Facing The Giant

Facing the Giant

Today I want to take the time to cover a small piece of history. As I read this it became clear to me that this battle is still being fought today by many, and lost as well. I am not talking about a physical fight, but rather a spiritual one. Today we are going to be reading from 1 Samuel 17. I will not read the entire chapter for you today, but I encourage you to do so at your leisure. We are going to jump around a little, but I am sure that all of us here have heard this piece of history, I am talking about David and Goliath. Lets turn to the word of God to begin.

1 Samuel 17:1-3 - Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle, and were gathered together at Shochoh, which belongeth to Judah, and pitched between Shochoh and Azekah, in Ephesdammim. And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and pitched by the valley of Elah, and set the battle in array against the Philistines. And the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them.

I want us to examine this particular section here. There is something here that is very evident and that is that the Philistines were a powerful invading force. They had placed their armies in the land of Judah. They had absolutely no right to be there, this was the land of Israel, this was the land that belonged to the people of God. The same occurs to us today. We need to realize that this is true of all these invaders in our life. I am talking about all these things that prevent us from living in peace, prevents us from loving our brothers, prevents us from walking in a true Christian manner. These things have no right to be there, they have no power to be there. I am talking to you about illnesses, jealousy, anger, resentment, envy, poverty, depression, in fact the armies of the enemy are so vast that it would be impossible to name them all. They may camp there for a short period of time, but the land does not belong to them. We do not belong to them, we belong to God and it's God's intention that they be driven out.

1 Samuel 17:4-7 - And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass. And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam; and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron: and one bearing a shield went before him.

Here comes the bad guy. We see here that the champion came out to taunt and intimidate the people of God. We see here that the description of this guy is six cubits and a span, but what does that mean? Well, a cubit is approximately 18 inches, so that means that when we convert it, this guy was over nine feet tall. Not only that, but he must have been very strong because he was carrying quite a bit of armor. His armor alone weighed about 125 pounds. His spear about 15 pounds. He really frightened the army of Israel. I do not know about all of you here, but I would be very impressed to see someone like that also. Does this sound familiar? Often times we face these giants in our life and they appear to be absolutely unconquerable. They taunt us, challenge us, assail us. We go out to fight them and we are defeated over and over again, until finally we lose the heart to fight.

1 Samuel 17:8-11 - And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together. When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid.