I’ve been reading 1 Samuel and the interaction with Goliath has arrested me. Goliath was a giant bully who shouted lies so loud that the Israelites believed them. 

“Goliath stood and shouted a taunt across to the Israelites. “Why are you all coming out to fight?” he called. “I am the Philistine champion, but you are only the servants of Saul. Choose one man to come down here and fight me!” (1 Samuel 17:8 NLT)

The Israelites were frozen in fear. They had cowered at the battlefront for forty days and nights while their enemy grew larger and louder in their hearts and minds. All the while, every day, Goliath dominate the disputed field and taunt them with the same exact words. 

“As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, came out from the Philistine ranks. Then David heard him shout his usual taunt to the army of Israel.” (1 Samuel 17:23 NLT)

This entire scenario has played out repeatedly in my life, and I suspect maybe yours, also. See, Goliath is shouting lies. He calls them “people of Saul” – not “people of God.”

Too often, we freeze in the face of the enemy’s lies. 

This chapter, the one where where little David came around with lunch and enough God-confidence to put the enemy in his place, well, it has rearranged my heart completely.

David knows who he is! He has spent entire summers in the field with the sheep and had grown quite confident in his relationship with the Lord. He knows they are not Saul’s people, but God’s alone. He is uniquely unintimidated by Goliath’s baseless taunts because he is rock solid in his spiritual identity.

I read this four days ago and realized that my enemy also shouts the same lies over and over. He utilizes different people, circumstances and dialect, but when examined, it’s the same series of fabrications over and over again. Some of the heavy hitters include; You aren’t good enough. You haven’t enough faith. You are unseen. Things are never going to change. You deserve this. Can anyone relate?

This week I have been confronting the lies with truth. I’ve been disassembling them one at a time and carefully holding them up against scripture. It turns out that every one of them are untrue. Just like Goliath, the enemy of our soul thinks if he shouts loud enough and long enough, we’ll accept it as fact. I want to prove him wrong, don’t you?

I recently read a fictitious book on the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The author did a tremendous job of imagining what Mary’s thought life might have looked like as she raised Jesus and then followed Him to the cross. In the book, Satan attempted to pull her off course, over and over. Every time he’d whisper a lie in her head, I, the reader saw it in bold italics. I wish it were that easy to identify in my own heart and mind. This week, I have been praying that God would help me discern and disarm the lies of the devil on a daily basis, so that I too, can take the ground that has been promised to me.

“David replied to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies—the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. Today the Lord will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel! And everyone assembled here will know that the Lord rescues his people, but not with sword and spear. This is the Lord’s battle, and he will give you to us!”” (1 Samuel 17:45-47 NLT)

Lord, today we see the enemy’s lies at work. The gig is up. We are no longer willing to cower in fear at the edge of the battlefront. Help us each to identify the fabrications and see them clearly in our own lives. Help us see the truth in scripture. Strengthen our understanding of our identity as Your people, that the lies of the enemy will no longer have any bearing on our actions or inaction. Give us strength and courage to take the field. Amen.