Goliath? - No Problem Series

.

I want to start this morning on a light note. Translations from English to a native tongue can be especially difficult. Here are a few examples.

Sign in a Tokyo hotel: Is forbitten to steal hotel toweles please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read this notice.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: "Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists".

When translated into Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin’ good" came out as "eat your fingers off".

Denmark: in a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions

Apparently skiers (and their ski-boots) were making lots of noise after hours in this Austrian hotel, so they posted this sign: "Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.”

Sign in a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily

Serbia: in a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.

This last one is my favorite. A warning sign to motorists in Tokyo: "When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor."

When I read this I thought this is what we need to do with Satan. When he becomes an obstacle, we should “tootle him with vigor.”

As we discussed last week, Satan doesn’t have a bag of tricks. Rather he takes a more forward approach by building a road straight into our minds. Once this road is established he brings in deception so he can play mind games with us. If this deception lingers, it will become destructive. We are to build roadblocks across this road by taking every thought captive. We saw how Satan was able to destroy Ananias and Sapphira by building a road of pride and greed into there minds. This deception led to their destruction at the feet of the disciples. And it’s just not individuals that can be deceived by Satan. Large groups can be also. We see an example of this in 1 Samuel 17.

On one mountain top is the Philistine army. On the other mountain top is the Israeli army. In the valley between them stands a man 9 feet 9 inches tall. His name is Goliath. He is wearing an armor that weighs 125 lbs. He is holding a spear that weighs 17 pounds and the pointed head of the spear weighed 16 pounds. All told estimations are that his weaponry was more than 700 lbs. Goliath was not unnoticeable by any means.

But what really struck fear into an entire army were his constant threats. Everyday he challenged them to send a man to fight him in a battle for all the marbles. “When Saul and the Israelites heard this, they were terrified and deeply shaken.”

Satan had used this one man to build a road into the mind of an entire nation. He was able then to play mind games with them.

Satan challenges us the same way. He will make claims that we are not tough enough to handle what he will throw at us. He threatens to take circumstances and beat the stuffing out of us. His goal is to cause enough fear and confusion in our minds that we no longer think rationally. His desire is to destroy our faith and the ministry that God has called us to be apart of. Allowing Satan to play those mind games will cause us to live on the down side of our victory.

1 Samuel 17:8-9 “Goliath stood and shouted a taunt across to the Israelites. ‘Why are you all coming out to fight?’ he called. “I am the Philistine champion, but you are only the servants of Saul. Choose one man to come down here and fight me! If he kills me, then we will be your slaves. But if I kill him, you will be our slaves!’”

In this particular case Goliath was telling the truth. These were the rules of warfare in the days of David. If you allowed one warrior to represent the entire nation and that one warrior lost, then that nation would be enslaved. These rules still apply in spiritual warfare. If you allow Satan to defeat you in your minds he will attempt to hold you captive while you are in the flesh.

Let’s look at what Goliath yelled next. 1 Samuel 17:10 “I defy the armies of Israel today! Send me a man who will fight me!”