1 Samuel chapter 14. In our previous
two studies of chapter 14, we saw that Jonathan and his armor
bearer, probably a young man, were used of God to defeat the
Philistine army. But we know that Jonathan and
this young lad with him were only the means that God used
to start this conflict. but God himself was the one to
finish it. And that's where we find our
comfort. He finished it, causing the Philistines
to fight and kill themselves. Now that's something only God
can do. God had caused our enemies to do away with themselves. Look
at verse 23. So the Lord saved Israel that
day. And the battle passed over into
Bethhaven, which that name means the house of nothingness. I thought
that was interesting. That's describing what God does
to his people's enemies. He makes them nothing. And I'll
say it again. I love the words of Moses who
said, fear ye not and stand still and see the salvation of the
Lord, which he will show to you today. For the Egyptians you've
seen today, you shall see them no more forever. And then these
words, the Lord shall fight for you. Oh, I draw so much comfort
from that. The Lord, God Almighty, He who
works all things after the counsel of His own will, He's the one
that fights for us. If God be for you, who can be
against you? What comfort is found in that?
And I've said it on more than one occasion that I love these
words, free, freely, freedom, don't you? My, my, everyone loves
a bargain. Well, there's no better bargain
than free. Free is something that everyone
can afford. But is anything today really free? I was thinking about
that earlier. They advertise something for
free, and you have to pay the shipping, and they mark that
up four times what it is. So it's not free. Let's just face it. Buy one,
get one free? No. The price of the first one
that you get, the one that you pay for, covers the cost more
so for both items. Seems like there's always some
condition, some loophole, but that's not the true definition
of free or freely. When it comes to purchasing something,
free means without cost, without price, no payment. The word free means many things.
Free means not to be under the control of something or someone
else. The word free means to not be physically restrained,
confined, captive, free from captivity, not under the control
of another, without restriction or interference. That's a good
definition. I like that one too. To have
freedom is to have liberty. To have deliverance and independence
and to receive something freely means that they received it without
a cause. That's what the word means in
the scriptures. Without a cause. He loves us
freely without a cause. There's no cause in us that would
cause God to love us. He loves us freely, unconditionally. No reason. other than in and
of Himself, without reason. We've talked about this precious
Word many times. And I've said this many times.
It's been in the bulletin. If you buy something, you purchased
it. If you earn something, you worked for it. If you deserve
something, then you merited it. But when you receive something,
I mean truly receive something, it's a free gift and it's not
bought, it's not earned, and it's certainly not deserved.
It was given freely by someone who desired you to have it. No strings attached. What a wonderful
word freely is. Especially when it comes to our
deliverance and salvation from sin. There's nothing for us to
buy, nothing for us to work for. Definitely nothing that we deserve
and can merit. It's free and freely given. That's wonderful. Because I don't
have anything to give. Nothing that God would accept.
In Genesis 2, verses 16-17, the Lord commanded the man, Adam,
saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. That means without a cause you
can partake of them. You can enjoy them freely. You can freely eat, but of the
knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the
day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." See, God gave
freely to Adam what he needed. If Adam broke that one rule commandment,
he said, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou
shalt not eat, you'll die if you do it. He had the right as
God, as man's creator and man's provider, to put a condition
on the breaking or the disobedience of His commandment. And a common
saying today is it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.
You've heard that. Insinuating that it can be easier
to apologize later than waiting for permission now. That's not
what God says. God says to obey is better than
sacrifice. To hearken to God is always better
than repentance and sacrifice given later. Just do what God
says. Things would go better for us
if we would just obey God. Why do we insist on doing things
the hard way? I ask myself that all the time.
There's only one reason. You know what it is. Sin. But
we should freely receive what God has freely given. Our Lord
told His disciples in Matthew 10, verse 8, He said, Heal the
sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils, freely
you have received, freely, it. And that's what the Lord had
freely done for His disciples, and I might add, and for us. We were sick in sin. full of
oozing sores of sin, and He cleansed us. We were dead in sin, He gave
us life. We were under the bondage of
sin and self and Satan, and God freely delivered us. Freely. He equipped His disciples with
the gifts of the Spirit and the Gospel, and He sent them out
two by two and told them, freely give to others what I've freely
given to you. Paul confirms that in Romans
chapter 3 verse 24 by telling us that we're justified freely
by His, Christ's grace. How? Through the redemption that
God freely provides for us in the Lord Jesus. It's all free. Come, buy without money, without
price. I wish they'd open a store like
that here, don't you? He that spared not His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also
freely give us all things? Romans 8, 32. If God the Father
gave us His Son, then He's already given us everything that's dear
to Him. And if we have Christ, we have
everything. 1 Corinthians 2, 12. Now we have received not the
spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God."
Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 11 that he preached the gospel
of God freely. The gospel preached was not his
own, it was God's. God freely gave it to him, and
he gave it to those who heard him. God was the author. His grace was the cause. His
glory was the objective. This Paul preached freely, not
putting the believers in Corinth to any expense, not receiving
anything from them that would be a burden to them, not to make
merchandise of men. That's what religion does today.
They've made men and women merchandise. Paul gave as he freely received,
and that's what we endeavor to do. We're told in verse 23 of
our text, very directly and very simply, so the Lord had saved
Israel that day. It's the Lord who did the saving.
What'd you and I do? The sinning. We did the sinning,
he did the saving. Salvation's of the Lord. Look
at what verse 24 says. And the men of Israel were distressed
that day. That word distressed means bitter
bondage. As soon as they were saved, now
listen to me. There's a lesson here. As soon
as they were saved and delivered by God, as soon as God saved
them, they were brought into bitter bondage. Not by God, but
by Saul. The same word used for distressed
here is translated in other places, taskmaster. Remember the taskmasters
in Egypt? Kept them in bondage, made them
work. And then made them make bricks without straw. Taskmasters. And God had warned Saul would
be a taskmaster to them. Remember that? Now, what were
these men distressed, troubled over? Saul gives them a rule. As soon as God saved them, delivered
them, here comes Saul with a rule. Isn't that just like Satan? I'm saved by grace through faith.
Now, wait a minute. You got to do your part. This
was Saul's rule. This was a man-made rule. Modern day religion's got a lot
of them. They're not God's rules. Just
like I told you, altar call, that's not of God. Man-produced,
man-enforced, man-imposed. And again, verse 24, and the
men of Israel were distressed that day, for Saul had endured,
renounced, washed his hands with the people, saying, Curse me,
the man that eateth any food until evening. that I may be
avenged on my enemies, so none of the people tasted any food."
And that was just a foolish oath. Saul was saying, we don't have
time to eat. He's saying, we've got to pursue
the enemy. We got them on the run, no time
to eat now. Listen, God was running them
out of the country. These men were famished. We must
finish the fight. They hadn't done anything. If
anybody should eat it, it's Jonathan and his armor barrier. Saul's trying to make much out
of nothing. He's endeavoring to assert his
kingship, his authority. He's determined to take the credit
for the victory. Saul's already losing his kingdom.
The people of Israel are quickly regretting their decision to
ever make him king. He's trying to recapture that
honor and that respect that Israel first had for him when they made
him their ruler. But this backfired on him because
his troops were weak. They were weak from hunger and
that would limit their effectiveness in battle. It was the king's
decision. It was a bad one. It wasn't God's
commandment, it was the king's rule. It was the rule of the
people's king, not God's king. In our day, religion is king.
Have you seen that? You know, used to, people were
kind of closet Christians. You know, they didn't say, anymore
people, you know, it's like I told you the young lady, I said, how
are you today? I'm blessed and highly favored. That's what religion's
taught them. Everybody's blessed and highly
favored. Have a blessed day, you know. Everybody's blessed. I say not. Not everybody. God's chosen people are. Those
who bow to Christ are. Those who love the Lord Jesus
are. Touch not, taste not, handle not, do this, don't do that.
King religion knows what's best for you. Verse 25, and all they
of the land came to a wood, a wooded area, and there was honey upon
the ground. And when the people were come
into the wood, and the woods, behold, the honey dropped. I
don't know if it dropped out of a tree or what, but no man
put his hand to his mouth, for the people feared the oath. But
Jonathan heard not when his father charged the people with the oath.
And wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his
hand, and dipped it in a honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth,
and he ate that honey, and his eyes were enlightened." Now stay
with me, this is a blessing. Remember, this was the land that
God gave Israel. What did he call it? A land flowed
with milk and honey. Do you recall what that manna
in the wilderness that fell from heaven tasted like? It tasted
like wafers and honey. This was the land that flowed
with the sweetness of honey. And this was God's gift. And
the king said, no, no. No, no, no. And he did so on
the very day of deliverance. As soon as the Lord reveals to
a man and a woman the gospel, here comes our adversary, the
devil. Did God say you would truly die? You sure God said that? I think
what God meant was, are you gonna be like him? So subtle. So damn him. The king said no. But the Lord saved us. King Religion says there are
some things you've got to do. You must abstain from this. You
must abstain from that. You have to do your part. No
time to feed upon the sweetness of the gospel. There's work to
be done. We got to go out and witness
on Tuesday night, and we've got to do this, and we've got to
do that, because we're doing a lot for God. We're making God
proud. There are battles to fight. And what happened when Jonathan
partook of that honey? His eyes were enlightened. That
word means illuminated. Psalm 19, verses nine and 10. The judgments of the Lord are
true and righteous altogether, more to be desired than than
gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey in the
honeycomb. The judgments that the Lord accomplishes
for the people, sweeter than honey. Psalm 119, 103. How sweet are the words unto
my taste. What words? The gospel words,
the word of God. Sweeter than honey to my mouth.
Is that not your experience, child of God? Honey is representative
of the Word of God and the gospel throughout the scriptures. The
mention of the judgments of God refer to the justification provided
by the Lord Jesus Christ. What does justification mean?
It means that we don't have any sin. Well, I'm full of sin. Lord put it away. Now either
he hasn't and put it away or you've got it, but if I'm trusting
in the Lord Jesus, he promised, and it's sweeter than honey,
isn't it? He promised that my sin's gone. All of it, past,
present, and future. When Christ died, every believer
was justified. Every believer stands before
God without sin. He's tasted the honey of God's
Word. They stand justified without
sin and without guilt. And listen to this, in God's
sight. You can pull the wool over my
eyes and convince me of a lot of things that aren't true, but
you can't God. God knows and sees all things.
We are, according to this sweet, sweet book, are presented holy
and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight. That's the only
sight that matters. Being God, His sight is all that
matters. And we are now well-pleasing,
where? In His sight. He's the only one
we have to please. Through Jesus Christ, that's
the only way. There shall no flesh be justified
in His sight. Doing or not doing, all works
of the flesh will not justify us. And please listen to me on
this. We all struggle with this, I
do too. Every man, every woman, every
believer will struggle with their salvation and with their assurance
and with their peace and with their rest and their comfort
if they look within to themselves to find some proof of it. Anytime
I've talked to a man, I just not sure I'm saved. You're looking
within. You better look without. Look
to the sweetness of that honey. We must look to Christ or we'll
doubt every time. We begin to doubt our salvation
when we begin to try to find a reason within ourselves that
God would save us. You won't find it. Professing
believers because of the lack that they see within, the sin
they see within. begin to reason in themselves,
well, would a saved man or a saved woman do, act, think, or say
the things that I say? Have you ever asked yourself
that? Have you ever questioned your salvation by looking within
and seeing nothing that would commend you to God? I have, and
I know some of you have. You, me, or no one else was saved
by what we did, how we act. A true believer was saved by
what Christ taught and by what Christ did and how He believed
God. And that's why we're saved by
the faith of Christ, as we spoke about in detail a few weeks back. It's His faith, not ours, that
saves us. This is what makes the gospel
good news. While we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. Who? What does it say about us? Christ died for David, he's a
good boy. No, he's ungodly. While we were yet sinners, Christ
died for who? The ungodly. Oh, wretched men
and women that we are, not was, oughtn't to say, I used to be
a wretched man, I'm not anymore. He said, oh, wretched man that
I am right now. After the Lord had already revealed
Himself to him. I'm still a wretched man. Now,
not in God's sight, but in our own we are. We're still wrapped
in the bondage of sin called flesh, in which I might add,
nothing good dwells. He said that too. I know that
in my flesh, nothing good dwells there. Oh, wretched man that
I am. Nothing good in me. We must look
to Christ. Why? Because Christ in you is,
and in me, and in us, is the hope of glory. Christ came to the world to save
who? Good people. Sinners. Not those who were once
were sinners. As long as we're in this flesh,
we will sin. And that's why we have so much
difficulty looking to Christ, because it's so easy to look
within. We see ourselves, we know ourselves,
we live with ourselves. If we look within, we don't find
any hope, we don't find any confidence, we don't find any assurance.
Even with Christ in us, we can't see Him for all of us that's
still there. With Christ in us, it's not just
wishful thinking. No, He's the hope of glory. And
He's within us. The only hope that we have. And
our hope, Christ, is defined as confident expectation. Confident. I'm confident. Not in anything I do, but in
what Christ has done for me. Hebrews 16, 19, which hope we
have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and
which entereth into that within the veil. The hope of a believer's
soul is anchored, it's sure, it's steadfast, and that hope's
Christ. I forget how many years ago now,
not that many years ago, Moose and Sandy Parks invited Trix
and I to come to St. Croix and we went. And they graciously,
Sandy cleaned for a woman that owned a condo right on the beach. And the woman would let her use
the condo when they had guests come and they put us up in that
condo. It was so nice and so peaceful and beautiful. One of
the nights we were there, there was a Coast Guard ship. I told
you this. Wrote an article about it in
the Bulletin. There's a Coast Guard ship that was anchored
not far offshore. You could see it plainly without
binoculars or whatever. And you could see that it was
anchored. It had that rope going into the water. And during the
course of that ship's stay, it was most of that afternoon, overnight,
and then part of the next day, you would go out and look at
that Coast Guard ship, and it would, one time when you look,
the rear end of the ship would be going north, wind coming from
the south, and sometimes it'd be looking east. But the front
of that ship, always pointed to that anchor. That's what it
was fastened to. That anchor. Are you attached
to Christ's anchor? If you are, if so, you'll always
be looking to Him. We've got to look to Him. No
hope anywhere else. No confidence, no rest, no peace.
The Word of God and the Gospel of Christ is much more than just
a doctrine that we give mental assent to. This is our honey. It's sweet to our taste. Isn't it? This honey brings enlightenment. This honey brings revelation
of a great mystery. It's sweeter than the honeycomb.
God's grace is sweet to the taste. That's all a believer wants to
hear. I don't want to hear anything but how Christ died for sinners. Will you tell me how Christ died
for sinners again? But on the same day of God's
deliverance, this man-made rule, this man-inspired doctrine was
introduced and Israel should have been allowed to eat of the
spoils. After the Lord's deliverance,
Jonathan saw this, honey, it was a gift from God. It was a
gift of grace and it was so, so sweet. It dropped to the ground
and he ate it freely. When he ate this honey, he was
enlightened. He saw things the way they really were. He saw
things he could not see before. And only when we partake of the
sweetness of the gospel freely will we see things from God's
perspective. We see through a glass darkly,
dimly. We don't see things as they really
are. You know, when we had the eclipse of the sun, you know,
you'd look through those things. Well, I'd hate to have to wear
them all the time. Can't see anything. But when you taste
of the sweet honey of God's gospel, you see things from God's perspective. No longer we see the darkness
within ourselves. We're enlightened to see the
light of the gospel. In verse 28, we see a curse was
given on the day of deliverance. This is Satan's way of causing
confusion. It's always been. Verse 28, then
answered one of the people and said, Thy father straightly charged
the people with an oath, saying, Curse be the man that eateth
any food this day. And the people were faint. Well,
they were famished. They were hungry. They didn't
have any strength. Well, that's us. Who were they
cursed by? God? No, Saul. Men cannot curse
God to any prevail, but God sure curses man's works. King religion
has yet to see that. They're getting bigger and building
their barns bigger every day. They like to talk about it. Look at Jonathan's response in
verse 29. Then said Jonathan, my father
had troubled the land, That was a true statement. And listen,
so is religion. So is religion in our day. He
said, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened because
I tasted a little of this honey. Now that's the gospel. Religion
will endeavor to keep you away and keep you to themselves. They'll
strive to keep you dependent on them and not the Lord Jesus. That's what Saul was doing here.
False religion does not enlighten eyes. It shuts our eyes and endeavors
to keep them shut. That's why a lot of churches
don't even encourage you to bring a Bible. That's why a lot of
churches read the Bible in Latin and then tell you what it said.
And it's not what God said, it's what they said. It's man-made
stuff. And it's bitter. It's bitter
taste. It's bitter bondage. Oh, it tastes
horrible. Give me some honey. Give me some
of the sweetness of God's grace. Religion will keep you fighting
the enemy. You don't have time to eat. We've got enemies to
fight. The victory's won. The battle's over. Who are we
going to fight? We're fighting ourselves, just
like the Philistines did. We don't have any strength to
fight them. Religion is going to keep men and women dependent
on them. That's why they find something
for everybody. I remember looking at a local
church's itinerary for a week, and every single day, there's
something going on. There's something going on every
single day. Something for this group, something for married
folks, something for unmarried folks, something for divorced
folks. I think they even had something for dead folks. Just
kidding. That's what we are. We're dead,
and we don't need to do something. We need God to do something for
us. Look quickly over to Psalm 81
with me. This will be the only place I
turn you, I believe. Psalm 81, look at verse 8. Keep
your place in 1 Samuel 14. Psalm 81, verse 8. Here, O my
people, and I will testify unto thee, O Israel, if thou wilt
hearken unto me, there shall no strange god be in thee, neither
shalt thou worship any strange god. I am the Lord thy God, which
brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Open thy mouth wide,
and I will fill it. But my people would not hearken
to my voice, and Israel would none of me, they'd have none
of me. So I gave them up into their own hearts, lust, and they
walked in their own counsels. Oh, I pray the Lord not leave
me to myself. Verse 13, oh, that my people
had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways. I should
soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their
adversaries. The haters of the Lord should
have submitted themselves unto me, but their time should have
endured forever. If they had just obeyed me, their
time would have endured forever. He should, or you could say,
or would have fed them also with the finest of the wheat. And
look at this, and with honey out of the rock, should I have
satisfied they. Well, who's that talking about?
What else do we need if we have it all? Christ is all and in
all. The gospel is the sweetness that's
found in Christ. He's that honey. He's that rock
on which the honey comes out of. He's the one that's sweet. He's what makes the gospel sweet.
If Israel had hearkened unto the Lord, He would have blessed
them at every turn. But they didn't. So He gave them
up to their own hearts. filled with lust. And their lust
caused them to walk in their own counsels. And friends, it's
the same today. That's what's going on. Verse
10 there in Psalm 81 tells us what to do. He says, open your
mouth wide and I'll fill it. You've seen little baby birds
in the nest and they've got their hands up and their mouth wide
open. Why? Because they're hungry. Are you
hungry? Are you hungry for God's Word?
Are you hungry for the sweetness of this honey? Open your mouth
wide and he will fill it. Man-made rules and doctrines
are going to rob you from God's blessings. And Jonathan who ate
the honey was enlightened when no one else was. In Malachi chapter
three, the last book of the Old Testament, verse nine, God says,
you're cursed with a curse because you've robbed me, even this whole
nation. Well, how does a man rob God? Well, he tells us there in tithes
and in offerings. But that's not talking about
money, really. Israel held back for themselves
what belonged to God. That's talking about faith. It's
not necessarily talking about money. I heard an old preacher
say one time, you know, and I told you this, if God has your heart,
He's got your billfold. You won't hold out on God. But this is talking about His
glory. The glory that belongs to Him.
No mere mortal can take God's will. We take the glory that
belongs to God. We take it for ourselves. And
we not only rob God, but we rob ourselves. Jonathan said if we'd
eaten freely of God's Word, his gospel things would have been
much, much better. He said we would have had a much
greater slaughter. We would have had a much greater
victory over the enemy. We'd have had more spiritual
spoils, more peace, more rest, more assurance, more comfort,
more fruit. We rob ourselves of it by not
obeying God. We must eat the honey of God
freely. Our deliverance is free to us,
but it costs God His Son's life. The Gospel doesn't tell us not
to eat, nor does it tell you that if you eat, you'll be punished.
That's what Saul was saying. The man that eats before tonight
will be put to death. He was going to put to death
his own son until Israel intervened. Even when the honey in the honeycomb
of the Word of God's right before you, religion will strive to
tell you, you can't eat. You can't eat that. And what
their attempt is, is to keep you near starvation and dependent
on them. I know. I've spent bondage to
it most of my life. God's gospel sets a feast at
His table. And God says, come and die. Well,
do I have to do something? Do I have to have a ticket? Do
I have to come and dine? Eat till you're full. That's
a buffet I'd like to eat at. Man-made religion and man-made
rules all about regulating people's lives, ensuring that they keep
empty stomachs and weary bodies so that they must look for permission
from king religion. But God, in the sweetness of
the honey, the gospel, called me to turn my back on former
religion. And I began to see the light
of the one who saved me and delivered me and defeated all my enemies.
And it was so sweet. It's so sweet. And now by God's
grace, I followed the King of kings who loved me and gave himself
for me. Grace, grace, marvelous grace. Grace that is greater than all
my sin. Boy, that's great grace, isn't
it? I close with the words of the Lord Jesus. He said, I will
give unto them that is a thirst of the fountain of the water
of life, freedom. Revelation 21 says. And the Spirit
and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say,
come. and let him that is a thirst
come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. The gospel of Christ is just
this. Come and come freely. That's
it. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Taste the sweetness of this honey. Open your mouth wide and God,
I feel it, and come freely. What an encouragement that is.