Goliath, Seen When Faith Is Missing

David had done nothing more than tend his sheep faithfully where he had been placed, yet God looked upon his life, sent Samuel, and set him up as king. Living by the will of God, David walked a road plainly unlike Saul’s. The first task God gave him was to drive out an evil spirit, and the reason was that God meant to teach him who his real enemy would be from then on. With an obedient faith David drove away the evil spirit that troubled Saul, and he worked the miracle of bringing down with a sling stone the Goliath whom people looked up to. Facing Goliath was no easy thing for young David, but he came to learn that whoever goes out in the name of God can prevail, whatever power the opponent may have.

He did, of course, sin by killing Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, in order to take her. Still, looking back over the whole of David’s life, it is true that he gave himself to God. One thing is certain: when Samuel anointed him, David understood rightly what God wanted of him. Whoever has truly met God can live a life set apart from the people of the world.

The moment the Philistines heard that an evil spirit had come upon Saul, they attacked. When a nation falls into hardship and crisis comes to the church and the home, it is all because those who believe in God have failed to play their part. It is their failure to live out their faith that has darkened the places where they stand. Satan knows full well that these are God’s own people, yet he never stops working to corrupt them and turn them into people of the world. From the moment he rebelled against God until now, he has not rested; like a roaring lion he prowls about to make even one soul stumble. He does not force anyone to stop believing in God. Instead he turns God into an idol, a god of plenty, and makes people believe in a God fashioned out of lies. Satan gains his end this way, because God’s people then go bad, chasing the world rather than the will of God.

Christians today have forgotten the faith of their forebears, who suffered persecution to keep the truth; settled comfortably in their circumstances, they no longer know what true faith is. Rather than striving to know the truth, they suppose that their church buildings, their offices, and their wealth are blessings given in proportion to their faith. When outsiders see churches that do not stand upright on the truth, and the wrong conduct of members who love the world, they attack the church and mock it. This is exactly what Satan is after. By putting the church in this state on display for all to see, he shuts off from the start any chance people have of hearing the word of truth. When ministers and members quarrel over power and interests, treating the size of the building and the number of people as their strength, the world spreads the news all the louder.

If the church is the body of Christ, why does it fight? We preach that life in this world is the life of sojourners, so why do pastors and members split into factions and fight over who will take possession of the church? Satan watches a church that moves at his bidding and blows its failings up into a great scandal, so that still more people see the church at its worst and stay away. The very buildings and people meant for the work of God have become the forbidden fruit. The church, whose sin Jesus atoned for with his own life, is living for food that perishes; that is why the church and the nation are falling into turmoil as the price of that sin. If souls are to be saved, the church must take responsibility and repent.

Satan knows well how to attack God’s people and win. Knowing that churches long to resemble the world, he makes the greed that believers harbor his tool. If you truly meet Satan with cool resolve and obey God in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, Satan will surely collapse of his own accord. To keep our faith we must know the word deeply, and we must sink our roots into the truth so that no fierce wind can tear them up.

If you abide in God, you will see that the world and Satan are geared together, turning toward the same end. The world is a shadow through which the spiritual realm can be seen; with Christ, then, you can tell how Satan moves, and you can respond. I hope you will keep firmly in mind that Satan will do anything to make you fall, and hold fast to the Lord with a bold faith.

Matthew 10:16

16“Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

Jesus spoke these words as he sent his disciples out. The Lord knew that the world was as dangerous as wolves, yet to save souls he had no choice but to send them into it. The world is endlessly cold toward the truth, indifferent, and cruel. To preach the gospel in a world so perilous, he told them, they must discern quickly like serpents and persevere until they gain what they seek, and they must hold a faith harmless as doves. Spiritually, the serpent is Satan, who tempts people and brings God’s wrath down on them. When Jesus said his disciples must be wise like so evil a creature, he was quoting a proverb that one must be as cautious and discerning as a serpent.

The serpent tempted Eve and made even Adam, who had heard God’s word and knew it, defy that word. That is why God’s people must have eyes that see wide, deep, and far. When the serpent tempted Eve, it did not tell her outright to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It drew near little by little, so that she would not notice, and in the end it got what it wanted. Those who know the word will still fall for Satan’s schemes, just as Eve did, if they let down their guard.

When Jesus sent his disciples out to preach the gospel, he told them to go with wisdom and discernment and to steer carefully clear of the dangers they would meet at every turn. Wisdom alone easily makes a person proud, and so he told them also to be harmless as doves: to have a faith that is candid, honest, and without guile. You too can withstand Satan’s attacks only if you live in the world wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.

1 Samuel 17:4-5

4A champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span went out. 5He had a helmet of brass on his head, and he wore a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass.

Among the Philistine champions who attacked Israel was Goliath. Samuel describes him in such detail to show how formidable an opponent he was for Israel.

By ancient measure, a cubit is reckoned at about 45 centimeters and a span at about 13. If Goliath stood six cubits and a span, he would have been some 283 centimeters tall. The helmet of brass on his head and his armor weighed five thousand shekels of brass; at 11.5 grams to the shekel, the armor alone comes to 57.5 kilograms. On top of this, Goliath carried a sword weighing as much as 7 kilograms. In short, Goliath, the champion at the head of the Philistine army, was so large and so strong, in stature and in weaponry, that no ordinary man could compare with him. If a man like that called for single combat, who would readily step forward? Samuel describes Goliath so carefully because he wants us to learn how David, a man of God, dealt with so great a crisis.

When Goliath shouted for anyone who would face him to come out, the soldiers of Israel held their breath in fear. Israel had no room to plan a strategy, nor could they put the fight off for another day. Someone had no choice but to fight Goliath, and this must have made the fear of an Israel trapped with no way forward or back all the greater. Just as the Philistines invaded when Israel was weak, seizing their chance, we too may suddenly meet a Goliath when we grow weak in spirit. This is because Satan lies in wait for the times when we are not spiritually full.

Goliath mocked them at the top of his voice, yet not one man in Israel stepped forward. When God was their king, he himself had worked so that they won every battle; but Israel, having rejected God and chosen a man, now cowered at Goliath’s roar. Saul, who had stolen God’s glory to make a name for himself, could do nothing once the Spirit of God had left him.

However huge Goliath may be, to God he is only a creature. For those who trust in the name of God there is no Goliath they cannot defeat; how frustrated God must have been, then, to watch his own people hide before him. You too must have met many Goliaths in your life. There will be the Goliaths of people too hard to deal with, of daily work that overwhelms you, of competition too fierce to bear. There will be the Goliaths of family members you cannot open your heart to, and of poverty; and the many problems you cannot solve by your own strength, and sickness too, may be Goliaths. You may lose heart and weep because you cannot overcome that Goliath, but no amount of weeping will make him disappear. King Saul, whom the Spirit of God had left, and soldiers without faith could not defeat a Goliath roaring like a beast, however many they were. In the same way, those who have left God can never escape Goliath, because they have strayed from Christ, who is the way.

1 Samuel 17:45

45Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

This scene shows clearly how someone who trusts wholly in God faces a Goliath. With the sword of the word, a believer can defeat any Goliath. Satan appears suddenly with problems meant to frighten us, but those who are full of faith are never flustered or disheartened, because they have committed everything to God.

David told Goliath boldly that Goliath blustered with the strength of the world, but that he himself would fight in the name of Yahweh, whom Goliath had defied. Goliath had assumed that no one would dare face him, and the one who came out to fight turned out to be a boy, very young and handsome. With so many strapping soldiers about, a mere boy had come out without weapons, in the name of Yahweh; Goliath must have been dumbfounded. Had David not provoked him, Goliath would have given up the fight, since the absence of any challenger was victory in itself.

We see again and again that God carries out his battles by means all his own, means that always go beyond human common sense. This is plain from the way he dealt with a crisis no one in Israel could resolve: he put forward young David, small and of no account, and settled it with astonishing ease. Where people wonder whether a thing can ever be solved, we find that when God acts, it is done with an ease that seems almost absurd. And when we are sure there is no way at all, and God answers in a way we never imagined, how thankful we are to believe in God, and how full of joy!

Just as anyone may come upon a Goliath without warning, David never imagined that the day would come when he would face so huge a Philistine champion. He had simply done his best at keeping sheep, and when a bear or a lion carried off a lamb, he had defended the flock without sparing his own life; yet God used that loving heart, that sense of responsibility, and that skill. David was not the least afraid to face Goliath, who looked like a beast, because he had only to see him as a beast after the lives of his sheep. When we live a life of faith, God remembers our good deeds and, at the fittest time, brings them to light and causes all to recognize us. From the human side, this was certainly a crisis for Israel and for David. From God’s side, though, it was the best opportunity to reveal David, the man he had prepared. If you too give your best in small things, God will in a single moment lift you up high, so that everyone acknowledges you.

David had come to the battlefield on an errand for his father and happened to see Goliath; when he said he would fight him, his brothers brushed him aside and rebuked him harshly. They burst out in anger that for a nobody of a boy like him to push forward in so great a matter as a nation at war came from the hardness of his heart. The world looks at outward conditions, so it will never accept anyone who does not meet the conditions it demands. Had David been built like Goliath, the people of Israel would have come looking for him first. When God calls his workers, he calls those prepared by faith rather than those with outward advantages, and he raises them up and glorifies them. To make faith truly faith, he seats them in the fitting place and, through that place, makes the believer who carries that faith shine.

David stood before Goliath with five stones. He told Goliath that he would show him that God’s salvation lies not in sword and spear but belongs to Yahweh. The moment he finished speaking, Goliath, enraged, charged at him like an arrow. But the stone from David’s sling was faster, and it sank into Goliath’s forehead. David, who had always fought wild beasts to save lives, struck Goliath square on the forehead as he came charging. Even if Goliath comes at us with the power of the world and the schemes of Satan behind him, the stone we throw in faith can stop that beast.

What is the Goliath that hounds you? Is it the neighbor’s child who does so well at school, or a friend with plenty of money, or is it you yourself, always thirsting for the world and never coming to God? I hope you will look and see. However big a taut advertising balloon floating in the sky may be, prick it with a small awl and it loses its shape in an instant. In the same way, the Goliath who stands before the children of faith is nothing but a giant balloon.

Goliath, charging at David, was gone in an instant once the stone struck him. As he came on, it was as terrifying as death itself; but when David took courage and threw the stone of faith, Goliath fell dead. The Goliath you see looms larger when you lack faith, when you fear your opponent, when you have no confidence, and when you are discontented with your present circumstances. He is a balloon of that kind, and if you take courage by faith, he will vanish.

No Goliath can defeat the one who goes out carrying the white stone that is Christ. When you live in reverence before God and give your best where you are, God will lift you up and glorify you as he did David. May you always live wise as serpents and with a faith harmless as doves. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.

1 Samuel 18:1-12

1When he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 2Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. 3Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. 4Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him, and gave it to David, and his clothing, even including his sword, his bow, and his sash. 5David went out wherever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely; and Saul set him over the men of war. It was good in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul’s servants. 6As they came, when David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tambourines, with joy, and with instruments of music. 7The women sang to one another as they played, and said, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” 8Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed only thousands. What can he have more but the kingdom?” 9Saul watched David from that day and forward. 10On the next day, an evil spirit from God came mightily on Saul, and he prophesied in the middle of the house. David played with his hand, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand; 11and Saul threw the spear, for he said, “I will pin David even to the wall!” David escaped from his presence twice. 12Saul was afraid of David, because Yahweh was with him, and had departed from Saul.