Themes of the Bible: Courage (1 Samuel 17)

 

Themes of the Bible: Courage (1 Samuel 17)

To begin, your assignment for next week is to read Esther chapter 4. It’s one of my favorite books in the entire Bible, the book of Esther, but we're just going to read chapter 4 for next week. I’ll fill you in on the rest of the details, but that's the assignment for next week. But for this week, we'll be looking at a very popular passage of scripture; 1 Samuel 17. You may not know it by the reference, but you certainly know it by the title. It’s the story of David and Goliath. I would suggest to you though, and maybe I’m wrong in this. but I feel like we know this story from a cultural standpoint, we understand what a David and Goliath situation is, but I’m not sure how much we understand this account from a biblical standpoint. We know the story culturally, but maybe not biblically. So, I want to start off where we left off last week. If you remember, we were talking about Samson and the fact that in this deep dark moment of Samson's life where the Philistines come upon him, he's betrayed God, he's betrayed the secret of his strength, and his eyes are gouged out. And in that moment, he didn't even realize that God had left him. What he said was amazing, that through God's discipline, it takes him from this moment where he didn't even know the presence of God had left him and it brings him to the point where the author of Hebrews said, “What more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, of Barrack, of Samson, Jephthah, of David, of Samuel and the prophets who by faith conquered kingdoms. . .” Notice the transition from Samson, who was a hero of the faith to another one that we read about this week and that's David. And certainly, this account with Goliath is one of the reasons why he's regarded as this ‘hero of the faith.’

Now let me set the stage for you. If you remember the timeline, you had Moses who led Israel, then Moses goes and dies and Joshua takes over for him as the logical successor to Moses, and then when Joshua goes when he dies, you have this period of the judges and there's 12 different judges, and we talked about Shamgar and Ehud and Samson and these various judges. Remember Deborah and Jael, with the tent peg. So, you have the period of the judges and then you get into the time of the monarchy. God had promised a king, and that promised king was to be David, but the children of Israel wouldn't wait for David and they demanded the king, and so God gave them Saul, who was not of the promised tribe. He was from the tribe of Benjamin and Saul comes in and takes over. For a while Saul is a good king, but then he grows to be ‘too great in his own eyes’ and he starts rebelling against God, and so God rips the kingdom from him and gives it to David. Saul doesn't know who he's given it to, for a while, but he does know that God had taken it from him. The prophet Samuel had told him that God's taken his kingdom from him. But Saul’s not just going to hand over the crown, he's going to hold on to it for a while and that's where we find ourselves in 1 Samuel chapter 17.

The nation of Israel is camped in front of their enemies throughout the book of Judges, and one of the major oppressors that God will use to discipline his nation of Israel are the Philistines. They’re the same people that Samson was fighting, and here in 1st Samuel 17 you've got the nation of Israel camped in front of the Philistines, and the Philistines are primarily represented by their champion, Goliath. This is a beast of a man and is their equivalent to Samson. If you read this chapter, you know the two armies are on hillsides and down in the valley Goliath has walked forward and he's challenging the children of Israel. He's challenging the armies of God to send somebody forward. The challenge is, ‘If I beat them in battle, then you're our slaves. If he beats me in battle, then we'll be your slaves.’ That's the challenge that Goliath is giving out, and he does this for 40 days. He’s just absolutely terrifying the people, giving constant threats, and more than that, he's mocking God. He's blaspheming God for 40 straight days, the Philistines are on the cusp of overrunning the children of Israel, and they're going to kill the vast majority of them and take the rest of them to be slaves. That's what this looks like in our opening scene. It's shaping up to be another story from the book of judges and that's where I want to pick it up 1 Samuel 17. I’ve kind of already explained this but, I’ll read it to you so you get the full biblical take on chapter 17, and we'll pick it up in verse 3 and go through 11. [Read 1 Samuel 17:3-11].

I want you to look at that last part, verse 11, “When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.” Now, we know what greatly afraid means, they're scared and shaking in their sandals. Nobody wants to go down and face this guy. We know what afraid means, but what about dismayed. You know what the word dismayed means. When it says that they are dismayed, it literally means they don't know what to do. I mean, I don't want to go down there, you don't want to go down there, none of us want to go down there, so Saul’s looking around for anybody, thinking, ‘what do we do here?’ We're at an impasse, so, is this going to end up like the oppressor from the book of Judges all over again? They’re all scared and have no idea what to do, and then at that moment, little David shows up.

David asked the man standing near him this is verse 26, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the armies of the living God?” Do you notice the attitude David has there? Who does this guy think he is? He's not looking at Goliath and seeing this monster of a man he's looking at this guy and seeing a little yippie dog that’s barking at God in God's army. Who does this guy think he is taunting the God of Israel like this? And remember, David’s stature is not one of a giant beast of a man, he’s a little guy, the youngest of his brothers, but he's really upset at the idea that this guy is going to taunt the living God of Israel. It's outrageous and the inability of anyone else in the entire nation to deal with Goliath doesn't deter David. It doesn't matter to him. He's not looking at everybody else, being like, ‘come on guys what's wrong with you?’ He's too annoyed at the fact that Goliath is saying and doing all of this, that he's indignant, he's blaspheming the name of God, and David’s thinking, ‘well, I’m going to put a stop to it.’ That's the attitude that David has when he looks and he sees Goliath. So, I think there's a question that should arise then. Why does David have that attitude but none of those other people in the army of God or king Saul? Why do they not have the same attitude that David does? Why are they not annoyed by the fact that Goliath is blaspheming God? Obviously, I understand Goliath is a monster of a man, we get that he's an experienced fighter, and if you look in verse 33, that’s exactly what Saul says about Goliath. He's telling David that this guy has been fighting since he was in the womb. He came out with his sword and shield and everything, and he's a beast of a man. Everybody knows that to be the case. All the people lined up there, everybody knows the situation with Goliath, but all of these men believed in God. All of them knew their history, they knew what their nation had been through, and what God had done for them in the past. So what makes David different in this equation? There's nothing in scripture to tell us that God had given him an extra dose of courage, that he had an extra helping of that and just all of his life was braver than anybody else around him. I mean, maybe that's true but we don't have any reason to believe that that's the case. I would suggest to you that this is not some self-generated raw action hero courage that David is born with, but rather David is merely confident in God's promises, and he's confident in God's power to fulfill his promises. That's what sets David apart.

He knows the same thing that all these guys on the hill know, but what these guys on the hill don't have that David has, is faith that God will keep his promises. That's what sets David apart: his faith and confidence that God will keep his promises.

Do you remember when we did the message on the children of Israel, they get to the Red Sea and they turn around and here come all of the chariots from Egypt, and their reaction should have been after seeing everything God had done to Egypt, ‘are they serious? Are they coming back for more of this? You just saw the plague of the firstborn and the frogs, and the locusts and you want more of that?’ But that wasn't their attitude. What was their attitude? ‘Oh, I wish we would have died in Egypt!’ They had no confidence in the fact that God had already delivered them and was going to keep his promise to deliver them. They should have known that, these men on the hill should have known, but David did know. What sets David apart in this story is that David knew God was trustworthy. David knew that God was faithful.

In the chapter right before this, I mentioned that God had torn the kingdom from Saul and given it to another. David was that other and this is the account in chapter 16, where Samuel the prophet took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and Scripture says, “from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David.” So, what does David know in chapter 17? David knows that God has chosen him to lead the nation of Israel. Does David fear that he's going to go down and face Goliath and die? God has promised and guaranteed him, telling him that you are going to lead my people, you are going to do amazing things through my strength and my power. David has complete confidence in that and when he's talking to Saul in this passage, if you read it, you saw that he reminds Saul of God's past help in David’s life, multiple times when he was just a shepherd boy. David said to Saul verse 34 “when a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock I went after it, I 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.” He’s saying, through God, I have killed both the lion and the bear and this uncircumcised fellow, this little Goliath guy he's going to be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. This is not self-confidence. David isn’t looking at his own strength. He has confidence in God’s strength and promise.  

David’s making very clear who this is about, and it isn't about David. When you start looking for spiritual lessons, remember that's what we're doing here in this entire series, these major passages of scripture, we now know that all of scripture is pointing towards the Messiah, and that there are spiritual lessons that you and I are to take that we find in the Old Testament, but point to spiritual truths in Jesus in the New Testament. So, I think that the spiritual lesson we are to gather from the David and Goliath story is how David is walking. David is not walking by sight. All the people on the hill are just seeing how huge Goliath is and they don't want any of that. David is not looking and living by sight he's living by faith. He knows and trusts that God's completely in control of this situation. This is exactly how you and I are to live, not by sight, and seeing all of the things that Satan throws at us. All of the challenges to our marriages, to our family, to our careers, all of these things that discourage us, that's not what we're to live by. We're to live by faith.

Remember what Jesus says to his disciples the night before His crucifixion. It’s one of the most unbelievable things for someone living in the world to say or do: “do not let your hearts be troubled.” You have to take pause and just say, ‘are you serious?’ Turn on the news, look around you, how can my heart not be troubled? Every other day there's a school shooting, every other day there's some war that's taking place somewhere. The price of wood is just astronomical right now, so how is my budget going to handle that? ‘Do not let my heart be troubled!? Have you not paid any attention to what's happening in our culture and around us look at the trash that Hollywood puts out! How can my heart not be troubled by all of this bad stuff in society? What does Jesus say, he says, “you believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house there's many rooms, if that were not so I would have told you. I’ve told you that I’m going to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you, will I not come back and take you to be with me so that you also may be where I am.” Do you get what's being said? There you are so concentrating and living by sight of everything that's around you, but I’m telling you to live confident, by faith, in knowing what waits for you in the promises of God.

Now, we have the culturally motivated tendency is to see ourselves as David in this account. We're David and we're facing our giants. That's exactly how our culture preaches this story. If you read it alone as a stand-alone, moral story like an Aesop’s Fables, that's the lesson that you take from it; that you can go out and challenge your greatest enemies and through the power of God and your confidence in him you can move mountains. That's what you're supposed to take from it, culturally speaking. Now, that may be true, but that's not the only message of this passage that God has preserved for us.

What is 1 Samuel 17 all about? Here's what it's about: what God's champion will do on our behalf. In other words, I want you to re-read 1 Samuel 17 sometime this week in addition to Esther 4, but this time, don't identify as many of you probably did with David. That's our tendency, but this time, identify with David’s brothers and that army that's standing on the hill, the army that's up on the hill facing the giant not knowing what to do. We are the ones who were cowering behind the battle lines, we were the ones who were looking paralyzed with fear at the enemy that stood before us, we are the ones who had no idea how we're going to face this enemy. And who is this enemy? Goliath is your sin, and the death that you invited into the world through your sin, that is who Goliath was and we were the ones cowering behind not knowing how in the world we were going to possibly handle this. Having no way that we could possibly save ourselves.

Nobody can go against this great enemy. Defeat at the hands of Satan seemed and even today it seems at times completely certain, and then David shows up. David shows up on the scene, completely unexpected, this guy who's born in a backwater town of Nazareth. This guy is going to be the champion. See the parallel with the promised messiah? We were expecting a king, we were expecting somebody to come with a sword and a spear and a javelin and all of that stuff, and here's David who shows up on the scene to take on Goliath.

You remember what it said of the Messiah in Genesis 3:15, when we started all of this, that he will crush the head of the enemy. I don't think there's any coincidence whatsoever that in the account of David, who is a picture of the coming messiah, what does he do to Goliath? He takes out the head of Goliath. I don’t think there's any coincidence there whatsoever because God has orchestrated these events for this purpose, so that we could look back in wonder at the messianic foreshadowing that is here.

So, how do we apply the David and Goliath story to our lives? Do we react to Goliath’s taunting and blaspheming as David did? Please understand that we are not called to physically cut off the heads of those who are saying things like Goliath said. Our instruction from scripture is not the same as it was in the Old Testament, so what is our instruction and our struggle? Paul writes in Ephesians 6 that ‘our struggle is not against flesh and blood. Our struggle is against rulers and against the authorities and against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’ That's who we're fighting. Satan is making a mockery of God's authority in this world that he thinks he owns and we are the agents of sabotage that Jesus has placed here to turn all of that around, to show the courage to step forward in the world and take a stand for the authority of God's word and the truth that we know. We haven't been told to chop off heads, but we have been told to take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist the flaming arrows of the evil one, and to stand firm, to take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Do you notice something about these passages? We're taking of the full armor of God, we are taking on the helmet of salvation, we're taking on the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. Do you notice where the emphasis is placed? On all of this our weapons, notice that the tools that we use to do the work of David in the face of the Goliath that we see all around us, all of them are connected to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our weapon that we wield is the finished work of Christ Jesus. That's who the hero is. We are not David, we are not the general, we're the foot soldier in David’s army. He, Jesus, is the David in this story. Jesus has always been, and will always be the giant slayer and it's our privilege to serve in his ranks.