Fighting Battles God's Way Part 1

As Pastor Sam says, I know you’ve heard this before but pretend like you haven’t because God has laid this on my heart and I’m going to share it again anyway.

This is a picture of an actual slingstone just like the one David would have used against Goliath. Bigger than we visualize, they are approximately the size of a pool ball and are pointed on both ends. In antiquity, a slingsman was an official member of the army. A large army would have thousands of them. They used leather slings that were between four and six feet long and could hurl a stone several thousand feet. (According to the Guinness book of records, the current world record for slinging a stone is roughly one-third of a mile.) They worked by raining down thousands of stones at once. Armies would hurl huge volleys of stones into the air and their enemies would be bombarded by walls of stones coming down.

In order to prepare for this, slingsmen would spend months chipping and polishing slingstones. Any slingsman in the army would be expected to go into battle with hundreds of these premade stones ready and within reach. Neutral party war profiteers would actually set up down by the river and would make and have stones ready to sell to both sides in the conflict. Something normally overlooked in the David and Goliath story is that David laid down ammo that he had spent months preparing. He also walked by everything that the world was trying to sell him. He chose instead to go down to the river to pray. While there he found that God had prepared five smooth stones. God knew not only the ammo that David needed, He also knew how much and how many battles to prepare him for.

Don’t ever go into the battle thinking that your preparations are enough. Your handful of man-made rocks may work against a lion or bear but when the Devil himself walks into your valley and there is a strong spiritual component to the fight you’ll find that only God’s weaponry will work. Dig down deep in the river of the Holy Ghost. Listen. Pray. Use and rely on what only He gives you. Nothing else you hurl at the enemy will work.

Pastor Ed Brewer