Reading: 1 Sam.
31:1-13; 2 Sam. 1:17-27.
It is around Jonathan
that our thoughts are gathered at this time. His is a
strange and very pathetic story and raises a matter which
is perhaps more difficult to resolve than most - the
whole question of divided loyalties.
We take a cursory
glance at Jonathan and his father Saul, and we see a good
many variations in their histories; strange mixture, many
conflicting and contradictory features. Sometimes both of
them seem to be in the full flood of Divine blessing and
help. At one time you find Saul moving out and subduing
all his enemies round about, seeming to be in a tide of
spiritual life and power and help from the Lord, and then
at another time you see situations such as the one we
have just read, with everything in reverse - defeat,
failure, tragedy. So also with Jonathan. There was at
least one outstanding occasion when with his armourbearer
he went out and made that great assault upon the
Philistines, issuing in the complete demoralization of
the Philistines so that they fled before Israel. Clearly
the Lord was with Jonathan on that day in great fulness
and blessing. Then you come to the story we have just
read - complete reverse. Taking such an inconsistent and
contradictory history, you have to get down into it and
behind it and ask some basic questions.
The
Lord Not Prejudiced Against People As such
But we must first of
all look at it from the Lord's side; and what I see as
coming up out of this whole story in the first place is
this, that the Lord has no prejudices against people as
such. When a man is, even if only temporarily, stretched
out for the Lord's interests and abandoned to His honour
and glory, although the Lord knows a great deal more
about him as to origins or as to ultimates and knows
perhaps the failure that is coming later, yet for that
time the Lord shows that He is not prejudiced against the
man. He is with him while and when he is utterly for the
Lord. There were times when even Saul surmounted that
other side of his nature and seemed to be set upon the
Lord's interests, and it is quite clear that Jonathan was
like that. The Lord knew what the end would be and what
was deeper down in the heart, but for that time He showed
that He was not prejudiced against the individuals. It is
a tremendous thing for us to realize, that "the Lord
is with you while ye be with him" (2 Chron. 15:2).
In spite of a lot that the Lord knows about us, and of
the fact that He knows the end from the beginning, He is
right there to give us a full chance and a full blessing,
immediately we are utterly for Him. It is a thing to lay
in store.
God
Cannot Compromise on Principle
But while that is true,
what comes out in the life of both Saul and Jonathan is
that God cannot compromise on principle. When principles
are contravened He cannot stand by the people concerned.
Sooner or later it will be manifested that, while the
Lord loves the people, He cannot support the wrong
principles which are governing their lives. That will be
the key to this whole situation, as we shall see as we go
on.
No
Compromise with the Self-Principle
Now, deep down in Saul
there was the self-principle active; there is no doubt
about it; and, although at times he seemed to rise above
it and to have the Lord's interests at heart, that
self-principle was recurrent, and when put to the final
test with Amalek in Chapter 15, we find that it asserted
itself again. That was the turning point, where the Lord
rejected Saul and finally in intention passed the kingdom
from him to David. The self-principle goes too deep for
the Lord to regard it lightly. It is not just a matter of
the person. It is there that the link with an entirely
antagonistic spiritual system is found. Amalek was such a
link. Amalek had stood in the way of Israel when they
came out of Egypt and were making for the land. They had
stood across their path in the attempt to frustrate the
Lord's intentions of spiritual fulness for Israel, and
that very people Amalek were the test case for Saul as to
whether he was really wholly set upon the Lord or whether
he had personal interests. When, through Samuel, the Lord
commanded Saul to destroy every vestige of Amalek,
leaving nothing alive, Saul reserved the best of the herd
and the flock. He discriminated according to human
judgment, to keep something that he fancied, that he
thought was good. He set his own judgment over against
the judgment of the Lord because of this self-principle
that was in him, thus proving that in principle he was
one with Amalek, that is, he was not set upon all that
the Lord was after. The Lord was seeking to bring Israel
into the land, that is, to spiritual fulness. Amalek said
'No'. Saul and Amalek found themselves one in principle.
He spared them. But see what Samuel does to Agag, king of
the Amalekites! - he hews him in pieces before the Lord.
There is no compromise there.
The
Self-Principle Links With the Kingdom of Satan
The self-principle goes
so deep as to link with not just another nation, but with
the spiritual domination of false principles that are
standing right in the way of spiritual fulness. Any
self-interest is Amalek straddled across the path which
leads to spiritual fulness. It is not just a little bit
of childish selfishness to be excused and pardoned. It
goes right deep down to the kingdom of Satan, and God
cannot compromise on a principle that gives Satan an
opportunity to frustrate His full purpose in Christ. So
God sees where this thing comes from, not just the form
of its present manifestation. It comes from the devil,
and the devil is all the time out to cut across the way
of spiritual fulness. The Lord, knowing that, cannot
compromise. We have to be quite sure that the background
is wholly according to the Lord's mind, or all our
fighting against what we think to be the Lord's enemies
will only bring disaster upon ourselves, as in the story
of Saul.
Divided
Loyalties Issue in Disaster
Now take Jonathan. Even
he can be involved at last in the awful tragedy of
compromise. It is one of the saddest stories. We all want
to shed tears when we read David's lament over Jonathan.
We remember the beginnings of the relationship between
David and Jonathan, how their souls were knit together.
Their story is always being taken as a kind of classic
and model of friendship, and yet even there there were
divided loyalties in the case of Jonathan - loyalty to
the realm of nature, to his father after the flesh,
straining against his loyalty to David, and causing him
to be a divided personality. When he is with his father,
his heart is with David. When he is with David, he feels
the pull of duty to his father. He is a divided man. What
a problem divided loyalties present!
Jonathan must have
known all about that Amalek episode and what Samuel did;
that in the Divine intent the kingdom was then taken from
Saul and passed to David; that the Lord forsook Saul and
was no longer with him. He may have known of the
consultation with the witch, the touching of that realm
forbidden so strongly by the Lord. And yet, on natural
grounds of some kind, Jonathan did not break with that
whole system of things. What a different story might have
been told if he had taken sides wholly with David and
been David's right hand man for the kingdom! But this
divided loyalty involved him in the ultimate tragedy. And
even good people who have been blessed of the Lord, to
whom He has shown His favour and whom He has used very
greatly, may in the end be involved in spiritual tragedy
if for some reason compromise has entered in. It may have
come in because of policy. What a snare policy is! We
tell ourselves we must be very careful that we do not do
this or that because it may have such and such a result.
It is all policy and diplomacy. 'We must be careful to
avoid...' - what? just what we seek to avoid betrays the
whole case. Are we afraid of losing prestige with men,
support, friends, position, opportunity? Do these things
weigh with us as over against implicit obedience to the
Lord? If so, there is divided loyalty; and if we allow
it, we may at the end pass into terrible tragedy; the
tragedy that always follows compromise.
Divine
Fulness Reached By Subjection to Divine Principles
The whole question of
spiritual fulness is at stake. I have spoken of what
might have been in the case of Jonathan. David came to
the kingdom in fulness, and Jonathan might have been
there at his side, his strength and support in the
kingdom. But no; instead of that, he passes out in this
tragic way. In a sense, there is nothing wrong with
Jonathan; but he has become involved in compromise with
another one and another instrument and another order of
things, because he did not make a clean cut. It is not
for us to judge why, but it does seem that it must have
been that he argued on the ground of natural reasoning
about this thing. What does it all amount to? If
spiritual fulness is to be reached, we have to be
governed by Divine and heavenly principles, and not by
human considerations. Divine principles; not, What will
the consequences be? not, What shall we lose? not even,
What will the Lord lose? - because that is a very subtle
argument. The Lord does not ask us to reason this thing
out on that level at all. He says, 'What is the Divine
principle? Let that principle govern and guide.' You may
not see at all how it is going to work out. If you are
governed by Divine principles you may seem to lose a lot
here; you may, for a time, have to go out with David and
wait. But in the end the principles will be vindicated.
You have to recognise that compromise on principle only
brings disaster. You see it everywhere.
Former
Blessing No Argument for Present Compromise
The need is to seek to
know what the Divine principle is in any matter. Has God
revealed His own thought and mind? Then I must not pursue
some other way on the ground that the Lord has blessed
and the Lord has used that other way. That was true of
Saul; that was true of Jonathan. But there came a point
at which an ultimate issue was raised on principle by the
revealing of God's full mind. Now I cannot argue that
because people have been blessed and used of the Lord
though they have not at given times and in given ways
stood for that full mind, therefore it is not necessary
for me to be abandoned to God's full thought. That is
human argument. We must not do it. The Lord blesses when
the heart is wholly for Him, but that does not mean that
everything is there that He wants. The very people whom
He is using He will presently bring to see something more
of His will and how much more deeply His thoughts go.
Then it is no less an issue than Amalek. Human judgment
must be utterly put away, in the light of the Divine mind
then revealed.
I have no doubt you can
see through what I am saying a great deal more. If you do
not grasp the whole thing, just take this as a guiding
lesson in life, that where Divine fulness is concerned,
the fact that the Lord blesses does not warrant us in
arguing that we can stay in a certain position, that
there is nothing more required. The point is, has the
Lord revealed something more than is actually represented
in the sphere where we have known His blessing? If so, it
is for us to go on in the light of all that the Lord has
revealed, and take the consequences. In the end it will
be seen whether the principle was vindicated by God.
This story of Jonathan
is, I say, a terribly pathetic and tragic story. No doubt
he had a good argument for what he did, but he certainly
did not argue from the heavenly standpoint. He did not
say, 'God has made it perfectly clear that it is through
David that His full purpose is to be realized. I knew
from the beginning that David was the anointed, and not
my father; I have had it confirmed again and again; I
told David that he was going to have the throne and the
kingdom; my heart is with him; and yet he is out there in
the wilderness and I am here with my father. What am I
doing here?' He did not argue, 'That is the direction in
which the Lord's full purpose lies; it is for me to be
there.' He doubtless had his arguments and his reasons
and could probably have been very plausible as to why he
was still sticking to his father and to the kingdom from
which God had departed. He was compromising. His loyalty
was divided and he was involved in the tragedy.
It is a fresh call to
us to act on principle with the Lord and not to argue
from any other standpoint, on any other ground. We must
say, 'What has the Lord revealed? It will mean this, it
will cost that, it will involve me thus; but that is not
the point. I am not going to be influenced or governed by
consequences at all. Policy must have no place with me.
What God has revealed - that is the only argument for
me.'
So Amalek became the
occasion for bringing up the whole question of obedience
to the Lord, involving the necessity for the setting
aside of a great deal of natural judgment. "Hath the
Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?" (1 Sam:
15:22). Beyond all outward observance and profession, the
Lord looks for full and uncompromising obedience to His
revealed will.
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1949, Vol 27-6