To Encourage You

1 Samuel 17:58 “And Saul said to him, ‘Whose son are you, young man?’ And David answered, ‘I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.’”

We all know the story of David and Goliath.  As I read this story from 1 Samuel 17 again today, I was struck with how Goliath is presented. We are told about his great height (over 9 feet tall!), his armor, and his mighty weapons.  We are also told of his taunts and defiant mocking of God.  By all appearances he was absolutely invincible, and the entire Israelite army quaked in fear at the sight of him. But then we have David, a youth, a shepherd boy, but a youth who loved God with all his heart.  He knew the God Who truly is invincible, and he also knew that no enemy of God is a match for Him.  So, on behalf of the entire nation, David bravely confronts this mighty warrior and kills him with a sling and a stone.  Then he takes Goliath’s own sword and cuts off his head with it!  It’s one of the most well-known stories in all the Bible. It’s one of the greatest accounts of the victory of the underdog – and don’t we all love the underdog? 

But at its core, what is this all about?  Is this just an account for the history books?  Is it a fable?  Is it about how we can defeat the “giants” in our life? I’ve heard it presented that way.  As I thought about all this, I was reminded again about what Jesus said about the Scriptures. He told us that “they . . .  bear witness about Me” (John 5:29).  Again, in Luke 24, after His resurrection, we are told how Jesus, in speaking to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”  Do you realize this? Do you know that everywhere we look the Scriptures is the story of Christ? He may be there as a type or a shadow, but He is most certainly there, if we will open our eyes and look. 

So where is He in this story?  Well, in this account we find that David’s own brothers despised him.  They were offended by his very presence on the battlefield. They essentially told him to go back to the “few sheep” he had been watching as a shepherd boy, for the battlefield was no place for him (vs 28).  Saul, likewise, questioned his ability. He tells him “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth” (vs 33). But David was undeterred. He knew the God Who could do anything, and he would not stand to hear the taunts of the enemy of the God he loved.  He would face him, and he would kill him.  He would risk his very life for the sake of the people of God. 

So, do we have any invincible enemies?  Are there any enemies that cause all men to fear?  Well, 1 Corinthians 15:26 tells us that “the last enemy . . . is death.” The Greek word which has been translated “last” here can also be translated “most extreme.”  Perhaps you’ve thought or heard someone say, “What’s the worst thing that can happen to me?”  Of course, the universal answer to this question is “I could die.”  People fear death.  Hebrews 2:14-15 tells us this. And it also tells us that it is Satan that has the power of death.  His very mission is to “steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10).  And like, Goliath, Satan and the death he wields seem to be invincible.  Its sting will eventually touch us all. But we have a Champion – One Who was despised and rejected by men, Who nevertheless, on our behalf, took on Satan and the death he wielded – but He did it in such a strange way.  He submitted Himself to all that Satan could throw at him including death by way of the cross.  But in what seemed to be an act of utter weakness, Jesus took the devil’s own sword and used it to cut off his head.  He defeated death by His own death. It was a weak spot that the enemy of our souls never saw coming. Like David’s stone, it hit him right between the eyes and incapacitated him from touching those who have “died with Christ.”  Wonderfully, we are told, “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:8-11).

Which brings us to the verse above. When King Saul, who, himself, had cowered before Goliath, saw what young David had done, his question was “Who is this? Where did he come from? Whose son is he?!” He asked this question at least twice in 1 Samuel 17, including in the verse above where he asks David himself. And what was David’s response?  “I am the son of Jesse.”  Interestingly, the name Jesse means “extant,” and the word “extant” means, “still in existence.” Could this point to the One who always has and always will “exist,” i.e., the great I AM.  You see, Jesus, this One Who in His weakest moment destroyed our greatest and strongest enemy is the very Son of God.  He’s the only One “who was, and is, and is to come” (Revelation 4:8). He is the eternally existing One.  Death could not hold Him.  Satan could not defeat Him. And if we believe in Him and thereby love this One who died for us and defeated death by His cross,  we can say with the apostle Paul, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). 

So, do you know this mighty warrior, this one Who in weakness defeated the greatest enemy of all our souls?  You can, if you really want to, for the mighty Son of God has told all of us, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). For what rest there is when we come to realize that “who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:35-37).

Praise the Lord!