Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Can you conceive of the possibility that God may need someone to defend Him? That He could use a human being for that purpose?
Goliath was an arrogant, blaspheming Philistine giant who not only defied the armies of Israel but also for weeks publicly defied and blasphemed "the God of the whole earth." Israel and its army were not the primary issue; Goliath was challenging God's existence and His authority to choose and to bless a nation through whom must come the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Will God suffer this insult in silence, slinking away as it were, leaving Goliath to win the day?
God cannot strike Goliath with a lightning thunderbolt because He does not want to force a subservient worship based on fear. Goliath may himself be a big bully, but God cannot win the day by being a Bigger Bully. He can roar from heaven with a loud voice and frighten Goliath and the Philistines, but again that is not His way of doing things. Actually, as in the days of Job, God needs a human being to defend Him, because the battle is not "with sword and spear" (1 Sam. 17:45). Someone must speak up to maintain God's honor.
Enter into the arena the stripling, David, clad only in his shepherd's garb and armed only with a slingshot and a few pebbles. David was not principally a partisan contestant for national greatness; he had an understanding of God's character of love and of the sacrifice of Christ for the world. He spoke publicly in defense of the plan of salvation itself. To demonstrate for all time to come how God works in cooperation with man, He blessed David's skillful aim of a pebble from his slingshot, which caught the giant between his eyes, blinded and stunned him. Picture this lad jumping on the giant's prostrate belly, wresting from its scabbard his huge sword to use it on him before the giant recovers. A teenager has learned to appreciate the character of God, to trust Him, willing to face eternal death for His honor.
Can you conceive of 144,000 giant "Goliaths" blaspheming God in these last days? And 144,000 "Davids" challenging and conquering them? Get in training today.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 26, 1999.
Copyright © 2013 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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