“The Lord Saved Israel” (Part 1 of 2)

King Saul in Israel was ultimately disciplined and disqualified from leadership because of a failure of faith.

He took matters into his own hands rather than trusting God. Today on Truth for Life, we'll find out how his son Jonathan boldly stepped into the gap. Alistair Begg is teaching from the 14th chapter of 1 Samuel. We begin at verse 1. Gracious God, we need your help to both speak, listen, understand, believe, and obey your Word. And so, this we seek. In Jesus' name. Amen. I think most of you would be surprised if I were to tell you what my treasures really are. Singularly unimpressed, you would be with most of them, one of which I brought with me this morning, and it's right here.

You see, I can hear the gasps coming from you already. It's correct. It's a small piece of wood. On the front, it says, Made by Byron Nelson. It's his signature that he carved into the front of it. And on the back of it is a reference from the Psalms, Psalm 18, 29.

Now, you say, Well, what are you doing with it? Well, he sent it to me. It was one of a number that he produced to give to the United States Ryder Cup team when, under the captaincy of Tom Lehman, they played in Ireland against Europe. You should know that the reference reads as follows, With your help—that is, God—I can advance against a troop.

With my God, I can scale a wall. And Byron thought that would be a tremendous help to the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Which, of course, it is. It didn't help them with their golf, but it is a very useful and important help.

They lost to Europe on that occasion. But I was studying last night underneath this, because it sits up above me, and I was thinking a lot of things, and I thought, you know, although Jonathan was not privy to the psalmist's words here, Jonathan, to whom we are introduced in this particular chapter, acts in such a way that this particular verse provides, if you like, an apt summary of the confidence that he displays when he faces the troop of soldiers, when he advances against this great phalanx of opposition, this great wall that is his. And as we come to this at the beginning of 14, we do so in the awareness of the fact, those of us who've been around, that chapter 13 has left the people of God in disarray. Saul and his forces are in a sorry state.

Saul is tall, he's handsome, he's the king, he's full of potential, and yet in chapter 13 we have discovered that he has been disqualified, and he has been disqualified by his disobedience. It was, as we saw last time, on account of a failure of faith. The circumstances which we agreed together were undeniably daunting—his own numbers diminishing, the advancing forces very, very large, a loss of confidence, so on. But even in the face of all of that, he made a fateful decision, and it was a fatal decision. And that was to trust his own judgment over against the command of God. And we said at the time—and it's worth re-saying it—that any time that we are confronted by the clear command of God and decide on whatever basis that we would be better off taking another path altogether, we will eventually rue the day.

And so chapter 13 ends with a great pall hanging over it, with a sense of futility. And it's very clear that if futility is going to give way to victory at all, then it is going to have to come from another source other than Saul himself. And what we discover, really, is that here in chapter 14—which is sandwiched, obviously, in between 13 and 15—both chapter 13 and both chapter 15 speak of the failure of Saul and sandwiched in between the triumph of Jonathan. Jonathan would have become king, we learned in chapter 13, if his father had done what he was told.

And now, in the absence of his father, he steps into the gap. And I say to you again that I think this verse he would have been very happy to have inscribed, if you like, on his armor-bearer shield, I can advance against a troop, I can scale a wall. For those of you who are just coming, you may be immediately saying to yourselves, But this seems so long ago and so far away.

And of course it is. We're dealing with material that is eleven and a half centuries before the coming of Jesus Christ. And the reason that we are prepared to study the Bible in this way is because it is the Bible, because it is the Word of God. And Paul tells us—and we've referred to this with frequency in the course of these studies—that whatever was written in the past, in former days, was written for our instruction so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope. We've sung already a lot about hope in these opening songs. Our pastor has prayed in the early part of the service about how by nature we find ourselves without hope.

And so, as we study this, we have that in mind. Now, in order to try and trace a line for myself through the text, I have gathered my thoughts in such a way that will make really not much sense to you at all. It doesn't stop me from sharing it with you. But what I have ended up with is basically a potential password for the internet. In other words, there are no… I don't have any… I have no vowels. So here's the password for guiding me through the text, all right?

It goes like this. A-S-I-P-C-L-S-V-1-4-1-2-4. Okay?

It's immediately clicking, isn't it? You're saying to yourself, well, that makes perfect sense. The bright people, which diminishes the numbers significantly, would recognize the 1-4-1-2-4 as, of course, chapter 14 verses 1 to 24. And I'm going to fill in these letters for you. All right? A for audacity.

A for audacity. The audacity that is displayed in verse 1 and in verse 6, where Jonathan, the son of Saul, says to his armor bearer, What we will do is we will go over and get amongst these Philistines. It doesn't just seem as straightforward, and indeed, it isn't straightforward.

In verse 6 he reiterates this. And in between, we're given details that are themselves significant. For example, we're given some geographical details, or even more specifically, we're given topographical details. And that is why we have recorded for us here that the ravine went in through a rocky crag on one side, a rocky crag on the other side.

They're actually named for us—the name of one means shining—so that this rocky outcrop, when the sun was on it, would have shone, and the name for the other, Seha, means thorny. Now, when you have material like this in the Bible, it is not there extraneously. It is there purposefully, so that when we say, Was it just an easy thing for them to make this journey? No, we say it was an expression of audacity to do so. Joyce Baldwin says, The ravine which Jonathan and the armor-bearer had to negotiate was precipitous and involved skillful rock climbing. In other words, in making this approach to the enemy, they took what would be regarded, really, as the last route that anyone in their right mind would choose.

Audacity. Secondly, secrecy. Secrecy. You will notice there, at the end of verse 1, that Jonathan did not tell his father. In verse 3, we also have discovered that the people didn't know that Jonathan had gone. Now, what are we to make of this?

I think just one thing, and straightforwardly. Namely, that from Jonathan's perspective, secrecy was essential to success. There was no sense in which he was going to make a great fuss and bother about it. He had previously, in chapter 13, slipped off and made a raid on his own, taking the initiative that his father didn't take, and I think incurring a little bit of animosity on the part of Saul. You remember that the initiative was Jonathan's, but the credit for success went to his father, Saul. Saul sounded the trumpet, said, Let all the Hebrews hear.

And the word went out that Saul had accomplished a great victory. Well, of course, it was his son that did it. And it's his son now that's going into action. Fathers and sons don't always see eye to eye.

And it seems that they don't on this matter. Eye for inactivity. For inactivity. The inactivity of Saul himself. Because you will notice verse 2 tells us that Saul was staying, or it actually might be Saul was sitting.

So it means that you get this picture of him being sort of inert. And where was he sitting? Well, he was on the outskirts of Gibeah, in the pomegranate cave.

Sounds like a really nice coffee shop, doesn't it? And Saul was sitting there ordering cappuccino in the pomegranate cave. Meanwhile, his son was out foraging against the Philistines. That's the point, I think, the narrator is causing us to ponder. This is a dramatic display of the activity of one and the inertness of the other. And his companions are recorded for us. We're not going to delay on this.

It won't mean much to many of us. But he had the six hundred men, we're told. And he had Ahijah, who was the priest, the one who was wearing an ephod. He was the son of Atatub, who was Ichabrod's brother, who was the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli. Those of you who know the story so far say, this is an interesting group. Because remember, Phinehas and Hopni, they were not good. They were the bad boys.

Eli wasn't exactly spectacular in certain instances himself. And, of course, Ichabod, he just said… When he said Ichabod, you say, The glory of God has departed. So again, we're processing this, and we're saying to ourselves, Now, we're about to see Jonathan launching out, and we've got Saul, who has been disqualified by disobedience, in the cave, and the group that he's brought around him is an interesting group. We just say in passing that, you know, birds of a feather flock together. The people that you draw around you, the people that I draw around me, say something about me as well.

And if you draw around you a bunch of malcontents and discontented people and critical people and criticizing people and fearful people and so on, then you just become like all of that. And there's a sense in which Saul here has gathered to himself, I think we would have to say, a not very surprising group, given where he is. The loss of Saul's kingdom is somehow tied to the departing of God's glory. And then in verse 6, p for possibility. Possibility.

Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, Let's go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. Using that word, he's pointing out that they are not Oz, they are not the covenant people of God. And then here's the possibility. It may be that the Lord will work for us. It may be. I like that, it may be.

I hope you like it too. Because what it immediately points out is that there is no dogmatism here on his part. There's no presumption on his part. What he is actually saying is, God may do this, but God doesn't have to do this.

It is a possibility. Now, this is not unique to this context. Even from our own studies in the Bible, we would be able to dig up one or two similar illustrations. For example, we remember in Esther. In Esther, Mordecai says to Esther, not, The reason that you are here is because of what you are going to do. But he says to her, Who knows but that you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

Who knows? If you remember when we studied Philemon, when Paul writes to Philemon concerning Onesimus the runaway slave, who has become a Christian, and Paul is now sending him back, Paul says to him, Perhaps the reason he was separated from you is in order that you might have him back better than he was when he left. But Paul doesn't say, This is it. He says, Perhaps this is it. Mordecai says similarly. And once again, we find it here. We say, Well, that's very interesting, but does it really work with Jesus?

I think so. Abba, Father, all things are possibilities for you. All things are possible, yet not my will but yours be done. Some of us are unsettled by that. I get a little weary of those of you who come to tell me all of these things you know absolutely definitely about the will of God. I say to myself, Why don't I know these things about the will of God? Why don't I know what I'm supposed to do all the time?

You come and tell me I'm supposed to do this, and I know to do that. I guess you're moving in a realm of spiritual geography that I have not been able to enter. Perhaps is part of our theology. The next word is see for certainty. Certainty.

We're still in the same verse. It may be—that's possibility—that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few. That is certainty. That is certainty.

Although perhaps is part of the equation of this one thing, Jonathan is absolutely certain—namely, that nothing can hinder God from saving. And what he's pointing out is it's not about the numbers. It's not about whether it's three thousand or six hundred or thirty thousand or two or half a dozen. That's the point that he's making. He's reminding himself of that. And he would have been able to reach back into history and bring up incidents that reinforce that truth again and again. Not least of all Gideon and how God reduced the numbers that Gideon would take against the foe. Not, as it were, getting them down to, you know, three hundred special ops people, as if—and that's how it's often spoken about, you know—he started off with ten thousand, but he got rid of nine thousand seven hundred, all these useless people that wouldn't volunteer for children's ministry, and he got it down… And I told you I'd use guilt if necessary. And he got it down to the three hundred you could really count on. That's not the point at all.

It wasn't that the three hundred were particularly useful or special. He was getting it down to a number that was so small that anybody would say, God must have done this. Yes, he did, because nothing can hinder God from saving by many or by few. He may choose to do this—that's in the realm of possibility—but we do know, in the realm of certainty, that God is able and capable of this. What an amazing contrast you see, then, between the people who have scattered to hide in the holes and Jonathan, who has stepped forward, essentially, to say, With God I can walk through a troop.

I can leap over a wall. And then in verse 7, loyalty. Loyalty. And his armor-bearer said to him, Do all this that is in your heart.

Do as you wish. Behold, I am with you, heart and soul. The armor-bearer was a very, very important piece of the puzzle, always. The armor-bearer's role was a vital role, and it was a vulnerable role. Because in committing himself to be with the leader, when the leader led him somewhere, then he shared in all of the potentiality, either for triumph or for defeat, all of the possibility of the Lord actually fulfilling this possibility, or of them actually not doing that.

He is, if you like, in the company of this crazy Jonathan man, who's crazy enough to say, It may be we're going, because we're certain of this. It's a reminder in passing, isn't it, of the importance of others around us, not least of all those in leadership? I mean, when you read the history of things, you realize just how important, for example, Melanchthon was to Luther. That's why, when you go to the museum there in Florence—its name I forget—but when you go there, the one thing you want to go and see, the only thing I wanted to see, was the picture, the painting, of Luther and Melanchthon together side by side. Because I said Luther would never have been the person he was without Melanchthon.

None of us—none of us are any good, ultimately, on our own. What a blessing it is when you've got somebody at your side, the equivalent of an armor-bearer, who writes to you as he does—and I speak now autobiographically—and he signs off, I am with you, heart and soul. T. S. Mooney, who's one of my heroes, who died in 86, a little bank manager from Londonderry, Northern Ireland, one of the roles that he fulfilled was not only the teacher of a boys' Bible class for fifty years, but he was also the equivalent of the chairman of the elder board, the clerk of session, in the Presbyterian church which he attended. And in the material that was written subsequent to his death, one of the chapters is simply entitled The Minister's Man. The Minister's Man. And his minister wrote concerning him, and he said, you know, when he was out and about, he often heard horror stories from other ministers who told about people who were around them in leadership and who made their lives more than a little challenging. And he said, I never experienced that with T. S. It wasn't because he had a lofty view of my role. I think it came from his gracious attitude towards everyone.

There was no trace of naivety. His ministry was one of positive encouragement rather than negative criticism. It was a wonderful little section.

We don't have time on it now. But he says he was more than the minister's man. He was the minister's pastor. Strategy in verse 8 and following.

Here's the strategy. You can read it for yourself. What he says is, we're going to step out and let them see us. We'll let the Philistines know that we're here. They'll presumably think that they are representative, perhaps, of another group that's along with them. Little will they know. On the basis of their reaction, we'll decide what we're going to do. If they say, Wait down there, and we'll come to you, we will stay, we will not go up. But if they say, Come up to us, then we're going to take that as a sign that the Lord has given them into our hands.

I look forward to meeting Jonathan and asking him just exactly how it was that he was going to make that deduction from that event. Nevertheless, verse 11, the plan is implemented. As Alistair said today, there is nothing that can hinder God from saving.

Like Jonathan, our confidence should be in God's promises and his ability to save, not our own. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. All of the teaching you hear on Truth for Life is made possible because of faithful support that comes from listeners like you. This ministry is entirely listener funded.

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