Jonathan Becomes the Hero (1 Samuel 14:1-30)

[Music] [Music] [Music] well turn in your bibles to first samuel 14 we'll continue to course our study of the book of first samuel and it's dealing with the history of the nation of israel and we're seeing really the kingship of saul and we're seeing his failures you know the nation of israel wanted the king to be like everybody else and samuel had been the judge he was not a king but he was the judge and god said okay pick him a king so to speak and god allowed him to pick saul and he was so handsome he was handsome he was a head taller than everybody else he looked just like the king you'd want they'd say oh this is the king we've been mourning but he has failed he started out really good and now we've seen for the last couple of weeks that saul has made a number of mistakes a number of things that goes on and as we look at this even passage this morning and as we continue on we see a contrast between a man of faith and a man of flesh the man of faith of course is going to be jonathan saul is a man of the flesh and we contrast with his son as saul's son is jonathan and of course king david is going to come later saul is the first king david is going to be the second king that's going to happen a little bit later on but we'll see it as we go through it and we're dealing in and this is a sad time saul has not done well he's not united in the army he's not done what he's supposed to do and there is all kind of problems going on now the philistines have an army huge numbers thirty thousand chariots six thousand horsemen all kind of army people and they're coming and then and the nation of israel had three thousand to start with and now they're down to six hundred people so it looks really bad and of course jonathan is saul's son and jonathan is a man of faith and we'll talk about him as we go through it and as we see of the battle this morning we're going to see that jonathan becomes the hero and as we look at this there is victory in god's power and defeating man's power and we're going to see the contrast between jonathan being a man of faith and saul being a man of the flesh so we'll see it as we get through it let me give you something that happened in my life a long time ago uh but you know you think about the nation of israel about to fight these philistines and we say they don't have a chance they can't possibly win i can remember that sometimes they're upset so i remember uh it was i think it was my second year of coaching in mississippi state it was i think 1974 football we uh we've played the university of florida on national television in jackson mississippi florida was ranked number one in the nation we weren't ranked mississippi state had won i think one game in the last two years so we just started to try to turn the program around and so we were playing university of florida ranked number one in the nation everybody said you can't beat them i mean they're number one in the nation then you're not good at all and we kicked off to them and stopped them and then we got the ball and then we scored and then we scored again and then we beat them 38 to 12 and people went wow giant upset and it was it was a big upset well this morning you're going to see another big upset and that's the nation of israel with 600 troops going to be fighting the philistines the philistines have weapons the nation of israel doesn't even have any weapons and we're going to see what god does because he uses the man named jonathan but jonathan is a man of faith he's a great man and we're going to see what happens we're going to see that god gives the victory and let me just remind you what's going on there's the transition from the time of the judges that was samuel now to the time of the kings that's all and saul started off so good but he's failed and let me tell you about his failure he's done three things he has failed to unite the nation that have come together he has failed to unite the army they're not really behind him in fact they're all ran off they've all gone and he's failed to obey to obey god and here's the two key things we saw last week that jonathan went and had a victory over the philistines but saul is the one who claimed the glory and this is what we're going to begin to see that saul is the man of the flesh saul is the man of glory saul wants the glory himself saul thinks it's all about him and when jonathan had a victory saul blew the trumpet and said let everyone know that saul has gained a victory it was jonathan who gained the victory and then the second thing that we saw last time is that samuel had told saul wait there i will come and i will offer a sacrifice saul openly disobeyed god's word by offering the sacrifice himself he was supposed to wait samuel was a priest samuel was supposed to offer it saul was not a priest he was from the tribe of benjamin and he didn't wait on samuel and he did it so he violated the scripture samuel said to him your kingdom will not last because you've openly disobeyed god and so we're going to begin to see the end of the kingdom of day of of saul it's going to take a while david hadn't even been anointed yet as the next king and we'll see how all that happens well we're in trouble if we're the jews and we're right here and we're with jonathan and saul we're in trouble we only got 600 people they got 30 000 chariots 6 000 horsemen no telling how many soldiers and we don't have a chance to beat them but here's a great truth with faith there's victory with flesh there's defeat listen if we if when we live in the power of the holy spirit and we live according to the word of god we're going to have victory when we live by the flesh we're going to have defeat let me give you the outline of our pastors this morning we're going to look at these 30 verses we'll go quickly through them it's a narrative of course jonathan attacks we see what happens we see his plan we see saul then joins the battle and god sends a big earthquake we see what happens there and at the last once again right in the middle of jonathan doing something good saul messes up again saul gives an oath and we'll talk about what the oath is and we'll talk about how that happens this morning well when we think about john let me just say this about jonathan i think he's one of the greatest people in the bible he is a man who loved god and obeyed god he should have been the next king if anything happened to king saul jonathan was his son he would be the next king but jonathan found out that david was going to be the next king so what did jonathan do he said david are you going to be the king i'll serve right under you i'll be right with you you're my best friend he was a great man we're going to see it as he goes through the scripture that jonathan is one of the greatest men in the bible and what we're going to see this morning jonathan leads the nation to victory so look at verse one of first samuel chapter 14 and we'll go quickly through this passage verse one says now the day they came that jonathan the son of saul said to his young man who was his care in his armor come and let's cross over to the philistines garrison that is on the other side but he did not tell his father now here's he's got an armor bearer let me tell you if you're a soldier and you're a fighter a lot some of them had armor bearers which were younger men who were also able to fight but they carried some of the extra weapons and maybe an extra shield and things they were called the armor bearer armor bearer is not a bad term because later on we're going to find that david became the armor-bearer for king saul and david was a great warrior so being an armor bearer doesn't mean you're like a kid that just shows up you're a warrior too but you're helping this main warrior so jonathan has an armor bearer and he says to his armor bearer let's do this let's go over there and let's attack the philistines let's see what god's going to do but he did not tell his father he didn't tell his father jonathan didn't tell his father saul why well maybe the relationship's not very good we see some conflicts in it and he thought maybe saul would say no so i would say no you can't go over there and jonathan believes that god wants him to go there and what we're actually seeing is saul is waiting and jonathan is acting so look at verse two because we get background here in verse two it says saul was staying in the outskirts of gibeah under the pomegranate tree which is near migrant and the people were with him were numbered about 600 men that's all there is and so here here let me give you an idea here's gibeah this is where saul is here's geba that's one of the places midmash there's a in between mittmash and geba is this kind of a a rocky place on one side and a rocky place on another side and a valley in between and we're going to see that's where a battle is about to take place saul has all his people here and the philistines are all over here and what's going to happen look what he goes on to say he gives us some information while he's there he says and ahijah the son of a high tub ichabod's brother the son of a henias the son of eli were the priests of the lord at shiloh wearing an epod and the people did not know that jonathan had gone now let me give you some information they had you can't tell in this verse we'll see it later they had the ark of the covenant they had the ark of the do you remember the last time the jewish people took the ark of the covenant out to battle anybody remember what happened philistines defeated him and stole the ark and took it off and he was with the philistines for seven different months seven months so they're not supposed to take the ark with them they have the priests with them and let me tell you one thing and you'll see it as we go through the passage a priest had had a hat had a thing that stuck up and then there was a metal thing right here and it had holy to the lord written across the front of it then they had this long robe that came down and then they had this thing that fed over and it came down to about right there and in the middle of it was a little square thing and it had 12 emerald 12 12 stones each one had the name of a nation of a tribe of israel on it for the 12 tribes we think that up above this they were like and it's going to sound a little funny but they were like two little pockets and inside those pockets were a thing called the urim and the thumin and we think they were stones we're not sure what they were the bible never explains what they were but they were some way that they could use that to get information from god so they could ask god a question and from the urim and thumin those stones they could get an answer so they've got the priests with them they've got the ark with them and everything's ready to go and so look what happens between it says between the passes by which johnson sought to cross over the foot since garrison there was a sharp craig on one side and a sharp craig on the other side and the name of one was bozes and the name of the other wasina and the crag rose on the north toward mishmash and the other side south tolgiba and of course we say that don't mean anything to us because we don't know those places but here they are jonathan is going to leave here and go to here and the philistines are up here and in between is these two craig craigs on each side and so he there's going to be a battle right there jonathan has taken his armor bearer just two people and they're sneaking over to fight the philistines now we could say that's not very smart and if you're the armor bearer and and and jonathan says to you let's go fight him you could say that that doesn't seem like a very good idea but he's going to say whatever you say goes we're going to do it and jonathan believes that god is going to give them the victory now jonathan's ready to fight saul's not ready to fight and we're going to see what happens look at verse 6. then jonathan said to the young man who was carrying his armor come let us cross over to the garrison of these uncircumcised perhaps the lord will work for us for the lord is not restrained to save by many or by few now he actually says that we got a plan we got a plan and let's let's go over there and the lord god will work he'll do this he's not limited to say by many or a few listen he says god can do it if we had thousands of soldiers and god can do it if we have just a few soldiers and the truth is this the way we live the christian life is not in our strength it's god through us and it doesn't matter god can take us and use us for his glory now he calls them the uncircumcised because we know that all jewish males on the eighth day they're born were circumcised that's the sign of the covenant so to call somebody uncircumcised means they're not jewish they're not part of god's chosen people and we might say today those heathens that's how we might say it because they call them uncircumcised so jonathan says let's go over there and let's get them and of course i said a while ago if you're the armor bearer you could say let let's wait let's don't go i mean because you know you got two guys and you're fixing to bite fight a whole bunch of philistines or so you think you are you don't know what's gonna happen but look what the armor bearer says in verse seven his armored bear said to him do that all is in your heart turn yourself and i am here with you according to your desire he says we'll do it then it says this then jonathan said behold we will cross over to the men and reveal ourselves to them and and he says we're going to have a sign god's going to give us the sign here's the sign if they say to us verse 9 if they say to us wait until we come to you then we'll stand in our place and we'll not go up to them but if they say come up to us then we'll go up for the lord has given them into our hands and this shall be assigned to us he says here's what happens if the philistines say hey we'll come down to you we'll just stand there and we won't go fight them but if the philistines say come on up here then god has given them into our hands this is the sign from god so jonathan says when we get there and we see them we'll we'll stand up they'll look at us and we'll say we're over here and if they say to us you stay down there we're coming after you we won't fight them but if they say hey you come up here we'll go up there and we'll get them and the honorable says that sounds great to me and so you know you and i would go i didn't sound too smart to me there's just two of us a bunch of whole bunch of them but it says god has given them to our hands he believes that god is going to give them the victory because he's a man of faith and watch what happens when both of them reveal themselves to the garrison of the philistines the philistines said behold hebrews are coming out of the holes where they've hidden themselves well they reveal themselves to the the philistines now you remember that when the philistines started winning saul had a big army then they all left then he only had 3 000 people now most of them have left he's only got 600 men it says that the jewish people went and hid in caves and holes in the ground they even crossed over the jordan river got to the other side so they've all ran and hid so when the philistines see them look what they say oh hebrews are coming out of the holes with them hidden themselves they're making fun of them they're saying oh you're finally crawling out of the ground you finally want to fight us and so look what happens then so the men of the garrison held jonathan and his armor bearer and said come up to us and we will tell you something and jonathan said to his armor bearer come up after me for the lord has given them into the hands of israel remember the sign if they say come up there we're supposed to go fight them if they don't we don't fight them well they said come up here and it says and we'll tell you something i love that we'll tell you something come up here and we'll tell you something they say yeah we'll kill you is what we're going to do and so what happens is so they climbed up the side notice notice the next verse uh so the men of garrison in verse 12 says come up here and johnson said we'll go fight him verse 13 then jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet he's climbing up the side and his armor buried behind him and they failed the philistines fell before jonathan and his armor bearer put to death after them though look what happened they climbed up i had that found this picture of them climbing up and then and here's another drawing of them climbing up you know because they're coming up that sharp craig and what's amazing is of course the philistines are sitting there and they think they got this thing won there's at least 20 philistines at the top there and they're watching jonathan crawl up there and you know they could throw stuff down and get them they said oh we'll get them just let them let them come on up let them come all the way up and then we'll kill them when they get here well what happened when they got up it says jonathan climbed up his hands and feet and his armor behind him and they fell they the philistines fell before jonathan and his armored brother puts them to death after him they begin to kill him and jonathan is winning and watch what happens and so verse it says the first slaughter which jonathan and his army bear made was about 20 men within a half a further and a half of land so jonathan got up there and there were at least 20 of them and jonathan and his army bear killed all 20 of them now there were two of them and 20 of them now so that's 10 apiece but most likely jonathan probably said hey i got 14 how many did you get you know i mean now we're killing them we're like them out and you know what's fixing to happen the philistines are fixing to come because they hear the fighting and they're realizing their people are getting defeated they don't know how many soldiers are there so the philistines are about to come and look what god does verse 15 and there was a trembling in the camp in the field and among all the people even the garrison and the raiders trembled and the earthquake so they became a great trembling god brings an earthquake right in the middle of this little battle all of a sudden the earth begins to quake and what he's going to do he's going to scare all the philistines he's going to shake them all up he's going to mess them all up he brings this earthquake and it's going to cause a trembling as it says here and it's going to cause a problem now let's go back to the camp where saul is because saul didn't know that jonathan left he he doesn't know what's happened so look verse 16. now saul's watchman and gibby uh benjamin looked and behold the multitude melted away and they went here and there now the watchman was looking and he could see all the philistine soldiers and all of a sudden he saw they begin to like run away and he went what and he called him look the philistines are like running away they're melting away the big crowd of them is melted away and saul goes what what is going on wait a minute who who left who's over there and he's all said to the people who were with him in verse 17 number now and see who has gone from us and when they had numbered behold jonathan and his armor bearer are not there and and i think saul is all upset god's going before him to give him the victory it's all is all i've said he said did somebody leave without my permission did somebody go over there without my permission that's what he's saying and they say yeah we counted who's who's gone well your son and his armor bearer now what's what's all going to do well it looks like he's going to do something good watch verse 18. then saul said to hija bring the ark of god here for the ark of god was at that time with the sons of israel what is all going to do it looks like he's going to go to god and remember he's got the ark there but you remember the priest has the urim and the thuman in their in their thing now watch what happens that's the human the thurman huma your men and thurman them in ways of getting information from god he's going to ask for information but watch what happens watch what happens while saul talked to the priest the commotion in the camp of the philistines continued and increased so saul said to the priest withdraw your hand what does he mean he's saying whisper all your hand forget it forget it we're not going to talk to god that's what he's saying he said find out what god wants us to do and as the priest starts to put his hand down in there to get either the urim or the thumb and out saul finally goes no just forget it pull back your hand forget it he's too busy he's too busy he's too busy to check with god he's too busy because he's not interested he wants to do his own thing and sometimes we're too busy sometimes we say i'm too right now i don't have time to study right now i don't have time to have a quiet time right now i don't have time to pray right time i don't have time for this we can be too busy if we're not careful for what god has for us well anyway what did saul decide to do they decided to go fight and saul and all the people with him rallied and came to the battle now who's leading this battle jonathan's leading the battle and behold every man's sword was against this fellow and there was very great confusion now you've got to remember this verse who's got the swords if you remember from last week i didn't bring it up this week who's got the swords the philistines have the swords the jewish people don't even have swords so when it says every sword was against his fellow the philistines begin to fight each other and kill each other now god has that happen the number of times in the bible that he'll make the enemy get confused and even kill themselves so here comes saul with his 600 soldiers here's jonathan and his armor bearer and they are fighting the philistines and the philistines have this giant earthquake they get all scared they get all confused and before you know it they're killing themselves it says and every fellow sword was against his own fellow and there was great confusion god has given the victory and then look what happened now the hebrews who who who were with the philistines previously who went up with them all around the camp even they turned out to be with the israelites and who they were with saul and jonathan and then all the men of israel who had hidden themselves in the hill country of ephraim heard the philistines had fled even they pursued them in battles so the jewish soldiers who had left and got scared and ran off when the fight begins and the philistines began to run off they joined the battle for the jewish people and so the jewish people are winning the battle and this looks so good look at verse 23 because this is the key so the lord delivered israel that day and the battle spread beyond that haven do you understand the lord delivered to people god gives the victory it wasn't jonathan jonathan would tell you it wasn't me it was god saul didn't get the victory god gives the victory now if you ask saul saul would say yeah it was me jonathan says no it's god saul says it's me you say how do you know that look at the next verse now the men of israel were hard pressed on that day why for saul had put the people under oath saying cursed to be the man who eats food before evening until i have avenged myself on my enemies so none of the people tasted food now i want you to stop and think what happens in the middle of our lives and by the way let me come back to this for just a second god gives the victory in our christian lives we have to depend on god and his power to gain the victory that's the only way well saul makes us foolish oath we call it the foolish of because what he really says is nobody can eat anything until the battle is over and we've defeated the enemy well sometimes in the battle they they needed to eat they needed to get some nourishment they needed to get some strength because they've been fighting and there's a small number of them and they're chasing the philistines and saul instead of telling them go after them he says you can't eat anything until i get my vengeance and i want you to look at that saul is saying it's his vengeance and his enemy who gets vengeance vengeance belongs to the lord not to us now watch what happens he makes us foolish off and he tells people that anybody eats anything until the battle is over they're under a curse now you know what that meant that man if you violated the oath of saul you got killed he was going to kill you when you got back if you ate now let's stop and think so you're real smart you know that he's not real smart he's let his soldiers not get nourishment to fight the enemy the better shape they're in the more they eat the more they're ready to fight the more they're going to win well look what happens verse 24 now all the men of israel were hard-pressed that means they didn't feel good for saul had put them under an oath saying cursed be the man who eats food before the evening until i have avenged myself on my enemies so none of the people tasted food he makes a foolish oath and i want you to understand something god is the one that gives the victory not saul and god is the one who gets the vengeance not man listen we don't get revenge let me just say one thing people do us wrong somebody's going to do you wrong if they hadn't done you wrong yet they will do you wrong don't worry they will do you wrong and your first impulse is to get them back your first impulse is they did me wrong that's not right i'm going to get them back the bible says vengeance belongs to the lord you don't get them back you might say well if i don't get them back they're going to get away with it they don't get away with it god does not let anyone get away with anything vengeance belongs to the lord if somebody does you wrong leave it in god's hands in fact the bible says never return evil with evil return evil with what with good okay so giant saul is wanting vengeance god is the one who gets the vengeance verse 25 all the people of the land into the forest and it was honey on the ground and when the people entered the forest and there was this flow of honey but no man put his hand to his mouth for the people feared this whole thing vengeance belongs to the lord and by the way look the battle is the lord's so uh let me bring it back to here for a second they get into the forest and there's honey all over the ground honeycombs have fallen out of the trees there's honey everywhere and instead of eating they all go gosh i could eat that oh that would be so good but i can't do it because there's this oath that says if anybody eats something till the battle's over then we're going to die so i don't want to die but i'm sure him that sure does look good so look what happened but jonathan had not heard when his father put the people under oath why wasn't because he wasn't there he was out doing the battle therefore he put the end of his staff that was in his hand dipped it into the honeycomb put his hand to his mouth and his eyes brightened now he ate it he ate it he he dipped he dipped his hand staff in the honey and his eyes right and did what he did he had this step and he saw the honey so he dipped it down then pick it up and he went man that is oh i feel a lot better i feel like i could fight a lot more everybody else is going we wish we could eat it well why don't you eat it well your daddy said if anybody eats it they're gonna die you can see jonathan go that was stupid what kind of idea was that i mean i tasted it i feel great and in fact i'm really ready to fight even better look what he says the the verse 28 the people one of the people said your father strictly put the people under oath saying cursed be the man who eats food today and the people were weary what does jonathan say jonathan said my father's trouble the land see now how my eyes have brightened because i tasted a little bit of this honey how much more if only the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of the enemies which they found for now the slaughter among the philistines has not been great he says if we could have just eaten we would have felt a lot better we could have really really defeated the philistines we could have done so much more he says saul has troubled the land this is not a good thing saul has brought trouble to his own soldiers it seems like every time saul does something now it's contrary to what god wants jonathan said if we could we could have done even more if we'd had opportunity to eat we could be strengthened we could have really routed the philistines saul and his pride for himself actually limited the victory what did he say nobody can eat till i get my vengeance saul wanted glory for himself actually limited the victory the glory belongs to the lord whenever god uses us whenever he lets us do something when he lets let's do something great or anything if we get to lead somebody to christ you get to teach you get to love somebody get to help somebody you don't say it's what i did you say the lord used me that's all god gets the glory next time we're going to see saul's oath and we're going to see what it did it led to sin by the people we're going to see it next week and we're going to see it almost cost jonathan his life jonathan one of the greatest men in the bible is going to almost be put to death because he ate honey and he didn't know about the oath wow so let me give you some applications we'll go quickly let's be men and women who live by faith and not by the flesh i mean that's the key we have to do that we have to live in god's power by the word of god we take god at his word we live by the scripture i mean that's the only way that's what that's what men and women of faith are as we go back to the bible it's always twofold it's god's word in god's power that's how we live and that's what we want to do we want to know the word we want to live in the power and we want to trust god we can have victory so let's be men and women who live by faith living by the word of god second is let's make sure that god always gets the glory he is our strength and our shield he is the one we glorify first corinthians 6 19 what do you not know your body is the temple of the holy spirit who's in you you're not your own you've been bought with a price therefore do what glorify god in your bodies in our lives god always gets the glory we should thank him every day thank you lord for letting me wake up thank you for giving me this day lord use me lose me to touch lives for you and you get all the glory that's what we should do the second application let's make sure we're not too busy for god because saul said bring bring bring the priest bring the ark and then he went out no i don't have time i don't have time for this and sometimes we say i don't have time for my quiet time you know that's when i get up and i just read the bible and maybe pray and stuff like that i don't have time for that well i don't have time to study i mean that's when i actually dig the scripture and i look at it and i look at the person observation interpretation application i do all that stuff i don't have time to do that i don't really have time to pray you know i just don't have i may have got to get to work i mean i know i got up a little bit late i should have got up earlier but i got to get to work i got to do this let's make sure we're not too busy for god let's make sure we're not too busy for god let's keep our word the vows are hard things we're going to see that saul made a vow and it was a a an oath and it was a a very a bad one an unwise one and he put all the people under it and the people who heard it actually obeyed it because they said well we can't eat until the battle's over jonathan who didn't hear it eight we're going to see what saul does let's keep our word when we make a vow god expects us to keep [Music] you

Channel: Stillwater Bible Church

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Length: 31min 40sec (1900 seconds)

Published: Thu May 13 2021