David’s Story

SUN., JULY 13, 1986, 6:15 AM
FARM, STUDY

This is not the Sunday you shall tell a portion of David’s story. This day you shall lead in worship… at least assist in the leading… and I have offered you help with this already. Be sure to reread that Teaching before you go to church this morning. Yes… and you should open the service with the observation/affirmation I gave you. A freebie from the Spirit!

Next week the assignment is David’s story. David obviously was a chosen person, one of My elect. He had personal capabilities, certainly, but so did many other young men of his time. I just knew he was to be a special servant of Mine, in a very public and demanding job. He knew, from quite early in his life that I was calling him. Yet it could have been just to be a called, special keeper of sheep.

It is interestingly ironic in the whole Scripture story to read that David, who should have been just a superior shepherd, was the “example King,” while I, as Jesus, was much more the shepherd than the King. The model for My Kingship was David, and the Hebrew people remembered that well. Yet I would not be that King, who was so desired. And David had to be the King, even as his preparation came only from My direction.

Your portion of the story is the encounter with Goliath. Did I create Goliath also? Of course. He was a special servant of “the other kind.” His role was to make it possible for David to be a hero. Roles like that are not the choice ones in earth life, but they are essential. Just as the sacrificial gift is not possible without one or more to receive, so the hero cannot shine forth without someone to vanquish.

Goliath, as you want to picture him, was not a bad man. He was big, cocky, and boastful. In the conventional modes of fighting in his day he was good… even superior. The story would not have been memorable if he had been just an ordinary warrior.

And yes, there is an analogy between your nation today and Goliath. You are the visible power, with weapons supreme. It can be said that you are not belligerent as Goliath was, but remember that he was goaded on by his fellow Philistines. He was responding to the pressure to be the formidable warrior. Just let the analogy stand that because he was big, powerful, and boastful, he was not necessarily bad… as your country is not.

David, My servant, slew the powerful Goliath. The rock from the sling into the forehead was dramatic… and heroic… and unexpected. But then David had to kill him in a brutal fashion and display his head, anticlimactic and gory. But he had to do it. It was part of the task.

This victory did not mean that the Hebrew people lived happily ever after. It was just a dramatic incident showing My power of election and My power over the natural realities of life. I don’t use these powers often, nor predictably. Yet I still have them.