1 Samuel 17

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So the new year is a punish and always a good time just for a fresh perspective. And I think that our study here in 1 Samuel 17 uh lends to that. So keep that in mind. The new year, a fresh start, a new perspective. So we're going through life of David, not necessarily every single verse, but more the main events of the life of David and the work that God did in David's life and through David's life. And here we come in chapter 17 to a real classic. It's David and Goliath. Now, there's a warning in that, in these classic passages. We oftentimes revert back to Sunday school and we can see the diorama, you know, or whatever it is. We can see the, you know, the pictures in the Bible, and we can see little David and Big Goliath and all that goes on. And we can kind of phase out. So a little warning here. Don't phase out. There's devote lessons to be learned in 1 Samuel 17, but let's let's read it and kind of set the scene and picture what's going on here. Verse 1. Now the Philistines gathered their armies together to battle and were gathered at Suchoth, which belongs to Judah. They encamped between Succh and Azakah in Ephes Debin. And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and they encamped in the valley of Elah and drew up in battle array against the Philistines. The Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, with a valley between them. And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines named Goliath from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. Almost think nine feet six inches. Pretty crazy. He had a bronze helmet and his head on his head and was armed with a coat of mail. The weight of the coat was 5,000 shekels of bronze, 125 pounds, I think, is what I figured. And he had a bronze armor on his legs and a bronze jabble in between his shoulders. Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver's being. And his iron spearhead weighed 600 shekels, and the shield bearer went before him. Then he stood and cried out to the armies of Israel and said to them, Why have you come out to line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine and you the servants of Saul, choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. And if he's 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 Philistines said, We defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may fight together. Then Saul and all of Israel heard these words of the Philistines, and they were greatly dismayed. Now, notice also verse 16 while we're at it. When the Philistine drew near and presented himself 40 days, morning and evening. So you can picture it here. Saul, the king, uh, is is on his way out, really. Now it's going to take 12 to 13 years for him to be on his way out, but you know from previous studies that God's spirit has departed from Saul, and David is anointed as the next king. David's on his way in. Now, again, it will take 12 to 13 years for that to happen properly, but here they are. In chapter 17, we read the Philistines were gathered together with the people of Israel in the valley of Elah. And you can picture it. The Philistines are on one mountainside with a valley in between, and the Israelites are on the other side. There seems to be a lot of trash talking going on here. Now, the big thing is when the big guy comes out, Goliath, the Philistine champion, he comes out and he defies the people of Israel. And he puts a challenge. You, you send your best man to fight against me, and whoever wins, well, we'll serve you. You'll serve us, whoever wins. And the challenge is out there. I think it's interesting to note there, verse 16, as so many trials and temptations in our life, this happened consistently for 40 days, mourning and evening. Probably got pretty sickening to hear. And the response in verse 11 is important. When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were just made and greatly afraid. So that's the spirit of what's going on here. A lot of fear, uh a lot of despair, a lot of wondering what to do. Now, meanwhile, look in verse 12. God's working something else. Verse 12. Now, David. Now, uh, sorry, David was the son of the Athapatite of Bethlehem, Judah, whose name was Jesse, and who was who had eight sons. And the man was old, advanced in years in the days of Saul. The three oldest sons of Jesse had gone to follow Saul to the battle. The names of his three sons that went to battle were Eliab, the firstborn, next to him of Benediah, and the third Shemon. David was the youngest, and three oldest followed Saul. Um, so here we find David again. Now, David's already been anointed king, but really he's just doing some menial stuff there. He's taking care of sheep as the youngest. Uh, that's what he's been doing. Now, look at verse 17. One day, then Jesse said to his son David, Take now for your brothers an epha of dried grain and these ten loaves, and run to your brothers at the camp, and carry these ten cheeses to the captain of the thousand, and see how your brothers fare, and bring back news of them. So David's given a task here, uh, a pretty menial task, right? It's to run from Bethlehem to the battle there in the Valley of Elah. Now, uh, it's about 15 miles, 14, 15 miles. So it's doable, right? And this little teenager, uh David, is given the task of just bringing supplies to his brothers, some grain, um, 10 loaves of bread. He's also given 10 cheeses. Gift of cheeses? I don't know, that's interesting. Um, to their captain. Just a little gift from Jesse. It's practical and it's nothing glorious. And the first thing we see here is that David gets right to it. Look at verse 20. So David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with the keeper, that's responsible, and took the things and went as Jesse had commanded him. So David goes first thing in the morning and he runs. He runs to the field to bring these supplies. Menial things, but here's the first word for us. David was faithful. He's faithful with the little things, the seemingly little things, the routine things, the things that anybody could do, right? Now we all have routine things in our life. Easy things, daily things. They can be boring things, right? But understood these things are important. Faithfulness in the little things led David to bigger things. Um, our jobs. Maybe it's your job. You have my job, right? Get up and do it. Uh, maybe it's school. I know you don't want to think about that if you're not in school right now, but maybe it's it's school and hurry out of school. Uh, maybe it's taking care of kids, or being a grandparent, or uh helping out your family or with your friends. Uh, these are some pretty easy things, routine things in your life, but those things are important. In Zechariah 4.10, God tells a guy named Zerubabel, who is despised the day of small things. Don't despise the day of small things. Because faithfulness, listen, faithfulness in the small things almost always leads to greater things. The small things are vital to teaching us and getting us where God wants us. We don't always realize it, but that's the truth. I mean, think about it: Moses, watching sheep. God brings them to that place where he gets a call to deliver his people from the burning bush. There, Nehemiah was doing his daily job as a cupbearer to the king when the call came to go rebuild Jerusalem. You never know how vital those little things are to where you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to be doing. So be faithful in the little things. You might be despising the little things in your life right now. I get it. And maybe God's moving you to something else. He does move sometimes in that way. But don't despise the day of small things. Be faithful. So David was faithful in the little things. That's important for us in this new year. But he also was, listen, faithful. There's a space between that, right? That's the way I would do it. David was faithful. He was full of faith. And we see that at the end of verse 20. Look at the end of verse 20. Um, he came to the camp as the army was going out to fight and shouting for battle. For Israel and the Philistines had drawn the battle rain, army against army. And David left his supplies in the hand of the supply keeper and ran to the army and came and greeted his brothers. And as he talked to them, there was a champion, the Philistine of Galaf, Goliath by name, coming up from the armies of the Philistines. And he spoke according to the same words. So David heard them. So David hears what's been going on for 40 days. Um he hears it for himself. He heard this challenge. And in verse 26, his heart is moved, right? Then David spoke to the man who stood by him, said, What should be done for the man who kills the Philistine and takes away the reproach of Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy on the armies of the living God? So something inside of David, when he hears Goliath talking trash about God's ordinance, when he hears Goliath talking trash about God, something just kind of rises up inside of him. Now, I love what happens next. Uh, verse 28. Eliot, this is so real here. Eliab, his oldest brother, heard when he spoke to the man. And Eliap's anger was aroused against David, and he said, Why did you come down here? With whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride, your insolence, and your heart, for you have come down to see the battle. Verse 29. David said, What have I done now? That sounds like a very brother thing to do. I didn't have any brothers and sisters, but that sounds like a very brother thing to say. What did I do? What? You know, and notice, though, what David says. Is there not a cause? That's important. Because he looks at the situation and goes, guys, there's a cause here. This guy's talking trash about our army. He's talking trash about our God. And this is a real zeal inside of David's heart. We see that for God's good name. And you know that that moves him to say, you know what? Nobody else is gonna do it. I'll do it. Now, we see that this isn't just that he's arrogant or self-secure, right? He really sees that God is able to take care of him. He's full of faith in who God is. There's a confidence. Let's look at it. It comes a little later, as uh you know, they try to set him up with Saul's armor, that doesn't work. He gets ready for the battle, he gets a sling, his five smooth stones, and he goes to uh face off with the life. Look at uh verse 37, I think. He's got this confidence. David said, The Lord, he delivered me from the paw of the lion, the paw of the bear. He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said to David, Go and the Lord be with you. Um and and David has this confidence in the Lord. The Lord will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine, the Lord. Now, he resolves it with great faith. And we pick up in verse 41 the battle itself. So the Philistine now picture this. This is classic picture, verse 41. So the Philistine came and began drawing near to David, and the man who bore his shield went before him. And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only in youth, right and good looking. So the Philistine said to David, Am I a dog that should come at me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I would be the flesh to the birds of the air and the beast of the field. So the trash talking ensues, right? Little kid, I am gonna feed you to the birds and the beasts. That was a big fear in the mind of the Jews that that kind of thing would happen. That was as gross as it could get. And and he he taunts him and he threatens him. Look at David's response in faith, though. Verse 45. David said to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword, with a spirit, with a jow. 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 and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air, the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. This little kid, he outdoes Goliath, I think. Goliath, I'm gonna feed you to the birds. David said, You know what? I'm gonna take your head, then I'm gonna feed the whole army of the Philistines to the bird to the base. You ready? You know? Now he's not just cocky there, he is standing in the authority of God. This is the most important part, and it's beautiful. You come at me with a sword, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts. Most important part. He came in the name of the Lord of hosts. What does that mean? Well, it means number one, authority, right? Um, stop in the name of the law, some of you might say, right? You're not saying stop in my name or my authority. The person that pulls you over, and I don't think they say that anymore, right? But they're saying stop because I have authority given to me by the law, and that's why I need to listen, right? At the end of weddings, I put in a very important part by the authority vested in me by the state of Texas and by God. I pronounce it man and why. The only reason I can do it is because of that authority. And so David's doing the same thing. He's coming in the name and the authority of God. He's not coming in his own authority, he's coming in the authority of God. He also wasn't standing in his own power. David's power was limited, even though he was a great shot with the sling. His power was limited, and he understood that. He was coming in the power of God. Now that's totally different, isn't it? Because you go back to Genesis 1:1, and God's got all the power, right? God said, Let there be life, and there was. Isn't the big deal? That's about limitless power, things omnipotent. Um, Zechariah 4.6 demonstrates this. And you gotta hear this one because this is beautiful, one of the sweetest truths in the Bible, Zechariah 4.6. You can always turn there if you can find it. Listen. Zechariah 4.6. It's not by might and it's not by power, but it's by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Think about this. Anything good that's gonna happen in our life is not gonna happen by just sheer determination. I'm gonna get this done. I'm gonna do it. Nothing good ever happens in my life when I aim to do it in my own flesh. It just doesn't work. I mean, New Year's resolution, I'm going to give it up on those this year. Um but but but by the power of God, by his spirit, just trusting in him, that's where David stood. And lastly, I think he's standing in God's good heart for his people. So he's standing in God's authority, he's standing in God's power, but he's also standing in God's good heart for his people. God loved his sheep, God loved Israel, God uh wanted to take care of them, he wanted to bring them in so many times they were unwilling, but it's God's good heart for his people. And David rested in all those things as he stood in front of Elias. God's authority, God's power, and God's good heart for his people. David based this thing on that. He was faithful in the little things, but he was full of faith in God to take care of them. Number three, here we see, though, is the result. David was fruitful. Verse 48. Picture it. So it was when the Philistine, we need background music or something here. So it was when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, that David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in uh his bag and Took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine in the forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a slinging stone and struck the Philistine and killed him. But there was no sword at the hand of David. Therefore, David ran and stood over the Philistine. He took his own sword and drew it out of the sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it. Then the Philistines, when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled. And so the fruit of this is a dead Goliath, right? But not just that. The people of God are encouraged, right, by what they've seen. And the Philistines flee, and the Israelites chase after them, and the fruit is there. God is glorified. Simple trust, simple faith brings fruit. The fruit here is victory. Now come back and think about this for a second. The fruit that God intends in your life is victory. But it won't always look the way you think. I've got to say, sometimes, as our friend James tells us in James 1, verse 2 and 3, sometimes the fruit of what God does in our life through difficulties in our life is to make us more patient and enduring through those things. Sometimes God doesn't take us out of the fire, he sees us through the fire. And that's the wonderful fruit. We don't love it, but that's the fruit that God produces something in our heart and in our character, right? It's still good fruit. Now, David's gonna deal with this for the rest of the book of 1 Samuel. We're gonna go basically through the book of 1 Samuel. But spoiler alert here, for the next 12 to 13 years, David's gonna run away from Saul, and Saul's gonna try to kill him. And this is gonna be a rough thing to consider, right? Being chased down in the wilderness, living like an animal out there. And yet, God was producing character in Dingon. We'll see that over and over and over again for the next few weeks. Um, but it's still good fruit, it's valuable fruit. Now, God wants to produce good fruit in our lives this year um for his glory. I mean, he really does. Think about it. God wants to change you and teach you, he wants to bring you to places of great joy and through great difficulty, maybe. But God wants to do something in and through our lives, and it's gonna be wonderful fruit. But the real result, I think we see here, aside from the example of a faithful servant, a full of faith servant, and the wonderful fruit that God produces, the real result here is I think the lost world gives to see Jesus. Now, as with just about everything in the Bible, you're gonna see that it can point back to Jesus very easily. Even here is a great picture of our ultimate hero. One man fights for victory, and everybody's blessed by it, everybody benefits from it. One man, Jesus, the God man, goes to the cross and wins the victory over sin and death. And to the point where he then and we then can trash talk our greatest enemy, uh, death. Let's turn and we'll end here. 1 Corinthians, I love it, 1 Corinthians 15. Starting in verse 54. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 54. All because of Jesus, we can take these words along with Paul. 1 Corinthians 15, 54. So when this corruptible, this body, that's corruptible, has put on incorruption, a new body in heaven, and this mortal is put on immortality. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God to give us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. So Paul does a little trash talking here of death. Death is a big deal, right? I'm not scared of dying. I don't love the idea, right? It's the biggest thing we fear, probably, most of us, naturally. But because of what Jesus did, he won the victory over death. We don't need to be scared of dying if we're in him. If we received what he has for us, salvation, forgiveness. We don't have to worry about it. Death, where's your victory? What do you got on you? And notice the result there for this year, verse 58. Therefore, in light of this fact, therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the world. Always steadfast. Immovable. That sounds tough, doesn't it? Steadfast and immovable. Always abounding. And the fruit that God wants to bring out of your life this year, in mind what God's formed for us. So great, a great picture here for the new year. God, uh, we certainly don't need a uh just a pepper outline, that's not going to get us anywhere. Uh, good feelings aren't gonna get us anymore. But God just standing in that truth, that you've defeated our biggest enemies this year. God, we've defeated sin and death. We don't need to be scared. Whatever it is that you have for us this year, God will understand it steadfast and immovable. God in always abounding and would work for you. We'd produce produce fruit in our life. So, God, we just pray that you would do that in our hearts. In Jesus' name we pray.