1 Samuel chapter 14, and let me
begin our reading in verse 16. And the watchman of Saul in Gebeah
of Benjamin looked, and behold, the multitude melted away, and
they went on beating down one another. Then said Saul unto
the people that were with him, number now and see who has gone
from us, And when they had numbered, behold, Jonathan and his armor
bearer were not there. And Saul said unto Ahaiah, ring
hither the ark of God. For the ark of God was at that
time with the children of Israel. And it came to pass while Saul
talked unto the priest that the noise that was in the host of
the Philistines went on and increased. And Saul said unto the priest,
withdraw thine hand. And Saul and all the people that
were with him assembled themselves. And they came to the battle,
and behold, every man's sword was against his fellow, and there
was a very great discomfiture. Moreover, the Hebrews that were
with the Philistines before that time, which went up with them
into the camp from the country round about, even they also turned
to be with the Israelites that were with Saul and Jonathan.
Likewise, all the men of Israel, which had hid themselves in Mount
Ephraim, when they heard that the Philistines fled, even they
also followed hard after them in the battle. So the Lord saved
Israel that day, and the battle passed over unto Beth-Avon. And the men of Israel were distressed
that day. For Saul had adjured the people,
saying, cursed be the man that eateth any food until evening.
that I may be avenged on mine enemies. So none of the people
tasted any food. And all that day and all day
of the land came to a wood, and there was honey upon the ground.
And when the people were come into the wood, behold, the honey
dropped. 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. Wherefore,
he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dipped
it in the honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth, and his
eyes were enlightened. Then answered one of the people
and said, Thy father straightly charged the people with an oath,
saying, Cursed be the man that eateth any food this day. And
the people were faint. Then said Jonathan, my father
hath troubled the land. See, I pray you how mine eyes
have been enlightened because I tasted a little of this honey.
How much more if happily the people had eaten freely today
of the spoil of their enemies which they found. For had there
not been now a much greater slaughter among the Philistines. And they
smote the Philistines that day from Mishmash to Ajelon, and
the people were very faint. And the people flew upon the
spoil and took sheep and oxen and calves and slew them on the
ground. And the people did eat them with
the blood. Then they told Saul, saying,
Behold, the people sin against the Lord, and that they eat with
the blood. And he said, You have transgressed. Roll a great stone unto me this
day. And Saul said, disperse yourselves
among the people and say unto them, bring me hither every mannish
ox and every mannish sheep and slay them here and eat and sin
not against the Lord in eating with the blood. And all the people
brought every mannish ox with him that night and slew them
there. And Saul built an altar unto the Lord, the same was the
first altar that he built unto the Lord. And Saul said, let
us go down after the Philistines by night and spoil them until
the morning light, and let us not leave a man of them. And
they said, do whatsoever seemeth good unto thee. Then said the
priest, let us draw near hither unto God. And Saul asked counsel
of God, shall I go down after the Philistines? Wilt thou deliver
them into the hand of Israel? But he answered him, not that
day. And Saul said, draw you near
hither, all the chief of the people, and know and see wherein
this sin hath been this day. For as the Lord liveth, which
saveth Israel, though it be in Jonathan my son, he shall surely
die. But there was not a man among
all the people that answered him, Then said he unto all Israel,
be ye on one side, and I and Jonathan my son will be on the
other side. And the people said unto Saul,
do what seemeth good unto thee. Therefore Saul said unto the
Lord God of Israel, give a perfect lot. And Saul and Jonathan were
taken, but the people escaped. And Saul said, cast lots between
me and Jonathan my son, and Jonathan was taken. Then Saul said to
Jonathan, tell me what thou hast done. And Jonathan told him and
said, I did but taste a little honey with the end of the rod
that was in my hand, and lo, I must die. And Saul answered,
God do so and more also, for thou shalt surely die, Jonathan. The people said unto Saul, shall
Jonathan die, who hath wrought this great salvation in Israel? God forbid, as the Lord liveth,
there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground. For
he hath wrought with God this day. So the people rescued Jonathan,
that he died not. Then Saul went up from following
the Philistines, and the Philistines went to their own place. I read
a number of verses this evening, but I would remind us that we
looked last time at the first 15 verses in this chapter. And we left off where the Lord
had given Jonathan and his armor-bearer victory over the garrison of
the Philistines. And there came a great trembling,
a great trembling. The Philistines, when they saw
how the God had blessed Jonathan and his armor bearer, just two
men, how that they had attacked this garrison. And it was a very
difficult attack, as we saw also. They had to come up to them on
their hands and their knees. And the people, the scripture
says, they began to tremble. The army of the flesh, they began
to tremble. And not only did they begin to
tremble, but they began to kill one another, draw their swords
against one another. And the trembling was so great,
if you look in verse 15, the scripture says that the earth
quaked. The earth quaked, verse 15. And
there was trembling in the host, that is the army of the Philistines
in the field and among all the people. The garrison and the
spoilers, they also trembled and the earth quaked. So it was
a very great trembling. Now in looking at these verses
that I read tonight, I want to call our attention to four statements. Four statements that we read
as we read through these verses. The first statement is found
in verse 19. And the statement is, withdraw
thine hand. You see that in verse 19 at the
very end, withdraw thine hand." Now these were the words of King
Saul, spoken to the high priest Ahaiah. Saul, with his small
army, remember there was only 600 of them, they were stationed
in Gebeah of Benjamin. And that word Gebeah means a
hill. And so the city was situated
on a hill, and he had his watchmen, of course, as every army does.
And they were looking at a vantage point, they could look down upon
the army of the Philistines, but as they looked, they saw
that the army was melting away. The army of the Philistines,
it says they were melting away. And he knew, he recognized that
The only thing that could cause that was some of his army. He didn't know who, but some
of his army had to have gone in to the camp of the Philistines. So he calls for the Ark of God.
This is what we read. He called for the Ark of God,
and the high priest was with them. Now the high priest, we
know, had an ephod, a breastplate. And in that breastplate, there
were jewels. There were 12 stones, precious
stones. And it was called the human and
the thumb. You're all familiar with that,
I'm sure. And I don't know if any of us really know exactly
how God revealed his will through that, but he did. The words actually
mean lights. And somehow, evidently, those
stones would light up. And in the process, God would
reveal his will through the high priest, through the human, and
the thumb. Look back with me, if you will,
in numbers just a moment. Let's read this, what Moses told
Joshua. Moses is going to die. and the
work of leading the people into the land of Canaan is going to
fall upon Joshua. He's got to know the Lord's will.
There's going to come days when he needs to know God's will.
And so Moses tells him here in Numbers 27, verse 21, notice
here, and he, that is Joshua, He shall stand before Eleazar
the priest, that was the son of Aaron, who was a high priest
now. He shall stand before Eleazar
the priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of
Urim before the Lord. At his word shall they go out,
and at his word they shall come in, both he and all the children
of Israel with him, even all the congregation. Now, Saul had
the high priest with him. It says they asked for the ark
of God, but most people, or many of the commentators at least,
believe that meant the ephod, the high priest with the ephod.
And he was going to discern, and God would have showed him.
God would have showed Saul what he should do. He saw the army
of the Philistines, they were melting away, and what was he
to do? But notice he says, withdraw
thine hand. And the point is, I don't have
time to wait on God. Withdraw thine hand. Notice he
heard the noise, if you notice back in our text in verse 19,
he didn't hear the voice of God, He didn't hear the will of God
revealed to him through the Urim and the Thummim. No, he heard
the noise of the Philistines. And immediately it came to pass
while Saul talked unto the priest that the noise that was in the
host of the Philistines went on and increased. And Saul said
unto the priest, withdraw thine hand. In other words, I don't
have time to wait on God. I'm not gonna wait on God to
tell me what to do. He heard, he didn't hear from
God, he heard from the camp of the Philistines. He listened
to the noise of the battle and he made his decision to go forth
on what he heard from the camp of the Philistines. These words
of Proverbs 3 have been on my heart, especially the last few
days. Very familiar to all of us, I
know. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the
Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths. You see, that's what Saul didn't
do. He didn't wait upon the Lord. He didn't trust in the Lord.
But he leaned to his own understanding. And his understanding told him,
time's a-wasting. We've got a strike while the
iron is hot. I don't have time to wait on
God. Withdraw thine hand and let's go to the battle. And one of the most difficult
things for us as children of God is to learn to wait on the
Lord. We're all of a disposition that
we want to do something now, something yesterday, most of
the time. And yet how many times in the
scriptures are we admonished to wait on the Lord? Wait on the Lord. He's not going
to forsake us. He's not going to leave us. He's
made that clear. But he does command us to wait.
For instance, one verse in Psalm 27 and verse 14 says, wait on
the Lord. I think about us as far as wanting
to build a new building, a place to worship God, new location. We have to wait. We have to wait
on the Lord. I'm confident, and I'm sure you
are too, that God will provide in His time. As I said, our time
was yesterday, wasn't it? We want to see it yesterday.
No, we're commanded to wait on the Lord. And I believe, and
I know you do as well, we want His will to be done, and His
will shall be done. It will. And our responsibility
is, as that verse tells us in Psalm 27, wait on the Lord. Be of good courage. Don't be
discouraged. Sometimes it seems like God is
slow for us in our time schedule, but as someone has once said,
and you've heard it many times, I'm sure, God is always on time. He's never a minute early, and
He's never a minute late. He's always on time. Wait on the Lord, be of good
courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on
the Lord. And there's one psalm that especially
speaks to us about waiting on the Lord. This wasn't Saul's
nature. We've already seen that. He was
impatient. We saw that last week. That was
a fault that he had, his impatience. So that's the first thing I wanted
us to look at. Withdraw thine hand. There's
much involved there, much involved. The second statement I want us
to think about is found in verse 23. So the Lord saved Israel
that day. So the Lord saved Israel that
day. Now, this is always to be acknowledged,
that salvation is of the Lord. In spite of Saul's impatience,
the Lord saved Israel that day. And we know, as you look through
the scripture, the Old Testament, we see the history of the nation
of Israel, And we see how many times they would have been destroyed. How many times Satan would have
destroyed the Israelites, knowing, no doubt, knowing that the promised
seed would come through Abraham's descendants. Think about Abraham. When he went down first into
Egypt, and then I think into a Limelech, and told that lie
about his wife being his sister, how God preserved him and kept
him. And then when those, was it five
kings came and they stole Lot and took him away, and here Abraham
is, he's just a farmer, just a cattle rancher or something
like that, you know? And he takes his domestic servants
and goes out and rescues, defeats those armies. God preserved him,
God kept him. And then Isaac, remember he followed
in his father's footsteps, didn't he? He did the same thing about
deceiving that man about his wife, but God preserved them. And then Jacob comes along, and
how many times did God deliver Jacob? I mean, when he left home,
his brother was threatening to kill him. Esau was threatening
to kill him. And then he goes and joins himself
to his father-in-law Laban, who deceived him several times. And
when he finally was told to go back to the land of Canaan, where
his father Isaac was, remember Laban, he gets his family of
soldiers, his sons rather, and his armed men, and they pursue
after Jacob, and he's got his wife and 12 sons and some daughters
also. And God warned Laban, remember,
in the night before he came to where Jacob was, God told Laban,
don't you touch him. Don't you touch him. What about when they were in
Egypt? I mean, there's no doubt, we were talking about this the
other day, when the colonies here, the American colonies,
when they proclaimed independence from Britain, Britain was the
strongest military power in the world. There was no way. And the same thing when Israel
left Egypt, Pharaoh had the strongest army. He was probably the world
power of that day. And yet God delivered Israel,
didn't he? Opened up the Red Sea. Who would
have ever thought that? And then as they travel on for
40 years, God sustains them, raining food down out of heaven
and opening up a rock to give them drink and all This time
God was preserving them, the Lord saving them. As the scripture
here says, the Lord saved Israel that day. And we could just go
on and on through the Old Testament. How many times did the Lord save
Israel? And as I said, Satan no doubt
knew that the promised deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ, he was
going to come through that family. and his intention was to destroy
them. Look with me at Psalm 124, just
a moment. Psalm 124. The psalmist wrote,
if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel
say, If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when men
rose up against us, then they had swallowed us up quick when
their wrath was kindled against us. Then the waters had overwhelmed
us, the stream had gone over our soul. Then the proud waters
had gone over our soul. Blessed be the Lord who hath
not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as
a bird out of Out of the snare of the fowlers, the snare is
broken and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the
Lord who made heaven and earth. The Lord saved Israel that day. And we know our personal salvation. The Lord saved us. The Lord saved
us and he saved us by grace, didn't he? His pervenient grace,
how he kept us before we heard him call us, his pervenient grace,
his saving grace, his keeping grace, his delivering grace,
and his bringing us home to glory grace. I mean, grace, grace,
right? When the capstone is put forth
in the spiritual temple and there's all the people of God saved,
That last stone will be brought forth with what? Shoutings of
grace, grace. The Lord saved Israel that day.
The Lord saves us from our sins. Now the third statement in verse
24, the next verse, that statement was in verse 23. So the Lord
saved Israel that day. Now notice in the next verse,
the men of Israel were distressed that day. You know, that sounds
strange. One verse says, the Lord saved
Israel that day. The next verse says, so the men
of Israel were distressed that day. Well, as we read these next
verses, we find out what it was that brought distress upon the
men of Israel. It was once again Saul, impatient as he was, a jury. that if anyone ate any food that
day, they were to be killed. Curse it, he said. Curse it.
Curse it. Be the man that eateth any food
until evening. That's why they were distressed. Because once again, as I said,
he makes a rash decision. Surely he didn't think that through.
I mean, here's his army, they're in battle, you know, adrenaline,
and they're fighting for their lives. I mean, this wasn't play,
this wasn't war games or anything like this. I mean, they were
literally fighting for their lives as they engaged in battle
with the Philistines, and surely he must have known they're going
to be needing food, they're going to be needing nourishment to
be strengthened as this day goes on. And he, he adjures, curse it, curse it, be the man
that eateth any food until evening. Now Jonathan, we know, had not
heard his father utter that adjuration. He had not heard him pronounce
that curse, and so when they came into a place where there
was actually honey dropping down on the ground, he put forth a
rod that was in his hand into a honeycomb and pulled that out
and put some honey to his mouth, and the scripture says his eyes
were enlightened. In other words, immediately,
he was strengthened. He was helped. The other men, the men, they
said, your father, he cursed anyone who would do that, and
they wouldn't eat anything. And so what happened is when
they did come to the place where it was evening, evidently, they
had the spoil, the ox and the calves and the sheep, they just
killed them and ate them without draining the blood. That's what
the scripture here says. They began to eat this flesh
that had the blood still in it. And that was a sin against God. When Noah came out of the ark,
you remember, God then gave man permission to eat animals. Evidently
before that time, man did not eat meat, only herbs and vegetables
and things like that. But God did. give this command,
men were not to eat flesh that had the blood. Why? Because the
life of the flesh is in the blood. And an animal to be slain, they
had to somehow extend it up so the blood could be drained. And that's the reason Saul said
when he was told that people are sinning because they're eating
meat that has the blood in it, he said, roll that big stone
over here. And then he commanded the people
to bring their animals that they were going to slaughter and eat,
to bring them to that stone and to dress that meat the way it
should be done. Look with me in Leviticus. This
is so important because people wonder sometimes, why do we speak
about the precious blood of Christ? Look here in Leviticus chapter
17, just a moment. Beginning with verse 11. Remember the book of Leviticus
was a book written especially to the Levites, the priests,
to give them the instructions as how they were to worship and
represent the people. Verse 11, for the life of the
flesh is in the blood. I have given it to you upon the
altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood
that maketh an atonement for the soul. There is no atonement
for man apart from blood, the blood of Christ, of course. In
Hebrews, that verse says, without the shedding of blood, there
is no remission. There is no remission. Forget
about it. There is no remission of sin
apart from the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore I said unto the children
of Israel, look in verse 12, no soul of you shall eat blood,
neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood.
And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel or of
the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth
any beast or fowl that may be eaten, he shall even pour out
the blood thereof and cover it with dust. For it is the life
of the flesh, the blood of it is for the life thereof. Therefore
I said unto the children of Israel, you shall eat the blood of no
manner of flesh, for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof,
whosoever eateth it shall be cut off without the shedding
of blood. But it wasn't just any blood,
was it? It has to be the blood of Christ. without the shedding
of his blood, the giving of his life as a substitute. There is
no remission of sin. One other thing in closing, look
back in our text, 1 Samuel chapter 14, verse 37. But he answered him not that
day. Last part of verse 37. But he
answered him not that day. Now who is it that did not answer
him? God didn't. God didn't. You know, if you read this again, you'll
see that Saul is for fighting. He's for going on and battle
through the night even. And the people said, well, yes,
whatever you want to do, we're in agreement. But thank God that
priest, there was one man there who said, let's seek the Lord
about this. Let's just go running off. into battle, let's find out God's
will in this matter. And let us draw hither unto God. But before, remember, Saul, he
didn't have time to wait. He didn't have time to hear God,
to wait upon God. Withdraw thine hand. But now
this time, he waits, but God doesn't speak. God doesn't speak
to him. Because God didn't speak to him,
he evidently assumed there's someone has sinned. He didn't
think about the fact that he had uttered that rash oath. He didn't think about the people
were eating the flesh with the blood in it. But on his mind
was there's Someone has eaten against my command. And so then he asked, cast a
perfect lot. And I thought to myself, doesn't
God always? Doesn't God always cast a perfect
lot? That's what the scriptures tells
us. The lot is cast into the lap.
But the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. And of course,
he and Jonathan were taken. The people were not taken. And
then the lot fell so that Jonathan was taken. And Saul said, you're
going to die. You're going to die. You're going
to be put to death today. Can you imagine a father telling
his son that? But the people intervened, didn't
they? People intervened. And so Jonathan was spared. And there was no sacrifice. Jonathan
didn't have to make a sacrifice to be spared. Why? Because what
he had done was not a sin. The sin had been on Saul's part
in making that rash oath that he made. But let me close with this. Jonathan
was saved from death by the intervention of the men of Israel. So we too,
we are saved from eternal death by the intervention of the one
man, the God man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have sinned and
we are guilty, but he gave himself that sacrifice that put away
our sins. I trust the Lord will