1 Samuel 14:6-7; 13-15 Then Jonathan said to the young man who bore his armor, “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised; it may be that the Lord will work for us. For nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few.” So his armor-bearer said to him, “Do all that is in your heart. Go then; here I am with you, according to your heart.” And Jonathan climbed up on his hands and knees with his armor-bearer after him; and they fell before Jonathan. And as he came after him, his armor-bearer killed them. That first slaughter which Jonathan and his armor-bearer made was about twenty men within about half an acre of land. And there was trembling in the camp, in the field, and among all the people. The garrison and the raiders also trembled; and the earth quaked, so that it was a very great trembling.
The setting in 1 Samuel 14 is a war between the Israelites and the Philistines; and while King Saul relaxed under a pomegranate tree [1 Samuel 14:2], his son Jonathan along with his armor-bearer left the camp quietly to see if the Lord would fight the battle on their behalf. Jonathan had no idea what he would face out there, how many Philistines he would encounter, their battle skills or strategies. He only knew that if God delivered the enemy into his hands he would be victorious. And he was.
“Nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few”, is Jonathan’s faith statement to his absolute conviction that victory is not determined by numbers but by God. But notice that Jonathan didn’t fight the battle alone; his trusted companion, his armor-bearer was with him. We don’t know his name, we don’t have much information about him, except this one sentence, “Go then; and here I am with you!”
Jonathan rose up, a man with divine initiative, a sense of spiritual adventure, and a total conviction that YHVH was with him. He was a leader whose name is forever memorialized by deeds of valor. And then, there was this nameless fellow who accompanied him with deep loyalty doubtless inspired also by the Lord and his knowledge of Jonathan’s faith and character. When the judgment of our works is given there will be those who were known and those who were “nameless”; loyal armor-bearers standing alongside their leader/friends whose loyalty, faith and bravery will be honored and recognized in full. Be sure of it!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Once upon a time, there was a prince who received a very rare and beautiful bird. He named her Goldie and placed her in a lovely, 14K gold cage. But the poor creature was not impressed by the gold at all. She pleaded for her freedom but the prince loved her much too much to part with her. Still, she continued to beg. In final desperation, she asked that he at least allow her go to her relatives and tell them that, though captive, she was still alive.
Charles Swindoll wrote about these men who bring in animals from Africa for American zoos. They say that one of the hardest animals to catch there is the ringtailed monkey. For the Zulus of that continent, however, it’s simple. They’ve been catching this agile little animal with ease for years.
When I teach about “understanding the will of God,” I’d like to talk about a story that is told in all the synoptic gospels, except that Luke’s account gives a significant nuance. (Many skeptical Bible “critics” point out differences in the gospels to argue that they can’t be reliable — yet it’s actually the differences that support the validity of these accounts because they reveal that the events recorded were simply experienced and told from slightly different viewpoints, a very common circumstance when people are telling a story.)
This is a story relayed by Corrie Ten Boom, “It was Christmas, 1944. My sister, Betsie, had died. I was in a hospital barracks in Ravensbruck, a Nazi prison camp. Dark it was in my heart, and darkness was around me. There were Christmas trees in the street between the barracks. Dead bodies of prisoners had been thrown under the Christmas trees. I tried to talk to the people around me about Christmas, but they mocked and sneered. At last I kept quiet.
Over the past few days, one of our servers that hosts roughly 20 different web sites was breached and used to send SPAM. While there was no real damage done, the thousands of bounced messages literally caused the server to shut down. There was no personal information stored on the server, however, the hours spent setting up a new server in the midst of a speaking tour created chaos which we really didn’t have the time to deal with. However, the worst of it is all over, and we’re back! Just as we’re getting ready to launch another website (https://worthy.bible) for the Kingdom … we get attacked from all sides!
From the beginning, we anticipated a time when we would need to produce all our news content. Over the past month, as many of you are aware, we’ve fully shifted to generating articles exclusively through our dedicated in-house writing team. We’ve also expanded as we continue to freely syndicate our news to any online Christian ministry. Operating on faith and independent of advertising revenue, our ministry’s content is driven not by external factors but by a deep commitment to fulfilling the Lord’s will.
I came across an old legend about three cowboys crossing the desert on horseback by night. Suddenly, as they reached a rocky spot, a voice came from heaven and commanded them: “Friends, pick up some pebbles, put them in your pockets and do not look at them till morning.” The men looked at each other in astonishment and began to do as they were told. The voice went on to promise that if they obeyed, they would be both glad and sad. The perplexed men put a few pebbles each in their pockets and went on their way.