David: The Battle Is The Lord's!
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(David vs Goliath Video?)
Last week we talked about how God chose David to be the next king of Israel, we also talked about how David is not king yet.
When we left Saul and David, the Spirit of the Lord came to rest on David and left Saul. Well, not only did the Spirit of the Lord leave Saul, but another spirit came to rest on Saul…this was not pleasant. Saul was tormented by this spirit and David would come and play his harp to soothe Saul.
At this time, David was going back and forth between his fathers house and Saul. Israel goes to battle against the Philistines and David’s father sends him to check on his brothers and bring back a report...
Well, while David was tending to the sheep, the Israelite army had a big problem…and his name was Goliath. Now, Goliath was either around 6 foot 9 inches or 9 foot 9 inches depending on the manuscript. The oldest manuscripts found with the dead sea scrolls and the Jewish historian Josephus say 4 cubits and a span (6 foot 9), KJV, NIV, and others say 6 cubits and a span (9 foot 9) and his armor weighted over 115 pounds and the head of his spear was about 15 pounds…so either way you slice it, this was a massive man.
Goliath would come out and taunt the army, yelling at them, insulting them, but mostly challenging them to a fight...
8 Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me.
9 If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.”
10 Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.”
11 On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.
While Goliath taunts the Israelite army for 40 days, David packs up his bread and cheese and makes his way to the camp. When he gets there, he hears Goliath and he isn’t scared, he is angry…who is this Philistine to challenge the army of the living God?
Saul, if you remember, was a head taller than the other Israelite men. Not to get too into the weeds here, but it is a common belief that the average Hebrew man was about 5 foot 5, or about 5 inches shorter than me. And we don’t know how old or how tall David but it’s probably safe to assume he was younger than 20, because he was not in the army, which probably means he was less than 20 years old (Numbers 1:3) and possibly somewhere between 5 to 5 1/2 feet tall.
So the image is:
Saul - looks like a king, somewhere between 6 to 6 1/2 tall
Goliath - looks like a battle tested warrior, between 6 ft 9 and 9 ft 9(I go with the former because the text is older)
David - looks like a shepherd, somewhere between 5 - 5 1/2 tall.
(images for visual aid)
Fast forward and David is standing before king Saul offering to fight Goliath, whom everyone else is terrified of...
32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”
33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”
34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock,
35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.
36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.
37 The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”
Now, we are at another point in the story where we see that your actions reveal what your believe in and where you place your trust.
Saul says, go and may the Lord be with you…and then turns around and dresses David in his armor… Saul may not have said it out loud, but he is not putting his trust in the Lord, he is putting his trust in his armor.
38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head.
39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off.
40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.
David says he trusts that God will deliver him…and then his actions line up with his words. David does not take Saul’s armor or his weapons, he takes his own sling shot and 5 smooth stones…a teenage shepherd vs a battle tested warrior. It’s one thing to say you trust God and it’s another to live like it.
David goes out to meet Goliath on the battle flied and this is how Goliath responds.
42 He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him.
43 He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
David says you come at my with all of your armor and weapons but I come to you in the Name of the Living God!
47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
Goliath is insulted that Saul sent David to fight him, and then David kills him.
Now, we need to stop here. Its easy to read stories like this and identify with David. Some people teach this text as a way to motivate people to go and slay their giant. I don’t think that is the point of the story. I don’t think we should read ourselves into this story, especially not as David.
The imagery here is an enemy so terrifying that we don’t want to even look at him. And an unlikely hero. Someone who didn’t look like a king, or go to battle dressed as a king, and he freed his people from their enemy.
I don’t think we should read ourselves as David in this story, I think we should read Jesus as David in this story. If we were going to identify with someone in the story it would probably be more accurate to identify with the Israelite army. We stand on the battle lines and look on the enemy with fear, and Jesus comes in and defeats our enemy.
And if we are the army, then maybe we should respond the same way the army did after David killed Goliath...
51 David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran.
52 Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron.
We may not be David in this story, but we have a King who defeated our greatest enemy and we should live without fear. We don’t need to worry about satan because we know that Jesus has the final victory.
This is the story in the garden in Genesis 3, the serpent’s head is crushed. This is the story from the Gospels on the 3rd day when they went to the tomb and He wasn’t there. This is the story of Revelation 19 where Jesus wins the final battle. This story is all throughout the Bible, and our response is the belief that if we are in Christ, if we have made Him the King of our hearts, that He will take care of us no matter what happens. So don’t have to be afraid, we can have confidence that no matter how hard life gets, Jesus has overcome...
Jesus talks to His disciples in John 16 after the last supper and after he tells them that He is going away, and He is telling them that things are going to get really difficult for them, but then He says this...
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
The story of David and Goliath reminds us that in this world we will have trouble, but it also reminds us that we have a hero who fights our battles for us and delivers us from our greatest enemy, death itself.
As far as David goes, well he is going to become famous and Saul is going to lose his mind. David goes on to be a greatly successful warrior… and Saul becomes very jealous of David and seeks to kill him…and when we pick up next week David will be running for his life and Saul will be clinging on to his kingdom with everything he has left...