The Faith of Jonathan

SPEAKER A You once to every time in the sight of the good or evil sky don't break on you that I choice of life forever with that darkness. And. SPEAKER B The Bible assures us in Ephesians two, verses eight to ten, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Welcome to faith to faith Here are your hosts, Ettienne McClintock and Braedan Entermann. SPEAKER C Dear listener, greetings and a warm welcome. Thank you for tuning into the program again today. Braedan and myself are delighted to have your company. And as we open God's Word, we just want to ask him to lead us in the study of His Word through his Holy Spirit. Gracious Father in heaven, we thank you for the blessing of your Word. It's a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. It's an encouragement to us, Father, even sometimes when we are troubled and our faith seems to falter. But we are so grateful, Father, we can look to Jesus who goes out conquering and to conquer, and that his victories can be claimed as our victory. And today Father, as we open your Word, we just pray for your leading. By your Spirit, may you bless the person listening and may you bless us in the study today. We pray in Jesus name, amen. SPEAKER D Amen. SPEAKER C Right, so continuing our study about faith, I just want to read out of that beautiful chapter in Hebrews, chapter eleven, the chapter that is dedicated to those great men and women of faith in the Bible. And we read from verse 32 of Hebrews eleven and said what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell. Of Gideon and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthah also of David and Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. And it says that through faith all these things they were able to do. SPEAKER D I just love this. As Paul is writing this chapter, he's basically says I don't even have enough time to write all of the stories and to point your mind to all of the stories. And that is so encouraging for us, especially as we feel the pressures of the world pressing on us, especially in our Christian walk. Paul's basically saying, I don't even have enough paper and ink to be able to write down all of the stories of the people who experience God in a really, really powerful way. And I'm just looking at the end of what you read there and it talks about people who became valiant and courageous in battle, it suggests there that. SPEAKER C They weren't to start off with necessarily. SPEAKER D That's a really good observation. And then it goes on to say they turned to flight the armies of the aliens or the armies of the enemy. And that really brings to mind a story that we find in the Book of Samuel, book of First Samuel, and it's the story of Jonathan. And Jonathan is one of my favorite Bible characters, right. He's one of the unsung heroes of the Bible. He was the best friend of David who became King David, the same one who killed Goliath with a sling and stone. But Jonathan's kind of in the background. He's someone that doesn't get as much attention as David. When people think of David and Jonathan, david's the more famous one. SPEAKER C That's right, yes. SPEAKER D But Jonathan is an amazing man and his faith was just like that of David. And that's, I think why they were such close friends. SPEAKER C What always astounded me of the story of David and Jonathan is Jonathan's submissiveness to the will of God. Jonathan was in line to become king next after his father, King Saul. However, when he has a discussion with David and he talks about his love for David and David's love for him, I mean, they had such a close, intimate know, he was prepared to accept from the Lord that David would be king. He says, you will be king and I will be next after you. Although as far as the way kingship worked in that time, the oldest son would be the one that would inherit the kingdom. But he already heard after what happened in this chapter, which we're going to look at here, first Samuel, chapter 13 and 14, and what his father did in regards to being disobedient that the kingdom would be taken away from him and given to someone else. He was willing to receive that word from God and live according to God's will for his life as well. SPEAKER D The greatest joy for Jonathan was to have God's will done. He valued everything that God said and was willing to give his life for that cause. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And chapter 13 of First Samuel, just to give a little bit of a context here, israel, the nation of Israel, is not in a very good state. They've got many, many powerful nations that are suppressing them and keeping them down. And God has just done an amazing miracle and has used Saul leading the armies of Israel. I think there was 330,000 Israelite men who went to battle to fight against the Ammonites and God did this amazing victory and conquered the Ammonite people. But on returning back from that battle, saul seems to be quite contented with the fact that he's just had an amazing victory. And he does something very interesting. Starting in verse one of chapter 13, it says Saul reigned one year, and when he had reigned two years over Israel, saul chose for himself 3000 men of Israel. 2000 were with Saul in Mikmash, in the mountains of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibia of Benjamin and the rest of the people, he sent away every man to his tent. And it's such an interesting thing. 330,000 men came boldly to the front to support Saul in defending JBesh gilead against the Ammonites. And now they've come back. And now Saul just disbands the army and just keeps a little tiny force with him. And. SPEAKER C I mean, from his perspective that they no longer have any enemies around Israel who wanted to take them out and destroy them. SPEAKER D What's interesting, the Philistines are just nearby and they are a very oppressive force. They have actually made it a law that there could be no blacksmith in the land of Israel. So Israel isn't actually free. SPEAKER C Okay? So they almost like occupied, in a sense, a semi occupied, where they can't make their own laws. There's another oppressive government or kingdom of people who are making laws for Israel. SPEAKER D And because they wouldn't let them have blacksmiths, that's because they didn't want them to make weapons. SPEAKER C Right? SPEAKER D And so it turns out that there's only two weapons in the entire land. We find that at the end of chapter 13. And the only two people in the entire land that have a sword or a spear is King Saul and Prince Jonathan. SPEAKER C Wow. SPEAKER D And so when they attacked JBesh gilead, you can imagine they maybe had shovels or pruning hooks. Pruning hooks or sticks and stones. I don't know what they used, but it wasn't your typical army. SPEAKER C Right? SPEAKER D And so here we have a very insecure Israel, they don't have weapons of their own, and Saul just disbands the army. And then we come to chapter to verse three and something very interesting happens. Verse three and Jonathan attacked the garrison of the Philistines that was in GIBA, and the Philistines heard of it. SPEAKER C Right. So Jonathan doesn't sit on his laurel, so to speak. Although his dad is disbanding. This 330,000 strong army keeps 3000 men. Jonathan, with only a thousand men, says, well, look, the Lord has not finished this work yet. He wants us to continue to do the work. So he goes of his own accord and he attacks this garrison. So what motivates a man like that to do that? SPEAKER D Why would you do that? And if we have a look at the consequences of that decision, we just realize that Jonathan was really stirring up a hornet's nest. So it continues. It says, then Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, let the Hebrews hear. Now all Israel heard that Saul had attacked the garrison of the Philistines and that Israel had become an abomination to the Philistines. And the people were called together to Saul at Gilgal. So this is stirring up a hornet's nest. Yes. And etsy. And would you like to read verse five. This is where it really shifts. SPEAKER C Yes. It says, then the Philistines gather together to fight with Israel. Now it tells you how big their army is. The King James says 30,000 chariots. Now some other translations say 3000. That's still a formidable army. SPEAKER D But either way, two swords, either way, that's a big army. SPEAKER C Yeah. And 6000 horsemen and people as the sand, which is on the seashore in multitude, and they came up and encamped in mishmash. To the east of Beth, Avon, it says, now what would be the response of Israel? Because, I mean, obviously the trumpet's been blown. Saul, now he says, 3000 people not going to be enough. We need all those other come back 330,000 OD people that we had sent back home. You got to come back now, we're going to go to war. Right. And then it says, and when the men of Israel saw that they were in danger, for the people were distressed, then the people, instead of coming together in companies, I said, they hid in caves, in thickets, in rocks, in holes and in pits. And some of the Hebrews crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal. All the people followed him trembling. So the ones that were with him were scared to death. They follow him trembling. And a lot of them have actually already abandoned. They a war, basically. Absent without leave. SPEAKER D That's right. And if we were to look at this story and not know anything more, we would think that Jonathan is a reckless, crazy, you know, you've got peace, relative peace. SPEAKER C Sure. SPEAKER D You're not free. SPEAKER C No. SPEAKER D But he goes and attacks this garrison, stirs up a hornet's nest, and now they're looking down the barrel of certain annihilation. When you've got two swords and you've got 3000 or 30,000 chariots plus people that you cannot even count marching down upon you, this is not a good situation. SPEAKER C Yeah, definitely. SPEAKER D And people are terrified. And so this is the context where we see an example of faith that is almost unparalleled in the Bible. This is the context, like, what would you do if you were Jonathan? What would you do if you were one of those soldiers? You just want to run and hide. Like, to be honest, I would want to run and hide pretty quickly. SPEAKER C Yeah, I agree. SPEAKER D Yeah. SPEAKER C Interesting thing is you're saying that they weren't allowed to have any blacksmiths there. In one Samuel 13, verse 19, it says, now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, lest the Hebrews make swords or spears, so they actually have an embargo against their ability to actually equip themselves for war. And then it says there verse 20, but all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen each man's plowshare, his matic, his axe and his sickle. And the charge for a sharpening was a pim for the plowshares, the matak, the forks and the axes and to set the point of the goads. So it says so when it came about on the day of battle that there were neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan, but they were found with Saul and Jonathan, his son. And the garrison of the Philistines went out to pass mismash. So in other words, if you restrict countries, even in our days strict, their ability to buy technology and warfare equipments and jets and fighter jets and cannons and whatever else you have, you're pretty confident that you'll be able to take out that nation at Wim whenever you want to. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C So here we have although in an olden day setting, we have the same kind of scenario playing out where God's people are restricted to access. But the Bible says that with God all things are possible. And it says that who can be against us as God is for us? And that we read that in Romans, chapter eight, verse 31. Yeah. SPEAKER D Now this is where we come to chapter 14. And this is where this amazing story of faith takes place. Even the 3000 men who were between Jonathan and Saul, even they were terrified. And they started to flee the ranks day by day until there was only 600 men remaining. SPEAKER C Wow. SPEAKER D And so it's going from bad to worse. And Jonathan is standing the ground, he's not running away. And the Philistines are approaching and there's a garrison that's been set up on the hills just nearby where Saul and his men are. SPEAKER C Right. SPEAKER D And then we have this story begin in verse six. SPEAKER C Says, then Jonathan said to the young men who bore his armor, come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us. For nothing restrains the Lord from saving us by many or by few. So for him, the numbers aren't relevant. And of course, they would have been raised very well knowing the Old Testament, the books of the Law, where you have the blessings and the curses, then they also would have known the story of Gideon. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C With only 300 people defeated, a very big army. So he then has that confidence based on the word of God, says, for nothing restrains the Lord is saved by many or by few. So his armor bearer said to him, to all that is in your heart, go then, here I am with you according to your heart. So not only is Jonathan showing a lot of courage here based on the promises of God, but he inspires his armor bearer as well. Now, it's interesting, when you go to battle and you follow a vacillating general, there'll be confusion, there'll be uncertainty. And if this general is someone who's lost a number of battles, you wouldn't be sure if you'll be gaining victory or not. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C But when you follow a general who's never lost a battle, his strategy is impeccable, his courage is impeccable. And we can think in history someone like Alexander the Great, his men loved to go into battle with him because they never tasted defeat. They always obtained victory and expected victory under him. And in a short few years, he conquered the whole world. So it is also when we follow the Know in the book of Revelation, it talks about Jesus sitting on a white horse, says, conquering and going to conquer. If we follow Jesus as our commander, we will also obtain victories, because can you tell me any defeat that Jesus ever suffered? SPEAKER D Never one. SPEAKER C Not one. SPEAKER D I just love this, and it's so not normal. When you've got 600 men, that's the only armed force that is ready to fight in the land of Israel. You've got the 3000 or the 30,000 chariots. You've got people that cannot be numbered. They're like the sand of the sea. And Jonathan just gets this idea, hey, let's head down there. Come. I love it. Come, let us go. Yes, let's go. And he encourages his umber and says, hey, it may be that the Lord will work for us for nothing. Restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few. And he goes down there, they sneak away because he doesn't want his dad to know. He seems to know. Sometimes we make an excuse when people around us aren't doing God's will. We kind of go, well, if everyone else starts to do it, then I'll do it as well. But for Jonathan, he looks at his dad, they're trembling in his boots, and he says, I got to do something. And he sneaks out of the camp and he goes down there and he says to his armor bearer, you know what? Let's come up with a sign. And we find that down in verse eight, verse nine, sorry. If they say thus to us, wait until we come down to you, then we will stand still in our place and not go up to them. But if they say thus come up to us, then we will go up, for the Lord has delivered them into our hands and this will be a sign for us. And so they decided, let's show ourselves. Let's come out in the open and let the Philistines see us. And depending on their response, depending on. SPEAKER C What we'll do, yes. And if they say, Come up, then we know it's from God. And if they say, look, we'll come down, then we'll just wait here for them. So they definitely just get a confirmation from the Lord that he's behind them. So that it's not presumption necessarily, because when we have these encouraging stories, because it was very clear that he said, god can do anything by many or by few. And that story that we read of Joshua and Joshua also made similar comments about this. And we read this in Joshua 23 and verse ten. It says, for one man of you shall chase a thousand, for the Lord your God is he who fights for you as he promised you. I mean, these stories obviously would have been well known to the children of Israel at the time and no doubt Jonathan knew these stories as well. And these promises in the word of God that God could chase one man could chase a thousand. SPEAKER D And that's what he has in his mind. He doesn't look at the odds, he doesn't look at the weapons and just the power, the physical might of the enemy. He just remembers what God said. God said, one of you shall chase a 1001 of you. All I need is one. One of you will chase a thousand. And in fact, in Deuteronomy, if I'll turn there very quickly, deuteronomy, chapter 28, verse seven, it says, the Lord will cause notice this the Lord will cause the Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face and they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. God makes these promises over and over again. He says, I take responsibility for defending and protecting you. Yes, you're not on your own when you are facing challenges. Obviously these are very physical challenges. When you have chariots coming out, that's a very big physical challenge. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D But we can apply it to our own lives today when we have insurmountable ODS that are just coming in to crush us. God loves his own and he will do anything that he can to protect. Yes, he takes responsibility as a father is one who protects his child, as a mother protects their child. God says, I'm going to protect you, I'm going to go before you and deliver you. SPEAKER C And the thing is, God sometimes just waits for us to give Him permission to work in our lives. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C It's called faith. If we believe the promises of God and believe that they apply to us because sometimes we can be dismissive of promises that's applied to them a few thousand years ago, it doesn't apply to us. But all the promises of God in the Bible apply to us as well. We are his people. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C He's chosen us in Christ. God wants us to trust Him implicitly, knowing that he's victorious in every instance where he's worked and where God's people have actually allowed him to work because they've believed Him. SPEAKER D And Jonathan's such a perfect example of this. He just seems to be so casual about it. Know, if I was deliberating doing something like, you know, oh, we need to spend a week on our knees in prayer and we need to do all these different things, he just goes, hey, I got an idea, let's, let's head down here. And he just seems to be so casual about it and he just seems to be not really worried or fussed. He doesn't seem to be super anxious about anything. And that's not normal. Why shouldn't you be anxious? You've got a massive army that's coming against you. But he recognizes God is not dependent upon our power to achieve things. And that's not unreasonable for him to think that, because if we think back through the history of Israel, god opened the Red Sea, god rained down Manna from heaven, god brought water out of a rock, he opened the River Jordan, he brought down Jericho, he defeated AI, he defeated OG of Baishan and Sihon of the Amorites. And over and over again, God has just shown that he's more than up to the task. He's more than up to the task. And just recently there'd been some major victories as well in the land of Israel. This is not an unreasonable thing for him to do. It's actually the most common sense response. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D But when we are afraid, we tend to forget what God has done for us in the past and for Saul, what he should have done is realized, wait a second, god used us to just defeat the Ammonites just the other day. He's going to do it again. SPEAKER C And it's interesting after that great victory, that because of what happened subsequent to that, this great fear came upon Israel. So even his special forces, now that 3000 elite soldiers that he picked, and he wouldn't have picked the guys who can't fight. No, picked the guys that can fight and demonstrated in that particular battle that they could look after themselves. Even of those there were how many left? SPEAKER D Over 600. SPEAKER C 600. So even the top guys had deserted him. But here we see a guy that's not influenced by what's happening around him and even the other Israelites and what they're doing. He says, I believe the promises regardless of no one else believes that's. SPEAKER D Right. SPEAKER C But the thing is, I want to emphasize here, sometimes after your greatest victories, you got to be very careful, you got to be on your guard because sometimes we can take glory to ourselves and that particularly at that time, is when we can start sinking and we can fall away. We've seen it in the story previous programs when we spoke about walking on water. Peter walks on water until he takes his eyes of Jesus and looks back at the boat, at his mates and go, look what I'm doing. And then fear hits him all of a sudden and he falls away so we can have that same victory. We see that in the story of Elijah contends with the prophets of Baal, wins a great victory and within a matter of days he flees 40 days from Jezebel. So that's a good lesson for us as well. If we start in faith, we got to continue in faith. And our program is based on that from faith to faith. So as we start in faith, we work on continuing faith. Faith in the end, faith in the beginning and faith in the middle. SPEAKER D Nice. There's a verse that we have in Isaiah, chapter 54. In verse 17, it says, no weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their righteousness is from me, says the Lord. SPEAKER C That is a beautiful text. SPEAKER D The devil is working through so many different agencies, forming these weapons to harm us. Yes, in those days it was a physical weapon he was trying to crush out and to annihilate the people of Israel. But we can think today. The Bible says that the devil is as a roaring lion, walking about, seeking whom he may devour. And often we can be afraid. Fear is basically the opposite of faith. You've got trust and you've got fear. And God is calling us to trust him, even when the circumstances don't look the best. And for Jonathan, he is just this amazing example of faith in the midst of a terrible crisis. He's comfortable and I'm sure the pressure was on, I'm sure he was feeling overwhelmed, but he realized that he can't trust himself. He's the only one with a sword. And him and his dad, he can't trust his peers, he can't trust anyone except for God. And he looks to God and he says, god, I believe that you can use me and my armor bearer. We present ourselves to you. And they climbed up the escarpment, they climbed up there and there was a bunch of people up on top and they just took out a whole bunch of guys. And next thing, God brings an earthquake, there's a rumbling in the camp and all of the Philistine soldiers started fighting one another because they were terrified. SPEAKER C Now, so the fear that Israel showed now has shifted and God puts the fear with two men coming up, puts the fear of God in them, so to speak, and they start fighting amongst themselves. Now, the interesting thing is, Jonathan has a sword, his dad has a sword, so there's only one sword amongst them. These guys have got chariots, they've got horsemen, they've got all the swords that they would desire. But we already discussed the fact that God says, look, no problem, I will just use their equipment that they were going to use against you, I will just use it against them. So what's the outcome of the story? They start fighting amongst themselves, they fight. SPEAKER D Themselves and there's a massive, massive victory for Israel that day. And Jonathan and his armour bearer really didn't do that much. They took out a few guys and sure, that's a bit of hard work. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D But the bulk majority of it was what God did. They were willing to be available, they were willing to climb up they were willing to be courageous. And then God said, I've got it from here. And God just achieved a massive victory, exactly as Jonathan trusted. He believed that God would come through for him. SPEAKER C Beautiful. So we can read that in one Samuel, chapter 14 and verse 20, it says, so when Saul and all the people who were with him assembled and they went to the battle, and indeed every man's sword was against his neighbor. So this is the swords of the Philistines, and there was a very great confusion amongst them. Moreover, the Hebrews who were with the Philistines before that time, who went up with them into the camp from the surrounding country, they also joined the Israelites, who were with Saul and Jonathan. Likewise, all the men of Israel who had hidden in the mountains of Ephraim. When they heard that the Philistines fled, they also followed hard after them in the battle. So the Lord saved Israel that day and the battle shifted to being Avon. SPEAKER D It's amazing. One man's faith inspires the faith of a nation. Everyone is now rushing into the battle because he was willing to do it courageously. SPEAKER C Amen. SPEAKER D I think of a verse in John chapter 16 and verse 33. Yes, Jesus says these things. I've spoken to you that in me you may have peace in the world, you will have tribulation or trouble, but be of good cheer, be courageous. SPEAKER C Be courageous. SPEAKER D Yes, I have overcome the world. SPEAKER C That word, good cheer, there is thacio in the Greek, and it actually means be of good courage. And it comes from the root word, to have courage. Yeah. So that's beautiful. So by what Jesus is saying, I have overcome the world, you can claim my victory as your victory. And dear listener, if you having challenges in your life from time to time, we all do, we have some victories and sometimes we even have some apparent defeats or fear may even set in. Now, this beautiful text in one John chapter four and verse 18, it says, there is no fear in love. So Jonathan must have had the love of God in his heart. That's a love for his word and a love for God's vindication in front of these people who now are actually working contrary to God's plan for Israel, says, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love and then says, we love him because he first loved us. So Jesus gives us an example of love. And as we look to his love, we are encouraged. Just as people looked to what Jonathan was doing and what God was doing through Jonathan, they were encouraged. And the fear left them, went into the enemies. And all of Israel, even those who had crossed the Jordan to flee from this battle, now came, and they pursued them as well, because they were encouraged by it. So, dear listener. We pray that God will encourage you today. That he will pour out his love in your heart as well. That he will strengthen you and you will accept his promises as the promises is made to you by Faith. We look forward to catching up with you next time. Until then, God bless. SPEAKER B Thank you for joining us on Faith. To Faith. If you would like more information about today's program or if you have any questions, please contact 3ABN Australia Radio by Phoning. 02 4973 3456. Or you can send an email to [email protected] You can also contact us on our 3ABN Australia radio Facebook page. We'd love to hear from you.