“King Saul, I Simply Have No Need for Your Armor!” 1 Samuel 17:38-39

1 Samuel 17:38-39 GOD’S WORD Translation

³⁸ Saul put his battle tunic on David; he put a bronze helmet on David’s head and dressed him in armor. ³⁹ David fastened Saul’s sword over his clothes and tried to walk, but he had never practiced doing this. “I can’t walk in these things,” David told Saul. “I’ve never had any practice doing this.” So David took all those things off.

The Word of God for the Children of God.

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.

From long years of personal experience growing up in the snow, it’s the type of helpful reminder that many mothers give younger children on a snowy day or older children before an interview: “Make sure you’re properly dressed.”

For King Saul, it was not any great worry over dessert weather conditions, but being properly dressed for war was the difference between victory and demise.

Thus, when David took witness of Saul against the Philistines, volunteered to face Goliath on Israel’s behalf, the first order of business was for him to suit up.

The king rested all his hope in the strength of his armor—his kingly armor fit for him alone in war and so here is a memorable scene, both comic and tragic, of a failed king and a boy who was so weighed down that he could not move.

King Saul was convinced that if he could dig out his old armor and put it on this boy, it apparent strength might just be adequate enough to see David through, despite the nearly impossible odds that were so clearly arrayed against him.

Yet Saul was a big guy (1 Samuel 10:23), and David was only a youth (17:33).

Reading this biblical passage, we can look into it and we come to the almost immediate conclusion that however desperate, it was never going to work.

Besides, if the armor was not sufficient for Saul to go out against Goliath and win, why did he think a shepherd boy in ill-fitting armor would stand a chance?

Saul was a failed king, he had lost his courage waiting for someone else or the Philistine Goliath and their army to disappear that he might be able to claim a false bravado and the wearing or not wearing of armor had zero to do with it.

David tried to wear it, tried to walk, but recognized that far from helping him, this heavy, ill-fitting armor would only hamper his efforts—so he cast it aside.

He knew that he could not be made into someone else, he knew didn’t need to be made into someone else, because he very much knew God would help him.

He knew he didn’t need to rely on anything else, because God was with him.

It’s a sad picture in Israel’s history, really.

King Saul wasn’t even close to a shadow of the strong person he had been.

There he stood, absent God’s Spirit, losing sight of God’s glory, his courage gone—and with it his joy, his peace, his vitality and the security of his mind.

We can imagine his empty hopeless gaze as it follows David heading off toward the brook in the valley and pausing to pick up five stones—the tragic gaze of a depleted king, his shadow growing long, longer in the light of his setting reign.

Let this picture of Saul invite you to consider: Are we relying on the illusion or delusion of great strength of his “oversized armor” as security in our lives?

In these days of mounting uncertainty, in what ways have we rested our hopes on human methods that will never fit, have never worked in a way that will last?

Like David, refusing all other “armors” looking to God who helps us, is with us.

Then we will be able to cast such useless failing “armor” aside and trust in God to lead you -then we can face the day, every day, with joy, peace, and courage.

David decided to overwhelm the overwhelming odds, take on a man who was several times bigger than himself because that man was blaspheming God.

A weakened defeated King Saul tried to give David the royal armor and sword.

But David could not because he wasn’t used to them.

When Goliath saw a boy with a sling coming at him he laughed and said,

““Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” David replied, “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…”

And the battle was over with just one small stone sunk into the skull of a giant.

David didn’t enter the battle armed with the strength of humanity nor win the battle because of fancy wear, the latest battle tech, or even the King’s “sword.”

He won the day through the power and might in the name of the Lord.

That same power a teenager used, that killed a giant can and will help you.

God can give you the strength to overwhelm impossible odds and to overcome.

In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Psalm 23

A Psalm of David.

¹ The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
² He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
³ He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
⁵ Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.

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