Jonathan's Amazing Victory

[00:00:05] Praise God. Let's pray and ask for God to bless the reading preaching of his word to us this morning. [00:00:17] Our Heavenly Father, we praise you for the good news that comes to us about Jesus Christ. And of Jesus Christ, Lord, we praise you for his light that shines in the world. [00:00:28] Light that is not overcome by the darkness, but overcomes evil with good. [00:00:36] Lord, we thank you that though he died, it was through that death that we have all been saved. [00:00:47] It was through his death that your love and your power and your goodness has been made known. That we have the forgiveness of our sins, that we have the sanctification of the Spirit, and one day the resurrection even of our bodies to heaven itself. [00:01:06] Lord, strengthen us now in your love. Help us to hear the loving words of our Father in the Scripture. [00:01:13] Through your word and spirit, Lord, build our confidence in you that we may know and believe and act as you call us to do, that we might bring you glory and enjoy you now and forever. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:01:32] Let's remain standing and turn to First Samuel, chapter 14. [00:01:56] First Samuel 14. We're going to read through verse 23, which is part one of a two part battle that happens. It starts out very well. [00:02:11] Let's hear the beginning of this 1st Samuel 14:1 through 23. [00:02:21] One day Jonathan, the son of Saul, said to the young man who carried his armor, come, let us go over to the 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 Migron. The people who were with him were about 600 men, including Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, the priest of the Lord in Shiloh, wearing an ephod. [00:02:49] And the people did not know that Jonathan had gone. [00:02:53] Within the passes by which Jonathan sought to go over to the Philistine garrison. There was a rocky crag on the one side and a rocky crag on the other side. The name of the one was Bozaz, and the name of the other was Sine. [00:03:08] The one crag rose on the north in front of Michmash, and the other on the south in front of Geba. [00:03:15] 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 Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few. [00:03:30] And his armor bearer said to him, do all that is in your heart, do as you wish. Behold, I am with you heart and soul. [00:03:38] Then Jonathan said, behold, we'll cross over to the men and we'll show ourselves to them. If they say to us, wait until we come to you, then we will stand still in our place and we will not go up to them. But if they say to us, come up to us, then we will go up. For the Lord has given them into our hand and this shall be the sign to us. 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. And the men of the garrison hailed Jonathan and his armor bearer and said, come up to us, and we'll show you a thing. [00:04:20] And Jonathan said to his armor bearer, come up after me for the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel. [00:04:27] Then Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet and his armor bearer after him. And they fell before Jonathan and his armor and they fell before Jonathan and his armor bearer killed them after him. 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. And there was a panic in the camp, in the field and among all the people. The garrison and even the raiders trembled. The earth quaked, and it became a very great panic. [00:05:04] And the watchmen of Saul and Gibeah and Benjamin looked, and behold, the multitude was dispersing here and there. Then Saul said to the people who were with him, count and see who is gone from us. And when they had counted, behold, Jonathan and his armor bearer were not there. 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. Now, while Saul was talking to the priest, the tumult in the camp of the Philistines increased more and more. 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. And behold, every Philistine's sword was against his fellow. And there was very great confusion. Now the Hebrews who had been with the Philistines before that time and who had gone up with them into the camp, even they also turned to be with the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan. 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 the battle. So The Lord saved Israel that day, and the battle passed beyond Beth Aven. [00:06:19] May God bless His word to us. You may be seated. [00:06:47] Excuse me. So in this chapter, there's a key verse, a key verse that really tells us pretty much everything we need to know. And I hope you saw it already or heard it as we read. [00:07:02] It's what Jonathan says. It's a confession of faith that you should take, memorize, walk within every day, hold in your hearts, and here it is. For nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few. [00:07:19] It's an absolute statement, and it's absolutely true. We don't need to put any qualifications on this. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few. He can use a lot, he can use a little. It doesn't really matter, because he's the one who does the work. He's the one who's powerful. He's the one who's strong. [00:07:44] And this story here this morning helps to build our confidence in this part of our family history. As we read this account of Jonathan defeating the Philistines, God builds our confidence in his ability to. To save. And if we could put a even more specific point on it, we could say it builds our confidence in God's ability to save through a king who's faithful, a king who's obedient. [00:08:14] Ultimately, Jonathan is pointing us to Jesus, who did even more than Jonathan does here, in some ways with even less. Jesus did not have a sword. Jesus did not have an armor bearer. Jesus went to the cross and died. And in his death, he defeated every enemy that we can ever and will ever have. The world, the flesh, the devil, death itself. Jesus defeated it all. And on the cross, there were similarly remarkable cosmic events, things that were happening. The earth shaking, the sky going dark even though it was noon. There was judgment that was happening there on the cross in a way similar. That judgment is happening here in the Philistines by the hand of God. [00:09:14] What Jonathan did was remarkable, but it's not really Jonathan who's doing it. And we see that, right? We see it by Jonathan's confession. The Lord can save by many or few. We see it by his actions, in his trust in the Lord and the way that he thinks, the things that he says. [00:09:32] And the narrator, the Holy Spirit, confirms all of this when we read at the very end in verse 23. So the Lord saved Israel that day. [00:09:44] Jonathan's amazing here, and there's a lot to follow. He's a good model for us in some ways, and we'll think about that. But don't make. Don't let Jonathan surpass the Lord. It's the Lord who's doing this work. It's the Lord who's using this young man. [00:10:02] Let's think about what happens here and impress this into our hearts as we consider what the Lord does in this moment. [00:10:12] We begin in the first verse. We are reintroduced to Jonathan, who we've heard of before. Jonathan has done well, defeated the Philistines before. You remember that there's some separation going on at this moment. The Philistines have attacked. Things are tough. People have separated and are hiding. [00:10:33] Remember that from before. We know this, we're told what is happening with Saul. [00:10:39] When Jonathan says to his armor bearer, hey, let's go see. Let's go over to the Philistine garrison. What's happening with Saul. [00:10:50] The camera pans, you might say over to Saul. Saul was staying in the outskirts of Gibeah. It says the Pomegranate Cave, possibly Pomegranate Tree. And the people were with him, about 600 men. [00:11:04] One particular person is mentioned, and there's two reasons here. Who's with Saul? Well, it's Ahijah. [00:11:12] Ahijah, if you skip to the end of that verse, in verse 3 is a priest of the Lord. He's wearing an ephod, which tells us that he's the priest and might also indicate to us that he will be depended upon unto for counsel. What does God want us to do? Later in the story, Saul consults him. Saul asks him what's to do, what he's going to do. Saul also cuts him off in the middle of his work and then just acts rashly. But here we're introduced to the priests. [00:11:45] Why the genealogy, though? [00:11:49] We have this line in verse three. Not line, this genealogy, including Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, son of Phinehas, son of Eli. [00:12:00] Why a genealogy here in the middle of all this? And why this specific genealogy? This is a good reminder that genealogies don't just record information for us or tell us who is who, although they do that, they also tell their stories if you pay attention to the details. [00:12:18] One thing that is happening here is we are being told that he is the priest and he's the son of Eli, which, if you've been with us from the beginning of First Samuel, your mind should go back and remember the stories about Eli and his sons and all that happened there. Not always a happy story. In fact, some really difficult things, including one thing which is the birth of Ichabod, who is named in this way to remind everyone that the glory of the Lord has departed. [00:12:51] Notice that the genealogy is a little unusual in the way we usually do genealogies. It doesn't just say the son of the son of the son of. It says Ahijah, the son of Ahitub Jag. Right. Ichabod's brother, son of Phinehas, son of Eli. [00:13:10] So Ahijah is Eli's great grandson. But notice how it does the family tree. It tells the story through Ichabod's brother or through Ichabod. Why? Because it's reminding us about the glory of the Lord departing. It's reminding us also about the things that happened in that moment. [00:13:31] You remember the whole incident about the Israelites trying to use the ark to win in battle. The Israelites using the ark to win in battle, which ultimately led to the losing of the ark and the losing of the battle. [00:13:48] What happens later in this story? [00:13:51] We see that the ark was with them at this time. We see Saul doing similar things that happened before. We're seeing a repeat in history. And the narrator is cueing us into this by giving us this genealogy. He's giving us hints and clues to help us connect the pieces of the story and say we're seeing repeats here. We're seeing events here. And this is dangerous for the people of God. It's not just a list. [00:14:22] Well, this is what's happening with Saul. So Saul and Ahijah are over here. They are hiding. They are waiting. [00:14:30] What happens with Jonathan? The camera pans back to Jonathan and we see Jonathan and his armor bearer within the passes. [00:14:40] Now, the narrator describes for us this scene. I tried to read it in a way that was hopefully understandable. And you were able to visualize it. But there's a lot of details there. So let me unpack it just a little bit. What you want to do is imagine a kind of east west valley, right? With ridges coming up on the north side and the south side. [00:15:07] Now, we are told that these ridges, these cliffs, are very steep. [00:15:14] We have different notes of that one. They're called rocky crags. Where they are a rocky crag on one side, a rocky crag on the other side. Were given their names, as the people called them at that time. Bozes and sine Bozes, likely meaning slippery. Senae likely meaning thorny. So you have these rocky crags. You could go up slippery or you could go up thorny. Right. Difficult places. Later, when we read about Jonathan going up one of these crags, what's it say? He's going on his hands and feet. [00:15:51] This is hard going for anyone who's climbed a Picacho Peak. You know, it gets really steep there at the top and there's cables and things to kind of get you up. Perhaps it's something like this. [00:16:05] Very, very steep. [00:16:08] What else is happening? Where is everyone situated? So we've got Paul hiding with his men. We've got Jonathan and his armor bearer who have slipped away. They're in this valley and they look up and they see the Philistine garrison on top of this ridge. [00:16:28] Jonathan comes up with this plan. He says, let's go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us. That's in verse six. And then he says, as we read before, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few. [00:16:46] Notice something else about Jonathan's confession here. [00:16:50] His heart is not presumptuous. [00:16:56] He says, it may be that the Lord will work for us. He knows what the Lord is capable of. He just doesn't know what the Lord will do in this moment. Oh, brothers and sisters, this is the heart that you want. Complete, absolute confidence in the Lord's ability and humility about what the Lord will do and leaving it to his sovereignty, leaving it to his wisdom, leaving it to his providence as providential decisions and acts about what he will ultimately do. We know what the Lord's capable of, but we don't presume on exactly what he will do where he has not a promise. [00:17:38] So this is what Jonathan has in mind. And in all of this he's depending on the Lord's promises and call to expel the Philistines. This is what the army is supposed to be doing. This is the work that they've been called to do. So he's doing his job. His armor bearer does his job. What a great friend. You should find friends like this. When you confess your faith and you have boldness in the Lord, you want somebody who says, do all that's in your heart. I am with you in heart and soul. [00:18:13] This is part of that mutual edification we talked about before, building one another up in our faith. When we see people around us acting in faith and being courageous in the Lord, we should encourage them in that and of course, receive that encouragement as well. [00:18:33] All right, let's continue on. What's Jonathan's plan? [00:18:37] Jonathan's plan is not a clever military strategy. Jonathan's plan is to show themselves to the Philistines. So they're going to call up or something and say, here we are, here we are. And then if the Philistines say, come to us, then we'll know that the Lord has given them into our hands. [00:19:06] And that's what happens. [00:19:08] The Philistines, having the opposite of the heart of Jonathan overconfidence in themselves, say, look, the Hebrews have come out of their holes where they've hidden themselves. [00:19:22] These guys know what's about. They think they know what's about to happen. They're going to kill these guys. They're mocking them. They're making fun of them. They hail Jonathan and his armor bearer come up to us and we'll show you a thing. [00:19:38] And so Jonathan says to his armor bearer, the Lord's given them into our hands. [00:19:43] It's amazing. I watched the Princess Bride recently with my kids. Perhaps some of you have seen that movie. There's a scene at the beginning where one guy is chasing the other guy and he's crawling up this crag and the other guy's just sort of waiting down for him to come up. And if you remember this movie, you might remember this scene. And he's just waiting there, waiting there for him to come up so we can kill him. And so it's a funny scene. So something like that seems to be happening here. They're looking down on Jonathan and his armor bearers and all right, we're all waiting. Come and get us there. You know, imagine how tired you'd be after climbing, right? Remember, they only have one sword with them. [00:20:27] How is this going to work? So they climb up, his hands and his feet, his armor bearer after him. And then all of a sudden, at the end of verse 13, we read they fell before Jonathan and his armor bearer killed after him. [00:20:41] Where'd the battle happen? Where'd the fight happen? It seems as if they just start dying all of a sudden. And that seems to be what happens. There's a few options here. There's various ways you can read this one is a very big miracle where they're literally just falling on the ground and then the armor bearer going afterwards and killing them as. As they go. Another possibility is that they're kind of fighting together, you know, back to back or something like that. And I don't know how that exactly would work with one sword. Maybe they had other weapons or something. But this is amazing, right? Two guys, one weapon. 20 men are killed. [00:21:26] Have you ever tried to fight one person? [00:21:29] Imagine 2v1, 3v1, 4, 5, 20. 20 people versus 2 and these are people who have been waiting there. These are people who have had all kinds of time to prepare. These are people who are well armed. They're soldiers, they're raiders. They're. They're protected. And Jonathan and his armor bearer have just been climbing for the last who knows how long. [00:21:58] Clearly, this is not about Jonathan and his armor bearer's great strength. It's about the Lord's. [00:22:05] It's a small area too. [00:22:09] We read about half a furrow's length in an acre of land. [00:22:14] There was great panic in the camp, the larger area in the field where they were and among all the people. [00:22:23] Imagine the perspective from an outsider which we're getting, right? We have two actually. We have the Philistines looking at what's going on as Jonathan and his armor bearer are defeating this garrison. And then later we have Saul and his people sort of seeing from a distance, the watchmen looking what is going on over there. [00:22:47] Well, the reaction of the Philistines we read at the end of verse 15, the garrison and even the raiders trembled, the earth trembled. [00:22:59] This kind of dual meaning of both God's judgment and it's as if the earth itself is shaking with the judgment of the Lord under the judgment of the Lord. And it became a panic, a great panic, as it's translated here, a very great panic. [00:23:21] This is the kind of panic that you describe when we talk about panic attacks, right? Where suddenly your body is seized, right? This is not like, oh, no, I'm a little bit scared. It's where your body just reacts and you're out of breath and you're shaking and you can't see and you're afraid. This is what's happening within all, within the people. [00:23:46] And this is what happens when the Lord brings judgment. [00:23:52] So often as people think of the judgments of the Lord, we think of the judgment of the Lord as this sort of nebulous, you know, thing. Maybe bad things happen these moments in history where we see the judgment of the Lord through his saviors, through his people. [00:24:10] We get little tastes, just micro tastes, samples of what the final judgment of the Lord will ultimately be. If this is what the Lord does through just a couple people here at this moment on this little acre of land, imagine what will happen when the Lord comes, when Jesus comes in all of his glory over the whole earth to judge the world. [00:24:41] A very great panic for those who are against the Lord only begins to describe how people will feel. [00:24:50] The Lord is strong, the Lord is mighty. The Lord is on the side of the righteous, and he does Not. He does not simply look over his enemies and feel frustrated. And he is patient. But there is a time when judgment comes and it will be very great. You do not want to be on the other side of the Lord, because he can save his people by many or by few. [00:25:24] So this is what the Philistines are experiencing and what they see. [00:25:28] What does Saul see? Or the watchman of Saul? First, in verse 16, the watchmen of Saul and Gibeon Benjamin looked, and behold, a multitude is dispersing here and there. [00:25:42] Saul, commander of his army, sort of asks himself this question, what's going on? And then he says, is somebody missing from us? [00:25:52] Is somebody over there fighting? And he looks and he sees around and he finds out Jonathan and his armor bearer are gone. [00:26:00] Saul then decides to consult Ahijah, right? The priest. He says, bring the Ark of God here, which if we're remembering all the things about Ibad and all that, we kind of hold our breath a little bit. Oh, no. [00:26:13] For the ark of God at that time went with the people of Israel, then notice what happens. Unfortunately, this is very typical of Saul and also typical of us. [00:26:24] From time to time, while Saul is talking to the priest, the tumult increases even more and more. Then Saul says to the priest, withdraw your hand. [00:26:35] What I think is happening here is as the priest is in the middle of his priestly work, as the priest is in the middle of consulting the Lord, Saul's feeling the pressure of his external circumstances. And he says, we don't have time for this act. [00:26:51] We don't have time to consult the Lord. We don't have time to do these kinds of things. We need to just move. [00:26:57] Always a bad decision. [00:27:00] And this happened right last in the last chapter with Samuel. [00:27:04] Saul feeling the pressure of the Philistine army. And Samuel was supposed to be there, and he didn't come exactly when Saul thought he would. And so Saul just acts. And what happened? He lost his whole kingdom. All the things that had been established had been undone. Saul has not learned his lesson. [00:27:25] Are we learning our lessons? Or are we just hearing the same thing over and over in one ear and out the other? Or are we learning through these accounts and through the Spirit speaking to us? The importance of listening to the Lord, of taking time to pray and pay attention, read His Word and have discernment about what it is we ought to do? [00:27:51] If we find ourselves making decisions and saying, I don't have time to pray, we are on dangerous ground because our hearts are in the wrong place, because we're not Looking to the Lord in faith, because we're not seeking, we're not finding our dependence and our strength in Him. We see our strength and dependence in ourselves. If I plan better, if I act faster, if I have more men, more money, more time, whatever I need to gather from myself, then I'll be okay. Then I'll be able to fix whatever this problem is. [00:28:27] But the Lord can save by many or by few. He doesn't necessarily need more time or more money or more men. He can do what he wants, when he wants. And so we must learn to depend on Him. [00:28:41] Whether that's dealing with external circumstances, job situations, marriage, challenges, all kinds of things, or whether it's internal ones, temptation about sin, struggles that we have with the evil one. [00:28:55] Where are we going to look for our strength? To whom are we going to look? Are we going to look inside ourselves, inside our own resources and just act? [00:29:06] Or are we going to pause and trust and wait and look to the Lord? [00:29:14] Withdraw your hand. Saul says, let's move. [00:29:18] They rally, they go into the battle, and there is great a success. [00:29:24] How did all these people die? [00:29:27] Well, we read about the armor bearer killing after Jonathan. And here we read that there is more going on. Every Philistine sword was against his fellow, and there was great confusion. [00:29:40] And all of a sudden you start to see the one solution to a problem that perhaps you couldn't envision before. How could one sword kill so many people? How could one sword defeat a whole garrison of people? Well, maybe the Lord adds swords by simply pointing them at each other. [00:30:00] Something you of course think is impossible. But nothing is impossible with God. [00:30:08] I'll comment too, that this often happens under the judgment of the Lord. When we are in our own sin and when we have overconfidence in ourselves, when we are fighting against him, we often are turning on ourselves. [00:30:24] Whether that's in a collective sense with man against man or even man against himself. [00:30:31] You think about Paul saying, I do what I don't want to do, right? There's this way in which we hurt ourselves. We attack ourselves. When we are in sin against the Lord, we destroy ourselves. Which is just yet another reason why our confidence must be in God and His Son, not in us. [00:30:55] We need to get outside of ourselves. We need a savior outside of ourselves. [00:31:00] Otherwise there's just very great confusion and ultimately death because of our sin. [00:31:11] But things are going well now for the people of God. In this moment, as the Philistines are being defeated, we see the Hebrews, the rallying first, the people who were with Saul. And now more. [00:31:28] We're given this interesting Note in verse 21 that the Hebrews who had been with the Philistines what the Hebrews who had been with the Philistines who were in the camp and with them at that time, now decide to turn to be with the Israelites. There's various reasons why they could have been there. Perhaps they had been captured, perhaps they had defected, perhaps they were marginalized people and wandering. It's hard, it doesn't say. But what we see is we see God bringing his people together against his enemies. [00:32:03] And now we see boldness as the Lord is acting through Jonathan and his armor bearer. And now Saul responds. And now all the men of Israel in verse 22, who had hidden themselves, remember the caves and the cisterns and the holes where people had hidden themselves. More are coming out of their holes and their caves. [00:32:26] When they heard that the Philistines were fleeing and they followed hard after them in battle. And then finally in verse 23, the Lord saved Israel that day, and the battle passed beyond that place that it was in all the way to Beth Aven. [00:32:45] So as we see in all the details of the story and all that's going on in Jonathan's words and his actions and the things that the Lord is doing, the Lord is building our confidence in him. [00:32:58] The Lord is building our confidence in all of these different ways about this thing that Jonathan confesses that the Lord can save by many or by few. [00:33:08] And here Jonathan is prefiguring Christ as that king who will rescue his people. [00:33:16] It's ultimately not going to be Jonathan. We know that already from 1st Samuel 13, when God said that the kingdom of God would not rest on Saul and his house, of which Jonathan belongs. But that doesn't mean Jonathan isn't useful to the Lord. It doesn't mean Jonathan won't be used by the Lord in many ways. And we'll see him used even more in the coming chapters. [00:33:42] The Lord continues to use Jonathan, and one of the ways he does is helping us to anticipate and remember the things that King Jesus does. [00:33:53] Jonathan here defeats this garrison and his armor bearer. They defeat this garrison of the Philistines with very little by the hand of the Lord. And we're reminded that our Lord and Savior, as I said earlier, defeats even more and with even less. [00:34:12] When the Lord Jesus went to the cross, he was abandoned. He didn't even have an armor bearer, a single friend. All of his disciples, Peter himself, who had just moments before had promised to never deny him and always be with him to stand strong. Next to him, Peter denied him three times. [00:34:34] Others left our Lord. He was alone. [00:34:39] There were others, of course, who loved him and followed him. [00:34:43] And we have his mother and other friends and disciples. [00:34:48] But it was a sad and lonely moment. [00:34:51] And as we read, or as we sang earlier, and as we read in the Scriptures, God turned his face away as the Son took on the wrath of God, the punishment of God, the judgment of God. [00:35:05] What these Philistines experienced was barely anything compared to what our Lord experienced. [00:35:13] Very great panic, terror. Our Lord sweat, drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane, thinking about what was about to happen. [00:35:23] Being stripped naked, the crown of thorns on his head, beaten, whipped, crucified, left alone, mocked. [00:35:31] And then ultimately the wrath of God for all of our sins poured out on him. [00:35:38] Who could survive that? Who could survive the judgment of God except God himself? [00:35:46] And this is how God saves us. He takes on all of that wrath, just barely pictured here among the Philistines and expanded on the. In these huge ways on the body of Christ, Jesus takes on all of that wrath, and he does it for us. And he lives because of his righteousness, because of his obedience, because of his perfect and eternal life. [00:36:16] God takes the sin of the world on himself. [00:36:20] And he rises victorious. [00:36:23] The earth shakes, the sky goes dark, the temple's curtain rips in two. There's confusion. And then eventually, three days later, resurrection, the resurrection from the dead. [00:36:42] Our Lord and our Savior. He defeats not only sin and death, but. But he puts to shame all his enemies, the devil and all of the unholy angels, these fallen ones who will eventually be thrown into the lake of fire in the judgment of God, the enemies of the Lord put away forever so that God will be able to. So that God will establish his people perfect and safe in the land. [00:37:13] No more incursions, no more temptations, no more struggling in battle after battle. We have. We are looking forward, brothers and sisters, to a day, an eternal day of perfect peace and safety. [00:37:29] It's coming and it's already begun. In the work that Jesus has done for us, if we look and see, Jonathan, we go, wow. What kind of words might we use to say. To use when we think of Jesus? [00:37:43] How about, all praise and glory and honor is due to you, O Lamb of God. [00:37:50] Holy, holy, holy is your name. We praise Jesus not just as a great conqueror, but as God himself. [00:38:01] The applications of this, I think, are all very clear. Do not be on the wrong side of the judgment of God. [00:38:09] He has taken the judgment for sin on Himself and has promised to give you freely life in him simply by putting your trust in Him. [00:38:22] You don't need to hide in a hole, hide in a cave with having a lacking confidence in God. He's done it all. He's done everything. [00:38:33] You also don't need to be overconfident and pretend that you're something you're not, to be haughty and proud and say, well, I think I can do it, and muster up some sort of pretend strength. [00:38:43] All you have to do is trust the Lord, Trust him, put your faith in him, you say, but I'm very weak. I don't have much. In fact, I'm sinful and I've been an enemy of God. [00:39:01] He can save by many or by few, and he has saved many through the one man, Jesus Christ. [00:39:12] So my encouragement to you is to trust him. Put your strength and confidence in him as Jonathan did. [00:39:19] Know what he said, know what he's promised. Believe it, trust in it and act. Live your life to his glory. Make your decisions in his strength, fight your fights in the strength of his might, even those against the devil himself. [00:39:38] And he'll flee from you because you stand in the strength of the Lord. [00:39:45] You stand in the strength of God, and He is on your side. [00:39:51] Let's pray. [00:39:54] Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for these moments in history that you recount for us in these vivid ways so that our minds might remember in moments of weakness your great strength. [00:40:11] Lord. As we look and think about the various things that are going on in our lives, things which we find ourselves afraid and uncertain, not knowing what to do, we ask that you would help us to look to you and to put our trust in you. [00:40:29] Not only is the one who is infinitely capable and able to do all things, but also the one who does all things well and does them always for the good of your people, for those who are called according to your purpose. [00:40:46] Thank you for the call that you have placed on our lives. Thank you for the faith that you have given to us. Thank you for building our confidence more and more in you so that we might not put our confidence in fleeting things. [00:41:00] Lord, help us to have the bravery of Jonathan, the confidence and the faith of Jonathan. Help us to have the humility of Jonathan, to not be haughty, but to trust in you. To not be presumptuous of the things that you will do, but to know that in your timing and in your way you do all things perfectly. [00:41:20] Help us to trust in the means that you have given to us and also to trust that you can work above and beyond the means that you have given us. [00:41:29] Help us to look to you for all things, in all times and all places. And help us to do so by looking to Jesus Christ, the beginner and finisher of our faith. [00:41:42] Help us to fling aside, to throw aside every sin that clings so closely. Help us not to listen to the bold proclamations and overconfident lies of the Evil One, who would seek to make us afraid, who would seek to tell us that we are too weak to do anything to fight sin, to love our neighbor. [00:42:08] Help us to. Help us to remember that he's a liar and that you always tell the truth. [00:42:16] Lord, we ask that you would give us great confidence in our King, and we thank you for him. We pray this all in Jesus name. Amen.