David and Goliath

The underdog

We in Australia love the idea of the underdog.

In the sporting arena, they’ll use the phrase like it’s going out of fashion.

Some of you might know that my favourite Rugby League side is the Parramatta Eels. A few weeks back, they had been on a run of playing very poorly and being beaten comfortable by other teams. They then came up against a team that some people had been asking: is this the best team ever. The Melbourne Storm were about to get the biggest winning streak of all time. And all they had to do was beat the hapless Eels.

And would you believe it, the Eels shocked everyone and won the game.

It was your classic David and Goliath story.

The little guy wins.

We’re really captivated by this idea of David and Goliath.

On the news you might hear of an individual taking on some big company in some sort of legal battle, and they win.

The lesson seems to be quite clear. Never give up. You just never know when the tables might get turned and you win the unwinnable fight.

We adapt it to a lot of places in life. Even in the covid environment we might take heart from David and Goliath.

Covid is like this big giant, and we keep hoping that something will come along and defeat it.

It’s this hope that the big guy (or the big thing) doesn’t always win that makes this story so appealing. It gives us hope.

And boy do we need hope right now.

But is this the main lesson we get from this account?

Well, I want to suggest that this simplistic reading misses a much deeper truth.

You see, there’s a problem with this simplistic reading. And that is that while the little guy wins on this occasion… the little guy doesn’t always win. There are plenty of other occasions, even in the Bible, when the bigger army, or the bigger opponent, or the bigger whatever actually wins out.

So the simplistic reading of David and Goliath, while it gives us some hope, in many ways it remains a rather flimsy hope. It says that its possible, but not certain.

Well, that’s less than comforting.

So have I just dashed our hopes?

Well, I want to take us deeper this morning. In some ways by choosing such a familiar story we think, right, I know this one, but as we follow the story, I want to pay attention to what is really happening.

Context

First for the context.

Last week I looked at that moment when God chose David and Samuel annointed him.

We started to see a real contrast between Saul, the first king that the people wanted, and David, the king that God gave them.

If we were to go back to the time Saul was first introduced for us back in 1 Samuel 9, he was described as a head taller than anyone else. Now keep that description in mind because it’s going to become relevant again today.

You see, the Israelites wanted a king just like the other nations, and so they got a king just like the other nations.

Now while Saul had shown a few promising signs early on in that he won a few battles against his enemies, but things started to go down hill for him.

I think I mentioned last week that when the prophet Samuel first highlighted Saul’s failures that I though it was a bit harsh. That is, he didn’t do exactly what God said, but in the scheme of things, his error wasn’t that bad.

But in part, the reason I made the assessment was because I was judging by the wrong standard.

I was seeing as the world sees.

Now you might remember the verse I wanted to highlight as the key to unravelling this.

We saw the key verse in 1 Samuel 16:7 where God says he doesn’t look at the outward appearance but he looks at the heart.

This is going to become relevant again today. God sees differently to us.

When we pay attention to this passage, we’ll begin to see that we start to see God’s perspective, and it’ll be quite different from ours.

The Account

So on that note, let’s look at the actual story, but with paying attention to the details.

The location

The first three verses set the location. If you’re like me, you probably gloss over the names on account of the fact that you have absolutely no idea where each of these place names are, and so you remain content that it was a real place, but without much care for the precise location,.

Well, this is the good part about reading commentaries, because the people who write them spend the time to actually figure out where it is, and there’s something worthwhile noting.

You see, back in chapter 14, we see Jonathan, the son of Saul, have a victory against the Philistines. But this battle with Goliath now, is closer to Israel then this earlier battle. In other words, all progress that had been made to ward off the enemy, not only have they lost the ground they had taken, they were worse off then before.

These Philistines are proving a tricky enemy.

Goliath

Well, from verse 4 we get to meet perhaps the most famous giant ever - Goliath, a name that is now synonymous with huge.

He’s introduced as a champion.

The Hebrew word translated here as champion, is actually more directly translated as the man of the between.

If you can imagine it, we’ve essentially got a line of Philistines and a line of Israelites, both facing each other.

The man of the between is the one that literally moves between these two lines. In so doing, he becomes the challenger, or perhaps the champion.

Goliath himself comes from Gath, one of the five major cities of the Philistines. Curiously, it was in these five cities we saw an almost comical couple of scene of chaos in which the Philistine god of Dagon fell face down - an image that in some ways will be repeated in our story today.

Now the author of 1 Samuel then goes to quite a lot of detail to describe Goliath - more detail then we normally get in these accounts.

One of the most impressive being his height which is six cubits which is the equivalent of about 9 foot 6 inches.

Now let’s just put a bit of context to that. Most people tend to think of me as being tall. I stand at about 6 foot 2, or 188cm.

Now let’s just pretend I was to walk out with a professional basketball team. I would be one of the short people.

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever watched any of the NBA before. Occasionally you see a really tall player, and given every one’s tall, that means they are really tall.

Well the tallest of these players stand some where around 7 foot 7.

So, if we were to place Goliath up against the tallest player in the NBA, Goliath would make him look small being another two foot on him.

But those 7 foot 7 guys are usually built like bean poles. Based on what Goliath is carrying, he is anything but skinny.

The description of his armour shows that this guy is defended like a fortress. And his weapons are so heavy that if you found them coming your way, you would not be able to stop it.

The level of detail we are given leaves us with absolutely no doubt, that from a worldly perspective, this man is unable to be defeated.

In some ways the author of the book is forcing our hands. We can’t but help see this from the way man looks at things.

Threat

Well, the threat comes next, and it’s not too hard to imagine the terror that is being caused.

The whole thing is designed to be intimidating.

The Philistines through Goliath are saying, look, we can forget about the whole war. We’ll even give ourselves over to you if only you can put someone up against Goliath.

Essentially it’s a hopeless situation. Goliath can’t be beat. But Israel deem their army isn’t positioned well for battle either.

The bottom line, it’s a lose-lose situation.

Where’ Saul?

But before Goliath actually utter the content of the threat, he actually touches on a bit of a sore point, and it’s easy to miss.

One of the lines he uses is: “Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul?”

It’s the “Servants of Saul” which is what I want to narrow in on.

Remember, I mentioned just a moment that when we first met Saul back in 1 Samuel 9, he was said to be a head above everyone else. In other words, while he might not be in the league of Goliath, but he was meant to be Israels great hope.

The problem is, though from a worldly perspective he seems to have the goods, when the rubber hits the road, he is lacking.

Possibly its not even a lack of intention. He’s probably just being realistic.

If it was a game of chess, then he’s in check mate.

Goliath is just there to mock them. In fact, when Goliath says in verse 10 “This day I defy the armies of the Israel”, the word defy could possibly be more accurately translated as mock. He’s saying that this day I mock the Israelite army.

Saul sees as man sees. And knowing they are backed in to a corner, they’re filled with fear and dread.

It happens to us all the time. We look at the situation before us, and no matter how you spin each scenario, all you can see is dread and bad endings.

In the case of Israel here, we actually find in verse 16 that they are locked in this cycle of dread for 40 days. Presumably Israel are too paralysed withe fear to do anything, and the Philistines are probably enjoying the process of seeing their enemies in such a state of psychological torture.

David

But in verse 12, David comes into the picture.

The next few verses re-acquaints us with his brothers that we met last week.

And if you recall, these were fine looking men. They were people that even the prophet Samuel thought looked like worthy candidates for king.

Well, the eldest three were in the line up of Israelites being mocked by the fortified giant of the between.

David was too young to enter the battle however.

Now how old was he exactly? Well, we’re not actually told. In another place it’s implied that the fighting age was 20, so he would have been younger than that. Quite possible he would have been around 15, but there’s a lot of guesswork in that.

But this teenager does get to see the battle lines because he gets to take some supplies for his brothers. But what he was doing was very ordinary. The author of 1 Samuel goes to some length to describe what it was that David was bringing, and while some people might try to read something into this, I’m more of the opinion that the author is just trying to emphasise how ordinary the task was.

On one such occasion, David just so happens to arrive at a time when the giant of the between, Goliath, has come out to do his mocking.

And remember this has been going on for 40 days.

What David sees

Well, what becomes clear is that David does not see like other men.

And just like last week I said the key to understanding what’s going on is recognising that God does not see like we do… the same is here. David has been blessed by God to be able to see this situation in a completely different light.

It is this different light that I come back to my claim earlier when I said that we shouldn’t see this simply as a case of sometimes the little guy can win.

So what does David see?

Well, he’s certainly not put out by this three metre fortress of a man. He sees a disgrace.

He asks the question: “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that she should defy the armies of the living God?” (v26)

Now maybe it isn’t immediately obvious, but he’s putting it in spiritual terms. Uncircumcised: while on one level you might think it’s just a surgical procedure, but particularly at this time it was someone who had not been marked for God.

And he didn’t just say Israel - they’re the armies of the living God.

In other words, what David is seeing is not just one nation against another (in which case the despair is warranted), rather he is seeing a false god up against the one true God.

If we were to see this story as David does, then were actually looking beyond the narrative of a little guy coming up against a big guy. We’re seeing a true God against a false one. If we were to see it this way, then the story is not a surprise at all.

The problem is, we are so much a part of our world that it’s hard to separate ourselves from the worlds way of looking at something. And so we do get surprised at stories like these.

Facing Goliath

Well let’s keep following the story.

When David’s brothers hear David speaking in what to them sounds like nonsense, they become angry - they just can’t see it the right way.

But David repeats himself to others, and eventually finds himself before Saul.

Now last week I made a passing suggestion that perhaps the second half of chapter 16 is out of chronological order. You see, in chapter 16 we see an encounter between Saul and David, but here it would seem Saul is meeting David for the first time. If it is out of chronological order, then this would explain that.

The conversation that we then get between David and Saul betray the fact that they just see things differently.

Saul can only see David as a young man.

David on the other hand, knows what it means to have the Lord’s strength. He’s previously battled bears and lions. It wasn’t in his strength he prevailed, but God’s.

Eventually Saul agrees, but tries to dress him as you might expect.

But David knows this is no typical battle. This is going to be very different.

All David takes is five smooth stones.

Some people read a lot into these five stones. I think though it just represents a very unconventional approach.

Finally, David faces Goliath, and Goliath is actually offended by his unimpressive opponent.

But David is fearless. His response to Goliath again reminds us how God sees this.

This is no small guy up against a big guy. This is God against a false god.

Just imagine what both armies must be thinking. I suspect both are too shocked to know what to think.

In verse 48, Goliath move to attack David. But David runs at him, takes a stone. Puts it in his sling. And must have got one of the only parts of the giant that wasn’t protected.

Verse 50 reminds us how unconventional this was. It highlights that David didn’t even have a sword in his hand.

Goliath had fallen face down on the ground.

David takes Goliath’s sword, and with it, his head comes off.

Application

Now because we are so familiar with this story we just naturally follow the way the world interprets it. That is, that when everything is stacked against you, hang in there, because maybe, just maybe, the tables may get turned.

But I want to suggest that the tables actually didn’t get turned. It’s just that people were looking at it wrong.

So what does this mean for us?

Well, let’s take a situation you’re facing. For all of us, in some ways at least, we’re being affected by the pandemic.

Now our natural inclination with the David and Goliath story, is to then take the pandemic and say: see, we can have hope, we’ll just have to hold out and we’ll see a great victory.

Now I’m not necessarily saying that won’t happen.

But perhaps there is a deeper message in the David and Goliath narrative. One that reminds us to step back from our worldly perspective. One that stops being so obsessed with whether vaccines are good or bad. Or whether lockdowns are an over reach or good governance. And instead focus on - what is God doing in all of this?

Now that’s not going to necessarily be immediately obvious. And that’s because we don’t naturally see as God does.

But while certain aspects of it will remain unclear - we will see some things clearly.

We’ll see that God has not lost control. We don’t want to be like those in Israel’s army line who were filled with fear and dismay. They couldn’t see a God in control.

But we know God is in control.

And we also know from Romans 8:28 that God works all things for the good of those who love him.

I don’ know how the whole thing is going to play out in the specifics, but I do know that God will be glorified. That God will reign supreme.

Conclusion

The David and Goliath story should be a reminder that God’s perspective is very different to ours.

It’s hard to not get caught up in the issues that are in our face.

The only real way to counter that though is to spend time with God.

Listen to his word. Meditate on Him.

When you feel yourself delving into fear - and that fear can come from lots of different directions - but remember a few key truths:

God is in control

God loves you.

God is working for your good.

This is not to say bad things won’t happen. It is to say that those bad things should be seen from a different perspective.

It’s a perspective that will allow us to join with Paul when he says: “For me to live is Christ, but to die is gain”.

When you get caught in a bad place, can I encourage you to make the effort to seek out God’s voice, because from a worldly perspective, there is only gloom.

Let me pray...