How to Be a GIANT-KILLER

Would you like to be a giant-killer, like David, albeit in a spiritual sense? Of course you would. Let’s give the account of David and Goliath a fresh read and glean several gems of truth on how to be a giant-killer straight from the Scriptures… (scroll down if you’re already well familiar with the account)

Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah. ² Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. ³ The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.

⁴ A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span [about 9 feet, 9 inches]. ⁵ He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels [about 125 pounds]; ⁶ on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. ⁷ His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels [about 15 pounds]. His shield bearer went ahead of him.

⁸ Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. ⁹ If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” ¹⁰ Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” ¹¹ On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

¹² Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul’s time he was very old. ¹³ Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah. ¹⁴ David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul, ¹⁵ but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.

¹⁶ For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.

¹⁷ Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. ¹⁸ Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them. ¹⁹ They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against the Philistines.”

²⁰ Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. ²¹ Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. ²² David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were. ²³ As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. ²⁴ Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.

²⁵ Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel.”

²⁶ David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

²⁷ They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.”

²⁸ When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”

²⁹ “Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?” ³⁰ He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before. ³¹ What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.

³² David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

³³ Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”

³⁴ But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, ³⁵ I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. ³⁶ Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. ³⁷ 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.”

Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

³⁸ Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. ³⁹ David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.

“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. ⁴⁰ Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

⁴¹ Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. ⁴² He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. ⁴³ He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. ⁴⁴ “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!”

⁴⁵ David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. ⁴⁶ This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. ⁴⁷ All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

⁴⁸ As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. ⁴⁹ Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

⁵⁰ So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

⁵¹ David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword.

When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. ⁵² Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron. ⁵³ When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp.

1 Samuel 17:1-53

This account reveals 9 traits of a giant-killer as follows:

1. Giant-Killers Walk by Faith, NOT by Sight. The Israelite soldiers were “terrified” because they were walking by sight (verse 11). Their senses took in the data that Goliath was 9.5 feet tall, weighed over a thousand pounds with his armor & weapons and was utterly intimidating in manner & word. Their brains took in this information and moved them to flee. David, by contrast, didn’t respond this way because he was walking by faith, which means he was living out of the sixth sense (2 Corinthians 5:7, 2 Corinthians 4:18 & Hebrews 11:1). Thus David boldly faced the intimidating Goliath, even though he wasn’t a soldier and was barely more than a boy at about 17-18 years-old.
2. Giant-Killers Understand Their Covenant With God. ‘Covenant’ means contract. It’s an agreement between two parties with conditions. The LORD works with humanity through covenants. David understood this. After hearing Goliath’s arrogant challenge, he responded, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (verse 26). The reason David referred to Goliath as “uncircumcised” is because circumcision was the sign of the Abrahamic covenant that the Israelites were under (Genesis 17:1-14) (They were simultaneously under the Mosaic covenant — Leviticus 12:3). David was pointing out that Goliath didn’t have a covenant with the Almighty whereas the Israelites did. As such, they need not fear this colossal warrior no matter how intimidating he was.
3. Giant-Killers Know When to Grow-UP. We observe this in David’s reply to King Saul after the monarch argued “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth” (verse 33). David’s literal response began with this statement: “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father” (verse 34 NRSV). Notice that David spoke of being a shepherd boy in the past tense even though he was tending sheep earlier that very day! In other words, David instinctively sensed that this occasion was going to be a turning point in his life and so he no longer saw himself — or spoke of himself — as a lowly shepherd boy; that was something he “used” to do. Sure enough, he graduated from being a shepherd boy to being Israel’s top warrior that very day! The lesson? When the Spirit moves upon you to let something go that links you to your past, particularly something that ties into your identity — how you & others perceive you — DO IT. Everyone grows older, but not everyone grows up. This is true physically and spiritually. There are Christians out there who are 20, 30, 40 years-old in the Lord, but they refuse to grow up spiritually and therefore are still in the child stage of spiritual growth. Giant-killers are not like that.
4. Giant-Killers Celebrate & Boast of God’s Power in Past Victories. David’s response to King Saul reveals how he had the great faith it took to take on Goliath: He said that when he tended his father’s sheep a lion and a bear attacked the lambs on two separate occasions and thus David struck the predators and slew them; he reasoned that, just as the LORD gave him victory over the lion and the bear when he boldly acted, so God would give him victory over Goliath (1 Samuel 17:34-37). We could relate this to us today: If you haven’t been tested with a situation where you needed $100 or $1700 and exercised your faith to receive it (Mark 11:24 & John 16:24), you’re not likely going to have the faith to receive $12,000 when it’s needed, or more. If you haven’t exercised your faith to receive healing for the common cold or back pain, you’re not likely going to have the faith to overcome the ‘Goliath’ of cancer. Those smaller items would be your ‘lion’ or ‘bear’ whereas the bigger challenges would be your ‘Goliath.’ Are you following? So I encourage you to praise God when you face those smaller things because God is allowing them in your life so that you can work your faith muscles, which will naturally prepare you for your ‘Goliath’ down the road.
5. Giant-Killers Are Led by the Spirit NOT by What Everyone Else is Doing. This can be observed in verses 38-40 when King Saul insisted that David wear full armor and use his personal sword in squaring off with the giant. But David wasn’t feeling it and so rejected the armor & sword. He didn’t care “what everyone else was doing” and went with what he had a peace about — using a sling-shot. We need to do the same if we want to conquer our ‘giants.’ Disregard “what everyone else is doing” and be led of the Spirit (Romans 8:14); “let the peace of Christ reign in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15). In other words, don’t do or say anything you don’t have a peace about doing, even if it happens to be the hip thang to do.
6. Giant-Killers Are Bold as a Lion and Willing to Risk Everything. What was at stake in David’s situation taking on Goliath? His life! In short, everything. If you want victory over your giants you must be bold and willing to take huge risks as well (Proverbs 28:1). Life’s a fight, FIGHT IT. And be willing to risk everything when the Spirit leads you. At the same time, don’t be a rash fool (Proverbs 19:2). Get tight with the Lord so you appropriately discern the leading of the Spirit as opposed to the misleading of your flesh (unrighteous anger, impatience, rashness, folly, etc.).
7. Giant-Killers Are eager to Obey With Violent Faith. Christ said that the kingdom of heaven is taken hold of and advanced by those with “forceful” or “violent” faith and diligence (Matthew 11:12). Yes, the “poor in spirit” possess the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3) but genuine meekness obviously includes bold tenacity, particularly when it comes to spiritual warfare, which is the example set for us by Christ himself in the gospels. So rise up in bold faith and don’t shrink back (Hebrews 10:39)! You’ll never outgrow spiritual warfare; you must simply learn to fight. That’s what this article is for – learning to fight, God’s way, so you can effectively slay your giants. The LORD’ll teach you how to fight in your superior covenant (Hebrews 8:6) just as he taught David how to fight in his (Psalm 18:34 & 144:1).
8. Giant-Killers Speak the Word of Faith. The Bible teaches that words have the power of life and death (Proverbs 18:21) and Christ emphasized the power of speaking in faith (Mark 11:23). In the literal rendition of that passage the mighty Messiah stressed speaking three times as opposed to believing, which he noted once. So if you’re having trouble believing something biblical or something the Spirit wants you to get a hold of, start speaking it in faith, even if you’re struggling with believing it. Paul taught on believing & speaking too (2 Corinthians 4:13). Both Goliath and David understood this powerful principle because they both utilized it in their pursuit of victory, as shown in verses 41-47. Since Goliath was the champion of the Philistines for many years, he obviously had much success with this principle of believing & speaking. The difference between the two, however, is that David was in covenant with God while Goliath was not. This tipped the scales in the former shepherd boy’s favor and thus he beat Goliath even though — physically speaking — the chances for victory were minuscule. Do you want victory over the giants that surface in your life and threaten you & your loved ones? Of course you do. Then learn to speak God’s blessings & truths into the situation by faith; and then take action led of the Spirit (Romans 8:14).
9. Giant-Killers Realize That a “Goliath” is a Stepping Stone to a Better Season in Life. David’s encounter with Goliath was a life-threatening occasion, yet because David understood his covenant with his Creator and boldly walked in faith accordingly, this serious challenge ended positively by drastically changing David’s life for the good: One day he was a lil’ unknown shepherd boy and the next he was an acclaimed warrior of Israel (1 Samuel 18:5-7), not to mention he received the formidable reward promised by King Saul — a great financial prize, the king’s daughter in marriage and tax exemption for he & his family (1 Samuel 17:25).

For inspiring exposition on this topic be sure to catch this live sermon that features Scripture citations in the video for your convenience:

Related Topics:

How to Be a Modern DAVID against a Modern GOLIATH

Spiritual Warfare — Do You know What You’re Fighting For?

Spiritual Warfare — The Basics

Armor & Weaponry of God

Spiritual Development — The Four Stages

Spiritual Growth is Like Climbing a Mountain

Spirituality — How to be Spirit-Controlled Rather than Flesh-Ruled