Life's Inanities and Ironies

I woke up this morning with a burden on my heart for the politicians in this country. Now I know that may seem at cross purposes, so to speak, but as I was reading Proverbs 6:16–19, I realized it could be directed directly at the politicians of our day in this country. And the fact that, not once but twice, God mentions how much He hates a liar—I didn’t misspeak; the actual word used is “hate.” I know for many of us it’s hard to think that God hates anyone, especially some of you folks who think, “Oh, God is always love and He wouldn’t do anything to anyone.” This thought and fallacy has sent more people to hell than any other. God makes it very clear what is needed to enter heaven. These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren....

We live in Giant Country. The giants are bigger than ever — government overreach, cultural decay, moral confusion, family breakdown, and open defiance of the living God. They strut across the valley and shout their taunts just like Goliath of Gath. Most of God’s people stand on the hill, dismayed and greatly afraid. But the infallible, inerrant Word of God shows us exactly how one young man survived Giant Country — and how we can too. Turn with me to 1 Samuel 17:32-40. The armies are arrayed. Goliath has defied Israel for forty days. Then David steps forward. David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine” (v. 32). Saul protested: David was just a youth; Goliath was a man of war from his youth. But David answered with the testimony of a man who had already walked with God in the hidden places: “Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: And I went out after hi...

As we have walked through the opening chapters of 1 Samuel together — watching God choose David, build him in obscurity, and empower him to slay Goliath — we now turn to the heart of the man himself. David was “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). Nowhere is that heart more clearly revealed than in the inspired Psalms he wrote. Many of these are what Bible scholars call *Psalms of Trust* — raw, honest declarations of faith forged in the furnace of real-life danger, betrayal, pursuit, and warfare. These are not polite religious poems. They are battle hymns of the soul. David trusted the living God when Saul’s spear was flying, when the Philistines had him cornered, when his own son rebelled, and when the future looked impossible. In a day when conservative Christians face cultural giants, government pressure, media mockery, and personal trials, David’s Psalms of Trust are not optional reading — they are survival instructions from the Holy Spirit Himself. Let us exp...

We live in a day when bullies seem to grow larger by the hour. They mock the people of God. They defy the living God Himself. They strut across the cultural battlefield with weapons of intimidation, media, academia, and government power, demanding that we bow or be crushed. But the infallible, inerrant Word of God in 1 Samuel 17:1-54 gives us the clear, timeless answer: **the big bad bully always falls before a heart that trusts the living God.** The scene is set in the Valley of Elah. The Philistines have gathered their armies against Israel. Their champion is Goliath of Gath — nearly ten feet tall, clad in 125 pounds of bronze armor, with a spear like a weaver’s beam and a voice like thunder. For forty days this giant taunted the armies of Israel: “Choose you a man, and let him come down to me. If he 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, and serve us.” (v. 8-9) Not one man in...