Jonathan and his armour bearer

I've stolen this straight from the mouth of Chuck Smith - I love this guy - just amazing teachings!!



I was listening to this on the way to work and it really spoke to me..I love it!!





1 Sam.14:1 -

Now it happened one day that Jonathan the son of Saul said to the young man who bore his armor, “Come, let us go over to the Philistines’ garrison that is on the other side.” But he did not tell his father.



1 Sam 14:6-13

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 armorbearer said to him, “Do all that is in your heart. Go then; here I am with you, according to your heart.” Then Jonathan said, “Very well, let us cross over to these men, and we will show ourselves to them. If they say thus to us, ‘Wait until we come to you,’ then we will stand still in our place and not go up to them. But if they say thus, ‘Come up to us,’ then we will go up. For the LORD has delivered them into our hand, and this will be a sign to us.” So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, “Look, the Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden.” Then the men of the garrison called to Jonathan and his armorbearer, and said, “Come up to us, and we will show you something.” Jonathan said to his armorbearer, “Come up after me, for the LORD has delivered them into the hand of Israel.” And Jonathan climbed up on his hands and knees with his armorbearer after him; and they fell before Jonathan. And as he came after him, his armorbearer killed them.



Here is the commentary by Chuck:



Jonathan the son of Saul woke up early one morning. He got to thinking, no one else was awake yet. He got to thinking "You know, there's a whole army of the Philistines over there. Maybe God wants to give Israel the victory over that army of the Philistines today. Now if the Lord wants to give the victory to Israel over those Philistines, He doesn't need a whole army. He can give the victory to one man as well as six hundred or to two. It really doesn't make any difference to God whether we have a huge army, or whether we just have a few if God wants to give the victory to Israel."


He was just lying there thinking about these kinds of wild thoughts. "After all God is great, and the greatness and the power of God, He doesn't need a whole army, He can give the victory to just two men."


So he woke up his armorbearer. He said, "I've been thinking about something really weird and wild, I want to pass it by you. I've been thinking if God wants to give the victory to Israel today over the Philistines, He doesn't need the whole army. He can give the victory to just a couple guys. Why don't we go over there and see if God wants to give the victory to Israel today." Talk about a venture in faith. I love 'em.


So he and the armourbearer dressed quietly and they slipped out of camp while everybody else was still sleeping. Jonathan on the way towards the Philistines said, "Now we want to make sure God's in this thing."


"So when we get near the garrison of the Philistines, when the centurions spot us, if they say, 'Hey you fellas come up here we'll show you a thing or two.' Then we'll know that God wants to give the victory to Israel, and we'll go at them. But if they say, 'Wait you guys, we're gonna come down and show you a thing or two.' Then we'll know that God doesn't want to give the victory to Israel and we'll get out of here as fast as we can."


So as they got over near the garrison of the Philistines, and the centurion spotted these two guys coming, they said, "Look at those stupid fools coming right up here to the camp. Hey you guys come up here, we'll show you a thing or two." John said, "All right man let's go." It said, "They started climbing with their hands and feet," really just scrambling up that hill to get into the camp of the Philistines. Man, they jumped right in the middle of the garrison. Jonathan started knocking the guys over, and his armourbearer was running them through. About a half acre of ground, they wiped out twenty of the Philistines and the rest of the guys began waking up, they were all discomfited. They began to swing at each other. They began to run and flee, and over on the other side of the valley old Saul finally woke up, and he rubbed his eyes, and he looked across, and he saw the Philistines all running. He saw the battles going on. He saw two guys in the middle just really wiping them out.


He said, "Number off quick who's missing?" They numbered off, and they said, "It's Jonathan and his armourbearer."

Wow - how crazy is that faith - going against what is a certain death situation without God..but they had the realisation that God was in it - and if God was in it, anything was possible - I love that!!