Christian Heroism
Montague Butler, D. D. 1 Samuel 17:45 Then said David to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield… The Old Testament has just three stories of moral heroism carried to the verge of martyrdom. They bring before us five heroic figures — David, Daniel, the Three Children. Today we are met by the first of these stories. Are you like the one or like the other? Are you a member of the average, or just the one exception out of thousands? Do you stand with the powerful Saul, and all his armed soldiers, of all of whom it stands so pitilessly recorded, "When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid"? Or, is there something still within you after all these years which constrains you as part of your being to stand out alone and put that question of Divine curiosity befitting either a child or a hero, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" It never even entered into the head of David that such a foe as this Goliath could win the day. He saw through the man in an instant. He had hurled a foul reproach against the people of God, his doom was as certain as if he already lay stretched upon the plain with the stone deep in his forehead. Then, again, David had reason for his faith. The child was father of the man. Observe yet again, David would fight only with his own weapons, not with the more perfect weapons of others. He would be just himself. And yet once more, David felt as few even of the greatest ever have it given to them to feel, the immeasurable difference between material force and moral force, between man at his proudest and God using his feeblest instrument. That is our poor, prosaic language as we try to sum up the moral and incomparable act of daring; but not such the language of the young hero poet at the grandest moment of his life. Now you do not need me to remind you that this history is also parable. It is not only a record of heroism, it is, further, a type of all moral conflict. Young children, as they read it in the nursery, half expect to fight some day that real Goliath. We have other visions of the powers which war against the soul. We sometimes almost wish that the issue was equally clear and simple and, so to speak, localised. "Then the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side, and there was a valley between them." Impossible there and then to doubt who were the Lord's people and on which side you should range yourself — as impossible as it would have been on this day of July seventy-seven years ago, before Wellington's great fight at Salamanca, for any Englishman to doubt on which of the two Spanish hills he should offer his life to his country. There the historian describes the opposing armies as exchanging cannonades from the tops of those hills, on whose frowning rocks, he says, the contending generals stood like ravenous vultures watching for the quarry. An imposing picture this. We almost see the scene; but now, in our day, is that, I ask, a fair type of our spiritual battlefield? Are there two, and but two, separate armies? Is there always a valley between them? If some formidable champion appears, challenging us and our friends to the combat, are we quite sure from which corner of the field he will come up, and whether we can truly and fairly be satisfied that to defy Israel and Israel's God he is come up? "Ah!" we sometimes say to ourselves, "if only the trouble were so clearly defined, just a battle between Israel and the Philistines, light and darkness, truth and falsehood, purity and uncleanness, mercy and cruelty, freedom and slavery, reverent piety on the one side, and arrogant, insolent Atheism on the other; if only it were a pitched battle between two recognised hosts, leader against leader, army against army." And, thank God, there are some issues which are absolutely clear. There are those upward struggles of which the three fair mountain tops, temperance, soberness, chastity are the goal and the prize. These struggles are both outward and inward There is the inward struggle. We do not attempt to describe it, only we say from our hearts, "God help each brother and each sister to fight it through His strength and not their own." But the struggle may be outward also. The talk about some book or some trial, the smile, the shrug of the shoulder, the innuendo, the sneer — there is the challenge to test what you are worth, to make you show your colours, to prove whether you will take a safe but ignoble refuge with the silent, cowering majority, or whether you will confess Christ before men and say boldly what you think or feel. It is in battles of this kind that the insight of David and the faith of David are both needed and found. Now, as then, the majority do nothing, they are cowed by a vast distrust, they start already beaten. In truth they walk by sight, and not by faith. But thank God there are faithful among the faithless The David heart is still beating; there are those who are certain that the bad cause is doomed, however confidently it swagger. But we all feel there are other contests in which the path of duty is by no means so clear. There are, so to speak, battles without a battlefield, battles which refuse to be localised or even outlined. Where is the enemy? Who is he? How far is he an enemy? Is he to be fought or is he to be first understood and then reasoned with? Is he certainly an enemy or may he be a friend in disguise, a friend, not of ourselves, which matters but little, but of God, which matters everything. Doubtless we have to fight; we have to confess Christ, and that before men as well as in the sanctuary of our own hearts, but our difficulty lies not so much in bearing taunts or confronting direct and scornful denims, as in answering to ourselves the question, "What is truth? What is Christ? What does He say of Himself? What do His holiest servants say of Him? Nay, what do His very silences imply as to His sinlessness and its one necessary source?" And yet more, what is His will as regards human life? On all such subjects there are thinkers and writers and speakers who contemptuously place Christ on one side. That, they would say, is not His sphere. How are we to treat such men, some of whom we meet daily, many of them upright, earnest seekers after truth, it may be dear friends of our own? Are these to be regarded as our Goliaths, brutal impersonations of arrogant impiety? Hardly so. The parallel does not and will not bold. The more we try to make it bold the more we are blinding ourselves to facts and sinning against the eternal laws of charity. And this, conscience tells us, cannot be a fight on behalf of God. We can never truly confess Christ before men by using weapons which the Spirit of Christ condemns. And yet we must confess Him. We must first make up our minds as to His will, as to the principles and causes which are in His sight true and precious, and then we must be ready to act out our faith. As the kingdom of God cometh without observation, so the confessing of Christ before men in the ceaseless battle of faith and unbelief may have but few spectators, and afford but few opportunities for visible and audible heroism. And yet the true heart of David may be beating there and the strength which was perfected in David may be perfecting itself there in many a humble, self-depreciating combatant. It is by faith of this kind that Christ is still making ills promise good. It is by creating in human souls a perfect trust in Himself which nothing can enfeeble or destroy. Are you willing to leave to others who do but echo while they affect to form the spirit of the age, that applause which such conformity never fails to arouse; or are you content for yourself with that other applause heard oven in this life by the humble champion of faith in Jesus? Servant of God, well done; well hast thou fought The better fight, who single hast maintained Against revolted multitudes the cause Of Truth: in words mightier than they in arms; And for the testimony of truth hast borne Universal reproach, far worse to bear than violence For this was all thy care to stand approved In sight of God, though worlds judged thee perverse.— (Montague Butler, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. WEB: Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin: but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.