An Active Faith

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Don Filcek; 1 Samuel 14 An Active Faith

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to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series in First Samuel, Timely Prophet, Tragic King.
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Let's listen in. Good morning, Recast. As Dave said, I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and I am glad to welcome you to this worship gathering of Recast Church here in Matawan, Michigan.
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And as Dave already reminded you, don't forget that it is Father's Day. Let me encourage all of you that are able to reach out to your own father and honor him.
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I say this, I said this at Mother's Day, I say this every one of these Mother's and Father's Days, I routinely repeat this every year, but it is awesome that we have a day set aside in our culture to obey one of God's commands.
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One of God's commands is honor your father and mother, and so I would encourage you to take that on, and I recognize that there's all kinds of feelings, a variety of different feelings.
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Some of you had a dad that was very respectful, and it doesn't come hard for you to show him honor, and then others of us have a stretch.
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Some of you have fathers that you went to a funeral for. You have all different kinds of feelings and thoughts that this day evokes for you, and so I would just encourage you to let
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God's grace wash over you, and if you can find it in your heart and you're able to honor your father in some way today, do so, and do so with joy in the
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Lord and recognizing that that's what he wants for you. All right, I'm here at Recast. We seek to take
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God's word seriously, but ourselves, not so much.
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We wanna take God's word and lift it high, but for ourselves, we, you know,
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I mean, I'm not wearing a suit this morning. I've got my beach shoes on here, and just part of that is the intentional desire to make sure that what we're doing is focused on God's word and not focused on traditions and the things that can sometimes get us off into the weeds.
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As a matter of fact, it is my conviction that taking ourselves too seriously can lead to unhelpful and even unhealthy traditions.
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When we begin to think too highly of ourselves, our plans, our routines, our programming, our, our, our, you begin to see the focus starts to turn internally, and that's why the
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T in Recast stands for truth. That's why that's one of our core values here. We need to keep coming back to God's word to see what is true.
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Now, some of you would raise your hand and say, you like to, you like to live by patterns. You like structure. You do some of the same things every day, and, and there can, as we get older, raise your hand if you've identified that.
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As, as you've aged or as you've gotten a little bit older, you've actually identified that you begin to like those routines and those patterns, and that's, that's a reality for me.
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I see that in my own life, and so we need to keep coming back to God's word to get us out of those ruts, especially those ruts that are often unhelpful in our walk with Christ.
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In the Bible, we find a truth that runs counter to human wisdom, and so we have a human wisdom that will keep us on a certain track and might even, if, if it's just off a little bit from the truth, obviously our end point is quite a ways away, so in the
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Bible, we also find a truth that reminds us of God's great love for his people, and in the
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Bible, we're reminded to lean heavily on the Almighty God for strength, wisdom, and ultimately, at the end game, we're relying on him and depending on him for deliverance, for our salvation, and so this morning, we're gonna be, we're gonna see a sweeping statement of faith from, faith and trust from Jonathan, the son of King Saul, who is the tragic king that we're talking about in this entire series, going through the book of 1
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Samuel, and he's gonna model for us, the son of King Saul is gonna model for us an active faith, a faith that believes and then goes and lives according to it, actually goes and takes action based on that faith, and it's not an accident that chapter 14,
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I think it's really interesting, I didn't quite see it as I was studying last week and I already knew what was coming in 14, but after preaching last week, it's not, it's not an accident that chapter 14 comes after chapter 13, and you go,
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Don, that's the way numbers work, I know what you mean, but I'm talking about the content of chapter 13 and chapter 14.
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What I mean is that last week we saw Saul sinning by his action, because he took action and was impatient, was unwilling to wait on the
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Lord, he was sinning, and in our text, we're gonna see a man acting, and it's honored by God, and you go, how is this possible?
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Like, I thought last week, Don, you told us to wait, this week, you're telling us to take bold action, what is the difference?
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And bringing these two lessons together will hopefully set many of us free with the truth this morning, that tension that's found in when do we wait and when do we act, have you identified that there's a tension in that in your life?
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I hope that this passage helps to resolve and really thinking about last week in contrast to this week will help set that free.
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You see, I think many of us sit immobilized by decision making at certain points in life, some of you are there right now, you've got decisions that are facing you that you're immobilized, you don't know what to do, you get paralyzed by saying,
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God, could you speak to me? Have you at some point wanted God to actually talk to you? Have you ever wished that God emailed?
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I have, I'd accept a text or an email from him, could you just let me know, could you write it in the clouds, could you?
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I mean, even many of us, if we're honest, we're looking for an impression in our soul, right? Like, God, could you just press this on me so hard that I know that I'm supposed to do
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A, B, or C, or whatever, I mean, many of us in the room would honestly even settle for snail mail if he'd write us a letter.
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But what if asking for God to tell us it's all going to work out in advance was never his plan for his people?
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What if that isn't the way that he works in the day -to -day? What if that's not part of the way that he wants to work in us, but instead his way is one of producing more and more faith?
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More and more growing in faith in our hearts? I believe that that is really the case of what he desires for us.
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What if God issues us commands and then gives us freedom in the way we live our lives?
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Can we accept that? When God put Adam and Eve in the garden, he told them they could eat from the garden.
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He said, all of this is yours, eat, eat, eat. Take all of it, cultivate. He told them to subdue and cultivate the creation around them to advance what he already created as good.
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Have you ever thought about that? God created a good garden and then said, hey, cultivate this and improve on it. Improve on it,
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God created it, but he left some room for us in creativity to advance culture, to do things.
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How many of you think that where we live today is different than where they lived in the garden? Are there some advancements? Is there some technology?
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Is there some cultural advancement? All kinds of things that have happened since then. Notice that God didn't give them explicit instructions.
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He told them to cultivate, to subdue, but he didn't tell them how to cultivate. He didn't tell them every detail of their daily lives.
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And last week, we saw a man commanded to wait. We saw him commanded to sit tight.
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Wait for seven days, then Samuel will come to you, then I will tell you how to take the battle to the Philistines, but Saul refused to wait.
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His command was to wait and he said no. This week, we encounter his son who is not told to wait, so he goes out to act in faith and hope that God might deliver him and his people.
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He has no guarantee in the text. He has no promises it's going to go well for him as we read this here in a moment.
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He isn't sure that he won't be buried in a grave or left dead by the end of this day that we're reading about in this text.
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God didn't meet him in the night and tell him to take the battle to the Philistines, but instead, what we see is a man acting on what he knows and what he believes to be true of God and he acted in faith.
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And God saw fit to reward his faith with unprecedented victory. God didn't owe
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Jonathan anything and Jonathan had no trust in his ability to manipulate the
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Almighty to give him what he wanted. He was just seeking to live a life based on faith in the
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Almighty God. So let's open our Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 14. If you use the
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Bible that's under the seat in front of you, it's found on page 135. And we're gonna read the first, really just verse one through 23 of this passage.
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Forms enough for us to take off in one sermon here. We usually do an entire chapter, but we're gonna break this one down.
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So 1 Samuel 14, one through 23. Please follow along, Recast. This is
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God's word to us as we hear this amazing story, historical story about Jonathan, the son of Saul.
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One day, Jonathan, the son of Saul, said to the young man who carried his armor, come, let us go over to the
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Philistine garrison on the other side. But he did not tell his father. Saul was staying in the outskirts of Gibeah in the pomegranate cave at Migrin.
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The people who were with him were about 600 men, including Ahijah, the son of Ehetub. Ichabod's brother, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, the priest of the
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Lord in Shiloh, wearing an ephod. And the people did not know that Jonathan had gone. Within the passes by, within the passes by which
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Jonathan sought to go over to the Philistine garrison, there was a rocky crag on one side and a rocky crag on the other side.
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The name of the one was Bozes, and the name of the other, Senna. The one crag rose on the north in front of Michmash and the other on the south in front of Geba.
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Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the
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Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few. And his armor bearer said, do all that is in your heart.
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Do as you wish. Behold, I am with you, heart and soul. The Jonathan said, behold, we will cross over to the men and we will show ourselves to them.
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If they say to us, wait until we come to you, then we will stand in our place and we will not go up to them.
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But if they say, come up to us, then we will go up for the Lord has given them into our hand and they shall be assigned to us.
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So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines and the Philistines said, look, Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they've hidden themselves.
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And the men of the garrison hailed Jonathan, his armor bearer, and said, come up to us and we'll show you a thing.
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And Jonathan said to the armor bearer, come up after me for the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel. The Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet, the armor bearer after him, and they fell before Jonathan and his armor bearer killed them after him.
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And that first strike which Jonathan and his armor bearer made killed about 20 men within, as it were, half a furrow's length in an acre of land.
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And there was a panic in the camp. In the field and among all the people, the garrison and even the raiders trembled.
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The earth quaked and it became a very great panic. And the watchmen of Saul and Gibeah, Benjamin, looked and behold, the multitude was dispersing here and there.
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Then Saul said to the people who were with him, count and see who has gone from us. And when they had counted, behold, Jonathan and his armor bearer were not there.
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So Saul said to Ahijah, bring the ark of God here for the ark of God went at that time with the people of Israel.
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Now while Saul was talking to the priest, the tumult in the camp of the Philistines increased more and more.
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So Saul said to the priest, withdraw your hand. Then Saul and all the people who were with him rallied and went into the battle.
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And behold, every Philistine's sword was against his fellow and there was very great confusion. Now the Hebrews who had been with the
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Philistines before that time, who had gone up with them into the camp, even they also turned to be with the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan.
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Likewise, when all the men of Israel who had hidden themselves in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines were fleeing, they too followed hard after them in battle.
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So the Lord saved Israel that day and the battle passed beyond Beth -Avon.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your grace that reveals, even in these
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Old Testament accounts and in this Old Testament history, something that is true of you and true of us.
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Father, we are a people who need to be motivated to act based on our faith.
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That if we are people who with our mouths say that we trust you, that we believe that you are mighty, that we believe you are powerful, then that is a call to action.
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Otherwise, it's just lip service, it's just words. So Father, I pray that even today you might produce some actions that would glorify you from this message.
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Often what we encounter in your word is just believing the right things and I just so much wanna encourage a genuine trust in you.
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But it goes beyond our thinking, it goes beyond our believing and it's supposed to get all the way down into our will and our actions and the way that we live this week.
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So Father, I recognize that many of us are on the fence regarding the way that we live. Many of us are wandering around, looking for you to tell us what to do when there's so much to be done around us.
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So Father, I pray that you would open our eyes, open our ears, and even now open our mouths to worship you because you are worthy, you are high, you are exalted, you are majestic, and you are the only one who is truly worthy of our worship.
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You are the one who saves your people. It's not Jonathan, it's not our efforts, not the actions that we're even talking about doing this week, but at the end of the day, it is your salvation to us that gives us those actions to do.
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So Father, I pray that we would rejoice in what your son has given to us, the free, open relationship that we have with you now, only through your son and it's in his name that I pray.
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I encourage you to get comfortable, keep your Bibles open to 1 Samuel 14, verses one through 23.
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That's our text for the day, and so again, 1 Samuel 14, one through 23, if you lost your spot there, and then there's more donuts back there,
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I think more coffee and juice. So if you need to get up at any time, I know we just took a break, but feel free, you're not gonna distract me, and let's dive in.
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I wanna start off by saying an antithetical statement to a common proverb. Sometimes the apple falls far from the tree.
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Sometimes the apple falls very far from the tree. I mean, sometimes the apple is picked up, it's picked up off the ground or picked from the tree, loaded in a basket, washed, cleaned off, waxed, and it gets one of those little annoying stickers placed on it, and then it's shipped off to Piggly Wiggly.
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That's the name of a store, an actual place in the South, and sold to some guy in Utah who has never seen an apple.
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I mean, an apple on a tree. Jonathan is one of those squeaky clean characters in the
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Bible that is so utterly distinct and different from his father. We certainly know that he had faults because he was human.
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We just don't have any recorded. There's nothing recorded there that tells us a sin of Jonathan.
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We're gonna get to know him a little bit in the book of 1 Samuel. We're gonna see tracking his life of loyalty, a life of nobility, a life of kindness, a life of diligent and active faith.
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This young man who was born to the conflicted and tragic King Saul shines brightly wherever he's mentioned in Scripture.
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And our chapter here is set in the context of Israel being pressed hard by the Philistines to remind you in case you weren't here last week or haven't followed the flow of this, just a quick brief history here.
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They were hard pressed by the Philistines. Last week we saw that Saul had attempted to muster Israel against the
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Philistine occupiers. They're occupied by the Philistines. There's garrisons of Philistines all throughout
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Israel. They're not allowed to have their own blacksmiths. They have to go down to even sharpen their farm implements, down to the coastal towns of the
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Philistines. So there aren't many swords in Israel during this time. And so Jonathan had already had some victory against the
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Philistines and had defeated one of their garrisons. And so the Philistine occupiers come out with an extinction force.
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Extinction force as in enough power and enough firepower to completely annihilate the Israelites.
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30 ,000 chariots, 6 ,000 horsemen, ground troops beyond count.
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So in terror, in terror many Israelite soldiers ran and hid some of them left
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Saul and scattered to the east and even took off outside of Israel. And as we're gonna see in our text this morning, we're gonna find out something new that even some of them had deserted to the
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Philistines. Some of them literally went over to the enemy side. And all of that had been brought to a head by Jonathan conquering a garrison of the
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Philistines with the help of 1 ,000 troops. So he's kind of the bee that stung the giant's nose like I mentioned last week.
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So the Israelite army through the sin of Saul that we saw last week was reduced to 600 and they're now hiding out in a cave while the
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Philistine raiders are spreading to the east, are spreading to the north and are spreading to the west. And I have just a quick,
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I don't do this very often, but I have just a minor correction from last week. I had mentioned that I referenced
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Gideon and the number 600, it was actually 300 that God used through Gideon to defeat the
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Midianites if you were here last week. And the numbers I said that 600 here looks like 600 there. Well, it was 600 that he started with and then
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God even pared that down by half to 300. And so I just wanted to correct that. I made it, I implied last week or maybe even stated that God used 600 to defeat the
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Midianites and it was only 300. But in verse one, Jonathan got tired of just sitting around. We see that right off the bat in our text this week in chapter 14.
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Jonathan is, I mean, I don't know what the conversation looks like. I don't know what it looks like to just be sitting with 600 soldiers waiting when you know that that kind of force is opposed to you.
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You probably find a safe place strategically and then they're just hiding out there and Jonathan is like having none of it.
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Last week we saw Saul not choosing to sit around and getting in trouble.
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But remember that he was told to wait last week. Saul got tired of sitting around and got in trouble for it because he was told specifically by God, wait for seven days and this will happen and he did not.
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God had given them those specific instructions to wait for Samuel to come in to make sacrifices and then God would command the king, telling him how to move forward in victory even if it was just 600 men.
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But Saul grew impatient, offered the sacrifices of his own and he was judged for it. Now we know that only
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Jonathan and Saul had swords and spears and armor. And we're gonna see mention of an armor bearer here and you're gonna actually see that that would be significant during this time.
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The rest of Israel was armed with just farming tools. You have to picture them going out to battle with pitchforks and scythes and cultivators and all kinds of things, whatever they can get that's made out of metal or even some probably wooden weapons that they're carrying with them.
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So Jonathan plotted a scheme with his armor bearer and we see that in verses one through 10, this plot, this scheme.
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And he said, let's go over to the Philistines on the other side of this canyon. So you've got them on opposite sides of a canyon.
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And he says, let's go over to the other side but I'm not gonna tell my dad about it. I'm not gonna let Saul know that we're going to do this.
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Implied in this not telling, the fact that the text explicitly tells us that he didn't tell Saul, it kind of has some implications to it.
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We don't know exactly all 100 % why the author would include that but I believe it has something to do with Saul would put the kibosh on this.
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He would say, no, you're not going out to do this, son. And so how many of you have ever maybe done something that you didn't ask permission but you asked for forgiveness?
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That's what we have Jonathan doing here. I'm not gonna tell dad in advance. We're just gonna go ahead and borrow the car.
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I don't know. We're gonna go ahead and do this thing and then we'll ask for forgiveness later. And so that's what's implied here.
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And this is made more clear, by the way, by context. The contrast between Saul and his son is part of what the purpose of this text is serving to do.
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Saul was hiding out with his 600 troops around the pomegranate cave in Migrin. Saul has just received word that his kingdom is gonna be taken from him and given to someone who has a heart that truly pursues after God.
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He's been informed of that and I can imagine that his world is reeling as his entire nation is crumbling around him and he's been told that he is no longer going to be king, that someone is already going to be raised up soon that will take that from him.
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The prophet Samuel then ditched Saul and so verse three lets us know that Saul has already sought new spiritual counsel.
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He has with him a man named Ahijah and Ahijah has an actual lineage given here to clarify for us where he comes from.
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How in the world if Samuel was supposed to be his right -hand man and Samuel has left him now because God has forsaken
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King Saul, where is he getting spiritual advice from? So Saul proves throughout his life to be one that is just willing to take advice from whoever will give it to him and he seems to be desperate for it.
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And so he has with him Ahijah, the nephew of Ichabod who is from the forsaken line of priests that came from the fallen
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Eli earlier in the book of 1 Samuel and through Phinehas, his son. Now Ichabod is an interesting name that's mentioned here.
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Ichabod means the glory has departed or there is no glory. And the author of this account right here did not need to mention the name
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Ichabod to make his lineage clear. He's talking about an uncle. He's not even talking about direct line of descent.
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He's talking about oh and he's by the way the nephew of this guy. He could have just gone dad to dad to dad but he didn't.
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He mentioned a little side note here. Oh by the way this is Ichabod's nephew. Why mention that?
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You see what we're getting here in this is a picture of the rejected stony -hearted king taking counsel from the descendants of a broken and rejected line of priests.
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Saul is demoralized. Saul is immobilized. Saul is in hiding.
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And his kingdom is in shambles and raiders are roving across the countryside of Israel village to village subjugating his people while he is where?
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In a cave, hiding. We have to go back last week if you get a chance to if you weren't here to go back and listen to that message to kind of understand some of the context of why in the world would
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God have forsaken this king. And it's pretty clear from the text last week you could go back and read that.
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So he's hiding on one side of a steep canyon near Michmash, a little town the
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Philistines would not be able to bring chariots and horsemen to bear in that rugged terrain. And so Saul is strategically hiding until he can figure out what to do.
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He doesn't know what his next steps are. He just is at least in a strategic place near a cave where he knows that there's a narrow pass there and the
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Philistines are way over on the other side of this rugged pass that they're not gonna be able to come a long ways around to get to Saul where he's at.
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And we also find out that the nickname of the two cliffs forming the canyon show that this was not just a gentle slope.
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This was not gonna be easy to build a ramp up or something like that to try to get the chariots to come to bear in battle or anything like that.
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The one side is called slippery and the other side is called thorny. That's the translation of those two words that you see there.
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But what is it, boza and sela or something? Bozez and sela. And that's slippery and thorny in that order.
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But the very bold plan of Jonathan and his armor bear is exposed for us in verses eight through 10.
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He says, let's just scramble down to the bottom of this canyon. Let's really scramble down thorny and then go over to slippery is kind of like what he's saying.
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Let's go down this one side of the canyon, walk across and show them ourselves and we'll jump up and down and wave for their attention and let them know that we're here.
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And the plan that he shares with his armor bear gives God a chance, gives
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God a chance to show him a sign. He says, we're open to God revealing to us what this might be. I'm gonna act in faith,
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I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna take this step. But if the Philistines come down to us, say, hey, hold on a second, we'll come down to you, then we will not go up to their encampment.
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We'll stay down there. That'll be a sign for us to, I don't know what they plan to do, maybe just dispatch those two who come down and then we'll take off.
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But if the Philistines tell Jonathan to come up, then he's gonna take that. He says, I mean, he's issuing the idea here.
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This is his plot, this is his scheme. So I'm gonna take it, I'm gonna give God the chance to communicate through these
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Philistines and if they say, come on up, then we'll take that as God's sign that the
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Philistines are delivered to us that day, that Israel's gonna conquer the Philistines that day. I mean, how does he come up with this?
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Where in the world, ask yourself this, I mean, as you're reading it, as you're thinking about it, where in the world does a plan like this come from?
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How does Jonathan come up with this strategy? How does he create from nothing?
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I mean, he's there just waiting in a cave. He can just sit there and sit there and sit there like all the other soldiers, but for some reason in Jonathan there is a seed planted.
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Hey, let's act. Let's go do something about this. How in the world could
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Jonathan create this plot out of nothing? Maybe, you know, think about the possibilities of what was going on in his heart that might lead him.
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Maybe he's just bored and tired of waiting. Like that could just be the sum total of it.
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Maybe he considered himself pretty good with a sword and just imagined that he could take on the whole army of the Philistines by himself, just him and his armor bearer.
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Was his trust placed in his strength and skill? Is that where this plot comes from? Or maybe he had just enough, had done enough research to study the weakness of his enemy and he knew the right spot to strike and so it was his intellect.
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So was his trust placed in his intelligence and his plans and his schemes and his military strategy?
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Was not his trust in his skill. It was not his trust in his intellect that led
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Jonathan to come to this plan. Because you can look back at verses six and seven and it tells you where the plan comes from.
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Jonathan speaking to his armor bearer in verses six and seven reminds himself first in the word that is indeed used pejoratively, derogatorily, negatively of the
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Philistines. He says, he calls them uncircumcised but that is not just strictly an epithet.
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It's not just a slang, you know, rude word to sling at them but it actually has covenant significance.
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He's reminding his armor bearer and himself to strengthen himself. We are the circumcised, we are the chosen, we are the covenant people of the almighty
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God. They are not, they worship Baal, they worship all these pagan gods, they worship Dagon.
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We are the God people, if you will. They're outside the covenant.
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Their uncircumcision means that they have not been brought into a covenant relationship with Yahweh, the God of the universe.
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But there are three words that I wanna be clear as Jonathan is talking to his armor bearer to be clear in the middle of verse six that are the hinge of this entire text, the driving force that if you're gonna take a nap, don't take a nap now, listen to this and hopefully this will impact your life.
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I believe it has the power to impact every life in here. When we understand these three words in this context correctly, they have the power to set us free from the immobilizing fear of decision making.
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This text may impact the way you live your life in a very fundamental day to day way.
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And it is these three words that are significant in the English Standard Version, different translations are gonna have it differently. In the
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English Standard Version, it is it may be. It may be.
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Some other translations have the word perhaps. Maybe, it may be.
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Our position towards all many salvations of God, I call them many salvations because it's not the same attitude towards the ultimate deliverance that God is giving us.
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There is not a maybe in that, and there's not a perhaps because he's given us direct promises, but he has not promised to conquer cancer in your life.
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Did you know that? He has not promised you that. So that's why I call them many salvations because everyone in this room, you can think right now, what do
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I wanna be saved from? The first answer should be sin because that's your biggest problem.
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That's the biggest threat over any human life is their own sin, that if you would stand before the holy
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God in your sin without that problem taken care of, you're condemned to be outside of his presence for eternity.
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That's what hell is. Hell is a separation from God for eternity for those who would choose to remain in their sin.
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But there's this thing, I use the word throughout the series and throughout when I'm teaching on the Old Testament about many salvations.
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Well, what do I mean by that? There are things that you and I want to be saved from that are not the big picture, but you can answer the question for yourself.
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What is it that you wanna be saved from? Something, it might be an ailment, there might be an illness, there might be a situation at work, there might be a situation in your family, it might be a broken relationship with your father.
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Here we're on Father's Day and it might be something very specific that you're looking for healing in or a relationship with a sibling that's estranged or something that's going on in your marriage.
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All different kinds of possibilities of these many salvations. And our position as the people of God towards those many salvations are always perhaps.
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It may be, it may be that the Lord will deliver me from cancer.
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Perhaps the Lord will give me that new position. Perhaps the Lord will turn the heart of my child to repentance.
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Perhaps the Lord will remove this addiction or this habit from my life.
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Jonathan gives God room to do whatever he desires in this situation.
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You see it? Jonathan did not know the outcome. He did not know how this day ended for him.
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But he's trusting in the Almighty. Dale Davis, again the commentary that I recommend on this,
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Dale Davis speaking of Jonathan. And here in this text says this. Speaking of Jonathan, quote, he both confesses the power of Yahweh and retains the freedom of Yahweh.
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Faith does not dictate to God as if the Lord of hosts is its errand boy.
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As if God must serve me. Do you see it?
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Against insurmountable odds, Jonathan is about to act and put his life on the line for a perhaps.
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How in the world could he do this? How in the world could he have such bravado, such bravery, such courage in the face of this insurmountable task in front of him?
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What moves in the chest of a man to make him walk over to an extinction force of soldiers with one sword and an armor bearer in tow who's probably carrying a shield?
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And I would suggest to you it comes down to one word that is very fundamental to recast church. We all want to be growing in faith.
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Faith is the thing that moves a man to take this kind of action. I want you to consider another
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Old Testament story. I don't bounce around in scripture a whole lot. I'm not gonna ask you to turn there, but I'm just gonna tell the story real quick and quote
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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. How many of you have ever heard those names? Some of you, how many of you have ever heard of Rack, Shack, and Benny?
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There you go, now you got it. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, three Hebrew young men who were exiled in Babylon, and the king of Babylon said, when you hear the music, we're gonna have a little festival.
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It's gonna be a kind of fun time. I'm gonna build a big statue to myself, and then when you hear this music play,
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I want you to all bow before it in worship. Everybody good?
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Okay, let's strike up the band, and these three Hebrew boys just go, not gonna do it, and they remain standing while everybody is going, guys, he's gonna kill you if you don't do this, and they stand nonetheless, but what
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I wanna zero in on is the words that they say here. If you're taking notes, you can jot this down and look it up later.
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Daniel 3, 17 through 18. Daniel 3, 17 through 18 say this. They declare, these three young men, standing before the king of Babylon, refusing to bow to his idols, say this.
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Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us. Do you hear the faith there? He is able, the power is there to deliver us from the fiery furnace.
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You see, they were gonna be thrown, that was the punishment. They were gonna be thrown into a smelting furnace if they refused to bow, so he said,
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I'm gonna throw you in the furnace. Unless you do, let's play the music one more time. I think you might have misunderstood me.
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So let's go ahead and strike up the band again, and they still refuse to bow, and that's their answer. Our God is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand,
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O king. We're going out of your hands, one way or the other. We're no longer under your authority, okay?
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One way or the other. You throw us in the furnace, no authority over us. It's ending today, one way or the other.
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But be it known, if not, if not, if our
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Lord does not deliver us from the furnace, from those flames, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, or worship the golden image that you have set up.
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Do you see it? Our God is able, we have full and complete trust that he can deliver us from these flames.
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But if he chooses not to, we're still not gonna bow to your idol. Do you see the, they were literally saying,
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God is able to make it so that our nerve endings are not impacted by the flames, so that our flesh is not consumed, so that the laws of physics do not apply in this situation.
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God is able to do that in this situation. But if he chooses to allow our flesh to melt, if he chooses to allow us to combust, if he lets the nerve endings feel those flames and that heat, we're not gonna bow.
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That's the way we're going. Do you see the faith there that says,
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I don't know the outcome of this day. I don't know the results, but I'm gonna act on what is true and right no matter what.
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And my faith is completely in my God who is able to deliver me. Almost everybody in the room knows the way that that story ends.
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If you don't, I'd encourage you to read it this week, see how it ends. Daniel chapter three.
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Faith requires that we do not know the outcome. Faith is trust placed in what God can do while still acknowledging that God is never required to act on our behalf regarding these many salvations.
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Perhaps is a word of faith when it is coupled to the almighty God. It isn't perhaps.
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Jonathan doesn't look at his armor bearer and say, perhaps fate will shine our way. He doesn't say, perhaps my lucky rabbit's foot will give us good luck as he rubs the rabbit foot on the way across the valley floor.
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Or perhaps the odds will ever be in our favor. I mean, it is perhaps the almighty
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God will come to fight on behalf of his people. Perhaps he will show up. It may be, says
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Jonathan, that the Lord will work for us. Maybe. And so I'm gonna give him a chance.
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I'm gonna step out in faith and see what God might do here in our midst.
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Jonathan's hope was clearly and explicitly stated in raw and stark words. Nothing can hinder the
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Lord from saving, whether by many or by few. There's only two of us.
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Me and my armor bearer. But if the Lord puts his mind to save, it doesn't matter.
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If his will is that we are delivered this day, then we will be delivered.
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Army of 600, whether Lord, whether we got an army of a million, or in this case, in this account, an army of two.
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The Lord sets his mind to save. Salvation is coming. You see,
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God, I think we all know this, but we need a reminder of this. God is not dependent on the things that we measure.
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We like to measure because we're sensory beings. We've got five senses. God is not dependent on the things that we measure.
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Size, number, strength, beauty, fame, clout. God loves to dismantle our trust in the things that we can see and measure.
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He does it by delivering through 300 troops with Gideon, through a childless woman named
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Hannah, through a murderer in exile in the desert named Moses, through a man and his armor bearer.
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But even more so, through a middle class rabbi hanging on a cross, a
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Roman cross. Jonathan inspires his armor bearer.
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I love the response. If I was translating this, I'd just say, totes with you, bruh, if that's what he says here.
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He's like, 100%, let's do this thing. Heart and soul, you got me.
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Oh, captain, my captain. So they get over to the other side to find some mockery and derision.
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The first thing that they experience when they get across the valley is a couple Philistines identifying. They're down there shouting, hey, we're down here, hey.
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And the Philistines look down and are like, hey, look, the Hebrews, aren't they so cute? They're coming out of the holes they were hiding in.
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Come on up here, little Hebrews. We have something to show you. Apparently trash talking has been around longer than basketball.
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Jonathan got the sign. He scrambled up on all fours. I don't even think he cared that he was getting trash talked because he was like,
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I just said, if they say come up, we're going up. And they just said, come up. I mean, I'm ready.
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So he scrambles up on all fours. And I just wanna point out that the Philistines in this context have the high ground.
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So if you listen to Obi -Wan Kenobi's advice, the battle's already over. If you have the high ground, you just can't even fight anymore.
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But nobody really likes, nobody got that. Just wasn't that funny, sorry.
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But the Philistines likely had their guard down. I can imagine that two guys coming up there were not super intimidating to this huge Philistine army.
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I don't know all the ins and outs of what the actual climb and scramble up the hill looked like. It says that he went up on all fours.
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Again, remember, a sharp and slippery cliff. And they make it up there. And maybe the
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Philistines even thought they were gonna desert. Remember that there were deserters, people who had gone over to the Philistine side. Maybe they had every expectation that was gonna happen.
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Jonathan, on she's his sword, begins to strike down the Philistines. And it says even the armor bearer was coming behind him.
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Probably didn't have a sword, but he's finishing them off as Jonathan is knocking them down.
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And they struck down about 20 Philistines in about, it's a weird term that's used there, but it's assumed to be about a half an acre of land.
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So a reasonable size of a plot of property in a subdivision in our community, about a half an acre of land.
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Sword combat isn't quiet. It's not a quiet thing, it grabs attention. And it got the attention of the camp, the larger, focused, big group of Philistines that are there on the top of this hill.
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And panic spread throughout the massive encampment of the Philistines. They begin to hear sword clashes and armor and swords hitting steel.
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And that would be very loud. And so the word spread throughout. Even scouts and even the raiding parties that have dispersed to basically subjugate
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Israel. They're even beginning to tremble. They're catching word that we're under attack and our main force is under attack.
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And God added a nice touch. It says right there in the text that he added a little bit of his own flair and added an earthquake.
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And that further increased the panic until a panic in the camp turned into a very great panic in the camp.
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Saul's scouts from across the canyon saw, begin to see this,
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I mean they could see this massive army encamped and they begin to see it boil. They begin to see a massive, at the edges it starts to separate.
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And they're like, you know, looking, I mean they don't have binoculars, but they're able to observe this, what looks like a massive mass of humanity and it just starts to bubble at the edges.
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And as they're watching, they're thinking something is going on over there. So they get Saul and he sends, he sends, well first they count and they say, who's missing?
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And they assume that Jonathan and his armor bearer have something to do with this. And he sends for the arch and the priest to determine what he should do.
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Now he's ready to ask God. Now he's ready to wait and be patient.
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But in verse 19, Saul is awaiting the priest's ritual. There's a long and unclear from the
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Old Testament. We don't have enough clarity to be able to duplicate the process of determining the Lord's will according to the ephod and the bringing of the ark and all of that stuff.
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But it would have been a process involved in that. And over the course of Hyjah, the priest, trying to determine what the
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Lord would have them do, in a very technical way, Saul says what he's been saying in his heart towards God all along and trying to wait for his will.
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He says screw this and he commands Hyjah to withdraw his hand from the ephod. That's everybody, all the scholars that are interpreting this passage are saying when he says withdraw your hand, he's saying forget it.
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Stop, stop this. Stop this routine, I'm going. So he just ends up not even waiting for God to tell him what to do.
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The camp is boiling and it's getting into a fervor and something's going on over there.
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We're going to attack. And so you see that they're attacking each other.
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You see that in the text. And how many of you, that's ever confusing when you see that in scripture? Anybody besides me?
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Is that ever, no? Really? When you see people, when you see an encampment of Philistines and they're taking the sword to their own people, does that, that never strikes your mind as weird?
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Okay, just Dave, me and Dave. It is, I think it's a stretch sometimes. Like I look at it and I'm like how in the world does that happen?
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But maybe you've done what I did this week to try to get an understanding. Maybe you're already there and I'm just speaking to myself.
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But I've never been in combat. I've never been in a military encampment that was expecting combat.
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You know, I think about our current forces and friendly fire is still a killer in our military, isn't it?
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There's still friendly fire that happens routinely. I cannot imagine the adrenaline of combat.
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Can you, I mean, can you put yourself in that scenario for just a second? Expecting to be sliced through with a sword at any point in your sleep.
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You could be attacked, I mean, at any time. And so this camp would have been on high alert. Now, I used to get this rush right before I ran the 400 in high school track or before a big game, you know, played soccer and played a little bit of basketball and different things.
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So, I mean, how many of you have been an athlete and you know that little feeling that you get? You can't really describe it.
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You can try to describe what I'm talking about. But do you know what I'm saying? You can't put that into words, what it feels like. You have to experience it.
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And I think that that's the same as what's going on here in this military combat. It's a high alert, on edge, wanting to unsheath your sword, wanting to swing this thing.
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I mean, wanting to and being ramped up and built up and pumped up. Like you're pumped up for the big game, but there's no game.
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I mean, and so I think that that's part of what you have to realize is going on here. And I imagine that that feeling about adrenaline before a game is magnified multiple fold when an army hears swords clashing at the outskirts of their camp.
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Panic and terror are the words that are used in the text to describe the mental state of the Philistines here.
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And in verse 21, we find out that some Hebrews had deserted to the Philistines, but now they turned back to help their brothers.
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And even those who had hidden out in caves and holes and all over the place last week, they joined the battle and the battle passed on, it says, beyond Beth -Avon to the west.
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The Philistines are trying to, the battle is heading west, so that means that the Philistines are retreating towards their home territory.
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Their main encampment last week was to the east of Beth -Avon, so if the battle goes past Beth -Avon, that means that they're heading west.
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They're trying to escape. So we've taken in a lot of text here, and this is an account that could sound to our ears first like a contradiction to the message last week.
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I mean, ask yourself this. Doesn't God want his people to wait for him to give orders before they march out?
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Isn't that what God wants? Doesn't he want us to wait on him to reveal every single next step?
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I would say that we often get caught up in trying to make patterns of our lives, patterns that God didn't intend for us.
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A couple of weeks ago, I showed up to Matawan's final baseball game of the season. We showed up late, and Matawan was scoreless, and we showed up, and immediately they scored two runs.
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We were standing out on the first baseline behind the fence there in the middle of the road, and it's kind of silly, but from that point on, we made sure that every time they were up to bat, we were standing right in that same spot.
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Anybody baseball in here? Do you baseball? So you know what I'm talking about. There's a little bit, of all the sports, it's maybe the most superstitious of them all, and so even some of the parents in the stands were like, you gotta get out there, get out there.
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They're coming up to bat. You gotta be standing there. So I think that we like to identify those kinds of patterns in our lives, and it's silly, it's kind of funny.
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I'm really not superstitious in the least, but baseball, right? But we often live our lives like that.
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Where was I when God gave me that raise, or that new position? Take me back there.
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When did I do, what did I do, and what was my life like the summer that God blessed me with a wife?
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Go back to that place. We like to try to form patterns of life, and in the end, what we are really trying to do is manipulate
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God to give us a repeat performance. If we're honest, sometimes we live our lives that way.
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So last week, God told Saul to wait, and so we think that the magic is in the waiting, rather than the truth is in the
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God who wills to do his good pleasure in our lives through certain means.
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One time it's waiting, one time it's acting, and he doesn't want us to fall into ruts.
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He doesn't want us to fall into these traditions and these routines where we expect him to be like a magic, or a lucky rabbit's foot.
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We just pull out and just rub on that thing, and then it's all gonna be good. He's not a good luck charm.
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He's not an amulet, and he doesn't often work through the patterns of the way that we expect him to.
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So let me explain three main applications from this text as we come in for a landing here. The first is just fundamentally true that we need to be reminded of this routinely, and that is to trust in the power of the
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Almighty God. Trust in the power of the Almighty God. That's called faith. You see,
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Jonathan believed that God could defeat with many or with few. That was his fundamental trust and belief in the
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Almighty. Do you serve a God that's in the miracle business? He's never bound by the odds.
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And notice that Jonathan's hope was placed completely on the shoulders of the Almighty. He knew that it was either going to be the
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Lord would have to work, or he was gonna die. It was just that simple. And we, in our lives,
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I would encourage you to state this, to state it. Pray to God, letting him know that you believe he can work against the odds that you're facing.
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Talk to him about it. Say, I'm trusting in you. I'm trusting in you for what I cannot see and what outcome
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I do not know, but I believe that you are powerful enough to overcome, fill in the blank with your issue.
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Fill in the blank with your mini salvation that you're looking for, with what you are looking for deliverance from.
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I'm trusting in you, God. It's not a formula, it's not a promise, it's not a guarantee. You don't know the outcome, but you're saying,
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God, I believe that you can overcome this. He can route the
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Philistines through you, if he so wishes. And that leads to the second part, where I think we fail most often.
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Because, in all honesty, many of us have at least some latent trust in God's power. How many of you would say you trust in God's power?
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You believe that he is powerful. You believe that he is mighty. You believe that he can.
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But then, the issue really comes to us in, but will he? Right?
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And that's where the second part comes in, and that is what is up to us. Will he is not up to us, did you know that? We can't force him to will, to do.
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But what we can do, is we can act based on the belief and trust that he can.
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That he can. So act in faith is the second thing. Jonathan did something in the text.
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This is where we often fall short in the church and in the Christian life. In the story of Gideon in the book of Judges, which we talk about a lot, because there's a lot of parallels between that account and the life of Saul.
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In the story of Gideon in the book of Judges, God called him, he was hiding out in a wine press, he was timid, he was shy, and he said, you're gonna be my military deliverer for this nation.
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He told him he was the one to lead the Israelites to victory over the Midianites. And Gideon doubted.
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Gideon doubted what he was called to do, and so he set up an elaborate test that some of you in this room already know about, this elaborate test.
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He said, listen, God, if you've really called me, he's already had a conversation with God, God's already called him. And then he has this conversation.
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Hey, if you're really calling me, really, really, really, really calling me, then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put some wool out on the ground and let the dew settle on the ground but not on the wool.
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So God did that for him, which would be against the laws of nature. And then he gets that and he says, but if you're really, really, really, really, really calling me, then this time,
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I'm gonna set the wool out and there's only gonna be moisture in the wool and the ground is gonna be dry.
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And so God does that for him as well. And I've actually heard Christians use this phrase, just putting out a fleece for God.
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I'm just putting out a piece of wool for God. And I'm just gonna see if what he wants is this thing.
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So I'm just gonna put that wool out there and I'm gonna check this out. And that testing is not the way we are commanded to live our lives, especially when it comes to things that God has told us to do.
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We don't put the wool out. We obey. We act boldly. We should live our lives with a bold trust in the
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God who is all -powerful and gracious and loving toward his people. If we live in fear, we may wake up one day to find out that we're not really living at all.
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If we learn anything from 1 Samuel 14, it's that faith calls us to step out in boldness. The people of God should not be characterized with a spirit of fear, a spirit of paralysis when it comes to what are our next steps.
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But we should be characterized by a spirit of bold faith in our God. And that faith is not a bold faith that says,
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God must deliver me because I am his child. Instead, it's a bold faith that says,
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I'm gonna be over here seeking to honor you, Father. And if I die in the flames or if I die on the hilltop by the sword of the
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Philistines, I will have at least died trusting in you. Boldness, an active faith.
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And lastly, we see in verse 23 that it is not said that Jonathan saved the people.
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What does the text say? The Lord saved Israel that day.
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All glory goes to God for the people of faith. Give God the glory for the victories in your life.
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Because the people of God know, if you're one of his people, you know this to be true, that any good thing that really matters in your life has come from his hand.