1 Samuel chapter 17 and verse 41,
and this is the word of the Lord. And the Philistine came on, we're
speaking about Goliath and David here, and the Philistine came
on and drew near unto David. And the man that bared the shield
went before him. And when the Philistine looked
about and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth,
and ruddy, and of a fair countenance. And the Philistine said unto
David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves, or
sticks? And the Philistine cursed David
by his gods. And the Philistine said to David,
come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air
and to the beasts of the field. Then said David to the Philistine,
thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield,
but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God
of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will
the Lord deliver thee into mine hand, and I will smite thee and
take thine head from thee, and I will give the carcasses of
the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air
and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may
know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know
that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear, for the battle
is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hands. And it came
to pass, when the Philistine arose and came and drew nigh
to meet David, that David hasted and ran toward the army to meet
the Philistine. And David put his hand in his
bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine
in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead, and he
fell upon his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine
with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and
slew him. But there was no sword in the
hand of David, Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine,
and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof,
and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the
Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled. And the
men of Israel and of Judah arose and shouted and pursued the Philistines,
until thou come to the valley and to the gates of Ekron. And
the wounded of the Philistines fell down by the way to Sharem,
even unto Gath and unto Ekron. And the children of Israel returned
from chasing after the Philistines, and they spoiled their tents.
And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to
Jerusalem. but he put his armour in his
tent. And when Saul saw David go forth
against the Philistine, he said unto Abner the captain of the
host, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, As thy
soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Inquire
thou whose son the stripling is. And as David returned from
the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him
before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And
Saul said to him, Whose son art thou, thou young man? And David
answered, I am the son of thy servant, Jesse the Bethlehemite. Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading from his word. Well, we've been kind of building
up to this incident for several weeks now. David had come to
visit his brothers at the battle He first heard and then he rebuked
Goliath, the giant Philistine champion who came out every morning
and challenged the armies of Israel to send them out a champion.
He mocked and provoked Israel and he mocked and provoked the
God of Israel. And we learned previously that
David was taken to Saul, who tried to fit him out with the
king's armour, but David rejected it. And instead, he went to meet
Goliath, just wearing his own clothes, his own apparel, carrying
his shepherd's staff and a little pouch, into which he slipped
five smooth stones from a nearby brook. And I wonder what the
Israelite army thought. And I wonder what David's brothers
thought when they saw the back of this young man striding out
onto the battlefield. I can imagine them looking at
one another and thinking, This isn't going to end well. Every
eye, no doubt in both the camps, would be on the scene of the
young shepherd, David, just a youth, walking out towards this giant
soldier. But before the fight began, Goliath
and David talked, they entered into a little bit of a dialogue
and Goliath was obviously angry. Goliath speaks to David, he speaks
with an an aggression, he tries to intimidate David but he expresses
his disgust and we might say his affrontery that Israel would
send this youth to fight him. He took it as a personal slight. Nothing about David suggested
that this was going to be a fair fight. David had no strength. He did not have the strength
of a mature man. He obviously didn't have the
experience of a fighting man, nor did it appear that he would
have any ability to stand his ground with this experienced
and strong soldier, Goliath. He was little more than a boy
carrying a stick. And Goliath was angry and he
cursed David, swearing by his God to give David's flesh to
the animals and to the birds. And he called David to come closer,
probably because Goliath was so big and had so much armour
on that he found it hard to move. And probably, I say perhaps,
David stayed just outside the Philistines' reach. But David's
response to Goliath cursing him by his gods is very telling. Goliath swore at David, telling
him what he was going to do to him. And David told Goliath,
what the covenant God of Israel was going to do to him and to
all his people, all of the Philistines. And let me just read again a
few of David's words, because I think they're precious words,
they're meaningful, and they're thoroughly repeatable, so they
deserve to be repeated. David says this, and it's something
for us all to remember. Just like David put those five
smooth stones in his pouch, these are good words for us to put
in our pocket and remember them in our mind. This is what David
said to Goliath. Thou comest to me with a sword,
and with a spear and with a shield. But I come to thee in the name
of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, that
is the covenant God, whom thou hast defied. This day will the
Lord deliver thee into mine hand. I suspect the Spirit of God had
revealed knowledge to David about what was going to happen. And as we said last week, David
believed, he believed Samuel, he believed God that someday
he would be king of Israel. If that was true, then David
could not die today facing Goliath. David believed the Lord. He believed that the Lord would
give him victory and that he'd cut off Goliath's head and defeat
the Philistine army. What a wonderful attitude with
which to approach this situation, this set of circumstances. What
a wonderful attitude to have that clarity of thought that
the Lord, no matter how aggressive, no matter how large, no matter
how dangerous the situation might be, to have confidence that the
Lord would deliver him. David trusted and he boldly acted
according to that faith. David said, today you and your
people are going to die that all the earth may know there
is a God in Israel. And these were the very last
words that Goliath heard. The giant prepared to attack
David. Perhaps he raised his spear,
but David was too quick. He ran at the Philistine. He didn't run away from the Philistine.
He ran at the Philistine. And in a single movement, he
slipped a stone from his pouch into his sling, and he sent it
flying towards the giant's head. The stone struck his forehead. It pierced and entered into his
head, into his brain. Goliath collapsed instantly on
his face and he lay there motionless. I imagine the silence in both
camps suddenly broke. into cries of elation from one
side and cries of anguish from the other. And so that everyone
could see how complete was the victory, David went forward and
stood on the giant's fallen body. He took Goliath's sword out of
its sheath. He drew it out of his sheath. Just as he said he would, he
cut off Goliath's head. And when the Philistines saw
their champion dead, when David lifted up the giant's head, Goliath's
head, and showed it to the armies, The Philistines turned around
and fled, with the children of Israel hard on their heels, all
the way back to the protection of their coastal cities. Now,
many applications can be and no doubt have been drawn from
this amazing, amazing event in David's life, this killing of
Goliath. We all like a story about a little
guy defeating a big guy, the underdog defeating the bully,
overcoming the odds. It's a kind of meme. But there's
more to this, I think, than just the victory of the little person
over the great odds. As always, when we come to the
Scriptures, when we come to the Word of God, and particularly
when we come to the life of David, we remember that these accounts
point us to the Lord Jesus Christ. And David is a type of Christ. I hope you never feel that I'm
sounding like a record when I when I come to this part in our studies. But this is the purpose. It is
to find Christ in all of these passages. The spiritual lessons
are what are important to us today. This isn't just history.
This isn't just a story. The principal lesson is to note
how David alone in the strength of the Lord, faced down the giant
Goliath and caused the army of the Philistines to flee the field
of the battle. Because in understanding and
seeing that picture, we can understand something of what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done for us. Our Lord Jesus Christ came into
this battlefield of a world and alone he faced down the enemy
of our souls, the enemy of his people, the enemy that we could
not overcome, the enemy of sin and death. And it's true that
the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross. David didn't die in
his battle with the Philistine, in his battle with the giant.
But it was, in truth, the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ that
gave him the victory and gave us the victory. David didn't
die, but it was in dying for the sins of his people as our
substitute. It was by bearing our guilt and
dying in our place that Christ accomplished our salvation and
won our freedom from our enemies. The Saviour paid the price of
our sin. The Saviour secured our redemption,
ransomed us from captivity and delivered us from the grip of
our enemy. And the complete nature of David's
victory Picture him standing upon this giant's body. Picture him chopping off the
head of Goliath and holding it up in his head, in his arms above
his head. That picture of the complete
destruction of Goliath that caused the Philistines to flee testifies
to our Lord's finished work on the cross. He gained a complete
victory and he brought us peace with God. At the cross, Christ fulfilled
the promise made in Genesis. that Satan would bruise the Saviour's
heel, but Christ would bruise the serpent's head. Goliath came
against Israel, boasting of his own gods and defying the God
of Israel. And today there are still many
people who boast of the power of their gods, who follow their
religion, who fulfil their duties as adherents to their particular
faith. I don't know whether you've met
anyone at school or at college or at work or whatever it is
that you do, maybe one of your friends who's got their own faith
and they tell you about their god, they tell you about their
church and their activities and you realise that things are different
to the way you understand things, the way you've been taught. People
have their gods and their religion. Goliath cursed David by his gods. I wonder, maybe it was Dagon. Do you remember who Dagon was?
Dagon was the fish head god that stood in his temple when the
Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant and brought it
into their city and put it in the temple of their god. Do you
remember what happened to Dagon, the statue, the big idol on that
occasion? It fell over and its head broke
off. Well, maybe Goliath cursed David
in the name of Dagon, but I don't think Dagon was going to do much
to David. Dagon was already a broken God
as far as our God, the true God, is concerned. But Goliath said,
my God is better than your God. And Goliath said, soon you are
going to find that to be true. And I'm sure that Goliath was
confident in his God. just in the same way as perhaps
the people that you know are confident in their God and confident
in their faith and confident in their religion and make you
wonder about what it is that you've been taught and what it
is that you believe. When people are sure of their
faith, they can sound very convincing. And I think I might have trembled,
I think I might have shaken in my shoes if Goliath had said
these things to me. Here's my question. How do we
know what is true? How do we know what to believe? Do we have to go and study all
the religions in order to decide which one is true? Have we got
to visit all the churches in order to decide which we should
follow? Should we make a study of all
the faiths of the world to see what is best, what is most meaningful,
what appeals to us the most, if any at all? I don't think David needed to
go to Gaza to find out about Goliath's God and to know which
God was true. See, the difference is this.
David's faith was God's gift to him. David believed because
the Lord gave him faith. Faith isn't a decision that we
make. Faith is not getting a whole load of information and then
making a choice as to which religion we want to follow, if any religion
at all. Faith is God's gift. David believed
because the Lord gave him faith. It isn't just a decision despite
what lots of Christians tell us. It is a conviction. It is a confidence that we have. It is a deep down understanding
given us by grace, conveyed to us, communicated to us in the
gospel. The Gospel tells us what God
has done to save His people. It reveals the plan of salvation. It reveals our need of salvation. It shows us the means of salvation. It shows us how our salvation
has been accomplished and it shows us the effects of that
salvation in our lives. The question is simply this.
God has spoken. Do I believe him? God has spoken. Do you believe him? This conviction, this confidence,
this faith, if you like, in the truth, it isn't always strong. David's faith was certainly strong
here when he faced Goliath, but it was not always so. Sometimes
our faith is weak. Sometimes our faith gets attacked.
Sometimes we're ashamed even to confess our faith because
we feel so sinful, because we're guilty, because we're weak, because
we're full of doubt. Nevertheless, These experiences
are part of faith's development and part of faith's growth, part
of a believer's growth in grace and our struggles in the Christian
way. By these, God teaches us about
himself and he causes us to rest not in ourselves, but in him. David was just young, but this day at least, he knew
where his strength lay. He knew where his true power
lay. Goliath was strong and confident
in himself. David was strong and confident
in the Lord. You will have to face challenges
in your life. You will have to face giants
in your life that seem too big to overcome. But here's the thing,
if we face our challenges with the same confidence in the Lord
that David had, then we shall overcome them too. Faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ isn't a panacea, it isn't a cure-all for our troubles,
it doesn't take away all our problems. We still have aches
and pains, we still have loneliness and disappointments, we still
have anxieties and fears, but faith trusts that when these
troubles come and others like them, whatever they might be,
and they'll be different for you than they are for me, but
we'll all have them. faith trusts, the Lord will help
us through them and deliver us out of them. David said to Goliath,
you come to me with a sword and a spear and a shield, all the
symbols, all the accoutrements of power and strength, but I
come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts. the God of heaven,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the defender of his church and his people.
As Goliath lay dead and the children of Israel and David's three brothers
rushed past David in pursuit of the fleeing Philistines, Saul
the king turned to his general, his general Abner, and he said,
Whose son is this? Well, Saul had met David often
enough. He should have known. But it
is, I think, in my mind, as though he is realising all of a sudden
that there's a new kid on the block. Something amazing had
just happened in Israel and it didn't happen to Saul. David
was now the man upon whom the Lord's Spirit rested and things
would never be the same again in Israel. May the Lord bless
these thoughts to us. Amen.