We're going to talk tonight about faith-to-faith giants. This is perhaps one of the most well-known of all incidents the Bible records. Boys and girls in Sunday school learn about David and his battle with Goliath. First Samuel, chapter 17. The valley of Elah, which is mentioned here, is to the west and southwest of Bethlehem, where David and his family lived. It was about 12 or 15 miles away. It was there the battle was taking place between the armies of Israel and Philistia.
The valley itself runs to the northwest from about Hebron, and it runs almost to the Mediterranean Sea. At the point where the battle was thought to have taken place, the valley is about a mile wide and has a ravine with a brook in it. So you can see that it was the ideal kind of a place for the type of battle that is recorded in 1 Samuel, chapter 17. On either side of this valley there were hills or mountain ranges so that the armies were gathered on those ranges with the valley in between.
And it was in that valley that Goliath would come forth each day to give his challenge. Let's read about it in verse 1. Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle, and they were gathered at Soka, which belongs to Judah, and they encamped between Soka and Azekah in Ephes Dammim. We are told that that last name means border of blood, which gives you a little bit of an idea of its history.
It was the place, apparently, where a lot of battles had been fought between various armies through the years. And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered and encamped in the valley of Elah and drew up in battle array to encounter the Philistines. And the Philistines stood on the mountain on one side while Israel stood on the mountain on the other side with the valley between them.
Then a champion came forth from the armies of the Philistines named Goliath from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. And he had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was clothed with scale armor, which weighed five thousand shekels of bronze. He also had bronze greaves on his legs and a bronze javelin slung between his shoulders. And the shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and the head of his spear weighed six hundred shekels of iron. His shield carrier also walked before him.
We get the picture of a rather mammoth character. Goliath, it would seem, was approximately nine feet, nine inches tall. Even Wilt Chamberlain would shrink next to a man over nine feet tall, almost ten feet tall. And he had a massive armor on. The coat of his armor weighed about 125 pounds, if you can imagine that. Now most of us would sink underneath 125 pounds, but that was just the armor that he wore.
Furthermore, it says that his spear was the size of a weaver's beam, which indicates that it was very stout and heavy. The spear itself weighed about 17 pounds, and the head on it about 16 pounds. And so to throw that kind of a thing would be something like trying to throw a shot put, only a lot worse. Goliath had an attendant who stood before him with a shield. I don't think that was because Goliath could not move quickly.
There is no indication here that he was overweight, shall we say, and unable to get around. But the idea of the shield carrier being before him was so that his arms would be free to handle the various instruments of war that he had. He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel and said to them, why do you come out to draw up in battle array? Am I not the Philistine and you servants of Saul? Do you notice how he says that? I am the Philistine. That was his reputation. He was Mr. Philistia.
He was the guy who was known as the Philistine, and he was very proud of that title. Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will become your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall become our servants and serve us. And again, the Philistine said, I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may fight together. You see, what he was asking for was a typical way of fighting in that day.
If armies were reluctant to clash in a full-scale battle, they would on occasion each select a representative warrior, and the two of them would fight. And then the one that won claimed victory, not only for himself, but for his whole army. And that's what Goliath was asking for. It was rather common at that time. When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistines, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. So that is the picture. We have here a giant challenging the armies of Israel.
Who is this Goliath? Well, apparently he was a descendant of the Anakim. You say the who? The Anakim lived among the Canaanites at the time that the spies were sent into the land when Israel was encamped at Kadesh Barnea. It apparently was them, according to Numbers chapter 13, that caused the spies to return with such terror of the inhabitants of the land. It is because of this particular group of people who were quite large that they came back and said, we are but grasshoppers in their sight.
We can never prevail against them. It was the Anakim that caused them to come back, so afraid. And it seems as though Goliath was a descendant of them. You notice that he was from the city of Gath in Philistia. At the time that Joshua led the people of Israel into the land and led the armies in conquest, they destroyed many of the Anakim. But there were a few of them left, according to Joshua chapter 11, verses 21 and 22.
And it mentions there some of the cities where these giants lived, even after the battles in the days of Joshua. And Gath is one of the cities that is mentioned. And so this man is a descendant from those people. He came back to haunt Israel, so to speak, because the earlier ancestors of the Israelites had not cared for the Anakim as they were supposed to in destroying them all. The Bible doesn't say this, but tradition states that it was Goliath who killed the sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas.
They deserved the judgment of God. In fact, God had prophesied their deaths because of their terrible immorality as priests of God. But tradition says it was Goliath who actually did them in, and that it was Goliath who captured the ark of God and took it home to Philistia in those days of Eli. In the story that is before us, we're going to see that David possessed a faith that could face a giant. No one else in Israel had that kind of faith, apparently.
For when the giant shouted his challenge to the armies of Israel, the response of the army was to withdraw in terror and to talk about the giant. But no one had the faith to face him. It was on that day that David was sent by his father with a gift for the armies as well as a request that he bring back from the battlefront a word regarding his brothers, his three oldest brothers.
So receiving that charge from his father, David arose early in the morning, left his flocks in the care of someone else, and went to the camp as the army was going out in battle array shouting their war cry. Verse 21, And Israel and the Philistines drew up in the battle array, army against army. David left his baggage in the care of the baggage keeper and ran to the battle line and entered in order to greet his brothers.
As he was talking with them, behold, the champion, the Philistine from Gath, named Goliath, was coming up from the army of the Philistines. And he spoke these same words, and David heard them. When all the men of Israel saw the man, they fled from him and were greatly afraid. And the men of Israel said, Have you seen this man who is coming up? Surely he is coming up to defy Israel.
And it will be that the king will enrich the man who kills him with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel. And so we see that Saul had thrown in a little bribe here if anybody would dare have the courage to go out to kill this man. And Saul's offer was that he would make the man great with riches, that the man could marry Saul's daughter, and he would never have to pay taxes again.
Now you would think if there was not a man who had faith enough to do it, there would be a man who would want all those spoils enough to do it. But alas, that was not the case. David spoke to the men who were standing by him, saying, What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should taunt the armies of the living God?
And the people answered him in accord with this word, saying, Thus it will be done for the man who kills him. Now Eliab, his oldest brother, heard when he spoke to the men, and Eliab's anger burned against David. And he said, Why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? This is dripping with sarcasm. I know your insolence and the wickedness of your heart. You have come down in order to see the battle.
He says, You have just come down here to watch to see what's going to happen, you little runt. And who's taking care of your sheep back home? Why don't you go back where you belong and leave the fighting to the big boys? David said, What have I done? Was it not just a question? And so he turned away from him to another and said the same thing, and the people answered the same thing as before. When the words which David spoke were heard, they told them to Saul, and he sent for him.
And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail on account of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine. And Saul said to David, You are not able to go against this Philistine, to fight with him, for you are but a youth, while he has been a warrior from his youth. David said to Saul, Your servant was tending his father's sheep, when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went out after him and attacked him and rescued it from his mouth.
And when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear. And this uncircumcised Philistine, you get the idea David didn't think a whole lot of him, will be like one of them, since he has taunted the armies of the living God. David said, The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, he will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.
And David, Saul said to David, Go and may the Lord be with you. I think he probably kind of scratched his head as he said it. But then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head and he clothed him with armor. And David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, I cannot go with the ease, for I have not tested them. And David took them off.
And he took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook and put them in the shepherd's bag which he had, even his pouch. And his sling was in his hand and he approached the Philistine. So the tension mounts. You can just see this, can't you? Here's the army of the Philistines on the far side of the valley, about a mile away.
And you can hear them laughing and jeering as this lad steps forth from the ranks of the Israelites to do battle with their champion, Goliath. The Philistine came on and approached David with a shield bearer in front of him. And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth and ruddy with a handsome appearance. And the Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
The Philistine also said to David, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field. David said to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword and a spear and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel with whom you have taunted.
This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands and I will strike you down and remove your head from you, and I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear, for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hands.
Then it happened when the Philistine rose and came and drew near to meet David, that David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead, and the stone sank into his forehead so that he fell on his face to the ground. Thus David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and he struck the Philistine and killed him, but there was no sword in David's hand.
Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of his sheet and killed him and cut off his head with it. And when the Philistine saw that their champion was dead, they fled. David, this teenager, possessed a faith that could face giants, and all of the seasoned soldiers and the ancient men of Israel had not faith like that boy. What are the characteristics of David's faith? Three of them. Consider them with me.
Number one, his faith had been born and matured in private. David's faith had not been born before a television camera like so many of our celebrities these days, but rather his faith had been born on the hills around Bethlehem as he shepherded the sheep. It was matured in private where no one saw him. How did his faith develop? Well, undoubtedly he had been taught the word of the Lord in the household of his father Jesse. But as a shepherd, he had done several things.
Number one, he had studied the creation. On those nights out there on the hills after the sheep had been bedded down in the fold, David looked up into the stars and he saw the handiwork of God. A number of the Psalms reflect his thoughts as he was there on the hillsides. Let me just read to you what one of them says. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth, who has displayed thy splendor above the heavens.
In another place, he wrote years later, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. As David laid out under the stars at night, his soul absorbed a great understanding of the majesty and the might of God, and that caused faith to be born within his breast. Secondly, he meditated upon the word out there on the hills. In one place, he wrote, I delight to do thy will, my God. Thy law is within my heart.
His was the spirit which echoed, O how I love thy law, it is my meditation all the day. David did not have a Bible to take on the hillside with him. He memorized it. He hid God's word in his heart. And then he began to think about it day after day and night after night. And as he meditated upon the word of God, faith was born in his breast. And then he came personally to know the Lord.
We don't know when that took place or what age he was, but sometime in his youth, that faith was born and he became one of the Lord's own. So that later he said, the Lord is my shepherd. He's mine. And I shall not want. So David had the kind of faith that was born in private, not only that, but matured in private. It had been exercised in lonely conflicts.
Had not the Spirit of God chosen to record these words for us in chapter 17, we would never have known about the lion and the bear that he killed with his own two hands. And the language there seems to indicate that that happened on more than one occasion. There may have been several times that he killed the predators of his sheep with his own hands. No one knew about that. David didn't brag about it.
He simply mentioned it at this point to prove that he was capable of doing battle against an enemy. You see, in the loneliness of those hours out there as a shepherd, his faith had been matured. He believed God for great things. We must learn first to conquer those temptations and trials and giants that come to us in private if we would know greater and public victories. Because David had, when it came to the public test, he was ready for it. F.B.
Myers said, what we are in solitude, we shall be in public. Saul was also revealed at this time. What he was in private, he was revealed here in public. It's sad, isn't it? But the more positive one is David. What he was in solitude was now revealed in public. He was ready. The secret victories had prepared him for his public battles. Sometimes we think that faith, if it's going to be great, must be in the spotlight.
But I would suggest to you that great faith does not grow in the spotlight, but rather it grows in the dark closet or on the lonely hilltop when one is alone with God. Is that not the record of Hudson Taylor in China, of William Carey in India, of Adoniram Judson in Southeast Asia, and other greats who have believed God for marvelous victories? It was not done under the heat and the focus of the public eye, but it was done there in private on the lonely battlefield.
One characteristic of David's faith is that it was born and matured in private. Such it is with some of you. Not well known, according to the world standards perhaps, but you are learning what it is in your own battles in your private world to have victory. Those victories are important not only for today, but for what you will be in the future. God is preparing you in private for public service. Don't be discouraged that the spotlight is not flipped on. In fact, rejoice that it's not on you.
When God sees that it can be turned on, if it's His will, He'll see that it is turned on. Will then be content to allow your faith to be matured in private places. Beware of faith which has been tried and tested in the unusual and in the spectacular. Beware of the kind of faith that has to have a miracle every day to sustain it. Faith that will slay giants must be a disciplined faith. It must be harnessed in the leather of living one day at a time.
And so I say the second characteristic of David's faith is that it had been tried and tested in daily life. Not only born and matured in private, but it had been tried and tested in the daily life. He mentions here in this chapter, verses 17-20, just some of the normal kinds of things that would take place in his life. The shepherding, going to check on his brothers, taking a gift to the army. These are not spectacular, unusual things. This is not some great arena.
These are just the routine things. He was simply doing what his father asked him to do. I would say to you that it is there that faith has its greatest trials and tests. Great faith is not incompatible with the daily grind, with the daily routine. Indeed, that is where it is tested most satisfactorily. I know that there are some of us who plead for release from the ordinary in order that we might do the extraordinary.
But before God will ever allow us to do the extraordinary, we must do first things first and learn to allow our faith to be tested and passed in the routines of life. David had learned to do the monotony of the ordinary. He had learned to do the routine things well. And then God put him into the valley of Elah for this battle with Goliath. When my mother was 32 years of age, she became a widow. My father died very suddenly. My mother was left with four of us children.
I was the oldest at eight years of age. We were eight, six, four, and about one and a half. She was left on a farm with no income and a debt that was probably greater than the value of the farm in that day. My mother was not a Christian at that point, but it was through that experience that she came to know the Lord within about a year. And for another six years after that, my mother worked hard. During those years that we were young, she did the milking.
She took care of the sheep on those cold winter mornings when they had to be fed. She's the one who, if you'll pardon the term, slopped the hogs. She's the one who worked at the grocery store as a checkout clerk to have enough money to buy food for four children. As we got older, we were able to help her with some of these things. I watched my mother's faith grow, and I guess I'll never escape from the lessons that I learned watching her. My mother today is not well known.
She is about to retire now from the post office in the little town of Kansas where I grew up. Her name has not been ever emblazoned in lights anywhere. Never will be. My mother has a faith that is greater than some of those that have their names in lights. Her faith has never been in the Valley of Elah. Her faith has matured. It has been tried. It has been tested in the Valley of the routine of life. It is doing the ordinary kinds of things, but what a faith she has.
There are times when the simplicity of it and the depth of it put me to shame. There are some of you, moms and dads here, who can identify very closely with what my mother went through. It is good for all of us, and especially you, to remember that it is in the routines, it is in the daily rituals and the daily grind that our faith is really put to the test and where it grows. It was that kind of faith that David had.
I noticed something else about David's faith here in his daily life, his daily expression. His faith was able to make an adjustment between prominence and lowliness. You see, David at some times was brought before King Saul to play his harp and to give him some soothing music when that evil spirit would come upon him. So he was in a prominent place. He was in the very presence of the king.
Apparently when the period passed and the evil spirit would release its oppression on him, David would go back home. It was at home that he was called to this battle, as you see. David knew what it was to be one week in a prominent place and the next week to be back home by himself with a sheep, and that did not throw him a curve. He knew what it was to be prominent or to be lowly. The alteration between the court and the sheepfold also caused his faith to grow.
Faith like David's is faith that can handle the news conference or which can be ignored at the counter, the checkout counter. It's faith that is not sustained or is not great because it is well known all the time. In fact, it's faith that is totally removed from that kind of thing. It is faith that can either accept being acknowledged or can accept being ignored altogether. It's that kind of faith. It was tested, you see, in the daily routine of his life.
Furthermore, in this daily routine, his faith was the kind that could accept unjustified rebukes and misunderstanding like that which his brother gave to him. His brother was very unkind and unfair in verse 28. Perhaps out of shame for his own lack of faith, Eliab spoke as he did. But that did not cause David to be alarmed. We see here a meekness of spirit which was simply, again, an expression of his faith.
He was misunderstood, but David did not try to defend himself, but rather he simply left it in the hands of God. You see, that's the kind of faith that's a great faith, the kind that goes through the daily routines, the kind that goes through periods of misunderstanding and unjustified rebuke and is not shattered. It's tested, it's tried there in the daily life experience, and it goes on. That's the kind of faith David had.
There's a third characteristic of his faith that I want to talk about, and then we will be done. David's faith was not only born and matured in private, tried and tested in daily life, but David's faith gave him insight and wisdom in his battle. It was an insight and wisdom which his peers did not have. In the first place, David saw the real challenge while everybody else missed it. Everybody else was saying, this fellow, Goliath, is challenging the army of Israel.
You know what David's response was? Do you know what his faith saw? Do you know what his vision was? This uncircumcised Philistine is challenging the armies, not of Israel, but of the living God. You see, he saw the battle as it really was. He saw the real challenge. It seems as though to the others, the armies of Israel served a God who was irrelevant and dead. He was not really a part of the picture.
But David's faith was such that God was alive to him, and for this enemy to challenge the armies of Israel was for him to challenge God himself. So David stepped up to that challenge as he saw it. Not only did his faith give him insight into the real challenge, but he saw the only answer to the challenge. It was not to be found in a massive army or in heavy armor, which he was offered by Saul. So David, in verses 45 through 47, clearly states that the battle was God's.
He says that God is Lord Sabeoth. He is the Lord of hosts. That is the name of God when he goes into battle. David saw that the only answer to this giant was God, and he called God's power into action by his faith. This was not David's battle to win, but it was his to wage. He did not wage it alone, but he waged it in the strength that God gave to him because of his faith. And then David's faith gave him insight and wisdom regarding the expected result.
It is interesting that the victory did not surprise David at all. He expected the victory all along. He told Goliath exactly what would happen. He said, I am going to kill you and cut off your head. And within a few seconds, that had taken place because David reached in his bag, took out one of the stones, and those were not pebbles, by the way. Those stones were probably two to three inches in diameter. And he put that in his sling, which was made of leather, had two long thongs with a pocket.
The Jews were very skilled with these, and putting that stone in there, he began to sling it around his head this way, and one end of the sling was released at just the right moment, and that stone went flying. And it says that it sunk into the forehead of Goliath. Now, he was so well armored that his forehead was probably about the only thing exposed, except maybe his mouth, which was very active. And you just pictured this now. David is out before him. The stone comes to hit him.
How is he supposed to fall? Right? But he didn't. He fell flat on his face, which seems to indicate to me that it was not just the stone that David flung at him, but it was the hand of God that finished him off. He went down on his face, and there, mortally wounded, he was slain by David as David took Goliath's own large sword and severed his head from his body.