The Last of the Giants!
2 Sam 21:15-22
I. Introduction
A. We all have giants!
We all have giants in our lives that we must face. Your giant may be an area of your life that is hard to get control of. Your giant may be a relationship that went sour and left you with brokenness. Your giant may be a horrible past that you struggle to overcome. Regardless of what your giant is, it seems at times like an obstacle that you will never get past.
B. We must stand up to our giants!
There was a man in the Scripture named David who was known for killing giants. You may have heard of Jack the “giant killer” but the Scriptures tell us that a man named David was the greatest giant killer of all. From the time of his youth, until a time near the end of his reign, David specialized in taking on giants.
One of the things that was different about David was that he was not content to stand by if there was a giant to fight! When a giant named Goliath mocked the armies of Israel many mighty warriors stood and cowered in fear. David however couldn’t stand by and listen to this. Others ran from giants, but David ran to them. David would go, as one old man put it, “Bear hunting with a flyswatter!”
C. We must face down all our giants!
Now you have got to remember that Goliath was not the last giant that David faced. Goliath had some relatives that were still lurking among the Philistines. These relatives that were left around continued to side with the enemies of God’s people. By this, these lurking giants caused God’s people much harm.
Our lesson to learn is this: If you leave too many giants lurking around, they will come back to haunt you! There comes a time when you have to destroy them all!
Some have slain the giant of addiction and that is wonderful. But don’t forget that there will be more giants to slay. Some have slain the giant of lust, but there are more battles to be won! There will be work to do until Christ returns!
Phil 1:5-6
6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;
Here is what you are going to need to drive out the “last of the giants”
II. You will need Great Friends
The Scripture says that David “waxed faint.” This was at a time near the end of his reign. He had fought a lot of battles. He grew weary in the midst of this battle. It’s in times just like these that you need godly people around you to hold you up! There are times in your spiritual walk that you just won’t make it without the help of other Christians! I used to believe that Jesus and I could conquer the world, but now I know that I need the church! I need godly friends!
Here are the kinds of people you need:
A. People who will help you when you are weary.
When David was worn out the giant saw an opportunity. The enemy will hit you when you are tired. The giant set his sights on killing David. But there was a man named Abishai who the Bible says, “came to (David’s) aid”. He saw the weariness of the king and came in to help him.
B. People who will protect you when you are vulnerable.
Then the men of Israel came around David and said, “You can’t come to the battles anymore. You are too important to Israel to be out here fighting!” They cared enough about David. They understood his position in Israel, so they stood up to him and told him “Enough”. We need people in our lives who care enough about us to say, “Stop!”
“Oh, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”-George Eliot
C. People who will love you when you are not around.
These men went to fight on David’s behalf even when he wasn’t at the battle. We need friends to stand for us even when we are not there. They love us not for show, but genuinely.
III. You will need Great Faith!
Now just think about these men. They were ordinary men going up against powerful giants.
-Ishbi-Benob- the weight of his spear was three hundred shekels. This was a very heavy spear that took quite a man to throw it!
-Saph- a descendant of giants! A powerful man
-the brother of Goliath- a man greatly feared! The shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam!
-Another man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. A big guy!
Notice that the Bible gives no remarkable statistics for each of the giant killers. They were ordinary men with great faith!
A. Faith can look past the size of the problem!
When others saw giants David saw opportunities to show God’s strength.
B. Faith can look at God instead of the problem!
How big is God? Think of the size of the universe. The nearest star is about four light years away from earth. How far is that? That is the distance that light travels in four years. Light travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second. This means that the nearest star is about 24 trillion miles away from earth. That’s a long way, but it’s just a speck of distance in the universe. The Bible says about God that He has, “measured heaven with a span. (Isaiah 40:12) That means that He measures the universe in the space between his thumb and little finger.
Don’t you think He’s bigger than your giant? I do. I think you should trust Him!
IV. You will need Great Focus!
David stayed focused on the task until the end of his life. He never gave up! He was nearing retirement age.
Someone has said, “I’m not retired, I’m refired!”
One lady was asked how she was enjoying her husband’s retirement. She said, “Well it’s twice the husband at half the salary.”
I want to challenge some of you older Christians not to give up on your life’s calling. There is still work to be done. As long as God has left you here, don’t quit!
David wasn’t doing this for glory or power. He already had won both. He was doing this because it was his duty to do so. He needed to finish the job!
Stay focused on the task until the end.
Karl Wallenda of the famous “Flying Wallendas performed many amazing walks on the high wire. It wasn’t until late in his life that he began to have trouble. He began to focus on not falling rather than on walking the wire. At a walk in Puerto Rico he did something he had never done before. He checked the guide wires that held his high wire in place. He was focused on failure. During that very walk, he fell to his death!
You must maintain focus to finish off the last of the giants!
V. Conclusion-
Golfer Greg Norman was very aloof. He said, he learned it from his dad. He would see his dad walking off an airplane and want to go up and hug him, but his dad would only shake hands. He brought that aloof mentality to the game of golf. He blew a six shot lead in the 1996 Master’s to lose to rival Nick Faldo. At the end he reached out to shake Faldo’s hand and Faldo hugged him. They both cried. Norman later said, “I didn’t cry because I lost. I cried because no man have ever hugged me like that before.”
