't make the phone call. They called me the next morning. They were looking at the grants from different churches. Memory is not too great, remember? But anyway, I'm in my office and I get this phone call and this man said, we were looking over grants and everybody decided your situation didn't look too good and decided not to do it. But I said, wait a minute, let me go call and talk. And so he said, I just... Why don't you just tell me what's going on? What's going on in your community? What's going on in the church? And so I just shared with him what's going on. We prayed the night before. He went back and told them what's going on. They called me back and said, you've got $8,000 coming. We took that. We marched in to the bank and there was one happy banker. Let me tell you. And then we began to get a hold of it. We took care of that. That was huge. They only owed $64,000 just back in those days. I mean, we're going back a long time ago. But we took a hold of it by faith and prayed. No, we're not going to go refinance and do this and that. We get a hold of it by faith. The battle is the Lord's. Do you have a battle? The battle is the Lord's. The battle is the Lord's. You know, David, when did he win that battle? He won that battle before he went in the valley. Do you know it? He won that battle before he even slung the first stone. The only stone he needed for that giant. Thanks be to God, which gives us the victory. The problem with the enemy is that he just never quits coming back. We get one battle and next we've got another one. And this is the way it is. We fight the good fight of faith. We just keep going on. And we don't fight for victory either. We don't fight so we can get the victory. The reason we get the victory is because we are fighting from the victory point of Calvary. And the reason we don't get our victory is because we're fighting for our victories. And we're fighting in the flesh and not by faith. But if we come back, I'm standing on the blood of Jesus Christ and the finished work of Christ at Calvary. I'm going to confront this thing by faith. And there's some more lessons on this we're going to get into. Let me share something that Warren Wiersbe said in a book titled The Integrity Crisis. Which he said gets to the heart of the matter. And Wiersbe said what's been missing in our local churches? Why have good people felt compelled to look for substitutes everywhere? And we're doing it. We've got substitute programs to make our churches grow. We've got substitutes to make ourselves grow. And we've got problems with both. Cancer. Spiritual cancer all over in our churches. And here's his answer. Quote, Let's begin by noting a lack of spiritual authority in our churches. I mean by that the absence of the Lordship of Jesus Christ over His ministers and His congregations. Who's the king of the jungle? Jesus is to be the king of the jungle. And so if He's the king of the jungle, why as His subjects are we afraid of roaring lions? Spiritual authority of the church. And this is why churches will not pray and do not pray. It's because they are not operating from their position of authority. They're trying to do it in the flesh. And the devil's just grinning from ear to ear about all of this stuff we do in the flesh. But when we move to prayer, you better put your armor on because the enemy's going to come in with vengeance and hate. He hates a praying church. And they're all over our country where people are praying and they're seeing things happen. Well, Paul said, Hebrews, I believe he wrote Hebrews, Take heed brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. You know what I liked in that passage about David? And David heard them. He happened to be there when the giant is down there in the valley. You sissies! You chickens! You wimps! Come on down! Give me a man! And the Bible says, And David heard them. How many times have we heard of a need in somebody's life? And God by His Spirit is saying, Give me a man. Give me an intercessor. Give me a woman of God that will take a hold. See, an intercessor is someone that takes a hold and will not let go until they've got the victory. And they believe God for the victory. Once they are convinced that God wants the victory, they do not let it go. That's an intercessor. And God intended the church to be intercessors. This is why we keep coming back in our prayer meetings. And we pray and we pray until we get it. And it doesn't matter what it looks like. And David heard them. You see, David loved God. And David lived for God. And thus, David was willing to die for God. And thus, David got the victory. He had that victory before he faced that giant. If that giant had known what was inside of David, when he saw him come down the side of the hill, he would have took and headed for home. Why is it the church is not putting the enemy on the run? Because we have been deceived by all of His threats and all of these words He throws at us. Come on, Eve, just take a bite. God's holding back on you. And we're lured in there. Verse 28. Verse 28 of 1 Samuel. And Eliab, his eldest brother, heard when he spake unto the men and Eliab's anger was kindled against David. And he said, Why camest thou down hither? And with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thine heart, for thou art come down, that thou mightest see the battle. There's another giant. This one's in the camp. The giant of envy. We've got giants out and we've got giants in. Any one of them may eat our lunch. And so what'd he do? He said, Is there not a cause? David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause? Turned his back on that little giant and just went on down and took care of the big one. Let God take care of the small one. If you're going to serve God, let me say this. If we're going to serve God, we're going to run into critics who won't fight out on the front lines, but only are on the back rows. Back biting and gossiping and talking about this stuff. They can't do anything for God really. They've got all the show and all of the fluff. They're snow cones. Just all ice. With a little flavor. Or what's those other things we used to eat when we were kids? All fluffed up with sugar. You bite into it and there's nothing there. But remember a time there was a pastor in a church. He went in there and it was tougher than nails. He went in there and there wasn't nothing but demons all over the place. But he believed God to work and things were tough all the way around. But you know what got him? He plugged away for years and watched God work and he saw some things happen and God was working, but there was a gossip in the church. A certain person that took upon themselves as their personal and it was a lady, a young lady, personal obligation to get this pastor down. She kept pecking away and she would laugh in the back of the church while he preached and heckle and jeckle. The pastor should have took her to the men in the church and listened. But he was discouraged and he left. It goes on all over the place. We've got to watch each other. So that's our second one. The next one is our position of faith. We have our position of separation, then stability and now our position of faith which is in Christ, being focused in Christ. It's one of strength. Let's talk on this. David was a man of power, strength. What about any women like that? What about the first part of the chapter? This is so beautiful. You ought to go back over to 1 Samuel 2. Remember this little lady? If I say her name, there's a few of these around. Hannah. She had a giant. Giant of a problem. She didn't have a baby. She didn't have a son. And when God gave it to her because she was strong in faith, she came out with the most beautiful prayer. Have you read this prayer lately? And Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord. Mine horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies because I rejoice in Thy salvation. She sensed the enemy was in on this somehow. There is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside Thee. Neither is there any rock like our God. Talk no more, so exceeding. Think about all of the mockers. She'd go down to the well. There's Hannah. She can't have a baby. Dry womb. Oh, hi, Hannah. How you doing? But behind her back there continually. Do you have a burden like Hannah? Talk no more, so exceedingly proudly. Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth for the Lord is a God of knowledge and by Him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty men are broken. They stumbled or girded with strength. They that stumbled or girded with strength. She says down in Tim, the adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces. Out of heaven shall He thunder upon them. The Lord shall judge in the ends of the earth and He shall give strength unto His King and exalt the horn of His anointed. Who's the king of your jungle? We live in a jungle. Who's winning your battles? The Lord wins the battles because the battle is the Lord's. But we get, we crawl around and we complain around and we, no, God says come on, get up. Just like when Joshua got whooped. He said what are you doing getting down there? There's sin in the camp. Get up and deal with it. The battle is the Lord's. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Let's do this last one. So we have our position, our positions of separation, stability, and strength. And you go to Ephesians 6.10 right where we're at. That's what we're after. God says finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. If we don't obey that command, the enemy will eat our lunch. They'll defeat us. We have to be strong in the Lord. And we've got some hard battles that we have to fight. Now our position of faith in Christ is one of standing. Ephesians 6.11. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand. So you're armed in Christ. You've got faith. What do you do? You stand. The Bible says resist the devil and he'll flee from you. Resist. Resist by faith. He can't stand faith. Is there anything else in there? Yes. Put on the whole armor of God. Verse 11. That you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. He's always throwing these darts into your mind. These thoughts. You're no good. You're ugly. The reason you're broke is because God doesn't like you. The reason your car is broke down is because God doesn't like you. And all these lies continue. You're too short. You're too fat. You're too dumb. You're too smart. I don't know if he says that one too much. Maybe he does to get us proud. Just whatever he can get to stick. But what's he say? Keep the shield of faith up. Those darts can't go through that shield of faith. And faith works by love. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness. And in high places, a man called me from another area a number of miles away. He said he got put out of his job. People there didn't like him. He was in a religious community of a certain group. And you know how that kind of stuff goes. And so they finally got him. Got the boss. The boss liked him. Liked to have him there. But he finally got him thrown out. And it happened in the other place too. So you've got to stand by faith. Because you're dealing with principalities and powers. So, what do we do? We go work against the flesh and blood. Boop. We want to fight them. No. God says go get on your knees. Get on your face before Me and take the enemy by faith in prayer. And He says, Wherefore, I take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loin skirt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness. So when you get up in the morning, we put on our belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness. We take our feet. They're shod with the preparation of the gospel. We take the shield of faith. We take the helm of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. And then we're ready to go. Well, what do we do? We get up and we run off half-dressed. And we get out there and the enemy gets us. We don't have our armor on. And then He says, Pray in all ways with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto. Well, let's see if we can wind down here. Hold fast. Ephesians 6-11, we have stand against. We have withstand and stand and stand and watching. In verse 18, Pray in all ways with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance. How do we start off this series? Adam, guard your garden. That's what God told him. He was to keep the garden. One of the responsibilities. How does Satan destroy our churches? We're not keeping our gardens. And he does great damage in our families, in our churches, in our hearts, because we're not keeping them. Hold fast our profession, Hebrews 4-14. Without wavering, Hebrews 10-23. Hold fast and repent to the Sardis church in Revelation 3. Hold fast what they did have. They've been blown to pieces by the enemy. He says, hold fast what you got and repent for all the stuff you did that let the enemy in. Hold fast till I come to Thyatira. Revelation 2 25 and 26. The devil got in there and he says, hang on to what you got. Don't let the enemy get any more. And so to overcome is simply to maintain our position in Christ. So how does Satan destroy our churches? That's what we've been doing in this scene. By simply talking us down out of our position in Christ. Spiritually. He talks us out of it. And God is saying, stand fast. So who's the king of the jungle? The old pastor feels he would throw this story out and the lion goes roaring around through the jungle. Who's the king of the jungle? And to the snake and the snake says, ah, you are, you are. You know, I'm just making this up, children. It's not real. Then finally come to this elephant. And this elephant stood down there and looked at him. Who's the king of the jungle? The lion roared up at him. Elephant never moved. Never said anything. He just took his big old trunk. Swooped that elephant up. I mean that lion up. And flung him out through the air. Over the top of the trees. Through the trees. Come crashing down out there about 30, 40 yards away. Through the trees. Through the bushes and into the dust. A cloud of dust. He's a cross-eyed lion now. Whoa. Gets his bearings. Where's that elephant? And so then he sort of comes back over there and stands in front of the elephant again. And he says, okay, okay, you don't have to get so sore just because you don't know the answer. We better know who the king of the jungle is. Let me close up with these thoughts. And here's the answer to that question. Who's the king of the jungle? Whoever wins the fight. The elephant was the king of the jungle. The lion thought he was. We have a roaring lion who thinks he's the king of the jungle. And so when he comes up to us, we just stand there and by prayer and through faith, we let God just take a hold of him and fling him out over through the jungle. Who's the king of your jungle? You got a battle? Who's the one in authority? Whoever's got the most power is the one that's in authority. So who's winning the battle in your life? You know, Jacob, he wrestled with God one day out there. God got him down. And you know why he won? Because he got a hold of Jesus Christ who was in the flesh wrestling with him and he would not let him go until he got the blessing. Who gets the battle? Who gets the victory? The one that will not let God go when they're convinced. David had no intention. Let me share these things about David in closing. You see, Jacob was a winner because he was a wrestler and he was a winner because he wouldn't let God go. And here I'm going to close up on this. How did David win? These four things. First, he loved God. You're not going to win your battles if you don't love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. He was out there taking care of sheep, fellowship in God, knowing God, loving God. And then two, he lived for God. If a church doesn't live for God, if we don't live for God, the enemy will get us. We have to love God and live for God. But three, he was willing to lay down his life. These are L's. He loved God. He lived for God. He was willing to lay down his life for God. So he loved God. He lived for God. He was willing to lay down his life for God. And fourth, now get this one, he didn't intend on losing. He did not intend on losing. And so he had the victory. And that's what I say. If Goliath had known what he was facing, he would have got out of there. David knew he had the victory. Do you know you have the victory for every battle that comes our way? There's no temptation taking us. So instead of losing, we can be winning. Let's pray. Well, Father, You filled our cup. We said, fill my cup, Lord, and You filled it this morning. And now, Father, all over, I pray that You'd use this message to encourage us that we don't have to lose. We don't have to be defeated. We don't have to be discouraged. And we ask You to fix our perceiver. Our perceptor. Sometimes we look at it and we say, this is impossible. But Your Word comes back and You tell us, grab ahold of a promise. With God, nothing's impossible. And so thank You for the lessons that You've given us in this series. Thank You for one today that we're to stay focused in Christ. We've been looking at Christ to be the preeminent in our life. He's to be number one. Everything's to focus around Him. And when we're focusing on You, we're loving You. And we are letting You win our battles. Thank You for teaching us this morning. Father, I pray for Your blessing. Bless us. And bless everyone that listens to this message. And bless us as we face our giants. And Father, Thou knowest we have some giants that are really big and really mean and really ugly and really destructive and damaging. And so I pray that You'd use this to instill in us faith so that Satan cannot destroy our lives. He cannot destroy our homes. He cannot destroy our churches. He cannot destroy our nations. Thank You for the victory. Thank You, Lord Jesus, when You died on the cross, You said it was finished. Our redemption was complete in Christ and all we can do is accept it. Believe that You've given it to us. And every battle that comes our way, we just keep on barreling ahead like the Apostle Paul. He'd be knocked down but not knocked out. He kept on going ahead because he knew that he was a victor and more than a conqueror in Christ. Thank You for blessing us and teaching us in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.