Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hello and welcome to Tal Paul's preaching. Episode 17 is titled David versus Goliath, which of course takes a look at the famous event where a young David defeats the giant Goliath with a mere slung stone.
[00:00:19] If you want to get your Bible ready before we begin, the event can be found in 1st Samuel, chapter 16 and 17.
[00:00:28] This sermon was originally recorded on Sunday, July 14th of 2019.
[00:00:37] All right, let's pray.
[00:00:41] Heavenly Father, we come before you humble of heart and we ask that you would speak to us, Lord, through your word and that we would grow closer to you, Lord. That's our goal. We just want to be right there with you, Lord. We don't like to be sick and we don't like to feel down. And so, Lord, will you just comfort and heal?
[00:01:06] We just pray that in all things you would work among us because we know your work is wondrous and what you do is awesome. Lord, again open our eyes and our hearts as we open your word.
[00:01:23] And this we pray in Jesus name.
[00:01:26] Amen.
[00:01:29] All right, today we are going to explore one of the most well known events in King David's life.
[00:01:39] We're going to study today David versus Goliath.
[00:01:44] And speaking of King David, a Sunday school teacher was teaching her class and she said to her class, we've been learning about how powerful the kings and queens were in biblical times, but there is a higher power who can tell me what it is.
[00:02:07] Little Billy blurted out, I know what is greater than queens and kings?
[00:02:12] Aces.
[00:02:15] Oh, Billy.
[00:02:18] Oh, Billy.
[00:02:22] Well, let's take a look at David versus Goliath. You will find it in 1st Samuel chapters 16, 17. That is what I will be covering if you want to turn there.
[00:02:32] But it is a long story and I won't have time to read it all. So I am going to do a lot of paraphrasing.
[00:02:41] Now the background is the Israelites had rejected God and they wanted a man king over them, just like all the other nations had.
[00:02:52] And so the man of God, Samuel, the prophet, the judge of the time, he anointed Saul as king over the people.
[00:03:02] And Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin. And Saul was very tall. In fact, he was a head taller than everyone else in Israel.
[00:03:12] And Saul was what they were looking for in a king.
[00:03:18] Now, he might have looked like a king, however, he did not have the heart for God and eventually rejected God and God's will and God's ways. And he did things his own way and he refused to obey God.
[00:03:34] And the turning point was when he was called upon by God to wipe out the Amalekites.
[00:03:41] And he went out and he came back from the battle. And Samuel said to him, did you do what God asked you to do?
[00:03:50] Saul said, yeah, I did. And Samuel's like, well, why do I hear sheep if God told you to wipe out all the sheep? And I can hear the sheep. And Saul was like, ugh.
[00:04:02] He did things his own way.
[00:04:04] Well, the Amalekites, a son or a descendant of the Amalekites and Esther named Haman, he went on to try and wipe out all of the Jews. And if Saul had done his duty, that wouldn't have happened.
[00:04:19] So Saul refused God and therefore God refused Saul as king.
[00:04:25] So in 1st Samuel 16, we first read about David.
[00:04:30] Samuel is sent to anoint a new king of Israel.
[00:04:34] And Samuel is told that it's going to be one of Jesse's sons. Well, Jesse had eight sons. And so Jesse had from the oldest to the youngest, he had seven of his sons passed by Samuel. And the first son comes by and Samuel goes, oh, I think this will be it. He's tall and strong and good looking.
[00:04:56] But Samuel sees with his flesh and not the heart like God.
[00:05:02] So 1st Samuel 16, 7.
[00:05:05] But the Lord said unto Samuel, look not unto his appearance or the height of his stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord sees not like man sees. For man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
[00:05:24] So seven sons pass by, but none are worthy of God.
[00:05:29] Jesse didn't even call David to the feast. David's still out in the field working.
[00:05:35] Samuel says, well, we're not going to sit down to eat dinner until I've seen all of your sons. So they hurry and they run out and get David. We want to eat.
[00:05:46] And they fetch David and they bring David before Samuel. And Samuel is told by God, this is the one I want you to anoint as the future king.
[00:05:59] It's recorded first Samuel 16, verses 13 and 14.
[00:06:03] Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed David in the midst of his brethren.
[00:06:07] And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.
[00:06:14] So Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.
[00:06:17] But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.
[00:06:24] So now David has the Holy Spirit because it had left Saul, whom God had rejected from reigning over Israel.
[00:06:33] And see, the Holy Spirit operated differently before Jesus came and redeemed us.
[00:06:39] Now all who are born again of Jesus and have accepted Jesus, we have that Holy Spirit, just like David did for the rest of our lives.
[00:06:50] But back then, the Holy Spirit would come upon one person or another, and it would just kind of bounce around. So it left Saul and went to David.
[00:07:02] King Saul is still king, and he's going to be king for some time.
[00:07:06] But he's plagued by this evil spirit.
[00:07:10] He asks his servants, well, what can I do? Well, David is a very skilled musician, and he wrote most of the psalms. And he plays with his harp out there with the sheep and sings songs to him.
[00:07:22] One of Saul's servants must have heard David playing. And they tell Saul, well, hey, I know this guy. He's really skilled with the harp. And when you're troubled with an evil spirit, he'll play before you, and that troubled spirit will go away. And so that's what they did.
[00:07:39] And so the last verse in chapter 16 ends like this. And it came to pass when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took a harp and played with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.
[00:07:56] So now we've reached the part where Goliath appears in chapter 17.
[00:08:02] Now, picture this.
[00:08:04] The Philistines have come to war and are camped inside of the land of Judah, inside Israel. So you've got the Philistines on one side and the Israelites on the other. And there's this valley in between.
[00:08:19] And the giant Goliath, he walks out from the Philistine side down into this valley, and his voice would carry up the hill like a natural amphitheater, and he would call out a challenge to Israel.
[00:08:35] Now, use your imagination and try and picture a giant man standing before you.
[00:08:45] Now, Goliath was a lot bigger than me.
[00:08:49] He was over nine feet tall.
[00:08:52] But he had a brass helmet on and this coat of mail.
[00:08:58] And he had leggings of brass called greaves.
[00:09:02] And on top of this mail coat of armor, he had this giant target of brass to protect his chest and heart area.
[00:09:12] And he held an enormous spear. I mean, this thing weighed more than most people could lift, let alone wield or throw like Goliath could.
[00:09:22] And he had a sword.
[00:09:24] And if that wasn't enough intimidation, there was this man who went before Goliath with a giant shield.
[00:09:32] So if you were going to attack him, you had to first get around the man with the shield, all the while dodging Goliath's Spear.
[00:09:39] And for 40 days, that's just too shy from six weeks, 40 days, Goliath would come out and taunt Israel.
[00:09:48] And he would say this 1st Samuel 17, 8, 11, and Goliath stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and he said to them, why are you out here lined up for battle?
[00:10:03] Am not I a Philistine?
[00:10:06] And you, servants to Saul, choose you a man for you and let him come down to me.
[00:10:13] If he is able to fight me and to kill me. Ah, ha ha.
[00:10:17] Then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him.
[00:10:22] Yep, yep, yep, and kill him, then shall you be our servants and serve us.
[00:10:29] And the Philistines said, I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we might fight together.
[00:10:41] When Saul and all of Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.
[00:10:49] So Saul and all of Israel, they were thoroughly deceived.
[00:10:55] They were worldly and sensual, looking only with their eyes and ignoring God and the spiritual, just like Israel when choosing their king, Saul, just like Samuel. And looking at Jesse's sons, looking at the appearance, so they were dismayed and greatly afraid.
[00:11:16] Looking on the outward.
[00:11:19] It almost makes logical sense to have two guys fight instead of both the armies.
[00:11:26] But it's a fair deal only if you're on the winning side.
[00:11:32] Neither side is really willing to submit to one guy, winning or losing.
[00:11:40] So now that we've seen Goliath, where's David?
[00:11:44] Well, since King Saul is leading the army, David has been sent back to tend to his sheep.
[00:11:52] Of the eight sons of Jesse, only the three oldest are old enough to serve in the army. And so they're at the Battle of Goliath.
[00:12:00] And so without TV or cell phones or the Internet, Jesse wondered how it was going with his sons at war.
[00:12:10] And so to find out, Jesse sends little errand boy David, his youngest, with some food to his brothers and their captain.
[00:12:20] And when David gets there, it's the time when the armies would line up on each side and they'd yell and they'd scream and flex their muscles and yell at each other.
[00:12:33] So David is talking with his brothers when Goliath makes his appearance.
[00:12:38] He would come out morning and evening, and Goliath comes out and he states his challenge, and Goliath appears and Israel is afraid again. All of a sudden, nobody wants to get near Goliath for fear that Goliath would say, you're the challenger. Nobody wanted that, so they'd run away.
[00:12:56] But David says in verse 26, and David spoke to the men that stood by him, saying, what shall be done to the man that 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.
[00:13:18] David was asking around about the reward for killing Goliath.
[00:13:23] But David is cheating in a way, because David has a special superpower.
[00:13:32] David has the Holy Spirit.
[00:13:36] Remember, when anointed by Samuel, the Holy Spirit left Saul and fell upon David. From that day forward, well, with the Holy Spirit, David sees right through the deception of Goliath.
[00:13:50] He's not dismayed and greatly afraid. David sees right through because he's not fooled by his flesh, his senses, his eyes and ears and such. David was observing with the spirit of God and not by sight.
[00:14:07] See, our senses that help us in this world from our birth.
[00:14:13] They don't make sense when navigating the spiritual in God.
[00:14:18] See, we're born sensual, but our connection with God is dead.
[00:14:24] We learn to navigate this life as we grow through our five senses, our flesh.
[00:14:30] You know, I see a guy with a huge sword, I run away.
[00:14:36] I smell smoke, I run away.
[00:14:39] I feel the wind and the rain of a hurricane.
[00:14:43] I run away.
[00:14:45] I hear gunfire, you know, I run away.
[00:14:49] I taste yummy chocolate. I run into the store to get some more, right? You know, but with God, we can throw out all of that out the window.
[00:15:01] Because when we're born again, we're born spiritually with the Holy Spirit. From that day forward, just like David, we can then tap into that supernatural power from God and observe the world differently.
[00:15:18] It takes divine intervention from God to understand the spiritual.
[00:15:24] And so Goliath did not know God, but David knew God. David knew his character, his plans, God's will.
[00:15:35] He knew that God didn't want the Israelites wiped out.
[00:15:39] But Goliath only knew his own flesh. He was tall and strong, a giant and feared by all.
[00:15:46] David knew in his heart the battle was already won because of God. God.
[00:15:52] God is bigger and stronger and wiser and more powerful than anything.
[00:15:59] And David has this faith in his victory because he knows God is going to give it.
[00:16:05] And so David starts asking, what's going to happen when Goliath is defeated? And what's the Reward? In verse 28, it says, and Eliab, David's eldest brother, heard when he spoke unto the men. And Eliab's anger was kindled against David. And he said, why are you here?
[00:16:24] With whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride and the evilness of your heart, for you are come that you might see the battle.
[00:16:36] David's older brother is jealous and judgmental.
[00:16:41] We don't know our own hearts, let alone another's.
[00:16:45] And so he libels David with false accusations.
[00:16:49] And David responds with, what did I do?
[00:16:52] Isn't there a cause?
[00:16:55] And he turns back to the men and ignores his brother.
[00:16:58] See, with pride comes contention, Proverbs says, and David simply moves on.
[00:17:05] You know, spoiler alert, everyone.
[00:17:08] David is going to defeat Goliath and become a great king of Israel.
[00:17:15] And yet none of David's family, his brothers, are ever mentioned again. They don't ever receive a place in all of David's kingdom. He's got lots of places he could appoint family, and none of them get appointed.
[00:17:31] We should not be jealous and judgmental of our family.
[00:17:35] But David is rejected of his own family, but he is accepted by God.
[00:17:41] Many of us are the same way.
[00:17:43] The only family we have is that new family in God being adopted sons and daughters of the living God.
[00:17:52] Well, word gets around that David is asking about Goliath, and he doesn't even seem afraid.
[00:17:59] Now, the rest of the men, they don't want to fight Goliath. They don't want to be the one that goes up against him. So they are like, oh, you know, maybe David will do it. And King Saul hears about it and calls for David. And so David comes and he appears before the king.
[00:18:16] And amazingly, David doesn't try and back out and weasel his way out. David boldly goes before King Saul, trying to convince him to let him fight Goliath.
[00:18:28] It's the opposite of everyone else in verse 32.
[00:18:33] And David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail because of Goliath. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.
[00:18:43] So David goes on to say that he slew a bear and a lion protecting the sheep.
[00:18:49] And in 1 Samuel 17:36, 37, David says, Your servant slew both the lion and the bear.
[00:18:58] And this uncircumcised Philistine shall be just as one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.
[00:19:08] David said, moreover, the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, the Lord will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. David recognized that it's the Lord. It wasn't his own skill that defeated the lion and the bear.
[00:19:28] And Saul said to David, go, and the Lord be with you. It's really a miracle that they chose this little boy David to go and represent them against Goliath.
[00:19:42] So off goes David. Well, first Saul and company use worldly logic, and they dress David in Saul's Armor.
[00:19:51] And so you got this little teenage boy and Saul, remember he was a head taller than everyone else. They put this armor on him and David could barely move, let alone fight effectively.
[00:20:04] So David takes off the armor to do it his way, the way David knew how to fight.
[00:20:10] David knew himself. He knew his capability, his limitations. And.
[00:20:17] And so with sling and staff, David goes to fight.
[00:20:21] Oh boy, I hope he sure doesn't get clobbered.
[00:20:26] See, David's character is better than physical armor.
[00:20:31] His faith and righteousness and knowledge of God.
[00:20:36] David goes and gets five smooth stones from the stream and goes out to face Goliath. Now why five rocks?
[00:20:48] Was David worried about missing?
[00:20:51] No, To David, Goliath was so huge he couldn't miss him.
[00:20:57] But there were more giants in Goliath's family. There was a total of five giants of his brothers.
[00:21:04] And so David was ready for more than just Goliath. He was ready for all five.
[00:21:11] David is the youngest of eight brothers and only the oldest three were old enough to serve in the army.
[00:21:19] And so Goliath is incensed. He's furious. He is mad because Israel sent out this pretty little teenage boy to fight him.
[00:21:30] He wasn't going to fight some scarred up war veteran, their best fighter, but some teen, you know, it would be like me going against a little toddler, you know, Goliath thought it was a joke.
[00:21:46] He was expecting someone like Saul.
[00:21:50] So he yells at David, asking if Israel thinks him weak and like some dog, that they would come out to him against him with sticks.
[00:22:00] And he curses David by his false gods.
[00:22:05] First Samuel 17:45, 47 then said David to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
[00:22:29] It's not just me, David says, it's the lord you're against.
[00:22:35] 46 this day will the LORD deliver you into my hand, and I will smite you and take your head from you.
[00:22:43] I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day. And 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 heaven, Israel.
[00:22:58] And everyone will know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hands.
[00:23:11] 48 and it came to pass when the Philistine arose Goliath and came and drew near to meet David That David hurried, he hastened, and he ran toward the army to meet Goliath. And David put his hand in his bag and he took out a stone and he slung it and he smote the Philistine in his head.
[00:23:36] So much so that the stone sunk into his forehead and Goliath fell upon his face to the earth.
[00:23:44] David was certainly skilled to do all that, sling that stone on the run.
[00:23:51] David wasn't waiting. He wasn't wasting time. He runs right at the enemy.
[00:23:58] And that rock, it wasn't David's strength. That was the Lord that caused that rock not to just hit him in the head and knock him out, bounce off. It sunk into his skull.
[00:24:12] It says, when Goliath fell forward. There's no mention of the shield bearer. What happened to that guy? Did. Did Goliath fall him? I've always wondered.
[00:24:21] I'll never know.
[00:24:23] Not in this life.
[00:24:25] So David wins. I know you were all worried that he wouldn't. But David doesn't just stop there. Once Goliath falls, David keeps on going. He runs. He runs up to Goliath, and David doesn't have a sword, so he takes Goliath's sword and he hacks off Goliath's head.
[00:24:44] And when the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.
[00:24:50] Now the army of Israel, they are shouting in triumph, and they pursue the enemy of the Philistines for a long way. And then they come back and they loot the tents because the Philistines just left in a hurry.
[00:25:06] David takes the head of Goliath and he is walking around with it. Now, David, now don't think of a small little skull. Think of a watermelon or a pumpkin. Pumpkin head. Goliath, you know, man, he must have had a giant pillow, right?
[00:25:23] And he's still carrying his head around with him when he's brought before Saul the king at the end of the chapter.
[00:25:31] And the chapter ends in verse 58. And Saul said unto him, whose son are you, young man?
[00:25:37] And David answered, I am the son of your servant, Jesse, the Bethlehemite.
[00:25:43] So that's how it ends. But there is much to learn from that story yet.
[00:25:49] First, that we should not be fooled or deceived by our senses.
[00:25:56] Goliath was big, but God is bigger.
[00:26:01] Second Corinthians 5, 7, 6 says, for we walk not by sight, but by faith.
[00:26:10] We don't fear the world because we know God. We trust in God, and we see spiritually what we're fighting, what we're up against.
[00:26:21] Secondly, there are lessons to be learned from each party in the story.
[00:26:26] Goliath, he relied on himself, on his own pride and his strength. He exalted himself over everything, including God and man, and was eventually brought low and abased.
[00:26:41] He trusted only in himself.
[00:26:44] He had no fear of God or man. He became overconfident and felt invincible.
[00:26:51] Godlike even. I mean, he didn't even care to duck a rock thrown by Sonno Boy, how is that going to hurt me?
[00:27:01] The Philistines, they relied on one man for their greedy gain, and they lost all. Instead of fighting their own battle, you see, they trusted in a man.
[00:27:13] They let Goliath fight their battle for them. And then a small boy bested their champion and fear came upon them.
[00:27:22] In their minds. Israel took 40 days to find the least among them to fight Goliath, the best among them.
[00:27:32] And this small little boy killed their champion. And if a teenage boy could kill Goliath, what could the grown men in the army do?
[00:27:44] And so they fled.
[00:27:46] The Israelites, they forgot God at the sight of Goliath. They were overcome with doubt and despair and fear. So they couldn't even function.
[00:28:00] Even the rewards of riches and the king's daughter and power and freedom and fame, that wasn't even enough to move them to fight Goliath.
[00:28:11] But they couldn't flee and run away, you know, they couldn't go home because the Philistine army was in their homeland.
[00:28:18] They forgot their own history and what God had done.
[00:28:23] In Numbers 13, the Israelites have been led by Moses through the wilderness for two years now, escaping the slavery of Egypt.
[00:28:32] And they're almost to the promised land. They're right on the doorstep that God had promised them.
[00:28:39] And God would fight for them just like God did with David. And they send in 12 spies, and 10 of them return with an evil report and only two with a good report. They say, oh, man, there's great food, giant grapes. It's milk and honey everywhere. I mean, it's just. It's great. But there are giants in the land. We're like grasshoppers in their sight.
[00:29:05] And so they failed to take the land for fear. Just like the fear, fear of Goliath, they were focused on the physical of those people and ignored what God had told them.
[00:29:17] They had no faith in God and they ended up wandering in the wilderness for an extra 38 years because of it.
[00:29:25] So David, this is who we want to be like.
[00:29:30] David had a heart for God, and he had spiritual insight.
[00:29:35] And God, through David, just one man saved an entire nation.
[00:29:42] God used David's abilities to save Israel, whom God loved.
[00:29:47] The Israelites were already enslaved. They were serving King Saul, who had an evil spirit.
[00:29:55] And under the Philistines, it would have been a disastrous ruin.
[00:30:00] David didn't slay Goliath the regular, conventional, expected way with sword and armor, but with the skills that David already had.
[00:30:10] Do you have enslaved friends and family?
[00:30:14] Are you facing a Goliath? Battle seems impossible to win.
[00:30:21] Well, don't be afraid and dismayed.
[00:30:25] And don't go out fighting in someone else's armor.
[00:30:29] Be yourself.
[00:30:31] Know your capabilities, your limitations. Use what you've got.
[00:30:35] And sometimes all we have is prayer.
[00:30:39] However, prayer is more powerful than any physical weapon because our God is awesome and fully capable.
[00:30:51] Prayer is amazing.
[00:30:54] So let God fight the battle for you.
[00:30:58] Rest in God. Trust in God.
[00:31:02] God can use you with everything that you have, just as you are.
[00:31:09] My wife's grandfather, his name was Dean. He used what he had. And what he had was he was just an old man and hanging out at the mall. And it was so embarrassing to my teenage self to be with him at the mall because while women were shopping, we'd be hanging out on benches or at the food court or wherever in the mall.
[00:31:36] And he would go up to people, ask them directly, do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior?
[00:31:45] Oh, so embarrassing to a teen, but so powerful. I mean, that's what God had given him. That was his ability.
[00:31:55] I just hope he changed lives.
[00:31:59] Just asking someone, have you considered Jesus lately?
[00:32:04] That's just as powerful as knocking Goliath out.
[00:32:10] So God used my grandpa Dean and God can use us too, trusting God. Let's pray.
[00:32:20] Heavenly Father, you are just waiting at the edge of your seat for us to call upon you.
[00:32:28] You are so mighty and powerful and want to be involved in our lives, Lord, just waiting for us to turn to you. And so we turn to you. Lord, we turn to you expecting knowing that yout love and you'd grace and you'd strength will fill us via the Holy Spirit. Lord, we just pray that yout would work mightily in us. We have friends and we have family that need you'd. Lord, we just pray for them. Will youl just use us however you see fit to reach them?
[00:33:09] Lord, as we take this offering, will you multiply it? Will you use it for your glory?
[00:33:16] Lord, we just exalt you. You are so awesome. Lord, we just lift you up and glorify you and we're just so proud to be a part of what you're doing.
[00:33:27] Lord, bless us as we go about our week and we love you.
[00:33:33] We pray all this in Jesus name.
[00:33:35] Amen.
[00:33:39] Thank you for listening to this message.
[00:33:42] We hope you enjoyed it.
[00:33:45] Our prayer is that the message, in some way or another, helped in your walk with God and that your relationship with God was strengthened and grew more intimate.
[00:33:57] If you would like to contact us with questions or comments, you can email us at the following address.
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