The Valley of The Giants

The Valley of the Giants: 2 Samuel 5

I want you to turn with me to 2 Samuel chapter five, 2 Samuel chapter five this morning. This is part three of our series on valleys. And the last time we dealt with this a couple of weeks ago before I took my break in Turkey, I dealt with the valley of the shadow of death.

But I wanna move to this third part here this morning. And this is my title. It's a biblical title and statement of the Bible. And I'll explain it and I'll expound it as we read and then preach from 2 Samuel chapter five.

And we're gonna read a few verses, but this is my title. Valleys are the valley of the giants. The valley of the giants. Reading from 2 Samuel chapter five and verse 17. But when the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel, all the Philistines, all the Philistines came up to seek David.

And David heard of it and went down to the hold. The Philistines also came and spread themselves in the valley of Rephiam. And David inquired of the Lord saying, shall I go up to the Philistines? Will thou deliver them into mine hand?

The Lord said unto David, go up for I will doubtlessly deliver the Philistines into thine hand. And David came to build Peorism and David smote them there and said, the Lord has broken forth upon mine enemies before me.

As the breach of waters, therefore he called the name of the place Bal-Peorism. That is the breach. And there they left their images and David and his men burned them. And the Philistines came up yet again and spread themselves in the valley of Rephiam.

And when David inquired of the Lord, he said, thou shalt not go up, but fetch a compass behind them and come upon them over against the mulberry trees. And let it be when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself.

For then shall the Lord go out before thee to smite the host of the Philistines. And David did so as the Lord had commanded him and smote the Philistines from Geba until thou come to Gezer. Let's pray here this morning as we deal with the valley of the giants.

Father, we do thank you for the word of God. You've encouraged us and blessed us concerning these dark valleys, these, Lord God, valleys that are dangerous and dark and deep. Lord God, you blessed us, encouraged us, even with the shepherd Sam, Sam 23.

But Lord God, I pray that you speak to us in such a clear and definite way, not just as individuals with our personal trials, but as the body of Christ, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we are gonna face our valley of the giants.

There is a day when the giants come to invade. There is an hour when the enemies of God, the Philistines, arise under the inspiration of hell itself to march against the people of God, to march against the anointed of God and the leadership of God.

And Father, I do pray, give us great wisdom. Lord God, even prepare us now for the battles that we're gonna face in the days ahead, that we might have the wisdom of God and the humility of God. Lord God, to humble ourself under your mighty hand.

Lord God, that we had seek you with all of our heart, that we wouldn't rely upon our eyes, our own ears, our own understanding, our intellect, our wisdom, our power, our numbers, our money, our influence, our reputation, our anointing, our gifting, our calling, our past.

But Lord God, that we had seek you as being utterly dependent, earnestly desire us to have your will, your mind, your strength, your power, your presence. Lord God, we don't wanna do anything without you.

Lord God, we are so weak, oh God. And Lord God, we do wanna be small in our own eyes. Don't let us, Lord God, have a false perspective of ourself. Don't let us think more of ourself than we ought to. But Lord God, to be so small in our eyes, that we make the Lord Jesus Christ everything.

Give us victory, Lord God, over this valley of the giants. Lord God, don't let our enemies triumph against your church in this hour. Send us revival. Lord God, send us a moving of the wind of God blowing in the mulberry trees again.

In Jesus' mighty name, amen. Amen. We are in this third message, the valley of the giants. This is a statement, a phrase that comes up in the Bible several times, and we're gonna deal with it this morning.

The Valley of Rephaim and the Land of Promise

The valley of giants is a literal, physical place in the land of Israel, in Canaan, the land of promise. Do you know the land of promise is bigger than the land of possession? What God's people possess is nothing in comparison to what God has promised you.

What God has actually given to you by covenant in promise, saying, I have this for you. We, the people of God, actually possess, enter in and take possession of very little compared to what he has promised.

And so the land of promise is always an awful lot larger than what we have actually presently possessed as individuals or as the church of God. There is much land to possess. And I wanna tell you, one of the valleys in the land of Canaan that God covenanted to say, I'm gonna give you is the valley of the giants.

God made a covenant saying, if you can walk there, I'll give it to you. If you are victorious over your enemies, it will become your possession. And you know what? You can even change its name then. You can restyle it.

But listen to what the Bible actually says. We have read here in 2 Samuel 5 twice that statement about the valley of the giants, but you may not have realized it. It talks twice in these verses we've read about the valley of Rephiam.

The word Rephiam is used in place of giants. And when you read the Old Testament, six times you read about the valley of Rephiam. And that word Rephiam, it is giants. And twice in the book of Joshua, we read about the valley of the giants.

It is the same word in the Hebrews. So whether here it says the valley of Rephiam, it's exactly the same word used by Joshua twice, speaking about an actual place called Rephiam or the valley of the giants.

Joshua speaks about it as an actual physical place within the possession of Israel, within the promised land that they are to go in and possess. This word Rephiam is used 21 times in the Old Testament, and it is the word for giants, 21 times.

It either talks about giants or Rephiam, and it's talking about exactly the same thing. The Bible is very clear that there were giants in the land of Canaan. They were real creatures, beings, or people.

They were a reality. They weren't a myth. They weren't mere theory. They weren't symbolic. But there were men of great stature, great size, men that grew abnormally large, men that grew strangely. We read of one of those giants, how he had six fingers and six toes.

He was a strange creature. I wanna tell you, back in Genesis chapter 14, it's one of the first times that we read about the various tribes of the giants. There wasn't just one tribe of giants. There were several distinct peoples with unique names that were giants.

One of them was the Rephiam. The Rephiam weren't just the giants. They were a tribe within the whole spectrum of giants. In Genesis 14 and verse five, it talks about a king called Cheddar Lamar from Elam.

He was a great king, a great leader. That's present day Iran. He arose as a great champion and joined in unity with other kings. And he led a great army. You're talking about very ancient days, 1 ,900 years before Jesus Christ.

This happened. There were tribes of giants in those days. This was the days of Abraham, when Abraham was called out of Ur of the Chaldees in Iraq and called to go in to the promised land, a land that I'm gonna show you.

I'm gonna give it to your children, to your seed. And in the days of Abraham, we hear about this great king of Elam, raising up an army and invading over into Canaan, into that whole region. And in fact, it mentions various tribes and where they lived.

It mentions the Rephaeum, the Zemes, the Ememes, the Horax, and various other peoples and tells you where they were living and that they were distinct people. Now, the ancient Jews called these Rephaeums, titans.

One of the Greek names for them were the titans. If you know anything about classical history or mythology, or if you watch the old movies, maybe you weren't in that era of the clash of the titans. I think they're bringing new movies out.

Please do not watch new movies on these subjects. They'll be horrific, I wanna tell you. But there is old mythological stories from the most ancient history of our world of these God men coming down and clashing with great champions within the nations.

On at Pergamos, the altar of Pergamos, you can go to Berlin and see it, engraved on that altar of Pergamos where they sacrificed Christians, they martyred born again Christians. On that great altar is depicted the clash of the titans when the gods came down, when these God men came down, angelic beings came down and begin to clash with men and war was waged out across the nations.

You see, this isn't mythology. When you hear of a lot of the ancient mythology, there is an awful lot of truth to it. Yes, it gets perverted. Yes, it gets added to. Yes, it gets enlarged. But there's actual things that happened in the world and they are passed down to us.

When you read in Genesis chapter six, you begin to get some of the background of the history of giants, of where they come from and of what happened when angelic beings came down and interacted with women upon the earth.

And so we see here, there is a valley of the giants connected into this. You know, when you go to ancient Israel and the spots that we read about, the Rephaeum and the giants, if you go to those exact places in Canaan and in Jordan, the country Jordan present day, you'll find in those actual spots, great megalithic buildings.

I mean, giant buildings. And yet these were the places that the Bible specifically names and says giants were there. Do you remember when Israel was gonna come into the land of promise? And God is saying, go in and possess the land, possess the mountains and the valleys and the cities, go in and possess each of the areas.

You remember they encountered giants. It says in Numbers 13, 33. And it says, this is the report they come back with. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants. And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers.

And so we were in their sight. The word giants used there is Nephilim. That's another name for the giants. And so here's Israel, the land of promise given to Abraham. Now all these generations later, being marched in by Joshua, saying God has given you the land.

These are your valleys. These are your mountains. This is your land, but you've got to go in and possess it. Do you know what they went in and looked and said, do you realize there's giants in the land of promise?

Here's God saying, I've given you a good land. But Lord, there's giants here. I want you to live the Christian life. Oh God, don't you know I'm facing giants? They're horrific. They're demonic. They are large.

I'm like a grasshopper. Do you know how small a grasshopper is compared to these giants? So here is Israel. They're already defeated in their mind. There wasn't one battle with the giants. They didn't advance that first time.

They'd have to wait 40 years for it. You know why? They got defeated in their mind. They said giants, two plus two. I can actually see them in my mind. They're meeting me up. I can see them eating me for breakfast.

Well, you're defeated already. Oh, we can't overcome. We can't go in. We cannot do this. Then you're utterly defeated. If you don't believe this gospel, I can overcome sin. I can overcome the devil. I can overcome the world.

You know what? You can be defeated in your mind. I can't stop sinning. I can't stop drinking. I can't stop doing this. I can't walk away. You're defeated. You're not even engaging in the warfare against sin.

You actually know that you're gonna be defeated before you engage the enemy. You're actually convinced that you're already defeated. You know, when you're the enemy and you have an army coming towards you and you know that they're already defeated in their mind, I mean, they're advancing going, we're defeated.

We don't stand a chance. We can't overcome. I would love an enemy like that because you know what? They're already defeated before we even fire the first shot. You as a Christian need to win a victory in your mind.

If you're going into the land saying, but look at the giants. Oh yes, the land is good, but look at the giants. You see, people want the land, the nice Christian life, the peace, the prosperity, the encouragement, the blessing of God, revival, but they don't wanna fight giants.

Giants are there in the will of God for you to overcome. It says also in Deuteronomy chapter two, verse 20, that also talking about the land of the giants, that was in present day Jordan, the other side of the Jordan outside of Israel.

When they came to invade, there was an entire country that was called the land of the giants. Why? Giants dwelt there in old times and the Ammonites called them Samzumans, a people great and many and tall as the Anakims or as the Nephilim.

So here you have a clear description. This isn't just men who grew a little bit taller or a bit more muscular. These are men who grew abnormally. They are gigantic. The Philistines in the Bible always represent the flesh, but do you know what?

All the Philistines were not giants. What the Philistines did was join themselves to the giants. In other words, the flesh, the Philistines brought in giants because giants are demonic beings, demonically inspired.

And there's a close association between the Philistines, the flesh, and demonically inspired creatures in the Bible. There's a close association between the devil and your flesh. Let's get very personal.

You remember when Peter speaking to Christ and Christ said, I'm going to the cross. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna suffer. What did Peter say? Oh no, not you, master. You don't need to go the way of the cross.

You don't need to die. You don't need to suffer. We won't let you suffer. I'll kill men rather than you suffer. What did Jesus say? Get thee behind me, Satan. Peter wasn't Satan, but do you know what had happened?

And Jesus goes on to explain this. He says, Peter, Satan, Satan, you savor the things of man and not the things of God. Do you realize the devil always comes in in the back of the flesh? You cannot, I do not believe a real Christian can be indwelt of a demon, utterly, biblically impossible.

But please don't go to the other extreme. You play with sin. The devil will play with you. Do you realize that there's the devil putting words in Peter's lips to say, you don't need to go the way of the cross.

That means an apostle like Peter can begin to teach false doctrine because the devil is there influencing. You don't need to deny yourself. You don't need to take up your cross. Do you realize the devil is behind much false teaching in the church?

Peter was not demonized. Peter did not have demons. But do you know what? The devil was coming in on the back of an old fleshly nature and just dropping thoughts. And there was a real war going on. And so in Deuteronomy chapter three and 11, we see there was an entire nation or land of giants.

And among them, we're told, and you know I preached on this before, the king of those giants in Deuteronomy chapter three was called Og, king of Bashan. Og was a king. Listen to what it says about him.

He had an iron bedstead in Bashan. And it gives a description actually of him. It says his bed was nine cubits by four cubits. If you translate that over, that's 13 and a half feet long by six foot wide.

That means his bed was at least twice as long as any one of your beds in this room. None of you have a bed even comparable to this. This is a ginormous bed. It was made of iron. And this is the bed he slept in.

So here you have a king of the remnant of giants. Most of them are gone, but they're still giants. And this giant could have been twice as tall as the tallest person in this room here this morning. Or we all know about Goliath in 1 Samuel chapter 17.

He was another giant of a man. It says that in height he was six cubits and a span. That is about nine and a half feet or almost three meters tall. So here you have Goliath. Goliath wasn't the tallest giant.

No, not at all. He was a giant of a man. And Goliath actually carried a staff in his hand, a wooden staff with a spearhead on the end. And that spearhead was made of 600 shekels and it would have weighed 6 .8 kilograms.

So he would have barely got on a Ryan Air flight with that spearhead. I don't know what the staff would have, but he's already gonna fill. He's gonna be at his weight restriction almost just with his spearhead.

That's not even taken in all of his armor. And some of you think that's enough weight to carry. And so when you come to the giants in the land of Canaan, in the valleys, on the mountains of Israel, you read about the Rephaim, the Zazum, the Emim, the Anakim, these were all different tribes of giants.

And yet they all come under the title giants. All of these were known as giants or Nephilim or Rephaim. These are all different titles. They were unnatural. They were overgrown. They were overpowering.

They were demonically inspired. They were warlike enemies. And do you know where the devil always put them? Right where God wants you to be. Where God's people were to be, the devil literally places giants all in those key spots.

You see, the devil knew for centuries that God has made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, with Joseph, with all of his seed. I have a land specially for you. Oh, you might be over in Ur or you might be in Egypt in captivity, but I've got a land where I want you to live.

You may be walking in circles in the wilderness, fighting no enemies at all, but I have a land. I've got a place of victory. It's a land of mountains and of valleys, and it's for you. It's a good Christian life.

And yet you could be walking in circles. You could actually be walking in a wilderness. You know nothing about this land. This land has bountiful rain, wonderful harvest. I mean, big grapes, big fruit growing in it, and it's all for you.

But you know what? You're walking in circles or you're down in Egypt. Oh yes, you believe in the Lord, but you're not walking in the victory of this Christian life. And you know what? If you ever get to the edge of this, you're gonna be terrified by the size of these giants.

I can't go in there. There are giants. Why do you think the devil placed strategically his giants in these areas? I believe it was very deliberate to terrify the people of God when they see the giants, when they hear them, when they knew about them, they'll say, surely we cannot go in and possess the land.

You know, Joshua, when he was in the land, Joseph, the tribe of Joseph turned to him and said, look, we are very important people, you know. We are very large people. We have many numbers, our size is large.

We are a bit of a mega church. And so we need more room. You know how great we are, Joshua. Listen to what Joshua answered. If thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country, cut down the wood thyself.

And yes, the land of the giants, go in there as well. You know all those places where the giants, you want more room. You say you're such a big and great and mighty people. You're such an important person.

You need more room. You need more blessing. You need more everything. You're more important than other tribes. Okay, then go where the giants are. Just move the giants out and take over. Wasn't Joshua a very wise man, very diplomatic in dealing with God's people.

The Valley of Hinnom and the Spiritual Battlefield

They started to get high ideas. Oh, brilliant. I'll accommodate that. We'll go over there, move all those giants out, and you can have that whole area and that whole region. When we begin to look at the Valley of Giants, you begin to understand there is a ferocious battle.

Now I just told you what the Rephiam are or what the giants are. Let me tell you where they are specifically. You'll find this in Joshua chapter 15 and verse 8. Joshua gives an actual description of where this valley is.

I could take you to it today if we were able, if I could literally lift you there. And it talks about the border. He's drawn the line between two tribes. So he draws this line like on a map. He's giving you exact information.

And he says the border went up by the valley of the son of Hinnom. So this is how you're gonna find out where it is. You've gotta find out where the valley of the son of Hinnom is. This is right outside the city of Jerusalem, the city of God, the chosen city of God, present day Jerusalem.

So if you look at a map of Jerusalem to the south of Jerusalem and to the west of Jerusalem, you have a valley running in around Jerusalem that's called Hinnom, the valley of Hinnom. And if you find that valley, do you know what the meaning means in the Greek?

Do you know what Jesus called it? Gehenna, or it's the word for hell. And so this valley just outside of Jerusalem was a picture of hell. Remember what Jesus said? There's worms that will keep eating you in that place called hell.

There'll be gnashing of teeth. There'll be fire. There'll be torment. And he talked about Gehenna, or hell. Do you know this was the valley of Gehenna? This was the valley of hell. This is where all the rubbish from the city was cast out.

This is where all the false religion took place. This is where all the children were sacrificed in the hands of Moloch. And so this entire valley is a picture of hellish depravity, false religion, apostasy, a burning fire.

It's a picture of hell. And so this valley was there. Now you can't find the valley of chance without finding this. This is how you find out where the valley of the chance is. So it's just outside Jerusalem.

This valley of Gehenna is outside the wall. So Joshua says, the line runs up to it. And listen, and it says, that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward, which is at the end of the valley of the giants northward.

So listen, if you want to find the valley of the giants, the northern most part of this valley, it takes you right up to the valley of Hinnom. You have Jerusalem. You have the valley of Gehenna or Hinnom.

And then you have the northern most end point of the valley of giants. That's how you find it. And it actually runs westward and southward from Jerusalem. That way, if you're looking at me, so it runs all the way down for at least a mile, maybe three miles.

You have this valley running from the valley of Gehenna. That's where it ends up. Do you realize that this valley will lead you to hell? This is not a valley you walk through. This is not a valley that is a part of our Christian life.

This valley represents something demonic, something dangerous. It's not where you walk through. It's where the devil inhabits with giants. When we talk about the valley of giants, we're talking about a valley that is filled with giants, possessed by giants, dominated by giants, ruled by giants.

And this is where the enemy prepares himself to attack the saints of God. You see how close it is to Jerusalem? It is only outside of Jerusalem. Its target is Jerusalem. Its focus is to take you to hell.

It is destructive. It is dangerous. It is dark and it is deep. And you don't want to go there. From Jerusalem, 10 miles to the south, you've got Bethlehem. And so on that road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, Bethlehem to Jerusalem, just off to the side, you've got this valley running in a slant all the way down there for maybe three miles, which is the valley of the giants.

That's what it actually is. It is a very dangerous place where the enemy comes to make war against the saints of God. Do you know you can go there today? Do you know the Valley of Hinnom is now a beautiful valley outside?

There's houses there. It's beautiful to look at. Do you know the Valley of Giants? It still exists. It's now become an area of the city of Jerusalem. There is an entire street, if I can find the name of it here in my notes, Emek Refim.

You can go to Jerusalem, Google it, and go to the Valley of Giants. Visit it if you're ever there. Just put in the Google search and you can walk there. It is filled with shops. It is filled with houses and it's in a valley.

You are literally in the Valley of Giants. Some of you are going, I'm not going there. I'm not Googling that. I'll be scared to go there. But it's a beautiful spot now. Do you know it wasn't until about 1870s, I think it was.

It was a barren, dead place, but a whole group of Piedist, Lutheran Christians, very spiritual Christians moved to Israel, bought the land, possessed the land, and they said, we're getting ready for the Messiah to come back.

We believe Jesus is coming again. And that's why we buy this land. We're possessing this land. We're taking it over. And they made it into a very beautiful thing, a very beautiful place. And that's where they live.

You can go there and it's called, I think, Germantown or something like that. And so when you see all of this, there is a real place called the Valley of Giants. And that's my introduction. Let me give you my three points here.

David’s Three Anointings and the Assault on God’s People

From what we read in 1 Samuel 5, and I wish I could have read the previous 16 verses. It's very important for what we're about to read here. When you get to 2 Samuel 5, we read about David being anointed with oil to be king for ministry as an acknowledgement from God for the third time in his life.

David wasn't anointed once. He was anointed three specific times. Remember the first time he was 17 years old. He's a little shepherd boy. He's looking after his father's sheep. His father forgets about him.

Samuel goes to anoint the next king of Israel. He's 17 years old. And when the boy comes, the spirit of God says, he's the one, he pours the oil on his head and says, you're gonna be king of Israel. Do you know what he does next?

He goes back to his sheep, picks up his harp and carries on looking after the sheep on the hillside. So he's anointed by God the first time. Secretly, privately, only in the family circle. It's only his brothers and they're all going, you're kidding me.

Man, has Samuel made a mess of this? This has to be a false prophecy. I mean, him, God hasn't got a call in his life. He can only look after sheep. That's all he can do. He's not even a soldier. We're in the army.

We're fighting the Philistines. He's a little shepherd boy. So it was private and there was nothing showed forth when he was anointed. The second time is many years later at the age of 30. He's anointed for the second time to become king of Judah or the two Southern tribes.

They are fighting against King Saul's son for seven years and he becomes king of the Southern tribes, of two of the tribes. And he reigns from Hebron, a mountaintop fortress. That's where he becomes king of the Southern tribes.

Then when you get to 2 Samuel 5, you've got the third anointing. Now I'm giving you a context. Rephiam, the Valley of Gents is not a place you go. The spirit of God does not lead you there. Your test isn't to walk through the darkness of that valley.

Do you know what? This is not a personal Christian experience, this valley. Remember Psalm 23 was, all of you will either have been there or you will be there one day, but not Rephiam. The Rephiam is not a personal Christian dark trial.

It doesn't represent that. This is far, far bigger. Do you know what the Valley of Gents represents? An assault against the body of Christ, the people of God. This is when the armies of hell march against the church, march against this church.

If you don't believe in the devil, just stick around a little bit. I want to tell you, the devil knows about this church. He knows about you. He knows about this preacher. We have an army who at certain set times can literally come up to fill the valley of Rephiam to make war against the people of God.

But when did it happen? Just before this, there had been seven years of civil war between David and his people and Saul's people. Saul's son, David wasn't the second king of Israel. People say Saul was the first king, David was the second king.

That's not true. Saul's son reigned between the two. He was on the throne of Israel. And you know what you had for seven years while David's at Hebron, you had a civil war for seven years. Saul's house is fighting David's house.

Saul's house keeps getting weaker. David's house keeps getting stronger. This was a right civil war amongst God's people. You know, some people say, I don't like to see fighting in the body of Christ.

I don't think you should speak about another pastor who's teaching wrongly. Just don't say anything. I want to tell you, there's a right time for civil war in the body of Christ. When Saul dominates, Saul's influence is there.

There's going to be a war. When you get a David rising up, there's going to be a war. And you may say, I think we should all love each other. Really? You want to join together with the house of Saul? Either you're going to be in the house of Saul or the house of David, but you will have to be on one or the other side.

You cannot be in between. So notice, before this happens, you had seven years of civil war. Then it stops. David is anointed king. This is his third anointing to be king in his lifetime. What a remarkable thing.

And now he's 37 years old. 20 years ago was the beginning of this, a private, personal prophecy, an anointing by a prophet like Samuel. 20 years later, it comes to pass. David never made it happen. David never killed Saul.

David never manipulated. David never tricked his way into ministry. You know what? He waited upon God until God's people unified. This was a new day of unity, a new day of anointing, a new day of raising up an army.

We are told that all of Israel, the 12 tribes gathered to David, and there were fighting soldiers to the number of 340 ,000, almost half a million soldiers gathered to David. That's quite an accomplishment.

This was a guy that used to hide in a Dullam's cave, that ran from Saul, that had rejects, criminals, people in debt gathering to him because no one else wanted them. And he started to build an army in a Dullam's cave.

Now things have suddenly changed. He's got an army of 340 ,000. And even the King of Phoenicia of the city of Tyre began to send him lots of gifts. So you've got a radical new day here. It's an extraordinary day.

And David is at Hebron, which is about 10 miles south of Jerusalem, 10 miles south, further than Bethlehem. And he's been king there. Now all the people are gathering. You know what he's about to do next?

He's about to march towards Jerusalem. Jerusalem wasn't called Jerusalem then. It was named after the Jebusites. Melchizedek used to own it in the days of Abraham, but it went into the hands of the Jebusites.

I wonder who put the Jebusites there. I believe it was the devil, knowing that this is gonna be a capital. And so it's named after the Jebusites. And here you have David preparing, saying, we're gonna march up there, defeat them, and this is gonna be my capital.

We're gonna call it Zion, the city of God. It would later be called the city of David. It's called Jerusalem as a picture and type of the new Jerusalem, the people of God who are gonna come back. And it was right at this point, God's people are unified.

They're uniting. They're building a new army. There's a new anointing. There's a new buzz in the land. There's something happening here. And then what happens? Do you see, in an hour, when God begins to move and bring forth his plan, that's when you get the valley of the giants taking place.

It's not a personal battle. It's not a small battle. The valley of giants, these are demonic, devil-inspired creatures. You remember in Genesis chapter six, it says the sons of God came down and cohabited with the daughters of man.

There was a cohabitation that brought forth great men of great renown and of great size in the earth. And this is where you have the battle. All of a sudden, it says, these armies of the Philistines come up and they fill the valley of the giants.

I've got three points for you here this morning. What do you do when the valley of giants stands between you at Hebron and Jerusalem and the plan and purpose of God and the entire Philistine army, not a batch of them, the entire, every single Philistine comes over and fills that valley and they say, we've come for you.

What are you gonna do? I've got three points here of what David done. Number one, and this will surprise you, find your stronghold. Look with me at verse 17. But when the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel, all the Philistines came up to seek David.

They're not seeking Israel, they're seeking David. David's a problem. David's anointed. David's a man of God. David's a man of prayer. Why does the whole army march? Are they after everyone? No, they're after David.