“A Sling and A Stone”

First Samuel 17

John T. Mabray, Pastor

Rivermont Evangelical Presbyterian Church

Lynchburg, Virginia

September 19, 2004

8:30 and 11:00 A.M.

THE PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

Almighty and everliving God, the God of steadfast love and covenant faithfulness, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: move upon us in the power and grace of Your Holy Spirit: open the eyes of our hearts, and shine upon us with the light of Your glory which is in Jesus Christ our Savior; that we, trusting in Your Word, might be strengthened to stand firm against all the assaults of the evil one; through the victory which is ours in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE READING OF FIRST SAMUEL 17

THE ASCRIPTION OF PRAISE

And now unto Him who loves us, who has freed us from our sins by His blood, to Jesus Christ be all praise, honor, and glory, now and forever. Amen.

He was big, bad, mean, ugly, and vile. He had come from a long line of the enemies of Israel. A few centuries or so before the time of David, Moses and the Hebrew people, while preparing to enter the Promised Land, had encountered Goliath’s ancestors. Do you remember that story, in the book of Numbers, chapter 13? Moses sent spies to the land of Canaan to find out what sort of land it was and what sort of people dwelt there. The spies brought back the bad news:

“… all the people that we saw in it are people of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim [giants] (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim) and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” [selected from Numbers 13:32-33].

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            The Nephilim are first mentioned way back in Genesis 6, before the time of the great flood. They were men of gigantic stature, thought by some to be the offspring of fallen angels and the women of the pre-flood world. The word nephilim comes from the Hebrew root-word which means “to fall,” and that name, or title, could indicate their origin, their destiny, or their character (or all of the above). But after the flood, giants again appeared in the land of Canaan among the people known as the Anakim, the sons of Anak. They, too, were called the Nephilim, recalling the gigantic proportion of both the size and wickedness of the giants in the days of Noah. In the days of Moses, these giants stood between the Israelites and the Promised Land.  Only two of the Israelites, Caleb and Joshua, were not afraid of the nephilim, the Anakim. They encouraged their fellow-Israelites, saying, “The LORD is with us” [Numbers 13:9]. And in the book of Joshua, we read that Joshua

… cut off the Anakim… from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. …There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel. Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod did some remain (Joshua 11:21-22). 

Joshua destroyed the giants, and none of the Anakim were left … except “in Gaza, Gath, and in Ashdod did some remain.”

            He was big, bad, ugly, and vile. Goliath … of Gath:  a great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of the nephilim whom Joshua had battled centuries before, a descendant of the Anakim, and now champion of the Philistines. And now, in the days of Saul, the Israelites were once again feeling like grasshoppers; but there was no Joshua in their ranks.

            The Philistines knew all about winning by intimidation. Goliath was a behemoth not only of body but also of bravado. Each morning when the two armies would align themselves on the mountainside, Goliath would step forward with a few huge strides and propose his challenge to the Israelites:

"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" (1Samuel 17:8-10).

            The earth shook with each step he took. The hills rumbled at the roar of his voice. And the heart of King Saul and the Israelites melted with fear at the sight of this champion mammoth. He was covered with burnished bronze from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. The iron point on the tip of his spear weighed fifteen pounds! He wore a coat of mail, meshed metal scales, which weighed one-hundred-twenty-five pounds! Standing there under the glint of the desert sun, Goliath was nothing less than a human tyrannosaurus rex. And the men of Israel were nothing more than grasshoppers.

            To say the least, Goliath of Gath presented a big, big problem for King Saul and his soldiers --- the sort of problem that you don’t really want to admit but can’t really do anything about, the sort of problem that you just wish would go away. Maybe if Saul and his soldiers just kept on ignoring Goliath and his challenge, and just did nothing for long enough, maybe Goliath would get tired of waiting for the fight and go look for blood elsewhere --- pick on somebody his own size! A faithless king with faithless soldiers doesn’t have anything much more than wishful thinking. King Saul wasn’t about to answer the challenge (which would have been the noble thing for any self-respecting king to do), and neither was any of his soldiers. Nobody wanted to face this problem and deal with it. They just wanted it to go away. Have you ever been in a situation like that?

            Meanwhile, a shepherd boy was on an errand for his father. All three of Jesse’s older sons --- Eliab, Abinadab, and Shammah --- were serving in Saul’s army. Jesse sent David to take a care package to his brothers, along with a special gift of cheese for their commander. David arrived just as the two armies were aligning themselves for battle. He dropped the provisions and ran to the front line to greet his brothers. Out stepped Goliath, roaring his bombastic, blood-curdling challenge. The soldiers of Israel again shrank and fled away. But when David gathered with them back at the camp, he had one question (and, by the way, these are the first recorded words of David, the first words we hear him speak):

"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?"  (1 Samuel 17:26 ).

            Now, for the first time, someone, a shepherd boy, responded to Goliath’s threat with faith instead of fear --- not faith in himself, not faith as vague optimism, but faith in the living God. You see, King Saul and the Israelite soldiers, including David’s brothers, were acting like practical atheists, or like polytheists who really did not believe that the LORD God of Israel is the one and only true and living God, the Almighty.

            But the word got back to King Saul, and he sent for David. Saul must have been very disappointed when he saw that David was but a youth, and not a seasoned warrior. Saul was looking for a hero, a giant for Israel, a real man --- everything that Saul himself was not, and apparently neither was this young shepherd. But David spoke again, and we should listen carefully, for David spoke not with confidence in himself but with confidence in the LORD:

"Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And 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 arose 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!"  (1 Samuel 17:34-37).

            Now, at first, it might sound as though David’s words are as arrogant as Goliath’s, as though he were bragging about his own a ability. But no, David knows the secret of his strength and skill. It was the LORD who delivered David from the bear and the lion. In the providence of God, in his own personal experience while doing his duty working as a shepherd, David had learned how to fight dangerous, carnivorous beasts; and, therefore, in the providence of God, in his own personal experience while doing his duty to protect the sheep by fighting dangerous, carnivorous beasts, David had learned the most important life-lesson of all:  to trust the living God, no matter what.

Listen: in the doing of his duty to protect the sheep, in mortal combat with the bear and the lion, David had experienced the faithfulness of God. He had experienced the faithfulness of God in real life, in a real way. And now he knew that those battles with bears and lions were but preparation, warm-ups, training for the battle that he now faced. With faith in the same living God who had delivered him from the bear and the lion, David was now ready and willing to face and to fight Goliath.

            This is true courage; this is true heart; this is what makes a true man: trust in the living God, and a zeal for the honor of the living God, and, therefore, obedience to the will of the living God.

            Saul didn’t understand. He thought that the battle would be fought on Goliath’s terms; that is, hand-to-hand combat, with sword and shield. Saul clothed David with his own armor and gave David his sword. Now think about this: the imagery is important --David was taking Saul’s place, wearing Saul’s armor. And maybe Saul thought that if David wore Saul’s helmet and wielded Saul’s sword, that some people might actually think that it was Saul fighting Goliath; or, at least, that it was Saul’s armor and Saul’s sword that won the battle. It surely shows us that Saul did not have confidence in the LORD; Saul was still thinking along the lines of human strength and strategy: Goliath has a huge sword, so David needs a big sword (my sword!); Goliath has a coat of mail, so David needs a coat of mail (my armor!). But it would have been a tragic mistake if David had tried to fight Goliath on Goliath’s terms and with Goliath’s weapons. But David knew that he didn’t need Saul’s armor; in fact, that was the last thing he needed! His trust was in the LORD, and he knew that the LORD saves not with the sword and spear. He was going to face Goliath in the same way that he had faced the bear and the lion. So, with trust in the LORD, he took his shepherd’s rod, a sling, and five smooth stones. Five smooth stones --- one for Goliath, and four more just in case he needed them: later in the Scripture we are told that Goliath had a brother and a few sons (2 Samuel 21:15-22)!

            When Goliath saw David, he was filled with rage, insulted that the Israelites would send a mere youth. He wanted a real man who could really fight. He railed against David, cursing him in the name of his pagan gods, threatening to hang David’s carcass out for the birds and the beasts to devour. But David had his own way with words:

"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 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 (1 Samuel 17:45-48).

            The battle lines were clearly drawn:  the gods of Goliath against the God of David. The Philistine stepped toward David, his bronzed feet slamming into the sun-baked earth. The shepherd boy ran to meet him. He reached into his pouched and pulled out one smooth stone, maybe about the size of the giant’s eye. He slipped it into his sling and sent it sailing toward the monster. It sank into the Philistine’s forehead, and he fell face down in the desert sand. The ogre of death was dead. David took Goliath’s sword and cut off his head. And the Israelites routed the Philistines. David was like Joshua of old, a savior of Israel, unafraid of the giants.

            Centuries later, one of David’s descendants would face another giant, the worst one of all. This Son of David would bear the name of Joshua--- the name which means savior --- Jesus. He, too, would fight an enemy for the salvation of His people and for the honor of the living God. He would face and fight an enemy more monstrous than Goliath --- the enemy of sin, death, and all the powers of darkness. It was as though Satan himself called out with his taunting voice, in the words of Goliath, “Give me a man that we may fight together” (1 Samuel 17:10): A Man --- a man who could represent his people, and fight for them on their behalf, in a winner take-all battle. Defeat would mean eternal slavery and suffering. Victory would bring eternal freedom and joy. Everything depended upon that battle. The honor and glory of God, your eternal salvation, the destiny of the world --- everything depended upon the fight between the Shepherd and Satan, between the Son of David and the spirit of the nephilim, the fallen one.

            But consider the contrast between David’s fight with Goliath, and Jesus’ battle on the cross for the salvation of His people. In order to be victorious, for the salvation of the Israelites, David had to live. In order to be victorious, for the salvation of the New Covenant Israel, Jesus had to die. David faced Goliath with the faith that God would deliver him from the giant, and that he would live. Jesus faced the cross, and went to the cross, willingly, with the knowledge that He would suffer horribly and die. For the glory of God in the temporal salvation of the Israelites, David slew the giant with a sling and a stone. For the glory of God in the eternal salvation of sinners, Jesus was slain on a cross, and the spear of an uncircumcised warrior was thrust into His side.

Jesus went to face the giant without sword, without a shield, without a sling, without a stone. And for our sake and our salvation, He gave Himself up to death in our place. He suffered that sure and certain death under the curse of sin, in the grip of Satan, that all of us would face were it not for Him. And, in apparent defeat, He fell in the dust of death:  crucified, dead, buried. He is the Shepherd, who laid down His life for the sheep.

            But His death was not His defeat. The cross of Christ was the stone slung from the hand of God, which hit the giant between the eyes. It was by His death that Christ destroyed death. It was by His death that Christ destroyed the works of the devil. It was by His death that Jesus Christ delivered us from the curse of our sins, the curse of death, and slavery under Satan’s power. For it was by His death that He reconciled sinners to the living God. Jesus has crushed the head of the serpent, just as surely as David cut-off the head of Goliath. And by the victory of His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, the New Covenant Joshua, the Son of David, the Son of God, has opened the gates of life everlasting for all those who trust in Him. He gives His victory to all who look to Him for their salvation! He welcomes into His eternal kingdom all those who hail Him and follow Him as their eternal King!

Amen. Let us pray: