In this insightful episode of the In Touch Podcast, Charles Stanley delves deep into the story of David and Goliath, not merely as a tale of bravery but as a profound lesson on the strength of faith in overcoming life’s adversities. Listeners are invited to explore how recalling past victories, reaffirming sincere motives, and rejecting the discouraging words of others can contribute to a faith that conquers. Through the narrative of David’s unwavering trust in the Lord, we are reminded that no matter how insurmountable the giants in our lives may seem, faith rooted in God can lead us
Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, January 17th. Many of us know the ancient biblical account of David and Goliath. In today’s podcast, we’ll explore how the timeless principle from this classic can help us stand against the giants we face in the 21st century.
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there is a quality of faith that makes it possible when you and I face those challenges, those overwhelming, uncontrollable things in life, that we can be victorious, we can conquer, we can come out the winner no matter what. So what I would like to do is simply explain or to share with you the characteristics. That is, I want to take the principles of of the kind of faith that conquers, and I want you to see how David illustrates these so perfectly. So, the first one of these qualities or characteristics of the kind of faith that conquers in all kinds of situations is this. The faith that conquers recalls previous victories when facing battles. Now, when David David saw Goliath. He didn’t stand there and just simply size him up. He’s about nine feet tall and looking at his armor and listen to his taunts. The first thing David did was to think back. He recalled, what did I do the last time I faced somebody like this? I killed a lion and a bear. If I can kill a lion and a bear, that is if God wants, So the first characteristic and the quality of the faith it conquers is that is recalling past victories. Secondly… reexamining and reaffirming the proper motives. Now, what motivated David above everything else was this, not money, not marriage, nor freedom. What motivated him was this young shepherd boy who’d been out there in the shepherd field, tending his sheep over these years, had such a relationship to God, such a reverence and awe and respect for Jehovah God, anybody who would disdain the name of Yahweh Anybody who would taunt the armies of the living God and the only God, anyone who would disgrace the name of God had to be dealt with. And if you’ll notice in his conversation with King Saul, you know, the only thing he mentioned, the only thing was on his mind primarily. Let’s get rid of this uncircumcised Philistine who is challenging the sovereign God of Israel. That was the issue. The third thing I want you to notice is this. That is, the faith that conquers is a faith that rejects the discouraging words of others. If David had listened to his brother, he would have gone back home. Then when he got down to seeing Saul, what did Saul say to him? Saul said, now look, he said, you’re no warrior, you’re just a shepherd boy. This man has been a warrior from his youth. David refused to listen to negative language and negative comments. Then I want you to notice number four. That is, the kind of faith that really conquers recognizes the true nature of the battle. Now, David understood what the true nature of the battle was. Now, I won’t read all these verses again, but just a couple of them. If you go back to verse 26. who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should taunt the armies of the living God? Now, the armies of Israel, here’s what they thought. Here’s what they said to David. The men of Israel said, have you seen this man who’s coming up? Surely he’s coming up to defy Israel. No, that wasn’t the issue. The true nature of the battle was, it was the God’s of the Philistines, which weren’t gods, and the God of Israel. And this is why David said what he said in his confession over here. He said in verse 47, that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear, for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands. He said, listen, this battle is between your God and our God, and I’m going to show you that our God is God, and he is going to take care of you today. That’s what the real battle was about. And you see, sometimes if we can get the right understanding of what’s going on here, Now, what happens is most of the time, if two people fully understand what’s really going on, sometimes it may take counsel, sometimes it may not. All of a sudden, the picture gets clear. But as long as either one of them says, it’s your fault, you get your act together, and everything in this household is going to be straight, it’s not going to be settled like that. But you see, David understood the true nature of the Bible. Sometimes parents against their children and vice versa. They think it’s me against my son or my daughter against me. No, that’s not the issue. It is a misunderstanding oftentimes of where the other person is coming from. And Satan reaches down into a child’s mind or to a parent’s frustrations and anxieties and fears and twists things around. And before long, we have children and parents fighting one another. And so they see the battle, my son, my daughter, when the battle is a spiritual battle. And the battle, listen, the ultimate battle is, am I able and am I willing to trust God through this circumstance in my life until God demonstrates his awesome power and gives me the victory? Not because I want victory over somebody, but because I want victory in my life with God, whatever he works out in a person’s life. You see, but if I don’t see what the real nature of the battle is, and see Saul and his army, they thought it was just two armies against each other. The reason God used David is because David saw the issue. And listen, when he saw the issue, you talking about an explosion of faith, this man is blaspheming my God. You see, if you get hung up and you don’t see the true nature of something, David would never have gone to battle. He’d have said, look, hey, you guys fight this battle. Out where I am, it’s quiet and peaceful. And besides that, under the stars at night, I don’t have to worry about the thing. You know, I got to take care of a few sheep. And they do what I tell them. And I can handle the bears and the lions. Listen to me carefully. A lot of folks want to walk out of the battle. You know why they want to walk out of the battle? Because they don’t understand the nature of the battle. If the battle is worth fighting over, and you know what the nature of the battle is, you focus upon God, fix your focus upon Him, trust Him, and you know you will be victorious one way or the other. He understood what the nature of the battle is. Well, let’s move on. Not only that, but the true nature of real conquering faith responds to the challenges of the battle with a positive faith confession. That is… When we have conquering faith, we will respond to it with a positive faith confession. When David came out and he said, verse 45, 46, 47, You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin. I’m coming to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel. Here’s what I’m going to do to you. He says, This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands. I will strike you down, remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army, the Philistines, this day to the birds of the sky, the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there was a God in Israel. Now think about this. How in the world was he going to cut off Goliath’s head and all he had was a sling? My friend, you’re talking about a confession of faith. This is it. Because he was confessing. What he was saying is, Goliath, I’m going to kill you and I’m going to cut off your head with your sword because I don’t even own one. a positive faith confession. And here’s what we oftentimes do and don’t realize sometimes. That is, we listen to the taunts of the enemy. I know whatever the enemy may be or whatever the circumstance may be, whatever that Goliath may be in your life, sometimes we listen to all that. But here’s a principle I want you to remember. You listen to the taunts of of the Goliaths in your life against the background of the promises of God. This is why it’s so important to be in the Word and absorbing the Word of God in your life. So when you hear all this negative chat and all these attacks and all these horrendous things that are going to happen to you, hey, you listen to that against the background of such things like this. And I’m sure David did. I hear you, Goliath. But I also know that I’m hearing something else. While Goliath was shouting out all of his bigotry, here’s what David was hearing. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I’ll fear no evil, not even Goliath’s. For thou art with me, thy rod, thy staff, they comfort me. He wasn’t listening to all that junk, all that stuff, all that chatter. He heard it, but his spirit heard something else. You say, but man, listen, I don’t see any victory in sight. I’m going to share the most wonderful truth in this whole passage. You don’t have to see the victory to start confessing victory. Listen, if you wait till Goliath is lying there headless and bleeding, that doesn’t take any faith. It’s faith when he’s standing on both feet, raving about his power and what he’s going to do to you. And then when you thank God that he’s dead, then that’s real faith. You said, but oh, but I’m telling you how I feel. David didn’t go to battle on his feelings. He went to battle on his faith. Now, listen to this. And there’s so many things. And I know we got to move along here because there’s so many wonderful things in this passage. Let me move to the next one. And that is that the faith that conquers relies upon the power of God. Not upon oneself, but upon the power of God. And it’s interesting, in these three verses, David said the same thing. Every single time he says the same thing. Verse 37, he said, speaking to Saul, Then if you’ll notice, he says again in verse 46, this day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands. And verse 47, he says, he will give you into our hands. That is, David never relied upon his own strength and power. He says, here’s what God’s going to do. Trusting in God, obeying God, relying wholly upon God. That’s exactly what David did. And that does not mean that you and I are to be passive, that we just say, well, God, you just do it just any way you want to. I’m just going, I’m going to stand back here behind the battle line. Just watch you swallow him up. No, God doesn’t always do things that way because sometimes God puts us in the battle because he wants to accomplish something through us and something in us. Now look at this. He said, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And I think by the time David got through telling him what he was going to do to him, old Goliath was so mad and so angry and so insulted. Listen, he was insulted that instead of coming out in warfare armor, here comes a ruddy teenager out there with no protection, he thought. What he didn’t see that was between Goliath and David was God. Here comes Goliath, and here runs David. He puts one stone in, and either old Goliath had his helmet on, or he may have gotten so mad he took it and threw it off. But here’s what happened. David simply slung one single stone and he hit the one spot that he’d been thinking about all along. Hit him right in the forehead. Down he went. And what are you supposed to happen to his armor bearer? He ran so fast you couldn’t even see him running. David walks up, pulls his sword, cuts off his head and takes it to King Saul and says, here’s this uncircumcised Philistine who will no longer taunt the armies of the living God. Now, How did he do it? You say, well, David was a very skilled man. Now, wait a minute. On the other hand, you have a man who’s dressed in 125-pound armor, shield, sword, javelin, and here’s a fellow who isn’t dressed in anything but a shepherd’s garb. Here’s what defeated him, a stick, a stone, and a sling. Plus God equals victory every single time. What did Moses have? One shepherd’s stick. What do you have? You have faith. And you have everything in heaven’s powerhouse behind you to accomplish what God wants you to accomplish. You see, never say this. Little old me says, No, because you see, what really killed Goliath was not a stone, but God. What God did is He took a shepherd boy with His experience, and what He did, He guided that stone right to the target. You see, because he relied upon the power of God, not upon himself, one last principle And here is the most important one of all, and that is, the faith that conquers reckons the victory even before the battle is won. The faith that conquers reckons the victory even before the battle is won. Now, here’s what was going on. When David was walking up and down the battle line with these soldiers, and they were explaining what was going on, they were saying, David, look at him. This guy’s nine feet, six inches tall. Look at all that armor. Look at all those weapons. You know what David was doing? He was picking out where he was going to hit him. He was sizing him up. And here’s what was going on in David’s mind. In David’s mind, as he walked along, having picked up his five stones, and probably in his pouch sort of thumbing through one of them, thinking, this feels just about right. And here’s what David saw. The men saw Goliath on his two feet challenging them. David kept seeing in his mind. Listen, he could hear it. He kept seeing in his mind and feeling. He knew how many times he had done that. He could feel it. He could see in his mind that split second when he let that sling go. He could trace in his mind that stone going all the way to Goliath’s forehead. He could see in his mind it hitting him so hard that With such surprise, he could see Goliath crumbling and falling on his face. And then he could see already pulling out that long sword in the name of Yahweh. You see, the battle was won for David before he ever started running toward Goliath. Now listen carefully. You say now, oh, wait a minute. That sounds like a good story. No, that’s not just a story. That’s the best way to win a victory. And I can tell you personally how many times that I have been at war with Goliaths in my life when I’ve gotten in the prayer room and wrestled it out with God and walk out knowing that no matter what happens, it’s a done deal with God. What am I going back to? What I said in the very beginning. The most important event in your life every day is the time you spend alone with God. That’s where the battles are won. They’re won in your heart, in your mind, in your spirit. We’re not talking about David and Goliath. I’m talking about you and me and life and God and Christ and the Holy Spirit in reality right now. If you’re wise enough to not just put him first in your life, but make him everything. You see, the faith that conquers is the quality of faith that moves from, I know he can, but I’m not sure he will. Yes, he will. So thank God it’s done. And I will wait his time to show me the finished product. Father, thank you for your love for us. I pray the Holy Spirit today will encourage the hearts of many who are facing Goliaths, that they’ll take these principles and apply them to their heart. And dear God, to walk in them, to believe them, not feel them, but believe them. And watch you demonstrate your awesome power and give them your victory. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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Thank you for listening to part two of The Faith That Conquers. If you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
