“I Cannot Go with These”: When Brass Meets the Breath of God (Santamaria)

And Saul armed David with his armour, and he put a helmet of brass upon his head; also he armed him with a coat of mail.

39 And David girded his sword upon his armour, and he assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these, for I have not proved them. And David put them off him.

40 And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine.

41 And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David; and the man that bare the shield went before him.

42 And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance.

43 And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

44 And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.

45 Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest 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.

46 This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

47 And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hands

The valley is loud with iron. Goliath clanks when he breathes; his spear hums like a weaver’s beam; the sun glares off his bronze until it hurts to look. That is how fear works—loud, glittering, plausible. Saul, tall and trembling, drapes his mail over a boy and calls it wisdom. David tries to walk. The armor answers back with a dead weight. He stops. He says the sentence that divides borrowed bravado from living faith: “I cannot go with these.” (1 Sam 17:39)

He takes them off, not because armor is evil, but because this armor would make him someone else—another man’s fear stitched into metal. He walks forward light, carrying a shepherd’s staff and five stones the color of river-mornings, and something the Philistine cannot weigh: the memory of God. “The LORD who delivered me from the lion and the bear will deliver me from this Philistine” (17:37). When David runs, the ground remembers Eden; creation seems to lean toward the boy whose heart is fastened to God.

This is the old scandal: the decisive things are often invisible. Brass dazzles; promise does not. Saul’s armor can keep a blade from skin; it cannot keep panic from a heart. Goliath’s mail can terrify an army; it cannot terrify the LORD. And so Scripture teaches a more terrible arithmetic: “The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the LORD” (Prov 21:31).

The two armors. There are always two armors in the field.

Man-made armor is stitched from fear and experience; it looks like control. It is committees and schemes, techniques and numbers, personalities and public relations—good as tools, fatal as trust. It convinces us we are safe because we feel heavy. It is the religion of “as long as,” as long as the budget holds, the crowd returns, the platform applauds. Saul’s armor is the perennial temptation to substitute strategy for Spirit, volume for virtue, chrome for character.

God-made armor is not metal but presence. It is the strength by which God clothes those He loves (Eph 6:10–18). Truth buckled about the soul so lies cannot pull it apart. Righteousness shields the heart where old accusations go to die. Gospel shoes that make a person ready to move, even when fear says, “Stay.” A shield called faith—not the mood of optimism but the practiced memory of God’s acts. A helmet named Salvation, a mind steadied by the end of the story. A sword that is the Word of God, not a hobby saber, but the very speech that framed the worlds. And all of it breathed through with prayer—“praying at all times”—because this armor is not a costume we wear, but God Himself near enough to be begged.

David did not go naked. He went armored with the Name: “I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts” (1 Sam 17:45). The Name is heavier than bronze, lighter than air, and stronger than death.

Why Saul’s armor fails the saints

It asks you to forget who you are. Saul’s mail would have made David a counterfeit king. The church loses her face when she trades her shepherd’s staff for a sword she cannot lift. Vocation matters (1 Cor 7:17).

It offers courage without encounter. Armor can be strapped on by anyone; faith grows where God is met. Saul wore mail and waited. David remembered deliverance and moved.

It confuses spectacle with strength. Goliath shines like an idol. But the LORD has always loved the small that clings—Noah’s ark, Gideon’s jars, Bethlehem’s child—so “no flesh should boast” (1 Cor 1:27–29).

The invisible advantage

Faith sees what iron cannot: the battle is the LORD’s (1 Sam 17:47). That sentence breaks the spine of despair. It frees ordinary obedience to become a weapon. Five stones are not impressive; they are sufficient when God is near. The church does not conquer by being impressive but by being possessed—held by the promises, inhabited by the Spirit, ordered by the Word.

And beneath David’s sprint, we hear a deeper heartbeat. Another Son will refuse the armors offered Him—Satan’s kingdoms, Herod’s theater, Pilate’s favor. He will take up a cross that looks like no protection at all. Yet there He will “disarm the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame” (Col 2:15). If the valley belonged to the boy, the cosmos belongs to the Crucified. This is why the armor of God is invincible: it is Christ Himself dressing His people in His truth, His righteousness, His peace, His faithfulness, His salvation, His living Word.

David in a Goliath worldName the giant honestly. David does not flatter the moment; he calls it defiance against the living God. Let Scripture interpret your battlefield (2 Cor 10:3–5).

Return to your deliverances. “He delivered me… He will deliver me.” Catalog God’s rescues until memory becomes courage. Travel light but armed. Put off the weight that makes you someone else.

Put on Christ. Take prayer seriously enough to need it every hour.

Run. David ran to the line (1 Sam 17:48). Obedience does not always feel brave before it moves. Sometimes courage is simply motion in the direction of a promise.

A final picture

Imagine David after the stone flies—quiet as a closing door. The giant is down; the valley exhales. No one remembers the model year of Saul’s armor. Everyone remembers the sentence: “that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel” (17:46).

That is the point. Our victories are not marketing; they are witness. We do not trust in chariots or publicity or cleverness, but “in the Name of the LORD our God” (Ps 20:7). Put off what only looks like strength. Put on what cannot be taken off. And then, as those dressed in the power of God step into your valley—the one that mocks you by name—and let the world learn again, through your small obedience, that the field and the outcome belong to Him.