A Union officer from Rhode Island named Sullivan Ballou wrote a love- letter to his wife on the eve of the Civil War Battle of Bull Run, a battle he sensed would be his last. He speaks tenderly to her of his undying love, of “the memories of blissful moments I have spent with you.” He grieves the thought that he must give up “the hope of future years, when, God willing, we might have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood around us.” Yet despite his love for her, the battle calls and he cannot turn away from it. “Sarah, my love for you seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break,” and yet a greater cause “comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.”
Sullivan Ballou was killed in battle the next day. God has shaped our masculine hearts to respond to a mission that both involves and transcends even home and family. I believe that John Eldredge is right when he says, “A man must have a cause to which he is devoted even unto death, for this is written into the fabric of his being (Wild at Heart). The adage is true, “If a man doesn’t have a cause to die for, he doesn’t have a cause to live for.” This episode is about the greatest cause in the history of the world—the kingdom of Jesus defeating the kingdom of evil and spreading righteousness over earth.
In Genesis 2:15, God reveals that he placed Adam in the garden to protect the garden and its inhabitants from harm. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and KEEP it. The Hebrew word for “keep” is SHAMAR which means to protect from harm. As Genesis unfolds, we discover an enemy, Satan, who hates God and his image bearer. He is described by Jesus as a thief “who comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” As C.S. Lewis said, “enemy occupied territory, that is what the world is.” In Ephesians 6 Paul explains that most of our calling to protect our family and the garden (the world) requires us to fight spiritually. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (vs 12). This episode challenges us all to rethink whether we are standing on the sidelines or engaged in some spiritual fight against a Goliath that God wants us to fight to spread Christ’s righteous agenda. The subject of our study is David’s defeat of Goliath, which is physical picture that is loaded with truths about spiritual warfare. Let’s dig in. (1 Sam 17 summary.)
A champion named Goliath came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us. On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.
Three of David's brothers are stationed there so David is sent to them by his father with food. David arrives. As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. David asks, ‘Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?’ What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him. David said to Saul, ‘Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.’ Saul replied, ‘You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.’ But David said to Saul, ‘Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.’ Saul said to David, ‘Go, and the Lord be with you.’
Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine…who said to David, ‘Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. ‘Come here,’ he said, ‘and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!’
David said to the Philistine, ‘You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.’ As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground. Than David cut off his head.
GOLIATH AND WHAT HE REPRESENTS
Goliath’s armament was the best that the highly skilled Philistines could obtain either by manufacturing or by trade. The shield was a large standing shield that covered the whole body. Most of his armament was bronze except his spear’s head of iron—this was just the beginning of the Iron Age. It weighed about 15 lbs. His coat of mail weighed 125 lbs. Six cubits, and a span is about 9 feet 9 inches.
Goliath was:
- An enemy against whose strength God’s people felt powerless.
- An enemy who defied God’s people to conquer him.
- An enemy whose very presence struck fear in the heart of God’s people.
- An enemy whose daily defiance of God’s people paralyzed them for they knew their strength was no match for his.
In the battle between the Kingdom of Darkness and Christ’s Kingdom of Righteousness, Goliath represents sinful habits, desires, fears, and doubts that defy our efforts to bring them under the Lordship of Christ in both our own personal lives and in our culture. At the personal level, some years ago, after a men’s retreat that focused on the battle with porn, the weekend closed with the chance for men to share what they had gotten from the weekend. Rising to his feet, Bob spoke through his tears, “I want to confess to you brothers that I need help with my Internet porn problem. I’ve only been married two years. I thought marriage would fix the problem. But it hasn’t.” Slowly, Sam got to his feet and confessed the same struggle. Then Bill. Then Brian offered to lead a group to join together in battle with this Goliath. Your Goliath may be any idol that regularly defies your efforts to control it, not just lust, nicotine, sugar, alcohol or gambling but anger, bitterness, a sharp tongue, lack of discipline, or time-wasting pleasures.
But the Goliath God may want you to fight may not be personal but cultural. Some years ago, a friend of mine named Ellen, was challenged with the question from this text, “What is your Goliath?” Her’s was abortion. She had walked in on an abortion as a Candy Striper. Ellen determined to fight abortion in her area of Gaithersburg, MD. She located two other prolife friends to help her start a pregnancy center. They prayed, built their team, raised their money, and found an ideal location. Ellen had the time to put into this pursuit because she was a nurse who was recently married and had been praying for a daytime position so it would not take her away from her new husband. Plans went forward and Ellen decided to become the volunteer director of the center. But the weekend before Shady Grove Pregnancy Center was to open, a daytime nursing position became available right next to the office building where her husband worked. But she turned it down. Shady Grove Pregnancy Center was born and has been operating at that same location now for over forty years saving lives and leading fathers and mothers with unwanted pregnancies to faith in Jesus. Ellen refused to sit on the sidelines. She got into the fight. Is there a Goliath, personal or cultural that God might be using this episode to call you to fight?
DAVID’S STRATEGY FOR DEFEATING GOLIATH
A. Preparation for the Battle. The skill David used to defeat Goliath was developed through David’s faithfulness in fulfilling the lowly task he was assigned as the youngest brother—caring for the smelly sheep. Not only would that skill be developed by driving predators away from the flock, he developed the courage to go after the lion or bear who had stolen away one of his lambs. In his own words to Saul, When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine. Faithfulness in the mundane tasks assigned to us is preparation for bigger things.
Not only that but David’s preparation for this battle took place when David began putting the Torah to music using his harp (which would later become the Psalms) while out in the fields keeping the sheep. No doubt, one of the lessons he saw in the Torah was the principle that the battle against Israel’s enemies had always been the Lords.
B. Passion for God’s Honor. I believe that what moved David to action is the same force that can propel us to leave the sidelines to take on a Goliath in our sphere—passion for God’s honor, zeal for God’s reputation, such overpowering allegiance to God that nothing matters as much as the name of our God being exalted. Listen to David’s incredulity at the way Israel’s soldiers were allowing their God to be shamed. David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God (vs 26)? David saw the powerlessness of Israel’s army to stand up to Goliath. Yet it was Israel who claimed to worship the true God. In those days, the true God was clearly the one who gave his followers victory. David saw that it was the reputation of God, himself, that was at stake in Goliath’s defiance of Israel.
When you love someone, you can’t tolerate his reputation being trashed. In fact, God explicitly teaches us this principle. The first four of the Ten Commandments explain how to love God (the second six, how to love our neighbor.) The third commandment is to respect God’s name. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain (Ex 20:7). Wanting God’s name to be revered is at the core of loving him and at the core of David asking God to defeat Goliath. In fact, years after David had died, God tells us that he empowered Israel’s evil King Ahab to win a great military victory, for one reason: God’s reputation was at stake. And a man of God came near and said to the king of Israel, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because the Syrians have said, “The Lord is a god of the hills but he is not a god of the valleys,” therefore I will give all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord (1 Kings 20:28).
Jesus appeals to this devotion to God’s honor as motivation to defeat evil and bear the fruit of righteousness when he says. By this is my father GLORIFIED, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Similarly, the very starting point for praying as Jesus taught us to pray is passion for the honor of God’s name. “Our father in heaven, may your name be hallowed, may your kingdom come and your (moral, preceptive) will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The song of those captured by heart-driven allegiance to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords is Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together (Ps 34:3)!
C. Trust in God for the Power to Win. What is surprising in this story may not be David’s faith but Saul and his army’s lack of faith. From the beginning of Israel’s history and throughout, God had over and over and over again shown Israel that victory came not by the might of Israel’s army but from the Lord.
- It was God who changed Pharoh’s heart so he would let them leave Egypt.
- It was God who dried a path through the Red Sea, & drowned the Egyptian Army
- It was God who made the walls of Jericho fall.
- It was God who gave Deborah and Barak victory over Canaanite King Jabin.
- It was God who gave Samson victory over the Philistines despite his major character flaws.
- It was God who told Gideon to cut his army from 32,000 to 300 saying “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand lest Israel boast over me saying ‘My own hand has saved me’” (Judges 7:2). God then gave Gideon’s army of 300 victory over an army of 5000.
If there was anything that any Israelite should know about warfare—it was that the battle is the LORD’s. Yet, there stood Saul and his men on the sidelines, feeling powerless, afraid, disheartened before Goliath because all they thought about was their own strength. Are there any Goliaths in your world that God might want you to fight that are intimidating you?
D. Use of Intelligence to Fight. Faith does not mean jettisoning reason.
- David detected that the one place Goliath was vulnerable was his face.
- While others saw Goliath’s size as too big to defeat, David saw his massive face as too big to miss!
- Goliath’s reach meant he had to be attacked from a distance.
- Although he knew he had the skill to hit Goliath in the face, David knew he could miss and might need to fire again. So, he took five stones.
- David knew that smooth stones would least alter the direction of his hurl.
- He knew that wearing Saul’s armor would hinder his sprint towards Goliath to increase the velocity of the stone as he hurled it so it penetrated his head.
Attacking your Goliath takes every bit of cunning, wisdom and intelligence that you can muster. The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord (Prv 21:31). The fight to defeat lust, for example, requires being smart.
- Anticipate the outer conditions when lust is most likely to strike.
--You are alone with the opportunity to pursue illicit sexual pleasure.
--You are out of town with the opportunity to pursue illicit sexual pleasure.
--You can’t sleep.
--You are in a physical location associated with past sexual pleasure.
- Anticipate internal conditions when lust strikes (boredom, loneliness, depression, discouragement, anger towards wife.)
- Remember sin thrives in the dark. To defeat it requires accountability.
E. Marshalling the Courage to Act. David stepped onto the battlefield. In the greater Richmond area, a friend of mine, named Bob, met a Christian woman (I will call Cindy), whose Goliath was the filthy, explicit, sexual content in the children’s section of the regional library. Though Bob had many other things to do, he left the sidelines to get into the fight against this evil Goliath. An opportunity arose to gain control of the Board of Trustees, which by a 5-4 margin had supported such explicit content and the American Library Association promoting it. One of the five was up for a second term. Cindy asked Bob to run for that open seat. He met with every other board member and secured the endorsement of another high-ranking official, all the while Bob and Cindy bathing what they did in prayer. When the vote came, the board member who favored the explicit material lost what had always been a certain election by former board members to a second term. Bob was elected, instead. Since then, the library board majority members have endured public assaults on their character and a fight with the director who was promoting the filth, finally getting him to resign. The majority is currently not only putting controls on the explicit sexual content that is available to children but working to change the structure to ensure that the content decisions are not determined by the American Library Association but by the local parents. Goliath was defeated, but the battle to prevent the rise of another Goliath continues, which leads to the final strategy that David was forced to employ.
F. Celebrating the Win but Expecting Continued Fighting. David won one of the best-known battles in the entire world. It was a great victory for Israel and for the reputation of the LORD. It launched David into prominence, building support for God’s calling upon him to be Israel’s king. But the story is incomplete without mentioning another part. King Saul became insanely jealous of David because of his victory over Goliath. If David was fifteen when he killed Goliath, David spent the next fifteen years fleeing from his king who was trying to kill him. Perhaps the NFL has it right when it comes to “today’s victory.” They celebrate it tonight and maybe tomorrow but then get right back to preparing for the next gridiron battle.
The need to head back into the fight need not discourage us. Men are created to be warriors. That is our calling. But our disheartening defeats send us to the sidelines. One such man admitted to his friend. “I’d love to be William Wallace in Braveheart, leading the charge with a big sword in my hand. But I feel like the guy in the fourth row with a hoe.” Perhaps that describes you. But consider the friend’s response, (which is as biblical as it can get).
"That’s a lie of the Enemy—that your place is really insignificant, that you aren’t really armed for it anyway. In your life, you are William Wallace—who else could be? There is no other man who can replace you in your life, in the arena you’ve been called to. If you leave your place in the line, it will remain empty. No one else can be who you are meant to be. YOU are the hero in your story. Not a bit player, not an extra, but the main man."(Eldredge, Wild at Heart).
For Further Prayerful Thought:
- Do you think ther are some sins in Christian men’s lives that they have been so overpowered by that they give up fighting? What might they be? How can this story of David and Goliath give them faith to step onto the battlefield?
- Do you think there are cultural battles that many men believe reflect such spiritual power from the kingdom of darkness that they are reluctant to launch intentional fights against them?
- Which of the six principles exhibited in David’s defeat of Goliath stood out most to you?
