David and Goliath: Defending God's Name

0:00History is full of Christians who have stood for righteousness in moment of crisis only to pay with their lives. Choose then a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. And 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. I don't know about you. But if an enormous giant holding a spear the size of a weaver's beam was trying to goad me into a fight, I'd be shaking in my sandals. But astonishingly, even though David was only a shepherd boy, there was something he feared even more than Goliath. Hello and welcome to the Midweek edition of Renewing Your Mind. We're continuing our study on the life of David, and I hope these messages from Dr. Sprole have been helpful for you. We'll only listen to a portion of the series this week, but you can download all 15 of the messages from the life of David in the Lignair app and continue your study when you donate today.

1:10And we'll also send you a Renewing Your Mind journal to record all of your notes. When you give a gift at RenewingYourMind.org, we'll send you both of these resources. Or you can call us at 800-435-4343. And thank you for supporting Renewing Your Mind. Your generous gifts help bring this program to so many people around the world. Now, let's listen to Dr. Sprole talk about how David sought to defend God's name. As we continue now with our study of the life of David, we remember how that David was selected among the sons of Jesse by the Prophet Samuel, and that Samuel anointed David to be the king who would replace Saul. Oh, what happens next? It's not that suddenly a delegation from the palace comes down and says, Oh, long live the king, David. Come up with us to the palace and let us have you replace Saul.

2:15No, Saul stays being the king. And one of the ironies of the story is that it's here that the Bible tells us about this madness and derangement that comes upon Saul, where he goes into these rages, these fits of anger of an insane proportion. And the court officials say, we have to do something to calm this man down. And so the irony is this here was their decision. One of the servants said to Saul, I have seen the son of Jesse, the Bethelm might, who is skillful in playing. He's a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person, and the Lord is with him. And so Saul sent a messenger over to Jesse's place and said, Send me your son, David, who is with the sheep.

3:17Sometimes we do have to read between the lines. What do you think is going through Jesse's mind when he gets a message from the palace that Saul wants his son, David? If I'm the father, I'm terrified. Oh, no. He knows about the inointing. He's going to take my son, and he's going to execute him. But this is the purpose of the summons. And so we read that Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a young goat, and sent them by his son, David to Saul. And so David came to Saul and stood before him, and he loved him greatly, and he became his armor bear. And so Saul sent to Jesse saying, Please let David stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight.

4:17This is Saul's first declaration about David. Let him stay with me. I love him. He's fantastic. His music is great. He soothes my spirit. Please, Jesse, let your son stay with me. I want him to be my armor bearer. I want him to stay at the court because he has found favor with me. We have the expression, thank God, for small favors. This was a small favor because it didn't last very long until Saul hated David. But you know, even throughout Saul's life of madness, we see, as we shall see, this tremendous sense of ambivalence with the king. In his madness, he despised David. He was insanely jealous of David. But yet there was still a sense in which Saul at times loved David like a son.

5:27But the history here that is provided for us in the Old Testament changes its focus rapidly. After this brief report of how David comes to the employ of Saul, we get the record of a new crisis. And it's a military crisis. The traditional enemy of Israel is the Philistine nation. All through the Old Testament, we read of bloody conflicts between the armies of the Philistines and the armies of the Israelites. And now, as we continue in the history, we turn to chapter 17 of 1 Samuel and reread of a gathering storm, where these two nations line up against each other with the assembling of their battle lines over against themselves. If you've ever seen the movie, Gettysburg, you get the idea of what takes place when whole armies are assembled and stand face to face ready for engagement.

6:42When those kinds of engagements took place in the ancient world, the casualties were enormous. It would not be uncommon for 20 or 30,000 men to die in one battle. In a sense, what happens here seems to be almost a step towards civilization, because they decide to settle their differences, not by all out engagement between the complete forces of both nations. But rather the suggestion is made, at least from the Philistine camp, that the conflict between the Philistines and the Jewish people could be settled by hand-to-hand combat, by champions selected one from each side. Let's look at the story. Chapter 17 verse 1, the Philistines gathered their armies together to battle.

7:46And we read in verse 2 that Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together and they encamped in the Valley of Ila. And they drew up in battle array against the Philistines. Now, the Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side with a valley between them. I once had a course in the geography and customs of Palestine by a man who was one of the most distinguished Old Testament scholars and archaeologists of the 20th century. And one of the things he told us about this incident was that in Israel, the atmosphere is so thin and the air so clear that the human voice without amplification, can be heard for over a mile. And so it would not be uncommon for a one army to gather on one side of the mountain with a valley separating them from another mountain and have these conversations going across the valley.

8:50The atmosphere was such that they could communicate without bull horns or microphones or any of the things that we use today. And verse 4 tells us that a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines named Goliath from Gath, whose height was six cubits in a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head, he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was 5,000 shekels of bronze. He had bronze armor on his legs, a bronze javelin between his shoulder, and the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his iron spearhead weighed 600 shekels and a shield bear went before him. Now we hear this description of the size of this giant and there are all kinds of arguments about how to translate the Hebrew weights and measurements into our system of weights and measurements, but we can pass on beyond that you get the idea.

9:57Goliath was a giant, Saul himself was 6 foot 6, and Goliath powered over Saul. His clothes had to be specially made. His armor had to be specially made. His weapons had to be specially forged, so enormous, worthy to be in proportion to his physical stature and size. And so here you see this giant of giants who is named the champion of the Philistines army. And he stood and cried out to the armies of Israel and said to them, why have you come but to line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine? And you the servants of Saul? Choose then a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. And if he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants.

11:03But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. The challenge is clear. Very plain. Let's do it out. If I win, you submit to us. If your champion wins, we'll bow down to you. Now let's get on with it. Choose somebody to come out here and fight me. Can you imagine what Saul is thinking? My men must expect me to accept this challenge. I am their leader. I am their king. I am huge myself. But I don't want to do this. I wonder if there's anybody else who reminds me of Jim Boyce's favorite story where he tells the story of a man who is climbing a mountain.

12:03He falls. And as he is falling, he grasps onto a twig that is embedded loosely on the side of the mountain. And he's hanging on by his fingers to this little twig. And the twig is creaking and breaking and ready to come dislodged from the side of the mountain. And the climber looks down, 5,000 feet to the mountain floor. And he cries to heaven in prayer. Is there anyone up there who can help me? And suddenly the voice comes from heaven. I will help you have faith in me. Let go of the branch. And I will catch you. And the climber looked at the branch, looked down at the basin of the floor, looked back up to heaven and said, is there anyone else up there who can help me? This is the kind of feelings that I think Saul was having when this challenge comes to the army of the Israelites.

13:09And the Philistines said, I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we might fight together. Now when Saul and all of Israel heard these words of the Philistines, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Now that's the setting for the crisis. The challenge has been given. If we go and jump a little bit ahead in the text, we will see how serious the situation is. In verse 16, we read, and the Philistines drew near and presented himself 40 days, morning and evening. Sometimes we miss that little detail about this narrative, don't we? When we see dramatic productions of the contest between David and Goliath, we just tend to assume that what happened one afternoon is that this giant from the Philistines came out on the field of battle and said,

14:13send a man down here to fight me and that all of the men of Israel trembled in fear until this little boy comes out and says, I'll go and fight him. That's not the way it happened. Goliath didn't come out and make this challenge once. But how many times did he challenge the Jewish people? If you read the text and do the arithmetic, you see very clearly that the number is what? Almost 80 times. Twice a day for 40 days, morning and evening, like clockwork for 40 days, almost six weeks. Every soldier in the Israelite army had to contemplate his own cowardliness. The troops in that army waited for their general, their king to stop this insult.

15:22Every morning, here comes Goliath. Is there anybody out there yet who will come out and fight me? And nobody moves. The path goes back to his camp and the soldiers play cards for the rest of the day. Write letters home, whatever they did in those days. And evening comes and here comes Goliath again. Who will stand against me? Who will fight? And can you imagine the language that he's using? What he is calling, he is in their face. He is taunting them. Belly cowards. And language I'm sure much stronger than that. The narrative takes a turn. In verse 17, chapter 17, and Jesse said to his son, David,

16:23take now for your brothers and ephof this dried grain and these ten lows and run to your brothers at the camp. David is still doing the chores of the younger son. David, I know you have the day off from the palace because Saul's not at the palace. He's engaged in a military campaign right now. And your brothers are in the army over there and they're hungry. And I know you're busy with the sheep and all, but I want to make sure that my boys are taking care of. So I'm going to pack some lunches for them and I want you to be the delivery boy from Jesse's delicatessen and take these things over and start feeding the fellas. See how your brothers are fearing and please bring back news of them. So verse 20 says that David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with the keeper and took the things and when his Jesse had commanded him. And he came to the camp as the army was going out to the fight and shouting for the battle.

17:23And Israel and the Philistines had drawn up in battle array army against army and David left his supplies in the hands of the supply keeper, ran to the army and came and greeted his brothers. Now it's wild David is visiting with his brothers. The wild David is visiting with his brothers. Here comes Goliath. So that David inadvertently hears the defiant challenge. I can remember that famous picture of the little boy walking out of Kamiski Park. And this little boy is looking up into the face of his hero, Shu-Lis-Jo Jackson. And the words that appear with the photograph or what say it ain't so joe.

18:23And you feel your heart melt as you sense the terrible sense of letdown and disillusionment that this boy had when he discovered that his hero was involved in a scandal of these proportions. David has older brothers. Did you ever have older brothers? I didn't have an older brother, but I had an older cousin who lived in my house and he could do no wrong. And we did the same thing as little kids if one of the guys gave us a hard time. So I'm going to go get my big brother or I'm going to go get my cousin, Bob. And he's going to come down because he's my champion. We always look up to our older brothers. Now here, David's taking care of the sheep and he's hearing stories around the campfire about his big brothers. They're in the army. And all David is capable of doing is taking them sandwiches for their lunch. And so he goes out and he's sitting there and he's talking to his brothers.

19:24He's all proud of them. And all of a sudden, Goliath comes forth and issues this challenge. And David heard them. And all the men of Israel when they saw the man fled from him and were dreadfully afraid so that the men of Israel said, have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel. And it shall be that the man who kills him, the king will enrich with great riches and will give him his daughter in marriage and give his father's house exemption from taxes in Israel. Did you see this for listening? Did you hear David what the king said that anybody who got and killed that man will get untold riches untold fame. He'll get the part of the kingdom. He'll get the daughter of the king in marriage. But so far, we haven't found anybody who's willing to do it.

20:25And David spoke to the men. This is a boy speaking to men who stood by him saying, and what shall be done for the man who kills this Philistines and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistines that he should defy the armies of the living God? David could care less about the bounty that's on Goliath's head. This young boy is full of idealism. He walks into this scene. He sees what's going on. And he is beside himself. How can this be? How can you, men, who call yourself soldiers, who call yourself courageous warriors, stand here and put up with this insult to the Lord God of Heaven?

21:34Where is the man who will step up to the plate here? Who is the man who will stop this outrageous reproach from Israel? The people answered him in this manner saying, So shall it be done for the man who kills him? Not Aliab, his older brother, heard when he spoke to the men, and Aliab's anger was aroused against David, and he said, why did you come down here? And with whom have you left these few sheep in the wilderness? I know you're pride in the insolence of your heart. For you have come down to see the battle. Isn't this a typical reaction? When somebody questions the cowardice of the coward, the anger of the coward is fueled, and he turns now to the land of brothers, who do you think you are, kid? Get out of here, go on back home, and leave this thing to the men.

22:34We know what we're doing. And so the scene is set. Not for the battle of the century, but for the battle of the millennium. If not the greatest single, match up in all of human history. I've noticed in my lifetime, and by reading the lives of the saints, and certainly of the biblical heroes, that sometimes the greatest impediment to heroic and courageous behavior from the heroes of the faith comes from their best friends. Job's friends, Job's wife, don't do this. The disciples saying to Jesus, don't go to Jerusalem. You're going to get hurt. They love Jesus. Job's friends cared about Job. They didn't want to see these people get hurt.

23:35But God had made a call upon them. And what they were looking for was not somebody to tell them, don't do it. They wanted to hear their friends and their wives or whatever say, do it. We're with you. Do you stand with those who are willing to obey the call of God? I heard a story about the missionary, Adam Iram Jutsen. Her wrote a letter to the father of the woman he wanted to marry. In the letter, Adam Iram asked if her father would be willing to give his daughter to be married to a missionary, even if it meant she might be put in harm's way. And you know what? Her father said yes. Why? Because even though he knew his daughter might face dangers,

24:36he also knew that she'd be advancing the name of Christ. You've been listening to the third message in the Life of David's series. If you'd like access to all 15 messages, you can download them in the Ligonier app when you donate today. And we'll also send you a special edition renewing your mind journal to help you keep all your study notes in one place. Just go to renewingyourmind.org to make your gift, or call us at 800-435-4343. Here's a preview of tomorrow's episode. As we continue now with our study of the life of David the Great, we come now to the battle scene, to the arena of David's greatest moment in military conflict, the contest between David and Goliath. We looked in our last session at the 80 times that Goliath came and taunted the soldiers of the army of Israel,

25:36challenging them to send a champion out to fight against him. And we recall that David, still a young boy, is sent by his father Jesse to the front lines to find out how his brothers are doing and to deliver them their lunch. Join us here on renewing your mind.