“And David said unto Ahimelech, and is there not here under thine hand spear or sword? For I have neither brought my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.  And the priest said, the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod: if thou wilt take that, take it: for there is no other save that here.  And David said there is none like that; give it me.”

(I Samuel 21:8-9)

When Arnold Toynbee’s concluding four volumes in his monumental work, A Study of History, were published this fall the concluding section contained a long series of acknowledgements in which he gave his personal thanks to the persons, institutions, books and ideas which had molded him, as a man and as a historian, during his lifetime.

One of the persons Toynbee singles out for praise and thanks is William of Wykeham who, Toynbee says, “gave me an education and made this provision for me 507 years before I was elected a scholar of his college . . .  I feel toward him a direct personal gratitude and affection which could not have been warmer had I known him in the flesh, instead of being born, as I was, 485 years after his death.”

The illustrious historian expresses with grace the poignant feeling of gratitude which wells up in my heart when I pause to think of the noble heritage into which I have entered, and the institutions and ideas which have molded me, because of the great souls who have shaped our common Hebrew-Christian tradition and culture.  Oh, what I owe to Isaiah and Amos, Moses and Abraham, Ruth and Joseph, David and the Maccabees, who have made me and my country and all the world their moral and spiritual heirs.

Tonight let us think about a brief episode in the life of David and explore together part of our common spiritual heritage flowing to us from the scripture’s account of this servant of God.[1]

David was fleeing for his life.  King Saul, grown mad with jealousy over his young friend’s popularity with the people, had hurled his javelin at the sweet singer of Israel, even while David sought to soothe the distraught monarch’s jangled nerves.  This had been only the beginning of a number of attempts to take David’s life.  Finally, upon the advice of Jonathan, Saul’s own son and heir and David’s best friend, David was quitting the country.

So as a fugitive from his native land, hungry and without arms, David, in his hasty journey of escape, came to the little village of Nob near the border of Philistia and to the tabernacle there.  He appealed to Ahimelech the priest, for food — but there was no bread in the Tabernacle save the shew-bread which was holy food consecrated for the worship of God.  When David begged for that, Ahimelech the priest, like all the people of Israel, could not refuse the winsome David.  Having satisfied his hunger David’s next need was for arms with which to defend himself against the so quickly turned hostile world.

“And David said to Ahimelech, ‘and is there not here under thine hand some spear or sword?  For I have neither brought my sword nor my weapons with me.’  And the priest said, ‘The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod; if thou wilt take that, take it; for there is none other save it here.’  And David said, ‘There is none like that: give it me.’”

The sword of Goliath!  The mere mention of that weapon put new courage in David’s heart.  His eyes flashed when they fell upon it.  What thoughts this sword recalled.  As he fastened his fingers about its familiar hilt he felt new strength surging into his sturdy right arm.  His fear and loneliness and despair faded away as the morning mists before a summer sun.  His old courage and self-confidence gushed back into his soul like the waves of the sea at flood tide.  Was he not David, the Lord’s anointed, who had slain the giant Goliath, even with the giants own sword?  So, taking the sword of Goliath from Ahimelech the priest, David said: “There is none like that: give it me.”  Then he pressed on, ready now to face an unfriendly world, well armed in hand and heart.

We are fond of saying that the Holy Scriptures are a revelation of the nature of God.  This fact we do well to emphasize.  But there is a fact concerning Holy Scripture which we tend to neglect that is just as true, namely, that the sacred writings are a wonderful revelation of the nature of man.  Yes, the Bible is the one book in all the world which is authoritative on human personality.

Here, in this recorded incident from the life of David, there is revealed a truth about the nature of man which, if we will remember it, will stand us in good stead when we, like David, are lost in loneliness and despair and, disarmed by harsh circumstance, come seeking frantically for some armor of the spirit which we can lay hold of and so face life with steady eyes.

First, there is revealed in this incident from David’s life a fact which holds true in the experience of all men — there is in past victories a sustaining power which will serve to nerve the soul of a man for years to come.  The lonely, fearful, despondent David, fleeing for his life from the wrath of Saul, when confronted with the sword of Goliath found new courage and hope.  Why?  Why, here was the memento of a great victory he had won against terrific odds.  Taking the sword of Goliath in his hand, David saw again that memorable day in the valley of Elah with the tents of the hosts of Israel and of Philistia pitched on either side of the battlefield, their battle banners fluttering in the idle breeze, and there between strutted the towering Goliath, daring the bravest of the brave among Israel’s warriors to personal combat with him.  When none dared to take the venture he, David the shepherd lad, had accepted the challenge, felled the braggart with one pebble from his sling, and severed Goliath’s head with one blow of the giant’s own sword.  He had won a great victory.  So now that memory bolstered the fugitive David’s courage, pulled him up to view himself at his best.  Why should he, a man capable of such courage, now run as a whipped pup?  David, found that there is a sustaining power for the soul of man in the mere remembrance of past victories.

And of course the converse of this is true, the remembrance of past acts of cowardice and shame have their debilitating effect upon the spirit of man.  Joseph Conrad’s novel, Lord Jim, is the story of a man who in a critical moment, a moment fraught with possibilities of both courageous and cowardly action, played the craven’s part.  For the ship on which Lord Jim served as an officer was sinking.  He had a quick choice to make.  Should he abandon ship and save his own life, or stay at his post of duty and do all he could to help save the lives of the hundreds of passengers?  He made his choice.  He abandoned ship.  The novel tells how ever after, no matter if Jim wandered to the fartherest outpost of civilization in the islands of the East Indies, the memory of that cowardly act would come floating back in moments of trial and crisis to haunt him, to sap his strength and cause his courage to fail again.

We know how Lord Jim felt.  Have we not at times come unexpectedly face to face with one against whom, in days gone by, we greatly sinned, or one with whom we were associated in a shameful deed, and felt our hearts grow cold, our hands benumbed, and our spirits faint within us?  In the flood tide of memory our regretted past comes rolling in to tug, in relentless undercurrent, at our strength and courage.

In the church we are long on talk of what righteous acts and deeds of nobility and self sacrifice will do for those for whom the acts are done, how they will minister to the poor, the suffering, the sorrowing, and too often neglect to mention what wonders such acts work upon the doer, how they store up strength and courage for days ahead.

Philips Brooks once, preaching on the armor of righteousness, pointed out that the righteous man has an element of strength that might be called the solidity of righteousness.  He said, “When a man does an act of principle it is as if he had dug down and laid his own foundation and built his walls solid on that.  He is not indifferent to what people say but it cannot make or unmake his strength.  It is the difference of the gale to the man who stands on the shore and the man who floats on the sea.  The gale may make the man on the shore shiver and hold his breath, it may blow the sand into his eyes and vex him in a hundred ways; but it sinks the poor fellow out at sea.”

Oh, my friends, here is the crux of the matter:  When you and I come upon those circumstances which try men’s souls, when the hounds of chance are hot upon our trail, when defenseless before a cruel world we rush in desperate haste and beat upon the door of our spirit’s sanctuary asking for weapons of defense – what shall we have handed out to us?  Only that which we have laid by in store there.  If we have fashioned for ourselves weapons of base metals through our cowardly and evil conduct those are the weapons we shall have to lay hold upon.  Oh, in such times, for the memory of deeds clean, and strong, and courageous.  Oh for those past victories of the spirit which arm us, as it were, with blades of keen Damascus steel.  Oh for the sword of Goliath in such an hour.  There is in past noble victories a sustaining power that gives strength and courage.

The second truth about the nature of human personality revealed in this incident drawn from David’s life is this:  The remembrance of what God has done for us and through us in days gone by gives courage and strength in grey days that now engulf us and lie ahead.  When David saw again the sword of Goliath he was brought face to face with the realization that he was not really a craven, but a man capable of the most heroic actions – but he also clearly saw again that it was in the strength of his God that he had won that victory.  David remembered the words which were on his lips as he went forth to battle Goliath: “Thou cometh to me with a sword and with a spear, and with a shield; but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.  This day the Lord will deliver thee into mine hand.”  Then, in simple boyish faith, he had trusted in God, and found that he was not left alone to struggle.  Why all his sense of loneliness now?  God had helped him then.  Would he not now be with him, through deserted by friends, bereft of family?  As David gripped the hilt of that trusted and proven weapon he must have thought how Gideon had won his victory, shouting, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.”  Surely this was the “sword of the Lord and of David.”  The remembrance of all that God had done by him and for him put new strength and courage into David – a courage and a strength that was not his own.

So it is, or should be, with us.  St. Paul, writing his second letter to the Corinthians said: “He rescued me from so terrible a death, He rescues still, and I rely upon Him for the hope that he will continue to rescue me.”  (Moffat – II Cor. 1:10) When Paul looked back over his life he saw dangers and difficulties aplenty, but these did not alarm him for what caught his eye in all these experiences was God; God always there, always sufficient, amazingly sufficient, and always clearing a way for him or giving him the victory.  And this made Paul calm and poised and courageous in the face of every new danger and distress.

During the War Between the States the Confederate army under General T.J. Jackson won a resounding victory over the Federal troops who were threatening the Shenandoah Valley.  Strategically it was a very important victory because it released Jackson’s whole army to go to the assistance of General Robert E. Lee whose forces were defending Richmond.  The victory was won on a Sunday morning and General Jackson immediately issued orders to all his men to come to divine worship and give thanks unto God for the victory granted them.  Since General Jackson was just such a man as this there is little wonder that in another encounter when the tide of battle was going against the men in grey someone could raise a rallying cry, “Look, there stands Jackson like a stone wall.”  The remembrance of what God has done for us and by us in His wondrous way should be to us in the midst of grey days a source of strength and courage, enabling us to stand fast, to face life with steady eyes.

The sword of Goliath, the symbol of noble past victories, the symbol of the power of our God working mightily in our lives, there is none other like it; take it, for thy soul’s defense.

[2] At the door of our church, several weeks ago after service, I met a man I had never seen before.  His name, he told me, was Boissevain.  Though Boissevain is a different name and a bit more difficult than Jones, I remembered it for I had known one other person by that name.

When this gentleman came on Wednesday of this week to my study to see me, I said to him: “Mr. Boissevain, I met a lady five or six years ago who had the same name that you have.  She was from Holland, lecturing in this country under the auspices of the Woman’s Division of the World Council of Churches.  A charming personality and an inspiring speaker, she spoke in the church I then served in North Carolina on her experiences during the Nazi occupation.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Boissevain, “I know.  I also come from Holland.  That woman is the wife of my cousin.  Did she tell you that her husband and two sons died in a concentration camp?”

I remembered that she had and Mr. Boissevain further asked: “Did you know why she came to this country?”

“Why to lecture, I suppose.”

“But did she tell you why she came here to lecture?”

“No,” I said, so he told me this interesting story.  Mrs. Boissevain had come to raise money.  Her son who survived the rigors of the concentration had tuberculosis.  He was to be sent to a sanatorium in Switzerland.  But there was no money to send his wife with him.  And she knew the boy could not get well unless his dear wife accompanied him.  So she came to this country to raise money for that purpose.

When she got to New York she had only $25. She went into the United Nations building and in the restaurant there saw a young man whose face looked a bit familiar.  He came up to her and said, “Mrs. Boissevain, do you not remember me?  I am the Jewish boy you hid in your home for 18 months to save my life during the Nazi occupation.  I escaped to America and got a job at the United Nations.  Now I am rich.  I have $1500 in the bank and it is all yours.  Mrs. Boissevain borrowed $500 from him, financed her speaking tour, and in six weeks time had repaid her friend and had funds in hand to send her daughter-in-law and sick son to the sanatorium.

Now I like that story, not only because of its dramatic sweetness, not only because it is a true story, but because it illustrates and symbolizes the daily common life of our Jewish and Christian congregations at their best the world over.