You're Not David

David and Goliath as Typology, Not Moralism

If you want to open up your Bibles, we're going to be in 1 Samuel 17 today, the story of David and Goliath. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, as we open up your word, we ask again that you would send your Holy Spirit to open our hearts and our minds, so that we may know what it is that we are to believe, confess as well as do, in faith towards you for the forgiveness of sins, of hope in eternal life and love to neighbor.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Alright, 1 Samuel chapter 17, story of David and Goliath. If you've heard bad preaching on this, the sermon goes something like this. Are you experiencing distress in your life? Are you having troubles?

Let me explain to you, brothers and sisters, what that could possibly mean. Are your children disobedient? So give me a witness by saying amen. Amen. Are you having problems paying the bills? If so, give me an amen.

Yes, right, right, exactly. Is the boss at work treating you poorly? Do you not have a boss? Maybe you've been let off of work, fired, canned, sacked, and now you can't even pay your own bills. Or maybe, well, your spouse is just not that fun to deal with.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that, whatever problem, whatever distress you find yourself in, that is your personal Goliath, Josh. Now remember, this is just metaphor. We don't want to, we don't want to harm people.

But see, this story of David and Goliath is all about you, you, it's you, it's all about you, learning how to step out in bold and audacious faith, pick up five smooth stones and slay your Goliath.

Is everyone with me?

Yeah.

Yay. Yay.

There was much rejoicing in the land.

Yay.

Anyone see the problem with this approach? I missed. I'm not good with a sling. It's not about us. Now, we're in this story. If you were to look at it typologically, we definitely are in this story, but we have to place ourselves in the right place.

Because of our sinful fallen nature, which our old Adam has this really great capacity to stick us right in the center of things and make me the hero, yeah, so it's all about.

Me.

But see, the thing is, it's not about you. This text is really about what Christ has done for you. And so last chapter, last week when we started looking at how King David now has come onto the scene, King David, he was anointed by the prophet Samuel.

He wasn't even invited to his own anointing ceremony, and he was out keeping the sheep. And he's a Bethlehemite. You see, you start to kind of get the idea of what's going on here. And so finally, he is invited to his own anointing ceremony.

Samuel anoints him, and does he immediately set up court and begin making laws and rules?

No.

Okay, so we learned that after his, well, anointing, he's not yet coronated. And so what we're looking at here is that this is all in type and shadow pointing us to Christ, major pinnacle character in scripture that really typologically exemplifies much of what we find in the story of Jesus.

And so during this period of David's life, we're going to see that David, just like Christ in his incarnation and his humbling of himself, he had a mean, difficult experience. Persecution, suffering, debt, all this kind of stuff.

But the typology in here is just absolutely just rich when you see how it connects with Jesus and you can kind of connect the dots and say, wow, here's David, and Jesus is his son, son of David, his son.

And Jesus is going to sit on the throne of David forever. So as we look through this, it's important that we kind of keep all of that in mind. This is telling us something about Jesus. It tells us something about David as well.

And all of these stories actually took place in time and history. And so they will teach us the importance of faith. They will show us the consequences of sin. Show us how God is our ever-present help in time of need and things of that nature.

And we can kind of look how this all works out. And it's important to note here that 16 and 17 are not told chronologically. We get some details about David at the end of 16, which then are kind of expanded upon in 17, but 17 takes place prior to the end of 16.

So this part of the story is told non-linearly, if you would. Does that make sense? Let's continue now then. Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle. They were gathered at Succoth, which belongs to Judah, and encamped between Succoth and Azekah is Ephos, Damim.

And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered and encamped in the Valley of Elah and drew up in line of battle against the Philistines. And the Philistines stood on the mountain on one side, Israel stood on the mountain on the other, with a valley between them, and there came out from the camp the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.

I feel bad for Goliath. He would have done very well in the NBA if only he had lived later. He had a helmet of bronze on his head. He was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was 5 ,000 shekels of bronze.

And he had bronze armor on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam in his spearhead, weighed 600 shekels of iron. And his shield bearer went before him and he stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel.

Why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine and are not are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves. Let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants.

But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may fight together. When Saul and all of Israel heard these words of the Philistines, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.

So there's this trash talking nine foot tall giant of a man with ginormous armor who is pretty much undefeated, the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world. And rather than have both armies go at it and have there be much bloodshed, which by the way, fighting battles was a very dangerous thing in this sense.

You lose 10 of your male population in a battle, it can have devastating effects on your economy for decades to come. I mean, keep that in mind. So this idea of kind of like, let's do this man to man, that that's not a bad idea.

Now note the way the offer is being made. If I win, you become our slaves. If you win, we'll become your slaves. We'll see whether or not when Goliath hits the ground and loses his head, whether or not they make good on that promise.

So think of it this way, the setup is kind of the perfect setup. The ultimate story of good versus evil. It's a great story. Good versus evil story. And you've got this really wicked evil guy, really terrifying, really strong.

Nobody can beat him. And nobody in Israel is dumb enough to go against this fellow.

Yes.

Well, that's the guys like that. They had their own pit crew. So that's kind of the idea. Think of it this way. If you're wearing armor, you need a pit crew to help you. So a shield bearer or armor bearer was like an important thing.

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. This is basically saying, look how amazing I am, right? Look at my amazing armor. Look at how tall I am. Look at my spear, my javelin, my sword. I even have a shield bearer before me.

Yeah, come on, send me your best guy. Nobody in Israel has got anybody like this. So this is the ultimate showdown of good and evil. And the entire army of Israel is doing what?

Peeing?

Yes.

They've wet themselves. They feared greatly. So Goliath comes out and some poor fellow's leg's getting wet. Terrible. Now, if you want to know where you are in this story, that's where you are. That's you.

That's me. We are totally powerless against the devil. So think of Goliath, if you would, as kind of a stand-in, typologically, for the devil himself. Nobody can go against this fellow and win. That's the idea.

So what do we need in a situation like that? We need a savior. We need a messiah. Just so happens that we have one now in David, because David has been mashiached. It's a terrible way to say it, by the way.

But he has been mashiached. He has been anointed. He is the messiah, and he's going to step onto the scene. So now, David was the son of an Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah, named Jesse, who had eight sons.

In the days of Saul, the man was already old and advanced in years. And the three oldest sons of Jesse had followed Saul to battle, and the names of his three sons who went to the battle were Eliab, the firstborn, next to him, Abinadab, and the third, Shammah.

David was the youngest. The three eldest followed Saul. Note here, did God choose, through the sons of Jesse, to go with the firstborn or last? Lastborn. It's an important theme in scripture. The last will be first, the first will be last.

So he is the least. He is not the exalted, he is the least exalted. So the three eldest followed Saul. David went back and forth from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem. So there's the anointed but not yet coronated King of Israel, still a shepherd, running errands back and forth between dad and his three older brothers.

This doesn't sound like a kingly thing to do, does it? So we're seeing, if you would, seeing a picture of Christ in his humility. And it says this, for 40 days, the Philistine came forward and took his stand morning and evening.

Hmm.

Forty days.

Hmm.

How many days did it rain during the flood?

Forty.

How many years was Israel in the wilderness?

Forty.

How many days was Jesus tempted in the wilderness by the devil?

Hmm.

Hmm.

I think this might have something to do with all of that. You pay attention to the markers. The signs are telling you that something's going on here. So Jesse said to David, his son, take for your brothers at Ephah of this parched grain, these 10 loaves, carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers.

Also take these 10 cheeses to the commander of their thousand. See if your brothers are well and bring some token from them. Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah. And I love this because this is almost tongue in cheek, fighting with the Philistines.

How much fighting's going on? Maybe they were trash talking. They were fighting with the Philistines. Yeah, everybody in Israel thinks, oh, man, the army of Israel, they're out with the Phil, they're fighting with the Philistines.

No, they're not. No, they are not. But that's kind of the fun part of that. So David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with the keeper, took the provisions and went as Jesse had commanded him.

And he came to the encampment as the host was going out to the battle line shouting the war cry. Yeah, that'll get them.

Yeah.

Shouting the rebel yell. And Israel and the Philistines drew up for battle, army against army. David left the things in charge of the keeper, the baggage, and ran to the ranks and went and greeted his brothers.

As he talked with them, behold, the champion of the Philistine and Gath, Goliath by name, came out of the ranks of the Philistines and spoke the same words as before. And David heard him. Now, this is just a great motif, this idea that there's there's psalms where God hears his children's cry for help against their enemies.

And there's this wonderful psalm where literally God rises from his throne and smoke and fire is coming from his nostrils and he comes down to earth because he's heard the cries of his people. That's kind of what's going on here.

The Messiah has now just heard.

You see it?

David heard this time. So all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, they fled from him and they were much afraid. The men of Israel said, have you seen this man who's come up? Surely he's come to defy Israel and the king will enrich the man who kills him with the great with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel.

So the man who kills Goliath gets a princess in marriage and no taxes. That's I think that's a that's a big bonus, by the way, I'd love that one. But remember what Jesus says in the new earth with the sons of the kingdom, they pay no taxes.

So we know we're coming to a tax free existence eventually. Not quite there yet. But notice the motif. I mean, this is not what all of our fairy tales tell us. Prince Charming comes in, slays the evil person, the wicked witch, the evil Maleficent, the dragon or whatever.

And who does he win as a result of conquering this difficult, powerful,.

Evil foe?

The hand of the princess in marriage.

You see it?

It's all over the scriptures. So this is what Jesus does. He conquers the devil and God, the father, gives him a bride in marriage, the bride of Christ. That's us.

You see it?

Similar motif going on here. And David, he said to the men who stood by him. Now, I'm going to note this. I'm going to tell you this up front and then you'll see it as we walk through the text. David, this text says, is going to say these words several times, at least three.

And so he's not talking to somebody in order to continue to get clarification. What he's about to do is to basically see if he can boost the morale of the troops around them so that somebody, maybe himself, would even have enough courage to do what is necessary to overthrow this evil blight.

Who is Goliath. So David says to the group in front of him, he's shouting this out, what shall 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 defy the armies of the living God?

So think of this as like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, in that big speech that he gives right before that battle, right, where he's got the blue paint on his face and he's got his long broad sword out and, you know, it's like,.

Who's with me for Scotland?

You know, that kind of, that's kind of what's going on here.

They will not take my freedom.

That's kind of what's going on here. So the people answered him in the same way. So shall it be done to the man who kills him. Now, Iliad, the eldest brother, heard when he spoke to the men and Iliad's anger was kindled against David.

And he said, why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption and the evil of your heart. You have come down to see the battle. And David said, what have I done now?

Was it not but a word? And he turned away from him toward another and spoke in the same way. And the people answered him again as before. So he does it again. Who, what shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine?

He's really kind of trying to rally them at this point. So the, when the words that David spoke were heard, they repeated them before Saul and he sent for him and David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail because of him, your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.

And Saul said to David. You're not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him. You are but a youth and he has been a man of war from his youth. But David said to Saul, your servant used to keep sheep for his father.

And when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him.

Your servant has struck down both lions and bears. And this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them. For he has defied the armies of the living God. And David said, Yahweh, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the band, from the hand of this Philistine.

And Saul said to David.

Go.

And Yahweh be with you. Now, a little bit of a note here. David here is drawing on an experience that he is unique to him, if you think about it. So up to this point, the scarlet thread of the bloodline of Jesus Christ has come to this point and no further.

David has no sons, none. It's come to this point and no further. If David is killed, what happens to us?

We're done.

So God has miraculously provided so that David's life, he's able to be protected in ways most people are not. In fact, this kind of harkens back to Samson as far as his strength. Who's able to grab a lion by the beard and smash it in the face and kill it?

I don't know anybody who can do that. No UFC fighter on the planet, you don't put him in the cage with a lion, he'll lose. And yet this is what's going on. And it's not lion, it's lions and bears, plural.

So and as his vocation of as shepherd. The wild animals learned you don't mess with David's sheep. Because he has literally a God given supernatural ability. And from this God given and he knows it's supernatural ability.

He derives from that. There is no way God's gonna not let me conquer this Philistine. Just like he protected me there, he's going to protect me here. We don't know. Best guess? Best guess 15, 16. How do you talk sense to a kid who sounds like he's ready to commit suicide?

Yeah, I know that's kind of the stakes are pretty high and yet sells off. Fine, go. Lord be with you. I mean, you can't beat his logic. But notice what his logic is based on. True faith. True faith. So now let me kind of pull this back.

We do not have these experiences. However, we have real promises from God. So when the devil comes along and says, there's no way you're a Christian. You are going to burn in hell. I saw what you did.

You say, thank you for reminding me that I'm a sinner, Satan. Good news is Christ died for sinners. He only died for the ungodly. By reminding me that I am one of them. You are assuring me of the great promise of the forgiveness of my sins.

One by Christ on the cross. See how that kind of works? Hang on to the real promises that you have. It's a good story, though.

Great story.

So go, Lord be with you. So then Saul clothed David with his armor. Let's see if we can get this to work. He put a helmet of bronze on his head, clothed him with a coat of mail. And David strapped on his sword over his armor.

And he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. And David said to Saul, I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them. So David put them off. And then he took his staff in his hand.

Hmm, staff.

It's kind of a Moses thing going on there. He took a staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the brook, put them in a shepherd's pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.

For all intents and purposes, David may as well have been unarmed. He's got five rocks, a shepherd's pouch, and a sling against the human tank, Goliath. Jimmy the Greek at this point was taking bets, and nobody was laying money down for David.

Everybody can see how this was going to end. It was not going to end well. It was going to end with these words, and thus perished David, son of Jesse. Totally unarmed. So the Philistine, let's see here.

So the Philistine moved forward, came near to David with a shield bearer in front of him. And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance.

And the Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come at me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.

And then David said to the Philistine, and pay close attention to this. You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of Yahweh, the God of the armies of Israel.

What's his real weapon? In the name of God. The name of God, in the name of Yahweh, Sabaoth. This day, Yahweh will deliver you to into my hand. I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel and that all this assembly may know that Yahweh saves not with sword and spear.

For the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hand. Ah, Yahweh, what? Saves. This is a salvation story. The battle belongs to the Lord. Salvation belongs to the Lord. And he's going to give you into our hand.

Almost as if he's talking to the devil himself. When the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. And the Philistine and David put his hand into his bag, took out a stone, slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead.

The stone sank into his forehead and he fell on his face to the ground. That was quick. It was like a total non-event. Now, a little bit of a note here. Garden of Eden. I will put enmity between you and your seed and her seed.

You will bite his heel. He will crush your head.

You see it?

He's about to have his head cut off. And all of this is type and shadow to what Christ is going to do to the devil. Goliath falls by a head wound. And then has his head cut off. And you can almost see the devil sitting on the sidelines going, oh no, oh no, I'm in trouble here.

I know what this is about. It's not an accident. But notice again, the battle itself was a non-event.

Dead, the end.

There was no round two. The bell had just rung on round one. Two seconds in, Goliath is dead. I mean, wow. Exactly.

Boom.

It's exactly like that.

The end.

Yes.

We'll talk about that in a second. Hold the thought. I think the church fathers are very helpful here. But that'll be my next point. Before that point though, I want you to consider the similarities now from this New Testament text to what we just read so far.

I mean, was this not the ultimate showdown between good and evil? I mean, if you were to do a movie on this, the directors would insist that the battle last a wee bit longer. You can't do a movie like this because like, evil just fell over without even a fight.

It just doesn't happen that way. Usually the hero and the villain have to, you know, they get all bloodied and they fight and there's explosions and there's blood and there's guts and there's fingers and ahs and oohs and pows and biffs and bangs and all that kind of stuff, right?

This was just dead.

The end.

It's similar to this.

Matthew 4.

Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. The tempter came and said to him, if you are the son of God, and I'm sure you are, Jesus, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

And Jesus answered, you know, it's written man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Wow.

The devil was resisted with just a verse from Deuteronomy. Anybody can do that. Then the devil took him to the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you.

He's misquoting Psalm 91. On their hands, they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Yeah, again, it's written, you should not put the Lord your God to the test. It's like a non-event.

So again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory. And he said to him, all of these I will give you if you fall down and worship me. And Jesus said, be gone, Satan.

It's written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

Wow.

So then the devil left. What just happened here? Okay, defeated. Non-event, kind of defeated. Despite the fact Jesus was not at his physical best. Jesus wasn't going to the gym every day. He hadn't eaten for 40 days.

So he was thirsty. He was tired. He was hungry. He was starved. He was at his weakest. And the devil comes along and he just goes, blick, devil tries again, blick, devil tries again, blick. No human being has been able to stand up to this guy.

And Jesus just did it at his weakest. You kind of get the idea here. Big picture of how the ultimate fight between good and evil isn't even much of a fight. It's amazing when you kind of think about it.

Now the question came up about the five smooth stones.

What are we going to do with those?

Five of them.

Five smooth stones.

I can tell you what the church fathers did with them. How many wounds did Christ sustain?

Five.

Two in his hands, two in his feet, one in his side. You want to know what the five smooth stones are? We have them embroidered on our altar cloth. There's five crosses on the altar cloth when you go up there and take a look.

Those are the five smooth stones, the wounds of Christ. That's what defeated the devil.

You see it?

I think it's a good way to think about it. Because it points us to him, not to us. Now the story continues. So there's Goliath face down on the ground. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, struck the Philistine, killed him.

There was no sword in the hand of David. David ran, stood over the Philistine, took his own sword, drew it out of its sheath, killed him, cut off his head with it. And the Philistines, they saw that their champion was dead.

Of course, they turned themselves in as they agreed to, right? No, they fled. Weasels didn't even keep their own promise. The devil never keeps a promise that he makes, by the way. Because he's not promising you anything.

So there it is, the headless Goliath. It's a picture of Christ crushing the head of the serpent. It's a salvation story. And it's all type and shadow pointing to Jesus. So then the men of Judah, of Israel and Judah, rose with a shout and pursued the Philistines as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron so that the wounded Philistines fell on the way from Shaaraim, as far as Gath and Ekron.

And the people of Israel came back from chasing the Philistines and they plundered their camp. David took the head of the Philistine, brought it to Jerusalem and put his armor in his tent. And as soon as Saul saw David go out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, Abner, whose son is this youth?

And Abner said, as your soul lives, O king, I do not know. And the king said, inquire whose son the boy is. And as soon as David returned from striking down 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 are you, young man? And David answered, I am the son of your servant, Jesse, the Bethlehemite. Good stuff. And there's more. So now you can kind of get the idea of this.

The story of David and Goliath is a snapshot, picture and typology of Christ's victory over the devil for us, to save us from our enemies. The Philistines are the stand-ins for the demonic horde and things of that nature.

But now the story is going to take a decidedly interesting turn in that God, who has left Saul, is going to humble the one who exalted himself, Saul, while exalting the one who is humble, David. You can start to see Saul's going to be on the descent.

David's going to be on the ascent. It's a fascinating story. As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. I hate to say this, but liberals within the Visible Church, I refuse to call them Christians, that they believe that this is implying that David and Jonathan had the erotic hots for each other.

And it's not true. That's not the kind of love they had for each other is not that kind of love. And the Hebrew is actually quite clear on this. Instead, it says, Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house.

Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him, gave it to David. Notice this. Jonathan is a prince. He's the crown prince of Israel.

He's the crown prince of Israel. And he gives his royal robe and his armor to who? David. Now, a little bit of a note here. What do you do with this? Who in the New Testament is the disciple whom Jesus loved?

John.

Isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? So David's best friend, the one he really loved, is Jonathan. The disciple whom Jesus loved is John.

You see it?

It's like these parallels. It's too good to not see it. So you think, oh my goodness, are you kidding me? Nope, I'm not kidding.

It's great.

So Jonathan strips himself. He humbles himself and he gives his armor and his robe, even his sword and his bow and his belt to David, the anointed but not yet coronated king of Israel. David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him so that Saul set him over the men of war.

And this was good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servant. As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tambourines, with songs of joy and with musical instruments.

And the women sang to one another as they celebrated. Saul has struck down his thousands, but David, his tens of thousands. And Saul was very angry. Not kind of, sorta. He wasn't miffed. He wasn't perturbed.

He was in a rage. And this saying displeased him. He said, they've ascribed to David ten thousands. And to me, they've ascribed thousands. And what more can he have but the kingdom? What an astute observation.

Yes, indeed.

So Saul eyed David from that day on. Important to note this. In the ancient world, the idiom for somebody who has jealousy, they didn't have a word exactly that worked out that way. Oftentimes they would say, that person has the evil eye.

The evil eye. So jealousy is the one who has the evil eye. And so here we've got David eyed David. Saul eyed David from that day on. He's got the evil eye to him. I'm looking at you. So the next day a harmful spirit from God rushed on Saul.

He raved from within his house while David was playing the lyre. And he's singing the Psalms to him. As he did day by day, Saul had a spear in his hand and Saul hurled the spear for he thought, I will pin David to the wall.