David and Goliath, 1 Samuel 17:4-11, (November 1, 2015)

David and Goliath, 1 Samuel 17:4-11, 32-54 (November 1, 2015) 4 And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. 5 He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. 6 And he had bronze armor on his legs, and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. 7 The shaft of his spear was like a weaver s beam, and his spear s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. And his shield-bearer went before him. 8 He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, Why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. 9 If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. 10 And the Philistine said, I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man, that we may fight together. 11 When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. 32 And David said to Saul, Let no man s heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine. 33 And Saul said to David, You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth. 34 But David said to Saul, Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. 36 Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 And David said, The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said to David, Go, and the LORD be with you! 38 Then Saul clothed David with his armor. He put a helmet of bronze on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail, 39 and David strapped his sword over his armor. And he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. Then David said to Saul, I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them. So David put them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd s pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine. 41 And the Philistine moved forward and came near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. 42 And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. 43 And the Philistine said to David, Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 The Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field. 45 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 the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in 2015 J.D. Shaw 1

Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD s, and he will give you into our hand. 48 When the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. 49 And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground. 50 So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him. There was no sword in the hand of David. 51 Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. 52 And the men of Israel and Judah rose with a shout and pursued the Philistines as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron, so that the wounded Philistines fell on the way from Shaaraim as far as Gath and Ekron. 53 And the people of Israel came back from chasing the Philistines, and they plundered their camp. 54 And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his armor in his tent. PRAY We are working our way through the book of 1 Samuel this fall, and today we have come to what I think I can safely say is the most famous story in the Old Testament, perhaps even in all of Holy Scripture: David and Goliath. And it s a great story, the ultimate Sunday school story, the ultimate Bible story to read to your kids before bed (except maybe the part about David cutting off the head of Goliath and taking it to Jerusalem). It s an easy to understand story some sermons I have to take a lot of time explaining what s going on, the context, what different words really mean there s almost none of that here. It s an encouraging story, because we love to see David, young, faithful David (probably around 15 years old at the time) triumphing over this evil Philistine, this Goliath, who wants to destroy God s people. We love to read about that, and we love his courage, we love his dedication to and confidence in the Lord. But what are we to make of this story? How can we apply it to our lives? Or, put more precisely, how can we be like David? Isn t that what we want to know? Doesn t every sincere Christ-follower want to be like David? Don t we all want to have the courage of David to face whatever life throws at us? Because all of us will, sooner or later, face challenges, difficulties, struggles, in this life. Pain will come. Temptations will come. And when they do, can we face whatever life throws at us with confidence and faithfulness, or will we crumble? 44 The Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field. 1 Samuel 17:44. Friends, you do know that we will all face a giant that one day will say that to us. We will all one day face the giant of death, 2015 J.D. Shaw 2

and he at the very least wants to feed our flesh to the worms in the ground, if not the birds of the air. When we face that giant, or maybe more poignantly, when someone we dearly love faces that giant, how can we be sure we will be faithful? How can we be sure that we can say even to death, This battle is the Lord s? Three things: first, let s look at Goliath s courage. Second, David s faithfulness. Third, Saul s cowardice. First, Goliath s courage. The Philistines and the Israelites face off in the Valley of Elah in 1 Samuel 17, and this is a crucial time in Israel s history. The Philistines have the upper hand, they are more numerous than the Israelites and have all the advantages in weaponry, and if they win the battle then Israel will be crushed and for years they and their children will be the slaves of the Philistines. Then, Goliath steps out between the battle lines. Goliath, the Philistine champion. He makes the Israelites an offer in verses 8-10. Goliath says there is no need for the two armies to fight and have thousands killed that day, and then one nation will serve as slaves to the other. No, he says, Let me fight one Israelite in combat, and whoever loses that battle, his nation will be slave to the nation of the winner. This was representative combat, and it really happened in the ancient world. During the Trojan War, Paris, of Troy, agreed to fight Menelaus of Sparta rather than the two armies have to fight it out. So Goliath makes this offer boldly, confidently, all the while mocking both Israel and her God, Yahweh, the Lord of Hosts. Now, why was Goliath so confident, so seemingly courageous? All the commentators point out how much detail the author of 1 Samuel gives to Goliath s physical appearance and armament. I won t re-read the verses, but I ll point out a few things. Goliath was over nine feet tall he was huge, he was strong, and he had to be fast because we read in verse 33 that he had been a man of war from his youth. You don t last that long as a man of war if you re big and tall and strong but slow and uncoordinated. No, you re just an easy target if that s you. Some smaller guy runs up to you and kills you before you can strike him down. So Goliath was not just big, he was fast, skillful. Then we read about his equipment. He had the most technologically advanced weapons and armor available. Bronze helmet and greaves (which were shin guards that wrapped completely around the lower legs), a coat of mail armor (which would have been extremely expensive even kings rarely had their own mail armor), and then there is his spear the tip of the spear weighed 15 pounds. So Goliath would have had the ability to hurl a spear accurately for at least 50 yards or so, and the tip of it weighed 15 pounds. Can you imagine that thing hitting you? It would have been a tremendous offensive weapon, and with it Goliath certainly would have killed many opponents before they got anywhere near him. Therefore Goliath was supremely confident as he made the offer of one-on-one combat to the Israelites. He had the physical tools, he had the technological advantage, and he had 2015 J.D. Shaw 3

the battle experience that no one else had. He was very nearly the perfect soldier, so he could look to himself and find courage to fight the battle. We could call this Goliath courage, and this is one way you can find confidence to face life. Look to yourself, and believe in yourself, and then you can face anything. Isn t this what we re told by the world? Believe in yourself, and you can do anything? Isn t that the moral of every Disney movie? Look to your abilities, your gifts, your resources, and if you just believe you can face the challenges of life. Of course it is true that if you have certain qualities, there are certain struggles you ll never face. If you re really smart, you ll never struggle at school, like some of us. If you re really attractive, you ll never have to worry about being alone there will always be people willing to go out with you. If you re really good with people, you can always find a job, always make money. If you re born into a family with a lot of money, you don t even have to find a job. If born with certain advantages and qualities, then some things in life will come so easily for you that will be real struggles for others. Goliath courage can take you a long way. It is indeed possible to go a long time in your life (even into your thirties) and never feel like life has been hard. There are people like that. But there are problems with Goliath courage. First, it will not keep you from real struggles. Sooner or later you will face some challenge that causes you to stumble. For a lot of us, it s as simple as having children. Getting out of college wasn t hard, married wasn t hard, getting a job wasn t hard. But then you have kids. And, you know, a toddler does not care how gifted you are or how much money you have. A toddler won t think, You know, my parents make such a good impression when they meet new people, they are so impressive, so I better obey them the first time every time and keep my room clean. No. And that s where so many people first realize they need something more than their giftedness to make it through life. You ll look to yourself to face some challenge in life and sooner or later you ll find it s not enough. Second, Goliath courage can blind you to real threats. Goliath was a supremely confident soldier, which is almost always a good thing except when it caused Goliath to overlook the real threat David was to him. David comes at Goliath, and Goliath can only see two things (verse 42-43): that David is a boy, and that he s holding a shepherd s staff. Goliath is insulted that the Israelites would send a shepherd boy to fight him, so he just laughs and curses at David. But what Goliath doesn't see is that sling in David s other hand, and those five stones in his pouch. And someone who knew what they were doing with one of those things could definitely kill you the sling was one of the deadliest weapons in the ancient world. Those slings could propel rocks at speeds of up to 100 m.p.h. But Goliath, blinded by his own courage, couldn t see the threat. A lot of us in this room come from a very blessed spiritual heritage, we were raised in Christian homes, we were taught from before we can remember right from wrong, and so we might be tempted to think that there are certain sins we d never commit. We re just 2015 J.D. Shaw 4

immune. No one in my family has ever done anything like this, so we think, I d never, ever steal from work. I d never, ever succumb to an addiction. I d never get some girl pregnant before I get married. There s no way I d ever attempt suicide. But I can t tell you how many people have been blinded by their spiritual heritage or by their family s tradition of doing the right thing to the real temptation some sins provide and they find themselves doing the very things they never thought they d do. Third, Goliath courage won t help you when the right thing to do is to die. We live in a very, very safe world, far safer than the world David lived in, and rarely, if ever, will we actually have to risk life or limb. But what if we find ourselves in a situation where we know the right thing to do is to lay down our lives for someone else? On October 12, 1967, Corporal William T. Perkins, a combat photographer for the United States Marines, was assigned to the 1 st Marine Division during Operation Medina of the Vietnam conflict. He was standing near three other Marines at the command post of their company, when it came under attack by the North Vietnamese Army. Suddenly, a grenade landed at the feet of the four men, and Corporal Perkins shouted, Incoming grenade, and jumped on it. It detonated seconds later, and Corporal Perkins body absorbed all the fragments and the concussion of the grenade. He died, but the other three Marines emerged without a scratch. Now, how do you think Corporal Perkins was able to do that? Do you think he looked at himself, and said, Hey, I m a Marine, they require that I do a lot of situps, so I m sure I ll be just fine if I jump on this grenade? My abs can take this? Do you think Corporal Perkins thought his training or his equipment would save him? No, in an instant, Corporal Perkins knew that either four Marines would die, or one would, and he decided to sacrifice himself for his brothers. Now I have no idea what Corporal Perkins beliefs were, but I do know this: in that kind of situation, when the right thing to do, when the brave thing to do, the courageous thing to do, is to die, Goliath courage won t help. Fourth, Goliath courage will not help you to love others. The Bible makes it absolutely clear: loving others is the only thing that matters. Jesus in Matthew 22 says the greatest commandments are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 that the only thing we can do on earth that will last into eternity is love, that love alone never fails. But if you have Goliath courage, then you ll never love others. If you re constantly looking at what you can do, at your skills and gifts and abilities to get you through life, then when people around you stumble and fall you will say, Why can t you be more like me? My life is hard too, you know you re not the only one who struggles. But I m not falling apart like you are I m getting stuff done. Why can t you be more like me? Goliath, we know, looked at disdain with those he did not consider his equals, and so will you if you rely on his courage to make it through life. Fifth, Goliath courage won t help you when you don t have anything to feel confident about. Goliath courage can take you a long way in life when you have gifts, talents, 2015 J.D. Shaw 5

looks, money, and a heritage to be proud of, to be envied, but what if, like a lot of us, there s nothing all that special about you? There s nothing remarkable or distinctive about you, nothing that separates you from everyone else? You look to yourself for confidence to face life, and there s nothing to feel confident about? No, we need to look somewhere else for the confidence, the courage, the ability to face what this life will throw at us and thrive. Second, David s faithfulness. David comes to the battle line not to fight (because he s fifteen years old), but simply to bring supplies for his brothers and their commander. Yet he happens to be there at the time of day when Goliath came out and shouted his usual defiance to Israel. And for David, there s really only one question: why isn t someone shutting him up? Why is he being allowed to mock the God of Israel and his people? Now, why is David so confident in the face of Goliath? Not because David is so talented, so gifted, so experienced, with such great equipment. Yes, David can sling a stone, but David is not counting on that. David is confident because he knows the Lord! David says, Who in the world is this Philistine compared with God? Saul and the Israelites are convinced Goliath is invincible; they are terrified of him. But David looks at him and says, He s not invincible he s just uncircumcised. In fact, that s all David will call him: this uncircumcised Philistine. Only one thing matters to David: believing in the Lord. It s what makes him so great. And when David approaches Goliath, he says this to him (and it s worth repeating in full): 45 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 the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD s, and he will give you into our hand. 1 Samuel 17:45-47. And that phrase is the key to the whole chapter: the battle is the Lord s! David knew that, so it did not matter how big Goliath was, it did not matter how experienced he was, how strong, how skilled he was, how advanced his armor and weaponry was. None of it mattered because the battle is the Lord s! This is the story of God s interaction with his people. When his people forget that the battle is the Lord s, it s disaster after disaster after disaster. But when Israel remembers that the battle is the Lord s, wonderful things happen. In the book of Exodus, we read how God forced Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go after crushing him with ten plagues. But then Pharaoh has second thoughts, and he sends his army after them. The Israelites are trapped between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea, and they cry out to Moses, Why did you bring us here to die? We should have 2015 J.D. Shaw 6

stayed in Egypt and served them! But Moses said, Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you do not even need to lift a finger. Exodus 14:13-14. And we know the battle was the Lord s that day he parted the Red Sea, the people of Israel walked to safety on dry land, and when the Egyptian army tried to follow the waters flowed back together and drowned them all. The battle is the Lord s! David knew this, he was completely faithful to God, and so he won the victory over Goliath. And it is at this point that so many preachers completely blow it when they teach on David and Goliath. They say, See, if you will just have faith like David, everything will be fine! God will work in your life, you ll be brave, and you ll be able to face whatever life throws at you. But that s really, really unhelpful. Tim Keller preached on this years ago and helped me so much: he said that when you do that you re just drawing on a spiritualized version of Goliath courage because really you re looking at yourself, your faith, and you re saying, If I m like David, if I obey God, and if I really, really, have faith in God, then God will bless me and won t let bad things happen to me. But is that biblical? Lord willing we ll study Jonathan in a few weeks. Jonathan was a wonderful, faithful man in Israel. Courageous, honest, loyal. Yet he dies on Mt. Gilboa by the hands of the Philistines, and his enemies strip him naked and take his lifeless body and nail it to a wall in one of their cities. And look all throughout Christian history at the thousands of Christians who have faced torture and death rather than refuse to be faithful to God. Friends, the moral of David and Goliath cannot be have courage, be faithful, and everything will be okay, because there are so many, many examples where it doesn't turn out that way. There are so many instances where the giant does crush the faithful believer. So, where do we turn to get the courage we need? Third, let s look to Saul s cowardice. It s so easy to think there are only two characters in this story, but really, there are three. David, Goliah, and Saul. The one person in Israel who is supposed to have the courage to fight Goliath was Saul. He was a head taller than anyone else in Israel the whole point in having a king was for situations like this. But Saul, like everyone in Israel except David, is absolutely terrified of Goliath. He doesn t do the one thing he s supposed to do protect Israel from her enemies. And friends, instead of saying to ourselves, I need to be like David. I need to have faith like David, and be courageous like David, and face trials like David, we must admit that we are just like Saul. We come in contact with the trials and tribulations and humiliations of this life and we lose heart. We are, by nature, cowards. We are Saul, and the Israelites! We are not David, we are not faithful. We are cowards! Are you ready to admit that, that you don t have what it takes? Some of us are, and some aren t. Some say, I m not a coward. I guarantee you are in some ways. Maybe you would jump on a grenade to save your friends, or maybe you could keep it together if you 2015 J.D. Shaw 7

got some horrible diagnosis from the doctor, but what if you can never admit when your wrong in your relationships? What if you can never apologize when you know you ve messed up? You know what that is? A form of cowardice. You re afraid that if you admit you were wrong and humbly ask for forgiveness that you will look like you don t know what you re doing, and you can t stand looking weak. That s cowardice. We are all cowards, and we cannot face all of life with the courage it requires. So it is no help to us to hold David out to us as some kind of example we need to follow. It s no help to say, You need to have faith like David. But more than that: that s the wrong way to read the story of David and Goliath. We are not meant to read the story and say, Oh, I need to be like David, and then I can face the giants of life. No! That s not the point! Is that what David did in the story? Did David say to the Israelites, Guys, you need to be just like me. Watch how I run out and fight Goliath. Do exactly what I do, and we ll all be saved. Is that what David says? No. That would mean David saved the Israelites by being an example, and that s not how the battle was won. Does David say to the Israelites, Okay, guys, I know Goliath is big, but we can take him. We can take him! Look there are thousands of us, and only one of him. So I'm going to lead you across the valley and I want you to run, don't stop, but run right at Goliath and start hacking away at him. Sure, he'll kill some of us, one of us will be the poor sucker hit by that spear of his, but if enough of us climb on him and stab him eventually he's got to come down, because the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Let's get him! No. That would mean David saved the Israelites through inspiration, and that s not how the battle was won. How did David win the battle with Goliath? All by himself. That s what we re meant to see. David did this all alone. Just like Goliath, David was a champion. He was fighting on behalf of all Israel. If David lost, all Israel would be treated as if they d lost. But if David won, all Israel would be treated as if they d won even though they did not lift a finger. David saved Israel that day, not through emulation (by being an example the people must follow) or inspiration but through imputation. Since David was a champion, that meant his personal victory over Israel s enemy was imputed to them, even though they didn t do anything to earn it. Even though they were cowards. David was their savior. Does that remind you of anyone else? On the cross, Jesus Christ, a direct descendant of David, faced the ultimate enemy of God s people sin and death itself. He took him on one-on-one, winner take all. Jesus does not come to us and say, Hey, guys, I m going to show you how you can defeat sin all by yourself just do what I do. Oh, no, that would be the worst thing Jesus could say to us, because we could never do what Jesus did! No, Jesus faced death all alone on the cross even the Father in heaven turned his face away from Jesus yet he won. On the cross, Jesus Christ blew a hole through the back of sin 2015 J.D. Shaw 8

and death and destroyed its power over his people. He freed his people from slavery to sin by bearing in himself all the punishment we deserve for our sins. If you believe Jesus did that for you, if you believe that Jesus saves not by emulation or inspiration but imputation, that his victory over sin and death is imputed to you by sheer grace, then you will really believe that the battle is the Lord s, and you can face anything in this life. Why? Because nothing you ll face in this life will be a horrific as what Jesus faced in his. Friends, some of you suffer greatly, I know, but all of us have trials and tests and temptations. But nothing like what Jesus faced. We might get embarrassed, humiliated, lose our jobs, lose our family, or even lose our lives. We will not have to face the wrath of God, because Jesus already has. But we will not have to face hell itself, because Jesus already has. And my goodness if Jesus didn t abandon you at the gates of hell, do you think he ll abandon you now? Here s what the book of Hebrews tells us to do. It says we must run with perseverance the race set out for us, and fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God. Therefore consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that we may not grow weary and lose heart. And the word perfecter there in Hebrews 12:2 is the Greek word archegos, which literally means champion. Jesus is our champion, who single-handedly saves us from our enemies, and his victory is given to us, imputed to us, by sheer grace. And when we see what Jesus did for us and the more we work it down in our hearts, it will transform us. And we ll find that even though naturally we are cowards, the courage of the gospel starts bubbling up in our hearts. Things that once would have absolutely devastated us and sent us running can happen now, and we re ok, because we know the battle is the Lord s, and we need only be still, we don t have to lift a finger. We must only wait on the Lord just stand in Him, through the pain, disappointment, and frustration, and fix your eyes on Jesus knowing that in Him everything will be okay. You can believe Psalm 30:5: Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. You ll be able to face trials, temptations, sufferings, humiliations of this life, even death itself, because you know Jesus lives. Because he lives, I can face tomorrow; because he lives, all fear is gone; because I know (oh, oh) he hold the future, and life is worth the living just because he lives. PRAY 2015 J.D. Shaw 9