Saul’s Fear and David’s Faith

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Well, if you would, turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 17. 1 Samuel chapter 17. It’s the ninth book of the Bible, a little less than halfway through.

And if you get to 2 Samuel, you’ve gone too far. 1 Samuel chapter 17. And we’re going to look today at the story of David and Goliath.

This is one of the best known stories in all of the Bible. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to be familiar with it. Even people who don’t believe in the Bible typically know the story of David and Goliath.

And all sorts of lopsided struggles are cast as pictures of the story of David and Goliath, whether it’s politics, whether it’s sports, whether it’s warfare. Anytime there’s this lopsided battle between the underdog and the favorite, it’s a David and Goliath battle. And things are called that even by people who don’t believe in the Bible.

They just know the story. And since most of you, I’m sure, know the story, and most of you know the ending, I don’t intend to spend too much time on the end of the story this morning. That’s usually what gets talked about when we discuss this story.

And if you don’t know the ending, I’m just going to go ahead and spoil it for you. David wins. Okay?

Sorry. If you don’t know that by now, I mean, it’s okay. I’m not making fun of you.

I’m just saying it’s not like I ruined it for you. Sort of like somebody tells me how I finally saw Jaws about four years ago. Somebody told me how it ends.

It’s not like they ruined it for me. The movie was made in the 70s. If I wanted to know before then, I would have known.

So anyway, not to spoil it for you, but David wins. Goliath dies. And I hope I didn’t just ruin anybody’s Bible study.

David went after Goliath with a slingshot, sunk a stone into his head. There’s some disagreement about what the Hebrew word means, whether it sunk into his forehead or maybe into his leg and knocked him over. Either way, I think it was probably the head, but it was a fatal blow.

And as Goliath lay dying, David went with a sword and removed his head for him and finished him off. And if you’re thinking, oh my goodness, that’s such a bloody story we’re talking about this morning, it’s nothing compared to what we talked about last week, so we’re glad you’re here today. David picked up the sword, finished him off.

It’s a great ending. It’s a great story. And if you love an underdog story, it’s one where we would stand up and cheer if they made a movie out of it.

It’s a great ending, but as important as the ending is, there are some things that we need to focus on that lead up to the ending, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. That’s where I want us to go. So we’re going to look at some of the earlier sections of 1 Samuel chapter 17.

And this particular story starts with the invading Philistine armies rampaging through Israel. Throughout these stories that we’ve been studying about King Saul, the first king of a united Israel, as we’ve been studying about his life, a lot of these stories deal with invasions. and the Philistines in particular were a longtime enemy of the Israelites.

And at this particular time, they were rampaging through the middle of Israel. When this story starts, they’re halfway between their territory and Saul’s capital at Gibeah. So they’ve made it halfway through the country.

It’s like, say, China invaded through California and made it all the way to Iowa. They’re in the middle of the country. And at this point, they stopped and camped on one side of the valley of Elah, on one mountainside.

And Saul’s forces went out and met them preparing to do battle. And they, I don’t think they knew how they were going to do battle, but they had to do something. And so they’ve camped at this opposing side of the valley of Elah.

So you’ve got this big valley, and you’ve got mountains on either side, because that’s what makes a valley. And you’ve got the two armies camped across from each other. And this is a fairly wide valley.

So at some point, they’re going to head down into the valley, and they’re going to do business. And the Philistines decided, though, what they would do is that they would send a champion. It talks about him being about this champion at the beginning of chapter 17.

And that word champion in Hebrew means a middleman, from what I’m told. And he goes down to sort of challenge them to a duel. What’s the point in destroying thousands and thousands of men?

What’s the point in all this bloodshed? Let’s just let each side have a stand in. Somebody who goes down to the middle and does battle on their behalf.

He’s a middle man. And this man’s name was Goliath, and he came out on their side to challenge the Israelites. And it says in the text that his height was about six cubits and a span.

And there’s some debate over what the Bible means by cubits. Because all throughout the Old Testament, it uses the word cubit. But different cultures had different cubits.

You know, the Babylonians had a cubit, the Egyptians had a cubit, and they were different lengths. So depending on which length you’re using, that could be, it could be different. So what we do know is that Goliath was at least eight feet tall.

Some people say higher. Some people who tend to doubt the miracles in the Bible say, oh, he was probably like six feet. You know, he was just tall for the time.

I don’t know. The Bible seems to make a big deal out of his size. I don’t see other tall people being described with their exact height.

So he was probably at least eight feet tall. What we do know is that he was tall enough to be an imposing figure, somebody that would be scary. If you’re going to call somebody out and you want to send your biggest, toughest guy.

Hey, Charla and I watched this clip on YouTube from years ago. Some of you will hate me when I tell you who it is. But a YouTube clip from years ago of Glenn Beck talking about the al-Qaeda spokesman at the time, who was an American-born al-Qaeda member, Gaddan the American, who spoke with a lisp.

Excuse me. Take all your tholgier, then your thaler. And they talked about how al-Qaeda couldn’t find anybody less intimidating than the guy with this high voice and the lisp.

If you’re sending somebody out to try to intimidate the enemy, al-Qaeda got it wrong and the Philistines got it right. You send your biggest, scariest, burliest dude. You don’t send me.

You’d send Greg before you’d send me. You’d send Phil before you’d send me, right? Okay.

You’re taller than I am. That’s why when people come in wanting stuff, I always say, Greg, will you come with me? Because I’ll just give them whatever.

You send your scariest person. So he was tall enough to be intimidating. And it says that he wore a suit of armor.

And you’ll see if you’re looking in the King James that it talks about him wearing a coat of mail. And some skeptics have looked at this and said, oh, that can’t be true because they didn’t have chain mail until the Middle Ages. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but the Hebrew word is describing scales like on a fish.

And we know that there were Persian armies. We know that there were Babylonians who had what they called scale armor made out of little plates of metal over each other like fish scales. And so he had brass armor, bronze armor, and he also had bronze weapons.

And it says that this armor contained 5,000 shekels of bronze. So he was carrying armor on him that was more than 150 pounds. I get exhausted carrying 50 pounds of dog food from the truck into the house.

So what I’m telling you is this is a big guy. If he’s carrying 150 pounds of armor on him without breaking a sweat. And he wore bronze plates on his legs and chest, it says, if you go and read the beginning of the chapter.

He wore bronze plates on his legs and chest, and his spear was around 20 feet long, based on the biblical description. And the head and everything weighed more than 30 pounds. 30 pounds.

So the Bible goes to great lengths to describe him to us, so we can see how scary he was exactly. And what made this even more frightening was that there was an arms race going on between the Israelites and the Philistines, and the Israelites were losing. There was a shortage of weapons and armor in the Israelite camp.

If we go back to 1 Samuel chapter 13, and you can turn there with me if you want to, but back in 1 Samuel 13, which we talked about other things in this chapter two weeks ago, starting in verse 19, it says, Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears. But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen every man his share and his coulter and his axe and his mattock. Yet they had a file for the mattocks and for the coulters and for the forks and for the axes and to sharpen the goads.

And so it came to pass in the day of battle that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan, but with Saul and with Jonathan, his son was there found. So you go back just a little ways and the Philistines were dominating Israel. and one of the things they said was, you know what would be good?

If we take away their weapons and we take away their ability to make weapons. Because if we take away their ability to make weapons, we can just do whatever we want with them. It was brilliant on the Philistines’ part.

So they made sure that there were no weapons and they made sure there were no blacksmiths or silversmiths or bronze smiths, whatever they would be, who could make the weapons. And so by the time the battle came, there were two swords among the whole Israelite army. Two swords belonging to Saul and his son Jonathan.

So when Goliath complains in chapter 17, verse 43, that David comes after him with sticks like a dog, well, David’s just coming after him with the kind of weaponry that anybody in the Israelite army would have had at that point, because the Philistines had made sure they didn’t have swords. And so we need to understand that in chapter 13, this arms race, because that tells us what’s really going on in the story. A lot of times this story, when it’s told, is treated as an underdog story, something that’s really difficult, but because he stepped out there and he tried, he won the victory, and it’s sort of taught to us to cheer us on and say, rah, rah, just go and try, and you never know what the underdog can do.

That’s not what’s going on here. We’re not talking about David winning a battle that is difficult. We’re talking about something going on that is impossible.

They had no weapons, There was no way humanly possible for David to step out and defeat Goliath. There was no way humanly possible for the Israelites to defeat the Philistine army. It just wasn’t going to happen.

So what we’re talking about here is not a difficulty but an impossibility. This is not a story of somebody doing something difficult with God’s help. It’s a story of God himself using people to do what was impossible for them to do on their own.

And we miss that if we miss what happened back in chapter 13. So it’s not humanly possible for them to defeat the Philistines, either the whole armies against each other or one-on-one. But let’s look starting in verse 8 and go through verse 11 here at first. It says, And he stood and cried, this is talking about Goliath, 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 I not a Philistine, and ye servants of Saul? Choose ye 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 Philistines said, I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may fight together.

And when Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Okay, so Goliath challenged them to settle their dispute through one-on-one combat. It was essentially a duel.

You send your guy, we’ll send our guy. Whoever wins, wins the whole thing. And the deal that he made was that if he somehow, big Goliath, suddenly was killed, then we’ll be your slaves.

But if I kill your champion, then you have to be our slaves. And we see at the end of the story, after Goliath is killed, the Philistines don’t honor the deal. They turn and run. I don’t think they ever intended to honor the deal. But he makes this deal, and he mocks them.

If you look at verse 8, where he’s talking about, I’m just a Philistine, and you’re with Saul. He’s mocking them, because he’s saying, you all think you’re so great. You’re God’s chosen people.

You’re Israel, and you have Saul as your king. He’s going right to the center of their way of thinking because you go back even further, and God was their king. They were ruled by earthly judges, but ultimately God was their king, and the people said, we want to be like everybody else.

We want a big man to be our king. And God finally said, let them have it, and he gave them Saul. So Saul was their ideal. Saul was what they wanted.

And he’s going to the heart of who they were and what they understood and what they wanted. And he said, you work for Saul. ooh, Saul, and I’m just a lowly Philistine because they had this attitude.

The Philistines were barbarians. They were subhuman, which they acted like. But the thought was, oh, if you think we’re so weak and so easy to defeat and you’ve got Saul and you’ve got your God, surely you’ll send somebody out.

It’s a mocking that he’s doing in verse 8. And essentially he’s saying, don’t you think you could take me? Come on.

Do you remember that scene in A Christmas Story where they skip and go right to I Triple Dog Dare You? Anybody remember that movie? That’s basically what’s happening here.

He’s triple dog daring them to send somebody out, but nobody’s going to do it. And he makes them this deal. He defies them. There’s a challenge with a twist of taunting in it, and there are no takers.

There are no takers. I’m not sure I would have taken him up on the offer either because it’s impossible, and it looks impossible, but you go back to chapter 13 and see what God’s already did. Here’s Saul’s mistake, because this whole series has been about the mistakes, the failures of King Saul.

King Saul was somebody that was chosen specifically by God to be the king of Israel. He was chosen to be the one who would lead them. He was God’s man in Israel at the time, and he had the potential to be a great servant of God, and yet he squandered it through failure after failure after failure.

And our intent in this series has been to dig through some of those failures and see what was really going on, what did Saul do wrong, how can we avoid doing the same things that Saul did. And through this series, I’m speaking specifically to those in the room who have trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior. Because, see, we should have the desire to serve God.

We should have the desire to glorify God. Not that we’ll ever do it perfectly, but that should be our desire. So if that’s our desire, if that’s what we know we’re here for, then why not do it the best we can?

And why not avoid the pitfalls of somebody else’s example? Like when I try to give my kids the benefit of learning from my mistakes, and they don’t want to listen, you’d be much smarter if you’d learn from the things that I’ve done wrong. But they won’t.

Why don’t we go back and learn from what Saul’s done wrong? But again, just like last week, I want to clarify, especially if you’re sitting in this room and you’re new to church, you’re new to the Bible, you’re new to Christianity, you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior. What I want you to understand is that none of this is a recipe to get God to love you or forgive you.

The idea of, oh, if I can just avoid these mistakes and if I can just serve God well, he’ll love me, he’ll forgive me. That’s not the way it works. Everything we’re talking about is what we do after God has forgiven us, after God has accepted us.

Out of gratefulness and out of a desire to honor him, we want to serve him well. But we cannot serve him well enough for him to overlook the wrong that we’ve done. It’s just impossible.

We can’t be good enough for God. We can’t be good enough to earn God’s acceptance or forgiveness because we’ve all sinned. And our sin separates us from God.

And we think, well, what about all the good I’ve done? All the good that we’ve done is just complying with God’s law. We don’t get extra credit for doing what we’re supposed to do.

And I love this example. I give it all the time. Ralph’s sitting in the back as a judge.

I’ve used this example for years, and it’s nice to have a judge in the room that I can point to. And I were to kill somebody. Say I killed Greg.

I don’t want to do that because he fixes my air conditioner when it’s broken. But say I killed Greg, and I were to stand before Ralph, and he says, what do you have to say for yourself? And I say, look at all the other people in the room I didn’t kill.

I don’t get extra credit for that, do I? I’m not supposed to kill you. I’m supposed to let you live.

That’s not how this works. So when I say, but God, I’ve done all these other good things, it doesn’t erase the wrong that I’ve done. I don’t get extra credit for that.

We cannot be good enough for God’s love and forgiveness and acceptance. That’s why Jesus had to come. And he died on the cross.

He was nailed to that cross, and he shed his blood, taking responsibility for every sin that we’ve ever committed. Every time we’ve ever been disobedient to God in word, in action, in thought, in attitude, he took responsibility for all of that and was punished in our place so that God could forgive us. That’s how we get God’s acceptance and forgiveness, by trusting Christ as our Savior.

After that, then, we should have the desire to serve God. Not so that he’ll love us more or not to keep him from loving us any less, but just because we want to glorify him. Okay, that’s where all this comes in.

I always want to make sure when I’m teaching on something like this, like obedience, serving God well, that nobody misunderstands and thinks it’s a shortcut that if I just do all these things and check off this list that God will somehow love me more. That’s not how it works. But here’s Saul’s mistake.

Here’s Saul’s mistake in verse 11. It says, when Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Here’s Saul’s mistake.

He was afraid. And probably better said the mistake was actually letting his fear make his decisions for him. Because I think we all get afraid at times.

I think that’s true. I know I get afraid sometimes. I know I get afraid of stupid things sometimes.

I look back on it years later and think, why was I scared of that? Snakes, no, no, snakes are a legitimate fear. You should be afraid of snakes.

You live longer. But Saul was afraid and he let his fear make the decisions for him. He was too afraid to do anything.

For over a month, okay, the Bible says that this went on for 40 days. Over a month, Saul, the big man, the man that God had chosen to lead Israel, was too afraid, too paralyzed by fear to do anything. And it says in verse 16, the Philistine drew near morning and evening and presented himself for 40 days.

And Saul, all that time was too afraid to do anything. And it’s hard to fault him for being afraid. Again, I said we all get afraid sometimes.

But here’s what makes this so amazing. He had been in this predicament before. He had been in this predicament before, and God had taken care of him before.

If we go back to that passage in chapter 13, we read about that time when there were only two swords in the entire Israelite army, and they went out to do battle, and God took care of them. This happened not long before this, if you go back two weeks to the story about his improper sacrifice, the battle happened right after that. It was the battle he was using the sacrifice to prepare for.

In the very next breath, the scriptures tell us after that improper sacrifice that they go out with their two swords, the only ones that they had, and they found themselves at war with the Philistines. An entire army with two weapons, and everybody else just had sticks and rocks and whatever they could pick up. The entire army had two weapons, and they found themselves at war with the Philistines.

Oh no, what are we going to do? And in chapter 14, it tells us that it didn’t matter, because God was with them, and so they went out with their sticks and their rocks and whatever else they could find to do battle with the Philistines, and God caused the Philistines, God threw them into confusion where they turned their swords on each other. You don’t really need a sword when your enemy’s hacking each other to bits, right?

And God did that. Chapter 14, verse 20 says, And Saul and all the people that were with him assembled themselves, and they came to the battle, and behold, every man’s sword was against his fellow, and there was a very great discomfiture. I believe that means discomfort.

And when he says every man’s sword was turned against his fellow, he can only be talking about the Philistines because the Israelites didn’t have any swords. And it says in verse 23 of chapter 14, And the Lord saved Israel that day. He had been, Saul had been in this situation before, where they went with no weapons and an overwhelming enemy, and God said, I’m going to send you, and I want you to defend my people Israel, and they just stepped out, and God fought the battle, and God won the battle.

They had been in this exact situation before, and I think the reason this is so irritating to me is because I do the same thing. I worry about something, and then I stop and think, God has taken care of almost this exact situation before, and unfortunately, it’s not going to stop me from worrying the next time. We have fears and we have worries, but we can’t let that make our decisions where we decide I’m not going to do what God told me to because I’m too afraid.

Even though it’s scary, we step out and trust God and do what he said. God had, when he’d been in this situation before, when Saul had, he had seen God do the impossible once before. And so he should have realized God could do it again.

Faith would have said, wait out into those Philistines. Take them down. And fear said, no, I’m just going to stand here.

Fear held him back. So then God took the next step. We’re going to skip down to verse 32.

I’d encourage you, if you’ve never read the story from the Bible, go back and read all of 1 Samuel chapter 17 on your own time this week. So a lot of information in there that we don’t always hear when we’re just learning the story in Sunday school or cartoons or things like that. But we move down to verse 32, and God takes his next step.

Now last week I told you about Saul’s disobedience in the battle with the Amalekites. And God announced that his dealing with Saul was going to shift into a different direction. Because up until then, since God had called him to be the king of Israel and anointed him and put him in that position, God had dealt with Saul as though, you’re my man in Israel.

You’re my king, I put you on the throne. And God was essentially, after Saul’s disobedience in the war with the Amalekites, God said, I’m no longer going to deal with you as though you’re the king of Israel. God began preparing.

God told him his kingdom was going to be given to another. And God began preparing that transition. And so in this story, we see that transition begin to take place.

Because it wasn’t Saul who stepped out to do battle with Goliath in the end. It was David, who we know from the end of the story is going to end up being Saul’s successor as king. He’s the one that God was talking about giving the kingdom to.

When David showed up to deliver supplies to his three older brothers who were in the army, he heard what Goliath was saying, and he was horrified by the way that Goliath was mocking Israel and Israel’s God, more importantly. David was horrified at this, and he’s talking to the soldiers saying, why doesn’t somebody do something about this? And there’s a row where some of the soldiers, his brothers in particular, say, what, you think it’s so easy?

And David’s talking about God and what God can do. And finally, they bring him to Saul. They bring him to Saul.

Oh, this guy thinks he’s got some ideas. And so David goes and speaks to Saul. And when he talks to him, he expresses nothing but faith.

Throughout that whole conversation, nothing but faith in God’s ability to take care of the situation. God’s ability to overcome the threat. David said they shouldn’t be afraid, and he showed no hesitation whatever to fight.

Verse 32 says, And David said to Saul, let no man’s heart fail because of him, thy servant. He’s saying, I will go and fight with this Philistine. And Saul questioned David’s ability to fight.

You’re just a young man. You’ve not been tested in the armor. He was born with a sword in his hand.

Saul says he’s been a man of war from his youth. And you’re just this little guy. You’re the youngest in your family.

You’ve probably been beaten up your whole life. Saul expresses reservations about this. Now let’s look at verse 34.

delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, go and the Lord be with thee. So David’s answer was, it’s not easy being a shepherd.

I’ve fought lions, I’ve fought bears, I’ve dealt with them. And then, so we don’t get the idea that David’s saying, I can do this. He says, the same God who delivered me from those big creatures will deliver me from that nasty Philistine.

See, David expressed nothing but faith in God’s ability to win that battle. Don’t miss that last part. The same God who delivered me from those will deliver me here.

It’s not about David. It’s about David’s faith in God’s ability. This is the clearest contrast between the two men.

Saul was driven by fear and David was driven by faith. And it was a faith on David’s part that came from God’s track record. And it was a fear on Saul’s part that came in spite of God’s track record.

He’d seen the way God had delivered his army, and he should have trusted God to do it this time. They’d both seen God do incredible things in the past, but only one was willing to trust him in the future. So David steps out, and he goes to speak to Goliath, and Goliath mocks him for being a weak, scrawny little man, coming to battle unprepared with his slingshot and his stick.

And David explained that the battle wasn’t between David and Goliath. It was between Goliath and God. And let’s look at verse 45.

It says, Then said David to the Philistine, this is after Goliath has mocked him, David says, Thou comest to me with a sword and a spear, and with a shield, but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand, and I will smite thee, and I will take thine head from thee, and I will give the carcass of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands.

Those last two verses are so important. Those last two verses are so important because they tell us that this was all about faith. This was all about faith in God’s ability.

It was all about believing God. David stepped out to meet this challenge to accomplish two things. And he says them to Goliath.

I’m out here for two reasons. He wanted the pagan nations around them, including the Philistines, to know that Israel’s God was real. He wanted them to see God win a battle that would have been impossible for David. That the only way it could be won was by God’s intervention.

And he wanted the pagan nations around them to know, you can have all your little pantheon of fake deities. The God of Israel is the real deal. If you look at that last verse I read, verse 47, he’s also got something to prove to Israel. He says he wanted the assembly to know that God can do anything.

When that word assembly is used in the Bible, it means usually one of two things, either the church or Israel. And in this case, it meant Israel. The Israelites are failing to believe God.

And he wanted Israel to wake up and remember that God could save them with or without weapons. And we know the rest of the story. He sunk that rock down into the giant’s forehead, fatal blow.

Some skeptics have said, oh, there’s discrepancies here. I read a bunch of them this week and they don’t hold up. There are discrepancies here.

One verse says he slew him with the rock. One verse says he slew him by cutting his head off. Okay, fatal blow.

As he lay dying, you finish him off. I mean, this is the way we use language. Which one killed him?

They both had a part. Not hard to figure out. We know how this ends, though.

And through this series, we’ve been looking at some of King Saul’s failures. How he started out being chosen by God. I told you that.

and how he squandered his potential to serve God. Instead of serving God well and bringing him glory, he ended up being pretty worthless as a servant. He didn’t do much that was good, and he ended up, consequently, on the sidelines of God’s work in Israel.

Imagine the shame of being the king, the one who’s supposed to lead the charge, and instead for over a month, you’re back there cowering, and finally you send out a little boy to fight Goliath, and then he gets all this, I mean, people are just amazed by him, And you’re sitting back as the king on the sidelines thinking, it should have been me. Why didn’t I believe God? He ends up on the sidelines of everything God is doing in Israel when he could have been right in the middle of what God was doing.

And in these events that we’ve looked at today, Saul’s problem was that he was paralyzed by fear because he lacked faith. Fear is the enemy of faith. Faith says God can do this.

And fear says you can’t do it and neither can God. So just don’t do