Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me.

 

Thursday, June 22, 2023

Psalm 118:1-18

1 Samuel 17:1-23

Acts 10:34-48

Observance: Alban, first British martyr (d. c. 209)

Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me.

Let’s stop for a moment and make an honest assessment about our spiritual strength. Have we all been a good girl or boy since we last did our prayers? What about the “hidden faults”, the unwitting sins? (Ps 19:12) I suppose we cannot know what we do not know. Such is the power of our enemy: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Sin is a nine-foot-tall monster wielding a four-be-two, standing out in no-man’s land, shouting taunts up the mountain at us. Are you going to go down and kill him? I am afraid to say I am no match; someone will have to go and do it, though.

But this raises another issue. Because if we are to say that Goliath the Philistine is a “type” of sin (in the sense that the narrative contains themes that point to Jesus and the New Testament) then how could we say that my guilt is cleared when it was someone else who defeated sin? Where is the justice in one warrior sharing his victory with the rest of us cowards and weaklings?

A certain preacher was once asked the same question: “How can one man’s death satisfy the justice demanded of a whole world?” The preacher’s response led him to tearful pleading: because that one man is worth more than the whole world put together.

In our spiritual war, against all the forces that would pull us away from God’s goodness, we need a champion to fight on our behalf. We all must choose a man for ourselves, and let Him go into the fight. Our victory lies in the fact this is no mere man: Jesus Christ is the God-man, the Word made flesh, the creator of all that is, that was, and ever will be. He was dead, and look, He is now alive, forever! Choose this man for yourself!