Seeing the Unseen: David and Goliath

 

In 2018, I went through a terrifying time in which the enemy came against me with such fear that I shook for an entire week. God was faithful to see me through, and at the end of the week he set a table for me in the very presence of my enemies. He said, “The enemy is going to come against the body of Christ seven ways to Sunday (my human interpretation). But will you fear? No! Do Navy Seals get afraid when they hear the enemy is coming? No, they don’t because they have trained, and they know that they belong to a strong army and represent the United States. Do not be afraid." What struck me the most was when He said, “You will have to choose between believing and cleaving to my word-or what you will see in the natural. It’s My word, or the circumstances …which will look very bad (i.e. terrifying, threatening, intimidating etc.)”

Since that time, I have been “girding up the loins of my mind” as much as possible against all of the natural things that tempt us to doubt God, and to feel fear.

This morning I picked up my scripture cards and I read this:

“…and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God. David said, moreover, the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.”

I am feeling impressed that we have to really be heaven dwellers right now, and by that I mean living in the unseen, eternal realm where Jesus abided.  Isaiah said, “No one is blind like my Servant.” We live blind to earthly sight and vision (thinking), and “see” that which is invisible because we are listening and hearing. Jesus said his thinking was always accurate because he didn’t think-he listened to God! But he faulted the “religious” for incorrect judgments, which means “thoughts” in the Greek language. Reasoning. He was saying that the difficult circumstances will temp us to want to reason and think things that are not true.

At the risk of these truths seeming repetitions and obvious at this point, I want to state them and see them afresh, because they really serve as a guide to navigate the onslaught of darkness that we are all experiencing. (I just heart that Adrian Rogers would say, "It's growing gloriously dark." Food for thought.)

1.    1.    David didn’t see Goliath. He saw the God who would crush him.  When the “armies of Saul” looked at Goliath, they saw a big scary giant who was going to crush them. But when David looked at Goliath, he saw a God who saves.  He saw a Mighty God. He saw a good God. He was seeing with the eyes of revelation from the Spirit while the others saw only the natural. As we have all been hearing over and over, God wants us to focus on Him, and Satan wants us to focus on him and his threats, symptoms, circumstances etc.

 2.       David didn't see the "armies of Saul", rather, he saw their true identity as the armies of the Living God. The Israelites saw in the natural and called themselves, “the armies of Saul.”  They were living and dwelling in the earth realm, where we get bogged down by our senses as well as man's religious ideas, doubts, thoughts, and reasoning.   Jesus called it the "leaven" of religion and told us to beware of it. It subtly impacts us in very profound, and deadly ways-that’s why he warned us all. It subtly works its way into our hearts, secretly infecting us with unbelief so that we, like the disciples, forget the miracle of the fish and the loaves when there is another crisis of need.

"O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? 9Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?"

The Lord spoke this to my heart the other morning as I was walking on the beach, pondering and doubting: "Do you STILL not understand?" When I face new difficult circumstances, fresh doubts come up, and He was saying, “Michelle! Remember this? Remember that? Remember? Why do you doubt again? Do you still not get it?” He was calling me to a place where I would not waver anymore no matter how dark it may all seem, because just like David, I have seen Him deliver from the lion and the bear. It is enough!

 Satan wants us bound to addiction, bound to sickness, bound to depression, bound to anything at all. Bound means “tied to, fastened to” in the Greek, and God wants us FREE to come in and out and find pasture!

 3.       David remembered all that God had done. “Moreover, the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.” It’s in our worship and remembering that the Spirit comes upon us and refreshes our hearts with the reality that God is tender and kind, merciful and mighty. He is the God who saves. He is the God who hears us. He is the God from which every good and perfect thing flows. I’ve found my memory fades fast, and sometimes it becomes stale and intellectual. The Lord has been teaching me how to refresh my faith, and to keep the memory of His goodness and former kindnesses alive in my heart-not just my mind. Our minds and hearts are under attack all day long, because the enemy knows this. He knows that we need a constant refreshing from the living Spirit of God to receive fresh revelation (i.e., faith) so we can overcome the horrible looking giants that Satan is sending our way. 

4.      4.  David knew that Goliath was the enemy who was to be crushed. Sometimes we get confused about the real enemy thinking bad things are coming from God, but again, only good can proceed from God. He allows trials, absolutely-it’s how he is training and transforming us- but His goal is always to do us good in the end! Recently someone commented that we talk about Job and his sufferings, but we don’t talk about how God meant to do him good, and how it all ended-in great blessing, because that is what God does. David knew Goliath was not of God, so he was confident that God would slaughter him just as he slaughtered every other threat that he had faced! One of Satan’s biggest and most destructive lies is to make his work look like God’s doing! (In fact, all abusers use this same tactic….accusing the innocent of being the “bad guy”. Oldest trick in the book! We hear it every day in the news. The guilty accuse the innocent of their sins. Satan does the same thing to God.)

What Goliath are you facing? The Lord wants you to know, with the eyes of the heart, that He is a saving God who is over and above that “giant”. He wants you to live in the unseen, eternal realm where His word prevails over every circumstance and all that is known through reasoning and human rationale. (Sister so and so didn’t survive that illness so how can I believe? Oh! Cast that down to hell where it belongs. That kind of thinking is the source of so much unbelief. It is a formidable opponent but it must be overcome.)

This helps me quite a bit as I am facing a “health” Goliath myself.  When I have any troubling thought, I ask, “Did God say that? Can I be 100% confident that the Spirit is speaking that exact thing to me? Is it consistent with the whole of scripture? If not, I cast it down because it’s a lie no matter how true it might SEEM. SEEM is what got Eve into trouble.)

 He wants you to spend more time in His presence rehearsing all that He has done for you, until that giant shrinks before you even as Goliath before David provoked indignation-instead of fear. Satan wants us to look at ourselves, to look at others’ experiences, to look at the scary circumstances, but God says look at ME! Your attention is under attack! Joshua said in order to take the land that God has already given us, we would have to meditate on His word day and night, and proverbs say to never let it depart from the midst of our hearts. This is our labor .This is our battle. Jesus said to “take” his body and the promises, and that word means to very aggressively seize.