We’ve all heard
the story about how a young shepherd boy defeated a huge Philistinian giant,
and delivered God’s people from the clutches of the Philistines. The account of
this epic battle is recorded in 1 Samuel, 17. The Israelites were pitted against the Philistines.
Both armies were encamped on 2 mountains on opposite sides of the valley of Elah.
Running away from
challenges: Goliath, was the tyrant used by the
Philistines to bully the Israelites every day. This bullying did not happen for 1
or 2 days but continued twice a day for 40 whole days. Interestingly, every morning, God’s people
followed the daily army drill. They dressed for the fight, picked up their
weapons but when they heard Goliath’s challenge, they turned and fled away from
the challenge. And their leader – king Saul – who was supposedly responsible for
taking up the challenge sat fearfully in his tent.
Isn’t it interesting
that Goliath never once attacked the Israelites, he just challenged them from
afar but that was sufficient to scare the Israelites.
A common tactic
used to demoralize your opponent is
to create fear in their heart. If
you succeed in doing this, they may give up or even if they fight, they would do so halfheartedly and eventually lose. So, in
effect, you’ve won the battle with your words before it even began. Here
Goliath was doing something similar. In fact, Goliath defeated the Israelites
on basis of fear alone. The fight had gone out of the Israelites long before
the battle began.
This is a
significant strategy of that the devil uses against believers. For some of us
the battle is over even before it begins. The fight goes out of us when we are faced
with a challenge- a bad prognosis, financial problems, challenges at workplace
etc. What we need to keep in mind is that intimidation and creating fear is the
most powerful tool of the enemy. Before we face any challenge, we must face our
fear itself. John 1: 1 says ‘In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’. Today we
have the scriptures with us, we have Jesus in
our midst. Why should we be intimated?
Accepting the
challenge: What about David? He was seeing the same
Goliath, he was hearing the same threats, yet he was unmoved. One reason was
that he was looking at Goliath through an entirely different perspective. He
was not focusing on how big Goliath was, his focus was on the bigness of his God
as compared to Goliath. The Israelites on the other hand saw only how big
Goliath was. God was relegated somewhere to the background.
Also, David was
not focusing on the threats of Goliath but on the faithfulness of a God, who
had rescued him from difficulties earlier. David knew
that the same God who delivered him from the lion and the bear would
also deliver him now.
Second reason is
in chapter 16 where we see how Samuel anointed David to be set apart for God. David
was filled with the Spirit of God and so he
could stand up to any intimidation.
On the other hand, Saul who was the logical
choice to fight with Goliath, was scared. At one time, he was a fearless leader
who had led his people to victory many times. But that was before the Spirit of the Lord
departed from him. As the Spirit left Saul, his courage also left him.
Today, we are a
people set apart for God. We have his Holy Spirit inside of us. Why should we
then be intimidated?
The fight: This was
not a fair fight at all. It wasn’t Goliath against David. It was
Goliath against David and the Lord God of Israel. The battle was over for
Goliath before it began. He was a dead man as soon as David accepted the
challenge.
But David was wise with his words, “the Lord will deliver you into my hand.” David was
bold, but his boldness was in God, not
in himself. He did not forget that this was not his
battle, this was the battle of the Lord.
And poor Goliath –
he had no idea what was about to hit him. Infuriated
at David’s boldness, he advanced to kill him. But
David didn’t run away like the other Israelites. Instead, David
hastened to meet the Philistine.
Goliath with all
his weapons of war and David with just his
staff and sling. David hurled a stone from his sling with all his might, and that
was the end of the mighty Goliath.
I would close with
some footnotes:
1. Goliath never leaves if we don’t
take up the challenge and fight back. Here we see Goliath came back twice each day
for 40 days until David finally went down to face him in the valley. Our giants
are similar. They will never depart on their own. Until we stand on the Word
and the promises of God and fight in Jesus’ name, they will never leave.
2. David needed Goliath: Though he probably didn’t realize it, Goliath
was good for David. David who was to become King needed to gain the confidence
of the people that he was qualified to lead them. When David defeated Goliath,
he proved a point.
We too need our Goliath’s or the challenges in our life so that we
can grow in and through them. God uses every challenge we face to make us stronger.
3. There is some amount of doubt and some amount of belief in all of
us. Faith is choosing to believe inspite of our doubts. Everyone knew that God
was all powerful and well able to deliver them from their enemies. Many times, we have head knowledge which we don’t
put into practice. Anyone could
have overcome Goliath had they taken a
step in faith. David kept his doubts aside and chose to act by faith and God
honoured him.
