Is There Not A Cause?

Is There Not A Cause?
John R. Petrilli

“Is there not a cause?” (1 Samuel 17:29)

Life is so much more exciting and rewarding when lived for a cause. Be it humanitarian, racial, religious, personal, or public, having a cause to drive us enables us to accomplish some really great things for God and our fellow man.

It was showdown time. The battle lines had been clearly drawn. It was Israel versus the Philistines, the sports equivalent of the Yanks vs. Red Sox, the Lakers vs. the Celtics, or the Cowboys vs. the Redskins. Only one problem … pregame jitters. Team Israeli had lead feet that wouldn’t allow them to take a single step forward. This ancient version of warfare used a champion from each side to represent their entire armies. Whichever champ won, to their side went the victory, no questions asked. The dirty, rotten, pagan Philistines sent out their biggest, ugliest, meanest, most skilled warrior, a hunk named Goliath. This sorry excuse for a human being had nothing but trash-talkin’, but he didn’t limit his taunts to the Hebrew boys in uniform. He lambasted heaven itself, shaking his fist of defiance up at the God of Israel. No one on the Israeli side dared to answer the call.

Nobody, that is, until a little punk of a kid named David shows up on an errand from his dad.
When lil’ Davey hears the outrageous filth spewing out of Goliath’s trap, he’s incensed! He answers his older brother’s charges that he was just showing off with the powerful statement, “Is there not a cause?”

At the risk of being chewed up and spit out by the area’s most towering, feared and battle-hardened foot-soldier, David runs [not walks] up to the big oaf, slings a stone through his forehead, and drops him in short order. Game, set, match. What an entire army of trained infantrymen couldn’t do without faith, a kid still wet behind the ears did when armed with uncluttered faith in his mighty God. Giants often have a bark that’s louder than their bite. If you’ve tried to level one of them in your life and failed, THAT’S WHY. It was YOU trying to do it, not God. When we let the Lord do the fighting, it’s all over but the crying.

At times the battle to end abortion feels like we’re confronting a “goliath”, a warrior that outweighs, outpowers, outmaneuvers, outsmarts, outspends, and outguns us at every turn. But a review of David’s victorious encounter with his Goliath shows us the path to complete victory over a seemingly invincible foe.

DAVID SAW GOD’S REPUTATION AND ISRAEL’S FUTURE AS A CAUSE WORTH FIGHTING FOR. 1 Samuel 17:29

What incredible words from a mere lad of a boy… “Is there not a cause?” Here are a whole battalion of Jewish soldiers shaking in their boots, and it takes a teenager to screw up their courage and show them what’s at stake! They had the weapons, they had the manpower, but they lacked vision. They didn’t grasp exactly what was on the line here. They allowed the circumstances to blind them to their original purpose in being out on that battlefield. They needed to be rallied around a cause, and like a seasoned general, David rallies these troops with his sense of divine purpose .

If ever there was a cause worth fighting for, it is the prolife cause. Powerful forces of darkness, like a whole host of goliaths, threaten the very essence of human life on our planet. We need to circle the wagons, rally the troops, and take on this ugly, death-dealing giant. With God all things are possible, and “with God we shall do valiantly!” (Psalm 60:12)



DAVID SAW GOD AS HUGE AND GOLIATH AS SMALL. 1 Samuel 17:26

“Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

When it comes to winning wars, focus is everything. If our focus is on the enemy we’ll fail. If our focus is on the living God, we’ll succeed. When David scanned the battlefield, he saw it in terms of what God could do through him, not in terms of the enemy’s earthly advantages. Goliath outclassed little David in every way with more muscle, more experience, more weaponry and more size. But none of that mattered to the young Israeli recruit. His eyes were on His mighty, living God. When seen on human terms Goliath was a towering unbeatable foe, but placed next to God, he was nothing!


DAVID’S CONFIDENCE IN BATTLE WAS BASED ON HIS PAST EXPERIENCES OF VICTORY THROUGH GOD. 1 Samuel 17:33-37

“The Lord Who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

King Saul saw David as a little boy going up against a seasoned warrior, and didn’t give him a prayer of a chance for success. But Saul had a habit for leaving God out of the equation, and he repeats that fatal error once again here. Saul looked at the odds from a purely horizontal point of view, while David saw it from a purely vertical perspective. God was on David’s side, and at the end of the day, that was all that really mattered. David answers the commanding officers concerns by recounting how His mighty God had already delivered him from wild beasts, and how that He could be counted on to dispose of the human beast named Goliath who stood before them. David knew victory was his for the taking because it would be God that would do the fighting.


DAVID RELIED ON SUPERNATURAL RESOURCES TO DEFEAT GOLIATH. 1 Samuel 17:45-47

“You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the Name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, Whom you have defied!”

Saul tried his best to arm David with the latest in military battle gear, but he was such a young kid the armor didn’t stay on him. David opted to go into battle shielded with God Himself. It was the Name of the Lord that would be his defensive protection as well as his offensive artillery. He knew Who the battle really belonged to … God. As we fight the good fight of protecting the sanctity of human life we desperately need to keep this in mind. Our pro-death enemies are fighting against God, and killing babies made in His very image and likeness.
God is on the side of life all the way here folks. We need not worry nor fret at any of the advances or victories the other side may enjoy. In the end, God will vanquish every on of them. We just need to rely on His Spirit, not our own arm of flesh (Zechariah 4:6). David slung a single stone, but it was the faith he placed in his God that caused that bullet to hit its intended target and inflict a mortal wound. What we lack in earthly power can be easily made up for by unwavering faith and undaunted courage. As Paul points out, “We fight with weapons that are different than those the world uses. Our weapons have power from God. These weapons can destroy the enemy’s strong places” (2 Cor. 10:4, Everyman’s Bible).


DAVID INSURED TOTAL VICTORY BY CUTTING OFF GOLIATH’S HEAD. 1 Samuel 17:48-54

“David ran and stood over him (Goliath). He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword.”

Mopping up exercises. That’s what they call it when the enemy’s been whooped and it’s cleanup time. David knocked off Goliath single-handedly, and then went over to decapitate the silenced foe. Once the leadership of an army is defeated, everything else comes tumbling down.. That’s how American forces won so decisively in Desert Storm over Hussein and Iraq. We cut off their command and control systems of communications. The head of the Iraqi system was detached from the foot-soldiers, leaving them stranded and without and direction or coordination. Once we’ve successfully exposed the lies and deceit perpetrated by those heading the abortion holocaust, the whole house of cards will come crashing down. Once David cut off Goliath’s head, the entire Philistine army ran for their lives, with the Israeli forces mowing them down. The mission was accomplished and victory was complete and permanent. God will give us that same kind of victory as we trust in Him to fight the battle and defeat those who take delight in killing innocent unborn children.