40. A Better King: God's Good Plans Revealed (1 Samuel 15-17)

G', day, everyone.

Welcome to Stories of a Faithful God.

I'm Dave Whittingham.

A big shout out to the students and staff at Toongabbie Christian College.

It was a great privilege to come and share the Bible with you during your Faith Week.

I should say to anyone else, if you'd like me to come and speak at a church, a camp, a school, I'd love to.

Just get in contact at the website faithfulgod.net now, on with the show.

If you've ever experienced injustice, you know how valuable justice is.

You know the pain of seeing the person or people who've wronged you walk around with no consequences.

At the same time, you walk around bearing those consequences every single day.

You know the pain of having other people support them and doubt or dismiss you.

And your heart longs for someone to bring justice, to set things right, to judge with fairness.

If you've ever been in danger, real danger, you know the value of safety.

You know the fear that comes from having that safety ripped away from you, the terror of powerlessness.

You.

You know what you would have given in that moment to have someone with the power to save.

A saviour who could do what you couldn't, who had more power than whatever had power over you.

When ancient Israel asked for a human king, they wanted a king with the wisdom to judge with justice and the power to save from their enemies.

They already had that in God, but.

But they wanted someone different.

And so God gave them someone who on the outside, looked the part.

When they saw the enormous man, Saul, a head taller than everyone else, they thought they had what they wanted.

In today's story, we'll see that actually Saul did not live up to their hopes for him.

But God, their faithful God, has better plans, plans to provide a king who understands justice, who knows how to save.

And that king will point us to the greatest judge and the greatest saviour.

So, without further ado, I present to you our next episode of stories of a faithful God.

At the end of our last episode, the kingship of Saul was both firmly established and completely destroyed.

Politically, things looked good.

The Israelites had fully accepted his kingship over them and he'd seen off two enemies.

The Ammonites had been driven away back to the east and the Philistines back to the West.

The Philistines had been sent into panic and routed by God because of Saul's arrogance and foolishness, though, the Israelites hadn't been able to drive home the victory.

The Philistines will be back soon enough.

Unfortunately, through the course of those events, Saul had displayed his true colors in how he thought of God.

Just like the Israelites earlier in the book of 1 Samuel, he had tried to manipulate God to use him like a tool and then discard him when it seemed expedient.

He ignored the word of the Lord.

And the word of the Lord is everything.

How a person listens to and responds to God's word is at the centre of how they relate to God.

Because Saul refused to listen to God, his kingdom would not endure.

In chapter 13, verse 13, Samuel told him, you have been foolish.

You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you.

It was at this time that the Lord would have permanently established your reign over Israel.

But now your reign will not endure.

The Lord has found a man after his own heart and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over his people.

Because you have not done what the Lord commanded since then.

God hasn't appointed a new king yet.

Perhaps he is giving time for Saul to repent.

Perhaps it just isn't the right time yet.

Either way, God again sends his word through Samuel to Saul.

This certainly is another opportunity for Saul to listen to God, to hear and obey the word of the Lord, to turn away from his self rule and live under God's rule.

The command he's given is at the heart of the job of a king of God's kingdom.

It's a command to do justice, to establish fairness, to punish the guilty on behalf of those who've been wronged.

God as the King of kings is the ultimate source of justice.

You see it right at the beginning of the Bible when Cain kills Abel and God says to Cain, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

In other words, this evil act that was done in secret out in the field where no one else would see, was seen by God.

The cry of the innocent that no one else could hear was heard by God.

When Cain thought he'd silenced his brother, God could still hear Abel's voice.

Now this same God, who cares about justice, commands Saul to bring justice.

The command is massive and terrifying.

In 1 Samuel 15:1, Saul tells Samuel, the Lord sent me to anoint you as king over his people Israel.

Now listen to the words of the Lord.

This is what the LORD of armies says.

I witness what the Amalekites did to the Israelites when they opposed them along the way as they were coming out of Egypt.

Now go and attack the Amalekites and completely destroy everything they have.

Do not spare them.

Kill men and women, infants and nursing babies, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.

I don't want to brush over the horror of what God's saying.

This judgment is total for us.

I think it can be confusing.

Let me have a go at explaining what's going on.

The crime God's referring to happened in Exodus 17, and it's explained a bit more in Deuteronomy 25.

As the Israelites had been leaving Egypt, their line of over a million people extended, with the weak and the vulnerable struggling at the back.

The Amalekites had taken advantage of that and attacked, killed and looted.

They hadn't feared God, despite what God had just done to Egypt.

Moses ordered Joshua to form an army and fight back, and God gave them victory.

Because of their evil.

God said the Amalekites would have to face the consequences.

In Deuteronomy 25:17, God said through Moses, remember what the Amalekites did to you on the journey after you left Egypt.

They met you along the way and attacked all your stragglers from behind when you were tired and weary.

They did not fear God.

When the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land, the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance.

Blot out the memory of Amalek under heaven.

Do not forget that call for justice, though, had happened 400 years before Saul.

It's easy for us to cry out and say, surely the Amalekites of Saul's day can't be held responsible for something their ancestors did 400 years before.

And yet, what are those 400 years?

They're a time for the Amalekites to turn away from the sins of their fathers, to reject the evil of their forebears, to turn back to God.

But they haven't.

Instead, they've embraced that evil.

They've attacked Israel again in the Book of Judges.

And as we'll see later, they're still doing the same sorts of things.

And so now God will bring justice through the hand of Saul and the Israelites.

The question that I think stands out for us most, though, is why that means the children have to die.

I've had to wrestle with how to talk about this.

I've actually gone back and re recorded this section to say it in a hopefully better way than I originally did.

I'm really conscious of my own weaknesses in talking about this.

I'm also really conscious of the difficulty of talking about it in a podcast where we aren't face to face.

We can't sit down and chat about it.

Certainly.

Please send in your questions and comments at the website though faithfulgod.net I'd love to interact and get back to you.

I want to say though, I am still really confident in the goodness and faithfulness of God.

This passage doesn't change that in any way.

And so let me share a few thoughts on this really uncomfortable passage.

Firstly, if you do feel any sort of discomfort with this passage, if you have any concern for these children or are worried about this command, you need to know that that's a discomfort that's actually come from this same God that is Basically every culture that hasn't been impacted by the Bible has thought nothing of killing the children of their enemies.

That's just what you do.

Sadly, lots of cultures that have had the Bible have done it as well.

Just think of the Allied carpet bombing of Japan and Germany in World War II.

But if you want to find people who are disturbed or worried about it, those people are generally in societies that have been impacted by the Bible, even if they aren't Christian.

In the Bible, we meet the God who doesn't delight in death and destruction even when it's deserved.

We meet the God who values everyone, especially the weak and vulnerable.

And so if you feel that sort of discomfort, it's actually come from the character of this God.

We have to be careful though, that we don't divide up God except some parts of God and not others.

If our picture of God isn't big enough to grasp how the good just God does this, the problem isn't with Him.

It means there's something we haven't quite understood and we need to keep working at it.

Secondly, I think what's happening here is a punishment on the parents.

That is they're not just losing their lives, they're losing everything that they hold dear.

Their possessions, their animals and their future.

Their children.

They have killed the weak and vulnerable, they've destroyed families and children, and now that is coming back on them.

In the west, we find it hard to not think individually.

We want to think what have the children got to do with the parents?

But God's actually designed families in a really good way, that children receive their life and blessing from the choices of their parents.

They learn to talk from their parents.

They learn their sense of humour, get their food and clothing and shelter, and develop their personality from their parents.

It's easy to see how that's a really good thing for children.

But in a sinful world, we also see the pain of it.

How many hours of counseling is needed to Unpick the effect of bad parenting on people, effects felt for our entire lives.

Those of us who are parents need to take really seriously the impact we have on our children for good and for evil.

I mentioned World War II before.

How many Japanese and German children faced the consequences of the evil actions of their parents?

Because those in charge of the children said, we set this direction for our society and our families.

Well, now, what the Amalekites have done to other families and societies, they're now having done to them like they've killed others, they'll be killed.

Like they've destroyed the possessions of others, their possessions will be destroyed.

Like they've killed the children of others, their children will be killed.

Thirdly, as well as struggling to think communally, we also struggle to think eternally.

That is, the eternal fate of these children is not established by Saul and his soldiers.

It's established by God.

It's written before the beginning of time, and it'll be pronounced in the judgment of Jesus Christ on the last day.

Because God is the perfect judge.

Jesus is the perfect judge.

Whatever he decides will be good and right.

If he's chosen to save them for eternity, which they'll need just like us.

They'll need salvation because all of us are sinful from the womb.

If God saves them, think of what it cost him to do that.

In order to save anybody, God the Father has had to pay the ultimate price, handing over his own son to death.

Jesus suffered on the cross, paying the price for our sin, but the Father suffered as well.

That's what the most famous verse in The Bible, John 3:16, is all about.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.

Would you give up your son or daughter to save your enemies?

Save people who hate you?

Save people who might have killed other people's children, possibly even their own children?

God did not in a bossy way.

Jesus went willingly.

But the cost of the Father is incalculable if you're a father and you love your children even though you're evil.

If even the Amalekites loved their children even as they were killing other people's children, how much more does the perfect Father love his perfect son?

And yet, because he loves perfectly and because he loves justice, the only way to lovingly save evil people was for his perfect son to take the just consequences for our sin on himself.

So let's leave the eternal fate of the Amalekite children in the hands of of this God, the God who's perfect in every way.

Let's not judge him, but rather rest and know that the perfect judge will act perfectly.

One last final point.

This command happens a few times in the Bible.

Not many, but it does happen a few times and always in the Old Testament.

It isn't that God changed between the Old and New Testaments.

Rather, God used His people and his kings in the Old Testament as a shadow pointing forward to the judgment that Jesus will bring.

The Israelites do it imperfectly.

Jesus will do it perfectly because we now have Jesus and we're waiting for his return.

There is absolutely zero justification for Christians to enact the judgment of God.

Zero.

None.

Nada.

We must not do that.

Rather, we wait patiently for Jesus to bring that justice.

We suffer injustice while we wait for him to bring justice.

He's faithful and he will do it.

Those are a few things to think about, and they're not a full story or a full picture.

But we are going to go back to our story now and as I say, send me your thoughts, send me your questions back to our story.

Saul accepts his role as judge of God.

He summons the troops.

We're told in verse four that there are 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men from Judah.

As we saw last time, there's the counting of the soldiers from Judah separately, looking forward to when Israel will break away from Judah, a split that will be caused by the evil of the king.

It's also a reminder that the future king will be from the tribe of Judah, not from the tribe of Benjamin, as Saul is.

There are some people, the Kenites, living with the Amalekites.

God hasn't called for judgment against them and Saul warns them to leave.

This is a really positive move from Saul.

Moses, father in law, was a Kenite.

The Kenites haven't done any wrong to Israel.

They've always been friends.

Warning them is risky from a military strategic point of view, but it seems to suggest that Saul trusts God to give victory.

God wants to judge the Amalekites, so it doesn't matter if they're warned against the coming Israelites.

After the Kenites leave, saul strikes.

Verse 7 says, Then Saul struck down the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is next to Egypt.

Again, that sounds like Saul's taken the word of the Lord seriously.

He's done what God's asked him to do.

But then we read this from verse 8.

He captured King Agag of Amalek alive, but he completely destroyed all the rest of the people with the sword.

Saul and the troops Spared Agag and the best of the sheep, goats, cattle and choice animals, as well as the young rams and the best of everything else.

They were not willing to destroy them.

But they did destroy all the worthless and unwanted things.

What's so wrong with that?

Aren't these just the spoils of war?

The problem is that God didn't send the Israelites to conquer and enrich themselves.

He hasn't established his kingdom to be like all the other kingdoms, attacking each other to steal their stuff.

God provides everything they need.

God sent them for justice, not to enrich themselves.

Greed destroys justice.

It invites people to abandon what's fair.

And that is exactly what Saul's done by leaving the king Agag alive.

We aren't told why he leaves him alive.

Perhaps to gloat over him.

Perhaps because kings don't like sending a message that kings can be killed.

It might give people ideas.

Whatever it is, Saul hasn't acted as the fair and just judge of God.

The innocent people Agag's killed are left without justice.

Saul's acted just like a king from all the other nations.

Greedy, unjust, selfish.

This act of greed and injustice is so dire that it actually causes pain and grief for God.

He's overwhelmed with sadness.

Verse 10 says, Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel.

I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned away from following me and has not carried out my instructions.

This is the pain of the God who deals in perfect justice.

Betrayed by a king who's meant to model that justice.

Samuel spends the whole night angry and crying out to the Lord.

In the morning, he goes to confront Saul.

Saul's had time to erect a monument to himself at Carmel, so different to the last battle, where even though Saul had acted pretty atrociously, he'd still built an altar to the Lord.

He seemed able to recognise that God had given the victory.

Now he's moving further and further away from God, glorifying himself rather than Yahweh.

When Samuel finally comes face to face with him, Saul seems oblivious to his own evil.

He shouts out cheerfully in verse 13, May the Lord bless you.

I have carried out the Lord's instructions.

Even as he says it, the sounds of the plundered animals are all around, the evidence of the army's greed wafting through the air.

Samuel replies, then what is this sound of sheep, goats and cattle that I hear?

Saul's response is a masterclass in self justification.

He knows that God told him to destroy everything.

Now that he hasn't done that, he makes it Sound like it's actually an act of devotion to God.

He says in verse 15, the troops brought them from the Amalekites and spared the best sheep, goats and cattle in order to offer a sacrifice to the Lord your God.

But the rest we destroyed.

Notice how he says it was the troops who spared the animals.

But he's happy to say we destroyed the rest.

Even as he's trying to justify his actions, he's also trying to distance himself from them and throw the troops under the bus.

Samuel's not convinced and neither is God.

Saul's been made the Messiah or Christ of the living God, anointed as the king of God's people, chosen to lead God's people in obeying God's word.

Now Samuel tells him God's word.

He says in verse 17, although you once considered yourself unimportant and haven't you become the leader of the tribes of Israel, the Lord anointed you king over Israel and then sent you on a mission and said, go and completely destroy the sinful Amalekites.

Fight against them until you've annihilated them.

So why didn't you obey the Lord?

Why did you rush on the plunder and do what was evil in the Lord's sight?

Saul's adamant in his reply.

But I did obey the Lord, he says.

And then as he tries to justify himself, he shows the reasons why he obviously hasn't obeyed the Lord.

He says in verse 20, I went on the mission the Lord gave me.

I brought back King Agag of Amalek and I completely destroyed the Amalekites.

The troops took sheep, goats and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was set apart for destruction.

To sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal.

It sounds like he's being godly.

It sounds like he wants to honour God.

But it's just hypocritical self justification.

If God wanted the animals sacrificed to him, he would have asked for that.

Samuel calls him out and announces the consequences for his disobedience.

He says in verse 22, does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord?

Look, to obey is better than sacrifice.

To pay attention is better than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and defiance is like wickedness and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.

Earlier in one Samuel Eli, the high priest, received two prophecies that he and his sons were going to be punished for their evil it gave space in between for them to repent.

The same things happened here to Saul.

He was told previously that the kingdom would be taken away from him and now God sealed it a second time.

Saul responds with what sounds like genuine repentance.

He's much more honest than in his previous two replies.

He says to Samuel, I have sinned.

I have transgressed the Lord's command and your words.

Because I was afraid of the people, I obeyed them.

Now therefore, please forgive my sin and return with me so I can worship the Lord.

Those are great words, but they're only words.

They don't seem to reflect a genuine heart of repentance.

Just like Saul wanted the ark with him when he went into battle, he wants Samuel with him as a sort of good luck charm.

Samuel says in verse 26, I will not return with you because you rejected the word of the Lord.

The Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.

Notice the justice of the statement, the perfect balance.

This is what justice is.

You rejected the word of the Lord.

The Lord has rejected you.

Even though Saul chose greed over justice, God hasn't changed.

He's still just and fair.

Saul panics.

He desperately wants Samuel by his side.

Not only for the good luck aspect, but because of the look of the thing, like a politician getting celebrities and religious leaders to endorse them.

He wants the people to see Samuel by his side.

It'll look really bad if Samuel walks away.

He reaches out to grab Samuel by the robe, but the robe tears.

Samuel says, the Lord has torn the kingship of Israel away from you today and has given it to your neighbour who is better than you.

Furthermore, the Eternal One of Israel does not lie or change his mind, for he is not man who changes his mind.

God is not like Saul.

God can be trusted.

He's faithful.

He sticks to his plans.

He doesn't flip flop around.

Even before, when God expressed regret, it wasn't that he changed his mind or changed his plans.

It was an expression of the sadness God felt at Saul's sin.

Again, Saul begs, I have sinned.

Please honour me now before the elders of my people and before Israel.

Come back with me so I can bow in worship to the Lord, your God.

This time, Samuel does come with him and Saul does bow before the Lord.

But it doesn't change his situation.

Instead, Samuel does what Saul refused to do.

He actually shames Saul and highlights his act of disobedience.

He says, bring me King Agag of Amalek.

When Agag comes, Samuel pronounces judgment.

It's fair and just judgment, a balancing of the scales.

In verse 33, he says to Agag, as your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless among women.

And with that, he hacks him to pieces.

Agag receives exactly what he's happily done to others.

Then Samuel goes to his home in Ramah.

Saul goes to his home in Gibeah.

And until the day of his death, Samuel never sees Saul again.

His physical separation as the prophet of the Lord models the separation of Saul from the Lord.

Chapter 15 ends with these sorrowful words.

Samuel mourned for Saul, and the Lord regretted he had made Saul king over Israel.

Sa the time's come to anoint a new king, the Lord says to Samuel in chapter 16, verse 1.

How long are you going to mourn for Saul since I have rejected him as king over Israel?

Fill your horn with oil and go.

I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem because I have selected for myself a king from his sons.

You may remember from the book of Ruth that Jesse is the grandson of Boaz and Ruth.

Bethlehem is the town that the events of that book took place in.

Samuel's very aware that Saul might not be so keen on this plan.

In fact, he'll probably want to kill Samuel for attempting it.

To give a cover to the event, God says, take a young cow with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Then invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will let you know what you are to do.

You are to anoint for me the one I indicate to you.

So Samuel heads to Bethlehem.

When he gets there, the elders of the town are trembling.

They know Samuel speaks the word of the Lord, and if God's decided they need to be judged, they're in trouble.

He puts their minds at ease, though, tells them about the sacrifice, and invites Jesse and his sons.

When they arrive, Jesse, the first son, Eliab, comes in, and he looks impressive.

So impressive that Samuel says to himself in verse six, certainly the Lord's anointed one is here before him.

Remember, though, not to be fooled by looks, Saul looks impressive.

He's a head taller than everyone else in Israel, and when the people first saw him, despite the fact that he'd been hiding in fear, they were generally really excited.

He looked like he should be king, and yet he's been a disaster.

So God replies, do not look at his appearance or his stature, because I have rejected him.

Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible.

But the Lord sees the heart.

A more direct translation would be something like humans see according to the eyes, but God looks according to the heart.

In other words, Samuel looks at Eliab with his eyes and he thinks he looks right for the job.

God is looking with his heart according to his plans and his purposes, the plans he established from before the beginning of time.

And according to God's heart, Eliab is not the one.

So Jesse calls his next son Abinadab and presents him to Samuel.

But the Lord hasn't chosen him either.

Next comes Shammah, but he's not the one.

Jesse presents seven sons to Samuel.

Seven is the perfect number.

Surely within this perfectly sized group there must be one.

But strangely awkwardly, none of them are right.

Samuel says to Jesse in verse 10, the Lord hasn't chosen any of these.

Are these all the sons you have?

It turns out there is another one, the youngest, the least important, an eighth takon to the perfect seven.

The one who's so unimportant they thought they could leave him behind to look after the sheep.

Samuel says in verse 11, send for him.

We won't sit down to eat until he gets here.

So they all wait, standing around awkwardly, as Jesse sends someone to get this young one, the unimportant one.

When he arrives, they see he's a good looking boy.

We're told he has beautiful eyes and a healthy, handsome appearance.

This is hardly the description of a warrior.

When we met Saul, we were told how big he is.

For this boy, we're just told that he has beautiful eyes.

He's not who we'd expect to be chosen as a saviour warrior king.

But Yahweh says to Samuel in verse 12, Anoint him, for he is the one.

So Samuel takes out his horn of oil and with all his brothers watching, pours it over the boy's head.

Here is the new Christian, David, the new anointed one.

And just like what happened with Saul, the Holy Spirit comes powerfully on him.

And Samuel goes home to Rama, the spirit of the Lord that's come on David has left Saul.

In fact, now he has a different kind of spirit, an evil spirit that the Lord sent to torment him.

Even the demons in their evil intentions still have to operate under God's good plans.

In verse 15, Saul's servants say to him, you see that an evil spirit from God is tormenting you.

Let our Lord command your servants here in your presence to look for someone who knows how to play the lyre.

Whenever the evil spirit from God comes on you, that person can play the lyre and you will feel better.

Saul likes the idea Find me someone who plays well and bring him to me, he says, Just like God found someone to be the new saviour of Israel, now someone is going to be found to be Saul's saviour.

And it turns out it's going to be the same person.

It's impossible to tell how long it's been between David's anointing and this event.

But what's said next suggests possibly a few years.

One of Saul's servants says, I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre.

He is also a valiant man, a warrior, eloquent, handsome, and the Lord is with him.

Saying that the Lord is with him reminds us of how the Lord is no longer with Saul.

Saul sends messengers to Jesse in verse 19, saying, Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.

Interestingly, Saul is the first character in the story to actually say David's name.

Before this, we've only heard it from the narrator.

Perhaps Saul already knows David.

Regardless, Jesse takes a donkey loaded with bread, a wineskin and one young goat and sends them by his son David to Saul.

David's arrival is a massive blessing to Saul.

Verse 23 says, Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would pick up his lyre and play, and Saul would then be relieved, feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.

After we've heard of David being anointed as the saviour king of Israel, the first person we hear about him saving is Saul himself.

God still cares for Saul, but now it's through this new Messiah.

Saul needs the new Christ to access God's blessing.

Naturally, Saul loves David and he asks Jesse to let David remain in his service.

He even makes David his armor bearer.

Later on, Saul's son Jonathan will hand over his armour to David as an acknowledgement that David is the future king.

Saul isn't doing that here.

He's just appointing David to an important role.

Even so, it's another sign of what the future holds.

In a sense, this is an awkward historical moment.

God's chosen a new king, and yet the old king's still around.

Saul needs David.

But if Saul knew that David had been anointed, he'd have him killed.

So what's going to happen on the day when Israel needs saving?

When it's time for the king to step up and do his job?

Will they both do it?

Will Saul take the lead as the current reigning king?

Or will David step in as a replacement?

Once again, the Philistines invade into the area of Judah, Saul and the men of Israel gather and camp at the valley of Elah.

There they form their battle line and face up against the Philistines.

The Israelites are standing on one hill, the Philistines are standing on another.

The valley is in between.

And there they stand facing each other, both ready for battle, weighing up each other's strengths and weaknesses, neither side wanting to make the first move.

Then out from the Philistine lines comes a champion.

One man ready to fight on behalf of the whole army.

His name is Goliath and he's from the Philistine city of Gath.

Back in the Book of Numbers and Joshua, some people called the Anakim are mentioned giants who make the Israelites feel like ants.

Joshua drove them out, but we're told some were left in Gath.

Perhaps Goliath is a descendant of these people because the first thing the Israelites notice about him is his size.

Our translations often put his height at about 9ft 9 inches tall, which would be giant indeed.

I think a better reading puts his height at six and a half feet.

I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to read more about that.

Six and a half feet would be big today, but when you think that the average man's height in this time is around 5ft 1 inch, Goliath really is enormous.

To go with his bulk, he has the best and heaviest armour available.

We're told he has a bronze helmet and bronze scale armour that weighs 125 pounds, or about 56 kilograms.

That means not only is Goliath incredibly well protected, he's also incredibly strong.

His fearsomeness doesn't end there.

He has bronze armour on his shins and he has a bronze javelin slung between his shoulders.

Javelins are for throwing, but he also carries a spear for thrusting.

We're told that his spear shaft is like a weaver's beam, probably meaning that it's quite thick compared to other spears, perhaps as much as 2 1/2 inches.

At the business end of the spear, there's a tip made out of that wonderfully strong metal that the Philistines had tried to keep a monopoly on iron.

This iron tip weighs about 15 pounds or close to 7 kilograms.

With all this weight, it would be pretty difficult to carry a shield as well.

To solve that, a shield bearer walks in front of him.

This man is terrifying.

It's hard enough walking forward into hand to hand battle, but if you're confronted by this guy, you'll probably have to change your underwear.

Goliath walks forward and Shouts a challenge towards the Israelites in verse 8 he yells, why do you come out to line up in battle formation?

Am I not a Philistine and are you not servants of Saul?

Choose one of your men and have him come down against me.

If he wins in a fight against me and kills me, we'll be your servants.

But if I win against him and kill him, then you'll be our servants and serve us.

I defy the ranks of Israel today.

Send me a man so we can fight each other.

It seems like a much kinder approach to war.

Instead of whole armies attacking and killing each other, it can be sorted out by just two people and only one death.

Of course, an army would only risk offering up a champion like this if they aren't too sure that they'll win a battle.

If both sides are fairly evenly matched, you want to look for something to give you an edge, and Goliath is a pretty sharp edge.

I suspect.

No one among the Philistines thinks he'll lose.

Of course, the Israelites have a giant of their own, someone who's a head taller than everyone else around him.

A man in fact, who's been chosen to be the saviour of Israel, King Saul.

Unfortunately, we're told in verse 11, when Saul and all Israel heard these words from the Philistine, they lost their courage and were terrified.

Meanwhile, away from the valley of Elah, David is tending his father Jesse's flock.

Remember, Jesse has eight sons and the three oldest sons have followed Saul into war.

Their names are Eliab, Abinadab and Shammah.

We know from Samuel's reaction in the previous chapter that Eliab also is an imposing warrior like figure.

And yet he and his two brothers are among the terrified group of soldiers.

David, the youngest, goes back and forth from Saul, running errands and coming back to look after his father's flock.

At the battle line in the valley of Elah, every morning and every evening the enormous Philistine steps forward and shouts his challenge.

It happens for 40 days and for 40 days no one accepts his challenge.

Saul and the Israelites are terrified.

In Bethlehem, Jesse calls David and sends him on a supply run to his brothers.

He says in verse 17, take this half bushel of roasted grain along with these 10 loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp.

Also, take these 10 portions of cheese to the field commander.

Check on the well being of your brothers and bring a confirmation from them.

They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the valley of Elah and fighting with the Philistines, there's a touch of irony there, because even though the brothers are with Saul and the army, there's certainly no fighting going on.

The next morning, David gets up, leaves the flock in someone else's care, loads up and heads off to the valley of Elah.

He arrives in time to see a sight that would warm the hearts of boys and young men everywhere.

The whole army is marching out of their camp to form the battle line.

As they go, they're shouting their battle cry.

They form up on their hill.

The Philistines form up on their hill.

David is not going to wait around.

Back at the camp, he leaves the supplies with the quartermaster and he runs to the battle line.

There's an almost comical scene where he runs up to his brothers and asks them how they are.

Just imagine a battle line of warriors steeling themselves for the fight and this youth in his shepherd's clothes darting in for a chat.

As they're talking, they're interrupted by the same event that's been happening every morning and every evening for the last 40 days.

Goliath steps forward from the Philistine line and shouts his usual words.

And once again, the Israelites all retreat in terror.

Saul's obviously not super excited about this whole situation.

He's tried to find a solution not by challenging Goliath himself, but by offering a reward to anyone else.

The announcement has gone out in verse 25.

Do you see this man who keeps coming out?

He comes to defy Israel.

The king will make the man who kills him very rich and will give him his daughter.

The king will also make the family of that man's father exempt from paying taxes in Israel.

Notice that the reward is actually contingent on the soldier winning the battle.

So far, it seems no one's really liked those odds.

David hears Goliath's challenge and is filled with anger.

He sees the shame that's coming on Israel by not meeting the challenge.

He also sees something that no one else seems to be talking about.

He recognizes that Israel's army isn't just one among many armies.

It's the army of Yahweh, the one true God, the living God, who isn't like the statues that other people worship.

He speaks, he's powerful, he's truly glorious, and Goliath is treating him like he's nothing.

David says to the men around him in verse 26, what will be done for the man who kills that Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel?

Just who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God.

The disgrace of Israel isn't merely that they don't have the courage to fight Goliath.

It's that they don't trust their God to give them victory.

Remember Jonathan?

He'd attacked the Philistine army with just himself and his armor bearer.

He'd done it because he trusted that God was looking after them.

And just like had happened so many times before, God, the living God, had given the victory.

The troops tell David what the kings offered to Goliath's killer, and his older brother overhears the conversation in the manner of so many older brothers.

He becomes angry with his little brother.

In verse 28, he says to David, why did you come down here?

Who did you leave those few sheep with in the wilderness?

I know your arrogance and your evil heart.

You came down to see the battle.

As well as being the sort of interaction that can be seen in almost any family, it's worth noting that Eliab has read David incorrectly.

He isn't being arrogant or evil.

He came as a faithful servant of his father.

And now his questions are driven by a concern for God's honour.

David's reply to Eliab's typical older brother question is to give a typical younger brother reply, what have I done now?

It was just a question.

Then he turns and asks some more people the same question, receiving the same reply.

Perhaps he just wants to confirm the answer, but perhaps it's also a gentle rebuke to the soldiers.

You're in the army of the living God.

Why are you terrified and retreating?

His questioning causes enough of a stir that word of it reaches Saul.

Saul has David sent to him.

By now, David's reached a decision.

He boldly says to the king, don't let anyone be discouraged by him.

Your servant will go and fight this Philistine.

Saul's like, umm, yeah, no, we've done the risk assessment and it just doesn't meet the safety threshold.

He says in verse 33, you can't go fight this Philistine.

You're just a youth.

And he's been a warrior since he was young.

On the surface, that sounds entirely reasonable.

Every child protection agency worth its salt would back him up.

But actually, it betrays the problem with Saul's thinking.

He's thinking in purely human terms.

He's comparing the military abilities of two humans and calculating the odds of success.

It's why in the last episode, he and his 600 men had been so afraid to attack the Philistines.

It's Why there's no one in the army now, including Saul, willing to challenge Goliath in response.

It sounds at first like David's thinking the same way.

It sounds like he's laying out his fighting credentials, his resume.

He says in verse 34, you, servant has been tending his father's sheep.

Whenever a lion or a bear came and carried off a lamb from the flock, I went after it, struck it down and rescued the lamb from its mouth.

If it reared up against me, I would grab it by its fur, strike it down and kill it.

Now, in my working life, the most my hands have generally done is, is type on a keyboard or turn pages of books.

And so I'd have to say I'd be pretty terrified to take on David, this young man who rescues lambs from the mouths of bears.

He sounds like a really tough young guy.

But what David says next suggests that that's not actually what he's trying to say.

He says in verse 36, you, servant has killed lions and bears.

This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.

The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.

David isn't saying, I'm an awesome fighter, don't worry.

He's saying, when I've fought animals before, I survive because God saved me.

How much more is he going to save me from this Philistine?

The man who's defied his armies?

He isn't confident because he trusts in his own strength.

He's confident because he trusts in Yahweh, his God.

He's showing the true courage of a king of Israel, courage that springs from faith in a faithful God, exactly the sort of courage and faith Saul doesn't have.

Saul replies, go, and may the Lord be with you.

It's a reply weighted with significance, because the Lord is with David and has left Saul.

Saul decides he wants to help this young guy, and so he gives him his own armor.

It turns out that just like Goliath, he has a bronze helmet, he has his own armour.

It's just one more piece of information that asks, why did this giant of a man with his own bronze armour, who's the king of the armies of the living God, not go out and face the Philistine?

Instead, he's willing to send out this young guy who's never been in a battle before.

He gives the armour and his sword to David, who puts them on and then tries to walk around for him, though it feels all wrong.

He says in verse 39, I can't walk in these.

I'm not used to them.

Then we're told.

So David took them off.

Instead, he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the wadi and put them in the pouch in his shepherd's bag.

Then with his sling in his hand, he approached the Philistine.

We stood in the Israelite battle line before and watched Goliath emerge.

Now imagine Goliath watching the Israelite champion step forward.

Not a giant, not a warrior, no armor.

He's wearing the simple clothes of a shepherd.

He doesn't have a shield or spear or sword, just a sling and a stick.

Goliath standing there with all his armour, all his weapons, his shield bearers standing there in front of him.

And Goliath feels angry, really angry.

He despises David.

This young handsome lad.

It's a mockery.

It's like someone's pulled out their old beat up 1970s family wagon to race his Formula One car.

He says to David in verse 43, Am I a dog that you come against me with sticks?

And then unwittingly, he reminds us what this battle is really about.

He curses David by his gods.

If only he knew or remembered this giant from Gath.

Years before, when the Philistines captured the Ark of God and took it to Ashdod, when they placed it in the temple of Dagon, Dagon was forced to bow to God's throne.

And after lots of people died in Ashdod, where did they send it?

They sent it to Gath, his home city.

And as soon as it arrived, people started becoming sick and dying.

What can his gods possibly do against the living God?

And yet he calls out to David in verse 44, come here and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts.

David, alone, amongst all the soldiers, all the warriors standing there that day, understands what's happening.

This isn't a fight between a warrior and a youth.

It's a fight between a creature and the servant of his creator.

Between a man who serves dead gods and a boy who serves the living God.

Between a man who trusts in his armour and weapons and skill, and a youth who trusts in Yahweh, the Lord, defeater of Egypt, king of Israel.

David says to Goliath in verse 45, you come against me with a sword, spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of armies, the God of the ranks of Israel.

You have defied him.

Today the Lord will hand you over to me.

Today I'll strike you down, remove your head and give the corpses of the Philistine camp to the birds of the sky and the wild creatures of the earth.

Then all the world will know that Israel has a God.

And.

And this whole assembly will know that it's not by sword or by spear that the Lord saves, for the battle is the Lord's.

He will hand you over to us.

The Philistine walks forward into the valley of Elah and David runs to meet him.

As he runs, he puts his hand into his bag, takes out a stone, slings it and hits the Philistine on his forehead.

The stone sinks deep into his forehead and he falls face down all the way to the ground.

Verse 50 emphasises just how crazy and amazing this is.

It says David defeated the Philistine with a sling and a stone.

David overpowered the Philistine and killed him with without having a sword.

It's like, did you see that?

Have you heard the news?

Do you understand just how crazy this is?

Goliath the giant, with his heavy, enormous armour, the warrior trained from childhood.

David's come at him with no armour, no sword, just a sling, and knocked him down with one throw.

This is a miracle, just like David said would happen.

The Lord has saved him from the hand of the Philistine.

David runs over to him and grabs the Philistine's own sword from out of its sheath and uses that to kill him.

Then, just like he said he would do, he cuts off Goliath's head.

The rest of the Philistines, watching from their battle line, panic.

This is not what they expected at all.

They had never considered that they may become slaves of the Israelites.

Rather than accept the result of the duel, they run.

And finally, finally the Israelites find their courage.

They raise the battle cry and charge, chasing the Philistines.

In fact, they chase them all the way to the gates of their cities near the coast, Ekron and Gath.

Philistine bodies are strewn the whole way along the road.

This is their consequence for defying the armies of the Lord.

Once the Israelites have finished the chase, they return and plunder the Philistine camps.

For David, he holds onto two pieces of plunder.

One of them is Goliath's head.

We're told a strange detail in verse 54 that David brought Goliath's head to Jerusalem.

It's strange because the Israelites don't even control Jerusalem at the moment.

They had conquered it in the time of the Judges, but then they left it in the hands of the Jebusites.

David will finally drive out the Jebusites in 2 Samuel 5, after he's been accepted as king by all Israel.

He's the one who first makes it Israel's capital city.

And so the fact that we're told here that David will take Goliath's head to Jerusalem is a pointer to the future.

At the moment, David is a simple servant of Saul, but just like God promised, he will be established firmly as king.

The other piece of plunder David takes is Goliath's weapons.

In the previous chapter, we heard how David became Saul's armor bearer.

It was a hint towards his future authority.

Now we see him with the armour of the enemy of Israel.

He has become the victor over the enemy of Israel, the saviour of Israel.

And soon, in chapter 18, Jonathan will willingly hand over his armor to David to acknowledge that David is the true heir to the kingdom.

From everything we've seen so far, David is a much better candidate for the kingship than Saul.

He isn't bigger, he isn't a better fighter.

He simply trusts God.

If you're going to have a judge of Israel, you want them to listen to the God of justice.

If you're going to have a saviour of Israel, you want that saviour to trust the ultimate saviour, Yahweh, the Lord.

When people saw Saul with their eyes, they were impressed and they thought he was right for the job.

But when God looked with his heart according to his plan, he knew that Saul was not going to last the distance.

It seems like he gave the Israelites Saul simply so they could see the problem in picking a king on that basis.

God's long term plans, though, were centred not around Saul, but around a son of Jesse.

He didn't make those plans up on the fly.

He didn't come up with plan B once Saul had failed.

Way back in Genesis, when there weren't really 12 tribes of Israel, there were just 12 sons of Israel whose descendants would become the tribes.

Then Israel or Jacob gathered his sons.

He spoke about their future and the future of their tribes.

For Judah, he prophesied that kingship would come from him.

He said in Genesis 39:8 Judah, your brothers will praise you.

Your hands will be on the necks of your enemies.

Your father's sons will bow down to you.

And then in verse 10, the sceptre will not depart from Judah or the staff from between his feet until he who's right it is comes and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him.

Saul is from the tribe of Benjamin.

David, of course, is from the tribe of Judah.

His existence though, is a miracle, a strange anomaly that no one would have expected.

If you remember the Book of Ruth or listened to our series on Ruth earlier in the year, you will remember that Jesse's grandmother was never meant to be in Israel.

And yet God had brought her there, shaped the events that led her to Boaz, gave them the child Obed, who became the father of Jesse, who in turn fathered David.

God's been shaping and guiding history to bring things to this moment.

It's not that David's going to be the perfect king, though.

He starts off from a much better point than Saul, certainly, but that's a pretty low bar.

Much later on he's going to become an adulterer and a murderer.

He's going to display a Saul like arrogance that'll bring the judgment of God.

But the point about David isn't that he's perfect.

It's that God has perfect plans to work through him.

He has plans to send a better judge, a better saviour, a better king, all through the family line of Jesse.

As judge, he'll judge with true justice, not according to greed or arrogance or selfishness.

As Savior, he'll destroy much bigger enemies than Goliath.

As king, he'll establish true, lasting, eternal peace.

In Isaiah, chapter 11, God speaks about this coming descendant of Jesse.

He says, then a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him.

A spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.

His delight will be in the fear of the Lord.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes.

He will not execute justice by what he hears with his ears, but he will judge the poor righteously and execute justice for the oppressed of the land.

He will strike the land with a scepter from his mouth, and he will kill the wicked with a command from his lips.

Righteousness will be a belt around his hips, faithfulness will be a belt around his waist.

And then the passage goes on to describe the perfect peace this king will bring.

It says, the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat.

The calf, the young lion and the fattened calf will be together and a child will lead them.

The cow and the bear will graze.

Their young ones will lie down together.

And the lion will eat straw like cattle.

An infant will play beside the cobra's pit and a toddler will put his hand into a snake's den.

They will not harm or destroy each other on my entire holy mountain.

For the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water.

On that day, the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples.

The nations will look to him for guidance, and his resting place will be glorious.

That coming king, that son of Jesse, the descendant of David, was born in Bethlehem.

Jesus the Christ.

He was a better king than Saul.

He was a better king than David.

He trusted God, his father in everything.

When Satan tempted him to take the world without going to the cross, Jesus responded by quoting the word of God.

How different to Saul, who couldn't even stand up to his own soldiers.

In order to obey the word of the Lord, Jesus faced the biggest enemies of all, sin and death.

He knew that God's plan for him, unlike David, was to face the enemy and die.

Like David, though he knew that God would save him even from this enemy.

He trusted that God would rescue him not just from a mighty enemy soldier, but from the grave itself.

And God the Father did save him, and through him offered salvation to all the world.

Through him, he's defeated every enemy.

Through him, he's bringing peace at the moment, in small, miraculous way, in relationships, in churches all over the globe.

One day he'll bring peace to the whole planet, when every enemy will be subdued, when every eye will see, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, the eternal king, the King that the kings of ancient Israel could only look forward to.

On that day, true justice will reign.

No evil deed will remain hidden.

No money will buy an unjust verdict.

The weak and the poor will not be denied justice just because they don't have political influence.

But also on that day, all who've come to him for salvation will be saved.

Not because we're innocent, not because he'll be unjust, but because he himself took our sin, our guilt, our judgment on himself at the cross.

Because justice has been done and been seen to be done.

Because our great enemies of sin and death have been slain.

Because the great king of all the universe is established on his throne.

He'll give us eternal peace, eternal joy, eternal freedom from the enemies of God, safe inside the eternal city of God, living for eternity with God.

In a tiny way, the Israelites celebrated the victory given to them by their champion, King David.

How much more will we celebrate the victory won by our champion for all eternity Back in Israel, Saul's new love for David is going to very quickly turn into deep resentment and hatred.

He'll plan to destroy God's anointed king and establish his own family line.

David will suffer.

And from his suffering he'll point even more richly to Jesus, the great suffering servant.

But that's a story for another series.

That was the last in this series on 1 Samuel.

God willing, we'll come back to it in the future.

Our next episode though will be on something different.

If you have any questions, comments if you just want to say hi or invite me to speak at your event, get in touch@faithfulgod.net I'd love to hear from you.

If you haven't looked at the website for a while, check it out.

It has a brand new look.

I also now have three podcasts there for you to check out.

For now though, keep trusting Jesus and we'll talk again soon.