When God Is On Our Side.

WHEN GOD IS ON OUR SIDE.

1 Samuel 17:32-49.

Things had reached an impasse in the territorial struggles between the invading Philistines and Israel. The valley of Elah (cf. 1 Samuel 17:2) was in the south of Israel, and the two armies were set in battle array facing one another, but neither side wished to engage in battle. The Philistines sent out their ‘champion’ to intimidate the Israelites: whoever won in man to man combat with him, he taunted, would carry the day for their whole army (cf. 1 Samuel 17:8-9)!

Significantly, ‘Saul’ and ‘all Israel’ were ‘greatly afraid’ (cf. 1 Samuel 17:11). Now Saul had been chosen to be the ‘king’ who would ‘go out before us and fight our battles’ (cf. 1 Samuel 8:20); and, incidentally, he stood head and shoulders taller than his compatriots (cf. 1 Samuel 9:2). So what an embarrassment to Saul when this stripling David was the only volunteer for the task (1 SAMUEL 17:32-33).

David’s speech may have sounded like so much pride, as his eldest brother actually accused him (cf. 1 Samuel 17:28); and Saul may have thought of it as nothing more than boyish brashness and bravado. But, for all that, David was the only one, on the day, who recognised the spirituality of the warfare in which he proposed to engage: “This uncircumcised Philistine… hath defied the armies of the living God” (1 SAMUEL 17:36).

David’s seeming boast about his slaying of the lion and the bear (1 SAMUEL 17:34-35) resolved itself in his acknowledgement that “it was the LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and the bear.” And He will, moreover, “deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine” (1 SAMUEL 17:37). At that, Saul granted his permission, and offered his blessing: “Go, and the LORD be with thee” (1 SAMUEL 17:37).

But Saul still lacked the insight and faith to believe that a mere shepherd boy could triumph unaided over the giant, and so sought to clothe the lad with his own armour, and with his own sword (1 SAMUEL 17:38). Was Saul already, though unconsciously, yielding the kingship to his successor? However that may be, the armour and the sword were inappropriate, and David put them off him (1 SAMUEL 17:39).

David returned to the familiar: he chose out “five smooth stones” from the brook and put them in his bag, and with his staff and his sling in his hands thus drew near the giant (1 SAMUEL 17:40). The Philistine also approached from the other side of the valley, his shield-bearer going before him (1 SAMUEL 17:41).

There is a certain amount of irony in the conversational exchanges between David and the Philistine. “Am I a dog,” asked the Philistine, “that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his “gods” (1 SAMUEL 17:43). David’s reply to this was, “you come to me with a sword, a spear, and a shield: but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied” (1 SAMUEL 17:45).

The Philistine had continued, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the field” (1 SAMUEL 17:44). To which David replied, “This day will the LORD deliver you into my hand; and I will take your head from you” (which he later did with the Philistine’s own sword - cf. 1 Samuel 17:51); “and we will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day to the fowls of the air, and the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And this assembly shall know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear, for the battle is the LORD’s, and He will give you into our hands” (1 SAMUEL 17:46-47; cf. Zechariah 4:6).

As the Philistine giant drew nigh to meet David, encumbered no doubt with the armour and weapons about him, David hasted toward the army to meet him, took one stone and slang it at the one vulnerable place in the Philistine’s armour. The stone embedded itself in the giant’s forehead, and he fell forward on his face (1 SAMUEL 17:48-50).

The Apostle Paul wrote about spiritual warfare in these terms: ‘Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds’ (cf. 2 Corinthians 10:3-4). This much was already known to the shepherd boy David as he went out to face the Philistine giant all those centuries earlier.

When God is on our side (Psalm 56:9), 'who can be against us?' (cf. Romans 8:31).