Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Today on Hope From the Word, we need to remember that the battle belongs to the Lord. Look, the Lord does not fight battles the way we do. You think you're going to win your battle using earthly means, you're wasting your time. You're not only not going to win, you're going to waste your time, maybe hurt yourself or get into more trouble. We need to put our faith and trust into God and get on with his program and do things his way.

Welcome to Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. Thinking back to our Sunday school days, there were certain biblical stories our teachers would key in on: Jonah being swallowed by the great fish, Noah and the Great Flood, and certainly David and Goliath topped the list. Today on Hope From the Word, Pastor Bill will highlight this timeless story of David and Goliath, which underscores the greatness and faithfulness of God. Each of us will face giants in our lives, and it's important to know how to handle them with faith. Here's Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: 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."

There's a rumor going around the camp, and it's not really just a rumor, it's true because it seems like this had been announced. Saul had announced this: "Hey, any man that goes out and wins the battle there, the king's going to give great wealth to him, and he's going to give him a princess, and he's going to have tax-free living for the rest of his life." That sounds like a pretty big deal. So they're all talking about it. "Did you hear that the guy who takes him on is going to get the princess and tax-free living and he's going to be able to be wealthy and live high on the hog?"

David overhears this because they've been talking about this. The king's going to really take care of the guy. I'll give you the Luebkemann paraphrase. King Saul, who's the tallest guy and the one who's most eligible to do this, is afraid to do it. He's trying to find a volunteer who will go out in place of him, and he's promising to give him all this stuff. I think maybe King Saul figures whoever goes out is not going to live anyway, so he won't have to do any of that. The guy's either going to get killed and he won't have to give him anything, or if he's successful, it'll be worth it to let one guy have some riches and take away the taxes if he can beat this guy. That'll be a good bargain. Either way, Saul's off the hook.

David is a guy who checks things out. He checks out the details. He doesn't just believe it because it gets said. He wants to check out to find out if it's really true or not. 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?" David doesn't just take the word that he hears. He asks around. He asks, "Is this true? Is this really what's going to happen?"

It seems like Christians today are the most gullible people there are. I get the most amount of gullible emails from Christian friends of mine than I do from secular friends. I get the emails that say the government's going to stop religious broadcasting, which is a thing that's been going around since 1975 and isn't true, but it's still going around after all these years. You get so many emails nowadays that just a small amount of research will tell you that it's not true. Bill Gates is not going to pay you one penny for every email you forward promoting Microsoft products, but that still goes around. I just got it from a Christian friend of mine recently. No, Bill Gates isn't going to pay you nothing. If you believe that, you need to see a doctor and have your head examined.

David wasn't gullible. He didn't believe it just because it came along. David checked out the details. David asked the men standing near him, "What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel?" It's kind of like, "I heard the rumor about a princess and some money and no taxes, but let's see if I can get the same story from more than one person."

Then he says something very interesting: "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" David knows whose side he's on here. It's not the side of Saul; it's the side of the living God. Saul's of course on the same side, not doing a very good job of it, but they are technically on the same side. David has a good understanding of this. Goliath is defying the armies of God.

The people he asked told him the same story. They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, "This is what will be done for the man who kills him." They said, "Look, this is true. This is what's going on. Honestly, you're going to get the princess, and you're going to get the bucks, and you're going to get the tax-free living." 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."

You can see here there's a little bit of brotherly disregard. They don't like each other, or he doesn't like David. He's mad at him and he hears David talking like this. I think he's mad, but I think he's also a little jealous because he's not volunteering to do it. He's been there 40 days. He's the oldest brother. David is the youngest brother. Why didn't he do it? Why didn't he go down and fight Goliath?

You can get mad at somebody for saying something that's wrong, but you can also get mad at somebody for saying something that's right. You're mad that you didn't think of it sooner or that you don't want to think. In this case, Eliab didn't want to do it and doesn't want to think about it, but maybe inside of him, he knows David is right and has a point. He criticizes him: "Where did you leave those few sheep you have in the desert?" In other words, to paraphrase that: You're nothing but a no-good nobody taking care of a few sheep in the middle of nowhere. You're just a conceited little kid who came down here to see the battle and a bunch of fighting. You're just looking to get in on a piece of the action for a little bit of fame and fortune.

"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, "What's the matter? Can't I even talk?" He turned around, ignored his brother, and kept asking people: "Is that really true? Did you hear the same thing? Did the king really say that? Is he really good for that? Am I really going to get that if I go after this guy Goliath?"

Saul hears about it and sends for him. He wants to hear what David has to say. David said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him." Look, this is what Saul should have been saying. He was the king. He should have been leading. That's what leaders do. He should have been saying, "I'm going to go down and fight the guy. We're going to win the battle." He should have been encouraging, exhorting, and building up his troops, but instead, he was cowering with fear just like the rest of them.

This little servant kid has to come along and say to him, "Let no one lose heart. Don't be worried about this. Don't be afraid. Don't be concerned about what's going to happen. I'll go and fight him. Your servant will go." 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." Well, look, David might have been only a boy, but in the previous chapter when they called David into Saul's service, it said he is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man, and the Lord is with him. Yeah, he was younger than the rest of them, but he was also apparently braver also.

Saul says, "Look, you don't have the experience. He's been a fighting man from his youth." In other words, he's old enough to be your father. He's been fighting since before you were born. When you were walking around in diapers, he was out here fighting. Are you crazy? You think you're going to go out after him? You can't do that. David has it all over Saul. Saul doesn't know that David's going to be the next king, and I'm not even sure what David knows at this point for sure.

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."

Man, that's quite a statement. He's been out here tending sheep, he says, but he's fended off both a lion and a bear. If a lion came and took a sheep or a bear came, he went and rescued it and killed the animal with his bare hands. Any of you ever kill a lion or a bear? Anybody want to take one on? Suppose we bring a bear in here. Anybody want to do that? We'll even give you a stick. He did it with his bare hands.

Here was a guy who was a shepherd, and he was going to protect his flock or die trying. That is something else you can see coming through in many of David's writings. He sat out there watching over his sheep by himself. He was lonely, and that's why he was so close to the Lord. He had lots of time to pray and consider the Lord's will in his life and how the Lord was working in his life. He had lots of time to hear from the Lord, and the Lord had lots of time to lead him and guide him.

He wasn't afraid of anything. He knew what his job was and he was going to do his job. David says to Saul, "You know, you should grow up, Saul. You're an adult. If I could do this, you could do it also. I've killed both a lion and a bear. This ungodly man, this enemy, has defied the armies of the living God, not the armies of Saul. David doesn't say, 'I'm going to whip him because I'm so strong. I've been doing that such-and-such diet. I work out every day. I got one of those fancy exercise machines. I'm working on my biceps.' He doesn't say any of that nonsense.

He says, "The Lord. The Lord is going to do it. The same Lord that delivered me from that lion and from that bear." He even recognizes that. If Saul had conquered a lion or a bear, he would have gone around saying, "I conquered a lion and a bear. What a great guy I am." But David didn't do that. David gave the credit to God and he knew whom he trusted. He knew it was the Lord who had delivered him, and he knew that the Lord would deliver him again. He said, "I ain't worried about it at all. I've seen the Lord work in my life and I've seen the Lord do a miracle like this, and he's going to do the same thing again."

Saul said to David, "Go, and the Lord be with you." Hey, all right, well, give it a try. Knock yourself out. Better you than me. What a dummy he is. Did Saul think he was going to be successful? I don't know what Saul thinks. It doesn't much matter. 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. David tried on the armor here and, well, it didn't quite fit. A lot of times you see this portrayed that he was a little guy and this was big armor and it was like a little kid dressing up in dad's suit and tie or mom's wedding dress. It didn't quite fit. He was real tiny in there. Remember, the previous chapter said he was a man of war, a mighty man. He was younger and maybe a bit smaller, but you don't get the idea that he was a real little kid.

The context here: he was not used to them. "I cannot go in these because I am not used to them." He didn't say because they're too big for me; he said because I am not used to them. He wasn't used to wearing that kind of armor. We have armor available to us today, spoken about in Ephesians 6: "Put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand." Look, it doesn't say wait until the day of evil comes to put on the full armor of God. It says put on the full armor of God now so that when the day comes, you'll be able to stand.

You put it on now so you get used to it. "Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints."

It says here very simply: we have armor that we can be wearing today. The armor that we can be wearing today is righteousness, truth, the readiness that comes because we know the gospel, faith, salvation, and the Holy Spirit that God has given us. We can put on that armor and be ready so when the trials come our way, we're prepared for them. Or we can not put it on and not be ready, and when the trials come and we try to put it on, we're going to say, "Gee, this doesn't work. This is the wrong size. It's too big."

The picture here is not really that David was too small. The picture is that he was used to a different kind of armor. He was used to the armor of God rather than the armor of man. Saul was looking at it in a purely physical, worldly sense. David was looking at it in a spiritual sense. He said, "I can't wear this. I'm not used to it. I don't fight my battles this way. I rely on God. I don't need to have the implements of man because I rely on God." So he took the armor off, he got his staff, he picked five smooth stones from the stream, and he went off and approached the Philistine.

A lot of people say: Why did he pick five stones? Some people say because there were four other giants. Some people say because Goliath had four brothers. You can have your own reason why, but I don't think there's any reason to believe that he necessarily thought he was going to hit the guy on the first shot. If I was going into battle trusting in God, I wouldn't mind having a few extra bullets also. This was not a slingshot, by the way. This was a sling, the kind that you spin and then let go and the thing goes flying.

There's a writing in Josephus somewhere where it says that there was a bunch of prophets in the Old Testament and they could with their slings shoot a stone at a hair and not miss. So this was an acquired skill when he was out there with his flock, shepherding and lonely by himself, praying and talking to God. He was skipping stones and he was slinging. He'd use it to protect his flock. If one of the sheep started to wander off, it needed a little reminder. If some animal came in, it needed to be scared away. He got to be good at using this sling. I think maybe he wasn't that good that he didn't want to put all his eggs in one basket and just have one stone.

He had a pouch there, he filled it up, and he went and approached the Philistine who's standing there taunting. I'm given to believe this all happened rather quickly. He said what would be done with this guy, he wound up talking to Saul, he tried the armor on, and he gets down here. I don't think this is the next day or later on the same day. I think this is all the same event here.

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?" By the way, the same word is described earlier as a homosexual prostitute, so it is worse than it sounds here. "Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

There's a big mistake. This Philistine here is calling on the wrong place for help. "Come here," he said, "and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field." This Philistine is disgusted that they send a little boy. "Are you guys crazy? I'm the big and mighty nine-foot-nine Goliath. You idiots just send the littlest guy there is? Come here," he said, "and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. I'm going to kill you and feed you to the animals."

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."

Compare what these two guys are saying. Goliath said to David, "Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks? Come here, I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field." David said he's going to give the flesh of all the Philistines to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. Quite a difference there. Goliath was calling out on his gods. David is calling out on the Lord God Almighty. He said, "You're coming against me with these worldly implements, but I'm not here with any worldly implements; I'm here in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied."

You haven't just defied Saul, a bunch of humans, or the nation of Israel; you defied the God of Israel. You're going to pay the price. The Lord is going to hand you over to me. I'm going to strike you down and I'm going to give the carcasses of all your friends. I'm going to outdo you. I kind of get the idea that they're having a contest here to see who can shout the loudest. "I'm going to give your carcass." "And I'm going to give all your carcasses." 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.

Look, the Lord does not fight battles the way we do. You think you're going to win your battle using earthly means, you're wasting your time. You're not only not going to win, you're going to waste your time, maybe hurt yourself or get into more trouble. We need to put our faith and trust in God and get on with his program and do things his way.

As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Isn't that funny? The rest of them were running away from this Philistine. David was running toward him. When the Philistine came out shouting, all the other Israelites went, "Oh dear!" and they ran back to their tent, nervous, afraid, and worried. David didn't just walk; he ran. He didn't just run; he 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 face down on the ground, plop. One shot. Guided by the Holy Spirit. One shot. One stone sank into his forehead. The idea is kind of like his forehead was a sponge and it just soaked up this stone and he just fell over. He was just gone. One shot.

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. He didn't even have a sword. He didn't even have any armor. He didn't have anything with him except that sling and some stones, and he won the battle because he was relying on the Lord here.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in a study of 1 Samuel. You can hear this message or more Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet. Or if you prefer to listen via podcast, you can find Hope From the Word wherever you find your podcasts.

We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 a.m., and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7:00. To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton, or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org.

And if you take a moment to write to Pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives, and we want to pray for you too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. We'll continue our study of 1 Samuel next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.