27th November 2023

27th November 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - 1 Samuel 20:1-11


Message Alan Burke 


Families are fun to say the least. I say that as we come to this passage because there is part of me that if I was in Jonathan’s company I’d want to give him a slap on the bake for he’s being a dose. Here the delusional Jonathan is defending his father when not to long ago he had been told by his father to kill David and now is refusing to accept the reality of what has happened and what David is accusing his father off. At the same time this doesn’t surprise me, I’ve seen parents defend their kids when their actions are indefensible and blame others for what has happened and I’ve seen kids do exactly the same for their parents. The idiom ‘blood is thicker than water’ springs to mind. What we have here is almost painfully awkward, like come on Jonathan wake up, catch yourself on lad. Especially when you consider what happened back in chapter 18 when Jonathan figuratively handed over everything to David, making a covent with him and we are even told that Jonathan loved David as his own soul (18:3). That covenant is the reasons why David has come to Jonathan and as he does so he was risking a lot in the hope that Jonathan would not just hand him over to his father Saul who wanted to kill him.


David desires to know why all this is happening to him, he asks Jonathan “What have I done”? David is looking for answers to why he is now a fugitive, a hunted man when he has done nothing to wrong Saul. Notice then just how shocking what David has said to Jonathan in v2, depending on the translation you have you’ll likely see ‘Never’, ‘Far from it’ or ‘God forbid’ all express the disbelief that Jonathan had at the words of David. He didn’t want to believe that his father would internally do any of this. Even though Jonathan had been ordered by his father to seek out and kill David as we are told at the beginning of chapter 19, it seems that he was Jonathan is convinced that it was nothing more than a momentary lapse into madness that had consumed his father rather than anything more sinister. Even going as far as to defend his father to David and is convinced that his father would do nothing without telling him, it was based on his confidence in his relationship with his father. 


We might want to ask what is Jonathan is playing at, the evidence is more than weighted against the character of Saul. We might think the lad needs to get seen too, but then we can do that with our family, we want to believe the best, we don’t like seeing their failures. We may choose to give Jonathan the benefit of the doubt, after all he last appeared in 19:7 and we haven’t heard of him since, maybe he genuinely did not know all that had transpired, maybe he thought it was all in David’s head. What we have here is a situation where Jonathan was torn between his friend and his father, he was torn between the Lord’s anointed and the King. To convince Jonathan, David we are told took an oath and managed to convince Jonathan. But with the elaborate means by which Saul was to be tested at the new moon festival. 


Note that in this, in David’s desperation he and attempt to save his own bacon we see that David even though is a man after God’s own heart is a sinner just like you and I. David is seeking that Jonathan would betray his father, this is deception at David’s behest. The reality of living in the shadow of the fall is that there are times that it is necessary for us all to choose sides, to at times be disloyal even to those who were close to if they are in the wrong, Jonathan was disloyal to his father, it would come at a cost yet in this there was godly motivations as we are about to see. Living in the shadow of the fall is hard and so many of our relationships have been marred by it, yet we have the hope through the Lord Jesus Christ that it will not always be like this for he will return to make all things new. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q107 What doth the conclusion of the Lord’ s prayer teach us?
The conclusion of the Lord’ s prayer, (which is, For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever, Amen. (Matt. 6:13)) teacheth us, to take our encouragement in prayer from God only, (Dan. 9:4,7–9,16–19) and in our prayers to praise him, ascribing kingdom, power, and glory to him. (1 Chron. 29:10–13) And, in testimony of our desire, and assurance to be heard, we say, Amen. (1 Cor. 14:16, Rev. 22:20–21)
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