David and Goliath

One of the best childhood stories in the Bible has to do with David and Goliath. Who doesn't know that story? We all have read it as a young kid, always marveled by the bravery of David facing Goliath. You can read the account in the Bible, but believe me, there is so much more to the story that you can imagine. Thanks to us living in the 21st century, and I've had over 150 years of excavations and archaeological digs, they have found so much that has to do with this account of David and Goliath.

There's a lot more going on than we can imagine. It wasn't just facing this giant and slaying him at that time. Thanks to all the research that we have, we can truly make this story come to life. To be able to appreciate so much more the accuracy of God's Word.

I was just fascinated with this subject. I had no idea there was so much, and I'd like to share with you the lessons that we can apply in our own lives, because all of these biblical examples God gave us as models for us to deal with our particular problems in life. To have the faith, to have the courage, to have the patience, to have the perseverance. They were able to make it.

They crossed that finish line. They were faithful to the end. We're going to study about this account of David and Goliath, but again, enrich it. Because as we read it, you're going to learn a lot more. It's going to be something that you can share with others. To me, it's so inspiring because all of that biblical archaeology that they've been digging up just brings more support for this account.

Let's go first of all to 1 Samuel 16. 1 Samuel 16 is the chapter before having the combat between David and Goliath. The first lesson to learn about this is that before David faced Goliath, there was the story of David and Saul.

There's so much in the background. David didn't just come out of nowhere. This little shepherd boy, he defies Goliath, and he sort of comes out of nowhere. That's not the case at all. David was being prepared by God. So when he faced that great challenge, he already had God helping him. He had grown to be quite courageous, and he loved God, and he loved God's laws. In 1 Samuel 16, we see here that there were two men and two different results. One was given a wonderful opportunity and failed. He did not fulfill God's will. He didn't carry out God's orders. If you see the pattern, Saul was always improvising and changing what God had told him, thus shall you do.

And at the end, Saul just wasn't willing to do it God's way. He always had it halfway. Notice in 1 Samuel 16, it says, The Lord said to Samuel, the prophet who had anointed Saul, He said, How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? So, Samuel had a soft spot for Saul. He wanted the best. But Saul just did not have the heart to follow God's orders.

And so finally God said, This is a pattern. It's not going to change. I've got to choose someone else. So he just told Samuel, quit pouting. I've got the solution to this. He says, Fill your horn with oil, that's the bullhorn, and go, I am sending you to Jesse, the Bethlehemite. For I have provided myself a king among his sons. So God scans the earth. He looks at people, and there was this young man, probably 13, 14 years old at that time. But God saw that tremendous spiritual potential.

This young man was brave. He loved God. He was hardworking, dedicated, and humble. And so he tells Samuel to go and see David. And Samuel said, How can I go if Saul hears it? He will kill me. If Saul gets wind that Samuel is going to anoint someone else as king with Saul's jealousy. And again, this is the problem. With Saul, it was me first, God's second. And so he says, Oh, somebody's going to take my throne away from me?

Well, I'm going to get him first. And God admitted that was what Saul would have done. So God provides the solution. He says, Take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. So that's an excuse to go to that village and say, he was a prophet, he was a priest, Samuel had the right to go. But it looked kind of suspicious.

And then in verse 3, Then invite Jesse to the sacrifice and I will show you what you shall do. You shall anoint for me the one I name to you. So God could actually speak to Samuel. In one of the cases here, he says he spoke to Samuel's ear. Samuel heard the voice of God. Nobody else could hear it because it was right there. But that's the way God was communicating his will.

And so Samuel did what the Lord said and went to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming and said, Do you come peaceably? Because they were afraid what's going on here. They probably heard rumors that God had rejected Saul. And here he was coming. Is this something that was going to cause Saul to come? Just like King Herod killed the kids in Bethlehem. Well, here's Bethlehem with another type of Herod. And then he said, Peaceably, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice. Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. So it was when they came that he looked at Eliab and said, Surely the sons anointed as before him. This was the first of the eight sons that Jesse had. And he was the oldest. He looked great. He would have been very charming and attractive. And Samuel just said, Wow, this person really looks like he could be the king.

But God had other ideas. But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. God said, I'm not going to make a mistake twice here. Saul was tall, impressive, but Saul did not obey God. And he said, I know this man's heart and he's not the right person for it. So Jesse called Abinadad. That was the second. Made him pass before Samuel. And he said, Neither has the Lord chosen this one. And so they went down the seven brothers. And every time God says, Nope, it's not him. Well, there wasn't anybody else around. And so Samuel said, Do you have another son? And they said, Oh, yes, we have this young lad, but he's taking care of the sheep. And Samuel said, Bring him to me. Notice. So he went, verse 12, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy with bright eyes and good looking. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is the one. God was doing the choosing, not Samuel.

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So that Holy Spirit came into David. And it says, So Samuel arose and went to Rama. He had completed.

Let's look at verse 7. I left out this part where the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. The inner motivation, not the outer part of a person. That can be very nice and appealing. God looks at the heart. That means the attitude of the person. What makes that person tick? What causes that person to carry out certain things?

And it says, verse 14. But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul's servant said to him, Surely a distressing spirit from God is troubling you. Let our Master now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful, a skillful player on the harp. And it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well. So God took the protection away from Saul. And now, because of Saul's evil nature, it attracted wrong spirits to him. That can happen. Then, verse 18, then one of the servants answered and said, Look, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person, and the Lord is with him. So by this time, David was already showing that God was with him, developing that godly character. He also had a lot of talents. He was a great musician. But it says he was a man of valor. They had heard of this young shepherd boy and the bravery of it, that he could have faced armies, and he would have been faithful. Even at this early stage. By the way, it reminds me of World War II. They had a young teenager that was 17 years old, and he enlisted and he lied about his age so he could be part of the army. He was sent to Europe, and he was the most decorated American soldier. His name is Audie Murphy, and they still have a lot of movies about him. And he was short, but boy, he was a lion when he had to defend his country and fight. So anyways, David had this type of reputation, and he came. He would come and visit Saul when he was called, and that would soothe him. Remember, David composed the majority of the Psalms, and all of those were to be played in musical instruments. So here, David was a skilled musician, composer, and also a great shepherd that protected his flock. So here's this young man. The brothers all looked down on him. They're jealous of him. Just like the older brothers had been jealous of Joseph. This is the same pattern. There's no prophet among a person's own household. They look down on a person that's younger.

And so, let's go to chapter 17. So that's the background. One king was rejected, another one was anointed as a king. So that's the background. Before David and Goliath, you have David and Saul. So he didn't just appear out of nowhere. God was raising this man to be the next king. And David, with his humility, with his obedience and dedication to following God, even in the smallest details, God was giving him more power, more bravery, more strength. And so we get to 1 Samuel 17, verse 1. Few people understand how pivotal this battle was going to be. It says, in verse 1, Now the Philistines gathered their armies together to battle, and were gathered at Soko, which belongs to Judah. They encamped between Soko and Azekah in Ephesus and Demin. These are all geographical areas. And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and they encamped in the valley of Elah, and drew up in battle array against the Philistines. The Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side, with a valley between them, the valley of Elah. Now this is a very crucial place, because it was right divided between the plains of Israel, where the Philistines had conquered and pushed the Israelites north into the hill side. So you had all of these towns, Bethlehem, Gibeah, Nod, and others. They were all scattered among these mountains and hills. And now the Philistines come up, and they're right where the mountains begin, in this valley of Elah. And so Saul and others knew, if they allowed the Philistines to go into the mountain area, they would destroy Israel. And so they had to muster up all the troops they could to prevent the Philistines from going from that valley like an open door into the mountainous area. So that's the background. This was a crucial moment. Israel could have been exterminated by the Philistines. That was their purpose. And so it goes on to say, And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, the pentopolis of the Philistine cities, the five great cities. One was Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. So if you take the average arm length of a man from the elbow to the tip, it's about 16-17 inches, and a span is from one finger to the other of the hand. So you're talking about 9'6". Now you can imagine, if a 9'6 person came in here, they would have to not even make it. They'd have to crouch before they could enter the doors here. The highest or the tallest NBA player was named Manut Bo. And he was from one of the tribes of giants in Africa.

They're related in the Sudan area. They're the tallest people on the earth. He was 7'7", but you can imagine Goliath was like 2 feet higher than that.

And so the average height of an Israelite was like 5'5", so basically 4 feet difference. Goes on to say, he had a bronze helmet on his head to protect his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was 5,000 shekels of bronze, which was a very heavy type of armor that this giant could carry around. He was so strong. And he had a bronze armor on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam. And that was huge! It's like 8 inches. Only the hand of a giant could wrap itself around this. And his iron spearhead weighed 600 shekels, which is like 25 pounds, and a shield-bearer went before him. Then he stood and cried out to the armies of Israel and said to them, Why have you come out to line up for battle? Am I not of Philistine and you the servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. So sometimes when armies got together, instead of fighting and spilling so much blood, they would have a representative. This is called single combat. Historically, all the way from the Iliad by Homer, where he had Paris and Minnillos, they had this single combat to determine the outcome of the battle. This was what Goliath was defying anybody in Israel to come fight him. By this time, Saul had fought battles. He had been quite successful. It was Saul's turn to step up as the king. But what happened?

The Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we might fight together. When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Saul did not have God working in him. God had departed from him. Now there was just panic everywhere. Who wants to fight a nine-foot-six giant? Now David was the son of Ephrathite of Bethlehem, Judah, whose name was Jesse and who had eight sons.

And the man was old, advancing years in the days of Saul. The three oldest sons of Jesse had gone to follow Saul to the battle. So these are the same ones that Samuel saw, which were not going to be chosen as the next king. But Jesse knew the importance of this battle, and he sent three of his sons because if they were defeated by the Philistines, those Philistines would go up that mountain pass and Bethlehem was on the way. They were going to get slaughtered.

So this was their chance to be able to stop the Philistines from invading this mountainous area where the main towns of Israel were at in this area of Judah. He goes on to say, verse 14, David was the youngest and the three oldest followed Saul. But David occasionally went and returned from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem. And the Philistine drew near and presented himself forty days, morning and evening.

So this was very embarrassing. Over a month, nobody stepped up. And so his father tells David, go see how your brothers are doing. He took him some food with them. And David was there in the camp, verse 23, then as he talked with them, there was the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name. Coming up from the armies of the Philistines, and he spoke according to the same words.

So David heard them. And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were dreadfully afraid. Here these were all veteran soldiers. Nobody wanted to fool with Goliath. So the men of Israel said, have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel, and it shall be that the man who kills him, the king, will enrich with great riches, will give him his daughter, and give his father's house exemption from taxes in Israel.

Wow! Things haven't changed that much. Getting a tax exemption like this? How would you like it? No property taxes, nothing to pay the federal government, nothing else, sales taxes, everything. Saul was desperate. He was negotiating. He didn't want to do it. He was the tallest of all in the tribes of Israel.

He was a king. But he did not want to face Goliath. And so David starts looking and saying, where are all the men of valor in Israel? Look at our history. Look at all the men and women in the past who, through faith, fought great battles. Many times, very unequally matched, like the Israelites in Egypt, they were completely overwhelmed, and yet God intervened. David knew the Bible, and he had faith in that God. And so he says, I will go. I will face Goliath. By this time, he probably, a couple years had passed from about 13, maybe he was 17 or 18 at the time. He had become more of a man.

And of course, being a shepherd, and he was a great composer, they say that after you do something for 10,000 hours, you become a master at it. And I can tell you that David had a lot of time to compose. He was about the best musician, but not only that, boy, he could defend his flock. He knew how to use that slingshot.

He knew how to use that club. And he wasn't afraid, and God's Spirit was working in him. There was this outrage of these Philistines, these uncircumcised Philistines that were making a mockery of God and his people.

And so this is what happened. In verse 33, Saul said to David, You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. This is a veteran. This is like getting in the ring with one of these heavyweight boxing champions. And yet, David probably was a teenager in his 1718 or 19 at the maximum.

And then David stops Saul and says, Here are my credentials. Don't underestimate what I can do. Verse 34, But David said to Saul, Your servant used to keep his father's sheep. And when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it and delivered the lamb from its mouth. And when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard. In other words, these lions have this main of the lion. They got this part, which is kind of like a beard. He grabbed the bear to be able to paralyze that lion, and with a club he beat it to death. Now, just think about going to one of these zoos and doing that with a lion.

But that was David. And also he did it with a bear. Verse 36, Your servant has killed both lion and bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God. That's where David's faith comes out. It wasn't just a contest between two men. It was a contest between the true God and the false God of the Philistines.

Moreover, David said, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, he will deliver me from the hand of the Philistine. So it was David's faith. When you're facing something tough that you know you can't do it by yourself, if you have faith that God is there, he will help. He will intervene. Many times, maybe not the way we think, but you see, looking back, that God had a plan. He says that he will protect us and all things will work out for good in the end. So David knew that. And so he convinced Saul.

Verse 38. So Saul clothed David. He said previously, Go and the Lord be with you. So Saul clothed David with his armor. And you know the story that David was much smaller than Saul. And he just couldn't wear that armor. He wasn't used to it. And so he took it off. He said, verse 39, David fastened his sword to his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. And David said to Saul, I cannot walk with these, for I have not tested them.

So David took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand and he chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook and put them in a shepherd's bag. So he shows he had a shepherd's outfit. And a shepherd had the staff, had a rod, and had his sling shot. And after this, he says he put it in a pouch which he had and his sling was in his hand.

And he drew near to the Philistine. Can you imagine? Going before this nine and a half foot giant and all you have is a shepherd's instrument. But one thing that the Count doesn't explain very well was how well trained David was with the sling shot. And I have one of the sling stones that's about the same size that they used in Israel. And this is a heavy stone. This weighs more than a baseball. And with those slings, they would wrap it and wrap it around them and they would loosen that stone.

And that stone they've calculated went 100 miles an hour. So it's like a baseball coming right at your head. And of course, a baseball is a lot softer. This is pure stone. This is a rock that has been from a brook that has been polished and prepared that way. See, it makes it pretty weighty. And so he took about five of those.

Didn't know how many times he'd have to shoot those before he got Goliath. But he had confidence. He knew God was going to be there. He had been anointed by God. He was going to be the next king. The Spirit of God was in him.

So the Philistine came and he began drawing near to David and the man who bore the shield went before him. And when the Philistine looked about and saw David, he disdained him for he was only a youth, ruddy and good-looking. Didn't look like a man of war. Didn't have any scars. Didn't look fierce at all. So the Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? Are you kidding me? Are you going to come this way? It's going to be completely uneven, this competition, this contest.

And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. So he insulted God Almighty. And the Philistine said to David, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. Then David said to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword, with a spear and with a javelin.

But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. So David was saying, I'm just representing God here. He's a bigger God than you ever were. Nine foot six doesn't impress God at all. Verse 46, This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

The true God. Then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hands. This is the same pattern as we see when Moses was leaving and God opened up the Red Sea and he's saying, Behold, God is a God of miracles. And he intervenes when he has to.

So David knew what his role was. He'd been anointed as a future king. He hadn't even told Saul or anyone else. Only his family had seen Samuel anoint him with oil, symbolic of receiving God's Spirit. Verse 48. So it was when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David that David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. He wasn't afraid. He was going to face this giant and he knew who he represented, the right God. Sometimes in our battles in life we forget we're representing the right God, the true God.

And we just need to have that faith. There are three characteristics of David that I'd like to bring out. From his youth, David showed three major attributes. First, he put God first in his life. Although not perfectly. He didn't bat a thousand. He had his mistakes that he did. But he was faithful to the end. He truly loved God's holy and loving laws. Who else could have composed Psalm 119 dedicated to giving to gratefulness and appreciation to God for his holy laws?

Psalm 119 is this great praise to God for his laws. And David meditated. He said in Psalm 119.97, How I love your law. It is ever present. And I meditate on it every day. So this was David's heart. He was doing God's business. He was following God's instructions. And when you know that you're doing things that please God, God is going to strengthen us. He's going to fortify us. Secondly, he deeply repented when he sinned and truly changed his behavior and remained humble and obedient. Okay, so you slip, you make a mistake. Go to God. Confess, repent, change. God always gives us a second chance when he sees that's the attitude.

We want to continue with this relationship with God. And thirdly, he was exceedingly courageous, caring, and faithful to the end. How did David end up? How did he die? Faithful to God. Loving God. Praising God to the very end. And so we see that same attitude when he went before Goliath. And then later on, all the persecutions that Saul had, David, he was going after David, and all the different battles and all the difficulties that David had throughout his life, he was faithful.

He remained humble. He remained repentant. And he wanted to do God's will.

And so we see here what happened. It says, when he faced the Philistine in verse 49, it says, David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and he slung it. So you can imagine, 100 miles an hour, a solid stone coming at this. And the man had a helmet, but the forehead usually is exposed because you have to have the eyesight. And that thing hit him so hard between the eyes that he just completely knocked that giant unconscious.

It says, and struck the Philistine in his forehead so that the stone sank into his forehead. That was the impact. And he fell on his face to the earth. The man didn't even know what hit him. And his nine and a half inches of height just came down as a sack of potatoes. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone and struck the Philistine and killed him. But there was no sword in the hand of David. So he said, well, this man's unconscious. How do I finish him off? I don't even have any type of sword that I'm carrying. So what did he do? Therefore David ran and stood over the Philistine, took his sword and drew it out of its sheath, and killed him and cut off his head with it. And when the Philistine saw that their champion was dead, they fled. This was just like a battle that had been lost. Now the men of Israel and Judah arose and shouted and pursued the Philistines as far as the entrances of the valley and to the gates of Echron, which is another Philistine city. And the wounded of the Philistines fell along the road to Shara'im, even as far as Gath and Echron. Then the children of Israel returned from chasing the Philistines and they plundered their tents. Now they were able to get all the riches that were there. But the most important thing is they pushed the Philistines back from that valley, from that door, to go into the mountainous areas and the passages. Now Israel was saved, all because of the faith of one young man that was able to face a great trial and face it with courage and patience. And David says, verse 53, Then the children of Israel returned, they plundered their tents, verse 54, and David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem. Why do you think he did that? Because nobody was going to believe him! He needed evidence!

But he put his armor in his tent, so he took Saul's armor and this was the way he could prove what had happened. When Saul saw David going out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, as your soul lives, O king, I do not know. David, probably years after he had been with Saul, they didn't recognize him right away.

And then in verse 58, Saul said to him, Whose son are you, young man? So David answered, I am the son of your servant Jesse, the Bethlehemite. He didn't say, Oh, I was there with you, I played music with you. And David just kept everything very humble. He didn't want to stand out. In chapter 18, verse 1, Now when he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day and would not let him go home to his father's house anymore. So apparently before David had been going on occasions, but now he stayed with Saul.

And so, coming to summarize about David, number one, he put God first in his life. Although, again, not perfectly, but truly loved God's holy and loving laws. You can say that David not only kept God's laws in the letter, but he kept them in the Spirit. He had the right attitude. He appreciated what God was doing when God gave those laws. He also deeply repented when he sinned. He changed his behavior and remained humble.

He knew what repentance is to go before God honestly and not hide from God. And thirdly, he was exceedingly courageous, caring, and faithful to the end. So David was the greatest king Israel ever had. This young shepherd, God was able to use him because David yielded to God. That humility of David, he did things God's way, not his own way.

Not like Saul, that always changed God's instructions. If there's something that you know in a business or wherever, if you don't follow instructions properly, your boss is not going to appreciate that. He doesn't want these surprises that, well, I told you to do this, and yeah, but I thought this was better, so I went ahead and did it. It's a good way to get fired. So after David died, this is the legacy that David was left in the Bible.

This is what God said about David. This is in 1 Kings 14, verse 8. It said, Go tell Jeroboam, who eventually after Solomon, the Israelites broke up into two different houses, the house of Israel, the house of Judah, and Reoboam continued as Solomon's son over Judah, but this Jeroboam was in charge of the ten tribes of Israel.

So this probably was 30, 40 years later than David. Go tell Jeroboam, thus says the Lord God of Israel, Because I exalted you from among the people, and made you ruler over my people Israel, and tore the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it to you, And yet you have not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart, to do only what was right in my eyes.

If you notice, the sins of David didn't have to do with disobedience as such as the weakness of the flesh, and he had the problems with Bathsheba and other things like that. And so it just shows the humanity of David, and that he wasn't able to carry out perfectly God's will all the time. In 1 Kings 15.5, just one chapter over, the Bible does mention that one major sin that David committed. It says in 1 Kings 15.5, It says, because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and had not turned aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

So the Bible is not a respecter of persons. Even David has this blotch, this black mark. But yet, he repented, he changed. There were no more Bathshebas in his life, and he paid a very grievous price for what he had done. But in Ezekiel 37 verse 24, when Christ comes back, notice the reward that David is going to have. Ezekiel 37, of all the kings of Israel, David is the one that is exalted the most. Ezekiel 37 verse 24, it says, David, my servant, shall be king over them. This is when Christ returns. And they shall all have one shepherd.

They shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And this is talking about Jerusalem, when Christ comes back. David will be in charge of the house of Israel, of the twelve tribes. So that's not a bad life that he had at the end. A young man who was a shepherd. The shepherds were about the lowliest category that you had in Israel, because they had to deal with sheep.

And many times they had to deal with unclean impurities of handling animals and dead bodies and things like that. But it was David's heart, his attitude, that made the major difference. So it says that David will be resurrected when Christ returns.

He will be put over the twelve tribes of Israel. And all will obey God's laws, the letter and the spirit, as David had learned to do. Very faithful. We're looking forward to seeing him one day. Won't that be an interesting encounter? So, in conclusion, we see how much more of the story of David and Goliath has to do, once you understand the historical background that helps us understand the text that we are reading, and inspire us for men and women to be more like that courageous young man who put God first, who loved God's laws, who repented when he sinned, and he persevered to the end. Those are important lessons. They're ageless lessons for any generation. So let's be more like a David and less like a Saul.