David and Goliath    1 Sam. 17

 1 Actually on the face of it wasn’t a bad offer was it? One man from the Philistine army to fight one man from the Israelite army. It was a solution that could save a lot of lives. Instead of all the mayhem and destruction of fighting a battle between the two opposing armies, the whole issue of who ruled the land of Israel could be decided in just one contest between two champions.

    And Goliath was prepared to put his life on the line for the sake of winning a victory for his people.

    The problem the Israelites had is that they couldn’t find anybody among them who was willing to do the same.

      (Show picture of Robert Wadlow…who died in 1940 he was measured at just over 8’11 inches)

    Now it is just possible that Goliath being nine feet tall felt that he had a slight advantage.  And the people of Israel felt that too.

    Especially King Saul. It is ironic really. King Saul was a big man. He impressed people and they were impressed by him. The bible records that when he was chosen King, people were struck by how TALL he was. It says… he stood head and shoulders above anyone else. (1 Sam. 10:17)

2 There must have been so many times when the soldiers of Israel had been encouraged to see King Saul with them on the battlefield – towering above all the other warriors. Saul had been a successful military leader.  He had defeated the Philistine armies many times. He was a confident and competent King of his people. But then the story of King Saul turned into the tragedy that is so often the story for leaders who become over-confident and arrogant.

    The Bible says that after Saul’s deliberate disobedience… the Spirit of the LORD had left Saul (1 Sam 16:14),  and now facing the armies of the Philistine’s Saul’s confidence was further undermined.

    He was tall… but this man Goliath was even taller.

    And because the King was depressed and afraid, so too was the rest of the Israelite army, who looked to him for leadership and encouragement.

    You know, there were two tall men who “fell” on the day that David answered the challenge of the Philistine champion.    Goliath was one… and King Saul was the other. Saul never recovered the popularity that he had once enjoyed. And he began to become increasingly suspicious of David and resentful towards him… and eventually his jealousy of David so ruled him that Saul’s reign ended in tragedy and dishonour.

3  But let’s tell the story….

    (DO the script.. David the giant-killer!

    Well does this story tell us anything about God?

    Before I say something about that question, let me say that I think this story tells us a lot about people.

    So often the Bible is like a mirror…. we can look into it and see what we are like.

    We fight. That’s one thing the story tells us.

    The OT records so many of the struggles between the empires and would-be empires of the world. Jesus said that until the day when he comes again there will be wars and rumours of wars.  Human beings will wage war against one another. If you needed something in the bible to tell you that… then this is one of the passages you can look at.

4  And as we look in the mirror of this story we see that TRUST is another big issue.

    We don’t trust one another.  Sometimes that is with good reason.. because human beings are not always trustworthy.     Do you think that anybody ever really believed that the philistines meant it when they said… let’s save all this needless loss of life and just have two men fight it out instead of the whole army of each nation. Don’t you think that the people of Israel thought maybe there’s a bit of “spin” going on here! I doubt if either side ever meant to keep the bargain that Goliath offered. The Philistines said that they would be the Israelites slaves if their champion was defeated - but when he was… the Bible says that they all ran away.  

    Mind you they could probably see the way that the Israelites were looking at them!!

    And there is no indication that the people of Israel would have done anything other than what they did once Goliath was killed… they chased after the frightened philistines and didn’t say “come and work for us as our slaves” … they killed as many of them as they could.

    So often nations, countries, ethnic groups, do not trust one another. Often for all sorts of historical reasons.    

    In democracy’s like ours we seem to be making it a point of principle that we do not trust the leaders of our own nation… let alone the leaders of any other.

    And in our own relationships with others…  we know that TRUST is something that we often find hard to do.  It is much easier sometimes... not to trust.

    In the middle of all the MISTRUST between the Israelites and the Philistines… we se see an example of TRUST.  We see one young man, taking on this seasoned warrior with nothing more than the trust he had in his skills with a slingshot, and the trust that God would protect him.

    David could see there was a problem. (Hard to miss really the problem was three metres tall.)

    Faced with this problem – David didn't run.

    He didn’t join in with all the others in camp who were just moaning about the problem.

    He didn’t allow himself to be overwhelmed by fear when he thought about the problem.

    He’d been a shepherd, he had fought before with wild animals and he recognised that he had experience to draw upon that had prepared him to face a problem like this.

    He got his sling shot out and carefully selected the pebbles that would fly most accurately – and so he prepared himself with what he was good at - using the resources that he had.

    There are all sorts of examples here of behaviour in the face of a frightening situation that we can notice and think about and apply to ourselves and our own situations… but more than anything else perhaps we are meant to see that David trusted in God.

    He said to King Saul - “The LORD who saved me from the claws of the lion and the bear will save me from this Philistine!”  

    And as he sets out to face this giant problem he says to Goliath…. “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD Almighty…”

    David didn’t have to fight Goliath.

    He needn’t have offered to do it.

    He offered because he trusted God.

    Can you think of time in your life when you have had to TRUST God?

    Maybe it was your lifestyle rather than your life that seemed to be in danger?

    Maybe it was your job, your security?

    Do you know what is it like trust like that  - saying to God… all I can do is to go forward towards whatever lies ahead…Trusting that you will be with me.

   In one his Psalms, David (psalm 62:5-8) wrote

   I wait quietly before God, for my hope is in Him.

   He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. … He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me.

   O my people, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.

   One thing we learn from the life of David, with all its triumphs and tragedies, is that he wrote his Psalms out of his own experiences, he wrote out of the lessons that he had learned about God.  And as we see in this story…early on in his life he had already learned to TRUST God.

   To trust him even in the face of a situation that had everybody around him giving up.

   In a situation where to do anything to tackle the problem, seemed like a foolish thing to do, David learned to trust that God would be with him.

   That may be a lesson that you have learned already... it may be something that you still have to learn.

   But…

   What do we learn about GOD?

   Well I suppose the same thing that David learned.. that God can be trusted… but the story raises some other issues as well

   God is with/(protects) those that love Him.

5  Did God care about Goliath- and the rest of the Philistines?

    No I wasn’t expecting to think about that. May be the thoughts David had having killed a person for the first time.

    I want to say that God did care about Goliath. It must have grieved him to watch the child that he had seen grow so strong, become so arrogant and so far from him. It must have pained him to hear his child, Goliath mocking his power, and his chosen people, Israel.

    The sight of these two armies drawn up against one another… cannot be a sight that gladdened the heart of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… the one who is the source of all love and kindness.

    And after the death of Goliath when all the Israelites were cheering… do you think God was cheering too? And when the people of Israel were running after the Philistines and killing them .. do you think that God was saying “YEAH.. Go on.. give ‘em some more…” as if he didn’t know the pain and sadness of what was going on?    

    I don’t.

   There’s not a lot that I know about Goliath… but I do know that he was loved. God loved Goliath.. and the rest of the philistines. He didn’t love their rebellion, he didn’t love their worship of pagan gods or the terrible things that they did to one another as part of that worship. But he loved them. He gave them life.

   He chose the moment when life began for them.

    Just as he has the right the authority to choose the moment when my life will end… so too he allowed the moment when the life of Goliath had to come to an end.

    The good news is that God doesn’t just wash his hands of us. Somehow he is at work to bring some good even out of all the mayhem and confusion and pain and sadness and destruction that human beings create for one another.

    I mean even as you think about this story of David and Goliath now.. just as hundreds and hundreds of millions of people have done since the day it happened… God may be at work in you by his Holy Spirit to help you to Trust him more, to trust him in a particular situation that you are facing right now even.  That is God at work… bringing good, out of the mess and confusion of human life.

6  Something else maybe, that we can learn about God will achieve his purposes… through all the confusion of human history.

    Ever since there have been kings and military leaders God has been asked to take sides in human conflicts. Still today religious and political leaders ask God to take sides in sorting out our conflicts and struggles with one another. God does act… but God was not at work to fulfil the plans of King Saul or of David. He has never been at work to satisfy the ambitions or desires of political and military leaders before or since.

    God’s priorities are not decided by us.

    “My thoughts are completely different from yours,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.”(Isaiah 55:8)

    God is only ever at work to fulfil HIS purposes.

   Looking at this story now we can see that in some way the defeat of the philistines, the rise to power of David, with all his faults… all of it, was somehow part of God’s purpose in speaking to us through the history of this people of Israel.

   Among his own people this story was remembered as an example of what can happen when we choose to trust in God. God was at work in David’s life to teach us so many things and still today the psalms that he wrote reveal the character of God and are used by the Holy Spirit to speak directly to us and to our lives.

   And all the mayhem of this day was somehow taken up into the purpose of the God who came to be with is Jesus. Jesus was a descendant of David the young man who trusted in God and whose life was preserved on the battlefield that day.

   We can trust a God like that, who can be at work in the most frightening of situations,

   We can trust God to achieve his purposes for us, and we can submit our life to the authority and rule of the only whose purposes are always good.