2 Samuel 5:6-8, “And the king and his men went to Jerusalem unto the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land: which spake unto David, saying, Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not come in hither: thinking, David cannot come in hither. Nevertheless David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David. And David said on that day, Whosoever getteth up to the gutter, and smiteth the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind, that are hated of David’s soul, he shall be chief and captain. Wherefore they said, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”
Jerusalem had been in Jebusite hands for roughly 400 years. Israel had been in the land since Joshua and nobody could take this city. It sat on a ridge with steep valleys on three sides, high walls stacked on top of natural cliffs. Armies came and failed.
So when David shows up, the Jebusites aren’t sweating. They’ve watched this happen before. They taunt him from the walls and tell him even the blind and the lame could keep him out. Some say they may have actually lined the walls with disabled men just to rub it in! That’s how little they thought of him.
But David took the city. He didn’t scale the walls or use the battering ram. He sent his men through the water shaft underneath it (1 Chronicles 11:6).
Joab went first, crawled through a tunnel nobody thought twice about, and became David’s chief commander because of it.
The city that mocked every army for 400 years fell because of a gutter!
There are three lessons here for every believer when we face an obstacle we can’t overcome for God.
The Enemy Will Always Tell You That You Can’t
The Jebusites mocked David before he ever swung a sword. And this is exactly how the enemy operates. Before you even start, the voices come. You’re not strong enough, not smart enough and you don’t have the resources. Who do you think you are?
It’s the same voice that told you not to start that ministry. The same one that said your marriage was too far gone. The same one whispering that you’ve already messed up too many times for God to use you now.
It worked on everybody else for 400 years. Every general who sized up those walls and turned around believed the voice. But David didn’t! Why? Because he wasn’t relying on himself.
2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
God Doesn’t Always Take You Through the Front Door
David went under the wall and through a water tunnel that nobody was watching because nobody thought it mattered.
Think about how that looked. The king of Israel, the man who killed Goliath, sending soldiers crawling through a wet shaft in the dark under a city. Men on their bellies in a tunnel, trusting that this strange plan was going to work.
Sometimes God’s way forward looks nothing like what you expected. You prayed for the job and God gave you a demotion that led somewhere better two years later. You asked Him to fix the relationship and instead He brought a trial that helped you grow. You wanted the front door kicked open and God pointed to a hole in the basement.
1 Corinthians 1:27 says, “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.”
Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
If God’s plan made sense to you on the front end, you probably wouldn’t need faith to follow it.
For Every Strength There Is a Weakness
The walls of Jerusalem were the Jebusites’ greatest confidence. Steep valleys, high cliffs, and super thick stone. Nobody could get through. For 400 years, that confidence was justified.
But they had one problem. They needed water.
And the very system they built to protect their water supply became the door that let the enemy in. The strength had a crack in it, and David found it.
That’s true for every stronghold. Every wall the enemy builds has a water shaft somewhere. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been standing.
The walls at Jericho came down with a shout (Joshua 6:20).
Goliath had a forehead (1 Samuel 17:49).
Pharaoh had the Red Sea (Exodus 14:27-28).
That addiction that’s had a grip on you for years has a weakness. That bitterness you’ve been carrying since your loved one walked out has a crack in it. That fear that keeps you from stepping out for God is not as solid as it feels.
No stronghold is as strong as it looks.
2 Corinthians 10:4 says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.”
The Jebusites trusted their walls for 400 years. David trusted God for one day and the city fell.
