And by the help of the Lord Church,
we ought to get back to where the
world knows we're saved, and we're salt and
light.
But I'm convinced that you're an unusual generation.
You know, those people that study demographics, and
they study the statistical world, they tell me
that if I go to Adam and Eve,
when Adam and Eve were created, up until
last night, and I take all those human
beings that have lived and died through last
night and add them up, and then I
take all the people that are alive on
planet Earth today and add them up, that
there are more people alive this moment on
the Earth than all the people that have
ever lived in the past.
Yet at the same time, it's a very
dark day and hour that we're in.
Very strange time.
But yet God loved you enough and had
enough plan and purpose for your life that
he wanted you to be alive right here
before the Lord comes back.
Now, why did he want us here?
Well, he says in his word, he wanted
us to be salt and he wanted us
to be light.
But the Bible also says that we have
an enemy, an adversary.
And that enemy's very real.
The enemy of the Lord does not want
you to live in victory.
He doesn't want you to have joy.
And he doesn't want you to be a
light when you go home to your neighborhood,
your family, your friends.
He doesn't want that.
So he uses everything he can to discourage
you.
He does everything he can to keep you
from living in the victory.
I want you to take your Bible and
look with me at Psalms 22, and I'm
going to talk to you for a few
moments about victory in the valley.
Can you go through a hard place and
still have the victory?
Psalms 22 is a very powerful psalm.
It's a prophetic psalm.
It looks forward to Calvary.
Let me, if you would allow me to
read this verse to you, verse 1.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?
Why art thou so far from helping me
and from the words of my roaring?
Alright, skip with me to Psalms 24, verse
1.
The earth is the Lord and the fullness
thereof, the world and they that dwell therein.
Psalms 22 is a picture of Mount Calvary.
Psalms 24, a picture of Mount Zion.
Now, I am from the mountains.
I love the mountains.
I live in western North Carolina, and I've
lived in several other places, but I love
the mountains.
I'm a mountain boy, and I like it.
And the reason I like the mountains is
because God lives there.
And I seem to have a skeptical crowd.
You don't find one verse of Scripture where
God says, I will lift my eyes into
the flatlands from which cometh my help.
I'll lift my eyes into the desert.
He says, I'll lift my eyes into the
hills.
Amen.
And there's something special about the mountains.
I love them.
But, you know, growing up in the mountains
and living there, I found out something about
the mountains.
My granddaddy spent a lot of time with
me in the mountains, the Great Smokies, and
we walked and hiked through there.
My great-great Uncle Tom Sexton was a
circuit-riding preacher, and he preached in Cades
Cove and Pigeon Forge and all through the
Great Smokies.
And my dad's family, we came out of
the part of east Tennessee and into western
North Carolina, and Uncle Tom, he would carry
his saddlebag on the back of his horse,
and one side he had an old black
-backed King James Bible, and on the other
side his smithing tools.
And he'd go from village to village and
farm to farm, and he would work on
the animals there, and then he'd preach the
Word of God at night.
And so granddaddy and I, we spent a
lot of time in the woods, and we
walked through there.
But I found out something.
I love the mountaintop.
I love living up there.
I love the view.
I love looking out.
But I found out that when it comes
time to be productive and to grow something
to eat, you don't do that on the
mountaintop.
You go down to the valley.
That's where the big boy tomatoes grow.
That's where the Kennebec potatoes are dug.
You don't grow greasy-cut short beans on
the top of that hill.
You grow them down in the valley where
the topsoil is 20 or 30 inches deep.
And there's where you have the big crops.
Well, look at Psalms 22.
That's Mount Calvary.
Psalms 24, Mount Zion.
But right between those two mountains is a
valley.
Psalms 23.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death.
Now, that valley's there.
It's in the Word of God.
And I got to looking through here, and
I got to thinking about valleys.
I've got two or three messages, maybe four,
that I preach out of Psalms 22, 23,
and 24.
It's one of my favorite places to study.
Psalms 22 is the Good Shepherd.
Psalms 23 is the Great Shepherd.
Psalms 24 is the Grand Shepherd or the
Chief Shepherd.
Another view of these three Psalms is Psalms
22 is that Mount Calvary.
And then the valley in Psalms 23.
And then Mount Zion in Psalms 24.
Now, when I study these passages, I find
out that these mountains are only connected by
the valleys.
When we have to live on this earth,
God saved you, God saved me, we're on
this planet Earth.
But we're still going to have to walk
through the valley.
Now, watch this.
There's a physical valley, and then there's an
emotional valley, and then there's a spiritual valley.
You're a threefold person, right?
You're a body, you're a soul, and you're
a spirit.
If the devil can attack you in one
area and get you weak, then he'll try
to hammer you in another area and make
you even weaker.
Have you ever had the Hong Kong Louie
flu?
I mean, have you ever had the real
bad flu?
I mean so bad that you can't stand
for the cat to walk in the room
because he's making so much noise, and the
light hurts, and you can't stand being alive.
And you're too sick to die.
You'd have to get better to die because
you've got to have a little strength to
die.
And you've had that, and you've been there.
That's when the devil shows up to tell
you you're not even a Christian.
That's when he shows up to get you
to doubt the inerrant, infallible Word of God.
Because we are complex.
So I can go into a physical valley.
I can go into a spiritual valley.
And I can go into an emotional valley.
Now listen to this preacher right here.
I believe between now and the coming of
the Lord, the greatest battles and valleys you
people of God are going to face is
going to be the battle between your ears.
I believe it's going to be for the
minds of God's people.
I believe with all the technology, and all
the medicine, and all that's happening today, I
believe more than being tested physically, or being
tested spiritually.
Because we've got the Word of God, and
we've got wonderful churches, and great southern gospel
music.
I mean, if I'm going through a tough
day or a bad time, I just go
next door and get my neighbor to sing.
It's Squire Parson.
So he does pretty good.
I've helped him, and he's coming right along.
But you can just enjoy a good song.
Do you not do that when you go
through a hard place, and how a song
can be a blessing, and God will use
something to encourage you?
Have you ever noticed the power of that
music?
That music can strengthen us, and it can
uplift us.
I do two or three messages on the
power of music, and music can depress you.
It can bring you down.
You know, you can put on some of
those old sad songs, and melancholy songs, and
next thing you know, that old CD's in
there whining and crying, and it's cold outside,
and dark clouds hanging on the back yard
trees, and you're all alone, and nobody cares.
Oh, it's crying time again.
You're going to leave me.
And those old sad songs are just playing,
and the next thing you know, you're sad,
and you're down.
Well, you know what?
If we can be affected in our emotions
by what we hear or what we see,
you think the devil has forgotten the power
that he could exert upon our lives to
get us to be defeated Christians?
He doesn't want us to have victory in
the valley.
He just wants us to be in the
valley.
Now, watch this with me if you would.
We find that in the Word of God,
there were several great struggles or battles in
the valley.
If you remember, there was a place in
the Word of God where the children of
Israel were fighting in the valley.
And up on the mountaintop, there was a
prayer meeting going on.
And the children of Israel were actually in
the war for their lives.
And when the man of God quit praying,
the enemy prevailed.
And he got so tired he couldn't hold
up his hands.
And you know what happened?
We had to have somebody hold up holy
hands so he could pray.
And when he did, guess what happened?
They prevailed in the valley.
They won and had victory in the valley.
Now, there's a double lesson there.
Number one, the power of prayer.
Number two is, you may be on a
mountaintop.
This may be a wonderful week for you.
You didn't have any problems when you left
home.
You didn't have anything bothering you, no stresses
in your life.
You'd just gotten a letter from the IRS
right before you left and said they was
refunding everything they'd taken out for the last
ten years.
They'd made a mistake.
And you said, I believe I'll just go
on a cruise.
And it hasn't rained and you've had a
good time.
And you're trying to get by on your
Atkins diet, just trying to survive.
Now, that may be you.
But what God's saying is, if you are
on a mountaintop, do you know someone in
a valley?
Because then we can pray and help hold
up those that are fighting for their lives
that's in a valley.
I've got a precious little couple in my
church.
Their son has had 42 operations.
He's got a rare bone disease.
His bones break and are very fragile.
And he trips and falls.
And obviously, he's in a wheelchair now.
But, you know, how do you go to
the surgery center 42 times for your child?
You know, I've got a precious deacon in
my church.
And he was actually in Duke Hospital with
his wife who was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
And I got a phone call to go
to the trauma center at our hospital.
And when I got there, I could hear
this child crying out in unbelievable pain.
And I went back into there and the
RN said, Pastor, is this kid a member
of your church?
And I said, yes.
He said, well, where are his parents?
I said, his mother's dying.
They're doing an experimental procedure down at Duke
University.
She said, well, the doctor needs to talk
to you.
I think his older brother or cousin brought
him into the ER.
And the doctor walked out and he said,
Reverend, he said, we've called for the life
flight helicopter.
We're going to fly this 10-year-old
boy down to Duke.
He said, he's got a brain tumor the
size of an orange.
He said, we don't expect him to live
through the night.
And I'm, listen, I had to get on
the phone and call my deacon, who's there
with his dying wife, and say, they just
found a brain tumor in your 10-year
-old son.
And they're flying him to meet you.
Now, I'm going to tell you something.
I think I've had some bad days, but
I haven't had a day like that.
Huh?
Listen, if you think you're in a valley,
I promise you if you look around, you'll
find somebody in a lower valley than you're
in.
And if you want God to bless you,
you love on somebody else that's going through
deep water.
And while you're praying for them and loving
on them, God will come by and hug
your neck.
And give you a little something to get
you through your day or through your long
night.
Now, church, we can either be very selfish
and turn inward, or we can look up
to heaven and say, God, I know there's
a reason I'm going through this valley.
Now, God, you help me pay attention.
I want to grow.
I want to mature.
I want to be more like you.
Watch what happened in the Word of God.
When we go down through these valleys, we
see that the mountain is a place of
rest.
It's a place for a view.
It's a place for relaxation.
The valley's a place of work, a place
of dedication, a place of planting, of watering,
of weeding and harvesting.
But it is also a place that you
bear fruit.
Sometimes while you're in your valley will be
the time that God shows you off, just
like He did Job, and say, I want
everybody to see how good I am, and
how wonderful I am, and how much mercy
and grace is available to the people of
God.
Now, whether it's a physical valley or a
spiritual valley, hey, all of us are that
triune being, a body, soul, and the spirit.
And the body, that physical valley, you know,
remember the Apostle Paul, he had the thorn
in the flesh.
Alright, it could be sickness, it could be
suffering, it could even be the pain or
the separation of death.
You see, if you've ever lost a loved
one, a mom, a dad, a brother, a
sister, a child, you know, I've got another
couple in my church, they have gone to
the cemetery, and in the last three years,
buried two adult children.
Now, I'm going to tell you something, they
lost their son and lost their daughter.
And I'm thinking, my goodness, how can any
family take that much pain and anguish?
But you know what, ladies and gentlemen, I
don't know what your valley may be.
It could be a spiritual valley.
The body, the spirit, it could be temptation,
it could be the battle, where is God,
why God?
It could be any number.
A loss of feeling.
Sometimes you can go to church and everyone
seems to be having a good time and
you can't find God.
And you read your Bible and all of
a sudden it's turned into black letters on
white pages.
And you try to pray and it seems
like the heavens are made of brass and
your prayer just rains back down on your
head.
Well, that's a valley.
My dad wrote a book about a valley
he went through.
It says, my God shall dwell in the
thick darkness.
He went through a spiritual place for seven
years that he could not feel any presence
of God.
Now, I couldn't go seven hours, let alone
seven days.
But he went through a period of time,
had to pastor a church, had to go
do revivals and camp meetings, and had no
feeling that there was even a God in
heaven.
Now, let me tell you something.
When those kind of battles come, those valleys,
those are overwhelming.
Those are unbelievable.
They're mind-boggling.
But aren't you grateful that we're not saved
by our emotions?
We're not saved by our feelings?
We're not kept by how we feel or
what we go through?
If we did, we'd lose our religion as
soon as we got the flu.
Right?
As soon as you got real sick, then
you would be out of fellowship of the
Holy God.
So, that's not the criteria.
It's what Jesus did on the cross 2
,000 years ago.
And then we've got that emotional side.
And that's what I wanted to emphasize tonight,
because as a pastor and as a man
that has the opportunity to meet a lot
of people, and a lot of the people
that I'm praying and working with are other
pastors and other people in ministry, and I'm
telling you this is what I'm hearing all
across the country.
I'm seeing God's people go through the battle
of depression.
I'm seeing God's people, people that are saved,
they love God, they read their Bible, they
go to church, and yet they're battling depression.
They're battling anxiety.
God's people going through panic attacks and anxiety
attacks.
Well, now let me tell you something.
If the devil can't defeat you, and he
can't distract you to go back into sin,
then one of the things he will try
to do is to use something that will
depress you spiritually.
And anything he can use.
Now you've got to remember that, because when
those times of testing and battle come, that
you're resting on the Word of God and
what God has said, not on what you're
feeling or what your emotions are telling you.
It's not what I say, it's what God
has said.
It's not what I do, it's what God
has already done.
And there's the strength for God's people tonight.
You can have a valley day, you can
have a valley week, you can have a
valley month, you can have a valley year.
But I want you to know the same
God that was on the throne and alive
and well when you went into that valley
is the same God that will be there
when you come out of that valley.
Now, go with me for the sake of
time.
I don't have time to develop all this
like I would in a study, but go
with me to 1 Samuel, in chapter 17.
And if you don't have your Bible with
you, you give a copy of the Scripture
text because you'll enjoy reading this.
Now, 1 Samuel 17, that's a very familiar
passage of Scripture.
That's the passage of Scripture where David encounters
Goliath.
Now, I'm going to read verse 2 and
verse 3 and notice what it says.
And Saul and the men of Israel were
gathered together and pitched by the valley of
Elah and set battle in a ray against
the Philistines.
Philistines, by the way, are a type of
the devil.
And the Philistines stood on the mountain on
one side and Israel stood on the mountain
on the other side.
Now, watch this, verse 3.
And there was a valley between them.
Philistines are on this side, children of Israel
on this side, and there's a valley between
them.
Now, that valley, Elah, has been in the
news recently.
There's a Jewish kibbutz in that valley.
I love going to the Holy Land.
I love studying over there.
And Maurice Templeton is the premier man to
get us over to the Holy Land and
take care of us and our safety and
our food and make sure that we just
have a Bible cruise on a bus in
the Holy Land.
Because that's what we do.
And we go make the Bible come alive
during the day and we have fellowship together
at night.
And one of the things that I like
is that valley of Elah because that's the
valley where David encountered Goliath.
But as I said, it was just in
the news because in that kibbutz we just
had a red cow born.
Now, a red cow is not a big
deal to us in the United States because
we've got hundreds of them, thousands of them
in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.
All kinds of red cattle.
But there hadn't been a red cow born
in Israel for 2,000 years.
And just three years ago we had a
red cow born in Israel and that cow's
name was Molly.
And that cow that was there was thought
to be the first red cow born that
could be used for the sacrifice for Israel
to start back on the Temple Mount and
to build the third temple, a house for
God, and a prophecy will be fulfilled in
the last days.
And to do that they've got to have
a red cow to slaughter and then they
burn that cow up on an altar outside
of the gates of Jerusalem and then they
take spring water, running water, and the ashes,
they mix it and then they dip a
hyssop into it and then they sprinkle that
on the priest and the priesthood's then clean
and then they can start having the altar
of sacrifice again on Mount Moriah, the Temple
Mount.
That's where the gold dome is in Jerusalem.
Well, they were all excited.
But the Bible says that that cow has
to be at least two years old, be
a mature cow.
And before that cow turned two, they found
two or three white hairs on her face
and she was disqualified.
But in Elah, last year, a red cow
was born and they've not found a red
hair on her, a white hair on her.
She's so red that they said that even
the horns, the picture I was emailed even
the horns have a red tint to them,
her hooves have a red tint to them.
And they are believing that this will be
the cow that will be declared sacred as
far as the priesthood of Israel is concerned
and will be able to start the sacrifice
there in the valley of Elah.
Now, when we come back to the Bible
story that we're reading about this place it
says there was a valley between them.
Look at verse four.
And there went out a champion out of
the camp of the Philistines named Goliath of
Gath whose height was six cubit and a
span.
Now, here's the story you can take home
off this book.
The Bible says that there was a champion
of the Philistines.
And I'm telling you tonight, no matter where
you live or where you work the devil's
got a champion in your neighborhood that will
try to make sure you don't live in
the victory in the valley.
It may be in your church, it may
be where you work, it may be in
your family but the devil doesn't want God's
people living in the victory.
Now, when I was there and I read
this verse I walked over, there's still a
stream there in that valley and I got
to thinking about Samson.
Samson had a battle and he had his
battle of temptation in a valley.
I thought about Jesus there hanging on the
side of the Mount of Olives on that
valley, the Kidron Valley there and there he
prayed for you and me until his sweat
became great drops of blood.
And that valley of temptation for him to
turn his back on us and go back
to heaven and say we're not worth it.
But he didn't do that.
So I thought about Samson, I thought about
Jesus, I thought about David.
I thought about Mary and Martha there at
the tomb of Lazarus and they were in
the valley of separation by death and the
valley of doubt.
Where is Jesus?
He didn't show up.
He's not here when he said he'd be
here.
And they began to wonder.
And then I thought again about those children
of Israel down in that valley and they
were losing the war until someone prayed up
on the mountain.
And I thought, boy, you know what?
It's obvious that God put a lot of
valleys in the Bible and it's obvious I'm
going to have to walk through the valleys
on this world and so if I am,
then God's saying, Ralph, now you know you're
going to have to go through some valleys
but I want you to walk through those
valleys in victory.
I'll never leave you and I'll never forsake
you.
So you know what I did while I
was in the valley of Elah?
I did like little David.
I walked over to that spring and that
creek that's still running down through there and
I just got down on my knees and
I reached down into that stream and I
picked up five smooth stones.
I brought them with me.
Five little rocks.
Five smooth stones.
And these are out of the valley of
Elah, out of that little creek that still
runs down through the valley floor and that's
where David got his stones.
I don't know what size they were but
I know that he had to fight a
big giant.
Now, the reason I got five small ones
was obviously I was traveling.
I got to thinking about these five rocks
because those smooth stones were the things that
David used to defeat Goliath.
Now, Dake's commentary says Goliath was over 13
feet tall.
Now, that's a big boy.
Obviously, his mother wormed him when he was
young.
I mean, that's a big boy.
Most Bible commentaries, when you read this verse
we just read, they say that Goliath was
nine feet, nine inches tall.
Now, during the World's Fair of 1905 at
the London Hippodrome, they brought in a Russian
giant in 1905 and he was nine foot,
eight inches tall.
They measured him and he had a chest
of 60 inches.
They measured his feet.
His feet were 24 inches long.
This was 1905 at the Hippodrome in London.
According to the old history books, he was
9'8".
Goliath, according to the Word of God, was
an inch taller, 9'9".
That's still a big boy.
And you know what?
The tip of his spear was 18 pounds.
Just the tip of his spear.
So you've got to be large to do
that.
And here comes little David into that valley,
a shepherd boy.
The eighth son of Jesse.
And by the way, those of you that
love to study numbers with me and the
Word of God, you know that eight's the
number of new beginning.
Amen?
And so, here comes little Jesse's son down
into that valley floor and he sees that
giant, and if we had time to go
down through all these Scriptures, he would declare,
is there not a cause?
Now, he picks up five smooth stones, and
I won't get ahead of myself, but the
reason they got five rocks is because Goliath
had some brothers at the house.
You read on in the Word of God,
there were some big giant brothers.
And in case he had to meet them,
he was prepared.
But Goliath was making fun of him and
laughing at him, and he picked up these
five stones.
Now, in that part of the world, many
of you have seen a bean shooter, we
call them, in the mountains.
You take the fork of a tree and
you take a piece of inner tube, a
piece of leather in the middle, and you
tie it off and then you pull that
back, and you can lay some damage on
a neighbor.
I mean, that stuff's serious.
And you can put a crab apple in
it and cause a lot of discussions.
And you can take a rock in it
and, well, you could kill someone.
I mean, it's very lethal.
Now, over in Israel, when you go with
us over there and we study, I'll show
you that they don't use that concept.
They take it loose from the forks on
both sides, and so they've got the piece
of material with the leather in the middle.
They take theirs and they actually weave it.
It's a woven material and a flax-type
material, but it makes a long piece, sometimes
30-something inches long, with that piece of
leather in the middle, or a woven fabric
pouch.
And then they load their rocks into that.
And then the shepherds swing it in a
motion like this, where we're used to this
motion of pulling back and releasing.
They swing it and get momentum.
They can actually have the velocity almost of
a rifle bullet because they take it and
they swing it around and around.
And when I demonstrate it, I usually do
it down behind Mary Martha's house when we're
over there in Israel.
I have a couple of Palestinian friends that
are just unbelievably accurate with theirs.
And I'll just point up the hill and
I'll say, up at the top of the
hill about 100 yards is a telephone pole.
And I say, I just want you guys
to hit that.
And they'll load up a rock.
Bam!
And you can hear that rock hit the
telephone pole up on the hill.
I mean, they're just, you know, the shepherd
boys of that day, they could hunt rabbits
and small game to feed themselves and they
could use it.
Well, David, he didn't wear the armor of
Saul.
He didn't do any of that.
He just picked up five rocks and he
loaded them up and took his sling and
he went out to go to battle against
this giant.
Now, here's the thing you've got to watch.
Psalms 22 is that Calvary.
Psalms 24 is Zion.
Psalms 23 is that valley.
And we think about Jesus suffering and praying
for you and me in the valley there,
asking God if there's another way, if there's
another way, just take this cup from me.
And yet he went down to the valley
of death.
He went to the valley of identifying with
you and me.
He went to the valley of terror and
fear.
The valley of that trial and the mockery.
It's going to be portrayed in just a
few days in the Passion of Christ, the
Mel Gibson movie.
All of this that we study and know
about.
And then in Psalms 22, he declared that
he was all alone.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?
Now, Jesus has already walked through every valley
that I have to go through.
You think about that.
Every valley I have to face, he's already
gone through that valley.
The valley of sickness, of suffering, separation, sadness.
You've just got to remember your Jesus has
already been there.
Now, church, if you understand that, then you
begin to understand, then God, you've got a
plan, you've got a design, you ordained my
footsteps, so while I'm in this valley, then
God, I want to grow, I want to
know more about you, and then God, I
want to praise somebody that may be in
a lower valley.
Now, one of my favorite places in the
Holy Land is a literal valley.
It's a literal valley.
It's right above the old archaeological site of
Jericho, and there's a little dirt road, an
old Roman road, 2,000 years old, and
it winds around, actually goes up the backside
of the Mount of Olives eventually, but it
comes out of Jericho.
Now, I preached on that little precipice there
on that valley floor, and if you were
with me up here on the platform and
we're looking down into the valley, here's what
we would see.
We would see that right off here, this
just drops right off.
I'm standing on this little narrow road, and
I look down here, and it's 1,400,
1,500 feet just right here in front
of us, and then there's a narrow floor
of that valley.
On the backside, it rises up 2,000
feet, 1,800 feet places, and the floor's
real narrow.
How narrow?
In some places, that valley floor is as
narrow as this ship right here is wide.
I mean, it's narrow.
Now, the reason that is important is because
think how sharp up this is, how steep
that is over there.
If the sun is not right overhead, then
if you're down in that valley, on either
side of it, there are dark shadows.
It's rocky.
It's full of limestone and sandstone caves, and
guess what?
If you are up on this end of
the valley, and you're a Jebusite resider up
near the old Jebusite city, and your name
is Jesse, and you've got a shepherd boy
named David, he's got to walk his sheep
down this, in Hebrew it's called a wadi,
down this valley floor, and he comes down
through here, and he comes down towards the
old city of Jericho, which was there, and
right here is the Jordan River.
It's right there.
Lush greenery and water.
Now, watch this.
David would walk down through there with the
sheep.
If you were a lion, a bear, a
wolf, a predator, all you have to do
is to get in one of these dark
shadow places, a setback, a cave in the
cool, wait for the sheep to walk by,
and if there's a wounded sheep, a limping
sheep, an old sheep, or a little wild
lamb that's prone to wander and gets away
from the shepherd, all you've got to do
is just be lurking in those dark shadows,
and you've got meals on wheels, right in
front of you, because the predator can grab
the sheep.
Now, watch this.
Walking down through there is a shepherd boy.
He's got a rod and a staff.
The rod's for the bad guy.
I don't have time to go through it,
but it's nothing more than a big club.
They would cut a knot on a tree,
cut a hand hole, and if a lion
or a tiger, a bear went after the
sheep, the shepherd would actually fight off the
predator.
You remember, David fought a bear, and he
fought a lion.
Remember that in the Word of God?
Because he was a shepherd.
All right?
Now, the staff, that's for the good guys.
That's the one we see in the Christmas
plates.
It's got the hook on the top.
Okay?
Now, the reason for that is that if
one of these sheep, it's real steep and
rocky, and if his foot slips off, and
I sit in her lap.
No.
If his foot slips off, and they get
down on the thorn, then he'll turn that
staff upside down, and he'll hook that lamb
in the belly and pull him back up
and put him on the trail.
Now then, when you turn that staff upside
down, it makes a J for Jesus.
Do you remember when you were a lamb
out in the world, caught in the briars
and the things of this world, and Jesus
passed by, and He reached down with love
and grace and hooked your heart and put
you back up on the path?
You see, all of this is in the
Word of God.
Now, watch what happens.
David encounters this giant Goliath, and it's in
the valley.
David, earlier in his life, walked a valley
with his sheep.
The name of this valley, to this day,
is the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
There really is a valley.
It's not just a phrase in the Bible.
There's really a valley just outside of Jericho,
headed up into Jerusalem, and it's real stark,
sharp-sided, and if the sun's not right
overhead either side, it makes big, old shadows.
Now, watch this.
David had to walk through there, and his
life was in danger, and he would write
in his heart, Yea, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death.
You see, and then he thought, I've got
a rod and a staff, but so does
God.
You see, and God's not going to put
on you more than you're able to bear.
When the enemy comes against you, praise the
Lord, He's there as your great shepherd, and
the shepherd that'll protect you and take care
of you.
Now, do you remember what I wrote down
to give to you a moment ago about
we had five smooth stones?
Remember that?
And I told you about those five rocks?
Now, you remember, he's a teenage boy.
You say, well, how do you know he's
a teenager?
Well, if you were in Israel in Bible
days, you had to be at least 30
years old to be a priest.
That's why Jesus didn't start His public ministry
until He turned 30, because He couldn't fulfill
the prophecies of the Word of God.
And to be in the army in Israel,
you had to be at least 20 years
old.
Okay?
So we know David was not yet 20.
He was a teenager.
And he picked up five smooth stones in
the valley of Elah.
Now, I've got some words written on those
rocks.
I don't know if you can see those,
but I took a marking pen and wrote
some words on those rocks, because these are
very important words, because I believe these are
the five stones.
God will.
God has.
God shall.
God can.
And that first one is God is.
And you know what, ladies and gentlemen?
When David met Goliath, all it took was
rock number one to be loaded into that
sling, and that is God is.
You say, what are you talking about?
God is a very present help in the
time of trouble.
God is my refuge in the time of
storm.
He is all I need.
And he was loaded in that sling.
You know what I believe?
I believe David could have thrown that sling
between his legs, backwards over his head, because
I believe it was laser-guided from glory.
Listen, they're all excited over in the rock
because they've got heat-seeking missiles and laser
-guided bombs and the JDAM.
Why, they've not seen anything.
Do you see a rock loaded by God
in a little boy's sling?
Because it was guided.
He could have thrown it over his shoulder
straight up in the air, but when it
came down, it got that giant right in
the forehead.
You know why?
Because it is God is.
And what you've got to take home with
you off this ship is the fact that
God has already provided for you.
Maybe you are in a valley of spiritual
battle.
Maybe you are in a physical valley.
Maybe you are in an emotional valley.
But whatever valley you're in, you just remember
God's still in charge.
And He's still providing for His church.
And He will take care of every one
of His sheep.
The great shepherd, as David walked through that
valley of the shadow of death, and he
would give his life for the sheep.
Listen, the Lord God Almighty, you are His
sheep.
He already gave His life for you 2
,000 years ago.
And He will not allow the devil to
put on you more than you can bear.
God is the everything that you need here
tonight.
He is my refuge.
He's a blessing for every believer at this
very moment.
He is my fountain.
He is where I drink.
He is my library.
He is the book where I read.
He is my bread, ladies and gentlemen.
He's the place where I feed.
He is my friend that sticketh closer than
a brother.
And He is my shelter.
He is the place that I can hide
in the time of storm.
Ladies and gentlemen, as we gather here tonight,
you need to know that your God loves
you.
He cares for you.
He protects you.
And He will always provide for you.
You can have victory in the valley.
You don't have to be defeated in that
place.
David had five stones he picked up.
I'll let you see these.
You can come by the book table after
the service.
Those are five little rocks in the Valley
of Eva.
But I'm telling you, God's got a provision
far greater than any man could even imagine.
There's nothing that we, as God's people, that
have to go through on this earth.
I don't know what your valley may be.
I don't know what your circumstance may be.
But I know this much.
The Great Shepherd will go through there with
you every step of the way.