1 Samuel 14:24-46

Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we are at, let's see, 1 Samuel chapter 14, the first half of the chapter, sorry, second half of the chapter, and a dad makes a rash bow and his son is almost dead because of it. So let's find out about King Saul and what he did.
You ready? Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. How do I pray with all hands on one? That's fine. All right, let's pray. God, we thank you so much for the blessing it is to get to spend time together in your word. We pray that you would please care for us. We pray that your Holy Spirit would teach us and guide us and lead us and that we would understand your word and that it might be a light into our paths and that you would help us to live lives that bring you glory full of hope and love in Jesus's name. Amen. All right, 1 Samuel chapter 14. You ready? And the minute Israel were distressed that day, for Saul had placed the people under an oath, saying, Cursed is the man who eats any food until evening before I have taken vengeance on my enemies.
So none of the people tasted food. Now, all the people of the land came to a forest and there was honey on the ground. And when the people had come into the woods, there was the honey dripping. But no one could put his hand to his mouth for the people feared the oath. But Jonathan had not heard his father charge the people with the oath. Therefore, he stretched out the end of the rod that was in his hand and dipped it into the honeycomb and put his hand to his mouth, and his countenance brightened. Then one of the people said, Your father strictly charged the people with an oath, saying, Cursed is the man who eats food this day. And the people were faint. But Jonathan said, my father has troubled the land.
Look now how my countenance has brightened because I tasted a little of this honey. How much better if the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies, which they found. For now, there would not have been a much greater slaughter among the Philistines. Now they had driven back the Philistines that day from Mikmash to Aijalon.
So the people were very faint and the people rushed on the spoil and took sheep, oxen and calves and slaughtered them on the ground and the people ate them with the blood. Then they told Saul saying, look, the people are sinning against Yehovah by eating with the blood. So he said, you have dealt treacherously. Roll a large stone to me this day. Then Saul said, disperse yourselves among the people and say to them, bring me here every man's ox and every man's sheep. Slaughter them here and eat. And do not sin against Jehovah by eating with the blood. So every one of the people brought his ox with him that night and slaughtered it there. Then Saul built an altar to Jehovah. This was the first altar that he built to Jehovah.
Now Saul said, let us go down after the Philistines by night and plunder them until the morning light and let us not leave a man of them. And they said, do whatever seems good to you. Then the priest said, let us draw near to God here. So Samuel asked counsel of God, Shall I go down after the Philistines? Will you deliver them into the hand of Israel?
But he did not answer him that day. And Saul said, Come over here, all you chiefs of the people, and know and see what this sin was today. For as Jehovah lives who saves Israel, though it be with Jonathan my son, he shall surely die. But not a man among all the people answered him. Then he said to all Israel, You be on one side and my son Jonathan and I will be on the other side. And the people said to Saul, Do what seems good to you. Therefore Saul said to Jehovah God of Israel, Give a perfect lot. That means like he's going to roll the dice. He's saying make it land perfectly.
So Saul and Jonathan were taken. But the people escaped, and Saul said, cast lots between Jonathan and me. So Jonathan was taken. And Saul said to Jonathan, tell me what you have done. And Jonathan told him and said, I only tasted a little honey with the end of the rod that was in my hand.
So now I must die? Saul answered, God do so and more also, for you shall surely die, Jonathan. But the people said to Saul, Shall Jonathan die who has accomplished this great deliverance in Israel? Certainly not. As Jehovah lives, not one hair of his head shall fall to the ground, for he has worked with God this day. So the people rescued Jonathan, and he did not die. Then Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, and the Philistines went to their own place. Woo, big story, huh? So, Jonathan is Saul's son. Saul is the king. And Saul said, no one's going to eat any food, and if they do, they're going to be cursed. But did Jonathan know about that? Nope. And all the people are starving. And they're so hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry. They've been fighting and marching and moving and They go through a field or a forest and what do they find? Honey. Honey.
But does anybody eat it? No. No. Because they're worried about the oath, the curse, right? And then Jonathan comes along and he sees the honey. And what does he think? He's like, yummy. That's right. Yeah. And so he takes his staff and he puts it in the honey. What's he do? Lollipop. Right. And he's like, oh, man, this is tasty. And what do the people say to him? Yeah. Oh, no. Your dad said there was a curse. And what does Jonathan say? I don't know. Well, he doesn't lie. He doesn't say I didn't do it. He says, well, that wasn't very smart. You guys haven't eaten anything. Maybe if you guys had eaten some of this honey, you would have been strong and you could have even beat more Philistines.
Well, then they they do. Capture a whole bunch of the Philistines' animals? Some people are so hungry, what are they doing? Eating them with blood. Yeah, they're not even cooking it all the way. They're just... They're just cutting the animal and... Like wild animals, like our dog does. Uh, I don't... Oh, yeah. She does. Yeah, would you like to eat animals like the dog? Yeah, she eats birds and rabbits and all sorts of random stuff, right? Yeah, and so the point being is that that's how they're acting. And then the cats try to eat it and she growled at them. Yeah, but the point being, right? Should we be, were they supposed to behave like wild animals? Nope. No! Well, a dog is not a wild animal. We don't need y'all, right? Well, she's not a wild animal. She is an animal.
But the point is, right, the life is in the blood and they were told by God, don't eat the blood. And here they are eating the blood and they're sinning against God. Okay, but then there's this whole thing that happens about the lot. So it's like the casting of some type of dice or something like that. And he asked God, God, please make it like a perfect lot. And who does the lot end up landing on? Something. Jonathan. That's awesome. Boy.
I said, I said, I said, I say, son, what have you done? And what did he say? What did Jonathan say? He said, I ate some. I just ate a little honey. And Saul says, well, then you gotta... You gotta die, son. Well, interestingly, who stops Jonathan from dying? All the people. All the people, that's right. They said, hey, God was with him. Look at what he did. He can't die. And the people saved Jonathan.
So what do you think this story was about? Honey. This is the honey story? Jonathan and the honey? No, the melly story. Oh, this is the... Oh, okay. Because honey in Greek is melly? Yeah. Yeah, okay. So this is the melly story? Yeah, maybe like... The melly story. Jonathan has a great victory and eats the honey and shows the foolish and rashness of his daddy?
Yep. Okay. And it's called honey. Okay. In my Bible, for the best verse, I have verse 45 underlined. I also have... Hey, what is it called, honey? I also have verse 39 underlined, and I have 35 underlined, because the other thing that Saul did here is he built an altar to the Lord, and he's offering sacrifices.
Like, there's priests there, they're offering sacrifices, but were they supposed to make sacrifices on any altar wherever they wanted? No, they're supposed to make it at the tabernacle. Mmm, it's in Shiloh at this point. What?! They have to walk there? No, the point is they're still kind of treating God like he's some type of local pagan world god. They don't have to walk there? No, they don't. They make an altar there instead. No, I mean, they have to walk there. They could've waited. Yeah, they could have waited. Alright, so let's talk about C-calling. What are we called to do? What did we learn about our lives from this? Called to do what? What are we called to do? How do you think this applies to your life? I don't know.
Okay, you're not allowed to eat honey anymore. I love honey! Your dad has cursed it, and if you eat it, I gotta kill you. Is that what we're taking from this? Nope. No, that's a horrible application. I love honey. Can we do things that we think are good, but are actually not biblical? Bad. Yeah, they're bad, right? Even though somebody may have a good intention, that doesn't mean it's a good choice. Do you know what intention means? No. It means they want something good, but then the thing they do It's bad. Actually proves bad. Right, so I think we need to question our intentions as well. Even like pastors and elders in the church, right? Dad, I just found something out. What did you find out? The cubby-ees... We're not talking about cubs. No, no, no. The cubby-ees have hat on backwards. Okay, so should elders and pastors just kind of willy-nilly do things? No way! No. How is that?
And sometimes we may have ideas and think we're going to do this thing and it's going to be really good and help love the people and then we find out... Like, like one time I was like, I'm going to wake up really, really early and get my school done and then I can watch something.
That didn't work. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So sometimes we have good intentions, but that doesn't mean we're doing a good thing. Right. So we got, we got to go to God. Okay. You ready to pray? I think we've exhausted your attention. All right. Let's pray. God, thank you so much. Thank you for time together.
Thank you for your word and God, we pray that you would please help us that the things that we want to do that we think are good. they would bring you glory and that they would be good. But when we do things that are extra biblical on top of the Bible and turn out to be not good, Lord, we pray that you would please forgive us and help us, Lord. We pray that we would live godly lives. Father, we thank you so much that your mercy is with us in Jesus' name. Amen. May God bless you. May you walk perfectly in the love of Jesus because He has loved you. We'll see you next time. Dad, look. Yeah. I can see it. You wanna say bye? Bye.