Don’t Follow the Crowd, Part 2 (Pastor Ron Termale) August 8, 2021
The story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 represents how we as the children of God are to press through the crowd and take down the giants of our generation.
Be the David in the crowd, and fight with faith against whatever giant comes against you as the Church. Do not run in fear from a giant like the other Israelite soldiers did before Goliath (v. 24).
Also, do not exclude yourself by thinking that God cannot use you. God often uses the least likely person, such as the shepherd boy David, to take down the biggest giants.
Giants can come in the form of depression, fear, financial hardship, loss, confusion, and more. You are going to face giants in the world, but Jesus says to take heart because He has overcome the world (John 16:33).
Three keys to overcoming your giants:
1) You must fight against the voices within you – that is, the voices of your flesh.
Your “flesh,” or carnal nature (i.e. the part of you that desires what is contrary to the things of God), will always tell you to run and hide when a giant comes (see the apostle Paul’s warnings about the flesh in Rom 7:24-25 and Gal 5:19-21; see also 1 Cor 9:27). You have to confront your giant, or else it will keep coming back (like Goliath does in 1 Sam 17:16, and the spirit behind “COVID” continues to do).
If you have a giant, you should be at the altar at church every week fighting to overcome it. Do not leave the battlefield until your giant falls.
2) You must resist outside voices of discouragement and condemnation.
When David arrived at the battle line and volunteered to fight Goliath, his older brother Eliab accused him of being conceited and only coming to watch the battle (1 Sam 17:28). David resisted Eliab’s attempt to condemn and discourage him from pressing through the crowd (vv. 29-30). We must also resist the devil’s attempts to do the same to us (Jas 4:7).
3) You must decree God’s Word over your situations and problems.
David declared God’s promise that the God of Israel is the living God, whose enemies cannot stand against Him (1 Sam 17:26b, 45-47). David also remembered how God had given him victory in the past over lions and bears when he was shepherding his flock, which gave him the confidence that he could defeat Goliath (vv. 34-37, 48-51).
After David defeated Goliath and cut off his head, he took it to Jerusalem (1 Sam 17:54). His act was a prophetic declaration that more giants would fall. The giants of sin and death were defeated at Jerusalem when Jesus overcame them on the cross on Golgotha (a hill whose name alludes to the Goliath story).
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