Today on real life radio. Even though there's some tens of thousands of enemy troops nearby. We know this: that Jonathan and his armor bearer has the Lord on their side. And with that, you have a majority. This is real life.
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On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues now with his series called First Samuel. and a message titled Faith. Jonathan vs. Saul. Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel and the first of its prophets.
So here in chapter 14, we'll discover how real faith behaves in a crisis. You see, Saul has a son named Jonathan. And when they faced their enemy, the Philistines, unlike Saul, Jonathan didn't wait for perfect assurance. He moves forward, willing to risk failure as faith compels him to act.
So today Pastor Jack teaches that Saul behaves proudly over the victory against the Philistines, making rash vows, becoming emotionally led. And God resists him.
Now with his message called Faith, Jonathan vs. Saul. Here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs. Verse 9, if they say Thus to us. Here's the little fleece that Jonathan lays out.
If they say, wait until we come to you, then we will stand still in our place and not go up to them. But if they say to us, come up here, come to us, then we will go up, for the Lord has delivered them into our hand, and this will be a sign to us. You see, Jake, this guy's crazy. Yeah, listen, he may look like he's crazy, but you know what?
Somehow, a thought, Jonathan, I believe, just didn't have a suicide wish. His father is hiding underneath a pomegranate tree with 600 men. If you've seen a pomegranate tree, you can get maybe two guys under it at best.
So you've got. 600 guys standing around a pomegranate tree with that Saul sitting underneath it, and they're removed from the battle scene altogether. What are they going to do? Woo! What are they doing?
They need to act in faith. But see, Saul was not a worshiper, so he could never advance to the exploits of chapter 14. He was not a worshiper, thus he was not one to walk in faith. You see the connection? Jonathan apparently is a lover of God.
He says, hey, what's the deal to God? And listen, church, it's no big deal to God. To do whatever he wants to do at any time. Can he do it with one or a hundred thousand? Yeah, it doesn't matter.
In fact, he may even do it without us. He can get Balaam's donkey to do it. We've learned that one. God's going to move. He's going to do.
But I want him to do it with us. And so the scripture says there that they came and they presented themselves. Verse 11, so both of them show themselves. And the Philistines said, Look, the Hebrews are coming out of their holes. that they have been hiding in sounds like something we'd say about Osama.
Then the garrison called to And listen, Jonathan and his armor bearer and said, come up here. Come up to us, we'll show you a thing or two.
So Jonathan said, And wouldn't you love to have seen their face? He says to the armor bearer, they probably look at one another and went, all right, man, here we go. Yeah, that that's it.
Now, I don't know about you, but you know, my little faith, I think I would have made a more elaborate fleece to lay out before the Lord. Like, God, if you want us to fight these guys and win, turn the sky orange.
Something. But I mean it's like fifty fifty here. Think about it. I mean this guy's gutsy and he's trusting in the Lord. You know, have them come down wearing clown suits or, you know, something radical, a crazy thing.
Well, now we'll know it's God. You know. You're going to ask me, I know because I brought the word up, you're going to ask me after the service: well, Pastor, what do you think about fleeces? I think some people, I tell you, some people will say things like this: you know, I'm going to lay this fleece out before the Lord, and if He answers it, then I know that He wants me to. Uh Quit my job or move to Milwaukee or marry this man or marry this woman or whatever the thing is.
And so, what's your fleece? I'll ask them.
Well, you know, uh That's I'll hear the name of Jesus tomorrow.
Well, listen, if you want to know God's will, if that's your criteria, go down to the local construction site. You'll hear his name and confirmation every five minutes. And then, when your world falls apart, based upon that weak fleece. You have nothing to stand on. You say, Well, do you believe in fleeces?
Well, I I tell you, I it depends. You know, uh you look how God worked in people's lives and every fleece that I see in the scripture, they're huge things. Gideon with his lambskin out there, and you know, make it wet, and then not wet, and wet, and half wet, and inside, wet, and outside, and this day. And I mean, he's like putting God through the ringer with that one. I love that story, by the way.
He just wanted to know what God's will is. He wasn't a doubter, he just wanted to know. was the right thing to do. Maybe we'd be more like that. But in my personal life, you probably may not like this, I don't know, but.
When it comes to something that is a big deal to me, I'll dig my heels in and out wait. And You know, I have learned something that we cannot outweight God. And if you're waiting, he will honor that. But if you run ahead, you know what he does? He lets you go.
There's Jack. I'm off and then boom. Oh man, Lord, that door didn't open. That's because I didn't want to open it. See, the thing is, I want to now sit down.
Lord, what do you want? And if the door goes Okay, the door's unlocked. Lord, I'll do anything you tell me to do. I just want to make sure it's your will. And you hear the door go, eh?
Looks like it's opening. It's not that I doubt God, it's that I want to make sure I do His will.
So it's very possible that Jonathan woke up that morning. And he was maybe laying down thinking, you know, what do we do? What are we doing out here underneath the?
Well, my dad's got a pomegranate tree. What are we doing out here? The enemy is amassed with his 30,000 chariots and all of these people, they're going to kill us. What are we doing? Our God is God.
And he's probably thinking in his head. And then he says to his armor bearer, What's the big deal? You guys Has a thought ever entered your head? Let me suggest this to you. I think great exploits will always arise in your head.
God's gonna whisper them to you. I don't think he's going to write it in the sky. I don't think he's going to put it on a banner. There's no faith in that. It's got to come to you.
For you to carry out a great exploit for God, it's got to be a vision. I don't mean a vision, like, ooh, I saw this thing. No, I mean a vision. A direction from God. And you've got it, it's in your head.
And you may turn to your armor bearer, who could be your friend, or your wife, or your husband, or a co-worker. I don't know what it is. I don't know. And you say, you know what? What if we just do this?
It just comes out. And listen. I love what's happening here because to me, I see this from the outside saying, boy, you know, Jonathan, this is a quite risky fleece you're laying before the Lord. But maybe God is also speaking through his armor bearer. His armor bearer doesn't say, you're nuts.
You're as nut as your father. I'm outta here. Carry your own armor. No, he says, you know what? Whatever is in your heart to do, I'm in on it.
which speaks of tremendous integrity that Jonathan had. That his armor bearer would say, Whatever you want to do. And Amos III. Verse 3, it says, How can two walk together unless they are in agreement?
Well, let me Tell you what. That is also saying. That if two are walking in agreement They can do anything. Even though there's some tens of thousands of enemy troops nearby. We know this, that Jonathan and his armor bearer has the Lord on their side.
And with that, you have a majority. I read a prayer recently. of Ronald Reagan's And it was an awesome prayer. He prayed this prayer, and it was recorded. He's prayed it in Congress or in the White House.
I don't know where he prayed it, but it was recorded by some. historian and Ronald Reagan prayed that when he was president that We as a nation would be very, very careful to not Get God on our side. He said, We have to be very careful. We do not get God on our side as a nation. But As a nation, We're on God's side.
Isn't that smart? Come on, God, we're America. I mean, you know who we are, and why don't you get behind us? We'll lead the way. Get on our side, God.
Watch out. No, he said hey Listen, if we're gonna be America, we need to make sure that we're on God's side. You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com.
And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack. Jonathan knows something about faith, and he acts upon it. They move forward against all odds. They're moving forward.
And so the enemy says, Look, they're crawling out of their holes. Verse 12: Then the men of the garrison called to Jonathan and his armor bearer and said, Come up here. And we'll show you something. And so Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, Come after me, for the Lord has. Listen, it's past tense.
It's already done. The Lord has delivered them into the hand of Israel. What a beautiful word. And Jonathan climbed up on his hands and knees. With his armor bearer after him, and they fell before Jonathan.
These guys were just dropping dead. in battle before him, and as he came after him his armour bearer killed them. The first slaughter which Jonathan and his armor bearer made was about 20 men within a half acre of land. That's a pretty tight quarter to kill that many guys. And there was a trembling, verse 15 in the camp.
In the field and among the people, and the garrison and the raiders also trembled, and the earthquaked, so that it was a very great trembling.
Now the watchmen of Saul And it goes on to say That they heard and understood that the people were beginning to melt away.
So the watchman's going to report to Saul, there is this thing. Thing going on, this victory taking place. And so Saul's gonna number the people. Who's missing?
Now, watch this. You guys, this is amazing to me. They're hiding under this pomegranate tree with just a few people.
Something goes on in the camp of the enemy that is so huge, that is so outrageous. And the watchman announces to King Saul: something's going on. There's a great trembling and a quaking. And the enemies Camp. What is so weird about this is Saul, if we were to keep reading, he takes a census, count the people.
Counter troops. Think a minute, watch this. Why is he saying this? Count the people. He's assuming.
He's worried. He's somehow Out of step with what God wants to do, maybe somebody's left our ranks and gone over to attack the enemy. In other words, can I read between the lines here?
Someone's acting in faith.
Someone's believing God. For there's a great trembling. And the enemy's melting away. It's as though God was doing it. Count everybody and see if everybody's here.
And when they made count Jonathan and his armor bearer were not there. And this Tremendous event. Unfolds before us. There's a great victory. The enemy is defeated.
Israel is emboldened to war. There's a great exploit done by the people of God. And in fact, those that were against, listen, those who were against the Philistines, who were Jewish, it says in this chapter, but were under their control. In other words, they were like. Tally band turncoats?
You seeing what's going on over there? There's so many people saying, Yo, yo, Taliban, you know, we're on your side, yahoo, and then a bomb drops, and then everybody runs over to the other side and says, boo, Taliban, boo, boo. And then, you know, I mean, it's a big problem. They're switching sides.
Well, there was a bunch of Hebrews that were with The enemy! And when the enemy began to lose, they all began to come out and say, we're on Israel's side. And it doesn't criticize them, it just says that it happened. There was a great victory But instead of Saul saying, Wow, isn't God great? Saul makes this decree.
He said, Listen, as this battle takes place, now he's entering into it. Nobody's allowed to eat until I have, listen, he says, I until I have exercised vengeance upon my enemies. That's a very, very horrible thing that he says. I am going to. Get vengeance.
Verse 24. Israel doesn't eat a thing. Saul places them under this curse until I have taken vengeance. I, I. Listen, Saul started out.
Humbly? And he wound up proud. The scripture taught from the very, very beginning: vengeance is mine, says the Lord. Listen, God's doing the battling. Saul, once again, as we've learned before, tries to take the credit.
That's it.
Now that we got momentum going and something's happening around here, I don't have a clue what. Nobody eats until I have vengeance on those who are against me.
So you can see him running out from underneath this tree and doing his thing. And the scripture says, Now all the people, verse 25, the land, They came into the forest and there was honey on the ground. You guys, you don't find honey on the ground. You find honey in honeycombs, and you've got to contend with the bees to get to the honey. God lays out honey on the ground.
Listen, this is more than just a coincidence of honey being on the ground. Do you see what's going on? God is resisting Saul now. Saul makes this stupid vow. And a curse.
Nobody eats until my enemies are all dead.
So, what does God do? Hey Gabriel, Michael, spread some honey out on the ground. It's as though heaven is against Saul now. Perhaps it is. And so, as the people come, they begin to eat.
It says in verse 26 that when the people came into the woods, there was the honey dripping, but no one put his hand to his mouth, for the people feared the oath, that is the curse that Saul had placed upon them. But listen. The Bible says, but Jonathan verse 27 did not hear the vow of his father. He didn't know about it.
So he stretched out the end of his rod and dipped it into the honey, and he ate of the honeycomb. And he was strengthened. It says his countenance was brightened. You know what that means? It means he got strength and energy.
He was tired from the war. from battling. God provides the honey. Jonathan eats the honey. He's revived and strengthened, but he doesn't know about his father's stupid Curse.
Listen, when you're not a worshiper of God, you're going to act like Saul. You're going to respond emotionally. you're going to fly off the handle. You're going to make decisions without having thought about it or rehearsed it or whatever. You're just going to be a nut.
Listen, we all. have a prone Or we all can be prone to be a nut in this area, acting irrationally if we don't worship, if we're not walking with the Lord, if we don't see God's grace. Yeah. We can what we would call it we would we would choke on the situation. Panic.
So Sol is out of control. And so, verses twenty-five down to verses thirty there. There's the great warning that they rehearse: Your father, Jonathan, has issued this decree that nobody eats. And it says in verse 32, and the people rushed onto the spoil of the enemy, that took their sheep, their ox, and their calves, the slaughter that was upon the ground, and the people ate. them with the blood.
That's not a good thing, but They must have been starving to do such a thing. The Jews don't eat anything with blood in it. Then they told Saul, saying, Look, the people are sinning against the Lord by eating with the blood. And he said, You have dealt treacherously. Roll a large stone to me this day.
And Saul said, Disperse yourselves among the people, and say to them, Bring me here every man's ox, every man's sheep, slaughter them here, and eat. Do not sin against the Lord by eating with the blood. Doesn't sound like a godly thing. I mean, that's the right thing to do. But look at Saul.
Saul's saying, now let's do the godly thing here now. Calm down, let's do it right. And it says in verse 35, this is tragic. Then Saul built an altar to the Lord. This was the first altar that he had built to the Lord.
That's proof positive he was not a worshiper of God. The guy is already the king of Israel. He's already in position. And the scripture says, here's the problem. Finally, the guy builds an altar to the Lord.
Finally, it's this first one. What? Example, do we have of Abraham? Everywhere Abraham goes, he's building altars to God in honor. And in worship.
No, this is Saul's first altar. And you know what? It's too little. Too late. For his heart is already going.
By the way of himself, And so the scripture says Verse thirty seven: So Saul asked counsel of God. Shall I go down after the flesh, Philistines? Will you deliver them? Into our hands, but God did not answer him that day. That is frightening and terrible.
Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio. and his message called Faith, Jonathan versus Saul. We're glad you took the time to be with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called First Samuel. It's a series that highlights the prophet Samuel, who was called by God during one of Israel's darkest ages, to bring the people back to a heart of true worship.
and we'll continue. on the next edition of Real Life Radio. Hey everybody, we got our first time ever actually devotional. We have a 40-day devotional called Watching Waiting. 40 days of walking you through biblical passages that excite you and prepare you for the soon coming of Jesus Christ.
Watching Waiting is a 40-day devotional that's all tied to biblical prophecy. Watching Waiting. It is our featured resource for this month and it's available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com/slash real radio. Jackhibbs.com/slash real radio. Pastor Jack, we heard from Michael.
Sent us a listener letter. Michael recently gave his life to Christ.
So let me read it to you. Dear Pastor Jack, I recently gave my life to Jesus. Not too soon afterwards I was browsing YouTube and saw a video called Jack Hibbs on Mental Health. In this video you mentioned Philippians 4 verses 4 through 9.
Now I opened my Bible. And the verses literally matched almost everything I had just prayed for. He says, I cried with joy. Isn't that great? Realizing that God was with me.
I got chills just reading that myself. He says, Thank you, Pastor Jack, for doing God's work. Michael.
Now, we don't encourage what we call Bible roulette, right? Uh but the chances of that happening naturally are astoundingly low. Does God work through this sort of thing?
Well, I mean, first of all. We should never Lean upon Bible roulette. And for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, that is like, oh God, I need you to speak to me, so help me. And you plop, you know, you run your fingers through the Bible with your eyes closed and then plant your finger and then look at a verse. You could have landed on a verse that says, and Judas went out and hung himself.
So that's probably not a good thing to do.
However, There is no doubt about it. That there are times when you are in a specific moment and need, and it just so happens, right? Which I do not believe just so happens, happens, that that's exactly the verse I needed to hear. Or I've heard this verse, this is now the second time I've heard that verse, or the fifth time I've heard that verse. God, what are you saying?
What are you doing? Yeah, it happens in my life. I will read a verse and the more obscure I'm reading this verse, I'm looking, I'm pondering, Lord, what does that mean in my life? You know, how does this apply? And you know, part of Bible growth is knowing what questions to ask yourself and to ask God.
And then, you know, you get up and you go about your day, and then a moving truck goes down the street and has this same exact Bible verse on it, where it's like, Lord, thank you.
So, the beautiful thing is that our God is not a God of coincidence, He's a God of planning. And so what that means for Michael is that God is speaking to him loud and clear. Hey, you know, if you'd like to drop a note of encouragement to Pastor Jack, that'd be awesome. He'd really love to see what you have to say about him and how his ministry has affected your life.
So please do that. Go to the Connect tab at jackhibbs.com. That's the tab labeled Connect. at jackhibbs.com. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners.
Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
