For our call to worship this
morning, I'd like for you to turn with me to Lamentations
chapter three. Lamentations, right after Jeremiah. Lamentations chapter three, and
we'll start with verse 21. This I recall to my mind, therefore
have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great
is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul. Therefore, will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that
wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that
a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the
Lord. And we'll stop there. Let's go
to the Lord in prayer. Oh, Lord, our God, we thank thee
that thou art faithful and that your mercies are great. Father, we stand before you as
sinners, constantly sinning, but oh Lord, you loved us, saved
us, and sent your son to die for us. Father, we pray this
morning as we gather together that our worship may be acceptable
unto thee. Father, that you might send the
Holy Spirit clean up our worship and make it acceptable unto thee.
Father, we pray that you would be with us this morning as we've
come to hear your word. Father, we pray that you would
be with our brother Greg. Father, that you might give him
the message that we need. Father, we pray that we not hear
from a man, but we hear from thee this morning. We pray for
all of your Preachers, as they enter the pulpits this morning,
that preach your word, Father, that you might be with them,
that your word might go forth and might not return into you
void. These things we ask in the Lord Jesus' precious name,
amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing the hymn on the back of the bulletin. Sovereign grace o'er sin abounding,
Ransomed souls the tidings swell, Tis a deep that knows no sounding,
Who its breath or length can tell. ? Heirs of God's joy dares with
Jesus ? ? Long e'er time its grace begun ? ? To his name eternal
praises ? ? Oh what wonders love hath done ? ? Who from Christ
our souls can sever ? Founding of everlasting bands Once in
Him, in Him forever None can pluck us from His hands O such
love my soul still ponder Love so great, so rich, so free Say,
I lost in holy wonder, why, O Lord, such love to me. Please be seated. Isn't that our response? Lord,
why me? Why me? The religious hear us declare
what God has said clearly in his word about him being sovereign
in salvation and choosing a particular people, and their response is,
well, that's not fair. And the believer's response is,
Lord, why would you choose me? Why would you show your love
toward me? We're going to be in 1 Samuel
chapter 14. 1 Samuel chapter 14. And before we do, I want us to pray together for
Jennifer. She's been struggling for many, many
years with a very serious disease. And we believe that everything
the Lord does in this world is for his children. Ultimately,
everything he does is for his children. I remember when she
first was diagnosed, the people that had the disease that she
has, were having to take three shots every day. And she took
those three shots every day for about a month, maybe longer,
I don't remember. And then they changed it to one
shot a month. And I know they did that, that
the Lord did that for her. For years, people were taking
three shots every day, and then all of a sudden, when she got
it, it went to once a month. A new company has just started
recently, and they have come up with a clinical trial. Hundreds
of thousands of people have this disease, and they are choosing
200 for this trial. And she goes tomorrow to go through a battery of tests
to see if she qualifies for this trial. And if this is something
the Lord is sending us, then I just want to ask you all to pray
with us that perhaps this will be something that the Lord might
be pleased to use for her. Jimmy Buffett, Steve Jobs, the
guy that started Wendy's, what was his name? All those, just
to give you an idea, these are people that you know that have
died from this disease. and hers has gotten progressively
worse. So pray with us that tomorrow
she goes to be tested and see what the Lord might be pleased
to do. Okay, let's pray together. Our heavenly Father, what great
hope and comfort we find in knowing that you do all things well and
that Everything you do in this world ultimately is for your
glory and for the good of your children. Lord, if this new medication
is something that you'd be pleased to use for Jennifer, we pray
that she'd be accepted into this clinical trial and that you would
use it by your hand of strength and healing and grace to help
her. And we know, Lord, that you get
all the glory, and we are happy to bow before you and rejoice
in your goodness and in your mercy. We thank you in Christ's
name, amen. All right, you have your Bibles
open to 1 Samuel chapter 14. We'll begin reading in verse
one. Now it came to pass upon a day that Jonathan, the son
of Saul, said unto his young man that bare his armor, come
and let us go over to the Philistines garrison that is on the other
side, but he told not his father. And Saul tarried in the outermost
parts of Gibeah under the pomegranate tree, which is in Migron, and
the people that were with him were about 600 men. So Saul, with his 600, are hiding
out in caves and in rocks from the Philistines, and Jonathan
takes his young man, his armor bearer, wasn't a seasoned warrior,
probably a teenager carrying his shield and sword. And the two of them go up against
an outpost of the Philistines. Skip down with me to verse four.
And between the passages by which Jonathan sought to go over under
the Philistine garrison, There was a sharp rock on the one side
and a sharp rock on the other side, and the name of the one
was Bozes and the name of the other was Cinny. The forefront
of the one was situate northward over against McMash and the other
southward over against Gibeah. And Jonathan said to the young
man that bear his armor come, And let us go over to the garrison
of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will
work for us, for there is no restraint to the Lord to say
by many or by few. And his armor bearer said to
him, do all that is in thine heart. Turn they behold, I am
with thee according to thy heart. Then said Jonathan, behold, we
will pass over unto these men, and we will discover ourselves
unto them. We'll let them know we're there.
And if they say thus unto us, Terry, until we come to you,
then we will stand still in our place and will not go up unto
them. But if they say thus, come up unto us, Then we will go up,
for the Lord hath delivered them into our hand, and this shall
be a sign unto us.' And both of them discovered themselves
under the garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, Behold,
the Hebrews come forth out of the holes from which they have
hid themselves. And the men of the garrison answered Jonathan
and his armor-bearer and said, Come up to us, and we will show
you a thing. And Jonathan said unto his armor-bearer,
Come up after me. Come up after me for the Lord
hath delivered them into the hand of Israel. And Jonathan
climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet and his armor bearer
after him. And they fell before Jonathan
and the armor bearer slew after them. And that first slaughter
with Jonathan and his armor bearer made was about 20 men. I've titled this message Christ
Our Jonathan. Christ Our Jonathan. We have
in this story yet another picture, an Old Testament picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ delivering his people from their enemies. God ordained the circumstances
and the Holy Spirit has recorded for us in the scriptures, the
details of this battle, of this defeat. We read on in chapter
14, the Philistines end up turning upon themselves and the entire
army was routed as a result of what we just read that Jonathan
did. My hope, as is always our hope
when we look to God's word, is that Christ will be glorified
and that God's people will be comforted and that the Holy Spirit
will cause us to see the truth of the gospel. in this story. Some very specific details given
to us in this story. We know that in the volume of
the book it is written of Christ and that the gospel of God's
free grace in the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ
at Calvary's cross is the purpose for everything and that the attributes
of our God are most glorified in the sacrifice that Christ
made on behalf of his people at Calvary's cross. And so I'm
very hopeful that the Lord will enable us to enter into this
story and see it for what it really is. It's not a story about
Saul and Jonathan and an armor bearer and the Philistines and
the outpost and 20, it's about Christ. and his church. Now, as we read the entire record
of the situation that Saul's in, we know that Saul, what we
just read in verse one, that Saul has 600 men with him, 600.
You might think, well, that's a sizable army. Well, this same
passage of scripture tells us that the Philistines had 30,000
chariots. In addition to their 30,000 chariots,
the Philistines had 6,000 horsemen. In addition to the 6,000 horsemen,
the Philistines had men, footmen, numbered as the sand of the seashore. The last thing the Philistines
were concerned about were Saul and his 600 men. You see the response that they
had when Jonathan announces his presence, he says, oh, look,
the Israels have come out of their holes in the rock. They
discounted Saul's army. The only reason that the Philistines
had not completely destroyed and swallowed up Saul and Jonathan
and his army is because God had restrained them. God had restrained
them. And the only reason why, you
see, we have an enemy that we can't contend with. We are Israel. A measly 600 men
hiding out in rocks against an army of 30,000 chariots and 6,000
horsemen. Who is that enemy? Well, Satan. Our own sin. The curse of the law. which is death. You see, we are
completely unable, left to ourselves, to come up against the enemy. Saul, as we've already seen in
our studies in 1 Samuel, was a very, very impressive man in
the flesh. He was literally head and shoulders
taller than anyone else in all of Israel. The scripture says
that he was the most handsome man in all of Israel. He handled
himself well. He had the respect of the people. And his name translated means
one to be desired. And so anyone would have looked
at Saul and thought, well, I wish I was like him. He's a picture of the flesh against
the spiritual enemies that we must contend with. As impressive as the flesh might
be, it is unable to stand up against the spiritual enemies
that must be dealt with. We are outnumbered. You are outnumbered. I am outnumbered. David said in Psalm 142, verse
six, he said, attend unto my cry, O Lord, for my enemies are
stronger than I. They're stronger than I. I cannot
contend with the strength of my own sin, the strength of my
own flesh, the temptations of the devil, the reality of death
that's coming. I cannot contend with these things,
Lord. when the spies, when Moses sent
those 12 spies into the promised land, they came back and they
said, we are grasshoppers in their sight. They went down to say, we're
not able to go up against these people, they are stronger than
us. And just like we have here with
Jonathan and his armor bearer, and Jonathan here, is a picture
of Christ and his armor bearer is a picture of his church so
we had in that story Joshua Christ and Caleb a faithful dog following
after him who came back and said no no the Lord has promised we
can do it see Jonathan believed God Joshua
believed God and they represent the Lord Jesus
Christ, who never doubted the promises of his father and went
up against the enemy to defeat them. Jeremiah chapter 31, verse
11 says, the Lord hath redeemed Jacob. He hath ransomed him from
the hand that is stronger than he. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot make any contribution
to our salvation. We are completely outnumbered
and overwhelmed by the power of our enemy. We are in need
of a deliverer. We're in need of a savior. God forbid that we should come
into the presence of God with this attitude of that Pharisee
who said in his prayer, he prayed thus unto himself. He wasn't
praying to God, he was praying to himself, trying to swage his
own conscience and comfort himself with a false peace. When he said,
Father, I thank thee that I'm not like other men. I tithe, I fast. He went through a litany of the
things that he does. And then he looked over at that
public and said, I'm especially glad that I'm not like him. The publican, on the other hand,
would not so much as look up, but smote himself upon the breast
and said, Father, God have mercy upon me, the sinner. And the Lord Jesus, in looking
at those two men, said, which one of those two men went to
his house justified? It was the publican, wasn't it?
It was the publican. The publican knew that he was
in need of mercy. He could not contend with a God
who was holy and righteous. He could not present an offering
that would atone for his own sin. He could not provide anything
that would make himself acceptable to God. He was in need of a savior. And so in this story, here we
are with Saul. hiding out in the rocks against
an opposing force that is too great. Now, I love what Jonathan
said. Jonathan said to the young man
that bears armor in verse six, come and let us go over into
the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will
work for us for there is no restraint to the Lord to say by many or
by few. As it turned out, the Lord was
going to say by one, Jonathan. And by one offering, the Lord
Jesus Christ has sanctified, saved, and set apart his redeemed. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his own mercy, he has saved
us. Jonathan. His name translated means Jehovah
has given. Jehovah has given. The Lord Jesus
Christ has been given by God for his church. The Lord told
those Pharisees, he said, the manna that came down from heaven,
Moses didn't give that to you. He said, my father sent that
to you. And then he went on to say, I am the bread of life,
which has come down from heaven. He is the good and perfect gift
that's been given by God. Our Jonathan, the son of the
king. Jonathan is Saul's son. And so we have in the Lord Jesus
Christ, the son of God, sent by his father to defeat, to defeat
all by himself, our enemy, and to deliver us from the bondage
of death and hell. And he was successful in doing
that. He's the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And our hope
is that we are complete in him, that everything that God requires
in order for us to be delivered from our enemy is bound up and
found in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's
what this story, this is what Jonathan's doing. Don't you love
it in 2 Samuel 9 when David is now king And David says to his
servant, Saul is dead, Jonathan is dead. And David says to his
servant Ziba, he says, is there anyone left? David and Jonathan
had a very special relationship. Oh, they loved each other. And
David said to Ziba, he said, is there anyone left from the
household of Saul that I might show him kindness for Jonathan's
sake? David wanted to extend his love
for Jonathan to anyone that might remain alive in the lineage of
Jonathan. And Ziba said to David, he said,
well, there's one cripple boy. He broke both of his legs in
a fall when he was fleeing as a baby and they never healed
properly and he's been crippled and never been able to walk since.
And his name is Mephibosheth. And Mephibosheth is living in
the house of nature. Translated means sold. And he's over there in the land
of Lodbar, which means a desert place. There is no pasture there. So we know who Mephibosheth represents. You and I broke our legs in the
fall, or a lot worse than that. But symbolically, we're not able
to stand into the presence of God. And David said to Ziba, he said,
go fetch him, go fetch him. He's hiding out in a place where
he's been sold. He's been sold to sin and he's
living in the desert. And don't you know, when Ziba
showed up at Mature's house, that Mephibosheth thought, oh
no, I've been discovered. I've been discovered, it's all
over now. David had the right to slaughter anyone that was
left from the house of his predecessor. And Ziba said, come here, you
got to go with me. He brought him to David. David
looked at Mephibosheth and I can just see tears welling up in
David's eyes as he looked into the face of Mephibosheth and
he saw the likeness of Mephibosheth's father, Jonathan. And David said, oh, Mephibosheth,
Mephibosheth. And Mephibosheth responded by
saying, what would you have to do with a dog like me? Why would
the king want anything to do with, I thought they were bringing
me here for you to kill me. Oh no, Mephibosheth, you're gonna
sit at my table and you're gonna eat my meat for the rest of your
life. You're gonna hide those crippled
legs under my tablecloth and I'm gonna provide for you for
the rest of your life. and Mephibosheth lived in the
house of David and then on. What a picture of our
salvation. Everything that David did for
Mephibosheth was for Jonathan's sake. And everything that God
does for these Mephibosheths is for Christ's sake. Jonathan believed God. And the Lord Jesus Christ went
to the cross knowing that God, his father, would be faithful
in the promises that he had made to reward the sacrifice that
Christ would make with the bride that the father had chosen. You see, 600 men, though they
were few, in comparison to the army of
the Philistines, were too many. They were too many. God was going to deliver the
children of Israel, not by 600, but by one, by one. I read this past week in one
of Robert Hawker's devotionals a statement that I have been
thinking about a lot. He said, we are never less alone
than when we are alone. We are never less alone than
when we are alone. When you are left with nothing
but Christ, you've got no place else to turn.
No one else can help you. You have no strength in yourself.
You have no righteousness of your own. You are never less
alone. than when you are left alone
with one. Notice in our story that in verse five, the forefront
of the one was these two rocks. Now you picture here, we have
two massive rocks that have sharp edges sticking out of them with
a narrow ravine in between them. And Jonathan and his armor bearer
are crawling up this ravine with these two rocks that have two
sharp points. And the scripture names the rocks
and names the direction in which the rocks are pointing. The Holy Spirit didn't just give
that to us for no reason. Michmash, which is the city that
one of the rocks pointed to, by the way, both of these rocks,
both of these cities that the rocks pointed to were two of
the 12 cities in the tribe of Benjamin. And Benjamin represents
the church and 12 is a number of the complete church. So here
we have these two cities. Mikmash translated means hidden,
hidden. And Gibeah translated means hill,
hill. So one of them points towards
Gibeah, a hill, and the other one points toward Mikmash, which
translated means hidden. And I could not think of this
without considering the fact that all of scripture points
to a hill that is hidden to the natural man. On a hill far away stood an old
rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame. Mount Calvary and
what happened at Mount Calvary and what God accomplished on
this hill is hidden to the natural man. They know what happened,
but they don't know why it happened. They don't know what was accomplished.
And so we have a picture here of our Jonathan and his young
armor bearer crawling up between these two rocks in order to get
to this garrison of the Philistines to defeat the enemy of God. And
the rocks all along are pointing to a hidden hill. They're pointing
us to Mount Calvary. What a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ actually climbing up this mountain in order to offer himself
to his father as a sacrifice for the sins of his people. And
notice these two sharp rocks are given a name. They're given
a name. One name is Bozes, translated
means brilliant or bright white. And the other name is Sinni,
translated means thorny. Now we know what the brightness
of the light is a picture of. When the Lord Jesus Christ went
to the Mount of Transfiguration and the veil of his humanity
was taken away for a moment, the scripture says the brightness
of his deity shined forth like the noonday sun. And the disciples,
Peter, James, and John were forced to the ground with the brightness
of this light. And so that bright light, that
one rock, Bozes, is pointing to the one who's crawling up
on his hands and feet to overtake this garrison and to deliver
the children of Israel, the very son of God, the one given by
God, the brightness of the Godhead bodily. We also know that that
bright light refers to the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. When
the saints are seen in glory with this white robe, whiter
than any fuller could make, brighter than any white you've ever seen,
the white robe is the righteousness of Christ that's been put on
the saints of God as a result of what their Jonathan did when
he crawled up this ravine between these two rocks pointing to this
hidden hill. You see, this is a gospel story,
isn't it? It's what Christ did for us. And the only reason, we know
what thorned, the other rock, cinny, translated means thorns. And if you go back to the very
first mention of thorns, thorns is a result of sin, is it not? When Adam was cast out of the
garden, there's no more. Now you're gonna labor by the
sweat of your brow and the earth is gonna produce thorns and thistles. What? That's all because of sin. And when they plaited that crown
of thorns and placed them on the head of our Lord, we're reminded
Why the Lord went to the cross? To put away the sins of his people
by the sacrifice of himself once and for all. There's our enemy
defeated. There's our enemy defeated. And the only reason that he was
able to put away those thorns is because he was making a sacrifice
that was acceptable to God. You see, he had to be the lamb
that was without spot and without blemish. He had to be that perfect,
bright righteousness of God in order for his sacrifice to be
acceptable, in order for the enemy to be defeated, in order
for Satan to be defeated and the grave to be conquered and
sin to be put away. A sacrifice had to be made that
was perfect. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus did when he went up to this hidden hill and offered
himself, not to me and you, he offered himself to his father.
And the father saw the travail of his soul and the father said,
I'm satisfied. And the young man, the armor
bearer, trusted Jonathan, didn't he? When Jonathan said to this
young man, he said, follow me. The young man said, let's look
at it. Let's look at it. Turn, turn,
look at verse seven. And his armor bearer said unto
him, do all that is in thine heart. turn thee, behold, I am with
thee according to thine heart." Now our hearts are deceitful. Every thought and imagination
of our heart is the only evil and that continually and we're
not capable of having A perfect heart, except to be
found in Christ. In his heart, what do we say?
Here's the church. Here's the church saying to the
Lord Jesus Christ, I'm with thee. I trust what's in your heart. And whatever's in your heart, that's where I'll be. This armor bearer is expressing
the faith of every believer. bearing the shield of faith,
by which we are able to quench the fiery darts of the devil,
bearing the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, bearing
the helmet of salvation, bearing the breastplate of righteousness
and the belt of truth and our feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel. You see, we're just the armor
bearers. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
conqueror. He's the one that got the victory
for us. He's the one that crawled up
on his hands and feet between these two sharp rocks and believed God. He defeated our enemy. He defeated
him. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for revealing to us
in thy word the glory of thy dear son. Thank you for doing for us what
we could not do for ourselves. Lord left to ourselves, we would
still be hiding out. We thank you that you've made
a cleft in the rock and that you've given us a hiding place
that is secure and sure and steadfast. And Lord, we pray that you would
remind us by your spirit of all that you've done and the hope
that we have in Christ. Blessed to our hearts, increase
our faith, forgive us Lord of our sin. We ask it in Christ's
name, amen. 228, let's stand together. Faith has found a resting place,
not in device nor creed. I trust the Ever-Living One,
His woes for me shall flee. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died,
He died for one like me. Enough for me that Jesus saves,
this ends my fear and doubt. A sinful soul, I come to Him,
He'll never cast me out. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died,
He died for one like me. My heart is leaning on the Word,
the written Word of God. Salvation by my Savior's name,
salvation through His blood. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died. He died for one like me. My great physician heals the
sick. The lost he came to save. For me his precious blood he
shed, for me his life he gave. I need no other argument, I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died,
he died for one like me.