1 Samuel 17, How to be on the Winning Side, Dr. John B. Carpenter

1 Samuel chapter 17, hear the word of the Lord. Now, the Philistines gathered their armies for battle and they were gathered at Sukkah, which belongs to Judah, and a camp between Sukkah and Azekah in Ephes Damim.

And Saul and all the men of Israel were gathered and camped in the valley of Elah and drew up in line a battle against the

Philistines. And the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side with a valley between them.

And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.

He had a helmet of bronze on his head and 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 and his spear's head weighed 600 shekels of iron and his shield bearer went before him.

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 you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves and 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 the Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.

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. The three oldest sons of Jesse had followed

Saul to the battle and the names of his three sons who went to the battle were Eliab, the firstborn, and next to him

Abinadab and the third Shammah. David was the youngest. The three eldest followed

Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem for 40 days.

The Philistine came forward and took a stand morning and evening. And Jesse said to David, his son, take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain and these ten loaves and carry them quickly to the brothers.

Also take these ten cheeses to the commander of their thousands and see if your brothers are well and bring some token from them.

Now Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah fighting with the Philistines.

And David rose early in the morning and left the sheep with a keeper and 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.

And Israel and the Philistines drew up for battle, army against army. And David left the things in the charge of the keeper of the baggage and ran to the ranks and went and greeted his brothers as he talked with them.

Behold, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the

Philistines and spoke the same words as before. And David heard him. All the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were much afraid.

And the men of Israel said, have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy

Israel and the king will enrich the man who kills him with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel.

And David said to the men who stood by him, 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? And the people answered him in the same way. So shall it be done to the man who kills him?

Now Eliab, his oldest brother, heard when he spoke to the men and Eliab'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, for 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. 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 the

Philistine. And Saul said to David, you are not able to go up against this Philistine to fight with him, for you have been 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. 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 rose 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, the

Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this

Philistine. And Saul said to David, go and the Lord be with you.

Then Saul clothed David with his armor and he put a helmet of bronze on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail.

And David strapped his sword over his armor and he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. And then

David said to Saul, I cannot go with these, for I've not tested them. So David put them off. Then he took a staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd's pouch.

His sling was in his hand and he approached the Philistine. And the Philistine moved forward and came near to David with his shield bearer in front of him.

And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance.

And the Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? And the

Philistine cursed David by his gods. And 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.

Then David said to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the

Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the

Lord will deliver you into my hand and 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 to 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 the Lord saves not with a sword and spear, for the battle is the

Lord's and he will give you into our hand. When the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet

David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the

Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead and he fell on his face to the ground.

So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone and struck the Philistine and killed him. There was no sword in the hand of David.

Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of his sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it.

When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. And the men 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 Sharom as far as Gath and Ekron.

And the people of Israel came back from chasing the Philistines and they plundered their camp. And David took the head of the

Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his armor in his tent. 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. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word.

All right. Well, everybody likes to be on the winning side, don't you? The more a sports team wins, the more fans they get, the more jerseys they sell.

The most popular team jerseys in each sport generally matches the most successful team in that sport.

As a lifelong Alabama fan, I'm amused by seeing random people wearing Alabama jerseys walking down the

Danville Riverwalk. If Georgia or Michigan keep winning, you'll start to see their jerseys. It seems like I'm not seeing as many

New England Patriots or Golden State Warrior jerseys now as I used to. Everybody loves a winner.

The trick is knowing who the winner is, knowing how to be on the winning side. Everyone wants to know how am

I going to be on the winning side. Now most people just choose, well, it's easy. You wait for somebody to win and then you choose to be on their side.

Many people choose their political candidates, their opinions, even their morals based on who is winning.

We're in an election year and so you'll hear from now until November that the candidate is winning.

He's winning. So don't you want to be with a winner? It's the bandwagon effect. Everyone wants to be on the bandwagon, to go along with the crowd.

Of course, they don't want you to become so complacent. You think, well, he's winning so I don't have to bother to vote for him.

And so they play this careful game that the candidate is definitely winning. So he's a winner that you want to be associated with.

But it's got to be close, you know. It's got to be really close, so close that they desperately need you to vote.

He depends on you to vote for him. So it's critically important that you vote for the candidate who is definitely going to win.

They say that after presidential elections, polls show that more people say they voted for the winning candidate than actually voted for him.

We all love winners. Our problem is knowing who is going to win before they win.

A comedy movie, Lady Ballers, had the tagline, winners are losers who win. People support the winners after they win.

They support a cause because it looks like it has more people on his side. In a same -sex marriage lost in North Carolina by about 62 percent.

That's against it in 2012. But now a poll reportedly shows about that percentage or even a little bit more of North Carolinians now in favor of it.

It was imposed on us by the Supreme Court and many say it's on the right side of history. And so about a quarter of the people just change their views based on that.

They want to be on the right side of history. They want to be with the winners. And so they change their views about morals on that.

That's the depth of many people's ethical thinking. We love winners. But the problem is knowing who the winner is.

Now it's easy in sports. The winner is the one with the highest score or lowest if it's golf. Easy, right?

It's easy with God too really. In the end he wins. If he hasn't won yet, it's not the end.

It's so certain that he's going to win that you would think no one would dare oppose him.

Who would play a team that you could never beat? Who would fight an army that can't lose?

It just makes no sense, right? But still, God has enemies. The world, the flesh, the devil.

And they look very imposing sometimes. Sometimes they look certain to win.

And we see God and his enemies here in 1 Samuel chapter 17. One of the most well -known and most misunderstood stories in the whole

Bible. We see that here in two major parts. The enemies of the living God and then the victory of the living

God. The enemies of God come also in two parts. The external and the internal.

The external enemies of God here are the Philistines. They have been the major enemies for the entire book of Samuel.

Israel was at war with the Philistines when Samuel, the boy, was a boy in the tabernacle. And they were so afraid of the

Philistines that they brought in the Ark of the Covenant. Remember that story? They bring in the Ark of the Covenant to the Israelite camp to go with them, hoping it'll be kind of like a lucky charm.

So when they go out to battle with the Philistines, they think, well, God has to be for us because we have his Ark with us. But the Lord would not be manipulated by Israel, and so he allowed

Israel to be defeated. And the Ark fell into the hand of the Philistines who put it into the temple, their temple, the temple of the god

Dagon, the fish god, the Philistine god, where the idol fell face down before the

Ark. And then the next day, they had to set it back up again, and the next day it fell down again when his head was cut off.

The Lord afflicted the Philistines until they sent the Ark back with a sacrifice. Later Samuel led an attack on the

Philistines, and then later Jonathan, Saul's son, did the same thing, attacking a Philistine outpost, a forward operating base deep in Israelite territory.

But despite these occasional defeats from Israel against the Philistines, the Philistines still have an upper hand against Israel.

Here they invade Israelite territory. It looks almost like Israel is losing the promised land.

They've gotten the promised land, and now it looks like they're losing it. They're a place called Sukkah and Azekah, which is about halfway between the

Philistine cities, what we now call the Gaza Strip, between that and Bethlehem, which is just south of Jerusalem.

It's where David's from. Saul brings the Israelite army to oppose them, camping just north of them in a valley called, between them is a valley called

Elah, and there they face off. They don't fight yet. There's no really battle going on. There's just two armies looking at each other.

Now sometimes wars begin by two sides just facing off for a time, deciding, kind of waiting and wondering, do we really want to start this war, deciding whether they want to pull the trigger and begin the real fighting.

In the Civil War, South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860, but it had a

U .S. military base, Fort Sumter, in the middle of Charleston Harbor. Invisible site was a

U .S. military installation, and they faced off for over three months, almost four months.

In the meantime, President Lincoln said in his first inaugural address, in your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.

So for months, both sides faced off against each other to see who would shoot first, and then on April 12, 1861, the

South finally fired on the fort. And World War II, after Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the

Allies just immediately, France and Germany and some others, declared war on Germany, but then basically did nothing, facing off against Germany for about eight months, what is now called the

Phony War. That's what's going on here in the beginning part of 1 Samuel 17.

The Philistines have invaded, Israel's armies meet them, and then they just kind of stare off at each other for 40 days.

It's a phony war. Then out comes Goliath. He's called a champion, and the word is literally a man between.

He's between his army and the enemy army. He dares step forward from his lines to face the enemy on his own.

Verses four to seven are all about describing him. There's like four verses there just describing this man.

Now famously, he's incredibly tall. Six cubits in a span is nine feet and nine inches.

So he's huge, and apparently he's a descendant of the Anakim, and he's also well -equipped. He has a bronze helmet in verse five, and he's covered in mail, literally scales.

The Hebrew word means like fish or snakes have scales. In other words, it's a flexible kind of armor that protects him and allows him to be flexible and freely move about.

His coat of mail weighed about 125 pounds. That's that weight there. And so it proves that he was strong, that he could freely move about with 125 pounds of weight on him.

This proves how strong he was. He had apparently plates of bronze on his leg in verse six.

So besides being enormous, he's muscular, he's strong, he's covered from head to toe with armor.

He had at least three weapons, a bronze javelin slung on his back. Javelins are for throwing long distance.

In verse seven, he had a spear for closer in -fighting with an iron tip. Iron is new technology, so he's also tech.

He has the newest innovations, and we'll find out later he has a sword and a sheath. He's even given a shield.

He has a shield bearer going before him, so he's got someone else holding the shield right in front of him. I probably guess

I've got a teamwork going on there. And that allows him to have both hands free, so he's got a shield to help protect him, and both hands free for weapons, so he could howl a sword in one hand and a spear in the other.

He's got all the gear, in other words. Top of the line. He looks like a winner. And he comes out of his lines toward Israel, shouts out to Israel in verse eight, "'Why have you come out to draw up for battle?

Am I not a Philistine, and are not you servants of Saul?'' Interesting way to describe the

Israelites. They're now just servants of a king, now that they have a king. "'Choose a man for yourselves, a champion of their own, a man in between, and let him come down to me.'"

Then in verse nine, "'If he is able to fight me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him, if I'm a winner and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.'"

Later, remember, they don't keep their end of the bargain. They don't keep this deal, but whatever. That's the challenge from the enemy.

Find someone to represent you and fight for you. Now, if this sounds familiar, a champion representing the army, challenging the other army to send out a champion, it's because it's similar to challenges in the

Iliad, Greek mythology, Paris, Menelaus, Hector, and Achilles. If you remember that, remember that from high school?

I never really read it since then. Challenging each other, representing their armies. The Philistines are from the sea people who come down from Greece, the

Aegean Sea, and what we now call Turkey. They're Westerners. So this is really

Western civilization versus Israel. And Western culture before Christianity is barbaric and debased.

And this was not something Israel was used to, which may be a reason why they don't respond at first.

You know, what is this? We don't do this. It's not a champion fight for the whole. We don't, it's not in our culture. Then in verse 10, the

Philistine, that's what he's called over and over again in this passage. We often use Goliath, but his name is actually only used twice in the whole chapter.

It's just called the Philistine. He declares, I defy the ranks of Israel this day.

I defy you. You don't have anything better than me. Give me a man that we may fight together. That's the external enemy.

Okay, he's huge. He's strong. He's fully equipped. You know, all the right gear, high tech, defiant, threatening, intimidating.

He's eager for a fight. He's sure he's a winner. But as dangerous as the external enemies appears, he's actually no problem for the internal enemies.

There's fear rooted in lack of faith. The internal enemy shows up in verse 11.

Israel hears the taunt of the Philistines and is dismayed and greatly afraid. Dismayed could literally be shattered or terrified.

They are shaken with fear. They look at Goliath and realize he's bigger, he's stronger and better equipped than any of them.

And no one dares to step forward and take him on because they're too afraid.

Franklin Roosevelt said, courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.

The problem really wasn't that Israel had fear. You look at Goliath and you know he's too much for you.

So fearing him is natural. The problem is that they didn't assess, taking all the facts, that there is something else more important than Goliath, that they had someone else on their side who was much stronger than him.

That was their internal enemy. It's their fear and it paralyzed them. Then enter David and we're introduced to David again.

It's like some businesses. Remember, of course, we think, well, he was introduced to us in chapter 16. What's this going on?

It's like some businesses have a soft opening when they just start operating, you know, with no hoopla or attention. And then there's a grand opening sometime later.

Well, chapter 16 was David's soft opening. He was anointed, but apparently even his brothers didn't know what that meant.

It was in private. And there was no grand coronation. There were no crowds shouting, long live

King David. Samuel was told to pour the oil in him, and he did. No declaration was made.

And now it's time for David's grand opening, his public demonstration of God's anointing.

And he does it in one of the most popular Bible stories. This whole story, the story of David and Goliath, is the story of David's grand opening, his real introduction to Israel.

David, again, in verse 12, is the son of Jesse and Ephrathite. Ephrathite, that's the area around Bethlehem.

Jesse has eight sons, and three are in the army. It's the same three we heard about last week, Eliab, Abinadab, and Shammah, and he's old.

David is the youngest, and Jesse is using him as a gopher, supplying food to his three soldier sons and to their commanding officer, probably hoping to get, you know, protect my sons,

I'm giving you food. We get lots of details here because we're building up to the main event. There's all these details in this chapter.

We're told exactly what food Jesse gave to David to run over to the three sons of the army, parched grain and 10 loaves of bread and some cheese for the officer.

And then Jesse tells him, bring back some word from the brothers. Anyway, that's why David, and this explains to us why

David is with the army, but he's not part of the army. He's not a soldier. He's just a gopher. He's sent by his father to provide food.

Like last week with Jesse, you remember last week, Jesse just assumed that whatever

Samuel wanted with his sons, it couldn't possibly be for David. He can't be the one to get this blessing, whatever

Samuel is giving out. Here, Jesse just assumes that David isn't fit to be a soldier.

He's just a delivery boy. The other sons, they could be sold. Not David, but that brings

David to Israel's camp in the Valley of Elah, facing off against the Philistines. And in verse 20, he takes the provisions to his brothers.

He arrives as Israel's soldiers, that is the host, go out to the front lines, shouting at the

Philistines with their war cry, trying to sound terrifying rather than terrified.

And the Philistines come out too, facing them, probably shouting back. It's just more phony war.

In verse 22, David leaves his provisions in charge of the keeper of the baggage, the quartermaster, they would call him in the army.

He ran out to the front lines to see the two armies lined up against each other, yelling their war cries, trying to sound intimidating to the other side.

He's talking to his three brothers about all this. And in verse 22, the champion, that is the man in between, the

Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, and this is the last time his name is used. He steps toward them, steps out of his army's front lines and issues his challenge again.

And like before, Israel is terrified, shaking, running away.

But David isn't. He assessed the situation. He sees Goliath too and decided something is more important than this champion, this enemy of the living

God. Something is more important even than his own safety. But the men of Israel in verse 24, they didn't think so.

They were still overcome by that internal enemy. And so when they saw the man, they fled back to their camp, some army.

They're all chattering. In verse 25, have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy

Israel. The same term that David uses over and over again. They use it. They see what's happening. They just don't assess that there's something greater going on.

They don't know what to do about it. And the king, they say, will enrich the man who kills him with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel.

The king is offering a bounty to anyone who kills the Philistine and he will get three things.

Wealth, he'll be married into the royal family that he marries Saul's daughter. Now he's royalty.

And third, his family will be free, meaning they'll be tax exempt. Wouldn't you like to be tax exempt?

Never have to pay taxes again. Sounds like a great deal. A great incentive for lots of men to motivate them to go out and fight that Philistine.

But they look at him and assess, nah, I'd rather live.

Ah, but David pipes up in verse 26. This is probably a mid -teenager to the men standing by.

What shall be done for the man who kills the Philistine? What's the reward? But notice that David isn't most interested in the reward.

He's appalled the Philistine has brought a reproach. This taunt is embarrassing to the people of God.

It's an embarrassment that we, the people God brought out of Egypt, brought us to the

Red Sea, stopped the Jordan River. He did all that for us. And you don't think we can't defeat this one man, giant or not?

The embarrassment is on the people of God and thus on God himself. He's jealous. David is jealous for God's reputation.

For who is this uncircumcised Philistine? That is, he has no sign of the covenant.

So that means he has no covenant with God. God has made no commitment to him to bless him.

He's in no relationship to God. We have a covenant. We have the sign of the covenant. We have it.

God has made a commitment to us. How can he defy the armies of the living God? It just makes no sense.

David, it just takes a while. You can see for him to, he's just appalled by this, to figure out what's going on.

Why won't you act? Their God is just a dead statue, he's thinking. Falls down in front of the

Ark of the Covenant with his head cut off. Our God. Is alive. That's what's driving

David more than the reward. We have the covenant, he thinks. We have the living God.

We are the winners. Well, then there's another internal enemy in verse 28.

This is scorn. Eliab, the one Samuel first thought looked like a king.

He's tall, he's handsome, he's regal. He hears his little brother David appalled at how the

Philistine, how can he do this? How can he defy the armies of the living God? How can we let this happen? Someone has to do something.

You know, kind of implying, although he didn't look like he said it, it doesn't sound like he's being disrespectful, but he's sort of implying, how have you men stood around for 40 days and let this man get away with this?

Well, Eliab speaks up angry. Why have you come down, punk? You know, with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness?

Actually, we're told in verse 20 that he left them with a keeper. He was responsible. But Eliab really isn't asking questions.

He's scorning. We today can be appalled at how sometimes direct commands from the

Lord Jesus or from the Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, commands to the church, like to do church discipline or to sing psalms or not to have women pastors.

Sometimes you're just ignored. Let's just act like it's not there, like God didn't say that. And if you speak up, if you're appalled by that, you speak up and say, how could we let this happen?

How can we ignore Jesus's commands, his word? Well, if that happens, you expect some scorn coming back at you.

You're proud or you're harsh or you're backwards. You just don't get it yet.

Or like Eliab who says, I know your presumption. Literally, it's your pride. You're proud.

You think you're somebody great. He's scorning him. I know, Eliab says,

I know the evil of your heart. Now, think about this. David is actually speaking out of true, sincere faith, but his brother scorns him and says, it's evil.

It's pride. You have come down, you just come down to see the battle. You're just a spectator, Eliab scorns.

It's like, David, you're like a trash talking Monday morning quarterback who doesn't have any idea what you're talking about.

That's what he thinks of his brother, David. Now, some people make virtues out of their fear. We saw that in the pandemic, especially after a couple of months.

At first, you kind of understand, we didn't know what was really going on. But after a few months, four years ago, during the middle of the year, when it began to seem that this wasn't nearly as bad as many people had feared.

But some people just couldn't let go of their fear and would scorn anyone who would challenge them.

People were offended when they questioned some of the actions taken, like the lockdowns. They would scorn people challenging what was done by calling them, you know, you're a science denier.

Fearful people, though, are offended when their fear is challenged. Here, Elieb, he's tall, he's a soldier, but he's shaking in fear like the rest of them, is offended when their lack of faith, their fear is questioned.

Their unbelief in the living God, that unbelief, that lack of faith is the internal enemy that keeps them paralyzed.

And David believes and so can understand. How they can allow the living

God to be defied. David asks in verse 29, what have

I done now? Was it not but a word? In other words, I was just talking, I was just asking, this is my sincere questions.

Just ask it, how can we allow God to be defied? He's a living God. They don't have a living God, we do. And he asked him, so he turns away from his brother, he asked some more people around him.

He still can't believe it. So next, part two, is the victory.

Of the living God. And that comes in five parts. The resolve, the ridicule, the resolution, the rout, and the recognition.

After a time of perplexity, David appalled at how this can be. Takes him a while to figure out what's going on, what should

I do? How can we allow the living God to be defied like this? He assesses the situation.

On the one hand, there's this over nine foot tall, experienced soldier covered in armor, all the gear and high tech newest stuff.

We have him. And on the other hand, is the living God on our side.

David assesses that and thinks, yeah, we're the winners. And so he resolves, well, if no one else is gonna do it, all these grown men have been standing around for 40 days looking at this, this phony war.

No one else will do anything. I will. So here's about David's appalled questions.

About how, how can they let the Philistine defy Israel and defy the living God? And so he has

David brought to him. David says in verse 32, after all, Saul knows David. He's been his liar player for a while.

David says in verse 32, let no man's heart fail because of him. Now, sure, he's intimidating, huge, it's well -equipped, but we have something better.

Overcome that internal enemy, your fear, your servant. David says, that was me.

I will go out and fight with this Philistine. Now, Saul doubts he can win. He's trying to advise him, you know, look, let this be real here.

You're, you're a youth. You're probably, in other words, he's probably in his mid -teens. He's 16, maybe around that age.

And Saul says, he's a man of war. He's been fighting wars since he was your age.

And David tells him that he has, he has some experience, maybe not with fighting men yet, but he says he has experience with lions and bears.

In verse 36, your servant is struck down both lions and bears. And this uncircumcised, this uncovenanted

Philistine, he'll be like one of them, one of those lions and those bears that I killed.

So resolved, Saul lets him go. This Philistine had defied the armies of the living

God. We cannot let this go on. He's resolved. So, okay, David, go on. Here's, try my armor.

So he gives David his armor. And it's just like the Philistine's armor. Notice he's got the bronze helmet, a coat of mail, and scales.

But David says he's not tested them. He's not used to them. In other words, they don't feel right. He can't move right. It turns out he needs to move quickly.

He assessed the situation and decided that he doesn't need them. And so he takes the armor off. He takes only a shepherd's staff.

He takes a slingshot, it's probably easily hidden in his hand. And he picks up five smooth stones from a nearby stream.

Resolved. Next, there's the ridicule starting in verse 41. The Philistine can't believe what he sees.

Now, if it had been Saul or Elieb decked out in their armor with a sword and a spear, he'd respect that.

But it's just a youth with nothing as far as he could see, but a shepherd's staff.

Goliath comes forward with a shield bearer in front of him. Verse 42 says he disdained

David, meaning he regarded him with contempt. The same word that Esau had for his birthright.

Birthright wasn't worth a bowl of stew. It's worthless. And Goliath looks at David. David, he's worthless.

He's not worth anything. He's just a youth. He's ruddy. Again, he's tanned. He's a pretty boy.

Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? Referring to the staff, that's all he can say.

So he cursed David by his gods. You know, something like, may Dagon strike you down. And then he taunts him, ridicules him in verse 44.

Come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.

And David replies to Goliath's trash talking with declarations of faith in verse 45.

You come to me with a sword and with spear and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the

Lord of hosts. Lord, sabbath his name from age to age the same.

The God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied. This day, he says, or the phony war is over.

The Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you down and cut off your head.

And I will give the dead bodies of the hosts of the Philistines, that army that's watching behind you, your army, this day.

Second time he says this day. Otherwise right now it's on to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth since you've mentioned them.

And this will happen, he says, prophetically boldly for two reasons. At the end of verse 46, this is going to happen that all the earth may know that there is a

God in Israel for all people everywhere to see that Israel's God is living.

And second, in verse 47, that all this assembly, the gathering or the church of Israel may know that the

Lord saves not with sword and spear, not with carnal weapons.

In other words, this is what is about to happen, David says, is both for the whole world, for all people and for the church, that they'll all see who is the winner, who's on the right side of history.

For the battle is the Lord's and he must win the battle.

Finally, he will give you into our hand, not just mine.

Now, David does all the fighting here, but he does it for Israel, the assembly, the church.

He's the man in between. Then third, the resolution.

After all this build up, this lead up, all these details about Goliath and his armor and his weapons and the food

David brought and the fear and the chatter and the Israelite camp and his brother's scorn, the Philistines' ridicule.

After all that, it's all over in two verses, in 48 and 49, because the actual fight was over in an instant.

The Philistine began advancing toward David. David runs quickly toward him.

No more fleeing in terror like the Israelite soldiers have been doing. He takes out a stone from his pouch, puts it in his slingshot.

He only needed one, it turns out. Slings it in mid stride at the

Philistine, striking him right on the forehead, sinking down into his head.

He collapses face down in the dirt. Notice face down, like earlier in 1

Samuel with Dagon before the ark. Psalm 115 verse 8 says that those who worship idols become like their idols.

Goliath had worshiped Dagon. So Goliath becomes like Dagon.

Face down, head cut off. You become like what you worship.

Next, the rout. David wins. All he needed was a sling and a stone.

Verse 50, there was no sword in David's hand. He didn't even need to bring one. God conveniently supplied the sword through the

Philistine. David runs to stand over him, takes out Goliath's sword, kills him with his own sword.

So proud was he of all his gear and weapons and he's killed by them.

And then he cuts off Goliath's head with it. And then the Philistines saw their champion.

The one they were so sure was the winner. He was in fact the loser.

And they fled. Losers are winners who lose.

Israel saw it and rallied, shouting and routing the Philistines, chasing them away, plundering their camp, overtaking many of them and killing them.

They are the winners. And it was a rout. That leads finally to the recognition.

In the last four verses, Saul recognizes there's something special about David. He asks

General Abner what family David is from. After all, now David's going to be marrying into his family.

So Saul wants to know. Abner doesn't know. So he brings David fresh from the victory, the victory of the living

God with the head of the Philistine still in his hand. That's his trophy to later take to Jerusalem.

And David tells him that his family, about his family and the rest of 1 Samuel is the story of what becomes of Saul's recognition.

This is one of the most popular, well -known and most misused stories in the

Bible. People tell us we're facing giants. You're facing some giant.

Maybe it's debt, a relationship problem, a family problem. Got a bad boss, cancer.

And you need to kill that giant that's defying you. But that's not what it means.

You aren't David, understand? You are not

David. David is the anointed one. He's a Messiah who steps forward on our behalf, a man in between, and the battle is the

Lord's. It's his battle. He wins it. Yes, you are in the story, but you're the trembling

Israelites incapable of standing up to the enemies of the living God. The world, the flesh, the devil, they come out against you and you run away because you know you can't take them.

You know you're overwhelmed by them. The world steps forward from the enemy lines against you, mocking you, telling you that you're on the, you're on the wrong side of history.

You're a bigot for what you believe, that you want to conform. And you see multitudes around you swept away by whatever is the newest idea, the newest morality.

People scorn, you can't win. You're a bigot. And so you either conform or you retreat, trying to hide out, cut off from the world, hoping the world doesn't find you and your children.

Some sin comes out against you, lust or greed or pride.

And you know you don't stand a chance. Your flesh tells you you have to have that relationship or that money or that attention, that trophy.

You'll be destroyed. You know it, but you can't keep yourself from it. And you fear you're going to hell because of it.

And so you cry out like in Romans 7, who will deliver me from this flesh?

The devil comes out. Now he's dressed like a winner. Maybe like an angel of light, teaching doctrines of demons that you can earn

God's approval by depriving yourself of something. Or he tells you about God's word. Has God really said?

And multitudes believe him. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe.

His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.

On earth is not as equal. Death comes forward, decked out in his impenetrable armor, wielding his weapons of age, disease and injury, boasting that he never loses, that he's an undefeated champion.

And you look at him and all you can do is tremble and flee.

Oh, you can put on a phony war for a while, shouting and defiant, but you know you can't win.

No amount of positive, encouraging sloganeering about how you need to face your giants to be a

David is going to help. You aren't David.

Thankfully, God has provided the anointed one who stepped forward, a man in between, between us, we trembling, helpless people and the giant, the man, the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing, doth ask who that may be.

Christ Jesus, it is he. His weapons weren't carnal.

He only needed one shot. Our enemy fell. And then on Sunday morning, death was not undefeated anymore.

You don't have to be a David to be on the winning side. You just have to believe in his son.