Michael Youssef - Learning to Face Giants
I think, if we're honest with ourselves, every one of us would say that there is a Goliath in each of our lives. And these Goliaths are there to harass us. They're there to mock us. They're there to discourage us. They're there to keep us from accomplishing and doing great things for God, which is the purpose of God in our lives. Unless we learn how to slay these giants, whatever they may be, Satan is gonna use them. He's gonna use them to discourage us, he's gonna use them to defeat us, and whether these giants are the giants of fear, anxiety, and worry, and discouragement, and despondency, whether these giants are the giants of addiction, or restlessness, or envy, or bitterness, or anger, whatever they may be.
And, make no mistake about it, Satan is behind them all. But they have one purpose in mind, that is to render the children of the Living God to be ineffective and not to be the army of the Living God. The question is, how do we defeat these giants, whatever they may be? This giant is a type of Satan. This is a type of battle between Satan and the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear me out on this one. Whatever your Goliath may be, whatever Goliath you have in your life, he is Satan's champion, and he is Satan's emissary to harass us, and to defeat us. Well, David represents the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God's champion, and he defeated Goliath, and killed him, and became victorious, why? Because David was the foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the chief shepherd, who knocked Satan's teeth when he died on that cross. David put a stone in that sling, and when that stone landed in the forehead of Goliath, he yelled out, "Timber".
You see, when David put that stone in that sling, he was foreshadowing the solid rock upon whom the church is built. Jesus is the one who, on the cross, defeated Satan. He actually crushed his head just as the Bible prophesied. Jesus is the one who defeated Satan, and he defeats every giant that harasses every one of his children. The problem is, so many of God's children don't know that. They don't know that when Jesus died on that cross, he gained the victory for every one of his children. Jesus is the one who destroyed the power of sin and death. Jesus is the one who knocked Satan's teeth just as he promised in Genesis. Right after that victory, right after David's victory over the giant, he sat down, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he wrote Psalm 8. I hope you'll turn with me to Psalm 8. "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens," go.
Be seated, please. After the great victory, David sat, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and penned this song of victory. And in that song of victory, he does basically two things. He begins by the surpassing majesty of God, can you say that with me? "The surpassing majesty of God". And when you have taken account of the surpassing majesty of God comes the second one, and that is, you're gonna have a sober measurement of man. Man, at that point, becomes in his rightful place, in her rightful place.
What David is saying here is this, listen carefully, that you will never, and I will never, that we will never understand human beings. We will never understand the complexity of humanity. We'll never understand the complexity of relationships unless we see them as God sees them. That you and I will never understand human beings, or humanity, unless we see them as God's own handiwork, creation. We will never understand human beings unless we recognize that they have responsibility to their Creator. That's why we're in trouble we're in today. The reason we have turmoil in society, all of communities, and churches, and family relationships, when they fail to have this perception, when they fail to have this perspective.
And so, you begin with the surpassing majesty of God. Every problem that any of us will face, whatever it may be, whether it's political, or social, or economical, or relational, in terms of relationship, they're all getting worse, did you know that? But do you know why? Because we are trying to understand man and the problems that we're facing without understanding God and his purpose for life. Now, beloved, we can only have sober measurement of humanity, and of human beings, and of the human problems, and all the relationship problems that we have, we can only have that sober judgement only when we have understanding of the surpassing majesty of God. If you'll start with God's surpassing majesty, he will give you the proper view. He will give you the answers and you'll be able to have a sober measurement.
Many a church today, many a Christian today begin with studying the problems and struggling to find solutions to the problems, whether it be in relationships, and whether it be in ministry, or whether it be in dealing with one another, and that is why David began with God. And that's why you and I must begin with God. Verse 1, "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth". That's where you start. This is where you begin. This is where you need to go. And some of you might be discouraged and just really living in a life of discouragement, I understand that.
Some of you are defeated right now in this life, and in your circumstances, and what you're facing, you're facing defeat. Some of you, right now, right down depressed, I understand that. Call upon the name of the Lord, and don't stop calling until he hears you and answers you from heaven, amen? Beloved, there is power in the name of the Lord. There is strength in the name of the Lord. There is victory in that name. There is mercy and there is grace in that name. And David is really saying a lot more than this. He's saying that when you look at creation and you see all of its majesty, and you see its magnificence, you are only seeing a very, very, very pale approximation of the true majesty of God. If you ever catch a glimpse of God's glory and majesty, you would be praising him every waking moment.
According to Psalm 8 verse 2, every infant babe is praising God. Mom and Dad, even when that babe cry in the middle of the night, you need to rejoice, 'cause he's praising God. I know you don't think so when you wake up in the middle of the night, but if you think about it this way, it'll be a lot easier. The Lord Jesus Christ himself quoted this verse. He quoted it to the self-righteous Pharisees, hypocrites, he said, "From the lips of children, he ordained praise". David came into the battlefield and he said to Goliath, who was mocking, he is actually mocking God by mocking his people. You remember when Paul, on the road to Damascus, and he has an encounter with the risen Christ? He did not say to him, "Paul, why are you persecuting the church"? Go home and read it.
Do you know what he said to him? "Why are you persecuting me"? You see, Goliath was mocking the God of Israel, and David said, "Who is this Philistine who is mocking my God"? Now, his older brothers were trying to shut him down and shut him up, that's always the case, isn't it, with those who have the spirit of unbelief, those who have a critical spirit? In our culture, we probably don't criticize, we just ignore. Poor saps, they're trying to discourage the boy. "Can't you see his size? He'll hurt you, boy". If you read any of my recent books, you know I believe with all my heart that this moment in history, in which we live, it's the high noon, and the faithful remnant are standing on the one side, and the forces of evil on the other side.
And I am absolutely convinced that when I see terrorists are converted and becoming evangelists, and I see Christians in America, and in Europe, and in the West are seeking entertainment rather than the pure Word of God, I am convinced that the great apostasy is upon us. That God is gathering his remnant from all over the globe, literally from all over the globe. He's gathering his people. He's beginning to separate the sheep from the goats. And therefore, I wanna have a word with those armies of the Living God, the faithful believers. I want to call upon you, give up vacillating between God and the world. Give up vacillating between entertainment and worship. Give up vacillating between being hot and cold, and ending up being lukewarm, give up.
And it is time to be zealous for God's righteousness. It is time to be zealous for God's name. It is time to learn how to appropriate the power of God. It is time to appropriate the name of our God. It is time to start appropriating the promises of God. This is the time in which we live. It's time to stop wanting to be accepted by the enemies of Christ. There's so many people want to be accepted so badly, they compromise everything they knew to be true, even the very gospel itself. Beloved, listen to me, appeasement has never converted anyone to Christ. It is time to stop wanting to be loved by everybody. Let me have a word with those who feel defeated today, those who are despondent, those who are discouraged, the discouraged army of the Living God. It is time to rise up and be the army of the Living God. But, there's something here I don't want you to miss.
When David slayed Goliath, he used Goliath's sword to do the job. Listen to me, within every problem you're facing, within every giant Goliath that's challenging you, there is a weapon for you to use to defeat that problem, an amen belongs here. You need to ask God to show you how to find it, and God will, he will. I say that with confidence, because I've been there a few times. Every time I see people falling for the lies and the deceptions, and they said, "Oh, we just want to win them to Christ," you don't become like them to win them to Christ, that's God's work, let God do his job. Now, by all means, love them, but don't conform to them.
David understood, from there it follows. A sober measurement of man, a sober measurement of man. Secularism, which is this life, everything is this life, everything focused on this life, as you know, I don't have to tell you, is dominating. Here's the thing that makes me awake at night and weep. It has invaded the church. Everything in preaching today is about this life. Your best life is now, give me a break, that's what heaven is gonna be like. That's why we look forward to heaven, because that's the best life that's yet to come. "When I look at your heaven and the work of your fingers, the moon, the stars, which you have established, what is man that you are mindful of him"?
Here's what David is saying after defeating Goliath. He's saying, "God, when I think of the billions of galaxies, when I see the vastness of your creation, and when I see the delight that comes from these starts that have taken billions of years to travel to get to us, when I see all of that, I am absolutely flabbergasted," well, it's a Youssef translation, but that's what he means. "I am flabbergasted at the fact that the God of that universe, the God who made it all, the God who orders it all, the God who maintains it all, the God who sustains it all, cares not only for every single human being, but for every single hair of his children".
David is really saying more than that, he's saying the very God who created the vast universe has given human beings a higher priority than all of the galaxies. David is saying, "Lord, it's mind-boggling, it's mind-boggling for me that you are more interested in every single one of your creation than the planets that you flung across the orbits. Lord, it's mind-boggling that you are interested more in souls than in stars. Lord, it's mind-boggling that you are more interested in me than the universe, it's overwhelming, it's overwhelming". But, God said, through David, in Psalm 8 verse 5, "Man is crowned by God with glory and honor".
The Bible said that God created men and women in his own image. That God created men and women to reflect his glory. That God created men and women as rational beings, and that is why God created men and women to be very different from the rest of creation. That God created men and women as separate and apart from the rest of creation. Thomas Aquinas, in the medieval times, explained Psalm 8 this way. He said, "Man is a midway between angels and animals, angels above man, animals below man". Angels have spirits but no bodies, animals have bodies but no spirit; and yet, man has a body and spirit.
Now, I don't think Aquinas was thinking Biblically, but be that as it may, the Bible teaches that men and women were given a special privilege to be able to look up beyond the created being, beyond the angles that God created, that when man is able to look up to the Creator, God, he will imitate God, but when he looks down at the animals, he's gonna exhibit beast-like behavior. We're seeing it right now. The reason the merchants of the theory of evolution are selling very hard these days is because they want men and women to cohabitate like animals. They are wanting us to behave like monkeys. The reason they want us to look down rather than look up is because they want us to be beast-like, not Godlike.
In fact, the Book of Daniel, you see king of Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar, when he turned his back on God, he became a beast. When the God of the Bible is rejected, and replaced, as we're seeing before our own eyes right now, animal-like people will rule these lands. The reason all of the secular humanism, from Hollywood to academia, to the media, they want to eliminate God, the God of the Bible, I'm talking about, from our collective conscious is because they want to live like animals with no moral boundaries. In fact, when that happens, people will behave like wild animal kingdom. Indeed, they are doing things and tolerating things that even animals do not tolerate.
And that is why God sent his one and only Son to save us from our willful ignorance, from our rebellion, and to fulfill Psalm 8. For it is Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of this Psalm. Beloved, the time is coming, says Hebrews chapter 2 verses 7 and 8, when God will put everything in subjection under Christ. The day is coming when those who love the Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of the harassing, regardless of the pain, regardless of the suffering, we're gonna be reigning and ruling with him in heaven.
The question is, whether you're here or you're watching around the world, are you gonna reign and rule with him? Will you cease to be a private and become the royal prince and princesses that you born to be, that you're born again to be? Without submitting to the authority, to the King of kings, here and now, without living in obedience and walking in the fear of the Lord, you will not do that, but you can be assured of victory here and now, and reigning and ruling with him for all of eternity on the throne with Jesus, and you can do that today, you can do that today.