Samuel 17:4-11, 32-40, 45-49
The First Sunday in Lent
Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke Sunday, March 9, 2025
“The Battle Belongs to the LORD”
Everyone loves a good underdog story. The early rounds of the March Madness college basketball tournament are so exciting for so many people because the unexpected can always happen. A team that truly believes it can win the whole thing can lose to a team that no one believes in except themselves. Announcers and reporters might call it a Cinderella story, or sometimes they take the more biblical approach and call it a David versus Goliath battle. The big, strong team seemed to have everything going for it, but the supposedly smaller and weaker team won the day.
For many people, that is all that David and Goliath means to them. It is a story about an underdog coming out on top. And it is a fun and interesting story to consider, but it doesn’t really say much more than sometimes the underdog wins. Sometimes David beats Goliath.
So anytime an underdog, an apparently weaker individual or idea, comes out on top over a bigger, stronger, more impressive and imposing force, that’s David beating Goliath again. Goliath could be the stronger basketball team, but it’s also been the government against the individual freedom-fighter Davids. It’s been the big pharmaceutical industry with its massive profits and overcharging against the underdog consumers who just want to afford the treatments they need and the health they so desperately want. Goliath has been the gigantic corporations that crowd out the small, local business Davids of consumer retail and restaurants. But if you think the account of David and Goliath is just a good underdog story like all the others, you are going to miss the most important points and the most important lessons.
David and Goliath is a good underdog story. David was a young man. He had been anointed to be the next king of Israel, but he wasn’t even in the army yet. His older brothers were. David, meanwhile, looked after the sheep. He didn’t have wartime experience. He didn’t have armor. He was an underdog against the nine-and-a-half-foot-tall Goliath who towered over his own army, that of the Philistines, and everyone else’s, too. Even King Saul, who looked the part of a king as he stood head and shoulders above almost everyone, was dwarfed by this giant. I highly doubt you have met, or even seen someone quite as imposing as the giant Goliath of Gath. And his armor was just as incredible. This was custom work that you couldn’t even find at the big and tall store. No wonder his army was absolutely behind the idea of champions battling it out on behalf of their respective sides. And no wonder they considered themselves the favorite. Who would beat their giant?
You know the answer. If you didn’t know it before today, you heard enough of 1 Samuel 17 earlier so you know it now. David stepped up. He heard the taunts and found them unacceptable. He saw the giant and didn’t feel the need to run away. He tried on the armor offered to him, but it was like a child playing dress-up in adult clothes. There was no way for him to fight like that. Instead he did what he would have done defending his sheep against the lions and bears. He had his sling. He found a handful of good, smooth stones. He marched out onto the battlefield. Now the taunts were aimed at him, and he answered back. The giant engaged. David ran. He set himself, readied his sling and his stone, and he sent a slingpowered stone bullet right into the forehead of the giant from Gath. And Goliath, along with all of the hopes of the Philistines, came crashing to the ground.
This true account of this battle may be the greatest underdog story ever, but it is so much more than that. There are lessons for us and applications to our lives throughout, but I want to make sure that together today we see the most important lessons of all. I want to make sure that we don’t get caught up in minor points.
Some people appreciate this story because it depicts an unfair fight. It acknowledges what they feel they go through. It’s true that sometimes we face odds that are not in our favor. We deal with situations that just don’t meet our understanding of justice and fairness. We shouldn’t expect things to always be the way we want or assume. Our sinful world is full of mismatches and unfair fights. It’s true, and we see it in our account, but that’s not our main takeaway.
Some people would tell us that this battle account is a lesson in tactics. Goliath was wearing big, bulky armor. He was powerful, but he was slow and prodding. He had strength and size, but he couldn’t adjust. He couldn’t adapt. He couldn’t turn on a dime, as the saying goes. David could. He had tried on the bulky armor and was smart enough to reject it. He ran. He found his place. He established his target. He sent his projectile flying from a safe distance outside of the reach of an arm or a sword or a spear. David was just the sort of opponent to take down the mighty giant.
No. Even David didn’t believe this. The men of Israel’s army were not watching the battle thinking. “I am sure glad we found a fast, young man with a sling to fight this giant. What brilliant strategists we are!” This is not a lesson in tactics for defeating a giant or for dealing with any of the Goliaths of our times.
Nor is this account a lesson in bravery. David displayed bravery far above Saul and his army members. He spoke confidently against the taunts of the giant. He went out against the giant when no one else would. He needed to be brave before he could even use his tactics, but the story is not primarily about bravery or tactics.
David himself tells us what the story is all about when he says, “all those gathered here will know that the LORD does not save with sword and spear, for the battle belongs to the Lord, and he will deliver you into our hand.” The real lesson to be learned in all of this is what God did for his people. God rescued Saul and his army and used David to do so. He preserved his chosen people, the line of his promised Savior, in order to keep his promises. He preserved the king he had anointed to lead his people even as he faced off against a mighty warrior. This means that the main character in the account of David and Goliath is neither David nor Goliath. It is God.
What an amazing account this is to pair with today’s Gospel (Luke 4:1-13). There are some obvious similarities. A one-on-one battle is taking place. Two champions represent two sides, and the result is going to have huge implications. No gentlemanly agreement has led to this battle. No armies have decided that others will fight on their behalf. No, these are the leaders of the two opposing sides, and they are locked in a battle for the fate of humanity. With his temptations, the Devil is trying to prevent the work of Jesus. He is trying to derail God’s plan of salvation. He is offering every temptation. And Jesus holds firm. In spite of Satan’s treachery that has buried countless victims before. In spite of his power and his cunning, and with a humility and lowliness, a weakness that is not fit for the Son of God, Jesus bravely steps up with the weapon of God’s Word and deploys it flawlessly.
That’s not a lesson in tactics. Yes, it is good for us to use God’s Word as we battle temptation, but that will never be enough. The devil even uses God’s Word to bring temptation. It is not a matter of bravery as if we will defeat Satan as long as we are confident of it. This is a lesson that proves once again that the battle belongs to the Lord. Jesus defeats the devil not to show us how to do it, but to do it for us. He employs God’s Word perfectly because that’s what we need from him, not what he needs from us. He continues on in his ministry unscathed by the devil’s attacks because that perfect, holy life is the sacrifice necessary to take away our sins. That’s what defeats the devil for us. Here is our Great High Priest, tempted just as we are but without sin. He proves that the battle belongs to the Lord every time we see the battle play out. The Lord does not save with sword and spear. He saves with a cross.
It was a confidence in the promises of God that gave David the bravery to face the giant. It was faith in forgiveness that allowed him to see his life as more than a physical struggle and primarily as a spiritual one. The main lesson to learn from David’s battle with Goliath is that the battle belongs to the Lord. When we understand that and take it to heart, then we might see how we can be more like David and more like Jesus Christ as we face temptations every day. This life is a battlefield. Our only hope is Jesus. The battle is his, and he has won it for us.
The Israelite army was lined up for battle. The Philistines on the other side sent out their champion, a man who stood taller than anyone either army had ever seen. The odds were insurmountable. The fight was not fair. David was the only one who seemed to understand. Goliath never stood a chance.
4A challenger who represented the Philistines came out from the camp of the Philistines. He was named Goliath of Gath. He was nine feet, six inches tall. 5He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he wore scaled body armor, which was made of more than one hundred pounds of bronze. 6He had bronze greaves on his shins and a bronze spear slung between his shoulders. 7The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spearhead was made of fifteen pounds of iron. His shield bearer went out ahead of him.
8He would stand up and shout to the armies of Israel, “Why have you come out to line up in battle formation? I am a Philistine, and you are servants of Saul, aren’t you? Choose a man to represent you, and let him come down to me. 9If he is able to fight with me and kill me, we will be your servants. But if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our servants, and you will serve us.”
10The Philistine would say, “I defy the ranks of Israel today! Give me a man, and we will fight each other!” 11When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they lost their courage and were terrified.
32David said to Saul, “Do not let anyone lose heart because of this Philistine! Your servant will go and fight him.”
33But Saul said to David, “You cannot go against this Philistine to fight with him, because you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior since he was a youth.”
34David said to Saul, “Your servant has been taking care of his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, 35I went after it and struck it and rescued the lamb out of its mouth. When the lion reared up against me, I grabbed it by its mane, struck it, and killed it. 36Your servant struck both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has defied the ranks of the living God.” 37David added, “The LORD, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Saul said to David, “Go then! May the LORD be with you.” 38So Saul dressed David in his own gear. He placed a bronze helmet on his head and dressed him in scaled body armor. 39David strapped his sword over his gear. David tried to walk around in them, since he had never trained with this kind of equipment before.
David said to Saul, “I cannot go in these, because I have never trained with them.” So David took them off.
40Then David took his staff in his hand and picked five smooth stones out of the stream bed and put them into the pouch of his shepherd’s bag. He took his sling in his hand and approached the Philistine.
45Then David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD of Armies, the God of the ranks of Israel, whom you have defied. 46Today the LORD will hand you over to me. I will strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth. Then all the earth will know that there is a God in Israel, 47and all those gathered here will know that the LORD does not save with sword and spear, for the battle belongs to the Lord, and he will deliver you into our hand.”
48Then, when the Philistine started advancing to attack David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. 49David put his hand into his bag, took a stone from it, shot it from his sling, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown to the ground.