Text: I Samuel 14

Theme: Spiritual battles are won by spirit-filled people, but total victory will only come when the battle is totally

Intro:

  1. In Chapter 13 we saw the beginning of Sauls kingdom, and the beginning of Saul’s disobedience as well.
    a. Israel was being oppressed by the Philistines, and their new king could do nothing to prevent it.
    b. Saul typifies the works of the flesh and is a reminder to us that we cannot overcome our spiritual enemies through carnal devices. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual and are mighty through God.
  2. In Chapter 14, we see the contrast between Saul, typifying the works of the flesh, and Jonathan who is led by the Holy Spirit.
    a. Jonathan was led by God to engage in battle with the Philistines, knowing full well that he had no hope of overcoming them in his own strength.
    b. God delivered the Philistines into the hands of Israel, but Saul became an obstacle to total victory.
    c. Lastly, we will see how Saul was more concerned about his own commandments than he was about God’s commandments.

 

III. Saul Hinders the Battle (Vs 24-30)

  1. Saul made a foolish commandment (Vs 24-26)
    a. Saul’s decision to deprive his army of food in the day of battle was both foolish and self-centred.
    – When the enemy army is in retreat, that is the time to keep advancing. If you take the pressure off, then the enemy may take the time to regroup and counter-attack.
    – Even when Israel came to a wood where there was honey freely available for them to eat, they resisted the urge to eat because they would not disobey the king.
    b. The people of Israel were distressed because of Saul, not because of the enemy.
    – The word “distress” means to harass, oppress, or tyrannize. Saul was a acting the part of a cruel taskmaster, driving his slaves to work without food or pay.
    c. Now apply this to the Christian soldier. How effective will you be as a soldier if you are ill-equipped and under fed?
    – And we are the ones who inflict this upon ourselves. We lack diligence in our Bible study and so we are ill-equipped to face spiritual battles.
    – We don’t spend time in prayer and reading the Word and so we have left ourselves spiritually starved and vulnerable to the enemy’s attacks.
    – The Christian soldiers who are quickly tired out in the day of battle are the soldiers who haven’t been feeding themselves in preparation for the battle.
  2. Jonathan disobeyed the commandment (Vs 27-30)
    a. It’s more than likely that Jonathan hadn’t heard Saul’s commandment because in the heat of the battle while Saul was coming in behind with the troops.
    – The people had to inform Jonathan that he was transgressing Saul’s command. When Jonathan heard it, he immediately saw the foolishness of such a command.
    – Even a little bit of honey had given Jonathan more strength, and he knew that Israel would have achieved a much greater victory if they had been allowed to eat and strengthen themselves.

IV. Sin Followed the Battle (Vs 31-45)

    1. It appears that this was another of Saul’s attempts to win God’s blessing through a quick offering, so that Saul could carry on his way in hot pursuit of the Philistines, as seen in the following verses.The people disobeyed God (Vs 31-35)
      a. Israel pursued the Philistines from Michmash to Aijalon.
      – The journey between these two places was around 24 kilometres.
      – The journey alone would have been tiring, never mind the fact that these were hard miles of fighting an enemy in retreat. The result is that the people were very faint. They couldn’t keep the battle going any longer because they were completely exhausted.
      b. The exhaustion of the people resulted in a savage disobedience toward God.
      – The picture here is quite stunning. The people were so hungry from pursuing the Philistines all day that, when evening came and Saul’s commandment was no longer binding, the people were so hungry that they didn’t bother waiting to cook the meat from these animals and started eating them raw with the blood still in the meat.
      c. There is a practical lesson for us in all of this, which is, when you deprave yourself of much needed spiritual food, you are more susceptible to sinning too.
      – You haven’t been reading your Bible, and you haven’t been spending time in prayer, and your faith life is a shadow of what it ought to be, and now you are ready to fall into sin.
      d. Saul knew that the victory that had been given that day was from God and the people’s sin against the Lord would not bode well for them if they were to continue the fight with the Philistines.
      – The first order of business was to cook the meat and ensure that the people were able to eat the food they needed in order to recover their strength.
      – The second order of business was to build an altar unto the Lord and seek his blessing once again.
      – It appears that this was another of Saul’s attempts to win God’s blessing through a quick offering, so that Saul could carry on his way in hot pursuit of the Philistines, as seen in the following verses.
    2. Saul failed to obtain a total victory (Vs 36-37)
      a. No sooner had Saul made an altar unto the Lord than he was getting ready to move again.
      – Clearly Saul wasn’t taking the time to let the people rest and to take the sin of the people seriously. Saul was itching to get on the move again and win a full victory while he could see God was working on Israel’s behalf.
      – Saul wanted to push on and fight through the night and totally destroy the Philistines saying, “let us not leave a man of them.” (Vs 36)
      b. The priest, Ahiah, recommended that they should seek God’s will before going forward. This made a lot of sense because the people had just sinned against God and it was possible that God would tell them to wait and reconsecrate themselves unto God before going forward.
      – Saul sought direction from God but received no answer.
      It may be that God chose not to answer Saul because Saul wasn’t really interested in hearing from God anyway. Saul had already rushed into the battle with the Philistines, cutting of the divine work of the priest in seeking God’s will in the matter, so why would Saul care what God had to say now?
    3. Saul attempted to punish Jonathan (Vs 38-45)
      a. It is interesting that Saul was quick to pronounce judgement without even knowing what had happened.
      – Saul was like so many of us, in that he had no problem spotting the problem when it was with someone else.
      – Saul was quick to declare judgement on Jonathan, but he had a habit of excusing himself when he was the guilty party.
      b. It seems that Saul was angrier with Jonathan for breaking Saul’s commandments than he was with the people for breaking God’s commandments.
      – When the people knowingly disobeyed God by eating meat with blood, Saul sought to rectify the situation by cooking the meat. When Jonathan unwittingly disobeyed Saul, Saul declared he should be executed immediately.
      – Saul had a very low view of spiritual things. Saul wanted God’s blessing on his life, but he didn’t want to make nay personal sacrifices to get it. He was happy for Jonathan to be sacrifice for it, but not to make a personal sacrifice.
      c. Saul didn’t seem to have a self-reflective muscle in his body. Saul was the one who, in the previous chapter, transgressed God’s law in offering a sacrifice himself; Saul was the one who had rushed into battle without seeking God’s will; Saul was the one who had instigated the occasion for all the people to sin against God in eating raw meat with the blood in it; despite all that, Saul was quick to judge Jonathan for unknowingly breaking the commandment of Saul.
      – Thankfully, the people recognised that it was because of Jonathan’s faith that they had won the victory that day and they rescued him.

Conclusion:

  1. Jonathan could successfully battle the enemy because he was a man of faith. We must be people of faith if we would be victorious Christians.
  2. Saul became a hinderance to the work of God. When we try to do God’s work in the strength of the flesh, we actually hinder the work God is doing.