May 27, 2016
By Lewis Shupe, Contributor, Freedom Fighters of America
The story of David and Goliath is told in 1 Samuel chapter 17. Saul and the Israelites are facing the Philistines in the valley of Elah. For forty days Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, comes out to challenge the Israelites to send out a champion to meet him. The Israelites are afraid of Goliath and refuse the challenge. David is present, having brought food for his elder brothers. David hears that Saul has offered a reward to anyone who can defeat Goliath and accepts the challenge. David takes his sling and five stones and confronts Goliath. David selects a stone and hurls it with all his might and hits Goliath in the forehead and Goliath falls to the ground. David seizes Goliath’s sword and cuts off Goliath’s head. The young boy has slain the giant.
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Fast forward – David is now the King of Israel. David builds the greater Israel.
First – David conquers Moab. 2 Samuel 8:2. Just to be sure there are no “protests” he kills two out of every three Moabites. There weren’t too many peaceful protests or sit-ins in those days.
Second – David conquers Edom. 2 Samuel 8:14. He orders Joab to kill every Edomite soldier. 1 Kings 11:15-18. David is apparently going soft.
Third – David conquers Zobah, Damascus and Hamath. 2 Samuel 8:2-3. We don’t know what happened to the armies that fought in these battles against David but we’ll bet it wasn’t pretty.
Fourth- David conquers Ammon. 2 Samuel 10. A long siege with that little Bathsheba/Uriah problem thrown in. David goes easy on the Ammonites, he’s really getting soft now.
This is middle-eastern diplomacy, circa 1000 B.C. We are certain that if any one of us had lived at that time we could have identified many people who wished Goliath had won.
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Many citizens of this country think that the reason we are free from foreign military invasions is because other citizens of the world love and respect us. The actual reason we are free is because other governments of the world are afraid of us and know what we are capable of doing. The U.S. Military represents about 45% of the military strength of the entire world and could take on militarily the entire rest of the planet combined and have a reasonable chance of prevailing. When you are number one you should start acting like you are number one and tell the troublemakers how they should behave. If it requires a little 1000 B.C. diplomacy to make our point of view crystal clear we should not be reluctant to act accordingly.
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