Ep 78 Dying With Your gods - The Real Story of Goliath's Death

Embark on a journey through the ages as Pastor Ryan Brown, Selena, and I untangle the complex story of David and Goliath. Prepare to see this biblical clash from a technically accurate perspective, as we scrutinize Goliath's armor for vulnerabilities and lay bare the sophisticated combat principles that David masterfully applied with his sling. Our discussion illuminates the extraordinary hypothetical: what if Goliath had fought alongside Yahweh instead of against Him?

Our conversation probes deeper as we assess David's arsenal, emphasizing the sling's lethal efficiency that rivals today's military technology. We marvel at the skill of left-handed slingers from the tribe of Benjamin, and how the selection of smooth river stones played a pivotal role in David's victory. By dissecting the advantages that David had over the lumbering Goliath—speed, tempo, and a shrewd mindset—we honor the strategic prowess that earned him triumph without a blade. Witnessing David's calculated confidence gives us a profound appreciation for the meticulous preparation that precedes any form of success.

Reflecting on the aftermath of the battle, we explore the divine justice meted out to Goliath, linking it to the fate of Dagon before the Ark of the Covenant. The conversation branches out to the themes of Exodus, emphasizing the importance of living responsibly in accordance with divine will, and how casting aside false idols paves the way for genuine fulfillment. 

As you move into your week, carry with you the essence of our dialogue, encouraging you to ponder life's deeper meanings and to stand firm in your convictions, just as David did before the champion. Join Pastor Ryan, Selena, and myself as we dissect these narratives, inviting you to subscribe and share in our next episode where we continue to untangle the rich tapestry of biblical stories.

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Transcript

Imran: 0:04

Hello and welcome to Real Bible Stories. Join us as we deep dive into the historic, religious, cultural, political and emotional context surrounding the real lives of real people in the Bible and the stories we've all grown to love. Hello and welcome back to Real Bible Stories. I am your host, emron Ward, and this week we're continuing our discussion with Pastor Ryan Brown and my wife Selena into the real story behind David and Goliath. If you haven't listened to the first episode where we talk about this so it's last week's episode I highly recommend you pause now, go back and listen to that episode, because there is so much context that will make this next part make so much sense. It has been such an awesome journey going through this with Pastor Ryan and I want you to get it from the beginning. But if you've already listened to that, I hope you enjoy the second part of this discussion about David and Goliath. Thank you for joining us today. Enjoy.

Pastor Ryan: 1:08

A very astute young child of mine, when we were talking about this, asked a very fair question that God not love Goliath? You see what I'm saying. So what was it about Goliath that essentially condemned him to this feat? He was, but everybody was, and in fact worshiping other gods is a mocking of him, right? Like, really, if anything, you see a passionate zeal within Goliath, like Goliath would have been a great ally to have on the side of God's army. Yeah, I imagine that Goliath as zealous and passionate for Yahweh as he was for Dagon, right? So there's a piece with that and this is why the battle kind of matters, yeah, Okay.

Pastor Ryan: 1:58

And there's cool things with this because I also think this indicates a fight went down a way that most people don't envision, or what you don't see. A Christian art kind of depicts this a certain way. So I want to kind of talk about the battle, and it's also just fun for us because, like being more fighters, being a combat vet, like the substance intrigues me, right. Yeah, so one of the first things I want you to kind of think about and, selena, you had read it in the beginning, but it talks about his height, right. Then he says he has a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze on his legs. He wore bronze grieves on a bronze javelin was slung on his back at a spear shaft that was like a weaver's rod with an iron point. The shield bearer went ahead of him, right? So he has a shield. So the whole point is that if you just were to picture Goliath's armor, right.

Pastor Ryan: 2:49

His equipment. What you get a sense of in terms of at least in terms of ancient combat, there would have only been two weaknesses is in his entire get up, okay. Okay, now one the bronze helmet, but it came down over the top of covering his forehead, probably going down the bridge of his nose.

Imran: 3:06

okay, covering his right covering his cheeks, right, okay, so. I mean I just, form fitted to his head, like forged to fit him Right.

Pastor Ryan: 3:15

So your weaknesses would be this his eyes, his mouth. I want me to add a third one in there, and it would have been at certain points, as he's walking his knees right. Because you got the bronze sheets there that as you walk they have to bend. You know, allowing for the bending of the knee, yeah.

Imran: 3:33

So it would have exposed your would have exposed the top of your knee cap.

Selena: 3:36

Well, wouldn't that be for like your elbows too, like your joints?

Pastor Ryan: 3:39

It could have been yeah, right, but the point is is that there wasn't a whole lot of the elbows covered by the shield.

Imran: 3:44

Right Got the big shield.

Pastor Ryan: 3:46

And if you even look at the big shield right, you're holding it like this. That's really coming up and blocking pretty much your mouth. So all you would see is his eyes on the top. Yeah Right, with, like you said, his elbows would be covered too. You've been coming even with over the top with his spear.

Imran: 4:02

So specifically, it would actually be that spear holding knee, because if he's holding himself with the shield and then he removes the shield to present the spear, he's going to expose one of those legs.

Pastor Ryan: 4:14

Not necessarily because he could also strike from over the top.

Imran: 4:16

From over the top? Yeah, I guess. So then he's exposing you a little bit more of the face. So all that is very few vulnerabilities, right, like where are you going to hit? Right, like a Dark Souls character, just straight up Dark Souls enemy. Right, how do?

Pastor Ryan: 4:26

you fight this guy and hence everybody's feared. Right Like, okay, I have the equipment and, but you, but this guy is like armor, there's very few weaknesses and he's big. I can't, I can't like overpower this guy. David, being completely aware of his fact, right, like that dude's huge Right, and look at what he's wearing. He chooses a combat strategy, what we call proxemics.

Imran: 4:49

Right.

Pastor Ryan: 4:50

So you know, a lot of people always ask like why? Why does the American military use like the M4s? Why do we use a 556 caliber?

Imran: 5:00

Right.

Pastor Ryan: 5:00

Yeah, right. And because one thing we know about the M4s and I could personally attest to is if you do not keep that rifle immaculate, that thing will start jamming. Right Like whenever, like a Jamaican song. Like it is Like I remember, like when, like when I was a platoon sergeant in Afghanistan, we would get back from a fight and there's always like standard things you have to do when you got back.

Selena: 5:25

Right.

Imran: 5:26

You need to before you go to sleep Before you do anything.

Pastor Ryan: 5:28

Yeah, what I had them do, though, I said your first responsibility getting back, you're going to go drop your gear, you're going to get water, you're going to meet over by the debrief area and you're going to bring your weapons cleaning kit, and I had them cleaning their weapons as we debriefed. Yeah, because the last thing I would want is in the middle of that debrief, after a fight, we get hit again.

Imran: 5:45

And you have to go engage it and now things are not working.

Selena: 5:48

Right, yeah, yeah.

Pastor Ryan: 5:49

So it's like why do we use this Right? Because when you look at like something like the Russian AK-47 or 74, that thing will shoot with. Pkms, it'll shoot with.

Pastor Ryan: 5:57

you can immerse it in there mud and it will still fire, like. That thing is very agile in that regard. It's a bigger caliber, right, so but why do we use it? Because the 556, beyond having certain tumbling effects that it has on impact like this, is a whole. I'm probably getting too much into the weeds on this at this point, but as I started it, if you imagine, you imagine dropping two rocks right into, like a swimming pool.

Pastor Ryan: 6:22

Yeah Right, If I drop one rock you see a kind of a ripple in the water. Now, if I drop one rock and then two another rock right after it, right like maybe split second between each other?

Selena: 6:33

Yeah.

Pastor Ryan: 6:34

As they go, that one ripple goes, the other ripple goes and they crash into each other.

Imran: 6:37

Yeah.

Pastor Ryan: 6:38

Right. So, when they interact. That creates this over pressure within the body. That actually creates more damage than just a straight. You know, shooting straight through, shooting straight through that like a 762 does Right. So there's that advantage, but the primary reason that they go with the 556 is proximity.

Selena: 6:56

Mm, hmm.

Pastor Ryan: 6:56

AK-47 has a max effective range of about 450 meters. Yeah, the M16 when we had it was about 620. Mm hmm, the M4 is now about 550, but that means that I have about a hundred meters More standoff Standoff that I'm able to shoot and hit you first before you're able to shoot and hit me effectively Does that make sense, yeah, so.

Pastor Ryan: 7:17

Proximix is always a thing in warfare. What's interesting is that David looks at this fight. He looks at okay, I cannot get in a close battle with him. Yeah, because if I get in close enough because of his stature, he, I give him the Proximix. Mm. Hmm, he has a longer spear, he has longer arms, he has longer height, he's more, yeah.

Pastor Ryan: 7:37

So I have to get very, very close, very quickly into Goliath, to fight him in close range, and I better not miss in that first strike because after that he's going to overpower me and I'm done.

Imran: 7:48

That's a big thing in boxing. It's like because, obviously, like with, like professional boxers, they know their arm likes and all this stuff. If you're a smaller boxer, your whole goal is to get in within the reach so that you can apply your power before the enemy can generate their power. Because if, because they can reach out further than you, if you're not getting in close and they're going to generate that power and get that full, full reach punch into you before and you can't even defend it, yeah, all right, you can't counter it without getting closer.

Pastor Ryan: 8:15

So um what does David opt for A sling right? Now when when I remember being taught as a kid and maybe I wasn't, they never specified so because I'm a kid, my what my mind immediately went to was a sling shot from like Dennis the menace.

Imran: 8:32

Yeah, like the Y shape with the rubber, right, you know rubber wasn't invented yet. Yeah, right, but like that's what you're thinking right, literally not possible for them to use that. That's what I always thought of.

Pastor Ryan: 8:41

David using as a sling, right? Yeah, Um, that's not the case. What David chose was in terms of a sling. It's like an overhead sling that you swing around really fast.

Imran: 8:51

And it was, it was a legitimate weapon yeah. That is a real thing that we used to do and actually I think it's judges chapter Great. Youtube videos out there, by the way, of people that have mastered that in the modern day. If you want to see how devastating this weapon is like, you can look it up.

Pastor Ryan: 9:03

Judges chapter 20 actually talks about 700 slingers from the tribe of Benjamin who were so good. It says they're all left-handed and they, they could hit the sense. I forgot the term it uses, but essentially he says that you know it could hit. They could hit any point that they wanted with these things. Wow, so that gave him proxemics, right, that was his first problem, so that was the weapon he chose. You look at that as like the first rifles, like that's how effective they were.

Imran: 9:28

Okay, so let's like yeah, you can get into it. Get into it, yeah, you got it, you got it.

Pastor Ryan: 9:31

Okay, so that was the other misnomer, right Is that? I always kind of thought it was the swing, like Dennis, the menace and you're talking about these little pebbles right and they're not. You're talking about a baseball to softball shape stone.

Imran: 9:43

It actually says in there. He went and got these specific like river rocks. They went down to the water. Now, why do you think he went to the river rocks?

Pastor Ryan: 9:49

Smooth Because they're smooth.

Imran: 9:51

Aerodynamic. God's already prepping for you.

Pastor Ryan: 9:53

Right, that's how because they're smooth, they're aerodynamic, which made him more accurate, right? So that's what I'm saying I would this whole battle just intrigues me from that but it gets the five smooth stones.

Imran: 10:06

They're all you know, saul probably had slingers Like that's probably a. He probably had people that did this, like I'm sure they weren't surprised that David rolled up there with a sling, like that this had to be something. No, no, no, nobody was nobody questioned With a question.

Pastor Ryan: 10:20

Was him going out there without armor? Nobody questioned the weapon he chose.

Selena: 10:23

Right.

Pastor Ryan: 10:24

That's made sense to them, right? Especially if they're looking at the statue of David, right? Yeah, so let me read, because this is what it says. So as the Philistine moved closer to attack him, david ran quickly towards the battle line to meet him.

Selena: 10:37

So Wait, where are?

Pastor Ryan: 10:39

we at. Oh, I'm sorry, that was a verse 48 of chapter 17. So there were standards to this right. If you're going to do a champion versus champion, it's just kind of one of those honorable rules, right, there's a battle line where you go meet to fight in between right the battle Everybody should see. Okay, so one disadvantage that Goliath has compared to David because David's not weighed down this is not only does David get proxemics, but he gets what.

Imran: 11:03

Speed, Speed right or in a moment. What is it? Momentum? What is the word we use?

Pastor Ryan: 11:08

Well, momentum is kind of a combat term to discuss, like maintaining a pace.

Imran: 11:13

Tempo. That's what I'm looking for, because that's relative speed, speed relative to the end, Right Tempo.

Pastor Ryan: 11:17

So but what it says is that he used one. He saw his disadvantage in terms of armor, so he countered that with proxemics, with a sling. The second thing he did was he used his speed to rush to the battle line To increase his tempo. Why rush to the battle line? Because it's taking Goliath longer, because he's weighed down and he has all the gear.

Pastor Ryan: 11:39

So it says as he's moving towards him right, slowly, slower, david has a window that he is able to engage, in terms of proxemics, goliath, before Goliath can engage him. This is why tempo is so important in warfare. You see what I'm saying. So he rushes out there to start slinging this thing right Now. Exploit, exploit, exploit. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead and he fell face down on the ground. Okay, so let's stop there, because here's another misnomer, I think, and every bit of Christian art and every bit of Now, just keep in mind these stones that are about softball size. Yeah, what does that mean when you hit brass?

Pastor Ryan: 12:25

Well, when you hit brass and forth to be sunken into your forehead. Think about he's big. No, I want to make something very clear, so I want to give you this little Hold on real quick.

Imran: 12:38

So well, we were moving, oh sorry. Well, we were getting ready to go home for our little Christmas leave. We were helping our friends move and we were tensioning oh, I was tensioning a ratchet strap in the back of his moving band and Selena, in her love and grace, came up behind me to ask me a question and just as she did so, the tension snapped on the ratchet strap and that strap came flipped behind me. So this is a metal maybe one and a half pound hook on this strap and it flipped around and it actually snapped Selena in the forehead and we had to go to the ER. She got a little bandage on her face and all that.

Selena: 13:13

And cleaned up. Great memory.

Imran: 13:17

So you actually have very recent experience of a blunt object hitting you at some decent speed.

Pastor Ryan: 13:25

Well, let's talk about this, okay, because it gets a little bit more. I think it could mean the forehead, like what we think of forehead, right, I'm just highlighting that that was like a pound and a half, like this, like River Rock hitting you at much higher speed.

Imran: 13:39

Like what's that doing to you?

Pastor Ryan: 13:40

Probably didn't feel good, right. So I want to note one thing, though, okay, because if you keep reading, it says so David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, without a sword in his hand. He struck down the Philistine and killed him Verse 51 though David ran and stood over him, he took hold of the Philistine sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. So essentially, he knocks David down, but then steals David's or knocks Goliath down. He steals Goliath's sword and beheads him.

Selena: 14:14

Yeah right.

Pastor Ryan: 14:14

That's how he eventually kills him. So the point I'm trying to make is this One an oddity that always never made sense to me, which is why I studied it and I found some cool things, but a softball sized stone. Now you could sling that stone. They set on average about between 60 and 80 miles an hour. Okay, but that's still not fast enough to get a stone that big lodged into somebody's head. It's enough to maybe hit them and knock them out, that's for sure, but not necessarily for it to get lodged, like the text says. It got lodged In the forehead right.

Pastor Ryan: 14:51

Sank into or sank into right.

Imran: 14:53

So Um, this is what I found. How many game of thrones like imagery popping in my head, you know how I was talking.

Pastor Ryan: 14:59

That like, for example, like and walking dead paylilu, hebrew and this time did not have a word for lightening. So it was fire from god right. Similarly, they did not have a word for sheath. So the bronze sheath that he had on his shin but if you look kind of think about what a sheath on your shins look like for armor, see how it is kind of smooth like this. It has a forehead Right, so the same term it uses for the forehead is the same term it uses to describe his bronze sheaths.

Imran: 15:30

Oh, on his, on his knee and ankle area right.

Pastor Ryan: 15:32

So, um, a way that you can maybe just literally read that for us Okay would be he wore bronze foreheads on his legs. Okay, does that make sense? Yeah, now, why does that? Important? Because a couple things that we learned is that whenever the stone struck him, this is that he fell. Which way Forward forward? Right now and I I've seen this you could hit somebody in the head with enough force If they're moving towards you fast enough to where they would fall forward.

Pastor Ryan: 16:01

Right Generally depending on he fell face down on the ground. If you are standing Right or moving slowly towards with Glythe probably would have been. He probably would have been deliberately moving forward, but not at high speed. Getting rocked in the head like that. Where do you think his head's gonna go?

Pastor Ryan: 16:16

physics says Snap backwards, and if he's gonna fall because it knocks him out, where is he probably gonna fall? On his back? On his back or on the side, right? So that's kind of like an anomaly that I'm like that. This is what I found it, if the forehead of the sheath it's the same word, right, yeah, and I think what it's actually painting. This is my personal opinion, because both are possible. I just want to make that clear. Both are possible. But I think makes the most sense though, I think, what it's describing and there's another thing here I'm going to hit in a second. But when you are walking and it creates that space between your kneecap and the joint um, when you have the, the sheath on your on your your leg, you move forward and your nend, your um knee, bends as you're walking. I think, when it talks about the stone getting lodged in the sheath, that it hit him on the kneecap and the stone got lodged in between the space between the knee and that space of the sheath as it was exposed.

Pastor Ryan: 17:10

So even if he wanted to keep walking forward, he couldn't, because it was lodged in there.

Pastor Ryan: 17:15

It kept him so on top of the damage, right, he's also got wracked in the knee with a stone at about 68 miles an hour, which could have shattered and broke his kneecap probably did um, but even if he wanted to stand up and keep going, it would have been lodged and kept him right. And here's the other interesting I found when it says that he fell face down, that's not actually really what it says Um. The Hebrew word that's used there is kara. What it actually means is to bow down. So the idea is that when he got hit, his knee went down like he was bowing.

Imran: 17:46

Okay, you see what I'm saying.

Pastor Ryan: 17:48

So, um, which, obviously, which also Gives you the impression that he did not Get knocked out Right, um, and what probably happened because of speed, is that it hit his knee, got lodged within the sheath.

Imran: 18:02

Shattered him up and turned in the next end.

Pastor Ryan: 18:05

He falls down like in the bowing position. What he's probably trying to do at that moment Is kind of reached to kind of get a sword out. That's when david's able to come around, run around and and outmaneuver him and get that sword and whack him right.

Imran: 18:18

So Um hitting what that combined arms maneuver, what does?

Pastor Ryan: 18:20

that matter to anything. The most important thing that the author makes now it could be either or right, maybe was the actual in between the eyes, um, I think it was probably more towards the knee. You could whatever you want on that right.

Pastor Ryan: 18:34

Yeah but the important point that the author makes is how he kneeled. Okay, and here's why. And this is ultimately the warning that I think the difference between why did god just sacrifice go I, did he not love goliath? Right, because all the philistines were profaning god, you know. I mean, they were all chairing goliath on. Here's the difference. I want you to go to first, samuel, chapter five.

Pastor Ryan: 18:56

This happened earlier on in the war. Okay, this has been an ongoing war between israel and the philistines. Okay, and Earlier on in the war, the philistines had some military success. I'm gonna start in verse one. It says now, after the philistines had captured the ark of god Whoops, so the ark of the covenant was captured. Okay, now remember, the ark of the covenant, symbolically, had always been what you'd call the mercy seat of god. The top of the. The ark Was what was believed is, that's where God sat down, that that was the throne, is, in a way, right on earth. That that that's where God resided, right? So they captured the ark of God. They took it from eboniser to ashdod. Then they carried the ark into daegon's temple and set it beside daegon. Right, this is the god that um goliath is fighting in the name of. Okay.

Imran: 19:49

When the people of ashdod arose early the next day.

Pastor Ryan: 19:52

There was daegon fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the lord. Notice the emphasis of the exclamation point. But what it really?

Pastor Ryan: 20:01

says Is that they found Daegon Kara before Bowling before the lord, the ark of the of the lord. So the same word that it used for Daegon bowing before the ark is the same term used here for goliath Bowling down in this fight with david. Okay, now keep reading. They took daegon and put him back in his place, but the following morning when they rose, there was daegon fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the lord. But this time is something's different. You notice His head In hands have been broken off. We're lying on the threshold and only his body remained.

Selena: 20:44

Oh wow.

Pastor Ryan: 20:45

So now let's fast forward to the fight, with david and goliath. Right here, he is profaning. I'm gonna fight on behalf of daegon. You're gonna fight on behalf of ya'll way. We're gonna fight this fight right? Why didn't they? Well, they were fighting on behalf of daegon. Why didn't date? Why didn't goliath get any mercy from god on this? Because god had already defeated daegon. There had already been an experience earlier, not bloody, yet God had given the philistines everything at that moment to recognize your god bowed before me.

Pastor Ryan: 21:18

Yeah in the second time you put him back up, I beheaded him and I chopped off his limbs. I dismembered your god as he laid right in Before me at the ark like this, got them in such fear that they moved the ark out of the temple. Right, they were afraid. So they had every all the information to already know that daegon had been defeated by ya'll way. So here's goliath profaning ya'll way again, trying to fight on behalf of a defeated God. And then that's fine, okay, you're gonna die like your God then, right? So why does David behead him? Because, just as he was bowing Kara before David, just as Dagon, the statue, was bowing before the Ark of the Covenant, god chopped his head off. Here comes David, remembering that same experience, lobbed off Goliath's head and probably dismembered the rest of his body too, by the way.

Imran: 22:11

Yeah.

Pastor Ryan: 22:12

Yeah, does that make sense?

Imran: 22:14

Yeah, I'm also reading through the rest of First Samuel 5. And it's crazy Like they are like let's move the Ark to this other city, to Goth.

Pastor Ryan: 22:23

He takes the Goth, and there's all these plagues and they're like let's get this out of here, and they move it to Aragon. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Goth was also. What does it say about Goliath? Goth was the hometown of Goliath. So he had already been victim of these plagues the whole point was that God was bringing in to the Philistine camps and across that entire area and it was being moved from city to city to city.

Imran: 22:45

It was so real to them that like we have to get this Ark out of here and then eventually return it.

Pastor Ryan: 22:49

But he was showing them his superiority and he's still, in their defiance, decided to stand against them and profane them. Then he finally says okay, if you've made your choice, you've had all the information possible. You've made your choice, of which God you stand with. You will now die with your God Does that make sense.

Imran: 23:06

And then, yeah, ultimately they just return it to Israel too, which after seven months, they just give it back. It's crazy. Go and read 1 Samuel, 5 and 6. It's awesome.

Pastor Ryan: 23:15

It's intense Again. God trolling right.

Imran: 23:18

But he also gave my-. He's moving from city to city. He's saying like we gotta get this out of here, and they just give it back.

Pastor Ryan: 23:22

But I don't want to gloss over this right. God had given them every opportunity, all the information to know.

Imran: 23:29

And so when he comes profaning, it's like it's from a perspective of knowing Right and it says fine.

Pastor Ryan: 23:35

If your allegiance is gonna be with that God and you're going to stand against me, you will go die with your God. You're gonna die like your God, right? So just as I had beheaded Dagon and dismembered him, goliath now stands on behalf of his God on behalf of Dagon is okay. If you're gonna fight on behalf of Dagon, you're gonna die like Dagon, and he got his head chopped off, probably dismembered the exact same way, and David knew this, and that was also the experience he was drawing from, but that entire Israel army should have also remembered. You see what I'm saying. It was such a lack of faith. But I think the big warning to us, though, is that when we have our gods and God has given us all the information to understand, that's not your God, but if you're gonna align yourself to that God, you're gonna die with your God, and that's essentially judgment right.

Imran: 24:27

You're gonna destroy your life, destroy your job, destroy your marriage, following that God instead of following the real.

Pastor Ryan: 24:33

God, you align yourself with the gods of your life and that's who you ultimately wanna choose to serve. You decide to it.

Imran: 24:38

You'll die with them, right and Look at all the people pursuing money, pursuing wealth above all else, and how they destroy everything about themselves and the people around them. And then they look back on your life and like what was that worth really? You got all this money, but what else? Well and I think your kids hate you, your wife hates you, your husband hates you.

Pastor Ryan: 24:55

There seems to always be this and we hate this, right, but anything in your life that is has supreme affection over God. That's the very thing that he's gonna come out and expose and expect you to give up, right? So one of the parables of Jesus is the rich young ruler. The rich young ruler right Now he comes. Now Jesus makes it very clear in his other teachings that money is something that could be used just as much for good as it could be for evil. That's why he doesn't say the root of all evil is money. It's the love of money, right. So? But for this rich young ruler, he kinda knew this man's heart and he said this young ruler was an observant Jew. He says I keep all the commandments I do, but he wanted to guarantee how do I ensure I make it into the kingdom of heaven?

Pastor Ryan: 25:46

What can I do? What big charitable thing can?

Imran: 25:48

I do with my money. I've done a lot, but just let me know if I'm doing enough. Right, but how can I?

Pastor Ryan: 25:52

guarantee my place in the kingdom of heaven. He was expecting Jesus to say well, go build this with the temple, fund this with the temple.

Imran: 26:00

something I mean, and what he says it's also like I wonder what he had been told up to that point before Jesus confronted him in this, because that may have been what he was taught up to that point. Well, I think what was?

Pastor Ryan: 26:13

taught what he was probably of the. He was probably of the rabbinical camp of Haleel or Shema'i, which, again, didn't necessarily discourage money, but it was very much one. That was like. You know, it can't be the supreme source of affection for your life.

Pastor Ryan: 26:33

Okay, jesus comes in knowing that it is the supreme source of affection for his life. He says, okay, if you want to follow me, if you want to guarantee your place in the kingdom, sell everything you have, give it to the poor and come follow me. But there's other people he doesn't ask that of, right. There's this whole group of women who are financially supporting him throughout his entire ministry. He doesn't ask them to do that.

Pastor Ryan: 26:55

Why does he ask this man to do it but not these other people? It's because those other people they may have had money, but that wasn't the supreme affection of their heart for this man it was. That's why it says that this man walks away saddened, cause he knew. He knew that what he was just asked to do was like who his God really was, which was money, Right, and that's what God attacks. So if, whatever the supreme affection or God of your life is, that's gonna be the very thing that God's like, I'm gonna destroy all that for you at the sake of following me. You know what I mean and that's why you see things play so uniquely in people's lives, cause we all have different affections for different things at different levels. Right, but he destroys the things that we place above him. In this particular case, goliath had all the information to know at this point Yahweh was superior.

Pastor Ryan: 27:53

Yeah and he stood defiant against him. He says you're gonna go die with your God, then You're gonna die the same way, right? So you look at the Israelites and the only reason that something similar didn't happen to them is cause he was in covenant with them. Right, and he's like I'm gonna be faithful even when you're unfaithful to me. Right, but you still see this ploy of God also trying to expose to the Philistines? Right, if you remember, you brought up Jericho earlier. Right, the spies go into Jericho. And you have Rahab, who's like we are all in great fear, cause we've heard of everything that God has done for you guys in the wilderness, and now you are here and we know we can't beat you. They all had the Jericho was the same way. They all had the same information. You have this Rahab, who recognized it, took that information and responded appropriately to it, and she was spared.

Pastor Ryan: 28:49

You know, what I'm saying. That is God's judgment, right. We miss this sometimes. We always look at judgment as this kind of dirty thing, in a way like not dirty, but sometimes To be judged is to be like it's scary right, but we also miss. That blessing is also judgment.

Imran: 29:05

Yeah.

Pastor Ryan: 29:06

Christ teaches like you reap with what you sow, so when God blesses you, it's also the outcome of faithfulness. He says it's not that he just blesses you cause he loves you, which he does, but it's also in certain regards I'm blessing you, because it's just what you've done. It would be unjust of me not to bless you, right? So judgment plays out in blessing just as much as it plays out. And these right.

Imran: 29:34

The Bible talks about the crowns you receive, that the house that he's preparing for you. It's like that's based on how you're living your life now and that service you're giving now. So God's got these blessings based off of his judgment of the things that you're doing now, right, and so it's not like you need to do good things in order to get into heaven. That's not the point, but the Bible does talk about that. Your blessings are stored in heaven based off of the things that you do now.

Pastor Ryan: 30:03

The idea is that you If you live a life.

Pastor Ryan: 30:05

You serve Christ because he's worthy, knowing that you're going to mess up sometimes, knowing that you're not always going to get it right, but the supreme affection of your heart is serving Christ. And I guess my point being is that I think the warning for people is that God has destroyed many gods, all throughout scripture. Take any God and he has wiped it out, and I don't mean just in a literal sense, between whether it's Dagon or Baal or Zeus or you guys were doing the seven churches. Study right the Bible said we were doing.

Pastor Ryan: 30:42

We talk about all the different pantheon gods that are existing within that whole context. He's wiping all those out in the book of Revelation, like Apollo being one of the central figures of Revelation that he's destroying. There's a literal sense of God that he's wiped out, but then there's also the money, fame, power all those things.

Pastor Ryan: 31:05

All those things that he's like, I've destroyed. That too, a good example. In the book of Exodus it's a whole story with Pharaoh. Did you guys know that? The actual name of the book of Exodus? You know what it's called?

Imran: 31:19

To depart, isn't it? Exodus is to leave.

Pastor Ryan: 31:21

Well, that's what it means, but that's not the actual original name of the book.

Imran: 31:25

Oh, the original name of the book of Exodus. I had no idea the actual Hebrew name of the book of Exodus.

Pastor Ryan: 31:28

So you know what the real name of the Hebrew, the plague book, I don't know. The book of names.

Selena: 31:34

What.

Pastor Ryan: 31:34

Oh, I've heard that before. Yeah, go read Exodus and notice who is named and who is not, Because one of the biggest points remember name means character right. Yahweh gives us his name in Exodus. It mentions the midwives who refused to kill the Hebrew babies. It mentions them by name. Pharaoh is not mentioned by name one time. It's just the Pharaoh. It's just Pharaoh. But Moses is mentioned by name, right, the most powerful, the most rich, the most famous, the most influential, yeah, most influential of all, the kingdom of Egypt, his name is not even mentioned.

Pastor Ryan: 32:13

He destroys every God, not just the. He doesn't just destroy raw and you know a therapist, and all them, but he also destroys the other Gods money, fame, power, pride, all put to shame under his subjugation.

Imran: 32:27

You know what I'm saying.

Pastor Ryan: 32:29

And I think it's a good reminder for us to remember that God has given me all the information to respond appropriately. What do I do in my response, then, to what I know? Right, taking responsibility, ability to respond. Do I take responsibility for what I know and how I'm living? And if I am living towards means that it's outside of the glory of Christ, I better get back in there, right, because I will die with my God and I don't want to die with him. I want to live eternally with my God, not die with my false God.

Imran: 33:03

Yeah. I mean absolutely so yeah, David Goliath, that was fantastic. I really appreciate the discussion. For those listening in the group. I've been waiting for Ryan to like do this discussion with us for like four months because I remember the Sunday he came to church and he was like, oh, you just come back from like your business trip because you were studying on the plane and you're like there's all these great things that I learned about David Goliath while I was flying on this plane.

Imran: 33:28

I was, and he just been kind of giving me tidbits over the last few months he preached it to the youth and he was kind of telling us how that went and some of the questions that they had asked. And so now to finally get this, the full picture of this sermon that you've really been working through over the last like three or like, maybe like three or four months. I'm so glad.

Selena: 33:49

I'm glad.

Pastor Ryan: 33:51

And you will die with your God. It's not if your God is not Yahweh right. Another big piece is adults, right Men, taking responsibility to what they should be.

Imran: 34:05

Yeah.

Pastor Ryan: 34:06

Right. Part of the reason our culture is the way it is is just a failure of adults to take responsibility.

Imran: 34:11

Yeah.

Pastor Ryan: 34:12

They have not assumed responsibility of what they they need to take responsibility for, and people need to start being more responsible, not just in their faith, but in everything. Right, yeah, and so you know in marriage, like the amount of people who do not take appropriate responsibility as a husband or a wife even the way the English is written take responsibility.

Imran: 34:36

It's not a way to you'll fall into responsibility or just give it. No, it says go out and take responsibility. It's like you know what you should be taking responsibility over that, whether it be your kids, your marriage, your job, your, your church life, your inner thoughts, all that. It's like, okay, go out and take it, actually take ownership and do the work and do the things that you need to do to take that responsibility.

Pastor Ryan: 35:00

Right, right. But to summarize though back on, you know, real Bible stories brand here. Not really one about giants, right, it's one about men with great stature, experience, and who are well equipped, but not well equipped, experienced or stature, to fight the fights that need to happen. Yeah, right, and you could say it to underdog story. But Goliath's the underdog, right, because he's the one who's standing in defiance against the one true God versus, you know, adopting his. There's no other way that could have happened.

Imran: 35:37

Yeah.

Pastor Ryan: 35:37

You know what I mean. Like when you stand like that in defiance against, against God, you get crushed.

Imran: 35:43

You know what I'm saying, like what happens.

Pastor Ryan: 35:45

Like God's not going to surrender his character for the sake of you going on and living in your rebellion. Yeah Right. If you give him that ultimatum, right, this is what happens you die with your God. You're already beheaded, you know. So my point being is I hope that this has helped mature people a little bit.

Imran: 36:04

Yeah.

Pastor Ryan: 36:05

Into the story of David and Goliath instead of it just being this, you know, pick pocket story of go defeat your giants. It wasn't really about David defeating his giant Go have faith. It was about God's people fighting the fight. God told him, this is fighting God's fights, yep, the way he told us to put on the full armor of the Lord. It's about responsibility. That that's honestly what this whole thing is. Just about taking responsibility.

Imran: 36:30

Absolutely All right, Ryan. Thank you so much for teaching us today. Selena, thanks for hanging out, missed you guys.

Selena: 36:37

Yeah, it's been a bit. We got to do this more often. Yeah, it's always. I don't know what the word is. It's like feeling.

Imran: 36:46

Yeah, if you feel You're juveniles, yeah, yeah.

Selena: 36:49

Yeah, even if it's like intense, it's like okay, this is good. Like you said, it's much better. Yeah, I feel filled.

Imran: 36:56

I feel like I'm going into the week with the right mindset and I hope that you all listening are also filled and continue. It's deep right, so you can keep thinking about it, keep working through it as you go through the week, like I don't expect you to sit here for an hour and a half and just like go all at once. Even when I listen back to these, I listen over the course of the week and I engage with that throughout the time. So I hope you are enjoying our discussion today and we'll see you next week.

Selena: 37:25

Thank you for tuning in to Real Bible Stories. If you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to leave a review, share and subscribe to be notified each week when we upload new episodes. Real Bible Stories is produced in partnership with Palm's Church in 29 Palms, california. If you would like more information or want to check out archive sermons and Bible studies, please check out the church website at palmsbaptistchurchcom, or check them out on Facebook, instagram or YouTube. Real Bible Stories can be found wherever podcasts are found. Thank you again and we will see you next week.