4-20-2019

 Good Morning All,

     1 Samuel 17:45; “Then David said to the Philistine, “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 is part of a verse from the story of David and Goliath.  There is a lot about this story that intrigues me.  One of those things is the tremendous detail that the writer of Samuel goes to in describing Goliath.  Goliath was nine feet tall, his chest plate armor alone weighed 125 pounds and the head of his spear weighed 15 pounds.  The shaft of the spear was big enough to use as the main frame of a weaver’s frame.  This was one big, mean, ugly dude.  He struck terror into the hearts of the entire Israelite army, king and all the people.  He had challenged the Israelites to send out their best soldier.  That best soldier and Goliath would fight; one on one and the winner of that battle would be the winner of the war.  If the Israelite won the Philistines would be the slaves and if Goliath won then the Israelite would be the slaves.

     For forty days, Goliath mocked the Israelites and their God.  For forty days, his challenge went unanswered.  On the forty first day, David, a little shrimp of a kid, came out to do battle with Goliath and killed him with a stone and cut off Goliath’s head with Goliath’s own sword.  This is quite a story.

     This is one of those stories that many people know but always seem to fixate on the wrong part of the story.  Many people will latch onto the idea that someone was nine feet tall.  Once they read that, the entire Bible is dismissed.  Now if it matters to you, there are some older translations that have Goliath about seven-foot-tall and there are some commentaries that suggest that the way we convert the ancient measurements to our known measurements of today is off; to me it doesn’t matter because that is not the purpose of this story.  The really important part is that Goliath was a big, mean, nasty thing to meet in the dark.

    We all face “Goliaths” in our life.  It might be changes at our workplace; it might be the prospect of getting married and moving away from Mom and Dad to a new place with this somewhat new person.  It might be the health of our parents or siblings or spouse or even our own health.  For most of us the biggest Goliath we face is our own mortality.  Someday, I will die and for many people nine feet isn’t tall enough for that Goliath.  These are just a few things in our lives that strike terror into our hearts and minds.  There are many others some of which may be your Goliath.

    David gives us a clue to our answer.  Before the battle begins, Goliath gives the “trash talk” speech about how he will leave David on the field of battle for the birds and animals to pick clean.  David responds with a statement of faith.  “This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand.”   We will face many Goliaths but God has promised to deliver them into our hand.  God has promised to guard and save us.  Not matter what comes our way, we rest securely at the foot of the cross looking at the empty tomb.  God has already delivered us up from the bondage of sin and the guilt and pain that sin causes us.  So, as we face our “Goliaths”, we can do so with the same confidence that David did and be certain that God will deliver us as well.  Faith that God would deliver him the victory over Goliath is what carried the day for David.  That same faith will carry you through as well.

Dear Father, we face many “Goliaths” in our life and on our own we would fail.  Yet you sent Jesus to do battle with all the Goliaths we face and defeated them and then gave that victory to us.  Remind us of this truth as we cling only to you.  In the precious name of Jesus, we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret