1 Samuel Chapter 17 Verse 41 – 42

•Saul looks to see the response from the people of God and the implication in the wording here is that David is so small and unimpressive in stature that he had to squint to see him, looking all about and barely able to make him out as he drew near. And we are told that when Goliath sees David, he disdained him. The word in the Hebrew means that he was disgusted by David, disgusted that THIS would be his match, and the word means that he counted David as worthless! 

•It truly is a matter of complete disrespect to the champion of the enemy of the people of God. To send out David is to make a mockery of Goliath! He knows it, the army of God knows it, and the army of the enemy knows it! And I love this picture! Lucifer thought he should be the highest. He knew God Almighty, was well acquainted with Him, with Jesus Christ, with the entirety of the Kingdom of Heaven. And in light of all that, he looked in the mirror and said, “I am greater than all of them…” That’s what he thinks of himself…

•So, God expelled him from the kingdom. And to defeat him, God cannot face him in His heavenly form. That would be a mockery to God! So, this is what God did…, God sent a babe, lying in a rented animal manger, to nobody parents, to live a simple life of no earthly grandeur and ultimately die in mortal shame upon a cross made for criminals and be buried in a borrowed tomb! No weapons, no kingly armor, no pomp or circumstance, just a simple Carpenter who didn’t even have a place to lay His head… And this was the first defeat of the would-be king, Lucifer! Totally disrespectful!!

•Lucifer disdained Jesus for the same reason Goliath disdains David! And now, look at all of you so strong in your faith, able to overcome and WIN by the blood of the Lamb and the strength of the testimony of Jesus upon your life AND ultimately you are a part of the Kingdom of God NOW and destined to be within the Kingdom of God forever and ever! And all we are…, dirtbags! According to Psalm 8:5 and Hebrews 2:7 we were made lower than the angels…, and yet here we are, greater than even the would-be king because of the humble Champion that defeated him without any weapon! Satan not only disdains Jesus, he disdains you and me because we wreak of his dishonor!!

1 Samuel Chapter 17 Verses 43 – 44

•I love this! Sticks? Is David carrying sticks? He’s not! He has one, his shepherd’s staff… But he is coming with rocks! Why sticks?! Goliath is prophesying! You know God can use the mouth of a donkey to speak forth His truth if He so desires! Sticks speak of the cross! The enemy of the armies of the Lord (Revelation 19), come with everything they have to throw at the fight, and the entirety of the defeat of all sin, evil and darkness…, ends up being sticks. A wooden cross where the King of kings and the Lord of lords paid the exacting price for all sin when He allowed death to ravage His perfect mind, body and soul! Paying a price far more than any meager man could have ever paid and thus securing a prize far more than any meager man could ever win!

•And Satan desired to kill Jesus. To see His body degraded and decayed by death, to be flesh to the birds of the air…, birds often being a picture of the demonic realm in the Bible…, as Lucifer celebrates in front of his perverse kingdom when Jesus lay lifeless… But Jesus breathed again the breath of life showing in Him is the power to give life as He pleases… Which again MOCKS Satan, why? Because he is the father of all sin and the price of sin, the wages of sin is death…, yet in Jesus we have life that cannot be threatened anymore…, rending Lucifer powerless and a mockery!

•Colossians 2:13-15 says, “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it!!”

•And one other thing I notice here is the incessant mouth of Goliath. SO annoying, so vexatious. Shut up and fight! All this chest inflating and blah blah blah… shut up and get to it! I am just personally not a fan of threats. Either do something or shut up! If Goliath were so much more than David than he’d be far less talk and far more fight… But just like the enemy likes to whisper in your ear and deflate your faith, so too any enemy not worth his advertised value just simply runs his mouth… Or sends fireball emails. Or posts passive aggressively… David’s answer is swift, it is filled with faith, and it is followed immediately by action! Check this out….

1 Samuel Chapter 17 Verses 45 – 48

•First of all, the implication here is that as Goliath is threatening, he is sitting! He isn’t even ready for battle or expecting a battle! This is the enemy! His threats are while he is reclining! Because he knows that greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world! AND, he doesn’t really want to battle, he just wants to get you to defeat yourself! 

•David engages not based on his own strength, but in faith! Notice Goliath, the enemy blasts forth threats while reclining but when the word of the Lord goes forth in faith, as it does here from David, David is PREPARED and ready! This is just one glimpse into the strength of faith against the powers and principalities of darkness and I LOVE THIS! Not even sure I can describe it… The enemy engages unprepared always, and yet when you have prepared in faith and it comes time to engage, you’re super equipped! Love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, longsuffering, faithfulness and self-control… Love never ever fails…, against such there is no law! Nothing can stop the man or the woman that is truly walking in love. Victory is absolutely unequivocally inevitable!!

•David hurries and runs while Goliath arises from his reclination and draws near… I see SUCH a contrast in the messaged strengths of these two sides!

1 Samuel Chapter 17 Verses 49 – 51

•OK, incredibly massive, oh so much here! The narrative itself is great AND the messaging here, the pictures and shadows this scene casts are tremendous! David nails Goliath successfully with the first stone! The first rock is all he needed! Why did he take five? Some say because Goliath had four brothers and David was ready for them too…, I like that but there’s far more…, maybe even inexhaustible contemplation because there’s just so much!

•David is a man. He is not God. He is not acting out of perfect knowledge, strength or faith. He is trudging forward in the power of the Holy Spirit AND he is JUST a man. So, and I love this, he overprepares! He is confident that God is going to show Himself victorious just like He did in giving David the power to overcome the lion and the bear with no weapons at all! AND, he still does everything HE can do in his own strength!

•We often say and teach and preach and guide and counsel, “Make sure to do it in the strength of the Lord and not your own strength.” That’s a foggy fact! Yes, the victory is the Lord’s and yes, the battle is the Lord’s AND we are never ever to lean on a shovel and pray for a hole! Do all that we can do, all that you can do, through discipline AND faith to bring about the glory of God in your life! A servant of God will prepare and proceed as if it’s entirely up to me, knowing that God will show Himself faithful and the victory will be His!

•All must be led by the Lord AND God has given me talents and gifts and FRUIT (such as self-control) that I am always to use as I run this race! So, David needs one…, but he takes five. I love that. He doesn’t need his staff, but he takes it… He doesn’t need to hurry or run…, but he does. David is a man after God’s own heart because his walk with the Lord and his ultimate victory in the Lord is a relationship, a partnership, a working together in communion with the Almighty! BOOM, man I love that!

•God said of the serpent all the way back in Genesis 3 that the seed of the woman, a foretelling of the coming Messiah into the world through the virgin birth, shall bruise the head of the enemy. And here we see the singularly needed one stone, one rock, sinking into the forehead of the enemy! 

•The enemy has all the weapons and even a shield bearer, David is outmatched in the physical and outnumbered, and yet the great and mighty enemy is brought down by a rock and sling… We just read, “David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and struck him and killed him.” Just like the Rock of ages cradled in the simple sling of His mother Mary as she weans Him… The enemy scoffs! And yet he falls!

•And then notice this…, so subtle but so awesome… It actually records here that David killed him twice! Do you see that!? It says in verse 50 that David killed him with a sling and a stone and then it says in verse 51 that David killed him by cutting OFF his head. So, which is it? YES! The answer is YES! Why? Oh, this is soooo good!

•The enemy, the bruising of the head of the serpent was just the first death. Death has died, sin has been overcome and the enemy has been defeated, where? When? At the cross! Where sin and death and the enemy was disarmed, which we read in Hebrews earlier… And yet he still roams about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). And so, there is coming a second death for Satan. One in which his head will not be only bruised but removed… The head in the Bible being a picture of lordship and power… When we read in Revelation 20:10, “The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever!”

•Was Goliath killed by the rock or by the sword? YES! Just like today as the enemy was defeated at the cross by Jesus Christ and yet he still suffers defeat on a daily basis by Christians who trust the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit, and take it up to battle and overcome his strategies! SO GOOD! So thick! Want to see one more!?

•Shakespear once wrote in his play called Julius Caesar, “Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once!” There are three distinct deaths of Satan in the Bible and each one at the hand of a different Person of the Triune Godhead. The devil died a death when he was expelled from heaven and cast to the earth by Whom? God the Father. Then Jesus filled and powered by the Holy Spirit dealt the second death blow at the cross as Lucifer fell at the hand of the Holy Spirit. And finally, at the White Throne judgment, upon the return and forever reign of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, Satan will meet his final death… Three deaths, three Persons of One God! One complete victory! So cool!

1 Samuel Chapter 17 Verses 52 – 54

•Can I just give you something here… As David is a shadow of our Champion Jesus and what Jesus has done has indeed destroyed the champion of our enemy, death, sin, the power of it all…, as Christians I know we are all battling our own demons (or so they say), and everyone is trying to live unto the Lord…, but that’s not all we were saved unto… We are most definitely to follow our Lord daily and go after Him, and trust Him, and walk with Him…, AND we are also saved so we can follow Him into battle…

•Once the armies of the Lord see that David is victorious, they get up and go after the sub-champions and pursue them all the way back to their own gates… I just want to make that point because my how Christianity has become so much about ourselves when there is a war raging on this earth and if you just count souls, our side isn’t advancing like the other side… 

•And, the enemy is a liar. It’s who he is and what he does. Whatever he says, promises, offers…, pray for wisdom. Because you cannot listen to it on the surface…, it’s never as it’s offered when he delivers. The Philistines vowed to be their servants if their champion was defeated. That doesn’t happen. Instead, they retreat and run…

1 Samuel Chapter 17 Verses 55 – 56

•Ok, what’s this all about? Saul obviously knows who David is but that’s not what he’s asking. He’s asking about David’s father. Why? Some would think that Saul would desire to honor the house of David, honor his father, for what David has just done for Saul and for Israel. That’s quite virtuous of you to think that… One sure signal of someone not walking in communion with the Spirit of God is that they rarely honor others. Encouragement, compliment, praise of others, very infrequent…, which is entirely awful and a showing of their personal lesser form of life…

•What is Saul actually doing given the context of his character? He had made an oath about his own daughter, remember? And when your daughter marries, it joins you to the family of her new husband. Saul is wondering what’s in it for him. Is this going to be a profitable thing for him? Is this going to benefit him? What kind of family does this David come from and more importantly, what kind of power and possessions do they have… How does this person, place, situation or thing benefit me is the prevailing thought on the heart of the narcissist, the betrayer, the foolish, the lesser life form… which is the natural state of anyone of us walking in the flesh…

1 Samuel Chapter 17 Verses 57 – 58

•David has two favorite words, have you noticed? These last two introductory chapters of the king filled with the Holy Spirit, his second favorite word has been “God,” or the “Lord.” He constantly talks about his God because God is his king…, and his first favorite word, repeated over and over and over again because it is the chorus and joy of his heart, his heart that is filled with the presence of Jesus Himself, his favorite word, repeated and repeated again, has been, “servant.” It’s the unhidden and undesired by most secret to his outrageous legendary success!