How to Identify and Conquer Five Giants

            King David in the Bible encountered five giants throughout his life.  These giants are revealed in Scripture as actual people, with an obvious divine interpretation behind their names and situations.  Today, we experience battles with these same giants, but they are not the physical type of giant.  They are spiritual giants that must be overcome through spiritual battle.  Everyone has at least one opportunity to meet each of them, but not everyone knows how to defeat them.  The reason people fail is because they lack the knowledge of these giants even being there.  However, if we take the initiative to learn and understand how to fight against them, we will be much better prepared for the time they strike.

            The first of these giants is Goliath.  Goliath literally means to reveal and advertise in a disgraceful sense.  Gossip, reviling, and verbal abuse are all signs of this giant.  In the Bible, David conquered this giant because he feared the Lord and meditated on His Word.  He realized that Goliath was not reviling and cursing himself and Israel, he was reviling and cursing God Himself.  When we see those who revile and curse us from this perspective, we can then follow the command of Jesus in Matthew 5:44: 

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”

Once we bless our revilers, the Lord will deal with their heart, and they will be conquered in our lives.  My own personal application for defending myself against this giant would be to allow myself to be transparent in the reviling, and know that my offender is not cursing me, but cursing God.  Then God can shine forth His glory through me by allowing me to bless the offender.

            The second giant is Ishbi-benob.  His name means, “my dwelling is on the heights.”  This is a picture of pride.  This giant attacked David after years of military achievement, but it was during a time when he was tired and worn.  However, David could not conquer this giant.  He needed help in defeating it.  The person that helped him was his servant Abishai, which means “gift; grace.”  Grace conquered pride.  James 4:6 is a great illustration of this:  “But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” 

            This is a giant I have struggled with in my own life.  It is a blind spot that I have been unable to overcome in certain areas in my life, and for me to defeat him, I will need some help.  But, this giant is conquerable through the grace that God will give me as I allow Him to – I just have to accept the grace.

            The third giant that David faced was Saph, which means double-faced.  This name contains the idea of hypocrisy.  A hypocritical person lacks sincerity, and is like a door, in that it has two completely different sides to it.  When this giant attacks us, it will try to destroy us like an opportunistic agent attacks a cell.  It will empty the soul of any vibrancy of life.  It will deceive and use us to accomplish something that will ultimately hurt us when it leaves.  It will also infiltrate us by multiplying into all areas of our lives. 

            Fortunately, God has established a way to defeat this giant.  In the Bible, the human who defeated Saph was Sibbechai.  Sibbechai literally means “corpse-like,” or in other words, dead-to-self.  To defeat hypocrisy, we must first “die to ourselves,” and allow God’s sincerity to overflow us so we can let it flow into others.  (What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? - Romans 6:1-2)  Once we are out of hypocrisy, we can live a life wholly for Christ.

            I can apply this technique to my own life, in that I must constantly die to my own fleshly desires.  I need to learn to turn it all over to the Lord, and die to my own self so that I am not a hypocrite to those whom I come in contact with.  My pride must be conquered first before I can seriously deal with this giant.  But, by accepting God’s grace, we are “more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37)

            A fourth giant is Goliath’s brother.  His name is Lahmi, which means full of food, in a sensual, lustful sense.  David could not conquer this giant either.  Elhanan, which means “God is gracious”, conquered Lahmi.  Without God’s grace, the temptation of lust cannot be defeated.  Yet another tool to crush lust with is the assault weapon of prayer.  In Mark 9:29, Jesus describes how important prayer is when combating against Satan.  He says, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.”  Thus, we can conclude from this statement that fasting is also a key tool in defeating the giant of lust.

            In my own life, I have had a fairly constant battle with this giant.  It has been one that has pulled me down into all forms of hypocrisy and pride, which in essence caused me to lose the battles against those giants as well.  However, through my acceptance of God’s freely bestowed grace, I was able to overcome this area of lust.  Now that I have been made aware of the power assault weapons of prayer and fasting, I am amazed at how much quicker the temptations have fled from me.  But these tools can only be used by accepting God’s grace.

            The fifth giant that all of us will face did not have a name.  The Bible called him as the “Six-fingered Giant,” giving the idea of a power grasp in the area of greed and covetousness.  It also gives the picture of how things compete with Christ and expecting from physical things what only God can give.  The person who destroyed this giant was Jonathan.  His name literally means, “Jehovah-given.”  The key for each of us in overcoming this giant is gratefulness to God for the things He has given us.  When we realize that everything we have comes from Him, it is much easier to let it go, and we will not have a covetous grasp.  Ephesians 5:20 says, “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;”  When we do this, we are forced to see all that God has done for us and all that He has given us.

            Personally, the Lord is currently teaching me to let go of things that I hold tightly.  But this study alone has been a testimony to me, because it is teaching me how I am to be more grateful to God for the things He has given me, and that when He takes them away, it is something He is doing to make me a stronger Christian with more Christ-like character.  As I realize the truths pertaining to gratefulness, the Lord will continue to give me the grace I need.