A few thousand years ago, giants lived on this Earth (Genesis 6:4). When Moses sent spies to scout the land of Canaan before the Israelites would enter into it, they saw giants living there. Apart from this biblical proof, geologists and archaeologists have also found traces and remains of very large humans known to us as giants.

Every passage in the Old Testament that talks about giants reveals that they troubled the Israelites. Because of this, God told the Israelites to eliminate them. They were a problem that the Israelites had to eradicate through confrontational warfare!

Spiritually, we too have giants that we must overcome. Our giants come in the form of spiritual problems, temptation, spiritual weakness and sin. As with Israel, we have to confront and battle these personal giants if we are to eradicate them from our lives.

In Old Testament times, God commanded the Israelites to battle against the giants (Joshua 11:20). Today, God commands us to do the same. He wants us to go on the offensive in our spiritual battles, eliminating our spiritual giants the same way the Israelites were to eliminate their giants. If we don’t fight and conclusively eliminate our spiritual problems, they will only fester and grow. They may lay dormant for a little while but, before long, will come back even bigger and cause more destruction to our spiritual lives.

Joshua 11:19-20 state: “There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they took in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.” God commanded that the inhabitants of these cities be destroyed! He simply wanted them eliminated!

Verses 21-22 identify exactly who these inhabitants were: “And at that time came Joshua, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities. There was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, there remained.”

The word Anakim refers to giants (see Deuteronomy 2:10-11). These verses tell us that God told the Israelites to destroy these giants! The Israelites began to carry out God’s instructions and destroyed most of them, but the last part of verse 21 tells us that the Israelites failed to eliminate all of them. Since God specifically told the Israelites to leave nothing undone in destroying all the Anakims, the fact that they did not meant that these giants would definitely cause problems for the Israelites in the future! In effect, the Israelites disobeyed, much the same way we do when we do not tackle and overcome our own sins.

So in 1 Samuel 17:4, we see this: “And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.” Goliath was one of the descendants of the giants that the Israelites failed to defeat in Gath. Because the Israelites didn’t fully comply with God’s instructions to deal with the enemy conclusively, that same enemy came back, posing an intensified problem for them!

Today we all battle with different Goliaths in our lives. Some battle with praying the way they should every day, some battle with Bible study, others battle with financial, relationship or health difficulties. Whatever the case may be, if we don’t deal with our giants conclusively, they will come back to give us more intense trouble as time progresses.

Goliath mocked the Israelites twice a day for 40 days, and since no one in the army showed faith, courage or leadership, God decided to use a young boy who looked after his father’s sheep.

There is something extremely interesting in the way David handled the situation with Goliath. “And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came and drew nigh to meet David, that David hasted, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. … So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him …” (verses 48, 50). David didn’t drag his feet! In fact, he ran toward Goliath with determination! He went on the offensive and, putting his faith in God, eliminated the problem once and for all using confrontational warfare. And from that point on, there is no mention in the Bible of any further problems with the giants.

One of the reasons God chose David, a youth, to eliminate Goliath was to show us that people of every age—even youths—face Goliaths in their lives and need to fight intense battles against their personal giants. A further reason is to demonstrate that we must rely on God’s help to fight our battles and problems. We can’t rely on ourselves!

Spiritually, we must have a warrior mentality—a crying, desperate need to conquer. This is the kind of attitude we must take on in our lives, the will to win.

Let us heed God’s warning and eliminate our spiritual giants now!