Have you ever
stood on the threshold of something new or painful or difficult in your life
and wondered if you were up to the challenge of dealing with it or enduring it
or overcoming it? A few weeks ago I announced that I have been battling an
illness for the last year. Well based on the recommendation of some very good
doctors, my wife and I decided that I would begin some intensive drug treatments
in a few weeks. The best we can hope for is that the illness will go into
remission and I can live a normal life. The prognosis is good but only if
I continue regular treatments for the rest of my life. It has been a somewhat
daunting task to determine the best course of treatment and then accept that
course of treatment as a lifelong reality. It represents the giant I am facing in my life right now.
I know many of you face similar,
and even more daunting giants in your life every day. Maybe you too face an
illness, yet the possibility of remission for you is always beyond grasp.
You’ve been tasked to be the new leader of your church but you just can’t get
anyone on board with your vision for ministry so you begin to wonder if you
actually heard God’s calling or if you just imagined it. You did so well in
your classes last semester but this semester you are struggling more than you
have at any other time and you begin to wonder if you’re cut out for college.
You’re great at your job and everyone thinks you’re perfect at what you do. Then
you receive a promotion that is well deserved and suddenly all the people who
thought you could do no wrong question whether or not you can do anything
right. You love your spouse more than anything and you seemed to relate and
communicate at a level reserved for only the most blessed relationships. Then,
with the passage of time you no longer relate or communicate at any level
except at a destructive level and every day seems like a battle to try and get
back to the way things used to be.
It would seem that we all go
through periods in our lives when we feel like life’s warriors and conquerors
and periods when we’d prefer to lock ourselves in a closet and hope life
doesn’t find us until next week sometime. Why do you suppose this happens to
us? Well, it’s probably a combination of a number of things: Stress, fatigue,
or maybe something we ate last night. Most likely, though, it is because we
fall into the trap of relying exclusively on our own frail strength, distorted wisdom,
and foolish guile to accomplish life’s tasks or overcome life’s obstacles. I
know that sounds strange—how else would we accomplish life’s task except
through our own strength, wisdom, and guile? What if you knew, with relative
certainty, that your actions were according to God’s will? What if you were
confident that you were acting in obedience to God? Wouldn’t your strength,
wisdom, and guile take on a different dimension; a divine dimension? Who, then,
would be responsible for the outcome of your sincere efforts—you or God? How do
we get to the point where we can say that no matter the outcome, we are acting
according to God’s will and trust that He will use our efforts to accomplish
His purpose? What would it take to have such courage and confidence that God
will work in us and through us to accomplish His specific task? What if I told
you that all it takes is Five Smooth
Stones and God can accomplish anything He wants through you? King David
learned this lesson very early, even before he was king and received the
promised perpetuity of his throne.
Subject Text
1 Samuel 17:38-52
38Then Saul dressed David
in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze
helmet on his head. 39David fastened on his sword over the tunic and
tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,”
he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. 40Then
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. 41Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his
shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. 42He
looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. 43He said to David,
“Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the
Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44“Come here,” he said, “and
I’ll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of
the field!” 45David 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. 46This day the LORD
will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off
your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine
army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47All
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.” 48As the Philistine
moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet
him. 49Reaching 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 face down on the ground. 50So David triumphed over the
Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand
he struck down the Philistine and killed him. 51David ran and stood
over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the scabbard.
After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and
ran. 52Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout
and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron.
Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron.
Context
Come on! You have to admit that this
is one of the best stories of the Bible. I mean, who hasn’t heard the story of
David and Goliath? However, in order to fully appreciate the gravity of the
story, we need to understand it in its proper context. During the period of our
Subject Text, the Philistines occupied the territory of Gaza along the
Mediterranean Sea. (It is a common mistake that some people make to assume that
modern day Palestinians are descendants of the Philistines. Actually, the two
are completely unrelated and have no ancestral connection. Their only
connection is their occupation of similar territories and the similarity in
their name.) And as you can imagine, they were constantly warring with Judah
who sought to drive out the Philistines because they occupied a portion of the land
given to the tribe of Judah when the land was divided between the twelve tribes
of Israel.
We see at the beginning of Chapter 17 that the battle
lines have been drawn between the Philistines and Israel. The text tells us
that the Philistines established their battle camp along the hills between
Socoh and Azekah with the Israelites occupying the hills facing them with the
Valley of Elah between them. At the head of the Philistine army was the giant
Goliath who was described to be more than nine feet tall with armor and a spear
to match his massive size. He stood at the edge of the valley and taunted the
Israelites for 40 days with an all or nothing challenge that he would fight any
soldier Israel sent out in a one-on-one battle and the loser’s side would
surrender in their entirety to the winner. Israel, for their part, wanted
nothing to do with the challenge. The army of Israel was paralyzed with fear.
Meanwhile, back in the small town of Bethlehem, David,
the youngest of eight sons to his father Jesse, was tending his father’s sheep
while the older sons were part of Israel’s army hiding in their tents from
Goliath. Jesse sent David to the war front with some roasted grain and loaves
of bread for his brothers as well as some cheese for the unit commander. When
David got to the front lines with the delivery from his father, he found
Israel’s army cowering in fear and Goliath continuing to taunt them. David was
indignant that no one was doing anything about the verbal insults being hurled
at Israel’s army. When David questioned some of the men standing around him,
his oldest brother suddenly grew a spine and confronted not Goliath but David
and chastises him for being critical of Israel’s inaction against the
Philistines—basically telling him to go back to tending his sheep where he
belongs and leave war to the “real men.” The only problem is that the “real men”
were doing nothing and David wasn’t about to stand for it. Instead, David
sought out King Saul who apparently was also cowering in his tent and told him
that he would accept Goliath’s challenge and that’s where our Subject Text begins.
Text Analysis
38Then
Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze
helmet on his head. 39David fastened on his sword over the tunic and
tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,”
he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off.
Once David convinces Saul that he
is confident and capable of beating Goliath, Saul outfits David in his own
battle gear in vv. 38-39. The only
problem was that David wasn’t a soldier and wasn’t accustomed to wearing any
armor let alone being fully armored from head to toe. “In ancient epic
literature the arming of the warrior for battle is a major ritual, and armor
itself is considered an extension of the character and prowess of the warrior.”[1]
David, however, was like a fish out of water wearing all that armor and decided
it served as more of a disadvantage than an advantage, so he removed all of
Saul’s battle armor.
40Then 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.
We are
presented with quite a contrast to Goliath in v. 40 when David equips himself for battle with his shepherd’s
staff, a rock-throwing sling, and Five
Smooth Stones he gathered from a nearby creek that he places in his
shepherd’s pouch—hardly the tools of a seasoned warrior. What do you see when
you compare these two contrasting images? On one side, we have a nine foot,
grizzled, warrior wearing more than 125 pounds of bronze armor with a bronze
javelin strapped on his back and carrying a spear with a thick shaft tipped
with an iron point weighing 15 pounds alone. He is the challenger who is arrogantly
sticking out his chest implying that he cannot be beaten; that Israel has no
warrior that can match him in size, strength or battle prowess; he needs no
help; he is self-reliant. On the other side, we have a young David. The only
thing we know about him is that he was handsome and “ruddy.” Which, in this
case, probably means he was tanned. So if good looks and a nice tan were a
deadly weapon then he’d be set. But alas, battles aren’t fought with good looks
or a great tan, they’re fought with real weapons so what does David bring to
the fight? A shepherd’s staff, a sling, and Five Smooth Stones. Oh and a God with a reputation of making
mountains tremble and seas part. David needs help; but he is God-reliant. “So
here’s David, stripped down to his own simple garments, and armed with his own
simple shepherd weapons—his sling and his staff—ready to do battle…The
beautiful thing about this story is it’s perfect example of how God operates.
He magnifies HIS name when we are weak. We don’t have to be eloquent or strong
or handsome. We don’t have to be beautiful or brilliant or have all the answers
to be blessed of God. He honors our faith. All He asks is that we trust Him,
that we stand before Him in integrity and faith, and He’ll win the battle. God
is just waiting for His moment, waiting for us to trust Him so He can empower
us to battle our giants. Remember, Goliath is still a giant—still an imposing
presence. David had all the odds against him. There wasn’t a guy in the Philistine
camp—or probably the Israelite camp either—who would have bet on David. But
David didn’t need their backing. He needed God—none other.”[2]
41Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front
of him, kept coming closer to David. 42He looked David over and saw
that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. 43He
said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the
Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44“Come here,” he said, “and
I’ll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”
With his
simple shepherding weapons in hand, David approaches the warrior giant. I find
it interesting that empires could care less about the relative strength of
their opponents. Their objective is conquest and the weaker the opposing
nation, the better. Weaker nations require fewer resources to conquer and
thereby reserving precious resources for the more formidable nations. Honor in
conquest is somewhat irrelevant—nation-building is the objective. The attitude
of warriors on the battlefield is less about conquest and more about being the
best by beating the best. For a warrior, there is no “honor” in destroying a
weaker opponent, only brutality. And while some warriors revel in the
brutality, the most ruthless pursue honor in battle and that is only possible
by beating the best. We can see this playing out in vv. 41-44 as David and Goliath face-off in battle. Goliath is
insulted! Where’s the honor in killing someone half his size? Great! Before,
Goliath was just arrogant, boisterous and obnoxious, but now he’s angry too. Now
he’s not only going to beat David, he’s planning on making a statement by
killing him and feeding his dead body to the buzzards. Goliath intends to send
a message in response to the perceived insult. However, David has a secret
weapon at his disposal—the Creator of the universe! And God intends to send a
message as well through this unassuming and relatively unarmed shepherd. “After
waiting for forty days, Goliath is disappointed and disgusted when he sees the
youthful, unarmed David coming toward him. How much glory is there in killing a
defenseless youth? David listens to Goliath’s curses and then acknowledges that
his main weapon is ‘the name of the Lord Almighty.’ Because of David’s apparent
weakness, the glory for the victory will go to the Lord, and this could be a
testimony to the whole world…David believes that the battle is the Lord’s and
that victory does not depend on who has the best weapons or the most soldiers.
Just as parting the Red Sea terrified the nations, so the death of Goliath will
demonstrate the power of Israel’s God.”[3]
45David 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. 46This
day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off
your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds
of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that
there is a God in Israel. 47All 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.”
For 40-days
the Israelites have had to listen to Goliath bloviate and pound his chest as he
hurled insults at them without opposition or response. But now it’s David’s
turn to say a few things to Goliath in vv.
45-47. Note the difference in the discourse between the two. Goliath wanted
everyone to fear him and what he would do to them and how he would be victorious and how he would conquer Israel’s army. David
wanted everyone to fear God and what God would do for him and how God would be victorious and conquer the
Philistines through him. “At the heart of warfare in the Hebrew Bible is the
belief that Yahweh was a ‘warrior,’ or literally a ‘man of war’…God is present
with the Israelite army during the war, and he is the one who provides the victory
because ‘the battle…is the LORD’s.’ He is ‘mighty in battle’…Indeed, the
Pentateuch [the first five books of the Bible] cites a work provocatively
titled ‘The Book of the Wars of the Lord’…Even though this work is not extant,
much of the Hebrew Bible narrates wars in which Yahweh fought on behalf of
Israel.”[4]
Goliath was self-reliant while David was God-reliant. Goliath put his faith in
himself, in his fighting skills, in his armor, and in his weapons. David put
his faith in God knowing that it is by and through God’s strength that he and
Israel would be victorious and saved. If Goliath was offended and angry before,
how do you suppose David’s threat sounded in his ears? Goliath threatened to
kill David and feed his body to the birds but David ups the ante by telling
Goliath that he will not only kill him but then chop off his head! Not only
will Goliath be food for the birds and wild animals but so will the dead bodies
of all the fallen Philistine soldiers after Israel routes them. I’m guessing if
Goliath wasn’t already adequately fueled and on fire for a fight, David’s
response to Goliath’s challenge fanned the flames into a raging inferno.
48As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran
quickly toward the battle line to meet him. 49Reaching 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 face down on the ground. 50So
David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword
in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.
The fight
was on in vv. 48-50! Goliath made
his approach toward David and David countered by running toward Goliath and as
he ran, he loaded one of the smooth stones into his sling and launched it at
Goliath. One stone was all it took. In a matter of seconds, Goliath’s massive
size, military expertise, defensive armor, and formidable weaponry crashed to
the ground in a heap as the stone from David’s sling found its mark and sunk
into Goliath’s forehead. For 40-days Goliath and the Philistines were supremely
confident and now that Goliath’s challenge had finally been met by what clearly
seemed like a weaker opponent in David, Goliath is face down in the dirt with a
rock embedded in his skull without having even attempted a single fighting
thrust! I’m sure everyone expected the battle to be short and swift but
this—there is no way either side expected this outcome! Come on! Everyone loves
an underdog but sometimes rooting for the underdog is simply a fleeting wish
when the underdog is so hopelessly overmatched like David was against Goliath.
Careful! Did I just trap you into thinking that David was the underdog in this
fight? Be honest! I caught some of you didn’t I? You see David wasn’t the
underdog was he? Think about it—who was Goliath’s opponent? That’s right—Goliath
wasn’t preparing to engage in a battle with David, he was setting foot in the
ring with God fighting through David! Nevertheless, you can bet that both the
Israelites and the Philistines were in shock and trying to understand what just
happened. “Goliath is not prepared for battle with David. Even if he knows how
effective a simple sling and stone can be, he must have underestimated David’s
marksmanship. No doubt, this young shepherd boy is unlike any other warrior
Goliath has ever seen. But superior strength and military resources are useless
against the representative of Yahweh. The contest is over before it begins.
David kills Goliath with one of his choices stones. Since he does the job
‘without a sword in his hand,’ Yahweh has been true to his word: He saved ‘not
by sword or spear.’”[5]
51David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the
Philistine’s sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut
off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead,
they turned and ran. 52Then the men of Israel and Judah surged
forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to
the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and
Ekron.
When God
acts, He doesn’t just dabble in fixes or nibble around the edges of a solution.
When God acts, He makes a statement that is unmistakable and David’s battle
with Goliath was no different as we see in vv.
51-52. The message of killing Goliath wasn’t loud enough so David ran to
where Goliath was lying face down in the dirt, drew Goliath’s sword from its sheath
and cut Goliath’s head off with it. Now that’s a statement! And the Philistines
heard it loud and clear because, either in their fear or in confusion, they
forgot the surrender terms established by Goliath and ran for Gath and Ekron;
two of the five cities in the Philistine confederation of cities. I’m guessing
that surrender would have been a better option for the Philistines because the
armies of Israel chased them all the way to the gates of the two cities all the
while littering the roadside with dead Philistine soldiers. Think about this
for a minute. Less than an hour before these events, the great and mighty
armies of the Lord were cowering in their tents! It would be a mistake to think
that it was because of one skillfully placed stone delivered by the hand of a
handsome shepherd with a nice tan that the entire Philistine army was on the
run. Think about it, they weren’t losing the fight, they didn’t even engage in
the fight! They ran the minute they recognized they were overmatched. Not by a
simple shepherd but by a God so mighty that He could use anyone or anything to
accomplish His purpose—even a simple shepherd armed with just Five Smooth Stones.
Application
When my
girls were small, like most little kids I know, they loved polished rocks.
Well, in one of my weaker moments (my wife will tell you that I had lots of
those), I agreed to buy them a rock tumbler. The girls thought it was the
greatest idea in the world because they could have as many polished rocks as
they wanted whenever they wanted them. For those of you who know what a rock
tumbler is, I can hear you groaning. I’ll give you the short instructional
version of a rock tumbler. I suppose it can come in any size but this one was
small enough to sit on my workbench with about a one-quart sized drum. You
place a handful of ordinary rocks in the drum along with some water and the
stage-one abrasive material that comes with the tumbler kit. You place the drum
on the tumbling machine and it rotates slowly, constantly mixing and churning
the rocks, water, and abrasive. After a number of days, you drain the water,
add fresh water, and add the next stage of abrasive. Ultimately it was a five-step
process that took weeks! If you don’t have kids of your own, I’m going to give
you a word of warning to store away for future reference—never, never, never
undertake anything for your young children that will take weeks to accomplish!
Let me tell you how the story ended for us. After about a week, and hearing
‘Daddy are the rocks done yet?’ for the millionth time, the rock tumbler went
into the trash and dad went to the store and bought them each a bag of polished
rocks for $5! Ok so that little lesson in parenting was gift from me to you. So
what’s my point in sharing this illustration? Well, we often rely on our own
strength to accomplish something that God is prepared to help us with. David
didn’t first have to polish the stones he put in his satchel, God’s creation
already prepared them for him. In the same way, God has provided stones for us
to accomplish the tasks and help us overcome challenges in our lives. Let me
share with you the Five Smooth Stones
God has provided.
Stone #1—Prayer
For prayer
warriors, this stone stays nicely polished because of its constant use.
However, for many believers, prayer is an afterthought—something they intend to
do more of one day. But prayer is our lifeline to God. It’s what connects our
hearts with His. Prayer is the thing that says, ‘I need and want you in my life
God. I can’t do life without you.’ Prayer is our way of telling God that what
He wants for us is what we want for ourselves. There are many forms of
prayer—prayers about being forsaken by God; prayers of surrender; prayers with
tears; prayers of personal examination; prayers for personal transformation;
etc. More simply, however, when we pray, we are “Like children before a loving
father, we open our hearts and make our requests. We do not try to sort things
out, the good from the bad. We simply and unpretentiously share our concerns
and make our petitions. We tell God, for example, how frustrated we are with
the co-worker at the office or the neighbor down the street. We ask for food,
favorable weather, and good health.”[6]
Prayer is the language of our hearts crying out to the One who sustains us
daily and loves us unconditionally.
Stone #2—Silence & Solitude
Stone #3—Humility & Submission
In the
context of our lesson, it’s hard to understand how humility and submission can
be a good thing for a warrior. But Goliath lost his head due to his arrogance
and self-reliance and David became the giant-slayer; he recognized that victory
would come by God’s hand alone and therefore submitted his cause to the
sovereignty of God because David was God-reliant. We fall into this trap
ourselves everyday when we face the trials and struggles of our lives as though
every outcome depends on our own strength; our own wisdom; our own effort. However,
this is unnecessary if we are willing to humble ourselves and submit ourselves
to God’s will for our lives instead of limping along living according to our
own will. (For more about a life of humble submission to God you can read an
earlier lesson titled “A Life Humbly Submitted To God” at: http://seredinski.blogspot.com/2012/01/life-humbly-submitted-to-god.html).
Stone #4—Scripture
Stone #4—Scripture
What do you
suppose the world would be like if we had access to life’s Owner’s manual?
Wait! We do have access to the Owner’s manual—it’s called the Bible! The sin
and destruction that surrounds us in our world should be no surprise when we
realize that the Bible is the most purchased and least read book of all time.
We have available the manual that can give us life and many simply place in on
the self as decoration or to impress guests. But the Bible is so much more. The
Bible contains the words to not only living but to eternal life! The Bible is
God’s gift to all of us because “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful
for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the
man [and woman] of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim
3:16-17).” When we make Scripture reading and memorization part of our daily
lives, we will begin to understand the world and our lives from God’s
perspective; we will have to tools at our disposal to live our lives according
God’s divine plan for us.
Stone #5—Faith
If we could
only have just one stone in our arsenal of stones, it should be this one. David
had good looks and a great tan; he had a staff, a sling, and he had a handful
of rocks; he had an army behind him (albeit not the most courageous army); but
the most important weapon he had was faith in God. Without faith that God would
provide, protect, and save him, he never would have been able to confront a
nine-foot tall giant, skilled in hand-to-hand combat, covered in bronze armor,
and armed to the teeth with a real
warrior’s weapons. Faith is the thing that set David apart from Goliath.
Goliath had faith in himself, his skill, his experience and his weapons—all
very important when engaging in a battle. David had faith in God—the most
important thing when facing any battle. Remember faith is the only weapon that
any of us need when we face the greatest giant of our lives—death. Through
faith in Jesus Christ, death is no longer a feared enemy because Jesus
conquered death when He rose from the dead. Faith that God can and will
accomplish His will in and through us is ultimately the only weapon we need.
We are confronted
with giants every day of our lives at church, at school, at work, and at home.
Some of us battle giants within ourselves as well every day—substance abuse,
addiction, self-hatred, depression, anxiety, cancer, MS, paralysis, or some other
malady that taunts us and threatens to destroy us. Let me encourage you to do
something today, tomorrow and everyday for the rest of your life—face the giant
or giants in your life, and with Five
Smooth Stones in your arsenal tell your giant, “today the battle belongs to
the Lord!”
[1]
Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, Tremper Longman III, gen. eds., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 77.
[2]
Charles R. Swindoll, David—A Man of
Passion & Destiny, (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1997), p. 45.
[3]
Walter A. Elwell, ed., Baker Commentary
on the Bible, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1989), p. 205.
[4]
Wllem A. VanGemeren, New International
Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis, Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), p. 786.
[5]
Bill T. Arnold, 1 & 2 Samuel—The
NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), p. 257.
[6]
Richard J. Foster, Prayer—Finding the
Heart’s True Home, (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992), p. 9.
[7]
Richard J. Foster, Celebration of
Discipline—The Path to Spiritual Growth, (New York, NY: HarperCollins
Publishers, 1998), p. 98.
(Audio version; Music: "Stay And Wait" by: Hillsong United and "You Never Fail" by: Hillsong Worship)
