Can I pray for you in any way?
Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian
Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Socoh in
Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah. Saul and
the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their
battle line to meet the Philistines. The Philistines occupied one hill and the
Israelites another, with the valley between them.
A champion named
Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. He was over nine
feet tall. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of
bronze weighing five thousand shekels; on his legs, he wore bronze greaves and
a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver's rod
and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of
him.
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. 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." Then the Philistine said, "This day I defy
the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other."
On hearing the
Philistine's words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.
Now David was the son of
an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight
sons, and in Saul's time he was old and well advanced in years. Jesse's three
oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second,
Abinadab; and the third, Shammah. David was the youngest. The three oldest
followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father's
sheep at Bethlehem.
For forty days, the
Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.
Now Jesse said to his
son David, "Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread
for your brothers and hurry to their camp. Take along these ten cheeses to the
commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some
assurance from them. They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley
of Elah, fighting against the Philistines."
Early in the morning,
David left the flock with a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had
directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle
positions, shouting the war cry. Israel and the Philistines were drawing up
their lines facing each other. David left his things with the keeper of
supplies, ran to the battle lines and greeted his brothers. As he was talking
with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his
lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. When the Israelites
saw the man, they all ran from him in great fear.
Now the Israelites had
been saying, "Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to
defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will
also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his father's family from
taxes in Israel."
David asked the men
standing near him, "What will be done for the man who kills this
Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised
Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" They
repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, "This is what will
be done for the man who kills him."
When Eliab, David's
oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him
and asked, "Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those
few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart
is; you came down only to watch the battle."
"Now what have I
done?" said David. "Can't I even speak?" He then turned away to
someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as
before. What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for
him.
David said to Saul,
"Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go
and fight him."
Saul replied, "You
are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a
boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth."
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, 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. 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. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of
the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this
Philistine."
Saul said to David,
"Go, and the Lord be with you."
Then Saul dressed David
in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his
head. 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.
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.
Meanwhile, the
Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to
David. He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome,
and he despised him. He said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come at me
with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. "Come
here," he said, "and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and
the beasts of the field!"
David said to the
Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I
come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of
Israel, whom you have defied. This day, the Lord will hand you over to me and
I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of
the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and
the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 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."
As the Philistine moved
closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him.
Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the
Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell
facedown on the ground.
So David triumphed over
the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand, he struck
down the Philistine and killed him. David ran and stood over him. He took hold
of the Philistine's sword and drew it from the scabbard. 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. 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.
When the Israelites
returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp. David took
the Philistine's head and brought it to Jerusalem and he put the Philistine's
weapons in his own tent.
As Saul watched David
going out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army,
"Abner, whose son is that young man?"
Abner replied, "As
surely as you live, O king, I don't know."
The king said,
"Find out whose son this young man is."
As soon as David
returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before
Saul, with David still holding the Philistine's head.
"Whose son are you,
young man?" Saul asked him.
David said, "I am
the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem."
1 Samuel 17
This ends our reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Have you ever come up
against opposition in your life…someone or something that seemed to be
insurmountable…someone or something that always seemed to oppress you and keep
you down? Maybe, you have even found yourself frightened at the very thought of
having to face someone or deal with a particular situation.
If we live life long
enough, I think we’ll all maybe face times like this so it would be good to
have some guidance from God’s Word as to how to handle it. Thankfully, He does
just that in our scripture passage from 1st Samuel, chapter 17. There we find sound
direction on how to deal with the challenging people or circumstances we
encounter in life by seeing how a young boy named David defied the odds and
found his way to victory…all because he chose by faith to be armed with God
against his enemy.
The chapter starts off
with a battle brewing between the Philistines and the Israelites and after they
had assembled armies and set up camp, we read where the “Philistines occupied
one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them”. On the
surface, it appeared that the battlefield was balanced and victory would come
to the army who fought harder. But the Philistines had something that Israel
didn’t have…”a champion named Goliath”.
So what made Goliath so
different from any other fighter?
Well, for starters, he was
a giant, standing “over nine feet tall”. As he stepped out to challenge the
Israelites, he must have been a terrifying sight with the “bronze helmet on his
head” and a “coat of scale armor of bronze” as well as “bronze greaves” on his
body. Just bearing the weight of all this armor was a testament to the massive
strength of the Philistine warrior who also carried a “bronze javelin…on his
back”.
So as the Israelite army
looked up at this giant of a man dressed for battle before them, Goliath
shouted a proposition to them, asking that they “choose a man and have him come
down” to fight him (Goliath) in battle. If the chosen Israelite was “able to
fight and kill” Goliath, then all the Philistines would become subjects of
Israel. But…if Goliath were to win, then the Israelites would become subjects
of the Philistines and serve them.
The proposal seemed
simple enough and would avert an all out war but the odds seemed very stacked
in the favor of the Philistines and Goliath knew it. His challenge was made out
of arrogance as he didn’t believe that Israel had anyone who could defeat him.
You know, we still see
people evoking this same attitude of arrogance today as they mistreat others. Like
Goliath, they constantly present a bully-like mentality, feeling that they are
so superior to others that they can taunt them and nothing will come of it.
Well, Goliath is soon to
discover that the arrogant confidence he had in his own strength and might was
going to be no match for the God of Israel, the One who was (and still is) infinitely
more powerful than anyone or anything in all creation.
And so going back to the
scriptures, we see that “Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and
terrified” after Goliath’s challenge…a challenge that would be repeated over
the next forty days. It left the Israelites wondering how they were ever going
to overcome such a belligerent adversary.
Before I go any further,
I want to highlight an important error committed by the Israelites, one they
had committed before. For nowhere in this passage do we find them going to God to
ask what they should do.
And yet, God had a plan
nonetheless…and that plan would play out in a way that showed He was at the
center of things for only He could do what happened next.
For coming onto the
scene was the anointed youngest son of Jesse…the shepherd boy David who had
been chosen by God to become the new king of Israel. Now, he would be chosen
once again, in this instance to go up against the mighty Goliath.
Now, it’s important to
note that David wasn’t the only one of Jesse’s sons involved for we read where his
“three oldest sons (Eliab, Abinadab and Shammah) had followed Saul to the war”
while David “went back and forth from Saul to tend his father's sheep at
Bethlehem”. On one of his trips to Saul, Jesse gave David the following orders:
“Take
this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and
hurry to their camp. Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their
unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them. They
are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against
the Philistines."
And so after leaving the
“flock with a shepherd”, David loaded up and set out in the morning, reaching
the “camp as the army was going out to its battle positions” and “shouting the
war cry”. As “Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing
each other”, “David left his things with the keeper of supplies” and “ran to
the battle lines” to greet his brothers.
Just as he did, out
stepped Goliath who “shouted his usual defiance” and David, hearing this for
the first time, watched the Israelites run in great fear at just the sight of
the behemoth warrior. After viewing the spectacle, we see David asking some men
standing nearby:
"What
will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace
from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the
armies of the living God?"
So the men told David what benefits would come upon
any Israelite who could defeat the Philistine giant to include great wealth,
the king’s daughter in marriage, and a tax exemption for his father's family.
Now, Eliab, David's
oldest brother, “heard him speaking with the men” and was very unhappy about
it. Perhaps, it was a bit of brotherly jealousy since he, the eldest son, was
not selected by God to rule Israel. Whatever the reason, we read where Eliab “burned
with anger” at David and asked:
"Why
have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the
desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came
down only to watch the battle."
In response to this, we
see where David doesn’t back down from his older brother’s attack as he replies:
“Now
what have I done?…Can't I even speak?"
David’s bold attitude
got the attention of Saul’s men who told him about it and, in turn, Saul
summoned David to him. David then said to Israel’s king:
"Let
no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight
him."
Now, imagine you are
Saul in this situation. A young shepherd boy is before you and wants to go out
on the battlefield and single-handedly fight Goliath who no one else was
willing to go against.
How would you respond?
Well, I think we would probably
take the same approach that Saul did for he said this to David:
“You
are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a
boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth."
But David was supremely confident
before Saul and boldly replied:
“Your
servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and
carried off a sheep from the flock, 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. 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. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion
and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine."
And with those words,
Saul was convinced that David could meet the challenge as he said:
“Go,
and the Lord be with you."
So what was the
difference maker in David’s attitude and words?
It wasn’t the fact that
he had killed both lion and bear when they tried to attack the flock. Rather,
it was because the Lord had been with him, delivering him from potential danger
and its ensuing harm. God had done it before and young David was sure the Lord
would do it again if he faced off against the Philistine Goliath.
Friends, we need to go
forth boldly in our own lives as David did, especially when adversity calls.
For the Lord is always with us and ready to deliver us from whatever adverse
circumstance we might come under. We only need to seek Him, maintain our faith,
and allow for His will to be done.
Well, as we go back to chapter
17, we see Saul rather comically try to dress David for battle using his tunic,
a coat of armor, and a bronze helmet. Try and picture a young boy trying to
wear adult armor and you can see where things just wouldn’t fit too well. This
was affirmed when David tried to walk around in the armor but quickly discarded
it because he was not used to it. And so he went forward without any armor,
taking his “staff in his hand” and choosing “five smooth stones from the stream”
which he placed “in the pouch of his shepherd's bag”. And with this, David took
“his sling in…hand” and “approached the Philistine”.
Now, pretend that you’re
Goliath. You have mocked and challenged the Israelites forty days…and each day
ended the same, with no man coming forward to fight.
But this day would be
different. For from the ranks of Israel comes a young boy who is wearing no
armor and carrying no shield.
How would you feel at
that point?
Well, if I were Goliath,
I would be liking my chances of victory, and we see him definitely thinking
this was as David came forward. Seeing the young boy, Goliath despised him and cursed
him by his gods saying with arrogance:
“Am
I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?…Come here and I'll give your flesh to
the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!"
I’m pretty sure Goliath
thought his words would intimidate David and cause him to flee like the other
Israelites. But Goliath wasn’t dealing with any ordinary person in David who
replied with the following:
“You
come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the
name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have
defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down
and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army
to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will
know that there is a God in Israel. 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."
Here we find David speaking
boldly and with great confidence, not because he had any physical prowess like
Goliath but rather because He had the power and might of the Lord on his side…a
Lord who could and would deliver victory to David in reward for his
faithfulness.
And so the showdown was
set.
David versus Goliath.
The boy against the
giant.
We read where Goliath
made the first move as he drew “closer to attack” but David moved quickly “toward
the battle line to meet him”, reaching “into his bag” and taking “out a stone”
which he “slung…and struck the Philistine on the forehead”. The stone hot
Goliath with such blunt force that it “sank into his forehead” and caused the
giant to fall dead “facedown on the ground”.
In what had to be
shocking to everyone who saw it, “David triumphed over the Philistine with a
sling and a stone…without a sword in his hand”. And to complete what he said he
would do, David “took hold of the Philistine's sword and drew it from the
scabbard”, using it to “cut off (Goliath’s) head”.
As for the Philistine
army, they had to initially be in shock as they “saw that their hero was dead”.
Then we read where they “turned and ran” while “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”. Then the Israelites plundered the Philistine camp
while David took the Philistine's head to Jerusalem and put “the Philistine's
weapons in his own tent”.
When it was all said and
done, David had gained victory…not so much by his own doing but by the Lord’s
who had helped him beat the odds and defy anyone who doubted his chances
against Goliath.
Friends, this is exactly
why we cherish, worship, and praise our Lord so much because He is the One who
helps us in our times of need…He is the One who is our strength when we need
empowered to gain victory in His name…and He is the One who delivers us from
our adversity, no matter the odds might seem to be against us.
If you are facing
opposition today, I encourage you to follow the lead of David and allow the
Lord to help you through your circumstances. For He will always stand ready to help
you find victory over the Goliaths of your life. All you need to do is call on
Him and place your trust in Him completely.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you
feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
