2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
Let me reiterate how much I appreciate your willingness to hang in there with me, as God takes me on this journey through 1 SAM. While it may seem that there are many messages leading up to the impact on Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth of the covenant Jonathan and David made together, please believe that this story has real value to all of us. Along the way to revealing the nature of God’s covenants in transcending generations, God is giving us many practical lessons that apply to our lives today. That shows us how timeless and consistent His lessons for us really are. It doesn’t matter that these events happened somewhere around 1000 BC. The lessons for us still apply in 2001 AD and will for eternity. Yesterday we left off at 1 SAM 20: 16 where Jonathan and David were out in a field renewing their covenant promises to each other. David had already asked Jonathan to see what his father, King Saul’s, attitude was upon noting David’s absence at the New Moon Festival, so as to gauge whether Saul intended to kill David or not.
1 SAM 20: 18-23, “Jonathan said to David, ‘The day after tomorrow is the New Moon Festival, your absence will be noticed if you are not at the meal. The day after tomorrow your absence will be noticed even more; so go to the place where you hid yourself the other time, and hide behind the pile of stones there. I will then shoot three arrows at it, as though it were a target. Then I will tell my servant to go an find them. And if I tell him, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; get them,’ that means that you are safe and can come out. I swear by the living God that you will be in no danger. But if I tell him, ‘The arrows are on the other side of you,’ then leave, because the Lord is sending you away. As for the promise we have made to each other, the Lord will make sure that we will keep it forever.” It is always a shame when the wiles of a world-led person cause this kind of situation to become necessary. Yesterday I cited LK 12: 49-53 in which Christ is sometimes the cause of division within a family. While being a shame that this must happen between the worldly Saul and his Godly son, Jonathan, it is a fact of their lives. It is also a fact of some of our lives today too. God knows the content of one’s heart, and we must be true to our faith in Him even through it does sometimes bring divisions within a family.
After David was missing for the second day at the king’s table, Saul finally asked Jonathan about his whereabouts. Jonathan told him that David had asked to go to Bethlehem to see his family, just as he and David had planned. When Saul heard that Jonathan had given David permission to do this, he flared up in intense anger. 1 SAM 20: 30-31, “Saul became furious with Jonathan and said to him, ‘You bastard! Now I know you are taking sides with David and are disgracing yourself and that mother of yours! Do you not realize that as long as David is alive, you will never be king of this country? Now go and bring him here-he must die!” In this response we once again see the classic confrontation between worldly values and Godly ones. Saul is more concerned with pushing forward his own agenda than he is with the fact that he is knowingly going against God’s will. Remember that he already knew that God was with David and not with Saul himself. Jonathan, because of his faithful obedience to God, is not tempted by any thought of one day inheriting the throne of Israel himself. What happened next really convinced Jonathan of his father’s desire to kill David. 1 SAM 20: 33, “At that, Saul; threw his spear at Jonathan to kill him, and Jonathan realized that his father was really determined to kill David.” This action really demonstrates that it isn’t even important to Saul that Jonathan inherits the throne; all that matters is his desire to kill David, even to the point where he is willing to take his own son’s life! This is quite a contrast to the unselfish sacrifice of His own Son that our Abba made for us, isn’t it?!
The following day, Jonathan gave David the signal that his life was in danger and he should flee. Afterward, David bowed with his face to the ground three times, acknowledging the message from God that Jonathan had delivered. Both he and Jonathan were in tears, grieving at the gravity of the situation and their parting. 1 SAM 20: 42, “Then Jonathan said to David, ‘God be with you. The Lord will make sure that you and I, and your descendants and mine, will forever keep the sacred promise we have made to each other.’ Then David left, and Jonathan went back to town.” A comment is made in this passage which reveals a lot about the nature of David’s heart, “David’s grief was even greater than Jonathan’s” (41b). When Christ teaches us to love our enemies [MT 5: 44-45], He is asking us to act in a way that is completely unnatural to us. Because of His sacrifice on the cross, He has given us the ability to choose to change our entire way of looking at things. We might ask: How could this apply to David, since he lived long before Christ’s incarnation or Atonement? I pondered this issue and can only explain it using JN 14: 9 &11, which express Christ’s divine nature. Since we know from JN 1: 1-4 that Christ participated in the actual creation itself, then it must mean that our Deity’s power extends to teaching those who lived before His incarnation His loving ways. In other words, God had called David to faith and had transformed his heart by the renewal of David’s mind see [RO 12: 2]. He did this with David and can do it with any person He chooses no matter when that person’s earthly life takes place. We must consider how that reality impacts our own lives and our own families, even if they are divided at the present time.
PRAYER: O Lord, a number of us have been called upon to take a stand for our faith that has brought division in our families. You know how emotionally charged and painful this can be. And yet, just as You equipped Jonathan to face this reality in his life, You are equipping us to face it in ours, if it happens. You are a Promise-keeper Who encourages and teaches us to be one too. Your greatest desire is for us to be perfected, so that we can enjoy an eternity of joy and fellowship with You. Your sovereignty and supreme power extended to people whose earthly lives came before Christ’s, just as they do to those of us who came after Him. When we enter into covenants with You, particularly the Covenant of Grace, those covenant agreements are meant to be kept by us and our descendants. Dearest Abba, we believe the time is getting short before we will be called to Christ in the air. We acknowledge our need to heed Your lessons now and stand up with courage of faith for You. Christ is depending on us to do that, and we accept that challenge with joy in our hearts. In dealing with family divisions, if that is what You call us to do, we will take Your leadership and act with the love that You and the Son have modeled for us, no matter what the consequences. We will remember the wisdom and brash courage that You gave Jonathan, knowing that You also allowed him to know the truth that You were with David and not his father, Saul. You are the Lord of our lives. To that end, we humbly approach You with our adoration, worship, loyalty, diligence, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, and thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, I am led to continue beginning with 1 SAM 21, the story David’s flight from Saul’s persecution. I haven’t lost sight of our goal either, which is to see how this series of events impacts the life of Mephibosheth (Jonathan’s son). Please hang in there with me; all of this matters to us. If anyone were to ask me: What is the foundation for all these events? I would have to answer, “God’s love.” If one just took the narrow view, all he would see is a historical account of what happened between David, Jonathan, and Saul. But, because of God’s love, there is so much more to this than a historical narrative. Each of us is the recipient of an invitation to have a personal and intimate relationship with our Abba. We are also invited to join Him in his work and to experience Him though obeying Him. He wants us not only as His servants but also as His friends. That kind of love is unparalleled and eternal. We are truly a blessed people! Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn