If there’s one part of 1 Samuel that everyone knows, it’s ch17, David and Goliath. And so it should be. Because if we grasp what’s going on here, it can be a great encouragement!
Goliath, the bad guy here, is huge. (An abnormal three metres tall, actually, which hints that there may be something demonic involved, as we suggested when looking at Genesis 6.) And David is `only a boy`. But David knows there’s something happening here much more important than physical size; this is about Goliath against God, and that fact will determine the outcome. `David 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. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands… All 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!”’
We need to look out for when the Bible repeats certain themes, and a repeated theme in these chapters is natural strength and size. Saul is bigger than anyone else in Israel (9:2, 1023), but ultimately that doesn’t help; in fact in this chapter he’s useless, because he’s met an enemy even bigger. Eliab is big too, but he’s not God’s choice of champion either (16:7), and he too is useless when Goliath comes. And Goliath is bigger still, but when God gets involved he will be defeated. In the most important situations we will encounter, natural strengths, natural impressiveness, aren’t what matters. Interestingly, David twice remarks that Goliath is uncircumcised, and that’s not just an insult. Philippians 3:3 tells us that the issue behind circumcision is about God’s people not putting their trust in the flesh, in natural strengths. Goliath and the Philistines embodied that confidence in the flesh. But natural strengths aren’t what counts when God is involved.
This is a mindset that we have to actively cultivate; because it isn’t how the world thinks. It can start in our school days, when if we’re not good at sports, we don’t matter. Or unless we’re outwardly pretty and cool, we don’t matter. Or later in life, we must be smart, witty, good-looking, well-educated, and if not we don’t matter. But this isn’t at all how God thinks: He loves us as we are, because He made us, and He’s proud of us as we are. Indeed, God actually chooses the little guy. Why? 1 Corinthians 1: `Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.` Why? So that the glory goes to Him, where it safely belongs (1 Cor 1:29)! Are we noticing our own natural inadequacy and unimpressiveness? Maybe we’re noticing what God can most easily use!
Two other things mark the person God uses here. First, they’re looking out for the real issues. David sees that what’s really at stake here is God’s glory (1 Sam 17:26); and once it’s clear that that’s truly the case, he can have complete confidence as to the outcome. (`There is nothing that gives such persevering power`, writes C H Mackintosh, `as the consciousness of acting for God, and [therefore] that God is acting with us.`) And he sees that, in that case, Goliath’s size doesn’t make him a bigger threat, it just makes him a bigger target! (But let’s notice that David’s faith doesn’t stop him getting badmouthed by brother Eliab (v28). It’s all too easy if we’re feeling a failure, as big Eliab must have done, to take out our frustration on family members or team members. People may do the same to us.)
What also marks the person God uses is an accumulated history of experiences with God’s trustworthiness. Eliab’s comments imply that David hadn’t said anything about how God enabled him to kill a lion and a bear (v35). But these – presumably terrifying – experiences hadn’t been wasted. They had built faith in David, teaching him that God’s power can achieve anything. Perhaps sometimes God takes us through similar challenges, so that faith is built in us for how He will use us later?
Because in such situations the human probabilities will become irrelevant. 1 Samuel keeps coming back to the fact that the Philistines had swords and spears, and the Israelites didn’t (13:19-22, 17:39, 17:50-51) – and it didn’t matter at all. `David 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”’ (17:45). At the end of the day, faith is not limited by, sees beyond, the human probabilities. `You are not able…`, says Saul (v33); no, but God is, and that’s the fact that matters!
But here’s one last thing to think about. Whenever God enriches us with His good gifts – ability, numerical strength, financial strength, talent, intellectual strength – in a way we’re no longer `weak`, and we can lose that vital sense of dependence on God. Remember what Jesus said about it being easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter heaven? Resources can be dangerous. (Like: we’re a big church, we’re a vibrant spiritual movement, we can handle whatever happens. But then look at Revelation 3:17.) The just `live by faith`, and we aren’t living by faith if our confidence is in our own strength. Sometimes, indeed, God even has to weaken us, as we saw Him doing when He wrestled with Jacob in Genesis 32; and it’s hard, and we may wonder what on earth He’s doing, but He’s bringing us through a process of death and resurrection till our natural talents are no longer a trap, ruining that vital faith. It happens. If we’re gifted, and lots of us reading this are, we have to work at staying 100% dependent on God; because in the end in spiritual matters we are weak, and God chooses the weak things of the world because they put their trust in Him, not themselves…
