1 Samuel 14 – 15 part 7
Tonight we are continuing our O.T. series and we are
currently in the book of 1 Samuel. Last week we ended with the Philistines have
huge advantage of over Saul and the children of
Romans 8:31 If God is for us, who can be against us?
1 Samuel 14:1 Now it
happened one day that Jonathan the son of Saul said to the young man who bore
his armor, "Come, let us go over to the Philistines' garrison that is on
the other side." But he did not tell his father. 2 And Saul was sitting in the
outskirts of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree which is in Migron.
The people who were with him were about six hundred men.
Now we are not told why
Jonathan decided to sneak off without telling his father but apparently he felt
like his father would not have let him go if had know his sons plans. Now the
Philistines that he was going to see had located themselves in very strategic
position because they could not be attacked from all sides because they were
located up high and a person would have to climb up to get to them and that is
exactly what Jonathan and his armor bearer are going to do. If you will look on
the map you will see that all of these events were happening within this
circle.
1 Samuel 14: 6
Then Jonathan said to the young man 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 by many or by
few." 7 So his
armorbearer said to him, "Do all that is in your heart. Go then; here I am
with you, according to your heart."
In Heb. 11 there is a
list of men and women who accomplished great things because of their faith in
God. Well in our text here we can see that Jonathan has this same kind of faith
in God. Now he wasn’t sure if God would help him but in knew in his heart that
it God was on his side that he could defeat this might army of the Philistines
and armorbearer was right their with him. This is the same kind of faith that
every Christian should have today. We should face all the battles and struggles
of our life trusting in God and that he will bring about the best result for
us.
1 Samuel 14:8 Then
Jonathan said, "Very well, let us cross over to these men, and we
will show ourselves to them. 9
"If they say thus to us, 'Wait until we come to you,' then we will stand
still in our place and not go up to them.
10 "But if they say thus, 'Come up to us,' then we will
go up. For the LORD has delivered them into our hand, and this will be a
sign to us."
This would be their proof
if God was with them or not. Well lets find out if he was.
1 Samuel 14:11 So both
of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines. And the
Philistines said, "Look, the Hebrews are coming out of the holes where
they have hidden." 12
Then the men of the garrison called to Jonathan and his armorbearer, and said,
"Come up to us, and we will show you something." Jonathan said to his
armorbearer, "Come up after me, for the LORD has delivered them into the
hand of
Sure enough when the
Philistines see these 2 men they ask them to come to them. Now can you imagine
in your own mind just how scary that would be if were in Jonahthan shows. Think
about it your standing at step at bottom of a step cliff and you only have one
other person with you and you only have sword. You look up that step cliff and
you see your enemy looking down on you yelling at you to come up to see
something. They have a great advantage over you. In the back of your mind you
would be thinking if I climb up all they have to do is start throwing things at
me and could easily kill me or you would also have to consider the fact that
your arms and legs would be like jelly by the time you scaled the side of the
cliff leaving you very little energy to fight your enemy. So when really think
about what Jonathan and his armorbearer were about to do you can really
appreciate the amount of faith they had in God. Their faith paid off because
between the 2 of them they kill 20 of these Philistines. But now we are going
to see that God is going to help them even more.
1 Samuel 14:15 And
there was trembling in the camp, in the field, and among all the people. The
garrison and the raiders also trembled; and the earth quaked, so that it was a
very great trembling. 16 Now
the watchmen of Saul in Gibeah of Benjamin looked, and there was the
multitude, melting away; and they went here and there. 17 Then Saul said to the people
who were with him, "Now call the roll and see who has gone from
us." And when they had called the roll, surprisingly, Jonathan and his
armorbearer were not there.
18 And Saul said to Ahijah, "Bring the ark of God
here" (for at that time the ark of God was with the children of
As think about what takes
place here I cant help but think about what Jesus told his apostles in,
Matthew 17:20 … for assuredly, I say to you, if you have
faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to
there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.
You
see the Philistines army was like a mountain and because Jonathan’s faith that
mountain was moving. God caused this earthquake that continued to shake the
camp of the Philistines and scared them and confused them so much that they
started killing themselves and when Saul and the other children of Israel
realized what Jonathan had started they came of the wood works and the few
destroyed the many because of God’s help. Now every thing was going well but
Saul decides to make a rash oath.
1 Samuel 14:24 And the
men of
First
of all Jonathan wasn’t aware of his father oath and so he ate some of this
honey that the Philistines had dropped and it gave in renew strength. We can
also learn from our texts that he did not agree with is fathers oath and he
considered it to be a mistake. Now watch what happens.
1 Samuel 14:31 Now
they had driven back the Philistines that day from Michmash to Aijalon. So the
people were very faint. 32
And the people rushed on the spoil, and took sheep, oxen, and calves, and
slaughtered them on the ground; and the people ate them with the
blood. 33 Then they told
Saul, saying, "Look, the people are sinning against the LORD by eating
with the blood!" So he said, "You have dealt treacherously; roll a
large stone to me this day." 34
And Saul said, "Disperse yourselves among the people, and say to them,
'Bring me here every man's ox and every man's sheep, slaughter them here,
and eat; and do not sin against the LORD by eating with the blood.' " So
every one of the people brought his ox with him that night, and slaughtered it
there. 35 Then Saul built
an altar to the LORD. This was the first altar that he built to the LORD.
You see because of the
rash oath of Saul the people were so hungry when came time to eat that they
broke Gods law by not allowing the animals blood to be drained. Saul tries to
correct the problem by preparing some other food the correct way. For the very
first time Saul build an alter to the Lord.
Now in verse 36 – 46 we
find out that Saul learns about Jonathan eating of honey and he decides to make
an example of his son. He was going to put him to death. But the people would
not have it because they understood that Jonathan didn’t intentionally break
his father oath because he did not know about and they also knew that it was
because of Jonathan’s faith in God that caused them to have this victory over
the Philistines. So the people rescued Jonathan that day from death.
1 Samuel 14:47 So Saul
established his sovereignty over Israel, and fought against all his enemies on
every side, against Moab, against the people of Ammon, against Edom, against
the kings of Zobah, and against the Philistines. Wherever he turned, he
harassed them. 48 And
he gathered an army and attacked the Amalekites, and delivered
This is just a brief
summary of the battles that Saul was involved in. One writer said if all the
battles were written down in detail that it would take thousands of pages to
hold the information. Verses 49-51 gives us the names of Saul family. It
mentions 3 of his sons, his 2 daughters, his wife and his father. However it
interesting to note that his youngest son is not mentioned here. However we
find his youngest sons name in 1 Chronicles 9:39 which is Esh-baal. He would
later become King after Saul’s death.
Now in Chapter 15 once
again we are going to see that Saul is going to fail miserable in the site of
God.
1 Samuel 15:1 Samuel
also said to Saul, "The LORD sent me to anoint you king over His people,
over
Here we see that God’s
instructions were clear Saul was to destroy everything including the King. But
did Saul follow these simple directions. NO he did not. Once again he choose to
do things his way and there is always consequences when a person goes against
God’s will. Notice what happens next.
1 Samuel 15:10 Now the
word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying,
11 "I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king,
for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My
commandments." And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the LORD all
night.
Now you can tell that
Samuel dearly loved Saul and it must have been hard to hear God say that he
regretted setting Saul as King because of his disobedience. We can see that
Samuel was greatly distressed and he prayed to Lord all night long for Saul. I
think many of us in this room can relate to what Samuel was going through
because many of us have people that we love and care for who are not doing the
will of God and I am sure many of have been greatly distressed and have spent
many hours in prayers for them. Well, as much as it must of pained Samuel of
this news he goes Saul and tells him the word of the Lord.
1 Samuel 15:12 So when
Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying,
"Saul went to Carmel, and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he
has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal." 13 Then Samuel went to Saul, and
Saul said to him, "Blessed are you of the LORD! I have performed
the commandment of the LORD." 14
But Samuel said, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my
ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" 15 And Saul said, "They have
brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep
and the oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God; and the rest we have utterly
destroyed."
Do you see the transition
Saul has made? He started out very humble but know his powerful position and
his pride has gotten in his way. Did you notice that now he was setting up a
monument for himself. You see he has went from giving glory and honor to God to
giving glory and honor to himself. He was so full of himself that he only
followed part of God’s instructions but in his own mind he felt that he had
done what God had asked him to do.
1 Samuel 15:16 Then
Samuel said to Saul, "Be quiet! And I will tell you what the LORD said to
me last night." And he said to him, "Speak on." 17 So Samuel said, "When you were
little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of
There is great lesson for
us to learn here and that is God cares about the details. I have heard many
people in the religious world tell me that all this important is that we love
God and not to sweat the details. This is the type of attitude that Saul had
developed and we can see very clearly that this saying is not true because God
does care about the details, he does care the we obey all his instructions and
not just part of them. Jesus makes that clear to us that the only way a person
will make it to heaven is by obeying the father’s will in Mat. 7:21. Now Jesus
didn’t say those who follow part of it no he talking about all of God’s will.
Now Saul started making excuses by passing the blame on to the people but his
excuses didn’t work and he finally admitted to his sin. Now lets finish up the
chapter as continue on in:
1 Samuel 15:25
"Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and return with me, that I may
worship the LORD." 26
But Samuel said to Saul, "I will not return with you, for you have
rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king
over
As we come to close of
this lesson once again we see that we have learned God demands obedience to all
his word and not part of it. So anyone who teaches that you don’t need to sweat
the details has not fully understood the Word of God.