22nd November 2023

22nd November 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - 1 Samuel 19


Message Alan Burke 


It could have been so different, the amount of times that I have thought those words inwardly or something like them when people have went down a path that has led to their own destruction, where their sinful choices, actions, words have caused so much pain and hurt in their lives. Parents who have destroyed their children by their sinful choices and sadly today I see it much more where children have destroyed their parents by making sinful choices who are left as a shadow of themselves or who spend their lives trying to justify their children’s sinful choices. Our sin can cause so many issues not only for us but those who are closest to us and the effects can last for generations where a certain sin continues, is passed down form father to son, from mother to daughter but it doesn’t have to be like this. 


There is one shining light in the life of Saul and that is of his son Jonathan who was nothing like his father, he was a man who sought the Lord, a man who willingly gave up any claim on the throne to the Lord’s anointed and refused to obey his fathers command to kill the Lord’s anointed. Saul had allowed sin to master him, he hated David and would do all that he could to kill David. Here before us in v2-7 the passage emphasis the relationship between Jonathan and Saul more than any other and while some translations convey the Hebrew emphasis much better the point is made, Jonathan is Saul’s son and he is choosing to disobey his father by warning David of his fathers plans and not killing him. 


You might not think that as such a big deal, after all what Jonathan is trying to do is commendable, he is serving as intermediary, he’s seeking to bring reconciliation here between his father and David and he achieves this by giving a logical argument, convincing his father to spare David. There are a few points that I want to make with this, firstly Jonathan called his father out for his sin, v4 “Let not the king do wrong to his servant David”, the word that the NIV translates as wrong is the Hebrew word of sin. The Hebrew more literally reads let not the king do sin to his servant David. How many of us are wiling firstly to call sin what it is, and how willing are we to confront the sin of others for what it is? 


The second point I want to make from this passage today is that of the disobedience of Jonathan towards his father in not killing David. For in a sense is breaking the 5th commandment failing to honour his father which comes in the table of God’s law before thou shall not kill which is the 6th commandment. There is a reason why I want to draw this out, the command to honour your father or mother is not a command of unwavering obedience, Jonathan did no obey Saul because no father or mother has a right to cause their children to sin. Whether that is killing someone who is innocent, covering up abuse, hiding sin, the primary aim of the command to honour your father and mother is to honour God. Jonathan honoured his father by confronting his with his sin, by not enabling his father, he honoured God even with what we may perceive is disobedience but is not. There is a wider application in this, that we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29), although we are to obey governing authorities if they command us to sin then we must obey God rather than them. Obedience to God, honouring him comes first, before family, before the civil authorities before our employers.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q103 What do we pray for in the third petition?
In the third petition, (which is, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven, (Matt. 6:10)) we pray, That God, by his grace, would make us able and willing to know, obey, and submit to his will in all things, (Ps. 67, Ps. 119:36, Matt. 26:39, 2 Sam. 15:25, Job 1:21) as the angels do in heaven. (Ps. 103:20–21)
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