Happy summer. It is the season to celebrate Jesus and enjoy all His gifts. It
is the season to get involved in sowing seeds. It is the season to delve in to
the great out doors with endless beauty and amazing grace. The Lord Blessed
us with an amazing Sunday. It was great to be in the House of the Lord for one
more time. The youth of the church led the worship. The Lord blessed us all.
The music and the message were anointed. I had a great fathers' day. . . Talked
to my daughters. We had fun reminiscing our days, sharing, and doing life
together. My younger brother Caleb prepared an Indian feast in the evening.
All our families joined to celebrate and feast. Thanks be to Jesus.
One of the readings for yesterday was taken
from 1 Samuel 17, the classic story of young David facing giant Goliath,
unafraid, undaunted. David’s father, Jesse, wanted to get a report from the
battlefield so he decided to send David with some food for his brothers.
Actually, it was quite a hefty load—five pounds of roasted grain, ten loaves of
bread, ten cheeses. It’s 18 miles from Bethlehem to the Elah Valley. David ran
all the way.
David arrived just as Goliath came out to make
his daily challenge. By this time the routine was getting old. Goliath came
out, made a few threats, cursed the men of Israel, and then went back to his
fellow Philistines. Little did he know, but this time things would be
different. David knew nothing of this giant
Goliath and his challenge, but he was excited to be on the battlefield and away
from the sheep, so he asked, “What’s going on? Why doesn’t somebody take care
of that loud-mouth?” In verse 25: “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He
comes out to defy Israel. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should
defy the armies of the living God?” (I Samuel 17:26). I love the
connotation, “The armies of the living God.” He did not speak of “the armies of
Saul” or “the armies of Israel.” That makes all the difference in the world.
The soldiers responded by saying, “Do you see
that guy? He’s like a mountain out there. You wouldn’t last five seconds.”
Yes, David saw him, but he understood that Goliath was not only defying Israel,
but he was defying Israel’s God. David looked
at life differently. While Israel saw Goliath as an immovable object, David saw
him from God’s point-of-view. David was no match for Goliath but when that
uncircumcised Philistine took on God, he got in over his head. David saw
Goliath but he also saw God, and that made all the difference.
Before David could go after Goliath, he had to
convince the doubters. The first one was his older brother Eliab who questioned
David’s motives: “Why have you come down here? 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” (I Samuel 17:28). Eliab’s problem
was two-fold. First, he was both a jerk and a coward. He could not stand the
thought that his kid brother could do something he could not and would not do.
David answered in the words of younger brothers and sisters everywhere: “Now
what have I done?” (verse 31).
David still he wasn’t ready to go fight
Goliath. Word came to Saul that at last a man has been found, but when Saul
finds out it was David, he could not believe it. To Saul, David was only a child
with no chance in the world that he could beat Goliath. He said to David, “You
are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.” David
responded, “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” (I
Samuel 17:36-37).
Behind these brave words lies an important
truth: Every giant in our path is also in God’s path if we are going in God’s
direction. God sends giants in our path on a regular basis, first, to see if we
will run or fight. Second, to allow us an opportunity to honor our God.
So it was that David strode into battle with
only his staff and sling. As he headed down the slope, he paused at the creek
bed to pick up five smooth stones. By this
time David was approaching Goliath while, behind his shoulder, the whole army
watched. As he walked, Goliath got bigger and bigger and bigger. Pretty soon
some Philistine saw David and all of the Philistines start laughing.
Before they could fight, there was one more
thing they had to do. In single combat, the fighters would first yell at each
other, sort of an Old Testament version of trash talking. Goliath said to
David, “Come on over here and I’ll feed you to the birds and the
beasts.”
David responded in verses
45-47 with one of the great statements of faith in all the Bible, “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.”
Then David began to swing the sling round and
round and, at the perfect moment, he released the stone, which hit Goliath
between the eyes and lodged in his forehead. Goliath never knew what hit him.
Such a thing had never entered his mind before. With a mighty crash he fell to
the ground. Verse 50, “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 had promised to cut off his head but he
didn’t have a sword. He used Goliath’s own sword to complete the
task. The soldiers on both sides could
not believe their eyes. From the north end of the valley, the men of Israel are
cheering, whooping, hollering. It had become
the most one-sided duel in history and Israel’s greatest military victory. All
because one man saw life from God’s perspective. A whole nation was saved,
revived, and energized because a young shepherd dared to see life from the top
down. David was a nobody when he arrived early in the morning, but by sundown
he was a national hero. For that one act of bravery, he was enshrined forever
in history. Never again would he be overlooked or taken for
granted.
Goliath was actually defying the God of Israel. What appeared to be a
purely military conflict turns out to be a spiritual conflict as well. We may
face exactly that kind of conflict today. In fact, there are numerous warnings
in the New Testament to expect opposition from the world, the flesh and the
devil. Let us Consider Acts 14:22, “We must go through many hardships to enter
the kingdom of God.” The whole Christian life is one battle after another and
most of us will face a whole army of giants before the story is fully
told.
Sometimes we will find ourselves in situations
where we find ourselves alone, facing a giant. A
giant is any situation in our path which blocks the way God wants us to go. It
might be a person who opposes us or it might be a combination of circumstances
which when taken together block us from doing what God wants done. It
may be an impossible situation at work or at home. It may be a financial
difficulty or a broken relationship. It may be a task before us that we
know we can’t handle. It may be a dream that seems unreachable. Giants by
definition are enormous, threatening, intimidating. Whenever we stand up to a giant and fight him in the name of the Lord,
mighty miracles begin to take place. There
are still giants in the land and God is looking for some Davids.
In Christ,
Pastor Brown.
https://youtu.be/DMZ8D6nTKhg
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