Transcription of the Video: Iron of Culture

The ancient land of Israel is a testimony and evidence, if you will, of the greatness of what God did in that country, a testimony to the truth of the words that we find in the pages of the Bible.

David and Goliath is probably one of the first Bible stories that most people ever heard, and yet maybe there's a bit more to it than meets the eye. The Valley of Elah where that battle took place was very critical to the survival of the children of Israel.

Welcome to Tel Azekah. The entire tell is about five acres. If you covered the other end where we just came up, the lower end, and the upper end here, just a little bit less than an acre. So it's quite a bit smaller. The part you're sitting on from the latest archaeological survey looks like Iron Age 2. So you're talking the period of the nation of Judah - probably Rehoboam through Josiah - sometime during that particular period. But let's set ourselves again geographically if we can so that we just get this lesson down and we get focused on why we're at this particular location and why these events happened here. 

To our east, you see now in the skyline, in the haze there, the mountains of Judaea. Bethlehem is 12 miles from where we are. Jerusalem about the same. Maybe a little bit less as the crow flies. So we're really very close to those critical areas in the mountains. To our west, you can see the Mediterranean from here, from this upper part of the tell. And that too was probably 12 or so miles away. So we're really not very far from the Mediterranean, we're not very far from the Judaean Mountains, and we're in the Shephelah, which is that buffer zone between the two.

Now as we've seen at Beth Shemesh with the Valley of Sorek, there is another valley that comes here from the coastal plain. If you followed it up, you would come out not so very far from Bethlehem. And that made this particular area a critical area strategically for the same reason. This city here or this hill, this tell, guards or defends that particular gateway or doorway up into the mountains. So if you're the mountain people and you want to keep the coastal plain people out, you need to hold this area. If you're the coastal plain people and you're worried about the mountain people, you need to hold this particular area, and that's why there's a tell here.

When Joshua came down the Valley of, remember where the sun stood still, they chased the five kings and their armies this far. They chased them as far as Azekah and they ended here, and the cave where the five kings hold up and were eventually buried is not so very far from here. 

Later, this city guarded, again, the mountains. And when the two great empires from the east of Assyria and Babylon wanted to take this part of the world, they came down the coastal plain and then into the interior of the country. So first the army of the Assyrians at the time of King Sennacherib, he came here and destroyed this city. 

Later, in 587 [B.C.], the country of Babylon came here. King Nebuchadnezzar at that point on his way up to destroy the first temple, which he would do very shortly after, he comes here, he surrounds this city. And the book of Jeremiah in chapter 34 tells us that finally there were only two cities left besides Jerusalem - Azekah and Lachish, which is the next one we visit down to the south here a ways.

This one also fell, although the Bible doesn't tell us about its fall. What we do know is that somewhere in the mountains here to the south of us, there was a person sitting, watching every night for the signal fire from this city. And whenever he saw the fire, he knew the city would still stand. He wrote it down in one of those little potsherds that you've been collecting, and he sent it to his area commander who was a man in the city of Lachish. And he sent them these letters. He says in them, "I can still see the signal fire of Azekah."

Those letters were buried in the gate of Lachish and they were recovered recently archaeologically - actually it was some time ago - and they're called the Lachish letters. They refer to that the signal fire was seen here. Later the signal fire is no longer seen, and this city falls, and it's destroyed. 

However, the focus of what we're going to think about here that will lead to our faith lesson is the story of David and Goliath. Now we don't need to repeat about the Philistines other than just to remind you the Philistines lived here to the west on the coastal plain. They're the sophisticated, cultured people. To the east lived the Israelites, fairly primitively in the mountains. And here in this valley is a place where the Philistines would penetrate, getting up into the mountains and threatening even the very existence of the people that God had put there for a very specific reason.

There's battle drawn up. The Philistine army has come down this valley. There must have been some people sitting about where you were watching that battle take place. The Israelite army came down from the mountains and they were assembled as well. And the place where they met was somewhere in this valley. Now I can't show you the square inch and I'm not going to try. Let's say it's likely that the Philistines were on the other hills on the other side of that valley. That's likely. And we don't need to make it more than that, but at least it will shape an image. 

The Israelites likely assembled on the hill on that side of the valley just beyond the road. And every day, their champion - a guy by the name of Goliath - would come down out of the hill, would get down in the valley, and would come out and insult the Israelites. He would make fun of their God. He would make fun of them. And he was basically calling them cowards and telling them they didn't amount to a great deal. 

At that point, David comes along. David lived in Bethlehem, which is up in the Judaean Mountains, like I said, about 12 miles from here. Bethlehem is right at the point that you would begin going into that wilderness that goes down to the Dead Sea, that goes down to the Rift Valley, to the Jordan River. And that's the place where the shepherd is. The shepherd lives where the wilderness is because the shepherd tends to take the sheep out into the wilderness. And when you're on the rainy side, that's where the farmer is. So Bethlehem stands right on the border, if you will.

So David is herding sheep. The fact he's taking care of sheep while his brothers are here in the battle means that he's very young. You might even say he could have been eight, ten, twelve years old. Now that raises an interesting issue and that is that God uses people who may not, from our perspective, have a whole lot to offer. What he did have was a faith in God. Now Goliath was a Philistine. And the Bible tells us some things about him and it's interesting to read some of the rabbi's comments about Goliath. His description tells us not only about him but it gives us something of a spiritual implication about Goliath as well. 

It says this, "He came from Gath," which is one of the Philistine cities not very far from here. And our Bible says he was over nine feet tall. He had a bronze Helmet on his head and a coat of scale armor that weighed 5,000 shekels. Now there's a textual variant in that. In some places, it says 6,000 shekels. "On his legs, he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was flung on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver's rod, and its iron point weighed 600 shekels." So what you end up with is the writer identifying Goliath with at least two sixes. So his number comes across as 66 or maybe even 666. In our Christian tradition, we talk about 666 as being the number of the anti-Christ. 

So there's a sense in which Goliath is already being identified by the writer of Samuel as someone who represents, shall we say, the evil side of the struggle that's going on here. 

Then to make sure you get the point, his armor is described as being like scales. And the rabbis also understood that to mean that the scales represented somehow being in the tradition of the snake rather than in the tradition of the descendant of Eve.

So the battle line is drawn between David - humanly speaking, not a great deal to offer - and Goliath who is a Philistine. Now David says, "Hey, I'll take that challenge." The first thing Saul does is to say, "Okay. Let him wear my armor." But it doesn't fit, so David takes the armor off and says, "Forget it. I'll go with what I am used to," and that is, "I'll take my sling and I'll take my chances with that and with God."

Now at that point, I want to digress a little bit and just share something with you that's going to be the heart of this faith lesson. What we know from archaeology is that at that point, the leading change that was going on in the world was the introduction in this part of the world of iron. Let me tell you something. Iron was to that culture what the computer or the gasoline engine was to ours. 

What we know from archaeology is that the Philistines were masters at the use of iron. Some even think that they had introduced iron from the Aegean world and brought iron here to this part of the world for the first time. The Israelites had no ability to work with iron at all during that particular period. It was the fact that the Philistines had iron and the Israelites didn't that probably more than any other single factor, humanly speaking, made the Philistines the dominant culture. They had the technology and the tools that made them the predominant culture. And when David comes here, it's likely that the only suit of armor, the only metal weapons the Israelites had were the ones that Saul had. 

So when David tried on Saul's armor, it didn't fit. They couldn't say, "Well, bring a smaller size." It was either that or nothing. This Bible passage comes from first Samuel, and it says this. "Not a single blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel. There wasn't an Israelite who knew how to work with iron, because the Philistines had said, 'Otherwise, the Hebrews will make swords and spears.' So all Israel went down to the Philistines to have their plowshares, their axes, their sickles sharpened. So on the day of battle, not a single soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or a spear. Only Saul and Jonathan had one."

You have the Philistines and the Israelites. You have the Philistines with all the latest military technology (iron), and you have the Israelites with two swords and whatever they could scrounge up. And you have the greatest champion in the world, Goliath, coming down and saying, "Take me on. If you beat me, we'll be your slaves. If I beat you, you be our slaves."

So the battle comes down to a confrontation between those two. "David took his staff. He chose five smooth stones from the stream bed, put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag, and with his sling in his hand, he approached the Philistine." So David picks up five smooth stones and he puts them in the bag. "Meanwhile, the Philistine with his shield there in front of him, kept coming closer to David. He looked at David and saw that he was only a boy - handsome. He despised him. He said to David, 'Am I dog that you come at me with sticks?' And the Philistine cursed David by his own gods. 'Come here,' he said, 'And I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the animals of the field.'"

"David said to the Philistine, 'This day the Lord will hand you over to me and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today, I'll give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth,'" and then this line. "'And the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.'"

And people the key to the battle was not what a good shot David was. The key to the battle was in the struggle between David, who represented what God was doing and God's community and Goliath who represented - from the text itself, I think - the power of evil. The key was David's motive was so that the world would know who was God. 

That's the same theme as the standing stones at Gezer. So people will say, "What happened here, you tell them about God." 

David isn't fighting for David. David is saying, "I want the world to know who is God and so I'm going to do what I do."

"As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. 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. 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." 

David came as a person who represented God. But David did what God had gifted and qualified and taught David to do - throw a stone. He's a shepherd. So David doesn't shoot an arrow, David doesn't throw a spear, David doesn't invent dynamite. David does what shepherd's do, which meant he had years of practice.

Now the lesson in that is, to me, God always wants you to simply use what he's given you to be good at. And as you live out your way of impacting your culture, our culture, and you want to make a difference in the world, you don't have to be anything other than what God has gifted you to be. If your gift is teaching, if your gift is working with people, if your gift is construction, if your gift is whatever, parenting, God simply says, "Use what you have and what you're good at, but use it for me."

That is a real encouragement to me because I think sometimes the reason I'm not more like David is I assume that Bible characters like David somehow had to be super special. All he did was what shepherd boys do 18 hours a day. He threw a rock. But because he threw it for the right reason and in the right cause, it becomes something you'll never forget.

Shortly after this, the people loved David. This guy's a hero. So they honor him. It makes Saul jealous. Now Saul with his army comes down and he's chasing David. He's going to kill David because David represents a threat. So Saul's trying to kill him. One of the things David does is he runs away from this area and he joins up with the Philistines with a king named Achish, who is the king of Gath - not very far from here.

Now the king gets to like David so much that the king gives David a city of the Philistines and it becomes David's city, called Ziklag. Somehow, between the time of David and Goliath and the time David becomes king in Jerusalem not 15 miles from here, iron technology which the Philistines had protected, like we should have protected nuclear power, comes to the Israelites. 

And when iron comes to the Israelites, the Philistine civilization eventually slowly is terminated. Now there are scholars who believe that it was David who stole the iron technology from the Philistines at the time that he was hiding out with Achish, king of Gath, and brought it back with him.

I don't know. It is fascinating that it happened at that moment. My point to you is what finally gave the Israelites the power to determine the course of culture was when they locked onto the tools that shaped the culture. David understood what it was that was going to affect the world, and he used it to the wisest he could. And God blessed it like he blessed the stone he threw. 

So you have that two-sided faith lesson, where on the one hand, David just very primitively threw a stone and God honored it. On the other hand, you've got David who accesses the best military technology, the best things that his society had to offer. And by using them for God, he makes Israel a real influence, a real power in his culture.

Part of the problem in western culture, let's call it the iron of our society, has not been shaped and controlled by those who hold the value system we do. And as long as that happens, we may win individual skirmishes here and there, but humanly speaking, we cannot have the impact of the culture we need to have. And I see all these students sit here and I see people-- I know you guys-- some of you can write. Some of you probably can act. We've got a guy here who composes music. Think of the impact we could have in our culture if all of those areas came under the use of Christians. 

Education is a cultural shaper. That's an iron. The field of law, the field of politics - that's an iron. Folks, that's where Christianity has to make its impact if we plan to affect culture.