Earthly Kings Pt 2 - Nothing Can Keep the Lord From Saving
This sermon was preached at Immanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville Missouri as part of our "Earthly Kings" series within 1 Samuel, exploring Israel's first king Saul and how his reign shows the unavoidable shortcomings of trusting in earthly solutions for our deepest longings and needs. For more resources on faith and Christian living, visit our website or connect with our community. You can email us at hello@ifcstl.com or call/text us at 636-431-4708
A sermon from 1 Samuel 14
Can you think of a time in your own life when something small, something seemingly insignificant—like an investment, like a decision—snowballed into something huge in your life?
Several years ago when I was going through church planting training, I was bivocational. I had a season where I worked at my in-laws' dental lab making deliveries for them. Over lunch, my father-in-law Don and I would talk about day trading. This was when phone apps were coming out that would let you do day trading in really small amounts. So I downloaded one of those apps and started spending like $5, $10, $15 here and there just to talk about stocks with my father-in-law.
After three years of that, I made no money. Zero. Because that's very obviously not my thing. After a couple years I emptied out the account and put it into our regular investment account—except for one thing: the 0.0001 bitcoins that I bought for $10 back in 2014 or something. That thing I kept. Not because I know anything about cryptocurrency (I promise you, I don't understand how it works—it doesn't seem real to me), but I bought a little bit of it in this app and I've watched it just explode in value. It's hilarious to watch.
If you bought Bitcoin 20 years ago, you know what I'm talking about. That thing has exploded in value—similar to if you bought Apple stock in 1980. It's just exploded. And I think that's hilarious, not entirely just because I have no clue what it is or how it works, but because I think inherently it's fun and engaging to watch something snowball and grow. It's why we like investment in general—to watch our tiny little bits of investment growing into something large.
Not in money terms, but that idea, that principle, is what we're going to see in 1 Samuel 14 today.
Continuing the Story
We are continuing this series in 1 Samuel that we're calling "Earthly Kings." In this chunk of First Samuel, we're looking at the early monarchy period—specifically King Saul's reign before David enters the scene. The reason this particular piece is important is that we see really clearly how this has worked out.
Israel demanded a king. They said, "We have this problem. We have this issue. This is the solution we want. We want a king." And God said, "Okay," and gave them the thing they wanted. But as we see in the story—as we see in our own lives—oftentimes when we seek our best in earthly solutions without actually considering what God might be calling us to, we find that the best of earthly solutions fall short of the real needs of the human heart.
That's what we see in the tragic story of Saul. Saul's story is a bummer from beginning to end. He's this dude who, by outward appearances, had every chance of being amazing for Israel. And yet his story is one of just a descent into greater sin, greater isolation, greater sorrow. It just gets from bad to worse. Saul's story never really gets better.
Where We Left Off
Last week, if you were here, we left off on this terrible cliffhanger. Israel's neighbors, the Philistines, attacked in power. They looked to their new king and said, "All right, you're the dude. Come defend us. You beat up the Ammonites, now come beat up the Philistines."
So Saul musters the army. When the Philistines show up, they show up with such a ludicrous advantage that it is comical reading it in historical perspective. Israel has 3,000 foot soldiers with Bronze Age weapons in their arsenal. The Philistines show up with 6,000 chariots and horsemen—more in their cavalry than Israel's entire army. Not to mention a massive standing army. And the Philistines are in the Iron Age with advanced technology. It is ludicrous.
The Israelites are so terrified they don't even battle the Philistines. They retreat. They give up the high ground, the better defensible position. They run. Saul's army is deserting him right and left—running into the wilderness, hiding in caves and bushes everywhere they can go. Saul's army is dissolving day by day.
In the midst of this, he's waiting for his prophet Samuel to come and offer worship and rally the troops. Samuel's running late. Saul says, "I've got to do it on my own." He offers the sacrifice, doesn't obey God, doesn't wait for Samuel. Samuel shows up and rebukes him: "Because you didn't obey, because you didn't wait, God is going to take the kingdom away from you and I'm not going to help you right now." And he leaves.
More soldiers desert. We landed the story last week with this really, really sad image: The Philistines have thousands upon thousands of armored troops camped in the middle of Israelite territory. They've set up armored raiding parties working their way through Israel, killing, pillaging, destroying, taking what they want. Just a couple miles away, Saul is camped out and his army has dwindled down to 600 people. He's just watching the Philistines devastate Israel.
That's where we left off—just this hopeless, hopeless situation.
My Point Today
Today we're going to look at how the narrative continues and how God shows up and saves Israel. I am confident that we are going to be challenged and encouraged at the idea of how good our God is, the way He creatively shows up for His people.
My point today is simply this: If you only knew what God was planning for you. If you only knew.
I'll just tell you, beloved of Jesus, you are not smart enough, you are not creative enough, you don't have eyes to see how amazing God's plans are for you and for this world. If you only knew what God has in mind for you, has in mind for this world.
Beloved, He sees you—you specifically. God sees you, knows you, loves you, has a plan for you. And it is not a wasted plan.
So oftentimes we just can't see this reality. We can't see past the immediacy of our own circumstances, the things around us, our own little chunk of reality. The things in front of us—the challenges, the fears, the hardships we face—they feel so insurmountable that we don't know where to start. And so we just don't. We just freeze up and numb ourselves out. Not only do we not engage God, but we don't engage anything. We take the grand amazing adventure that God has planned for us and we try to turn it into doom scrolling and just one more season of American Idol.
We can't imagine how to actually build the sort of life we want, and so many of us simply don't. We just stay where we're at.
But beloved, you must know: You worship a God who can do a lot with a little. You worship a God who can make much of almost nothing when we take steps of faith toward Him—little steps, the little bitty steps that we are able to take. He does amazing things with them.
Jonathan's Small Step of Faith
Let's look at 1 Samuel 14, starting at the end of chapter 13:
Now a Philistine garrison took control of the pass at Michmash that same day. Saul's son Jonathan said to the attendant who carried his weapons, "Come on, let's cross over to the Philistine garrison on the other side." However, he did not tell his father.
Saul was staying under the pomegranate tree at Migron on the outskirts of Gibeah. The troops with him numbered about 600. Ahijah, who was wearing an ephod, was there also. He was the son of Ahitub, the brother of Ichabod, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, the Lord's priest at Shiloh. But the troops did not know that Jonathan had left.
We're stepping into the middle of an ongoing narrative. Saul has been raised up as king expressly for the purpose of defending Israel from its surrounding enemies. It seemed like it was working when he fought the Ammonites. But now when the Philistines show up, it has turned out to be a major problem.
They outnumber the Israelites by orders of magnitude. They showed up with complete technological dominance. Israel immediately surrendered the favorable ground. Soldiers are running and hiding all over the countryside. Even Saul's trained, paid, standing army is abandoning him night by night. Samuel rebukes him and leaves him.
Failure has stacked upon failure and the scene feels hopeless. Saul counts his troops—he has 600 of the 3,000 he started with. It'sthe moment in the story where anyone reading it naturally is going, "When does the good guy show up? Where's the hero moment?"
And instead we get this really strange contrast between Saul and his son, General and heir Jonathan. We're told that the moment Saul starts realizing just how bad things have gotten for his strategic situation, Jonathan takes his armor bearer and sneaks off into the night.
The contrast here is purposeful. The Philistines are actively raiding the lands of Israel. It's not like they've just set up camp waiting to battle. They've set up these massive raiding parties going through Israel, ransacking it, killing and taking whatever they want. And the king of Israel, whose job is to protect them, to lead the military, to guide them in their covenant faithfulness—he's just standing there watching. He's powerless to engage this. He's just watching it happen.
He's lost his prophet. The text tells us he has a priest with him—we'll actually see he has the Ark of the Covenant with him. But did you notice who this priest is? This is a little bit of a callback if you've been working through this whole book with us. This is the great-grandson of Eli, the priest from the first chapter of First Samuel who, if you recall, was so sinful and unfaithful that God cursed his priestly lineage. That's the guy Saul brings in to take over for Samuel—a disgraced priest. Saul is being presented here as being really bad at his job as king.
Jonathan, by contrast, is taking action. He sneaks off with his armor bearer to go see the Philistines. And as we'll see as the story continues, this isn't random. He actually has a plan here. Admittedly, it's a very small plan, probably designed just at best to get them some recon information, but it's a plan. He's got some form of plan, and he acts on it. He sneaks out. He knows his father is frozen, not acting right now. And so he steps out in secret to at least do something.
The Plan
Read on with me in verse 4:
Now there were sharp columns of rock on both sides of the pass that Jonathan intended to cross to reach the Philistine garrison. One was named Bozez and the other Seneh. One stood to the north in front of Michmash and the other to the south in front of Geba.
Jonathan said to the attendant who carried his weapons, "Come on, let's cross over to the garrison of these uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will help us. Nothing can keep the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few."
His armor bearer responded, "Do what is in your heart. Go ahead. I am completely with you."
"All right," Jonathan replied, "we'll cross over to the men and let them see us. If they say, 'Wait until we reach you,' then we will stay where we are and not go up to them. But if they say, 'Come on up,' then we'll go up, because the Lord has handed them over to us. This will be our sign."
Now we get to see the details of Jonathan's plan. He's going to sneak over to the Philistine camp by crossing over one of these dry wadis that surrounds this area. If you don't know this or weren't here last week, a wadi is a geological formation that forms in places on Earth like Israel. They are essentially these deep valleys that can be rivers or oases at certain times of the year in the rainy season and rocky dry canyons in the dry season.
The position the Philistines took away from Israel, this area called Michmash, is this chunk of high ground surrounded on almost all sides by deep wadis in the dry season, making it incredibly defensible—really easy to see around them and really easy to defend from invaders.
So Jonathan in our text is seeking out one of the wadis between their two positions, between Gibeah and Michmash, and he wants to cross there and sneak over. But look how this is described. This particular wadi is very common in this region. We're told that this particular spot where Jonathan is going to cross is named, and these names roughly translate to "steep" and "thorny"—which is pretty rough when you're thinking about an area where you want to go do some climbing while carrying all your armor and equipment.
But this shows us what's actually going on here. Jonathan is going to one of the more difficult crossing points. He's going there on purpose under the assumption that because that area is so difficult to cross, it won't be as heavily guarded. If it's surrounded by wadis and one of them is really steep and thorny and it looks unrealistic for soldiers to cross there, that place is probably going to have fewer guards. This is brilliant if he's trying to scout out information and figure out what's going on over there.
Faith and Sanctified Imagination
But look what he says to his armor bearer: "Perhaps the Lord will help us. Nothing can keep the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few."
I love this line. I love this line for a couple reasons. I think what we see here is a picture of both Jonathan's faith, but I also think we see Jonathan's sanctified imagination.
Here's what I mean by this. We've talked about this a lot—in fact, a year or two ago we did a full series on this—but when Scripture talks about faith, it is not talking about walking forward blindly without reason. That's one of the common cultural narratives, that faith means not using your intellect, not using your reason. That's not what Scripture says when it talks about faith.
The most famous scripture on faith is probably Hebrews 11:1: "Faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen." That can sound like, if you just read this text on the surface, it's saying exactly that—that faith is about moving forward without actually having information, about blindly walking forward without reason.
But you have to remember that verse, Hebrews 11:1, is actually an introduction to an entire chapter recounting story after story of how God shows up for people when things seem hopeless. Hebrews 11 is not about blind faith. It's not about turning off your reason or your intellect. Instead, it recounts generations of God's faithfulness to care for His own and to work out His story of redemption.
This verse is actually telling us that we can have hope and we can have assurance even when we can't see them in our circumstances—because we know God has been faithful to all the generations before us. It's about using reason: He's been faithful in the past, and so He will continue to do so.
Faith is trust, pure and simple. Faith is trust.
And trust is not based on nothing. Trust is based on past relationship. It's based on expectations. And God, if you look at Scripture, proves Himself trustworthy time and time and time and time again. And so when we trust that God will treat us today as He has treated us and the rest of the church in the past, we're walking in faith.
And this, beloved, is what Jonathan is doing. He knows his people's history, and he knows it well enough to know that even though there's no logical earthly reason or path toward Israelite victory, he's still going to step toward God. Even though anyone looking at their situation would say there is no path forward—surrender to the Philistines and figure out how to let them conquer you, that would be the reasonable step forward with what Israel is facing—Jonathan knows his people. He knows his story. He knows his God. He knows what God has done for them in the past. And so he steps toward God in faith.
"Let's head over there. Let's just look. Let's see what happens. Who knows what God might do? Nothing can keep God from saving, whether in big ways or in little ways. Let's try. Let's see what He does."
The Story of Gideon
In Judges 7, it tells a story that happens just a few generations before Jonathan's own life. It's about this judge and general, a guy named Gideon. The summary of the story is basically that for seven years, Israel was oppressed by one of their neighbors, the Midianites. They had brought an army of 135,000 soldiers into Israel. They were occupying all the major cities, taking out Israel tribe by tribe.
Gideon roused Israel to arms and gathered an army from all 12 tribes—this massive army of 32,000 troops versus 135,000. It already seemed like a hopeless situation, so much so that Gideon comes back to God multiple times and goes, "God, do You really want me to do this? I think we're all gonna die." And he keeps putting these tests toward God. And God goes, "Do it. Trust Me. Do it."
So he finally goes, "Okay," and he musters the troops and they're heading to what looks like certain death. And God stops him and goes, "You know what, Gideon? You've got too many troops. I think if you bring all these troops into battle and I win the battle for you, you'll all look at each other and you'll think, 'Look how tough we are. We won this battle.' I don't want it to go that way. I want you to know I did this."
And so, through a series of events, God whittles Gideon's army down from 32,000 to 300.
I can only think of the movie 300 and the Spartans being led by Gideon. But these 300 go up against the Midianite army of 135,000, and God supernaturally intervenes on their behalf. And they win.
Guys, you know, for 300 soldiers to beat 135,000, every individual Israelite soldier would need to not only survive, they would need to slay 450 enemy soldiers each. And yet God intervenes and Israel is free.
This is the kind of God Jonathan knows. Jonathan remembers. And so he is walking forward in trust.
And guys, it's not just his trust. It's also his imagination. It's this wonder that says, "God's going to fix this, but I don't see any path forward. I have no clue what He could possibly do to fix this, but I think He's going to. I wonder what it will look like."
That's the kind of holy imagination he brings into this: "I'm just going to walk forward in faith because I know He's going to do something, so I'm just going to walk forward and see what He does." The kind of imagination that says, "God does things that are beyond us and He's always faithful, so let's just go for it. Let's just walk forward in faith."
So he sneaks over to the Philistines. His armor bearer is locked in with him: "I'm with you. God has this. You go, I'll follow." And so Jonathan follows in Gideon's footsteps. "We're going to walk forward toward God in faith, and we're going to ask Him to confirm this so that we're not being idiots."
The Sign
He sets up this kind of interesting sign for God where he basically says, "Okay, we're going to cross down and start climbing up, and we'll make sure they can see us while we're doing that. And if they see us down there in the wadi and they go, 'Oh, we're going to come down there and get you,' then we'll go, 'Okay, we need to leave.' But if we get down there and they see us and they go, 'Come on up here and we'll teach you a lesson,' then we'll know that God has given them over to our hands and we'll go for it."
We read that and we go, "That makes no sense. That seems very arbitrary." There's actually a little bit of strategy to this. You have to remember the Philistines are winning right now. They have the high ground, and there is a real thing there. They have the high ground.
So what he's saying is, "If they see us and they're willing to run out of their position and climb down the difficult terrain and come to us, then that means they're really confident. But if they see us and they say, 'You climb the difficult terrain and come up here, then we'll show you what's up,' well, that means they're probably a little more cautious. They're not willing to give up their ground. So we'll just take that. We'll take that as a sign that they're cautious, so God is doing something, so we'll go ahead and go for it."
Okay, sounds like a plan.
Application: What About Us?
Before we look at the rest of the story, I think it's worth looking for just a quick minute at how this actually applies to how we live out our own faith. I think it's important when we read stories like this to remember how this actually works out in our own lives.
By God's grace, we don't live in a time or a place where our faith is tested by invading armies. We don't in general have physical threats to our families. But we do face struggles and hardships and afflictions and trials in life where we need Jonathan's example of faith.
We have times when—whether it's deep, intimate relationships or our job or our school or our immediate families—there are all sorts of things that get out of hand and get broken in our lives and we're overwhelmed by fear and anxiety and we don't see a way forward. Maybe it's a phone call from a doctor with a bad health diagnosis or a broken relationship with a close family member that you don't see any way how to repair it. Situations often feel to us as hopeless as Israel's 600 versus the Philistines' thousands.
So what do we do?
I think Jonathan invites us to consider where we too can take small steps of faith.
You see, like Jonathan and his armor bearer, they are two soldiers. They're two guys. They have zero hope of doing anything significant enough to turn the tide of this battle. Period. There is no way forward. But because of Jonathan's faith, they take the steps they can take. They walk toward God in faith.
And beloved, I think it's important for us to stop for a moment and consider our own lives and consider the challenges we're facing today and to simply ask ourselves: What would it look like for you today to take a step toward God?
To look at the circumstances in front of you and go, "I don't know the way forward, but I know my God is faithful. And so I'm just going to take a step toward Him today."
What is a step toward the Lord in faith for you today?
This is connected, but I think it's important to remember Jonathan's imagination here. He doesn't have any idea how God can do all this, but he knows God is faithful, so he's walking toward the Lord. He's not passively awaiting God to fix things for him. It's not, "God, I don't know what to do. We can't fix this. You need to intervene and do something. You need to fix this for me." No, he's putting himself square in the path, making himself available for God to use in ways that he hasn't even thought of.
Where, beloved, have you frozen into passivity in your life? Where you say, "God, if this is gonna change in my life, You have to do something. I can't do anything about it. I've tried and tried and tried and I don't see a way forward. And so I'm done. I'm gonna sit here until You fix it."
What might it look like for you to take a step toward God in faith, for you to make yourself available for Him to use you in a way that you can't even yet imagine?
Beloved, I think there's a challenge in here for us because I'm here to tell you: God keeps His promises. When we make ourselves available to the Lord to be a part of His amazing work, we see Him work. His kingdom is moving forward. His will will be done.
The question—hear this, beloved—the question is not whether or not God will reign in this world and in your circumstances. The question is whether you will be a part of Him reigning in your circumstances, or whether you will miss out on it. He's going to do it regardless. He's going to do it in ways that you can't see and that you haven't thought of yet. And you don't want to miss out on that.
God Shows Up
Read on with me and let's look at how God shows up for the Israelites. Verse 11:
So they let themselves be seen by the Philistine garrison, and the Philistines said, "Look, the Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they've been hiding." The men in the garrison called to Jonathan and his armor bearer, "Come on up and we'll teach you a lesson."
"Follow me," Jonathan told his armor bearer, "for the Lord has handed them over to Israel."
So Jonathan climbed up using his hands and feet, with his armor bearer behind him. Jonathan cut them down and his armor bearer followed and finished them off. In the first assault, Jonathan and his armor bearer struck down about 20 men in a half-acre field.
Terror spread through the Philistine camp and the open fields to all the troops. Even the garrison and the raiding parties were terrified. The earth shook and terror spread from God.
When Saul's watchmen in Gibeah of Benjamin looked, they saw the panicking troops scattering in every direction. So Saul said to the troops with him, "Call the roll and determine who has left us." They called the roll and saw that Jonathan and his armor bearer were gone.
So Saul told Ah# If You Only Knew: Finding Faith When Hope Seems Lost (continued)
So Saul told Ahijah, "Bring the ark of the Lord," for it was with the Israelites at that time. While Saul spoke to the priest, the panic in the Philistine camp increased in intensity. So Saul said to the priest, "Stop what you're doing."
Saul and all the troops with him assembled and marched to the battle. And there the Philistines were fighting against each other in great confusion. There were Hebrews from the area who had gone earlier into the camp to join the Philistines, but even they joined the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan. When all the Israelite men who had been hiding in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines were fleeing, they also joined Saul and Jonathan in the battle.
So the Lord saved Israel that day.
Man, that escalated quickly, right? Jonathan and his armor bearer step out in battle, and a few short hours later, Israel's army is routing the Philistines as they literally fight themselves and flee in terror. What the heck? That's insane.
The Domino Effect
In 2023, MrBeast shook the world by breaking a world record. You guys know who MrBeast is? If you don't, it's okay. Your kids or grandkids do, I promise. He's a famous YouTuber. He makes lots of videos, stunts, things like that. And in 2023, he broke the world record for the world's largest domino chain.
You know dominoes—you line them up, they fall over. I think they have a game also, but no one plays the game. You know what I'm talking about? (I like the domino game. I play it a lot.) You line them up.
There's an interesting thing about dominoes when you make domino chains. I'm not smart enough to say this—someone in the room is going to understand the math of this better than me—but because of gravity, when you knock a domino over, and because of how skinny and tall they are and how hard it is to balance them on their edge, when you knock a domino over, a domino falling over can actually knock over a larger domino than itself. It can actually knock over a domino about 1.5 times its size, which means you can keep making the dominoes bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
So MrBeast made a domino chain big enough—you can't see this because that picture is blurry, but this domino chain starts with a normal-sized domino. And behind the big domino is a full-size abandoned 7-Eleven. And he used the biggest domino to crush the 7-Eleven. And he started that domino chain by going to the very end—you can see the little bitty guys at the bottom right there—and knocking over a normal-sized domino. That's all he did.
You can look up the YouTube video. It's kind of astounding. I gasped audibly when I watched it. I couldn't believe a single domino crushed a 7-Eleven. All those Slurpees—the ghosts in them haunt that area now.
I know that's silly, but I say that because of this: If I parked you in front of a QuikTrip and I handed you a domino and I said, "Do me a favor and demolish this building," you would look at me like I'm insane. And yet, that is precisely what God does here to defeat the Philistines.
How the Dominoes Fall
Do you see how the dominoes fall here? Jonathan stepped forward in faith to see what God might do with him and his armor bearer. And when the soldiers mock him and invite him to come fight them—"We'll teach you a lesson"—he says, "This is God's favor." And so he comes ready to battle.
To understand this battle, you have to understand a little bit about ancient Near Eastern warfare. Often, only special warriors actually had access to good armor, which could protect you but also makes movement more difficult. Some of the armor they would wear blocks some of your vision and slows you down and can wear you out. And so oftentimes, these warriors who had armor would have elite warriors assigned to them whose job was to carry their extra gear.
Now these guys, they had to be really good warriors because they had their own gear and they had to fight, and they had their warrior's gear. The ancient Israelites—we don't know a huge amount about their military strategies, but the couple things we do know is that they primarily fought with these really common Bronze Age swords of the area that kind of had a little bit of a hook to them, and javelins or spears. That was the main big thing they used.
The interesting thing militarily about these two weapons is that you lose them easily in battle. Hooked swords get caught on stuff, and so you can drop them. Spears and javelins are great, but you can also throw them when you need to. And so the armor bearer's job is to be the battle caddy. He's got extras, and he follows his dude around. He's fighting and poking, and whenever Jonathan's like, "Spear!" he hands it up to him. That's what's going on.
Jonathan says, "Let's go, let's do this thing." And so they climb up this cliff and go straight into battle. And listen, I'm sure it wasn't this tall, but as I was reading it this week, all I could think about was The Princess Bride and Westley climbing the Cliffs of Insanity and then immediately going into a sword fight where he's doing backflips and stuff. You know what I'm talking about? That's functionally what Jonathan does here. He's in his full kit and his dude's in his full kit, plus Jonathan's extra stuff. And they climb a cliff and just start hacking.
And they go for it. And they're so successful—it says between the two of them in about a half-acre field (so that's about my backyard, about my backyard), they hacked down 20 dudes. I have this image of Jonathan running around going [makes fighting sounds], then he runs off, and while that guy's sitting there, his armor bearer comes behind him and finishes him off real quick. So they're just kind of going around double-teaming this whole thing.
And they're so good at it in this tiny little area that everyone around freaks out and it starts this panic.
The Bee Sting on a Whale
This part, I think, guys, is so interesting for us because Jonathan and his battle caddy—they do amazing. They do amazing. For these guys to run into a fortified enemy position with no casualties and just take out 20 soldiers just like that, I mean, that's great.
But here's the thing: There were two of them and they took out 20. So if every single one of Israel's soldiers was there and every single one of them was just as good as Jonathan and his armor bearer, they would have taken out—do the math—6,000 dudes. That's not enough. The Philistines brought 9,000 chariots and cavalry. The reality is, as awesome, as mighty an act of valor as Jonathan's 20 was, this was a bee sting on a blue whale. As much as that was an act of valor, it would have been completely and totally wasted except for God.
And look what God does with this.
The text tells us that God uses this attack to supernaturally strike terror into the watching soldiers. You have to remember this is a day before radio communication. So the men watching Jonathan, they don't know he's a lone soldier. A lot of them assume this is a full assault, and the full assault is working. "These Hebrew soldiers are so tough. Look what they're doing." So they run and they scream and they panic.
And the soldiers around them hear distant sounds of battle and see soldiers fleeing in panic, and they assume, "We must be losing this battle." And so they turn and run and panic begins to spread.
We know that God is supernaturally intervening to spread this terror because it moves from those outer scouts around the edge of their encampment into the actual standing army, into the field, into their fortified position in the garrison, even into the raiding parties that are moving through Israel. Every single one of the Philistines goes, "Something is wrong. We're losing this battle." And panic blows through the camp.
And in that moment, God chooses to loose an earthquake. And the ground starts shaking and soldiers are running and horses are falling and tents are collapsing and there's sounds of crashing and battle in the distance. And the camp devolves into absolute panic.
And all of a sudden, Jonathan's little bee sting, Jonathan's normal-sized domino—God has used it to start something huge.
Saul Finally Shows Up
And now finally, Saul enters into the picture.
Back at Saul's camp, his scouts can see the chaos in the Philistine camp. Saul takes a roll call. He realizes it's Jonathan and they've left by themselves. And he does something that is so strange. And I think the author puts it here on purpose because it's so just indicative of Saul's failed leadership.
He sees what's going on and he says, "Grab the priest, have him inquire of the Lord so we can know if we should run in there or not." And then while the priest is doing his prayer and sacrifice, he keeps looking and he goes, "You know what, never mind, stop talking to God, let's go." And they just run.
Which is really wild—to get the priest to be like, "You know what, you should inquire of the Lord. Just kidding, we're fine, we don't need that. Let's go. That's taking too long."
But I think it's left in here to show us that even in this moment of God's salvation, Saul is still operating out of his own wisdom. He's still doing his own thing. He's still not actually seeking the Lord. He wants God's victory, he wants the benefits, but he's not submitting himself to Him.
And then we see in our text that God uses even this to bring about His victory. Because when Saul and his army arrive, the discipline has so broken down at the Philistine camp that they're fighting each other.
And again, this is a thing that could happen. You have to remember most of these countries didn't have large standing armies. They would muster troops from all different cities and areas and everyone would kind of hang out in their own camps. And when things devolved and the camp broke and discipline broke, people said, "I got to get home and get home alive." And so they grabbed what they could and they ran. And if that meant killing the soldier next to them to take his stuff to get his horse, they just did, because they weren't super loyal to one another. They were with their group of people.
And so the Philistine camp has devolved into infighting, as everyone's trying to get all their stuff and get out of here alive, right when Saul shows up with his army and they start hacking and slashing.
And then it tells us that there were some Israelites who had defected to the Philistines. They saw this as a losing battle, and they joined up with the bad guys. And they said, "You know what? Just kidding, we're back on Israel's side." And they jumped in with Saul.
And when they started hacking and slashing, then all the soldiers that had been hiding in the caves who'd heard this going on in the distance go, "You know what? We should jump in the battle too." So they all run in there.
And then again, we just get to this point where the situation has escalated such that in a few hours, we've gone from Jonathan and his armor bearer sneaking up to see what they could do to a unified army of Israel routing the Philistines and sending them away.
It's pretty wild how God's intervention works.
The Lord Saved Israel
And look how our text ends: "The Lord saved Israel that day."
Because, guys, that really is the story, isn't it? Hope seemed lost and God showed up. Because, beloved of Jesus, that is what our God does.
Our God has plans we can't imagine, which is why the gospel is so amazing. Sin has broken us, the world is dark and ruined, and more often it looks like evil is just more powerful and evil is going to win. But look what my Jesus can do. Amen. Look what Jesus can do with a small domino of faith. Look how God blows our expectations, our fears, our anxieties out of the water and meets our real needs.
The Feeding of the Five Thousand
It reminds me of one of my favorite stories in John 6, when somewhere like 10 to 15,000 people—more than the max capacity of the St. Charles Family Arena—are gathered around listening to Jesus teach outdoors. And it's been a long day and they're out in the middle of nowhere. And so Jesus turns to His disciples and says, "Hey, guys, you should feed them all dinner. They've been here all day."
And one of the disciples turns to Him and says, "Jesus, eight months' wages wouldn't feed everyone here. There's no stinking way."
And then a guy named Andrew takes this minuscule baby step of faith toward Jesus and goes, "There's no way we can do this. The only food we know about is this one kid who packed his own lunch just for him. That's all there is."
And Jesus takes that little bitty step toward Him and says, "Let's see what we should do with that. Everyone sit down. Let's pray. Let's bless it. And you guys just start breaking it into pieces and handing it out."
And a couple hours later, over 10,000 people eat their dinner and they bring back the leftovers and have 12 baskets, one for each disciple, to sit with Christ and eat their dinner. And God supernaturally shows up. Supernaturally shows up.
I love that story. And I love this story. Because they're the same story.
The Essence of the Gospel
This is the essence of the gospel. We cannot fix ourselves. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot right our circumstances. We can't fix the world and beat the bad guys because we aren't strong enough. Our best is a bee sting on a whale. Our best is a Lunchable for an arena. We just can't do it.
But Jesus can.
Jesus can fix what's broken in you and what is broken in this world. It's exactly what He did on the cross. He beat death. He conquered Satan. He broke the curse. He made a way for you and for me to have a real, eternal, perfect life that we were made for.
Beloved, and I'm here to tell you this church, that defeats each and every trial you face in this world. You can take heart when you face the troubles of this world because Jesus has overcome already. He can take your bee sting. He can take your Lunchable. He can take your domino, and He can topple death itself.
Don't Miss the Adventure
In our text today, Saul is passive and frozen. And he misses out on all the amazing adventures that God has for him. He sits back at the camp. He shows up at night right at the end when God has already done it all.
And this part is so important, guys. God still did it with all of Saul, the earthly king's failures. God still saved Israel. God still accomplishes His goals. But Saul misses out on the adventure. Saul misses it.
Beloved, God is fixing this broken world. Beloved of Jesus, God's kingdom is advancing. He is seeking and saving the lost. He is protecting the hurting. He is bringing justice. He's doing the work.
The question has never been whether God will win over the curse of this world. The question is whether you want to participate with Him. Do you want to join in the work or not?
More Than You Can Imagine
I think one of the most encouraging verses in the New Testament is in Ephesians 3. It's part of this prayer of blessing. And this isn't really the point Paul's making, but I love this line, and so I'm going to pull it out of the prayer for us to read. This is Ephesians 3, starting in verse 20:
Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we can ask or think according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Beloved, God can do more than you can possibly imagine. The Philistines you face today, they are not insurmountable to God. Your hopeless situation is not hopeless to God. Your moment of failure with no way forward is not so for our God. He's able to do more than you can possibly imagine.
He turned one soldier's bravery into a nation's salvation. He took one boy's meal and fed the masses.
What might God do with your faith, beloved? What might God do with your small faith?
What kind of holy imagination can you put out in front of God to see what He might do in our little church and in our little lives?
A Time of Prayer and Response
I want to invite you right now to take a moment in prayer. I want to invite you to take some space. You can do that in your seat, in the aisle. You can come forward and pray at the altar. I just want you to take a minute to be with you and God.
And I want you in your moment of prayer to legitimately put forward your holy imagination, to put# If You Only Knew: Finding Faith When Hope Seems Lost (continued)
And I want you in your moment of prayer to legitimately put forward your holy imagination, to put yourself out in front of the Lord and just ask Him:
What kind of thing might You do in my life, Lord?
What kind of grandparent might You make me to leave a legacy of faith in my family?
What kind of church might You build that is meeting the real needs and joys of its community?
What kind of family might You form through me that breaks the cultural mold to raise up children to love the Lord?
What kind of community might You create through us where everyone is seen, where everyone is welcome into life and growth?
What kind of church might You build here that joins God in the work of seeking and saving the lost, serving the hurting?
Closing Invitation
We're just going to end there, and I'm going to do something cheesy that hearkens back to my youth ministry days. I want to invite you guys, when you finish your time of prayer, as we do every week, for those of you who are in Christ, to consider coming forward and taking communion.
We take communion every week here at Emmanuel, and we do it for a reason. The Scripture tells us that when we take of the elements—the bread, His body broken for us; the juice, His blood poured out for us—that when we do that, we're proclaiming His death until His return. We're proclaiming the sufficiency of Christ's work.
It's this way of reminding ourselves, grounding ourselves in the gospel and proclaiming it to our brothers and sisters in the room, saying, "Jesus's work is enough. He is a saving God." It's great to do that often when we gather—to preach the gospel to ourselves in the room.
And I want to invite you, those of you who are in Christ, to respond that way after you pray.
And I'm going to put an extra bowl up here today. And this is cheesy as heck, but we're going to do it.
I've got a bowl of dominoes up here. I want you to take one. When you come up and take communion, put it in your pocket, just one of them. And I would love for you to keep that with you this week. Thumb over that domino to feel the pips on it and to think about MrBeast.
To think about the small step of faith that you can take, the ways that you can take what you have, the strength you have, and step toward Jesus, to just see what He might do in your life.
Beloved, take some time to meet with the Lord. And when you're ready, come forward in response.
Reflection Questions
As you reflect on this message throughout the week, consider these questions:
Where in your life do you feel like you're facing impossible odds? What would it look like to take one small step of faith toward God in that situation?
What past faithfulness of God can you remember? How does remembering what God has done in the past give you courage to trust Him today?
Where have you frozen into passivity? Are you waiting for God to fix something while refusing to make yourself available to be part of His solution?
What does your "holy imagination" look like? If God can do more than you can ask or imagine, what might He want to do through your small acts of obedience?
What was God telling you this week? What are you going to do about it?
Connect With Us
We'd love to hear how God is speaking to you through this message. If you have questions, need prayer, or want to talk more about what it means to put your faith in Jesus, please reach out:
This sermon was preached at Immanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville Missouri as part of our "Earthly Kings" series within 1 Samuel, exploring Israel's first king Saul and how his reign shows the unavoidable shortcomings of trusting in earthly solutions for our deepest longings and needs. For more resources on faith and Christian living, visit our website or connect with our community. You can email us at hello@ifcstl.com or call/text us at 636-431-4708
All Scripture quotations are from the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) unless otherwise noted.
