Defending God’s Honor: David Runs To The Fight - 1 Samuel 17:37-51 Series

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1 Samuel 17:36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." Saul said to David, "Go, and the LORD be with you." 38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. "I cannot go in these," he said to Saul, "because I am not used to them." So he took them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine. 41 Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. 42 He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. 43 He said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 "Come here," he said, "and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!" 45 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. 46 This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 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." 48 As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. 49 Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground. 50 So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him. 51 David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine's sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran.

Review

The life of faith is a life of behaving, speaking, and feeling in such a way as to show God to be glorious. And the last couple weeks we have been learning from David’s example of the attitude of faith and words of faith. In 1 Samuel 17 David gets into four conversations. David’s reaction to secular conversation was to respond with words that frame the same things they were saying in a theolgoical content. When David spoke with people whose speech was temporal and secular he did what Paul did in 2 Corinthians 10:5 –

2 Cor.10:5 we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Just take what is secular and force it into a spiritual context.

A second conversation was with Eliab, who was just irrational and hostile. David’s response to that was to simply turn away and continue on with the important matters at hand. Next came the conversation was with Saul, who was extremely unsupportive and discouraging. And David’s response to him was to not only refuse to become discouraged, but to encourage Saul and the others by helping them see the power and faithfulness of God. So that is how the heart of faith responds in those three contexts.

But there is one more conversation David had in that chapter – his conversation with Goliath. How do you deal with a blasphemer?

David’s Words: Conversation with a blasphemer

Goliath’s Jealous blaspheme

We are down in the valley of Elah now. David considered Saul’s suggestions about how to fight, vetoed them, and now he is moving out on his own plan. In verse 42 Goliath sees David coming forward from the Israelite line.