Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Okay, we are continuing this series in 1st Samuel today that we're calling earthly kings.
[00:00:07] In this chunk of First Samuel, we're looking at the early monarchy period, the early monarchy of Israel, looking at King Saul's reign, specifically King Saul's reign before David enters into the scene. And the reason this particular piece of it is important is we just see.
[00:00:26] We see really clearly the. The way this has worked out. Israel demanded a king. They said, we have this problem. We have this issue. This is the solution. We want. We want a king. And God said, okay. And he gave them the thing they wanted. But as we see in the story, as we see in our own lives, oftentimes when we seek our best in earthly solutions without actually considering what God might be calling us to, we find that the best of earthly solutions fall short of the real needs of the human heart. And that's what we see in the tragic story of Saul. Saul's story is a bummer from beginning to end. He's this dude who had every, by outward appearances, had every chance of being amazing for Israel, and yet his story is one of just a descent into greater sin, greater isolation, greater sorrow, and it just gets from bad to worse. Saul's story never really gets better.
[00:01:31] And today we're going to see how this narrative continues. Last week, if you were here, we left off on this terrible cliffhanger. What essentially happened is that Israel's neighbors, the Philistines, attacked in power. They looked to their new king and said, all right, you're the dude. Come defend us. You beat up the Ammonites, now come beat up the Philistines. And so Saul musters the army, and when the Philistines show up, they show up with such a ludicrous advantage that it is comical, like reading it in historical perspective. Israel has 3,000 men, foot soldiers, with bronze Iron Age weapons, not Iron Age, like Bronze Age weapons in their arsenal. The Philistines show up with 6,000 infantry, not infantry, 6,000 chariots and horsemen. They show up with more than their army in armor, right?
[00:02:22] Not to mention a massive standing army. And the Philistines are in the Iron Age. They have advanced technology. It is ludicrous. The Israelites are so terrified, they don't even battle the Philistines. They retreat. They give up the high ground to them, the better defensible position. They run.
[00:02:37] Saul's army is deserting him right and left. They run into the wilderness. They're hiding in caves and bushes everywhere they can go. And Saul's army is dissolving day by day in the midst of this, he's waiting for his prophet Samuel to come and offer worship and like rally the troops. And Samuel's running late. And Saul says, I've got to do it on my own. He offers the sacrifice, doesn't obey God, doesn't wait for Samuel. Samuel shows up and rebukes him and says, because you didn't obey, because you didn't wait, God is going to take the kingdom away from you and I'm not going to help you right now. And he leaves. More of his soldiers desert. And we landed the story last week with this really, really sad image. The Philistines have thousands upon thousands upon thousands of armored troops. They are camped in the middle of the Israelites territory. They have set up and Mitch mashed this really large, well defensible area. They've set up these armored raiding parties that are working their way through Israel, killing, pillaging, destroying, taking what they want. And just a couple miles away Saul is camped out and his army has dwindled down to 600 people. And he's just watching the Philistines devastate Israel.
[00:03:50] And that's where we left off, just this hopeless, hopeless situation.
[00:03:57] And today we're going to look how the narrative continues and how God shows up and saves Israel. And I am confident that we are going to be challenged and encouraged today at the idea of how good our God is, the way he creatively shows up for his people. Can you think of a time in your own life when something small, something seemingly insignificant, like an investment, like a decision, something like that snowballed into something huge in your life? Can you think of a time? I know it's a really broad question but the thing I think of is several years ago when I was going through church planning training, I was bivocational, I had a season of time where I worked at my in laws dental lab and I made deliveries for them and, and over lunch, me and my father in law Don and everyone there. But we would talk about day trading and there at that time that was, there was a time when some of these like phone apps were coming up that would let you do day trading in really small amounts. So I downloaded one of those apps and I would start spending like 5, 10 bucks here, 15 bucks here to just talk about stops with my father in law and trade them. And after like three years of that I made no money, I made zero money because that's, that's, that's not my thing. Very obviously that's not my thing. After a couple years I emptied out the account And I put it into our regular investment account except for one thing.
[00:05:06] The 0.0000-0000-0000-0001 bitcoins that I bought for dollars in like whenever that was 2014 or something.
[00:05:19] That thing, that thing I kept not. Cause I know anything about that stuff. I promise you. I don't understand how cryptocurrency works. It doesn't seem real to me. But I bought a little bit of it in this app and I've watched it just explode in value and it's hilarious to watch it. It's $10. And if you bought Bitcoin 20 years ago, you know what I'm talking about. That thing has exploded in value. It would be the similar equivalent of if you bought Apple stock in 1980. Right? Like it's just exploded in value. And I think that's hilarious.
[00:05:50] Not entirely just because I have no clue what it is or how it works, but just because I think inherently it's fun, it's engaging to watch something snowball and grow to watch. It's why we like investment in general. To think about our tiny little bits of investment growing into something large that.
[00:06:10] Not in money terms, but that idea, that principle is what we're going to see in 1st Samuel 14 today. If you want to go ahead and turn there in your Bibles. If you don't have a Bible with you today, we have Bibles around the room. Just look under your chairs. We have them available to you. We really believe in the importance of access to God's Word here at Emmanuel. If you don't own physical copy of God's Word, I encourage you to take one of our few Bibles or talk to one of the pastors. Let us give you one. But 1st Samuel 14, we left off on this hopeless note in Israel, overpowered the odds so completely against them things seeing entirely hopeless. And in this text, in chapter 14, we're going to see what God was planning for Israel the entire time.
[00:06:55] What I love about this text and hate about this text is this beautiful reality that God had a wonderful salvation in mind for Israel the entire time.
[00:07:06] That's beautiful. It's sorrowful because Saul, in his lack of faith, he missed out on this amazing plan God was already working.
[00:07:16] Today we're going to see how our faith, even guys, even the teeny tiny bits of faith, the small amounts of faith that we are able to muster in our own times of difficulty and affliction, our small faith that we bring to God is hear this church never wasted our God makes much of little.
[00:07:41] And so my point today is this for all of us in the room, whether you are coming in here today full of joy, at a high point in your life, if you drug yourself over the threshold in a low place in life, anything in between, my point to you today is simply this. If you only knew what God was planning for you.
[00:08:00] If you only knew. And I'll just tell you guys, you don't, beloved of Jesus, you are not smart enough, you are not creative enough, you don't have eyes to see how amazing God's plans are for you and for this world.
[00:08:18] If you only knew.
[00:08:19] If you only knew what God has in mind for you has in mind for this world. Beloved, he sees you. You specifically.
[00:08:30] God sees you, knows you, loves you, has a plan for you.
[00:08:37] Beloved, it is not a wasted plan.
[00:08:41] So oftentimes I think we just, we can't see this reality. Like we can't see past the immediacy of our own circumstances, of the things around us, of our own little chunk of reality. And the things in front of us, the challenges, the fears, the hard hardships we face, they feel so insurmountable that we don't know where to start. And so we just don't.
[00:09:05] We just freeze up and we numb ourselves out. And not only do we not engage God, but we don't engage anything.
[00:09:13] We take the grand amazing adventure that God has planned for us and we try and turn it into doom scrolling in just one more season of American Idol, right?
[00:09:27] We can't imagine how to actually build the sort of life we want. And so many of us simply don't.
[00:09:36] We just stay where we're at. But beloved, you must know you worship a God who can do a lot with a little.
[00:09:44] You worship a God who can make much of almost nothing when we take steps of faith toward him. Little steps, the little bitty steps that we are able to take.
[00:09:57] He does amazing things with him. Pray with me and we'll jump into this text. Jesus, we need you to be our discipler today.
[00:10:08] I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would illuminate this text to us, that you would speak to us in the way our hearts need today. Let each and every one of us, Lord, leave today encouraged by you, challenged by you, reminded of the truths of the gospel that we have simply forgotten in our busyness and our anxieties and our worries.
[00:10:29] Holy Spirit, let us leave today filled to the brim with you, God. We can't do this without your power, your intervention in our lives. We pray this in your name Jesus.
[00:10:39] Amen.
[00:10:41] First Samuel, chapter 14.
[00:10:43] We're going to start here, actually, in the last verse of 13, it says this.
[00:10:47] Now, a Philistine garrison took control of the pass at Mitch Mash that same day. Saul's son Jonathan said to the attendant who carried his weapons, come on, let's cross over to the Philistine garrison on the other side. However, he did not tell his father. See, Saul was staying under the pomegranate tree at Migron on the outskirts of Gibeah. The troops with him numbered about 600.
[00:11:13] Ahijah, who was wearing an ephod, was there also. He was the son of Ahitub, the brother of Ichabod, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, who the Lord's priest of Shiloh. But the troops did not know that Jonathan had left. Okay, I've said this a couple times, but this is our reminder that we're stepping into the middle of an ongoing narrative, right? Like, this is the scene coming back on after the commercial break. Saul has been raised up king expressly for the purpose of defending Israel from its surrounding enemies. It seemed like it was working when he fought the Ammonite raids. But now when the Philistines show up, it has turned out to be a major problem.
[00:11:54] They outnumber the the the Israelites by orders of magnitude. They showed up with complete technological dominance. Israel immediately surrendered the favorable ground soldiers are running and hiding all over the countryside. Even Saul's trained, paid standing army is abandoning him night by night. Samuel rebukes him when he tries to seek God's favor out of his own strength and ends up leaving him. And now we just get to this place where failure has stacked upon failure and the scene feels hopeless.
[00:12:29] Saul counts his troops.
[00:12:31] He has 600 of the 3,000 he started with.
[00:12:36] We landed on this dreadful cliffhanger last week. It's the moment in the story where anyone reading it naturally is just going to when does the good guy show up?
[00:12:45] Like, where's the hero moment, right?
[00:12:48] And instead we get this really strange contrast between Saul and his son slash general heir Jonathan. We're told that the moment Saul starts realizing just how bad things have gotten for his strategic situation, Jonathan takes his armor bearer and sneaks off into the night. And the contrast here is purposeful, right? The Philistines, remember, the Philistines are actively raiding the lands of Israel. It's not like they've just set up camp here waiting to battle. They've set up these massive raiding parties that are going through Israel, ransacking it, killing and Taking whatever they want. And the king of Israel, whose job is to protect them, to lead the military, to guide them in their cup, fight covenant faithfulness. He's just standing there watching, right? He's powerless to engage this. He's just watching it happen. He's lost his prophet. And the text tells us that he has a priest with him. We'll actually see a little bit. He has the Ark of the Covenant with him. But did you notice who this priest is?
[00:13:54] This is a little bit of a poll if you've been working through this whole book with us. But this is the great grandson of Eli, the priest from the first chapter of First Samuel, who, if you recall, was so sinful and unfaithful that God cursed his priestly lineage.
[00:14:11] That's the guy that Saul brings in to take over for Samuel, a disgraced priest.
[00:14:18] Saul is being presented here as being really bad at his job as king.
[00:14:25] Jonathan, by contrast, is taking action.
[00:14:29] He sneaks off with his armor bearer to go and see the Philistines. And as we'll see as the story continues, this isn't random, right? Like, he actually has a plan here. Admittedly, it's a very small plan, probably designed just at best to get them, like, some recon information, but it's a plan. He's got some form of plan and he acts on it. He sneaks out. He knows his father is free, frozen. He's not acting right now. And so he steps out in secret to at least do something.
[00:15:01] Read on with me in verse four and we'll see how this story plays out.
[00:15:05] Now, there were sharp columns of rock on both sides of the pass that Jonathan intended to cross to reach the Philistine garrison. One was named Bozez and the other Senna. One stood to the north in front of Mishmash and the other to the south in front of Giba. Jonathan said to the attendant who carried his weapons, come on, let's cross over to the garrison of these uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will help us. Nothing can keep the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few. His armor bearer responded, do what is in your heart. Go ahead. I am completely with you. All right, Jonathan replied, we'll cross over to the men and let them see us. If they say, wait until we reach you, then we will stay where we are and not go up to them. But if they say, come on up, then we'll go up, because we know the Lord has handed them over to us. This will be our sign.
[00:15:57] So now we get to See the details of Jonathan's plan as much as it is.
[00:16:03] He's going to sneak over to the Philistine camp by crossing over these. One of these dry wadis that surrounds this area. If you don't know this or weren't here last week, Wadi is a geological formation that forms in places on Earth like Israel. They are essentially these deep valleys that can be rivers or oases at certain times of the year in the rainy season and rocky dry canyons in the dry season. Here's a picture of one. Not the one in this story, but one relatively close to it.
[00:16:32] The position the Philistines took away from Israel, this area called Mishmash. It's this chunk of high ground surrounded on almost all sides by deep wadis in the dry season, making it incredibly defensible.
[00:16:47] Really easy to see around them and really easy to defend from invaders. So Jonathan in our text is seeking out one of the wadis in between their two positions, in between Giba and Mishmash, where they are, and he wants to cross there and sneak over. But look how this is described.
[00:17:05] You have to remember this particular thing. A wadi is very common in this region. We're told that this particular spot where Jonathan is going to cross is named. It has names, and these names roughly translate to steep and thorny, which is pretty rough when you're thinking about an area where you want to go do some climbing while carrying all your armor and equipment.
[00:17:28] But this kind of shows us what's actually going on here. See, Jonathan is going to one of the more difficult crossing points.
[00:17:37] He's going there on purpose under the assumption that because that area is so difficult to cross, it won't be as heavily guarded. Right?
[00:17:48] If. If it's surrounded by wadis and one of them is really steep and thorny and it looks unrealistic for soldiers to cross there, that place is probably going to have less guards. This is brilliant if he's trying to scout out information and figure out what's going on over there. But look what he says to his armor bearer.
[00:18:08] Perhaps the Lord will help us. Nothing can keep the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few. I love this line. I love this line for a couple reasons. I think what we see here is we see a picture of both Jonathan's faith, but I also think we see here Jonathan's sanctified imagination.
[00:18:28] And here's what I mean by this.
[00:18:30] We talked about this a lot. In fact, a year or two ago, we did a full series on this.
[00:18:34] But when the scripture, when it talks about faith. It is not talking about walking forward blindly without reason. That's one of the kind of common cultural narratives, is that faith means not using your intellect, not using your reason. And that's not what the scripture says when it talks about faith. The most famous scripture on faith is probably Hebrews 11:1. Now, faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.
[00:18:58] That can sound like, if you just read this text on the surface, that it's saying exactly that, that faith is about moving forward without actually having information. It's about blindly walking forward without reason. But you have to remember that verse Hebrews 11:1 is actually an introduction to an entire chapter recounting story after story of how God shows up for for people when things seem hopeless.
[00:19:21] Hebrews 11 is not about blind faith. It's not about turning off your reason or your intellect. Instead, it recounts generations of God's faithfulness to care for his own and to work out his story of redemption. This verse is actually telling us that we can have hope and we can have assurance even when we can't see them in our circumstances. That because we know God has been faithful to all the generations before us, it's about using reason.
[00:19:54] He's been faithful in the past, and so he will continue to do so. For me, that's what it's talking about, which comes back to this pure, simple idea that I think is so helpful in the Bible. Faith is trust, pure and simple.
[00:20:10] Faith is trust.
[00:20:12] And trust is not based on nothing.
[00:20:15] Trust is based on past relationship. It's based on expectations.
[00:20:20] And God, if you look at the Scripture, proves himself trustworthy time and time and time and time again.
[00:20:28] And so when we trust that God will treat us today as he has treated us and the rest of the church in the past, we're walking in faith.
[00:20:38] And this, Beloved, is what Jonathan is doing.
[00:20:42] He knows his people's history, and he knows it well enough to know that even though there's no logical earthly reason or path toward Israelite victory, he's still going to step toward God.
[00:20:54] Even though anyone looking at their situation would say there is no path forward. Surrender to the Philistines and figure out how to let them conquer you. That would be the reasonable steps forward with what Israel is facing.
[00:21:08] But Jonathan knows his people.
[00:21:11] He knows his story.
[00:21:13] He knows his God. He knows what God has done for them in the past.
[00:21:18] And so he steps toward God in faith.
[00:21:22] Let's head over there. Let's just look.
[00:21:26] Let's see what happens when. Who knows what God might do.
[00:21:30] Nothing can keep God from saving, whether in big ways or in little ways. Let's try.
[00:21:36] Let's see what he does in Judges 7. It tells a story that happens just a few generations before Jonathan's own life. And it's about this judge and general, a guy named Gideon.
[00:21:48] And the summary of the story is basically that for seven years, Israel was oppressed by one of their neighbors, the Midianites.
[00:21:53] And they had brought an army of 130,000 soldiers into Israel.
[00:21:58] They were occupying all the major cities. They were taking out Israel tribe by tribe. And Gideon roused Israel to arms and gathered an army from all 12 tribes. This massive army of 30,000 troops versus 130,000.
[00:22:15] It already seemed like a hopeless situation. So much so that Gideon comes back to God multiple times and goes, God, do you really want me to do this? I think we're all gonna die. I think if we do this, we're all gonna die. And he keeps putting these tests toward God. And God goes, do it. Trust me, do it. And then. So he finally goes, okay. And he musters the troop and they're heading to what looks like there's certain death. And God stops him and goes, you know what, Gideon? You've got too many troops.
[00:22:40] I think if you bring all these troops in the battle and I win the battle for you, you'll all look at each other and you'll think, look how tough we are. We won this battle. I don't want it to go that way. I want you to know I did this. And so, through a series of events, God whittles Gideon's army down from 30,000 to 300.
[00:22:58] And I can only think of the movie and the Spartans being led by Gideon.
[00:23:03] But these 300 go up against the Midianite army of 130,000, and God supernaturally intervenes on their behalf, and they win.
[00:23:14] Guys, you know, for 300 soldiers to be 130,000, every individual Israelite soldier would need to not only survive, they would need to slay 4, 433 enemy soldiers.
[00:23:26] And yet God intervenes and Israel is free.
[00:23:33] This is the kind of God Jonathan knows.
[00:23:37] Jonathan remembers. And so he is walking forward in trust. And, guys, it's not just his trust, it's also his imagination.
[00:23:46] It's this wonder that says God's going to fix this.
[00:23:50] And I don't see any path forward. I have no clue what he could possibly do to fix this, but I think he's going to.
[00:23:56] I wonder what it will look like.
[00:23:59] That's the kind of holy imagination he brings into this. I'm just going to walk forward in faith because I know he's going to do something, so I'm just going to walk forward and see what he does.
[00:24:10] The kind of imagination that says, God does things that are beyond us and he's always faithful, so let's just go for it.
[00:24:17] Let's just walk forward in faith.
[00:24:21] So he sneaks over to the Philistines. His armor bearer is locked in with him. I'm with you. God has this. You go, I'll follow. And so Jonathan follows in Gideon's footsteps. We're going to walk forward toward God in faith, and we're going to ask him to confirm this so that we're not being idiots. And he sets up this kind of interesting sign for God where he basically says, okay, we're going to cross down and start climbing up, and we'll make sure they can see. See us while they're doing that. And if they see us down there in the wadi and they go, oh, we're going to come down there and get you, then we'll go, okay, we need to leave. But if we get down there and they see us and they go, come on up here and we'll teach you a lesson, then we'll know that God has given them over to our hands and we'll go for it. Which we read that and we go. That makes no sense. That seems very arbitrary. There's actually a little bit of strategy to this. Right. You have to remember the Philistines are winning right now.
[00:25:09] I'm not going to do the meme, but they do have the high ground.
[00:25:12] And there is a real thing there.
[00:25:15] They have the high ground.
[00:25:17] And so what he's saying is if they see us and they're willing to run out of their position and climb down the difficult terrain and come to us, then that means they're really confident.
[00:25:30] But if they see us and they say, you climb the difficult terrain, difficult terrain and come up here, then we'll show you what's up. Well, that means they're probably a little more cautious. They're not willing to get up their ground. So we'll just take that. We'll take that as a sign that, like, they're cautious, so God is doing something, so we'll go ahead and go for it. Okay, sounds like a plan.
[00:25:48] Which is, I think, kind of interesting. Before we look at the rest of the story, I think it's worth looking for just a quick minute how this actually applies to how we live out Our own faith. You see, I, I, I, I think it's important when we read, like, stories to remember how this actually works out in our own lives. By God's grace, we don't live in a time or a place where our faith is tested by invading armies. Right.
[00:26:09] We don't in general have physical threats to our families, but we do face struggles and hardships and afflictions and trials in life where we need Jonathan's example of faith.
[00:26:21] We have times when, whether it's deep, intimate relationships or our job or our school or our immediate families, like there are all sorts of things that get out of hand and get broken in our lives and we're overwhelmed by fear and anxiety and we don't see a way forward.
[00:26:39] Maybe it's a phone call from a doctor with a bad health diagnosis or a broken relationship with a close family member that you don't see any way how to repair it. Situations often to us feel as hopeless as Israel's 600 versus the Philistines. Thousands of. And so what do we do?
[00:26:58] I think Jonathan invites us to consider where we too can take small steps of faith.
[00:27:06] You see this like Jonathan and his armor bearer.
[00:27:10] They are two soldiers.
[00:27:13] They're two guys.
[00:27:15] They have zero hope of doing anything significant enough to turn the tide of this battle.
[00:27:23] Period.
[00:27:24] Right?
[00:27:26] There is no way forward. But because of Jonathan's faith, they take the steps they can take.
[00:27:33] They walk toward God in faith.
[00:27:37] And beloved, I think it's important for us to stop for a moment and consider our own lives and consider the challenges we're facing today and to simply ask ourselves, what would it look like for you today to take a step toward God, to look at the circumstances in front of you and go, I don't know the way forward, but I know my God is faithful.
[00:27:58] And so I'm just going to take a step toward him today.
[00:28:02] What is a step toward the Lord in faith for you today?
[00:28:06] And this is connected. But I think it's important to remember Jonathan's imagination here.
[00:28:12] He doesn't have any idea how God can do all this, but he knows God is faithful, so he's walking toward the Lord. He's not passively awaiting God to fix things for himself. Right? It's not a God. I don't know what to do. We can't fix this. You need to intervene and do something.
[00:28:28] You need to fix this for me.
[00:28:30] No, he's putting himself square in the path, making himself available for God to use in ways that he hasn't even thought of.
[00:28:40] Where Beloved, where, beloved, have you frozen into passivity in your life where you say, God, if this is gonna change in my life, you have to do something. I can't do anything about it. I've tried and tried and tried and I don't see a way forward. And so I'm done. I'm gonna sit here until you fix it.
[00:28:57] What might it look like for you to take a step toward God in faith, for you to make yourself available, for him to use you in a way that you can't even yet imagine?
[00:29:08] Beloved, I think there's a challenge in here for us because I'm here to tell you God keeps His promises.
[00:29:16] When we make ourselves available to the Lord to be a part of his amazing work, we see him work.
[00:29:24] His kingdom is moving forward. His will will be done. The question Hear this, beloved. The question is not whether or not God will reign in this world and in your circumstances. The question is whether you will be a part of him reigning in this, reigning in your circumstances, or whether you will miss out on it.
[00:29:42] He's going to do it regardless. He's going to do it in ways that you can't see and that you haven't thought of yet and you don't want to miss out on that.
[00:29:51] Read honestly and let's look how God shows up for the Israelites. Verse 11.
[00:29:56] So they let themselves be seen by the Philistine garrison. And the Philistines said, look, the Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they've been hiding.
[00:30:04] The men in the garrison called to Jonathan and his armor bearer, come on up and we'll teach you a lesson. They said, follow me. Jonathan told his armor bearer, for the Lord has handed them over to Israel. So Jonathan climbed up using his hands and his feet, with his armor bearer behind him. Jonathan cut them down and his armor bearer followed and finished them off. In the first assault, Jonathan and his armor bearer struck down about 20 men in a half acre field.
[00:30:30] Terror spread through the Philistine camp and the open fields to all the troops, even the garrison, and the raiding parties were terrified. The earth shook and terror spread from God. When Saul's watchman in Gibeah and Benjamin looked, they saw the panicking troops scattering in every direction. So Saul said to the troops with him, call the roll and determine who has left us. They called the roll and saw that Jonathan and his armor bearer were gone. So Saul told Ahijah, bring the ark of the Lord, for it was with the Israelites at that time. When Saul spoke to the priests, the panic in the Philistine camp increased in intensity. So Saul said to the priests, stop what you're doing.
[00:31:06] Saul and all the troops with him assembled and marched to the battle. And there the Philistines were fighting against each other in great confusion. And there were Hebrews from the area who had gone earlier into the camp to join the Philistines. And even they joined the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan. And when all the Israelite men who had been hiding in the hill country of Ephraim and heard the Philistines were fleeing, they also joined Saul and Jonathan in the battle. So the Lord saved Israel that day.
[00:31:36] Man, that escalated quickly, right?
[00:31:42] Jonathan and his armor bearer step out in battle.
[00:31:46] And just a few short hours later, Israel's army is routing the Philistines as they literally fight themselves and flee in terror.
[00:31:59] What the heck?
[00:32:01] That's insane.
[00:32:03] In 2023, Mr. Beast shook the world by breaking a world record. You guys know who Mr. Beast is?
[00:32:09] If you don't, it's okay. Your kids or grandkids do. I promise. He's a famous YouTuber. He makes lots of videos, stunts, things like that. And in 2023, he broke the world record for the world's largest domino. You know, dominoes, you line them up, they fall over. They have a game also, but no one plays the game. You know what I'm talking about?
[00:32:30] I like the domino game. I play it a lot. You line them up. There's an interesting thing about dominoes. When you make domino chains, there's an interesting thing because I'm not smart enough to say this. Someone in the room is going to understand the math of this better than me. But because of gravity, when you knock a domino over and because of how skinny and tall they are and how hard it is to balance them on their edge, when you knock a domino over, a domino falling over can actually knock over a larger domino than itself. It can actually knock over a domino about 1.5 times its size, which means you can keep making the dominoes bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And so Mr. Beast made a domino big enough.
[00:33:08] You can't see this because that picture is blurry, but this domino chain starts with a normal sized domino, and behind the big domino is a full size abandoned 7 11.
[00:33:20] And he used the biggest domino to crush the 7 11.
[00:33:24] And he started that domino chain by going to the very end. You can see the little bitty guys at the bottom right there. And knocking over a normal sized domino. That's all he did do. And it went.
[00:33:37] You can look up the YouTube video, it's kind of astounding. I gasped audibly when I watched it. I couldn't believe a single Domino crushed a 7 11.
[00:33:47] All those Slurpees, the ghosts of them haunt that area. Now, I know that's silly, but I say that because of this.
[00:33:58] If I parked you in front of Crick Trip and I handed you a domino and I said, do me a favor and demolish this building, you would look at me like I'm insane.
[00:34:10] And yet, that is precisely what God does here to defeat the Philistines.
[00:34:16] You see how the dominoes fall here.
[00:34:19] Jonathan stepped forward in faith to see what God might do with him and his armor bearer. And when the soldiers mock him, invite him to come fight them. We'll teach you a lesson. He says, this is God's favor. And so he comes ready to battle. And to understand this battle, you have to understand a little bit about ancient Near Eastern warfare. Often only special warriors actually had access to good armor, which could protect you, which also, by the way, makes movement more difficult.
[00:34:46] Some of the armor they would wear makes block some of your vision and makes slows you down and can wear you out. And so oftentimes, these warriors who had armor would have elite warriors assigned to them whose job was to carry their extra gear. And now these guys, they had to be really good warriors because they had their own gear and they had the fight and they had their warriors gear, right? And the ancient Israelites, we don't know a huge amount about their military strategies, but the couple things we do know is that they primarily fought with these really common kind of Bronze Age swords of the area that kind of had a little bit of a hook to them. And javelins or spears, that was the main big things they used. And the interesting thing militarily about these two weapons is that you lose them easily in battle. The hook stores get caught unstuck and so you can drop them.
[00:35:31] Spears and javelins are great, but you can also throw them when you need to. And so the armor bearer's job is to be the battle caddy, right?
[00:35:39] He's got extras, and he follows his dude around and he's fighting and poking. Whenever Jonathan's like spear, he like hands it up to him, right?
[00:35:47] That's what Jonathan says is, let's go, let's do this thing. And so they climb up this cliff and go straight into battle. And listen, I'm sure it wasn't this tall, but as I was reading it this week, all I could think about was the Princess Bride and Wesley like climbing the cliff of insanity and then immediately going into a sword fight where he's doing like backflips and stuff, you know what I'm talking about? That's functionally what Jonathan does here. He's in his full kit and his dude's in his full kit, plus Jonathan's extra stuff. And they climb a cliff and just start hacking and they go for it. And they're so successful.
[00:36:20] Says between the two of them in about a half acre field. So that's about my backyard. Right about my backyard. They hacked down 20 dudes. And the images of Jonathan running around going like. And then he runs off. And while that guy's sitting there, his arm bearer comes behind him and, like, finishes him off real quick. So they're just kind of going around double teaming this whole thing.
[00:36:40] And they're so good at it in this tiny little area that everyone around freaks out.
[00:36:47] And it starts this panic in this part, I think, guys, this is so interesting for us because Jonathan and his battle caddy, like, they do amazing.
[00:36:58] They do amazing.
[00:37:00] For these guys to run into a fortified enemy position with no casualties and just take out 20 soldiers just like that, I mean, that's great.
[00:37:09] But here's the thing. There were two of them and they took out 20.
[00:37:15] So if every single one of Israel's soldiers was there and every single one of them was just as good as Jonathan and his armor bearer, they would have taken out, do the math, 6,000 dudes.
[00:37:26] That's not enough.
[00:37:28] The Philistines brought 9,000 chariots and cavalry.
[00:37:33] Right?
[00:37:34] The reality is as awesome, like a mighty act of valor as Jonathan's 20 is, as this was a bee sting on a blue whale.
[00:37:47] As much as that was an act of valor. It would have been completely and totally wasted except for God.
[00:37:51] And look what God does with this. The text tells us that God uses this attack to supernaturally strike terror into the watching soldiers. You have to remember this is a day before radio communication. So the men watching Jonathan, they don't know he's a lone soldier.
[00:38:06] A lot of them assume this is a full assault and the full assault isn't working. These Hebrew soldiers are so tough. Look what they're doing. So they run and they scream and they panic. And the soldiers around them hear distant sounds of battle and see soldiers fleeing in panic. And they assume we must be losing this battle. And so they turn and run and panic begins to spread. And we know that God is supernaturally intervening to spread this terror because it moves from those outer scouts around the edge of their encampment, into the actual standing army, into the field, into their fortified position in the garrison, even into the raiding parties that are moving through Israel. Every single one of the Philistines go, something is wrong. We're losing this battle.
[00:38:53] And panic blows through the camp.
[00:38:57] And in that moment, God chooses to loose an earthquake.
[00:39:02] And the ground starts shaking and soldiers are running and horses are falling and tents are collapsing and there's sounds of crashing and battle in the distance. And the camp devolves into absolute panic.
[00:39:17] And all of a sudden, Jonathan's little bee sting. Jonathan's normal sized domino.
[00:39:23] God has used it to start something huge.
[00:39:27] And now finally Saul enters into the picture. Back at Saul's camp, his scouts can see the chaos in the Philistine camp. Saul takes a roll call. He realizes it's Jonathan and they've left by themselves. And he does something that is so strange, and I think the author puts it here on purpose because it's so just indicative of Saul's failed leadership. He sees what's going on and he says, grab the priest, have him inquire of the Lord so we can know if we should run in there or not.
[00:39:53] And then while the priest is like doing his prayer and sacrifice, he like keeps looking and he goes, you know what, nevermind, stop talking to God, let's go. And they just run.
[00:40:02] Which is really wild to get the priest to be like, you know what, you should inquire of the Lord. Just kidding, we're fine, we don't need that. Let's go. That's taking too long. But I think it's left in here to show us that even in this moment of God's salvation, Saul is still operating out of his own wisdom. He's still, still doing his own thing. He's still not actually seeking the Lord. He wants God's victory, he wants the benefits, but he's not submitting himself to him. And then we see in our text that God uses even this to bring about his victory. Because when Saul and his army arrive, the discipline has so broken down at the Philistine camp that they're fighting each other. And again, this is a thing that could happen. You have to remember most of these countries didn't have large standing armies. They would muster troops from all different cities and areas and everyone would kind of hang out in their own camps. And when things devolved and the camp broke and discipline broke, people said, I got to get home and get home alive. And so they grabbed what they could and they ran. And if that meant Killing the soldier next to him to take his stuff to get his horse. They just did. Because they weren't super loyal to one another. They were there with their group of people. And so the Philistine camp has devolved into infighting as everyone's trying to get all their stuff and get out of here alive.
[00:41:14] Right when Saul shows up with his army and they start hacking and slashing. And then it tells us that there were some Israelites who had defected to the Philistines. They saw this as a losing battle. They joined up with the bad guys and they said, you know what?
[00:41:25] Just kidding, we're back on Israel's side. And they jumped in with Saul. And then when they started hacking and slashing, then all the soldiers that have been hiding in the caves who've heard this going on in the distance go, you know what? We should jump in the battle too. So they all run in there. And then again, we just get to this point where the situation has escalated some such that in a few hours we've gone from Saul and Jonathan sneaking up to see what they could do to a unified army of Israel routing the Philistines and sending them away.
[00:41:54] It's pretty wild how God's intervention works. And look how our text ends.
[00:42:02] The Lord saved Israel that day because, guys, that really is the story, isn't it?
[00:42:10] Hope seemed lost and God showed up because, beloved of Jesus, that is what our God does.
[00:42:19] Our God has plans we can't imagine, which is why the gospel is so amazing.
[00:42:26] Sin has broken us, the world is dark and ruined, and more often it looks like evil is just more powerful and evil is going to win. But look what my Jesus can do.
[00:42:37] Amen.
[00:42:38] Look what Jesus can do with the small domino of faith. Look how God blows our expectations, our fears, our anxieties out of the water and meets our real needs.
[00:42:52] Reminds me of one of my favorite stories in John 6, when somewhere like 10 to 15,000 people think more than the max capacity of the St. Charles Family arena are gathered around listening to Jesus teach outdoors.
[00:43:06] And it's been a long day and they're out in the middle of nowhere. And so Jesus turns to his disciples and says, hey guys, you should feed them all dinner. They've been here all day.
[00:43:15] And one of the disciples turns to him and says, Jesus, 10 months wages wouldn't feed everyone here. There's no stinking way.
[00:43:22] And then a guy named Andrew takes this minuscule baby step of faith toward Jesus and goes, there's no way we can do this. The only food we know about is this one kid who packed his own lunch just for him.
[00:43:36] That's all there is.
[00:43:38] And Jesus takes that little bitty step toward him and says let's see what we should do with that.
[00:43:44] Everyone sit down. Let's pray. Let's bless it. And you guys just start breaking into pieces and handing it out. And a couple hours later over 10,000 people eat their dinner and they bring back the leftovers and have 12 baskets, one for each disciple to sit with Christ and eat their dinner.
[00:44:03] And God supernaturally shows up.
[00:44:08] Supernaturally shows up. I love that story. And I love this story. Because they're the same story.
[00:44:16] Right?
[00:44:17] This is the essence of the gospel.
[00:44:21] We cannot fix ourselves. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot right our circumstances. We can't fix the world and beat the bad guys because we aren't strong enough.
[00:44:32] Our best is a bee sting on a whale. Our best is a lunchable for an arena. We just can't do it.
[00:44:40] But Jesus can.
[00:44:42] But Jesus can fix what's broken in you or what is broken in this world.
[00:44:48] It's exactly what he did on the cross. He beat death. He conquered Satan. He broke the curse. He made a way for you and for me to have a real eternal, perfect life that we were made for. Beloved. And I'm here to tell you this church that defeats each and every trial you face in this world.
[00:45:07] You can take heart when you face the troubles of this world because Jesus has overcome already.
[00:45:13] You can.
[00:45:15] He can take your bee sting. He can take your lunchable. He can take your domino and he can topple death itself.
[00:45:23] In our text today.
[00:45:25] Saul is passive and frozen. And he misses out on all the amazing adventures that God has for him. He sits back at the camp. He shows up at night right at the end when God has already done it all. And this part is so important. Guys. God still did it with all of Saul the earthly king's failures. God still saved Israel. God still accomplishes his goals. But Saul misses out on the adventure.
[00:45:52] Saul misses it.
[00:45:54] Beloved. God is fixing this broken world.
[00:45:58] Beloved of Jesus. God's kingdom is advancing. He is seeking and saving the lost. He is protecting the hurting. He is bringing justice. He's doing the work. The question has never been whether God will win over the curse of this world. The question is whether you want to participate with him.
[00:46:18] Do you want to join in the work or not?
[00:46:21] Man. If you want to come back up.
[00:46:24] I think one of the most encouraging verses in the New Testament is in Ephesians 3. It's part of this prayer of Blessing. And this isn't really the point Paul's making, but I love this line. And so I'm going to pull it out of the prayer for us to read. This is Ephesians 3, starting in verse 20. It says this now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we can ask or think according to the power that works in us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
[00:46:56] Beloved, God can do more than you can possibly imagine.
[00:47:00] The Philistines you face today, they are not insurmountable to God. Your hopeless situation is not hopeless to God. Your moment of failure with no way forward is not so for our God.
[00:47:16] He's able to do more than you can possibly imagine.
[00:47:19] He turned one soldier's bravery into a nation's salvation. He took one boy's meal and fed the masses. What might God do with your faith, beloved?
[00:47:35] What might God do with your small faith?
[00:47:39] What kind of holy imagination can you put out in front of God to see what he might do in our little church, in our little lives?
[00:47:49] I want to invite you right now to land, but it's taking a moment in prayer.
[00:47:54] I want to invite you to take some space.
[00:47:57] You can do that in your seat in the aisle. You can come forward and pray at the altar. I just want you to take a minute to be with you and God.
[00:48:04] And I want you in your moment of prayer to legitimately put forward your holy imagination, to put yourself out in front of the Lord and just ask him, what kind of thing might you do in my life, Lord?
[00:48:22] What kind of grandparent might you make me to leave a legacy of faith in my family?
[00:48:28] What kind of church might you build that is meeting the real needs and joys of its community?
[00:48:36] What kind of family might you form through me that breaks the cultural mode to raise up children who love the Lord?
[00:48:44] What kind of community might you create through us where everyone is seen, where everyone is welcome into life and growth?
[00:48:52] What kind of church might you build here that joins God in the work of seeking and saving the lost, serving the hurting?
[00:49:02] We're just going to end there.
[00:49:04] And I'm going to do something cheesy that hearkens back to my youth ministry days.
[00:49:11] I want to invite you guys, when you finish your time of prayer, as we do every week, for those of you who are in Christ, to consider coming forward and taking communion. We take communion every week here at Emmanuel, and we. We do it for a reason.
[00:49:24] The scripture tells us that when we Take of the elements, the bread, his body broken for us, the juice, his blood poured out for us. That when we do that, we're proclaiming his death until his return. We're proclaiming the sufficiency of Christ's work. It's this way of reminding ourselves, grounding ourselves in the gospel and proclaiming it to our brothers and sisters in the room, saying, jesus, work is enough. He is a saving God.
[00:49:50] It's great to do that often when we gather to preach the gospel to ourselves in the room.
[00:49:56] And I want to invite you, those of you who are in Christ, to respond that way after you pray. And I'm going to put an extra bowl up here today.
[00:50:02] And this is cheesy as heck, but we're going to do it.
[00:50:08] I've got a bowl of dominoes up here.
[00:50:11] I don't want you to take one.
[00:50:13] When you come up and take communion, put it in your pocket, just one of them.
[00:50:16] And I would love for you to keep that with you this week.
[00:50:20] Thumb over that domino, to feel the pips on it and to think about Mr. Beast.
[00:50:33] To think about the small step of faith that you can take, the ways that you can take what you have, the strength you have, and step toward Jesus to just see what he might do in your life.
[00:50:47] Love it. Take some time to meet with the Lord. And when you're ready, come forward in response.
