Who Is Your Hero?                                                                9/7/41

 

Scripture:  I Samuel 17

 

The story of David’s life and exploits, among them this encounter with the Philistine giant, Goliath, is one of the really great hero stories of the ages, told again and again to listeners who never tire of it and who are glad to hear it and to have it passed on to their children and to their children’s children.

 

In this story, many of the virtues of heroism are combined in the one lad, David.  David is young and unafraid.  He has been dutiful to his father.  He is straightforward to the king and to the soldiers.  He is undisturbed by the irritated criticisms of his brothers.  Though no giant himself, he makes good use of the strength which he does have.  He takes the aggressive part in order to put an end to the terror which one Philistine has put over the whole Israelite army.  His judgment is faultless.  His skill is highly developed by his good habits of body and mind.  His manner is altogether confident.  He succeeds completely in a task no one else had dared to undertake - and “nothing succeeds so well as success!”

 

The older David, grown up, was reckoned among the greatest of the Hebrew kings.  It is proudly recorded later on that Jesus of Nazareth came of David’s line.  (At least those Jews who became his disciples were proud of it.)  David was a strong and wise ruler of his people.  He knew when and how to stand for principles or right.  And he knew how to acknowledge his wrongs and he repented of them completely.  This is an extraordinary mark of his greatness.

 

For he was by no means perfect.  At times he was headstrong.  He was known to be cruel, as others of his day were cruel,  when, for instance, he had a messenger killed whose only offense was that he brought him bad news.  (His justice was terrible - the Amalekite).  His character and prestige were badly undermined when he set his heart on another man’s wife and arranged to have the soldier husband killed in battle so that he might have the beautiful Bathsheba for himself.  The only thing that saved him from the utter moral ruin that might have gone with this wrong was the recognition of his sin and his complete and genuine repentance of it.

 

But the record of his life, as a dutiful keeper of his father’s flocks, as a courageous opponent of his people’s enemies, as a lifelong loyal friend of Jonathan, a loyal subject of the great but half-crazed king Saul; as a wise, firm, capable and God-fearing ruler himself later on, adds up to a fine sum of heroism, entirely worthy of the admiration of anybody.  He was a hero in his day and he is still a hero today.

 

In the sermon subject announced for today, I have asked the question, “Who is your hero?”  I suspect that David is one of them; he is one of mine.  Probably you have many heroes and heroines whom you admire and whose good qualities you desire to make your own.  Many of your heroes are well-known and are the heroes of others as well.  Some of your heroes may be little known, or know only to yourself.

 

Dr. Theodore Richards has discovered a hero of fine qualities in Jabez, amid the dry reading of the genealogies of I Chronicles (4: 9).  There he is, described in a few swift strokes as a man of admirable qualities.

 

And that is indicative of the important truth that many of the finest heroes are inconspicuous people  little known to the public, who go about their living in quiet, effective ways.  Many a boy finds his most real hero in his own father, whose name may not be known outside their own village.

 

I suppose a hero is one whose life seems ideal in some respect.  Or perhaps one who embodies or stands for an ideal.  Martin Niemoeller of Germany is a hero to multitudes of Christians now.  Although a German submarine commander of the last war, a loyal German to this day, a former enthusiastic supporter of Hitler and the National Socialist party, he has now spent more than 4 years in a German concentration camp.  Why?  Because he believes that the State has no right to dictate beliefs to the church and has said so again and again.  He believes that, in spiritual matters, one listens to no voice above God alone. 

For that principle, Niemoeller lies in prison, in solitary confinement, and may die there.  He embodies the whole ideal of freedom of conscience, in the separation of the church from state control.  And in that, he is a hero of magnificent stature, suffering now, so far as I know, at this moment for Christian freedom.

 

Of course there are those who seem heroes because of their strength and might.  Adolph Hitler is a hero to thousands of people in his country today, chiefly because he has seemed able through sheer might, by methods right or wrong, to get a place for the German people where they feel they have a right to be.  Many of us are not so strongly attracted by the qualities of Hitler and Napoleon as by the qualities of leaders who have used right means toward the achievement of good ends or purposes.

 

We admire the determination of Ghandi, who leads only with the force of what he is convinced is morally and spiritually right.  We admire the sacrifices of teachers, ministers, doctors, friendly workers who stick to their posts amid great danger in order to help, cure, enlighten and support needy people in a mission field at home or abroad.  (One of the greatest services to Christ today).  Our greatest heroes are the heroes of right!

 

The greatest of all our heroes is Jesus.    Jesus and others in some measure like him;  Paul, Francis of Assisi, fine Christians whom we have met.

 

But “Jesus is like God; we can’t be like that!”  Are you sure?

Be ye therefore perfect.  Man made in the image of God, could be like God in a humble but real sense.

 

(Old song)

            “Be a hero, trust in God and never fear;

            Be a hero, He will help you, He is near.”

 

If you want him to, sincerely enough, God will aid you to be a hero, like your own heroes.  For it is not enough to admire our heroes from afar.  There are others who look to you and to me to be their heroes.  It would be a pity to fail them!

 

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Dates and places delivered.

 

            Pilgrim Church, July 16, 1939  AM

            Puunene Japanese Church, August 13, 1939

            Punahou Chapel, November 1, 1939

            Wisconsin Rapids, September 7, 1941