Sermon

Preached by Rev. M. GILLIES at Inverness on 30th January, 1937.

“And it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking unto Israel that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (I. Sam. xviii. 1).

WE have here the beginning of that friendship between David and Jonathan—friendship that continued. True love is not a temporal affection. That which is worth the name of love is continuous. That is how the love of God is set before us as an everlasting love. True love, and especially spiritual love, love in the spirit is continuous, for it continues right through time. Death wont end it, and eternity will not see the end of it.

We have here then the particulars in connection with that union, that substitute between David and Jonathan. I would just like to touch on four things in this connection, and use this illustratively in connection with that union. How a poor sinner who is brought to know God as a deliverer will show his love. For you see, love shows itself in deeds. We have not to love in words or in speech, we have to love in actions, and the love of Jonathan to David was expressed in very definite actions.

First of all, let us notice the distress in which Jonathan was in common with all Israel, and in the second place, the manifestation that Jonathan got of a deliverer from that distress. We find David appearing on the scene as Israel’s deliverer, and Jonathan confronted with this deliverer, and the deliverance that he wrought.

In the third place, we have to notice the effect that this manifestation had on Jonathan. We are told that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him with his own soul, and lastly, the proof that Jonathan gave of his love to David. We have a number of proofs.

Now, dear friends, it was a day of distress indeed in Israel. The enemies of Israel, the Philistines, were drawn up in battle array against Israel. All their forces had come forth against Saul and against his army, and that would cause plenty of distress, but Goliath of Gath appeared in front of the armies of the Philistines, and was of such a formidable aspect, that he challenged the armies of Israel to send him out a man to fight with him. He defied the armies of the Living God, and Israel could not stand that day before the Philistines, or before Goliath. They fled to their caves. Even Jonathan who proved himself a warrior, he was as weak as any of them this day. It was from the Lord that there should be no strength in Israel, and that all the strength should appear on the side of the Philistines. So that indeed they were in great distress.

Goliath came forth day by day, and challenged the armies of Israel, and there was not a single soldier in the camp of Israel that had the slightest hope of overcoming the Philistines. And we may be sure that Jonathan felt the situation more keenly, we think, than any other in the camp. You see, Jonathan, as far as we know, feared the Lord. It takes grace to feel the distress in reality. Grace will take in the causes why the Lord is angry. Grace will take in the reasons why the Lord seems to fight against a generation and against an individual. We think that Jonathan felt the situation more keenly than even Saul himself, though he was the king, and truly they were in jeopardy. They were confronted with disaster, and there was no sign of deliverance on their behalf.

Now, dear friends, every gracious soul, on such a day as that, somewhat like the day that Jonathan had when Goliath of Gath, as the champion of the Philistines came forth to challenge the whole army, and to show up their weakness, confronted as they were with the might and the valour of their uncircumcised enemies, well, every gracious soul has such a day as that, when the creature was brought to see his position as a lost and ruined sinner. It is quite evident that the weakness of Israel on this day was on account of the Lord being grieved and angry. It was on account of their unfaithfulness to the Most High, and they felt it, and Jonathan felt it. In the day in which the Most High begins to deal with a soul savagely he realises God is against him for his sin. “I have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, and I am guilty in his sight—I deserve to die. I deserve that the wages of sin which is death would be my portion for ever and ever,” and the soul in that day is confronted with all the might of Satan. See the power that the devil has over man because he is a rebel against God. See this is what gives power to Satan. He would have no power over man if man had not sinned against the Most High, but because man sinned the devil has power over us through our disobedience and by the condemnation that lies upon us for our sin. We are told that the Saviour took flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone and that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, and deliver them that through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage, and Satan is the Goliath of Gath that can defy you in the day that you are brought to feel your miserable condition as a sinner, as a sinner against God. He can defy you that day. He can show his might over you, and your utter impotency to meet him, and to deliver yourself from him, as you are utterly impotent to satisfy the claims of justice.

And dear friends, it is quite evident that this is the position that belongs to man in the Fall. As we are sinners we have just fallen into the hands of our enemy, fallen into the hands of the evil one, and in the day in which he can no longer keep us in his service by deluding us, and by the pleasures of sin—see, the devil has two ways with men. He deludes them, and he has got most of this generation deluded. They are as much his slaves when he deludes them as they are when he shows his power over them. When he deludes men he keeps them in his grip by giving them the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season, and he has most of this generation in his grip. They think they are free in following after the world and its vanities. They think they are free. They are serving the devil, who holds them in his hand by deluding them, by keeping them in ignorance of the God with whom they have to do, and of their condition and state before the God of eternity. But he has another way with men. In the day in which a sinner is brought to know things as they are really—in the day in which the sinner comes to know something about God being angry with him and against him—in the day in which a sinner comes to know his sin and the effect of sin in his nature and in his life, how weak, how helpless he is as a sinner before God. The devil comes out that day in another way and he shows his power to crush, and to take away every hope from us, if that be possible that we shall be delivered. That, dear friends, is our condition as sinners as far as we ourselves are concerned—a hopeless one. It is hopeless when the devil and sin and our own desires delude us. Who is going to deliver us from that delusion? Ministers may preach, parents may warn, but we are as helpless when he deludes us as we are when he threatens and makes out to us in the day of our spiritual misery that there is no redemption or salvation for us, unless the Lord will deliver us. That was the condition in which Jonathan found himself literally, and I take it to illustrate the condition of every soul saved by grace.

But now, without enlarging, Jonathan, in the day of his extremity and distress beheld a wonderful deliverer and a wonderful deliverance. He saw in the day of his trouble—he saw a young lad with a shepherd’s staff and a sling—he saw one that was despised by his own brothers, taunted that it was from the pride of his heart that he came to behold the battle. Jonathan saw that young stripling going and facing Goliath the giant. Yes, and not only facing him, but using means that no warrior on either side of the conflict would think of using—using a sling and a stone, and throwing the stone with such an aim that it struck the giant and sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face. Jonathan saw that young lad drawing the sword of Goliath and thereby taking all the strength from the Philistines so that they cried and fled and lost the day absolutely and completely. Then Jonathan saw this young man coming back with the head of the enemy of Israel in his hand. And he heard him speaking to his father Saul. He was confronted with a complete deliverance and that by the hand of a deliverer whom men despise, yet who proved himself that day—the Lord’s deliverer for Israel. Oh! dear friends, it was such a deliverer as this that the poor soul was brought to see in the day of his misery, in the day in which he considered as far as he himself was concerned that there was no hope for him.

It was such a deliverer as this that was set before poor sinners. Who is the Deliverer of poor sinners of our race? Was this not the Deliverer that was set before you, one who was the reproach of men and despised by the people? One of whom it is written, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from Him, He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Oh, dear friends! you could not put this away from yourselves that you were one of those that despised the Deliverer many a day in the world, and that was part of your guilt. A goodly part of your sin and your guilt was that you, among others, despised and rejected the one Deliverer because you saw not your need of His deliverance, and you saw not the glory of the deliverance that He wrought out, and, therefore, you despised Him. You loved sin and, therefore, He was little in your sight, but this is the very Person that you saw going forth in order to work out the deliverance. Oh dear friends! the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of David according to the flesh, who is the Son of God from everlasting in the bosom of the Father, He it is who appeared in the fullness of time, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and it is He that the Holy Spirit sets before the sinner in the day in which he is locked up in sin, condemnation and misery and guilt and ruination as a sinner. The Holy Spirit sets before the soul in that day the Person of the Son of God in human nature. He who took bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, and who came for this very purpose to deliver, to save, to overthrow for eternity the power that the devil had to delude and to keep in his grip poor sinners of Adam’s race. He came for that purpose, and when He did come He battled with the devil and the power of darkness. He battled with him first of all, he battled with him with the Word of the Lord.

You find Christ alone in the wilderness. There was no sword in His hand. If it were His blessed and holy will He could bind the devil just in a moment in such chains as that He could not go under his temptation. But when Satan came out to fight against Him as the champion of His people He just took the smooth stone of the Word of God and fought against the devil, and that with the Word. It is written, He says, and you see the devil left him for a season but the devil went into men, into the scribes and Pharisees and elders and rulers, and fought against the champion of His people in them, but He used the sling and the stone. He fought with that. He fought against him by the Word and overcame him, cast him down, and Oh, dear friends! that was a glorious manifestation of the Blessed One, as he opposed the devil and the devil’s word in his sojourn through life, how he battled with Satan and how he caused the kingdom of darkness to crumble simply by applying the Word of His own Father, the Word of His own Spirit. Applying it with force so that there was no standing against him and in that he has left to his people an example that they should follow His steps. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual. I just noticed that as David fought against Goliath with the sling of the stone so the Lord Jesus fought against the devil and the devil’s kingdom with the Word and overcame. There was no standing against Him, but further, there was no sword in David’s hand. You see, there was no sword in the hand of the Blessed One when He came. He did not hurt so much as one hair on a sinner’s head during his sojourn in this world. No sword in His hand. He used the Word but He slew none with any sword that He had. But the devil had a sword just as Goliath had a sword. No sword in David’s hand but Goliath had a sword, a sword with which he meant to cut up David and give his flesh to the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field, and the very sword that Goliath took with him to cut up David’s body, that was the weapon that David took to finish Goliath. Yes, the very weapon.

The devil had a sword for Christ, though Christ used no sword but the Word. He used nothing but the Word and His own obedience to that Word. The devil had a sword—death, Christ’s death, death to the Blessed Saviour by the hands of wicked men, and the Saviour took this death lovingly and willingly, which was certainly His by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. There is that side of it. If that side were not true there would be no other side. Certainly the death that was meted out to Christ was according to determinate council and the foreknowledge of God. It was God the Father in His grace that provided a Saviour that would save by His death.

But it was a death that the devil had for Christ by the hands of wicked men. He could not do it personally. He had to use the hands of wicked men to nail our Lord to the Cross, and to mete out that death to Him as far as it was possible for the devil to give Him that death, and as far as it was possible for the devil through men to give Him that death. And Christ took a hold of that death, the death that was meted out to Him, and by His own death he destroyed principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them. This is the weapon with which the Saviour wrought out the salvation as He gave full satisfaction in his obedience unto death, to law and justice. He destroyed with that death the power that Satan had to keep his hope, his Israel in bondage. And you had a day in your life-time when you were confronted with the Saviour on the Cross, the Saviour dying the just in the room of the unjust, and the Saviour using His own death for your deliverance, giving the death blow to the devil and the devil’s kingdom by that with which Satan thought he would give the Saviour and the interests of His cause and kingdom the death blow. He will put on such a formidable and terrible aspect you would think he would swallow you in a minute, and so he would if he got the opportunity, but instead of doing you harm, he will indirectly do you good. Just as the Saviour destroyed the devil’s power on the Cross, He destroyed the devil’s power in this connection with the saving of His people. They are very liable at times to despond and to feel that the Lord will leave them in the hands of the devil, but He wont. He only permits Satan to make these onslaughts on them so that He shall make the devil’s disaster all the more crushing and that He may reveal His own love more and more to them. People wont learn very much by theory.

If we learn anything we learn it in the school of experience, and there is very, very bitter lessons taught in that school, but they are most beneficuous in bringing the soul to the feet of free and sovereign grace and bringing it to esteem free and sovereign grace. Very well then! The Holy Spirit in the day of your misery opened up to you the death of Christ, the meaning of it and the salvation that was wrought thereby, and you saw the Saviour having overcome Satan, disregarding his power. By His obedience and death He satisfied the justice of God. He wrought out a righteousness in which all His folk will stand for ever and ever, and that by His obedience and death in the room and stead of His people He got the victory of that kingdom that had taken possession of them through sin. He got the victory so that Satan cannot keep a single one of them, and as they flee from the onslaughts of the Evil One, from his device and his fiery darts they have deliverance through Christ. You were brought to see instead of a ruination for ever and ever that there was a way of escape, a way of salvation opened up by Him, and that everything that stood between you and salvation and deliverance had been removed by the glorious victory of Jesus on the cross—when He cried out, “It is finished,” and He rose again and ascended on High. You saw in Him a glorious Saviour having wrought out a salvation, the very salvation that you needed and that was adequate in every way to meet your case as a sinner.

He opened up to you the glory of the Gospel and Himself as the sum and substance of this Gospel. Jonathan here saw a David coming with the head of Goliath in his hand, the sure symbol of a complete victory, and he heard him speaking to Saul. And oh, dear friends! you had a day in your history and the gospel was being preached to you, Christ in which the gospel was being preached to you as the gospel of your salvation. The minister was preaching just to the congregation as a whole, but the message was particularly for your soul. You had a day like that. It might have been at family worship but the psalm was being read. It was read in the hearing of the whole family but the message was directed to your understanding and conscience and heart. The preacher preached perhaps a sermon he did not know who you were, he was just preaching as the Lord gave him his message, but as he was preaching to the whole congregation the message was directed to you. It was a message from God to you, and that was the way when David was speaking to Saul that day. Every word that David spoke to Saul just penetrated the heart of Jonathan. He had such a glorious view of David as a victor that day that his words just entered into the heart of Jonathan, whatever effect they had on Saul. And oh, dear friends! you had a day and you were confronted with the glory of the gospel and the Words of Christ entered into your soul, they were for you as though there were not another sinner on the face of the earth that needed them but yourself. What do you want at the communion at Inverness? I want a sight of Christ in His glory as a Saviour. I hope we once got such a sight as that of Christ as a Saviour and I want to hear His words. Certainly, let Him speak to the whole congregation but let Him speak to my soul. Let Him win all my faculties by the witness and the power and the love of His Word entering into my soul. That’s the preparation that we need for a holy communion Sabbath, that we would be like the Greeks who wanted to see Jesus.

Many a day Jonathan had a sight to himself, many a day Jonathan saw David going forth and fighting Goliath and coming back and hearing David’s words to Saul after the event had passed. He would like to dwell on it, and that is true about the soul that was brought to see the conquest of Christ, the victory that He won and the salvation that He wrought. He would dwell on it, he would fain have that before his mind’s eye and he would hear again the mind of Christ and he would seek, and he does seek that the Word would be applied that the gospel would captivate him, win all his powers. The effect was this that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. You see David showed his love to the Lord and to Israel and to Jonathan in his fight, and now the love of Jonathan had been procured.

Jonathan loved David. His soul was knit to the soul of David, and because of the love that David showed, because of the love that he showed risking his life for Israel, and oh! dear friends, in the day in which you saw the proof of the love of Christ in that not only did He risk His life in order to glorify the Father and save His people but that he laid down His life for that purpose. In the day when the Holy Ghost led you into the glory of that mystery, which is now revealed, and showed you how the Saviour proved His love by suffering and dying in the room and stead of His people. In that day the love of God was shed abroad in your heart and your soul was knit to Christ, and you loved the Saviour, loved Him as your own soul. He became all and all to you that day when you were brought to know His suffering and dying love and it was for you as well as for others that He suffered, and died, and obtained this glorious victory. The love of God was shed abroad in your heart.

Yes, Jonathan loved David as his own soul and this love was proved. He stripped off his own robe and put it on David. What right had he to be king or a prince, and he gave him his sword and his bow and his girdle, and he entered into a covenant with David. He gave himself to David as David gave himself to him, and he defended David in the face of his bitter foes. He stood up for him and he desired opportunities to confer with David. Now, dear friends! you see that you have very little love to the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is going to get the robe? Will you love Him then if He has got to get the robe? Who is to have the sword, yourself or Christ? Who is to have the bow and the girdle? Oh, not me! Certainly I must fight but I can never call myself a fighter, the Saviour will be my Warrior. He will have the sword and the bow, and the girdle. You say you have little love to him. Are you willing to be Christ’s? Are you willing to have Him as yours? Well, you see, that is love. You can be afraid if you like that you haven’t got love, but if there is a covenant between your soul and Christ there is love there. You say you have little love but you want to meet Him. You want to stand up for Him. You do like to defend His name and His glory and His power and His cause, and His people. Oh, dear friend! you have love to Him. Seek that at the communion season that just as Jonathan sought David out and had sweet conference with him, seek that the Saviour would seek you and that He would make Himself known to you and that the covenant between you would be renewed and the love on your part would be increased because the love on His part cannot be increased—it is everlasting.