1 Samuel 14 (Saul's Rash Oath)

Let's turn to 1 Samuel chapter 14. This chapter is broken down into three sections.

In verses 1 -23, you have Jonathan, Saul's son, he defeats the

Philistines. Verses 24 -46, it records Saul's rash oath.

And then verse 47, through the end of the chapter, it talks about Saul's continuing wars.

So, as we continue studying the life of Saul, remember how things started out. Things started out well for him, but after a couple of years,

Saul's power started to go to his head. He became proud. He wanted to do things his way instead of God's way.

And in the last chapter, Saul got word from the prophet Samuel that his kingdom would not continue, meaning

Jonathan would not take the throne after him. And because Saul reigned for 40 years, so it's not like Saul was deposed that very day or anything, but the line would not continue.

There would be no dynasty. So Jonathan would not be king. The kingdom would be taken from Saul's house, from his family, and given to another family, the family of David.

So let's begin reading 1 Samuel 14, starting in verse 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 Philistine's garrison that is on the other side. But he did not tell his father, 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 600 men. Ahijah, the son of Ahitob, Ichabod's brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the

Lord's priest in Shiloh, was wearing an ephod. But the people did not know that Jonathan had gone.

Between the passes by which Jonathan sought to go over to the Philistine's garrison, there was a sharp rock on one side and a sharp rock on the other side.

And the name of one was Bozes, and the name of the other Seneh. The front of one faced northward, opposite Michmash, and the other southward, opposite Gibeah.

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.

So his armor -bearer said to him, Do all that is in your heart. Go then.

Here I am with you, according to your heart. Very well. Let us cross over to these men, and we will show ourselves to them.

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.

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. So in this story we see that Jonathan had what?

He had great faith in what God could do. Now how he came to this plan and knew that this would be a sign, we're not told.

But here's the thing. If Saul hadn't disobeyed God, the Lord would have been fighting for Saul.

But instead, in this chapter, we see that the Lord is fighting for Jonathan. Jonathan is the hero, not his father.

He and his armor -bearer, they defeat the Philistines, at least this garrison, single -handedly.

And in the end of this chapter, Saul ends up just looking foolish. So the

Lord is fighting for Jonathan. In verse 15, the Lord causes a great earthquake to occur.

So this is just a really a miraculous victory. And presumably the Philistines, they thought

Jonathan, you know, when he kind of pops out of the rocks and they see him and one other guy, they don't think that Jonathan has the courage, the bravery, to come and attack the garrison, just him and this one other person.

They assume, or presumably, they assume that Jonathan is defecting or he's surrendering.

But in actuality, this was a bold surprise attack. Now Saul doesn't realize

Jonathan has gone out to do this. So when Saul, back at the camp, calls the roll, he discovers that his son is missing.

So verse 18, it says that Saul calls for the Ark of the Covenant. Some translations say he called for the ephod.

So this is important to the story. Saul seeks the Lord. He wants a word from God.

But then he sees the battle is turning his way. And then he kind of just stops and, well, forget that, forget what

God says. Let me go out to the battle. Okay, so that kind of shows you something about where Saul was at.

So instead of seeking what the Lord wants, Saul rushes off to attack what is in some way, really, an already defeated enemy.

Verse 23, so the Lord saved Israel that day, and the battle shifted to Beth -Avon.

Okay, so by not having the patience to wait on God, this is what got

Saul into trouble in our last study, and it's what's going to get him in trouble again. I mean, if Saul had just received and followed

God's word and had the patience to wait on the Lord and do what he said, what happens next would have been avoided.

Now verse 24 covers Saul's rash oath. It says, and the men of Israel were distressed that day, for Saul had placed the people under oath, saying,

Cursed is the man who eats any food until evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies.

So none of the people tasted food. Notice that. What did Saul say? You're not allowed to eat anything until I, you know, until I have taken vengeance.

I mean, this is a foolish command. Hungry soldiers are not real helpful to his cause, but this is the whole problem.

You know, it's about Saul. It's almost like he wants, he has this power and he just wants to exercise it.

So I have the ability to do this. It's what I want. And even if it's not good for anyone else,

I'm still going to do it because it's all about me. That's kind of the way it comes off. So this is what

Saul wants. It's not what the Lord wants. Saul is now boasting about taking vengeance on his enemies.

And by making this oath, number one, I think he does it because he can. So more evidence,

Saul is becoming obsessed and controlling. And number two, Jonathan being unaware of the oath.

What does Jonathan do? If you know the story, Jonathan eats something and now

Saul is in a position where he's either going to look like he's going back on his word or he has to kill his own son.

So this is a quite a predicament that Saul has gotten himself into by making foolish decisions, which all stem back to the same problem that he's not listening to God.

And again, Jonathan is the hero. Saul just looks foolish, especially Jonathan's.

He did this great thing and now Saul want, he's going to kill his own child. Yeah, this, this is really harmful to Saul's reputation, which only leads to more bitterness in paranoia.

Now just as an interesting side note, verse 25 says, now all the people of the land came to a forest and there was honey on the ground.

Verse 27 says, but Jonathan had not heard his father's charge to the people with this oath.

Therefore he stretched out the end of his rod that was in his hand and he dipped it in a honeycomb and put his hand to his mouth and his countenance brightened.

So the reason I wanted to read verse 25, you remember what the Lord told Moses and Joshua about the promised land?

It was a land flowing with milk and honey. I don't know about you, but I've never walked out into the woods and found just a bunch of honey on the ground, but they did.

And Saul, or excuse me, God had promised to give them all of this land as long as what?

As long as they had faith, as long as they had faith and trusted in God, the land was theirs.

But Saul, instead of trusting in the Lord, he's trying to operate in his own strength by threatening and manipulating people.

And this leads to even his own son reacting against this verse 29.

But Jonathan said, my father has troubled the land. Look now how my countenance has brightened because I tasted a little of this honey.

In other words, my father said, what? You know, after Jonathan eats the honey, people tell him,

Hey, your, your father said, anyone who eats has to die. And Jonathan's like, he did what, what, what a dumb thing to do.

Verse 30, how much better if the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies, which they have found for now, would there not have been a much greater slaughter among the

Philistines now, later, once Jonathan meets David and his loyalties are probably already shaken, you know, he's trusting in his father, but then his father does something like this and you get, you got to wonder, okay, what's he going to do next if he makes such a foolish decision as this and what's next.

But later on, once Jonathan and David become friends, Jonathan's loyalties will shift from his father to David.

So Saul by doing this really things are just totally, everything is working against Saul.

One thing after another, after another, everything works against him. And Saul tries to manipulate and threaten and tighten his grip.

And then the more he tightens it, it just slips through. The scripture says in Psalm 127 verse one, unless the

Lord builds the house, those who labor labor in vain. And why are all these old

Testament stories written down? Are they not written down for us to learn from? As Paul said in first Corinthians 10, that these old

Testament stories, they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages has come.

So as new Testament believers, I know some people think this way. In fact, there are some people who see the study from first Samuel 14 and think, you know, this is totally irrelevant.

Who cares? What does this have to do with my life? And they might not bother to listen or to read it or to study it, or they just don't bother to read the

Bible at all. Somehow they think Jesus is important, but these biblical stories are not really that important.

Well, it doesn't work that way by neglecting what is written. What happens?

We don't learn. We don't learn from the word of God. The word of God and the spirit of God has a sanctifying effect upon the believer.

So if we're not in the word, learning from the word, seeing what Saul did and learning, okay, why is he doing this?

This is what I shouldn't do. Unless we're doing that, we might end up making the same mistakes that Saul made.

So the whole point, at least partially, of writing all this down is to learn what not to do.

Saul had Samuel. He had the word of the Lord given by the high priest.

We have the 66 books of scripture. And while the details might be different, we see the same principles, the same principles that were true back then, that worked back then, the same principles are true now.

So all of God's word, the point is all of God's word is true. And when we read it and study it and hear it taught, then the words of Proverbs chapter two become the reality for us.

When it says that if you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding, yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the

Lord and find the knowledge of God for the Lord gives wisdom. And from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

He stores up sound wisdom for the upright, and he is a shield to those who walk uprightly.

He guards the paths of justice and preserves the way of his saints.

That's what we want for us. And that was written by who, right?

The Psalms and the Proverbs were written by David and his son who were blessed by God.

Saul, on the other hand, his life we know comes to a tragic end.

And he's sowing those seeds of tragedy right now. Saul and his son, they end up dead together on the battlefield.

David and his son. Well, isn't that the whole story of scripture?

You know, and it's sad because Jonathan, Jonathan seems to be a great man of God, but his father's actions bring a curse to the family.

So the point is, we are to learn from all of this. Apply your heart to understanding.

Saul was a man who is concerned with Saul. David was a man after God's own heart.

Saul was a man after Saul's own heart. So you need to ask this question for yourself.

I need to ask it for myself. Am I a man after God's own heart? Are you a woman after God's own heart?

Do you share God's desires or are you living your life to follow and fulfill your own desires?

One path leads to blessing and everlasting life. The other path leads to a curse and eternal destruction.

So are we learning from this story? Saul makes this rash oath.

The people who serve him are now starving. When the battle was over, in verse 31, they slaughtered the animals.

So this is what happens to the people. They're so hungry, they haven't eaten anything. Saul won't let them eat. So once the battle is done, they can't even wait and they slaughter the animals and instead of draining the blood and cooking the meat,

Saul's soldiers ate the meat raw with the blood in it, which was an abomination to God.

It was against God's law. And you would have to be really, really hungry to do something like that.

I mean, I don't know if I could get that hungry. Of course, I guess I've never been that hungry that I would never even consider it.

But I mean, this is a really bad situation. But they never should have been in it to begin with. Saul, his oath, his command became a stumbling block for his army.

He put them in this situation. Verse 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.

Then Saul said, disperse yourselves from 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.

Then Saul built an altar to the Lord. You think, well, okay, things are turning around.

Saul is building an altar. Well, then you get this note. This was the first altar that he built to the

Lord. And then if you look into it more, he didn't even finish it. So this is the first altar

Saul builds and it will be the last. But now Saul wants to inquire of the

Lord again as the chapter continues. Remember last time he inquired of God and then he's like, oh, nevermind, forget it.

And then he went off and did something else. This time he inquires of God.

He asked the priest to speak to the Lord on his behalf. And it says in verse 37, now the

Lord did not answer him. God was going to give him an answer.

The first time Saul didn't really care, didn't want to hear what he said. Saul turns to get a word from God the second time.

Now God's not talking to him. Saul, we can say, has crossed a line.

And Saul then says, because he's stubborn, he doesn't want to admit he's wrong. Now he says he's going to fulfill this oath by killing

Jonathan, his own son. Things are just getting worse and worse and worse.

Verse 45, the people say, shall Jonathan die who has accomplished this great deliverance in Israel?

Certainly not. As the Lord lives, not one hair of his head shall fall to the ground for he has worked with God this day.

So the people rescued Jonathan and he did not die. The chapter records the wars that Saul continued to fight.

And while Israel's borders were expanded, notice what it says in verse 52. It says, now there was fierce war with the

Philistines all the days of Saul's life. God never gave him the victory.

Why is that? Remember, David will achieve peace from all his enemies, but Saul never did.

Saul never got the victory because when Saul did seek the Lord, he was half -hearted about it.

When Saul did seek God, he cut it short and he didn't listen. Saul was not a man after God's own heart.

Saul was a man after Saul's heart. We don't want this to be us.

People say, you know, that God is there whenever you need him. God is there.

And, you know, maybe, but if you don't feel like you need God, or you don't feel like you need to listen to God, you know, one day, and you're not bothering to seek him or you're not turning to him, one day you might turn to the

Lord and discover that he isn't there. He's not responding. That God would have responded if you sought him with your whole heart back then.

But when a person shows such disregard for the things of the Lord, especially when they know better, and Saul did, there is sometimes a line that can be crossed.

And Saul has crossed that line. So, in conclusion, this story about Saul is a lesson of what not to do.

Saul only builds one altar, he doesn't even finish it, and then he rushes off to something else.

And so it is with many today. They will give God a few minutes here and there, maybe what they have left over, but God's agenda is not what they're concerned about.

What they're concerned about is their own agenda. You know, that it's my life, and I'll live it my way.

And the tighter they hold on to their plans, like Saul, the quicker things slip through their grip.

So what's the solution then? Be like David and not like Saul.

Be a man or a woman after God's own heart. Let his desires be your desires.

Diligently seek the Lord and trust in him. And I'll close with this word from Psalm 3 verses 5 and 6.

It says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.