Where Is Your Champion?

We should not tell God what we need before asking what He thinks.   ~~~   1 Samuel 17 opens up in such a way as to send shockwaves of awe and terror upon us. The belabored physical description of this man and his armor and his weapons is meant to accomplish one goal, and that is to put us into fearful awe of this man named Goliath. He is called in the text, the champion of Gath. The term “champion” literally means “the man between.” The champion would be the man who would go and stand between the armies, the representative, and this representative of the Philistines was more than impressive, as we learn from his description. He stood over 9’ tall, which is simply difficult for us to even imagine. He wore an armored suit that weighed around 120 pounds. Add to that weighted shin guards, a javelin on your back, and a spear in your hand. The size of the spear is described for us. The shaft of it being bigger than a tire axel; no normal sized man would be able to get his hand around it, and the tip of the spear weighing in at around 15 pounds. And this man thundered out from the army of the Philistine, fearlessly making himself a bullseye for anyone, and he would shout to the Israelite army. And all of his words are meant to incite humiliation and shame upon the Israelite King, and army. “Did you not come out for a fight? Well here I am! Let’s get with it! Are we not enemies and rivals? Am I not a pagan Philistine? Are you not servants of the great and mighty Saul and the God of Israel? What are we waiting on then? Choose a man for yourselves! Let’s get it on!” Goliath is saying, “We have chosen our champion, our man to stand in between. Where is your man that you have chosen?” And all of these words should send us back somewhere in our minds and in the text. Hasn’t the nation of Israel already chosen a man? 1 Samuel 8:19 “There shall be a king over us, that we may also be like the other nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles!” Isn’t this exactly what they have asked for? A Champion? A man to stand between? And in 1 Samuel 12, Samuel reminds them in verse 13, “And now, behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you asked; behold the LORD has set a king over you…” We are being reminded on the front end of this episode of the foolishness of the people in selecting for God a king for themselves. May we not be so quick to tell God what it is we need, before we ask Him what He thinks.