David and the Sitting Duck, Part 2

Don't pin your perspective on the majority opinion.

You may be the only person on that campus, in that corporation, in that neighborhood, in your family that's right. David refused to act like Saul. He refused to dress up like Goliath. He was taunted by his brother. He's looked down on by the king. He's jeered and mocked by his enemy.

I mean, the majority opinion is really obvious. David, the odds are not in your favor. What was going through David's mind as he prepared to face Goliath? He was about to participate in what would become the most famous battle of human history. But David faced the situation calmly and bravely. David understood something that most people there that day did not.

There was only one giant on that battlefield and that giant was God. Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Yesterday, Stephen Davey began a message called David and the Sitting Duck.

We're going to do a little review and then conclude that message right now. The king has promised three things to any man who takes Goliath on and wins. Verse 25 tells us there are three prizes. Riches, it's one, not a bad start. The king's daughter's hand in marriage and the family estate of the father, the text says, will be free.

The word free is the Hebrew word hapsi, which is more than likely a reference to the family and the family estate being free from any kind of taxation. That's worth dying over, isn't it? Right there. Now for David, this is really the ultimate quick path to fame and glory. In fact, this is what his brother's going to say he's all about anyway.

This is better than the lottery ticket. He gets rich, he doesn't have to pay taxes, and he marries the king's daughter and he's now in the royal family. This is great. David, evidently, isn't really all that interested because his response is a totally different perspective. In fact, if you look at verse 25 and compare it to verse 26, you realize the soldiers referred to Goliath as this man.

Notice that? Have you seen this man? David refers to him in verse 26 as this uncircumcised Philistine. Long way of saying he's an unbeliever. The soldiers said that Goliath has come down to defy Israel in verse 25. David says in verse 26, he's defying the armies of the living God.

You see the difference? The soldiers saw a giant. David sees a blasphemer. The soldiers look at this as, well, Goliath is insulting our country. David sees him as insulting the living God. So David is effectively asking, hey, doesn't the glory of God matter?

Does this bother anybody? Doesn't following the true and living God make any difference out here for any of us? See, none of them were willing to fight Goliath because they didn't really want to risk anything for the honor of their country. David is about to risk everything because he's willing to fight for the honor of his God. See, the problem out here, ladies and gentlemen, is not a military problem.

It's a spiritual problem. Their eyes at this point are on Goliath. David's eyes are on God.

Now about this time, verse 28, Eliab effectively dresses his little brother down. You know, he says, anger was kindled against him. He said, why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep and the willers? A reminder, you're just a shepherd. Who do you think you are is effectively what he's saying.

And let me tell you who you are in case you're wondering. Notice, he says, I know your presumption and the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle. You could actually translate that Hebrew phrase, you have come down to be seen in the battle. You just want to be in the picture.

You're talking tough, but you just want to be seen with us. David basically ignores Eliab and refuses an invitation to verbally fight his brother. He basically responds by saying, what have I done? Was it not a word?

In other words, all I did was ask a question. And I agree, by the way, with one commentator who wrote that Eliab was David's Goliath before David ever got to Goliath. Goliath will express ridicule and contempt for David, but Eliab does effectively the same thing here. Maybe for you, one of the greater challenges in living for the glory of God is the people closest to you think you've lost your marbles. One commentator said David actually contended with three Goliaths.

Kind of an interesting thought. Eliab, who says you're just an arrogant, backwards shepherd. King Saul, who will later say, you're just a child. Goliath, who will say, you're dead meat. It's in the Hebrew language.

David ignores them all. And he repeats this theologically rich statement that Goliath out there in the valley of blood is doing nothing less than taunting the living God. David's words eventually make it up the chain of command.

I don't know how long it takes. It gets up to the top brass. The first scene would be the front lines. The second scene fear.

This third scene I just want to title folly. Look at verse 31. When the words that David spoke were heard, they repeated them before Saul and he sent for him.

I love this. David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine. And Saul said to David, you're not able to go up against this Philistine to fight with him.

You're but a youth that is your inexperienced. He's been a man of war from his youth. Again, Saul is measuring size with size. He'll measure armor with armor.

He's thinking like a Philistine. And he effectively says, look, back up to the tent wall there. Let me get up my ruler. Saul is 9 feet 9 inches and you're coming in at about 5'3". You can't even see over his belt buckle. I don't think he wants to embarrass him, but he effectively says, you got spunk, but you're way over your head.

He's been fighting as long as you've been alive. David, instead of saying, well, I didn't know he was that tall, I didn't know he had that kind of experience, basically says, well, let me tell you what God's done for me in the past. That becomes a foundation for what I believe God can do in the future. And so he then tells him the stories that we won't read for the sake of time, but he recounts the experiences that he had as a shepherd delivering a sheep from the lion and the bear with nothing more than his rod.

That was an interesting weapon, but just his rod, maybe his sling. Now here's the point, verse 37. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of the Philistine. In other words, if God can use a shepherd to rescue a lamb from the jaws of a bear, he can just as easily use a shepherd to rescue the nation from the jaws of a giant. See, to David, Goliath is just a big bear.

I can do this. And by the way, did you notice the humility here? He isn't going on and on about how he did it, and how he maneuvered, and the bear, and how big the bear was, and the lion, and you should have seen it, and I did all this and that, and all the details, and think of it. What shepherd has a bear rug? David did. And you'd think you'd get around David like you'd get around some fisherman, and that fish was this big. Those antlers on the wall, whatever.

Let me tell you about my exploits. Now the point of it is, David says, this is what God did. He delivered me. See, David is effectively taking Saul to Sunday school.

Listen, Saul, the issue isn't how big Goliath is, the issue is how big God is. Do you remember him? Saul, do you remember him?

I can imagine in that tent it was quiet. Do you remember him? He has defeated armies with a word. He's pushed over walls with an invisible finger. He's backed up walls of sea water with his breath.

Do you remember him? Saul does remember, sort of. In fact, with some element of conviction, he says to David in verse 37, the latter part, okay, go, and the Lord be with you. If you put a period there in Saul's biography, you'd have thought, oh, maybe he's going to come around. But he doesn't.

Why? Because of the next verse. Then Saul clothed David with his armor.

He doesn't get it. He's trying to fight Goliath like Goliath fights. Goliath has a helmet of bronze.

Guess what? Look, he puts a helmet of bronze on David's head. Goliath has a coat of mail, so he clothes him with a coat of mail. Goliath has a sword? Here, David, here's my sword. This is absolute folly. Saul is trying to make David like Goliath. David responds in verse 39, I cannot go with ease, for I have not tested them.

The Hebrew verb for tested means to try. I haven't tried these out with the nuance of I'm not used to these. I don't have experience with these. I haven't spent my time practicing with swords and coats of mail and wearing bronze helmets.

This isn't going to work. See, the truth is it should have been Saul going down there to fight Goliath. It's his armor, it's his nation, his leadership. In fact, 1 Samuel 9 says he was taller than any of his people, and he knows it. He's the biggest soldier Israel has.

There's something more going on here. In the ancient days, wearing the clothing of another was to not only be imbued with their essence, but to share in their being. The unwilling kinsman redeemer gives Boaz a sandal, effectively saying, you wear my sandal, you live the life I could live. Jonathan is going to do this with David. He's going to give him his clothing, his armor. We're together. This is an emotional covenant, so to speak, and it was significant, in fact. One Old Testament scholar brings out the point that Saul is more than likely binding David to himself so that he will then be able to take credit for David's victory should David defeat Goliath. I tried to think of a way to illustrate it, and I think we would do the same thing, sort of, in a different way.

Maybe it'd be like this. Well, you know, that guy won that race, but he was driving my car. She won that baking contest, but she used my recipe. He hit a hole and won, but I let him use my club, as if that would help.

So you're sort of accepting a little bit of the prize. Yeah, he killed Goliath, but he's wearing my armor. It was my sword. He's facing humiliation, and he knows it, and he attempts to connect David with his own essence so that through his armor he can claim a portion of the victory. Now, whether or not David discerned that or not, we don't know. If he did, he was just gracious because he effectively says, look, I got to take this stuff off. I'm not any good at it.

I'm not used to this. Let me stick with what I know. So David strips down to his normal clothing, which means he's absolutely unprotected, except by the providence of God, which will be enough, and he heads down toward Goliath, who's sitting down there in the valley of blood waiting for him. But not before picking out five smooth, verse 40, stones and placing them in his pouch with his sling in his hand. Why five stones? There is some conjecture based on some variant readings of 1 Chronicles 20 that Goliath had four brothers. We do know he had one, and he was a giant as well. Maybe David's getting ready for all five of those boys.

Or maybe he's a bad shot. We're not told. One thing we do know is that he's entirely resting upon the strength and direction and providence of God, and I believe that he would be impelled forward with this kind of confidence as well, not only because of the glory of God, which he wants to advance, but because of the Spirit of God who is anointing him. These are the front lines. We've seen the fear. We've watched the folly. The final scene can simply be titled faith. Now in this scene where David and Goliath eventually meet, more verses are spent on their verbal combat than on their physical combat, because really that is the issue.

They're trading their system of theology. Goliath is out there shouting in the name of his God, and David has a few choice things to say in the name of his God. Verse 41, the Philistine moved forward and came near to David with his shield-bearer in front of him. He could clearly see that David was ruddy. Remember the Hebrew word, red-headed, young, handsome. But what sends him into a rage in verse 43 is reflected in what he says. The Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks?

Now someone suggests that Goliath can't see very well because he mentions plural, sticks plural. Perhaps he had acromegaly. This is a disorder we call giantism today, caused by excessive production of growth hormones in the pituitary gland.

He needed to know all that. That person effectively never stops growing. It's true, the tallest person in recent history, Robert Waidlaw, suffered from acromegaly.

At his death he was nearly nine feet tall and still growing. Acromegaly often impairs a person's sight. One suggested that I read that Goliath is this blurry-eyed, lumbering giant. That he can't see very well and so he thinks David has sticks, plural. Back in verse 40, if you look there, we're told that David took his shepherd's staff in his hand. The word Goliath uses here in reference to sticks is actually the Hebrew word that can be translated in the singular rod. Like shepherds of his day that's stuck in his belt. This is what infuriates Goliath. He can see really well. And he sees, coming toward him, that Israel is sending over, for combat, a shepherd. A staff? Rod stuck in his belt and he's carrying a slingshot.

You've got to be kidding. Am I a dog? Did you come to me with sticks, the implements of a shepherd? Are you going to beat me away with your little staff? Goliath rages. Look at verse 44. You come to me and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.

So it's obvious what he wants to do. David responds in kind, you come to me with a sword and a spear and a javelin. I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies, whom you have defiled.

That's the issue. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. It's clear what David wants to do. And I'm going to give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth. Now get this. That all the earth may know that there is a brave new king in Israel.

No. That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And that all this assembly, the armies that are watching both sides of this ravine, may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into my hand.

David doesn't have an advantage because he has a slingshot and he's fast. He has an advantage because he is going in the name of his sovereign Lord. And he has one all-consuming passion. It's worth fighting for. It's worth risking his life for that no matter what he does, he wants everything to be seen in light of advancing the glory of the God whom he serves.

We can do the same. But can you imagine this scene? All the Israelites, you know, on one side, they're all holding their breath. They're thinking, Goliath is too big to kill and Philistines are probably jeering him. And David's thinking, Goliath is too big to miss. That's what he's thinking.

And he races toward him. See, I think David would get a little troubled by this. It isn't David and the giant. I think David's thinking it's David and the sitting duck.

That's how I think he'd write it. David and the sitting duck. He lets the rock fly, the stone hits the Philistine at the only place about the size of a quarter that can do any damage.

Just below his helmet line. Verse 49, and he falls on his face to the ground. Not unconscious perhaps.

Not dead yet. Verse 50 is a summary statement that David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone and struck the Philistine and killed him. How?

Here's the detail. Verse 51. Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword without asking and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head. Why that? So that he could hold it up and show both armies Goliath is no more.

Let me summarize these four scenes with a few challenges. First, don't let your faith depend on majority opinion. In this case, everybody else was wrong. David refused to act like Saul. He refused to dress up like Goliath. He was taunted by his brother. He was looked down on by the king. He was jeered and mocked by his enemy.

I mean, the majority opinion is really obvious. David, the odds are not in your favor. Go back to the sheep.

You'll never win. I love the funny story I came across in a ministry magazine that was addressing this particular subject. It made up a story.

This isn't true. I thought it was funny. An archaeologist was digging in Israel. He came upon a tomb that had a mummy inside. After just a few minutes of observation, he called the curator of a prestigious museum and said, I've discovered a 3,000-year-old mummy of a man who died of a heart attack. The curator replied, there's no way you can know all that, but send him in and we'll take a look. A week later, the amazed curator called the archaeologist. You were right about the mummy's age and you were right about the cause of death. I mean, how in the world did you know that he died of a heart attack? The archaeologist replied, it was easy.

He was clutching a piece of parchment in his hand that read 10,000 shekels on Goliath. Two of us thought that was funny. Thank you. I'm glad you're sitting right there.

I mean, can you imagine the shock waves going through this region? No wonder the women are going to be singing in short order of David. Don't pin your testimony. Don't pin your faith. Don't pin your perspective on the majority opinion.

You may be the only person on that campus, in that corporation, in that neighborhood, in your family that's right. Don't let your talents be depreciated by conventional wisdom. This isn't how you fight. By the way, don't miss the fact that David isn't trusting in the weapons of war, but he didn't throw away what he had either. He used what he had. And a sling was actually a powerful weapon. I did more research on slingshots this week than I haven't even told you any of it.

I'm sure you're really glad about it, but let me take 15 seconds. One defense minister in Israel did studies and tried to sort of reenact this scene and found that they could hurl a stone at about 75 miles an hour. In fact, the Romans had tongs to pull stones out of bodies that had been on the other end of a slingshot. In fact, you look at the story, and because we know it, we'd think, well, a slingshot's perfect.

Well, yeah, it was, but it wasn't when he started. And the point would be, whatever you have in your hands, whatever you offer to God for his glory, give it to him. Use it.

I love the way J. Vernon McGee, the way J. Vernon McGee once said, he just said everything in one sentence. If God calls you to use a slingshot, don't use a sword. Whatever you can do, whatever you have, whatever you are, don't appreciate that. That does not bring glory to God. Thirdly, don't let your past be diminished by spiritual dementia. One author I was reading provoked my thinking. He said, you know, if you have trouble, and we all do, remembering God's past deliverances, invest in a diary. Pretty simple advice. Write it down.

Something easy to miss here. If you look back at verse 54, the events actually take place at the end of the chapter. What happens first following the defeat of Goliath is a personal conversation with the king. Verse 58, David informs Saul of his father. It may have been a conversation about his family. Saul is even more curious than ever. It's been several years since he initially met or sent a message to Jesse. He's wondering now, now wait, I promised him my daughter.

I'd like to know a little bit more about his family. Verse 54 tells us that David then carries out two final actions. You'll notice, first of all, he takes Goliath's head to Jerusalem. Now, at this point in time, Jerusalem is occupied by their enemies, the Jebusites. And more than likely, David slips in there one night and plants the head of Goliath, maybe affixing it to the wall or by the gate, as if to say, be warned. We are following the true and living God. In fact, the invitation would be to join Israel.

Then I want you to notice something else that's easy to look over. He put Goliath's armor in his tent. What tent? David doesn't have a tent. The next chapter informs us that Saul won't let David go back to his home. David hasn't come to the front lines with a tent. He came with cheese. Now he has a tent.

Old Testament scholars point out that in the plunder of the Philistines, it would have been the practice, and in this case, the guarantee that whatever belonged to Goliath now belonged to David. He has Goliath's tent two stories high. Front porch, massive. I need you at all three hours.

I really do. I imagine in that tent there's some kind of structure to rest that armor upon. David arranges Goliath's massive armor inside his especially tall tent. It now belongs to him. We know later on David presents the sword of Goliath to the priests.

They'll have it at Nob. He'll get it later. It's an offering to God. But these are mementos of this great day. David's going to write in Psalm 111, the mighty acts of God are worth remembering.

We have spiritual memory problems. Have a trophy case of faith whereby you've written things down or you remember God's providences no matter how small or great. These pieces of armor are also going to be lifelong reminders that there are things worth fighting for. The glory of God above all. I think these pieces of armor would be a lasting reminder that the only true champion is God.

As soon as Goliath stepped onto that battlefield, he was doomed because he was facing off with God. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen's entitled this lesson, David and the Sitting Duck. Our office is closed today, but you can access all of our resources or make a year-end gift to our ministry on our website, wisdomonline.org. If you want to call us, just leave a message and we'll call you back when we're in the office. Our number is 866-48-BIBLE. Thanks for listening and join us next time here on Wisdom for the Heart. .