For some reason that I don’t remember at the moment, we decided to skip taking the ring road that circles around the city of Kathmandu; instead, we drove through the heart of the residential area to get to the other side of the city. As we twisted and turned on one lane after another on what seemed like an endless pilgrimage through the labyrinth of shacks and dwellings, my mind was racing far faster than our Jeep. As I canvassed the myriad of houses and the teeming mass of people, I wondered how in the world we could ever reach them all with the gospel. After almost two decades of ministry in Nepal, I had seen the churches grow from just a few underground meeting places to a number of large well-established congregations. The Christian population had mushroomed from a handful of believers to a phenomenon that was frequently reported in Christian magazines as the fastest growing segment in the Body of Christ.
In fact, until that day, I was somewhat proud of what was happening in Nepal and the fact that I was privileged to be part of it. But this little side trip brought my whole view of the ministry in Nepal into a new focus: no matter how much had been accomplished, it still seemed like the proverbial drop in the bucket compared to what remained to be done. That same gnawing feeling escalated to a new level on the flight home. As founder and president of Teach All Nations Mission, I somehow wanted to pat myself on the back for having ministered in over three dozen countries and on every continent except Antarctica. Yet as I endured the day-and-a-half journey from Asia back to the US, I couldn’t keep from experiencing a certain unsettled feeling about the number of nations and the millions of people that I was flying above without having any opportunity of sharing the gospel with them. Certainly, I could celebrate the victories I had witnessed in the two cities I had just visited in Nepal, but that celebration was somehow dampened by the fact that so many other cities and villages in Nepal had not been touched and that we had not been able to reach all those souls we had driven past within the cities where we had been ministering. Burdened by the sensation that I was simply flying over whole nations, unable to touch them, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was really possible that we could ever fulfill Jesus’ directive to take His message to everyone in the whole world.
I was facing a giant of a challenge, one as big as the whole world and as extensive as the Earth’s total population. As you read these lines today, somewhere on this vast globe an unsuspecting mother has just given birth to the planet’s seven billionth occupant. And, barring some global holocaust, it won’t be long until that number is eight billion, then nine billion, and even more. After all, in grade school I learned that the human population was three and a half billion—only half of what it is today. It is almost unimaginable that it took all the way until the beginning of the nineteenth century for the human population to cross the one billion threshold; yet, it is expected to have reached the ten billion mark before the end of this present century. In order to get our heads around exactly how many people seven billion really is, let’s imagine that we are going to have roll call of the entire population of the world and we give each person just one second to introduce himself. That simple task would take two hundred twenty-two years! Starting right now, we wouldn’t finish until the year 2233!
How was I to take on such a monster? The answer, I knew, would be found in only one place—the scripture. So I turned to the familiar story of giant fighting in I Samuel chapter seventeen—the story of David and Goliath. Knowing that there is usually more than meets the eye in a Bible story, I determined to study the details and read between the lines in an attempt to look beneath the surface for clues to what made David able to attack and take down his nemesis.
The first detail that I noticed hidden in plain sight was the difference between the ways everyone else and David assessed themselves. In at least nine places, I found the Israelites and Philistines alike referring to “the men of Israel,” “the servants of Saul,” “the army of Israel,” and simply “Israel.” (verses 2, 3, 8, 10,11, 19, 21, 24, 25) Yet when David looked at the situation, he saw it from a totally different perspective; he saw himself as part of “the army of the living God.” (verses 26, 36) While everyone else had only a natural vantage point from which to evaluate the situation, David was able to see it from a divine perspective. From a human’s point of view the giant was huge, but from a heavenly perspective the giant was no big deal. In this same context, I was able to see a totally different perspective in the way David looked at the king’s reward for fighting the giant. When the young shepherd boy appeared on the scene at the Valley of Elah, he was told by three different sources that the king had issued a monetary reward, the privilege of marrying his daughter, and tax exemption to anyone who would fight and kill Goliath. (verses 25, 27, 30) But the interesting thing about this offer is that it was not enough to stimulate even one soldier to take up his weapon against the giant. David, on the other hand, had a totally different motivation for “stepping up to the plate” that day. In verse twenty-nine, after having heard the king’s offer twice, David asked the question, “Is there not a cause?” For him, neither the money, the bride, nor the tax exemption was a significant cause. In fact, the following chapter suggests that David did not claim his prize money in that he sent a message to King Saul indicating that he was too poor to pay the marriage dowry. (verse 23) The very fact that a dowry was required suggests that the king was actually reneging on his offer of tax exemption. In addition, David’s question, “Who am I…that I should be the son-in-law of the king?” (verse 18) proves that the marriage promise had been forfeited. Otherwise, David would have readily acknowledged that he was due the honor as a result of having confronted the giant. Instead, for David the stimulus for taking up Goliath’s challenge was that an uncircumcised Philistine had defied the armies of the living God. (verses 26, 36) Here again, David was different from the others in that his motivation and purpose was not on the human level of money, marriage, or taxes; it was on the divine level of defending the name and reputation of the living God. The first key to David’s success was that he had a God-sized purpose.
As I continued to read through the details of the story, I noticed another truth totally concealed in open view—David had a scripturally inspired plan of attack. When he confronted his adversary, he announced that his intention was to cut off the giant’s head and to feed his flesh to the birds of the air. (verse 46) Although the story does not specifically tell us how he developed this plan, I feel confident that it must have been inspired by the promise in Deuteronomy 28:7 that when our enemies come against us one way they will have to flee seven directions. Certainly, David was impressed that, although there were thousands of Philistines on the field that day, only one was challenging him. While there was the possibility of attacks from a thousand different directions at once, his opponent was coming at him from only one angle. Surely, such a scenario must have quickened the biblical promise in his heart. Next, the young shepherd must have questioned how the singular opponent could flee away in seven different directions. Then the answer flashed into his mind, “If I cut off his head and let his body fall to the ground, that will be two directions. And if the birds of the air that consume his flesh fly away to the north, south, east, west, and straight up into the air, that will be five more directions. The total will be seven different prophetic directions!” David’s second key was a scripturally inspired plan.
Yet there was one more factor to be discovered in the giant-conquering story, and it was again hidden in plain view in the story. This detail had to do with what David held in his hand as he challenged the giant. Since I made this discovery, I’ve asked audiences all across Asia, Africa, and America to tell me what the shepherd boy had in his hand when he went after Goliath, and no one has ever given me the correct answer. Everyone mentions the sling, and most mention the five smooth stones, but no one has ever told me that he also held a stick. Interestingly enough, it is the stick in his hand, not the sling or the stones, that is actually intended to be the focus of attention in this part of the story. (verse 40) In seeking the significance of the stick in David’s hand, we must go back to the story of another shepherd who was sent out to fight another giant and do exploits for the Lord. As Moses wandered through the desert, caring for his father-in-law’s sheep, he encountered a burning bush from which he heard the voice of God Himself sending him off to single-handedly face the emperor of the mightiest nation on the planet—an even more formidable foe than the one who stood before David in the Valley of Elah. When Moses replied that he simply couldn’t take on such a gargantuan task, the Lord asked him one unpretentious question, “What is in your hand?” (Exodus 4:2) When Moses answered that it was stick, God directed that he throw it on the ground, and it turned into a snake. After God revealed to Moses that there was literally supernatural power in his hand, Moses actually changed the name of his stick to “the rod of God.” (Exodus 4:20, 17:9) It was with this stick in his hand that Moses made his appearance before Pharaoh and began to challenge the most powerful government and army on the planet. It was with this rod in his hand–and occasionally in the hand of his spokesman Aaron –hat Moses brought plagues and devastation upon the resistant nation and eventually opened up the Red Sea as a way of escape for the Israelites. (Exodus 7:19; 8:5-6, 16-17; 9:22-23; 10:12-13; 14:16) Undoubtedly, the young shepherd took a lesson from the life of the older shepherd as he determined to take his staff with him when he went into battle with the giant. Notice that the story in I Samuel actually focuses on the stick in David’s hand in that it was only the stick, not the sling or stones, that Goliath noticed as the shepherd boy approached. (verse 43) Having mentioned the stick, Goliath then proceeded to curse David in the name of his pagan gods. David’s response was that even though the Philistine came against him with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, he was coming against the giant with the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel. Then for good measure, he added that it was the God that Goliath had defied. In looking at the parallels set up in the conversation between the antagonist and the protagonist, it seems obvious that David perceived the stick in his hand to be symbolic of the power of God just as Moses had realized that his staff demonstrated the authority of God in his conflict with his foe. The stick in David’s hand was his connection to the supernatural power of God needed to guide his sling and hurl his projectile to its target. David’s third key to victory was the supernatural power of God upon his life.